Well, Someone's Woefully Unequipped

 In the amount of time that Millie was experimenting with her newfound powers, Nibbles had gotten bored again, roaming the castle for something to play with. She’d taken a few moments to sniff the blood fountain (even licking a bit of its contents, much to Talia’s frustration). The vampire had been trying to enjoy a novel, and here was this werewolf getting into everything.

After what seemed like forever, the human reappeared in the courtyard. She looked much cleaner now. Not only that, but she’d given herself a new outfit. Her jeans and graphic tee had been swapped out for an all-black ensemble, with a cold shoulder top and a raggedy skirt with a pink hem. Her sneakers were now knee-high boots, with what had to be six inches worth of platform.

Nibbles rushed to greet her, sniffing the new outfit, as Talia looked up from her book. She smiled a bit upon seeing the new look.

“I see you’ve been getting used to your magic,” she said, red eyes ticking down to the platforms on her boots. “Some insecurity about your height?”

Millie shrugged. “Well, I mean, you’ve gotta be pushing, like, six feet, and back home, my dog came up to here on me, so I was feeling a little left out. But it looks like the intention thing doesn’t work for most physical body changes, so it had to manifest that way.”

“And you wanted to look more witchy?” Nibbles asked, head tilted.

“Hey, I finally got the opportunity to dress like this, so yeah, I’m taking it. Most of the stuff like this back home’s been either too small for me or too expensive.”

Though what she hadn’t thought of with her new footwear was practicality. Ginormous platforms weren’t exactly conducive to going on quests, especially when the one going on that quest had realized that she wasn’t just dreaming it. She did, at least, factor in pockets of some sort. In this case, it was a pouch at her hip. She’d also conjured a witch hat for herself.

“Are you ready to set out?” Talia asked her.

“Yeah, I think so. How about you, Nibs?”

The werewolf nodded, tail wiggling excitedly at the prospect of walkies. Talia had stood up, setting her book down and grabbing a bag she’d packed for herself. There was also a sheathed dagger strapped to her thigh.

“I’ll be going with you, by the way,” the vampire stated, slinging the bag’s strap over a shoulder. “You see, I’m interested in seeing if I can find what became of my previous champions.”

That made sense. She had mentioned that Millie wasn’t the first to be summoned, after all. Though the fact that this land’s ruler had up and decided to go on the quest with her and her dog/werewolf gave her some pause.

“Um...who’s gonna be in charge while you’re gone?” Millie asked.

“I got in touch with my cousin while you were cleaning up, and she said she’d keep an eye on things for me.”

Once everything was situated, the trio made their way out of the castle. Talia would lead the way, knowing the area best. The full moon shone overhead, Millie tilting her head at it.

“Should we wait for morning?” she asked, only to be answered with a slightly dismissive chuckle.

“Morning isn’t a thing here, dear. The moon’s almost always full and visible.”

“Almost always?”

“Every so often, we have a blood moon eclipse, and that causes the werewolves to go crazy.”

Millie chewed her lip, glancing toward Nibbles. She already knew this dog to be a bit on the crazy side as it was. A good fit of boredom, and she’d be running around the room, growling at her and wanting to play with her favorite human-shaped chew toy. Or running at the window and barking at something only she could apparently see. So what would a blood moon eclipse do with her dog now?

Speaking of changes with her dog, it occurred to Millie that she could actually converse with her furry friend now. Back home, it was always a semi-joking sort of thing. But here, they could actually communicate verbally! She was curious about the lifespan of a werewolf, and if that’d be altered at all by the fact that said wolf started as a regular dog.

They walked through the forest for a while, this time with someone that had a better idea of the location. During the trek, Millie’s thoughts started turning toward food. She wondered what all was available around there, and it didn’t help that Talia had pulled a pouch from her bag, taking a long drink from it.

“Hey, what’s usually good to eat around here, anyway?” Millie asked after the vampire had finished her drink.

Part of her wondered if her magic could create food, as well...but then she wondered if doing so would drain her energy, with the food itself restoring it, thereby canceling each other out. Would it even do that much? Thinking back to the shot of liquor earlier, she couldn’t recall feeling even the slightest bit buzzed, though she might also have chalked that up to being in the throes of a massive freakout.

“I might not use your magic to conjure food too often, if that helps anything,” Talia said, glancing back at Millie. “From what I’ve seen, cosmetic changes are usually the easiest to accomplish.”

“Have you used magic before?” the witch asked.

“Personally, no,” the vampire replied, running a copper hand through her hair. “I’ve just had enough champions beforehand that used it, and a lot of them did the same thing as you: crafted their new look. Probably figured: ‘Hey, I’m in another world, I might as well have fun with aesthetics!’. But most of them didn’t go quite so...so on-the-nose about it, so to speak.”

Millie couldn’t help but imagine the sorts of classic RPG-style armor some of her predecessors might have conjured. Or how many took it as an opportunity to live out their Magical Girl dreams. In all honesty, that was a look she’d certainly considered, as well. But basic black with a splash of color felt more like her.

“And is fighting magic a thing?” she asked, curious.

“That, dear, I don’t quite know. That’s a big part of why I wanted to come along this time.”

Millie nodded, realizing that she may have asked an obvious question. If combat magic were the most reliable thing, she likely wouldn’t have needed to be summoned in the first place.

“So, how do I fight one of these things if I can’t use combat magic?”

“Create a weapon,” Talia said with a shrug. “And hope we don’t encounter one of these things before you can.”

A groan escaped the witch. So, having to rely on hope for something wasn’t something she really liked doing. Hope had that funny little tendency to skip town when it was needed most.

“Can I eat it?” Nibbles asked.

Talia glanced at the werewolf with a grimace. “I wouldn’t recommend it. Remember what I said about them draining life?”

“Nope!” the werewolf replied with a happy grin.

It would turn out that Millie’s cynicism about hope was about to pay off, because the trio soon found themselves entering another of those yellow-tinged regions. It didn’t really give any indication that it was there, it just...was. The trees in that clearing looked pristine compared to those that naturally occurred in Nightshade, though the green leaves were identical to one another. The trunks had an extremely noticeable sheen to them, as if made of plastic.

Nibbles had started growling again, with Talia pulling out her blade. As for Millie, she stared ahead.

A humanoid figure slid into view, soulless eyes boring right into Millie’s soul. It was like this thing knew she lacked a weapon (or any real knowledge of how to beat this thing overall), and it was ready to taunt her over it. She hated feeling like that, though, and so did the first thing she could think of.

“Um...BEGONE, illusion! You’re not real!” she shouted at the creature.

In response, it reached a hand out of the field and touching one of the gnarled trees. It began to turn more of a yellowish hue, being absorbed into the field. Well, that certainly looked authentic enough to Millie, and she stepped behind Nibbles for protection.

As it reached for Nibbles, however, the wolf decided to live up to her name and bite down on the five/six/four/back to five-fingered hand. A yellowish blood sprayed forth from the wound, and Talia rushed it with her knife, slicing the thing’s throat before the three of them ran in another direction.

The three reached the edge of the forest after a while, Nibbles taking a moment to throw up any of the creature’s blood in her system. She nearly went to lick that up, but Millie stopped her.

Something told the witch that maybe she should look into a weapon.