[Omen of the Witchblade] Chapter 141 – Magi Friction

Mel knew it was time to finally pick a room when Shrubley and Komachi started playing out a soap opera drama at the bar.

It was cute and hilarious, but also incredibly distracting.

“Gasp!” Komachi cried melodramatically. “Shrubley, your evil twin is here!”

Shrubley spun around with a black top hat, a poorly taped mustache, and a monocle over one yellow lamplight eye. “Ah-ha! It is I, Shrubley’s evil twin! Shroobley!”

The two of them started giggling together.

Mel climbed the stairs, followed by Gwen, Heath, Thomas. The sounds of Komachi, Smudge, and Shrubley playing soap opera followed them. She thought she heard Cal’s voice in a falsetto playing some damsel in distress.

Various conversations filtered out of the opened rooms the Magi picked. Most of them were settling in.

Mel was surprised to find that some choice rooms were set aside for Mel and her team if they wanted them. Rooms that would have easily been scooped up first.

So they at least have some respect. Or Princess bullied them into it.

Either way, it was a nice gesture.

She could easily tell which room was Charlie’s. The [Crown of Glory] was still active. She didn’t see any particular reason to turn it off. The added maximum mana it gave her was useful. And the intel was perhaps even more useful.

Turning on [Gaze of the Serpent’s] heat vision, Mel could see the Necromancer through the walls in a standoffish stance, probably facing somebody in her room.

That’s new. Mel noted that she couldn’t see anything other than Charlie in the room. So it’s like super stalking. Got it.

In true Mel fashion, she barged into the room and looked around. It wasn’t that she expected Charlie to be up to no good, but she didn’t trust her farther than she could…well, better not finish that thought.

Adam twisted around in surprise, a longspear appearing in a swirl of ash. His face was reddened. When he recognized Mel, he scowled with barely restrained shame and anger. Adam and Charlie looked like they had been arguing.

Mel raised a perfunctory eyebrow at that, then transferred the withering gaze to the man’s face. “A bit jumpy are we, hmm?”

Adam banished his longspear with a look of embarrassment.

“By the gods,” Thomas muttered behind Mel.

Charlie’s room was dramatically different from the one in the Starling Tower, and yet there were elements of the same refinery that were alien in Mel’s world.

“Sure, just invite yourself in.” Charlie glared at Mel and Thomas, folding her bare arms beneath her chest. Interestingly, her skin was covered in intricate black inked tattoos.

Mel smiled brightly. “All right, since you asked.” She stepped fully into the room and walked around the space, examining the walls.

It was a sparse room that Mel had seen repeated across the others she had passed. The Rook wasn’t making anything unique. It didn’t have the magical strength yet to do something like that.

In time, it would, but for now it was down to each Magi to decorate their room as they would a dorm at Brookmoors. While Brookmoors did have the magical chops to customize each person’s room, that was reserved for higher years. Third or more usually.

And with the way Brookmoors worked, it could take five or ten years to go from being a First Year to a Second Year. Time not only worked differently at Brookmoors Academy, the curriculum was…unique.

Passing or failing was often the same thing as living or dying.

Mel dragged a finger across a small shelf filled with various decorations that were obviously pilfered from the Starling Tower. Magi weren’t shy about taking what they thought they were owed. They didn’t just take the towels from a hotel, they took the beds and the frames, too.

As evidenced by the plush mattress propped up in the corner.

How the hell did she carry that here?

Boxes and bags of clothes, dresses, and other finery littered the area. Clearly, Charlie was settling in well.

“Get out, Adam.” Charlie gave Mel a sidelong look. She grew more relaxed, maybe more in control, now that there was additional company. “We’re done.”

“No, no, we’re not!” He turned on her, growing furious. “You can’t bench me. You need me. I’m your protector.”

“Dude, you’re absolutely not my knight in shining armor,” Charlie said, lapsing into a flippant tone of speech that was more at home on a punk girl, examining her black painted fingernails. “You were the guy asking for my protection when I was finishing a dungeon run with Paradise Oblivion. I’ve never needed your protection. Have you somehow forgotten that fact?”

Adam certainly seemed to be trying to play the part. He was fully armored in deep blue plate mail that was styled after a Dragoon. Maybe that was his class. The likeness was a little bit too close for comfort.

Adam’s grimace twisted his features into an ugly shade. “Please, Charlotte. You’re my healer, aren’t you? Not Harper’s! Someone needs to save you. I deserve—” He stepped close to Charlie, bending a knee and trying to take her hand.

Summoning her staff, Charlie floated up and out of reach. “You deserve precisely what, dude? A prize?!” She laughed at how ridiculous that was. “You didn’t act like this in the trial.”

“Because Harper was gone!”

Mel could feel something dark and cold rolling off Adam. A rancid aura rippled around his body, but it was gone just as fast.

The hell was that?

Charlie was difficult for Mel to figure out. She was clearly refined and raised in the lap of luxury. However, she also acted like a punk goth girl who wore fishnets, leather chokers with sword pins, and boots with three-inch soles that laced up to the knee.

They were two very conflicting styles, but somehow Charlie managed to pull it off. Her goth/punk grounded her otherwise insufferably rich and elegant Princess aesthetic, creating what Mel could only think of as “goth princess”. Or perhaps, if she was feeling charitable, “goth mommy”.

Though, let’s be real, that’s Miranda.

At the same time as Charlie acted like a Princess, she also wasn’t afraid to get down and dirty. She commanded respect, which was a far cry from assuming she already had it.

From one moment to the next, Charlie looked like she could go all night dancing in a fancy ball, or all night in a mosh pit.

Wait, Mel thought. Why am I thinking so much about Charlie? None of this is helpful. The most compromising thing I’ve seen is a lacy thong that looks like the most uncomfortable ass floss I’ve ever seen. Why do girls even wear that stuff? Wear normal panties or stop being a coward and wear nothing.

Mel had never seen so many dresses and skirts in one place. Mel had owned precisely one dress. And that was the dress she wore to her father’s funeral.

All the meanwhile, Mel pretended that she wasn’t listening to the argument between Charlie and Adam as she continued to examine the room.

Two orc skeletons were lined against the wall, standing guard, motionless and unarmed. There were various finery lying about, with gift boxes, chocolates, and things that still had their tags proclaiming which shop they were bought at.

Mel hadn’t been the only one given gifts by the Grand Orders. The Syndicate, the Vulkan Consortium, and the Circle seemed particularly keen on Charlie Asleton.

Haven’t gotten anything from the last two, Mel thought. Then again, I haven’t spent a lot of time in the tower.

Mel could hear a faint argument between Thomas and Gwen outside of the room, then Thomas poked his head inside. “Goodnight, Mel.” He nodded to Charlie and Adam. “You too.”

Adam seemed embarrassed for once. “Good night, Thomas,” he mumbled.

“I’m not on Mel’s team either. Not that it’s your business anymore. So, leave, dude,” Charlie repeated, just as overly calm. “Or you and Almace will never be on my team again. My back still hurts from carrying you, by the way.”

Not on my team, huh? We’ll see about that, Mel thought.

That was the one threat that seemed to get through to him. “This isn’t over,” Adam promised her. “I don’t care that Almace needs to rest. I just want you to be okay.”

Charlie smiled sadly. “And yet, it’s clear you need rest as well. And I’ll not force you two apart. Even for a trial.”

Adam scowled and stormed out, running a bronze hand through his long, dark hair.

Mel mimed cracking a whip at Adam’s back, but she didn’t make the sound effect for his sake. She looked at Charlie, then dropped to the floor and looked under her bed.

Not the bed she was obviously going to use, but the one the Rook had created for her. The same one in every room.

Mel tensed when she saw one of the orc skeletons under there, staring vacantly at her while making a rude gesture.

“No Underworld gods hiding beneath your bed,” Mel said, popping up to her feet with ease and dusting her hands. She pointed at her eyes with one hand, then at Charlie. “I’m watching you, girl. Gotta keep you on the straight and narrow. Those dark gods are bad influences, Princess.”

“Excellent choice of words,” Charlie said wryly, floating down to sit in one of the plush chairs. “And they…” She sighed. “They really are. So, are you offering to be my warden, or are you just passing through?”

“Just checking up on you,” Mel said, spinning in place and tucking her arms behind her back. “Y’know how it is. Us girlbosses gotta keep each other honest.”

“And that’s what the halo is for?”

Mel frowned. “What?” She hadn’t expected that. At least, not from Charlie. Heath, sure. But Charlie?

She arched a dark brow. “The halo. Keeping each other honest. The very obvious thing we can both sense at all times.”

“Charlie,” Mel said, giving her a flat look. “I know you’re dummy thicc, but you don’t have to literally adhere to the first part. You can turn off the halo whenever you want. Why would I ever want to have less mana?” Mel shrugged.

“You’ve read me entirely wrong if you think I’m a moron.” She laced her fingers together, leaning forward in that chair. “I know I can resist the halo.”

“Then I’m not really using it to keep you in line, am I?” Mel asked. She looked her up and down. “Especially when you seem so pleased to keep it on.”

A slight pout graced her crimson lips, and then it was gone. “You’re the one that just admitted to being hungry for my mana.”

“Girl, I would devour you for more mana,” Mel said sharply. “I want mana for days. I’m like the damn Dalmanii desert, you can’t slake this thirst.”

Heath, who nobody seemed to notice was hanging out in the room, cleared his throat. “Yep, that’s it for me. G’night.” He sidled his way out of the room.

That broke through Charlie’s carefully crafted composure. She blushed deeply, looking pointedly past Mel’s head. “Dalmanii, huh?”

Mel paused in the doorway with one hand on the brass handle. She turned to look over her shoulder. Shit. “What?”

“It’s a curious reference. Being that you don’t remember much.” She rose smoothly, approaching Mel.

Mel slipped out of the room and started to close the door on Charlie. She leaned closer to the shrinking crack in the door to get one last retort in. “Oh, so sorry for getting some working memories. I’ll be sure to do my best to stop my healing.”

Mel didn’t have to go far to find her room.

It was literally next door. Anything that wasn’t bolted down in the Startling Tower had been brought over. Weapon racks, tables, and a lot more gifts from the Grand Orders.

The baskets of goodies were untouched. There were new ones from the Vulkan Consortium, the Circle, and even the Monster Menagerie. The latter seemed enthused about Mel’s association with Awakened monsters and supernatural races.

Mel dropped into her stolen bed. Somebody had already set up her room to be a smaller copy of the one in the Starling Tower. It lacked the gorgeous floor-to-ceiling windows, but it wasn’t like her view was amazing on the second floor.

Maybe I should move up to the third floor, Mel thought as she kicked back and tried to piece together the whirlwind events of the day in her mind. She needed to meditate before going to bed. She was likely to have a truckload of latent runes from fighting those Irons.

As Mel went through the memories one by one, she saw something that she hadn’t noticed at the time.

Not just the way Charlie looked at her, but the sheer quantity.

Mel couldn’t tell if Charlie was suspicious of her or if she was just a weirdo who didn’t understand social cues.

She’s an Asleton, so of course she doesn’t understand social cues. I mean, just look at Sylvie.

Still, it was worth keeping a closer eye on Charlie, and to keep her own damn mouth shut. There was an uncomfortable amount of recognition in Charlie’s voice when she asked about Dalmanii.

That, coupled with her increased interest, meant Mel had to be extra careful around Charlie. Maybe it was nothing, or maybe she was trying to see if Mel was beginning to remember.

If she was Other Mel’s killer, Charlie would be watching to make sure she didn’t remember too much. Though that begged the question: why didn’t she just kill her when she had the chance?