Chapter 30

**Merianna**

Once we passed through the gateway back into the Order's Atrium I felt relieved enough to just drop to the hard stone floor and stay there till the next day.

My body was tender and bruised, I had scratches wherever my armoured clothing didn't cover my skin, and I was so very tired. Oh, and my nerves were also fried. I was pretty sure that I could hear my brain sizzling on the inside. I probably looked like death warmed over again as well. Heaven knows that's how I felt.

I took the bag with the wand inside it in one hand and thrust it over into Jasnine's line of vision when she had just opened her mouth to say something.

"You aren't going to come with me to hand this in?" She asked sweetly.

"No. No, no, no. It's all your baby now. I don't want to see that blasted wand again for the foreseeable forever. It'll only traumatize me further." I said dryly and started shuffling to the archway so I could go collapse onto my bed and sleep away the next century.

Jasnine chuckled lightly and followed my lead. "You only gained more experience with this Bounty Meri, there will be many more to come in your future. There are bounties that are a lot harder than this one as well actually. This one was a lower level bounty that I took just because I wanted the reward."

Curiosity started overshadowing the dread I felt crawling up inside me for my possible future solo bounties.

"What is the reward?" I asked as I looked over my shoulder at her cheery face. Gods, she looked like she had just come back from one of the natural hot springs in the mountains, where as I was a walking corpse. It made me want to hit her; and I had never wanted to hit her like I wanted to hit Noch on a daily basis. Today, the urge was almost overwhelming...

She beamed. "The reward is a Scriber that's lined with dragon blood and encased in dragon scales. It's a beautifully elegant thing, and I can't wait to start scribing runes with it!" She squealed in delight. "Oh and a bag full of gold coins."

I on the other hand frowned. "Wait a minute. Aren't dragons extinct?"

She gave me a sidelong glance that looked all knowing. "Yes they are. But! That doesn't mean that the craft works that their scales, bones, blood and so on had been used for back in the day went extinct along with them."

"Oh, that's right." I said, only realizing then how idiotic that question had been.

Jasnine nodded enthusiastically as she practically hugged the bag to her chest. "I have been experimenting with a few runes as of late and some combinations have been, how should I put it? Potent?" She remarked with a tilt of her head and a pained smile on her face.

"What has been happening?" I asked curiously.

Her shoulders slumped. "Ah, well, the combinations have somewhat been rupturing my other Scribers."

"What?!" I asked in disbelief.

She made a pitiful sound in the back of her throat that sounded like a whimper. "Yes. My beautiful collection has been sacrificed to the good of rune evolution. Not that the runes are helping in any way either actually. Every one that had not managed to implode a scriber was null, even when I was sure I had it right, but, no."

I cringed inwardly at the thought of all those beautiful scribers all being destroyed. I had seen Jasnine's collection, and she had every imaginable material that could be crafted into a scriber. Sylvan Wood scribers, Demon Bone scribers, Thulian Iron scribers, Obsidian scribers, Light scribers and much more.

"How much of your collection is left?" I asked tentatively, almost dreading the answer.

She grimaced. "I'm left with maybe 3 rune scribers?"

I whirled around to stare disbelievingly into her eyes. "All the others were ruined?!" The collection had included well over a hundred different scribers that were made of precious materials.

"Yes." She replied miserably.

"What on earth are you trying to create?!" I squeaked.

"Something that would become very useful once it's finished." She said dismissively as she grabbed my shoulders and turned me back around to continue climbing the stairs.

"That sounds more like something Nana Ara would say, and I don't trust it." I retorted in a monotone.

"Oh come now. Not once had my experiments damaged a part of the Order." She held her head up as if that were a fact to be proud of.

*Yet*. I added silently to myself.

Clambering up the stairs was taxing on my already sore body, but with sweet encouragement from Jasnine we finally reached the top floor. I don't believe I had ever been as glad as I was right then that Noch's office and the room Nelia and I shared were on the same floor. I would have perished on the stepps halfway up if Jasnine weren't there to prod me on.

Although, my joy deflated into irritation the moment I heard laughter echoing throughout the hallway. No, it was not deep humorous laughter at a spoken joke. I had the uncanny feeling that Noch's irritable cackle was solely directed at me, and the state I was in.

When my eyes landed on Noch, who was just about doubled over in laughter at his office's door, I felt a muscle starting to rapidly twitch under my right eye.

Suddenly I felt like I could easily overlook the soreness of my body and kill Noch a hundred times over. Then we would see who would be the one cackling.

A shriek pulled my attention to the hallway behind me. Whirling around I looked frantically for the source, only to be tackled to the ground by Nelia a second later.

"Are you alright?! Are you hurt?! You look hurt! You look like you just came from a battlefield! Do you have broken bones?! Are you gushing blood?! Were you stabbed?!" Nelia prattled in-between sobs. The funny thing was that she was crushing me in a tight hug that was sure to result in broken bones, while lying on top of me and rubbing her streaming face on my shoulder.

I groaned as I felt the back of my head starting to develop a lump. I had been knocked around and tackled more than enough times for one day.

"Nelia, I'm fine. All I really need is a bath and some sleep in my nice soft bed." I ground out.

"You're not too badly hurt?" She asked as she lifted her face to look at me.

My inner voice squealed out in horror as I saw snot dribbling from Nelia's nose.

"I'm not! I'm not!" I declared hastily as I wiggled out from underneath her. At least this way the dribble would hit the floor instead of my clothes. Even though I was pretty sure that my shirt might just very well be covered in a bit of it from her rubbing her face off on me.

"I wouldn't hide my injuries from you Nelia, ever! I promise!" Nelia seemed to accept it and promptly snuck a handkerchief out from her bodice to blow her nose with. Which I was very thankful for...

"How did you like your first experience on a Bounty?" Noch asked teasingly from where he was now leaning against the wall next to us.

"Oh, it was fantastic." I deadpanned. "I had so much fun being used as bait that I can't wait to be used again."

Noch burst out laughing again and Jasnine had a slight blush creeping up her neck at the comment. "You weren't being used Meri." She tried to placate. "Think of it as training in the field."

All I gave as a reply was my stony expression, which seemed to be enough of a reply to her.

"Come now Noch, let Meri go freshen up and rest. Evening is just around the corner and by the time I'm done with you it will be time for dinner." Jasnine said as she slapped him lightly with her palm.

"Just to let you know Demon Spawn, this bounty was an easy one." Noch chuckled to himself as he flounced off with Jasnine.

If I were a burly dangerous looking animal I would have been growling at him and mauling him to death by then. That image is not an unpleasant one actually...

Nelia helped me up from the ground and supported my weight as I tentatively started walking forwards again.

"So what was it like to go on a Bounty with Jasnine?" She said with an excited smile.

Oh dear gods, she still believed that Jasnine was a saintly mother figure. She would be crushed if she knew the truth, wouldn't she?

I looked into her innocently expectant face that seemed to almost radiate innocence and goodness.

Yes, she most certainly would be crushed. Her innocent little heart that never believed in the evil of people and only saw the good would be utterly crushed to dust...

She would never again look at Jasnine the same way, and Jasnine in turn would be crushed by the change in Nelia towards her.

Should I tell the truth to get back at Jasnine? No, that's too cruel. When Nelia has a grudge she'll hold on to that grudge till the end of time if she wanted to.

Should I lie outright and say it was fantastic? No, I would never be able to pull that off, not with the way I look and feel right now. Nelia would be able to see right through my lie.

"Meri?" Nelia asked with a worried frown.

"It- w-was..." I floundered in my brain for a word to use, "interesting." I finally spat out.

"Really?" She asked with a lift of her left brow.

I just nodded stupidly. "Yes. Yes, yes, it was interesting. Interesting in a good way."

Nelia looked at me like she was starting to doubt my sanity with the way I was acting. "If you say so. What was the Bounty for?"

I hedged for a fraction of a second before I realized I could indeed tell her that part at least. "It was for a wand retrieval."

Nelia almost looked like she was perplexed. Especially when she looked me up and down again. "You were retrieving a wand?" She asked disbelievingly.

"Yes, but it wasn't just any wand. It was a wand that was infused with a deity's blood apparently." I tried to muster as much wonder and excitement into my voice as possible with that piece of information. All in the hopes that she wouldn't ask me where we went to go and retrieve it.

Her eyes went big with wonder and she got an excited flush over her cheeks. "Really?" She asked animatedly.

I nodded enthusiastically. "I can get to our room on my own if you quickly want to go into Noch's office and see it before it gets taken through to the client."

She looked so adorably torn at the offer. Being a Healer she loved using wands for fine and intricate healing, so she would be dying to go and have a look. And yet on the other side, being a healer, she also didn't want to leave her battered sister out in the hall on her own without checking out her injuries first. At which stage the wand might already have been sent away.

I just smiled and pushed her away from me and towards Noch's office. "Go, I'll be fine. I'm only going to have a bath filled, heat it, clean myself then crawl onto my bed until dinner time."

"Are you sure?" She asked with a frown.

"You worry too much. Go." I said and gave her a good shove this time. She caught herself and glowered at me, which I countered with a grin.

With that she smiled and sprinted off to Noch's office.

I chuckled and wandered into our shared room. It was going to be easy to draw the moisture from the air outside to fill the tub, today felt like an exceptionally humid day, and rain was not far behind as well. Heating said water with the fire element will also not take much energy.

I was happily planning out how blissed out I will be in a warm tub of water and flowery oils to help with my aching body. When I opened the door to the bathroom I was surprised to find the tub already filled almost to the brim with clean clear water that steamed with heat.

As I turned around to look back into our room I caught a glimpse of long flaming red hair quickly disappearing out of the door. I smiled to myself and shook my head. "Love you Dorris!" I yelled out.

"Take your bath!" was the snappy reply I got from the hallway.