Low murmurs and chanting from a woman filled the cabin, and a shadow of a personage wavered against the warmly lit wooden walls accompanied by the smaller moving shadow of feline. A circle of chalk surrounded by burning candles glowed dimly, barely illuminating a couple items that were pilfered from the schoolhouse. Nobody would notice a bauble or two missing, and certainly no one would bat an eyelash at a cat running off with them.
A quiet energy swelled within the circle as words and symbols translated to power and meaning. The air felt thick, and the chanting grew in volume. Torena's expression intensified as her whispering turned to words of commanding, demanding action from the ritual she began. The etched markings under her left eye began to brighten from fresh blood red to glowing crimson. The chanting ended with a final few shouted words, and magical energy coalesced into a bright mist over the circle. Torena furrowed her brow and looked about the circle. Everything was set perfectly for a scrying ritual, and all the objects were in place; why was it taking so long? Why wasn't it working?
The mist hummed with power, grow brighter and brighter to overpower the light of the candles. Torena flicked her eyes to the side as she heard a scratching sound. Her cat had skittered across the floor and dove behind a counter, cowering under a shelf. The truth was clear as her eyes darted back to the glowing ball hovering over the circle, wide as her cat's. The spell was going to backfire.
Torena yelped and threw her hands up over her face as a burst of energy boomed throughout her home and out of the open windows, annihilating the chalk circle and blasting the objects within to smithereens. After the smoke cleared and the dust settled, Torena lowered her hands and looked upon the fruits of her labors... and lamented. She sighed exasperatedly and wearily shuffled over to the remains of her most reliable spell, which somehow managed to completely fizzle. There was a look of confusion at first as she sifted through the charred dust with her boots. That spell never fizzles. It doesn't, unless... it can't find what is demanded of it. Her eyes narrowed with a new realization.
"You can come out now, Jansen," she said, eying the counter with a raised brow.
Her black cat slipped out from the shelf and cantered over to Torena's ankles. He gave the circle a cursory glance, then looked up at her. Torena just sighed again and crouched next to her cat, giving him reassuring head scritching. "This... tells us more than you think," she said, then lifted him up in her arms. "Come, we will go back the schoolhouse. I have quite a feeling about this."
Torena pushed her door out with her foot, and off she and her cat went in search of (hopefully) more complete answers.
