We had the enchantress cornered; she had no chance of escaping. With a quick swift of the wrist, I drew out my dagger, small but deadly with the poisons I enchanted it with. I may not have been strong with spells and charms and swords and such, but poisons… you had to be wary of them if you were my enemy. I chuckled a little, to see the wounded thief pinned and in pain, finally. We had captured her; no longer would she terrorize innocents with her spells and trickery.
“I am so very sorry, miss,” I mocked, “But it seems I have to take you into custody.” My companions, a woman and two men—one older and one that was quite young, didn’t find my remarks amusing. To filled with pride to have a sense of humor was my guess. Our work as scouts for the federal troops was too important for a joke now and again, I assumed.
“Please, just shut up!” The girl yelped, “Just hurry up and punish this women; she had done enough damage as it is!” She was going to draw out her own sword, but a quick movement of the wrist I halted her.
“Please, madam,” I assured, “I can handle this little delinquent myself.”
“What has she done anyhow?” The younger boy asked. Oh my, how clueless was he, but such a great warrior! Usually an archer, he could also slingshot and use shorter swords to near perfection. He had never been wounded in battle his skills were so superior, but he was an idiot.
“What she has done!” The girl gasped, “H- how could you not know the horrors she has done! She’s a murderer, a scandal, and a thief! She just tried to steal one of our countries most powerful artifacts!” Overrated, I thought. This girl always made a scene, and she had a tendency to forget that there was a criminal cringing at her heels.
I chuckled to myself a little at the stupidity of the two, and turned my attention back to the wounded sorceress. I held my dagger up to toss a killing blow. The plan was not to hit a fatal organ and have her slowly die as the poisons that enchanted the blade spread throughout her body. A great last mental torment for one so foul— a slow and unbearable death.
Then we heard a big bang from the floor below us, breaking my concentration on the witch.
“Damn it!” the younger boy yelled, “There is someone else down there!”
“Come with me and help me scout out for them!” The older man yelled. “These fools can handle this spell caster!” And off they ran, down the corridor, round the corner, and down the stairs. I heard the sorceress chuckle. I turned my attention back to her.
“Oh! And now you sent more of your little spies to steal it!” The girl barked and redrew her sword. “You horrible crook!” She was about to behead her when all of a sudden; a light emitted from the sorceress and sent the girl flying backward.
“Still well enough to cast spells I see.” I sighed, and once again tried to kill her. I threw it at her, but it deflected off another spell. I groaned, “Either way, you will die… that wound you have is still pretty lethal.”
“S-says who?” the sorceress asked gritting her teeth, trying to hide how much pain she was in. She was smiling. “Sh- surely n-not you…” She tried to chuckle a bit more.
“Oh, and surely it is me,” I glared. I hated how the witch was playing games with me. I pulled out a few vials— some filled with liquid and some filled with powder— from my pocket and searched for a concoction to shut this lady up.
“Sh- surely not you!” She repeated, “Y-you will help m-me… please…”
“Nope,” I said choosing one filled with a powder that would make the throat swell and suffocate whoever inhaled it.
“O- oh!” She said, “Then…” the sounds of pain disappeared from her voice, “Then… can I destroy this marble I stool from your pocket?” She held up a pure white marble, almost seeming to be glowing against the black brick of the fortress we were in.
“Shit!” I yelled as I saw it, nearly dropping my vials of poisons. “H- how did you get that!” I tried to swipe it out of her hand, but she pulled it away and held it against the ground with her finger.
“Unlike the little vials you carry, which I can tell is magicked to not break, this little marble will break with just a little bit more pressure applied. Want me to crack it?” She grinned almost to evilly.
“Why haven’t you killed her yet!” yelled the girl. She had recovered from her fall a while ago, but decided to see if I would kill the sorceress alone or not. I guess she got sick of waiting.
“Ohhhh…” whined the sorceress on the ground, “I don’t want to die… Good sir,” she looked at me, “Do you want me to die?” I looked at the marble and the ground and felt around in my pockets, not finding what I wanted to find. The girl, once more put her sword to the witch’s throat. The witch chuckled and pushed against the marble harder. It cracked a little.
“God no! Stop!” I yelled grabbing the girl’s hand and wrenching her sword out of her hand.
“What the hell do you think you are doing?” The girl growled as the sword fell.
“Give that back if you know what is good for you!” I threatened the witch picking up my own dagger. Though, that was a stupid move, for I knew she would just crush the marble harder until it shattered.
“Please! Is this really about that marble!” The girl screamed.
“Shut up!” The sorceress said sitting up, “Bedtime!” And the girl suddenly fell to the floor; asleep, do probably to a spell.
“Good sir,” the witch smiled at me, “I do thank you for stalling enough time with you and your friend’s stupid rants long enough for me to recover from my injuries just enough to cast a healing spell on myself, and another spell to distract your other friends, oh… and lets not forget that sleeping spell…”
“What do you want?” I glared. “In exchange for that marble. It’s of no importance to you, but it is of extreme importance to me!”
“Good sir,” she said standing up, apparently healed from any wound she may have had, “It is of importance to me, much importance. That is, as long as it is of importance to you.” She walked up to me, the marble in her palm.
I looked up into her eyes; she was surprisingly tall for a woman. “Go on…” I told her. I had an idea were this was going. Was it really that important to me to obtain that marble?
“You decide,” She started, “Kill that little sleeping beauty there,” she pointed at the girl, “Or… have your little treasure here destroyed completely. I’m sorry, suicide is not an option.”
“Do you even know why that little glass marble is important to me?” I asked.
“No…” she gleamed, “but I can tell what it is, so… I can easily guess why it is so important!”
“You really are cruel, you know that?” I said.
She just smiled and grinned and nodded yes.
“Fine…” I sighed, “So it is either one decision or another… the answer to me is quite obvious which one is right.”
“Oh really?” asked the witch.
“Yup…” I walked up to the girl unconscious on the floor and cracked her neck with my foot.
“Happy now…” I grumbled, not really feeling much guilt.
“No,” glared the sorceress, “I am not happy yet.” She walked up to me and kicked the dead girl. “It seems you chose a new side, and I have more to ask from you, young man.” She smiled, “Those two men who ran down stairs awhile ago, they shall come back up soon. That noise was just some supplies falling from a shelf, knocked down, of course, by my magic. Get out of here in time, and they won’t realize that you killed this girl. Then you can act… say that the witch was just faking her pain, and that she attacked the girl before you could save her, and that you ran down stairs looking for them or something.”
“Oh, and what will you do?” I asked, disliking the fact that I was being ordered around.
“I am going to the bottom of this fortress to get that magical stick you four have been protecting these last few months!” The witch smiled, “And now… I shall be off!” And with a flick of her wrist, she had disappeared.
Following orders, I ran down the staircase. I ran in a circle, and while I ran back up the staircase I saw them already tending to the girl’s dead body. The younger one was weeping, the older one looked solemn.
I panted as I ran up to them, “G- guys! I was trying to find you, there was nothing I could do to save her!” I was a little teary eyed by either my acting or the fact that I had just betrayed them and I was lying about it, probably the earlier.
“And what of the witch?” The old man asked, “Was she really so powerful you had to run away and find us? Is she still on the lose?”
“Y- yes…” I said with much guilt in my voice, “She… she is… I’m sorry, sir… and I am sorry; I could not save her…” Tears streaked both his and my face.
“Wha- what do we do?” The younger boy asked looking at the girl, and then to the older man.
“Its your fault this happened, you coward!” The older man said to me. “If you weren’t so sick, you could have killed the witch in time! And if you weren’t so self centered, you could have at least injured the witch again in battle!”
“There was no way I could have even harmed her!” I defended myself; “It took all four of us to even get near enough to her to slash her with the girl’s sword!”
“Shut up!” He yelled, “GO! Now! See if you can trap her in the basement, we all know that is where she is heading! That is where the object she is looking for is!”
And so I ran, down the stairs, and down some more stairs, and yet even more. I was getting quite sick of stairs, when I reached the basement, which was nothing but a huge, dark room. The only light came from the witch, who was standing in the center of the room and carrying some magical glowy orb.
She looked at me as I reached the bottom step. “It’s not here!” She said bluntly. “It was taken out way before I ever reached here… the magical scent it left behind is extremely weak now…” She was obviously angry, you could tell even in the faint light.
“Bizarre…” I though aloud, “Very bizarre… it should be here…” I stepped over closer to the witch, “you sure?”
“Yes I am you freak!” She yelled at me. “Who do you think I am? Damn it! They knew I was coming, someone knew!”
“Other then us four,” I started to explained, “Only two other people knew the item was here: you, obviously, and person who put us in charge of guarding it, Commander… whatever his name was. He visited a few days ago to check up on things… he told us to be wary of any thieves that may want that item…”
“So… it was him,” the witch sneered, “he took it… and he didn’t even tell his faithful guards!” She glared at me; “you must be pretty terrible servants if even the fools won’t tell you that sort of thing!”
“Are you sure he just didn’t want to make sure we had the motivation to catch you?” I asked.
“Whatever…” She grumbled, “Unfortunately for you, that doesn’t matter anymore, I am keeping you in my service, yes as a spy of sorts, and in return your little treasure here won’t get crushed.” She pulled out the marble from earlier, “Is that fair?”
“Fine…” I sighed, “You bitch… I hate you; I don’t like what you do to innocents, and even less how you have just tried to steal one of our most important items, but…” I growled, “I would hate it more if you crushed that, you bitch!” I spat at her.
“Not very polite are we?” The witch mocked, “Nevertheless, we have had a deal, and I bid you adieu.” She bowed, “Call me, and tell me the goings ons in your little secret group sometime.” And, once again, she vanished. Poof…
I heard some footsteps coming down the stairs, and I fell to my knees and started crying before they reached the bottom.
“Don’t tell me you lost her again!” the older man shouted.
“I- I’m sorry!” I whined, “She left to quickly! I am so sorry, sir! I should have listened to you, and your advice! Now she has it! Now… What are we going to do?” I started sobbing.
“Don’t fret kid…” He said to me, “Now you know better…”
“But that doesn’t help us!” The younger boy whined.
“Sure it does!” The older man smiled, “I already made sure the commander relocated the object, but I didn’t tell you that. I wanted to see how you would act in a real life situation. It seems you two are awful!” His smile turned into a frown, “Not only did you let one of your comrades die, you would have left a witch with one of our relics. Luckily it wasn’t there, but now she knows that and is probably angry and is now searching somewhere else! Back to the training camps for you!”

The younger boy cried the entire funeral procession for the girl I murdered, and I pretended to cry. The older man didn’t attend, having much more important things to attend to. Back to training, we recovered the basics of fighting, sneaking, spying, and whatever else you can think of. I already knew it all!
Both of us were demoted because of that night, so I was left out on much more information to tell the witch, lucky for me. I wanted as little communication with that witch as possible. Obviously I kept up my studies of poison and tried to learn other spells other than enchanting blades, but that seemed to be my only talent in magic. It was better than most people, but not enough to make me any type of magician.
So blah, blah, blah, life went on and I was able to regain my status after a while, and once again I was assigned to protect something important, something the sorceress was most likely interested in. I tried to keep what I knew secret from her, but she forced it out of me. I finally agreed to tell her and discuss plans for obtaining it with her in a small pub. So blah, blah, blah, if you want to hear about that, you won’t here it here it anytime soon!