Aries, Week 2: Cleaverton, Settling In

Getting settled into my new home has been such a breeze, that I swear this place must have a "smooth sailing" spell on it. A grocery delivery service showed up unannounced at my door the next morning after moving in—courtesy of the village council—as well as a nice welcome basket of jams and teas. Normally a request for magickal supplies might take a couple of weeks, but the confirmation raven that flew in after I placed the order told me I should have everything by Midsday.

And the ambience of Cleaverton is astounding: Plenty of parks and strolling paths; a lazy river that meanders past the town; and a cozy wood hosting weekly drum circles, just beyond the quaint, but well-maintained stone bridge. A few picturesquely ambitious hills to the east that the village citizens like to call mountains.

And the cafes! So many of them, everything from hyper-chic to faux sleezy tavern! I honestly thought I might end up with one of those coveted posts where I spend my morning lazily sipping macchiato and luxuriating in a good spell book, and then meandering into my workshop around noon.

But sadly, no. Cleaverton is...how can I say this politely? A town that has too many problems that are probably manufactured because it was worried it didn't have enough problems. I'm having trouble keeping up with orders.

The bulk of requests are both entirely trivial, and ridiculously outside my magickal wheelhouse. I find I have to get very creative.

Apparently Cleaverton hosts a lot of social events where everyone has to look their best, and there are an overwhelming number of people—even young ones—who want anti-aging beauty spells. Death and Chaos magick just aren't meant for this kind of thing, so I ended up resorting to tricks from a mortician's grimoire. I'm loathe to tell them the spell origins, but customers do really seem to like the results.

Another popular request is productivity-enhancing talismans. Chaos magick can make a lot of things happen quickly, but not with perfectly controlled results. And Death magick is almost never something to be used on a permanent item like a talisman, because you basically end up with a cursed artifact. This is fine when you're enchanting sterile surgical equipment that will receive the proper biohazard and aetherhazard treatment, but you don't want some careless person chucking it into a landfill.

So I eventually came up with a solution: Magick to subtly hasten people towards their death, speeding up their minds and bodies, and packaged as a consumable miasma that can be directly inhaled. This leaves the containment vial completely empty, unenchanted, and free for disposal. I did warn the villagers who asked for these that over-consumption could lead to premature aging; however, they just reassured me they would return for the beauty treatments at a later date.

And the pettiness of these people! I've already had at least 20 requests for minor hexes.

The one thing that hasn't taxed my magick is the recreational spells. There are a lot of "mind expansion" types around here, so they want the psychadelic experience. Chaos magick is fantastic for this, and I don't admit this often, but I was a bit well-known at the Academy for this. It definitely helped me cover textbook costs, I'll tell you that much.

I was just a little bit worried they might be openly hostile towards me, but I haven't experienced that at all. At least on the surface, they seem pretty open-minded, although a few of them will nervously drop hints that they still keep in touch with "my one chaos magick friend back at the Academy". I think that's meant to set me at ease?

But there's also this kind of aloofness—even, dare I say, entitlement—when they interact with me. It's clear that they fully expect my services, which is fine, because I am their village witch, and they're usually polite. But any interaction I try to initiate that implies I might be a person and not a spell-dispenser is met with a look of bewilderment, annoyance, and sometimes disgust.

Good thing my customer-service smile is well-polished.