I Hate Teleportation Spell

A dreadful feeling festered in the surrounding air. The warmth of the summer days, the heat of the naked sun, once she had before, ebbed away in an instant. “Not again!” she sighed, glancing at the endless darkness in front of her—as if the night had descended in a second. Her view became pitch dark, so dark that she couldn’t even see her own feet. She dreaded the thought of an unimaginable creature lurking in the corner of her eyes.

“Umm, h-hello?” she stammered, but only met with her voice echoing back to her.

She took a deep breath, trying to compose herself. “Master, you cheeky old hag! You tricked me!” she cried. “Why every time I failed to use my teleportation spell, I got randomly transported to the forsaken, God knows what, where I am!”

She set her staff straight against the engulfing darkness and mouthed a spell, “Lumen!” A blob of light emanated from the tip of her staff. For some reason, she felt a little proud that she could cast that spell very well. It was one of the three spells that she mastered, other than fireball and barrier spell; both were elementary-level spells.

With her staff as her light guiding her through the abyss, she wandered the endless path, into the unknown—not knowing what to expect, nor did she want to expect anything. Both seemed to be equally terrifying for her.

Often, a young witch who failed to use teleportation spells would end up in a random place. It could be in the forest, in a kingdom’s palace, or in the random bathtub of someone's house. By often means Lona, the only student of her master—might be the only witch in the world—that still hasn’t mastered the basic spell of teleportation. In record, according to the Witch Association, never ever had a situation such as severe as her before, and what happened with Lona was extremely rare and unique to her. Call it good luck or bad luck.

Lona opened her world encyclopedia, surprisingly light despite the name. Her case was so bizarre that her master made a demand to the Witch Association to allow her to make a ‘handbook’ on what to do if she lost.

She turned the pages, searching through her book about her whereabouts. “Let’s see, type of world.” Her index finger scanned through line by line. “Aha! there you are. Arcadia forest; been there, beautiful place. Braumer; too hot, nuh uh. Eschari Mana Plane; never been there, though I heard good things about it.” Her hand landed at the d section. “Daci desert, no. Da. Da. Daemon plane, I think that's it! It's on page 13.”

There was a saying in old witch tradition about those who wandered to the daemon plane. Whether it was intentional or not, those people would slowly lose their minds to the abyss and eventually become part of the plane. Of course, as a young, inspiring witch, she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life in this desolate place.

“Hmm… I could try to cast the teleportation spell again, but what if I botched it again and ended up in a place worse than this?” She shook her head and threw that idea far away at the corner of her head.

Daemon plane was awfully eerie, so silent that she could hear her heartbeat. She tried to busy herself with humming along the way. Stupid as it may be, that was the only way to keep her sane for the time being, or maybe not, she might have‌ gone insane already.

“Okay!” She licked her index finger and turned to page 13. “Humans were not native to the daemon plane. Our minds couldn’t comprehend the absurdity the plane had to offer. Failing any three given rules, your life might be at stake.”

“What is the first rule in the Daemon Plane? First: If you somehow end up in a daemon plane, you need to keep on walking. Any direction is fine. Just ignore the noises.”

As she continued to walk, a sudden sense of dread slivered up to her spine. The air surrounding her became damp. A shriek, a wail of men, women, and children, invaded her ears

“K-keep walking, Lona. Just keep w-walking, keep your head down, ignore those noises.”

Her heart raced upon hearing those voices. Some called her name, some called her to play; she was not too keen about voices whispering in her ears.

“Okay, you got this Lona, what is the second rule again?” She opened the book again. “Don’t look at their faces. If you somehow meet with their eyes. You better run as fast as you can. P.S. Don’t look back.”

Rather than not look at the faces, she tried to close her eyes, but somehow she couldn’t shut her eyes as if the plane forced her to stay on guard.

One by one, shadowy figures walked past her. Something pulled her clothes and slowly crept in from beneath, like a spider crawling under her skin; cold, anguish, and desperation emanated from it.

“Just ignore it, Lona. It's just your imagination. It’s all in your head. D-don’t look back, don't look down.”

Lona followed her master’s note to not to see the faces of the shadowy figures. She needed to keep her head cool and keep thinking straight.

“Alright, what is the third rule again? To escape the Daemon plane, you need to reverse your teleportation spell and do not ever try to cast a light spell. It might attract unwanted things.”

She screamed at the top of her lungs. “You stupid. Old. Hag! Why did you put the most important rule on the number three? All the previous rules are pretty much useless. I could've easily avoided that."

Out of annoyance, she opened her grimoire and mouthed the teleportation spell in a rage. “Well goodbye, daemon plane. I will not miss you at all.”

“Raggiatus!” She tapped her staff to the ground and a beam of light surged beneath her. “Geez, I hope I don't botch this one again.”

—[***]—

A breeze of polluted air tousled up to her long crimson hair as she gazed upon the abandoned landscapes. Nothing reminded her of the world that she knew. The cloud was smoke-hazy, and the wind brought an unpleasant odor to it. A rather strong one. Reminded her of the sulfuric smell of her master’s potion.

As she expected, she botched the spell again. Instead of her master’s homestead, she ended up finding herself in an unfamiliar place yet again. “Not again,” she cried once more. As she scanned her surroundings, it was quite a strange world. She trudged along the empty streets. It's all gray and sad, she thought.

Smoke came out from the enormous chimney—shaped like a tube towering to the sky. Most of the buildings were abandoned, shaped dull and towering like stacked crates with no personality attached to them, making everything look the same.

“Where in the world am I?” she asked herself. “Daemon Plane was something, but this place feels awfully eerier than the plane. The wall, and the ground, are all made from a hard metal that I do not know, and I have met no sign of life, not even trees, not even a small critter. At least the daemon plane has shadow people to keep me company.”

She checked her world encyclopedia, but there was no mention of a place that was similar to her, not a tiny bit. It made her wonder if she discovered a new place beyond the continent. “No! That’s impossible!” she shook her head.

There were empty pages left at the end of the codex. She took the opportunity to write it down about her whereabouts, in case she randomly teleported again to this desolate place.

“What went wrong this time?” she asked herself. “I followed the rules on the grimoire. Using the spell as she instructed.”

She reached into her bag and read the rules from her master again, to make sure that she didn’t miss any steps.

“Okay, according to her notes, what were the third rules again? To escape the daemon plane, you need to reverse your teleportation spell. Huh? You need to reverse your teleportation spell. To reverse. Reverse. R.e.v.e.r.s.e”

Those words lingered on her head. Realizing her mistake, she sank to her knees. “Lona, you one big idiot,” she screamed.

But unknown to her, her ground started to tremble. A rustling, droning noise up and down coming from the corner of the street. From the dark alley, she saw a glaring red light looming from the shadow, slowly crept in towards her.

“A golem?” she whispered. Her expression darkened as the light touched the thing, revealing a humanoid-shaped golem, made from reflective metal. “A metal golem?”

Without further wait, she trotted away from the thing. She had no idea why an unmanned golem had appeared near her. All she knew was that a golem was a construct. The caster shouldn't have been too far from her location.

She glanced at her behind. A glaring light followed by a screeching sound hurtling toward her from behind. She quickly turned around, raising her staff against the incoming fire. “Insenurator!” she screamed, releasing a blast of fire from her staff toward the incoming threat.

She took it as her opportunity to run from the golem. As she maneuvered through the streets, trying to get out of the golem's sight, she searched for a place to shelter.

“Insenurator! Insenurator! Insenurator! Insenurator!” she spammed her fireball spell as if there was no tomorrow.

“Why won't that thing die already?”

As she wandered through the desolate place, she noticed a bunch of empty crate-like containers to her left. Without further delay, she took refuge in one of the metal containers filled with water.

“Geez, i-it's cold,” she said, hugging herself.

“Now, how to reverse?” She opened the grimoire. “To reverse the spell, just read it backward. It will teleport you to the initial place you came before.”

Lona sank further into the cold water inside the container. She screamed as loud as she could out of irritation. “That easy? What the…”

“Alright no more fooling around.” Once again, she read the grimoire carefully. Paragraph by paragraph, line by line, word by word. “Man… I should’ve memorized this spell already. Weird because this isn’t the first time I got randomly teleported.”

A sound of loud bang was heard from outside the container. 

“O-okay, I’m ready this time.” She set her staff straight, then shut her eyes close.

“Sutaiggar!” A beam of light surged beneath her.

—[***]—

She opened her eyes. One thing she noticed, a serene blue ocean laid before her, stretching as far as her eyes could see. A tranquil feeling soothed within her, with the sound of the waves lapping against the rock beneath. The sound of seagulls calling each other brought warmth to her heart.

The smell of freshly baked bread wafted around carried by the wind. The smell of her master bakery shop, how nostalgic, even if it had only just been a couple hours since she was gone.

“I-I’m home?” She took off her witch hat and felt the sea breeze caressed through her hair. “I’m finally at home!” She reached her hands up in the air.

“Lona!” a husky old voice called her name. Lona turned her body to meet with her.

There she was. The master. The old hag.

Instead of a warm welcome, her master gave her a stern look with her hands on her hip.

“What’s up with the get-up? And why are you soaking wet?” asked the old master, pointing her staff at Lona. A spell was cast on her, suddenly she felt a gust of wind swirled around her as her clothes were now dry and clean.

“Now, speak!”

“Master you won’t believe me, I found a new place—” she said, trying to convince her as she showed the encyclopedia to her.

But to her surprise, the master didn’t seem to be intrigued by her discovery.

“Why are you still here? Didn’t I tell you to practice the teleportation spell?”

“Wha?” surprised Lona, confused by her. “But I did—”

“No buts!” the master raised her voice. “Aren't you my apprentice?”

“Huh? Are you serious? Isn’t it enough for today?”

“Enough? You haven't even cast your spell even once? did you?”

“Well… uhh… What the heck is this?”

"Now, chop-chop, if you pass this one, I will treat you parfait if you succeed with the spell."

“You said that before…”

She once again set her staff straight, hoping it would be the last for her to use the damned teleport spell. She closed her eyes and mouthed the spell with hesitation. “Ra- uhh… Raggiatus!”

A familiar dreadful feeling festered in the surrounding air. “Oh, no…” Once again she found herself in a place without light.

“Not again!”