Does It Matter?

Author’s Note: This mini story is a prequel to the “What Does It Matter”, an interactive Choose Your Own Adventure / Text Adventure ‘game’ made for the Wondrous Tales 3 Year Anniversary.
Curious to try the game out? It’s on our discord: https://discord.gg/9pQSEjkEdv

The 2 of them walked down the cobblestone street, in silence, heading to their lectures. One was enjoying a freshly baked bun, the other only occasionally threw judging glances at her friend.

“Stop judging me…” whispered the one with the bun.

“Oh I’m not… but your broom will…” replied the dark-haired girl.

They were students at the magic academy, witches to be precise. The magic academy was anything but normal, and every day was something new and extraordinary. Today the entrance was a solid wall. Where a door once stood, minding its own business, was now a stone wall, held together by magic.

“Hmm,” said the girl with the bun, finishing the last couple of bites, “I’m busy still,” she mumbled, mouth stuffed full of the freshly baked deliciousness. The other girl rolled her eyes, “Mitra, you useless fatty!”

The other witch ignored her remarks and took a step back out of caution. The dark-haired girl glared at the wall. It was rock solid, quite literally at that, she contemplated her course of action.

A – blow it to smitherins,

B- look for a weak point,.

C – see if there’s an open window to climb through, or maybe.

D – it’s one of those magical walls you need to run into? She thought hard.

E – or I could just throw Mitra at it.

She took a few steps back, grasped her robes, and lifted them up, tilting her head side to side to stretch her neck a little. Mitra paused mid bite, blinked a few times, then a few more times, and then thought to herself ‘she’s surely not stupid enough to try running into the wall, right?’ to her surprise, her dear friend did just that. She dashed off like an Olympic sprinter right toward the wall.

There was an audible thump, followed by a gasp as she knocked all the air out of her lungs by leaping into the wall like some hero who thought they’d crash through it, but she didn’t. As she lay there on the ground, contemplating her life choices and decision-making abilities, she saw the shadow of her friend eclipse the sun above her.

“Hmmm, interesting. How’d that work out for you?” she asked.

“Oh you know, I just thought I could phase through it…”

“And?” Mitra asked.

“I can confidently confirm that the wall is real, and very solid…”

“Uhuh… any other bright ideas, dear?” Mitra queried sassily as she pointed her finger at a window 4 floors high.

“Perhaps, you desire to try your hand at wall climbing?”

She glanced up at the window, furrowed her eyebrows, and sighed, “Do I look stupid to you or something!?”

“Or something for sure…” Mitra remarked with a grrin.

Mitra replied calmly, shoving the last bit of the bun into her mouth and then tracing the edge of a few stones in the wall. Her finger glowed brightly, and a moment later the wall crumbled into a pile of pebbles that further proceeded to crumble into a pile of finely ground sand. She clapped her hands together and walked into the library, beckoning her friend to follow.

Once inside the academy, they noted how the wall through which they entered was now back to being a normal door.

“Tsk… another pop quiz, I’m so tired of them testing us at every opportunity,” complained the dark-haired girl who had a bump on her forehead. Mitra shrugged, “We are nearing the graduation exams. What’s on the menu today anyway?”

Before her friend had a chance to answer, a voice called out to them.

“Witch Mitra, Witch Nemila, director’s office, now.”

Mitra glanced at her friend, who shrugged in turn, “Don’t look at me. I did nothing… though I suppose this sets our schedule for the day.”

“Right…” Mitra nodeed.

Mitra responded in disbelief. The two made their way up the staircase, down which a young man was walking. He had the look of a lost puppy who wasn’t certain of where to go or what to do.

Nemila kept her eyes locked on him, watching him curiously, ‘a new student probably,’ she thought to herself, watching as he leaned against the railing, and then there was a panicked scream as the railing decided to move itself out of the way so as not to be an inconvenience to the young wizard.

Mitra’s eyebrows attempted a daring escape into her hairline while she watched the young wizard fall down, “Somebody should really put up a sign – railings are not for leaning on…”

Nemila chucked softly.

Once at the director’s office, they learned that to their surprise, they were not in trouble but rather on a mission. The director wanted them to deliver a certain artifact to the Grand Library’s archives.

As they exited the office, Nemila pondered how best to get there.

“We could,” she began.

A- take the flying brooms.

B- teleport with the academy’s portal gates that only occasionally malfunction.

C- walk like normal people, a chance to skip classes, yay!

D- send a courier pigeon!

“Yeah, we could…”

Mitra began, “On three!?”

Nemila nodded.

“One, two, three – Brooms.”

Mitra called out, Nemila simultaneously shouted, “PORTAL GATES!”

Mitra sighed, “no… no no! Last time I went there, it threw me into the Northern Forest, the permafrost… I had to build a hut there so I wouldn’t freeze to death…”

Nemila shrugged, “Got yourself a vacation home, nice!”

“Not the vacation I desired…”

“Oh come on! It’ll be fine!” Nemila insisted.

“Sure,” Mitra grunted; she was far too passive to actually resist or win an argument, to her regret. As soon as the two witches made their way to the basement of the academy and into the portal gates hall, they found the one with a placard ‘Grand Library’ next to it.

“You first,” Mitra insisted.

“Gladly!” Nemila grinned, grabbed the wrapped-up artifact entrusted to her by the academy’s director, and tossed it through the portal with all her might. It was a round-shaped object, akin to a cannonball in size and shape, except much, much lighter.

Somewhere not very far away, a wall blew up on the 177th floor of the academy, startling the wizards and tomes alike.

“What was that for!?” Mitra queried.

“Safety measures! If there’s something deadly on the other side – it should now be dead.”

And so the two stepped through the portal to find a wrecked library floor, a bunch of panicked mages and wizards, which were not the same thing as one might learn in the future; and even more panicked tomes and grimoires, scattering around from the sudden destruction.

“See what you did!?” Mitra barked at Nemila.

“Oh come on, it’s fine… they’ll probably be fine,” she said as she knelt down to pick up the cannonball. There was no further destruction in their quest. They delivered the artifact as they were tasked and only had to assist with rebuilding the wall, a fine excuse to skip some lectures.