The Short House Part 2 (Patreon)

The last time Reika was ever seen was a dull kind of day. The temperament of the weather remained a consistent glowing grey with a slight chill on the air as evening crept in. The doors shut behind Reika with a gentle click. The doors had been reinforced with a pressure mechanism so that the door only ever crept closed and never slammed. Reika stared into the unoccupied entrance and listened to the faint sounds of life in floors further above. Reika sighed and began her way further in.

The insides of the percular building appeared normal for all purposes but it was the layout of the place that irritated Reika. A large hallway stretched through to the back of the building as one entered as rows of doors and rooms laids promised further in. To the right was a stair case that circled up to the top. The problem was that the way things were arranged it was difficult to navigate from one room to the next. In one instance to get to the kitchen from the entrance one had to get to the second floor and decend back down and cut through a parlor and dining room before reaching the destination in question. The house had apparently been remodeled and in some great blunder the house had been turned into a sort of labyrinth that required a great deal of practice to navigate. Along with this rather inconvenient design the place had built sliding door like contraptments into several places such as the base of walls and doors but also into less usual places like the bottoms of stairs and on tops of counters. It was a devilishly useful feature to pass small object between rooms even if one could not easily walk about the place.

Reika had been a regular of the building for about a month and could now easily reach any room she needed to but still felt frustration at the constant treck. Her visit today felt as any other and her hopes were not high but never the less came into the building with some spark of motivation that promised success. What was she hoping for exactly? Well that was simple. Reika was an enthusiast of sorts and dabbled in a rather intriguing subject. That was of the arcane variety. She was fascinated by magic and had found a place that had allowed her to practice in peace as well as offering useful advice. For the visitors of this place included many bizarre folk and among them a frequent mage who, on occasion, would assist Reika. This mages name was Regald and wasn't much older than Reika but was already a rather accomplished practitioner.

Regald was not present this day which was a shame because Reika had finally made lead way on an interesting bit of magic. The spell promised to minimize objects for convient storage and transportation. This would make a mobile lab a much easier task and even if its level was a bit beyond Reika it would just take her a bit of practice to really get it down. She wasted no time and set up her books paper and equipment in a room she often used in the third story. Its windows and sky light gave her some idea of the time because the building was free of clocks. Apparently the sounds of clocks irritated certain guests. Reika began to drive her way through the text and began to copy out several runes which took a while but eventaully the spell circle she was constructing looked theoretically sound.

Only a small click brought her to attention from her work but seeing no one around she looked back the task at hand. She felt rather pleased and took out a small candy bar from her bag. Regald often warned not to eat before casting spells but as far as Reika knew it wasn't of any real consequence. She broke the bar in half and left the other half on the table as she leaned forward and flattened the papers on the floor so the circle looked perfectly round. That was very important as according to Regald a magic circle casted spells where as magic ovals tended to explode or kill people. Reika peered over the whole of the design and feeling satisfied reached up to eat the other half of the bar of chocolate on the counter. Except it wasn't there.

She stared at the floor and check around the area but was perplexed to find it missing. She was about to give up when she heard a small distinct sound. She lowered her view and figured it must have come from under a set of chairs that had been piled in the corner in a rather unordered manner. She approached and wondered if the story of cordnail rats was true. She had been here a month and hadn't seen any sign of the rats but too many odd things moved at night and the general rule was that this was a signature trait of the rats in this building is that they were never seen. Perhaps one had snuck in and taken her candy bar right from under her nose.

She approached the chair and a clicking noise began to get louder as she approached. She began to slow down to try and silence her steps as she got closer and bent over to look between the chairs to see the source of the noise. She didn't see a rat. What she saw was altogether more strange. She squinted to try and make the image more clear. Behind the chairs was a sliding door that led to another room and had been obstructed by the chairs in question. Trying to pry the door open was a... person. An inches tall human being. A girl to be specific. She had short brown hair and wore an odd assortment of garments that consisted of loose fitting colorful felt clothe shirt and skirt. She also looked young maybe reikas age or a little younger. As she gave up on the sliding door she sighed and struggled with the chocolate bar sitting next to her as it was nearly half her size. She must have been 6 or 7 inches at most. It was at that point she noticed Reika looking in at her.

She froze and twitched as though to make a sprint but realised she didn't have a good place to run to. So she screamed and ran with the candy bar held above her head as she quickly shot between the chairs attempting to lose sight of Reika within the large clutter. Reika shouted as well.

"Hey thats mine not cool dude."

Reika began to pull chairs off the stack and the small girl ducked and ran as the structure around her began to give her less cover. Reika reached through the clutter and attempted to grab the girl but missed as she pulled back against the wall. Reika finally seamed to lose her as she crawled into the core of the jumble of fallen chairs. Reika began to pull them apart and after a moment caught sight of her as she dashed across the open floor with no other options. Reika stomped across the floor and being far larger quickly caught up the the girl as she rushed under a table. Reika got onto her hands and knees and pursued her.

The small girl then broke left after reaching the other side. Reika looked towards the wall and realised she was moving for a smalling door on the wall. She no longer chased the small girl but instead hoped over a table and reached the door before the girl could get to it. She then grabbed and book and slammed it in front of the sliding door. Then she dashed towards the door to the room and shut that as well and placed another book in front of the sliding door at the bottom she checked around to make sure there wasn't any other way to get out. She felt sure there wasn't. She looked around but couldn't see the small girl anywhere.

"Hey listen you can't get out of here so come on out... or I could look for you and if you make me look you really will need to be scared of me..."

She stood still a moment. A single plink sounded as a single drop of rain hit the skylight. This was followed by a torrent of rain as the weather changed into a fierce storm. 'Damnit' Reika thought it would be more difficult to find the little person with the rain covering the sound she made. She would have to start looking. Her curiosity at this point was spinning as she wondered why there was a little human running around. Was she a fairy or pixie or maybe an elf. She had heard elfs were small but had never seen one. If this girl was an elf she wasn't very impressed. Elves were supposedly incredibly magically gifted and this little creature seamed only able to scurry and run.

She was about to have another thought when she caught something in the corner of her vision she Jerked her head around to see empty space but appraoched nevertheless and looked below to try and find the small girl. She couldn't see anything at first but then saw the girl close to her magic circle. In the rush around the room it had been displaced and now lay disheveled upon the floor. The girl had taken cover behind one of the text books that had been laid on a corner of the circle to hold down corners of some of the papers. Reika walked slowly and as she got closer and her shadow stretched over the circle and encompassed the small girl.

She jumped to try and catch the girl and fell over the circle in the process. Reika grabbed the book and pushed it aside the small girl screamed and fell back as Reikas hand loomed towards her but before her hand reached the miniscule women she felt as though the girl had moved back but that wasn't quite accurate. Her reach for a moment seamed to come up short. Her fingers slashed the space right before girl and so Reika crawled ahead and reached again but watched as the girl seamed to grow farther away. She squinted and was now puzzled. Then a thought a occured she peered down and saw the disturbed circle glow in places and realised she had triggered the spell by entering the circle.

Normally it would have been aimed at some object outside of the circle but it seamed to work differently when the circle was disturbed. Reika pondered the implications only long enough to suddenly realise that she was in trouble. She screamed and fell back and tried crawling out of the circle but it seamed to expand and grow. The borders of the circle began to stretch as she stood and began to run finally with a burst of effect she dived out of the ever growing circle and watched as the runes glow began to grow dark and mundane.

She bent over and took in deep breaths taking a moment to curse. The tables and chairs of the room towered over in some magnificent display. The books across the floor looked like large slabs big enough to crush her if they fell the wrong way. The spellchad worked but it had backfired and she was now at the preteremined size she had set. She must have been inches tall maybe 4 or 5 at the most.

"Damn so that's why you don't break the circle... Regald was right but atleast I'm not dead..."

"Not yet"

Reika spoke with an effort to catch her breath but froze when a voice spoke after her own. She had completely forgotten the small girl. She turned to see her with the chocolate bar under her arm and a look that Reika didn't really appreciate. Reika turned her body to face the previously smaller women only now she looked all to large. Maybe 2 or 3 heads taller. Reika put up her hands and backed up. The girl simply got closer til she stood over Reika. The expression she wore looked like when a child had been disciplined. Her face was red and she had obviously let a few tears go as she avoided Reika moments ago.

Reika looked up terrified at the impressive figure standing above her. As she continued to stare she smiled nervously. The girl noticed this and rubbed her eyes and seamed to regain some composure. A small smile crept over her face now. As her new feelings seamed to start battling and overcoming the fear and anger that had been there before. She then broke off a corner of the chocolate bar and held it in front of Reika. She then spoke with a tone of growing vindictive pleasure.

"You wanted this?"