Cookie Run Kingdom - New Generation

The world in which the Wizards and the Witches resided was vast, untamed, and so much was still unexplored and remained a mystery. Full of wonders and dangers, and many legends. Ones of heroes, villains, mythical creatures, monsters, and so much more. But none of the legends was quite as unique and sparked as much curiosity as the legend of the Witches’ Castle.

The Wizards followed science and logic. They sought to use their magic to study their world around them, categorise what they discovered, and understand the natural laws that govern reality. They also searched for the possibility and evidence of other worlds beyond the starry night above them, from the comfort of their Wizard Towers.

While the Witches followed only their hearts, their passions, and their desires. Instead of simply studying and categorising, they sought to create and add something to the world. They wanted to push back against the natural laws and to create in their image from the modesty of their Witch Huts.

Inevitably, this critical difference led to conflict between them.

Fortunately, however, after many wars and periods of strife, the Wizards and Witches finally settled on a peace agreement. Each side would stay inside their corners of the world and never cross into the others’ as long as each followed a series of rules and restrictions. A significant rule of this agreement stated that the Wizards would allow the Witches to tinker and push against the natural laws, so long as they did not attempt to break the laws of life and death.

And so for a while, this rule remained unbroken. That was until a faction of Witches came together, severed ties with the rest of their kin, and constructed a place where they could live and experiment free of the restrictions imposed upon them.

There was intense fury from both sides at this act of disobedience, but the Witches of the Castle were cunning as well as determined. They found loopholes in the agreement which ensured that if their Castle was laid siege by either Wizards or Witches, they would be breaking the very peace they wanted to keep.

Then, after decades of sleepless nights and constant experimentation, the most powerful casters among them announced to their colleagues and to the wider world that they had finally done it. They had cracked the secret to harnessing life and creating a soul out of pure magic.

One night, at the stroke of midnight, these Witches met at the highest tower to perform the ritual to summon an unimaginable amount of power into a single one and provide proof of their incredible accomplishment. But that was not what happened. Instead of bringing forth new life, the Witches turned to dust at the centre of a magical storm which shook the Castle to its foundation. And just like that, the surviving Witches abandoned their home and spread word of what had occurred.

According to the official story, in their reckless arrogance, the leaders of the Witches’ Castle failed in their pursuit of breaking the most important natural law and were obliterated by the power they thought they could control. According to the legend, it was a completely different story. As the world tried to move on, whispers from those who claimed to have read the Castle’s records travelled the land, which suggested that the Witches of the Castle not only succeeded in their pursuit but also survived.

According to legend, they did far more than just break the laws of life and death. They broke the very laws of the world itself. The Witches had created a whole new world from magic, and they had used their Castle as a portal to transport their souls into this new world while sacrificing their human forms.

Generations later, thousands attempted to crack the ritual and the formula behind it. All failed. Even a group of Wizards were granted permission by their superiors to determine whether or not this created world did exist, if so, how one could travel there and report back, and whether it was an unnatural thing which needed to be destroyed to maintain the natural balance. This group did claim to have found the world and the means of travelling there, but they vanished without a trace. Just took the money and ran, some said.

As for the Witches’ Castle itself, many did travel back in their efforts to rediscover the secret to creating life, but the intense magic which the place was exposed to had unintended long-term effects. The corridors had turned into an impassable maze, the dimensions of the rooms morphed into immense spaces where the senses simply could not comprehend, and the gardens had transformed into jungles filled with beasts best left undescribed.

As a result, the Castle became a place where no one dared to enter for more than five minutes at the risk of their sanity. Well, apart from those who had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Dylan had been roaming the rooms and corridors of the Witches’ Castle for so long that he had lost track of how many days. But he was almost entirely certain that he had surpassed the longest anyone had ever spent before him at that point.

Before he had mapped out most of the rooms in every corner, every dungeon and tower in the Castle, Dylan fought off overgrown cats, ran away from hungry sentient weeds, was even forced in a heated debate with a talking door for hours until he finally convinced it to open and let him through, and so much more. Now that he had, Dylan had collected as many remaining notes and journals written by the rogue Witches who vanished into a cloud of soot. And other than the information he was looking for, he had learned that whoever the Witches who supposedly gained the world to create another were, they also possessed quite the sweet tooth. Something they had in common with him.

The only thing which was left was to make his way to the top floor of the highest tower in the Castle. The room where the infamous ritual took place.

Dylan was a Magician. To be specific, an Apprentice Magician. To be even more specific, a former Apprentice Magician. After years of studies, sucking up to his egotistical tutors and competing with fellow candidates, when the moment to be selected and the moment to the next phase of education arrived, Dylan was dismissed. There was a time when nearly anyone could become a fully-fledged student at a magical institution and become a licensed wielder.

These days, however, the field has become so cutthroat and elitist that, unless one has contacts at the highest level and or has the greatest magical potential in one’s group, the likelihood of someone like Dylan becoming recognised by the Wizards or the Witches was lower than zero. His magical potential was less than mediocre at best, and most of his tutors and examiners did not bother to remember his name.

Now Dylan had been kicked out of the University of Magic, penniless, with no friends to speak of, and his family, who had invested so much into him becoming a Magician, had rejected him as soon as they heard that he failed. He did not even have a pet to keep him company.

There was nothing else in his world to tie him to it. So he sorted out the only other world out there. Or at the only other world, which he might have had a chance of getting to and starting anew, and able to wield magic without bureaucratic oversight or restrictions.

The room on the top floor of the highest tower was a large open space with four arch windows revealing the vast wilderness outside of the Castle, with a great circular hole in the roof where presumably a pane of stained glass separated the room from the night sky above. In the centre of the room was a stone circle carved into the floor with what looked like runes carved into the segments.

As Dylan staggered inside after running up a seemingly endless spiral stairwell, he noticed the cracks in the walls, the spider’s webs, the layers of dust covering every available surface, and the sole remaining resident. A salamander. It had been a long, long time since anyone had visited this part of the Castle.

After a few moments of wiping the sweat from his face, resting against the wall and taking in how, after so many obstacles and setbacks, after determining whether or not the research he found was genuine, and searching for everything he needed, his goal was finally nearing. Dylan was about to leave his old world behind and open the portal into the other world.

The first time he drew from the sack he had been pulling throughout was a rusty chalice, and set it in the heart of the stone circle. Then, while kneeling in the circle, Dylan drew a long piece of paper from his pocket and began reading through it.

“Milk. . . Suger. . . Cocao. . . Flour. . . Spice. . . Salt. . . Multiple-Favoured Jam. . .” and the most important ingredient of all. “Life Powder.”

He checked the contents of his sack again and let out a huge sigh of relief. He had everything on the list. Meaning he did not have to go all the way down and back again. Meaning could finally create the formula.

Delicately, and ensuring that nothing split, Dylan poured the milk, added two tablespoons of sugar, then cocoa, then flour, spice, salt, then he looked upwards and waited.

After an hour or so, the clouds disbursed, and the full moon revealed itself, shining its powerful rays down to the earth through the hole in the roof and being captured by the enchanted chalice. Seeing this, Dylan added the final ingredient and stood back. The effects were supposed to be immediate. Which they were.

As soon as the crystal-like particles became one with the formula, a burst of blue flames roared into existence. Then, as suddenly as it appeared, the flames turned green. Then red. Then, slowly turned purple.

It’s working. It’s actually working.

Dylan could barely believe his eyes. There was a difference between hoping for something beyond hope that it would occur and watching the thing happen without hesitation. But he could not just stand there and stare at the magic unfolding before him. He needed to complete the ritual.

Grasping his hands together, he closed his eyes tightly and chanted the mystical words inside his head. Over and over and over again.

Out of pure curiosity, he opened one eye with just a crack. Dylan saw that the flame had morphed into grey and blue smoke, which snaked across the room like a tornado. He squeezed his eye shut again. If he did not follow the ritual to the letter, there was the risk of repeating the mistakes of the Witches and sharing their fate. He could not allow that to happen. Not after coming so far.

After some time, Dylan felt something strange on the fingers of his left hand. He did not wish to take the risk again, but when the feeling spread across his hand, he opened his eyes again. And what Dylan saw, he did not expect.

The skin of his hand was being bleached of colour and was evaporating into the wind, which came with the twisting smoke.

Dylan tried to move away from the ritual, but he could not. His entire body was stuck in position as his other hand and feet began to turn to dust, no matter how hard he tried to step back.

What was happening? What did I do wrong? Why was the portal not appearing? This cannot be how it ends! Not after everything!

Dylan tried to scream, but his throat would not let him. The only thing he could do was a voiceless scream, and his vision blurred as the ritual completed.

The former Apprentice Magician thought he had found all of the notes, journal entries and receipts the Witches of the Castle had written during their time. What he did not know was that during the stretch of time, a few critical notes were lost. And Dylan had possessed them, then he would not have shocked him.

The Witches’ Castle did not hold the portal within its walls. The Castle was the portal. And that the reality barrier was so great between the worlds that the only way someone was about to travel between them was via the spirit. The destruction of the original form was just the exchange needed to be made for the next one waiting on the other side.