Witch Hat Atelier 3
by Kamome Shirahama
2019
At the end of the previous volume of Witch Hat Atelier, new student Coco and best student Agott had just finished saving the merchant's son who was trapped under a boulder by the river, while the other witches were looking for other accidents up- and downstream. Somehow when Coco disintegrate the boulder, the whole shoreline there washed away. The Knights Moralis arrived to investigate, accused Coco of using forbidden magic, and prepared to erase her memory.
Fortunately, master witch Qifrey and the other students arrive back just in time. The knights are super inflexible, but Qifrey is able to get them to see reason - Coco is a kid, and a new apprentice who only knows a few spell symbols, and struggles to draw them well. As a final test, one of the knights gives her his own pen-wand and has her draw the disintegration sigil again, and sees that it's simply not powerful enough to cause the out-of-control effect we saw.
Qifrey notices that the bottle of ink he gave Coco has been replaced by another, and wonders if the disaster was caused by her spell being amplified by special ink. He keeps this revelation to himself though. (The audience sees that yes, this is special ink made with blood by the masked witch who seems to be using Coco to reintroduce forbidden magic back into the world.)
Qifrey and Coco make a special trip back to the wand shop. Qifrey and the wandmaker investigate the ink, including drawing a tiny light spell with it, which produces an enormous blinding flash. The wandmaker wants to call in the Knights Moralis, so Qifrey does what he's protected Coco from all this time and erases the old man's memory of that event. Meanwhile Coco learns from wandmaker's grandson Tartah that different ink ingredients can add or amplify various spell effects. She also learns Tartah's secret - he's colorblind, and so despite knowing so much about the ingredients and effects, he can only tell the inks apart by their labels once they're mixed.
We go back to the Atelier for more practice. Agott has master Qifrey's permission to take the second test, which will give her permission to cast spells in public. Still secretly though, so that the public doesn't learn that magic is drawn, and a skill that anyone could learn. That secret is one of the things the Knights Moralis use memory erasure to protect. They also forbid casting spells directly on a body - which forbids stuff like shapeshifting, but also any healing magic.
Qifrey tries to use the special ink bottle to track the masked witch, but she gets the better of him, nearly drowning him in his tower, then teleporting in to steal the bottle back.
Coco's been having nightmares about how she accidentally turned her mom to stone the first time she drew magic. So she's been getting up in the night to practice her drawing skills. She ends up fainting in front of Agott, and Qifrey takes her to the hospital, after stopping to get directions from Tartah. Then Qifrey and a bunch of doctors are called away to deal with a fire in town.
Tartah stays with Coco, and tries to get her medicine. The vials are unlabeled though. Tartah can magically dehydrate the potions to see the ingredients, but if it's powder, he can't see the color to tell them apart. In her fevered delirium, Coco reverses the disintegration sigil to make, I don't know, a reintegration spell. When Tartah holds the sigil up to a powder, it stays powder, but like, temporarily reassembles into its original shape. With the help of this spell, Tartah finds the right medicine, and later gets scolded by a nurse, who is nonetheless impressed by his apothecary knowledge.
Coco thinks she can draw a reverse sigil of the spell that turned her mom to stone to save her, although I'm like super certain that's not going to work, just based on the limitations of the reintegration spell. Also, elsewhere, the masked witch is joined by an ally who is either invisible, or somehow is literally just a magic hat and cloak, and the two plot to do something attention-getting at Agott's exam.
Fortunately, master witch Qifrey and the other students arrive back just in time. The knights are super inflexible, but Qifrey is able to get them to see reason - Coco is a kid, and a new apprentice who only knows a few spell symbols, and struggles to draw them well. As a final test, one of the knights gives her his own pen-wand and has her draw the disintegration sigil again, and sees that it's simply not powerful enough to cause the out-of-control effect we saw.
Qifrey notices that the bottle of ink he gave Coco has been replaced by another, and wonders if the disaster was caused by her spell being amplified by special ink. He keeps this revelation to himself though. (The audience sees that yes, this is special ink made with blood by the masked witch who seems to be using Coco to reintroduce forbidden magic back into the world.)
Qifrey and Coco make a special trip back to the wand shop. Qifrey and the wandmaker investigate the ink, including drawing a tiny light spell with it, which produces an enormous blinding flash. The wandmaker wants to call in the Knights Moralis, so Qifrey does what he's protected Coco from all this time and erases the old man's memory of that event. Meanwhile Coco learns from wandmaker's grandson Tartah that different ink ingredients can add or amplify various spell effects. She also learns Tartah's secret - he's colorblind, and so despite knowing so much about the ingredients and effects, he can only tell the inks apart by their labels once they're mixed.
We go back to the Atelier for more practice. Agott has master Qifrey's permission to take the second test, which will give her permission to cast spells in public. Still secretly though, so that the public doesn't learn that magic is drawn, and a skill that anyone could learn. That secret is one of the things the Knights Moralis use memory erasure to protect. They also forbid casting spells directly on a body - which forbids stuff like shapeshifting, but also any healing magic.
Qifrey tries to use the special ink bottle to track the masked witch, but she gets the better of him, nearly drowning him in his tower, then teleporting in to steal the bottle back.
Coco's been having nightmares about how she accidentally turned her mom to stone the first time she drew magic. So she's been getting up in the night to practice her drawing skills. She ends up fainting in front of Agott, and Qifrey takes her to the hospital, after stopping to get directions from Tartah. Then Qifrey and a bunch of doctors are called away to deal with a fire in town.
Tartah stays with Coco, and tries to get her medicine. The vials are unlabeled though. Tartah can magically dehydrate the potions to see the ingredients, but if it's powder, he can't see the color to tell them apart. In her fevered delirium, Coco reverses the disintegration sigil to make, I don't know, a reintegration spell. When Tartah holds the sigil up to a powder, it stays powder, but like, temporarily reassembles into its original shape. With the help of this spell, Tartah finds the right medicine, and later gets scolded by a nurse, who is nonetheless impressed by his apothecary knowledge.
Coco thinks she can draw a reverse sigil of the spell that turned her mom to stone to save her, although I'm like super certain that's not going to work, just based on the limitations of the reintegration spell. Also, elsewhere, the masked witch is joined by an ally who is either invisible, or somehow is literally just a magic hat and cloak, and the two plot to do something attention-getting at Agott's exam.
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