Heat Metal

Melissa had the cook send a servant up to fetch her slippers from her room while she finished her breakfast. It was best to have nothing like simple hunger drawing on your stength when you cast higher magics. Once she was done, she donned her slippers and went to the cellar door and down the rough hewn timbers that made up it's steps leading down. Dim glowing stones lit the darkness and created pools of shadows along the cool stone walls.

She made her way through the cellar between boxes and crates, as most of the cellar was devoted to storage, for the kitchen and other goods, such as fabrics for her maids to mend and make clothing. Melissa opened the door to the machine room and went into it, closing the metal door behind her. The water heater was a big metal tank of water. There was no plumbing leading in or out of the tank like in conventional homes. The water came into the tank via a warded dimensional tunnel from the plane of water and was kept clean and fresh through a purify water spell in the tank. To distribute the water from the tank, it went through a weaker dimenional tunnel to the various faucets and spigots around the compound.

Melissa stood before the tank and pulled a small piece of ashwood charcoal from the pocket of her silk robe. She focused on the metal case of the tank, sensing it's thickness and age, still sturdy after all the years it had been on her family's compound. She held the charcoal out and began inscribing symbols in the air, on a plane of **** that was canvas for the spell. As one symbol was finished and she moved to the next, the finished symbol would begin to glow. As she finished the seventh symbol the first blazed white hot and streaked to the water tank, striking it and absorbing into it's matter causing the metal to glow. The next symbol shot forth, and the next, waves of warm air cascading off with each impact, causing Melissa's robe to be blown back. She dared not struggle with her clothing or she could loose control of the spell, and possibally set her home on fire, or cause the water tank to explode. By the fifth symbol, the winds from the spell had loosened her belt, and the sixth symbol's impact caused it to be completly blow from her body to flutter to the stone floor behind her.

The seventh symbol blazed forth and was absorbed, the streaking lights of the spell subsided to reveal the glowing metal of the water tank. Melissa could feel the heat from it on her bare skin as she turned and picked up her robe. It was dusty, but she was getting herself a shower now anyway, so she tied it back on and headed out the door, through the cellar and up to her room.

Letting the now soiled garment slip to the floor, she headed right for the bathroom. Casting the spell took time, and if she didn't want to be late for school, she needed to get clean and get going. With the shower head floating above her own, she turned the handles and let the warm water splash against her skin. Melissa lathered her hair and scrubbed her face and body, suds sliding over her breasts and down her legs. The water rinsed her clean and she stepped out, steam rising from her pale skin as she toweled dry.

She put her school uniform on and gathered her things. Now she had to decide if she was going to take the bus to school or have her chauferr driver her. She would never make it on time if she tried walking.