“They would easily become scared when they see your magic pen”, the prince smiled,” they know that there are witches in Border Town, but if you get in close contact with them, it could easily cause accidents, so we just took some simple hidden measures, not letting them know that you are a witch. Later their opinion will slowly start to change.”
Soraya’s photographic ability helped to bring Roland’s citizenship registration program to a new level. For this plan, he had emptied a room in the Town Hall and then used the room to store the information about the town’s citizens. It was similar to a population register, on each piece of paper were written their names, ages, addresses, blood relatives and so on. This information was all the statistics he had gathered during the winter, and now the records were expanded with new content. The biggest change to all of their personal accounts was that he added to each of them a “color photo.”
According to Roland’s request, the Town Hall had set up a small room large enough for one person that was enterable without being seen, it had only a small window through which Soraya could see the face of the person she should paint. So when she painted the portrait of her subject, the other person couldn’t see her using her magic pen.
As to how it was possible for him to let the town’s residents come over and give their personal information so freely, Roland’s method was very simple, whoever came over and gave their information, got 10 copper royals – he ordered the Town Hall to allocate the money.
“Today I called you here to draw something else.” Roland took out some cutout papers and gave them to Soraya.
The latter noted that the sizes of those pieces of papers were exactly the same, with a size of half a palm, and in a rectangular format.
“What do you want me to paint?”
“Some props for entertainment,” Roland said.
He had this idea within his mind for a long time already, every day the witches had nothing to do besides practicing their magic, this life had to be a bit boring. The same could be said for the Prince, especially when he had to wait for the moment the snow finally melted, until then he was stuck within the castle. Therefore, he came up with the idea of reinventing some games from his old word and finding a way for the witches to relax.
The simplest possibility was to create a card game. But the soft ordinary paper he had wasn’t suitable for card games, shuffling was also a hassle. However, with Soraya, he could finally make some more advanced things.
“Entertainment?” She crouched her head, wondering what kind of entertainment she was painting on a square piece of paper, “Okay, you have the final say.”
“First, on this piece of paper, you have to draw a soldier with a heavy crossbow.”
“Imagine?”
“Yes, the armor, the body shape, age, and the surroundings, everything up to you to freely imagine, as long as it has a heavy crossbow.”
“Uh… I will try it,” Soraya closed her eyes, meditation for a while, then she summoned her pen into her hand and soon a bright light streamed from her hands onto the paper.
Soon, a middle-aged man looking just like a crossbow soldier appeared on the paper.
“Very well,” Roland praised, “Let me think about what the next painting should be, ah… in the upper left corner of the paper and the middle position, draw a small circle at each of these positions,” he recalled the card in his head “The first circle is white in the center with a golden coating, and the second one has an orange color together with a golden coating,” he said.
When the circles were finished, Roland let her add a number to the first circle, “and to the second circle you will add a bow and an arrow mark into the circle.”
The beauty of Soraya’s ability lied in her ability to ignore the material she had to paint on, it didn’t matter to her if it was a blank sheet of paper or an already painted piece. The second design can perfectly cover the former painting, like a layered mask.
Thus, a delicate “crossbow card” appeared in front of Roland.
“Is this what you wanted?” She asked.
“This is just the card of one unit, there are still many similar cards waiting to be painted by you. By the end, you will get a deck and then I’ll teach you how to play.”
When looking at Soraya who was painting with her eyes closed, Roland felt a kind of hunch from his heart. Perhaps soon a dialog like this would be heard within the castle –
“Do you have anything important to do? If not, let us first play a round of ‘Gwent’!”