"I think timing wise it'd be best to start preparing for the hunt, so we're not getting home too late."

"Works for me!"  She gets ready to reconvene, trying to catch Mallory or Sophie's eye.

They've finished up their spar - Mallory won - and head over when they notice that Kaylee and Lianne are done.

"Ready to go?"

"Yep!  Lead the way!"

"Let's all clear our soul gems first, then we can head out." She passes around one of her spares. "None of you should've used much magic, but it's always good to stay topped off when you can."

Kaylee clears her soul gem - it's surprisingly refreshing - hands back the spare, and takes a steadying breath.

Time to hunt.

"How about Kaylee and Lianne lead on dowsing, while I drive?"

"Works for me."

"Yep."  Tiara becomes egg-shaped bauble.

Mallory drives somewhat slowly around the city, favoring the sorts of areas that witches frequent - bridges, abandoned buildings, hospitals. 

Here's one, down a back alley.

She parks once one of the girls identifies it, then leads the way. "I'll go in first."

Kaylee nods.

Inside: the sky is a distant, garish, yellow and blue circus tent.  Smaller tents cluster together like fungus.  The barrier is lit by a sourceless orange-tinted glow.  In the distance, hollow calliope music.

Something is wrong with their sense of perspective and distance, or with the actual distances within the maze; tents seem to balloon up to greater and greater sizes the closer they approach.

"Kaylee, do you want to practice navigating?"

She nods.

"I think... the tents lead us deeper into the barrier."  She walks forward, slowly, toward a red and yellow circus tent, and it swells as though she's approaching it much faster than she is.  "This one takes us nearest, I think."  She parts the curtain.  From the inside, the walls of the tent seem as distant as the horizon.

"That's my read, too," Mallory says, leading the others after Kaylee. 

She walks, slowly, from tent to tent.  For a time, it is quiet: no familiars are in evidence yet.

"Do all witches have this... messed-up space thing?  It's really weird to navigate."

"Most that I've run into do. It's part of why they're so dangerous to non-magical girls. I think it's part of the nature of the barrier."

She nods.

They move deeper, tent after garishly-colored tent.  The music grows steadily louder.

Clown-shaped things on stilts approach, slowly.

"Are those, uh, familiars?"

"Looks like it. Get ready, but after what happened last time, let's be careful not to damage the maze itself."

Kaylee conjures a pair of throwing knives.

The clown-shapes, three of them, get closer, and expand just like the tents did - it's hard to tell if they're a few feet away or a few storeys tall.  They're laughing exaggerated, cartoonish laughs.

"I have the one in the middle," Mallory calls out. "Sophie, take the one on the left. Kaylee and Lianne, the one on the right." She punctuates her statement with a few clustered shots at her target's center. 

Lianne steps over to position herself to guard Kaylee while Sophie chucks a spear at her target. Lianne then takes an experimental swipe with her sword, mostly aiming to see if the familiar's in cutting range. 

It sways backward to avoid the strike, then pendulums forward, looming over her and grinning with sharp, hooked teeth.  Its eyes are darting around independently, like a chameleon's.

Kaylee leaps into the air and pitches one of her daggers at it; it sticks in its chest, and it snaps up its head to look at her, stepping forward slowly.

(For an instant, as it steps over Lianne, it seems tall enough to hold up the sky, but then as one of its stilts jabs down at her it's not much bigger than an ordinary person.)

Lianne dodges the stilt and swings at it as it comes down.