Glenlight CafeLeonardo felt his eyes twitch as he read the newest message from Selene.
What did she mean that 'the benefactor asked for the location'?
He told her not to contact the Church, as the client asked not to involve them. In fact, not involving the Church was why they were hired in the first place. Because Fatma did not want to consult the Church.
Sure, maybe she had not told this 'benefactor' the location just yet, but considering she lived in that very Church, there were many ways to use her personal belongings to scry her location with magecraft.
Although the Sister that was dispatched there by the Holy Church would probably call it Sacraments instead of magecraft, but he digressed.
Either way, from what he knew of this Sister, she definitely would have a way to find out their location. Heck, he probably could do it if he had access to some of their belongings, and the Sister used to be a magus ranked higher than Leonardo was.
"Something wrong? Heh, this is why you never won a round of poker against me, you wear your displeasure in your face."
Leonardo looked away from his phone to the man sitting in front of him. The 'prospective client' that he had told his team he was meeting. He sighed, "I think that's more you being WAY too good at them."
The man laughed, "Haha. Well...having a 'poker face' came with the territory as a politician."
"He then extended his phone to Leonardo. "Anyway, I've asked around in the DoM and got the info you asked for. Now...how much would that go in you, considering taking the job?"
"It's definitely something, yes," Leonardo replied, before starting to type, "Pardon me, I'll have to relay this to my team."
A string of messages then appeared on the group chat on Cipher.
Got the info. The ex-husband, Lucas Anderson, is registered at DoM as a Mixed-Blood of Incubus ancestry. But it's the lowest rank. He shouldn't be aware of it.No actual powers. Just some traits like being attractive and having a high sex drive.Also, Selene. Too late to hope your benefactor is not involved. But don't tell her the address. Hopefully, that'll slow her down enough.@Silverstein@Digmata@PureWitch@Thanatos 7
St. Elmo's ChurchSister Maria sighed as she looked at her phone, seeing that Selene had not replied immediately when she pushed for the address.
A possible demon possession, and these spellcasters Selene was working with apparently saw it fit to conceal the location from the Church for whatever reason?
Secrecy was par for the course for magi, but this was ridiculous. If the demonic possession was indeed real, they would be endangering not just innocents but themselves.
A genuine demonic possession was beyond anyone in Millhaven to handle. Unless there were suddenly some big shots who arrived in the city without her knowing, she doubted anyone Selene was working with would survive such an encounter.
To do magecraft was to accept death, but magi was not stupid. They would not risk their lives, and thus their chance to further their family's thesis or worse, lose the entirety of their family's work.
That would be the rationale for magi. Hence, even for magi, those who dealt with dangerous beings such as demons were rare.
This was something she understood well from her former life as a magus.
However...since coming to America, she had started to realise that spellcasters were a different breed altogether. In a way, they were more amoral than magi, who were constrained by the commonly held 'code of conduct' for magi. But spellcasters were exactly those who eschewed those traditions.
Of course, that could mean that it was a magus who had rejected the unpleasant baggage that came with being a magus, but that could also mean someone who would use magecraft for something as banal as money, no matter what it cost, or even, as in this case, risking their lives and possibly the lives of innocents for some material gain.
In any case, it was quite clear that she had to do this the hard way then, since Selene did not comply.
On the table before her were several items. A handkerchief belonging to Selene that she had taken from the laundry, a bowl filled with holy water, a pendant of a small bottle that can be filled with water, and finally, a map of Millhaven.
She placed the handkerchief into the bowl of water before reaching to her belt, where a leather-bound book was clasped.
The Sister opened a page of the book, revealing an intricately painted image of a man holding a lance, with blood covering his eyes.
The iconography of St. Longinus.
"Adiuva me, Santo Longinus," she incanted, as she imagined her skin being pierced with thorns as a 'switch' to turn on her
magic circuits charism blessing and circulate
magical energy prayer power.
A one-line incantation was normally reserved for a simple spell.
However, were a magus from the Spiritual Evocation Department to see Sister Maria now, they would undoubtedly be astonished by the extent of 'fragmentary access' she had gained only with a one-line incantation.
In Spiritual Evocation, supplicating Ghost Liners, that was to say, Heroic Spirits to borrow parts of their power, was a standard practice. Hence, the term 'fragmentary access'.
But with only a one-line incantation, the amount of 'power' that could be borrowed was minuscule, certainly not to the extent Maria was doing.
This was the
magecraft sacrament employed by Maria based on the van der Woud's artistic magecraft.
The van der Woud, the family Maria belonged to, was a family of magi that focused on creating beautiful paintings. Of course, in the World of Magecraft, beauty was not simply aesthetic but a valid magecraft foundation. In this case, the van der Wound attempted to capture what Plato called 'forms' into the beauty of paintings.
The sum of all that exists in the material realm, that is, objects, the abstraction of ideas, and phenomena, is a pale reflection or shadow of the true ideas or forms that exist eternally in the immaterial realm. These immutable, perfect, necessary, non-physical, and eternal metaphysical objects existing in the immaterial realm are the ‘original source’ of everything that exists, the one that ‘cast the shadows on the cave’, as Plato puts it.
The essence of beauty is something that brings those beholding it to transcend the material realm into the immaterial. The paintings of the van der Woud mages are of such quality that they resemble the forms of Plato’s true reality.
Thus, Maria, who gazed into the painting she had made with the iconography of St Longinus, transcended her state of mind to be closer to resembling that which was depicted on the painting itself, that of St. Longinus. Making her current state very suitable for using
trance mediumship intercession prayer for St. Longinus.
St. Longinus, though most commonly known as the patron of soldiers, and thus was invoked in military matters, also had a longstanding connection with clarity of vision and clairvoyance, as his blind eyes were said to be cured after Christ's blood spilt onto them while on the cross. In Brazil, for instance, he was often invoked in prayers to find a lost item.
That was the facets of St. Longinus that Karlien focused on as she placed her hands into the water. How it must have felt to be stripped of one's blindness and see clearly for the first time in one's life. Not only physically, but spiritually, realising that the Messiah of the world had come.
It would be akin to someone finally seeing the sun for the first time. Everything was finally able to be seen properly.
In other words, a
spell miracle of clairvoyance for scrying the owner of the handkerchief through the medium of water. Holy water in this case. And while 'holy water' only meant water blessed by the priests with no inherent magical property, it conceptually synergised well with the
thaumaturgical dogmatic foundation used.
Maria scooped some of the water, putting them into the small bottle on a pendant.
She then placed the pendant on top of Millhaven's map, before the pendant started to move on its own, eventually stopping at a particular spot on the map.
"I see...on the Business District, huh? I suppose I'll have to head there myself."
