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116. Preparations for the sabbath
🕑 Added 2025-11-07 22:43:01 +0000 UTCThe next two weeks were spent preparing for the sabbath. Q’Shar, although not without whining and bitching, completed the list of people “asking for an accident” very quickly, and I spent quite some time collecting souls, with the occasional kidnapping. The countryside mansion where I fought Ester turned out to be a great temporary holding ground.
Ophelia also began to engage with the knowledge her god had given her. Accessing it took a toll, as it would come to her in a form similar to visions, but she managed to decode a meditation technique and started practising it. Her orbit was coming along nicely, and she should be able to ascend very soon.
I, on the other hand, when not collecting souls or training my apprentice, was practising my third-circle spells. After two weeks, I finally mastered Blink. The success was paid for in many sleepless nights, as even with all the required knowledge, spatial magic was hard to perform.
But there was one problem I still had. I tried to find something about astral projection in the soul-related literature of the Butcher, and I did find some mentions here and there—even a full explanation of the skill—but nothing about the sensation of wearing your own flesh wrong.
However, just when I was about to let go of the issue, it was my favourite cat who fixed it for me, or at least proposed a fix. Apparently, he had signed a contract with the old fortune-teller to come to our side and partially work for us. Not sure of the details, but she was available and willing to try more complex fortune-telling.
I wasn’t sure I was happy about that, considering the compensation she would most likely require could bankrupt a large clan, but I had a lot of ingredients to figure out from the tomb. After setting up a meeting, I waited two more days and went to the carnival.
The place was clearly packing up as workers walked around, taking down tents and all the attractions. The only place left was the fortune-teller’s tent, still standing there as if open for customers.
Inside, I saw the old woman sitting by the table, waiting for me.
“Ah, Mr. Alhazred, welcome, welcome,” she said with something akin to a genuine smile.
This worried me. Did I drop a bag of obols at the entrance without noticing?
“Hello,” I said as I approached the table.
“Agatha—just call me Agatha, honey. No need to be a stranger.”
“Riiiight, Agatha, so I’m here to—”
“Identify some rare ingredients, yes. The cats told me all about it.”
I didn’t like that smile.
“So what will be the cost—”
“Oh, I already negotiated the prices with your broker. We can settle after everything is done.”
I winced. So that’s why she was smiling.
“So what’s the pricing?”
“Oooh, it depends on the deck I use. This one?” she said, pointing to a grey-brown deck with a simplified drawing of a sun and moon on the cover. “One obol per prediction. This one?” She pointed at another deck, a more colourful one with a fool dancing. “Ten obols if I have to use it. Aaaand,” she stretched the word as she pulled out a strange black-and-white deck with many runes decorating it, “one hundred obols if I have to use this one.”
“Uh-huh, doesn’t seem that bad.”
“Well. I did a reading for myself today, and do you know what card I pulled?” Before I could say anything, she pulled out a card from her pocket depicting a rain of gold coins falling from the sky. “Ehehehe, and I think my golden coins just arrived. So what do you have for me?”
I groaned and started pulling out ingredients I couldn’t identify. She then prepared a black mat and, after placing it in the middle of the table, pointed to its centre. I put a seed there, and the woman started shuffling the deck.
She started with the grey one, cut it in half, and then took the first card from the top. She placed it firmly next to the seed and… it was blank.
“Ehehehe,” she gave a raspy laugh, clearly happy about the outcome, and then repeated the same process with the second deck, only to end up drawing a blank once again. Finally, looking happily into my eyes, she picked up the third deck and, repeating the shuffling, drew a card depicting a green bush-like plant with a small white bird eating its fruit.
“It’s a seed of a plant.”
I looked at her like she was dumb. “Yeah, I’m not paying one hundred obols for that.”
“Calm down, boy. I’m only half scamming you, no need to get upset.” She gave me a wink as I reconsidered whether I preferred her in good or bad humour.
She then came back with another deck. It shared a similar black-and-white colour scheme, but the plant and bird from the drawn card were depicted on all of the backs of the new cards. After shuffling the deck, she placed a card on the table underneath the original. “Flesh-Eating Willow,” it said in arcane runes.
“Oh, so you have a Flesh-Eating Willow, huh?”
She then set another card aside. It depicted the bird. It was skinny and greyish. It was drawn sleeping in its nest, with some snow covering it like a statue.
“Oh. It is not in the best condition, but still alive—only hibernating. Possible to bloom.”
I nodded. “Good, so—”
“And that will be one hundred obols.”
My good humour dissipated with the widening smile of the old woman. I sighed and repeated the process with the rest of the stuff I had on me. By the end, the whole process cost me nine hundred eighty-three obols. It turned out that I had an excellent haul—from ingredients for elixirs to plants thought to be long extinct.
“So?” the woman croaked once she noticed all the items were done. “How about we check that skill of yours?”
“Huh?” I frowned.
“The astral projection. Or were you bullshitting me last time to look good?”
“No. But didn’t you say you couldn’t check it?”
“No, I was bullshitting.” She smiled with her crooked teeth as if it was something to be happy about.
“Why?”
“You could have told me mana was returning—I would have used some more on you,” she said, and went out back, only to stop halfway. “For a price,” she added and continued to her storage.
She brought out another large mat, this one with a sizeable magic circle in the middle.
“Here, drop some blood onto the centre.” As she said that, she pulled out another deck of cards, this one with something similar to a spirit drawn on the back, with the arcane symbol of the Eternal Spark in the corners. I could sense the cards were some sort of magic tools, and judging by the quality, not a cheap or common one.
“Place your hand in the middle, over where you dropped your blood.”
I did as she commanded. The woman shuffled the cards, and I could sense her powering the magic. She was a freshly ascended second circle. Not bad for her age.
Once mana flowed freely in the spell, she started to pull out cards. The first depicted a man lying in bed, with a transparent image of himself rising from his body.
“Oh, so you do know astral projection,” she said. “Impressive—truly amazing. An amazing person—”
“I’m not leaving a tip,” I cut her off.
She clicked her tongue and continued with the cards. She pulled them aside until she stopped on one depicting a featureless person standing before a massive wall.
“Well, let’s see what your problem is.”
She then reshuffled the deck.
The next card to come out depicted a person climbing a large staircase. Each step was taller than the last, and the man on the card struggled to pull himself up to the next.
“Your biggest limiting factor for now is simply your level. You struggle with some of the aspects because you are trying to climb steps that are too big for you. You yourself need to grow before taking them.”
I nodded, but still—even if my level was limiting the technique—that didn’t explain the body mismatch.
She drew another card.
“Oh, interesting,” she said.
It depicted twins holding hands. After placing the card to the left, she drew two more and put them underneath the twins.
The first showed a massive steel gauntlet crushing a person trying to free themselves, and the other depicted a person trying to squeeze into a strangely shaped box. The box was made of metal and had sharp edges that shaved off some of the person’s flesh.
“You force your control too much. You have a death grip on the skill you try to perform. You try to force yourself into a shape you don’t fit, and while doing it with a control as strong as yours, you hurt yourself in the process. Those problems are connected.”
I sat there deep in thought. That one was surprisingly informative. I was always told to snap your soul into your body hard and without hesitation, but what was this about the shape? Sure, my body was not human, but my soul should match it. Were they misaligned, or was I trying to misalign them during repossessing? If I let go at the last part—
“That will be two hundred obols,” the woman’s old voice broke me out of my thoughts. “Will there be anything more? Maybe seeing if your zodiac is compatible with your other half?”
“No, thank you.”
“You sure? You’re gonna need some strong compatibility with an attitude like that.”
I looked for a retort for a few seconds, but ended up just sighing and paying to get out of there. Before going, I also asked her to update any soul-related information on my personal scroll so that I could see the progress before the sabbath.
Of all the people, why did the cat have to make a contract with her? There must be more fortune tellers around. I looked at the sky for some time, waiting for the headache to go away.
***
Once back in my storage, I checked the scroll.
***
Race: ? Bloodline: ?
Circle: 3
Standard Spells per circle:
1st: 27
2nd: 9
3rd: 4
Attributes:
Body
Strength: 19
Dexterity: 23
Endurance: 25
Constitution: 17
Mind
Intelligence: 26 -> 27
Wisdom: 16 -> 18
Willpower: 29
Mental Defence (non-fear): 27 -> 28
Spirit
Soul: 20 -> 21
Instinct: 0
Faith: 1 -> 2
Manifestation: ?
Social
Empathy: 2
Charisma: 4 -> 5
Pressure: 25
Passion: 8
Skills: Multilingual; Authority Over Mana (apprentice); Authority Over Mind; Eldritch Madness; Eldritch Tongue; Servant to the Abyss; Spell Casting; Ritual Casting; Curse Weaving; Full Astral Projection (apprentice/adept); Golem Creation (novice/beginner); Darkvision; Accelerated Healing
Secrets: Fire, Space, Death, Mind
Mysteries: Space, Death, Curse, Soul (novice/beginner), Mind
Enigmas: Eldritch
It looked good, the progress was slow but steady, although I would soon see it slow down with each circle after the ascension being more complex and harder to progress. I wasn't sure I was happy about the faith increase, but after writing down my dream visions, it wasn't that much of a surprise. I was the same madman I always was, plus the occasional dog voices I was hearing, so nothing to worry about.
Also, it seemed like Full Astral Projection and my soul knowledge were on the brink of a breakthrough. It was an arbitrary measure, usually associated with either reaching a specific proficiency in a skill or fully comprehending a piece of knowledge deemed higher by whatever deity was doing the appraising. So I was on the brink of a complete understanding of some deeper secret from the Butcher’s books.
Finally, my eyes stopped on manifestation, which simply had a question mark—impossible to tell. I imagined it would stay like that until I got my hands on a body for my familiar. Sadly, I checked everywhere, but the flesh-warping, life-giving fluids of the Abyssal gods weren't just lying around my laboratory. I tried to trace the substance, but the only writing I found was in my grandfather's journals. Apparently, since the substance was of Shub-Niggurath and not our main god, it was taken care of and kept by a branch of the family. The last mention I found was in the later part of the war, when the branch was sent to the Vatican to help study the strange, curse-like disease as specialists in nature. After that, they disappeared from the writing. I hoped to find some more info in Rome once the sabbath was over.
***
I spent another week adding astral projection to my practice. And I had to say—the old woman might have been a greedy old bat, but she did know her stuff. Repossessing my body now took a little longer, but letting go of control in the last part seemed to let unseen parts snap back into balance. Picking the right moment turned out to be a challenge, but with some practice, it could be performed even if it went against the theory behind the skill.
I also managed to modify Flames of Purgatory to produce a jet of flame and use it to cleanse the soul cage of the rats, as I was running low on soul crystals. Now, with the cage empty, I could go all out on soul harvesting.
But the most interesting part was what I found behind the locked doors in the artefact. It was a book describing the skill Ester was using to mess with my thoughts, but a version for humans. I didn’t have the time to study it yet, but it seemed to be able to throw a foreign idea into someone’s head, just like she did, and to do it past most defences. Sadly, I was not a ghost, so the technique would be much more complex to perform and master, but it would be worth learning.
I was curious as to who placed it there, though, since anything that can enter a soul cage must be purely spiritual—so someone must have locked it there as the cage was being constructed.
Ophelia was also coming along nicely. I was afraid I would have to use elixirs to speed up her progress if she didn’t finish it before the sabbath. Still, it turned out I was worrying for nothing, as she finished her first orbit in the planned three weeks’ time, finally managing to cast some proper magic herself. To her surprise, there wasn't a big event. The first circle set into place smoothly, with the only sign she finished being the sudden increase in the pull of mana into herself and a slight change to her eye and hair colour, making them deeper and darker. She started with an excellent twelve spells available.
Like that, the time to prepare was coming to an end. I also got replies from my few friends. And with just three days until the sabbath, we would meet in Red Head to discuss the plans and strategy, and then travel to the Vatican to decide the fate of the world of magic.
Comments
Amelia Gaughan
Yay! New chapter!
