Eldritch Exorcist

The old woman sat me down at the table, and then went out back. After a few seconds of rummaging, she came back carrying a crystal ball. I could sense an energy radiating from it. The air started to smell like parchment, and felt warm and wise in a way that is hard to describe.

It was an altar to the god of records.

She placed the crystal ball on a small, circular table in a special stand in the center. She then sat right across from me.

"So, sonny. What ya want? I can read ya palm, I can tell ya about your skills. I can even sell some amulets. We have a great collec–"

"Can you check my race?"

"Huh?"

"My race. My lineage. Presence of any bloodline."

She looked me up and down but then nodded.

"Sure thing. Gimme your hand," she said as she stretched out her own palm.

"How much will it cost?" I asked before doing anything.

"Ya can afford it, no worries." She gave me a toothy grin.

I felt like I would pay an arm and a leg, but there were things I needed to know. I could haggle later, especially since 2000 obols were easily covered by the money from Brazil.

I stretched my hand. She took it in hers and, keeping it over the crystal ball, she then started to press my palm. Her skin felt like parchment, old and dry, but her fingers were surprisingly strong, not fitting the image of an old woman.

"Hmmm. Healthy, no diseases or curses. Although you should eat better."

She was currently stretching and pressing the Health line on my palm. "Your stamina ain't too bad either," she said, switching to the Heart line. "Yeh, you won't die from a heart attack any time soon."

She then went to the Head line. "Hmmmm." Her eyebrows shot up. "That's a lot of mana you got there, sonny. You one of them wizard types, eh?"

I nodded slightly.

"Well, they do say that mana used to have a thing for geniuses," she commented with eyebrows raised. "Hopefully geniuses pay well." She then added seemingly to herself, but loud enough for me to hear.

The woman looked over my lines once again, slowly observing every bend in my hand.

"Hmmm, all look human so far." She commented and then moved down to the part of the palm that made me question my humanity during my own reading.

I saw she stopped a bit, dragging her finger along the line going down into my wrist.

"Hmmmmm." She stretched the skin to her right. "Well, ya daddy seems human." She then stretched it to the left. "Oh. But ya mommy ain't."

I felt strange.

My father never talked much about my mother, although he seemed to be in love with her, judging by the strangeness that would always show on his face when she was mentioned. After my own judgment ritual, I kind of expected that verdict. But having it confirmed still felt weird.

After thinking about myself as human for so long, it turned out that I was only partially human. I at least had the blood of a different species. But that didn't mean I inherited a bloodline. Those were two different things, and I did not show any blessing of a lineage so far.

"Can you tell me what my mother was?" I asked.

She looked at the line, pressing and stretching some more until she groaned and got up.

"Wait here." She said before disappearing from my sight into the back of the tent.

She returned with a massive book, which she dropped onto the table. She then started to leaf through it, not paying me any attention.

I could see a growing frustration on her face. I knew peeking into others' grimoires was rude, so I kept my curiosity on the leash.

"Can you at least tell me what I classify as?" I asked after a few minutes of silence.

"Did ya daddy fuck a horse?" she snapped.

"No?"

"Well then ya ain't a centaur." The old crow spat and flipped some more pages before finally giving up on the whole process.

"Well, ya daddy has strange tastes apparently," she grumbled. "I'm not sure what it was. And before ya ask, I can't tell ya if you have a bloodline without knowing what type I'm looking for."

"Can't you somehow check that?" I asked, looking strongly at the crystal ball.

"Do I look like an ancient fortune teller? Be glad I can tell you that much."

"Okay, okay. Can you check my attributes?"

She nodded and then took out a pendulum. But unlike me, she didn't even swing it. She turned and stretched my hand, placing the pendulum over different parts as it just changed its angle. The stone at its end didn't even vibrate. It just moved immediately into the proper position and stayed in it as if glued to something in the air.

"Intelligence 23," she whistled as she was naming my attributes.

"Willpower 25." She stopped. It was the first time she needed to do a double-take. She furrowed her eyebrows and then looked at my fingers.

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"Interesting. Ya sure you didn't have a bloodline manifest?"

"Quite."

She shrugged and went back to the pendulum. I got most of my attributes correct with the judgment ritual with the exception of soul, which was apparently close to 19, and intelligence, which was also breaking into 23. That and empathy, which was 2 instead of 3.

Oh well.

The woman, although not the nicest person I know, was a real professional, giving me some time to process all the attributes and write them down, not asking any unnecessary questions.

"Okay. I'd like you to tell me something. Can you tell if someone is ready for an ascension?"

The woman placed her elbows on the table as she squinted at me. "Yer at a second circle. You want to ascend?"

"Asking for a friend."

She chuckled.

"Yes, I can. So what does that friend of yours would like to know?"

"He is ready for ascension. Every time he adds any more mana to his circle, it tries to solidify. But he feels that something is wrong with the orbit."

"Checking the orbit gonna cost ya extra."

I rolled my eyes and agreed.

She got up and went back to the back room from which she got the massive tome she used to check my palm reading. She came back with a teacup and a metal box. When she opened the box, I could smell the fragrance of tea and dried fruits. I looked inside and sure enough, it was actually a tea container.

She put on some water, and once it boiled, she came with the teacup and the hot water.

"Give me your hand." She said, and I stretched out my palm. She then pierced my finger with a silver needle and let a drop of blood fall into the teacup. Afterwards, she poured the hot water over the leaves and handed me the teacup.

"Swirl it over the ball."

I did as instructed and felt quite a bit of magic flow from her towards the crystal ball as she murmured a spell.

"Good, now drink it in one gulp."

I poured the hot liquid down my throat. Thankfully, it was not hot enough to burn me.

After that, I looked into the cup. The tea leaves created three concentric circles at the bottom of the cup.

She snatched it from my hands and started to look inside. Her eyebrows were coming closer and closer together as her face finally morphed into something akin to a mix of anger and confusion. She then shot up from her seat and went into the back room once again, murmuring something about "weird fukin Alhazreds and their weird fukin problems." She came back with another massive tome.

After slamming it down next to the first one, she started to look through it, checking the teacup from time to time and comparing it against something inside the book.

After another fifteen minutes, I was sure that the outcome would be the same as with the first case, but she finally smiled after checking the cup a few times.

"Well, ain't that interestin'. This can happen when someone's primary magic attribute is way over their level. Then, when building a major circle, they can overcharge it, create a bigger ring than it should be possible, by keeping more mana under control during the ascension."

"Oh." That sounded interesting.

"Yeah. But that's where the good news ends. To overcharge a circle, they would need to inject an already whole clump of mana and reattune it towards themselves during the ascension. Aside from being dangerous, good luck finding a third circle enemy to kill and devour their magic. Yer friend should just ascend."

I sat back in the chair. This was a bit of an issue. There was a difference between mana from a person and ambient mana. Mana that was in someone's soul would stick together due to its attunement, creating one whole, which is why building circles using it was faster and easier. You would reattune the entire clump to yourself and jump forward by a big margin, unlike ambient mana, which, when not controlled, would dissipate into the environment, making dragging it in slower and gradual. So, to overcharge a circle, I would need to kill something in the third tier and use its magic.

I could use a reaper demon from Brazil right about now, but I used his mana already as the foundation of my third ring. Shit. I wanted to ascend before the sabbath, but a chance to build a better foundation was not something I wanted to let slip by me.

"Okay. My friend will surely be happy with the answer." I joked.

"That all, sonny?"

"Can you do a tarot reading over skills?"

"Depends on the skill."

"Full Astral Projection."

"Oh. Impressive." She said, raising her eyebrows in surprise.

"Thank you."

"I'm sure someone who knows somethin' like that must be a great person."

"Thanks?"

"Surely they would leave a large tip."

I just looked at her flatly as she shot me a crooked smile. I felt like I was talking to my broker all over again.

"But no. That is too high a skill. You need someone after the first ascension. And not everyone wants to waste mana on staying alive."

I ignored the jab. I would return once she figured out what was going on and upgraded her magic.

"Well then, that's all."

I was preparing to haggle at least a bit, but the woman just tilted forward. "Well, can I interest you in a personal seal scroll?"

"Personal seal. I'm not a demon, you know?"

"Well, ye got me fooled. But what I'm offering is a scroll showing all your attributes. Once created, just a drop of blood is enough to reveal all you need to know, in the presence of an altar of the god of records, of course. But that would make any future readings much easier."

Seal scrolls. Now that I thought about it, the name seemed familiar. I think they were used in the past, but I didn't think anyone knew how to produce them. It would make my life easier, sure. But…

"What would be the cost?"

"With all the reading and advice about overcharging circles, the scroll would net you 2000 obols if you cover the cost of mana."

I looked at her flatly. "My apprentice is waiting outside."

"We're 50% off just for today," she said, not missing a beat.

"What a coincidence."

"Well, and those scrolls have to be fashioned from your own skin, so some healing potions are recommended. And anesthetics."

"You don't provide those?"

"Oh, but we do. At the small extra charge of–" I raised my hand.

I did not want to know the cost of that small extra charge.

"I'll take them if you drop the cost to 1000 obols total for both of us."

What followed was boring price negotiations, which finally brought the price down to 1300 obols for me and Ophelia, plus me covering the mana used, which wasn't a problem.

I was massaging my head in front of the tent with a slight headache. There was a small line in front of it as the whole process took quite a bit of time.

"Is everything okay?" Ophelia asked.

"Yep. I already paid for you. 1300 god damn obols, she better tell you all you need to know."

"That's a lot?"

"Yes. Obols are a special currency, mostly used for contracts. I'll tell you about it when we talk about summoning. Think of one as around 100 dollars, but that is very approximate, as no one would sell obols for dollars. For now, just go in and get everything checked."

"All right."

Ophelia walked into the tent as I waited outside. I needed to tell her we would be getting scrolls made from our skin, but hopefully it wouldn't weird her out too much. Thankfully, regrowing skin without scar tissue was possible with lower-level potions, so it shouldn't be too much of a bother.

Now I had a different issue to deal with. I needed to figure out how to get my hands on a third-level creature. And those didn't exactly appear out of nowhere, not for some time at least.

Just then, my phone rang, with an unknown number showing on the screen. I had time to kill, so I picked up and heard a young, slightly panicked voice on the other end.

"Hello. Samuel? Samuel the exorcist?"