Chương 67: 62. Pieces don't fit

Ophelia looked at the thing curiously.

"What is that?"

"An artifact. It used to be very popular among summoners and ritualists." I raised it slightly.

"It's a container for souls. They are relatively rare these days and seldom used."

"So we can't rule out an anomaly."

"Yes. There had to be a proper mage in the family at some point." She was getting the hang of it.

"Can you go in there and get the younger brother's soul?" I shook my head.

"No, that would be suicide with the ghost still around."

"Weren't you going to fight it anyway?"

"Spirit cages are different from normal storage artifacts. They can't be entered by anything physical. You would have to astral-project inside, and going up against a spirit in astral projection is not the best idea." Ophelia looked at the artifact curiously.

"So what should be our next steps? What would be the attack plan?" I asked, still looking over the cage. Ophelia took some time to gather her thoughts.

"So if we can't go to the ghost, then we need to get the ghost to come to us. Figure out the object of its obsession and lure it out?"

"And hope that it's not so absorbed with Liam that it won't let go of him," I finished.

"But first, let's confirm that his soul was actually pulled out." I put the artifact inside the box for now. We got our stuff and went back downstairs to the two waiting in the living room.

"I got the basics. I would like to see your brother's body." Daniel nodded, and we were led to another room. It was a guest room by the looks of it, bare bones, with only a lamp on a nightstand and a few paintings standing by the wall decorating the room. The only larger furniture was a massive bed with the limp body of a young man lying on it. I approached it. Ophelia also came by, curious, but I stopped her with my hand before she got any closer. She looked at me questioningly.

"Ghosts pretending they are defeated or dormant to attack you once your guard is down is the oldest trick in the book. Don't fall for it." As I said that, I took out restraints from the bag.

"Is that necessary?" asked Emma, still in the doorway, as she furrowed her eyebrows at the restraints, looking like some gear from a mental institution.

"Just a precaution. Some ghosts can lie still just to take you out in one sudden attack," I explained. I passed Ophelia some of the restraints and warned her to watch out when putting them on. The body didn't look changed, so even if the ghost sat in it, it shouldn't have that much power. We started putting on the clasps as Daniel watched with growing concern. He finally took a breath and spoke up, "Is it real?"

"What?"

"The ghost. Is it real, or are you just putting on a show?" he asked, trying to look into my eyes but failing pretty quickly.

"Daniel," whispered the girl.

"Didn't you see the ghost perform magic?"

"I don't know what I saw. What if it were a mass hallucination or some sort of mental breakdown? Or… or… I don't know."

"Okay. If your brother doesn't regain consciousness, you don't have to pay me anything. How about that?" Daniel looked at me, surprised, but before he figured out his next sentence, I cut him off.

"Go rest for now. The daytime should be safe. We'll finish here and check out the attic later." He nodded and went away with the girl. We finished putting on the restraints without much issue. It really looked like there was no soul in the body. I took out a spirit mirror and brought it next to his mouth.

"He isn't breathing?!" exclaimed Ophelia, seeing no fog appear on the mirror.

"He is breathing. This checks for the breath of the soul. No fog means no soul in the body, or the soul is damaged."

"So the body is empty?" She looked at it from different angles, like a doctor checking a patient.

"The spirit and spiritual parts of the mind are gone, but there could be something hiding inside." I then went over the whole checklist, checking for mana flow, but nothing. I pierced him with a silver needle, also nothing. Checking for the mind with the bell, no reaction. It really was just a husk left.

"Well, it seems the ghost really got his soul and left. Nothing much to do here. Leave him in the restraints and let's go to the attic." I turned to leave, but as I did, I noticed something sticking out from under the bed. I bent down and pulled out what looked to be a sketchbook. I opened it. The first drawing was of one of the paintings that stood in the room, but that was not what got my attention. Some of the details were clearly changed and improved. The sketch gave a strange, hypnotic feeling.

"1. 6 from the eye, then 60 degrees… interesting," I murmured to myself, looking at the picture.

"What is it?" asked Ophelia. I broke from my thoughts.

"Nothing for now." This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. I turned the page to another drawing. It was of a cross in a circle. It looked to be a sun cross, sometimes also known as a Celtic cross, later mostly associated with Christianity. Before, many religions used it, but in these parts, it should be Christians, especially if the mage family isn't that old to have ties to pre-Christian religions. I furrowed my eyebrows.

Was some religious group involved? One using a sun cross? I will need to check out more about the family history. I turned more pages, and more crosses appeared. That brought my eyebrows even closer. They were drawn in increasingly erratic ways. Finally, the author tore the paper, leaving holes in it, as he scratched the circle with the cross into the paper. It was clear it was somehow connected and in a substantial way, if this was what the possession drove him to draw, but why? What was a sun cross doing here?

Unless it was some sort of compound symbol or a lesser-known one that I just mistook for the sun cross. The case was getting weirder.

"We should go find the place where the Ouija board was found," I said without looking up from the drawing. We went to the attic, my mind still on the symbol, trying to figure out how the pieces fit.

"So how does that work?" asked Ophelia as we were walking the corridors, trying to find the room in question from the description alone.

"How does what work?" I asked back without much thinking, still focused on the drawings.

"Losing your soul. And why do ghosts even want someone's soul?"

"All spiritual beings want souls. That's why they bargain for them."

"Why?"

"It has to do with their sigils and inability to change. But when it comes to the undead, it's usually simply an instinctual hunger. They initially feed off negative aura." Ophelia nodded.

"That was in the testament."

"Right, so aura is like an energy radiated by the soul. Negative emotions tire it out, and ghosts feed off them. They don't let you rest, making sure the soul doesn't recover the spent vitality. Then, once it is weak enough, they will try to pull it to feed off it directly. For intelligent ghosts, at least."

"Can he see and feel? Liam, I mean. Is he aware in there?"

"More or less. Spiritual vision and sensations are different, but yes, he should be aware. Although without proper training, he probably can't move his soul around and lies there limply. Maybe moving slightly if his Soul attribute is over ten."

"That's horrible."

"Don't worry. I'll teach you how to train your soul so that you aren't helpless in that state, but yes, getting your soul pulled out is horrible." We finally arrived at the entrance to the attic. I looked up. The ceiling was low enough to reach from the bed. I jumped and pulled myself up, and then helped Ophelia. The attic was a massive, long room, cluttered with chests, coffers, wardrobes, and everything in between.

It must have had some sort of proper entrance with stairs at some point in time, as there's no way that many things would go through the single opening in the ceiling. So someone refashioned it for that. I looked around, focusing my gaze on the floor. And sure enough, the planks over the room from which we had just entered were newer and a bit different in color from the walls. Someone changed them, but when, I couldn't tell. Next for the vein.

I walked around, concentrating on my senses, and went looking for an overturned wardrobe. And there it was, the wardrobe and the vein. It was not surprising. Something had to power the Ouija board initially. I focused and tried to check how big the mana pool was. I noticed something strange. The magic could be sensed in about a half-meter radius over where I assume the vein exit was.

To get the precise location and size, I would need to do a ritual, but the radius was slightly smaller than the one in the old spawn house, and that meant one of two things. Either the vein was even smaller, which was unlikely considering how minor the old one was, or it was a bigger vein that had connected very recently. If medium-sized veins are starting to come online, then it won't be long until everyone else starts running into them.

If this one turned out to be a medium-sized vein, that might actually justify buying the house by the cats, although I don't want to know the price of a mansion like that.

"Look for documents, journals, anything, especially around that area. Also, there should be some empty mana crystals somewhere. They look like the ones I showed you, but without the shine," I instructed Ophelia, putting off the matter of the house for later. Ophelia and I started looking through the numerous books and documents in the coffers. It was a hard task.

The family appeared to have a large number of members, but the good news was that they were nobility of some sort, and their history was well-documented, judging by the numerous books and papers. There was a chance we would find a journal mentioning someone by the name Ester. The downside was that it would require a significant amount of work. After around an hour, it was Ophelia who found the first interesting thing.

"Satanism Uncovered," Ophelia read aloud, looking at a thick book.

"I think you are on a good track. Where did you find it?" Ophelia pointed at one of the coffers next to the wardrobe. I pulled it out and started taking some stuff from it. Aside from many books and documents, I immediately recognized one thing. An old arcane focus.

"Bingo," I said. We started to look through the books. The ones on top mainly were more modern occult ones, mixing some real info with a lot of nonsense. But deeper inside, I finally found two tomes that looked promising. One on summoning and contacting demons, and the second one on mental magic and spirits. Whoever owned those must have been a spiritual specialist. The books were clearly used, some pages missing or torn, but the text was readable.

They weren't original, as they were translations into Old English, but the rituals described were real. I leafed through the one on spirits. It was half book, half research journal, with a lot of notes and some research logs inserted into the book. Ophelia was flipping through the other tome.

"Satanist?" she asked, showing me a page with something that looked like a prayer to Lucifer.

"Most likely. Although I don't sense any altar or idol around."

"So do you think some evil stuff happened to Ester and she became a ghost?"

"Why would you assume that?" I asked.

"Well, don't Satanists do sacrifices?"

"I do sacrifices as well," I said with raised eyebrows. She choked a bit as I smiled.

"Just because someone is a Satanist doesn't mean they are evil or that they sacrifice people."

"But didn't they start some magic world war?"

"They were one of the main parties, but I never said they started it." Ophelia wanted to ask another question, but I pointed at the pile of books.

"You'd better find something mentioning Ester first. We can talk about Satanists later." Especially since the books on satanism didn't fit that well with my sun cross. Was it related to some even older religion, or were there Christians later in the story fighting the satanists? It didn't fit the picture. We went back to the search, mostly trying to locate a journal of some sort, as I was flipping through the chaotic research-paper/magic book.

It took us around two hours to find any mention of someone named Ester, and another two hours to extract information from the archaic English. And the story was not a pleasant one. The initial journals belonged to a man named Frank Broth. He was fascinated with occultism and magic, recognizing his family's roots in it, although never knowing the truth. From the way he described his fascination with Satanism and occultism, I would assume he was a descendant of mages who lost their magic.

He was simply born without mana. His idea of magic became what the modern world thinks magic is. They cast curses and claim it works when someone happens to fall down the stairs, and when nothing happens, they say it was the wrong place or energy or some other bullshit. The history described in the journals was that of a researcher and the head of a family, but then it takes a turn for the worse around the year 1845. The man's wife dies in childbirth, giving birth to a girl named Ester.

Nine years later, he remarries to a woman named Linda. At first, she seems nice, but as time passes, her façade crumbles, revealing her greed and cruelty. Linda becomes pregnant very quickly, and the moment she gives birth to a boy, who, by the laws of those times, can inherit the money, the man dies of illness. What a coincidence. After that, it is Linda's journals that continue. But they are entirely different from the neat, tidy writing of a scholar.

The new text transformed into the narcissistic writing of a person determined to leave their journals as a sort of family heirloom, certain of their own importance. Extracting any information from the pages of chaotic writings became torture. And sadly, the story of Ester also became as unpleasant as the writing.