Chapter 3-66: Somebody is Watching Me (1/2)
I turned away, and the hair on my scalp went up. My head snapped back around, and I stared directly at the sky palomino statue.
It hadn’t moved at all, but I could definitely tell it was looking at me.
It was a Scrying Focus...
Magical items made by a Caster are ideal targets for their Scrying. The Karmic Cost that binds the magic to the item means a little bit of your soul is actually in every magical item you make. Couple that with potentially crafting the item, and then having to Spellcraft the magic into the item personally, and you have an intimacy and familiarity with the item that is nigh impossible to replicate with anything else.
If you take steps to make the item easy to Scry by playing on this connection, then Scrying on something you’ve made is practically effortless.
She was Scrying through it right now, and looking at me, and my black eyes.
At Traveler, who she thought was her half-sister, not knowing Elrii was dead.
She could certainly see that I wasn’t pregnant anymore, however.
A lot of thoughts ran through my head as I looked back into the eyes on the other side of the horse.
The scrapbook had showed that Elrii definitely had an obsession with her family. If there had been any correspondence or contact with them, I was very certain she would have kept it... but I hadn’t seen any letters or things like that.
I was under the impression that they were not allowed to contact her. Given how strong they were, and grown up enough, that would have been impossible to enforce for a spellcaster... without magic.
Morningfire had already proved herself heartless enough to freeze out a no-magic daughter and scrub her existence away. Using a Geas or something similar on her children to enforce a lack of contact was entirely possible, too.
That being said, that wouldn’t stop someone from practicing their Scrying on a useful target, and Elrii, with no magic, might not even have known that her little horse was a Scrying Focus.
I certainly did, however, and the magic of the Scryer was the magic of the maker of the horse...
I eyed that horse, and the innocent love and goodwill behind it, and chose to believe that at least one member of the Morningsun family wasn’t a complete bitch.
I flicked my hand, and seven Shards slowly spun up around it.
They were burning with blazing red flames, searing golden fire, and cool vivic whiteness around the teardrops of jet and silver.
There was no better way to display that yes indeed, I did have magic now. I could only imagine the astonishment on the other end at the number of Shards I was showing.
I let them fade away, and flicked up a Holo, taking a page from Master Fred’s book.
I AM STILL A ONE.
MY BABY BOY WAS STOLEN BY THE CHURCH OF SHOUL, AND I NEARLY DIED. IT IS HOW MY MAGIC WAS AWAKENED.
I WILL BE FINE. THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONCERN OVER THE YEARS. DO NOT TELL THE OTHERS, THEY HAVE NO RIGHT TO KNOW ANYTHING.
There was a surge from the other end of the Scrying, and then the watcher was gone...
Okay, another problem. I was now an Internet celebrity. Some chuckleheads were going to start Scrying me for whatever reason... I was kind of surprised that they hadn’t already. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that it would be a problem, as Aelryinth was used to walking around with a fully powered-up Astral Ward active all the time just to stop that sort of idiocy.
I rubbed my temples and sighed. Okay, I had wanted to further the protective powers of my Ring, but obviously I was going to need some Divinatory protection ASAP.
“Master Fred!” I called out, heading downstairs. “I need to request the loan of something from the Church of Harse or your other contacts, until I can arrange for something better myself...”
------
Oddly enough, arranging for the short-term loan of an Amulet designed to foil Scrying and Divinatory magic directed at me wasn’t hard. It was only a Valence II effect, so any Three or higher could duplicate the effect, and if I was only going to borrow it, the owner could just spend a II every day until I returned it.
Of course, it cost six goldweight to make the thing, so it was worth nearly a million dollars...
That also meant I needed to earn some Karma every day that I could feed to Einz... and Clavus, as it were.
That also meant I needed to make enough Naming Karma for both my Ring and Weapon every day to keep advancing them... or I was going to need gold.
That... would not be difficult at all. There was another Shroudzone right up the way. As long as I restricted the number of undead that I killed to a handful every day, that would satisfy both needs.
If Master Fred was with me, I could advance the Name of his Sword and Gun, too...
------