The following days were busy, she spent most of the time designing new scrolls, or rather grimoires with how many inscriptions were stored in the rubies. It felt strange to refer to them as scrolls when they weren’t made of paper, but it wasn’t the first time someone had made them out of an alternative material. In the olden days many of them had been made out of bone or animal skin, although it would have to be long dead to let the magic out. Scribing mediums had to be magically inert and unfortunately living things needed magic to survive, despite the dreams of several alchemetrixes.
The first grimoire she made was, to put it bluntly, completely overkill. She had no reason to make it, except to waste money, and waste money she did. The raw amount of magic contained within the reagents to make it were worth twelve thousand Astrancs, a little less than half her automobile. The only reason it should ever be used was if she needed no one and nothing to survive, a grimoire to ensure a cataclysm. She made it only for personal satisfaction, a culmination of all her skill, it used a mixture of phosphorous, oxygen, salt, mercury, and gold magics. It could automatically target enemies and respond to voice commands by using a few gold detection spells, mercury moved destructive payloads of phosphorous and oxygen, with salt magics keeping them contained until they had reached the target. These were merely the base magics of the grimoire, they would be altered to suit environmental conditions, like confined spaces, and would also adjust to opponents, in regards to factors like speed or strength. Since the grimoire would be an independent actor, she also gave it a few defensive inscriptions, similar to the mercury grimoire she previously made, it would be performing evasive maneuvers, as well as an abjurative salt shield in the worst case.
The second grimoire was a much more sensible version of the first, mostly using tin lightning strikes and a less intense version of the phosphorous blasts, reserved for sturdier targets. It still had the other bells and whistles in terms of target detection and evasion, just a less… destructive methodology when using them.
Counting the mercury grimoire she now had three grimoires ready for battle and moved on to making a few miscellaneous scrolls and materials. She made a few healing elixirs, one of the most prized products an alchemetrix could make since few mages were altruistic enough to specialize in it, and the church preferred to hide their priests behind stiff fees. She also made several illusion scrolls to make up for the one she used on the train. Illusions were a weakness of alchemy, the irony of which was not lost on Cece, as illusions were the domain of silver magic. Silver mages could will an illusion to adapt to the situation at hand, but an alchemetrix would need to plan its actions beforehand. Perhaps with the storage space of the rubies she would be able to make more complex illusions, but still she would have to predict all possibilities, and that would be exhausting.
While she was at it she decided to make a few alchemical fire and acid bombs, since they were always useful, even if transmuting a glass orb to contain the liquids was a little difficult. Alchemy was generally considered a poor man’s magic, but it was able to transmute a variety of useful alchemical materials by using a variety of elements, which mages had a hard time emulating since they tended to specialize in one. They didn’t have to and there were plenty of mages who combined elements, but it was generally best practice to stick to one or two elements. Although mercury mages tended to do more so since it combined so nicely with the other elements.
With the messy parts done, she was prepared to go after her next targets, although first she should send off for the recipe to synthesize rubies, that was far too important to ignore. She took care of that and a few more trivial matters before starting her next plan, although start wasn’t the right word, she was always thinking about it after all, how she would ruin that disgusting family. Adrian had been easy, she hadn’t even needed a disguise, she had no idea why Solastria had him move alone, they tended towards groups for safety. She thought he might have been a test to see if someone was targeting them, but she found it unlikely, mages killed each other too frequently for her one previous kill to be suspected as a grudge against the family. This time however would be her first venture against a group, an isolated branch family, but a group nonetheless. Although they were considered “Solastria” they were a branch that was subservient to them, a small family with only four adult members.
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Cece rested the rest of the night to prepare herself for the next day. She did some stretches, ate a light meal, and slept in. She got ready the next day in a black blouse, a pair of trousers that were becoming popular with working women, and a short brunette wig. She used a long duration illusion scroll on herself to make subtle changes to her facial structure, and most notably hide her daemonic eye. Finally she disguised her purse that she stored her various tools and scrolls in, the space that was inside was enchanted with some very expensive platinum magics. She looked in the mirror and almost laughed at how different she appeared, but instead she wordlessly and quietly left her apartment and headed to the garage for her automobile. She could have taken an airship, but it was only a few hours drive, and this way she would have to interact with fewer people. Although she thought she’d be able to act just fine, it wasn’t her expertise and didn’t want to take unnecessary risks. All these layers of obfuscation might not be needed, they would have trouble knowing who she was even if she went undisguised since she was a fairly private and insignificant figure, but she was planning on leaving survivors. The mages had two children, and she had decided long ago that she wouldn’t kill children. She was no saint, but children dying was exactly why she had started this. She didn’t care if they came after her, she hoped that the souls of every adult in their accursed family would buy her enough boons to smack down any childish attempts at vengeance, but even if they succeeded, she wouldn’t mind. She had died the day that Silva had.
It was a quiet drive, she had used an illusion scroll to change the color of the car as well. The sun was beginning to set and she almost let herself think it was beautiful, the reds and oranges lighting up the sky. As she got near where the family’s home was supposed to be she found a good place to pull over. She took the key out of the ignition and pulled a tarp over the car, using another illusion scroll to layer the static image of a bush over the machine. She would be walking the rest of the way.
The house was beautiful, in the middle of nowhere, but beautiful nonetheless. It stood at least four stories tall, with a large tower, and several tasteful statues. More importantly it was covered to hell and back with wards, wards that would take her hours to pierce, luckily she had a better plan. After all, she had studied this family for a few weeks now, she knew how they treated helpless strangers. She would have to do her best to play the part though, and if worst came to worse, she would unleash hell.
She feigned hesitation as she walked up to the porch and knocked the heavy brass knocker that adorned the oak door. After a few seconds a man in a black coat and tie, at least sixty years old, opened the door.
“I- I’m so sorry sir, but I appear to have lost my way, and I was wondering if you could tell me what way Cestra is?” She stuttered, doing her best to play her part.
“Cestra is that way my dear.” The butler replied while pointing the wrong direction. Cestra was the nearest town and it was due south of this house, the butler was point to the road east of the house. “but let me see if the Master and Mistress could host you for the night, it’s getting late.”
“T-Thank you so much, sir!” She replied. After only a few minutes he returned and ushered her in, showing her to a room.
“The Master and Mistress would like to invite you for dinner. It will be served in a half hour.” He told her.
“I would be honored, thank you sir.” She said suppressing a vicious grin.