“Slow down. Slow down.” Sue raised her right hand at Turner while rubbing her temples with her left: “I’ve had a rough day as well, so - my brain’s a little foggy today. It’s - I’m no expert, so please don’t take this as criticism or me not trusting you, okay? But why would this - carving spell be difficult?”
“No - nonono, don’t worry.” Turner shrugged and shook his head: “I’ve asked this question. Many have. It’s not an uncommon question. But it seemed that - it’s because carving spells require a certain level of skill to make right. Because it is - if you think about it this way - normally, most of the spells are cast through talismans or arrays, they’re two dimensional and symbolic. Talismans, arrays they are all created using symbols - symbols with power and grouped together using certain combinations. But these carving spells - they’re - ”
“They’re concrete and three dimensional.” Sue nodded: “Which makes them - absorb energy and manifest it in different ways?”
“Exactly.” Turner nodded: “And - have you heard about the practice ‘Visualization’?”
“It’s the practice of staring at certain drawings and paintings to train the mind right?”
“Yes - it’s a mind training and cultivation method for monks and oldschool practitioners. Not so common anymore.” Turner continued: “It is, from what I’ve learned, not a very easy practice, and could lead to hallucination and even severe mental illness if you’re not careful and focused. Using carving spells seems to be quite similar to the process of visualization - you’ll actually have to have a vivid image of an object in your head and solidify it using whatever object or energy at your disposal. And for the purpose of the carving spells like this, or the wood carving you found in cat granny, it requires the caster to have - well, I don’t know how to properly describe it - ”
“It requires the caster to have a clear mental image of what the object to mimic is like?” Sue scratched her jaw.
“Something like that - yes. ” Turner sighed: “It’s just a mental image though - it needs - I don’t know, some kind of mental imprint or deep impression. From what I read from the records, if the caster is not mentally strong enough, or has a clear enough impression of the object, the spell will consume their sanity, their focus and their will, eventually their identity. So - ”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“So you mean, whoever cast the spell to - to recreate the image of the cat granny, knows what she was like to one of the deepest levels a human can.” Sue nodded.
“Yes, and - ” Turner ruffled through some of the notes he put on the desk beside him: “But here’s the thing - it explains the ‘cat granny’, but how the fuck, I mean HOW, THE FUCK, can anyone has any impression of Shyurak?”
Sue did not immediately respond - she could only continue scratching her jaw, then her nose. She had a thought, but it was a bit of a stretch, and might need Turner to confirm.
“From what I could find about this - is that there must be somewhere in the city, where the legendarily evil and vile dragon Shyurak had left its mark, or something with its image embedded. Or - or - here’s a even more unorthodox and even fantastical thought: someone, someone really really, really immensely powerful, had created the image of Shyurak for those cultists running the temple to use.” Turner thought for a quick moment, then turned around and handed a small printed brochure to Sue: “This is purely my speculation. But that’s - that’s not important right now, we can look into it later. Here - this is everything I can conclude for now about the circumstances and how to trace the ones who created the cat granny. Sorry for the tangent - ”
“No worries.” Sue chuckled as she took the printed brochure and started glancing through. She stopped at one of the pages: “Wait, here: to perform a carving spell safely, it requires at least three people?”
“Yes. And this is one of the reasons I want to get you here as soon as possible.” Turner lowered his voice to almost a whisper: “Like I said - it’s no simple spell. I found this number from an old manual deep in the ancient records section.”
“This means - and it requires blood and some blessed artifacts as well - this is not a cheap spell to cast.” Sue frowned: “What the - then who the hell would conjure up the cat granny? What do they want?”
“My guess would be to mask the disappearing kids and to redirect attention.” Turner spoke with an even lower voice: “I guess I don’t have to tell you about this - but the string of child abductions all over the city is catching quite a bit of attention. That, and the bizarre deaths all around the city. And of course, this information being shared all over the internet does not help.”
Sue ticked her tongue as she turned a few more pages, then she stopped at the second last page with a title “Stagnation of Qiyun and the overhaul to quell paranormality.”
“Yeah - this is something I found, because you mentioned that there is Qiyun stagnation and weird distribution around the docks area. I thought it might help.”
“Thank you, this is - this is very helpful.” Sue nodded and closed the brochure down. “But - do you have anything else? I - I’m sorry but I really need to get back to Gloria.”
“Oh, just this.” Turner pulled out a small booklet from his pocket: “Keep this with you, and don’t let anyone other than you, Gyuu Park and Gloria see it.”
“What is this?”
“It’s the secret note of one of the cultists running that underground temple all those years ago.” Turner responded: “I don’t know how, but it’s not put into evidence lockers where it should be, but kept by some - questionable folks. I went through some trouble to get it.”