“I have absolutely no idea what this is supposed to do,”
Bob said as he knelt down to examine the ritual site. It was a chilly spring morning in Harstad, which meant that to his sensibilities it might as well be mid-winter. Why anyone thought that this could be classified as spring was something Bob repeatedly struggled to comprehend. The ritual had been done at night right behind the swimming pool and literally a stone's throw away from the local police station.
Bob sniffed in the scent of dried blood, faint incense, and something he couldn’t quite identify, but whatever it was it reeked. He blinked away the tears that almost came out at the rancid smell of it all as he tried to suppress it and focus on the actual problem.
“You see this right here,”
Bob pointed to the circle that outlined it all.
“This is a pretty standard circle, which means that the magic of this is meant to be contained to this specific spot, or at least have an anchor here.”
“But that is where the sanity ends like just look at the spell-work around the circle perimeter,”
Bob indicated a complicated set of glyphs that looked like hieroglyphics but it was hard to tell as the chalk markings were not exactly neat.
“I presume those are Ancient Egyptian script which indicates old school ritual sorcery but then look here.”
His finger moved to indicate symbols that formed a sort of cross pattern when looked at from above.
“These are adapted from Icelandic folk magic, and I am pretty sure those squibbles on and around the centerpiece are in Classic Arabic. But with a random Hebrew letter in the middle.”
His audience patiently listened as Bob pointed out each inconsistency in the ritual before she chirped and spoke up.
“Sooooo it is a bust then?”
Lexie checked her wing while asking after having tried to pay attention as her master continued to babble on and on about the shoddy magic.
“Nope, whatever, it was that they tried to set up here it definitely did something. I just have no idea what it is doing.”
Lexie jumped forward to stare down at the mind-bogglingly complex and apparently extremely shoddy magical site. Which consisted of a circle, myriads of scribbles, and a bowl filled with blood and what looked to be cow eyes floating in the middle.
“Have you tried to turn it off and on?”
Lexie asked languidly as she glanced about to see what else could be in the narrow alley. Bob snorted in reply before adding,
“Yes...that was the first thing I tried when we got here. But, whoever, made this thing is either a demented genius or they accidentally stumbled upon a masterful spell-lock. Because I can’t even begin to guess where the off-switch on this thing even is. Like who uses animal eyes in a ritual like this?!”
Bob threw out his hands in frustration before he sighed.
“There isn’t much more to glean from this, so I will just have to take the risk. Record it please, I am going to have to examine this one when I am not standing outside in the freezing cold of a northern “spring morning".”
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Bob nodded to the little bird on his shoulder before pulling out his sampling kit. He carefully retrieved samples from the blood and the chalk, before he very carefully extracted a piece of one of the floating eyes. Then he pulled out a pair of black leather gloves, covered in a myriad of complex symbols.
Bob rose up and gave Lexie the time she needed to stare intensely at every part of the site before he sighed.
“Well then, let’s hope that whatever this thing did it won’t be damaging to stop it.”
He reached out with his left hand and quietly mumbled a short activation phrase in Koine Greek, which in turn sent magic coursing through his glove and out into the airspace above the ritual site. Turquoise sparks of magic flared up as the Hermetic counterspell enchantment warred with the complex mess on the ground, but soon enough he could sense the magic quickly fading from the site.
“Welp, with that, handled, let's go home shall we?”
Lexie added dryly as the sparks faded with the magic of the site gone.
“You could have spared me a whole bunch of time that I could have used to nap, rather than having to listen to you babble about cobbled-together street magic. If you had only done that at the start after you didn’t find the off-switch.”
Lexie mumbled sourly as Bob began to walk down towards the parking garage.
“No, I could not. Just messing with unknown magic sites like this, is just asking for trouble. That is why I am trying to understand what the hell I am looking at before I make a decision.”
Bob bit his lip against the cold as he replied to his familiar’s grumblings.
“Harald doesn’t do that and he gets the job done”
Lexie answered with a bit of smugness being projected through their bond.
“Harald is an idiot and you know it, he just charges in and hopes for the best. That shit is going to end up with his skin being liquified or something.”
Bob felt his cheeks flush a bit as Lexie had once again expertly gotten under his hide.
Before she could reply to that statement, the duo reached their parked Ford Fusion that stood alone in the parking house adjacent to Grottebadet. The local subterranean swimming pool that people from Harstad were so smugly proud of. Bob flicked out his car keys and pressed the button to unlock it before he slid into his seat. Lexie flapped down from his shoulder and down to her own designated “seat” on the dashboard.
“Soooo we can go home now?”
Lexie asked with an exaggerated innocence added to her tone.
“Nope, unfortunately, it is just straight off to work for us, but hey the upside is that we only have a few outcalls to do. So you won’t have to deal with me doing paperwork before or lunch.”
Bob said as he checked his phone to see the most recent emails he had gotten from work.
“Someone is having a problem with their car, the leader of the local Green party claims there is a haunting going on at their municipal office, and there is a spell malfunction at one of the elementary schools that is causing issues.”
Bob quickly added before Lexie could voice her displeasure, and he dropped his phone into the shotgun seat as he got the car started.
“Car problems? You are a municipal Spell-Cracker, why are you going to deal with people’s cars? Is it one of the municipal cars?”
Lexie remarked curiously as she stared out of the window before turning her attention back to Bob.
“Nope it seemed to be a private one, but the owner probably works at City Hall so he probably pulled some favors, so he could avoid having to pay for a private consultation,”
Bob answered as the car drove from the parking garage and out into the street.
“Ahhh so, whoever, this is they’re just stingy. Got it”
Lexie relaxed back into her modified bird seat as she went back to being mildly annoyed and disinterested in the current state of affairs. Bob on his end just sighed as he prepared for a long day at work, as he drove right into rush traffic that unfortunately plagued the south-side of Harstad in the early mornings.