The occult wing is filled with volumes upon volumes of musty, torn tomes, all with obscure names such as "Die Hexe", "Liber Malum" and "Wytch-huntyng and Thou". You find one about witches and their powers easily enough, and it corresponds well enough with what your grandmother and mother said about witches to be mostly true. The reading in the dark library takes you well over an hour, and by the end of it your eyes are straining and red. You attribute it to reading by candlelight for so long, but something inside you says that that's not what's hurting your eyes so much.
You summarize the contents of the book (titled: Anatomie of a Wytch) onto your notebook:
1. The coven is led by a pureblooded witch. Pureblooded witches are created by making pacts with a demon or evil spirit, and every other generation of girls in their family will also be afflicted.
2. The rest of the coven is comprised of enthralled witches, the common witch they used to burn at the stake. They lack the level of malice and power and majesty that purebloods have, nor can they cast spells on their own. They help with mundane tasks such as getting reagents for their mistress, and less-mundane tasks such as helping with rituals and spells.
3. All witches are female, but usually there are many males in a coven to aid and please the coven. Most of the time, they are enthralled by some spell, but others willing give themselves up to a witch, due to human feelings of love and fear. They have no magical potential, and are usually the brute force and thugs of a coven.
4. Pureblood witches have an innate understanding of the dark forces that compel magic, and so can easily create spells, rituals and potions of their own design, given time and skill. Lesser witches usually must be taught, and cannot do more than make what they know and help their mistress.
5. Witches may receive insubstantial nourishment from food, but blood is a greater form of subsistence. Human flesh even more so.
6. Witchdom is eternal. Both the majestic Mistress and her scum are damned for eternity.
It's getting late (or so you think) but you decide to scour the ritual wing as well, to know more about this Blood Moon everyone's talking about. The ritual wing has even more books than the occult wing, and some look new. Those seem to have been written by your grandmother. She has a whole shelf of her journals, ranging from potion recipes, to work-in-progress spells, to rituals she'd been researching. You easily find a whole volume on the Blood Moon, its significance and the phenomena it bestows on the world. It takes you nearly three hours to read the whole thing, and by the end you have a throbbing headache and your nose is bleeding.
You summarize her notes onto your notebook as well:
1. The Blood Moon rises once every millennium. The next one is rising next year.
2. Once the Ritual of Cain is completed, the patron of the coven manifests in the human world and is bound to do their bidding for the remaining night, granting any wish it has the ability to grant.
3. After the Night passes, the entity is banished back to its world and cannot be called again for a thousand thousand years.
4. The patron spirit cannot harm the coven unless it is their wish, nor can it redeem the souls of the damned.
5. The priority of command goes from the mistress, down to lesser witches, then to all other members of the coven.
6. The Ritual of Cain is explained in detail in a volume of grandma's books, but the gist of it requires a coven of at least 13 witches (more is better, in case something goes wrong), six human sacrifices, one sacrifice of a true agent of God, and basically giving some speech at the end.
Cindy and Stacey help you up from the desk in the library and take you upstairs to the couch. You lie down for a while and close your eyes. The headache is unbearable. When you open your tear-soaked eyes, you see your mother holding a glass of water.
"You probably shouldn't spend too much time down there. Some things aren't meant to be read." She hands you the water and takes you upstairs. "It's late. Your friends can stay over, if they want, and you can skip school tomorrow if you still feel sick."
Name: Laura Putnam
Age: 18
High Social Skills
Above-average Intelligence
Average Strength
Average Speed
Dabbling Pyromancy
Dabbling Occultist
Dabbling Ritualist
Dabbling Leadership
Novice Half-sight (Half-sight is used to refer to any supernatural senses, such as hearing the unheard and seeing the unseen.)
Inventory:
Purse:
$100
Pepper-spray
Smartphone
Notes
Contacts:
Debra Putnam - Your mother and a single parent. She's always had an uneasy relationship with your grandmother. Now you know why. She studied business in college and graduated with a degree. She is now retired, at the age of 50, and relies on your three brothers for a stable living. She is a member of your coven.
John Putnam - Your 25 year old eldest brother. He is a construction worker and a part time tutor. He is currently working on a construction project for a mall in the downtown. He is a member of your coven.
Jack Putnam - The second eldest, at 22 years old. According to him, he's a diving instructor working at the beach, but you and your brothers know he's a drug dealer. He is a member of your coven.
James Putnam - The youngest brother, age 20. An avid body-builder and all-around jock, he was planning on enlisting in the army, but both your mother and grandmother forced him to stay; mom wanted him safe, grandma wanted him to help you. He is a member of your coven.
Stacey Freeman - Your best friend since childhood, she is your next door neighbor back in your urban apartment complex in the city. Her father is a policeman with a passion for firearms, and that seems to have rubbed on his only daughter. She's part of the cheering team with you, and while she gossips and talks behind people's backs, she's like a sister to you and has never let you down. She is a witch in your coven.
Anna Bradley - Your best friend and head of the cheering team. She's dedicated to whatever she's got set on her mind, but it usually devolves into single-minded obsession. She's secretly an avid gamer and knows her ways around computers and gadgets, usually getting lost in the middle of a conversation ranting about them. Still, she's one of the most hardworking people you know, and a great friend to boot.
Jinx Jezebel - Once she was called Amy Angstrom, but she's changed her name and persona from the cute kid you befriended in preschool to the smoking, alcoholic Jinx the Goth girl. Deep down inside, she's still Amy, and usually she only shows it to you. She has a lot of contacts outside school that should probably stay outside school, but connections to the criminal underworld are probably useful.
Mary Moore - A librarian who you befriended early in your highschool years, she's shy and reserved, but secretly she's got a thing for the dark and occult. Like, a big thing. She's shown you her altar to Aleister Crowley she made in the school library, which she managed to hide from everyone by placing it in the bookshelf behind the Advanced Quantum Physics section.
Cindy Steele - Another friend in the cheering team, Cindy once had a crush on you in junior high. You had your sights on someone else, and awkwardness ensued for a while, but all that's cleared up now. She's from a rich, upper-crust family who are more concerned about their daughter's grades than their actual daughter. Because of that, she's resorted to smoking with Jinx sometimes. She is a witch in your coven.
Diana Jones - A neighbor in your apartment complex and a childhood friend, you used to play in the park after school as children and babysit sometimes, since she was five years your elder. She's the eldest daughter in a family of six with a single father. She's incredibly smart and recently finished her degree in accounting. She's been trying to land a job in a bank, but has had no luck.
Rose Hills - A friend two years younger than you. You've never seen a bigger mouth on a smaller girl. Her way with words has her on the debate team. She has an incredibly large complex of friends, and gossip travels faster through it than the Internet can load a webpage. She looks up to you as a sister would.
Well-furbished Cottage
Rural Area
Low Population Neighborhood
Attic: Two bedrooms and storage room.
Second Floor: Four bedrooms and bathrooms.
First Floor: Living area, dining area and bathrooms.
Basement:
-Altar (for conducting sermons and performing rituals.)
-Circle (a drawn circle with pentagram on the floor for performing rituals.)
-Laboratory (furbished with table, alchemy ingredients and apparatus, board for notes, medical tools and study desk.)
-Library
--Occult Wing (Filled with lore and history of witchcraft and similar beings. Useful for finding about witches and their abilities.)
--Ritual Wing (Filled with rituals, their history, effects and instructions.)
--Mundane Wing (Filled with books on causing mundane mayhem, such as creating bombs, psychology books, etc.)
--Forbidden Wing (Though it says Forbidden, it just means forbidden by the church and other religious people. Books, tomes and manuals about demons, spirits and monsters.)
Head: Laura Putnam
Lesser Witches:
-Stacey Freeman
-Cindy Steele
Others:
-Debra Putnam
-John Putnam
-Jack Putnam
-James Putnam
Author
Topic: Hunter and Hunted (TSG) (Read 4657 times)