Halliwell Manor - Templars (2)

San Francisco, Halliwell Manor, Mid Afternoon

“Best to work from top to bottom. If there is an attic, that would be a good place to start.”

Given Corinth’s belief that the other Societies had beat them to the house, his warning that the others might still be inside, and the fact that the front door was unlocked, Lumina was on her toes as they made their way to the attic. Lumina naturally had a light step, but even the most gifted burglar could make creaky stairs creak.

And creak they did. By the time Lumina followed Corinth into the attic, felt in her bones that if they had been noticed. Thankfully, there was nobody waiting for them up there, and she followed Corinth’s example in taking a look at the dusty place. Shattered jars and prints and indicated that Corinth’s intuition had been spot on. Somebody else had been up here. Recently.

“Come check this out. Looks like a spellbook. Wonder why it wasn’t taken. Let’s make sure we take it with us.”

Lumina grinned as Corinth drew her attention to a book on a pedestal, and not just any book. A spellbook was a very good find for any warlock. “I didn’t realize it was my birthday!” she exclaimed. Then her smile faltered. In her experience, if something seemed too good to be true, then it usually was. Lumina brought up yet another Detect Magic spell. There were wards on the spell book. If she was a betting woman, there were probably traps that would be tripped if she tried to take that book too far. No wonder the other Societies hadn’t taken it. “I think it’s rigged,” Lumina moaned. “Well, I guess I will just have to pick the best spells to learn now, and maybe I’ll get a chance to learn more from it later.”

Lumina began looking through the spells in the book. She was just starting to understand the notation the author used for the spell incantations and motions when she heard something from downstairs. Was somebody shouting?

“Did you hear something?” Corinth inquired.

“Somebody yelled something about jars I think,” Lumina whispered. “A male voice. You were right about one thing. We are not alone. So you are sure that the other Societies won’t shoot us on sight?”

Corinth assured her that was the case, but again advised staying on guard. Lumina left the guarding to him as she returned to reading the spellbook. She was starting to be able to wrap her head around the contents of the book pretty quickly, and she had to admit that she was rather disappointed. She would have assumed that spell book of three witches who supposedly held the very power of fate in their hands would have a terrifying collection of reality warping magics at their disposal, but most of the spells she was reading about were spells she already knew, spells that didn’t seem terribly helpful, or spells that seemed far too situational. Surely they would at least have a spell for tapping into the ley lines they built the house on…

There it was!

As she wrapped her head around the Tap Ley Line Spell, she took her own spellbook out of her bag and began copying it down, which was a fairly time consuming process. Actually learning how to perform the spell would take even longer, and a quick glance at Corinth informed her that he was already getting impatient. She did the best she could with her transcription, and then pulled her phone out and snapped photos of the page in the spell book. “Alright, let's keep moving.”

Lumina reactivated her Detect Magic spell once she and Corinth made it back to the second floor. The two of them split up and swept the second floor, and didn’t find much, but thankfully they didn’t bump into any other agents either.

That changed as she and Corinth began heading back down to the first floor. Lumina immediately spotted a man in the foyer looking at his watch.

“Watch it cowboy,” the man stated, glancing up in her direction, and Lumina only then noticed that Corinth’s hand had drifted toward his holster.

“Who are you?” Lumina demanded.

“Your cleanup crew,” the man responded.

“What?”

“Look, our instructions were to wait for you guys to go, but I have things I want to do with my evening besides being here at this haunted house at midnight cleaning up ghost shit, so if you don’t mind, can you hurry it up a little bit?”

Lumina glanced at Corinth. “Umm…”

“We are done with the attic and the second floor if you and your team want to get started with those. Stay out of our way and we will stay out of yours,” Corinth informed the man.

“Fine, I suppose that’s good enough,” the man grumbled. “Just make the rest of your investigation quick.”

As he went back outside, Lumina and Corinth began their sweep of the first floor. Lumina’s detect magic spell picked up that a transmutation spell of sorts had been used to repair the door, and she started to pick up traces of and unfamiliar magic pervading the area, which she concluded must he the ley lines. Corinth found stairs into the basement, and after finding nothing else of value, they made their way into the basement…