Contractbound

"Sigh..., I might as well change profession to a fortune-teller," he mumbled.

He had placed the candles in the usual formation and lit them in order. Now he needed to concentrate and ask the question through his fire scrying ritual.

"What had happened to Marieke Odekirk before she turned rampage?"

The room turned darker and the flames burned brighter. Within the flames, an image slowly appeared in its usual blurry form. It showed a scene where Marieke was staring at ashes that looked like there had been a body there before. Her expression couldn"t be seen clearly but she seemed petrified. Then, a snake came out from the shadow to grab the three contract scrolls that were lying on the ashes, as well as a small round object resembling a crystal ball. The snake quickly merged back to the shadow along with its battle loot, leaving Marieke alone in the large empty s.p.a.ce.

The image gradually disappeared and the room turned normal again. Graham sat there and tried to a.n.a.lyze what he had just seen.

"The snake must have belonged to the Pravitatem killer. So, whose ashes were those? She looked in a daze. Did she come with someone and somehow they started killing each other?"

He wrote something on a piece of paper to confirm his suspicion.

"The Deity of Serpents and Death can cause allies to kill each other."

He set the paper on fire and it quickly burned into ashes, indicating a positive answer.

"So it was indeed the case," he paused and thought. "It means dealing with the killer is much more complicated than we thought, Val."

Graham then stared at the flames again and concentrated. He needed to ask the next question which was related to his power-up.

"What would happen if I formed a contract with the Deity of the Tongue?"

The room turned dark with a shade of red. Graham felt something different was happening. The contract of the Deity of the Tongue that he had placed on the desk in front of him was emitting a mysterious violet mist, which quickly consumed the remains of Marieke Odekirk that he had placed next to it. It seemed this divination needed a cost to pay.

Within the flames, he saw an open book that looked ancient. It was placed on a dusty desk in a dark room. He tried to carefully read what was written in it through the somewhat clear image. It was not as blurry as usual, but it was still kind of difficult to read it perfectly.

"When forming a contract with another Deity, if the two Deities" powers were compatible, one could become much stronger. Here are the ones for Earl ranks that I"ve found out through experiments and observation."

"Deity of Secrets and Deity of Uncovering. They are known as Shrouded Denuders. No secrets can be kept hidden from them; no secrets can be uncovered in their presence."

"Deity of Lies and Attraction and Deity of Bloodshed and Manslaughter. They are known as Bloodshed Romancer. Before one could realize they were being controlled, they would already be dead."

"Deity of Fire Divination and Deity of the Tongue. They are called Divinators of the Tongue. No kinds of information will slide past them. Be it in life or in death, anyone can be their informants."

"Deity of Theft and Deity of Herbs and Precious Stones. They are known as Jewelry Thieves. Those who have valuable belongings must be wary of them since they know where to find all kinds of precious materials."

"I haven"t found out about the remaining Earls" combination. Is it War and Sleep? Or War and Reconciliation? I need to do more experiments."

The entry ended there, and with it, the image also disappeared. However, the room hadn"t turned normal. It was still dark with a reddish hue and the flames were still burning brightly. Then, within the flames, a line made of black fire appeared. Graham tried to read it but he didn"t understand the language.

"Secore on ca Furcas remie"

Graham said the words out loud, but nothing happened.

Whoosh!

Suddenly, his whole office was set on fire, and it felt searing. Graham tried to move and get to safety but he couldn"t! In fact, he couldn"t even get up from his chair. The heat from the flames scratched his skin down to the bone. The smoke had no mercy either; it penetrated painfully through his lungs and destroyed it from inside. The fire ate his whole body alive, with each pa.s.sing second, his blood became more and more boiling, bursting through his tiny vessels.

But he was not dead. He was very alive, and in great pain. A great shadow descended onto the raging flames, making them burn even more violently. Graham couldn"t make out what the figure looked like since his eyeb.a.l.l.s had long melted into his eye sockets. He felt like a very long time had pa.s.sed, and his whole body became numb to the pain, if he still had any body at all. He had lost all sensation.

Suddenly, everything became normal again. His pain was gone, his eyeb.a.l.l.s, still there and working. He could breathe normally, albeit heavily because of the trauma. He looked at his watch and it showed that only a very short time had pa.s.sed.

Pant... pant...

He controlled his breathing and once he had calmed down, he noticed that something had been transferred to his brain.

"So much has happened in very little time. I need to process them one by one," said Graham tiredly.

He concentrated on the new piece of knowledge and exclaimed in surprise.

"Ah!!"

"So that was the result of pleasing my Deity. I have done enough divination of great secrets."

He then went into thinking. There were indeed some divination attempts that felt different from usual, divining Pravitatem being one of them. With his Deity of Fire Divination pleased, his power had been consolidated, making him more powerful. He began a.n.a.lyzing his new power.

"Now I can do fire scrying ritual with any kind of flames, including a lighter flame. It is very useful to do field divination. Now my fire divination can also bypa.s.s equal or weaker level anti-divination, and the quality of the image shown should be better as well. My divination attempt limits have also increased to twenty-five."

"My palmistry wasn"t touched. It stays as one of my least used abilities. My eyes now can turn permanently red or stay the same even if I"m using its power. It won"t be as draining anymore as well, so I can keep it activated longer."

"My persuasion power wasn"t touched either. But according to the journal, I should be able to make it more powerful with the power of the Deity of the Tongue. I just need to gather the materials now since the remains of Marieke has been sacrificed against my will."

"So my next move should be gathering the materials for the contract ritual and probably finding the book from my divination. It might contain more useful information. I think it was written by the same person who wrote the unliftable book, Val."

"Speaking of which, since I"ve successfully divined great secrets, you just need to uncover them to please your Deity. But I don"t know how you can do it. Do you just publish it or something?" Graham thought while rubbing his chin.

"While we"re at it, I should also try to find the scroll of the Deity of Uncovering for you. I can try to divine it. Ah! I almost forgot to divine the market price for scrolls. Sigh... There is so much to do," he complained inwardly.

He put out the fire from all candles but one, since now he only needed one to do divination. He then concentrated and repeated the question in his mind.

"Where is that book from the earlier divination located?"

The surrounding area became dim and an image appeared within the small flame. However, Graham could see it clearly as if he was looking at a big cinema screen. It was not blurry either. The image showed a very old looking house in the middle of the woods. The house looked very dilapidated, but its strong building materials managed to make it last. The image then zoomed out to a bird"s eye view. From up above, Graham could roughly see the location of the woods in relation to Sloten.

"So it is somewhere in Oostelijk Bos, east of Sloten," he concluded.

Sloten was surrounded by woodlands except for its northern border which was a mountain range called De Vaalserberg. The southern woodland had been mostly turned into farmlands, however, leaving only the eastern and western woodlands. There were safe roads built connecting Sloten to other cities through the woods, so people didn"t have to worry about wild animals, but occasionally such attacks were still reported.

To get to Oostelijk Bos, Graham would have to go to the station and take a coach to another city and get off midway. Or he could hire a public motor carriage to take him there, which would be much more expensive than the coach. He would think about it more later. For now, he had more divination to do. He needed to find the materials for the contract, which were the tongue of a preacher and the whole mouth without the tongue of a grave keeper.

"Where can I gather the materials for the contract with the Deity of the Tongue?"

The flame burned brighter and showed an image to him. It was of a large cemetery with a lot of tombstones. He recognized it right away. It was Sloten Public Cemetery that was located in Westeinde. However, it is heavily guarded by the cemetery security a.s.signed by the city"s mayor.

The image then shifted to that of a marketplace. However, a lot of people there were covering their ident.i.ties. It was most likely the black market, and he would need someone to grant him access to the market. He saw one of the items he needed with an outrageous price tag. It was set at six guilders apiece.

"Grave robbing, it is then. Why pay for something I can get for free. Now I understand why the cemetery is always heavily guarded; it is to prevent people from becoming stray Contractbounds left and right."

He then got ready for his next question.

"How much can I sell these contract scrolls for?"

Graham concentrated on the flames and it quickly showed him a number. It was a range of fifteen to twenty guilders. That should be the market price of Earl rank contract scrolls. The image didn"t show anything else after that, even though he had an allegedly higher rank scroll. Probably because he couldn"t even see the information in it.

"We can sell it for fifteen guilders to Jacco then. He was very helpful in the battle against the rampaging Marieke, after all."

He came back to the burning candle flame and moved on to his next question.

"Where can I get the contract scroll for the Deity of Uncovering?"

The room became dim and an image formed within the flame. There, he saw the police officer that he had met many times before, the tall one with a scar across his nose. He could get the contract from him, most likely by killing him. The image then shifted to that of a man in office attire. He looked like someone in a high position within his company. Again, Graham could probably get the contract by killing the person.

"a.s.sa.s.sinating people for their contract scrolls. I guess that"s the life of a Contractbound," he paused and thought about his past experiences.

"We have killed many people before, but it was for a totally different reason. In the end, we just have to get used to it, and always stay on guard in case someone is after our scrolls," he muttered in self-pity.

"Among the two targets, the office worker looks more realistic. I don"t think we can afford to make an enemy of the whole police force as we are now," he said coldly.