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"Pleased to meet you, Animus," Joshua says. Funny, he never said that to Zero. He starts up the car and turns it back towards the Hostel. After a few minutes, he starts up his Creedence tape again.
Hope you got your things together
Hope you are quite prepared to die
Joshua shuts the tape off again.
As they pull up back in front of the hostel, Calligan is outside waiting for them. He greets them from the car.
"We need to go inside. It's been handed down from higher up that this event is now highly classified."
As you get inside, you can feel yourselves pass through highly warded areas.
"What the hell was that?"
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"The short answer is that we tried to disrupt magic that we didn't understand. Now for the long answer.
I was assigned to work with Blackfire's cabal to investigate a disturbance in Discovery Park. It turned out to be caused by ten obelisks in the shadow realm, arranged in the Atlantean pentagram. When we first arrived, only one of the obelisks was activated, bearing the mark of the fate arcanum. The mind arcanum was the next to activate, and the sleepers within the park began fighting, leading to several deaths. We then travelled to the Shadow Realm ourselves in the hope of somehow disrupting the magic. It was then that we discovered the remaining eight obelisks. The spirits were unnaturally fearful, but I was able to get a cryptic reply from the spirit of the ground." Animus pauses for a moment, concentrating on remembering the spirit's words. "The spirit said that what was before, will be again, just as before, and that they hate your being, but love your soul." He briefly shudders.
"Soon after, the spirit stone activated, causing all the spirits to flee, including my familiar. From what investigations we were able to perform, we discovered that the pentagram itself is intelligent, and aparently a collector. Additionally, when I scrutinized one of the inert stones, I briefly thought of the Abyss."
Recounting the next part is clearly painful for Animus. "The death statue would have been the next to activate. We thought that if we could move it, disrupting the pentagram would be enough to break the magic. When Blackfire touched it, I saw a flash of white light before losing consciousness. When I awoke, I saw his burnt form, but Fiddler and Invictus were nowhere to be seen. And still the pentagram stands.
From what we learned from the earth spirit and the mind obelisk, it's apparent that the obelisks collect souls. I'm not sure, but it may be linked to the disappearance of Sacramento's former mage population."
Animus finally falls silent, waiting for Calligan's reaction.
Calligan rubs his temples, and without saying a word pulls out his phone and calls someone as he steps out of the room.
As he comes back in he speaks "apparently the people over at the museum are vaguely aware of what is going on, and have a crew working on it from another angle. I need you to see if you can find corresponding objects in the material realm. DON'T TOUCH THEM, and if you can, avoid casting on them. We need to see what we have from all angles."
"Did you verify that the death stone activated?"
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Animus nods, remembering how the stone's glow had almost seemed to dare him to attempt to move it. "It was most definitely active. I do seem to remember seeing corresponding objects, but we didn't study them."
"I want you to examine them, and make note of everything you can think of. Draw them if you have to. "
Calligan looked at his phone.
"Terrific."
He looked back up at Zero. "If you even hear the word guardian, run. Most of all, stay together."
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Zero nodded.
Damn. Sounded like it was going to be a long night... but asking if he could bring his bong probably wouldn't go over well with the others.
"So we go back out there, see what we see, and come back? Dodging Guardians?" He just wanted to make sure he understood.
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Animus asks one last question before turning to leave. "Can I leave my familiar with you for now? I don't think it would appreciate being asked to return to Discovery Park."
Calligan looks at Animus very quizzically
"Uhm..." He seems a bit flustered. "I'm not too sure I feel comfortable being the charge of a Ladder familiar"
"But yes, you are correct Zero, that's the basics."
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