Chapter 288: First Mission (4) : Investigations.
The group split into three immediately with one person from Cedric's team pairing with one from Daphne's since Loki, Daphne and Hermione could all do divinations while everyone from Cedric's team was proficient in searching for hidden compartments if they existed.
Cedric grouped with Loki and the two of them began scanning and clearing rooms along with each other while Daphen paired up with Diego and Hermione with Zacharias.
"Find anything?" Cedric asked politely as he and Loki came back to the Wall of Spirituality where Ethan was waiting for everyone.
"We got a few letters Ced, probably need you to crack them since they're coded." Zacharias immediately said while handing Cedric three letters.
"Oh? You guys found something? We didn't." Cedric said and Diego nodded along. "We too didn't find anything."
Loki immediately froze but no one noticed his panic.
'Wait a second, if Mione found something was it because of the Sefirah castle?'
'Since neither I nor Daphen found anything that means something's interfering with our divination…'
'Or it could just be a coincidence and I'm making a mountain out of a molehill.'
Loki looked at the letters in Cedric's hands with a little worry but said nothing otherwise.
"Can I open them Mr. Ethan?" Cedric asked and Ethan nodded to give him the go-ahead.
Loki looked at Hermione but found nothing abnormal about her so he pushed the thought to the back of his mind while simultaneously keeping a lookout for the corrupted golden retriever.
'Where did that dog go anyway?'
Before Loki could begin searching for the dog, Cedric interrupted.
"Mr. Ethan you'd like to see this." Cedric said calmly.
"What's it 'bout boy?"
"He was acting as a spy."
Loki turned to look at Cedric as did Mr. Ethan and Cedric continued to explain to everyone in the corridor.
"These letters contain detailed information about the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, especially about their patrols and recent cases."
"Amelia's turf?" Ethan asked a little puzzled, his question directed to his own hearing instead of Cedric's words.
Ethan walked over and began to look at the letters, trying to see if there was anything in particular he could glean about the situation from them.
"Is the receiver's name not mentioned?" Loki asked calmly.
Cedric shook his head, "No. Not that I can see, but the last letter is also encrypted in a way I haven't been able to crack yet."
"The letter's differently encoded? Why?" Hermione asked surprised.
"Probably has some special information?" Cedric tried to reason while showing one of the letters to Hermione.
"Which letter weren't you able to crack?" Loki asked while looking at the three letters in Cedric's hands.
"Here this one." Cedric said showing Loki a letter filled with messy handwriting that looked like someone had scratched the words of someone in eternal torment in hell into a parchment.
Loki nodded and looked at Mr. Ethan, "Can I divine about it?"
Ethan who was similarly looking at the letter nodded, "I don't think you'll be able to figure out much, but try it out once."
Loki nodded and leaned against a table where he slipped into a half-sleep state using cogitation and let his astral body roam the spirit world.
While he did so, his conscious mind whispered his divination statement.
"How was the letter encrypted?"
"How was the letter encrypted?"
"How was the letter encrypted?"
…
"How was the letter encrypted?"
Within moments Loki found the scene in front of him changing to a Victorian-style pristine room. It was cold and unfamiliar.
'Is this a letter he received? Not one he intended to send?'
'From who he was spying for perhaps?'
There was an old man in his mid-forties working on something at the table in the room, but when Loki peered at what he was doing the dream suddenly shattered like glass, breaking the scene in front of him and bringing him out of divination.
'Anti-divination.' Loki recognised and opened his eyes.
"No luck. Whoever was writing used something to prevent me from being able to see his process of encrypting the letter."
Ethan casually nodded and went back to staring at the other letters.
Meanwhile, Loki looked at the cryptic letter and put his mind as a cryptologist to solving it when suddenly an idea struck him.
"Wait a second, could I try out a divination?" Loki said calmly while looking at Ethan.
Cedric looked at him and then at Ethan who stared at it for a second before looking at Loki, "What do you want to divine about, boy?"
"I want to check if it is safe for us to pour our spirituality into the letter?" Loki asked calmly.
Ethan was a little confused but Cedric instantly caught on to what Loki had spotted.
"I see it now that you pointed it out." Cedric said. Ethan just nodded and allowed Loki to perform his divination.
Loki quickly nodded and performed a divination with his topaz pendulum.
"It is safe to pour our spirituality into the letter."
Reciting the statement seven times while he was in cogitation made the answer available to everyone's eyes.
The pendulum was spinning anticlockwise. Meaning there was no danger in doing so.
All of a sudden everyone except Cedric, Ethan and Loki began to look at the letter to see what would happen if Cedric poured his spirituality into it but Ethan broke their expectations.
"Explain boy, what do you see?" Ethan said looking at Loki.
Loki traced a few letters on the parchment and spoke while trying to show what he was seeing, "This part of the letter is not encrypted with anything. It's a runic circuit that's disguised to look like a sentence. I don't know what'll happen when it's activated but I know something will."
"Can you figure out what it's about?" Ethan asked again.
"I'd need a little bit of time, but it's possible."
"How long?"
"A few minutes? Five minutes?"
"Alright, we'll wait while you work on it."
Loki worked together with Cedric and pulled out his own pocket notebook with a pen as they started decrypting the letter and its runic circuits.
He began to religiously draw the circuits he saw in the letter while Cedric easily pointed out the other lines of text that were actually part of the circuit.
Not even two minutes later, Loki was done.
He looked at the completed circuit and frowned.
"Find something?" Ethan asked.
"Yes, but it's confusing.", Cedric answered.
"What is it?"
"This circuit is a marker.", Loki said.
Ethan's eyes widened but he was quick to hide his surprise. Instead he spoke softly, "Give me that letter." and Loki did just that.
Ethan placed the letter on a table and left it there before he spoke to Loki and Cedric. "Your divination was probably interfered with. That letter might be dangerous in some way and might even be responsible for all this."
Everyone felt a slight shiver but they maintained their calm and nodded patiently since they understood Ethan's explanation.
'So that letter was a marker? Like the one I got in Ginny's room to get in contact with Mr. Error?' Hermione shivered, not wanting to come in contact with the plans and ideas of another god. 'I hope not all gods are as stupid as he is though.'
Ethan instead said something else to everyone, "Does any one of you know how to do a mediumship ritual?"
There was silence for a few seconds before Daphne nodded. "I do. But it would probably not be as successful as you Mr. Ethan."
Ethan tipped his hat and spoke softly, "Of course, it isn't going to be as good as me, but it will help for what we've got to do next."
"What are we going to do next?" Loki asked since he was a little confused.
'Who are we going to use the mediumship ritual on? Mr. Prick? But isn't he inside the wall of spirituality and alive?'
"We're going to use the mediumship ritual to talk to the villagers who have become unconscious.", Ethan said with a frown. "We might need to talk to everyone present but I don't think I can hold out to talk to all of them so you might have to take over."
Daphne nodded and soon everyone was walking back out of the mansion and into the village.
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A/N : Who let the dog out!!!??? And are we going to cross five hundred powerstones!? Let's goo!!!!!!!
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