Tereza puts meticulous care into setting up the ritual. Apparently, all of her magic supplies are stored inside that large trunk the others noticed when they entered. From there, she takes out a large mat which she rolls out on the floor, something to make sure she can properly draw the spell circle without getting in trouble with her landlord. She then begins drawing complex runes, many of which those of the others who know some things about divination rituals would be familiar with, though Caroline notes that Tereza is using a strange stroke pattern to draw them. The end result looks the same but the order in which the strokes are made is all wrong - in her opinion.
"We need blood to draw the middle circle," Tereza explains then.
"Any volunteers?" She waits a beat, then says,
"Do not worry, Chief. I will not draw blood. There is easier way. Modernized, yes?" She quickly leaves the bedroom and returns a few moments later with a bowl holding some gooey liquid inside.
"This is two chicken eggs," she explains.
"Very good replacement for blood. Works in almost all cases." She then uses the raw egg to draw a circle as well as a final rune into the center of the circle. She then places the roots into the middle of this set-up before setting up candles around the drawn outer circle. In another deviation from the way Caroline would do it, she doesn't light the candles one by one but hands matches to everyone here.
"We will light every candle at the same time," she explains before giving a countdown. Then she arranges the present people around the circle, placing Deacon to her left and Sweeney to her right. Ordinarily, as the one leading the ritual, she would place the strongest witches to either side of her, but one, she doesn't want to fall into an argument of who is the most powerful here, and two, just putting the cutest ones to her sides seems like a pretty good deal. And it shouldn't weaken the energies too much, not enough to affect a simple spell like this one.
"You are lucky," she then explains.
"The chant is in Latin, so you should be able to make the sounds we need with your mouthholes." She then speaks out the chant for this ritual slowly, emphasizing the right syllables and repeating until everyone has memorized it. Her pronunciation of Latin is strange, clearly heavily influenced by Czech while the others are more used to a way of pronouncing the dead language that is influenced by English.
"Now, Caroline," she finally says.
"If you lead ritual, I do what you say, your way. Now, I lead the ritual, so we do it my way. The way of the Thirteen Covens." She nods over to the crest hanging above her desk.
"You play along, yes?" She waits for Caroline to acknowledge, then explains.
"We do not link hands. We need a one-direction flow of energy, not a closed circle. Hold out right hand, palm open, thumb to earth." She demonstrates, holding her right arm out towards the probably very overwhelmed police chief.
"Then, you use your left hand to hold the wrist of the person to your left. Thumbs, again, down." She takes Deacon's wrist.
"No need to squeeze. Gentle is enough. Now, everyone, close your eyes and follow my lead."
She takes a deep breath and begins the Latin chant.
OOC:
Since Tereza is setting up and leading the ritual, I'll make the first roll. Anyone can go after that for the other two. I'd love to see the Chief make a roll
😆 but that would be mechanically bad, I think, and unsatisfying if a PC could roll instead. I assume Caroline and Sarah (the non-Sweeney one) have better Occult skills than Deacon, but I don't mind who rolls next.
That's a success with one raise, so looks like we still need three successes with our next two rolls
Last edited January 31, 2023 7:31 pm
