((just stop me if I presume too much by requesting a mod out of the blue like that!))

Why are they all talking about the target? I have no target! I don't want to see anyone! I want to see a place!
Shi gave a frustrated look at the Hacks grimoire open on the big dining table. She had been reading old Deftung and Monite for nearly one hour now, and nothing usable to gain new information from the crypts seemed available in there.

All the scrying methods described inside it involved lengthy invocations, rare ingredients or multiple casters. And all targeted persons. None targeted tunnel. She didn't want to spy someone. She just wanted some monic help to check if, as it happens in the novels, a part of the crypt tunnels ended somewhere outside the walls.

Finally, not wanting to have wasted that hour during which she could have napped, the witch decided to give a go at the simplest method. If she understood it better, maybe she'd be able to design something for her needs.
Find a basin-shaped rock holding water from the melting snow... Sorry Bash, but I will have to do with rainwater in a pan!

Setting the pan on the table, at a respectful distance from the ancient grimoire, the brunette let her green eyes scan the monite a last time, repeating it again in her head. Then, she politely called the mona to attention, and intoned the invocation, filling the blanks with the name and description of Noli Ol'Inalo.
If I can't even see my husband, I'm really hopeless at scrying!
The grimoire said that the better you knew a person, the easier the spell. She was going to find out if it applied to her.
I hope I'm not going to scare him.

((Hey, love. I know you're trying to make things more interesting, but be careful what you assume, okay? Check out the scrying section of the wiki. And just so you know, Incaustomancy is slightly more a wick thing than other methods, and there aren't really "rare ingredients" in most spells and common scrying ))

The water in the pan shimmered slightly in the light of the dining room window as Haunenshi finished her incantation. She could feel the resonance of the mona as it churned slowly into action, and she tasted ginger and wine as it slowly took effect.

She was inexperienced with scrying, the mona was not accustomed to her making such requests, and as such her results were quite weak. Though the water itself did not change-- in fact she could still see the dark bottom of the pan under the surface-- to her eyes she could see faint transparent images as the mona transmitted the vision to her mind through the liquid. If anyone else were to walk in now, they would see nothing but a grown witch staring at a pan of water.

The faint images were thus far all that she had accomplished. It was as if she were looking at a reflection of her husband in a window pane-- a frail and detached image that could shatter at any moment, as she could feel the ephemeral state of her connection fluttering on edge. His face was in profile, looking down as if busy with some thing or another, his blue eyes only a faint reflection of their true color.

That's not so complicated!
That was Shi's first thought as she felt the mona react to her request in a way that seemed to indicate success.
The core invocation was in fact quite simple, the rest only being variations of the polite calls to attention and thanks she was used to. And as ingredients went, she just had had to fill the pan with rain water. She wondered if it would have worked with water from the well too.
By reading the grimoire, you'd have thought only a lake dug by Bash finger itself and surrounded by summer snow would have worked!

The witch wondered if attuning herself better to the god by following the grimoire instructions would have made the spell more powerful. But it was not the first time she found the instructions inside that book compiled by generations of Hacks overly complicated for some simple magic. Like the writer wanted it to seem more powerful than he was, or his addition more valuable than it was.
Why wouldn't a reminder of a basic spell not be valuable in itself. Adding extra moves and ingredients just to impress the onlooker... That's wickish!

Shi smiled inwardly at the thought of the reaction her ancestor would have had at being called wickish, but soon had to stop as the invocation results started to show.
She was seeing something! Noli's image was in there, barely visible, but there it was!
She took a very long breath and tried to concentrate on the moment, to get rid of all extra thoughts. To stabilize the shaky connection. She wanted to see longer, to see better. She wanted to thank the mona and ask them to persevere, but she was not sure of the words and did not dare look away from the water. All the thanking stances she remembered implied the end of the spell.

Even as she tried to strengthen the spell she could feel it slipping away. The image faded to a mere shadow, then disappeared entirely. Her field buzzed encouragingly, however, as if the mona were telling her she had done well for her first skry.

Someone entering the house at that moment would probably have his idea about the weirdness of the wicks confirmed, seeing Shi looking angry at the plainest of the kitchen pans.

As she felt the connexion fading, the green-eyed witch eventually lost her concentration and gritted her teeth in frustration. That moment passed quickly, as she felt the mona encouragements, and she regained a calmer mood to intone her best thanking stance and release her field.

Shi felt a pang of regret mixed with jealousy at her husband's image disappearance. But she wasn't sure an immediate second try would be polite for the mona. Time had passed anyway, and it was time to prepare the house for the workers return. She'd try again tomorrow. Maybe, tonight, she would find the time to study the invocation again, so that tomorrow, she could use it without reading? She was ready to spend a full week perfecting that spell.

She sighed as she carefully locked the heavy book back in her chest. It was pleasing to be learning something new. And after that first hint of success, she had become eager to learn more about what Noli and the Sky were about. But deep inside, she knew that this was not a good way to turn the page on these last twenty years. And that she still had no idea on how to turn that scrying method into something usable for her exploration purpose...

The witch still tasted ginger. She wondered if she might find a bit cheap enough on the market tomorrow. Would the human gardeners like to try some ginger chicken? But the price of chickens might be a problem... Maybe she'd haggle an old hen and cook it longer?

((short thread?))

((Short thread is short but sweet. She can try again some other time, eh? ))