Chapter 401: The Ritual Begins
After talking for a while, Gretchen finally relented. She then took the time to explain to everyone. with Wilma’s help, just why she was so opposed to the ritual idea. In their younger days when they were more free spirited, Gretchen had found and read many of the same books that she had forbade others from reading now. They had even performed one of the rituals in the book for fun one night when they were drunk. The end result was the death of one of their non witch friends. In the end, the death had been ruled as a medical condition, specifically the friend having a stroke that had caused them to die due to lack of blood to the brain. But even then, the coroner had stated several times that they had never seen a stroke occur in a young healthy woman at the age of 25.
After that, there was no longer a question of if the rituals worked, but rather if anyone could survive them. Even with the one Gretchen had performed, there was no result. Only now did she understand that the cause was the lack of energy, even more so because the friend of theirs wasn’t even from the witches order.
But now they understood that there was no time. They didn’t doubt Laz, even if what he talked about seemed far fetched, because they knew just who he was and also how strong he was. They knew he had no reason to lie.
As such, they started setting things up immediately and even decided to record the entire process. Normally something like a breakthrough should be a quiet affair that someone would go through on their own, but since was an ancient magic ritual from the order’s history, they decided, Laz included, to trust what they were being told.
Within a few hours of the approval, the entire order was busy at work. Wilma and the council were getting the area cleared up around the digging field cleared up while Celes and Gretchen were getting the runes and carvings in order. There were several circles of runes that needed to be laid out in a circle.
The first circle were runes written in blood. It didn’t have to be human blood and the written word even said as much. But the blood needed to have strong energy. Because of this, Joan and Gia along with a few of their group went out to the forests and hunted several strong demon beasts. They weren’t hard to find as the beasts sometimes came upon the compound of the order. Occasionally when demon beasts were spotted for several days, the security teams would lead groups into the woods to cull the beasts around the area. Due to this they had knowledge about where several of the stronger beasts were. Normally they would leave them alone since the stronger beasts would keep the weaker ones away from their turf. Now though, because they needed the blood, the teams went straight in and killed several of the strongest in the area without hesitation. Thanks to this, there was blood to spare.
The second set of circles required what was called an immortal flame. While the book wasn’t specific, Celes felt that the black flame she had awakened thanks to Laz would do the trick. After talking to the female shadow figure, Celes felt even more assured although none of them could say for sure if the black flame was actually an immortal flame. A side note to mention would be that while both of their flames were a black flame, there was a slight difference. At the absolute core of Celes’ flame was a very slight hint of purple while Laz’s black flame had jus the barest hint of silver. Unless you looked really hard, and it was only after Laz tried to used his eye skill on the flames that he noticed, you would never be able to notice a difference.
As for the third circle, it would actually consist of people, specifically witches. While Las didn’t understand what this meant, he was assured that they would be careful in how they did it. Basically, they did not want a repeat of the last time the ritual was performed. As for whether this witch ritual would work with a non witch, that wasn’t really a problem. After all, even back when the order was first a coven, the blood lines were all different. It was just the types of magic they practiced were similar and based on energy and not blood line. Some bloodlines would be able to do certain types of magics easier than others, but that was about it. As long as you had energy and the know how, the magic of the coven was open to you.
This also meant that even Gretchen had to agree that after this was all over, maybe they should start letting some of the simpler magic books out so that the order can actually become a real coven again. This was never something Gretchen would have considered, but with the changes going on, there really wasn’t a reason they shouldn’t at least try.
Laz say by and watched all this happen as day turned into night. There was no telling how long it would take for him to break through, assuming he did. As such, it was important for them to allow as much time for this as possible.
Sometime after dinner, a dinner spent on the site with food being delivered, Nora arrived with a box full of the stones that they had been digging up. The difference between these stones and the ones in the ground was that while the ones out of the ground had a strong but neutral energy to them, these seemed to be even stronger and the energy was wild, almost causing the stones to shake.
Nora didn’t even stop to say hi to Laz before she walked over to Celes and Gretchen and started talking with them. Back and forth they went until Gretchen finally nodded. Nora quickly spread the stones out at the spots where the witches would be sitting. Laz didn’t know why, but he assumed she had her reasons.
When the mood was fully up, Celes called Laz over and directed him to the center of the three circles. Laz sat down on a mat that looked old, really old. It have been embroidered with runes and even without checking it out closely, Laz could feel the calming energy coming from it. Looking up at Celes, she just smiled and said,
"There are many treasures stored in that warehouse and there are few that we know the use of. This one happened to be described in the book of the ritual so we did our best to find it. Now it’s your turn. Let your mind rest and just focus, ok? We will all be right here waiting for you." Just as Celes finished her supportive words, another quake started, causing the ground and everyone on it to shake. While it wasn’t huge, it did cause a few of the girls who weren’t prepared to fall down on their butts from the shaking. Mostly though, it was just those doing something. For everyone else, after all the battle training they had gone through with Laz, it wasn’t a problem.
"Quickly, get into position. Celes girl, start going over the runes and make sure they weren’t damaged. If I’m right than once the ritual starts, we won’t have to worry about them. But if they are broken now or slightly damaged, it could cause problems later," Gretchen said as she moved to the blood rune circle. Celes quickly moved to the fire rune circle while directing Laz to get into the center. Just before he did, Nora came over and gave him a big kiss before shooing him on his way.
Sitting there, Laz could feel the strangeness of this ritual. It was like being at the bottom of a waterfall with no water. The invisible pressure was there, but not the actual pressure. Either way, Laz knew this was going to be something.
As Laz looked on, two dozen women in hoods walked over and sat down. While Laz couldn’t seeing their faces, their upper bodies were completely exposed with their bottom halves only being covered by a thin length of black fabric that hung down from a strange belt on their waists. On their chests were also runes written in some sort of green colored substance.
AS the girls sat in their places on the outer most circle, they took one of Nora’s enhanced energy stones in their hands and sat down while Celes, now in her own black hood with a body covered in a thin, black wrap, strode forward with a large, wooden staff in her hand.
"Tonight, my sisters, we rise. We call upon the old ones, the ancient ones and the long past sisters to watch over us as we push forth this brother towards the eternal. Within our hearts, our bodies and our souls, we give all so that one of us may again walk towards the enlightened and glorious path of the heavens. We asked for the blessings of those who bare witness, of nature and the green goddess, mother of us all. Allow us to channel the strength of the earth so that we again might rise from the ashes towards an ever lasting future."
As Celes finished her speech, the water of the water fall started flowing as massive amounts of energy started rushing in from all over the surrounding lands.
Laz knew that it was time as the ritual was working.
Success or failure was now in his hands.
