Ghost and the Writer

Coverup

Tia stopped by a window. It was so overgrown with greenery that light seeped through in fine streaks. She looked over the drawing again, then picked out seven strips.

"Can you place these two above the window frame?" Tia asked, passing two to Mandy.

Mandy nodded and followed Tia's finger to put them at the places where Tia indicated, curiously enough, they stuck in place even if there should be no reason to. When Tia placed the remaining five, all the text on the paper sheets glowed up in a golden color, then separated off from the paper and interconnected. The inside of the circle filled up with something akin to a golden silk veil and then the veil, together with the paper strips, sunk into the window frame, disappearing without a trace.

Since nothing had changed, Mandy tilted her head looking towards Tia.

Tia noticed Mandy's look and softly smiled. "Illusory barrier," she said. "If someone looks inside this window from the outside, the room would appear to be normal even to non-seeing eyes and," she looked one more time at the remaining sheets in her hands. "Probably even to devices."

"And you need seven for each window?" Mandy let out a soft breath, it had taken August close to an hour to finish his first eight, just how long would it take to do that for all the windows?

"The amount of charms needed is always the same as the star points for the formation," Tia explained, pointing at the drawing. "The usual illusory formations have five points, though, I have no idea what modification August applied to these."

"How can you tell that those are illusory ones, then?" Mandy asked, but there was no trace of doubt her voice, just curiosity.

"The activation is the same, also color," Tia said, moving on to the next window and passing Mandy two charms again. "Barriers that physically restrict are white on activation, the barriers that alter perception are golden, those who alter general conditions (like heat, gravity, moisture) are green, those who amplify elements and boost the effect of certain alignment spells are blue and those that block or resist some elements are red. If the barrier is magenta then it's a mix of amplification and resisting and.. hmm, teal would be amplification with condition change."

While Tia listed the barrier types and their colors, they ran out of paper strips, the stack in Tia's hands ended up having exactly enough for four windows.

"Physical restriction with resisting would be pale rosy, then?" Mandy asked figuring that to be the logic, as the two went back to where August was, only to see another stack of seven waiting for them.

Mandy noticed that August had eaten half the box of pastries already. Wasn't he no good with sweets? His drawing speed had gone up as well, was that due to sugar?

"Yes," Tia confirmed, as she picked up the paper strips waiting for her, "but you'd seldom see that - while teal and magenta ones are common when more effects are needed, exorcists make multiple barriers inside one another, rather than making a special barrier for the occasion."

Mandy made a faint nod, as she followed after Tia to help set up another barrier.

"Most exorcists don't carry around a paper stack with ink, they have gems with a barrier formation in it or a stack of pre-made charms in case of special occasions," Tia said.

Mandy recalled those gems August had enchanted, that was probably how things looked. It sure seemed to be more practical to work like that as which mission would let you have hours upon hours of time for preparing on the spot? Mandy doubted every case was like the one with the dreamcatcher, where the targets stayed in place like sitting ducks.

As they returned, Tia took out a small pouch out of her pocket, passing it to Mandy. "Take a look"

Mandy opened the pouch, letting the contents fall into her palm - there were five small white pearls in it.