Soul Stone

It took the souls to begin with...

"Tying my hands was unnecessary, you know. I don't even need my hands to cast certain spells that could have incapacitated any one of you," Willa said, rubbing her wrists from the ties they were just in. She looked around. She found herself in a very large, very stylish living room. There was a very large fire blazing in the very large fireplace. "Will you kindly tell me what I am doing in your living room, now?"
One of the men who had brought her over to this house and into this living room left the room. The other gestured to sit at a couch. She sat. "This is not my living room. It is Ms. Abadi's. As I said when we came to your house, Ms. Abadi wanted to meet with you. She will be here shortly." Then he turned and walked out of the room.
A woman walked into the living room carrying a tray with a cold pitcher of lemonade and a glass. "Ms. Abadi?" Willa asked.
"Oh, no. Not me, I'm Susan. Just bringing you something to drink while you wait," Susan said. She poured some lemonade and left. Willa sat alone long enough to almost finish her glass. In that time, she planned which spells, curses, and hexes she could cast once Ms. Abadi got there, just for leaving her in boredom. For fun she started playing with the colors of the flames in the fireplace. They were a combination of blue and purple when the woman in question finally walked in.
"That's lovely," she said. Willa jumped, which caused the flames to also jump. They remained blue and purple, however. "You can leave them that way, I rather like it."
"So you're Ms. Abadi?" Willa asked.
"Yes, but call me Nina," she said. "I apologize for keeping you waiting, I had some business to finish. Can I offer you anything stronger than lemonade?"
"No need, I fermented it," Willa said.
"Did you, now?" Nina asked. She walked over to the bar to get a glass and poured some of the now spiked lemonade for herself. "Well well, that's quite nice. Is this why the witch speakeasies are so popular?"
"Nope, they're popular because they don't get raided. Not all witches can do what I just did. It's a... rare talent."
"What, fermenting fruit juice?"
"Speeding along decay, ruin."
"Oh, I see," Nina said, now taking a seat across Willa. "That sounds rather ominous. And all of a sudden it's clear to me why you're the head witch around here. Can you do that to people?"
"To anything," Willa said, almost threatening. "Mind telling me why you had me brought here with my hands tied? Obviously, I'm not here for you to kill me. I figure I'd already be dead if that were the case."
"Quite right... Sorry about your wrists, Jeremy and Nick were a little over zealous when I asked them to pick you up. They don't quite understand what witches can and can't do. Do you know what we are?" Nina asked.
"Of course. I can smell it, just like you can smell what I am," Willa said.
"Good. You probably also know that what we suffer from is some sort of biological condition." Willa nodded. "But what you may not know is that within our community, we believe that what allows us to awaken after first death is that we are lacking a soul. Or part of a soul, at least."
"That's absurd," Willa blurted out. "How could you possibly know that?"
Nina stood up and walked to a cabinet at the end of the room. She opened it, took out some files, and brought those back to Willa. "Look through these," she said.
Willa looked through the photos, the majority of which were of Egyptian hieroglyphs on what looked like sandy colored walls. "Where did you get these?" Willa asked, in awe. "I've never seen so many."
"One of us from my coven and one us from a coven in the UK are part of an excavation team in Egypt. It's a long story, but a lot of searching over centuries led us to this site. Copies of these photographs were sent out to several covens who may have the ability to do something about it."
"About what? I can't read these, what do they mean?"
"The Ancient Egyptians believed that there were several parts to a soul, each having a different purpose. Those images tell of a curse that took the living part of the souls from an entire Egyptian family, cursing the descendants of the family with the same condition. Part of the curse is the inability to join the afterlife, doomed to walk among the living as an undead."
"I see... Where did you get these? And what does that have to do with me?"
Nina sifted through the images to find one particular one. She handed it to Willa and pointed to a small illustration in it. "That. That is what we've been calling the Soul Stone. It took the souls to begin with."
"Ah, so you're one of the covens who has access to these images because of your relationship to us," Willa said in understanding. "You think we can... what, reverse it? An Ancient Egyptian stone, probably spelled by one of the most powerful witches in all of history with one of the most powerful spells ever done? Not to mention, this is just a picture," Willa said, handing the image back.
Nina got up again, going back to the cabinet and bringing back a small, wooden, ornately carved box. She handed it to Willa.
"You're joking," Willa said, staring at the box.

Item type

Magical