>>5146987Next comes Felman. You are unable to convince the incubus cultists to allow you to meet with him in their complex, but it is no matter—you can do so just as well a short distance away, in an alley. Your ectoplasmic puppeteering allows you to reach out to his mind and soul from across the city, and to call him to you.
‘Doesn’t make the waiting any less boring, though,’ Irinnile complains.
‘Shush,’ you say. ‘I’ve had enough walking.’
‘Carriage rids on command WERE nice,’ the succubus sighs dreamily.
Eventually, Inquisitor Felman arrives, his glasses shining in the lantern-light and obscuring his eyes as he approaches. For a moment, you have the paranoid notion that he has broken your control—he strides with such purpose—but then, how would he have known to come? No, when you see the lack of scorn in his expression, you know the unusually strong-willed human is just… Being himself, as it were, within the constraints of your dark influence.
“You called for me,” he says—not a question.
“Yesss,” you say, extracting a pair of glasses to match his own from your bag. “Tell me about these.”
And so he does, telling you what he knows of the magical artefact: they are good to track a target for up to 50 miles, though their accuracy and reliability diminishes the further one is from the target, and the longer it has been since the target was ‘locked onto’ by their magic. Thick obstacles, especially of dense stone or metal, provide an extra barrier against effectiveness, and cold iron or lead can provide an almost absolute barrier even in thin sheets.
“What if one travelss between planes?” you ask.
“Such as to the underworld?” he asks pointedly. “If they resurface within the area of effect within the glasses, within a set amount of time, a demon’s essence will still be detected by the spell.”
“What is thisss ‘sset amount of time’, precccisely?”
Felman shakes his head. “Depends who enchanted the glasses. Usually between three days and a fortnight. I can’t say. It is, put frankly, a pain in the ass sometimes. It behooves an agent to move swiftly once he has a lock.”
So it goes for an agent of your ilk, too, you suppose.
