Elizabeth Mardel’s notebook 1881-1891
Elizabeth Mardel is clearly a Classical Sorceror. Her earlier notes describe several spells of interest. Most of them are fairly commonly known throughout West Highland’s Classical Sorceror community. These are Ghost Lights, Ghost Walkers, Understand Languages, Hide Item, Levitate, Locate Origin, Glue, and Fighting Prowess. She’s also researched John Isaacs’s Dampen Magic, normally a Mnemonic spell.
Her most interesting spell is a spell she worked on from 1883 to 1885. She calls it Lost Corner and it “attaches hidden pockets of extra angles to form them into a temporary refuge.” After 1885 she’s perfected the spell and begins to look for a means of making it permanent. Making magic permanent can’t be done solely with magic. Magic can extend the duration of a spell (and here she refers to Isaacs’s research) but true permanence requires a ritual, and a ritual requires a “place of power”.
A friend of hers—Colonel Courlander’s brother Aaron of the Order of the Astronomers—assisted her in researching ritual. She provided him with her research and he successfully created a magical ring whose effectiveness changed with the moon.
For some purposes, traveling to a place of power is sufficient, and she traveled to Brigit’s Springs to study ritual. She drew water from the well and enchanted it, and she created a powerful sword and dirk in this manner. But some things aren’t so easily carried. How can a place of power be created where one is needed? Great acts can sometimes create temporary influxes of power, as can great losses of life. Three or more ghosts can make a spirit circle and the ritual performed within it. But none of these options were available to her. She discovered that some places of power can be moved. Some move randomly and some in a predictable manner, but some can also be affected. A ritual she discovered from the wandering lady of the springs can “draw down the moon”. The ritual must be performed in a place of power, but the drawing down may be performed to any familiar location. Her notes describe a complicated, month-long ritual, new moon to new moon, that takes effect at the next full moon.
She did this in 1886, and created two permanent Lost Corners in Lisport Manor. One—her research room—could be entered by knowing the right place to enter. The other, which she calls a vault, can be entered by using a special instrument to create a sequence of notes while bearing an identifying seal. The instrument itself is part of the door, and enters the vault when used. It also leaves the vault automatically after a short period of time, though there is a means of returning it to the vault. For security, the exit sequence and the entrance sequence are different, and the instrument will not leave the vault if anyone or anything is near it. For safety reasons, there is a special means of returning the instrument to the vault if someone is trapped inside.
Elizabeth Mardel’s notebook 1892-
In 1893, there is an underground sorcery movement along the river towns, “the true family in Fork”. She joined the movement to spy on them for her brother-in-law. There is a mysterious hooded figure in the south who the Family has allied itself with, and this person has allied himself with the goblins. Elizabeth’s name in the Family is “Clayblood”.
The hooded man is searching for some sort of item of power. “A rusted watch, circled by red ants, that can turn back the world.” She also calls it “the timepiece of second chances”.
The family worship Nias (“the bishop of bone, the twin bishop, of the dry city”), Laten (“the rider who was not there, oblivion,”), and Hetae (“the hidden word, queen of insects”). Their secrets are kept in anagrams such as” the fit may rule” and “Lord Thew?”
In 1895, Elizabeth’s thoughts turn to demons. The Family are working on summoning demons to aid them in war. One of their targets are the Stigmas di Cristo. One of their targets is Colonel Courlander.
As the years move on, she becomes more and more frantic about finding a means to dispel a demon back to shadow. Initially, her research is on magic spells, and she creates a demonic clarity spell that temporarily frees an afflicted soul from possession. Any permanent removal eludes her, however. She becomes convinced that just as they may only be summoned by ritual, “the only way to send these creatures home to shadow is by ritual”.
It took her months of planning and weeks of ritual to draw down a place of power. When she discovers that a demon is attacking her family, how can she dispel it? Lisport is not on a ley node.
Besides researching ways of dispelling demons, she’s also trying to learn what demon the family will summon. At first she thinks it is a demon named Eliazu, who feeds on fear, “to bring down a great and learned warrior clan”, but after more spying she learns that Eliazu will be summoned to the Stigmas di Cristo under the control of a family member named “Redstar”.
Another demon that her sources mention is “Ebbeorieh. Temet Fiti? Fpiti? Feeds on argument, dissension. His name means discord.” Ebbeorieh is reached through some sort of magic door in Fork, but he is very dangerous and she concludes that neither the family nor the hooded man from the south will control him.
By 1898, she is certain that the demon targeting her family is Erisu, and it isn’t the family that’s summoning him but the hooded one, “the man in the hollowed log”. Erisu’s sigil is a cracked egg, with a spider coming out of it. He gains power from despair. She’s not sure if the demon will attack her brother-in-law or her sister Melissa.
Common anagrams include “a spider” and “aspired” for despair and “use spider air” and “sure I aspired” for despair Erisu. The final pages are filled with guesses about what the Erisu ritual’s anagrams really mean.
These demons are powerful creatures, attuned to “etheric fluctuations”, and can sense spells being cast as well as create powerful effects of their own when they are well-fed.
The Ritual of Erisu
The Ritual of Erisu (Solved)
Rite of Dispelling
Pater patronum, libera nos a malo.
Mater patronum, libera nos a malo.
Mater Domini patronum, libera nos a malo.
Spiritus Sancti patronum, libera nos a malo.
Redemptor mundi, libera nos a malo.Gloria in excelsis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis. Nolite timere.
Exorcizo te, omnis spiritus immunde, in nomine Dei Patris omnipotentis, et in nomine Jesu Christi Filii ejus, Domini et Judicis nostri, et in virtute Spiritus Sancti.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti, nolite timere.
Tu autem, diabole, effugiat, appropinquabit enim judicium Dei.
Praesta, Pater omnipotens, sine merito quod rogamus, qui fecisti ex nihilo qui te rogarent. Per Christum Dominum nostrum, diabole, egredior.
Pater Domini crucifixus patronum.
Regina Maria Trinitas patronum.
Aquae Sancti patronum.Non illic resideat spiritus pestilens, non aura corrumpens: discedant omnes insidiae latentis inimici.
In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen
