"We should be careful about how Mr. Bellington's using the book.", Loki warned and Daphne nodded while Hermione just frowned.
"Wouldn't he be basically impossible to catch if he simply changes the odds of escape in his favour?" Hermione asked politely.
Daphne nodded but then explained properly, "It is possible. But we also need to remember that Mr. Bellington has remained in Helensburgh and hasn't escaped."
Hermione nodded, "That makes sense."
"So how are we going to capture him, Captain?" Loki asked Daphne.
Daphne thought for a while before she said, "Let's perform a few tests first. Loki and Hermione, transfigure random things into muggle money. A little is enough, but make sure no muggles will catch on about them being fakes."
"And what're you going to do?" Hermione asked since Daphne was leaving them and walking away.
"I'll bring someone who needs the money."
"...?" Hermione looked confused but Loki was able to decipher her actions, "She probably wants to hire a muggle to intrude on Mr. Bellington first. To see if he's hostile or if he has any obvious traps set in place."
"Can't we just use divination to clear through them and catch him by surprise?"
"It is possible, but if we miss or overlook something, Mr. Bellington will have more information about us. Which will only make this task harder."
Hermione nodded and then the two of them walked over to a patch of grass and plucked a bit of it, turning them into crips bills using transfiguration.
"Turn them wrinkly and old." Loki said and explained, "It'll be strange to hire people with crisp bills." Hermione nodded and tapped them with her wand, turning the bills she'd just created into worn out and old-looking used bills.
Daphne soon returned with a shivering child who was looking at the three of them warily.
The child was malnourished, his cheeks sunken and eyes hollow, yet he looked around with a sharp gaze, constantly looking around to make use of everything he could get his hands on.
'I used to look like that?' Loki thought with a strange sense of camaraderie.
"You know what needs to be done right?" Daphne asked the child.
"I need to knock on house twenty-eight and pretend like I want to sell the man there some cookies but throw eggs on his face?"
Daphne nodded and used her wand to confound the boy and cause him to fall into a daze.
She then used a bunch of stones and conjured a bowl of cookies and eggs. She then cleared all the dirt away from the child to make him look prim and proper, but no matter what Daphne did the boy still looked poor and unfit for his job.
Hermione stepped up and tapped the boy's clothes, turning them from the tatters he was wearing into a scout's uniform.
"Scouts are a popular thing among muggles. They're like a club that teaches survival skills." Hermione explained to Daphne, "People trust them quite a bit."
Daphne nodded and looked at the now fresh-looking boy, she waved her wand and caused him to snap out of his daze.
Before he could notice anything wrong, however, Daphne spoke as if it was all normal, "These are the cookies you'll sell. Did you understand that?"
The young boy looked at the money that Daphne was waving in front of him with greed and quickly nodded.
"Alright then, I'll pay you half now, and half once the work is over. Is that clear?"
"Yes, mam!"
Daphne nodded and stuffed a few of the transfigured bills into the boy's pocket and pushed him to go to house number twenty-eight to become their test dummy.
Loki and Hermione were a little uncertain about using a muggle and exploiting him so blatantly but they understood that as long as he wasn't harmed it wasn't going to be a problem.
Waiting at the corner of the street, Loki, Hermione, and Daphne all looked as the boy walked up to house number twenty-eight with his bowl of cookies.
Knock Knock
The boy waited for half a minute before moving to knock on the door once again, but before he could, the door opened and a thin man leaned out.
"What do you want?" the man asked, in his hand was a thin book and a pen but he kept it close to himself even as he spoke to the boy.
"Hello, good sir! Would you like to buy a few cookies from me!? They only cost a few pence!" The boy said with a smart smile as he extended his bowl of cookies in front of him.
The man stared at the bowl for a few seconds before picking up a few of them and staring at them for a few seconds. He then placed them back and spoke, "Wait for a minute."
The man then rushed back into the house and after about thirty seconds returned with a few pounds.
"Here, have this. I'll take all your cookies." The man said and moved all the cookies inside the bowl into his box.
After which he closed the door on the boy's face.
But just before he was able to do so, the boy pulled out raw eggs from the pockets of his pants and tossed them into the house, running away before the man could realise what he had done.
They all heard a delayed muffled angered shout from behind the door, but it lasted only for a few seconds before vanishing.
Done with his work, the boy rushed towards the end of the street to meet Daphne and the rest for his extra payment.
After the boy informed them about the man and the book he was holding, Daphne handed him the rest of the money and sent him on his way as Loki couldn't help but think, 'I hope he spends that money soon, or he's going to be left with a few blades of grass instead of paper.'
"So we're safe now?" Hermione asked with some confusion.
"Well most likely since it seems the book is not all-powerful and doesn't have a very big range. It's only a grade three artifact after all.", Daphne explained.
"Shall I use my slumber charm to put him to sleep so that he isn't any more trouble then?" Loki asked Daphne and she nodded.
"You do that, I'll attract any calamitous events that the book might cause once we're in its range. While Hermione can capture the man along with the book."
"What's a slumber charm?" Hermione asked as they walked over to the house with Daphne.
"It's a charm that puts everyone struck by it to sleep, it's a charm of the domain of Darkness or Evernight."
Hermione nodded at the information and focused back on the mission at hand.
The inside of the house everyone was walking towards was shrouded in darkness.
The man who had just been angry a few moments ago was suddenly as still as a statue.
His eyes remained glazed over as he looked at the bowl of cookies that had fallen onto the floor.
The man quickly collapsed, kneeling on the floor and began stuffing all the cookies that were in the bowl in front of him into his mouth.
He folded his hands in prayer and bowed his head.
"I"
"I summon in my name,"
"Mother Tree of Desire, the Father of Devils, the Perpetual Blatherer, the Heartless God,"
"I pray that you use your divine powers to corrupt this book that can twist fate."
The man then pulled out a knife and slashed his hand, dripping a few drops of fresh blood onto the book in front of him.
"Blood of the servant willingly given, the liquid that belongs to the abyss, I pray for you to bestow powers to my incantation.
He then pulled out a rather large glass vial, almost six inches long, and poured the blood that was inside it onto the book.
"Blood of the sacrifice unwillingly given, the liquid that belongs to the devil, I pray for you to bestow powers to my incantation."
Nothing happened for a few seconds until the blood suddenly turned crimson and filled the dark house with an ominous red light.
But the light lasted for only a moment before it vanished into the book as if it never existed.
The cut on the man's arm slowly faded away and he picked up the glass vial and ate it with a soft crunch.
Once done with his sudden untraditional meal, a small portal opened beside the man and a shadow emerged out of him. Its mostly shifty and shapeless features made it hard to see in the darkroom as it slipped into the portal.
The man who was still kneeling looked around in a daze before he looked at the book in his hands and stood up with a smile.
Knock Knock
'Huh? Who's here?'
'Well whoever he is, I guess I'll deal with them and then go to the derby to earn more money.'
'What's that smell too?'
'Eggs? When did I drop eggs!?'
'Is this a supernatural event!?'
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