I'm trying really, really hard to not drool. I'm not sure how well I'm doing. Most of the furniture, financial assets, art, and other property was left to charities and close friends, leaving only the house itself and the arcane paraphernalia to miss Belmonte. But that portion is...well, to someone in my circles the whole thing could be worth up to four million dollars. Of course, when you limit the client pool to peopleI know and trust or are vouched for by people I know and trust then you get some lower profits, but still...
I'll need a few days to properly assess everything, but I've managed to give it all a cursory glance to start off. Scattered around the house are little taxidermic chimeras mostly made from cats, crows, snakes, and similar small animals. I'll have to take a closer look, but I believe they are intended to be guardians to ward against evil magic. Of course, there are other purposes such constructs can serve. Anyway, there are also a number of cabinets full of various artifacts such as ancient ceremonial knives, lots etched with runes, traditional charms, minor relics, and even a hand of glory. Some of this stuff is seriously dark. Then there's the greenhouse and the adjoining pantry. In there you've got mandrake root, more herbs and spices than I can name, and arcane plants that only grow under very specific conditions such as a flower that must be planted on a mountain under a full moon on the summer solstice, a shrub which must be fertilized with the remains of a blind sheep, and a weed planted during a thunderstorm by a redheaded changeling to name a few. And then there are the drugs. When you're dealing with the supernatural sometimes you need some unusual medication to get things done. Try summoning a big time spirit without something to stretch your mind out first and you might spend the rest of your life in an insane asylum. In fact, it looks like the plants and fungi in this collection have been breed specifically for optimized mystical use rather than recreational purposes. I suspect a junkie who tried any of these for fun would be in for quite a surprise. Lastly, there was the library. There are over eighty books in this collection, including journals, collections of lore, academic works, and grimoires. There are also several amulets, totems, and other magical artifacts including jars that look like the ones they put the organs of mummified pharaohs in.
I've got some buyers in mind for various items. There's plenty of herbalists who would kill for the stock here. I know at least one person in the wizarding community, I can probably sell some of the books to him or someone he knows. I think I might be able to sell the chimeras to Mr. Straub as long as they're simply protective in nature. He does supernatural security, and he has some very shady clients. Like I said, I don't think I can sell those to him if they have any uses beyond defense. I'm going to have to take a look at my contacts again. But first, I'd like to re-examine some of the artifacts.
* * * * *
Okay. I don't know what happened exactly, but I just woke up on the floor in front of one of the chimeras. I had some kind of dream, but it's slipping away rapidly. I still remember...blood, a forrest, some foreign words...I think I knew the language in the dream. Oh, and all my instruments have gone insane.
I am a professional. I will not run away screaming. I will scold myself for jinxing this later. I will sit down, look at everything again, and figure out what is happening. I will not curl up into a ball and cry about how this was supposed to be easy and something is probably going to try to kill me. I will definitely not do that.
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