Halwyn Magnus wasn’t normally a researcher, he was a powerful mage from a powerful family. He was not the sort of man who waded out into the muck and mire to get things. He would wade out willingly for his own purposes but to do it for someone elses’s felt dirty somehow. Dirty and dreadfully boring! Still. Doing this job would keep his precious family safe, his twin sister and her husband and their children. He needed to keep them all safe, oh Charles was a Hunter, brave and dashing but Hal knew that after the magical attack on their youngest child that the magic wouldn’t just stop there. That whoever did this… Whoever cursed Dominic wasn’t going to stop. So now Halwyn was currying favor with one stronger than himself and the man, damn him, had demanded that Halwyn get the ingredients himself. By hand. It was meant to humiliate him! He was certain of that. He was furious and angry and embarrassed. He didn’t even have his unseen servants. Completely alone in the wilds with nothing but a borrowed horse and a pile of books, notes, and a few maps.
He was pretty sure that he was getting grayer by the minute because he was on… well. He could only grit his teeth. A treasure hunt. A treasure hunt! What else could it be called? He had done all the research at the libraries of various magical institutes in the great city he called home and he had even paid good coin to get into private libraries and it all led to him not being able to cast this level of protection with will alone. It was a most complicated spell. Something that would linger in the blood of his family to keep them safe so curses would slide off. Especially with the boys, all three of them, taking after their Father, all of them wanting to become hunters – to protect people from monsters. Except now Dominic was a monster. He had to do something, didn’t he? His nephews weren’t children anymore but he’d kill to keep them safe.
Hal sloshed through the swamp, the murky waters up to his knees and wetting his pants, dusk was coming and he was cold and damp and he’d been forced to leave his steed at the edge of the swamp while he waded in and performed the rite, hoping that it would lead him in the direction that was needed next. The next clue on the map. The spell required a sacrifice, of course it did and Hal’s dagger opened his palm and he dripped red blood on the blue flame in his hand and all around a thick silence spread over the swamp. He had been panting and now he found himself holding his breath before releasing it in ragged gasps as the fire sprung around him, floating in the heavy air. The blood on his hand being sucked away into the aether until the bleeding stopped. The blue flames, tiny now and vibrant as little stars danced and whirled and then shot down into the water with the force of a hundred arrows. They formed a blue lined well, the water still murky and Hal held his breath as he plunged his hand into the well. His fingers closed around something… Odd. He pulled it out and in the dying sun he watched the slime covered heart begin to beat and bleed in his hand.