120 - Fairy Gold

Ritual: Fairy Gold

Cost: 2 significant charges.

Ritual Action: Take a sterling silver bell, a tall glass of unpasteurized milk mixed with three heaping tablespoons of sugar, two drops of mother’s tears and a tiny dash of bone marrow from a live man, and one of your most prized possessions. Something significant enough that it would cause you a stress check to see it destroyed.

Build a fire inside a ring of mushrooms (some versions say the ring has to be naturally occurring, but that isn’t actually important) and set the glass of milk, sugar, tears and marrow on a rock next to it one quarter turn anticlockwise from where you will be standing for the ritual. At twilight - dusk or dawn - recite a specific Gaelic incantation entreating blessing and protection from the sidhe, it’s lengthy. Really lengthy, it goes on for about 10 minutes. At its end throw the prized possession into the fire, tell it what you want, spend the charges and ring the bell seven times. Stay there and watch your possession burn completely without moving. If the ritual works, the glass of milk-mixture will empty as though someone invisible was drinking it through a straw.

Effect: Ash and smoke consolidates into the named object so long as it can be bought in your current locale for no more than $1,000 (no fooling this with false advertising or anything like that, only genuine opportunity need apply). You’ll have to fish it out of the fire without putting it out somehow as it only exists as long as it keeps burning (the fire won’t damage it fortunately). Once per day another object that would cause its owner a stress check to see destroyed must be fed to the fire, although this object need not belong to the ritual caster.

If the fire is kept burning without feeding it this way the object still persists. Instead of disappearing it falls apart into detritus the next time it is used: offal, manure, tinsel and confetti. This slight draws at least one faerie into the ritual caster’s life, to cause mischief and mayhem. Those spawned from still-births of the caster or someone close to them are the most likely to appear. Some casters deliberately use the ritual for this secondary effect, owing to the rejuvenating nature of devouring one of the fae. Few manage to do so consistently without suffering their collective ire as each subsequent casting draws an exponentially greater number.