Chapter 103
“So, did you find anything?” when the shoot of the day wrapped up a bit early, Lady Manzene walked out of the interior of the set and asked Caroline and Jason and was surprised by an orange cat jumping from the ceiling: “Oh wow, there are so many cats here.”
“No. We haven’t found anything suspicious. ” Caroline answered: “When the shoot wrapped up, we will go inside and take a look...”
“So you’re saying you’re doubting my expertise? As I have been in the set all day.”
“No, no… of course not.” Jason explained: “It’s just that it’s kinda our job to check the whole set. And we normally check the interior either before or after the shoot.”
“And I’ve been in there all day.”
“Yeah, but if you work during an active shoot, it’s kinda hard to check all the corners. Why don’t we go in there and do a sweep together. And we can pick your brains and listen to your advice?” Caroline smiled and said.
“Ah.” Lady Manzene looked surprised by this friendly answer: “If you say that, let’s take a look at the entire set together when they wrap up. And see if you can learn a thing or two.”
“Great! Thank you very much! ” Jason quickly understood what Caroline was doing and was quick to join in: “It’d be so great to learn from you!”
“Well, no use sucking up to me.” Lady Manzene tried to conceal her smile, but her tone still softened and warmed up: “It’s been a while since I met anyone young and curious. Let’s go.”
When the crew wrapped up the shoot and the temporary props on the set, Lady Manzene led Caroline and Jason into the center of the movie set, where Madison the makeup artist met them with a wooden board with arcane symbols carved on it, and one small fur bag.
“Hey, Lady Manzene, I brought what you asked.” Madison raised the fur bag at Lady Manzene and asked: “What are they doing here?”
“They are new to the business. So I’ve decided to help them out a bit.” Lady Manzene chuckled and turned to Caroline and Jason: “Come here, let me show you how it’s done. If you’ve never seen something like this before, don’t be surprised, practically no one has.”
“You lucky little bitches.” Madison sighed and whined to Lady Manzene: “How long did I have to wait to see you in action? And now you’re just giving it away?”
“Yeah well, you are not in the business, right? I as a senior have the responsibility to support young up and comers.” Lady Manzene smiled: “Don’t worry, I’ll show you more when we’re done.”
“Awesome.” Madison sat down on the floor excitedly beside the wooden board. Lady Manzene, Caroline and Jason then sat down around the wooden board with her.
“Hey, what’s happening here?” Bethany and Robert came in, seemingly looking for things but unexpectedly found four of them looking like they were about to have some kind of seance or an ouija game.
“Oh, just a little harmless exorcism ritual I was planning to perform on your set.” Lady Manzene opened the little fur bag, and took out three dice, and a handful of pink sawdust, “You guys wanna join? We have room for some more.”
“But if … you know… you have an early morning tomorrow and if you don’t wanna stay, it’d be totally fine.” Madison suggested.
“Oh, yeah, maybe I’ll stay and take a look.” Robert sat down beside Jason: “I gotta see this for myself.”
“Really? Then maybe I wanna stay as well.” Bethany shrugged and sat down by Caroline.
“Okay, everyone, ready?” Lady Manzene held her hand tight, with the dice and the pink sawdust, then rolled the dice on the wooden board with arcane symbols, along with the pink sawdust.
Each of the three dice rolled and landed on three three different symbols, Lady Manzene lifted up the three dice to check on the symbols they landed on. Then, she took out a small codex and located the page with information about the combination of the numbers on the dice and the symbols on the board: “Interesting… this means that there is SOME presence on this set. Let me roll again.”
Then she picked up all three dice, put one back in the small fur bag and grabbed some more sawdust in her hand, mumbled something and then rolled again.
The two dice landed on two other symbols, with the numbers 3 and 2 on them. Lady Manzene checked her codex and said: “So… bad news, the presence here is indeed hostile, not specifically to you but to everyone. ”
“Oh my god… what can we do?” Madison gasped, then not so subtly peeked at Caroline and Jason: “Can YOU do anything?”
"Good question. Let me give my final roll.” Lady Manzene picked up the two dice, grabbed the sawdust once more and rolled the one die she chose. The single die landed on a symbol that looked like a twisted “S”, with number 6 on top.
This time, Lady Manzene did not even have to check her codex, she also gasped, in a mildly dramatic fashion and said: “This is not good… this said the presence has already latched onto someone in close relations to this place.”
“What? How? Who can that be? ” Robert was not fully convinced.
“I have no idea. But I will find out right away.” Lady Manzene started looking for things in her bag and robe pockets.
“Did you feel something every time she rolls the dice?” Caroline whispered to Jason.
“Yeah, a little bit. But quite different from the feels of Boss’s divination.” Jason nodded and whispered back.
“Okay, here.” Lady Manzene found a small batch of dried tiny branches and weeds, then she took out a lighter and lit up the batch, “Hold on there. Don’t freak out, no matter what you see.”
“What? What will I see?” Bethany was already suspicious and in fear after the three ominous dice rolls, and now she was almost about to freak out.
In a low and deep voice, Lady Manzene chanted some sort of Latin-sounding spells as she sprinkled the sawdust onto the burning batch in her hand.
A wave of strange energy radiated from the burning batch in Lady Manzene’s hand, looked like she indeed cast a spell, but it was not very meticulous and even a bit crude, and neither Caroline nor Jason could tell what the effect of the spell was supposed to be.