Spirit Seer

Osran stood back in the crowd, trying to be inconspicuous. He watched the traveling seer, named Ivakius, perform an elaborate ceremony with a smoking bundle of sage. He wore ceremonial face paint, and he had stripped down to a thin tunic in the summer swelter.

"Now, my friends, this place has been purified," Ivakius said, his voice deep and serious. "I will begin to reach into the realm of spirits, and we shall see what we may."

As the seer closed his eyes and mumbled, Osran reached out with his astral thoughts, seeing the situation with the Deep Magic. He almost giggled. There was no more magic about Ivakius than a house cat. No, he was being unfair. Osran had seen some house cats with a glint of magic, and this charlatan had none at all.

"I can feel a spirit that wants to speak to someone in the crowd. Has anyone lost their father?"

Osran smiled as half the crowd raised their hands. Of course. Ask enough vague questions and you can steer the crowd like a team of oxen.

Then he had a stroke of mischievous genius. He reached out with a tiny tendril of Deep Magic, manifesting a shimmering, vaguely human shape beside the seer.

The crowd gasped and drew back, and some even ran away. Osran stepped back as well, but only to avoid the blind trample.

The shimmer spoke in a deep, booming voice. "Ivakius! Why have you summoned me from my eternal rest?"

Ivakius blanched, wobbled, and fainted dead away.

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