No Longer

A Dark Garden

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**Era Damon White

The address given had him apparating in front of a small cottage in the suburbs of northern France. It was painted a worn down white, with pale blue trimming and an overgrown garden in front. 

Every appearance seemed to show it was a perfectly normal home, maybe a bit worse for wear, and if he had been just about anyone else, he'd have been fooled. It was, after all, seamlessly done. With Era being himself though, he could sense the very powerful dark magic hidden under some incredibly well-applied glamours.

He pushed his own magic out in ripples, the power being used to sense his surroundings. He wanted to see what was so worth hiding. It took more magic than he had expected, though no where near what he had available to him. 

It was not his wish to disrupt any of the magic, as it was an impressively tricky bit of magic and he admired the effort it had to have taken. So, instead of sending his magic out to strip the other casting away, he essentially had his magic process the truth of the world around him and translate it into what he would see visually if the glamour wasn't there. Then, that visual interpretation replaced what his eyes truly perceived.

The house remained more or less the same, except for it being a bit more well maintained, and the trimmings were in black and dark green rather than the pale cornflower blue of before. Standing distinctly different than the glamour was the Dark one's symbol charred into the white painted front door.

Adding more magic to the pulse sent to the door in order to maintain his nonglamoured sight, he tried to discover why so much power radiated off it. It would seem that the brand was actually the vessel for the charm, and that magic for the glamour originated from it. 

Pushing deeper, he discovered that the charm only allowed those that were death eaters or otherwise marked by the Dark one to see through it. Era also found what was basically a panic button, which could be set off by a spell that would alert some network that this location was in trouble. He'd have liked to follow the network, and to find those connected to it, but he feared he would not have the time. 

After all, it would appear missish if he'd made his host believe he'd come promptly and then show up much later. With the removal of the glamour, he knew that this house definitely did not belong to a wizard or witch on the light side.

To further impress the message, Era could now see that what had at first appeared to be an overgrown vegetable garden was actually a very well tended small field of highly illegal plants.

The plants he could identify from various minds' memories had a lot of different properties and specific usages. In potion work, some of the plants were often found in more brutal, deadly, powerful, mind altering, sinister, and illegal brews.

Era was pretty sure he even saw some erdon, corvax, and what he tentatively identified as kallux-leaf, which were used in a potion called Life's Call that basically enslaved the drinker. The person was forced to obey absolutely everything that the person controlling them said. In the potion, one ingredient was a few drops of blood, and the person belonging to said blood was the one who made the commands. It was brutal and effective, with only one known cure that had been kept so secret that almost no one knew how to make it.

At reaching the door, Era knocked politely twice and was unsurprised by the almost immediate opening of the door. An older, tough-looking witch gestured for him to enter with a brisk motion of her hand, so he did.

The inside was a bit cluttered, but very clean. There was simply a lifetime of things collected, and it gave the small cottage a homey ambiance. Era was brought to the dining room where he could see paperwork had been neatly laid out.