DS Chapter 2: The morning after.
AN: Added a authors note at end of the first prologue, and made some corrections with both prologues and chapter 1.
AN2: I know I'm leaving out vast amount of conversation, and glossing over much of the book, but most of it is not overly important to this story, or wouldn't be spoken in front of Ranma and/or Diana due to the fact that they are newer and arrived under dubious circumstances, and much of the cannon Dragonlance conversations would be overwritten, delayed, or have to be cut short by their curiosity of the newcomers. If I try to do TOO much of the cannon conversation I will be rewriting half the book. On the other hand some parts will be taken almost word for word.
"Diana, it's time to get up," Val said in a serious tone.
Diana's eyes snapped open quickly, because she knows when Val is serious there's a problem. Her mother, who had programmed Val, gave her a slightly bipolar personality. Most of the time she's her almost annoyingly cheerful normal self, even on many missions she is like that, mostly elimination missions, in which the situation, while serious allows her to cheerful and enjoy the combat, but certain missions turn the partner machine cold and calculating. These missions include escort, stealth, and evasion missions. These types of missions make her normal personality a hindrance because she is a tad too loud.
"Whats wrong Val?" the Chocolate skinned woman asked.
"I heard our traveling companions are in a bit of trouble," val responded.
"Before you continue, perhaps we should retrieve Ranma so we can fill him in as well," Diana reasoned.
Val nodded, and moved to wake Ranma up, when a large figure landed with a crash near her before she reached halfway point to where Ranma had set up for the night. Val looked at who it was and upon noticing it was the knight simply shrugged and moved on. She reached where Ranma was in a sleeping bag, and noticed that he was still apparently fast asleep, as if had never awakened when he tossed, Sturm. She considered this new information and thought better than simply shaking him awake, instead she took a bottle of water out of her storage space and splashed him, now her with it.
"Gah, wha'd you do that for you tomboy," Ranma said springing up to a sitting position.
"Tomboy?" Val asked.
"Sorry, thought I was back home for a second, why'd you splash me?" the red haired girl asked.
"We three need to talk about our current traveling companions, follow me to Diana," The partner machine said before moving off.
Ranma nodded, quickly packed up, and followed the normally excitable AI.
They quickly reached Diana, who had already packed up her sleeping bag, and as soon as they settled Val quickly filled them in with what she learned from Riverwind and Goldmoon the day before.
"A fight between faiths huh? I think our group is in the right, how many book with goblins in them are they good guys? While I know that the books might not reflect reality I have a feeling that in this case..." Ranma, who had read a few fantasy books said about the situation.
Diana nodded, and replied, "I agree I have a bad feeling about the other side, it would be a mistake to join them."
Val heard the words bad feeling and simply resigned herself to traveling with the current group.
"By the way, Ranma. Not that I'm complaining, but, why'd you throw the knight?" Val asked.
"I did? He must have tried bothering me while I was asleep, I fight most anything that gets too close to me while sleeping weather their hostile or not. Few people are immune to it," Ranma explained sheepishly.
The two others look at her like he was slightly crazy, but were distracted when Tanis angrily stomped up to them, and said, "Ranma, May I ask for an explanation upon why you threw my friend?"
"I tend to defend myself while asleep. Honestly? I didn't even know it happened until I was told by Val," Ranma responded calmly.
Tanis sighed at that before responding, "Well our group decided that you could stick with us if you want, we are heading to Haven to speak with the seekers, and hope they aren't as corrupt as the one in Solace."
"Seekers?" Ranma asked.
"A religion dedicated to what they call the new gods," Tanis replied. "We hope they will have information concerning Goldmoon's staff."
"I see," Diana said contemplatively, "but I don't really believe in gods. My mother never really did, but enough about that we should get going."
Tanis nodded and led the three dimensionally displaced companions to where the rest of the group was waiting. They quickly set off down the road, the companions made small talk, which mostly concerned the past of the group, and their current circumstances. Tasslehoff on the other hand had volunteered to scout out the road ahead, and so wasn't involved in the discussion.
Ranma once again used his ki to warm up his canteen and pored enough on herself to change back, just before Tas came running back waving his arms. "Into the brush!" he said.
Most of the companions,got down into the ditch to hide in the shrubbery along the road, all but Sturm and Ranma that is. Tanis tried pulling him to the side of the road, but Sturm refused, he stated coldly, "I will not hide in a ditch!"
Ranma noticed this and said, "I'll stick with him, no telling if he will need help or not, besides, your pursuers don't know me, so I might make them less suspicious of him."
Sturm caught the pigtailed man's eyes, and gave him a nod. While he hadn't forgotten what happened earlier, he did appreciate that he was going to have backup in this potentially dangerous situation. His backup might be unarmed, but with the strength he had demonstrated the night before Sturm knew he would be an asset in a fight.
The feint sound of a wagon, along with muffled conversation was soon heard, and Tanis sighed and said quietly, "Perhaps you should talk to them, we need information about the road ahead, but be careful my freind."
"I don't plan on throwing my life away needlessly," Sturm replied.
"And, I'll be here to help him as well," Ranma added.
Tanis scrambled to hide with the others, just as a wagon appeared around a bend in the dirt road, the wagon was surrounded by a group, all of whom were concealed by hooded cloaks and robes, their hands, which oddly did not have five fingers were swathed in bandages, this meant that every part of their bodies was concealed from view.
Ranma's eyes narrowed as he saw them coming. To his developed ki senses it was obvious that they were not human. Not only that, but their ki seemed to be twisted, distorted, and worse of all the manipulation looked deliberate. He kept his cool though, and shifted to one of his combat stances that made it look like he was standing casually around.
"Hail Knight of Solmania and companion," the lead being said in common.
"Greeting brethren," Sturm answered also in that tongue. "My companion and I have traveled many miles this day, and you are the first travelers I have passed. I have heard strange rumors, and I seek information about the road ahead. Where do you come from?"
"We hail from the east originally," the cleric started to answer, when it noticed a green glow from the bushes, just as it started to rain, the effect of the rain was to cause the others in the 'cleric's' party to gasp, drawing the the leader's attention away from the glow to see the pigtailed man was missing, replaced by a buxom pigtailed woman.
Tanis suddenly wondered why the cleric's voice had tailed off when he noticed that he was looking right at the group, before turning to see the changed Ranma.
The leader, confused at both the glow, and what happened to the second male they were confronting, along with the appearance of an unknown, decided to wait a bit before attacking. And continued with his answer, and ended up saying more than he ment in his distraction, "but today we travel from haven after we tracked an object we seek from a village in the plains." the cleric paused when he realized what he had let slip, so he followed up with the story they had planned to use in case someone got overly curious. "It is a blue crystal staff, that was stolen from our brethren, we need it to cure our sick brother."
Ranma's eyes narrowed at this, he could sense the ki of the person in the wagon, and it was the same as the cleric, with no indication of any injury, or sickness that would need magical healing, in fact he couldn't sense any injury's what so ever.
Goldmoon, upon hearing this walked out of the bushes, intending to check the verasity of the clerics story, and to dispense what aid she could, when she was stopped cold by a two words from Ranma.
"Your Lying. I can sense the ki of the one in the wagon, and at most he has a sprained muscle. Who and what are you really?" Ranma said coldly.
Goldmoon Remembered the conversation they had while walking, Ranma had explained that ki was the energy that runs through the body, and people who can detect it can tell things about people, the state of health, weather somebody is lying as well as do things that seem like magic.
The clerics, who recognized that their cover was blown attacked, causing the rest of Sturm's friends, and Diana, to surge out of hiding. The Sturm plunged his blade into one of the now uncloaked figures. The figure looked like a lizard man with wings and brass colored scales, and a draconian head. The figure was killed instantly, and just as quickly turned to stone.
Ranma noticed that and yelled out, "Don't stab them they will turn to stone and trap your weapon!"
The warning was in time for all but Riverwind who made a similar mistake, luckily Tanis was able to toss him a dagger.
Ranma, who normally refrains from killing blows recognized that these things were monsters, and if simply disabled would no doubt come back to cause more trouble so, for only the second time in his life, attacked with intent to kill, two quick Kasu ryu dans later and two of the monsters dropped to the ground, the weighty problem that once rested on their shoulder's now lying at their feet. One of the two killed was going to put a sword through Rastlin's back while his brother was fighting another and Rastlin himself casting a spell that caused a third to ignite. The second kill was one that tried to strike Sturm while he was trying to recover his sword. Sturm, and Rastlin after he finished his spell, stared at Ranma who had, at least to them, just cast magic with no words, no spell components, and little effort. Ranma on the other had was glad he had practiced many of his skills so he didn't NEED to yell out the attack.
Diana and Val had also quickly taken out a opponent a piece and Diana found out quite quickly that the turn to stone ability of these monsters did not impede her photon based weaponry. The rest of the companions quickly finished off the rest as they were distracted by the quick demise of their allies.
Ranma noticed Sturm trying to free his sword and went to help. A quick bakusai tenketsu caused the stone corpse to blow up, incidentally causing a friendly fire mishap when a fragment hit Sturm in the head, knocking him out, and causing a minor concussion.
"Crap," Ranma said, he tried waking the man up. He saw the others looking impatiently at him so he, picked up the sword, and quickly returned it to Sturm before picking the armored man up in a fireman's carry, and moved to where the others were waiting.
"What happened THIS time?" Tanis asked tiredly .
"The technique I used to get his sword out had a bit of a blast radius, and I forgot he's not as tough as my normal opponents. Don't worry I'll carry him until he wakes. It won't slow me down eather," Ranma answered sheepishly before adding under his breath, "At least not at the speeds you travel."
Tanis nodded as the group put some distance between the attack site and themselves, this time conversation was subdued as the group moved on, soon enough Sturm woke up with a splitting headache groaning he realized that he was moving and took a look downwards. He soon realized he was being carried by somebody with red hair tied in a pigtail, and the only problems he was causing her was his size and not his weight.
"Finally up?" Ranma asked. "Sorry bout knocking you out like that, but I did manege to get your sword out, it's in its sheath."
"Let me down I can walk, and next time warn me before you do something like that!" Sturm replied slightly upset and in pain. The only reason why he wasn't completely pissed was that Ranma had saved his life earlier that day.
As Sturm dismounted he staggered a bit, but maneged to stedy himself as the group looked on. As the group set out Ranma asked them a question, "You said that the gods were active at one point on this world right?"
Flint nodded as he replied, "Yes, and some claim they are still active. That is why we are following Goldmoon, she was the best lead we have to discover what happened to them."
Ranma's face darkened as he commented, "I hope they are better than the one I met, or I may have to do a repeat performance of what happened with the last 'god' I met."
"Repeat performance?" Riverwind asked curiously.
"My first kill," Ranma answered in a tone of voice that indicated to the others that he wasnt interested in speaking of the incident further.
The group with the exception of Diana and Val, were wide eyed at the proclamation. The tone even cowed the normally over excitable kender.
Sturm while disturbed by the revelation was distracted, he was seeing what looked like a white stag, and remembering the story told at the in pointed it out and insisted they follow it they did, and with much bickering about following an invisible stag, which Ranma stayed out of since he had done far weirder. The trail that the stag took them on led them to Prayers Eye peak, a peak that looked like two hands preying. The path he lead them through an old game trail, miraculously not overgrown even with the fact that nobody had taken it for centuries, to a gap in the 'hands' that comprised the peak. They continued for awhile until Tanis, noticing Sturm was about to collapse called a halt to which Sturm agreed.
Diana notising the pain Sturm was in went over to hand him a trimate from her nanotransformer. While Rastlin started to have a severe coughing fit. Ranma went to him to see if any of his limited knowledge of ki healing techniques could help the ailing man, and as the two sets of people were in contact it happened.
There is relative time, and there is absolute time. Absolute time tends to be constant with few exceptions, meaning that for every second that passes for a person a second passes for everyone else. Relative time on the other hand spawned such sayings as time flies when you are having fun.
The Absolute time is constant, except in two circumstances, one of which is currently irrelevant which is at near light speed. The other circumstance is that time can flow at different rates between dimensions, this differential can be minor, such as one point five seconds in one is one second in another, or in the case of three dimensions the variation can be more extreme.
At the same time as the companions were traveling up the mountain, Two months in that dimension after Ranma's departure, in Nerima...
A group of people were standing around a table on which a Mirror sat. the mirror was one half glossy reflective black and one half silver. The group surrounding the table had an uneasy truce, their purpus? To retreive a certain pigtailed martial artist. A one foot or so high old woman picked up the mirror, and remembering the terms of the alliance that they had, and used to find the information about the mirror that they were about to use, looked the surrounding people in they eyes, the fat man with a bandana on his head, the traditional woman with auburn hair and holding a wrapped katana, her purple haired grand daughter, the white robed young man, the deluded samerie, the chef, three sisters, and a weeping mustached man. She took a deep breath and spoke her wish, "I wish that Ranma would be brought back to Nerima."
Unknown to anyone but its creators the mirror had a sentience, and it did not like conflicting wishes. Unknown to the old woman the name of the mirror is also a hint, the mirror likes balanced wishes more than unbalanced. Ranma's wish was balanced, it had an unselfish side, his desire to help and a selfish one, using the wish to find personal happiness. Colognes wish on the other hand was selfish considering it had no bearing on what the person the wish affects wants. Now the mirror is bound to try and grant the wish, so it attempted to make a compromise. First since the woman he first sent Ranma to, as she had the potential to make him a good wife with a good chance for a happy marriage was nearby it would bring her, and her partner along with Ranma. The two were also in contact with potential friends so it was child's play to bring them along, the mirror, feeling the strands of destiny from the two decided that they should return to their companions, and with the time differentials between the dimensions, it's easy enough to make it possible to have them back in time to do what they must, the mirror also decided to have them visit Diana's home world. Ranma wished for a chance at Happiness and so, the fact he would have a choice in where to go gives the best chance of it happening. If Ranma decides on a world he will be left there, and the mirror will refuse any other such wishes as impossible. The mirror was about to finish when it noticed something that had been following the target of the wish, and in a impish moment decided to bring it along as well.
The mirror, which had no reactions for near a half minute suddenly flashed as it brought Ranma back to the world and dimension of his birth, but instead of sending him to where the group was gathered, it sent them to the roof of a nearby high school.
The Mirror, for the space of five minutes had the words 'wish granted' in silver, and black fire in it for five minutes before it went back to recharging, this time, since it had been used without a full charge meant it couldn't be used for two to three years.
End chapter.