You decide to keep the Spell of Scrying going for now. Random chatter between one of the Sternritter and his subordinates may not be what you had in mind in the way of information sources, but it's better than being completely blind, and there's always the chance that Gerard will run into one of his fellow elites at some point.
Besides, you've got a summoned version of your Original that you could put to work.
"I can try," Summoned Alex sighs as he picks himself up off the grass. "But you did hear me mention that enervation sucks, right? Not only is that going to make it harder for me to punch through their wards, I can't cast Mind Blank on myself right now - not without using the ritual method, which would eat up a big chunk of the time I have left before this Summoning Spell runs out."
...right, right. Going to have to keep those drawbacks in mind if you plan to make a habit of Summoning Alex in the future.
Also, do you have any preferences for who Summoned Alex should try to look in on?
While you're sorting that out, you keep one eye and ear on Sir Valkyrie - not that there's much to see. Having dropped off his current load of supplies, he concludes his brief chat with the Soldat and the silent civilian whose names you didn't get, takes one look around at the state of the Gate Room, and then turns and leaves - blurring into accelerated motion once he's clear of the guards, and leaving your spell's sensor scrambling to follow him.
At least until the image just... stops.
You blink, staring in confusion at the display of a mostly-empty patch of hallway, an out-of-focus Viking-like figure with glowing feet leaning towards one "side" of the viewing sphere, frozen in the act of running.
"That's new," Summoned Alex notes.
"Actually, that's happened a few times with this one, too," your partner comments from over by the other scrying globe. "Either the picture freezes for a bit, or it stutters, or it sloooows riiiight doooown and gets hard to follow."
"And you didn't mention this sooner, because...?" you trail off.
"What's to mention? We're scrying into planes moving through time at the normal rate, from one that's moving twice as fast; there were bound to be some hiccups along the way."
...
Okay, this is true. And now that you're thinking about temporal differentials, doesn't this mean that your Scrying Spells will technically run out twice as fast on the accelerated demiplane, and hence only show you half as much as you might otherwise be able to see?
"I still would have appreciated the warning before getting this... freeze-frame, Briar."
"Give it a few minutes, it'll unstick itself eventually."
That's not really helpful.
"That's not my fault; I'm cribbing from your mental notes on magic and general weirdness to figure most of this stuff out. You want to blame somebody for any shortcomings there, blame the other you."
"Hey!"
"The OTHER, other you," Briar clarifies.
Summoned Alex considers that for a moment. "...I'm still going to go with, 'hey!'"
Security trumps most other considerations, particularly when you've got several mana restoratives in your pocket to leverage against future need. With that in mind, you cast a Spell of Mind Blank on Summoned Alex, cutting down on the duration so that it's more in-line with his own limited existence.
Safeguard in place, you tell your minion - mwahahaha! - to take over monitoring your current Spell of Scrying, temporal glitches and all.
"And what will you be doing, while I'm wasting my time staring at a screen?"
Okay, first of all, you see what he did there-
"Thought you might."
-and it was funny.
Summoned Alex starts to smirk-
"That's debatable," two Briars sigh in unison.
-and then joins you in frowning at your partners.
Secondly, while your sense of time is admittedly a little off due to all the scrying and travelling between planes of normal, accelerated, and absent Time - to say nothing of your own intermittent shifting from existence to non-existence and then back, on TOP of which there is the passing of memories from prior instances of you to your Original - you think it should have been long enough since your previous casting of the Spell of Communion to cast it again without upsetting the Goddesses.
It hasn't.
Maybe not from OUR perspective, but the Dark Side has a point about what it must feel like from HIS perspective... or should that be plural?
Plural works, and you can stop grinning about that any time now, Din.
I refuse.
Aw, don't be like that, Wise Girl. I'm sure that one day, your Chosen will also discover how to make clones of herself.
"But we didn't bring the Book," Briar points out. "And considering how many questions you CAN ask, if you do it right..."
...yes, having a record of what both sides of the spell say would be helpful for future reference. The issue is easily resolved, however; you simply cast the Spell of Minor Creation to create a fairly large sheet of paper, and then use a simple color-change cantrip to write on it with your fingertip in place of a pencil. You quickly jot down the questions you want to ask-
"Remember the spell's limits," Summoned Alex reminds you.
-and then go back and try to edit them so that they'll fit within the bounds allowed by the Spell of Communion.
While you're working on that, the first Spell of Scrying gives out. You didn't cast it to last very long.
"See anything interesting?" you ask your partner, without looking up from your conjured page.
"I slipped a Spell to Detect Magic through," Briar replies as she zips over to hover above you. "He didn't register as magical, but he also used some sort of Enchantment Magic on the witnesses - it looked like the Spell of Hypnotism, or something pretty closely related."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, he made a friendly, reasonable suggestion that they keep quiet about what they saw, since they didn't have any hard proof, and all four of them agreed a little too easily for it to be natural."
You nod. Between her natural abilities as a fairy and the information she has access to as your familiar, Briar is pretty well-placed to recognize Enchantment Magic at work - certainly the low-end stuff, which tends to have a lot more limitations and giveaways than the truly powerful (and truly scary) mind magics.
So, Altair the Brazilian magic-user is probably an arcanist of some sort, and given Briar couldn't get a reading off of him or his fancy duds until he cast a spell, he must have access to something like the Spell of Nondetection, or perhaps Greater Magic Aura. The question then becomes whether or not he created the effect that defeated Briar's probe on his own, and if so, whether it was achieved via a single spell or through one of the very likely to be, but as yet unverified magic items he was wearing. If it's the former, then he'd probably be an upper low-end or lower middle-tier wizard or sorcerer; if the latter, he might "just" be an agent of another local magic-user, like a certain group of beanie-wearing young men from New York.
You absently wonder if Grack has cousins in Brazil before dismissing the thought and getting on with your preparations for the Spell of Communion.
After double-checking your questions, you perform the Spell of Major Creation to produce the Gold Incense you need, and then clear out a small bowl-shaped indentation in the earth and fill it with water, which you thereafter make holy.
While you work on all of that, your Briar spends some time talking to Summoned Alex about what he's seen - and hasn't seen - in the remaining Scrying Spell, before taking over that job as the Summoning Spell gives out and your minion - mwahahaha! - disappears.
Curse that too-short spell duration!
Once everything is set, you begin the ritual.
The smoke-trails of burning incense rise from the sticks you've planted in the ground around your makeshift "bowl" of holy water, wavering ever so slightly from the motions of your body as you perform the ritual Spell of Communion. Briar stands to one side in her human-sized form, conjured paper in one hand and her index finger-tip glowing on the other, ready to write down the answers as they come.
Glancing at your still-active and currently unfrozen Spell of Scrying, you begin: "O Goddesses, have any of the Wandenreich noticed the Spell of Scrying I cast upon Gerard Valkyrie?"
"Not yet."
Hmmm. Was that a simple statement of fact, or was it perhaps a warning to end that spell sooner rather than later?
Regardless, you proceed to a related question: "Would Jugram Haschwalth notice if I cast a Spell of Scrying on him?"
"YES."
Okay, that was definitely a warning.
Pursuing that topic a little farther, you ask, "Is there something I can do to reduce the odds of Jugram noticing my Spell of Scrying?"
"Not currently."
...huh. So there IS something you could try, but it's not accessible through your current bag of tricks?
Moving on to another topic of interest, you query, "What is the name of the private investigator that photographed the Kurosaki twins?"
"Takanashi Jiro."
Unsurprisingly, it's not a name that rings any bells. Still, it's something you can pass on to Isshin and Masaki.
And speaking of Quincy matters...
"If I returned them home today, would casting the Spell of Nondetection on the American Wandenreich sympathizers put their relatives in danger?"
"No."
Okay, and now to clarify... "If I returned them home today, would casting an EXTENDED Spell of Nondetection on the American Wandenreich sympathizers put their relatives in danger?"
"Depending on duration."
Ah. So if you left the spell's duration parameter alone, nothing would come of it, but if you made it last TOO long, you'd be risking the Archers' safety. Given your Spell of Nondetection will persist for up to seventeen hours under normal circumstances, and factoring in the time remaining "today" - at least by New York time - and you're looking at a lower limit somewhere around thirty hours. The implication, then, is that the Grandmaster isn't going to try looking in on the Archers with the Almighty for at least that long, and also that the problematic members of THAT Quincy family aren't going to have any contact with members of the Wandenreich in the same period.
Seeing as how you didn't get a hard "Yes" in response to your follow-up question, extending the Spell of Nondetection might not be immediately dangerous, but would get more likely to become so as the extra time stacked up - and seeing as how Silbern is scheduled to be blown away by the Shinigami in less than a week, you think you can see the danger point.
Even as you consider all of that, you're moving on to your next question: "Do I need to modify the memories of any of the Quincy refugees aside from the nine confirmed Wandenreich sympathizers to keep my Original's identity secure?"
That's a lot to ask all at once, given there's a time limit on each question the Spell of Communion allows you to ask, but hopefully-
"No."
-oh, good, it fit. And double-good, for the answer. Saves you a lot of hassle, on multiple fronts.
With your immediately relevant Quincy-related concerns answered, you move on once more. "Of those who noticed the tenth-circle spells we cast on Earth, who should I be most worried about?"
There's no question that those spells WERE detected, but hopefully, this will get you a name-
"Unclear."
-or that could happen. The question then becomes, is the answer unclear because your question was too exclusive, and there's more than one party you should be watching for? Is it because some of those who detected the work of your Original and your previous incarnation are capable of concealing themselves from the Goddesses, making the threat they pose unverifiable? Is it a bit of both? Or perhaps there's some other angle you just aren't thinking of...
Your partner holds up the conjured sheet of paper, helpfully pointing out the questions you came up with earlier, in anticipation of this line of inquiry going the way it has.
"Is the answer to the prior question unclear because the aforementioned parties are concealing themselves from you?"
"Partly."
...
...okay, that implies that it's the mix of issues you were worried about. Multiple parties that may pose a threat, some of them being sufficiently shielded to muddle the Goddesses' sight, and at least two of the unshielded remaining parties posing such a similar degree of threat to you and your Original that the shining sisters can't say for certain which is more dangerous.
With that in mind...
"Which of the aforementioned parties that you can see are most likely to find us?"
"Wolfram and Hart."
Oh, good; the evil lawyers. Been a while since-
"Yami."
-okay, who or what-
"DOATEC."
-is that even a word?!
You have no idea who those last two are, and unfortunately, any follow-up on them will have to wait.
"Who of those you can see learned the most about us from our recent activity?"
"Unclear."
Not the answer you were hoping for, and again, not one that you can follow up on at this time.
Once more, you shift tracks. "Do you know why the Soul King's Heart was with the Wandenreich?"
"No."
Unfortunate, but not surprising. Following the affairs of another deity, much less one from an entirely different world, would be about as difficult for the Goddesses as tracking the activities of a fellow high-end magic-user would be for you. And considering that the Heart has apparently been wandering around disembodied for a LONG time...
"Are there any other parts of the Soul King's body acting on their own?"
"Yes."
You had a feeling that might be the case. "Which piece of the Soul King's body should I watch out for?"
"Right Arm. Brain. Chain."
...first of all, ew.
Second, thank you, O Goddesses, for clarifying that there's more than one godly body part that has gone walkabout and could pose a problem for you and your Original in the future.
And thirdly, "chain"?
What kind of a body did the Soul King even HAVE?
Pushing aside your confusion and curiosity, you keep going. "Will Yhwach revive in a timeframe I should be worried about?"
"Yes."
Well, fudge.
Fortunately, you prepared some questions for this outcome, too.
"Will Yhwach revive soon?" you begin, trusting that the Goddesses will answer-
"Within a year."
-well, like that.
But the Quincy King is coming back to life THAT soon? How is that even fair- no, focus.
Next question. "Will Yhwach revive using Auswahlen?"
Because that really is your biggest concern, that the guy could still try to wipe out all the "impure" Quincy with his Selection trick, forcing you to repeat this refugee business all over again.
"No," comes the reply. It's promptly followed by, "Unconscious reincarnation."
...
A vision pops into your head of a tiny baby with Yhwach's mutton-chops and mustache, and those strange eyes you briefly saw in the Grandmaster's head.
You try to dismiss the image, because a) it is distracting you from your remaining questions, and b) it is Creepy.
"If I used Yhwach's Blood to target a spell on him, would it rebound like things did while he was sleeping?"
"No."
Okay, that's a relief.
Sensing your Spell of Communion is reaching its limit, you ask your final question: "Would speaking of the Soul King's body parts OTHER than the Heart violate our Oath?"
"No, but be mindful."
Another warning, huh? Well, it's a fair one; while your outstanding Oath only applies to the events in Silbern and what you learned from them, spreading the news that some of the Soul King's OTHER body parts are acting on their own accord would at least reveal that such a thing was possible, and by extension, that the Soul Society's nominal ruler was not "of sound body," as you believe the saying goes.
Captain-Commander Yamamoto would not be happy about that, so even if you're not specifically sworn to keep quiet about this information, doing so would only be prudent.
In any case, the Goddesses' presence vanishes with their last word, and your spell ends.
As you set about extinguishing the incense, your mind starts turning over the answers to your various questions.
The news that Yhwach is going to reincarnate is frustrating, particularly given the timing, but considering how the man set up a thousand-year gambit to cheat death, you really can't say it's unexpected that he had some kind of back-up in place. You ARE surprised that he's apparently coming back the "normal" way rather than spontaneously resurrecting himself somewhere or stealing someone else's body - a certain Wandenreich Grandmaster immediately comes to mind, there - but there must be a reason for it.
And really, if you absolutely MUST deal with the Sealed King returning to life in spite of your efforts to the contrary, having him do so as a baby that doesn't have a scary old man's voice in the back of his (or her?) head isn't the worst possible outcome. Certainly, you're much happier to be informed of the problem in advance, rather than finding out about it somewhere down the road.
It does beg the question of what you're going to do with this information going forward, but you think you can leave the headache of answering that to your Original.
As for the other questions, you now have a list of... entities is probably the best term, that you know to be on the lookout for, and potentially to do further investigation of. You're probably going to have to resort to magical means to find out anything further about the Soul King's body parts, but some of the names you were given are the sort of thing you and your Original could probably look up using purely mundane resources - and perhaps SHOULD. The evil demon lawyers undoubtedly have defenses in place to make scrying and other common magical intrusions a bad idea, and the other two names you were given are at least capable of detecting major magical activity, so you can't rule out the possibility that they'd be able to detect weaker events.
The private investigator is probably safe to look in on either way, assuming the Kurosakis want your help in the matter.
Regardless, is there anything else you want to do on the accelerated demiplane at this time?
Once the last of the incense is dispelled, Briar hands over the conjured page of questions and answers and resumes her normal size. Pocketing the information, you open a Gate back to the timeless demiplane, where your first explain that the Muhlfelds are safely on their way home, and then let the Archers know that you're ready to start taking them back to New York. While the American Quincy are gathering their things, you take your Original aside to recount what the Goddesses had to say.
Alex is less than thrilled to hear that Yhwach is not staying properly dead, but takes it in stride, folding the added page into the Conjured Book and tucking the whole thing back into his pocket, mentioning that he'll copy and more properly consider your findings later.
For the time being, you have more Quincy to wrangle.
Twenty-three Archers take some work to ward with Nondetection, but you manage. Keeping the Goddesses' warning in mind, you opt to set the duration of the spells at Sixteen hours.
After some discussion with Balthazar, it is agreed - reluctantly, in some cases - that the Archers will return to New York by way of the Arcana Cabana. This requires you to shrink a few cars, but some creative spell editing lets you get the entire family "fleet" with one spell, and you're through the Gate, out the back of the Arcana Cabana, and returning plush vehicles to proper steel before the much-shortened spell wears off.
Balthazar's private parking spot gets a little crowded for a bit as a result of that, but the Archers are able to roll out in good order. Seeing as how their garage was Ground Zero for a major magical disturbance, even with the wards on the building and your post-casting clean-up efforts, Miles and Alice decide to stay over with one of their sons for a few days. Balthazar will keep an eye on the place and give them the all-clear once the heat has died down.
Speaking of whom, once all the Archers are on their way, the Merlinean Master accompanies you back to the timeless demiplane, to keep an eye on the Ishidas who aren't going home right away.
On that note, your mana is starting to get a bit low. Do you want to down one (or more) of the Night's Essence Potions that Original Alex handed off to you?
While you're able to adjust a spell's duration to a truly tremendous degree, you can't make those changes particularly PRECISE - and a spell that lasted one hundred and sixty hours would be coming concerningly close to the one-week deadline before Silbern goes bye-bye and Grandmaster Haschwalth (likely) gets around to looking in on the New York Quincy population. Particularly now that a good portion of the first day of that week has passed.
In other words, you feel it's better not to test your luck.
While you probably do need at least some extra mana, now really isn't the time to explore how a mana overdose affects your behavior, judgment, and overall condition. With that in mind, you limit yourself to using just one of the Night's Essence potions.
*Glug*
*Glug*
*Glug*
Used Night's Essence
Gained Glass Bottle
As you pocket the empty bottle and allow yourself a small burp, you pause to consider how you feel, beyond the spreading, tingling warmth of returning energy. You've personally only imbibed a Moondrop before this, and that plus this one Night's Essence shouldn't have any side-effects - but your Original DID down a Night's Essence himself before he re-summoned you, so it's possible that something might have been passed on.
About a minute on, the initial reaction of the potion is fading, and you don't feel any unusual secondary effects beyond that brief need to belch. As far as you can tell, that was just ordinary air in your stomach, gulped down along with the liquid catalyst.
With no issues presenting themselves, you get on with the matter of the troublesome Ishidas. It's now ten at night in Karakura, so simply dumping this lot and leaving them to wake up on their own after your summoned non-Shinigami psychopomps have edited their memories is probably a bad idea. Even with a Spell of Nondetection up, they might be found by a Hollow before they wake up, and while said magic might interfere with the spectral predator's senses well enough to make the Quincy appear "unappetizing," you aren't sure of that - nor can you say for certain that a Hollow wouldn't take the "easy meal" regardless.
It's not a big deal, though; you can just wake them up once your work is done. You were already going to have the viduus erase the Ishidas' memories of you, so even if they see you, you can just be a concerned stranger who happened upon them and has no idea whatsoever of how they ended up unconscious in the... hmmm... probably the Karakura park. That would give you more than enough space to set down nine unconscious bodies in a hurry without hurting anyone or causing them enough discomfort to awaken early, a low likelihood of witnesses given the hour, and plenty of open space to see any incoming Hollows or other beings come to investigate the portal.
So that's your plan:
Have Alex use the planar key he's borrowed from Balthazar to open a Gate to a "safe" Outer Plane.
Don't mistake said plane for a Disney movie.
Knock out the Ishidas as quickly as possible, probably with a ritual variant on the Spell of Deep Slumber, so you can get them all at once and not get shot at again.
Summon a group of viduus to edit the Quincies' memories, erasing you, your Original, and everything you were involved in from their knowledge of the last day or so.
Then take everyone through another Gate, wake them up, and go your separate ways.
Are there any adjustments you'd like to make?
Thinking it through one last time, you decide that it might be best to wake the Ishidas from a distance. That way, there is less chance that they'll see you, and you'll have more room to maneuver if they wake up shooting.
With that decided, you and your Original turn to the matter of getting the problematic Quincy off your demiplane. Original Alex takes the prayer wheel-like focus in hand and begins casting the Gate Spell, while you cast a modified Spell of Nondetection over your soon-to-be passengers.
The Wandenreich sympathizers aren't especially keen on having you cast more magic on them, and having seen you and your Original open Gates "the short way" several times now, they're a touch suspicious when Alex starts using the ritual method.
You deal with these issues by admitting up-front that you're taking this lot back to Earth by a "roundabout" route, because you don't exactly trust them not to go to the people who want to have arrow-pointed words with you about recent events, and so are not keen on leaving a trail that said individuals might be able to trace directly to your demiplanes. On that note, since you're going to a much larger plane that has its own inhabitants, and because the Spell of Mind Blank that you cast on them the day before - has it really (only) been that long? - will collapse as soon as they leave the demiplane, you want to give them SOME degree of concealment. It's partly for the sake of avoiding attention from the locals on the new plane, however benign and benevolent they're supposed to be, but it's also because the hour is late in Karakura, and you'd prefer to avoid run-ins with Hollows if you can help it.
Being told what time it is back in Japan has some of the Quincy - and not just the ones going with you, at that - glancing at their watches or the demiplane's foggy, twilit sky, or otherwise conceding that they've had trouble keeping track of time in this place where it technically doesn't exist.
Also, the prospect of avoiding Hollow attention even while outdoors, after dark, in one of the creatures' prime hunting grounds, draws some genuine interest even from the more suspicious members of the party. You have to clarify that the spell's effects only apply to THEM, and won't be much help if they start shooting at the warped ghosts.
There is some obvious disappointment at that.
Two quick castings later, and you have everyone covered. Once that's done, you start a ritual of your own, building up what you hope will be a version of the Spell of Deep Slumber potent enough to knock out all of the Quincy in one go.
The Ishidas ask what spell you're preparing, of course, and it amuses you to answer honestly. You make it sound like your choice of a Sleep Spell is because the denizens of the other plane are goodly beings that you have no desire to harm, should they prove to have violent objections to your brief and unannounced arrival.
"Also, Balthazar said something about not mistaking the place for a Disney movie..."
At length, Original Alex opens the Gate, and you find yourself looking upon a pastoral paradise, where great rolling fields of long, golden grass run on for miles. You can see tall mountains in the distance, and an emerald-hued smudge between them and the plain that you presume marks the presence of a forest. The sky is a shade of brilliant blue that you don't think you've ever seen on Earth, though it brings back memories of Hyrule, and by the level of sunlight, it's around mid-morning - assuming of course that the local "star" is of similar brightness as the Sun. You don't see much in the way of buildings, and the only creatures you see are far enough and small enough to just be moving spots against the background.
Stepping through the portal, you look around, but see that luck is with you. There's no one - and no THING - in the immediate vicinity.
You gesture for the nine Ishidas to follow you, and one by one, with varying degrees of hesitation, they do so.
The Elder who is holding the seal on Yukio's powers also comes through, having been briefed ahead of time and included under your casting of Nondetection.
As the Gate closes, you nod to the older man, and then set off your Sleep Spell.
Holding back isn't really your style, and it wouldn't be a great idea in this situation. You need to knock out all nine of the Wandenreich sympathizers as quickly as possible - ideally, all at once - and your best shot at doing that is to put as much power into your spell as you can.
Some of the Ishidas give you puzzled looks at this statement, and then turn to Balthazar.
"Exactly what is that supposed to mean?" Ishida Josuke asks warily.
"I hate to ruin the surprise," the Merlinean Master answers, "but quite simply? Intelligent. Talking. Animals."
Even in the middle of your spellwork, you and your Original pause to join the Quincy in regarding your fellow sorcerer.
"...you're serious?" one of them asks.
"Well, it's more that they're spirits of the departed that have taken the FORMS of animals-"
"Wait, that's a thing that actually happens?"
"Why would anyone-"
"-talk about dying Buddhist-"
"-Uncle came back as a dog after all!"
"-for a variety of reasons, ranging from personal belief to their souls simply ending up on a plane whose metaphysical laws are set up to encourage this outcome," Balthazar continues.
"Why?" someone in the small crowd asks. "What possible benefit is there in... well, in that?"
"There are several," Balthazar says levelly. "For one thing, it's a reminder that humans aren't the center of the universe, that other forms of life we consider 'lesser' have their own worth, and that underneath all the trappings of society, technology, and philosophy, we're still animals ourselves. Another benefit is that experiencing life from such a different perspective helps you to gain a better understanding of the world and yourself. There's also the fact that the plane itself is like the most idealized depiction of unspoiled wilderness come to life, with outposts of 'civilization' being few and far between; animals are generally better at getting along in conditions like that than humans."
Gained Local Knowledge (Nirvana) F
It's shortly after this that your Original opens the Gate. Once everyone is through, and before the Ishidas have time to spread out too far, you set off your Spell of Sleep.
Half of the spirit-archers go down at once, falling onto the welcoming grass as if they'd just fainted dead away. Those were the ones with the weakest auras, so it's only expected that they'd be hit first and so completely. Two more - one of them the still-bound Yukio - sort of stagger about for a moment, sort of sit down very abruptly, and then slowly topple over sideways.
That leaves three on their feet: the Elder, who you specifically excluded from the area of effect; Josuke, who is turning about unsteadily, his expression one of sleepiness quickly shifting to adrenalin-fueled alarm; and a lady whose name you didn't get, who-
"Zzzz."
-okay, nevermind, she's literally asleep on her feet.
...not going to lie, that's actually kind of neat.
Josuke, meanwhile, is going for his cross-
"Ha!" Briar exclaims, letting loose a spell of her own.
-which he discards with a sudden hiss of pain as the metal briefly glows red-hot. The chain that binds the tool to his wrist means it isn't truly lost, but the break in contact and concentration causes the spirit particles that had been forming around the cross to diffuse back into the air.
Through the limited prescience granted by your Spell of Foresight, you can see Josuke recovering, forming his bow, and not hesitating to shoot at you, all of it fast enough that you won't have time to finish a new spell.
But in the here and now, thanks to your partner? You have an opening!
The next few moments require some concentration on your part, as you use your supernaturally augmented perception and mobility to read Josuke's attacks before he even makes them and then evade accordingly, buying time for your mana to finish cycling so that you can prepare your next spell.
Between the limited precognizance granted by the Spell of Foresight, the twofold boost to your conventional senses by Brain Enhancement and the Spell of General Augmentation, and that handy immunity to fear coming from the Greater Spell of Heroism, anticipating Josuke's actions and reactions isn't too difficult.
Actually dodging the small storm of arrows he sends your way is another matter-
*Flicker*
-as while your Ki Enhancement and the Augmentation Spell make you very fast by most mortal standards, Quincy techniques were designed and refined for use against Hollows and Shinigami. You KNOW that the latter can move as fast as Body Flickering-
*Flicker*
-when they want to, so it doesn't come as a surprise when you end up burning both of your comparatively low-tier Staggered Flickers in quick succession. After that, you have to resort to using the Spell to Walk Through Space-
*Flicker*
-to avoid getting tagged, as even if you really CAN tank those hits, it doesn't mean that you SHOULD. Quite aside from potentially developing bad habits on your part, if Josuke realizes his default weapon can't hurt you, he'll undoubtedly try something else. While you've got a fair grasp on the Quincy combat repertoire thanks to Souken and the Wandenreich, it's by no means an exhaustive one, and Josuke just might manage to surprise you - that, or pull out a technique that could be dangerous to his unconscious relatives or himself.
You'd prefer to avoid any of those outcomes if possible, so evasion is the name of the game.
While you're alternately dashing, ducking, dodging, and dipping in and out of the local Astral to make it look like you're worried about getting your Shadow-essence punctured, Josuke is yelling at the Elder.
"What are you DOING, Uncle? Help me!"
"Josuke, calm down-!"
"-DOWN? He just tried to-!"
"-didn't hurt them-"
"YOU DON'T KNOW THAT!"
"DON'T TAKE THAT TONE WITH ME, BOY!"
You spare a moment to be grateful that ordinary levels of noise, even loud yelling, don't disrupt Sleep Spells.
"This just isn't your lucky day!" you declare, as you let the Curse of Ill Omen fly.
Unlike your battle with Alboa, there isn't even a distortion in the air when you cast the curse this time.
Josuke's response to that is another burst of arrows-
!
-which fall all around you as you stand there, secure in the knowledge granted to you by your Foresight that you won't get hit.
Both of the conscious Quincy pause to blink in clear surprise at this.
"What did you-" Josuke begins.
"You haven't shot that badly since you were nine," the Elder muses.
"Not the time, Uncle, and WHY ARE YOU JUST STANDING THERE?"
"WHAT DID I JUST TELL YOU?"
By this point, you're pretty well convinced that, combat training or no, Ishida Josuke is just one of those people who have trouble keeping their heads clear in a crisis. Suspicious as he's been of you and your Original more or less from your first meeting, it really should have occurred to him by now that his older relative's lack of action against you was a sign that the senior Quincy was on your side - more or less - but the younger man has yet to accuse you of enthralling his relative.
Regardless of all of that, Josuke's distraction gives you enough time to recover and ready what you hope will be your last necessary bit of magic in this fight.
"Josuke!" you call.
The man's head turns your way, and his bow begins to rise-
"GO THE F**K TO SLEEP!"
-and then, some distance above and behind him, the Spell of Deep Slumber goes off like a silent, invisible, harmless Fireball.
A moment later, the especially troublesome Quincy pitches over in the grass alongside the rest of his compatriots.
"Language, young man."
"Sorry, sir," you apologize to the Ishida Elder. "It, uh, seemed appropriate."
Said Quincy blinks at you. "I didn't say anything."
The two of you look at each other for a moment, and then off to your right and his left - and down.
The groundhog that has popped out of a burrow hidden by the grass and is now sitting there with half of its perhaps three-foot-long body out of the ground meets your gaze as best it can.
"You ARE a big one, aren't you?" the celestial in rodent form chitters, half to itself. "Well, then; now that all the fuss has died down, would someone mind explaining what's going on?"
"Well, first of all," you begin, "my apologies for the disturbance. I'd been hoping to deal with things a bit less aggressively and a lot more quietly than that."
"Noted," the groundhog says, in a light, slightly squeaky voice that you have difficulty pinning a gender to. Now that you're actually looking at the celestial, you can tell that the being's aura feels no stronger than a normal adult human's, and moreover, is weirdly similar to the energies suffusing the air and ground all about you. Combined with the likelihood that this local was underground when you came through the Gate, those factors go a long way towards explaining how you missed your audience in your initial sweep of the area.
"As to what's going on, it's a bit of a story..."
Naming no names, you launch into an explanation about recent Quincy-related events, telling the not-really-a-groundhog that an ancient god-king was due to wake up on your native plane, killing a thousand of the "disfavored" descendants of his mortal followers in the process and then starting a build-up for a war over control of one of the local afterlives. "You" found out about it in time to evacuate about seventy of the people in direct danger to a demiplanar refuge under wards-
"Only seventy?" the groundhog asks, whiskers drooping in dismay. "Out of a thousand?"
"They were the only ones my allies and I managed to find in the time we had to work with," you explain.
-but you also made contact with the agents of the afterlife that was due to be invaded, and assisted them in launching a pre-emptive attack aimed at neutralizing their enemy before he could recover.
"In other words, an assassination." The groundhog manages to frown.
"That was pretty much the plan," you admit, thinking briefly of Sui-Feng.
Summing up the events of the Silbern raid with, "We stopped him, and managed to avoid serious casualties on either side," you further note that the preservation of lives had a downside, in that most of the now-dead god-king's loyal followers escaped and will be trying to figure out what happened.
"Which brings us to this lot," you say, glancing at the sleeping Quincy with annoyance you don't bother to hide. "Based on consultation with my deities, I've confirmed that at least some of this group were going to try to make contact with their distant relatives and pass on everything they knew about recent events. Seeing as how that would not only give away my identity, the identities of my allies, AND put all the people we were trying to save in the sights of a bunch of bigoted fanatics looking for revenge, it was decided that our best bet was to alter their memories of the last couple of days, so they couldn't endanger anyone."
The groundhog considers that for a moment.
"Alright, I think I follow you so far... but why bring them here?"
"The king's second has access to powerful Divination Magic that I don't know the full limits of," you reply honestly. "I didn't want to take the chance that he might be able to track this lot back to the demiplane I was using, so making a side-trip to a much larger plane on the way back to our native world seemed in order. I picked this plane on the recommendation of my associates that it would be reasonably safe to spend a few minutes here with a bunch of unconscious people."
"'Reasonably safe'?" That's the Ishida Elder, looking a bit worried by your admission.
"Nowhere in the planes is ENTIRELY safe," you tell him frankly.
"An unfortunate truth of existence," the groundhog chitters in reluctant agreement. "We do our best to encourage tolerance and understanding among our guests, and the essential nature of Nirvana is opposed to acts of evil, but that doesn't mean it's impossible for such things to occur here, just less likely. And when you're dealing with a realm of functionally infinite size, it's basically guaranteed that something bad is happening SOMEWHERE."
That remark has you looking around again, measuring the still-unfamiliar energies of this alternate layer of reality. There is a pervasive sense of Goodness all about you - not Holiness or Godliness, but a fundamental positivity that feels like peace, joy, and a bunch of other warm feelings all wrapped up into one. Given your nature as a manifestation of the... more pragmatic aspects of your Original's personality, it's actually a little uncomfortable, sort of like walking outside on a sunny day without a hat or glasses. The sensation's not intense enough to weaken you, or at least not significantly, but it's there all the same.
Gained Local Knowledge (Nirvana) F (Plus)
In any case, you've managed to make your case to the celestial rodent in just a couple of minutes. As for their response?
"I don't like the idea of people having their memories altered against their will," the rodent says frankly, "and the whole..." - not-so-little paws wave in the air - "ambush, knock out, and mind-warp bit has some VERY disturbing connotations. But I REALLY don't like the idea of innocent people, especially children, being put in danger by the poorly-considered actions of some of their relatives." The furry head turns to the Ishida Elder. "Your extended family knows about this?"
"All of the Elders were consulted on the matter," the Quincy replies. "We're not entirely keen on the idea, ourselves - it smacks of something certain old enemies of ours are entirely too fond of doing - but we have to protect our families, we can't fight off our militant cousins if they come for us, and we can't keep these young fools locked up or with their powers sealed forever. This seemed to be the least-bad option."
"The lesser evil, as it were."
The Quincy winces, but nods. "To borrow a phrase, yes."
There is a squeaky huff. "Very well."
With the... grudging permission of a local, you get on with summoning your chosen memory-manipulating specialists - but first! After how things have worked out with the Quincy, you wanted to avoid letting the viduus see your adult form, so as not to lead their entire afterlife bureaucracy straight to your Original. With that in mind, you were going to cast the Spell to Alter One's Self and take on a different guise, but you're currently working with a full load of buffs, and since you have more spellcasting to do after adding the disguise, you'll have to dismiss one of your current enhancements to make room for the Transformation Magic.
Once that's done, a sixth-circle Spell to Summon Monsters will be enough to get you a group of viduus in one go; the only question is if you want to spend some extra energy to extend the spell.
You cast the spell.
*Poof*
"Oh, death gods, natural LIIIIGHT!" something wails in despair.
...what?
After a moment's consideration, you dispel the Spell of Spell Immunity. With all of the Wandenreich sympathizers down for the count, you aren't in any particular danger of getting Quincy arrows shot at you again, as long as you don't grievously offend their still-conscious Elder, and if the situation arises where you do need that defense, it's straightforward and relatively inexpensive.
Before you change your appearance, you explain what you're about to do and why, and ask your associate if he'd like for you to alter his appearance as well, or if he'd prefer to remain as-is.
The Quincy considers your offer for a moment. "...actually, I believe I WOULD like a disguise, if that wouldn't be too much trouble?"
"Not at all."
Indeed, it's a very simple matter to increase the normally self-targeting Spell to Alter One's Self so that it becomes, in essence, a Spell to Alter Another's Self.
"Really, now? In that case, would it possible for you to change how the others look, as well?"
The request IS within your ability to grant, and you can see why the Elder would ask. It's bad enough that his family have to live under threat of the Soul Society's displeasure, but you're going to be bringing them to the direct attention of another group of agents of the afterlife, and while the viduus aren't actively hostile, they aren't inclined to like Quincy any more than the Shinigami are.
Altered forms and false faces would be a small protection, but more of one than the unconscious Ishidas have at the moment.
That said, you're going to be asking the viduus to modify the Quincies' memories, and from what Balthazar told you, the process creates unmodified copies of the original information - meaning the psychopomps will be finding out who these people are regardless of what they happen to look like.
Still...
You decide to keep the viduus around for a while, partly on the grounds that you're not sure how long it will take for them to finish their work, and partly because you're going to need extra hands to move all these sleeping Quincy through the Gate you'll be opening shortly.
Waste not, and all that.
Considering how much mana you've used to this point, how much more you will be drawing upon, and where that's going to leave your reserves, you also get out one of your remaining Night's Essences and chug it down.
*Glug*
*Glug*
*Glug*
Used Night's Essence
Gained Glass Bottle
*Burp*
*Blorp*
You stare at the small cloud of irridescent bubbles you just belched up as they begin to drift up and away. None get more than a few feet, air pressure or some other factor causing them to burst - which they do with faint chiming noises and short-lived sprays of multi-colored light.
"...is that normal, partner?" you ask your fairy companion.
"Fairly common for an early stage mana overdose," Briar replies. "How do you feel?"
You hold up your hands, turning them back and forth and flexing the fingers slowly, while also shifting your toes about in your boots. "...kind of fuzzy and tingly in the extremities. Warmer, elsewhere, a little scratchy in the throat... maybe a little light-headed."
"Also pretty typical."
Alright, you should probably avoid quaffing that last mana potion if you can help it.
You get on with summoning the viduus-
"Oh, death gods, natural LIIIIGHT!"
-and are left staring in confounded curiosity at the results.
Four creatures stand amid the clearing cloud of summoning smoke, just one shy of the maximum result for the spell you used. From the waist up, they resemble fairly standard humanoids, clad in robes that the Ganondorf part of your memory recognizes as being of a scholarly style, rather than a sorcerous one; the difference lies mainly in the lack of arcane symbolism stitched and woven into the design, as well as the lighter, strictly indoor and non-combative nature of the garments in question. From the waist down, the newcomers almost resemble giant worms, except that the exposed substance of their lower bodies is too dry and thick to be flesh, and actually looks a bit fuzzy in places - but not in the manner of fur or hair.
All four of the viduus are wearing ornate masks, which are quite unlike the bone-white, sometimes color-spattered versions you've heard attributed to Hollows. One does wear a mask of white clay, shaped like a human face and covering the front of its owner's head almost entirely, leaving only the dark eyes visible. The next psychopomp scholar, a female, wears beaten bronze that again replicates a mortal visage, as if with the sides of the head and the ears folded away from the skull beneath. The last two wear carved and painted wood, and one of these is cowering in horror, shielding its already-obscured visage from Nirvana's sun, while its three compatriots look on with clear annoyance.
Then the one wearing the bronze mask sighs, shakes her head, and turns to you. "Please ignore the idiot. He doesn't get out nearly often enough."
"I am an agent of the afterlife!" comes a wailing protest. "I'm not SUPPOSED to 'get out' at all!"
"So," the apparent leader goes on, paying no attention to her counterpart, "why have you summoned us?"
"I have some people whose memories I need altered..."
It costs you little enough to fulfill the Elder's request, so you go ahead and include the sleeping Ishidas in the Transformation Spell. Seeing no need to over-complicate the matter, you make everyone - including yourself - look like regular Japanese citizens, who happen not to have the common features of the Quincy bloodline.
Once that's done, you get on with summoning the viduuses and explaining your need for their aid. Hoping to put yourself in a good light and encourage the support of these unfamiliar spirits, you provide a reasonable context for the situation, touching on Yhwach's resurrection, your largely successful efforts to thwart it, and the fallout.
The viduuses are startled to hear that the Quincy King was about to revive, relieved to learn that his resurrection ritual was thwarted, and a bit amused by the fact that, for all the Shinigami involvement, the killing blow was delivered by a mortal sorcerer's summons instead of the edge of a zanpakuto.
There seems to be a bit of a professional rivalry between the two types of psychopomps.
When you explain how some of the Quincy you were sheltering were going to do something rather foolish in the aftermath, the viduuses are quick to agree to altering their memories - although they do caution you that there are some limitations.
"We can't use that power without drawing a small amount of the target's blood," the bronze-masked female who seems to be the leader of the group says. "We can minimize the harm done, especially when they're out cold like this and can't complicate matters by resisting, but we can't avoid it entirely."
In other words, your Spell of Deep Slumber will be disrupted. That's good to know in advance. Fortunately, the viduuses are immune to mind-affecting effects like Sleep Spells, so you can just re-cast the magic as needed, and not worry about catching your temporary allies in the "splash."
The leader also notes that creatures who've had their memories altered are also left in a temporary state of confusion, where they can't distinguish allies from enemies and will behave erratically. This is also a good thing to be on the lookout for, and really just a further reason to have Sleep Spells on standby.
Finally, the female viduus cautions you that, due to Nirvana's influence being somewhat in opposition to their presence, she and her companions will have some trouble employing their power.
This has you frowning, but from what the viduuses say - and the groundhog's agreement - the local interference won't be a deal-breaker, it'll just make it a bit more likely that the Quincy manage to resist the memory modifications. Any other Outer Plane except the viduuses' own native realm would have objected to their presence at least as strongly, if not even more so, and the psychopomps admit that even the libraries where they work might not be as safe for a group of unconscious mortals as Nirvana - not to mention that you wouldn't have been able to summon them while on their plane.
In any case, you have the means to make up for the interference, and then some; you can simply cast the Spell of Mind Fog over the area, which will severely compromise the unconscious Quincies' will to resist (such as it is when they're already out cold). The viduuses won't be affected, and you, Briar, and the Ishida Elder can just stay out of the cloud until the work is done, at which point you can dispel it.
The full conversation takes up several minutes, and you lose a bit more time sorting out just what changes need to be made to the Wandenreich sympathizer's memories but you're ready to go well ahead of the expiry of your first casting of the Spell of Deep Slumber.
Given the amount of memories they have to work with, the viduuses split up and move through the thin physical mist produced by the Mind Fog, so that two of them are dealing with one Quincy at a time. You ready a Sleep Spell, and then the psychopomps lean down-
"Ow!"
"Gwa-!"
-and jab the tips of their feathered quills into the exposed arms of two of the sleeping Quincy.
Who, understandably, wake up.
"SLEEP!"
For all of, oh, four seconds?
The viduuses report that their alterations were successful - the Mind Fog is DEFINITELY helping - and then half-shuffle, half-slither over to the next pair of slumbering spirit-archers.
Jab.
"Ow!"
"SLEEP!"
Success.
And so it goes.
"I really don't know how to react to this," the sole conscious Ishida admits.
It won't take long to get the Ishidas' memories sorted out. That just leaves the matter of returning them to Earth. You'll have enough mana left to open the needed Gate, and the viduuses have already agreed to help carry the Quincy through the portal - the "prank" won't be complete, otherwise - but there's only four of them, one of you, and a single Quincy Elder. It'll take two movers to a single body to make sure nobody is jostled around so much as to awaken again, making for three round trips through the portal - which might be a bit too long, seeing as how you can't keep the thing open for even two whole minutes.
Do you want to summon some additional bodies to, uh, help move the bodies?
You keep things simple, asking the viduuses to remove any mention of sorcery or practitioners thereof from the Ishidas' memories. This naturally results in most of the events of the last couple of days being edited out, and in their place, you have the psychopomps insert memories of a "fairly normal" family reunion: greetings and well-wishing; introductions to family members too young to remember prior meetings; reminiscing about old times and catching up on current events; taking up old disagreements and arguments, or finding new ones; and so on.
Having one of the Ishida Elders on hand to prove advice on personal histories and character is very helpful.
To explain how over half a dozen members of the family could end up passed out in a park together, you resort to the explanation of a drinking party gotten out of hand, something the Elder admits wouldn't be entirely out of the question. Most of the Wandenreich sympathizers are old enough to be in or just a few years out of college; one is a bit younger, but still old enough that it's believable someone would bend the rules to let them drink on a special occasion.
As to whether or not this particular group would go out drinking together in the middle of a family reunion? The Elder thinks there's a pretty good chance of it.
"If there'd been any alcohol in those magic mansions of yours, they definitely would have started drinking it after some of the arguments that were had over the last couple of days."
You're suddenly relieved that your Original didn't include any of those mini-bars he added to the Mansions at his birthday party to the Mansions on the demiplane. You've been having quite enough trouble dealing with a bunch of stubborn, contrarian Quincy without seeing a bunch of them get drunk in the process.
The Elder that having complicated feelings about this whole mess strikes you as an accurate and reasonable response, and you say as much.
That earns you a raised eyebrow. "Not going to try and convince me that we're doing the right thing?"
"We're altering people's memories without their informed consent," you reply. "I consider that an acceptable course of action because the alternative would get people killed, but that doesn't make it 'right'."
Nearby, the groundhog chitters, but doesn't actually say anything.
Once all of the Ishidas have had their memories altered, you dispel the Mind Fog so that Briar can heal up their minor puncture wounds. While your partner is doing that, you get on with securing transport for all these unconscious bodies. You had considered additional summons, but a less costly method came to mind, and so you cast a Ritual Spell to Create a Floating Disk, tweaking the formula to produce multiple floating platforms with one casting.
It takes a couple minutes to shape the magic to your satisfaction, but once it's done, you have enough Floating Disks to accommodate all but one of the slumbering Quincy. You, the Elder, and the viduuses set about loading people onto the conveyances, one passenger per Disk - because for all that the constructs can carry much more than the weight of a single human body, there isn't really enough space for more than one person. The Disks are only three feet across, after all.
As you're tucking Ishida Yukio's legs up next to his body, you pause and lean forward, sniffing.
The scent of alcohol is strong.
"I took the liberty of making everybody smell a little bit like beer while I was healing them," Briar informs you. "Added a few stains to their clothes as well. You know, to help sell the story."
This is a little?
"Okay, I made some of them smell a LOT like beer."
Ah. Vengeance for Yukio shooting at you earlier, then.
On a hunch, you check on Josuke next, and sure enough, he fairly well reeks of the stuff Arisawa Akkiko hauls around in that clay jug.
Two of the viduuses pick up the last of the Quincy-
"I'm a scholar, not a laborer!"
"Stop complaining and don't drop him."
-and you get on with opening the Gate to Earth. As much as you might like to use the ritual casting method for this, your Spell to Alter a Bunch of People would give out before you were done, defeating the point of casting it in the first place.
Your Original's various visits to the Karakura park serve you well now, as your inherited familiarity with the place makes it easier for you to place the other end of your Gate there. You open the portal wide enough for several people to pass through abreast, and the Ishida Elder leads the way, silver cross hanging low and ready to summon his bow if a Hollow pops up. The viduuses pass through next, two of them moving carefully to avoid jostling their passenger, and then you direct the Disks through three at a time, before following with the last pair.
As you cross the threshold between day and night, you turn about and nod to the groundhog. "Thank you for your patience."
"And thank you for your conduct while on our plane," the celestial replies, returning your nod. "I hope the next time we see you will be under... somewhat less dubious circumstances?"
"We can only hope."
With that, you shut the Gate and get on with the matter of setting the scene.
You've got nine sleeping bodies to lay out, a park to work with, and several sets of extra hands to help.
You get to work.
Two of the Ishidas are shortly seated on the nearby park bench, leaning against each other as much as they do the back of the seat, while four more end up perched on various parts of the jungle gym: the bottom of the slide; one of the swings; the teeter-totter; and half-in, half-out of one of the crawlspaces. Perhaps recalling how she looked when they arrived, the viduuses place the woman that fell asleep on her feet standing more or less upright next to a tree, while Josuke and Yukio end up sprawled out on the grass.
The notion of adding some more material evidence of a night of drinking gotten out of hand does occur to you, but given the depleted state of your mana reserve and your desire to avoid using any more recovery potions, you ignore it.
Towards the end of the work, you thank the viduuses for their assistance-
"Wait, you mean we're not going to get to see the punchline?"
-and send them on their way before your Spell to Alter a Bunch of People's Selves lapses.
The sudden lack of being-power may have something to do with how the two most troublesome Quincy end up on the ground, but honestly, you're feeling uncharitable enough towards those two that you probably would have dropped them there anyway.
Taking a final look around at the scene, you nod to yourself, dispel the small fleet of Floating Disks - thankfully, being the result of a single spell, they all count as one effect, so all it takes is you touching the nearest of the constructs - and start walking over to the Ishida Elder.
"What now?" the older man asks as you approach. "Do we just leave them to wake up?"
"The Spell of Deep Slumber would wear off in another ten minutes or so," you admit, "but they might keep sleeping naturally past that point, so I'd rather not chance it, even with the Spell of Nondetection in place. I was planning to shock them awake, once we put a little distance between us to keep them from seeing the source. With that in mind" - you gesture towards the park entrance - "shall we take a walk?"
He considers that for a moment, and then nods, reaches into his pocket, and takes out a small silvery charm that resembles three small conjoined rings, one inside the other, each offset from the previous by a ninety degree angle. This, he casually crushes in his hand - with a whisper of spiritual energy so faint that you might have missed it, if you weren't so close and looking directly at the source - before following you down the path.
"Releasing Yukio?" you inquire.
"It wouldn't do to have him wake up unable to use his powers for no apparent reason," comes the reply.
True enough.
Once you've reached a certain distance - and while you're outside of any of the circles of light cast by the lampposts scattered about the park - you stop, turn, and begin a ritual.
You'd considered using the Thunder Clap ki technique for this purpose, but three things stopped you. First of all, ordinary levels of noise can't rouse someone from this kind of magically enforced sleep; only if the sound reaches the point of physical pain will someone in a spellbound slumber come to. That leads into the second point, of how you don't think you could create a sound that intense using your rudimentary skill, even if it was Overloaded. The last issue is that, due to ki having a spiritual component, using any technique based on it might attract a Hollow, which is something you'd prefer to avoid.
Better to go with magic in that case, and while you could just cast the Greater Spell to Dispel Magic - which you do, drawing upon Karakura's rich energies to supplement your diminished reserves - some of the Ishidas might continue to snooze once the magic was broken.
So, for lack of a more directly applicable spell, you throw together a second, much shorter ritual.
"Wake up," you mutter, pointing at Josuke's recumbent form.
*Slap*
"Ow!"
...it's not like he didn't have it coming.
Even at this distance and in the dark of the night, you can see that Josuke does as (quietly) instructed, sitting up and looking around. For a moment, he just sits there, head turning this way and that as he takes in his surroundings and the other members of his family, before hauling himself to his feet and half-stumbling over to the nearest of his kinsmen to shake them awake.
This works, and in short order, the other Quincy begin to rouse themselves.
Seeing that all is well, and that no Hollows will catch that lot unawares, you, the Elder, and Briar resume your departure from the park.
"Nice night," you observe, as confused voices begin to speak behind you.
"It is."
Apart from returning to the timeless demiplane and passing on your memories to your Original, is there anything else you can think of that needs immediate taking care of?
You, Briar, and the Elder whose name you still can't remember and are kind of reluctant to ask about after all of this spend the next fifteen minutes or so walking the streets of Karakura, heading for the Ishida residence. As it's somewhere past ten in the evening - probably getting on towards eleven, but in all honesty, you've just about given up on keeping proper track of time today - you don't see many other people out, at least not in this mostly-residential neighborhood. The downtown district seems more lively, but that's not why you're here, and your mana reserves are too close to tapping out to make an investigation a good idea even if you had the time.
About halfway to your destination, you hear a Hollow's cry in the distance, and a considering look passes across the Quincy Elder's face - at least until the ghostly roar cuts off abruptly with a vaguely surprised note and a whisper of spiritual purification.
"Local Shinigami seems to be on the ball tonight," he observes neutrally.
"Team, actually," you say.
He glances at you, curious, and then nods in abrupt recollection. "Oh, yes. You did mention running into them..." He pauses, frowning. "Was that earlier today, or yesterday?"
You offer a shrug, because from your perspective, it might even have been two days ago. Probably not three, though.
At least, you don't think so?
In any event, you reach the house without incident, and are greeted at the door by Ryuuken, with Balthazar and your Original in the foyer behind him. The Merlinean Master is midway through setting up one of those ritual circles of teleportation you've seen him use.
You report on the success of your end of the mission by passing on a copy of your memories to your Original, accompanied by a few empty potion bottles and that last Night's Essence you didn't down.
"And I'm out," you declare, before dismissing yourself.
Resume Xander Quest.
At your doppelganger's parting remark, you reflect that you are, perhaps, a bit too fond of clever wordplay.
You take a moment to review the relatively short and straightforward packet of memories, comparing and contrasting them to your own experiences in the same span of time.
Recognizing that there was a fair chance Josuke and company would make their way back to the Karakura Ishida residence, or at least call there, your plan called for you to open a Gate and slip the members of Souken's family through, along with a few of their out-of-town relatives and some temporarily shrunken cars. As for the absence of the REST of the Ishida Clan, well, it's the day after the big Quincy anniversary, and the altered memories of the problematic bunch suggest that there was enough of a family argument for their lot to storm out and get drunk. Why wouldn't some of the other visitors take that as a cue to leave, too? The ones that "stayed behind" were those who wouldn't believably have left certain members of Josuke's party to make their own way home.
You'll be dropping the rest of the clan off in the morning, by Japanese time, but for right now, they're mostly asleep - you should have about eight hours before they start waking up, and a couple more beyond that before they start agitating to be on their way.
All things considered, you and Balthazar agreed that this would be a reasonable time to check in with Ambrose about what you and your Shadow discovered about the situation in Silbern, which is why the two of you are here on Earth now instead of back on one of the demiplanes.
Seeing that Blake is just about ready to leave, you say your goodbyes to Ryuuken-
"Thank you, for my family's lives, and for putting up with my extended family in the process," he says earnestly, if a bit wryly on the last part.
Your pocket warms.
Gained 5 Gratitude Crystals
"You're welcome," you reply, while resisting an urge to thank Ryuuken in turn.
You'd been WONDERING if you were going to nab any Gratitude Crystals out of this entire affair.
-and then join Balthazar in popping over to Wales.
Even with magic and ki techniques to help shore up your recall and project images of what you're talking about, it takes the better part of an hour just to relay everything Shadow Alex passed on to you about his elemental raid on Silbern, and your own findings on the frozen fortress and the activities of the Wandenreich.
Things might have gone faster if not for the fact that your audience is rather larger than just one wizard.
The presence of the Simulacrum-Knights is only to be expected; thankfully, rather than their battle-armor, they're all wearing their "civilian" outfits, though most of them have discarded or at least unbuttoned their jackets, giving them a more relaxed air.
Mr. Todd also wants to hear how the operation went, as does the head of security; the latter spends most of the "debriefing" looming next to his subordinate like an angry stormcloud, and his manner and short remarks make it clear that he is not happy with Todd, Ambrose, or you at the moment.
Arthur Drake is here as well-
"How was Rome, sir?" you inquire.
"Exhausting," comes the reply. "On the positive side, my presence wears on my mother-in-law about as much as hers does on me, so we should have several months' peace before she starts making a nuisance of herself again."
"And the negative?"
"He still has a mother-in-law," Ambrose snarks.
-and wants to know how much Ambrose owes him for raiding the security stores, to make sure the munitions were well-used, and just to hear the associated war stories.
In passing, you notice that the gazes of the three non-arcanist humans in the room will occasionally slide over to the Simulacra of King Arthur and Mordred, before the owner(s) of the eyes in question realize what they're doing, wince, and force themselves to look elsewhere - not infrequently, at Ambrose.
The King graciously forebears to comment.
Mordred glares back until whoever's looking looks away.
The wizard fakes a look of innocence.
You suspect it's not an accident that Lucia, Altria, and Anna aren't here at the moment.
Regardless, once your report is made, Ambrose adds a few details of his own.
First of all, the Knight-Simulacra are collectively at about sixty-five percent of their optimal operating capacity. Some are in better shape, others worse, but while all of the damage is reparable, Ambrose doesn't
have time to fix them all up before Silbern goes boom. You have yet to even try studying the Spell to Create a Simulacrum, so you can't assist there, and while Balthazar does know the spell, his responsibilities back in New York prevent him from spending much time helping out.
"I can repair one of them a day, if I don't do anything else too significant," the wizard says. "Since we have six days left before Silbern goes 'ka-blooie,' and I WILL have other things to do in the interim, I would say four, perhaps five at the most."
"Plus one, maybe two if I help out," Balthazar says. "Even then, their energy reserves will still be partially depleted."
"Is there no way to recharge a Simulacrum?" you query. Given your extensive use of Shadow Alex over the last few days, HIS use of mana potions, and the similarities between the Spell of the Dark Self and the Spell to Create a Simulacrum, you don't quite buy that it's impossible, but...
"It's possible, but impractical," Ambrose replies. "You have to infuse unshaped mana into the Simulacrum, similar to how you'd recharge a magic staff, but you can only add so much power - whether that's at one time or over a period of time - without disrupting the magic that keeps the Simulacrum active. The whole process can take weeks; as a rule, you're better served dispelling the existing Simulacrum and creating a new one."
You've never recharged a staff, and you don't believe Ganondorf ever did, either.
In point of fact, you can't recall the man ever USING a staff, but then, having the Triforce of Power in your hand would make most other magic items redundant.
Back on topic, while your second raid will still have an escort of knights, they won't be as powerful as they were the last time. Better than half-power for the Knights of the Round Table is still pretty impressive, but it is worth keeping in mind.
Second on Ambrose's List of Things to Say is that Balthazar let him know about the semi-success of your Shadow's bombing spree while you were otherwise occupied, and he worked some Divination Magic of his own to get a better idea of how the "second wave" of attacks affected the Wandenreich's plans to strip their own fortress. From what he's been able to piece together, they're still determined not to abandon the fortress or their efforts in salvaging from it until the last minute, but the loss of half the Gates of the Sun has forced them to change their deployment and do a lot of re-prioritizing - and also prevented them from having as many of their people in the fortress as before.
With the majority of the population already removed to Earth, there are places in Silbern that you could potentially loot without ever seeing a Quincy. That said, these would not include the really high-value targets; the stuff YOU most want to loot is the stuff the Wandenreich will be most interested in taking for themselves, or else destroying to deny it to their enemies - who have already demonstrated the ability to get into the "secret" headquarters AND the willingness to plunder it.
On the matter of looting, the last time, you were kind of winging it. This time around...
Also, Ambrose- make that Lord Drake is willing to loan you use of a spot in the manor to stash your ill-gotten gains, as well as assistance in sorting and assessing everything.
"Will this cost me anything?" you venture.
Arthur smiles. "Ambrose is covering it."
The wizard grumbles.
You are just as happy not to keep carting around a pocketful of treasure, particularly since the Drakes can have people start going through the loot while you're otherwise occupied.
Arthur calls in a couple of the staff to take the stuff off your hands for the time being, and they show up with a fairly large trolley. The shrunken carpet bags, rug-sacks, and chests take up amusingly little space on the hand-truck, particularly when compared to the various enspelled books and magic items that retain their normal size.
The first round of stuff prompts nods of approval, looks of interest, and a bit of wariness aimed at the magical items, but people and simulacra start to stare when you begin bringing out the tiny bookshelves and miniaturized furniture.
Arturia simply nods in approval as the pile of tiny plunder grows gradually larger.
Handed over Bestiary of Earth and Sky
Handed over Book of Demons
Handed over Book of Stars
Handed over Corrupted Tome
Handed over Creased Cookbook
Handed over Ever-Burning Quincy Brazier
Handed over Greater Elemental's Bag of Loot
Handed over Iron-Bound Tome
Handed over Journal of Spells
Handed over Jugram Haschwalth's Emergency Stash (Jewel Bag only)
Handed over Jugram Haschwalth's Historical Collection
Handed over Jugram Haschwalth's Literary Collection
Handed over Jugram Haschwalth's Private Library
Handed over Jugram Haschwalth's Rolodex
Handed over Magic Dagger
Handed over Magic Rod
Handed over Magic Scimitar
Handed over Magic Shield
Handed over Pile of Loot
Handed over Quincy Mirror
For all the loot that you hand off to the Drakes' staff, there are some things you have to keep back. Between that vow to the Goddesses to keep the Soul King's status a secret and a more mundane desire not to tweak the noses of certain Shinigami TOO much, you're keeping the Wandenreich Grandmaster's files and personal writings until you've had time to go through them yourself - or more likely, to get your Shadow to do it - and confirm there's nothing too dangerous in there.
You also don't pass along the burned jewelry you took from the safe in Jugram's chambers, or the portraits and relics from that hidden shrine. They feel a bit too... personal? And the Drakes would recognize the Kurosaki twins besides, which might get awkward.
You also caution the handlers that, while you haven't had the opportunity to go through your plunder yet, preliminary Divinations earned you a warning that some of these items are booby-trapped, cursed, or perhaps both - so that should be kept in mind while going through the lot.
With that, they wheel the trolley out.
It is generally agreed that before you make any plans to loot Silbern, you should focus on driving the Wandenreich forces out altogether - which means the destruction or disabling of the remaining Gates of the Sun must be a priority.
As available resources for the operation are discussed, you get into a bit of a sideline with Ambrose and Balthazar about the limitations and interactions of certain spells.
Your offer to let them use the accelerated demiplane to tune-up Ambrose's squad of Simulacra was well-intentioned and well-received, but it won't work. The repairs and recharging in question can only be performed in a fully equipped magical laboratory, and that's something the pocket realm in question is quite lacking. Neither the wizard nor the master sorcerer exactly has a "spare" lab just lying around ready for transport, and there really isn't time to set one up on the demiplane.
That said, you do get a number of helpful tips on what to do, and what NOT to do, when setting up a better lab for yourself in the future. Granted, it may be a while before you can put that information to work; while Ambrose and Balthazar agree that your basement workshop is fine for your current needs, it's generally not a good idea to try and refit existing architecture into a full-fledged arcanist's lab. Such a facility needs to be built from the ground up to suit its intended purpose - and also down - because otherwise you're courting everything from loud noises and funny smells to runaway fires and structural collapse.
You might actually have the money for something like that once your efforts in looting the Wandenreich stronghold fully pay off. LOCATION, on the other hand...
...well, you've been studying the Spell to Create a Lesser Demiplane for a reason. The trick will be finding the reagents necessary to make it permanent, so that the work you put into building your tree fort personal planar stronghold won't be wasted by the plane in question fading out of existence and dumping everything into the Ethereal.
Or maybe the Astral. It depends on where you want to set up.
When you inquire after the possibility of building up an army on your timeless demiplane, you're informed that this won't be as reliable as you might have hoped. The specific entity that casts a Spell of Summoning is the only "master" the summoned creature recognizes, and once said master is dead, destroyed, or dispersed, whatever control their magic granted them over their summons is lost. A permanently summoned creature with no master would be free to act as it wished, it could afford to take risks it normally wouldn't due to pain, injury, and death being far less of a concern, and getting rid of it would no longer be a trivial matter. Lacking the master's ability to immediately and reliably dismiss a misbehaving summon, you'd have to dispel it, and success there isn't guaranteed - not to mention, it could get a bit costly, depending on how many summons you had to deal with.
On top of that, even Ambrose and Balthazar aren't exactly sure what sort of consequences a permanent summoning would carry. As Shadow Alex's creator, his summoning debt defaulting back to you is more or less a given, it's the question of how much you'd end up "paying" for such a spell that they aren't sure of.
"Nobody does it, is the thing," Ambrose explains. "Most people don't have the capability to extend the Spell to Summon Monsters anywhere NEAR that far, and for those who do, it's a wasted effort. Making the first-circle version of the spell permanent would cost as much as casting an eighth-circle spell, and it still wouldn't be any more powerful than a first-circle spell in any other respect." The wizard shakes his head. "Summons tend to be underpowered on an individual basis as it is, but that's taking 'underpowered' past 'ineffectual' and to the point of utter absurdity."
Trying to set up an army of Shadow Conjurations would run into most of the same problems, save for summoning debt, but it'd introduce a few new ones to make up for that.
Illusions exist within the minds of their casters almost as much as they do their targets, and while the Spell of Shadow Conjuration isn't one of the ones that need constant input from the caster to keep functioning, taking the caster out of the equation entirely can still be problematic. After all, an Illusion isn't real; it acts the way its creator tells or designs it to act, and accurately replicating a creature's full behavior and reasoning abilities is difficult, to say the least, much less to do it all in advance.
Shadow Conjurations manage this by tapping the essence of Elemental Shadow - specifically its associations with echoes and memory, as well as its inherent metaphysical connection to whatever "original" it's being used to mimic, via their actual shadow - but because Shadow is also associated with transformation, confusion, and trickery, its creations tend to be mentally or physically distorted compared to whatever source inspired them.
See Exhibit A: Shadow Alex.
Normally, a Shadow Conjuration is balanced between the caster's perception of what it is and should be, and Shadow's whispers of what it was before being altered - and what it could become, if it changed again. Take away the caster's will, and a transformation of some sort would basically be inevitable, particularly when the caster in this instance would be an entity born of Shadow himself.
"Such things HAVE happened before," Ambrose tells you. "And as much fun as it might be in other situations, I don't think we can afford to have a rogue shade running around with mischief on its mind."
You are reminded, briefly, of Beryl's imp-like messenger, and have to ask yourself how bad it cou-
You cut THAT thought short before it finishes.
While certain uses of your demiplanes have been ruled out, they can still serve as staging areas for your next raid on Silbern. That leads to the question of force composition, which you put to the adults and simulated adults.
Your previous use of Mind Blanked, invisible, magically silenced Earth Elementals to explore and sabotage targets within the Wandenreich stronghold worked out reasonably well, but your Shadow already informed you of some of its shortcomings. Your elders add to that now by pointing out that surprise was an advantage you had before, which you've now lost - at least in part. The Quincy would still have a hell of a time finding an intruder they couldn't see, hear, or spiritually sense AND that could walk through walls, but now that they KNOW the possibility of such unwelcome guests exists, there are things they could do to complicate your efforts.
"You mentioned they spotted some of the elementals when they got tangled up in rugs or wall-hangings," Arthur Drake notes. "They could literally cover the floors and walls of the Gate Rooms, and the chambers around them."
"With carpets, sir?" Mr. Todd asks, somewhat disbelievingly.
"Fabric, wood, metal - anything not made of earth or stone would do, if I'm remembering the bestiary entries on elementals right."
"You are," Ambrose says, "and scattering flour or some other powder on the floor is a classic trick for finding invisible opponents you know or at least suspect aren't also immaterial and/or flying. Granted, the elementals could still come up through the floor underneath the Gate, but we ARE talking about Quincy on the Spirit Plane. They could rip out the flooring around the Gate mechanisms, leaving no stone in contact with the devices that's large enough for even a small Earth Elemental to pass through - or they might replace the stone entirely, perhaps with that metal they make their weapons out of. I'm not sure if they can do work on that scale this quickly, though." He glances at Balthazar.
"I wouldn't put it past them," the sorcerer replies, "but it does depend on how much of the traditional Quincy techniques they've preserved, what they've developed since then, and what's been outright abandoned. We know they preserved the warding techniques, even if their work there turned out to be less than entirely effective against arcane scrying."
"On that note," you cut in, "we should probably try to look in on them again, to get a better idea of what precautions they ARE taking." Looking at your spellcasting seniors, you add, "Could either of you manage it? I'd like to conserve mana if I can."
"Do you still have the Key on you?" Ambrose asks. "And can you provide me with images of the Quincy you saw?"
You take the little disc out of your pocket, idly reflecting that you should ask Souken if he wants it back when all is said and done, and hand it over to the wizard. Then you take a minute to gather ambient mana and cast a minor Spell of Illusion, recreating the faces of various Quincy that you've seen and have reason to think might be in Silbern.
As the two of you are sorting that out, the others continue with the discussion.
It's generally agreed that your "elemental saboteurs" approach might be worth revisiting, provided the Wandenreich haven't taken extraordinary measures to protect their remaining Gates. If they have done so, you'll need to consider summoning creatures capable of destroying or disabling the portal mechanisms all on their own. As to what sort of creatures those should be...
"Honestly," Balthazar says, "just summoning larger Earth Elementals could still do it. The Wandenreich can't cover the tops of the Gates any more than they already have, an Earth Elemental could strike right through the stone to hit the device underneath, and a sufficiently large and well-warded Earth Elemental - or a group of them - could withstand being shot at long enough to have a good chance of finishing the job. The only question is whether or not the Wandenreich managed to figure out an equivalent to the Circles of Protection, or something else capable of keeping summons away from the Gates, AND if they've realized they could use it here."
Not a bad idea, and certainly in keeping with your established theme, but it could take a while, and there'd be the risk of the elementals in question getting taken down before their work was done. With that in mind, you ask if Balthazar has any suggestions for a quicker method of Gate-busting.
"From what I've heard, a single Spell of Disintegration per Gate should do the job," Balthazar observes. "Unfortunately, that would require summoning arcanists with access to sixth-circle magic, or certain worryingly powerful and/or malevolent creatures that I am not about to suggest. Another option would be to use the Spell of Passwall to open the way to the Gate mechanism, and then bomb or blast it until it broke, but aside from being a fifth-circle spell, the same caveats as Disintegrate apply. Ethereal movement isn't an option on that plane, and beyond that? The Spell of Stone Shaping and the Spell of Shattering could eventually expose the Gate to attack, but by that point you'd be taking almost as long as the Earth Elemental."
Burying things in stone is a pretty solid defense even against magic, huh?
"Solid rock is basically the original 'immovable object'," Balthazar agrees. "Mystically speaking, that carries weight."
Nice one.
Well, regardless of who or what you recruit to do the smashing, there's still the matter of finding all the remaining Gates. You can - and do - put together an illusory map based on Shadow Alex's forays into Silbern, with Ambrose and the knights offering their own insights. As more and more Gate Rooms fill it out, you and your allies are able to guess at the locations of some of the others - but you ARE just guessing, and even then, you're still coming up three or four rooms short of the expected total. Proper scouting is still required either way, and Earth Elementals have proven a bit too slow for that task.
"Air Elementals would be MUCH faster," Balthazar says, "but they'd be uneasy about being inside a building made of stone, even one with rooms and halls of this size, and they aren't the stealthiest creatures, nor particularly clever. Something capable of flight and human-like reasoning would be better..." He trails off for a moment. "Huh."
When you inquire, Balthazar says that he remembered your earlier discussion about viduus, and was reminded that there is a lesser variety of psychopomp, the nosoi, who take the form of songbirds, possess human-level intelligence, and - as a nice little bonus - are capable of turning themselves invisible at will. They're small, agile fliers, quiet even on the wing, and some of their usual roles are as messengers - or guides.
"Usually of lost souls that need directions to their proper afterlife," the Merlinean Master clarifies, "but they might appreciate the joke. They're fairly sociable."
You consider that. "Do they dislike Quincy as much as the viduus?"
He nods. "On the whole, yes."
Huh. So they would probably be inclined to help you in this task.
Well, you'll definitely keep those guys in mind as potential scouts - and remember to consider using a disguise when dealing with them, just in case they talk with the viduus.
On that note, it's decided to pause the planning and let Ambrose do some scrying.
Your not-so-little meeting was taking place in Ambrose's wing of the Drake residence to start with, so when people relocate to the wizard's scrying chamber, there's no risk of running into any of the ladies.
On a side note, while you're en route, you take out one of your remaining Moondrop Potions and chug it down.
*Glug*
*Glug*
*Glug*
Used Moondrop
Gained Glass Bottle
"What does that bring you to?" Balthazar inquires.
"That's my limit for the day, as far as restoratives go," you admit, pocketing the empty bottle. "Based on the reaction my Shadow experienced, that's as far as I'm going to push."
The other sorcerer nods.
The chamber itself is fairly memorable. The walls are lined with mirrored glass, the ceiling is dome-shaped rather than flat, and much of the space this adds is taken up by an arcane device that reminds you a bit of that giant orrery Ambrose has set up in another room for assistance with teleportation and planar travel. This obejct is rather smaller, admittedly, only about ten feet across at the base and maybe fifteen feet "tall" through its longest dimension - that being the shaft of the old-fashioned telescope mounted in the otherwise eight- or nine-foot frame - and of course, it lacks the not-to-scale model of the solar system. Even so, the materials used and the style of construction both speak clearly to a common origin between the two mechanisms, as do the potent magical auras that share Ambrose's familiar signature - though this one consists primarily of Divination Magic and related frequencies of Abjuration rather than anything to do with Summoning.
The near end of the telescope is pointed at a very comfortable-looking, currently upright reclining chair which has small tables to either side: one of these has a flexible mechanical arm with a whiteboard on it, as well as an assortment of stationery; the other seems to be set up for drinks and snacks, though it's currently empty. There's also a separate table partway across the room, atop of which sits a bowling ball-sized sphere of clear crystal in a silver pedestal.
Towards the back of the room are a bunch of upright levers, protruding from a mechanism set into the floor. Despite these having no obvious distinguishing features, Ambrose walks up and grabs the second from the left very purposefully, squeezes what appears to be a safety catch on the grip, and then-
"Mind your heads and footing!"
-pulls the thing back.
You were expecting to hear a mechanical groan and/or hum from the telescope. Instead, a section of the FLOOR rumbles and begins to turn, rotating the telescope about thirty degrees clockwise from its previous position.
As the architecture grinds to a halt, Ambrose peers at the ceiling - there are markings up there, you realize, sort of like compass points writ large - and inquires of the rest of you, "Would you say that's more or less aimed at Japan?"
You honestly have no idea.
"Maybe another five degree east-by-south, heading southeast-by-north," Balthazar replies.
Ambrose grunts, pulls the lever again for a moment, and moves the telescope a bit further.
"Looks about right," Balthazar affirms, after things have stopped moving again.
"Good."
Then Ambrose pulls a different lever, and ANOTHER section of the floor, a ring-like layer around the central "platform" supporting the telescope, begins to turn as well. The furniture goes sailing along with it, and in short order, the wizard's crystal ball is lined up with the shaft of the giant spyglass. A pull on a third lever causes the Arcane Device to begin the expected groaning and humming, as its energies start to build up.
"Wizards," Mordred mutters like a curse, arms crossed. "Always showing off..."
You can't help but notice that the knight in jeans is paying close attention to the "show" in question.
You think better of commenting on it, though.
Leaving the levers, Ambrose walks over to the telescope and inserts the Key of the Sun you gave him into a niche on one side, then spends a short time adjusting a bunch of little switches and dials whose purpose would escape you, if not for the way in which the magical energies shift and align in response. In short order, the old man has the matrix for a VERY well-defined Spell of Scrying set up.
"Right, then," he says. "Let's begin with the little fish."
There is a faint pulse of Enchantment Magic then, as Ambrose lays a hand on the side of his device and frowns in concentration.
The magic of the machine responds by discharging a continuous beam of light into the crystal ball, which subsequently projects an image onto part of the wall. You see the female Soldat that Sir Valkyrie was talking to when you scried on him not too long ago, and she appears to still be in the same Gate Room. Looking around, you don't see any obvious emergency renovations of the floor or traps, and since you're avoiding the use of mana...
"You geting anything, Ambrose?"
"I'm picking up the auras of the workers, the ambient energies of the fortress itself, and the residual impressions of the Gate of the Sun," the wizard replies. "From the look of things, they've been giving it quite the workout-"
That would fit with what you observed before, and are seeing now.
"-but nothing in the way of defenses is showing up. Then again, the young lady doesn't seem to be moving out of that one area..."
True enough. Pick up a box, move it into the central pile awaiting transport, go back and get another; while the Soldat does eventually make a circuit of the room as she and those with her work their way through the piled-up stores, it's a very slow one.
After a few minutes, Ambrose ends the scrying effect and tries with a different person.
Over the next half-hour, Ambrose works his way down the short list of Quincy faces you were able to provide, while also leaping off a number of times to try and follow some of the Soldats and workers that appear in his scrying device's projections. It doesn't always work; Ambrose is trying to scry on people he knows basically nothing about AND who are located on another plane of existence, which makes for quite a fragile connection. Even the combination of the wizard's skills, his device, and a focus attuned to the Hidden Empire's pocket realm can only do much with such a thin thread to follow, and whenever the crystal projects a cloudy haze instead of clear images, that's a target removed from the list of scrying targets for the next twenty-four hours.
Gradually, however, you do find evidence that the Wandenreich are trying to take SOME precautions against further infiltration and sabotage.
Some of the halls of Silbern have what appear to be motes of glowing white dust drifting slowly about, bouncing sluggishly off of solid surfaces and each other. You aren't sure what's producing or maintaining them, but it seems fairly likely that this is a rough equivalent to the Spell of Glitterdust - which is itself the arcane version of that flour-scattering trick that Ambrose mentioned for finding invisible creatures.
What's particularly annoying is that, unlike a Spell to See Invisibility, Mind Blank won't do anything to stop this method of detection, as it's not based on Divination Magic, or even Enchantment.
Silver linings, though: the ceilings are so high that "dust clouds" only fill them about half of the way up. That's enough to cover the archways that connect the various passages, but if you summoned nosoi like you were considering, they could just fly over the motes and wait until there wasn't anybody around to see when they ducked through the dust-filled doorways.
Other corridors are in the process of being sealed off with transparent barriers of glowing force, while in more, the floors and walls are now limned by a similar glow. Earth Elementals wouldn't be able to move through those, and they might interfere with the creatures' ability to sense vibrations as well, but they ARE transparent, so regular vision won't be affected.
A problem to work around, but not an insurmountable one.
And then you catch a glimpse of one Gate Room where the Quincy are doing what Ambrose and Balthazar said was possible, and tearing out sections of the floor - solid stone dissolving into a flood of luminous spirit particles, which the Soldats in question condense and reshape into metal, filling in the emptied-out space so that the Gate is still usable, but also surrounded by a defensive "wall" on all sides, as well as below. It's slow going, and visibly straining those performing the work, but they ARE doing it.
And there may be other measures in the works that you just aren't seeing.
"What do you think?" Ambrose says. "Try the Sternritter that we know of?"
While the more powerful Quincy will be harder to spy on this way than their juniors, and the possibility exists that they may notice the sensor created by the Scrying Spell, you feel that the information you might obtain is worth the chance of discovery and/or failure.
You just hope that they aren't ALL being used as glorified freight haulers, like Sir Valkyrie was when you looked in on him.
Given the potential difficulties, you suggest that Ambrose try looking in on Bambietta first. As someone close to your age, her defenses won't be quite as strong as an adult's, and she'll have less experience in watching her surroundings, making her even more likely to miss the sensor - not that that's been an issue so far, but it would be nice to keep it that way.
Ambrose agrees with your suggestion, and refocuses his scrying device.
The image that comes into focus shows the Quincy knight-in-training somewhere that doesn't look like Silbern at all. Rather than white stone with red-and-black carpeting, the corridor Bambietta is walking through has a hardwood floor in a light shade of brown and darker paneling that rises about halfway up the walls, with the remainder - as well as the ceiling - looking to have been painted over in white.
"What the hell," Mordred says flatly.
You suspect the red knight's remark was prompted by the fact that Bambietta has changed her outfit a bit since your Shadow and the Knight-Simulacrum saw her last. She's exchanged the militaristic cloak, jacket, and hat for an apron that is honestly a few sizes too big for her, as well as the sort of bonnet you've seen maids at the Shuzen and Drake homes wearing. You think she may have switched out her gloves for a pair in a different style as well, she's got a feather duster in one hand and a small bucket of cleaning implements in the other, and the look on her face is keenly attentive.
Next to your onetime prisoner-by-proxy walks another girl of similar age, a bit taller and with somewhat wilder and much lighter hair, and blue eyes to Bambietta's brown. She's similarly dressed as the Knappe-turned-mini-maid, except that she seems to favor short pants instead of a skirt, her apron fits her a bit better due to her height, and she's dragging a trolley behind her with an expression of bored resignation.
Both girls are trailing behind an older woman who you find you recognize.
"-the rooms one a time," Catherine Adler says as she moves briskly down the hall. "Don't move any of the furniture, just remove the dust covers, make sure things are clean, and then open the windows to air out the room and move on."
"Yes, Nana Kathy," Bambietta replies promptly.
"Yes, Mrs. Adler," the other girl sighs.
"Also, if you can't reach something, use the stepstool or the ladder, NOT the Flying Step Technique," the Head Maid continues sternly. "This building doesn't have the sort of wards that Silbern did-"
You try not to feel TOO smug.
"-and there ARE beings that might detect unexpected uses of spiritual power. It would be terribly ungracious of us to bring that sort of attention down on our kind hosts, so we WILL be avoiding such a thing."
"Yes, Nana Kathy."
"Yes, Mrs. Adler."
"Good."
"Wasn't this kid one of their warriors?" Mordred asks. "Why the hell is she dressed like a maid? And SMILING about it?"
She is, at that. Not hugely or anything, but given the temper and bad language you remember your Shadow picking up through the telepathically reinforced mind-control spell he used on the girl, you wouldn't have expected her to be quite this okay with being made to clean things.
Then again, you have just confirmed that Mrs. Adler IS the "Nana Kathy" that your Shadow "heard" Bambietta thinking about, so she could just be happy to be working with or for someone she obviously cares about - or maybe she just really likes to clean?
"Well," Ambrose observes. "That's cute, but not really the sort of thing we were looking for."
Mrs. Adler's remark about "kind hosts" has you wondering about where, exactly, she, Bambietta, and the other girl are. It might just be an Earth-side residence maintained by Wandenreich agents or one of the scattered Echt bloodlines that were being targeted by Yhwach - though if it's the latter, wow - but it might not be. In either case, if you keep an eye on these ladies, you might see something that would help you figure out where they are.
Granted, there are some fairly sharp limits on what you can find this way. A normal Spell of Scrying only reveals its intended target and a ten foot radius around them, and the sensor can't move around except to follow its target or change its viewing angle. It also doesn't have the ability to pause, record, or perform other convenient functions - unless Ambrose added something of that nature to his device?
You should ask about that, actually. So you do, mentioning your wish to find out where, exactly, you're looking at the moment.
The wizard smirks proudly and pats his creation. "The Spellescope-"
Some of the knights groan.
"You didn't," protests the big one who stayed back to keep an eye on Ambrose in Silbern, and later led the knights' plunder-filled baggage train back to the Drake Estate. Now that he's out of his armor, you can see that he looks like an older version of Altria's cousin Kenneth, which has all sorts of fun implications.
On a related note, two other Knights bear a similar resemblance to Lance Pritchard - specifically, the tall, dark-haired, entirely too handsome for his own good somber fellow, and the young shield-bearer with the glasses he still doesn't seem entirely comfortable with, yet hasn't removed for some reason.
Honestly, this really just reinforces impressions you already had about the Drakes and their peers.
"Of course he did," Mordred counters in disgust.
"Oh, come on," the young lady knight says. "That was funny!"
"As I was saying," Ambrose continues, raising his voice a bit, "the Spellescope is capable of long-distance and inter-planar scrying on locations as well as individuals. So while using it in this particular mode won't directly reveal where our charming warrior maids are working, I can reset it to get a better view of the area. That said, if they're going to open some windows, that's probably our best bet to get a look at the greater location."
And so you end up waiting a little longer as Mrs. Adler leads the young girls to a set of double-doors, behind which lies a large room full of shadows and shapeless lumps of furniture wrapped in dust covers. The older woman turns on the overhead light - which is far enough away that you can't see it - and frowns as the shadows are not quite chased to the corners of the room.
"That bulb will need changing as well," she mutters. "I'll send someone along to take care of it for you, girls. For now, just focus on getting the room cleaned up."
"Yes, Nana Kathy."
"Yes, Mrs. Adler."
The senior maid nods and leaves the room, the girls watching her go for a moment.
Then, the one with the light hair - a shade of blonde that looks pale green in the current lighting - grins and says, in a breathy, high-pitched tone that is absolutely meant to be teasing, "'Yes, Nana Kathy.'"
Bambietta turns and glares at her companion. "Don't start."
"'Of course, Nana Kathy.'"
"Candy, I'm serious-"
"'Whatever you say, Nana Kathy.'"
"-I will blow you up!"
"And get in trouble with your Nana for wrecking one of our 'kind hosts'' rooms?"
"Later," Bambietta recovers quickly. "I will blow you up later."
The other girl grins. "Have to catch me first, Bambi."
"Oh, that's it-!"
A short chase around the room ensues, a feather duster waving menacingly as the girls scamper around the furniture. This "Candy" girl's confidence in her speed proves fairly well-founded, as she manages to stay a step ahead of the annoyed brunette and just out of dusting range the whole time.
Mordred groans. "Are we seriously going to keep looking over a couple of kids' shoulders like this while they just goof around?"
"I have Monty Python and the Holy Grail on pause in the theater," Ambrose offers.
Arturia does not quite flinch.
"Who?" the red knight wonders.
"No one," the King says quickly.
Most of the knights regard their liege-lord with a mix of mild surprise and somewhat stronger curiosity.
"...well," Mordred says, heading for the door, "now I HAVE to know."
"Mordred, no."
"Mordred, yes!"
"Oh, this I HAVE to see," the security chief says, following the partial exodus of Simulacra from the room.
While that's going on, Ambrose recalibrates his Spellescope, causing the projected image to flicker and then stabilize. It's no longer following Bambietta around the room, but has instead locked onto a single location near the center of the chamber, high enough off the floor that most of the place is visible - which is the other thing, the view is no longer confined to a bubble twenty feet across, but rather extends as far as can be seen in the direction the sensor currently faces. Ambrose rotates said invisible magical camera-equivalent a bit until he finds a large window, currently covered by drapes large enough and thick enough to block any light that might be trying to get through.
The two girls, meanwhile, have declared a temporary truce after nearly knocking over what might be a vase in their little run around the room, and are getting to work dusting.
You maybe here for a while.
Even if you can't remember his name, you have to agree with the chief; you HAVE to see how the Knights react to a modern, comedic take on their shared legend.
"Before you go, lad," Ambrose calls, gesturing hurriedly for you to come closer.
You pause, but then quickly walk over. "Yes?"
The wizard glances at the backs of the departing Simulacra, waits a moment longer, and then murmurs, "I have a variant of the Spell of Prying Eyes set up in the theater to catch their reactions. Do an old man a favor and don't disturb it, eh?"
That sorted, you hurry after the crowd.
That illusory doorman is just showing the last of the group into the theatre when you catch up, and pauses in the middle of closing the door to re-open it wide enough for you to enter, tipping his hat in an apologetic manner for almost shutting you out.
Inside, you immediately notice that Ambrose has renovated since your last visit; there are more opera-house grade seats now, enough to account for all of the Knights twice over. Several of them have picked out a seat and parked themselves there, shifting about and exclaiming with varying degrees of surprise and approval at the comfortable yet supportive nature of the chairs. Several other Knights are over by the snack bar, where a rather bemused Mr. Todd is explaining what all the little foodstuffs are, and how they're meant to be eaten. The security chief, meanwhile, is standing next to the chair Ambrose typically sits in, remote in one hand and the other fending off the curious Sir Mordred while the screen and projector finish turning on.
The King is standing between the two groups, looking mildly dismayed by what is about to occur. To her left stands the knight with the fake arm, his expression one of concern for his liege; to her right is the young knight of the shield, who seems puzzled and vaguely disapproving of what's going on around him.
After somehow managing to keep the remote, the chief waits for everyone to have filled up on snacks and taken their seats before hitting play.
The opening credits with their "Swedish" subtitles and moose references seem to leave the Knights more puzzled than anything else, possibly due to unfamiliarity with what the opening of a normal movie is supposed to look like.
There is further confusion when the date 932 A.D. is displayed, although someone makes a remark about "bloody scholars."
On the other hand, the sight of a knight prancing along while his manservant claps two halves of a coconut shell together draws snickering - and when said worthy introduces himself as Arthur, King of the Britons, there are choked-off exclamations of shock, affront, and at least one case of badly suppressed amusement.
Arturia sighs. "Let it out, Kay."
"HAHAHAHAHA!"
The exchange about the provenance of a coconut in England and the airspeed of a swallow passes with some speculation about where the Knights themselves are supposed to be, and the possible identity of the master of the first castle.
Then comes the scene with the corpse-collectors-
"Must be a king."
"Why?"
"He hasn't got shit all over him."
There are snorts of amused disagreement at that, and not just from Sir Kay.
What?
-the repressed peasants-
"But Excalibur came LATER," the lady knight protests, as Arthur describes the circumstances of his divine right to rule.
"There's a long history of Excalibur and Caliburn getting mixed up or treated as one sword in the modern consciousness," Briar tells her.
"Now that's just silly."
On screen, the peasant declares, "Well, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a sword at you!"
About half the knights choke at that, some in astonishment, others in outrage.
"'Watery tart'," Mordred drawls through a slowly widening grin. "Oh, I have GOT to remember that one..."
-and then the bit with the Black Knight.
There is considerable heckling at the fight sequence, although Mordred turns to one of the the knights that looks like her and Arturia, and says, "Remind you of anybody, Gawain?"
"I did NOT hack Sir Bertilak to pieces, and he was far more dignified than this... hopping madman," the blond knight replies firmly.
The movie is about halfway through the argument about the witch-
"Made of wood? Wot?"
"Oh, if ONLY," Mordred groans.
-when you sense Illusion Magic moving about the door. Craning your neck a bit, you see Ambrose being ushered in.
The wizard glances about, sees you looking his way, and dons an inquisitive expression while gesturing towards the hall, and perhaps the scrying chamber beyond.
Ambrose pauses at that.
"I don't mind letting you SEE it, certainly," he says, "but all humor aside, lad, I would prefer not to have copies floating around. At least not until certain souls of our mutual acquaintance, among others, are ready to deal with the potential fallout, if you follow me."
You consider his words for a moment, and then wince.
A recording of the Knights of the Round Table watching Monty Python, as produced by one Merle Ambrose, is the sort of thing most people might laugh at and then dismiss as a joke. Anybody who's actually met the Drake family and their circle of acquaintances might wonder at the identities of some of the actors, perhaps even ask questions - and if those people were also in the know about the family's involvement with the supernatural, those questions could get rather uncomfortable.
You withdraw the request, but add that you'll be holding Ambrose to his word about letting you watch the recording, later.
It's a rare occasion when you can't eat, and this isn't one of them. You do, however, decide to limit yourself to a medium-sized bag of popcorn and a small drink - as much because you're avoiding the use of magic and thus only have two hands to work with, as because you aren't feeling too peckish.
You shouldn't miss too much just getting up to speak with the wizard, and to be honest, some of the humor in this movie has proven a little beyond you. Too British, a couple of decades too old, or just too reliant on things you aren't old and/or experienced enough to really grasp.
Besides, if the wizard came down the hall instead of staying in his scrying chamber, it's possible that he's found something important enough that it needs immediate discussion.
Getting up from your chair, you scurry over to the nearest side of the room, head down to avoid interrupting anybody's view of the big screen. You're pretty sure the entire audience notices you, but most of the attention falls off after you've taken a few steps; out of the corner of your eye, you see only two or three heads turning to follow you on your way to the door.
Balthazar, incidentally, has also gotten up to join you, and Briar, as ever, trails along in your wake.
Ambrose backs out into the hall at your approach, and the image of the doorman holds the way for the three of you before politely excusing himself and shutting the door-
"It's BEDIVERE!" Mordred exclaims in delight. "And he even creaks!"
"HAHAHAHA!"
"I am NOTHING like-," you hear the one-armed knight protest flatly.
-quieting the noise of the film.
"It's going well, then?" Ambrose asks brightly.
"Some laughs, some arguments, a lot of heckling at the fighting," you reply. "How did things go on your end?"
"Mm, so-so." The wizard waggles one hand for emphasis. "Took the girls a while to get around to opening one of the windows, and even after I'd gotten a look at their location, I couldn't pin it down. Some mid-sized town in Germany, from the look and sound of things, but no major landmarks that I recognized. I took some images and made notes to follow up on later, try to narrow it down."
You frown. Knowing where Bambietta and her allies are taking refuge probably isn't relevant to your interest in raiding Silbern again, but it does kind of bother you not to know where they are and who they're sheltering with.
Also, they're in Germany. You have an outstanding engagement in the southern part of that country coming up next month, and you would really rather not have the excavation and reclamation of the Memorian base gatecrashed by a bunch of angry Quincy.
You mention as much to Ambrose.
"I think you might be in the clear on that point," the wizard says. "Maybe. At the very least, the terrain didn't match up. The place Roderick has staked out is fairly mountainous; wherever our cute little child soldier maids have ended up is quite a bit more level, and not just because of the urbanization."
Here's hoping he's right.
In any case, Ambrose mentions that he also took a shot at looking in on the "Angel Man" that your Shadow briefly saw at the doors to the Royal Quarter of Silbern, and who the Knights and the Shinigami did some serious fighting with. Unfortunately, Ambrose's Spellescope failed to lock on to the man in question, and for all the improvements the device incorporates over the standard Spell of Scrying, it still won't be able to make a second attempt at locating that particular individual until tomorrow.
"Any idea why it failed?" Balthazar asks.
"Based on our mutual success at spying on the Wandenreich before this, I think we can rule out anti-Divination wards as the cause," Ambrose replies. "That leaves four possibilities. One, the man in question is dead, and hence undetectable. Since Arturia says he was still in fighting form when the Wandenreich disappeared from the battlefield, I tend to discount that possibility."
You have to agree.
"Option Two," the wizard continues, "the 'Angel Man' is so much more powerful than I am, his aura will simply turn my spell aside no matter what."
The lot of you exchange looks, silently acknowledging the unlikelihood of that.
"Option Three," Ambrose goes on, "and almost as unlikely but not ENTIRELY implausible, the individual in question has a divine nature, which is complicating things enough to throw me off."
It's as he says. Yhwach was at least partly divine himself, Grandmaster Haschwalth had (and has) his eyes, Sir Valkyrie was carrying the Soul King's Heart around - mum remains the word, there - the oldest Sternritter were empowered by Yhwach in some manner, and you're calling this one guy "Angel Man" because that's pretty much what he turned into when he called on his super mode. You also know that spiritual power and divine power are related, so taking all of that into account, it's entirely possible that this one Quincy is of a sufficiently godly nature to throw off Ambrose's attempt to scry on him.
Understandably, you're hoping that's not the case.
The last option is that Ambrose simply didn't have a strong enough link to his target to find the man, due to working entirely from secondhand information. This possibility is a bit weakened by the fact that he managed to find Bambietta using the same sort of information, but then again, the Knappe is quite a bit younger and less powerful than the dark-skinned Sternritter, and she IS on Earth right now; those factors would make her a lot easier to find than an adult, especially if he's on another plane of existence.
"Not a bad idea," Balthazar agrees, before turning to Ambrose. "That is, if I might trouble you for the use of your Divination Chamber, old man?"
"By all means, old boy, go right ahead."
As the four of you head back into the observatory-like room, you offer to cast the Spell of Sharesister to boost Balthazar's efforts. While the Spell of Scrying won't gain as much from such magic as other spells might, making it harder for the intended target to turn aside the Divination would be a definite plus.
Balthazar has evidently run into that spell a few times in the past, but not recently, and only once or twice under friendly conditions; he asks for a reminder of what exactly does, and once he's heard you out, the Merlinean Master agrees that it's a worthwhile precaution, as is your follow-up recommendation for him to further intensify the magic.
You make a mental note to pay attention to Balthazar as he works, to see how that particular effect is brought about. You've got enough magical power under the hood that being able to boost your spells so they're more likely to affect stronger targets would be a worthwhile trick to learn.
Before you cast the Spell of Sharesister, you head over to the recliner. While you don't yet remember the events that transpired when your Shadow summoned you, and haven't fully assimilated the latest copy of your Dark Self's memories, two sets of memories of an event you technically weren't present for does seem to have shaken something loose - a deeply unpleasant sense of weariness and weakness.
You're probably going to need to sit down.
While Balthazar lays down a Merlin Circle and Ambrose pops the Key of the Sun out of his Spellescope, you ritually cast the Spell of Sharesister-
Ugh, yes, there's the feeling of unpleasantness, and it's resonating with that half-recalled memory in a manner that contrives to leave you feeling even more exhausted.
-and upon completion of the spell, you reach out to tag Balthazar, then stagger back a couple of steps and flop into the waiting chair.
You still feel pretty bad, but sitting down helps a little.
Also, this is a REALLY comfortable chair.
"I'm not sure I like this spell, Alex," Briar observes as she hovers nearby.
"If it makes you feel better... ...I don't like it very much, either."
The unavoidable weakness that this spell imposes on you means you're never going to be using it as freely as you do some of your other abilities, but for all of that, you can't rule out the possibility that you might need to use it "in the field" some day.
Balthazar regards you for a moment, frowning in a very Teacher Less-Than-Pleased With a Student fashion - you've seen the look on Lu-sensei's face often enough to recognize it - but once he's reasonably satisfied that you haven't damaged yourself, he takes the silver medallion from Ambrose and gets on with his spellcasting.
Shortly thereafter, the nearest of Ambrose's mirrored walls is filled with an image of strange white sand, almost glowing under what seems to be the light of the moon - due to the limited viewing area of a Spell of Scrying, you can't be sure. Crossing the sands is a single figure wearing a hooded white cloak, the six-armed red star of the Wandenreich plainly visible across the left shoulder, while the fabric of the right shoulder is hitched up by a long object carried underneath.
It's difficult to get a clear look at the individual, not just because of the viewing angle Balthazar's spell has manifested at, but also because the white cloak seems to be interfering with the magic - not much, just enough to make itself and its wearer appear blurry in the glass.
"So that's what happened," Ambrose mutters. "Powerful, slightly shielded, and unless I miss my guess, not on Silbern's plane OR the Material Plane at all."
Yeah, a sandy beach - or maybe a desert? - really doesn't match with Souken's description of a frozen-over city, and if the Angel Man was on Earth instead, it should have been significantly easier for Ambrose to find him. The Spellescope's failure to reveal the man suggests that the Quincy is on another plane altogether, but if so, which one, and why?
Your musings are interrupted as the Angel Man skids to a halt and whirls around, clearly looking for something-
!
-and very shortly, glaring straight at the sensor, giving you a brief, mostly clear look at dark skin and a closed eye with a cross tattooed over the lid. He's also wearing that dark green furry hat your Shadow saw back in Silbern, though it's mostly hidden by his cloak's hood.
A moment later, there is a blue-white flicker - you sense spiritual power, and recognize a Quincy attack regardless - and Balthazar's spell ceases.
"That was rude," the Merlinean Master mutters.
If at all possible, you'd like to know where the Sternritter is and what he's doing, and you say as much.
"I can give it a shot," Balthazar replies. "Don't be too surprised if the spell fails, though."
You nod, understanding the warning. You don't know where the Angel Man is, you don't have any material components to provide a link to that location, and you saw the area only very briefly - and it was pretty devoid of outstanding features, besides. Given all of that, there's a good chance that Balthazar simply won't be able to lock on to it.
But even a small chance of success is better than nothing, and so the Merlinean Master casts another Divination Spell.
...
And there it is.
Sand. A seemingly endless expanse of white, glittering sand, broken here and there only by shards of dark, bare stone and leafless white trees, many of them worn at or shattered by unknown forces. Overhead is one of the darker skies you've seen outside of unpleasant dreams, a starless void where the waxing gibbous moon hangs alone, a great, blank eye staring blindly at the eerie landscape below.
Curious, that. You saw the moon when you dropped the Ishidas off in Karakura, and it was in the WANING gibbous phase.
The Angel Man has already moved on, now little more than a blur of motion in the distance - at least, you THINK that white-cloaked figure is him. It COULD be someone or something else, but you doubt there are too many other people running around this desert with long-barrelled guns slung over their shoulders and under their cloaks like that.
He seems to be heading towards a structure in the distance, a place half-palace, half-ruin, and all huge. It's far enough away that you can't make out much in the way of details, but even so, you're quite certain that it's not anywhere you've been or seen before, whether in person, by proxy, or in another lifetime. That said, there is a certain... not familiarity, exactly, but perhaps a comforting similarity about it?
Point is, it's an eerie ancient ruin in the middle of a desert. That just speaks to a certain part of you.
"Does anyone have any idea where that is?" you ask.
"Nope," Briar says.
"Well-" Ambrose begins.
"Actually-" Balthazar says.
The two of them pause to gesture back and forth for a moment.
"Actually," Balthazar repeats himself, apparently having won the contest, "the white sand, mostly-empty sky, reversed lunar phase, and involvement of a Quincy makes me fairly certain this is somewhere in Hueco Mundo. And if that's the case, that place" - he nods towards the giant structure - "would have to be Las Noches, the palace of the Hollow King, Barragan."
Huh.
"Not a lot of other castles in Hollow Central, I take it?" you ask lightly.
"Oh, there used to be," Ambrose answers. "Ages and ages ago, so the old stories say, the Hollows had petty kings and warlords by the dozen, just like the Living World. Then Old Bonehead came to power, ate most of his rivals, flattened their strongholds, and forced their surviving loyalists to drag the wreckage across the desert to build his own fortress ever-higher." The wizard snorts. "Supposedly, half the reason Las Noches is so bloody big is because Barragan just had THAT many enemies - and half the reason it's incomplete is because he ran OUT of enemies. Now all that's left is his crumbling monument to his own ego, a few buried, half-forgotten ruins, and rumors of places in the deepest reaches of the desert where the old Vasto Lordes still rule."
Gained Local Knowledge (Hueco Mundo) F (Plus) (Plus)
Fascinating, really. "Any ideas why one of the Sternritter would be there?"
"Not a clue," comes the reply. "Yourself?"
Well...
In any case, the Spell of Sharesister is starting to run down, and you'd be just as happy to be done with the induced enervation. Is there anyone else you can think of that needs scrying on at this point?
"Do you suppose it could be one of those 'enemy of my enemy' things?" you venture. "The Wandenreich trying to make nice with the leader of a realm that's probably just as rich in spirit particles as their last stronghold, so they can keep using their abilities at the levels they're used to?"
"Doubtful," Ambrose replies.
"Extremely so," Balthazar concurs. "As bad as the relationship between Quincy and Shinigami is, it's not all that different from the sort of feuds you'll find between different cultural groups on Earth. Once you account for the spiritual angle and the fact that some of the participants of that first, thousand-year-old war are still walking around, it's as much about history, ideology, and politics as anything else. The hatred between Quincy and Hollows is more primal."
"According to Urahara's observations of Mrs. Kurosaki," the wizard says, "Quincy souls lack the natural resistance to Hollow energies found in ordinary human souls and Shinigami. He wasn't sure WHY that's the case, but the result is that when a Quincy's soul is damaged by a Hollow, the wound festers, spreads, and eventually causes the soul to collapse - thus making Hollows as hideously lethal to Quincy as trained Quincy are to Hollows."
You recall Masaki saying something about being "poisoned" when you were investigating her and Isshin's spiritual condition, back on Bali Ha'i. The bit about it applying to ALL Quincy is new, though.
"Urahara mentioned it over drinks at the Kurosaki residence, that evening when we had the big discussion." Ambrose pauses, thinking back. "I believe your Shadow had been dragged off to a sleepover with the children by that point..."
Explains why you don't remember it, anyway.
"And the condition, or at least its severity, isn't quite universal," Balthazar adds. "Traditionally, it's most pronounced in the Echt bloodlines, whereas the Gemischt lineages are more resilient due to their mixed heritage - though they pay for that by having a harder time learning and using Quincy techniques, some of which an Echt Quincy is capable of using almost from birth. That said, considering how long the Wandenreich have lived in isolation, and that they were probably chosen from the 'purest' lineages of the old Lichtreich to start with, chances are they're even more vulnerable to Hollow poisoning than Earthly Echt Quincy."
Which would make the likelihood of them seeking to work with Hollows a lot less likely.
You'd been about to ask if growing up under conditions of high spiritual particle density was beneficial for young Quincy, but whether it is or not, this new information suggests that growing up surrounded by HOLLOW energies would be... bad.
"Could the Wandenreich be looking to cause a spiritual imbalance by killing off a bunch of powerful Hollows, then?" you suggest, as an alternative to your original idea.
"If they were, they'd have sent more than one of the Sternritter to do the job," Ambrose replies. "If only for the sake of making it happen as fast as possible, and on as large a scale as possible."
Point.
Well, as long as you're here and running down the list of Sternritter, you might as well try scrying on the one that apparently turned into a giant hand.
Given that your Shadow only saw the Quincy in question while they were wearing their cloak and had the hood up, and the likelihood of failure in simply scrying for a "cloaked figure," there is a brief delay as Ambrose goes to grab a memory from one of the Knights, who actually saw the being's true form.
The wizard returns promptly, snickering to himself.
"Dare we ask?" Balthazar says.
"Bit of a row about the historical accuracy of the depiction of the French," is the answer.
Ambrose displays the image of the arm - which has pale skin, broken chains dangling from its fingertips, and a single, alien eye in the center of its palm, with two pupils surrounded by golden irises - and Balthazar attempts to scry it out.
Despite your support and his own reinforcement of the spell, it fails.
Balthazar passes the Key of the Sun back to Ambrose, who slots it back into his Spellescope and makes his own attempt to find the bizarre Sternritter-
!
-which actually succeeds, revealing that the Quincy-creature is back in the cloak and hood, and also somewhere in Silbern. What little you can see of the room suggests it's another storage chamber, and it's currently being emptied out, not by the staff or Soldats, but by a swarm of free-roaming dismembered hands. You're reminded of the Addams Family's Thing, save that these body parts are about the size of ordinary human beings, their flesh is downright pallid, and they have yellow eyes in random places, all of them disturbing.
No sooner has the scene resolved than every moving entity in it stops, turns, and stares, unblinkingly, right at the sensor.
It.
Is.
CREEPY.
Perhaps it's for the best that one of the uncloaked hands flicks a giant index finger in the sensor's direction, obliterating it with a blast of Quincy spiritual power.
"Starting to notice a trend with these people," Ambrose mutters.
Indeed.
You've looked in on three full-fledged Sternritter so far, and been spotted twice in the process. Given how you've more or less exhausted your list of faces anyway and are not willing to test your luck by trying to look in on Grandmaster Haschwalth, you decide to end the scrying session.
Also, this lets you dismiss the Spell of Sharesister, which is a great relief. More so once Briar scatters some fairy dust over you, reversing the "injury" you did to yourself by shifting your life-force around like that.
After putting your borrowed chair back where you got it, you return to the theater to watch the rest of the movie, which takes about an hour.
There is much amusement, but almost as much confusion, and the odd spot of angry shouting.
The somber, dark-haired knight who you now know to be Lancelot of the Lake appears to have some objections to his portrayal, as well as that of his countrymen, the French.
The young knight with the shield, identified as Lancelot's son Galahad, has almost the exact opposite opinion on that topic - which visibly depresses his sire - but is just a bit put out by the light-hearted manner in which the movie treats God, the Grail, and Christianity in general.
The whole scene with the nunnery has him sputtering indignantly, while half the knights poke fun at him.
Galahad is also visibly torn over the matter of the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch.
On the one hand, sacrilege.
On the other hand, explosives.
Sir Kay hardly stops guffawing throughout the entire film, while the King just wearily endures. The other knights fall in between those extremes - Mordred leaning more in Kay's direction, Bedivere in Arthur's, to name a couple - though there is a general air of confusion and disappointment at the abrupt ending.
Once various questions have been fielded, tempers soothed, and Kay finally stops quoting lines - badly, at that - and collapsing in giggles, the group adjourns from the theater-
"Before the wizard can wreak any more havoc," Arturia insists.
-and resumes the raid-planning session.
Your scrying findings don't add too much to this. About the only directly relevant details you and your fellow spellcasters discovered are that one of the most powerful Quincy is not in Silbern at this time, while another is, and moreover, has even more disturbing abilities than were displayed in the previous fight.
You and Briar could hardly have missed how much that hand-creature and its minions resembled Wallmasters, but you're not sure if that's a point worth bringing up. Like other Hyrulean monsters, Wallmasters and their ilk are demonic in nature and origin, and there wasn't a hint of demonic taint coming off of that strange Sternritter. While some of that could be due to its cloak, as those garments seem to have some degree of sensory-defeating protection worked into them - a literal "cloaking" effect, if you will - the swarm of lesser hand-entities weren't shielded in that manner, and still didn't carry the least indication of such corruption. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Even leaving that glaring dissimilarity aside, you're having a hard time calling to mind a Wallmaster that was anywhere near as dangerous as this Sternritter. Most of them are little more than nuisances, living traps - or maybe undead ones - that do no real harm to their captives, in and of themselves. No crushing grip, stunning slap, or staggering punch; they just emerge from whatever surface they're linked to, grab any slow-moving or distracted quarry, and then drag the unfortunate out of whatever ancient ruin or dark stronghold they were intruding upon, forcing them to waste time and resources facing all the other obstacles and defenders over again. And again, and again, and again...
You're pretty sure the things were originally created by one of the Sages, somewhere in the depths of history, as a means of testing patience. If they'd been Ganondorf's creations, he would have made them quite a bit nastier.
In any case, the Sternritter's demonstrated ability to use Heilig Pfeil, create clones of itself, and grow to incredible size all make it considerably more dangerous than any Wallmaster you can recall, so you don't really see the point in bringing the things up.
Ambrose is planning to look in on Silbern again later, either targeting individuals his Spellescope already found or using its area-affecting mode to examine the fortress itself, so as to get a better idea of how the Wandenreich are proceeding with their evacuation of the compromised stronghold. Any patterns he can pick out through that will help you figure out where and when to strike, and what sort of force to use, to finish driving the Quincy from their stronghold.
On that topic, you inquire if Lord Drake and his staff would be willing to let you copy some of their explosives and other equipment, so that you'll be able to conjure more in the future if the need arises.
Ambrose promptly asks you how well you've studied chemistry, incendiaries, electronics, and modern armoring methods.
You are forced to admit that your knowledge in those particular fields or sub-fields is... a bit lacking. And unfortunately, given the issues with getting conventional magic to work with modern technology, your fallback of piling on enough knowledge- and skill-enhancing spells to make up the difference wouldn't be a good idea.
To add to that, Arthur is not especially keen on the notion of arming you with high explosives. The fact that you're already capable of taking out the average house with a well-placed Fireball is entirely besides the point; you aren't properly trained to use weapons of this sort, you aren't nearly old enough to legally own or use them without adult supervision - if even then - and these are just lines that Lord Drake would rather not cross if he can reasonably avoid doing so.
He also notes that bulletproof vests and less-than-lethal weapons are not well-suited for use against most supernatural threats, and equipping you with them would be irresponsible, at best. "Bulletproof" armor is really only bullet-resistant, and doesn't fare as well against blades besides. While stab-resistant armor does exist, you'd arguably be better-served just using the Spell of Mage Armor: it covers the entire body, as opposed to just portions; it offers comparable protection against most forms of physical trauma short of outright explosions; and it doesn't have a lot of the drawbacks of conventional armor, like having to deal with increased heat, bulk, inflexibility, and/or lack of sensation, all of which would conflict with your preference for high-mobility combat.
Besides, the security chief notes that he's pretty sure they don't actually HAVE any armored vests in your size, which is an important consideration. There is no "one size fits all" when it comes to mundane armor, the stuff has to be properly adjusted to its wearer's physique if it's going to do its job. As big as you are for your age, you're still too small to wear anything fitted to Arthur, Ambrose, or the security personnel, what they keep on hand for the ladies of the household REALLY won't fit, and while there are some spare suits kept for for guests in case of a "rainy day"-
Dracula's resurrection comes to mind, and from the looks on the non-Simulacrum faces in the room, you aren't the only one thinking of it.
-those are sized for more regular guests than yourself, like Kenneth or Lance. And again, they've got enough years on you for fitting to be a real problem.
"We should look into correcting that, actually," Arthur muses, tapping his chair's armrest with an idle finger.
This results in you being marched off to the armory for some measurements, after which - given the lack of much else to be done at the moment that wouldn't require magic you want to conserve for other purposes - Ambrose semi-graciously teleports you back to Sunnydale. You've got six, maybe seven hours before the Kurosakis and remaining Ishidas are all awake and antsy about going home, you may as well spend that time enjoyably.
"Welcome home, son," your father greets you. "How's the Peanut Situation?"
For a given value of enjoyable, admittedly.
"Nobody got sick, the elephants went home in good order, and we're just in the clean-up phase now," you reply as you kick your shoes off. "That may take a good part of the next week, incidentally. Also, fair warning: I MAY have robbed the peanut factory."
As you head for the stairs, you see your father blink. "Wait, what?"
"I sort of have a playdate with one of the elephants sometime later this week, too," you add.
"What."
"What was that?" your mother wonders from the living room.
"Elephants?" Zelda exclaims in delight.
"Alex, wait-"
"Can't talk, need to use the bathroom!"
You could probably do with a shower, actually. Cleaning cantrips work, of course, but there's just something about hot running water...
Of course, once you're cleaned up and have changed into a fresh set of clothes, you have to explain a few things to your parents.
First, you lay out your plans for the remainder of the day, explaining how you still have guests to see off, and that they'll all be asleep for several hours yet. Even taking the "long way around" and Gating everyone to Bali Ha'i before teleporting them back to Japan in smaller groups, it shouldn't take you more than two hours to get all of the remaining Quincy refugees home - three at the outside.
All in all, you expect to be home for supper tonight.
"That's good to know," your father says. "Now, what's this about robbing the peanut factory?"
"And about the elephants!" Zelda adds firmly.
"...and about the elephants," your father admits.
You had time to think about this in the shower, so you explain that, in order to resolve the Peanut Situation, you called the attention of the local authorities to the event, and helped them raid the "peanut factory" by providing transportation and some extra manpower.
"But you didn't go yourself," your mother states.
"No," you assure her. "I stayed with the people with the peanut allergy, like I promised."
"...allergy. Right."
"Anyway, the owners of the factory got chased away, and since we didn't want them just coming back and picking up where they left off, the authorities made plans to level the place."
Your parents blink at that.
"And since there were a lot of nice or useful things in the factory that would just have been wrecked along with the rest of it, that 'extra manpower' I sent along decided to..." You take a moment to search for a suitable metaphor, and then shrug and bite the bullet. "Okay, they basically looted the place, or at least part of it."
"Only part?" your father manages.
"It's a REALLY big factory, Dad."
"Thooo," Zelda says then, looking thoughtful. "You helped beat thome people up, chathed them out of their houth, and then took their thtuff?"
You repress the urge to wince at that unflattering yet accurate summary.
Your sister leans forward on the couch and gives you a serious look. "Alexth, are you a bad guy?"
...ow.
The answer, of course, is no, but when you try to argue points in your favor-
"The whole reason I helped was because the owners of the peanut factory were going to hurt people."
"Bad guyth can fight other bad guyth!"
"Okay, but I basically worked with the police to fix things-"
"Informanth are a thing!"
You point at Briar. "Would a bad guy have a fairy familiar?"
"He would if hith crimeth were fun enough!"
You and your partner trade glances, and then shrug in unison, conceding the point.
-Zelda's opinion proves difficult to sway.
As for your parents, they seem less troubled by the news that people you were working with stole from their opponents than you were really expecting.
"I may have come into possession of a few things that weren't legally mine over the years," your father admits with some evasiveness. "And I didn't have the excuse that I was in the middle of helping save people's lives at the time."
"Gathp! I'm thurrounded by criminalth!"
"Hush, Zelda," your mother chides. "That aside, Alex, we also talked to the other adults at your birthday party. Gyokuro and Akasha were fairly frank about what their family DOES for a living, Lucia had things to say about interesting items her husband and his friends brought back from their 'quests' - some of which initially belonged to the Shuzens - and even Lily Blaisdell had stories about how her husband's hunting career helped put their kids through college."
"To sum up, it was made clear that taking stuff from supernatural people or things you beat in a fight is considered fairly normal, and even expected," Tony concludes. "So while we're not exactly comfortable with it, and DEFINITELY don't want you to start run around mugging your classmates, robbing regular people's homes, or risking your neck to make a buck... if it involves making life more difficult for the nastier element, in situations like this where you aren't endangering yourself, then we're willing to deal with it."
"We do appreciate you coming clean about it, though," Jessica adds.
...
Well, that settles a concern.
"In that spirit of disclosure," you say slowly, "I should probably mention that there is... quite a LOT of loot."
Your parents trade glances.
"How much?" your mother asks.
"I don't have any monetary values yet," you caution. "The Drakes have people looking over what we grabbed, and there's enough of it that it'll take them a while to sort out, much less start selling off. That said... there were rooms being stripped of stuff."
"What kind of 'stuff'?" your father inquires.
"Some of it was gold or silver, or involved jewels. Also, books; there was a library, which... pretty much got emptied, shelves and all. Also artworks, statues, carpets, bedsheets, a few pieces of furniture..."
"...ah," Tony says after a moment. "That kind of stuff."
"Yeah. Also, the helpers I sent in used magic to shrink most of what they grabbed, so they were able to carry a lot more than would otherwise have been the case. The total haul worked out to at least a couple dozen bags and chests, about... yea big, before shrinkage."
You gesture with your hands to give an idea of the dimensions of the carpet-bags and rug-sacks the elementals used.
Your parents stare.
Zelda looks back and forth between the two of them, and then huffs. "I think you broke them."
There is a certain distracted air around both your parents for the rest of the day. Lucky thing it's the weekend, and you and Zelda can be there to look out for them, isn't it?
It's getting on towards three in the afternoon when you finally excuse yourself to go check up on the Quincies, who should be waking up about now. You hop into your Mirror Hideaway, ritually re-summon, re-disguise, and re-ward Shadow Alex to help with the impending spellcasting, and then Gate to the timeless demiplane, where you are greeted by a small crowd of Ishidas already packing their things into their vehicles.
There is some minor confusion when you explain that you'll be taking them home by a different "route" than you brought them here, and that their cars will need to be shrunk and carried in the process, but the majority of the grumbling is good-natured.
Nobody comments on their absent kinsmen, but you do catch a few cautious looks aimed your way from the adults.
It's a bit jarring at first, just how quickly you manage to get everyone through the Gate on foot, compared to the time it took for them all to drive, but when you stop and think about it, it does make sense. For one thing, between the Archers, the Muhlfelds, and the Ishidas that you and Balthazar respectively dropped off last night, you've already taken a good two-thirds of the Quincy and their relatives back to Earth. Even without that, though, cars take up a lot more space than people on foot, and they aren't as flexible or quite as maneuverable.
Where a car that's driven through the Gate has to keep going straight ahead until it's cleared the portal and made room for whoever's going to follow, someone going through a Gate on foot can just take a couple of steps to one side. That's not even getting into the issues of passing a rigid, mostly rectangular object through an inflexible circular space at some speed...
Of course, going from the temperate twilight of Navi's artificial reality to a tropical mid-morning on Bali Ha'i has a number of people pausing in surprise or just to admire the view-
"Now why couldn't we have hidden out HERE?" someone asks.
-but even with that and Elder Michiko's slow pace, you get everyone through with just a single casting of the Gate Spell.
As for the matter of teleporting everyone back to Japan, you could leave it all up to your Shadow, while you remain on Bali Ha'i to make sure nobody wanders too far - Tatsuki and the Kurosaki kids, having been here before, are already showing off their familiarity with the island's nearest interesting features - or you could pitch in and make the work go faster. Unfortunately, due to the distances involved, you can't rely on the standard Spell of Teleportation, which you might be able to conceal if it were cast as a ritual; it'll have to be the seventh-circle version instead, and both ways.
In passing, you reflect that if you're really concerned about stealthy - and cheap - magical travel, developing a Spell to Teleport One's Self (and ONLY One's Self) might not be a bad investment. But that's for the future.
You've recovered enough of your magical strength that you can afford to spend some of it here, and it would not only make things go faster, but also be a bit easier on the Ishida Elders by not requiring them to sit or stand around for the next hour and change.
On top of that, having both you and your Shadow teleporting in and out of Japan at the same time(s) will force anyone trying to trace the spells to either split their efforts between the more-or-less simultaneous events, or else ignore one of you in favor of focusing on the other.
As much as your Spells of Mind Blank will allow them to, anyway.
With that settled, you get on with the matter of sorting out the travel parties.
The Kurosakis volunteer to go last, partly so that Masaki's cousins and such can get home sooner, and partly because they're already familiar with Bali Ha'i, and so less likely to get into trouble with the locals.
Or, as Isshin puts it, "We won't piss off the volcano."
"The volcano?" somebody asks in confusion.
As if on cue - and it probably IS - Kahine's mountain rumbles, both in the physical and spiritual realms.
There is a long pause as everyone looks in that direction, a lot of the newcomers visibly paling, before Isshin turns back to the small crowd and repeats, "The volcano."
Shadow Alex takes Elder Michiko, her nurse, and her granddaughter back to the house where you picked them up, with Michiko's daughter-in-law and one of HER kids going along to round out the number of travellers. He'll get the husband and the two remaining kids on the next trip.
You, on the other hand, are just about drafted into taking young Sumika and her non-Quincy relatives home. The teenager has been fairly grouchy ever since you met her at her school, and clearly wants to be done with her extended relations.
She's not the only one; Touji the Ronin DEFINITELY wants to get away from his parents, who are just as clearly determined to keep him within their sight, when they aren't casting suspicious or dismissive looks at his soon-to-be fiancee. For her part, the young woman, Hanako, is bearing up under that hostility rather well - it helps that the REST of her prospective in-laws aren't nearly so unfriendly - but you think she is kind of regretting her initial interest in meeting the folks.
Sorting that group out is going to be the kind of fun that isn't.
Seven minutes of ritual casting, opening with formal greetings to Kahine and a request to borrow some of her island's abundant energies-
The answer is another rumble.
"Is that likely to erupt while we're here?"
"Not unless somebody does what Isshin said he and his wouldn't."
-and concluding with a quick thanks, you and Shadow Alex pop out with your respective groups.
As you reappear on the sidewalk in front of a house you've only seen once before, Sumika speaks up: "What was with all that green light, and why did it feel like it was trying to say something?"
"Nrrgh," one of her foster-family agrees.
...whoops. Your recent and intensive use of the Gate Spell for mass transit purposes, and the complete lack of contact with your little friend on the Astral Plane in the interim, may have led you to neglect the mental defenses you'd normally offer to regular people, or at least those inexperienced with your personal teleportation.
Despite your worries to the contrary, things went quite well when you broke the news of your proxy looting spree to your parents. The manner in which Touji's parents are trying to control him and make the girl he wants to marry uncomfortable is a direct contrast to that, and perhaps because of that, you feel like helping the two out.
Besides, you still have that Spell of Spell Immunity calibrated to no-sell Quincy arrows going. Shadow Alex, however, does not, so HE should probably be the one to take the lovebirds back where you picked them up, while you deal with the parents.
You have a quick word with Briar about this before leaving with Sumika's family, and she passes it on to her Shadow, who agrees to inform yours of the plan.
"That was just an extraplanar energy being unbound by four-dimensional space-time. Don't worry, it's friendly."
Sumika and her non-Quincy relatives stare at you, visibly NOT reassured by your words.
"That aside," you continue, "what did it sound like the green light was trying to say?"
"What, you didn't hear it?" the teenager asks.
"I did not," you say simply enough. "And even if I had, we might have heard different things."
"Oh. Well, it was like... no, it was more... have you ever heard three or four people talking about the same thing at once?"
You nod.
"Well, it was kind of like that, only with just one... voice, I guess? Only it was kind of narrating at first, and then shifted to dialogue."
"It seemed to be saying 'hi'," her aunt ventures, while supporting her disoriented husband.
"Actually," Sumika adds with a note of puzzlement, "it kind of reminded me of the way this one girl at school sounds whenever she sees that upperclassman she has a crush on..."
...
Leaving aside the implications of that for now, the family members generally agree that the green light was basically offering a greeting of some sort, and that it DID sound fairly friendly.
They're still kind of weirded out by the experience, though.
You spend a few minutes seeing them inside, mostly to make sure that the husband - who was having the strongest reaction - gets over his disorientation. Once he's walking around under his own power and not complaining of brain-twisting thoughts, though, you make your goodbyes and start walking down the street, putting some distance between you and the house as you gather the energy to teleport back to Bali Ha'i.
When you return, you find Shadow Alex got back ahead of you-
"Where is our SON?"
-and did as requested-
"What have you done with him?"
-leaving you to deal with the overbearing parents.
"Take us to him this INSTANT!"
Thanks, not-evil you. You shouldn't have. Really.
On the upside, they aren't shooting at you, and in fact haven't even formed their spirit weapons yet. But they do have their crosses out, and the air around them is tense with gathered energy ready to be used. The few remaining adults are telling them to calm down, but it doesn't appear to be going so well.
When Shadow Alex gets back about ten minutes later, Touji's parents have... not calmed down, exactly, but at least stopped yelling. More because they were starting to irritate their throats with all the shouting than for any other reason, you suspect.
On a side note, you have a mild headache.
"YOU!"
And there is the evidence to support your hunch, as no sooner has Shadow's return been noticed, than the bothersome pair round on him and raise their slightly hoarse voices once more.
"How dare you-!"
"-think you can just-"
Said doppelganger blinks in confusion, and shoots a glance your way, mutely asking why you hadn't dealt with these two already.
"-will have you know-"
"-put up with this-"
You merely shrug and smile back, inviting him to share in the annoyance.
"-ARE YOU EVEN LISTENING?" the mother finally shrieks.
Shadow Alex turns back to the couple, looks them over, and says bluntly, "No."
That earns him a pair of sputtering stares, as well as a few suppressed snorts and snickers.
And then he sets off a Spell of Deep Slumber which puts the pair out on their feet.
"If someone could make sure to grab their things," Shadow Alex says to the crowd, "we can be on our way."
While he handles that group, which is going to Elder Michiko's place, you collect the remaining non-Kurosaki Quincy, to be dropped off at Elder Asuka's. And this time you include those mental defenses you neglected before, noticing that your Shadow is doing the same thing with his group.
The trip goes without issue, and in short order, you're back on Bali Ha'i, Shadow Alex coming along a minute later and reporting no problems on his end.
"And the two you knocked out?" Masaki asks.
"I left it to the others to decide whether to wait for the spell to wear off, or to slap them awake," he replies. "They were talking it over when I left."
"Something to ask about at the next family reunion?" Isshin offers his wife.
"Very funny, Isshin."
"I try. Well, come on, kids! Time to head home."
"Do we HAVE to go?" Karin sighs.
"Can't we just stay here for a while?" Yuzu adds.
"Ichigo and Tatsuki have school tomorrow, girls," Isshin replies, before frowning. "Or is that the day after...? The point is, they have school, and Daddy and Mommy have work."
"We don't," the twins point out in grinning chorus.
And then Tatsuki grabs them from behind in one-armed headlocks.
"Ack!"
"If I have to go back," the spiky-haired girl proclaims to her struggling captives, "I'm taking you both with me."
"Nooo!"
You let Shadow Alex handle this final run, while you head home. Your darker side will still have a fair amount of magic energy left to burn after he's done playing taxi, but what do you want him to do with it? It's getting on towards midnight in Wales, so everybody at the Drake estate other than the night shift security is probably asleep, making a return trip there pointless just now. He'll be in Japan, so he could check up with your other contacts there - you are reminded that you've been meaning to get a nice offering for the Hakuba kami - or you could wait for him to return to Bali Ha'i, help him buff up again, and then send him to raid Silbern for the third time. Another scrying session would also be a possibility, and of course, he could simply dismiss himself.
Thinking on it, you decide to have Shadow Alex...
As the Kurosakis are forming up around your doppelganger to depart, Masaki takes a moment to thank you for everything you did to help her family, even the ones who were ungrateful jerks and idiots about it.
Gained 25 Gratitude Crystals
"You're welcome," you tell her seriously.
You briefly consider having your Shadow make use of his reserves by dropping a bunch of enhancement spells on you and then conjuring some proper loot sacks, but you realize that you're very much getting ahead of yourself and set that notion aside for later consideration.
After all, you haven't even finished PLANNING the next effort to push the Wandenreich out of Silbern, and the looting is explicitly on hold until AFTER that's done and the fortress is reasonably secure. Not to mention that you still have to ask Ambrose and Balthazar what sort of resources they can bring to bear on a plunder raid - really, the three of you need to sit down, probably with King Arturia and one or two of her Knights for good measure, to hash out how best to combine your efforts towards that end.
Conjuring a bunch of mundane sacks isn't a BAD idea, exactly, but it could be a sub-optimal one, depending on how many Bags of Holding the old guys have in stock.
All strategic considerations aside, you promised your mom you'd stay out of harm's way during the Peanut Incident. Going to Silbern in person while there are still hostile Quincy there would be breaking that promise, which you are loath to do.
...though it'd kind of be a bad call on the strategic front, too. Shadow Alex IS ultimately expendable-
"Why do I want to hit you?" your Dark Self asks with a suspicious frown.
-and as long as you have the necessary mana and are somewhere the militant Quincy can't reach, you can just keep sending him in to make their lives and evacuation procedures difficult.
Anyway, you tell your Shadow to check in with the Hakubas and the Shuzens, to let them know how the events of the last day or so have worked out. Even if they weren't directly involved, both families were aware of the mess and have probably been on the lookout for trouble because of your warnings; the least you can do is give them the mostly-clear signal and a heads-up about the Wandenreich's sudden and massive relocation.
On a whim, you suggest that your Shadow check in with Gen, if he's got time after dealing with the others.
"You want an answer about why he didn't mention mana drunkenness," Shadow Alex guesses.
"Well, yes," you admit.
Shadow heads off, and you take a moment to thank Kahine for providing a safe haven, however temporarily-
The volcano sends up a plume of smoke and a pulse of energy that feels like, "No problem."
-before gathering the energy for a Greater Teleport and heading back to California.
You spend the remainder of the afternoon and the whole evening resting up from your rescue mission. In the process, you dispel most of the enhancement spells that you were using, as they're no longer required, and you don't want to get too used to walking around all powered up, like a certain someone used to.
It's a little past supper time when you receive a Sending from Shadow Alex: "Checked in with the Hakubas. All's well, heading to Gen's next."
Barely half an hour later, the second magical message arrives: "Gen apologized for the potion thing; he really thought Briar would have warned us. Any thoughts on that?"
Is there something that you want to say to Shadow Alex and/or Gen about this?
Finally, just as it's getting dark out, there is a knock at the door-
*Bang, bang, ba-ba-ba-ba-bang*
-the pattern of which mimics a section from a classic Hyrulean composition.
When you get up to look through the peephole, however, you see nothing.
"Who goes there?" you call through the door.
By way of response, a Spell of Invisibility fades away, revealing Shadow Alex. He looks a bit battered.
"I figured it would be best not to be seen around town at this hour," he explains, after you've opened the door and stepped aside.
"And the rest?" you ask, gesturing at his rumpled suit.
"Kahlua wanted to see what sparring with a bigger version of us was like," he admits. "And then her sisters wanted to take their turns."
Well, of course they did.
"How'd you do?"
Your lookalike winces and touches a hand to his ribs on his left side. "For the record, we need more practice fighting people that much smaller than us, particularly ones that can move as fast and hit as hard as vampires."
Noted.
"We ALSO need a bit more practice holding back our full strength in this form," Shadow Alex adds with a wry grin. "And on a related note, Kokoa may try to convince you to help her fly WITHOUT magic the next time you visit."
...
...okay?
"Oh, and Issa was kind of annoyed to miss out on looting a place - I think more because we're working with the Drakes than anything else - and Gyokuro says that if we need help moving some of our loot, she'll give us a good rate."
Noted.
Shadow Alex still has some energy to work with, so the two of you head down into the basement, call up your Mirror Hideaway, and then have a go at scrying on events in Silbern again. Maybe it's the added difficulty of trying to reach from the Mirror Plane through the Material and into a sub-realm of the Spiritual, but Shadow proves to have trouble making a connection this time. You do get a couple of glimpses of activity, and make notes accordingly to pass on to Ambrose and the rest at your next planning session, but your Darker Self proves unable to lock on to any of the Sternritter in this session, and when he tries to find Bambietta again, the spell shows her to be asleep in bed.
You have your Shadow end that spell fairly quickly, as even if she is one of your enemies, there's just something creepy about watching people sleep.
Shadow Alex eventually dismisses himself, and you pass the remainder of the evening reading, before heading off to bed.
The following day, you depart the house before the sun is fully up, taking advantage of your access to the demiplanes to ritually open a Gate in your Mirror Hideaway that connects to the temporally accelerated pocket plane, and then to travel from there to the Drake estate.
You send your Shadow off with instructions to cash in some of your store credit to secure any restoratives Gen might have in stock. You also tell him to ask after reagents with an affinity for the Element of Life, and of a particular level of quality.
Based on what you've seen in Gen's stock, it's a given that he's not going to have a single reagent with the potency necessary to empower an Item of Regeneration, but acquiring reagents of lesser potency that could be combined to get the necessary boost to your crafting efforts might be doable.
You'll never know if you don't ask.
Shaking your head at your Shadow's Sending, you tap into the lingering energies of the matrix and speak: "I'm beginning to wonder if Gen actually met fairies before, if he didn't think she'd pull a prank."
With that said, you let the final clause of the spell activate and go on its way.
When dusk falls and Shadow Alex returns, he hands over a few mana potions.
"Four bottles of Spring Dew, one Smoke Water," he lists off, "and a belated reminder not to use them all at once."
Cheeky old man.
Gained 1 Smoke Water
Gained 4 Spring Dew
Spent $350 in store credit
"Regarding Life reagents, Gen didn't have anything on the level of Faerie Troll Blood, doubted he could source it, and was curious to know if we'd happened into a supply."
"What did you tell him?" you ask.
"I admitted you were on friendly wrestling and lunch terms with such a troll - no names or locations - and that you'd inquired about obtaining some of Grack's blood, with no real luck."
You nod, satisfied with the answer.
"Anyway, Gen DID have a couple of suitable lesser reagents in stock, so I purchased one of them."
With that, your Shadow hands over a small jar with a fairly fresh-looking heart inside.
You accept the grisly item and study it for a moment. Life-aspected, as said, and with hints of Shadow and Spirit that indicate it came from a youkai of some sort. It's not of a species you've interacted with often enough to recognize the residual energies of, though it's big enough that its owner would have been larger than most humans.
"It's from a kind of youkai called a 'hihi,'" your doppelganger explains. "Gen described them as arising from monkeys that lived to a great age. They're strictly carnivorous and will feed on humans if they get a chance, but their usual fare is apparently wild boar."
You pause at that. "REALLY, now?"
In your soul, the Raging Boar rumbles.
Shadow Alex nods. "Gen also said that while some of the hihi are smart enough to at least mimic human speech, this one was just a big nasty animal."
Well, then. Any compunctions you might have had about using this reagent in your work have been significantly reduced.
Gained Hihi's Heart
Spent $150 in store credit
"I didn't want to risk devaluing the reagent by buying the other one," your copy continues, "but Gen was willing to get in touch with a couple of his suppliers and arrange for one or both of us to go collect some additional Life-focused reagents in person, to get around the issue. I told him I'd let you know, and you'd get back to him."
Again, you nod, this time thoughtfully. "By 'collecting,' did he mean just moving the goods from supplier to shop, or something more active?"
"That's one of the things you have to get back to him about. Gen said it could go either way, depending on the clients and what we were willing to do." Your Shadow shrugs. "Personally, I'd prefer to take the active route, just to make sure we get the best quality out of the deal."
Of course he would. In fairness, there IS a qualitative benefit to doing the whole job in person.
Before dismissing himself, Shadow Alex uses a modified Spell to Share Memory to pass on his memories of today's meeting with the Shuzens. It's only another hour or so, and you figure it shouldn't be a big deal even with the memory downloads from Silbern still being sorted out, but he puts in the extra effort to try and smooth out the process.
"If this is going to be a regular thing," Shadow Alex comments, "then we really need to devise a proper large-scale memory-transfer spell, and not just keep brute-forcing the process like this."
You'll take that under advisement.
Images flicker past your mind's eye, the familiarity resonating with the memories of past spars with the Shuzen girls. Nothing really sticks out from the initial download, but you spend the last hour before bedtime in meditation, working on integrating the various memories.
In the process, you see the spar with Kokoa, wherein the smallest of the four sisters takes advantage of her smaller size and disproportionate vampiric strength to grab onto and "climb" along one of your Shadow's arms. Between surprise and your dark doppelganger actively trying not to hurt the girl, he isn't able to dislodge her before she reaches his shoulders, at which point, in his understandable desire to keep her from getting to his neck, he exerts a little too much force half-pulling and half-throwing her off - and then the back of Kokoa's shirt where he'd grabbed her rips a bit, and she goes flying.
Fortunately, Thistle was on point, and "caught" her partner with a Spell of Feather Fall before she came down, but this had the side-effect of allowing Kokoa to drift clear across the room before the interposing wall finally stopped her. The littlest vampire was laughing all the way, and no sooner had she touched down than she tried to take off again - first by jumping, then by rushing back at your Shadow and half-asking, half-insisting that he pick her up and throw her again.
There was serious discussion of the need for lift, which led into Thistle and Akasha giving the girls a talk about wings, complete with visual aids.
On a related note, you have a minor nightmare about Akasha's shapeshifting that evening, which bleeds into the general chaos of the battle in Silbern. And since you no longer have the fear-suppressing Spell of Heroism up, it makes for a restless night.
You're not sure if the magic of the Restful Blankets keeps you from waking up, or if it's just that the dreams weren't that bad. You're also not sure which you'd prefer...
You make a mental note to get in touch with Gen and give him your answer in the next day or two.
But first, you have rest to get, and then business in Wales to attend to.
After an uneasy night's sleep, you rise ahead of the sun, get a quiet breakfast, and then clean up and dress for the day. Then you get out your Magic Cellphone and call Ambrose.
"Merle's Madhouse, Merle speaking," the wizard says as he answers.
"Hey, Ambrose. You good for a visitor?"
"...one minute, please."
There is a fairly lengthy pause, during which sound from the other end of the line is muffled. You think you can make out Altria's voice, as well as her mother's, asking Ambrose if it's urgent. He makes some excuses and leaves wherever they are.
"By my reckoning, lad," Ambrose finally resumes, sounding like he's still on the move, "it must be something like four in the morning in California. Are you still on demiplanar time, to be up so early?"
...did you never discuss your sleeping arrangements with Ambrose, or has it slipped the old man's mind?
Well, whichever is the case, you quickly (re-?)enlighten him on your use of Restful Blankets to cheat on getting a full night's sleep in half the time.
"Useful," Ambrose admits. "Though you'll forgive me if I don't order a set of new bedsheets from you. I quite like my circadian rhythm the way it is."
Eh, to each his own.
From there, you inquire if it's alright for you to stop by in the next half-hour or so, so as to get on with probing Silbern and plotting out the second push to drive out the Wandenreich.
"I can set the wards to let you land in my teleportation chamber, if you remember what it looks like?"
Thinking back a moment, you believe you do.
"Excellent. The ladies are aware that Arthur and I are Up To Something, and that Balthazar is involved, and while none of them have quite reached the point where they're curious enough to stick their noses in, I suspect having you show up to join us would tip the scales."
You can see it.
With that settled, you hang up, leave a note for your parents - on the fridge door, with a simple cantrip to make it glow for a while - and then head down to the basement, where you call up and enter your Mirror Hideaway, renew your Spell of Mind Blank, and then ritually ready a Gate to Wales.
In passing, you reflect that while this roundabout method is a bit more expensive than simply using a Greater Teleport to make the journey - even if you did offset the cost with rituals - it has the distinct advantages of allowing you to travel without having to set foot outside your home in the wee hours of the morning, and also of not leaving a strong magical signature that a passing spellcaster might be able to analyze and backtrack. Plus, even with the ritual method slowing things down, it's still much quicker than your usual method of running a safe distance out of town - heck, even with THREE rituals, you think you're pretty close to breaking even in terms of time spent.
Your portal opens up on target, revealing Ambrose standing by the door, with Simulacrum Galahad beside him. The wizard blinks once, slowly, clearly taking in and wondering at your use of the Gate Spell - but only for a moment, before the realization hits him.
"Of course," he declares, snapping his fingers. "Sunnydale at four in the morning. Terrible night-life, best avoided entirely, even if that means popping through another layer of reality. And you DO know how to conjure up that extra-dimensional hidey-hole in the Mirror Plane."
"Closer to five in the morning, but otherwise, you've got it. Is Balthazar here?"
"He got here a few hours ago," Ambrose replies. "We made a couple of attempts at scrying on the weaker members of the Wandenreich again, but lacking that Key, we had enough trouble that we decided to hold off on looking for the Sternritter again. He's still at lunch with the Drakes, though."
Ah.
Ambrose hands you off to the knight and shoos the both of you away so that he can reset his wards in peace.
"And no, you can't watch," he says bluntly.
Rude.
Out of curiosity, is there anything you'd like to ask Sir Galahad?
As the wizard heads one way down the hall, the knight turns to lead you in the other direction.
You take the first few steps in silence, but then you find yourself speaking. "Would you object if I asked you a few questions, Sir Knight?"
"To the asking, not at all," comes the calm reply. "I can make no promises as to the answers, however."
"Fair. So - and I apologize if this is rude, but - what's it like to be a Simulacrum?"
Sir Galahad considers that for a moment. "It manages to combine the feeling of an ongoing trial with the recognition earned from a victory."
"I'm not sure I follow," you admit.
"I will try to explain." He stops walking and turns to face you. "Are you familiar with the spell Ambrose used to conjure these shades of myself and my compatriots?"
"I haven't learned how to cast it myself," you reply, "but I am fairly well-versed in the School of Illusion and Shadow Magic, including a couple of spells that operate in a similar manner to the standard Spell to Create a Simulacrum. Ambrose also offered an explanation of the magic when he, my Shadow, and the King first met with the Shinigami captains, which lined up with my own understanding - for the basic version of the spell, at least."
Galahad nods. "Then you're aware that the standard spell normally creates only a limited copy of the original individual."
"I am. I take it Ambrose's spell worked differently?"
"To an extent. The wizard wished for us to have as much of the capabilities of our predecessors as possible, not only in terms of personal strength and skills, but also equipment." He raises his right hand for a moment, emphasizing the tiny shield that hangs from his wrist. "Recreating the full panoply of any one of us would have been exceptionally trying, and for some, such as His Majesty, simply not possible."
Yeah, you imagine that recreating Excalibur would be a task roughly akin to reforgeing the Master Sword - the sort of feat that even a living legend only does once in his lifetime.
Granted, certain legends get multiple lifetimes...
"And a knight without his armor and weapons is at a considerable disadvantage," Galahad continues, before pausing and looking away briefly, a faintly disapproving frown crossing his otherwise placid features. "MOST knights, that is..."
Hm?
"In any case," he says, recovering from whatever that was, "to get around that limitation, Ambrose devised a spell that was supposed to tap into something called the Throne of Heroes- ah, I see you've heard of that as well."
"I know a thing or two about Servants, yes," you admit. "From the way you phrased that and some of what my Shadow reported, I take it Ambrose's spell didn't quite work as intended?"
"Not entirely, no. While we do have the memories and outstanding possessions of the original Knights of the Round Table, our abilities are still somewhat short of where they were in life, much less where they would be had we been properly summoned Servants."
You have to take a moment to consider the implications of one man managing to summon THIRTEEN Servants in a united front. From your understanding, that's almost TWO full rosters for a standard Grail War, which is kind of unsettling to contemplate.
"Getting back to your original question," Galahad continues, "the sense of recognition that I mentioned arises from the knowledge that the original Galahad was found worthy - not only by Heaven, but of being remembered by history and humanity. Even if the tales of his life and deeds have changed over time and the facts been obscured or misinterpreted, the core of who he was and what he did are still there, still celebrated." The young knight smiles faintly. "Though Galahad did not strive for fame, it is... heartening, to know that he remains well thought of by so many."
"And the bit about it feeling like trial?"
"Comes from knowing the high example set by my predecessor, and the difficulties I will face in living up to the name 'Galahad'," the Simulacrum replies. "Yet while my skills may be the lesser, my tools the poorer, and my very identity no more than an echo of another's, I am resolved to pursue that course all the same. To do otherwise would be to shame my namesake, our allies, and our Lord."
Huh.
"On that note," you say then, while glancing around to make sure none of the manor's staff are in earshot, "I take it Ambrose has mentioned why he's keeping you all out of sight?"
"He has," Galahad says seriously.
"And what's your feelings about that? About you all being here when at least some of you have apparently been reborn?"
"Meaning no offense to yourself or Ambrose, I remain unconvinced as yet that young Altria is truly King Arthur reborn," comes the answer. "That they RESEMBLE one another is beyond question, and kinship is certainly possible and even likely. Reincarnation, however?" He shakes his head, pausing at the end with a frown of consternation as he catches his glasses in the middle of sliding off from the motion, and readjusting them. "That remains unproven... and I would hope it remained that way."
"How so?"
"The concept of reincarnation was... frowned upon, by the faithful scholars of my day," Galahad says lightly, "for it runs contrary to the Lord's promise of eternal salvation. Indeed, I am given to understand that the modern Church rejects the notion entirely. I cannot speak as to the correctness of that belief, but I will say that I believe, for the merciful Lord to permit the final rest and promised reward of any of His children to be disturbed in such a way, would require there to be a great need - some task that they alone could fulfill, the completion of which would be essential for the betterment of the world. And for such a one as the King of Knights to be sent back to walk the Earth again, the need would have to be most dire." He shakes his head again, more carefully than before. "I would not wish such a heavy responsibility upon the young lady, much less the danger to the world."
You can see where he's coming from.
While you have your own thoughts on the matter of reincarnation - some of which probably shouldn't be repeated in polite company - and quite a bit of evidence to go along with them, you decide not to bring them up.
It's not that you don't trust Sir Galahad, it's just that you don't know him, and getting too deep into a discussion about the cycle of souls would unavoidably reveal a few secrets you're trying to keep under wraps.
It might make for a good philosophical debate, though, someday.
Moving on a bit, you inquire of the knight if he's ever heard of a Roman successor state called Memoria.
"It would have existed in the region that are now France and Germany, if my information is correct," you state. "I think that was Gaul, in your day?"
"It would have been, yes," Galahad replies. "Parts of it, at least. As to the realm you mention, the name 'Memoria' is vaguely familiar - aside from its literal meaning - but I cannot recall ever having any dealings with them."
You consider that. From what you know, Camelot and Memoria were both born out of the collapse of the Roman Empire, which would make them peers of a sort. They wouldn't have been neighbors - the distance between any part of the British Isles and what area you know the Memorians to have claimed was not a short one, and travel was rather more difficult in those days, particularly with regards to the English Channel - and possibly not even trading partners, depending on a host of factors ranging from the geographic to the political.
Was there a specific question you had about Memoria, or did you just want to know if Galahad knew of them?
As Galahad directs you to the sitting room, you ask one final question, inquiring as to his thoughts on the modern world, as compared to Camelot.
"The difference in population is quite frankly staggering," the knight-Simulacrum tell you seriously. "There are cities in this age which claim more residents than entire COUNTRIES did in our day, and I can hardly wrap my mind around the logistical challenges of keeping so many souls housed, fed, and paid for their daily labors. Only Rome herself could have claimed anything like such feats, and then only in her heyday, when perhaps a million souls lived within her walls, if I remember my lessons rightly. To see such numbers exist in multiple locations, spread around the world entire..." He trails off, shaking his head.
You DID drop the Knights in the middle of Tokyo, the largest metropolitan center in the modern world, with a population over ten times that of Ancient Rome. It didn't seem to bother any of them at the time, but maybe now that they've had a chance to process everything, there's been some impact?
Perhaps Sir Galahad might have had more to say on the matter, but you've reached your destination, and Ambrose is coming up the hall behind you besides.
Time to get on with the meeting.
Nothing comes to mind, so you let the matter of Memoria go.
The latest "strategy meeting" gets underway a few minutes later. Galahad's arrival completed the presence of the Knight-Simulacra, and the security chief whose name you still haven't gotten was there already, along with Mr. Todd. Ambrose walks in on your heels, at least proverbially, but it's a while after that before Balthazar and Arthur Drake finally return lunch, bearing apologies for the delay.
"Lucia is definitely curious about what we're up to," Altria's father says, "but lacking any pressing reason to do otherwise, she prefers to wait until I have a full story to regale her with. How long the girls will be able to hold back, I'm less sure of."
You're probably going to want to avoid visiting the Drake Estate openly until you get the business of invading and raiding Silbern settled, then.
"It probably would be for the best, yes," Arthur admits.
"And on that note," Ambrose says, "let's get started."
The three scryers in the room proceed to fill in the audience about the latest round of findings. This fills out the map of Silbern a bit more, and adds three more Gates to that illusory map, which SHOULD be the total number. Souken gave you a quick run-down on the traditional Quincy alphabet, and you've found enough Gates now to match one to each letter, which tallies with his memories of his time in the Wandenreich - whenever there was a deployment order, the Gate(s) mentioned only ever had single-letter designations. Besides that, the way they're spread out within the fortress offers pretty good coverage, allowing for quick transportation to and from Earth in most areas.
That some locations within the stronghold AREN'T so easily reached from the Gate Rooms is, you suspect, entirely intentional on the part of the builders. It's actually a little surprising that the Royal Quarter is so close to not one, but two of the portal chambers, but then again, that section housed the most powerful members of the Hidden Empire, and was also designed so that access in and out of it could be cut off at need.
Even with all of the above taken into account, it's not impossible for there to be other Gates that Souken didn't know of, whether because his status as an Earth-born Quincy or his low rank as a Soldat didn't grant him sufficient clearance, or simply because he never found them. Silbern IS a very big place, and the Ishida Elder never claimed to have explored it fully.
Ambrose marks off the Gate locations in color: a spot of blue means the portal in question is, to the best of your knowledge, fully operational; red indicates a damaged or destroyed gateway (the difference being largely irrelevant for your purposes); a single spot of green shows Gate J, under Dimensional Lock; and three of the blue spots have been ringed in silver.
"They'd finished digging out the flooring from around these two Gates and reinforcing them with that spirit-metal when I checked," the wizard explains. "The other one was only about half-done, but that's enough to make it impractical as a target for explosive sabotage."
Also noted on the map are those corridors and rooms that have been lined with force-barriers, closed off entirely, and/or filled with that likely analogue to Glitterdust. There are fewer of these than you were expecting to see, only four areas in total, one of those the central Royal Quarter and the immediately adjacent servants' chambers.
Arturia takes one glance, and indicates the three other sectors. "Do we know what is in these areas?"
"These two appear to be general residential blocks," Ambrose reports, indicating the lowermost areas on the map. "There were long-term stores and armories in the area as well, and the Quincy were focusing the bulk of their efforts on clearing those out, but there was steady traffic in and out of the barracks as well. This other one had the look of a research center."
Looting senses tingling.
"What sort of 'research'?" you inquire aloud.
"Technologically focused," the wizard answers. "Machinery, electronics - at least one firing range and a nearby room reinforced to contain explosions, so potentially weapons testing of some sort. I'm afraid I didn't see much of it, and I recognized less."
Hm.
"Curious that they'd allow the rank-and-file to retrieve personal possessions, even as a sideline to stripping the stores," the dark knight who isn't Lancelot observes. "Are there not more valuable or dangerous materials in need of removal?"
"They can bring the barriers down as needed to allow their people passage in and out of the secured areas," Ambrose notes. "I saw one group returning from doing something deeper in the fortress, somewhere in" - he gestures vaguely north and up of the Royal Quarter - "this area."
Looting senses warning!
"And how long has it been since your last scrying attempt?"
"Somewhat over an hour," Balthazar replies.
You consider it. Aside from the existence of this research sector, this new information doesn't add anything truly new, certainly nothing that you didn't already suspect was likely. It seems fairly clear that the Wandenreich are focusing their efforts on clearing out essentials like food, weapons, and readily convertible assets, with a couple of sidelines for the personal effects of the Sternritter and other officer-types, as well as sensitive materials they don't want falling into other hands. You're not sure if you'd prefer them to be moving such things out of the fortress or destroying them outright, as while the former means the potential loot still exists, it also means it's still in the hands of the Wandenreich.
It's only been a day or so since the Wandenreich got booted out of their secret headquarters, and yet rather than scramble around like headless chickens or collapse in despair over the loss of their king, they've managed to regroup and start pulling off a pretty large-scale operation - one that will only make them more dangerous to you and yours the longer it goes on. Not to mention that the more time you give the Quincy militants to work undisturbed, the less loot there will be left in the fortress, whether because they'd removed what you'd be interested in taking or destroyed it outright.
For these reasons, you advocate hitting Silbern again as soon as possible, with as much force as can be mustered.
Specifically, you were thinking of calling up Shadow Alex and sending him and the Knights to your accelerated demiplane, where your dark doppelganger could summon an instance of you-
"Say what?" Ambrose exclaims.
-and maybe one of Ambrose-
"Say WOT?"
-and give them time to ready their defenses and call up additional support, before launching a two-pronged assault.
The first party would include Shadow Alex, the Knights, and any combat-oriented summons, and their job would be to go in loud and draw the Quincies' attention, giving the second group - the summoned spellcasters - an opening to seek and disable-slash-destroy the remaining functional Gates of the Sun.
"Hang on a moment," Ambrose says. "Kindly explain this nonsense about summoning YOURSELF."
Technically, it's not you summoning YOURSELF, it's your Shadow - who is technically a construct of Illusion Magic, if he'll recall - summoning a slightly lesser instance of you. He managed to make it work once before already, when the two of you were on different demiplanes, but even so, he had to use just about the most powerful Summoning Spell you're capable of casting, which worked out to tenth- or eleventh-circle, depending on how one counts.
"I thought the scale stopped at nine," Arthur Drake says to Ambrose.
"It usually does," the wizard returns. "But with enough experience, preparation, or just plain cheating" - Ambrose's glare says clearly which of those he thinks YOU'RE using - "some of us can push into the double-digits."
"Most of us don't, though," Balthazar adds. "Various entities get cranky or nervous when mortals start throwing that much magic around, especially when we manage not to die in the process, much less if we're doing it routinely. Plus, it's just incredibly obvious, mystically speaking."
Yeah, you have not forgotten what little you saw of the scramble your use of that ramped-up Gate Spell prompted from New York's supernatural community. Still, if you limit the overpowered summoning to the accelerated demiplane, where there are no natives to have their feathers ruffled and none of the local Powers should know to look, it should be fine, right?
Ambrose and Balthazar trade speaking glances, before questioning you in more detail on the results of Shadow's summoning of yourself.
It shortly comes out that "you" were functionally weakened by the summoning, and when that is combined with the tendency for your magic to perform somewhat less effectively compared to the spells of more mature and practiced casters, Ambrose expresses some doubts that you could get him.
He might just be uncomfortable with the idea of somebody being able to summon him.
The wizard's delicate ego aside, while you think you probably could call a weakened instance of him, you'd have to force the summoning with a ritual, and Balthazar reminds you that spells cast that way are normally too unstable to reliably accept further modifications, meaning your Shadow would only have access to Summoned Ambrose for about two minutes. Shadow might he able to double that by using your Aries Crystal - or more realistically, a Shadow-spawned copy of it - assuming the item could stabilize the spell enough for that to work. Even if it did, ten minutes of effort for only four (or two!) minutes of result may not be worth the trouble in this case, given the size of Silbern and the fact that summons can't teleport themselves. There's also the fact that both summons will appear without any spells on their persons, meaning you'll need to at least slap a Mind Blank on each of them and a Spell of Transformation on Summoned Alex for safety's sake - and possibly more magic besides, since you'll be heading into a combat zone.
You can't go too far into buffing those two without eating up a significant chunk of their "lifespan."
On a side note, Ambrose and Balthazar agree that part of the reason why your Shadow managed to summon "you" for as long as he did must be due to the strong sympathetic connection he has to you. He won't have a link like that to anybody else-
"Barring your familiar, of course," Ambrose adds. "But she'd be relatively simple to summon, on account of being far less powerful than you are. No offense, little lady."
"None taken, old man," Briar replies. "I find great comfort and satisfaction in being just the way I am."
-making modifying even reduced summonings of exceptionally powerful individuals unlikely.
In any event, the King and her Knights are not opposed to striking the opposition sooner rather than later, nor do they have any particular issue with being the distraction for a second party to go in and conduct sabotage. That said, Arturia does recommend that Shadow Alex assist Summoned Alex - and Summoned Ambrose, if he is present - in locking down or blowing up the Gates of the Sun.
"Based on what we experienced the first time through, I would pit any one of my Knights against any one of the enemy's, save perhaps their Grandmaster and his three elite compatriots - or at least the sharpshooter and that... bizarre arm creature, if your doppelganger's disarmament of this Sir Valkyrie was as effective as suggested. Even so, the fact remains that we are only thirteen in number, whereas the enemy's knights can potentially match us, while having dozens of troops to throw at us besides - perhaps hundreds, given the scale of the fortress and the size of the areas we know them to be working in. Unless you can summon a comparable force...?"
Potentially, maybe, at least in terms of raw numbers, but matching the Soldats force-for-force would be another matter, and probably not doable at the same time - at least not in a practical time-frame. Even then, you'd run into the issue of having to cast the Spell of Mind Blank on your secondary troops, to avoid Jugram Haschwalth being alerted to your second strike, to say nothing of the additional support spells needed.
Even with five spellcasters and a stock of mana potions, you've still only got so much mana to throw around, and more than that, only so much time to work with. Still...
Perhaps it's your recent scrying-enabled discovery of all those oversized disembodied hands that were working with that one creepy Sternritter, but a vision comes to you of a Silbern flooded with Wallmasters, grabbing unwary Wandenreich members and dragging them, screaming and cursing, to the fortress's exterior gate.
"Alex," Briar says slowly, "why am I hearing maniacal laughter in your head?"
"I was just considering dropping a few dozen Wallmasters on Silbern," you explain to your partner.
There is a beat.
Then Briar starts to cackle.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see Mordred shudder. "Oh, THAT sound brings back memories..."
"What is a 'Wallmaster'?" Arturia asks, frowning. "And why would their use prompt... that particular reaction?"
You take a minute to explain about Hyrule's long history of using maze-like, monster-infested, puzzle-riddled temples to test the faithful, frustrate the faithless, and protect their relics. Once your audience has the basic context, you describe "one of the least harmful and yet most annoying of all Hyrulean monsters."
The knights are quick to grasp the utility - and the frustration - of the giant floating hands.
"Unfortunately," you sigh regretfully, "the limits of the Spell to Summon Monsters mean that any Wallmasters I 'recruited' that way wouldn't be able to teleport. They might still be able to drag their prisoners through local walls and into other rooms, but carrying them all the way out of Silbern in that manner is a bit unlikely. At the very least, it would take a lot longer."
"Could they not simply leave their prisoners in the walls?" the dark knight with the sour face asks.
"Agravain," several of the others exclaim at once, in various degrees of disapproval.
"I'm merely pointing out-"
"That's a horrible-"
"If you're going to kill a man-"
"-retain some utility-"
"-cleanly, not utterly horrifying-"
As more voices begin to rise, you're almost tempted to look for a book, but the King beats you to it, taking up a sword-sheath that's been standing next to her chair and rapping the end-
*Bang*
*Bang*
*Bang*
-okay, not the end of the SHEATH, but rather the hilt of the invisible sword inside of it against the table a few times. It's a motion Arturia performs with the ease of long practice, a habit so ingrained as to be almost instinctive, and you find yourself wondering just how often the legendary swords Caliburn and Excalibur were used in this manner.
"Enough," the King calls firmly. "Remember yourselves; however peculiar the circumstances, we are guests here."
The knights settle, and you wait a moment longer to see if anyone's going to speak up. When nothing comes, you clear your throat.
"To answer that question," you begin cautiously, "even though they probably SHOULD have the capability to do so, I've never heard of a Wallmaster leaving someone IN a wall. At the very least, it wasn't mentioned in the bestiary I got from their church, which was pretty comprehensive about threat potentials."
"I've never heard about it being a possibility, either," Briar adds, "and knowing things about monsters, especially Hyrulean monsters, is kind of one of my jobs."
This apparent unwillingness to resort to lethal application of their powers may have something to do with the Wallmasters' origins. You did have those suspicions about them having originally been created by the Sages as part of the temple trials, and if they were designed as "tests to be overcome" rather than "deadly traps," that could have imposed some sort of limitation against killing. Maybe the magic that lets the strange creatures pass through walls doesn't allow them to let go of their quarry halfway, or perhaps they're psychologically incapable of using it in such a manner.
You say as much, and Sir Agravain accepts it with a nod and a look of faint disappointment.
There are a few other issues.
For one thing, after being harassed by that swarm of Earth Elementals earlier, the Quincy set up force-fields specifically to prevent intruders from coming out of the walls and floors at them. These barriers don't cover every part of every room even within the "secured" areas, but the Gate Rooms, the main storage chambers, and the primary routes between them HAVE been reinforced this way. Now, Wallmasters can still drop from the ceiling, so their utility isn't completely lost, but they are going to be a bit limited in where and how they can attack. Factor in their summoning-related inability to teleport, and it's going to slow them down.
The second issue is the matter of your Shadow's control over the summons, or the lack thereof. While the Knights generally approve of throwing the enemy into disarray before showing up themselves, the prospect of being attacked by Wallmasters themselves is less welcome. The whole point of using the creatures is to sow confusion among the Wandenreich to offset their advantage in numbers, but if Shadow Alex releases the Wallmasters to act on their own recognizance, they're undoubtedly going to go after the Knights as well. Considering how badly outnumbered your allies are going to be in this raid, getting separated from the rest of the group could easily end up being deadly, even for them, so that's simply not an option they're willing to accept.
This means your Shadow is going to have to work with a lot fewer Wallmasters than you might have hoped.
Despite these limitations, you think you can still get some mileage out of the plan, particularly if you buffed the Wallmasters correctly first. Mind Blank to prevent Jugram from seeing them coming or pinpointing their activities; Greater Invisibility to make them so much harder for their prey to see coming; Spell Immunity for the same reason you gave it to all the Shinigami earlier; and various others for improved performance.
...Elemental Body would be somewhat less useful than usual, considering that Wallmasters can already see without eyes (most of them, anyway) and are able to move through walls under their own power, but the increase to strength and durability wouldn't be unwelcome.
As you start taking out and either donning or setting aside the gear you want Shadow Alex to have available, you review the enhancements you'd like to place on your invasion force.
The Knights politely but firmly reject the notion of their being made invisible. You're a little surprised that the main argument against it isn't some point of chivalry, but other tactical considerations.
"Some of us have experience fighting while invisible," Sir Kay notes, "but not many - and NONE of us have any experience fighting TOGETHER while invisible. Riding into a battle without being able to tell where we all were?" He shakes his head. "It'd be a disaster."
Well, that's why you were also thinking about using the Spell of Telepathic Bonds-
"No."
"Nope."
"Thank you, but no."
"Not only no, but HELL no!"
-oh, come on. Really?
"As Sir Kay said," the King replies, "some of us have experience fighting while in mental contact with another-"
"Since when?" Kay wonders, looking at his lord and foster-sibling with some surprise.
"-but not many, and not as a group. It would not be wise."
"More to the point," Mordred cuts in, "I am NOT giving any of these madmen a direct line into my brain."
"Who are you calling a madman?" the other female knight demands, before the tallest of her siblings places a hand on her shoulder.
"I would have phrased it differently," the blond knight says, "but I must admit that I have... similar reservations about us being able to hear each other's thoughts."
While he's addressing his sister, his gaze cuts toward Sir Lancelot for a moment.
"Indeed," Galahad agrees.
Lancelot sighs and slumps in place, but offers no further protest.
You pull on the last of your chosen gear at that point, and get on with calling forth Shadow Alex-
"Did you need a hand?"
-who is clearly in good spirits.
Your Shadow immediately steps into the hall and starts casting the Spell to Summon Monsters, testing to see just how powerful it needs to be to get Wallmasters.
Taking your admittedly limited experience with summoning Hyrulean monsters into account, you're confident that the fifth-circle iteration of the spell would be more than sufficient for a typical Wallmaster-
*Poof*
-and when your Shadow completes his spell, your belief is borne out, as no less than five of the man-sized, claw-tipped hands appear in the hallway around him, balancing on their fingers in a manner reminiscent of spiders. Two of them skitter over to opposite sides of the hall and sort of attach themselves to the walls by the wrists, flesh sliding into the wooden facade with unsettling ease, while another pair slowly float up off of the ground and begin flexing their digits menacingly - or maybe they're just warming up in anticipation of going to work? The last of the creatures remains where it appeared, shifting about as if watching the others and their summoner - this, despite its complete lack of eyes.
Sir Mordred leans out of the sitting room, eyes the new arrivals with a grimace, and says, "Okay, full points for creepiness. Also, a question?"
"Yes / yes?" you and your Shadow say in unison.
The Wallmasters turn to fa- scratch that, they turn TOWARDS the door.
The red knight shudders in distaste, but continues. "If those things are giant severed hands, are there some giant dismembered bodies out there looking for them?"
"I mean, there IS Bongo Bongo," Briar offers.
Remembering the giant undead thing that Lu-sensei faced in the Ring of Trials, you consider that it only had two arms, and then contemplate the prospect of there being MULTIPLE such monsters out there.
"Goddesses forbid there's more than one, though," you reply with a shudder and a warding gesture.
The Wallmasters shuffle in place, as if trying not to loo- to fa- as if trying to avoid your gaze.
...
Such response to your statement is... concerning.
While you're doing that, Shadow Alex starts testing out his control over the group of Wallmasters - which you find yourself tempted to call a "hand" - and discovers that they're about as fast as a fit adult human when on fo- on fing- when moving around using old-fashioned muscle power. Their levitational power is somewhat slower, and seems to be limited to purely vertical movement besides, but when he orders one of the creatures up to and then through the ceiling, it isn't meaningfully slowed by passing through the architecture.
When he tells them to demonstrate how they attack, you learn that Wallmasters aren't limited to being profound nuisances. Aside from being large enough to grab a grown warrior or half-grown Hero and drag him screaming into the walls, they can exert more force to try and crush their captives, claw with their oversized nails, or simply batter, whether with individual finger-flicks, slapping, or a clenched fist. That last move has as much in common with a flying tackle as it does a punch, though, the Wallmaster apparently needing a solid surface from which to launch itself, or else to drop from a great enough height to build up some crushing force.
"One last thought, before you go," Arthur Drake says then, getting Shadow Alex's attention. "Do you think it would be at all possible for you to summon ME?"
You take the patriarch's measure, considering his demonstrated strength of arms at the Ring of Trials, and what you saw during the battle against Dracula's forces.
"As a matter of fact," Shadow Alex replies slowly, "I could."
"You're going to want to have your armor on and your weapons out ahead of time, though," Shadow Alex adds, before giving Arthur a quick run-down on how being summoned interferes with one's ability to use other forms of magic that interact with space-time.
On that note, you should probably stay in your "battle sorcerer" duds until this is all over.
Your Shadow also cautions Lord Drake that he won't automatically get the memories of being summoned, but Ambrose interrupts there and says he can walk Arthur through the process of unlocking that knowledge.
With that settled, Arthur reaches for the phone and calls up one of his staff to arrange an in-house delivery - preferably one that avoids the ladies. Shadow Alex and his creepy-crawling Wallmasters head on their way to Ambrose's summoning chamber, while Balthazar, who will be providing supplementary spellcasting and Gate travel as part of his "investment" in the proceedings, follows after them.
There is a brief pause.
"So, what now?" one of the knights inquires. "Do we just wait and revise the plan until the Shadow checks in?"
"You can if you'd like," Ambrose replies, getting up from his chair. "For my part, I thought I'd go set up the Spellescope to monitor Silbern, and then kick back to watch the fun."
"You won't be able to scry on my Shadow or the Wallmasters, though," you remind him.
"I can still scry on Silbern itself," the wizard returns, "and once the Spellescope gets a successful lock on an area, it can move its point of view around within that location. All I have to do is look for the chaos - although, if you have an idea of where your Shadow would enter first, it could help."
...
"...I may at that," you reply, getting up from your own chair.
The knights look around.
"There aren't enough seats in that observatory," someone notes.
"I don't mind standing, if the spectacle is entertaining enough..."
"I can run the images from the Spellescope to the projector in the theater," Ambrose calls back to them as he's leaving the room.
"To the theater?"
"TO THE THEATER!"
As the knights go one way, you and Ambrose go another. En route, you inquire if the wizard couldn't simply scry on the accelerated demiplane, wait for Balthazar to open a Gate from there to Silbern, and then have his Spellescope's scrying sensor follow Shadow Alex through the portal.
"Doesn't work, unfortunately," the old man replies. "Scrying sensors are effectively anchored to the plane they manifest on. They can SEE through portals, if they're close enough, but they can't MOVE through, whether by following a target they've locked on to or under their own power. Something similar happens with teleportation, provided the target moves far enough to be out of the sensor's range."
You nod slowly, thinking your way through the matter. This is not an issue that's come up for you before, but it is one that might conceivably do so, now that you're getting involved in inter-planar events. Better to know about the issue now, rather than to find out when you try to follow someone through a Gate at a critical moment later on.
While Ambrose sets up his Spellescope according to your best guess as to where in the Wandenreich fortress Shadow Alex - which is to say, you - would try to land, you grab one of the spare seats and make yourself comfortable.
"The kitchen?" Ambrose wonders from his recliner. "Really?"
"All the Gate Rooms are likely being watched, Yhwach's chamber seems like it'd have visiting mourners if not security, and the Grandmaster's quarters would just be tempting fate, after everything my Shadow stole from him."
The wizard nods. "She is a vengeful thing, at times."
"I pulled him out of a storeroom in the Servants' Quarter after his last run through the fortress," you continue, "and he noted then that the area was already being picked over. Add in the time that's passed since then..."
"...and the area stands a good chance of being ignored," Ambrose says, following your line of thought easily enough. Turning to the controls at one hand, he continues, "Alright, then. Let's see if I can find the right room in a timely manner..."
The Spellescope goes to work, initially displaying Gate Room J - and as you suspected, the chamber has quite a Quincy presence, half of it Soldats on guard duty, perhaps an eighth of it members of the servant staff, and the remainder a new sub-group of the Wandenreich you've not seen before, all of whom give off a distinctly scientific or technical vibe as they poke and prod at the steady green glow of the Dimensional Lock your Shadow left on the portal.
They're not QUITE wearing labcoats, but the style of their uniforms is decidedly closer to that than to the combat fatigues of the Soldats or the servants' livery. Quite a few of them are carrying technological devices, ranging from tablets and handheld scanners to helmet-like headsets to oversized backpacks.
Nothing that they couldn't evacuate with at a moment's notice, you muse, as Ambrose adjusts his device and the scene begins to move on.
Passing over the guards' heads and into the hall, the invisible sensor makes a hard left down one of the passageways that leads to the stairs, and which Ambrose was supposed to have sealed off during the original strike. Most of the Wall of Stone that the wizard placed to seal off access to the stairs, but the Quincy have dug a short tunnel through the barrier, wide enough for three normal-sized adult humans to walk down side-by-side, if they didn't mind standing a little close together, and tall enough that Sir Valkyrie wouldn't need to duck or remove his helmet.
The sensor passes through the tunnel and out into the shaft of the stairwell, where it descends one level and enters a door directly below the one it just used. Then it's a left at the first major intersection, followed by a straight shot to another double-door similar to the one that you know leads into the Royal Quarter, only of humbler dimensions and decoration.
Fortunately, while neither Ambrose nor your Shadow visited the Servants' Quarter in person, all the scrying that's been done on the fortress means that Ambrose has a good idea of where the kitchens are, and is able to direct his device straight there. Finding the store-rooms takes a bit more work, but the real delay is on you identifying which of them is the one you pulled your Shadow out of.
You eventually manage it, and then settle in to wait.
Five minutes pass.
Then ten.
Ambrose gets up from his chair. "I'm going to go get some refreshments. Want anything?"
Close to twenty minutes on, the wizard returns, with Balthazar at his side.
"Wait, you're back already?" you inquire, frowning as you glance from the sorcerer to the image of the still-empty oversized closet. Did you pick the wrong room, or...?
"Your Shadow sent me back early to deliver a message," the Merlinean Master replies. "And I quote: 'He isn't used to thinking of having a THIRD instance of himself on call for spellcasting duty'."
I call hex.
You blink.
It's pronounced "hax," Farore.
You facepalm.
It's cheating, is what it is...
Yes, having Summoned Alex on hand to cast spells WOULD be really useful, wouldn't it? Especially since - as long as YOU aren't casting in the interim - he should be at full power, or nearly so, every time your Shadow calls him up.
Bwahahahaha!
Stop that.
Of course, that's not much help to you personally, since a summoned creature can't exist on the same plane as the one it's patterned off of, but it's quite the asset for your Shadow on these extra-planar jaunts, at least when it comes to prep-time. Even just a couple of minutes would be enough for Summoned Alex to cast most of the spells you had in mind, minus a few - like Foresight - that Shadow Alex would have to cast on himself, or others that would have to be cast as rituals, which Summoned Alex might not be around long enough for.
Further thought is set aside as a Gate whirls open on the crystalline "screen" before you, revealing nothing but the misty twilight of the accelerated demiplane. You see nothing, save perhaps a slight distortion as invisible beings scurry through the portal - on ALL sides, at that, clambering out along the walls and the ceiling as well.
What did your Shadow do, raise a Wall of Stone on the demiplane?
That aside, the brief blurring as the Wallmasters scuttle through the Gate is less a sign of the spells concealing them needing to adjust to new conditions than it is the portal itself compensating for passage from a temporally accelerated environment on the Ethereal Plane to a slower-moving one somewhere on the far side of the Astral - at least you THINK that's where Silbern should be, unless Soul Society has a really unusual placement compared to other spirit-realms.
One question: how many castings of Summon Monster was Shadow Alex going to hold?
While you don't see much, you do hear a bit - the light thumping, too heavy to be called a skitter, as fingers the size of arms haul hand; the occasional bump as an open cupboard door is knocked aside - but most of the stuff you recall seeing in this storage area the last time you laid scrying sensors upon it has been cleared out, and most of what little remains is being adroitly avoided by the Wallmasters. The Hyrulean horrors also don't seem the least bit inconvenienced by one another's invisibility, as you witness nothing to suggest a collision or a fight for space - and why would there be?
After all, common Wallmasters like these don't have eyes. As you understand it, their perception is based on hearing and sensing vibrations, so being invisible and under Mind Blank isn't a hindrance for them in any way.
One final blur moves through the Gate, alone and of different dimensions than the army of hands that preceded it.
There is a rough rumble. "All there?"
In response comes a short drumming, as of many, MANY fingers on whatever surface is handy.
"Good."
The Gate snaps shut.
"Remember the plan," Shadow Alex the Earth Elemental says in a voice of gravel. "And let's give these nice people a hand."
The drumming intensifies.
Although it hasn't yet been a full hour since you had breakfast, you didn't have a particularly large meal - preparing such would have made too much noise and too many tempting smells, and possibly woken some or all of your family up.
So, yeah, you could cram in a snack.
You place an order and let Ambrose go on his way.
He returns with a tray of snacks and drinks levitating behind him, carried along by an Unseen Servant.
You'd determined that keeping control over seven hands' worth of Wallmasters would be ideal, and judging from the number of ripples you briefly detected moving through the Gate, Shadow Alex either got really lucky with his summoning, or he dismissed a few poor batches.
Regardless of how many of the huge, horrible hands there are in that room, when the Gate closes, whatever interference it was causing ceases, and you lose track of the Wallmaster invasion force almost completely as the Spell of Mind Blank returns to its full functionality. It's only the sudden motion of various parts of the scenery - more cupboard doors being knocked back and drawers rattling, mostly - that alert you to their passage, and given the Haste Spells that should be on the lot of them, such evidence is brief indeed.
"Oh, THIS is going to be a challenge to follow," Ambrose mutters, as he sets aside his own refreshments and sits forward in his seat, hands on the Spellescrope's remote control. "Let's see if I'm up to it."
Rather than try to track the undetectable monsters, the wizard goes in search of the nearest group of Quincy. The limited radius of the Spellescope's scrying sensor makes this rather more difficult than simply looking or listening around, but fortunately, you did pass a number of people on you way into the kitchen stores. With any luck, you'll get to them in time to see or hear something.
As Ambrose's sensor whizzes down the hallways, you notice a couple of points where the ceiling and unshielded parts of the walls and floor almost seem to ripple, as if some roughly man-sized mass were sinking into them. The distortion is slight and only lasts a second or two, but it's enough that the Wandenreich might be able to notice.
Hopefully, the shock and screaming terror awe of the invisible attack will keep them off-balance-
"SOMETHING'S GOT ME!" a Soldat screams, as he's dragged towards the ceiling by an unseen hand, while three of his compatriots look on with gape-mouthed stares.
-and speak of the Demon King!
"Don't just stand there!" one of the trio snaps at the others as he recovers. "SHOOT!"
"No!" the prisoner calls down. "Don't!"
Before anyone can say or do anything, one of the men still on the ground suddenly lurches backwards.
"Shit, another-"
"-body tell me what the HELL-"
"-OH KING, OH KING, GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF-"
And then the first of the grappled goon squad reaches the ceiling and is, as far as he and his allies can tell, sucked inside of it.
The screaming picks up a notch in volume and dread at that, even as it's reduced a bit when the second guy gets pulled into the right-hand wall.
The remaining Soldats turn to run-
"Radio, radio, the HELL is my radio-"
"Shut up and ru-OH SHIT!"
-but they don't get very far. One trips on something he couldn't see, and as he falls, he catches his companion's legs, staggering him long enough for another invisible hand to take him from one side in what must be their equivalent of a flying tackle. As the Soldat on the floor is dragged backwards and then down into the floor by the Wallmaster that caught him, he has time enough to see his friend hit the wall and immediately start sinking into it.
He screams all the way down, after which there is only silence and an empty hallway.
"...and they use these as tests, you said?" Balthazar asks, as Ambrose resumes moving the sensor.
"Courage is the primary virtue of the Goddess Farore," you recite.
You're not sure at first where the wizard is directing the "camera," but as the Spellescope's sensor zips through Silbern's halls, you pass a few more scenes where the Wallmasters are introducing the Wandenreich to their unique brand of briefly terrifying annoyance.
"What fresh nightmare-"
"-kill it, kill it, KILL IT-"
"-CAREFUL, you idiot-"
"-not the wall again!"
You won't say it's complete chaos, but it's certainly a well-established confusion as the roving Wallmasters seize individual Quincy and drag them towards the nearest unwarded surface.
At one point, you see a Soldat drifting through the air on his back, one arm free and lashing at his unseen captor with one of those not-lightsabers, to no effect - you spare a moment to be glad you thought to include that in the Spell Immunity.
Elsewhere, you see a Quincy EMERGE from one wall, gibbering in terror. He's abruptly dropped on the carpeted floor, where he curls up into a ball and whimper. His body shifts suddenly, and then a second time, as if something fairly large had just given him a relatively gentle prodding, but when there's no reaction, no further motions occur.
Either the Wallmaster lost interest and went looking for someone more fun to play with, or else judged that man to be well and truly subdued and decided to seek a new target in need of neutralization. Or both.
Based on what you have and haven't seen, Shadow Alex must have summoned close to thirty of the Hyrulean horrors. While the Spell to Summon Monsters conjures creatures relatively close to the caster, it doesn't require said entities to remain near their summoner; combined with their innate abilities to levitate and phase through architecture, as well as the Spells of Haste they're under, the Wallmasters' numbers should allow them to range out through a modestly-sized part of Silbern, spreading mayhem as they go.
Also, cursing - most of it in that particular Germanic dialect that seems to be the Quincy lingua franca, but you hear some English and bits of several other languages, a few from people who don't look remotely like they'd be native speakers.
Gained German E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spanish F (Plus) (Plus)
As Ambrose steers his scrying device, you catch sight of a most curious coincidence.
One of your Shadow's Wallmasters managed to find its way into one of those halls that was filled with motes of spiritual energy. There are several Soldats and a Sternritter in there, so when the invisible monster drops from the ceiling to seize one of the troops, the others get a fairly good look at what's attacking them.
Even the guy who was grabbed momentarily falls silent at the sight of the oversized hand, only briefly resuming his screaming as the ceiling draws near.
The remaining Soldats wordlessly turn to their present superior, the hooded being that you know to have the form of a large arm. Said entity is still staring at the ceiling where the Soldat and his captor disappeared, perfect stillness radiating shock.
"Sir Parnkgjas," one of the troopers, a woman, begins politely, "I say this with all due respect, but - what the fuck? Sir."
The Sternritter looks around and makes a gesture that your understanding of body language equates to a baffled shrug.
Another of the Soldats sighs. "I'll radio it in..."
Considering that Sir Parn-whatever spotted your scrying sensor when you tried to look in on the Sternritter earlier, it seems fairly likely that Ambrose's scrying will also be noticed if you stick around. It's likely only the fact that the Spellescope wasn't aimed directly at the hand-creature, as well as the distraction provided by the Wallmaster, that's kept the Sternritter from noticing and/or reacting to your snooping this far.
You urge Ambrose to move on before you're caught, and explain your reasoning once he's got the sensor on the move again.
You also point out that since one of the Soldats that actually saw the Wallmaster had a radio, odds are good that word of what exactly is attacking the Wandenreich this time will soon be making the rounds of the fortress. You doubt it'll be too long after that before they realize that the giant disembodied hands aren't killing anybody, just moving them around against their will, and perhaps terrifying a few beyond the capacity for rational thought.
With that in mind, it would probably be a good idea for the King and her Knights to get ready to ride.
"Fair reasoning," the wizard agrees. He does something to his control panel, and a different part of the glass-covered wall is filled with the image of the theater, and the Simulacra within it. "If I could have your attention-"
Several of the Knights promptly call, "Boo!" or "Get off the screen!"
"-yes, yes, sorry to interrupt the show, but the boy just made a good point that the opposition's showing signs of starting to come to terms with what they're up against. Now may be a good time to arm up."
"The wizard is correct," Arturia admits, setting a half-empty extra-large bag of popcorn aside and wiping some fragments away as she gets up. "We should prepare."
"To the teleportation closet?" someone suggests.
"TO THE CLOSET!"
And then they hurry out of the theater, leaving a fair amount of half-consumed snacks and drinks behind.
Sparing a moment to wonder where exactly those foodstuffs GO, considering who and what is ingesting them, you ask Ambrose if they do that sort of thing a lot - the cheering, that is.
"All. The. Time," the wizard sighs, his expression one of longsuffering. "Meatheaded frustrations aside, there's spells in need of casting. While we go take care of that, Briar, would you mind staying here and keeping a scry on things on the other side?"
"Why, Ambrose," your partner says. "Do you mean to say that you TRUST me with your big fancy magical machine?"
"I trust that you'll get more entertainment out of watching the chaos than you will from trying to break it."
"True enough." Moving over to the wizard's chair, Briar pops into her human-sized form and looks down at the Spellescope's controls. "How do I steer this thing?"
While the wizard explains things to the fairy, you and Balthazar quickly leave the room-
"To the closet!" you declare.
-heading thattaway.
The Knights are already in their armor and calling up their mounts when you arrive, and two sorcerers make fairly quick work of all the spells you wanted to cast. You focus your efforts on Spell Immunity, partly because the quasi-divine essence in your system and your training with the Hyrulean priestly trio make it a bit easier for you to cast divine magic than Balthazar would find it, and partly because you've gotten a lot of experience casting the "anti-Quincy" variant of late - even if most of that was secondhand - so you're better able to define what to shield the Knights against. Wandenreich-standard Holy Arrows, not-lightsabers, a couple of variants, and done.
While you would have liked to cast a mass version of Spell Immunity to get all the Knights and their horses in one go, the spell is JUST at the point where you'd need a ritual to boost your power far enough to pull off all the necessary modifications. Fortunately, extended communal casting is still viable, even if it does mean you have to cast the spell five times instead of once - that's still far, FAR better than casting it twenty-six times!
Balthazar has somewhat less trouble with the other spells you discussed, some of which are weak enough that mass-casting is feasible. Ambrose already had Mind Blank in place, and bustles in a few moments later to take on some casting of his own - most of it channeled through the staff and rod that he plucks out of the air in passing.
You would very much like to study those devices closer, but between the attention you need to spend on the task before you and the difficulty in probing Ambrose's handiwork, you have to take a rain check on that.
Incidentally, the Spell of the Elemental Body was ultimately ruled out, partly for the sheer cost, but mainly for similar reasons as your earlier offer of the Spells of Invisibility and Telepathic Bonding. The Knights' horses may be constructs of a sort, but they behave like animals, albeit exceptionally brave and intelligent ones; even with those qualities, the steeds would most likely balk the first few times their riders tried to guide them through a wall, and none of the Knights were entirely sure how the animals would react after passing through solid stone.
They weren't terribly keen on the idea themselves.
In place of that spell, Balthazar and Ambrose apply three Spells of Augmentation - specifically, mass-cast versions of the Spells of Bear's Endurance, Bull's Strength, and Cat's Grace boosting the Knights' core physical parameters even further.
You could have done something similar with just one spell - though perhaps not on so many targets in one go - but it would seem the older men never saw the need for something like your Spell of General Augmentation.
Balthazar finishes off with an upgraded Spell of Haste, while Ambrose sets to readying a Gate to the accelerated demiplane.
While he's doing that, you lean out of the doorway and shout down the hall, "Hey, Briar!"
"What do you want?"
"We're just about to move the Knights out! Any last-minute developments we should know about?"
"The Quincy have figured out that the Wallmasters are mostly immune to their troops' basic attacks! The Sternritter have killed at least one, and the Soldats are falling back on melee-"
She breaks off abruptly, and your keen ears pick up the sound of a keening metallic groan, accompanied by surprised shouting - and then followed by a singular and tremendously LOUD shout, which results in an explosion, yelling of a more pained and alarmed nature, and the noise of metal fragments ricocheting off of stone surfaces.
"What was that!" you call.
"I think your Shadow just blew up a Gate Room, and I lost the picture!"
With WHAT? part of you wonders, even though that proverbial and potentially literally deafening shout was a pretty good clue.
It occurs to you that this would be a good chance for the buffed-up Knights to storm in, do some damage, and then ride out, but they'd have to forego the summoned reinforcements you initially proposed, and the timing of their exit might be tricky...
Also, your mana took enough of a dip from all of this casting that you could get the full effect of downing a Spring- er, make that a Night's Essence mana potion.
"The idea of such improved efficiency does appeal," Ambrose says in response to your offer. "What circle is it?"
"Sixth," you reply.
"And the functionality is the same as stacking the full suit of standard physical and mental enhancements?"
"It is."
The wizard turns to his colleague. "I am tempted, just for the help it would be with this lot" - the wave of his hand takes in all the Knights, and probably their horses besides - "and the other band of merry marauders I have to keep out of trouble. Yourself?"
"I have less use for such a spell," Balthazar replies frankly, "but getting another detailed look at the boy's magic style has its own appeal."
"It does, doesn't it?" Ambrose turns back to you. "I think we can safely say that you have our attention, lad. What were you seeking by way of compensation?"
Ambrose pauses in mid-cast, but then nods to Arturia to field the question.
"It is not a bad idea," the King's Simulacrum says, turning to you, "but unless there was a target worth taking, or taking out, in that room, such as a small number of Sternritter...?"
Taking the broad hint, you call down the hall, "Any Sternritter in that Gate Room, Briar?"
"Nope!"
"...then it's better that we stick to the plan," Arturia continues. "The shock of our return will wear off relatively quickly as it is; risking its loss in exchange for taking down a party of Soldats would be a poor trade."
You nod, accepting that argument.
Gained Tactics B (Plus)
Since the plan calls for you to re-summon Shadow Alex, and for him to then call up an instance of YOU, it would be most beneficial for your mana to be as high as possible. With that in mind, you get out one of your restoratives-
*Glug*
"Quaff!" one of the Knights chants. You think it's Sir Kay.
*Glug*
"Quaff!" a few more join their ally in cheering.
*Glug*
"Quaff!" about two-thirds of the Simulacra chant.
-and chug it down.
Used Night's Essence
Gained Glass Bottle
Ambrose finishes readying the Gate spell shortly after that, but then holds, waiting for your Shadow to make contact.
"After all," the wizard notes, glancing over his shoulder at you, while the on-the-verge-of-activating array for the portal hangs in the air before him, "it doesn't make much sense to drop you lot in that temporally accelerated demiplane to wait."
Fair point. While it'll certainly be useful when the "summoning reinforcements and buffing said reinforcements" phase of the plan kicks into effect, heading in now will just run down the clock on all the enhancements you cast on the Knights and their steeds faster, wasting the effort.
You're there for a few minutes when the clattering and heavy metal footfalls of an armored man moving fast start echoing down the hallway towards you. Leaning out the door of the teleportation room again, you see Arthur Drake - who dropped off of your personal radar at some point in the proceedings - hustling towards you. Not only is he clad in full plate and the normal sword, sword, and mace, he's got his machine gun slung over his back and several modern-looking satchels hanging from his belt. Ammunition? Explosives? Both?
You're going to go with both.
"Am I late?" Altria's father asks, as he draws near and slows down. You notice that he's not even breathing hard, despite the weight, heat, and ventilation issues that would normally come with carrying all of his equipment.
"No, you made it in time," you assure the man.
"Ah, good. Oh, before I forget, I took the liberty of having some of the staff go and armor up Maddoc, as well, if that'll make it easier for you to summon him?"
"It'll help," you say.
Technically, Arthur and his horse didn't NEED to be fully geared up for you to summon them as such, but having them prepared in advance provides a certain... quality control? Random summons are just that, after all - random. You could call the pair up with their normal panoply, but you wouldn't be entirely assured as to the condition of their equipment, and as your Shadow warned Arthur earlier, any Bags of Holding that came along would effectively be sealed shut due to the conflict between Summoning Magics, rendering their contents unuseable.
This way, Arthur can use his gun, as well as whatever Maddoc is being prepared to carry in a more mundane fashion.
"Did I hear that name right?" Sir Kay wonders. "'Maddoc'?"
"That's Arthur's horse," Ambrose says.
Most of the Knights shift in surprise at that; Arturia's head turns in a manner that, in someone less regally reserved, would be a double-take; and Kay outright guffaws.
A few more minutes pass-
"Got to love the old 'hurry up and wait'," someone mutters.
-but finally, you receive a Sending from Shadow Alex.
"Two more Gates damaged," the rough voice reports, to your mild surprise. "Five Wallmasters lost. Mana down to a third, two potions available. Found a quiet spot; evac now, or keep going?"
You consider it quickly. If Shadow Alex pulls out of Silbern, the Summoning Spells keeping the Wallmasters there will end, and the Wandenreich will be able to start recovering from the chaos. Against that, you'll be able to get a more detailed report from him on the accelerated demiplane, and have time to summon and buff everything you wanted.
If your Shadow stays put... about a third of his mana, plus two doses of Spring Dew, gives him the equivalent of half a tank to spend, so he could still do quite a bit of damage. It would also save the time and energy of having to renew all those buffs on him, although summoning the reinforcements wouldn't be possible without losing control of the Wallmasters - which Arturia was rather against - and your Shadow probably wouldn't have enough mana to give his backup the full set of boosts you'd originally planned.
You're tempted to ask for instructions on performing one or two of the higher tiers of the Spell to Summon Monsters, so that you can get away from using rituals to conjure the more powerful creatures you're able to command, but the fact that you can develop such magic with help from Batreaux kind of reduces the appeal of such "extracurricular" study.
What you would definitely like is some practical assistance when you get around to setting up your improved workshop. Not that you're considering asking Ambrose or Balthazar to cast any spells for you - that would burn through their debt in a matter of seconds - just to give you some tips on how to properly establish and look after your magical workspace, and maybe assistance in sourcing any raw materials or completed equipment you aren't capable of producing on your own.
Your crafting skills aren't terrible, especially when you use magic to hone your abilities, but you can admit that your talents in this field are generally broad but shallow - and being as young as you are doesn't help. You might do better dealing with professional tradesmen for some of the necessary goods than trying to make it all yourself, and the senior spellcasters can point you to the right names, perhaps even make an introduction or two.
Getting a leg up on equipping the next incarnation of your lab seems a lot more valuable to you in the long run than grabbing a copy of a spell you could research with help from Batreaux, so that's what you ask for.
Ambrose and Balthazar trade silent glances, a nonverbal conversation seeming to pass between them, and then they nod and turn back to you.
"I wouldn't have a problem with that," Ambrose says.
"And neither would I," Balthazar adds.
"Then I'll get you copies of the spell within the next couple of weeks," you reply. It doesn't take more than a few hours' work, a day's at the outside, to produce a written copy of a spell.
Gained Magic Trade
"Looks good from my end," you reply to the waiting spell-construct. "Try to break or seal as many Gates as you can. Also, nice use of Shout."
As the Spell of Sending begins the return-to-sender portion of its existence, you turn back to the rest of the room.
"What was the message?" Balthazar asks.
You repeat the gist of your Shadow's communication for your companions. Several of the Knights nod in approval, or at least acknowledgment-
"So are we just going to keep standing here while the Shadow has all the fun?" Mordred complains.
"Yeah, what happened to taking advantage of the enemy's shock and confusion at being invaded by a bunch of disembodied giant hands?" the lady knight whose name you still haven't gotten adds.
-while a few others are less enthused.
Still, despite the grumbling, they are willing to wait.
And so you do, for all of another ten minutes, before the wizard finally huffs in annoyance.
"Right, look," Ambrose says, shrugging in the general direction of his not-yet-opened Gate. "I can't keep holding this thing on the brink of opening forever. Inefficient or no, I'm going to have to send you lot though - also, it's starting to smell of horse, steel, and sweat in here, and I don't want one of these great beasts taking a crap on my floor."
Some of the "beasts" give the wizard unimpressed looks. One clops a hoof against the floor, as if considering something - kicking, perhaps, or maybe passing gas.
You spare a moment to wonder if Ambrose and the horse are just messing around, or if the method of creation the old man used with these animated statuettes is such that there's a real chance of them having such a hazardous level of biological functionality.
Dedication to your art is one thing, and going the extra mile for the sake of bragging rights another, but there are some depths of magic that are arguably better left unplumbed.
In any case, Ambrose opens the Gate, and everyone sans himself and Arthur files through-
"Wait for meeee!" Briar exclaims as she comes flying down the corridor, back to her familiar size.
-including you.
"Did you see anything else?" you ask your partner as you cross into the accelerated demiplane.
"Nothing I'd call useful," Briar replies. "Some angry, shouting Quincy, some twitchy guys who were watching every solid surface like they expected to be jumped, another one who'd just sat down and refused to acknowledge anything anymore - all pretty normal reactions when Wallmasters are involved."
You nod, because that definitely tracks.
Another twenty minutes of waiting pass within the accelerated demiplane, during which the Knights collectively dismount and relax a bit. Someone breaks out a pack of cards, and about half of the Simulacra are into the third round of a game when you get your next contact from Shadow Alex - only this time, instead of a Spell of Sending, it's the opening of a Gate.
You quickly move out of the line of sight and fire from the portal, just in case, but it proves unneeded; all that comes through the Gate is another of those short-lived hazes, as various spells try to adjust to passing between differing flows of time, and then the way is shut once more.
Shadow Alex blurs into view a few seconds later, his Elemental Body dispersing along with the Invisibility and several other spells.
"How'd it go?" you inquire.
"I managed to hit two more Gate Rooms since we talked, portals either damaged or destroyed, and I THINK Summoned Alex got at least one more-"
Oh, so THAT'S how he pulled that off.
"-but the spells he cast for me and the Wallmasters gave out a couple of minutes ago, and I started losing those summons almost immediately after that."
Must have been the Spell Immunity, then, and probably Invisibility and/or Mind Blank besides.
"Given that brought my losses to about half the entire force, it seemed like a fair time to check out," your Shadow concludes.
You nod, and question him on which Gates of the Sun he took out, and which ones he thinks Summoned Alex got. He casts a quick Illusion, recreating that map of Silbern, and points out the changes - seventeen red dots, one green, and one flashing question mark.
Are there any other questions you want to ask this iteration of Shadow Alex, before you dismiss him and bring forth a new one?
Before Shadow Alex dismisses himself, he hands over two unused Spring Dew potions, and two empty Clay Bottles.
"I gave one of those to your Summoned self, and used the other personally," he explains.
You nod.
Gained Clay Bottles (x2)
With that done and nothing else to report, Shadow Alex vanishes.
After a quick word with Balthazar, you begin casting the Spell of the Dark Self, using a ritual to offset the mana cost.
Shadow Alex reappears in the same spot, blinks, and looks around. "Huh. Not quite deja vu..."
While you were doing that, the Merlinean Master was opening a Gate back to the Drake Estate, so that you can leave and your Shadow can get on with summoning you, Arthur Drake, and the rest of the raiding party.
"Am I the only one still getting a headache at the idea of three of a guy running around at once?" the lady knight wonders.
"No," several of the others admit. There are a few grunts of "Bloody magic-users" thrown in, or words to that effect.
You graciously forgive them, because you understand that they've got a LOT more Ambrose-related trauma than you, and the idea of multiple copies of a person being in existence at the same... time...
...
...oh.
Oh, dear. You just had a horrible thought.
"Alex," Briar says, "I don't like that feeling that just came across the bond. What did you do?"
"It just hit me that Ambrose has seen me use the Spell of the Dark Self a LOT over the last few days," you reply slowly. "On top of that, he's now aware that I can summon an instance of myself, if only by proxy - AND he's demonstrated a pretty good grasp of creating Simulacra." You gesture at the Knights.
"...I don't think I like where this is headed," one of said Simulacra mutters.
"I KNOW I don't like it," another groans.
"You're worried he'll start summoning you?" Briar guesses. "Or make a Simulacrum of you?"
"Those are both unsettling possibilities, but I was more concerned with the idea that he might do it to HIMSELF."
Balthazar stutters in his chanting, and the mostly-formed matrix of the Gate Spell wavers for a second before he recovers control over the magic.
Everyone else takes a moment to contemplate in absolute silence the terrible scenario your mind has presented.
"The world... probably isn't doomed?" Sir Kay offers.
This earns a number of doubtful looks.
"I mean, he's known the spell that he used to get US here for however long already, right? And the world's still there, isn't it? And more to the point, there's only the one of him, right?"
Some of the Knights look hopeful; others are visibly doubtful.
That's when the Gate opens, and you have to depart.
Ambrose and Arthur Drake have both long left the teleportation chamber when you set foot back inside, but the murmur of conversation leads you right to them. They've relocated to the observatory, and while you were half-expecting to see that Ambrose had re-oriented the Spellescope onto your accelerated demiplane, he's still poking through Silbern.
"How goes it?" you inquire, as you enter the room.
"Word is just starting to get around the Wandenreich that the army of giant invisible hands has disappeared," Ambrose answers. "It'll be a bit before they start believing that this isn't an attempt to trick them, and the invaders really are gone - again - and it'll be a bit more again before they genuinely begin to calm down."
"Ideally," Arthur chimes in, "we'd want to hit them when they're starting to relax, but haven't completely recovered and reorganized from the raid."
You consider it for a moment. "The timing of that sounds very tricky to get right."
"It is, and it only gets more so when you're dealing with large organizations like this." The lord of the manor gestures at the mirror-walled image of Silbern. "With lone individuals, if they crash after an engagement, there's not much they can do about it. Small groups can afford to put a few people on watch while the rest recover, but they can't cover every angle at all times, so if you've got the numbers, the quality, the speed - or preference, all of the above - you can still take them without much trouble. The bigger a force gets, the harder all of that becomes."
Hence the King's reluctance to try raiding Silbern again without at least some backup, you suppose.
While you're waiting for the Knights to make their grand re-entry, is there anything you want to say or do? Casting spells at this point would reduce Summoned Alex's reserves, so you're a little reluctant to do that, at least not until enough time has passed for it to be likely that Shadow Alex has completed that spell. Fortunately, the time differential between the two planes will make that less of an issue...
"Here you go."
"Thank you."
"Hey, Ambrose?"
"Yes?" the wizard asks, not looking away from the image displayed by the Spellescope.
"It's unrelated to the matter at hand," you admit, "but I had an idea about that potential future raid on Castle Einzbern I thought I should run by you."
That gets the old man's attention.
"What's this about raiding a castle?" Arthur asks, helmet creaking as he looks between you and your fellow spellcaster. There is no particular recognition in his tone or expression, only a certain professional curiosity.
"A particular family of Magi has earned themselves a collective punch in the face," Ambrose replies. "I'll fill you in on the details later-"
"Please do."
"-for now, suffice it to say that this is a fairly long-term project, and not even out of the 'idea' stage as yet." The wizard then turns his attention towards you. "What were you thinking, lad?"
"I was wondering if hiring a few Quincy, or even making Simulacra of them, would do any good at keeping the other Magi out of things?"
Ambrose shakes his head almost immediately. "If anything, Quincy involvement would have people asking MORE questions when they found out about it. As I've told you, Magi and Quincy habitually avoid one another, and a sudden and violent change in that policy would prompt a response from BOTH groups, not only towards the incident itself, but toward each other. I'd rather not risk touching off a shadow war, cold or hot, particularly not now that the Wandenreich are in the middle of relocating to Earth and will be paying a lot more attention to worldly affairs and the business of their distant cousins going forward."
Ugh, fair point. You may have gotten a little too focused on how the Mages' Association would react to such a scheme, and not given enough consideration to the Quincy side of the equation. You DEFINITELY didn't consider the possibility of the Wandenreich taking notice of such a scheme, or how likely that would be to lead them back to you.
"Alright, if Quincy are out, is there something else that the Clocktower would want to stay away from, like horrors or Great Fairies?"
"Interesting how you associate the two," Briar notes dryly.
Once again, the wizard shakes his head. "Lad, I think you may be focusing too much on thinking of the Clocktower as a political faction, and forgetting that it's primarily an institute of higher learning - and of supernatural learning, at that. If we invade Castle Einzbern with a mob of eldritch creatures, the likes of which generally aren't to be found in the world today - certainly not in the numbers needed to storm a stronghold of Magi - and word of it gets back to that collection of ambitious theoreticians and frustrated academics? It won't DETER them from poking their noses into the affair, it'll ENCOURAGE them to do so. Granted, the ones with any semblance of a survival instinct - and tenure - will stay back until the situation on the ground has been deemed 'safe' by the upper echelons and they've had a chance to properly prepare for a field excursion, but there will still be all sorts of fools competing with the Enforcers to reach the site first and secure its secrets and resources for themselves."
Ah.
Well, better to have asked ahead of time and had the problems pointed out than to give the idea time to grow, and perhaps start consuming attention and resources that could have been better-spent elsewhere.
Speaking of attention, you return yours to the projections of the Spellescope.
While you've been talking, Ambrose has repositioned the Spellescope's scrying sensor to investigate one of the Gate Rooms that were attacked by your Shadow and/or his Summoned iteration of you. At a glance, you don't think it's the chamber that Shadow Alex cast the Spell of Shouting in, as rather than a cone-shaped pattern of shattered material and loose debris sent flying by an intense sonic disturbance, there's a circular area where the stone flooring and exposed spirit-metal of the Gate of the Sun are blackened, pitted, and sagging - where they haven't melted through entirely.
Looks like your Shadow has been playing with the Spell of Caustic Eruption again. Though you suppose this could be one of the rooms your Summoned self hit.
Either way, you can see why they'd have used that spell. It covers a pretty large area and does a lot of damage to everything IN that area, not only in the initial burst of searing acid, but also over time, as the stuff lingers and continues to corrode whatever it touches.
You do wonder why "you" would have used acid here and a considerably less potent sonic attack in the other room, though...
The wizard spends a short time investigating the Wandenreich's ruined transportation chamber before steering his scrying device's point of view back out into and through the halls, passing a number of Soldats and a few civilian staff along the way. From their behavior, you can see signs of the behaviors that Ambrose and Arthur described: here, you pass someone glaring suspiciously up at a wall; there, you spy a Quincy carrying what you think are medical supplies, trying to talk one of the defensively curled-up individuals who've taken being dragged through a wall badly out of their borderline catatonia; and now and then, you glimpse few Soldats exchanging looks of relief and gestures of reassurance - salutes, pats on the back, even a fistbump - in the growing belief that they've successfully weathered the latest assault.
Evidence to the contrary doesn't show up until the Spellescope's viewpoint has almost reached the next Gate of the Sun, and even then, you don't actually see the source - because while the Knights may have turned down an offer of invisibility, they had no objections to the Spell of Mind Blank that Ambrose had already supplied them with.
Instead of a charge by Knight-Simulacra or a Gate opening in mid-air, you see a group of eight Soldats on guard duty start with surprise as the radios they carry crackle with static.
"INTRUDER ALERT!" an unfamiliar voice shouts, the words coming through quite clearly despite being relayed through two different methods or the speaker's tone of controlled panic. "SECTION-!"
The transmission cuts out, and most of the Soldats look to one among their party, who snaps at them to keep their eyes open even as she raises her radio.
"Control, this is Gate Room H, reporting intruder alert from unknown Section. Can you confirm?"
"Room H, this is Control, intruder alert in Section G confirmed."
The Soldats suddenly look eager.
"Do we reinforce?" the leader asks.
"One second, Room H..."
"Come on," one of the guards growls. "Are they SERIOUSLY going to leave us guarding a MELTED ROOM-"
The man in question snaps his mouth shut as the sergeant or officer shoots him a sharp look, but before she can start to voice a reprimand, the radio crackles back to life.
"Confirmed, Room H," the operator says hastily. "By order of the Grandmaster, all combat-effective units on non-critical duty in Section G and surrounding sectors are to respond IMMEDIATELY. I say again-"
Repeating the message is probably unnecessary, because the entire guard squad are already disappearing in blurs of motion.
Rather than try to direct the Spellescope to pursue them, Ambrose re-targets it onto the female officer - and while he succeeds in that, the woman almost immediately disappears from the sensor's limited field of view, crossing the twenty-foot-wide sphere in a blink.
"That's going to be a pain," the wizard grumbles, as his device struggles to track its target.
You inquire if there isn't a Spell of Scrying that can compensate for the sort of speed you've seen Quincy, Shinigami, and even mortal martial arts masters achieve.
"If there isn't, I may need to invent one," Ambrose replies. "Shouldn't take more than a few weeks... once I have the time, maybe a couple of months from now..."
You know that feeling.
As the sensor flies through the corridors of Silbern, it passes a few members of the staff, all of whom seem to be moving AWAY from the direction the small group of Soldats were headed. You can't quite say for certain where the civilians are going, as while they seem to be moving at human-normal speeds, the SENSOR is now shooting along as fast as a car, so the people you pass aren't on-screen for very long.
Down the halls the sensor goes, taking a turn here, a stair there - though not enough to change floors outright, it should be noted; it's just passing through a large gallery of some sort with an elevated point of entry - and carrying on for long enough that you find yourself wondering if the Spellescope is catching up to its intended target at all.
But then the image comes to a stop, and you find the eight Soldats have done so as well, forming up with some two dozen of their peers.
"-with your team, do NOT attempt to engage solo," an unfamiliar male Quincy wearing a definite officer's uniform is saying. "All indications from the last encounter are that these knights, whoever they are, are capable of matching Sternritter on an individual basis, and they've got SOME kind of invisible backup-"
The assembled troops were already standing at attention, but they suddenly seem to be paying even MORE attention to their superior.
"-at least some of which CAN move through the walls," said officer hisses through clenched teeth, as though he really didn't want to say it.
The admission draws a groan, some whimpers, and plenty of complaining from the troops.
"-giant HANDS-"
"-is Pernida DOING-"
"-swear it's not him-"
"-out of the walls-"
"Get it out of your systems," the officer says, raising his voice to be heard over the general furor, "and get it out fast, because we're going in."
The number of assembled Quincy means that they can't all take off at top speed, even in Silbern's great hallways, without risking a collision or three, but they still move fast enough that Ambrose's device has trouble keeping up-
!
-at least until SOMETHING collides with the advancing unit and sends a few of them flying.
"SUNNOVA-!"
"-OUTTA THE WALLS, MAN! THEY'RE-"
"SOMEONE SHUT HIM UP-"
By the size of the area that has been forcibly cleared of Quincy, that's probably an Earth Elemental-
"IT'S GOT ME!"
"Let go of me, you-!"
-although the invisible things that just grabbed a couple of the Soldats near the back of the group, and which are now dragging them THROUGH the floor, are almost certainly Wallmasters.
You wonder if Shadow or Summoned Briar is there?
In any case, the emergence of the summoned monsters illustrates the big problem you're going to have with "watching" the Raid - namely, that the Spell of Mind Blank plays no favorites, and its protection against Spells of Scrying applies as much against your allies as it does your enemies. Even you've had little luck penetrating "your" own defenses, despite your proficiency in the field of Divination Magic and ability to cheat in a couple of ways, and unfortunately, you don't have the time to attempt a Spell of Scrying of your own right now, boosted or otherwise.
