You pause, wrestle with your sense of dignity for a moment, and then turn to fully face Trill, taking a knee and bowing your head towards her.

*Pat*

"...is he allowed to do that?" a not-too near legionary demands in a low voice, which you probably weren't meant to hear.

"Remember," one of his brothers-in-arms replies, just as quietly, "whatever he looks like right now, he's actually a kid underneath."

"But you still want to stab him a little, right?"

"...just a little, yes," comes the admission.

"Ignore," Trill advises, with another ethereally soft *pat*. "Jealous~."

Well, yes, but that's arguably just as good a reason for you to get moving.

...though you do wait long enough for one final *pat* before rising to your full height and going on your way.

"Should I be taking notes for the future?" Briar asks, back to her usual size.


"Permission to intercept, sir?" you ask quick.

"Granted!" Marcus replies immediately. Then, to the troops ahead of you, he bellows, "Clear a path!"

"Shadow, Body Flicker in three!"

"On it!"

"Sir Pritchard, Hornfels-"

"We'll catch up," the knight replies. "Be careful!"

/ As he says, summoner! / the elemental paladin calls from the rear of the formation. Even with the Haste Spell you applied to them before starting this dungeon delve, he and his lesser kin started falling behind when Marcus ordered his troops to advance at a run, and that distance will only grow. The Hardhat Beetles are having a slightly easier time keeping up, although you are worried about how well they'll handle the upcoming turn or subsequent stop, due to how heavy and unbalanced their rubbery shells are.

But there's no time to worry about that now; you've got a demon-summoning to interrupt.

Your partners grab on to your shoulders, and with the troops having moved to the sides of the corridor, you and your Shadow blur ahead, leaving knight, shades, and summons behind.

Fortunately, while the distance between your starting position and the workshop in question is fairly lengthy, there's only one corner in need of turning along the way, so you're able to make the trip on a single use of Body Flicker.

Unfortunately, your rapid progress means that Hermanus hasn't had enough time to open the workshop's door - which, now that you can see it directly, is a heavy thing of steel, set into a wall that bulges out into the wider-than-usual hallway by about three inches, mute evidence of the physical reinforcement that was included in case of mystical accidents. You can sense the active Abjuration Magic of the security wards, and you suspect if you were allowed to probe the wall, you'd find indications of Augmentation and/or Transformation Magic having been used to strengthen it.

"Briars, traps?"

"Already looking," your partner replies.

You spare a moment to glance over your shoulder at the OTHER haunted lab, on the left side of the hall, and see the same kind of set-up as the one before you.

"What do you think?" Shadow Alex says, drawing your attention back to the first door. "Greater Dispel Magic to suppress the wards, and then something violent to break down the door?"

"It's an idea," you admit.

It does beg the question of which spell to use, though - and it WOULD have to be a spell, you think: your larcenous skills are nowhere close to being sufficient for this; and your most destructive ki techniques don't seem likely to punch through a military-grade fortification, at least not in time. You don't have time for a ritual, either, even the shorter ones, and the door and walls are enchanted, which rules out a few spells that only work on mundane objects.

That still leaves you quite a few options...


"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Uh-huh," Briar says, completely unconvinced. "So you're saying, if I were to pop back to human size, grow feathers, and pat you on the head, you WOULDN'T enjoy it?"

...

"...could you actually...?"

"Well, not right NOW," the fairy admits. "But there's a spell called 'Animal Aspect' that lets the caster change a part of their body to gain a particular animal trait. Might take a while to get it to work with my own magic, and it's usually meant to gain a temporary advantage in combat, but..."

...okay, that would probably cover the feathery bits, but Trill is more than half-ghost, and natural magic such as Briar's doesn't have a lot of options for interacting with or emulating the undead, apart from "set them on fire" or "smash them to pieces." That would limit your partner's ability to recreate the specific sensation of phantom feathers, and is this REALLY the time to be thinking about this?

Shaking your head, you follow the Memorians to battle once again.

"You handle the wards," you tell your Shadow, as you start gathering energy. "I'll open the door."

He grins, and does as requested.

When focused on a single target, the Greater Spell to Dispel Magic is capable of suppressing multiple active enhancements, and so it is that, when Shadow Alex unleashes the spell upon the weathered steel door before you, several things happen in quick succession. A layer of pure force, previously invisible to the naked eye and warded against casual magical detection, flickers briefly into plain sight before it dissolves into nothingness. Behind that, red light burns momentarily around the edges of the door before winking out, while within the wall, something gives off a faint "click."

You make a mental note to consider examining the other doors in this place later, and then focus on your spell: "Open, sesame!"

A thin ray of green light flies from your finger to the door, and there is a flash. For a moment, the door stands strong, blazing bright with eerie emerald energy.

Then it vanishes, leaving only a few motes of dust - too few to account for all of its mass - to fall to the floor.

Learned the Spell of Disintegration

Your first glimpse of the magical workshop makes you think, ever so briefly, that you've picked the wrong room. You're looking into a chamber perhaps thirty feet wide and as many deep, filled but not crowded with tables, shelves, and all manner of tools and materials, much of it timeworn and yet all of it startlingly free of dust or cobwebs. There is no visual sign of a summoning circle or a magic-user, but you can hear chanting echoing from the far corners of the room, where narrow passageways continue some distance ahead.

"You take the left," you tell your Shadow, "I'll take the right."

"Right."

You pause to shoot him a look of annoyance before continuing on your way past the ancient workstations, with their half-rusted implements, withered reagents, and whispers of old, old cleaning spells that yet retain enough power to keep the tabletops free of any contamination that the rot of ages would otherwise have caused.

The corner passage continues on for another forty feet, before making a sharp turn to the left. You advance as quickly as you dare, senses on alert and Briar probing for traps, but no such threats materialize; the only danger you detect is the chanting of the undead Magus, which grows closer, clearer of echoes, and more unpleasant with every step.

You don't recognize what's being said, but from the way the words resonate with parts of your memories that you try not to dig into too much, that's probably for the best.

Gained Language (Abyssal) F

Turning the corner, you find a thirty-foot passage, with Shadow Alex coming round the bend at the far end at exactly the same time you turn the corner at your end. Halfway down the short corridor is another doorway, through which you can see unsettling light and too-dark shadows dancing together. When you draw closer, you see that the door is half-blocked by another wall, this one about twenty feet across, and once again, you and your Shadow split up to take both paths at the same time.

When you reach the end of the short path, you turn to look over your shoulder, find your Shadow doing the same, and trade gestures indicating that you'll take a quick glance, and then pull back to consider your next move.

In one, two...

You find yourself not quite in the corner of another room that's thirty feet to a side - and this time, that includes the ceiling - which is dominated by the summoning circle set up adjacent to the wall that you now know divides this workshop into rough halves. Built right into the floor, the great ring of worked steel and silver is twenty feet across, and every last inch of its surface was either etched with or forged into arcane symbols that currently glow with power. A pillar of arcane energy, blazing with the signatures of Abjuration and Summoning Magic, runs from the floor to the ceiling, and within it-

!

-drifts a thick cloud of unpleasant, greasy-looking greenish-brown vapor, swirling about itself like a tiny indoor storm. A storm of what, you don't care to imagine, as the cloud radiates an aura of Chaos and Evil (capitals emphasized) such as you've rarely encountered. It's as vile as anything you've sensed on the Hellmouth, yet far more concentrated, akin to one of the greater Hyrulean monsters you've faced - and yet PURER, if that is the correct word for something that reeks of such complete and utter corruption.

You can see vague shapes drifting within the cloud, something here that might be a hand, another there that is probably a leg, and then a limb further up which appears to be a giant claw - but they're fleeting, fading back into the murk they came from almost as quickly as they appear. Yet as the profane and distinctly urgent-sounding chanting continues, you see more and more of whatever demon this is emerging at one time.

The source of the vile spell, meanwhile, is located atop a podium that stands on your end of the room. Elevated maybe two feet off the ground, with an easy set of stairs on your side, the stone platform extends out from the wall by about five feet, and is probably ten feet long. Atop it stands a decayed figure in robes akin to those of a legion battle-mage, but whose aura of corruption - feeble as it is compared to the not-yet-summoned THING in the circle - makes his true allegiance clear.

You can sense an aura of Abjuration and Elemental Magic emanating from atop the podium. A built-in defense for hazardous summonings? A sensibly-cast spell for the same purpose? You can't really tell from where you stand, but it has the feel of a force-based effect, and it's strong enough that it could be the work of this spellcaster, whose aura confirms the signature of a sixth-tier caster that you were warned to expect.

You take all of this in in just moments, and then pull yourself back into the corridor, which you look down to find your Dark Self wearing the same expression of concern-tinged triumph your own face wears.


Whatever sort of demon it is that's trying to take shape within the circle, you would rather not give the undead cultist the chance to finish summoning it - even if a part of you DOES have to wonder how a monstrosity close to twenty feet tall is even supposed to get out of this ROOM. Shrinking, shapeshifting, an override for the base-wide anti-teleportation ward?

Putting that curiosity aside, you run through your list of spells, seeking the most suitable one(s) to employ in this situation. Your mental Rolodex flips along for a moment, and then stops on one particular spell that is purpose-built to destroy demonic taint, no matter what form it takes.

This, you think, will do NICELY.

You hurry forward as quietly as you can, and Shadow Alex meets you halfway.

"Ideas?" he asks.

"Burn Corruption," you reply.

"Burn Corruption?" he asks.

You nod. "Burn Corruption."

He considers it a moment more, and then nods. "Burn Corruption."

"Uh, boys?" Briar interrupts. "Not to rain on your holy pyromania, but-"

"-didn't that guy have a barrier of some kind up around him?" her Shadow continues.

You look from your partner and her Shadow to your own Shadow.

You DID sense a force effect of some sort around the summoner...

"Hold that thought," you and your Dark Self chorus, before dashing back to your corners and peering into the summoning chamber again, this time paying more attention to your Mage Sight.

...

So, that Abjuration Magic you sensed around the summoning circle? It's not just a Magic Circle, or two Circles overlapping, or even a Circle plus a Dimensional Anchor; rather, it's all of those, plus the same force-based effect that's wrapped around the summoner.

Basically, the summoning array has a Wall of Force running around it. Which means any spell you fling would have to get through or around said barrier before it could do anything to your targets - and Walls of Force are stupidly resilient, such that even a dual casting of the Spell to Burn Corruption wouldn't take one down.

How fortunate, then, that Walls of Force and related effects are vulnerable to one particular spell, which you just so happen to have recently tested in the field.

Ducking back into the corridor behind the summoner's podium, you link up with your Shadow again.

"Disintegrate, THEN Burn Corruption?" he ventures.

"You get the Wall," you agree with a nod.

"You handle the bad guys," he continues.

"And you stand by in case clean-up is needed," you conclude.

The two of you nod in unison, turn, and head back to your corners once again, gathering power and chanting softly as you go.

You finish your spell, holding it at the ready-

!

-until a WALL of green light flares into existence in the room before you for an instant.

The undead cultist's voice rises by a solid octave at that, but in an admirable display of unfortunately misplaced discipline, he doesn't lose his spell.

"In the name of Din!" you declare, as you complete your spell. "Let there be FIRE!"

And there was FIRE.

Burn, baby, burn!

With a roar akin to a Fireball, a great cloud of violet flame fills the summoning chamber. The cubic shape of the room is very convenient, as it maps perfectly to the dimensions permitted by the Spell to Burn Corruption; you leave out the corners where you and your Shadow are standing, but otherwise fill the place wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with incandescent DOOM.

There is a brief, horrified shriek from the podium, and a thunderous roar of frustration from the summoning circle.

When the flames clear a moment later, the room is empty. In fact, if not for the scorch marks along... basically EVERY surface, you'd say it was CLEAN, the oppressive aura of Chaos and Evil that filled the place just seconds ago having been burnt away, leaving only a faint hint of unpleasantness. The summoning circle is empty, the glowing characters that mark the array beginning to dim now that the spell has been interrupted, and as for the caster...

Moving cautiously in case there are any traps-

"Still getting nothing," Briar says.

-you walk over to the stage and look down at the smoldering pile of ashes which is all that remains of the cultist.

I love the smell of burnt evil in the morning.

The corporeal undead you've seen around the base thus far have definitely been on the... drier side of death, but still, it's a little unnerving to see the remains of a human body reduced to so much char so quickly. Even most of the BONES are gone, something which you can only attribute to your personal power, the level of demonic taint in the cultist's form, and the fact that the Spell to Burn Corruption burns EXTRA hot when it comes into contact with the essence of Chaotic Evil.

"...is that it?" Shadow Alex asks after a moment.

It certainly looks like it.

Do you want to try and harvest something from the remains of your overwhelming victory?


Thinking it over, you can't see a great deal of value in taking any of the twice-dead Magus's ashes or bones. You don't know any spells that require ash... well, no, there are the Spell to Create an Ash Storm and the Spell of the Feast of Ashes, but neither of those is terribly picky. A pinch of ash from any fire will do just fine for either of them, and in any case, you're perfectly capable of ignoring the material requirement altogether.

Similarly, while you do know a few spells that call for components made of bone, none of them specifically need a bone from an undead humanoid spellcaster, nor would they be improved by using such a... particular... material. And as with the prior set of spells, you're perfectly capable of ignoring the material costs for most of these ones, save for the Spell of Augury, which you cast using divining rods rather than bones, to no loss of effect.

You also can't think of any magic items you could craft using the cultist's ashes or burnt bones that wouldn't be just as effective when made out of less ghoulish materials.

Really, the only reason you can see for taking the ash or bones is to try and track the cultist's soul to make sure that he really is dead, and won't be rejuvenated somewhere down the line as various sorts of higher undead are known to be able to do. And if THAT's what you're worried about, you could get a similar result from using his amulet - which would still be viable as a crafting material afterwards.

Using the Spell of Prestidigitation, you telekinetically take hold of the scorched chain and pull the Amulet out of the still-smoking heap - and quickly discover that you've only got about a third of the medallion. You reach out with one finger and give the metal shard a cautious tap to test its temperature, and when it proves no worse than warm to the touch, you take hold of that portion and send your telekinetic fingers seeking through the pile of ash and bone, brushing each aside until you've retrieved the remaining pieces of the Cultist's Amulet.

They prove to number four in total, irregular in size as well as shape, and as you hold them together in your palm, you are not too surprised to find that the original form of the Amulet was a wolf-like head. The aura lingering upon the shards tells you that the device was not just a badge of allegiance, but likely served as a general-purpose magical focus - the sort that various arcane traditions teach their adherents to employ for all their spells. You can also tell that the thing was enchanted; from the faint Abjuration and Augmentation, it probably functioned as an Amulet of Natural Armor, although the fading feel of fire-cleansed corruption throws the "Natural" part of that title into serious doubt.

You know that one shortcut often used in the production of such Amulets is to add a piece of hide, scale, horn, bone, or shell to the product, especially if said organic fragment comes from some creature known for its physical toughness. It wouldn't be unusual for a cult of demon-worshippers to have used a piece of demon-flesh, which in turn would go some way towards explaining why the Amulet suffered so much damage from your spell. All that's left of it now appears to be scorched iron, but you're pretty sure you can find a use for that.

Gained Cultist's Amulet

Pocketing the relic, you step around what's left of the cultist and start walking towards your Shadow.

"We're done here?" he guesses.

"At least for now," you agree.

"So what's next? Go through the workshop looking for interesting thousand-year-old leftovers?"

"I was thinking we should check on the OTHER workshop, and try to get an idea of what needs to be done to convince the guy in there that we come in peace," you reply. "Preferably before Marcus gets here with the rest of the troops."

Your Shadow considers that, and then nods. "That could be an issue, couldn't it? Right, let's get on that."

The two of you and your partners hurry back through the narrow passage connecting the summoning chamber to the rest of the lab.

"Why do you suppose these corridors are set up like this, anyway?" you wonder aloud, looking around at the five-foot-wide space between the walls, and the ten-foot-high ceiling.

"I think the idea was containment," Briar answers. "You saw how big that demon being summoned was, right? Even if something like that was fully manifested and managed to break out of the circle, it was easily two times too tall and three times too wide to get out of that room, unless it smashed down the wall or was capable of shrinking itself somehow. Anything human-sized could just walk out, of course, but unless they were as small as kids, they'd pretty much have to move through here single-file."

"Easier for the legionaries to handle as they emerged, then," you say. "At least if they were intercepted quickly."

"Yeah."

"Plus," Shadow Briar adds, "if that wasn't just a summoning chamber, but a general spellcasting chamber, and somebody caused an explosion? Having two separate routes that run all the way around the chamber would provide a certain amount of safety to the rest of the lab."

You consider that, but find it a bit doubtful. In your mind's eye, you picture a Fireball going off in that chamber. At thirty feet to a side, the room wouldn't be able to completely contain a sphere forty feet across, and while it would soak up the greater portion of the blast, the rest would be... well, squeezed through the passageways. The fact that there's two of them and that the ceiling is as high as it is helps, but you think that even a standard Fireball might have enough punch to blast out into the workshop area.

A better design would have been to make the spellcasting chamber bigger, or to make these corridors wider and taller, giving any theoretical explosion more dead air to waste its energy on. Then again, since rogue summons were clearly a consideration, they might instead have added another "layer" of passages wrapping around the ones that already exist.

Maybe it was just a dedicated summoning chamber after all? Well, you could always ask...

As you, Briar, and your Shadows re-enter the workshop proper, you find Sir Pritchard already there, most of the way across the lab area and advancing towards the opposite corner at some speed. Such is the big man's momentum that he needs a couple of seconds to slow down, stop, and finally turn to face you, at which point you see him do a quick head-count - and then glance at the corridor beyond you.

"No demons?" He sounds half-relieved and half-disappointed.

"We got there in time to interrupt the summoning," you reply.

"Damn- I mean, good job, then. And the summoner?"

The rest of the unit hasn't caught up yet, but you can hear them coming down the hall, and when you actually step out of the workshop, you can see the front pairs of men coming around the corner. They made good time, but considering how complete the demon in the circle looked when you arrived and how easily you were able to deal with it AND its summoner by catching them mid-summons, you think running ahead was the right call.

While your Shadow moves off to intercept the men and try to keep from disturbing the occupant of the remaining haunted workshop, you start probing the defenses. A casual scan doesn't register the presence of another force-barrier, but since the first one was warded against simple detection methods, it's probably there. The other two spells that your Shadow dispelled on the first door are both present and apparent: one of them appears to be a variant on the Spell of Alarm; and the other is a modified Spell of Arcane Locking.

Two separate spells for keeping intruders out - or perhaps for keeping unexpected magical events IN - and a third to alert anybody if the other two fail. Pretty straightforward.

Is there anything you want to attempt, or have your Shadow try on your behalf?


"There were some brief, heated words," you reply as you start to cross the workshop, getting a groan from Briar and a laugh from her Shadow. "But after that?" You shrug. "Ashes to ashes."

Sir Pritchard blinks. "What, just like that?"

You quickly explain the nature of the Spell to Burn Corruption to the knight, comparing it to the ubiquitous Fireball Spell in terms of raw damage - though its area of effect is far superior - and then explaining how the purple fire burns much hotter than usual in the presence of demonic entities or things tainted by them.

"And even by that metric," Shadow Alex notes, as you exit the workshop, "the cult Magus appears to have been EXTRA flammable."

You don't see much point in mucking around with this door, particularly not when your mana is as low as it is and one of your allies has access to the local security besides. It just makes more sense to save your energy and let Hermanus try to sort this out.

If he can, great. If not, you can always try your hand then - or make your Dark Self do it.

While you've been looking over the wards on the door, Marcus has been sorting out the unit. He's got the undead men lined up along the corridor, double-file and going around the corner; by the absence of Shadow Alex and your summons, you can only assume that your Dark Self has taken charge of the elementals and Beetles, getting them to stay put to avoid spooking the remaining spellcaster.

Marcus comes forward then. "Situation report, Alexander."

"Sir. The wards on this workshop are active. If they match to the ones on the chamber behind me...?"

"They should."

"Then we've got a concealed force-field, a locking spell, and an alarm spell to deal with. I recommend Magus Hermanus try to bring them down, or possibly establish contact with the occupant of this workshop, before I try knocking, sir."

Marcus glances at the disintegrated door behind you. "Noted, and agreed. Hermanus?"

"Regarding that," the Magus's voice replies from somewhere overhead, "I have good news and bad news."

"Bad news first," the Captain sighs.

"Due to the catastrophic failure of the wards on Workshop Beta and its summoning chamber happening concurrently with the unauthorized summoning of an upper-class demonic entity, the security system automatically locked down the rest of the labs," comes the reply. "It also started to activate the local defense automatons to deal with the intrusion and the impending rogue summons."

...

Whoops.

"And the good news?" Marcus asks.

"The rapid and total eradication of any demonic signatures in the summoning chamber convinced the system that the threat of a breakout had been averted, so it ISN'T trying to activate the security automatons at the moment, it just has them on standby."

"Meaning that if we try to force the doors down here..." the Captain begins.

"...you'll be up to your necks in constructs in short order," the Magus concludes. "And I can't order the system to stand down without command-level access."

Right, then. So if forcing the door isn't an option, or at least not a GOOD one...

"Can you establish contact?" Marcus asks.

"One moment." There is a pause. "Attention, occupant of Workshop Alpha. This is Hermanus Cato Antonius, Senior Magus of Second Cohort of the Fifth Legion. Identify yourself."

...

"...Fifth Legion?" an unfamiliar voice replies. It has the same eerie echo that you've heard from most of the other undead on base, as well as that tone of vague confusion displayed by the men who've been "awoken" from their mindless torpor. "Wait... what is... why am I...?"

"I repeat," Hermanus says, "identify yourself."

There is a brief pause.

"This is... Senior Magus Georg Haupt of the Sixth Cohort of the Ninth Legion." The response is slow and uncertain at first, but picks up speed and determination with every word. Then he says, "How many legions does it take to conquer Hibernia?"

...what?

"One," Hermanus replies promptly, "if you give them enough time. How many ballistae bolts does it take to breach a fortress wall?"

"One, at sufficient velocity."

...are they exchanging passwords, or telling jokes?

Marcus is shaking his head. "Mages," he mutters.

In any case, as the... dialogue continues, Magus Georg is gradually convinced that your greatly expanded force has clearance to be in the base. From there, Marcus steps into the discussion, and Hermanus puts Cato and Gaius on the line as well, which reassures Georg on several levels.

About three minutes after you started, the wards on the workshop power down from the inside, and the steel door slides aside-

*Clunk*

-about a third of the intended distance, leaving the undead spellcaster in legion warmage's robes revealed on the other side to blink in consternation.

One silver lining of being undead, he's thin enough that he can turn sideways and slide through the opening without too much trouble. You do not say this aloud, however.

As Georg was one of the higher-ranking officers on-site, he actually has clearance to activate or deactivate most of the security systems, so he's heading straight for the command center. As for Hermanus...


Honestly, you can see as many advantages to having Hermanus stay where he is as there are to having him join the line of battle.

Having two Magi who know how to use the base's control system AND have clearance to do so would allow for real-time communication with and remote support of two separate units, which just so happens to be the number of groups you have roaming the base looking for trouble. In addition, staying in the command center would put Hermanus in position to spot any... suspicious behavior from your newest ally.

Maybe it's just the King of Evil in the back of your head talking, but handing control of the security systems over to a dead man you just met seems a little risky.

Then again, trusting Magus Georg to do his duty without an outsider looking over his shoulder would be more likely to earn his goodwill than the opposite, and would also support your side's claim of being allies. On top of that, having Hermanus rejoin the teams sweeping the base would not only increase the amount of magical support available to them - and take some of that load off of your magically-drained shoulders - it would also put a trained and experienced Memorian arcanist in position to directly deal with any problems that might come up.

Apprentice Magus Adalbert might have the training to recognize said issues, but as nervous as the young-sounding dead man was, you have to question how well he'd be able to apply those lessons. The relative lack of power wouldn't help. You and your Shadow, meanwhile, have the opposite problem: power and magical experience to spare; but not the practiced familiarity with Memorian spellcraft, artifice, or even military regulations that the legion members have. And while you can use your abundance of the former to work around the lack of the latter...

...well, you'd rather not disintegrate any more doors if you can avoid it, to use a pertinent example.

Lacking a good argument in either direction, you decide not to comment on the matter of Hermanus's deployment, leaving it to the officers to sort out.

When it comes to the matter of where to strike next, however, you don't hesitate to speak your mind. You're greatly in favor of taking out who- or whatever is producing the blot of taint that the control room's map showed in the officers' quarters.

"I tend to agree," Marcus replies. "Cutting off the head of the snake, and all that. Form up, and about face!"

/ Wait, we rumbled all that way, and now we're just turning around and going back? / the lesser elemental asks in dismay, as you follow the Memorians back around the corner. / Without even smashing something? /

"I kind of incinerated the only thing in here that really needed smashing," you reply.

The two elementals trade gleaming glances.

/ I prefer to smash evil, / Hornfels notes, / but setting it on fire is good, too. When it's the sort that burns, anyway. /

/ I think you may have been around the soft ones too long. /

Hornfels just shrugs at that.

You make your way back up the halls, the Memorians setting a pace that allows the elementals to keep up. Hermanus's voice continues to offer directions, leading you past a few wrong turns and a couple of sealed-off chambers before Georg arrives at the control room. As it happens, Hermanus opts to remain where he is, providing oversight for the forces on the move and already engaged, while Georg starts using his access codes to deactivate the various unwanted security lockdowns.

And also to activate a few that ARE wanted, and just hadn't kicked in yet for whatever reason.

As a result of that, when you're about halfway to your destination, you are greeted by ten human-sized and -shaped stone soldiers, standing at attention and out of the line of your advance. A quick series of commands from Georg and Marcus has them falling into line with the troops, and Hermanus adds that additional units are being deployed to accelerate the clearing of the tainted areas of the base. The rooms that are simply haunted, meanwhile, will be checked out by Cato and his escort: those men that can be awakened from their torpor will be added to the growing ranks; and those who remain trapped in that mindless state will be left in peace for the time being, their chambers sealed to avoid any incidents.

The task of security the base, you think, is just about done...

Are there any spells you want to apply - or rather, to have Shadow Alex apply - to these security constructs?

As you near the officers' quarters, Hermanus informs you that the room you're in is the last one large enough to hold your current force in its entirety, which has Marcus calling a halt.

"Do you have visual on the target, Hermanus?" he inquires of the ceiling.

"Yes, and I almost wish I didn't," Hermanus replies with a note of disgust. "It looks like another of those slime creatures, only bigger and more revolting."

"How big?"

"It's hard to say. The thing seems to be... spread out over a good thirty feet of the hallway, but I'm not sure if all of that is its actual body, or just... residue."

...sounds delightful. Really.


Your Dark Self peers down the hallway ahead of you, taking in the side-corridors that line the way, and checks with Hermanus as to which corner he needs to look around. Having confirmed that the enemy can be found to the left of the T-junction at the far end of the hall, Shadow Alex takes a page from your remote exploration of Silbern and casts a modified Spell of Scrying, its duration greatly reduced and the sensor "tilted" to focus in a particular direction rather than give an even view in all directions. As it happens, this doesn't reveal a hint of slime, but a quick re-casting of the spell-

"Oh, ick!" Briar exclaims.

-is successful.

And yes, "ick" is a good word for what you're looking at.

Perhaps because you're looking into a former residential section of the base, the passageway is narrower than the main halls, only about five feet across. Of the roughly twenty-foot stretch of corridor that you can see, three-quarters is covered by a layer of slime that stretches from wall to wall; it starts out as a thin sheen of colorless scum, not too dissimilar from spilled water, but quickly gains volume and stomach-turning texture the farther down the passage you look, reaching a depth somewhere past half a foot before passing out of your Shadow's spell's viewing area. Slime hangs off of the walls in a way that reminds you of the gooier scenes from Ghostbusters, slowly dripping down the vertical surfaces in a way that makes it look like the ancient stones are sick.

As if that weren't bad enough, there's the color of the stuff. The previous wolf-slime-things were mostly the off-white and -green hues typical of ectoplasm, shading towards black in places where the necrotic and demonic energies that catalyzed the once-human spirits' transformation into their freakish forms were denser. Here, perhaps due to age or some other factor, that sort of dark stain is far more widely spread, and highlighted here and there by a blood-red hue wherever the unholy element is especially concentrated. It makes the mass of slime look like some sort of giant, festering wound, swollen with decay and weeping pus.

Perhaps even worse, you can see the stuff moving. It's not trying to come down the passage or retreat further up it, mind you, it's just sort of... sloshing in place, bubbling wetly, and occasionally spurting upwards for no apparent reason. While most of the slime released by those... vertical discharges... quickly falls back into the greater whole with a splat, a certain amount hangs in the air as spectral vapor, almost like cartoon "stink waves" radiating off of something.

And NOW you can't help but wonder what this thing must SMELL like.

"Wonderful," Marcus notes dryly. "I appear to have rediscovered nausea."

If not for your Spell of Persistent Vigor, you think you might be right there with him.

It's always a little tricky to get your enhanced senses to work through someone else's spell, but since your Shadow is just an extension of yourself rather than a completely separate entity, it's more manageable. As such, you're able to peer through his Scrying Spell with your various forms of augmented awareness, and UGH, this thing is just as revolting spiritually as it is physically.

You REALLY don't want to see any of the Memorians get swallowed by that much festering corruption - and you're using the term "to rot" very deliberately there. You're pretty sure the spectral abomination is decomposing, which implies absolutely awful things about the original soul(s) warped to create it.

Gained Necrology D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Knowledge B (Plus) (Plus)

Rotten soul or no, it's approximately on par with the summoner and the demon that you nuked mid-ritual.

"Do you want me to try and look at the rest of it?" Shadow Alex asks, his expression a touch queasy even with the benefit of nausea-suppressing magic.

A good thirty feet of slime, you recall Hermanus saying, as you eye the fifteen feet or so that the current Spell of Scrying has revealed. Or maybe just ten, if he wasn't counting the thinnest parts of the... mass. Puddle. Thing.

Again, ick.


A partial glimpse of a spiritual atrocity is more than enough for you, and you wave off Shadow Alex's offer of further scrying in favor of coming up with a plan to remove this thing.

"Burn Corruption?" your Dark Self suggests.

"Burn Corruption," you agree.

"Burn Corruption?" Marcus wonders aloud.

"Burn Corruption," Sir Pritchard replies with a sage nod.

That earns the knight a suspicious look from the Captain, but your subsequent explanation of the spell and what you most recently used it for distracts him from any follow-up.

Your other nearby allies make no pretense that they aren't listening in or weren't watching the scrying globe, and there is a murmur of general agreement to the idea of just putting that slimy mess to the torch. Even the earth elemental who gave Hornfels a sidelong look for supporting the use of fire doesn't object to doing so now.

/ You just don't want to get any of that stuff on your fists, / the elemental paladin teases.

/ Do YOU want to get it on your hammer? / comes the rejoinder.

/ I will if need be, but I do appreciate the option of not having to, while still getting the job done, / Hornfels admits.

The only issue with your plan is that the corridor where the mass of slime is located is too narrow for the Spell to Burn Corruption to fit, but such is your expertise with the School of Elementalism and your favor with Din that this is a manageable obstacle, rather than an insurmountable one.

So it is that Shadow Alex hands you the Memorian Banner, makes his way through the ranks to the front of the room, and then starts down the hall towards the intersection, quietly chanting, gathering mana, and reshaping spell variables all the while.

"This may take a few minutes," you caution your allies. "He has to alter the spell to fit."

"I think we can spare the time, if need be," Sir Pritchard replies. "Don't you, Captain?"

"We can also make use of those minutes ourselves, just in case the gods have any surprises in store for us," Marcus replies, before he goes about getting his men and their auxiliaries into a defensive formation. Summons in the front line, construct-soldiers behind them, and undead legionaries behind THEM - and all movements made as quietly as can be managed, just in case that thing down the hall has good hearing.

Getting a couple of earth elementals who weigh around three tons apiece to move around quietly is something of a feat, but the fact that they trundle along in a vaguely slug-like manner rather than taking footsteps helps, and going slowly reduces the rumble of their passage to a murmur.

Given that Shadow Alex and Shadow Briar don't scream in horror and/or come running back down the hall, you'll assume you managed to avoid being noticed.

Another minute or two pass uneventfully-

*Fwoom!*

-and then there is a flash of purple light as holy fire fills the far corridor.

There is a horrible, wet, bubbling howl, which greatly concerns you when it doesn't stop.

Even more worrisome is the fact that it sounds more ANGRY than hurt.

And here come the Shadows, your Dark Self riding a Body Flicker towards the lines while Briar's hangs on to his shoulder for dear life.

"Sitrep!" Marcus calls.

"It grew heads, sir!"

Heads, plural? Oh, boy.

"How ma-"

Marcus's question is cut off by another gruesome howl, this time with accompaniment. The echoes make it hard to be sure, but you count at least four "voices" in the disgusting chorus.

Slowing from his ki-boosted retreat, Shadow Alex dashes down a small aisle that the summons and men open up in their lines, and comes to a stop nearby.

"I counted five heads before I booked it, sir," your Shadow replies, as he catches his breath. "Plus at LEAST three times as many limbs."

Further discussion is put on hold as something huge and slimy moves into view at the far end of the corridor. Judging by the speed it, or they, are moving at - which is hardly blinding, though still fairly concerning for something big enough to blot out the hallway by sheer volume, let alone the aura of eye-watering, would-be-stomach-turning-if-not-for-a-REALLY-good-spell corruption you can see, feel, and almost SMELL wafting off the abomination - you could probably get in five or six ranged attacks, a single spell, or some combination thereof before the oncoming wave of tainted slime crosses the length of corridor between you. Maybe two spells, though the second would only connect JUST as the multi-headed, many-limbed wall of slime hits your front line.

On the plus side, THIS hallway IS big enough for you to fire off Burn Corruption again, if you want!


The idea of casting the Spell to Awaken the Devoured crosses your mind, but is dismissed just as quickly. For one thing, as vile as it is, this still isn't a daemon you're dealing with, just a horribly warped and corrupted mass of lingering mortal soul(s). For another, spells meant to inflict pain don't work on the undead.

Still, the rest of your idea should work.

"Shadow!" you say, as you focus your ki and reach into your pocket. "Follow my lead, and then give me a pit in its path!"

Your Dark Self blinks, and then jerks his head towards the front of the hall, where your ki manifests in a... fairly poor clone of your current form. It's not deformed or anything, it's just that, between the artificially-induced nature of your current size, a lack of familiarity with this PARTICULAR adult form, and the fact that your Doppelganger technique really isn't all that great to begin with - especially at relatively long ranges - what you end up sending running down the hall is more of an Adult Alex-shaped opaque mass of ki than a proper body-double.

It's joined a moment later by a smaller, somewhat more believable, but still kind of obviously fake replica of the other you - a shadow of your Shadow, as it were.

There is a series of snorting snarls from the giant mass of slime, and you see some of the heads that Shadow Alex mentioned snap about to stare directly at your distractions. The heads, incidentally, are so deformed that if you didn't already have some idea of how this thing was probably formed, you wouldn't be able to tell if those were supposed to be wolves or not.

Since they're not moving at ki-boosted speeds, the Doppelgangers need a couple of seconds to close the distance, and that means that Shadow Alex has time to finish casting the Spell to Create a Pit, as requested.

A ten-by-ten section of the floor seems to fall away under the Doppelgangers' feet - and since they can't fly, the ki-clones go with it.

There is a chorus of wet, hungry howls as the giant mass of slime POURS into the hole after your look-alikes, although almost immediately, one of the heads lets out a squeaky, slobbery yelp of protest as it tries to lunge towards you and your allies. You aren't sure if the thing has recognized the trap, or if it just wants to go towards the greater mass of prey in front of it.

Either way, the oozing body starts to stretch out, trying to reach down the tunnel-

"Give it a hand!"

"Give me a second!"

-before Shadow Alex sends a dark golden Hand of gigantic proportions soaring down the hall, widely-spread fingers filling most of the hallway and easily intercepting the oncoming wave of ooze.

The degenerate wolf-thing snarls and tries to bite, while an assembly of warped limbs - a couple of bloated claws and some sagging tentacles - join it in struggling against this new target, but the Hand doesn't care; it just scoops the whole mass up, pushes it back to the rim of the pit, and then starts shoving it down.

"Push 'em back! Push 'em back!" the Briars cheer.

"Hornfels!" you call, causing emerald eyes to turn your way. "Can you make that slimeball solid?"

/ I can manage another Dirge, / the elemental paladin replies with a nod, / but I'll need line of sight. /

"Leave enough space for me to see the Pit! I'm going to drop a little present on it."

/ Understood! /

And with that, Hornfels starts down the hall. Like the Interposing Hand before him - which you can just make out, still forcing the struggling abomination down into the Pit - the warrior's bulky form fills most of the available space; even moving in a crouch, his head brushes the ceiling, which is somewhat closer to human height than the grander galleries and vast chambers you've been moving through. The awkward pose and confined space don't seem to bother or even slow Hornfels in the slightest, and when you think about it, you realize that they really shouldn't; being hemmed in on all sides by solid stone is quite literally an Earth Elemental's natural environment, and moving through narrow "gaps" in the earth like this wouldn't be at all unusual.

Hornfels reaches the Pit-

"H-hey!" Shadow Alex exclaims.

-and then keeps going, bracing himself against the left-hand wall, the ceiling, and - to judge by your Dark Self's sudden protest - the back of the Interposing Hand to half-climb, half-crawl ACROSS the gaping mouth of the hole.

That is distinctly NOT what you were expecting your ally to do, but you'll take it.

/ Oh, ugh! / you see and hear the paladin protest, as he comes into contact with the thoroughly slimed length of corridor on the opposite side of the Pit. Revolted cringing, it seems, transcends the language barrier. / This is actually even MORE disgusting than it looked! /

Despite that, and a couple of slips due to the slick of rotted slime, Hornfels is able to pull himself all the way across the Pit. He then turns around and peers down into it, pointing one rocky finger down... and then adjusting his aim a couple of times, no doubt because the Hand is getting in the way. It's big enough to cover most of the top of that Pit, after all.

Still, Hornfels gets his spell off, and by then, you're well into casting the spell you intended. When you finish it a few moments later, you hold the magic at the ready.

"Clear the Pit!"

You figured Shadow Alex would dismiss his Hand-

"Again-?" he says.

-but Hornfels reaches down, wraps his own powerful hand around one massive finger, and just HAULS the entire force-construct right out of the way.

You have a clear view of the golden Hand hanging there, fingers frozen as if in shock at how it's being manhandled. Or hand-handled. Elemental-handled, maybe?

Then, with a gooey howl, slime starts to well up from below.

You release your magic and a great, round, spike-studded mass of gleaming silver appears in the empty space above the Pit. You have just enough time to realize that your conjured "boulder" actually looks like a curled-up Goron, before gravity takes over and the thing plummets-

*Splorch!*

-catching the giant slime-thing and dragging it, burbling and howling, to the bottom of the extradimensional shaft-

*CRASHPLAT!*

-with what sounds like the expected results.

The golden Hand is once again forced out of the way - shaking violently in silent protest - as Hornfels makes space to look down into the extradimensional hole once more. You can't make out what he "says" next due to the glowing mass of the Interposing Hand blocking your view of the elemental's body language, but you don't fail to notice when Hornfels very deliberately tips himself over the edge and dives into the Pit after the undead slime!


"Silver ball, center pocket!"

Your exclamation draws a puzzled glance from Marcus, and a laugh from Sir Pritchard.

"Briar," you ask then, as the mass of Shadow-masquerading-as-silver begins its rapid descent, "can you cast Heat Metal on that?"

"Are you KIDDING me?" your partner exclaims, right before the boulder hits the bottom of the shaft. "I could heat up a hundred pounds of metal, but that oversized silver bullet of yours must weigh TONS!"

That'll be a no, then.

And doubly so, when Hornfels leaps into the Pit after the slime monster.

You instruct your Shadow to leave the Interposing Hand active for the moment, but also to move it out of the way so that you'll have a clear line of sight and fire when the Spell to Create a Pit lapses.

Even as he's doing that, you hear another heavy crash from within the extradimensional shaft, comparable in volume and shock to the first, which is accompanied by a surge of divine energy and another ghastly series of gruesome howls. The sound of stone striking something squishy on its way to banging on metal is heard a couple of times, followed by a wet gurgling that trails off into one final gasp, after which there is silence.

Then you hear a slow, steady rumbling, like a small landslide drawing nearer.

Glances are exchanged, and Shadow Briar is volunteered to scout ahead.

"I ought to demand hazard pay for this," the false fairy mutters as she flies forward, hovering over the mouth of the spatial distortion for a moment before diving on in.

You wait a bit, and Shadow Briar swiftly returns.

"Yeah, it's dead," she reports. "Hornfels says he did his best impression of a meteor flung by the gods, and gave the giant slimeball a few extra whacks for good measure. He's just climbing up the shaft, now."

What, that easily?

"I mean, he IS an Earth Elemental, and the walls of that pit ARE made of stone."

Point, although you're still kind of concerned that somebody can just haul themselves out of the trap as casually as that.

Also, not going to lie, part of you is very disappointed that the giant mutated wolf-spirit slime-thing died so easily. You can't earn the favor of the Goddesses by picking on wimps and steamrolling random encounters, you need dramatic fights and glorious victories!

Seriously, what kind of show are these undead demonic cultists running? It's like they don't even know that an ancient monster-infested ruin is supposed to have a proper BOSS!

As it happens, Hornfels hasn't quite dragged himself out of the Pit before the magic holding it in existence gives out, at which point the elemental paladin scrambles to move the rest of the way before the bottom of the hole catches up with him.

/ I think I have had enough slime for one day, / he observes as he crawls back down the hall to rejoin the rest of the unit.

Once Hornfels is out of the way, you see that your fake silver boulder has returned to "ground level," along with a considerable amount of loose slime, which seems to have come up as a big pile and is now collapsing in on itself as it spills out along the floor. At a glance, there does not appear to be quite as much ectoplasm as originally went into the hole, and what remains is not so disgustingly corrupted by demonic taint - but even so, there's enough of the vile stuff to cover another thirty-foot stretch of hallway to a depth of an inch or so, and it's still pretty awful to look at, much less contemplate going near.

"Hermanus," Marcus calls, "are there any active presences in the area ahead of us?"

"There are a few, in the rooms AWAY from where that thing was... nesting," the Magus replies.

The Captain considers that, as well as the slime that covers the floor where the Pit was and most of the corridor beyond that.


"Fortunately, I have a reliable answer for just such an occasion," you state aloud. "Shadow, take care of the mess, will you?"

"I'm running low on mana, you know-"

You hand over the last Potion of Liquid Starlight, and pluck the Standard from your duplicate's grasp in exchange, just in case he thinks about using that as an argument.

Your Shadow looks from the glass vial, to you, to the spreading pool of slime, and groans. "This has to be some kind of exploitation. Or abuse."

"And take these as well," you add, ignoring the complaint as you hand over two Clay Bottles of Silver Dust.

"Why?"

"What do you suppose the odds are that the spot where that thing spent the last thousand years rotting might be desecrated?"

"...better than I'd like," your Shadow admits, before pocketing the bottles.

Granted, a zone of desecration could potentially be advantageous to your Memorian allies, but it'd be the same for any undead cultists still in the area - and that's assuming that the demonic taint suffusing that abomination didn't pollute the energies in a manner that would neutralize any benefit to your allies and/or enhance the effects on your enemies.

All in all, you'd rather just burn away any such area of negative energy and have done with it. It's a shame that you can't just Consecrate the entire base, but not only would that impair the Memorian loyalists as much as the traitors, it'd be like you and the Goddesses were trying to lay claim to their territory, which would just be rude.

After checking with Magus Hermanus to make sure the actually corridors are clear of any creatures, Shadow Alex once again takes a few minutes to ritually invoke a spell-

*Fwoom-hiss!*

-after which purple flames blaze down the length of the hallway before you and the narrowed arms of the T-junction at its end. Rotten ectoplasm sizzles angrily as the unholy energies infesting it react with the purifying power invested in your Shadow's latest Spell to Burn Corruption, and when the blaze winks out a moment later, the main passage is clear.

"I am really starting to like that spell," your Dark Self notes to no one in particular.

On a side note, whether because it wasn't actually desecrated to begin with or because the Spell to Burn Corruption worked REALLY well, Shadow Alex finds he doesn't have to Consecrate the spot where the giant slime was... pooled... before your arrival.

Guided by the arcanists in the control room, your group begins to advance once more. In deference to the possibility that more of those spirit-devouring wolf-slimes - of any size - or cultists that might suddenly turn into them could be lurking in one of the occupied rooms, the actual Memorians avoid those chambers, instead breaking off by pairs to check the other rooms that line the hall for truly dead bodies, more clues to the order of events on the night this command fell to treachery, and other items of interest. Much as you'd have liked to have Hornfels and the other elemental clear the potentially dangerous rooms, they're too big to pass the doors, and the mystical reinforcement of the architecture prevents them from simply passing through the stonework.

Instead, Marcus sends in the security constructs, having three of them storm a room while Shadow Alex observes from just behind a fourth, ready to cast spells to support or provide new instructions as needed. Given the stone soldiers' lack of actual intelligence, said "instructions" amount to simple commands like "attack," "stop," "come here," and "go there," triggering pre-programmed routines.

The first occupied room proves to hold an officer's ghost, whose reaction to three security constructs storming his room is to start shrieking imprecations.

"What have you done, you idiots! It's coming! It'll EAT us all! It- wait, why doesn't the hall reek of horror and decay anymore...?"

"YOU'LL NEVER TAKE ME ALIVE, TRAITORS!" someone screams hollowly from another room, before kicking the rotted remains of the door aside and leaping into the hallway.

"LOYALIST SCUM!" a third undead voice cries, before performing a dynamic exit of his own. "IN THE NAMES OF THE GODS-!"

"FOR MEMORIA-!"

Both of the ancient soldiers abruptly half to stare at the half-dozen security constructs that have formed ranks against them, the unusually short figure in a Warmage's Robe behind them, the much taller magic-user, fully-armed knight of unfamiliar provenance, and Legion Captain behind the shorty, and finally, the elemental in stone-and-crystal armor filling most of the main passage beyond.

/ Don't mind us, / Hornfels offers brightly. / You were saying? /

That traitor goes down fighting. Two others prove wise enough to surrender, and you pick up four more soldiers, plus half a dozen servants. None of them are too remarkable.

Inside the base commander's quarters, which happen to be at the opposite end of the corridor from the giant slime's initial location, you find what is left of Marcus's comrade, Brennus. The crumbled body of the Gallian-descended Legion Captain lies on the floor next to a tipped-over chair and upright desk, with the rusted, rotted remains of his armor piled up on and below a broken maintenance rack. From the look of things, the man was in the middle of paperwork or a meal or something when he was... fatally interrupted. The cause of death is effectively impossible for you to determine after all this time without resorting to magic, any wounds having long since decayed away along with the rest of the body, but you are able to discern a complete absence of negative energy or demonic corruption within this room.

From the look of things, Brennus was killed suddenly, and his soul moved on, simple as that.

"Silver linings, I suppose," Marcus sighs quietly, as he kneels next to the body. Ever so carefully, he reaches out and places one hand on his long-gone counterpart's ruined shoulder. "You deserved better, my friend. May you have rested well in the care of your gods - and don't worry about your men. I'll see them home."

He leaves the room without another word.


You can't help but notice how useful the Spell to Burn Corruption will be, when you finally feel secure enough to start doing something about Sunnydale's demon problems, ESPECIALLY of the undead variety.

Run into a group of corpse-demons on the street? Burn Corruption.

Find a nest of the things? Map it out with Divination Magic, and then Burn Corruption.

And speaking of maps, you DID give one iteration of Shadow Alex your blessing to remotely scout out the tunnels underneath the town, with an eye towards preparing to purge them with fire at some future date. A holy fire that burns extra hot in the presence of demonic energy just seems like a more effective approach, and the Spell to Burn Corruption DOES have a rather large area of effect. Though there is the question of whether or not the tunnels are wide enough...

You float the idea to your Shadow, who pauses to consider it.

"...I don't know," he admits slowly. "I mean, there almost HAS to be a Water-based equivalent, we've seen something more powerful."

Yes, it will be a long time before you forget the match between Akasha and Zelda.

"But other elements? We may have to look into that."

You just may. Fire is certainly effective, but you can easily think of reasons NOT to use it-

Oh?

-such as wanting to recover more loot from your demonic foes in the aftermath of the battle.

He's got you there, Sis.

Whether it's magic items, body parts suitable for use as reagents, or just cold hard cash, Fire has a tendency to consume everything it can and damage what it can't outright destroy, whether you want it to or not, and you've already seen that eat into your potential profit margins today. You'll still USE the element when you need to, of course - better to take a hit to the wallet and the research pile than to let the bad guys get away, especially when demons and the summoning thereof are involved - but if you had other options, you might be able to do good deeds and get paid for them.

As your Dark Self said, it's something to look into, particularly with your desire to keep your elemental affinities in balance.

But all of that is stuff for Future Alex to worry about. Right now, Present Alex still has a base to secure... although quite a bit of that job has already been dealt with for you.

When you get back to the command room, you find that Cato and Gaius's group have added another dozen souls to their ranks, taken four prisoners, and eliminated as many more traitors. They lost a couple of troops and one of the Hardhat Beetles you sent with them in the doing, and because of some odd interaction between your Summoning Magic and the wards on the base, the buggy corpse did NOT burst into a skull-shaped cloud of smoke, fade back into the ether, or otherwise disappear upon death.

"Is that supposed to happen?" you ask Hermanus and Georg.

The two full Magi trade glances, and then shrug.

"Maybe?" says the first.

"Sometimes?" says the other.

...not helpful, guys.

"We didn't exactly bring summoned creatures into the base," Georg replies defensively. "There wasn't any point, when the Summoning Spells never lasted anywhere NEAR this long!"

"Yes, forgive us for being mortal."

"Still not a god," you retort.

Roderick snickers again.

Ignoring his weirdness, you ask the mages, "Where's the corpse now?"

"We had the elemental bring it back and place it with the other casualties," Cato replies.

On the one hand, they didn't leave it laying around unsupervised. That's good.

On the other hand, they brought the corpse of a creature with demonic ancestry into an area where the essence of undeath is particularly concentrated right now. That... may not be so good.

And on the Shadow hand, you smell a Research Opportunity. Possibly more than one.

What do you want to do with this buggy body?

Keeping in mind your decision(s) about the dead Beetle, do you have any recommendations or requests for the march on the Gate Room?


You summoned the Hardhat Beetles for a reason, that being their great resistance to injury. While they're not truly invulnerable, the fact that something managed to kill one of them - especially through the multi-layered defenses you provided - is concerning enough that you think you'd better investigate the body. Knowing the cause of death could be important, and you'd also like to make sure that the Beetle isn't about to rise from the dead on you, or failing that, to know ahead of time that it would be a thing.

Besides, a Summon that isn't disappearing upon its death is an interesting magical anomaly. Who knows when you'll get the opportunity to study something of this nature again?

Having secured so much of the base already, the Memorians are eager to maintain the momentum you've built up. Truth be told, you have similar feelings, particularly when the Gate Room houses the last significant concentration of demonic energy within the base - so you can't in good conscience ask them to wait around while you indulge your sorcerous curiosity.

But that's fine. You have minions, one of whom is almost exactly as capable as you are. You can delegate.

You suggest that Shadow Alex and the rest of your summons take point on securing the Gate Room, starting with a Consecration to prevent more of the traitors from rising-

"Unfortunately," Hermanus interrupts, calling your attention to the map of the base, and the tainted presences located within the portal chamber, "they already have."

-oh. When did this happen?

"The room's occupants began to reawaken while you were all off securing the other sections of the facility," he replies. "They promptly started killing each other again, and while Magus Haupt and I sent some troops to try and assist-"

You hadn't noticed the absences, but considering how many dead troopers there are milling about outside the control room right now...

"-but the loyalists had already lost before that unit was halfway to them," Hermanus continues with a sigh. "When it became clear we couldn't help them, we sealed the Gate Room to contain the traitors and locked down the Gate itself."

"They don't appear to have an officer or a magus in there," Georg adds, "as they haven't been able to override."

Looking at the map, you count two large, corrupted presences that have to be those undead mutant wolf-men you scried earlier, and three human-sized signatures marked by lesser levels of demonic taint. Actually, wait, there's a fourth cultist signature there, which is... overlapping with the door?

"The traitors tried to make a break for it when we closed the door," Hermanus replies with grim amusement. "Only two of them got out cleanly, while that one got... stuck. Our reinforcements caught the other two before they made it very far."

...well, then. If it's too late to prevent the undead from rising, there probably isn't much point to creating an hours-long upwelling of positive energy in the Gate Room, as that would only complicate matters for your undead allies. Even without using that spell, however, you'd still recommend letting your summons take point on clearing the room, just in case those mutant wolf-men can eat souls like their oversized, slimier cousin did when it was created.

There is no objection to this, and Marcus agrees to let Centurion Gaius take charge of the summons-heavy force that you send to crush the last real point of cultist strength in the base.

As that lot are forming up, you move down the hall to where the Memorians have laid out their (probably) truly dead brothers in arms, Sir Pritchard following in your wake. The rubbery shell of the slain Hardhat Beetle stands out from the rest of the bodies, having been placed in one corner next to the far doorway, leaning against the walls.

"It, uh, started rolling around when the elemental first set it down, Magus," one of the soldiers keeping watch over the bodies says sheepishly when you ask about the location of your dead summon. "We weren't sure if it would stop, we didn't want it damaging the other bodies, and it seemed disrespectful to just let it roll around like that, so we had the big guy pop up against the walls."

Shaking your head, you crouch next to the corpse and start looking it over. There are some burn marks and a few scrapes scattered along the surface of the shell, but that is surface damage at best. The real issue is the areas where the Beetle's armored exterior has lost both color and a lot of its inherent elasticity, irregular blotches of greyish shell that are hard to the touch. There is a faint residue of taint there, indicating that one or more cultists were responsible for the damage, but the level of contamination is fading away even as you watch, and nowhere near strong enough to have been the actual cause of death in and of itself; it's more like a particularly foul fingerprint than anything else.

You ask the guard if he knows what exactly killed the Beetle, and receive a negative answer - he wasn't with the team in question. To save time, you find Priest Cato and ask him.

"It was a bit difficult to make out, but I believe your creature had the bad luck to come up against one of the proper ghosts on site," the priest tells you.

Ah. An incorporeal enemy wouldn't have been inconvenienced by the Hardhat Beetle's resistance to physical threats, and true ghosts have the ability to cause great pain with a touch - an effect that doesn't utilize negative energy, being more about psychic emanations, spiritual pressure, and sheer weight of age, and which wouldn't have been impeded by the Spell to Ward Against Death as a result. Depending on how strong the ghost was, such an attack could have been swiftly or even immediately lethal, though you're leaning towards the former, as you would expect Cato to have detected and intervened against a hostile spirit powerful enough to kill with a single touch.

All in all, it was just a bad match-up for your minion.

As to the matter of its lack of discorporation, now that you've seen the corpse in person, you can tell that what you were told is slightly inaccurate. The Beetle's body actually IS breaking down, it's just doing so at a far, far slower rate than it typically would have - which still makes it significantly faster than the rate of decay you'd see from any natural creature. Give it a few hours, and wards or no wards, the summoned body should unravel entirely.

You will admit that you aren't sure what such a slow rate of dispersal would mean for the ACTUAL Hardhat Beetle. It... should be alright? You think?

Lastly, there is that concern about the "dead" Beetle being reanimated by all the negative energy floating about the base, and especially where the Memorians are concentrated. You think you can put that one to rest, as long as nobody casts the Spell to Animate the Dead on it or something similar.

Is there anything else you want to do with this body, or in relation to it?


"Well," you say to those of your leading allies who are still present in the control room, "I've confirmed that the Beetle isn't about to rise from the dead and turn on us, so unless anyone has any objections, I was thinking that I might try to catch up with the Gate team."

"You could have a little more confidence in your allies, lad," Priest Cato notes.

"It's not about confidence," you reply. "I just want to be there for the fight."

"...feeling a little unsatisfied after dealing with the demon, its summoner, and the giant slime so quickly, are you?" Sir Pritchard guesses.

"...maybe just a little," you admit.

"If that's your motive, you're probably going to be disappointed by this group of traitors, too," Hermanus observes. "Still, as long as you don't go wandering into any of the unsecured areas on your own looking for a fight, I won't try to stop you."

With that, you turn and start making your way through the still fairly crowded hall-

Trill waves a feathery hand at you as you pass.

-the sound of Sir Pritchard's armored boots hitting stone behind you.

Once you're clear of the press of bodies and spirits, you open up the throttle.

"Don't get too far ahead!" Roderick calls.

"Don't fall too far behind!" you call back.

He says something to that, but between his heavy footfalls, your sudden acceleration, and the fact that it sounds like he's speaking French again, you don't catch it before your Body Flicker carries you off.

Rapidly navigating the now-empty rooms that you passed through to reach the command center, you shortly find yourself at an intersection which you think is the one that connects to the Gate Room. The maze-like architecture in here makes you a little uncertain-

"To your left," Hermanus's voice advises from above.

You turn and take a step towards the doorway in question.

"No, your other left!"

-but you get it sorted out.

You also find yourself wondering, once again, whether or not the half-Fae, half-mad, and/or drunken architect of this place had some connection to Hyrule.

Not that I can see.

Yeah, there's not nearly enough puzzles.

You pause to shudder reflexively.

As it happens, you manage to catch up with the group while they're still a minute out from the Gate Room, specifically, at the far end of the last, downward-sloping, obstacle- and body-strewn hallway that connects the planar portal chamber to the rest of the base. The troops that Hermanus and Georg sent down here earlier seem to have decided to keep themselves busy by sorting out the twice-dead bodies that remain on this side of the now-closed door, laying the still-human forms out along one wall behind a taller barrier, while shattering and scattering the already-mutilated lupine ones. Gaius has his men assisting them now, while Hornfels and his fellow elemental rumble towards the front, the hall's construction - originally meant for large-scale military traffic - being large enough in all dimensions to accommodate their passage, even when they march side-by-side.

At least until they reach one of the stone barricades that cut off part of the wide, high-ceilinged corridor. Having been placed to break up a hostile advance and give the base's defenders cover to fight from, the ancient slabs of worked rock seem to have been warded like the rest of the base, forcing the elementals to move past in single file, Hardhat Beetles wobbling along behind them with a certain anticipatory air.

"Hey," Shadow Briar greets you, wearing her human guise and holding the Memorian Standard while her partner ritually casts the Spell of the Heart of the Metal on his drawn blade. "What's the word on Buggy?"

At that, the nearest Beetles stop and turn awkwardly about. "Pon?"

"Killed by a ghost's corrupting touch," you reply. "The body's breaking down slower than usual due to the wards, but it IS still breaking down."

"Pon..."

You glance at your Shadow, and then give his partner an inquiring glance.

"Given the marching time, he figured it made more sense to save the mana potion and do things the long way."

Ah. Well, you're not going to complain.

Having a little time to spare, you point out a few cultist corpses that the men have placed alongside the fallen loyalists. The bodies in question are quickly moved apart, but are not especially mistreated in the process.

You wonder if that's simple practicality, not wanting to waste energy right before a fight, or if the legionaries are trying to hold themselves to a higher standard than their betrayers.

Your musings are interrupted by Shadow Alex finishing his spell, acknowledging your presence with a short nod, and then moving to follow the summons.

From behind the crenellations atop the nearest of the defensive structures, Centurion Gaius watches the "small" force of living stone, rubbery chitin, and Shadow-made-flesh advance. You quickly move up to join him and get a better view of what's about to happen, while below you, the soldiers get into position in case the unthinkable happens and your summons are completely overwhelmed.

Up ahead, an undead voice starts to howl about justice, freedom, and gods; you figure that's the dead traitor stuck in the door, but you can't see him past Hornfels' massive form. In any case, the insane ranting is quickly drowned out by two eerie howls from inside the Gate Room. Thankfully, these don't sound like their makers are drowning in slime, they "just" echo with the hollowed tones of undeath.

"Magus," the Centurion addresses the ceiling, "if you would."

You hear the sound of a steel door sliding open.

The undead on the other side roar eagerly-

/ AVALANCHE! / Hornfels and his kinsman declare as they rush forward, stone fists and stone hammer raised in anticipation.

-and at least one of the undead mutant wolves yelps in surprise as a mobile wall of living rock comes crashing towards them.

Something tells you you're not going to get a Heart Container out of this encounter, either.

About a minute later, that suspicion bears out, as Hornfels unleashes another surging wave of bronze-tinted light on the undead trapped in the Gate Room with him. Already half-pulverized by the weapons of the two elementals on point, pierced by several sword-strikes courtesy of Shadow Alex-

*Boing*

-and being sent flying in a most frustrating manner by the Hardhat Beetles, the purifying power saps whatever will to fight the traitors still had in them.

There is a final, mournful howl, which is cut short by the heavy *BOOM* of Hornfels' hammer coming down.

And that, as they say, is that.

Is there anything in particular you want to do, now that the base is essentially secured?


Once your summons have cleared the way, you accompany Centurion Gaius and some of his men to the Gate Room to conduct an inspection. The traitors had a few minutes to themselves in the chamber, when it would have been pretty clear that they were in a tight spot, so it's possible that they tried to sabotage the portal out of spite or desperation. Even if that isn't the case, it'd still be a good idea to examine the gateway: like everything else on the base, a thousand years without proper maintenance have undoubtedly taken their toll; and you can't rule out the possibility that just sitting in the same room as a bunch of undead bodies, some of them tainted by demonic energy, won't have had some effect on the magical mechanism after all that time.

While Gaius has people checking the room and policing the bodies, you get out your gold-and-ruby eyepiece and begin ritually casting the Spell to Analyze Dweomers. Since there are some other items in the base you'd like to take a look at with this spell, you extend the usually brief duration by a couple of steps.

You have to drop one of your currently active buffs to make room for the Divination Spell, and the only two that you can casually dismiss - without spending additional time and/or energy to actively dispel an effect - are the Spell to Alter One's Self and the Spell of Persistent Vigor.

Once that's sorted out and your ritual completed, you prop the enhanced lens over your left eye, squint a bit to help your vision adjust - and to simply hold the thing in place - and turn your attention to the Gate.

...

As anticipated, being stuck in close proximity to a bunch of undead and corrupted bodies for a millennium has caused some contamination to build up on the portal device. That being said, the thing's outer shell is basically solid stone, which is as resistant to purely environmental taint as it is to mundane weathering, and that BEFORE it's enchanted in any way, much less to the extent that a trans-planar portal requires.

If you get Priest Cato in here to perform a purification ritual, the built-up "cultist crud" and corpse-murk should be readily washed away.

As for the inner workings of the Gate, the aura of Summoning Magic holds to much the same pattern you've seen in Gate Spells. There are some technical differences, of course: this is a magic item rather than a spell being directed by its caster; it's currently on "standby" mode rather than active; and it's high-end Memorian artifice besides, which you've only observed a handful of times before.

All in all, though, the Gate seems to be in good order. You'll want Hermanus and Georg to verify it for you, of course, but you'd say you could fire the thing up right now.

You don't, of course. There's no rush, and you'd really rather have the thing cleansed of that necro-demonic gunk before you turn it on.

You convey your findings to Hermanus via magical intercom, and he reports back a moment later that the Gate reads clear on his end.

"Also, Cato is inbound," he adds.

Good to know. There's another matter you'd like to check with the priest about, concerning the... final arrangements for all the bodies.

Leaving that for the undead cleric's arrival, you ask Hermanus if your skills at magical repair are needed anywhere in the short term.

There is a pause as the Magus considers that, doubtlessly consulting with his not-exactly-a-computer screen and his compatriot.

"Everything seems functional enough at the moment," he replies, "but it is going to take a few days to a couple of weeks to get everything sorted out. We'll keep you in mind until then."

Noted.

Once you've spoken with Cato about cemeterial matters, do you want to hang around to watch him purify the room - and perhaps activate the Gate - or would you rather go and get started on magical analyses elsewhere?


The choice is pretty simple, though as your current adult form fades away and you return to your normal appearance, you make a mental note to talk to the mages about lowering the dispelling ward on the portal that leads in and out of the base before you depart.

Between your Spell of Mind Blank and the distance from any physical observers, you think you'd be pretty safe from having your appearance discovered by anyone you don't want knowing it when you step outside, but "pretty safe" isn't as good as "completely safe."

This choice is also simple. The various enchanted items aren't going anywhere, and this could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see a Memorian rite.

You wait a minute or so before it occurs to you that one of the things you'd like to talk to Cato about might be better said out of the hearing of the rest of the troops. With that in mind, you decide to meet him partway, excusing yourself to the centurion and heading back up the inclined passage, watching for a robe of a different color than your own.

Before you leave the Gate Room entirely, however, you let Hornfels, the other elemental, and the handful of Hardhat Beetles know that, with the main fighting over, you'd like them to help out the Memorians as best they can.

The somewhat smaller rock-creature turns to his warrior kin and asks, / How CAN we help? /

/ There are still some hostile dead things locked away, / the paladin responds. / We could start by smashing those. /

/ Oh, good. / The elemental glances at the Beetles. / ...and what can THEY do? /

Hornfels turns to regard your Hyrulean summons, posture radiating a degree of uncertainty.

While one of the Beetles looks up at the attention, uttering an inquisitive, "Pon?" the others continue to mill about somewhat aimlessly, now that there are no obvious enemies in sight.

"They can keep covering me," Shadow Alex offers, stepping forward, "while I relay directions for you from Hermanus. After all, I don't think the base is set up to translate Terran - is it, Magus?"

"That would be a no," the legion spellcaster admits.

Your Dark Self seems to have things in hand, so you leave him to it.

Of course, since you're headed up the only passage to the rest of the base, your summons "follow" you to your intended meeting with Cato-

/ Excuse us, priest, / Hornfels says.

"Of course," Cato replies, stepping to one side of the hall to let the creatures pass.

-before continuing on, with Hermanus providing directions that Shadow Alex relays.

After they've gone by, Cato turns to you. "Has there been an unexpected development, young Alexander?"

"More of a thought that I had," you reply.

"Oh?"

"Well, we're nearly done here," you say, "and once the Gate is reactivated and the men still in Faerie brought back to Earth, and all of you have... moved on... what exactly is supposed to happen to your earthly remains afterwards? Because I can't imagine them just being left here, especially now that you know that the local Magi are aware of this place."

"Oh, definitely not," Cato agrees fervently. "The men have suffered enough indignities, without some barbarian necromancers carving up their bones for reagents or trying to enslave their shades."

If you were a Magus, you might be offended by that statement. Fortunately, you're a Sorcerer.

"However," the priest continues, "Lord Mars and Lord Pluto anticipated such issues, and have made preparations to ensure the men's long-overdue rest is undisturbed. Since we can't truly ensure their safety as long as their bodies are still intact on this plane, we'll just take their bodies to the Underworld with us when we leave."

...

"You can do that?" you ask, honestly surprised.

"Normally, I would never even dream of trying," Cato admits easily. "But there are extenuating circumstances - not to mention, we have a Gate. Hermanus tells me it should be possible to reconfigure the device to give us temporary passage to Lord Pluto's realm."

...huh.

Well, then; it appears your offer of making them a tomb is not going to be needed.

You do have to wonder what they would have done if the Gate wasn't salvageable, though.

Cato sweeps into the Gate Room, looks it over, and then has Centurion Gaius and his men clear out the remaining bodies, loyalist and traitor alike, before making themselves scarce.

Over the next few minutes, you watch quietly from the doorway as the priest walks the perimeter of the room, holy symbol held forth with one hand while the other swings a small censer back and forth in slow, precise sweeps. He first thanks Mars for giving the loyal members of the fallen cohorts a chance to redeem themselves for their long-ago failure, and for the allies that have made this possible.

You have your own thoughts about which deities were actually responsible for your involvement in this whole business, but you are much too polite to voice them aloud.

The priest then calls upon the war-god to show a pittance of his strength, that the taint of the traitors and their demonic masters not be permitted to stand in the way of the approaching victory and the salvation of the soldiers that lies beyond it.

And Mars answers.

The end result is essentially a Greater Spell to Dispel Magic, much as you've used yourself to clean away the residue of your spellwork when you're concerned about leaving your magical signature behind, but whether because of the direct involvement of a god or some special property of the light smoke wafting from the censer, there is an element of actual purification to the result of the ritual that your normal arcane approach wouldn't have had. You aren't sure if you could replicate it properly by casting the clerical version of the spell, either; maybe if you used your Power...?

Regardless, the magic cleans away the ambient necrotic energy and the demonic taint as well, the energies briefly flashing into visibility as they're consumed by the power of Mars.

Cato's thanks to his god for answering his prayer are joined by a collective shout from Gaius's small unit, spears and swords raised in salute to their patron.

Is there anything else you want to do in the Gate Room at this time?


"Out of curiosity," you inquire, "what would you have done if the Gate hadn't been useable?"

"If that happened, our first recourse would have been to ask if you could call up the Great Fairy and have HER open a few Gates for us," the priest replies.

"I could have done that myself," you note.

"...what, really?"

"I mean, I can't exactly be pestering my partner's mother to give me a lift every time I want to go somewhere," you say with a shrug, "so I put in the time and learned the spell."

"...Marcus's mention of your evacuation mission turned invasion makes more sense, now," Cato replies after a moment. "In any case, we would have had to get a key to the Underworld for whoever opened the portal. Lord Pluto normally prefers not to hand such things out, but, again, extenuating circumstances - and as long as the key was returned or destroyed afterwards, no harm done."

Having learned what you feel you can from the priest's ritual, you excuse yourself and head out, beckoned by the lure of ancient magical mysteries - specifically, of whatever you can find in the workshop you sort-of raided.

After all, you have plans to build a proper magical laboratory of your own in the not too distant future, once some of the loot from the Silbern Raid has been converted to more useful funds and you've found a proper location - or perhaps created one. Considering how much time and effort you put into learning the Lesser Spell to Create a Demiplane, it would be a shame not to make use of it.

It's your hope that taking a closer look at how the Memorians set up and outfitted their workshops will give you a better idea of how to build your own. The Memorian level of technological and magical development was closer to what you can remember seeing in Hyrule - in various ages - than to what exists on modern-day Earth, making their works a useful point of comparison.

You make your way back to the workshop, passing the control room and the crowd of soldiers there, which has diminished considerably. It would seem that, with the major threats on-site dealt with, the officers are having their men split up into smaller groups to clear out the remaining hostiles, try to make contact with the still-unconscious loyalists, and just generally secure the facility.

Due to this, you find yourself joined by half a dozen soldiers and Apprentice Magus Adalbert. Likewise, since you expect it to take a while to go over everything in that one workshop and hence will be staying there for a bit, Sir Pritchard extracts a promise from you not to wander into any of the few remaining combat zones or other obviously "dangerous" areas on your own, and then excuses himself to join the hunt for the remaining traitors, and maybe, possibly, get a halfway decent fight out of this.

If he holds back.

As the knight's heavy footsteps fade down the hall, you turn to the Apprentice Magus and ask him what exactly he's been tasked with.

"F-from what Magus Faust said, a lot of the storage wards in the labs have fallen," the young ancient dead man replies. "M-meaning not only that a lot of the reagents will have spoiled or cross-contaminated, but they'll have been exposed to that traitor's presence for centuries, besides. A-anything that's been demonically tainted has to be destroyed; leaving it to fester would just be sloppy."

You nod, noting in passing that the Apprentice's nervous stutter is a lot less pronounced now that none of his superiors are present.

"What about the stuff that ISN'T somehow ruined?" you ask.

He manages a bony grin. "H-hoping to grab a little loot on the side?"

"This wouldn't be the first fortress I've plundered," you answer. "Not even the first this month."

That seems to take the undead teenager aback. "U-uh, yes, w-well... if a legion b-base is expected to fall into bar- I-I mean, foreign hands, then standing p-protocol is to destroy, remove, or hide as many s-sensitive materials as is practical, to p-prevent their capture. I-I'm not s-sure how the s-senior officers will ch-choose to enforce that, given, you know" - he gestures at himself and the other troops - "e-everything, but as an a-auxiliary of the Fifth Legion, there would be c-certain items you w-would normally be entrusted with, for, uh, s-safek-keeping, if you f-follow me?"

You believe you do. Also, his stutter has reemerged, perhaps at the reminder of just what a gap in magical ability lies between the two of you.

You reach the workshop shortly after that, and start your examination of the place by investigating the doorway with your ruby lens. There is only so much you can learn from this, of course, as the force-field and locking spell were both anchored to the steel door, and have turned to dust along with it. The only magic still active is that alarm ward, and that one is acting weirdly, building up power as if it's about to start wailing an alert, only for the accumulated energy to suddenly disperse. A moment later, it does it all over again.

"...what EXACTLY were the terms of the Alarm Spell placed on these doors?" you ask. You have a suspicion...

"U-uh... th-there were a f-few d-different settings, a-actually," Adalbert explains. "B-but the one that SH-SHOULD have been a-active was the s-security lockdown, which would have g-gone off if the d-door was forced open or d-damaged."

"'Forced open or damaged'," you repeat. "But nothing to account for the door just... stopping existing?"

"U-uh, n-not that I c-can recall," Adalbert admits. "That's, uh, v-very impressive s-spellwork, b-by the w-way."

"Thank you."

With that, you enter the workshop and look around, not with your Spell to Analyze Dweomers - which doesn't work on areas, and only has so many uses per casting besides - but with your broader array of enhanced senses.

Almost immediately, you wince in distaste. After a thousand years of occupancy, the cultist summoner's aura of corrupted undeath is all over the room. It's thickest over by one table, where a dark, ancient stain marks what you presume is the spot where the traitor died and/or spent most of the last millennium just laying and rotting, but the tainted energies were by no means confined to that location. Most of the room is covered with a dim aura of demonic corruption and necrotic energy - although that has broken down considerably in the absence of the source - which thickens considerably within about ten feet of where the body was before its owner woke up.

Over the next hour, you go through the various shelves, cubby-holes, and racks of ancient material. As Adalbert warned, most of the spell components are worthless now, with organic substances having long since rotted away, liquids having dried up or congealed, metals having tarnished - some physically and others mystically, depending on the substance - and assorted reactants having, well, reacted. There are a few materials here and there that still retain some potential use, whether because the preservation wards on their containers held out or because they were the sort of thing that couldn't be weakened by age, and weren't too badly affected by the traitor's presence, but they account for less than a tenth of what was once stored here.

The actual tools and devices are in better shape, relatively speaking. Age has still taken a serious toll on anything that wasn't enchanted, and only somewhat less of one on the actual magical items. Those that were closest to the cultist and/or delicate to begin with really aren't worth trying to salvage at this point, being too likely to just fall apart if you tried to cleanse them, and you're hesitant to take pointers from them besides, due to how the energies within and about them have been warped over the centuries.

Things that were farther away from the corpse, of sturdier make, and/or somehow shielded against its aura, though? Those, you can learn from.

And over the next hour or so, you do.

Gained Investigation F (Plus) (Plus)

There are actually enough enchanted items left in the room to expend the remaining uses of your casting of Analyze Dweomer, and you naturally pause your efforts to step out into the hallway and ritually renew the spell.

Incidentally, do you have any questions for Apprentice Magus Adalbert?

Towards the end of your examination, you are contacted by Shadow Alex via the base intercom, letting you know that, since most of your Spells of Summoning were about to lapse, he, Shadow Briar, and Hornfels are taking the liberty of escorting the other elementals and the Hardhat Beetles to the base's exit.

You think on it for a moment, and then voice your approval. It's one thing to have a bunch of friendly summoned creatures wandering around under the loose bindings of an active spell, and something else again to have them doing so unconstrained. While you're not too worried about these particular creatures causing problems, they might get a little cranky if you took advantage of the effects of the base-wide warding to make them work for you longer than you're strictly entitled to.

After all, you may call these guys again sometime. If and when you do, you wouldn't want there to be any hard feelings.


"So," you ask Adalbert, early on in your exploration of the workshop and its contents, "speaking as one student of the arcane to another: what was the first spell you learned to cast?"

"Th-the Spell t-to Read Magic," the Apprentice replies immediately. "O-or were you n-not counting that one?"

"Actually, I hadn't even considered it," you admit. "Sorcerer, here."

"Ah," the young dead man says, making an attempt to sound sagely. "S-so what was Y-YOUR first spell?"

"Hard to say," you admit. "I was causing a number of minor manifestations about from the time I could walk and talk: temporary lights about as bright as a candle; knocking small bugs around; that kind of thing. I THINK my first proper spell, or at least the first magical effect I managed that was on the level of a true spell, was the one that let me take my dog to class."

Adalbert blinks, and you have to unpack that one for him.

Since you're talking about magic in the middle of a Memorian magical workshop, it makes some sense that your conversation eventually drifts to the subject of the lost nation's great magical works.

"W-well, there's the G-Gates, of c-course," Adalbert replies. "B-but most people n-never saw those, or f-felt their impact in their d-daily lives. W-we didn't have v-very many, you see, and they were a-all like the one in this b-base, limited t-to t-travel bet-tween two specific locations. Th-the n-national c-communication network was much b-better known."

"'National network'?" you repeat, suddenly picturing ancient analogues to television.

"Um, S-Spells of D-Divination set up between o-outlying b-bases, the c-central fortifications in lesser s-settlements, and legion c-command posts in the cities," the Apprentice explains. "They a-allowed people to speak to one another in real-time across... w-well, the whole length of the nation, r-really."

So more like radio than TV. Still, that is fairly impressive.

"How accessible was this network?" you wonder. "I mean, was the common citizen allowed to use it, or...?"

"There were s-several levels of c-clearance, actually, but no, n-not everyone had access. I-it was originally meant for distributing military orders and updates; o-only later did we start using it to convey information for the civilians, a-and even then, it was fairly, um, t-terse."

Not quite a public broadcasting system, then... and now you have the image of a Muppet legionary in your head, and that's going to be there. All. Day.

As Adalbert continues to talk about the subject, you get the impression that, rather than singular works of arcane prowess, Memoria was more remarkable for its ability to make relatively low-level magic common in the everyday lives of its citizens. That every legion had a detachment of combat-trained mages as part of its standard makeup would have been a noteworthy feat all on its own, but as you've previously noted, basic magical talent is widespread among the regular ranks as well. Adalbert states that one of the duties of the mages' division was to identify and help cultivate useful abilities among the ranks, with various benefits for mage and legionary alike to encourage the practice, and assorted punishments for those who misused their gifts or failed to make the most of them.

Even allowing for the somewhat scattered nature of this training, the limitations of personal talent, and combat losses, the standard twenty-five year service period would see a considerable number of retiring legionaries with a basic but complete magical education, and plenty of experience using whatever skills they had in the field. More than that, many injuries or conditions serious enough to bar someone from continuing to serve in a combat role wouldn't meaningfully interfere with their ability to use magic, so there'd be plenty of medical discharges - as well as recruits not fit for the legions - who'd be perfectly capable of serving elsewhere.

Usually, when an old soldier retires, he's got a long list of skills and habits that aren't always the best fit for civilian life, and which he isn't always as good at as he used to be, due to the consequences of advancing age and past injuries. But when an old Memorian legionary retired, odds were that he'd have some simple cantrips and a spell or two under his belt - and the legions didn't just teach their people combat magic.

The Spell of Prestidigitation could help a soldier keep himself, his gear, and his tent clean with a fraction of the effort normally required, and it lost none of that utility in daily civilian life. Mending covered another angle of regular maintenance, making it a potential source of future income, while the Spell of Light helped one save on candles. Create Water could help fight fires or save lives during times of drought, and even the most minor healing talent could literally save lives and would forever be in demand. The list went on and on.

And quite aside from the impact any individual spell might have on a retiree's future prospects, trained magical ability allowed one to recognize and cultivate it in others.

That's how Adalbert came to serve, incidentally. His grandfather, whose minor talent for Illusion Magic was finely honed during his own years of service, had passed his later days by weaving stories for children of all ages, as entertaining as they were informative. He'd noticed early on that his daughter's son had a rather greater gift, and made sure that it was nurtured. Without that training, Adalbert freely admits he probably wouldn't have been allowed into the legion, not having met the minimum recruitment standards for a line trainee at the time.

"Th-though in hindsight," he adds, sighing, "m-maybe that would have b-been for the best..."

You forebear to comment on that.

In any case, being able to draw upon the sort of talent base that's been described to you, Memoria could employ minor magic on a very large scale. Their homes and public buildings were hardier, cleaner, more difficult to set on fire, and more comfortable during periods of extreme weather. Their fortresses enjoyed similar benefits, and invariably featured advanced defenses similar to the ones you've encountered today, set up by the professional spell-slingers. Memorian roads - already a specialty of their Roman forebears - were the envy of their neighbors, as were their assorted waterworks, from the heated public baths and decorative fountains to irrigation canals and drinking water. Enchanted tools weren't as common in civilian life as magic arms and armor were in military service, but they were easier to find in the cities or near permanent legion bases-

"I-Itemcrafters n-needed to p-practice, after all."

-while more outlying settlements usually made do with tools built to higher mundane standards, by craftsmen making the most of various spells that temporarily enhanced their skills, their tools, and their materials.

But for all of that, Memoria DID have its share of archmages, few and far between as they might have been, and some of them DID produce outstanding creations...

Gained History (Ancient Earth) D


Adalbert names three artifacts that "every M-Memorian child grew up hearing s-stories about."

The first of these is the Aquila, the standard borne by the original Roman legion that was dragged into, survived in, and finally managed to fight its way out of Faerie. Initially only bearing modest enchantments, as were common for the legions of its day, the simple fact that the Aquila survived the whole uncertain length of time the displaced Romans were trapped in the twilight realm, remaining in the hands of the lost legion that entire time, added to its power. When the surviving legionaries and the allies they'd acquired in Faerie chose to claim and hold territory of their own on Earth, the Aquila that had always been the symbol and center of the legion became the heart of their new domain - and in time, of all Memoria. Thus, it was said to have been imbued with additional powers and protections by the greatest mages, the most venerated priests, and the many sacrifices and triumphs of its people.

Almost as important in Memorian culture as the Aquila was the item known as the Ash Scepter. This was no device of mortal manufacture, but a rod of office held by the Lord who once claimed dominion over that part of Faerie where the Memorian Outpost now stands. Like the Aquila, the Ash Scepter bore witness to many of the lost legion's battles, and contributed to some of their worst defeats - possibly including their original, unwanted trip to Faerie - making it a symbol of fear and hatred. Ultimately, however, that Lord was slain, his Scepter taken from his corpse and carried back to Earth and Memoria proper, where for a time it was displayed as perhaps the greatest of their trophies. Exactly what became of it after that is unclear, as Adalbert knows five distinct tales of its fate, each of which had several popular variations; however, a common thread in all of them is that it was the loss of the rod, as much as the death of the Lord, which caused the collapse of that particular Fae realm and prevented its restoration.

"The S-Scepter is said to have carried a p-portion of the life-force of that part of Faerie, a-and this part of Earth," the Apprentice explains. "W-without it, a new Lord c-couldn't be invested to control the two regions, w-which is why our predecessors brought it back to Memoria instead of destroying it."

You nod. "Because if they HAD broken it, the energy would have escaped, the portion that was from Faerie probably would have made its way 'home' eventually even if it was broken here on Earth, given how close these two areas are in planar terms, and either way, the Fae would at least have been able to re-create a half-powered version of the Scepter."

Seeing as how there STILL isn't a Faerie Lord for that neck of the otherworldly woods, despite the passage of a thousand years and more - something which Adalbert is rather pleased to hear, in a spiteful sort of way - there's a good chance that the Ash Scepter still exists, somewhere.

Unlike the two "foundational" artifacts of Memorian history and culture, the third device that Adalbert singles out was created by a legion magus who lived a century or so after the establishment of Memoria. By then, the original fortified legion encampment had been surrounded by a large town or small city, which claimed dominion over half a dozen settlements of similar size and two-score lesser ones, which it defended by means of no less than six legions. The magus in question, Agilulf, was an exemplar of the Memorian legionary, being soldier and spellcaster both and spending most of his life in service - no less than seventy years, or so the stories claim.

And there are apparently a LOT of stories about this guy.

The "item" associated with Agilulf is his combat attire - the full panoply of a Memorian battle-mage, each piece imbued with potential over the course of a lifetime, and said potency then harnessed and given form by the skills of a master mage. Sword and staff, armored robe and shield, gauntlets and greaves and more; truth be told, the variety of gear Adalbert describes almost reminds you a bit of Link, except that THIS hero evidently made most of his own stuff, or at least had a hand in the process. Agilulf also appears to have taken part in the time-honored tradition of murdering his enemies and using parts of them to make fancy new toys, so you feel a certain kinship, there.

Like any good folk hero, Agilulf eventually passed into legend, leaving no credible witnesses to his ultimate fate, multiple locations that claimed to be his final resting place, and an assortment of tools and weapons that were fought over by his designated heirs, close associates, would-be successors, and bitter foes. All were eventually lost, to turn up again years or generations in the future for a time before disappearing again, and spawning a host of imitators besides.

It takes you a while to get Adalbert to stop telling you stories of what you're pretty sure was a childhood hero of his, and get another question in, this time about what sort of foods were popular when he was alive.

The answer is nothing too out there-

"A-anything that wasn't the d-daily ration, for a start."

-but as Adalbert answers the question, you see a gloomy funk start to settle over him.

"Oh, what's the p-point?" he finally sighs. "N-not like I'd be a-able to eat any of it anyway."

"...yeah, about that," you venture, before explaining the Spell of Ghost Food.

"What s-sorcery is this, and wh-where can I s-sign up to LEARN it?"


You reach out with your Mage Sense, trying to get a clearer idea of where and how the Anti-Summoning ward on the base is set up. Given the presence of that summoning chamber attached to the workshop you've been digging through, the part(s) of the ward covering this area should be different than the part(s) covering most of the rest of the facility.

You end up wandering back and forth between the workshop, the summoning chamber, and the hallway outside, following the "feel" of the magic that is concentrated along - or in? - the floor and ceiling, but it quickly becomes clear that you're only picking up the emanations of the magic, not its source(s). This is somewhat inconvenient, as you'd learn more by using the Spell to Analyze Dweomers on whatever is actually generating the ward, but you have enough uses of said upper-level Divination Spell to feel comfortable expending a couple of them to see what you can learn just from the field of Abjuration Magic spread throughout the ruined fort.

The results of that are identical both times, with your magic declaring that the effect you're seeing is a derivative of the Spells of Dimensional Anchoring and Dimensional Locking, having the same "bar all extradimensional movement" factor that the two spells share, as well as the area of effect of the latter, but not being powerful enough to have been cast as an eighth-circle spell.

If you had to guess, you'd venture that somebody who was capable of creating a Dimensional Lock worked out a downgraded form of the spell that wouldn't last for weeks at a time - seventh-level, possibly sixth, but probably not so low as fifth-level. This would have allowed more common and less powerful spellcasters a chance to actually make items that replicated the effect, instead of forcing that one eighth-circle spellcaster to do all the crafting themselves.

Delegation, as you've been learning, is as powerful a magic as any other.

The concerning thing is that, from what you can tell, this ward shouldn't have prevented your unfortunate Hardhat Beetle's body from dematerializing upon death any more than its predecessor spells would have - were it functioning properly.

From the whispers of Chaos, Death, and Evil you can pick up within the magical aura, you fear that the ward ISN'T working as intended, and likely hasn't been for some time.

"Hermanus," you call, keeping your voice steady, "what exactly anchors the summoning wards?"

"The warding array runs in parallel to the Divination network, all throughout the base," the Magus informs you. "That just extends and strengthens the effect, though; each section of the base has its own wardstone as a primary anchor and generator for the Abjuration field."

"And where's the one for the workshop area?"

"Just down the hall - no, the other way - and through the second door on your right. Why do you ask?"

"I just tried to analyze the nearest portion of the ward," you reply, as you start moving down the hall, sidestepping a couple of troops going the other way, "and I picked up hints of demonic and necrotic taint."

"...WITHIN the ward?"

Even though you know that he can't see you, you nod. "I'm HOPING it was just ambient corruption in the walls interfering with my readings, but-"

"I'll start an environmental check and run a diagnostic on the wardstones," Hermanus replies brusquely. "Haupt, give me a hand with this!"

"Oh, what now?" the other Magus grumbles.

You pass one door on your right and two on your left, before reaching the second on your right, turning, stopping and - as it's still locked down - waiting a minute for Hermanus to open the door for you, and finally entering.

The Memorian wardstone is a tall, rectangular slab of rock covered with many finely-carved symbols, and inset with lines of metal and a few small gems. It's not obviously radiating a sickly hue or an aura of menace when you first look at it, but when you reach out with your enhanced senses, you grimace, for the aura of contamination surrounding the thing is stronger than the background energies afflicting most of the rest of the base. At the same time, you don't see any signs of someone or something having come in here at any point in the last thousand years, the door having been sealed and no other entryways presenting themselves, unless Briar...?

"One minute," your partner says, before flying to the nearest wall and beginning a quick circuit of the room. It does indeed take her only a minute to return to you. "No hidden passages that I can find. There's a couple of small openings for ventilation, but they're way too clean to be the source."

Okay, so that rules out a curse or similarly direct attempt to corrupt the wardstone, while the lack of any dead bodies or signs of violence in here rules out one of the more common incidental methods. If not any of those, then what...

Hang on, you're having a thought.

"Is it a bad one?" your partner questions with dark amusement.

It kind of is.

The wardstone wasn't contaminated directly, but it IS directly connected to the ward which covers this whole part of the base, and the ward in turn was and is exposed to sources of corruption, such as the lab where an undead demonic cultist's body spent the last millennium just... rotting. Via the law of contagion, the corruption would have build up on and within the ward, spreading through it until it reached the anchor-point, which would have been tainted in turn and started projecting the vileness further still.

The process wouldn't be remotely quick, but after centuries without the network of wardstones receiving regular maintenance, such as a good mystical scrubbing every ten thousand hours or so? Yeah, you can see it happening.

Though that still doesn't explain why your Hardhat Beetle's corpse hung around...

Now that you've got eyes on the wardstone, you aim the Spell to Analyze Dweomer at it. The results are much as expected: that "Shortened" or "Lesser" Spell of Dimensional Locking, meant to be amplified and expanded by the array that runs through this sector of the base; specific exemptions for the summoning circles located in various workshops; and some built-in shielding, self-diagnostic, and self-repair functions, all of which appear to have burnt out ages ago, no doubt as a result of the encroaching taint.

Gained Investigation F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Item Crafting B


You want to get a better look at the wardstone, which means a few buff spells are in order, but given the diminished state of your magical reserves, you'd prefer to cast most of those spells ritually. This sees you backing out of the wardstone chamber - or, dare you say it, the ward room - and moving up the hall, until your Corruption Sense stops saying that you're in danger of accidentally tapping into the tainted energy concentrated in that room.

As you exit the room, you let Hermanus know your findings.

His response to that information involves some cursing, mostly aimed at the cultists and their demonic masters, but with a side of diatribe for whoever enchanted the base systems originally.

"I ran a preliminary base-wide systems check when we turned everything on," he explains in between imprecations. "Couldn't access much without Haupt's authority, but a general system status report was easy enough to get. It SHOULD have informed me that the enchantments on one of the wardstones were compromised, but instead, I got a notice that maintenance was a thousand years behind schedule."

...could your repair of the command center have had anything to do with that? Or even just the damage the traitors in there managed to inflict, before they were wiped out?

"Possibly," Hermanus replies. "But I think it's more likely that this is just a consequence of the system having been left unattended for all this time. Old, complicated magical devices abandoned in the middle of magically contaminated areas like this tend to develop... quirks."

At that, you try not to think too hard about the insanity of Hyrulean temples.

You fail.

With time starting to be an issue, you limit yourself to a few straightforward enhancements. First up, the Spell to Perceive Cues, to directly enhance your perception; if you turn out to NEED the increased grasp of behavioral cues offered by the spell in the next little while, things will likely have gone BADLY wrong. Next is the Spell of Heroism, for an additional boost to your sensory acuity, as well as your recall and reasoning, followed by the Spells of Fox's Cunning and Owl's Wisdom, for additional enhancements in those some areas. In between casting these spells, you renew several of your non-magical buffs that have either run low or outright lapsed over the course of the exploration, and as a precaution against the possibility of the corruption reacting poorly when you take a closer look at it, you also apply a Spell of Protection From Evil, and harden your spiritual defenses.

Finally-

"'Diagnostic on Wardstone Delta complete'," Hermanus says over the comm. "'Significant contamination by demonic energy detected. Wardstone Delta compromised, Ward Delta compromised. Moving Sector Delta to Security Level Three-' wait, no, no!"

-or not, you think, as the security doors up and down the corridor begin sliding shut, to exclamations of surprise and consternation from the Memorians in the area.

"Uh, Hermanus...?"

"One minute, please! Haupt, help me with this idiot thing!"

Some of the doors have dead men banging on them from the other sides, shouting to be released.

"Hang in there, guys!" you call out. "The Magi are working on it!"

"Infernal device! OBEY ME!"

"...is this a bad time to remember that Hermanus kind of accidentally-on-purpose reprogrammed the constructs on his base to kill everybody they met?" Briar wonders.

Maybe a little bad, yes. But you're sure that won't happen again.

...

You idly loosen your sword in its sheath and look around. For no particular reason. Then - after letting Briar know to warn you if anything concerning happens - you think back to your exploration of Silbern, specifically of how Navi cast the Spell to See Through Stone on you to increase your remote information-gathering abilities. Guided by your memory of her spellcraft and what it felt like to have that magic affecting you, you shape your mana in an attempt to emulate the spell via ritual.

When the stone surfaces around you take on the transparency of glass a few minutes later, you deem your attempt successful - and then you hurry back into the wardstone chamber, because you know that this spell doesn't last long.

Fortunately, Hermanus and/or Magus Haupt have gotten the security doors opened again by this point, so you're able to turn the Spell to See Through Stone on the wardstone directly, rather than having to peek through the walls. Not that you COULDN'T have done that, but this way is a little neater. No obstructions or anything.

The slab of stone may be almost nine feet tall and three feet wide, but it's only a foot thick, so you can see straight through it, the wall behind it, and the floor and ceiling of the room beyond THAT, though not that chamber's far wall. Adjusting your perspective a bit, you quickly discern that, unlike Ambrose, the Memorians don't appear to have cracked the secret of three-dimensional internal spell matrices. The power that flows through the wardstone does so along "conduits" of crystal and ore that are, so far as you can determine, either of entirely natural origins, or else the result of nature magic, such as is wielded by druids, Fae, and elementals. The exact shape of the glittering veins is a little tricky to make out, as the Spell to See Through Stone renders them transparent as well - where they wouldn't already have been, that is - and it's really your ability to see supernatural energies that lets you trace their paths. Even then, the bloody glow of corrupted mana obscures the finer details, preventing you from getting as good a look as you might wish.

Still, the crystal growths and metal deposits show none of the arcane precision of the archwizard's craft, with numerous offshoots that serve no practical purpose you can discern, and which may in fact have made the ward matrix weaker or more energy-intensive than it could have been. There are separate clumps which aren't even connected to any of the others, and are more... reflecting the energy passing through the stone around them, than they are carrying any of it themselves. Though that does mean those particular spots are less tainted, if still not entirely clean.

The actual enchantments are anchored to the exterior of the wardstone, via the many symbols carved, etched, and/or molded into its faces - mostly along the broad "front" and "back," although you can see some work was done on the sides to link those two faces, as well as on bottom to connect the thing into the low base that has surrounded and supported it for all these centuries. From the latter, more properly shaped rods of rune-scribed metal and crystal radiate outwards in all directions along the floor - and in some places, up through the walls to the ceiling, where you can see a similar "starburst" of artifice - reinforcing and expanding the effects of the Abjuration Magic that hedges out extradimensional travel. Those travel further than your improvised spell allows you to see, even when you turn around and take a few steps into the hall again.

You'd contemplated activating Power Sight at this point, but you would really rather not risk damaging your allies' property if it can be helped, particularly when your magic is so low, your Dark Self isn't on hand to provide immediate emergency repairs, and the Magi are... experiencing technical difficulties.

You probably have time to check out one more thing before you have to call it an evening here.


The Spell to See Through Stone won't last long, but if you hurry, you could use it to get an "in-depth" look at the nearby summoning circle, and perhaps glean more insights about how it's able to bypass the anti-Summoning ward. The arrays in the control room, alas, are far enough away - and should have enough people moving around IN the way - that even chaining Body Flickers together might not get you there before the spell lapsed. Not to mention that suddenly dashing around the base like a rocket would probably alarm your allies.

You turn and head up the hall at a run, calling on your ki for a reasonable enhancement. You'd considered informing Hermanus about what you observed on and within the Wardstone while you move, but it is kind of difficult to carry on a conversation while running, doubly so when you've already seen that the intercom has some trouble keeping up with you while you're moving at speed, so you opt to hold off until you've reached your destination.

Along the corridor, DODGE that trooper coming out of another workshop-

"Whoa!"

"Sorry!"

-adjust ki on the fly to slow, pivot, and re-accelerate into the tainted lab, looking through the wall-

!

-or not, there's a layer of metal set between the stones, and while it's not solid or thick enough to completely block your spell-enhanced vision, it creates enough interference that you opt to hurry through one of the narrow corridors to the summoning room proper, so you can get a clearer view.

You arrive with enough time to spare to take good, long look around at the chamber in its entirety. Similar to the ward-room, there are starburst patterns of metal and crystal buried within the floor and ceiling: the lower one seems to emanate from the circle proper, reaching out to touch the walls; and the upper one is centered directly above it, its arms reaching out just far enough to touch the inner edge of the circle.

Expending a couple of uses of the Spell to Analyze Dweomers, you confirm that these starburst formations are the connections between the summoning array and the base-wide wards. They're currently inactive, and so not interfering with the ward, but it seems that when they're turned on, they cause the Dimensional Locking to... bend... in such a way as to create a column of space which is "outside" of the ward, even though it's also entirely surrounded by it. Creatures can thus be summoned or called into that space, where the binding circle will still prevent them from simply wandering into the warded portion of the room without permission.

You don't think this effect is something you could set up when casting on the fly, but it DOES seem replicable through item-crafting.

Turning your attention on the summoning circle itself, you don't see anything buried in the stone that you weren't already expecting, and when you trigger Analyze Dweomer again, most of the results are similar. One layer of the array is capable of generating the various aligned Magic Circles, another automatically generates a Dimensional Anchor, and the outermost maintains a more physical barrier - though not an impenetrable one - to prevent accidental breaches of the circle. The most interesting thing about it is that the Memorians worked out how to combine the effects of multiple Magic Circles to more effectively bind a single target; if somebody who wasn't a cultist had been summoning that demon whose arrival you interrupted, the thing would have emerged within a Magic Circle Against Chaos AND Evil, instead of just one or the other, and would have had a somewhat more difficult time forcing its way free.

How much more difficult, you aren't sure, partly because you'd want to see the whole thing in action before making any concrete statements, but also because the ritual circle is showing some signs of contamination as well. Being hooked into the local wards clearly hasn't done it any favors, to the point where you think that even if that cultist hadn't disengaged the various security measures, his demonic ally might have been able to leave the summoning circle as soon as it appeared.

Just as well that you didn't give either of them time to act, then.

The surfaces around you begin to lose their glass-like transparency, signalling that the Spell to See Through Stone has lapsed. You spend the last few seconds of the spell and another shot of Analyze Dweomer to examine the ash-choked end of the summoning array where the caster is meant to stand, but once again, there's nothing too remarkable to be found.

With that, you call in your findings to Hermanus, who is displeased but not surprised to hear that the corruption of the wardstone has spread to this summoning circle. He asks you to check out the other circles in the workshop area, just to be sure, a task that takes you another ten minutes or so and confirms that the taint has spread to all of them to some degree. The one the cultist mage was using is the worst off, partly due to his presence and the fact that he tried to call up a demon there, but the rest of the circles - three in total - are definitely in need of a thorough cleansing before you'd trust them.

After that, you start making your way back to the control room to meet up with your remaining summons, Sir Pritchard, and the Memorian leadership, because it's gotten late enough (locally speaking) that you expect the knight is late for or missing his dinner, and that's not a fate you'd needlessly inflict on anyone.

Plus, you could REALLY use a chance to rest and let your magic recover.

Is there anything you want to do in the camp before you return home?

And incidentally, when you go home, will you be going to California - by means of a somewhat indirect route, of course, to make sure that your teleports can't be traced back to your proverbial doorstep - or would you rather make a quick stopover in Wales to let Ambrose know about what you've found and learned today?


Once everyone is back at the command center, you ask the Memorian leaders if they'd like your Shadow to cast the Spell to Create a Private Sanctum over any parts of the base.

While the mages state that the base's anti-scrying defenses are still in reasonably good shape, they agree that a second layer of concealment around the control room and the Gate Room wouldn't be a bad idea. They're the most critical locations within the facility, after all, so protecting them to the best of your collective abilities just makes sense. Plus, as you well know, an activated inter-planar portal creates a lot of mystical noise, so taking extra measures to make sure that stays hidden from the local magi that wouldn't go amiss.

While Shadow Alex goes ahead and gets started on that, you bring up the subject of the feast you were planning.

"I think it would work better if we held off on that until we have the base entirely secured and the men from my command relocated here," Marcus says.

"Thinking of making it a grand send-off?" Sir Pritchard inquires.

"The thought had crossed my mind, yes."

And when would that most likely be?

"We'll need a few days to sweep the base and make sure that all bodies have been accounted for, and outfitted for their... final deployment," Hermanus replies. "Cato will need time to perform the rites for those who won't rise on their own again, and we need to sort out what we're taking with us, what has to be destroyed, and what can be safely left behind."

You try not to make your interest in that too obvious-

-but you do think that this matter, at least, bears mentioning.

But how to secure it?

You could ask the Memorians to lock it up somewhere, of course, but you could also take it with you for disposal. After all, you were planning on stopping by the Drake residence to speak with Ambrose, which would be a perfect opportunity to ask for the old man's help in getting rid of the cursed blade; and while you'd rather not touch it yourself or have Shadow Alex do so, Hornfels - as both paladin and summoned creature - is likely to be safe from the thing's effects, or at least safe enough to carry it back to Wales for you. Fitting him into a teleport won't be easy, but it's within your means.

As you head for the exit, Shadow Alex groans and complains about how low his mana reserves are.

"One more spell," he says melodramatically, as he leans on the haft of your Standard with faked weariness, "and I think I'll pop. I want to just fade back into shadows..."

"Hold it together until we teleport out. Got to maintain our cover story with the camp."

"Can't you just tell them that I died while poking around the haunted ancient ruin? That sort of thing happens to a bunch of people in the Indiana Jones movies..."

"I want to avoid letting them know that you're a summon, if I can help it," you reply, before turning to Roderick. "Not that I distrust your people, sir, but what they don't know-"

"-they can't reveal even by accident or while under hypnosis," the knight finishes with a nod. "I get where you're coming from, lad, and Leanne would agree that it's a wise precaution. Truth be told, Fred would be just as happy NOT to know."

One thing that needs doing before you step outside is the matter of your disguise. You don't have enough mana left at this point to cast the Spell of Adjustable Polymorph on yourselves and the Briars, and while you could just have Shadow Alex down that last mana potion he never got around to using, the idea of expending it when the day's adventure is basically over seems kind of wasteful - especially when you could just cast the Spell to Create an Adjustable Disguise, which is not only cheaper, but also a magic you've properly learned and hence can offload the cost of via ritual-casting, while also modifying it to hit all four of your intended targets in one go.

So you go ahead and do that, the images of bullhide whips, fancy hats, and student-assistants' attire taking shape as you approach the exit.


No sense leaving a demon-tainted, possibly cursed weapon laying around any longer than you absolutely must.

Hornfels is amenable to your request, though he takes a moment to buff himself with more of that elementally-attuned divinely-enhanced spiritual energy before he actually picks the sword up - and that by sliding a borrowed scabbard onto it, and holding the sheath. Then he deliberately sets the weapon back down and rumbles a certain distance away, before checking his hands, looking at the floor where the sword sits, and then nodding.

/ Just making sure, / he explains. / Handling cursed objects can be tricky. /

"Just don't draw it to fight, and you should be good," Briar says.

With that settled, you head for the exit, casting the Spell to Create an Adjustable Disguise along the way.

When your group reaches the portal, Hornfels stays put inside for a moment while the rest of you step outside. As soon as you're in the clear, you get out your Magic Cellphone, check the signal, and then call Ambrose.

It rings.

...

It rings again.

...

It rings a third time, and you're beginning to wonder if the wizard is too busy to answer his calls, or if you're still close enough to the Memorian Base for its wards to be interfering with your semi-magical communications.

There is a fourth ring-

"Merle's Magical Manse, Merle speaking," Ambrose says. "Is that you, Alex?"

"Hey, Ambrose," you greet the old man. "I have two questions for you."

"Hit me."

"Anyway, we're more or less done here for the day, and I thought I'd ask: are you at all interested in hearing about our exploration of an ancient not-Roman ruin?"

"I believe I would, thank you for asking. Were you planning on stopping by, or arranging a later meeting?"

"The former, if possible," you admit, "because that's where the second question comes in."

"Oh dear."

"We've found a sword that is pretty horribly tainted by demonic energy. I was hoping to dispose of it before it causes any more trouble, but it's been a busy morning-evening, and my reserves are circling the drain."

"And you wanted to know if I would take it off your hands," Ambrose concludes.

"Well, not MY hands specifically, I have a summoned paladin handling the thing at the moment-"

Ambrose makes a sound of interest and approval.

"-but that was the general idea."

"Well, I certainly don't object to the idea of removing cursed weapons from the environment, or existence in general," the wizard says, "but one question, lad."

"Yes?"

"How were you planning to get the sword to me?"

"I was planning to teleport," you reply. "But would it be better to aim for your travel-closet, or just land at the front gate?"

"That depends on what this paladin of yours looks like."

"He's a Large Earth Elemental."

...

"...how the hell did you even... no, never mind that. Best we avoid any chance of something that big being spotted by the neighbors. Give me five minutes to set the wards and reinforce my floor, and then teleport to the room."

"See you in seven or eight minutes, then."

You hang up the phone, ask Sir Pritchard to let Hornfels know to come out, and then begin a ritual-casting of the Greater Spell of Teleportation. As it nears completion, your small party group up together, with you placing one hand on Hornfel's rocky form. Fortunately, even as big as he is, your mastery of Summoning Magic is sufficient to take everyone in a single trip.

Holding the spell at the ready, you spare a moment to thank Roderick Pritchard for his help today, adding an apology for not staying to say goodbye to his team.

Are there any messages you'd like to ask him to convey to anyone in the camp?

With that out of the way, you activate the spell, blink out-

-and reappear in Ambrose's teleportation chamber.

/ Low cavern, / Hornfels comments, ducking slightly, as the floor creaks worryingly under his tremendous bulk.

Ambrose is there, as are the entire Drake clan.

Altria and Anna look up - and up, and UP - at Hornfels, visibly startled and impressed by the giant crystal-armored warrior of stone.

Lucia is looking over the paladin's armor and the disguises the rest of you are wearing with a certain critical eye.

Arthur just looks terribly interested.

And as for the wizard, he looks up at Hornfels and declares, in fluent Terran, "Shale, friend, and well-met."


"Please give Miss Irina my apologies," you tell Roderick. "I do hope to talk with her at some point, but it's been an eventful... evening," you conclude, glancing at the darkening sky.

The knight nods. "I'll let her know."

Fortunately, you already warned the soft-spoken homunculus that this might happen, so the disappointment should be minimal.

"I will resist the temptation."

At Ambrose's... greeting... of your ally, you sigh. "You know how I said I wouldn't hit you, Ambrose?"

"Hm?"

"You are making me start to regret that decision."

The wizard smugs at you.

"Are you going to introduce us to your companion, Alex?" Lucia says then.

You take the out. "Everyone, this is Hornfels the Hammerer, Paladin in service to Grumbar, the Boss of the Elemental Plane of Earth. Hornfels, these are the Drakes." You identify Arthur, Lucia, Anna, and Altria. "And their wizard, Merle Ambrose."

/ Greetings, soft ones - and wizard. My apologies for any damage to your residence. /

The floor creaks as he says that.

"As long as you aren't actively knocking holes in the architecture, I can fix any problems easily enough," Ambrose says. "Now, I was told that there's a cursed sword in urgent need of cleansing, possibly by fire?"

/ Indeed. / Hornfels presents the weapon, still holding it by the borrowed scabbard, and making a point of keeping it clear of any small hands that might try to reach for it. / Normally, I wouldn't favor the use of Fire, but this thing is honestly nasty enough that purifying salts may be too slow-acting. /

"Ugh," Anna declares as she takes a step back, grimacing at the sight of the thing's aura.

"What... IS that?" Altria asks, holding her ground but making a similar expression as her big sister.

"I'll give you the story in a bit," you assure her, "but for the moment, I'd like to focus on disposal, if that's okay."

"By all means," Lucia says sourly, giving the weapon her own look of intense distaste. "I would prefer not to have something like that in the house any longer than necessary. Particularly not with whatever is going on in the sub-levels of late...?" She trails off, aiming inquisitive looks at everybody in the room that isn't one of her daughters, who immediately join their mother in doing the same.

"Right, let's get that thing to the casting room," Ambrose says, ignoring the ladies. "This way, hard one, and mind your head."

It takes some doing, but in due course, you're able to get the cursed sword inside the warded circle in Ambrose's spellcasting chamber. Hornfels was once again able to put it down without issue, and a certain wary tension goes out of his stony frame at that, even as he focuses his divine power on that hand and scourges away the traces of necrotic corruption clinging to it.

As Ambrose fires up his own Divination Magics, you go ahead and spend one of your remaining uses of the Spell to Analyze Dweomers, to get a better idea of what sort of nastiness this weapon could really pull off.

...

So, you've been referring to the sword as "cursed" in your head, but it turns out, it really IS cursed. It's even cursed by design, rather than as a consequence of the thousand-year period of contamination by the forces of Chaos, (Un)Death, and Evil. Said malignant magic isn't too powerful, as these things go, looking like the result of someone casting the Spell to Bestow a Curse, but that curse appears to have been intended to make whoever wielded the sword specifically vulnerable to the corruptive effects of demonic energy. In theory, that by itself might not have hurt anyone, but given how much taint the cultists had on and around them in undeath and the level of corruption you can guess at them having reached in life, possession of this sword would have been very dangerous for its owner.

You have to wonder just who the wielder was, for the cult to go to the trouble of making a weapon like this to twist him around to their way of thinking. You know that such a method could have easily gone wrong; as the stuff of Chaos and Evil, rather than just Evil, demonic energy can be very unpredictable in its manifestations, and that carries over to those it taints and HOW it warps them.

Gained Necromancy B (Plus)

Aside from the curse and the accumulated corruption, the blade also carries the usual entry-level combat enhancements for greater accuracy, sharpness, and durability, but there's another effect built into it, which you are able to identify as a bane enhancement - one of those effects that makes a weapon "hate," strike more surely, and bite more deeply against a singular type of foe.

In this case, humans.

That is... not exactly an evil thing, in and of itself, or even inappropriate for a soldier's weapon, but in context, you can't help but wonder how many people died on this blade. Demons and their influence being what they are - that is to say, demonic - you fear the number can only have been, "Too many."

You're also rather glad that you had a lot of non-human allies between you and that cultist swordsman.

"Nasty little piece of work, isn't it?" Ambrose asks of no one in particular. "Right, then. Were we hoping to preserve the actual sword, or is total destruction on the table?"

/ I, for one, vote for destruction, / Hornfels notes, raising one hand. / I am also willing to lend my hammer to the task, if needed. /


"Oh, good," Ambrose says. "That'll make this easier all around."

When you studied Disenchantment with Balthazar and Dave, the Merlinean Master demonstrated that the basis of the process is a ritualized application of the Spell to Dispel Magic while under the effects of the Spell of Arcane Sight - or just very keen Mage Sight - slowly digging into the enchantments bound to an item and peeling them away from the object beneath.

The man who is or was Merlin explains that curse-breaking can be performed in a similar manner, by ritually focusing the Spell to Remove Curses or the Spell to Break Enchantments against the target.

"It's a lot more hazard-prone, though," the wizard adds. "Curses can and will actively fight attempts to purge them from their anchoring items, and if you don't have a method of long-term containment or immediate purification set up and ready to go when you finally yank the curse loose - or preferably, running the entire time you work - the malignance will usually try to grab the nearest potential vessel(s)."

"Only usually?" you inquire.

"Some curses are anchored to multiple items," Ambrose replies. "In those cases, the energy bound to one item may try to seek out the others if it's forced out of its host vessel. At other times, the power attempts to return to its original source - whether that's whoever cast the curse, or whatever location was sufficiently twisted-up to spawn it - and sometimes the source of the curse is something like a demon's soul bound to the item in question, in which case it might physically manifest."

You glance at the Memorian-Gallian sword, suddenly reminded of many a Hyrulean monster from your nightmares - and one giant Gohma, screaming as a half-materialized curse tried to eat it.

"Fortunately, this curse isn't strong enough to be something like that," the wizard adds.

That's good to know.

"Not unless we're dealing with a really minor demon," he continues, "like a quasit or a dretch or something."

...and that's slightly less assuring.

"In any case, those are the slow methods of de-cursing something. If you're in a hurry, destroying the physical vessel is another option, as is casting the Spell of Disjunction - and as fate, chance, and properly premeditated plundering would have it, I just so happen to have prepared for the possibility of needing a Disjunction or two today."

On that note, you inquire if anything has turned up in the Silbern loot-pile in need of that level of cleansing.

"Not yet," Ambrose answers. "But I felt it best to be ready, just in case."

Entirely reasonable, especially when he's sleeping within sprinting distance of the stuff - him and the Drakes both.

"Speaking of whom," you add, glancing in the direction of the hall where you left them, "I notice that Miss Lucia and the girls are apparently still in the dark about our looting spree?"

"Not entirely," comes the response. "Altria was found sizing up the contents of one of the storage rooms for suitability as dragon bedding, Anna was undoubtedly involved in her getting down there unnoticed, and I wouldn't put money against them having spoken to their mother about it."

You aren't sure why he or Arthur haven't simply told the ladies what happened, but that's a matter that can wait a few more minutes.

As for the problem of de-cursing the sword, it is perhaps coincidence that you have been studying the Spell of Disjunction for a while now. This could be an opportunity to employ it.


When you ask for time to cast your book-based version of the Vision Spell, Ambrose admits to being a touch curious about the provenance of the cursed sword himself, and adds that, "Roddy and his people would likely appreciate a copy."

You get out your Ivory Focuses and some of the Gold Incense and set them up each in turn, placing the tiny statue of Din on the far side of the warded circle from where you and he were standing, the one of Nayru across the circle and to the left, and Farore's effigy to the right. The fourth, Triforce-shaped piece, you keep in one hand, while holding the Conjured Book in the other.

Once you have your answer, you extinguish the incense and toss the sticks in a nearby bin Ambrose maintains for disposal purposes, pack away your focuses - which you most certainly don't want to leave out in the potential "path" of your next spell - and ready yourself for the second ritual.

The Spell of Disjunction is fundamentally an improved form of the Spell to Dispel Magic, except that where the third-circle spell - and even its greater, sixth-circle iteration - can normally only disable a magic item for a matter of seconds, the ninth-circle spell can entirely unravel the power invested into such objects. This is almost guaranteed to happen when the magic is focused upon a single target, and there's a chance for it to occur even when a Disjunction is spread out to neutralize magical effects in an area, factors that together make it a spell somewhat unfavored by mercenary-minded practitioners.

Magic items are frequently the best and most valuable parts of one's plunder, and the risk of having them turned into mundane objects - however exceptional their make - is a deal-breaker for many.

Still, for situations like this, Disjunction is exactly the sort of spell you need, and so you give the ritual your best effort, with Ambrose standing by to one side, his usual staff in one hand and a wand of pale wood in the other. The latter bears a faint aura of Elemental Light, with an accompanying air of Goodness.

Your silent musings on what spell might be contained therein do not escape Ambrose's notice. "Just a little bit of extra insurance, in case we get a demon or some semi-corporeal manifestation out of this."

Not quite ten minutes later, you complete your spell.

Through your Corruption Sense and Mage Sight, you have been able to feel and see the darkness that has festered within the sword for so long reacting to the magic that you've been gathering. While not behaving like a conscious mind or even entirely like an instinct-driven awareness, there was a degree of defensive preparation in the curse's activity, its outermost energies being drawn back in to form a mystically hardened protective layer in anticipation of the danger to come.

That "armor," along with the rest of the unholy energy bound in the blade, is blown to fragments by your completed spell in much the same manner that you'd expect a glass statuette to give way before the blow of Hornfels' hammer. Twisted mana, demonic essence, and necrotic corruption spill out of the sword like a tide of black blood, splashing over the floor within the circle and rebounding off the interior of the ward-circle, but almost immediately, the foulness begins to break up into greasy smoke.

It would seem that even a thousand years of exposure to the unfortunate conditions within the Memorian Base weren't enough to give the curse-energies a life of their own - something for which you can't help but be grateful.

Gained Disenchantment E (Plus)
Learned the Spell of Mage's Disjunction

"Nasty bit of work, there," Ambrose says, eyeing the dissolving mess in his circle with some distaste. "Still, at first glance, I would say that's a job well done."

As the... curse-juice?... dissipates, it reveals an intact sword in the Memorian legionary style, a short thing meant for thrusts at close range. Though the magic which one empowered and protected it has been stripped away, the blade itself remains in remarkably good condition for its age, free of any hint of rust or damage from regular use. There is a lingering aura of Chaos, Darkness, and Evil about the thing, a legacy of its origins and history, but it's not much worse off than things or even people that you've encountered on the Hellmouth.

What do you want to do with this Traitor's Blade?


"What are the origins of this weapon?"

Your spell takes effect and fills a few of the pages in your Conjured Book. Once the aura of active magic fades, you, your Shadow, the Briars, and Ambrose all gather 'round to read the results-

"Upside-down?" your Shadow asks the wizard, who is standing across from you, and is thus indeed reading the book inverted. "Really?"

"It's a niche but occasionally useful skill," Ambrose replies. "Now, shush, and let me read the arcane poetry."

-which are, once again, given in verse.

Stripping out the rhymes, the tale tells of a young Gallian swordsmith who was too skilled at his craft for his own good. Where a typical apprentice might spend half a decade learning his craft, and as long again working alongside his master while saving up for a shop of his own, this young prodigy's skill at steelworking reached the point of mastery in barely two years. Over-proud of himself and his abilities, the young prodigy challenged the local smiths to a sword-forging contest, defeated them one by one, and in doing so attracted the interest of a local noble, who became his patron.

From there, things went downhill. There are only so many fine swords that a single noble house needs or can afford to keep - whether for financial reasons or political ones - and the genius was forbidden to sell his blades to others, and had little patience for the common tasks of a blacksmith besides, viewing them as unworthy of his skills and time. His overly competitive, arrogant demeanor had not endeared him to the common folk and did not serve him much better with the nobles, for he was, in the end, just another peasant in their eyes, however useful a one. He never married, had poor luck keeping students - for like many geniuses, he was not well-suited to explaining things he found obvious and easy to those who saw them as strange and difficult - and was eventually cast aside by his patron.

The demon cultists found him then. They had a need for good swords, armor, and various odd devices that "no lesser smith could forge," and they drew the young smith into their service with promises of work worthy of his skills, commensurate rewards, and of course, vengeance on those that had wronged him.

The Traitor's Blade was forged specifically for the second son of the smith's former patron, who, like the fallen smith, considered himself to have been cheated of the success and accolades that were rightfully his - in this case, by having been born second in line to succeed his father. There was a plot in the works, there, not just for one sword-maker's spiteful retribution, but to place a puppet of the cult in a position of some power... but as the nobleman's son-turned-traitor legionary ended up dead (and then undead) in a remote fortress for the next thousand years, his sword's "legend" tells you no more on that subject.

All in all, an interesting little story, but not one that gives you any immediately actionable intelligence.

Disjunction or no Disjunction, you have some justified concerns about keeping a once-cursed, formerly corrupted, and currently mildly tainted weapon on your person or in storage on the Hellmouth, even WITH the wards on your home, your regular self-purifications, and other sensible, healthily paranoid safety precautions.

But it's loot. More in the nature of a trophy of your victory than anything with actual utility at this point, unless you find a sudden and pressing need to dip into the darker levels of magic and/or item crafting, but still, loot - and you're not going to pass up some loot just because something bad MIGHT happen because you have it, are you?

Of course you're not. Why, by that logic, you'd have to give up your claim on all the plunder you pulled out of Silbern, because the Wandenreich MIGHT be able to track it back to you! And that's just crazy talk.

Gained Traitor's Blade

"With that out of the way," you say, "why haven't you or Arthur explained about our trip to Silbern for the ladies?"

"Speaking for myself, I find it more amusing this way-"

Of course he does.

"-but I've also been bloody busy," Ambrose continues. "Even with all the extra hands helping to sort out everything we swiped, making sure that nobody gets cursed, enchanted, or otherwise magically affected against their will in the process is proving to be at least a half-time job, and I've STILL got all those Simulacra to juggle besides."

"Can't you just... turn them off?"

"If they were normal Simulacra, yes, but with the spell I used, I'd need their consent to avoid any issues, and they're not likely to give me that until they're reasonably certain that an army of angry Quincy ISN'T about to drop on us in retribution."

Ah. So what he's saying is, the Knights could be here for a while.

"And the longer they are," Ambrose sighs, "the bigger the chances of them making a mess of things, just by being around."

"Don't want anybody seeing the King's face and asking pointed questions, huh?" Briar guesses.

"And they would be so VERY pointed," the wizard replies, shaking his head. "I was rather hoping that Altria would get past FOURTEEN before the whole destined kingship business came knocking again, but with that bloody Grail War coming up, I don't have high hopes in the matter."

...

Huh.

Altria WILL be turning fourteen that year, won't she? Talk about timing.


"That sounds like a Thing," you note with some concern.

"A Thing?" Briar repeats, hitting the capitalization - no doubt because of how she can sense your feelings through the familiar bond.

"A thing?" the Shadows chorus, managing to miss the particular emphasis despite being copies of you and your partner.

Ambrose just raises an eyebrow, while Hornfels rumbles wordlessly.

"You know, a Thing. Like when a once-in-a-millennium conjunction of the planets coincides with an ancient sealed evil being released-"

Heads begin to nod.

"-or when some benevolent fairy godmother helps a pauper attend a royal ball, and then twenty years later that pauper's niche magical talent turns out to be vital to the kingdom's survival."

Heads pause.

"Wait, when did THAT happen?" Briar wonders.

"...never mind that part, then," you say. Focusing on Ambrose, you ask, "Do you think it's a Thing, or just a coincidence?"

"I am honestly unsure," the wizard replies. "Altria didn't display any unusual behavior or suffer from any abnormal health conditions in the months before, during, or after the Fourth Grail War - but then again, she WAS only four at the time. There COULD have been side-effects that were just too minor, too temporary, or too easy to mistake for any of the usual mess of childhood illnesses and general complaints to notice for what they really were, whether at the time or when I took a serious look into the whole mess a few months back."

"They do say that memory IS the second thing to go," you reply lightly.

"I suppose that you would know," Ambrose retorts.

Touche.

Shifting back to the topic under discussion, the wizard continues: "Another possibility is that Altria was far enough away from the main event, and under sufficient magical protections when things REALLY got going, that any influence having an incarnation of her past self running around might have had was mitigated. Which would be one more reason to keep her away from the Fifth War, if we can."

You frown at those last three words. "Is that just the sound of you being a well-prepared pessimist, Ambrose? Or do you EXPECT Altria to end up getting dragged into that mess?"

"At the moment, it's just paranoia talking," he says, "but I'd be a poor excuse for a wizard if I didn't prepare for the possibility."

Ah. Well, far be it from you to speak against a magic-user indulging their healthy paranoia.

It's four more years until the Fifth Grail War begins, and if memory serves, Ambrose speculated that Command Seals wouldn't start appearing until about six months before the big event. Prior to that, there's no real way to determine who might be selected as a Master, at least not with any degree of safety and reliability that you'd consider acceptable.

You don't know a proper Spell of Prophecy, and are legitimately uncertain if such a thing even exists. Attempting to brute-force the effect via a ritual is not an appealing notion, given that at least some of the Powers That Be have shown themselves to be sufficiently invested in the event to interfere with attempts to scry on it. Then there's the fact that the Grail itself is a magical device powerful enough to grant wishes, whose inner workings you know exactly nothing about, and which is under SOME level of influence from the nascent evil god incubating inside the thing.

Throwing powerful magic at the general space-time coordinates of something like that, or at anyone or anything with a clear connection to it, just seems like a bad idea.

That's not even getting into the fact that you KNOW four Servants are still active in Fuyuki in one form or another, and that at least one of them - the former Ruler, Ramesses - would very likely notice if somebody started poking at the Grail.

Even if it was by proxy, you've already taken on one god-king this year. That's probably enough.

"On that cheerful note," you say aloud, "I thought I'd see if Altria was in the mood to hear a story about recent events. Hornfels, would you care to take part?"

/ I do enjoy telling tales of valor, summoner, / the paladin replies, / and an offering of entertainment would go some way to repaying their hospitality - and also the possible damage to their floors. /

Said floor creaks obligingly as Hornfels shifts in place.

/ That said, would the audience be able to understand me? /

"Not to worry, I can modify a Spell to Comprehend Languages for them." It won't even cost you any mana.

/ Ah. In that case, I would be delighted to assist. /


The Drakes set themselves up in Ambrose's reception room while you were working in the lab, apparently content to wait while you worked on de-cursing the Traitor's Blade - or, perhaps more accurately, determined not to let you or the wizard get away without giving them some answers about recent events.

Deciding to reward their patience and try to take control of the meeting, you enter the room with a bright smile, a clap of your hands, and the sunny declaration, "So, who wants to hear the story of how we just conquered an ancient not-Roman legion base full of undead and mildly demonic entities?"

Altria immediately raises her hand. "I would."

Arthur smiles at his youngest's behavior before mimicking her gesture of interest. "I would, as well."

"How can something be 'mildly' demonic?" Anna wonders, even as she also raises a hand. And then, as Hornfels squeezes through the doorway behind you, she adds, "And what is the story with this elemental?"

From the chair that she's claimed, Lucia looks at her family - and the wizard, who slipped into the room after you and Hornfels, and is smirking brightly as he also holds up a hand - and sighs as she makes it unanimous.

"All questions will be answered in due course," you say. "Before we begin, would anybody object to having a Spell to Comprehend the Terran Language cast on them? Hornfels has agreed to provide additional commentary, but he physically can't speak most human languages."

Even Sign Language wouldn't really work for the big guy, given the shape of his hands; too few fingers, and those he does have, likely too thick for various gestures. And while Ambrose managed to reinforce the floors to avoid anything worse than some creaking, you don't think it would be a good idea for Hornfels to try telling this tale through interpretive dance.

Nobody objects, and those that are trained in resisting magic restrain their passive defenses to allow you to cast your spell. Fortunately, the modifications you need to make to affect an audience this small are simple enough that the ritual version of the spell only takes three minutes.

It helps that Ambrose has already demonstrated fluency.

From there, you begin.

"It was a cool but sunny afternoon, in the forest near Baden-Württemberg..."

The whole story takes the better part of an hour to tell. You and Shadow Alex take advantage of your still-active Adjustable Disguises to provide visual references for various people, at least as much as it will allow: copying the appearance of Roderick's employees goes fine, as does borrowing the image of Irina; but when you try to look like any of the Memorians, the fact that they're undead - even if most of them were originally human - causes the magic to falter a bit.

You aren't entirely sure if the faces you end up wearing are exactly what Marcus and the others looked like in life, which is enough to convince you not to try appearing like Trill.

But that's fine; Shadow Alex just whips up a Minor Illusion to provide more "(un)life-like" images of your allies, and also of your various enemies.

The wolf-beasts are greeted with scrunched faces of distaste.

The wolf-slime-thing gets a round of revolted gagging-

"It hasn't been that long since we ate," Lucia says.

-which you take as a cue not to produce pictures of the giant slime from the residential area.

Anna proves somewhat disbelieving that you summoned Hornfels literal HOURS ago, using only the Spell to Summon Monsters. Even explaining that you included Beryl's birthday gift to you doesn't convince her that you aren't breaking some law of magic.

At that, Ambrose laughs. "Welcome to my life, girl."

This does not appear to improve Anna's mood.

Hornfels proves to have a certain dramatic flair for storytelling, as he describes the battle against the giant slime in terms more grandiose than the encounter may have really deserved - and with more than a little careful posing and replication of his combat stances, besides.

Gained Oratory D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Speaking of the paladin, you have to cut the story short, as the extended spell that's been holding him here all this time is finally running out.

Apart from a final thanks for his help today and that outstanding promise to let Beryl know the elemental paladin would like to meet her at some point, is there anything you'd like to say to Hornfels before he disappears?


"Thank you for your help, Hornfels," you say in conclusion.

/ It was a pleasure to smite evil with you, small summoner, / Hornfels declares, raising his hammer in a salute. / Until we meet again. /

And then your spell ends, and the large, heavy, and yet comforting presence of the elemental paladin vanishes. All that remains is the dark mass of the Aries Crystal, which hovers where it had been fused to Hornfels' armored chest for a moment longer, before drifting down to your waiting hand. As you pluck the ram's head emblem from the air, you note that its energies have dimmed, signifying its temporary deactivation while it recharges.

That's in keeping with your previous tests of the Crystal. The level of the Summoning Spell doesn't seem to matter, at least up to the ninth-circle - you haven't tried anything past that, partly from lack of actual need, and partly out of concern that you might damage Beryl's gift by channeling more power though it than it was designed to handle - and now this hours-long summoning has given you evidence that the duration of the effect doesn't really matter, either, at least not within the span of a single day.

At some point, you'll have to test out the Aries Crystal on a spell that lasts for more than one day, to see if that interferes with its usual recharge time, but that will involve summoning something you can trust not to cause problems for over twenty-four hours.

A matter for another time, you think, pocketing the gem.

*Creak*

You join the rest of the room in glancing at Ambrose, who has gotten up from his hovering chair and padded over to the space where Hornfels was standing, to make a show of testing the floorboards: first by prodding them with one foot; then by standing on them gingerly; and then by shifting his weight up, down, and around.

"If you break the floor after the elemental failed to, Wizard, I will laugh at you," Lucia warns.

"Not much danger of that," Ambrose replies. "Reinforcement seems to have held up pretty well."

The lady of the house "Hm"s neutrally at that, before turning to you. "Thank you for the story of your adventure, Alex. It was most entertaining."

Her daughters make similar statements.

"You're welcome."

"On a related note," Lucia says then, "I was wondering if I might convince you to tell the story of another recent adventure."

"I had already planned on that, ma'am," you assure her.

"Must you?" Ambrose sighs.

"I am but a guest in this house," you reply piously. "Surely, when one of my hosts asks me a question, I should answer it honestly?"

"But it's MY part of the house," the wizard grumbles.

"I mean, you're perfectly welcome to tell the story yourself, if you want to - or for that matter, Lord Drake?"

Three pairs of female eyes turn to the lord of the manor.

"I wasn't ACTUALLY there to see it happen," Arthur defends himself. "You did only summon me, after all - and even then, it was only for the aftermath."

"...how much of that do you remember?" you wonder.

"The broad strokes. The finer details are a bit fuzzy."

"But that's not why you've been playing mysterious about this whole thing," Lucia notes in mild accusation. "At least not entirely."

"Not entirely, no," Arthur admits. "Part of it was that we're still sorting everything and figuring out where and who it goes to, not to mention WHEN..."

"'When'?" Lucia repeats, frowning.

"Let the lad tell the story, dear."

Lady Drake gives her husband an unimpressed look, but turns back to you, expectantly.

You clear your throat and begin again. "So, I don't know if anybody remembers, but back at my birthday party, I took the Kurosaki parents aside for a bit..."

Without giving away sensitive information like Isshin's identity as a Shinigami exile, you explain to the Drakes how you initially became aware of the threat to the Earthbound Quincy, tracked it back to its source, and made plans to deal with the problem. The exact nature of said plans draws some comment-

"You HIRED a Great Fairy?"

"You travelled to an AFTERLIFE?"

"You didn't summon ME?"

-but nothing that delays your tale for too long. Although you do have a little trouble keeping a straight face and an even tone when you respond to Altria and Lucia's joint outburst of disappointment.

You and your Shadow - and for that matter, the Briars - still have quite a few uses of Adjustable Disguise left, and it occurs to you that you could use some of these to depict high-ranking members of the Wandenreich and/or the Soul Society, so that the Drakes would all know who to be on the lookout for, in case one, the other, or both parties end up tracking you, the wizard, or those great heaping piles of loot to their door.

Then again, Arthur and Lucia might prefer that their daughters not have to worry about that sort of thing just yet. And Ambrose should already have that information, via the Knights, so perhaps it would be better not to bring it up?


It seems like it would be better to make the offer and let the Drakes decide whether to take it or leave it, rather than to make the call on your own, so that's what you do.

As it happens, Ambrose, Arthur, and Lucia are all in agreement that you should include the faces of the Shinigami captains and the Quincy Sternritter.

"Better to know who to be on the lookout for, and be reasonably prepared if they do show up," Arthur states.

"Also, it would spoil the show not to include pictures," Ambrose adds.

Between yourself, your Shadow, and the Briars, you have enough shifts of Adjustable Disguise left to cover the Shinigami and Wandenreich commanders, and even some of the more noteworthy troops. You and Ambrose make a point of emphasizing that Aizen and Ichimaru are both not to be trusted - which seems to dismay Anna for some reason - and caution in the strongest possible terms that sparring with Zaraki is a Bad Idea.

"And HOW do you know that, exactly?" Altria wonders.

"It's his fault," your Shadow says quickly, pointing at you. "He made me do it."

It takes you the better part of another hour to tell the tale of the Assault on Silbern - due in no small part to questions about the identities of the Simulacrum Knights that Ambrose brought along, which you dodge as best you can, and repeated queries for details about various fights, which you try to answer without going into the messier details - and by the end of it, your stomach is rumbling. While you started the day with a good-sized breakfast, it's now well past lunchtime in California, and trekking halfway around the world to go on a dungeon-dive as you have means you managed to miss meal times in Germany and the United Kingdom. At this point, you really just want to go home, grab a late lunch, and maybe take an afternoon nap - or at least spend the time relaxing, so you can try to refresh your near-exhausted mana.

Whether because they noticed your fatigue, are sympathetic to your hunger pangs, or are getting a bit tired themselves due to the advancing hour, the Drakes don't keep you with questions-

"A TYRANNOSAURUS?"

"Giant disembodied HANDS? Really?"

-or at least, not for TOO long.

Arthur and Lucia wish you a good evening-slash-afternoon and then wrangle their daughters off to bed, while Ambrose sees you to the travel-closet.

"Do you need us for anything more today?" Shadow Alex wonders, gesturing to himself and his partner. "Or can we go ahead and disperse, now?"

Also, as you make your way back into Sunnydale proper, you take the time to ritually dispel the buffs still clinging to your partner, aside from the Spell of Mind Blank that she shares with you. They've served their purpose, and you really don't need the possibility of added mystical "attention" at this point.

That said, when it comes to the Spell of Foresight...


"Oh, like you didn't have fun."

"That is completely besides the point!" Shadow Alex defends himself, but it's too late: Altria is frowning at both of you equally.

Success?

"When did you spar with this captain?" she inquires. "Before, during, or after the invasion?"

"...after," you admit.

Altria's frown deepens. "And you didn't think to invite me? Even just to watch?"

"I didn't invite anybody," you reply. "A few of the people involved in the raid asked if they could watch the fight, and I turned them down. Shadow and Zaraki had their match on one of Navi's temporary demiplanes, and we were looking at enough energy being thrown around in a small enough space that I wasn't sure the place wouldn't start falling apart. It seemed best not to tempt fate by having any more of an audience in there than I really had to, just in case."

"That's... sensible," Altria admits with some reluctance. "But what about the looting, then? You summoned Father, so it would have been safe-"

Arthur opens his mouth to say something, and then pauses, considering that point.

"-and you turned your Shadow into an adult, so THAT wouldn't have been an issue," Altria continues.

Arthur nods, semi-reluctantly.

"Speaking from experience," you reply, "it takes some time to get used to fighting at adult size, and even then, you're still not as experienced as an adult opponent - and possibly not as skilled. Shadow made up some of the difference by covering himself with all the enhancement spells and ki techniques we could fit on him, but I'm not sure how well that would have worked for you, given your magic resistance technique. For that matter," you add, "that might have interfered with any of the spells I could use to make you appear to be a grown-up."

Altria is visibly disappointed at that.

"Besides," your Shadow adds, "unless you've got the right kind of training, you wouldn't remember anything your summoned self did."

"But... loot!" Altria says helplessly.

"In that case..."

Standing at attention, your Shadow hands over the Memorian Standard with a show of formality.

You accept the banner in the spirit with which it is given, trading salutes with your Dark Self.

"And with that, we are out," he says.

*Poof*

"Later!" Shadow Briar adds.

*Poof*

Life in Sunnydale hasn't generally been that dangerous for you personally, but with your mana reserve as low as it is, the prospect of having a little extra warning in case something bad chooses to happen in proximity to you isn't without some appeal. And since your Spell of Mind Blank will prevent anybody from noticing that you've got a ninth-boosted-to-tenth-circle spell running on your person, you are content to leave it be.

When you arrive home-

"Shurprishe!"

"Owooo!"

-you consequently have to fake being surprised by a Little Sister and Big Dog Ambush.

Woe is you, who must labor under the penalties of short-term personal precognition.

"ShurprAAAAH!"

"Owooo!"

Catching the incoming Zelda Tackle Missile, you spin her around, up, and finally onto your fairy-less shoulder.

"Ah, put me down!" she protests, legs kicking in front of you and hands drumming along your back. "Or carry me piggyback!"


Something about Altria's frustrated greed amuses you on a fundamental level. And so it is that you reach out, smirking, and pat her on the head. "There, there?"

She scowls fearsomely. "I will kick you."

You pause in mid-pat. "...do you want me to stop?"

...

"Nnnrrrgh," she replies unhelpfully, blushing and ever-so-slightly bowing her head.

You take that as a "No," and oblige.

True to her word, Altria does kick you in the shin, but it's only the once, and more of a token gesture of protest about her offended dignity than a show of genuine anger.

Gained Headpat E

From Anna's general direction, there comes a muted "Squee!" of delight.

You frown, absently adjusting your hold on your sister-

"Whee!"

-as you swing her around and hold her up in front of you, so that you can get a clear look at her mouth. She's not lisping again, exactly, but there was something off about the way she was speaking that has tweaked your big brother instincts and Hellmouth-conditioned wariness.

"Did you lose a tooth or something, Zelda?" you wonder, even as you know it's incredibly unlikely. Your own age group are right in the middle of the range where baby teeth are falling out and the new set growing in, but Zelda's got a few years before she'll hit even the lower end of that period. The only way she might have lost a tooth would be injury - well, that or magic - and while she's rambunctious enough that it's not impossible for her to have broken a tooth somehow, you haven't been gone long enough for your little sister to have gotten hurt, seen a dentist, and gotten over the initial shock and pain.

"Nope!" Zelda replies. "It'sh a toffee! Shee?" And then she obligingly opens her mouth to show you, sticking out her tongue with an exaggerated, "Aaahhhh..."

Yeah, there's something brown and sticky gumming up her teeth, and thick enough in the back on the right-hand side to have interfered with her speech a bit.

With your fraternal worries eased, you swing Zelda around again-

"Whee!"

-graciously allow her to climb onto your back-

"Onward!" a not-so-small voice declares a moment later, as a little finger points past your head.

"Onward!" Briar agrees, from somewhere a bit higher up and further back than usual.

-and then march inside to let your folks know you're back, and find something for your late lunch.

You spend the rest of the day doing as little as possible, supernaturally speaking. You get a few more pings of Foresight, all Zelda-related, as she tries to "ambush you better," but even without the benefit of precognition, your various senses would still be too keen for your sister to bypass.

Your mental energy reaches full capacity right around suppertime, which is hardly a surprise, given how little you used it. Everything else is still ticking away when you go to bed at midnight, and when you wake up at a little past four, you find that all but your mana have been topped off, thanks to your Restful Blanket.

Speaking of your magical energy, it's somewhat less than halfway recovered. If you were to take another day off, you'd be fully recovered by tomorrow morning, but if you were to limit yourself to rituals and/or low-end spellcasting, you could probably get some mystical work done today - if there's anything that really needs doing? The Memorians and Mr. Pritchard's people can handle the situation at the base for the time being, and Ambrose and the Drakes seemed to have the loot-sorting under control, but you did have a few ongoing tasks that you could look into...


"There had better be some toffee left, Zelda."

"...ummm," Zelda replies hesitantly.

"Zelda," you warn.

"Maybe there'sh shome?" she offers.

"Zelda."

"There were only a few piecesh in the candy drawer, an' Dad had one an' Mom had one an' I had one an' you weren't here-"

"Please tell me you didn't let Moblin have any of it," you sigh.

"What? No! It'sh not good for dogsh, Mom said sho."

Moblin whines.

"He had a doggy treat inshtead."

"Arf!"

"So everybody got candies except us?" Briar asks.

"Nuh-uh! I shaved you shome," Zelda replies with a frantic shake of her head. Sho shaying, she digs into her pocket and pulls out... maybe half of a piece of toffee in an unwrapped, re-wrapped piece of paper.

"It kinda melted," she admits.

...

"I'm going to swing you around again, now," you say frankly.

"No, no, no-!"

"Yes, yes, yes!"

On the one hand, you do want to relax and recover your magical power. The more you have in the tank, the faster you recover, the more you can afford to spend mana when you really need to, and the safer you and everybody you care about generally are.

But on the other hand, you know that somebody is putting people's lives in danger for no good reason that you were able to determine when you first became aware of the issue, and quite possibly for a rather sick one. At the very least, it's reckless endangerment and/or sloppy use of dangerous devices, and while it's far from the scale of such evil as Yhwach was on the verge of pulling off - to use a pertinent example - it is nonetheless an act of evil that you are aware of and can do something about.

Plus, it's happening here in California, so even if you're getting an early start on things, you don't have to worry about timezone issues. On top of that, it IS in your proverbial backyard, so you do feel somewhat obliged to look into things.

AFTER that, you'll take it easy.

Promise?

Probably, anyway.

Following your usual morning routine of exercise, breakfast, and a shower, you head down to the basement, ritually conjure your Mirror Hideaway, and once inside, take a few minutes to restore your Spell of Mind Blank, which was running down.

Keeping in mind that you're about to perform some ritual magic for investigative purposes, are there any other buff spells you want to cast at this time?

With that out of the way, you turn to the task at hand.

You have a few options for how to go about this. You've seen the guy who set up the trap that mangled Hiker Dave's foot, and you could scry on him again - though at this hour, he may well still be asleep, especially if he was the normal human he appeared to be at first, magically-enhanced glance. Alternately, having seen the trapper's cabin in the woods with all its animal trophies, you could scry on that instead. A third option would be to check on Hiker Dave, who, again, might still be in bed - or he might be up for an early morning run, he seemed like the type. If he is awake, you could see what came of his intention to get in touch with the mundane authorities.

Or perhaps there's another course of action that appeals more?


After ritually casting the Spell of General Augmentation - mostly for the boost to your magical control, although the other mental boosts may come in handy once you start remotely poking around for clues - you start scrying for the primary suspect in the Case of the Terrible Traps. Since you can't be sure where he is, what he's doing, or how long you might need to keep the spell going, you decide to extend the spell's duration by a step, which will give you plenty of time to do whatever you end up needing to.

Eight minutes later, the scrying globe appears in the air before you and reveals the man in question, stretched out in sleep on a barebones cot which is NOT located in the cabin, or another house, or even an apartment.

Plain concrete walls, floor, and ceiling define the borders of a space that is more "box" than "room."

Bars are over the window, the glass of which is thick, fogged, and probably shatter-resistant.

A sink and toilet stand in one corner, with basically nothing else in the way of amenities.

And of course, the door, which is solid steel, except for the bar-crossed space that looks like part of it slides open to allow those on the outside to look in.

You've never seen a modern one in person, only on television and in the movies, but this appears to be a police holding cell.

...well, you DID ask Hiker Dave to get in touch with the mundane authorities, and it HAS been a couple of weeks since then. You're hardly an expert on modern Earthly law enforcement procedures, so you can't speak to whether or not that's time enough for an investigation, but maybe if somebody was already looking into the matter of potentially deadly traps being set up in a public park, persons reported missing in that area, or something of a similar nature...?

Regardless, there really isn't much to see in the cell, and its occupant clearly isn't going anywhere. Perhaps there was a spell or two you wanted to try casting on him remotely?


Part of you is honestly surprised to have found the trapper in jail. You were... maybe not EXPECTING, exactly, but certainly PREPARED for the guy to have turned out to be a magical serial killer, which could have given mundane law enforcement some problems just in tracking him down, much less making an arrest.

But maybe that's just your Hellmouth-raised paranoia talking? Maybe, instead of a supernatural being who APPEARS normal because he has the power and skill to mask his aura against the low-end Divination Spells you used to examine him, the guy really is just an ordinary human, whose actions are either the result of great carelessness rather than malevolence towards his fellow mortals, or who simply isn't powerful and dangerous enough for his malice to register as anything unusual?

"What are the odds, Briar?" you wonder.

"I'd say, not great, but a long way from impossible," your partner replies. "We ARE looking at the guy, after all."

She has a point, although as soon as she's made it, you extend your senses through the Scrying Spell, testing to see if the aura of the man in the cell is any different from what you and your Shadow found a couple of weeks ago.

...

Nope. Those are the same readings you got, and short of pulling out actual spells - and ones more powerful than the Spell to Detect Evil and the like - you think you're probably not going to learn anything new this way.

After a moment's thought, you decide that you really aren't interested in putting forth the extra effort.

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably not a duck-shaped demon, or however that one goes.

You perform a minor Ritual to Dispel Magic, and with it, end both your Spell of Scrying and the Spell of General Augmentation. Then you exit your Mirror Hideaway, dismiss that spell, and head up out of the basement to get on with what you hope will be a perfectly normal day.

...

As it happens, that is almost exactly what you get. You spend a couple of hours reading Twentieth Century Sorcery again, which puts you most of the way through Volume Seven. At the rate you've been going, you might even finish the series by the time the new school year starts - though that will depend on whether or not you're able to pick up a copy of Volume Ten. Might have to see if Balthazar has that in yet, the next time you speak with him...

Anyway, that's about the point where Zelda wakes up, so you finish out the current chapter while she's having breakfast, mark your place, and set the book safely aside before the Little Sister Missile achieves full deployment. Since it's a Sunday, and there isn't really much on television to catch her interest, most of the remaining morning hours are taken up by playing with Zelda and Moblin. Dad eventually rouses himself to join in a four-and-a-half-way game of catch, with Briar taking on her human guise as Number Four and Moblin eagerly providing the half.

Following lunch, which consists mainly of leftover pizza from last night's dinner delivery - with extra garlic fingers, heavy on the garlic, of course - Zelda soon winds down for her customary nap. You and your father make yourselves scarce for a while, taking the dog for a walk.

Is there anywhere in particular you feel like going?


Although there is a certain temptation to take this opportunity to go somewhere in particular and do something a bit more significant than just taking a walk around the block, you did previously make... not a promise, but a fairly significant implication to the Goddesses that you were going to take it easy today.

Sunnydale being Sunnydale, if you go poking your nose into the more mystically active corners of town, odds are decent that you will not be able to continue taking it easy - or at least that you will be tempted not to.

Better to avoid that.

"So how did everything work out for you yesterday, Alex?" your father asks then, at a moment when there's no one within earshot of the four of you.

"Pretty well, actually," you reply. "Made some new friends, helped them clear some squatters off their property, smote a few demonic entities - and best of all, nobody that went in with me got hurt in the process."

"Glad to hear it," Tony says. "Though, when you say 'demonic entities'...?"

That takes some explaining. Your father has no trouble picturing undead legionaries, whether of the "friendly" or demon-cultist variety, but the undead demonic cultist werewolves take a bit more imagination. It doesn't help that the spirit of an ACTUAL werewolf was also present, and on your side; to be fair, after meeting the Shuzens, the Hayashis, and (to a lesser extent) the Arisawas, your father is basically over the whole "monsters can be good guys, too" issue.

The undead slime monsters, on the other hand... well, you just ate, so you refrain from going into too much detail about those.

And then, of course, there's the actual demon, for what little impact it had on the proceedings.

Tony is visibly impressed that you know a spell that can get rid of demons that quickly, though you do point out that the Spell to Burn Corruption probably wouldn't have been so efficacious if that giant demon had been fully manifested when you nuked it, as opposed to being only partly summoned. It was the incineration of the summoner that really prevented the fiend from entering this plane.

Even so, Tony still likes the sound of that spell - though when you mention that its smallest area of effect is a cube ten feet to a side, and that it DOES still burn things which aren't demonic in nature or even tainted by such creatures, merely less intensely, he does ask you to be careful with it.

You see a few people you know while out walking, a mix of faces that you've seen around town and people you've actually exchanged more than a few words with in passing - nobody that you're really close to, though, Sunnydale Summer Syndrome having started to kick in again and everybody who's got the means to get out of town for at least a week or two doing so.

Your father does stop to chat with one guy for a couple of minutes, a regular client at Rory's garage, which leaves you and Moblin some time to yourselves. You grab a conveniently located stick and play fetch for a bit, keeping one ear on the conversation out of curiosity until it becomes clear that the two men aren't talking about cars or sports or anything supernatural, just ordinary, kind of boring regular adult stuff. How's the job, how's the family, did you hear about So-and-So, that sort of thing.

"So what are you doing for the summer?" the guy asks at one point.

You are reminded that you have a trip with Lu-sensei coming up, as well as some other "overseas" business - checking up on the Muhlfelds, introducing Mai's parents to Lady Akemi - but it occurs to you, not for the first time, that you have fairly easy access to a tropical paradise, and could give your family a chance to really get away from it all.

Or, if they'd rather vacation somewhere a little closer to modern civilization, you've got scrying spells, global-range teleportation, and translation magic.

Then again, this might not be a good time to be considering a summer getaway. Your father's one thing, Uncle Rory not being a big stickler for giving time off on short notice, but working at a hospital as she does - and in Sunnydale, no less - your mother needs to put in a request for leave fairly well in advance. You've heard her talking with your father and to people on the phone about shifts being covered, or not, months in advance; it may simply be too late for her to get any real vacation time, unless you limit it to a weekend or something.


"Would letting my Shadow burn out the sewers count?"

Your father doesn't immediately respond to your half-joking query, or at least not verbally; instead, his steady stride slows while his eyes widen, until he has come to a stop and is gazing into the distance - or rather, at the street below your feet.

...

"...uh, Dad?" you venture after a moment.

"Shhh," he replies absently. "I'm thinking."

You trade glances with Briar and Moblin.

Your partner settles back onto your shoulder.

Your dog finds a comfortable patch of grass along the sidewalk, and likewise settles in to wait.

After a moment, you lean against a fence.

"...I should probably be a responsible adult at this point, and tell you not to run around setting major parts of the town's infrastructure on fire," Tony finally says, speaking with a certain degree of reluctance while still staring at the ground.

After your father finishes chatting with his acquaintance and you have resumed your walk, you bring up the idea of taking another trip to Bali Ha'i - just the six of you.

"Can't say I don't like the idea of getting away from it all for a while," your father admits, "but we'd have to limit it to a day trip or a weekend thing, your mom couldn't get the time off from work otherwise - not this late in the year or without her supervisor throwing a fit, which would just make trouble that she doesn't want or need to deal with."

Yeah, you'd figured that.

"Plus," he adds, "and no offense intended to the volcano lady or her tropical paradise-"

Good call, there.

"-but being the ONLY people on the remote island would be as much of a downside as a positive. Nobody else to talk to, not much to do unless you do it yourself, no options that don't involve getting back to Nature... unless you were planning on turning on that big arena of monsters again, which, honestly, I'd rather you didn't."

Fair enough. Fighting Hyrulean beasties is not for everyone.

Also, firing up the Arena of Trials might encourage Zelda to try her luck, which is a prospect even YOU aren't comfortable with just yet. Give her a year of training with Lu-sensei first, plus what magical education you can fit in over the same period, and then you'll consider it.

On the LOW difficulty setting.

Maybe.

You make your way home without further encounters or discussions of significance, and claim the TV for perhaps half an hour before Zelda rises from her afternoon nap.

The rest of the afternoon and the evening pass without anything particularly noteworthy happening. You attend to your small garden, your folks discuss the idea of an island getaway while you have Zelda distracted in the backyard, and when your father takes Zelda to help him get dinner, you stay home to talk the idea over with your mother. She has no particular objections to a short trip, merely repeating the points your father already made and also cautioning that any such trip probably shouldn't be too close to Zelda's birthday, lest she explode from an overabundance of glee.

Not that she uses those exact words, but you could see it happening.

Another quiet late evening of reading followed by a good Blanket-enhanced sleep finishes your mana recovery, leaving you fully fit to face the day.

As it happens, today is the day that the much-extended Spell of Nondetection that you cast on the Muhlfeld family is due to run out. Since Recife is several hours ahead of Sunnydale, you could check in on them as soon as you've finished your morning activities, whether that's via personal visitation, use of a scrying spell, or even just calling them up on your phone.


"Would you feel better if it didn't involve fire?"

No declarations of heresy, O Burning One?

"...I might, actually," your father says slowly. "How well are you set up for making holy water, again?"

First of all, it isn't heresy if the boy can make it work.

"I know the spell for making the basic stuff," you reply. "It's pretty easy, but it's also not really that powerful, whether you're talking how effective the water is against demons or how much of it you get per casting. Washing out even ONE tunnel with that spell way would take too much work to be practical; getting every passage under the town is pretty much out of the question."

Secondly, I don't want him to accidentally burn down part of his hometown any more than you do.

As opposed to burning it down INTENTIONALLY, you mean?

Of course.

"I DID come up with a spell a while back that creates a sort of moving holy fogbank," you continue, "but it doesn't cover a very large area at any given time, and it doesn't go around corners. What this situation really calls for is a full-on rainstorm, and while there IS a Spell to Control the Weather, I haven't learned it, and it would only create ordinary rain. I'm not sure how much of the town it would cover, either - Briar?"

"No idea," your partner admits. "Mom could affect the whole Lost Woods, but, well, she's Mom - and really, how big ARE the Lost Woods?"

You suspect that even Navi might not know the answer to that one.

And thirdly, he smashed and burned a bunch of bad guys the other day, so he's earned some leeway to muck around with lesser elements if he wants to.

What was that about LESSER elements?

So, yeah, if you want to develop a "Spell to Create a Holy Rainstorm," you'll definitely need to learn the Spell to Control the Weather first, and also figure out if it has a large enough area of effect to cover Sunnydale, or if you and Shadow Alex working together could make up the difference. If neither of those proves to be the case, there might be a metamagic technique that would do the job, but if not, you'd have to develop a whole new spell for it.

"So, just to be clear," Tony says, "it's something that MIGHT be doable, but not for a while yet?"

Pretty much.

Even with magic, nothing quite beats having your own eyes on a target - but before you hop down to South America, you call ahead to let the Muhlfelds know to expect you, and get a preliminary report on their situation.

After all, you have manners.

Nicolau takes your call again-

"Not getting in touch through your celestial mail-carrier?" he inquires, very early in the conversation.

"It slipped my mind," you admit. "Things have been a bit busy over the last couple of weeks."

"I can only imagine."

-and lets you know that things have been as quiet as they ever get in Recife. There were some nightmares among the younger generation in the days following Auswahlen, as the implications of their "overnight trip" really hit home, but those have been easing up as the kids come to terms with events. Even with that unfortunate development, his oldest granddaughter's pregnancy is proceeding well - she's still got a few months before she's due - and her husband is holding up about as well in the face of impending fatherhood as could be hoped for.

On the topic of that Brazilian mage that showed up to investigate the Gate Spell you used to send the Muhlfelds home, Nicolau says that nobody by that name or description has turned up near the family that he's heard of. On a related note, none of their friends or neighbors have asked any concerning questions about where they went that day.

Regardless, if you want to visit Recife again, you're welcome to-

"I could hardly stop you," Nicolau says cheerfully.

-although he does wonder what you'll look like this time.

Considering that the Wandenreich are on the lookout for your adult form, and that there is at least a familial resemblance between that and your actual appearance, you think it's probably best that you don't look like either of your usual selves during today's trip to Brazil. Or at least not for the entire trip; you could probably get by using the Spell of the Adjustable Disguise or Adjustable Polymorph.


You are very tempted to send Shadow Alex to check on the Muhlfelds while you handle other matters, but stopping by in person would be more respectful of the South American Quincy, and you feel compelled to do things that way.

That said, if you'll be in Brazil, you lose nothing by calling up your Shadow and having HIM look into the aforementioned matters.

So you invoke the power of the Heart of Courage-

*Poof*

"Well, at least I got ONE day off," your Shadow sighs.

-and then get on with your personal preparations.

First, of course, is a ritual casting of the Spell of Mind Blank, enhanced so as to cover your Shadow as well-

"Thanks."

-as it's simply the most efficient approach.

When it comes to your personal disguise, you decide to go with Transformation Magic for this outing, mainly on the grounds that, while you aren't expecting to run into trouble, having ACTUAL adult size rather than the mere appearance of it would be advantageous if you DO encounter any issues of an aggressive nature. Not to mention that, if somebody just bumps into you while you're walking around, they won't pass through parts of your altered form the way they would an Illusion - so you're avoiding potential problems on that front.

Since this visit will probably take longer than a few minutes even if all goes well, you extend the duration of the spell by a step, getting yourself a couple of hours and change.

That feels like enough enhancement spells for the time being.

"Dr. Jones again?" your Shadow wonders.

"First non-us disguise that came to mind," you reply.

Suddenly, your Dark Self grins. "Aren't a bunch of Nazis supposed to have fled to South America?"

...

"If I run into any-" you start.

"No, no, you can't blame it on me!" he interrupts. "You picked the form this time!"

"But you picked it first!"

"And nothing happened then! This one's all on you!"

Seeing as how your last use of a Gate Spell in Recife drew the attention of a magic-user, you figure it's better not to travel directly to the city that way again, at least not this soon. Instead, you wait around a bit for the sun to come up, and then slip out of town under a temporary Spell of Invisibility, making your way to one of your varying teleportation sites - given the still-early hour and the non-zero possibility of Things still hiding in the shadows of the forest or the hills, the abandoned gas station seems the best option - where you set up one of your very-temporary Private Sanctums, and (still invisible, as it happens) teleport to Brazil.

You arrive at the square where you've met the Muhlfelds before, and find that Nicolau is there ahead of you, accompanied by his son-in-law. There's a few other people around, whether on foot or riding various vehicles, and you take a moment to duck into a narrow side-street and dismiss your Spell of Invisibility, before stepping back out into the morning traffic.

As you head for the Muhlfelds, you notice a couple of the people that you pass doing double-takes in your direction, but then shaking their heads and moving on.

Even with the looks of a famous actor, you don't appear to be drawing as much attention as your usual adult form(s) would. That says something, although you're not sure what.

"Elder Nicolau," you greet the old man as you approach.

"I'm sorry, may I help you..." Nicolau stops and frowns at you, spiritual senses focusing. "Is... that you, Alexander?"

"It is."

"...alright, I'll bite; why do you look like a young Harrison Ford?"


"I've been in an Indiana Jones kind of mood recently."

Nicolau considers that, and shrugs. "I did like those movies, myself."

As there's nothing you feel needs immediate discussion, the three of you don't hang around.

"Will your relative be joining us?" the son-in-law, Matheus, inquires, as he helps Nicolau to his feet.

"Most likely not," you reply. "He's checking up on some other matters in Japan right now." It would have been somewhere past nine in the evening when your Dark Self got to Gen's, which you hope didn't put your elder partner out too much. "Besides, having two visible strangers show up would have drawn more attention."

Matheus gives you - and specifically, your borrowed face - a doubtful look at that last part, but withholds further comment.

The drive to the Muhlfeld residence takes up the better part of twenty minutes - something that the two men in the front seats note is due more to the morning traffic than anything else - but you arrive without incident. The home in question is a fairly nice one, probably older than your parents by the architectural style and the feel of its threshold, but quite well-maintained. As with the other Quincy residences that you've seen, there are subtle hints of supernatural defense about the place, in the form of slightly modified Quincy Crosses adorning various spots and the blink-and-you'll-miss-it aura of the wards those symbols are helping to anchor.

That said, with what appears to be a three-, maybe four-bedroom setup for the second floor, the place doesn't seem quite large enough to house the entire Muhlfeld family, which makes you suspect that they've likely got another house to their collective name. That thought is strengthened when you're escorted inside-

A groggy Andreia, clad in pajamas covered with colorful teddy bears, turns sleepy eyes from her breakfast to you, blinks slowly, and declares, "I'm still asleep, aren't I?"

"Actually..." Nicolau begins.

"No, I'm definitely still asleep" - she says, even as she's clearly starting to wake up in a hurry - "because there is NO way my loving family would leave me sitting in my pajamas in front of a stranger who looks like a young Harrison Ford!"

"I DID tell you we were expecting a guest, dear," her mother replies frankly.

"I thought you meant LATER!" the poor girl wails in embarrassment.

-and find that the oldest granddaughter and her husband are not present. Everyone else is, though, and just from casual inspection with your assorted senses, they all seem fine.

You have a few options at this point. You could cast a Spell of Divination to query the Goddesses if the Muhlfelds are going to be visited or spied upon by the Wandenreich in the next week or so - but that would ONLY cover the next week. The Spell of Communion could grant you a longer window and would give you more questions to work with, but it's a more potent spell - especially if you offset the normal material cost - and would be more likely to draw unwanted attention to the Muhlfelds from other Powers as a result. Another option would be to place an extended Spell of Status on the family, to let you know if something happens to any of them; even with the necessary modifications to make it last a reasonable amount of time, you could hide the magic, though it would only affect the Quincy members of the family, and the "receiving" end of the spell would take up one of your buff slots for the duration.

Alternately, you could do nothing. It's been two weeks and nothing bad has happened; surely that's a good sign?

Of course, all of these hinge on whether or not the Muhlfelds are willing to accept further sorcerous assistance from you. They DO already owe you a fair amount for services rendered, they may prefer to avoid adding more debt.


The Muhlfelds aren't opposed to getting a heads-up on whether or not they can expect a visit from their distant cousins in the next week or so, and with their consent, you set up in the dining room - which is located in the back of the house, with drapes easily drawn across the window - and ready a shortened Spell to Create a Private Sanctum to hide the energies of the Divination.

Andreia, who you'd thought had disappeared back into her room to stay, reappears after the fog-dome has filled that room, sticking her head in and out of the area of the spell. She seems partly amused by the novelty of something that resembles an indoor weather phenomenon, and partly weirded out by it.

"Why does this seem so much stranger than taking a ride through a hole in space?" she wonders aloud.

"Maybe because it's happening in your house this time?" Briar offers.

"Maybe," the teenager replies uncertainly. "But Grandma used to do some weird rituals in the house, too, and then there's training." She raises one arm, showing off the Quincy bangle there. "Not that we do that in the living room or would ever do it anywhere except the basement," she adds quickly, with a reflexive glance in her mother's general direction.

"Of course," Briar says politely. "So maybe it's a bit of the weird ritual actually being performed in this room, as well as just WHO is doing it."

"...yeah, that could be it," Andreia agrees.

You spare the two of them an annoyed glance, silently protesting that your rituals are no weirder than anybody else's.

While you could have cast the Spell of Divination using pure mana and some of your conjured incense, the Muhlfelds were willing to hand over a small object to serve as the sacrificial reagent that normal casters would have to use to invoke this magic - in this particular case, a small bracelet of leather and beads that used to belong to Nicolau's wife, and which carries a modest amount of spiritual energy that feels quite unlike Quincy powers.

You are reminded that the lady in question was a medicine woman.

The bracelet is sufficiently valuable to fill the necessary role, and the Muhlfelds do not mind parting with it-

"She would insist on it," Nicolau assures you. "In fact, she might well come back to yell at us for being sentimental idiots if we DIDN'T use it to pay for this opportunity to ensure our safety."

Andreia laughs weakly at that. "Yeah, let's NOT wake Grandma up cranky at us." She glances around, as if expecting to see an annoyed ghost.

-so you get on with your ritual, the bracelet dissolving into motes of golden light as you reach the height of the spell.

Interesting craftswomanship.

Good spirit, too.

I like the colors!

You keep your question simple: "Will the Muhlfelds be threatened by the Wandenreich within the next week?"

And lo, the Goddesses do answer: "Not as things stand."

And there you have it.

"...so, thank you?" Andreia ventures uncertainly, in the direction of the circle of incense-sticks.

"You're welcome."

"Eeep!"

As you're cleaning up after yourself, it occurs to you that you could ask the Muhlfelds if they know anyone who could benefit from serious magical healing - which would give you a chance to test out your Heal Spell - but you quickly suppress that notion. For one thing, it's not related to your business with the family, and for another, working high-end magic with an obvious lasting impact is exactly the sort of thing that could draw attention to the Brazilian Quincy clan, even if you went all-in on hiding yourself and the casting of the actual spell.

After all, you only asked the Goddesses if they were safe from the not-so-Hidden Empire; there's plenty of other possible threats that could be led in their general direction, such as that mage you saw snooping around after the Gate that brought them home, or the Hollows you've been told periodically haunt the city.

Quite aside from that, you know that the results of a Divination aren't set in stone - always in motion is the future, after all - which is one reason why such inquiries usually provide less straightforward answers than what you got today. And even then, the Goddesses' answer was conditional.

If you were to drop the Muhlfelds' address on whatever desk Jugram Haschwalth is using right now, for example, that would pretty neatly defy the divine answer you just received.

In any case, it's a little shy of ten in the morning, local time - or not quite six in California. Is there anything else you'd like to do in Recife, while you're here?


You're a little surprised by Andreia's apparent ability to hear the Goddesses. Previously, whenever you cast a Spell of Divination within earshot of others - others who didn't come from or have direct connections to Hyrule, at any rate - the best they've been able to hear was distant singing.

As a result, while you're cleaning up from the ritual, you ask around to see what the rest of the family heard of your question-and-divine answer session.

It comes as no surprise that Matheus, the token normal of the assembled group, didn't hear any actual words. What IS interesting is that Nicolau ALSO couldn't make out what the Goddesses were saying, whereas his daughter and two present grandchildren heard their words fairly clearly.

At a guess, you would say that Grandma might have had a little more influence on her descendants than expected.

In any case, there's nothing else that really needs your attention or presence here in Recife - at least not for the next week - and it would probably be for the best if you went on your way.

"How often do you feel you will need to return?" Nicolau inquires.

You consider the question. It's been two weeks since Auswahlen, with no indication that the Wandenreich have clued in to this family's awareness of the disruption of their King's revival, and your Divination just added a third week to that. While checking to make sure that the Brazilian Quincy are safe from the retribution of their distant cousins is one thing, there's only so far you can stretch that before it starts to feel like you're imposing on them - especially if you're charging them for the service, or asking them to make a minor sacrifice like their grandmother's spirit-bracelet every time.

How many more times do you think you should stop by to make sure the Muhlfelds are safe from retribution?

With that sorted out, Matheus Muhlfeld gives you a lift to a different part of town, to help throw off anybody that might detect the residual energies of your teleportation, and keep them from making a direct connection to the Quincy family.

It's a bit difficult to claim ignorance of a passing-by sorcerer when he's left a teleport signature in your living room.

Gained Local Knowledge (Recife) F (Plus) (Plus)

While in the van, you switch from your Harrison Ford guise to a more local appearance, which makes it easier for you to disappear into the crowd once you've exited the vehicle. From there, finding an empty side-street is just a matter of walking.

A few minutes later, and you're back in California-

"We meet again, Dr. Jo- wait."

-trying not to have a heart attack as your Dark Self takes advantage of his own Spell of Mind Blank and intimate knowledge of your behavior and habits to spring a surprise welcome on you.

"You changed your face," he complains, from where he's sitting in the shade cast by the abandoned gas station. "Now it's ruined."

Avoiding the trap of asking whether it's your face or his joke that's been ruined, you ask Shadow Alex how long he's been waiting there.

"Only about twenty minutes," he admits.

The trip to Japan didn't run too long, then. That's concerning, but you ask anyway: "What'd Gen have to say?"

"Well, after he got through being dramatic about people showing up unannounced after dark and how an old man needs his rest..."

That does sound like Gen.

Anyway, cutting out your senior shopkeeping partner's theatrical tendencies, you'd previously learned that the heart of a hihi youkai could serve as a suitable Life reagent for your purposes, though you'd need to refine several of the things. You had hoped to arrange to personally hunt down the creature(s) in question to help improve the quality of the material, but your Shadow informs you that the non-sapient monster monkeys are something of a protected species, with hunters only permitted to take a certain number each year - unless one of the things starts eating people, which hasn't happened for a while.

With Shadow Alex having passed on your willingness to take part in the next hihi hunt, Gen will be letting his contact know to expect you for the event - but it's not going to happen for some months, which might be too long for your tastes.

Unfortunately, Life reagents of the level of quality you're interested in for crafting that theoretical Belt of Regeneration are a bit hard to come by, at least in the circles Gen moves in. Getting something else as good as the Hihi Hearts or the blood of a Fae troll like Grack is very unlikely, and Gen wasn't currently aware of anybody who'd let on to having such materials, much less a source.

"If we're set on borrowing the trait of regeneration," your Shadow reports, "the only other 'local' entities Gen could be sure would have it were living vampires, oni, assorted greater youkai, and asuras. He REALLY didn't recommend messing around with any of them."

You can imagine.

Breaking it down a bit, you probably have to rule asuras out as potential donors. You aren't familiar with the creatures, but from what your Shadow relays of Gen's account, while not actually demons, they're apparently intrinsically opposed to gods - and by extension, to those favored by gods - while also being jealous and wrathful beings. Getting any of them to work with you, even from their lower ranks, would likely end up being more trouble than it was worth.

Modern oni are not likely to be a helpful source of major Life reagents, either, for much the same reason that your average modern troll wouldn't be - not unless you're willing to go all-in and kill sapient beings for what you want, and even then, it would take several hearts. You have... reservations... about resorting to such a course of action. Finding greater oni that could donate some of their blood for your cause might have been an option even a century or so ago, but most such creatures have long since died, gone to one of the Hells, died and gone to Hell(s), gone to Hell(s) and died, or been sealed away by people who got tired of dealing with their nonsense.

That goes double for the actually LEGENDARY oni, if not triple.

Basically, unless Akkiko can get you in touch with the Arisawa's inhuman ancestor - which IS a thought - or the Shuzens have the right contacts - which is ANOTHER thought - you're probably out of luck even FINDING a suitably strong oni to draw some blood from. And even then, you'd still have to convince them to open up a vein for you, which would undoubtedly involve bribery and violence.

Because oni.

Speaking of the Shuzens, the blood of a living vampire IS a possible reagent for a regeneration enchantment, but adapting something that normally runs off of negative energy-infused life-force for the (mostly) normal human variety would be tricky. Technical issues aside, you've run into the Shuzens' reluctance to let samples of their blood fall into magical hands before, and THIS time you'd be asking for a reason that didn't directly benefit one of them.

Weighing against that is the fact that you ARE due to look into re-embodying Akua's adopted sister. So there would be some gratitude there that you might leverage... although doing so would assuredly eat into any Gratitude Crystals you might conceivably collect from the action.

It's a tradeoff to keep in mind.

As for greater youkai, you are on speaking terms with a nine-tailed fox, who even went so far as to grant you the means to summon her once as a show of gratitude. You could conceivably trade on that service, but you will note that kitsune aren't exactly famous for their physical heartiness, which might limit how useful some of Lady Takara's blood could be for this purpose. The only other great youkai whose name you even know is the Lord of the Western Lands, who is allied to the Shuzens, but really has no reason to do you any kind of favor, let alone one involving his blood.

Based on the information you've picked up from your friendlier Shinigami contacts, you might also add advanced Hollows to the short list of Japanese regenerators, but the difficulty and danger of securing a suitable specimen would not be trivial.

To sum up, you have a few potentially viable options for later consideration.

For right now, though, you're going to take a break.


Three weeks of safety from the Wandenreich, a full third of them without any active magical defense, strike you as a reasonable indication that the Muhlfelds aren't in any particular danger from their distant relatives.

That said, you do take the precaution of leaving your Magic Cellphone's number with the family, just in case an emergency comes up that could use your input, Wandenreich-related or not. This is accompanied by a quick review of the time differences between Brazil and various time zones that you regularly travel to, including the states of New York and California, Japan, and Great Britain, as well as your occasional jaunts off-plane, and how all of those could impact your response time.

"Wait," Andreia interrupts at one point. "You're saying you have a cellphone that can get a signal from ANYWHERE in the WORLD?"

Her disbelief and envy are palpable.

Your trip to Brazil didn't even take up two hours, prep and travel times included, so when you return home - having amused yourself by taking the practical precaution of changing your appearance a few more times while walking the early morning streets of Sunnydale - the house is quiet. Your mother has gotten up and gone to work in your absence, covering a morning shift at the hospital, while your father takes the opportunity provided by Zelda's silence to catch a few final winks.

Moblin reacts to your return eagerly enough that you end up turning around and going right back outside, to let him work out his energy with a walk up the street and back.

"Wanna play fetch, boy?" you ask, shaking his Haunted Ball.

"Poe-oe-oe!" The tiny Poe trapped within the sphere protests.

"Ball!" Moblin barks eagerly. You hardly need the Spell to Speak With Animals to understand him at this point, but you have it running anyway.

"Go get it!" you say, throwing the ball.

"OOOOooooeeee-!" The Poe wails as it flies away.

"I'll get the ball!"

You don't get many chances to play around with the Haunted Ball outdoors - the ghost isn't all that obvious, and that before considering how it's half-invisible and -inaudible to people without a certain degree of spiritual awareness, but you figured it was better to be safe than sorry. Still, there's few enough people on the streets at this hour that you think you can get away with it-

"Good ball," Moblin growls, biting the thing.

"Pooooe," comes the spectral sigh.

-and Moblin is clearly having fun.

When you return home (again), your father has given into the inevitable and gotten up to have breakfast; he's just waiting for his toast to rise when you get in.

It's fairly quiet morning, Zelda notwithstanding, and even with a few acts of magic here and there - a couple of hours in your workshop, another half-hour checking your garden, some minor amusements for your sister - your reserves are back to full strength by lunchtime.

While you're eating, you consider how to spend the afternoon. It's well after dark in Germany and Wales, and so too late to drop by either location, but it's only early afternoon in New York; you could stop by to visit Balthazar and/or Dave, or to investigate Columbia University's library. Maybe a bit of both?

If you waited a couple more hours, it'd be a decent time for you to visit Japan, whether to check in with a friend there, continue working through that list of favors you're doing the Hakuba Shrine to thank their kami, or to conduct other business.

Though on the subject of divine favors, you've still got a few days to go before the lunar cycle will have advanced far enough to give you any real idea of how it is and isn't tied to the manifestation of that crimson-colored, bloody-smelling mist you ran into the last time you accompanied Ichirou on his rounds of the neighborhood.

Of course, you don't actually HAVE to do anything special with the rest of the day.


"Not ANYWHERE, anywhere, but almost. It comes in handy for moments like this."

Andreia blinks. "Where does it not work?"

"Just the other day, I found out that it can be blocked by certain kinds of wards."

You don't get coverage in other planes of existence, either, but that's probably more than really needs to be said.

"Like the ones on our house?" the older girl asks, frowning, as she looks towards the ceiling.

You spare a glance roofwards yourself while you think back. You don't recall having any issues with using your Magic Cellphone in the homes of the other Quincy families you've been visiting, but then again, the Archers and Ishidas hadn't had a magic-user in residence recently. Who's to say that Grandmother Muhlfeld didn't have a hand in setting up the defenses on her family home, or that her work might not interfere with the enchantments of your phone?

Just to be sure, you get the device out and turn it on.

The signal is steady, and the dial tone clear.

"Not like these ones, no," you reply, ending the 'call'. "And not quite like the ones on my own home, or the places I regularly visit."

With that out of the way, there is the matter of the debt the Muhlfelds owe to you. While you're not about to put a price on people's lives - and thankfully, with Auswahlen having been cancelled, you don't need to try - the spells that you directly cast on or for the benefit of the Quincy refugees are another matter. Those you can and have attached a pricetag to, which makes it much easier for them to make good on their mystical obligation to you, before it has a chance to collect on its own.

Greater Spell Immunity, Death Ward, two uses of Gate, covering the family with Nondetection for a couple of weeks, and now today, a Divination and a Private Sanctum. Accounting for all the energy spent and saved by your various modifications to the spells in question, that works out to about... 1,140 silver pieces, 142 and one-half Rupees, or $1,900.

...

Wait, what's the exchange rate between U.S. dollars and... no, what even IS the currency in Brazil?

"I am a bit embarrassed to be asking this," you say, "but is anybody aware of the exchange rate?"

"Actually," Nicolau says, "I've been keeping an eye on the financial pages in the paper for this very occasion. Eneas, if you would...?"

The grandson fetches the newspaper as requested, and the three adults gather together and go over the pages in question.

"Here we are," Nicolau says after a moment. "As of the First of July, the exchange rate was 1.8 reais to the American dollar."

...so, 3,420 reais.

Gained Local Knowledge (Recife) F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Portuguese E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

"Magic doesn't come cheap, huh?" Andreia muses.

The Muhlfelds have known for a few weeks that there would be a payment due, and the adults - including the absent granddaughter and her husband - have been pooling their resources in preparation. As it happens, they also have some of the more traditional currencies of the supernatural side on-hand: some gold and silver coin-

"Wait, what?" Andreia and Eneas exclaim.

-a few minor pieces of mundane jewelry-

"WHAT?" Andreia repeats.

"No heirlooms or the like," her mother assures her.

"Not the point, Mom!"

-and a collection of little crystal figurines.

"Aw, look at the little crystal mouse with his glittery whiskers!" Briar exclaims in delight as she flutters over the thing.

"No protests?" you wonder aloud.

"Grandma always DID hate those things," Andreia admits.

"And here's a shiny butterfly!"

"...then why did she have so many of them?" You count nearly two dozen of the things.

"Gifts from my mother," Matheus admits wryly. "And SHE always insisted on seeing them whenever she visited."

You consider that response for a moment. "...not on good terms, huh?"

"No," he says simply.

"Ugh, a cat... well, it's cuter than the ACTUAL thing..."

All in all, it's really not a question of whether or not the family can cover the cost of your services, just what form(s) you'd prefer to be compensated in.


"You should see the cost of some magic items."

"How bad?" Andreia asks.

"It depends on what you're making," you admit. "To give you some context, though? At the low end, for a single-use item that would only work for a trained magic-user, you're looking at tens of dollars - maybe a couple hundred at the most. If you were talking about, say, a magic sword that anybody could use, it'd easily run you a few THOUSAND dollars for something that was just a little sharper, a little more accurate, and a little more resistant to damage than a well-made mundane weapon. Then there's the genuinely high-end stuff, like golems and artificial intelligences-"

"That almost sounds like you're saying that magic ROBOTS are a thing," Andreia interrupts.

"The technical term is 'construct,'" you inform her. "And they DO fill the same kind of role as modern or sci-fi robots, as a theoretically perfectly loyal, mentally and physically tireless workforce. Even the cheapest versions of those would start at thousands of dollars, and could easily reach the millions."

And that's not even getting into the cost in TIME.

"REALLY?" Briar exclaims in delighted surprise.

"Really?" Andreia echoes in disbelief.

Most of the rest of the room is giving you similar looks.

"Really," you answer everyone, though you're looking at your partner when you add, "Pick out your favorites."

"Eeee!"

It takes a little consulting and magical assessment to figure out the actual "worth" of each piece, so that you don't overcharge the Muhlfelds or get underpaid for your services - either of which could cause some issues down the line that you'd just as soon not have to deal with, especially when you can so easily avoid them - but eventually, you are the proud new owner of ten secondhand crystal figurines, all packed in little carrying and display cases.

Gained 10 Crystal Animal Figurines

"You're sure you want them?" Nicolau asks.

"My partner likes them, I know some other people who will like them" - you're thinking mainly of Zelda, here, but some of your friends might find them cute, too - "taking them is no great inconvenience to you, and the crystal's quality seems good enough that I could bind some enchantments to them."

At that last remark, the old Quincy looks from you, to the glittery animals, and then back, his expression honestly curious. "What sort of enchantments, exactly?"

"Well, crystal like this has fair compatibility with Light Magic," you tell him. "Simple color-changes and optical illusions would be easy-"

Nicolau nods.

"-and I might be able to give them the equivalent of tiny lasers-" you add, while picking out a tiny shark and thinking of a certain super-villain.

He stops nodding. "Eh?"

"-but I'd also given some thought to animating them, or using them to anchor summoning spells for creatures similar to the animals represented," you conclude. "Either of those would be somewhat more work-intensive, and I might not have the time or the precise materials required. We'll just have to see what my muse wants and my resources allow."

...

"...I'm not sure if the images that conjures are more cute or unsettling," Nicolau finally replies, sparing another, warier glance at his late wife's trinkets - both the ones you're taking, and the ones left behind. "Instead, I will simply say: Thank you, for my family."

Your pocket warms.

Gained 15 Gratitude Crystals

You nod. "You're welcome."

Shortly after that, you take your leave.

It occurs to you that a visit to the Shinigami scientists might be in order.

For one thing, there's a little vampire girl's spirit still in need of a new body, and it is right around the time where Urahara said they SHOULD be finished making that gigai.

For another, you kind of want to get an expert's opinion on what the deal is with Moblin's Haunted Ball. You're still drawing a blank as to what, exactly, the Poe inside could have DONE to merit this kind of punishment, and you haven't been able to discern whether or not the Ball (or just captivity) is actually DOING anything to the tiny, trapped spirit - not that you've looked THAT hard, admittedly, having had Rather More Urgent Matters to attend to. But now that you've got a bit of a breather and people's lives and souls aren't on the line, it's something you could afford to investigate.

...also, not going to lie, you kind of want to see the look on Urahara's face when you show him the Ball.

On a third point, the looting of Silbern yielded a few items that Urahara and Tessai might enjoy a chance to examine, and while you can't GIVE them said items just yet - not without them counting against your share of the total, which you are reluctant to do before you have a full list of what's up for grabs and for possible horse-trading - you can certainly let the Urahara Shop squad know about the success of your raid and see if they're at all interested in... shall we say, making a bid on certain pieces?

Alternately, you might see if the two spiritual researchers would be willing to help you - or Ambrose, or Balthazar, or more likely all three of you - in making sense of the various spiritual materials and mechanisms pilfered from the Wandenreich... though it also occurs to you that you might want to try and get Ishida Souken in on that as well. His inside information on the Hidden Empire might still turn up a few useful tidbits, and even without that, he's still a Quincy Elder that you can contact without putting him, his family, or yourself in any particular danger.

You might also take this opportunity to see how things are working out with the rest of the Japanese Quincy, but that will have to wait and see.

After allowing for a couple more hours to pass, so that the time in Karakura is more reasonable for a visit, you head down to your lab to make some preparations...


As you set up your enhancements, you spare a moment to wonder if you should feel guilty about utilizing the equivalent of four upper-tier spells in a negotiation with people you claim as allies.

Then you remind yourself that, from what little you know and can infer, Urahara and Tessai are a couple of centuries old and undoubtedly have some experience dealing with Shinigami politics, on TOP of however long they've been running the Shop and making deals. So this is really just leveling the playing field!

Since you've got time to spare, you cast most of your spells ritually. The Spell to Bestow Insights is one you HAVE to cast in this manner, so it costs you a bit of mana, but you were at full strength to start with, so that's no hardship. And since the Spell to Perceive Cues is so cheap, you go ahead and cast that one normally as well.

When it comes to the matter of your spell of disguise for the day, you go with the Spell of Adjustable Polymorph again. The Shinigami are probably still keeping a closer eye on Urahara Shop than usual in the wake of the Auswahlen incident and your friendly match with Captain Zaraki, and today's business doesn't really concern them, so you'd be just as happy not to be recognized.

And while you aren't EXPECTING to get into a fight today - friendly or otherwise - having the option to call on adult-level strength, reach, and other such advantages if trouble manifests is a comforting notion.

Once the previously-used guise of a Japanese businessman has settled into place, you make yourself briefly invisible, open up a Gate from your Mirror Hideaway to the Tokyo Tower, and quickly step through. As the portal silently closes behind you, you move away from the "landing zone," looking around for tour groups or staff members, but the place is a lot quieter than it was on your last visit.

It IS only a bit past eight in the morning on this side of the ocean. You actually aren't even sure if the Tower is open for tours this early...

You're well down the hall - and still invisible, even as you quietly gather power for a relatively short-ranged Spell of Teleportation - when you hear hurried footsteps behind you, heading for where you arrived. This is followed by a cry of dismay, and someone berating someone else for being too slow - or maybe they're angry at themselves? The words don't make it clear, and you only hear one person.

Passing the shrine to the Tower's resident kami, a few minutes later, your Teleport Spell drops you off in Karakura. Since you started from a much closer location, you were able to cut down on the range a bit and reduce the signature of the spell below the threshold of your ability to conceal your spellcasting. Combined with the ritual approach and the Spell of Mind Blank scrubbing your personal signature, this is was probably the "quietest" teleport you've ever performed, and certainly the least obvious when it comes to traveling to Karakura.

It deposits you on the sidewalk, just inside the mouth of an alley a couple of streets down from Urahara Shop. The spot is one you've passed often enough for it to be familiar to you - and thus safe to travel to using a standard Spell of Teleportation - but it's also far enough from the store and the Kurosaki and Ishida residences not to draw attention straight to them, should someone have managed to detect your little twisting of space-time.

Looking at the morning traffic, you shuffle a bit deeper into the back way and the shadows the buildings cast over it before dismissing your Spell of Invisibility. After that, you just walk out and join the foot-traffic, with hardly anyone so much as batting an eyelid.

No giant Yakuza-looking foreigners here, no sir, just a perfectly ordinary Japanese businessman on his way to a meeting.


Although you do kind of want to just nod and be on your way, the secondhand memory of your Shadow's meeting with the kami of the Tokyo Tower makes you feel a bit sympathetic to the socially-isolated small god.

You're also curious if anything has come of that gold coin that Ambrose dropped in the donation box.

So it is that - while keeping an eye out for the attendants - you approach the shrine, digging into your pocket for some of the Gold Incense that you make a point of never leaving home without. You recall your Shadow seeing a couple of small incense burners set up around the shrine on that previous visit, and when you get closer today, you find that one of those has mostly expended the piece of incense set into it.

You set about removing the charred stick from its stand-

"What was that?" you hear a divine voice wonder, before its presence moves in your direction.

-and then produce some of your own brand from your pocket-

"What the...?"

"Hi, there!" Briar greets the god.

-using a simple cantrip to light it.

"Oh, the fairy!" the Tower's spirit replies quickly. "I remember you!"

"Actually, you remember my Shadow."

"...okay, even more questions... but first, is your partner here invisibly, or is that you moving stuff around?"

"I am here," you greet the godling. "Sorry if I'm intruding, but I was passing through and felt like making an offering. Since you seemed to like the incense from last time..."

"Yeah, that stuff was a cut above the usual," the kami agrees. "Pleasant aroma, potent energy, that faintest, briefest hint of something unholy being seared out of existence..."

Wait, what?

"I certainly don't mind getting a fresh piece," the spirit continues, "although it is definitely going to confuse my miko when she gets here."

"Another reason to make the offering, then," you note.

Briar cackles feyly.

The kami doesn't quite manage to hide a chuckle.

While they (try not to) laugh at the remark you made largely on auto-pilot, you're more focused on inspecting the incense stick you just set up. Maybe it's merely lingering concern from your recent adventure in the Memorian Base, but the kami's mention of "something unholy getting seared out of existence" suddenly has you worried about your conjured incense having been corrupted somehow, despite all the precautions you've taken to avoid such a thing.

After a few moments of moderately intense magical analysis, though, you relax. There's no internal taint, and the external stuff is so light that it barely even merits the name. It's just a few faint spots of ambient Hellmouth gunk that hadn't been fully purged from your aura by the wards on your house or your regular purification rituals, and which either passed from you to the stick when you got it out, or did so when you put it in your pocket after creating it.

Chaotic evil fingerprints, basically.

And now that you're really paying attention, you CAN kind of sense-smell what the kami was talking about. It's almost like hearing the echo of the scream of the World's Tiniest Demon as the Golden Boot of Goodness comes down...

...

That was a weirdly specific image, and you aren't quite sure where your brain got it from, but it's in good company, as you find yourself asking the kami if they'd be interested in having you drop off some Deku Nuts the next time you swing by.

"What on Earth is a Deku Nut?"

You explain.


"Funny you should say that," you tell the kami, as you fish out one of the Deku Nuts you were given for your birthday. "They're not actually FROM Earth..."

You hold the Deku Nut out so that the little god's ball-of-light form can get a good look at it, and with word and gesture - and no more about Hyrule than absolutely needs to be said - explain how, upon being flung at a relatively solid surface-

"Your typical forest floor will do," Briar notes, "at least as long as it hasn't rained too much recently, or you aren't on the banks of a river or pond or something. But if you've got anything as rigid as a good-sized tree or a stone around, you're golden."

-the Nut will release a burst of light, force, and smoke that, while harmless in and of itself-

"Though that does depend on the exact strain of Deku Baba," Briar admits.

-can still temporarily stun most creatures caught in the direct blast, and likewise briefly blind (or at least dazzle) those a bit farther away, granting the user an opening to make a run for it or take other actions. And of course, they're hard enough to be used as modestly-effective throwing weapons, which has the added bonus of causing the flash to go off right in someone's face, if you've got the arm and the aim to pull it off.

Not wanting to alert security, you opt NOT to demonstrate these particular uses.

"What sort of plant produces EXPLODING NUTS?" the kami asks in bewilderment.

Oh, if only you had the time to talk about the wonders and terrors of Bomb Flowers...

"Have you heard of the Venus fly-trap?" you ask instead. You're honestly curious: you're not even sure if the plants in question are native to Japan; and this IS the spirit of a manmade structure in the middle of one of the largest and most heavily developed cities on Earth besides. Kami or not, he may legitimately not know what a Venus fly-trap is.

"...I think so. Those are the ones that have leaves they can quickly fold together, kind of like a mouth?"

"Right. Now, picture one of those, with an actual, tooth-filled mouth-"

"Eeep."

"-make the stalk about four or five feet tall-"

"What."

"-make the head a bit bigger than a basketball or soccer ball-"

"WHAT."

"-and give it the ability, the will, and the DESIRE to lean around and actively BITE anything that gets too close."

"...so they're basically Piranha Plants," he concludes.

The reference to Super Mario Brothers actually catches you off-guard, as much for how concerningly ACCURATE it is as anything else, but you roll with it.

"The exact lineage of the Deku Baba is... muddled," you admit. "They've long since been naturalized to the world in question, but there's definitely some degree of demonic ancestry in there, and the things are also very common in a region that's so close to Faerie, the Border Ethereal, and the Plane of Shadows that it's possible to move between all four realms just using natural portals."

"Oh, THAT sounds terrifying."

Moderately terrifying, yes. Which is just one more reason that Link is the Chosen of Courage.

With that much said, you carefully crack open the Nut in your hands-

"Didn't you say they were explosive?"

"It takes a sudden, hard impact to set them off," you remind the kami. "A slower, gentler touch, in the right place and direction, and you can open them up without too much of an issue."

-and pluck one of the Seeds from its interior cavity.

Used 1 Deku Nut
Gained 5 Deku Seeds

"Deku Seeds aren't good for much on their own," you say simply. "I've never heard of anybody eating them, and given how hard they are and what they come from, I wouldn't care to try it, myself. Similarly, they don't have any alchemical or magical uses that I'm aware of, or at least none that couldn't be achieved with other, easier to get materials. About all I'd use them for is slingshot ammunition-"

"You actually HAVE a slingshot?"

"-or for growing new Deku Babas."

The kami stares at you for a long moment after that, before demanding in disbelief: "Why?"

Even leaving aside the matter of their origins, the Tower spirit doesn't really have a use for Deku Nuts or Deku Seeds, and isn't interested in securing a supply of them. And like yourself, he can't really see them having much worth, making them pretty pointless as offerings.

"The best that could happen there is that they get swept up, thrown out, and tossed in an incinerator," he says. "But if they get washed down a drain, there might be an outbreak of giant carnivorous plants in the sewers, or something like that."

...point. You'll keep the Seeds, then.