The glasses arrive, and with a little work-
*Scree-pop!*
-you get the barrel open. Pouring is a bit of an experience, but with a bit of magic and some advice from Akasha, you manage to deal out a small amount of Alboa's Blood to each of the Shuzens. At the Dark Lord's recommendation, you aim for a couple of ounces per adult, and half that for the girls.
While your pouring does get some of the blood on the sides of the glasses instead of neatly in the bottom, it's at least on the IN-side.
Issa, Gyokuro, and Akasha all make some degree of a show of considering the color and scent of the blood. Against that, you see Kokoa staring suspiciously at her cup.
Then all the glasses are raised in a silent toast, and imbibed.
There are considering hums, a couple of quiet yelps, and a full-body shudder from Kokoa.
"Thnake," she complains. "Ugh."
"Tathteth like water," Moka agrees sourly, trying to blow on her tongue.
"He did say it was aquatic," Kahlua reminds her sisters. "Though there's something else there... something vaguely earthy, and another... I don't know how to describe it."
"Like the feeling you get when you can't remember a dream?" Akasha offers.
"Yes, that! Except as a taste."
Lady Bloodriver nods. "That would be the Fae essence."
"Dracula again?" Gyokuro guesses at the source of Akasha's knowledge.
Akasha raises her half-emptied drink in salute, perhaps to Gyokuro, and perhaps to someone else. "He was a connoisseur."
"Everyone has their hobbies," Issa says, setting his empty glass down on the table before his seat - his perfectly empty glass, at that. You would have expected some of the blood to linger, smearing the crystal goblet, but instead it's almost as clear as when it was brought in.
Now is that due to the makeup of the glass, or does it have something to do with the one drinking from it? You know from your reading that a corpse-demon can drain a human body almost entirely and with alarming speed, if they're given free rein to feed, and while you don't normally make comparisons between that sort of vampire and the type the Shuzens are, the strigoi, it would make sense if they had a similar ability to... be thorough... in their feeding.
Regardless, while none of the rest of the family come close to the same negative opinions of the two youngest daughters, there does seem to be a general agreement that aquatic subterranean Faerie snake blood is one of those "acquired tastes."
Which isn't to say that the Shuzens aren't interested in purchasing the remainder of the keg from you, just that they won't be drinking too much of it, too often.
Some good-natured negotiations ensue, with the final price working out to $500 - Issa let something slip about knowing someone who'd appreciate the flavor, which you cheerfully exploited to pad your profit margin on this transaction.
Akasha just laughs at the whole process, saying that you haggle like an old-world merchant.
"I deal with Ambrose, Balthazar Blake, and various Fae on a pretty regular basis," you reply. "It'd be kind of hard for me NOT to sound like a traditional merchant. Still," you add, putting on an air of magnanimity, "I will take the compliment in the spirit with which it was offered."
Akasha smiles, giving you a half-bow from her seat. "You are most gracious, kind sir."
You put on your best nose-in-the-air snooty expression and tone as you say, "Yes."
"Nose is a little too high, and tone too low."
You adjust. "Yes?"
"Tone's a bit high, now."
"Yes?"
"There you go."
"Yes."
You give a moment's thought to taking your earnings half in American dollars, half in more traditional sorcerous currency, but then it occurs to you that your adventure in Silbern netted you a great pile of treasure, most of which is going to be difficult to convert to cash - at least in the short term. Likewise, while you can pretty easily use gold and silver on the supernatural side of things, moving it to the mundane market has issues of its own.
With that in mind, it makes sense to take payment for the barrel of Alboa's Blood in cash. Five hundred dollars isn't all that much in the grand scheme of things, but it's money you can use around people not in the know without seeming unusual.
As long as you don't drop too much of it at a time, anyway.
Sold Alboa's Blood
Gained $500
Just as you're considering voicing a suggestion for what to do next, the servant who brought in the money - and who is currently holding the re-sealed keg of blood before himself - murmurs something to Issa, who nods and dismisses the man before turning to face Akua.
"They're ready for us, Akua," he says.
"...ah," the girl replies softly. "Well, then. Let's... not keep them waiting."
There is some quiet confusion as Kahlua and Kokoa ask you and their parents via gestures and expression if they're supposed to wait in this room, or if they're allowed to go with Akua. Moka dispenses with that and just goes along with the older girl, while Akasha doesn't quite hover over the two of them.
Trailing after the trio in the lead, you absently reach into your pocket for Akasha's Earrings, running your thumb over the last of the reagent-grade diamonds still housed in the gold. You aren't sure if there will be any call for one final round of spiritual healing before Jasmine's soul is placed in its new temporary housing, but just in case...
Your thoughts trail off as you re-enter the previously mostly-emptied room and look around.
Urahara and Tessai brought quite a bit of luggage with them, but even so, there seems to be MORE spiritual-scientific stuff in here than you would have thought those crates and containers could have accounted for, unless of course they had extra-dimensional spaces attached. From what you sensed before and currently, that doesn't seem to have been the case.
Rather, when you look at some of the larger objects - like the tangle of mechanical arms hanging over the bed like something out of a hospital surgical suite, or the rack of instruments standing against the nearest wall - you see that they're mounted on multiply-jointed frames, the sort of things that can be easily folded down and tucked away to make them a bit more practical to store or carry around. Then there's the containers that have been opened up like folding toolboxes, all manner of spare parts and raw materials ready and waiting for use.
At some point since your depature, the occupants of the room all donned labcoats, surgical masks, and binocular headsets that are once again going to get Urahara slapped with a lawsuit if anybody from Columbia Pictures sees them.
You'd be more impressed that they found stuff that could fit Batreaux if Tessai wasn't such a big man himself. As it is, the fact that they had a spare outfit in that size is still kind of impressive.
Last, and certainly not least, is the body that occupies the reclined bed, a blanket tucked up to its chin. Though child-sized and slender, you aren't sure if it's quite the right shape to match Jasmine's sleeping spirit, and it's oddly generic besides, lacking any hair that you can see and with features so bland that you can only describe them as "a face." The eyes and mouth are closed.
"Welcome!" Urahara declares cheerfully, his own eyes curving above the mask he wears as he spreads both arms grandly.
*Kraka-THOOM!*
You aren't sure if the Shuzens' presence would cause issues for the transfer, but Urahara hasn't said anything that makes you think it's likely, and their presence might help settle Akua.
Worst-case scenario, they have to wait in the hall.
So you gesture for them to follow you as you move to catch up with Akasha, Moka, and Akua.
Though you are tempted to rate Urahara on his theatrics - and not well, at that - you decide to ignore the showmanship and focus on getting on with things.
The surgical mask makes his expression hard to read, but the slump is pretty obvious, at least for the three seconds it lasts before the man perks up and begins explaining the procedure to those it most concerns.
"This is the gigai," he explains, indicating the unmoving body. "They're normally made entirely out of spiritual matter, but that would have made it somewhat more vulnerable to ambient energies, which the young lady in question might not have enough pure spiritual power to offset. Likewise, she might not have enough spiritual power to push a normal gigai into proper corporeality, at least not for people with human-standard levels of spiritual awareness."
"Wait, she could be INVISIBLE?" Kokoa exclaims.
"Or maybe even walk through walls!" Urahara agrees brightly. "With those possibilities in mind, I've taken the precaution of lacing the body's structure with purely physical elements, which will help to shield Miss Jasmine from environmental influences. And also to keep her solid," he adds, glancing at Kokoa.
"Nuts."
"How do we move her soul into the body?" Akua asks.
"A normal gigai is designed to be about as easy for the user to don or remove as a set of clothes," Urahara answers. "They could just lie down on one like this, sort of sink into it, and then wake up and start moving around. But the intended user of a normal gigai is a trained and conscious Shinigami, so we'll be doing things more slowly..."
He outlines the procedure, which boils down to manually transferring Jasmine's soul to her temporary vessel, taking several very reasonable precautions along the way to avoid disturbing her or damaging the false body. Once she's actually inside the gigai and properly interfaced with its systems - something Urahara and Tessai will use some of their gizmos and a few specialized kido to monitor and calibrate as needed - its pseudo-biological functions will kick in, and she'll gradually wake up on her own.
How long that might take, Urahara admits he's not quite certain of, but based on past instances of non-Shinigami souls being placed inside gigai, he's estimating anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. More realistically, somewhere in the middle.
Akua takes it all in, asking a few technical questions.
For your part...
Between your knowledge of Necromancy and similarly extensive grasp of spiritual matters, Akua's questions about the specifics of the gigai and its function don't turn up anything you didn't already know or suspect - though the confirmation of the latter is welcome, especially under these circumstances.
Urahara answers the vampire girl's inquiries patiently, and while the two of them are doing that, you turn to ask Tessai a few questions of your own.
First, of course, is the matter of whether or not the family is allowed to stay to observe the procedure.
Tessai says it will be fine, and directs your attention to the floor around the bed where the gigai lies, where a modified Magic Circle had been scribed out on the stones, with several spirit-tech devices placed along the circumference. In fact, several such arrays have been set up in the room, the others apparently meant to shield some of Urahara's equipment.
Taking in the adjustments that were made to the arcane diagrams, you doubt they would stop even the weakest of summoned creatures from crossing its edge - but against the ambient energy of Castle Shuzen, or the auras of nearby observers, they might as well be a series of walls.
You pause to chide the castle-spirit as it pokes at the edge of the nearest Circle.
Your next question is whether or not they'd like you to cast a final Spell of Restoration on Jasmine before they begin the procedure, or if they'll be treating her remaining injuries some other way.
"While we do have our own methods for treating spiritual injuries, they're largely untested on strigoi souls, let alone a child's," Tessai rumbles. "Seeing as how your spell has already been shown to be effective and carry no long-term side-effects..."
You nod, filling in the rest of the sentence yourself. "Did you want me to stay outside the circles, or...?"
"Actually, if you could stand inside this one" - Tessai gestures to the space around the bed - "that would let us record the best readings," he continues, indicating the sensors that hang above you the bed on unfolded arms.
You spare the big man a dry look.
You also broach the subject of performing some simple Divination Magic, to see if the procedure will be successful or not.
Tessai has no objections to that, and so you step clear of the various Circles on the floor and cast a quick Augury, letting the sticks fall as you ask, "Will this procedure go off without a hitch?"
Then you look down.
...
"What do they say?" Akua asks intently.
"Signs point to yes," you reply.
She looks at you, then at the "team" of spiritual "surgeons", and finally, at her family. Then, closing her eyes, Akua takes a deep breath, steadying herself.
"Alright," she says, as she opens her eyes once more. "Let's do this."
"Fine," you sigh, "but I want a labcoat."
After all, if you're going to do a thing, it behooves you to do it RIGHT.
"Of course!"
And Tessai produces a spare labcoat from one of the boxes, along with a surgical mask and some gloves.
As you're donning the gear, you glance at the overhead array of devices and ask, with some suspicion, "Just how much of this equipment is actually meant to monitor JASMINE, anyway?"
"Oh, all of it," the big man assures you.
You pause, one arm in a sleeve, to frown up at him.
"But much of it is multi-purpose," he admits.
Of course.
You finish outfitting yourself for the procedure, the mask giving you a few moments' worth of confusion as you try to work out which side is properly "up." You also take the opportunity to poke at the outfit with your senses, to see if you can figure out what Urahara has done to it, and quickly discover that the mask, coat, and gloves are all laced with spiritual energy. You aren't sure if the material has been directly infused or if there's a weave of spiritual matter paralleling the physical fabric, but the result is something that feels like it's at least mildly impermeable to spiritual energy.
You doubt it would stand up to a direct ATTACK, but passive emanations, like those a spiritually aware entity not specifically engaged in combat or a similarly emotionally intense activity gives off, just by existing? Should be pretty effectively caught.
Explains the masks, too. After all, there's a reason why the word picked to describe circulating life-energy means "breath," and given ki has a spiritual component AND carries along physical and psychic energies besides, measures would need to be taken to ensure minimum contamination.
While the nature of the manufacture makes these coats, masks, and gloves more suitable for today's procedure than any "off the rack" examples, it does present one small issue, in that you're unsure of your ability to properly copy and replicate the spiritual component of their makeup - at least not if you just use a Spell of Major Creation to conjure your own version.
You'll need to test that at some point.
Gained Conjuration Template (Urahara-Brand Labgear?)
Seeing as how Akua is in direct contact with Jasmine's soul and isn't inclined to move very far away, Urahara spots her a lab outfit of her own. There are several more left, you note, but after some consideration of the size of the "surgical area" and the number of people that are already going to be involved, as well as a quiet conversation with her older sister, Moka agrees to step back and wait with the rest of the family.
And from there, it begins.
First, you... wait a moment, as Urahara and Tessai switch a few of their gadgets out of "standby" mode, or whatever they were on, and produce a few more from shelves or pockets to point at you, Akua, Jasmine's soul, and finally Akasha's Earrings.
Once all of that's done, you cast the Spell to See the Invisible-
Urahara takes another scan.
-the Spell of Blinking, for access to the ethereal-
*Blink*
"Oh, you won't get away that easily," Urahara mutters, adjusting his meter.
-and finally make with the magical spiritual healing.
*Beep*
*Beep*
*Tick-tick-whirr*
*Buzz*
Expended Akasha's Earrings
Your previous efforts at healing the little vampire's sleeping soul had addressed a fair amount of the damage you observed on her that first day, closing up the... gaps... between her limbs and torso, and filling out her figure from "painfully thin" to just "small." There wasn't much left you really COULD heal at this point, at least not using the Ritual of Restoration, but better to be thorough, right?
*Beep-beep-beep*
"Hnnn..."
*Beep-beep-beep*
Or maybe being thorough might wake her up-!
"Not just yet, little one," Urahara says, swiftly placing a hand before Jasmine's face. "Way of Binding, Number-"
*Blink*
"-Forced Slumber."
There is a pulse of spiritual energy, and the pre-wakening murmurs and face-wrinkling that you were seeing immediately fade away.
"...'kua..."
Akua looks up at the shopkeeper-scientist. "Easier to work with an unconscious patient?" she inquires mildly.
"Might be more accurate to say that it's 'better'," he admits. "More work on our end, but less shock for her."
Akua nods.
You grab your Shadow-
"Oi."
-ask everyone to excuse you for a minute, and then move out into the hall.
"So what brilliant idea have we had now?" Shadow Alex asks.
"I figured I might as well set up some Prying Eyes to record this," you answer, gesturing back at the room. "You know, just in case there's something that Urahara's set-up can't catch. So if you could spot me a Spell of Arcane Sight and a Spell to See Invisibility...?"
"Eh, makes sense."
A minute and change later, you have twenty-two crystalline eyeballs floating into the "operating room"-
"Wha-!" somebody small yelps in surprise.
-where they take up places along the ceiling and walls in accordance with your brief instructions. Most of the Eyes have been imbued with the spells you requested Shadow Alex cast, with three that are limited to ordinary vision due to the sheer number of targets exceeding his ability to enhance with a single casting. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though, as having a "normal Eye view" of the the procedure would give you a point of comparison to use against the various forms of enhanced vision.
Kahlua looks from you to the cloud of Eyes and then back again. "Really, Alex?" she asks, deadpan.
You blink, wondering why she seems so- oh. OH.
"...it's the fact that they're eyeballs, isn't it," you state.
She nods, as do her sisters.
Urahara has Akua stand to the right of the bed, facing away from it so that he and Tessai - who are standing on opposite sides of the head of the bed - can clearly see Jasmine. You are in the next spot down from Akua, towards the foot of the bed, while your Shadow stands to Tessai's left - directly opposite to the living vampire girl - and Batreaux mirrors your position. This puts all three of you sorcerers in good positions to cast spells on anyone who might need them, or simply to observe the procedure yourselves. Given the crowding and the abundance of Eyes clustered above and around the area, the Briars have opted to sit with Thistle and Kokoa, and hence are over at the front of the room with the Shuzens.
Once everyone is in place and prepared, the work begins.
Where you had to shift yourself into the Ethereal Plane - temporarily and awkwardly, at that - to reliably interact with Jasmine's sleeping soul, Urahara once again just reaches out and does it, gently breaking her grip on Akua's shoulders, one finger at a time. Once the first hand is free, he maneuvers it well away from Akua and casts another Shinigami spell, this one wordless, conjuring a small mass of spiritual matter that just sort of hovers there in mid-air before Jasmine's hand.
When she reaches forward, unconsciously fumbling for her sister's shoulder, her fingers brush against the object and quickly take hold of it, the grip tight for a long moment before relaxing.
Urahara repeats the process with the other hand, and then just slowly pulls Jasmine off of Akua's back altogether.
She kicks a little at that, but the movement is rather like... well, no, it's EXACTLY like someone twitching in their sleep, as opposed to any sort of intentional movement.
Tessai has been monitoring the entire time, and now brings the sensor in his right hand forward, moving it up and down in front of the little soul, especially around the head and the heart. It occurs to you that, with the way Jasmine had been anchored to Akua, clear scans of her chest might have been difficult to get.
Looking at the readout in his left hand, Tessai nods. "We're good to proceed."
Then he sets aside the device and reaches across the bed to help Urahara glide Jasmine's form into position, tilting her legs up and her head back so that she's laying in the air about two feet above the gigai, without having come into contact with it. They're careful to keep enough distance so that even the fabric of her robe doesn't touch the false body, despite the hang of the skirt.
They leave her there for a moment, taking some additional scans, and then begin to slowly lower the girl into her temporary vessel. Jasmine's soul sinks into the material of the gigai readily enough, but not evenly, and once part of her is inside, the two Shinigami have to resort to using some of their tools to reach inside and adjust the "fit": straightening a finger here; shifting a limb a bit there; and doing other things that you can only assume involve connecting the soul to the body.
You can't see through the gigai, of course, but your overlapping Mage Sight and Spiritual Sight do let you make out at least SOME of what the two Shinigami are doing.
As Urahara said they would, the exiled scientists take their time, never rushing to reach for a new tool, never raising their voices above a calm, businesslike tone when they speak to each other, guide one of their assistants to retrieve a particular device or check a readout, or just comment on the progress of the procedure. This, even when there are a few small sparks of vampiric youki that clearly surprise them, at one point disrupting one of the tools badly enough that Urahara decides to switch it off and trade it out for a replacement.
And as they work, the gigai's bland appearance begins to slowly shift, more closely mirroring the appearance of Jasmine's soul - or at least the parts of her spiritual body that are properly within the physical vessel. The shape of the limbs and torso are first, followed by the facial features - and hair, which rapidly grows out once they adjust something in the head - and then skin tone, which remains a little off-color and patchy in places until the fit is corrected.
Somewhere in there, the gigai starts breathing.
You hear Akua's breath hitch in response.
Perhaps forty minutes later, Urahara and Tessai take a step back, put down their tools, and take a long, thorough scan.
"Spiritual pressure is steady," Tessai reports. "Youki signature appears likewise."
"All connections read nominal, all systems operating as expected," Urahara adds. He looks at you and Batreaux. "How do things look on your ends?"
"Magically speaking, the child appears stable," Batreaux answers, peering down at Jasmine with arcane light in his eyes. "Not precisely alive, but neither non-living nor undead." He looks up. "A FASCINATING violation of the natural cycle of life and death, sir. I SALUTE YOU!"
Behind his mask, Urahara grins, and takes a little half-bow.
There are pretty solid mystical reasons for any bit of Divination Magic that creates a visual sensor to give that sensor the shape of an eye, and doubly so when the spell is meant to convey the information directly to its caster or share some degree of his powers of sight, let alone both, as Prying Eyes does - if on a timed delay and to a limited extent, respectively.
You suppose you should be grateful that whichever ancient magic-user first came up with the spell didn't design it to generate ACTUAL eyeballs. Thinking on it, there almost HAVE to be variants that do exactly that, and the prospect of a swarm of rubbery, goo-dripping, unblinking orbs floating around, STARING INTO YOUR SOUL...
Ugh. You will take the eye-shaped crystal spheres, and be grateful.
You deflect the girls' obvious displeasure with a helpless shrug. "What can I say? I didn't create the spell, that's just how it works."
Kahlua hmms, but doesn't say anything further.
Following the completion of the fitting of the gigai - or at least this stage of it - Urahara steps away from the bed where Jasmine now sleeps, re-raising his headgear and pulling off his mask once he's clear of the decontamination circle on the floor.
"Are there any issues we should be aware of at this point?" Issa asks.
"Don't use youki within the warded circles," Urahara replies, as he starts slipping one of his gloves off. "Don't disturb the circles or any of the other equipment, and if you're planning to wait inside one of the circle, please don a mask. Don't worry, we brought plenty."
"No labcoats?" Akasha asks lightly.
"Well, there are some, if you REALLY want, but the girl will be fine around passive bodily auras now that the gigai is active. Even active auras SHOULD be perfectly safe for her, but as this is the first living vampire's soul I've ever heard of being re-embodied, caution is the order of the day."
Gyokuro nods. "While we wait for Jasmine to wake up, can we offer you tea? Or perhaps lunch?"
"I could do with a meal," Urahara agrees. "Tessai?"
"You go ahead, Manager; I will remain and keep an eye on things, just in case she proves to be a light sleeper."
Akua lets out a breath that is almost a laugh.
"Alright. Switch with you in, say, half an hour?"
"If our hosts do not object...?"
"That will be fine," Issa replies.
Not surprisingly, Akua is staying put, and Moka and Akasha are staying to keep her company. Batreaux checks to see if the offer of lunch extends to him as well, and then graciously accepts.
For your part, you could eat; it's a little early by Japanese time, but kind of late by California time, so it works out.
As promised, Urahara takes about half an hour to enjoy a modest lunch before heading back to take over monitoring the "patient" and give Tessai a chance to take a break and get something to eat himself. You decide to follow suit and trade places with Shadow Alex - if only for the sake of fairness and maintaining positive Shadow/self relations - and so are present to hear Tessai's statement that there's been no significant change to Jasmine's condition.
"All readings are indicative of a state of deep sleep, too deep for rapid eye movement," Tessai states, as he removes his labcoat and begins neatly folding it up. "Of course, our baseline information is derived from a mix of mundane human medical literature, and supernatural sources that include Shinigami - both in and out of gigai - and various youkai species, but not strigoi. So our readings may be... slightly off."
"I would have been surprised if it were otherwise," Akasha says wryly.
"Not a lot of vampire doctors out there?" you guess. "Or... doctor vampires? Either-or?"
"There's never been much genuine need for healers specialized in treating vampires," Akasha admits with a shrug. "We're hardy enough that most mundane injuries and afflictions aren't really an issue, and even for worse conditions, blood, rest, and just burning the source out with youki are usually effective. Quite aside from that, most of us are... a bit lacking in scientific curiosity? And we REALLY don't want other people knowing how our bodies work in any greater detail than they already do."
Considering how reluctant the Shuzens were to let you handle a small amount of Kahlua's blood to enhance her Gauntlets, you can see how they might have problems with medical practitioners, whether ancient or modern. That's not even getting into the matter of all their various weaknesses, and what a pain it would be if someone discovered the underlying biological causes and then came up with new ways to exploit them, let alone the warnings you've heard against letting Magi and other arcane researchers play around with vampire blood.
If a patient's basic biology was likely to infect, transform, and/or kill you, that would tend to put most sane researchers off the subject, and who trusts a crazy person to cut them open and put them back together properly?
Anyway, given how long Jasmine is likely to remain asleep, Akasha and Moka try to coax Akua into getting something to eat. They're eventually successful, which leaves you and Urahara alone with the sleeping girl for a time. Tessai returns after half an hour, punctual as ever, and brings with him a tea service; Shadow Alex remains absent for another quarter of an hour-
"What? Burning down corpse-demons makes me hungry."
"That was most of a day ago, and YOU haven't actually been hunting," you return.
"The MEMORY of burning down corpse-demons makes me hungry."
-and is almost beaten back to the room by Akua.
Jasmine's brainwaves remain very low for another half an hour past that, but then start to pick up. At the same time, you can see her eyes moving behind the lids. There's ten minutes of such activity, followed by a period of "quiet," and then a longer, more intense dream. This cycle repeats a few times, each period of REM longer and more pronounced than the previous one.
You aren't there for the entire thing, stepping out to spend some time with Kahlua and the castle-spirit, and checking back in every half-hour or so, trading off with Shadow Alex a time or two in the process.
As the afternoon drags on, you think you've figured out why Tessai's remark about Jasmine possibly being a light sleeper was almost enough to make Akua laugh.
Finally, about five hours since the end of the "fitting", Jasmine starts to stir.
By some coincidence or act of divine providence-
Don't look at me.
Don't look at me, either.
I didn't do it!
Suspicious!
-you're in the makeshift spiritual-surgical theatre when the steady beeping of some of the equipment suddenly starts to pick up. Urahara is absent from the room, taking another break, as is your Shadow, while Batreaux was last seen in the company of Uncle Boris - both of them laughing entirely too enthusiastically for anyone's peace of mind - and the fairies are off doing fairy things. Most of the Shuzens are also elsewhere, with only Akua and Akasha still keeping up the vigil. A member of the staff is standing just outside the door, and has been for the last twenty minutes or so, the latest in a chain of hour-long gofer assignments.
Akua starts on her chair at the abrupt increase in pitch and frequency of electronic sounds, glancing at the devices in question with some concern, but the instant she looks at Jasmine, she seems to forget about the machinery altogether.
You can't really blame her, because the way the younger girl's face is twisting is unpleasant to see, and the way her youki is twisting around her is no more reassuring.
"What's happening?" Akua demands.
"Based on these readings," Tessai rumbles, as he examines the instruments, "I would say she's having a nightmare."
Akua winces, reaches towards the bed, and then stops herself before touching Jasmine. "Should I...?"
"Let her wake up on her own, Akua," Akasha says firmly. Even as she speaks, Lady Bloodriver nods to the servant in the hall - who turned to check on the room when things started getting noisy - who moves to the intercom to alert the rest of the family.
"But-"
"Never wake up a sleeping vampire unless you're ready to fight her, dear."
That remark - and the ongoing curl of dark vampiric life-force - gives Akua a moment's pause, as she's briefly torn between offended pride and pained acknowledgment.
You don't doubt that she COULD easy handle Jasmine if she had to, but you're just as sure that Akua doesn't WANT to have to do any such thing. It'd be a horrible way to start their reunion.
On a side note, you avail yourself of Akasha's warning and keep a respectful distance from the bed. Tessai is... not quite doing the same, he's sort of obliged to be too close for that, but he is making an effort not to loom over Jasmine.
The noise continues for a moment, and then Jasmine twitches.
"Hnnn..."
One twitch becomes two, and then a shift.
"Ahhh..."
One hand grasps clumsily at something that isn't there, and the legs shift beneath the blanket.
"Huh-!"
This is the moment where, in a big Hollywood production, you'd expect the patient to thrash around, wake up screaming, and lash out at anyone who tried to get close. In an anime, they might also punch someone through the ceiling, depending on how much of a comedy the setting was supposed to be.
Instead, what actually happens is that Jasmine's eyes flash open - irises bright red, pupils slit, and tears built up at the corners - and gaze about in a random, staring manner that has you questioning if the girl is even seeing anything. She's not quite looking AT any of you that are in the room, but more in in the general direction of your auras.
Except for yours, of course. Your presence, she seems to miss entirely.
Under different circumstances, you might be hurt, or smugly secure in the confirmation of your power. As it is, you're a little concerned you're going to spook the girl when she's conscious enough to notice there's someone in the room that she didn't pick up.
But that is an issue for Future Alex and Future Jasmine to sort out; Present Jasmine has locked on to the only familiar presence in the room.
"A...kua-?"
And then there are tears, and hugging and to hell with Urahara's recommendations - not that Tessai breathes a word of protest - and a lot of babbling that you think is an apology, and WOW, Akua is going to be really embarrased when she remembers that you're in the room.
In for a penny, in for a pound, as the old saying goes. Or perhaps a pounding, in this case.
Regardless, you stay put and let your Prying Eyes keep recording.
For a time, Akua's words are too fast and too thick with emotion for you to make any real sense of, beyond the obvious context; Jasmine in turn doesn't say much beyond a few whispered words, seeming rather too occupied with the older girl's hug. That said, she does glance in Akasha's direction once or twice, at Tessai another time, and once even at the servant who has returned to waiting outside.
Your presence seems to slip under the little vampire's radar again, and she doesn't appear to have noticed your swarm of watchful Eyes, either.
By the time you hear footsteps coming down the hall, Akua has, if not precisely calmed down, then at least recovered some of her self-control. While she doesn't release Jasmine, she does relax her grip and pull back just enough to look the smaller girl in the face. When she speaks next, you can make out the words she's speaking, and even if you aren't fluent enough in Chinese to recognize all of them, you do get some, and can infer a few more. Jasmine speaks more in turn, and you pick up a clear, "Where are we?"
Being told they're in Akua's father's home - or was that the Chinese word for castle, maybe? - visibly startles Jasmine, who casts another quick, nervous glance at Akasha and asks Akua something.
The older girl's answer causes Jasmine to do a double-take and let out a soft, "Aiya..."
You are... pretty sure you didn't hear the Chinese for "Dark Lord" in there, so what is the young vampire so surprised about?
Further conversation is halted as the approaching party comes within range of Jasmine's senses. Whether hearing the footsteps or detecting the youki, the small vampire visibly flinches away from the door, causing Akua to half-turn and half-snarl in that direction as she reflexively shields her friend - though she smooths her expression out before Kahlua, Moka, Kokoa, and the fairy trio come into view.
You don't need to understand the language to follow the introductions, particularly when it comes to Moka, as Jasmine appears to be struck speechless by the sight of her. Moka seems to share the sentiment, and you can understand why: Jasmine's hair is dark brown rather than silver; her eyes are proving to be a lighter earthy shade where the blood-red has begun to fade; and some of the finer details of their features are different. Aside from that, however, the two of them could almost be sisters - cousins, easily.
And then, turning slowly, Jasmine takes another, longer look at Akasha, visibly pushing herself to see past the strawberry-blonde hair and green eyes.
Akasha smiles a bit sadly and shakes her head, saying something in rough Chinese about... centuries?
"What are they saying?" Kokoa wonders.
"Something about Miss Akasha not having been to China for hundreds of years," Kahlua reports with a frown of concentration, "and not having had any children befo-ohhh."
"What? What is it?"
Gained Chinese E
Jasmine, meanwhile, seems disappointed by Akasha's answer, but not really surprised by it.
Akua just tightens her hug a bit.
While Akua, Akasha, and now Kahlua have shown themselves to be fluent in the particular dialect of Chinese that Jasmine speaks, and you can likewise infer that Issa probably shares that skill, it would still be less troublesome if everyone likely to be in the audience could understand her clearly. So that's you, Kokoa, and Moka for sure, and beyond that... you'd probably better ask.
"Excuse me," you begin.
Jasmine yelps and whips her head around to stare at you so quickly, you're surprised that she didn't headbutt Akua by accident. You catch a "Who-?!" and "What-?!" before losing the thread of what she's say to her friend, who gives you a brief glance before focusing on Jasmine again.
"As I was saying," you continue.
"Gui!" Jasmine squeaks in alarm, pointing at you. "GUIIII!"
Akua chokes out a laugh, and manages to say... something in return.
"Do I want to know?" you ask with a sigh.
"She - hee - she thinks you're a g-ghost, Alex," Akasha replies, doing her best to fight down her own sudden attack of the giggles.
...because of COURSE that's what the recently incorporeal dead girl called you.
The three fairies in the room don't even TRY not to laugh.
"Could you... clear that up please, Miss Akasha?"
"Of course."
"Right," you say, as Akasha turns to take care of that, "as I was saying, would anybody like for me to cast a Spell to Comprehend Languages on them before this goes any further?"
"I would!" Kokoa says at once, hand in the air.
"I would," Moka agrees.
"I should... probably stick to practicing my Chinese," Kahlua says reluctantly.
"The spell helps as a practice aid," you note.
"Oh, in that case, please and thank you."
"The Manager and I will be fine as we are, Alex," Tessai informs you.
"Indeed we will," Urahara says from the doorway, where he, Gyokuro, and Issa have turned up together.
Mr. and Mrs. Shuzen both politely pass on the magic, so you step out into the hall for a moment to shield the instruments, and get on with your spellcasting. It requires bumping the spell up to the fifth-circle to affect everyone - fortunately, you can leave the fairies out, since they're able to share spells of this sort with their partners, and Shadow Alex turns up in time to be included - but it's not an issue otherwise.
"What kept you?" Shadow Briar asks her partner, as you start tapping people on the forehead with a mote of magic.
"Bathroom break," he says simply.
With the spell cast, everybody heads back into the room.
"Um," Jasmine says quietly, looking at you, "I apologize for calling you a ghost."
"Thank you," you answer, "but you don't have to apologize."
"Oh! You speak Chinese very well!"
Gained Chinese E (Plus)
Heh.
"Magic is helpful that way."
Jasmine's eyes widen at your statement. "Magic? Really?"
You nod. "Really."
"Aiya..."
"I've learned some youki techniques," Akua says abruptly.
"Oooh, really?" Jasmine looks eager. "Can you show me? Both of you!"
Akua pauses and looks around. "Ah... not right now, Jasmine."
"Aw, why not?"
"The, uh, 'doctors' who... helped you have asked us not to use techniques like that in here. It could mess up their machines."
"Oh." Jasmine glances at the beeping equipment around her, and then down at the sensor stuck to the back of her hand. "I guess that makes sense..."
"Thank you for understanding, little lady," Urahara says.
Jasmine blinks at the man for a moment, taking in the shaggy blond hair and sleepy eyes above the medical mask, the casual, old-fashioned Japanese clothing underneath the labcoat, and of course, the hat.
She edges a little closer to Akua.
"Kind of shady-looking, isn't he?" you observe.
"Mm," Jasmine agrees, nodding.
Urahara spares you a long-suffering glance before getting on with Jasmine's post-awakening examination. While he and Tessai are asking Jasmine to move an arm thusly, look at some kind of overbuilt, multi-lensed penlight, and describe any unusual or uncomfortable sensations she's experiencing - taking readings the entire time - Akua gradually introduces everyone in the room.
Jasmine does her best to be polite, but it's clear that formal manners aren't a large part of her behavior. Not that she's rude, either, she just acts like a nice little girl who doesn't see why she can't be friends with everybody she meets - or at least most of them.
She seems rather cautious of all the adults, particularly Issa, even after Akua acknowledges him as her father. In fact, you catch something that's almost a glare at that point, though it vanishes as quickly as it came.
You don't doubt that the adults noticed, but none of them mention it.
While you can understand why the three grown men in the room might be a little scary - Urahara has that sort of untrustworthy face (and everything else), Tessai is just really big, and Issa just kind of emanates intimidation even without trying - you're a little puzzled by Jasmine's wariness towards Gyokuro and Akasha.
Some of it, you think, is a simple case of a young girl being a bit star-struck by the presence and attention of two very impressive ladies, and trying not to make a fool of herself in front of them, but there's another sort of caution in Jasmine's body language that you don't really understand.
Jasmine greets Kahlua easily enough, complimenting her on her language skills, and when Kokoa bulls her way through a halting greeting-
"What the heck?" the little redhead demands of you. "I thought you said this spell would let us speak Chinese, so why do I still sound like an idiot?"
"I said it would help you UNDERSTAND Chinese, and make it easier to learn," you reply, in Chinese. "Actually SPEAKING the language is a bit beyond that spell, though."
There is sputtering at that.
-Jasmine declares her adorable, much to Kokoa's indignation and the amusement of all the other girls.
Moka isn't much better at speaking Chinese than Kokoa, but more than that, she just doesn't seem to know how to deal with another person who looks so much like her. Jasmine isn't much better off in that regard, and their greetings are mutually awkward.
Then, of course, there are the fairies-
"Nihao!" all three of them declare in unison.
-who positively, but not literally, enchant the young vampire girl.
Not unlike yourself, Shadow Alex manages to pass unnoticed in the now rather more crowded room-
"Wha!"
-right up until Akua points him out.
At that point, Jasmine can't help but look back and forth between the two of you in confusion. "Twins?" she wonders.
"No, just magic," you reply.
Gained Chinese E (Plus) (Plus)
The introductions take no small amount of time, given the number of people in the room, the other questions that are asked and/or answered along the way, and the derails that follow. Telling Jasmine that you are currently in Issa's family castle in Japan, for example, leaves her a bit confused-
"Shouldn't it be made out of wood?"
-until Akua explains it's a European-style castle.
"Oh!" Jasmine exclaims. "You mean, like Dracula?"
"...similar," Akua admits, not looking at the adults.
"How know Dracula?" Kokoa wonders, in her broken Chinese.
Jasmine blinks. "Doesn't everybody?"
Considering what happened during the eclipse, she's more right than she knows.
The talking is still going on when Urahara declares that they're ready for Jasmine to try walking, if she feels up to it.
Jasmine does, in fact, feel up to trying to walk. Really, the greater part of the struggle there is convincing Akua to back off and give her enough space to make the attempt, and even when that is settled, the older girl hovers shamelessly, ready to reach out and catch her friend the moment it seems like she's about to stumble.
Jasmine puffs up her cheeks at this babying, but makes no verbal comment; instead, she pulls back the bedsheet and swings her legs over the side of the bed, moving with a kind of casual ease that strikes a note of discordance with bits of your inherited memories.
Ganondorf reanimated a number of dead bodies in his time, and saw plenty of undead that weren't technically of his making. None of them, not even the ones that retained or eventually regained lifelike function, ever moved so naturally when first rising from their resting places. For a little girl who was quite dead a few hours ago, and is only somewhat less so now, to move like she's completely alive...
Credit where credit is due: Urahara and Tessai do some GOOD work.
"Ah! Cold!" Jasmine squeaks, pulling her legs up sharply when her feet come into contact with the stone floor.
"How cold?" Urahara asks. "Painful, or just uncomfortable?"
"Mm... more surprising," Jasmine admits, reaching one leg down and padding at the ground again. "But I think I'd like some house-slippers, if that's okay?"
"Easily done." And Tessai reaches over to one of the racks that you hadn't looked too closely at before, and realize now has a pair of slippers on it - cute things, fuzzy pink material dyed with little black bat-shapes. He plucks these off the little upright frames that were holding them, and hands them over to Jasmine. "Here you are, young lady."
"Aw, how cute! Thanks, Mister Tsukabishi!"
From Tessai's inordinately pleased expression and how he's reacted to compliments on his handiwork in the past, you suddenly think he might have MADE those slippers.
Jasmine dons her new footwear, tests the floor again, nods to herself, and then half-stands and half-hops off the bed. "Hup!"
Akua reflexively reaches out, stopping herself halfway.
The smaller girl huffs. "Akuaaaa," she half-scolds, half-complains, "I'm fine, I... I just..."
She trails off, staring at her friend.
Staring UP at her friend, you realize.
"Akua?" Jasmine asks slowly. "When... when did you get so tall?"
Under different circumstances, you might laugh at somebody describing Akua as "tall." In absolute terms, she really isn't, and even relative to Jasmine, the inches' worth of advantage she holds could be counted on the fingers of one hand, with a couple of digits left over.
But you aren't laughing.
Especially not after the pained flinch that question prompts, a reaction that Akua is too close to Jasmine to hide.
You feel like there are about to be more tears, or just unhappy feelings.
As much as you hate to see younger kids cry - particularly when the kid in question is a little girl, and doubly especially when she's somebody's little sister - you know it's not your place to try and explain the current situation to Jasmine. Akua is the one she asked the question of, and Akua should be the one to answer; failing that - and it's not unlikely that she wouldn't be able to answer, because ouch, where do you even START with something like that? - one of the adults in the room really ought to take over, as they are Akua's parent-and/or-guardians, and will be acting in the same role for Jasmine going forward.
Not to mention how they've had months to prepare for this event, and have raised three other young children besides. Your own experiences in that area are atypical, but from observations of your friends and sister interacting with their respective parents, one of the skills involved in raising a kid is being able to answer questions while maintaining a certain amount of grace under pressure.
Granted, this situation involves rather more pressure than a kid who keeps asking "why?" after every answer, but you're also dealing with a family of vampires, here. Odds are some of the childish questions Issa, Gyokuro, and Akasha have had to field over the years have involved some rather nastier topics than your average human suburbanite family has to deal with.
...then again, you DO live in Sunnydale, so how "average" your family and the others you've interacted with there really are is open to debate.
As it happens, Akua manages to find her voice. Taking a deep breath, she quietly explains to Jasmine that it's been almost three years since she was "hurt"-
That gets a flinch from the smaller vampire.
-and that it was only very recently that "we" found someone able to help her.
"B-but..." Jasmine begins, faltering. "If I was... hurt... w-why didn't I grow, too?"
Akua manages to maintain her composure-
"Was I... did I... die?"
-right up until Jasmine guesses the truth anyway, at which point the older girl gives up and starts hugging her friend again, repeating, "I'm sorry, my fault, I failed," and variations thereof in a litany of misery.
Gained Chinese E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
That's the last you see of them for a while, as Gyokuro and Issa usher you and the rest of the girls out of the room, leaving Akasha to try and pick up the pieces.
Urahara and Tessai follow you out a moment later.
"That could have gone better," the shopkeeper sighs, once the door is firmly closed behind him.
"Could have gone worse, too," you reply.
"True."
"How well was her body holding up?" Gyokuro asks, ever-practical.
"Quite well," Urahara replies. "Based on the readings we got, we could theoretically leave her as is without any immediate or short-term issues."
"And in the mid- to long-term?"
"She'd start seeing some loss of functionality after a year or so," the scientist admits, "with a progressively greater rate and severity of such damage over time - assuming that nothing else was done. We can compensate for most of that with some further fine-tuning, once she's... calmer."
"'Most'," Gyokuro repeats. "But not all of it."
"Not all of it, no. Based on what information I have about vampire development, this particular gigai isn't likely to last once Jasmine reaches adolescence and really starts to increase her youki output."
So you've got a few years - maybe as much as half a decade, based on Jasmine's apparent age - before her current false body needs replacement?
Good thing you're planning to get her a modified Clone body well before that.
Still, a five-year operational lifetime strikes you as pretty impressive for a prototype, especially when Urahara and Tessai developed it without direct access to the intended occupant.
It was a little past four-thirty when you were "encouraged" to step out of the makeshift spiritual surgery-turned-recovery room and give the remaining occupants some privacy, and normally, when you've visited the Shuzens in the past, dinner has started at or shortly after five o'clock.
Given the day's events, there is a bit of a delay, partly because none of the Shuzens are in all that big of a rush to eat, and partly to see if Akua, Jasmine, and/or Akasha will be rejoining them any time soon.
By about a quarter-after, Gyokuro goes ahead and gives the kitchen staff the word to work their magic, and maybe half an hour after that, all guests and the immediate family are called down to the dining room for the evening meal - with the expected three absences.
Also, Uncle Boris turns up, still chatting energetically with Batreaux.
"We missed you at the big wake-up event, O My Dark Master," you note.
"Ah, yes, my apologies, but it was discussed beforehand that my, ahem, usual EXUBERANCE might be a tad overwhelming for the young lady - and I'm afraid that once I got caught up in talking shop with BORIS THE BLOODY here, I quite forgot to inform you." He glances at the Shadows. "As, apparently, did others."
"Slipped my mind entirely," Shadow Alex says.
"Fairy," Shadow Briar reminds you, entirely too smugly for that 'big enough to hold one thought at a time' business to be remotely applicable.
Fairly early in the conversation that develops over dinner, it turns out that Tessai spoke with the cooks about what sort of food Jasmine could and should be provided this soon after her re-embodiment. Unsurprisingly, blood is at the top of the menu, albeit with some special considerations for quantity, quality, and source.
The first two are easily explained by the fact that it's been literal years since Jasmine has had ANYTHING to eat, while her new gigai has quite literally NEVER used its digestive tract. The last issue has to do with the fact that the Shinigami aren't one hundred percent certain how well the gigai will replicate the vampiric feeding process, at least not so soon after its activation: it might work perfectly; it might need a little more fine-tuning; or there might be some issue that will only turn up under proper "field conditions."
All in all, Jasmine should be sticking to small quantities of common human hemoglobin until they can establish how well she is or isn't digesting it, and what if anything needs to be done from there.
Fortunately, the Shuzen household is well-prepared to deal with such dietary issues.
"I was once well-known for my broad and yet discerning palate," Boris boasts. "Alas, that in my advancing years, I find that vintages I once cherished no longer agree with me. Indigestion; pfah! A detestable condition, made all the more so when you spread it among a thousand bellies, however tiny they may be!"
Aside from the possibility of Tales From the Belfry, are there any particular questions you'd like to ask? You'll be off to an early bed not too long after dinner ends, so as to rise well-rested after your extended day, and still in good time to make your pre-midnight meeting at the Hakuba Shrine.
"...any interesting stories to share?"
"MANY!" Batreaux and Boris declare in unison.
*Snap-kraka-THOOM!*
Oh my; they've managed to combine their powers.
Issa reaches for his drink, an expression of resignation crossing his face.
"But not all of those are fit for CONSUMPTION over dinner," Boris notes.
"Indeed not," Batreaux agrees. "Why, some of them would be in absolutely POOR TASTE!"
"BWAHAHAHAHA!"
Kahlua and Briar - the latter sitting at a fairy-sized dining table for three, set up next to Kokoa's seat - stare at the two chortling old monsters for a long moment, trading glances of mutual suffering and understanding, and then slowly turn to stare at you with gazes of silent accusation.
"But even so," Boris continues, "I have a few tales that might not be UNPALATABLE..."
And then, in between light sips from a glass of blood and a creamy soup that lacks even a hint of pink to it, the vampire elder begins to spin a yarn about the Good Old Days-
"Though one might call them the 'BAT Old Days'," Batreaux notes.
"Or even the 'Old Bat Days'," Boris agrees, gesturing at himself. "Case in point!"
"BWAHAHAHAHA!"
*Snap-kraka-THOOM!*
-wherein a much younger, somewhat more handsome, and immeasurably LESS bald Boris Blutbad was one of the TERRORS of Europe, traveling from city to city, visiting the great monuments of civilizations past and (then-)present, dining with and occasionally upon the lords, ladies, and luminaries of the day, and just generally experiencing all the best things that life had to offer.
"In other words," Gyokuro interjects, "he was a vagabond."
"Please, my dear," Boris pleads. "I prefer the term 'adventurer'."
Nomenclature aside...
"It was late in the year 1099," the old bat recounts. "The First Crusade had concluded with a victory for the knights of Christendom, who were returning to their homes - thus making Europe as a whole somewhat less hospitable for vampires than it had been for several years beforehand. After a brief run-in with a group of such men, I thought it best to seek shelter at the residence of a local vampire lord by the name of Walter Bernhard, who reigned over the Forest of Eternal Night..."
Boris goes on to explain how his visit wasn't solely motivated by a desire to mooch- er, seek shelter from all the Crusaders wandering about, but also because he'd been hearing some odd rumors about the vampire in question since entering that part of Europe. Bernhard had not been seen in public since before the Crusade was launched - nothing new in and of itself, him being an older and somewhat reclusive vampire - but sightings of and attacks by his monstrous minions had been dropping off in and around his domain, and the rate of vampire feedings was going down as well. And once Boris reached the Forest itself...
"The place was originally well-named," he explains, "as Walter had possession of a relic that not only protected him from the rays of the sun, but also cast his lair into an EVERLASTING DARKNESS! And yet, when I arrived, the sun was still clearly visible in the sky... and the castle itself had largely collapsed."
Boris spent the next few weeks in the area, exploring the ruins, alternately questioning or fighting the handful of monsters that still resided in the area, and resting in a small cottage located just outside the fallen walls, which had survived whatever brought down the castle unharmed.
"From what I was able to put together, the cottage had been the residence of an old alchemist named Gandolfi, who Walter permitted to reside on his land as part of a game he played." Boris pauses to sip at his blood. "In short, whenever he heard tell of a warrior of sufficient skill, he would kidnap someone close to them and force the warrior to run a gauntlet through his castle and his many minions, in order to rescue the hostage. The point of the exercise was to entertain Walter, and his 'recruitment' of Gandolfi was meant to try and improve the quality of the 'show' by giving the would-be heroes safe haven, counsel, and some material support - antitoxins, potions of healing, repair and replacement of their equipment, that sort of thing."
"Backfired on him?" Batreaux guesses, with an air of sage wisdom.
"And how," Boris chuckles. "From what the surviving monsters said, the last of Walter's 'guests' tore through the castle like a one-man army, killed Walter himself - despite that supposedly being impossible - and then made it out alive even as the castle came crashing down around him."
...
That... strikes a chord. You missed your chance to experience it in person, but between your readings of Twentieth Century Sorcery and stories told about Dracula, you're aware that HIS Castle had a tendency to fall to pieces every time he was defeated.
Even beyond that, you can dimly sort-of-recall another castle going to pieces around you, as a Hero and a Princess make their escape... but you don't poke at that memory too closely.
Gained European History E (Plus)
Smile and raise a glass.
Kahlua and Briar scowl at you.
You just smile more, feeling neither guilt nor shame at helping two old men find friendship in puns and sorcerous drama.
When Boris mentions that this ancient vampire lord supposedly owned a relic capable of protecting his domain from the sun's rays, you ask if he ever heard what happened to the item in question.
The old vampire shakes his head. "At the time, not so much as a whisper. Decades down the road, I started hearing the occasional rumor that a new master or mistress of the Ebony Stone had emerged, but every time I tried to run one of those tales down, I found a liar, a pile of ashes, or a rich idiot with a pretty trinket at the end - or sometimes more than one of those."
There are nods all around the table at that, even from the two Shinigami.
"A couple of centuries on, those stories had stopped turning up," Boris continues. "Most likely because Lord Dracula was coming into his power at the time, and the one time HE was known to have encountered another vampire claiming mastery of the Stone of Eternal Night... well, it ended rather badly for the fool in question. People more or less stopped talking about the Ebony Stone after that."
Huh.
Considering the parallels with Castle Dracula and... other places... you feel it necessary to ask if this "Castle of Eternal Night" was anything special as far as fortresses of powerful creatures of darkness go.
"It did have a few things in common with Castle Dracula," Boris admits. "I only had the opportunity to visit Castle Bernhard-"
Ah.
"-once before its destruction, but when I happened to gain an audience at Castle Dracula centuries later, I was struck by certain commonalities. All vampires like to have wealth, servants, and security, of course, and our lords like having even MORE to remind the rest of us of our place, but even by our standards, old Walter and Lord Dracula were VERY well-off. Not to mention that the variety of monstrous servitors both of them maintained, or that some of them were powerful enough to contest with other vampires - that was particularly unusual." Boris grins wryly. "You may have noticed that we can be a bit... territorial."
"Heh. Anyway, that makes it difficult to keep close company with other powerful monsters for any length of time, without violence regularly breaking out - which can be fun, don't get me wrong! But a little hard on the furniture. Even so, Walter was powerful enough that several of the other great monsters of his day acknowledged his lordship, and Lord Dracula was even more outstanding. That was reflected in the quality of their retainers, and the presence of said creatures within and around their strongholds." Pausing to slurp up a bit of his soup, Boris adds, "Though there were two... well, three ways in which the castles were DISTINCTLY different: firstly, Castle Bernhard was merely a castle, however dark and magical, not a creature in its own right; secondly, to the best of my knowledge, it has never been rebuilt; and finally, it had no clock tower."s
"Did you find out the name of the one who destroyed the place?" you wonder.
"Alas, I did not." Boris sighs one of his deathly sighs. "Gandolfi's hut had been stripped of any records or useful alchemical materials long before I got there, Walter's library and personal effects were a complete loss, and while a couple of the monsters I encountered knew the old alchemist's name, none of them knew who the man that had been killing their comrades actually WAS. I did get a description of him, but when I asked around in the nearest villages, all I learned was that the two men had passed through one town together, a couple of years before the First Crusade was launched - by the timing, right after bringing Walter's house down on him, and causing the end of the Eternal Night. They didn't stay long or talk much, and the people were just as happy to have it that way."
You can imagine. Anybody coming OUT of a powerful vampire's domain would be trouble, as far as your average turn-of-the-previous-millennium villager would be concerned, but anybody coming out with signs of that same vampire's apparent DESTRUCTION in their wake would be downright alarming, unless they had a very well-established reputation beforehand to do a lot of the social lifting for them.
From the sound of things, this young man didn't have any such support.
"There wasn't any sort of physical trail to follow at that point," Boris continues, "and the road they took out town split three ways a couple of miles along. I visited the next-nearest settlement on each route, but nobody recognized the descriptions I had."
Hm. Disappointing, but oh well.
Once your questions answered, Boris describes some of his "adventure" in the exploration of the ruins of Castle Bernhard. While the castle proper was a write-off, some of the grounds survived intact, including a rather lovely - and from the sound of it, deadly - garden, and in digging through the rubble, Boris uncovered some intact underground passageways.
"Though some of them had flooded," the old vampire notes, shaking his head. "And one of the ones that HADN'T had the pieces of some gigantic demonic corpse crawling around inside, refusing to properly die." He shudders in memory and reaches for his glass again, adding, "That was NOT a fun evening. Also, ABSOLUTELY not a tale for dinner."
Nights of untold horror aside, Uncle Boris was able to amuse himself with the ruins of Castle Bernhard for the better part of a month before he finally moved on. He stopped by to check on the site a few times after that, partly to see if the waters in that one section of tunnels had drained (they eventually did), partly to make sure the giant not-exactly-dead thing was staying dead (it... apparently did? He refuses to elaborate, on account of people still eating), and partly to see if anybody claimed the place for themselves (never happened, as far as he knows).
Well, then. If nothing else, you've got a few names you could try to invoke (Literary) Visions about at some point, if you're really interested. Though you probably shouldn't do that tonight, as you have a short rest to take and a meeting to get to.
After dinner, is there anything else you particularly want to do before you call it an evening?
(Dryly.) You hadn't noticed.
Kahlua and Moka frown at you.
Kokoa just nods and declares, "Good!"
Which earns her wry glances from her sisters.
In the wake of Uncle Boris's Tale of ADVENTURE, dessert is served - and this, combined with one of the old vampire's earlier remarks, spurs a thought, a line of questioning, and an interested gleam in Boris's eyes.
"You know what this means, don't you, my apprentice?" Batreaux says.
"Time for an experiment?"
Urahara visibly perks up.
"YES!"
*Kraka-THOOM!*
One of the servants is dispatched to Boris's private section of the "wine" cellar, and returns with a small bottle of blood that appears to be two-thirds empty.
"Is that some of the '33?" Issa asks, sounding mildly surprised.
"I know, not the best," Boris admits. "But of the stuff I've kept around - and occasionally snuck a drink from, against my questionably better judgment - this is the least upsetting to the old digestive system. Not to cast aspersions on you or your magic, lad," he adds, "but better to be prepared in case things go horribly wrong, no?"
"It's fine," you reply. "I'm not sure the spell will work for this purpose, either."
Boris laughs. "So I'm your lab-bat, then?"
"Urahara has some nice white coats we could borrow, if you really want to look the part...?"
He considers that for a moment, before replying, "Eh. Maybe another time; you know, when we do something with lightning and converters."
"...you've met the Frankensteins," you conclude, recalling the Shuzen family's association with the artificial humanoids.
"Several generations, in fact!"
And now Urahara and Tessai BOTH look interested.
"Long story," you tell them. "Maybe later."
With that said, you cast the Spell of Age Resistance in its normal form.
While you might try casting the most powerful variant of the Spell of Age Resistance another day, for the sake of thoroughness and SCIENCE!, for the moment it makes more sense to you to use the standard form, to establish a baseline.
You could have used Lesser Age Resistance for that, but then the magic's effects would have been at their absolute weakest, making them much less likely to have the desired effect on Elder Boris.
-with the usual modification to let it affect someone other than yourself. Boris takes a minute to enjoy how the magic eases his various aches, and then raises his small glass
"To your health," he declares.
-and downs a mouthful of blood.
There is a pause.
"Twenty-four hours, you said?" Boris inquires.
You nod.
"Well, then. I suppose there's nothing for it but to wait and see. Here's hoping my innards don't catch fire!"
"Ugh."
"Really, Uncle?"
Not too long after that, you excuse yourself, explaining - mostly for Kahlua - that it's been a long day on your end, and you have a late-night meeting here in Japan that you'd prefer to be somewhat rested for.
Good evenings are exchanged, Shadow Alex-Decides to hang around.
-and another member of the staff sees you to your usual room. It's about twenty after six, then, and seeing as how there is some traveling and pre-investigation set-up that you'll need to do before the midnight event, you leave a request to be woken up around ten, if you aren't already up by then.
With that arranged, you climb into bed and take a page from Batreaux's book, KNOCKING YOURSELF OUT with a self-targeting Sleep Spell.
As it happens, you wake up on your around somewhere past nine-thirty. Maybe it was having dinner just before going to bed, or perhaps you're a little too wound up in anticipation of tonight's investigation, but either way, you decide there's no point in laying in bed. Popping into the bathroom for a bit to freshen up and magically air out your clothes, you re-enter the main suite and take a few minutes to gather up and filter out enough ambient energy to renew your Spell of Mind Blank - reflecting in passing that it IS just about time for your daily self-warding ritual, at least by California time.
Said ritual is mildly delayed by the appearance of a certain curious spirit, who you have physically-spiritually stop from poking at the accumulating magic, but you finish shielding yourself against unwanted attention without issue, and are ready to go when one of the servants knocks.
Some quick questions tell you that, in spite of attempts to stay up and be supportive of Akua and Jasmine, Kokoa and Thistle were betrayed by biology and put to bed most of an hour ago. Kahlua opted to retain her dignity and return to her room under her own power, while Moka was - at last report - still stubbornly holding out, having been allowed back into Jasmine's surgery-turned-exam room.
The maid also mentioned that they DO have a proper room prepared for Jasmine's use, they're just waiting on Urahara and Tessai giving the go-ahead to let her make use of it.
The two Shinigami went back to doing tests around eight-ish, after Akua and Jasmine had both calmed down, gotten something to eat, and decided they were up to having visitors and "doctors" in the room again. Batreaux introduced himself then - the maid doesn't know how that went - and he and Shadow Alex have been assisting the two scientists since, or so the rumor has it.
Issa has also left the castle, for reasons the young lady can't divulge.
With that in mind, you ask after Gyokuro's location, and are directed to her home office.
"On your way, then?" the lady of the house asks, looking up from a few file folders and a computer screen.
"Very shortly, yes," you agree. "Just going to make a stop at Jasmine's room to see what my Shadow and my teacher have to say."
"I'll have a car waiting for you, then," she replies. "Were you planning to come back here, after your business is concluded?"
You don't expect you'll need more than an hour or so to investigate the bloody mist phenomenon, and by that point it'll be almost nine in the morning back in Sunnydale. You could go home, take another nap, and tool around in your workshop for a few hours besides before bringing Moblin to his check-up at Urahara Shop, or you could come back to Castle Shuzen to rest, make sure the two mad scientists get home in good order, and then fetch your dog.
Given the option, you'd prefer to return to Castle Shuzen when tonight's business with the Hakubas is concluded. The main thing would be to keep yourself apprised of how Jasmine is doing, and be in a position to (relatively) quickly provide assistance if the need arises, but on a more personal note, it'd just be easier for you to catch up on your sleep somewhere that it was still nighttime.
Also, this way you could let the Shuzens know if there have been any developments regarding the Dracula-related phenomenon around the Hakuba Shrine that might require their attention - though you'll speak with the priests about that possibility first, of course.
Gyokuro hears out the two reasons that you openly share, nods, and says she'll let the staff know to expect you later.
Taking your leave of Mrs. Shuzen, you head down to Jasmine's room, but before you get more than halfway there, you're met by Akasha coming from the other direction, carrying a snoozing Moka.
"When did she...?" you venture quietly.
"Maybe twenty minutes ago," Akasha replies, just as softly. "Akua wasn't far behind her, given what a day it's been. Fortunately, Jasmine's current bed is big enough for two - just not three."
You consider that. "...there's going to be a lot of sleepovers around here in the near future, aren't there?"
"Very likely, yes."
You're redirected to one of the many other rooms in the castle, where the two Shinigami and your summoned associates have relocated themselves to let the girls sleep in peace.
"We got most of the tests I wanted to run finished before calling it a night," Urahara informs you, when you ask how things went in your absence. "By and large, the gigai is performing within the expected ranges, and most of the areas where it didn't were correctable."
"Only 'most'?"
"She hasn't had any food in her system long enough to fully digest it, much less solid food. There could still be an issue there, although the preliminary readings tend to suggest otherwise. There's also the matter of how well she actually SLEEPS in that body," he adds. "Some Shinigami have found trying to rest in a gigai to be rather uncomfortable, and that when they weren't already likely to have nightmares. As to how well Miss Jasmine takes it, we can really only wait and see."
On the topic of "waiting and seeing," Urahara will be staying up for the next four hours or so in case his assistance is required; he plans to pass the time availing himself of the castle library, which the Shuzens have graciously allowed him access to. Tessai - who is giving his employer envious glances - will be off to catch a few winks shortly, and taking the "second watch" at somewhere around two in the morning.
Batreaux, for his part, feels that there's little he could provide at this point beyond moral support, the project having gone a bit outside his practical experience with the higher levels of Necromancy. He's considering seeking out Uncle Boris again for a few hours' amusing conversation, before heading back to Hyrule - unless there is anything else you require his aid for.
You probably shouldn't show up for the blood-mist investigation with your master in tow, as you didn't clear the presence of any third parties with the Hakubas beforehand. But if there's something else you can think of...?
Nothing comes to mind, and so you thank your sorcerous tutor for the offer and his presence over the course of the day, and let him go about his own business - which probably involves seeking his own bed at this point.
"I GO!"
*Kra-!*
"Kids in bed!" the Briars hiss warningly.
Somehow, the thunderclap QUIETS in mid-stroke, going from "loud and in your face" to "distant rumbling".
*-ka-THOOM!*
"Sorry!"
And then he's gone.
You could go either way on this, so instead, you ask your Shadow what he feels like doing.
"Honestly? I could use a break. Think I'll see if I can borrow a room, even if it's just yours."
"Dibs on fairy-sized beds!" his partner agrees.
And then the two of them head for the door.
"...so they're NOT going to dismiss themselves?" Urahara wonders.
Oh, you know the answer to this one!
"Sleep is apparently less enjoyable when you're only remembering somebody else do it," you explain.
"...huh. I wonder if that applies to Soul Candy...?" Then he shrugs. "Well, then. Have a pleasant evening investigating...?"
"A matter that I will bring to your attention if and when it proves to involve you," you reply, "and if and when the people concerned agree to it."
The shopkeeper nods. "Ah, ethical business practices. Good, keep that up. Until later, then."
Urahara goes on his way, and you go on yours, the car that Gyokuro previously promised ready and waiting for you.
In due course, you're out of the castle, down the hill, and out of the Shuzen domain, at which point you engage a heavily-modified Spell of Teleportation and relocate yourself to the steps of the Hakuba Shrine. At ten-thirty in the evening, Tokyo time, in a largely residential neighborhood, there isn't much call for a disguise...
Reaching the gate and knocking just loudly enough to be heard, you go through the ritual of late-night entry, which is mostly just waiting for Hakuba Ichirou to unlock and open the gate.
The whole shrine family are present and awake - and Miss Suzuka is as well, though perhaps you don't need to say it twice - and you have enough time before midnight to spend some of it in discussion.
You're informed that the blood-mist has continued to recur nightly, its size, density, and associated aura of dread all decreasing steadily as the new moon approached. For all of that, as well as the precautionary Divinations coming back with ominous statements about the "scent of blood," there's been no indications that anyone is in danger of anything worse than nerves and some troubled sleep - though on that note, the priests are rather hoping to clear this matter up soon.
You can't rule out the possibility that you'll bump into someone while investigating tonight's supernatural phenomenon, and while some questions might be inevitable in that case, you can at least avoid wasting time and energy dealing with anyone's concerns about a(n apparent) twelve-year-old foreigner walking around at midnight.
Granted, a number of the local residents already KNOW that said young magic-user has been working with the Hakubas on the recent outbreak of mystical unpleasantness, but there are differences between walking around the neighborhood in the afternoon, evening, and shortly after sundown, and doing so in the middle of the night.
Not the least of which is the bad influence the latter would be on that one kid who was so enthused about the slime-dripping walls and your use of magic.
Anyway, rather than get into all of that, you cast an Extended Spell of the Adjustable Polymorph while making your way out of the Shuzens' domain. You delay said casting until after the guards have let you out of the perimeter gate, so as to avoid having to burn any shifts letting them making sure it's you that's leaving-
"Who goes there?" Ichirou asks cautiously, as he peers out at your current form from inside the shrine gate.
-which still leaves you a slight issue upon your arrival. But you've got enough shifts from a single casting of the spell that you can afford to spend one at the door, so to speak, and another to resume your proper disguise before you leave.
If nothing else, it's less troublesome than risking the casting of an effectively fifth-circle spell being detected.
Incidentally, is there a particular form you're using for tonight's excursion? Your preferred idealized form is still out for a while, given your concerns about leading attention from either side of the Silbern Raid back to the Hakubas; on a similar note, you probably shouldn't use "Dr. Jones" for this outing, either.
You can't recall that he had any adventures in Japan anyway...
"No other changes, then?" you ask the Hakubas. "Besides all the unpleasant aspects getting weaker as the new moon approached, I mean."
"Not that we have noticed," Ginta replies. "At least, not yet."
And if he not-so-subtly emphasizes the last word, once again expressing his family's collective desire to start purging the evil aura, you don't hold it against him. You let your Shadow indulge in a verge similar sort of smiting just yesterday, and odds are you'll be doing some of the clean-up of the tainted mist tonight - maybe all of it, depending on how things go.
While Koujiro calls it a night and Ginta stays up to keep an eye on the shrine, just in case, while, you, Ichirou, and Miss Suzuka head out-
"Here you are, boys," Atsuko says, handing you and her son a wrapped-up box apiece.
"Thank you, Mother," Ichirou replies without missing a beat or sounding the least bit put-upon.
"Thank you, Mrs. Hakuba," you say.
"Score!" Briar declares.
"And here you go, Suzuka."
"Thank you."
-plus some late-night snacks. After a quick discussion about the properties of your dimensional pocket, you end up stowing all three bentos for the time being.
Idly, you wonder if the parents encouraged Suzuka to join this particular outing as some priestly equivalent of a date, and if so, what that makes your presence. A chaperone, maybe...?
You're in no great rush to reach the site where the mist manifests, which gives you plenty of time to ritually cast most of the spells you have in mind for your investigation. The Spell to Perceive Cues, to boost your observational prowess; the Spell of the Investigative Mind, to hone your theoretical recall; and after some thought, instead of casting an Extended Spell of General Augmentation - which again, you wouldn't be able to hide - you cast the Spells of Fox's Cunning and Owl's Wisdom. You don't NEED the full suite of boosts right now, and there's no point in risking drawing attention by casting a seventh-circle spell out in the open when you don't truly have to.
Since you can't really do anything to hide the Spell of Prying Eyes, short of casting a Private Sanctum or the like, you hold off until you reach the mist, which proves to be... rather underwhelming now.
Previously, you'd compared this manifestation of Dracula's lingering power to a cross between the Spell of Obscuring Mist and the Spell to Cause Fear, only scaled down. Now it's even LESS than that, more like a haze of humidity that causes mild uneasiness.
Some part of you is downright disappointed, although seeing how weak the phenomenon is at the new moon, you can see why the Hakubas didn't raise more of a fuss about letting it hang around this long.
It's probably just as well that you enhanced your senses, you reflect, as you prepare your next spell, because it's going to be harder to pick out the mist's energies from the background emanations of Tokyo like this...
"Trying to blend in a bit?" Ichirou ventures.
"Just a bit," you agree. "Not going to lie, I was VERY tempted to get out a Black Mage costume I have-"
Suzuka joins Ichirou in blinking at your statement.
"-just on the general principle that people would be a lot less likely to take anything they saw or heard seriously once they'd realized just what I was dressed like. But," you go on, "I used a similar disguise not too long ago or too far away, so it's probably for the best that I not repeat it here and now."
"...thank you for that," Ichirou manages.
No doubt struggling to envision the full MAGNIFICENCE of BLACK MAGE EVILSORCERINGTON!
Alas, it will have to wait for another night.
"Not a problem. Of course, if I was REALLY trying to match you two" - and here, you gesture at the young priest and the shrine maiden, still in their official attire despite the lateness of the hour - "I would have gone for a priest's outfit myself. That said, since I don't really qualify to wear those robes, that seemed like it would have been rude."
"And thank you for that," Suzuka echoes, more smoothly than her... boyfriend? You're pretty sure that's where they are in their relationship, but they haven't exactly gone into detail about it with you, which, honestly, you can understand.
Even if you and the Mirror of Shadow DID kind of play an integral role in things, you're still a decade younger than they are, which is enough of an age-gap that they might not be comfortable broaching the subject. And the Japanese can be a fairly reserved people - or at least they are by reputation. Hardly ANY of the people you've interacted with in this country seem to fit that particular bill, but maybe you're just not dealing with enough purely human Japanese citizens...?
Then again, Gen's completely human, and he's an oddball in his own right...
You reach the haunted site without incident, and start casting the Spell of the Prying Eyes.
One benefit to the blood-mist being so weakened right now? It takes up less space than you recall, so you can completely encircle it with your little Eye-spies without leaving huge gaps in the perimeter.
As you're calculating the spell, you recall the Shuzen sisters' earlier reaction to having twenty-odd flying eyes pop out of thin air. Ichirou has seen you use this spell before, all those months ago when he and his father accompanied you into the Memorian Outpost in Faerie, so you're not worried about any particular shock factor - the Gohma were FAR more disturbing, in that "great staring eyeballs" way.
Miss Suzuka, on the other hand, hasn't seen the spell that you can recall. Maybe you should try to edit it...?
You decide to go ahead and modify the spell, and a minute later, twenty small crystal spheres pop into existence around you.
"Wait to accept spells," you instruct the Prying... Orbs, maybe? "Then spread out to examine the mist for-"
"These look familiar," Ichirou says, as he peers at the cloud of crystals hanging about you.
"What do you mean?" Suzuka wonders, eyeing the slow-drifting spheres herself with a certain appreciative expression. As plain as the crystals are, they do glitter somewhat prettily as they reflect the glow of the nearby streetlights. It's not quite like having your own personal constellation, but it's not entirely dissimilar, either.
Ichirou explains how he and his father had previously seen you use this spell to scout parts of the Memorian Outpost.
"Although," the young priest adds, frowning as he leans towards the nearest of the drifting orbs, "these look a bit different..."
You are still applying a series of modified Spells to Detect Magic and Spells of Invisibility onto the Orbs, but you pause between two castings to explain the change. "I used the spell earlier today, and had some complaints about the appearance. I figured it might be worth trying to modify the appearance."
"What did they originally look like?" Miss Suzuka asks.
"Eyes," you, Ichirou, and Briar say together.
"...'Eyes'," the miko repeats uncertainly.
"Like so," Briar demonstrates, casting a minor Illusion over one of your still-visible crystal sensors to make it look like a Prying Eye once again.
Miss Suzuka considers that for a moment. "And they'd ALL look like this?"
You nod.
"Okay, I can see how that might unnerve some people."
She says that, and yet she doesn't seem particularly bothered by the idea herself. This strikes you as a bit odd, at least until you consider that maybe Miss Suzuka just hasn't ever encountered any entities that did the whole "eyeballs in places they shouldn't be" thing. If that were so, you could kind of envy her for her ignorance...
Regardless, you turn back to buffing your probes. In the process, you muse - not for the first time - that it would occasionally be more convenient if certain spells that affected individual targets up to a certain mass or volume could be re-worked to affect a larger number of targets up to the same total mass or volume.
Still, you started with an almost full tank of magical gas, so it's not like the energy expenditure is that big a deal, and while you can't conceal all of the Extended and Marked Spells of Invisibility, there's no one around to witness them, and the signatures will fade in a few minutes anyway.
With the last of your Prying Orbs disappeared and dispatched, you start taking a walk around the perimeter of the faintly coppery-smelling haze...
You're a bit uncertain as to how long you can and should spend on this little excursion, so you check with Ichirou and Suzuka to get their take on things.
"The disturbances, such as they are, have gotten strongest around midnight, and then begun to fade as dawn approaches," Ichirou says. "It's been like that every night that we've been able to monitor, so we've made a point of staking out the sight from eleven-thirty to twelve-thirty."
"The most likely time for there to be trouble," you conclude, nodding. "And if there hasn't been any trouble so far, there's not much point in staying out all night."
Ichirou nods, and Suzuka appears to be in agreement with him.
With that in mind, you decide to keep things short and sweet, and maintain your vigil for the next hour. That's plenty of time for the Prying Orbs to take their readings, and for you make some sweeps of your own.
On that note, you walk your first circuit of the building with your Mage Sight and Mage Sense open, taking in the hints of Air, Darkness, Evil, Necromancy, and Water that you picked up from your passive senses, and comparing them more precisely to the readings you took on your last visit. The only thing that really stands out at first glance - or second glance, for that matter - is how thin the energies involved are, under the non-existent light of the new moon.
You really would have expected Dark Magic to grow stronger at a time when darkness is more powerful, even if it's only incrementally so. Seeing the opposite happen is academically interesting, but on its own, it doesn't give you a lot of hints as to why it's doing this.
A chain-link fence blocks off one side of the building- -so you climb it.
After you've completed your first sweep, you do another one, this time using your Spiritual Sight and Spiritual Sense. You can detect the spirits of the people inside the building, as well as the presence of the mist-turned-haze, which registers as a faint and unpleasantly cool stickiness, but isn't anywhere near dense enough for a creature's involvement to be likely. No Ancient Spirits of Evil here, no sir!
But just to be sure of that, you make a third circuit, using your Corruption Sense. The result is much the same as the "general" spiritual aura, a thin layer of nastiness mucking up what seems to be a perfectly normal and otherwise fairly spiritually healthy location.
You don't hurry with your sweeps, and so by the time you've finished with the third, it's gotten close enough to midnight that you figure it would be a good time to prepare to observe the moment, and whatever impact it might have; as such, you link up with Ichirou and Suzuka. They followed you on your first couple of circuits of the building, but by the second trip, it was pretty apparent that their conversation had drifted a bit to more personal topics, and they relocated to a convenient bus-stop bench just across the street.
Once you've watched the midnight hour come and go with your enhanced senses, do you want to take a short break to enjoy your share of the bento?
Also, do you want to try using your ki and psychic senses on this? It's very unlikely to turn anything up, as there are no living energies tied into the mist that you've detected, but...
While you could just cast a spell or use a ki technique to go over in one of various ways, a chain-link fence really isn't that difficult to climb. Plenty of hand-holds, and if you set your feet right, or maybe against one of the walls...
Ichirou looks at you, then at the fence, and then down at his baggy pants. "I think I shall preserve my dignity and go back the other way. Suzuka?"
"I believe I will join you," she says mildly.
"See you in a few," you say absently, while following Briar as she helpfully points out a "path" for you to follow.
It does slow you down, and is noisier than, say, magically Spider-Manning your way up the wall would have been, but you make your way over the fence and into the area beyond without too much disturbance.
You hesitate to call this a backyard, as it's really just a length of alley blocked off at each end. Fortunately, while the other end is a wooden fence that would have been more difficult to scale on its own, it's got some boxes laid out in front of it, making for an easy up-and-over from the "in" side. There's nothing similar on the "out" side, but your adult form is tall enough that you can let yourself down easily and quietly.
Before doing that, of course, you sweep the back of the building with your magical senses. The aura of Elemental Darkness is a shade deeper and rather more widespread here, where the sun probably doesn't have a direct line-of-Light for more than a couple of hours per day, and the touch of tainted Water is likewise a fraction stronger than out in the front of the building. That said, with the blood-mist as a whole so weakened under the new moon, and having been steadily weakened over the past couple of weeks, those "deeper" and "stronger" energies are still too weak to really amount to anything on their own.
Maybe if you came back during the full moon, you might find something mildly interesting, but that's probably not going to happen.
With nothing to find, you go over the second fence to continue your sweep of the perimeter, meeting up with your companions along the way.
A few minutes later, you do it all over again, this time with your spiritual senses active.
"A new record!" your partner declares, as you make it over the first fence.
Maybe it's the climbing, or maybe you're just a ravenous beast, but either way, you could eat.
First, however, comes the midnight hour - or at least the one that's determined by standard time. It's not as mystically significant as the "true" middle of the night, but there are commonalities enough that you can use readings taken at this time to get a pretty good extrapolation of what you'd find at the other, within a certain margin of error.
As the clock ticks down, you ask Ichirou and Suzuka if they'd like their bentos, and hand them over when the pair agree that they could do with a snack themselves.
Mrs. Hakuba's choice in middle-of-the-night snack foods proves to be not too heavy - whether in absolute quantity or in quality of foodstuffs - and mildly flavorful. It's just enough in each respect to satisfy sudden hunger pangs without tempting you to go back and raid the fridge, cupboard, or somebody else's bento for more, without being so much as to disturb your sleep for an uncomfortably full stomach or other digestive aches.
Truly, she is a skilled and experienced mom.
You limit yourself to a few experimental bites before closing the lid on your share of the night's fare and tucking it back into your pocket, so as to have no distractions from your multi-layered observation of midnight.
...
But once the moment has passed, you quickly get the food back out.
"All good?" Ichirou inquires.
"'ery 'ood," you reply around a mouthful, before swallowing. "Excuse me."
He just grins.
You give your late-night mini-meal a few minutes to settle, and then resume making the rounds, first with your Ki Sense and Ki Sight active, and then with your Mental Sense and Mental Sight going.
As expected, you don't find anything that you weren't expecting. Your Ki Sense can make out the people in the building, if a bit fuzzily due to the architecture in the way and the lack of strong or well-developed signatures to work with, but your Ki Sight is basically ineffective, and your psychic senses pick up nothing but a mildly heightened form of the vaguely intimidating aura the coppery haze was trying to give off. There's no mind there to detect, not even a facsimile of one.
With all your other scans attended to, you restore your enhanced senses to their usual passive states and make your way to Ichirou and Suzuka.
"All done, then?" Ichirou inquires.
"Almost," you reply. "There's one more scan that I'd like to make, but it's going to be mystically noisy."
"How noisy?"
"Do you remember those times I made my eyes glow gold?" you ask rhetorically.
"We should probably get going," Ichirou says quickly, closing his bento and getting up from the bench, offering a hand to help Suzuka to her feet.
She accepts, looking puzzled by the sudden haste.
By way of enlightenment, you Power on.
Suzuka starts. "What the-?!"
...
For better or worse, she doesn't inquire as to your possible divinity, and you'd rather not spend too much time and energy hanging around waiting on that. You turn and begin making your final sweep of the perimeter, while the priest and miko begin moving away.
"Is it just me," you ask a moment later, "or do the golden rays of light seem a lot brighter in the middle of the night?"
"It's not just you," Briar replies.
One thing you quickly notice is that the lingering essence of the blood-mist does not react well to the quasi-divine Power emanating from your eyes. Granted, the point of this technique isn't truly to project that energy beyond your person, so you have to get fairly close for such reactions to occur, but when you do, you can see the edges of the haze almost boiling away.
Your last circuit of the building prompts no response from anyone or anything else, at least not at this time.
Is there anything else you want to do here, besides retrieve your Prying Orbs?
You're about to summon your Prying Orbs and turn away from the building when a thought occurs to you.
The Hakubas DID very broadly hint that they were hoping to get this last manifestation of evil energy cleaned up as soon as practical, once you'd finished taking your scans.
You DID just see that, like more direct and intense examples of vampiric energy, this washed-out blood-mist is vulnerable to being disrupted by exposure to your Power.
And you DID fairly recently develop a technique for unleashing an aura of Power with more tangible effects than had previously accompanied its assorted utilizations.
So, couldn't you just turn your Power ON, and clean the whole mess up yourself?
"Alex," Briar begins warningly, "you have that look on your face again."
"What look is that, Briar?" you ask innocent.
"That look that says, 'I just got a visit from the Good Idea Fairy'."
Fairies aside, one thing does concern you about your Good Idea, and that's your Power's noted tendency to interfere with other effects you have active. True, this is something that normally applies to effects on your person, and is most pronounced when you go to Maximum Power, but you've seen other techniques produce a similar result, and Channeling Power is still a sufficiently new and untested skill that you can't say it isn't one of them - and you DO have all those Prying Orbs out there at the moment, with an hour's worth of information that stands to be lost if they get unmade.
As a precaution, you could recall a portion of your little scouts and download their data, and leave the rest up to try and gather intel on your Channeled Power's interaction with the blood-haze. That would at least avoid a complete loss of observational data...
Also, there's one other detail to consider. While your Channeled Power technique might one day be able to affect a wide area, like the divine technique it's intended to emulate, your current proficiency is... somewhat more limited in just how large an "area" it can target effectively. Specifically, you've only managed to make it work against single, approximately man-sized creatures before now. Trying to affect an entire BUILDING is... decidedly ambitious in comparison, and also highly unlikely to work, even with your Power's innate advantage against vampiric energy and the boost of an Overload.
Perhaps you should target just one smaller area, to see how well it reacts? Or several smaller areas in succession?
"Aren't YOU my Good Idea Fairy, Briar?" you ask innocently.
There is tiny sputtering. "I am not taking the blame for your crazy ideas!"
"But you said they were GOOD ideas?"
"I was being sarcastic, and you know it!"
Of course you do, but it was too good an opening to pass up on.
You decide to split the difference, and set about recalling half of your Prying Orbs, so as to maintain a decent perimeter for what will follow shortly.
It takes a little work, as the only control you normally have over these simple constructs are the specific orders you give them upon their creation, and the limits of their copies of your knowledge-base. Fortunately, you had enough room to include a "return command" when you conjured the Orbs, in this case involving Briar showing up and telling a specific Orb to go back to you. A quick, shared, short-lived Spell to See Invisibility and the speed of her own wings lets Briar fetch the ten Orbs in good order, while permitting you to pluck the crystal constructs as they return and begin absorbing their contents.
A couple of minutes later, you finish assimilating the data. You don't truly learn anything you didn't already know regarding the blood-mist, although being able to see how it reacted to your Power Sight from various different perspectives was useful, as it confirms that the haze didn't react like a conscious awareness - or even an instinct-driven one - when you started burning it at the edges. The impact of your Power didn't spread out very far, and any section of the haze not being directly looked upon at any given moment displayed no reaction to your Power.
In short, the phenomenon displayed no sense of self, whether in the manner of a living entity feeling pain and injury, or a constructed one programmed to give its own existence a high regard.
Considering how weak the manifestation was, you'd already expected to see results like this, but the confirmation is welcome. It never pays to underestimate Dark Lords, even when they're dead.
...possibly ESPECIALLY then.
With the selected Orbs recalled, you take a breath, and focus.
Gained Channel Power E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Knowledge of Power D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Power Overload E (Plus) (Plus)
There is the expected golden glow, a hum like the distant voices of the Goddesses, and the faintest of hisses as a swathe of red-tinted haze about twenty feet across just dissipates into nothing, leaving clean nighttime air in its wake. The size of the area affected is a bit surprising, at least until you consider that the blood-mist was a pretty weak effect to begin with, and had been further reduced by the time of the month and your prior Power-driven probing.
Thanks to your keen ears, you ALSO pick up a sudden yelp of surprise from inside the building, which is accompanied by a dull thump and - just a heartbeat later - a slightly louder crash.
Is there a Minion of Darkness inside that building, or someone with unusual spiritual sensitivity? For that matter, could you have just glowed too brightly and too suddenly when a perfectly ordinary person happened to be looking out a window?
Whatever the case, a light turns on in one of the apartments.
Maybe, if your Channeled Power had proven less effective at clearing away the dark aura hanging over this place, you might have hesitated - if only out of concern of running low on magic from repeated uses of the ability. As it stands, however, you'll be able to finish this task with maybe a dozen quick bursts of power, an expense you can bear and one well worth being rid of this stain on the neighborhood.
Besides, you DID originally set out to do this as part of repaying the Hakuba kami for their help. Best not to leave that matter hanging any longer than you absolutely need to - which, with tonight's investigation complete, you no longer do.
That said, as you turn to begin your really final circuit of the building, you have a request for your partner.
"Please go see who that is banging around inside, Briar," you say. "And be careful."
"Right!"
And off she goes.
A moment later, you stop and focus your energies once more.
And once again, there is a flash of pale, golden power.
You spare a second for a quick glance at the top-floor window closest to the noises you heard - and where Briar is hovering watchfully - but you don't see any lights having turned on inside the apartment, nor do the curtains appear to have been drawn back.
And then you're moving on again, into the fenced-off alley and out of sight of that particular apartment.
You wonder, as you ready your third burst of Power, if you'll be responsible for disturbing anyone else's sleep this evening...?
You get an answer to that just as you're climbing over the wooden fence at the far end of the little lot in the back. A door in the rear of the building opens up, and a man a little older than Ichirou emerges, wearing a loose sweatshirt, matching pants, and sandals, and brandishing a broom handle with uncertain intent.
He stops short and stares at you, sleepy-eyed and bewildered.
You stare back.
Before the confused young man has a chance to do much more than register your presence on the fence, and perhaps make out the shape of your face in the post-midnight darkness, you unleash your latest burst of Power.
While the light isn't bright enough to be harmful, it is enough to make the broom-wielding tenant flinch and shield his eyes.
Even as the golden glow momentarily dazzles the would-be defender of hearth and home, you drop from the fence, touching down on your feet before sinking into a properly dramatic three-point landing.
Gained Parkour D
At the same time, you will your Spell of Adjustable Polymorph to alter your appearance.
Your relatively nondescript figure shifts grows slightly taller, thinner in some places and more filled out in others, ending up more athletic overall. Ordinary street clothes darken and melt into a black bodysuit that covers you from just under the chin all the way down to your wrists and ankles, and over that appear low-heeled, knee-high boots and reinforced elbow-length gloves, both a bright white. Golden highlights blaze into being along the joints and seams of the main garment, as sections of plate take form over your chest and shoulders. A heavy belt snaps into being, and then a helmet covers your head.
Go, go, Power Ranger!
I thought they were Prism- oh, I see what you did there. Heh.
Granted, none of the extra bits summoned up by the costume are actually real armor, much less the sort of "deflect most attacks with a shower of sparks" armor the Prism Rangers wear. It's just your original clothing in a new shape, granting you no benefits beyond the purely aesthetic - but that should be all you need.
As the light around you fades and you see - through the slightly difficult to see through "visor" of your new headgear - that your one-man audience is lowering his hand from his eyes and starting to stare at you again, you RISE.
And then bow.
"Apologies, good citizen!" you declare proudly yet humbly, as only a Ranger can! "I am but a passing-by Janitor of JUSTICE, making an emergency late-night clean-up! It was not my intent to disturb your well-earned rest!"
...
"...holy shit, you're a Prism Ranger," the man says in bewilderment.
"Indeed I am!" you declare, righting yourself and striking a suitable pose - for all of a moment, before you quickly bow once more. "And again, my most SINCERE apologies for troubling you!"
"It's... I mean, it's not... wow, is this actually happening?"
"It is!"
"...could I get an autograph?"
...
"Now, if you will excuse me, JUSTICE awaits!" You enter your newest pose, pointing the Finger of Righteous Challenge at the alley ahead. "No Haze of Evil can withstanding the purifying POWER of Gold! Condense and face me, O Monster of Air and Water, or be struck down by JUSTICE where you float!"
There is, of course, no response from the thinned-out mist.
You do hear a fairy giggling somewhere above.
"So be it!"
And so Prism Gold charges valiantly into the darkness, a blazing beacon of JUSTICE for all to behold! Rejoice, impressionable children, for even in the middle of the night, a HERO shall come to save the day! Beware, you lurking evildoers, for no shadow can withstand the light of GOODNESS!
Gained Channel Power E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Power Aura D
Gained Power Overload E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Style D (Plus)
Soon enough, your work is done! The haze of darkness that menaced this fair building and troubled the dreams of its inhabitants is no more, having burned away by your VALIANT LIGHT!
And you are starting to gain an audience, more and more people looking out of their windows on all floors - and not just of the building you were focused on, but its neighbors on all sides.
Perhaps it is time to be on your way? Yes, that seems best.
Also, it's getting kind of stuffy in this costume...
"Prism Gold, AWAY!"
"Alas, only at conventions!"
Though it pains your hero's heart to disappoint a fan, you are in something of a hurry, and it's clear at a glance that neither of you have pen or paper to hand. Every second he'd spend fetching them would be a DELAY OF JUSTICE, which cannot be borne!
Also, it's probably for the best that you minimize the hard evidence of your activities here. After all, one needn't be a PRODIGIOUS YOUNG SORCERER to attempt to trace the mystical connection of a signature to the hand that wrote it, nor to recognize the potential possibilities should such a trace utterly fail.
You'll further admit that you aren't sure if your Japanese writing is up to professional autograph standards. IT WOULD NEVER DO to hand out inferior product!
Shortly thereafter, you are taking an acrobatic leap into another alleyway, getting "off-camera" as quickly as you can. It's not as convenient as they show on television, but it's the quickest way to break line-of-sight to your audience-
"Wait!"
"Come back!"
"Did you see-!"
"-went this way-"
-although you put some extra effort into your retreat HEROIC WITHDRAWAL in order to keep said visual connection disrupted, for NO ONE MUST KNOW your secret identity!
And of course, once you're deep enough into the shadows that the streetlights can't illuminate your form, you shed your current disguise and resume the form of a mild-mannered twenty-something teenager with attitude, whom NO ONE WOULD SUSPECT was the true identity of a Prism Ranger!
"Having fun?" Briar asks, as she flutters up.
"It was for the sake of Justice," you defend.
"Uh-huh."
"Also, could you fetch the rest of the Orbs for me?"
"Spot me another spell to see 'em?"
Done and done.
You catch up with Ichirou and Suzuka about five minutes later, Orb-intel assimilated and breathing back to normal despite the recent surge of activity. Good news, you didn't lose any of the converted Eyes; either they were high enough to avoid your Power-flares, the blood-haze soaked up enough of the Power to shield them, or they were never in any danger to begin with.
Something you might check on at another time.
"So what happened back there?" Ichirou asks. "I felt those flares you were sending out just stop for a minute."
"Uh, about that... I may have accidentally woken up some of the people in the building-"
Ichirou frowns, but nods.
"-and one of them came out the back of the building just when I was halfway over the second fence-"
Ichirou winces.
"-so I may have, possibly, tried to cover by flash-dazzling him, turning into a Prism Ranger, and then making with the HAM OF JUSTICE?"
...
"Why?" Ichirou wonders.
"You ACTUALLY turned into a Prism Ranger?" Suzuka asks, with a note of... surely not?
"I did..."
"Oooh, which color? Red? You seem like a Prism Red..."
You and Ichirou trade speaking glances. "Uh, actually, I dressed up in black, with gold highlights-"
Suzuka stares. "PRISM GOLD?"
"No autographs, please," you say dryly.
"Seriously?" Ichirou asks, looking from you to Suzuka and then back again.
You aren't sure which of you he's addressing with that comparatively mild outburst, but you answer, "Literally the third thing the guy back there said to me was to ask for an autograph."
"Only the third?" Suzuka wonders with a frown.
"Well, the first was shocked realization that the disturbance that got him up in the middle of the night was actually a Prism Ranger, and the second was him kind of questioning the nature of reality-"
Ichirou facepalms.
"-which, considering I'm pretty sure he'd either been in bed or well on his way to it before I started sending out bursts of Power, only seems fair - but the very next thing he did was to ask for my signature." You sigh. "I hated to disappoint him, but there were too many reasons against doing it for me to ignore."
It is with slight but visible reluctance that Suzuka accepts your reasoning.
Ichirou doesn't seem to know how to react to any of this.
"So, Miss Suzuka," you ask then, "I take it from your enthusiasm that you're a fan of the Prism Rangers?"
"Well, of course! Who isn't?" she asks, now appearing confused.
"I know, right? But which one's your favorite? Personally, I think Gold is the-"
"Prism Pink," she says without a moment's hesitation.
"Fifth series?" Ichirou guesses.
"Of course!"
From the conversation that ensues, you gather that the series the two of them are discussing is one of the older entries in the Prism Ranger franchise, before the show was exported and adapted for overseas markets. The fifth season is apparently considered one of the high-water marks for the series as a whole, due to how a bunch of factors in its production all came together just right, such as a more mature storyline that drew in older viewers without losing the target younger audience, snappy dialogue, and some terrific acting - and of course, top-notch martial arts action and special effects, the latter of which apparently still hold up well.
Prism Pink was one of the highlights, largely by being a strong female character that avoided falling into a lot of gender stereotypes. Sporty without being a tomboy, stylish without being fashion-obsessed, wealthy and willing to USE it without being spoiled - the best assessment you can make is of a "princess" type heroine that upheld all the best aspects of the role, and never got sidelined by the writers in favor of her male counterparts. The character brought in a lot of girls like Suzuka who'd previously thought that the show was just for boys, and this without alienating the boys in question.
Even Ichirou admits that half the guys in his school that year had crushes on Prism Pink - though he doesn't state which half HE belonged to.
Naturally, there is a downside to the success of the fifth season and its breakout character, this being that the franchise never quite managed to reproduce the results. Some of the writers weren't able to return for the next season, the production company insisted on using in-house computer-generated special effects for the next year instead of contracting out-
"They were AWFUL," Ichirou groans.
"Completely," Suzuka agrees.
-and several of the actors didn't return for various reasons. The lady who played Prism Pink was scouted for a big-budget movie, Prism Green's actor got married - evidently the whole production staff got invited to his wedding, and they had the rest of the Rangers as color-coded groomsmen-
"Including the two girls?" you ask.
"'Can't break up the team'," Suzuka replies, clearly quoting someone. "Also, Pink ROCKED that suit."
-and Prism Orange LITERALLY broke a leg filming his part of the big final battle, and hadn't recovered in time for the new show. Season Six ended up a pale shadow of the fifth, with a new Prism Pink who Suzuka notes was trying too hard to be her predecessor.
"The writers were self-aware enough to have that pointed out in-universe around mid-season," she concedes, "and the character DID get better after that, but..."
The next couple of Prism Pinks had their own failings, and collectively, they were disappointing enough that the color was removed from the standard Ranger lineup.
Suzuka keeps talking all the way back to the shrine. All in all, it's a fascinating insight into a major media franchise, not the least because you really wouldn't have pegged the miko for a fan, much less such a dedicated one.
Gained Pop Culture D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Aside from reporting on tonight's events, do you have any questions or statements for the Hakubas before you leave?
Hakuba Ginta is the only older member of the family still up when you, Ichirou, Suzuka, and Briar return from your outing, and you spend some time sitting down with the priests and miko to discuss the aftermath of your night's work.
"Alright, immediate issue first," you state. "What sort of consequences do you expect to come from between one and three buildings' worth of people seeing Prism Gold shining for the sake of JUSTICE and driving out some 'unseen monster'?"
"However many actually saw you, half of them are probably already back in bed and asleep," Ginta firmly opines. "Those will either forget by morning, or tell themselves they were dreaming - at least until someone else brings it up."
"You already said you didn't leave an autograph," Ichirou notes, "but did anybody take a picture of you?"
You think back. "I don't remember seeing any cameras, and there definitely weren't any flashes."
"Other than the ones you were causing," Briar adds.
"Other than those, yes."
"And aside from those flashes of light and hauling yourself over a couple of fences, you didn't disturb or damage anything physically," Ichirou continues.
He doesn't state it as a question, but you nod in agreement anyway.
"So there's no MUNDANE evidence to prove that somebody dressed like a Prism Ranger was running around after midnight," the younger priest says. "Unless you tore your... jumpsuit...?"
"I didn't, but even if I had, the material would turn back into part of my original clothing when the shape-changing spell I'm using ends," you reply. "Or... possibly would have turned back when it was separated from me," you add, frowning in thought. "It can be a little fuzzy, depending on the spell and the circumstances."
"Then that just leaves the eyewitness accounts, and they were all either up late or woken up from their sleep. Their stories won't be the most accurate to start with, and could get even more divided, depending on how well any of them saw you and WHICH version of Prism Gold you turned into."
That sounds like a cue to you, and you DO have plenty of transformations left...
While still sitting, you thrust your hands forward, as if holding an object very approximately the size of a video game control pad between them, and declare, "Prism Power!"
*Shift*
And Prism Gold RETURNS!
Ichirou and Ginta stare at you.
Suzuka's initial response is one of excitement, but her expression almost immediately droops into disappointment. "That didn't look right," she says.
"...not enough of a lightshow?" you ask, ducking your helmet towards her a slight, inquisitive angle.
"No, there wasn't," she agrees. "Even the first season had more... well, flash. But even leaving that aside, the way everything... flowed... was a bit too smooth for a Prism Ranger transformation."
Your helmet tilts in the other direction as you consider that.
The lack of a lightshow is understandable. While stealth isn't the only or even the first use for polymorph effects, it IS a use for them, and the sort of visual effects that you've seen on TV - raw energy crackling on the transforming Ranger's person, complex elements moving around them, shields and symbols behind them, the odd explosion - would potentially give up such a game before the first move was properly made.
Such a thing wouldn't be entirely unfixable, although you likewise couldn't apply the entire special effects package to that subset of Transformation Magic at this time. Maybe just the personal energy field?
"As to the design," Suzuka adds, looking you over more closely. "...hm. No, that's an original. Or at least, I can't remember a Prism Ranger team with the Hojo Clan crest as their symbol-"
This mistake again?
Who are these guys, and when did they steal our Triforce emblem?
Calm down, Farore; nobody stole anything.
"-and the other features don't match either," the miko adds, gesturing to your chestpiece and helmet. "So even if anybody was close enough and had enough light to see you, their account wouldn't lead towards any specific season, just the idea of Prism Gold in general. I think that might make them more likely to decide that it was cosplay."
"...moving on," Ichirou says after a moment, and a wordless, weary exchange of glances with his father, "aside from a local rumor that will most likely stay local and eventually die out on its own, the only issues I can see from tonight's event would be if someone thought to connect the appearance of 'Prism Gold' to the Shrine's requested involvement in dealing with the blood-mist phenomenon. That is not impossible, by any means, but seeing as how Suzuka and I were already halfway down the street when you started glowing, I think we can feign ignorance to anyone who asks."
"Do you think anyone WILL ask?" you inquire.
"I would be very surprised if we DIDN'T hear this story within the next day or so," Ichirou admits, "but I would be equally startled if anyone suggested we were responsible for it." He smiles faintly. "There aren't nearly enough teenagers with attitude among our family and friends to make up a full Ranger team, after all, and I'm nowhere near acrobatic or badass enough to be one of the solo acts."
You will accept his self-assessment. "Moving on, then... while the eradication of the Evil Mist of Evil will probably not cause trouble on the mundane side of things, there is the supernatural side. Do you suppose it would be worth continuing to stake out the location, to see if one of Dracula's minions shows up trying to determine what went on there tonight? Or, for that matter, to try and identify his minions in the area, if they're here?"
"We'll be keeping our eyes and ears open, to be sure," Ginta says, "but if you're talking about putting a constant, round-the-clock watch on the building, we can't really do that ourselves, at least not without drawing attention and interfering with our other responsibilities."
There ARE only half a dozen people directly living or working at this shrine that you've seen, most of them middle-aged or older, and a couple of them not spiritually trained, besides. Being young and full of Power, setting up a watch on the previously mist-haunted building would seem to default to you, but then, what exactly DO you want to do about it? You don't know any spells that could set down detection wards capable of identifying something as specific as "minions of the Dark Lord", Prying Orbs would cease to exist if you got more than a mile away from them...
Maybe a Spell of Summoning, then, to put a literal watcher on the place?
While the idea of "holding back" goes a bit against your personal ethos and the creed of the great Saint Tim Taylor - grunted be his name - you have to admit that adding a distinctive quasi-electrical discharge of energy to your various polymorph spells is the sort of thing that could all too easily work against you. Easier to notice; easier to connect two "completely unrelated" individuals that appear, disappear, and/or alter themselves with the same effect; more likely to lead to connections to the Prism Rangers at times when you AREN'T deliberately trying to invoke their aegis - which might in turn lead someone to the thought that emulating TV superheroes is exactly the sort of thing a lot of kids WOULD use magic for, if only they could...
So, yeah, there are good reasons to let this idea go.
You wrestle with this idea a bit more than the previous one, but end up letting it go as well - at least for the moment.
It's occurred to you that the Shuzens have a vested interest in keeping tabs on things Dracula-related, and are a lot better set-up to conduct the sort of observation and fact-finding under discussion, without having to throw a lot of potentially noticeable magic at it.
You bring that possibility up with the Hakubas, who don't have any particular objection.
This leads you to your final outstanding question: "This more of an idle thought than anything else, but..."
"Yes?" Ginta inquires.
"If I keep beating minions and manifestations of Dracula while dressed as a Prism Ranger, do you suppose he, or they, might end up swearing vengeance on the franchise?"
The eldest priest in the room facepalms.
Ichirou one-ups that by letting his head drop to the table he's been sitting at.
"Please don't get the Prism Rangers in trouble with the King of Vampires, Alex," Miss Suzuka asks. "Or... any vampires, really..."
"And on that note," Ichirou sighs, "I think we're done for the night. Come on, I'll see you out - AFTER you've changed form again."
Eh, fair. Not much point in having walked back to the shrine in "civilian mode" if somebody sees Prism Gold leaving the premises.
Switching back to your Perfectly Ordinary Citizen look, you say your goodnights, follow Ichirou to the gate, and start down the steps at a relaxed pace. It's somewhere past one in the morning, local time, and despite your earlier nap, you are starting to feel a bit tired. It'll be nice to hit the hay...
Probably best to get that handled as soon as possible, provided of course that the lady of the house is still up.
Based on past visits, she might not be; vampires or no, the Shuzens seem to keep close to human-normal hours, probably due to it being more convenient for their dealings if they're on the same clock as the majority of their business partners. Still, it costs you little to ask.
Reaching the bottom of the shrine stairs, you turn and head on down the street in the direction opposite that of the scene of tonight's little endeavor, gathering mana as you go. A few minutes and a cautious but quiet street-crossing later, you look around, confirm that nobody else is around, and let your Spell of Teleportation whisk you back to the outside of the Shuzen domain. Reverting to your normal appearance, you head inside and make for the first security checkpoint.
"All done?" one of the guards asks amicably, as you're being looked over.
"Mostly," you reply, "although would you mind ringing the house and seeing if Mrs. Shuzen is still available? Or Mr. Shuzen or Miss Akasha," you add.
The remark draws attention from several of the people on duty, but it's the one who spoke before that inquires, "Found something, huh?"
"Possibly," you admit. "I figured it would be best to let them know and decide if it was urgent enough to take action."
He nods and heads into the guard house to make a call.
Not too long afterwards, you're face-to-face with Gyokuro in the front hall.
"Sorry if I disturbed you," you offer.
"You didn't," she replies, waving that away. Indeed, she's still wearing the same clothes that you saw before you left. "We're taking turns to keep an eye on the girls, and our other guests."
One part parental concern, one part professional paranoia? Eh, fair; you've said any number of times that Urahara has an untrustworthy look about him.
"Now then," the lady of the house says, "what did you find, and why does it concern us?"
"Well, to give you some context," you begin, "after that whole business with the Quincy, I figured I owed the Hakuba kami a favor for their help..."
You explain said help as the kami in question being the voice that started the ball rolling on getting Takamagahara to weigh in on the Soul Society's decision-making, which is what led to your Shadow going into Silbern with a small army of death gods, rather than something more subtle and/or desperate. From there, you touch on the series of incidents that had been happening in the neighborhood surrounding the Hakuba Shrine, and how they seemed to be linked to the seal on Dracula-
It's at this point that Gyokuro decides to relocate to her office again.
-or possibly just happening in reaction to having so much dark power tied down in the area so suddenly. From there, you describe the blood-mist phenomenon, your desire to study it over time, and the priests' agreement in the matter.
THEN you catch Gyokuro up on tonight's events.
Upon hearing about your choice of costume, Gyokuro simply asks, "Why a Prism Ranger?"
Matters of disguise aside, Gyokuro agrees that putting eyes on the building in question - you're able to give her the address without issue - would be a good idea, "Though it would have been better if we'd had someone in place ahead of time."
You consider that.
You let out a breath. "The technique I was using to burn out the contamination involved throwing out an expanding aura of golden Power. I figured that dressing up as a golden Prism Ranger fit the theme and color well enough that it could be swept under the rug as something mundane, like filming or a really, REALLY dedicated cosplayer."
Gyokuro raises an eyebrow of maternal suspicion.
"It was also silly enough that I doubted the police would take it all that seriously if somebody phoned it in," you add, suddenly feeling wary.
The look intensifies as she crosses her arms.
"And it was funny?" you offer.
"And there it is," Gyokuro murmurs, shaking her head with a sigh. "Well, if nothing else, we have confirmed that there IS a nine-year-old boy in there..."
You... aren't entirely sure how to take that.
You simply nod and promise to try and do better going forward.
Having passed on the request for observers and seeing the hands on the wall-clock, you decide that there's little reason for you to stay up any longer. If there have been any developments in Jasmine's situation during your absence from the castle, they weren't significant enough for Gyokuro to bring to your attention, meaning you can wait a few hours to hear the full account.
You see yourself out of Gyokuro's office and head for your room-
"Welcome back," Tessai greets you with a nod. "Was your investigation successful?"
"Basically, yes," you reply. "Tell you in the morning?"
"I shall look forward to it."
-exchanging brief pleasantries with Tessai along the way. The big man has probably only been up from a multi-hour nap for a few minutes himself, yet had you not been there when he was grudgingly on his way to one of the guest rooms, you wouldn't have guessed it.
When you arrive at your room, you find it empty, the bed made to a standard rather beyond your customary "straighten the sheets and call it good." The patterns on the bedding are the same, and there's no obvious telltales like a lingering warmth of recently-ironed fabric or the scent of detergent, yet you can't escape the suspicion that the blankets were changed in your absence.
They knew you were coming back, though. Would they really have gone to all that trouble?
"A good household staff are like the Fae, Alex," Briar advises you. "They have their own rules, their own way of doing things, and you cross them at your peril."
As you're changing into the provided sleepwear - and wondering, with some trepidation, if a maid will sneak in and make off with your clothes while you're napping, or if they might instead ask the castle's spirit to do it - you consider the state of the Heart of Courage. It's still active, and though you can't sense where your Shadow is due to the Mind Blank spell he's under, the direction in which the relic's energies head before trailing off into seemingly nowhere leads right to the next bedroom.
"And you know this, how, exactly?"
"I mean, did Thistle have some stories to share, or does this have something to do with brownies and house-elves?" you add.
"A little from Column A, a little from Column B," Briar admits. "But what Thistle had to say was mostly just confirming stuff we already knew from Hyrule."
"How's that?"
"Well, you know how, when it comes to people being able to see fairies, the situation on Hyrule is basically the opposite of the one on Earth?"
You nod. More ambient magic means a greater percentage of the population have that small level of magical potential that's necessary to see fairies, and also that Hyrule boasts a rather larger and more diverse population of supernatural entities than most similarly-sized regions on modern Earth. There are also fewer people living in Hyrule than there are in some Earthly cities - Tokyo and New York immediately come to mind - making for a rather reduced impact on the environment, less competition between the "civilized" races and the creatures of the wild, and hence the opportunity for the latter to build up their own populations.
While you aren't about to put any hard numbers on it, you would venture that encounters with the supernatural are more common in Hyrule than they are on Earth, and so, consequently, is the belief in it - which is the other thing that's needed to see fairies.
"Well, the people in Hyrule who are most likely to NOT be able to see fairies tend to be the ones who live most or all of their lives in Castletown or one of the other big settlements," Briar explains, "especially if they've got a family history of it. And that means there's more than a few nobles who can't see us, at least once they're adults, and who generally act like we don't exist."
"What, even with all those Heroic associations?"
"Hylian nobles are kind of mixed on those stories, actually."
"Oh?"
"Yeah, Link upsets their sensibilities a bit."
You NEVER would have guessed.
Seriously, though, a guy - and usually a KID, at that - who shows up from out of nowhere after the kingdom has been half-destroyed, drives back the Forces of Evil that all the knights and soldiers and loyal sorcerers together couldn't hold back, and is praised as the Legendary Hero Chosen by the Gods in the aftermath? You can see how that sort of thing might offend the sort of aristocrat whose worldview is based on bloodlines and politics.
"Anyway, even when nobles don't believe in fairies," Briar goes on, "they DO believe in showing off their wealth, and one way of doing that without actually having to invite people you can't stand into your house is by having a really nice garden."
Ah. Okay, now you see where this is going. "So some nobleman commissions a garden with a lot of rare flowers, a few statues, and at least one nice fountain-"
"-and inevitably, some fairy wanders in to check things out, and maybe take up residence if they like the look of the place," Briar agrees with a nod. "Or if it turns out that one of the staff can see them and is willing to trade bread, cream, and fresh berries for the promise of emergency healing on call. Or maybe NOBODY can see the fairy - though in a big manor, that's pretty uncommon - and they can listen in on all kinds of gossip undetected, and then go home and boast about it to all their friends."
You consider that last line for a moment, weighing it against what you know of fairies. "Wouldn't that mean that a bunch of fairies would basically invade rich people's homes and eavesdrop on them, so that they could one-up their buddies? And wouldn't some of those fairies end up getting bored and decide to start pranking people - maybe making messes that the household staff would have to clean up, and get upset with the fairies for?"
"And now you know the OTHER reason why we know ALL about servants," Briar sums up.
...you're probably going to dream about a war between fairies and servants tonight, aren't you?
Speaking of fairies and servants, you decide to leave the Spell of the Dark Self and the Heart of Courage running for the time being. There are still some aspects of their functionality - like just how long you can keep a Dark Self around, or whether or not they can recover on their own - that you haven't had the opportunity to fully explore, and this is a decent opportunity to poke at that.
With that in mind, you call it a night.
You lay back in the bed, spend a minute gathering and focusing your energies, and then, once more, knock yourself out with a Sleep Spell.
...
Cue the dream sequence!
Hush, you.
You find yourself walking through a great hall in a mansion of Hyrulean sensibilities. The decor is rich and colorful, with white stone walls contrasting with the dark brown wood flooring and furnishings, and fabrics of red, green, blue, and gold present in the form of rugs, drapes, and upholstery. The Triforce emblem can be seen in a few places, though not so many as to even begin to approach tackiness.
There are also numerous statues of Hyrulean beings and beasts spread out as far as the eye can see, with one life-sized replica of a Goron in the middle of the hall demanding considerable attention just from its sheer mass, before your eyes are finally allowed to wander to other, smaller works. A Zora in blue crystal, a wooden carving of a Kokiri that looks like it might actually still be a living plant, an Octorok cast from iron or steel the hue of rust, several little bat-monsters suspended from the ceiling on invisible wires... the collection is wide-ranging, to say the least, and these are just some of the ones you can see from where you stand.
Untroubled by the knowledge that the sculptures will resume dancing about the moment your gaze moves off them, you turn to one wall, where an Armos and an Ironknuckle freeze at attention to the right and left of a grand picture of Ganondorf, the Thief-King standing triumphant over a battle between the Gerudo and the Hylians - or maybe riding triumphant, given he's on horseback. There's neither a single monstrous minion nor a hint of golden triangles to be seen, and the only indications of any magic at play are a couple of smoking craters just about the right size to have been the work of Fireballs.
You nod to your past-self and ignore how his eyes follow you as you look across the room, to where simpler portraits of Link and Zelda hang. The former is upside-down and has been defaced with a mustache, horns, and other childish scrawling, while the latter is a bit crooked and has had a large pair of glasses drawn over her - very professionally, mind you. You may want to get the artist's name.
As you venture deeper into the house, ducking Briar's tiny bed as it drifts by with the sound of faint, fairy-sized snoring, you are forced to navigate the usual nonsense of Hyrulean legendary architecture. Half the doors are fakes, accurate down to the knobs that will turn and hinges that open, but with solid walls on the other side, covered by paintings of Poes, ReDeads, and other terrible creatures frozen in poses of moaning menace. Another door bears a great golden puzzle-lock for which you do not have even one of the necessary pieces. Climbing a ladder takes you into a room with no other exits, only more artworks doing their best to move only when you aren't looking, and when you walk through a section of maze, you find yourself back at the beginning.
All the while, you see flights of fairies zipping about, blasting random targets with multi-colored blobs of magical dust, while mops, dustpans, brooms, and other household implements lash out from the shadows, seeking not to attack the little vandals, but to defend whatever they happen to be aiming at. When the fairies succeed, they wheel about with a cheer, dancing in mid-air, while glum-faced or frustrated maids emerge from the shadows - Hylian, you wonder, or Sheikah? - to clean up the mess. When the invaders are thwarted, they groan and complain until a new shiny target catches their collective eye, or a squirt bottle emerges to chase them off altogether.
Eventually, you open a door that proves to have an actual passageway behind it, a corridor of deep shadow descending into darkness, from which echoes the breathing of some vast predator.
Archer walks by, clad in a butler's uniform, and grimly advises you, "That's a spell you're walking into."
As that thought crosses your mind, the haze of casual acceptance that had been covering your awareness like a comfortable blanket falls away. The change in your perspective prompts a similar shift in your surroundings, a kind of psychic shockwave that expands outward from your point of semi-awakening as a ripple that spreads along and through the floor, walls, and ceiling, altering everything it touches in ways subtle and gross.
The wave has the Hyrulean architecture straightening itself out into something saner. Most of the fake doors either disappear or are replaced by additional statues of the ghouls and ghosts that were hidden behind them, but a couple of the portals settle into place with distinct thuds. The ladder retracts into the ceiling, which closes up behind it, and a moment later one of the altered doors swings open to reveal the chamber that used to be overhead, now much more easily accessible and with a second way in and out on its far side.
The maids cease playing games with the fairies-
"Awww..."
-and begin pulling glass display cases out of thin air to enclose and protect the various artworks-
"No fair!"
-while also giving the items a brisk final cleaning.
One of the maids straightens the portraits of Link and Zelda before they are put under glass as well.
Denied their targets, the cloud of fairies heaves a collective sigh and drifts through one of the new doors, heading towards the faint sound of running, splashing water in the distance.
Archer's butler uniform... does NOT morph into that odd red-and-black number he's always wearing when you summon him.
"What's up with that?" you ask him, nodding at the clothes.
"I'm just a figment of your imagination," the Servant's image replies with a shrug. "You tell me."
So Dream Archer is just as unhelpful as Real Archer? Figures.
Anyway, since you have to guess, you'd say that his attire is probably the result of your sense of humor making a play on the differences and similarities between servants and Servants. Or maybe, with that Grail War a few years down the road, you're anticipating that you will be the one to summon Archer?
There is a faint clunk as Briar's bed stops drifting about in mid-air and settles atop a marble plinth that previously didn't have anything on it.
One of the maids steps up next to the stone platform and then pauses, turning to you with a questioning expression as she raises one hand and the glass case it's holding - said display being large enough to enclose the top of the plinth and leave plenty of room for the tiny bed and its occupant - and then raises her other hand, which holds only a feather.
Not a feather duster, just a feather.
With that sorted, you turn back to the shadowed passage, which is still dark and slightly eerie, but rather less so now that you're in control of yourself and the dream. The breathing, in particular, has diminished from "giant predator lurking somewhere out of sight, doing a wind tunnel impression" to "child-sized person breathing steadily in their sleep." Between that, Dream Archer's earlier statement, and the fact that you're now thinking on your own instead of according to weird dream-logic, you're quite sure that this darkened corridor represents your connection to Shadow Alex.
And so you have no fear of walking in.
Normally, repairing a portrait that had been effaced like this would require one to be either a trained conservationist, or a magic-user. Either approach would involve abilities that are somewhat outside the skillset of a typical maid.
Fortunately, this is still a dream, and thus subject to dream-logic - provided that your will agrees with it.
And since you DO agree, the maid has no trouble simply reaching out and plucking the glasses from Princess Zelda's face, as though she and they were fully three-dimensional instead of color on a sheet.
As for the Hero...
Out comes the anti-fairy squirt bottle, and with it, a cleaning rag.
*Zot*
*Zot*
Gingerly, the maid scrubs at Link's face, removing the bristly mustache and other markings, before following suit with the horns and other bits. Then she stands clear, curtseying to you.
You nod, and point one finger at the picture-
*Splat*
-unleashing the dreamed-up equivalent of the Spell of Prestidigitation to make your own, proper contribution to the world of art.
Satisfied with your addition, you nod and turn away.
The maid puts the glass case back wherever she got it from, and leans forward slightly as she reaches out with the feather, waving the tip back and forth ever so slightly.
There is a snort.
There is a snicker.
And then there is giggling, a sleep-muddled protest of, "S'obbi'," and Briar turning over in her bed, trying to get away from the disturbance-
"Whoawhat-!"
*thump*
-and going over the edge of the mattress.
You wait a moment.
"Where am I, and why does it feel like I woke up asleep?" Briar asks of no one in particular.
"That would be because you did," you advise your partner.
"Oh, hey, Alex. I did, huh?" And up comes the little ball of reddish light, still hugging a fairy-sized blanket around her tiny form. "So, that would make this dreamwalking, then? Been a while."
You nod, because it has.
"Why does it look like an art museum gone Hyrulean bestiary in here, anyway?" Briar wonders, after taking a look around.
"You should have seen it before I woke up," you reply. "Anyway, care to join me?"
Briar looks from you to the shadowed corridor you point out.
"Sounds like you not-quite-snoring at night," she notes. "Shadow Alex, then?"
"Pretty sure, yes."
"Ah, why not?"
And in you go.
The room you end up in next is dark enough that the walls and corners are ill-defined at best, and the floor is only really apparent by the feel of it under your feet. Shadow Alex is sprawled out on a mass of darkness that suggests the shape of one of the spare beds in Castle Shuzen, while Shadow Briar's similarly vague resting place has settled down off to his right and at a slight angle, putting her head towards his.
The helpful maid who woke Briar up, having followed you from the previous room, holds out the feather again, as well as a squirt bottle.
A blue fairy saying, "Hey, listen!"
The idea of menacing Cuccos in the background was tempting, but this feels like the most appropriate improvement to Link's portrait.
Indeed, when Briar wakes up a minute later, and before she follows you into the shadowed passage connecting to Shadow Alex's "room," you hear her say, "Oh, hey, a picture of Mom! ...wait, why does it look like she was drawn by a ten-yea-ALEX!"
The outburst is about two-thirds amusement, one-third familial protest.
You wave the maid off, preferring to wake yourself up... yourself.
The maidservant puts away the Feather and Squirt Bottle of Wakefulness, curtsies again, and turns and disappears into the shadows without a sound.
"Ninja maids, huh?" Briar observes.
"I blame your talking about the interactions between servants and fairies before bed," you casually deflect.
"Eh, fair. So," she asks then, hovering over your Dark Self's recumbent form, "did you want me to do it?"
"I'll handle it," you reply. "You might want to move, though."
"Yeah?" Briar says, even as she vacates the bed's airspace. "What did you have in mind, then?"
You clear your throat.
"Oh, you're not going to-"
"Hey!" you bark. "Listen!"
Shadow Alex's breath hitches.
Shadow Briar, meanwhile, wakes up with a yelp of, "SorryMomI'mawakeIdidn'tmeantosleeee- wow, it is DARK in here, and you're not Mom."
You suspect it's the reaction of his fairy partner which fully drags your Dark Self to wakefulness, more than the impact your "quotation" had on him, but either way, he opens his eyes and looks around.
"...huh," the Shadow says after a moment. "Are we awake, or are we dreaming?"
"Dreamwalking," you clarify. "Or at least Briar and I are. You two might not be."
The Shadows consider that for a moment. "No," Shadow Alex replies, shaking his head, "I think we are, at least now. That's... kind of neat, actually."
"Hadn't realized that you COULD dreamwalk?" you guess.
"Yeah, I mean, how long has it been since you bothered to really use this skill?"
"Probably not since that Dracula-influenced dream we had when we visited for Kahlua's ninth birthday," you answer. "Or, no, wait, there was that dream-vision from just before we raided Silbern. You were even in that one."
"No," Shadow Alex says after a moment's recollection, "I wasn't. That was you dreaming about a then-POSSIBLE future incarnation of me, not the then-CURRENT me actually turning up in your dream. Remember what Dream-Me said about not being a time-traveler?"
"'Correct horse battery staple'," the two of you, and the Briars, say as one.
"Exactly," Shadow Alex affirms with a nod.
You nod back.
...
"Sooo," Shadow Alex drawls, "what now?"
"I regret nothing!" you declare, as the shadows of the passage swallow you.
"And you can keep ON not regretting it," Briar calls, as she flies after you, "as long as you make sure that Mom never finds out that you're making fun of her!"
"I was actually making fun of Link..."
"Or using her TO make fun of him, you get what I meant."
You do, admittedly.
"This seems like a good opportunity to brush up on our dreamwalking skills," you answer. "I mean, we've never really had anybody we could train AGAINST, unless you count that succubus girl from back at the World Tournament..."
A thought occurs at that.
"Do you suppose we could find her?" Shadow Alex wonders, unsurprisingly stating what literally just occurred to you. "She did give us her name, after all."
True, and you do know the Spell to Locate a Creature, as well as the correct metamagic formulas for increasing its range to the sort of distance you'd need to find a girl who's probably living in Japan. Just having met Kurono Kurumu face-to-face, even in a dream, would likely be enough of a connection for your magic to work with all on its own, and having her name from her own lips would only reinforce that. But...
"We can't use magic while we're asleep," you point out, "and I don't think our dreamwalking is up to doing anything similar - at least not when we're inside a pocket plane like this."
Shadow Alex frowns, nods, and then looks contemplative again. "So what about doing something similar while still staying INSIDE the Shuzens' domain?"
"Like, what, going to say 'hi' to Kahlua?"
Your Shadow smiles. "What could go wrong?"
"He/You did NOT just say that," the Briars groan.
"You know what?" you say. "You're right."
"He's WHAT?"
"I'm what?" Shadow Alex says at the same moment. Then he shakes his head. "I mean, of course I'm right!"
"Yeah!" you agree. "So let's go find Kahlua!"
"Yeah! So how do we do that?"
...
"...Alex?" Briar wonders.
"Shh, I'm thinking..."
"Don't strain yourself," her Shadow remarks.
"Ha. Ha. Ha."
"No, I mean that seriously. We're kind of IN your head right now, you know?"
You start to reply to that, and then pause.
You're inside your head.
If you want to find Kahlua, you need to get OUTSIDE.
And your dreamscape has currently taken the form of a manor house-slash-museum, so...
"We need to find the door," you say, turning and heading back up the shadowed hall, making for the well-lit portion of the place.
"Arrgh, the light!" Shadow Briar says, cringing and wailing as she exits the darkness. "It burnssss, it- oh, ha! Nice one of Mom!"
"Huh," Shadow Alex muses, as he follows you into the light. "Interesting collection. Any idea where it came from?"
"Well, the maids and fairies are definitely Briar's fault," you begin, as you start looking around.
If this were the real world, your best bet would be to go to the front of the "building" that you're in, as that is where the main point of entry would naturally be. Dream-logic doesn't have to work that way, of course, but fortunately, the dream cooperates with you, and the simple expedient of going back the way you originally came soon leads you to a kind of lobby at the end - or start - of the gallery. Each of the three walls is dominated by a large stained glass window that depicts one of the Goddesses, her relevant piece of the Triforce, and the forces and beings most important to her: Nayru to the left; Farore to the right; and straight ahead, above the door, Din.
Rather than some external light, the windows are illuminated by sections of their frames, which glow just brightly enough to reveal the details of the work. When you open the double-door, all that greets you is a dark sky and a formless expanse of land blanketed by a sparkling, multi-colored mist that has piled up at random locations for no apparent reason, and is breaking up at others with a similar lack of explanation. There is enough light to see where you're going - most of it seems to be coming from the mist - but no landmarks or celestial bodies to navigate by, apart from your manor-museum-mind manifestation.
You look at the dreamscape.
You look at your Shadow.
You look at the Briars.
You hum thoughtfully.
"I don't like the sound of that," Briar sighs.
"That makes two of us," her Shadow agrees.
"I'll make it unanimous," your Shadow adds.
"Okay, so, there are four of us-"
"Not counting the maids and other fairies?" one of the Briars asks.
"-who actually have minds of our own-"
"That's debatable," Shadow Alex comments.
"True, but I am a gracious fairy and will deign to continue sharing my intellect with your benighted self."
"...touché."
"-so I'm thinking one of us should stay here, at the door, and the other three should split up-"
There is a triple-throated groan.
"-and head off in three of the cardinal directions. Or at least, straight thataway" - you point straight out the door - "and ninety degrees off of straight thataway in either direction, as far as we can while still staying in sight of the museum. Then double-back and report on what we saw."
...
"That's it?" Briar asks carefully.
You shrug. "We don't exactly have a lot of information to work with when it comes to dreamwalking OUT of my headspace. Every other time has involved an external factor coming IN, whether it was that Kurono girl or bad vibes from Dracula and Yhwach."
"Speaking of," your Shadow says, "if we start seeing any Dracula-inspired imagery while we're walking around, should we back off, or keep going?"
You consider that. You know that the now-dead Dark Lord left a strong "echo" of his presence on the part of the Spirit Plane that overlaps with Castle Shuzen, due to his mostly-dead giant body being sealed and buried underneath the Shuzen residence for a couple of centuries, before the almost-corpse was paradoxed out of existence in the last Grail War. As a result of those lingering bad vibes, you've had one unsettling dream-vision of Dracula before already, and it's quite possible and even fairly likely that you'd start having another if and when you figure out how to exit your own dreamscape.
You're not keen on the idea, by any means, but if you really do want to meet up with Kahlua like this, it may be unavoidable.
"You're sure?" Shadow Alex inquires.
"I'm sure."
"Really, REALLY sure?" Shadow Briar presses.
You try not to sigh as you answer, "Really, REALLY sure."
"Alright then," Shadow Alex says. "As long as you're sure. But just so you know, if I get sucked into a Dracula-inspired nightmare-scape, I'm blaming you."
"That won't happen," you reply confidently.
"Oh yeah? What makes you so certain?"
"I just have a good feeling about this."
The Shadows and your partner trade glances.
"Doomed?" Briar offers.
"Doomed," Shadow Alex agrees.
"Doomed!" Shadow Briar wails.
"Alright, cut that out," you grumble. "Briar, you wait here-"
"What, really?"
"-to act as our relay-"
Your partner actually raises her hand. "Uh, Alex?"
"-yes?"
"Not that I wouldn't be perfectly happy to sit tight instead of blundering off into the murky and potentially 'haunted by evil dreams of a dead Dark Lord' psychic landscape, but don't you think it should be YOU that stays here?"
You frown. "How do you figure?"
"Well, leaving aside that this" - Briar knocks on the doorframe - "is a representation of YOUR mindscape, and so likely to be a lot easier for YOU to work with than anyone else, you're also the only one with direct connections to all of the rest of us." She gestures at herself. "Familiar bond." Then she points at the Shadows. "Heart of Courage. Plus, you've got a lot more raw power to work with if somebody calls for help."
...
Okay, that IS a point.
With that decided, three bold explorers head out in the pseudo-cardinal directions, pausing every so often to look back over their shoulders and course-correct, as they try to keep moving away from your museum of the mind in a relatively straight line - and maybe just to make sure that the rest of the party hasn't disappeared into the mists yet.
Some time passes...
It's always nice to know that a friend is looking out for you, and Briar does have a good point about you making for a somewhat better communications relay-slash-emergency response force than she would.
And so you stand just in front of the museum of your mind, leaning back against the doorframe, as Briar heads off to your right, Shadow Briar mirrors her to your left, and your own Dark Self strides forward into the mists.
Although the ground-bound clouds are thick enough that you can't see the surface anywhere, even when you stomp and kick about a few times to try and disperse the vapors, they don't pile up so far that you can't make out the two fairies as they fly along - although it does gradually get harder to track their tiny forms as they fade into the distance, even with the helpful glowing. Tracking Shadow Alex poses a different issue, his much greater size offset by the fact that the dream-stuff swirling slowly about out here comes up to his shoulders in some places.
Peripheral vision doesn't really cut it for following all three explorers at once, or even just two of them, and you end up turning your head from side to side several times over. Past a certain point, it's easier for you to just focus on those mystical links, waiting for empathic feedback from Briar, or a spell-sent message from or sudden disruption of one of the Shadows.
No such indication of trouble comes from Shadow Alex, nor from Shadow Briar-
!
-but a sudden thrum of alarm from Briar has your head turning sharply to the left. You don't SEE anything like a looming shadow of evil or a crimson sky in that direction - indeed, the darkness overhead and the swirling mists appear unchanged to all of your other senses - but while the initial spike of surprise soon fades away, the accompanying dread doesn't go away. It doesn't INCREASE, thankfully, but neither does it diminish.
You are, perhaps, beginning to regret agreeing with Briar's recommendation...
!
Scratch that, you think, as a second spike of shock/fear/help! abruptly pings on your senses, you are DEFINITELY regretting your agreement.
You consider how best to assist your partner. The strength of your magic in general and your familiar bond in particular is such that you're able to scry on Briar's location without actually having to cast a spell - between that fact and the psychic elements of the bond, you think you could probably invoke that power now without issue. Another option would be to use your rudimentary psychic abilities, of which Mental Sense seems the most promising, though Mental Sight and Telepathy might also work, if you "piggybacked" them off of the familiar bond.
Trying to use your understanding of dreamwalking to affect whatever situation Briar is in right now doesn't strike you as a good idea. She's not really in your mind anymore, symbolically, nor is she "close" to you in whatever measurement of distance applies right now, and you're just not very good at or knowledgeable about the ability.
Your partner may be in trouble. She IS upset about something, and part of you - most of you, if you're being honest - wants nothing more than to run after her, find out what's scaring her, and break its face.
...assuming it has a face. Which may not be the case, given the weirdness of dreamscapes and nightmare imagery.
But some small part of you refuses to let you budge from your current spot.
Is it faith in Briar's ability to take care of herself? Concern about losing contact with your mindscape-turned-museum, and thereby setting yourself and your three allies adrift in the misty darkness of the dream realm? Confidence in your own ability to reach out and support your partner even from this distance?
All of the above?
Whatever the case, you grit your teeth and hold your position.
If you're not going to go take a look in person, you need to do so remotely - and while Mental Sense doesn't provide visual intelligence, it's your most developed pure psychic power (for what that's worth), as well as the one that's most suited to long-range recon (which is worth considerably more right now).
So you reach out with your spooky mental abilities, and find...
Cold.
Darkness.
Menace.
Blood.
All of it faded out as if by distance, whether through space or across time, and all of it quite familiar - though you have to admit, if not for tonight's encounter and Power-enabled purge of that blood-tinted haze in the Hakubas' neighborhood, you might have mistaken the psychic signature you're picking up right now for Miss Akasha's.
But no, what you're picking up from Briar's direction is definitely something Dracula-related.
Keeping your remote sense active, you reach out through the familiar bond, enabling a separate psychic ability.
/ Briar? /
/ Dark/scary/annoying/eeek! I'm stuck/go away already/can't find an exit/Goddess-damned bats/I swear, if this is the endless hallway trick-! /
/ Briar! /
/ WAH! ...oh, Farore and Nayru- don't DO that, Alex! /
/ What's happening? /
With a mental breath, your partner explains.
One advantage of psychic communication, even when you're still so bad at it? You can exchange a LOT of information in a very short span of time. The trick is sorting it all out without giving yourself a headache...
Gained Telepathy E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
What you absorb from Briar is that she found a castle corridor out among the dream-mists, and per your plan, ventured inside to see if she could find anyone. That wasn't what prompted her initial spike of shock; THAT came when she glanced back to check that she could still see the museum, and instead found a stone wall blocking off the way she'd just flown, oozing an aura of dark energy.
At that point, Briar stopped where she was and looked around for possible exits or approaching threats, finding only a corridor that seemed to go off in one direction for as far as she could see, with no turns, doors, or stairs.
She attempted to respect the first rule of what to do when you realize you're lost, but staying in place for about a minute seems to have annoyed something, because a bunch of bats sort of crawled out of the ceiling. While most were content to hang there, squinting down at her ominously and with many an unintelligible squeak of high-pitched menace - which makes Briar pretty sure they aren't actual bats, as she'd be able to understand those, and probably not a vampire's dream-bats, either - one of the bat-shades started chasing her.
Your partner is now grudgingly flying down the hallway, as slowly as she can while still avoiding her pursuer, which seems to have satisfied the underlying logic of the dream she's found herself in enough to keep the rest of the bats from joining in the chase.
This, you think grimly, is not acceptable.
/ Alright, hang on, / you tell Briar. / I'm going to send the Shadows to try and meet up with you. /
/ Please and thank you! /
Now, can you... redirect this active instance of telepathy to another person...?
/ Shadow. /
...
/ Shadow, can you hear me? /
/ ****? /
You think you got something that time. The distance is doing you no favors, even though, in physical reality, your Shadow is just across the hall instead of far enough away that you have to squint to make out the color of his hair against the glowing mist...
/ Shadow, respond! /
/ I *an *are*y h**e yo*, / comes a reply. It's not like hearing static over a radio, or even trying to communicate through the sort of planar interference you encountered that one time Ambrose called you up from Hell; the other you's voice just sort of wavers on the edge of being "audible," dipping below for brief moments.
You try to focus your psychic projection to make up for losing the empathic link of the familiar bond when you switched targets. While there IS a mystical connection between you and your Shadow, it doesn't inherently provide the sort of mutual awareness you and Briar can call upon.
/ Briar is in trouble, / you answer. / I need you to pull back and go help her. /
/ *op*. /
Either Shadow Alex heard you, or he's figured that a sudden patchy message is grounds for changing plans, because he's turned around and is running back in your direction as quickly as he can - at least without calling on ki or magic. You know it's not impossible to use such abilities in a dreamscape, you don't think your own dreamwalking is up to the task yet, nor are you sure what would happen if you tried to force the issue. Your Dark Self appears to share your caution - but even so, you think he's coming back faster than physical running speed alone would account for.
Dream logic at work again?
/ What's the si*uation? / Shadow Alex says after a minute.
You quickly recount what you know, and no sooner are you done than your Dark Self veers off at an angle, heading in Briar's direction.
/ My Briar wi*l meet up *ith you, / he tells you. / Double li*es of comm*nication. /
/ Sounds good. /
You switch channels, as it were, and let Briar know that help is coming.
/ Thanks again! /
And once more, you wait.
"I'm back!" Shadow Briar declares, as she flies up to you. "What'd I miss? Something about bats?"
Seconds tick past, becoming one minute, and then two.
Through the two-part relay, you hear Shadow Alex find and enter the castle corridor in the mists-
"The bats are staying out of his way," Shadow Briar notes. "Probably a little too much for them to want to mess with."
You don't know about THAT. You have scattershot memories of Hyrulean bat-monsters being so disproportionately dangerous as to give Link a few bad nights, and from what you've gathered about Dracula and his Castle, HIS chiropteran minions probably weren't any less threatening than Ganondorf's.
-charge down its length unimpeded, and catch up with Briar without issue.
Save for that one bat that was chasing her, anyway, but NONE of you feel bad about that.
That said, when Shadow Alex turns around to try and leave at that point, there's a solid stone wall blocking the way he just came.
"He says he kind of feels like trying to knock the wall down," Shadow Briar reports.
/ I kind of feel like letting him, / your Briar admits.
The great beast in your soul rumbles approvingly as you voice your agreement with the approach suggested by your Shadow and your partner.
"Guess I'll make it unanimous, then," Shadow Briar notes, before cheering, "Take it apart, Alex!"
/ He's taking a stance, / your partner announces.
You try to picture which of the various stances you've been taught would be the most effective for trying to knock down a wall.
/ He's... focusing psychic energy to his fists? Huh/neat/can I do that? /
Oh-ho! A possible practical body-focused application for Mental Enhancement! You've been looking for such a thing for some time now.
You try not to think too hard about the fact that the "body" being reinforced is all in your head. Or your Shadow's head. Or that it's ACTUALLY currently out in the broader realm of dreams...
/ Here's the stri- WHOA! /
/ Briar? / you inquire, with a touch of worry.
/ He actually shifted some of the stones! /
/ What, with just one punch? /
/ Yeah! And there's strike two! Man, I think he cracked some of the stones that time/awesome/got to learn how to do that! And here comes strike three, you're-! /
/ Briar? /
/ Hang on a second, there's some kind of hidden space, like... a little walled-up cubbyhole... what the-? /
/ What did you find, Briar? /
/ ...a chicken leg/confusion. /
/ ...what. /
/ You heard me, Alex. There's a roasted drumstick sitting right in front of us, looking/smelling/hungry/not going to bite like it just spent a couple of hours roasting in the ove- put that down/have to be kidding me/you don't know where it's been! /
...
Slowly, you turn to stare at Shadow Briar.
She stares back at you.
You have to admit, you ARE kind of morbidly curious about what "Wall Chicken" tastes like, and it's not as if it could really hurt your Shadow in the long term, right?
Something of your thoughts must be visible in your expression, because Shadow Briar says, "You're serious?"
You nod. "I think I am."
For a second, you expect to hear her protesting your idea.
Then she cackles, feyly, and you are reminded that this isn't just Briar, but a manifestation of those parts of her mind which she normally represses rather than allow free rein - her very own "Good Idea Fairy," as it were.
And lo, did Shadow Briar begin to chant, "Do. It. Do! It! DO! IT!"
And lo, did you also say, / Hey, Briar? /
...
/ Are you SERIOUS/KIDDING/NUTS? What? No, I don't want any/very tempting/but ick, and you shouldn't be oh Goddesses/he actually did it/I don't believe this/I am not cleaning up after you if you puke. /
You wait a bit, before telepathically prodding your partner for details.
There is a psychic sigh. / He says it tastes like chicken. /
Well, of course it would.
/ He also says it's kind of unfulfilling? / Despite herself, Briar can't quite keep a note of curiosity out of that thought.
/ Maybe because it's dream chicken, instead of actual chicken? / you offer.
/ Might have something to do with it, yes. Anyway, the space that the chicken was hidden in seems to have loose bricks in the back, Shadow's just trying to clear them out- and I can see colorful mist coming in! /
/ Is that a good sign? / you ask.
/ Definitely, this stuff is lighter and more colorful than what's swirling around in this corridor, I think it's leaking in from the outside. Give us a minute, I'm going to biggen up and give him a hand... /
It takes some effort, but your partner and your Shadow are eventually able to clear away enough of the Wall That Shouldn't Have Been There to get back out into the wider dreamscape. Briar informs you that the corridor-dream, whoever or whatever it belongs to, isn't fading away or obviously trying to repair itself.
You have no idea if that bodes for good or for ill, but either way, it leaves the option of continuing to explore the seemingly unending passageway on the table - though this time, you'd send your expendable Shadow in, perhaps with his own partner, rather than risking Briar getting stuck in a dream not her own.
While you can't say for certain who in the Shuzen household would have elements of what appears to be Castle Dracula in their dreams, if you had to guess, you would have picked Miss Akasha. Quite aside from the similarity in auras, she is, as far as you know, the member of the family who's had the most contact with the late Dark Lord, and so the one most likely to have... taken notes, as it were.
Regardless, the whole point of this venture into the wider realm of dreams was to try and find Kahlua, and since you're pretty sure that SHE wouldn't have a dreamscape with that particular feel to it, you decide not to investigate it further, instead recalling Briar and your Shadow.
After all, you have yet to hear what the Shadows found at the end of their explorations of the mists...
A few minutes later, once everyone is back together, you get those reports.
Shadow Alex describes walking into what he thinks was Castle Shuzen. Yes, it was very similar to "Dream Castle Dracula" as far as architecture and atmosphere go, but the dark, menacing, bloody aura lacked that cold, lethal indifference you sensed from the nightmare corridor - it was, if not precisely welcoming, then at least not hostile towards you.
"No bats?" Briar asks carefully.
"Not that I saw or heard," your Shadow answers.
So that dreamscape could belong to any member of the Shuzen family, or even the castle itself.
"What about you?" you ask, turning to Shadow Briar.
"I think I found Urahara Shop," she replies.
"...what, really?"
"Yeah, but it wasn't open for business. The doors were shut and locked, the security shutters were all down, and the upstairs windows were closed and had the curtains pulled over them."
...
That would follow, you suppose. You did pass Tessai on his way to take over the next shift of monitoring Jasmine while you were on your way to bed, and depending on how long you've been asleep by this point, Urahara himself might not have reached the particular depth of sleep required for proper dreaming to begin. Assuming his Shinigami-inside-a-gigai brain works anything like a human one does, anyway; given your observations of various soul reapers to date, you aren't QUITE sure that is the case...
Anyway, if you want to find Kahlua, you clearly don't want your explorers going right or left.
Who will you send back out into the mists?
On the other hand, maybe you're going about this the wrong way. You're not in a physical realm right now, but a mental one. You know that it's possible to alter the form and content of your own dreams, having done so several times now; you likewise know that it's possible - and even fairly easy, based on your experiences thus far tonight - to move between "lesser" dreamscapes and the greater psychic plane they all connect to; and your Shadow just proved that you can use your dreamwalking skills and psychic abilities to affect the makeup of other people's dreams.
By extension, then, shouldn't it be possible to use your powers on the dream world itself, and - in this instance - make a pathway between your mindscape and Kahlua's?
It's worth a try, anyway.
You explain your thoughts to your companions, and they agree that it's worth the attempt.
To help you shut out the distracting elements of your surroundings, you close your eyes, enter a quasi-meditative state, and focus your thoughts on "finding Kahlua."
...
No good?
You try again, this time reinforcing yourself with the Mental Enhancement technique beforehand, to try and amplify your efforts.
...
Still nothing?
"Maybe not COMPLETELY nothing," your Shadow observes, pointing at the area around you. The shimmering mists have been pushed away from the steps of your mind-museum, either revealing or creating a path of gleaming black stone that appears to have been carved all from one piece. About the width of a typical sidewalk, it only extends a dozen feet or so into the greater dream before the mists start to re-gather, gradually burying it.
Briar flies along the path to its "end," pausing to test it with her hands, and reports that whatever material it's made of gets softer and less stone-like as the mists gather, and basically stops existing once they've completely covered it, as though it was formed out of and subsequently breaking back down into the stuff floating all around.
You consider the length of the route your two efforts managed to create, as well as how much energy said efforts cost you, and then measure that against how far Briar and the Shadows had to go to reach other people's dreamscapes.
The numbers you arrive at do not give you any confidence in reaching Kahlua's dream like this, and that's assuming that your path is even aimed in the right direction.
On the upside, you HAVE at least confirmed that your dreamwalking skills work outside of your own mind, if perhaps not so well as they do inside. Conversely, adding Mental Enhancement doesn't really appear to have helped. Maybe the technique is too focused on boosting your person, as opposed to enhancing your more exotic abilities?
Gained Dreamwalking D (Plus)
As far the shortcomings of your dreamwalking go, you have to wonder if it's just the shift from "familiar territory" to the unfamiliar that's working against you, or if there's more to it. Much as you hate to admit it, psychic powers as a whole are one of the weakest parts of your overall skillset, in that you can say that you DO have them, but not much more than that. Throwing raw power at the problem doesn't appear to have worked, though when you consider that this is really one of Nayru's areas of expertise rather than one of Din's, that at least tracks...
Just use more power! That always works!
On the principle that two heads are better than one, you suggest that Shadow Alex contribute his energies towards extending the path, but while he gamely makes the attempt, the result is... confusing. What you'd hoped to see was another half-dozen feet or so of dreamstuff coalescing into solid stone at the end of your existing path; what you actually got is the start of a SECOND path, made up of even darker stone, which goes off at a slight angle to the first.
...I mean, it kind of worked?
...stupid dream nonsense, I swear...
Neither of you can think of an explanation for that.
"Do you suppose that path leads to Kahlua's Shadow?" you venture, indicating your Shadow's creation.
Briar and the Shadows trade glances.
"I suppose something like that WOULD be possible in the dream-realm," Briar replies. "It IS a psychic plane, and someone's Shadow is ultimately just part of their mind and spirit, so..."
"Do we... really WANT to meet Shadow Kahlua, though?" Shadow Briar asks.
You think about your friend, the vampire princess, and what you both know and can reasonably intuit about her life.
You think about what Shadows ARE: the (generally) unspoken thoughts; the (more or less) repressed impulses; and the paths not taken.
You recall your own Shadow trying to punch your lights out in your first meeting, how Kahlua once had to visibly check herself when you had a bleeding wound in her presence, and that vision of blood and tears you had the first time you threw your Power against Kahlua's youki.
"No," you say firmly, "or at least, not without Kahlua knowing about it ahead of time and being on-board with the idea."
You silently reflect that you might want to offer to cast the Spell of the Dark Self on Kahlua at some point, so she can confront her Shadow and maybe try to work out some of her issues. It's turned out to be a pretty productive experience for you... but then again, Sage Elfaron did say that the ease with which you, Briar, and your Shadows came to terms with one another was rather out of the ordinary...
"Right," Shadow Alex fervently agrees. "So we will NOT be using my path tonight."
No sooner does he say that, than the path in question dissolves back into the mists.
Your Shadow looks at the ground for a moment, and then shakes his head. "Dreams," he sighs.
That pretty much says it all.
In any case, after some further thought, you decide that nothing ventured, nothing gained, and step onto your own pathway.
"Come on," you tell the others, as you will the stone to extend further into the dream realm. "Let's see if I can find her."
You start out slowly, with Shadow Briar flying ahead to test each new section of the route as it forms, and your partner hanging back to keep an eye on your "connection" to your own dreamscape. You aren't sure what would happen if the path broke, or if that's even a possibility, but you'd just as soon avoid having to find out. This results in your little quartet getting a bit spread out along the gradually extending walkway.
After a time, Shadow Alex comes up and says, "We're not heading quite where I went."
You nod, because you'd noticed a certain slight bend in the road when you looked back. "I've been trying to focus on the feel of Kahlua's aura when I call more of the road into being," you reply, matching deeds to words as you will another length of black stone to emerge from the mists.
"I hadn't thought of doing that before," your Shadow answers thoughtfully. Then he shrugs. "Well, it's definitely taking us somewhere CLOSE to what I found, so... fingers crossed, knock on Lost wood?"
Heh.
"How are you holding up?" he says then.
"It's definitely an exertion," you admit. "An entirely mental one, though, with the strain manifesting as... something between a headache and sleepiness."
Silver linings, though: you're starting to see better results from practicing this particular application of your dreamwalking skills, with longer sections of stone forming as you reach deeper and deeper into the mists; all this psychic exercise will undoubtedly help you build up your reserves; and since you don't currently have access to any sort of psychic energy restoratives, you don't have to worry about accidentally cheating yourself out of your progress in that area.
Not too long after that, you start to see a shadow rising up from the mists, one which resolves into one of the passageways of Castle Shuzen - set within walls that aren't really attached to anything, as will happen in dreams - as you get closer.
Shadow Alex studies it for a moment, and then nods. "Definitely not the one I found."
"What's different?" you wonder.
"Well, the gargoyles in the other place weren't wearing dresses and horn-ribbons-"
You look closer at the fierce guardian statues. "Huh."
"-the aura here definitely feels more like Kahlua, personally, whereas the other corridor seemed more... generically Shuzen, I suppose-"
Maybe some kind of shared dreamspace, or an imprint on the dream-realm formed by the collective weight of the family's energies over the centuries?
"-and Merlot wasn't hanging watch over the other place," your Dark Self finishes, nodding upwards.
You look up, and find Kahlua's pet Ache peering down at you, inverted, from about fifteen feet up, his feet grasping at a stony rafter that protrudes out from the wall, barely half-formed and not really going anywhere.
"Squeak," Merlot greets you, eyes reflecting mingled surprise and suspicion. Clearly, he wasn't expecting to see you here.
Which is fair, because you certainly weren't expecting to see HIM here, either. Does being Kahlua's pet give the young Ache enough of a connection to her for his dreaming self to share her dreamscape, did Kahlua somehow make Merlot her familiar since the last time you spoke, or did Aches secretly have the power to enter the dream realm?
You aren't sure, although from the feel of the little bat-monster's aura, you can rule out this just being Kahlua dreaming about her pet - however he got here, that's ACTUALLY Merlot.
While you aren't entirely up to speed on dream-world etiquette, it strikes you as quite likely that it would be considered more polite to ask permission to enter someone else's dreamscape before going in - and in absence of the dream's "owner" to ask directly, to inquire of someone they normally share living space with.
"Would you be able to fetch Kahlua to speak with us?" you ask the young Ache.
"Squeak!"
"He says, 'The Mistress is sleeping!'" Shadow Briar helpfully translates.
Well, of course she is, but-
"And we're not asking you to wake her," your Shadow interjects smoothly, "just to see if she'd be willing to talk to us in her sleep."
Merlot ponders that. "Squeak."
"He says he MIGHT be able to do that, but first, he'd like 'some confirmation that you are who you look like, and not something pretending to be that person.' That's more or less exact squeaking, by the way," Shadow Briar adds.
"Trying not to give away names in case we don't actually know them?" Shadow Alex inquires.
"Squeak."
Your Dark Self gives an approving nod. "Not bad, bat. Not bad."
"Well," you say, "we probably shouldn't try to throw Power around in this place-"
Merlot squawks.
Shadow Briar doesn't bother to translate.
"-so instead, how about I talk about that time I used a translation spell as part of giving you a medical check-up, and your mistress thought your voice was so cute that she almost hugged the life out of you?"
The Ache covers his head with both wings at that, and makes a distressed noise.
"'Please stop'," the phantom fairy chuckles.
There is some additional conversation, in which Merlot admits that he can enter Kahlua's dream without issue, but whether or not he'll be able to lead her to the point where she'll be able to see and hear you from inside her dream is another matter - and he notes, as sternly as a little fuzzy critter with a high squeaky voice can (through a translator whose own voice is a bit on the higher end of the scale), that he will NOT be bringing her out into the wider dream-space, and if she doesn't invite you to enter, you will have to remain outside.
Considering how put out you once were at having to chase an overly curious young intruder out of your mindscape, that condition is fine by you.
With that settled, Merlot launches himself from his perch and swoops casually into the hallway beyond.
In his absence, you reach back down your familiar bond to Briar. / How are things looking at that end, partner? /
/ Still solid. You? /
You explain the situation.
/ Huh. Well, good luck. /
You thank her and proceed to wait.
...
And wait.
...
And-
!
-wait, you can see Kahlua coming down the corridor now, Merlot hanging proudly from her outstretched arm. Her dream-self is dressed as if on her way to bed, with a fuzzy bat-patterned housecoat worn over... probably a nightgown, and her hair tucked into a nightcap.
She also has a mask pulled over her eyes, which adds a certain eerie something to the manner in which she slowly advances straight down the hall. It doesn't help that the hem of the housecoat is long enough, and Kahlua's strides small enough, that you can't see her feet; the overall result makes it look a bit like she's drifting towards you rather than walking - and given some of the oddities you've witnessed in the dreamscape so far, you can't actually say that this isn't the case.
About ten feet from the end of the corridor, Kahlua comes to a halt, and Merlot puffs himself up importantly, squeaking anew.
"'You may speak to the Mistress'," Shadow Briar says.
Well, then.
You clear your throat. "Hello, Kahlua. Do you know if you're awake or asleep right now?"
Merlot gives you a speaking glance that asks, "Seriously?"
...
...is she not going to respond-?
"Sleeping," Kahlua finally replies, in a light, distracted tone of voice that your punny mind cannot help but label as 'dreamy'.
So she is con- aware of her current state, on some level? Good to know. You make a note to compare that to other dreamers, at some point.
"May we enter your dream, then?"
Another long pause, and then-
"You are already there."
-wait, what-
And just like that, you are.
You look around at the Castle Shuzen-style architecture - with unusually pretty gargoyles, a predominance of pastel shades to be found in the carpets and drapes, and a full moon visible out one window - which didn't actually extend out from Kahlua's dreamspace, or even manifest around your small group, however quickly. One instant, you were outside of her mind, and the next, you were inside.
You cast a quick, nervous glance over your shoulder, and let out a sigh of relief when you see that your dream-wrought stone path is still there, looking like a replacement for a section of the flooring. It's all the more reassuring because you can clearly see the route exiting Kahlua's dreamspace and crossing the wider realm beyond.
On the other end of the familiar bond, Briar pulses concern and inquiry, probably having sensed your startlement. You reply with a sending of reassurance and self-imposed calm.
Having confirmed you are still connected to your own mindscape, you turn to the Shadows and ask, "Did either of you suspect that she could do that?"
"Nope," Shadow Briar replies.
"No," Shadow Alex admits.
"Squeak," Merlot interjects.
"Also a no," the fairy interpreter adds.
Four for four, then, and DEFINITELY something to keep in mind when dealing with other people's dreams in the future. Being suddenly pulled in by a friend was alarming; having the same thing done by a stranger, let alone a hostile entity, could be a lot worse than that.
Taking a closer look at Kahlua's dreamscape, you note that there isn't much going on at the moment. Where your dream had stealthily maneuvering statuary, fairy vandals, and ninja maids, this space is empty of any figures apart from Kahlua - standing there as still and as eerie as before - Merlot, and your group. Peering out the window again, you don't see any obvious movements, like a flock of bats moving across the moon's glowing face, nor anything subtler - though considering the distance from your viewpoint to the forest below, you could well be missing something.
Regardless, you have been given permission to be in Kahlua's dream.
Okay, after that little display of dream-reality-warping, there's one thing you have to ask.
"Kahlua," you inquire, "did someone teach you dream-related stuff to protect your mind while sleeping?"
The pause ensues, and then-
"Not yet."
...
Okay, unpacking that a bit, Kahlua apparently pulled you into her dreamscape with nothing but natural ability. You... aren't entirely sure how to take that bit of news. You know that it's possible to exercise considerable control over your own dreams once you're aware that you actually are dreaming - you did so yourself just this evening, when you sorted the architecture and contents of your mind-museum into something a bit less frustratingly Hyrulean - but you've also seen that it's quite a bit harder to manipulate the regions of the dream plane outside of your own mindscape - and yet, Kahlua just pulled three people straight into her dream, even if not very deeply.
Are you misunderstanding something about how dreamwalking works, or what it can do? Or does Kahlua just happen to have some kind of terrifying natural proficiency for abilities like this, such that she can pull off high-end manipulations of the dream-realm without proper training or even being conscious?
You really wish you had a tutor to talk to about this, you might be a little less alarmed if you knew what the proper limits on this ability were... and then again, maybe you wouldn't.
One other detail you can infer from Kahlua's answer is that the Shuzens apparently DO have some kind of "dream safety training" in the works for their kids, and just haven't put it into practice yet for whatever reason - at a guess, it's probably something age-related. Maybe the lessons require a certain mental and emotional maturity to impart, perhaps the techniques the Shuzens favor require a degree of youki generation and/or control that Kahlua hasn't yet reached, or it could be that there's some other factor you haven't considered.
With that particular curiosity at least temporarily answered, you decide it would probably be better to have Kahlua properly conscious of her dreaming state before you ask any further questions.
You start with one of the simplest approaches to that: "Kahlua, are you aware that you're dreaming?"
...
"Yes."
...too simple, maybe?
"Kahlua, can you wake up and take control of your dream?"
Another pause, and...
"I do not know."
Still too easy, you suppose, as you consider how to continue - and then glance at Merlot.
"I don't suppose you could help?"
"Squeak."
"'I would hardly know where to start, and I would just as soon not disturb the Mistress's sleep,' he says," Shadow Briar informs you.
"...but you don't mind us trying?"
"Squeak."
"'As long as you are polite about it, I cannot tell the Mistress's friend what to do'."
You can't help it; you turn to the dark fairy and ask, "Is he seriously saying that much with so few squeaks?"
"I'll have you know that Chiropteran is a very expressive language," Shadow Briar replies primly.
You're tempted to think that she's messing with you, but from the way Merlot puffs himself up smugly, there is some truth to the matter. Maybe it has something to do with those high-pitched frequencies bats can produce and hear, that humans can't? But wait, then how is Shadow Briar hearing that - or is her innate translation magic just that inclusive?
Putting that aside, you make a few more attempts at waking Kahlua up politely, which is to say, limiting yourself to words. It doesn't work, and soon has you wondering what your next step should be. Maybe one of you should step out of Kahlua's field of vision awareness, and clap your hands or yell? Or you could try giving her hand a squeeze or shaking her by the shoulder a bit, and see if that does something - anything more than that seems like it would be too much.
On second thought, surprising a vampire inside her own dream is probably not the best idea, at least not until you have a better handle on dreamwalking and semi-conscious self-defense - or maybe just until you've ruled any lesser possibilities out from working.
And on that note, if you're going to try to use physical contact to wake Kahlua up - or whatever the proper term is, given neither of you is actually PHYSICALLY here in the dream-realm - there might be some value in starting with the smaller gestures.
As such, you step forward, raise one hand, and pat Kahlua on the head.
...
"Are you doing something?" she asks, with the faintest hint of puzzlement.
Hmmm. Not the reaction you were going for.
"Do you feel anything?" you ask, curious.
...
"Confusion," comes the slow answer.
"Physically, I mean."
...
"Not really."
Interesting. Now is that because she's in a dreaming state, because she's wearing a nightcap while in a dreaming state, or for some other reason?
This little excursion just keeps giving you more and more questions, and while you could try to answer this one by asking Kahlua to take off her hat, that seems a bit too intrusive.
Instead, you back up slightly and say, "May I have your hand, Kahlua?"
...
Why is she blush-
*Slam!*
"NNNNOOOOOOOO!"
You start and stare past Kahlua, trying to see down the hallway of her mindscape to wherever that sound of a door slamming open and despairing, distinctly masculine wail of protest came from, but the source is somewhere out of your immediate line of sight.
Kahlua sighs, and even through her dream-self's nigh-emotionless state, the tone of that exhalation gives you the distinct impression that she's rolling her eyes behind that mask.
Also, she has raised the arm not currently acting as Merlot's perch in your direction.
You take it-
There is another monstrous cry from within the dreamscape.
-and this time, Kahlua doesn't sigh, but rather outright groans.
"Oh, for goodness' sake, Daddy!" she exclaims, turning around to glare, poutily, down the hall - and it IS a glare, the silk eyemask disappeared as she was turning away from you. "It's just a dream!"
"NNNNOOOO-!"
*Slam!*
...that was Issa? Or a dreamed-up version of him, at least?
Huh. And from the sound of things, Kahlua may have just shut him back into whatever room he was lurking in.
"Honestly," Kahlua mutters, as she turns back to you. "Can't a girl even-" She stops, violet eyes blinking. "Wait, why are there two of you, Alex? And... only one Briar?"
"Hiya!"
"And Merlot?"
"Squeak."
...
"What's going on?" Kahlua wonders, looking around. "Where am I?"
"It's all just a dream."
You pause, and then add, "I mean that literally, by the way; you're actually asleep right now."
Kahlua blinks again, and stares at you in silence for a moment.
Then she looks down at her nightclothes, and from there to her left hand, which is still holding yours.
That faint blush which appeared when she was still in her "unconscious" state returns, but Kahlua makes an admirable attempt at maintaining her composure, meeting your gaze - and then looking past you, not just at your two companions, but also at the corridor beyond.
"Of course I'm asleep," she says with false calm. "I don't sleepwalk, and even if I did, the servants would have directed me back to my room long before I got into the guest quarters, or stopped Alex well before he wandered into my room. Also, there are no gargoyles dressed like that in the castle, which is kind of a shame now that I think about it-"
You nod, and wait a bit while your friend rambles on.
"-maybe if I get the girls in on it, we can convince Daddy to have the halls near our rooms redecorated in a cuter fashion?" Kahlua goes on, clearly speaking more to herself than to any of the rest of you. "Oh, but Kokoa and Moka both like the spooky old aesthetic, and I don't know what Jasmine likes yet-"
You would have waited a bit more, but Shadow Alex clears his throat. "Uh, Kahlua?"
"Yes, Dream Shadow Alex?"
Oh. Does she think YOU'RE just a dream?
Your Shadow blinks once, and then smoothly moves right past that little misconception. "Yeah, uh, are you going to let go of Alex's hand at some point?"
Because when you said it was ALL just a dream, you weren't actually referring to yourself-
"Hush and let me enjoy my dream while it lasts," Kahlua scolds your Dark Self.
-but you can see how she could have taken it that way.
Shadow Briar giggles.
Merlot squeaks, at a pitch that sounds like a groan.
"Well, of course it's just a dream," Kahlua tells her pet. "Dream Alex even said so, and really, what else would it be? He's not a succubus or a dream-eater or anything like that, he can't just walk into other people's heads like that."
"Yes, that would take magic. Or psychic powers."
In response to your dry snark, Kahlua nods and half-raises the hand that's still holding yours, sort of pointing at you in the process. "Exactly!"
There is a short pause, during which you can SEE the implications working their way through her head.
Once again, Kahlua's eyes widen. "Wait... Alex... HAS magic..."
You nod. "Psychic powers, too, even if they're nowhere near as developed."
"...including, uh, the ability to enter other people's dreams?" Kahlua ventures nervously.
"As a matter of fact, yes."
Kahlua looks down at your hands again.
Her blush intensifies.
She doesn't let go, however.
"This is a dream," she states in a level voice.
"It is."
"But you're also really here."
"I am."
"WE are," Shadow Briar corrects.
You spare the fairy a glance, and then concede the point with a nod. "We are."
"...how?" Khalua manages to say. "Why?"
"Well, the 'how' goes back to the time I actually DID meet a succubus in my dreams-"
"Wha-?"
You recount your one-time encounter with the little blue-haired dreamwalking monster-girl, back at the World Tournament. Kahlua doesn't appear particularly bothered when you explain how you set up a magical trap to catch an unknown presence that had been intruding on your sleep, and almost giggles when you describe how you stole control of the dreamscape from the intruder, but when you bring up your use of the image of the Raging Boar and the fact that it nearly brought the young succubus to tears, your friend frowns, torn between approval and a certain sense of feminine solidarity.
Defending your mind against intruders is one thing; making little girls cry is another.
But with that said, Kahlua does seem just a bit pleased by the fact that you haven't seen or spoken to Kurono Kurumu since then.
"I don't recognize the name 'Kurono'," Kahlua admits. "Maybe I should look it up..."
"As to 'why' I'm in your dream," you continue, "mainly, it's because I woke up in a dream of my own, realized that I haven't done all that much with my dreamwalking, and decided to... work out a bit? Psychically speaking, that is."
"By entering my dreams?" Kahlua asks.
Kahlua frowns at your remark. "Is that a serious possibility?"
"I don't know how SERIOUS it is," you answer, "but I'm pretty sure it IS a possibility. I had pretty good recall of my dreams even before I started figuring out how to control them, and that just carried over - but 'pretty good' still isn't 'completely perfect'."
"I usually remember my dreams," Kahlua says, "but..."
"It's fine. I can check in the morning, and if you don't remember then, I can remind you."
Kahlua nods.
"You were the first person I thought of."
Kahlua smiles brightly. "Really?"
"Yes, really. Plus, I did ask permission before entering." You nod at her other arm, adding, "Merlot can confirm that."
Kahlua looks at her pet.
"Squeak."
"I see. Thank you both, then... although, wait. How are YOU in my dream, Merlot?"
"...squeak?" the Ache offers with an inverted shrug.
"I was actually wondering that myself, earlier," you note. "Unless you've bound him as a familiar...?"
"I haven't, no," Kahlua replies firmly. "Vampires who don't practice magic CAN take familiars by using blood-based bonds, and bats ARE one of the best and safest matches for that, but it's a bad idea to make such a bond when we're young or the familiar is."
You consider that statement for a moment, weighing it against what you know of living vampires, and a possible answer presents itself: "Youki surges?"
Kahlua nods, wincing slightly.
And well she might. Being exposed to a sudden surge of vampiric life-force is a chilling experience, even when the energy remains wholly external and you're able to harden your own ki to buffer yourself against the effects. Having such energy pass through a familiar bond - one which, being based on blood, would be more suited to channeling life-force than your own arcane connection to Briar - would bypass most of the body's defenses, such that even if a much smaller amount of energy was involved, it might do more damage than the full "aura of bloody darkness" you've experienced in spars where Kahlua removes her limiter.
One surge probably wouldn't be anything worse than painful, but repeated ones, over the course of several years, while the power source behind them is constantly and rapidly growing to the levels of output you've sensed from the adult vampires around Castle Shuzen? That could make for a very different story, especially if the one on the receiving end of the "shocks" was still growing themselves.
Maybe later on, when the most pronounced of the growth spurts associated with adolescence are over, and the according youki development has similarly calmed down, it might be safe for a teenaged vampire to take a familiar - and then again, it might not.
Still, if that's not what let Merlot find and enter Kahlua's dreamscape...
"I can think of two- no, three other possibilities," you state. "One is that, just by being your pet and staying as close to you for as long as he does, Merlot is able to reach you."
Kahlua frowns in thought. "That seems like it would be a little too easy," she replies. "At least, I don't recall dreaming about him that often-"
"Squeak."
"'I would never intrude on your rest or privacy without good reason, Mistress.'"
Kahlua smiles brightly at the Ache even before Shadow Briar has translated a third of that for you, and from the way the vampire girl's hand twitches around yours, she wants to hug or pet the Ache for that remark - but she doesn't, probably to the flying furball's relief.
"-ahem. As I was saying, I don't remember having dreams like that, Moka and Akua haven't mentioned anything like with their bats, and Moka doesn't dream about the dogs much - and she likes them almost as much as she does bats."
"That leaves the other two possibilities, then," you say simply, "which are kind of variations on the same: that Merlot can just do that, either as a consequence of being an Ache, OR because the Goddesses decided to give him the ability."
"You aren't sure?" Kahlua asks.
"Aches aren't all that well studied," Shadow Alex informs her. "Not a lot of Hyrule's resident monsters are, really, at least not when compared to some of the... detailed bestiary entries we've found for creatures that can be found on Earth."
In defense of Hyrulean bestiaries and the academics who compile them, it IS rather difficult to do proper anatomical or behavioral studies on creatures that are relentlessly homicidal to most things not their own kind, and which dissolve into short-lived clouds of Dark Magic-charged smoke upon death.
"Right, that whole 'monsters in the magic kingdom in another world are actually demons' thing," Kahlua remembers. "Could you... ask, then? Your Goddesses, I mean? Or is there something I should do as part of that?"
Well, on the first part, you can certainly pose the question when you've woken up, but as to the second...
"I can substitute more magical energy for material offerings, if I need to," you say. "That said, a small offering wouldn't hurt."
Pouring extra power into your spellcasting to overcome the need for expensive components is the Dinnite approach, after all, whereas a spell seeking pure information - especially relatively obscure information such as the abilities of a particular breed of Hyrulean monster, let alone those of a specific member of said species created by the Goddesses themselves - is more under Nayru's portfolio. And while the Goddess of Wisdom hasn't ever really objected to your usual approach, she might appreciate it if you did things a little more... traditionally, for once.
Kahlua nods, looking thoughtful.
"Anyway... you asked about me entering your dreams?"
"Yes?"
"Technically, WE" - you gesture at yourself and the Shadows with your free hand - "didn't come in of our own accord; YOU brought us in here, which was kind of neat."
Kahlua blinks in surprise. "I did?"
Shadow Alex nods. "You did."
Shadow Briar bobs in mid-air. "Yup."
"It was an interesting and slightly intimidating display of dream control," you state, "and I was wondering if anyone taught you how to do that?"
"No, they haven't," Kahlua answers.
So that really was just natural talent at work, then? Scary.
Of course, you don't know enough about how dreams work to say for certain whether that particular frightfulness is unique to Kahlua, if it's a consequence of her nature as a vampire, or if you should be wary of getting dragged into ANY dream you encounter. The latter seems likely, given that you managed to temporarily trap little Kurumu in your own dreamscape when you were still realizing that dreamwalking was even a thing, much less one within your ability to do, but you DID have a pre-cast ritual spell helping to hold her at the time; other untrained dreamers without your magical resources might not be so successful if they went up against a young succubus.
On the whole, it would probably be best for you to treat all dreams you encounter in the future as being potentially able to swallow you. On that subject...
"Anyway, getting to the reason WHY I decided to go for a walk outside my own head-"
Kahlua dons a look of interest.
"-I have two questions for you. First, would you be interested in me making future visits like this, or in joining me for trips to other dreamscapes - my own, or other people's?"
Your friend looks mightily tempted by your offer, but as her gaze trails past you and down the corridor to where her dreamscape opens up into the wider realm of glowing mist and darkness, her expression takes on a certain reluctance and resolve.
"Thank you for the offer, Alex," Kahlua says, "but I don't know the first thing about... all of this-"
Merlot squeaks slightly as Kahlua slowly waves that arm, taking in all of her mental realm and the psychic plane beyond.
"-and I probably shouldn't be, um, 'wandering around outside my own head' until I have at least some idea of what I'm doing, and what could go wrong."
Ah, that's what that look is: responsibility.
"Unless you can teach me everything I need to know?" Kahlua adds, hopefully.
"That would be a no," your honesty and protective impulses compel you to admit. "I'm still figuring things out myself."
Violet eyes narrow slightly. "Do you... not have a teacher for this?"
"Not as such..."
"Alex..."
"I sleep with the Spell of Mind Blank up," you say quickly, "and I've never tried projecting like this on the Hellmouth - or anywhere else, actually, this was kind of a spur of the moment decision..."
"I'm glad to hear that, but does your spell still protect your mind when that mind isn't inside your head?"
"It does," you say with a nod.
This is the same spell used by archmages and grand sorcerers capable of projecting their astral bodies across the planes, leaving their physical bodies behind in an endless, helpless slumber - often for days at a time, if not longer. If Mind Blank DIDN'T continue to protect both aspects of the spellcaster's being when Astral Projection was cast, it would immediately reveal either the traveler's astral body or their sleeping physical one to any hostile entity that happened to be trying to divine their location, with disastrous consequences.
"That's also good to know," Kahlua says, "but would it protect me?"
...ah.
"No," you admit, "it wouldn't. And I can't really cast magic like this."
Kahlua nods. "There you go."
Alright, so going on dream trips with Kahlua is not currently in the cards, which rules out pranking other people. That said...
"If you don't want to leave your dreamscape, do you mind if I visit you again?" you ask. "We could spar, or... have giant robot dragon battles..."
"Visiting would be fine," Kahlua says cheerfully. "But don't tell Daddy."
From deeper in her mindscape, there is another wailing protest, as well as the sound of someone beating their fists on a very solid door with equally sturdy locks - or maybe bars.
Is there anything else you'd like to do on this dreamwalk?
As you missed her most recent birthday due to scheduling conflicts, a sort-of promise to the divine, and a potential undead uprising, you decide to offer Kahlua a belated dance.
"What, like this?" she asks, shifting awkwardly as she looks about, taking in the fact that you're both wearing bedclothes, the confines of the hallway, and the Ache hanging from her arm.
"Okay, maybe not exactly like this," you admit, "but I'm sure Merlot can find another perch..."
"Squeak," the bat agrees, before hauling himself upright so that he is standing on his mistress's arm rather than hanging from it. He spreads his wings, and with a helpful little toss from Kahlua, soars off in search of another spot to hang out.
"...and as for the rest, we ARE inside your dream. If you focus on it the right way..."
You spend a little time walking Kahlua through the basics of dream-manipulation.
Changing the overall shape of the dreamscape proves no more difficult for her than it was for you-
"Squeak!"
-although Merlot is forced to take flight again when the rafter he was testing out transforms into the interior of a great glass dome, as the hallway you were standing in transforms to a ballroom with sparkling crystal EVERYTHING, underneath a brilliantly moon- and star-lit sky.
Affecting her own appearance, on the other hand, turns out to be oddly problematic. It's not that Kahlua can't conjure herself a change of clothes, but for some reason, she can't seem to directly change what she's wearing, except for the housecoat and slippers, whereas the dress that she dreams up for herself and the suit she attempts to provide you prove to be... unstable.
Your own attempts to alter your attire or spin a new outfit from dreamstuff don't work out either. The latter fails outright, while the former is about half-successful: you do manage to imagine yourself in your Formal Spider-Silk Suit; but you can't seem to hold the image very well, which results in the Suit gradually phasing back into your regular clothing.
Your personal failure to reshape the contents of Kahlua's dream doesn't particularly bother you, but your inability to alter your personal appearance and make it stick is a little vexing - all the more so BECAUSE you got so close. Kahlua's difficulties can be easily chalked up to her lack of experience in dreamwalking, as well as the fact that she is actually wearing those nightclothes, which would make their dream representations more "real" to her and accordingly harder to affect. No doubt that's a contributor to your own failure as well.
Fortunately, Kahlua dreamed up privacy screens before either of you tried to change outfits, so you are spared some mutual embarrassment on that account.
Gained Dreamwalking D (Plus) (Plus)
Then you suggest trying to dance in mid-air, which once again has mixed results. Kahlua has absolutely no trouble imagining herself flying - and given you've seen her grow wings and jump off of empty air before, you are completely unsurprised by this - but when she tries to imagine you doing the same, the effect falters. The best she seems to be able to manage in that regard is to alter the environment so that, rather than properly flying, you're all left floating about in the quite unfamiliar conditions of low gravity-
"Careful!" Shadow Briar calls, as she zips out of the way of her partner's not-quite-flailing arm.
"Squeak," Merlot peeps, as he drifts lazily by overhead.
-except for the two people in the dream who can normally fly anyway. Though even they're a little off-balance like that.
Despite your non-trivial experience with magical flight, DREAM flight proves to be a different beast. There's no arcane mechanism to guide or be guided by, and attempting to just pour raw willpower into your desired movement-
"WHOOOOAAAA-!"
*Splat*
-has poor results.
On a side note, that dream-spun glass is MUCH harder than its delicate-looking construction would suggest. That's most likely for the best, though. You've already been wounded in one state of altered consciousness; you feel no need to try for another.
In the end...
...you sensibly stick to barefoot ballroom dancing. Mind the toes.
As much fun as dancing on air sounds like, you think that one high-speed impact with a glass wall is enough for a night.
Learning to walk before you run, and all that - but also, you'd rather not knock yourself out in somebody else's dream. At the very least, you'd be embarrassed, and at the worst... you honestly don't know what the worst possible outcome would be, which is reason enough not to tempt fate.
And so you and Kahlua end up dancing in your nightclothes for a little while, you in bare feet, her in fuzzy bat slippers.
Music is provided by a small band of household staff, security guards, and dogs, who - much like yourself entering the dream earlier - don't so much walk into the glass ballroom as they simply appear there.
You let the first dance pass without conversation, but during your second turn around the dance floor-
"How are your feet?" Kahlua wonders. "Not getting cold or sore?"
"I am good for now."
-you bring up the possibility of using the malleable nature of the dream to let Kahlua show you what she'd like future pieces of Warrior Princess gear to look like. That gets her interest, and after finishing your second dance and taking a third with Shadow Alex-
"So you don't feel left out," Kahlua explains brightly, as she drags your Dark Self onto the dance floor.
"But I don't?" he says in bewilderment.
-she rejoins you to try envisioning her "dream armor."
Since Kahlua's not actually trying to wear this particular dream-conjuration, the attempt goes a little better than the try at changing her outfit. Your own difficulties in manipulating the substance of her dream prevent you from directly altering the pieces as they appear on the Kahlua-sized mannequin, but fortunately, Kahlua has studied enough military history to have a good idea of what different pieces of armor look like and are called, so when you describe possible inclusions or alterations, she's able to make them.
You can't set a finalized design at this time. For one thing, Kahlua still has years of growing left to do, and even magical re-sizing only goes so far. On top of that, you aren't sure if you could trust measurements taken in the dream world to apply to the waking one, and there is also the fact that Kahlua's aesthetic tastes may change in the future.
Still, you do get some ideas ruled out.
Full face-covering helmets are off the table, as vampires rely on their heightened senses too much to make the increase in personal protection worth the loss of sensory acuity. Something a bit more open might be doable, although Kahlua would personally prefer to forego heavy headgear altogether.
Something as gaudy and impractical as a proper crown is right out, although a tiara would be fine, as long as it wasn't too flashy.
"And it could help keep your hair out of your face," Shadow Briar notes.
"That's a bonus," Kahlua admits.
Oversized pauldrons are a no-
"But those are the best kind!" Shadow Briar protests.
"No."
-and "spiky bits" can take a hike as well.
"...no arguments?" Kahlua asks.
"You've seen some of the things from Hyrule that dress like that," Shadow Briar replies.
Your vampire friend just nods, because she has.
Full plate armor gets a "probably not," as it doesn't really mesh with Kahlua's preferred fighting style. You know that such a suit, when designed for combat rather than show and properly fitted to its wearer, isn't nearly as inflexible or burdensome as most Twentieth Century media would have people believe, but it is still a bit restrictive - for ordinary humans. Vampires, being a lot stronger, might well be capable of exerting enough force to wrench loose or deform part of the armor with too abrupt a motion, and the added weight would affect their momentum (which you know can get quite significant with body weight alone), make it harder to move around quietly (especially when dealing with opponents with superhuman hearing), and make them more likely to leave tracks or damage flooring (situational shortcomings, admittedly, but ones worth keeping in mind).
Thinking on it, mana-using knights like the Drakes must face a similar risk of damaging their kit with their own strength, which leads you to wonder just how they deal with the issue...
Another topic to discuss with Ambrose at some point, you suspect.
Anyway, a lighter form of armor, such as you saw Miss Akasha wearing for her last few challenges in the Ring of Trials, is more traditional for vampire warriors: breastplate and such to protect the torso and the vital organs therein; bracers, greaves, and reinforced boots to grant the limbs at least some protection; but otherwise leaving the limbs unarmored, for maximum range of movement; and likewise foregoing serious headgear in favor of preserving their senses.
In all honesty, the level of protection that grade of armor provides, even when enchanted, isn't tremendously superior to what a well-made set of Bracers of Armor could offer. So it might be better to stick with those.
On the topic of what sort of enchantments Kahlua is interested in for future additions to her armor, she's honestly so spoiled for choice that she doesn't really know what to go for. The fact that you can't directly demonstrate any of the many, many options you could potentially provide doesn't exactly help.
In short, you have to give up on the idea of planning Kahlua's future armor out in serious detail, and instead just spend some time passing ideas back and forth.
Eventually, you notice that the household band has broken up and disappeared, while the glass ballroom has turned into a smaller room - still crystalline, mind you - better suited for the sort of shop-talk you've been having. Also, Kahlua is starting to look and sound like she's sleepy, and when she yawns, Merlot interjects that it's about time for the Mistress to return to her rest.
"How do I do that, again?" Kahlua wonders.
"You just close your eyes and will yourself back to sleep," you reply. "Though you might want to find a chair or a bed first."
On that note, you see yourself out, wishing Kahlua pleasant dreams.
"Or more of them, as the case may be," your Shadow adds.
Stepping out of Kahlua's dreamscape with the rest of your group - and Merlot - you wait and wave until she's withdrawn far enough into her mind that you can't see her anymore. Shortly thereafter, a ripple goes through the crystal corridor, some of its interior lights going out and the material slowly starting to shift from clear glass back to gothic stone.
Leaving the Ache to keep watch over his lady, you start making your way back along the dream-shaped stone path to your own mindscape. The trek goes without incident.
"Welcome back," Briar says. "Are you done walking around in other people's heads for the night?"
"Well..." you begin.
"Because," your partner interrupts, "I feel obligated to point out that we don't know how this sort of wakeful dreaming affects your ability rest."
"...okay, yeah, I'm done for the night."
Your psychic energy is pretty heavily depleted, and your mana has a fair bit of recovery left to do from your earlier activities, so it probably is for the best that you stop here.
Heading back into your museum-mindscape, you will a you-sized bed into existence, while the Shadows go back into their attached room-
*Bump*
"Whyyyy is it so DARK in here?" Shadow Briar complains.
"How did you manage to run into something?" her partner wonders. "You glow!"
-and Briar seeks out her own dream-bed.
"Goodnight," she says. "Again."
"Goodnight again," you reply.
You close your eyes-
-and the next thing you know, it is morning.
*Crack-a-thoom*
Make that, a dark and STORMY morning, at Castle Shuzen.
Checking the clock, you see that it's about seven in the morning, and when you check to see how well your energy pools have recovered, you find that you've got the equivalent of maybe four hours' worth of complete rest and recovery. As you went to bed somewhere before two, it seems that time spent dreamwalking is strenuous enough to prevent you from properly regaining your spent strength - or at least, it is when you're doing things outside your own mindscape.
Gained Local Knowledge (Dream Plane) F
With that settled, you get out of bed, run through your morning exercises-
*Knock-knock*
"Young Mister Harris?"
-take a moment to let the maid know you're up and what you'd like for breakfast, and then clean yourself up. Briar joins you as you leave the apartment and head downstairs to the dining room, and the Shadows emerge from their shared suite and hustle to catch up with you.
"How are you holding up?" you query your Dark Self, as you hit the stairwell.
"Sleep good," he grumbles, rubbing his eyes.
"Sleep very good," Shadow Briar agrees. "Can I go back-?"
"Sorry, no."
Akua and Jasmine are absent from the breakfast table, as is Tessai - all in all, not unexpected; with Jasmine on a blood-only diet for the short term, it'd be a little mean to make her watch everybody else eat other things - but Urahara has made himself as presentable as he ever gets and claimed a seat. Boris is also present, and gives you a grin and a thumbs up.
"Still digesting comfortably!"
Score another point for the Spell of Age Resistance. You'll probably have to wait until your next visit to get his final report on the matter, but so far, it's looking very promising.
Gyokuro is sleeping in, but Akasha and Issa are both present for the morning meal and the keeping of a parental eye on the shady Shinigami scientist.
Greetings are exchanged as you sit down at the table.
Perhaps you're still sluggish from having just gotten out of bed, maybe you're a little too focused on the meal before you, or it could just be your sense of propriety getting in the way. Whatever the reason(s), while you do recall your promise to Kahlua to remind her of some of the things you discussed in the dream-realm, you don't find a good opening to act upon it before Akasha speaks up.
"So, Alex; what's this I hear about a Prism Ranger Incident?"
You can almost hear the ears perking up around the table.
"Prism Ranger!" Kokoa exclaims excitedly.
"...it's an incident, now?" you ask with slight concern.
"Only in the sense of being an event or occurrence," the Dark Lady clarifies.
"Where? When?" The littlest vampire looks around, settles on you, and demands, "What did you do?"
Seeing that you have the attention of everyone sitting at the table - and possibly some of the household staff, besides - you take a quick sip of orange juice and begin to explain.
You basically re-tell the tale you shared with Gyokuro last night, although since you're not sure how much the Shuzen girls and the family's employees have been read in on the whole Dracula business - and because Urahara is sitting right there, making no attempt to hide his own curiosity - you leave any mention of the late Dark Lord out of your account. Likewise, you don't directly name the Hakuba Shrine or its caretakers, although it's questionable how helpful that will be: they have connections with the Shuzens, who in turn are aware of your prior involvement with the shrinekeepers; and if word of last night's events does become generally known, you suspect Urahara wouldn't have much trouble tracking the story back to its source.
Still, the attempt at information security should be made.
The Mystery of the Midnight Mist and your interest in cracking it go over well enough with your audience: Boris fondly recalls assorted environmental manifestations of Darkness he's encountered over the ages; Urahara commends you not only on your desire to pursue the scientific process, but also for not dragging your observations out to the point where bystanders might have been (further) affected; and Kahlua and Moka both exhibit some sympathy for the bloody mist-turned-coppery haze when you describe using a new application of your Power to burn it out.
And when it comes to your decision to transform into Prism Gold to conceal your true identity, you-
-pause to check with Issa and Akasha if it would be alright for you to use a minor spell to give a more complete and authentic presentation.
You're mostly concerned about getting permission in advance rather than having to seek forgiveness later. While you did once accidentally disturb Gyokuro by casting spells in her home late at night, your still-active Spell of Mind Blank would suffice to hide the casting of minor magic whose effects were limited to your person, such as the Spell of Illusion you have in mind.
"It should be fine, as long as you remember to keep things... contained," Issa replies.
You nod and rise from your chair, working a simple Spell to Disguise One's Self. Holding the magic at the point of completion, you strike a pose-
"Prism Power!"
-and transform.
There are a few appreciative "oooh"s, as well as some disbelieving looks. It's interesting to see who reacts how: Kokoa bounces in her chair for a moment before she remembers to try not to let on that she's impressed by you; Moka regards your new look with clear recognition and a certain approval; Issa and Akasha display a certain wry, parental amusement; Boris, Urahara, and the three fairies at the table all offer light applause; and your Shadow just sighs, looking like he wants to deny any relationship to you, and just can't think of a way to do it.
Kahlua does a double-take and looks like she just remembered something - in context, you give it good odds that seeing you near-effortlessly change costumes just jarred loose a memory about how difficult it was to switch clothes in her dream.
From there, you do a quick "Ranger Introduction" kata, strike a pose that would normally result in an explosion going off behind you, and launch (verbally) into your description of how you rushed about the haunted building, driving off the lingering evil and, for better or worse, getting the attention of a number of people who weren't as deeply asleep as you could have hoped.
Kokoa lets out a squawk of protest as you narrate your exit from the scene, which basically boils down to, "And then the brave Prism Gold bravely ran away from his adoring public, before they could charge him with disturbing the peace!"
You follow up with an abridged account of the meeting at the Hakuba Shrine, and another of your subsequent talk with Gyokuro. On that note...
"We have a couple of people in place to observe the situation and lend assistance to the priests, if they request it or the situation calls for it," Issa states. "They're also monitoring the local media for a reaction, but nothing's turned up yet, or at least nothing serious."
Part of you is relieved at the apparent lack of headlines.
Another is vaguely disappointed that you didn't make the front page of the morning edition.
Given that you'll be in Japan for a good part of the day, you make a mental note to keep your eyes and ears open - because who knows? Your costumed identity may yet make it to the big time!
Do you have anything further to say regarding your outing as Prism Gold?
And speaking of your late night/early morning supernatural antics...
Seeing as how nobody else seems to have any questions about the Prism Ranger Incident that weren't already answered by your summation of events, you let that part of the conversation go.
You spend a few minutes working through your breakfast, keeping one eye on the chatter, and then-
-when Kahlua doesn't speak up about whatever she happened to remember in the middle of your account of last night's physical excursion, you opt not to bring it up until a bit later. Whatever has motivated her decision in the matter - be it imperfect recollection of the dream, a desire for privacy, or just a wish to finish breakfast first - you will respect it.
Besides, the less you talk over the meal, the more you can eat.
One thing that you do make time to discuss is what the rest of the day looks like for Urahara. He says that, based on how well yesterday's procedure went and the observations he made before turning in for the night, he was planning on having Jasmine run through some exercises in another half an hour or so. They'd already done a round of light tests while you were catching up on your sleep yesterday evening, and depending on how the next round goes - and Urahara's seen nothing at this point to suggest that it won't go well - Jasmine's gigai fitting may be complete in as little as an hour from now.
"Which would have Tessai and I back in Karakura before noon," the shopkeeper concludes.
"You won't stay for lunch?" Issa inquires.
"Your cooks make that a very tempting offer, Mr. Shuzen," Urahara admits, "but other responsibilities call - among them, giving our young sorcerer's pet dog a spiritual check-up."
"Is Moblin alright, Alex?" Moka asks.
Heh. Only met him the one time, and she remembers his name. Normally, you'd say that was enough to confirm Moka as a dog person, but Moblin DID give a pretty memorable showing in the Ring of Trials...
"He's fine," you answer. "The check-up is just to make sure he stays that way."
That, and to get a better idea of what exactly the Heart of the Old Dog has done, is doing, and might do to him, for SCIENCE.
"And you didn't bring him here?" Moka continues.
"I wasn't sure how he'd react to the environment," you admit. "Plus, it just seemed like it would have been presuming a lot to drop him on you for several hours."
Moka's expression says she wouldn't have objected, but most of the rest of the table seem satisfied with your choice.
Nothing else significant comes up in conversation, and when the meal ends, Moka excuses herself and heads off to see Akua and Jasmine. Urahara follows along in her wake, and - after a wordless exchange with you - the Shadows go with him. Shadow Briar drags Thistle along, Kokoa yells a protest and chases after them, and Briar sighs.
Issa and Akasha have their own business to attend to, and Boris says something about his morning shows starting soon, before he goes bats and flies off squeaking.
Once everyone is out of vampiric hearing range, you ask, "Do you remember the dream?"
"Some of it," your friend replies, frowning. "You were going to look into how Merlot made it into my dream, and there was a name I was supposed to look up...?"
You start sorting out the details.
What spell do you want to use to query the Goddesses about Merlot's unexpected ability? Regardless of what you choose, you'll be waiting until you know that Gyokuro is awake before you make with the magic.
"Did you want to go save your little sister from your not-quite-evil self?" you ask Briar.
"I kind of do," Briar admits. "You don't mind?"
"Not in the least."
"And you WON'T go and do something crazy while I'm gone?" she presses.
You had given a passing thought to using the Spell of Communion to pose your questions about Merlot to the Goddesses directly - cutting out the middleman, as it were - but then your long-term memory caught up to you with that outstanding request from the Shuzens that you not invoke your deities so directly on or near their property, after what happened the first time you tried.
"I was thinking I might call up one of the priests," you say instead, "or maybe another divine servitor of similar rank - but using the Lesser Spell to Call a Planar Ally, instead of the Lesser Spell of Planar Binding. That way, everything would be all nice and formal and polite, and they could take Kahlua's offering for the Goddesses back with them."
"Oh. Okay, yeah, that's fine. I'll leave you to that, then."
And with that, your partner zips off down the hall.
"Thanks!" she calls back.
With your means decided, there's just the question of who to ask the Goddesses to send. Arguments can be made for and against all three of your tutors.
Madam Lanora serves Nayru and is the most academically-inclined of the trio, so she'd seem to be the best suited on those merits. On the other fin, she's a Zora, and might never have encountered Aches or had any outstanding reason to study them.
Elder Terok is the oldest and most experienced of the group, and as a Goron, would have resided in the sort of mountainous areas where Ache-haunted caves can often be found; weighing against that is his devotion to Din, which would... not precisely encourage the sort of detailed study of a monster's subtler abilities you were hoping to take advantage of.
Then there's Koron and Vert. Being a Hyrulean druid and his fairy partner, you'd expect the pair to know quite a bit about the kingdom's beasts and more animal-like monsters, and you also know that Aches can be found in some forests, so there's a connection there.
One drawback that all your tutors have in common, though, is that they're dead, and have been since before the era of the current Hero - which is also the era in which Aches arose. Consequently, they may be legitimately ignorant of the information you're after, which would make summoning a more recent scholar or servant of the Goddesses a better call.
What's your preference? Note that the choice of Ally (and by extension, Goddess) will also impact what sort of offering Kahlua should make.
Among the fraternity of magic-users, druids are generally your best bet when you want to know something about animals and magical beasts - barring those researchers known to specialize in the topic, anyway. On top of that, while all three Goddesses had a hand in Merlot's "birth," Farore would have been the most directly responsible just by dint of her domain as the Goddess of Nature, so speaking with one of her adherents makes sense.
With that in mind, you decide to summon Koron and Vert, and spend some time catching Kahlua up on what a Kokiri druid and his fairy partner might ask for in exchange for their advice - and likewise, what would make an appropriate offering to Farore.
This leads to a scene where, after escorting you outside the castle walls to make your preparations, Kahlua turns and marches purposefully into the nearest patch of dark forest, Merlot fluttering along in her wake.
The castle's spirit - which showed up to say goodbye when it looked like you might be leaving - gives you a look of puzzled inquiry.
"You'll see when they get back," you advise. "For now, just sit tight. It'd be best if the two of them took care of things on their own."
Farore isn't dedicated to self-sufficiency like Din is, but when it comes to making an offering to the divine, gathering or fashioning the sacrifice yourself is rarely a bad idea - and this isn't one of those times.
The spirit tilts its rocky head, clearly not understanding what you're getting at, but then shrugs and settles in to wait and watch.
You spend some time physically scratching a summoning diagram into the earth, to be filled with energy once you've gotten word that Gyokuro is up. You don't strictly NEED a Magic Circle in order to cast the Spell to Call a Planar Ally, but it gives you something to occupy yourself with while you wait, you were going for formality with this whole thing, and having a ward in place to hedge out hostile interference with your calling ritual would not be unwelcome anyway.
After a moment's thought, you add a couple of additional layers to the diagram. After all, NON-hostile interference could also be a problem, whether it was well-intended or just meant as an enforcement of the local rules.
You are in the middle of writing out an oversized arcane glyph to one side of the circle when something in the forest gives a cat-like yowl of shock and anger. Looking up from your work, you see a small part of the nearby canopy rustling violently, though from the lack of loud cracking or crashing sounds and the way it fails to fall over or in on itself, there's apparently been no meaningful damage to the tree or trees involved.
That Kahlua is responsible for the disturbance is self-evident; you just wonder if that was her shrieking, or merely something that she startled.
A couple of minutes after that, a guard who has been lingering unobtrusively nearby raises one hand to his ear, speaks quietly for a moment, and then informs you that the lady of the castle is on her way to breakfast.
With that issue resolved, you finish up your Magic Circles and begin the ritual proper. You're about three-quarters of the way done with the summoning when Kahlua returns, looking pleased with herself as she carries along a struggling animal about twice as big as a housecat, with a long, hairless tail, and a back that's covered in spines. You quickly place it as one of those rat-porcupine things you and your friends fought alongside the goblins and deformed bats in that excursion during Kahlua's previous birthday.
What did Sokka call that one you sort of kill-stole from him? A quillbeast?
Merlot is also carrying something in his claws, although from what you can tell, he's picked up several kinds of flowers and fruits.
You complete the calling ritual, and Koron and Vert appear in the circle.
The little druid looks things over.
"...this is new," he says. "Hello, Alex."
"Hey, Koron. Hey, Vert."
"Hi! Where's Briar?"
"Saving one of her little sisters from her not-quite-evil twin," you answer.
"...not QUITE evil?" Vert checks.
"Not quite, no."
"Well, alright then."
Koron clears his throat. "So, you had a question?"
"I did, and it concerns Merlot, here, which is why he and Kahlua have gone and collected some offerings for you and Farore."
It is with a mix of pride and uncertainty that Kahlua holds up the little quillbeast.
The rat-porcupine-thing growls as it gnaws, ineffectively, on her Bracer-clad wrist.
Merlot, meanwhile, flutters down to lay out the various plants he was carrying for consideration.
Koron looks things over, and then glances at you. "Took some inspiration from our deal, were you?"
You nod. Considering how interested the Kokiri was in seeing whether or not Hyrulean plants could adapt to Earth's environment, you thought he might also be interested in trying to grow Earthly plants in the Goddesses' realm, or perhaps passing them along to someone in Hyrule. Similarly, since the Goddesses handed out half a dozen Hyrulean creatures to Earthly homes, sending them one of Earth's beasts in exchange seemed appropriate.
"Alright, you have my attention."
"And mine!"
And mine.
"Okay, so last night..."
You don't go into too much detail about the events of your dreamwalk, merely acknowledging that it happened, that you found your way to Kahlua's dreamscape, and that Merlot was there ahead of you, fully aware of himself and the nature of his surroundings.
You conclude by saying, "Is dreamwalking supposed to be normal for Aches, or is there something else going on? Because Kahlua did ask Merlot how he got into her dream, and he didn't seem to know, himself."
Koron blinks at that and turns to the Ache. "You don't know how you got into her dream?"
"Squeak," Merlot offers with a shrug. It's almost exactly the same reaction that he gave to Kahlua's inquiry, except for the fact that he's sitting upright on the ground this time, instead of hanging from his mistress's arm.
"...okay, that's fair."
"Tough being effectively an orphan," Vert says, not without some sympathy.
Kahlua frowns at that.
"So, to answer to your question," Koron says then, "no, dreamwalking is not normal for Aches, or at least it's not something that they're born knowing how to do. That said, they were created to be Old Boar-Face's spies, and that's a job which occasionally requires them to pass messages to and from his other agents, including ones that might not be able to understand bat-squeak - so he made sure to give them a certain aptitude for magic that lets them gather information and convey it to other people."
"Divination and Enchantment," you muse.
"Right. Now, their capabilities even in those fields are pretty limited, unless the Ache in question is comparatively old and strong or has a familiar bond with someone that can provide power for them, but the potential for them is still there. That might explain things, although..."
Koron trails off for a moment, frowning in thought, and then asks Kahlua and Merlot some straightforward questions about their relationship: how much time they spend together; how close Merlot's sleeping perch is to Kahlua's bed; whether or not Kahlua has fed Merlot any of her blood-
She shakes her head firmly at that one.
"Sorry if I offended," Koron apologizes. "Just making sure."
"...thank you."
-and what his diet, exercise, and daily routine are like.
"Hmmm," Koron finally states.
"Hmmm," Vert choruses.
Hmmm.
"'Hmmm'?" you echo.
"It doesn't quite add up," the druid admits. "If there'd been a conventional familiar bond, I could definitely see it happening, and one of these blood-bonds sounds like it could have the same effect. The sort of pack-bonding members of my tradition undergo with various animals might cause it as well, although a humanoid trying to link with one of Hyrule's monsters that way would probably be in for a few nightmares."
More than a few, if your own experiences with Ganondorf are any indication. Granted, your dreams of the King of Evil's life haven't ALL been bad, but you've still seen plenty of things in them that you would have been happier not knowing about for years yet, if ever.
"Without some kind of connection like that," Koron continues, "I don't think proximity alone would have been enough for Merlot to find his way into Kahlua's dreams. I'm guessing a bit, though, dreams aren't really my field of expertise."
They're not really yours, either. Still...
You haven't forgotten that Kahlua was able to pull you into her dream while still "unconscious," without you noticing what was happening in time to even attempt to muster resistance to the effect - and this despite your superior experience with dreamwalking and the dream-plane in general.
If she's got that much control over her own dreamscape, isn't it possible that she might have drawn Merlot's dream-self to her dreamscape as well?
You float that idea to Koron, who admits that it's a possibility, but reiterates his own limited understanding of the realm of dreams and whatever laws rule the place - and adds that his knowledge of living vampires isn't much more accurate.
"It could be that all vampires are capable of dragging dreamwalkers into their mindscapes," Koron says. "It could also be that a dreamwalker who asks for and receives permission from a sleeper's avatar to enter their dream would get pulled inside the way you describe, regardless of who or what they were dealing with. Or it could be that there's some other element we're missing which is responsible for the whole thing." He shrugs helplessly. "I just don't know."
"I'm kind of drawing a blank, too," Vert admits.
Yeah, you've got nothing else to explain it, either.
It's a bit of a mystery all around.
Despite the disappointing outcome, you thank Koron for his time; in return, he offers to give Merlot a check-up to better justify the cost and effort of your spellcasting. Kahlua and Merlot readily accept, and you have no objections to it.
After a few minutes' worth of examination both physical and magical, Koron proclaims that the young Ache is in good health and growing well - better, in fact, than his kind normally do in the wild, and that without putting on the sort of weight that betrays a lazy lifestyle and a less than ideal diet, as so often happens with domesticated creatures.
"We may never have encountered Hyrulean monsters before meeting Alex," Kahlua says with more than a little pride, "but my family has a lot of experience at raising bats, whether mundane or supernatural."
Vampires as skilled bat-wranglers? You never would have guessed.
Nonetheless, Koron offers a few more Ache-specific healthcare tips, which Kahlua carefully commits to memory. After that, the Kokiri sorts through the small bundle of flowers and seeds, getting the name for each and what Kahlua can tell him about its usual growing conditions and life-cycles, before pocketing the sample in question and moving on to the next.
Once the druid has sorted out the plant-life, he turns to the young quillbeast, which finally gave up on trying to escape from Kahlua's grasp at some point during your conversation, and is just sort of hanging there by the scruff of its neck, glaring at the lot of you.
"How would you like to escape the vampires forever?" Koron asks.
There is a growl.
"Language!" Vert scolds.
There is another growl.
"Big talk for a spike-ball being handled like a kitten!"
The next yowl seems as embarrassed as it is aggressive.
Koron seems troubled by the prospect of traveling with this.
"Would you like for me to put it to sleep for a bit?" you offer.
"That would probably be easier for everybody, yes," the druid agrees.
And so you knock the critter out, allowing Kahlua to carefully hand it over to Koron, whose wooden skin makes him somewhat less susceptible to being pierced by those bristling quills. The lack of vampiric strength means the Kokiri has to use both hands to hold the young quillbeast, and even then its size makes things a little awkward, but Koron manages.
"I'll let you know how things go with this fellow and the plants," he tells you.
"Until next time, teacher," you reply, as you end the spell.
And with that, the Kokiri, the fairy, and the little monster disappear.
If calling a servant of Farore didn't yield all the answers you were hoping for, you'll just have to try again, this time consulting one of the followers of a different Goddess - and given the choice between the traditionally more physically-focused worshippers of Din and the classically intellectual faithful of Nayru, the latter would seem to be the rational choice.
Kahlua is open to providing a second set of sacrifices for Madam Lanora and Nayru, but there is the issue of what form those should take. Gathering some unusual woodland plants and a young beast wouldn't really be appropriate offerings for a priestess of the Goddess of Wisdom, and given the problems vampires have with running water, most of the direct equivalents that might conceivably work aren't available on Shuzen lands.
Not that the demiplane is dry, by any measure, but they aren't exactly running an exotic fish-farm in here.
You run through Nayru's various domains, seeking a possibility.
An offering of music is probably not a great idea. Kahlua actually has been trained in singing and playing a few instruments, stringed ones among them, but her musical education hasn't been a huge priority, and she's self-aware enough to accept that she's not a prodigy in this area.
She would be fine with playing something for friends, family, or fun, but as an offering to a Goddess? No.
Nayru's domain over Law is another that's honestly better left alone, considering what you know and suspect about how the Shuzens make their living. True, Nayru deals more with Law in the cosmic, "fabric and order of the universe" sense, but she has some authority over mortal laws as well.
The domain of Time, on the other hand, has some possibilities. Your very first visit to Castle Shuzen made it abundantly clear that the vampire family have collected a LOT of stuff over the centuries that they've lived here - and since before that - and you doubt that all of said stuff has ended up on general display, or that every bit is irreplaceable. If there was a "spare" relic to be had, or an heirloom that wouldn't be missed...?
Taking inspiration from your successful suggestion for what to offer Koron and Vert for their help, Kahlua might also offer Madam Lanora a chance to converse with one or two of the older members of the family, to get an idea of how Earth's MONSTERS deal with matters of faith and magic. That's one area your deal with the Nayrian priestess doesn't exactly cover, as you weren't on quite as casual terms with the monsters of your acquaintance when you first negotiated her payment for giving you lessons.
It's honestly amazing how much relationships can advance with the passage of a year or so, a couple of holidays and/or gift exchanges, and inviting people to your tropical island birthday bash (and not-quite-gladiatorial combat).
As for likely candidates, Uncle Boris immediately comes to mind. He's one of Kahlua's history teachers, they seem to be on fine terms, and you know from last night's storytelling that he's got history of his own and quite enjoys sharing it. The old vampire has also been around for the last thousand years, so he'd have a LOT to say.
Of course, if Kahlua makes that particular deal with Lanora, you wouldn't be able to exploit the Shuzens as a resource for YOUR still in progress arrangement with the priestess, so maybe you don't want to suggest that?
Kahlua stares at you.
Merlot... looks confused at his mistress's reaction, and gives you a suspicious look.
"You WANT to introduce Uncle Boris to the fish-lady priestess?" your friend says slowly.
Zoras aren't actually fish, but... "Yes."
"...she doesn't secretly talk in puns, does she?" Kahlua ventures suspiciously.
"Not... to my knowledge?"
"Good, because after how well Uncle and Mr. Batreaux got along..." She trails off, shaking her head.
"If it makes you feel any better, Batreaux is a lot older than Madam Lanora," you offer.
Kahlua's only reply to that is a vague, "Hm," which doesn't strike you as particularly reassured. Nonetheless, she agrees to see if Uncle Boris is willing to help her out, or if she'll have to approach another member of the family or look for a different offering altogether.
Given she's going to ask him to do her a favor, you realize that it would be best for Kahlua to go back inside Castle Shuzen and speak with Boris in person. Before she does that, though, she approaches that guard who's still hanging about, making himself unobtrusive, and asks him for the time.
"Eight-nineteen, miss," comes the prompt reply, after a glance at a wristwatch.
"Thank you." Turning to you, Kahlua notes, "We're in luck. By the time I get up to Uncle's rooms, the episode of whichever of his shows he's watching right now should be just about over."
"So he'll be in a good mood?" you guess.
"It's more that he'd be grumpy if I'd interrupted him in the middle of the story," Kahlua clarifies, as she turns to leave.
While you are curious about what Boris's reaction might be like to the impending request, you also aren't family and haven't been properly invited into the old vampire's quarters, so it's probably for the best that you stay out here.
You spend a few minutes playing with the spirit - who arguably earned the attention by behaving while Koron and Vert were present - and then re-check the layout of your summoning diagram, altering a few symbols here and there so that it's more suitable for calling up a Zoran priestess of Nayru.
You've mostly finished that when the guard touches his ear-bud radio again, and advises you that Elder Boris has agreed to Kahlua's request.
Taking that as your cue, you start the ritual.
Kahlua returns about halfway through, alone, and though you can't spare the words in the middle of the summoning chant to ask about Boris's absence, your expression and body language are plenty to convey the question.
"He wants to make an entrance," she sighs.
Presented with the opportunity to spoil or abet a fellow punster and supernatural showman's routine, you recall your first meeting with Boris and how delighted he was to have somebody play along, and decide that you'd be a lesser guest if you ruined one of your hosts' plans for some harmless entertainment.
Plus, you kind of want to see Madam Lanora's reaction to what you think is coming.
So you acknowledge Kahlua's statement with a shrug and keep the ritual going, affecting not to notice the single bat that ISN'T Merlot fluttering down from one of the castle's higher-placed narrow windows, to perch in one of the nearby trees.
A few minutes later, the circle gleams brightly, and the Zora priestess appears.
After the usual greetings, Lanora says, "I understand that you have a question about dreams?"
"We do," you say agreeably, "but before we begin, we should settle the matter of payment."
That's your cue, old bat!
And Boris, watching as or through the other bat, takes the opening with the smooth precision of an old pro.
An aura of vampiric youki falls over the area, a bloodstained darkness that is neither so wild as that of the younger Shuzens, nor as rigid as the built-up energies of Castle Shuzen itself, and certainly not as potent as what you've felt at times from Gyokuro, Issa, and especially Akasha - yet it is deeper than any of those, carrying with it a sense of age that makes the Shuzen adults, the castle, and even the Dark Lady seem young. Ancient and heavy, the energy sweeps over you like the change of the sky at twilight, a decline into darkness that carries the promise of eternity and inevitability.
Dozens, even hundreds of bats fly out from the castle above, but contrary to your expectations, they do not descend towards your location, instead simply flying off into the greater demiplane.
Instead, a cloud of vaguely purple-tinted mist wells up a few feet to the right of a simultaneously wide-eyed and exasperated-looking Kahlua, creeping along the patchy grass and bare soil for ten or fifteen feet in all directions, while a central mass builds up and upon itself until a cloud big enough for an ogre - or, given you're in Japan, an oni of purer heritage and more traditional size than the Arisawas - to be hiding within it.
And then an unfelt breeze seems to blow that cloud aside, revealing Boris, in all his vaguely Shakespearean finery-clad and wrinkle-faced glory.
"Good morning," he drawls.
*Crack-a-THOOM*
Okay, so you were right about the thunder and lightning.
Since she's met the Shuzens before - and most pertinently, witnessed them fighting in the Ring of Trials - Madam Lanora does not make with the divine smiting. Her expression is one of calm amusement, and more than minor curiosity.
