Zelda's shriek of delight leads into a round of giggles as you sweep her up off the floor and spin her around.

"Sure thing, squirt," you say. "Come with me and I'll tell you a tale, a tale of a fateful trip-"

Your parents give you the ODDEST look just then.

Unsure as to why, you gesture that you have things under control, and won't go overboard in what you tell your "impressable" little sister. Even if you WERE completely awesome this morning - and you TOTALLY were, with the earth shaking at your passing, evil spirits fleeing your presence, a demonic dog cowering before you, and your elders shocked speechless as they beheld your unleashed Power, backed by the favor of the Goddesses - there are some things little ears and young minds are not yet prepared to deal with. For that matter, there are some things you'd be more comfortable not revealing to older minds just yet, which you might have accidentally done if you set out to amaze and entertain Zelda.

Your wiggling fingers don't cause the shared expression on your folks' faces to improve much. Maybe your sign language needs more work? Well, that's a matter for another time; you have a little sister in hand(s). A dog must be acquired, and stories told.

"Come on, Moblin," you say.

He makes a sound of reluctance, and doesn't move from his current spot.

The lack of obedience makes you pause and turn to face your dog. "Moblin? Come on, boy. Let's go-"

He's sniffing the hand you reached out to rub his ears with, having avoid the limb where he usually would have been eagerly leaning into the fur-ruffling, cartilige-flexing touch. Moblin doesn't seem to like what he's picking up, though when you pull your arm back and hold it up to your nose to take a whiff, you don't detect anything out of the ordinary. Certainly nothing that makes you think "hellhound funk," so what-

With a grunt and a brief whine, Moblin turns and ambles off.

The heck?

"Briar, could you find out what that was all about?" you inquire.

"I'm kind of curious myself," she admits. "Back in a few." And the fairy zips off.

You're about to turn and carry Zelda to the couch for Storytime when she pokes you in the arm in a manner you recognize as meaning, "I want down." You oblige, and your little sister toddles off without a word, calling after Moblin and Briar with puzzled concern.

...maybe you should have cleared matters up with Moblin first? Or just ignored his reaction to your scent slide, and focused on Zelda?

Shaking your head in confusion at the behavioral quirks of women and canines that still escape your understanding, you decide you might as well go to your room and read your mail.

The letter from the Shuzens proves to be the formal invitation to Kahlua's party you were hoping for. The content is straightforward: "Shuzen Gyokuro and Shuzen Issa cordially extend this invitation for one Alexander Harris and one Briar, both of Sunnydale, California, and two companions of their choosing, to attend the upcoming celebration of the ninth birthday of their eldest daughter, Kahlua;" plus the attendant travel arrangements and RSVP details. You have to say that the language is... quite a bit more formal than you'd expect for a birthday invitation addressed to someone your age, personal maturity notwithstanding, but then again, they're vampire aristocrats residing in Japan. They'd almost HAVE to big with the formalities.

That's it. Nothing from Kahlua or Akasha, formal or otherwise.

Obtained Shuzens' Formal Invitation

Nah, the letter can wait a bit. Dad probably needs some time to decompress from everything that happened this morning before you spring more supernatural stuff on him, especially if it involves vampires and Japan again. He's kind of predisposed to dislike those two things when taken separately, never mind both of them together.

Subspace pocketing the letter, you head back downstairs and out into the backyard, following the still-incomplete familiar bond to Briar. She's sitting on Zelda's head, and your sister is sitting on the ground in the shade of the tree, Moblin sprawled out next to her with his head occupying (and hanging over the far side of) her small lap. You feel a certain sense of betrayal at the scene, especially when you note that your dog apparently has no problem being scratched behind the ears by your little sister.

Briar either senses or just sees you coming, because she disembarks from her perch and is briefly glanced at by Zelda and Moblin, the former nodding, the latter closing his eyes with a grunt. Then Briar flies across the yard to meet you.

"So," you ask. "What's wrong with my dog?"

"You smell differently than you did this morning, Alex."

"I swear, I didn't get any hellhound funk on me."

"No, you didn't. Besides, if that was the source of Moblin's problem, some of the scent would have transferred to Zelda when you picked her up, and then he'd be avoiding her, too. No, this is because you were showing off with the magic earlier."

You pause. "Moblin can smell that?"

"Not the magic itself," Briar admits. "The residue of that had cleared up by the time we were halfway back to Sunnydale. But there's kind of a burnt tang in your aura at the moment. The traces of Hellmouth corruption that had built up since you meditated and cleansed yourself when you woke up sort of went up in smoke when the Goddesses started singing earlier." She pauses and looks at you closely; you can sense a magical probe. "Took out some of the deeper contamination, too."

"...I hadn't noticed that," you admit. You were rather distracted at the time, and you think the combination of unleashed Power and a divine chorus is a very good reason to BE distracted.

"The difference is pretty minor. Losing maybe a couple weeks' worth of exposure at a time of year when the Hellmouth is quieter than normal? Some of the kids who leave town for summer vacations have bigger shifts in their aura than that. If you aren't actively tracking a person's signature day-to-day, it'd be really easy to overlook, and it'll be back to normal in no time." Briar shrugs. "I just hadn't realized that the 'burning' was showing up in your physical scent as well. Moblin picked up on that, and it made him nervous."

"Fire bad. Got it."

You proceed to cast a minor cantrip that you think should scrub away the unwanted scent, then head over to meet Zelda and Moblin. The dog looks at you warily at first, but when you hold out your hand for him to sniff, he starts wagging his tail.

All is forgiven, it seems. Satisfied, you sit down next on Zelda's free side and proceed to tell her an edited version of your morning's activities, as you offered earlier.

While regaling Zelda with tales of the great outdoors and doing favors for family, you take the opportunity to slip in a careful probe of her mystical potential.

It doesn't tell you much that you didn't already know or suspect. Zelda definitely has some magical potential, but right now she's too young to really do anything with it, or even for you to determine what sort of magic she'd be best suited to. Even in a state of relative rest like this, she's a little ball of energy, by turns too distracted by a hundred and one different things to concentrate on just one, or so focused on that one thing that she shuts out all else. Neither state is at all conducive to wielding magic as anything but random outbursts of unfocused power and unpredictable consequence, which is why most people - who aren't conscious reincarnations - have to wait until somewhere near the end of their first decade of life to start studying the mystic arts.

It's a similar story in terms of ki and spirit. You think Zelda might do well in Lu-sensei's beginners' class in a couple more years, if she's of a mind to learn, but right now her life-force is tied up doing Very Important Things that it would be a Very Bad Idea to interfere with, even if she had the focus to start learning how.

Psychically, who knows? Your own talents in the mental arts are far too raw to get anything like a good read, beyond telling you that, contrary to some playground rumors, a girl's mind is just as capable as a boy's.

Gained Mental Sense E

Incidentally, Moblin is more or less a magical null, and his ki and spirit are only a bit less faint. Oh, he has a fair bit of life-force, as befits his size and overall fitness, but it's completely unfocused. Even taking the lack of training into account, Moblin's aura feels like it's just flat-out missing something compared to every human aura you've scanned to date. The lack of higher reasoning and the resulting "alloying" of mental energy in with physical and spiritual essence, maybe? The absence of a human soul? Not that Moblin is some soulless abomination, mind you, it's just that he has a dog's soul, which is quite different from a human's and has a different impact on his aura as a result.

Overall, he's a big dog, with a certain amount of built-up Hellmouth influence. That's it.

After storytime ends, you all head back inside. With the examination of your sister and your dog still fresh in memory, you go ahead and scan your parents' auras as well.

The results are honestly a little depressing.

Your Dad's ki has a worn-down feeling to it, like he had more of it in the past and has since lost it. There's no hint of the loss having been traumatic, so you suspect it's just the natural consequence of him getting older and having to give up wrestling and football and any other sports he played when he was younger. What ki he has now is no different from Mister Random Joe Sunnydaler you'd pass on the street, complete with deeply-ingrained vaguely demonic stench that only a lifetime on the Hellmouth can give an otherwise normal human. It's made a particular mess of his spirit, which is kind of murky to look at, almost like the sun behind a cloudbank. Except the sun is a lot brighter; your father's more of a sixty-watt bulb by comparison. Magically, he's about as impressive as Moblin.

Your Mom, on the other hand, looks like she might have a bit of magical talent. She's clearly never done anything with it, if she even knows it's there, and you don't imagine that she'd ever be able to use magic the way you do, even if she'd been practicing her entire life to date. Her ki is a bit stronger than your father's and lacks the distinct feeling of "absence" that marks his - though she, too, is showing her age in that regard - and her soul shines a little bit brighter as well, even if the level of Hellmouth murk is just as pronounced.

"Is something wrong, Alex?"

You realize that you're frowning at your mother.

What was that just now? You were just about done with your scan of your mother, everything was looking normal (for a Sunnydaler), and then you caught a glimpse of... something. It was small and faint and only there for a second, but you're sure you saw a portion of your mother's aura glimmer.

Like gold.

Gained Ki Sight C (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

For a brief instant, the very idea that your mother has been touched by the Triforce has you shocked beyond the capacity for rational thought. Then reason smacks you over the back of the head and, in a mental voice that sounds a lot like Briar, points out that it makes perfect sense for the woman who gave birth to you - ewww - to have been affected by the ridiculous magical potential that has always been swirling about your soul. You were literally part of her body for nine months - again, ewww - and while you're not exactly up to speed on how a mother's soul affects her child's while the latter is still in the womb - all of your ewww, all of it - there'd have to be SOME kind of interaction going on there. It would make perfect sense in a cosmically-symmetrical, "as above, so below" manner if, just as the unborn body is reliant on the mother for nourishment - you cannot ewww this line of thought enough - so too did the elder soul provide some critical element for the younger.

Gained Traumatic Memories E (Plus) (Plus)

Your own soul carries traces of the Triforce. And while the impressions any... pre-natal astral interactions... left behind in your mother's aura were likely minor to start with and have since faded with time, being reduced to this mere trace of a trace, a bare billionth of the intensity of the Golden Power...

Well.

What's infinity divided by a billion?

Maybe your mother has more potential for magic than you thought at first glance.

...speaking of your mother, you've been looking at her while this whole line of somewhat-unsettling but overall VERY interesting thought was running through your head. And just a moment earlier, she was asking you if everything was alright.

You're not entirely sure how to explain what you saw to your mother. You'd really like to take some time and discuss both your findings and your response with your trusted advisor, in order to make sure that what you saw means what you think it means, and that your answer to Mom won't understate or overemphasize the ups and downs of the situation.

Also, while Dad has put his appropriated axe away somewhere, you'd prefer not to prompt its reappearance by shaking up his world-view again today if at all possible. That'd be what, the third time in twenty-four hours? And considering how significant the number "three" is to you personally... yeah, no. Best not to tempt Fate. Especially when something like that Mothman has recently been in the area.

So you go with the time-honored fallback option for when you're pressed for time: you stall.

"Nothing's wrong, Mom," you reply. "I just saw something that I wasn't expecting to, and want to think about some more before I try explaining it. If that's okay?"

"That seems fine," she says, before sending a slow, sidelong glance at the living room, where your father has parked himself in his chair and, from the sound of things, is catching up on the sports highlights of the day. Leaning a bit closer, your mother quietly asks, "Does this have something to do with what you boys were up to today?"

Grimacing, you hold out one hand, palm down, and let it waver back and forth. "Kind of."

"I see." Your mother's expression echoes your own. "Is it important?"

"...it could be."

"But it's not urgent."

"No."

"Alright, then. Let's leave it at that, for now. For your father's peace of mind, if nothing else. But when you're done thinking and are ready to talk - and after your father's calmed down and taken that axe back up to the cabin - I'll be ready to listen."

"Thanks, Mom."

Dinner follows soon enough, and after the meal, you collect Briar and retreat to your room to discuss your latest vision.

Briar doesn't seem terribly surprised by the news that your mother has been marked, however distantly, by the energy of the Triforce. She says it makes sense given who and what you are, and would help to explain why your little sister looks as much like a Gerudo as she does when - as far as either of you know - she isn't the reincarnation of one.

Your idea about teaching your mother magic, on the other hand, seems to startle the fairy.

"Well, who's going to teach her?" Briar asks, when you inquire as to the source of her surprise. "I can't do it. She's too old."

"Is there some rule against fairies teaching adults as opposed to kids?" you ask, honestly puzzled.

"Not a rule, just a natural limitation. When you're dealing with a student who ISN'T a wellspring of magic, you have to give them a push to get whatever native power they have going. With kids, it's easy. They've got energy to spare, and it's all still trying to grow and become more than it is; all you need to do is show them a path, and their energy does practically all the work for you. But the older people get, the more fixed their energy is, and the harder it is to alter how it moves and what it does. Giving someone your Mom's age the necessary push would take more energy than I can give, and it'd have to be done slowly, over multiple sessions to avoid stressing her too much."

"Huh." You consider that. "Well, if you can't do it, I-"

"-have at least six irons in the fire as it stands," Briar points out, "what with the kung fu lessons, the mental defense lessons with yours truly, the writing to people all over the world, the convincing your folks to let you go to the vampire princess's upcoming birthday bash, plus getting a proper gift for said scary little girl, and wherever we stand with those plans on the familiar ritual." She pauses. "Where DO we stand with those, anyway? I've kind of lost track, myself."

"I'm thinking about making a side-trip on the way to or from Kahlua's party to pick up a new reagent or two," you admit. "Ancient glacial ice feels like it'd make a better Water reagent than a bottle of water from a minor shrine. Or I could use it for Time, instead, which would free up the event of the eclipse itself for a different element."

Briar nods. "Cool. Still, my point is, you have ENTIRELY too much on your plate right now to do anything like a good job of teaching a raw novice the basics of magic. Especially when you'll be back in school in another couple of months, and she seems to be planning on going back to work full-time."

Briar makes good arguments. On the other hand, it's hard to deny that if your mother could learn even a few cantrips, she and the rest of your family would be that much better-equipped against the hazards of life on the Hellmouth. And you really think that, as a professional nurse, your mother would really, really appreciate the healing and health-preserving uses of magic.

Many ideas and opportunities present themselves in counter-point to Briar's arguments, but in the end, you find that the fairy's concern about the lack of time is too well-placed. You are but one person, and a young one at that; you cannot do everything yourself. You have to prioritize - and in this case, you have prior commitments, some of which, like your ongoing negotiations with Hyrule's Church and your plan to apply magic to automotive mechanics, Briar didn't even mention. So it is with a sigh that you reluctantly concede to Briar's points, and let the idea of a magic-wielding mother go.

For now, at least. It'll only be a matter of weeks before two of the big time-consuming items on your personal list are checked off, and even if that doesn't free up enough time for you to teach your Mom the basics of arcane theory and safe practical spellcasting, who knows what opportunities the future may hold? Now that you know she HAS potential that would be worthwhile to cultivate, you can account for it when you're making plans.

As for your formal invitation from the Shuzens...

...you decide to wait a bit before showing it to your folks. At least until you're reasonably certain that your father's nerves have steadied, and that he's gotten rid of that axe. Not that you think he'd raise a hand - or more to the point, the sharp instrument of hacking and cleaving held in that hand - against you or any other member of the family. It's just that it was unsettling to see him so rattled. Far too much like some of your Ganondorf memories, where Hylian commoners clutched desperately at pitchforks and hunting bows and yes, woodsman's axes, despairing in the face of oncoming Gerudo or demonic raiders.

You could happily go lifetimes without seeing anything remotely like that kind of expression on the face of a family member. A few days is nothing.

Not bringing up the letter the very next day appears to have been a good call, as your father's behavior is still a little off from normal, particularly when he comes home from work. Then again, he DID spend the day surrounded by Rory's animals, which would have just brought the events of the previous day back. For your part, you spend most of the day out of the house, as Mom had to work a shift at the hospital and Zelda was off to daycare. You're old enough and capable enough that your parents trust you to be home alone for a day, but they prefer it if you aren't, and to be fair, the house just feels empty when you're the only human around. Not lonely - as long as you have Briar and Moblin, you'll never be that - but just... not right.

So you head over to Larry's, and spent the better part of the day playing video games and two-man football and watching TV. His folks were at work, too, but his grandmother was over to mind him, a small, wiry sort of woman with iron-grey hair, an easy laugh, and a presence that reminded you of some Gerudo elders. Not the witches or the old raid-leaders, mind, but the matrons who oversaw the camps, kept the kids and the menfolk in line, and beat the crap out of any Leevers or other desert beasts that came sniffing around while the bulk of the warriors were off ruining someone's day.

Incidentally, she couldn't see Briar.

For better or worse, there is no target-shooting or demonstration of Dragon's Breath rounds that day. It seems that Larry's mother doesn't hold with that sort of thing in her house, and while you get the impression that Granny Blaisdell thinks her daughter-in-law is a bit of an idiot in that regard, for the sake of family peace, she doesn't make a fuss. At least, not as long as Larry is allowed to come over and learn how to shoot properly on weekends and such.

Speaking of, Larry asks you and his grandma if it's okay for you to come over to her place that Saturday. She has no problem with it; what's your response?

After careful consideration, you decide that yes, you really would like to learn how to shoot a gun this weekend. Provided that your parents agree to it. They might not; Lily Blaisdell is a tad infamous around town, thanks to her private shooting range and regular Sunday afternoon target practice. It's all legal, apparently - you've no idea how, though her house being located just outside the town limits and having no neighbors within a mile or so probably helps - but people still talk.

For that reason, you decide to hold off asking permission about this visit until after you've gotten an answer from your parents about whether or not you can go to Kahlua's birthday party. On that note...

...you decide to broach the topic with your parents on Friday night, after dinner. Once the plates are cleared away and soaking in the sink, you get out the Shuzens' invitation and present it to your parents, saying that, "It arrived by messenger the other day."

"The moth guy?" your father asks at once, casting a suspicious look at the letter as it lies on the kitchen table.

"Yeah."

"And it's not, y'know..." He waves his hands over the letter, making an odd face and spooky noises until the stares from your mother and Zelda get to him. Clearing his throat, your father repeats, "It's not like that?"

"All clean," you reply.

Nodding, he picks up the invitation and reads what little there is to be read. Your mother leans over and does likewise.

"What'th it thay?" Zelda inquires.

"Fancy rich-person talk for, 'you're invited to our daughter's birthday,'" your father sums up.

"...ritch people have their own language?"

"There are definitely times when it seems like that, kiddo."

"When we talked about this before, Alex," your mother says then, "you mentioned that... Kahlua, is it?... had offered to handle the travel arrangements. Does that still apply?"

"Um, her folks mentioned that in the letter, Mom."

Your mother blinks and looks back at the letter, which your father obligingly holds up.

"...huh. So they did. Well, that's embarrassing."

"You need to stop reading things over people's shoulders, hon," your father notes.

"People need to get smaller shoulders," she retorts.

"I thought you liked my shoulders?"

"...anyway," your mother says quickly. "It says the party is on Thursday, and you'll be picked up the previous Tuesday and returned Saturday... four days' accomodations, plus travel." She bites her lower lip. "That seems like an awful lot of expense they're going to. I really don't know..."

"Alex's teacher did mention they were basically old world nobility," your father reminds her. "Money to burn, no hesitation about doing so if it gets them what they want, and a whole different sense of proportion. A chartered jet is probably their idea of a taxi service." He grimaces then. "Personally, I'm still having trouble with the part where these are vampires that we're talking about..."

It would seem that, despite all the time they've had to talk this matter over, your parents still aren't entirely sold on the idea of you attending Kahlua's birthday.

Faced with abiding parental reluctance, you carefully lay out your arguments.

First off, since it leads back to what your father just mentioned about "old world nobility" and the like, you bring up the rules of hospitality that the Shuzens and other beings in their social circle are expected to abide by. In that culture, attacking invited guests is just bad form, which is a big part of the reason why you held out for a formal invitation from the heads of the household. As long as you respect the rules, you enjoy their protection.

This prompts your father to say that you will, of course, be on your VERY BEST behavior if he and your mother decide to let you attend this shindig.

You agree without hesitation.

...your parents don't appear entirely convinced. You're hurt. Really.

Next, you mention Lu-sensei, who is your personal guest of choice. Partly because he knows the culture better than you, partly because he's sort of been invited himself (if only through Kahlua's letters), and partly because he'd already agreed to go, provided that you got your parents' permission first. But also, largely, because he is a kung fu master who can warp the laws of physics when he really wants to, and that kind of martial prowess is the sort of thing vampires just inherently respect.

This noticeably improves your father's mood. Your mother's? Not so much.

Then you bring up Altria, who had also been invited and was considering going if she got confirmation that you and your teacher would be there. More because she wanted somebody around who could encourage whichever of her guardians she ended up bringing along to behave themselves, you hasten to point out, as rather than out of personal safety concerns.

You have to sidetrack a bit at that point, enhancing your folks' understanding of Ambrose the Arch-Troll, and also revealing what little you know of Altria's mother. And since you're already on the subject - and because your own father expresses some curiosity - you admit that Altria wasn't planning on taking her father, because he'd probably start a crusade or something.

You were worried about how your folks would react to the news that Mr. Drake - is it Lord Drake, maybe? You wouldn't be surprised if it was - hates all things vampiric, to the point of prefering to take military action in response to a birthday invitation. And it does visibly concern your mother, although not severely.

Your father, on the other hand, seems to find this information reassuring. He also wonders if he should attend the party himself, just to meet this British gentleman who has his head screwed on straight.

"Sorry, Dad," you apologize, "but like I said, if Altria does decide to go to the party, her father was her last and least-likely choice to go with her. So even if you did come with me, odds are you wouldn't be able to meet Mr. Drake anyway."

Your father mulls that over, and shrugs. "Eh, it was just a thought."

You breathe an internal sigh of relief-

"If Daddy'th not going," Zelda says then, "can I go inthtead?"

-which promptly dies in your throat.

"No, Zelda," your mother says without a moment's hesitation.

"Aw. Why not?"

"Well, for one thing, you weren't invited-"

You recall Kahlua's original letter, in which she DID encourage you to bring your sister along, and are suddenly very glad that you never actually showed that letter to your folks.

"-and you're also much too young to go flying overseas without both of your parents."

"But, Mom..."

You were going to mention the usefulness of teleportation as an emergency escape measure, but you find yourself wondering if that's such a good idea, now that Zelda appears to have her eye on going to Kahlua's party with you.

Under the circumstances, you decide that revealing your ability to bend space and time to your will to ease the difficulties of long-range travel is more likely to cause problems of a little sisterly nature than it is to reassure your parents that you have a "get out of danger free" card. So, you say nothing on the subject.

Having made your bid for being allowed to attend Kahlua's party, you sit back and let your parents discuss the matter - which takes a while, as Zelda gets kind of upset about being told she can't go to Japan again, and needs to be calmed down and eventually put to bed. Your parents request a little more time to give you an answer, and while a part of you is tempted to say something about the month they've already had to consider the matter, you don't let your impatience show. Instead, you agree to give them...

Faced with a delay, you wonder if there's anything else you might do to convince your parents to rule in your favor, or if it would be better to spend the time doing something else. Like getting Kahlua's present, or maybe making an under-the-radar dash to somewhere glacial?

Your folks frown a bit as you explain this, but accept the deadline.

You spare a moment to grumble about the potentially deliberately poor timing of Mothmen.

The next day, rather than pressing your parents for a decision first thing, you decide that you might as well give them a few more hours, and maybe the full day, to make up their minds on the matter. Since this leaves you with some time to kill, you figure that you might as well go ahead and pick out a present for Kahlua; if you end up not going to the party, you can always send the gift to her via Postman.

The catch about buying a gift is that you need money. Your allowance was thin at best in the weeks immediately following the tournament, and while things have been restored to normal since then, you still don't get a huge amount of cash - make it five bucks a week, enough for a comic book or two and a Twinkie to savor while reading them. As your various hobbies and special projects have not left you the time or much inclination to keep up on happenings in the wondrous world of ink of late, you've saved up about twenty dollars. Under other circumstances, you'd consider that a tidy sum, and enough to cover a simple present for one of your friends. In this case...

"So what are you going to get the vampire princess for her birthday?" Briar asks, as the two of you leave the house.

"I was thinking gauntlets," you reply. "To play up the 'fighting princess' angle she had going at the tournament."

"...I see."

"Too much?"

"Heck if I know. Vampire aesthetic senses are WEIRD. I'm more concerned about where you're going to get something like that."

"Well, I already got a pair of high-quality gauntlets off of that one Guardian. I figure if I cast a bunch of spells to improve my visualization, recall, and manual skills, analyze the construction of the gauntlets, and then cast the spell of Fabrication to reshape one of them..."

"That could work," Briar muses. "And those iron oven mitts are big enough that you could turn one into two girl-sized ones, and still have the other left over for your own use."

"I know, right?"

You reflect that you're lucky the Guardian's Gauntlets were of such high quality. The Spell of Fabrication has a material cost that's easily covered by the sheer mass of material in the armor-plated handpieces, but one of the other spells you're planning to use to touch up your "homemade" present for Kahlua has a fairly significant material cost itself, one you probably wouldn't be able to afford without dipping heavily into your savings account, or else pouring a lot of extra mana into the spell.

Speaking of the Spell of Fabrication, it's a powerful enough piece of magic that Lu-sensei's wards wouldn't hide it, so you once again head out of town at body-flickering speeds. You've decided to go...

As you run down Sunnydale's streets, mostly empty of traffic and pedestrians on a Saturday morning, you consider the overall design of your intended gift. You have neither the skill nor the funds necessary to enchant the items, but what do you want them to look like?

You decide to go back to the cabin. The atmosphere was a lot more pleasant than the dry, hot, lonely desert, and it's a site where you had some actual, factual divine intervention going on not all that long ago; that can only mean good things for your attempts at magical blacksmithing. Plus there's a threshold - not a very strong one, since nobody truly lives in the family cabin, but something is better than nothing.

The presence of the hellhound pack and the "Ugly One" is potential cause for concern, as is the possibility of someone having set up surveillance on the place after your recent heavy use of magic in the area, but you think you may have a way to get around both problems. It'll depend on what sort of mirrors the cabin has to offer...

It took your father half an hour to drive to the cabin. Since you plan to employ ki in your crafting attempt and need to make the trip back to town afterwards, you can't zip out of town on a continuous stream of Body Flickers, which results in the journey taking you rather longer. Still, the extended ki-recuperating breaks you allow yourself between Body Flickers make a good workout for your speed and endurance, so there's a silver lining.

Gained Endurance D (Plus)
Gained Speed D

You still burn a third of your maximum ki, but you reach your destination in good time and fair condition.

On a side note, the ability to conjure gallons of fresh, clean water at will is VERY convenient sometimes.

Gained Water Elementalism F (Plus) (Plus)

Pausing at the bottom of the long "driveway" that leads up to the cabin, you take a few minutes to catch your breath, cool down, and dry off, while carefully investigating the area with your senses in a search for possible uninvited guests. You don't sense anything different from the normal background auras of the forest that you picked up the last time you were here, but you're only using passive senses at the moment; a serious observer would have taken steps to conceal himself.

Though you see, hear, and even smell nothing out of the ordinary, you remain wary of the possibility for an uninvited audience to be hanging around. As such, you relax the mental restraints on your various sensory abilities and begin actively probing the immediate area for signs of things that should not be here.

Your ki-based senses turn up nothing unusual, beyond a broader and more detailed awareness of the living world around you. Probing for magic likewise returns a grand total of bupkiss. Your awareness of Hellmouth corruption proves more useful; the overall level of otherworldly contamination is markedly lower here than it was earlier in the week, suggesting that your divinely-empowered mass purification rituals had more of an impact than you were expecting. That said, there's a relatively fresh, if faint, trail of demonic power that comes up the road to a point a couple car-lengths from the mouth of the driveway, and just... ends.

Forewarned, you turn to the purely spiritual spectrum.

Gained Corruption Sense D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Concealment D
Gained Spiritual Sense C
Gained Spiritual Sight C

Bingo. There's a presence in the woods that wasn't here last time you were, something that feels faint, but not in a way you'd consider indicative of a weak spirit - more like one that's being hidden somehow. Focusing on it, you pick up demonic taint and a hint of watchful patience.

It seems that you have a visitor, though from the feel of things, he, she, or it hasn't noticed your presence yet. The question now is...

Moving slowly and with all due caution, you begin to ritually-cast a Spell of Greensight, in the hope that being able to see through the leafy clutter of the forest will let you spot this intruder. Since you don't need it to last very long, you modify the spell for a shorter duration and less mana consumption. This, in combination with the drawn-out build up and release of power, makes it quite easy to hide.

As the magic takes effect, the world around you does not, in fact, turn green. Rather, every green and growing thing within about sixty feet takes on a ghostly transparency. The spell does not permit you to see through wood - an odd restriction, given that it was clearly intended for use in wooded areas - but the forest here is not so thick that the trunks, branches, and old deadfalls present an impenetrable barrier to your augmented vision. You spot a couple birds perched in the higher branches, some squirrels going about their business, and on the ground, a badger ambling through the undergrowth. Lots of bugs flitting around, too, but nothing else - at least, not in your admittedly short visual range, not in the normal visible spectrum.

Bringing your spiritual sight back up, you look to the faded traces of spiritual energy on the main road, wavering in the currents of the ethereal realm like tattered ribbons of a dark grey material that runs to black in places - mostly where it appears to have been burned. You don't know what that could mean, but as these "ribbons" are apparently supposed to reflect the nature of souls, you can't imagine it's good.

Gained Spiritual Knowledge F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

The spiritual traces are perfectly entwined with the demonic corruption, which clings to them like a disgusting glaze of sewage, right up to the point where the trail of taint comes to an abrupt end. The ribbons continue beyond that spot, but are so thinned by the passage of time and whatever force is concealing their originator that you almost can't follow them as they proceed up the road.

But only almost.

Who- or whatever produced this trail went straight up the driveway - leaving no physical tracks, you note - not turning off to enter the woods at any point within forty feet or so. The ribbons sort of fade into a greyish mist at that point, too diffuse for you to follow any further without actually moving after them.

After coming all the way out here on foot, you find yourself rather disinclined to allow the mere presence of this unknown trespasser to cause you to turn around and leave. At least, not until you've investigated a little closer.

Moving carefully, you step off the road and into the underbrush, taking the obvious precautions for stealth. You side-step and duck where possible to avoid the bushes and low-hanging branches, and where you can't go around them, you push them aside slowly and then maintain your grip for the few extra seconds needed to guide the limbs back to their original positions, as soundlessly as possible. You mind your footing, watching for soft wet patches of earth that might suck your shoes down as much as dry twigs likely to snap under your weight, and every so often you pause to make sure that none of the resident animals are about to launch into a loud protest of your presence if you move one more step in their direction.

And while you're doing all that, you keep a mental lock on the demon-tainted spiritual presence up ahead, while monitoring the area with your Spell of Greensight.

You reflect that it's a good thing you've spent so much time honing your multi-tasking abilities, as otherwise, you might be having some problems right about now.

Sensing the seriousness of the situation, Briar rides your shoulder with her aura dimmed as much as possible as you move through the woods. A minute passes, and then two - and then towards the four-minute mark, as you're mentally complaining about how you could have walked up the driveway and back down to the road by now, you get close enough to your target to see it.

For a given value of "see," anyway.

You're standing fifteen, maybe twenty feet off to the right of the driveway, and about eighty feet up the drive - make it halfway to the clearing where the cabin stands. The presence you've been tracking is another fifty feet ahead, parked at the end of a narrow gap in the treeline that affords a pretty decent view of the family retreat.

The problem is that even with your spiritual sight up and running, you can't get a clear image of your friend. The faint, dark ribbons of spiritual energy are curled about a man-sized spot in space that holds nothing your Mark One Eyeball can detect, and which under spiritually-enhanced vision is only a vague humanoid shadow, seated semi-comfortably on a moderately-large rock that rises from the forest floor. The dark figure has its back to you, and its lack of movement makes you think it hasn't noticed your approach.

You need more information, and since your spiritual senses are all that seem to be able to pierce whatever this entity is using for concealment, you decide that augmenting those senses is probably your best bet.

As such, you cast a modified form of the Spell to Detect Undead, keeping your voice down, your gestures slow, and your aura tightly restrained. Wary of giving your presence away with an "active" scan, you alter the spell's matrix so that it simply increases your existing receptivity.

The spell takes effect, and the dark, tattered ribbons emanating from and swirling around the mostly-invisible creature blur into clearer view. A moment later, so does the creature itself.

It looks even more like a human now, although not the kind of person you'd want to meet. The body is too thin for its height, the arms end in twisted, dirty claws, and the hair is unkempt and greasy. It's wearing camo-patterned clothes, loose-hanging shirt and pants alike ragged-looking and heavily stained, and instead of boots, the creature is barefoot, revealing almost skeletally-thin, sharp-clawed feet. You can't see the face from here, but given how the skin on those hands and feet is a disturbing shade of yellow-grey and seems to be pulled taut against the almost fleshless bones, you're kind of glad about that.

As you focus on the creature, your spell-heightened senses get a clearer bead on its spiritual power. Which is, surprisingly, not much stronger than an average human's. Whatever this thing is, you doubt that it could sense the presence of a wandering soul, much less manipulate its own astral essence well enough to interfere with your rather well-honed awareness.

So then how the heck is it hiding from-

You break off in mid-thought as the familiar necromantically-charged essence of undeath appears on your mental radar. The signal is dim at first, concealed by whatever is hiding the creature, but the longer you study the intruder with your enhanced senses, the stronger and clearer its aura becomes, and the darker the area around it seems. The upsurge of necrotic energy gradually levels off, giving you a good idea of how potent your target's un-life force is - and it's quite strong, distinctly more potent than the Poes from Navi's Silent Realm, and a close match to the lesser Guardians you encountered outside the domes. Hellmouth corruption is shot through its aura, as are hints of a kind of magic that... well, it kind of reminds you of Mrs. Lawson's magic, only it isn't nearly as strong, and there's a sharp, copper-scented tang to it that the old woman's presence lacked.

Shivering, you let your spell lapse and...

...turn to withdraw.

Although you're not keen on presenting your back to this undead intruder, you don't think that attempting to walk backwards through a forest is a good idea. You're simply too likely to step on something loudly-breakable, or trip. Slowly and with great care, you shuffle about in place, pausing every eighth-turn or so to make sure your neighbor hasn't noticed you - which it doesn't - before putting your back to it and quietly slipping back into the woods.

Gained Stealth D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

A few minutes later, you emerge from the trees back at the bottom of the driveway.

"Okay," Briar says, "what did you see back there that I didn't, and did it have anything to do with the aura of necromancy hanging over that one rock?"

You quickly describe invisible undead you saw.

"Well, crap," the fairy sighs, rubbing her face. "That's bad. Good call on sneaking away from it rather than trying to confront it then and there, though."

"It felt almost as strong as some of your mother's Guardians," you explain. "I wasn't keen on fighting it without taking some magical precautions first."

"I was thinking more about the possibility that somebody sent that thing, and that frying its unholy carcass would tip them off that you'd been back in the area," Briar returns, "but that's a good reason, too."

You consider that. As usual, Briar has a good point, but... can you really leave a Hellmouth-tainted undead creature whose aura stinks of blood to lurk in the woods near your family cabin, and hope that it'll behave itself?

Various plans for dealing with the intruder spin past your mind's eye. After careful consideration, you decide to...

Several times in the past, you've had adult authority figures scolding, interrupting, or Enlightening you when you'd walked into dangerous situations on your own, or been considering such an act. Said authority figures, as well as your fairy companion, have likewise encouraged you to seek advice and assistance if and when similar situations present themselves in the future - and here you are, with a potentially-dangerous creature behaving in a rather unfriendly manner, while still being unaware of your presence. You still have time to plan out your response, and you have your seldom-used birthday present of a cellphone in your dimensional pocket, so why not make the most of both?

Gained Filial Piety D (Plus) (Plus)

Getting out your cellphone, you take a moment to check the reception. It wavers back and forth between one and two bars, which you suspect is actually pretty good considering you're half an hour's drive out of town. Do some of the other cabin-goers have a signal tower set up out here or something?

Shaking off the question for now, you dial Lu-sensei's number, and wait for one, two, th-

"Five Elemen** School of Ma***al Arts, Lu *** speaking," comes the staticky but familiar voice. "How can I **** you?"

"Hi, Sensei. It's me."

"Alex? Where are you c***ing from, lad? I can ****ly hear you."

"I'm out by the woods, near a cabin my family owns."

"Dare I h*** you're on a **mi** va**tion, and just call**g to let me know you won't ** sh**ing up for the ****end class?"

"...not as such, no," you admit.

The poor connection does nothing to break up Lu-sensei's sigh. "What's happened?"

"There's some kind of undead thing hanging around invisible and spying on the cabin," you sum up. "I'm not entirely sure what to do about it."

There is a pause, and you wonder if the call's been dropped. "Sensei, you still there?"

"I'm st**l here, Alex. Could you re**at what you just said? I **** to be sure I heard it right."

You oblige.

"That's **at I thought."

Again, there is silence.

"Sensei?"

"Still here," he replies through a few remarkably clear seconds of reception. "Just marveling at the fact that you actually thought to call ahead before the mayhem ensued for once."

You sigh.

"You say *hi* thi** is watching the cabin?" Lu-sensei asks then.

"Yes, sir."

"And it's in***ible?"

"Yes, sir."

"Natural or not?"

"Magic of some kind. I couldn't get a clear enough reading to say more than that."

"Right." Your teacher pauses. "I think we ne** to talk a***t this in more det***, and this **** call is no way to do it."

Sensing what's coming, you speak up. "That sounds like a good idea, sir. I'll meet you-"

"...on the road between here and Sunnydale, if that's alright with you," you offer.

"**at w*** be fine, Alex," Lu-sensei replies after a moment. "I'll s** **u shortly."

And he hangs up.

Huh. That was surprisingly quick. You were half-expecting your teacher to insist that you return to town. Maybe Lu-sensei was just concerned with getting you away from the potential battle-to-the-death represented by that lurking undead?

Turning off the phone and stowing it in your pocket once again, you turn to Briar. "Let's go."

"We're actually leaving?" the fairy inquires. "No confrontation, no more magic, no violence? We're just... going?"

"I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that you'll mock me no matter what I say."

"He CAN be taught! Thank you, Nayru!"

Gained Nayru's Favor D

Shaking your head, you're about to launch back into a ki-boosted run when you recall something, and look down at your feet.

For most of the run up here, you were moving along the gravel-strewn shoulder of the road, displacing some stones but leaving little else in the way of a physical trail. Scent might be an issue, but you can obliterate the traces of your presence down here easily enough, and what lies along the road will only be an issue if the undead observer has an inhumanly keen sense of smell and walks back to town. Your movements in the turf and undergrowth are another matter, however; though you were careful to be quiet, you couldn't avoid shifting some of the soft earth or crushing the odd plant as you crept about, nor could you exactly stop yourself from leaving a scent-trail. Not without using magic that could have given you away.

If you want to be thorough about concealing your presence from the undead watcher, there are some spells you could use. The question is, will you?

You decide that throwing magic around in the forest is a bit too close to the magically-capable watcher for comfort, and let the notion of covering your tracks there go. There is a non-zero chance that the undead creature will miss the signs anyway; after all, its trail didn't lead into the trees until it was well up the driveway.

That said, you figure you might as well do what you can to avoid leaving any further tracks.

First off, you cast a Spell of Illusion that will obscure your tracks. Given the possibility of being noticed and your desire to cast a second spell in a minute, you very much want to modify the magic so that it uses less mana and is easier to conceal. The reduction of input power will naturally reduce the output of the spell, and for a moment you give serious thought to shortening the duration, before recalling that this is an ILLUSION, and its effects will only persist as long as the magic itself does. Fortunately, the base form of the spell has the potential to accomodate multiple targets; you simply strip it down to a self-targeting mode, while leaving the duration intact.

The second spell is a bit more complicated. It, too, is a magic of the Illusion school, but it is not a spell of sorcery. Rather, it is witchcraft, something Ganondorf picked up from his "mothers," Koume and Kotake. You're still perfectly capable of working the magic, but you have to pour more mana into it to account for the difference in spellcasting styles - not as much as you would need to cast a divine spell, but enough that the energy released by the basic form of the spell would likely be outside your ability to conceal. Fortunately, you're able to reduce the spell's mana signature by trimming down its duration to match that of your first spell, with the modified Spell of Masking Dweomer being easily concealed.

Gained Illusion E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

You take a few minutes to cast both spells via the ritual method, hoping that the slow buildup of mana will further reduce the likelihood of the undead observer noticing your presence. You pause in between castings and again after completing the second spell to scan the forest with your spiritual sense, but you find nothing unusual either time.

It appears that your spellcraft has escaped the creature's notice.

Satisfied, you withdraw at a walk, only shifting to a run when you're a couple minutes down the road. Ki enhancement follows, and then the Body Flicker.

Perhaps ten minutes later, as you're about to launch into another blurring boost, Lu-sensei appears on the side of the road.

"So, Alex," he says without preamble, "just to make sure that my hearing isn't going, I believe you said something about a magically-invisible undead creature spying on your family cabin?"

"Yes, sir," you reply, while catching your breath from the run.

"Good, good. Now, I have two questions. One, why would such a creature be interested in your family's cabin in the first place?"

"And two, what brought you all the way out here, by yourself, to happen upon it?"

Seeing no reason to lie, you tell your teacher that you were engaged in some moderately-potent spellcasting just a matter of days ago. Not wanting to risk ENLIGHTENMENT by giving Lu-sensei the impression that you were just firing magic off without a care in the world, you also provide a brief account of your uncle's... unsettling hobby, the paranormal consequences, and your decision to do something about them before someone got hurt.

"A hundred and thirty?!" Lu-sensei bursts out.

"Plus another thirty or more Uncle Rory gave away as gifts to family and friends over the years," you reply. "And that's not counting whatever was left of his uncle's work."

Your teacher sighs. "Don't take this the wrong way, Alex, but there are some strange and disturbing people in your family tree."

You can't really argue the point.

The admission of your prior activities at the cabin having gone over about as well as it could, you proceed to explain your decision to try your hand at magical blacksmithing.

"Gauntlets," Lu-sensei says. "You're going to make a pair of gauntlets as a birthday present for an eight-year-old-"

"She'll be nine, Sensei," you interject.

"-nine-year-old daughter of the Shuzen family."

"I was thinking of playing up the 'warrior princess' angle," you say. "Something pretty, but functional. And with a bat emblem, since she seemed to like the ones I summoned to chase those ninjas." You look up at your teacher with an uncertain frown. "Unless that sounds inappropriate to you, Sensei...?"

"If you were planning on gifting your work to a regular girl, or even most girls in the martial arts community, I'd say it would be. As it's the Shuzens..." Lu-sensei trails off with a shrug. "They'll certainly appreciate the novelty of weapons mage-crafted from the remains of a defeated enemy. I'm just worried that it might give them ideas. Or expectations." He shakes his head. "Still, I certainly can't think of anything that would go over better, not without getting into the realm of the excessively expensive."

"Getting back to the matter of of this undead watchman, however... speaking frankly, Alex, I don't think you should be anywhere near the thing, let alone working magic where it might see or sense you."

"I get that, Sensei, but I don't want that guy hanging around where one of my family might run into it, either."

Lu-sensei nods. "A very good point. But you could warn your family that someone unpleasant was hanging around the area, yes? Whereas if you acted directly to remove the problem, not only would you be endangering yourself again, you'd also be declaring this territory yours, and valuable enough to you to be worth fighting and killing for. Even if this entity is here of its own volition, other local creatures would take note of your actions, possibly even offense; whereas if the watcher was SENT here..."

"Yeah, Briar mentioned that earlier," you admit. "If it's someone's lackey, taking it out would get their attention. More so than I already have it, at least."

Although it grates at you to leave a threat unresolved, you have to bow to Lu-sensei and Briar's wisdom in this matter. After all, does the Art not teach that fighting is not always the best answer? If a situation like this can be resolved without violence, is that not the path you ought to choose? At the very least, it makes good strategic sense not to pick a fight with a relative unknown who may or may not have backup, as long as you take precautions to limit the damage the watcher might do.

Looks like you're going to have to talk to your parents about more than just Kahlua's birthday party. Hopefully, this new issue won't mess up your chances...

Meanwhile, Lu-sensei is nodding in clear approval of your decision.

Gained Young King C

"Now that that's settled," he says, "I suppose you need a new locale to work on your present for the young lady."

"Do you know of a place I could use, Lu-sensei?"

"I may, Alex. It depends on what it is that you need out of a, shall we say, 'workshop.'"

You consider that.

Lu-sensei raises a wispy eyebrow at your response.

"That's it?"

"Well, there are things it'd be nice to have," you admit. "An area full of trees purging the Hellmouth's energy from the environment, for one, or a building with an intact threshold and a large mirror somewhere inside - preferably one of those free-standing frames or mounted-on-the-wardrobe-door designs. But really, all that stuff's just gravy."

Lu-sensei frowns in puzzlement. "I can understand how clean working conditions and a mystical threshold would be useful," he says, "but what would you need a mirror for?"

"Oh, there's this one spell I know that can create a temporary pocket dimension using a mirror as a doorway. Nothing fancy," you add, noting Lu-sensei's startled expression. "It just creates an empty room, big enough for half a dozen adults, maybe a few more if they don't mind crowding. Kind of like a scaled-up version of the spell I use to carry all my mystical stuff around in my pocket. The big advantage is that common divination spells can't detect anything that's on the other side of the mirror, so I could go in, work some big magic, and not have to worry about being noticed by the locals."

Your teacher frowns. "If that's the case, then why haven't you used- wait." He raises a hand. "Let me guess. The Hellmouth?"

"Yeah. Considering how... twitchy... other magic that works with space-time can get in Sunnydale, I figure casting that spell on a mirror that's been soaking up evil energy for years would either summon some kind of mirror-demon into the 'empty' room, or make the connection through the mirror strictly one-way, so that anyone who goes in can't get out."

"Or create evil mirror clones, perhaps?" Lu-sensei suggests dryly.

You tilt your head, considering that.

"Probably not," you finally say, stressing the first word. "But it's another reason not to take the risk. At least, not without purifying the heck out of the mirror beforehand - but that would use enough magic to get me noticed anyway."

Your teacher nods, but looks thoughtful. "How powerful is this mirror-spell of yours, Alex?"

"The Spell of the Mirror Hideaway is second-circle, Sensei," you answer promptly.

"Can you hide it?"

"That's... right on the upper edge of my ability to conceal, sir," you admit with a frown. "I might be able to hide it, and then again, I might not."

"I see. Well, getting back to your original request, there are several places around Sunnydale I know of that would probably suit your needs. Most of them, I'm not going to suggest; if someone IS trying to track your magical activities around town, new events happening in places I'm known to visit would lead back to you entirely too easily."

You nod.

"That said, I can think of two, perhaps three places that might do. No thresholds at any of them, I'm afraid, but one of them does have trees, and another might have a mirror large enough to be of use to you - assuming nothing's happened to it since the last time I passed through. They're all some distance from here, regardless."

Lu-sensei describes the places he has in mind.

You make your choice.

This seems like a no-brainer. The possibility of finding a usefully-sized, minimally-contaminated mirror was a big part of the reason you were heading out to the cabin in the first place. Crafting Kahlua's presents is going to take a considerable amount of magic, and no small amount of time, making a secure working area crucial - especially since your bigger feats of power have been drawing local attention. If Lu-sensei knows where to find another large mirror, that's where you want to be.

Lu-sensei accepts your decision and the reasoning behind it, and leads you back to Sunnydale at blurring speeds without another word.

For all of five minutes.

Then he starts making comments about your Body Flicker technique, and the ki enhancement you're using in and around it. Nothing so direct as, "you're doing that wrong," or "this is how you do it," just seemingly-idle observations like, "that looks tiring," and "are you sure you want to do it that way?"

It's very annoying. Still, you take the broad hint and try to adjust your form to something that more closely resembles your master's relaxed efficiency. You're still a long way from matching his control, of course, but you make some progress. Enough to ease up the flow of non-criticism.

Gained Ki Enhancement C

The two of you slow down when you hit the town limits and exchange passing salutations with other morning pedestrians as you make your way through Sunnydale at a brisk walk. Fortunately, nobody presses either of you to stop and talk, and half an hour later, you're back out on the highway, passing the farewell sign. Shortly thereafter, you kick back into high gear.

You run for a good little while, passing the hour-mark that Lu-sensei estimated. In between one Body Flicker and the next, you examine the scenery and realize that you're not too far from the spot where you teleported up to the mountains, weeks earlier.

It occurs to you that if someone went to the trouble of spying on the site of your last major "in-the-open" feat of magic, they might have taken the trouble of staking out this older location as well.

You adjust your speed, moving a little closer to your teacher.

"Lu-sensei?"

"Yes, Alex?"

"Just so you know... that pile of rocks off to the left? That's where I cast the teleport spell that took me up to the mountains a while back."

"I see. And you haven't been back there since then, correct?"

"No, sir. I ran past once, on my way back into town, but" - you pause and look around at the terrain, refreshing your memory - "yeah, I was actually on the other side of the road, then."

"Alright. Keep going this way. I'll be right back."

For a brief instant, your master seems to STRETCH out and turn red all over. Then he's gone.

It belatedly occurs to you that when Lu-sensei is moving at speeds like that, he really ought to be leaving the mother of all sonic booms in his wake. The fact that you haven't been rendered deaf and/or blown off the road by such is proof that he's doing something to avoid the problem, but you're not sure what; your own high-speed movement techniques are no threat to the integrity of the sound barrier, and as such don't include any special functions relating to it.

You only have a moment to consider the issue before your teacher reappears beside you, fading in from a deep blue silhouette back to his normal coloration.

"I did not see anything out of the ordinary," he tells you, "nor any signs that there'd been unusual activity in the area recently."

"And if there was an invisible watcher, sir?"

Lu-sensei shakes his head. "I made a sweep of the area within half a mile. Unless they were incorporeal, I would have sensed even an invisible being, if only as a region of 'air' that I could not safely pass through."

You take a moment to look around again, sweeping the area with your passive senses. You find nothing unusual, which would seem to support Lu-sensei's statement. Looks like either nobody came to stake out this location, or else they did so only to give up when you didn't return for several... hours? Days? Weeks? No way to be sure, really.

Feeling somewhat reassured, you keep running.

Another ten minutes on, you finally come to a halt. "Is this the place, Sensei?"

"Yes, it is. See anything you don't like?"

You examine the site, mystically as well as mundanely.

When Lu-sensei said "abandoned gas station," the image that popped into your mind was of some old, maybe Fifties-era station, with old-style pumps, tacky ads torn and yellowed by long exposure the elements, long-broken windows and light fixtures, and other, subtler elements of design that wouldn't be present in a modern station. What you actually see before you is a much more recent structure, probably not much older than you are. The pumps aren't too different from the ones in town, you actually recognize most of the logos - it seems this used to be a Shell station, and there's a Pepsi ad in the window that still shows most of Michael Jackson's face - and the overall damage to the place isn't too serious.
Your passive senses don't detect anything odd here, either, and when you switch to a more active scan, the building and its surroundings continue to register as ordinary. Unless there's something hidden inside, this appears to be about as normal an abandoned structure as you could hope to find just off the Hellmouth.

Then again, it IS an abandoned structure just off the Hellmouth.

"Nothing unusual," you tell your teacher. "I mean, the place could use a visit from a handyman or five, a psychic scrubbing, and a fresh coat of paint, but it's better off than some places I've seen in town, abandoned or not. Speaking of which..."

"Why was this place abandoned?" Lu-sensei scratches his cheek. "I suspect that whoever was in charge of picking the site to build this station was aware of the Hellmouth on some level - maybe not consciously, but enough to try and choose a location where the employees wouldn't be regularly preyed upon by demons. In that respect, they succeeded admirably; in the three years this station operated, I don't recall hearing of any sudden deaths or mysterious disappearances among the staff, at least not while they were at work."

"So then, why..."

"The location may have been safe, but it wasn't very profitable. People driving to Sunnydale from L.A. either have the gas and the patience to make the trip in one go, or else stop at Oxnard to rest, refuel, and grab a bite, whereas people going the other way fill up before they leave town. Most of the business this place got was due to emergency pit stops by inexperienced drivers who misjudged their limits, and they generally learned not to make the same mistakes again. After a while, the parent company just shut the place down."

"And built the Shell station in town," you conclude. Then you frown. "So why do you know all this, Sensei? You don't even own a car."

"The station was built the same year I moved to Sunnydale," he explains with a shrug. "And one of my first local students had a part-time job here while he was at U.C. Sunnydale."

Huh. Random trivia is random, and trivial.

Shaking your head, you turn your attention back to the station and head inside, senses primed - just in case.

Nothing leaps out at you, either metaphorically or literally, as you push open the front door and step inside. The level of corruption inside the abandoned station is lower than that outside, but nothing is completely untouched by the taint. The empty shelves, the yawning hulks of the disconnected freezers, the dust-carpeted floor - everywhere you look, the contamination glows dimly in your enhanced sight.

That includes the mirror hanging over the long-unmanned counter. About six feet long and two feet wide, one end of the simple security device appears to have broken loose from its ceiling mount and crashed down on the counter a while back. Maybe a quarter of the glass that originally made up the object now lies in pieces on the counter and the floor nearby, while a third of what remains in the frame is shot through with a spiderweb shatter-pattern.

You can fix that easily enough, though judging from the size and likely mass of the mirror, the Spell of Mending won't be enough. The Spell to Make Whole will be necessary, plus a low-end purification spell.

"Ah," Lu-sensei sighs, as he follows you in and sees the broken mirror. "I was afraid something like that might have happened."

"It's fine, Lu-sensei," you assure him. "I can fix this."

You'll want to get the mirror down first, though; it'll be more useful for your purposes on the ground, and there's a slight chance that your repair spell might try to reattach the fallen end to the ceiling in the process of fixing it.

Even before you do that, though, perhaps you should check the back rooms? And the basement, if this place has one? Just to be safe.

Leaving the mirror where it hangs for the moment, you cross the main room of the station, looking behind the counter and down the aisles as you go. You find only dust, empty displays, and one or two long-forgotten bits of inventory - someone appears to have left behind a bag of potato chips, a few bottles (all empty), and-

-i-is that a box of Twinkies? It is! What blasphemer would abandon a perfectly good selection of delicious snack cakes to time and the elements like that?!

You've taken an unconscious step towards the golden treats when you stop, shake your head, and try to get your mind back in the game. You didn't come here for Twinkies, especially not ones that probably passed their expiry date around the time you were born.

With an effort, you resume your course to the back of the room, where you push open a door that squeals on its long-untended hinges. Wincing at the noise, you glance down the short hallway beyond. The lighting back here is much more limited, and you can only see about ten feet in any direction - half that with any real clarity - but that's enough to make out a bathroom sign hanging over another door, an unplugged EXIT sign dangling at an angle over a heavy-looking fire door, and a yawning gap that is probably a stairwell. Whether it goes up, down, or both, you're not sure, and you're not really inclined to investigate beyond this point. You can see no trails in the dust on the floor back here, at least not within the area where the light falls, not of anything human-sized or even cat-sized, so unless there are flying and/or intangible creatures lurking on the other level(s) of the building, you believe you can confidently claim it as clear.

You do so.

Lu-sensei takes a moment to check the back passage himself, but agrees with your analysis. Particularly since nothing has shown up to investigate the ear-splitting shriek of those rusty hinges.

That leaves the security mirror. Moving closer, you give the hanging end of the object a tentative push, testing both its weight and the strength of its other end's attachment to the ceiling. For something that's longer than you are tall and fairly broad in the bargain, the mirror turns out to be not too heavy; it's not even an inch thick, little more than a flat panel. It probably still took three guys to install the thing originally - two to hold it in place, one to hammer or perhaps drill it home - but only because of its unwieldy size. The way the anchored end creaks makes you think you could tear it down by main force easily enough. The trick will be doing so without shattering the rest of the glass and getting yourself cut to pieces.

Of course, you require a few extra feet of height to do the job, but the counter seems big enough for your needs. You take a moment to move around behind it, confirming that it isn't hollow or made of potentially-rotted wood under a facade of plastic/ceramic/whatever-that-stuff-is, but it proves to be mostly solid, just with a few small spaces that were probably meant for drawers.

Nodding in satisfaction, you cast a cantip to clear away as much of the dust clinging to the counter-top as you can, before hauling yourself up onto it.

Gained Climbing F (Plus) (Plus)

"Are you certain that's a good idea, Alex?" Lu-sensei asks.

"It's not that heavy, Lu-sensei. All I need to do is give it a good hard yank."

"...uh-huh." The old man regards you a moment, then takes a theatrical step back.

"I'm with the old guy," Briar says, before fluttering over to him.

"The confidence the two of you have in me is heart-warming," you tell them flatly. "Really, it is."

They appear unrepentant.

Sighing, you turn back to the mirror, and take your position...

...and then hesitate, glancing over your shoulder at your teacher and companion. They're both older and, if not necessarily wiser, then certainly more experienced than you, and if they're in agreement that what you're about to attempt is risky enough to warrant their standing clear, then perhaps you should abandon your current attempt and try to get the mirror down another way?

...

With a sigh of surrender, you release the mirror, crouch down, and slide off the counter, the words for the Spell of Enlargement already tumbling from your lips.

A moment later, you reflexively duck as your head rapidly closes in on the ceiling. No impact occurs, but you make two mental notes: one, you've grown an inch or so since you last used this spell, and that's had a directly effect on the end result of the magic; and two, while being the better part of ten feet tall is useful in a fight in a wide open, high-ceilinged stadium ring, it borders on the claustrophobic when you're inside a normal building.

"This, now," Lu-sensei comments, "this looks much safer."

"He's right, Alex. The extra reach alone makes it a lot less likely that you'll drop anything."

You mutter something under your breath and you turn back to the mirror, reaching across its midsection to grasp the far side with your right hand, while supporting the near edge of the frame between your left hand and your torso. Once you're sure you've got a good grip, you shift the mirror tentatively, testing the strength of the fixtures that are still connecting it to the ceiling. The frame moves pretty freely on the vertical axis, but far less so horizontally, and not at all when you try to roll it. Using more force, you're able to get an audible creak from the anchored end of the mirror, but it still feels pretty solidly attached. You suppose that whoever installed this thing originally must have screwed up on the fallen end somehow - cheap materials, bad aim, or something to that effect.

While you could cast another spell to weaken the fixtures so that you could let the mirror down gently, you don't feel like wasting the time. Channeling your ki and correcting your stance, you take firm hold of the frame, and PULL.

There is a brief groan of resistance, and then the far edge of the frame bursts with almost explosive force. The suddenness of the event sends you staggering backwards a couple of steps before you recover your balance, but you manage to avoid dropping the mirror or smashing it into anything.

Gained Strength D
Gained Strength Control E (Plus) (Plus)

Looking at the ruined top of the frame, you find that while you did succeed in yanking the mirror free of the ceiling, you also tore that end of the frame clear off. It's now dangling from the ceiling, cracked at the middle, with a single screw projecting from the low-hanging end.

After a moment, you shrug. You got your mirror. So what if it's a little battered?

Stepping away from the counter, you set the mirror down on the floor, lengthwise. Since it would be easiest to make use of the mirror as a "doorway" if it were upright like one, you turn the frame so that it stands on its intact narrow edge.

"Lu-sensei," you say, while keeping the mirror upright, "is there something in here we could use to anchor the mirror like this? Without blocking too much of the glass?"

"Hmmm. Give me a minute."

The old man passes you at human-normal speeds to glance behind the counter himself, then turns and looks through the aisles. A minute later, his expression brightens, and he pulls something off the shelf.

It's the box of Twinkies. An inspection inside the open top, closer than the passing glance you gave it before, reveals that the snack cakes are packed into four rows of twelve, and two layers deep. Even with a dozen or so missing from the top layer, the remaining bars and their container together should weigh a few pounds - enough to steady the mirror, as long as you balance it correctly.

You have to smile. Is there no end to the power of the Twinkie?

Once you have your makeshift "doorstop" in place and the mirror positioned more or less securely, you let your Spell of Enlargement end and cast a cantrip to collect the pieces of broken glass from the floor. It takes you a few minutes to gather all the sharp-edged pieces of this particular jigsaw puzzle, and you don't bother trying to put them back in their original places; you just make sure that the amount of glass spread out on the floor next to the mirror looks to cover about the same area as the empty patch at the bottom of the mirror-frame. You then cast the Spell to Make Whole, suppressing the flow of energy as best you can. The result isn't perfect - you can feel some of the channeled mana escaping your mental grasp - but a quick consult with Briar informs you that it didn't feel like a second-circle spell, but rather like a strong first-circle spell, cast freely and unrestrained.

That's progress.

Gained Mana Concealment D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

The shattered fragments pick themselves up off the floor, spin around in the air, and begin pressing themselves into place on the frame. At first, the magic seems to be picking pieces at random, but you quickly realize that it's favoring large fragments that fill in the edges of the empty space, whether against the frame or the broken pane of glass. As the minutes pass, smaller and smaller pieces start to be chosen, with a few glittering grains swooping past your face from where they'd lain on the floor, overlooked in your search for fragments.

Ten minutes later, you're looking at an almost perfectly restored security mirror. The only flaw is a sliver of missing glass about an inch long and a quarter-inch wide, some four inches from the bottom of the frame on the left hand side. That absence shouldn't interfere with your intended spell - at least, you don't think it will.

Perhaps you should conjure a replacement piece? Just to be sure?

The gap in the mirror is pretty small, and glass isn't too difficult to conjure on a permanent basis - you've done so once already. That said, you haven't forgotten the concern Briar raised about sending permanent conjurations that carried exploitable examples of your magical signature to Kahlua as presents. A conjured shard of glass would pose the same potential risk if you were to just leave it lying around.

So, rather than conjure a fix, you cast a Spell of Transmutation to reshape the mirror very slightly, compressing its existing substance until the hole is sealed. You end up taking the Spell of Stone Shaping and modifying it to target a very small quantity of glass and metal simultaneously, rather than a relatively large quantity of stone. It works, though you get the feeling that if the mirror had been much bigger, the spell wouldn't have taken.

Regardless, you have your intact mirror. You proceed to cleanse it, first casting a cantrip to scrub away the mundane grime built up on the glass over a decade and more of neglect, and then following up with the Spell of Purification to burn away the demonic taint. You don't bother with the big production you put on by the cabin to deal with Rory's possessed animals; between its distance from the Hellmouth proper, the shielding offered by the walls of the abandoned station, and the lack of any acts of Evil in this place to draw and nurture the corruption, the mirror's level of contamination was nowhere near as bad.

You give the gleaming glass a quick once-over with your corruption sense, just to be sure, and it shines as clearly in your spiritual sight as it does to your mundane eye. Satisfied, you finally cast the Spell of the Mirror Hideaway. You feel local space-time "wobble" in an unfamiliar manner as the spell takes effect, but your danger sense (rather well-honed by this point) doesn't go off in response, and no malicious reflective entities come shrieking out of the surface of the mirror.

You'll call that a success.

"Alright, that's the set-up done," you announce. "Briar, Lu-sensei? Are you coming in or staying out here?"

"Is there any danger to those, er, 'inside,' if the mirror is interfered with?" your teacher inquires, before Briar can speak.

"Not exactly. If the mirror is covered, the portal can't be used, and if the mirror is moved or broken or the spell just runs out, anyone inside gets expelled back into real space. That's supposed to be seriously disorienting, but not directly harmful."

"I see." Lu-sensei strokes his chin. "If it's all the same to you, Alex, I believe I shall remain out here and keep watch."

"That works fine by me, Lu-sensei. What about you, Briar?"

"I suppose I'd better tag along," the fairy sighs. "Just in case something goes horribly wrong in there and you need a healer."

"Again, such confidence..." You shake your head and face the mirror for a moment, before shrugging and casting the Spell of Masking Dweomer, making it appear like a normal, non-enspelled, but still rather suspiciously placed mirror.

Turning back to your teacher, you say, "I'll need an hour and change to work all the spells I have in mind, Sensei - call it ninety minutes. Is that going to be a problem for you?"

Lu-sensei shakes his head. "I'll entertain myself somehow, Alex. But if you're not back by then...?" he trails off questioningly.

"The mirror doesn't show what's going on inside of it," you admit, "but the people inside can see out, and make their reflections appear in the glass if they choose. If I'm going to be running late, I'll have Briar show herself, maybe cast a color-coded light spell."

"Green for 'it's taking longer than expected, but all's well,'" Briar chips in. "Yellow for 'bad stuff happening, please come save me,' and red for 'emergency, break glass.'"

"Sounds good." You repeat the simple code for your teacher, who frowns but nods.

That settled, you face the mirror and step forward. The sensation as you come into contact with the glass and then begin to pass through it is decidedly unpleasant, like ten thousand tiny blades of ice creepy-crawling along your flesh, pressing just hard enough to be felt without actually breaking the skin. Instinct has you holding your breath, and though the passage through the portal lasts mere seconds, your first breath upon emerging into the pocket dimension is a desperate gasp, as if you'd been underwater for several minutes. You're honestly surprised when your breath fails to fog in the cool air.

You're standing in a cubical chamber roughly fifteen feet to a side. The walls, floor, and ceiling are perfectly smooth planes of clear reflective material - neither glass nor silver, but some colorless crystalline substance that possesses the optical properties you get from the proper mix of both materials. Dull silver light radiates from every surface with approximately the same intensity as a sixty-watt bulb, and your reflection is everywhere, bouncing from every mirror-perfect pane to every other in an endless recursive sequence that makes your head hurt just looking at it.

A moment later, an infinitely reflected image of a fairy appears next to you.

"Geeze," Briar mutters as she looks around. "What is this, the Hell for People With Self-Image Issues? Or the Narcissist's Heaven?"

"A little of Column A, a little of Column B, I think."

Although you didn't sense any spectral or demonic activity outside the mirror, you go ahead and cast the Spell of Consecration, and then its close cousin, the Spell of Sanctification. They won't really bestow any benefits on your work, but they will make this enclosed space more than a little uncomfortable for any roaming undead or demonic entities that try to force their way in.

Gained Elementalism D (Plus)
Gained Light Affinity E

That done, you reach into your pocket to pull out one of the Guardian's Gauntlets-

-and abruptly freeze.

Your pocket is empty. And also only about as big as your hand. What the hell is going on?

...

Oh, right. You're standing inside one extradimensional space, which means that any portable extradimensional apertures you brought in with you will have temporarily shut down. Standard safety precaution to prevent local space-time from imploding on itself and shunting everything in the immediate area to some funky null-space.

Sighing at the false alarm, you step back through the glass wall.

Lu-sensei raises an eyebrow as you emerge, pull out one of the Gauntlets, and then go back inside the mirror. Two passes in rapid succession prove even more unpleasant than the first, and leave you feeling a bit unwell in the stomach. Not so much that you can't think clearly or act, but you probably don't want to do that too many times in quick succession.

"Problem?" Briar inquires.

"Nested extradimensional spaces interfering with one another," you explain briefly.

"Oh, yeah. I forgot about that." After a moment, she chuckles weakly. "Man, it's a good thing neither of us was carrying a portable hole, huh?"

"Do they really explode when they're put into spaces like this?" you ask, setting the Gauntlet down in the middle of the room. "Or is that just a myth?"

"I've never seen it myself, but according to Mom, it really does happen. Only it's not an explosion, just the formation of a temporary rift in the fabric of creation. Not safe, and not fun."

"And not really an issue for us," you conclude, as you begin casting a Spell of Summoning.

Since this will be your first time working with metal, you feel it only makes sense to call in an expert. Fortunately, there's nothing preventing you from calling a being into your little pocket-mirror-world, so you can just lay down the necessary circle with pure mana and cast the spell for best effect. And since it worked out so well the last time...

"I summon you, oh-"

"-celestial spirit of the Forges' Art! I stand in this realm fashioned by my own hand, oh Artist of Metals, to ask that you might impart a portion of your understanding upon me! By my strength, I call! Seeking instruction, I stand! Resolute, I await you!"

Briar sighs.

The circle of mana on the floor surges with power not your own, as your call is heard, and answered.

"Come forth!"

Light and smoke erupt from the circle for an instant, and when they clear, there is a third figure in the extradimensional room.

You were expecting a being from Hyrule, but the new arrival appears to be a human with far more terrestrial origins. Slightly past six feet tall, he wears an odd red coat over some kind of black body armor that looks like it was designed for a comic-book superhero. While not exactly overflowing with muscle, the man's broad shoulders, lean figure, and balanced stance tell you as clearly as words that he's fighting fit, and his facial features seem Japanese, though his coloration is extremely unusual for that ethnicity. Short white hair would normally suggest advanced age, but it doesn't appear to have thinned or receded, and his deeply tanned face does not seem to have been especially marked by the passage of time, only a certain degree of exposure to the elements.

Dark eyes blink at you, and then swiftly sweep the mirror-walled chamber. The brow above them develops a deep furrow as the tall man frowns in clear confusion.

"Well," he mutters. "This is... different." One finger comes up to tap seemingly empty air above the glowing circle, and the man blinks as a translucent barrier of energy momentarily flickers into view at the spot. "Very different." He looks at you again. "I don't know you. Either of you," he adds, eyes flickering towards Briar.

"Likewise," you reply.

"Ditto," Briar says.

His gazes shifts down to the gauntlet which lies just outside the circle, and his confusion visibly intensifies. "And I don't recognize your summoning catalyst, either."

Now it's your turn to frown. "That isn't a catalyst."

Steely eyes turn to the shaped mana that makes up your circle of binding. "You just performed a general summoning, then?"

You nod.

"So how the hell did you get ME?" he wonders aloud.

"From your tone, I take it you don't get summoned a lot?"

"More like I only get summoned by very, VERY specific people," the man replies absently, crouching down to investigate the glowing symbols more closely. "And unless you're some kind of deranged hero wannabe, a Tohsaka who's taken the family tradition of critical screw-ups to a whole new level, or descended from an Emiya, I don't see how you'd qualify as one of them."

Briar's hand shoots into the air. "I vote for the screw-up!"

Of COURSE she does.

"As far as I'm aware, I don't have any Japanes relatives, and I'm pretty confident in my summoning magic," you reply firmly. "I also don't have a hero complex."

"Who was it that decided to fight the giant electric cuttlefish when we could have both just run away?" Briar muses.

"It attacked both of us unprovoked," you retort. "I wasn't going to let that slide."

"Uh-huh. And I suppose going into a bombed-out room under attack by the bad guys to help evacuate the survivors wasn't heroic, either?"

"How was I supposed to know that the ninjas were still attacking?"

"Heroic derrangement it is," the tall man sighs. His face goes blank and cold. "Right, then. Why have you summoned me? Is there a Philosopher that needs killing? Town that has to be burned down because of an out-of-control infestation of the Dead? I don't sense the presence of the Grail, so it can't be time for the next war..."

"Uh, no, it's none of those things." The Dead might be a reference to vampires, but what's a Philosopher? And what does the Grail have to do with a war? Shaking your head, you dismiss these odd titles and the questions they prompt from your mind. "I summoned you because I was hoping to get some tips on magical forging techniques."

The expressionless mask drops, and the man blinks, twice. "What?"

"It's like this. I've been invited to a birthday party, and the birthday girl's family is rich and fairly traditional. My family isn't really either of those things, so rather than breaking the bank trying to buy an appropriate gift, I figured I could use magic to make something the birthday girl would like. Since she had a sort of warrior-princess theme going when we met, I decided that a pair of high-quality gauntlets might go over well - and since I'd looted a pair of gauntlets from a giant ghost-knight thing I fought a while back, I even had the raw materials to work the spells I had in mind. I've never tried to work with steel before, though, so I sent out a general summons for a 'spirit of the Forge's Art,' in the hope that who- or whatever showed up would be willing to give me some pointers." You shrug. "And here you are."

There is a long silence. The tall man stares at you like you sprouted a second head and began speaking in some incomprehensible alien tongue, like French.

Then he shakes his head. "I'm sorry, you lost me."

Sighing, you shorten your summary. "I called for someone who could advise me on how to reforge a giant metal glove into a pair of smaller metal gloves for a girl. I got you."

"You... didn't summon me to fight?"

"No."

"You just want me to show you how to make a pair of gauntlets?"

"If that's alright with you."

He silently mouths the words, 'If that's alright with me.'

"You DO know how to make gauntlets, right?" you ask then, a little concerned. "I mean, I'm no expert, but as I understand it, even setting aside personal skill levels, there's a big difference between a regular blacksmith and a guy who makes weapons or armor."

"Huh? Oh, well... actually, I normally work with weapons, and swords are definitely my best creations, but..." He pauses, clearly thinking for a moment. He utters a Japanese phrase under his breath, which you don't have much trouble hearing in this small, still space: "Hitotsu, hi to no te-ashi wa ken to omoe."

First, think of hands and feet as swords. Huh. Catchy.

Gained Japanese C (D without Comprehend Languages)

As if that were a cue, he looks at the gauntlet lying on the floor, and holds out his left hand. There is a pulse of mana, and suddenly the man's arm has been encased in shining steel halfway back to the elbow. At a glance, the newly-materialized gauntlet has the same overall design features as your spoil of battle, it's merely been resized for human proportions rather than those of a Guardian.

The man nods slowly, looking bemused. "So, yeah. I think I could manage a pair of gauntlets."

Although you snapped your mage sight on as soon as you sensed the man in red's power beginning to move, the conjuration happened too quickly for you to follow everything. Even the details you did see were difficult to make sense of, part of it due to your summon's skill at using magic this way, but also due to an inherent oddity of the magic itself. Although Conjuration made up the majority of the matrix, with a strong steel-aspected signature of Earth and Fire, there were elements of Divination, Enchantment, Evocation, and Transformation woven in for some reason.

"That," Briar says slowly, "was the WEIRDEST method of Conjuration I've ever SEEN. Where did you learn- no, actually, who the heck are you, anyway?"

"Me?" The tall man appears to have recovered from his state of shock, because he smirks. It's clearly a very practiced expression. "I'm just an Archer."

"I call bullshit."

The smirk widens.

"Of course you are, Mr. Archer," you reply. "And I'm a Sorcerer."

"Pleased to meet you, Sorcerer," Archer says without missing a beat.

For some reason you feel vaguely disappointed by his reaction, but the moment passes.

"Anyway, that was a nice piece of magic just now. Would you mind me taking another look at what you did?"

"Hoping to steal the secrets of my Magecraft at a glance, huh?" Archer smirks. "Sorry, kid, but it's not that easy to Fake a Faker."

More terms that you don't recognize. "Magecraft" is easy enough to parse as a form or philosophy of magic use - literally, the craft of a mage - but what's a Faker?

"Still," he muses, "some people might say that turnabout is fair play, and it WOULD be the quickest way for me to show you how to forge this present you had in mind, so I suppose we could reach some kind of arrangement."

And that would be the signal that the negotiation phase of the summoning has begun.

"But first, you want to know what's in it for you?" you conclude.

"Good guess." The tall man folds his arms. "Usually, when I'm summoned, there's either an irrefutable order or a very large bribe already in place. I don't sense anything of the kind here..." He pauses, glances at the mirrored walls, and adds, "Wherever HERE is... so I'm guessing this is going to be one of those more traditional deals where you offer me something that you think I want in exchange for my services, and I either take it, negotiate for something better, or just laugh in your face."

"That sounds about right," you admit.

"So, then. What ARE you going to offer me?"

You consider it.

"That's a good question," you reply. "And not one that's easy for me to answer, considering just how many options I have to choose from."

Archer's right eyebrow quirks up. "Really."

"I called you here for tips on magical forging," you remind him. "I have about half a dozen different spells in mind to cast when I actually get to work on that project: one to shore up my visualization, pattern recognition, and recall; a second to keep me thinking clearly instead of tripping up over the details; and another to improve my luck while I'm working."

Archer blinks at that one.

"There's that morale-building spell. It's actually meant for combat, but since it keeps you from screwing up due to nerves, it's useful for less violent tasks, too. I've got another spell that'll amplify the effects of that one, and THEN there's the spell that'll let me rewind local space-time if I screw up the whole process mistake, and hopefully do better the next time around."

Another blink.

"And I'd cast all of those BEFORE I got around to the spell that will actually reshape that gauntlet," you conclude. "Would I be wrong in assuming that a magical craftsman might be interested in learning one or two of those spells in exchange for his assistance with a single task?"

"Depends on the craftsman," Archer replies. "And considering that you're the one who called ME for help..." He trails off meaningfully.

"I did say I was looking for advice," you point out. "Not for someone to do the job for me. I could have gone ahead and made the attempt on my own, and odds are it would have turned out fairly well - just maybe not as good as it COULD be, with a little professional guidance."

The tall man considers that, then nods.

"Of course, I don't know what your methods are like, so it's entirely possible that all of my little tricks wouldn't be of any help to you, or just not enough to make an appreciable difference. But you mentioned that you usually get summoned to fight, right? I've got support spells that can help with that as well."

"Not interested," Archer replies flatly.

Ouch. Talk about getting a door slammed in your face.

"Fair enough." You think for a moment. "Well, even leaving out the combat stuff, I still know a few spells that can serve for pure entertainment purposes, and some general household magic. Not sure if that'd be of any interest... I guess, in the end, it comes down to the old question: what do you want?"

Archer makes a sound akin to laughter, only with all the humor sucked out of it. "I'm the wrong guy to ask THAT one, kid. Dying kind of puts paid to all those 'earthly desires,' and the one wish I do have left... well, like I said, I don't sense the Grail around, so that's not in the cards."

"...I don't suppose it'd help if I said your assistance here would be going towards a little girl's happiness?"

"Sorry, I left my bleeding heart on the sleeve of my other coat."

You shrug. It was a longshot, anyway.

"I have to say, if those are all you're offering, I'm not too impressed." He glances at the floor again. "On the other hand, this summoning spell of yours has my attention. On the one hand, I'm quite a bit weaker now than I normally am when I'm summoned, but on the other, I feel remarkably stable. How long does this spell last, anyway?"

Oh, this sounds worrisome.

"It varies," you reply carefully. "But assuming we reach an agreement, then the spell can keep you here for up to nine days, or until such time as you complete the task we agreed upon, whichever comes first."

"That's a pretty open-ended summoning ritual," Archer says after a moment of silent consideration.

You nod. It's even more true than Archer knows, considering the sheer range of creatures you can potentially call up using just this spell, or the fact that the "negotiation" phase can continue for upwards of a week, in addition to the time the summoned entity will have to complete its task.

You decide not to mention that part to Archer. Few people would like the idea of being stuck in a circle in a weird, empty room for days on end with no way out, and he seems like he might be a grumpy sort of person.

"Of course," you add, "it'd take a special kind of idiot to call up a being of power and then just let it walk free when you know basically nothing about them. And comments from the peanut gallery aside" - you give Briar a sidelong glance - "I try not to be an idiot, especially where magic is involved."

"And how's that working out so far?" Archer asks dryly.

"Six of one, half-dozen of the other," Briar replies. "Without getting into the details, he's managed to avoid any catastrophic screw-ups so far, and even done some genuine good. On the other... some of the less-than-good and outright bad guys know where he lives. They just haven't done anything serious with that information. Yet."

"Which is one reason why making a decent impression with the birthday present would be a good idea," you note. "Getting back to the topic at hand... can I assume from your interest in the duration of my summoning magic that spending time in this world might be of value to you, Archer?"

"I would say that's a reasonable assumption," he admits calmly.

"Right. Well, as I said, I'm trying not to be an idiot-"

"'There is no try,'" the fairy and the man in red say together. Then they stop and stare at one another.

The welcome implication that the higher planes and/or afterlife have Star Wars is offset by the headache you feel building at the discovery that Briar and Archer seem to share similar thought processes, at least when it comes to making quips.

"-so I'm not just going to let you go off and do your own thing in exchange for giving me some pointers," you continue, keeping your voice steady with an effort. "But I AM willing to negotiate the terms of your... vacation?"

"'Vacation,' huh?" Archer repeats. "I suppose that's as good a word as any. For the sake of this poor, lost tourist, where exactly would I be having my time off from work?" He frowns. "And for that matter, what year is it?"

"For the former, we're in southern California."

Hard eyes blink, glance at the reflective walls, and then turn back to you.

"Okay, we're ACTUALLY in a very small and temporary pocket dimension," you clarify, getting a look of frank disbelief from Archer, which you ignore. "But the access portal is in California. And it's 1999."

Archer's gaze suddenly acquires the intensity of a laser.

"What month?" he says sharply.

"June. It's, uh, Saturday the Nineteenth, if that helps."

"...it might," Archer replies slowly. "Does the name 'Fuyuki City' mean anything to you?"

You frown. The Japanese-sounding name doesn't ring any bells with you, and from Briar's lack of response, it isn't familiar to her, either. Then again, you're far from experts on the subject of Japanese cartography.

"I've never heard the name, myself," you admit, "but then, I'm American, and in primary school besides. Japanese geography isn't really my thing."

Archer winces, but nods.

"That said, I may be able to find an answer for you. Hold on a minute while I try this..."

You cast the Spell of Creation, envisioning as you do a small, plain book with a brown cover, devoid of labels or images, and perhaps a hundred pages of pure white paper, all completely blank.

Mana flares around you for the requested minute, and when it clears, there is an unremarkable book in your hands, looking pretty much exactly as you imagined. You reach out with your magical senses, investigating the structure of the tome, testing it for flaws and limitations.

As far as you can determine, it's just a book. There's nothing remarkable about it in any way, save that you created it from raw magical energy, and it doesn't show any signs of breaking down. At least, no more than any other book that is unprotected against the ravages of time, the elements, hard use, bookworms, and other hazards. That said, there's a very faint sense of... tension, maybe? A hint that if and when the book is subjected to a certain amount of stress, whether all at once or gradually over time, it'll break apart and return to the ether from whence it came.

Still, this is a definite step forward for your ability to create stable items.

Gained Conjuration D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Conjured Book

Archer whistles. "That is a very nice Projection, kid. Looks almost real."

"That was the idea," you reply. "I need a blank book for the next spell I want to cast." You look around at the mirrored walls with a frown. "Not actually sure if it'll work in here, though..."

"Which one?" Briar asks.

"Pagebound Epiphany."

"Hmmm... it might not," Briar admits. "I mean, this place is definitely connected to the world, but it isn't exactly part of it, either. You should probably step outside, just to be sure."

You hesitate. Passing through the mirror has been unpleasant enough thus far that you're reluctant to do so again unless you actually need to.

You take a moment to check your mana reserves. All the work that went into preparing the Mirror Hideaway and then summoning Archer ate a big chunk of your magic, but you're still holding strong at around 68% of your maximum. You figure you can afford to re-cast the Spell of Pagebound Epiphany, if it comes to that.

Before you attempt the spell, however, you bring your magical senses up to full power. You're curious to see how the spell interacts with the other-dimensional space you're about to cast it in.

You utter the words of the spell, and watch as your magic reaches out in search of other books and the knowledge they hold about this "Fuyuki City." The fillaments of shaped mana extend out from where you stand to swirl aimlessly about the mirror-walled chamber, and for a brief moment, you fear that the spell has indeed failed. Then some of the seeking strands brush up against the access portal and are drawn into it, leaving the previously-smooth surface to ripple like a pool of mercury - at least, that's how it looks in your magically-augmented vision. There's definitely some conflict between the Divination spell and the space-time warping Summoning magic that holds this chamber together, and watching as their energies clash, you get the feeling that if you were any less capable with the two fields of sorcery, the Spell of Page-Bound Epiphany would not have worked.

An instant later, the book in your hands begins to radiate a pale white light from within its pages. Opening it up, you find words imprinting themselves upon the blank sheets. Knowing that you have very little time before the spell lapses - and probably even less than usual given the interference issue - you start reading at once, trying to commit as much of the information you've acquired to memory as you can. The spell aids you in this endeavor, as it's supposed to, and you all but fly through the pages of your conjured text, knowledge settling into your mind at a ridiculous pace.

Gained Literacy D (Plus)
Gained Local Knowledge (Fuyuki City) E
Gained Scholar's Soul F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Perhaps half a minute later, the book stops glowing, and the inscribed words begin to break up and fade away. You stop reading, close your eyes, and concentrate on the information you've acquired. Much of it slips away, but a sizeable portion remains accessible.

"Fuyuki City is located in the Hyogo Prefecture, on the southern side of the main island of Honshu. A coastal city, it was built at the mouth of the Mion River and is divided into the suburban district of Miyama City, located west of the river, and the newer, highly urbanized 'Shinto' district on the east side. Population about eight hundred thousand and rising."

Archer is staring at you. "That sounds right," he says slowly. "What did that spell you cast just now do, Sorcerer?"

You find yourself smirking at Archer in the same way that he did to Briar earlier.

"As I said, Archer, I'm a sorcerer."

He scowls.

"Now, if you really want to know, perhaps we can make a side deal...?"

The man in red looks simultaneously annoyed and tempted. It's an interesting expression.

Then he sighs and shakes his head. "Nah, keep it. Information magic really isn't my thing."

"Fair enough." You punctuate your words by closing the book. "So, we were talking about Fuyuki City. I'm assuming you'd really like to go there for... your vacation?"

Archer nods, wordlessly.

You scratch the back of your head, considering the situation. Given Archer's behavior in regards to the topic, it seems clear that Fuyuki, or something or someone in it, is Very Important to your summoned spirit - or will be, on one side or the other of a particular date that you'd venture lies not too far in the future. The opportunity to go to the city would, then, be of considerable value to Archer, and as it's well within your power to make happen, it's a form of compensation you could offer him in exchange for his services.

But none of that changes the fact that the man in red is a moderately powerful spiritual entity whose intentions are, at best, a mystery to you. Just because he's a celestial and so nominally on the side of the Forces of Good doesn't mean he's nice, or even safe - really, between his attitude and his opening "what am I here to kill?" spiel, you think it's rather the opposite.

You stand in silence, considering your options.

You could let Archer out into the world. You picked up the coordinates and some snapshots of Fuyuki City from your casting of the Spell of Page-Bound Epiphany, so you could even teleport him there. And you could cast a Geas upon him to restrict him to normal vacation-type behavior. Relax, see the sights, enjoy the local cuisine, don't get into any epic battles with the Forces of Evil, that kind of thing.

But the man in red is a celestial spirit, and one who, by his own words, is typically summoned into the mortal realms for battle. Based on your admittedly scanty knowledge of the type, as well as details gleaned from your working relationship with the Postman, some level of inherent resistance to magic is practically a given for such a warrior-spirit, and spells capable of suppressing or outright breaking magic like a Geas are not uncommon. That's assuming you could get the spell to work on him in the first place; you're not entirely convinced that your skill at Enchantment is up to the task, not with a being this strong.

The most immediate concern, however, is what Lu-sensei will say or do if you just let an unfamiliar conjured being loose in the world. The Postman was one thing; he shows up, runs letters to your friends, and goes back to his plane of origin as soon as the last missive is delivered. He has a specific, well-defined task that doesn't take more than a couple of hours, and that when he's taking the time to enjoy the sights and perhaps talk to interesting people he meets along the way. The Postman is neither an especially strong spirit, nor one whose powers are geared for combat, and his temperament reflects that. He's not the sort to seek out trouble, or to hang around if it comes his way. He's a runner, not a fighter.

You can't say the same about Archer. And when you try to picture Lu-sensei's reaction, on hearing that you've called up a supernatural being of moderately impressive strength and possessing what sounds like extensive combat experience, and then just turned him loose on the world to do as he likes?

It doesn't take a Divination spell to see the ENLIGHTENMENT that awaits in THAT future.

Archer regards you for a moment. "Ah. I see."

"See what?" Briar asks.

"That." The man in red points at your face. "That is the expression of a person trying to find a way to say 'no' without coming off sounding like a jerk."

Huh. You thought you were better at hiding your feelings. Guess you need more practice there, at least when it comes to dealing with supernatural warriors from beyond. With a sigh, you decide to just get your concerns out in the open.

"I'm sorry, Archer," you apologize, "but I don't know you well enough to say what you'd do on your own, and I'm just not comfortable letting you run loose like that. I'd be responsible for anything you did, and more to the point, my teacher's waiting right outside. I'm pretty sure he'd kick my ass for making a deal like that, no matter what came of it."

Archer snorts. "Forget your teacher, Sorcerer; if you'd proven yourself to be that much of a reckless idiot, I'd have been obligated to kick your ass myself."

...you get the distinct feeling that you dodged a bullet, there. Or possibly an arrow.

"So," Archer says shortly. "I take it that means we're done here?"

"Maybe, maybe not," you reply. "I said I wasn't going to let you out. I didn't say I wasn't willing to do something else for you. Like, oh, say, check up on things in Fuyuki City for you while I'm in Japan, two weeks from now?"

The white-haired warrior pauses.

"It would depend on what those things were," you admit. "There are some things I wouldn't be comfortable doing, and others I wouldn't be able to, whether because of my age, my nationality, or just because they're none of my business. But..."

Archer considers your offer.

"Yeah," he says thoughtfully. "I can think of a lot of things a sorcerer could do - even a half-pint model. 'Safely' would depend on a few things, though, like how we'll you're able to hide your use of magic, or how little you care about being noticed."

"Unfriendly local practitioners?" you guess.

"A couple of them, definitely. The others are more security-conscious than actively unfriendly, but... to put it in context, have you read the Harry Potter books?"

"Only the first one," you reply. "I haven't been able to lay hands on a copy of the second one, yet."

"Well, take the 'hidden society of magic-users' and the rule against using magic in front of non-magical people, then give them paranoid control freak tendencies, that Malfoy brat's attitude, and a dash of Dr. Frankenstein's methodology." Archer shrugs. "That's more or less the dominant magical culture in Fuyuki."

"...nice place."

"Okay, it's not QUITE as bad as I'm making it sound," Archer says defensively. "There's half a dozen resident magi, tops, and half of those are kids just learning the craft. The problem is that of the three adults, one's basically a walking heap of undead worms, one's an evil smirking nihilistic bastard of a priest with compulsive backstabbing disorder, and the last is a retired professional killer who has an understanding with the local yakuza boss, and I am really not making this sound any better, am I?"

You shake your head. Archer sighs.

"Right. So, 'safe' basically boils down to, 'don't use magic you can't conceal, unless you've got no choice, in which case get out of town immediately if not sooner.'"

"And what does 'legal' come down to?"

Archer falls silent, scowling. After a long minute, he says, "How do you feel about spells of mind-control?"

You blink.

"I think the morality of mind-control magic depends on what you do with it," you answer. "Magic in general is like that, aside from those spells that flat-out require you to do awful things just to cast them, or that were built from the ground up to be used for evil purposes."

Archer frowns slightly, but nods.

"Also," you add, "it depends on how you define 'mind control.' A magically-binding oath is one thing, and a love spell is another - and if we're going with Harry Potter references, a 'Muggle-repelling' field is another."

"And a Memory Charm would be something else again, right?"

You pause. "Memory-?"

Archer shakes his head. "Sorry. It's something that comes up in the second book. Pretty much what it says on the label; a spell that suppresses a specific memory and puts a fake one in its place. Hard to break safely, easily-abused, kind of horrifying in implication when you stop to think about it."

"Ah." You don't really have a spell that can do that. Well, there is the Spell of Memory Lapse, but that one's extremely limited in application, affecting only the target's short-term memory, and then only a few seconds' worth of it. What Archer is describing sounds a lot bigger and meaner by comparison, though you suppose you might be able to hash together an equivalent, if you really needed to. Maybe start with the spell you know, and amplify it by several levels...?

Shaking your head, you let that train of thought pass. "Yeah, directly messing with someone's memories isn't something I'd be completely comfortable using, even if I had the capability. I mean, I've used spells of Enchantment before, but mostly just to encourage people to ignore stuff that was out of the ordinary. One or two Spells of Sleep, a few combat-related morale boosters - nothing on the scale that you're talking about."

Archer nods. "Yeah, I figured that might be the case. Most magi I've met never got beyond brute-force mesmerism and post-hypnotic suggestion. I can't say I'm unhappy about that, given what some of them get up to just with the level of mind-affecting magic they already have, but it's seriously inconvenient in this case."

"And what case is that, exactly?" you inquire.

"There's a kid in Fuyuki," the man in red replies after a moment of silence. "He survived a major magical incident a few years ago, and it seriously messed him up in the head. He's obsessed with the idea of being a hero, to the point where he is literally incapable of putting his own well-being ahead of anyone else's, even in the smallest matter. Now, if he were a regular person, it'd be tragic, but nothing more than that - he'd probably end up as an overworked, underpaid civil servant or something, but it'd be a halfway normal life. The problem is that the kid is aware of the existence of magic, while being almost completely ignorant about how it actually works, or what the magical world is like."

You wince. "So basically, he knows enough to get himself into trouble, and not enough to get out of it."

"And how," Archer sighs. "If things keep on as they are, in about five years' time, the idiot is going to stumble into an event that could potentially wipe out all life on the planet" - he pauses, and shakes his head - "actually, forget 'stumble.' He'll charge headlong into it, so completely focused on the idea of 'saving everyone' that even being messily killed a few times won't convince him to change his ways. And assuming that everything goes right - which isn't a given - and he survives and the world doesn't end, the idiot will keep on going down his path, throwing away more and more of himself and his life until he has no one and nothing to hold him back. He'll eventually end up making a deal with what might as well be the Devil in order to save just a few more lives, then die and spend the rest of eternity in Hell."

"And you want to save him?"

"I want to stop him," Archer says firmly. "If that means the idiot gets to live afterwards, fine, but when it comes down to it, oblivion would be kinder than what's waiting for him if he's allowed to make that deal."

Ouch. Good is REALLY not nice. Still, at least you know why Archer was asking about Enchantment spells. If somebody is messed up in the head, that's precisely the kind of magic you'd need to fix the damage.

You're honestly rather stunned by Archer's words, although not for the reason some people might expect.

The fact that he claims to have fairly detailed knowledge of the future, even if it's just in regards to the life of one boy, isn't all that great a shock. Briar has mentioned the existence of beings in Faerie that have unusual relationships with time, to the extent of being able to look into past, present, future, and parallel variations thereof all at once. It's no stretch of the imagination to think that celestial beings might exist which have similar capabilities, or that Archer either is one such creature, or has been briefed by one of them about this situation that so concerns him.

Celestial beings are often considered to be gods by mortals, after all, or at least as the servants and children thereof, and gods are always being attributed with various forms of superhuman mental ability. Knowing the future is one of the classics.

What DOES surprise you is how Archer can treat a potentially world-ending scenario as a mere aside to the fate of one human soul. Okay, yes, souls are valuable, particularly to beings from higher and lower planes of existence, but shouldn't one of the warriors of good show some concern about a threat to all life on the planet?

Then again, that would be "saving everyone," wouldn't it? A very heroic mindset. And Archer's remarks suggest that has definite opinions about heroes...

Still.

"Do you mind if I mention this to my teacher?" you ask. "Because I have to say, dealing with a messed-up kid is one thing, but the apocalypse? Kind of above my pay grade."

Archer shrugs. "Sure, go ahead. Just make sure that somebody does something about that kid."

"I will, and thanks. Of course, you realize that I, or whoever ends up taking charge of this, will want to investigate and confirm the issue before they act, right?"

"Yeah, I figured. And you want to know what I know, before you send someone into Fuyuki to start poking at the potential time-bomb, right?"

"It would be nice."

Archer nods, and tells you.

It seems there's a massive ritual held in Fuyuki every sixty years or so, with seven specially-chosen magic-users summoning the spirits of ancient heroes to fight each other in a massive free-for-all battle to the death known as the Holy Grail War. The prize is the eponymous Grail, which is said to have the power to grant any single wish to the one who claims it.

An alarm bell goes off in the back of your mind at this point.

There are several problems with the entire scenario, as Archer explains, one of them being that the War is bad enough when everything goes "right." Legendary heroes tend to be ridiculously powerful, heavily-armed, and have moral and ethical values somewhat different from those of the modern world, while the magic-users - who Archer refers to as "magi" - seldom have any regard for the lives and livelihoods of regular people. Consequently, collateral damage is not only a fact of the War, but an accepted strategy, with some past participants having harnessed the life-force and souls of Fuyuki's resident population as a supplementary power source.

The wish is another problem. The power to warp reality to one's will is frightening enough on its own, but it gets significantly scarier when the one making the wish is the sort of person who has just managed to triumph over seven-to-one odds in a no-holds-barred mystical deathmatch. Any wish is inherently selfish, and wishes made by people like that... well.

You remember Ganondorf's wish. Enough said.

Leaving all of that aside, however, Archer explains that at some point prior to the most recent War - which was just five years ago - the Grail was contaminated by an entity claiming the title of Angra Mainyu, a Persian god of darkness sometimes attributed as the source of all the world's evils. Whether that is true or not, the thing in the Grail has been feeding on its power for years, maybe decades, in an attempt to manifest itself within the world, and when the next War begins in five years' time, it will be strong enough to be brought forth. If that happens, the world will be overrun by monstrous embodiments of evil, as mankind is wiped out by an unstoppable tide of vicious, deadly curses.

"One of the participants in the Fourth War realized that something was wrong with the Grail, and ordered his Servant to destroy it," Archer recounts. "That's what caused the incident that the boy, Shirou, was caught up in. The official story was that it was a fire, but the truth was a lot worse - the corruption spilled out of the shattered Grail and destroyed everything and everyone it touched, about as horribly as it possibly could. The greater part of Angra Mainyu's essence was still in the Grail System, though, and it's survived there, building up its power to try again."

Archer's story is really beginning to disturb you. Not just because it's a scary tale on its own merits, but, well...

...he's basically saying there's an Incarnation of Hatred attached to an omnipotent wish-granting device, trying to resurrect itself so that it can cover the world as you know it with an endless army of curses manifested as evil monsters.

You find yourself feeling a new level of gratitude towards Navi for purifying you of some of Ganondorf's influence. Otherwise you'd probably be hearing him laughing in the back of your head right about now. That, or cursing out this Angra Mainyu creature for stealing his shtick.

You also have to wonder if the suicidally-heroic kid Archer is talking about has a shining sword of Evil's Bane, or if he'll acquire one at some point. And also whether or not he wears green.

There's something else about the story that bugs you, though...

"Hang on a second," you say, holding up one hand.

"Problem?" Briar inquires.

"Yeah. There's something about your story that bugs me, Archer - not that I think you're lying," you add, as the man starts to frown. "It's just that, listening to you, I got the feeling that I'd forgotten something important. Do you mind holding on for a second while I try to hunt that thought down?"

Archer blinks. "I suppose. It's not like I'm going anywhere."

"Thanks."

Closing your eyes, you murmur the words to the Spell of Heightened Awareness, burning a small amount of mana to energize your mind and clear your recollection. You focus on Archer's account of this "Holy Grail War," patiently reviewing his words as you try to track down the moment where you first sensed that something about the information was off.

Interestingly enough, it wasn't the mention of the wish-granting power of the Grail, or even the admittedly unsettling similarities between Ganondorf and this Angra Mainyu entity.

No, when you look at it closely, what bothered you was... the fire? What about the...

...oh. Well, yes, that would explain why the story seemed not to add up.

"Archer," you ask, "exactly how bad was the incident at the end of the Fourth War supposed to be?"

The spirit frowns. "Over a hundred buildings were destroyed, and five hundred people died. Why do you ask?"

"I'm not seeing any record of it."

"...what."

"The spell I used isn't perfect," you admit. "It has a particular shortcoming in that it can't access magically-protected writings or decode any sort of encryption. But you said the fire was the cover story for the event, so it should have shown up in the local newspaper archives and recent history books. I can't find any indication that it did."

Archer appears confounded by this. "There's really nothing...?"

"The closest matches are a few single-home fires over the course of the year, one apartment complex that had three entire floors burnt out, and a gas main explosion that took out a building in the Shinto district. None of those incidents have an associated casualty count that even reaches the double-digits."

Archer pinches the brow of his nose. "Damn it."

"Something you'd like to mention, maybe?" Briar asks.

"I seem to be in the wrong timeline, again," Archer answers with a sigh. "Well, it's not like that's anything new."

That remark has you curious. Perhaps you should inquire what he means by it?

"You get summoned to alternate timelines a lot, I take it?"

"Oh, it's even better than that," Archer replies sourly. "I'm constantly getting summoned into different iterations of the same event, which means that I have to try and juggle the details of a few hundred different KNOWN timelines, most of them identical up to their particular points of divergence - nearly all of which are completely outside my control - as well as the possibility that I might just be in a completely new timeline. Not to mention that a certain tyrannical little spitfire manages to screw up my summoning every. Single. Time. So I ALWAYS land on my head, usually on a piece of hardwood furniture, and no matter how tough I am, that sort of thing HURTS, damn it! And that plus the scrambled mess the summoning makes of my memories puts me in just enough of a grumpy mood that I HAVE to ruffle her twintails when she finds me, which ALWAYS ends with me getting a Command Seal dropped on my ass." He shakes his head, sighing, and then fixes you with a serious look. "Word of advice, Kid Sorcerer. When you get old enough to notice girls, stay AWAY from the tsunderes, unless you're ready for a seriously high-maintenance relationship. That goes double for the magical ones."

"...okay?" You're really not sure what he's getting at, but maybe getting your agreement will make him feel better?

On a related note, you're strongly tempted to ask Archer for details about this "other " Grail War. Even if you're in the wrong timeline to directly apply the knowledge, it would help you - or whoever ends up going to Fuyuki to check things out - to know recurring faces, names, and events to look out for. However, if Archer recalls as many versions of the same War as he's saying, you could easily be here for days just covering the major common elements. You're not sure you have the time for that, let alone the patience.

You decide to table that line of thought for the moment, to focus on a more urgent concern.

"So, Archer? Where does this little discovery leave our negotiations?"

"I don't really know," the spirit admits. "If the Fourth Grail War didn't end with the fire here, then Emiya Shirou as I know him can't have existed. Which means my mission is... pretty much pointless in this world. But then, why am I even here?"

"Without getting philosophical," you venture cautiously, "and also, hopefully, not sounding like a completely insensitive jerk - Archer, it seems to me that you're here because you were the most suitable being to answer my summons for a mage-smith."

Archer snorts. "Occam's razor, huh? So you're saying that I'm just here because, out of all the spirits in creation, I'm the one best suited to make birthday presents for martially-inclined little girls?"

"Well, there's also the compatibility issue," you admit. "And I wouldn't put it past the various Higher Powers to have meddled with the summoning, if they had agendas that would be served by the two of us meeting like this. But honestly, as interesting as all this talk about alternate realities and potential world-ending scenarios is - and I do still want to hear about that, just in case it turns out to be something I do need to worry about-"

"Sensible."

"-in the end, none of that is why I called you, and it's really just distracting me from that goal."

Archer nods. "Right. Forging techniques, was it?"

You nod, wordlessly, and the two of you stand in silence for a time as Archer considers his answer.

Then, the tall man shrugs.

"Sure. I suppose I do owe you something in consideration for this having been the most peaceful summoning I've had in... pretty much ever." He raises his hands. "Watch closely, now, because I'm only going to show you this once."

You activate your senses, and watch as Archer creates a pair of child-sized, somehow dainty-looking gauntlets. They look like they'd be too small for Kahlua - you remember the impression of her fists well enough to be sure of that - but their form gives you ideas.

Trying to follow the weave of mana that brings the items into being, however, just gives you a headache. Oh, the outer layer of the spell is easy enough to follow, even if it is unique in how it mixes principles from so many different schools of magic into what should be a straightforward conjuration. It's only when you try to look deeper, into the underlying source and structure of the magic, that your brain starts to ache. What merely looks like a novel approach to magic on the surface makes less and less sense the closer you look at it.

Something about... seven steps? Iron? And swords?

Gained Earth Elementalism D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) (D (Plus) (Plus) without Heart of Fire)
Gained Enchantment D (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Transformation D (Plus) (Plus)

The ache is becoming actively painful. Maybe you should stop here, before it gets worse?

With a wince, you avert your gaze and shut down your enhanced vision.

"Stop, stop. Please."

"Alex?" Briar asks, hovering closer. "You okay?"

"I was getting a headache trying to make sense of that," you reply, nodding towards the gauntlets gleaming in Archer's hands.

Briar has her wand out at the word 'headache.' "Hold still."

"I'm okay," you assure the fairy, even though you keep your head immobile while she works. "I just thought it might be a good idea to look away, before I ended up facedown on the floor, like that time I tried to watch the master's division."

"'Pain is Nature's way of telling you something's wrong,'" Briar quotes, as the tip of her wand glows softly. "It's nice to see you're listening."

"Yeah. So, what's the verdict?"

"I'm seeing faint signs of stress, but nothing that I'd consider actual damage. Looks like you got clear in time."

Gained Mental Defense D

Briar's wand dims, but she doesn't put it away. "So what happened, exactly?"

You describe how you were trying to analyze Archer's spell. While it was mainly Conjuration, there was enough Transformation magic involved for you to learn a thing or two, and the overall technique looked worthwhile, up until you tried to look deeper. The way the gauntlets assembled themselves, aspect upon aspect, in a seven-step process that lasted no more than a second, wasn't particularly difficult to grasp. You have no idea what the steps were, though you can guess at a few of them: the "idea" of "gauntlets"; the specific dimensions; the material composition; and then... that's where the Enchantment kicked in, and it started getting confusing. The stress came when you tried to make sense of the energy flowing into the matrix of the spell, and where that power was coming from. You don't know what it is you saw, except that it made you think of swords.

You and Briar turn to Archer. "What was that?"

"By the sound of it, whatever Mystic Eyes you have there started looking into my soul, Sorcerer." He frowns. "Points for stopping before you hurt yourself or saw anything you shouldn't, but don't do it again. Ever. Am I clear?"

You nod, while pondering this discovery. What kind of soul is full of swords?

"I don't suppose I could get you to cast that spell again, while I set up some spells to monitor it remotely?"

Archer shakes his head with a smirk. "Nope. But now that I have some raw material to work with" - he hefts the gauntlets in his hands - "I'll show you a spell that's closer to the kind of 'forging' you had in mind."

The tall man crouches down to set the metal handpieces on the floor, and then stays that way, touching each gauntlet with just a single finger. Perhaps your experience has rendered you a bit sensitive, but when Archer's power begins to move again a moment later, you register it as a prickling sense of danger - of many sharp, unseen edges aligning themselves.

While he's setting up, you have time to cast one spell of your own - maybe two, if you hurry.

Mindful of your lingering headache and Archer's warning against prying too closely, you decide not to cast any analytical spells, instead simply restoring your usual suite of vision-enhancing powers. As Archer casts his spell and the substance of the gauntlets begins to warp and flow almost like liquid, you resist the impulse to delve into the underpinnings of the magic. You might learn less this way, but you'll do it safely.

And you still learn a fair amount from watching Archer work. The three spells he's cast have let you glean some interesting and unsettling details about his magical style, but it's what he's doing with the current spell that is the real windfall here. Where his previous Conjuration was over and done with pretty much in the blink of an eye, Archer appears to be taking his time with this Transformation, giving you a great opportunity to watch as he rearranges the structure of the gauntlets. Ignoring the tantalizing traces of Conjuration, Divination, and Enchantment, you focus on the Elementalism and Transformation, watching as the invoked essences of Earth and Fire go to work.

It's only one spell, and even with the casting drawn out, it's no more than ten seconds or so before the associated light and sound effects fade away, but that's plenty of time for you to confirm that Archer is really, REALLY good at the technical side of this sort of thing.

Gained Arcanology E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Item Crafting D
Gained Knowledge (Magesmithing) F

His aesthetic tastes, on the other hand, may need some work.

"What the hell are those supposed to be?" Briar asks.

"What?" Archer inquires, his expression one of pure innocence. "You said they were for a little girl, right?"

He's taken the gauntlets, graceful but functional armor that you could see being worn to battle or at least during a triumphal parade by a small-statured dame of the realm, and turned them into these thin, elbow-length gloves that look like they're meant for one of those absurdly fancy ballroom gowns. Din's name, the man has even added lacy frills and a rosy hue to the things, making them about a thousand percent more girly, even though the way they gleam says that they're still made entirely of steel.

It's like looking at part of the costumes worn by those "magical princess" shows your sister watches. A Gerudo woman would gag at the sight, and even the most absurd Hylian nobles would find them in poor taste - and considering the kind of junk those people would spend thousands of rupees on, that's really saying something!

You find yourself hoping that Archer is just screwing with you. The alternative is a bit disturbing.

While his creations give you doubts about Archer's mental health, you decide to let that concern go unaired. It helps that the appearance of the items created by Archer doesn't really matter, as they're not the actual gift, merely a prototype in the production process. Just because you're copying some of what your summoned helper has done in terms of tools and technique, doesn't mean you have to create exactly the same things that he did.

Although you have to admit, if these "steel gloves" were white instead of pink, they'd totally fit with the "beauty pageant princess" dress Kahlua was wearing at the tournament...

You shake your head. "Alright. I think I see what to do. Thanks for that, Archer. Before I make the attempt, though, do you mind if I get my Sensei in here to hear about the Grail War from you?"

Archer shrugs, as his conjured creations blur and vanish. "Do what you like."

Nodding, you step back through the mirror, shivering the entire way.

"I must say, Alex," Lu-sensei notes a moment later. "That looks decidedly uncomfortable."

"Yeah, it's definitely not something I'd want to do everyday." You give yourself a shake, chasing away the lingering chill and the feeling of sharp edges. "Hey, Lu-sensei? Does the term 'Holy Grail War' mean anything to you?"

Your instructor frowns. "It does not. Why do you ask?"

You let out a breath, and present a summary of your interaction with Archer thus far. Lu-sensei's eyebrows appear to be trying to climb off his head when you get to the part about your summoned mage-smith being a warrior-spirit from an alternate timeline with foreknowledge of a magical battle royale that could potentially result in the end of the world.

"I see," Lu-sensei says as you wind down. "Yes, I think I had better hear the specifics from this... 'Archer', was it?"

"Yes, sir. And thanks."

Lu-sensei just nods and walks up to the mirror - and then pauses, eyeing the surface of the glass suspiciously.

"You just walk through?" he inquires.

"That's right. You might want to hold your breath, though, and brace for a chill. And don't panic if it feels like you're surrounded by knives."

Your teacher looks at you for a moment, then shakes his head, takes a slight breath, and steps forward. You wait until his image has completely disappeared from the glass, then give him a few more seconds to get over the shock of the transition and move out of the "doorway," before following.

When you step back into the mirror-walled room, Lu-sensei is giving you one of those Looks while discretely rubbing his arms.

"Is it SUPPOSED to feel like that?" he demands.

"Um, maybe?"

"You were walking through a pane of glass, old man," Archer notes. "Even if the glass stayed in one piece, I still wouldn't expect it to feel pleasant."

The old man shakes his head and mutters something about "bloody mages," to which Archer just chuckles.

"So," the tall spirit says then, "I suppose you want to hear the story, then?"

"If you would be so kind," Lu-sensei replies.

"Right. You might want to conjure up a seat or grab a patch of glass, then, Sorcerer, because this isn't a short story."

Channeling more mana than is strictly necessary, you cast the Spell of Creation twice in quick succession.

Two large beanbags pop into existence on the reflective floor.

After a moment's concentration, you cast a lower-power version of the spell, adding a third, much smaller seat, just the right size for a fairy.

Archer and Lu-sensei look at the "chairs" for a moment, then at you, and then at each other. Archer's expression is quizzical, and your sensei just shakes his head, at which point the spirit snorts and sort of sits down on empty air for a brief second, as a chair of metal shimmers into existence beneath him. It's all straight lines, precise angles, and shiny material, and the edges look rather sharp; you can't imagine that such a thing would be comfortable to sit on, but Archer treats it almost like a fully-upholstered recliner.

Briar, meanwhile, has just settled herself on her seat, not quite lying back - out of consideration for her wings - but not sitting up all that straight, either. You do likewise, with a great deal more noise of shifting "beans" and displaced air as you sprawl out in search of optimum comfort, and Lu-sensei follows suit, assuming a much more formal seated position.

Once everyone is settled - and after Lu-sensei has given the back of your head a corrective "manners, student!" whack from five feet away, prompting you straighten up a bit - Archer begins his tale.

The Holy Grail Wars, as Archer knows them from other timelines, are a long-running attempt by three established families of magi to reach what he calls Akasha - he clarifies for Lu-sensei that this is a metaphysical concept also known as the Origin or the Root of the World, where all knowledge of everything that exists, has existed, will exist, and even CAN exist is held. All "proper" magecraft is nothing more or less than the pursuit of that goal, the slow accumulation and refinement of knowledge - and thus power - over generations, each generation in a magical family making its own contribution to improve the capabilities of their descendants until one of them will, at last, find the key to Akasha - ultimate knowledge, and through it, ultimate power.

This comes as news to you.

The Grail Wars are really just an attempt to make a shortcut to Akasha, using a complex magical ritual that employs truly immense amounts of magical power to make up for the imperfect knowledge of the current generation of magi. They are caused by a massive magical system Archer identifies as the "Greater Grail," which lies in a cavern beneath Mount Enzo, one of Fuyuki's most prominent natural landmarks, under which runs a powerful leyline that the system taps for power. Every sixty years or so, the Greater Grail accumulates enough energy to begin a Grail War, and chooses seven humans to take part in the ritual; those chosen are called "Masters," and can be recognized by their "Command Seals," unique three-part magical symbols located somewhere on their bodies, usually one of the hands.

Once chosen, a Master performs a ritual to summon a "Servant," a powerful warrior who will fight on the Master's behalf to obtain the Grail. These Servants are based on Heroic Spirits, legendary figures of the past whose deeds earned them a kind of immortality in the memories of mankind, and whose quasi-divine souls are offered the opportunity to pursue the power of the Grail, which can fulfill a single wish for the one that claims it. Although the true Heroic Spirit is not actually embodied within the Servant, the "copy" which does manifest inherits much of the original's power, giving them a much better chance of obtaining the Grail and granting the Heroic Spirit's wish - and also, incidentally, giving them abilities far beyond those of modern mortals. Once all seven Servants have been summoned, the Grail War proper begins, with Masters and Servants hunting one another across Fuyuki and battling to the death, until only one pair remains to claim the Grail.

Archer takes a moment to explain that, under normal circumstances, even a very powerful magus would not be able to summon a Servant. The power required is just too great, and the magus is highly unlikely to have any cause or reward that interests a Heroic Spirit enough to invoke such a large concentration of its own essence. This isn't even getting into the issue of a relatively ordinary person giving orders to a being who is like as not to "remember" having slain monsters, led armies, destroyed and created nations, or even challenged the gods in his lifetime. The Grail, however, is both a source of power that the magi can tap to ease the strain of summoning and sustaining Servants, and a prize that the Heroic Spirits feel is valuable enough to take a risk and (slightly) humble themselves to obtain. As an added precaution, the Command Seals serve to anchor the Servants to the world, provide a steadly flow of magical energy from the Master to supplement the Servant's reserves, and as a last resort, allow the Master to issue up to three "absolute commands" that the Servant MUST obey, regardless of personal preference or even a certain degree of physical limitation. Of course, using up all three Command Seals disqualifies a Master from the Grail War - to say nothing of leaving him at the mercy of his Servant - so they must be used wisely.

Normally, whenever an incarnation of a Heroic Spirit falls, his or her spiritual and magical energy would immediately return to its originator; when a Servant perishes, however, that energy is instead collected by the "Lesser Grail," a spiritual receptacle that is adjunct to the Greater Grail. As more Servants fall in the War, more of their power accumulates in the Lesser Grail, and by the death of the fifth Servant, it usually contains enough raw energy to brute-force a single, well-defined wish of limited scale. The death of a sixth Servant amplifies that enough to grant a more complex and far-reaching wish, or perhaps two simple ones - ideally, one for the victorious Servant, and one for their Master. In the minds of the three founding families, however, this was not sufficient, and the victorious Master should utilize his remaining Command Seal to order his Servant to commit suicide, thereby bringing the Lesser Grail to its maximum potential before wishing for the path to Akasha to open.

"And this," Archer says, "is where things get complicated."

"Only now?" Lu-sensei murmurs.

The spirit snickers. "Yeah. You see, as far as I know, the Grail Wars never had a proper winner. The First War was really just a bunch of magi coming together to perform an untested ritual, and then arguing over the outcome. They hadn't expected that the Grail could only grant one person's wish at a time, or that subsequent wishes would be so drastically weakened, so the alliance of the three families fell apart, and the four outside magi they brought in to support the ritual just confused things further. The Second War saw all the participants killed off before anybody could make a wish, forcing the families to bring in a neutral party - in this case, the Church - to act as an arbiter for the Third War. And THAT one took place in the 1930's, so in addition to the Imperial Japanese Army showing up to the party, there were apparently Nazis involved as well."

"And nothing with Nazis involved ever ends well," Lu-sensi sighs.

"True enough," Archer agrees. "The Lesser Grail was destroyed before it could properly manifest, so nobody COULD make a wish, regardless of who actually 'won.' That brings us to the Fourth War, which should have been held about five years ago, ending in a massive fire... which the junior spell-slinger here informs me didn't happen." He looks at Lu-sensei questioning, as if seeking a second opinion.

"I can neither confirm nor deny that," your teacher says, spreading his hands. "I've lived in America since the Sixties, and while I keep up to date on world events as best I can, I only really pay attention to the major, far-reaching events and smaller things that are of specific interest. I've never been to Fuyuki, nor do I have any acquaintances who reside there, so a fire in the area, no matter how terrible, is something I wouldn't have taken note of."

Archer frowns, but nods.

Are there any questions about the Grail Wars in general that you want to ask Archer, before he gets into the details of the Fifth War?

Before Archer can resume his informative monologue, you raise your hand.

"Yes, the magical boy in the front row. You have a question?"

You scowl briefly at the spirit, who smirks unrepentantly, but state your thought. "From what you've said so far, Archer, it sounds like the best way to stop the ritual, at least temporarily, would be to break the Lesser Grail and then make sure everybody knows about it. I mean, who's going to risk their lives for a prize that they know no longer exists?"

"That would be one way of doing it, yes," Archer admits.

"So what does the Lesser Grail look like, and what does it take to break? From the name, it sounds like it should be a cup, but that could just be a metaphor."

"It's a little of both. Once it's properly manifested, the Lesser Grail does take the form of a glowing chalice. It's a spiritual construct rather than a physical one, which is why a spiritual entity like a Servant is required to retrieve it. Before that, though... it's kind of a person."

You blink. "What."

"A homunculus, to be exact," Archer adds. "Do you know what that is?"

"An artificial life-form produced by alchemy from raw materials," you reply, reciting something from your stash of Ganondorf's memories. He never bothered making the things himself, having superior options like his phantom self, but he knew of the practice. "Part clone, part chimera, part pure magical existence."

Gained Arcanology E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Cryptozoology D

Archer regards you for a moment. "Be careful who you use that description around, Sorcerer," he finally says. "Most homunculi wouldn't care what you called them, but I know of one who really wouldn't appreciate being compared to a clone or a chimera, no matter how accurate it is."

You make a note of that.

"Anyhow," Archer continues, "the Greater Grail was created by using a particularly powerful homunculus as its core. She was engineered with both the immense magical capacity and the magical knowledge necessary to perform all the underlying rituals, and the Grail Wars have since relied on homunculi of a similar design to serve as the Lesser Grails. The way it was explained to me, it has to do with how Heroic Spirits were originally human themselves - for the most part, anyway - and therefore need a human or human-like form to exist in the world. The same applies to Servants, so if you have a human body with the right traits, you can 'trick' the essence of fallen Servants into inhabiting that body after their original forms are destroyed, rather than returning to their originator. But the amount of power held by a single Servant would tear most human bodies apart, so to have even a chance at holding all seven, you need a human-like body with a superhuman magical capacity. Thus, the homunculi."

Lu-sensei is glancing between the two of you with a dire frown. "These 'homunculi' you describe," he says. "Exactly how 'human-like' are they?"

"It depends on what their makers had in mind," Archer tells him. "I've heard that monstrous forms are possible, but all the homunculi I've ever encountered look like girls and young women - pale-skinned, silver- or white-haired, and red-eyed girls, but otherwise outwardly normal. Behaviorally, those ones range from not much better than organic robots to spoiled little princesses, and their physical and mental capabilities cover a similar range of extremes."

"Rather like ordinary humans, then."

Archer nods.

Lu-sensei scowls.

"Right," you say, "so that option's out. Would breaking the Greater Grail before the war got started be any better of an approach? Because that sounds like an awful lot of power to be dealing with."

Archer winces. "Let me put it this way, Sorcerer. Prior to a Grail War, there's enough raw energy in the system to wipe out half of Japan if it's just set loose, even without taking Angra Mainyu into account. The fallout wouldn't be AS bad as if somebody made a wish, but that's like saying that standing next to unshielded plutonium isn't as bad as standing next to a nuclear detonation."

Okay, so, tampering with the Greater Grail is a bad idea. You had to ask, right?

Do you have any further questions at this point?

Archer waits a moment, to see if any members of his audience have any further questions. When none are forthcoming, he nods.

"Now, where was I...? Oh, right; the Fifth War. It was expected to occur in the mid-2050s, but the Fourth War ended with a completed Lesser Grail, filled with the energy of five Servants and the contamination of Angra Mainyu. I don't know the particulars, but the last Master encountered it, realized it was a threat, and ordered his Servant to 'destroy the Grail.' Although the Servant did take out the vessel, the power inside it survived and was absorbed into the Greater Grail, and that surplus of energy led to the Fifth War starting decades ahead of schedule, in 2004, with nobody expecting or prepared for it."

Archer then proceeds to lay out events leading up to what he calls the "First Night," when the last of the Servants is summoned and the Grail War can be considered to have properly begun.

The first Master to summon a Servant is a girl named Illyasviel von Einzbern, who serves as both her family's representative in the War and as its Lesser Grail. Her Servant, summoned into the Berserker class that sacrifices sanity for brute strength, is no less than the mighty Heracles. Archer has quite a bit to say about these two, most of which boils down to tragedy.

The second Servant that Archer describes is Caster, whose true identity is the Greek witch, Medea. Given her scheming nature and command of powerful magic, she is one of the most troublesome Servants in the War. Her summoner is an unnamed Magus who was betrayed and killed by Caster well before the First Night; she survived long enough after the fact to attach herself to Kuzuki Souichirou, an emotionless former assassin possessed of outstanding skill in unarmed combat.

Archer then describes Assassin, a wraith summoned by Caster as a guardian for the Ryuudou Temple where she establishes herself. Identifying himself as the fictional swordsman Sasaki Koujirou, this "False" Assassin differs from members of his class summoned in previous Grail Wars in that he is entirely capable of fighting other Servants directly, rather than having to rely on stealth and ambush.

The fourth Servant is Rider, one of the more anomalous Servants in the Fifth War in that the "Heroic Spirit" from which she is derived was never any such thing, nor even human - she is Medusa, the legendary Gorgon, and her steed is Pegasus. Although Rider initially seems to be the Servant of Matou Shinji, a magically-incapable scion of one of the three founding families, she was actually summoned by his sister Sakura, who holds her true loyalty.

Following Rider is Lancer, the Irish hero Chu Culainn. Archer describes his existence as "suffering," and just from listening to the highlights, you can see why.

Then there is Archer himself, whose incarnation within the Fifth War is ALWAYS as the Servant of one Tohsaka Rin, a prodigal young magus with a short temper, an acid personality, and far too kind a heart for her chosen role in life, let alone the madness of the Grail War. For all the verbal shots he takes at this girl, Archer is actually a bit guarded in what he says of her, leaving you with the impression that he respects her more than he wants to let on.

You don't call him on that, of course.

Finally, there is the Servant of the Sword, Saber, hailed as the most capable of all seven classes - and ironically fated to be summoned by probably the least capable Master in the entire history of the Grail Wars, the very same Emiya Shirou whose damnation Archer is so keen to prevent. Due to what the white-haired spirit describes as "a series of lucky coincidences that prove beyond doubt that some Power out there looks out for fools," the boy in question manages to accidentally summon a small blonde girl who wears a garment that is half knightly armor and half blue gown, fights with an invisible sword, and who eventually reveals her identity to be King Arthur Pendragon.

You and Lu-sensei gape at this.

"King Arthur was a woman?" your master says.

"Well, yeah," Briar replies. "I thought everybody knew that."

You and Archer turn to her.

"Really, now?" the tall man inquires. "'Everybody' knows, huh?"

"Well, yeah, everybody in Faerie. I mean, it's like, half the reason why the local courts loved her so much. Probably the most famous hero in Western history, the legendary King of Knights, pretty much the definition of honor and duty and manliness and all that - and she's a little girl? Biggest prank EVER."

Grail Lore E
Local Knowledge (Fuyuki City) E (Plus)
Local Knowledge (Moonlit World) E (Plus) (Plus)

...you have no idea how to respond to that.

Archer's description of King Arthur as "a small blonde in blue" makes you think of Altria, and in particular, of the vision you received when your aura-charged fists crossed with hers at the tournament. The royal figure that looked so much like her, either dead or simply dreaming, the missing sword, the obscured knightly figures, the Wizard, and who could forget the Great Fairies - taken all together, they're a blatant statement that your English friend is connected to the legendary king of Camelot.

You don't have the slightest idea where or how the Dragon fits in, though, and that makes you wonder - just a bit - if Altria is really Arthur's reincarnation, or if she's "only" descended from him. Her. Whatever. Your own circumstances aside, you can't help but feel that it makes a bit more sense for somebody to be the many-generations-removed scion of a legendary ruler, as opposed to the reborn king themselves. Plus there's that whole "Once and Future" thing, with Arthur being foretold to return in Britain's hour of greatest need. The implication that said hour is going to happen at some point in YOUR lifetime is kind of offensive. And worrying.

Still, you can't completely dismiss the possibility that Altria is/was/will be Arthur. Assuming that was even the king's actual name.

"Was 'Arthur' even the right name, then?" you ask aloud, looking from Briar to Archer and then back again.

"Kind of," the fairy replies, "but an older form, like 'Artur,' 'Arturia,' 'Artorias,' or 'Artorigos.' I think it actually came from a Roman family name, originally, so it wouldn't really have been gender-specific at the time."

"'Arturia' sounds pretty close," Archer agrees. "I never heard her name from her own mouth, though, so who knows?"

You nod absently. "Alright, so what did she look like? For that matter, what did the rest of the Servants and Masters look like?"

Archer quickly describes the participants of the Fifth War. The Servants he categorizes as "pretty obvious," and between various traits like red eyes, pointed ears, superhuman size, and sheer overwhelming presence, you can understand why. He goes into more detail with the Masters - the childlike, almost-albino Illyasviel aside, they're considerably easier to lose in a crowd.

Next up, Archer mentions several very important and dangerous individuals who shouldn't have been involved in the Fifth War, but nonetheless were, to the detriment of all the participants. By far the most directly dangerous of these is the Fourth War's Archer, the ancient King of Uruk and so-called "King of Heroes," Gilgamesh, who managed to remain in the world due to the power of the corrupted Grail and a certain amount of preying upon human souls in the years after. A powerful being to begin with, as the "King of the World," he commands an arsenal of hundreds of ancient weapons, each one at least the equal to the legendary armaments of other, latter-day Servants. The Archer before you describes Gilgamesh as "more or less the walking embodiment of entitled arrogance," but emphatically points out that unlike most egotistical snobs, the ancient ruler can back up his bullshit. Owning a weapon more powerful than Excalibur and theoretically capable of destroying the entire world has its advantages.

Functioning largely as an adjunct to the Golden King is one Kotomine Kirei, a surviving Master of the Fourth War turned overseer of the Fifth. Originally a highly-trained demon-hunter and heretic-killer in service to the Church, the man received a certain degree of magical training in order to become a Master, and now adds to that years of life, combat, and political experience over most of the other Masters in the Fifth War. Dangerous on every account, Kotomine is only made worse by the fact that he derives personal enjoyment from human suffering, and is hell-bent on unleashing the full power of the corrupted Grail precisely because of the effect it will have on the world.

Finally, Archer describes the head of the Matou family, the ancient magus known as Zouken. While not so directly dangerous as the other two "interlopers," Zouken is no less twisted or vile, and has his own agenda regarding the Grail whose destructive impact is not to be discounted. Using fragments of the Fourth War's broken Lesser Grail, Zouken has been attempting to turn his heir, Sakura, into a Lesser Grail - and while Archer refuses to go into detail, he states that the process is horrific, traumatizing in the extreme, and entirely too successful.

Gained Grail Lore E (Plus)

Having brought you up to speed on the players of the Fifth War, Archer pauses, frowning.

"Problem, Archer?" you ask.

"Just wondering how it'd be best to pass on the information about the timelines I know of, Sorcerer," he answers. "The safest way would be for you to commit everything to memory, but like I said before, there is a LOT of it. Writing it down would be easier to reference, but runs the risk of somebody getting their hands on the notes, or you not knowing what you need to do at a moment's notice."

You consider that.

In the end, you decide that taking notes is a bit more of a hassle than you're willing to deal with for this matter. It's not that security is a big concern: any potential spies would have to know you HAD the info first before they could threaten it, and given its nature and source, that's pretty unlikely; furthermore, you could just tuck any writings into your handy-dandy dimensional pocket, where nobody else could get them; and further precautions like having Briar write the notes in Hylian and/or using the Spell of Codespeaking to encrypt the information are at your fingertips.

But why go to all that trouble when you're perfectly capable of committing the data to memory, using magic and the various mental exercises you've learned thus far to ensure its accuracy, and then using another simple spell to call it up whenever you have need of it?

Besides, Briar doesn't have a fairy-sized pen and notepad on her, and she'd surely object if you tried to turn her into your secretary.

You cast a Spell of Augmentation to hone your mind, and then channel ki through your head to further enhanced your capacity to retain information. Finally, you fix your attention on Archer, doing your best to shut out the distractions of the rest of this small world with meditation-derived exercises.

"Okay," you say. "Tell me what you got."

Archer regards you for a moment, then shrugs. "Alright."

The next few hours are not a blur. They're just really, really dull. Archer describes what he calls "routes," which are certain sequences of events that he's seen play out more or less the same in multiple iterations of the Fifth Grail War. There are over half a dozen of these, each with dozens of possible outcomes depending on decisions made along the way, and as the tall spirit said before, Emiya Shirou somehow ends up playing a central role in every single one of them. It's almost like the guy is some kind of literary protagonist, and the universe is writing itself around his choices and actions.

If that's the case, the "author" must be some kind of sadist, because the sheer number of brutal near- and actual deaths Emiya Shirou has experienced in these timelines is awe-inspiring, in a horrific kind of way. That said, you'd feel a lot more sorry for the boy if at least half of these bad endings weren't due to him being a stubborn, reckless idiot. Then again, Archer has made no secret that he isn't overly nice and doesn't especially like the boy, so at least some of Shirou's apparently horrible judgement might be up to narrative bias.

After all, nobody can really be that dense, right? He could just have rotten luck.

Gained Grail Lore E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Local Knowledge (Fuyuki City) E (Plus) (Plus)

You have to renew your spell a few times, and pinch yourself once or twice along the way, but you think you get a pretty good idea of what to expect in the normal, bad, and worst-case scenarios for Fuyuki. While Archer isn't the most gifted speaker, it's clear that the subject matter is important to him, and the emphasis he puts on certain details makes them easier to remember. Lu-sensei's presence during the dissertation is also helpful, as the old man asks questions you wouldn't have thought to, mostly having to do with clarification of magical terminology Archer occasionally uses. Some of it proves to mean exactly what you thought, but there are a few interesting details that you'd either misunderstood or just never heard before.

Noble Phantasms, for instance.

Clarification of what Mystic Eyes actually are was nice, too.

Eventually, Archer stops talking, explaining that he's covered the major recurring incidents. All that's left would be the minor secondary events, many of which he wasn't there to witness in person, and a lot of which have little to no impact on the outcome of the War.

You can probably live without those. It's getting close to lunchtime, and you really ought to check in with your folks and let Lu-sensei go about his morning affairs.

Plus, you still have a pair of gloves to craft.

There is a job that needs doing, and which has been delayed quite a bit longer than you were planning for. Since you're here, in a secure area with all the required materials, and because you'd rather not have to run off to some other out-of-the-way location with a mirror sometime in the next week or so, you decide to get it over with.

"Alright, we're just about done, here," you say, as you get up from your beanbag chair and take one of the Guardian's Gauntlets in hand. "Archer, you've been very informative already, but do you have any final advice before I make with the mage-smithing?"

"Hmmm. This is your first real attempt at working metal, right?"

You nod.

"Then take your time," he says plainly. "Consider what you have, decide what you need, and then think through how to use the former to get the latter, taking it step-by-step until you've reached your goal. Then, do it."

Heeding the spirit's words, you mentally run through a list of about half a dozen spells you'd picked out before all this, comparing effects and spell durations until you're sure all of the magic will work together, and as planned. Then you start casting.

First, a Spell of Heroism, not unlike the one you cast on your father and uncle up at the cabin the other day. Confidence in yourself and your work is always welcome, as long as the source doesn't interfere with your judgement - and this spell certainly does not do that. Although you'd like to cast the most powerful version of this particular magic, it is unfortunately beyond your talents; that said, you can and do add mana to the basic version, empowering it beyond its usual performance.

Second, a Spell of Fox's Cunning, for enhanced clarity of thought - and here you pause to once again envision the design you had in mind for Kahlua. In your mind's eye, the heavy steel of the gauntlet as it is shifts and splits in two, each smaller hand-piece retaining the original's functionality even as they exchange hard edges and brutal bulk for softer angles and more detailed work. A "warrior princess" design that you hope will appeal to the aesthetic tastes of a nine-year-old vampire thus emerges, a bat-like emblem across the back of each hand for a bit of added menace - or cuteness, depending on one's opinion of flying rodents.

Once you are sure you have the process worked out, you cast a Spell of Crafter's Fortune - because however detailed the plan might be, it can still benefit from good old-fasioned luck. Next, you cast a Spell of Momentary Greatness, piggybacking off the Spell of Heroism and further amplifying its effects. This is followed by a Spell of Clarity, whose benefits are minor compared to the other magics. Still, as they say, every little bit helps. Then you cast a Spell of Embracing Destiny. This odd magic is one of the handful of temporal spells at your command, and it grants you the one-time ability to call for a "do-over," though only within a very short window of opportunity.

As such, you waste no time in casting the Spell of Fabrication.

The oversized steel mitt in your hands begins to glow, and then shift.

"Take your time," Archer murmurs, watching the process from within the summoning circle. "Accuracy first; speed will follow."

Again, you follow the man's advice, letting the magic work slowly and steadily rather than trying to do everything in a single moment. Although the mass in your hands appears to be so much light to your unaided eyes, under mage-sight and through your spells, you can see and feel - and maybe even taste - the changes the "gauntlet" is undergoing. It's no longer truly a single object, but it's not quite two separate ones, either, at least not in the mystical sense.

As it happens, you DO end up using the Spell of Embracing Destiny to cover for an accident. Something in the shifting, shining mass of magic and matter felt like it was about to break, so you called on the waiting spell to "rewind" and try again. Even as you do so, an afterimage of what would have happened otherwise lingers in memory - two gauntlets appearing in your hands, looking squashed and half-melted and just hot enough to the touch that you couldn't avoid dropping them.

What you get instead is more or less what you were aiming for, though the steel doesn't shine as brightly nor give the impression of light, airy cloth that Archer's prototype did. It's clearly a pair of gauntlets.

That lasts until you cast the Spell of Masterwork Transformation, pouring extra mana into the spell so that it resolves in just a minute, rather than over the course of an hour.

Kahlua's present looks much better after that. Still not quite as good as Archer's work, but a long way from their original, almost-plain appearance - and worlds better than the "failed" result you bent time to avoid.

Gained Knowledge (Magesmithing) F (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Warrior Princess Gauntlets

Not bad. And it only cost you, what? Fourteen percent of your mana, all told?

"A very nice first effort," Archer says, giving you a little golf clap. "So, I take it we're done here?"

"Yeah, I'd say we are."

Archer nods, and his body begins to glow. "Well, then. Kid Sorcerer, Fairy, Old Kung-Fu Guy. It was interesting meeting you all. Sorcerer, try not to forget everything I said, and if it turns out that this world does have an Emiya Shirou bent on a path of self-destructive idiocy, kick his ass and straighten his head out for me. Later."

The celestial's shining form breaks apart into motes of light, which drift away as if on an unfelt wind, and vanish. Once you're certain that Archer is gone, you let the summoning diagram go the same way.

"Interesting fellow," Lu-sensei says, as he gets to his feet and straightens his clothes. "Well, then. Shall we be off, Alex? Unless my sense of time has failed me in this place" - he glances around at the reflective walls, and adds - "which I suspect isn't entirely impossible, then it should be nearly lunchtime. Your parents must be wondering where you are."

"In a minute, Sensei. There's one more thing I'd like to try while I've got this place."

You proceed to cast the most powerful Summoning ritual you're capable of, bringing the Blessed Sword back into the world from... wherever it goes when you're not using it. This leaves your mana reserves at 35% of maximum, and doesn't appear to have improved the functionality of the blade any, but you can sense that it feels significantly more stable than the last time you called it up. You're actually not entirely sure how long the Spell of Summoning keeping the weapon here will persist - days for sure, possibly a matter of weeks. You suppose you'll have to wait and see.

"And why are you summoning your magic sword, might I ask?" your master in martial arts inquires.

"It's definitely not because I'm planning to go off on a quest to slay one or more monsters, Lu-sensei," you hasten to assure your teacher, having caught the distinct frown in his tone.

"That's a suspiciously specific response, Alex."

"After what I almost ran into up at the cabin this morning, I figured that you'd be concerned that I might have monster-slaying on my mind," you reply. "And I suppose I sort of do, but I'm really much more interested in having the sword on me so that it'll help me hide my aura than because I want to pick a fight with that undead lurker."

As Lu-sensei ponders your answer, you consider taking advantage of the pause in discussion to cast a Spell to Analyze Dweomers on your weapon, so as to get a better idea of what makes it tick and what, exactly, it's doing with the energy that it's been absorbing from you. Sadly, you're fresh out of gold-framed ruby lenses, and the spell is too powerful for you to make up for the lack of a proper focus with ritual casting. You also have your doubts that lesser Divination spells would be effective in uncovering the secrets of the sword - you've scanned it before and not learned all that much.

At that, you take a moment to scan the Blessed Sword with your mage-sight, just to confirm that your use of a more powerful Summoning spell didn't intensify its aura. You're reassured in that regard; the blade is more likely to draw attention because it's a sword in the hands of a kid than because it's magical.

"Sensei," you say then. "Regarding that creature..."

"Yes?"

"While we're here, I could cast a spell or two to try and find out what it was."

"That sounds like a good idea. Always better to know what the enemy is, than to find out in the middle of a confrontation."

Nodding, you cast a spell that Ganondorf learned from some of the priestesses of the Gerudo, seeking to identify your opponent. The Spell to Know One's Enemy is really more in Nayru's field of authority than Din's, but you're leery of changing it around from the version you know and possibly offending one or both goddesses in the process: Din by going to her sister instead of her; Nayru because you're spending four times as much mana as the spell really needs, in order to break the rules and work a magic normally restricted to the clergy.

As it happens, the spell resolves normally, filling your mind with images of the being you didn't quite see lurking in the woods - some of them your memories, others not, and much clearer and more detailed.

"Okay, first of all, ick. And secondly, it's a ghoul."

"I have never had the questionable pleasure of meeting such a creature," Lu-sensei notes. "What can you tell me?"

"They're kind of like fast-moving zombies," you say. "Only... not. I mean, they prefer to claw and bite their victims to death instead of beating, strangling, or pulling them apart, they can induce temporary paralysis with a touch, and they're infectious - which regular zombies aren't, unless their creator was being an extra special jerk. Ghouls aren't as tough as zombies, but they're harder to hit, and they're smart. Like, people smart."

You frown, thinking back to the camo-patterned outfit the ghoul was wearing. In your mind's eye, the hunched-down creature turns around, revealing additional gear you couldn't see it holding from behind, but which divinely-granted insight warns you it does indeed possess. Two of those big military-issue knives you see in the movies, binoculars, half a dozen pouches on the belt and as many more in its clothes, holding who knows what sort of nasty surprises. No gun, but instead, the ghoul is wearing leather bracers and a chain collar, all three of which you can just glimpse some kind of welded inscription on.

Enchanted gear? You'd almost rather it had a gun. Especially given how, despite the clothes not fitting the ghoul's emaciated frame all that well, they and the rest of its gear all look well-maintained.

You retain enough of Ganondorf's memories of facing soldiers and assassins to recognize a professional when you see one.

"And I think this particular ghoul has at least a bit of military training, and some magical equipment besides," you add. "That's... really not good."

"No," Lu-sensei agrees, "it really isn't."

You take stock of your reserves, and then shake your head. You're not exactly thrilled to start with by the idea of taking on an undead soldier with modern training and magical gear, even if he - it? - doesn't have a gun, but you're even less eager to make the attempt when your magical reserves are down to just under a third of your maximum capacity. Better to wait a few days, recover your full strength, and then deal with the problem if it persists, right? As long as you make sure your relatives steer clear of the cabin in the interim, at least.

You repeat these observations to Lu-sensei and Briar, and get a general agreement - although Lu-sensei adds that you had best not delay with talking to your family.

On that note, it's time to go home and face the folks about your unannounced all-morning absence.

You regard the three gauntlets lying on the floor for a moment, then look at the Blessed Sword in your right hand, and then sigh.

"Could you get the smaller pair of gauntlets for me, Lu-sensei?"

"Certainly."

As the old man collects Kahlua's present(s), you switch your blade to your left hand and slide your slightly-stronger dominant hand down the remaining Guardian's Gauntlet. It doesn't fit, of course - you're able to get most of your forearm into the thing - but it's not so heavy that you can't carry it out of here one-handed for the few seconds it'll take to leave your Mirror Hideaway and properly stow the thing in your dimensional pocket.

You make a mental note to get a proper sword-belt. The scabbard isn't much help in carrying the sword around if you don't have something to hang it from.

Briar has departed through the portal while you and your teacher were cleaning up, and Lu-sensei is just stepping into the glass himself as you straighten up and settle the heavy steel glove on your hand. As your teacher departs behind you, you take a moment to look around at the mirror-walled otherworldly chamber, which will shortly cease to exist.

It occurs to you that a fragment of the reflective material surrounding you would probably make for a magical reagent of some quality, at least for you, given your creation of this place and activities within it.

Perhaps you could chip off a piece before you go?

Yeah, no. On second thought, messing around with an extra-dimensional construct while you're INSIDE said construct sounds like a Really Stupid Idea. Especially when your hands are already full.

That said... you have Another Idea.

You take a deep breath and step into the reflective portal, still unable to keep yourself from wincing at the unpleasant, sharp-edged chill of magically-altered glass and metal flowing around you. When you emerge, you, Briar, and Lu-sensei are still alone in the abandoned station, but the sun has moved considerably since you were last on this side of the mirror, causing the shadows within the building to shift accordingly.

Packing the Guardian's Gauntlet into your dimensional pocket takes only a moment's thought, and Kahlua's present joins it a moment later. As you stow these items, you probe the area around you with your magical senses, trying to determine if any of the mana from the spells you cast within the Hideaway has leaked across the dimensional barrier and into the "real world."

From what you can see, the place is clean. Oh, there's a faint hint of Summoning-related energy clinging to the uprighted security mirror and its immediate surroundings due to the three recent emergences, but that's fading even as you look, and will be gone entirely within a minute. More importantly, there is no hint whatsoever that any of the magic you were throwing around inside the other-planar space has escaped.

"Hey, Briar?"

"Yeah?"

"I should have thought of this a lot earlier, but would you mind going back into the mirror and then casting the most powerful spell you can manage? And not try to suppress it?"

The fairy regards you for a moment, then shrugs. "If you want."

Without another word, she flies back into the portal. A moment later, Briar's image appears within the glass, and you see her radiate light and magical energy - the equivalent of a low-end third-circle casting, and from the look of it, a straightforward Illusion meant to create light, sound, heat, and even some kind of scent. That's quite a bit of energy for the little fairy to unleash at a moment's notice, but you're pleased to see that none of it - nor any of its manifestations beyond the light - actually escapes the mirror dimension.

Briar returns through the portal, glowing a bit less brightly and moving more slowly than she was just a minute ago.

"Are you alright?" you ask quickly.

"Yeah, just feeling kind of drained. Not in a bad way, I just haven't used up that much magic in one go since... well, ever, I suppose. At least not without using my wing-dust as an amplifier." She sounds thoughtful about that, but then gives herself a shake and smacks her cheeks. "So, anyway, did you learn what you wanted to?"

"I got a good start, at least."

"A good start at what, exactly?" Lu-sensei inquires, naturally having missed out on Briar's side of the conversation.

"Oh, I thought it might be a good idea to check on just how well that mirror-chamber hides evidence of magic, Sensei."

He frowns. "I thought you said it was secure, Alex."

"I did, Sensei - and it is. The spell was specifically designed to prevent conventional detection methods from picking up what goes on in the space it creates, and I didn't sense anything from Briar's spell just now, apart from the purely visual element. And that's something she was deliberately letting us see. I would like to stress-test this a bit before we leave. It's something I should have done earlier," you admit sheepishly, "but it didn't really occur to me then."

"...so despite all efforts to prevent it, your spellcasting MAY have been noticed anyway?"

"...maybe?"

Lu-sensei scowls and looks around. "Are we being watched right now?"

"Um..." You mimic your teacher, and notice Briar doing the same thing. You find nothing, but decide to cast a modified Spell to Detect Scrying to make sure. You dump a large part of the usual twenty-four hour duration to bring down the cost and make it something you can hide - with a little help from your handy-dandy aura-concealing sword.

Gained Mana Concealment C

Looking around again, you nod. "Area's clear as far as I can tell, Lu-sensei."

"You're sure?"

"As sure as I can be."

The old man sighs and visibly relaxes. Then-

ENLIGHTENMENT.

-damn it!

"That was for needlessly straining an old man's nerves."

"Yes, Sensei." You pause, then ask, "May I go ahead and finish up with my tests, then, sir?"

He waves wordlessly at the mirror, and you turn to Briar.

"Spot me?"

"Sure."

That said, you pass back through the mirror, and in doing so decide that the ride just isn't going to get smoother any time soon, if ever.

Shaking off the cutting chill, you call upon your magic to cast a fifth-circle spell of Conjuration - the highest level of spell you can cast from that school of magic with complete reliability, at least, without getting into rituals. Rather than flood the chamber with toxic vapors or other deadly substances, or fill up the limited space with great masses of conjured stone, you decide to cast the Spell of Creation.

After all, you have a magic sword in hand, and there is something that appears to be gold worked into the hilt. So why NOT try to create more of it? Because gold. MAGIC gold, even.

Gained Conjuration C
Gained Earth Affinity D (E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) without Heart of Fire)

Your skill in Conjuration is advanced enough that you're able to pour additional mana into this spell and trim down its usual ten-minute casting time. It still takes you a minute of constant effort to complete, but when it's finished, bars of bright gold have been PILED all around you. Literally, piled; there's several CUBIC FEET of the stuff, and it's so SHINY - actually, scratch that. It's GLOWING. And that's not a figure of speech, either; a soft yellow-white radiance that wasn't present before you cast that spell is now being reflected all over the chamber, and its source lies in the metal heaped at your feet.

You can't repress a warm, happy feeling in your heart, or the great big smile on your face.

Even if it is just temporary - and a quick glance with your mage sight confirms that yes, sadly, it is - and even if Ambrose warned you that you'd never be able to use it safely, it's still GOLD.

You made GOLD.

Shaking your head but still not losing the broad grin, you half-turn to exit the mirror, and then pause. The Spell of Creation is fifth-circle, though your accelerated version ended up a lot more like a sixth-circle spell. That's pretty damn powerful, but it's not the strongest magic you can muster. Your skills in the school of Summoning are still your most advanced, and if you were to ritually-cast one such spell, you'd be boosting it to something very, very close to an eighth-circle magic. If your Mirror Hideaways can conceal something like THAT...

The idea of going all-out on a summoning ritual is tempting. Visions dance through your head of the creatures you might be able to bring forth with such a spell. Fully-equipped Goron warriors. Fierce Lynels. The mighty Darknuts. Perhaps even... a dragon?

Then you shake your head, dismissing the images. Your tendency to summon Hyrulean beasties is actually a detriment in this situation, as many of those creatures are technically evil, and thus wouldn't be able to manifest in this room after that spell of sanctification you laid down earlier. Even if you took that down, the chamber's not very big, and most of those guys ARE - not so big that they wouldn't fit, but enough to make you feel very, very crowded.

Besides, your mana is already low enough that it's going to take you a couple of days of rest to get back to full strength. Why spend even more power? Particularly when there's at least one unfriendly already haunting your footsteps.

You've done what you came out here to do, and then some. It's time to go home, face your folks, and let Lu-sensei get on with his day.

Nodding to yourself - but still feeling a bit disappointed at not getting to call up one of Hyrule's heavy hitters - you pass through the portal for the last time.

"How'd it look, Briar?" you ask once the chill has passed.

"That was a sixth-circle spell, right?" At your nod, she continues. "Then everything's good on this end. No bleed-through, except what you allowed to show up in the portal itself."

"Okay. All that's left is to collapse the hideaway, and see what effect that has."

You face the mirror.

This security glass has been really helpful for you, and between your ability to suppress your aura while casting spells, the ward on your room, and now the presence of your aura-concealing sword, you'll have no problem casting the Spell of Mirror Hideaway at home when you need it. The glass is basically untainted by the Hellmouth as-is, and you can cast minor spells of purification on it to make sure it stays that way, without drawing attention.

So really, why NOT take the mirror with you?

Before that, though, you raise your magical senses, step up to one side of the mirror, and get a good grip on the frame.

"Sensei, Briar," you advise. "You might want to stand back when the spell goes down."

Briar is already moving to her favorite spot on your shoulder. Lu-sensei tilts his head, then goes and stands over by the front door.

You proceed to drag the mirror out from between the counter and its makeshift Twinkie-box doorstopper. As the glass moves, you sense the magical energy anchored to it wobbling, then stretching, and then - once you've moved the mirror about five feet from its starting point - finally snapping.

With a crack of displaced air and a heavy thud, half a dozen cubic feet of gleaming gold is violently ejected from the mirror-dimension and into real space - instantly pulverizing that poor, noble box of Twinkies, along with some of the floor. The piled bars then proceed to collapse with a thunderous metallic clatter, smashing down the nearest of the empty shelves. It's only your initial position out of the "landing zone" and the fact that the piled gold falls away from the mirror that prevents your tender feet or the fragile glass from being smashed in turn.

The entire wreck takes only a few seconds to play out, and in its wake, there is a moment of stunned silence.

Then all the gold explodes - non-violently, mind you - reverting to motes of gleaming golden energy, which quickly vanish into nothingness.

Under your mage-sight, the golden shines with the expected aura of Conjuration and Elemental Earth - moderately strong, but something that won't linger more than a few minutes. You can't detect Briar's spell of Illusion at all, and there's no trace of any of the other spells that you cast within the Hideaway. Even the relatively strong magic you used to summon and bind Archer has left no obvious trace.

You think on it a moment, trying to reconcile the disparity. Then it occurs to you that, with the exception of your Spell of Creation, all of the magic that had been worked in the mirror-dimension had already lapsed by the time you brought the Spell of Mirror Hideaway down. While those spells didn't breach the dimensional boundary when cast, they did leave behind residual mana in that extradimensional chamber, which gradually faded as it naturally does - and mana from spells of the level you were using doesn't generally linger for more than a few minutes at most.

Huh. It seems like your decision not to test how well the mirror-realm reacted to the aura of a seventh- or eighth-circle spell was a good one. Otherwise you'd have created a magical signature that would have persisted for HOURS.

"Well," Lu-sensei says. "That was only mildly heart-attack inducing. Thank you for the warning, Alex."

"You're welcome, Sensei. And sorry about the surprise."

"Where did all of that gold come from, anyway?"

"That was the spell I cast to test out how well the mirror-chamber hid magic," you explain, while casting a revised version of the Spell to Shrink Items. It's a sufficiently-powerful spell that you probably wouldn't be able to suppress the signature, so you sacrifice enough of the duration to bring down the mana cost to something more subtle. Really, you don't need to shrink the glass for an entire week; the next few hours will be more than enough.

The security mirror shivers, shrinks, and turns into a small cloth representation of itself, which you roll up and tuck into your t-shirt's breast pocket.

You got the Security Mirror!

"I'd say we've done about as much damage here as we can," Briar says, looking around at the pulverized section of floor and the wrecked shelves. "You know, unless you want to summon a Dodongo or set the place on fire or something like that."

"I think we can skip arson and just go," you reply.

"Let's," Lu-sensei notes dryly, as he opens the door.

You return home without further delay or incident.

Is there something you'd like to say to your parents, regarding a certain invisible spying ghoul?