Xander Quest Chapter 269: The Real Partying Begins 1, a private fanfic

As you're brushing your teeth in preparation for bed, your keen ears pick up the faint sound of running water coming from the tiny "house," where Briar is evidently taking the opportunity to do the same thing as you. This shared activity reminds you of your still-pending plans to perform a familiar ritual with Briar in the coming months. Perhaps you should take a moment to discuss this with her?

You're pretty tired, so an in-depth discussion of the ritual probably isn't a great idea, but upon reflection, you suppose that you could stand to spare a minute or three to discuss whether or not it would be a good idea to look for reagents for the ritual while you're in the Shuzen residence.

"It might be a good idea to keep an eye open," Briar replies, when you broach the subject. "You've already got several reagents that can cover the Shadow element, but most of them are either middling quality or have multiple potential uses. This being a demiplane of sorts, you could very well find something better here, which would free up those materials for other elements. And since our hosts are vampires, it isn't impossible that a reagent aligned with Darkness might turn up as well. That's one element you don't have covered yet."

"You don't mind if I incorporate Darkness into the ritual?"

"As long as you find a Light reagent to balance it, it's fine." Briar sticks her head out of one of the windows of her tiny residence. "Are we going to stay up and talk shop, or are you going to go to sleep?"

Her question is merely curious, so you wave it off and climb into bed. You spend a quarter-hour meditating to get all of your energies lined up, and then, taking one of the provided pillows in hand, you begin to cast the Spell of Nap Stack. It's a significant effort to do so: the converted arcane form of this normally gods-given spell being close to the limits of what your skills in Necromancy permit you to cast; and the strain on your soul as the traces of Power within it resonate with and magnify your inherent magical energy is just shy of the point of actual pain - and pain of a sort you've seldom had to deal with, though thanks to your encounters with the Raging Boar, you're not exactly inexperienced in facing such.

Gained Concentration B (Plus)
Gained Dark Affinity E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Despite the difficulties, you manage to complete the spell, after which you gladly lie back in your bed, shut your eyes, and let sleep take you.

As you sleep, you dream of a small, hardy tree, standing alone on the edge of a great desert. A cool, dry wind blows past as the sun sets in the distance, casting the sandy terrain into fiery hues and lengthening shadows. There is a small gash about halfway up the tree trunk, but the sap has long since stopped oozing, and you can see evidence of new growth (or regrowth) about the wound. Something appears to have disturbed the site of the healing, but not seriously.

While you study the tree, which some level of your mind acknowledges is a spell-born reflection of your overall condition, you hear or feel something nearby... move.

Unexpected presences in your head have been enough of an issue in the past that you aren't about to let this one pass unchallenged if you can help it, and so you turn about where you stand, trying to keep yourself between the tree and who- or whatever you sensed.

The evening desert is still, but for the wind whispering over the dunes with the chill of the advancing twilight. You see no animals, nor any other plants besides the tree that represents you and your condition, and the lack of life actually offends your inherited memories. A desert may appear lifeless to the inexperienced eye, yet it is anything but - and anyone who thinks otherwise may not live to learn from their error, especially not when the dunes in question are part of the Gerudo Desert. True, this is a dream, so it doesn't have to be accurate to the waking world, but still...

Your dislike of this empty landscape is set aside as you notice a feature that is just a little out of place. Way off in the distance, just shy of where the horizon blurs into obscurity under the reddening rays and growing shadows cast by the descending dream-sun, there is a strange, twisted silhouette. It reaches just above the far-off sands in a low curve, its form recalling a single beckoning finger, or perhaps a gnarled claw.

Something about it feels off, foreign, in a way that nothing you've encountered in a dream ever has... well, not since you ran into a little dreamwalking monster-girl whose curiosity outstripped her manners, months ago. But whatever that remote shape is, it doesn't feel like Kurumu's playful psychic presence. Actually, it doesn't feel like much of anything, save for the fact that it's unquestionably THERE, and just as clearly not a proper part of your dream.

Gained Dreamwalking E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Although the dark presence lurking in the distance is a matter of serious concern for you, you stay put, acknowledging the simple fact that you're in no shape to go poking things with a mental stick right now. You need to get your spiritual stress cleared up, and if you start calling on your magic in this dream-world, you'll disrupt the Spell of Nap Stack and lose the chance it offers for you to recover from the aftereffects of today's events. On top of that, your dreamwalking skills are simply not up to the task of substituting for your magic.

That said, while you make no move to investigate the shadow in your dream or even study it at a remove, you keep yourself between it and the tree that represents your condition, alert for any changes in the intruder's position or behavior.

Gained Nayru's Favor D (Plus)

Time passes as it only can in a dream. The sun descends beneath the horizon, the stars twinkle into view, the moon rises, and night falls over the desert. As before, it's unnaturally still and silent, and this time the nagging feeling of wrongness is enhanced by the fact that, even against the darkness of the night sky, you can still clearly make out the shape of that beckoning claw. Yet its unwelcome presence does not grow or change or have any other impact upon the dreamscape; it's simply there, a foreign blot against your sphere of awareness.

Behind you, meanwhile, the tree gives off a feeling of rest and increasing wellness. You pull your eyes away from the intrusive shape in the distance a few times to check on the desert greenery - though it's really much more brown, even a bit grey in the moonlight - and find that the gash in the trunk seems less fresh each time. It's not exactly "healed," the wound inflicted by the Boar all those weeks ago persisting as stubbornly as the totem spirit itself even through your recovery-aiding spell, but the most recent stress is definitely being addressed.

And then, before you know it, you find yourself lying in an unfamiliar (but very comfortable) bed in an unfamiliar room. There's a general lack of illumination in your room or coming through the window or door, so it takes you a minute to realize that you're actually awake - and you are DEFINITELY awake. You're not usually this peppy when you first open your eyes, and never when you wake up in the middle of the night, but upon reflection, you realize that your Spell of Nap Stack must have run its course, meaning you just got four entire days' worth of bed rest in the span of eight hours.

It's no wonder you don't feel tired. And since you went to bed straight after dinner, say around six, six-thirty, seven p.m. at the very latest... yeah, the darkness outside makes perfect sense.

You take a minute to cast a cantrip and compare how you feel during and after the process to how you felt casting spells yesterday. There's no feeling of strain at all, and a few additional cantrips produce no ill effects, either. (Incidentally, one of them is a simple time-telling charm. It's two-forty-one in the morning.) Tentative success, then?

Well, you suppose Briar will be happy. It looks like you won't need to cast the Spell of Restoration after... all...

...waaaaiiiit a minute.

You stop and think very carefully. You were planning to cast the spell in question to get rid of the spiritual fatigue caused by yesterday's purification ritual, but did you ever even consider that the spell could also clear up your older, more serious spiritual wound at the same time? You're not sure that you did, to be honest, which is kind of embarrassing.

Actually, check that; it's kind of frightening. You live on the Hellmouth, for Din's sake! Having an injured soul in that kind of environment is just asking for trouble, and you've been amazingly lucky that nothing's come of your lingering condition all these weeks since Navi's little fetch quest. And thinking back, you realize that your skills in Necromancy - which, given that you're dealing with a soul, is the major school backing this particular magic - have been more or less at their current level, just barely capable of casting the necessary spell, almost since you were kicking around the Silent Realm.

In other words, you've had the technical skills to attempt a Ritual of Restoration to close that gash on your soul almost since the day it happened. You only lacked the necessary material reagents, or Briar's approval to use the Spell of Blood Money in their place. And while there wasn't much you could have done about the former - you can't see Cordelia letting you "permanently borrow" a diamond; and speaking of which, you absently note that there are now only three silk pillows on your bed - the latter, or the modified version of the spell you're actually planning on casting, have been well within your means. Not that you'd want to cast a soul-affecting spell involving blood magic on the Hellmouth, but you could have easily left town.

Is this an example of the Hellmouth's malignant influence at work, clouding your mind? Or is it just your youth and inexperience showing through?

You're honestly unsure, and that's concerning.

Shaking your head, you push back the covers, climb out of bed, and then yelp softly at the chill when one of your bare feet comes down on the cold floor instead of the carpet. A quick cantrip produces a candlelight glow, helping you find the pair of house-shoes left at the bedside, which you slide your feet into gratefully. Properly shod, you walk over to Briar's guest house, consider it for a moment, and then carefully knock on the door.

"Guh?" a small voice responds.

"Are you awake, Briar?"

"Mnnh."

"Sorry to disturb you-"

"Rrrr."

"-but I think we need to talk."

There is a long pause that has you thinking your smallest friend has just turned over and gone back to sleep, but then the fairylight within the tiny bedroom grows brighter. A balcony door opens, and Briar floats out - is she actually wearing a housecoat? No, no, she just has a blanket wrapped around herself, low enough in the back not to interfere with her wings.

"What time is it?" Briar yawns as she hovers towards you.

"About quarter to three in the morning."

You can FEEL her stare.

"...seriously, Alex?"

"I've been asleep for eight hours straight, and it felt like four days," you state in defense.

"...point," Briar admits. "How'd that work out for you, anyway?"

You tell her of your modest test with the cantrips, and follow up by performing a series of simple exercises involving spiritual force and ki manipulation, while Briar monitors you magically. It turns out that, while you have healed the stress, your soul is still not quite at optimal levels - you'd still tire more easily than normal, spiritually-speaking, were you to get into higher-level magic or spiritual exercises right now.

It's a good thing, then, that you plan to clear that up entirely. You quickly explain your thoughts about using a Ritual of Restoration to Briar.

"That's another point," she says, once you've finished. "And may I add that I'm kind of scared that I didn't think of this before, either?"

"You may. Do you think-"

"-that the Hellmouth messed with our heads?" Briar pauses. "It's possible. If we lived almost anywhere else but Sunnydale, I'd say we just hadn't thought things through all the way - which, considering I can't cast the Spell of Restoration to that degree, and you can but never have before, makes sense - but still..." She hesitates. "Alex... do I seem... okay, to you?"

Guessing what she means, you look at your fairy companion closely.

You decide to be thorough about this, and use all the resources that are (once again) available to you.

It's Briar. She deserves your best effort.

First, you open up your spiritual senses, and give Briar a visual and mystical sweep for Hellmouth taint. The expected surface level of corruption picked up just by living day-to-day in Sunnydale is not there, which after a moment's thought, makes sense. Briar wasn't the subject of a purification ritual yesterday, but she was in the room when the cleansing you were undergoing ended in that spectacular spiritual explosion. It's not unreasonable to assume that incident wiped away the outermost layer of the taint.

Looking deeper, you see only the pale pink glow of Briar's own soul. No obvious shadows, no lurking sense of wrongness, just the usual comforting playfulness of a young fairy, backed by a certain sense of watchful determination. In short, Briar looks fine to you.

You say as much out loud, then add, "But I'd feel better if I checked a bit closer. I mean, if we just assumed you were okay and then it turned out later that you weren't, well... I know I'd never stop kicking myself."

"Me neither."

You regard her for a moment, slightly suspicious. That statement could be taken two or three ways...

Shaking your head, you lay out a ritual diagram of mana around yourself and Briar, working slowly so that you can focus on keeping the signature of the magic to an absolute minimum. This examination is going to involve a pretty major spell, and you don't want to disturb your hosts if you can avoid it.

Once the "circle" is in place, you begin the ritual proper, gradually weaving a Spell of Divination. You're kind of making this one up as you go, incorporating elements from lesser spells and tuning them for greater power and more precise effect. At a guess, you'd place this spell somewhere in the upper range of the seventh circle, verging on the eighth - at least, that's where it would be in the hands of an adult. Your efforts are a bit reduced by comparison, but it's still hands-down one of, if not THE most powerful of all the spells you've ever cast.

As the magic settles into place and begins to work, there is a flare of POWER.

Gained Aura of Power C (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) (base)

Even if your efforts are the equivalent of a high fifth-circle, low sixth-circle adult spellcaster, that's still better than could be pulled off by something like ninety percent of all magic-users alive. Even fewer could manage a spell of this caliber at a moment's notice, and as for concealing the energy... okay, you kind of failed in that regard, too. But standing way the heck out from the crowd two times out of three is still really, really good!

Oh, and Briar's clean. Which is both good, and interesting. After everything Hakuba the Second said yesterday about how a Hellmouth would blunt or entirely counter the benefits of purification practices conducted nearby, you were worried that Briar's little daily cleansing rituals would have turned out to have been ineffective. It seems that isn't the case, and you wonder why. Is fairy magic that good at hedging out evil auras, or are fairies themselves just that much more resistant to corruption than humans?

"Probably a bit of both," Briar admits, when you put the question to her. "I mean, how many Great Fairies did Ganondorf seal away in his little rampages? And why did he do that to them, when he was death-cursing major protector spirits like the Great Deku Tree? And yet despite all that exposure to demonic badness, I don't think I've ever heard of a fairy going bad. Being major jerks, yes, but not evil." She lets out a breath. "Still. It's kind of a relief to know that my screw-up on this was my own, you know? 'Cause I can at least make sure to watch out for it again."

You nod. "Speaking of which... what DO you think about me performing the Spell of Restoration, now?"

"I still think slicing yourself open to get the goods to cast a spell is dumb, dangerous, and creepy," Briar says promptly. Then she takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly, and continues, "But walking around the Hellmouth with a wound in your soul when you've got the means to fix it is also dumb and dangerous. And since casting a full-power Restoration will address blood loss in addition to patching up your soul, and I'm here just in case... yeah. Let's... get it over with."

Not the most rousing declaration of support for an idea you've ever heard, but you'll take it.

"But!" Briar adds, flying up in your face. "I want it understood that I do NOT support you using blood magic just because it'd be easier. And I absolutely REJECT the idea of using it anywhere near the Hellmouth. Alright?"

You do not hesitate to admit that you share Briar's opinion about the use of blood magic on the Hellmouth being a Bad Idea. You're not exactly keen on the idea of cutting yourself, either.

That said, the Spell of Blood Money is a perfectly valid magical technique, and one of not-inconsiderable value when you consider just how expensive and time-consuming some magical reagents are to acquire. If an emergency comes up that could be resolved by a spell that's within your technical abilities but outside your material means, you can't rightly say that you WOULDN'T use Blood Money to help solve the problem. For that matter, you can easily think of some non-emergency situations where you'd be seriously tempted to resort to Blood Money.

You're right in the middle of one, after all. Having a minor spiritual injury isn't going to kill you on its own, and there's every chance that any trouble it did cause you, even on the Hellmouth, you'd be able to get out of safely. You've gone this long without issue, another couple of months could be entirely doable. It'd just be easier, and bring you more peace of mind, to get this matter out of the way while you've got the opportunity to do so.

Briar accepts your terms fairly graciously. She seemed to be most concerned about you using blood sacrifice on the Hellmouth and being too comfortable with the notion of hurting yourself for power; as you've completely agreed with her on the former point, and made entirely reasonable arguments about the latter, she lets it go.

That brings you back to the matter of the Restoration spell. Although you could go ahead and cast it right now, you're strongly tempted to sit down and think the notion through again, with a head much more clear of Hellmouth taint, eased of spiritual strain, and the benefit of a few spells for enhanced cognition.

Just as you're about to cast the first of these spells, however, there comes a rather firm knock at the door of your suite.

"Mr. Harris?" a woman calls to you, her voice rendered unfamiliar by the distance and the muffling of the doors and walls between you.

Ah. Seems like you did disturb somebody with that Spell of Divination after all.

"Just a minute," you call back, as you get to your feet.

You move quickly but unhurriedly, giving yourself a once-over as you stand up. Pajamas are more than a bit on the informal side, but eh, it's not even three in the morning yet, and you've only been awake for ten minutes or so. Plus you're eight years old. As long as all your buttons are done up - you make a quick check to confirm that - you should be fine.

Then you head out into the front room, wondering which of your hosts or their staff have come to investigate your little explosion of magical power, and how you ought to handle their presence. Briar trails along behind you in silence, still half-wrapped in the blanket she appropriated as a makeshift dressing gown.

Opening the door, you find an unfamiliar young woman wearing a black and white dress that immediately makes you think "maid." She bows politely.

"My apologies for disturbing you, Mister Harris, but Lady Gyokuro wishes to know if there is a problem."

Hmmm. It appears Kahlua's mother has the ability to detect magic, ki, aura, or some mix of the above at a distance, through multiple castle walls. Useful to know. As for the inquiry...

"Everything is fine, miss," you reply politely. "I was just getting myself into the correct state to use the magic that I received permission for at dinner last night. It should only take me another twenty minutes or so. It's nothing to be concerned about."

The maid blinks at you. "Be that as it may, young sir," she says, "I believe milady would prefer if you refrained from further... spellcasting until a more reasonable hour."

You don't miss the young woman's momentary hesitation, or the hint of disbelief that enters her tone. At a guess, the person wearing the uniform and role of the maid is having a bit of trouble with the idea that somebody your age is capable of magic powerful enough to be felt wherever in the house Gyokuro currently is.

Fair enough. You'd never met anybody else like you, either, until you went to the tournament.

As for what you say in response to the maid's statement...

And while you've got a member of the household staff at your door, perhaps there's something you'd like to ask of her, in her professional capacity?

"Of course," you say. "But may I ask if you're aware what Mrs. Shuzen would consider a 'reasonable hour', miss...?"

"I am called Mio, Mister Harris," the maid answers. "And while I would never presume to speak for Milady, I can say that she is never late for meals or appointments - and breakfast will be served at eight o'clock."

Eight at the latest, then? That feels workable to you. Maybe you could demonstrate the spells you plan to use to your hosts, as a way of making up for the three a.m. magical flare? Something to keep in mind, anyway.

"Thank you, Miss Mio," you answer.

She bows. "Will that be all, Mister Harris?"

"Actually," you add, "there is one thing. When you say 'Mister Harris' like that, I start looking for my Dad. Is there any chance I could get you to call me 'Alex?'"

"None, sir."

You blink at her swift response. "...ooookay."

"Is that everything, Mister Harris?"

Okay, now she's just messing with you. "Yes, Miss Mio. That's everything."

Mio bows, turns, and walks towards the stairs.

You close the door and go back to your room.

"Going to give it a go anyway?" Briar inquires lightly, as you settle on the rug.

"No, I thought I might meditate for a while, see what things look like on the inside now. I mean, I got a huge chunk of Hellmouth crud taken out yesterday, and since the lingering strain's cleared up..."

"Sounds like a plan. Just don't wrestle with the Boar again, okay? I don't want Gyokuro to come knocking herself because you flared up again."

You don't particularly want that to happen, either. "What about you?" you ask the fairy.

"I think I'm going to go back to that wonderfully cushy little bed," Briar sighs dreamily, before drifting back inside her guest-house.

You watch the fairylight shining faintly through the windows for a minute, then shrug and close your eyes. As well-rested as you are, just getting into an ordinary meditative state takes a bit longer than you've become accustomed to, but gradually, you sink into the no-mind, and from there, into the deeper levels of your being.

Gained Meditation D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Soon enough, you're back in your mindscape. At a glance, it doesn't appear much different than what you saw yesterday, aside from the absence of the dark discolorations and writhing vileness the Hakuba priests tore out. A closer look reveals no obvious holes or gouges in the terrain where the Hellmouth's contamination had settled in, and there's no indication that a Boar-powered spiritual bomb ever went off.

You've done some exploration of your mindscape as part of your lessons with Briar regarding general mental (and dream-specific) defense, but most of the time you were using spells to speed up the transition and add a measure of "artificial" clarity to the entire process. Your actual mental skills still need quite a bit of work, especially since you won't have time to cast most spells if you ever are targeted by a true psychic attack.

And so, you wander the strange land within your mind, familiarizing yourself with what it looks like when you aren't using magic to impose a preconceived order, or letting it do as it will while you dream.

There really isn't a lot to see here, though. You're not in that dark void where you can see all of your self as a glowing figure, nor in that deeper level where your ki surrounds you like a current in the ocean. This is somewhere in between those two extremes, just above the surface of the "sea" that represents the totality of your energies.

There is something beneath you that resembles "ground," a colorless surface that is mostly smooth, level, and featureless until you stand on it, causing ripples to spread out from the points of contact. Then it looks a great deal more like water. You watch those rings expand towards the horizon, where they disappear into the haze of the clear golden "sky" - your aura, currently relaxed as part of your meditative exercise.

The wavelets raised by your mental avatar's presence continue to radiate outward, mildly stirring the surface. In doing so, they reveal... things... hidden just beneath the surface. Some are blocky, others rounded, and many are irregular in shape. You can't make out any details; they're far enough away and deep enough under the surface that they're little more than silhouettes.

You decide to start with the outermost layer, which you have previous experience manipulating - by different means, admittedly, but some of the trained magical skill you use to suppress, draw out, and EXPLODE your aura should transfer over to the purely mental.

Of course, you have no intention of trying to force a massive reaction that might draw the attention of one of your hostesses back to you. Instead, you tilt your head back, reach straight up into the air with one hand, and give the space above your head a little push.

There's no immediate reaction that you can discern, certainly nothing on the scale of those ripples that are still spreading from where your feet touch the "ground." You try pushing in other directions - directly forward, then out to one side, then with your other hand, and finally directly downward - to see if it makes any difference, and it's not until you push towards the ground that you see a reaction. The ground below your lowered palm briefly depresses, sending out another, much smaller series of ripples. Nothing much happens when they cross with the wavelets being cast out from your feet, although a few of the nearest objects are slightly more exposed for all of a second or two. Then the surface settles, as much as it seems able to while you're still standing on it.

Letting your mental avatar's arms hang loose, you focus your gaze directly ahead, frown, and try to shove the empty air with nothing but pure will.

For a minute, nothing seems to happen, but then, faintly, you sense something shift, and for just a moment, the space in front of you appears less golden.

Gained Mental Control E (Plus)

Ephemeral as it is, the reaction is enough to confirm that you can affect this mindscape using pure mental - dare you say it? PSYCHIC - effort.

Confirmation that you can affect the "air" of your mindscape is nice as a starting point, but in and of itself, that skill doesn't seem like it'll let you do much. Honestly, it's AIR, or at least the psychic representation of air; unless you work out how to turn it poisonous to uninvited guests or blow with gale force, there really isn't a lot you can do with it. Not to mention that the effort it would take to create and maintain effects on that level would more likely than not get Gyokuro's attention, again. You'd rather not risk it.

So instead, you turn to the surface of your mindscape, and spend a moment just watching the ripples as they continue to spread out from your feet. Then you raise yourself off the ground and back into the air, hovering effortlessly as the surface layer gradually calms and stills beneath you. Without your presence to disturb it, the ground is like a great, smooth sheet of reddish-orange material, something neither solid nor liquid, but closer to those two states than to the gas the aura above it mimicks.

Having already seen that you can affect temporary changes in the ground, you once again focus your will and try to create a similar change without directly touching the surface or making any gestures with your avatar.

After about a minute of constant effort, you have to stop, feeling a small but growing ache... well, kind of everywhere, to be honest. On some level, you're aware that it's just the makings of a minor headache, but since you're technically INSIDE your head right now, what would otherwise just be faint and entirely manageable pain instead manfiests as constant, rippling tremors in the ground, a slow, steady increase in air pressure until it's reached an uncomfortable level, and a general tense soreness spread throughout your entire mental avatar.

Once you relax, the ground goes still and the air stops feeling like it's crushing you with heavy pillows. The tension in your mental body and your actual head doesn't entirely fade, but the impression it gives you isn't one of lasting pain. If anything, it's more like a physical muscle after a mild workout. Let it rest for a bit, and it'll be back to normal in no time.

At least, you think so.

Gained Mental Power E (Plus)
Gained Mental Sense E (Plus)

Although you're seriously tempted to go back to poking at the air, there's just something about the way that blue-tinted ball floats there on the surface of your mind, not quite bobbing but not quite still, that calls to you. Maybe it's all the times you've played fetch with Moblin, or catch with your Dad, or that game you play with Zelda that tries to be the latter but has strong overtones of the former. Regardless, you have a certain fondness for spherical objects, and it makes this one too tempting a target for your curiosity for you to leave the thing alone.

Still airborne, you hover closer to the ball and regard it frankly, slowly drifting around it so that you get a full three-hundred-and-sixty degree view, at least of what lies above the surface. It appears to be a perfect sphere, smooth, uniform in color, and about a foot in diameter, with perhaps a fifth of its mass below the line of the opaque red-orange substance of your mindscape's surface. As you noted, it doesn't bob up and down, but rather seems to be vibrating where it sits.

Curious, you reach down and touch one finger, not to the ball, but to the ground nearby. The ripples of your presence spread outward, smaller than before but no less constant, and when they reach the ball, the material around it waves up and down just like water in a pool. The sphere itself remains where it is, the pace and intensity of its vibrations unchanged as far as you can tell.

Repeating an earlier experiment, you push your hand at the sphere.

It rocks, slightly, and a faint gold vapor seems to spread along the surface, moving outward and away from your gesture.

For a moment, the vibrations become a very faintly audible buzz, low-pitched enough not to be offensive. Then the haze of your aura moves back in to fill the region displaced by your will, smothering the sound once again.

Hmmm.

On second thought, maybe you should just leave the ball and the rest of the partially- or entirely-submerged objects alone for now. You don't recall things like this showing up during your lessons on mental- and dream-defense with Briar, and you're not sure why that is. Did the magically-crafted mindscape you created for those sessions simply overlay your true mindscape, or did it incorporate it and its contents? Either way, you've never directly interacted with these mental "shapes" before, and you have no idea what the result might be. Perhaps it would be best to wait until you've built up your psychic abilities and knowledge a bit further before you go poking random stuff in your head with a mind-stick.

As if in response to your new resolution to ignore the clutter, your mindscape shudders, dragging all the objects on or near the surface deeper into itself. Some of them disappear from sight entirely, while the rest are reduced to indistinct shadows amidst the flame-tinted earth.

With a shrug, you turn your back on the ground and resume playing around with the air. In deference to your mental fatigue and a desire not to tick off Gyokuro, you keep your efforts minor, creating brief displacements of the gold-tinted pseudo-gas. You experiment at different heights to see if it makes your aura more or less responsive - the answer appears to be less, incidentally - and at one point, you try flying forward at a modest walking pace before stopping suddenly and dumping your mental momentum into a single shove. It's the largest effort you feel safe in producing, and the result is fairly impressive; so much air is displaced so quickly that it condenses, creating golden "clouds" that don't immediately break up as the calm returns.

You study these with great interest, and find that they are dissolving back into free aura, but slowly enough that you can see their outermost edges unraveling. Touching one of the clouds, you find it feels warmer and much more solid than it appears - a reflection, perhaps, of the fact that it is an induced concentration of power, rather than its free, native state?

Gained Mental Control E (Plus) (Plus)

In any case, you eventually run out of things you can do within your mindscape that won't cross the boundaries you've set for yourself. Making a promise to yourself to return and do more later, you let yourself rise from your mindscape, through the void of meditation, and back into the waking world.

You open your eyes, and wince at the bloody light seeping through your bedroom window.

Morning has arrived. You call up your time-telling cantrip, and are informed that it's about six o'clock, give or take a few minutes.

While six in the morning seems like a much better time to be casting spells than two-thirty-ish, you figure that it'd be a good idea for you to wait another hour or so before you got started, just to make sure that Kahlua's mother is up and around and less likely to be irritated when she senses your magic at work again.

Recalling that Kahlua said something about having a full day planned, you keep your usual morning calisthenics brief and light, just enough to qualify as a warm-up, before you hit the shower- make that, bath. You saw it last night, but it hadn't quite sunk in yet that the tub in your suite's attached bathroom doesn't have a showerhead. Curious, that, and a touch inconvenient, but at least you can brush your teeth while you're waiting for the tub to fill.

By the time you've bathed and dressed, it's almost twenty to seven. From the tiny splashing sounds in Briar's mini-house, she's awake and availing herself of the facilities provided, so you give her a bit of privacy and turn your attention to the rest of the room. It's possible there's something interesting in here that you overlooked yesterday and earlier this morning, due to sleepiness and poor lighting.

After about ten minutes of poking around, though, you downgrade "possible" to "unlikely." The furnishings all look more or less the same as they did last night; normally, you'd expect sunrise to make things appear a bit less creepy, but the way the Shuzens' private demiplane turns the sunlight that particular shade of red doesn't really help. There aren't any casually-concealed doors or passageways like the one in the training room, nor were you able to find any outright hidden doors - and your eyes are sharp enough at this point that you think you'd notice SOMETHING out of place if there was anything to find. Unless of course it was hidden with magic, in which case you'd need to use magic yourself to pierce the veil, but you didn't sense any magic in the room, either.

You do feel a bit better about having searched, though.

Gained Watchful B

"Did the wall do something wrong, Alex?" Briar asks. When you glance at her, you find that she's got a tiny but still fluffy-looking towel wrapped up around her hair, though she otherwise appears to be dressed normally.

"No, I was just poking around looking for hidden passages and stuff while I waited."

"Find any?"

"Nope."

You feel you've waited long enough. Reaching for your mana, you begin to make with the magic.

First up, a few ritually-cast spells to increase your mental focus and clarity. You're able to suppress the signature of the first such magic, but while you make the same effort for subsequent spells - most of which are technically within your ability to conceal in this manner - the build-up of residual mana, and its resonance with the energy of the subsequent spells you cast, is simply too much for your skills to hide.

Gained Enchantment D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Once your preferred set of mental buffs are in place, you review your plan of using the Spell to Delay Pain to allow you to cast your revised Spell of Blood Money without incident, and then use the products of that magic to cast the Spell of Restoration.

The only obvious flaw you can come up with is that you've only been hurt to the point of bleeding (or something comparable) once or twice before now, and both times were due under combat conditions, when you a) had the advantage of adrenaline to help you handle the effects, and b) you weren't the one doing yourself harm. As such, you can't really say for sure how you'll react when you deliberately take a sharp edge to your own flesh.

You consider performing an Augury to seek divine guidance, but your boosted cognition informs you that you lack the prayer sticks or rune-carved bones required as a focus for the magic. Focuses aren't something you can fake, whether using the Spell of Blood Money or simply by pumping additional mana into the spell - which would already be fairly expensive for you, due to its divine nature - so you have to scratch that part of the plan.

Even without holy sanction, you feel pretty confident that your plan will work.

Before you start casting additional spells, however, you make a point of getting up to lock the door to your suite. You'd rather not be disturbed for the next few minutes, especially once you're shedding blood.

Back in your bedroom, you roll back the rug to clear a spot on the floor - just in case there's any, you know, splatter - and cast three more rituals: one to Delay Pain, for that very reason; one of Heroism, in the hope that increased courage and resolve will help you follow through; and one of Necromancy, fortifying your body not so much against harm as against a critical loss of vitality.

Gained Necromancy D (Plus) (Plus)

Then you remove your sword from your dimensional pocket, unsheathe the blade, and under Briar's watchful, lip-gnawing gaze, begin to invoke the Spell of Blood Money. At the prescribed point in the spell, you touch the shining edge of the blade to...

Without hesitation - a fact that kind of surprises you, in and of itself - you press the edge of your sword against the palm of your left hand, and run the latter down the blade, leaving a trail of blood behind.

It is positively CREEPY how much this fails to hurt. You don't even miss a word in what remains of your casting of the Spell of Blood Money. The Spell of Delay Pain must be working, then.

As the Spell of Blood Money takes effect, the blood you've smeared across your sacred sword shimmers, coalesces, and solidifies into the form of a shining diamond, clearer than glass, sparkling at the edges, and as big as your thumb. At the same moment, you feel a sudden rush of weakness, and quickly pull your wounded hand away from your sword as it becomes rather more difficult to hold up than it was just a second ago. You were expecting this aspect of the spell and you thought you'd prepared yourself for it, but then again, you've never had your strength sapped in this manner before.

"Alex?!" Briar bursts out. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, just... the strength-draining part of the spell was kind of worse than I was expecting. I'm okay, though, really. Just... surprised."

"...I see." The fairy sighs. "Can we get this over with, then? Before there are any more surprises?"

That sounds like a really good idea, to be honest. Even with the improvements you made, the products of the Spell of Blood Money - in this case, that glittering jewel - are strictly temporary. You'd really rather not have the diamond discorporate while you're still in the middle of casting the Spell of Restoration, because then you'd have the wonderful choice of casting Blood Money AGAIN, and probably laying yourself out flat in the process, or leaving your physical and spiritual wounds untreated.

Focusing, you cast the greater spell. As it takes shape, you spare a moment to mentally thank the Goddesses that Restoration is primarily a spell of Conjuration. There's a strong Necromantic aspect, to be sure - that's a given for anything that touches on souls - but the bulk of the spell operates by calling up unaspected matter and energy, fitting it into damaged parts of the subject's body, mind, and/or soul, and then shaping the raw essence to match the living form around it. It can restore broken bones, heal damaged nerves, form new connections between disjointed memories, and even restore a magically-ravaged soul to its original potency.

The diamond that has been hovering in the air since its creation glows brighter and brighter with magical energy as you work the Spell of Restoration, and as you utter the final words, the jewel flares into incandescence.

And just like that, you feel better. Your strength is restored, the dull sensation of magically-suppressed pain in your hand is gone, and most importantly, that constant spiritual ache you've been dealing with since your trials in Navi's Silent Realm has faded away.

"Briar," you ask, "how do I look?"

Out comes the fairy wand, and from it, you sense Divinatory magic probing your spirit - with a little effort spared to inspect your left hand.

"As far as I can tell, you're all patched up."

You smile.

Removed Minor Spiritual Damage!

"Now let's never do that again," Briar adds.

"I'll try to avoid making it necessary," you promise. Inspecting your sword and finding it clear of blood, you sheath and subspace the weapon. "But if it IS necessary..."

"Yeah, yeah..."

As a final precaution, you cast a cantrip to clean your hand, and the rest of the room, of any lingering blood you might have missed. Even the scent should be erased by this - at the very least, you can't pick up that distinctive coppery tang once the magic has run its course. Then you dismiss all the remaining buffs you had up, as it wouldn't be polite to go wandering around the castle as if you were expecting an attack.

You fully expect the cancellation of the Spell of Delay Pain to result in a sudden, ahem, "stabbing" pain in your hand, but interestingly, that's not what happens. At most, you feel a fleeting phantom ache along the path of your self-inflicted, now-closed injury. You wonder if that's because the wound was healed, removing the source of the pain altogether while the spell that kept you from feeling it was still in effect? Something to consider, you suppose.

Another casting of your time-telling cantrip shows that it's not quite 7:30.

You figure it might be a good idea to check in with Lu-sensei first thing, so the two of you can compare notes about yesterday's events, and make sure you're both on the same page with how you should (and shouldn't) act today.

Pausing to flip your carpet back to its original place and give your suite a final check to make sure there are no lingering signs of your recent magic - apart from the residual mana hanging in the air and clinging to most surfaces, which will have to clear up on its own - you unlock and open your suite door, step out, close it, and then cross the hall to knock on your teacher's door.

There's no response, so you knock again, more firmly, and call out, "Sensei? Are you up?"

Still nothing.

You recall Lu-sensei's sleeping patterns from back during the tournament. When he wasn't running the rooftops with ninjas all night, he tended to turn in and wake up at very reasonable hours. None of that "up before the crack of dawn, working hard all day until after the sun went down" madness - although you do have to keep in mind that your master can bend space-time on a semi-casual basis, so who knows? Maybe he has some secret training technique that lets him do that sort of thing long-term, so that he can pack extra hours into the day?

...

...on reflection, probably not. That kind of thing would be pretty energy-intensive, which puts it more into the territory of magic than ki-manipulation, and genuine time mages are rare on the ground. Even Ganondorf didn't really qualify for that title; for all that he was capable of bending the fabric of reality to his will, the really subtle alterations that mark a master of the magic of space and time were beyond him.

Which was just as well for the Hero, you suppose. To say nothing of everybody else living in Hyrule.

Back to the matter at hand, either Lu-sensei is still asleep, or he's not in his room at all. Checking the door, you find that it isn't locked.

Rather than enter uninvited - which you suspect would be risking Enlightenment - or spend time wandering around seeking people who may not have even seen your teacher in the first place, you decide to call upon some of your exotic sensory capabilities.

Lowering your hand, you furrow your brow and focus your mind and spirit upon the door and the room beyond it. Your passive mental sense doesn't pick up anything, but you have a feeling that's due to the heavy wooden door and thick stone wall standing in the path of your scan - largely because they're interfering with your much better-developed passive ki sense as well, which can only get past the door. Even then, it doesn't pick up anything, so you resort to your active scans.

Mental probes STILL can't penetrate the castle's architecture, annoyingly, but your ki sense has a much easier time dealing with the door now that the force of your will is really behind it.

It seems to be a wasted effort, though, because as far as you can tell, Lu-sensei isn't in his rooms.

More for form's sake than anything else, you attempt a quick magical sweep of the room, so you're a bit surprised when it comes back positive for strong Abjuration, with threads of just about every other type of magic you know woven in. A quick look around, however, shows that it's not just Lu-sensei's suite that is giving off the sorcerous aura; under mage-sight, the entire hall around you reveals complex warding patterns with the same signature, and additional traces of that mix of magics radiate from the nearby rooms.

The wards are complicated enough that, at a glance, you can't really say what they do, beyond fulfulling some sort of defensive function - and that mainly because Abjuration is the dominant element, and protecting stuff is the main focus of that school.

Your inner magical scholar is tempted to take some time to study the glowing arrays worked into the stone.

Your inner upstanding youth reminds you that you are a guest in someone else's home, and shouldn't go poking into their defenses. At least not without permission.

Your inner paranoid asks if you weren't concerned about Lu-sensei just a second ago, and why you think studying a too-obvious, probably booby-trapped set of magical wards is more important than your master.

Your stomach says it's hungry.

Tempting as the idea of studying these wards is, you decide that poking into the workings of someone's home security system uninvited would be entirely too rude. Truth be told, it's the sort of thing you dimly recall being a criminal offense back in Hyrule, at least in those eras when there was a sufficient population of mages with the training to provide such protections, as well as nobles and merchants wealthy enough to afford their services.

Dismissing your mage-sight, you turn and head for the stairs. Breakfast calls, and wherever Lu-sensei is right now, he'll doubtlessly show up to eat.

You're not quite to the end of the hall when you hear voices and footsteps echoing up the stairwell from the floor below. Whoever it is, they're not speaking loudly enough for you to make out words, but you can tell that there are two voices, both female, one around your age and the other... well, older, but not really old.

At a guess? The younger person is probably Kahlua, come to fetch her guests to make sure they all get to breakfast on time, as the start of that "full day" she had in mind. The woman with her could be her mother, or Miss Akasha, or one of the servants - it's hard to say from where you stand, as you don't know the women well enough to pick out their individual voices, at least not when they're speaking at this low volume and fair distance, with the echoes confusing things.

You wonder if you should go on down to the dining hall, or stay put for the moment. On the one hand, you're pretty sure you can find your way to the table on your own; the route Miss Shirogane took you to your room by wasn't THAT complicated. On the other hand, you're just a bit curious to know if any of the other guests are housed on this floor, and if so, who. Plus... you're sort of tempted to listen in on what's being said down there. After all, that COULD be Kahlua's mother, and she has reason to be mildly annoyed with you this morning.

Shaking off the temptation to eavesdrop, you start down the stairs, foregoing any real effort to soften your footsteps or to listen in on what's being said below. Not that you go thundering down the steps like a barrel flung by Donkey Kong or anything like that, as that would be rude; you just don't try to be sneaky, which would be even more rude.

As you begin your descent of the winding stair, the two voices below pause briefly, obviously having heard your approach. You're another dozen steps down when the spiral of the stairs brings them into view, and your original guess is at least partly confirmed.

"Good morning, Alex, Briar," Kahlua greets you. She's once again wearing a variant on her white princess gown, though she's left off the tiara and opera gloves today.

"Good morning, Kahlua. Ma'am," you add with a nod to her companion, who you don't recognize. The woman looks older than Gyokuro and distinctly older than Akasha; if she was human, you'd comfortably slot her into "middle age" category, but in a house of vampires who employ other monsters, you've really got no idea what she might be and thus no clue as to how well her outward appearance matches up with her true age. You're also hesitant to classify her as a servant; her dark green, flame-patterned kimono seems too individualistic for that, her bearing too authoritative.

The woman returns your greeting with a polite nod, and glances at Kahlua. "Aren't you going to introduce us, dear?"

"Oh, yes!" Kahlua straightens up and dons a formal manner. "Alex, Briar, this is Hayashi Hanabi, my tutor. Ms. Hayashi, these are Alexander Harris and Briar."

"A pleasure, both of you. I trust you rested well last night?"

It might just be your imagination, but she almost seems to smirk when she adds that last part.

"Extremely well, ma'am," you answer, while wondering if you were just imagining things.

"I'm glad to hear it. Little Kahlua has been so looking forward to your company, it would have been a shame if something silly like a lack of sleep ruined the day she has planned."

...there's nothing menacing in Ms. Hayashi's tone or body language, but for some reason, you can't quite escape a sense of looming peril.

"Hush, you," Kahlua pouts at her companion. "You'll spoil the surprises."

Surprises. As in, more than one.

Feelings of doom, rising.

"Kahlua," you sigh, "why am I getting the feeling that I need to start stacking defensive spells?"

"Well, I was planning for us to spar later," Kahlua admits without hesitation, "so some defensive magic might not be a bad idea. It depends on how far we end up taking things, and how squishy you are normally."

Fairly squishy, and rather more so when compared to an opponent like a vampire, you think but do not say aloud.

"I'll... keep that in mind. Speaking of sparring," you say then, trying to change the subject, "have either of you seen Lu-sensei this morning? I was hoping to talk to him, but he's not in his room."

Kahlua shakes her head. "I haven't seen him, myself. Hanabi?"

"Likewise, I'm afraid."

You nod. It was worth asking.

"Well, that's a little frustrating," you admit, "but Sensei'll be at breakfast. I can wait until then. Speaking of which - I take it you're off to collect the rest of the guests?"

Kahlua nods, humming affirmatively.

"Right. I'll get out of your way, then." You step slightly further to one side of the stairs, which are wide enough for two people to walk past one another with room to spare - three people, if they're not too broadly-built or don't mind rubbing shoulders - as long as no one insists on sticking right to the middle.

Kahlua and Hanabi nod and start back up the stairs. "See you at the table, Alex," Kahlua says in passing.

"Likewise." You're several steps down when a thought occurs to you, and you stop to call up to her. "Hey, Kahlua?"

She pauses, leaning back slightly to regard you from around the curve of the central pillar. "Yes, Alex?"

"Your parents wanted a demonstration of my magic later. Want me to make a Magic Show of it?"

ZOOM!

GRAB!

TWINKLE!

"DO I?!" Kahlua squeals, all but glowing with pure childish delight as she holds your hands.

"I take it that's a yes?" you note, trying not to wince. Kahlua's sudden enthusiasm hasn't quite overcome her self-control, but you're definitely feeling her strength.

Gained Endurance D (Plus) (Plus)

She nods eagerly. "What time, do you think?"

In response to your statement, Kahlua's face practically shines like the sun - though given that she's a vampire, maybe the moon is the more appropriate celestial body to draw a comparison to?

"I'll be looking forward to it!" she chirps, squeezing your hands semi-painfully again.

"Kahlua, dear," Ms. Hayashi interrupts.

"Hmmm?"

The older woman gives your hands - and Kahlua's, wrapped around them - a meaningful look.

Kahlua follows the line of her tutor's gaze, blinks, and - is that a blush? Maybe, her skin tone makes it a bit hard to tell...

"Oh. Yes, right." Kahlua lets go of your hands, very quickly, and yes, you can now say with confidence that she is definitely blushing. "Um. Sorry, Alex. I let my enthusiasm get ahead of me."

"It's fine," you reply, keeping your voice even as you flex your aching fingers. "No harm done."

Noting that Kahlua is trying not to look directly at you, you cast a silent glance at Ms. Hayashi and silently mouth the words, "Thank you."

The tutor smiles softly. "Well, then. We'll see you at the breakfast table, Alexander. Come along, Kahlua; we have other guests to collect."

"Coming!" Kahlua says, hurrying along to catch up with, and then pass, the older woman on the stairs.

There is a pause, silence broken only by the sound of the pair's footsteps as they move up to the next floor.

"Maybe it's my quintessential fairy-ness," Briar notes then, "but I get the feeling I may have missed something just now. Because normally, when a girl acts like Kahlua just did... well, there's a reason which I'm pretty sure doesn't apply here."

You consider that.

"Not that it particularly bothers me, but some kids are just weird about the whole boy/girl thing," you reply, shrugging as you turn to head down the stairs.

"See, that's the thing that I'm pretty sure this WASN'T about," Briar says.

You scratch your cheek, thinking. "I suppose it could have been because Kahlua was sort of not controlling her strength there. That's a bad habit for a martial artist to get into, and probably a lot worse for a vampire who needs to be able to blend in with all us squishy folks."

You can think of a couple other reasons Kahlua might have been embarrassed about her behavior, but you're sure it was one of the two you mentioned. Well, pretty sure.

"Okay, I can see that." Briar pauses. "How are your hands, anyway?"

"A little sore," you admit, flexing your fingers again. "Nothing that needs a heal, though."

Your trip through Castle Shuzen is fairly uneventful from there. You DO lose your way at one point, ending up back in the entrance hall rather than the dining hall, but an older, sort of fussy-looking gentleman in servants' livery who was inspecting one of the suits of armor when you arrived provides you directions. Shortly after that, you stride into the dining room, a good ten minutes before the meal is to be served.

As you were hoping, Lu-sensei is present, though at the moment he's speaking with Kahlua's father, who kind of looks like he didn't sleep so well last night. Tatsuki and her mother are also here, but no one else seems to have arrived yet.

You decide you'd best suck it up and make nice with your host, and start towards him, nodding wordlessly to Tatsuki and her mom when they notice your approach.

Lu-sensei also sees you coming, and is more direct in his greeting. "Good morning, Alex."

"Morning, Lu-sensei. Mr. Shuzen."

"Alexander," Issa replies. "I trust you had a restful evening."

Ironic, that a guy with just-visible bags under his eyes is the one asking that.

"Yes sir, I did. Speaking of which, thank you for your consideration in Briar's sleeping arrangements."

"Yeah, the tiny house was PERFECT," the fairy agrees.

Issa half-smiles. "Kokoa will be glad to hear it."

You blink, and sense Briar doing likewise. "That was her idea?"

"I may have embellished it a bit, but the original suggestion of a dollhouse was hers, yes. I suspect she had an ulterior motive there."

Briar snickers. "Let me guess. She wants me to play dolls with her? As one of the dolls?"

"Very likely, yes. She's at that age, and... well. I hope you won't be offended if she does ask."

"Nah, it's fine. Alex's little sister sprang that one one me a while back, and I still got out with my dignity intact. And she's younger than Kokoa."

That appears to reassure Issa.

You take a quick look around the room, confirming that no one else is going to arrive in the next few seconds, then turn back to the two older men.

"So, sir," you say, "Kahlua mentioned that she has 'a full day' planned for all of us. As someone who knows her a lot better than I do, I feel I should ask: would you recommend starting the day with a light breakfast, or a heavy one?"

"Definitely heavy," Issa says without a moment's hesitation. "I won't spoil the surprise, but I do have some notion of what Kahlua has in mind, and you'll need the energy."

You bow your head. "Thank you, Mr. Shuzen."

Before you can say anything further, your ears prick up at the sound of footsteps coming down the main corridor to the dining hall. Looking out the door, you see Kahlua and Ms. Hayashi in the lead, with Sokka pushing Katara's wheelchair along beside them. There's no sign of the Water Tribe kids' parents, but a moment later, Akasha appears from one of the side passages, ushering Moka and a sleepy-looking Kokoa along before her. Gyokuro is several steps behind, her expression stern as she speaks to someone on a cellphone; at her side is an unfamiliar young woman in business attire, a satchel over one shoulder and a sheaf of folders tucked into the crook of her other arm.

"If you'll excuse me, gentlemen," Issa says, brows furrowing as he takes in the sight of his less-than-happy wife.

"Of course," Lu-sensei replies.

Issa is already moving for the door. You can't see his face from here, but his daughters all smile to one degree or another when he greets them, while Akasha... well, she's smiling, but there's something else to her expression you can't quite decipher. Gyokuro pauses in the hallway, acknowledging her husband with a nod while staying on the phone, and the two of them and Gyokuro's aide remain outside as the rest of the group enters the dining room.

"Good morning, everyone," Akasha says with her usual sunny smile. "Sleep well?"

People keep asking you that today, and you're still not sure if they're being genuine, or just yanking your chain.

If Miss Akasha had been speaking to you directly just now, you'd be willing to accept that she was messing with you. She has shown a slight tendency towards that sort of humor in the past, the most recent example being last night's remarks about the common wages of sorcerers. But she was addressing the room as a whole, so it's far, far more likely that her inquiry was genuine.

"Eh, I slept well enough, once I got used to having that much room in bed."

Something about Akkiko's response has all the adults in earshot giving her looks, which she ignores.

"And this one" - the woman adds, reaching out to ruffle Tatsuki's hair, who grimaces but doesn't pull away - "slept like a rock after last night's fun and games. First time she's done that in a while."

You quirk an eyebrow at that, wondering what you missed by going to bed as early as you did.

"Sokka, Katara?"

"I was quite comfortable, Miss Akasha," Katara replies. "At least until Sokka started snoring, but I'm used to that."

"I keep telling you, I don't snore. Hunters can't afford to; it scares away the animals."

Katara regards her brother with a small, mischievous smile, lips quirking as if she wants to say something, but in the end, she keeps quiet.

"Anyway, I slept fine, too, Miss Akasha," Sokka continues. "And so did Mom and Dad. Dad sends his apologies for missing breakfast, but for a while now, Mom's been, uh, kind of violently opposed to the whole idea of food when she wakes up. Best if he stays with her until she feels better."

"Ah." Akasha says no more on the matter. "And you, Master Lu? Alex? Briar?"

"I rested quite well, thank you," you teacher replies.

"Likewise," you agree, before looking at Kokoa. "Also, Kokoa?"

The youngest Shuzen regards you cautiously.

"Thank you for thinking of Briar."

The little vampire blinks.

"Yeah," Briar says, "that little house was great."

Kokoa blushes and looks away, mumbling something that you don't catch. You're pretty sure you catch her smiling, though.

Everyone sits down for breakfast save for Ms. Hayashi, who exits the room after making sure Kahlua is seated, and Issa, Gyokuro, and the latter's aide, who remain in the hall while Akasha signals the servants to begin. The meal proves to be not so dramatic an affair as last night's dinner. It's Western-style cooking, again, this time with pancakes, hashbrowns, sausages, bacon, toast, an assortment of fruit juices or milk to choose from for drinks, and almost as many different varieties of syrups, jams, and other condiments.

Issa and Gyokuro enter late, making brief apologies for the delay. The woman in the business suit is nowhere in sight.

Taking Issa's advice, you fill up your plate and enjoy a hearty, filling breakfast. This unavoidably cuts down on your opportunities to speak to anyone, but the rest of the table seems to take the unspoken hint provided by your heavily-loaded plate, and lets you get on with eating.

To be fair, you're not the only one focused on food this morning. Sokka is once again indulging his carnivorous leanings - although he appears to like the pancakes just fine - and the way Tatsuki is clearing her plate suggests that she developed a hollow leg overnight. Everybody else is eating more or less at the same pace as they were last night, but you can't escape the impression that Issa is using the meal as an excuse to keep his head down.

Most of the conversation that does occur is brief and of no moment, but after a time, Akikko sets down her fork and takes a look around the table.

"So," she wonders aloud, "what are you kids going to be up to today?"

"Well, I still owe Tatsuki, Alex, and Briar a tour of the castle," Kahlua muses, "but I was planning on waiting until this afternoon to do that, just in case Altria arrived before lunch. For this morning, I thought a little hike to Fang Cave would be fun."

"A cave?" Katara inquires.

"There's a chamber towards the back that has a crack in the ceiling," Kahlua explains. "For most of the morning, the sun's at the right angle to light up the chamber, which makes the minerals in the walls and floor all sparkle."

"It's pretty," Kokoa agrees.

"Before that, though," Kahlua goes on, turning to you with a bright smile, "Alex has offered to put on a little magic show."

All eyes other than Briar's turn to you.

"Really, now?" Lu-sensei murmurs. "What sort of show?"

A not-insignificant part of you wants to reply, "The kind of show that will be REMEMBERED FOR ALL TIME!" or something to that effect, but you repress the impulse. It probably wouldn't endear you to your hosts - or worse, it might give them serious expectations for you to live up to - and more immediately, Lu-sensei would not appreciate you yelling in his ear.

Instead, you swallow a bite of pancake - mmm, delicious, fluffy pancake - and answer, "Without giving away the plot, I was thinking of demonstrating a little bit of most of the schools of magic. Conjuring some temporary equipment to use, setting off elemental reactions, transforming this and that, that sort of thing. Maybe summon a few animal assistants and do some teleportation," you add, with a cautious glance at the Shuzen adults, "but that would depend on whether or not the house's defensive wards would object to that sort of thing."

The three vampires trade looks.

"You could always set up outside, Alex," Akasha offers. "That would take the... more aggressive wards out of the equation."

"Most of them," Gyokuro adds, smiling.

...ah. So they're not going to give you specifics on how their home security system works. Understandable.

Yeah, on second thought, Gyokuro's smile is just a little too scary for you to feel comfortable about poking the Shuzens' wards with a magical stick. You decide to set up outdoors, rather than in the castle proper and under whatever it has in the way of defenses, and to drop the Summoning elements from your planned line-up altogether. That should prevent any potential misfires due to unforeseen interactions between Summoning spells and the nature of the demiplane, and thus keep you from being tripped up by something like a summoned creature failing to materialize on cue.

If you really want to make bats appear in the show, you can always use Illusion.

"Outdoors it is, then," you say aloud.

"When would you like to begin?" Akasha asks.

You just can't resist giving Akasha a cheeky little grin as you let your magic flow.

"When? Why, Lady Bloodriver, the show has already BEGUN."

And then you vanish. It cost more than usual to work a Spell of Invisibility without the usual invocation to focus your power, but that's fine; you were only casting a minor version of the spell to begin with, and it's well worth the added mana to see the looks on all their faces. Okay, the Shuzen adults appear more tolerantly amused than startled, Lu-sensei is kind of looking like he's imagining new training exercises to inflict upon you, Briar has buried her face in her hands, and Tatsuki's mom is openly snickering, but the other kids all look properly appreciative of your disappearing act.

Since you don't want to push the bounds of hospitality too far or make yourself seem too dangerous, you don't make a significant effort to be silent as you push back your seat, rise from your chair, and take several steps towards the door.

Then you pause, and backpedal.

"Actually," you say, allowing your spell to lapse - and provoking starts from some of the less sensorily-gifted members of the assembled party - "could you give me, say, fifteen minutes to set up?"

Akasha nods, her expression one of bemusement.

"Awesome." And then you disappear again, and resume your exit.

Though you make a point of snapping up one last rasher of bacon as you go. Delicious, bacony bacon.

"Are all sorcerers this... flashy?" Sokka wonders aloud behind you.

"Only the good ones," you reply, transmitting the words to the entire table via a Spell of Message.

"Gah!"

Snickering to yourself, you exit the dining hall.

Almost immediately, you feel a foreign energy reach into the matrix of your illusory cloak and - after a resistance too brief to even be considered 'momentary' - shred it to bits. Looks like the Shuzens have defenses against people wandering around invisible. Tied into the doorframes, from the look of it, though you wouldn't bet against there being additional layers in case the first part of the ward failed.

Fortunately for your mystically-dramatic exit, your current pace carries you to one side of the doorway before you've fully phased back into the visible spectrum, and the lack of exclamations behind you suggests nobody saw your slightly-embarrassing sudden reappearance.

Mindful of the time limit, you speed up a bit as you make your way to the entrance hall, and then into the courtyard. One of the dogs you saw when you came in yesterday is sitting at ease to one side of the door, and raises its head to give you a curious look as you emerge; no one else seems to be around at the moment, though there are probably some guards closer than you think.

You don't have so much time left to prepare for your show that you feel comfortable taking five or ten minutes to look for an ideal spot to set up, when such a place may not even exist. Right in front of the castle will do just fine.

As you cross the courtyard, a man in a suit and sunglasses emerges from a side-door adjacent to the firmly-shut main gate.

"Heading out, Mister Harris?" he asks.

You briefly wonder if the maid you met last night has been carrying tales, or if the Shuzens just have a very polite and well-informed staff.

"Yes, I am."

The guard nods, but then adds, "Don't wander too far, sir. It's not entirely safe outside, at least not for someone your age by yourself."

Why does that not surprise you? "I'm just heading out front."

The guard nods again, then disappears back into the room behind him. A moment later, the gate opens with an ominous creaking that is completely at odds with how smoothly the massive doors move on their hinges.

Stepping outside, you take a moment to look around. There's not a huge amount of space on this side of the castle, and none of what is available really strikes you as a great spot to set up for any kind of entertainment.

But that's fine. After all, you have magic.

Now, let's see...

After some thought, you begin modifying the Spell of Minor Creation. The ability to create wood and other plant-based materials should be sufficient for your current needs, but the quantity and complexity of the output is a problem - you don't want to have to cast the spell a dozen times if you can avoid it. Fortunately, since you don't need the items you're planning on creating to last for the next ten hours or so, you can afford to trim that part of the spell matrix, freeing up space for equations that will amplify the spell's material output. More mass, more discrete objects, objects made of more than one susbtance at a time...

When the spell still doesn't quite work out to what you need, you pump additional mana into it and further rework the matrix.

Satisfied with your modifications, you begin the ritual.

Gained Conjuration C (Plus)
Gained Woodworking F (Plus)

Ten minutes later, you're standing before a wooden stage that could have been pulled from any performance theatre... okay, not the ones on Broadway. And probably not most of the big-name theatres or arts schools. But it's at least as good as something you'd find in a community center or a high school, aside from the lack of curtains. There are also an even dozen wooden chairs lined up in a row before the stage, complete with pillowed seats, backs, and armrests in red. One more such chair stands empty atop the stage.

Hopping up onto your stage, you take your seat to wait for your audience, pausing to wave at the quintet of guards - two canine, three humanoid - who are openly staring at you from the corner of Castle Shuzen they must have rounded while you were busy.

As you lean back in your conjured chair, you glance around at the stage and have to frown. The lack of decor really nags at you, so you cast another Spell of Creation - in non-ritual form, as you don't have the time to do things the long way - creating properly dramatic curtains and a matching carpet, gold-colored thread forming mystical-seeming shapes against a dark red background.

Gained Mana Control C (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Tailoring E (Plus)

As the spell takes effect, you notice that it's started to form the Crest of the Triforce as the center of the display.

Um.

You regard the golden emblem taking shape on the curtains behind you, the three triangles encircled by runic characters and flanked by two long, curved lines that could be snaking gouts of flame, or perhaps stylized tusks. It's not a Hyrulean crest you recognize, and for a moment you wonder where it came from and what, if anything, it means.

Then you shrug and turn your back, letting the magic do as it will.

Not too long after that, the gates of Castle Shuzen once again creak and groan ominously as they swing open, revealing the crowd from the breakfast table. You take a certain satisfaction in their varied expressions, which range from astonishment (Sokka again) to delight (Kahlua) to grudging interest (Kokoa). Even the adults appear impressed by your creative efforts thus far.

Here's to hoping you can keep that particular ball rolling.

You rise to your feet. "Welcome, ladies and gentlemen! Please, pull up a seat and prepare to be..." - you spread your hands before your face - "enchanted."

Sokka laughs at that, and at least one of the guards in the back ducks his head, shoulders briefly shifting in suppressed amusement. Several people groan.

"That was a terrible pun, and you should feel terrible for making it," Briar calls out, using a minor cantrip to make her words intelligible to all.

"No comments from the peanut-sized gallery!" you call back.

"Oi!"

As your audience take their seats with varying displays of good humor, you cast a spell to create the proper atmosphere. You anchor the effect on a point near the middle of the carpeted wooden floor beneath your feet, and as the magic radiates out from that point, the area before the stage falls into shadow. Nothing you'd consider worthy of the name "darkness," even if it does cause the eyes of the Shuzens - and the Water Tribe siblings, you notice, and even the two Arisawas - to shine, vaguely catlike, in the increased gloom. At the same time, the stage itself loses the reddish tint cast by the barrier-warped light of the morning sun and becomes marginally brighter.

Gained Elementalism D (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Shadow Affinity F

"Can you all see me?" you inquire. After the nods, you add, in a quieter tone, "Can you all hear me?"

Again, the response is positive, though you notice some of the guards inching a bit closer, their expressions suggesting that whatever superhuman traits their respective species possess, enhanced hearing isn't among them.

"Excellent. Now, then, for anyone who might have missed the part where I pulled a small theatre out of thin air, this is a show of magic." As you speak, you gather your power, flexing your metaphysical muscles in preparation for what is about to happen. "And I ask you; what is magic? Is it twisting the forces of nature to destructive ends?"

Clods of dirt are yanked from the ground nearby and flung towards the stage, only to be intercepted by tiny fireballs that detonate with thunderous reports.

"Is it warping the laws and substances of this world so that they better serve your ends?"

The smouldering ashes falling to the stage gather together, swirling, twisting, and suddenly solidifying into, of all things, a deck of playing cards, from which you draw and reveal a hand.

"Is it calling forth creatures from beyond this world and bending them to your will?"

A swarm of bats, some mostly-ordinary, some unnaturally large, some dripping flame, frost, or crackling tongues of lightning surge up from the stage to swirl about you and over the audience.

"Or is it all... an illusion?"

The bats suddenly become translucent and ghostly, some of them flying to and through little vampire girls' eagerly-outstretched fingers before they shimmer and vanish.

"The answer," you say softly, as if musing upon your own question, "is none of the above. Those are merely applications, the results of magic. They can be achieved by other means. No. Magic. Is..."

The guards react with visible surprise as your voice suddenly becomes perfectly clear to them, and a couple members of the audience proper - namely, Kahlua and Kokoa - glance curiously over their shoulders as your voice suddenly goes SurroundSound. Nobody else indicates that they've noticed, but if two of the girls have, odds are their folks are well aware of the change.

Well. Here's hoping you didn't just get those guards in trouble.

"...the knowledge of how things work, and why." You alter your still-active Spell of Illusion, filling the air with drifting books, their pages flipping rapidly. "It's the determination to get that knowledge, even when doing so is difficult-"

The books pile up, forming wobbling stacks on the stage beside you.

"-or dangerous-"

The stacks topple, "forcing" you to lean back, and sideways, and then forward again.

"-or as boring as sitting through an hour-long lecture-"

Everyone in your age group, as well as Akkiko and Akasha, nods as your books are replaced by images of bland-faced, stuffily-attired professorial types. Even a couple of the guards look sympathetic.

"-and then to apply what you know, even when it's hard. Most of all, though, Magic. Is. Power."

You let your Aura out just a little, adding pressure to your presence, weight to your words.

Gained Din's Favor D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Words of Power C

"The power to bend the odds in your favor, to change the world to what you will, to pursue your hopes and dreams and ensure your freedom. It lets you do nice things for your friends - like, oh, put on spontaneous magic shows - and not-so-nice things for jerks who call up giant squid-"

Briar lets out a yelp when you produce the rather life-like image of Arrogante. She's not the only one; most of the girls squeak, Akasha actually recoils in her chair, looking downright alarmed for an instant, and Sokka... gets this eager glint in his eye?

"-or let evil ninja run loose."

You create the images of half a dozen masked shadow warriors around the audience.

Gained Illusion D

The images are promptly punched, kicked, and shredded by a whip of water that Katara seems to pull out of her leg-wrapping. Again, it's mostly the other kids who are responsible, although Akasha takes a swing at the nearest fake ninja - and promptly goes red in the face when Issa and Gyokuro turn their heads to look at her.

You may have made those a little TOO lifelike...

"But enough expository monologuing," you say, as the stricken shinobi vanish in cartoony clouds of smoke.

With a wordless shout, you create a burning ring of fire that hovers in the air above the stage. This one's no illusion, but a true manifestation of flame, and while the younger members of your audience are oooh-ing and ahhh-ing at it, the adults - and Katara, interestingly enough - are all giving you very intent looks.

Gained Fire Affinity E (Plus) (Plus) (E without Heart of Fire)
Gained Fire Elementalism D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) (D (Plus) without Heart of Fire)

You take a moment to bask in the attention.

"Gentlemen. Ladies." You pause and look at Tatsuki. "And ladies who dress like men."

Tatsuki scowls at you. Her mother laughs.

"It's morphing time."

Then you cast the Spell of Beast Shape, turn into a tiger, and leap through the ring.

You clear the flames without issue.

Your landing, on the other hand, is not so neat. You have zero experience with the exalted state of Being A Cat, and although your spell was relatively advanced, it's still mostly focused on affecting the target's shape, and not truly giving it the nature of the beast.

So, lacking the proper instincts, you end up landing on your face - and your perfect nose! Ow! - and with your hindquarters hanging over your head as you slide across the stage, claws skittering but finding little traction on the smooth wooden surface. There wasn't so much momentum in your leap as to carry you clear off the stage, and you actually come to a stop pretty quickly, but as soon as that happens, you fall over.

After a moment, you let the spell go, and end up laying flat on your back.

You raise on hand into the air. "I meant to do that. Really."

"Yeah, right," Briar says.

Gained Acting C (Plus)

People are laughing. However, the tone of it makes you think that most of them are buying that your pratfall was part of the show, or at least are willing to give you the benefit of the doubt.

Hauling yourself to your feet, you "mutter," "So much for cats always landing on their feet."

That provokes some genuine laughter.

Gained Comedy F

Dismissing the still-burning ring with a gesture - which causes it to go up with a great, hissing plume of multi-colored flame, before it goes out entirely - you face your audience.

"Let's try something a little less physical..."

You consider your plan. The next step was going to be creating an illusory heckler in the audience, but Briar seems to have neatly co-opted that role for you. Plus, you've already shown off a lot of Illusion already. Maybe you could move on?

Yeah, there's really no benefit in creating a critic at this point. Briar has that angle covered, and her remarks are natural and unscripted, which just makes them more entertaining; you can't say the same for any behavior you might program into an illusory double.

"For the next act," you announce, returning to your seat but not yet sitting down, "I shall require a volunteer from the audience."

Several hands shoot up. Kahlua, Sokka, Akkiko - really? - and one of the guards - seriously?

You glance at Briar and Lu-sensei, who didn't so much as budge. "Not volunteering, Briar? Sensei?"

"Nope," Briar answers easily, while your teacher merely shakes his head.

"Thanks for that overwhelming show of support, you two. Really." You sigh, and tap your chest just over your heart. "I feel it right here."

"You'll recover," the fairy and the martial arts master answer in dry unison, to snickers from the rest of the audience.

"Thank you for volunteering, Miss Shuzen." You cast a modified version of the Spell of the Floating Disc, creating several small silvery platforms that hover at differing heights above the ground. "Please, join me."

Kahlua regards your "magic stairs" for a moment, and there is a decidedly tentative air about her when she places her foot on the lowest of the glowing discs. Once it proves steady beneath her, however, she shows no compunctions about ascending the rest of the way.

"Now, then, Miss Shuzen, I ask you - consider this chair." You gesture grandly at your conjured seat. "Would you say it is exactly like the ones provided for the audience?"

"Hmmm..." Kahlua regards the chair for a moment, giving the cushioned seat and back experimental pokes. "It seems to be, yes."

"And would you please confirm, for the rest of the audience, that it is no lighter or heavier than any normal chair of its size, or anchored to the stage or any hidden devices?"

Kahlua hefts the chair easily with one hand, turning it about a few times as she tries to determine if there is, in fact, something attached to it.

"I think I would have to agree with that statement," she finally admits, returning the chair to its original spot.

"Excellent. Now, please stand back - thank you."

You sit yourself down, and cast the modified Spell of Flight. You were considering using the Spell of Levitation, but the limits of that lesser magic wouldn't allow you to carry out the act that you have in mind. As the spell takes hold, you and the chair rise into the air, stopping at a height of about four feet.

"Miss Shuzen, if you would kindly remove the chair?"

Kahlua blinks at you, takes hold of the chair, and gives it a pull.

You allow yourself to be dragged along, affecting a look of confusion and surprise as you glance down.

Sokka laughs.

"Wait, wait - this isn't right." Saying so, you make a show of "stepping" off the chair to one side, then turn in mid-air and stay there, studying the wooden seat intently.

Gained Flight (Magical) E (Plus) (Plus)

"Hmmm... ah-ha! I have it!"

You snap your fingers, tweaking your aura to release a burst of light, and then "sit down" again.

"Right, let's try this from the top. Miss Shuzen, if you would kindly remove the chair?"

Wordlessly, Kahlua pulls the chair out from under you.

Standing on empty air, you make a gesture that proclaims, "Ta-daa!"

Your audience obliges you with applause. You notice that many of their number are looking a bit startled by your airborne state - even the Shuzens look impressed. It's as if they've never seen a flying sorcerer before.

The collective reaction of the vampires gives you an idea, and you straighten up in mid-air as you turn to face Kahlua.

"Miss Shuzen, would you care you to join me?"

Kahlua stares at you blankly for a moment, before her face assumes the same expression of dazzling enthusiasm she wore earlier when you asked her if she'd like you to put on a magic show. She doesn't squeal this time, however, and her obvious eagerness is swiftly followed by a glance at her parents, wordlessly asking permission.

Issa nods, the very picture of the indulgent father.

Gyokuro spends a long moment in thought, before nodding slowly.

Akasha... actually looks a bit envious. You say "a bit" because she's mostly smiling in complete approval of the idea, but Moka, next to her, is clearly jealous. Kokoa, interestingly, doesn't seem nearly as miffed.

"I'd love to!" Kahlua replies.

"Alright," you say, as you descend to the stage next to her. "Hold still and think happy thoughts."

"Don't make me come up there, mister," Briar warns.

You cast another Spell of Flight, letting it manifest with an extra dose of sparkles. Kahlua giggles at the sight, then frowns as the spell takes effect without anything happening. You feel her youki surge a couple of times - small bursts only, nothing significant - and it almost looks like she's about to try jumping in the air before she catches herself.

Gained Elementalism D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Wind Elementalism D

"Are you sure the spell worked, Alex? Or am I doing something wrong?"

You take a minute to explain the particulars of controlling this magic. It doesn't require any additional supernatural energy or physical effort from the subject, just a certain frame of mind. Kahlua is clearly surprised by this, but once she's heard the requirements, it takes very little time at all for her to get the hang of the basics - if anything, she's doing better than you did the first time you took to the air, which makes you think some of her practice in jumping off empty air may have carried over. Or perhaps she has experience with some other form of non-mechanized flight?

Regardless, an idea occurs to you, and you float up to where Kahlua is in the middle of pulling up from a sharp dive, spinning about laterally as she goes, laughing all the way. Seeing you approach, she gets herself under control with only a minor amount of wobbling.

"Yes, Alex?"

You bow. "Would you care to dance, Miss Shuzen?"

Gained King of Women C (Plus)

You'll take the way her face lights up as a yes.

Kahlua curtseys in mid-air and takes your extended hand, and the pair of you proceed to dance about in the air. You know very little about the specifics of the art form, but Kahlua has definitely had lessons - lots of lessons - and in short order she's taken the lead and is guiding you across the sky. You're in more than good enough shape to follow along, though you suspect it's a good thing you're airborne.

You say as much out loud, and Kahlua asks, "What makes you say that?"

"Well, at least this way, I'm not stepping on your feet."

She blinks, and then giggles.

Gained Dancing F (Plus)

When the hairs on the back of your neck begin to stand up, you will yourself to stop moving. This has the direct result of dragging Kahlua to a halt as well, and she looks rather surprised at the sudden stop - and then she looks at your abruptly-wary expression.

"Alex? What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure," you reply, releasing the girl's hands and half-turning in mid-air. "Something feels... off?"

Gained Mental Sense E (Plus) (Plus)

You glance at the audience, but the sense of "threat" isn't coming from them. The adults all seem to have been tolerantly amused by your impromptu offer to dance with Kahlua, and while Moka still looks a bit jealous, neither she nor any of the other kids are radiating envy or aggression or anything like that. The guards are clear, Altria isn't-

-oh.

It would appear that the Drake party has arrived early, and quietly enough that you didn't notice. Altria is once again dressed in blue, this time in the form of a jacket and skirt which are decidedly more, well, "girly" than what she was wearing back at the tournament, and also fairly formal. Even so, she's a pale shadow of femininity next to the woman in the red dress standing next to and slightly behind her. This has to be Lucia, and you must say, the resemblance between mother and daughter is downright uncanny, although where Altria is all British reserve even as she visibly struggles not to gape at you and Kahlua, Lucia is smiling up at the pair of you in a way that makes you nervous.

The middlingly-tall, broad-shouldered man just getting out of the fine-looking car behind the pair is a stranger to you, but between his suit and the way he carries himself, he projects an aura that you can only describe as Proper British Gentlemanliness. His clean-shaven face is not unlined, and that plus the grey creeping in at his temples suggests he's closer to middle-aged than not, but unlike some men of his age and overall build that you know, he seems to have stayed in shape.

Altria's father, you suppose.

There's also a uniformed driver, who's unloading the trunk - or do the British call it something else? Well, whatever; he's got three fair-sized suitcases out, and is reaching for what you presume is a fourth.

And none of these people are the source of the imminent doom you sense.

No, that honor is reserved for Ambrose, dressed in long robes that you'd consider to be "formal wizard wear" if not for the ongoing Hawaiian-print riot of colors, as he looks up at you with a cheerful smile, and waves.

You find your hand rising to return Ambrose's gesture almost reflexively.

"I'm a little fuzzy on the particulars for a situation like this, Kahlua," you admit in a low voice. "Should we stop here and go down to say hello to the new arrivals?"

From the way Kahlua takes a quick glance over her shoulder at her parents before answering, you get the impression she's not entirely sure how to behave in this situation, either. Fair enough; you have trouble believing that "What to do when guests arrive while you're dancing in mid-air" is anything like a common topic in etiquette classes.

"Um. Well, Mother, Father, and Miss Akasha are the ones who should say hello, but since they're not moving just yet-"

You look for yourself, and sure enough, the elder vampires haven't left their seats, although Gyokuro is visibly considering the Drakes, while Issa and Altria's father appear to have locked gazes and engaged in a battle of wills.

"-I should probably get back to my seat, and you should go on with the show," Kahlua concludes. "Though you might want to conjure up a few more chairs, if it's going to take much longer."

You nod to Kahlua, take her hand, and lead the way back to the stage.

"Let's have a round of applause for Miss Shuzen, everyone!"

Kahlua does a double-take in your direction, then blushes as the audience obliges your request. There is a certain air of pleased embarassment about her as she quickly returns to her seat, where she glares at you over a bright smile.

"Now then, it appears that I've committed the cardinal entertainer's sin of failing to prepare for a large enough audience. Fortunately, I have spells for that."

You turn to face your chair and cast the Spell of Shattering. With a loud, ringing tone, the chair flies apart into dozens of irregularly-shaped and -sized pieces, which you begin to levitate about randomly by means of a simple cantrip. Adding a constellation of ghostly lights and a low chorus of indistinct chanting via two additional cantrips, you proceed to cast the same modified version of the Spell of Minor Creation that you used to produce the stage and seats earlier, causing four more upholstered chairs to take shape amidst the swirling debris. Once the chairs are complete, you telekinetically lift them as a group and float them over the heads of the rest of your audience to the "back row," where the Drakes have approached during your little bout of showmanship.

Altria and her father nod politely as they take their seats.

Lucia regards her chair for a moment, frowns, and then turns to Ambrose, who has been studying his seat with a similar expression. With a wave of the staff in his left hand, Ambrose transforms Lucia's chair into a much more plush and comfortable-looking seat, and then turns his own seat into - oh, good grief - some kind of eldritch throne, complete with snarling monstrous faces, clawed feet, a gilded frame, and sparkling objects that might actually be jewels.

Ambrose settles into his throne - which promptly reveals that it is also a recliner, propping his feet up and letting him lean back - and grins when he sees he has your attention.

You kind of want to hex the old man right now. You don't think anyone would blame you.

You give a moment's thought to retaliating against Ambrose's antics, perhaps by giving him a crown to complete the image of a wizard-king on his throne, introducing him as your lovely decrepit assistant and calling him up to the stage, or even by creating some illusions to heckle him.

Then you remember that the whole point of trolling is to provoke a response - ideally, an angry one, but counter-trolling is a perfectly acceptable outcome, as long as you successfully counter-counter-troll - and decide that the best way you can handle this situation is by summarily ignoring the wizard and going on with the show.

And so you do.

Ambrose pouts.

Gained Trolling D

"For my next act," you proclaim, taking the deck of cards you transmuted back during your opening routine out of your dimensional pocket, "a variation on a classic. I have here a deck of fifty-two playing cards, unmarked either physically or magically."

You fan the cards out, letting everyone see them, then shuffle the deck and "hand off" the cards to an invisible assistant - really just using the Mage Hand cantrip - directing the deck down to (from your perspective) the right-hand side of the front row. Gyokuro's seat, incidentally.

"I would like to request that each member of the audience take one card from any part of the deck, and then pass the deck along. Feel free to examine the cards, shuffle the deck, or show your chosen card to your neighbors - just don't reveal the card you've chosen to me."

Mrs. Shuzen regards the floating deck of cards for a moment before taking them in hand, shuffling them in a remarkable high-speed display of manual dexterity, and then drawing a card from near the middle of the pack. Then she passes the lot on to Issa, who takes the bottom card and hands the deck off to Akasha. In due course, the diminishing deck makes its way through the audience - Briar getting a little assistance from Tatsuki - with Sokka passing the cards back to Altria.

As the cards make the rounds, you spare a moment to consider which Divination spell you should use to identify people's cards.

You decide to go with Locate Object, with a few adjustments. Normally, this spell allows you to search for a specific object at a base distance of several hundred feet, in all directions at once; you don't need to scan nearly that far to find your intended targets, all of which are more or less "ahead" of you. Trimming the excessive range and area variables down to something more suitable for your needs frees up enough room in the spell's matrix for you to open up the targeting parameters, letting you search for multiple objects in a single pass - albeit ones that are all of the same basic type - and furthermore, to alter which particular objects - within that basic type - the spell is seeking at any given moment.

That done, you cast your spell, searching first for cards from the suit of spades. The deck, still making its way down the front row, obligingly returns a positive result, as does the card in Issa's hand. You make a note of that by using a simple cantrip to write "Issa - spades" in glowing letters on the stage by your feet, then switch over to scanning for numbers.

Issa's card returns a positive response for the ace as soon as you think of it.

Having identified that card unexpectedly quickly, you search next for clubs - Kahlua has one, which turns out to be the eight, and in the process of scanning for that, you also determine that Gyokuro's card is a five.

Incidentally, when your spell "pings" off Mrs. Shuzen's card, she glances in your direction. Evidently your mana concealment skill still needs work, though it's good enough as-is that nobody else appears to have noticed what you're doing.

Well, nobody except Ambrose, who's giving you a smug look as he waits for the cards to make their way to him.

He's going to do SOMETHING to make this difficult for you, you just know it.

In any event, you continue scanning and making notes of who has what card, periodically going back to suits and numbers you've previously searched for as the deck continues through the crowd. Finally, Ambrose takes his card, and levitates the remainder of the deck back to you.

"Thank you," you say, as you easily catch the slowly-incoming pack of cards.

You proceed to identify each person's card in turn, starting with Gyokuro and going down the front row, giving yourself time to finish up the scans of the back row. It's a little tricky to be constantly adjusting the spell on the fly while keeping up your performance, but you manage well enough.

You've just finished naming Sokka's card - the jack of clubs - when you notice that something is wrong with your spell.

Ambrose's card isn't reacting to it.

Maintaining your act, you command your Divination spell to quickly cycle through the four suits, and then follow up by trying to locate the jokers. Each time, Ambrose's card fails to return any kind of result, leading you to suspect that he's placed a Spell of Nondetection (or something equivalent to it) over his card.

Yeah, no. Trying to match magics with Ambrose is the sort of action that's pretty much guaranteed to end in tears and flames, and possibly flaming tears.

Instead, you'll bypass the old man's power entirely, and solve this problem by means of a force older and even greater than that of magic - your brain.

In the midst of continuing your act - Katara has the two of diamonds - you cast the Spell of Prestidigitation and use it to scatter the remaining playing cards in the air next to you. You then begin sorting the deck according to suit and value, leaving spaces for those cards you know to have been picked by other members of the audience.

Simple enough on its own, this task is complicated somewhat by your need to keep up your showmanship and continue magically-identifying those cards you're still able to scan with your modified Spell to Detect Objects. Fortunately, you're equal to the challenge.

Gained Concentration B (Plus) (Plus)

"And now, at last, we come to Mr. Ambrose," you announce. "For those in the audience who have not had the... experience... of meeting him, Mr. Ambrose is, in fact, a wizard. As a result, he has taken steps to conceal his card from me. HOWEVER!" you add abruptly, as some of your audience start to frown at the bad sportsmanship. "This has merely delayed my discovery of the card that he picked from the deck! Behold!"

With a simple twist of will, you cause the free-floating deck of cards to turn about in mid-air, faces revealed to the audience.

"As you can see, I have here thirty-eight cards out of the fifty-four that were originally part of the deck - thirty-seven cards from the various suits, plus one of the two jokers. In addition-"

For effect, you cast a Spell of Minor Illusion, creating visual replicas of the cards held by the other members of the audience in their proper places amidst the aerial deck.

"-I have already determined the values of fifteen of the remaining sixteen cards. Thus, using no magic but the simple process of elimination, I can deduce that the card Ambrose selected from the deck was, in fact, the ace of clubs!"

Everyone looks at Ambrose.

Ambrose does not sulk, instead holding up his card and turning it around to reveal, as predicted, the ace of clubs.

Gained Puzzling E (Plus)

There is a round of applause.

You were originally considering some kind of grand finish for your performance, like maybe turning into a dragon. However, between the large amount of mana you've spent on the entire production (and your desire to have plenty of gas in the tank when you inevitably spar with Kahlua), Ambrose's presence in the audience and demonstrated willingness to interfere with your act, and the fact that you've already used transformation magic as part of the routine, you decide to drop that idea.

You face the audience and announce, "Due to circumstances arising mostly from my own carelessness, I find that I have no ending for this segment, so instead, I will simply take a small bow."

And you do so, letting the "stage light" spell and other attendant special effects drop. The applause for your card-trick act pauses while you speak, but then resumes - albeit with a few disappointed faces among the younger members of the audience.

"Well, then," Akasha says. "That was very enlightening, Alexander."

"Indeed," Gyokuro agrees. "Thank you for the demonstration."

"Um, this may be a dumb question," Sokka says then, "but... what happens to the stage and the chairs?"

Most of the audience glance at him, then at their seats.

"I was planning to get rid of them as soon as nobody was in danger of getting dropped on their backside," you admit, hopping down from the stage. "I mean, they'll disperse eventually anyway, but I am a guest, so it'd be kind of rude to leave my stuff cluttering up the yard."

"True enough," Issa agrees, getting to his feet. "And speaking of guests... hello, Arthur."

Wait, what?

"Issa," Altria's father replies. "We missed you in Singapore."

They know each other?

"No, you didn't."

Arthur Drake smiles at that. It is not a friendly expression, and neither is the smile that Issa answers it with. The tension between the two patriarchs is such that you can all but SEE the lightning crackling between them.

Oh, dear.

You take a quick look around. Lucia and Akasha are both sighing at the behavior of their respective menfolk, while Gyokuro has arched an eyebrow in curiosity. Lu-sensei's face is bland, posture relaxed - he's ready to act if the simmering tension boils over into violence - and Ambrose and Akkiko are watching eagerly, their expressions suggesting they regret the lack of popcorn. Altria and the Shuzen sisters all look similarly surprised, Tatsuki is looking back and forth like she doesn't know who to root for, and Sokka is quietly wheeling Katara's chair back. Smart boy.

Several people jump when you clap your hands together.

Doing your best to ignore the accusing looks, you smile. "Hi, Altria! Good to see you again."

"Ah... you as well, Alex."

"Sorry about starting the show without you," you apologize, "but it was kind of a spur-of-the-moment thing, and from what Kahlua said, I wasn't expecting you until later, like sometimes towards lunch."

"No need to apologize, Alex, dear," Lucia says. "Our early arrival is entirely Ambrose's doing."

The wizard grins cheerfully, doing nothing to deny the charge or to look the least bit repentant. Instead, he looks at Arthur and Issa. "So, are you boys going to take the graceful way out the lad's provided for you, or will the women-folk have to step in?"

Both men glare at Ambrose, but can't quite hide their sidelong glances at the aforementioned females.

Unsurprisingly, a round of introductions ensues. In the midst of it, Ambrose greets Briar, and then makes a point of introducing her to Altria's parents, both of whom can apparently perceive her just fine.

That's somewhat surprising - and it also visibly frustrates Sokka.

You decide to hold your peace for now.

Towards the end of the meetings and greetings, Gyokuro suggests to Kahlua - in a perfectly pleasant manner that nonetheless carries the clear tone of parental command - that now would probably be a good time to make any last-minute preparations for the planned trip to Fang Cave. Kahlua takes the hint and starts gathering up her sisters and younger guests-

"Oooo, what's this?" Ambrose inquires brightly. "A quest?"

"More of a sightseeing tour," Kahlua admits, regarding the wizard with more caution than you've seen from her. You don't blame her. "Just up into the hills and down into a cave."

"I see, I see." The old man nods. "Perhaps I should tag along-"

"Leave the children alone, Ambrose," Lucia says, without looking away from her light, casual conversation with Akasha. The pair have placed themselves fairly firmly between Arthur and Issa, forcing the two obviously less-than-friendly gentlemen to maintain a safe distance, while shooting each other dark looks over the heads of the ladies.

Gyokuro and Akkiko appear to find this amusing. Lu-sensei mostly seems resigned to it.

"But shouldn't they have a chaperone?" Ambrose questions guilelessly.

"Briar doesn't count?" you wonder aloud.

Ambrose considers that. "Not really, no. Nothing personal, my dear, but you're outnumbered eight to one, outmassed by about eight thousand, and heading into what is, for you, Terra Incognita."

Briar makes a sound of wry acknowledgement at this, even as Sokka nods sagely and the gathered girls glare at the old man.

"Plus it just seems terribly unfair to expect you to mind the whole lot of them, when you already have your hands full with this one," Ambrose adds, waving his staff at you in a lazy gesture that has you leaning back sharply, briefly haunted by shades of Enlightenment.

Lucia looks thoughtful. "Well, when you put it that way..." The other adults seem to be having similar sentiments.

As it looks like you're going to be stuck with an adult, do you have a particular preference?

"I vote for Lu-sensei," you say.

There is a general blink, including from your teacher - though where everybody else seems to be asking why, your teacher appears more focused on weighing the pros and cons of a sudden trip into vampire-owned wilderness with a bunch of brats, against those of hanging out with the other adults.

From the way Lu-sensei is carefully not looking at nor too far away from the gathered parents (and Ambrose), you get the impression that he's giving SERIOUS consideration to tagging along with you.

"Really?" Ambrose says. "You're going to drag your frail old master over the hills and through the woods and into the lightless depths of the Earth, with a rowdy collection of pre-teens?"

Lu-sensei snorts. "I would not be so quick to talk about age and frailty if I were you, Ambrose."

"Bah! I'll have you know I'm in better shape than most men a quarter of my age."

"And yet, I could walk you into the dirt."

"Why walk when I have magic?"

Getting the sense that the two old men may be at this for a bit, you turn to Kahlua and quietly inquire about laying in a supply of cold drinks. When you mention storing them in your expanded pocket where they'll stay nice and cool and undisturbed, she's all for the idea.

How many drinks will you bring?

And do you have a preference for the contents?

You ask around for preferences when it comes to drinks. The Shuzen sisters unilaterally request tomato juice, while Altria, Briar, and Tatsuki favor fruit juice - which is kind of the same thing, if you're one of those strange people who consider the tomato a fruit instead of a vegetable. Katara and Sokka request water, though Sokka adds that he should probably fetch his "warrior's kit" from his room, his sister surprising you by stating her complete agreement and desire for her own "travel things."

Since you're planning to carry heavy, you decide to stick with fruit juice yourself.

"How about you, Sensei?"

"-actually have experience handling groups of children," your teacher is saying to Ambrose.

"Mundane American children," Ambrose returns dismissively. "Try your luck with a class of entry-level reality-warpers, and then come and talk to me about 'experience.'"

Wow, they're really getting into it.

"Uh, hey?" you try.

"-have any idea what's actually involved in the old styles?" Lu-sensei asks.

"Hello?"

"-you do about what's required for a serious study of magic," Ambrose shoots back.

"You have met my star student, remember? Or has the senil-"

"Hey!" Sokka shouts. "Old guys!"

Said old guys break off to scowl at the source of the interruption. Unrepentant, Sokka indicates you with an out-turned thumb. Their attention turns to you, and you clear your throat.

"Uh... yeah. Any preference for drinks, Lu-sensei?"

"Fruit juice would be fine, Alex," your master answers, upon hearing the selection.

"Save your energy, lad," Ambrose adds. "I'll bring my own."

...you take a moment to quietly invoke Din, and ask if Ambrose is actually going to come along uninvited.

The Goddess of Power is silent.

There's nothing remarkable about that, really, but you still can't help but take it as a bad omen.

Whatever your feelings, Kahlua has already sent one of the guards back inside the castle, double-time. Perhaps ten minutes later, the man returns looking only slightly winded, carrying a mid-sized cooler and with two leather belts hanging over his shoulder. The belts have a distinctive style that matches well with the Water Tribe kids' tribal-style clothing: attached to one is a large waterskin that sloshes with every step the guard takes; and the other is lined with several small pouches, a strap for some kind of club-thing that looks like carved bone or ivory, and... a boomerang?

"Weapons?" Altria says, one eyebrow raised. "Is that necessary?"

"For a walk in vampire country?" Sokka replies, as he takes the belts from the guard. "Abso-freakin'-lutely."

"I see." She turns to her parents. "Mother, father. May I?"

"Of course!" Lucia replies cheerfully.

"As long as our... hosts have no objections," Arthur adds.

"None whatsoever," Akasha replies, before Issa can.

Altria bows her head slightly to Lady Bloodriver before turning to the wizard. "Ambrose, if you would?"

A moment later, Altria has a sword sheathed at her side. She checks its position and adjusts it slightly, getting a feel for the weight and balance, before nodding and thanking her tutor.

"Does anyone need anything else?" Kahlua asks, looking around.

"Just a minute," you say, before opening up the cooler and transfering the drinks to your dimensional pocket. They'll keep perfectly fine in there, and this way, you save a little mana by not having to stow the cooler and the ice it contains.

That done, you turn to Lu-sensei. "Would you like me to cast that spell from yesterday again, Sensei?"

"Actually, hold off on that for now, Alex," your master replies, with a sharp glance at Ambrose. "I believe I have a point to make first."

Ambrose regards the two of you curiously, but for a wonder, doesn't comment. Yet.

You're not going to complain; more mana is saved this way.

Finally, you reach into your pocket and draw forth your Blessed Sword. The spell you cast to summon it the weekend before last still hasn't ended, and you're beginning to wonder if it ever will, without someone taking a hand and disrupting the magic. Seriously, the default method of calling your blade to you is a 3rd-circle spell, and lasts for around an hour, but you used a near-7th-circle variation of that spell this time around. Given the way your spells tend to scale...

Dismissing the thought for now, you use up some of the mana you saved by not pocketing the cooler or casting the Spell of Age Resistance on Lu-sensei to conjure yourself a sword-belt, from which you hang your sheathed sword.

"Right," you say, facing the group. "I'm ready."

"I'm starting to feel underdressed for this," Tatsuki mutters, eyeing your blade, and then Altria and Sokka's weapons in turn, before studying her empty hands.

"Hey, Ambrose." You gesture to Tatsuki. "Do you think you could help Tatsuki out a bit, weaponwise?"

"...oh, why not? What's your preference, girl?"

Tatsuki blinks at the two of you for a second, then seriously considers the offer. "Honestly, I'm most comfortable just using my hands and feet."

Ambrose nods and proceeds to cast a spell. You watch carefully, keeping your senses in passive mode out of "politeness," but still perfectly able to register the energies the old man is manipulating. It's like he's not even bothering to hide what he's doing with the magic.

The spell Ambrose has chosen is one of Augmentation, and as you observe, you see it take on a structure very similar to your own Spell of Magic Weapons -actually, forget "similar." It's the same spell. The only differences you can note are little idiosyncracies of personal style, and of course, the overall level of power being brought to bear. You're very, very good for your age, but Ambrose is just flat-out better.

The magic settles over Tatsuki as a cloud of sparkling motes, which judging from the stares and appreciative murmurs, everybody else can see just fine. The pinpricks of light descend en masse, forming a second skin around Tatsuki that flashes once, brightly, and then fades from view in the mundane spectrum. That's probably just as well; what you perceive through Mage Sight is intense enough that, if it were actual light, it might be making the vampires uncomfortable.

As the glow fades, Tatsuki studies her hands and then adopts a stance, taking a few experimental punches and a single kick. Her limbs slide through the air with a smoothness and force you didn't see when their owner was sparring with Sokka yesterday, and from the way Tatsuki's face splits into a sharp-toothed grin, she's noticed and very much likes the upgrade. She actually turns and bows to Ambrose, who returns the gesture politely.

Then he glances sidelong at you, and smirks.

You know that you could have cast that spell, and the way Ambrose did it basically showed you nothing about magic that you didn't already know - and he knows that you know.

Jerk.

Well, at least Tatsuki seems happy.

The last preparations made, your group sets out for Fang Cave. You'd wondered, briefly, how Katara and her wheelchair would hold up to bouncing along the countryside, but as it turns out, the chair is being left behind, and Katara is instead catching a lift from her brother, piggyback style. Although his sister isn't that big, a human boy Sokka's size probably wouldn't be able to pick her up, and certainly not for the length of this trip, but he seems to have no issue with it. Even so, you can't really see him fighting very well, if at all, with a passenger.

Incidentally, when Kokoa sees how the Water Tribe siblings plan to make your little journey, she immediately tugs on Moka's shirt and - when her sister looks down - points and pouts.

Moka sighs reluctantly, but shortly afterwards, there are two piggyback riders among your group.

The sight makes your shoulders give a momentary twinge of gratitude that you left Zelda at home.

How do you wish to behave during this little trek?

Sokka's remark about taking a walk in vampire territory and the generally trend towards arming up it touched off have you thinking it'd be best to be cautious as your group proceeds into the grounds of the Shuzen estate. Not so much that you come off as rude, a scaredy-cat, or a stick in the mud, of course, just enough that you'll be ready if and when something pops up.

Or when Ambrose starts meddling again. Whichever comes first.

After maybe ten minutes on the go, your group has found its collective stride, and spaced out into a loose marching formation. Kahlua's in the lead, of course, and Tatsuki is keeping pace to her left - the two of them appear to be talking about something, though the distance and the sounds of a bunch of kids on the go make it hard for you to pick up more than a word or two. Something about punches, which really comes as no surprise. Altria is to Kahlua's right and does not appear to be taking part in the discussion - which is good for you, since you've been meaning to talk to her.

You nod briefly as you move up in the group, passing Sokka, Moka, and their respective younger sisters. There doesn't appear to be any talking going on here. For Katara and Kokoa, it makes sense; there's an age gap of a good three or four years, and Katara is a very new aquaintance besides. Kokoa probably just doesn't feel comfortable talking to her. A similar divide exists between the elder siblings, and is widened by the difference in gender - plus Moka isn't exactly the chatty type.

Sokka gives you a nod of acknowledgement as you pass, and you return it in kind.

Briar, of course, is once again hitching a ride on your shoulder, which just leaves Lu-sensei and Ambrose bringing up the rear... and as you catch up with the lead group, it occurs to you that you've voluntarily turned your back on Ambrose.

Well, here's hoping.

"Something wrong, Alex?" Altria asks, as you fall in alongside her.

"Just the belated realization that Ambrose is behind me," you answer.

"I know the feeling," she says, with wry sympathy. "If it makes you feel any better, he is unlikely to do anything to amuse himself, so long as he has your master to quarrel with."

"I know I should feel bad about throwing my teacher to the wizard," you sigh, "but somehow, I just can't seem to muster any regrets." You fall silent for a moment. "So, how have you been, since last we spoke? Ambrose take over Hell yet?"

Is it your imagination, or did Kahlua just twitch?

"Thankfully, he appears to have decided to limit his activities on that front to observation," Altria replies. "He described the dimension in question a few days ago. How did he put it? 'Packs of roving beasts, feuding individuals of some personal but no political power, a handful of clan-holds barely past rug-furnished-caves - entirely uninteresting, and not worth the effort.'"

And somebody apparently dumped Ambrose in a place like that? You wonder what they were thinking. Trying to bore him to death, maybe?

"He seemed rather disappointed, all told," Altria continues. "He was just starting to get bored again when Mother and Father decided they'd both be accompanying me to the party, and, well..."

"Here you all are." You shrug. "Well, on the plus side, at least it means you got a chance to carry a sword and get some practice in with it."

"A silver lining," Altria agrees, more cheerfully than before.

From there, the two of you start talking swords. Short swords, long swords, broad swords, small swords, swords with personal names, swords with general type-names, swords with silly names, swords with names that are words you're not supposed to know or use, Western swords, Eastern swords, Middle-Eastern swords, Bronze Age swords, Iron Age swords, Medieval swords, Renaissance swords, styles for fighting with swords, care and maintenance of swords, forging swords, swords, swords, swords.

It's clearly a topic that is near and dear to Altria's heart.

For no apparent reason, you think briefly of Archer.

Gained Knowledge (Swords) F (Plus)

Of course, at no point in the discussion of all things swordy do either of you attempt to draw your own weapons. Younger or less-experienced students of the blade might do foolish things like swing wildly around, not caring for what or who they might hit, but you and Altria are both too well-trained to be so reckless or disrespectful of live steel.

...assuming either of these blades actually IS forged from steel. You're not entirely clear on the Blessed Sword's composition, and Ambrose has enough connections with the Fae that he might have passed Altria a blade made of some iron-substitute alloy.

The two of you are just getting into the merits of one-handed versus two-handed grips when you get a sense of being watched from somewhere off to your right, away from the group.

Honing your senses, you continue your chat with Altria, trying to steer the discussion in a direction that will let you make a "strike" with your sheathed blade, aimed at whatever it is you sense lurking nearby. You consider trying to sample the air for a telltale scent, but there's no real wind this morning, and without a helpful breeze to carry smells to you, you'd only be likely to pick up anything by olfactory means if the source was exceptionally pungent, or you walked right into it.

Neither appears to be the case.

As you talk with Altria, you notice that you aren't the only one who's noticed that something is off. The blonde has casually loosened her sword in its scabbard and is very gradually moving apart from you, just far enough so that both of you will have room to draw if need be. You can't quite make out Kahlua's response, if any, as her profile is obscured beyond Altria's, and Tatsuki is likewise hidden behind her. Everyone else is behind you-

"What's that over there?"

-which doesn't stop you from overhearing Katara's clearly-voiced question. Or from sensing how, as if in response to her inquiry, the feeling of watchfulness shifts to alarm.

"Is she pointing where I think she's pointing?" you ask Altria, shifting your blade idly in the direction of the presence you picked up.

The blonde glances over her shoulder. "...yes."

Well, so much for the subtle approach.

Your thoughts are interrupted by an unpleasant squishing, sucking sound coming from up ahead. Before your eyes, a bright blue mass oozes out from behind a tall bush. Its dimensions are uncertain, shifting and wobbling like runny Jello as the thing's substance does, but it's a good three feet across at its broadest and better than half that in height.

You blink. "Is that a Zol?"

For a moment, it does indeed appear to be one of the unpleasant little slime monsters native to the murkier parts of Hyrule. It even has the primitive "eyes," blank spots that are less proper organs and more clusters of light-sensitive cells. The words are barely out of your mouth, however, when you realize that this creature has certain traits no Zol ever has.

Specifically, something approaching an actual face, split by a vapid smile.

"No, Alex," Altria replies as she draws her blade, "that would be a Slime."

...you have to admit, it's an apt name.

Having fully revealed itself, the Slime oozes forward, leaving a shiny slick on the ground behind it and prompting a handful of disgusted noises from your group - though not from any of the Shuzens, you note.

The Slime draws near.

"Is it worth attempting diplomacy?" you inquire, tilting your sheathed sword at an angle so that you can grasp the hilt properly with your free hand. "Or should we just attack it?"

"Oh, by all means, attack," Kahlua says.

There's a note of suppressed humor in her voice that you have to wonder about, but since she's given you the go-ahead, you decide to make use of it, and step forward to meet the advancing monster.

The Blessed Sword seems to hum as you draw it - and then it DEFINITELY starts to hum as you focus energy into it, creating a faintly-glowing nimbus as the power builds around the blade. You can feel Altria's startled look from your left, to say nothing of the similar reactions - and a startled squawk from Sokka - coming from the rest of the group.

About the only one that doesn't noticeably react to your shining weapon is the Slime itself, which closes the distance and attacks, flinging its amorphous mass at you in a move that is half limbless leap, half gooey bodycheck.

You sidestep to the right, and the Slime goes sailing past, landing on the ground between you and Altria.

Gained Evasion D

You can hear a faint sizzle coming from the creature, and you wonder briefly what the cause might be, but then you feel a distinctive shift in the energy wrapped about your sword.

It's time.

Grasping the Blessed Sword with both hands, you hold it to your right side, gleaming blade roughly parallel to the ground and tip aimed at the shifting form of the Slime. Then you thrust forward, releasing the Sword Beam.

Gained Sword Beam E

The air is split by that distinctive high-pitched shriek, but only for the brief instant the condensed energy projectile needs to cross the paltry distance between you and your target. A last-second recognition of danger and attempt to dodge mean that the Slime is struck a bit to the left of dead-center, but the blow is otherwise clean.

What happens next, however, is decidedly not.

Evidently unable to handle the sudden influx of focused force, the Slime's gelatinous body explodes. The good news is that most of the blast is directed away from the point of origin - which is to say, you - but the bad news is that everything in a rough sixty-degree arc going back a good ten feet is now spattered with steaming blue goo.

This happens to include Altria, Kahlua, and Sokka.

Whoops.

You have defeated the Slime. And also made a great mess, but the important thing is, you won. Easily, even.

There is a moment of stunned silence all around. Then it is broken, by Sokka.

"Eeeewwww," the other boy slowly exclaims, shifting underneath his particularly-thick coat of Slime guts with unpleasant squishing sounds.

You sheepishly scratch the back of your head, feeling more than a touch embarrassed by this unexpected outcome. In hindsight, it seems pretty clear that Kahlua was expecting some kind of messy consequence to befall you when you went at the Slime. This... was almost certainly NOT what she had in mind.

"This was a new dress," Kahlua mumbles.

"Um, yeah," you mutter. "I could clean that up for you, if you don't mind?"

Kahlua makes a faint whimpering sound.

"Please do?" Altria replies.

You quickly cast the Spell of Prestidigitation. "Right. Um... this may tickle a bit."

Kahlua doesn't visibly react to the spell at first, although as the sludge begins breaking up and floating away, she takes notice. Once her hands are clean, she takes a moment to inspect the material of her dress - fortunately, either the material is highly stain-resistant or Slime doesn't set in too quickly, as there's not even a hint of a blue stain. That appears to reassure the vampire girl, though she then blinks, raises her hands to her hair, and quickly spins about to face Tatsuki.

"How's my hair look?"

Tatsuki's expression says she has NO idea how to answer this. "Um... fine?"

Kahlua gasps and turns to her sisters, crying out, "Moka! H-h-how bad is it?"

"Your hair is the same as it was before the Slime got into it, Sister," Moka says firmly.

"...really?"

Meanwhile, you've moved on to cleaning the gunk off Altria. Katara - apparently completely shielded from the blast by Sokka - is doing the same for her brother, using the water from that skin. Incidentally, it appears that Katara's legs work well enough when she needs to stand on her own, although she is considerably less well-balanced than anyone else in the group.

"Not going to lie," Sokka notes, as the Slime-choked water swirls over him in time with the scrubbing motions of his little sister's hands. "That? Was about the fifth most disgusting thing that's ever happened to me." Then he grins at you. "That bit with the glowy, shooty sword, though? That was awesome."

And he even gives you a thumbs-up.

"I heard sizzling when the Slime hit the grass," you say. "Is everyone okay?"

"Apart from being grossed out, you mean?" Tatsuki wonders aloud. Her tone is not that of someone who is particularly grossed out - or even a little disgusted - but then again, she was far enough off to your right to be mostly out of the cone of flying goo, and behind Kahlua besides.

"Slimes secrete a pre-digestive enzyme through their membrane," Ambrose explains from where he and Lu-sensei have been standing since the beginning of this encounter. "It acts like acid on most organic matter, and is their only real form of attack."

You are not the only one to give the wizard an alarmed look as he explains that you have just splashed ACID all over three of your companions.

"Slime acid also breaks down almost instantly on contact with air or exposure to heat," Moka says in a clinical tone. "Being... exploded... will probably have sped up the process."

"That, too," Ambrose admits easily.

...oh. Okay. Wow, dodged a bullet there.

"Alright," you sigh. "Kahlua, Altria, Sokka? I apologize for that. I didn't know Slimes were so... reactive... when they died."

"You don't have Slimes on the Hellmouth?" Moka inquires.

"Not that I've ever seen or heard of," you admit. "Which doesn't mean there aren't any there... Briar?"

"I've never run across any of them, either. Probably just as well; I seem to recall hearing that Slimes are formed when liquefied organic matter soaks up a certain amount of magical energy. If that's true-"

"It is," Ambrose, Moka, Kahlua, and Altria say at once.

"-then I really don't want to meet any of them that were native to the Hellmouth."

You take a moment to consider the sort of "liquefied organic matter" that might exist on the Hellmouth, and the nature of the local magical energy, which you've already seen come close to re-animating preserved animal corpses.

Yeah, no. No Hell Slimes for you, please and thank you.

"Anyway," you continue, "if and when we end up encountering more Slimes, I'll be more careful about where the goo ends up. Okay?"

"Please do," Altria says.

Sokka nods at your words, and just like that, appears to consider the matter closed. Lu-sensei's approving nod - and the absence of the Enlightenment Stick - sends a similar message.

Kahlua, who is still fingering her hair, gives you a wary look that says her feelings on the issue are somewhat different.

Still, group harmony appears more or less restored, and you once again set out.

You decide to maintain your position in the front line, though you do fall back a bit and try to keep Altria between yourself and Kahlua as much as possible.

Considering that you're a head taller than the British blonde and more broadly built in every other direction, this doesn't work out too well, but Kahlua seems content to ignore you for the time being.

Ouch.

The walk continues in silence for a time, a certain tension lingering in the air between you and Kahlua, and finally, Altria decides to break it.

"So, Alex," she asks. "What was that technique you used on the Slime?"

"Sword Beam," you reply.

Altria considers that, and nods slowly. "Fitting," she admits. "This may be a bit presumptuous of me, but would you object to showing me how it's done?"

"I don't mind," you answer. It's not like it's a secret technique or anything, it's just that not too many people ever figure out the trick. Most folks who see a Sword Beam assume that the wielder is pouring mana or "life-force" into the blade until it reaches some kind of critical mass, and then letting it fly. The fact that you need to be in full health to properly execute the technique only reinforces the impression that it's ki you're throwing around, but that's not quite the truth.

Powering up the Sword Beam is actually much closer to how a spellcaster channels ambient magical energy into a spell, rather than expending their own power - hence the charge time, and how you can fire them off more or less without limit as long as you don't get hurt. That said, what you're channeling isn't just mana, but also ki - specifically, that little extra bit of life-force given off by your body when you're at the peak of health and wellness. THAT is why you need to be at full strength to perform a Sword Beam. Otherwise, fully half of the power you're trying to tap into is diverted elsewhere, fueling the body's attempts to heal injury, fight off infection, and withstand fatigue or deprivation.

In truth, it wouldn't take much to modify the Sword Beam technique so that it was fueled by your reserves of ki and mana. The Knights of Hyrule never took it that far, largely because most of them didn't have the internal reserves to spare. Those who had mana of that degree usually became wizards instead, and there weren't many ki adepts in Hyrule or its neighboring lands, so the training that allowed a body to function normally on reduced levels of ki never developed to the degree seen in Earth's Oriental schools of combat.

As for yourself, the main reason you've never bothered to "upgrade" the technique is that you've hardly ever used it. It's much more of a novelty than a core part of your fighting style - and really, you have much better things you could be doing with all that ki and mana.

You explain the basics of the Sword Beam to Altria, demonstrating a couple of times on Slimes that appear during your trek - while they're well away from the rest of the group. You notice Kahlua jump the first time you let a Beam fly, but she just gives you a look and then proceeds to ignore you again.

The first time Altria attempts the Sword Beam herself, the result is a gout of not-quite-fire that burns a path fifteen feet long and some three feet wide through the grass, melts the poor dumb Slime on the receiving end, leaves Altria momentarily gasping for breath, and has everyone else in the group staring at the girl.

"That... wasn't right... was it?" she asks, giving you an inquiring glance while leaning on her sword.

"No," you admit, eyeing the devastation, "it wasn't. You were tapping into your internal reserves, instead of building up the excess. Not that it wasn't effective, but... well, you can feel the difference."

"Indeed." Altria takes a deep breath and straightens up. "I hadn't realized channeling energy through a weapon could be so taxing."

"It's easier when you're using a sword that you've bonded to, whether in the supernatural sense or just through long use and familiarity," you tell her. "And enchanted weapons in general just channel power better than mundane ones, even magically-created mundane ones."

Altria considers that, regarding her conjured blade thoughtfully, and nods. You catch a brief smirk on her face before she abruptly bows to you.

"Thank you for the lesson, Master Alex."

Why that little...

Gained Sword Beam E (Plus)
Gained Sword Training D (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Teaching D (Plus)

"I prefer to be addressed as Alex-sensei, thank you," you reply, affecting an air of stern superiority.

"But you're not Japanese," Altria points out.

"No, but I train under a man who is, and after hearing and using the title all the time, it kind of grew on me," you admit with a shrug and a vague wave of your once-again sheathed blade. "I just like the way it sounds."

"Ah."

"While we're on the subject of teaching," you add then, "do you think you could give me some pointers on that Mana Burst technique of yours?"

Altria blinks at this. "I was under the impression you already knew the technique at least as well as I do, Alex. Or am I misremembering our match in the tournament finals?"

"That's a slightly different technique," you explain, before proceeding to catch the young swordswoman up on the subtle distinctions. Her Mana Burst, as the name implies, runs entirely on mana - anybody with magical ability could theoretically use the technique, but since the overwhelming majority of people don't have dragons in their souls giving them ridiculously vast reserves of power to throw around, the results in practice would be a lot less impressive. Your Maximum Power skill, meanwhile, combines mana and ki, and the better you are at using those two forms of energy, the better it's likely to work.

Altria accepts that reasoning and tries to explain how she does what she does, but it turns out to be slow going. It's not that Altria doesn't understand her technique or that she's unable to explain it; no, the problem lies in the gulf of difference between your two approaches to the same skill. Even by your standards, Altria has an absurd amount of magical energy, so when she activates a skill that consumes mana, she's not so much gathering up the power as she is releasing restraints on it. For all the benefits you reap from your Aura of Power, you still come at magic from the other direction, with the added complications of a sorcerer's training on top of the near-instinctive tendency to gather and shape power before you do anything with it.

You still learn a bit, but not as much as you otherwise might have, had one or both of you possessed a better idea of where the other was coming from.

Gained Mana Burst F (Plus)

It's at about that point where Kahlua decides to call a halt, letting it be known that you're a bit more than halfway to Fang Cave, and that the path from here gets somewhat rougher - both in terms of terrain, which you can see to be increasingly steep and rocky, and also in terms of wildlife. As if to illustrate that, something that looks like a bat, only decidedly reptillian, goes fluttering past.

While breaking out the drinks, you wonder if you should talk to someone.

You make the rounds, handing out everyone's preferred drinks. First stop is Altria, simply because she's the closest.

"Thank you for the lesson, Altria-sensei," you tell her, as you hand over one of the cans of fruit juice.

"I prefer Instructor," the blonde replies in a deadpan, nose-in-the-air tone. Then she smiles and thanks you for the drink.

After that, you hand the Water Tribe siblings their bottled water, pass some of the tomato juice to Moka and Kokoa, and hand another of the fruit drinks to Lu-sensei. You glance at Ambrose, but as the wizard said at the start of the trek, he has his own needs covered; he's tipping back a slender bottle of what could be water or something fancier.

Speaking of fancy things, there are several fairy-sized glass bottles in your pocket. It's a bit of a trial on your part to fetch just one without breaking it, but Briar appears to appreciate the effort, and she certainly enjoys the beverage. You make a note to find out where the Shuzens do their shopping, and if it would be at all within your budget to lay in a supply of foodstuffs and household items for tiny people.

Feeling a bit like a mobile vending machine, you head back to the front of the line, handing Tatsuki her requested drink before holding one of the tomato juice cans out to Kahlua like an offering.

She regards you, warily.

You've already apologized for getting Slime all over Kahlua and the others, you cleaned the gunk off before it could set in and stain her new outfit, you managed to avoid her hairdo being wrecked in the process, and you've given her space after the fact. You have to say, you're pretty comfortable with your efforts to make up for the whole thing, so if Kahlua is still upset with you... well, that's her call.

As it happens, she accepts the drink with a calm, "Thank you, Alex."

You return a warm smile and then back off, retrieve your own juice, and spend most of the break drinking it down while keeping a watchful eye on the surroundings.

Nobody seems to feel the need for a second drink, so after all the juice - and water - has been drunk and the empty bottles and cans stowed in your pocket for later disposal, you set out once again. Kahlua appears to be in a slightly better mood, and after a brief discussion with her sisters, takes over from Moka as transportation for Kokoa and falls back to the middle of the group to chat with Sokka. Moka, in turn, moves up to the front of the group to continue leading the way to the cave. Tatsuki and Altria are still keeping to the front rank, although Tatsuki has drifted over to speak with the blonde, leaving Moka more or less to herself - and of course, the old men are still bringing up the rear.

"Remember, everyone," Kahlua says in reminder, "the going gets rougher from here."

"More exploding monsters?" Sokka guesses.

"...no," Kahlua replies, giving him a look. "But the creatures that live in this part of the estate are more dangerous than Slimes in just about every way."

"It'd be hard not to be," Tatsuki notes.

Kahlua makes a noise of agreement.

Maybe it's the fact that your blood is up after Sword Beaming a few Slimes this morning, but you feel like staying in the vanguard of the group. And since Altria and Tatsuki both appear to be in conversation, you decide to walk on the other side of the group, to Moka's left.

The middle Shuzen sister glances at you as you stride up alongside her, but otherwise makes no acknowledgement of your presence.

You march in silence for a time. It's clear she's not going to start the conversation, so you cast about for a topic - and one comes to mind.

"So, Moka," you say. "Is there a particular type of dog you prefer, or is it all dogs in general?"

The younger vampire doesn't respond right away, but eventually admits, "I like large dogs."

"Like the guard dogs at the estate, or the hellhounds I mentioned the other day."

Moka nods.

"Is that because you grew up around them, or just because?"

She considers that for a moment. "Both, I think. Most of the big dogs I've ever met were trained as guards, or for hunting. Most of the small-breed dogs... were lapdogs. And annoying." She scowls, and when she speaks next, it sounds like she's quoting an adult. "A dog that has a job, a purpose, and that performs it well, is admirable. A housepet is not."

"Except when they're puppies," you add.

"Of course," Moka agrees at once. "But puppies are puppies, and dogs are dogs."

You consider the younger girl's evaluation of canines, and wonder how she'd rate Moblin.

Going by what Moka has said about her opinion of different types of dogs, you have to admit that you're not sure what she would make of Moblin. On the one hand, he's certainly a large-breed dog. On the other, the closest thing he has to a "job" is to be an extra set of eyes and ears for keeping watch over Zelda - the rest of the time, he is very much a housepet. And there's also the little matter of breeding to consider. Although you're guessing here, it seems fair to assume that most (if not all) of Moka's experience with canines to date has been with professionally-bred and/or -trained dogs, be they "working" dogs or just very expensive pets.

You make no bones about it: Moblin is a mutt, and one that grew up on the Hellmouth, besides. You like him fine the way he is, but Moka's aristocratic vampire sensibilities may not be so tolerant.

Even so, you find yourself morbidly curious about where your dog would fall on the Moka Approval Scale, and so, you go ahead and ask her.

"For the sake of argument, Moka, what would your opinion be of a large dog of no known breeding, no training, who spent most of his time either laying about or watch-dogging a little girl, and looked like this?"

You cast a minor Spell of Illusion, creating an unmoving, soundless image of Moblin.

Moka's expression, which had been declining from neutral towards disapproving as you described Moblin, suddenly shifts gears. Her eyes practically sparkle.

"Awww," she croons. "What a cute- I mean, no. Good looks do not make up for being an overgrown lapdog."

Moka's attempt to disapprove of your dog, despite the reluctance in her tone and posture, is adorable.

A twist of will has the Illusory Moblin adopting a pitiful hangdog expression, staring at Moka with large, hurt eyes.

"Grk!"

From the way Moka flinches, your blatant attempt at emotional manipulation went straight to her heart, but she rallies almost instantly.

"No. No. I meant what I said-"

Another mental adjustment has the image of your dog slumping down and laying prostrate on the ground - soundlessly, due to the limits of the spell - all the while still staring at the little vampire girl.

"Guh!"

This time, Moka staggers.

"-a-and your transparent attempts to m-make me change my mind will not succeed... now can you PLEASE make it stop doing that?"

Going by her reactions - and her current expression of dismay - it would appear that Moka really is a dog person, enough so that even seeing the image of an unhappy canine causes her some distress. If you'd made the Illusion more life-like, given it enough of a presence to potentially trick those heightened vampire senses into thinking there was a real dog there, who knows how she would have responded?

One more mental poke on your part has the illusion of Moblin sitting up and donning a goofy, tongue-lolling doggy smile. For extra emphasis, his tail wags.

Moka does a pretty bad job of hiding her relief, or her own smile.

Little girl distress averted, you're about to let the spell lapse when you hear something from up ahead. A faint squeak...?

In response to your thoughts and your own reflexive shift to guardedness, Fake Moblin springs to his feet and leans toward the source of the sound, teeth bared in a visible but inaudible growl of warning. Moka blinks and is quick to turn and see what has "the dog's" attention.

This is a good thing, because in the next instant, monsters are appearing as if from nowhere, and in more than one place. Up ahead where you heard that squeak, a pair of low-flying creatures that look like crosses between bats and lizards have emerged from the upper branches of a small strand of trees. Off to your left, several ratlike humanoids wearing green clothes and wielding short but very real swords have also emerged from the treeline, and on the far side of the party, you can hear a lot of chittering squeaks that, if there were deeper, you might call growling.

"Goblins?!" Kahlua exclaims, sounding quite surprised. "Why are-"

"You're not cute at all!" Moka snaps at one of the incoming fliers.

"Bad rat-porcupine-thing!" Tatsuki shouts, right before the sound of flesh and bone impacting the same.

"Haaaa!" Altria yells, her tone of pure martial challenge accompanied by the ring of drawn steel.

"What did I say?" Sokka sighs over what you assume is the sound of his club going to work. "Vampire country."

And somewhere in the back, Ambrose is laughing.

Even as the battle is joined all around you, you take a brief moment to sweep the area with your full suite of enhanced senses. Your aim here is mainly to get a sense of where the enemies you can't see with your eyes are, how strong all of the gathered beasties are, and accordingly, what point in the developing melee would most benefit from a sudden application of You.

As it happens, the strongest enemy life-forces you pick up are coming from behind you, where Tatsuki, Altria, and the Water Tribe siblings are engaging... "rat-porcupine things," was it? You sense three similar blazes of vitality there, each about half to two-thirds as strong as those of your companions who don't have dragon souls - not a bad match-up, on the face of it. There's a fourth, considerably stronger presence as well, but Altria seems to be closing with that one, and its essence isn't a match for hers.

The next-strongest enemy presences are the goblins. Their individual ki - or youki, or whatever - is weaker than than any of the creatures at your back, but there are seven of them, and as you've already noted, they have swords. Though it certainly helps, one doesn't truly require a strong life-force to be deadly with an edged weapon, particularly when the opposition has mostly bare hands.

Bare vampiric hands, admittedly, but the point stands.

That leaves the flying critters, each of which is about as strong as one of the goblins. The main danger there seems to be their wings, and unless they have some kind of ranged attack, they'll have to get in close to actually hurt anybody.

On the other hand, they're easy targets - and Moka is already closing with one, leaving the other open.

Gained Battle Awareness F (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Reflexes F (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Tactics D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

The Sword Beam you've been charging since you drew your sword reaches optimal charge a moment later, and you let it fly into the heart of the mob of goblins. Some duck, others leap squeakily out of the way, but a couple freeze - including one poor dumb rat-faced fool directly in the projectile's path.

The goblin in question doesn't explode like the Slime did, but it does fall over backwards, trailing smoke, to lie insensate on the ground in a most satisfactory manner.

Then you Body Flicker away to intercept the previously-unoccupied lizard bat as it makes a dive at Moka.

Lizard bat? Meet sword. Blessed Sword? Meet lizard bat.

Mental note: cutting things in half may sound cool and even be an effective means of ending a threat, but it's also really disgusting.

Gained Blooded F (Plus) (Plus)

The fact that Moka is able to smash her opponent into the ground hard enough to crater the latter, without getting so much as a drop of monster blood on her in the process, seems like insult on top of the proverbial injury.

Sparing you a brief look - and if she claims she isn't laughing at you on the inside, you'll call her a liar - Moka moves to help her sisters, who have closed with the disorganized band of goblins.

Kahlua, you note, has sprung small batwings from her forearms - one to each limb - and is wielding them like very oddly-placed blades, to the extent where you see her parry a strike from one of the goblins without flinching or bleeding.

Kokoa just goes at them with her fists, which is less hazardous than it sounds thanks to Lu-sensei, who is calmly divesting the goblins of their swords. He's already disarmed three of the little beasts, two of whom are being manhandled by Kokoa in a manner that would be sort of cute if it wasn't so brutal. The third goblin just turns and runs for it.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see that Ambrose hasn't moved. He isn't currently laughing, at least, but you're pretty sure you can see a smirk underneath that beard.

Part of you will admit that you really shouldn't be taking a moment in the heat of battle to do a wardrobe check, but standing there, covered in the gore that used to be inside a living body, you find that you just can't help yourself.

"This was my second favorite shirt," you mutter, more to yourself than to anyone else.

A second later, your ki surges.

Gained Rage F (Plus)

The lizard bats are down, and Lu-sensei and the Shuzen sisters have the band of goblins well in hand. Your teacher has disarmed all but one of the creatures, and that last one is shaking with strain and fear as Kahlua forces it to spar against her arm-blades. Kahlua has left one of her previous targets in an unmoving heap and dragged two more of the disarmed goblins into her private scrum, and Moka has actually shot past the group - lashing out at one goblin in passing, as it was staring stupidly at its suddenly-empty hands, and sending it flying more than three its own height into the air - in order to run down that one attempted runaway.

All well and good for the vampire girls, but you? You need targets. And so you whirl about to consider the other part of this ill-fated three-pronged ambush.

Rat-porcupines, Tatsuki called them. It's an apt description, although the creatures in question are far larger than either animal, built closer to the scale of the guard dogs back at the castle than any rodent you've seen off the TV screen. The coats of bristling quills make them appear larger yet.

Katara is corralling one of the beasts with lashes from a whip of conjured water. It's not truly injured, but the bleeding welts the magical construct has laid open across the beast's face, forelimbs, and flanks clearly sting enough to have taught it caution.

Sokka's been much more direct than his sister, the mass of his club allowing him to snap quills, probably break a bone or two, and definitely stagger his chosen target. For all that he was complaining about "vampire country" earlier, there is a cool, methodical air about the brown-skinned boy in blue at the moment as he systematically cripples the beast before him.

Of her group, Tatsuki's having the most trouble. Magically-enhanced or not, she's understandably reluctant to pit her fists against those spines - and recalling your own experience with a certain overgrown animal clad in natural spears, you cannot blame her in the least - which has forced her to let the rat move and attack as it will, while she focuses on evasion and shots of opportunity. Which would seem to come down to punching the thing in the snout and kicking its belly, you note, as Tatsuki sidesteps a lunging bite and does precisely those two things.

Altria, meanwhile, is not facing a rodent of unusual size, though her enemy does have distinctly ratlike features. It's another goblin, somewhat larger than any member of the mob currently being taken apart behind you, clad in a slightly better cut of dark green tunic and cap, and wielding a visibly better-quality sword with significantly greater skill than any of its compatriots displayed. Like Kahlua, Altria has pressed her opponent into a contest of swordsmanship, and while it's once again clear that such a match-up does not favor the goblins, this one is keeping up with the British girl better than its flunky was handling Kahlua.

And Ambrose is STILL not doing anything. You don't even sense any magic coming off the old man.

So be it. More targets for you to vent on.

Gained Speed D (Plus)

In a blur of movement, you appear to one side of Tatsuki's foe, your anger-heightened and effort-focused ki bleeding through into a visible aura. The rat-thing senses your arrival and turns, hissing, to try and take your measure.

You bring your sword down, hard, with both hands.

The beast actually withstands the first strike.

The second fells it.

Gained Blooded F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

You add a third for good measure, then blast over to Katara's target, the clear line of approach allowing you to charge, run the rat through, and then keep going.

The creature shrieks and thrashes on the end of your blade, fangs snapping as it lashes out at you with claws and quills, but its positioning is terrible, and its struggles are rapidly losing strength.

Then you ram it into Sokka's opponent, and let your impaled enemy slide off your sword to crash to the ground in a tangled, squealing, blood-stained heap.

Sokka's businesslike expression breaks into a blink of surprise, which quickly starts to look annoyed.

"Hey! That's my rat-porcupine-quillbeast-prey-thing! Find your own!"

You stare at Sokka for a moment, then close your eyes and take a deep, cleansing breath as you tamp down your anger and put it away.

"Sorry," you apologize a moment later. "I got a little" - you gesture at your grisly clothes - "worked up."

Sokka glances at the stains on your shirt, and lets out a short, sharp breath of his own. "Yeah, so I see." He doesn't quite smile, but there's a light humor in his tone as he adds, "Man, do you just explode everything you fight, or what?"

Um. Thinking back on disintegrating giant squid, ring-wrecking brawls, vaporized demon assassins, laid-out evil sorcerers, armored ghosts and possessed dead things and more that went POOF or SPLAT in various ways... kind of?

When you don't reply aloud, Sokka's eyes go wide. "...I was joking."

Coughing in mute embarrassment, you quickly cast the Spell of Prestidigitation to try and get the gore out. Then you cast it again, just to be thorough, because you really don't want any of that stuff setting in.

That done, you look around.

The fight's pretty much over at this point. The rat-thing Sokka was fighting has fled for the trees, the one you speared hobbling along in its wake and appearing to have more trouble staying on its feet with every step it takes. The only goblins that aren't down are the ones Kahlua and Altria are getting some impromptu dueling practice in on - and Kahlua just disarmed hers, several inches above the wrist, leaving only Altria's. She's not using much of her aura, giving you the impression that she's trying to meet her opponent on something approximating equal terms.

She's still winning, just not as immediately as she would have if she'd let the dragon power out at full blast.

For the first time today, Ambrose does something constructive. "Finish up, girl," he chides. "You're on a battlefield, not in a ring."

You catch a small frown on Altria's face, but her aura spikes, and when the goblin tries to parry her next blow, its sword shatters from the force of the strike. Disarmed, stunned, and bloodied by the flying shards, the goblin fails to put up any kind of defense as Altria strikes it across the side of the head.

With the flat of her blade.

And down goes the goblin leader, out cold but still very much alive.

From the groans and whines behind you, he's not the only survivor.

Well. This presents an awkward question: what happens to the goblins now?

You set aside the question of what will be done with the goblins for a moment in favor of giving yourself a mystical once-over for any signs of foreign emotional influence. Because flying into a killing rage over a few pieces of dirty clothing isn't the sort of thing you'd ever pictured yourself doing, even if it IS your second-favorite shirt. You're not that into fashion, and on the remote chance that you were, basic cleaning and repair spells are just too good for that sort of thing to really be an issue. You know, unless you're getting into situations where everything you're wearing has been burnt to ashes - and if that were the case, you'd have much bigger problems.

But an internal and exterior surface probe of your person doesn't turn up anything that shouldn't be there. Certainly, nothing so blatant as an active Spell of Enchantment, and also no indication that such a thing was attempted on you. Nor do you get any sense that your past life became active, or that your spirit was intruded on from the outside. And you feel fine mentally, although you have to admit that your burgeoning psychic senses can't give you as complete a reassurance as your magical and spiritual ones.

So what was that outburst about? Latent killing instincts exploding to the fore? A rough but natural reaction to being bathed in the life-blood of one of your enemies? A psychic influence you didn't see coming or going? Or something else entirely?

Really, it's a good thing you're controlling your breathing right now, because none of those options is particularly comforting.

To give yourself something else to think about - again - you turn to your companions.

"Is everybody alright? Any injuries?"

There's a round of replies, affirming the former question and denying the latter. It's not completely universal; Tatsuki got jabbed a couple of times by the spines of the creature she was fighting - what did Sokka call it? A quillbeast? One of the drawbacks of being a bare-handed fighter, but Katara's already tending to the wounds, running her hands over them with a sheath of glowing, flowing water. She pronounces the damage minor and easily fixed, and proceeds to repair it.

Briar flutters over to watch, and when Katara is finished, the fairy nods her approval.

"What about our, uh, prisoners?" you ask then.

"I broke this one's neck when I hit it," Moka replies, from next to the body of the goblin that you saw trying to run away moments earlier. She sounds both apologetic and embarrassed as she turns to Kahlua and adds, "I'm sorry, Sister. I hadn't realized goblins were so... fragile."

"It's fine, Moka," the eldest Shuzen present replies. "You've never fought goblins before, you made an honest mistake, and you'll know better next time. Unlike myself, who DID know better," Kahlua sighs, using one foot to daintily nudge the body of the goblin whose arm she chopped in half. "I'm afraid it's too late for this one as well, Alex. But I would appreciate you, Briar, and Katara making sure the rest are stable, because Mother and Father are going to have questions for them."

Well. You suppose that answers that.

There's enough goblins to go around, so you figure you might as well lend a hand. You start by inspecting the one Altria laid out, doing the usual stuff like checking the pulse - faint and faster than you'd expect for something unconscious, but seems steady enough - and making sure the "patient" isn't obviously bleeding out anywhere.

"How is he?" Katara inquires.

"Definitely unconscious," you reply with full confidence.

Sokka snickers.

"I would certainly hope so," Altria comments.

"Here," Katara says, half-walking, half-hopping up alongside you, before kneeling next to the goblin's body. "Let me take a look."

Out comes the water and the laying on of glowing hands.

"Hmmm... plenty of bruising, but the skull's intact... can't tell about the brain..."

"They have brains?" Sokka inquires.

"Small ones, under thick skulls," Katara replies promptly. "Remarkably like someone else I know."

"Now, Sis, what did Dad tell us about insults?"

"That the truth hurts, and is usually the best one?"

As the siblings snark at one another, you pay attention to what Katara is doing with that magic water. The way the energies involved bend and flow is like nothing in your experience, life and spirit and at least three different schools of magic coming together - it's fascinating, and educational.

Gained Elementalism C
Gained Water Elementalism E

Katara pronounces the boss goblin stable a moment later. As you're right there, you wave off Sokka and help the girl over to the rest of the patients. Briar's been confirming that the pair the Shuzen girls accidentally killed are "all dead," leaving five to go over, among them the one you blew away with a Sword Beam.

Since that one's your responsibility, you decide to check on it - him? - first. Rather than rely on your feeble mundane medical skill or try to recreate what Katara was doing, you break out the basic Conjuration. The school of producing something as if from nothing is where all of your healing spells reside, and there's one very basic spell designed specifically to keep injured patients from dying. It's normally a holy magic, but Ganondorf picked it up from the witches, and you're able to cast it the same way. Briar's lessons were helpful in that regard, though you still have to burn some extra mana to get the Spell of Stabilization working properly.

As the sparkling light of the spell fades, you note that the goblin doesn't really look any different. He does seem to be breathing a bit less raggedly in his unconsciousness, though, so you take that as a successful casting and move on.

You only cast the spell one more time before you run out of patients. Briar and Katara work fast. The more aware goblins are regarding them with looks of resigned suspicion, which jump to shock, surprise, and then awe as their respective mystical powers manifest and take effect.

The one you stabilize - the one that's conscious - just whimpers, and appears to be trying to will himself to sink into the dirt to get away from you.

Seriously, are you that scary? You cleaned off all the blood and everything.

Gained First Aid E

"And that's that," Katara proclaims, tucking her water back into its carrying skin.

"Thank you, all of you," Kahlua says, snapping shut a small, expensive-looking cellphone you didn't see her take out. "The guards will be along in a few minutes to take them into custody. We'll be able to go on afterwards."

You blink. Okay, judging by Sokka's comments, being attacked by monsters was something Kahlua knew was going to happen - part of the adventure of this little outing - but by her reaction, the goblins shouldn't have been here at all, meaning they have found a way onto the Shuzen estate in spite of the existing security.

No offense intended to the capabilities of your peers, and certainly none to Lu-sensei, but is it really a good idea for a bunch of kids to be roaming the grounds in this situation?

Yeah, thinking it over, you can say without doubt that you're with Kahlua. On with the adventure! And if something goes wrong, well, more adventure! You're sure your group can handle it, even if "handling it" comes down to "having Ambrose cast a Spell of Retreat." Wizards are always useful for stuff like that, since saving their own skins is generally Priority One for the squishy scholarly types.

While you do not express it aloud, your opinion appears to be shared by the majority of the group. The only exceptions are Katara and Altria. Briar and Lu-sensei seem like they're more in favor of heading back, at least if the quick discussion your master draws Ambrose aside for is any indication, but the old wizard waves your teacher's words off with an air of casual assurance.

It doesn't take too long for the Shuzen guards to arrive. They drive up in three small, lightweight-looking jeeps and one larger truck with an enclosed rear large and secure enough to accomodate the prisoners for the trip back to the castle. While the goblins are being marched and/or carried into the waiting wagon, one of the suit-wearing types speaks with Kahlua. Not wanting to be rude or get called out for eavesdropping, you make an effort not to overhear exactly what the guard and Kahlua are discussing, but from the way he gestures at a couple of the men who came with him, you get the impression the patrol leader would like to send some extra security along with your little band, in case any more creatures that shouldn't be on the grounds turn up.

The way Kahlua shakes her head says clearer than words she's not interested, but this fails to dissuade the guard, implying that he may have authorization from the parental units.

Although you can see the advantages of having a few more adults on hand if unexpected things happen, you also know where Kahlua's coming from. After all, you handled the goblins easily enough, and barely had to call on one of your adult minders in the process.

As the discussion between Kahlua and the senior guard is really between her and her parents, you decide that it isn't an argument that you really have any place in, and keep out of it.

In the end, the two guards join your party - falling in at the middle rank, one to each side - while their compatriots finish herding the goblins into the transport and then drive away. Once they're away, a somewhat sulky Kahlua resumes the trek into the hills.

You keep your eyes and ears open and your more esoteric senses running passively as the hike continues, and in doing so get a fair look at the guards. Their life-forces both give off that feeling of an energy that isn't quite ki as it appears in humans and animals, but which serves the same purpose for all the non-demonic living monsters you've run into. Each guard is pretty strong in that regard, each of their auras maybe three-quarters as strong as Kahlua's. Granted, they probably can't use that raw power as efficiently as she can, but having as much as they do is still very respectable, and the way their auras maintain a steady shape rather than wavering all over the place says that they have at least SOME training in its use.

That extra fighting strength probably contributes to the way in which all the local critters take to avoiding your group as you penetrate farther into the hills. Several times over the next half-hour, you spot glowing eyes amidst the shadows, catch a blur of movement, or hear something rustling around in the undergrowth - to say nothing of the many and varied auras you pick up - but not once do any of these creatures reveal themselves, let alone try to attack.

The way Kahlua's walk becomes increasingly stiff, and the glares she shoots at the guards a couple of times, tell you that she blames them for scaring off part of the "entertainment."

As you walk on, you notice a fair-sized stone cliff rising over the terrain up ahead. Kahlua isn't heading directly for it, more off to the right, but you're getting steadily closer the entire time, and as you do so, the "hill" gets larger and larger.

Finally, Kahlua comes to a halt. She's led you into a small bowl-shaped valley, the bottom of which is mostly covered by an overgrown puddle just barely large enough to qualify as a pond. Towards the back of the valley is a rock face that connects to the greater bulk of the miniature mountain you've been watching, and in that wall of stone is a shadowed opening ringed with jagged stalactites and stalagmites, giving the distinct impression of a toothy maw.

"Fang Cave," Kahlua announces, sounding a bit more cheerful than she's been for the last little while. "It's rather dim inside, at least until you reach the rear chamber, and I'm not sure how well non-vampire eyes will handle it."

"Katara and I should be fine," Sokka says. "We can't exactly SEE in the dark, but we can still find our way around in it well enough."

"That's underwater, though," Katara adds, regarding the cave entrance thoughtfully. "Moving around out in the open air is... less accurate. How far into the cave does that water travel?" She points to where the pond drains into - or perhaps out of - the mouth.

"Quite far," Moka replies. "I don't believe it's deep enough to swim in, though."

"Ah."

"If we need a light," you say then, "Briar and I have it covered."

So saying, you conjure a little ball of light in one hand. Briar obliges you by turning up her fae glow.

"I suppose I could lend a hand in that regard, as well," Ambrose adds. He thumps his staff on the ground, causing the end to shine - brighter and clearer than your own, you note.

"Problem solved," Kahlua says, clapping her hands together. "Alright, then. The way through the cave isn't too narrow, but it IS underground all the same, so we'll have to stay in double-file. Alex, Briar, Mr. Ambrose? If one of you would move up front, another near the middle of the group, and the last towards the back?"

You regard Briar and Ambrose.

"I'll take the front," you volunteer. "Ambrose is taller, and Briar can fly, so if a situation comes up where they need to make with the magic, they'll be able to see and cast over the rest of us."

"That sounds reasonable," Ambrose agrees. "Miss Shuzen," he asks then, "how is this cave laid out? Is it a single passage, or are there routes leading off in different directions?"

"The latter," Kahlua replies.

"Ah. Then I believe I should be one of the ones bringing up the rear. It's somewhat traditional to put the healer in the back and the wizard in the middle, but in this instance, if we happen to encounter further unfriendliness, I believe Miss Briar could use the added coverage more than I."

"No argument there," Briar admits.

Your party takes a few more minutes to sort themselves out. Kahlua remains in the lead, of course, and you step up to her right, conjured light holding steady in the air above your head, leaving your hands free to use your sword or cast other spells as the need arises. One of the guards is next, accompanying Moka, after which come Kokoa and Tatsuki, with Briar hovering overhead. Sokka, Katara, and Lu-sensei are next, brother carrying sister as before, while Ambrose and Altria form the rank behind them. The second guard brings up the rear.

Once everyone is sorted, you head into the cave.

The passage is at once wide and relatively narrow. The left half of the chamber is covered by a shallow layer of slow-flowing water - between the sunlight shining through the overhang of the entrance and the various magical lights, you're able to see that it's an inch deep at most, enough to soak your toes but little else. The remaining "dry" floor is rough stone, completely unworked and littered with the occasional pebble or small outcropping. As Kahlua said, there's enough room for you to proceed two at a time, but between the rock wall rising off to your right, the jagged stone ceiling, and the flickering shadows cast by your mage-lights, you definitely know you're underground.

A simple redirection of ki heightens your visual acuity slightly, though not by any spectacular degree. If you didn't have the light spells going, you'd be just as blind inside the cave as a regular human, at least once you got a bit away from the sunlit entryway. You also make a go at using mental energy to enhance those areas of your brain related to visual perception, but nothing appears to come of it, leaving you to wonder if you made a mistake in manipulating the energy, or there just wasn't any benefit to be had from that particular use of it.

You've barely left the sunlit area within the mouth of the cave when something deeper inside makes a clicking, chattering sound.

Kahlua pauses, frowning. "Now what in the world was that?"

You don't know for certain, but the noise strikes you as familiar. Not anything you've heard recently, nor even in this lifetime, but it's right there at the edge of your mind...

"Perhaps I should take the lead, Miss," the guard behind you suggests.

Kahlua frowns, but doesn't immediately dismiss the idea.