Closing your eyes, you put your hands on your knees, bend forward, and focus on breathing. Just... breathing.

"Alex?"

"Mister Harris?"

You hold up a hand, silently requesting that you be given a moment. To process. To cope. To stay cool and not start freaking out at the conga line of nastiness you just saw.

Also, to recover from the strain that calling up the Vision placed on your body. You feel like you've just come out of an extended spar with Lu-sensei, only without the gasping for air, sticky perspiration, and bruises that would normally accompany the sensation.

The moment is given.

You process.

You cope.

You do, in fact, stay cool.

Once you're satisfied, you straighten up and open your eyes, to find a visibly-concerned pair of priests and a nervously hovering fairy looking back at you.

"I'm okay," you say. "Really. That was just... a heck of a lot uglier than what I was expecting to see."

"How ugly?" Briar demands.

Keeping your voice as steady as you can manage, you explain what you just saw.

Gained Acting B

The Hakubas blanch at your account. When it's over, the elder priest bows.

"I must apologize, Mister Harris," he says formally. "I was aware that this... weapon" - he casts a disgusted glance at the sword, lying on the floor in the middle of your little ritual diagram - "had an unpleasant history. However, my knowledge did not extend beyond the testimony provided by the last owner, and he knew only of the crimes the sword drove him to commit while it was in his hands. It was not my intention to expose you to such an... extensive account of atrocity."

"It wasn't your fault, Mister Hakuba," you reply, as formally as the old priest. "You couldn't have known how... effective my spell was going to be. But even so, I appreciate the sentiment."

That appears to relieve him.

You take a minute to consider the mechanics of how to adapt the Spell of Vision so that future divinations of that caliber won't result in you being so directly affected by what you see. The idea of adapting Pagebound Epiphany and/or Ambrose's thought-to-text spell comes to mind, though it'd need some serious reworking to hook either spell up to a short-lived construct made entire of magic and raw data, rather than a living brain.

You're about to ask if the Hakubas would be willing to spot you a few minutes, so you and Briar could work out the details of this new magic, before going back to probing cursed items and other objects from that shed. Before you can, Hakuba Senior has crouched down and re-wrapped the sword with a certain grim forcefulness.

"I'll return this troublesome thing to its resting place," he says. He seems about to say more, but does a short double-take at something on the floor. "Er... Mister Harris?"

"Yes."

"Are your creations supposed to be doing that?"

You look past the priest's body at your conjured ivory figurines, and wince. The previously-smooth white surfaces are now blackened and riddled with cracks, and some of the extended pieces - one of Din's arms, the ends of her and Nayru's hair, and close to half of Farore's hair - have fallen off as discolored powder. That debris, along with the rest of the statuettes, is slowly breaking up into flecks of gold-tinted energy, which rise off the ground and fade away into nothingness.

"No," you admit. "That's not supposed to happen. Not with REAL ivory, anyway." You shrug. "Guess I need a bit more work with my Conjuration."

Or maybe you just need to use less power next time. The figurines DID hold up well enough for you to complete your spell, so they weren't that far off the mark of true magical stability...

Well, whatever. You'll do better next time. Especially if you decide to create more effigies of the Goddesses.

Just then, you hear footsteps approaching the shrine. As you turn about to face the door, it slides open.

A casually-dressed Miss Suzuka blinks, looks from you to Hakuba the Third, then to his grandfather and the re-wrapped and -warded sword in the oldest man's hands, and finally past you, to the faintly-glowing, slowly disintegrating bits of conjured material on the floor.

"...do I even want to know what you boys have been doing in here?" she asks.

It's interesting, how even the senior priest of the shrine looks a bit evasive when confronted by a young woman using that tone of mild suspicion and disapproval.

You raise one hand.

"Yes, Alex?" Miss Suzuka asks.

"Uh, just to be clear - Briar's a girl."

The miko blinks at you.

Briar does something where she's hovering off to one side of you, perhaps casting a spell, maybe just flexing her magical muscle. Either way, the disturbance is small, but noticeable, and all three holy people glance in the fairy's direction.

So, even if they can't SEE fairies, people with spiritual power can still sense fairies that are using their own powers? That's interesting...

"Ah," the young lady says. "Sorry about that, Miss Briar. I... uh... didn't see you."

It's the complete truth, of course, but the previous mood has pretty thoroughly been derailed.

You go ahead and tell Miss Suzuka what you were actually doing before she came in. It's not like it was supposed to be a secret or anything, at least not from the other attendants of the Hakuba Shrine.

Once again, a factual account of your own magical prowess leaves Miss Suzuka staring. The fact that she can look at two of her co-workers for confirmation of your tale, and get it, doesn't seem to help her.

Oh, well. You're sure she'll get used to this kind of shock some day.

Hakuba Senior excuses himself to put the sword back, but his grandson lingers behind, appearing curious about what you and Miss Suzuka have to say to each other. She glances at him, then at you, her expression questioning.

"Well, then," the miko says. "I've asked around, and as it turns out, there's a Buddhist temple dedicated to Raiden that's been down on its luck for the last few years. The buildings took some damage in a typhoon about a decade ago, and while it wasn't bad enough for the government to step in and pay for repairs, the monks only had the resources to fix some of the damage on their own. There weren't a lot of donations to be had that year, either - too many people were busy paying for repairs to their homes and businesses, and the temple didn't have all that many followers to begin with. Things got worse from there."

You can see it. A temple in disrepair doesn't inspire the same feelings of respect and faith as one that's well-maintained, and while people might be willing to overlook the problem for a time, if it doesn't get fixed eventually, the caretakers of the place start to look lazy, greedy, or disrespectful. Worshippers start going elsewhere, taking their charity with them, and the temple suffers spiritually as well as materially.

"The situation at the temple sounded exactly like what you wanted," Miss Suzuka said, "but I also got some names of people from the community who could use help of a more... arcane nature? And outside what our shrine provides."

You have no objection to the younger priest hanging around while you talk to Miss Suzuka. You're not discussing anything secret or sensitive, and it might be helpful to have another spiritually-trained individual up to date on what you're planning.

You ask Miss Suzuka for the address of the temple, as well as the names and addresses of the people she thinks could use your assistance. As you write everything down on some paper taken from your dimensional pocket, you also inquire as to the nature of the problems these individuals are suffering from. It's a mix of wanting to know what you're going to be up against, and knowing whether or not the need is urgent.

Gained Suzuka's List

As it turns out, none of the problems are urgent, at least not in the sense of lives, livelihoods, or deep personal relationships being on the line. They also don't involve hauntings, possessions spiritual or demonic, curses, or encounters with youkai or other supernatural creatures - the Hakuba Shrine would have dealt with them by now if it were otherwise.

A very old man who lives with his grandson's family claims to have a box that only a sorcerer can open. Miss Suzuka has seen the box - the centenarian isn't shy about showing it off - and admits that there is something about it that sets off her senses, not unlike Briar's earlier pulse of magic.

"Old Man Watanabe?" the youngest of the Hakubas inquires.

"The same," the miko agrees.

"Grandfather had a look at that box when the Watanabes took the old man in," the priest recounts. "His opinion of it was that it was definitely magical - strongly so, in fact - but basically harmless. At least while it was closed."

"And if it was opened?" you inquire.

The priest shrugs. "He couldn't say one way or the other. Apparently, the box is warded heavily enough so that whatever's inside might as well be invisible."

Well, that's both annoying and potentially concerning. Magical containers like that tend to have things inside - usually important, often dangerous, and not infrequently alive.

Continuing with Miss Suzuka's list, there's an older woman with a local reputation as a fortune-teller, who asked the miko to tell "the young boy with the fading red hair and golden brown eyes" to come see her.

That's even MORE concerning than the magic box of mystery.

There was one other person whose request Miss Suzuka passes on, somewhat reluctantly: a housewife whose youngest daughter was reported missing last year, and hasn't been found.

"Given your age, I wasn't sure if that one would be... entirely appropriate," the miko admits. "It's been long enough that... well, most disappearances like this... they end badly."

You don't need any further explanation. You live in America, the land of sensationalist news headlines - and more than that, you live on the Hellmouth, where Bad Things happen as a matter of course. Even at your age, you know a thing or two about runaways, kidnappings, and otherwise missing children. And that's before the memories you inherited from the King of Evil come into play.

Shaking your head to dispel the sombre mood, you go over the short list. There's nothing there that you'd call urgent, unless the old man decides to keel over in the next day or so.

Although you have a not-insignificant urge to go see the woman whose daughter is missing, you have to admit that, while you can almost certainly learn SOMETHING about the girl's fate, it's been long enough that anything you learn is likely to be... bad. And if it's not the worst case scenario, then the girl's alive somewhere and has BEEN alive - somewhere - for all this time.

Maybe it's a bit cold of you, but practically speaking, you can't see how one more day is going to make a lot of difference for her.

On the other hand, one day could make a CONSIDERABLE difference for you. Case in point, the difference between bringing another trauma-inducing Vision upon yourself, or taking the time to come up with a workaround that won't give you new fuel for your nightmares.

You'd already reached a similar decision regarding Old Man Watanabe, which leaves visiting the fortune-teller, or going straight home.

And based on your knowledge of Ganondorf's experiences - particularly with prophecies and the vision-trances of his witchy "mothers" - you know it's a bad idea to ignore people who can see the future. Particularly when they're asking about you by name, or near enough as to make no difference.

If you knew that Miss Suzuka had met some other red-haired, golden-eyed kid recently, you might be less concerned, but as it is...

Thanking the miko for her aid, you excuse yourself and depart the Hakuba Shrine - waving to the senior priest as you see him coming back from the shed, the ward-sealed sword no longer on his person.

Once you're clear of the main gate and a short way down the steps - hopefully far enough that you won't disturb Hakuba Senior again - you make with the magic. Given the time constraints you're operating under, you can't really afford to do things the ritual way, not if you want to get home before dark, and you only have Miss Suzuka's description of the fortune-teller and her place of business to go by.

Fortunately, that's enough for a Greater Spell of Scrying to find your destination for you. Probably.

You tweak the spell a bit, cutting back on the duration to save a little mana - you don't need it to last for hours on end, a couple minutes will be MORE than enough time - and then cast it.

Your mind's eye promptly fills with static, which rapidly clears to reveal an older Japanese woman in a traditional-looking, distinctly non-priestly outfit. She's seated in a rather comfortable-looking lawnchair, in what appears to be someone's backyard, with a tea service laid out neatly atop a nearby table - though one of the cups has been filled with what appears to be orange juice.

The woman is also staring straight at you with a kind of deliberate intensity that makes it clear she knows the magical sensor created by your spell is there, and not that she just happened to be looking its way.

"Well, lad?" she inquires briskly. "We've both of us got things to be doing, so why are you wasting time like this?"

You'd hardly say you were wasting time-

"Bah! We both know you don't need to have seen me to teleport to my place!"

That's true, but-

"So hurry up, already! I'm not getting any younger!"

You dismiss the spell, and start gathering power for the Spell of Teleportation. In the process, you reflect that you've at least achieved two things: first, you've confirmed the fortune-teller's credentials; and second, you've gathered evidence supporting a opinion Ganondorf held in life.

Divination specialists are ANNOYING.

Delaying just long enough to make sure nobody's in sight, you let the magic take hold, and are promptly whisked from the Hakuba Shrine steps-

-fly-

-to the backyard.

Gained Summoning B (Plus) (Plus)

"Welcome to my home," the woman says, without missing a beat. "Have a seat, have some orange juice - you don't need tea before bed."

Wordlessly, you take the seat opposite from your hostesss, and - after probing it with your senses, just in case - take a sip of the orange juice.

Eh. It's orange juice. Pulp-free though, which is nice.

"Glad to see you like it," the woman observes. "Can't stand the unfiltered stuff, myself."

You make a noise of agreement. In the process, you take the opportunity to give the fortune-teller a once-over.

As you'd expect, she radiates an aura of strong Divination - she's actually more powerful than you in that respect, and considerably more practiced, if the way she keeps her power restrained is any indication. That said, her other magical talents are next to non-existent. She seems to know enough about Abjuration to keep herself safe from the average threat, but it's hardly a patch on her skills as a scrier. The only other schools she has any proficiency in are Summoning and Necromancy, and those appear to be almost entirely tied up with her talent for Divination.

At a guess, she can summon spirits to advise her and perhaps gather information. Not much more than that, though.

You set your cup down. "So," you begin.

"I asked Little Suzuka to send you along so I could warn you about a couple of things, before you walked into them," the fortune-teller says promptly.

"The old man with the box, and the missing girl?" you venture.

"And the temple," the woman adds.

So it's a hat trick of bad news. Somehow, you're not surprised.

"Heh. Good instincts." The woman takes a sip of her tea. "I don't know what's in that box of Jiro's, where he got it, or what'll happen if you go see him. Something about the seals on it mess with my readings. But that should tell you something, in and of itself."

Yeah, mainly that whoever created the box was security-conscious to the point of paranoia, and quite powerful.

Your speculation earns a nod. "As for the temple... it's NOT just a run of bad luck those boys have been having. Someone or something is actively trying to get that place shut down." She makes a warding gesture that quietly hums with potential. "I haven't looked any closer than that. Anything that can give an entire temple the kind of problems they've been having, for as long as it has, and still not get caught? That's more trouble than I want to deal with."

...you suppose you can't blame her, but-

"Yes, I did warn them. Carefully." She frowns. "Considering that things haven't gotten any better, either the monks didn't take me seriously, or there wasn't anything they could do about the source of the problem."

Hopefully, it's the former. The latter is an unpleasant prospect all around.

That just leaves...

On cue, the fortune-teller sighs. "Keiko used to be one of my regulars. She came to me the same day Little Mai went missing. I couldn't find hide nor hair of the girl, living, dead, or otherwise - and believe me, I tried." The old woman shivers in her chair. "I don't mind telling you, that scares me more than whatever's messing with the Buddhists."

And the bad news just keeps on coming.

Given what you've just been told, do you have any questions you'd like to ask this insightful woman?

"I don't think whatever happened to Little Mai is related to the troubles the Buddhists have been having," the fortune-teller says, just as you were about to inquire on that very subject. "Their problems have been going on since before you were born, and while there HAVE been other disappearances in and around the neighborhood during that time, believe me when I say that none of them were anything like as mysterious as whatever happened to that sweet girl."

She pauses to sip her tea.

"Now, I could be wrong," she admits, setting her cup back down. "It's true that I have no idea who or what was responsible for Little Mai going missing, and not much more of one as to the identity of the power afflicting the temple. But my instincts tell me they aren't the same. One's disappeared a single girl and taken steps to keep from being found; the other is waging a shadow-war with a house of the divine."

That is quite a difference, you have to admit. It's still possible that the two forces are one and the same, or at least connected, but it's just as possible that they aren't - and if the lady who specializes in magical information gathering says she doesn't think they're the same, odds are, they aren't.

Still, that leaves your other questions-

"No, I'm not interested in collaborating on magic with you. Practitioners of my level survive best by not making waves, which among other things means not getting directly involved with gods, demons lords, and other greater powers - not at anything closer than the second or third degree. And - no offense to you or them - but those three ladies you're associated with have been making WAVES lately."

...well, that's unhelpful.

"Sorry, but a girl's got to do what a girl's got to do. And no," she adds, "I'm not giving you my name. If you have to call me something, call me Ma'am."

Well, she is old enough-

"Ye- wait, what was that?"

"Ah-ha!" you exclaim, pointing the Finger of Accusation across the table at your hostess. "Caught you!"

She makes a face. "Yes, yes, you're very clever. Shut up."

"Seriously, though," you add, as you lower your hand. "Is this sort of blatant mind-reading socially-acceptable in the Moonlit World?"

"The answer to that question is... complicated," the fortune-teller says after a moment. "But you should probably hear it. So..."

Firstly, she explains that she's not actually reading your mind. THAT much is certainly not looked on well, unless the telepath in question has the ability as a natural part of their very being - in which case it's treated more like the sort of heightened senses that many youkai and demons have. Although even then, anything beyond reading casual surface thoughts is frowned on.

That said, she WAS kind of hearing your thoughts. Evidently, you're a bit "loud," even when compared to other kids your age, who the old lady describes as being as noisy mentally as they are physically. She attributes that to your various supernatural abilities - your growing mastery of ki, in particular, since your mind is one-third of the gestalt that your martial arts training draws from and builds upon - and gives you some advice on how to better-conceal your thoughts from passing sensitives. Some of what she says is readily-applicable to other aspects of mental discipline, and you don't hesitate to put it to use.

Gained Mental Concealment E
Gained Mental Control D
Gained Mental Sight E (Plus) (Plus)

In addition to the telepathic angle, the old woman says that part of the nature of her talent is that her awareness of her surroundings is more fourth-dimensional than most people's. After decades of practice, she can perceive the immediate past and future without really trying, and while it only extends a few seconds either way, that's enough to give her a leg up in conversations.

This ability, she adds, doesn't violate any of the social mores of the Moonlit World. It just frustrates people who aren't used to being "read" so easily.

She thinks it's good for them.

She also admits that "they" might claim otherwise.

Finally, all the social elements of telepathy and precognition are pretty neatly addressed by the fact that the fortune-teller is on her own property. As long as she obeys the laws of her own kind - which is to say, mundane humans, magic-users in general, and magic-using humans in particular - and isn't threatening the masquerade that keeps the Moonlit World separate and secret from the rest of the population, she can pretty much do whatever she likes here, and no one in the know will say a word against it.

Mostly because they'd set a precedent that it was okay for outsiders to meddle in their private affairs, which is something NONE of the disparate denizens of the hidden world are keen on.

Your impromptu lesson lasts long enough that you have to head home shortly after it's finished. Thanking the fortune-teller for her time, her advice, and the tea, you teleport back to California, and return home under an extended Spell of Invisibility, at Body Flicker speeds.

You aren't too surprised when your mother requests an accounting of what you were up to, and you don't hesitate to provide it. She seems pleased to hear that Gen has agreed to see her or your father tomorrow or the day after that, and the fact that you've made progress in finding ways to repay your debt to Raiden also goes over well - though your mother still seems to be trying to wrap her mind around the idea that you owe a GOD.

You figure that your mother has enough on her mind as-is, without you adding the details of your side-trip to the fortune-teller's, and so say nothing on that topic. Instead, given the hour and the amount of magical work you've put in today, you decide to call it a night.

You awaken earlier than usual the next day, fully rested from your prior exertions. More than anything else today, you want to work towards a safer version of the Spell of Vision - you're thinking something text-based, with potentially-hazardous information being deposited on a page rather than inserted directly into your brain - but you're not about to wake Briar up at-

You turn your head to check your bed-side clock.

-five in the morning? Really?

Yeah, you're DEFINITELY not going to wake Briar up yet. Or your parents, for that matter.

Instead, you spend the next hour and change lying there awake, going over Divination formulas in your mind and comparing them to the spells you know for creating text and transferring known information to a written medium. Finding the spells you want to combine isn't an issue; the tricky part is going to be working out how to tie them all together as a single ritual, without any of the data that gets summoned up coming into contact with your mind.

Over breakfast, you explain your plan for the day to both your parents, first discussing the magical research and development you'd like to do today - with a quick explanation that the spell in question would be helpful in making reparations to Raiden - and then adding that if they're up to it, you'd like to take one of them to meet Gen after dinner. And possibly to tag along while you visit the Buddhist temple, both to provide an adult authority with whom the monks could speak on equal footing, and just to help them get a better idea of what you can REALLY do.

Your parents trade glances over bowls of cereal and plates of slightly-burnt toast.

"Or we could make it a family outing," you offer.

"Uh, no," comes the unanimous response - with a simultaneous follow-up look at Zelda.

Your sister, for her part, is busy yawning and rubbing her eyes.

"What're we talkin' bout, 'gain?" she mumbles.

"Just figuring out who's going to supervise Alex this evening, hon," Tony says.

"Oh. 'kay."

In the end, your parents don't reach a decision, instead opting to take the rest of the day to think on things - and also to see which of them is more beat by dinnertime.

Fair enough.

And you are permitted to spend the day working on your magic.

This is a good thing, because it isn't until a couple hours after lunch that you make real progress in your spell design. The first part of the ritual is the Divination element, which is effectively the Spell of Legend Lore. The second part - and the one that was giving you the most trouble - is a mix of Abjuration and Enchantment, carefully arranged to "deflect" the data packet created by the first portion of the magic away from your consciousness, but gently enough so as not to disrupt it. The third element is a mix of Divination and Transformation, intended to "read" the packet before it disperses, and transfer the information to a ready sheet of paper.

Your new spell is a litle rough around the edges, but it looks good - in theory.

You'd prefer to test it before you make use of it in the field, and with your ability to conjure the needed ivory focuses having been proven the day before, that's certainly an option.

You draw your Goddess-given sword from your dimensional pocket with a flourish.

"What do you think, Briar?"

The fairy's confusion is clear as she says, "About your sword?"

"About using it as the target of my new spell," you clarify.

"Oh." There's a pause. "Probably not the best idea for a first test subject, Alex. For one thing, it eats your magic, right? Which could be a problem if you cast a new, untested, potentially-unstable piece of magic on it."

Point.

"And besides," she continues, "you've had that sword all of a few months, during which the most impressive thing you've done with it is fight a couple of Guardians. Its biggest claim to being special right now is that it was made by the Goddesses, but of the maybe twenty people in the world who know the sword even exists, less than half know where it came from." She bobs in a mid-air shrug. "Not really much of a legend, is it?"

You feel a bit offended on your sword's behalf, but you have to admit that Briar's argument is not wrong. It would apply to both of the other items you were thinking of using your new spell on, too, although...

"What about my dress suit?"

"That'd be a bit better," Briar admits. "A few hundred people saw you out-fight Kahlua wearing that, and the rumors about what happened in the garden would add to it."

You put your sword away and go fetch your suit.

"Are you done working, Alex?" your mother inquires, as you pass her on your way upstairs.

"I think I've got a spell that'll do what I want it to," you reply. "I'm just going to get something to help me test it."

She nods, and lets you go about your business.

A few minutes later, you're back in the Mirror Hideaway, doing a final check of your new spell's formulas with the benefits of mental enhancement spells, ki boosts, and even a surge of psychic energy - although that last one doesn't seem to do anything.

Gained Mental Enhancement F (Plus) (Plus)

As far as the spell goes, everything looks good, but you make a few adjustments so that the equations are that little bit neater.

You consider casting an Augury to see if the spell will work or not, but you've already used up the ambient energy in your extra-dimensional spellcasting chamber over the course of the day's research, and dipped into your reserves besides. Given your plans for this evening and tomorrow, you want as much gas in the tank as possible, just in case anything comes up that requires immediate and intensive spellcasting.

There is a clatter as you complete the Spell of Major Creation, several slender wooden sticks falling out of the cloud of magical energy you'd gathered.

You spare a moment to wonder why the sticks didn't materialize on the floor, like the ivory statuettes of the Goddesses did the last time you cast this spell to whip up some magical focuses.

Then you shrug, take up a small knife you borrowed from the kitchen, and begin carving symbols onto the unblemished wood. They aren't letters or words, but rather ritualized characters you know from your inherited memories, symbols meant to represent and invoke the Goddesses, the elements of the world, the wisdom of the ancestors...

You hesitate at that last one, knife just touching the wood. Considering your origins, seeking guidance from "those who came before" might not be a good idea. On the other hand, this IS how the auguries you know of were conducted, whether by the Gerudo, the Hylians, or their neighbors. You've already opted not to use bone divination rods, as the Gerudo would have, instead going with wood like the Hylians preferred. (As one might expect, the Gorons favored stone, but that would have been a complete pain to carve. Literally, even.) Din probably won't care about the materials used - it came from your power either way - but if you leave out a prayer to the spirits, Farore might be a bit displeased.

Spirit IS one of her domains, after all.

A possible alternative comes to mind: intead of writing this particular prayer in Hyrulean and Gerudo symbols, perhaps you could write it in English instead? Symbolically addressing it to your Earth-native ancestors, rather than your Hyrulean forebears? The spell should still function fine that way, and there's a fair chance that it won't stir up the Demon King.

"Not going to conjure some incense to burn?" Briar notes.

"Don't really need it," you return, as you scratch another line into one of the sticks. "I can just pour in some extra mana to make up the difference."

She shrugs, and doesn't say anything more on the subject.

It takes a while, but the symbols aren't too complicated, there are only half a dozen sticks, and the wood is relatively soft. Call it twenty minutes, and you're all set to perform your augury.

Before doing so, however, you cast the Spell to Embrace Destiny. It's a grand name for a comparatively minor magic, one that gives the caster a limited ability to dictate the outcome of a single endeavor. You're intent on using it to assure the success of your Augury, but since it takes a little while to perform the ritual casting of the sticks, you have to pour some extra mana into the first spell, extending the length of time for which you'll be able to meddle with the weave of Fate.

Here's hoping that Nayru doesn't mind.

Changing the inscribed prayer to your ancestors from Hyrulean characters to English feels like a reasonable compromise. The carvings on the prayer-sticks are part of the ritual that directs and empowers the Augury, but they're not instructions or symbols of power or anything like that. What they REPRESENT is far more important than what they actually say or do.

In this case, what's being represented is a request to the spirits of your departed ancestors for guidance. Changing the language you write that request in won't change that aspect of what it represents, but it WILL affect which ancestors might respond to you.

After all, Gerudo don't speak English.

And while Ganondorf certainly had the power in life to translate unfamiliar languages, he can't exactly call on that power in his current state. If he COULD, killing him would never have made a difference...

Shaking your head, you focus on finishing up your preparations, carefully carving the word "Harris" along one side of each stick. That's the best way you can think of to focus the magic on your familial ancestors, though it does limit things to the paternal line.

As the power of the Augury reaches its peak, you ask your question:

"Will attempting to cast my new spell harm me or anyone else?"

With that, you let the sticks fall from your hand, to scatter about the floor. As the wood hits the glass surface once again, there is a pulse of unleashed magic - and then a second, almost concurrent one, as your Spell to Embrace Destiny kicks in - and the sticks no longer fall entirely at random, instead being guided by your magic to form meaningful patterns.

Reading the future like this is by no means easy, especially when the spell you're using to do it is (normally) only of the second circle. The extra mana you had to imbue into the ritual to make it work was just to overcome the differences in sorcery and witchcraft; it didn't change the underlying formulas or make the spell any more effective. As a result, there are only four possible answers, and as you study the pattern of the sticks, you quickly recognize which one they've formed.

"It looks like good news," you report to Briar.

"So nobody gets hurt by the spell?"

"Seems like it."

And as a bonus, there's been no manifestations of dark magic or grumpy old evil sorcerers. So that's good news twice over.

Given the positive result of the augury, you feel like taking your new spell for a test-run. As it's based on the Spell of Legend Lore, though, you'll need the incense and ivory focuses. You could conjure everything you need, of course, but it'd be a bit expensive in terms of mana. The first alternative that comes to mind is to use some of the Gold Incense you picked up back during the Tournament, and/or try to scrounge up some suitable pieces of ivory from the house.

Truthfully, you're not too confident of success in that particular endeavor. But you'll never know unless you try, right?

You decide that there's no point in wasting time hunting for ivory that your family probably doesn't have anyway, or in using up any of a valuable reagent that you've already earmarked for the familiar binding ritual - at least, not when you can quickly conjure suitable replacement materials.

This way, all you're using up is mana. And that's a perfectly renewable resource.

That having been said, you still take the box of Gold Incense from your dimensional pocket.

You may not be about to burn any of it, but there's no reason why you can't use it as a template for the incense you're about to conjure.

Which you do.

Reagents and focuses conjured, you check everything over.

Your spidersilk suit is laid out neatly on the reflective floor, the ivory figurines arranged around it. The sticks of incense are hovering at shoulder level, thanks to a simple application of the Spell of Prestidigitation, and have been lit by the most minor of Fire Elemental cantrips. The prayer-sticks from your Augury have been swept aside - from the look of things, the spell didn't disrupt the matrix holding them in existence, so it'll be hours until they fade away naturally - and a sheet of paper pulled from your pocket has been laid atop your suit, waiting to be filled with information.

Satisfied, you begin your new spell.

As the ritual proceeds, you experience a variety of mental twinges, visual flashes, and faint auditory hallucinations - hints that your magic is still trying to follow the well-traveled path dictated by the Spell of Legend Lore. As the minutes pass, however, these phenomenon diminish, and are replaced by a faint scratching - the sound of a pen or pencil, scribbling away on a sheet of paper.

Glancing at the only paper in the room, you're pleased to see it slowly filling with writing. You don't allow yourself to succumb to self-satisfaction, focusing on keeping the spell going - but you do spare the occasional glance in the page's direction.

After ten minutes, the tension of magic at work fades from the air, leaving only the aura of recently-spent power.

Taking a single breath, you step forward and reach for the paper, to see how well your new ritual "translated" from a spoken format to a written one...

Since it worked out pretty well for you the last time, you conjure three tiny representations of the Golden Goddesses and a Triforce emblem. The latter ends up on the floor beneath your suit, while the tiny Goddesses mark out the points of an equilateral triangle around it.

You squint at your creations, wondering briefly if it's just your eyes playing tricks on you, or if they really do look better than the previous ones. Bending down, you pick up the nearest figurine - Farore, as it happens - and examine it closely.

It's not just your eyes. You still wouldn't call your creations fine art - more like something a regular kid your age might throw together out of Play-Doh - but they have improved a bit.

Gained Knowledge (Magesmithing) E (Plus)

Anchored by these improved statuettes, your new ritual goes off without a hitch. The attempt to transfer information from an audio-visual medium to a written one is a success, although the results are not without their... quirks. The page you laid down has been covered by a fanciful hand-written script a few font sizes larger than what you'd find in most modern books. It's legible enough, but the words used are of a very poetic style, which waxes eloquent about the creation of your suit and its existence to date. You have to go over it a second time to make sure it says what you think it says.

In short, it reads like a transcription of the normal results of a casting of the Spell of Legend Lore. Which is what you were going for, really, but the lack of precise detail is a bit annoying.

Gained Literacy D (Plus) (Plus)

The good news is, the writing is English. The even better news is that your conjured ivory focuses are still intact after the spell - although when you reach out to inspect the tiny white image of Farore, you notice that the figurine is very warm to the touch, indicating that there's still a non-trivial amount of stress being visited on your created focuses.

Something to keep in mind.

Still, these are good results for a first-time casting of a brand-new spell. And all of it was achieved in a single day.

Packing away your suit and the new account of its history, you exit your Mirror Hideaway and let it discorporate until the next time you need it.

You spend the rest of the afternoon playing with Zelda and Moblin, and when your father gets home, he and your mother take a half-hour before dinner to talk about which of them will be going to Gen's with you this evening. The conversation isn't really a private one - they just move into the kitchen, leaving you and Zelda in the living room, with no warnings against eavesdropping - and from what you overhear, both of your folks are interested in going, if for different reasons.

Your father seems to want to get Gen's measure as an individual, but also to discuss the prospects - and difficulties - of using magic to supplement mundane work. On top of that, he sounds honestly curious to see more of what you can do.

Your mother, on the other hand, sounds like she's mostly concerned with making sure you aren't being taken advantage of.

You decide to keep your nose out of this one. Volunteering your opinion to your folks hasn't worked out all that well for you of late.

Over dinner, you're informed that your mother is the one who will be accompanying you to Japan.

Dad looks a bit disgruntled by that, but they already vetoed the idea of making this a family outing, so SOMEBODY has to stay home and mind Zelda.

Besides, your father's already witnessed one of your more significant workings of magic; from that perspective, it's your mother's turn to see what you can do.

One advantage of having a parent along for the ride is that access to a car cuts down on your energy expenditure. It'll be a bit slower going at first, early evening traffic in Sunnydale being what it is, but once you get to the outskirts of town and start picking up speed, it ought to average out.

On that subject, you have to decide which of your potential teleportation sites you'd like to make this trip from, and how you're going to sell the idea to your mother. Going out into the desert along the highway has the advantage of making it look like you and your mom were going to Oxnard, and if you stay in Japan for a couple of hours, it'll match up with you having had to run an errand of some kind. Driving up into the woods is also an option. Heading south into the hills is right out - your car isn't built for off-roading - and you'd prefer not to go to the cabin.

Although, if you say THAT, your mother is going to want to know WHY, which could all-too easily segue into an explanation about the ghoul you found lurking near the cabin. If you're cautious, maybe you can get away with saying that part of being careful about where you use magic is not using powerful spells where they can be easily associated with your family?

There's also the little matter of what you're going to do with your vehicle after you reach your teleportation site - you can't see your mother being too happy with the idea of just leaving the family car parked in the middle of nowhere for a few hours. (Though in fairness to her, you don't think your dad would like the idea, either.) Fortunately, magic offers a few possible solutions.

"If you want, Dad, I can always take you to meet Gen after I'm not grounded anymore," you offer.

Your father considers that, and his expression brightens. "Or, I could go with you tomorrow."

Er.

You state your preference to head east, and your mother frowns thoughtfully.

"Any particular reason for that, Alex?"

Although you hadn't intended to say anything, now that you've been asked directly, you go ahead and recount your reasoning about making it look like you were headed out to Oxnard. You don't mention the ghoul that was staking out the cabin, even though your mother was already aware of it; she didn't like hearing about it the first time, and you weren't already facing two weeks of being grounded then.

Your mother hears you out, and then shrugs. "One direction is as good as another, I suppose - but what are we going to do with the car?"

"I can shrink it, and we can take it with us," you say.

Your parents give you a look that you've been getting very familiar with of late, the one that says louder than words that you've just knocked someone's worldview off-balance.

"You can shrink. The car," your father says slowly.

You nod. "It will take a bit of effort," you admit. "But the spell in question is like... well, you remember the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, right? And how Mr. Szalinski's machine was supposed to reduce the amount of space inside objects? It's kind of like that. Only without the exploding apples."

You leave out the part where the end result of such an effect should be an object with greatly reduced volume, but just as much mass as the original - which would have made a lot of the scenes in the movie, like the kids being carried around by insects, impossible. You don't really want to get into a discussion of how magical dimensional manipulation actually works.

"I'm glad to hear that," your mother muses. She thinks on your suggestion for a moment, and then says, "You're sure you can do this, Alex? Safely?"

You nod.

"...alright, then."

Everything from there is pretty straightforward. After hugging Zelda goodbye - and taking several minutes to explain why she can't come with you and Mom - you get into the car and drive out of town. Rather than direct your mother to your usual spell-working site - which is, after all, off the road - you ask her to pull in at the abandoned gas station where you picked up the security mirror. She drives around behind the building, putting both of you and the car completely out of sight from the road, and you take a minute to familiarize yourself with the location, so as to ease your eventual return teleport.

Then you proceed to shrink the car. You have to modify the Spell to Shrink Items a fair bit to affect an object with as much volume as the family car, but the resulting ritual doesn't eat up any more time or effort than it normally would. After all, you don't need the magic to last for the next week and a half, just a few hours.

Gained Mana Concealment B

The car shrinks slowly steadily throughout your spellcasting, finally stopping when it's about half a foot long, a few inches across, and slightly less than that in height. It also appears to be made out of cloth now - or maybe felt?

Your mother blinks at the tiny, plush-looking vehicle.

"That's supposed to happen," you assure her.

She doesn't appear completely convinced.

Now it's time for the trip to Japan. Before you perform the ritual teleportation, however, are there any spells you think you might want to cast on your mother, to ease the shock?

"Ah, not to be a downer, Dad," you begin tentatively.

"And THAT'S not a depressing start," he sighs.

Heh.

"Mom gave me this three-day grace period so I could meet an obligation. And... I can't really do that if I'm making unscheduled visits to Gen's." You pause. "A couple of weeks isn't that long to wait, right?"

"But- but- but-!"

Your mother gives your father a completely unimpressed look. "Really, Tony?"

After a moment, he sighs.

"I suppose it's not that bad," he admits.

You're ready to start the Ritual of Teleportation, but before you do, you explain your concerns to your mother, pointing out how your method of teleportation is a bit stressful for first-time travelers. Cordelia had a bad reaction to the experience, and even your own first trip across space-time was hardly free of mental strain.

When you offer to cast "a few simple spells" to shield her from the problem, your mother is quick to inquire what these spells do.

She has no quarrel with the Spell of Protection From Evil. Actually, she seems to quite like your summary of that spell's effects.

Similarly, the Spell to Mask Dweomers draws no objection. In point of fact, your mother gives you a stern look and asks if you're using that spell, or magic like it, as often as you can.

When it comes to the other spells you suggest, though, your mother is firm in her refusal. For all that the Spell of Greater Heroism is a benign magic, your mother seems to find the idea of mind-affecting spells creepy - even wrong. And she doesn't care for the idea of being rendered unconscious or otherwise insensate at ALL.

Acceding to your mother's wishes, you cast the Spell of Protection From Evil and the Spell to Mask Dweomers on your mother, and then on yourself and Briar.

All preparations complete, you make with the teleportation-

-flying/falling/sinking through a strange space/medium/awareness filled with familiar shapes/alien geometries and faint/loud chorus/discordance and a near/distant green energy/presence someone new/old this time/space/probability?-

-and reappear in Gen's yard, between his shop and the wall marking the edge of his property.

Immediately, you look to your mother, worried yet hopeful - but mostly worried.

She blinks.

She opens her mouth.

She closes her mouth, and blinks again.

"...green?" she finally says.

...you really hope you didn't just break your mom.

"Want me to put her to sleep before she loses it?" Briar offers quietly.

"I'm not," you admit.

Almost immediately, your mother frowns.

"But I don't walk around with active spells on me, either," you add, as quickly and smoothly as possible. "So it's fine."

The frown turns to a suspicious look.

"And I restrain my aura constantly anyway, which makes it harder for anything that's likely to notice me TO notice me."

You consider adding that your exercises in mana concealment allow you to hide the casting of most minor spells, and even a few magics that are edging into the "significant" range, but you decide not to. Hiding the CASTING of a spell is a different thing from hiding the aura of an ACTIVE spell - as good as you are at the former, you still have to resort to magic to achieve the latter, and that's not likely to change any time soon.

"How much harder?" your mother asks.

"Several orders of magnitude," you answer promptly. "I mean, if I were dumb enough to walk around without hiding my aura at all, I'd leave a trail that could be picked up for a week by anyone with the skills to looking for it. Even magic-users who weren't trying to find me would notice it, if they crossed my path within a day or so. But I'm good enough at suppressing my magic now that the window for spells to find me only lasts a few minutes, at best, and casual notice is pretty much only possible if they're in the same room with me."

That prompts a moment of silent consideration.

"But you could hide yourself completely?" your mom half-asks, half-states.

"I could," you answer slowly. "At least against casual notice or low-end searching spells. But it's probably not a good idea. I mean, it took a lot of time and effort for me to develop my control over my aura to this level, so there's a pretty good chance that people - and things - in town who had the ability to pick it up have already noticed that I have SOME ability. If I keep my aura low, they'll know that I have some potential, but they'll also think that I'm either bad at using it or not doing anything with it at all. If my aura vanishes, on the other hand..."

"They'd get suspicious," you mother concludes. "Hiding in plain sight, then?"

You nod.

She sighs. "I can't honestly say that I care for the idea. But... that's life in Sunnydale for you."

That statement makes you twitch.

You gesture for Briar to stay quiet and not take any independent action - at least, not YET. You want to give your mother a minute, and see what happens. If you're lucky, she'll be able to cope with - or just repress the heck out of - what she just experienced. If not... you'll deal with it then.

Out of the corner of your eye, you see Briar's glowing form bob, her usual equivalent of a nod.

Several seconds have already passed. More follow them, and your mother remains quiet and mostly-motionless, with only the slow blinking of her eyes and soundless movements of her mouth to indicate consciousness.

Then she closes her eyes and presses one hand over them, firmly, letting out a groan.

"Is it supposed to be like that?" she complains.

"Yeah, Sunnydale sucks that way," you sigh. "But what can you do? Besides move, I mean."

Your mother gives you an odd look at that remark.

"Speaking of leaving the 'Dale," you add, "whenever I travel like this, Briar and I usually perform a ritual somewhere along the line to scrub Hellmouth gunk from the soul. Other people we've met can pick up on that corruption, and none of them have cared for it. Would you care to try it? It's kind of refreshing. Tingly."

Okay, now your mother looks a bit startled. "So it's... a magical version of washing up before going out?"

You consider that.

Purification rituals as a form of socially-mandated spiritual hygiene?

Kind of works.

You say as much, and your mother nods.

"Then yes, please."

Approval granted, you add a Ritual of Abjuration to the list of Spells To Cast On Mom Before We Teleport. As it's the one that should be done first, just to avoid interference with the other magics you intend to cast on her, you get started.

Although you've looked at your mother's spiritual state before - and rather closely, at that - your skills were less developed then, and you weren't specifically investigating the level of demonic contamination. You're doing so now, however, and it's... well, it could be worse. It could be a LOT worse.

Still, the current state of your mother's soul is nothing you would call "good," even if she weren't one of the most important people in the world to you. You envision her soul as a more-or-less Mom-shaped mass of coherent light, which in a perfectly healthy person, would be glowing steadily and brightly. The Hellmouth's taint is a clinging shadow that both overlies and intrudes within that light. It's not as dark or as deeply-rooted as what you recall seeing in your own soul in the past, but it's much more widespread. There basically isn't a portion of your mother's being that hasn't been marked by her life in Sunnydale.

Considering that she's lived there for some forty years, never used magic despite having a small talent for it, and only had one encounter with the supernatural - that you know of - until you came along, you suppose this is pretty close to what a "normal" adult resident of the 'Dale looks like.

It's honestly depressing, and given that this IS your mother you're looking at, it's also more than a bit... UPSETTING.

Gained Corruption Sense C (Plus)
Gained Protective C (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Rage E

You take a deep personal satisfaction in calling down the Light to scour that externally-imposed darkness from your mother's soul.

Gained Dark Affinity D (Plus)

She starts in place as the magic takes effect.

"I see what you meant by 'tingly,'" is all she says.

Following the rain of cleansing Light, your mother looks a great deal better. She hasn't been completely purged of the Hellmouth's influence, but it's visibly weaker: the surface layer is gone entirely; and the deeper stuff has been markedly reduced.

Pleased by the results of that spell, you go ahead and cast the Spell of Protection From Evil, followed by the Spell to Hide Dweomers.

Then you make with the teleportation ritual.

"That's one of the things I've been planning to talk to Ambrose about, whenever he gets around to visiting us," you tell your mother.

"I see." She considers your words. "For the record, Alex?"

"Yes?"

"I may be willing to make an exception to the 'no magic while grounded' thing, IF this Mister Ambrose visits in the next two weeks. At least while he's there."

This is good news. Now, if only you could confirm whether or not Ambrose was going to show up...

...well, one thing at a time. Today, you have a business partner to introduce to your mother.

You lead your mom around to the front of the shop, and enter to the familiar jangle of the little bell above the door.

To your surprise, Gen isn't alone in the store this time. Also present is a Japanese man who might be your mother's age, or as much as ten years younger - or, if he's supernaturally-inclined in some regard, decades older. He's dressed normally, and your passive senses don't pick up any obvious mystical marks in his aura, so it's hard to say without going to active probes.

Regardless of his talent or lack thereof, the man is clearly a customer. He and Gen have their heads together over the counter, and are talking in quiet voices over one of those baskets Gen used to gather up your purchases the first time you were here.

At the sound of a potential new customer's entrance, the shopkeeper looks up from his conversation - haggling, maybe? - smiles on seeing you, and then blinks when he looks at your mother's entrance just behind you.

"Ah, madam, young sir. Welcome, welcome to Gen's! Please, look around at my fine wares; I shall be with you in but a moment!"

Gen is acting like he doesn't know you. Given the presence of a complete stranger, you can guess why. People who do business in shops like this may not be clued in to existence of the Moonlit World, and they may not even believe that magic is real, but they do at least tacitly accept that the stuff Gen trades in has use, and therefore value.

And you ARE Gen's newest supplier of valueable things. It's only natural that he'd want to keep your exact identity a secret from the general public, even before your age and the state of affairs with your parents are taken into account.

That aside, Gen's greeting - in Japanese - raises a point. You neglected to cast any spells of translation or language-transferrence on your mother before coming here, and you're pretty sure she doesn't speak Japanese.

A glance over your shoulder confirms that a look of polite puzzlement has settled on your mother's face in response to Gen's cheerful, but evidently unintelligible greeting.

You give your mother a nudge, and when she looks down, you translate: "He invited us to have a look around while he's busy with his first customer."

Enlightened, your mother nods and follows your lead.

You spend the next couple of minutes just wandering the small aisles of the shop, taking in what's on the shelves and comparing it to your memories. Nothing obvious has changed as far as you can tell, although the basket of items currently being rung up is proof that Gen has done at least SOME business.

For her part, your mother appears rather mystified by the selection of available goods. Innumerable bits and pieces drawn from all over the plant, animal, and fungal kingdoms, a similar abundance of assorted minerals, and virtually none of it with any use obvious to the eyes of a layman. She ends up heading in the direction of the books, which are at least familiar in form and purpose, but even then, she ends up looking quietly bewildered by some of the titles.

The ring of Gen's cashier catches your attention, then, and you look over to see the customer handing over some bills and coins. Gen takes them with a smile, hands over a plain paper bag, and thanks the man for his patronage, wishing him a good-day and hoping that he will come again.

As the customer turns to leave, you inadvertantly meet his gaze. With the exception of a small, faint scar over his left brow, there's little to distinguish him from any random Japanese man in his thirties.

He frowns slightly at you, more quizzical than anything else, and casts a quick glance at your mother.

Nodding once to each of you in simple polite acknowledgement, he walks out.

"Well," Gen says a moment later - and in rather good English, you're relieved to note. "Welcome back, Mister Harris. And you, madam, welcome to my store." He bows. "I am Hirogane Gen."

"Jessica Harris. Pleased to meet you, Mister Gen."

"The pleasure is mine, good lady. And please, just call me Gen. Everyone does."

"Alright."

"Now then, from what young Alexander has told me, you and your husband have perfectly natural concerns over your underage son working with a strange old man neither of you has ever met, and in a business as shady as the magical goods trade. Yes?"

"...well, I wouldn't put it QUITE that way..."

"Then you are a more polite and generous soul than I," Gen admits.

The adults talk for a bit about the particulars of Gen's business, and how you fit into things. As they do so, you wonder over how to best demonstrate your responsibilities to your mother.

Summoning is the singular service you provide Gen that he can't perform on his own. He may not be AS good at analyzing magical items as you are, but he's no slouch at it, either - just the fact that he's lived to be an old man while doing a regular trade in mystical components and enchanted items is proof enough of that. Assessing the use, value, and potential dangers of such things is a skill like any other, and while magical talent certainly helps that skill along, it isn't truly required.

The same cannot be said for the summoning and binding of otherworldly creatures.

There are other reasons why you feel demonstrating your summoning prowess to your mother would be a good idea. For one thing, it's an incredibly useful skillset, and one that might encourage her to consider taking up the study and practice of magic in the future. After all, if you need something done and have access to summoning spells, it's almost a given that you can find SOMETHING out there that has both the ability and the willingness to help you out. It might take a while, and it could require a payment on your part, but the potential is definitely there. You can't say that for all the other schools of magic.

Of course, summoning's sheer versatility comes hand-in-hand with the potential DANGER of the style. "Do not call up what you cannot put down" is a creed as old as sorcery itself, one so prevalent that it has actually worked its way into the non-magical collective consciousness - and for DAMN good reason. The number of foolhardy summoners who've destroyed themselves with through poor bargains, failed bindings, and arrogant overestimations of their own power and importance is quite literally beyond counting, and the damage such careless fools have wrought on the rest of the world is of a similarly unfathomable scale.

With all of that in mind, it strikes you that it would probably be a good idea to show your mother that you are being responsible with this particularly hazardous power, and not running around calling up demons or doing other stupid things.

You broach the subject of a demonstration to Gen and your mother, and when you ask the shopkeeper if he could provide a few apples, he gets a knowing look and agrees.

Then he pulls a phone out from underneath the sales counter, dials a number, and after a moment, starts talking to someone - his niece, apparently, unless there is another woman named Rika he would ask to bring him some apples.

"Thank you, dear," he says a minute later, before hanging up and turning back to you. "You can go ahead and get started downstairs, Alexander. The apples will be along in a few minutes."

Shrugging, you head for the basement, your mother following you down.

You take your time while setting up the summoning circle, explaining for your mom's benefit what you're about to do, what precautions you're taking, and why you're taking them. It's really just a lesson in basic summoning safety, but it's best to get it out of the way before you get started with the serious magic.

She listens, interrupting you two or three times to ask questions, which you answer earnestly - because there is NO room for mystery or misunderstanding when it comes to this topic.

You've just finished empowering the magic circle - ritual-style, of course - when you hear the bell in Gen's shop jangle again. A moment later, the half-remembered voice of Gen's niece reaches downstairs, followed quickly by your partner's.

You frown up at the ceiling. They seem to be arguing, though not heatedly, by any means. It sounds more like... curiosity, on Rika's part, and an attempt to deflect it with old man foolishness by Gen.

You're not sure how involved Miss Rika is in Gen's business. Her behavior on your first visit, when you told her you were looking for a place to shop, makes you think that she has SOME level of participation, at least when it comes to interacting with the clientele and making sales. On the other hand, her reaction to Gen's spiel about the wonders of Great Fairy Tears and other magical restoratives - as well as his assessment of her as having "all the imagination of a rock" - strongly suggests that the lady doesn't believe in magic or the supernatural in general.

That wouldn't necessarily disqualify her from manning the till in a magic store. As far as you're aware, you don't need to believe in magic yourself in order to sell reagents and other paraphernalia to people who DO believe in it. The money spends all the same.

Until you have a better idea of Miss Rika's responsibilities regarding the shop, you decide to keep your nose out of family affairs and let Gen deal with his niece his own way.

The not-quite-an-argument continues for a couple minutes more, before breaking off. The bell over the door jangles again, and the next thing you hear is Gen coming down the stairs.

"Here you are," he says, presenting you with a couple of shiny red apples.

Since you're going to need your hands to work magic, you pass the apples on to your mother.

"Would you like me to collect some more horsehairs this time?" you ask Gen. You recall him mentioning a client that would have been willing to pay more for the material, if he'd been assured of a regular supply.

"That would be lovely, thank you!" your partner replies with a grin, before scooting back upstairs to watch the shop.

"'Horsehair'?" your mother inquires.

"Watch, and be amazed."

Over the next ten minutes, shadow gradually fills the summoning circle before you, forming a dark, vaguely liquid-looking mass that either covers or replaces the floor within the diagram. Eldritch mist rises into the air, revealing the boundaries of an invisible cylinder that make sure what appears in the circle STAYS in the circle.

And then, the horse appears before you.

His red eyes go STRAIGHT to the apples your mother is holding.

"Nice to see you again, too," you say dryly.

Gained Shadow Affinity E

"Horsehair," your mother repeats in an undertone, speaking to herself. "Which, naturally, implies a horse." She pauses, and more clearly, asks, "Are his eyes supposed to be red?"

"As far as I know, yes."

You're still not thrilled by your ability to summon this reincarnation of Ganondorf's steed, but since you DO have that power, the Tao of Peter Parker would seem to apply. In which case, it makes more sense to be friendly with the horse, get to know it better, and maybe - hopefully - get it on YOUR side, and OFF the side of the Demon King, if any future shenanigans involving him come up.

Also, if you said you didn't like the idea of having a horse of your own to go riding with, you'd be lying.

And Zelda, at least, would never forgive you if she found out you COULD have had a pony, and chose not to. Or were mean to him.

Before you approach the shadow horse, however, you take a moment to focus your senses on him, particularly in the mental spectrum. You're curious about something:

Does the horse have a name?

You don't recall Ganondorf ever addressing it by name, but for all the secondhand memories you've got stuck in your head, there's still large swathes of the Thief-King's lives and times that you're ignorant of. This could just be one of them.

Mystically speaking, the horse is clearly a creature of Shadow and Spirit, albeit one with enough of the material elements for him to be a mortal form of life, rather than some kind of elemental. His life-force is already as strong as that of most adult humans, with the exception of athletes, martial artists, and others whose lifestyles allow for or require regular intensive physical activity. That said, there's a wildness to the horse's aura that reminds you of Moblin and the animals you encountered at the Shuzen estate, suggesting that this young stallion's strength is due entirely to good breeding and the rigors of survival, as opposed to any sort of training.

Your attempts at a psychic probe don't turn up the knowledge you were hoping for. Horses don't think in human terms, after all, and even if this one did, you're not much of a telepath. Even so, you do get a sense of a mind at work - young, curious, oooh shiny red tasty round crunchy-

Blinking, you pull back.

Yeah. He would REALLY like an apple.

Gained Mental Sense D (Plus) (Plus)

You spend the next few minutes repeating your actions the first time you summoned the horse, carefully feeding him apples while getting in some grooming with a conjured brush. You try to get your mother involved, as much because an extra pair of hands would make the work go easier as for reasons of encouraging her in regards to magic, and after some hesitation on her part, she seems to get into it a bit.

"Here you go, boy," she says, handing over the last of the second apple, which is, of course, immediately snapped up.

As the horse relishes his treat, your mother gives you a curious look. "When did you get this good with horses, Alex?"

You pause in the middle of brushing one midnight flank, glad that the horse's body is mostly between you and your mother.

You state your completely factual excuse.

Your mother makes an, "Oh," of realization, nods her head in acknowledgement, and lets the matter drop.

...huh. That was easy.

Perhaps... a little too easy...?

After you've finished tending to the horse, you make ready to dismiss him.

Then you pause, looking the young black stallion directly in his red eyes, and wondering.

To the best of your knowledge, he doesn't have a name.

Maybe you should give him one.

If only so you don't have to keep thinking of him as "Horse" all the time.

The shadow steed sent on his way, you consider what to do next. You could summon something else, of course, but since your mother has already seen your skills at that particular art demonstrated, it would lose some of the impact - unless you summoned something REALLY impressive, that is. Like a really big, powerful monster, to illustrate the perils of summoning and how you can handle them, or a spirit that was not only intelligent, but capable of intelligible communication, so as to provide an example of a more conventional negotiation.

Alternately, you could go back upstairs and see if Gen's got any new magic items in need of examination.

Or you could check to see if your partner has sold any of the stuff you acquired for him.

And failing all of that... you could always leave the store.

A variety of potential names for the horse flash past your mind's eye. Some of them are obvious comments on his dark coat, and at least one is just the word for "horse" in a different language - none of which really says much for your creativity.

If this was a dragon, calling him Ryu, Lung, or Draco would be both cool and appropriate. But this isn't a dragon, and Uma, Ma, and Equus just don't carry the same ring.

You could be biased, though.

If you're going to give this horse a name, you'd like it to be something impressive, something epic, something eminently suitable to a horse whose rider is named "Alexander."

...

Nothing's really coming to mind.

Eh, you can always look up past bearers of your name later, and see if any of them had awesome horses.

It's not like it's urgent, or anything

You send the - for now - still-unnamed horse on his way with a final pat and a rub behind the ears.

He seems to appreciate that.

Gained Animal Handling D (Plus)

"Is there anything else you'd like to see here, Mom?" you inquire.

"Is there anything else I should see?" she returns.

You consider that.

"Well, aside from summoning, the other thing I'd be doing for Gen would be examining goods he's picked up from other people, so that he has a better idea of what they can be used for and what they're worth. That's... a lot less flashy than this, really." You gesture at the dimmed summoning circle. "Mostly I just... look REALLY closely at something. With magic."

"So you're appraising things. With magic."

You nod, while resisting the urge to repeat those last two words, both for the sake of accuracy and a joke.

"I... probably don't need to see that," your mother admits. "Really, as long as you're being careful with magic... and anything else that might be dangerous, like, say, knives-"

She trails off, giving you a meaningful look.

You nod again, quickly.

"-then that's... a large part of my worries handled." She frowns. "I do want to talk to Gen more about how the money involved in this - and the clientele. And how he deals with the government..." Your mother breaks off, shaking her head. "In any case, I think we're done down here." She eyes the powered metal spread out on the floor. "Is there a broom, or a hand-vacuum or something?"

You cast a Spell of Prestidigitation, and the glittering silver dust begins scooping itself up and into a waiting container.

"Magic. Right. Of course. What WAS I thinking?"

Your mother spends another twenty minutes or so talking to Gen. He assures her that, while most of his customers are respectable citizens, he has no intention of having you interact directly with them if it can be avoided, and certainly not by yourself. It's as much because that sort of thing falls under HIS side of your arrangement, as it is to keep the potentially-lucrative knowledge of your identity under wraps.

Gen admits that he DOES have a few clients he makes a point of keeping an eye on. Fortunately, the majority of those have very precise schedules, and he won't be asking you to come in on days when he expects them.

As for the money, it turns out that Gen has yet to sell any of your other contributions to his stock. It's only been a few days since he put the Light-mote, the enchanted glowing sand, and the toad-slime on his shelves, and the customers he expects to be most interested and/or most able to afford those goods have yet to make their usual visits.

Regarding the government, Gen doesn't have much to say. He pays his taxes, he doesn't carry contraband, and he does his best not to get caught up in deals with shady types. He knows the unwritten rules that guide and govern the supernatural community, particularly in its interactions with the mundane world, but he doesn't have anything to add in that regard that you hadn't already heard from others.

That appears to frustrate your mother.

You're starting to think it's not the existence of magic or the things she's seen and heard about it doing that's bothering your mother, as much as it is the lack of any official regulations or oversight - which, when you stop and think about it, makes sense.

She's a nurse, after all. It's a job that's almost built on regulation and oversight, with experts and professionals that can be consulted, procedures to fall back on, and long-established precedent when it comes to what is "good" and what is "bad."

Magic doesn't really have any of that.

At least, not for anyone who isn't a practitioner themselves.

Finally, your mother seems to have satisfied herself - or at least run out of questions that Gen can answer for her. She thanks him for his time, a minute of back-and-forth platitudes and farewells are exchanged, and then you're on your way out of the store.

"Would you like to stop by the Hakuba Shrine before we head home, Mom?" you offer.

"Would they be able to answer more of my questions than Gen did?" she counters.

...you were thinking more about directing her towards their ritual purification practices, actually. But now that she mentions it...

Your mother considers that answer for a moment.

Then, she shakes her head.

"Maybe another time, Alex. Right now... I think I'd prefer to just head home."

"You're sure, Mom?" you ask.

"I am."

Well, then. You suppose that's that.

Ducking back behind Gen's shop, you renew the protections on your mother and then perform the Ritual of Teleportation, transporting her, yourself, Briar, and the plush car tucked under your arm from Tokyo-

-flying/falling/sinking through a strange space/medium/awareness filled with familiar shapes/alien geometries and faint/loud chorus/discordance and a near/distant green energy/presence again with the shields/wards/protections/mistrust?-

-to the long-abandoned back lot of the old gas station.

"Gaaah," your mother groans, as she puts her head in her hands.

"Mom?! Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, Alex. Just... I think, by 'another time,' I should add that I mean 'some time AFTER you've talked to an expert about your spell.' Because that is just... too bizarre."

You sigh, and nod.

It's one thing when the quirks of your magic are merely giving you and Briar something to poke at and argue over. It's another matter entirely when they start messing with your family and friends.

...

Goddesses help you, you're actually HOPING to see Ambrose again. And sooner rather than later.

Gaaah, indeed.

On that unsettling note, you put down the car, unshrink it, and - after your mother spends a few minutes making sure that the vehicle is none the worse off for its temporary change in size and construction - drive back home. You make the trip without incident, and as your mom pulls in to the driveway, you glance at the dashboard radio.

You were gone for about two hours. Oxnard's close enough to Sunnydale to make that seem like a reasonable trip.

"Welcome home," your father calls from the living room, as you come in the door. "So what's the verdict?"

"Alex's employer is living the weird old Oriental shopkeeper stereotype, and enjoying every second of it, from what I could tell," your mother replies, as she heads into the living room. "And I got the impression that he makes more in a year than we do."

"...seriously?"

"His shop's part of a family-owned compound in Tokyo that's easily twice as big as our entire property, yard included. And considering what land values and property taxes over there are supposed to be like..."

There is a brief sound of agreement from your father. He looks at you for a moment as you enter the room, then turns back to your mother.

"So, living stereotypes aside, does he seem okay to you?"

"The man himself, yes. And the jobs he wants Alex to do seem fine."

"...buuut..." your father drawls.

"But I still don't like the fact that Alex would be working underage," your mother admits. "If there was somebody official I could talk to about it, even just off the clock..."

Your father gives you a wordless glance.

"I did suggest going to see the priests at the Hakuba Shrine," you tell your dad. "But if we're talking about someone closer to home, Lu-sensei might be helpful - or at least know some people. By and large, though... the Moonlit World doesn't seem to have 'officials' in the sense that modern government does. I got the impression they do things by an older standard - lords and ladies and that kind of thing."

"Kings?" your father guesses.

"Maybe. If there is one, I haven't met him."

"That's actually kind of reassuring."

Looking at it from your father's point of view, you can see why. Most people from Sunnydale would probably consider having the attention of a supernatural entity to be a bad thing. Having the attention of a supernatural AUTHORITY, particularly one from a society that's openly inclined to the "might makes right" mentality...

Yeah. For most people, that would be a Very Bad Thing.

Lucky for you and your family, then, that you're not most people.

"I was planning to talk with Mr. Tze about this in any case," your mother admits, bringing your train of thought back on track. "Maybe this weekend, as long as he isn't busy."

Oh. Well... that's good.

You pass the remainder of the evening with a bit more reading. You're about three-quarters of the way through Meditations Upon the Tao, now, and in hindsight, picking such heavy reading before bed may not have been the best idea. You end up marking a page midway through the eighth chapter and calling it an early night.

The next day, you spend most of the morning struggling through Zuang Lao's work. Although you do manage to "finish" the book before lunch, you have a feeling that you're going to have to review the information several times before you can truly say you understand it.

In comparison to the weighty topics discussed in Meditations, Mistress Ching's Awakening the Third Eye reads almost like a grade-school book. It's not that what's written down in this book is in any way wrong, or less educational; it's just that the concepts being described have been simplified, and presented in as close to everyday language as possible. You polish the book off in the course of an hour.

Gained Knowledge (Psionics) E
Gained Mental Sight E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

There's a reason why you pushed yourself to finish reading your new books as quickly as possible, and that's because you want to get an early start in Japan. If you leave Sunnydale at one in the afternoon, it should be just after dawn in Tokyo, which will give you several extra hours to attend to the remaining matters Miss Suzuka so helpfully brought to your attention.

Speaking of which, both of the things still on your "To Do For Raiden" list involve dealing with adults you've never met before. Considering the reactions you've been getting recently due to your age - from the Hakuba priests, from the Tokyo Police Department, and from your mom - the idea of bypassing the entire age issue by showing up in an adult form holds some real appeal.

So, after you've cleared your "early start" with your mother, you once again head down to your Mirror Hideaway to cast some spells. As the spell you have in mind doesn't affect your clothes, you also bring along your dad's old housecoat. It's worn a bit thin and has lost color in some places from too many runs through the washing machine, but it should still keep you decent.

The Spell of Threefold Aspect is a weird one. Ganondorf never bothered to cast it himself, but it stood out rather vividly in his mind nonetheless, because he'd seen his adoptive mothers cast it. The mental image of Koume and Koutake shifting from wrinkly little old witchy-women to middle-aged Gerudo warrior-sorceresses to teenaged trainees was... memorable, for lack of a better word. And also creepy, although since those two weren't YOUR mothers, you don't find it quite as unsettling as the Thief-King did.

But it's still quite strange.

Shaking off the inherited unease, you strip, don the old housecoat - which pools about your feet - and conjure a small crescent of pure silver. Once you have the necessary focus, you begin casting the Spell of Threefold Aspect.

Gained Transformation C (Plus)

As the ritual proceeds, you begin to grow. Taller, broader, and with a small but growing weight on your head that suggests your hair is growing out a LOT. Your face tingles in a manner you've never experienced before, and then develops whiskers, which quickly increase in number and length.

"Uh, Alex-"

"Kind of busy, Briar," you reply. This transformation doesn't require spoken incantation, which is nice, but it does take a lot of focus, especially with the... very distraction sensations.

The oversized housecoat gradually becomes less so, then actually fits for a while - and then it begins to pinch about the shoulders, while the hem flaps loosely about your ankles. Then your calves. Then your KNEES...

"Never mind that!" Briar bursts out. "Look in the mirror!"

"Wha-"

A ball of light flies up, grabs you by one ear, and pulls. "Look!"

You look.

Someone that looks like a young, rapidly-growing, barely-dressed, and rather pale Ganondorf looks back at you.

You close your eyes and take a deep breath to calm yourself.

It's just your reflection.

It's not ACTUALLY Ganondorf.

It's NOT going to claw its way out of the glassy wall and attack you.

Then you all but GLARE at the reflected image, as you WILL the Spell of the Threefold Aspect to quit screwing around and work the way it's supposed to.

Your image... wavers. The immense mass of hair shrinks, almost seeming to draw back into your skull as it approaches a more reasonable length. The Gerudo overtones of your adult self, already muted, are diminished further: the gold in your eyes and the red in your hair both darken to shades of brown; the hints of that long, sharp nose vanish entirely; and your face... it's hard to describe the details, but you look less like Ganondorf, less like any boy with Gerudo heritage, and more like someone from Southern California.

You get a little shorter, a bit less massive in the chest and shoulders - but only slightly.

Truth be told, those are aspects of your appearance that you LIKE.

It's another minute before your reflection stabilizes. The final result is a tall, strongly-built man in a less-than-perfectly-fitting dressing gown, which is uncomfortably tight about the upper body, while flapping loosely about your ankles. Looking at that image provokes a feeling rather like your first meeting with a second cousin or some other comparatively distant kinsman: at first glance, a stranger; and yet when you look closer, you can see familiar features that reveal a common heritage.

Incidentally, you shed the beard.

It itched.

The Gerudo features aren't completely erased from your new form. You suspect that's because you've been used to seeing them for so long, they're part of your self-image by now. But they're more muted like this than you can ever recall seeing them, so you're willing to tentatively accept this image of your possible future self.

Briar looks you over, and lets out a relieved sigh.

"That's better," she says. "For a minute, there..."

"Yeah."

"Although," she adds, frowning.

"What? Did I miss something?"

"No, it's just... well, did you HAVE to be so BIG?"

With your child-sized spidersilk suit as a template to build on, it's the work of just a few minutes to conjure a new suit that fits your adult form.

Gained Spidersilk Suit, Big and Tall Size

You give yourself a final look-over, and are quite satisfied with your appearance. Grown up, tall enough to be impressive without being overwhelming, dressed in a manner that makes it clear you're a man of wealth and taste...

Yes. This should do nicely for your meeting with the monks.

"Question," Briar says then.

"Yes?"

"Are you going to walk out of the mirror looking like that? And RUN all the way to the woods in your new suit?"

"...that's two questions, Briar," you reply.

"But they're worth asking."

"With our magic, size is just a lifestyle choice," you answer, as you start to get dressed.

"Only for those of us who can throw bucketloads of it around as casually as breathing," Briar retorts.

There is some truth to that.

Then again, you could easily cast a size-altering spell on Briar's behalf - sharing the wealth, as it were.

You consider the possible outcomes of you going upstairs, in a form that your mother has never seen, or the potential consequences of running around at Body Flicker speeds - in a brand new suit! - in a body you're not completely familiar with.

You wince.

"No," you answer. "No, I'm not."

You match actions to words, removing your new suit and storing it in your dimensional pocket, before reverting to normal Alex size. The Spell of the Threefold Aspect is rather convenient in how it lets you shift between your natural form and any of the three idealized ones unlocked by the magic.

You put your regular clothes back on, and cast one final spell before leaving your Mirror Hideaway. Yesterday's brief discussion with your mother about using magic to hide the fact that you HAVE magic is still on your mind, and the Spell of the Threefold Aspect is a fairly significant bit of sorcery - one that merits just that kind of extra precaution.

Normally, you'd cast the Spell to Mask Dweomers in this situation. However, since you're in your Hideaway and don't have to worry about concealing the magic, you can afford to use something with more punch. Hence, the Greater Spell of Magic Auras, which you use to erase all traces of magic from your aura. Casting this spell exhausts the last of the ambient mana in the mirror-walled room, but that's fine.

Gained Illusion D (Plus)

After all, you were just leaving.

Having already secured your mother's permission to leave for Tokyo early, and with Zelda taking her afternoon nap, you give Moblin a quick scratch behind the ears, tell him to behave until you get back, let your mom know you're heading out, and then slip quietly out the front door until a Spell of Invisibility.

Twenty minutes of Body Flickering later, you reach your chosen spot in the woods. Like every other time that you've come to this place, there's nobody around except the birds and the bugs.

Still, the idea of changing clothes in the middle of the forest is a bit... off-putting.

"Only for those of us who can throw bucketloads of it around as casually as breathing," Briar retorts.

"And for their friends, Briar," you add. "I don't have a problem with sharing the wealth, as it were - although I'll understand if you don't want me to cast any size-altering spells on you."

Briar's aura darkens slightly. "...thanks."

Meh. There's no one out here except you and Briar, and she's already seen you naked. What do you care if some birds or animals happen by? As long as you're careful not to get your clothes dirty, you'll be fine.

Once again, you undress, this time stowing each article of clothing in your dimensional pocket.

And how that works when you aren't wearing anything WITH pockets to BE expanded is a matter that's probably better left alone.

Wincing slightly as the detritus of the forest floor pokes and scrapes against your bare feet, you assume your adult form once more and begin pulling the individual articles of your new plus-sized suit from storage. Shorts, shirt, pants - minding the dirt and litter on your feet - then a quick self-scrubbing cantrip, followed by one sock and the matching shoe, and then the other half of the set. Finally, you pull out your coat, and apply a final cantrip of cleaning, just in case you missed anything.

From there, it's the by-now familiar process of teleporting, although this time, instead of the Hakuba Shrine, Gen's shop, or some other place you've been to before, you focus on the description Miss Suzuka gave you of the troubled temple-

-flying/falling/sinking through a strange space/medium/awareness filled with familiar shapes/alien geometries and faint/loud chorus/discordance and a near/distant green energy/presence just the two of you again-

-and then you're there.

Or rather, you're at the foot of a path that runs up a large hill - or is it a small mountain? - where a temple that's a reasonable match for the image your mind conjured up stands. The route to the holy site is one-part worked stone path and one-part wooden walkway, and all of it looks more than a little run-down, where it isn't showing signs of being overgrown. Here, one of the paving stones has split from the action of water, ice, and roots; there, wooden panels are discolored in a way that hints of dry rot; and there's entirely too many small weeds poking through the path and patches of moss hanging off of convenient surfaces.

When you look farther up the slop, the temple itself seems just as worn as the approach to it. You're close enough to make out a row of dragon-like gargoyles - or whatever they're called on this side of the world - standing guard along one wall, but with two noticeable gaps where members of the "watch" are missing. And while you're no expert on Buddhist architecture, the way part of the roof seems to bend just doesn't look right. Is it partially collapsed? Perhaps a tarp pulled over a hole, to keep the weather out while repairs are made? You can't tell from here.

Closer to your starting point, you have no trouble at all picking out other signs of neglect, not to mention attention of the least helpful kind. Some of it's a riot of spraypaint, but there are also spots where symbols have been carved into the wood and even the stone. Your understanding of Japanese lets you pick out some words and names, but there are other characters that you suspect have meanings you don't know - slang, gang tags, that kind of thing.

For all of that, you can still sense an aura of sanctity over this area. It's fainter than what you encountered at the Hakuba Shrine, much less the Higurashi Shrine, but it's there all the same.

There doesn't seem to be anyone around at the moment. Given the early hour, with the sun still hanging low in the East, turning sky and sea alike into a blaze of gold, that makes sense.

Look before you leap.

It's a piece of wisdom you've tried to make a habit of applying in your life, especially where the supernatural is concerned, and this is just about an ideal situation to do so. There's no one around, you're not in any danger, and you've got hours of time and a near-full tank of magical gas to work with.

After making sure you're not in the middle of the path, you ask Briar to keep a look-out and begin gathering mana, applying mental and sensory enhancements. Once they're in place, you cast a comparatively-simple piece of magic, reaching out to the essence of this location and attempting to divine its recent history. A sound fills your ears, as of a hundred murmuring voices, and images begin to flash past your mind's eye.

You see the temple, as it used to be years ago. The roof intact, the watchful dragons all in their places, the walkway neat and whole, every step of it well-maintained. Shaven-headed monks move through the vision, their faces indistinct, their motions the repetitive yet essential tasks of minding the temple, its grounds, and its guests.

- Better days, - an old woman's voice mutters. - Before the storm. Before their misfortune. -

You see many souls making the trip up the hill in search of reassurance, guidance, and peace. Men and women, mostly from the working class or those clearly struggling to make ends meet. A range of ages, though the majority are clearly grown adults. The children you glimpse have obviously been brought by their families, and of adolescents old enough to start making their own decisions in life, you see very few at all - and those you do glimpse swing between the fiercely devoted and the rudely disbelieving.

- Young punks, - a man growls, his voice made rough by age and drink. - No respect for tradition. No manners. You never saw that sort of behavior in MY day... -

You see the storm. Winds strong enough to tear loose roof tiles free and fling them as deadly projectiles. Rain beyond anything you've ever experienced, like the sudden intensity of a desert storm, except that's just the warm-up, and it goes on for HOURS. Drains are overwhelmed, the streets flooding to the point where some of the smaller cars are shifting where they were parked. And through it all, the flash and roar of thunder and lightning, their fierce power a mere drop in the bucket compared to the devastation of the wind and water.

- Call that a typhoon? - Another man laughs. - That one didn't even make landfall! Just skimmed the coast! -

You see the temple, damaged, but with the images of the monks and volunteers from the neighborhood working to repair what they can, and shore up what will take more serious, professional work.

- The money never came, - a man says. - 'Not covered by your policy,' the insurance company claimed. 'Not serious enough to qualify for disaster support,' the government said. 'You don't have the credit to take out a loan,' the bank said. Bah! -

Something... shifts. The vision grows darker. The murmurs... there's something else there, a voice... you can't quite make it out...

Even accounting for the distortion imposed by your magic, that voice doesn't sound human.

The vision proceeds, showing the long decline of the temple. The stream of visitors dries up, until only a few truly dedicated souls continue to make the journey. Fewer monks appear, and more of those "young punks" - and more disrespectful ones, at that. The damage to the grounds spreads, and is joined by acts of human malice as well as natural disaster.

...that voice again, dark, twisted, not human, and still indecipherable...

And then the vision ends, and you're left blinking in the light of the dawn.

"Did you learn anything?" Briar asks.

"Nothing we didn't already suspect," you reply, before looking the area over with your senses.

As far as you can tell, the temple isn't truly cursed. There's no aura of Necromancy, hostile youki, or demonic corruption - you'd expect at least one of those to be present if someone had laid a hex on the place. But there is enough ill-intent hanging over the grounds to make it clear that someone or something is working against the well-being of this site, even if they haven't resorted to using supernatural means directly.

Again, nothing you didn't already know or suspect.

Maybe you need to use a more powerful spell...?

"I may have found one thing, though," you add.

Briar flutters closer, curious. "Oh?"

You describe the strange voice you heard towards the middle- and end-points of your Divination.

"Do you think it'd be worth casting the Spell to Comprehend Languages and then going back and reviewing the memory, or re-casting the Spell of the Ears of the City?"

"Well, that depends," Briar replies. "How well could you hear this voice?"

"Not very," you admit. "It wasn't muffled, at least not like I was trying to eavesdrop from the next room or something. It was more... distant."

"Did you actually hear any words?"

You think back. A few syllables, sure, scattered through each of the voice's "appearances" in the vision - enough to give you examples of how the voice pronounced certain sounds, and therefore, WHY you're so sure that its owner wasn't human. It was simply too deep, too harsh on the consonants, and had too much "snarl" in the sounds.

And you know snarl when you hear it. Ganondorf's memories hold too many examples of him commanding his monstrous minions for it to be otherwise - and you say as much to Briar.

Complete words, though?

"No," you admit. "At least, I don't think so."

"I wouldn't bother wasting your time, then," the fairy advises. "The Spell to Comprehend Languages isn't really designed to deal with memories - it's more of a 'here and now' spell than a 'there and then' spell, if you follow me."

You do, kind of.

"Now, if you'd actually heard something, then maybe you could coax some meaning out of it," Briar goes on. "But since you didn't, odds are that if you cast the spell, it'd end up trying to translate whatever your mind made up to fill in the gaps of what you heard, not what was actually being said."

You nod and let the notion pass. Instead, you start up the path to the temple, keeping your eyes open for someone with the distinctive shaved head and robes of a Buddhist monk.

You don't see anyone until you're within sprinting distance of the temple itself, and even then, it's a man younger than you currently appear to be, armed with a broom that he wields... well, less than enthusiastically. Judging by the way the monk yawns, that may be the effects of the early hour at work, as much as a lack of love for this particular labor.

The monk does a double-take when he sees you, and quickly bows as he greets you.

"Good morning, stranger. Forgive me for saying so, but I fear the temple is not open for visitations for another hour or so."

Honestly, that's fine by you. It's more time to work out of the public eye.

Then again, if this fellow is any indication, the monks themselves might not be up to company just yet.

Speaking of whom, you give the sanctified sweeper a once-over with your passive senses. No magical power, mostly-ordinary levels of ki, albeit colored by the emanations of a reasonably strong and clear soul - though also one as yet untrained in the flashier uses of spiritual power. It looks more like this young man's been focused on cultivating the basic quality and quantity of his energies first - building the foundation, as it were, before adding the fancy bits. As he is now, the monk could probably fend off something like a Poe for an hour or more, just by dint of the power and purity of his inner light, but you doubt he'd be able to properly apply that spiritual force in order exorcise the troublesome spook. Not without a focus of some kind, anyway.

That still puts him head and shoulders above, say, Kagome's grandfather. Maybe roughly on par with Miss Suzuka, although with a different focus in the development of their respective skills.

All in all, you'd venture that this guy is an acolyte.

"That was intentional," you reply. "I have business with you and your brothers, and the early hour was convenient for me."

The monk's expression turns slightly cautious at that, and his grip on the broom subtly tightens.

Hmm. You seem to be coming across as a bit more untrustworthy than you were going for.

"What sort of business would this be?" the sweeper asks calmly.

An explanation about your intention to help restore the temple is right on the tip of your tongue, but you catch yourself before you voice it. Although that is the reason you've made this trip, calling attention to the less-than-ideal state of the temple out of the blue like this would be somewhat offensive - all the more so, given that you're a complete stranger to this place and its caretakers, showing up unannounced and at the crack of dawn like this. The younger monk may not even be aware that your assistance has, in a roundabout manner, been requested by by someone connected to the temple.

So instead of speaking one truth that probably won't go over well with your audience, you resort to another truth.

"I'm here to follow up on an inquiry made by a miko of my aquaintance - a Miss Suzuka, of the Hakuba Shrine. I believe she may have spoken with someone here regarding this, in the last week...?"

The monk blinks, and some of the caution fades from his posture.

"I did not catch her name or affiliation, but a miko did pay us a visit some days ago," he acknowledges. "She spoke with the abbot and some of the elder brothers for a time, though I am not privy to the details of their discussion."

He does an admirable job of appearing benignly incurious about that.

Not nearly good enough to hide his interest in the matter from YOUR somewhat ridiculous range of senses, but he'd probably have left any regular person convinced he was in no hurry at all to find out what's going on. You suspect that Buddhist temples don't see a lot of visits from Shinto shrine maidens, at least not in any official capacity.

In any case, this monk has confirmed that he doesn't know what you're here for. How should you respond to this?

You inquire of the monk what a good time would be for you to meet with his superiors in the temple.

He requests a grace period of an hour or so. The monks DO customarily rise early, it's just that they use the extra time to prepare themselves and the temple for the day, complete their morning devotions, and attend to any other necessary matters.

"Of course," he adds, "if the matter is urgent, I am certain the abbot will agree to see you regardless."

You wouldn't say it's "urgent," really. You're not pressed for time, there is no magical malice here, and the temple itself isn't going anywhere. Also, for all the emotional and spiritual injury the temple's decline has doubtlessly caused, you're not aware of any lives having been irreparably ruined in the process - certainly none that need you to sweep in and save them Right This Minute.

"That won't be necessary," you assure the monk. "I will wait."

The shaved head bows. "My apologies for the inconvenience."

"No apology is necessary." You return the gesture. "The fault is mine."

"Even so, you must at least permit me to show you to a guest room while you wait - or perhaps a brief tour of the grounds?"

You're perfectly happy to accept the monk's offer to show you around the grounds for a while. It'll give you a chance to get the lay of the land, which will be helpful when you restore the place.

It'd go even better if you were to actively scan the grounds and determine how the local flows of energy have been affected by the long-term neglect and more recent vandalism, but that would be going too far. Besides, your passive senses are really, really good; odds are that you can still get a solid idea of how power moves through this place even without reaching out and poking it.

After getting your name, the monk disappears inside the temple to let someone know of your arrival and the reason for his absence from his assigned chores. He returns a minute later, minus the broom and plus a distinctively "tour guide" type of smile, and guides you towards one of the more reasonably-intact pathways.

At the relaxed pace set by your guide, it takes about twenty-five minutes to circumnavigate the temple grounds. This doesn't account for the intermittent stops where the monk points out a particular feature - several old statues, an abandoned but neatly-maintained well, and of course, the meditation garden - and spends a few minutes recounting the history of each site. That takes up another fifteen minutes, easily.

As you make the trip, you take in the supernatural sights and sensations of the grounds along with their mundane counterparts.

You're rather relieved to see that the damage to the temple hasn't obviously impaired the flows of magical energy through the environment. You honestly have no idea how you'd go about fixing THAT kind of problem in any reasonable length of time. Things are a bit muddled where Nature has been allowed to have its way, but even so, there's a kind of purity in how the works of man are being broken down and reclaimed by the environment. At the very least, it's not harming the potential of this place.

Gained Feng Shui F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Spiritually, things are less promising. The main ward on the grounds is infused into the outer wall, and as far as you can tell, it's as reliable as it ever was, easily a match for its counterparts at the Hakuba and Higurashi Shrines. Once you get past that first line of defense, however, many smaller bits of architecture and statuary that you'd expect to feel resonating with prayers of sanctification, protection, and purification, as anchor-points for a secondary or even tertiary ward scheme, are just... inert.

Either that, or they're so subtle that you can't pick up on them with your passive senses.

You have your doubts that's the case. That aura of malice you picked up on through your prior Divination spell keeps nagging at the edge of your awareness, half an irritating memory, and half a feeling in the present. No magic may have been used to afflict this place, but the hostility directed at the monks and the community, and the frustration, despair, and shame that have built up as a result, are definitely having an impact.

It's a classic problem with faith-based magic. If you truly believe you can do something, you generally can. But if your belief falters...

Mysticism aside, your little tour results in one very practical benefit. It gives you a much better idea of what the temple looks like from all sides, and lets you intuit more of how it's SUPPOSED to appear. The view from the back is actually quite lovely; there's still some damage, but it's mostly cosmetic, nothing like that hole in the roof. It adds a certain charm to the place - or it would, if not for the bad impression given by the front approach and the general disrepair of the grounds.

Gained Knowledge (Architecture) E

As your guide leads you back to the front plaza, you find another, slightly older monk there waiting for you - broom in hand.

"Mister Harris," the newcomer says with a bow. "Our abbot is ready to receive you. If you would follow me?"

You do so, thanking the first monk - Jiro, as it happens - for his guidance. Leaving the man to resume his delayed sweeping, you follow his senior, Tetsuo, inside the temple.

At first glance, the interior of the place certainly seems better-off than the exterior. Everything is intact and in its place, the wards are brighter, and even that malicious aura no longer registers to your senses. At second glance... actually, things are pretty much the same even then, although there are signs of age and wear on various items. Floorboards that are pretty heavily scuffed, candles burning very low indeed, a yellowed sutra that probably should have been replaced some time ago.

Rather than heading towards the heart of the temple, where you'd expect the abbot to be, Tetsuo directs your attention to a side room, which proves to hold a basin full of water, a medium-sized plain mirror, several racks of towels, and other accoutrements that clearly mark it as a washroom. No bath or toilet, incidentally, just the old-fashioned equivalent of the sink.

"If you would like the chance to freshen up first, sir," Tetsuo explains, without any prompting.

You DID just finish a walk around the grounds. Even if your magically-aged body didn't break a sweat in the process, the monk has no reason to know that, and you doubt that he'd come right out and tell you that you needed to clean up before meeting his immediate superior. A polite offer for the guest to make use of the facilities at their convenience accomplishes the same end, while preserving their dignity.

And don't adults do this kind of thing before meetings, anyway? Workplace presentations, meeting with investors or the boss, all those situations where you want to make the best first impression you can? It's as much about the appearance of being clean as the actuality, and there's no reason why meeting with a spiritual authority should be treated any less seriously.

Heck, there may even be some religious significance you're not aware of here. Cleanliness is supposed to be next to godliness, after all... though that quote was from another religion entirely, wasn't it?

Whatever.

Even if the act IS more symbolic than literal, you go ahead and freshen up, drawing back your sleeves and splashing some of the heated water - not hot, but several degrees above merely "warm" - on your hands and face, then toweling dry.

And then, since you're feeling a little playful, you cast a minor Spell of Abjuration, calling on the Light to cleanse the lingering taint of the Hellmouth from your skin - and, almost as an afterthought, from your towel as well.

From out in the hall where Tetsuo had been standing, politely away from the door so as to give you your privacy, your keen ears pick up a sudden wooden clacking and a shuffled stagger on the creaky floorboards.

At a guess?

He noticed.

Readjusting your suit, you exit the washroom.

Tetsuo is visibly struggling to maintain his prior expression of monkly serenity. The shock in his eyes rather ruins the attempt.

"After you," you say politely.

"Ah... y-yes, this way."

In short order, you're ushered into a room where three considerably older monks are seated, waiting. The one on the left, you would venture is somewhere in his fifties, while the one on the right is quite a bit older - in his seventies at least. The man that is most probably the abbot sits between the two in outward age as well as position. All three radiate spiritual presence, though it's strongest in the oldest brother.

Tetsuo makes the introductions: from left to right to middle, their names are Itami, Kensuke, and - rather surprisingly - Jason.

"Welcome to our home, Mister Harris," the Buddhist abbot with the Western name says. "Will you join us?"

"Of course," you reply, before sitting on the floor.

"And will your unseen companion be joining us as well?" the oldest monk, Kensuke, inquires.

Tetsuo gives another start, and regards his eldest brother with some concern. Itami and Jason, meanwhile, peer more intently your way, before their eyes shift in Briar's direction.

You turn to your companion.

"Will you be joining us, Briar?"

"If I didn't abandon you at the tournament, in the Silent Realm, or in the vampires' personal playground, why would I do it here?" she replies, as she settles on the floor next to you.

You nod, and turn back to the monks. "She will. Her name is Briar, incidentally. She's a fairy."

"...a fairy, really?" Tetsuo murmurs from behind you.

"Ah." With that, Brother Kensuke appears to have been enlightened. "A young one, I take it?"

"Absolutely!" Briar replies, even if the monk can't hear her.

"She is," you translate.

The eldest monk nods. "Thus explaining why she is invisible to human eyes."

"""It does?"""

Tetsuo isn't the only one to utter that question; the abbot and the other elder both voice it as well, leading to a moment of collective bemusement, and some embarrassment on Tetsuo's part, if your senses don't deceive you.

"It does," Kensuke affirms. "Until a certain phase of their maturation, fairies remain imperceptible to most creatures that might do them harm. Children and awakened souls are among the exceptions."

The other monks silently digest this.

"Would it help if she were visible?" you inquire.

Kensuke blinks. "Can she become so? I was never clear if that was possible."

"It's more that she or I can create an Illusion that matches her appearance," you explain.

"Using illusion to reveal truth?" the abbot muses. "That is an... interesting approach." After a moment of thoughtful silence, he shakes his head. "However, I believe this will be fine."

He dismisses Tetsuo - who bows and leaves the room, mumbling to himself about needing to meditate on this - and then turns back to you.

"So, Mister Harris. I understand that young Jiro provided you with a tour of the grounds while you were waiting for us. Tell me honestly: what do you think of the place?"

Honestly, huh? Well, since he asked...

"I think it could be better than it is," you admit frankly. "The mystical side of things isn't as bad as I'd feared it might be, but the state of the physical side makes up for that. Still, that IS why I've come here."

"Oh?" Abbot Jason inquires.

"Yes, I owe Lord Raiden a debt, and as this temple is under his guardianship, I had hoped to offer my assistance in restoring it, as a way of fulfilling my obligation."

The monks trade looks.

"And what is this debt that you feel you owe Lord Raiden?" the third monk asks.

"Itami," Kensuke chides.

"I mean no offense, Brother, Mister Harris," Itami replies, adding an apologetic bow when he speaks your name, "but the well-being of the temple is our responsibility. If we are to accept the aid of one who is a stranger to our order and welcome him into our earthly home, is it not reasonable that we should first seek to understand the nature of the aid being offered, and the motivations of the one who offers it?"

He directs that question to you as much as to his companions.

It appears that at least one of the ranking members of this small monastic order has a reasonable sense of caution about accepting help from unknowns - and moreover, isn't hesitant to voice his concerns. It's entirely possible that the abbot and the eldest monk share similar feelings, and are just better at restraining themselves.

It also seems as though Miss Suzuka didn't go into too much detail about your interests when she spoke with the monks. That was considerate of her. Maybe a bit inconvenient, now, but then, how likely would the monks have been to accept her claiming that a sorcerer they'd never met or heard of before wanted to help them renovate their temple?

"Before I answer that, may I ask what Miss Suzuka told you about me?"

"You may," Abbot Jason replies. "And she said only that you were a sorcerer of some ability, who had previously received the aid of the Hakuba Shrine, and returned to them seeking advice on how to repay a debt to Lord Raiden - which was what brought her to speak with us."

So, she told them enough to be polite - things they needed to know to make a properly informed decision - and no more than that.

In light of this, you decide to go into some detail with the monks about why you feel you owe Raiden. You explain that just a couple of weeks earlier, you were communing with your patron deities, only for a demonic force to attempt to interrupt the connection.

"Although 'attempted' is the wrong word," you admit with a grimace. "I'd taken precautions before performing the ritual. A priestess agreed to find and cleanse a suitable site for me ahead of time, and once she was finished, I consecrated the area myself. The demon still took over the link, back-tracked it to my location, and unleashed some kind of black fire that ate away at my protections like they were so much kindling."

The monks look troubled by that.

"I don't mind admitting that, for a moment there, it was looking like very bad things were about to happen," you say. "But that was when Lord Raiden intervened, severing the connection and preventing any further demonic encroachment. The priestess I mentioned was able to clean up the contamination that had already occurred, and I contributed some energy of my own to help the area recover."

"...well," Kensuke says. "I can certainly see why you feel there is a debt to be repaid."

"You are certain that it was Lord Raiden who interceded?" Itami asks, his tone more curious than suspicious.

"The lightning that ended the interference was distinctive," you answer. "And one of my companions at the time has had the honor of speaking with Lord Raiden in the past, if briefly. He recognized the voice."

"The Thunder God is quite memorable, when he chooses to be," Kensuke agrees. He looks at his companions. "I would say that settles my concerns. What of you, Brothers?"

Itami and Jason trade glances, and the junior monk nods.

"We appear to be in accord," the abbot proclaims. "As such, Mister Harris, on behalf of our order, I am pleased to accept your offer of assistance in restoring our humble home."

From there, it's a straightforward discussion of what NEEDS to be done, what the monks might LIKE to be done, and what you CAN do.

Fixing up the cracked stone of the various paths can be easily handled with the Spell of Mending. The only hardship there would be the time involved - at ten minutes per casting, and with each casting limited to a single stone, you could be at it for months. That said, a more powerful, area-affecting, multiple-target version of the spell is well within your ability to cast.

For the defaced outer wall and the less-damaged statues, you have but to look to the Spell to Make Whole.

Finally, there are the rotted wood of the walkways, the shattered dragon-gargoyles, and that hole in the temple roof. The wooden planks have been warped, which is a condition your standard repair spells can't undo, and the fallen pieces of the lost dragons and the ceiling have long since been hauled away and disposed of - which, again, makes your basic repair spells useless. The Spell of Major Creation would allow you to produce replacement materials, which the Spell of Fabrication could then shape into the necessary forms - and with the surviving examples of the temple's architecture as guidelines, you're reasonably confident in your ability to get even the dragons back on the walls - but that would cost you time and mana. And you'd still need to put everything in place.

It's all entirely doable, mind you. But even one full afternoon may not be enough, not unless you go all-in with the magic.

After a short time, you have a plan hashed out.

The first thing that needs fixing is that hole in the roof. It's by far the biggest eyesore, and its nature and position tell everyone who looks up at the temple from the main entrance that this place is being neglected. That's not even getting into the damage that must have been done over the years, due to precipitation and cold air working their way through the "patch" the monks have devised.

It simply has to go.

Next up is those warped and half-rotted planks you saw in the various walkways. Somebody is going to get hurt if those aren't dealt with.

Third on your list are the statues and walls. They'll be pretty straightforward - really, it's just a matter of casting Mending over and over and over again, or with a scaled-up area of effect, until all the cracks, weathering, and graffiti are cleared away. There might still be some lingering damage, where certain statues have lost small parts of themselves, but if it's urgent, you can always come back and do more focused restoration work.

And besides, a certain amount of natural wear-and-tear can be a source of character.

You were thinking of repairing the cracked stones in the walkways next, but it occurred to you in mid-plan that if you do use a expanded Spell of Mending to repair all of the walls and statues on the temple grounds at once - or at least, to cover a large section of the grounds in one go - the stones would get fixed up anyway. So you can kind of scratch that one off your to-do list.

Hurrah for planning!

Lastly, there's the matter of the dragon-shaped gargoyles. Or are they grotesques? Oh, whatever - some of the pretty carvings on the walls are missing, and replacing them isn't just a matter of conjuring replacements. No, that's going to take some delicate work to get all the details right, ESPECIALLY if the dragons are in any way worked into the temple's mystical defenses.

You're going to want to talk to the monks about that when you get to that stage of the restoration.

Still, you have a plan. One that includes a few... precautions... just in case the agency that you KNOW is working against the temple decides to stick its nose in.

Gained Tactics C (Plus)

And before putting it into effect, there's one more thing you'd like to do - that being, to get in touch with whatever spirits call the temple and its grounds home, let them know of your plan, and ask for their approval.

The monks appear rather pleased by this addendum, and Abbot Jason inquires if you would mind them sitting in on your communion with the spirit world. They're curious to see how a sorcerer does this kind of thing.

"Of course," he adds, "if privacy is required, or simply helpful to the process, we will leave you to it."

You have no problem with the senior monks sitting in on your spellcraft. If anything, it might be beneficial.

Making contact with a spirit is basically the magical equivalent of making a phonecall, or - in this case - knocking on their front door, and like humans, most spirits aren't exactly thrilled to be called upon by random strangers. If you are in company with the monks, however, men who the local spiritual set are VERY likely to recognize and respond to positively, your odds of making a good first impression go up considerably.

As you make ready the ritual, you're tempted to add a little... showmanship. That urge to show off is part and parcel of being a sorcerer, and not simply because it helps you to focus and channel more power with greater efficiency than you'd otherwise be able to manage.

Magic is just awesome, and you can't help but want to share that awe with the rest of the world.

In the end, however, you decide to keep things professional. You ARE at a temple, you ARE trying to pass for an adult, and you ARE going to be performing a service for a group of monks whose culture is sensitive about respect and proper appearances. That's three strikes against this being a good venue for showing off.

Besides, you'll shortly be taking on a job that would probably require a couple of weeks to complete by mundane means, and getting it done in a matter of days at most - possibly just hours. That's pretty awesome all on its own.

The ritual you perform to contact the local spirits is a mix of Divination and Summoning - and just enough of the latter to get their attention, as opposed to compelling one or more of their number to appear before you. As the three senior priests look on in silence, you cast your magic and your message into the ether, inquiring if the local kami would object to having this place of worship restored using magical methods.

For a moment, there's no response.

Then you feel a presence, not unlike the one you encountered at the ritual grove in Wales. It's very different, of course: the sense of wildness and nature has been replaced by solemn order; and at a guess, the spirit or spirits that embody or at least watch over this temple aren't as old as the one from that little woodland on the other side of the world.

The aura you detect still feels old and strong, though.

"Foreign sorcery is not often found in a house of the divine," an aged, male voice replies in archaic Japanese. "For it to come in peace is even less common."

Gained Japanese D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

"And you would offer to use your art, your temporal power over the transient world, to restore this place of sublime peace and contemplation?" the voice continues. "This is a thing unheard of."

The spirit, you note, is not calling you a liar. Not QUITE. But he's making it clear that he has serious doubts about your offer.

"Not quite that unheard of, actually," you reply.

The monks look at you curiously, and in the unseen spirit's silence, you sense a similar expectancy.

"Assuming that you permit it, this would be the second time that I've assisted in the restoration of a building on holy ground. In this country, in fact. This month, even."

"The Hakuba Shrine?" the abbot guesses.

You nod. "Indeed."

"'A building,'" the spirit says, echoing your statement. "But not the shrine itself."

"No," you admit.

"And why did you do this?" the spirit inquires.

"I felt that I owed the Hakubas for the assistance Miss Suzuka was providing me."

Your conversation with the spirit of the temple results in three things: a suspicion that the spirit in question is biased against sorcerers; a similar suspicion that the spirit is ALSO biased against foreigners; and verbal proof that the spirit is willing and able to set aside its prejudices for the good of its... home? Physical body? Charge?

On a side note, Abbot Jason and the elder monks are pretty cool old people.

Or maybe they just REALLY want to get their temple fixed.

Or it could be both.

Anyway, with the spirit's grudging permission gained, you set about your task.

It's magic time~.

For the first order of business, you ask to see the room beneath the damaged section of the roof. This results in you venturing up a ladder in that very chamber, while your former tour-guide Brother Jiro holds things steady. It's quite a large hole, wide enough that most cars could drive through it, which probably explains why the monks haven't been able to patch it. Wooden planks large enough to span that gap would have cost a pretty penny, and with the noticeable sag in the ceiling indicating a need for replacement of a large section of the roof, any temporary repairs were probably seen as a waste of time, effort, and money. The thick tarp that they have nailed in place would have sufficed, if work proceeded soon after... but it didn't.

Well, you can fix that.

One casting of the Spell to Make Whole, accompanied by a whole lot of creaking and cracking of timbers being pushed back into place, straightens out the roof.

The monks, you note in passing, look both VERY impressed and VERY appreciative, just by that.

The hole is still present, but the Spell of Major Creation takes care of that - that is, once you've augmented it with enough extra mana for you to create all the wood you require to patch that hole in one casting, rather than having to conjure a plank at a time. From there, it's a not-too-difficult case of telekinetically releasing the tarp, levitating all the boards up into place so that they're laying on the roof outside, across the hole, and then casting the Spell of Fabrication over the lot, essentially fusing them all into the ceiling.

Gained Conjuration C (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Wood Elementalism E (Plus)
Gained Woodworking E

This leaves you looking up at an intact roof. Oh, it's not perfect - the patch you've created sticks out like the proverbial sore thumb against the surrounding wood - but the hole is sealed, everything appears to be aligned perfectly, and you can't see the sun through any cracks between the timbers.

You give the restored ceiling a once-over with your senses, and are satisified that the conjured wood won't discorporate on its own, or if somebody throws a disrupting spell at it. It's just plain, ordinary wood, completely unremarkable except for the lingering aura of your magic - and that will fade before you leave.

That doesn't stop you from casting the Spell of Greater Magic Aura on the patch, suppressing its magical signature.

After all, you know someone has it in for this place. No sense leaving clues for them to find.

As you come down the ladder, you take stock. Fixing the ceiling took most of an hour, half of which was spent just making sure everything was in place. Magic-wise, it ate a little over ten percent of your reserves. Not a bad deal, you think.

The monks, incidentally, are switching between staring at their newly-restored ceiling and staring at you.

"Mister Harris," the abbot begins, before trailing off. "I... that is to say..."

"Don't thank me yet, abbot," you say calmly. "I still have to replace the tiles."

"...ah. Yes. That was premature of me."

That part takes half hour, another six percent of your mana, and some casual levitation.

Gained Stoneworking F (Plus)

Next on your list: the wooden walkways. There are a good half-dozen of them in need of replacement, and your combination casting of Major Creation and Fabrication puts that to rights over the course of about ninety minutes, eating another thirty-six percent of your mana. And once again, you cast the Spell of Greater Magic Aura to hide the evidence of your magic at work - though unlike with the ceiling, which you needed to hide as soon as it was patched, you cast the spell over the restored walkways in the ritual style to conserve your power.

Third on the list, a Spell of Mending - a Really Big Spell of Mending, to fix all the defaced walls, cracked-but-not-shattered statues, and damaged walkway stones in one fell swoop. There's... really no way to hide this one. Making it big enough to affect the grounds, or even a significant portion of the grounds, would cover an area far too large for any version of the Magic Aura spell to conceal. Also, your reserves are currently at thirty percent. Currently, you could recover to full capacity with a good night's sleep - at least, you think so, it's been a while since you used up this much gas in one go - but one more serious expenditure of mana is probably going to knock your recovery rate low enough to make that impossible.

What do you do?

Finish your whole repair job, as planned.

Oh, what the heck. It's not like you have any pressing NEED for a full reserve of mana for the next day or so - or indeed, the next couple of weeks.

Gathering your power, you visualize a spell that is ultimately based on the humble Spell of Mending, but scaled up to a massive degree, until it's not only capable of affecting an "object" the size of the temple and its grounds, but can, in fact, reverse damage sustained by all non-living objects in a space of roughly that size.

You wonder, for a moment, what to call it.

The Really Big Spell of Mending?

Mass Make Whole?

The Spell to Fix Everything?

Then you shrug, and let it go.

You knew before you cast it that there would be no concealing magic of this level, but you're a bit surprised when a VISIBLE wave of mostly-white energy - speckled here and there with sparkles of red and gold - sweeps out over the grounds. It's not blindingly bright, especially not under the morning sun, but it's clear enough to be noticeable, if anybody's looking in the direction of the temple.

Fortunately, the spell is instantaneous, and its effects, immediate. All around you, stone shifts and snaps as cracks are mended, minor displacements corrected, and faded color restored. Otherwise untouched wood seems to straighten, faded paper hangings become crisp and distinct, and the patina of age is lifted from smiling Buddha statues.

Gained Earth Elementalism C (Plus) (C without Heart of Fire)
Gained Elementalism C (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

"Was that... supposed to happen?" Jiro manages to say, while staring at you.

You spare a second to observe the effects, making sure they've taken hold, before you start working on a second spell. It's basically just the Greater Spell to Dispel Magic with the range opened up as far as you can - which isn't that far, unfortunately, even allowing for the extra power you're able to shunt into the casting with a seven-minute ritual.

There are limits to your skills, after all.

Gained Abjuration C (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Still, you're pretty sure you managed to wipe out all traces of your unique magical signature on the temple grounds.

Hopefully, any supernatural observers were too far off and too startled by the flash of magic to get a good reading on it before you dispelled the residual mana.

Fingers crossed, knock on wood, and all that.

With your mana depleted to twenty-percent and your dinnertime deadline coming on, you commence your last act of magical repair and restoration. First, a quick analysis of one of the intact wall-dragons; then an enhanced Spell of Major Creation, to produce several blocks of stone similar to that used in the original gargoyles. Finally, after casting a series of enhancement spells to ramp up your capabilities as a craftsman, you perform the Spell of Fabrication, and shape those featureless grey lumps into several coiling stone dragons.

Gained Knowledge (Architecture) E (Plus)
Gained Knowledge (Magesmithing) E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Stoneworking F (Plus) (Plus)

You inspect your creations closely, and grimace. While they're not bad, by any means, it's clear to you that they don't match up to the quality of the originals. Whoever did those must have been a master.

You turn to the monks, who by this point have abandoned all pretense at doing ANYTHING else, to come watch you work. There's only about a dozen of them - whether that's normal for a temple this size is beyond you - and their serenity has clearly been shaken, albeit in what you hope is a good way.

"I'm not terribly happy with these," you inform your audience, while gesturing at the newly-made dragon statues. "But I also have to admit that they're the best work I can do."

"They are more than we would have ever dared to ask for, Mister Harris," Abbot Jason assures you.

You nod. "Would you like me to finish installing them?"

His smile is rueful. "...would you mind, terribly?"

The dragons, being solid stone and about as big as you are in your normal form, are of course very heavy. Fortunately, they're not so heavy that the simple Spell of Levitation can't get one of them airborne. This makes it a simple matter of raising them to the level of their soon-to-be homes on the wall, then levitating yourself up and pulling them into place, before finishing off with a relatively minor Spell of Transformation to fuse them into the wall.

And with that, you're done.

Good thing, too, because you are running on fumes. Your mana is down to just two percent of its maximum capacity.

The younger monks - and some of their elder brothers - let out a cheer as the last of the dragons locks into place. This is immediately followed by a wave of gratitude aimed at you, as well as the suggestion that the physical restoration of the temple should be matched by a spiritual restoration - and perhaps a celebration involving the community.

You are naturally invited, but are forced to decline - you're simply out of time.

"Yes," you tell Jiro. "Perfectly normal."

You're not entirely sure if you're lying or not. Normal repair spells DON'T cause such a light-show, but then again, they're also considerably less mana-intensive than the one you just cast, to say nothing of their much shorter range and the limitations on the number and size of targets they can affect.

A wave of light may, in fact, be part-and-parcel of such a massively scaled up repair spell... or it could just be you.

You can't really say for certain.

Fortunately, Jiro doesn't appear to notice your musings and misgivings on this topic. He just nods, accepting that you, the sorcerer, know what you're talking about when it comes to sorcery.

Even though you don't... exactly...

Before you depart the temple, you take a few minutes to let the three elder monks know what you know (and suspect) about how their home was being targeted by an unfriendly supernatural entity.

Abbot Jason mentions that a fortune-teller warned them of this several years earlier, but the precautions they took at the time did not appear to have any effect.

Your explanation for this - that the hostile entity deliberately limited itself to taking mundane actions, rather than throwing magic, demonic power, or some other mystical misfortune at the temple - both illuminates the monks as to the reason for their lack of success, and also causes a look of resolve to settle on the abbot's face.

"I will naturally have to meditate on this information before acting on it, Mister Harris," he says slowly, "but I suspect that I will end up... speaking... with certain members of the community regarding it."

Oh dear. He sounds... well, not angry, exactly, but... annoyed, maybe?

"Enhance your calm, Brother," Itami murmurs, giving his abbot a cautious glance.

"Believe me, I am."

"I don't currently have the leisure to look into the matter myself," you continue, politely ignoring the chief monk's display of less-than-enlightened behavior, "but I'll be free to return in a few weeks' time. Should it turn out that I can be of assistance then, please, let me know."

"We will certainly keep you in mind, Mister Harris," Jason assures you.

After that, you make your farewells, exchanging bows and pleasantries with the monks as you make your way back down the path to the front gate. Brother Jiro accompanies you the entire way, his smile growing ever brighter as he sees more and more of the results of your work. The condition of the front gate and the outer wall, stripped of their various defacements and looking almost brand-new, threatens to bring a tear to his eyes.

Leaving your escort - who thanks you heartily, and invites you to come again - you put a little more distance between yourself and the holy grounds, ducking down a side-street that appears to be devoid of traffic and onlookers. Here, you spend some of your last remaining mana to disappear under a veil of invisibility, and then perform the ritual teleportation that will send you back to Sunnydale's outskirts.

Once back in the woods, you change clothes, revert to your normal form, and make for home.

"Welcome back, Alex," your father says, as you enter the house some twenty minutes later.

"Hey, Dad. Dinner ready?"

"Just about," he replies, before hesitating. "So, uh... this thing you did. In Japan. With the temple."

He pauses, and you wait for him to finish.

Finally, your father shrugs. "How'd it go?"

In the distance, thunder rumbles.

Gained Raiden's Favor F

You smile. "I'd say it went well."

You have dinner, make yourself useful with the cleanup afterwards, and go to bed early, hoping to get in a full night's sleep.

The next day, you wake up to a few discoveries.

The first is nothing unexpected: your mana, having been reduced to less than one percent of your full capacity by all of the previous day's spellcasting, has only recovered to twenty percent. And that's after a couple of hours of no magic before bed, plus a full eight - you pause and check your alarm clock - make that nine hours of uninterrupted sleep.

The second thing you realize is that the ethereal part of your being where your internal mana is stored feels ever so slightly different. Not in a bad way, mind you. It's more like a muscle that's been worked hard, and has now recovered.

And perhaps... grown a bit stronger?

Gained Magic Power F (Plus)

The third and final thing you realize is that today is the first day of your punishment.

You're grounded. For two weeks, with no magic or kung fu lessons. And given the spirit and circumstances in which the maternal ban on sorcery was handed down, you suspect that you'd be better served by not messing around with supernatural stuff in general until Mom says otherwise.

On the first day of your grounding, you forego the part of your usual daily routine where you spend a few minutes conducting a purification ritual. At least until you've had a chance to talk with your mother, and determine whether or not this falls under the "no magic" ban. While not precisely an emergency, those rituals ARE important for maintaining your good health. Sort of like how, even though you're not allowed to attend class at Lu-sensei's, you can still do daily exercises in your room - as long as you're quiet.

...you can still do those exercises, right?

...

When asked at breakfast, your mother agrees to allow you to cast your spells of purification, and to practice - as long as you're quiet.

Internally, you heave a sigh of relief. And after breakfast, you scoot downstairs and into your Mirror Hideaway for the handful of minutes you need to cleanse yourself of the overnight buildup of Hellmouth gunk. You try to convince your family to join you, but Zelda's description of what it feels like to enter and leave the Mirror Hideaway puts them off. And since you can't perform an EFFECTIVE purification outside of that pocket dimension - at least, not as long as you're in Sunnydale - they opt to put it off until your punishment is over.

You don't like the idea, but when asked, you have to admit that a couple weeks of exposure aren't likely to do your family any sort of harm that life in Sunnydale hasn't already inflicted upon them. It's a bit like being a regular smoker; it's bad for you, and it'll kill you eventually, but in the short- to mid-term, the damage is... manageable.

Truth be told, given how much of the long-term build-up of demonic taint one cleansing ritual purged from your mother's system, she and your father would likely be fine if they skipped the daily rituals that you - as a practicing magic-user - require to stay healthy, and instead stuck to a weekly or even monthly schedule for their spiritual cleansings.

You ARE going to try and make those cleansings a habit, though. For them AND Zelda.

Speaking of whom, since you're effectively confined to the house and yard for the next fourteen days, you end up spending a lot of time with your little sister. You watch some TV, play games, help her "read" a few simple books, tell her stories, occasionally serve as a lumpy pillow, and otherwise do the whole big brother thing. You know, more so than you normally do.

Zelda appears to appreciate it.

Gained Elder King D

When you're not busy with Zelda, much of your time is spent with Moblin. Aside from his daily walks - just about the only time you're allowed out on your own - you finally make an effort to try and train your dog.

It would probably have gone better if you'd been able to use the Spell to Speak With Animals, but Briar's presence and fluency in Dog makes up for your own lack of communication skills. To a point, anyway. You can't quite escape the feeling that Moblin is humoring you during the training.

Even so, you persevere. And by the end of the two weeks, you have at least managed to teach your dog how to sit, stay, and heel on command.

Gained King of Beasts D (Plus)

The remainder of your time is split between finishing up the books you got from Gen - and then re-reading them, and everything else you've got access to, just to make sure it all sticks - and a great deal of meditation, both in an attempt to digest the information gleaned from the books, and to try and advance your still-basic mental abilities.

You ask Briar to help you out, reasoning that she wasn't the one who got grounded, and so she can use her magic as she likes.

Briar agrees with your reasoning, at least when it comes to helping you build up your non-magical mental defenses. They're a means of maintaining your health and wellness, too, and through Spells of Divination and Enchantment, Briar helps you train them, launching little attacks here, raising distracting mental illusions there, and monitoring your mind in general so she knows when to tell you to slow down, stop, or abandon a course of action that's just wasting time and energy.

You go to bed with minor headaches a few times over these two weeks, but in the long run, you feel better for it.

Gained Mental Defense D (Plus)
Gained Mental Enhancement F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Mental Power E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

When it comes to the concepts in Zuang Lao's weighty work, you're SORELY tempted to use Ki Enhancement to stimulate your mind to try and make sense of them. However, such an action would at the very least go against the spirit of the terms of your grounding. While not magic, Ki Enhancement IS a use of supernatural power - and moreover, it's a martial arts technique.

Letting you exercise for the sake of your health was one thing. Using ki is another, and one you don't think your mother would agree to.

Just to be sure, you ask her. And while she completely approves of the idea of you reading books that make you think, as opposed to something like comic books, she still says no to the part where you use ki to do it.

Instead, she offers to read the book herself, and then talk it over with you.

Ten days into your grounding, not long after lunch, there comes a knock at the door.

You move to investigate.

...

Oh, what the hell?

The good news is, it's Ambrose.

The bad news is, he's dressed in that stupid "disguise" he showed up in during his last visit; trenchcoat, fedora, dark glases, rune-carved hockey stick "staff," and all.

And the concerning news is that the wizard looks like he was recently set on fire. His coat used to be a solid brown, but now it's black in a lot of places, and missing a few inches from the right side of the the skirt, below a particularly dark and ragged line of char. The right sleeve has also been shortened in a similar fashion, and while his hocket stick appears intact, it's trailing wisps of smoke from the many carved symbols - which are glowing an ever so faint blue.

Despite the damage to the rest of Ambrose's person, his hair and beard are somehow immaculate.

Also... well.

"Uh, Ambrose?" you venture carefully. "Your hat's on fire."

"Gah!"

Quick as a whip, the old man tears his hat from his head, throws it on your doorstep, and stomps on it until the little flame on its brim - more of a smouldering ember than an actual fire, really - is extinguished.

"Alexth?" Zelda inquires from behind you. "Who'th the funny old man, and why doeth he look like thomebody thet him on fire?"

Ambrose looks up at the question, his expression momentarily curious, before it suddenly becomes intent.

And interested.

And aimed at Zelda.

You hand over your copy of Meditations Upon the Tao.

Your mother blinks once, slowly, as she takes in the size of the book - and then again, as she reads the title.

"This... may take me a while," she admits, before flipping through the pages.

"Just be glad that I got a copy in English, rather than one in Japanese," you say.

"Yes, that would have been a problem."

You leave her to it for a few days, before asking what she thinks.

"I'm only about a third of the way through," your mother admits, looking more like she's fighting off a headache than feeling embarrassed. "It really IS a heavy topic, isn't it?"

You can only nod in agreement.

"This is Mr. Ambrose, Zelda," you tell her. "We've been expecting him to show up for a while, I just wasn't sure exactly when. Can you go tell Mom that he's here?"

"Okay," Zelda replies reluctantly. She gives the wizard a suspicious glance - at which he smiles and waves - before heading back to the kitchen, where your mother is finishing the post-lunch cleanup.

As soon as Zelda's gone, you turn to Ambrose. "Mind sharing what's got you so focused on my little sister all of a sudden?"

You're rather proud of how you managed to say that without losing your temper.

"I was just surprised to find out that your little sister was so much like you," the old man says. "Both in appearance and... other regards."

Before you can ask Ambrose what he means by that, or warn him off from doing anything to Zelda, she returns in a thunder of little feet, your mother trailing in her wake.

"Ah! Good afternoon, madam," Ambrose says, sketching a bow - and taking the chance to retrieve his poor hat from the doorstep. "Merle Ambrose, at your service. I take it you are the lady of the house?"

"I am. May I take... your coat...?" Your mother trails off, having come close enough to register the damage to Ambrose's attire.

"Please and thank you," Ambrose says, before he sweeps into the house, past the four of you, and into the living room.

Hands now full of a half-charred jacket and crushed, smoking hat, your mother regards you with a blank, staring expression.

You can HEAR what she's thinking right now, no telepathy necessary: THIS is the wizard?

"Ambrose," you say, gesturing after the wizard and summing him up all at once.

You mentally thank Altria for introducing you to such a convenient method of expression.

"Is he always like that?" your mother asks, as she gingerly hangs up the seared and slashed coat.

"He's smarter than he lets on," you begin hesitantly, "buuuut... yeah, he likes messing with people. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that he set HIMSELF on fire, deliberately, and at least partly just to make us ask questions about it. At the very least, he LEFT that damage unrepaired to make us wonder about it, because I could fix something like that pretty easily" - you gesture at the cooked coat - "and if I can do it, he definitely could."

"...I see," your mother says, in that tone which tells you she really doesn't get it.

Ambrose seems to have that effect on people. At least in your (thankfully) limited experience with the man.

Too bad he isn't wearing another loud Hawaiian shirt, like the one he had on at the tournament. You could have used the laugh.

Shaking your head, you quickly follow Ambrose into the living room, determined not to leave him alone and unmonitored for too long.

At the moment, he appears to be inspecting the paint on one of the interior walls. His expression is even more intently than it was when he noticed Zelda earlier, and you can sense a faint, tightly-controlled stream of mana - most likely Mage Sight, or something equivalent to it.

You glance at the wall, but your passive senses don't pick up anything. At least, not anything you didn't already know was there. Aural impressions from every member of the family, traces of Sunnydale's unique atmosphere... that's about it, really. You did use magic in this room back on the Fourth of July, but the traces of that have LONG since faded away to nothing.

You're tempted to activate your supernatural senses and see if you can see what it is about your living room wall that has Ambrose's attention. But while your mother did say she'd be willing to make an exception to the "no magic" terms of your grounding while Ambrose was here, she hasn't actually GIVEN you permission to do that yet. And you're so close to the end of your punishment - just a few days away from being able to use magic freely again - it'd be such a shame to mess things up with a breach of parental authority and trust NOW.

So you hold off on that, and instead, poke the wizard.

"I think that paint's already dry, Ambrose."

"Har-dee-har-har," he retorts dryly.

Gained Comedy E

"Ith there thomething wrong with the wall?" Zelda inquires, frowning up at the spot that has your and Ambrose's attention.

"Oh, there's nothing wrong, little lady," Ambrose replies. "I'm just getting an idea of the condition of the house. If you don't mind my asking, ma'am," he says to your mother, "how old is this place?"

"Ten years," she says promptly. "It was newly-built when Tony and I moved in."

"I see, I see. No prior occupants, then, meaning the threshold was newly-established..."

You actually see where he's going with this.

"Is that important?" your mother asks, looking from Ambrose to you.

"It can be," you say, leaving the wizard to his mutterings. "As long as a human home is being lived in, its threshold will get stronger over time. Not quickly, but after a couple of generations... well, you said this place was brand-new when you and Dad moved in?"

And that's a little detail of family history you didn't know.

Your mother nods.

"Well, as soon as the two of you came in with the intention of staying here, it became impossible for vampires to enter without permission. Little fairies, too, and some other creatures. Especially if Dad did the whole, 'carrying the bride over the threshold' thing."

"Banged his elbow on the doorframe," your mother confirms with a smile. "While trying NOT to do that to me. So that actually helped?"

"Uh-huh. It's really old symbolism. The husband shows that he's strong enough to support his wife and future children; the wife shows that she trusts her husband to BE her support; and there's a whole thing about shaking off demons that might have been pursuing the bride, breaking her trail so that they can't follow it - or her - inside."

At least, that's how it worked in Hyrule. You haven't exactly read up on how the practice originated on Earth, though you did pick up a few details in the course of your magical studies, mostly when you were looking into thresholds.

The Gerudo, of course, had a different take on the tradition. But you figure that bringing up the whole "kidnapping" thing is probably a bad idea.

"It also symbolizes the ritual kidnapping of the bride by the groom," Ambrose notes.

Din damn it.

"The what?" your mother exclaims.

"It's something that turns up in ancient cultures all over the world," the wizard says calmly. "And not-so-ancient cultures, at that. A young man sees a girl he likes, sneaks into her parents' hut one night, steals her away to his hut, and defends her against anyone that might try to take her from him. Sometimes on his lonesome, sometimes with help from his most trusted friends - hence, the groomsmen. And since they ARE his good friends, they should get a chance to steal their own wives - hence, the bridesmaids."

Your mother stares at the old man. "That may be the most outdated, chauvinistic take on a wedding ceremony I've ever heard."

"Nonsense!" Ambrose declares. "Look me in the eye and tell me that a maiden in her early- to mid-adolescence, even TODAY, WOULDN'T thoroughly enjoy the idea of having so much power over a young man that he'd sneak across an entire unfriendly village and past all her male kinsmen and their friends just to see her. Or that she WOULDN'T dream of being spirited her away from a life under her mother's thumb, and into one where she was instantly considered an adult in her own right, with a fit and courageous young man to call her own."

There is a moment's silence. Your mother looks like she REALLY wants to say something, but is having trouble finding the words.

You try to picture the girls you know in the situation Ambrose is describing, which is a direct reversal of the traditional Gerudo husband-stealing practices Ganondorf knew about, but was never really involved in.

...

All you can see is a lot of guys getting punched in the face. Hard. And also laughed at - mostly by Akkiko and Lucia, who seemed the type to point at and mock young men for getting the stuffing knocked out of them by young girls with an extraordinary capacity for violence.

Shaking your head to dismiss the amusing and vaguely unsettling image, you try to change the subject.

"So, Ambrose," you say, a little louder than strictly necessary. "What do you think of the state of our threshold?"

"Based on the amount of corruption that's seeped into this wall," the wizard says, giving the surface in question a knock with his hockey stick, "despite the presence of that very threshold AND an outer wall to act as a screen, it's a good news, bad news situation. The bad news is that this house's threshold is not as strong as it could be, given its age and history of habitation, even leaving aside the lack of any magical enhancements. And that's going to reduce the effectiveness of any wards set up to work with it. On the other hand," he adds promptly, "the threshold is also not as WEAK as it could be, given that same absence of any intentional effort to build it up, and the impact of its unfortunate location."

Your mother raises her right hand, index finger extended in interruption.

"Before you go any further... Alex has mentioned that you were willing to help him set up these 'wards,' but he didn't go into much detail about what was involved. I'd like some clarification before anything... significant... was done to my house."

"Ah, of course," Ambrose says with a nod. "Well, then, just to make sure we're all on the same page - from the beginning?"

Your mother nods.

Ambrose offers a quick summary of what a ward IS, describing them as, "Magical fields - generally defensive in nature - wherein pre-determined actions, energies, and/or existences cannot enter or occur." He clarifies that the ones he would be setting up for you and your family are classified as "household wards," for obvious reasons, and could include a variety of effects, mostly of a utilitarian or convenient nature.

"There's self-cleaning wards, insect-repelling wards, intrusion-detection alarms, fire-suppressing wards, and more besides," Ambrose lists off. "At the very least, I would STRONGLY recommend anti-corruption wards, purely for the well-being of the family. Anti-scrying wards and a magic-dampening perimeter field would not go amiss, either, if young Alexander means to use his own talents in the home."

"And what would all of this cost?" your mother asks, looking from the wizard to you.

You are very careful not to wince.

You weren't actually intending on paying Ambrose for setting up wards around your house. It was something he offered as a favor, with no hint of any expected repayment - from a certain perspective, warding your place of residence could be considered Ambrose's way of repaying YOU for warning him and the Shuzens about the upcoming Grail War, and bringing some serious support to the table via your connection to the Goddesses.

But you don't want to tell your mother about any of that. Or hint at it. And simply telling her that a world-class wizard offered you his assistance as a courtesy might make your mother suspicious, now that she's received a demonstration of Ambrose's inherently DIScourteous nature.

"It's hard to set a price on magic, Mom," you say. "Even when you're dealing with relatively simple spells, the skills of the spellcaster can add a lot of value to the work - or take it away. And considering that Ambrose is one of the best magic-users in the world... he can pretty much name his price for a job, and people pay. And it's worth every penny."

Your mother gives you and Ambrose a flat, completely unimpressed look.

"As nice as it is to stand here being flattered AND offered the chance to write my own cheque," Ambrose sighs, "I DID originally offer to take on this job as a favor. WHILE in earshot of the Shuzens, at that. Letting rumors get back to them that I changed my mind would end up costing me a lot more than money, I can assure you."

Your mom frowns at that.

"Besides," the wizard continues, "making sure that there's a working ward where the boy sleeps benefits ME as well."

"Oh?"

"I'll be able to stop wondering WHEN the Hellmouth will drive him 'round the twist, and instead consider IF it will happen."

Your mother blinks. "Alex told me he was taking steps to avoid... that kind of thing."

"I don't doubt that he is - and it IS working. Somewhat. But speaking frankly, Mrs. Harris? This. Is. The Hellmouth. There is no such thing as being too careful here."

That seems to take any further suspicion or objection out of your mother, at least when it comes to the matter of the wards.

She looks worried, though. And... thoughtful.

With the parental side handled for the moment, Ambrose goes to work. He drafts you and Briar to assist, and has the two of you place a series of small stones at each corner of the house, with three additional stones step up at the front, back, and side doors - two at the base of the doorframe, one to each side, and a third over the arch. The rocks look pretty ordinary to you; small grey mineral lumps, each one large enough to take up most of the space available in the palm of your hand. Their surfaces are smooth and polished, devoid of any runes or glyphs, and when you take a moment to actively scan one of them, you don't sense anything out of place, whether magically or spiritually.

For thoroughness's sake, you also try to probe the rocks with your mind, but again, you draw a blank.

As far as you can tell, they're perfectly ordinary stones.

Perhaps if you "looked" even deeper...?

You decide to hold off on poking at the rocks.

After all, you have Ambrose here. You can just ASK him what these things are and what they do.

You finish setting the stones around the perimeter of the house, and then finish off by planting four more at the corners of the property on which your house stands. Even with that done, you still have half a dozen of the things, but that's fine; Ambrose told you to bring back any extras.

You do that, going back into the house.

Ambrose is not immediately in view.

Neither are your mother and Zelda.

You pause, listening.

Going by the lack of muffled footsteps overhead, there's nobody upstairs.

Basement, then.

Sure enough, you find your mother and sister standing near the base of the stairs, watching from a safe distance as Ambrose, standing with his back to you, does something to-

Huh.

There is a large piece of dark grey rock hovering in mid-air before Ambrose. It's pyramid-shaped, maybe a foot tall and equally broad at the base, and where the stones you laid down outside were all devoid of any inscriptions, THIS particular specimen is covered with symbols. Some of them are glowing, and as Ambrose mutters under his breath and pokes at the rock - sometimes to rotate the object around its vertical axis, other times simply to tap a character on one of its faces - more of the glyphs begin to emit light.

It's a mix of blues, greens, yellows, and reds.

You're not sure if that means anything.

"Finished with the yard, lad?" Ambrose calls over his shoulder. He doesn't turn to face you.

"I think so. One stone in each corner, two at the base of each door and a third over the frame. I've got seven left over, by the way."

"That's fine, that's fine. I went with a high estimate of how many I'd need when I made them."

"Speaking of which," you say. "What are these? And what do they do?"

"Anchor-stones for the warding scheme, though you probably already guessed that."

"The thought had occurred, yes." You hold up one of the rocks. "They're awfully... plain... for that role, though."

"Only on the outside, I assure you. I grew the necessary runework into a crystalline matrix inside the stones."

He did what, now?

"I figured that since you're trying to stay under the radar, you'd be more comfortable with a bunch of ordinary-looking rocks scattered around your yard in plain sight, rather than a score of obviously MAGICAL mini-monoliths like this." He nods towards the floating stone pyramid. "And the surface layers double as protection for the inner ones, both against physical shock and exposure to supernatural energies."

"...yeah," you say dazedly. "Thanks for that."

"You're welcome. Now hush for a few minutes, will you? Calibrating these things is always a headache."

You nod absently, trying to wrap your head around the idea that Ambrose - whose aura marks him as a generalist, the "jack of all trades, master of none" sort of magic-user - has mastered Earth Magic to the point where he can cause crystals to grow with the kind of accuracy and composition necessary to replicate functional rune matrices, on the INSIDE of solid objects. Moreover, he can do this in such a way as to make the resulting matrix register as magically inert, at least before it's powered up. And he was able to produce twenty-one of these things in less than a month, minus whatever time he spent putting together the central ward-stone, or attending to his own affairs.

More than the obvious skill at item-crafting involved, it's the sheer SPEED of production implied that confounds you. From Ganondorf's memories, you know that even the simplest wardstones aren't easy to produce. Not hard, either, exactly, but they can be VERY finicky. Precision is important, and that leads most seasoned ward-makers to embrace the slow, patient approach in their craft. That Ambrose can take the quick approach, and not sabotage his efforts... that is so far beyond your skills right now, you can't even guess at how he manages it.

"What's this about the rocks, then, Alex?" your mother murmurs, distracting you from your musings.

"Uh, basically... think of them as a wireless computer network." You point at the hovering tetrahedron. "That one's the CPU and user interface. You can use it to turn the others on or off, or change their programming. The smaller rocks are like sci-fi force-field generators and sensors. Each one only has a limited effective range, but when you get them all working together..."

She seems to get the idea.

"Right," Ambrose announces a minute later. "I believe that's got it." He steps back from the small pyramid and waves one hand at it several times, as if saying, 'down, down, down.' And sure enough, the pyramid settles to the basement floor. The two faces you can see from where you stand are both covered with solid blue script. It's clearly an enchanted item in its own right, but when you try to probe it with your passive senses, it radiates nothing but that eldritch blue light. Even going to your active senses turns up nothing.

At a guess, you'd say Ambrose incorporated a Magic Aura into the wardstone. Possibly ALL the wardstones.

That WOULD explain why you didn't pick up anything from the others...

Ambrose, meanwhile, has circled partway around the pyramid, and after a quick inspection of the far face, he nods in satisfaction.

"All good. The perimeter stones are all active and signalling readiness. The network just needs to connect to the local mana flows and finish charging."

"Wait, what?" you interrupt. "You're going to power these wards off ambient mana? On the Hellmouth?"

"Oh, don't be daft. That would just be ASKING for horrible things to happen." Ambrose shakes his head. "No, I'm going to plug this baby into a local leyline. They're all over this insane state, and there's enough power running through even the smallest ones to burn out any level of ambient demonic contamination - short of the kind of corruption we'd see if some idiot succeeded in permanently opening the Hellmouth, that is. But if that ever happens, we'll ALL have bigger problems to worry about."

Okay, that makes sense. Leylines are kind of the source of ambient mana, rivers of power generated by the ongoing geological and mystical activity of the living planet. As Ambrose said, they're incredibly potent. So much so that tapping into one directly will kill most practitioners and burn out, melt down, blow up, or otherwise destroy most magic items.

And apparently there's one close enough to your house to be accessed. At least by Ambrose.

That's... not reassuring. You make a mental note to do a more detailed study of the local geography in the near future, if only to ensure that you know where the leyline is, and don't accidentally plug yourself into it at some point.

Gained Local Knowledge (Sunnydale) E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

"Isn't using a leyline as a power source a little... ambitious... for a household ward?" you point out, your voice as even as you can manage when visions of a small volcano exploding into existence underneath your house are flipping past your mind's eye.

"Actually, it's genius," Ambrose says with a grin. "You see, the central wardstone isn't just set up to take power IN from the leyline, it's also going to send it BACK. In effect, the entire ward will be like a tiny extension of the leyline. Not only will that give it all the power it could ever need, it'll burn out corruption as it tries to affect the wardstones. Ideally, the whole system will be functionally immune to the Hellmouth's influence, but more realistically, I'm thinking it'll take a full decade before there's any loss of effectiveness or risk of side-effects. Give or take a year either way. After that..." The wizard trails off with a shrug.

You can guess why.

In ten years' time, you ought to be fully capable of creating your own ward. And if you're NOT, well, it either won't matter, or won't be Ambrose's problem.

You have just one thing to say to this, and you hold up one of the remaining stones to emphasize your words.

"Would you mind if I created a template of this, Ambrose? For research- and Conjuration-related purposes?"

He grins. "You're certainly welcome to try, lad. And if you can actually get anything through the masking spells I worked into the stones, you're welcome to it. But I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you."

You look down at the stone resting in the palm of your hand. If it IS protected by the Spell of Magic Aura, or something like it, you're going to need to resort to spells to break through. Although... you haven't tried using your Power Sense on it yet...

That said, you DO have other business with Ambrose that needs doing. Maybe you should get on with having him take a look at your Spell of Teleportation? You'll have to clear it with your mother, of course - that or any other use of magic - but since she's personally experienced the weirdness inherent in your preferred method of long-distance travel, you don't think she'd object to "un-grounding" you for a couple hours so you could find out what's wrong with that spell.

You turn to your mother. "Just to be sure, does this fall under 'it's okay to use magic while Ambrose is here,' like we discussed last week?"

Your mother nods. "I would prefer that SOMEONE in the family had at least some idea of how... our new security system works," she admits. "And I trust that you'll be asking Mr. Ambrose about your... teleportation issues, as well?"

"I plan to, but we may need to go out of town to do that. If that's okay...?"

"Alright, then," comes the quietly emphatic response. "But don't dawdle. In the meantime, Zelda and I will be upstairs."

"But, Mom," Zelda protests. "I wanted to thtay and watch."

"No buts, Zelda. It's almost your nap-time anyway."

"I'm not tired!"

Rather predictably, your sister's protest is followed by a yawn.

"...I'm not," she insists.

Adorable arguments fail to move your mother, who ushers Zelda up the stairs with well-practiced ease. After they're gone, Ambrose turns to you with an inquisitive gleam in his eyes.

"Trouble on the Hellmouth, lad?"

Since some of the methods you have in mind to test Ambrose's magic rocks are going to be mystically-noisy - to say nothing of some of the other matters you hope to attend to while you've got the wizard here - you decide to enter your Mirror Hideaway. Before doing so, you check with Ambrose to see if the wardstone can be left by itself to finish powering up.

"While I do have every confidence in my own work," the wizard says, "it would only be prudent for me to keep an eye on things. Particularly in this town."

"How long will it take?"

"Oh, not that long. I'd say twenty minutes, half an hour at the most, before the ward is stabilized enough to be left to its own devices."

Well, that gives you a convenient window to examine the unpowered ward-stones, before you have to get down to other business. That said... do you really want to leave Ambrose unsupervised in your home for that long?

Ambrose blinks at your casual admission of your current status.

Then he throws back his head, lets out a single "HA!" of amusement, and goes right back to normal.

As normal as he ever gets, anyway.

"On the one hand, I am somewhat reassured by the fact that you respect your parents enough to bow to their authority in the matter of disciplinary action, when you could easily be doing otherwise," he admits. "On the other hand, you did something that they felt merited the punishment in the first place. Something involving magic, if that little round of Mother-May-I was any indication."

"Not so reassured, then?" Briar guesses.

"Eh." Ambrose makes a wavering gesture with one hand. "They did only ground him, so whatever it was, it can't have been THAT bad."

There's a leading note to his words. He's still curious.

It's a toss-up as to which strikes you as the more terrible idea: leaving Ambrose unsupervised in your house; or leaving a magical device with an incomplete mana tap unmonitored in your house.

Worse comes to worst, all the latter could do is blow up and destroy your house, along with everyone in it. And maybe wipe Sunnydale from the face of the Earth. It depends on how strong that leyline is, and how much juice the mana tap can draw.

Ambrose, though... he can do so much worse.

He can make your life INTERESTING.

And both of those things together?

Yeah. Better to stay put and keep an eye on them. Ambrose can monitor the wardstone, and you can occupy whatever attention he has left over. And lo and behold, there's a perfect topic for you to converse over.

"While we're on the subject of mana taps," you say. "Is there anything I should know about them, and leylines in general? If only so I know what NOT to do, if I ever get involved with them in the future?"

"Given that you once tried to assimilate Altria's mana directly, there's one thing I can tell you up front," Ambrose says. "And that is to NEVER try to pull a similar stunt with a leyline, not even through an intermediary like this wardstone. Hell, not even through a chain of intermediaries."

"Too much power?"

"Too much, too fast, too many kinds, and almost all of them too DIFFERENT," the wizard answers. "Whatever your respective exceptional traits, you and Altria are both still human - and you felt what happened when your mana rejected hers. A leyline carries the power of the Earth herself, and I don't mean some New Age idiot's flowers-in-her-hair fairy princess misconception of Mother Nature. I mean a five thousand million year old accumulation of rock and fire and elemental FURY, with mass enough to curve local space-time, an electromagnetic field strong enough to ward off an unceasing barrage of radioactive DEATH, the sheer physical resilience to withstand the cosmic love-taps of doomed planetoids, and an ocean of raw spiritual potential so vast and deep that the collective existence of all living things and spiritual phenomenon in HISTORY has been just so many ripples on the surface. Even the GODS are mayflies compared to something like that, boy. You and I? We're bacteria."

Unable to find your voice in the wake of Ambrose's unexpectedly intense discourse, you simply nod.

Ambrose goes on for a few minutes more about "basic safety precautions" when dealing with leylines. How to estimate their positions from the density of ambient mana, how to avoid tapping into them even by accident, what the difference is between using ambient mana and actually tapping a leyline directly-

"The former is like drinking from a pool. The latter is like drinking from a firehose, except that instead of blasting you with water, it's blasting you with magma."

-and other useful do's and don'ts.

Gained Geomancy E

While he speaks, Ambrose keeps one eye on the wardstone. Twice during his impromptu lecture, he stops speaking, crouches next to a symbol that's turned green for some reason, and makes an adjustment that has the sigil in question shifting back to blue.

"Done, and done," the wizard notes at last. "The mana tap is stable, the power flow is steady and well within tolerances, and the ward is now sufficiently-charged to run at its basic level. Corruption screening and magical concealment will begin shortly, and should reach full power by this time tomorrow."

With that, Ambrose turns his back on the wardstone and looks at you expectantly.

Taking the hint, you quickly cast the Spell of the Mirror Hideaway, and step through the pane of glass. Once on the other side, you make room for when Ambrose follows you - which he does a moment later.

"Well," the wizard says with an exaggerated shudder. "That was only mildly-traumatizing." He looks around at the reflective surfaces of the otherwise empty chamber, then glances at you. "Plane of Mirrors?"

"You've been here?"

"A few times. Mostly to give a misbehaving mirror demon a smack over the head and a warning to behave."

"'Mirror demon,'" you repeat flatly.

Ambrose makes a wordless hum of affirmation. "A kind of elemental that likes to lurk on the 'other side' of reflective surfaces, watching our world from this one. If they see someone or something they like, they can change their appearance to 'reflect' it - though for most, it's only the image, not any inherent powers or properties of the target. They have to be fairly powerful before they can do anything like that. Others like to play pranks by switching their appearances with other people, and plenty of them will steal pretty things or kidnap good-looking individuals and take them back through the mirror, so they can admire their prizes at leisure."

Gained Demonology D (Plus)

The wizard's description fails utterly to make you feel any better. In fact, you find yourself staring uneasily at the floor, walls, and ceiling of your spellcasting chamber, wondering if something like the T-1000 isn't going to burst from one of the glass surfaces any instant.

From the way Briar has deliberately moved to the center of the chamber, as far from EVERY mirror-like surface as she can get, you're not the only one having thoughts of this nature.

You explain to Ambrose how you ended up revealing to your parents that you'd been teleporting to Japan to conduct business with Gen.

He listens patiently, frowning as your tales goes on.

"I thought you were going to go into automobile repair and restoration," the wizard notes.

"I was, and I may still do that," you admit. "But I don't know a whole lot about cars just yet, and I've got a lot of other demands on my time that make learning about them a little tricky. This, though? This is straight-up magic."

Ambrose nods, catching your meaning.

Then he appears to dismiss the entire topic.

"Sonics," the wizard says immediately. "Mirror demons don't like loud noises, especially the kind that hit the right frequencies to rattle glass or shatter it. You'll also want to avoid using light-based effects, because those tend to bounce off of them. The more powerful individuals can apply a similar effect to other forms of energy besides light, but even they're vulnerable to well-tuned sound waves."

You make the appropriate mental notes, and then inquire if you should be worried about mirror demons turning up in your Hideaway.

"I doubt it," Ambrose replies. "They're not all that common, and they tend to congregate in big cities that are sunny year-round. It's the abundance of reflective surfaces, you see, not to mention the potential for using light to dazzle and distract their victims, or any threats they run into. You might run into a few in L.A., but in general, it's too smoggy."

Your perfectly reasonable concerns about mirror demons having been largely assuaged, you return to the reasons you entered the Mirror Hideaway in the first place.

Before you begin probing one of Ambrose's remaining inactive wardstones, you offer to share your memories of how you cast your teleportation spells, and what it feels like when they take effect, so that he'll have something to do while you're investigating his work. The wizard thanks you for the offer, but refuses, claiming he doesn't need anyone else's memories rattling around in his brain.

"Besides, I'm curious to see what you make of my work," he admits.

Shrugging, you hold up the stone, focus your energies, and utter a quiet prayer to the Golden Goddesses, beseeching their blessing as you try to unravel the secrets Ambrose has hidden in the stone.

Then you unleash your Power Sense.

*PING*

The wave of ki-infused magical energy expands outwards, washing over the wardstone.

There's no reaction.

You try again, this time attempting to focus your power in a different manner, one more in-line with the various forms of enhanced vision you have at your command.

Gained Power Sight F

The new skill functions, but it also doesn't reveal anything. Probably because you JUST came up with it.

"Alex," Briar sighs, "why do your eyes look like pits of pure golden energy?"

You look up, blinking. "They do?"

"They do," Ambrose admits, tilting his head to one side as he considers the effect. "It reminds me of certain case of possession I've run into over the years. As it happens, most of those were instances where the possessing spirit was of a divine nature, rather than demonic."

Given that you carry the lingering traces of a divine artifact in your very soul, you suppose that does make sense. It's something to keep in mind when you use this skill in the future. People who know you are likely to accept and dismiss the sight of your eyes turning into masses of golden light as just one more bit of your personal weirdness - especially if they've seen you use your other Power techniques. Strangers may have a different opinion of things.

You let the technique lapse for the moment.

As far as the lack of results in your examination of the wardstone goes, you're honestly not terribly surprised that your sensory applications of Power failed to turn up anything new. Whatever unique properties those techniques may have, they're far, FAR less developed than your more conventional senses - and those already got no-sold by whatever Ambrose did to shield his work.

That's okay, though. You're not done yet.

You perform a ritualized version of the Spell of Greater Arcane Sight, which is one of the most powerful spells of magical analysis you know, and return your gaze to the wardstone.

And it's still just a rock to your eyes.

Again, you're not completely surprised by this. Though you cast it as a seventh-circle spell, the BASIC form of Arcane Sight is just third-circle - any magic-user worth the name could cast it, and if Ambrose was even remotely serious about keeping his work hidden, he wouldn't have failed to take steps to counter that comparative common spell.

Speaking of the wizard, he's chuckling. "Care to give up, lad?"

"One more time," you say.

While the spell is still in effect, you focus your Power anew and reactivate your Power Sight, doing your best to have it absorb the spell enhancing your magical perception.

THAT works. It takes a moment, but slowly, a network of runic characters shimmers into view WITHIN the wardstone, every hair-thin line and tiny curve glowing with golden energy. You drink in the details, picking out the individual glyphs and how they've been interwoven with each other - in three dimensions, no less! - to create something that looks as much like a complex electronic circuit as it does a magical diagram.

It's honestly beautiful work.

And it's completely beyond your skills. Almost as soon as you saw the magical array within the stone, you knew you had no idea how to even BEGIN incorporating something that complex into magical items of your own creation, never mind one as small as the wardstone in your palm. You couldn't recreate that array if you tried, not at any scale - but Ambrose CAN.

You wonder if he can adapt that kind of design to materials other than minerals.

You have a feeling that the answer is, "Yes."

And doesn't that just BURN you?

Still.

Even if you can't use this discovery right NOW, at the very least, you now know that it's POSSIBLE.

And doesn't that give you IDEAS?

Gained Arcanology C (Plus)

You cast a minor Spell of Illusion, creating an image of the magical array you saw within the stone. The collection of lines and symbols hovers in the air before you, glowing faintly golden.

Ambrose makes a funny noise.

"What the heck is that?" Briar asks.

"That's what the inside of this rock looks like, if I look at it REALLY hard," you reply.

The fairy looks from you, to the image, to the rock, to Ambrose, and then back to you.

"Huh. Neat."

The wizard, incidentally, is gaping as he points from the image, to you, and then back again.

"You- what- I shielded-" Finally he stops, scowling suspiciously at you. "Are you breaking the laws of magic again, Alexander?"

"...not that that I'm aware of?" you offer.

After a moment, the wizard sighs. "...damn it, I need a drink. AGAIN."

You and Briar trade looks.

"So," the fairy says brightly. "Can you make any sense of what it does?"

"Not really," you admit, while turning back to the image. "I mean, I recognize some of the individual magical characters and what they'd mean if used alone, but this many of them in combination? In three dimensions at once? Not to mention how some of them are linked-!" You shake your head.

"I don't follow," Briar admits.

"Take this part, here." You point at one junction of runic lines, and trace two different characters. "This is the character for 'earth,' in the elemental sense, and it's directly adjacent to a character that means 'air' or 'sky.' You don't DO that with opposing concepts, not without inserting a third concept to act as a buffer; they'll cancel each other out otherwise, possibly violently. But each of them is part of a different runic chain, a kind of 'sentence,' so I have to assume that those lines modify the meaning of the joined characters enough for them to be compatible."

"Okay..."

"But each of those sentences is joined to at LEAST two others," you go on. "So I ALSO have to wonder how those 'phrases' alter each others' meanings - both individually, and as a whole, like the diagram shows. And then there's the question of how being 'written' in three dimensions may have affected all the meanings and values."

"If you're trying to butter me up for hints," Ambrose cuts in sourly, "it's not going to work. A wizard must keep his secrets, after all. Especially from impossible over-achieving rule-breaking underage..."

He trails off into annoyed muttering.

...well. Darn.

You let the illusion lapse. You WERE seriously considering taking a look at it while under the effects of Maximum Power, with the technique modified so that your mind was the main recipient of the enhancement. With Ambrose in a mood like this, though, you think it'd be a good idea to let the subject of the wardstones drop.

For now, at least.

It's not like you won't be able to analyze the heck out of that three-dimensional magical diagram later. Granted, you won't have Ambrose on-hand to ask questions, but you're not likely to get anything out of him when he's like this.

On a similar note, you dismiss the idea of asking the wizard just how effective the ward he's set up will be at concealing the use of supernatural energies within its area of effect. It's something that you are perfectly capable of finding out on your own, later, and with absolutely no further input from Ambrose required.

While you're on the subject of magical rule-breaking, you have two other topics that DO need Ambrose's input: the side-effects of your teleportation magic; and summoning Archer.

Given Ambrose's... mood... which of the two topics do you think would be safest to bring up?

It makes more sense to your mind to summon Archer now.

After all, you're already in your Mirror Hideaway, where you can more or less guarantee that casting a fairly significant Summoning spell will go unnoticed by any practitioners or magically-sensitive demons residing in or near Sunnydale. Not to mention that it's harder to scry a location in a different dimension - even a pocket-dimension "attached" to the real world, as this one is - than it is to spy on one that's merely spatially-distant.

Besides, the sooner this is done, the sooner you can get Ambrose out of your house, out of your town, and out of your hair.

At least for today.

Satisfied by your reasoning, you begin casting the Spell of Major Creation, conjuring up some powdered silver to form the necessary magic circle.

Ambrose eyes your work. "Ah. Decided to move on to the OTHER impossible thing on the brochure, have we?"

You shrug. "I figured, since we're here..."

"Might as well," the wizard agrees. "The sooner we're done here, the sooner I can go find a bar."

...

You turn to Briar, who mirrors your movement.

"Angry, drunken wizard?" she offers.

"On a rampage in Sunnydale?" you answer in kind.

As one, you both shiver.

Trying to put that... unsettling image out of your head, you double-check the completed diagram and then cast the Spell of Dimensional Anchoring on the magic circle, priming it to receive and retain your imminent visitor. Then you focus on the Spell of Planar Binding.

Ambrose remains silent, watching closely as you carry out the ritual.

Ten minutes later, Archer's red-coated, white-haired, golden-eyed form appears within the circle.

"Hello again, Sorcerer," he says, before glancing at your guest. "I see you've traded in for a new model old person since I was here last. He the wizard you mentioned?"

"He is," you answer.

Archer nods, and faces Ambrose directly. "So. What do you want to talk about?"

"Oh, all kinds of things," the old man replies, as he looks the Heroic Spirit over. "Who you are, how the lad managed to summon you from the Throne, why he keeps getting away with it..."

"The first is none of your business," Archer answers easily. "As for the other two, I have no idea."

The wizard is undeterred. "Well, how about this, then: why do you feel like Avalon?"

It's brief.

It's subtle.

And when Briar's hovering, luminous form staggers in mid-air, and lets out a choked, "WHAT?" in response to Ambrose's question, it nearly escapes your notice.

Gained Looking B (Plus)

But only nearly.

Archer twitches.

He wasn't expecting to hear that, any more than Briar was.

You keep quiet, waiting to hear how Archer responds to Ambrose.

"'Avalon'?" the Heroic Spirit repeats. "What's that?"

"Don't insult my intelligence, Archer," Ambrose says flatly. "That aura is unique. No one who's encountered it could fail to recognize it - and those Heroic Spirits who HAVE encountered it are a very select group."

You glance at Archer, not actively probing - you learned your lesson the last time you tried that with this particular spirit - just trying to get a sense for what Ambrose is talking about.

Nothing jumps out at you. Archer's aura is the same as it's always been.

For his part, Archer smirks. It's an expression that looks remarkably natural on him.

"How do you know I don't belong to that group?"

"So we're going to do it this way, are we?" Ambrose mutters. "Fine then. For one thing, exotic coloration aside, your features are pretty clearly Asian. The group I'm thinking of was almost entirely European, and those members who weren't didn't come from the Far East. For another, your attire is all wrong for the location and period."

One of Archer's eyebrows goes up. "If you're using THAT as one of your criteria, you clearly haven't met that many Heroic Spirits."

The wizard waves one hand dismissively. "Yes, yes, a Heroic Spirit's appearance is altered by the images held of him by the collective consciousness of mankind, and people are ignorant, imaginative, and/or simply deviants. I was referring to the fact that you're wearing kevlar."

You blink. He's wearing what, now?

"It's not kevlar."

"It's body armor made of a synthetic fiber that could NOT have been produced without advanced alchemy or modern chemical engineering," Ambrose shoots back. "And no alchemist capable of producing something good enough for a Heroic Spirit to wear would have let it out of their sight-"

Archer opens his mouth to speak.

"-and NO," the old man cuts him off with a sharp gesture, "there is no way that YOU are an alchemist. Your aura is that of some kind of half-assed, overspecialized magus. If you screwed around with alchemy in life, you'd have died without ever making it to the Throne."

For some reason, that remark prompts another of those almost-hidden twitches from Archer.

"Incidentally," Ambrose continues, "your aura is another mark against you, all on its own."

"What, there weren't any magi in this group that I supposedly don't belong to?"

"Oh, there were a few practitioners, and others who had the potential to become so. But they were either fully trained or completely untrained by the end of their lives. None of them had this air of third-rate competence."

Archer shrugs. "If I actually had any pride in my magecraft, I'm sure it'd be stung right about now."

"Which is ANOTHER thing about you that doesn't fit," Ambrose goes on, pointing his hockey stick at Archer's face. "Pride, dignity, and a certain code of conduct were a not-insigificant aspect of that group and its membership. You don't have any of those."

"And I've worked very hard to become so," Archer agrees. "Things like that just get in the way."

"Okay, look," Briar cuts in. "This back-and-forth is entertaining and all, but can we PLEASE get back to the part where you said he feels like Avalon? Because I'm pretty sure that's not supposed to be possible."

Ambrose affects a wounded expression. "I was GETTING to that."

"No, you were just showing off how smart you think you are," Archer retorts.

"What was that?" the wizard demands.

"You heard me. Unless your ears are going, in your old age?"

"Don't make me come in that circle, smart guy."

"Getting senile, too?"

"Senile?!"

"Well, you're waving around a HOCKEY STICK," Archer points out. "What kind of wizard does that?"

"Oh, for Farore's sake," Briar sighs.

The name being bandied around the room does ring a bell, but to refresh your memory, you pull your Conjured Book from your pocket and cast the Spell of Page-Bound Epiphany, choosing as your subject the name "Avalon," as it relates to magic, legend, and the supernatural.

The pages of the book flutter in a silent breeze, and as glowing words appear in the text, you read.

Yes, that's what you thought. Avalon is the mystical island where Arthur was taken to recover from his wounds after the Battle of Camlann, where Arthur's army fought with Mordred's, with both sides being effectively destroyed and Camelot's military power and line of succession broken. Avalon is also supposedly the place where Excalibur was forged, and has connections to the fey, the divine, and the afterlife, going back some two thousand years, if not more.

...so, is Ambrose calling Archer out on not being a Knight of the Round Table? That would make sense... but then again, you're not seeing anything about ANY of the knights going to Avalon - only Arthur himself, after that final battle. That makes it sound like some OTHER Avalon is the topic under discussion, but you can't find any references to such a thing within the terms you set for your spell.

Your musings are interrupted by the sound of someone clearing their throat. Glancing up from the book, you find the room's three other occupants all looking at you.

"Would you care to share with the rest of the class, lad?" Ambrose asks.

"Oh, don't mind me," you say. "I'm just reading up on Avalon."

"Ah. And what, pray tell, have you learned?"

"Enough to make me think you're not talking about the island when you use that name," you admit.

"We're not," Briar replies. "Avalon is also the name of Excalibur's scabbard."

You venture a guess. "Magical?"

"Ridiculously."

Your fairy companion explains how the scabbard had the power to heal its owner of any wound short of death, and moreover, how it could bestow complete invulnerability, by drawing the wearer into the realm of the fey, beyond the reach of all harm - while at the same time, doing nothing to hinder one's own attacks from striking the enemy.

"And since Avalon and Excalibur were a package deal, King Arthur was effectively invincible as long as she had both of them," Briar says.

You notice that when Briar refers to the Once And Future King as female, a look of annoyance briefly flashes across Ambrose's face.

"Which, of course, is why the scabbard was eventually stolen and hidden away," the fairy concludes.

"Hidden? Not used?"

"Nope. The scabbard was pretty much designed to work solely for Arthur. Oh, she could hand it off to someone else to let them benefit from its healing properties, as long as she was nearby to provide it with power-"

Archer gives another of those not-twitches - and from the way Ambrose squints at him, you think that the wizard noticed this one.

"-but Avalon's full power couldn't be activated by or for anyone else. Arthur could stand between her allies and whatever threat prompted her to pull out her trump card, and tank the hits for them-"

Twitch again. And Ambrose DEFINITELY noticed that one.

"-but that was about the limit."

"Indeed," Ambrose says then. "And now that we're all on the same page, perhaps our resident Heroic Spirit would care to explain when, where, and how someone from the Orient encountered one of the most powerful Noble Phantasms in history? One that never left Europe, at that?"

"I don't believe I would, actually," Archer replies. "Unless of course, YOU'D like to explain the source of YOUR familiarity with a legendary relic that's been lost for over a thousand years?"

Ambrose draws himself up. "I am a wizard. Obscure information is my stock in trade."

The look Archer gives him says the Heroic Spirit has doubts about that. ALL the doubts.

The way Briar's glowing form shifts in mid-air says she's not buying Ambrose's claim either.

Tucking your book away with a sigh, you wonder how to deal with this increasingly-obvious deadlock.

"What's with the wincing, Ambrose?"

"I'm curious about that myself," Archer admits, studying the wizard's expression. "The fairy mentioned that King Arthur was female - and there it is again."

You frown. "Yeah... which makes me wonder why it's happening at all. Because Archer told me that, and I'm sure I included it in those copies of his information that I wrote up for you and the other adults... or did you just not read your copy?"

"I did read it, and no, I am not getting forgetful in my old age," Ambrose says, glaring at Archer before he can question the old man's mental competency again. "I'm just not used to the idea that there are people OTHER than the fairies who are in on that particular joke."

...he's not lying, but you get the feeling that he's not telling the whole truth, either.

Having gotten more than a little fed up with the supposed adults in the room, you're seriously tempted to bypass their penchant for stubbornness and secrecy, and go directly to the source of the problem - with magic.

Ambrose wants to know how Archer could have had contact with Avalon.

Archer wants to know how Ambrose even knows what Avalon's presence feels like.

Your modified Spell of Vision can probably answer both questions, and promptly, too.

As you offer up a prayer to Nayru, it occurs to you that you didn't keep the last set of ivory figurines this spell requires as focuses. Thinking back, you recall that, while they weren't visibly damaged when you tested your new spell, they WERE warm to the touch, indicating a level of resistance to the magic. Focuses aren't supposed to behave like that - unless you're dealing with spells of Fire, of course - so you dismissed the set, intending to conjure a new and hopefully perfected batch of replacements when the need arose.

However, that takes ten minutes - and another ten minutes will be needed for you to conjure the incense the spell requires. You can't see Ambrose or Archer letting you spend twenty minutes obviously making magic without interrupting you to find out what's going on, and the wizard isn't confined by a summoning circle.

On the other hand, maybe you could use the THREAT of casting the spell to coerce these two into playing nice?

Then again, threatening Heroic Spirits and archmages is... kind of dumb.

Maybe you should come up with a different approach?

Ambrose is not being entirely truthful about why it bothers him that other, non-fairy people know that King Arthur is actually a girl.

And to be honest, that's fine by you.

Everyone's entitled to their secrets, after all. Ambrose can keep this one.

"Let me see if I've got this straight," you say to no-one in particular. "YOU" - you point at Ambrose - "want to know how Archer could have had contact with Avalon. And YOU" - your arm swings over to the Heroic Spirit - "want to know how he even knows what Avalon feels like. And instead of just accepting a mutual inconvenience and exchanging information, you've instead decided to sit back and be catty with each other, while completely failing to learn anything?" You pause, and look at both adults. "Am I wrong?"

Ambrose's gaze slides over to Archer, and away from you.

Archer mirrors the evasive expression.

You sigh, and wonder for a moment if THIS is what it feels like to be a parent.

If so, you may owe your folks an apology. And a hug.

"Ambrose," you say evenly, "may I speak with you outside for a moment?"

"...sure?"

"Briar," you add, as the wizard heads for the exit, "would you mind staying with Archer until we come back?"

The fairy salutes. "No problem."

"Don't want to leave me alone and unsupervised, huh?" Archer inquires.

You shrug. "It's not that I don't trust you or anything, Archer-"

"-it's just that you don't trust me," he finishes with a nod. "No, no, I get it. Proper paranoia. Go on, go talk to the wizard. I'll be here when you get back, and I probably won't even have broken out of the magic circle."

...

Your flat look fails to prompt any hint of contrition from the Heroic Spirit, let alone an apology.

You're beginning to think that Archer's legend must have involved him annoying people to death. Or at least to great and terrible distraction.

Shaking your head, you follow Ambrose through the mirror and out into your basement. He's inspecting the wardstone when you arrive, and looks up, confirming that it's charging up steadily, with no apparent Hellmouth-related issues.

That's good to know, but it's not why you asked him here.

"Could you put up a privacy ward, Ambrose? I want to talk about something I think you probably won't want to risk being overheard."

A look of Interest crosses the old man's face, and he raises his hockey stick, tracing a circle through the air. A Spell of Abjuration forms around you, blocking outgoing sound and incoming scrying - like a combination of the Spell of Nondetection and something similar to the Spell of Silence. Fairly simple, really, but put together with a level of skill that makes it very, very unlikely to be breached by any subtle means.

And also annoyingly difficult to try and copy.

"If you're done trying to steal my spell," Ambrose says then, "what's on your mind?"

You breathe in, considering your next words carefully, and then begin to speak.

"What's the connection between Altria and King Arthur?"

Ambrose blinks. "Hell of a conversation starter there, lad."

"Just answer the question, please."

"What makes you think there IS such a connection?"

You regard the old man flatly. "Would you like a list?"

He nods, and you proceed to detail the various sources that have led you to what is, in your opinion, a well-founded suspicion.

The first big hint was the vision you had when you and Altria fought back at the World Tournament. By itself, it didn't mean anything - or rather, you didn't have the proper context to make sense of it. Months and many additional hints later, however, you can look back at it with some certainty.

Your next major clue - and the one that really cemented your suspicions - came from Archer's account of the Fifth Grail War. His description of the Saber-Class Servant, King Arthur, was almost a dead ringer for the sleeping figure you saw over-and-behind Altria in that vision. Briar's confirmation that "Arthur" was actually a girl just drove it home.

"And of course, there were the OTHER figures in the vision," you continue. "The knights, the fairy women - the WIZARD," you add, giving Ambrose a direct, meaningful look.

Ambrose meets your gaze for a long, quiet moment, before raising his left hand...

...and massaging the base of his nose, as though he had a sudden headache.

Lowering his hand, the old man half-glares at you. "You know, lad, with the exception of one clumsy and unpredictable fairy, you are the smallest and yet most troublesome individual I've had to deal with in recent memory. Does that seem right to you?"

You can't help it. You're curious.

"What'd she do?"

"Hmm?"

"The fairy," you clarify.

"Arson." Ambrose shakes his head. "Little lady loved fireworks."

...okay, your mind just went to a scary place.

"How about we get back on topic instead of deflecting?" you ask.

"Sure, sure." The wizard clears his throat. "You were in the middle of accusing me of having a deep, existential connection to the great and powerful wizard of Camelot, who was known for being an unpredictable and occasionally incredibly petty and spiteful son of a bitch?"

"Sounds about right," you reply evenly.

Ambrose grins.

"Look, Ambrose. I'm not trying to be a pain here, but things are serious. I like Earth in one piece and not all apocalypsed, and I'd also like to keep Altria un-paradoxed, if that's alright by you."

The wizard blinks. "Wait, what's this about- are you basing this concern of yours on that mess from the Fourth War, with the two Draculas?"

You nod.

"I see. Well, allow me to be the one to take a weight off your mind, Alex. Altria's in no danger of something like that happening to her."

"You're sure?"

"Yes. Recall what the Shuzens said, about there being a Servant version of Dracula and a more-or-less living but sealed monstrous Dark Lord Dracula simultaenously. It was only when the Servant turned into the Dark Lord himself that the paradox ensued." Ambrose looks at you. "Lady Bloodriver and her cohorts may use it as a political and military title, but for a being on Dracula's level, 'Dark Lord' is a much more significant and SINGULAR title. The true Dark Lord is a focal point for the Power of Chaos in this world, a nexus of darkness, death, destruction, and all the other things that mankind tends to classify as 'Evil.'"

You got that much.

"Now, you can have more than one claimaint to that particular throne," Ambrose admits. "At least for however long it takes one of them to kill, consume, or subjugate the other. And you could have two incarnations of Dracula from different points in his life existing in the world at the same time, as the case of the Servant and the sealed body showed. It's only when we had two Dark Lord Draculas, equal in power and with identical claims to a throne that can only hold one body, that the paradox kicked in. It'd be similar with King Arthur. The only way to trigger a paradox by summoning her would be if the original, ACTUAL King of Knights was already living in the modern world. A reincarnation doesn't count - certainly not when she'd only be thirteen, to the Servant's considerably greater experience."

You ponder Ambrose's statements. He seems very certain of what he's saying.

"Okay. But if you're not worried about a paradox, then why are you hounding Archer about Avalon? I mean, I thought you were doing it because you were worried somebody was going to find the sheathe and use it as a catalyst to summon King Arthur. I'm pretty sure that must be what happened in the Fifth War that Archer described."

"Good guess," the wizard says. "And I'm pretty sure you're right. The odds of an effectively self-trained first-generation magus managing to summon ANY Servant by accident are long at best, but if that Emiya boy had Avalon, it would make the screwed-up coincidence you said Archer described at least vaguely plausible." He pauses, and shakes his head. "In any case, that wasn't what's bothering me about Archer. He doesn't feel like someone who's had contact with Avalon, he feels like he HAS the sheathe - almost. Except... not quite."

Ah.

"This would probably be a good time for me to mention that I've seen Archer duplicate items, wouldn't it?" you say.

Ambrose goes still for a moment. Then, his head slowly turns towards you.

You can't help but feel you may have made a mistake.

"It might," the wizard says in a low tone. "Except that duplicating AVALON, one of the most powerful Noble Phantasms in history and an artifact of FAERIE make besides, should be downright IMPOSSIBLE for any human, Heroic Spirit or not."

Um. Ambrose's eyes are starting to look a bit wide, and wild.

"What the HELL is it with you, boy?!" Ambrose bursts out. "Not only are YOU violating the Laws of Magic as I THOUGHT I knew them, NOW you're summoning up spirits who can do THE EXACT SAME THING!"

And ugh, is that vein at his temple supposed to be throbbing like that? That... can't be healthy.

In front of you, you've got a wizard who looks like he's on the verge of a stroke, or perhaps attempted homicide. In the next, other-dimensional room, you've got an Heroic Spirit who may or may not be trying to escape the circle you summoned him into. Around you is a magical ward that's still in the process of activation. And you're on the Mouth of Hell.

You're tempted to make a smart remark here to try and ease the pressure. Maybe calling Ambrose on how disheartening it is to see that he's lost his sense of wonder when it comes to magic, and how most of the other supernaturally-aware adults you've dealt with of late had such narrow and negative views of sorcery and sorcerers...

Two things stop you.

One is the fact that Ambrose does not look to be in any mood for witticisms.

As for the other... well.

In the face of an angry archmage, you dig deep, enhance your calm-

Gained Cool B

-and try to put your motivation into words.

"Ambrose, I understand better than anyone that my magic is weird. I've had to redefine what I considered to be 'impossible' on a regular basis since my powers started to manifest. I can conjure a nice suit from nothing, travel halfway around the world in the blink of an eye, bend the forces of nature to my whim, and summon spirits with ridiculous abilities of their own - stuff that most people would claim was impossible. But the very fact that it CAN be done means it ISN'T impossible. It just means that like those other people, I didn't know the rules well enough to understand how to do it before."

You pause for air, and to consider the wizard's reaction.

"I take it you're going to suggest," he says in a tight voice, "that the reason why you and Archer are able to do things that appear 'impossible' to me is only because I don't know the rules you operate by."

You nod. "I respect that you have a different basis than I do for defining what's possible and what isn't - and I accept that in a lot of ways, what you know covers a much broader and better-defined range than my own knowledge." You glance meaningfully at the wardstone. "Case in point. I can't create anything like that yet, and before today, I would have said IT was impossible. And it would have been, but only because I didn't know the rules governing its construction and function, or how to apply them. But today I learned better. Isn't that what we should be doing with these other 'impossible' things? Isn't it more productive, and more INTERESTING, to try and work out what we don't know?"

You've got a chance to learn something new. About magic.

You like learning. You like magic. You like learning about magic, and using magic to learn.

Not the least because, as ever, and especially when it coms to magic, knowledge is power.

For a long moment, the two of you stand there in silence. Ambrose makes no reply, and you begin to wonder if your efforts were wasted.

Then he closes his eyes, bows his head, and lets out a long breath.

When the wizard looks up at you once more, his expression is still decidedly unhappy.

But that little pounding vein at his temple has calmed down.

"You have a point," Ambrose admits. "And I... should not have yelled at you."

Gained Young King B

"But while we're on the subject of impossible things," he adds, "perhaps you'd mind explaining to me how and why you react so cool under pressure? That's the second time I've gone all intimidating old man right in your face, and both times, you barely flinched. That? Is. NOT. Normal. Not for a boy your age dealing with an adult, and DEFINITELY not for someone who knows enough to have an idea of what I could do if I were genuinely pissed off."

You meet the wizard's gaze unflinchingly.

"Ambrose, I live in Sunnydale, where a single mistake, or just bad luck, could end me. It's encouraged me to grow a spine, because I freaked out before, and found that it didn't help."

Ambrose considers your words.

"More than that," you go on, "I've had people and THINGS try to kill me. With some of them, it was just because I was a target of opportunity; for others, it was just business; but for a couple, it was personal." You shake your head. "I appreciate that you were upset just now, but after having a literal demon assassin come after me just because I beat him in a fair fight, one old man in a bad mood just doesn't compare." After a pause, you add, "Besides, Altria let me know you're a big softie deep down."

Ambrose arches an eyebrow at that claim.

"Deep, DEEP down," you clarify.

He snorts.

"Anyway... are we good?"

The wizard sighs. "I suppose we are. Although, that still leaves the matter of the Heroic Spirit in the other room."

The Heroic Spirit who was probably just joking about breaking out of your magic circle.

Hopefully.

Maybe.

"After you," you say to Ambrose, while making a sweeping gesture towards the mirror.

"Age before beauty, eh?" Ambrose says. But he accepts the invitation and, after lowering the barrier he put up around the two of you, steps back through the glass portal.

You give it a moment before following.

The good news is that Archer is still in the summoning circle. The better news is that a quick probe of the diagram reveals no distortions or weakening of its pattern and power.

"So," the Heroic Spirit says, "if you two spellcasters are finished talking amongst yourselves, I assume some grand conclusion has been reached?"

The bad news is that Archer is no less snarky than before. Ambrose gives him a sour look, but answers.

"The boy made a convincing argument that I was looking at this situation from the wrong angle."

"Oh? How so?"

"He said that you had demonstrated the ability to magically-duplicate items." Ambrose pauses, his expression questioning.

"That's true," Archer admits easily enough.

"And there was the... suggestion... that the reason why you seem to have traces of Avalon's influence in your aura is that you're able, by some unfathomable means, to replicate it."

"Me? Replicate a Noble Phantasm?" Archer's expression and tone are pure surprise. "Even for a Heroic Spirit, something like that is impossible, isn't it?"

"That's what I said," Ambrose grumbles.

"At some volume, length, and profanity, no doubt."

"Mmmm."

Archer regards him closely. "But you think the Kid Sorcerer was right."

"I think that his statement that I don't know how your magic works, and should hold off on declaring it impossible unless or until I have that knowledge, was correct."

"It's a good argument," Archer agrees. "But it just comes back to our original problem. Each of us knows something - or more than one thing - that the other doesn't, and wants to know what the other knows. But neither of us is terribly inclined to share." He glances in your direction. "That's kind of been a recurring theme with you summoning me, Sorcerer."

He's not wrong. And you, personally, still don't have anything to offer as payment, at least not in any currency Archer is interested in.

On the other hand, there's Ambrose. You've already seen that he's got options that you don't. Surely, some of them would apply here?

You look from Archer to Ambrose.

"From where I'm standing, the obvious answer here is a straight-up trade: information for information."

"The problem with that-" Archer begins.

"On the face of it-" Ambrose says at the same moment.

Both older men stop speaking, and trade glances.

You hold up a hand. "Let me guess. You're both going to point out that different pieces of information don't always hold the same value, even when they're both completely true?"

You are answered by a pair of slow nods.

"Good thing we have another option, then. Instead of information, or maybe in addition to it, Ambrose could investigate that 'Emiya Shirou' person you were interested in. Being an adult wizard, he can probably do a better job than I can."

Archer shakes his head. "You already told me that the fire didn't happen. The troublesome Emiya Shirou that I know literally can't exist without that incident."

"The spell I used only gathers information from mundane sources, Archer. It can be defeated by almost any kind of anti-scrying ward, and it doesn't tell me whether or not the knowledge I gather is really true. All I really confirmed is that the newspapers and other media outlets in and around Fuyuki didn't report a major fire. Something COULD still have happened, and then had all evidence magically suppressed."

The Heroic Spirit considers that.

"I want to say that it shouldn't be possible for any lesser disaster to create that boy," he finally replies. "On the other hand, his luck is bad enough that if there WAS another way for him to end up on the path to disaster, he'd find it."

That seems to be a tentative acceptance.

You glance at Ambrose. "Is that arrangement okay with you, Ambrose?"

"That depends," the wizard answers. "This Emiya boy - is he any relation to Emiya Kiritsugu?"

...who?

"In the timelines I'm familiar with," Archer replies, with a faint, wry smirk, "he's the Magus Killer's adopted son."

The WHAT?

Ambrose nods. "Nope."

"'Nope?'" you repeat.

"Nope, as in no, nadda, nein, negatory, nothing doing." He points a long, gnarled finger at your face. "Some free advice, lad. If you want to live a long, healthy life, do NOT go poking your nose into the personal affairs of professional killers, especially the world-class ones who manage to take out magi and other supernatural targets that SHOULD be well above their weight class."

You inquire of Ambrose and Archer who this guy is, and learn that he's the last living member of a disgraced lineage of magi, who turned freelance mercenary at some point after the death of his father and the loss of most of his family's research. He uses what little magical lore he retained to make a living as a hired killer, one that operates in both the mundane and the Moonlit Worlds. The title of "Magus Killer" was hung on him by the Mages' Association that Ambrose has mentioned before, as an acknowledgement of his ability to kill mages, monsters, and other beings in of spite their powers and protections.

Emiya Kiritsugu more or less dropped off the face of the Earth about thirteen years ago, but in the wake of the Fourth Holy Grail War, rumor got around that he'd been active in Fuyuki City, either as a Master himself or as an aide to one - Ambrose has heard different accounts, and isn't sure which to believe.

Archer says that, as far as he knows, Kiritsugu was a Master.

The Master of Saber, no less.

The very SAME Saber that ended up being summoned by his foster-son, ten years later.

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

Ambrose puts the clues together in an instant.

"Are you telling me that the Magus Killer, the pre-eminent assassin of his day, a man who by all accounts cared NOTHING for the level of collateral damage his methods inflicted, so long as he got his target, had AVALON?"

Archer shrugs. "In a word? Yes. Though if it makes you feel any better, it was given to him by the Einzberns, after they dug it up. From Cornwall, I think. They wanted him to be their representative in the Fourth Grail War."

Ambrose stares at the Heroic Spirit for a moment. Then his expression turns a bit distant.

"...Ambrose?" you ask after a moment.

"Hmmm?" He glances at you, still looking absent-minded, then blinks and shakes his head. "Oh, sorry about that. Got lost in imagining myself knocking down the doors of Old Acht's castle and setting his beard on fire."

"Could you do that?" Archer inquires. He sounds like the idea appeals to him.

"Oh, certainly. Well, almost definitely. Probably." Ambrose pauses. "I mean, it IS an ancient, magically-fortified and heavily-warded castle, full of pissy old magi and combat homonculi. And I do so hate to see pretty girls get hurt. On the other hand... from what the boy passed on, if our world's Fuyuki Grail is indeed contaminated, Einzbern is directly responsible. In that case, punitive measures may well be in order."

"Now THAT is something I wouldn't mind trading for," Archer says.

...and here you were, about to tell Archer that exchanges like this would work better if he'd just come out and tell you what he wanted, instead of leaving you to waste everyone's time floundering around trying to guess.

On the other hand, is it really a good idea to set Ambrose on course to give a powerful family of magic-users a black eye, when you kind of need him to help stop an apocalypse?

You hold out one hand, palm forward, to interrupt the two older men.

"Before we go ahead and plan an assault on a heavily-fortified castle full of extremely dangerous people, could we at least confirm that they've actually done what we think they've done? In this timeline, I mean. Because it would suck to go to that kind of trouble, only to find out that the Einzberns' actions were diferent in this timeline than they were in the timelines Archer is familiar with."

Archer and Ambrose trade glances.

"He's not wrong," the Heroic Spirit admits.

"True." The wizard sighs. "Not that I wouldn't enjoy punching Jubstacheit in the face, just on general principles."

"I never met the man, myself," Archer says. "I've heard about him, though, and seen some of his... work. He does seem like the sort to have earned a good beating. Or five."

"He's the head of a magus lineage going back over a thousand years," Ambrose answers with a shrug. "I have yet to meet a subset of humanity as collectively and consistently worthy of having their teeth knocked out, when they haven't done anything worthy of a firing squad. That you know of. Recently."

"And IF it our information checks out," you continue, raising your voice a bit, "we can add 'dealing with the Einzberns' to the list of things we need to take care of in relation to the Fuyuki Grail. Because I have to imagine that attacking one of the founding families would have an impact on the outcome of the War."

"Absolutely," Archer and Ambrose say in unison.

"But if it comes to that, Ambrose? Be sure to let the Shuzens in on those, er, 'punitive measures' you mentioned. They do consider the Einzberns enemies, after all, and they'd bring a lot of resources to the table."

The wizard gets that far-away look again.

Slowly, he smiles.

It's a little creepy, actually.

"On a related note," you say, turning to Archer, "I might be willing to consider summoning you in person to lend a hand with that business."

"As long as you get something out of it," Archer states rather than guesses.

You nod.

"Fair enough. But," he adds, "I suppose we'll have to wait and see what the wizard turns up, before making any deals on that front."

...true enough.

You mentally cross your fingers.

Seeing as how he has a potential bargaining chip with Archer, but needs time to investigate it, Ambrose is willing to set aside his intense interest in how the Heroic Spirit encountered Avalon. At least for the time being. And since there's now a possibility for Archer being let out into the world in the not-too-distant future, Ambrose figures it's just as well that he doesn't poke at him in a mystical sense - or any further in the verbal manner, for that matter.

Payback is a thing, after all.

As such, there isn't any real reason for you to keep Archer around, and you send him on his way.

With that done, there's only one box on Ambrose's daily checklist that needs to be filled: investigating your teleportation.

And since you've been having problems when teleporting in the "real" world, it seems only natural that you should conduct this investigation there.

Ambrose agrees, and after a final check on the progress of the wards - which are still going well - he heads upstairs to collect his singed coat and thank your mother for her hospitality, brief as it may have been.

For your part, you slip your shoes on and tell your mother you'll be back in an hour or two. Three at the outside.

As you're leaving the house, you pause on your doorstep to consider the local flows of energy. Ambrose's wards are subtle enough that, even though you KNOW they're there, you can't feel them.

"How powerful is the concealment effect on the ward, anyway?" you wonder. "I mean, what's the strongest spell it could hide?"

"Once it's running at full power, you'll be able to cast fourth-circle spells all day, every day, if you feel like it. Maybe a few fifth-level spells, though that'll depend on the spells in question, mind, and whether or not you've improved your spellcasting by then. Even with access to the leyline, there's a limit to how fast the matrix can cycle residual mana while keeping everything hidden."

In other words, when it comes to keeping your use of magic on the down-low, your new home ward isn't really that much better than the one at Lu-sensei's dojo. It is, however, much harder to detect in and of itself.

Considering that you effectively got it for free, you're not inclined to complain.

Instead, you ask another question. "How effective do you think it would be at hiding that golden power you've seen me use?"

"No idea," Ambrose says cheerfully. "I'll set up a ward when we get to wherever we're going, and you can test it there. Speaking of which," he adds, looking around, "where the hell ARE we going?"

"Just outside the town limits."

"...on foot?"

"Is that a problem?"

"Not all of us are spring chickens who've learned the ancient art of punching people's spleens out through their noses, boy," Ambrose points out. "Let alone reaped the physical fitness benefits that come with training for that sort of thing. Besides, this business of stumbling around in the dirt is for people who haven't learned how to warp space and time a new one, or at least haven't worked out the secrets of unmechanized flight."

Your mother frowns, but nods.

"Alright, Alex. But come straight home when you're finished."

With any potential for further grounding averted, you finish lacing up your shoes.

It's not like you've sworn an oath to only get around Sunnydale by foot or by motor vehicle. You just have a very sensible ingrained habit of not using space-time-warping magic when you're near a dimensional weak-point that connects to otherworldly realms of chaos, evil, and general nastiness.

But here you've got a master wizard, who has previously made his way into and out of town without kicking off demonic incursions.

Okay, he DID end up in a Hell dimension - but that only happened AFTER he'd left town, and gone to L.A. Completely unrelated.

The point stands, why would you waste time getting out of town when Ambrose could just move all three of you there in an instant? As long as he's able to avoid drawing local attention, there should be no problem.

And it'll give you an opportunity to observe how another magic-user approaches teleportation. That could be instructive.

"Sure, why not?" You hold out one hand. "Beam us up, Scotty."

Ambrose snorts. "I'm not Scottish, and you're not from Iowa."

That said, he puts a hand on your arm, raises his hockey stick-

-and the next thing you know, you're standing behind a billboard. The terrain is somewhat familiar, and when you break away from Ambrose to circle around to the front of the sign, you see that it is the "Now Leaving" board on the outskirts of Sunnydale.

So that's what teleportation feels like when it isn't going green, huh? Not even the fleeting sense of here-and-then-there, you're just... there.

Gained Mage Sense B (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Mage Sight B (Plus)

You got a pretty good feel for what Ambrose was doing, and as far as you could tell, it wasn't any different than the methods you use for crossing space-time. Granted, there was a lot less power going into his spell than the one you use to travel to different parts of the world, but the wizard WAS only taking you a few miles.

"Well," Ambrose notes from behind you. "That short trip suggests that there isn't anything about you that interferes with teleportation, not in any existential sense. That's reassuring."

"So what do you need me to do now?" you ask.

"Here? Just hold still while I move us somewhere more useful for proper investigation."

You do so, and Ambrose once again lays a hand on your arm. He raises his makeshift staff again, and this time, the surge of mana is considerably stronger-

-and then you find yourself in an unfamiliar room. Several sets of boots, shoes, and indoor slippers are arranged along the floor, in sizes and styles fit for men, women, and children. A similar assortment of coats and cloaks hang inside spacious closets, most of which stand open before you. The floor is polished stone, the walls and ceiling an old, darkly stained wood.

All in all, it looks like the sort of entrance hall you've seen in fancy houses on television - or a smaller and much less fortified version of the Shuzen's front room - except that there's only one door, and it leads into the house. Also, there's a magical array carved into the floor beneath you, its many lines and sigils glowing progressively fainter even as you watch.

It occurs to you that you could make something like this circle, resources permitting.

Gained Item Crafting D (Plus) (Plus)

Pulling your attention away from the teleportation circle, you look up to Ambrose.