Xander Quest Chapter 280: This All Feels Fairy Familiar 6, a private fanfic

Your inner scholar and not-so-inner magic-user would both really like to take a look at that teleportation circle, but you're aware that a detailed analysis of the thing could take a while. You've already used up half of the time you can spare today just running recon on this place and casting support spells; you'd be lying if you said you didn't want to ACHIEVE something - something tangible, at that - before calling it a day.

And it's not like the circle is going anywhere. It's waited a thousand years for someone to find it; it can wait another day or two.

Besides, you're not about to start an in-depth magical analysis of anything when you know there are killer golems and restless dead lurking a mere two rooms away. It's just ASKING for trouble, and you've been trying to avoid behaviors of that nature.

You communicate your intent to the priests: disable the guardian constructs; lay the undead to permanent rest; and then, since it's close by, check out what's in the magically-protected part of the armory. After that, you can hit the prison area and deal with the rather more significant undead entity you picked up.

Ichirou, clearly eager to start doing something besides stand around keeping one eye on a hall that nothing's using, is all for this plan.

Ginta advises caution, but doesn't object to the idea of sending lingering souls on to their long-overdue judgement. He's more concerned about the two guardian constructs, pointing out that a rebellion of these things was enough to drive out the original occupants of the facility, who - from your magical account - were skilled enough to take on one of the recognized Lords of this realm and his personal troops, and win.

You agree that it's only sensible to take care, but you add that fighting constructs is a world apart from fighting Fae. They have essentially nothing in common - from a certain point of view, one could even be said to be the complete antithesis of the other - and so the means and methods you must use to defeat them are entirely different.

With the Fae, you need iron, protection against illusions and the forces of Nature, and the ability to absorb blows and keep going - because when it comes to speed, agility, and sheer SKILL, humans are almost always at the disadvantage compared to the Lords of the Courts. Conversely, constructs tend to be quite literally BUILT for sheer brute force, both in the taking and the giving. To face something like that, you need to be strong enough to hit like a falling mountain, and fast enough to not get hit in return.

It's how Link was able to take on entire GALLERIES of Armos, when even ONE of the brutal animated statues could leave an entire company of relatively heavily-armored and slow-moving Hylian foot soldiers shattered in its wake.

You don't say this out loud, of course; instead, you point out how the base's residents were already divided against one another, and most likely taken entirely by surprise when the golems turned on them. You further note that after a thousand years of constant operation with no one to perform maintenance, the stone soldiers' numbers and individual capabilities will likely have degraded to some degree - more so, if their former masters got in any good hits before they were overrun or driven out.

Ginta admits that he hadn't considered that.

Before marching into battle, you finish up the set of buff spells you were setting up, casting a fifth-circle version of the Spell of Haste. That will last more than long enough for the time you plan to remain in here, and when combined with the agility-boosting effects of the previous Spell of Augmentation, it should neatly address the "don't get hit" element of fighting constructs. It'll be just as useful against the undead, too - after all, you don't want to get hit by any of THEM, either.

Once was quite enough.

Ki enhancements or no, you don't particularly feel like hammering away at animated stone and reanimated bones with your bare hands. Your dimensional pocket has recovered completely from being forced shut by the inconvenient magic-suppressing power of the stone portal, so you could take your Blessed Sword out and make like a traditional Hyrulean dungeon-crawling hero.

You're a bit concerned by how the priests will react to that, though. A weapon of divine origins is just about guaranteed to make them ask questions.

You'd much rather deal with a couple of curious priests than try to take on the unnatural strength of the walking dead - let alone the occasionally ridiculous physical power of golems - in unarmed combat.

That decided, you reach into your pocket, and draw your sword.

On cue, Ginta and Ichirou turn about to stare at the golden-hilted weapon in your hand - this, even though you haven't yet unsheathed it and let its aura out to play.

"What in the-" the younger priest begins.

"Where did you-" the elder says in the same moment.

They stop, look at each other, and appear to have a silent conversation consisting of gestures and meaningful looks.

You take the opportunity to quickly cast the Greater Spell of Magic Weaponry, lending some extra bite to your blade. As you're shaping the magic, an idea occurs to you, and you quickly adjust the matrix, sacrificing some of the spell's duration - which it had an abundance of - for the ability to affect more than one target per casting.

This done, you complete the spell, extending its effects to include Ichirou's bow - which will, in turn, bestow that power on the arrows it fires.

The glow that wraps itself around the younger priest's weapon of choice draws his eyes, as well as his father's, and they both turn to look at you.

"What was that?" Ichirou asks.

"The spell allows the weapons it's cast on to hit a little harder and more accurately, as well as overcome basic magical defenses," you explain.

"...I see. Will it help against these soldiers?"

"A little, but I have another one I was just about to cast that would work a lot better. If you're interested...?"

He holds out his bow. "Please."

You oblige, and cast a spell of Earth Elementalism, known as "the Heart of the Metal." This one requires a slight upwards adjustment for duration, followed by an outpouring of raw mana to make up for the fact that you don't have a piece of adamantine ore to sacrifice to the magic. Even with that inflation, it's still within your abilities to cast normally.

Gained Earth Affinity D (Plus) (D without Heart of Fire)

As the magic takes hold, the head of Ichirou's drawn arrow gleams, darkens, and somehow starts looking heavier than it did a moment before. He regards it curiously, then draws another arrow to compare.

"Technically, they won't hit with any more force this way," you explain, while drawing your blessed blade - and catching both priests' attention again as you do so. "But they WILL ignore a fair degree of pure material hardness."

"How high?" Ginta asks.

"I'm not sure how they stack up against modern materials, but they'll punch through a suit of old-fashioned steel armor without issue."

His eyebrows are doing that thing you've seen Gen and Lu-sensei do, where they look like they're trying to fly right off his face.

"And your sword?" Ichirou inquires.

"We can talk about my sword later, if you like," you deflect. "Right now, though, we have bad guys to bash."

This handily gets their attention back on the matter at hand.

Taking point, you enter the central hallway, stepping lightly and keeping one eye on the floor, while the other wanders the room. You don't see anything your Prying Eyes didn't already reveal, and the view is honestly kind of disappointing. Any ancient ruin in or near Hryule would have elaborate carvings and frescos adorning its walls, even in the most remote and insignificant corner. You may have issues with how and why those structures were created, but you won't deny that they were works of art.

This place is a blank canvas by comparision. Every inch of every surface is dark, unrelieved stone, with the only real color coming from the torches, or from you and your companions.

Shaking your head, you turn to the nearest right-hand corridor, and advance. Ichirou follows you at a distance of about six or seven feet, and slightly to your left - you stick to the right-hand wall of the passageway, which will grant him a clearer line of fire in the direction the guardians are most likely to appear from. Ginta brings up the rear, arms folded in his sleeves and eyes watchful.

In passing, you note that this smaller hallway is wide enough for two grown men to walk side-by-side, as long as they weren't both five feet across at the shoulders, massively armored, or careless with any weapons or other equipment they were holding. This is reassuring; if it turns out that he is needed, Ginta will be able to move past his son without any real issue.

As you near the far end of the passage, you stop, raising your empty hand in a gesture for silence. Your companions shuffle to a stop behind you, and in the ensuing quiet, you can easily make out the sound of approaching footsteps.

These guardian constructs are not exactly light on their feet, though they're also not a patch on the kind of racket some of Hyrule's most fearsome equivalents could raise while on patrol. That would seem to fit with Navi's estimation of their overall power.

From where you stand, a few feet shy of the next room, you can't yet see the approaching soldiers, nor can you make out any of the suspected-undead piles of bones that your probes reported. You do have a good idea of where the latter SHOULD be, and have no trouble visualizing the most likely path the golems are taking around the room - a simple circuit around the approximate middle of the chamber, accounting for the space once taken up by furniture and storage chests long since smashed and gone to dust.

Another issue with your location is the lack of cover. You could cross to the other side of the passage and hug the wall there, keeping yourself out of the incoming golems' line of sight and increasing your chances of getting a successful first-strike in, but this would prevent Ichirou from getting a shot in.

Quietly, you creep across the mouth of the passage, hiding yourself in the shadow of the left-hand wall. You spare a moment to glance back at Ichirou and silently apologize for blocking his line of fire, then gesture to indicate your plan to launch a surprise attack on the soldiers, and hopefully, clear the way for him to follow you into the room - or at least to give him a clear shot.

That's quite a lot to convey with sign and body language, and judging by Ichirou's expression, he might not have gotten your intent.

No help for it now, though; you'll just have to hope he'll recognize an opening when he sees it.

Holding your sword out to one side, the tip dipping towards the floor, you begin to focus your energy. A colorless, transparent aura of ki swirls about you, and then extends from your hand and down the length of your weapon, taking on hue and clarity and POWER as it builds.

Gained Ki Enhancement B

Through ki-enhanced senses, you observe the soldiers marching past the lip of the wall, and into sight.

Your sword RINGS as you swing it forward, letting the accumulated energy fly straight at the first construct.

Whatever senses these stone guardians were given by their creators clearly don't include any means of detecting life-force, because the Sword Beam takes the warrior entirely by surprise, striking cleanly on the upper right arm - the limb with which it holds its spear, you note. While nothing so dramatic as the arm being blown off takes place, the construct is nonetheless rocked by the impact, staggering sideways into its companion.

On that note, you MOVE.

In the blur of Body Flicker speeds, you flash past the two rampant sentries, stop just far enough past the second and turn on a dime, grasping the hilt of your Blessed Sword with both hands as you focus your ki and the lingering momentum of your entrance into a high-speed strike at the golem's left knee.

Gained Strike Flicker F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Between the magical and ki-based enhancements you've applied to your body and blade, as well as the inherent quality of the weapon itself, you cut through the stone limb approximately as easily as... well, not butter, it definitely jars your arms too much for that, but the level of resistance is still a lot less than you'd expect from enchanted stone. Wood, maybe?

However you want to describe it, the result is the same: the lower half of the golem's leg crashes to the ground.

And then, after a moment of silence and stillness, the rest of the golem falls with it.

It's not a complete topple, though. The golem's spear flashes out, butt striking against the floor to provide support and balance. Even then, the soldier isn't so much trying to stop its fall as control it - by your guess, it's planning to come down on what remains of its leg, stabilize itself as best it can, and fight from its knees.

Its partner, meanwhile, has problems of its own. For one, the soldier is still trying to recover its balance from your opening strike. For another-

*THUNK*

-Ichirou has already sunk an arrow-

*THUNK*

-make that two arrows, into the guardian's stone body. As per your description, its rocky skin and "armor" are doing nothing to impede the magically-augmented bolts, which have embedded themselves deeply enough into the soldier's body that the arrowheads can no longer be seen. Ichirou's first shot appears to have been at the right arm - a follow-through on your attack? His second shot, meanwhile, took the guardian square in the head, and while it didn't have the lethal effectiveness it would have against most living targets and certain undead, the force of the shot does stagger the monster again.

Possibly more than your Sword Beam did, at that.

Note to self: do NOT get in the way of Ichirou's arrows.

You take all this in with a glance. As you prepare to press your attack on the legged warrior, however, your senses tingle, an aura of darkness and unearthly cold spiking in other parts of the room. At the same time, your ears pick up a crackling, clattering sound from those same directions - and when you glance that way, you see three skeletal figures rising from the floor, assembling themselves from dust and ancient bone in an eerie reversal of decay. Dark red light burns in the hollow sockets of their half-formed skulls, and every one of those supernatural eyes is fixed firmly on YOU.

It appears that, unlike the golems, the undead DEFINITELY noticed your use of life-force.

You don't REALLY need two golems to do magical science to. Also, damaged though they may be, the golems likely still represent a greater threat to your group than the rapidly-reanimated skeletons - you've got two priests in your party, after all. If they don't have a trick or three for putting down the restless dead, you'll be very surprised. And that's not even getting into the many and varied options for corpse-control you have at your PERSONAL disposal.

The golems, meanwhile, will really only go down to overwhelming force.

And with all due respect to Ichirou and his archery skills, you personally think you're just BETTER at applying brute force on demand.

Slipping back into a Body Flicker, you move a few steps diagonally to your left, putting the golems between you and the rising undead. You repeat your previous tactic, channeling ki and momentum through your weapon to strike at one of the damaged golem's limbs - this time, the arm clutching its spear.

Gained Strike Flicker E

As before, the construct solider can't keep up with your absurd speeds - you're not even sure if it can SEE you when you're moving that fast. Being blinded to your movements would certainly explain its failure to put up any kind of a meaningful defense as you lash out, severing its forearm and hacking its stone spear into two shorter pieces with a single blow.

It's still jarring to cut through enchanted rock like this. You're glad you had both hands on your weapon.

Disarmed in the literal sense as well as the metaphorical, the golem once again has its balance ruined. This time, when it topples forward, there is no lucky halt to the descent - instead, the stone sentinel lashes out at you with its remaining arm, trying to get in at least one hit.

In response, you bring your sword back around, and lop that arm off clear to the elbow.

While you've been disabling your opponent, Ichirou has sunk two-

*THOCK*

-sorry, three more arrows into his. He's definitely doing damage, but it doesn't appear to be accumulating fast enough. The golem has adjusted to the force of the impacts and begun advancing in Ichirou's direction, spear lowered and making probing thrusts that are forcing the young priest to fall back.

This leaves its back completely exposed to you.

How can you refuse such a blatant invitation?

You channel ki through your arms and sword one more time, and then swing for the legs.

A moment later, the golem joins its partner on the floor and on its face, having been quite literally cut off at the knees. The arrows sticking out of its front are snapped and crushed in the process, leaving only the one jammed into the side of its right arm intact.

Gained Cleave F
Gained Mighty Blow F
Gained Sneak Attack E (Plus)

The sight of the construct collapsing sends a strange surge of RECOGNITION through you, and before you're fully aware of what you're doing, you've drawn back your Blessed Sword, let out a yell, and leapt into the air.

For a moment, everything seems to slow down.

Behind you, a fallen foe. Before you, another that is even more open. Vulnerable. Ahead of you, two allies looking on in surprise. To your right, more enemies, clacking and clattering their way forward - but they will keep for a few moments more. Above you, a fairy. In your hands - one of which is radiating warm golden light - a shining, singing sword.

And within your heart, a feeling of RIGHTNESS - as well as a vague sense that something about this entire scene is really, REALLY strange.

Then time resumes its normal flow, and you come crashing down blade-first on the fallen soldier's broad back, channeling all your mass and momentum into your strike. The ki that you were pumping through your weapon discharges from INSIDE the construct's body.

Gained Finishing Blow F (Plus)
Gained Leap Attack F (Plus) (Plus)

The golem rears up for a moment, almost seeming to shine from within, while the tip of your sword gleams where it protrudes from the faux-chain-clad breast, having pierced it clean through.

Then your foe falls facedown on the floor and goes still, now nothing more than a broken statue.

With an effort and an ear-grating rasp of rock against steel, you pull your sword from the lifeless stone, and turn your attention to the oncoming undead. In the time it's taken you to disable both golems, the skeletons have crossed half of the room. They're picking up speed as they draw closer, claws reaching for you, teeth chattering hungrily, and eyes glowing red with unholy intent.

Still half-crouched over and upon the "dead" guardian, you reach out with your senses, probing the incoming corpses for a hint of awareness, something more than the mindless hatred of and need to destroy all life that drives such entities.

All you sense is the murk of a necromantic aura shaped, not by the hand and mind of mortals or the will of a god, but by the despair, rage, and hatred of a fading life.

Not fair.

Not acceptable.

Not DONE.

NOT DEAD.

NOT ALIVE.

NOT. HAPPY.

Gained Necrology F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

And you, in turn, are not sure.

In a flash of aura, you disappear from your previous spot, racing past the skeletons - their eyes flash in your direction instantly, but their bodies can't keep up - and skidding to a halt on the far side of the room. The undead are scrambling to a halt and turning around to charge you again, but there's no point. You have all the room and all the time in the world.

"Ichirou, Ginta, stay back!" you call out, before you cast your next spell.

To their credit, the skeletons almost get within ten feet of you.

Then they're surrounded by a field of black, rubbery tentacles, which have sprouted from the floor in their dozens. The skeletons don't even slow in their charge, but it doesn't matter; the tentacles lash out and seize them, a score of grasping limbs per body.

And then they start to SQUEEZE.

Bones crack, splinter, and fall in shards. One burning red eye glares hatefully at you from behind a mask of conjured flesh, jolting as the body below it is ground to fragments by the crushing coils. Then, with a sudden POP, the skull seems to implode, extinguishing that spectral glare.

By the time your spell fades, there's very little left that's recognizable. A few distinct fragments here, perhaps an intact joint from a finger or toe there, but that's it. The rest is all broken bits and powdered pieces.

As the tentacles vanish, you find Ichirou and Ginta regarding you from across the chamber.

"Why did you bring us along, again?" the younger priest wonders aloud, his eyes wide.

"Well, your father DID ask," you reply. "And I figured it would make everyone feel better if I had a couple of responsible adults along for this, rather than running off to do it alone."

Ichirou considers that, and nods.

"Also," you add, "it may sound a little strange, coming from me, but not all problems can be resolved through Power alone."

The back of your hand - which has been pleasantly warm since you finished off the golem, even if it's stopped glowing - suddenly prickles. It's like two points of the Triforce-emblem that is sometimes there and sometimes not just got warmer, while the third one cooled off.

Gained Farore's Favor C (Plus)

"You're right," Briar murmurs. "That does sound strange coming from you. And while Mom'll be happy to hear it - assuming she buys it - I wouldn't let Din catch you saying stuff like that if I were you."

"Um." You glance at the back of your hand. "Too late?"

Briar glances from you, to your hand, and then back again.

She doesn't speak, but her expression says it all:

Doomed.

"But never mind that, now," you say aloud, speaking more to your fairy partner than to your human companions. "It's time for the best part of adventuring!"

Ichirou frowns in puzzlement. "And that is?"

"Looting!"

You're not the only one to say it, and there is a pause as you and Ginta trade startled looks.

Ichirou just stares at both of you, clearly at a loss.

You spend a few minutes going over the barracks chamber, supernatural senses actively pinging away for any trace of magic or other power, but aside from the still-intact golem - which you ask the priests to leave be for the time being - all you pick up is the fading signatures of the destroyed soldier, the three pulverized skeletons, and your own power. You're a bit disappointed, but it HAS been a thousand years since this outpost was abandoned; even magic items can fail and fall apart over such a span of time, and this WAS the housing section for relatively common soldiers, not a great champion or a wizard who'd have been likely to own the sort of items powerful enough to survive all those years in good working order.

The golems made it, after all, as did the torches - and there's that force-field in the armory that you'll be checking up on in a moment.

Before doing that, though, you break out a Spell of Divination and probe the room for hidden compartments. It's not unheard of for common soldiers who bunk in quarters like this to dig out little hidey-holes for their valuables, and if someone tucked, say, a magic ring into a little hole-in-the-wall, it's entirely possible that the stone would have concealed its aura from your scans. Then too, there's the faint but not completely impossible chance that something more mundane survived the ages in a tiny, closed-off space - a bag of coin or precious stones, perhaps?

Your magic reaches out and sweeps the room slowly-

-hello, hello. What have we here?

You hustle over to the rotted-out husk of a wooden chest, and - mindful of splinters - slide its crumbling, rusty-hinged bulk out of the way, revealing a seemingly ordinary patch of smooth dark stone that nonetheless glows faintly blue in your spell-enhanced sight. Leaning down for a closer look, you quickly make out a hair-thin seam that defines a square "tile" about four inches to a side. The gap in the stone wouldn't allow anything but the tip of a small and very fine blade to work its way inside, let alone someone's questing fingers, which leaves you to wonder how the original maker would have gotten it open.

Then you shrug, and cast a cantrip to levitate the stone up and out of the way.

It proves to be about an eighth of an inch thick, and fairly heavy for its size, but not so much that your minor magic can't handle the load. You spare a moment to examine the cover stone, rotating it slowly along two axes as it floats in mid-air before you. Even a millennium after it was made, the edge is really quite fine, and very straight. The "top" of the stone is effectively indistinguishable from the rest of the floor, but the "bottom" has clearly been cut and sanded down to its current thickness.

Again, you have to wonder how this was done. Magic certainly could have managed - and just thinking on it, you can envision the spells you'd need, and how to employ them-

Gained Stoneworking F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

-but how and why would a lowly guard have such resources at his disposal?

Or is it possible you're underestimating just how capable the bottom rung of this outpost's defenders were? They DID come here to battle the Fey, and that's not an undertaking for amateurs...

You suspect you'll never know.

Leaving that mystery aside, you peer cautiously into the opened hole. It's roughly square, the interior somewhat smaller than the cover-stone, leaving a rim thick enough to prevent the tile from sliding down the hole if it fell in on a diagonal. The only thing inside is a tattered cloth pouch, which gives off a faint aura of magic. Enchantment, Earth Elementalism, and something else that doesn't quite fall into any of the neat little categories you like to arrange your spells into - something you just have to call "magic" and leave at that.

Reaching down with wary, telekinetic fingers, you grasp the ancient bag and its contents and levitate them out of the hole. You try to be gentle about opening it, but the bag crumbles and tears under your magical grasp, revealing its contents.

Its metallic, orangey-yellow contents, which almost seem to glow in the torch-light.

"...is that gold?" Ichirou asks from behind you, with a note of sudden interest.

"It certainly appears to be," you admit, studying the half-dozen coins. You won't even claim to recognize the provenance, but the hue of the metal is unmistakeable to your eyes.

Even if Hyrule didn't typically use it as currency, Ganondorf still saw a lot of gold in his time. There's just something about the shiny metal that calls to mortals, even when it ISN'T enchanted.

Which these half-dozen coins clearly are.

"Uh-oh," Briar mutters. "Alex? I think this is Faerie gold."

"Bad news?"

"Depends on whether it was stolen, given away, or lost by its original owner and found by another," she replies. "If it was given away, it's fine. If it was lost, it's not dangerous YET, but it really ought to be given back."

"And if it was stolen?"

"Like you said: bad news."

In the gold's defense, you don't sense anything malicious about it - certainly, there's nothing like an aura of Necromancy to betray a killing curse. Then again, as much as some people might claim otherwise, Necromancy is hardly the source of all magical misfortunes - Enchantment can certainly hold its own there, and then there's that odd aura you can't quite classify...

Somewhat concerned that you may have already triggered a curse just by unearthing the gold, you bend your will and power to a more detailed examination of the magic running through the metal, casting the most powerful Spell of Divination you can call to mind.

The results are tentatively promising.

The aura of Earth Elementalism radiated by the gold seems to be dedicated to keeping the precious (and soft) metal unmarred, regardless of what it's exposed to, though there's also interesting elements of attraction and repulsion worked in there. Neither is currently active, so it's hard to be sure what their purposes are. If you had to guess, you'd say that if the gold was honestly gifted to another, it would attract more of its kind, helping the keeper of the coins to become richer; similarly, if the gold were stolen, or "gifted" as part of one of the stern lessons or cruel jokes certain Fae are known to play, then the gold would repel its kind, making the holder of the coins.

In the latter case, you suspect that losing the original gold coins would also prove to be next to impossible - the proverbial "gift that keeps on giving" - at least until such time as the owner learned whatever lesson he was supposed to. Giving up the ill-gotten gold of his own free will, perhaps, or making amends with its true owners.

Or dying.

Fae jokes can be nasty like that.

The Enchantment aspect of the magic is completely inert, but what you can see of its matrix reminds you of your own Spell of Geas - and as soon as you confirm THAT much, you immediately stop probing it.

Gained Enchantment C (Plus)

That leaves the elusive third signature, and try as you might, you can't really pin down what it's supposed to do. In fact, the longer you study the aura in question, the more you grow to suspect that it doesn't DO anything, in and of itself; rather, it's a magical signature. It might be that of the coins' original owner, or their creator - assuming the two aren't one and the same - or it could be the magical equivalent of the milling and other anti-counterfeiting measures used in human currency.

You voice these speculations to Briar, thinking to use the aura in question to identify the coins' true owner. Returning lost property is the right thing to do, and Fae do have a history of repaying favors...

Briar agrees that tracking down the owner of the gold is a distinct possibility, but adds that it would require a lot of work on your part, and more concerningly, direct contact with the greater Fae. Probably a number of them, at that. She reminds you that Lu-sensei has already cautioned you against having involvement with Faerie creatures, and adds that she doesn't disagree with your master's caution.

"A lot of my distant big cousins act like serious jerks towards humans," the little fairy notes. "Even the NICE ones. And they have bad history where kids are involved, besides. I'd be just as happy if you didn't get involved with them for the next decade, or ten. That said, if you're really determined to see the gold back to its owner, just give it to Mom, and letting her handle things. It'd be much safer for you that way."

Omake: In an alternate reality, someone is laughing way too hard to stay mad.

[] Have an Unseen Servant take the coins and drop them through the portal along with a message for Navi.

Because I am hoping it goes something like this:

Navi, the Great Fairy of something or other, was waiting outside the gate for her daughter's boy and companions to return from dwelving in the dungeon and stealing looting the mirror.

Ah, it brought back good memories...

Memories of the times that she and her own boy had to fight the redheaded monster that was now her daughter's companion.

...Ok, so they weren't all good memories.

Nevertheless, a lot of people might wonder what is it that an ageless or timeless Fairy like herself did to pass the time. Or whether or not she got bored at all. Which were all silly questions; They were all, every single one of them, completely and horrifically bored. It's why so many fairies turn into Great Fairies after a while...and then instantly regret it.

Children require a lot of attention. Faries also require a lot of attention. Ergo, it only makes sense that Fairy youngin's required an insanely maddening amount of attention. Case in point, Briar.

Din all mighty, WHY did it have to be Goddess damned Ganondorf?

Navi's bout of introspection, a favorite of ancient beings to pass the time, was interrupted as something pinged off the portal.

The Great Fairy winked.

"Well, that was fast," She noted while shrugging her shoulders as she prepared to greet them back.

Then a sack full of coins shut forward out of the portal and socked her in the face. Or more accurately, her eye.

The one Farore had blackened.

"Gah, why the eye?" Screamed the Great Fairy in pain, recoiling from the hit.

Her question was quickly answered as another sack of coins shut forth from the portal...and nailed her other eye.

"Gah, I take that back, that's not better!" The Fairy howled as she clutched both her eyes in pain.

Meanwhile, on the other side.

"Alex, this is taking too long," Briar, the fairy, noted in uncharacteristic impatience as, one by one, her charge's unseen servants chucked summoned sacks of cloth, full of the possibly cursed coin, back at the portal.

"Hmmmm," The gigantic (for an eight year old) small (by adult human standards) red headed boy considered before nodding.

And then an idea, NO, a premunition struck him.

"You guys, be faster about it. Throw them faster, harder and with more Power," He commanded, the last word reverberating with an echo that rung...golden.

"What was that Alex?" Briar queerly asked after a while, as the unseen servants, unseenly briefly pause to look at their creator before going about their unseenduty with extra unseen gusto. Unseenly of course.

"It just, you know, felt like the right thing to do," The boy answered back while rubbing his head in embarrassment.

And then the hand scratching his hair burst with a wave of undulating and unresistble golden light that flooded the whole room.

"...Well, talk about easily forgiven," Briar quipped as she peered into the sky.

"No, really, why are we needed here?" Ichurou asks for the third time as he and Ginta looked on the floating sacks acquire near super sonic speed as they went through the portal.

You let the coins fall back into their hidey-hole.

"But-" Ichirou begins.

"Taking the safe route for once?" Briar asks.

"But-"

"I'm planning on letting your mother know about this when we get outside," you reply. "If she's willing to get them back to their rightful owner - or their owner's heir, or whatever - then I'll come back and get them for her. Until then, though, I'd rather not have potentially-cursed coins burning a hole in my pocket."

Briar nods.

"But-"

"It's for the best, Ichirou," Ginta says, patting his son on the shoulder. "Besides, there may be other, safer treasures to be found."

The thought doesn't seem to help. You can appreciate the younger priest's point of view: genuine treasure in your hand is worth more than purely theoretical riches you might (or might not) find later.

Speaking of treasure, though...

Your Spell to Detect Secret Doors is still running, and with it, you make a final sweep of the barracks and their adjoining chambers - yes, even the latrines; ick, and never mind that it's been centuries since they were used. Finding nothing else of interest, you back-track to the central hall - which, after a once-over, proves devoid of concealed spaces - and proceed to the armory chamber with the still-active magical barrier.

As you enter the chamber, you notice something that the Prying Eyes didn't properly convey. From the rotted hafts and rusted-down points that used to be spears, to the collapsed and crumbling rings of one-time shields, to the carpet of rust that could have been any number of weapons or pieces of armor, you find the entire tableau depressing.

Undrawn in their masters' hour of need, abandoned and forgotten and left to rot, never serving the purpose for which they were made...

Weapons shouldn't be treated this way.

It's an odd thought, and perhaps the weirdest thing about it is that you're not entirely sure if it's a thought rooted in your memories of Ganondorf, or your modern experiences.

Shaking off that strange sensation, you give the room a sweep with your spell-enhanced eyes-

-and are not really surprised when you detect a hidden compartment behind the recessed area that's protected by the force-field. The glowing outline that your spell is only slightly narrower than the wall around it - essentially, the entire thing appears to be meant to slide out of the way. Up, down, or to one side, you can't say. You'll worry about that in a minute.

First, you have to deal with the barrier.

Shifting your focus from your Divination spell to your Mage Sight, you cross the room, stepping lightly around crumbled armaments and still-intact stone shelves, to more closely examine the small alcove at the rear of the chamber. Its aura of Abjuration is very clear, and if you didn't already know it was some motion- or presence-triggered variant on the traditional Wall of Force, you'd have little trouble figuring that out. In direct contrast to the wards keeping out the Fey, it's like whoever put together this particular protective measure didn't care if anyone got a look at the details of their work - the arrays are right out in the open, at least in the visual sense. The maker DID at least have the sense to put them INSIDE the area protected by the force-field, but despite that, you find yourself inclined to think that the barrier was meant more as a distraction than a serious defense. Something to draw attention to itself and the remarkably intact-looking, clearly enchanted chest beyond it, and AWAY from the hidden chamber behind them both.

You trace the pattern of the array with your eyes, trying to make sense of its functions. This is the first example of this thousand year-old magical style you've been able to study in detail like this, and there's a possibility that, in spite of how easily you could recreate the EFFECT before you, the METHOD its long-dead creator used to reach that end might prove beyond your skills to puzzle out.

Gained Item Crafting D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

It proves not to be the case, however. The array is very straightforward - and not entirely complete. There's a small circular section where half a dozen lines of magical script are abruptly cut off. Those lines are not currently active, and from their placement within the greater matrix, you expect that turning them "on" would switch the force-field "off."

In short?

There's probably a key around here somewhere that would open the barrier for you.

Of course, much like how treasure that isn't in your hands might as well be worthless, a key that isn't in your possession does you no good at all. And do you really want to spend time and energy combing this ruin for an object that's only a couple of inches across, and might well have been broken, disenchanted, or taken away by the fleeing survivors of the golem rampage? Especially when you could just cast a Spell to Dispel Magic to temporarily deactivate the barrier?

You could brute-force your way past the barrier - one of the user-friendly properties of Walls of Force is that they can't be dispelled directly, but since this one is being generated by a magic item, you could just turn it off for a short time. For that matter, you could use the Spell of Stone Shaping to bypass the barrier entirely, going around it and into the hidden passageway beyond, then opening up the concealed door - one way or another - to enter the alcove from behind.

But you decide not to do any of that.

"Not going to try and open up the mystery box?" Briar asks, as you start to turn away.

"Not just yet," you reply. "We can at least TRY to find the proper key first. It's not like any of this" - you gesture at the alcove and everything connected to it - "is going anywhere."

"Besides," Ginta adds with a wry note, "there might be traps set to go off if someone tries to get in without using the correct method."

This remark draws the attention of the rest of the group.

"Speaking from experience, Father?" Ichirou asks.

"Let's just say that there's a reason why your uncle Kintaro always wears long-sleeved shirts," the priest replies.

His son nods and says nothing more. Sensing that the subject is family business, you leave it alone.

With the armory as investigated as it's going to get for the time being, you return to your original plan of heading for the "prison" area and putting down the spectral entity your probes discovered there.

When you enter the large circular room beyond this floor's central hallway, your gaze is unavoidably drawn to the gaping pit at the far side of the chamber. You already knew it was there, of course, but there's a difference between seeing an image of a sinkhole and seeing it in person.

You also discover something that the Prying Eyes didn't convey: a sound, coming from down in the darkness of the hole. It's not the heavy, regular tread of the stone golems, nor is it the clatter of reanimated bones that you so briefly heard in the barracks. Rather, it's a mix of chittering and squeaking, coming at random, and from multiple sources.

Rather a LOT of sources, actually.

It's also troublingly familiar, though you can't quite put your finger on where you've heard it before.

Normally, when Briar is airborne but not actively fluttering about, she sort of bobs in place, rising and falling and weaving about in an ongoing cycle determined by the interactions of her wing-beats, local air pressure and currents, her natural levitational powers, and the demands of your old friend, gravity.

Every once in a while, though, the fairy will be surprised, alarmed, or otherwise caught off-guard by some new development. When that happens, her wings stop beating and lock into place. Innate levitation ensures she doesn't fall, she just sort of hangs there like a tiny sun.

That's what you're seeing now, and it kind of bothers you.

"Briar?" you murmur quietly. "Do you know what that sound is?"

"...are you saying you DON'T?" she whispers back, disbelievingly.

Oh, good. She's not terrified beyond the capacity for rational thought, then.

"It's familiar," you admit, with a glance at the hole. "But I can't quite place it."

"Does the name 'Gohma' ring any bells?"

...

Visions of armored, monocular arthropods flash past your mind's eye, and leave you regarding the pit with a new level of concern.

"WHAT is one of THOSE doing here?" you say in a strained undertone.

"From the level of noise coming out of that pit," Briar notes, "it's more than ONE. And at a guess? Either it's the thing that has the mirror, or it was brought here BY the thing that has the mirror."

...that would just be your luck, wouldn't it?

"Pardon my interruption," Ginta asks, "but, 'Gohma?'"

"Giant one-eyed spiders," you summarize. "They hatch out of eggs larger than soccer balls, and they can get a lot bigger."

There is a pause.

"I'm probably not going to like the answer to this," Ginta sighs, "but I suspect I'd like being surprised even less, so I'll ask anyway: how MUCH bigger?"

You nod towards the twenty-foot-wide pit. "A typical adult would have some trouble getting through there. And they CAN get bigger."

Now it's the elder priest's turn to eye the hole. His son joins him.

As for yourself, you're rather tempted to cast the Spell of Sanctuary on your entire group. You refrain - for the moment, at least - as the spell isn't absolutely guaranteed to stop things from attacking you, and you'd forfeit its protection if you tried to attack your enemies.

"I don't know about the rest of you," you say, "but I don't particularly care for the idea of leaving an infestation of giant DOOM spiders behind me. Would anyone object if I fumigated them before we moved on?"

"Nope!" Briar says cheerfully.

"No objections here," Ginta replies, almost in the same moment.

"Not in the slightest," Ichirou adds, making it unanimous.

"Okay. I'll get started, then." As you're about to make with the magic, you pause, and turn to Ichirou. "Oh, by the way. If any of the Gohma manage to get out of the pit before I seal it off, shoot for the biggest eyes. A Gohma's central eye is its weak spot, and even the biggest of them can usually be slain if they're shot there enough times. The small ones will go down with a single hit."

This news appears to GREATLY please the young priest.

You proceed to ritually-cast the Spell of Cloudkill. It's almost ideal for your situation, as the poisonous vapors are potent enough to instantly kill monsters on the level of Baby Gohma, and will seriously weaken even their bigger brothers and sisters. Then, too, the gas will sink once conjured, seeking the lowest level it can - you can just create the cloud in the pit, and let it do its thing. You do need to make a slight adjustment, though, to keep the magic from trying to move "away" from you, as the typical Cloudkill does - it was originally a battlefield spell, meant to wipe out groups of soldiers, and that's not quite what you need here.

Besides, trimming out that aspect of the spell will make it cheaper - and faster - for you to cast. It's a winner all around!

Four minutes of quiet chanting later, an opaque mass of yellowish-green vapor appears near the mid-point of the pit. It's only about the size of a soccer ball at first, but it expands rapidly and in all directions, until a plume of the stuff - which is even more poisonous than it looks - has risen almost twenty feet above the gaping hole. The cloud extends outwards by a similar margin, covering an area twice the diameter of the pit - though it's still a good twenty feet away from your party - and while you can't see it, you're well aware that it's already expanded downwards by the same degree.

If you hadn't known that, the sudden frenzy of chittering, rasping, and sussurations emanating from the darkness would have given it away.

As fast as you can, you start casting your next spell - but it isn't quite fast enough to prevent half a dozen large, hairy spider legs from reaching out of the pit and grasping onto the broken floor and walls about it. More legs follow, some larger than others, and their armored, shaggy bodies are next.

The good news is that you get the Wall of Force laid down, sealing the mouth of the pit, before more than a few of the Gohma escape the toxic fumes. With the extra mana you pushed into the casting, the Wall will last as long as the deadly cloud now settling below it.

The bad news is that by the time you complete the spell, close to twenty of the monsters have managed to drag themselves from the vaporous death spreading below. And with the central source of your death-cloud now sealed off by your Wall, the vapors filling the area in which they stand are rapidly clearing up.

"Oh, crap," Briar groans.

The WORSE news is that, as far as you can tell, none of the Gohma are trying to FLEE the area of the fading Cloudkill. They aren't even twitching.

A horrible suspicion occurs to you: are they immune to poison?

...

You don't actually know. Ganondorf never had to fight one of his creations, and to the best of your admittedly incomplete recollection, Link never used poison. He just went for the kill.

But from the faint auras of demonic corruption you can sense coming off of the monstrous arachnids - auras too weak for you or your Prying Eyes to have sensed through the thick stone floor, or to have persisted more than a few minutes after any wandering Gohma emerged from the "nest" - you think your guess might be right.

Your worried speculations are set aside as you realize that every. Single. ONE. Of the monstrous spiders has its grotesquely oversized eyeball aimed DIRECTLY at you.

And they ALL look ANGRY.

"Craaaap," Briar repeats.

You experience a moment of honest sympathy for Link, slayer of you don't even KNOW how many Gohma down through the ages.

Then Ichirou's arrow takes one of the Gohma-spawn right through the pupil. Squealing, the blinded monster reels backwards from the blow with a ghastly shriek, rolling onto its back and squealing as it kicks the air with its all-too-many legs, before those shudder and grow still.

In the time it takes for his first target to die, Ichirou has scored hits on two more of its siblings. The second shot is another clean kill, but the third is intercepted by the Gohma's armored eyelid snapping shut - this doesn't actually STOP the arrow, magically-reinforced as it is, but rather than dropping dead, the wounded arachnid begins reeling around, shrieking in pain and fury.

The remaining Gohma, fifteen in all, give off a collective hiss and begin to spread out in all directions - along the floor, along the walls - front legs waving in front of their eyes and lids constantly flicking open and shut. The majority of them are somewhere around five feet across, counting their legs, and they've formed up into loose groups of five, each centered around a Gohma that is slightly larger in all dimensions than its kin. These "leaders" have visibly darker exoskeletons that look bigger, spikier, and heavier than they should, even accounting for the increase in size.

"CRAAAAP!"

Thank you, Briar.

It worked with the skeletons, so you figure: why not?

You cast the Spell of Black Tentacles as quickly as you can, adjusting the magic so that the normally indiscriminate limbs will be able to recognize you and your companions as "allies" - or at least, as things not to be targeted or impeded.

It's a good thing you chose this extra functionality, because the Gohma move faster than ought to be allowed for anything with so many legs to coordinate. Even with the added distance they have to travel as they spread out to flank your group, they're only JUST outside of striking distance by the time you get your spell off.

Of course, at that point, the two groups of giant spiders that were coming at you from the left and the right have almost converged back into a single group, which puts them all well within grasping range of the forest of tentacles you summon from the stones beneath their all-too-numerous feet.

Claws.

Hooks?

Whatever. The point is, you now have nine Gohma tangled up with tentacles. Ichirou managed to bring one of the smaller ones down as they were advancing, and three others have arrows sticking out of the armor plates around their eyes, or where they got a leg in the way. Now that they're all tied up, the priest nocks a fresh arrow, draws back - and then waits, frowning, as he tries to aim past the mass of writhing tentacles and thrashing chitin.

Then he sees one of the two "leader" Gohma pulling itself free of your conjured defense, and fires.

The monster's shriek is MUCH louder at this range, and you stagger back half a step, wincing at the ear-piercing noise. It was a good shot, but again, the Gohma had its eye closed, and doesn't appear to be about to die from that one hit - and before Ichirou can get a second shot off, the Gohma's pained movements have carried it back into the crushing embrace of the tentacles.

Gained Thunder Resistance F (Plus)

You take a moment to consider your position. Your group is standing just inside doorway that connects this huge, circular chamber with the central hall, with you on the, Ichirou on the right, and Ginta just behind you. Starting not five feet ahead of you is a tangled mess of black tentacles and giant spiders, which appear to be at something of an impasse: most of the Gohma are rather thoroughly immobilized; but at the same time, the tentacles don't seem to be causing them any genuine HARM. At least, they're not doing so very quickly.

The two largest Gohma in the group, meanwhile, are slowly pulling themselves free of the entangling mass, but rather than try to advance on you, they're moving back, putting more distance - and more of their kin, and more of the forest of thick, waving limbs - between them and Ichirou's arrows.

Meanwhile, across the room, that third group of Gohma have scaled the wall and moved a short distance across the ceiling. Their advance is slower and more cautious than the near-charge of their now-trapped siblings was, but you're not sure if that's because they've realized the dangers in rushing down a magic-user, or simply because navigating upside-down requires a lot more care.

"While I'm properly grateful NOT to have been buried in giant spiders," Ichirou says, as he draws another arrow, "our current situation is... less than ideal."

"I can conjure more arrows if you need them," you note, "but... yeah, sorry about giving you a bunch of even harder targets."

The younger priest nods, and then fires. One of the smaller, tangled Gohma lets out that wrenching, fatal cry - and a moment later, the tentacles tighten their grip against the sudden loss of resistance, crushing the armored arachnid to black smoke.

Not to be outdone, you take a step forward and slightly to one side, and thrust the tip of your blade at the nearest Gohma. Its thick eyelid proves no more of an obstacle to your enhanced, Blessed Blade than the others have to Ichirou's arrows, and this spider, too, is rapidly reduced to so much dissipating evil energy. You move on to the next spider, but it's far enough back in the tentacles that you have to lunge to hit it - and as you do, the creature rears up, standing as tall as it can in spite of the tentacles' efforts to drag it down. Your sword goes skittering harmlessly across the eyelid.

The Gohma hisses in what might be triumph, or amusement at your failure to hurt it - and then it shrieks and dies, as Ichirou takes the shot.

Kill-stealer.

As it happens, that's the third giant spider the young archer has accounted for since you entangled the lot of them, and unfortunately, it's also the last of them that were in anything resembling easy reach - you'd have to wade into the field of tentacles to get at any of the others, and even if the conjured limbs aren't going to attack you, that doesn't stop them from being seriously problematic for navigation.

"We should fall back into the hallway, and hold the door," Ginta advises. "That way, only so many of them can come at us at once - three or four at the most."

Glancing over your shoulder at the ten-foot-high, five-foot-wide stone portal, you have no trouble seeing what the priest means: being able to walk on walls as they are, the Gohma could squeeze through the doorway in groups, if they were clever enough to see it. Say, one on the floor, one on the ceiling, and a third along one of the walls? They might manage one on each wall, if the smaller ones take the lead - and they probably will, if only because the big ones appear to be smart enough to use them as fodder.

And you've still got half a dozen free Gohma advancing slowly but steadily across the ceiling towards you.

Taking Ginta's recommendation, you begin falling back to the door. As you advance to the rear, however, you fire off a Ki Blast at the Gohma still creepy-crawling their way across the ceiling, in the hope of jarring one of them loose and dropping it into the nest of tentacles below. Given the size of the beasts, you overload the technique in the hope of adding enough force to overcome their "grip" on the stones overhead.

You catch Ichirou doing a double-take as you start to glow with excess ki, right before letting loose your attack.

Your Ki Blast hits one of the smaller Gohma, not in the eye, but at the base of its foremost left leg. Your timing was good - not only does that limb lose its grip on the ceiling, but two more of the Gohma's legs were "up" at the moment your attack connected. Suddenly, all of the Gohma's weight is being supported by just over half its legs, and the creature's sudden squeal and frantic scrabbling suggest that this is a problem.

Sure enough, a moment later, the overlarge spider loses its grip entirely, and falls squealing towards the ground. The instant it makes contact with the rubbery nest of tentacles, they lash out to restrain it.

An arrow shoots past you, and another of the small Gohma screams and falls, dead before it even hits the ground.

Kill-stealer, and now, idea-stealer!

But you suppose it's just as well.

You get off one more overcharged Ki Blast before passing through the door, but it's really Ichirou's arrows that do the work here. He kills another of the lesser Gohma outright, and your combined efforts injure a fourth enough to force it off the ceiling. Only the leader of that group now remains, and it's hunkered down - or up? - against the ceiling, having turned its body a good sixty degrees away from you so that you can't strike it in the eye.

As you retreat into the hallway, you hear more shrieks from the trapped and entangled Gohma, which abruptly cut off with distinctive pulses of dark energy that rapidly fade into nothingness. It seems that your grasping tentacles are finally overcoming the armor and strength of the giant spiders - some of them, anyway. It's hard to tell through the mass of rubbery limbs, but judging by the number of death-cries, you'd say that three, maybe four more of the monsters just perished.

That leaves you with six more Gohma to worry about, then, half of which are the somewhat larger and more intelligently-acting type. You have a feeling that the two leaders that are mixed up with the tentacles will probably manage to endure until your spell runs its course, but from the look of things, the lesser Gohma probably aren't-

On cue, another of the smaller giant spiders is crushed, and then another.

-yeah.

You're not in danger of getting swarmed anymore, at least not by this group, but since you don't particularly want three plus-sized Gohma spawn coming at you at once, you cast the Spell of Stone Shape on the doorway that links the hallway and the large circular room beyond. In its original state, the portal was ten feet high, five feet across, and about three feet thick; by moving material from the wall around it, you're able to shrink the door until it's only six feet high and about four feet across. You had to pay some extra mana to move enough stone to do the job, but you're fine with that; you're a bit more concerned with the fact that the door and the wall around it are somewhat thinner than before.

Not that you think the Gohma in the next room are going to be able to break through it - it's still well over two feet thick even at its narrowest - but if their parent shows up, you may have a problem...

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

You were considering casting one more spell, but before you can do so, the magic that conjured your Black Tentacles gives out. The powerful limbs sink back into the stone and vanish, leaving three somewhat battered-looking Gohma on the floor before you. You're rather surprised to see that one of the smaller spiders actually managed to survive that - for a given value of "survive," at least. Its armor is visibly cracked all over, weeping dark fluid. Its larger kin are better-off, but even they didn't come off unscathed from their tangle with the tentacles.

The giant arachnids regard your shrunken doorway, chitter for a moment, and then - much to your surprise - don't attempt to advance through it. Instead, the two larger Gohma scurry out of your immediate line of sight, and then, from the sound of things, take up FLANKING POSITIONS on each side of the door.

If the hissing, clattering, and drops of saliva that drip from above a moment later to sizzle on the floor are any indication, the other leader has done the same thing, only directly atop the doorway.

"Oh, come ON!" Briar exclaims. "That is just not FAIR!"

Her answer is a hiss.

The wounded Gohma, meanwhile, begins retreating to the far side of the chamber.

This has gone on long enough.

Waving Ichirou and Ginta back, and taking a step back from the door yourself, you cup your hands before your chest and summon the essence of Fire, forming a fist-sized mass of roiling red energy that radiates heat and menace.

With a dramatically drawn-out cry of "FIREBAAAALL!", you lob the deceptively-small object through the doorway.

On the other side of the wall, the Gohma have time to hiss in alarm and start to scurry away before the Fireball reaches its intended destination, twenty-five feet and change away from you, where it detonates with a flash, a roar, and a wave of heat that washes back down the doorway. Rather than the "hot wind in the middle of summer" you were expecting, it feels more like standing in that volcanic chamber where you had a fire elemental dance-off.

Maybe you were a bit too close?

Gained Fire Resistance E (F (Plus) (Plus) without Heart of Fire)

You'll keep it in mind for the future.

Behind you, Ichirou laughs. "Lina Inverse?" he exclaims. "Really?"

"What can I say?" You shrug. "I like her style."

And certain elements of the Slayers universe are... compelling. Like the whole bit about humans walking around with (fragments) of a Demon King's soul sealed inside them, and that soul (or pieces thereof) leading the hosts down the road to personal ruin and the eventual resurrection of said Demon King.

On a related note, you're NEVER going to try invoking the Dragon Slave.

EVER.

Even if the magical equivalent to a tactical nuclear weapon would be really, REALLY handy sometimes...

Shaking off that temptation, as well as Ichirou's amused comment that you need a cape, you peer through the doorway. The body of one Gohma is blocking the other side of the portal, lying on its back with its legs curled up, every inch blackened and giving off smoke. You'd guess this to be the one that was perched above the door.

Emphasis on the past tense, you note, as the body explodes into dark energy.

You don't hear any further discorporations, but the other two Gohma were somewhat closer to the center of the blast than their sibling, and could well have been destroyed outright - and if so, the roar of the Fireball's detonation would have drowned out the relatively faint noise. That said, it doesn't do a thing to obscure the aura of darkness hanging in the air, which you probe carefully even as it fades.

...

Yep. If you take into account the speed with which this demonic essence fades into oblivion, that aura feels about three times as strong as the energy released by the death of one larger-than-usual Gohma spawn.

Even so, your sword proceeds you through the doorway.

Aside from a wide, circular scorch mark on the floor and nearby wall, there is nothing waiting for you except the last, wounded Gohma, which is now standing near the center of the room, just on the rim of the Walled-off pit.

Its single eye fixes on you, glaring hatefully, as the monster hisses and raises its cracked and bleeding forelegs in a gesture of defiance.

You hear Ichirou nocking a fresh arrow.

"Hold that shot, if you would," you say, raising one hand.

Both priests give you surprised looks. "What's this, now?" Ginta asks.

"I was hoping to take one of them alive, so I could use it as a focus to scry out the location of the mother," you explain.

The Hakubas blink, and trade glances.

"That would be the 'adult' you mentioned," Ginta says slowly. "The one that might have trouble fitting through that hole in the floor."

"Yes."

"You actually WANT to find something like that?" Ichirou asks in amazement.

"It's a likely candidate to have possession of the mirror we came for," you explain. "And even if it doesn't have it, taking it out is a good idea. Left alone, it'll just spawn replacements for the Gohma we killed, and then we'll have to go through this all over again."

Before anyone can make any further arguments, from somewhere below you, something SCREAMS. It is a sound of fury, hate, and deadly promise.

And then the room around seems to shake, as if in the grips of a minor tremor - or as if something really, REALLY big is on the move.

"Or," you say slowly, as your gaze drops to the stones beneath your feet, "we could skip the Divination entirely and wait for Momma Gohma to come to us."

Across the room, the young Gohma's hiss changes pitch, sounding almost gleeful.

Then something hits your Wall of Force. HARD.

Before report of the Gohma's first strike against your Wall of Force has faded, you're already casting a Spell of Protection From Evil over yourself and your allies. You follow that up with a Spell of Protection From Fire, just in case the fire magic you plan on employing in this battle gets out of hand.

The as-yet unseen Gohma gets in another strike on your Wall, which holds.

"Change of plans?" Ginta asks, as the aura of your latest spells fades from plain sight.

"Just some extra defensive precautions," you reply. "In a minute, I'm going to drop the barrier and let the adult out, so that it doesn't try to come up through the floor-"

Ichirou pales at that.

"-and then I'm going to try to bind it, break its shell, and set it on fire. If it brings more of its kids out to play, though, I'll clear them out while the adult is stuck, so we don't get swarmed."

Ginta looks like he's about to say something, but he's interrupted by another impact against the Wall. This one is less powerful than before, and you have trouble believing that an adult Gohma would have tired quite that quickly. Concerned that it may be about to lose patience and start in on the stone, you dismiss the Wall, giving it a little "push" so that it does so with an overt display of magic. It's your hope that the show will make the Gohma think the spell gave out under stress-

-and from the way half a dozen armored legs as long as telephone poles - and several times thicker - all but explode from the darkness of the pit, you'd say you succeeded. The monster hauls itself through in a single motion, sparks and fragments of stone flying as its spike-covered exoskeleton scrapes at the sides of the twenty-foot-wide hole. You're dismayed but not surprised to see two massive claws - each seemingly large enough to crush a car - snapping menacingly as they hang at the ready before the beast's body. A single eye, wider than you are tall, glances down at the sole Gohma to survive your first fight, and then snaps up to GLARE at you with hateful, unholy fury.

At the bottom of what passes for the monster's face, heavy mandibles part as a slavering maw opens up in a deafening ROAR.

Gained Thunder Resistance F (Plus) (Plus)

ARMORED ARACHNID: GOHMA

You respond to this display of unequivocal unfriendliness by pointing one finger - no, not THAT finger - straight at the Gohma's massive eye and declaring, "STOP!" at the same instant you release the mana you've been gathering and shaping since you dropped the Wall of Force.

And the Gohma.

Stops.

But only just barely. You can see its body trembling, and you have a feeling that if you hadn't refocused the spell's energy as you did and poured more power into increasing its effectiveness, it wouldn't have worked. Somewhat annoyingly, the arachnid abomination's eyelid snapped shut just as your magic was taking effect, moving with speed you really hadn't anticipated. When Ichirou sends an arrow at it, the projectile strikes the heavy shell and just sticks there, unable to penetrate.

Annoyed by that sight, you shape magic as quickly as you can for your next intended spell. As it's about to take effect, you cry, "It's HAMMER time!"

The Gohma's armored body lets off a sound like dozens of firecrackers going off in rapid succession.

But to your dismay, it doesn't shatter.

Oh, the monster didn't merely shrug off the Boneshatter curse - like its offspring, its carapace now bears a network of visible cracks, the largest of which are weeping bodily fluids - but the damage is nowhere near as extensive as you were hoping to see. You can only take this as an example of the sheer physical resilience of these monsters.

Your attention is drawn away from the adult Gohma to the pit behind it, from which you can clearly hear the now-familiar sounds of angry young Gohma on the move. MANY of them, almost certainly more than you faced in the first wave.

Nope.

Once again, you summon destructive power.

"FIREBAAAALL!"

The mouth of the pit vanishes in a flare of scarlet and gold - and in the same instant, as if drawing strength from the slaughter of its young, the Gohma throws off your paralyzing compulsion to let out another of those thunderous shrieks of rage.

And then it CHARGES.

You take one look at the thundering mass of the oncoming Gohma, and think, "Nope."

"MOVE!" you cry out, while channeling more energy into the Ki Enhancement you put up while fighting the constructs a few rooms back, and just didn't release afterwards.

Gained Ki Overload E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

You're prepared to resort to a Body Flicker, if that's what's needed to get clear of the attacking arachnid, but it proves unnecessary; between your ki technique and the multi-layered magical enhancements you have in place, you're able to evade the massive monster by dashing to your right. The Gohma goes stomping past behind you without even slowing down, although as it does so, it occurs to you that - even accounting for how everything else appears to be so much slower when you've been augmented to heck and back like this - the beast isn't really moving all that fast.

Faster than you think ought to be allowed for something so big and heavy, but not FAST-fast.

It makes sense. After all, you didn't choose Boneshatter purely for the level of harm it can wreak on its target, but also because having your bones (or exoskeleton) splintered tends to be excruciatingly painful, impeding everything the victim does.

Perhaps it's that lack of pure speed that allows the monster to avoid crashing into the curved south wall of the chamber. Certainly, it plays a role in the Hakubas' ability to get the heck out of the Gohma's path unscathed - although you're going to credit most of that to Ginta, who basically had to tackle his son to prevent him from being turned into roadkill.

If the bug-eyed staring is any indication, it would seem that Ichirou has never had the... questionable pleasure of being charged by a gigantic monster before, and was a bit unprepared for the experience.

And he was doing so well, too.

You put that thought aside and gather your magic once again, preparing the most powerful manifestation of a curse that you can muster. You can't perform a proper Greater Curse as yet - you have the necessary foundational knowledge in the School of Necromancy, but you lack the ability to channel the amount of Necromantic power demanded by an eighth-circle working, and would still come up short even if you resorted to ritual casting for extra punch. A Major Curse is within your means, however, and carries the added advantage of not requiring any meddling with the basic spell matrix to actually hit your target without walking up and touching it.

You still adjust the formula to some degree, trading in duration for increased intensity, trying to push the potency of the magic as close to its Greater cousin as you can. You also try to think of something to say to help shape and empower the curse further - and something does, in fact, come to mind.

"I already lit the flamethrower," you say, as the dark energy surges from your fingertips, ready to be unleashed. "Guess that means it's time to curse the darkness!"

With that, you cast.

And immediately.

Something.

Goes.

WRONG.

You feel a deep internal wrenching as the Curse flies towards its target, its energies warping in ways you didn't intend. You recognize the chilling sensation as a sudden, massive pull on your mana reserves - and not just those, you realize, but your ki as well. Immediately, you mentally bear down on the lingering connection to your spell as hard as you can, severing it before it can drain more than a token amount of your energies.

But while the damage is mitigated, it is not undone. The violet-hued black haze of your Curse writhes and collapses in upon itself, twisting, darkening, SOLIDIFYING...

When it hits the Gohma - which is in the middle of turning around to face you - the Curse lashes out with a dozen smoky feelers that look like tiny versions of the tentacles you conjured earlier. It grasps hold of the Gohma's armored body just about where the middle part of its body - the thorax? - adjoins the bulbous, slightly-scorched hindquarters.

Gohma hisses and brings up one of its rear legs, rubbing it forcefully against the afflicted area in an attempt to scrape off... whatever it is that your Curse has become. Although the arachnid's armored limb does manage to tear away a large portion of the almost tar-like Curse-substance, this doesn't really seem to help. The clinging ooze just spreads out, seeking the cracks in the monster's armor and seeping inside.

Gohma SHRIEKS, spins about, and SLAMS the afflicted portion of its body against the nearest wall, causing the entire chamber to shake.

"What the hell was THAT?!" Briar demands.

You're kind of wondering that yourself - or at least, that's what you'd like to say. But you already know the answer.

Curses, after all, were Ganondorf's THING.

Ignoring Briar's outburst for the moment - you can always answer her later, assuming there IS a later - you begin gathering magic power once again. You start with elemental Light, focused heavily on purification, then mix in holy power. And then you ramp both up as far as you can, not caring in the least when the degree and nature of the energy you're invoking causes your entire body to start glowing with golden light, or the Triforce emblem to shine beneath your feet.

That Curse, or whatever it's become, has got to GO.

Gained Light Affinity E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

As your hands BLAZE with golden power, you speak: "In the names of Din, Farore, and Nayru, I purify thee, foul Curse!"

Gained Nayru's Favor C (Plus)

"Here we go," Briar sighs.

Ignoring that remark in favor of the divine chorus you can once again hear in the distance, you bring your hands together with a final cry:

"LET THERE BE LIGHT!"

And there was Light.

Gained Elementalism B
Gained Words of Power C (Plus) (Plus)

More specifically, there was a piercing cry from three female voices, accompanied by a flare of glorious golden energy some forty feet across, centered roughly on the part of the Gohma's shell that had been infected by the substance of your quasi-corporeal Curse. The monster lets out a shriek of its own before its monstrously massive form is engulfed by the holy light, seemingly smote from existence.

As brilliant and powerful as your spell is, it doesn't make you or the Hakubas so much as squint. In fact, the two priests appear to be completely unaffected by the divinely-empowered magic, even though they're right on the edge of the blast radius.

You are not so close, but that's probably just as well. You're not sure if you want to know what it would feel like to be hit by a WEAPONIZED form of Light when you've still got trace amounts of Hellmouth corruption in your system, to say nothing of your capital-E Evil past life OR the horrific curse lurking in your soul.

When the light clears a moment later, you are rather amazed to see that the Gohma still lives.

"Oh, gross!" Briar exclaims. "Ew!"

But only just.

The spider's body looks like it was just struck by a huge, burning hammer - which, when you think about it, really isn't that far from the mark. A huge swathe of its shell is simply gone, leaving interior layers of muscle, flesh, and fluids exposed to the air. These, in turn, have been savaged by the explosion of divine power, pulped and blackened and boiled away entirely. A few of the spider's legs have been severed from its body, leaving its bulky form sprawled on the stone floor, twitching weakly and squealing in obvious agony. Its main eye is exposed, bloodshot, bleary, and jerking this way and that, pupil dilated to such a degree that you wonder if it can actually see anything.

There is no trace whatsoever of your malformed Curse, and you wonder if that might not be WHY the Gohma came through vaguely intact. You WERE pretty focused on getting rid of that magic-gone-wrong, so it could well have taken the brunt of the blow...

As you said when this whole business with the spiders started, you don't particularly care for the idea of leaving giant doom spiders behind you.

Besides, the Gohma is SERIOUSLY messed up after your last attack. Finishing it off at this point would honestly be a mercy.

Readying your sword, you advance on the crippled arachnid at a run.

Gohma's twitching intensifies as you approach, and its eye shifts in your general direction - but its gaze, you note, does not fall DIRECTLY upon you. This would seem to confirm your earlier speculation that the monster is blinded. Even so, you don't let your guard down-

*WHOOSH*

*CRASH*

-which is good, because the Gohma just took a swing at you with its largely-intact right front claw.

It missed, of course - all those speed boosts showing their worth - and while it very much looks like it WANTS to lash out with its other claw, that particular limb was on the same side of the monster's body that your Curse and subsequent explosive purification spell were aimed at. It's kind of a mess, to be frank, and only manages to muster an energetic twitching where its partner came at you with stone-shattering force.

At this point, you're too close and moving too fast for Gohma to get in another strike with its remaining functional weapon. It tries to snap its eyelid shut again, but while the right armored lid obliges, the left one doesn't move. Damage to the muscles? The nerves? Hard to say, and not nearly as important as the fact that you have a clean shot at the Gohma's weak point.

You take it, once again leaping at your enemy with a wild cry as you channel all the power you can muster into your blade.

Gained Finishing Blow F (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Leap Attack F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Gohma HOWLS as your blade strikes home, sinking into the gooey mass of its eyeball without the least hint of resistance.

Gained Thunder Resistance F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

But that's all it has the strength left to do. Its body is crippled, its fury spent. A healthy Gohma could take a blow like that, even from a weapon such as the Master Sword, and survive - in fact, some of the older and larger specimens could withstand MULTIPLE attacks from that blade - but for this broken and bleeding beast?

It's the end.

You withdraw your sword and stand back as the monster's body darkens further, all hint of color in its form being overtaken by deep, unrelieved black. The last bit to retain any other hue is the eye, the bleary white of which remains untainted until the rest of the spider's body is no more than a three-dimensional silhouette - at which point the darkness blots it out, expanding outwards from the blown pupil as suddenly and rapidly as it sinks inwards from the edge of the sphere.

When that happens, Gohma's long, drawn-out wail abruptly cuts off.

Then the whole thing explodes into a cloud of darkness.

Having had few previous opportunities to observe such an overtly demonic entity's demise - and none quite so powerful - you watch the entire process intently.

Gained Corruption Sense C (Plus) (Plus)

It's interesting, to see such taint breaking down like this, with no obvious external force working to purify it. You wonder if that means anything. Are demons just that inherently unstable? Or are you perhaps looking too closely, and being too restricted in your thinking? Maybe it's not that there isn't AN external force purging the Gohma's very being, maybe it's that ALL external forces are doing so, the essence of Faerie itself rejecting something neither natural to nor welcome within it?

The black cloud dissipates, leaving your speculations unanswered.

A moment later, you have something much more important to occupy your mind.

As the darkness fades, motes of golden light take its place, surging together and solidifying into a crystalline heart-shaped container, which hovers in mid-air for a moment before drifting slowly to the floor.

Choose wisely.

"Hey, Briar?" you say, while staring at the descending Heart Container.

"Yes, Alex?"

"What would you say if, instead of using this to increase my overall health, I used it to increase my affinity for and resistance towards the Dark Element?"

The fairy considers that. "It's not a completely terrible idea," she admits, "but I'd still have reservations about you binding yourself more closely to the Darkness. At least until we get a handle on... you know, everything."

You nod. "And if I instead used the Heart to summon and bind my own Gohma-"

"You would wake up without eyebrows," Briar answers without a moment's hesitation.

Again, you nod.

Probably just as well you weren't seriously considering either option, then.

Reaching out, you take the Heart Container-

-and store it in your pocket.

Gained Heart Container

This is an all-too rare opportunity to try and figure out what, exactly, these things ARE, and moreover, to see just what it is that assimilating one of them DOES to a person (namely, you). There's no telling what you could learn from such studies, and that, in and of itself, is cause enough to make you hold off on fully claiming the Heart Container for a little while.

Gained Scholar's Soul C

With that settled for the moment, you turn to the Hakubas, who are both back on their feet.

They are STARING at you, as if you were something they'd never seen before.

"Mister Harris," Ginta says slowly, "I mean no offense when I say this, but-"

"Are you a god?" the wild-eyed Ichirou blurts out.

His father sighs, gaze turning towards the ceiling and who- or whatever lies beyond in silent plea.

You blink.

There's really only one possible answer to that question.

"'When someone asks you if you're a god, you say-'"

"'YES!'"

You blink, as you realize you weren't the only one who completed the quote. Briar pitched in too, and somewhat surprisingly, so did Ginta.

Apparently, he has good taste in foreign movies.

And Ichirou is now looking at all of you like you've gone crazy. Has he not seen Ghostbusters, or is he just too far out of it to catch the reference?

"But seriously," you add, "no, I'm not. I MIGHT qualify as a Champion of a god. Dess. Es." You pause to consider the awkward, trailing end of that sentence, which sounded a lot better in your mind, before shaking your head. "But I stress the 'might' part."

This would have been a good time for the Triforce symbol on the back of your hand to glow again, but it remains inert.

Eh, fair enough. At the very least, the Goddesses don't appear to have been upset by your claim of potential Champion-hood.

"I was about to ask after the source of the holy energy you used in that last spell," Ginta says then. "May I presume that the goddesses in question were also the source of that sword you carry?"

You nod. "They were."

The priest nods. "I look forward to hearing more about them in the future, if you do not mind indulging my curiosity."

Do you mind?

]No, not at all.

"I'd be happy to tell you about the Goddesses, Mister Hakuba," you say politely. "It may have to wait a bit, though. I've got a lot of things to do in the near future."

"Of course, of course. You know where to find me once your schedule has cleared up."

Speaking of the future, all the spellcasting you just did took a big chunk out of your mana reserves. You're not in any kind of trouble, but forty percent of your max is low enough that, even if you cast no more magic from here on out, went home and had a hearty meal, and got a good night's rest on top of that, you'd still be shy of your maximum capacity come morning. Nothing that couldn't be made up by taking most of the morning to not do any magic - or just sleeping in for an extra hour or two, or heck, even casting the Spell of Nap Stack, if you want to recover THAT badly - but it's a thing you feel the need to be aware of all the same.

You still have more than enough gas in the tank to spend some more time exploring this ruin. You could check the Gohma nest for survivors and loot, proceed with your originally-intended task of clearing out the ghostly presence that lingers in the cell block, or investigate the other chambers adjacent to this massive central room.

Or you could leave and come back tomorrow, recharged and ready for round two. With the parent Gohma dead, any of the lesser ones that survived you releasing poison gas and fiery explosions into their lair aren't going to be able to replenish their numbers for a good long while. The time off would allow you to get some research in on your newly-acquired Heart Container, and it would also benefit your allies - after almost getting run down by the Mother of All Doom Spiders, followed by a MASSIVE readjustment of his view of your capabilities, Ichirou looks like he could use a break.

To repeat yourself - again - you're not comfortable with the idea of leaving a nest of Gohma behind you. Yes, you threw (basically-useless) poison gas and (much more effective) fire into it, and yes, you and your allies accounted for a good number of the residents before that - and YES, the only adult member of the colony is dead, leaving weeks, at best, and more likely months, before any of the younger ones will be able to grow up and take her place.

But there could still be more of them down there.

Case in point: you're not sure what became of the one Gohma that survived the initial charge. It disappeared at some point while you were busy locking down its mother, and while it's certainly possible that the spider-spawn in question died in the Fireball you used to wipe out the "second wave" of its siblings, it's also possible that the Gohma, already heavily wounded, might have retreated into the lair.

Mind you, Gohma fall into the (rather large) class of Hyrulean monsters that don't normally retreat from danger. But there HAVE been exceptions to that trend, even among the most savage species. A sorely-wounded Gohma that's just seen a score of its kin crushed, and then lost as many more AND its parent, might well decide to get out while the getting was good.

Sword in hand and mana and ki thrumming through your system, ready to be called upon at a moment's notice, you walk towards the edge of the pit, eyes and ears peeled for the least hint of giant spiders.

You see nothing, and perhaps more tellingly, you hear nothing.

Reaching the rim of the broken floor, you lean forward ever-so-cautiously, peering into the darkness below.

The light provided by the torches in the room around you doesn't exactly illuminate the pit, but it does reveal a few details. For one, the hole seems to be deeper than it is wide - you make it thirty feet, give or take a foot. Also, past a depth of five feet, the consistency of the material in the walls changes dramatically. Instead of the dark, smooth, magically-worked stone you've been seeing since you entered this ruin, the rock has a much rougher and uneven quality. What little you can glimpse of the chamber below suggests that it's either a natural cavern or one carved out by the Gohma, rather than a part of the original fortified complex.

Much of the exposed stone is blackened from its brief exposure to your Fireball, but at the very bottom, you glimpse sheets of thick white webbing strung along the wall and floor. You also sense a much higher level of demonic corruption, one roughly on par with the streets of Sunnydale.

They may be dead now, but the Gohma were down there for a pretty long time.

The pit seems to lead down to an intersection of sorts, where half a dozen tunnels head off in different directions. The largest of these leads almost directly south, under the intact floor of your current level and back towards the hallway. You can't tell from here if the passage stays level or straight, but it's very large, easily thirty feet across and ten feet high - the mother Gohma had to have come from that direction, so her private lair and any treasures she was keeping are likely that way.

That's also the most likely location to find her eggs - and there WILL be eggs, you're quite sure of it.

The other passages lead off to the northwest, north-northwest, north, north-northeast, and northeast, and are roughly circular and quite a bit smaller - make it seven or eight feet across. You're guessing a bit here, but these tunnels might connect to the lairs of the larger Gohma you saw leading the first swarm. Or perhaps they're large communal dens? You're a little vague on the social organization of Gohma, to be honest.

You still don't hear anything moving around, although Ginta and Ichirou have moved up to join you.

Looking down into the web-strewn shadows, Ginta asks, "What are the chances of there being another 'adult' monster down there?"

"Basically nil," you reply. "Mature Gohma don't share territory unless there's something more powerful than the entire nest put together forcing them to play nice with each other. And if THAT was the case, we'd have been attacked by the other adult already."

"...would they have even FIT in this room together?" Ichirou wonders, looking around. Then he shakes his head. "Actually, forget I asked that." Glancing back into the pit, the young priest - still somewhat shaky - sighs. "I have to admit, I really don't want to go down there. And not just because I'm probably going to be suffering from arachnophobia after this. Archery is... a lot less effective underground."

True enough. The great advantage of the bow is that it allows you to engage your enemies at range, inflicting damage from far beyond the reach of sword or spear - or in this case, fang and claw. But there is no range underground. The darkness, the confined spaces, the random outcroppings of stone, the echoes - they all play havoc with an archer's ability to pick his targets, forcing him to wait until the enemy has come much, much closer.

As a rule, archers HATE having their enemies close.

"Any objections to me sending down some more of my little flying eye cameras?" you inquire.

You get a round of negatives, and proceed as planned.

The Prying Eyes shimmer into existence a few minutes later, and after receiving your orders - basically the same as the ones you issued to the last batch - descend into the pit, splitting up into pairs to investigate each passage. You have enough Eyes to go around, and they disappear into the gloom, two to a tunnel, one following a short distance behind its partner.

As you wait for the probes to return, you glance at the Gohma webbing clinging to the walls and floor below. The idea of gathering up and purifying some of it for use in your projects occurs to you, but it's an idle thought at best. You can conjure mundane spidersilk on demand, after all, and you're not aware of any special properties Gohma webbing has over its non-demonic counterpart. Certainly none that would make it valuable enough to bother harvesting, when you have an effectively free means of supply.

...then again, you're not aware of anyone in Hyrule having ever bothered to try and FIND a use for Gohma silk. It's excessively dangerous to try and harvest in the wild, and you can FORGET about farming the stuff... unless you're Ganondorf, but HE had more important things to be doing...

Aaaand some of your Prying Eyes have returned. Only three, none of which are moving in formation with each other.

Oh, bother.

You download the information from these probes, and discover that the northwest, north-northwest, and northeast tunnels all run straight for between ten and twenty feet, before suddenly turning - and on the other side of those relatively sharp corners, some very fine and extremely sticky webs have been strewn across the passage. Colliding with the hard-to-see strands didn't destroy the two Eyes that failed to stop or turn in time; instead, they simply got trapped and proceeded to struggle, as most small flying things in their position would have. Since they weren't destroyed by the impact, the return condition in their partners' orders wasn't triggered, and those Eyes just sort of hung in mid-air, waiting.

At least until two of those larger Gohma young turned up to investigate their "catches."

The other pair of Prying Eyes managed to avoid getting tangled, and another fifteen feet on, found a large, irregularly-shaped chamber ranging from fifteen to thirty feet across and ten to fifteen feet in height. Almost every surface therein was positively DRAPED with Gohma webs, and a small number of unhatched eggs were in evidence - six or seven that this Eye saw. There were about as many Gohma hatchlings scuttling about, tending the web, but none of the truly combat-sized ones.

Incidentally, you lost the other Prying Eye to a collision with one of the hatchlings. The odd shape of the room made your order to "follow the walls" a bit less than helpful; the Eye was obediently doing so when it swung around an outcrop and ran straight into the housecat-sized arachnid.

If it's any consolation, the Gohma hadn't been expecting the impact any more than your Eye, and was knocked off the wall by it. Not actually HURT, mind you, but...

Your next three probes return, telling similar stories. Large chambers and lots of webbing, but only hatchlings and eggs to be seen - none of the approximately man-sized Gohma or their bigger, commanding siblings. At least, not in the passages to the north, north-northeast, and northeast. The two westerly tunnels appear to still be occupied.

Several more minutes pass before your last Prying Eye returns, carrying with it images of the largest tunnel. Unlike the others, this passage kept on going straight for a good seventy or eighty feet, though as you play the recording back, you note that there was a subtle downward angle. The gentle incline leveled out in the last ten feet or so, and beyond that, the shaft opened up into a vast, dark cavern, at least three times as wide as the room you're now in.

And that room CRAWLS with young Gohma. Eggs by the score, dozens of hatchlings, and enough of the regular type to make up another swarm or two. Your spy even reports the presence of a couple more of the leader types.

You have no doubt that Ichirou's going to LOVE hearing that.

Only one thing makes you hesitate to write off an expedition into that den of creepy-crawlers as an unproductive waste of time, and that's the presence of another adult Gohma-sized passage, in the wall on the south side of the huge nest. The mouth of that tunnel is already a fair distance farther south than the portal that you used to get into this facility, so where does it lead? To one of the three other areas the ring of standing stones connect to? Or somewhere else entirely?

A thought occurs.

Your attempt to clear the Gohma nest via Cloudkill didn't work, evidently because Gohma are demonic enough to be heavily resistant or outright immune to poison. Although now that you know the layout of the nest, you can see that a single casting of Cloudkill wouldn't have cleared it regardless. The spell doesn't "turn," so its ability to deal with corners is limited to how much of the cloud can seep around them, while still remaining within the bounds of the magic. In addition, the cloud wouldn't even completely fill the room you're in right now, let alone the much bigger chamber below - not unless you charged it with extra mana, which you didn't, at the time.

That aside, while poison didn't work, there are substances that are at least as debilitating for demons as poison would be for almost anything else - holy water, for example.

You have the ability to create holy water. Normally, it's relatively expensive in terms of magic, but that's because you're essentially creating a minor magic item. A single-use, non-reusable item, but still.

If you were content with a strictly temporary effect, lasting no longer than a few minutes, could you conjure a cloud of holy water? And if so, would you then be able to include the parameters that allow a Spell of Cloudkill to move?

...

You think you can. If you start with a Spell of Fog Cloud and apply the matrix from the Spell to Bless Water, stripping out the elements that allow it to semi-permanently imbue otherwise ordinary water with purifying power, you'll have the basic "cloud of holy water." To that, you can add in the relatively minor section of the formula for a Spell of Cloudkill that allows it to move away from the caster in a straight line, engulfing more and more targets. All in all, it looks like it'd be a pretty straightforward fifth-circle spell.

The only problem is the sheer SIZE of the main Gohma nest. If aimed straight down the tunnel, a single casting of your new spell would only spread out far enough to cover the central third of the chamber. Even if you cast the spell additional times, aiming off at different angles, you wouldn't be able to fill the entire area - Gohma could still survive, if they were tucked into odd corners, or simply saw what was coming and ran fast enough to get out of the way.

Doubling or even tripling the effective radius of your spell wouldn't do the job, but if you tripled the radius and cast the spell twice - ritually the first time, to save power, and then as fast as possible the second time, so that you don't leave a huge gap - then yes, you ought to be able to clear the nest.

You confer briefly with your allies, explaining your idea.

Briar is all for it.

Since it will remove the need for him to try engaging several hundred doom spiders in subterranean darkness, Ichirou also fully supports it.

Ginta isn't QUITE as enthusiastic about the plan as the other two, but he wasn't especially keen on the idea of fighting all those Gohma, either.

That settled, you start casting.

Four minutes later, a cloud of silvery-white fog blossoms into being at the bottom of the pit. It rapidly expands to cover the mouths of the minor tunnels that you know to still be infested with Gohma, but it doesn't reach nearly far enough to expand around the defensive turns that lie deeper in. Really, you're just putting it there as a precaution.

Seven minutes after that, a second fogbank EXPLODES into existence near the mouth of the main tunnel, completely obscuring the floor and the webs that cover the entire area. The next spell follows seconds later, causing the cloud to thicken to the point where you can no longer see more than ten feet into the great hole.

Gained Water Elementalism E (Plus)

The cloud doesn't remain opaque for long. Within thirty seconds, it's begun to thin, and by the end of a full minute, your view of the bottom of the pit has largely been restored - and even improved, you note, as the spider webs appear to have dissolved.

You weren't expecting that. But if the Gohma silk was THAT contaminated, it's probably just as well that it was destroyed.

Shortly thereafter, the screaming starts.

Hissing erupts from the two minor passages where you know large Gohma young still lurk, and is followed by the sound of dozens of spider-legs scuttling over stone - which halts abruptly to a chorus of pained squeals, as the Gohma encounter the lesser, unmoving cloud-bank you dropped to cut off their access to the central shaft. More skittering ensues, this time, headed AWAY from your location.

Over the next thirty seconds, the squalling of the Gohma dies off, leaving only silence, and the slow billowing of the self-contained mist you conjured below.

Once again, you cast the Spell of Prying Eyes. By the time you've completed the ritual, the cloud of holy water blocking off the Gohma lairs to the north has begun to break up, so you dispatch half a dozen probes to investigate the tunnels you know were occupied. The rest of the flying eyes, you send south, to find out the state of the main lair.

The last Eye has just disappeared into the mouth of the large tunnel when you hear the hiss and skitter of incoming giant spiders - from the north.

You had intended to start with the central nest, but you suppose there's nothing for it.

"Time to go spelunking~!"

"Wait, wha-?"

Raising your sword, you descend into the pit via a flying leap, leaving two startled priests behind, and a cursing fairy following in your wake.

Even with your natural athleticism and all the mystical enhancements you've layered around yourself, a thirty-foot drop to the bottom of the shaft would just be foolish; instead, you aim for a nook in the wall about ten feet down, land there, reorient yourself, leap down another five feet or so to a narrow shelf, and finally half-run, half-fall down the rest of the wall.

On a side note, you doubt you could have done that without all your enhancements up. Certainly, you couldn't have done it as FAST.

Gained Agility D (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Climbing F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Parkour E (Plus)

Touching down with a crunch of loose gravel and a swift forward somersault to safely expend your momentum, you twirl to your feet and reorient yourself to face the oncoming Gohma.

Oh.

Ick.

Wow, that looks NASTY.

You knew how holy water was said to be like strong acid to demons and other things of a profane nature, but SEEING it is something else again. The Gohma that are coming towards you look slightly melted, as though their shells were made of soft clay or wax that had recently been exposed to running water or intense heat. Their eyes are red - not merely bloodshot, mind you, but actually RED, pale though it may be, the soft material of the staring orbs having also suffered damage from the cloud of purifying vapor.

Idly, your mind notes that THIS is why your mom said that you need to rinse out someone's eyes with water IMMEDIATELY, and KEEP rinsing them, if they've gotten any sort of chemical in them.

An arrow strikes like a bolt from the blue, and one of the larger Gohma shrieks and staggers. Two more arrows fall in quick succession, finishing off the wounded leader and then catching one of its followers.

That leaves another leader and seven lesser Gohma for you to worry about.

Unlike the spiders you faced above, these ones aren't trying to spread out and flank you. Maybe it's the death of the other leader, or maybe they're just too injured and angry to think tactically - whatever the reason, you've got a swarm of spiders coming at you head-on. Three of the smaller Gohma are walking on the wall, but the rest are advancing in a single body, the biggest one actually LEADING the charge.

Rather than meet that mob of hissing, slavering anger, you dash around to the side, making full use of your speed and the modest but existent space. Your sword flashes out as you go, here scraping across the surface of the leader's damaged but still-functional armor, there taking a leg from one of the lesser Gohma-

-and THERE, piercing one clean through the eye.

Gained Sword Training C (Plus)

Ichirou scores another kill while you're maneuvering, but his next arrow is a clean miss, the first of those you've seen from the young priest.

Taking your sword in both hands, you leap at the nearest Gohma, which is still in the middle of turning to face you-

Gained Leap Attack E

-and now will never finish that turn, your Blessed Blade having cut through the top of its shell, its eye, and come out the bottom all in one stroke. Finding your footing, you tilt the blade sidelong and TURN, whipping your weapon edgelong at the two spiders coming at you-

Gained Cleave F (Plus)
Gained Crowd Control E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Mighty Blow F (Plus)

-killing the first outright, but only injuring the second. If not for the damage already inflicted by your deadly-to-demons cloud, you think you wouldn't have managed even that much. Ignoring its wound, the Gohma hisses and leaps at you-

-only for its eye to EXPLODE under your fist, while the rest of its body drops to the floor at your feet, the critical portion of its momentum that would have slammed its corpse into you having instead been neutralized by the force of your blow.

Incidentally, Gohma eyeball goo is GROSS!

As you frantically shake your right hand, trying to get the worst of the ooze off, you spare a moment to look around.

Only two of the lesser Gohma and their larger sibling are still alive, and all three-

*THUNK*

-make that the leader and the last of the small ones are coming at you.

The jelly on your right hand sizzles as you release a quick Ki Blast into the face of the bigger Gohma. Overkill, perhaps?

Gained Ki Blast D (Plus)

Or just enough kill?

Either way, the bigger spider drops in its tracks, its eye imploding just as thoroughly as the one you punched.

The last Gohma shrieks as it leaps at you - only to get run through from below AND shot from above in the same instant.

Its body is already disintegrating before it even hits the floor.

Well. That was invigorating. And gross.

And hey! Six of your Prying Eyes have returned!

You quickly download the information they contain, and find that the only Gohma remaining in the northern nesting chambers are hatchlings and eggs. Their numbers don't appear to have been diminished compared to what your previous Prying Eyes reported, and the chambers are still thick with webs, which extend out five or six feet into the connecting passages before just sort of ending - the limits of your holy water mist's expansion.

The other Eyes have yet to return from their investigation of the main nest, but on the other hand, no Gohma have come rushing up the tunnel.

"Are you alright, Alexander?" Ginta calls down.

"I'm fine," you reply. "Just... kind of grossed out."

You give up on flicking off the last of what used to be a Gohma's eye - and why is this stuff NOT disintegrating back into undifferentiated demonic power like the rest of the body it came from? - walk over to the nearest stone wall, and physically scrape the slime off your hand. It hangs there on the wall, slowly oozing down the surface - oh, NOW it decides to start disintegrating.

Are demons just magically-programmed to be as disgusting and inconvenient as possible? Is that it?

"For the record," you add, turning away from the rapidly-vanishing humor, "don't punch a Gohma in the eye. Not unless you're wearing heavy gloves or something."

"...I'll take that under advisement." Ginta pauses a moment before asking, "Are you bringing us down?"

"I thought I'd go clear out those rooms first," you say, pointing at the northern chambers with your sword. "There's nothing in them at this point except a bunch of eggs, webs, and Gohma hatchlings, and those are only about the size of cats. Not particularly dangerous. Do you two mind staying up there and keeping watch while I take care of that?"

"I really don't mind," Ichirou murmurs, in a voice you probably weren't supposed to hear.

"If I said, 'No,' would it make a difference?" Ginta asks dryly.

You consider that. "That depends. How good are you at rock-climbing?"

"I've never had the inclination or the need to try it before."

And the unspoken implication is that he's more or less reliant on your magic to stand a chance of navigating the shaft without breaking his neck.

You nod. "Then no, it wouldn't really make much difference."

"That's what I thought." The middle-aged man sighs. "In that case, please be careful, and if you hear the two of us yelling-"

"-I'll come running," you promise.

After a quick round of eenie-meenie-miney-moe, you take the north-northwest passage. As you proceed down the tunnel, Briar speaks up.

"Tell me, Alex. Was leaping down a deep pit to fight a swarm of giant demon spiders head-on a temporary insanity, or is it going to be a regular thing with you from now on?"

"Hey, I gassed them with holy water first, and I had archer support. Not to mention a dozen different enhancement spells AND a Goddess-Blessed Sword." You heft the blade in question. "I just didn't want to spend any more magic when it wasn't necessary."

"All true," the fairy agrees. "And yet I'm not hearing a 'no' in there - or even a denial that it was nuts."

"I am perfectly sane, Briar. It's the UNIVERSE that keeps throwing this crazy stuff at me. Now, hush," you add, as you come up on the turn in the passage, "unless you want to attract a swarm of baby Gohma."

Briar says nothing, but you can HEAR her shudder in revulsion at the prospect.

Rounding the bend, with your sword once again leading the way, you come upon an interesting scene. Several of the baby Gohma in question have gathered near the mouth of their chamber, and are now sitting with their backs to you, hindquarters working to spin new threads into the melted end of the webbing.

Seeing this, you once again wonder about "Gohma silk." Considering the amount of holy fog you sent billowing down the main tunnel, and the effect you've seen it have on Gohma webs, this might be your last opportunity to gather any of the stuff.

You peer at the webbing for a moment, frowning as you take note of the level of corruption that's seeped into the threads - that may, in fact, be what the silk is composed of.

You don't feel like pressing your luck by taking something like that back to the Hellmouth with you. You don't think that the wards Ambrose put up around your house would collapse just because you brought something demonic in nature inside, but they might be weakened, and that's something you simply can't countenance when your family's health and safety are concerned.

You CERTAINLY aren't going to put any of this stuff in your pocket. The whole reason you HAVE that thing in the first place is so you can store a bunch of magical reagents without fear of them getting contaminated by Sunnydale's... charming atmosphere.

You're about to gear up for burning the whole nest to cinders when an idea occurs to you.

Rushing forward, you lash out with your blade in a two-handed grip, striking low, laterally, and swiftly-

Gained Cleave F (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Mighty Blow F (Plus) (Plus)

-and so splattering two of the four small Gohma lined up at the mouth of the chamber. The third takes a glancing blow to its bulbous rear, which sends it spinning away, squeaking in shock and indignation. The fourth spider, farthest away from where you began your attack, was already moving out of the arc of your swing before your blade reached it - the legendary spider-sense at work, perhaps? - and frantically scurries deeper into the web-covered cave. It is swiftly joined by the rest of its siblings, even the one you sort-of injured, forming... you're not sure you can call it a "swarm" when there are only five of them, but it has the same kind of organization.

The small group of small Gohma keeps its distance from you, moving sidelong towards the right-hand wall, where several of the eggs are clustered. As they draw nearer, the web sacks containing the unhatched Gohma - which would previously wobble every so often, before growing still again - begin to shake.

You're not overly concerned. There are only half a dozen eggs in here, and twelve of these little monsters really aren't any more of a threat to you than five.

Leaving the bugs to their business, you drop to one knee and extend your left hand to touch the freshly-laid webbing.

Your fingertip sticks almost immediately, but that's fine. You focus, channel your magic, and begin analyzing the structure.

Huh. Yeah, like you figured, demonic energy is pretty much a core element of this stuff, although in the newest layer of the web, it's fairly weak. You have no trouble throwing off its attempts to metaphysically grab hold of you. Still, leaving the corruption issue aside, you can see how the structure of the Gohma silk is similar to the spider-silk you already know how to conjure - and how it's different.

Gained Gohma Webbing Template

"Uh, Alex?" Briar interrupts. "Not to spoil your... whatever it is you're doing, but they're coming this way."

You glance up, and see that the Gohma hatchlings - their numbers increased to nine - are indeed advancing on you.

That's fine. You already have what you wanted.

Channeling Fire-aspect mana through your "trapped" finger, you test out the flammability of the Gohma web.

It blackens, hisses, and sort of... melts.

Gained Fire Resistance E (Plus) (F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) without Heart of Fire)

You pull your somewhat hot but unharmed finger back from the destroyed part of the web, a little disappointed by the reaction.

Then you shrug, straighten up, and channel ki to your feet, before taking a single, tentative step onto the web. The sticky threads try to cling to your shoe, but are at least partially foiled by the layer of energy you've wrapped around it; when you try to pull your foot away, only a few strands are pulled along with it, and those prove to lack the strength to meaningfully impede you.

Nodding, you stride forth to meet your tiny foes.

You can't help but feel there is a look of astonishment and unspoken objection in the Gohma's staring eyes as you walk across their web almost as easily as they do.

That's not to say you're one hundred percent unaffected by the web. Your Ki Step technique is focused on the BOTTOM of your feet, so you still have to be careful how you move so as not to get the front, back, or sides stuck, and apply a little more strength to your legs than you'd normally use, to overcome the minor failures you can't seem to entirely avoid. Then too, you have to watch how you strike with your Blessed Blade, so it doesn't hit the floor or walls - forget about the inconvenience of your weapon getting trapped by the spiderwebs, it doesn't deserve the abuse of being banged against the stone beneath. THAT particular problem is compounded by how small these Gohma are, and how defensively they move: falling back and spreading out as a whole in the face of your advance; individuals backing away in a hurry if it seems that you're focusing on one of them; and those that think you AREN'T focused on them trying to get at your flanks.

It really is swarm tactics in miniature, but the hatchlings just don't have the size or the numbers to make it work. One by one - and sometimes in twos - you eliminate them.

Then you go and repeat the process with the other nests, checking in with the Hakubas each time.

All told, it takes you less than ten minutes to clear out the hatchlings.

By the time you're finished, two of your Prying Eyes have returned. You sent eight of the things down to the main nest in the wake of your massive clouds of holy water, so this twenty-five percent recovery rate is kind of worrying.

Absorbing the information from the first probe, you see it zipping along down the left-hand wall of the tunnel, into the nest - which is no longer recognizable as anything of the kind, webbing and Gohma alike apparently having been dissolved by the immense mass of blessed billowing vapor. The Eye's flight path carries it along the cavern wall, foot after foot of damp, slick-looking dark stone, following its partner and every so often catching a glimpse of one or more of the other probes.

Eventually, having circumnavigated their half of the empty lair, the Eyes reach the huge passage at the rear, and begin following it. This tunnel is something of a mirror to the one you're standing in front of, inclining upwards at a gentle slope and continuing on for seventy feet before leveling off. The Eyes haven't gone a third of the way up the slope when webbing starts to appear again - due to the incline, your holy water clouds couldn't expand farther up the shaft.

You see no Gohma, however.

The Eye's recording continues, its modified orders allowing it to slow down and veer wide around corners, so that it doesn't get blindsided like some of its predecessors - and there are a number of corners to take, as it appears the Gohma had another cluster of secondary nests over there, although these lined the main tunnel rather than being placed on the far side of an intersection. But these, too, are devoid of life, with nothing but the webs and some bits of broken eggshell to indicate they were occupied just minutes earlier.

Again, the Eye flies, following the tunnel onward and upward, and then it's in another huge, torch-lit circular room of magically-worked stone. Rather than emerging via a gaping pit in the floor, Momma Gohma's excavations took out part of a wall - the north one, along with any door that might have been there. The intact chamber is patrolled by soldier-golems in groups of four. You count four such teams in total: two marching into the room through doors to the east and the west; another marching out through a door in the south, on the far side of the room; and the last group, standing in the center of the room.

You still see no Gohma.

The Eye proceeds towards the western door, moves down a short passage, and enters a smaller circular room with no less than six doorways along its perimeter. Each door is flanked by another pair of soldier-golems, and every single portal glows with the aura of Abjuration. Your Eye scans two of them, concludes in its limited way that they are impassable, and is about to move on when its partner is destroyed by a web of LIGHTNING that erupts from the third doorway.

Then it returns to you.

Blinking at the influx of information, you take a moment to sort it out, then download the second Eye's flight recording.

It tells much the same story, except that when it and its partner saw the first Eye destroyed, they skipped over the doorway in question to examine the next in sequence. That portal, and the one after it, proved to be warded by less violent but still impassable means - more Walls of Force, by the look of it - but the sixth and final door was passable.

At least until the ward of dispelling activated, and destroyed the leading Eye.

Considering this information, you have to wonder what the heck the OTHER group of Prying Eyes must have found, if none of them have managed to return yet.

You're also concerned by the complete absence of Gohma in those upper chambers. Even if you got lucky enough to wipe out every one of the spider-spawn in the central nest with your clouds of holy water - and you don't think you did - those rooms were well beyond the reach of your spells, and SHOULD still have been occupied. But they weren't, and the presence of broken eggshells, as well as the lack of any remaining intact eggs, tells you that they were either "encouraged" to hatch, carried off, or destroyed outright.

Did the Gohma flee, taking as many of their kin with them as they could? Because that's downright BIZARRE behavior for these monsters. And even if it is what happened, where are they GOING? The adult appears to have broken into another section of the base, but judging by everything you've seen of the first area, there's no way in or out... except... the portals...

Um.

"Briar?" you ask carefully.

"Yeah?"

"How is your mom at fighting giant spiders?"

There is a pause.

"Why do you ask?" Briar questions, in a tone of false calm.

"I think the Gohma may be trying to abandon the ruins."

Briar considers that.

Then she giggles.

"Oh. Oh, wow. SUCKS to be them, then."

It's not that you didn't think Navi was powerful enough to handle herself around a bunch of young Gohma. After all, hello? Great Fairy?

You were just wondering if she might have preferred not to. Briar's reaction to the presence of the Gohma was fairly "do not want," and it's possible that Navi might have had a similar opinion, a holdover from her younger days.

Based on Briar's amusement at the situation, though, you think her mother will do just fine.

You look around at the walls of the shaft, but eventually decide that no, your current non-magical skills aren't quite up to the challenge of scaling the unworked stone - not in any reasonable span of time, at least. Instead, you ritually cast the Spell of Levitation, and raise yourself back up to the level of the next floor.

"Not going to investigate the nest after all?" Ginta asks.

"I got a pretty good look at it through the Prying Eyes. It's empty, and any surviving Gohma appear to have fled through the tunnel at the back - that leads into another part of the compound, actually, and that area's a lot more heavily-defended than this one."

"Something to leave for another day, then," the priest concludes.

"That was my thought," you agree. "How do the two of you feel about tracking down that lingering spirit I detected earlier, before we call it a day?"

Father and son trade glances.

"As long as there are no more oversized arachnids," Ichirou says, "I'll be fine."

Ginta nods and adds his own agreement.

With that, you make for the eastern door.

There's a skeleton lying on the floor, not too far inside the room beyond, but even as it's pulling itself together with a creak and clatter of loose bones, Ichirou shoots it straight in the brain-pan with one of his arrows. The shot would quite likely have blown a hole straight through the skull, thanks to the enhancements you placed on Ichirou's weaponry earlier, but you can feel the spiritual energy he imbued into the arrow - and the reaction when it strikes the not-fully-risen undead would have been hard to miss.

There's a flash of pale white light as the arrow connects, and in the next instant, the skeleton doesn't have a head anymore.

At all.

The rest of the bones stand there for a moment, shaking, and then collapse into lifelessness.

Gained Spirit Blast F (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spirit Shot F (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Imbuement F

Once inside the E-shaped cellblock, you look around. The ghost - or whatever manner of unquiet spirit it actually is - was located in the northernmost arm of this wing, but your earlier probes found several more of those skeletons scattered throughout the middle and southern areas, along with a great deal of rust.

It would make sense to hit the strongest and most active of the undead first, and then clean up the weaker ones later. On the other hand, you don't sense the level of Necromantic energy you'd expect to find if something on the level of a ghost had passed through this part of the prison recently. A quick check with the priests reveals they don't sense a restless spirit's presence in this chamber, either, at least not now that the skeleton's presence is dissipating.

This suggests that the ghost might be bound to the cell where your Prying Eyes encountered it, in which case you could afford to deal with the skeletons first. As Ichirou just demonstrated, they're not very hard to put down. And really, why leave a bunch of weak enemies at your back, where they could - theoretically, potentially, possibly however unlikely - ambush you while you were busy with the more obvious threat?

Yeah, if the ghost's stuck in one room, there's really no reason NOT to go around and make sure of all the other, weaker enemies in this section of the ruin before facing it. It's the same principle as with the Gohma, really: even if they're not CURRENTLY a threat, and even if they're not really dangerous at all one-on-one, you'd still feel better if you didn't have a bunch of evil creatures somewhere BEHIND you while your attention was focused elsewhere.

They could be doing ANYTHING back there, and you'd never know.

So you go and nip that potential problem in the bud.

It proves rather routine. Of the dozen skeletons you find in the prison block, four - five, if you include the very first one - are located off by themselves, and easily put down by Ichirou's arrows before they even have time to pull themselves together. Three more are lying together in a corner, and perhaps due to the greater concentration of necromantic power, they "awaken" slightly but noticeably faster than their solitary counterparts did. It's fast enough that Ichirou only gets two spiritually-charged arrows off - one a clean kill, the other merely damaging - before the skeletons close the distance.

Gained Spirit Blast F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spirit Shot F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Imbuement F (Plus)

Your sword lashes out, crushing a third of one ribcage, then twists to parry fleshless, grasping fingers.

You punch over the crossed blade-and-claws, knocking the skeleton's skull off.

Gained Hand-to-Hand (Five Elements Style) D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

Rather disconcertingly, the skeleton doesn't collapse. Instead, it staggers backwards from the blow and begins lurching around blindly, staggering first one way, then the other, claws reaching out in motions that are a mix of vicious assault and confused groping.

In that moment, you are keenly reminded of Stalchildren.

Then Ichirou finishes off the skeleton he damaged before, foregoing the bow at such close range and instead slamming a spiritually-infused open palm strike into its sternum, which disintegrates under the purifying blow.

Gained Spiritual Enhancement F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

You take the opportunity to finish off the headless skeleton, trying to pump some spiritual energy into your weapon for extra kick. You're not sure if it takes or not, but it definitely doesn't manage the whole "turn you to ashes" thing you've seen Ichirou's arrows do.

You'll work on that.

The five remaining undead are all lying together in a pile at the end of the middle arm of the E-shaped cellblock. They rise even faster than the trio did, and while Ichirou's aim is better this time, he still only manages to take out two of the undead before the rest make it into clawing range. Frail as the skeletons are, you don't think you can sweep them all out of the way with a single massive blow, and there isn't a great deal of room to maneuver in here - it WAS a prison, after all. Besides, you're the guy with the sword, so it falls to you to keep the unfriendly sorts away from the archer.

The good news is, none of the skeletons get past you.

The better news is, you don't get hurt in the process.

The bad news is, you're so focused on keeping the boneheads where they are, and deflecting, parrying, or shifting out of the way of their claws, that you only get one actual attack off in exchange. And it's kind of lacking. You didn't have the time to put your real strength into the blow, not while keeping your guard up against the other two undead.

Fortunately, you have an archer. Who is also a priest.

*WHOOSHOOM-THUNK*

On a related note, while spiritually-charged arrows look neat at a distance, they get a LOT more impressive when they're zipping past your HEAD.

Ichirou takes out one of the skeletons, and your job instantly gets that much easier. Your defense-to-attack ratio doubles, and as the skeletons start taking significant hits from your Blessed Blade, their own attacks begin to falter. From there, it's the work of only a few more seconds to force one of them back, which gives you the space and time you need to hit the second skeleton HARD - which you do, breaking it in half at the waist, and smashing it against the wall to your left, where it falls in a heap of cracked and powdered bone.

Gained Mighty Blow F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

And then there was one.

And shortly after that, there were none at all.

Less than ten minutes after entering the prison area, you have the entire lower two-thirds secure.

It's time to bust a ghost.

You know a number of spells that are useful in dealing with the restless dead, whether directly or indirectly. The school of Necromancy is loaded with them, and Abjuration is no slouch either - if not quite so purpose-built for the task.

For all of that, though, you've never actually encountered a proper ghost before, so you're more than a little unclear on how to proceed, save that Ganondorf's methods are off the table. You're not looking to make a new minion here.

But then, you don't really NEED a plan, do you? Or rather, you already have one.

And that plan is basically, "Let the priests deal with it."

You broach the subject to them with a question: "How do you deal with an angry ghost?"

The answer involves wards, chanting, a paper-tasseled wand that Ginta must have had up his sleeve, and salt that both men were carrying in small sealed jars, tucked away into pouches. They also ask you questions about the spirit - you obligingly recount all of what little your Prying Eyes discovered in their brief encounter with the entity, which really isn't much. Every bit helps, though, right?

The Hakubas perform a minor purification ritual over part of the floor, marking off a circle with sprinkled salt and praying for a few minutes, and then use that temporarily-sanctified location to do... something... to one of Ichirou's arrows, which involves tying ofuda around the shaft, more quiet chanting, and the channeling of a fair amount of spiritual power.

Despite the presence of a weapon, the ritual doesn't feel aggressive. In fact, when you take a closer look - magically and spiritually - this particular arrow feels oddly peaceful. Although well-maintained, it's visibly older than most of the ones Ichirou is carrying around, with the finish of the wood having faded and the fletching worn thin. The head looks like it was made from clay or stone rather than steel, and the whole thing radiates a faint but very real spiritual presence of its own - a presence that almost feels like it's waking up, as Ginta and Ichirou work their prayers and salt and faith over it.

Gained Spiritual Imbuement F (Plus) (Plus)

Briar makes a sound of interest, but doesn't distract the priests from their work.

After five or six minutes, the priests complete their work. Ichiro takes the sanctified arrow in hand, while Ginta breaks the circle and brushes the salt away.

You're very tempted to ask what they're doing, but you take your cue from your fairy partner, and stay quiet.

For the first time since you entered the ruins, Ginta takes the lead, waving his prayer-stick back and forth as he chants in a clear, steady voice. Ichirou follows with ritual solemnity, arrow in hand, bow in the other. You and Brair trail in their wake.

As your group approaches the cell where you know the spirit to reside, you sense its cold, menacing aura coming into conflict with the power of the two priests, and whatever it is they've done to that arrow. You could describe the effect in arcane terms, and even reproduce it via magic, but there is no sorcery at work here, only the power of souls, faith, and divine blessing. For all that you can see and sense WHAT the Hakubas are doing, your understanding of spiritual power and practices simply isn't advanced enough to grasp HOW they're doing it - not unless you use magic, which would defeat the purpose.

The ghost materializes, pulling your attention away from the ritual.

Seeing its face, you wince.

Above you, Briar gasps.

Life, death, and undeath all leave their marks on a soul. These are only compounded when the transition between the three states is accompanied or enabled by malice. Ravaged features, vaporous fingers that run to all-too-real and all-too-sharp claws, a ragged, shrieking voice that rasps with remembered pain and hatred, eyes that burn red with unfathomable rage, the cold, cutting aura of something beyond the grave, beyond reason, beyond pity or mercy... examples of all of these are present in the human-like form that hovers before you, legs fading into a vague cloud of necrotic mist that billows over the black stone floor.

The horror of the spirit's appearance is emphasized by more unique details:

The ghostly, clanking chains that hang from its wrists, tethering it to an ethereal after-image of the wall beyond - a wall with two holes at about eye-level on a tall adult, holes where two spectral stakes are driven home, eternally anchoring those chains, even though their originals have long since rusted away.

The grotesque welts, burns, and jagged wounds that mar the phantom flesh beneath the shackles. Flesh that, before your eyes, SEARS with the memory of hideous pain.

And the ears. The knife-like ears that you're all too familiar with - ears no human is born with, but that you've seen on Briar, her mother, and a handful of Fae. Ears that could almost belong to a native of Hyrule... were it not for the visible agony this spirit suffered, and CONTINUES to suffer, from the touch of iron.

This is a Fae ghost. One that's been trapped under the wards of this ruin, and shackled with the metal whose briefest touch brings searing pain to its kind, for a thousand years.

Gained Traumatic Memories D

Part of your mind wonders how the hell this poor soul got stuck in here.

The rest is kind of occupied with worry over how - despite the purifying power the Hakubas are bringing to bear against it - the ghost's aura is not just holding strong, but appears to be intensifying. Reserves being mustered in defense? Or... a prelude to attack?

You're only a raw novice when it comes to the spiritual arts, but if these skills are anything like the magical arts, having a well-meaning untrained individual bumble into the middle of a ritual in progress with the best of intentions is an open invitation for disaster.

Given the choice, you'd rather avoid disaster.

So you do something which is, perhaps, uncustomary for you: you stand back, trust the Hakubas to know their business, and don't interfere.

"It's building power for something!" you call out in warning.

Okay, so you MOSTLY don't interfere.

Neither priest acknowledges your input, but they certainly react to it. While their chanted prayers maintain the same pace, they start to feel more intense and earnest. The level of spiritual energy moving through the room increases, and begins pushing back the cloud of necrotic power surrounding the ghost - the tip of the arrow in Ichirou's hand is shining like a tiny star, burning away the darkness before it.

Gained Spiritual Imbuement F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

The spirit shrieks and begins spitting words at your group, using a language you don't recognize. The power you sensed a moment ago surges outward in a wave of darkness, spiritual energy warped into something dreadful, but at best, it stalemates the Hakuba's increased efforts.

The deadlock doesn't last. Ever so slowly, Ginta and Ichirou's combined power begins purifying the Fae ghost's oppressive aura.

They aren't doing so easily, however. Ginta's voice is steady, but his expression is tight with concentration. Ichirou is making a visible effort to keep up with his father, the beads of sweat forming at his brow testifying to the difficulty of this challenge.

And then a similar expression of intense focus comes over the ghost's ravaged face. Its spiritual aura wavers for a moment, before holding steady against the prayers of the priests, and then the undead entity begins to chant.

You still don't recognize the language, but the feeling of magic being worked is unmistakeable. Mana carrying the dark, nearly black hue of particularly vicious Necromancy begins to gather - not as fast as it could, but then, the spirit is trying to cast while fighting a holding action against a pair of exorcists. That it can pull a spell together at all while under this kind of existential threat is impressive, and more than a little scary.

There's no question in your mind that you need to intervene here, but how?

The ghost's cell is about ten feet to a side, and the spirit is on the far side of the room - not quite with its back to the wall, but it's definitely keeping a distance from the priests. The Hakubas are standing outside the cell proper, keeping a step back from the holes in the floor where the bars used to be, before they rusted away. Ginta is on the left, Ichirou is on the right, and the spiritual power they've raised between them is forming a "wall" of sorts across the open front of the cell. There's enough space between the two of them for you to cast around them, or even move past them, if you really wanted to.

You're not willing to simply stand here and let this Fae ghost unleash a spell at your companions, let alone a spell of dark Necromancy. Whether it's curses, death spells, life-sucking, or soul-stealing, that branch of the school does unmitigatedly horrible things to living beings, more so when it's being used by horrible undead creatures.

That said, your concerns about blundering into the middle of the Hakuba's efforts to purify the ghost remain an issue. If anything, seeing how they're struggling to push its power back has only made you MORE worried that adding your own strength to a process you don't fully understand the workings of is just going to backfire.

Fortunately, you have other options. Ones that won't require you to meddle with what the priests are doing in the slightest.

While there is a slight temptation to make like a guy with a positron collider and bust the ghost directly, you set it aside in favor of something a little more... controlled.

Your eyes glow as your Mage Sight fully activates, focusing on the flow of mana within and around the spectral prisoner.

The aura of Necromancy has already been identified, and narrowed down to the... uglier side of the school. You begin comparing the growing weave of magic to the types of dark Necromancy you're familiar with.

Is it a curse? No

A death spell? No, thank the Goddesses.

Something aimed at souls? Also no, and that's a bit of a surprise; soul-affecting magic wouldn't SPECIFICALLY counter priestly purification powers, but it could disrupt the spirits producing them...

An attack on the life-force, then?

...

Yes. And not as strong as you feared it might be - maybe the strain of fighting off the priests is interfering? Regardless, you're looking at a fourth-circle spell, focused on the suppression of life-force...

Oh.

OH.

Yeah, you know what this is.

Leaving your speculations aside, you channel mana as quickly as you can, and begin casting the Spell of Enervation.

Instantly, the ghost's haggard head snaps in your direction, burning eyes bulging with surprise. It accelerates its own chanting, but you've got the advantage - where it needed half a minute to gather the power necessary to shape its spell, you require only a tenth of that time.

Gained Counterspelling F

As dark power coalesces around the undead Fae's hands, a bolt of blackness erupts from your fingertip, flashing past the Hakubas and through their spiritual barrier without incident. It collides with the manifestation of the ghost's magic - which looked like it was about to split in two - and the two spells fall apart, fizzling out into nothing but wasted mana.

The ghost shrieks in frustration as its spell collapses.

In that moment of distraction, the Hakubas step up their efforts - literally, even, as they advance a step forward, physically pushing the glowing arrow and the wall of energy that seems to be anchored to it farther into the cell.

The spirit recoils, backing up to the wall in an obvious panic, only to suddenly HOWL again and leap AWAY from the stone- no, make that the CHAINS.

And in recoiling from a source of remembered pain, it's driven itself upon the horns of a much more urgent threat.

Or rather, upon the arrow.

There is a brilliant flash and a loud explosion. You reflexively turn away, eyes snapping shut as you shield your ears with your hands. The disturbance is short-lived, and when you sense that the conflicting auras have died down, you are quick to take a look.

The ghost has vanished. Body, chains, aura, and all.

And Ichirou's arrow has been reduced to so many splinters, many of which are scattered about the cell. Interestingly, the hand that held the ritual implement appears completely unharmed - in fact, looking the two priests over, you don't see so much as a scratch on either of them. Even Ginta looks winded, though.

Ichirou is staring at his ruined arrow. "I didn't know... that could happen," he gasps, partly out of fatigue, and partly out of alarm.

"That was... quite possibly... the strongest ghost... I've ever had... the misfortune of meeting," his father replies, similarly afflicted. He pauses for a moment to get his breathing under control, and adds, "But I have heard of talismans being ruined before. It's rare... but it does happen. Even with weaker entities."

Gained Knowledge (Shinto) E (Plus)

The younger priest nods slowly, before turning to you. "What was that spell you cast? It felt... disturbing."

What do you say to this? The Spell of Enervation is one of the go-to methods of attack for necromancers of a certain skill level, because there's little if any chance to resist it, and its life-sapping effects are equally devastating to any living foe. This is the kind of magic a professional exorcist could expect to run into, and ought to be knowledgeable about, for his own safety and the safety of those he means to help.

On the other hand, Enervation is a pretty scary spell, even in an ally's hands. To say nothing of when it's in a kid's hands...

"I know it as the Spell of Enervation," you explain. "It's a type of Necromancy that skips over the whole business of doing injury, and instead directly suppresses the target's life-force, making them weaker in pretty much every respect."

"How much weaker?" Ginta inquires.

"It varies with each casting, but if the caster were to 'pull' the spell, and make it as weak as possible while still having some effect, the average person on the street still wouldn't survive the shock," you admit.

Ichirou chokes. "Why do you even KNOW a spell like that?"

"I know it because it's one of the core fourth-circle spells of the School of Necromancy," you reply firmly. "You can't study that branch of magic to that level and NOT be able to cast Enervation, or at least work it out from first principles. Pretty much every necromancer worth the name DOES learn it, because it's one of the most effective combat spells in that range, and it works on almost any living thing - demons included, unless they're really powerful, or something half-undead, like the corpse-vampires."

Ginta frowns in puzzlement. "If this spell does not work against the walking dead, why did you cast it here?"

"Because the ghost was going to cast that spell at the two of you," you explain, opting to leave an explanation of what Enervation ACTUALLY does to the undead for another time. "And if you know how to cast a given spell, you can use that knowledge to counter someone ELSE'S casting of the same spell. Like cancels like, and all that's left is spent mana. Of course," you admit wryly, "that's assuming you recognize what the other guy is casting in time to do anything about it. We were lucky. You two were pressing the ghost, and it either couldn't or just didn't cast as fast as I can. That gave me enough time to figure out what it was doing."

As you add an advisory to the Hakubas that they should consider looking into a counter for Enervation - and spells of negative energy manipulation in general - assuming they don't already have one, of course, you glance at the wooden splinters and slivers of stone scattered across the cell.

The spiritual presence you sensed from the arrow before suggested that it was fairly old and well-used, an item of some value and importance. Restoring it is within your means, and the priests might well appreciate having their talisman back.

Then again, such a relic makes for a pretty good reagent. If the Hakubas believe the arrow destroyed, claiming the fragments for your own would be simplicity itself...

Or you could ASK to keep it. You know. For the sake of politeness.

Once the matter of the arrow is settled, you take stock of the situation. Your mana is at about a third of your maximum capacity, and while your ki reserves are much better off - with over two and a half three times as much energy remaining - you only have another half-hour or so left before you need to head home. Given those factors and the fatigued state of your two human companions, you're inclined to call it a day, and leave further explorations of the ruin for tomorrow.

But you could spare a FEW more minutes, if you wanted to. There's not much point in head down into the abandoned Gohma nest with the time you have remaining, let alone trying to explore the second set of rooms that lie beyond it, but there are those two doors in the central chamber where you fought the spiders...

"Before we move on," you say to the priests, "would you like me to fix that arrow?"

The Hakubas immediately perk up.

"If it would not be an inconvenience...?" Ginta says.

"Not at all."

"Then please do," Ichirou asks.

Since you're not entirely sure how much power was bound up in the arrow, you cast the Greater Spell to Make Whole. You do so via ritual to conserve your dwindling reserves of mana, so it takes four minutes, but that's still only two-fifths the time the Lesser Spell would have required - and this version of the spell is twice as effective at repairing magic items, so it's a worthwhile investment.

As you work your magic, splinters of wood and stone slowly pull themselves out of the carpet of rust, cracks in the walls and ceiling, and even the folds of the priests' robes, to begin swirling around the broken shaft Ichirou that still holds. The cloud grows for over a minute, until no more pieces of the arrow are left unaccounted for. At that point, all the little flecks and flakes and shards begin sorting themselves out, coming together in their twos and threes to compare edges and angles until something "clicks" - at which point the larger fragments begin moving about as a whole, seeking further connections.

The entire stone arrowhead is soon reformed, along with the top portion of the wooden shaft. They still bear a network of visible cracks, and more that the naked eye can't make out, but as the two halves of the arrow reunite, every single one of those tiny, jagged lines flares with white light.

And then it's done. The arrow is restored.

Gained Spirit Affinity F (Plus) (Plus)

Ichirou studies it intently, and then lets out a delighted laugh. "It feels almost exactly the same."

"Almost?" you and Ginta say in the same moment.

"Yes, there's..." He hesitates, smile fading into puzzlement. "It's very odd," the younger man admits. "It doesn't seem any more or less powerful than before, but there's definitely a different quality to it. Like it's... both old and young?"

Ginta holds out his hand. "May I?"

His son hands over the relic without hesitation or protest, and the older priest observes it.

"I see what you meant, Ichirou," he admits after a moment. "I believe this is a consequence of the arrow having been destroyed, and then remade. It's very much as though it just experienced death and rebirth." He falls silent at that, visibly thoughtful.

"...is this going to be a problem?" you inquire after a moment.

"Oh, no," Ginta replies. "I may need to speak with our Buddhist neighbors about the effects 'reincarnation' would have on a talisman of purification, but I don't anticipate any drawbacks. If nothing else, the arrow appears to channel spiritual energy as well as ever."

He demonstrates by letting some of his own power flow into the relic, which responds in the same manner you sensed before. Perhaps it's just your imagination, but you think you can discern the difference in the object's aura that the priests were describing.

Gained Spiritual Imbuement E

You make your way back to the portal, pausing briefly in the central hallway to look towards the room where you left the damaged but still functional stone soldier, as well as the faerie gold. You're not about to move the latter until you've had a chance to talk to Navi about it, and as for the golem, you don't think you want to try putting something the size of an adult human torso - and several times that not-inconsiderable mass - into your dimensional pocket.

Thinking on it, you decide to leave the animated statue where it is for the time being.

It's not like it's going anywhere.

Pausing long enough on the threshold of the portal for Briar to prepare herself for the passage, you step through-

-and emerge back inside the ring of standing stones.

On your shoulder, Briar lets out a sigh of relief.

"Someone's feeling better," you observe teasingly.

"You'd better believe it. And can I just say in advance that I am not looking forward to tomorrow? Because I'm not."

Navi is standing more or less where you left her, and as you draw near, priests in tow, she gives you a Look.

"Where, exactly, did you manage to find a hundred Gohma this far from Hyrule?" the Great Fairy asks in a level tone. "And WHAT did you do that had them all so determined to run away, they thought that charging at ME was an acceptable alternative?"

You blink, and then start explaining to Navi what happened inside.

Apart from summarizing your encounter with the Gohma, is there anything you want to say to Navi?

"I'm sorry to hear that, Briar," you tell your fairy companion. "But unless you're comfortable with sending me in there alone..."

You trail off expectantly.

There is no answer.

"...er, Briar?"

"Shhh, I'm thinking."

This makes you turn your head to regard your shoulder-passenger as directly as you can. "Was it actually THAT bad in there?"

"Wasn't fun," the fairy answers with a sigh. "And I was just teasing. I'm not about to let you march into an ancient deathtrap on your own, especially not when we know there are things from Hyrule inside." Then her wings shimmer, and you can all but hear the smile in her voice as she adds, "But it's nice to know you're worried about me, you big softie."

"You're welcome. I think." You pause. "On that note, would you mind if I took some scans of you, just to make sure there aren't going to be any long-term consequences from you having been under those wards?"

"And the moment's gone," Briar notes. "I'm fine, Alex, really. There's no need to go all panicked healer on me."

"I could ask your mother-"

"Alex, no. Stop. Right now."

"-she'd be better at the whole magical medical angle, anyway-"

"Alllleeeex..."

Smiling, you hold up your hands. "Just teasing. But seriously," you add, losing the amused expression, "I trust you to tell me if you start having any problems because of this place."

"...ah. Well, that's good."

Following your account of the battle with the Gohma, you fill Navi in on the Faerie gold you found hidden in the abandoned barracks. This leads to the Great Fairy giving you and your companions a magical once-over, after which she pronounces all of you clear of Faerie influence.

That done, Navi readily agrees to act as a go-between for you, to get the not exactly cursed, but definitely not "safe" Fae gold back to its proper owners.

You make a mental note to fetch the bag of coins when you come back tomorrow.

After that, you tell Navi about the other Fae-related encounter you had, and how you helped the Hakubas to exorcise the unfortunate ghost.

She frowns. "Did you actually put the ghost to rest, or did you just exorcise it?"

You pause, not quite sure how to answer that. Her tone implies that there's a difference, but you can't quite call the distinction to mind.

Fortunately, you have a couple of priests on hand.

"That is a good question," Ginta admits grimly. "I've never dealt with a Faerie ghost before, but the spirit of a human or youkai bound by such torment would be likely to reform, unless the grievance holding it in this world was addressed."

Wait, what?

Gained Necrology E
Gained Parazoology D (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Knowledge D (Plus) (Plus)

"Simply releasing that unfortunate soul from its confinement might have been enough to appease it," the older priest continues. "At least at one point. But given how long it was trapped down there, mere escape may not be nearly enough to satisfy its grudge."

Navi nods. "I'd be inclined to suspect 'not,' unless or until I found proof to the contrary."

Ginta nods. "That was my thinking, as well."

...it occurs to you that - the final battle with Gozer aside - the Ghostbusters were always shown TRAPPING ghosts, and then locking them away in the Containment Unit, rather than just blowing them to steaming bits of ectoplasm and calling it a day.

There may have been good, real-world-inspired reasons for that...

"If it turns out that the ghost is still there," you say, "what should we do about it?"

"I'm not sure there's much we CAN do, if it turns out that being set free wasn't enough to let the spirit rest," Ginta admits sourly. "Everyone that wronged it when it was alive will have long since passed, so it can't find justice or even vengeance that way. If it were a HUMAN ghost, I might try bringing in a member of the family to speak with it, assure it that it is and will be remembered, and convince it to move on. Ideally, it would be someone that knew the soul in life, but a descendant will do if they're earnest. However, given that this is a Faerie being, I have no idea if that would work."

"It might," Navi admits, "assuming you could get the people you need through those wards. But the family would be almost guaranteed to take revenge on the descendants of the people who imprisoned and tortured their kinsman. Or, if they couldn't find the specific bloodlines, anybody in the general area of whatever nation built this place."

Scratch that idea off the list, then. Even if you HAD been inclined to go near the greater Fae, you don't want to be responsible for bringing a bunch of ignorant innocents to the attention of a clan of bloodthirsty Fae.

From the Hakubas' expressions, they're having similar thoughts.

"That leaves direct divine intervention," Ginta sums up. "And for a matter this far removed from the interests of our entire WORLD - let alone our nation, city, and shrine - the kami we serve is unlikely to be willing to become so personally involved."

"Particularly since I am already here, and a fairy myself, besides." Navi nods. "Right, then. If you gentlemen can disable the wards, I'll be able to take things from there."

The matter of the Fae ghost tabled for the time being, Navi returns your little party to Japan, agreeing to pick you up again the following day, at the same time you met previously.

After thanking Ginta and Ichirou for their assistance today and wishing them a good rest, you make your own way home, getting back with a quarter-hour to spare.

Following dinner, you head into the basement, enter your Mirror Hideaway, and take out the Heart Container you won from the Gohma. A full round of study ensues, first with Spells of Augmentation on your mind and senses, as you work assorted Divinations over the item. Then you pull out the stops, and let your Power blaze through your eyes.

Gained Power Sight F (Plus) (Plus)

The Heart Container is about what you expected. It's composed entirely of residual life-force that has been purged of demonic contamination, and then further purified into a state that isn't recognizably monster or human or even animal in nature. You're tempted to call it the essence of Life itself, in crystallized form - which explains how you, and Link before you, can assimilate Heart Containers from utterly inhuman creatures, not only to no ill effect, but with entirely beneficial results.

You also discover what was actually responsible for the entire creation process - or rather, WHO.

While they've faded considerably, and show indications that they will soon dissipate entirely, the Heart Container still bears traces of some very familiar divine energies.

In hindsight, it makes sense that these things are the creations of the Golden Goddesses - although that does bring up interesting questions about your previous sacrifice of a Heart Container to Din. Namely, does it really count as a "sacrifice," when she was one-third responsible for making the thing in the first place?

Although it explains a few things, the discovery that the Heart Containers are divine creations is a little disappointing, since it means you're unlikely to ever be able to create them on your own.

You suppose you'll just have to get used to disappointment.

Or you could try to make yourself feel better by collecting as many of the things as you can.

Either works.

With that phase of your research over, you conjure another batch of modified Prying Eyes, and observe yourself from multiple angles and via every different layer of the supernatural spectrum you're able to access as you absorb the Heart Container into your being.

Gained Heart Meter E

Oooh. That felt GOOD.

You allow yourself a moment to just enjoy the energizing sensation. Then you shake it off and call the Prying Eyes to you, absorbing their recorded contents one by one.

The results are intriguing. As the god-crafted relic fuses into your being, its energy is dispersed throughout your body in a series of steady pulses - in time with your own heartbeat, as it happens. The muscle fatigue from today's exertions is washed away by those rhythmic beats, and an assortment of bumps, bruises, and scrapes fade with it, leaving your flesh and bones feeling not only whole, but that extra bit tougher than they were before. On a deeper level, your ki channels momentarily shine brightly, and when the radiance fades, not only have your ki reserves been fully replenished, but the channels feel... not deeper or stronger, but... more secure, somehow.

You're not sure what's going on there, but some quick experimentation shows that your ki isn't behaving any differently.

You make a mental note to talk to Lu-sensei about this.

Absorbing the Heart Container proves to have had no real effect on you in the magical, mental, or spiritual planes - there's certainly some shifting as the other facets of your being adjust to the increased resilience of your body, but that settles before long. The true focus of the item's power is physical.

Once you're satisfied that you've learned all you're going to from this experiment, you spend some of your mana to conjure up a silk pillow, and leave the Mirror Hideaway.

That night, you rest very well.

When you wake up the following morning, you feel great. The use of the Spell of Nap Stack has allowed you to recover all the energy you spent the previous day, and the addition of the Heart Container has given you more physical energy than you've ever had before, by quite a margin. You're not exactly bouncing off the walls - for which you're sure your folks will be grateful - but you definitely don't feel like staying in bed.

Gained Magic Power D

You put your excess of energy to good use this morning, taking Zelda off your mother's hands for a couple of hours. Moblin tags along, as always, but he eventually drops out of the fun and games with a yawn.

Seeing as how your mother calls out to ask you what you'd like for lunch maybe ten minutes later, any concerns you might have had about Moblin's seeming lack of energy are easily addressed. Your supernaturally-reinforced constitution appears to have thrown off your sense of your own exertions just a bit, and Zelda, as ever, is a little bundle ball of unlimited energy.

At least until after lunch, at which point, she curls up on the couch, and dozes off.

"Thank you for your help this morning, Alex," your mother says with a smile.

"No problem, Mom. I had some energy to burn."

She nods. "Off to Japan again this afternoon, I take it?"

"Yeah."

"Has there been any good news about the girl?"

You consider that question. There's certainly been "news" regarding Mai's disappearance, but you'd hesitate to call it "good." Crazy nine-tailed kitsune rank pretty high on the Bad News scale, as does the unhappy history of child abductions revolving around this one.

On the other hand, what you've learned isn't as bad as it could have been: that little rhyming prophecy your magic revealed to you the other day implies that Mai is still alive; other people have successfully recovered children from the nine-tails in the past; and you're in the middle of a plan to yank the crazy out of the fox and smack its nose until it behaves. And not only do you have a bunch of adults helping out, you even have direct divine assistance with this plan, inasmuch as Navi counts as a god.

Plus, you don't want to worry your mother.

"I spoke with the priests at the shrine I mentioned," you tell your mother, "as well as an expert on local supernatural creatures - 'local' in that part of Japan, anyway."

Your mother nods.

"Between us, we managed to narrow down who and what took the girl, and come up with a plan to rescue her. I'm helping the priests search for the tools they'll need for that plan, because my magic makes it a lot easier than if they were left to do things by themselves."

Case in point, the Gohma. Not that you even hint at this to your mother.

"We're basically on a treasure hunt in an abandoned castle," you conclude.

"I see. And how long do you expect this 'treasure hunt' to take?"

"We're taking it slow, just to be safe, but even so, we should be done in the next few days."

"I'm glad to hear that. Well, then, I won't keep you. Stay out of trouble, and don't be late for dinner."

You nod, a little surprised at how easily that went, and leave the house.

"Hey, Alex," your father calls over the buzzing roar of the lawnmower. "Headed out?"

"Yeah, Dad. I'll be back by supper."

"Hang on a second." He switches off the mower, and takes a moment to wipe away some of the sweat beading his face - a hot Saturday afternoon isn't really the best time for yardwork, but your mother insisted, and the lawn WAS looking pretty shaggy. Coming over, your father uses a much quieter voice as he says, "I wanted to, uh, ask you something."

"Okay...?"

"Bear in mind, this is an entirely hypothetical question." Your father's tone make his claim sound like a complete lie. "But... would it be possible for you to use magic to mow the lawn?"

In spite of everything, you're caught off-guard by this. Is he serious?

"Look on the bright side," Briar giggles. "At least you know your father doesn't have a problem with you being able to use magic."

...there is that, you suppose, but even so...

Ambrose's ward does cover the entire property and would technically let you cast the simple spells necessary to cut the grass and do other basic yard-work without drawing supernatural attention down on yourself. For that matter, you could cast the Illusions necessary to make it look and sound like you or your father were still putting in the necessary effort.

But do you really WANT to?

"Sure, Dad," you reply with a shrug. "It's easy enough. Do you want me to get to it now, or...?"

"No, no rush," your father says. "You have places to be, and I'm pretty much finished out here anyway."

He glances at the lawn, and you do likewise. He's not exaggerating - except for a couple spots up against the fence and the house, where the lawnmower can't really reach, the grass is nice and level.

"You can take the backyard when you come home," Tony goes on, "and then take over the weekly mow from there."

Reasonable enough. That'll give you time to work out the specifics of the Illusion spell you'll need to provide a believable cover-story for how you're ACTUALLY going to be trimming the grass. Start with a Major Image, reduce the range by one, maybe two steps... you haven't worked out how to make spells of that sort self-sustaining yet, so you'll still need to concentrate on it, but then you could work the Spell of Ventriloquism into it to produce intelligible speech if need be... how would you hear the other side of any conversations your illusory double got into, though?

Saying good-bye to your father for the time being, you make your way down the street and out of Sunnydale, musing over the School of Illusions as you go.

A little over half an hour later, you, Briar, Ginta, Ichirou, and Navi are once again standing outside the circle of standing stones.

"Same as before?" Briar sighs.

Once you're through the magic-dispelling portal, what buff spells will you be casting, now that you have a better idea of what you're up against? You had quite a selection going by the time you were done yesterday, but do you really need them all, now that the Gohma is dead and its nest cleared?

After Navi checks to make sure the way is clear - as much as she can, at least - you, Briar, and the Hakubas enter the portal you took the previous day. The room on the other side proves to be as empty and quiet as when you left, so you get started raising the same set of enhancement spells you had going when you left. All said, it takes you about half an hour to ritually reinforce your party's defenses.

Following the spellcasting, you raise your Ki Enhancement and start down the central hallway, alert for any surprises. If there's anything even vaguely intelligent in this section of the ruins - or the part it's connected to via the Gohma tunnels - it's had almost a full day to prepare for your return.

The only thing you find - or rather, FAIL to find - is the damaged but still technically-functional stone soldier you left in the barracks yesterday. You took one of its leg below the knee, cut its left arm similarly short at the elbow, and severed its right forearm about halfway down. At the time, that seemed to be enough to immobilize the automaton, but when you take a minute to check, it's not in the room anymore. There is no physical trail that you can discern, and a quick probe of the floor with your Mage Sight and other forms of enhanced vision doesn't turn anything up, either.

You suppose the golem could have worked out how to hobble away on its remaining knee and the stumps of its other limbs, but if so, where did it go? And why?

And if the golem DIDN'T leave under its own power... well.

Mildly concerned, you leave the barracks and check on the ruined armory. The warded chest is still there, and from what you can tell, it hasn't been disturbed.

That's something, anyway.

Returning to the hallway, you proceed to the large circular room where you fought the Gohma. Again, the chamber is as you left it, right down to the scorch-marks your Fireball left on the area around the door.

As you enter the room, you notice Ginta looking off to your right, in the direction of the prison area.

"Thinking about the ghost?" you ask quietly.

"I was," he admits.

It would only take a few minutes to check on the cell where you exorcised the undead Fae, and see if it's returned - or if it feels like it might. If it turns out that the cell is genuinely no longer haunted, great, but if the ghost has already revived or seems like it eventually will, you'll at least know you need to keep an eye peeled for magical ward control arrays.

"What do you - gentlemen and lady - say we look in on the ghost first, just to be sure?" you offer.

"Agreed," Ginta says without hesitation.

"Likewise," Ichirou concurs.

"Probably best to get it out of the way," Briar admits.

That settled, you make for the cell.

As you approach the room where the Fae ghost was chained for the last thousand years, you very, VERY carefully open up your magical and spiritual awarenesses, trying to get a sense of how the energies in here are moving, compared to the previous day. At first, it feels like the residual Necromantic energy produced by the ghost's presence hasn't diminished at all, but as you get closer to the cell, the dark aura of emotionally-charged magic doesn't intensify the way you would have expected. There's still echoes of suffering and spite sunk deep into the stones, which only makes sense after a thousand years of having an insane ghost chained to one wall, but the level of contamination isn't as high as it SHOULD be, or as you recall it being when you followed the Hakubas this way before.

Your exorcism's done THAT much good, at least.

Spiritually, things feel similar, but your knowledge of the undead and spectral entities in general aren't quite developed enough to say one way or another if the ghost is truly and permanently banished.

So you ask the priests.

"I do believe we have been blessed with good fortune in this," Ginta says after a moment's consideration. "The cell is not what I would call spiritually cleansed, even after... yesterday's events... but it does feel as though the ghost is at rest. So long as no one performs a ritual to force it back, or commits some offense in this area that would drive it to seek retribution once more, it should remain as it is. At peace."

Well, that's good to know.

It occurs to you that, as long as you're here, you and your companions could put in a little time, effort, and faith, and lay down a ward to prevent the kind of disturbances Ginta mentioned from being quite so disturbing. Help the ghost to keep obeying Newton's First Law, as it were.

The Hakubas readily agree with your suggestion, and after some discussion over what you could personally contribute that wouldn't risk disturbing the Fae spirit, you end up working a ritual consecration, while the two priests pray for peace and serenity on the departed soul's behalf.

Briar hovers at your side, murmuring something in the Faerie tongue.

The level of necromantic taint in the cell is further decreased, and the spiritual energy...

...is...

...um...

A misty figure appears before you, coalescing out of the air. Even as your heart skips a beat in shock, you realize that it's not the wretched, raving ghost you saw before, but a much more dignified figure. The ravaged visage you remember has been replaced by smoothly masculine, not-quite-human features of unearthly handsomeness, set into a formal, dignified expression. Long hair is braided instead of flying about wildly, and yesterday's tattered rags are gone, an unfamiliar but archaic style of shirt and leggings in their place.

The Fae spirit regards you all for a moment with eyes that glow faintly green, and then wordlessly inclines his head.

Without a word, he vanishes.

Gained King of Faeries E
Gained King of Spirits E

The members of your party trade glances, but no one says a word. As one, you turn and leave the prison block.

You cross the central chamber, making for the door to the west. On the other side is a long, relatively narrow passage, over a hundred feet in length, but a mere ten feet across. Matching doorways line both sides of the hall, spaced about fifteen feet apart, making for a total of fourteen in all. More of those smokeless, ever-burning torches are spaced evenly between the doorways, with an extra pair flanking the doorway you've just entered, and another matching set visible at the far end of the hall.

Peering cautiously inside the nearest door on the right-hand side, you find a simple chamber, fifteen feet to a side and with a ceiling ten feet high, illuminated by five torches - two flanking the door, and one more at the center of each of the other three walls. Dust covers the floor and the large, lumpy objects that were probably furniture, before centuries of neglect wore them down.

You find no skeletons, no golems, and certainly no ghosts. There are no Gohma, either, and from the lack of demonic taint or tracks in the dust, if any ever bothered to come in here, it was a long, LONG time ago. A quick but thorough sweep with your enhanced senses also reveals nothing.

That story is repeated in the chamber across the hallway, and then the next two down, and then the ones after that. At a guess, these were probably the officers' quarters.

When you reach the two doors at the middle of the passage, you find something a little different. Instead of a fifteen-by-fifteen single room, it's more of a fifteen-foot wide and twenty-foot deep entryway, which opens up into a space several times the size. Surprisingly ornate columns line the walls, and also loosely flank three large depressions in the floor. Two of these, at opposite ends of the chamber, are square-shaped and perhaps twenty feet to a side, but only two or three feet deep, with broad stairs leading from the main floor down to the bottom of each. The third pit is over twice as wide and even longer than that, and seems to be on an incline, getting deeper the closer it gets to the far wall. Stone benches line all of the pits, and can also be found scattered about on the main floor. Statuary is abundant, but much of it appears damaged, as if by exposure to water - this, despite the fact that the room is bone-dry.

"Looks like a bath," Ichirou says after a moment. "Not quite Roman-style, but they were trying for it."

"Interesting," Ginta says. "I wonder where they got the water for something like this."

Looking closer, you can make out a few holes at the back of each dry pool - drains? Pipes? - but that doesn't really answer Ginta's question. If the builders of this place tapped a local water source, there'd have been a huge gap in their defensive wards. You can't imagine they'd have been so careless. You suppose it's possible they set up some magic-run system that provided water on demand, and took it away afterwards, or maybe even went so far as to wall off and ward a natural spring.

When you glance at the holes with your Mage Sight on, you do sense an aura of mingled Earth, Fire, and Water Elementalism, but the sources are too far back in the stone for you to get a clear reading on any of them. Aside from the glowing spaces in each empty pool, you detect no other auras in this place.

"See something interesting?" Ginta asks, as you start towards the right-hand bath.

"There are some active magic auras in the, uh, 'pools,'" you reply. "Inside the holes in the back."

"Magical plumbing? Really?" Ichirou considers it for a minute, and then shrugs. "I suppose that makes sense. We're in a magical fortress in another realm. Why WOULDN'T the plumbing be enchanted?"

Ginta gives his son a strange look, before turning back to you. "Is this really that important?"

"It should only take me a minute or so to analyze," you say confidently.

Unless the builders went completely nuts about security, and put anti-Divination wards on what were effectively their taps and drains.

Mind you, they were setting up shop in hostile territory, in the middle of Faerie. They very well COULD - and arguably, SHOULD - have been that thorough with their defenses.

Making your way down the long-dry steps and across the pebble-textured floor of the ancient bath, you crouch near one of the holes, peering... not quite directly inside. At this close range and from this angle, you get a much better read on the magic array set up inside the hole: in addition to the three-fold Elemental signatures, you also pick up a weaker aura of Conjuration. This suggests that, rather than trying to tap Faerie's water supply or doing something completely ridiculous like creating tiny, permanent, re-sealable portals to the Elemental Plane of Water, the mages who built this place set up high-powered equivalents to the Spell of Create Water, plugged in a Fire-Elemental spell to provide heat, and Earth for... producing minerals?

...oh, yeah. People do that with baths, don't they? Salts and stuff. And aren't hot springs that people bathe in supposed to contain minerals that are good for the skin and the body?

The Elemental portions of the array aren't just for churning out bathwater, either. There's a second section that, rather than creating water, heat, and minerals on demand, forms a ward against them - one that appears to extend into the walls and floor. It's currently inactive, and has been carefully hidden among the decorative stonework that lines the pool, but - aside from a few areas where the design has been damaged - it looks like it would turn on as soon as the water began to flow.

As for how the "used" bathwater would have been disposed of...

You turn to the center of the pool, where a single, surprisingly rust-free metal drain-cover shines amidst the unrelieved black of the floor. The space on the other side is by no means deep enough for this to be a conventional drain, but peering through the small gaps in the top, you can make out the lines of another array. It's inactive, and that plus the obscuring cap make it too difficult to read, but you'd venture it's the functional opposite of the water- and mineral-conjuring arrays in the "taps." Something to unmake those substances, along with the dirt and sweat rinsed off of bathers' bodies.

All in all, an interesting design, and one that points to a relatively high level of magic-use in the society that built this place. The portals, the wards, and the guardian golems were already suggestive of that, but they COULD have been the work of a small handful of gifted practitioners. And even people who don't entirely like or trust magic will sing a different tune when it's the only way to reasonably assure their security.

But magical bathtubs? That shows a level of sheer utilitarian appreciation for magic - a level of COMFORT with it, even - that would have been unusual in Hyrule, where magic has been an open part of society for millennia. Compared to Earth, where the bulk of the population doesn't believe magic exists, and where even the Moonlit World seems to prefer purely technological convenience...

Who WERE these people?

Shaking your head, you cast a final look at the bath. The arrays have given you an idea or two for refining your use of Fire and Water Elementalism, but you probably can't learn any more from them without trying to turn them on. And that's assuming the array doesn't burn out or something - it IS a thousand years old, after all.

As long as you're here, you may as well go for the full experience.

After casting the Spell to Embrace Destiny, you turn away from the drain and resume your study of one of the more highly-placed holes in the wall, eyes glowing with active Mage Sight as you try to work out how to turn it on. There's no indication that there were ever solid taps like you're used to, but it strikes you as unlikely that the builders of this bath would have designed the water-producing arrays to be manipulated directly. Even in a culture as accepting of magic as this one appears to have been, you can't guarantee that everybody is going to have both the spark of talent and the degree of knowledge necessary to turn a system like this on or off without breaking something. You also don't want people poking their fingers directly into a charged spell array - whether they know what they're doing or not, it's just asking for problems.

So if direct access is out, and there are no obvious taps, maybe something in the stonework? Buttons, tastefully incorporated into the overall facade? Unless of course the "controls" for the entire room were in a different chamber, but that wouldn't exactly be convenient...

Oh, here it is. A few small spots above the rim of the pool, each one glowing slightly to your Mage Sight. They'd be in clear view of any adults standing in the water, but you have to stand on your toes to see them clearly. If the Elemental hues to their auras are any indication, you've got two buttons that control the rate of output for the water, one that increases the temperature, another that lowers it, and then dispensers for half a dozen different types of minerals.

Curious, you reach up and tap one of the "water" buttons.

Nothing happens. Considering that the array appears to be functional, that was probably the "turn down the water" button.

You press the other "water" button, and promptly feel magic thrum faintly all around you.

And then water begins to pour out of the holes.

*FWOOSH*

Rather a LOT of water, at that. Then again, this bath isn't just a one-person tub, it's the size of a swimming pool. Makes sense that they'd want to be able to fill it quickly.

On a related note, you're glad you weren't standing in front of any of the holes when they started gushing. That would just have been embarrassing.

You're going to get wet from this, but there's no help for that - you wanted to get a look at the bath's spell arrays while they were working, and the angles involved required you to be IN the bath.

It's not like it's a big deal or anything. You can just dry yourself off when you're done.

You proceed with your inspection of the spellwork, monitoring how and where the mana flows. You press a few more of the buttons, turning up the rate at which the water blasts forth, then bringing it down, then changing the temperature a bit, and finally, just messing with the bath salts.

Gained Fire Elementalism C (Plus) (D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) without Heart of Fire)
Gained Item Crafting C
Gained Water Elementalism E (Plus) (Plus)

It doesn't take all that long - two or three seconds per setting, at most - but by the time you've empirically tested all the controls, you're up to your knees in cool water, and more than a little damp elsewhere thanks to the spray. Not to mention the odd mineral scent. You switch everything off, and slosh back over to the drain.

Which doesn't appear to be working.

Hmmm. Is it damaged? On a time-delay? Or is there another control? Maybe, if you go back and press the button that would turn down the water flow...

From above you, comes the sound of a clearing throat.

Looking up, you find the Hakubas standing a step back from the edge of the bath.

Ichirou appears honestly interested.

Ginta just gives you the look parents have been giving children since the dawn of time - the one that says, "How did this happen? No, WHY did this happen?"

You answer with one of the expressions that kids have been using just as long - the one that says...

You meet Ginta's reproving gaze for a moment, look down at your soaked-to-the-knee pants, and then look up again, fixing your features into an expression of innocence.

"It seemed like a good idea at the time?" you venture.

"I'm sure," Ginta says. You have the impression that he isn't convinced. "Now, if you're quite finished...?"

"Just a second," you say, turning back to the controls. "One last thing I want to check."

You hit the button to reduce the water flow, hoping that your suspicion will prove correct, and it will activate the drain.

It doesn't. And you can't see any other active magical auras in the pool - just to be sure, you drag yourself through the water and up the stairs to the main floor, so you can take in the entire pool and the surrounding area at once.

Nothing.

That would definitely support the idea that the drain is somehow broken.

That's a bit disappointing.

Still, you have other things to do. You cast a cantrip to dry yourself out - and then you cast it again, after the first attempt only downgrades you from "completely soaked" to "really damp."

"Thank you for your patience," you tell the priests. "We can move on, now."

And you do.

On the other side of the door directly across the hall from the bathing chamber is a corridor about thirty feet long, lined with very small chambers only five feet deep, and not even that wide. At the far end is what appears to be a sink. Each of the roomlets is, or was, warded in some fashion, but the arrays have long since given out. A glance inside the first of these miniature rooms reveals little more than a pair of stone shelves, flanking a curious seat about two feet tall - mostly stone, but with a decayed wooden cover... that...

Oh.

Um.

"These are the toilets, aren't they?" you ask aloud.

Ginta glances in one of the... water closets, you guess? Ichirou investigates another. Briar blips over to a third.

"Indeed."

"Yes."

"Looks like."

...

Do you REALLY want to go poking around in here?

On the one hand, these toilets likely include "drains" of a similar design as the one you saw in the bath, using magic to break down and dispose of the refuse. And they're all a thousand years old besides, so anything that might have, uh, survived the original occupation of the base would have long since decayed to dust.

Strictly speaking, the latrines are not likely to be any dirtier than anything else in this complex. Not after all this time.

On the other hand... they're still toilets.

It's a simple decision.

"I think we can leave this place for later," you say aloud. "Much, much later."

"Yes," Ichirou agrees. "We definitely can."

The two of you turn and shuffle out, Briar snickering as she flutters along in your wake and Ginta wordlessly bringing up the rear.

The remaining rooms that line the western hall are more private quarters, holding nothing but dust and ever-burning torches. It's only when you approach the room at the end of the hall that you find anything worth commenting on.

This chamber is somewhat larger than the rest, perhaps twenty-five feet to a side, with two doors set into the far wall. Judging by the placement and size of the rotted-out furniture and dust-heaps, it was less a residence and more of an office - probably the quarters of a captain, or whatever rank of officer ran this part of the complex.

The office itself is devoid of supernatural auras, but the same cannot be said for the rooms beyond those doors: the one on your left is sealed off behind a Wall of Force; but far more concerning is the chamber to your right, which radiates an aura of undeath. While markedly stronger than any of the skeletons you ran into yesterday, whether as individuals or as groups, it's not as powerful as the Fae ghost's was.

...actually, now that you think about it, the aura feels a fair bit like the ghost's. You may be looking at another such lingering spirit, although given its location, this one is most likely human.

You glance at the Hakubas, who have also clearly noticed the aura, and wordlessly inquire what they'd like to do.

Ichirou holds up the magically-repaired spiritually-charged arrow.

The direct approach, then? You have to admit, it worked yesterday, and that ghost was a fair bit stronger than this one - maybe a third again as powerful, if your read on this spirit's aura is accurate.

On the other hand, the Fae ghost was blatantly hostile from the outset. You can't say the same about this not - not for CERTAIN, anyway. And if it's a human ghost, you may have options besides just exorcising it, such as talking. You'd need to cast the Spell of Tongues to handle the inevitable language barrier, but that's no hardship, certainly not when compared to a chance to speak directly with the spirit of one of the people who used to work in this place.

"Could we try talking to this one first?" you suggest to the priests, voice low.

Ichirou blinks, and lowers the sacred arrow.

"We could," he admits, in a tone that matches your own. "And ideally, if a ghost is not murderously hostile, we SHOULD try to convince it to move on of its own free will, rather than forcing the issue. However, this is a thousand year old spirit. The odds that it has a language in common with any of us are... slim."

"That's actually not a problem," you say. "I know a spell that will let me speak and understand any language."

...

The priests are staring at you again.

"And hearing that, I just HAVE to ask," Ichirou says. "Are you ACTUALLY speaking Japanese right now? Or are we just HEARING Japanese?"

"No, I'm speaking Japanese." You pause, then add, "But I DID use a similar spell to LEARN Japanese, at least at first."

"...I see."

"If you can speak with this spirit, Alexander," Ginta says then, "please do so - carefully. My son and I will be ready to act if turns unfriendly."

You nod, and quickly cast the Spell of Tongues. As the magic takes hold, you turn to Briar.

"Do you mind staying back out of sight, Briar? I only ask because this ghost is probably going to be about as friendly towards anyone or anything Fae as the OTHER ghost was to humans."

"It's a fair point," Briar admits. "But I reserve the right to say 'I told you so,' if you end up haunted or something because of this."

With that, she floats back from you a few inches. It's not much of a distance, but the actual physical space is really less important than the inherent statement.

You head for the right-handed door, trying not to kick up too much of the dust on the floor as you cross the ancient office. Pausing at the threshold, you glance inside to get an idea of what you're working with, and against.

It looks like another residential chamber, though it is to the other rooms along the western hall as they were to the barracks in the south. The captain's private quarters are twenty feet to a side, and like the office immediately before it, it has two more doors in the opposite wall, placed far enough apart and with deep enough passages on the other side that you can't see directly into them from where you stand.

What REALLY makes the room stand out, however, is that it is fully furnished. A large, comfortable-looking bed takes up a fair amount of space along the south wall, with a dresser, two or three chests, and several shelves' worth of random items gathered about it. There's also a freestanding rack, something you vaguely recognize as being intended to hold a suit of armor when it isn't being worn. The northern wall is dominated by a large fireplace, which is flanked by bins of wood and shelves full of scrolls and a small number of massive books. Before the hearth rests something that isn't a couch as you're familiar with the term, but looks like it would be just as nice to sit or lie down on. The middle of the room is given over to a table and a large number of low seats - more like one-man benches than actual chairs, though they are cushioned. The stone floor is covered by an assortment of ornately-patterned carpets, while the walls are lined with similarly-complex hanging fabrics, several maps and diagrams that strike you as being of a military nature, and an assortment of weapons. In a place of honor above the fire, there hangs an unfamiliar banner: a single rose, wreathed by what could be thorns or blades; and beneath, several words in a language that you don't recognize.

For all the facility in spoken languages it grants you, the Spell of Tongues does nothing for your literacy.

You don't waste time questioning how all these things survived the passage of the years, because it's clear to your magic-sensitive sight that they DIDN'T. Many are translucent, and when you're not looking directly at them, their apparent solidity seems to drain away further, taking the color with it. Every item in this room has been touched by the power of Necromancy, and the sympathetic properties of ownership and use bind them to the master of this place in death, just as they were in life.

Gained Necrology E (Plus)

And that master stands at the hearth, staring down at the cold ashes of a flame dead for centuries.

He's of above average height by today's standards, perhaps five-nine, and has the build of one well-accustomed to hard work, and lots of it. He's also fully-armored, in a style that looks a bit like pictures you've seen of Roman legionaires, but which you can tell is more advanced in a number of regards: a helmet capable of being opened for comfort and convenience, or shut to fully conceal the face; more complete coverage for the limbs; no skirt; better protection of the joints; and just a lot of little details that look "harder to deal with" to your Gerudo-influenced eye, when compared to images of genuine Roman heavy infantry.

It make sense. You've tentatively dated the loss of this outpost back a thousand years, but Rome fell centuries before that. Armor technology should have improved in that time, giving you something between Roman standard and the more medieval, knightly forms of armor - which is more or less what you're seeing before you, in spectral hues.

The ghost doesn't seem to have noticed you.

You want this encounter to go over well, so it'd be a good idea to be on your best behavior - and part of said behavior is not entering somebody's private quarters uninvited.

As such, you raise your right hand and rap your knuckles against the door frame, twice.

Without looking up, the ghostly soldier speaks: "Yes?"

If you were to judge by sound alone, he could almost be alive. The only thing about the spirit's voice that hints at his current state is a faint echo.

Be polite, you silently tell yourself.

"Permission to enter, sir?"

"Granted," comes the reply.

You step across the threshold, and into the ghostly illusion.

The world doesn't QUITE shift around you, but now that you're inside the ghost's domain, everything seems more real than it did just a moment ago. Objects are no longer vaguely see-through when you look directly at them, and the things you can see out of the corner of your eye aren't fading out. The ghost himself looks... not alive, exactly, but more fleshed out.

"Report, soldier," the armored soul says.

Uh-oh.

Left to its own devices, a spirit which is properly dead doesn't really change. Change is closely connected to growth, and growth is a quality strongly associated with Life, not Death. The more divinatory forms of Necromancy exploit that lack of change - the Spell to Speak With the Dead, for instance, enables the caster to question a corpse about things it knew in life, and the same question posed to the same dead body will yield the same answer every time. The spirit on the other end of the connection won't get bored of saying the same thing over and over - it won't even change its words - because it's as disconnected from Time as it is from Life, and has lost the sense of urgency and ability to adapt from moment to moment that the former imposes upon the latter.

The soul is eternal, after all. It has no need to change, or rush.

On a related note, the Dead do not make for particularly interesting conversation partners.

The undead aren't quite that far gone, but they're closer to Death than they are to Life. They DID die, after all. It's a pretty significant event.

Well, for anybody who isn't Ganondorf.

As a consequence of their state, it's quite common for intelligent undead to fall into the same patterns of behavior they followed in life. This colors their interactions with the living, leading to incidents of mistaken identity such as you've just experienced.

Sometimes, going with the flow and accepting whatever form of address a ghost chooses to hang on you is the right approach. Adhering to their pattern makes them comfortable, more peaceful, and less likely to fly into an unholy rage against all things warm and breathing. But following a pattern requires KNOWING the pattern in the first place. If you start down that path, and then slip up by failing to act as the ghost expects, it's almost guaranteed to set the spirit off.

While you could play to the ghost's... particular... view of the world, you know that sooner or later, you'd slip up. And then you'd have to deal with a spirit who was, at best, confused, and more likely, angry about being lied to.

Any pretense of diplomacy would go out the window at that point. Angry ghosts are NOT interested in talking.

Although you're resolved to introduce yourself AS yourself, you are tempted to try and meet the soldier halfway, as it were, by keeping your words as close to a military form of address as you can manage. Ultimately, you decide you have to dismiss that idea. However much it might help, you don't actually KNOW any military jargon, except stuff you've heard on the television and what you recall from your inherited memories. The former mostly concerns the Twentieth Century American military, which is hundreds of years and thousands of miles away from anything this ghost knew. The latter comes from even FARTHER afield. Neither are going to be helpful in this situation, at least, not any more than simply being polite would.

Besides, if the the ghost accepts that you aren't a soldier, trying to talk like one in spite of that fact might annoy him. And that would just be unproductive.

"I'm not a solider, sir," you say. "Sorry if I gave that impression."

At last, the ghost looks up.

You were half-expecting to see disembodied glowing eyes surrounded by impenetrable darkness, but the front of the spirit's helmet is open, giving you a reasonably good look at his face. His revealed features are definitely European, and if the brown eyes and sun-bronzed cast to his skin are any indication, his ancestry most likely lay in the south of the continent. That would support the whole "not-quite-Roman" theme you've been seeing in this part of the base.

The soldier frowns. "Identify yourself, boy, and explain your presence in my command."

His right hand, you note, has automatically gone to the sword sheathed at his hip.

"Alex Harris, sir," you answer with a respectful bow. "I'm a sorcerer, currently on a quest to find a particular artifact, which reliable sources tell me is somewhere in this base."

"A sorcerer," the officer repeats. His tone of mild disbelief matches his expression. "You're not even as old as my son, and he's not yet of age to join the Legion."

"I get reactions like that a lot, sir," you admit, while trying not to react to the ghost's mention of a soon, undoubtedly long since dead. "If you'd like me to demonstrate proof of my claim, I can."

The soldier's frown returns, and as his eyes narrow, you sense a pulse of Divination-aspect magic very much akin to your own Mage Sight. You steady your mana against the probe, allowing it to take your measure, but prepared to fight it off if it pries too deep.

"...no demonstration will be necessary," the ghost says. "You do have the aura of a practitioner - a powerful one, at that. Is it that how you've come into my quarters unannounced and unescorted? Child or no, if I find you've ensorcelled my men-"

"I haven't used magic against any living man here, sir," you say carefully, and with complete honesty.

"Then how did you pass the guards? This base is warded against teleportation and illusions, even those worked by the likes of the Lords of Faerie, and you could not have made it this far without encountering multiple watches and patrols."

"I'm afraid I have to disagree with you there, sir. I've met no living soldiers since I entered this place." You take a deep breath. "And the only 'patrol' my companions and I encountered was a pair of golems, in what I believe used to be your barracks."

"...the barracks?" the ghost repeats, confusion clear on his face. "Why would... I gave no command for the sentries to be activated! And what were they doing in... only two, you said?"

"Yes, sir. In this wing of the base, at least. There are a great many more of them active in the section that lies beyond the eastern portal - but again, I've seen no human soldiers there. Also" - carefully, now, you tell yourself - "while I've only had the opportunity to look at the rooms in this part of your command, the ones I've seen have all been abandoned for a very long time."

"...abandoned...?"

"Yes, sir. Long enough for the furniture to turn to dust."

"...dust...?"

The ghost is sounding increasingly lost as he takes in more and more of your description of the ruins. He hasn't quite made the connection between that state of affairs and his OWN condition, but neither has he rejected what you've said out of hand. You suspect that if you leave him to ponder over your report, he'll slide back into believing that he's still alive, and you're an intruder - however young and polite - so you need to give him a little more of a push.

The question is, how? You could tell him about the Gohma, the various skeletons, or the Fae ghost you've encountered. You could recount the "legend" of this base, and its unfortunate downfall, as your Spell of Literary Vision divined it. You could talk about all of that, or something else entirely.

You decide to go back to the beginning. Slowly, and with as much detail as you can provide, you recount the "legend" of this base, as you learned of it through your Spell of Literary Vision. It's to your advantage that you cast that spell only yesterday, as it's relatively fresh in your memory, and thus easier to recall.

You open up with a brief description of the spell, and an inquiry of whether or not the ghost knows of the Vision spell you based it on. He latches on to the question immediately, and admits that the magic is familiar to him, though the actual casting of it is well outside the range of his own magic.

Reassured, you speak of three of the four "highlights" of the base's history: its founding as an outpost against the depredations of the Fae; its moment of greatest triumph, the downfall of the Lord of Winter; and finally, with greatest care, its downfall to infighting.

Stability returns to the soldier's face as you narrate the life of his command, and the achievements of those soldiers who came before him. Though he obviously knew all this already, hearing it spoken of with respect by someone else seems to strike a chord. Recognition of one's efforts is almost always welcome - especially for a soldier stationed in unfriendly territory, far from home - and while the events you speak of happened decades before the spirit in front of you came to this place, he was stationed at the same base, on the same mission. The triumphs of those who came before are, to some extent, his and his men's - past duties upheld and glories won, to be carried into the future with honor.

Gained King of Spirits E (Plus)
Gained Oratory F

When you come to the conflict that broke out between two of the outpost's founding nations, the soldier's expression shifts to distaste, and he breaks the silence he's maintained since you began your tale.

"Damned rebels," he growls. "Cultists and traitors, every one of them!"

...you're obviously missing a big part of the story, but rather than get off-track asking the spirit who and what he's talking about, you stick to your plan. You explain to the commander how your spell spoke of fighting breaking out within the base itself, and how one of the magicians stationed here tried to activate the golems and turn them against his nation's enemies.

"...I remember that," he says slowly, previous anger fading into that look of distant confusion. "Hermanus came to me... we spoke of the rebellion. We knew their spies had learned about this place, and that we were understrength - too many men recalled to aid in the war. He wanted permission to add an emergency protocol to the sentries, in case the rebels struck at us. I told him no - said he was a warmage, not an artificer - and I couldn't believe they'd be stupid enough to risk our front line against the cursed Fae, let alone when there was already a war on."

"And then they came," you say.

"...and then they came," the ghost repeats. His right hand finally comes away from his sword, drifting towards his chest-

-his suddenly bloody chest, where a phantasmal crossbow bolt has just wavered into view, piercing armor and flesh alike directly over the heart.

The room around you wavers, color and solidity fading into a translucent grey haze.

The soldier looks down at the mortal wound, his expression lost. "I... died...?"

"You were not the only one, sir," you say quietly. "The magician - Hermanus, was it? - got to whatever controls the golems, and altered it so they could attack humans. And then they turned on him, and everyone else still in the base. There were survivors, but they were pushed out, and fled back to Earth. No one from either side ever returned."

"Haaa..." The soldier lets out a long, pained sigh, slumping where he stands. "So. We failed, then. I... failed. My duty, my command... my men... my family... all lost."

The ghost no longer looks remotely alive, having faded out in the same manner as his quarters.

He looks up from his death-wound. "How long has it been, boy?"

"My best guess is a thousand years, sir. And in that time," you add, before he can sink into despair or explode in fury, "other things have found their way into your command."

The ghost's expression turns intent. "What 'things'?"

You quickly describe your encounter with the Gohma, and how you know - from the same spell that told you the tale of his base - that something else of a potentially-similar nature is lurking somewhere within the ruins. You also describe your various run-ins with the undead, from the brief encounters with the skeletons that were undoubtedly members of the captain's command, to your exorcism of the Fae ghost. You even mention the Fae gold you found.

He takes it all in, and as he does so, substance begins to return to the shade. The rest of the room remains fogged with phantoms, but as you watch, they begin to swirl about the ghost - whose necromantic signature, you notice with some concern, is starting to grow stronger. And darker. And SCARIER.

"I won't have it," he growls. "Demons running amuck in my base? My men turned to mindless things and left to suffer for all time, because of the actions of TRAITORS? The last legacy of the Legion, stained by treason and murder and FAILURE!? By God, I. WILL. NOT. HAVE. IT!"

The soldier now stands in the eye of a spectral storm, a tiny hurricane of roiling wrath.

The good news is, the spirit's fury doesn't appear to be focused on YOU. Fingers crossed, knock on wood, prayer to Din that it stays that way?

"BOY!" the ghost thunders.

Damn it, Din.

"Yes, sir!" you reply at once.

"My command WILL be cleared of the infestation that plagues it! My men WILL be put to rest! You say you are a sorcerer? Then I have need of your skills! Will you aid me?"

You can't help it; you snap to attention, or at least the closest to it that you know how to manage.

"Yes, sir!" you reply.

"Excellent!" the ghost booms. Then he surges forward and past you, energized ectoplasm trailing in his wake like some hybrid of cloak and thundercloud, on a course for the eastern wall.

That's the one with the bulk of the weapons hanging on it.

The ghost reaches for a particular sword, longer in the grip and the blade than the one he's been wearing at his side. Energy crackles around his hand as his fingers close on the hilt, and then the weapon - not just a phantasmal recollection, you see, but the actual sword itself - is lifted off the wall.

And when it slides from its sheathe a moment later, you get a good sense of the magic imbued into the blade. It's not an especially powerful sword: your own Blessed Blade is at LEAST its match; Lu-sensei's Jade Dragon eclipses it completely; and even the cursed but not actually enchanted weapon you studied at the Hakuba Shrine a little while back could probably compete with it in some regards. That said, the sword's energies are bound to the ghost's aura in a way most magic swords wouldn't be. There's more than mere possession at work there - that's a BOND, spiritual as well as magical.

Your intense study of the unexpected phenomenon is interrupted by the sound of hurried chanting and the feel of a building spiritual force - both of which are located behind you.

...

Ah, yes. Briar and the Hakubas probably WOULD have gotten worried by the sudden upswing in necromantic power, to say nothing of all the shouting in a language they don't understand. You'd better do something about that, before there are any accidents.

"Excuse me, sir! While you complete your preparations, I would like to request a moment to consult with my companions."

"Granted," the soldier replies, as he returns his second sword to its sheathe.

"Thank you, sir." You sketch a quick bow and then withdraw from the room.

"Alex!" Briar hisses, as you cross the ancient office space. The Hakubas look up, but do not halt their prayers over the sacred arrow. "What's going on in there? One minute, the ghost's aura was normal, and the next, it felt like he got almost as strong as the one from the prison block! What the hell did you SAY to tick him off that much!?"

"It's not like that!" you defend yourself. "He's not angry at ME, he's just ticked about realizing that he's been dead for a thousand years, and that his command got wiped out and then taken over by giant spiders! And he asked for my help in cleaning out the place!"

Briar's tiny eyes blink. "...what, really?"

"Yes!"

"Well, damn. That's actually really impressive. You're two for two dealing with ghosts so far."

"Thanks."

"Just to be clear," Ichirou says, breaking off his part of the prayer-chant, while his father keeps going. "The ghost is NOT hostile toward us? We are, in fact, going to be helping him settle the matters that have trapped his soul here?"

"Yes," you say emphatically.

Father and son trade glances, and then nod.

"Alright then."

And with that, Ichirou tucks the arrow away. Its spiritual presence begins to settle and diminish back to normal.

That's one potential problem tabled, at least for now. You turn to the other.

"What?" Briar asks. "Have I got something in my hair?"

You quickly cast the Spell of Familiar Pocket, turning one of the pockets in the light jacket you're wearing into a safe haven for your smallest friend.

"Briar," you say, "would you mind hiding in my pocket for a while?"

The fairy looks at you, glances in the direction of the haunted chamber, and turns back.

"Do you think he could actually see me?"

"He's got at least some magical talent, and he's a ghost besides," you reply. "Plus he was the guy in charge of this whole base-"

"-which was built specifically to defend against attacks by the Fae," Briar concludes with a nod. "Yeah, good point."

"So you don't mind?"

"Oh, I mind, but it's still a good idea." And with that, she zips into your pocket and disappears. A moment later, Briar's distinctive glow reappears, accompanied by giggling. "It's like a nylon and polyester tent in here!"

...that would make sense, you suppose. At least, you're pretty sure that IS what your jacket is made of.

Briar retreats into the pocket-space without another word, taking her aura with her. It's good timing, because you can sense the captain's ghost moving closer. He enters through the doorway, pausing to look over your two companions. This gives you time enough to see that, in addition to picking up the sword, he's also armed himself with a large shield - not so massive as those you've seen depictions of Roman legionaires use, but still big enough for a grown man to shelter behind, if he positioned it and himself correctly. A large piece of cloth has been tightly rolled up and strapped across his back.

The spirit has also closed up his helmet, and while the coverage it offers is still some way from being as complete as the sort of helms worn by knights, it does bring him much closer to the "glowing eyes surrounded by darkness" visage you were expecting before. Those eyes narrow slightly now, as he takes in your group.

"I don't recall ever seeing a priest who carried a bow before," the ghost says, his attention focused on Ichirou. "Nor do I recognize their features."

"Their homeland is in the Far East, sir."

"The East? Are they from China, then?"

"Further, sir. A place beyond the sea beyond China, known today as Japan. You might recognize its older name: Nippon?"

The ghost considers it, then shakes his head. "I do not recognize it, but that matters not. I can feel the strength these two carry; it will be of use, if they have agreed to aid us."

"They have, sir. I should point out that they do not speak your language, but I am able to cast a spell to allow communication..."

"By all means."

Without delay, you cast the Spell of Tongues over Ginta and Ichirou.

"With that done," the captain says, "let us waste no more time! We march!"

You and the Hakubas scramble out of the way as the ghost storms across the chamber, and then hurry to keep up.

"Out of curiosity, Alexander," Ginta murmurs, "did this gentleman ASK for your help, or just... assume it?"

"I had the impression it was a bit of both," you admit wryly. "Plus I kind of got swept up in the moment. You may have noticed, he's rather... impressive, like this."

"I had noticed that, yes."

Ignoring the empty quarters to both sides, the captain advances down the hall at a fast walk.

"Where are we headed, if I may ask?" Ginta says, raising his voice as he calls out to the spirit.

"The young sorcerer has informed me of the state of the base," the captain answers. "I mean to see it cleansed of this demonic infestation, and the souls of my men put to rest, as soon as possible. The quickest way I can see of accomplishing both ends will be to secure the war room. From there, I can regain control over the golems, and issue a general order to any man whose spirit yet lingers to assemble for battle. I suspect that will also bring the invaders out of hiding - and if not, we will have the manpower to sweep the entire base to find them."

"A bold plan," the priest murmurs.

"Where is this war room?" Ichirou asks.

"It lies in the inner part of the complex," the ghost says, as your group reaches the central chamber. "We can reach it from here by taking the... north... door."

The captain trails off, staring at the massive pit that takes up much of the northern side of the room.

"That would be the result of excavation by the spiders I mentioned, sir," you say then.

"...I see. You DID mention 'tunnels,' but I thought... how BIG are these things, exactly?"

"The usual one is about the size of a grown man, but they can get quite a bit bigger. The leader of the swarm was just small enough to pull itself through that hole, with some scraping."

The ghost blinks at you in astonishment. "You FOUGHT something that size? Just the three of you?"

"The Gohma's dead," you say. "It's not really important anymore. Let's focus on the matter at hand, shall we?"

The captain blinks, then nods. "True enough." He turns and points to the archway on the other side of the spiders' tunnel. "We need to pass through that door - either that, or exit this part of the base and hope the passages in the other parts of the complex that lead north are still clear and accessible. And... I'm not certain I CAN leave," he adds doubtfully.

"You do not appear to be specifically anchored to the site of your... passing," Ginta says, "so you should be able to venture outside. Unless the wards on the portal would interfere...?"

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

The captain nods. "They aren't specifically warded against HUMAN spirits, but there are entities among the Fae that are either bodiless by their nature, or capable of becoming so for a time. Defenses against such intruders were considered necessary."

"The Spell of Levitation is simple enough," you say then. "I'll just need a minute or two to modify it to get us all across at once - speaking of which, do you want me to cast it on you as well, sir?"

The ghost considers that, then turns and walks to the edge of the pit. He hesitates on the edge of the hole for a long moment, before taking a step forward.

And then he takes another.

"This is damned odd," the spirit mutters as he stands there, nothing below his feet but thirty feet of empty air.

As the captain comes to terms with one aspect of his undead state, you focus on your spellwork. You don't need the spell to last very long, so you trim the duration and use the mana that frees up to increase the number of targets you can affect with a single casting. Since levitation is of an entirely vertical nature, you also add an element of forward thrust, sacrificing some of the spell's effective range to get the energy you need.

Two minutes of chanting later, you gesture for the Hakubas to take your hands. They do so, and you complete the ritual, causing your party to rise a few inches off the floor.

"Don't let go until we're across," you advise them, before willing the magic to carry you forward.

It does, and it's at the pace of a walk that the three of you sail across the chasm.

"I would like to second the commander's opinion," Ichirou notes, staring at the darkness below. "This is VERY strange."

"Stop looking down, boy," Ginta mutters, eyes fixed firmly ahead.

"Believe me, Father, I would very much like to."

Despite the two priests' uneasiness with the whole affair, you make it across without incident, touching down on the narrow shelf of jagged stone that still extends past the doorway. One by one, your group pass inside; you've just left the circular chamber behind when you feel your spell lapse.

Made it with time to spare. Not that you're going to say how MUCH time...

The captain is already on the move again, and is halfway down the long hallway you've entered. As you move to follow, you spare an instant to look around. This passage is about fifty feet long, and twenty wide - more of a room than a hallway, really. The wall to your left is pierced by four separate doors, spaced ten feet apart. Three are open, their doors long since rotted away, but one is sealed with stone. The wall to your right, meanwhile... is actually not a wall at all, just a row of columns, spaced to mirror the doors as they hold up the arched ceiling. The room beyond is as long as the hall and at least twice as wide, with several long stone tables running the length of the chamber.

"The mess hall?" Ichirou guesses.

"And the kitchens, beyond that," the captain replies. "Stores across the way - water, perishable goods, preserves, the icebox."

That's probably what lies behind the sealed door, then.

You keep after the captain, trying to find an opportunity to speak with him - you have questions that you'd really like to ask, about him, this place, the people who built it, and the ones they built it to fight.

When you do broach the topic, however, his only reply is, "Does any of it matter, lad? I am dead, my men are dead, and our nation, I suspect, is dead as well. Unless the name 'Memoria' is known to you?"

His question does not sound at all hopeful. Not despairing, mind, just... factual. Accepting.

You have to admit, the name is not familiar, but you get the impression that simply saying so will confirm the captain's beliefs, and have him refusing any further inquiries on this subject.

Can you think of something to say that might encourage him to speak?

"I'm not familiar with that name, sir," you admit, "but sorcerer or not, I'm only eight years old. I don't know much about history and geography, and I was born to a non-magical family besides, in a culture where the existence of magic is hidden from the general population. Most people don't believe it exists, and consider stories about it to be ignorance and superstition at most."

The captain regards you with frank astonishment. "How did THAT state of affairs come about?"

"I don't know. Like I said, I'm eight; from my point of view, it's ALWAYS been that way. And that's part of the reason why I want to know more about you and your people, sir," you add. "Because what little I do know about history doesn't include any mention of a time or a place or a people that had magic so ingrained into the culture, so ACCEPTED, as it appears to have been here. And that's... that's WRONG, sir."

The ghost says nothing, but is paying close attention to you now. So are the priests.

You take a breath, casting about for the correct words.

"My country, and the culture we share with many other countries in the modern world, places a high value on education," you say. "There are thousands, probably millions of people around the world who spend their entire lives researching, learning, and teaching others in turn - and we can AFFORD this, as a culture. We VALUE this. We value it so much that we dig up bits of bone, cracked pottery, pieces of armor and weapons, and the odd bit of writing, and we try to put it all together to find out how our ancestors lived. Where they resided, how they made their living, what they believed in, what they died for. Because we want to KNOW. We want to remember their triumphs and their tragedies, to learn the lessons they learned and to recognize the mistakes that they made, so we don't repeat them. We want to know what stories they told, who their leaders and heroes and legends were - because even if most of us don't believe in magic anymore, those old stories can still entertain and inspire us."

"And so you want to learn about us," the captain concludes.

You nod. "I do. I look at you, and your appearance suggests you came from somewhere in Europe, while your uniform indicates Roman contacts and influence. Ichirou tells me that the architecture here has Roman elements. We remember Rome, sir. We STUDY Rome. We have classes and books and... and PLAYS about Rome," you say, substituting the word 'plays' for 'TV shows and movies.' They're basically an evolution of that sort of performance art, right? "And none of those that I'm familiar with mention magic. Not on the scale it would have taken to build this place, and prosecute a war against the Fae. This place, your people... you don't FIT what I've been taught about the past, sir, and I want to understand why that is."

For a long moment, the captain remains silent.

Then, slowly, he begins to speak.

Memoria was originally founded by a Roman Legion that was lost in the forests of Gaul - Western Europe, as it was two thousand years ago, or so Ichirou quietly informs you. The reason for this was not the fault of geography, or the barbarian peoples of the region, but of the Fair Folk, who - whether by negligent chance or cruel intention - spirited the entire Legion away one night, carrying them across space and time and through the strange domain of Faerie itself before returning them to the mortal plane.

But the world they found themselves in was not the one they remembered, though it took some years before they could confirm the truth. It was yet the world of Gaul and Rome and the other lands and peoples the lost Legion had known, but centuries had passed since their abduction, centuries in which Rome had grown mighty beyond all reckoning, and then corrupt almost beyond recognition. Its Legions were numerous and well-armed, but their discipline had decayed to an extent that shocked and appalled the timelost veterans; in place of citizen-soldiers, foreign mercenaries were often the order of the day, their first loyalty to themselves and their coin rather than to the country they claimed to serve. The roads, so essential to war and trade, were ill-maintained - where they were maintained at all - and Rome herself, the ancient city, was a cesspool of politicking, greed, and debauchery. Old beliefs warred with new, the gods of the Republic and then the Empire contesting with new arrivals for faith and followers, among a citizenry more interested in displays of temporal power and personal pleasure than true piety.

In the face of such a confusing, confounding mess, even the legendary discipline of a true Roman Legion would have foundered eventually. But these soldiers were different. Of the six or seven thousand true legionaires, auxilliaries, and camp followers who had originally been abducted by the Fae, perhaps five thousand or so still lived - the others had succumbed to Faerie, its games and tests, its wonders and horrors. Those survivors, however, were only the solid core of what became Memoria, the heart of a host nearly fifteen thousand strong that escaped from Faerie. Some were humans who had become lost in Faerie like the Legion, with no party clearly responsible and convenient to blame; others were changelings, stolen from their mothers and nursemaids as children; many more were naturally born to the survivors in their period of exile, touched by the essence of Faerie but still distinctly mortal; and here and there amongst the ranks, quietly overlooked, were lesser fey beings who'd thrown their lot in with the mortals, rather than remain under the boot of this or that cruel overlord.

And with those beings, and that long exposure to the essence of Faerie, there came magic.

"It was that which saved my ancestors from being destroyed or assimilated by Rome before it fell," the captain claims. "They had been forced to learn something of magic in their exile, to control it rather than allow it to control them or their children, and they'd also learned much about the Fae, and other supernatural beings. With that knowledge came understanding. Not all magic was evil, or even perilous - and some of what was, offered rewards worth the risks. Likewise, not all those of inhuman blood were wicked, though some were surely more inclined to such than others. Still, with time, many we'd once seen as enemies became allies of convenience, and then truer. And in the end, even those we'd once called monsters became citizens." He pauses, and then smirks. "I suppose it didn't hurt that Rome and her heirs always had a soft spot for the Children of Lupa."

Lupa. That's a wolf, right? So, Roman werewolves were a thing?

You can see it. Certainly, you have no trouble picturing certain other monsters of your acquaintance enjoying the sort of shows that were once put on in the Colosseum, or perhaps even marching to battle with one of the Legions.

Gained Knowledge (Ancient Earth History) F

You've been following the captain as he speaks, his pace slower than the ground-eating march of before. Still, in the ten minutes or so since he started talking, you've left behind the kitchen area, and crossed through a maze-like section of what looked like two score or more small rooms, ten feet to a side and with doors in anywhere from one to all four walls. You would have spent several minutes and a spell or two just working out the correct path to follow, but the captain took that part of the complex without slowing down, always turning left, except at every third junction, when he would go right instead.

At the end of this little labyrinth, you find yourself standing atop a low dais at one end of another large room, thirty feet across and a hundred long, with ceilings twenty feet high or more. There is a matching dais at the far end of the chamber, and hanging on the wall above it, somehow intact after a thousand years of neglect, is a larger version of the rose-and-blades banner you saw in the captain's quarters. There does not appear to be a door atop or near the other dais, but the long walls are lined with half a dozen portals each.

And those doorways, you note with some dismay, are guarded. Each has its own pair of golems standing watch, and as your party enters, a rasping slither goes up as twenty-four stone heads turn in your direction.

Based on your prior experience with these stone sentries, you figure you have eight or nine seconds before the nearest of them reach the dais.