Xander Quest Chapter 281: This All Feels Fairy Familiar 7, a private fanfic

Mana surges around you as words tumble from your lips, defining the parameters of a spell.

The golems turn, and begin advancing. While some remain adjacent to the walls, others spread out to fill the hall; all, however, make ready their spears.

The captain barks a command, ordering the magical guardians to halt - and some of them do.

But not all. Not even half, in fact, and some of those that have paused are visibly shaking where they stand, as if in conflict with themselves. The remaining golems continue their advance undeterred, the nearest of them having reached the short, curving stairs that line the sides of the dais.

That's fine, though.

You've completed your spell.

Gained Mana Control B (Plus)

The floor at the foot of the dais suddenly drops away as the Spell to Create Pits takes effect. Normally, this magic only creates a single hole some ten feet across, but you've greatly enhanced it, expanding the area of effect eight times over. A cubical chasm, thirty feet to a side, now occupies the nearest stretch of the stone floor. With their footing abruptly yanked out from underneath them, a full third of the golems go tumbling into the hole, bouncing off the sloping walls and each other with a sound like a miniature avalanche, until they smash into the bottom.

One of the stone soldiers that made it to the dais is caught in mid-stride by the manifestation of your spell, its leading foot on the stable stair before it, while the other leg hangs over empty air that WAS a floor just a second ago. It stands there for a moment, the butt of its spear slamming down to provide additional anchorage as it struggles not to fall.

*THUNK*

And then Ichirou shoots it in the head.

As you saw yesterday, even with the enhancements you've placed upon Ichirou and his weapon, the level of damage dealt by a single arrow is far from enough to disable these golems. But the impact is more than enough to knock this one off-balance, and though it struggles not to pitch over backwards, its poor positioning does it no favors. Ichirou's second arrow is really just a formality.

The captain, meanwhile, is staring at the pit. Though his face is mostly concealed by his helmet, as his head turns to you, his posture radiates the same sense of bewilderment you've been getting used to seeing from adults of late.

"How did you warp the floors, lad?" he asks. "They're supposed to be protected against such elemental manipulations."

Okay, maybe it's not EXACTLY the same.

"I didn't actually do anything to the floor, sir," you explain. "I altered the space above it."

"Oh, a spatial effect?" the ghost says, with a note of dawning realization. "Never mind, then. How long will it last?"

"Ten minutes or so."

The captain nods. "Plenty of time to deal with the remainder, then."

Speaking of which...

A quick head-count tells you that you managed to catch ten of the golems with your trap. That's including the one Ichirou knocked in, and a couple from the far side that were advancing too quickly to stop when they saw their allies ahead of them falling away. A couple of the golems that obeyed the captain's command to halt were among that number, and of the rest of those, all the ones that appeared to be in conflict with the order have stopped shaking, and are now forming ranks with the "hostile" golems.

A default response to your "attack" on them, perhaps?

In any case, you still have to deal with eight unfriendly stone warriors, which are organizing themselves into a loose rank on the other side of the pit. The last six golems are the ones which obeyed the captain's order without hesitation, and now stand at attention wherever they were when he told them to stop.

You ask the captain where you need to go from here, and he points towards one of the farthest doors on the right-hand side of the chamber, telling you that the second door from the end is the one that leads to the war room.

You briefly consider levitating your party there and sealing the way behind you, but unfortunately, your modified Spell of Levitation doesn't allow you to move fast enough to outrun the golems. Even a proper Spell of Flight wouldn't suffice, unless you invested additional energy into the elements of the spell-matrix that provided thrust.

As you ponder your options, you ask your Memorian ally if he can issue more orders to the golems.

"Not to any of the ones that refused my first command, or that have overcome it," he replies grimly. To himself and a long-absent comrade, he mutters, "Damn it, Hermanus, what did you do to these things?"

"And the other six, sir?"

"They'll listen to me now, even if I tell them to attack the others."

Well, then. The obvious thing to do in this situation is to have the "friendly" golems form up and charge down the pack of hostiles, and just bull rush them straight into the pit. Of course, if you do it that way, you stand to lose some or all of those warriors, whether to their own momentum or the crushing strength of their malfunctioning brethren - they are outnumbered, after all. And while it's certainly better to expend the non-sapient automatons than get any of your allies hurt, you have to admit that an escort of six stone-strong soldiers could be handy to have around, now that you know they'll listen to the captain.

Then there's the matter of what to do about the golems in the pit - if indeed, you should do anything more at all. They're not going anywhere for a while, but if you end up having to double-back this way, you'd have to face them then. Perhaps it would be just as well to get rid of them now, when you have the high ground and they have no way of fighting back?

You decide that the best way to deal with your remaining opposition is to knock them all into the pit. And since you'd like to keep the "loyal" golems around - for various reasons - you'll have to handle the knocking-over bit yourself.

That's just fine by you. You know of a spell that's purpose-made for pushing your enemies around. You cast the Spell of the Forceful Hand, sacrificing some of its effective range for greater flexibility in its range of behavior. Normally, the giant conjured hand of force can only appear between you and a designated enemy and then push them away; you need it to appear BEHIND those golems, and move them forward. Small details, true, but important ones.

The modifications are simple enough, and take only seconds for you to calculate and fit into the spell's formula. You work your magic, targeting an area a few feet behind the stone warriors, which have formed up in two lines of four on the far side of the pit. They somehow fail to notice the massive Hand that materializes at their backs, ten feet long from its heel to fingertips, even as it...

...flexes it fingers? And makes a fist?

...the hell? You didn't order it to do that.

Odd behavioral quirks aside, the Hand does what you wanted. Turning sideways, the disembodied organ brings its lower edge to lie almost flat against the floor and then moves forward with some speed, catching fully half of the lined-up golems where they stand and sweeping them off their feet. Taken completely by surprise, the golems are shoved forward en masse, though not quite so quickly as the Hand was moving before - their not-insignificant weight has at least THAT much effect. It's nowhere near enough to save them, however, and the four soldiers fall helplessly into the pit, not even one of them managing to catch itself on the fingers of the Hand.

Fingers which waggle down at them, almost playfully, before the hovering Hand turns to the four remaining soldiers, which have whirled to confront the new threat, spears leading.

Your Hand recoils as the golems' weapons thrust up at it, evading the blows, and then drops low and lashes out with a swift slap that catches one of the golems nearest to it. That soldier goes flying past its neighbor in a wide arc that carries it almost a third of the way across the chasm, before gravity takes over and pulls it down.

The three remaining hostile golems ignore the loss of their ally and to strike again, this time scoring hits on the Hand, which recoils, shuddering as if it's actually feeling pain. Though it attempts to fall back, the golems advance, using their strength and the leverage of their spears to keep the Hand literally pinned, on the ground, and at a distance.

The captain shouts a command then, and the six friendly golems rumble into a charge. The three remaining hostile constructs see or hear them coming, but when two of them yank their spears out of your Hand and turn to face the incoming threat, the third finds that it alone doesn't have the strength to contest with your projection; the Hand seizes the shaft of the spear that it is yet impaled upon, and wrenches about, dragging the golem across the floor and out into empty air above the pit. It hangs there for a moment, dangling from the end of its spear and refusing to let go.

And then the Hand comes down against the floor, striking with such force that the stone spear snaps in two.

The golem falls.

A moment later, it's followed by its allies, as they go tumbling over the edge of the pit. The captain's "squad" have fulfilled their orders, and they didn't even lose any of their own in the process.

This leaves you with six useful golems, a thirty-foot cube of a pit with eighteen decidedly unfriendly examples of the same craftsmanship - most of them now damaged to some degree by their respective falls - and one quirkly-behaving gigantic force-hand.

It occurs to you that with the modifications you made to its programming, you could use the Hand to carry your entire party across the chasm. You'll have to move quickly if you want to do this, though; it only has about forty seconds of "life" left in it.

With a thought, you summon the Hand to the top of the dais. It comes without hesitation, flying across the pit and landing directly ahead of you, palm up and with the tips of its fingers on the edge of the platform. You put your trust in the force-construct and climb aboard.

Lo and behold, it doesn't flip over, close its fingers around you, or otherwise misbehave.

"You're joking, right?" Ichirou says.

"I don't see any reason to waste time and mana getting across the pit, when we have a perfectly viable method of transport on Hand," you reply.

There is a pause, and then Ichirou groans. "That is a terrible pun, and you should feel terrible about making it."

"But you agree that it was a pun," you point out.

Ichirou blinks, sighs, and shakes his head as he climbs aboard the Hand, muttering something about "unexpected hazards of translation magic."

Gained Comedy E (Plus)

The captain and Ginta join you aboard the makeshift floating platform without comment, and as soon as everyone is on, you will the Hand to carry you to the far side of the chasm. It complies without delay or issue, and while things are a little crowded and awkward, it takes less than ten seconds for you to cross the pit and begin filing off your unconventional conveyance.

You're the last one off, and as your feet hit the stone, you turn to face your creation, your right hand raised in a fist.

The Hand makes the same shape, and bumps knuckles with you.

Well, ONE knuckle.

Seriously, its fingers are almost as big as your body.

Then it drifts back from you, waving goodbye as the power giving it form and animation is exhausted, and its body fades away.

The captain orders his new minions to form up, and with three golems on your left and three on your right, your party proceeds to the second door from the end on the right-hand side of the hall.

"Nearly there," the ghost observes. "The war room is just down this corridor and through a series of guard posts."

"Are there any traps or other defenses we should be worried about?" you ask, glancing down the passage. It's about ten feet wide and as many high, and goes on straight for some distance - there's a Wall of Force just five feet back from the door, and this one is opaque, offering no hint as to what lies beyond. "Aside from the possibility of more stone soldiers, I mean."

"There are three more of these force-walls between us and the war-room," the captain confirms. "They're part of the emergency system, and would have activated when the base went on alert and the sentries were turned on. I have the key and passwords required to deactivate them, though." He gives a small pendant hanging over his breastplate a quick, meaningful pat.

Incidentally, the size and shape of that medallion would be a perfect fit for the warding array you found in the armory.

"The security plans called for there to be advanced sentries stationed between each of the walls," the ghost continues. "That model is quite a bit bigger and stronger than these ones - make it nine feet tall, five across the shoulders, and about three feet thick at its widest point."

It sounds like he's describing Armos, or something roughly equivalent to them. You have to admit, you don't particularly want to try fighting something like that in the enclosed space of the tunnel.

"You can turn those off, right? Or order them to obey you?"

"Hopefully, yes. On the other hand..."

The captain trails off and glances meaningfully at the pit at the front of the room, full of malfunctioning automatons.

"Do you know if they're resistant to magic?"

"I don't believe so," the captain answers. "On the other hand, they're over a thousand pounds of solid stone. They're going to be resilient regardless."

You nod at that. "Would they happen to have any weak points?"

The Memorian ghost gives you a peculiar look. "Why would they?"

...right. Most people build their magical security systems to be SECURE, not as life-threatening but inherently beatable tests of character.

Okay, then. Obviously, you're going to let the captain bring down the forcefield and try to command the first of these plus-sized automatons to let your group pass. If that works, repeat.

You have a plan. It's a bit awkward, but after discussing it with the adults, they agree that it should be workable.

The captain orders his squad of automatons to take up guard positions around the door you're about to enter, and to stop anything which tries to enter apart from your group. Then you cast a modified Spell of the Resilient Sphere - so modified, in fact, that you can't really call it a "sphere," nor even a true hemisphere. It's more of a quarter-oval by the time you're done with it, with enough interior volume to accomodate your party, but not so much exterior volume that it will take up the entire corridor. To make it work, you'll have to stick to one side of the ten-foot-wide corridor, keeping the forcefield between you and the golems, almost flush with the wall, floor, and ceiling.

As an added precaution, you imbue the spell with more of the formula that represents a traditional Wall of Force, trying to give it the same resistance to being dispelled. You think you manage it, but you won't know for certain unless or until something tries to undo your barrier.

Preparations made as well as they can be, you shift the... Half-Oval of Force... to one side, giving the captain room enough to deal with the force-wall blocking your passage. Fortunately, there's no hidden switch to throw or button to press to deactivate the barrier; all the Memorian soldier needs to do is press his medallion up to the field for a count of five, while speaking the correct password.

In this instance, the password is: "In the name of the Legion, open this door."

The medallion glows.

The wall hums.

And then the way is clear.

Except for the nine-foot-tall stone warrior standing not ten feet away, a massive shield on its left arm and a huge spear clenched in its right fist. The giant automaton's joints and seams produce a rasping rumble louder than your entire squad of escorts when they were on the move, and one of its heavy booted feet comes down with a dull *boom* as it shifts its position, shield coming up and spearpoint lowering to an aggressive position.

The captain barks an order for the guardian to halt.

And wonder of wonders, it does - but you can see the same shaking in its form that so many of the lesser constructs displayed, before they interpreted an attack upon their allies to be an attack upon themselves.

"Well, that's disappointing," the captain admits grimly.

"On the bright side," Ichirou says with false cheer, "it's not as large as the spider was."

"Can we get past it like this?" Ginta asks.

You peer down the hall, and shake your head. "Not enough space between it and the wall. Captain, do you think it will obey an order to step aside?"

"Let's find out," the ghost replies, before issuing that very command.

The golem seems almost reluctant to comply, but slowly, ponderously, it turns in place and puts its back to the passage's left-hand wall, incidentally presenting its spear-bearing arm to you in the process - an arm bigger than your entire body, which continues to tremble as the automaton struggles with its malfunctions.

The next minute or so is VERY tense. In these confined quarters, the stone giant's ongoing shaking is like a constant rockslide, to say nothing of the promise of impending, barely-restrained violence. It's safe to say that there is NOTHING casual about how you and your companions walk past - you seriously doubt that any of you would be willing to attempt this, if you didn't have a next-best-thing-to-indestructible forcefield between you and the rogue construct. Even now, you find yourself wondering how long the altered Force-Sphere will hold up if the golem decides to attack...

For all the strain it causes your nerves, you reach the next barrier without the golem deciding to destroy all humans. The captain repeats the "unlocking" procedure, ordering the second force-field to dispel, "In the name of the Emperor."

Once again, a massive golem is revealed about ten feet down the passage, snapping into an aggressive stance as soon as it perceives your presence.

Once again, the captain orders it to stand down.

And one again, you see the golem obey - barely.

Before the captain can order the second golem to stand aside, there is a sudden rush of displaced air and a powerful impact against your protective bubble. Looking back over your shoulder, you see that the first golem has decided to ignore the captain's orders, and lashed out with its oversized shield, trying to crush Ginta and Ichirou.

The good news is, your barrier doesn't seem to have been damaged by that blow - thank Din for magical barriers that are harder than all but the hardest metals!

The bad news is, you're not entirely sure if the now-aggressive golem hit you as hard as it could. Its current position doesn't really give it the space it needs to take a proper swing at you, but if you move farther down the corridor, you'll put the rogue magical machine BEHIND you. At that point, it'll be able to turn and hit the back of your barrier as hard as it likes - and moreover, you won't be able to retreat past it, at least not without abandoning the protection of your force-bubble.

There's also the golem right ahead of you to think about. You can't bypass it at the moment, either, and if it decides to turn on you... well, the saying "between a rock and a hard place" comes to mind.

Not having the space to wield its spear, the golem's right fist lashes out in an awkward punch. If anything, this does even less damage to your defenses than the first blow, backed by the weight of the massive shield.

Omake: Red Card

You begin by putting forth your plan to the adults. While they don't seem to like it, they do go along with it. Quickly, you cast the spell to shrink the party, followed by a protective force sphere.

As you begin moving towards the golem, the captain barks out an order for it to stand down. It freezes up, and begins shaking. You feel like a rockslide is going on near you. You pass by it, and soon another golem is in view.

Then the shaking from the first golem stops. The next thing you know you and the rest of the party are pressed against the back of the force sphere, and rocketing towards the next force wall. The sphere bounces off the wall, and directly into the back of the head of the second golem.

While this leaves you and your party in a heap awkward enough you refuse to talk about (no matter what Briar threatens you with), you get to see the first golem retracting its leg from a kick.

Did he really just use you as a kickball? An idea that you'll blame on a concussion hits you.

"Foul! The ball must not hit another golem in the head! That's an ejection!" you cry.

The captain and Ginta facepalm, while Ichirou just groans and looks green. Fortunately, the hit golem seems to know the rules of kickball and moves to the offender.

Then an angry Briar, aura red instead of the usual pink, comes out of your pocket. "What in Farore's name was that?"

Omake End

An idea occurs.

"Captain!" you say, as the golem strikes your protective barrier for a third time. "Can you use that medallion to reactivate the Walls?"

"I can, yes. However..." He looks at you and the priests, and then at the space within your walled-off safe zone. There really isn't a lot of room in here, and you're aware that touching a ghost can be very hazardous for the living - the captain seems to know that as well, if his reluctance to simply float past or even THROUGH the rest of you is any indication.

Fortunately, your idea can handle that. "I have that covered. Just a second!"

Taking a moment to focus, you shut out the ongoing hammering from the golem - which has yet to reduce the integrity of your Resilient Shape, though it IS managing to rock the barrier to some extent - and begin casting the Spell to Create Pits. Once again, the spell you end up casting is so heavily modified from its original version that many practitioners wouldn't even recognize it. You've changed the parameters of the spell so that the spatial warping effect targets the wall behind your party, and propagates down the corridor ahead of you. "Depth" instead becomes "length," and suddenly, the ten-foot-wide corridor is half again as broad as it was.

There's a drawback to this. Previously, you were using the right-hand wall of the corridor as a makeshift support for your protective shield. Now that said wall is five feet away from where it was a moment ago, the only thing holding that partial dome of force in place is you, and when the golem's next attack lands, you feel the full force of it. You're not harmed - the hostile construct would have had to penetrate the Not-A-Sphere for that to happen - but your very bones seem to resonate with the bell-like ringing of the blow, a sensation that makes your entire body ache. And while your barrier is no weaker than before, it IS less well-anchored.

In short, you're pushed back.

It's only a matter of inches - distance you quickly "reclaim" by willing your defense back to its previous position, before your assailant can capitalize on the added space - but you're rather more concerned that you were moved at ALL, to say nothing of how you FELT that blow.

A question crosses your mind: Is this why most variations on the Wall of Force are immobile?

Shaking that off for now, you glance at the captain. "If you'd be so kind as to order the second golem not to attack us, sir?"

The ghost nods, and issues that order.

In response, the golem ahead of you stops trembling and goes perfectly still.

THAT command certainly appears to have been well-received. Lucky you.

Leaving the golem where it stands, the captain moves to the newly-expanded "corner" of the small chamber, and repeats the process of deactivating the Wall of Force.

"In the name of Memoria, open this door!"

Once again, you're treated to a view of an all-too-small room, occupied by an entirely-too-large warrior-automaton. The good news is, the third golem doesn't appear to have reacted to one side of its room being spatially warped. The even better news is that, though it slides into an actively defensive stance just like the first two did upon seeing you, when the captain orders it to stand down, it does so without even a hint of resistance. And better yet, the second golem remains passive.

That just leaves Mister Pushy, whose efforts at breaching your modified and mobilized Resilient Sphere have accomplished little, save to give you a small but growing everything-ache. Your head in particular is starting to register the strain of keeping the force-bubble in place, with only the strength of your will.

Gained Mental Control D (Plus)

Good thing the rest of your plan accounts for that. Having opened the way, the captain makes good use of the extra space you added to the corridor, slipping past you, Ichirou, and Ginta with room to spare. The elder priest moves forward in turn, effectively trading positions with the ghost. Once they're in place, you allow yourself to be "driven back" by the golem's blows, moving farther down the hall until the giant is behind you.

As expected, it turns about, trying to reposition itself so that it has enough space behind it to bring its full strength and mass to bear.

Before it can strike, the captain holds up the medallion, and snaps, "In the name of the Emperor, seal this door!"

And suddenly there's a wall in front of him.

An instant later, you hear something collide with that wall.

With the aggressive automaton dealt with - at least for the moment - the Memorian specter returns to the head of the party, and moves down the tunnel to the last of the Walls of Force.

"In the name of the Gods, open this door!"

It opens.

And you immediately sense a necromantic aura as strong as the captain's own.

Based on what the captain told you before, you're pretty sure that this is the lingering spirit of the wizard who tried to reprogram the sentry golems, and was promptly killed by them. Hermanus, wasn't it?

For a moment, you consider asking the captain to close the Wall of Force, so you can discuss what to do about the ghost in the next room. Then it occurs to you that if you can sense the undead wizard, he can almost certainly sense you, in which case being seen issuing instructions to the captain is unlikely to go over well. You're not a general with the authority to command the highest-ranking officer on this base, nor are you some nobleman or career politician who might think himself important enough to get away with doing so. What you are is a powerful magic-user, one whose features and attire - if your ghostly companion's appearance is any indication - aren't typical of the people of Memoria, and that's not even getting into the matter of your age or your two Oriental companions.

In short, you're suspicious. And acting suspicious would only make the wizard's spirit more likely to react poorly.

Perhaps it's just as well that the captain takes the entire matter out of your hands, by storming into the war-room and loosing a thunderous bellow: "LEGION MAGUS HERMANUS CATO ANTONINUS! PRESENT YOURSELF IMMEDIATELY!"

For a moment, there's no reply.

And then, faintly, you hear a whisper. "...Marcus...?"

"ON THE DOUBLE, SOLDIER!"

The necromantic aura in the room shifts abruptly.

Peering cautiously through the doorway, you're able to see a fair-sized portion of the room. It's thirty feet to a side, and the center is given over to a large square table, most of ten across and shaped from the same black stone as the walls of the chamber. Actually, given that it rises directly out of the floor and has perfectly straight and smooth sides, it's probably better described as an island than a table. Given your current angle and the fact that the block of stone is almost as tall as you are, you can't get a very good look at the top of it - you can see some small objects that appear to be made of stone, metal, and crystal, and there's a distinct aura of Divination coming from them... and maybe the top of the table itself? You'll need a better look to be sure.

To each side of the stone island-table - the three sides you can see, at least - are benches of the same material, cushioned by fabrics of the same spectral nature as the items you saw in the captain's- make that in Captain Marcus's quarters. At the north and south ends of the room, tall shelves stand just behind the benches, holding an assortment of books, scrolls, and curious trinkets within easy reach of whomever might be sitting at the table. The east and west walls have no shelves between them and the benches, perhaps because these are where the doors that provide access to the chamber are located; you're currently standing in the western entryway, directly across from the eastern door, which is set in the middle of that wall.

You have some trouble tearing your eyes away from that wall, because it is positively COVERED in magical diagrams. Some were carved or shaped into the stone, while others appear to have been raised out of it, and yet more are described by lines and curves and separate pieces of metal and crystal. A few parts of the massive array look like they were simply drawn on, using various colors of chalk, ink, or paint. And then there are the portions that are just so much magical energy, here dancing between segments of metal like lightning trapped in Jacob's ladder, and elsewhere floating freely before the wall, with no clear connection to the rest of the work.

There is so much on display there, you hardly know where to look - and in any case, the aura of the undead Memorian wizard has your attention at the moment.

Said specter has materialized at the near left corner of the table, taking the form of a man of middling height and below-average build - fit, but not so clearly a warrior as the captain. His attire is a strange mix of scholar's robes and soldier's armor, offering some protection for the vitals while minimizing weight, but it's clear that the sorcerous characters worked into the remembered armor - their strong aura of Abjuration now tainted with distinctive hues of Necromancy - were and remain the real source of the spellcaster's defense. The ghost's features are nearly as twisted as the Fae prisoner's were, making his precise ancestry difficult to guess at, but after you account for the pallor of the grave, Hermanus's hair and skin are several shades lighter than Captain Marcus's, suggesting his forebears had more northerly origins.

His eyes, though... they are little more than empty sockets, housing tiny motes of blue, green, and white witchfire. And they are fixed firmly on the captain, the memory of pallid flesh around them slack with astonishment.

"Marcus," the ghostly wizard repeats in a raspy whisper.

The captain's back is to you, but you have no trouble seeing his shoulders tense.

You STRONGLY suspect that he's about to unleash the kind of dressing-down that would make a drill sergeant shed a tear of joy. Although it's probably deserved, you have to wonder if that's the most productive use of your time - and for that matter, if the spectral magus is in any state to properly appreciate why he's being bellowed at.

You decide not to interrupt - and a moment later, you find yourself wondering if you COULD have, even if you'd wanted to.

"SHUT YOUR MOUTH AND STAND AT ATTENTION, SOLDIER!" Captain Marcus roars.

The ghostly wizard recoils, looking a bit like a ragged sail caught in a strong wind.

"YOU WILL *NOT* SPEAK UNLESS ORDERED TO!" Marcus thunders on. "AND WHEN YOU *ARE* SO ORDERED, YOU WILL *NOT* USE SUCH A FAMILIAR FORM OF ADDRESS WITH ME! YOU *WILL* ADDRESS ME AS 'SIR' OR 'CAPTAIN,' OR BY PLUTO AND ORCUS, I WILL PIN YOUR SPECTRAL CARCASS TO THE NEAREST *WALL* WITH MY *SWORD* AND TAKE TEN LASHES OUT OF YOUR INCOMPETENT *HIDE!* FRONT OR BACK, I DO NOT CARE! I AM *BEYOND* CARING!"

"S-sir!" the now ramrod-straight magus's spirit replies. "Understood, sir!"

Quick as a wink, Captain Marcus's right fist lashes out, catching Magus Hermanus clean across the jaw.

The fact that they are both insubstantial undead, floating in mid-air, does exactly nothing to prevent the magician's ghost from hitting the floor like a sack of potatoes.

Maybe it's BECAUSE they're both incorporeal?

"I SAID YOU WERE NOT TO SPEAK UNLESS ORDERED TO! DID I STUTTER?!"

Hermanus... says nothing.

The captain nods, and in a slightly less overpowering tone, says, "Good. You haven't COMPLETELY forgotten discipline, then. ON YOUR FEET, SOLDIER!"

The wizard shoots upright so fast, you swear you can hear his insubstantial teeth clack.

"Now, MAGUS, I would very much like to hear an explanation for WHAT IN THE NAMES OF ALL THE GODS YOU *THOUGHT* YOU WERE DOING, when you decided to meddle with the security arrays!"

"Sir! The rebels had entered the base in force! Lieutenant Gaius estimated two full century's worth of troops, against our short century - and one in six of our men were out on patrol, and had likely been taken out by the enemy in their approach. Their infiltrators were doing damage, we'd lost half of the officers..." The ghost wavers, and not just in his manner and speech - a ripple literally passes through his body. "They killed you, Marcus. They shot you in your quarters, and I found you, and I COULD NOT LET THEM GET AWAY WITH THAT!"

The spectral sorcerer's witchfire eyes blaze brightly, coronas of similar energy surging around his clenched, fleshless fists.

"THEN WHY IN THE UNDERWORLD DID YOU NOT HUNT THEIR TREACHEROUS ASSES DOWN AND *SET THEM ON FIRE?!*" the captain shouts back. "FOR TRIVIA'S SAKE! YOU'RE A WARMAGE, NOT AN ARTIFICER! YOUR *ONE AND ONLY* DUTY WAS TO SEEK OUT THE ENEMIES OF THE LEGION, *AND LEAVE NO SURVIVORS!* WHAT WERE YOU *THINKING,* WASTING TIME SCREWING AROUND WITH THE ARRAYS WHEN THE BASE WAS UNDER *SIEGE?!*"

Hermanus doesn't respond.

At least until Captain Marcus decks him again, at which point he goes down with a rattle of phantom bones and a great deal of non-magical cursing.

"AND I TOLD YOU NOT TO BE SO FAMILIAR WITH ME, YOU IDIOT!"

Hermanus surges up from the floor, looking more than a little pissed off this time. "STOP CALLING ME AN IDIOT, YOU UNGRATEFUL BASTARD! I WAS TRYING TO AVENGE YOU, AND THIS IS THE THANKS I GET?!"

"NO ONE *ASKED* YOU TO AVENGE ME!" Marcus shouts in the other ghost's face. "AND WHO ARE YOU CALLING A BASTARD, BASTARD?!"

"I'm sensing a distinct breakdown in military discipline," Ginta notes wryly.

"Kind of getting that impression, myself," you admit.

Lack of proper discipline and decorum or no, you don't feel like bringing yourself to the attention of a pair of ticked-off ghosts while they're arguing with one another. Rather the opposite, really.

In fact, given that they ARE both fairly strong undead, and magic-users besides, you feel it might be wise to reposition your Resilient... Thingy... so that it's between you and them, just in case spellfire or worse things start to fly. One of the nice things about constructs of elemental Force is that their nigh-impenetrability extends into the layer of reality where unquiet spirits reside; a ghost can no more walk or shoot through a Wall of Force than you could.

That said, your decision leads to a quick refresher course in one of the ANNOYING things about Force effects - namely, that once they've been conjured in a particular shape, they're kind of inflexible. And by "inflexible," you mean "completely impossible to alter, short of outright destruction."

Given that your barrier is around nine feet high and twenty-five feet long, maneuvering it around in a crowded, narrow passage proves... unworkable. You end up having to step out into the war-room, willing the plane of force to rotate on one axis until it's more or less level with the floor and ceiling, and then carefully swing it around, over the heads of the two quarreling spirits, before you flip it back to its original vertical orientation.

Fortunately - or perhaps not - Marcus and Hermanus fail to notice the Force-plane sweeping past above them; they're too busy shouting insults.

"INCONSIDERATE WRETCH!"

"ARROGANT SNOB!"

"HEARTLESS JACKASS!"

"SHORT-SIGHTED MORON!"

"Volume aside," Ichirou notes in an aside to his father, "this sounds familiar, doesn't it?"

Ginta gives his son a sour look.

"A THOUSAND YEARS LATER," Hermanus booms, "AND I *STILL* DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY I DIDN'T SET YOU ON FIRE THE FIRST TIME YOU CAME SNIFFING AROUND AFTER MY SISTER, YOU COCKY LITTLE SHIT!"

"BECAUSE YOU WEREN'T NEARLY AS GOOD AT MAGIC AS YOU *THOUGHT* YOU WERE BACK THEN!" the captain retorts. "AND APPARENTLY, YOU WERE JUST AS INCOMPETENT *THEN* AS YOU WERE THE DAY WE *DIED!*"

Ouch. THOSE are definitely fighting words - and indeed, Hermanus's hands have lit up with spectral flame once more, brighter and more menacing than the last time.

"Say that again, Marcus," he growls, in a low tone that conspires to be more frightening than his previous thundrous tone. "I dare you."

Okay, this is getting out of hand. If those two actually start fighting each other, the war-room is going to get trashed.

Right, enough is enough.

"Gentlemen," you call out, going for as polite an interruption as you can.

Hermanus's burning eyes flicker in what you take to be a blink, and cut in your direction for a moment.

"Who" - he pauses, eyes glowing brighter as a probing field of magic extends towards you, and then adds - "and quite possibly, WHAT, are you?"

"HE is the one who gave me the proverbial smack upside the head I've need for the last ten centuries or so," Captain Marcus answers.

"So, an intruder," the ghostly magus concludes.

"One who's done more good for this base in the last DAY than we managed in OUR last day."

"Gentlemen," you try again, in a firmer tone.

"Or so he CLAIMS," Hermanus retorts, while mostly ignoring you. "He's clearly gifted, Marcus, and powerfully so. Are you sure he hasn't enspelled you?"

"Quite," the captain answers in a tight voice, "and I will thank you NOT to imply that I've forgotten or abandoned my loyalties."

"If you can cast aspersions on MY abilities, I see no reason why I cannot entertain honest doubts about YOUR judgment."

Marcus starts to raise his sword. "Why you little-"

Screw it. If you can't win with manners, go for volume.

"HEY!" you holler. "DEAD GUYS!"

The two ghosts stop and turn to stare at you.

"Do those still work?" you inquire, gesturing around at the arrays on the walls. "Because if they do, I don't think they'll react well to a pair of powerful, heavily-armed ghosts trying to KILL each other in the same room!"

Despite the state of Hermanus's face, you have no trouble making out the wince your words prompt. It helps that he immediately extinguishes his blazing hands, and tucks them behind his robed back. Though his features are obscured by his helm, the captain's reaction is similar, in that he quickly lowers his blade and tries to look... well, not innocent, but less guilty.

You give the chastened Memorian spirits a moment, and take that time to wonder why it is that YOU feel like the adult in this situation. For Din's sake, you're eight years old! And not only are they both grown men, they're a thousand years dead on top of it!

...

...granted, if you counted all of Ganondorf's various incarnations towards your own "age," then you've probably still got a few centuries on the two of them... if not MORE...

You quickly abandon that line of thought.

"Now... Magus. You're not wrong to say that my companions and I are intruders. We came here uninvited by any of the occupants of this complex, with the intention of taking something from this facility. That having been said," you continue, cutting him off before he can do more than don an expression of justification, "we had good reason to think this place was abandoned. My own magic confirmed that your people abandoned it after the automatons went rogue, and that this happened a thousand years ago. And when we encountered the Captain and learned that some of the original residents BESIDES the mindless killing machines" - the other undead fit that title at least as well as the rampant constructs do - "were still here, we agreed to help him try to set the place to rights. As much as it can be, at least."

"I am still the ranking officer on-site, Hermanus," Captain Marcus puts in. "I have the right to grant limited access to our facilities to outsiders, and to form alliances, if I deem them to be in the interests of the Legion and the Empire. And even if both of those are dead and dust, WE are still here, as are our brothers in arms. All of us, trapped by the weight of betrayal, and our failed duty. I would see that put to rights, and this is the first opportunity we've have in ten centuries to do so - at least, the first either of us are AWARE of. Will we throw it aside, and wait another ten centuries or even longer, perhaps losing ourselves again as we endure, or going completely mad? Or perhaps we should look to the Fae for assistance?"

"If you think THAT'S an option," the magus says, "you've already gone mad."

There is no real bite to his words, at least not when compared to the contest of insults the two ghosts had going on before.

"Very well, then," Hermanus says, turning from his peer to you and the Hakubas. "As your assistance has been requested by the Legion commander, and your presence thereby vouchsafed, I withdraw my earlier... implication."

Progress at last-

"I do have one question, however."

-or not. "And that is?"

"You say you came here to take something from the facility," the magus notes. "What exactly are you looking for?"

"We came here to find a magic mirror," you say. "I've seen a few things since then that I wouldn't mind taking as well... as long as that's alright by you."

Hermanus frowns. "Leaving that aside for the moment... I am not aware of any enchanted mirrors having been in our possession."

You nod. "That's because it was brought here relatively recently, by one of the things that decided to move into your base."

"What 'things'?" Hermanus demands, his expression and tone almost perfect mirrors for the ones Marcus used when he asked that very same question not too long ago.

Shaking off the sense of deja vu, you recount your battle with the Gohma swarm. You get about a quarter of the way into it when Hermanus whirls around to face the stone table, one spectral hand snaking out to touch the surface. The aura of Divination magic emanating from the island grows stronger and clearer, and it also begins to emit light of a more mundane nature.

The wizard hisses a curse.

"Report," Marcus says, as he, too, turns to see whatever is on the top of the desk.

As you move closer to try and get a look for yourself, Hermanus says, "I'm detecting signs of long-term demonic contamination in both arboretums, the mine, and the aquifer. The last two read as positively INFESTED."

Coming up on the captain's right, you crane your neck slightly.

The top of the table is a layer of some form of clear crystal, which is currently lit up by a simple architectural map. You have no trouble at all recognizing the part of the base you've recently ventured through, and a quick estimate shows that area accounts for about a third of the entire complex. The large circular room where you fought the Gohma is marked in red, right over the position of the pit that leads into their tunneled-out and now-abandoned lair, and there's another room of similar size in what you're going to call the "eastern" wing, seeing as how that's the direction it lies on the map. It's also accessible through the eastern member of the ring of trilith-portals, though you could just take the eastern exit from the war-room to get there.

The only other area marked in red is located to the west, back through the hall where you left the golems, and about a third of the way through a fair-sized complex. Beyond that point, the well-defined straight lines and right angles that make up most of the walls and passages are gradually replaced by distinctly irregular shapes, suggesting natural caves that were in the process of being straightened out. The mine, obviously. And THAT entire section is solid red.

Are you looking at more Gohma? Or are there other Hyrulean beasties down there?

"I'm not detecting any magic items," Hermanus adds. "At least, none that shouldn't be there." He pauses, and you can hear the frown in his voice as he adds, "Actually, we're missing a number of things that WERE in the armories and long-term storage."

"With any luck, they left in the hands of some of our men who made it out," Marcus notes.

"That's the kind of luck we weren't having that day, Marcus."

"Mmmm." The captain is quiet for a moment. "Did you ever find out where and how the rebels were getting in, Hermanus?"

"The initial group of infiltrators included a saboteur," the wizard replies. "While his cohorts were murdering you and our other officers, he came here, and shut down the identity wards on the portals. The enemy troops just marched on in." He sighs. "We might have been able to hold them, even then, but by the time I got here and killed the little traitor who let them in, I saw that the rebels were ALSO attacking us through the mines. I think they must have come in here, somewhere."

A bony, vaporous finger points at part of the mostly-natural cave system, where a single body of blue contests with the otherwise solid red stain - the aquifer, you'd venture. It takes you a moment to notice that - except for a series of painfully straight lines that only just show up on whatever scale the map is set to represent - the water-rich part of the caves is actually entirely separate from the rest of the underground compound. At least, it LOOKS that way.

"They could have smuggled men, tools, and supplies in through the portal," the wizard says. "Once they were in, they'd have fresh water, cover against the Fae, and long stretches of time to work undisturbed."

"And the security wards didn't notice?" Captain Marcus inquires.

"Our illustrious forebears were more concerned about detecting Fae intruders than mortal ones," Hermanus replies grimly. "The most powerful parts of the security system are reserved for finding fairy creatures and their usual allies, as well as signs of their magic. What was left to track humans was much more conventional. A simple Spell of Nondetection would have sufficed to hold it off, if the caster knew what he was up against - which is one reason why we still had regular security patrols of the entire base."

Marcus sighs. "And if the rebels co-opted the patrols for the aquifer, that defense went out the window."

The wizard nods. "Add in a man with the skills and rank to work in this room, and see the spell arrays... they could have set it all up with less than ten men, if they were skilled, and patient."

The two ghosts fall silent, radiating an aura of frustrated depression.

You give them a moment, while considering your next move.

You spend a few minutes asking questions of Hermanus, and hearing out his replies.

On the matter of the caves, and what lurks in them, the wizard informs you that the level of demonic contamination is too high and too widespread for the passive Divination wards to pick out anything in the way of individual details. He explains that, since neither the Fey nor the Memorians were ever allied with demonic forces - in truth, both sides were unrelentingly hostile towards demons, and this was one of the few things the displaced Legion ever agreed with their enemies about - the base's founders didn't put a great deal of effort into laying down spells capable of piercing demonic interference.

Hermanus adds that he COULD use the active Divination elements of the security network to probe different parts of the caves, but running a complete sweep of that section of the base would take quite a while, and the active scans would risk tipping the demons off that someone was watching them.

Do you want to risk using the active scans?

As for the malfunctioning golems, you start by asking the wizard if he can repair them.

Hermanus replies that, unfortunately, he can't. He had to physically alter - read, destroy - certain parts of the central control array to remove the automatons' restriction against attacking humans, and between the stress he was under at the time, the shock of being killed immediately thereafter, and a thousand years of undeath on top of that, he no longer remembers what the array looked like. Using magic to repair the damage isn't possible, either, at least not for him; his talents and training leaned more towards the ancient art of breaking stuff than to mystical repairwork, and what ability he has in that field simply isn't enough to compete with the skills of the wizards who originally laid down the array.

Hermanus also admits that he's extremely reluctant to mess around with the control system any further. While you find that frustrating, you have to admit that it's understandable - after all, altering the arrays is what killed the warmage. Small wonder he'd be uneasy with the prospect of doing it again.

But you still might be able to do something. That is, if you're fine with casting the Greater Spell to Make Whole on an ancient magical device whose design is beyond your own grasp of artifice. It might be better to leave the system as-is, since even in its current state, Hermanus claims he should be able to deactivate the golems without issue - something that might change if you start throwing magic at the array without fully understanding its design and workings.

You decide not to risk betraying your presence to whatever lurks in the mines, at least not until after you're done dealing with the matter of the out-of-control automatons.

On that subject...

You inquire of the ghostly wizard if he knows any Spells of Divination, even those normally intended for battlefield intelligence work, that might be adapted to look into the past and see what the arrays looked like when they were intact.

"Spell design was not a major part of my training OR something I found particularly interesting, young sorcerer," Hermanus replies, shaking his head. "Even if it had been, none of the Divination magic I know is anywhere near powerful enough to reach a thousand years into the past - not with the kind of detail you're suggesting."

You nod, once again a bit disappointed, but not truly surprised by the Memorian wizard's answer, and take a minute to mentally review your own Divination spells. The school IS one of your major magical specialties, after all, and the Spells of Legend Lore, Vision, and Literary Vision stand as testament to your ability to plumb the distant past for information... though at the same time, the limits of those spells also convey the difficulty inherent in the task.

In the end, you have to concede failure. No spell in your repertoire, whether in its basic form or after being modified to the limits of your skills, will give you the level of clarity you require over the enormous gulf of time involved. A thousand years is simply too far back for such specific and detailed information to be plucked from the ether. The fall of the Memorian outpost as a whole was an event of sufficient significance to still be noticeable ten centuries later - the enduring presence of the base itself and the tormented souls within would have helped it along greatly in that regard - but any single moment DURING that fall?

The only thing you could see leaving persistent echoes after all these years would be a duel between enemy champions, or some other similarly-epic event. The state of a single object? A magic item that has existed and been constantly operating in its current, damaged state for three, perhaps four times as long as it EXISTED before the base fell? No.

Thwarted there, you fall back on a more conventional application of your divinatory skills - namely, scanning the arrays with every magical method at your command.

Passive Mage Sense and Mage Sight don't show you anything you didn't already know. Their active versions are not really any more informative - you DO see and sense more, but you can't really understand it. The complexity of the arrays, the level of skill and power that went into their making, and the damage Hermanus inflicted on them so long ago, weave a tapestry that is simply beyond your understanding when glimpsed through these skills. Even Hermanus's counsel on the subject fails to make up the gap in your education - he didn't exactly have the best understanding of the arrays himself, as the circumstances of his demise showed.

You're about to break out your Power when you recall what Hermanus said about the possibility of further damaging the arrays by throwing magic at them. Low-end Divination effects like your enhanced senses were one thing; even in their active state, such manifestations of magic are by nature the least likely to do harm, even to the most sensitive of objects and entities.

Your Power, on the other hand, is more potent. That's part of its strength, but in this particular situation, it's also a potential weakness.

Omake Nayru's Revenge: A Dish Best Served Five Years Cold

You weren't surprised that your divinations made it abundantly clear, you needed to become a master in the next Grail War to prevent disaster. You were a bit surprised that the Golden Goddesses wanted you to summon a catalyst from Hyrule. When the Master Sword comes from your summoning, you understand. Link has killed how many powerful evil creatures before? Armos knights, Ghoma, Morpha, King Dodongo, Volvagia, the Moblin King, Twinrova, Darknuts, Zant, Agahinm, the dark version of himself, Gannondorf. Maybe it's best if you didn't dig into your memories to answer that question. The point is you agree with the Godesses, Link would do extremely well as a Servant in the Grail War.

You set up a circle of conjured silver, and one of pure mana around the Master Sword. You invoke the names of the Golden Goddesses and get to chanting. Their voices are extremely lovely singing like always, but you think you catch a hint of laughter mixed in. You look up, ready to see a swordsman in green. Instead, you see a 5 foot 6 fairy, with her wings unfolded, and an annoyed look on her face. Did you really just summon Navi? You're not sure which of Briar or her mom is going to kill you first.

You decide you should start explaining things to Navi, before she finishes examining herself, and the new bright seal on her hand. As soon as the "Hey, listen" is out of your mouth, you hear Nayru laughing in the background, and you know you are doomed.

Omake End

You decide not to risk further damage to the arrays. It'd be grossly inconvenient if you managed to break the on/off switch for the automatons while they were all still running rampant, after all.

Speaking of which...

...it would probably be a good idea to let the two ghosts know about the fairy in your pocket, BEFORE you've convinced them to go ahead and deactivate a large part of their security system, let alone started seriously poking at the thing yourself. If they found out about Briar AFTER you'd managed to break something important, they might interpret your actions as deliberate sabotage, rather than an honest mistake. For that matter, they might react poorly even if you managed to FIX everything.

Ghosts are not exactly renowned for their logic and rationality, and while Captain Marcus has been pretty good at rolling with the punches so far, Magus Hermanus was rather less so.

"Captain?"

"Yes?"

"Before we proceed any further, there is something - or rather, someONE - I think I'd better tell you about."

The ghost gives you a curious look. "Go on."

"Can I safely assume that you're both aware of familiars?"

The ghosts nod. "My own was a cat," Hermanus says simply. "Insufferable thing, really."

You nod back. "Well, mine's a fairy."

There's a pause.

"You have your familiar hidden on your person right now, don't you?" Marcus guesses.

Hermanus does a double-take at that.

Once again, you nod.

"But- the wards!" the wizard protests. "How-?"

"As near as we could tell, her being linked to me was enough to let her in. Not that it was completely problem-free on her end," you add with a frown.

The spectral magus's pallid features turn thoughtful, and he begins muttering to himself. "The master-familiar bond...? Did the builders ever account for that...?"

"And you didn't mention this before, because...?" the captain trails off.

"At first, it was because all I knew about you was that this base had been built to help fight the Fae," you reply truthfully. "And after I met you, sir, I was worried that seeing Briar might have... upset you. And by the time you'd explained that your people had a positive relationship with some of the lesser Fae, well-"

"-we were dealing with all the automatons," Marcus concludes. "I see. Why bring it up now, though?"

"I thought it would be better to do so before you turned off any more of the base security, or I tried to fix it."

"...safe bet," Marcus says under his non-existent breath, while glance at his still-mumbling cohort. Then he turns back to you. "Very well, then. We might as well make it official. Bring her out, will you?"

You send a pulse of magic down your shoddy link with Briar, alerting her that her presence is requested outside of your comfortably-expanded pocket.

A moment later, light appears in your coat pocket.

"Hey, Alex," Briar says, as her head pops out. "Are weeee-YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND? WHY are you showing me to the GHOSTS?!"

While you focus on introducing Briar to the ghosts - who can see her, after a fashion, thanks to their combination of innate magical talent and the heightened awareness of spiritual and vital energies that comes with being undead - it occurs to you that there's one other fairy you might want to let the two Memorians know about.

Since you've already gone as far as introducing Briar, you see no reason not to inform the two ghosts about the Great Fairy on their proverbial doorstep.

"WHAT?!" Hermanus bursts out.

Amazingly, it only takes you about a minute to calm the startled - and dare you say, panicky? - ghost down, and a couple more after that to convince him that Navi is not his enemy. It helps that Captain Marcus, while also taken aback by your casual confession, isn't nearly so alarmed by it as his contemporary. Briar's attempt to vouch for her mother never even having HEARD of Earth until the last century or so doesn't seem to assuage the warmage's concerns, but when you and she both mention Navi's affiliation with the Hero(es) of Hyrule - and by extension, the Golden Goddesses - Hermanus looks honestly relieved.

Memoria's Fae foes were not the sort to assist mortal heroes, not without extracting due compensation for their aid - usually in a most unpleasant manner. Granted, getting the aid of a Great Fairy typically involves a degree of effort and sacrifice, but you don't recall ever hearing of any of them asking for someone's firstborn child as recompense, or anything similarly nasty.

The de facto affiliation with the Goddesses is particularly important. Fae beings on Navi's level are effectively divine themselves, but their interactions with mortals tend to retain the fickleness and unpredictability of their lesser kin. As a result, their relationships with deities who have a vested interest in humans tend to be strained, at best. That Navi's stayed in the three sisters' good books for as long as she has is a serious mark in her favor as one of the good guys.

With all of that settled, Hermanus gets on with issuing the recall and shutdown orders to the golems. Actually sending out the commands is the work of just a couple minutes, during which the wizard informs you and Marcus that, of the two hundred automatons that the base was originally supplied with, only eighty-four still read as fully functional. Another forty-one remain in operation, but have taken damage that impedes their effectiveness enough to be noticeable, while still not reaching the extent where the self-preservation protocols would have been triggered. Twenty-six of the stone soldiers have been seriously damaged, and most of those have either returned to the maintenance bays under their own power, or been carried there by other golems.

You think, briefly, of the golem you dismembered, and how it disappeared overnight.

Five of the disabled automatons are reading as immobilized: two of those are in your dimensional pit; and the remaining three are deep in the mine, each in a different location.

You make a mental note of those points on the map.

With Marcus's command authority backing him up, Hermanus manages to recall one hundred and eighteen of the surviving golems. The remaining thirty-three refuse to heed their new marching orders, no matter what the two ghosts try; most of these are from the ranks of the damaged, and so not a great concern to you, but eight of the intact constructs - two of which, Hermanus warns you, are of the extra-large variant - are among those that won't follow orders.

It's likely because of their position in the mines. Either their programming won't let them stand down in the face of a clear and present danger, or they've been compromised. Hermanus can't tell which.

Incidentally, there are TEN of those oversized stone warriors scattered about the base. Six are stationed near the war-room as security, and of those, five have heeded the shut-down command - including all three of the ones you passed to get in here. Yes, even the one that decided you needed to be squashed. That leaves one in the eastern access passage, the two in the mine, and two others, which Hermanus shows you are stationed outside the main armory.

Considering that the place reads as having been emptied of its most significant contents, you can't help but note aloud how pointless that particular deployment is.

No one disagrees with your observation.

In any event, the majority of the golems have been neutralized. It'll take about ten minutes for all of them to reach their destinations and completely shut down, at which point, you'll be free to examine the control arrays, should you so wish.

You spend a few moments in silence, observing the small points of light that represent the automatons as they move steadily across the tabletop map. That quickly grows boring, and since you don't want to poke at the control arrays until the golems that are under control have shut down, you ask Captain Marcus and Magus Hermanus if they would object to a more constructive use of your time than watching a security console.

"What did you have in mind?" the captain asks.

"I was thinking about running a scan of the mine. How long would it take to complete a full sweep?"

"In depth?" Though his face is nearly fleshless, Hermanus still manages to quirk an eyebrow at you. "I would say twenty to thirty minutes, depending on how difficult it is to overcome the interference."

A bit long, but... "What if you just checked a few random areas? Such as the location of those immobilized soldiers, or some of the ones that refused to stand down?"

"Those aren't exactly 'random,'" Ichirou points out.

"If it's just those particular locations," Hermanus says, evidently ignoring the young priest's observation, "I'd only need a minute. Two, at the outside."

"Start with those, then, and afterwards expand the scan to the rest of the mine. If that's alright with you," you add, looking between the two spirits.

Marcus turns to his contemporary. "Any concerns with that suggestion, Hermanus?"

"Only that I'll need to use active Divinations to cut through the contamination, if we want accurate readings," the warmage answers. "If there's anything in the mines that's sensitive to magical emissions, it - or they - won't fail to notice the attention."

The captain looks at you, his demeanor questioning.

"That would be a concern no matter when we investigated," you say, "and I'd prefer to have at least some idea of what was in there, rather than go in blind."

Both ghosts nod their agreement at this.

"I'll get started," Hermanus says, turning back to the controls.

"While he's doing that, sir," you add then, "do you think this would be a good time to assemble your troops?"

Marcus considers that, then glances at the glowing map and shakes his head. "Best to wait until the automatons are put away, I think. Some of the men would have died to them, or because of them - best not to risk setting them off if it can be avoided."

Hermanus starts reporting the results of the first set of scans then, as images of the three golems trapped in the mines appear on the table.

You have to bite back an exclamation of shock. Briar doesn't quite manage it.

The first two immobilized automatons are tangled up in webs, clear indication that Gohma are - or at least, WERE - occupying the mine. That's not what startled you and your fairy companion, though.

No, that honor goes to the last of the trapped golems, which is partially buried under fallen rock. There is a soot-darkened patch of particularly ragged stone on the nearest cave wall, behind and somewhat above the captured construct, proof that the collapse was far from natural. And the shape of that crater gouged into the rock, the way the stain expands about it, the dispersal pattern of the shrapnel - you're no expert on explosives, but the way the different details come together proves unsettlingly familiar.

It looks like somebody was throwing Bombs around down there.

"What vexes you about these images?" Hermanus inquires, having noted Briar's reaction.

"Offhand," Ginta muses, studying the third image closely, "I'd say it was the evidence that something down there has access to explosives."

If even ONE of the Hyrulean beasties still infesting the Memorian outpost has access to Bombs, your allies need to know what to be on the lookout for. Even the ghosts are better-off forewarned about the things.

So you tell them what you know, making it sound like you originally heard the information from one or more sources - Briar, Navi, and/or the Goddesses, for instance.

The Hakuba priests stare at you.

The GHOSTS stare at you.

"Translation spell or no, I cannot have heard that right." Ichirou pauses to rub at one ear before continuing. "Alex, did you just say that this land of Hyrule grows naturally-occuring HIGH-GRADE EXPLOSIVES?"

"I'm not entirely sure how 'natural' they are," you admit, recalling how quickly plucked Bomb Flowers can produce fresh fruit, "but they've been a major crop for centuries, at least."

"How dangerous are they?" Marcus asks.

"Unripened Bomb Fruits are pretty unstable," you say. "Breaking the stem basically lights the fuse, and a good solid impact will start the Bomb steaming even if it's still attached to the parent plant. Contact with fire will set them off instantly, and some of the flowers are even sensitive to sunlight... although I think that was limited to the ones domesticated specifically for mining." You glance at Briar.

"You'd have to ask a Goron to be sure," she replies.

You nod, and resume your explanation. "Once a Bomb is primed, you've got about five seconds to throw it away or else get yourself out of the blast radius, which is about one meter. When they do go off, anything that isn't as hard as enchanted stone, or otherwise magically protected, is in for a bad time."

There is a moment of silence as the adults take that in.

"And people FARM these?" Hermanus finally asks.

"*Gorons* farm them," you reply.

"What is a Goron?"

Besides awesome?

After your little segue, you get back to the topic at hand, explaining that ripened Bomb Fruit is considerably more stable than its unripened state - and once properly treated by Hylian alchemists, the things are safe enough to be put on display in shops, as long as nobody does something stupid like expose them to a torch. You also provide a brief account of Bomb Bags, and how Bombs stored in one of those won't go off for ANYTHING.

"Bags of holding for explosives," Ginta groans. "Well, it's not the MOST insane idea I've ever heard..."

While you've been explaining the wonders of Hyrulean agriculture, the war-room's systems have been carrying out the scan for the handful of golems that refused to obey the command to stand down. The results of that are provided with an insistent beeping, which turns out to herald more bad news.

The disobedient golems are split up into three separate groups. One consists of four of the human-sized models, while the second group includes two of that model and one of the big ones, and the third "group" is just a large golem standing by itself. Regardless of how or why they came to be where they are, all eight automatons have something in common besides their failure to follow orders.

Said 'something' is a shiny black stain that covers the constructs in uneven blotches, shot through with luminous red markings and trailing wispy tendrils. Beneath the darkness, the soldiers' stone bodies are alternately sunken and decayed, swollen and distended, or simply warped into bizarre shapes - quite frankly, it looks as if they've contracted some hideous disease.

"That cannot possibly be good," Ichirou says.

You study the images closely before speaking. "Is it just me, Briar, or do those golems look like they've run into something from the nastier parts of the Twilight?"

"It's not just you," Briar agrees grimly.

Gained Local Knowledge (Hyrule) E (Plus)

"'The Twilight'?" Ginta repeats.

"A region of the Plane of Shadow adjacent to Hyrule," you explain. "From what I understand, the inhabitants are no more inclined towards evil than humans are, but they and their home can be... creepy." You glance at the images again, and then turn to Hermanus. "Can you tell if the golems reacted to being scanned?"

The warmage consults the symbols and images displayed by the console, and then shakes his head, once. "At the very least, the ones that were moving before haven't changed their patrol route, and the ones that were immobile haven't moved. None of them are sending out any intelligible signals that I can detect, but given the contamination in those areas, I could be missing something."

Is there anything you'd like to do in reponse to this latest discovery?

"This is a Goron," you say, before casting a simple Spell of Illusion at the south side of the war-room.

The Goron that appears before you isn't Bando - who was an exceptional example of his kind - but a more generic member of the rock-eating, sumo-wrestling, Bomb Flower-cultivating race. The image is also translucent, a consequence of it having been brought into existence by magic that was effectively a Spell of Silent Image, scaled DOWN to the level of a cantrip.

Even so, the Goron's image seems to FILL that side of the chamber.

It's probably the height. Where there's a good ten feet and change between the illusion's arms and the walls, the distance between the ten-foot-high ceiling and the top of the Goron's head is one better-measured in inches.

That said, the heavy build of the Goron race certainly gives even a false image of one a sense of solidity.

"Big brute," Marcus notes, looking your image over. "Those darker patches on its body - some kind of camouflage? Or natural armor?"

"Both, actually," you reply, issuing a mental command to your illusion. The Goron-image obediently curls up, going from tall, powerfully-built humanoid to 'large boulder'. "Gorons have the strength and toughness of mountain stone brought to life. They're not especially quick on foot, so when they need to get somewhere in a hurry, they tuck themselves into a ball and start rolling. They can keep up with cavalry like that, on open terrain, and if they run into obstacles... well, the obstacles probably aren't going to be there afterwards."

You take the time to explain some of the less-obvious details about Goron physiology: their mineral-based diet; their resistance to heat, which is so great as to let them tolerate contact with molten rock; their cultural emphasis on not only strength, but also loyalty; and their great skill as miners and craftsmen.

"Although," you add, "given the size of their makers, some Goron products are just too big for other races to really make use of."

"That's an understatement," Briar chuckles. "The stories Mom has about the Big Goron's Knife..."

All in all, the combination of physical traits and cultural quirks readily explain both how and why the Gorons would - and COULD - domesticate a flower that produces stone-shattering explosives.

By the time you're done talking about Bomb Flowers 101, How Awesome the Gorons Are, and What the Twilight Realm Is, the majority of the recalled automatons have reached their destinations, sent out a final signal of compliance with the orders Marcus and Hermanus gave them, and then shut down.

You take a minute to conjure a set of prayer sticks for the Auguries you plan to perform. The last time you did this, you created the sticks unmarked, and then put in the time and effort to inscribe prayers onto them, using a mix of Hyrulean traditions and English language which worked out pretty well. This time around, you try to bring the sticks into existence pre-carved.

Gained Knowledge (Magesmithing) D

It works. Your creations are still far from the sort of high-quality craftsmanship that would be found at a major temple, but your work is at least as good as last time. Still not permanent, though - the sticks are stable enough to be used as a focus for a few spells, but they'll fade away after a while.

Next, you conjure the incense. You wouldn't bother for a single Augury, but since you're planning on performing more than one of the ritual prayer-spells, it's no more expensive this way in terms of mana - and may even work out to be cheaper, depending on how many Auguries you cast in the next little while.

"You're CONJURING materials?" Hermanus says disbelievingly. "As... as offerings for a GOD?"

"Goddesses," you correct. "But yes."

The undead wizard stares at you, and then turns to the two priests. "Is he ALLOWED to do that?"

Ginta and Ichirou trade glances.

"Well..."

You invoke the Spell of Augury then, asking the Golden Goddesses if casting a Spell of Divination to analyze the ancient spell-array would damage it.

After a moment, you feel an upwelling of positivity, and hear the word, "Safe," whispered back.

Well, that's good to know.

If the Goddesses say that it's safe for you to use normal spellcraft to study the Memorian magical array, then that's what you'll do.

The Spell to Analyze Dweomers would be ideal in this situation. Unfortunately, you don't have the gold-and-ruby lens that spell requires as a focus, and you can't currently whip one up with your magic - at least, not one that meets the necessary standard of quality. You have to look THROUGH the lens to make that spell work properly, and getting all those mineral bonds and little crystalline facets lined up properly so you can see ANYTHING beyond a dark red blur?

There's delicate work, there's finicky work, and then there's THAT.

The Greater Spell of Arcane Sight isn't quite as ideal for your purposes, but it's a good fallback. It will, at the very least, identify any active spells or effects on the wall, as well as allowing you to ATTEMPT to identify the specific properties of the array. And it's every bit as powerful as Analyze Dweomer, just a bit less optimized for the task at hand.

Heck, you can even cast it ritually.

Gained Divination B (Plus) (Plus)

As your spell takes hold, the wall LIGHTS UP - if only to your eyes.

You spend the next few minutes intently studying the array and the energies that flow through it, and finally reach a conclusion: you're outclassed.

Whoever built this array, their proficiency at magic in general and artifice in particular are simply beyond your own. Looking at their work gives you the same kind of feeling you had while studying the wardstones Ambrose created, a tangled jumble of "what the-/how the-/are you KIDDING me?" Only moreso, because Ambrose flat-out SAID he wasn't giving you his best work, just something he threw together that could get the job done. The wardstones were comparatively simple in design and purpose, and thus, understanding the how and the what and the why was within your reach. Maybe you had to stretch out your mental fingers a little to really grasp what you were seeing then, but you did it.

This wall? Is BULLSHIT.

And coming from you, that says something.

It's not that you don't learn anything-

Gained Arcanology C (Plus) (Plus)

-it's just that what you DO learn is far enough above what you previously knew that you can't make the connection between the two sets of information. Individual portions of the array are comprehensible, to a point, but when you start trying to look at them as a unified whole, all you get for your troubles is a headache. Maybe it would go better if the thing wasn't damaged - and then again, maybe it wouldn't - but in the end, the point remains:

You don't understand how this wall works.

You have a pretty good idea of what the answer will be, but just to be sure, you get your rune-sticks in a row and cast the Spell of Augury again, and ask the Goddesses if trying to magically restore the control arrays is a good idea.

The response is a sudden sense of loss, and a flat, "No."

And that answers that.

You regard the wall, frustrated by its ability to hold its secrets.

"I don't suppose the wards in here would allow the summoning and binding of celestials?" you venture aloud.

"Summoning magic is impeded within the base, save for the teleportation arrays," Hermanus replies. "And in any event, some planes that can be reached from the mortal plane are inaccessible from Faerie."

Oh, right. That IS a thing, isn't it?

"May I ask what you were planning?" he asks then.

"I was just thinking about trying to call up an expert to tell us what was wrong with the arrays, and how to fix them," you admit. "Scratch that idea, I guess... unless you have a summoning chamber?"

The ghost wizard shakes his head. "And the wards on the portals would dispel summonings and bindings," he adds.

Yeah, you'd already figured as much.

You ask Captain Marcus and Magus Hermanus if they'd mind you casting a Spell of Divination that would let them see the workings of the array, to see if they can fill in any of the technical holes in your knowledge.

"You're welcome to try," the spectral spellcaster answers, "but I doubt I'll be able to glean anything you haven't already discovered for yourself."

"No sense wasting your magic on me," Marcus adds. "If Hermanus can't aid you in this, I certainly won't be able to."

You take the captain's comments into consideration and cast the spell just once, sacrificing the duration of your second casting Greater Spell of Arcane Sight in order to anchor it to another being. Eyes glowing in a completely different manner, Hermanus looks around the room, blinking rapidly as he gets accustomed to the effect. Then he turns to the array and examines it.

"...I'm getting a headache just looking at this mess," he replies after a moment, sounding bewildered. "HOW am I getting a headache? I'm DEAD."

"I suspect that the answer is 'magic,'" Ginta notes.

Marcus snickers at that, while Hermanus groans. "A priest with a sense of humor. Lovely." Shaking his head, the Memorian magus turns away from the control array as your magic fades out. "My apologies, young sorcerer, but it's as I suspected. My knowledge of Artifice simply isn't up to the task."

It was worth a try. Taking a page of the stationery that you have tucked into your pocket - and noting in passing that the supply of such is starting to run a bit low - you start sketching out a copy of the array. There's a chance you can find someone back on Earth who can help you figure out how to fix the thing, and failing that, you can get back to it in the future, when your knowledge has improved.

Gained Drawing F (Plus) (Plus)

An idle thought of asking the ghosts to experiment with the reliability of the golems is quashed. You have at least one thing to do that requires the golems to be shut down; waking any of them up at this point would be counter-productive. Instead, you inquire if the base had an artificer who would have left notes about the array.

Marcus shakes his head. "Most of the details regarding the inner workings of the base's magical systems were state secrets. The base artificer did have a copy, but it was attuned to him: no one else could read it; and it would self-destruct in the event of his untimely demise. If the rebel assassins were targeting our command staff, he would have been on their list."

"They actually missed Gaius," Hermanus interjects, as he oversees the ongoing scan of the mine. "At least in the first... outbreak of knives. He was trying to reach the command center to assist me, but they tracked him down. I heard him invoke the destruct command before... well. Before."

There is a brief, uncomfortable silence.

Speaking of 'before,' Captain Marcus wanted to assemble his troops - or their ghosts - as soon as possible. With the malfunctioning golems having largely been packed away and shut down, the odds of the restless spirits of the Memorian dead being sent into a frenzy by the sight of their killers are about as low as they're going to get. Similarly, nothing in the mines has yet detected the Divinations Hermanus is running - or, if anything HAS noticed the scans, it has yet to come charging out of the caves in search of the cause - but the longer you wait, the more likely it is that something WILL be tipped off.

All in all, this is as good a time for the good captain to summon his men as you're going to get.

Before he does that, however, one question needs answering:

"Will you be present for the assembly?" Marcus inquires.

...well? It's only going to be a hall full of a couple hundred restless undead.

Did Captain Marcus not already explain to Hermanus that you were an ally? Did he not, in fact, request your aid in cleansing his command of intruders and putting his men to rest? Did you not agree to those terms, and have you not been carrying them out?

"We'll be there, sir," you tell the captain. "Front and center."

He laughs. "Good!" Marcus turns to his compatriot. "Hermanus, give me base-wide."

The wizard does something to the console, and nods wordlessly to his commander. The captain's posture shifts slightly, going from a state of military readiness to something more formal. You can sense his spiritual energy beginning to build, and to spread out.

"Attention all members of the Legion," Marcus declaims, seemingly to empty air. "This is Captain Marcus Valerius Faustus. A disaster and a disgrace has befallen this command. The disaster is TREACHERY. The disgrace is FAILURE. And I find this state of affairs UNACCEPTABLE. I therefore order all sons and daughters of Memoria, all those and loyal and true to our cause who can yet hear my voice, to assemble in the western command hall within fifteen minutes." Unexpectedly, his eyes flash, as he adds, "And to all OTHERS who hear my words, you traitors and invaders and wretched scum, I give fair warning. Flee these walls, or make peace with your gods. For we remember. And we are coming."

Marcus brings one hand across his neck in a slashing motion, and Hermanus taps the command console.

"Right, then," the captain says, turning to you once more. "Follow me, gentlemen."

The ghostly officer leads you back down the access tunnel, which has not only returned to its original size, but is now devoid of the large golems that were previously blocking the way. You spare a moment to wonder where they went, but your attention is called back to Captain Marcus, who has removed the large rolled-up bundle he's been carrying on his back ever since he left his quarters. Marching into the hall - which, like the passage, has returned to its normal dimensions and been vacated by the constructs - Marcus unfurls the bundle, revealing that rose-and-blades banner.

You can read the words "Legio V Memoria" above the emblem, and below it... actually, you can't quite make out the words there. An oath, a title? Even if it wasn't in Latin, it's too faded to read.

With some ghostly flight and a simple sticking spell, you have no trouble hanging the Legion banner in its place above the dais that stands at the opposite end of the room from where you originally entered. That done, Marcus directs you and the Hakubas to places on the elevated stage, the priests on the right, you on the left with Hermanus - not QUITE "front and center," that place of honor going to the captain, but your presence will be perfectly clear to any and all who enter the chamber.

And enter they do.

Alone, in pairs, and in groups of five or more, the lingering spirits of the long-dead legionaires make their way into the hall. Some are manifest spirits, like the captain and the warmage; others start out as the skeletal undead you faced before, but their physical remains are gradually surrounded by spectral flesh and uniforms, until they can only be distinguished from their fellows by the shadows of their walking bones.

Two ghosts become five, then ten, then twenty, and then more. Soon enough, you find yourself looking out over some fifty-three souls, six lines abreast and twelve ranks deep, with gaps in the formation that would account for another twenty men at most.

One of the ghosts in the front rank bellows a command, and as one, the ghosts stand at attention, regarding their captain.

Marcus... hesitates. His attention has wandered to the empty spots in the ranks, and you can hear him muttering softly, "So few..."

"Captain," you murmur quietly, just loud enough for the dead man to hear across the short distance between you.

From the way he subtly straightenes, that single word was sufficient to bring Captain Marcus's attention back to the here-and-now, from whatever dark places it had been wandering.

However, your quiet utterance ALSO serves to bring the attention of all the other ghosts to you. Insubstantial visages and phantasm-wrapped skulls alike turn in your direction. Most simply stare at you, silent and still, which is eerie enough, but witchlight begins to burn in the empty eyes of four of the gathered spirits.

Something tells you that you've met those spirits before - and when one of the four specters turns to regard the Hakubas, eyes subsequently burning all the brighter and colder as they fix on Ichirou and his bow, you're sure of it.

"ATTENTION!" Marcus booms.

Instantly, all undead eyes snap back to him. Instead of addressing them, however, the captain glances over his shoulder at you.

"I take those were the members of my command you encountered before?"

"Ah... yes, sir," you admit.

Even as you say it, you have to wonder: only four spirits? Between the trio in the barracks and the others scattered about the prison block, you and the priests destroyed fifteen of the skeletal undead. Were the other eleven all rebels, then? Or does their absence have something to do with the fact that, where you used the Spell of Black Tentacles to destroy the first three skeletons, the rest were taken out by a mix of Ichirou's spiritually-imbued arrows, your Blessed Sword, and close-in bursts of purifying power? But if THAT'S the case, why is one of the spirits that SHOULD have been exorcised still hanging around?

You wonder if you should mention any of this.

You decide to keep quiet about the other undead you "encountered" before meeting the captain. It doesn't seem like a suitable topic of conversation for when you've got nearly three-score ghosts hanging around, some of which are predisposed to PERSONALLY dislike you.

For his part, Marcus doesn't inquire further on the subject, instead turning to face his subordinates.

"Two hundred years before any of us were born, our forebears built this place to be Memoria's outpost against the Fae, her eyes and ears and vengeful fist against the high-and-mighty Lords of the Courts who had hunted and taunted and afflicted us since the Exile," he begins. "The Emperor entrusted it to the Fifth Legion, and for two hundred years, that trust was validated. Our brothers-in-arms held the line. They intercepted the child-stealers and the false deal-makers. They pushed back the Hunts. They cut down no less than a Count of Winter, and scattered his household and warriors to the far corners of Faerie!"

A murmur moves through the ghosts, like a ripple on the face of a pool. In its wake, the spiritual energy of the assemblage feels slightly stronger, while some of the phantom faces appear... more defined.

"And then, the times changed," Marcus continues. "Without the Hunters of Winter pressing them each year, our neighbors - even our own people - did that which was held as a cardinal sin since the founding of Memoria: they forgot. Not their fear or their hate of the cold and cruel Faerie Lords, but the reasons FOR that fear and hate, for why they had been so strong, and endured down the long centuries of the Exile and the lifetime of Memoria, outliving even Rome herself! Without the reminder of stolen children and murdered kinsmen, they began to tell themselves that the Fae were NOT as great and terrible as our ancestors believed, that the threat was broken or had never existed. From among those permitted to know of our duty, there came claims that it was a WASTE of resources, of effort - of LIVES. That it was UNNECESSARY. That WE were UNNECESSARY."

This time, it is an angry rumble which stirs the ectoplasmic assemblage. And again, you note that a number of the ghostly soldiers are left in a state closer to their Captain's condition - physically translucent, and bearing the marks of deadly wounds, but alert, conscious, and radiating more spiritual power than those in the ranks who still look like washed-out afterimages. You're starting to pick up auras of magic as well - weak ones, none beyond the level of cantrips and maybe, MAYBE a simple first-circle spell, but that's more arcane power than you were aware of in here a moment ago.

What's really impressive about this is that Marcus seems to be doing it all with nothing more than words. No magic, no spiritual trickery. Just words.

Gained Oratory F (Plus)

"Such claims were absurd, but then, it has always been the privilege of nobles and politicians to BE absurd! It is EXPECTED, and if their foolishness was not WELCOME, it could at least be... tolerated, to some degree." Marcus pauses. "And when their yammering nonsense grew INtolerable... well. That's why we had duels."

Laughter runs through the crowd at that. By now, most of the gathered souls have left behind the near-mindless state. Some are nearly as vividly life-like as Marcus and Hermanus, armor, death-wounds, and all.

"As for the generals and retired soldiers who took those foolish words as truth..." Marcus trails off, shaking his helmed head. "They, at least, should have known better. But I will grant them this much: there was rebellion in Gallia, and the stirrings of war. They needed fighting men to keep the Emperor's peace and support our sworn allies, and if they deemed our watch here a less-important duty than that, that was THEIR right, as our commanders."

The ranks calm at that.

"What was NOT right," Marcus growls then, "was what FOLLOWED that decision. I don't doubt that this notion already passed through the rumor-mill, but I will say it plainly here: the Gallian rebels, who dared to claim themselves as true sons of fallen Rome, as the ONLY true sons of the lost Empire, were in league with a demonic cult."

There is a collective hiss from the dead soldiers. Some of the ghosts blanch, which is a neat trick on faces already so washed out.

"Are you sure, Captain?" one of the souls in the second rank calls up to the dais.

"I am," Marcus replies. "During our last trip to the capital, Magus Hermanus and myself were asked to witness the testimony of a captured member of the rebellion. He confessed his allegiance under truth-telling, as well as a number of other sins."

The ghost that asked the question appears shaken. Murmurs again arise from the crowd, but this time, rather than a singular wave of sound and energy, they're dispersed into a score of minor exchanges.

Although you're seriously tempted to inquire about the demon or demons the captain just referred to, you restrain your curiosity for the time being. Marcus is on a roll, and you don't want to derail whatever he's building up to.

"The testimony of that captive, as well as a handful of others that were taken in the months before and after, cast the events transpiring in our neighbor kingdom in a very different light," Marcus says. "Given the long history between our nations, and the speed with which that cult's influence had spread, it also raised serious concerns about our security, for how many of our citizens had ties of marriage or kinship with Gallia? I know many of you did; I, myself, had cousins there, the children of my father's sister. And for that reason, there were those who said I should be relieved of my command, that ALL of us with the slightest link to Gallia should be recalled and reposted - as though our oaths meant nothing! As though years of service were so much dust, to be trampled upon!" The captain pauses. "As you might imagine, I had WORDS with them about that."

Shouts of support rise from perhaps a third of the assembled spirits.

"Sadly," Marcus goes on, "however insulting and outrageous it seemed at the time, I must admit that the argument wasn't ENTIRELY without merit. For we WERE betrayed. By whom, and for what reasons, I do not know - nor do I much care."

There are some cries of protest at that, to which the captain raises his hand in a gesture for silence - and when it doesn't come quickly enough to satisfy him, he raises his voice instead.

"We are DEAD, brothers! Not merely for days or years, but CENTURIES! Look around you! How many of us retain bodies beneath this phantom flesh? A dozen? Twenty, perhaps? How long does it take for a corpse to decay so far that not even BONE remains? How long for well-worked wood and good steel to rot and rust away to so much POWDER?" Marcus shakes his helmed head. "No, I do not care for those who brought us to this state, for they are long dead, and their damned souls moved on to the judgment of the gods. They are beyond the reach of any vengeance I might try to enact, save one, which I will gladly embrace: I will FORGET them. I will not waste a further thought on those who have already reaped the final reward of traitors, murderers, and blasphemers! I will not afford them the SATISFACTION of even that shadow of continued existence! If their black deeds have earned them the fate of damnation and destruction, I say, LET THEM BE DESTROYED!"

The ghosts let out a ROAR. It goes on for some time.

"What I care about now, stands before me," Marcus booms, as his troops' shouting dies down. "Loyal sons and daughters of Memoria who stand cursed by the actions of others, their duty unfulfilled due to treachery and mischance! Such a state of affairs is intolerable, and that it has been permitted to endure for so long is unforgivable! I will not have it! Not any longer! For a thousand years, we have been condemned to this wretched existence, forgotten and been forgotten, but now? Now, WE REMEMBER! We remember our lives! We remember our deaths! We remember our DUTY!"

From half a hundred ghostly throats, there comes a cry: "WE REMEMBER!"

"And we will see that duty done! This base, where the Legion held the watch for so long, still stands - but it is not secure! In our long forgetfulness, we have allowed unholy beings to invade and nest and breed within its very walls. NO LONGER! We will take up arms once more! We will hunt down the demonic filth that DARES to linger within this compound! We will purge their taint, and make this stronghold safe once more! We remember our duty at last, and this time, WE WILL NOT FAIL!"

"WE REMEMBER!" the soldiers thunder again.

You have to say, Captain Marcus seems to have a way with words. While you don't think his style would be entirely appropriate for you, you're definitely taking notes.

Gained Oratory F (Plus) (Plus)

The captain begins snapping orders for deployment, and the ghosts start to move, swirling around, past, and in some instances through each other as they move to obey. Squads are formed, and weapons drawn - shields and spears seem to just APPEAR out of thin air, though the surge of spiritual and necromantic energies says otherwise.

"What of the living, Captain?" a ghost from the front rank calls then.

And all movement stops, as undead heads once again turn to regard you.

"These four are responsible for waking me from my own fugue, Lieutenant," Marcus says, "and they have agreed to assist in the cleansing of the base. These two" - he gestures to the Hakubas - "are priests; their aid against what yet lurks in our halls will be most valuable, and they may be able to intercede with the gods on our behalf."

"And the boy?"

"Despite his age, he is a sorcerer of no small power. One who calls a small fairy friend and familiar, at that."

A number of the ghosts, including the lieutenant, glance in Briar's direction at that.

"...hi?" she says.

This... seems to satisfy them.

Captain Marcus gathers the Lieutenant and several of the other ghosts, including Hermanus, before leading the way back into the war-room. The system has been continuing the scan in the warmage's absence, and he reports that it is nearly complete, with only the most remote sections of the mines left to inspect.

What the scans have turned up is mildly concerning. In addition to the possibly Twilight-tainted and demonically-corrupted golems, you're looking at another nest of Gohma, with close to twenty of those extra-large juveniles, five times as many typical young Gohma, and literally hundreds of hatchlings and eggs. Hermanus hasn't found another adult, and the tunnels are too small to allow one passage, so you're tempted to say there won't be one.

As if to make up for that lack, however, these Gohma bear the same dark stain as the golems. In fact, many of them have been completely covered in - or taken over by - that creeping darkness, which appears to have extended to their webs as well. Instead of tangled nets of off-white thread, you instead see large areas of almost-darkness, shot through with glowing lines of red.

There are more skeletons in the mine - dozens, by the look of it, all of which appear to have been infected by the Twilight-taint as well - and in those parts of the cave-system where the Gohma's shadow-stained webs are not present, you catch glimpses of other creatures: small winged shapes that lurk amongst the rocks hanging from the ceiling; creeping, slimy things that ooze their way along the floor; and here and there along the walls, signs that some manner of blade has been taken to the stone, albeit accidentally.

In other words, Keese, Chus... and something else, probably human-sized, going by the height of the blade-marks, and armed with a weapon that can strike against rock - and in some instances, through it - without chipping or breaking.

On a side note, Hermanus hasn't found any Bomb Flowers. Some additional evidence of explosives having been used in the mines, but nothing more than that.

Aided by the information Hermanus has taken from the mine, Marcus and his aides are putting together a plan to sweep the place clean. Their main concern seems to be securing the mine entrance, so that what's down in the shafts can't escape into the larger base complex, but they're also discussing hunting down the "breach" that Hermanus was talking about earlier, which connects the mines to the aquifer.

Whatever the era or nationality, soldiers on the march are noisy. The footsteps of men trained more for martial prowess than stealth, the mass of the body and the equipment it carries for defense and attack, the metaphorical and literal weight of sheer numbers - all these things and more combine, until any gathering of armed forces is just as likely to be HEARD coming as it is to be SEEN on the advance.

Ghosts, on the other hand, can be utterly silent when they so choose. They have no mass, no weight, no substance at all unless they wish to. When wandering around incorporeal, a ghost can pass through solid matter almost as easily as the living would empty air, hindered more by the loss of light and orientation than by the lack of air or space.

The Memorian legionaires are dead, and most of them are bodiless ghosts. Their numbers are not that great, and their weapons and armor are phantoms like their wielders.

And yet, their march is accompanied by the steady tattoo of boots on stone - at least until they reach the mine, and begin encountering the creatures that infest it.

From then on, the prevailing sound is that of BATTLE.

The Hyrulean monsters that have been transplanted to these caves do their best to stand against the assault, but Keese and Baby Gohma are far from the deadliest of foes. A courageous child can take them down with a stick and a slingshot - indeed, a child often HAS. Against fully-grown and fully-trained soldiers, experienced veterans of battle and now forewarned of the nature and abilities of their adversaries? Only their numbers would make them dangerous.

Against the angry shades of dead men, bent on reclaiming their honor and earning redemption? Even those numbers aren't nearly enough. The Twilight taint that afflicts so many of the monsters seems to have given them some ability to strike against the ghosts, who would normally completely ignore blows from such minor beasts, but even that mystical punch fails to connect half the time, and when those attacks DO land, they're often caught by shields or absorbed by armor. In exchange, Hyrule's little horrors must contend with the weapons of half a hundred furious souls, spectral spears and baneful blades that carry through them the wrath of their undead masters, ravaging monstrous flesh with the terrible chill of what lies beyond the grave and the weight of eternity.

The larger Gohma may do better, if only because of their greater size and reach, but that is not for you to see - you've split off from the soldiers, Hakubas in tow, as you try to track down the mirror you came here to claim, and the creature that you were warned you would have to face to claim it.

Captain Marcus wasn't entirely thrilled with the idea of sending you off by yourselves. Whatever this thing is, odds are it's the source of the Hyrulean monsters that took over, defaced, and contaminated the Memorian outpost, and Marcus, Hermanus, and the other officers would have VERY much liked to express their displeasure with that state of affairs in person.

However, Marcus saw for himself the gaping pit that the mother Gohma tore through the walls of his command, and he is no fool. Anything capable of causing THAT kind of damage to the ancient enchanted stone would sweep through his troops like a thresher through wheat. As ghosts, they're difficult to permanently destroy, but they CAN be dispersed for a time, and if a soldier falls now, he'll reconstitute at the place of his death - places which are scattered all over the complex.

Single soldiers would not fare so well against a mob of monsters. And that's assuming that whatever lurks in the mines isn't capable of dealing with them in a more permanent fashion.

The prospect of a final death doesn't frighten the Memorians. Indeed, they WANT to pass on. But the idea of being bound to a monster, or worse, corrupted by one - THAT most definitely troubled the officers when you presented the possibility.

Necromancy is, after all, far from unknown in Hyrule.

Whoever goes after the master of the mines must be strong enough to fight on equal grounds with Hyrulean "boss" monsters. That requirement alone narrowed the field of candidates to barely half a dozen: yourself; the two priests; Captain Marcus; Magus Hermanus; the Lieutenant, introduced as Marius; and perhaps a couple other soldiers. The officers are required to keep their men in line, and Marcus himself is needed to oversee the entire centuria - truthfully, the captain should probably be back in the war-room, making full use of its systems to monitor the situation and guide his forces accordingly.

However, Marcus is no less angry about being undead than any of his men are - and beyond that, he IS one of their most powerful battlefield assets. He compromised, and left one of his junior officers to man the war-room, with orders to remain in contact with him at all times.

Hermanus's firepower would make him a good choice to face the boss, but again, his combat magic is one of the major cornerstones around which the Legion's battle doctrine was formed. Working in tandem, he and his brothers-in-arms are ten times as dangerous as any of them would be alone, and that's a level of synergy none of the experienced soldiers is willing to do without.

That leaves you, Ginta, and Ichirou. And also Briar, but when it comes to martial matters, she's mostly an adjunct to you anyway.

There's really no question that you, personally, are the best suited to face a major Hyrulean monster. You and Briar are the only ones who really KNOW what these things are, and you have the best chance of recognizing whatever is down there. That's not even getting into the matter of what a massive concentration of force you represent, all by yourself.

And where you go, the Hakubas are going to follow. At least for today.

Besides, it's probably better if you "civilians" weren't mixed up in the Legion's professional tactics. Especially since all three of you are capable of accidentally dispersing the ghostly soldiers.

Gained King of Spirits E (Plus) (Plus)

So it is that you find yourself advancing into the mines, well ahead of the Legion, taking a roundabout route that SHOULD get you past the greatest concentrations of Gohma, and to the region at the back of the mine. Hermanus wasn't able to scan that far down, the base's security systems simply not extending that far, but you're pretty sure that's where the boss is going to be.

After all, it's from Hyrule. And in Hyrule, the deepest, hardest-to-reach part of any monster-infested ancient ruin is ALWAYS where you find the boss.

Your progress hasn't been entirely uneventful. Aside from the echoes of ghosts and monsters waging a war of extinction upon one another, you've run into a few beasties yourself. Twilight Keese have proven no match for Ichirou's arrows, and the odd scuttling Gohma-spawn have been little more challenge for you, the Twilight essence or whatever it is that has overtaken them doing nothing to withstand your Blessed Blade. You have yet to do battle with a significant concentration of monsters since entering the caves, which was part of the plan - Marcus and his men are raising enough hell back in the main mine shaft to get the attention of the swarm fixed on THEM, drawing out as many of the monsters as they can before they begin a serious chamber-by-chamber sweep of this part of the base.

As far as you can tell, that part of the plan is working. You heard a large number of Gohma moving through one of the nearby passages a few minutes ago, the loud rumble of thousands of legs accompanied by the slower, heavier tread of at least one of the overlarge golems.

You're pretty sure their leader wasn't with them. At the very least, you didn't sense the presence of anything on that level of personal power.

You've been in the mines for perhaps fifteen minutes, and you estimate that you're only a couple of chambers away from the likely "boss room

Accurate battlefield intelligence has proven its worth several times over the course of your exploration of the Memorian outpost. So it is that, for what will probably be the final time in this ruin, you cast the Spell of Prying Eyes. Only two Eyes manifest, for you really don't need that many to scout the way ahead - although Hermanus's scanning couldn't penetrate to the deepest part of the mine, due to the demonic contamination, that area HAD been previously mapped out. Only a few small chambers and a modestly-long passage lie between you and the room where you're most likely to find the creature in charge of the Hyrulean invaders.

No sooner have your probes appeared than they vanish from mundane sight, and then from your Mage Sight and Mage Sense, the spells of concealment you wove into the matrix taking effect. Those, combined with the augmented vision modes you added, should be sufficient to get you a good look at whatever you're about to run up against.

Sending the Eyes on their way, you break out the enhancement magic for yourself and the Hakubas. There's no need for further Spells of Augmentation; you're already using your best effects in that field, and while the duration is starting to run down, it's more than enough to cover one major fight. The old standbys of Mage Armor, Shield, and even Shield of Faith are similarly covered under the high-end Spell of Abjuration you have up.

The Greater Spell of False Life, though, is something you don't have up. It's also within your ability to increase the range of the spell so that it affects your entire group - the accompanying loss of duration is no hardship at all, given that the spell would normally last for close to half a day.

The Greater Spell of Heroism is another one you and your allies could benefit from. However, this magic is powerful enough in its normal form that it's pushing the edges of your skills at Enchantment. If you had the time, you COULD cast it ritual style and have it affect yourself and the two priests all in one casting, but that would cut the duration down too far for your comfort.

It's a moot point anyway, because you DON'T have that kind of time. The Memorians are fighting a pitched battle behind you, and the longer it goes on, the more likely it is that something will go wrong - something like the still-unidentified boss monster leaving its lair and coming to investigate the source of the noise.

You promised Captain Marcus you'd intercept the monster before it could directly threaten his men. That's why you're down HERE, while they're all back towards the entrance.

You don't want to go back on your word.

After all, it'll be so much easier to go ahead with the ideas that have been percolating in your brain regarding the final dispensation of the base, if you have the blessing of the Memorian soldiers...

Shaking those speculations aside, you cast the Greater Spell of Heroism three times in quick succession.

You've just finished casting the Spell of Flight over your team when you feel a pulse from your connection to one of the Prying Eyes you sent to investigate the boss's lair. Looking up from your spellcasting, you will the probe to make itself visible, which it does, hanging within arm's reach of your head.

You take it, and absorb the information.

In your mind's eye, you fly through two, three, four rooms of uncarved rock, each one bearing the faded marks of ancient mining work, and then into a long and much straighter tunnel. The farther "you" go, the more that you notice the darkness of the mine deepening around you - and considering that you added a Spell of Darkvision to the Prying Eyes so that they could navigate down here, beyond the range of your light spell, that's concerning. From what the Eye's version of Mage Sight could make out, the darkness - or is it just REALLY deep shadow? It gets hard to tell, past a certain point - appears to be equivalent in power to a fourth-circle spell.

Trailing its leading partner, the Eye comes to a room whose dimensions you cannot make out, the unnatural murk within having grown dense enough to overwhelm its enhanced perception. The two probes fumble around in the air for a time, trying to find a wall to follow-

-and then something lashes out of the darkness, something that catches the first Prying Eye - the tiny, aura-less, INVISIBLE Eye - with its surprise strike, shattering it before it so much as has time to blink. If the magical constructs had eyelids to blink with, that is.

The Eye whose point of view you're reliving doesn't waste an instant; it turns and flees back the way it came, up the tunnel, through the rooms, and to you.

You blink, coming back to full awareness as the Prying Eye disintegrates, its information passed on and its purpose fulfilled.

Well. That's concerning.

"New problems?" Ginta guesses.

"The room we're headed for is full of magical darkness, or maybe just very, very deep shadow," you reply. "And there's something in there that can see, or sense, through the darkness well enough to destroy my probes."

"...even when they're not giving off any magical emissions, and invisible besides?"

"Even then."

Ginta chews on that, and then says, "Alright. I'm impressed. And worried."

You nod, knowing EXACTLY how he feels-

-and then you freeze in mid-motion, head turning sharply towards the deeper caves.

Is it just your imagination... or is it getting DARKER down there all of a sudden?

...

From the way shadows begin to creep forward, into the circle of your humble Spell of Light, it's not your imagination.

Whatever is down there, it's coming up.

Your mind races. Your incoming enemy has demonstrated a downright RIDICULOUS level of sensory perception - you don't know which sense, and quite frankly, it doesn't matter right now. The end result is the same: you CANNOT fight that thing in its native element. That means casting a more powerful Spell of Light is an absolute must - fourth-circle would be enough to counter the source of the magical murk, but that would just dump you into the natural darkness of this part of the mines. Fifth-circle, then, so you can at least see what you're doing.

Aside from that essential illumination, are there any other final preparations you want to make? You have to take into account the fact that you don't know exactly how fast the creature you're about to face can move. If you try to do too much, it could catch you in the middle of spellcasting, which would be... bad.

"Watch your eyes, folks," you advise Briar and the Hakubas. "This one's going to be bright."

Mana surges, words tumble from your lips, and tiny luminous motes of white, silver, and gold gather between your hands as you call upon the most basic aspect of the Light Element. When you complete the spell seconds later, the points of energy collide together.

As you have said in the past, and as you say again now: "Let there be light!"

In order to fully counteract the supernatural shadow and/or darkness that threatens to engulf your party, this particular Spell of Light is especially intense. Where the typical cantrip generates illumination equivalent to a flaming torch, and the standard third-circle Spell of Light is as bright as full daylight, you opted to use a fifth-circle spell, in order to not only cancel out but OVERPOWER the incoming darkness. With your use of the Words of Power added in, the light that pours forth from your spellwork is strong enough that you reflexively turn your head away, squinting against the glare.

Even then, out of the corner of one dazzled eye, you have no trouble seeing the encroaching murk be almost physically blown away by the incandescent explosion.

Gained Light Affinity D

Then the two magics begin to mix in earnest, and the not-quite-blinding light dies down to something more reasonable, providing a level of illumination akin to the familiar cantrip you were using before, just over a much larger area. The shadows that cling to existence in this area are unnaturally thick and dark, but by and large, you appear to have successfully suppressed that black aura.

You briefly consider casting a variation on the Elemental Aura spell, attuned to the Light rather than one of the more tangible elements, but you discard the idea for three reasons.

First is that, below a certain threshold of exposure, Light is not actively harmful to most things. Some creatures of Darkness can be dazzled, blinded, or even burned by Light - see the corpse-vampires for a classic example - but even such vulnerable entities are typically no more than mildly inconvenienced by bright light of an artificial nature. It's only when they're thrown into natural sunlight, or a spell capable of reproducing its properties, that they start to suffer genuine harm.

As it happens, you're perfectly capable of recreating the inherent qualities of sunlight - a Spell of True Daylight, if you will - but it would require no less than a fourth-circle spell. Adapting it into an aura would require two or three more spell levels on top of that, and that leads into the second reason why you set this idea aside. You just burned a large amount of power on your buff spells, and dropped more counteracting the crawling shadow; while you still have plenty of gas in the tank, you've been working with the mindset of conserving mana whenever practical long enough now that it's verging on a reflex, and said reflex is kicking in now. You could overrule it easily enough, if you thought the spell's results would be worth the cost - but that's the thing.

In this instance, you really don't think the spell WOULD be worth its cost.

After all, the Spell of Elemental Aura only harms creatures that are RIGHT NEXT to you. When you're dealing with powerful Hyrulean monsters, that is often the LAST place you want to be. Then, too, the amount of damage the spell in question actually causes is rather limited. Between heavy armor, magical resistance, unnatural vitality, and sheer size, Hyrule's more formidable beasties wouldn't even notice a destructive aura at that limited level of intensity. If you were being swarmed by those Twilight-tainted Gohma, now, you'd be more inclined to consider it, but as things stand... no.

Especially not when you, the Hakubas, and Briar have no special resistance to Light yourselves. That's your third reason for foregoing the spell, and given the limited room to maneuver these underground chambers offer you - the room you're in right now is no more than fifteen feet to a side, barely ten feet tall at its highest, and pretty awkwardly laid out - it's a darned good one.

"Oh, hey," Briar says then. "I'm not flash-blind. Score!"

"Sorry about that," you apologize, "but with that darkness rolling in-"

"No, no, I'm completely okay with NOT being torn apart by something I can't even see," the fairy replies. "A little eyestrain is a small price to avoid that, and one I will gladly pay. And speaking of which," she adds abruptly, "do you feel that?"

You do. An aura of magic and menace, of shadow and darkness entwined, coming closer at the pace of a fast walk. Straining your ears, you can just make out the sound of its footsteps...

...

Wait.

Those sound like... boots?

A shape rounds the corner of the tunnel up ahead.

For a second, you feel like your heart has stopped, and as you take your first look at this enemy, the final words of the Spell of Literary Vision you cast yesterday come back to you:

Beware the beast of shadow born,

Your conjured radiance glances off a face and form that are almost human... but not quite.

the darkness in the light;

The figure advances, unflinching, through the magically-illuminated chambers.

the outcast and accursed son,

Its skin is of the deepest grey. Its clothes, a simple tunic, leggings, and boots, are the hues of midnight, tooled in ash and bone.

one wrought from fear and spite.

On its right arm hangs a large shield, a slab of black metal as lightless as the face of the new moon.

Born with purpose, born but to die,

In its left hand, it holds a sword like a shard of the void itself, shaped into a design that echoes your own Blessed Blade... and another, far older weapon that you know all too well.

and yet it lives on still;

The mocking shadow of a familiar cap rides atop a wild mane of charcoal hair, from which protrude the distinctive ears of a high-blooded Hylian.

your prize it holds, but will not yield,

And in the middle of a face that is simultaneously known and new to you, and all the more dreadful for it...

for all it knows is kill.

...burning. Red. EYES.

SHADOW OF COURAGE: DARK LINK

Briar sums it up neatly: "Oh, FUCK."

As the dark doppelganger of your personal boogeyman stalks forward, weapons at the ready, you spare a moment to reflect that, if nothing else, this UTTERLY INSANE situation MUST mean that you're on the path to redemption. Because it's not ACTUALLY Link that you're about to face down, it's "just" his kill-crazy evil shadow.

That has all his skills as a swordsman.

And a dark twin to the Master Sword.

And what may or may not be a blackened Mirror Shield.

And probably a Bag of Bombs besides.

...

Greater Spell of Heroism or no, you find yourself uttering a prayer to the Golden Goddesses. It's short, sweet, and bears a striking resemblance to Shepard's Prayer - because this is going to be one HELL of a fight, and you do NOT want to make any mistakes.

In the second or two it takes you to do all that, Ichirou has drawn, knocked, and fired one of his spiritually-charged arrows. There's not a trace of hesitation in the young priest's movements, and given the aura of sheer malice pouring off the seemingly-human figure across the chamber from you, it's no wonder why.

Ichirou's completely natural response comes to naught. Dark Link foregoes the use of his shield in favor of lashing out with his sword, cutting the arrow out of the air - and then taking down the NEXT shot on the backhand, all while continuing his advance.

Because of COURSE he can do that.

You're seriously tempted to fire up Maximum Power and charge in, sword-first, but you restrain yourself. Although that approach would give you a ridiculous boost to your abilities, thanks to all the enhancements you have layered on yourself right now and how they'd feed your unleashed Power, it'd also strip away those spells in short order, leaving you less-capable overall.

True, it wouldn't matter if you managed to crush Dark Link in those moments of - dare you say - SUPER Maximum Power, but... well...

This thing is Link's evil twin. And throwing raw Power at the Hero of Hyrule NEVER worked out for Ganondorf.

Besides, while your mana reserves are down by half, your ki is almost untouched. It strikes you as a better strategy to use some of your ki techniques and probe this dark interloper's defenses, getting an idea of just how much of a walking murder machine he truly is, before you commit to an all-out assault.

There's also the matter of how the combination of your Ki Enhancement and Augmentation spells has you moving at a pretty ridiculous clip already. You're still not used to moving so fast in such confined spaces as the one you find yourself in at the moment, and Body Flicker is only going to make the odds of you running into a wall or something that much worse. Maximum Power would allow for downright LUDICROUS speed, and a similar increase in the chance of things going badly wrong - which Dark Link wouldn't HESITATE to capitalize upon.

Gained Body Flicker B (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) (B (Plus) (Plus) without Heart Container)

So it is that, with a burst of ki rather than gleaming gold, you flash in to begin harrying Dark Link-

-only to find your first strike anticipated and intercepted, but that's fine, you think, as you keep moving, you've got more where that came from-

-and so does Dark Link, apparently, seriously-

-how the heck-

-is he keeping up-

-with you?!

You're heavily enhanced with both magic and ki, you've got both hands on the grip of your blade so you can exert maximum force, and you even had extra kick from the speed you were moving at - and yet, every time you cross swords with Dark Link, it feels like your strength and speed are being... not matched, exactly, but NEUTRALIZED.

One hand. The shadow has ONE HAND on his weapon, and yet somehow, he's intercepting your strikes in a way that just... bleeds away the force. When you try hitting him from behind, he swings his shield around to take the hit directly, and you suddenly feel like you just tried to hammer through a Wall of Force. Your arms shake, momentarily numbed by the defense that has, incredibly, withstood your attack.

Dark Link doesn't even lose his footing from the blow. Instead, he turns with it, whirling around to face you, sword leading, EDGE GLOWING-

-sweet merciful Din, you are glad you were prepared to block.

Unfortunately, that doesn't stop you from being knocked backwards by what feels like the FIST OF GOD, flying through the air and down the passage that your opponent emerged from. You recall your Spell of Flight, and wonder, dizzily, why you invoked it... and then you blink and will yourself to STOP, before you slam into whatever might be behind you-

-and you JUST BARELY get your sword up in time to absorb an overhand blow that drives you down to the floor, straining with all the enhanced might your young body can muster against Dark Link's ONE-HANDED STRIKE.

You stand there, struggling not to get overwhelmed, and not just by the absurd strength of your opponent. You can FEEL the power in his weapon, dark and deadly as anything you've ever encountered... but not in the least bit demonic.

You're kind of surprised to realize that... well, you're not surprised. Because why WOULD it be demonic?

Your memories contain countless pieces of evidence that show how throwing demons at the Master of the Blade of Evil's Bane is a fool's errand, a delaying tactic at best. The greatest and most terrible of Hyrule's evil monsters, beasts fully capable of wrecking cities and laying waste to entire armies, go down within MINUTES of meeting that shining sword in battle. It takes something on the level of a full-fledged Demon Lord to actually SURVIVE a direct engagement against the Master Sword, and even THEN, they're still at risk for their lives. The Great Demon King himself, immune to all weapons and powers short of the combined mystical might of the Sages or the unified Triforce, could be slain by the Master Sword.

Maybe not PERMANENTLY, but demons are cheaters like that.

And speaking of the Triforce... you're close enough, now, that you can make out its emblem on the hilt.

It's not inverted.

Save for its black-on-black coloration, it's exactly like the mark on your Blessed Blade, or the true Master Sword.

And you can just make out the same mark on the back of the close-fitting gauntlet which covers the left hand currently grasping the Master Sword's dark twin.

The shadow's bloody eyes look past the clashing swords, follow your gaze to the FREAKING POWER GLOVE it's wearing, and then shift back to you.

Below that crimson glare, a slash of a mouth widens in the kind of grin Link himself would never have worn, but which would have been all-too at home on Ganondorf's face.

Then he brings his shield around to slam you in the face.

Before the shield bash can connect, your ki surges anew, focused on pushing your speed and reaction time as high as you can.

Shifting your grip and stance so that the black copy of the Master Sword slides down your Blessed Blade and away from your body, you disengage, flashing past Dark Link-

-dodging a pommel-strike and zipping across the largely-uncarved cave, back into the chamber where you left the Hakubas.

Gained Evasion C
Gained Strength C (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Weapon Defense E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

The priests, incidentally, were back near the "entrance" to this room when you first engaged Dark Link and got yourself hammered deeper into the mine. In the... sweet Din, has it only been a few SECONDS since then? Feels a heck of a lot longer...

Anyway, since you so hastily left them, the Hakubas have been moving to follow, and are almost across the room, the Spells of Augmentation that you wove over them earlier - and especially the Spell of Haste - showing their worth.

And also presenting a bit of a problem. If those two catch up with Dark Link, things are going to get MESSY, in a VERY BAD WAY.

"Get back!" you shout, as you drop out of your Body Flicker. You can spend no more time than that on a warning; you NEED to do something to at least slow that monster down before he's back in your face, taking you apart in swordsmanship.

Once again, it's magic to the rescue. You cast as quickly as you can, watching as the Hakubas skid to a stop, and start falling back-

-as Dark Link comes charging out of the next chamber, moving alarmingly quick, they aren't going to make it!

Ginta thrusts one hand forward, and you see an ofuda before, with a surge of spiritual power, the older man shouts, "EVIL SPIRIT, BEGONE!"

Dark Link does NOT disappear in a flash of holy might. Nor is he paralyzed, burnt, blasted away, or subject to any number of other manifestations of divine displeasure.

But he does stop.

It's only for a second, and it's more of a faltering stride than an outright freeze, but the look of surprise on his face is genuine.

And that brief moment is all the time your party needs.

Ginta and Ichirou fall back beyind the reach of Imminent Death By Sharp Pointy Thing.

And you finish your spell.

Once again, Black Tentacles erupt from the walls, floor, and ceiling in their dozens, reaching out to seize, strangle, and squash that which you and they find objectionable.

Dark Link is surrounded.

For all of, oh, another second.

Then he starts tearing through the grappling limbs like a walking buzz-saw. When they try to seize his shield arm, Dark Link smashes the tentacles aside with the broad plate of black steel. When they go for his legs, he wrenches free with exaggerated steps, and brings his foot down swift and hard, pinning a tangle of tendrils under his boot.

And is it just your imagination, or are there tiny wing emblems on that boot, just above the heel?

You don't think it's your imagination.

Worst of all is when the tentacles go for the sword-arm.

SHING!

Bits of rubbery flesh go flying in all directions. The severed tentacles quiver and immediately begin to regenerate, a precautionary measure built into the Spell of Black Tentacles to prevent enemies from tearing their way free in just this manner-

SHING!

-but Dark Link does not seem to CARE. Each slash of the blackened Master Sword - Dark Master Sword? Retsam Sword, maybe? - leaves the wriggling pieces of half a dozen dismembered limbs in its wake, rapidly clearing the space around its wielder of immediate threats. Dark Link pauses for a moment, blade held low and back to one side in a pose that would make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up straight even WITHOUT the sudden sense of accumulating energy-

"HAAAAHHHH!"

Gained Cleave F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)

-and when he unleashes the technique, you can FEEL the displaced air from clear across the room, even with all the tentacles that are... well, that WERE in the way. Now they're just so many pieces of conjured pseudo-flesh, flung about by the pocket whirlwind the dark reflection has pulled out, and DAMN IT! That is NOT supposed to happen! Stupid cheaty heroic doppelgangers and their cheaty magic swords...!

You are really, REALLY glad that you finish casting the Spell to Create Pits right then.

As the dimensional warping takes hold and the floor falls out from under him, Dark Link - caught ever so slightly off-balance as he recovers from the Spin Attack - gives you a dirty look.

Then he falls.

You don't stop casting there. First is the Greater Spell of Grease-

BANG!

-oh, what the- a HOOKSHOT, now?! Seriously?!

As Dark Link rapidly ascends from the pit, on his way to the point in the ceiling where the "Hook" has embedded itself, Ichirou takes a shot.

Once again, Dark Link cuts the arrow out of the air - but with his other hand occupied holding the techno-magical device that is allowing him to make like medieval Batman, he's caught in a bit of a bind.

Taking the opportunity, you slam down a Wall of Force that cuts off the two-thirds of the room taken up by your conjured pit from the part where you and the Hakubas stand.

Dark Link studies the transparent barrier for a moment, then shifts his grip on his sword. Once again, you sense a build-up of energy, a mix of magic and something that feels disturbingly like ki, only... darker. A moment later, the dark blade is swung in your direction, a shadowy Sword Beam erupting from its tip to smash against your Wall.

Gained Sword Beam D (E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) without Heart Container)

The Wall is unscathed.

Dark Link considers this result, then sheathes his blade and reaches for the pouch at his hip.

...

He's going to bring out the Bombs next, isn't he?

You wouldn't bet against Hyrulean Bombs being able to smash through a Wall of Force - eventually, anyway. It'll depend on how many of the things Dark Link has in his bag. As long as your barrier holds out, though, you've got time to plan. Or just run away, which is REALLY starting to look tempting.

You have an idea- one that requires some re-working, due to the fact that the Wall of Force you raised between yourself and Dark Link isn't flush with all the surfaces of this chamber.

It's not ideal, but you were kind of in a hurry, and more concerned with getting the barrier UP than having it be absolutely perfect.

The good news is that at no point does the gap between the edge of the barrier and the cavern walls become wide enough for Dark Link to get through. Still, it's far from airtight, which is both a complication and an asset for what you're considering.

"What IS that thing?" Ichirou says sharply.

"No time, long story, VERY bad news!" you call back, as you hurry over to the right-hand side of the cave.

"What, worse than the giant demon doom spider?!"

"SO much worse!"

You half-slide into the "corner" where the Wall of Force and the wall of rock don't quite meet, studying the breach and leaning from side-to-side, hoping that- yes, if you shuffle forward a bit and lean THAT way, you CAN look around your force-construct and get a solid line of sight on your enemy, and most of the rest of his side of the room.

While you were moving, Dark Link has fished out the expected Bomb, lit it - by BITING the fuse - and is now waiting as the explosive device hisses and smokes.

Ginta and Ichirou STARE. You're not sure if it's because of the design of the Bomb - which admittedly, looks like a bit like a cartoon bomb come to three-dimensional life - or because of the manner in which Dark Link set it off.

"Get back!" Briar cries.

The priests blink, gives themselves a shake, and then fall back from the Wall.

You find yourself counting. Five, four, three, t-

Dark Link throws the Bomb in a neat arc, which carries it down near the base of your Wall of Force, just as the fuse burns down.

KABOOM!

You wince, not only at the ringing explosion or the spray of stone shrapnel, dust, and smoke that hisses past the lower edge of your barrier, but at the impressions that carry down the mystical link you retain with your active spell. As you feared, the Bomb damaged the Wall. Not tremendously, but enough to be noticeable - and given where the Bomb was when it went off and the pulverized rock fragments that fortunately didn't hit anybody, some of that explosive force was spent against the stone floor.

At a guess, Dark Link will need another half-dozen Bombs to bring down your Wall.

Just as well, then, that you don't intend on giving him the time.

As your enemy pulls out a second explosive, you cast a spell and close off the "exit" of the room with another Wall of Force.

In the middle of "lighting" his next Bomb, Dark Link's head spins around to stare at the new Wall, then whips back to stare at you - the hissing explosive half-hanging from his teeth going along for the ride.

And then the jerk pitches the Bomb in his hand YOUR way.

"OhcrapRUN!" Briar shouts.

Omake: The SCIENCE! of Enlightenment

"Now, what have I told you about this sort of thing?" Lu-Sensei cradled his aching head in one hand.

"Wee~ell, you actually only told me not to invent new stuff in the middle of a fi- uh..." Alex cut himself off as the Enlightenment Stick made a sudden appearance in his Sensei's off-hand.

"I think," Lu-Sensei pronounced slowly, "that you understood the spirit of what I was telling you at the time. Now tell me: what do you have to say for yourself?"

"It was for SCIENCE!"

Alex would later make a mental note to avoid doing SCIENCE! where Lu-Sensei could see him in the future.

Ki swirls about your hand, coalesces in your palm, and then flies out to intercept the incoming Bomb. Unlike your typical combat-grade Ki Blast, this one's shape is less defined, more like a diffuse cloud of glowing energy than a bright sphere trailing a comet-like tail. Where a full-strength Ki Blast would have risked setting the Bomb off on impact, this one catches the incoming munition more than collides with it, and starts carrying it back the way it came.

And then gravity overcomes the momentum involved, and the Bomb falls out of the path of the wide burst of ki and into the pit.

Dark Link's red eyes blink, and then he pulls his legs up, effectively inverting himself where he hangs, and watches as your Ki Blast shoots past him to splash against the far wall.

Down below, the Bomb goes off, to no real effect.

From where he appears to be standing on the ceiling, Dark Link turns back to you, eyes narrowed - and then widening as he sees you in the middle of casting a spell.

Dangling from the ceiling by a shortened length of chain as he is, you're confident that there isn't much your opponent can do to dodge as you complete the Greater Spell of Grease-

CLICK!

-unless, of course, he does whatever it is that causes the Hookshot to retract itself from whatever surface it's impaled.

Loosed from the stone, Dark Link falls.

Annoyingly, the jerk times it perfectly to dodge your spell. A blobby mass of grease phases into existence where the shadowy warrior was hanging, and for a brief instant, the stuff almost looks like it's hovering there in confusion, Wile E. Coyote style.

Once again, gravity kicks in, and the manifested grease begins to plummet after Dark Link-

BANG!

-who has just fired off his Hookshot again, causing you to recoil reflexively as the head strikes the wall not five feet in front of you and sinks into the stone-

WHIRRRR!

-automatically triggering the retraction mechanism, which is now pulling Dark Link towards you!

Your various enhancements give you time enough to react to this change of circumstance, although you won't have time to cast most spells before Dark Link is within arm's reach of you. And even if the dark warrior can't entirely squeeze himself through the gap between your Wall of Force and the cavern wall, you DON'T want him getting his Power Gloved hands on you.

On the other hand, if you time it right, you'll be able to fall back out of Dark Link's grasp, while keeping a clear line of effect between him and you as you cast a spell.

Or you could just Ki Blast him in the face. That's definitely an option.

Omake: Wrath of the Cucco

As Dark Link comes flying at you via his hookshot, sword at the ready, you decide that you do not want to be in arms reach of him and body flicker away. You think you've had enough of fighting him in melee, and don't see most of your ranged options working out. So you beseech the goddesses for aid, and cast the most powerful summoning spell that you can, calling the one creature Link could never defeat. "I choose you, Cucco!" you shout. As the white chicken appears in front of you, you can practically hear the boggle on your priestly companions' faces.

Dark Link managed to get through the gap in the wall while this was happening. He immediately begins advancing on your group, with the Cucco being nothing more than an afterthought to him. He slashes at the cucco absently, and it is launched five feet into the air from the force. The cucco clucks a warning tone as it flaps its wings to slow itself down. While Dark Link is obviously surprised, he doesn't listen to the warning. He immediately launches into a masterful combo attack, an upward slash followed by a horizontal, and then another 10 slashes ending in a stab, all done in under a second. And wow are you glad you didn't give him a chance to do that to you. The cucco is sent flying and slams against a wall.

For a moment you almost doubt your choice, but then the cucco gets back up, lets out a loud squawk, and turns red. Suddenly, there are four more cucco's beside it, all red, and all immediately charging Dark Link.

Dark Link gives them as much regard as he did your earlier black tentacles, which is to say none at all. He sidesteps their charges, slashing and stabbing them as he goes. But they get back up, cluck, and more cucco's appear. Dark Link looks annoyed, sheaths his sword, and starts reaching for his pouch. When he pulls out a bomb, you and your companions retreat out of the room.

After the explosion, you hear more clucks, and you see the room begin to fill with red angry chickens. Dark Link draws his sword again, and launches into another one of those masterful combo attacks, knocking the cuccos away from him. This gives him a second to sheath his sword again, and this time he begins pulling out bombs with both hands. He throws around a dozen of them before the cuccos start charging again. He stops after a few of the cuccos intercept bombs, making them land near Dark Link.

Then the bombs explode, and everything goes flying. Then you start hearing the cuccos cluck, and see the room almost completely filled with them. You can tell Dark Link is moving, by the groups of cuccos that get flung backwards occasionally, but some of the birds are clearly getting to him. A few minutes later, just after the room looked completely full of cuccos, you're summoning spell gives out.

Dark Link lays there, vanquished by the one opponent any Link could never beat.

You're sorely tempted to pull out a Body Flicker to put some distance between you and your incoming foe, but moving BACKWARDS at that kind of speed would be asking for trouble even if you weren't in an enclosed space. Instead, you trust to your currently-active spells and Ki Enhancement as you skitter backwards from the narrow gap between the walls.

The Hookshot finishes retracting a moment later, and Dark Link slams into the stone wall boots first, before tripping the device's internal controls and causing it to let go. The Hylian shadow has his feet under him before he can even begin to fall, and enough of the floor on the far side of your Wall of Force wasn't sucked up by your space-warping Pit to leave him room to stand.

Barely enough, but this IS a version of Link. Perching on a narrow walkway over a long fall is one of the LESS difficult and dangerous things he's ever done - or remembers doing, in this particular instance.

In response to the spell that you started casting as you fell back, Dark Link whips out his shield - and now that it's not being aimed at your FACE with skull-smashing intent, you realize that the front of the shield isn't as featureless as you thought.

Etched on the front, with no colors and only faint outlines that fade into the blackness of the metal, is the Hylian Crest.

You experience a great swell of relief as you realize that Dark Link is NOT, in fact, carrying around a warped version of the Mirror Shield, but this doesn't cause you to halt your spellcasting, or even change your aim.

"In Din's name, I kill it with FIRE!"

In the next moment, FIRE erupts all along that side of the room, forming a curtain of violet-hued flame that reaches from the floor to the ceiling.

"Aaaahhhh!"

And for the first time in this fight, Dark Link lets out a cry of pain, caught by the enormous plume of flame that billows upwards from beneath his feet. Sturdy as you know it to be, even against magical attack, his shield does nothing to protect him from the fire - it's completely out of position.

Whatever the shadow-being has in the way of instincts take over then, as Dark Link throws himself away from the source of his pain, moving as quickly as he can, and in the only direction possible to get away from the Wall of Fire: out over the pit.

As Dark Link falls out of sight, trailing smoke and wisps of flame, you consider your next move. You can't cast any more spells as long as you're focused on maintaining the Wall of Fire - it simply requires too much concentration, and while the Wall will persist for a time after you break the connection, there's no undoing that particular choice once you've made it. Ki techniques are still available to you, but the placement of this newest magical barrier makes using them a bit problematic, more so now that Dark Link has, ah, "retreated" into the pit. You can't get line of sight on him from here without leaning your head, right shoulder, and arm through the gap.

Which would put you directly in the Wall of Fire.

True, you DO have a Spell of Protection From Fire up, but that will only buy you so much time. Not to mention that seeing you STICK YOUR HEAD IN A FIRE is absolutely guaranteed to set off your companions.

You also have to consider how, now that he's back in the pit, Dark Link is far enough away from the Wall of Fire to NOT get roasted by the supernatural heat radiating from its "front" side. There wasn't much you could do to avoid that, though. Area-affecting spells like this propagate outwards from a central point, and you need line of sight TO that center when you're casting them; ringing the other side of the room with an inwardly-burning cylindrical Wall of Fire like you first intended would have required you to target a point somewhere above the middle of the pit, and you lost that angle when you fell back to avoid getting caught.

Given that this kept you from getting choked out by a monster that can probably crush STONE with his Power Gloved hand, you'd consider it more than a fair trade.

Breaking your connection to the Wall of Fire, you begin gathering mana and ki, and take a deep breath while staring straight ahead, into the violet flames.

"Alex," Briar says warrningly. "What are you doing?"

"Don't worry," you reply. "I'm fireproofed, remember?"

"NOT WHAT I WANTED TO HEAR!" Briar shouts, as you leap forward.

The gap between your Wall of Force and the right-hand wall of this small cave isn't very large. You're able to fit your head and right arm through, but your shoulder only gets partway through before it's stuck between the proverbial (and literal) rock and a hard place.

You're more concerned about the fire that you've stuck yourself into. For all that the Spell of Heroism helps you to keep a level head, it does nothing to silence the billion years of inherited instincts SCREAMING at you that FIRE BAD. The Spell of Protection From Fire keeps you from feeling anything more than an unpleasant but bearable heat, yet you find yourself struggling to breathe, to ignore the Wall of Fire and look into the pit below.

The knowledge of how temporary your protection is against these supernatural flames does not help in the slightest.

Despite all of that, you can just make out Dark Link at the bottom of the thirty-foot pit, back on his feet, still trailing a bit of smoke but otherwise no longer on fire. Of the blob of Grease you conjured earlier, there's no clear sign, or at least, none you can discern at this distance and through the glare of the flames.

You finish casting the spell you were working on, and a bead of more natural orange, yellow, and white flame rockets from your extended palm, heading for a point about halfway up - or down - the far wall of the pit. It hangs there, pulsing softly, a countdown you feel more through your fading sympathetic connection than see with your eyes.

Dark Link sees the mote of flame as well, of course, and immediately slings his shield across his back and raises the Hookshot with his left hand.

You were honestly expecting a Bomb, but this is fine, too; the ki you've been cycling coalesces into a solid sphere - not Overcharged as you were hoping, but full-force nonetheless - and even as the Hook sinks home a few feet below the impending flash-point of your Delayed Blast Fireball, you let fly-

-only for Dark Link to spin around as he hits the retraction mechanism, the Dark Master Sword flashing out in his RIGHT hand to intercept your Ki Blast. You hastily yank yourself back out of the Wall of Fire as your attack comes sailing straight back at you, almost perfectly redirected by the dark blade - this, despite the fact that Link and his doppelganger are, and always have been, LEFT-HANDED.

Something about seeing a sword in his RIGHT hand strikes you as simply wrong, not to mention profoundly unfair.

The Hookshot finishes retracting a moment later. Sheathing his weapon with a hint of awkwardness, Dark Link studies the bead for a moment, then reaches out-

-and plucks it from where it was hanging against the stone face. Balancing it on his palm for a moment, the shadow-warrior looks up and around. You can see him considering angles, distance, and force for a moment, and you immediately turn to get the heck out of Dodge, knowing what's about to follow.

Your emergency withdrawal runs straight into the Hakubas, who saw you turn to run, did likewise, and in so doing, have made it impossible for you to Body Flicker ahead to safety like you were planning.

Behind you, Dark Link throws the bead.

Up it sails, past the spatially-warped rim of the pit, into the roaring wall of heat radiating from the purple fire-

*BOOM!*

-and then the Fireball does what all of its kind are meant to, and explodes.

Even under magically-augmented and ki-enhanced speed, it's very fast. Flame floods the chamber on the opposite side of your Wall of Force, and then curls AROUND the seams at the top, bottom, and sides of the resilient construct. You, Briar, and the Hakubas barely have time to flinch as the red-hot fire ROARS over and past you, spreading out into the previous cavern-room in a plume of destruction.

Thank Din for that Spell of Protection From Fire, or you'd all probably have been roasted just now. As it is, YOUR defense has just taken a massive hit, a full half of its energy spent keeping you uncooked by that detonation. Somewhat more concerning, the air in here feels thinner than it did a moment ago, and tastes of smoke besides.

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

"For the record," Ginta says between coughs, "setting off large explosions in a confined space is NOT a good idea - especially when YOU'RE INSIDE THE SPACE!"

If there's a silver lining to this, it's that your Walls of Force took only minor damage from the blast, the Wall of Fire is continuing to burn, and Dark Link is still stuck in the pit.

For a little longer, at least.

Ignoring Ginta for the moment-

"Hey!"

-you cast a Spell of Wind Elementalism, creating a large amount of fresh, clean air to replace that which just got consumed by the sudden burst of flame.

Then you rush back inside the chamber - which still smells of smoke - and, seeing no sign of Dark Link on the ground floor, peer into the pit.

You end up calling on the Spell of Flight you've had active since before this fight began, and flying towards the roof. This new vantage point is enough for you to look down to the bottom of the pit - though you still can't see most of the half that's closest to you - and make out the dark floppy hat and head of black hair below. If the lack of additional smoke rising from Dark Link's head is any indication, he must have freed the Hookshot and dropped off the wall, getting out of range of the Delayed Blast Fireball before it went off.

If it were anyone or anything else, you'd be suspicious of the extraordinarily good timing, but Link has handled, fended off, or just SURVIVED so many types of explosions over the incarnations, it only makes sense that his doppelganger would be able to recognize such a device on sight.

Hovering back and forth along the top of your Wall of Force, you find a spot where the ceiling is far enough above the barrier to give you a good angle at the "top" of the pit.

Taking aim, you conjure a third force-construct into being, capping the dimensional hole in the floor with a modestly-sized dome. The bottom of the Resilient Hemisphere is more or less flush with the unaltered floor outside the pit, and large enough to cover MOST of the hole - but not quite ALL of it. There's enough space at the corners for you to cast spells down into the pit.

Dark Link looks up at the latest force-wall hemming him in. Despite the distance and the haze thrown up by where the heat still pouring off the Wall of Fire washes over your latest creation, you can still make out the scowl on the warrior's face.

You fly towards the right-hand side of the room and descend to the floor, gathering mana in preparation for your next - and hopefully, last - spell, but as you're about to begin casting, you sense magic flaring in the pit below - something of the school of Abjuration, and rather strong. It also sheds an eerie grey light.

You promptly will the Spell of Flight to carry you back to the ceiling for a moment, and when you look down into the pit once more, you find that Dark Link has surrounded himself with a haze of magical energy - energy that, as you watch, solidifies into a diamond-shaped barrier which surrounds him on all sides.

"Is that... Nayru's Love?!" Briar bursts out.

"Something like it, anyway," you agree.

And may you just say, that is one HELL of a defensive magic? Even if you didn't see enough of the casting to figure it out entirely, what you DID get a look at, and what you're seeing now, is giving you all kinds of ideas.

Gained Abjuration B (Plus)

Still. For all that it renders the target invulnerable, Nayru's Love does have a rather limited duration. All you need to do is cast the Wall of Fire, fill the pit, and just HOLD it there until Dark Link's-

-barrier... falls?

The sound that wells up from the pit causes your train of thought to skip tracks.

Music. Eerie, high-pitched notes of a song that you can safely say you've never heard before in this life, and which doesn't ring any bells in your inherited memories.

But it's the KIND of music - and more specifically, the kind of INSTRUMENT producing it - that startled you.

Dark Link is playing an ocarina.

And with each new note, you can sense magic building. STRONG magic, carrying aspects of the School of Summoning. The aura is already straining against that of the wards, but the latter are weak this far down in the mines, and the power of Dark Link's instrument and the song that it's invoked are just getting stronger.

Sweet Golden Goddesses, he can't POSSIBLY have THAT Ocarina!

...

...can he?

Shaking that PROFOUNDLY unsettling notion off, you focus on the matter at hand. You have seconds at BEST before Dark Link's song... make that, Song... reaches its peak. If that really is Nayru's Love at work down there, you doubt there's a single spell in your entire arsenal that could bring it down before then, at least via direct damage. Dispelling the barrier might work, if you're fast. Failing that, the only other course of action you can think of is to reinforce the Memorian wards somehow, to block the song's effects.

While you can't cast the spell yourself, Nayru's Love is an iconic example of Hyrulean magic, known and studied by practitioners at all levels of ability, from all walks of life. That includes Ganondorf, although your recollection of his research is limited: mostly, you "remember" the King of Evil working out how to pack More Power into his magical attacks, without significantly increasing the casting time for those attacks.

Also, explosions. Lots and lots of explosions, usually involving hapless Stalfos made to serve as test dummies.

And here you thought you'd never feel pity for the walking dead.

You're pretty sure Ganondorf got SOME kind of positive result going, but you couldn't replicate that right now even if you were inclined to go rooting around in the darker portions of your mind and soul to get the details. You simply lack the power the King of Evil had at the peak of his reign. Consequently, you have serious doubts that any spell, ki technique, or other attack you tried to throw at Dark Link right now would get through.

Fortunately, you don't NEED to directly affect Dark Link to interfere with whatever he's doing.

Your target is everything AROUND him.

Starting with the Spell of Dimensional Anchor, you begin applying aspects of other magics that will - you hope - turn the normally single-target spell into an area-affecting enchantment.

You're basically trying to recreate the Spell of Dimensional Lock from scratch, only with slightly less power than the eighth-circle magic demands - seventh-circle is the best you can do in the time you expect you have, before Dark Link's Song takes full effect.

Reaching over the top of the Wall of Force - and realizing as you do so that your instincts DON'T protest being exposed to intense heat nearly as strongly as they did direct contact with open flame - you cast your modified spell into the pit-

-which fills with green light, along with the rest of the chamber, JUST as Dark Link finishes his Song.

The last note of the eerie tune hangs in the air, as does the magic it has invoked, power trying to realize itself only to run headlong into a barrier that it can't seem to penetrate.

Something ELSE gives out then, and the floor returns to normal, the dimensionally-warped pit vanishing as the spell that sustained it reaches the limits of its power.

Which leaves you staring down at Dark Link from a distance of about five feet, though a Wall of Force that - now that you think on it - is just about due to vanish as well. The barrier at the back of the room will follow shortly, but the Wall of Fire should have another... twenty-four seconds? Thirty, maybe?

Thankfully, the Resilient Hemisphere has considerably more time left than that, but now that the floor has leveled out again, the bottom of the dome is more or less flush with the ground.

Past the two translucent force-fields, the rippling of the superheated air that fills the space between them, and the glowing grey barrier of Nayru's Love, you think you can make out Dark Link giving you a look of heated annoyance as he puts his ocarina back into his bag.

You were planning to fill the dimensional pit with fire, but now that the spell has lapsed, there IS no pit to fill. Moreover, because of the parameters of the Spell of Emergency Force Sphere that you originally cribbed to modify the traditional Resilient Sphere into a Resilient HEMISphere, the dome of force you conjured over Dark Link now comes down to the ground on all sides.

You make a mental note to modify the spell further, so that you can make floating hemispheres in the future and avoid situations like this.

Still, you can work with what you have. Dark Link isn't going anywhere for the next ten minutes or so, and while you can't cast spells through the force-bubble any more than he could escape, you have ways of getting around it.

Two options come to mind, and while they're both about equally effective, given the falling state of your magic reserves, you decide to go with the cheaper of the two. That decided, you start casting.

While you're doing that, Dark Link has reached into his bag and produced another Bomb - and then another, and then ANOTHER. He hasn't bothered to light them just yet; he seems intent on getting as many explosives out as possible, so he can set them all off at once and do the maximum amount of damage to your Resilient Hemisphere in the smallest amount of time possible.

Normally, this would be a suicidal plan, but: a) he's currently invulnerable; and b) this is an aspect of LINK you're dealing with.

The prospect of being blown to bits by his own weaponry might not have dissuaded him, if that's what it took to achieve victory.

You saw earlier that Hyrulean Bombs carry enough punch to threaten a Wall of Force. Rather than allow Dark Link to blast his way free, you finish casting your spell, once again looking and reaching over the top of your original barrier to do so.

Although it functions by altering dimensions, the Spell to Create Pits doesn't access alternate layers of reality, or allow you to go anywhere you couldn't already reach. It just makes an existing space LARGER. For this reason, it's unaffected by the green aura of the expanded Dimensional Anchor you covered the chamber with.

And so it is that the new pit blinks into existence right beneath the shadow-warrior's feet.

Dark Link shoots you a LOOK of pure poison-

"AAAARRRRRGH!"

-and lets out a yell that is at LEAST seventy percent anger as gravity takes hold once more, pulling him down into the pit along with a small rain of Bombs.

"You know," Briar muses, "in another time and place, this could be funny."

*BANG!*

"...a time and place without that blasted Hookshot, maybe," you mutter.

Dark Link managed to catch himself before he fell more than twenty feet or so. You're not sure what happened to the Bombs, and you don't much care.

Time to put an end to this.

You begin casting another spell.

The Wall of Force dividing the chamber in two reaches the limits of its duration and fades from existence, allowing some of the intense heat radiating off your still-burning Wall of Fire to wash outwards - but between the supernatural control that spell enforces, and the remaining strength of your Spell of Protection From Fire, you register the temperature as no more of a concern than warm air blowing up through a furnace vent.

By means of some acrobatic mid-air maneuvering and good aim, Dark Link has used the Hookshot to drag himself as far up the walls of the pit as he can go. He's digging into his pouch again - probably looking for another Bomb.

As you don't have line-of-effect to him, there's not much you can do about that except finish your spell, and hope for the best.

So you do.

Another Wall of Fire blazes into existence, a sheet of violet flame curled around upon itself to form a whirling cylinder of immolation. It fills the pit entirely, leaving only the space at the very top, directly beneath the Resilient Hemisphere, undamaged. Even then, you can see the air in there roiling with the intense heat rising from the burning shaft.

Gained Mana Control B (Plus) (Plus)

A moment later, there are two - no, three explosions in the pit. Two came from the bottom of the hole, but the third took place near Dark Link's position - and simultaneous with it, your magical link to your Resilient Hemisphere registers damage.

You wince. You were afraid of that. Dark Link isn't ideally positioned to Bomb your barrier, but his throwing arm is perfectly fine.

Another explosion is reported, MUCH sooner than it should have happened.

And it appears that the jerk is USING your Wall of Fire to set his Bombs off early.

You're honestly not sure what to do here. If your understanding of Nayru's Love is correct, Dark Link has maybe another forty seconds before his shield fails. At that point, he'll be open to the Wall of Fire, as well as any Bombs he might be holding at the time, and will undoubtedly fall to the bottom of the pit.

*BOOM!*

Judging by what you can feel through your spellsense, your Resilient Hemisphere may or may not last that long.

Not to mention that, even IF Dark Link fails to bring down your barrier before his defense fails, he might be able to re-cast Nayru's Love, scale the walls of the pit again, and start over. And as long as you're focusing on keeping that Wall of Fire up, you can't use magic to try and address the problem.

You make a mental note to see about modifying the spell further, so that you can make floating - or at least slightly-elevated - hemispheres in the future and avoid situations like this.

A few options come to mind. The notion of casting the Spell to Create Pits and dropping Dark Link into a deep hole, again, is VERY tempting, but you realize that spell isn't an option anymore. Now that your previous casting of Create Pit has lapsed, the bottom of the Resilient Hemisphere is flush with the ground on all sides - perhaps not PERFECTLY so, but it's close enough in most areas that the bottom edge of the dome would get caught up in the dimension-warping effect of another Spell to Create Pits. This would result in the "hemisphere" being stretched down to the bottom of the pit, creating an invulnerable "pillar."

As that's entirely contradictory with your intent, you toss that spell out and consider the other two options that came to mind.

Using the Spell of Elemental Body to reach through the stone floor and bypass the Resilient Hemisphere as a barrier would work, but it would also require you to put your hand within Dark Link's striking range. You already got ample evidence of just how FAST he is; you don't need further proof in the form of a mutilated hand.

That leaves using the Spell of Stone Shaping to create a hole you can cast through. Captain Marcus mentioned earlier that the walls of the base were warded against this kind of direct alteration, but as with the wards to prevent summoning and to allow for remote scrying, you're far enough down in the mines that such defenses are likely rather weak. Not to mention that you ARE in a mine, and laying down magical "anti-digging" defenses in such a place would be the HEIGHT of counter-productive foolishness. It's much more likely that the wards in this area are meant to prevent unknown creatures from digging IN to the base, while still allowing the Memorians themselves the option to dig OUT.

It's a fine hair to split, but magic RUNS on such conceptual rules-lawyering.

A spell-chant tumbles from your lips as you drop to your knees and lower your head until you can look straight down the simple stone trench you carved into the floor.

Dark Link sees you, draws his sword, and assumes a stance.

You extend your hand.

Dark Link spins in place, blade held low and trailing a spark of energy - not quite enough to count as a Sword Beam, but there all the same. Though it's clearly his intent to use the maneuver to light all five of the Bombs he has placed about the interior of your Resilient Hemisphere, he actually misses one of them, and the fuse on a second one simply fails to light.

The other three, however, catch and begin to hiss.

Gained Cleave E

You complete your spell, one of the simplest works of Earth Elementalism, infused with as much power as you could muster, and WILL a mass of loose sand to appear within the transparent force-sphere.

*FOOF!*

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

Your intent was to fill the half-globe and smother the Bombs, or at least muffle their explosions, while also burying Dark Link and leaving him both immobilized and unable to breathe.

Dark Link and his Bombs completely disappear from your view as the conjured sand expands outwards and upwards with an almost explosive force, until it has filled the Hemisphere so completely that barely half a foot of empty space is left at the top. This has the side-effect of causing a plume of sand to shoot back down the trench like a dry firehose.

Good thing you were prepared for something like that, and rolled out of the line of fire. Defensive spells or no, a facial sandblasting wouldn't have been fun at all.

As you recover your balance and make ready to start casting the next spell you had in mind, you catch a glimpse of movement near the top of the dome. Taking flight once again - and squinting against the dry heat that radiates harmlessly against you, now that the first Wall of Force you cast has faded away - you see that Dark Link has pulled himself up through the sand as far as he could. The grey shadow of his take on Nayru's Love still surrounds him, keeping a small area clear of the conjured dust, which instead trickles down the edges of the barrier to fill the space below his boots.

With a growl of frustration, you start casting the Spell of Resilient Hemisphere again, planning to layer a second dome of force over the first.

Inside the dome, Dark Link has pulled out YET ANOTHER BOMB, which he once again light by simply biting the fuse. He holds the hissing munition up with his right hand, while his left fishes through his bag for another Bomb.

Light flashes as you finish your spell - just in time for something within the double-layered barrier to go *whump!*

Despite your best effort, you register significant damage to the Resilient Sphere. The Bombs WERE placed right up against the dome, and it looks like the sudden and forceful addition of the sand didn't dislodge them enough to completely eliminate the threat.

On the other hand, you stopped a couple of the Bombs from going off at all. So that's... something. Right?

Dropping back to the floor, where the sand choking the trench has slowed its escape from the Hemisphere to a trickle, you cast the Spell to Transmute Mud to Rock, fiddling with the parameters to exchange range for a slightly wider variety of target substances - sand, in this case.

Gained Mana Control B (Plus) (Plus)

The modified spell takes effect, turning the sand that fills your reinforced prison into solid stone. Not the hardest stuff, mind you, just sandstone - Dark Link could pulverize it easily, but it'll still take up space, and this way at least, the hole is plugged.

A moment later, there is a LARGE explosion inside the dome.

That wasn't one Bomb. If the noise is any indication, that was... three Bombs, all going off at once.

You're not sure if it's the concentration of high-grade Hyrulean explosives in one spot, the lack of empty space for the blast to "waste" its force against, some structual weakness of the dome, or just the accumulated damage being too much. In the end, it doesn't really matter.

Your Resilient Hemisphere has shattered. So has... quite a lot of the sandstone that filled the upper portion of the dome.

Dark Link leaps towards freedom-

-and slams his floppy-capped head against the interior of the SECOND dome, which he apparently didn't see you cast.

"RRRRAAAARRRRGH!"

Wow. Someone's mad.

Gained Trolling C (Plus)

You take stock of the situation. Dark Link is still trapped for the moment, he's now on a timer for how much air he has left - assuming he needs to breathe at all, which you're not going to say for certain until you see some proof. He's used up a dozen Bombs to little real effect, which means at most, he has... well, it really depends on the grade of Bomb Bag he's using, but at the absolute limit, he might have another eighty or so Bombs left.

But it's much more likely that he's only got three dozen.

...

Can you just take a moment to say that Hylians have a REALLY unhealthy fascination with high explosives? Because they DO.

Of course, against the potentially INSANE amount of firepower Dark Link may yet have on his person, you have to weigh the continued existence of Nayru's Love. The spell must have burned through better than half its functional duration by now, and once it's gone, Dark Link is going to have to make a hard call.

Assuming, of course, that he can't just cast it again.

You idly consider using your magic to heat up the mass of rock you've filled most of the Resilient Hemisphere with, but getting THAT MUCH stone hot enough to pose any kind of threat to Dark Link would take a large expenditure of magic, and your last bit of spellcasting pushed your reserves below a quarter of your absolute maximum. Not to mention the time it would take.

As you gather mana for another spell, you glance over your shoulder at the Hakubas.

"I hate to say this," you admit, "but you might want to retreat."

Ginta and Ichirou trade glances, and then the elder speaks. "I believe we will wait for you."

"Fair enough," you say. "But if we all get killed, I reserve the right to say I told you so."

"Nobody is getting killed," Briar says firmly.

Oh, how you'd like to believe that...

You raise another Resilient Hemisphere, one whose formula has been altered to conserve some mana by reducing the maximum duration of the dome from ten minutes to a little over one. With the way Dark Link is throwing Bombs around, you don't really expect the force-field to last that long - and you don't truly need it to.

On the far side of the chamber, the other Wall of Force fades away, leaving the passage down to the deepest part of the mine clear once more.

Turning your back on the double-layered dome, you cast another spell, using up the mana you just saved and then some to create a more powerful version of a relatively simple magic.

You conclude the spell-chant with four simple words, aimed at Dark Link: "You. Can't. Touch. THIS."

Hidden in your shadow, the Spectral Hand shimmers into existence, hovering in mid-air and flexing its ghostly fingers with a casual air. As it does so, you feel a sudden rush weakness, and an ache that verges on genuine pain as a portion of your life-essence - larger than you were anticipating - transfers into the hand.

Which promptly gives you a thumbs-up.

You're suddenly reminded of the oddly-animated Forceful Hand you used upstairs. Which makes sense, because some of the spell parameters that went into your modified Spectral Hand were derived from that very spell...

Well, here's hoping.

You pause for a split-second to glance over your shoulder again, honestly surprised that you haven't heard another mass-detonation of Bombs in the past eight seconds or so, but rather than look a gift horse in the mouth, you hurry on to the next phase of your plan. Once again, you draw deeply upon your dwindling reserve of mana, altering a low-end spell into something more potent, and hopefully, more effective.

"Goddesses," you pray, "please let this work. I'm running out of ideas, here."

The Spectral Hand, previously a sort of blue-tinted white, now turns an unbecoming greenish-grey. The construct actually FLINCHES as it absorbs the new magic.

At that moment, from behind you, comes the expected explosion. It's larger and louder than the previous one, suggesting that Dark Link pulled out more Bombs this time, enough to bring down the inner layer of your double-Hemisphere in one shot.

Which he did.

Your response is twofold. First, you silently will the Spectral Hand forward, sending it down into trench, its incorporeal state allowing it to pass straight through the sandstone, under the rim of the dome, and then - you're hoping - to surprise Dark Link from below.

While the Hand snaps a salute and drifts to the floor, you get on with casting another of the short-lived Resilient Hemispheres, just in case.

Just as you finish reinforcing Dark Link's prison for the fourth time, a sensation of readiness shoots down the link you have with your Spectral Hand.

You hold off on ordering the attack, instead taking to the air on your Spell of Flight to see if the grey glow of Dark Link's copy of Nayru's Love is still present - for if it is, you'll gain nothing, and only waste the element of surprise.

As it happens, the grey diamond is still there - but its strange light is no longer steady, and is instead winking in and out, each time looking a little less bright. You can also see that Dark Link has scattered two Bombs in the dust that now takes up most of the upper portion of the Resilient Hemisphere. One of those Bombs is lit, and the warrior is just pulling a third from his bag.

You will your hidden Hand to stay "low," inside the conjured sandstone. The Bombs probably won't hurt it, but better safe than sorry.

Dark Link tosses the third Bomb over to join the first two, almost without looking, and goes back for number four. There's an edge of uncertainty in his movements, and with the blinking of Nayru's Love quickening as you watch, you have to suspect it's because he knows he's running out of time.

The fourth Bomb emerges and is pitched away with the same haste as the third. Dark Link reaches for Bomb number five-

*BOOM!*

-and pulls it out just BARELY in time for the resulting chain-explosion, which blows him backwards, through the cloud of swirling sandstone dust, and into the interior of the newest Resilient Hemisphere, almost before the shattered fragments of its immediate predecessor have finished fading back into motes of mana.

Nayru's Love flickers.

Dark Link staggers back from the interior of the dome, as if enough of the force of the blast carried through his faltering barrier to stun him.

Nayru's Love falters.

Dark Link shakes his head, and reaches clumsily for his Bag.

Nayru's Love glows more brightly than ever before, and lets out a single, mournful note.

In that instant, you will your Spectral Hand to STRIKE.

And strike it does, shooting up from the Bomb-blasted stone and reaching for the nearest of those dark booted feet.

Dark Link's head snaps down sharply, sensing the attack-

-but he doesn't have his sword or shield in hand, there still isn't a great deal of room to maneuver inside the stone-filled and sand-choked dome, and with all the smoke and dust still filling the air from the series of explosions, the Hand is even more difficult to see than usual.

Dark Link still lashes out with one booted foot, but the Hand is a small target, and incorporeal besides. It would take a magical weapon to stand a chance of actually harming it, and for all the enchanted footwear you can recall Link ever using, none come to mind that were explicitly designed for ATTACKING with. Granted, you COULD be forgetting something...

...but in this instance, you're not. Whether because he missed or his boot just went straight through, Dark Link fails to stop your Spectral Hand from making contact with his body, and discharging the sinister spell it now carries.

The warrior throws his head back in a cry of pain, jagged bolts of ugly green-grey energy racing up and around his body as the Spell of Ghoul Touch unleashes its power against him.

With a surge of effort, Dark Link throws off the spell, the chains of Necromantic power shattering about him.

Then the Spectral Hand flies in again, dodging a grab by one gauntlet-clad hand to punch the warrior in the chest, unloading ANOTHER round of the spell.

Again, Dark Link struggles to throw off your magic, and again, he succeeds - but it's even more of an effort for him this time.

Enough of one that, when your Spectral Hand lashes out one more time, the shadowy warrior doesn't even see it coming. Your phantom fist takes him square under the chin, and while it doesn't carry nearly enough physical force to rock his head back, the burst of the Spell of Ghoul Touch going off for a third time more than makes up for it.

"HRRRRAAaaggggk!"

And this time, Dark Link fails to resist the magic. His movements slow, become rigid, and then stop altogether.

For a moment, all is still.

Then your Spectral Hand starts doing what you can only call a victory dance, fist-pumping against the air, making rude gestures to Dark Link's frozen snarl, and generally carrying on.

You're about to call it out when you realize that your Wall of Fire has collapsed. Not only that, but your Ki Enhancement is about to follow.

With Dark Link paralyzed and helpless, you have a window of opportunity - a chance to finish this fight.

As you will the Resilient Hemisphere to dissipate, you glance over your shoulder at the Hakubas. "Gentlemen, you may want to avert your eyes."

"Wait," Ichirou says, "you mean to kill him? Just like that?"

His question - indeed, his entire person - radiates disapproval.

Ginta frowns, and squints at the unmoving figure.

"Heck yes, he does!" Briar exclaims. "If we leave that thing alive, we DIE. Plain and simple."

"But it's a person-" Ichirou begins.

"Look closer, son," Ginta advises grimly. He nods at Dark Link. "I can feel no life within that form, no soul. It's not a demon, but it's not a youkai or fallen kami, either."

Ichirou looks at his father in surprise, and then does as instructed. You take a moment to follow suit, opening up your senses further. For all the practice you've gotten with your extrasensory abilities, there's a certain point past which Lu-sensei has advised you it's simply better not to go in a combat situation. Emotions and energies run high in battle, particularly battles to the death, and that can make it dangerous to read too deeply into an opponent. You risk seeing too much, losing focus on the here-and-now for the if-and-then, and becoming distracted.

When you're fighting for your life, distraction kills.

But now that Dark Link is caught by your paralytic Spell of Necromancy, you have an opportunity to examine him more closely - and so you do.

What you find bears out Ginta's statement. There is no mortal ki or monstrous youki, no spiritual presence, no demonic corruption. There is strong magic, and that weird not-ki energy you picked up on when Dark Link threw a Sword Beam, but now that you're able to spare the focus to really break down those auras, you find no difference, no separation.

Before your empowered eyes, Dark Link's "magic" and "ki" are one and the same: a murk of deepest Shadow, shot through with twisty, blood-red patterns that radiate outwards from a core of pure Darkness.

In the depths of your mind, Ganondorf's memories stir, and you experience a sense of surprise that is not truly your own.

You can't escape wondering: why are your Ganondorf-memories surprised by what you see when you look at Dark Link?

You're tempted. You're SERIOUSLY tempted. There's a magical mystery right in front of you, and the knowledge that SOME answers, if not all of them, may well be locked up somewhere inside your own HEAD... well.

In the end, though, your curiosity is overridden by a healthy sense of self-preservation.

You've already had Ganondorf's presence in your mind go from these unspoken impulses and reactions not quite your own, to a full-blown voice grumbling and muttering and just generally carrying on like there's a whole other actual PERSON inside your skull.

You'd really rather not go down that road again.

That'd be the case even if the other guy in your head WASN'T the King of Evil.

But even beyond that, there's what Briar just said. Leaving Dark Link alive is NOT the sort of choice that leads to a long and healthy life, not for you or anyone with you - probably not for a LOT of people. Right now, he's harmless, but the clock is very much ticking.

And you DID just take down the force-bubble that was the ONLY thing left keeping him from closing the distance and starting to take you apart in melee again.

Been there, done that, got the bruises and strained muscles to know you DON'T want to do it again.

Briar's already made her preference for dealing with Dark Link clear, and Ginta appears to have reached the same conclusion. That just leaves Ichirou, and judging by the look of surprise, confusion, and slow-mounting distaste on his features, he's rapidly coming around to your way of thinking.

However one defines "personhood," that would make three votes in favor of Dark Link not qualifying - and your vote makes four.

Motion carries.

You reach within, taking hold of your dwindling mana with one hand while your still-strong ki fills the other, and bring them together...

Golden light floods the chamber.

Ignoring the startled exclamations from the two priests - seriously, you DID warn them they might want to look away - you take your Blessed Blade in both hands... and then pause as a thought occurs.

You can't call upon your magic or ki in this state, as both energies are being siphoned off by the brilliant aura, but you HAVE been able to utilize your Power to produce effects similar to certain magical and martial techniques, just... much more so. The added striking force offered by a Sword Beam would be useful in this situation, and while you can't truly use the technique itself, perhaps you could make something similar work with raw Power?

Glancing at your weapon, you will golden power into the hilt, and then down along the blade.

Gained Power Blade F

A ringing hum goes up from your sword as it BLAZES with newfound strength - but immediately, you realize that you can't maintain this technique for long. Not safely. It's too new, too unpracticed; the amount of Power you're pouring into your Blessed Blade is more than the weapon can easily handle, even with that tendency you've noticed for it to feed upon your energy.

In a living being, that almost musical sound echoing from your weapon would be a cry of pain as well as of triumph.

You need more pratice before you can use this skill seriously.

For that matter, your SWORD may need more practice.

But that's fine. You only need it for a moment.

Raising your Blessed Blade over your head with both hands, you let out a cry that feels utterly and absolutely right:

"BY THE POWER OF HYRULE!"
Bwahahahaha!
For a second, the golden light intensifies, and you feel SOMETHING behind you. You experience a strong urge to look back and see if the image of an ancient castle with a menacing skull facade hasn't appeared there - but you don't, because that would ruin the pose.
Oh, for our sakes...
Ahead of you, you notice your Spectral Hand cowering away from your suddenly incandescent self.
Just go with it, Wise Girl.
"I HAVE THE POWER!"
Oh, I LIKE that one! I'm stealing it!
Then you leap for Dark Link.
Really, Din? REALLY?
Gained Din's Favor B
Gained Finishing Blow F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Leap Attack E (Plus)
Gained Mighty Blow E

Physics, biology, magic, and more combine into a blow that you fully expect would have given Dark Link problems even if he were able to defend himself.

Paralyzed as he is, it's a deathblow.

And rather more spectacular of one than you were expecting, or even intending.

Dark Link's body isn't pierced or cut by the stroke of your Power-infused Blessed Blade.

No, instead, he flat out DISINTEGRATES as your weapon strike through where his heart SHOULD have been. His torso is GONE before you've entirely completed the move, and even as you rapidly adjust to compensate for the lack of, er, "resistance" to your fatal blow, his limbs and head follow suit.

But his face remains - not as flesh, not even as substance, but as a twisted phantom, fronting the cloud of darkness which is all that remains of the dark doppelganger.

Dark Link, or whatever he - IT - is now, glares at you with utter hatred, and lets out a SHRIEK of pure fury.

You raise your sword again, but as fast as you are under the effects of Maximum Power, the formless specter is somehow even faster. It dodges the stroke and surges backwards, the face still glaring and howling at you as wisps of its essence are swept back around it by the wind of its passage.

"A little help, here, guys!" you call to Hakubas, as you move to pursue the fleeing shadow.

The blistering speed afforded to you by Maximum Power allows you to stay within striking distance, and now that you've seen how quick the shadow-spirit can move, it can't surprise you again. It still manages to dodge the first thrust of your no-longer Power-infused sword - for a value of "dodging" that involves withdrawing its smoky substance out of the path of your blade, leaving a fairly large hole in the center of its mass - but when you follow that up by pulling your weapon first to the right and then suddenly back to the left, you manage to score a hit.

Gained Sword Training C (Plus) (Plus)

Even devoid of your aura of Power, your Blessed Blade leaves a clean gash through the billowing cloud of darkness.

The spirit responds with another howl, this time one of clear pain.

Then it makes a turn to your right, shooting through a patch of the stone wall. You have to go around, following the shape of the caves, and while your speed means you lose no more than a second of time, you've still lost it. The shadow-spirit's maneuver has bought it just enough distance to put it out of the reach of your sword.

You consider calling up more Power and enhancing your speed, but you're already moving faster than you're comfortable with in an enclosed space. Any more acceleration, and you risk losing your footing, or just slamming into a rock face you didn't see coming in time.

Instead, you gather Power to your hands - fumbling a bit to avoid re-infusing your sword, or dropping it - and begin forming a Power Ball.

By this point, you've already crossed two of the four chambers that lay between you and the very bottom of the Memorian mine. You've mostly cleared the third room, rock surfaces flying past as brief blurs of light, shadow, and darkness, before your new attack reaches an optimal size.

Gained Power Ball E (Plus) (Plus) (E (Plus) without Heart Container)

You let fly.

Shadow-stuff burns away like paper in a fire before the golden energy, and the wraith SCREAMS in agony - but even so, it manages to dodge the brunt of the attack by means of a wild, corkscrewing maneuver, which scatters fragments of burning darkness behind it.

And then you enter the last room.

It's bigger than most of the caves you passed through to get here, a rough hemisphere some thirty feet across at its widest, but lined with stalactites and stalagmites that form simplistic "walls," giving the place an irregular shape a bit like a seven-armed star.

At the back of one of those arms, directly opposite to the chamber's sole entrance, something casts back the golden glow of your aura. A disc of dark silver, not quite a foot across, set into a golden frame with two handholds.

Dark Link's shade is heading for it, but the incorporeal entity shed too much of its speed while trying to avoid a clean hit from your Power Ball. It's back in striking range, and you waste no time lashing out, this time with a Power-infused fist.

Screaming fills the air as your blow connects, tearing through the cloud of shadow as easily as though it were the smoke it so resembles. Again, the phantom thing retreats at dazzling speed, this time on an angle that carries it away from the Mirror you've gone to so much trouble to claim - but even as you watch, the black spirit's course begins to turn.

If you were to forget the shadow for a moment and go for the Mirror RIGHT NOW, you'd get to it first. Dark Link has demonstrated that, in this form at least, it can't tolerate the touch of your Power-infused aura; once you have your hands on the Mirror, it's yours.

But if you do that, the spirit will probably give up on whatever it had in mind for the Mirror, and flee through the stones. You're at the lowest point of the mines, and the wards will be as weak here as they can possibly become. Plus, you've already seen that they don't do much to prevent entities from "digging out" of the complex - there's a good chance Dark Link will simply be able to slip through the stones and escape.

You could try to destroy the dark spirit altogether, but the question is: can you do it before the entity reaches the Mirror? Can you do it before your Power runs dry?

There's no sign of the Hakubas. The enhancements you wove about them simply don't compare to your Maximum Power, and though you're quite sure that they and Briar are following you at their best speeds, they won't get here before this is decided.

The Mirror is why you're here. A girl's life and an elder kitsune's sanity may well depend on you getting it - to say nothing of the lives of the people who will be confronting said fox-woman in the near future. You've encountered SERIOUSLY unexpected obstacles in just getting to the looking-glass, and while you've mostly overcome them - without any loss of life or limb, at that, and not even much in the way of life-force - this phase of your quest won't be complete until the Mirror is in your hands.

But at the moment, all of those concerns are somewhat distant. At least when compared to the shrieking shadow trying to get around you and get to the Mirror.

You don't know what will happen if Dark Link's remnant essence comes into contact with the Mirror, and if you're being fully honest?

You don't really care.

The fact that you've never used this technique in a confined space before today no longer concerns you. The knowledge that your enemy is incorporeal, and could slip through the rocks to escape you is acknowledged as no more than a difficulty to be overcome - and a minor one, at that. Even your uncertainty about what Dark Link actually IS, and the prospective secrets that you might lose by destroying it out of hand, do not stop you.

Right here and now, all you want is for this thing to DIE.

Golden light flares as you let out a pulse of Power.

Gained Power Sense E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) (E (Plus) (Plus) without Heart Container)

Though its primary function is as a sensory technique, you've seen before that Power Sense can have a deleterious effect on certain monsters - and in its current state, Dark Link has demonstrated a similar vulnerability to your raw Power. On top of this, Power Sense has no real "charge time" like your Power Ball, it travels considerably faster, and it covers a truly massive area by comparison. You've also seen no evidence that the overcharged scanning technique actually HARMS anything it sweeps over, which is a serious consideration with the Mirror just a few yards away.

As it happens, when the expanding wave-front of your Power Sense comes into contact with the Mirror, only reaction from the glass-and-gold creation is a reflected flare of brilliant light, and a very slight clash between its energies and your own. It's nothing damaging, nothing that even HINTS at being harmful if you poured more Power into your probe; it's merely the magic imbued into the Mirror throwing off your diffuse energy's attempt to pry into its structure and secrets.

The effect on Dark Link is rather more pronounced. When the golden wave washes over the fleeing shadow, the specter's flight becomes wildly erratic. Losing much of its forward momentum as it writhes and screeches, the dark cloud is shot through with tiny bolts of Power that you can sense pulling at its essence, strong and widespread enough to interfere with whatever vital functions the spirit has in its current state, but not so much so that it is truly being damaged.

Which is fine.

All you needed was to slow it down, and Power Sense has achieved that goal beautifully.

The rest, you leave to your Fist.

Gained Power Fist E (Plus) (Plus) (E (Plus) without Heart Container)

As your Power-infused knuckles slam into the heart of the black cloud, there is the briefest sensation of resistance-

-and then, for the first time in a while, you find yourself slipping into a Power-induced vision.

Before you is not a cloud, but Dark Link reformed, and taking your blazing fist straight to the chest, directly over the heart. As your blow connects, a shockwave of golden Power races through the doppelganger's form as he staggers back from the hit - and the core of Darkness you beheld earlier EXPLODES out of his back, its surface DISINTEGRATING under your burning Power.

In that instant, Dark Link's appearance shifts. His visage remains an off-color twin to Link's, but the malice and madness have faded, and his equipment is... you hesitate to say brighter, but there are more shades of white and grey to contrast with the black that remains the dominant hue of his clothing and gear.

The Triforce symbols on the backs of his gauntlets, the front of his shield, and the hilt of his sword all glow golden.

Maybe it's just your Power passing over and through those areas... but you really, really doubt it.

Rather more concerning is the Darkness that you expelled from the shadow warrior.

There is a face in it. Huge, dark, snarling, GLARING - crowned with a mane that radiates the dull, fitful, deadly glow of molten rock, and lined with scales blacker than the darkest night.

It is not Link's face.

It is not Ganondorf's face, though there is an unsettling resemblance.

Who is that?

WHAT is that?

And why does it feel so FAMILIAR?

...

Perhaps it's just as well that the vision ends there.

You come back to reality, and find that at least part of your vision was physical truth. Dark Link has reformed, and stands before you once again.

This SHOULD be alarming as hell. Not only is the dark doppelganger standing not five feet from you, but your Maximum Power technique appears to have cut out while you were in the vision.

But in spite of all that, you find you're not the least bit worried. Dark Link's bearing, his attire, his AURA - pure Shadow, now, with not a hint of Darkness to be found - are all different. Even his eyes, while still an unsettling shade of red, appear... clearer.

And the Triforce emblems on his equipment are still gleaming gold.

The warrior regards you for a moment, and then raises the dark twin of the Master Sword in a salute, nodding to you from behind the upturned blade.

Prompted by a mix of good manners, your sense of the dramatic, and a feeling that it's just RIGHT, you raise your Blessed Blade and return the gesture.

Dark Link grins, suddenly looking EXACTLY like the Hero of Hyrule, dark hair and red eyes be damned.

And then he vanishes, returned to shadow.

Gained Maximum Power D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) (D (Plus) (Plus) without Heart Container)

"Alex!"

And not a moment too soon, by the sound of it.

Briar shoots down the tunnel, followed closely by the two Hakubas.

"Are you okay?" the fairy blurts out. "What happened? Where did it go? Is it dead? Hey, is that the Mirror? Wait, should we be looking at it?!"

Before Briar can get another word out - and before the priests manage to get a word in edgewise - golden motes of energy that have nothing to do with your Power begin gathering in mid-air where Dark Link was standing.

And another Heart Container appears.

Omake: Divine Wish-Granting Artifacts are OP

[ ] Begin the Summoning Ritual for the Holy Grail War

You take a deep breath as you stare at the ritual circle in front of you.

"Ready for this Briar?"

A barbie-sized fairy with a scarlet glow lands softly on your shoulder.

"Sure. After all the stories mom told me, I'm feeling pretty eager to meet him in the flesh. Which class do you think he'll be?"

"Not sure," you reply as you begin pulling your ritual implements out of your bag. "Saber and Rider are both strong possibilities, though Archer is already taken. We might still get something unexpected like Berserker considering just how broad his legend is though."

Briar let out a high-pitched snort. "Not likely. Mum always said he was the most unflappable person she's ever met. It'd take something pretty terrifying to make Link lose his cool."

A memory from half a decade ago crosses your mind, of a shadowed figure scowling slightly as you entrap it for the sixth time in a row. All things considered, this is probably an appropriate topic to be thinking about. The effort needed to prepare for this moment had begun on that long ago day, and as always, you had refused to take the easy way out when it came to magic.

With the last of your preparations complete, you kneel down at the edge of the ritual circle, your knees placed right at the point where the nearest corner of the Triforce symbol inside meets the circle.

"Mighty Hero, across the Darkness of dimensions, the soul of your old foe calls your attention."

Reaching to your side, you pick up the Heart Container you claimed in battle 5 years ago, and place it at the leftmost corner of the Triforce symbol.

"Skillful Hero, by the Shadow of your legend, I open a path to you."

The next catalyst is your trusty Blessed Blade, glowing brightly with a trace of the same magic that fills the Triforce of Courage. Convincing Farore to provide the energy for it had not been a simple task.

"Brave Hero, by the Light of a courageous blade, I show you the way."

On the hand, it was nowhere near as difficult as it was to obtain the final totem of this ritual.

"Careful Alex. If you even sneeze on it my mom will kill us."

You reach into a plastic Ziplock bag and withdraw an ancient woven hat, its' faded colours showing a faint hint of green. Leaning back, you begin gathering power.

"Righteous Hero, with the aid of your trusted friend, I call to you across worlds to protect people in their time of need! LINK, I SUMMON YOU!"

Wisps of golden energy begin to appear in the air.

"LINK, I BID YOU COME FORTH!"

Golden trails of light rise up from the circle and swirl in the air.
Briar leans forth from your shoulder and cups her hands around her mouth.

"HEY, LISTEN! LINK, WE COULD REALLY USE YOUR HELP!"

Gained Words of Power A

The green hat floats up into the air, and traces of golden energy begin to spiral underneath it, drawing in power. At the same time, you feel an immense drain on your strength, as you attempt to open a path to another world, and a hero untouched by the grail's corrupting influence. The pain builds until it feels like your brain is being squeezed like a lemon, when a spark of green light appears in the center of the circle. The sensation eases, and a familiar-sounding giggle enters your brain without ever having passed through your ears. With a final surge of power, the gathered magic in the circle flashes like a thunderbolt.

LINK, HERO OF HYRULE,

When your vision clears, the golden energy appears to have coalesced into a glowing human figure, the hat now restored to its' original lustre (if not colour) and perched upon the figure's head.

BERSERKER CLASS-

Slowly, the glow fades and you are able to make out the full silhouette of the figure. As expected, you can see someone wearing heavy boots and a thick tunic, shield on their back, and their trusty twin-spiralled blade at their...wait, that's not the Master Sword.

MASK OF THE FIERCE DEITY.

The glow finally fades, and you behold the masked figure before you, who returns the stare unblinkingly. Then, they grasp the hat perched upon their head and examine in it in surprise. The air seems to vibrate for a moment.

'Oh, you found my old hat! I haven't seen this in ages!'

...You're not sure what just happened, but it felt like the figure was trying to say something.