"I'd also be interested to know the location of any meteorites that might have fallen in the area," you add earnestly.
Elder Tiriaq quirks an eyebrow at you. "Ice and space rocks? That's certainly an unusual combination. I can understand wanting to find a meteorite - they carry good metal, and many of the scientists who come our way are interested in studying them for other reasons - but that plus ice? What sort of ritual are you performing that needs such different elements?"
Looks like Hakoda didn't mention the full details. That's fine; you go ahead and explain to the shaman that you're seeking to perform a familiar binding ceremony with Briar, and that you've been tracking down reagents that fall in line with your magical tradition's take on the elements. You've obtained high-quality reagents representative of all the other elements - or, as in the case of the Eclipse, will be able to exploit them on the day of the ritual itself - and all that's left on your list is a Water reagent and an Earth reagent.
"Glacial ice struck me as a good candidate for a powerful Water reagent," you tell Tiriaq. "And while I was researching possible sources for that, I noticed that Antarctica has a history of being a good place to find meteorites, too."
"So you thought you'd kill two fish with one spear," the shaman says, nodding. "Sensible. Also easier said than done, but that's why you asked for help, isn't it?"
You nod, noting as you do so that Hakoda quietly slipped away from the discussion at some point, giving you, Briar, and Tiriaq some privacy.
"Well, you're right about glacier ice being good material for a ritual," Tiriaq admits. "I've used it a time or two to reinforce our wall and some other structures. It makes the ice harder to Bend, break, or melt than it otherwise would be. I could certainly point you to a good source, even lend a hand acquiring it."
It goes unsaid that he'd want something in return for that aid. That's just how these things work.
"As far as meteorites go, that's a bit harder. I don't know of any recent impacts, and the Tribe's long since cleared out the older ones near our territory. They've always been our main local source of metal, and still as good as most of what we can get in trade these days - just not in quantity." The shaman shakes his head. "I don't doubt that there are plenty of old impact sites farther out on the ice fields, and I know that your people have been collecting meteorites from the mountains since Hakoda was a boy, but we of the Southern Water Tribe don't travel so far inland. There's no food or company but what you take with you, no shelter but what you carry or Waterbend. It's spirit country at the best of times."
Something about the way he says that catches your attention. If there's a "best of times," then it follows that there would be a "worst of times" as well, right?
"I suppose I could ask the spirits if they'd be willing to point me towards a meteorite somewhere reasonably close by, that hasn't yet been claimed," the shaman muses, while stroking his iron-grey beard, "but my usual spirit guides aren't much interested in rocks. A falling star would certainly catch their attention, but holding it after it's hit the ground and been buried by the snow?" He shakes his head. "Unlikely. And the spirits that WOULD know... most of them, I prefer not to contact without a very pressing need. Or at all."
He punctuates that last addendum with a firm, curiously formal sweep of his hand - one that channels a brief, small surge of spiritual power.
Talk about your warding gestures. What the heck is OUT there, amidst the ice and snow of the polar night, that Tiriaq is so keen on avoiding the attention of? And does it connect to those "worst of times" you were speculating about a minute ago? Because if it does, if there's some kind of malicious spirit roaming Antarctica...
Summoning Magic is one of your better skillsets, and it's a branch of sorcery that spiritual entities - which often exist between worlds - are strongly subject to. An offer to call up and bind a dangerous entity so that it can't do more harm might be just the ticket to repaying Tiriaq for his assistance.
Then again, maybe you'd be better served by taking your cue from the shaman, and not talking about the whatever-it-is? After all, who's to say you could enforce the terms of a binding over something strong enough to make a seasoned shaman reluctant to speak of it?
Gained Southern Water Tribe E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
"And at the worst of times?" you ask.
Tiriaq regards you in silence for a moment, visibly considering how to answer. Then, slowly, he begins to speak.
"Before I was born, one of your universities funded an expedition to those mountains. They came to us, seeking to trade for supplies, seal-dogs, and guides, but when our chieftan learned where they were going, he firmly refused to deal with them. Indeed, I am told he and the elders tried their best to convince the explorers to abandon their search." Tiriaq shakes his head. "They did not listen, and instead dealt with one of our rival villages for what they needed."
"Let me guess," Briar says grimly. "They all died."
"Not all of them," the shaman replies. "Two men came back. One of them was mad, gibbering, beyond any of our skills to heal. The other was shaken, but rational enough to tell us of the fates of those that had accompanied him. Enough to say they had all died, and that he should have listened to our warnings." Tiriaq gives you a direct, piercing look. "As terrible as that event was, it is NOT the worst thing that can happen in the remote places of the continent."
He shivers, and will say no more.
Although you're very curious about these spirits that Tiriaq is reluctant to even speak of, let alone summon, you follow his lead on the subject and do not inquire for more details.
Instead, you focus on your current objective.
"My own Divination Magic is potent enough that I should be able to track a meteorite's general location without too much trouble," you say.
The Spell to Locate Objects will definitely do the job, once you've expanded its range. You might need to see a meteorite in person, first, so that you can analyze its mystical make-up and know in advance what you want to look for, and you'd definitely have to cast the spell a few times with different maximum ranges, to get a better idea of just how far out it lies, but that's no great hardship.
Worst case scenario, you have to head back to the States to visit a museum.
"If I was able to give you a direction and approximate distance for an unclaimed meteorite, would your spirit guides be willing to confirm its location?" you ask the shaman.
Tiriaq considers that. "I believe they would, if only for the chance to see if you were right or not."
...it may be that Tiriaq isn't the only one around here who's been having some trouble taking tales of your achievements completely seriously.
Eh, fair enough. You ARE kind of ridiculous.
"As far as payment goes," you say then, "I'm willing to track down an extra meteorite, or split the find if there's more than one rock. On the other hand, if it's JUST the metal you want, I could conjure a reasonable amount for you."
The shaman blinks, and then STARES at you.
"What."
Gained Southern Water Tribe D
Knowing that a demonstration of your claimed capability will carry much greater impact than talking about it, you start casting a Spell of Creation. As you work your magic, a mass of something that starts out as energy forms over your left hand; as you murmur the spell-chant and shape mana over, around, and within the object through gestures of your free right hand, the energy "condenses" into a semi-tangible state, and then becomes solid.
The entire process takes ten minutes, and Elder Tiriaq doesn't so much as say "boo" the entire time.
When it's over, you're holding a simple knife. It's nothing fancy, just a few inches of plain steel - you had to give up a lot of the volume you could potentially conjure in order to make the item truly real, rather than something that would fade from existence before day's end.
Gained Knowledge (Swords) E
You reach out and offer the weapon to the shaman, keeping the blade turned away from either of you as you do so.
Tiriaq takes the knife and spends a minute looking it over. He tests the weight and balance of the blade, scratches at the metal with one of his hard fingernails, then trims a bit of the same nail. All the while, you can feel the man's spirit moving behind and through his eyes, studying the newly-created tool on levels beyond the merely visual.
Whatever the shaman sees, it's enough leave his eyes wide.
"I can't conjure big amounts," you admit. "Not if I want them to stay around longer than a day or two. And another magic-user I know has warned me off of trying to conjure precious metals and jewels - apparently there are people who watch for that kind of thing. I'm much better at repairing things that already exist."
"Yes," Tiriaq says, looking up from the knife. "I've heard something about restoring a temple?"
...what, he heard about that already? All the way down here?
Man, the spiritual rumor-mill works FAST.
In any case, it's clear from this little exchange that Tiriaq is quite willing to do business with you, trading a few conjured items for information on where you can find glacial ice, and his spirit guides' assistance in tracking down a meteorite. You expound a bit on just what kinds of materials and items you're able to produce, testing whether or not the shaman or his Tribesmen would be interested in things like wood or silk.
The offer of conjured wood definitely gets his interest, particularly when you've explained a bit more about how much of it you'd be able to create. There are no trees on this continent, and for much of their history, the Southern Water Tribe's only sources of wood were scraps carried to their shores by the waves, and what they could harvest during the occasional expedition to warmer climates. Modern trade brings in a small supply of wood, but at the same time, it's grown harder to obtain through the more traditional methods.
A lot fewer people build ships out of wood these days, and many of the forests the Southern Water Tribe used to visit are either much harder to access these days, or no longer exist.
Silk is much less of a draw. The Water Tribe has no real use for the lighter, fancier sorts of clothes that make use of it, and while it's incorporated into modern winter gear, they prefer to rely on more traditional materials.
That said, Tiriaq does seem to prefer the offer of metal. At least for this deal.
The major sticking point is quantity. Tiriaq naturally wants to get as much out of this arrangement as he can, and is currently suggesting an equal weight in finished metal goods for whatever he helps you find - whether it's glacial ice or a meteorite.
The terms of Tiriaq's proposed deal are mostly acceptable to you. You're not planning on taking a huge amount of ice or rock with you, only as much as you strictly need for the upcoming ritual - and that's not a lot.
You do, however, make a point of clarifying that you'll pay equal weight for what you actually TAKE, as opposed to what you FIND. There's no way you're going to agree to provide a mass of metal goods equivalent to a hundred-ton slab of ice or something similarly absurd.
Tiriaq blinks, and then facepalms.
"I think I may have been dealing with the spirits too long," he groans. "That particular phrasing and interpretation is EXACTLY the kind of opening many of them would use when striking a bargain with a particular mortal for the first time."
"The Fae are like that, too," you agree, before assuring Tiriaq that you didn't think he was trying to trap you into a monumentally unfavorable arrangement. You're just trying to get into the habit of wording promises correctly.
The shaman agrees that it is a good habit to have, even when you're not dealing with otherworldly beings that tend to follow the letter of their bargains over the spirit.
With that cleared up, you broach the possibility of helping the Water Tribe harvest wood using your magic, either now or as repayment for future deals. Tiriaq thanks you for the offer, but explains that, even if the Tribe's usual sources of lumber aren't AS cold as Antarctica, they're still currently in the grips of winter themselves. And that's not a good time to try cutting wood. He will keep your offer in mind when spring rolls around in a few months' time, though.
Now that the terms of your agreement have been set, Tiriaq starts fulfilling his end of the deal.
First, he pulls a plastic-lined, curled up sheet of paper out of one of his many pouches, and unfurls it to reveal a map of the local region. It's a pretty modern and detailed chart, which looks like it was originally printed out by a computer, but has since been extensively-annotated with colored inks. Tiriaq shows you where the village is, and then points out the glacier he uses to gather "ancient ice" from. He says it's a two-day journey by seal-dog sled, assuming that the weather cooperates, but the distance is a trivial concern for you, thanks to your advanced skill at teleportation.
Gained Cartography F (Plus) (Plus)
Tiriaq accepts that explanation with a nod, but expresses another worry.
"I don't usually approach the glacier at this time of year," he says. "It's cold and treacherous enough when you have the sun on your side; without it, things get considerably worse. There's also the matter of the Ice Woman that haunts that place."
"'Ice Woman?'" you repeat, looking up from the map. "Do you mean a yuki-onna?"
You saw that term used in Tobin's Spirit Guide. Another of the famous youkai of Japan, a creature of winter that takes the form of a beautiful woman and preys upon travelers - or in some cases, marries them.
"She was, at one time," Tiriaq admits. "The snow women are old friends of the Water Tribes, and it's not unheard of for one of them to marry a brave and clever hunter or powerful Waterbender who manages to make his way to Japan. Especially if he's young and handsome. There's one living in the village now, as it happens. The Ice Woman was another, though she died centuries ago, in tragedy. We call her 'ice woman' rather than 'snow woman' because her heart, once full of life and love, is now as cold and hard as the glacier itself."
You have to frown at the shaman at this. "And you haven't helped her to move on?"
Tiriaq laughs wryly. "I appreciate the vote of confidence in my abilities, young man, but she's far too strong for me, or any other shaman that's tried to force the issue. The best we've managed is to convince her to leave the Tribe in peace, so long as we return the favor. Which is why I might suggest you look here for your reagent, instead," the shaman adds, pointing to a different spot on the map. "The quality of the ice is generally not as high, but if you search carefully, you might find what you seek. And you won't have to deal with a heartbroken ghost, at the time of year when her power in our world is strongest."
Gained Local Knowledge (Southern Water Tribe) E
Gained Necrology E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Southern Water Tribe D (Plus)
That's not bad advice. Still, you really do want top-quality ice, and there's no guarantee that the lesser site will have it. Maybe you should take your chances with the Ice Woman's Ghost? Not to toot your own horn or anything, but you ARE a mystical powerhouse, and you're currently immune to cold besides. You're probably a lot safer dealing with the Ice Woman than Tiriaq or any of his peers would be.
A plan for using your magic to avoid the Ice Woman's notice long enough to harvest a piece of the glacier where she resides forms in your mind, and you're sorely tempted to run with it, if only for the sake of efficiency.
For all your personal eagerness to have this over and done with, you restrain yourself long enough to ask Elder Tiriaq's opinion of the plan, which boils down to using magic specifically to hide yourself from an undead being, teleporting in, using a different spell to shape the ice you need directly out of the glacier, and then immediately teleporting out, all while under cover of a Greater Spell of Magic Aura.
As it turns out, you have to break down the various spells for Tiriaq's consideration, as he either doesn't recognize them by name alone, or isn't familiar enough with their workings to give you his informed opinion.
In the end, Tiriaq has a few concerns. Some of them, you can address. Others... well.
First, there's your decision to teleport in and out. It'll work, of that the shaman has no doubt; the Ice Woman wasn't a magic-user in life and hasn't become one in death, so the chances of her noticing the purely magical disturbances associated with such spell-work are as small as they can get. The problem is that teleporting won't erase any tracks you leave in the area, and if she finds those, she'll at least know that someone snuck in and out.
Your skill at Ki Stepping isn't yet developed enough for you to traverse snow without leaving footprints, but a simple Spell of Flight will handle that issue.
Next, there's your Spell to Hide From Undead, which isn't guaranteed to work against intelligent undead entities - something the Ice Woman definitely qualifies as. If it works, great, but if it doesn't, you'd have a problem. At the very least, she'd realize you HAD been in her territory. She might even be able to identify you, if your paths ever crossed again.
Third on the list is your idea of modifying the Spell of Stone Shaping to affect ice. Tiriaq doesn't question your ability to work such magic, he merely points out that the Ice Woman has resided upon the glacier long enough to have formed a bond with it. That link is part of the reason why ice harvested there makes for such a good reagent, but the downside is that she's aware of it when people do things that affect the glacier. And while she doesn't object to the shamans manually collecting bits of ice, or even using picks and such to carve off small pieces, the use of Waterbending for the same purpose angers her.
"We believe it's because her husband was murdered by a jealous Waterbender, who wanted the Ice Woman for himself," Tiriaq explains. "And since one Waterbender took what was most precious to her in life, in death, she reacts to similar attempts to take what she perceives as hers... badly."
"And you think she might have the same reaction to a spell," Briar concludes.
The shaman nods to her, and then turns to you. "Which would leave you working on the ice by hand. I can assure you, it's NOT a quick process."
You take that into consideration.
Tiriaq's last concern is a culmination of his previous ones. In the best-case scenario, the Ice Woman won't notice your presence at all, but in any other outcome, she'll realize that someone snuck into her territory. And whether or not she catches you in person, odds are that her displeasure will affect the Southern Water Tribe one way or another - and that's something Tiriaq is simply not prepared to risk.
Gained Southern Water Tribe D (Plus) (Plus)
You're certainly not inclined to make trouble for your current hosts if it can be avoided, but you really DO want that glacial ice. Can you think of a possible solution to this problem?
You consider the situation.
"What if I skipped all the magic, except for the emergency teleportation, and just went to the glacier and asked her for the ice in person?" you propose.
Tiriaq considers that.
"As long as you minded your manners," he says slowly, "the Ice Woman would not be likely to attack you out of hand. But she wouldn't just GIVE you the ice for the asking, either."
"I could bargain with her, though." It's half-statement, half-question, and you follow it up by asking the shaman what it is that he and his do to repay the Ice Woman for the pieces of her glacier that they harvest.
"Aside from not intruding on her territory except at need?" he replies. "We keep her story alive, so that the Tribe remembers what happened, and doesn't let it happen again." Tiriaq shrugs. "There isn't much else she genuinely WANTS, not that's within our power to grant. Her husband was lost at sea, beyond the power of any shaman to call home for the final farewell. The Ice Woman killed the one who murdered her love, so vengeance was satisfied. She had no children, and if any of us ever knew the name of the family she left behind, it's been long forgotten, leaving no way for her to make peace with her forebears."
Reflecting on the shaman's words, you wonder if you could solve this entire problem by summoning the spirit of the Ice Woman's dead husband - if there's anyone that could convince her to move on, it would be him. Unfortunately, the Spells of Necromancy that you know require you to have some kind of connection to a dead spirit before you can summon it up: ideally, the body, or a piece thereof; and failing that, some surviving possession, or perhaps a living descendant. None of those appear to be on the table, and without them, the chances of an open summoning getting precisely the right spirit are small.
Besides, you DID promise Gyokuro (and through her, Akasha) that you'd avoid summoning any more legendary monsters before the eclipse was over. Although the Ice Woman's husband was a monster and does appear IN a legend, he's definitely not the same category of entity as Tamamo-no-Mae, who is the one that prompted the ladies to ask that promise of you. That said, when you think about trying to split THAT particular hair with Lady Shuzen and Lady Bloodriver, you figure that it'd be better to err on the side of the spirit of the agreement, rather than the letter of it, and just not summon random entities for the time being.
That's one possible bargaining chip gone, but you could still talk to the Ice Woman, and see if there's something she does want that's within YOUR power to grant. Or you could see if Tiriaq is willing to come along and vouch for you, to get you in under the agreement the Ice Woman has with the Water Tribe.
Regardless, you figure those are Plan B and Plan C.
Plan A is to visit the non-haunted glacier and see if you can acquire a reagent of the desired quality there, first. You've got a few days left before the eclipse; you can spare a few hours.
Tiriaq appears relieved by your decision.
You decide to buckle down and get start searching the safer of the two glaciers, as soon as possible.
Tiriaq nods his assent, and says he can have a sled ready within half an hour.
You respond by saying you were planning on teleporting, which will only take you a few minutes - and that only because you prefer to save energy by using the ritual-casting method whenever possible.
That gives the shaman a moment's pause.
"You can do that?" he asks. "Just from having seen the coordinates on a map?"
"Yes," you reply, a bit bemused. "How did you think I came to Antarctica in the first place?"
"Hakoda mentioned his son sent you directions," Tiriaq begins, before shaking his head. "Never mind that. It was my understanding that teleportation required the caster to have a clear image of the intended destination in mind. Am I wrong?"
You tell Tiriaq that IS how the standard Spell of Teleportation works, but add that the GREATER Spell, the one you use for global travel, does away with that particular requirement.
As you speak, you can see the shaman mentally ratcheting up his estimate of your abilities.
Regardless of your travel methods, Tiriaq insists on accompanying you to the glacier. It's partly so he can show you the locations he and his fellows favor for gathering ice, and partly to make sure you don't get into trouble wandering around by yourself in unfamiliar and dangerous territory.
You have no objection to the company, though you do inquire if the shaman has ever travelled via teleportation before, and - when he answers in the negative - insist that one of you cast a spell to protect the mind and calm the emotions, to prevent shock from the trip.
After hearing you describe teleportation psychosis, Tiriaq agrees it doesn't sound like something he wants to undergo, and casts the necessary spells himself. Well, you CALL them spells, but from a purist perspective, what he does isn't truly magic. No mana is involved, and his rituals do not involve complex calculations of mystical variables.
As this is the first time you've seen a shaman using his powers, you pay close attention, but your efforts are somewhat thwarted by your lack of familiarity with the traditions Tiriaq follows, and his own skill. He's practiced enough at his craft not to waste any of the energy his allies in the spirit world grant him, and as he invokes unfamiliar Names, you get the feeling that he's leaving out portions of the ritual which a novice shaman would require, but that a more seasoned spirit-talker can do without. That efficiency makes it difficult for you to make sense of what he's doing with the power he's called up.
Not impossible, of course. Just harder.
Gained Spiritual Knowledge C (Plus)
After readying himself mystically for the trip, the shaman ducks back into his tent to fetch some essentials. He re-emerges with a large satchel slung over one shoulder, a thick coil of rope wound about his chest from the other direction, and a long bone in one hand, serving as a walking stick.
You then return the previous favor, and allow the shaman to observe YOUR particular branch of the mystical arts, as you perform the Ritual of Teleportation. Towards the end, you take hold of Tiriaq's unoccupied hand, complete your spell-
-and find yourself standing a few yards shy of a wall of ice twice as tall as your house, and several times longer than your entire school. Though you've left the scattered lights of the Water Tribe village behind, the waning moonlight is caught and reflected back from the cliff face as a low, blue-green tinted glow, making the entirety of the glacier seem like something from another world.
Tiriaq looks around, clearly startled by the trip, but not suffering any of the symptoms Cordelia or your mother experienced. Shaking off his surprise, the older Water Tribesman takes in the surroundings, and points to a spot further along the cliff face.
"That's where we usually harvest from this glacier," he says.
You peer in the direction indicated, but you have to admit you don't see anything out of the ordinary. As far as your eyes are concerned, it's all just ice and snow. When you extend your supernatural senses, it's clear that the glacier carries more power than the terrain around it, but not in amounts that are in any way unusual for its sheer size and probable age. You know that it can take centuries for snowfall to accumulate to the point where even a small glacier forms, and the elemental auras you can detect suggest that the glaicer is about that old - enough to be what it is, but not enough to be noteworthy.
That would explain why this is the lesser of the two sites Tiriaq pointed out.
Whatever power the glacier as a whole holds, you can't just break a piece off, call it an Ice-and-Water reagent, and be done with it. That would be the equivalent of just picking up a random rock as an Earth reagent. As you follow Tiriaq along the base, you gradually get close enough to make out a cleft in the ice wall, and inside that, a stronger aura. Even then, though, the power you're sensing is only basic reagent-grade.
Just as well, then, that you have a different plan in mind than chipping away at the exterior of the ice.
"Are there stories of anything living on or inside this glacier, Elder Tiriaq?" you inquire. "Like, spirits? Ancient buried things?"
"...no," the shaman answers slowly. "There are places that the spirits have warned us against disturbing, and others our ancestors learned to avoid through bitter experience, but this particular glacier isn't among those." Tiriaq eyes you askance. "Why do you ask?"
By way of response, you cast a Spell of Summoning.
The creature which appears looks almost like a piece of the glacier before you that decided to get up and go for a walk, save that it's more blue-white than blue-green. It's roughly humanoid, but only in the sense that it has two arms, two legs, and a head all attached to a torso. The limbs do not match their partners in any manner save length, consisting as they do of bent angles, jagged edges, and sharp spikes, all encrusted with layers of snow. Its body has a similarly irregular shape, narrow at the "waist" and broad across the "shoulders," almost seeming to hunch forward under the weight of a forest of spines along its back. As for the head, it resembles a stylized helmet more than a face, all featureless planes and horn-like upthrust icicles, with only narrow slots where the eyes should be - spaces that glow from within, a more intense blue-white than the rest of the body.
Between its faceless visage, unsettling proportions, and abundance of built-in weaponry, the Ice Elemental would be a fearsome creature, if it weren't only three feet tall.
"I thought I'd send this guy, and maybe a few more like him, to find the strongest sources of Ice Elemental energy on, inside, or under the glacier," you say, indicating the summoned creature with one thumb. "I just wanted to know if there was a chance of unearthing something better left alone."
"You do realize that the most potent part of the glacier will be harder than stone, and buried under a small mountain besides, right?" Tiriaq asks. "An elemental spirit like this could probably FIND it, but breaking it away from the rest, let alone MOVING it, would take more power than a spirit of this level could hope to muster - no offense," he adds, nodding to the frozen entity.
It nods back, making a strange sound that's part creaking ice, part cold wind.
Gained Gelian F
Gained Southern Water Tribe D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
"That's fine," you tell Tiriaq. "I just need a guide to help me find the best part of the glacier. I can handle the rest from there myself."
So saying, you cast the Spell of the Elemental Body, modifying it so that, instead of turning into one of four "common" types of elemental, you transform into a version of yourself made of Elemental Ice. The change causes you no pain or discomfort, but you do experience a certain stiffness of the joints as flesh and bone are replaced by frozen water. Your winter clothes are subsumed by the transformation, becoming a layer of hard-crusted snow that clings to your exterior surface.
Tiriaq stares at you.
So does the Ice Elemental.
Gained Ice Affinity E (Plus)
You take a minute to familiarize yourself with the differences of your altered form, and then - creakingly - turn to face your summoned ally.
"Guide me to the strongest source of Ice you can find," you tell it plainly.
Gained Gelian F (Plus) (Plus)
After a moment's hesitation - which you believe to be the result of surprise, rather than a lack of comprehension on the elemental's part - it turns and walks towards the face of the glowing glacier.
"I'll wait out here with the shaman," Briar says. "Serve as a point of reference so you can find your way back faster, and all that."
You nod, say, "Back in a few," and move to follow your guide.
When the Ice Elemental comes into contact with the glacier, it doesn't stop moving. It doesn't even slow down - not that it was moving very fast to begin with - instead pressing forward into the ice, smoother than a penguin slipping from the shore back into the sea. Within the span of two strides, the elemental's entire body has passed out of sight, yet you can still clearly sense the creature's presence, thanks to the bond of magic that currently links it to you.
Guided by the tethers of your spell, you follow the Ice Elemental into the glacier, your Spell of the Elemental Body giving you the same ability to pass unimpeded through ice and snow. There's a brief moment when the human instincts still lurking in your consciousness tell you that you're about to walk into a wall and hurt yourself, but when you place your right hand against the glacier, push, and find it every bit as permeable to your current as liquid water or even air, those impulses are stilled.
Slow and steady, the elemental guides you through the layers of the glacier, deeper and deeper into the ancient ice. The refracted moonlight soon fades away, casting you and your guide into darkness, but your Spell of Darkvision - overlapping with the natural perception of your assumed form - lets you navigate without consequence.
As you follow the elemental into the heart of the glacier, you take the time to cast about with your enhanced senses, trying to see if you can pin down whatever is guiding it. Unfortunately, while the ice around you may not be particularly potent in mystical terms, there's so MUCH of it that you find yourself unable to see or sense auras more than a few feet away. That's not nearly enough range for you to pick up whatever the Ice Elemental has locked on to, assuming of course that it IS following a trail, rather than just forging ahead to a spot that SHOULD hold the quality of ice you desire, and hoping it gets lucky.
Five minutes pass, and then ten. The aura of Elemental Ice surrounding you gets stronger with each passing minute, and while your transformation is in no danger of running down, thanks to the extra mana you added to extend the duration, you are starting to think that your guide will disappear before it gets you to where you want to go.
Almost as if it can hear your thoughts, the Ice Elemental stops, and points forward. Your gaze follows the line of its arm to a patch of ice that doesn't appear physically distinct from the mass of the glacier surrounding it, but when you "look" at it with your Mage Sight, you see the strongest concentration of Elemental Ice you've yet encountered. The smothering aura all around makes it a little hard to say for certain, but you think this would make for a reagent of the necessary quality.
Assuming, of course, that you can get it out of here.
That proves easier said than done.
The first step is simple enough: using the Spell of Stone Shaping as a template, you try to develop an equivalent magic that works on ice and snow. The magical mechanics of this "Spell of Ice Shaping" aren't too difficult to work out, although by the time you've managed it, the spell holding your guide in this world has ended, allowing it to return from whence it came.
When you try to cast the spell on the glacier - a portion of it well away from your target, just in case - seeking to create an empty space, the result is a sudden deep groaning and then, nothing. No hole or gap forms, and as you study the apparent lack of results closely, you begin to suspect that the sheer mass of the glacier is to blame. There is so MUCH ice piled up above this area, bearing down on everything below it and being pushed back against in turn, that it's acting as a natural counter to your magic. The spell doesn't create or destroy mass, it redistributes it - but there's nowhere down here for the ice to be moved TO, at least not within the spell's limited effective range, not with such an immense weight stacked against it.
You make a second attempt, this time not seeking to create a "hole" per se, but rather to separate a chunk of the ice from its surroundings.
This time, you experience a small success, in that you manage to create a small lump of ice that is not connected to the rest of the glacier. When you reach out and take the fragment, however, you can sense that its previously-pure aura of Elemental Ice has been contaminated by your magic.
Gained Impure Glacial Fragment
Based on this outcome, the best approach to collecting the higher-quality section of the ice would seem to be to use the Spell of Ice Shaping to form a large "sheathe" of ice around the pure area you want, pocket the entire thing, and then trim it down manually once you're outside.
Of course, if you do that, Tiriaq might expect you to pay him a greater quantity of steel goods.
You could try to make the protective sheathe smaller, but that would run the risk of contaminating your reagent, reducing its quality.
Taking a small piece of the glacier's core might save you some effort in conjuring metal, but it would also run the risk of contaminating the reagent, making it less-than-suitable for your current needs. You'd prefer to ensure the quality of what you take, and trust that Elder Tiriaq won't try to gouge you in repayment.
He DID show himself to be rather reasonable on the topic earlier.
As such, when you cast the Spell of Ice Shaping again, you don't directly target the core of the glacier - a lump about the size of two fists clenched together, perhaps four inches across at its widest - but the area around it, carving out a rough cube. You have to make this block of ice rather large to ensure the purity of your desired reagent, leaving a full foot of solid ice on every side of the pure core.
The oversized ice cube you're left with is monstrously heavy, easily weighing hundreds of pounds. Not only is it far larger than any object you've ever tried to stow in your dimensional pocket, it's quite likely heavier than EVERY object you've ever tried to store in there, COMBINED. The very thought of how much of your mana you'd have to expend to "pocket" this ridiculously large block of ice makes you wince.
Instead, you cast the Spell of Messaging, and contact Briar. "Hey, Briar? Could you and Tiriaq move away from the glacier? I'm going to bring something out in a few minutes, and it's pretty heavy."
There's a pause before Briar's words come back: "Okay, done."
Gained Gelian E
You proceed to cast two spells, ritual-style, while focusing on controlling the energies involved as finely as possible. First is a Spell of Levitation, to counter the weight of your harvested ice. Second is the Spell of Dimension Door, which you envision opening on the far side of the block, with the other end of the portal being out at the foot of the glacier.
Then you lean forward, put shoulder to ice, and heave, pushing the ice through the Dimension Door and following in its wake, back to the base of the glacier.
There is a momentary pause, and then you hear Briar's voice: "Gee, Alex, are you sure it's big enough? You don't want to take the whole glacier, just to be sure?"
You snicker at that, before letting your Spell of the Elemental Body lapse and returning to your flesh-and-blood form.
"The actual reagent is only about so big," you tell Briar, holding your hands up together for emphasis. "But I was worried about contaminating it, so..." You trail off, gesturing at the huge block.
"I see," Briar says. "And you are... okay with the idea of paying the shaman several hundred pounds of steel?"
"You're worth it," you assure her.
Briar's glow turns pink.
Gained King of Fairies E (Plus) (Plus)
As it happens, Tiriaq states that being paid an equal weight of metal for THIS much ice would leave him feeling like he'd taken advantage of your generosity, and to an utterly criminal degree. Most of his Tribe would have similar reactions, and never mind that it would only be honoring the terms of your original agreement. The shaman estimates there's at least four hundred pounds of ice hovering above the ground next to you - he honestly wasn't expecting to be paid more than ten pounds of goods or so, and that for both the ice and the meteorite together.
Instead, he makes a different offer: you pay him ten pounds of metal goods now, covering the ACTUAL Ice reagent, the meteorite he still owes you help in finding, AND assistance in "trimming" that block of ice down to reasonable size; and come spring, you help the Water Tribe with their collection of timber for shipbuilding for one day, as you'd previously offered.
You have no issue with Tiriaq's revised deal, and agree to it without hesitation. After that, the two of you get on with cutting the massive block of ice down to a more manageable size.
This takes some doing. As it happens, Tiriaq brought a set of ice-carving tools with him in that satchel: a couple of picks; a hammer; two handsaws; several hooks; and an assortment of chisels, no two quite alike. As with your original deal, however, it's clear that the shaman had a much smaller block of ice in mind when he picked out these tools. Even if each of you took a saw to a different side of the block, they'd be too short to touch. The other tools all have a similarly undersized look when put next to the massive chunk of ice you've pulled out of the glacier, and Tiriaq admits that trimming the thing with the equipment he has at hand would take quite a lot of time and effort. The more so since he's an old man, and you've never done this sort of thing before.
In any lifetime.
Fortunately, you have magic - and while you can't use it to directly shape the ice, acquiring more appropriate tools is well within your means.
After taking a few minutes to discuss the details with Tiriaq, you cast the Spell of Major Creation and produce a large ice saw. You put the extra effort into your magic to render this creation completely permanent - it tests the limits of your skills at Conjuration Magic, but you make it work.
And then you cast the spell again, creating a second saw.
Gained Earth Elementalism C (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Your new tools are nothing special in terms of craftsmanship, at least not until you take the time - a full hour - to cast the Spell of Masterwork Transformation and correct that shortcoming. You also consider casting the Spell of the Heart of the Metal to truly transform the steel toothed sawblades into adamantine, but after running the numbers, you realize that this is beyond your abilities. The amount of additional mana you'd have to devote to the spell to account for the massive increase in duration, as well as cover the "cost" of the required adamantine material component, is simply too much for your current skill at Transformation Magic. If you had a large chunk of the supernaturally tough metal on your person to use as a reagent, it might be a different story, but you don't, and you can't conjure the stuff.
That thought has barely crossed your mind when you recall Ambrose's warning against trying to conjure gold, and a rather alarming prospect presents itself.
If governments and magical authorities would come down on you for creating gold, what would they do if it became known that you could create one of the rarest and strongest metals in existence on demand? And not just create it, but turn finished products of other, far more easily-worked metals into nigh-indestructible adamantine?
What would the powers of the world give to secure such a resource for themselves?
And what would they do to keep it out of the hands of their enemies?
With the King of Thieves in the back of your mind, you can make some informed guesses. Not one of them is pleasant.
Making a mental note NOT to let the full extent of your material Conjuration and Transformation Magic become widely known, you get on with reworking your simple saws into something more impressive. Fortunately, expanding the parameters of the Spell of Masterwork Transformation to affect two items at once isn't at all hard - at least not when you're dealing with two items of the same nature.
While you're engaged in that lengthy ritual, Tiriaq takes the opportunity to tap at your ice-block with some of his tools, getting an idea of where the ice is stronger, where it would be easier to cut, and where it might crack or shatter unexpectedly.
Once you're done upgrading your tools, you thoroughly purge the lingering auras of your magic from the items, hand one to Tiriaq, and get to work on breaking the ice.
The larger, high-quality saws definitely make things go faster, but even then, carving the majority of the excess ice away from your desired reagent is no quick or easy task. There's a certain rhythm that needs to be maintained when cutting the ice, a push and pull that LOOKS easy enough to keep up when you see Tiriaq demonstrate it, but which proves harder to maintain when you're forced to deal with the rasp of metal on ice, the way the saw-blade wants to flex, and how the ice resists being cut.
Gradually, though, you get the hang of things. Using Ki Enhancement to boost your strength and endurance and Ki Step to stabilize your balance on the snow, you make one cut across the length of the cube, about nine inches in from the outer face and to a depth of two feet. Then you make a second cut, perpendicular to the first, and crossing it at one corner. Each time, Tiriaq mirrors you on the opposite side of the block, keeping up a steady pace that puts his claims of advancing age in question - you can sense his youki flowing steadily through his body the entire time, though like yourself, the shaman is careful about how much of his energies he calls up.
After an hour of steady work, the pair of you have cut a three-by-three grid deep into the ice-cube. Tiriaq then shows you how to cut away the outer sections, angling your saw so that you don't end up with the weight of one or more of the smaller blocks coming down on the blade, or suddenly sliding at you or into the center of the block. Though each such piece is a small fraction of the original whole, they still weigh dozens of pounds themselves, more than enough to do some real damage if you get careless.
You make a point not to be careless.
Clearing the outer ice takes another hour, after which the large saws go up, and Tiriaq's smaller tools come back out. While you use one of the handsaws to cut away the upper portion of the sole remaining pillar of ice, Tiriaq uses his hammer and chisels to slowly and carefully chip away at the inches of lower-quality ice that still cling to your prize.
At last, a full three hours after you shoved the massive block of ice out of the heart of the glacier, Tiriaq hands you a white-limned blue-green ball of ice. It's positively tiny compared to huge mass of ice you cut it out of, but its aura of Elemental Ice is both strong and absolutely pure.
Without hesitation, you pocket the ice.
Gained Glacial Core Fragment
Gained Ice Sculpting F (Plus)
As Tiriaq puts his tools back in his satchel, you gather up the new-made saws and take stock of your situation. While you don't begrudge the cost, the fact remains that you burned a considerable amount of mana harvesting this latest reagent - enough to make you wonder if you should put any further Antarctic adventures off until tomorrow. That aside, it's now well past noon, Sunnydale time, and you haven't had a chance to eat. Neither has Tiriaq.
Obviously, your next step is to return to the Water Tribe village, but what would you like to do after that?
That aside, there's also the matter of the disposal of these two ice-saws to consider. Tiriaq would be happy to take one of them off your hands as part of your re-agreed-upon payment, but you get the impression that making the second saw part of your payment would not go over so well. The Southern Water Tribe relies on their Waterbenders when they do serious large-scale work with ice; it's only the shamans and the occasional individual on a vision-quest who would make real use of these saws, and even then, based on Tiriaq's ice-harvesting kit, there doesn't seem to be much call for large quantities of ice.
One ice-saw would be enough to meet that demand, and then some. A second would be superfluous, and Tiriaq would likely prefer to receive its weight in other tools... which you could arrange, with the Spell of Fabrication. It would be a straightforward matter to turn the ice-saw into a wood-saw, or a set of spearheads, or something else entirely.
You suppose you could also keep one of the saws yourself, but you'd have even less use for it than the Water Tribe would.
Gained Southern Water Tribe C
You told your mother you wouldn't be home for lunch, so there's no need for you to return to Sunnydale on that account - not until suppertime rolls around, anyway. And while you've used up a significant portion of your mana, you're not down to a dangerously low level. Between ritual-casting and the two jars of Spring Dew that you bought from Gen before the hunt for Lady Takara, you figure you can afford to spend a few more hours engaged in mystical activity.
Stowing the ice-saws in your dimensional pocket for the moment, you begin ritually-casting the Spell of Teleportation to return yourself, Briar, and Elder Tiriaq to the Water Tribe village. Tiriaq likewise re-casts the not-spells of mental protection he used before, and then puts one hand on your shoulder as he waits for you to finish-
-at which point, you're all transported back to the snow-free patch of black stone in front of the shaman's tent.
"Will you be returning home, now?" Tiriaq inquires, as he lets go of you.
"I was thinking we could take a break for lunch, and then track down that meteorite I was looking for afterwards," you reply.
The shaman regards you closely. "Don't take this the wrong way, young man, but are you sure you have enough strength left for that? We may be using different methods, but you've called on more power today than I normally use in a week - or even some of the slower months."
"Speaking of magic, though," you add, "I was thinking of doing something with one of those saws..."
You take a few minutes to discuss what form Tiriaq would prefer the steel currently bound in the form of an ice-saw to take. He considers it, and admits that knives would probably be the best alternative - they're such ubiquitous tools that the ones the Tribe has see frequent use, and thus, wear and tear, to say nothing of how often they get lost or broken, despite all their owners' caution.
It's the work of a few seconds for you to have the saws out, and to transform one of them into half a dozen knives. The resulting blades are too short and fine to make good weapons, except as a last resort, but they appear to have retained the quality you magically-imbued into the saw.
Gained Knowledge (Magesmithing) D (Plus)
Gained Knowledge (Swords) E (Plus)
The delight in Tiriaq's eyes is almost as bright as the edges of the knives. He gathers them up, along with the remaining ice-saw, and asks if you'll be joining him for lunch, or going back to Chief Hakoda's place.
You consider that.
Taking a meal with the shaman might grant you an opportunity to learn more about him, his powers, and the spiritual side of the Water Tribe's existence. On the other hand, it would be a good idea to check in with Hakoda, Sokka, and Katara, to let them know you haven't run into trouble in the last few hours, or gone home without saying goodbye. They ARE the ones who invited you here, after all, which makes them your hosts - doubly so, given Hakoda's standing in the village.
You assure the shaman that your mana reserves will hold out, as long as you're conservative with your spellcasting from here on out.
While this doesn't seem to COMPLETELY satisfy Tiriaq, he appears to accept that you know your own magical limits well enough to say when you're in danger of running up against them, and when you can afford to keep going.
It probably helps that Briar doesn't voice any concerns about the amount of power you've pulled out already today, or the prospect of doing even more.
But you do catch the Water Tribe elder muttering to himself about what you define as "conservative."
The idea of staying to talk shop with Tiriaq over lunch has its appeal, but so does the prospect of taking a break and socializing with people your own age.
Then it occurs to you that Sokka and Katara might already be sitting down for lunch with their family, in which case it would be a bit rude for you to just walk in expecting to join them.
So you decide to call ahead using the Spell of Message, to see if your return would be interrupting anything. You modify the spell, reducing the duration and number of potential targets in exchange for greater range, and then cast it, deciding on a whim to reach out and contact Sokka.
"Sokka, it's Alex," you begin. "I was wondering-"
"Gaaah!" comes the sudden response. "Voice from nowhere! Back, spirit!"
...seriously?
"Sokka," you try again.
"And it knows my NAME!"
"-it's ALEX. I'm talking to you using magic."
There is a pause, during which you can clearly hear Katara giggling.
"This is a thing you can do?" Sokka inquires with forced casualness.
"Yes. Just ask your father; I contacted him like this earlier this morning." Granted, that was with a different spell, but the "voice from nowhere" bit is the same.
"...I'll do that. So, why are you calling?"
"Elder Tiriaq and I just got back from picking up the ice reagent I wanted, and he asked if I wanted to join him for lunch, or if I had plans to eat elsewhere."
"If I were in your place, I would definitely come back to my place for lunch," Sokka says, before you can continue. "I'd never be able to eat with the Elder staring not-quite-at me with that spooky eye of his. Every time I see him, I get the feeling he's glancing at something just out of sight behind me." He makes a brief, wordless sound of unease.
You glance at the shaman, who has been listening to all of this with a smirk, and is now doing something with his own power-
"What's this about my eye, young man?" he says.
"GAAAH! Creepy old guy from nowhere!"
-which is apparently the spirit-based equivalent of your Message magic.
"Sokka," you sigh, "it's just Elder Tiriaq."
"HE can do this TOO?!" Sokka squeaks.
"I can," the shaman says cheerfully.
"Eeep."
You decide to take pity on Sokka.
"Right, well, I think I'll be staying here for lunch," you say, "but I'll swing by later, before I leave. Let your father know for me, okay?"
Sokka makes what you take to be a sound of agreement, before you say goodbye and end the spell.
The still-smirking Tiriaq does likewise.
"You are a mean old man, and I like your style," Briar says.
The shaman grins at her. "It's not entirely for my own amusement," he admits, as he turns and leads the way to his tent. "Hakoda's son is a good boy, but he's got a tendency to speak before he thinks, and a sarcastic streak besides."
"Not the best traits for a potential future chief?" Briar guesses.
"Definitely not," Tiriaq agrees. "A chieftan's duty is mainly concerned with the physical matters of survival, but there are some spiritual concerns they must deal with as well - and when dealing with the spirits, it's important that you say what you mean. Too many of them can't grasp concepts like sarcasm, and others just like to seize any excuse to cause mischief." The elder shakes his head. "And quite aside from the question of becoming a chief, we live close enough to the spirits that if Sokka doesn't learn to watch his words, he's going to find himself the butt of any number of embarrassing 'coincidences' in the future."
You follow Tiriaq into his tent, which proves to be roomier than you were expecting from the outside - if not so much as to suggest space-expansion magic at work - and also surprisingly warm, though still a bit cool for your Californian sensibilities. He's got a fur-lined sleeping bag folded up and tucked into the far right corner, a pair of leather backpacks that appear to be full of clothes and sundry items lying in the far left corner, and a low table surrounded by cushions taking up the near right corner. The rest of the space is taken up by an assortment of chests - some wooden, some metal, some plastic - shelves that fairly overflow with bits and pieces of a mystical nature, and small bags hanging from the roof of the tent.
Setting his walking stick aside and hanging up his satchels, Tiriaq heads to one of the larger chests, which looks like the more expensive cousin of coolers people take to picnics and other outdoor cooking events. When he pops the top off, you catch a whiff of something... meaty.
"Can I tempt you with a bit of seal jerky or squid?" Tiriaq says, looking up.
You've never had seal before, to the best of your knowledge, but you have eaten squid. It turns up in a lot of Japanese dishes, and your extended visits to Japan have included extensive sampling of the local cuisine, so you probably enjoyed it there without fully realizing it. Even if you somehow avoided eating squid that way, there was that very deliberate meal that you and Briar enjoyed together to as vengeance upon the spirit of Arrogante, back during the World Tournament.
You can still remember the delicious taste of victory, and revenge...
Of course, whatever kind of squid Tiriaq has in that chest is almost certainly entirely different from the ones that are regularly served in Japan, to say nothing of how it's prepared. But you're curious, and it would be discourteous to turn down an offer of food from your host.
On that note, you decide it would only be polite to reciprocate. You don't have a huge amount of food, let alone much in the way of variety, but it's the gesture that really matters. As you take a seat next to Tiriaq's small table, you pull your lunch out of your dimensional pocket, and set the can of Coke, the apple, and the Tupperware container holding your sandwiches down on the table.
Gained King of Monsters C
Gained King of Spirits E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Wise King F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
As it happens, Tiriaq is almost as pleased by the sight of the apple and your offer to share it as he was by the gift of those knives.
"Fruits and vegetables are not easy to get around here," he explains, as he pulls out a small camp stove, hooks it up to a sleeve-like ventilation device that connects to the ceiling of the tent, and carefully fills it with oil or gas from a small metal jug. "We almost NEVER see them fresh, and by this time of the year, we hardly see them at all. Even then, it's mostly sea prunes and seaweed bread, and one DOES get tired of eating the same thing over and over."
That makes sense, you decide, as you reach for the plate of seal jerky that the shaman has set down. Taking a strip, you bite off the end, chew, and consider the flavor.
...with all due respect to the classic line, it doesn't taste like chicken. More meaty, with a hint of something fish-like. And of course, there's the salt.
You wonder if that's a common characteristic of all seal meat, or something unique to the particular species this jerky was processed from. If they're anything like those seal-dogs...
As Tiriaq works, you ask about the black rock formation outside, and the unformed spiritual aura you felt hanging about it.
"I was wondering if you were going to ask about that," the shaman says, as he fetches an older, well-used knife, and turns to the intact squid laying on a cutting board on his small table. "The Tale of the Blackstone isn't particularly impressive on its own, but it IS the story of how this village was founded."
And then, while casually cutting off bits of the cephalopod-
Gained Cooking F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
-he tells you the story.
The Blackstone was originally discovered by Ancestor Erlak, the founder of this village. He's described as a descendant of Ancestor Nanuq, a much more prominent figure in the collective mythology of the Water Tribes - he's credited with discovering Antarctica, way back in the mists of history, and leading the original push to settle the remote continent by those who'd grown discontent with the politics of the Northern Water Tribe, and desired to return to the older, simpler ways of their people.
The "first wave" of Water Tribe settlers washed up much further to the west, and only spread out from the settlements built around the first landings slowly, over the course of several generations. Much of that slow expansion was due to the unfamiliarity of the new land, and the unknown ways of the spirits residing there, but it was also due in part to the new Tribe's relatively small population and slow growth. It was only in the time of Nanuq's grandchildren and great-grandchildren that the Tribe truly NEEDED to spread out, and so began doing so.
Tiriaq pauses here to slide chopped tentacles from his cutting board onto a frying pan, which he sets on the stove. A lighter emerges from somewhere to ignite the oil, and Tiriaq keeps one eye on the low-burning flame as he returns to his cutting and tale-telling.
Ancestor Erlak wasn't a renowned Tribesman in those days. He was a fair hand at most of the tasks a man of the Tribe was expected to be capable of, but he was never the best at any of them, and so was often outshone by his kinsmen - the best hunter, the best warrior, the best singer and story-dancer, the Waterbender, the shaman, and so on. It may have been that lack of recognition that drove Erlak to leave the familiar places of his youth and set out for the unknown, in the hope of finding something that would earn him the accolades of his people. After months of disappointment, he found the Blackstone.
Tiriaq notes that Ancestor Erlak did not have a great mind for names.
That aside, the Blackstone's nature was a sure sign that this was a good spot for a village, especially once Erlak had explored and confirmed that the same volcanic activity which kept the great rock and its immediate surroundings so warm also extended to the near offshore areas. The caves and the hot springs weren't found until later, but that was fine; the bounty brought to this part of the coast by the presence of the undersea vents was more than enough reason for a village to be established here.
"For all its significance, the Blackstone has never had a resident spirit," Tiriaq says, as he stirs the pot and adds some seasoning. "Truth be told, that's not a bad thing for us. Spirits and mortals don't always make for the best of neighbors, even with a shaman to mediate. Volcanic spirits in particular can be... touchy. One could say that part of my responsibility to the Tribe, and the reason why I live so close to the Blackstone, is to make sure that we don't accidentally summon a spirit to dwell here, and that one doesn't move in of its own accord."
Gained Local Knowledge (Southern Water Tribe) E (Plus)
You have no pressing questions about the Blackstone, and Tiriaq takes advantage of your silence to focus on the squid cooking over his portable stove. A couple of minutes later, he removes the pan, slides the steaming tentacles onto a plate, and shifts filleted bits of the mantle into the pan in their place.
Gained Cooking E
Tiriaq advises you to give the squid a minute to cool. You do so, and then use a cantrip to levitate one of the smaller pieces into biting range.
...
...it's chewier than the serving you had back in Japan, and the spices are definitely different. So's the underlying flavor, come to that. Still, it's not bad. The difference might be chalked up to Tiriaq being a shaman, rather than a professional chef.
Speaking of whom, he spears one of the larger tentacles on a fork and tears into it with gusto, ripping a good third of it off with a single bite.
As the two of you work your way through the squid-plate, you inquire after the matter of totem spirits. Tiriaq naturally asks what your interest is, and is surprised when you tell him that you've been in contact with your spirit-beast for some months now. He asks about its nature, and frowns when you describe the Raging Boar.
"Boars are not beings I have any experience with, even in the theoretical," the elder says. "There are none living on this continent, animal or spirit, and I've never heard of any visiting." He pauses to take another bite of the squid, chewing thoughtfully for a moment. A hiss from the stove draws his attention, but as he turns back to it, he asks you to tell him what you know of totems so far.
You do so.
It doesn't take very long. You're not sure if that's a good thing or a bad one, but after hearing you out, Tiriaq assures you it could be a lot worse.
"Knowing too little is always dangerous," he agrees, "but knowing more only helps if you learned the right lessons."
He then proceeds to give you a refresher course on the basics of contacting and communicating with your spirit guide. Some of what the shaman tells you confirms suppositions you've previously made, while going against others. You don't learn much that's truly new - as Tiriaq says, there are far too many lessons on this subject for them to all be learned in a sitting - but it's very nice to have clarification from a professional spirit-talker.
Gained King of Beasts D (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Parazoology D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Totemic Knowledge D (Plus) (Plus)
Given the previous topic of discussion, it only makes sense that your next question for Tiriaq is about where you should look for further instruction in the spirits, and the forces of the spirit realm.
"I can't speak for other cultures and practices, but among the Water Tribes, if a soul is found to be sensitive to the will of the spirits, the responsibility for training him to use that gift safely falls to the nearest shaman. The problem in your case," Tiriaq adds, "is that you aren't Water Tribe. You're far, far out of your element here, and I don't know nearly enough about your home and your ways to advise you properly - not beyond the bare basics, which you have a reasonable handle on."
"You're saying Alex should look closer to home for more advanced instruction, then?" Briar asks, her voice sinking.
"I'm saying that apprenticing under a local shaman would be ideal," Tiriaq answers carefully, "but... there's a saying I've heard some of you drylanders use. 'When the student is ready, the master will appear.' The level of spiritual strength and awareness that you already possess is NOTICEABLE, young sorcerer, and someone SHOULD have approached you regarding it by now. That they haven't implies... troubling things about your place of residence."
You live on the Hellmouth. "Trouble" is pretty much a given.
You consider Tiriaq's words, and find yourself wondering. You've long since made a habit of suppressing your mystical aura as much as possible when you're on or near the Hellmouth, not wanting to have any more involvement with the local supernatural population than you absolutely must. It's possible that your self-restraint has been making you hard for any local shamans to notice, much less track down to offer lessons.
On the other hand... it's the Hellmouth. An inter-dimensional nexus of chaos, evil, death, and darkness. Do you REALLY want to meet the sort of spirit-talker who'd hang out in a place like that? And would it be worth risking the notice of all the other unpleasant entities in town?
You tell Tiriaq that part of the reason why you have yet to encounter a shaman or the like in your hometown is that you habitually hide your mystical presence as much as possible when you're at home. You go into some detail about the very reasonable reasons behind that policy, starting with where, precisely you live-
The shaman makes a subtle warding gesture at the mention of the Hellmouth.
-and expanding on your first meeting with Miss Akasha, and her cautionary advice about "power calling to power."
"Hakoda did mention the... difficulty... of your location," Tiriaq says. "It's the biggest reason why I insisted on meeting you in person. It's one thing to deal with a person who happens to live in that sort of... spiritual morass; it's quite another to deal with someone bent on calling up one of the unnamed spirits, tearing down the walls between the worlds, or performing other such unpleasantness."
You're pleased to hear the implicit admission that you passed the elder's character assessment.
"All things considered," Tiriaq continues, "I'm relieved to hear that you've been trying to avoid notice in that place. If there IS a shaman residing there, the lessons he or she would have to teach are NOT the sort of thing a beginner in the ways of the spirits should learn - not if there's any other alternative." He shudders briefly. "That said, you COULD be doing better at concealing your presence - especially when it comes to hiding from those like myself, who can perceive the spiritual plane more clearly than the average soul."
On that note, the shaman proceeds to grill you thoroughly on how, exactly, you've been hiding the purely spiritual elements of your aura up until now. Most of that boils down to "suppressing as much as possible," which Tiriaq admits is the basic of basics. He then describes a more advanced method of concealment, which involves attuning your aura to that of your surroundings.
"It's NOT altering your soul," the shaman tells you firmly. "Such an action would be difficult and dangerous in the extreme, not to mention hideously immoral. What you're doing with this exercise doesn't change the fundamental nature of who and what you are, it merely alters that nature's impact on your environment."
Even with Tiriaq's direct instruction, you don't make a lot of progress on this by the time lunch is over. You spend a minute or two poking at your other methods of energy-concealment, wondering if you can adapt what the shaman is telling you about hiding your spiritual power for the purpose of hiding the other forms of energy at your command, but the only one you feel any significant impact on is your largely-undeveloped psychic potential.
Either the ways of the shaman don't adapt well to sorcery and ki, or your skills in those fields are just too advanced to derive any real benefit from what Tiriaq says is no better than a mid-level technique.
You do feel a bit more comfortable in the tent, though.
Gained Ice Affinity E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Mental Concealment E (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Attunement F
Gained Spiritual Concealment D (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Spiritual Control C (Plus)
After polishing off the squid, you split your sandwich with Tiriaq. He doesn't quite seem to know what to make of peanut butter, but he does like the jam portion. (He passes on a share of the Coke, claiming that carbonated beverages always make him sneeze.) After that, you cut up the apple, which the old man openly savors each bite of.
Over this "dessert," you inquire about the possibility of trading for one of the small rocks scattered about the Blackstone, to use as a reagent.
Tiriaq has no issue with that, but tells you that he wouldn't bother in your place.
"If the potency of that frozen core you pulled out of the glacier is any indication of the average strength of the reagents you've gathered for this ritual, the rocks won't begin to measure up," he says bluntly. "I have my doubts that even the heart of the Blackstone itself would be suitable - and speaking frankly, I would really rather not have you poking around inside the spire."
Thinking back to what you saw and sensed of the stones outside, you have to agree with the shaman's assessment. The smaller rocks would be low-quality reagents at best, and a piece of the Blackstone itself is unlikely to get past moderate strength. It might change if you went for a piece of the deeper stone, but then you'd be venturing into volcanic territory, adding a Fire aspect to the reagent which wouldn't do anything to improve its affinity for pure Earth.
It might be a different case if the Blackstone were more spiritually- or culturally-significant, or just a lot harder to reach, but as it stands, it's probably not worth the effort.
After you have finished your shared meal, packed away your Tupperware, apple core, and empty Coke can for later disposal, and used a cantrip to help Tiriaq clean up, you get down to the business of divining for meteorites.
The Spell to Locate Objects is a fairly simple magic - only second-tier to your style, which means you can cast it with just a couple of minutes of focus. The spell has a fairly long range to start with, and scaling it up to affect greater distances will be straightforward and not terribly time- or effort-intensive. It DOES require a forked twig to use as a focus, something you don't have on your person, but a quick check with Tiriaq gets you what you need. As a bonus, the "twig" in question - really more of a branch - is a proper dowsing rod, every inch of its surface covered by tiny images of wolf-like creatures on the prowl, birds in flight, and patterns that make you think of wave and frost.
There's no magic imbued into the rod, but you can sense lingering spiritual energy within and around it. That won't hurt your spell at all - quite the contrary, you suspect.
Although you doubt you'll get a positive answer, you ask Tiriaq if he has an unworked meteorite, or knows of one that you could see. As you expected, he responds in the negative both times. He DOES have a meteoric iron knife, but worked metal isn't what you were looking for. Quite the opposite, in fact.
Still, you've seen images of meteorites before. Between those, the dowsing rod, and your own Power, that should be enough. And if not, like you thought before, a quick trip to the right museum would solve your problems.
You plan to test the Spell to Locate Objects a few times first, once at its normal effective range, and then at steadily-increasing distances. With this in mind, you settle down on the floor of Tiriaq's tent, take the dowsing rod in hand, and close your eyes to help you focus as you begin shaping the spell.
The normal range scan doesn't turn up anything.
You add more mana, expand the range from several hundred feet to a couple thousand.
Still nothing.
Once again, you increase the scale of the spell, sending your magical probe out in a wave that covers everything within a mile of your position.
Still nothing.
For a third time, you add more power to the ritual, increasing the maximum effective range of the Spell of Divination to ten miles.
STILL nothing.
Again, you expand the range, and again, there is no positive result.
You're beginning to wonder if you will need to visit a museum after all, or if the Water Tribe has just been that thorough in their hunt for sky-metal, and there simply aren't any more meteorites in this area.
You cast the Spell to Locate Objects one more time, empowering the ritual as far as you can without dipping into your reserves - almost as far as you can, period - and send out a final questing pulse of Divination Magic-
PING!
-and finally, you get a response.
You open your eyes to find that the stick in your hands, which was previously pointing down at the floor, has somehow turned around in your grasp without your conscious awareness, and is now pointing off past your right shoulder.
"Found something?" Briar asks.
"Yeah," you reply. "Somewhere between one hundred and one thousand miles thattaway."
Tiriaq's eyes just about jump out of their sockets.
"I can narrow it down," you assure him.
He continues to stare.
In the end, the meteorite proves to be somewhere around three hundred miles inland of the Water Tribe village, roughly south-southwest. You can't narrow it down much more than that with this particular spell. Tiriaq eventually gets over his shock and performs the ritual that will send his spirit guides to confirm the location - a task he informs you will take about an hour, given the distance involved.
Spirits can travel fast, especially when they're motivated, but a six hundred mile round-trip is still nothing to sneeze at.
Gained Spiritual Knowledge C (Plus) (Plus)
You check the time, and find that it's coming up on two in the afternoon. Tiriaq's going to be busy for the next hour, using a trance-state to channel energy to his spiritual allies to help them make the journey, so you'll have to find something else to occupy your time with. Given the time, this will probably be your last chance to see or do anything in the village today.
Leaving Elder Tiriaq to his chanting, you and Briar make your way out of the tent and head back into the village proper, looking for Sokka or Katara.
As it happens, you find Katara first, back at her house. However, she's under the eye of her mother and a quietly authoritative old woman Katara introduces as "Gran-Gran," who are teaching her how to sew. They have an interesting combination of near-modern and ancient materials laid out on the kitchen table where they're working, ranging from bone needles and animal-sinew threads to machine-driven - if foot-powered - stainless steel and fabrics that you could probably find in Sunnydale. If you were interested in sewing something, that is.
Which you're not.
Really.
Interestingly enough, Gran-Gran appears to prefer the sewing machine, while Kya is the one who goes for the old-fashioned approach. Katara is sitting next to her mother, working away with her own set of archaic implements, quietly yelping as she pricks her fingers and casting poorly-hidden glances of envious longing at her grandmother's work, which progresses with the ease only many years of experience can bring.
Seeing that the ladies are otherwise engaged - and because Gran-Gran has a walking stick near to hand that makes you think of Lu-sensei's Enlightenment Stick, for no particular reason - you don't make a nuisance of yourself. You speak briefly about what Tiriaq is doing and why you aren't still with him, in the process dropping a hint about the Divination Magic you were working.
You're a little surprised when Katara doesn't react to that. Given her own mystical talents, you were half-expecting that she'd have noticed the magic you called up. Then again, what you've seen of Waterbending is enough to tell you that it doesn't incorporate mana, only youki - and it's pretty clear that Katara doesn't have any specialized sensory powers like Gyokuro, so she might well have missed your spellcasting entirely.
Aside from that, you ask if the ladies if they know where Sokka might be, hear out their thoughts on where you'd be most likely to find the boy, and then thank them and make your way out, leaving them to their work.
As the back door of the house closes behind you, you find yourself wondering if you should come up with a gift of some sort, as a way of thanking this family for the assistance they've provided you today. You still owe Tiriaq a few pounds' worth of metal goods; you could conjure a little extra, something like a knife, a pair of scissors, and mark those as gifts...
It's something to think about, anyway.
Guided by the women's remarks, you check out the seal-dog kennel you visited on your initial arrival. Sokka isn't there, so you move on, heading for a cleared area inside the walls where the hunters and warriors gather to practice some of their skills, and where the boys hang about to watch when they have free time - and also when they DON'T have the free time.
Sokka isn't here, either, but as you look over the small crowd of about a dozen men and twice that many boys, your attention is drawn to the wrestling match currently taking place. On one side is a guy who is quite literally built like a bear, claws, shaggy white fur, and all; on the other is a more sleekly muscular man whose smooth, black-and-white-patterned skin reminds you of an orca, and makes you wonder if he's related to Sokka and Katara, who exhibited similar traits in their natural forms.
Although most eyes are on the match - the bear-man currently has his opponent in a powerful, crushing hug, and is lifting him in clear preparation for another move - you catch a few glances in your direction. Some of those who look at you quickly look away, but others - two of the larger boys, and one of the younger men - are giving you the sort of looks you saw back at the World Tournament.
Your fighter's instincts tell you that if you hang around here much longer, somebody is probably going to invite you to enter the ring for a round or two. Those same instincts are all for it.
The rest of you would like to get on with finding Sokka.
Thinking on it, you decide not to hang around. You've already used up about ten minutes of the time you have left before you should check in with Elder Tiriaq, and while it's true that you could easily spend the remaining three-quarters of an hour trying to catch up with Sokka, you could just as easily use up that time if you got dragged into a wrestling bout. And there's no guarantee that Sokka would show up if you did, or that IF he did, you'd have time to do anything productive afterwards.
You turn and leave.
Sokka wasn't checking on the seal-dogs, and he wasn't watching the warriors work out. That still leaves you with a few places to look for him: the snow-field just outside the walls and the nearby hills are both popular places for boys his age to gather, be it to build (and battle) over snow-forts, to go penguin-sledding (seriously?), or to engage in snowball fights; the women of the family agreed there was a chance Sokka might be found on the village's modest dock, lending a hand to whoever needed it and would take him; and if all else failed, the ladies said you should find Hakoda.
Manly bonding time is a thing.
Rather than spend the next half-hour traipsing back and forth over the village, you dig into your magical repertoire, and cast a low-powered variant of the Spell to Locate Creatures. Sacrificing most of the spell's duration and bringing its mana cost down by three full tiers, you send out a pulse of mana similar to but much "quieter" than your previous castings of the Spell to Locate Objects.
Ping!
Turning in the direction of that signature, you find yourself looking at - and more likely, past - the perimeter wall. Sokka's presence is out there, moving around quickly but with no particular pattern, right up until he stops and sort of shifts in place.
The spell you're using doesn't provide much in the way of fine detail, but even so, you have the distinct impression that Sokka just got knocked on his butt.
Maybe it's because you're close enough that some of your non-spell sensory powers can detect him?
In any case, it appears that your destination is the snow-field. Letting your spell lapse, you head for the arch of snow-frosted ice that serves as the village's main gate, nod to the spear-carrying, fur-clad gentlemen standing the watch, and step outside.
As you guessed, Sokka and a dozen other kids - mostly boys, though you do see a trio of girls - are having a snowball fight. Sokka is back on his feet by the time you arrive, but there's enough snow clinging to his clothes to show that he did get knocked over very recently, and that it either happened after a heavy barrage, or was followed up by somebody dumping a large amount of snow on him.
Sokka sees you coming, and waves. "Alex! Escaped the old mAAARRGH!"
And down he goes again, having taken a snowball to the face.
It would appear that there is no mercy in Southern Water Tribe snowball fights.
This point is underscored when one of the kids looks in your direction, and grins.
"Hey! It's the guy Sokka and his Dad brought into town this morning!"
Some of the other kids turn.
"Uh-oh," you hear Sokka exclaim.
"LET'S GET HIM!" somebody roars, as snowballs are hefted.
"Guys, wait-!"
You run for the nearest cover, which amounts to a heap of snow that doesn't quite come up to your waist. Snowballs begin to rain down around you, but while even the smallest of the Water Tribe kids proves to have a good throwing arm - most likely a sign of their youki at work - their aim is a bit...
Look, it's snowballs. They're not the most aerodynamic missiles ever created.
It doesn't hurt (you) that the full set of physical and mental Augmentation Magic you cast this morning is still going strong. You figure that at least equalizes you with the inherent supernatural advantages most of these little monsters possess, and when you factor in your natural physical ability, martial training, and combat experience on top of that, you're a fairly hard target. Having to trudge through the snow saps some of your (super)natural grace, but not enough to make a major difference; the snow out here looks like it was fairly packed down, even before the kids came out to play.
"What the-?!"
"Fast!"
In any case, you make it to cover, such as it is, without taking a hit. At least from the initial barrage, which is now expended - but with the practiced speed of veteran winter warriors, the kids have squatted to scoop up double-handfuls of snow, and are busily shaping a fresh round.
You do your best to mimic them, but you're at a disadvantage here. The amount of snowfall Sunnydale sees in a typical year is a laughable number - there have been multiple years, in fact, when there was no snow at all, or at least none that you saw between going to bed one night and getting up the next morning. This has had an obvious, detrimental impact on your snowball-packing abilities, and by the time you get your first snowball together, the Water Tribe kids are taking aim with their second volley.
Gained Dexterity E (Plus)
Gained Ice Sculpting F (Plus) (Plus)
Rather than entrust your safety to your less-than-concealing cover, you take your lopsided snowball, straighten up, and run.
This time, the Water Tribe children have a better idea of what you can do, and you actually have to dodge some of their projectiles.
"Again?!"
"No way!"
"Are you sure he's humaACK!"
Direct hit! Not as glorious as the surprise attack that socked Sokka right in the kisser, but a hit's a hit all the same!
Gained Thrown Weapons Training F
"Guys!" Sokka calls out, having hauled himself back to his feet and brushed the snow from his face. "Enough already!"
"No way!" the kid you just hit shouts back. "I'll get him THIS time for SURE!"
And he assumes a stance.
As the snow begins to rise - somewhat sluggishly, you note - in response to the young Waterbender's movements, you figure this is as sure a sign as any that the gloves are off. Much as you'd like to conjure a snowball and smack the guy again, what you've seen of Bending thus far tells you that, like your own ki techniques, it's got a speed advantage over spellcasting - not quite as pronounced as the edge pure ki or youki manipulation hold over spells, given that the Bender's energy has to move into their element before they can start moving said substance around, but an edge is an edge. Especially when the Bender starts Bending before you start casting.
So, rather than pull magic out of your hat, you call up your ki.
When the "wave" of snow - four feet tall at best, only slightly broader, and probably less than two inches thick if you compacted it all into a single object, rather than having it spread out like a shotgun blast - tries to bury you a couple of seconds later, you make like a ninja, throw up a Doppelganger, and try to Substitute yourself out of its way.
The ninja-girls would wince if they could see the crude, brute-forced nature of your second technique, but you manage to make it work, and in this situation, that's all that matters.
Gained Substitution F (Plus)
There is a moment of disorientation as you trade places with a lump of snow that was located behind the Waterbender. It's not the sudden stop-go fast-stop sensation of high-speed movement techniques - you're MORE than used to that, after all your practice with the Body Flicker. Rather, it's how you go from facing this kid at a distance of thirty feet, to standing an arm's length behind him, while that patch of snow goes zipping past you in the other direction.
"Got him!" your opponent cheers, as your illusory ki-clone puts on a properly hammy show of being engulfed by the miniature avalanche.
Out of the corner of your eye, you see Sokka facepalm. Whether it's at the Waterbender's unwarranted declaration of victory or your Doppelganger's antics, who can say?
Grinning, you reach out and tap the cocky kid on the shoulder. "Hey."
"Gyah!"
His shocked leap into mid-air is very gratifying.
As the kid recovers from his startlement and spins about to face you, you get a better look at him. He's wearing a human disguise that features a certain fuzziness about the ears and jaw: if he were twenty years older, it could pass as a bad case of five o'clock shadow; on a face that looks to be about your age, it just doesn't work.
At this range, you have no trouble feeling the Waterbender's youki reach for the snow again.
Going for the surprise attack? Tsk, tsk. Poor sportsmanship, that. It WOULD be good tactical sense, if not for your sensory skills and the fact that you were gathering mana before you ki-blitzed over here.
What you cast is basically just the Spell to Create Water, with the "Water" aspect tweaked a little - but not all the way - towards "Ice."
As a result, instead of being drenched from head to toe in a sudden spray of conjured water, the young Tribesman is blinded by an explosion of fluffy white snow.
It may seem counter-productive to provide a Waterbender with extra ammunition like this, but you find it's worth it, just for the look on his frosted furry face.
The young Waterbender blinks at you, wide blue eyes distinct against the snow covering most of his face. You're not sure if the pun failed to translate well, or if he just doesn't get the joke, but there are several snickers from your small audience - and not all of them are coming from Briar or Sokka, at that - which you take as an indication that, whatever the problem, it does not lie with you.
Some people just don't appreciate a good joke.
In any event, your suddenly-demonstrated ability to dodge a (baby) avalanche and not-Waterbend a counterattack against their leader seems to have cooled the other children's desire to continue pelting you with snowballs. At least to the point where they're willing to break up into fairer teams, rather than ganging up on the new kid.
While the rest of the crowd goes back to wintertime fun, you and Sokka take a brief stroll out of the main engagement area. Briar stays behind for once, flittering back and forth between the different kids, checking if any of them can see her.
"So," the older boy says, "not that I'm ungrateful for the show, but why are you out here instead of hanging out with the spooky old guy? Are you two done for the day?"
"Not quite," you answer, before explaining that Tiriaq and his spirit guides are running down the location of a meteorite for you.
"You're going after-!" Sokka blurts out, before clamping his mouth shut and looking around, as if to make sure nobody noticed. Seeing that the rest of the kids are now some distance away, and far more interested in the current round of snowball warfare than the two of you, he continues in a quieter, but no less intent tone, "You're going after space metal?!"
Space metal.
Space. Metal.
...you have to admit, you've never heard meteoric iron referred to that way before. In ANY lifetime that you can casually recall.
"Is... that an official name for the stuff around here?" you ask.
"Huh? Oh, no. Most people just call it 'meteoric iron,' the science guys have a few fancy names for it, and some of the elders call it 'star metal' when they're feeling traditional-"
Okay, THAT'S a name you recognize.
"-but the first one's kind of boring, I'm still not sure what the difference is between 'kamacite' and 'taenite,' and while I get that meteorites are called 'shooting stars,' they're not REALLY stars, so it's just inaccurate to call them that. But the stuff we're talking about comes FROM space, and it IS metal, so..."
...
Well done, Sokka. You've officially made the (reincarnated) King of Evil blink.
You shake that off quickly. "I'm not really interested in the metal-"
"You're kidding."
"-I just need the rock."
"Right, for magic stuff." Sokka sighs. "And here I was, getting my hopes up... do you know how long it's been since somebody found any space metal around here? I think the last time was when Dad was a kid, and THAT was a guy who was working as a guide for one of the inland expeditions, so he had to hand it over to be all catalogued and science'd and stuff. Which, don't get me wrong, hooray for science, it's just that nobody's actually made a new lucky knife or hunting spear since Gran-Gran came south."
That feels like a cue to you. The question is, a cue for what?
As interesting as this sideline about... space metal... has been, you came looking for Sokka with a different topic in mind.
Without being too brusque about it, you lead the conversation around to the matter of the hot spring that you were told exists under the village. Some people might find it strange that you've managed to visit Japan as often as you have without ever going near a hot spring, considering how popular they are in that land's culture, but it's probably that very fame that's been working against you. Your trips are either brief and unscheduled, or extended, pre-planned visits with busy calendars. You've simply never had the time.
Quite aside from idle curiosity about how the Southern Water Tribe's customs regarding use of a hot spring might vary from those in Japan - which, in spite of your lack of actual visitations, you're vaguely aware of, thanks to their prevalance in any media originating in the Land of the Rising Sun - there's also the potential mystical uses of a spring to consider.
You have been meaning to visit a location of mingled elemental natures, after all.
Sokka doesn't seem at all surprised by your mention of the hot spring. As he puts it, "EVERYBODY who comes here wants to visit it, if they can."
"What, even the ice women?" you ask, mostly in jest.
Sokka surprises you by nodding. "Yes, and the yeti, too."
"...what, really?"
"Yeah, there's a 'low-temperature' pool set off to one side of the cave for people who prefer lower temperatures, but still want to enjoy the spring." Sokka shrugs. "Personally, I'd rather just rinse off at home. Sure, guaranteed hot water is nice, but the minerals in the spring water smell kind of funky, and you've always got people wandering in and out. A guy likes a little privacy sometimes, you know?"
Not really, no; the closest you've ever come to communal bathing are the showers at the swimming pool, and you don't know if that counts. As for visiting...
"I suppose we can try to slip in," Sokka says with some reluctance, "but it's pretty busy in there, most times, and it's 'bring your own towel.' Did you?"
"No," you reply, "but I can conjure one."
It won't be anything special, but you've been handling towels on a near-daily basis since you were old enough for your parents to trust you on your own in the tub. The basic feel of a towel is something you're more than capable of reproducing at this point.
"...still having a hard time getting used to that," Sokka admits.
Collecting Briar - who perks right up at the mention of visiting the hot spring - you leave the other kids to their amusements and make your way back to Sokka's house, where he ducks inside to grab his own bathing supplies.
Of course, the ladies ask what brings him home, and after hearing your and Sokka's plan to visit the hot springs, a brief argument ensues as Katara asks to come along. Sokka is against it, making noises about "manly bonding," "you just went yesterday," and "we're not going down there to splash around with magic water!"
While you'd prefer to avoid getting caught up in a family argument, you feel the need to remind Sokka that Briar is tagging along with you, which makes the "guys only" element of this little outing a moot point. And since Briar is going to be there anyway, Katara might as well come along, so that the two of them can keep each other company.
Sokka's expression is a mix of "oh yeah, I forgot about her," and "whyyyy?"
Katara's smile is purely, triumphantly smug.
With Katara sort of sliding along on "shoes" made of water and Sokka trudging along behind her, head down and grumbling, the siblings lead you to a well-appointed single-story building just around the corner and down the street from their house. The atmosphere here reminds you of the Blackstone, as it's noticeably less frigid and dry than the surrounding area, though not to the extent of having melted all the snow and raised a thin ground fog.
The building is one of the more modern structures, and unlike some of its neighbors, it seems to have been built entirely out of a single source of materials, rather than pieced together from what was available. In this case, the material is mostly brick, with metal fans and vents scattered about, some of them blowing clouds of steam into the freezing polar night.
The vapor aside, it reminds you of the pool back in Sunnydale.
"It's built over the entrance to the cave system where the springs are," Sokka explains, when he notices the curious look you're giving the structure. "Helps to keep the warm air in and the winter out, and cuts down on the shock for guests who aren't as used to going from one to the other as we are."
The front door supports that statement, as it features some heavy weather-sealing. You almost feel like you're going through an airlock to get into this place.
You follow the siblings through a small reception area, where a Water Tribe woman in a lighter version of the customary tribal attire greets them with a smile from behind the front desk. She ushers your group through at once, saying that she'll add the siblings' cost of admission to their family account, and adding that first-time visits are free.
You notice a whiteboard with a long list of different currencies accepted by this establishment, most of which you don't recognize the names for. You find the section for American dollars, but lacking any prior experience with hot springs, you can't say if five dollars for a single visit per child is a good rate or not.
There's also a section marked "barter," and another for "cleaning duty," which you just have to ask about.
"Out-of-town visitors mainly pay in cash," Sokka explains, as you leave the desk and head for the large coat-room, where he and his sister hang up their outdoor coats. You just stow your winter gear in your dimensional pocket, but once your boots are off, you slip your feet into a pair of complimentary blue slippers. "It's more convenient for everybody that way. Villagers might pay in cash, but most of us trade something, or just lend a hand keeping the place neat."
"Of course, some of us are neater than others," Katara says as she heads for a door at the back.
"I have a System," Sokka answers, with emphasis on the last word. "I know exactly where all my stuff is, and I can find it whenever I want it."
"Sure, after digging around for ten minutes-"
"I wouldn't need to do that if you and Mom would just stop messing up my System!"
As you descend the stairs, the walls around you change from modern materials to dark volcanic stone, while the atmosphere slowly gets warmer. Passing through another of those sealed doors, you enter a chamber that, despite all attempts to smooth out the stone and install modern amenities, still gives off the distinctive impression of a cave.
It's also a junction of tunnels, all of which are marked by helpful, well-lit, multi-lingual signs. "Men" are supposed to go one way, "Women" another, while a third route is labeled "Mixed."
You pause here for a minute to perform the Spell of Creation, conjuring up a set of towels for yourself and Briar, after which she and Katara wave goodbye and head down the appropriate passage, while you and Sokka go the other way. In short order, you've found another intersection, where the main tunnel breaks off in three different directions again - one marked "Changing Room," one marked "Hot Spring," and the last labeled "Cool Spring."
"Is it like this in the other two tunnels?" you ask.
"From what Katara and the folks say, pretty much," Sokka admits.
On the one hand, you're kind of surprised that there was space for so many different rooms down here, to say nothing of all the digging and stoneworking the Water Tribe would have had to do to clear it all out and make it look this good.
On the other hand, you remember Hyrule's Underworld. Compared to THAT insanity, this modest cave system is downright unremarkable.
Gained Earth Affinity D (Plus) (Plus)
You learn a few things in this hot springs visit.
For one, Sokka is leaner under his clothes than you are. Not to the point that it looks like he's starving or anything, but there is a distinct difference in how the two of you are built, whether he's in his human form or slick-skinned orca-like monster form.
"Seriously, are you SURE you're not part bear or something?" he asks, as the two of you head for the heated pool, wrapped in towels for modesty.
Second, the spring is just as popular as Sokka implied. There's easily a dozen guys in the pool when you arrive, ranging from kids a little younger than you to men Hakoda's age. Although this spring could accommodate more people - probably twice as many - the fact that it's underground makes it feel a bit crowded.
Third, and following from the above, the Water Tribe must lead a harsher lifestyle than you've seen so far, because every single one of the adults has at least one set of scars visible somewhere. They're not walking masses of scar tissue or anything like that, but of the nine adults assembled here, all but two show signs of having been stabbed somewhere painful but non-lethal. Even without Ganondorf's influence, the similarity between those wounds would make you suspicious, but as it is, you have no problem identifying spear-wounds and knife-wounds. And that's not even getting into the marks left by fangs, claws, and more exotic natural weaponry.
It's telling that none of the men appear the least bit uncomfortable with letting others see the evidence of their old injuries. Quite the contrary; some of them are comparing war wounds and trading stories.
"Boar, not bear," you answer Sokka's question. "One letter, but an importance difference."
You swear you hear a grunt of affirmation in your soul.
Sokka, meanwhile, does a double-take at your statement. "Seriously?"
You grin, and then admit, "As I said to Kahlua back at the tournament, to the best of my knowledge, my ancestry going back at least four generations on all sides is completely human. But my spirit animal is a Boar."
"Oooohhhh," Sokka exclaims.
As you get closer to the hot spring, you start feeling uncomfortable. At first, you figure it's just a cultural thing - you aren't exactly used to communal bathing, after all. But when Sokka opens the door to the hot spring chamber, the cloud of steam that escapes prompts a sudden and unexpected burning sensation across your upper body, almost like you'd gotten too close to a hot stove for comfort. Your reflexive inhalation takes in some of the hot, damp air and is immediately accompanied by a similar feeling, and you find yourself cycling your ki, trying to speed up your body's adaptation to the sudden increase in temperature.
Gained Environmental Adaptation F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
It helps. A little. Maybe.
"Yeah," Sokka says, glancing your way as he holds the door. "Going in or out's kind of a shock the first few times, but you get used to it."
You recognize the problem, of course: the Spell of the Freezing Aura. Although it's made you functionally immune to the cold, the manner in which it accomplished this left you extremely sensitive to heat - dangerously so, in fact.
Fortunately, the problem is easily-corrected. You just dismiss the spell. If it proves too cold for you outside even with your heavy winter gear, you can always re-cast the magic later.
That little issue handled, you follow Sokka inside.
Much of your time in the spring is spent trying to attune your energies to those of the pool, which is a natural (if somewhat artificially cultivated) example of Fire and Water coexisting in relative harmony.
You don't exactly experience a revelation of how opposing elements can combine without blowing each other up. You're not sure if it's because the essence of the hot spring has been too contaminated by the residual life-force of men and monsters to be as useful, if your companions are creating too much of a distraction for you to focus, or if the fifteen to twenty minutes you end up spending here simply weren't enough time.
Even so, the attempt wasn't a complete waste of time.
Gained Spiritual Attunement F (Plus)
You try adapting the spiritual technique for use with ki, to mixed results.
On the one hand, you don't make any progress in attuning your ki to the elemental energies surrounding you. This comes as no great surprise; you only learned Tiriaq's Spiritual Attunement technique TODAY, and you're a long way from anything resembling proficiency with it. You need to get better at the basic ability before you go trying to adapt it to other power sources.
On the other hand, you learn a few things about what DOESN'T work when you're trying to shift your ki signature to blend into your surroundings. And failure is supposed to be more instructive than success, right?
Right?
Gained Ki Generation D
At one point, you take a break from the "meditation disguised as relaxing in the spring" that you've been doing, and ask Sokka - who's been listening to the men trading stories of how they got their scars as eagerly as the other boys - if the stories are really that important.
He gives you a look of honest surprise. "Do guys not do this sort of thing where you come from?"
"None of the guys I usually hang around with," you admit.
Then again, THAT exalted company includes Larry, Lu-sensei, and your father.
Not for the first time, you think that you need more male friends your own age.
Sokka shakes his head, seemingly dismayed, and proceeds to explain that it's not REALLY about the scars, it's the stories behind them - the battles fought, the opponents overcome, the beasts hunted and slain, and all the lessons learned in the process. What worked, and what didn't. What was clever, and what was merely reckless. Which scar is a reminder that your enemy was the stronger, the faster, or the more skilled, and yet you overcame him anyway, and which one is a warning that you owe your life to luck, or the actions of another.
It's an interesting insight into the Water Tribe's mindset.
You do have to wonder how often they fight, though. Not to mention who - or what - they're fighting against.
Maybe it's the presence of all the visual aids, but your curiosity gets the better of you, and you ask Sokka who - or what - it is that his tribe fights often enough for the men of the village to have so many scars.
"Mostly, it's a 'who,'" he replies.
Visions of antagonistic Dr. Seuss characters briefly dance in your head.
It is surprisingly unsettling.
Then Sokka proceeds to explain that the "who," in this case, is other members of the Southern Water Tribe. Antarctica only has so much food and other resources to go around, and for most of their history, the inhabitants weren't a single tribe, but multiple tribes, competing for control of the best fishing and hunting grounds, the most productive seaweed beds, the most hospitable (or least inhospitable) locations, and so on. All-out war as other cultures know it was never really a thing here, as no one had the resources or manpower to spare.
"There wasn't much distinction between 'warrior' and 'hunter' back then," Sokka says. "And most of them were fishermen, besides. That meant that if you killed a man, you were killing his family with him, and hurting his neighbors, too." The other boy pauses, and then adds, "Unless he had a lot of brothers. Or someone in the family was a Waterbender - hopefully not his wife, because if she WAS, wow, were you ever screwed."
In a land of perpetual ice and snow, where life is utterly reliant on the ocean to survive?
Yeah, no kidding.
"Anyway, while some unpleasant people were fine with the idea of their enemies starving to death, most of our ancestors were sane enough to realize that if they went around doing that to every tribe they didn't like, those tribes would do the same to them - and then where would they be?"
There was never anything like a formal treaty among the tribes, Sokka tells you, just sort of an unspoken agreement between neighboring villages. You don't kill us, we don't kill you - and if somebody DOES try it, the rest of us get together and come down on them like a tidal wave.
A few of those unpleasant people DID try it.
They're not around anymore.
Everybody else got the message.
Over time, that unspoken agreement evolved into a tradition, that when the Water Tribes of Antarctica fought one another, it wasn't to the death. Warriors were expected to know their own limits, to swallow their pride and stand down if they were beaten, and to allow a defeated opponent to drag himself back home to recover. Better for the tribe that a warrior spend a few weeks confined to his bed while the land was cold and dark and the seas too storm-wracked to sail, griping about aching injuries and how he could have taken the other guy, really, than for him to not be there at all when the seasons turned and it was time to hunt and fish once more.
"Because THAT's never safe," Sokka says. "Even fishing is plenty dangerous, if a storm catches you, the late ice drifts too close, or one of the bigger sea-beasts takes an interest when you don't have enough spears to chase it off. And hunting..." He indicates the crowd of older men with a webbed thumb. "I've heard some nasty stories about the kind of mess one of those weird just-a-walrus critters can make of a guy who gets too close when they aren't all dead. And a hunter can run into a lot worse things, even just along the coast. If you go too far inland..." Sokka pauses.
"What?" you ask.
"Exactly."
Gained Local Knowledge (Southern Water Tribe) E (Plus) (Plus)
While Sokka catches you up on the martial customs of his people, you continue to work at the Spiritual Attunement technique Tiriaq showed you. Once again, you make only incremental progress at best.
Gained Spiritual Attunement F (Plus) (Plus)
After Sokka's storytelling winds down, you think to check your time-keeping cantrip, and find that it's been most of an hour since you left Tiriaq. He and his spirit guides should be finishing up with confirming the location of that meteorite right about now, which means you should be getting back.
For all his earlier talk about not really liking the hot springs, Sokka proves reluctant to leave now that he's actually here, but he musters his sense of good hospitality and follows you back to the changing room.
"You'll have to come back again sometime, and keep an hour or so free so you can really enjoy this place," he says, as the two of you towel off and get dressed.
A simple magical message alerts Briar to your impending departure, and when you and Sokka reach the junction of the three tunnels, the fairy and Katara are both already there, perfectly dry.
Sokka gives his sister a suspicious look before slicking back his hair, which is still heavy with moisture.
"Did you have a good time, Briar?" you ask.
"It wasn't a fairy fountain," she admits, "but it's the closest thing to one that I've found since that visit to Mom's."
Is there anything else you'd like to talk to Sokka and/or Katara about, before you head back to the shaman's tent?
You, Briar, and the Water Tribe siblings make your way back upstairs to the coat room. As you move through the caves, you can't help but notice how it keeps getting steadily cooler as you get farther from the hot springs. Once again, you cycle ki through your body to help yourself get more accustomed to the lower temperature, and as soon as that's done, you cast a minor cantrip to finish drying yourself off.
Normally, you wouldn't bother with the last part, but the idea of walking around the South Pole with damp hair strikes you as unwise, whether you're wearing winter gear or not.
Gained Environmental Adaptation E
As you're all putting your coats, boots, and other winter clothes on back in the coat-room, you ask Briar if she's okay to face the sub-zero temperatures outside, or if she'd rather you re-cast the Spell of the Freezing Aura.
"I'll be fine, Alex," she tells you. "Worse comes to worst, I'll just cast the Spell to Endure Elements."
You accept her assurances, and finish zipping up your coat.
After a brief exchange with the lady at the desk, your group exits the building.
The door isn't even fully open before you're hit by the deepest, most intense feeling of bitter, biting cold that you have EVER experienced. Your eyes and the small area of skin around them - the only part of you left exposed by your Antarctic Winter Gear - ache in a way you've only dimly experienced when looking or reaching into a freezer. Even then, this is considerably more intense.
Gained Ice Resistance F
Beside you, there is yelp and a small surge of mana as Briar casts her spell. You half-expect to hear her deciding that isn't enough, but evidently it's not so cold as to overpower the protection of that basic spell, even when it has only a fairy's modest strength backing it.
Sokka and Katara, meanwhile, walk out into the polar night with most of their faces uncovered, and don't even flinch.
The sight instills in you a newfound respect for the hardiness of the Southern Water Tribe. It's only now that you aren't warding off the cold with magic that you really have the perspective to appreciate it.
After seeing the pair back to their house and thanking them for their time and company, you and Briar return to the shaman's tent. As you draw near the edge of the village's inhabited area, you see Tiriaq emerge from his tent to meet you with suspiciously-good timing.
You didn't feel any spirits hanging around, so you're pretty sure the shaman didn't ask one of his guides to watch for you. Maybe he just felt you coming? You WERE trying to use that new technique-
Gained Spiritual Attunement F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
-but it IS still new, and Tiriaq IS a guy who deals with spiritual matters professionally.
Shaking that off, you greet the shaman, and ask how his hour went.
"Three hundred and seventeen miles, as the skua flies," he responds, giving you another of those wide-eyed looks. "My guides tell me that the meteorite you found isn't much bigger than the little one, there." He nods at Briar. "It's also buried under several inches of ice."
As he says that, you notice that Tiriaq is once again carrying his assortment of satchels, including the one he had his tools in.
"Right, then. Tell me about the site in as much detail as you can, and we'll go check it out."
He does.
And you do.
Although you are about equally tempted to either tough it out and endure the chill or take a note from Briar and cast the Spell to Endure Elements, you decide that it's better to be safe than to have a frozen fairy, and proceed to cast the Spell of the Freezing Aura again.
Gained Ice Elementalism E (Plus) (Plus)
"That really wasn't necessary, Alex," Briar says, as the magic takes hold over the two of you. "I was perfectly fine with my own spell up."
"Yeah, here," you answer. "But I'm pretty sure it gets colder the farther inland you go. Right, Sokka? Katara?"
The siblings trade glances.
"More or less," Sokka admits. "I mean, it depends on things like the terrain and elevation, but on the whole, you've got the right idea."
"How much cold can the spell Briar was using stand up to?" Katara asks.
"It lets you tolerate temperatures between minus fifty to plus one hundred and forty degrees Fahrenheit," you reply.
And wasn't working THAT out fun? Hyrule didn't exactly use the same system of measurement for temperature. Actually, there were long stretches of the country's history where it didn't have ANY kind of system to measure the temperature, and everybody just decided how hot or cold it was based on their personal tolerances - and whether or not they were catching on fire or turning interesting colors.
Katara blinks. "What's that in Celsius?"
...oh, come ON.
"Hang on a sec," Sokka tells her, stopping in the middle of the packed-snow street to look around. A moment later, he points to a nearby house with an exclamation of, "Ah-ha! Thermometer!"
Your little band trudges over to investigate.
It turns out that the current temperature is around thirty degrees below zero, Celsius - that's minus twenty-two where you come from, and you honestly think that you were happier not knowing it. Minus fifty Fahrenheit works out to minus forty-five Celsius, and WHY do they have a thermometer that even goes DOWN that far?!
"It gets that cold, sometimes," Sokka tells you seriously. "It's not common here - it's not even UNcommon, we're too close to the ocean, and there's the volcanic vents, besides - but it DOES happen. And like you said, it gets worse inland."
There is a pause.
"You know," Briar says, "on second thought, I am perfectly okay with this new spell."
When you, Briar, and Elder Tiriaq emerge from the teleportation spell several minutes later and a few hundred miles inland, you find that you're standing in the middle of a wide open plain of snow, mile upon endless mile from anything resembling a landmark. It's just your small party, the snow, the starry sky, and the gusting wind.
Diving to her usual place on your shoulder to avoid getting blown away, Briar casts another spell, one that feels like her equivalent of a cantrip.
"Brrr," she says a moment later. "Minus forty, and with the wind added in... yeah, I am DEFINITELY okay with the second spell."
"Let's get this rock of yours and be on our way," Tiriaq says, raising his voice a bit to carry over the wind. "Even with magic, there's no sense in staying out here any longer than we absolutely must."
You nod, and the shaman gets out some of his handy tools so that you can get to work.
Clearing the ice that's engulfed your meteorite is the work of about half an hour. It takes that long only because you and Tiriaq are both careful about how much force you use to dig, not wanting to damage the stone. As you clear away more of the ice, however, a dark smudge comes into view, giving you a better idea of where to dig and where not to dig, and your pace accelerates.
Finally, you hand the pick you've been using back to the shaman, reach into the small pit, and grasp the stone directly. Even with all the ice you've cleared away, it still takes some effort for you to pull it free, but your magically-augmented strength is up to the task, and you pull the meteorite away from its frozen cocoon with a snap of breaking ice.
You hold up your prize - mostly rock, with a few glittering pieces of metal shot through it - and consider its aura with your senses.
Yeah. This'll do nicely.
Gained Antarctic Meteorite
As you tuck the space stone into your dimensional pocket and stand up, you notice that the wind has suddenly died down. Tiriaq is looking around slowly, ice-pick half-raised in one hand and the other making a warding gesture; you can't really see his face with the hood of his parka pulled close like that, but the tone of the muttering that escapes does not sound good.
The shaman's obvious defensive posture would have put you on guard anyway, but you've no sooner registered his wariness than your own spiritual senses tingle with a sudden chill of approaching menace.
Without a moment's hesitation, you call upon your mana, shape the spell-formula in your mind, and bark a single word of command that has a familiar globe of translucent force snapping into existence around your party.
An instant later, the world outside your Emergency Force Sphere disappears in a wail of wild wind and a wall of white, whirling snow as a literal blizzard springs up as if from out of nowhere. The sudden explosion of apparent winter weather slams into your defensive spell with the force of an avalanche, and then swirls over and around it with a low, ongoing hiss unlike anything in your experience, countless crystals of wind-driven ice rasping against the invisible force-bubble like the world's coldest sand-blaster.
For all of that, your spell holds fast. The initial impact certainly did some damage, and being attacked from every side at once is wearing the barrier down, but the sheer hardness of your conjured defense isn't easily overcome: you'd venture a guess that it soaked at least half of the original assault; and it's definitely taking the lion's share of the ongoing damage.
Honestly, the Force-Sphere is more likely to expire on its own terms before this weaponized weather tears it down. That gives you about a minute to work with without worry.
As such, you turn to the shaman, who is regarding the manifestation of your magic with a mix of surprise and relief.
"Is this one of those things you didn't want to talk about?" you ask, nodding in the direction of the blizzard.
"Definitely not!" he replies. "I didn't get the best look at it before your barrier went up, but I think this is just an elemental spirit. If that's the case, then we're fortunate; the worst it can do is kill us!"
The fact that he considers this to be GOOD news tells you a lot about the spirits he didn't want to name.
"Any idea what brought it here?" you inquire. "I mean, did we intrude on its territory, or was it just roaming and happened to notice us?"
"The latter is most likely," Tiriaq tells you. "Storm-spirits like this don't really recognize territory or ownership the way more terrestrial spirits would. They roam where they will, for as long as the deep cold lasts." The shaman pauses as a frown creeps across his muzzle, and then adds, "It IS odd for one of them to take such unfriendly notice of ground-walkers like ourselves, though. Normally they just sweep over our heads, not really caring whether or not we survive the wind and snow they bring. This sort of directed aggression is either malice, or something else at work."
Gained Elementalogy E
"I'm pretty sure it meant to hurt us with that first hit!" Briar notes. "Unless throwing an airborne avalanche at someone is how these things say 'hello'?"
"There's a difference between malice and anger, little one!" the shaman says firmly. "The first is unearned, while the latter... but what could any of us have done to upset a storm-spirit?"
...
Um.
Honesty, paranoia, and a solid grounding in mystical theory compel you to speak up.
"Would this be a good time to admit that I magically-harvested the heart of a thunderstorm the other day?" you ask out loud.
"It might!" Tiriaq responds. "What did you do, exactly?"
"I wrapped a bunch of protective spells around the two of us, then flew into the thunderhead, dodged some lightning, soaked a particularly nasty bolt, and then grabbed the core of the storm and stuffed it in a bottle!"
...
Okay, the way the shaman keeps going goggle-eyed at your feats of magical ability was funny at first, but if he keeps this up, you're going to start worrying about his blood pressure. Or his vision. Or something.
"That was in California!" Briar protests. "How would a snow elemental nine thousand miles away even KNOW about it? And why would it CARE?"
"It probably doesn't know the details," Tiriaq says, as he masters his shock over this latest tale of magical prowess you've revealed to him. "And I doubt it cared about the storm itself - unless it was an actual elemental spirit?"
You shake your head. "It was just raw energy, not- hang on a second-"
You break off to cast the Spell of Resilient Sphere, effectively replacing your Emergency Force Sphere, which had just about run out of time. As the new force-bubble shimmers into existence around you, the noise of the snowstorm diminishes from a clearly-audible rasp to a faint whisper, the greater durability of this slower-cast force effect immediately making a difference.
With your defense consolidated, you turn back to the shaman.
"As I was saying, it was just a thunderstorm. There was a lot of energy being thrown around, and from a lot of different physical elements, but it didn't have any spiritual component to it."
Tiriaq nods. "Alright, then. As I was saying, the storm-spirit likely doesn't know the specifics of what you did, only that you took SOMETHING from the realm of the storm-spirits, and something powerful enough for the act to have left its mark on your aura. Add in that you have a fairly strong connection to Elemental Earth, and a slightly weaker tie to Elemental Fire, both of which are antithetical to this spirit, and it's little wonder that it decided to attack us."
"But I've been suppressing my aura!" you protest, frowning.
"On the physical plane, certainly," Tiriaq agrees. "I have to say that you're a bit more obvious on the spiritual side of things, though. And elemental spirits are keenly aware of their opposites, especially when one turns up in the middle of such" - he gestures around at the snow-field - "hostile terrain. The native elementals tend to take it as an invasion."
...well, that's annoying. Understandable, but annoying.
You look up through the dome of your Resilient Sphere at the storm swirling outside, its wrath more or less ineffective against the thicker and more stable barrier you've raised, and then back to Elder Tiriaq.
"Would teleporting away from here be safe?" you ask. "I mean, could this spirit follow us back to your village, or track us down the long way?"
"Teleportation would work," the shaman says after a moment's thought. "Storm-spirits are considered impossible to outrun, but that's because they can fly with the speed of the wind itself, and unlike mortal flesh, never grow tired. That said, they have little if anything in the way of patience, and aren't any more impressive in terms of memory; if this one suddenly lost sight of us, it would rage for a short time, and then get bored, move on, and forget we were here."
"And it won't come blowing down your tent, later?" you press.
"Oh, it's entirely possible that our unfriendly neighbor's path will eventually carry it to the village," Tiriaq admits. "But even if it were to make straight for my tribe, it would need a few hours to make the trip, and by then, it wouldn't be thinking of vengeance, just the opportunity to 'play' with us lowly mortals. It also wouldn't be in its domain anymore - it would be in ours."
"I thought you said these things don't recognize territory?" you ask.
"They don't. We do."
Even though the small gap in the hood, you can see Tiriaq's teeth bared in a grin.
You nod, and then venture another question. "I don't suppose we could talk this spirit down, while we're here?"
Tiriaq shakes his head. "Very unlikely, and in no way worth the bother. The spirit wants us gone; we want to be gone; and you're perfectly capable of achieving both ends. The sooner we've left, the sooner it will get over its little temper-tantrum and go on its way."
Gained Elementalogy E (Plus)
And that's that. You perform the Ritual of Teleportation again, willing the force-bubble that surrounds you to wink out just before you complete the spell, and are gone before the first slashing snowflake can even touch you.
A part of you does regret the missed fight, but on the whole, it's probably for the best. Tiriaq was certainly in favor of leaving, and staying on his good side is worth far more to you than a moment's satisfaction and being able to say you beat up a snowstorm.
...although that would have been pretty cool.
Upon returning to the village, you complete your business transaction with Tiriaq, conjuring a few pounds of steel tools and implements. By the time that's done, it's getting on towards four o'clock, which means you'd best be on your way home.
After thanking Tiriaq for his help today and excusing yourself, you head back to Sokka and Katara's house to say your good-byes there. This doesn't take too long, and after thanking the family for their assistance in arranging today's events, and receiving an invitation to visit again - Sokka reminds you to set aside time for another visit to the hot springs, and also penguin-sledding, wrestling, maybe another outing with the seal-dogs if there's time... - you teleport back to California.
The very first thing you do upon arriving is to take off your winter gear, because late afternoon in Southern California is MUCH hotter than winter in Antarctica, and the sudden shift is a little jarring. Even after you've stowed the last of your heavy-duty winter clothes in your dimensional pocket, you still finding it a bit uncomfortably warm, so you turn off the Spell of the Freezing Aura and cycle your ki again, this time helping your body get re-accustomed to the heat.
Gained Environmental Adaptation E (Plus)
Perhaps because you're in the forest, as opposed to the desert, the discomfort passes quickly, and you make your way home without further issue. As you sprint along the road to town, you take the opportunity to exercise your newest spiritual technique again. Although you did put a fair amount of work into the Spiritual Attunement skill while you were at the South Pole, you don't think it's a coincidence that you feel the technique really start to kick in just as you crest a small hill and see Sunnydale laid out before you.
Gained Spiritual Attunement E
You make it home with half an hour to spare before supper, and spend the evening resting and recuperating from your Antarctic excursion.
And also answering questions from your folks.
You sum up: it's very cold; it's dark; and there's a lot of snow.
Also, the local cuisine is interesting.
After that, you call it a night.
The next day, you awaken to find that while most of your reserves have topped off, your mana is still a bit shy - say, five-sixths of full? Nothing that a day of rest, or a day of light activity and another good night's sleep wouldn't take care of. You COULD drink one of the two bottles of Spring Dew you still have in your pocket to top off your mana immediately, but why waste them?
More importantly, with your latest round of reagent acquisition complete, you now have everything you (technically) need to perform the Familiar Binding Ritual - and with a few days to spare, even!
It's now Saturday, the 7th of August, and the date you've picked for the ritual is the 11th. You'll have to be mindful of your activities over the next few days, because you definitely want to be at full strength BEFORE you begin the ritual.
You know, just in case.
While the technical requirements of the Ritual have all been satisfied, there are still one or two things remaining, mostly of a social nature. You've already asked Navi and Lu-sensei to witness the Ritual, and you were thinking of inviting Altria and perhaps her parents - you figure that Ambrose is likely to turn up on his own account, no matter what, but a formal invite might not be remiss, there - and also of possibly staying over at the Drake residence the night before, to get yourself more accustomed to the time difference.
Leaving the Ritual aside, there's still other demands on your time to think about. You haven't stopped by Gen's since the incident with Lady Takara, and your business partner is probably wondering how your involvement with the Nine-Tailed Fox Hunt worked out. Or didn't. On a related note, you have to meet up with Lady Akemi and send her spirit back to the afterlife soon-ish; there's no question that her foster-mother could do so without your involvement, but there's formality, ritual, and just plain good manners involved in ending that sort of summoning arrangement yourself. You have holy books to read, letters to your penpals to write, a class at Lu-sensei's this afternoon - you make a note of that - and a few other matters besides.
So.
The idea of visiting Gen's comes to mind, whether to catch him up on recent events, place an order for a rush-delivered Earth reagent so you can rearrange your ritual for slightly more optimal results, or summon and bargain with an elemental being for the same purpose. However, the time zone difference is once again in your way: it's currently past eleven at night in Japan; and by the time it gets around to a reasonable hour for you to visit and conduct business, you'll either be at Lu-sensei's or expected home for dinner.
An after-dinner visit isn't out of the question, but that will likely depend on how the rest of the intervening day goes. You make a mental note to consider it later.
With much of your afternoon and evening effectively spoken for, that leaves the morning to work with. And on due consideration, the most important thing you need to get done is to finalize your travel arrangements for this Wednesday. That will require talking to your parents and the Drakes.
A part of you would like to do this with full formality, elegantly-written letters, RSVPs, and all, but while you certainly have the means to get such messages delivered in short order, you're aware that leaving only four days for a response is frankly beyond the bounds of "short notice," and pushing "last minute" status. You're not an expert on modern high-society etiquette, and Ganondorf was FAR from any such thing, but even so, you're pretty sure that it's customary to send out announcements of and invitations to Events like this anywhere from several weeks to several months in advance, depending on the significance of the date in question. The advance warning of your plans and polite allowance for checking schedules and making arrangements is expected with that sort of set-up, and you're past the point where you can grant any of it.
So, full formal is out.
But a polite inquiry is still entirely doable. You just need to make a phone call... AFTER checking the time difference.
Some investigation and calculation tells you that it should be around three in the afternoon at Altria's. Greatly reassured that you won't be chasing anybody out of bed, you get out your cell phone and dial Altria's number.
One ring, two rings, three-
"Altria speaking," comes the familiar voice.
"Hi, Altria, it's me."
"Alex! It's good to hear from you. To what do I owe the pleasure? Ambrose hasn't been sucked into Hell again, has he?"
"Not to my knowledge," you reply, "though I wouldn't put it past him. No, I'm calling regarding the familiar ritual I've been planning for the upcoming eclipse, and those not-quite-plans we'd considered?"
"Ah," Altria exclaims. "I was wondering if you were ever going to get in touch about that."
"Things have been a bit busy, lately," you admit, thinking mainly of overpowered foxes and the young girls they've adopted. "But I've got all the necessary preparations made, and no impending disasters that need my attention - at least none that can't wait until later - so I thought this would be a good time to confirm things with you."
"I see. Well, as it happens, I talked to my parents about the possibility of having you over to visit after we spoke about the eclipse. Father has a prior outstanding engagement, but Mother was planning on taking me to see the eclipse, and she was supportive of the idea of a visit, or even putting you up for a night - provided, of course, that your parents will allow it."
Well, that's good news.
"And Ambrose?" you ask, wondering about the down-side.
"He was away at the time," Altria replies at once, "and I'm afraid it completely slipped my mind to speak with him about the matter."
"...just so you know, you're not a very good liar, Altria."
"Mother has said the same," the girl sighs. "It's not a skill that I particularly care to cultivate, but, well..."
"Ambrose," the two of you say in unison.
You spend a couple of minutes discussing details with Altria, letting her know that you've asked Lu-sensei to consider coming along as a chaperone and witness, and that Briar's mother will be attending. Your friend takes the former admission without missing a beat, but is clearly startled by the latter.
"Will we be expected to provide quarters for her?" Altria asks with clear concern. "Because I don't know if Father would go for inviting one of the greater Fey into our home."
You check with Briar, who tells you that her mother will probably make her own arrangements.
"Probably," the little fairy emphasizes. "But you might want to check with her to confirm that."
You need to speak with the folks and Lu-sensei anyway.
Letting Altria know that you'll call again tomorrow, after you've touched bases on this side of the planet - and in other worlds - you...
...say good-bye, and head downstairs.
With the leading matter for your calling Altria unable to advance any further, you set it aside and spend a minute or two just catching up on recent events. Altria tells you that her parents and Ambrose have all been rather busy of late, and that a few of her usual lessons have either been cut short, or canceled until further notice.
On your end, you admit that you have a great tale of sly foxes to tell, but also say that it would go over much better in person, when you're able to provide a visual accompaniment.
"Something to look forward to when you visit," Altria concludes.
"It is," you agree. "Anyway, we both have things to do, and just staying on the line racking up the phone bill would tick off both of our families, so I should probably let you go."
"That would probably be wise," Altria agrees. "Tomorrow, then, at this time?"
"That sounds fine by me," you reply.
With a final exchange of farewells, you hang up, put your cell phone back in your pocket, and then head downstairs for breakfast.
Time to talk to your parents - and after that, to get in touch with a Great Fairy.
On your way to the kitchen, you pass your mother in the hall - on her way to wake up the still-snoozing Zelda - and notice that she's not dressed like she normally is when she stays home to mind you and your sister. Instead, she's got her hair tied back and is wearing the plain, pale blue tunic and pants of a nurse's uniform.
"Full day or half-day today, Mom?" you ask.
"Full shift, plus overtime," she replies. "So you boys will be on your own for lunch and supper. Try not to order take-out both times, okay?"
That's a bit of a jab at your father. You both know that Tony is perfectly capable of cooking, it's just that in general, he prefers not to. And when you factor in how much more convenient it is to be able to toss out a pizza box or a bunch of fast food containers, rather than doing the dishes, this leads to a certain trend whenever your father is left in charge of the kitchen.
Seeing as how you have your mother here, and that she's not going to be available to talk with for most of the day, you take her aside for a moment and quickly catch her up on your recent ritual-related activities, your idea about staying over at Altria's the day before the upcoming eclipse, and how Mrs. Drake is okay with it.
Although you had previously discussed your plans for the Familiar Binding Ritual with your mother, and the fact that you wished to use the eclipse itself as part of the ritual, the difference in time zones either didn't come up in that conversation, or didn't quite register to your mother. When you explain that you'd much prefer to spend the night with the Drakes rather than have to run around Sunnydale at two in the morning - accounting for time difference and necessary travel times - your mother first gives a start, and then quickly agrees that a sleepover would be far preferable.
"But I would at least like to talk with Altria's mother before you go spending the night under her roof," your mother says. "Just to make sure that we're both on the same page. Do you need an answer right away, or is there time for me to call her? I can't do it today, but tomorrow or Monday morning at the latest should be alright."
"There's time," you say. "I still need to talk with Dad about this, and then let Briar's mother and Lu-sensei know what's going on."
"Alright, then. You tell your father what you'd like to do, let him know that you've told ME about it, and that I'm just holding off until I can speak with your friend's mother." As she heads for Zelda's room, you hear her add under her breath, "I can't WAIT to see this month's phone bill by the time we're done..."
You pause, considering that. As it happens, you DO have a potential alternative to your mother making an extended international phone call; you could just take her to meet Lucia Drake face-to-face. That WOULD give the two of them a much better chance to take each other's measure.
Granted, your mother had a less-than-completely-benign reaction to your teleportation spells the last time you took her anywhere, but as long as you take the mind-protecting precautions you came up with, it should be fine.
Your mother blinks, clearly surprised by your offer, and then dons a thoughtful expression.
"You did handle the stove fairly well when you were making that potion," she muses. After a moment, she nods. "Alright, Alex; you can give it a try, as long as your father is there to supervise, and you agree to do half of the dishes afterwards."
Considering that a single Spell of Prestidigitation will take care of the clean-up, this seems like a completely reasonable requirement to you, and you do not hesitate to agree.
No sooner does the idea of introducing Mrs. Drake to your mother in person cross your mind, than you remember various things you've seen or heard Lucia do.
Things like allowing Altria to take a live sword and go off on an intentional monster hunt.
Or getting drunk with Akkiko.
Or having a spontaneous demon-slaying competition with Ambrose.
Granted, Lucia DID effectively forbid you from teleporting over to the Drake estate in time to get mixed up in that last incident - but she also allowed Altria to basically be in the same ROOM as an open portal to a Hell-dimension, while a potential invasion was going on.
On the whole, Lucia's behavior is very, very different from your mother's, and you have a strong feeling that Mom would not approve.
Even if you're wrong about that, the Drakes know a few things about you and your activities over the last few months that you've been careful to either tone down for parental consumption, or just leave out entirely. A face-to-face meeting between moms is a lot more likely to result in some of that knowledge being shared, than would be the case for a conversation subject to the limitations of an international phone call.
In short, you decide to forget that you ever had this idea. The potential benefits are simply not worth the drawbacks.
Leaving Mom to her muttering about the phone bill, you head downstairs for breakfast, and a chat with your father.
Tony's reaction on being told about your request for a "sleepover" is very similar to your mother's. He doesn't object to the idea of you spending the night at a friend's house, even if that house IS on the other side of the planet; he just wants to have the Drake family vetted by himself or your mother first.
"We would have preferred to talk with the Shuzens first, too," he admits, "but since they refuse to take phone calls from Sunnydale, and we didn't know you could travel that far on your own, there wasn't much for it. And, well, vampires." Your father half-shrugs, half-shudders. "Honestly, if your teacher hadn't been going along and vouched for your safety at that party, we would have made you stay home."
Eh, fair enough.
As for the topic of you cooking, your father agrees to let you try your hand at making lunch. After getting up and looking through the fridge and freezer, he recommends warming up some of the chicken nuggets and fries: you're tall enough to work the oven without incident; and they're pretty simple to prepare, as long as you follow the instructions and remember to wear the oven mitts. Fancier stuff can wait for a day when both your folks are home, so that Mom can give you a real lesson, while Dad keeps Zelda out of the way.
Your mother and your yawning little sister come downstairs right about then, and you settle in for a few minutes of family breakfast.
Then Mom is off to work, and Zelda to the couch for her morning cartoons. Your father gives the breakfast dishes a desultory rinse in the sink, and asks you what your plans for the day look like.
"I've got lessons with Lu-sensei this afternoon," you remind him. "As far as this morning goes, I need to get in touch with Briar's mother, and ask if she was planning to join us at the Drakes', or just to show up for the ritual itself."
You pause, thinking. It'll only take you about an hour to talk with Navi, and that's factoring in the time needed to get out of town, perform the rituals necessary to contact her in Hyrule, and then come back home. And that's assuming you even leave town; while Ambrose's wards aren't quite good enough to hide a Spell of Sending - at least not with your current level of control over your mana - you could just hop into your Mirror Hideaway and cast the necessary magic from there.
Either way, you'll still have a few hours of free time to work with before you start cooking lunch.
There's a number of things you'd like to look into this morning. As such, rather than spend an hour or so running out of and back into town and doing magic out in the wilderness, you duck into your Mirror Hideaway and perform the ritual necessary to contact Navi there.
"Everything's set for the ritual, then?" the Great Fairy asks.
"We picked up the last of the necessary materials yesterday afternoon," Briar says. "Although Alex is thinking of tracking down one more so he can swap the ones we have around, and give the ritual a little more of a boost."
Navi regards you. "While I'm sure Briar appreciates the thought, Alexander, don't get too caught up in trying to make the ceremony perfect. It IS supposed to just be a Familiar Binding, after all."
You'll keep that in mind, but you still want to try and improve the spell.
When you speak about possible overnight accommodations at the Drake residence, Navi laughs.
"As amusing as it might be to spend a day and a night on Earth before the ritual, I think I will have to pass. Too many of the local Powers would be likely to notice if I was present for that long, and feel themselves obligated and empowered to protest."
You suppose the Drakes will be relieved to hear that.
Is there anything else you want to discuss with Navi while you have her attention?
The first thing you want to do is research possible replacements for your current Earth reagent, so that you can make use of your Antarctic Meteorite's affinity for Time. Based on your experience gathering the Glacial Core Fragment, it has occurred to you that you might be well-served by visiting a mountain and repeating what you did at the glacier, only with an Elemental Earth aspect to everything.
There are a few potential problems with that idea, though.
First of all, there's the question of which mountain to delve into. A fragment of "the oldest mountain on Earth" would definitely be too powerful for your purposes, and even something like "the oldest mountain in North America" might be pushing it. Actually, thinking on this matter, you probably want it to be a mountain relatively close to home - this is where you live, after all, and where your association with the Earth is oldest and strongest.
That leads into the second problem, which is that mountains tend to be a LOT bigger than the glacier you visited. If you want to get a core fragment from a mountain, you're going to have to venture deep inside, and that can be dangerous, even for Earth Elementals and beings borrowing their form. You don't want to come into contact with any leylines or pockets of volcanic activity - body of living stone or not, they'll still fry you - and you DEFINITELY don't want to tunnel into the subterranean lair of some ancient, nameless horror.
You suspect that California is home to more than the average distribution of such things, thanks to the presence of the Hellmouth - which is, itself, your third problem. You don't want a piece of stone tainted by the ethereal filth that seeps through the dimensional weak-point fouling your ritual any more than you want to use the eclipse as a reagent for Elemental Darkness.
As you consider the difficulties, you realize that there is one mountain that might serve your purposes - namely, the one where you found that portal to Faerie, some months back. You made use of the portal to send Briar's original message to her mother through to Hyrule, making that location significant to both of you and to your link as sorcerer and familiar. In addition, the region's strong connection to Faerie and its natural magics would tend to ward off the Hellmouth's energies, and repel the sort of eldritch horrors the place attracts, even deep underground.
This doesn't guarantee that you'll find anything useful near the portal, of course, and there is the possibility of running into those unfriendly Fae in business suits again.
Still, it's a thought.
As long as you've got her here, you decide you might as well ask the Great Fairy if she has any advice on consecrating the site that you've chosen to perform the Familiar Binding Ritual, so as to ensure that it's protected from external influences.
Navi counters by asking what measures you're planning to use right now, and by way of response, you take out the Scroll of Consecration you received from Akkiko. As you hand the written spell over to Navi, you explain how you obtained it, who you got it from, and what you gave her in return.
Navi spends a few minutes looking the scroll over, before giving you her assessment.
"This should do," she says simply. "I mean, you could do a little better if you were were a priest of the Goddesses, but you're not, and there's no way to change that before the eclipse. I can't help you ward the ritual without giving the resident Powers an excuse to stick their noses in, but this spell" - she hefts the scroll - "is completely local, so they've got no grounds to interfere with it. Not without making it obvious that they're breaking their own rules, which would be all the reason the sisters needed to stop abiding by them."
"And Dracula?" you ask.
"The ward described in the scroll looks strong enough to keep out any casual or incidental malice," Navi says. "That should include the passive influence the local Dark Lord has on the eclipse. It'd be a different story if you were trying to perform the ritual while he was alive, but if I understand correctly, the eclipse won't reach the site of his resurrection until after you're done?"
Some quick checking on your part confirms that. While you don't know where Castle Dracula is supposed to be, if it's anywhere in what used to be called Transylvania, the track of the eclipse will need at least an hour to get there from where you'll be. That's not to mention that, as part of your precautions, you aren't planning on harnessing the heart of the eclipse, just the shadow that leads up to and follows the minute or so of true occultation.
It's pretty much a given that whatever madmen are supporting Dracula's resurrection will be timing their efforts so that the climax of their ritual takes place in that brief window when the Moon has fully covered the face of the Sun. That's when the eclipse's affinity for Darkness would be at its peak, making it the ideal - and possibly ONLY - time it could serve for the resurrection of the Dark Lord.
With your concerns addressed and nothing further to discuss, Navi rolls up the scroll and returns it to you, says good-bye to Briar, and then is on her way.
It's getting on towards nine when you and Briar emerge from your Spell of Teleportation in the wooded area near the portal to Faerie.
Given everything that happened the last time you visited this area, you've taken a few precautions, among them scrying out the location first, and then casting a Spell of Nondetection to supplement your efforts to conceal your aura.
The good news is, your Spell of Scrying didn't find anything out of place about the portal or its immediate surroundings. The magic of the standing stones is still there, as is the seal Mrs. Lawson laid down to keep the gate from being used, and when you probe carefully with additional spells, the alarm ward placed by the Winter Fae that you tripped the last time proves to have been replaced. No other spells appear to be active on or around the gate.
The bad news is basically the good news, as seen from a different angle.
After all, just because you can't detect something doesn't mean it isn't there.
But that may just be your paranoid impulses talking.
In any event, your decision to teleport to part of the forest a little farther away from the gate than you did on your first visit appears to have landed you beyond the area of any theoretical detection spells. No alarms go off, the local magical auras don't shift, and you neither see nor hear any sudden movements.
Reassured, you begin the spell to summon the minor Earth Elemental that will be your guide to the reagent you desire. As you shape the mana for the spell, your thoughts briefly turn over the question of where to have your guide lead you.
Stone taken from somewhere directly beneath the gateway, where the energies of Faerie that have been bleeding through the portal for uncounted years and seeped into the Earth, will undoubtedly have the highest quality. However, if you're really worried about being detected, you probably don't want to venture that close to the standing stones, much less mess around with rock that is likely linked to them in some fashion.
The farther away you are from the gate, the less worry there is about tripping over any hidden alarms or leaving evidence of your subterranean activities that could be noticed from the surface, but the lower the quality of the reagent you retrieve will be. You definitely don't want to try digging at a greater distance than you currently are; the influence of the gate is pretty faint here, and while it'll be stronger in the deep soil and the stone below, there are limits.
As you complete your summoning spell, a very small localized tremor ensues as the earth before you rises up, taking on the form of the elemental spirit you've called forth.
Like the Ice Elemental you bound yesterday, the Earth Elemental is only about three feet tall, and roughly humanoid. It's more broadly built than its cold cousin was, with bulky shoulders, long, burly arms that run to powerful hands of three thick grasping digits each, and a torso shaped like a boulder. The elemental doesn't appear to have legs, instead rising directly from the ground; combined with the disproportionate length of its arms, it rather resembles a man standing in a body of water that reaches past his waist. Its face is flat and featureless, save for two highly polished black stones - not quite gems, you think - from which emanates a green-hued white light. The whole thing is composed of compact earth and random bits of rock, with patches of grass and small flowers adorning the surface almost like hair.
The elemental regards you for a moment, and then looks down at itself in surprise at a sudden frantic squeaking.
You join the spirit in looking on as a small grey rodent of some kind forces its way out of a pocket within the elemental's barrel chest. It sniffs at the air with a pink nose, squints its beady little eyes at you and Briar, and then chitters fiercely.
"Sorry about that," Briar says to the... mole, maybe? "He didn't know you were there."
More chittering, which you'd swear sounds angry.
"Yes, he could have looked," the fairy agrees patiently. "But would you?"
The rodent pauses, gives a single short squeak of annoyance, and then drops from its suddenly-ambulatory burrow to scurry off into the grass.
The elemental watches it go, then turns back to you.
"Does that happen often?" you ask it, honestly curious.
Briar translates your question, and the elemental just shrugs.
Shaking your head, you make with the Spell of Transformation, adopting the form of an Earth Elemental for yourself. Once it's done - leaving you looking like a version of yourself made of rough stone and loose dirt - you cast a relatively minor translation spell, and communicate your intentions to the true elemental in a language of sandy hisses, clacking stone teeth, and a surprising degree of body language.
Gained Terran F (Plus)
Your guide nods and, without preamble, turns around and heads for the standing stones that mark the portal. Its body glides through the earth, sinking deeper with each "step," and you follow suit, heading down into the dirt. Just like the last time, Briar stays behind, your link providing a sense of direction and orientation.
As soon as your eyes pass below ground, you're effectively blind, but that's find; one of the advantages that comes with your current form is a keen sense of vibrations, and as smooth as it appeared on the surface, the elemental's passage is producing plenty of movement and noise.
Down, down, down you go, through loose soil into more compact earth, the thin roots of grass and smaller plants rustling against your rocky hide as you push through them, while the thicker network of tree roots force you to detour here and there. Solid masses of stone are no more of an obstacle to you than the dirt was, your elemental form slipping through them just as easily as your human body would through water, and without the complication of needing to breathe.
Considering how long it took you to reach the heart of the glacier, you're honestly a bit surprised when, after just three minutes and change, the elemental stops and rumbles an announcement that it's found the strongest concentration of Earth Magic in this area. It ushers you forward to "see" what it's talking about, and you find yourself touching a large spur of stone that rises from somewhere far, far below, beyond any of your senses, and continues up, thinning, reaching...
...
Huh.
Now that you "look" at it, combining the odd senses of this elemental body with your more conventional magical awareness, you get the distinct impression that this formation is actually the lower portion of one of the stones that make up the portal - what you took to be free-standing stones, and which evidently aren't. At least, not entirely.
This... may be a problem.
Oh, the stone is definitely reagent-quality. It's old earth that likely hasn't known the touch of Air since before the first humans came to live in this part of the world, and bears no signs of being touched by Fire for at least as long. Water has only the very faintest influence on it, and most of the other elements are equally inconsequential, save for Darkness and - to a lesser degree - Time. It's also shot through with a strong Fae essence, the residue of the pure, unshaped energy that would have bled through the portal for all those years before Mrs. Lawson sealed it, and which still escapes in drips and drabs.
Really, that only makes it a BETTER reagent for your purposes. Briar IS Fae, after all.
No, the problem is that if you take a piece of this rock, you stand a very good chance of disturbing the energies that empower the portal. It probably won't collapse - not unless you're extremely careless or just terribly unlucky - but it WILL have some kind of effect on the gateway.
Any magic-user worth the name will be able to tell.
You run a hand through the earth that surrounds the stone, considering its suitability as a potential reagent. It's not as old or as potent as the rock, but it HAS absorbed a fair amount of the same energies. The mix of Earth-and-Fae Magic might be enough to overcome that lesser quality. There are other stones nearby, some of which feel as old as the gateway stone, but they lack its potency - the Fae energy running through the main stone has altered it in some ways, made it more receptive to and retentive of mystical forces than the mundane rock around it. The lesser stones simply won't do.
Yeah, you'd rather not mess directly with the foundational energies of a stable inter-planar portal, lest it become UNstable in some manner you can't currently predict. This gate's been here for a long time, and the local environment has long since grown used to its presence. A sudden change could have any number of effects on the region, from the inconsequential to the disastrous, and you'd just as soon not be responsible.
Besides, you haven't forgotten Mrs. Lawson, or the strength of her magical aura. While her powers might not have given her the capacity to muck about with the more subtle and exotic aspects of the portal, it would have been within her abilities to just destroy the standing stones that defined it. The fact that she sealed the portal instead tells you she had a reason not to want to break it.
Maybe that reason was a sense of self-preservation, or concern for the impact on the environment, and maybe it was something more complex.
Either way, you'll take your cue from the local not-a-Winter-Fae authority, and leave the portal as undisturbed as possible.
As such, you reach out with your stone-skinned hands, cupping them around a mass of earth right next to the stone, and - once it's completely closed off - willing the lump to enter your dimensional pocket.
Gained Gatesoil
When you open your fingers a moment later, a small hole is left behind. Some loose earth falls into it, but quickly stops; soil may not be as stable as a mountain face, but at this depth, it's compact enough to have some cohesion. The little hole you've created will probably fill in the next time this area experiences a minor tremor, or if a lot of animals move by overhead.
That would likely change if you took enough earth, which is one reason why you don't bother. Another is that there's really no point. Unlike rock - or ice - soil isn't all one piece, which means that even two samples of dirt taken from the same location, at the same time, using the same method, are "different" enough to count as two distinct reagents. And you can only use one reagent gathered by hand from the portal as part of the ceremony.
It's also pointless to take multiple soil samples and try to fuse them together into one reagent. Using magic to blend the samples would just contaminate them, while mixing them physically would effectively destroy the original "items" and create something less purely Earth-aligned.
Besides, what you have feels like it'll suffice. Maybe it's not EXACTLY equal to every single one of the other reagents you're planning on using, but it's a close match to all of them. It certainly won't sabotage the Familiar Binding Ritual.
If anything, it's the small imbalances and imperfections like this that add personality to the magic.
Satisfied with your latest and final acquisition, you thank the elemental, dismiss it, and make your way back to Briar's presence on the surface.
"How'd it go?" she asks, as your rocky head breaches the forest floor.
"We're good," you reply in a voice of granite.
Gained Terran F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Pulling yourself free of the Earth's embrace, you return to flesh and blood and then head home without further delay.
Seeing as how Larry will be at Lu-sensei's this afternoon, you decide not to call him, and instead spend some time with Moblin and Zelda. Your initial idea of playing with your sister falls through, however, because it's Saturday morning, and there are cartoons to watch.
You end up on the couch, Zelda to your right and Moblin stretched out to your left and across your lap, with his head in your sister's lap. In addition to this base betrayal by your loyal canine companion, you are forced to suffer through a quarter-hour of something cute, fuzzy, and trying to your very sanity, before you are rescued from impending madness and sugar shock by the latest Looney Tunes-inspired Warner Brothers animated series.
On a related note, it REALLY says something when you're relying on the antics of Bugs Bunny and company as a sanity-preserving measure.
Gained Pop Culture E (Plus)
After that show ends, Zelda decides she's had enough television for now, and asks Briar if they can go play house.
"I don't know," Briar replies, looking up at you. "Can we, Alex?"
Not only do you manfully agree to play house with your little sister, you decide to take things a step farther, and offer to use your magic so that you can "visit" Briar's house, and see what it looks like from the inside.
"Wait, what?" Briar asks.
Zelda, meanwhile, is wide-eyed with wonder. With a gleeful shout of "YEAH!" she leaps from the couch, spilling the startled Moblin to the floor.
"Zelda, wait! I'm not ready for visitors, the house is a mess, I need to cleeeeaaaan-!"
Briar zips away after your sister, trying to get ahead of her. Zelda doesn't seem to hear her calls, and races up the stairs in a thunder of little footfalls and a storm of excited squealing.
Moblin lifts his head from the carpet to give you a soulful, betrayed look.
Your father disappeared from the living room at some point during Zelda's earlier show. He looks back in from the hall now, a newspaper in his hands and curiosity written on his face.
"What set off Hurricane Zelda?" he asks.
You explain your offer to use magic to turn "playing house" into "visiting house."
Your father considers that. "It's safe?"
You nod. "I've cast the spell on myself before. The shrinking is temporary, there are no side-effects, and we won't be going outside. The spell's also got a built-in safety feature, so that if it wears off when you're inside something that normally wouldn't be big enough to hold you, you just get as big as you can without getting hurt, and then stop."
Well, it's actually either that, or the constraining object bursts asunder as you return to your normal size. But you're going to be keeping the duration of the spell in mind the whole time, so that won't happen.
"In that case, you kids have fun. I'll stay down here with Moblin. Okay, boy?"
Moblin barks.
Leaving your father and your dog to it - from the sound of a cheering crowd you hear behind you, "it" would seem to be soccer - you head upstairs to join the girls.
When you arrive in your room, Zelda is bouncing in place near Briar's house, within which you can hear the sounds of a hasty scramble and frantic effort.
...it CAN'T be that messy in there, can it?
In any case, the magic you need to use is a fairly straightforward adaptation of the basic Spell to Reduce A Person. Just amplify the magic by a few tiers, exchanging a bit of range for increased effectiveness, and you've got a spell that you can mostly conceal the casting of, and which Ambrose's wards will cover regardless.
Moblin's wounded expression eases as you scratch behind his ears.
All is forgiven.
You find yourself curious as to what all the fuss could be about. Briar's only had the fairy house for about a month now, and you find it unlikely that the interior could have gotten THAT messy in such a timeframe. Not without some relatively major event, like a fairy housewarming party, and you're pretty certain you would have noticed something like that if it had happened.
That's before you get into the question of whether or not Briar is even "allowed" to invite other fairies into your family dwelling. Yes, she's a resident herself, and yes, she has a house of her own, and furthermore, she has that kludged, soon-to-be-replaced familiar bond that kind-of sort-of makes her count as YOU for limited mystical reasons. Even so, Fae interactions with mortal threshold protections can be... weird.
Based on what you know of the subject, you figure that Briar's ability to invite other Fae in should be limited to entities of a similar or lesser level of power as herself - in other words, the Little Folk. And even then, said invitations are very likely to be strictly temporary in nature, lasting no more than a day at most, and possibly not even past the next period of twilight.
Gained Faerie Lore E (Plus) (Plus)
Of course, just because Briar HAS the ability to invite Faerie creatures into your home doesn't mean she'll use it, or even that any such invitations would be accepted. She's mentioned before that other fairies don't like hanging around the Hellmouth, and that wariness almost certainly extends to the rest of the Little Folk, if not to the Fae as a whole.
You suppose Boca del Infierno had to be good for SOMETHING. Not that this silver lining comes close to making up for the cloud the place casts, but...
You shake your head, and get off that line of thought.
In spite of your curiosity, you go ahead and let Briar have a couple of minutes to make her place presentable for guests. You use the time to tell Zelda that she will have to listen when you say it's time to go, because the spell you're going to cast only lasts about ten minutes or so, and you could end up breaking Briar's house if you stay too long.
"Please don't!" Briar calls from inside.
Zelda is properly shocked by the suggestion that you could hurt Briar's house, and agrees to leave when you tell her to.
"If it could hurt Briar'th houthe, it mutht not be a very good thpell," Zelda observes with a frown.
You have... mixed feelings about that statement. Okay, yes, the basic Spell to Reduce A Person is only first-circle magic, and your modifications push it up to fourth-circle at most, which is right about the point where magic really starts to get "serious."
Still, it's one thing to implicitly acknowledge that a minor spell is a minor spell, and quite another for somebody to just come out and SAY it like that. Especially when the "somebody" in question is your adorable little sister.
It stings a little, you know? Right there in your chest.
Regardless, you make with the magic, shrinking first yourself, and then Zelda, down to approximately one-sixteenth of your normal sizes.
"Wow," Zelda murmurs, looking around at your room. "Everything lookth tho... big."
You glance around, and have to admit that your sister's right. You're not so small that it feels like you're standing on the floor of a valley, surrounded by some of the strangest mountains in all of Creation, but when furniture that's normally no taller than you at best is suddenly looming overhead like a block's worth of multi-story buildings, it really drives home how much smaller you are.
Speaking of which, Zelda is eyeing the table where Briar's house rests with open dismay."
"Um, Alexth?" She points. "How do we get up there?"
The answer, of course, is magic. The only real question is whether or not you want to hand over control of a Spell of Levitation - or a Spell of Flight - to your rambunctious little sister.
An image goes through your mind, of Zelda zipping through the air like a wingless version of Briar, whooping and whirling and whamming into walls and windows.
Yeah, no.
Signaling for your little sister to follow you, you walk over to the base of one of the table's legs, where the two of you end up standing side-by-side, Zelda tucked under your left arm.
"Ready?" you ask.
"Ready!" comes the answer.
In proper deference to magical theatrics, you raise your right hand as you channel your power, casting a shorter-ranged, multi-targeting variant on the Spell of Levitation.
"Then, up! We! Go!"
"Whooooaaaa!" Zelda cheers, as the magic takes effect and lifts the two of you off the floor and up along the length of the table-leg. The effect is not unlike riding an elevator, just without the car. Or the shaft. Or the annoying muzak.
Again, silver linings.
There may or may not be a "ding" when you reach the top of the table.
You're a bit surprised when Zelda doesn't immediately step "off" the "elevator" and run for the door of Briar's house. Instead, she stays put, staring at Briar's house like she's never seen it before.
"Wow," she says again. "It lookth like a real houthe, doethn't it, Alexth?"
You might have worded it differently - it IS a "real" house, after all - but you have to agree with the sentiment your sister is expressing. At this size, and from this angle, the converted dollhouse looks almost every inch as authentic as the other residences your neighborhood - actually, it wouldn't look entirely out of place in Cordelia's part of town. The only real shortcoming is the lack of a proper yard.
Leaving the Spell of Levitation active for now, just in case of emergencies - you are rather high up at the moment - you usher Zelda forward onto the tabletop, and then to Briar's front door. You're about to knock when your sister beats you to it, reaching out to press the doorbell.
An admonishment that the bell isn't real dies on your lips as you hear a cheerful ring.
Just how far did Kokoa GO in creating this thing? And who did the actual work?
"Just a minute!" Briar calls from somewhere inside - by the pitch of her voice, you make her out to be on the ground floor, in the back. The living room, you believe.
You wait patiently, Zelda fidgeting beside you. It's not nerves, just her usual abundance of energy proving difficult to restrain for any length of time.
Zelda is just about to reach for the doorbell again when you hear light footsteps racing your way. A moment later, the door opens to reveal Briar, wearing her customary Hylian-style tunic, but looking a little more winded than the last time you saw her at this scale.
Zelda gasps. "Briar?"
"Hi, kiddo," the fairy says with a warm smile. "Nice to see you at a normal size for once."
"B-b-but..." Zelda points at Briar, then holds her own hand above her head, looking equal parts stunned and outraged. "You're TALLER than me!?"
It's true. While you stand head and shoulders above your fairy partner at this scale, she is almost that much taller than Zelda in turn.
Briar gives your sister the most sympathetic and understanding look you've ever seen. "Always being surrounded by big people sucks, doesn't it?"
"Yeth!"
Oh, good. They're bonding. More so than they already had, anyway.
"May we come in?" you ask, carefully skipping around the current topic of discussion and griping.
In proper Sunnydale fashion, Briar steps back from the door, saying nothing.
You blink at that, and wonder if you should say something about Briar's adoption of this local human custom.
Briar shrugs at your remark. "More like I'm trying to set a good example for Zelda. It doesn't really matter whether or not I invite a demon across a threshold, because hey, fairy, here."
There is that. Most Fae are effectively Nature spirits - albeit much more corporeal than some other entities which claim that title - and the fundamental quality of their being is bound up in the out-of-doors, not the in-doors or the threshold that separates the two.
Which isn't to say that Faeries can't benefit from threshold protections, because they can. If a human invites a Faerie creature into their house, it's protected from anything still outside that didn't receive an invitation of its own. The Fae can also create threshold protections around their residences, but these are much more like warding spells than the subtle effect that defends human households, and are typically limited to the greater Fae, or large and thriving family-groups of the Little Folk. Even then, it takes a very powerful Faerie to reproduce the blanket "bar all entry" effect that human homes enjoy. Most of them have to make do with conditional thresholds, which hide the approaches to their dwellings - or even the dwellings themselves - except under specific conditions, or else enforce certain behaviors on those who pass into their domain.
Such issues are part of the reason why some of the Little Folk took to living under human roofs, trading small services for food and shelter.
You let such thoughts fade into the background as you take in the interior of Briar's house. You've seen it before, of course, but never from this angle, and the difference in perspective is illuminating.
You're beginning to think that the Shuzens either hired a team of Little Folk to build this place, or else have a magic-user on retainer who has the skill and power to shrink people down like you're doing right now, because the level of detail in this place is just ridiculous. From the polished tile floors to the carved wooden furniture, from the plush carpets and upholstery to the shining lights, it's clear that Kokoa went all-in with her present for Briar.
And that makes you wonder just how long the littlest vampire was after her parents to let her put this place together, what it finally cost, and whether or not there's an actual market out there for fairy-sized homes - because if there WASN'T before this, there almost certainly will be once word of Briar's digs gets around.
Which isn't to say that the image of a modern house is perfect. There are no books, for one thing, and while the Shuzens' contractors managed to outfit the house with magical lights, plumbing, and heating, they don't appear to have managed anything in the way of modern fairy-scale electronics. Some kitchen appliances, yes - there's a mock-refrigerator with a long-lasting Ice Elemental spell keeping it cool, and a simple stove that runs on low-level Fire Magic - but phone, radio, television, stereo, and computer are all absent.
Zelda still loves the place, and spends every second zipping from room to room, oooh-ing and aaah-ing over what she finds. Briar keeps up with her, and you trail along in their wake, idly glancing into shadowed corners and closets as you pass, looking for evidence of the "mess" that Briar was so worried about earlier.
Honestly, it all looks pretty clean to you.
Even in the face of Zelda's adorable eagerness, you're careful to keep track of your Spell of Shrinking, which should last about twelve minutes in total. As the ten-minute mark approaches, however, Zelda's enthusiasm for exploring Briar's house remains undiminished, and appears to be morphing into a desire to play hide-and-seek.
...you COULD always re-cast the spell.
You caution Zelda that you don't have time to play hide-and-seek in Briar's house.
Her response involves puppy dog eyes, but you stick to your guns, reminding your sister that she agreed to leave the fairy house before your Spell of Shrinking ran out.
Those sad, shimmering eyes suddenly widen with shock.
"Ah!" Zelda squeaks. "I forgot!"
For the second time today, you hear little footsteps pounding on the stairs, leading you to wonder how it is that someone so small can make so much noise?
Your train of thought is promptly derailed as Zelda grabs your arm and starts pulling you towards the door.
"Come ON, Alexth!" she says between yanks. "We gotta go, before we wreck Briar'th houthe!"
"We have time, Zelda," you assure her, while allowing her to move you towards the door. "But before we leave, is there something you should say?"
Zelda pauses in mid-pull, looks at you in clear puzzlement for a moment, and then follows the helpful nod of your head over to Briar, who's just descended the front stair - with far less noise than the girl currently half her size.
"Oh," Zelda says as she lets go of your arm. "Right. Um... thank you for letting uth vithit, Briar. It wath a lot of fun!"
"You're welcome, Zelda," Briar answers. "And before you leave, can I ask a favor?"
"Yeth?"
Briar holds out her arms. "Can I have a hug before you get all huge again?"
Zelda stares at the fairy in wonder for a moment, and then looks up at you. "Am I allowed?" she asks softly.
Your head has barely reached the bottom arc of its nod when Zelda shoots past you with a squeal of delight.
Fortunately, Briar saw this coming, and crouched down to brace for impact.
Knowing from much personal experience that Zelda really likes hugs, you give the girls a moment or three. Fortunately, Zelda appears to still be mindful of the deadline, and doesn't try to linger.
Rather than wave you out of her house, Briar follows you outside, taking Zelda's left hand while you have her right, which leads to the two of you swinging the smaller girl along between you.
Another minute and a Spell of Levitation later, and you're back on the floor and away from the table with time to spare before your Spell of Shrinking runs out.
Judging by the way she looks at her hands, at Briar's house, and at Briar herself, Zelda is a little disappointed about returning to her normal size. Your big brother instincts insist that you should do something about that sad face.
Checking your bedside clock, you see that it's twenty after eleven. You suppose you could get started cooking lunch now, if you want to eat at twelve (or a little before that), but you're not exactly fainting with starvation, and a quick check with Zelda confirms that she's not overly hungry, either.
Moved to action by Zelda's sad face, you are quick to assure her that you'll work on a Spell of Shrinking that lasts longer - though it may take you a while.
This earns you a hug.
Technically, you already know how to cast the spell you want. The problem is that said spell works out to a fifth-circle casting, which makes it just a little too powerful for you to suppress its magical signature, whether you use your skill of Mana Concealment, the Divination-deflecting properties of Ambrose's boundary ward, or a combination of both. You COULD just duck into your Mirror Hideaway, but Zelda doesn't like going in there.
Besides, improving your ability to suppress your spellcasting signature is not a bad use of your time. You figure that if you can get your native ability to the point where you're able to hide a fourth-circle spell, and then cast that in ritual form under Ambrose's wards, with an emphasis on building and releasing the necessary power slowly instead of in a single, obvious burst, you should be good. You'd still have to be careful not to cast more than one or two fifth-circle spells in your house per day - maybe three, depending on how quickly the wards are able to disperse the built-up mana - but that shouldn't be too much of an issue. You always have your extra-dimensional spellcasting chamber to fall back on.
You make a note to do more suppressed casting when you're out of Sunnydale.
Gained Big Brother C (Zelda), D (girls), E (boys)
Seeing as how it will take you some time to "develop the spell" you want, you also make Zelda a more immediate and tangible offer to make up for the shortness of your visit to Briar's house. Namely, you invite your little sister to help you cook lunch.
Of course, you're not about to let Zelda work the oven or anything like that, even if you and your father are going to be right there. But your fridge is one of those models where the freezer is built low to the ground, the oven pans are tucked away on a shelf under the kitchen counter, and you have a stool that's tall enough for Zelda to see the top of the counter if she stands on it. That leaves plenty of ways for her to help you.
Zelda accepts your offer at once...
...though she is a little dismayed that you're not going to start cooking right away. The puppy dog eyes make a reappearance, but on this point, you stand firm. You really do want to get some reading of the Hyrulean Holy Books in this morning.
After a minute or so of attempted emotional blackmail, Zelda gets bored with trying to budge you, and goes in search of your father and Moblin.
You get out the books, set the first and third volumes aside, and page through the second one. You'd gotten a bit more than halfway through it when you were interrupted by Koujiro calling to let you know that the Fox-Hunt was on, and the lessons you were trying to learn at the time have faded a bit in the wake of everything that's happened since then. You end up listening to Briar re-read a couple of holy anecdotes, before she starts in on the truly new material.
This is the kind of reading that can't be rushed - especially since this volume is the one that seems to contain all the priestly strictures and training methods - so it really comes as no surprise that you're still only two-thirds of the way to the end when Zelda comes running back upstairs to tell you that it's time to start making lunch.
A glance at the clock confirms that it's just shy of twelve, so you close the book, put it and its counterparts back in your pocket, and head downstairs.
Reheating frozen chicken and fries for lunch turns out to be pretty straightforward. While you get the oven pan out, Zelda happily digs through the freezer to find the food, which she joins you in pouring onto the tray "jutht right." Your father shows you how to set the oven to the correct temperature, and keeps Zelda safely clear of the oven while you put the chicken and fries in.
From there, it's mostly a matter of waiting. Zelda gets bored within five minutes, and goes back to watching television. You and your father stay put, mostly so that you can both honestly tell Mom that he was with you the whole time you had the stove on, and that nothing went wrong.
And nothing DOES go wrong. You wait patiently, chatting about inconsequential matters with your father, turn the chicken nuggets about halfway through so that they cook more evenly, and wait again until they're finished. Then you take the tray out of the oven and set it on the counter, turn off the oven, and get the plates.
Your official first personally-cooked meal is nothing special, but it's hot and filling, and you have some Coke in the fridge to wash it down.
After eating, you cast the Spell of Prestidigitation to clean the dishes, earning a look of grudging admiration from your old man.
Checking the kitchen clock, you see that it's coming up on twenty to one, meaning you should start getting ready to leave for Lu-sensei's. That brings up the question of how early you want to get there. If you take your time and enjoy the walk, it's only about ten or fifteen minutes, depending on traffic, but you could be there much sooner if you used your ki or magic. Of course, the only reason to rush is if you had something you really wanted to talk to your teacher about that absolutely couldn't wait until after your lesson was over.
Your first impulse is to take your time heading to Lu-sensei's place, but as you withdraw to your room to perform a few quick warm-up routines - testing whether or not your current outfit is a proper fit for a full afternoon's lesson - you find yourself distracted by a nagging concern.
Some time ago, you agreed to keep Lu-sensei in the loop about your "adventures," and told him that you would be more careful about the risks you took.
And yet, over the last couple of weeks, you've: gone dungeon-crawling in an ancient haunted ruin; picked a fight with the evil twin of a legendary hero; taken a central role in a quest to cure an insane nine-tailed fox; been at Ground Zero for a battle between said fox and her manifested madness; and, most recently, gone on a trip to the bottom of the world that resulted in being attacked by a storm-spirit.
The good news is, you didn't do any of this stuff alone. You had adult supervision every step of the way, (eventually) including supernatural specialists in whatever mission you were on, and a couple of heavy-hitters for the most dangerous incident - namely, facing Lady Takara in her den.
The bad news is, you have yet to catch your teacher up on your latest exploits.
Oh, you've told Lu-sensei about delving into the Memorian Outpost, and what you found - and fought - there. It was pretty much impossible to avoid, since you absorbed a Heart Container from the mother Gohma, and Lu-sensei would have noticed the impact on your ki reserves and aura whether or not you said anything.
And if you HADN'T said anything, your teacher would have been... miffed.
Which is not to say that he was thrilled by the news, but knowing that you had the Hakubas with you from the start seemed to reassure him considerably.
He was a bit less sanguine about the army of ancient Roman ghosts, at least until you recounted the clash between them and the army of Hyrulean beasties and ancient not-Roman ghosts.
As for your (mostly) one-on-one fight with Dark Link, Lu-sensei agreed that there was really no way you could have known that such a dangerous being was lurking down in the mines, when even Navi was clearly shocked to hear about its presence. That said, he insisted on seeing an Illusion-based playback of the fight from your perspective, consulted Briar about its accuracy, and then spent some time muttering to himself about tunnel fighting, tool-using opponents, getting around or through shields, and how he might go about better-preparing you for such opponents in the future.
You've been quietly dreading/anticipating his efforts in that direction, though they have yet to bear fruit. Lu-sensei isn't about to drag you on a tunnel-crawl in Sunnydale, and you think he must be having trouble lining up a "guest lecturer" who uses shields and/or magic items.
Lu-sensei was also aware of your involvement in the search for Mai and the Nine-Tailed Fox, but that particular chain of events came to a conclusion so quickly and recently, you hadn't yet had the opportunity to fill him in on the details.
You probably SHOULD do that, and sooner rather than later.
With that in mind, you head out for Lu-sensei's place early, using ki to boost your speed and your old low-level perception ward to help encourage anybody who sees you to ignore the fact that you're moving faster than conventional wisdom says a human should be able to.
When you arrive at the dojo, it's still a good seventeen minutes until one o'clock, and none of your classmates have arrived. Not that you're expecting to see too many of them, it still being the middle of summer and all, but Larry will definitely be there, and Mike showed up for your last lesson, bringing stories both good and bad about his family road trip, and there's a new kid name Hank in your class as well, who recently moved to Sunnydale and had prior training.
Summoned by the ringing of that little bell above the front door, Lu-sensei emerges from his small office, a corded phone in one hand. He acknowledges you with a gesture that asks for silence, and then ducks back into his office, never breaking the flow of conversation about class hours and rates.
You remove your shoes, take a seat on the mats, and wait for your teacher to finish talking with whoever's on the other end of the line. It doesn't take too long; with a casual remark about needing to prepare for class, Lu-sensei winds down the discussion, says his goodbyes, and then hangs up the phone and joins you on the floor.
And then he waits, giving you a meaningful look.
You decide to start by bringing your teacher up to speed on the events surrounding Mai and Lady Takara. Lu-sensei was already aware that you were involved in the search for the Nine-Tailed Fox, and had a clear understanding of the potential risks, the amount of assistance you were receiving, and the nature of that assistance - up to and including Lady Tamamo's involvement, which gave him quite a shock when you mentioned it.
Knowing that the matter was resolved with no casualties, and that your role in the plan went off without a hitch, would probably do your sensei's blood pressure some good.
And that appears to be the case. Lu-sensei initially tenses when you mention the Fox Hunt, but gradually relaxes as you present your summary of the event. He frowns slightly when you explain how Lady Takara magically-adopted Mai, and how that could affect the girl being returned to her family, but once you've finished speaking, Lu-sensei agrees that the incident went about as well as could be expected.
"Even though you weren't there, sensei?" you ask.
"More like BECAUSE I wasn't there," he admits wryly. "Trying to fight a youkai on the level of a nine-tailed fox with your bare hands is the kind of act best left to other great youkai, demigods, prideful idiots, madmen, and poor desperate souls with no other recourse. No matter how fast you are, you still have to get through their youki to hit them, and for a human to attempt such a thing with only his own ki as a shield..." He trails off, shaking his head. "No. I would have brought the Jade Dragon, and that would have complicated things for everyone, both in the battle, and afterwards."
Gained Cryptozoology C
With the biggest and most dangerous of recent events successfully out of the way, you move on to the upcoming ritual - partly because Lu-sensei is again well aware of what you've been up to in regards to it, and partly because it directly involves him.
When you tell your teacher that your mother is withholding judgment about you staying the night at the Drake residence until she's had an opportunity to speak with Mrs. Drake, Lu-sensei just nods.
"I went ahead and cleared my calendar for the next few days, just in case," he tells you. "If we leave tomorrow or the day - or rather, the night - of the ritual, it'll be all the same to me. That said, you should take this as a learning experience, and give people a little more warning in the future, when you know an event like this is coming up."
You'd already resolved to do so, but you'll let Lu-sensei have that one.
After all, he hasn't tried to Enlighten you yet! Why risk breaking a winning streak?
Telling your teacher that you have all the necessary reagents for your planned ritual naturally leads into explaining how you acquired the last few. Unlike a few other people who've recently been confronted with and confounded by the evidence of your magical talents, Lu-sensei doesn't so much as bat an eyelash when you tell him that you went all the way to the South Pole to look for glacial ice and a meteorite. He just asks what precautions you took regarding the weather, and nods in satisfaction when you tell him that you doubled-up on mundane and magical protections.
Lu-sensei is also pleased to hear that you took a few opportunities during your Antarctic excursion to try and accustom yourself to the elements using your ki. As he explains, proficiency in Environmental Adaptation is one of the prerequisites for learning the more advanced forms of the Body Flicker. You need a lot more practice in that regard, especially when it comes to differences in altitude and atmospheric pressure and how they affect your breathing, but greater tolerance for extremes of temperature is a good start.
As it happens, you don't manage to get around to telling your teacher about your encounter with the Antarctic storm-spirit before the new kid, Hank, shows up for class at about nine minutes to one. Larry isn't far behind him, and Mike arrives at three minutes to, at which point Lu-sensei goes ahead and starts class.
Given the presence of two regular students, Lu-sensei doesn't cover any new or exotic topics in today's lesson. You're all still getting a sense of where the new guy fits, be it in terms of technical skill, physical ability, or just socially - and that's a process that's going to be continued for some time, as Amy, Cordelia, and John are still out of town and have yet to meet Hank.
For your part, you're kind of looking forward to when that happens. Hank's proven to be a personable sort, and he took it in stride when you and Larry both bested him in spars, while Mike managed a very close loss, but he was openly surprised and more than a little disbelieving when he heard that the second-best student in this class is a girl. You're not sure if this means Hank has never trained with girls or if he just doesn't think they can be as good at martial arts as guys, but either way, Cordy's going to leave an impression on him.
Possibly of her foot.
The Saturday afternoon class lasts for a couple hours, and as it draws to a close, Lu-sensei speaks to the class at large, suggesting that you spend the afternoon showing Hank - whose family is new to Sunnydale - around town and get to know him better.
Hank looks hopeful at this, and Mike and Larry don't have any objections. For yourself, you were kind of hoping to finish talking with Lu-sensei about recent events, and then head home to finish up the second volume of your Hyrulean Holy Books with Briar before dinner. That said, this is an implicit request from your teacher, and as the senior student, you do have that measure of responsibility towards your junior.
Seeing as how you already covered the most important of recent events with your teacher, you feel comfortable in skipping the rest of your impromptu briefing - or at least leaving it until the next time you speak with Lu-sensei - in favor of attending to his casual request.
After all, if there was something your teacher really wanted to talk to you about, he wouldn't have asked you to do this, now would he?
Assured by your reasoning - and Lu-sensei's lack of action to the contrary - you wait until Hank and Mike have gotten permission from their respective parents who turned up to take them home, and then leave with the rest of the guys.
"Where should we start?" Larry asks, sending you and Briar inquiring looks as your small party walks down the street.
"We definitely want to make sure he knows where the important places are," Mike says. "That means the park, the community center, the good spots on the beach, the best restaurants and stores..." Your fellow Student of the Five Elements pauses, and then grudgingly adds, "And the school and the town library. Maybe the police department and hospital, if we've got time."
Hank frowns. "The first half of that list is fine, but the rest sounds like the sort of stuff my parents would want to know."
And by that, of course, he means they're all boring and lame.
Still, you think you see a way to lead into an even MORE important part of life in Sunnydale than knowing your way around town.
"Never underestimate the importance of knowing how to reach the local authorities," you say. "Then again, I'm kind of biased."
"Oh?" Hank asks.
"Mom's a nurse, and Dad used to work at Town Hall." You shrug.
"What, really?"
You nod.
"Huh. Never met a guy whose family was in government before."
"Ah, he was just a clerk, not one of the Mayor's aides or anything. And he and Mom were just as happy that he stopped working there. Too many night shifts."
"Oh, I know about that," Hank sighs. "Back in L.A., Mom always got ticked off whenever Dad was late coming home."
Larry laughs. "I'll see your ticked off Mom and raise you a whole town of take-out places that charge extra for nighttime deliveries."
"What, seriously?"
Mike frowns. "Lucciano's doesn't do that, I think...?"
"You're right," Larry admits, "but they put extra garlic on EVERYTHING. Pizza, pasta, salads - I wouldn't be surprised if they watered their drinks with the stuff."
Heh. As it happens, for once popular culture isn't entirely wrong; garlic actually DOES work as a form of vampire-repellent, whether you're talking about living vampires like the Shuzens or the undead demonic variety. Unlike crosses or running water, however, its protective virtue is minor at best, and does not arise from any supernatural quality of the plant itself. It's just that vampires have a keen sense of smell, and most of them prefer NOT to feed on individuals that would leave them reeking for the next few days. But if the vampire in question is sufficiently-motivated, or simply doesn't care about personal hygiene, garlic presents no real defense against them.
You spend the next couple of hours walking the streets of Sunnydale, pointing out the sights to Hank, goofing off as the mood and opportunities arise, and slipping little comments like the ones about night shifts and garlic into the ongoing conversation. Larry's presence and participation are very helpful in this regard, as the two of you are able to take turns with these subtle hints and more overt suggestions. If you had to say everything yourself, you'd probably come across as a little weird, and Hank might not take you seriously, but with Larry to play off of, and even Mike nodding along and voicing the occasional bit of support, you just sound safety-conscious.
It's open to question how much Hank will remember of what you say, much less whether or not he'll USE any of the information, but at the very least, he pays attention.
If nothing else, it's a good start.
As the sun draws closer to the horizon, you see Hank back to his place, spend a couple of minutes being introduced to his parents, and then go your own way, waving to Larry and Mike as they head off.
"Well," Briar says. "That was easily the most normal afternoon you've had in a while, even with all the supernatural safety hints that were flying back and forth."
"Probably," you agree.
"What are you going to do now?"
You think on that. It'll be just about time for dinner when you get home, so you can likely look forward to take-out. After that, you're thinking you should finish reading as much of the Hyrulean Holy Books as you can tonight.
Actually, that's a good idea. When you last dealt with Dekon the Deku Scrub, you agreed to call him back "in a few days" - and that was before you visited the Memorian Outpost for the first time.
So, yeah, you're kind of overdue to get in touch with your prospective business associate. Just a bit.
In your defense, you weren't expecting to have an undead not-Roman Legion dropped on you like that. Much less Dark Link.
As you wait on the corner for a couple of cars to go by, you think on the summoning. Calling up Dekon doesn't require a particularly significant amount of magic; you could potentially cast the spells involved out in the open without being detected, as long as you took things slow. That's not to suggest that you're planning on being reckless - far from it - but it does mean that you don't actually NEED to retreat to your Mirror Hideaway to summon the Deku merchant. You could call him in your room, or even in your backyard, and Ambrose's wards would cover the mana signature easily.
Unlike the Postman, Dekon didn't seem to have any problem with being summoned in a room of mirrors, but given his nature, he might appreciate having more... organic surroundings while the two of you are talking. Being outside, in contact with Nature, would likely be better still. While changing the location of the summoning is in no way necessary, it could improve any negotiations you end up conducting with the little plant creature.
That having been said, you ARE on the Hellmouth. You're not sure how sensitive Deku Scrubs are to the energies in their environment, but they DO live in the Lost Woods, which would imply at least some degree of ability to notice the areas where the forest's natural magic and the inter-planar bleed of the various portals hidden away within it are at their deepest, darkest, and most dangerous - at least in time for MOST Deku to beat wooden feet the other way.
Rather than rely on guesswork, you turn to your local sometime-resident of the Lost Woods, and ask Briar what her opinion of Deku Scrub mystical sensitivity is.
"It varies with the individual," your fairy companion replies, "but on the whole, average. That's by Fae standards, though, which means they're better at noticing things about natural environments than ones that have been reshaped by mortal hands, much less places like this." She gestures at your surroundings, taking in the houses, the paved streets and sidewalks, the electric lights, and all. "In this sort of environment, a Deku Scrub's senses would be dulled, not to mention distracted by all the funny smells."
"Cars and asphalt?" you venture.
"And the smell of a few thousand humans living close together."
...
You suppose that's fair.
So, depending on how good Dekon's awareness of his surroundings is, he could notice the unnatural aura that hangs over Sunnydale, and be freaked out by it. Not to mention that summoning an anthropomorphic shrub is the kind of thing that can't help but draw attention, whether it's from your family, your neighbors, or random passers-by, depending on where you cast your spells.
Do you have a preference?
Stick with what works. Enter the mirror.
While you could probably get away with summoning Dekon into your backyard, as long as you took all reasonable precautions regarding your spellcasting, you decide that doing so would be courting too much risk for too little gain.
You set the idea aside, return home, and are immediately hit by a Big Brother-seeking Little Sister-class missile.
You DID call from Lu-sensei's to let your father know you were going to be out with some of the guys from your class - something Tony fully approved of, citing that you needed more male friends besides Larry, before the girls completely took over your life - but it's clear that as far as Zelda's concerned, that explanation meant nothing.
It takes you a few minutes of playing with your sister before she gets over being "ignored and abandoned for thome thilly boyth" - and you have to stop and ask yourself where she's getting this stuff? Zelda's not even three years old yet! Should she really be able to recognize concepts like that, much less have a vocabulary advanced enough to express them? And if she is, shouldn't you be doing something to make sure her natural brilliance is properly nurtured, and not left undeveloped?
For some reason, Briar laughs at you when you say this.
It's not funny! You're concerned about your little sister's future-
-and the fairy is just laughing harder.
Why do you want to make her your familiar, again?
...
Oh, right. All those... reasons.
Eventually, Zelda either gets over her "abandonment" or just forgets about it, leaving you free to head down to the basement and make with your magic. Before you go, your father asks you if you've got a preference for dinner - burgers, pizza, Chinese, or any other variety of take-out.
As you call your Mirror Hideaway into existence once again, you take a moment to consider whether or not you could make the portal permanent. Modifying the spell in that way would make it a fifth-circle magic - sixth-circle, if you wanted to make it undispellable - and neither your skills nor Ambrose's ward can currently hide that. If you improved your skill at Mana Concealment, and performed the spell as a ritual, though, you could probably hide the fifth-circle version, which would be good enough for your purposes.
Something for the future, you guess.
The mirror before you shimmers in that by-now familiar way that reflects the creation of a stable planar pocket, and you step through to begin the summoning.
A few minutes later, Dekon appears.
"Hello again, pi! I was starting to wonder if you were ever going to call me back, pi!"
"Things got very busy on my end the day after we last spoke," you explain. "I've been kind of run off my feet ever since."
"Good busy, bad busy, or weird busy, pi?" the Deku Scrub asks curiously.
"...all of the above," you say after a moment.
"With a side order of 'talking to gods' busy," Briar adds.
Dekon blinks at her, then at you.
You nod in response to the unspoken question.
Shimmering amber eyes regard you solemnly. "You have my sympathies, pi."
"Thank you. So, on to business. How'd the things I gave you sell?"
"Yip-pi, yip-pi!" Dekon does a little backflip in the summoning circle. "Really well, pi! I made fifty Rupees off the fruits, vegetables, and seeds, and THEN I sold the packaging for the seeds to an alchemist for another ten, pi!"
Sixty Rupees in all? And you agreed on a sixty-forty split of the profits, in your favor, so that's thirty-six Rupees Dekon owes you.
As it turns out, Dekon has fifty Rupees on his person, but you called him while he was on his way to do some unrelated business: he doesn't think he can pay you more than twenty Rupees just now; and he'd prefer not to go above ten. He's quick to assure you that he DOES have your share of the profits, it's just hidden in a jar back at his house.
You wonder how to handle this. You could insist on taking some or all of the twenty Rupees Dekon believes he can spare you now, or you could let him go and re-summon him once he's had a chance to finish his business and make his way home - something he says shouldn't take more than an hour, two at the outside.
On a related note, Dekon is curious if you have more goods for him to try and sell. He thinks that oranges, lemons, limes, and bananas would all sell well - in fact, if you could give him some samples right now, he could show them off to the merchant he's going to meet. The Deku Scrub does caution you that if you do that, the Hylian he's going to deal with would be much more interested in a small and stable supply of produce than a one-time novelty.
"If supply's an issue on your end, we should wait for a better time before getting in soil with the merchants, pi," Dekon says. "But I could still sell a few fruits locally, pi."
Maybe it's a side-effect of your affinity for the Spirit of the Boar, but you've never been an especially picky eater. You're perfectly willing to let your father and Zelda decide what you'll be having for dinner.
Tony nods. "Pizza it is, then."
And with that, he lets you go about your business.
Seeing as how you don't have any urgent need for more Rupees, and are similarly short on opportunities to spend them, you have no problem with waiting a little longer to get your share of the deal you cut with Dekon.
He's said that he'll need two hours at the most to finish up his current business deal and return home to collect the money he owe you, so you agree to summon the Deku Scrub again at that time.
Although your first "shipment" of Earth produce appears to have sold rather well, you aren't particularly interested in going for a second sale at the moment. Reaching this decision is probably helped along by the type of fruits Dekon is most interested in acquiring - while you might have a few bananas and oranges that you could spare, you're quite sure you don't have lemons or limes just laying around the house.
Not unless you count the lemon juice in the fridge, or the possibility of there being a can of Sprite tucked away in there - but you really don't think those are the sort of thing that the Deku Scrub was looking for.
Before you send Dekon on his way, however, you ask him about the sort of quantities of exotic fruits that he thinks Hyrule's merchants would be interested in purchasing.
"I don't really know, pi," Dekon admits. "That's why I asked if you had any I could take to show off to the guy I'm meeting, pi. He deals with me for plants and mushrooms from the Lost Woods that the apothecaries and mages like, but that's a sideline, pi. Most of his business is with farmers and shopkeepers, so he'd have a much better idea of what sort of market there was for foreign produce, pi."
Ah. Too bad about that, then.
You ask Dekon if he meets with this merchant very often.
"Once every two weeks in summer," the Deku Scrub confirms. "Thinking about putting together that sampler I asked for, so I can show it to him then, pi?"
Dismissing Dekon, you leave your Mirror Hideaway - which you leave running for now, seeing as how you'll be coming back before it expires - and head back upstairs.
Because Zelda isn't fond of "vegetableth and funny thuff" on her pizza, dinner is a straightforward meat-and-cheese order, with a side order of garlic fingers and two cold bottles of pop to drink. After eating - and being careful to wipe your hands, as you don't want to get grease or tomato sauce on the Hyrulean Holy Books - you and Briar withdraw to your room for another hour or so of reading.
When your agreed-upon time to re-summon Dekon arrives, you've gotten through another sixth or so of the second volume of the holy text. You'll have no problem finishing it off tonight, if you want to.
Heading back downstairs, and greeting your mother in passing as you go, you re-enter your Mirror Hideaway, call Dekon, and receive your Rupees.
Gained 36 Rupees
Is there anything else you want to do tonight, besides finish off the second volume of the Hyrulean Holy Books?
"Yip-pi, yip-pi!" Dekon cries delightedly as he hops in place, kicking his heels together in mid-air. When he comes back down to the mirror floor, the Deku Scrub's glowing eyes squint at you as if he were smiling - it's hard to say for certain, due to the shape of his snout.
"I'll see you in two weeks, then, pi!"
And with that, he disappears in a flash.
The next few days pass quickly.
Your mother spends most of an hour on the phone with Mrs. Drake on Sunday morning, during which time you remain nearby, trying not to look like you're hovering or eavesdropping. It helps that you really DON'T intend to listen in on the conversation, you just... want to be available, in case your mother has any questions.
Or if Lucia says something that needs... immediate clarification.
Or if the flamboyant woman just manages to offend your mother somehow.
While you do catch a few suspicious looks from your mother during the course of the call, in the end - and after you've told her that Lu-sensei has cleared his calendar for a few days, so that he can accompany you - she agrees to let you accept Lucia's offer of hospitality.
You spend most of the rest of that morning telling your mother about your encounters with and impression of Lucia Drake. You leave out that one extended phonecall where you overheard her and Ambrose competing to see who could kill the most demons the fastest, and sort of... ease around the subject of her getting casually and raucously drunk with Akkiko. Aside from those sensitive matters, though, you don't hold back.
You might have preferred not to go into too much detail about Lucia's apparent interest in fashion, or her particular tastes, but that came up during the purely social part of the phonecall, and your mother wanted details.
Which is to say, she asked you to show her some Illusions of the dresses Lucia wore at Kahlua's party.
The images leave your mother looking thoughtful and INTERESTED in a way you've seen a few times before.
You can't help but feel that letting her talk to Lucia may have been a mistake, and one that will come back to haunt you.
You call Lu-sensei after lunch on Sunday, to let him know that you've been given permission to stay over at Altria's, and to work out what time you'll be leaving Sunnydale to make the trip to the Drake estate.
On that note, the eclipse is on Wednesday, and you could leave the day before, using magic to fight the "jet lag" involved. However, Lucia was also perfectly willing to put you up for a couple of days, so if you wanted to leave on Monday and give yourself an extra day to work with - perhaps to investigate the site you've chosen, or to perform a dry run of the ritual just to make sure you've got everything right - that's also an option. And of course, there's the matter of whether you'll be taking a day or so to recuperate from the ritual, or returning home as soon as is practical.
Apart from that, the only other event of note to take place is that you finished reading the Hyrulean Holy Books. Where the first volume was largely myths, legends, and histories, and the second covered holy rites, sacred duties, and other tasks laid upon the faithful, the third volume of the sanctified texts turned out to be something of a bestiary. It listed off the most well-known monsters of Hyrule, their preferred habitats, their strengths and weaknesses, and what uses have been discovered and approved of by the Church for their remains. Octoroks, Tektites, Leevers, Peahats, Moblins, Stalfos, Wallmasters, Wolfos, Armos, Iron Knuckles... images of all these and more glare and silently snarl at you from the pages of the book.
By the time you've gone through the volume, you can say with certainty that the bestiary is by no means complete, but you give it credit for covering the creatures the average citizen of the realm is most likely to encounter, and moreover, being very accurate in its information and advice.
The third volume isn't ONLY a book of monsters, however. It also provides information on creatures of a far more benign nature, such as the fairies, where to find them, and how best to approach them if you seek their aid, or at least to avoid giving offense.
There's also a section on locations of significance to the Church, and to the history of Hyrule in general. The entry on Death Mountain is almost a book unto itself.
All in all? It's a reasonable guide for how to travel Hyrule and not get yourself eaten.
You still find the material kind of weird for a holy book, though.
Gained Brain Enhancement F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Cryptozoology C (C (Plus) (Plus) Hyrulean monsters)
Gained Demonology D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) (C (Plus) Hyrulean demons)
Gained Elementalogy E (Plus) (Plus) (D Hyrulean elementals)
Gained Faerie Lore E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus) (D (Plus) Hyrulean Fae)
Gained Hyrulean Theology D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Local Knowledge (Hyrule) D
Gained Mental Enhancement E (Plus)
Gained Necrology D (D (Plus) (Plus) Hyrulean undead)
Gained Parazoology C (C (Plus) (Plus) Hyrulean spirits)
You get up earlier than normal on Monday morning, and use the extra time to go over the luggage you'll be taking with you to the Drakes'. In addition to enough semi-formal clothing for the four days you're planning to visit - in other words, your entire selection of non-casual wear apart from your suit - you pack a couple sets of clothes you wouldn't mind getting dirty or damaged.
You ARE hoping to get in a few sparring matches with Altria, after all, and while you'd prefer to avoid any unplanned "adventures" on this trip, past experience forces you to acknowledge and plan for the possibility.
On the subject of formal wear, you're not sure if you should bring your Spider-Silk Suit or not. There's been no mention of any Events that would require it, but as with your workout clothes, it might be better to have the suit and not need it, than the opposite arrangement. Under different circumstances, you could easily conjure a new suit if the circumstances required it, but with the Familiar Binding Ritual coming up in a few days, you'd prefer to work no more magic than absolutely necessary.
You're not worried about mana expenditure, or at least not any more than you usually are. But while reading through the second volume of the Hyrulean Holy Books the other day, you noticed that a lot of the Church's ceremonies called for the presiding priest to spend a period of time before the rite in question in prayer, meditation, non-magical purification, and even various forms of fasting.
Avoiding spellcasting was one of those.
After you've packed everything you intend to take, you begin your daily routine of light exercise and ritual purification. When that's done, you head downstairs for breakfast, which you'll follow with a shower. Checking the time, you figure you should be ready to go at half-past seven, quarter to eight by the latest. Plenty of time to wait for Lu-sensei, who said yesterday that he'd be along around eight o'clock.
On another matter, it occurred to you that finding a small regard gift for Altria's parents might be a good idea, if only to stop Briar from coming up with something on her own - like the bag of poppy seeds she gave to the Shuzens. With regards to this, you decided...
Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it, you figure, as you get your suit out of the closet, check it over for lint and wrinkles, and then carefully pack it away in your suitcase.
You stopped by Gen's on Sunday afternoon (Monday morning in Japan) to do some summoning. You'd had an idea about putting the cost of the day's efforts towards paying for a potion, or the reagents thereof, but it occurred to you that the worth of such a thing was not really equal to the purpose you were considering it for. And in more ways than one, at that.
After all, even leaving aside the monetary value of magic potions, what does it say when your regard gift for your hosts is something meant for use in combat?
Fortunately, a more appropriate option for a gift came to mind. It's even kind of funny.
Briar gave the Shuzens a bag of poppy seeds, which were edible, a tongue-in-cheek shot at one of the folkloric weaknesses of vampires, and exactly the sort of thing a Fae houseguest would think of.
You're going to give the Drakes some dragon fruit. Again, it's edible, it pokes good-natured fun at Altria's totem spirit, and it is the kind of thing a fairy would give as a gift, if she knew the circumstances well enough to get the joke.
Which Briar does.
With all your preparations made and your luggage stowed away in your dimensional pocket, you spend the last half-hour until Lu-sensei's arrival playing with Zelda and Moblin. A few grass-stains on one of your better clothes are easily dealt with, and would be completely worth it even if you didn't have magic to clean yourself up.
Your teacher arrives at five after eight, and following a few minutes of goodbyes - and then a few more of convincing Zelda to let go of your leg, and that you really will be back at the end of the week - the two of you and Briar begin making your way out of Sunnydale.
Today, you head north, filling in Lu-sensei on the different locations outside of town that you've taken to using for teleportation, and your efforts to utilize them at random just in case. Your teacher already knew that you were using sites other than the abandoned convenience store, your familiar ritual-spot in the desert, and your now-ghoul-haunted family cabin, but he hadn't known exactly where they were, let alone ever been to any of them. He approves of your sensible security precautions, though when the conversation naturally turns to your explorations of Sunnydale's surroundings and some of the places and things you found there - namely, the demon-blooded giant and that beachside cave that reeked of supernatural malice - he turns a bit concerned.
On the positive side, you now have backup if you decide to go spelunking. Lu-sensei feels you probably SHOULD do that some time soon, as that cave is troublingly close to a popular beach, and far too easily reached by curious children or reckless teenagers.
You reach your spot in the forest without incident, and perform the Ritual of Teleportation while focusing on Altria's address-
-flying/falling/sinking through a strange space/medium/awareness filled with familiar shapes/alien geometries and faint/loud chorus/discordance and a near/distant green energy/presence I see/hear/feel/sense you coming from all the way over there/then oh I recognize/remember this one-
-and find yourself standing in an unfamiliar countryside, on a small but well-maintained road outside a sturdy-looking stone wall, beneath a sun that's far closer to the western horizon than it was just a second ago and a few thousand miles away.
Lu-sensei is frowning. "Alex, I got the distinct impression that the... awareness... on the other side of that recognized me. Should I be concerned?"
As you and your teacher start walking towards the front gate of the Drake residence, you recount the conversation you had with the Golden Goddesses, where you asked about the green-glowing extradimensional entity and its intentions towards you. Lu-sensei listens closely, and frowns.
"I can't help but notice that you included the words 'mostly' and 'maybe' in there, Alex," he sighs.
"...yeah, sorry about that, Sensei." You cast about for something more reassuring, and find yourself saying, "But the entity didn't try to hurt the Postman, when I asked him to take a message to it."
Your teacher regards you. "Truly?"
"Yeah." A moment later, honesty compels you to add, "Of course, he couldn't actually FIND the thing."
Lu-sensei looks puzzled. "I would have thought he could just follow the glow to its source."
"He tried that, but..." You fall silent for a moment, hunting for the words. "The way the Postman described it, there was an area of space, or not-space or whatever it's called, that was sort of... folded over on itself? I mean, he flew towards where the entity should have been, and instead of going IN to that place, he was suddenly on the other SIDE of it. If that makes sense?"
Your teacher waggles one hand back and forth. "Vaguely. I have a little experience with that kind of eldritch nonsense - mostly just enough to give me headaches, bad dreams, and a pressing desire to not undergo any further such experiences."
"That seems like a very sane and healthy response to me," Briar notes.
"It does, doesn't it?" Lu-sensei asks. "Now, if only the universe would cooperate a little, and stop throwing insane and unhealthy situations at me..."
Your easy pace has taken you to the gate by this point, and Lu-sensei stops speaking as he squints at the little security console that has been neatly incorporated into the pillar that anchors the left half of the elegant metal barrier. Said console is little more than a recessed camera lens with a single button directly below it, and a speaker to one side. When Lu-sensei reaches out and presses the button, there's a brief musical chime, followed by a short delay.
Then the speaker snaps to life, as an unfamiliar man asks you who you are.
"Lu Tze, Alex Harris, and Briar of Sunnydale," your teacher answers. "We're expected."
"One moment, please."
The moment passes, and ends with the gate unlocking and swinging open.
"Master Lu, Mister Harris, and Miss Briar are welcome to enter," the doorman says, in a manner that is equal parts formal politeness and mystical security. "Do you require an escort?"
Lu-sensei glances at you.
You remember the long road between the border of the Shuzen's estate and the castle, and the numerous gateways you had to pass through while traveling it. You ALSO remember the lesser monsters living wild on the grounds, but you're pretty sure you're not going to run into any of THOSE here.
Pretty sure.
Although based on what you know of Ambrose and Altria, there IS a non-zero chance of there being fairies around here somewhere.
In any case, you have no objections to being shown the way to the Drake house, or to getting a lift, if one's being offered.
When you say as much, Lu-sensei nods, presses the button again, and accepts the offer.
"Very well, sir. There is a garage in the gatehouse. Your driver will bring the car around momentarily."
Again, the statement is polite, but precisely worded so as to avoid extending an invitation.
As you follow Lu-sensei through the open gate, you spare a moment to wonder if the gatekeeper's caution is aimed more at vampires, fairies, or some other manner of creature that falls under the rule of dwellings and thresholds. Given Ambrose's involvement, fairies seem mostly likely, but you're not going to disregard the other possibilities just yet.
Speaking of the wizard, you've no sooner crossed the threshold than a faint sense of magic sweeps over you. It's strikingly similar to the property ward Ambrose set up at your house, but while you can't quite get a clear read on it, you don't doubt for a moment that this one is a lot more complex and powerful than your own.
On the mundane side of things, the gatehouse is a single-story structure with an outer facade that resembles the tall stone wall surrounding the estate, but which doesn't carry the same feeling of age. If nothing else, the lack of weathering is a hint that it's not as old as the builders tried to make it appear. The long, low building stands a fair distance back from the wall, off to the left-hand side of the gate and the road.
As for the rest of the Drake estate, you can see at a glance that it's not nearly as large as the Shuzen lands. The building that you take to be Altria's house is no more than the length of a city block away, and it's neither obviously fortified nor standing atop a dramatic crag. The grounds also look decidedly less wild than what you saw at Kahlua's place, to say nothing of how much lighter everything looks and feels. There's no bloodstained supernatural hue to everything, no ambient youki given off by everything that lives, breathes, and crawls - or doesn't - and if an armed goblin or a ragged cat monster popped up amidst the recently-trimmed lawn and well-maintained hedgerows, it'd look hilariously out of place.
On a related note, you don't see anything that immediately cries out "fairies!" to your senses. At least, nothing apart from Briar.
Your examination of the grounds is cut short by the sound of an engine starting up, and a moment later, the car in question pulls around the corner of the gatehouse. Here, now, is something that DOES look like it would have fit right in at the Shuzen estate. In fact, you're pretty sure it's the same model of car that you were being chauffered around in by the Shuzen's driver, and when you and Lu-sensei pile in a minute later, the glimpse you get at the thickness of the doors makes you think it's armored in the same manner.
Gained Mechanical Knowledge (Cars) D
The driver is quite a bit different, however. Still well-dressed, but he registers as completely human to your senses, and seems less overtly trained for combat - though based on his aura, he's no stranger to fighting. The man also proves to be a talkative sort, using three times as many words as are really needed to introduce himself (Tom Powell by name), ask if you have any luggage that needs stowing (you don't), usher you into the car, and finally check to see if you're buckled in (you are).
It's a short drive to your destination, and as the Drake household rapidly grows larger ahead of you, you start taking in the details of the construction. As your previous observation indicated, this isn't a castle from the Middle Ages converted to something approaching modern standards of convenience; rather, it's one of those sprawling homes that turn up in Victorian-era literature, room upon room upon hallway upon gallery - all very tastefully done, no doubt, but by far more space than any family of three could possibly need, even with servants. At least to your mind.
Maybe there are more Drakes that you haven't met, or the family was larger in the past?
That said, as Tom pulls to a stop in front of the house, some of the details of the house's design tug at the sensibilities you inherited from Ganondorf. As you exit the car, you take another look around, and find small details that stand out in... interesting ways.
The front of the building does not feature any overly large windows, and the ones on the ground floor are all covered by security bars that have been worked into artistically-interesting designs. The upper-story windows, meanwhile, offer very commanding views of the drive and the walkway leading up to the door - a view that is in no way impeded by trees or bushes, and would make for rather good firing lanes if needed. And when you look back over your shoulder at the road you just traversed, you don't fail to notice how most of the well-kept greenery is located atop subtle rises in the turf, which would provide reasonable concealment and even cover against unfriendly parties advancing from the direction of the gate.
Gained Knowledge (Architecture) E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
The wards are more evident this close to the building as well, but you don't have a lot of time to examine them, as something else has caught your attention.
From somewhere around the left side of the house, and possibly towards the great field that passes for this place's back "yard," you hear the distinctive sound of two swords, locked in contest. The ringing parries and hiss of steel sliding over steel are accompanied by the sounds of voices your own age, yelling a mix of encouragements, good-natured insults, and nonverbal exclamations of pure enthusiasm. You can pick out three separate voices, one of which is Altria's; the other two are boys.
Although you're tempted to go investigate what is undoubtedly either a sparring match or a bit of exhibition swordplay, it's another sound - its source much closer to your location - that commands your attention.
It's faint, but you definitely heard a high-pitched giggle coming from one of the hedges. Its tone was one of pure mischief, and there was a bell-like quality to it you've never heard from a human throat, but which is familiar to you all the same.
"I know that sound," Briar groans.
"I make it at least a dozen," you say in an undertone, keeping your gaze turned towards the ongoing sword-fight, while letting your senses take in the faint hits of otherworldly energy coming from off in several directions.
Gained Fairy Sense E (Plus)
"Better make it three times that many," Briar sighs. "Most of them are smaller than me."
You blink, reconsider the auras you're picking up, and blink again as you realize that your companion is correct. You were gauging the Fae energies based on your familiarity with Briar, and that one other fairy, Primrose, that's been bringing you messages from Altria. There are a couple of fairies that size gathered nearby, but most of the presences you'd detected are actually composite signatures, the life-energies of much smaller beings that are so close together and so similar to one another, your still-basic Faerie Sense mistook them for a lesser number of larger entities.
"We're about to be ambushed, aren't we?" Lu-sensei asks quietly. Although you don't look his way, either, you can HEAR the smile in his question.
"Wait, wot?" Tom the Chauffeur exclaims.
"Yup," Briar replies. "In three... two..."
A few magical responses for what's about to come flash past your mind's eye, but you'd decided before coming here to limit your magic use as much as possible in the days leading up to the Familiar Binding Ceremony. A mass pranking by a small swarm of fairies - or a flock, a school, or whatever the proper name is - doesn't strike you as a sufficiently-compelling reason to go back on that decision.
You've just decided what NOT to do when twoscore rainbow-colored points of light erupt from the bushes, coming at you from three different directions, tiny voices united in a fearsome utterance:
"BATTLE CRY!"
And then packets of fairy dust begin flying every which way, splattering like sparkle-filled paintballs over whatever they strike.
Lu-sensei just says, "Nope," and - with a familiar, low-level exertion of his ki - disappears into a blur of movement before any of the 'attacks' can hit him.
"Wot the 'ell?!" Tom yells in surprise, as his previously immaculate coat suddenly turns a riotous mix of sky-blue, cherry-red, and the kind of vivid, glowing green normally used in cartoons to represent radioactive contamination.
"I WILL DESTROY YOU ALL!" Briar roars as she leaves her typical place on your shoulder and takes flight, chasing after the giggling fairies while letting fly with luminous projectiles of her own.
As for yourself...
Well, they're a bunch of little girls. Slightly eldritch, magic-wielding, winged little girls, but little girls all the same. And there's over thirty of them racing around, giggling and yelling and cheering each other on, and clearly having the time of their teeny-tiny lives.
You can't bring yourself to disappoint them.
So it is that the fairies find you a most excellent target, because you play along with their games, taking hits you could have avoided, staggering dramatically and crying out as though every impact carried the force of a hard punch - when in fact, you can't truly feel them connecting, and are left relying on your magic senses to provide a 'best guess' - and just generally carrying on like a ham.
The littlest fairies LOVE this, and you end up on your knees, covered in dust - of the non-healing variety, it should be pointed out - and with the tiniest fairy you have ever seen standing triumphantly atop your head as she proclaims, "VICTORY!" in a voice you doubt you'd hear if she were more than a foot away. The rest of the glowing menaces have formed a ring around you, and are dancing and cheering.
And then there is a surge of magic from Briar, which causes the grass beneath you to suddenly shoot up a good six inches in a single instant, and imbues every blade with the grasping strength of a tiny tentacle. The lesser fairies squeal in surprise and try to flee, but grounded as they were for their victory dance, most of them don't make it. The ones that do don't even try to free their comrades, fleeing for the hedges as fast as their wings can carry them.
From Tom's direction, there is a bewildered moan of, "No, seriously, WOT is goin' on? With the light an' the color an'... an' the grass...?"
"GOTCHA!" Briar exclaims, as she descends from above and claims the spot on your head. Whether it's to illustrate her 'victory' over the little ones, or just because your shoulder is a dusty mess right now, is open to question.
"Alright, you little menaces," your companion growls menacingly. "I want answers! Who put you up to this?"
Without even a second's hesitation, every captured fairy cries out, "Ambrose!"
"...of course," Briar mutters. "Why am I even surprised?" There's a brief pause, and you get the impression your partner is looking down at you when she asks, "Well, Alex? What do you want to do with them?"
Cries for mercy and pity promptly emanate from the little glowing bodies trapped in the tangle of grass.
After releasing the tiny fairies and brushing off what you can of the dust-bombs' residue - which is already fading away as its utterly miniscule inherent magical energy expires - you take stock of the situation. Tom the Driver is clearly at a loss to explain what he just experienced, which makes you think he couldn't see or hear the fairies. Lu-sensei is standing a short distance away, cautiously eyeing the fleeing fairy-lights as they scatter in all directions, and the sword-fighting and cheering you heard a minute ago have gone quiet.
"Hmmm," you muse, while looking down and around at the tangled ring of tiny glowing figures. Your left hand comes up to frame your chin in a thoughtful manner, thumb tapping idly against the jaw.
Something about that pose - specifically, the part where your finger hits bare skin - immediately strikes you as OFF, and you lower your hand with a casual air, folding both arms across your chest as if that had been what you meant to do from the start.
"I suppose we COULD let them go..."
The pleas for pity and mercy change to cries of joy and adulation.
"...HOWEVER," you cut in firmly. "Since we would be doing them a favor, it only seems fair that they should do US a favor in return."
The little ones instantly go quiet. You're pretty sure you hear a few gulps of worry.
"Doesn't that seem fair to you, Briar?"
"It does," your partner says. "And I think I know EXACTLY what favor they should do."
"So do I," you reply. "They. Should. PROMISE..."
You DEFINITELY hear a few squeaks of alarm.
"...to wreak a great and terrible vengeance upon Ambrose on our behalf," you conclude easily.
...
On all those fairy faces that are large enough for you to make out details, and not so tangled up in grass as to be obscured, you see sudden interest.
"After all, this whole mess is ENTIRELY his fault," you point out. "It's only fair that he get some of the same trouble coming back at him. Right?"
"Right," Briar agrees.
"RIGHT!" the fairies cheer.
A snap of Briar's tiny fingers has the magically-animated grass releasing its captives and returning to its normal length. The fairies themselves immediately take flight, whirling around you like a cloud of tiny stars.
And then, the tiniest one cries out, "VENGEANCE UPON THE WIZARD!"
Some of the fairies reply, "VENGEANCE!"
Most of them make sounds like, "Huh?"
"I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THAT MEANS!" one shouts cheerfully.
"ME NEITHER!"
"It means he tricked us an' got us into trouble," the diminutive leader explains, in a voice you can just barely hear, "so now we're gonna go get even with him."
"Oooohhhh," the majority of the group says together.
"So, vengeance?"
"VENGEANCE!"
"VEN-JINX!"
"I STILL DON'T GET IT!"
"ME NEITHER!"
"GET THE WIZARD!"
"GET 'IM!"
With that, they all fly off. You watch them go, squinting slightly to focus your visual awareness of Fae energies as long as possible, until they've passed out of your range.
Gained Fairy Sight E (Plus)
"...do you think I overdid it, Briar?" you ask.
"Nah, the little monsters are just getting into the spirit of things."
Ah. Well, that's good to know.
Gained King of Fairies E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
With the fairies out of the way, you turn to the Drakes' employee, who is looking from you, to the once-again-normal patch of grass, to the riotously-colored dust that is gradually fading away and flaking off of his clothes.
"You alright, sir?" you ask.
"...you said the wizard was responsible fer all this?" Tom asks. He's clearly forcing himself to remain calm.
"Basically, yes. He convinced a bunch of tiny fairies to ambush us."
"Tiny invisible fairies," the man points out. Whether it's to you or to himself, you're not quite sure.
"Yes," you say soothingly, "but they're all gone now."
The driver nods slowly, draws himself up, and brushes off some of the fairy dust clinging to his outfit, before finishing by adjusting his hat, which had been knocked askew in the magical mayhem - probably by a fairy or two flying into it.
Dignity more or less restored, Tom says, "Roight. I owe the old man a kick in the trousers, next time as I see 'im."
...eh, fair enough. It's not like Ambrose doesn't have it coming.
Lu-sensei snickers into his sleeve.
With Tom having recovered his poise and found an outlet for his... complaints... you decide to go find out what became of the group that was swinging swords around and cheering said bladesmen on. You head for left-hand side of the house, adults trailing behind you.
Lu-sensei asks Tom about the fighting and shouting, and your escort explains that "Miss Drake's" swordmaster likes to give her lessons outside every now and then, so that she can get used to what it's like to fight on natural terrain. That you heard the sounds of steel means it wasn't actually Altria on one side of the match, but more likely the swordmaster's assistant, or possibly Lord or Lady Drake.
"Most likely His Lordship, though," Tom adds. "The missus is... well, if she 'AD been one o' the ones fightin', we'd all a' heard it."
"I did have the impression from our previous meeting that Mrs. Drake was the sort to be... enthusiastic in her endeavors," Lu-sensei admits.
That fits with what you heard over the phone while Lucia and Ambrose were fighting those demons.
As you round the corner of the manor house, you catch sight of a group of kids coming the other way. One is Altria, who blinks in surprise and raises a hand in acknowledgment and welcome as soon as she sees you - and then does a double-take and a double-facepalm when she gets close enough to see that the mad clash of colors on your person is actually NOT part of your wardrobe.
You aren't close enough to hear it, but you'd bet some of your Rupees that she's taking Ambrose's name in vain again.
Altria's two escorts are boys, both older and considerably taller than she is, and both openly boggling at the eye-watering mix of dust still clinging to your clothes.
The boy on Altria's right is vaguely familiar to you, a big-boned, big-eared, muddy-brown-haired, and generally unfortunate in the looks department individual in his early teens. You saw his image back at the World Tournament, during that vision triggered by your aura clashing with Altria's.
The boy to Altria's left is a complete stranger to you. He's somewhere between Altria and the other boy in age and good looks, and has black hair to their blonde and brown.
Both of the boys have the auras of trained fighters, and strong ones for their age. They've also got respectable reserves of mana, and while it doesn't feel like either of them is a spellcaster, they've clearly been trained to use magical energy in some form.
"What happened to YOU?" the big one asks in amazement. "You look like you got caught in an exploding paint factory!"
"Kenneth," Altria immediately chides the older boy. Her tone is that of one who's had to do the same thing many times before, so often that it's more or less become reflex.
"Well he does!"
"Ken does have a point, Tria," the black-haired boy admits.
Altria sighs, and turns to you. "Alex, Master Lu, Briar. Welcome to my home, and I am SO sorry about the mess. And... Mr. Powell, you got hit as well..."
Her dismay is almost a tangible thing.
It crosses your mind to ask if either of Altria's companions could spot you a quick Prestidigitation to clean away the residue of the fairies' prank, but the idea is dismissed almost as soon as it occurs. You already noticed that neither of the boys has the aura of a trained spellcaster, and it would set an odd precedent for you - the extraordinarily capable sorcerer, if you do say so yourself - to be asking effective novices in the art for aid in such a manner. Especially when the two of them aren't your hosts, and weren't remotely involved in what happened to you.
Which is not to suggest that you're going to ask Altria or Ambrose to clean you up. You don't blame Altria in the slightest for the old wizard's questionable sense of humor, and you wouldn't trust Ambrose not to slip the equivalent of a magical "kick me" sign onto your person.
Besides, spending even a cantrip to clean up the fairy dust really isn't necessary. You already saw that the stuff was breaking up, falling away, and dissipating into the ether. Where Mr. Powell did indeed look like he'd survived the explosion of a paint factory a minute ago, it now appears that he "merely" came off second-best in a round of paintball. You got hit a few more times than he did, thanks to your decision to ham it up and the fairies' delighted response, but give it another minute, two at the outside, and the evidence of the ambush will have taken care of itself.
For all that no LASTING harm has been done by the incident, that still leaves Altria looking like a little golden cloud of gloom and embarrassment.
So you try to cheer her up.
"Don't worry about it, Altria," you assure her. "Even now, plans are in motion. Soon, the wizard shall feel the weight of my vegeance, and the punishment will fit the crime!"
Altria blinks at that.
So do her friends.
"He means he talked the fairies into going after Ambrose," Briar explains.
"...oh, dear," Altria sighs.
That's... not the reaction you were going for.
"'Oh, dear' what?" Kenneth asks with a frown. "I know that tone of voice, 'Tria. What's going on?"
Altria turns to her friend, starts to speak, then catches herself.
"Wait. Introductions first. Kenneth, Lance, this is Alexander Harris-"
Recognition immediately dawns on the faces of both boys.
"-his teacher, Master Lu Tze-"
The pair are quick to bow.
"-and his partner, Briar."
At this, Kenneth frowns, and looks from you to Altria suspiciously. The dark-haired boy, Lance, gives you a considering look, and then turns to Altria.
"A fairy?"
She nods, and Kenneth groans. "Not another invisible pest..."
You... ...object to that remark.
In response to Kenneth's words, the glowing presence on your shoulder becomes a little brighter and a bit darker - a sign of Briar's irritation, if not outright anger.
"I object to that remark," you say in a mild tone, while frowning at the older boy. You actually have to look up to do so.
It's not a new experience for you, but it's a decidedly uncommon one when dealing with people anywhere near your own age, and it remains something you don't particularly care for.
"Kenneth, please," Altria says, almost before you've finished speaking. "Briar has never been anything less than helpful in my experience - and even if that were not the case, she is here as a guest, the same as any other."
The lanky brunet's expression had started to take on a cast of mulish stubbornness as he met your gaze, but it's interrupted by a glance at Altria - one that starts out as a look of disbelief, then becomes a grimace.
"Not exactly a ringing endorsement of character, there, 'Tria," Kenneth says. "Your experience with her comes to, what? A few hours, all told? And don't try to tell me you didn't flinch the first time you saw her," he adds, "because after everything that crazy old bugger has put us through, I KNOW you did."
You can't help but recall what Altria said the first time she saw Briar: "Oh, god, no. Please, Ambrose, not the fairies again."
Evidently Briar is remembering that, too, because her glow diminishes slightly, and she chuckles. "He, uh, isn't wrong, is he?"
And it's clear that Altria is ALSO thinking of that moment, because her cheeks redden ever so slightly.
"E-even so," your blonde friend replies, voice and face resolute, despite her embarrassment over the direct hit.
Kenneth eyes her for a moment more, then sighs and throws up his hands.
"Alright, alright. I'll take back what I said about her being a pest - at least until I see proof one way or the other. But," Kenneth interjects, one thick finger held up for emphasis, "I stand by the invisible part."
Altria sighs at that, but her subsequent nod suggests that she believes this is the most she can hope for from her companion.
Personally, you find it...
...unsatisfying, but tolerable.
While you're not one hundred percent satisfied with Kenneth's "apology," you're willing to accept it and let the matter go.
It helps that it's ultimately mostly Ambrose's fault anyway, and you've already arranged to get him back.
"As I was saying," Altria continues, "Alex, Briar, Master Lu, this is Kenneth Drake, my cousin on my father's side, and Lance Pritchard, a friend through our fathers' mutual recreational interests."
"And by that,'" Lance says, "Tria means that our fathers are part of a group that likes to get together every couple of weeks to dress up in armor, ride horses, tell old stories, and thump each other over the head with sword, axe, and mace. And they've all done their best to have us follow in their footsteps."
Kenneth snickers. "Some of us needing more convincing than others."
"And some of us needing less," Lance retorts dryly.
"Please," the taller boy snorts. "Stand there and tell me with a straight face that you don't enjoy the chance to have a go at Griffiths or McConnelly when they've been particularly prize prats."
"I didn't say that, now..."
Sensing an opportunity to indulge your curiosity, as well as head off a possible argument, you ask Altria if that was who you heard fighting earlier.
"Father and Mr. Pritchard were in the middle of a bout when one of the staff came out to let us know you'd arrived, yes," she replies. "They decided to leave off there and start cleaning up for dinner."
"I'm sorry to have missed it," you say.
"Not to worry," Kenneth says. "Tria says you'll be staying for the next few days. Dad, Uncle, and Lance's father have business out of the country, but we can have a little tourney of our own. Aunt Lucia can supervise."
The offer is tempting, and the way the older boy regards you, clearly hoping to "have a go" as he put it, makes you that much more eager. Still, you DO have a ritual of great personal significance to attend to in less than two days' time, which puts a hard limit on how much energy - magical or otherwise - you can afford to use between now and then. Then too, while you have every confidence in your abilities when it comes to unarmed combat or swordsmanship, your skill with other weapons is a bit... lacking. And even THAT is better than your experiences with armor in this lifetime.
Maybe you should try to set some terms first? Or just pass on the offer?