Weeks ago, when you unwrapped your very own copy of Vampyr 2000, you were told that no serious library of the supernatural was complete without a copy of it.
You have to admit that calling your personal collection of books a "library" is stretching the definition of the word somewhat, even taking the modest standards of middle-class home libraries into account; your parents, however modest their means, have several times as many books as you've bought or received as gifts, including one of those home encyclopedias.
Maybe that's why you feel the need to buy all of the books that have caught your interest?
Alternately, it could be that all the reading you've been doing since your birthday has whetted your intellectual appetite for more information, particularly of the sort that's current and relevant to your interests and activities.
...it's probably NOT Balthazar's sales pitch. No offense to the Merlinean master, but he's clearly not trying to push any of his wares on you, he's just describing their contents, naming the prices, and then letting you come to your own conclusions.
Whatever the reasons, you decide to buy every text that's caught your eye this evening, including the (almost) complete catalogue of the last century of supernatural history.
Gained Electrical Enchantments
Gained Magic of the Smithy
Gained Toil and Trouble
Gained Twentieth Century Sorcery, Volumes One through Nine
Gained Weave of Magic
Gained The Library of Alexander (Harris)
Naturally, you use your $250 birthday gift certificate to cover part of the pricetag, but that leaves you with another $210. You could cover that with cash, but Balthazar also accepts gold and silver; two coins of the former and six of the latter would cover everything. Or you could split the payment.
One of the nice things about your spatially-expanded pocket is that, when you decide to make impulse purchases, you rarely have to worry about carrying them. This fact is particularly handy this evening, since encyclopedias do not make for small books, and the other four texts you bought are rather larger than your average trade paperback.
As you're packing everything away, you bring up the matter of local teleport sites to Balthazar, as you really can't keep using that rootop landing zone if you're going to be doing business at the Arcana Cabana on a regular basis. Quite aside from the risks of being out on the streets of New York after dark, or even just in general, it's simply unrealistic to expect Balthazar to drop everything to give you a lift whenever you stop by.
Balthazar happens to agree with those points.
"The Cabana's warded to prevent all incoming forms of extra-dimensional travel that I'm familiar with," the senior sorcerer explains. "They'll also prevent arrivals in the immediate vicinity, so don't try to land on the sidewalk out front. That said, touching down in the mouth of the alley across the street should be fine, as long as you keep far enough back from the road to make it look like you walked out, rather than just appeared out of nowhere."
...an alley. In New York City. At night. Really?
Balthazar doesn't quite laugh. "It's not as bad as it sounds, I promise. Come see for yourself."
With the last of your purchases stowed, you dubiously follow the sorcerer outside. As you walk down the front steps of the Arcana Cabana, you do a double-take, realizing that Balthazar's car is no longer where he parked it. The man himself doesn't appear the least bit dismayed by the absence of his Rolls-Royce, merely donning a mysterious smile at your reaction to its disappearance, and instead pointing to the alley in question.
...it is surprisingly well-lit, not to mention clean. It's not like the mouth of the alley is directly underneath a streetlight or anything, but it's broad enough that it catches a lot of the light coming from the buildings on this side of the road. Lamps hanging off the walls of the buildings provide further illumination, their yellow-tinted incandescent glow reflecting off of some trash cans, and revealing a small loading bay further down, its door firmly closed. Beyond that is shadow for another ten to fifteen feet before the alley opens up into some kind of back lot, which has enough additional lights to provide pretty good visibility.
That still doesn't entirely settle your Sunnydale instincts, though.
Cash will do for the books, you decide. Gold is honestly better-spent acquiring comparatively low-cost, high-quality reagents from Hyrule than for most other purposes, particularly something as mundane as non-magical books.
Spent $210 dollars
Used $250 Arcana Cabana Gift Certificate
You sit on your instincts, wish Balthazar a pleasant evening, and look both ways before crossing the street.
Yes, you're walking into the mouth of an alley, at night, in New York City.
Yes, there is a possibility that something awful could be lurking in the deep shadows, like a corpse-demon ready and waiting to take a bite out of you.
But that's what Din's Fire is for.
After all, corpse-demons can't bite you if you're on fire.
Bwahahaha! Yes! Exactly!
For better or worse, the only thing that emerges from the shadows of the night is a car, which passes down the street behind you after you've already entered the alley. You neither see nor otherwise sense any presences in the area except for Briar and Balthazar, and so quickly get on with working your Greater Spell of Teleportation.
I need to come up with a blessing that surrounds people in wooden spikes or razor leaves or something...
There, there, Farore. Teleportation is a perfectly wonderful spell. Isn't that right, Din?
Huh? Oh, yeah, it's great. You know, for RUNNING AWAY!
Come here and say that to my face, Firecracker.
You have business in Japan.
After several minutes of focus and building power, your magic peaks, the shadowed alley around you vanishes-
-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 and discordant/clashing/laughing red-and-green energy/presence yikes/scary/watch it/not in my house/plane/space-time coordinates!
Honestly, you two.-
-and you stand at the top of a long stair, squinting and shielding your eyes from the sudden presence of the sun in the sky above.
That's what an eleven-hour difference in time zones will do for you.
"Mama, mama!" a very young voice says excitedly, from just ahead. Looking towards the gate of the Hakuba Shrine, you spot a boy three, perhaps four years old, half-turned towards a woman in her mid twenties who you don't recognize, but who is standing close to Miss Suzuka.
The miko is already wincing in your general direction.
"What is it, Taro?" the unknown woman says.
A pudgy little finger points eagerly at you. "He showed up outta nowhere! Like a superhero!"
It's with an air of patient indulgence that the mother replies, "Oh, did he, now?"
"Uh-huh!"
The smart thing to do in this situation would be to ignore the inconveniently perceptive kid, or maybe to smile and nod, mutter, "Kids, huh?" and throw in a subtle wink and a shushing gesture.
But you cannot resist the impulse to show off.
FOR THE GREAT BOAR SPIRIT DEMANDS HAM!
"Gasp of horror!" you exclaim, while clutching dramatically at your chest. "My secret identity! Revealed!"
Gained Big Brother D (w/little boys)
While Miss Suzuka winces for a completely different reason, and the unnamed mother rolls her eyes in amusement, young Taro looks up at you with stars in his eyes.
"So cool...!" he squeaks to himself. Then, in a louder and more audibly excited tone, he asks, "Mister Hero, Mister Hero! Are you here to save Miss Suzu?"
Suzuka does a double-take. "Wait, what?"
"Gasp of shock! I was not aware that Miss Suzu was in danger! Has something TERRIBLE happened since my last visit?"
"Uh-huh!" Taro says with an energetic nod. "Mister Icky stole her heart! You need to make him give it back!"
And with that, Suzuka buries her suddenly bright red face in her hands, while the slightly older woman next to her covers her own giggle.
"Worry not, young citizen! I shall confront Mister Icky without fail, and ensure that the villainous fiend returns what he has taken!"
Taro punches the air and cheers.
"And on that note," his mother interjects, with a smile that's struggling not to erupt in laughter, "Taro, it's time for us to go."
"Aw, but Mama! I wanted to see Mister Hero fight Mister Icky!"
"Ah, young Taro, your enthusiastic support warms my heart! BUT! I would be a poor hero indeed if I were to recklessly battle a dastardly criminal, without first making sure important citizens like yourself and your mother were safely out of the way! Why, he might take your mother hostage! Or worse, steal her heart as well!"
Suzuka makes a choking sound at that. Meanwhile, Taro's mother smothers another outburst of amusement.
"What?!" Taro cries out. "No way! He's not allowed to do that!"
"Indeed, he is not! But villains do things they aren't allowed to! That's why they're villains! So, can I count on you to help me protect your mother from the evil Mister Icky, by getting her away from here before I confront him?"
"Come on, Mama!" Taro says, running over to grab her hand. "We gotta go!"
There are some slightly-hasty farewells, a youthful command to, "Beat him up good, Mister Hero!" and then you, Briar, and the miko are alone at the top of the hill.
"I... I suppose that could have gone worse," Miss Suzuka says after a moment. "Somehow."
"Yeah," Briar agrees. "Ichirou could have been here to see it."
"Oh, kami, don't remind me...!"
Looking around, you see no evidence of Mister Icky's presence, and so you ask Miss Suzuka if the dastardly thief of hearts is on hand. After all, you have a heroic promise to fulfill, and it would not do to go breaking your word to an innocent young boy.
The shrine maiden musters up enough resolve to halfheartedly glare at you. "You know, you don't have to keep up that act now that Taro's gone."
"No, I don't," you agree, before grandly proclaiming: "I CHOOSE to!"
"He CHOOSES to!" Briar choruses.
Suzuka stares blankly at the two of you for a moment before bowing her head to mumble something about how this wasn't what she was expecting when people warned her about dating a shrine boy.
Then she slaps her cheeks, dons a smile, and replies, "Ichirou happens to be out running an errand. Perhaps I could be of assistance in his stead? Or would you prefer to speak with his grandfather?"
Actually, you should probably talk to both of them, and Ginta, too, if he's available...?
"As a matter of fact, no; he and Auntie are taking a weekend in the country together."
Oh, that's nice. A little inconvenient for you, but you can deal with it, especially since Kojiro is still here for you to speak with. Also, you should probably include the shrine's resident kami in your discussion as well, or at least hold it close enough to him so that he can listen in and have the option to speak up if he feels the need to.
Miss Suzuka takes a deep breath at your request for a divine audience, nods wordlessly, and then leads you over to the main shrine building. She knocks on the doorframe once, and a familiar old voice replies, "Come in!"
Suzuka slides the door open to reveal Kojiro sitting in the front room, frowning down at a scroll laid out on the floor before him, with a book in one hand. He looks up from both as you, Suzuka, and Briar enter.
"Ah, Alex! Welcome back. Uncovered any new disasters since our last meeting?"
Funny he should mention that...
"I was joking," the old priest sighs. Even as he says that, though, he closes his book and rolls up the scroll.
You start off by asking if the word "Quincy" means anything to your audience.
"The fruit?" Suzuka wonders.
Kojiro has a similar reaction, and the kami remains silent, so you set about clarifying your relatively-recent discoveries regarding the Hollow-hunting spiritual archers.
Your first mention of the twisted undead spirits draws a sigh from the center of the shrine, and when the word "Shinigami" crosses your lips, it's followed by a groan from the same source.
Judging from the way Kojiro cranes his neck around to glance suspiciously over his shoulder at the god behind the curtain, you weren't the only one to hear those reactions.
Based on your conversations with Ambrose and Balthazar, and even leaving out most of the mystical note-sharing you did with your fellow arcanists, you're going to need a good half an hour to catch your current audience up on the details of the latest apocalyptic scenario you've uncovered. Seeing as how you've only got an hour and a half left to work with before you need to head home, you don't really need the distraction of whatever Kojiro was looking at.
You figure that, on the off-chance it turns out to be relevant, he'll mention it.
When a god makes a sound like that, a wise man listens.
Observing the formalities, you ask Kojiro if he believes his kami has any insights to offer on the topic at hand.
"Seems like a safe bet," the old priest says, twisting around to properly face the central shrine. He gestures for you and Suzuka to take a knee beside him - Briar flutters down on your shoulder - and once everyone is settled, he speaks to his patron, asking if he will share his wisdom with you.
As it turns out, the Hakuba kami does indeed have a few pearls of wisdom to share.
Mostly, they're about how Shinigami are a constant headache for the kami, Earthbound and celestial alike, and have been for the last several thousand years.
It's not that they're evil, or that they don't do good and necessary work. Getting lingering souls to move on before they fall victim to one of the many ill fates laying in wait for a wayward ghost is a worthy task: there are enough youkai and Hollows in the world already, without more innocent souls being twisted into new ones; and it's rare that even the worst human criminals truly deserves what dark necromancers or soul-trading demons will do to them. Likewise, it's important that there be some kind of organized defense and deterrent against raids by malevolent Hollows, and with the true kami prevented from attending to the task in person or properly empowering their mortal servants and allies to take care of the matter in their stead, the Thirteen Court Guard Squads are one of the few forces able to step in and take up the slack.
It's a consequence of their mingled nature. That streak of divinity you've detected in all of the Karakura Shinigami gives the average member of their kind enough personal power to stand a fighting chance against your average Hollow and other supernatural threats, or to weigh in on arguments between more properly divine entities. Yet as beings that are born (in a fashion), age (however slowly), and eventually die (usually by violence) and enter the cycle of reincarnation, Shinigami are also mortal enough to enjoy the right to self-determination and free will.
And also to have children, even with human partners, as Isshin has proved a couple of times over.
The problem - or at least, the problem that the enshrined little god is willing and able to discuss openly - is that while your average Shinigami on the street is somewhere between old-fashioned town guardsman and modern beat cop, if of a decidedly mystical bent, as one climbs the ranks of authority and personal power - and they almost always directly correlate, you're told - personalities have a tendency to become... "eccentric," to put it politely. And the higher up you go, the worse it's likely to get.
The Hakuba kami admits that he's never met any of the Shinigami captains or lieutenants in person, so he can't speak as to how bad the command-level officers are, but godly rumor paints some of them as being seriously weird, not to mention terribly hard on the landscape when they really cut loose. And the lower-ranked members of the organization the enshrined little god HAS encountered over the centuries fit the pattern of escalating power and peculiarity depressingly well, with one Tenth Seat from the Eleventh Division having been such a fight-happy madman that he took on half a dozen Hollows at once, laughing the entire time.
"He only stopped for a moment when the biggest Hollow smashed him through a wall," the kami groans, "and that was just so he could release his sword and smash the Hollow through the wall across the street!"
I think I'd like to meet this Shinigami.
Me, too.
Of course you do.
"And then he took off and left ME to try and explain why three buildings had collapsed and half the street was on FIRE!" the kami continues, working himself into a rant. "They ALWAYS do that! Oh, sure, when it's time to fight Hollows or erase the memories of eyewitnesses, they're all 'glorious duty' this and 'stern responsibility' that, but when you suggest that they actually CLEAN UP the messes they make in the process? 'We have to limit our interference, the Balance must be maintained, and isn't this your territory anyway?' ARRGH!"
...
You can't help but feel that this new information has implications for your agenda.
Is there anything you'd like to say or ask in response to this?
From what the Hakuba kami is saying, it almost sounds as if the Shinigami don't answer to any higher authority.
He clarifies that the Thirteen Court Guard Squads ARE accountable to other power blocs within the Soul Society, chiefly an organization known as the Central Forty-Six, a collection of judges and wise men who make up the realm's judiciary authority, as well as the noble families who wield the bulk of the political power. There is also a "Soul King" that ostensibly rules over the entire Soul Society, but his role in politics is largely as a ceremonial figurehead, somewhat like the mundane Emperor of Japan; the Soul King's real purpose is to oversee the spiritual balance, and that is the task to which he devotes all his time and effort, leaving lesser matters in the hands of others.
Gained Local Knowledge (Soul Society) E
So the problem isn't that the Shinigami are lawless, but rather that the laws they hold to don't make much accommodation for mortals and mortal affairs. Aside from their duty to kill Hollows, and by extension to protect human souls, the only real mention of mortals in Shinigami law - at least as far as the Hakuba kami knows it, which he admits isn't much - is that the psychopomps are forbidden to kill humans without express orders to the contrary, they are absolutely forbidden to give their spiritual power humans, and they are not permitted to remain in the human world beyond the duration of their assigned patrols.
On the one hand, you can understand why an organization of minor god-like entities wouldn't feel themselves beholden to mortal laws, and can even appreciate that there are times when they SHOULDN'T be so bound. After all, mortal laws generally aren't written to account for the possibility of existence beyond death, much less the complexities of that existence, and if it were possible to enforce those laws on the Shinigami, doing so as-is would accomplish little except to make it harder for the little death gods to do their jobs.
On the other hand...
You don't disagree with the idea that lives and souls are more valuable than physical property, and that sacrificing the latter to protect and preserve the former is an acceptable course of action. You've done just that, in fact. You're also guilty of a certain amount of property damage due to over-enthusiastic sparring matches and tournament bouts, but that was in situations where that sort of thing was anticipated and planned for. You don't go around knocking holes in other people's walls as a matter of course, and when you DO damage someone else's property, you at least try to clean up after yourself. True, some of your motivation for that arises from your desire to avoid attention from the authorities and nastier entities who could make your life unpleasant, but isn't that EXACTLY what the Shinigami are trying to accomplish by erasing human memories?
Still wondering at the reasoning of the psychopomps, you inquire if the Hakuba kami is able to talk to the Shinigami directly, or if the divine injunction applies there, as well.
"No, they're kami enough in their own right that one of my order can talk to one of theirs without issue," the enshrined god replies. "But that's when we meet face-to-face, and interact on the personal level. If I wanted to make any sort of official contact with the Thirteen Court Guard Squads or the Soul Society as a whole, I'd have to do it through the proper channels. That takes time, for I am, after all, naught but a humble earthbound kami of a single modest shrine; why should they grant my missives priority over those sent by greater names and higher ranks, or put much stock in what I have to say?"
Oh, good; politics. And in the afterlife, no less. One more reason to seek immortality, you suppose...
Shaking that thought off, you direct the conversation back to the original topic, noting in passing that, "Maybe the Soul Society will listen if you mention THIS."
And then you tell them about the Quincy and Yhwach, about the Wandenreich, and about Auswahlen.
The names are new to Kojiro and Suzuka. The Hakuba kami recognizes the Quincy, but only from second- and third-hand accounts; the other names are as much of a mystery and revelation to him as they are to his priest and miko.
From what they have to say, there doesn't seem to be anyone in this neighborhood who has unusual spiritual abilities that resemble your description of Quincy powers, whether active or latent. Nor can any of your audience recall meeting people who reside elsewhere that have such qualities as a starburst-mark on their soul or a burning drive to slay Hollows while wearing all-white uniforms.
That said, the priest and miko have no problem with spreading the warning to other shrines and temples who might know more. The Hakuba kami is likewise entirely willing to get in touch with his peers, as well as kick the warning up the ladder of celestial authority - though once again, he admits that his comparatively lack of importance in the greater order of things will limit how far that goes.
Don't worry, I got your back with Ama-chan.
A brief choking sound echoes off the sanctified walls of the shrine.
Gained Bureaucracy F (Plus) (Plus)
Is there anything else that requires discussion while you're here?
With the residents of the Hakuba Shrine warned about Yhwach's awakening and its consequences for Earth's Quincy population, the purpose of today's visit to Japan has been achieved. You give a moment's though to visiting other people you know hereabouts, but you have to admit that Kagome and her family wouldn't be able to do much except worry about the upcoming event, while the Hakubas are perfectly capable of passing on the warning to Abbot Jason and his fellows, to say nothing of all the other priests you've met.
That leaves the Hayashi Clan and the ninja girls, who you'd have to contact by mail anyway. You make a note to do that as soon as possible, and to get in touch with the Southern Water Tribe while you're at it; you haven't noticed any Quincy among their ranks on your visits, but Shaman Tiriaq could use the heads-up about this impending disturbance on the Spirit Plane.
With your warning delivered, you head home for a late meal. Afterwards, you head up to your room, unload your newest books onto your bed, and start measuring your room. Then you go down to the living room and examine the bookcase where your parents keep the various volumes of the family library, such as it is.
Once you have a fair idea of how it's put together - and have explained to your parents why you spent ten minutes eyeing the thing like it owed you money or something - you retreat to your Mirror Hideaway, use the Spell of Minor Creation to conjure up a large mass of wood, use the Spell of Fabrication to shape that into a new bookcase, and then cast the Spell to Shrink an Item and carry its miniaturized felt form back upstairs.
It's a good fit for the patch of wall you had in mind, although your father runs a hand along one of the shelves and notes that, while the work is good, you might want to talk to your Uncle Rory about getting a varnish applied to help protect the wood.
Gained Crafts D (Plus)
Gained Woodworking E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
For the time being, however, you have a serviceable place to put your latest purchases. And once you start arranging those on the shelves, it only makes sense to get the rest of your collection organized.
You're a bit surprised by the final size of your private library, which stands at nearly forty actual books, a scroll, and your comics. Your new bookcase has four shelves, all in easy reach for you, and the nine volumes of Twentieth Century Sorcery almost fill one of them, with the massive bulk of Vampyr and your new copy of Weave of Magic taking up the remaining space. There's no way Volume Ten is going to fit in there when it is eventually released, but your other books "only" take up most of the next two shelves, so there's space enough to deal with that.
Provided you don't acquire a heap of books between then and now, anyway.
Worse comes to worst? You'll make another bookcase.
Getting your library sorted out takes about an hour, all told, after which you write up those letters and summon up the Postman to get them delivered promptly. With that taken care of, you spend the rest of the night working on Kahlua's Gauntlets, making up for more of the time you'd lost on the project due to this week's Quincy-related emergency.
The Warrior-Princess Gauntlets are the major focus of your attention over the next few weeks, absorbing time, materials, and magic in roughly equal measures. Gold paid out to the Postman comes back to you in the form of Hyrulean reagents, which your rituals consume and pour into the Hylian steel in the form of enchantments. It's not terribly difficult work for someone at your level of skill, it's just time-consuming; the trickiest part was the morphic enhancement, and that was mainly because you had a limited supply of Kahlua's blood and didn't want to waste any of it OR use too little.
At the end of that phase of the work, you actually had some blood left over - just a few drops' worth, pooling at the bottom of the vial. That's not enough for another project like this, and wouldn't be much use for most other purposes, but it's not entirely without practical application or value.
It's not a hard choice to make. It's barely a choice at all, really. This entire matter of upgrading the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets has been as much about setting the tone of a future business relationship with the Shuzen Family as it has been about doing a favor to a friend and repairing a minor flaw in your work. Showing the vampires proof that you can be trusted with sensitive and potentially-hazardous materials like their blood is just good sense.
For all that the Gauntlets are the main focus of your efforts throughout May, it's not like you spend every spare moment working on them. With Auswahlen marching ever closer, you make a point of reading through the notes you got from Balthazar, and once you've got a handle on the information therein, you fine-tune the spells you were planning to use to shield the Karakura Quincy from the Sealed King's power. There's no easy way to tell if the Spell of Death Warding works any better after that, but another trip to Urahara Shoten confirms that Spell Immunity does work a little better against general Quincy abilities; it also gives you an opportunity to inform the Karakura contingent that Ambrose and Balthazar are on board with the idea, and what they can contribute.
You also mention that you informed some other spiritually-aware sorts you know of the impending disaster - though you are quick to clarify that you didn't drop any names - and that the kami may or may not be paying attention to the whole matter.
Isshin, Urahara, and Tessai all fidget slightly when you mention that part.
Yoruichi is not present when you visit. Urahara explains that the cat left to get in touch with someone who should be able to talk to the Soul Society on behalf of your little conspiracy, be taken seriously, and not get you all arrested for poking into things that aren't supposed to be your concern.
Probably.
Fingers crossed.
On a related note, Ambrose came up with a pair of gemstones that will work to bind Karin and Yuzu, and Batreaux passed on some details about how Heart Containers alter an aura that allowed Balthazar to find a stone that suits Masaki.
Ichigo is proving a bit more problematic to match in that regard.
You catch Lu-sensei up on the Quincy problem in a brief meeting after your next class. While he appreciates the heads-up on your "extracurriculars," there really isn't much he can do about it; spiritual matters ARE one of his weaker points, and Grandmaster Wen can only do so much, so quickly, especially with the shortened time limit Sunnydale's environment forces upon the Heart of Wen.
He passes your information on to Wen, and lets you know that the Grandmaster had never even heard of Quincy before then. He DID spend the last eleven centuries on a higher plane of existence, after all, and the name and influence of the Lichtreich hadn't spread far enough to the east for your school's founder to hear about it, back when he was still kicking around on the mortal plane.
When the Postman drops off replies to your warning from the Hayashi Clan, the ninja girls, and the Southern Water Tribe, their responses are similar to Lu-sensei's: "Thanks for warning us about the danger, there's not much we can contribute but we appreciate the information"; but with an added note of, "We could use your assistance."
It seems that Shaman Tiriaq actually knows a Quincy living in South America. They met as younger men, when Tiriaq was on a spiritual pilgrimage to the "warm lands." The Quincy in question saw the Water Tribesman, thought he was possessed, and tried to shoot his spirit guides. Tiriaq responded by trying to rap him over the head, and the ensuing brawl was interrupted when something he calls a "peuchen" showed up and forced a truce while they fought it off.
You have to look that name up. Evidently, a peuchen is a shapeshifter that can alternate between human form and that of a giant flying snake, using a mesmerizing gaze to paralyze victims so it can drink their blood, and this is totally another kind of vampire, isn't it?
Anyway, while they were healing up in the care of a certain cranky young medicine woman, Tiriaq and the Quincy buried the hatchet, and have stayed in friendly contact all the years since. The spirit archer is only a bit less aged than the shaman, now, and has a few descendants who will likely be in danger from Auswahlen. The family numbers five, in total.
The ninjas also know a few Quincy, but you're able to compare names with Souken, and confirm that he already knew all of them.
The kitsune don't know any Quincy at all, at least not that they're aware of, but Emiko tells you her extended family is doing some checking, just to be sure.
You also get some reading done.
Although your new books promise to improve your item-crafting skills - Magic of the Smithy, in particular, is going to have an impact on your armor- and weapon-forging abilities - the fact of the matter is that you're too far along in your work on Kahlua's Gauntlets for them to benefit from anything you might learn, at least in the time remaining until your self-imposed deadline arrives. If you had a couple more months and a little more of Kahlua's blood, you could break everything down and start over from scratch, but as it stands? No, you're just going to have to bite the bullet and give her the best work you're currently capable of, not the best you could theoretically achieve with a little more time.
Spent 3 gold coins on reagents
And since there will not be an immediately-applicable benefits from reading your new books, you see no reason to disrupt your existing reading schedule. Your plan to read a single riddle from the Book of Koans each morning and spend the rest of the day pondering it is working out reasonably well, although between keeping up with your schoolwork and the demands of your personal projects, you have had to go back and reconsider a couple of the koans to give them a fair shake. At this rate, you'll be reading that book for months to come, but that's fine; the whole point of this book is to broaden your mind, not blitz through as quickly as possible.
The Book of Kitsune Legends, Romantic Edition, makes for rather easier and hence faster reading just by the nature of the work, but that isn't to say there aren't a couple of headscratchers within its pages.
You've got a very good grasp on the material for your physical age, but there are still some scenes that have the part of you which is a nine-year-old boy wondering if the stories were exaggerated for dramatic effect, because you find it hard to believe that people in real life, that grown adults, could be so... silly.
A deeper, older part just groans in resignation.
In any event, thanks to the constraints on your free time, you haven't quite finished the latest collection of fox-tales when you complete the last of the enchantments on the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets - and with a few days to spare before the delivery date. You use the extra time to test out the enchantments, measuring the Gauntlets' reaction to heat and cold and physical stressors. The only part of the magic that you can't really examine this way is the morphic enhancement; while you do have some degree of shape-changing power, none of the forms you're capable of assuming have blades growing out of their wrists like you've seen Kahlua do in the past.
Still, you're confident in your work.
Saturday comes, and you spend part of the morning giving the Gauntlets a final polish before stowing them in your pocket. Towards four in the evening, you leave the house and head out to the woods, and from there teleport to the outskirts of the Shuzen Estate.
It's business as usual, the guards and the little place-spirit seeing you across the border and into a waiting car. One of the security personnel mentions that the entire family is in attendance this morning, and "keenly anticipating" the results of your work.
No pressure, then.
None of the Shuzens are waiting in the entrance hall when you arrive. Instead, one of the servants escorts you to the hall where you and Kahlua sparred before the assembled guests on her birthday. As you were warned, the Shuzens are all there, Kahlua all but bouncing in place with excitement while her sisters look on with a mix of amusement (Akua), affected indifference that doesn't really cover the envious interest beneath (Moka), and open eagerness (Kokoa, whispering gleefully to Thistle about who knows what).
You note in passing that Jasmine's spirit is still hanging off of Akua's back, head down and dreaming. Everything seems to be in order, there, so you turn your attention back to the main event.
First, you take out the case that originally held your payment and the vial of Kahlua's blood, and hand it off to the servant. He takes it over to Gyokuro and opens it up for her consideration, revealing the mostly-empty vial and the minor amount of blood left within.
As one, the Shuzens look at you.
You shrug. "I wasn't entirely sure if you'd want it back or not, or what the proper method of disposal might be."
"For the record, fire works," Gyokuro replies. "But so will water, if it's holy or you just have enough of it. Acid as well."
"And thank you for taking care of it, Alex," Kahlua adds.
"...ah," Gyokuro says, coughing into her fist. "Yes, thank you for that."
As a freebie, you conjure a little flame, and burn the contents of the vial.
Expended Vial of Kahlua's Blood
Returned Carrying Case (Small)
With that out of the way, you take out the Gauntlets.
"They don't look any different," Kokoa says with disappointment.
"Kokoa," Kahlua sighs.
"Well, they don't!"
What follows is a demonstration of the Gauntlets' new abilities. Kahlua slips the armored handgear on and immediately tests out the morphic enhancement, holding one arm up in front of herself with a look of concentration while she removes an earring with her free hand.
There is a certain gratifying amount of "oooh"-ing and "aaah"-ing as metal flows like water around the bony blades that erupt from the vampire princess's wrist. Kahlua smiles radiantly as she goes through a few kata, then repeats the process with her other arm.
Then she dances over to a couple of practice dummies that were set up in the room and goes to town, testing how the added weight of the Gauntlets affects the balance and force of her blade-strike - and at one point, just straight-up punching a target's head off.
It's a good thing you're used to this sort of display from vampire girls by now, because the giggling would be rather off-putting otherwise.
Do you have anything to say at this point?
After rather thoroughly demolishing the target dummies, Kahlua seems to have satisfied herself with her understanding of the Gauntlets' altered capabilities, at least as regards general melee. She withdraws her wrist-blades, watching closely as the metal once again flows around them, never leaving an actual gap in the protective plate as the bone-like spurs retract and the Hylian steel fuses shut.
There is still the matter of the armor's defensive worth to test, however, and several servants step forward with an assortment of tools for that purpose. One maid wields a pair of finely-made but entirely mundane Chinese sabers, which Kahlua focuses on defending against using only her still-unsealed strength and the material hardness and magical reinforcement of the gauntlets; then one of the guards puts up his dukes, swells his fists into mace-like masses of flesh and bone bigger than his human guise's head, and has her tank a few hits; and then Kahlua replaces her earring and has the servants come at her again, measuring how well she holds up at a lower level of output.
Once that's done, Miss Hanabi steps forward, conjures a blue-tinted plume of foxfire on the tip of one finger, and holds it close to the metal, testing the heat-resistance enchantment.
Seeing a lack of cryokinetics or mechanical methods for testing the cold resistance aspect of that bit of magic, you volunteer to cast the Spell to Chill Metal, though you "pull" the spell a bit to minimize its intensity. After all, you were only contracted to ward the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets against mundane extremes of temperature, not against supernaturally-intense sources of heat or cold.
But once that's done - and with no worse than a brief shiver and accompanying "Brrr!" from Kahlua - the upgraded Gauntlets are deemed a success.
At this point, another servant steps forward, carrying another of those little cases.
...at least you THINK it's another one. The Shuzens wouldn't have any need to re-use the case you just handed back to them - at least not THIS soon - and the fact that this one looks basically identical to the one Gyokuro made the down-payment with is surely just a consequence of your payment having been split into two equal halves.
Probably.
Gained 37 gold coins
Gained 30 silver coins
(Re?)Gained Carrying Case (Small)
As you take up the case, some part of you wonders if you should feel a little bad about selling magical wares to a friend for an effective profit margin of 1,400%.
Another part says you're merely making intelligent use of your available resources, and that any sorcerer with similar access to high-grade reagents on the cheap would be doing at least this much - and quite likely far worse things, which didn't benefit anyone except themselves. You, at least, are leveraging your connections in Hyrule to make nice things for your friends. Plus, you didn't charge as much for this sale as you theoretically could have.
A third part notes that if you mean to go through with your idea of outfitting Kahlua with a full set of armor - or for that matter, giving her sisters similar presents, or even doing some work in that vein for yourself - you're going to need to secure a steady source of Hylian steel. That won't come as cheaply as the common reagents have, so you should take this as an opportunity to save up in preparation for it.
Yet another mental voice is too busy cheerfully counting coins and speculating about future uses for this gold to care about any of that.
Silencing your inner chorus, you tuck your payoff into your pocket.
Aside from the Quincy business, is there anything else in particular that you'd like to discuss with the Shuzens while you're here?
Seeing as how you're in the sparring room again, you ask Kahlua if she's like to take her upgraded Gauntlets for a test-spar-
"I would love to!" she says with a bright smile.
-against your Shadow.
"...eh?" Kahlua asks, tilting her head to one side as her smile falters and is replaced by an expression of confusion.
You explain that there are some other bits of non-business-related business you'd like to discuss with her parents, but as a friend, you don't want to leave her standing around waiting. And since you can very effectively multitask...
"Hmmm... I suppose that would be alright," Kahlua finally says. Then she points one steel-clad finger at you. "But we're sparring properly before you leave."
...well, if you must.
"You absolutely must!"
Alright, then.
You summon Shadow Alex-
"Don't I get a say in this?" your dark doppelganger protests, as soon as the circumstances become clear to him.
You suppose he could dismiss himself, but is he going to disappoint Kahlua like that?
Shadow Alex makes the mistake of glancing at Kahlua, who is once again smiling eagerly.
"I hate you right now," he tells you flatly. "You know that, right?"
If it makes him feel any better, you're slated to spar with her later.
"...actually, that DOES help."
-and then withdraw to the audience balcony with the rest of the family.
"So, what's this new business?" Gyokuro asks, as you're making your way up the stairs. "Uncovered remnants of another long-dead society? Discovered another existential threat to all life on Earth?"
It's a bit of both, actually.
Gyokuro stops and turns around enough to stare at you. "...I was kidding."
You're not, unfortunately.
You start off by asking the Shuzen if the names "Quincy," "Wandenreich," or "Yhwach" mean anything to them. Gyokuro, Issa, and the girls all respond with blank looks.
"Oh, the spirit archers?" Akasha says. "They're still around?"
"'Spirit archers'?" Gyokuro inquires, as the lot of you emerge onto the balcony.
As everyone settles in to watch the spar, or at least keep one eye on it, Akasha explains what she knows of the Quincy - which isn't much. She only ever encountered a single Quincy, during the long years while she was traveling with Dracula, and it wasn't a friendly encounter - and hence, quite a short one, Dracula not having been in the mood to tolerate further threats against his ward from humans. What little she does know, she learned from her lord in the aftermath, and Dracula described the Quincy then as a dying remnant of a fallen land, the consequences of a powerful man's ambition outstripping his reach.
Oh, the irony of that statement.
One interesting detail turns up: although Dracula's Power of Dominance granted him authority over the souls of fallen monsters and supernaturally-empowered humans of a suitably dark nature, he was never able to claim the soul of a Quincy. Even attempts to turn them into vampires didn't work, as a Quincy soul would tear itself apart when directly exposed to the Dark Lord's power, leaving behind a comatose husk of a body that rapidly mutated into an inert abomination.
You think about what you know of Masaki's history, and how being "poisoned" by a Hollow nearly destroyed her soul before Urahara came up with a workaround.
Yhwach's name doesn't come up in Akasha's recollection, and neither do the names of either of the Quincy "empires." You're not sure if that means Dracula merely didn't bother to tell them to Akasha - because he clearly knew them - or if he did, and she simply forgot. This would have been half a millennium ago, give or take a few decades, and you'd understand if Akasha didn't remember what would have been some fairly trivial details of a single conversation from that far back.
After all, you suffer from a similar issue.
In any case, you set about correcting the Shuzens' lack of information on the relevant topics. You don't bring up the names of the Quincy in Karakura, as you don't have their permission to do so for people who aren't potentially (and now proven) helpful sorcerers and wizards.
*CLANG*
Your explanation is interrupted by the ring of Hylian steel against Hylian steel, which draws your attention to the floor below, where Shadow Alex has drawn his sword to match Kahlua's Gauntlets.
Do you want to say something in response to this development?
You let your shadow-self's decision to draw steel go unremarked, and get on with the matter of explaining what you've learned about Yhwach, his surviving loyalists, and the upcoming use of Auswahlen, as well as what steps you and your other contacts are taking to deal with the matter.
It's a little tricky doing so without bringing up the names of the Shinigami you've been working with on this, but you feel you owe the residents of Urahara Shoten the courtesy of anonymity - at least until Urahara meets the Shuzens in person. You have no problem with mentioning that you contacted Ambrose and Balthazar for additional advice, or of telling the Shuzens what the sorcerer and the wizard have come up with; you also easily admit to having spoken with the residents of the Hakuba Shrine, mortal and kami alike, in an effort to spread the warning of this particular danger through the hierarchies of Japan's spiritual authorities.
And since you're already speaking of the kami, you go ahead and drop the name of the Soul Society, briefly explain their extended history with the Quincy, and then admit that getting them to invade Silbern and go for a decapitation strike against the Sealed King before he wakes up is basically your "Plan A" for the entire business. You have to admit that you're not sure how well that's going, as last you heard, Yoruichi is still out of contact, though Urahara did say he considered the fact that an armed party of Shinigami hadn't descended on his shop yet was a hopeful sign.
Regardless, "Plan B(ury Them In Abjuration Magic and Hope For the Best)" and "Plan C(ast Trap the Soul and Abscond to Hyrule)" have been and will continue to be the main focus of the collective effort, unless or until the cat comes back with confirmation of good news, or something else turns up.
The Shuzen adults listen patiently as you speak, asking a pointed question or two here and there, and paying especially close attention when you start talking about the Japanese afterlife. When you've finished, the three of them trade glances.
"How many people are you planning to... evacuate, if it comes to that?" Gyokuro asks.
At the moment, just six, though that number may increase. If you count all the Japanese Quincy and blood-descendants that Souken knows of, the New York Quincy that Balthazar is aware of, and the group in South America that Elder Tiriaq brought to your attention, the tally rises to around sixty - and as much as you hate to admit it, that's already a big enough group to be problematic.
Plan B hinges on casting Death Ward and Greater Spell Immunity, and while Ambrose, Balthazar, and Batreaux could successfully mimic the former divine spell by using Limited Wish, the latter is too powerful to replicate, even by expending a full-blown Wish. The priests you've spoken to, meanwhile, simply aren't strong enough to cast Greater Spell Immunity, which puts the onus for warding the Quincy with it entirely on you. Even with your reserves of and control over mana, plus a healthy stockpile of recovery items, there's only so many times you can cast the really-eighth-but-effectively-ninth tier spell in the short window you'll have.
Plan C is similarly limited by the fact that Batreaux and Ambrose are the only ones in your little circle of major magic-users capable of casting the Spell to Trap the Soul - and neither of them have reserves with the ridiculous depth you enjoy. Ambrose actually went over your head and got in touch with Beryl about this, but for all the teenaged sorceress's familiarity with crystals and life-force manipulation, the Spell to Trap the Soul isn't one she's learned. At least not yet. And while she did admit to being able to summon something capable of casting the spell in her stead, Beryl also said she wouldn't trust the being in question to cast a spell like that on people she meant to help.
You'd have a similar problem with anyone or anything you summoned for help in this matter. Batreaux is the only one of your familiar summons with the means to cast Trap the Soul, and any random being you called up to do the same - or to help you with casting Greater Spell Immunity, come to that - would be comparably powerful, without the well-established positive working relationship you and the Risen Demon enjoy. Even if you'd called in backup the same day you came up with these plans, a month and a half wouldn't have been enough time to really develop the sort of trust required, which leaves the purely mercenary approach.
You are considering it, especially when it comes to Greater Spell Immunity; that one, at least, is a divine spell, and if you pull another servant of the Goddesses from the aether, you'd at least have some common ground.
Are you going to try this?
On a related note, Batreaux has mentioned that he had a couple of Scrolls of Trap the Soul prepared against future need, and is willing to spend them in this endeavor. He suggested that you scribe a few Scrolls of Greater Spell Immunity, and while you haven't been able to get around to that before, thanks to having been in the middle of crafting Kahlua's Gauntlets, you could start doing so now that you've finished that job.
Do you wish to do this?
While you have the means and the funds to afford calling in some extra-planar spellcasting support, the fact remains that you'd be trusting a stranger - and a very POWERFUL stranger, at that - with the lives of innocent people, some of whom you call friends. Even if you were dealing with another servant of the Goddesses, you'd be leery of such an arrangement, and as for beings capable of casting a spell as questionable as Trap the Soul...
It's a chance you just don't feel that you can take.
Gained Guarded C (Plus)
The arguments against preparing scrolls are entirely different than those against hiring help; after all, if you can't trust your own work, you can't trust anything.
Based on your current information, you've got twenty days until Yhwach opens his eyes - twenty days in which to make contact with the fifty or so Quincy you know of but haven't yet met, leaning on their relationships with people you know to try and get them to trust you enough to believe in your tale of their impending deaths, and your earnest desire and genuine ability to do something about it.
That's an awful lot of trust to win, and very little time to do so.
Even if you succeed, you have the means to ward all sixty-odd Quincy against Auswahlen. You'll have to summon Shadow Alex to handle the Karakura group, and there will be some teleportation and probably quaffing a mana potion or two involved - more of both if you can't convince Quincy to meet up in groups more convenient for you to reach and work your magic over - but it is doable.
This, of course, presumes that Yoruichi either fails to convince the Soul Society of the danger in time, or that their attack on Silbern goes through but fails to take out the Sealed King - and also doesn't awaken him prematurely.
On that note, you've been performing daily auguries to see if the Quincy King's awakening has been "rescheduled." So far, all the signs say that he's still on course for June 17th; you're going to keep an eye on that going forward, trusting the Goddesses to warn you if there's a sudden change.
Will do.
Twenty days would be enough time for you to make ten Scrolls of Greater Spell Immunity, but even if you exhausted your gold supply, you'd only be able to make six. Burning your credit with Gen would increase that to eight.
Either way, it won't be enough.
The simple fact of the matter is that the only shot you have at preventing the Quincy genocide is to convince somebody else to take on the Wandenreich, and remove Yhwach from the board before he has a chance to open his eyes. If that fails, then over nine hundred people are going to die no matter WHAT you do.
And that is not your fault. You've done all you can reasonably be expected to do in this situation: you've identified the danger; you've alerted the rightful authorities, and even put together a viable attack route for them; and you're going out of your way to prepare for the worst-case scenario on behalf of three-score people, most of whom you haven't even met yet.
Getting back to Gyokuro's original question, if it comes to using Plan Trap the Soul, your ability to evacuate people to Hyrule is hard-capped by Batreaux's spellcasting ability. And while that's considerable, he's still only one ex-demon; unless he's got a small library's worth of suitable scrolls (and you're pretty sure he doesn't), saving the Karakura Quincy population is probably going to leave him largely exhausted. Mana potions and time to rest would let him do more, but in the end, his limits are simply lower than yours.
And of course, this assumes that the other Quincy you know of would even consent to the plan. You have to admit, you wouldn't be at all surprised if they turned it down, or even refused your help entirely; after all, didn't you just decide you couldn't trust a powerful stranger to help you in this situation?
Once again, the Shuzen adults trade looks.
"We appreciate your forthrightness, Alex," Akasha says, "but... I'm not really sure what you expect us to DO in this situation."
...that's a fair point. What ARE you expecting from them?
You consider Akasha's question, and after a moment, reply that it seemed like it wouldn't hurt to make sure that the people you consider friends know what's going on with the Quincy situation, especially when it could have global consequences. This is particularly true for the people you know who have the connections and resources to potentially DO something about the situation or its aftermath, if only within their respective areas of influence.
You've alerted Balthazar and Ambrose, who are both master magic-users and actively supporting you with your back-up plans. Through Ambrose, the Drakes likely know, though you'll have to check with the old wizard to confirm that. Informing the Shuzens just makes sense; even if there's nothing they can do to help stop Yhwach, at least this way they'll be better prepared for the consequences of his actions.
And there WILL be consequences, beyond Yhwach's vaguely-defined objective of "reclaiming the world" nine years down the road.
A thousand deaths isn't a lot in the big scheme of things, especially when they're scattered all over the world, but at least some of those souls are spiritually strong enough to kill Hollows, and hence to interact with other denizens of the spirit realms. Those deaths are unlikely to go unnoticed.
And quite aside from all of that... honestly, you probably just needed to vent a bit. After all, your choices are soon to make the difference between a thousand lives, and a thousand deaths. You've never been in this kind of position before, and while you like to think you've been bearing up pretty well under the pressure, it's still... stressful.
Akasha smiles. "Well, I certainly don't object to providing a sympathetic ear. As to the rest of it... I can contact Mikogami and Touhou Fuhai, to see what they have to say. I can't make any promises beyond that." She looks to Issa and Gyokuro again.
"I can put out the word through Fairy Tale," Gyokuro replies, "but I'm not sure it will amount to much. We don't have a lot of proper spiritualists on the payroll even here at home: some witches; a few open-minded priests and miko like the Hakubas; but in this part of the world, people with spiritual powers tend to be trained to oppose monsters. Our overseas offices are even worse off."
You nod, accepting the limits, and then change the subject.
"Speaking of Mikogami," you say to Akasha, "when Ambrose briefed us about the Fourth Grail War, do you recall him mentioning a woman who was turned into a demon, and ended up in the Exorcist's custody?"
"I do," the Dark Lord answers. "Why do you bring her up?"
"I think I might be able to arrange help for her."
You proceed to explain about your ongoing deal with Batreaux, and the Risen Demon's agreement that turning a forcibly "demonized" individual back into a human - or at least shifting her to a state of being CLOSER to human than she is now - is both possible and a course of action that your tutor would not object to his "payment" being used for in the slightest.
Akasha agrees to pass that on to Mikogami as well, adding that he will probably want to witness the ritual.
"It's the sort of thing that's right up his alley," she explains with a wry smile.
You don't have a problem with that, and you don't think Batreaux will, either. You'll ask him that yourself the next time you summon him, just to be sure.
An idle thought to ask how Briar's sister Thistle and the Shuzen girls' new pets have been doing crosses your mind, but before you can voice it, the match between Kahlua and Shadow Alex finishes with a bang-
*CRUNCH*
*BANG*
-as the once again unsealed Kahlua lands a blow to Shadow Alex's right shoulder that produces a very unpleasant sound involving bones, the force of which sends him flying backwards into one of the walls. It's a short flight - only about three feet - but the landing is a bit rough, bouncing the back of your doppelganger's head off the stones. His sword makes a ringing accompaniment as it strikes the wall alongside its wielder.
"Alex!" Kahlua bursts out, looking chagrined and worried. Then she stops, looks in your direction, and then turns back to your clone. "Um... I mean... Alex? Wait..."
"Medic!"
With that cry, you dispatch Briar to take a look at your not-evil twin, then excuse yourself from your conversation with the adults and head down to take a look at things in person.
When you reach the floor, Shadow Alex has pulled himself away from the wall and is slowly rotating his right shoulder under Briar's supervision. Kahlua is hovering nearby, looking like she's really not sure how she's supposed to react. After all, she hit someone who looks almost exactly like you, but he isn't really you, but he knows everything you do, which means he knows HER, but she doesn't know HIM...
Magical clone shenanigans are confusing.
"Okay," you ask. "What happened?"
"Funny story," Shadow Alex replies with a grunt. "It turns out that keeping up with an unsealed living vampire is a LOT harder without using Maximum Power."
...yes?
"Also, our Ki Armor technique?" Shadow Alex shakes his head. "NOT up to the task of tanking monster strength AND magic metal fists."
...okay, that makes more sense. You have sparred with Kahlua while she was wearing her Gauntlets, and you'd taken your share of hits in the process - but that was before you'd enchanted them. While the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets don't hit that much harder overall, especially not when compared to the kind of force Kahlua could already bring to bear, the simple fact that they ARE enchanted weapons allows them to bypass various mystical defenses that would previously have ignored a certain amount of purely mechanical force.
"I think it may have been a bit more than that, guys," Briar reports from where she's waving her wand over your counterpart's arm. "I'm picking up a fair bit more youki from this hit than from the other places Kahlua connected."
"How much more?" you inquire.
"Maybe ten percent," Briar replies. "Not a huge amount, but enough to stand out when all the other traces are fairly close together, power-wise."
You glance at Kahlua, wordlessly seeking an explanation.
"I AM almost ten, Alex," she reminds you primly, and just a big smugly.
Ah. This is a vampire maturation thing, then?
"Our youki does start expanding sharply after the first decade of life," Akasha agrees from above. "It will most likely be another year or two before Kahlua's really starts taking off, but some power surges along the way are perfectly normal."
...
You can't help but feel that this bodes ill for your future spars with Kahlua.
"Don't worry, Alex," the girl in question says coyly. "I'll be gentle."
"And on that note," Shadow Alex says almost cheerfully, "I think I will concede the spar. Good match, Kahlua."
"Good match... um... I'm sorry, but what are we supposed to call you, exactly?"
Shadow Alex looks at you. "This keeps coming up."
"It does, doesn't it?" you agree.
Seeing as how you're already down here and Shadow Alex has bowed out of his match, you figure you may as well go ahead and get ready for yours. You take out your Blessed Blade, and then ponder whether or not to bring out some protective gear, or just to stick with magic, ki, and Power.
Seeing as how Kahlua's Gauntlets count as both enchanted weapons AND enchanted armor, you feel no guilt about pulling out some magical armor of your own. Particularly not with this latest revelation of accidental youki surges to look forward to.
Donning the Warmage's Robe is the work of but a minute, the greater part of which is spent adjusting and securing the truly armored sections. A tug on each sleeve to make sure they aren't bunched up, an exaggerated breath in to see if anything's too tight, and a quick "flexing" of your mana to wake up the enchantments, and you're done.
The Vambrace of Force Shielding takes only seconds. Take it out of your pocket, slide your arm through the straps, tighten them, push with your mana again, and it's ready to go as well.
The Robe won't do anything to stop you being blown into a wall if Kahlua's strength slips her control again, of course, but the extra cushioning provided by the magically-reinforced material will soften any such impact. The Vambrace will be less helpful, there; force-based constructs can usually no-sell a fairly large amount of kinetic energy without budging, but this one's anchored to your arm in a fairly direct manner, rather than locked into a (relative) position in space-time as other force barriers usually are.
As you stare down Kahlua from behind the rim of your glowing defensive construct, you can't help but feel that was a bit of a design oversight...
This spar with Kahlua re-treads a lot of familiar ground. Impending adolescent vampire growth spurts or no, your friend's physical abilities haven't suddenly increased to the point where you're drastically outmatched - at least not with magic and ki to offset her unsealed youki - and she's practiced enough with the Warrior-Princess Gauntlets that they aren't throwing off her unarmed fighting style.
It's the addition of the blades, and your choice to use a shield and armor, that are the big difference today. Even with a magical blunting of your Blessed Sword and Kahlua shaping her wrist-blades to lack cutting edges, you both fight as if the weapons were live; your Goddess-forged steel helps in that regard, giving the blade's blows a bit of extra "bite" that Kahlua can't entirely stop herself from twitching at. This leads to a more cautious and defensively minded approach on both sides of the fight, probing attacks and feints that neither of you normally bother with.
The fact that you're using more of your developing Hylian Sword Style helps, too.
Gained Feint E
Gained Shield Training C
Gained Sword Specialization (Hylian Sword) E (Plus) (Plus)
In the end, while Kahlua leaves you with a few bruises you're going to be feeling tomorrow - barring magic healing, anyway - your Robe soaks up enough of the striking force added by her Gauntlets to give you the advantage, and eventually, the win.
Right after that, you find yourself wondering if you're going to have to fight Kahlua's sisters, but the answer to that turns out to be a surprising "mostly no."
Although the week-long period of zero spars you recommended to Akua has long since expired, she expresses very understandable reservations about having the kind of match she REALLY wants to have with you until Jasmine's situation is safely sorted out.
Moka is once again taking her oldest sister's lead.
Kokoa, on the other hand, leaps right into a match with you. She picked up a two-handed mace from somewhere when your attention was focused on Kahlua, and now swings it about with gleeful enthusiasm - never once coming close to threatening Thistle, you note with approval.
If you'd been unarmed to start with, Kokoa's choice of weapon would have offset your natural reach advantage, and if you were lacking armor and a shield, you would have had to rely on evasive techniques to avoid a lot of bruising. But seeing as how you ARE armed and armored, it's rather less of a concern; in fact, it takes some quick and careful management of your enhanced strength to not suddenly overwhelm the younger and much smaller vampire girl.
Gained Strength Control B
Remembering the advice you gave to Kahlua months ago about giving Kokoa realistically attainable goals in sparring matches, rather than pushing the youngest Shuzen sister to defeat the now-acknowledged second eldest, you challenge Kokoa to get one hit past your guard OR force you to move from your current spot, and then focus on deflecting her strikes with your sword and shield.
Kokoa spends the next minute swinging wildly, forcing you to defend from seemingly random angles. Left and high, then right and low, then high right, then high left again, and next a jab that turns into a twirling attempt to catch your blade-
"Now, Kokoa!" Thistle cries out.
-and then she winds up and swings for the bleachers, bringing the mace around low and from your left, at the level of your shins.
Clever girls. Size and strength advantage or no, your sword isn't really heavy enough to parry that hit - not when it would have to reach across your body with just one hand on the blade - and you couldn't stop it with your shield, either; it's too small, and your arms too short, to effectively guard that low.
And since you don't particularly feel like getting bludgeoned in the shinbone, you half-step, half-hop over the sweep of the mace.
Point to Kokoa.
"YYYYEEEESSSS!"
You leave the littlest Shuzen doing a victory dance on the floor, putting your shield away as you head back to the balcony, giving Kahlua a nod as she passes you on her way back down for another match between siblings.
After removing your Robe and stowing it as well, you watch Kokoa try to break Kahlua's armored guard for a bit-
*CLANG*
*CLANG*
*BANG*
-before asking Akua and Moka how their pets have been since your last visit.
All seems to be well.
Cinnamon the Hylian retriever has been carefully looked over by and gotten his shots and papers from an in-the-know veterinarian specializing in dogs; from what that guy could tell, the breed has quite a lot in common with the Earth-native golden retriever, though at the same time, there are enough differences to make it clear Cinnamon was something other than an offshoot. There were some interesting questions asked as a result of that, most of which Thistle was able to answer after the girls helped her look things up.
Evidently, Cinnamon's going to spend the next four or five months growing very quickly, and another eighteen months after that growing more slowly until he hits his adult size. Thistle figures he should end up larger, faster, and more powerful than a golden retriever, as well as longer-lived; where the Earth dogs average ten to twelve years, the Hyrulean breed tend to hang around for fifteen, and some exceptional individuals have been known to reach their third decade without magical assistance.
Of course, Earth's lower-magic environment will probably hinder Cinnamon's development a bit, but being raised on the Shuzen estate won't hurt him. His breed has lived through Hyrule's dark ages, and individuals are known to take down smaller monsters on their own, especially in defense of their masters, known friends, and children; if they can handle direct exposure to overtly demonic energies, comparatively less-toxic youki won't be an issue.
Moka is quite happy about all of that, and illustrates as much by reaching down to scritch Cinnamon behind one ear. The puppy, who has been sitting patiently beside his mistress all this time, growls appreciatively at the attention.
Akua's Keese, Malbec, is also doing well. As a nocturnal monster with the form and nature of a bat, he's perfectly at home in Castle Shuzen. There haven't been signs of him manifesting the more exotic abilities Keese sometimes do when residing in areas with strong elemental affinities, but like Cinnamon, Malbec is some way off from achieving his full growth. Thistle figures that will take a year or so, and Briar confirms it, which allows Akua to settle on a date for formally making Malbec into her familiar.
As for Kahlua's pet Ache, Merlot, Thistle admits to drawing a bit of a blank.
"Aches were either bred, empowered, or outright created by Ganon during his last rampage," the younger fairy explains. "That's pretty recent compared to most of Hyrule's monsters, and they're easy to confuse for Keese besides, so we still don't know a lot about them. On top of that, where a normal Ache would have demonic essence, the Goddesses gave Merlot untainted magic instead, so he's pretty much a new species. Still, when he lets me use magic to check on him, he reads as healthy."
Hmmm.
You consider not saying anything on the matter of Kahlua's pet Ache, because what do you know about magic bats? In particular, what do you know about magic Hyrulean bats that a Hyrulean fairy AND a family of vampires who host and/or employ other kinds of magic bats wouldn't already know or be able to figure out in short order?
That having been said... you're curious.
And so, once Kahlua and Kokoa are done, you call down to ask your friend if she knows where Merlot would be at this time of day, and also if she'd care to join you and Briar in giving him a quick check-up.
You're bringing your partner along mainly on the grounds that two heads are better than one, though also because you just feel more comfortable having someone else available to magically poke at a member of a species created by your evil past life.
Kahlua, unsurprisingly, would quite like to come along and make sure her pet is doing well. She reseals her power, removes the Gauntlets and hands them off to the servant that obligingly appears, and in the process mentions that Merlot should still be napping in her room at this hour.
The three of you then set off, with Thistle tagging along to compare notes with her sister, and Kokoa following her because partners.
You can find no fault in that logic.
Kahlua was correct; Merlot is indeed in her room, dangling upside-down from a more permanent version of the "coat hanger" that Emiko put together from sticks and vines back on Bali Ha'i. The design reminds you of a bell-shaped birdcage, except that there is no "cage" to speak of, only two legs of a tall, broad arch holding up the dome and the perch. The frame appears to be ceramic, the color and texture of which have been made to resemble natural stone, and there's a blackout curtain pulled down over the top to keep out what light there is in Kahlua's room.
Speaking of which, this is the first time you've been in Kahlua's chambers. It's about what you expected, a mixture of Castle Shuzen's high-class gothic style and, well, girly. It's not as bad as the horror stories Cordelia has told you about Harmony's bedroom-
"The whole room is blinding white and eye-watering pink, except where it's rainbow-colored. There are unicorn patterns on the sheets, rug, and chairs, unicorns painted on the walls and carved into her furniture, a whole HERD of stuffed unicorns scattered all over the place, three entire SHELVES of clay or crystal unicorns, a unicorn CONSTELLATION on the CEILING, and of course, a unicorn night-light. And as if that weren't bad enough, the overhead light is one of those novelty ones that makes the whole room SPARKLE when it's turned on, while the bedside lamp has one of those rotating shadow dealies. Guess what shapes it shows?"
-as Kahlua favors bat-patterns and a night sky theme, and the colors that lend themselves to that sort of thing are fairly subdued.
There are a lot of frills, though. Upholstery, curtains, rugs... Merlot's curtain, which Kahlua parts just enough to let her see inside, before cooing and murmuring to the occupant of the not-a-cage...
Shaking off the faint suspicion that the woven bits of the decor are actually shaggy monsters in disguise, you focus on the chiropteran critter that Kahlua lifts into view and nestles in her arms. As with Cinnamon, Merlot has visibly grown since you last saw him, although not to the same degree, and he's still fluffy enough to look quite young and more or less innocent.
"Squeak?" Merlot inquires, blinking sleepily at you and Briar.
"Open your mouth and say 'Squeak.'"
You say this as you conjure a bead of faint light at the end of your index finger, which you point at Merlot, being careful to keep the glow out of his eyes.
The young Ache blinks once, slowly, and then does as he's told, possibly out of confusion.
You and Briar make with the diagnostic spells and effects, a mix of druidism, witchcraft, and your personal sensory skills that gradually reveals Merlot to be free of disease, have a steady if small life-force, and to be clean of any spiritual, magical, mental, or Fae-related afflictions. At least so far as either of you can tell.
As you work, you explain to Kahlua and Kokoa what each spell does, and in the process you notice that Merlot is paying attention, to the point where it seems he's following your words. You hadn't really forgotten how intelligent Aches are supposed to be, but this makes you more aware of that knowledge - and it also sparks an idea.
"Hey, Kahlua?"
"Yes, Alex?"
"Would you like to be able to speak with Merlot and understand what he's saying?"
Vampire princess and magical bat blink in unison.
"Would I?!"
"Squeak?!"
"Me too!" Kokoa demands.
Well, that answers that question.
Being druidic in nature, the Spell to Speak With Animals normally costs three times as much mana for you to cast as it ought to. Extending the effect to another person adds another level of complexity, and increasing the range further so as to account for multiple targets in a single casting brings it to the level of a fifth-circle spell on mana cost alone.
Not that this is really an obstacle, but you do have to wonder if Merlot counts as an "animal" in mystical terms, or if his magical essence and intelligence push him over the line into being something else.
Since the only way to be sure is to cast the spell and find out, you do that, weaving the magic and tapping yourself, Kahlua, and Kokoa on the foreheads to invoke it.
"Testing, testing, one, two, three..."
"Squeak?"
"Awww, it didn't work?" Kokoa sulks.
And that answers that.
"I picked the Spell to Speak With Animals," you reply. "But I had a feeling that Merlot might be too smart to count as an 'animal.'" There's more to it than brainpower, of course - even highly intelligent animals like apes or dolphins would still be subject to that spell, and it would also work on those animals capable of mimicking human speech - but this keeps the explanation simple. "Don't worry, I have another option that should do the job."
And then you cast the Communal Spell of Tongues on everyone present, including Merlot, which you follow up by casting the witchcraft Spell of Beastspeak on the Ache, just in case the shape of his snout is too different for him to actually form the words of the Japanese language.
"Let's try that again," you say, before looking at the bat intently.
"That tickled," Merlot squeaks, shifting about in Kahlua's arms. Then his eyes widen in astonishment. "Wait, is that ME?"
Kahlua has the same reaction. And then-
"Eeeeeeee!"
"Ack!" Merlot squeaks in alarm, wings suddenly flailing as he is hugged. "Mistress! Air! Ears! Mercy! I am soft and squishy and have very sensitive hearing!"
"Sorry! Sorry!" Kahlua apologizes, relaxing her embrace.
-well, that worked.
Is there something you want to say to Merlot?
You give the bat a moment to recover from Kahlua's overly enthusiastic hug before speaking to him.
"So how have you been feeling, Merlot? Any sudden fatigue while flying around? Any illnesses, unexpected pains, or... aches?"
Two young vampires and two young(ish) fairies turn to glare judgmentally at you for that pun, though Kokoa mostly seems to be doing it just because everyone else is.
Merlot appears to have missed the joke. "A little stiffness at times, a soreness here and there, but nothing that a good stretch and a short flight in the dusk hasn't fixed," the Ache replies. "The older bats say that such things are not strange for pups, especially of my size."
You know that some of the bats living in Castle Shuzen are minor monsters in their own right, so if they think Merlot is just experiencing growing pains, chances are they're correct. Still, better to be safe than sorry, right?
You ask after what Merlot has been eating. He was old enough to be off milk when the Goddesses sent him to Kahlua, and has mainly been doing as the rest of the bats do, hunting insects and foraging for nectar, pollen, and fruits that grow around the estate. There's a couple of liquid dispensers in the back of his not-a-cage that provide water and sweet juice as desired, and Kahlua occasionally feeds him "bat treats" made from dried fruit and blood.
Merlot is also learning how to hunt things larger than insects. The main issue there is that even the smallest denizens of the Shuzen Estate are pretty well-equipped to defend themselves, and the Ache is some way off from being big enough or practiced enough to safely tackle the most common creatures. Kahlua's taken him off the grounds a few times to hone his skills against mundane prey, and he's done okay with rodents, amphibians, and one small lizard; he has yet to catch any birds, but seems to be looking forward to the day when he manages that.
You can't help but wonder what Merlot's diet is going to look like once he's matured. Even when they lack the power to transform into man-sized fireball-spitting Achemen, full-grown Aches are still large enough and sufficiently aggressive to pose a threat to adult Hylians.
On a related note, Merlot has yet to be seriously injured in his hunts or from playing with the other bats. Bumps and bruises, a scrape or two, but nothing like a torn wing or a broken bone. He also has yet to take ill from anything worse than an over-full stomach, which only happened the one time Kahlua left the bat-treats out by mistake.
"They were soooo gooood," Merlot sighs, licking his chops in reminiscence.
"They also made you miserable for the rest of that day," Kahlua says sternly.
"Such tasty treachery!"
Having attended to the major issues, you bow out of the conversation and let Kahlua take over. She makes the most of this opportunity, asking Merlot what parts of their usual routine he enjoys most, and which are least appealing, as well as things he'd like to try or avoid in the future. She also asks how he's been getting on with the other bats, the rest of her family, and the staff.
They carry on for some time before your spells lapse. With its energy spread out among several recipients, the Spell of Tongues falters well ahead of the Spell of Beastspeak, but this has an interesting consequence; much as you have used Tongues as an aid to learning languages in the past, Merlot retains enough of the linguistic knowledge imparted by it now to continue speaking. His vocabulary takes a noticeable hit in the process, and he forms the words slower and more crudely, but the Ache is determined to keep speaking with his Mistress.
Kahlua is, once again, delighted by this, and patiently encourages her pet.
Kokoa looks a little envious, at least until she glances towards Thistle and gives her head a shake.
You have slightly less than three weeks until Auswahlen. What would you like to do?
When you return to California from making your delivery trip to the Shuzens, you start home at a walk, using the peace and quiet to review your preparations for June 17th (again), and plan how to best deploy your assets to deal with the situation.
Two problems keep cropping up: one, the limited points of spellcasting failure for your various plans, namely yourself and Shadow Alex for Plan B, and Batreaux and Ambrose for Plan C; and two, the limited time you have to work with.
There's nothing you can do about the former issue. You don't know anyone else on Earth with the necessary magical ability, and you've already ruled out hiring extraplanar assistance. Even if you knew the Spell of Simulacrum, the copies would have only half the power of the originals, and as good as your teacher and the wizard are, they're not so powerful that clones with a fraction of their skills would be able to cast the Spell to Trap the Soul.
The Spell of the Dark Self won't help, either, since you're reliant on the Heart of Courage to use it at all, and the relic can only maintain one such alter-ego at a time. Not to mention that the idea of casting that spell on a former demon and a pain in the neck like Ambrose strikes you as just ASKING for trouble.
You're about to say that there's nothing you can do about the steadily closing deadline, either, before you pause and correct yourself: there's nothing you can PERSONALLY do about it, your mastery of Time Magic being insufficient to play games of that nature; but as it happens, you not only know but are on fairy good terms-
Briar gives you a kick for that one.
-with someone who has at least some ability to affect the passage of Time over a large area.
You're still far enough beyond the town limits that you don't hesitate to get off the road, duck behind a tree, and weave a Spell of Sending, asking Navi if she's available to meet with you.
A couple of minutes later, the ball of light and presence that you've seen the Great Fairy use for inter-planar communication glimmers into view.
"...what an unhappy forest this is," Navi murmurs, her aura giving off the momentary impression that she's looking around. "Briar, are there any Fae living hereabouts?"
"Some, but not many," Briar admits glumly. "The Hellmouth is a rotten neighbor."
Ain't that the truth?
Shaking that off, you get down to business, explaining why you called. Navi has demonstrated the ability to conjure up demiplanes where time moves differently compared to Earth, and given the time crunch you're looking at for dealing with Auswahlen, you were wondering if she'd be willing to leverage that ability on your behalf. You were thinking either a temporary sanctuary for the Quincy, where time moves slower than normal and the protective spells you cast on them would effectively last longer, or, alternately, a pocket realm where time moves faster than normal, allowing the spellcasters involved in this affair a chance to speed up their recovery.
"Either is possible," Navi replies frankly. "I can't create a demiplane that does both things at once, but two separate pocket planes that each have a different rate of temporal progression would be doable. But something like this isn't small magic, Alex. You'd owe me."
Ah.
Maybe the weight of all those lives on the line is influencing your judgment, but you don't hesitate to agree to repay Navi's assistance in this matter with another quest.
That just leaves the matter of how much you're asking of her, and hence, how much you'll "owe" her going forward. Getting the Great Fairy to set up a demiplane where time essentially stands still, at least as far as magic is concerned, is a no-brainer; with such a place to use as a refuge, you could send the Quincy in days in advance of Yhwach's awakening, and still have your spells running when you pull them back to Earth afterwards. And with duration rendered largely a non-issue, you'll have some room to play around with the structure of the Spell of Greater Spell Immunity, enabling you to affect more targets per casting.
But even so, having access to a second demiplane where time moves faster than normal would be highly advantageous for helping your magic-users replenish their reserves. You check with Navi to confirm just how much she can accelerate time, and are told that she can double the flow without causing issues.
"It's tricky to connect planes that move through time at dramatically different speeds," she explains. "The greater the differential, the more likely it is that you'll start running into issues like portals shutting down too soon because one side was moving too fast compared to the other, having the second plane wander far enough afield that you can't return to the first one anymore, or even random time-travel. And the greater the difference between the timestreams, the harder they are to line up properly and the worse the consequences if you make a mistake."
...wait a minute. You spent a couple of hours inside Navi's Silent Realm, but when you emerged, it was like no time at all had passed on Earth. That means time within the Silent Realm HAD to be moving MUCH more than twice as fast as it was on Earth.
"Hm? Well, yes. Obviously."
Does... does that mean she just threw you into a demiplane of erratic time and hoped for the best?!
"...what? No, no, nothing of the sort!"
Whew.
"There was a solid sixty percent chance that the timelines would have either synched up, or flowed in your favor. Even if they went the other way, you had another twenty percent chance not to lose more than a couple of days."
...what.
"Doesn't that mean the last twenty percent could have cost us anywhere from a couple of days to a few YEARS?" Briar asks.
WHAT.
"In theory, yes. In practice, I suspect Din would have bullied Nayru into intervening before it got that bad."
WHAT?!
Pfft-! Hahahahaha!
I am not a bully.
I don't get bullied!
...on second thought, maybe you'd better ask Navi to create that second demiplane with flowing time, rather than erratic time. Even the Quincy that like you would probably be a little annoyed if, in saving them, you also caused them to fall off the face of the Earth for an extended period of time, and you'd rather not have any more of those glowing spirit arrows fired at you if you can help it.
"As you like."
With that settled, a couple more questions need answering. The location of the demiplanes isn't one of them, fortunately, but how you're going to ACCESS them is. Extraplanar hideaways can obviously only be reached by extraplanar travel, and right now, you don't have any spells in your repertoire that will suit. That may or may not change in the coming weeks - you're close to grasping the Gate Spell - but at the moment, you're reliant on your associates for such trips, and your plans have to be shaped accordingly.
You know that Batreaux and Ambrose are both capable of casting the Spell of Plane Shift, and that Navi herself can create Gates. Balthazar hasn't mentioned any such capability, but he doesn't exactly advertise his capabilities. Unless you want to pay Navi up-front, you'll have to check with the sorcerers and wizard before you can make the travel arrangements.
Aside from that, the other outstanding issue is how soon you want Navi to create these demiplanes - and by extension, how soon you need to pay her for her work. It's too late in the evening for you to go a-questing without running up against your curfew, unless there's going to be more temporal shenanigans involved...?
"No," Navi tells you. "I have something else in mind, to make it all nice and official for the locals."
Ah.
Still, tomorrow is a Sunday, which means you've got plenty of time to take care of it then. Or you could wait; it IS three whole weeks until June 17th, and you won't actually NEED Navi's pocket realms that entire time, right?
Assuming for the moment that a) Yoruichi manages to convince the Shinigami to attack Silbern before Yhwach wakes up, b) the attack fails to take out the Sealed King, and c) you convince all the Earthside Quincy you currently know of to agree to temporarily travel to another plane to (hopefully) escape Yhwach's reach, you're going to need Gates in three different locations to evacuate everyone - and then again, to send them home once the danger has passed.
This would more than double your debt to Navi, making whatever quest she sends you on to repay her that much more demanding.
You have every confidence in your abilities, but really, you have three other master magic users on call. Spreading your debts out so that you don't owe so much to any one person, ESPECIALLY a person of the Fae persuasion-
No offense, ladies.
"None taken," Navi and Briar chorus in amusement.
-just makes good sense.
Not to mention that, despite all the oddities that come with being high-level magic-users, Ambrose and Balthazar still count as mortal natives of Earth. You can deal with them directly, without a lot of the hassle that accompanies arrangements with Navi, Batreaux, the Goddesses, or any other comparable help you might call up or contact from across the planar boundaries.
And honestly, you probably SHOULD let the guys who are helping you on this project know that you've got a lead on a refuge for the Quincy, BEFORE you go finalizing your deal with Navi. They're all experts, and letting them assess the offer and make their own recommendations is polite, wise, and gives you the chance to see Ambrose blow his stack over you performing magical impossibilities again.
Fortunately, the magic at your command makes getting in touch with your three spellcasting seniors a simple enough matter. It's late enough that you'll have to wait until tomorrow morning, Sunnydale time, to reach out to Ambrose and Balthazar; while certainly important, this matter is not so time-sensitive that you need to go chasing either of them from their beds.
That leaves the afternoon to deal with the matter of the quest.
Before that, however, you should let your folks know what's going on, or at least that you're going to be undertaking a quest to help some people.
And even before THAT, you wanted to talk to Grandmaster Wen (and by extension, Lu-sensei) about any temporal tricks he might be able to offer to help out. Not that you expect him to be able to whip up his own miniature world or anything - you're pretty sure that if he DID have such a capability, there would have been some sort of poetic allusion to it in The Fifth Element - but if he could literally punch someone into next week, or otherwise muck about with their personal time, it might be helpful.
Also, you're just curious.
Thanking Navi-
"Make sure you get plenty of rest tonight," the Great Fairy says, voice emanating from the center of the nimbus of her not-quite-here presence. "And eat well; you won't get a handicap for showing up unprepared tomorrow."
"Yes, Mom."
Bwahahahaha!
"Wha-?! You- I-!" Navi sputters.
Pfft! Hahahahaha!
Briar chokes, and then starts giggling.
Heh. Okay, that was funny.
That's when you end the spell.
"Oooh, boy," your partner manages to say between snickers. "You-hoo-hoo... you DO realize she's going to remember that, right?"
You figured as much. But you wouldn't have made the joke if you weren't prepared for the consequences.
...well, probably not.
You return to Sunnydale, and for a rarity, instead of heading straight home, you make your way to Lu-sensei's. When you round a corner and the School of Five Elements comes into view, you're a little surprised to see that a class is in session in spite of the hour. Upon reflection, you suppose it makes sense: the sun stays up until well past seven o'clock at this time of the year, making it comparatively safe for people to be out in the evening; more hours in the day mean more time to hammer potentially life-saving lessons into the students' heads; and Lu-sensei DOES have to make a living.
From what you can see from the streets, this particular class consists entirely of adults, ranging from late twenties to maybe-fifties in age. Somewhat more than a dozen in number, they're dressed in a mix of training gi, workout clothes, and casual wear, and are following Lu-sensei through a form you recognize from the mundane side of the advanced class.
You stop short of the training hall and check your phone: 6:23 pm flashes back at you.
Given your teacher's preference to start classes on the hour, this one would be a bit less than halfway done.
An impulse to spend the next half hour walking around town pops into your head, and is promptly beaten down. Instead, you take a moment to brush off any dust or debris clinging to your person after your run down from the woods, adjust your clothes to look a little more respectable, and then head inside.
As you enter the training hall, the ringing of the little bell over the door triggers a slight shift in the atmosphere of the room. Your ki senses pick up ripples of muted surprise, caution, and curiosity from the crowd of adult students: two or three of them turn their heads your way; several more try to glance at you without letting on that they're doing so; and a few foreign ki signatures poke lightly at your own aura, before withdrawing.
It's an interesting mix of the survival instincts of longtime Sunnydale residents, individuals who have experienced the Enlightenment Stick, and those who lack one quality or the other, or even both.
The majority of the class keep their attention on Lu-sensei, whose own reaction to your entrance - a brief and quite obvious look, a single nod of acknowledgment, and then dismissing you to turn his attention back to his other students, all without breaking off his demonstration of the form - noticeably eases some tense shoulders.
Bowing politely to the sensei, you head off to one side of the room and take a seat where most of the students can see you, doing your fellow Hellmouth residents the courtesy of letting them see you, rather than continuing to be a mysterious presence lurking behind them.
As you settle in to wait for Lu Tze to finish with the class or take a break, you decide you might as well take the measure of your older fellows.
As suits one of Lu-sensei's advanced classes, everybody's in good physical shape, if not outstanding. In terms of ki, five of the fifteen students have the auras of normal, healthy adults who engage in modest physical activity on a regular basis, while another six fall into the range of more athletically inclined individuals. It's the remaining four who draw your interest, as they all have the auras of active ki-users, or those on the verge of becoming so.
One of the latent cases is the man who appears to be the oldest human in the room, after Lu-sensei himself, with mid-length hair and a short beard of the same iron grey, and the tanned, weathered features of a man who's spent a long time out in the sun. Between that, the relaxed ease of his movements, and his choice of tee-shirt, knee-shorts, and bare feet as practice wear, if someone were to tell you that this man had been a surfer dude back in the Sixties or Seventies, you'd believe them.
The other student close to activating their ki is a twenty-something brunette in mainstream workout clothes. Her hair is just long enough to be pinned up in a small bun, though a few strands have escaped during practice and now dance about as she moves. There's a fierce edge to her movements that reminds you of Tatsuki, an impression reinforced by her lean-muscled build, callused hands, and not-quite-angry expression.
The first active ki-user is a man about the same age as the brunette, black-haired, blue-eyed, and wearing a proper gi with the symbol of the Five Elements School on the back. Though the outfit has been well tended to, it's seen enough use that it's getting threadbare in a few places, with subtle stitches visible in others. Its wearer, meanwhile, shows signs of having been a practicing martial artist for quite a while, with balance, controlled breathing, and ki restraint that have all been practiced so extensively as to be instinct rather than conscious effort.
The last ki-strong individual is a mature-looking woman who might be anywhere from her late twenties to a well-preserved forty-something, wearing a yellow blouse and blue slacks, and a wedding band. While not among the supernatural beauties you've run into, she's still very pretty, with the sort of face that just seems made to smile, honey-blonde hair tied back in a long tail, and a certain pleasant plumpness; all in all, you get the impression that she's somebody's mom. She has the strongest ki aura out of any of the students, a gentle warmth that she either lacks the control to keep in check or just doesn't see the need to hold back in this setting.
You rather hope it's the latter.
As far as technical skill goes, the ki-user in the gi is definitely the best in the class, flowing through the form being demonstrated with the ease of long practice. The hard-faced young woman isn't too far behind him, though at times she twitches as if about to move in a different way or slows in uncertainty, before dragging herself back to the proper motions. Prior experience in a different style getting in the way, perhaps? She certainly has the conditioning for it. Old Surfer Dude is pretty solidly middle-of-the-road, while Mrs. Mom is above the average.
About ten minutes on from your arrival, Lu-sensei breaks the class up into groups of three, with two sparring while the third acts as referee. Then he glances your way again, silently questioning if your need to speak is urgent, or if it can wait until the end of class.
You wave off your master's wordless inquiry. While the Auswahlen affair is certainly an important matter, it's not one where you're so pressed for time that you need to disrupt this class. Really, the oncoming twilight is a more impending concern, and even there, you've got most of ninety minutes before it becomes anything like a real problem.
Lu Tze acknowledges your willingness to wait, and turns his attention back to his other students.
Since you've little else to occupy yourself with in the meantime, you decide to observe your master's teaching methods, and how they vary between students of different ages, disposition, and overall skill.
Thanks to your efforts to introduce your mother to the magical arts, as well as the last few months' worth of instructive crafting with the Madisons, you have an idea of how teaching adults differs from teaching children. The former generally have a broader and deeper understanding, which simultaneously makes it easier to explain some things to them, but harder to break through various preconceptions and so-called "common knowledge." Then there's the issue of how your age impacts your ability to convince an adult - ANY adult, much less the mother of a close friend or your own Mom - that you know what you're talking about.
Which is not to suggest that Mrs. Madison or your mother consciously doubt you about magic, at this point; they'd have to be very foolish indeed or severely doubting their own senses if that were the case. It's just that whatever they know intellectually, they're still working against a lifetime of cultural bias that says kids should be the ones listening to and learning from adults, rather than the other way around.
Lu-sensei doesn't suffer from any age-related drawbacks - rather the reverse - and so you're able to get a better idea of how an adult teaches other adults.
Gained Teaching C (Plus)
As Lu-sensei moves from group to group, most of the students take the opportunity to get a look at you, with reactions ranging from dismissive shrugging and puzzled frowns to polite bows (from Gi Guy) and warm smiles (from Maybe Not So Angry Girl and Mrs. Mom).
The most dramatic reaction comes from Old Surfer Dude, who does a double take, stares in Briar's direction for a moment, and then ambles over to Lu-sensei for a quiet word.
"Wasn't expecting THAT," Briar admits, as the slightly wild-eyed greybeard takes a seat on the other side of the room, while his fellow students look on with confusion and concern.
Most of the class seems to have missed what spooked the old guy, but you receive another round of looks from the more observant individuals, this time tinged with suspicion and worry.
Perhaps because of this incident, it's still about a quarter to seven when Lu-sensei calls an end to the evening's class. Maybe half of the students bow and make their way out of the dojo in good order, gathering up shoes, wallets, purses, and/or keys as they go, paying you no real attention in the process. Another quarter spare you more guarded looks.
This leaves the four really interesting members of the class, plus one other, a middle-aged man who - now that the passive interference of the crowd has thinned out and you're paying closer attention - you can feel has the marks of long-term and possibly lifelong Sunnydale residence on his aura, a lot like your folks.
"You can all stop looking at the boy like he's about to turn into a snake or something," Lu Tze says dryly.
"Yeah, turning into a snake never helps."
There is a moment of silence, broken only by the sound of Lu-sensei's ki strike reaching across space and time to thwack you across the back of the head.
"The Evil Overlord's List?" Maybe Not So Angry Girl groans. "Really?"
"The what, now?" Old Surfer Dude inquires.
"It's something you can find online," comes the answer. "A big list of do's and don'ts that a successful Evil Overlord should follow, like not sticking the hero into an inescapable death trap, revealing your master plan, and then leaving him alone to die, the way every Bond villain ever does. One of them is, 'I will not turn into a snake. It never helps.'"
"...like Thulsa Doom," Old Surfer Dude says after a moment. "Or Jafar."
"Exactly."
"Wait," Gi Guy says slowly, while looking at his female peer. "You know who Thulsa Doom is?"
"Is there some reason why I shouldn't?" Slightly Angry Girl asks.
"Well, it's kind of an old movie-"
"My husband and I went to see it back when we were dating," Mrs. Mom comments in a deceptively mild tone.
Gi Guy winces, but forges on. "-and, uh, a bit niche?"
"It was Schwarzenegger's breakout role," the girl notes.
"You might want to stop, kid," Old Surfer Dude advises with a faint smirk.
"...yeah, I got nothing."
"Are we all done, then?" Lu Tze asks of the room at large.
There is a round of affirmations, and a couple of apologies, though your teacher waves the latter off.
"This sort of thing happens where the boy is involved."
That's fair.
A round of introductions follow.
"Gi Guy" is James Manheim, lifelong Sunnydale resident, freshman at UC Sunnydale, and older brother of the now-high school-aged Sam Manheim, one of the girls from the advanced class that you've been attending part-time.
"Angry Girl" is Lisa Vaughn, out-of-towner and sophomore at UC Sunnydale.
"Mrs. Mom" is Trisha Kane, a seven-year resident of the 'Dale.
The middle-aged man you didn't privately assign a nickname to is Alberto Bautista, another lifelong Sunnydale resident.
Finally, "Old Surfer Dude" is introduced as Christopher Lawrence Henderson III, who asks that you call him Chris, and then apologizes if he upset your little glowy friend.
The other four adults give Chris looks of alternating disbelief (James and Lisa) and concern (Mrs. Kane and Mr. Bautista), which he easily fields.
"Hey, I get it." He holds up one hand, thumb and forefinger barely an inch apart. "I was THIS close to freaking out about it myself. Bad times, bad memories. But the Sensei said I'm not seeing something that isn't there, just something that most people don't, and - more importantly - something which isn't going to hurt anybody."
...this doesn't appear to reassure any of the others. Which is annoying, but - given you all live in Sunnydale - also perfectly understandable.
"Should I...?" Briar interjects.
Yeah, you should probably clear the air before the misapprehension gets too fixed in people's minds.
Raising your hand for attention, you inform the other adults that Mr. Henderson-
"No, really. 'Chris' is fine."
-that Chris really isn't imagining things, and you can prove it, if everyone will agree NOT to freak out and/or attack your sort-of-invisible friend when she stops being sort-of-invisible.
One by one, the members of the group look to Lu-sensei, receive patient nods of reassurance, and agree to your terms. The last holdout is Mr. Bautista, who looks rather uneasy.
"Is this going to involve tentacles?" he asks. "Or slime? Or eyes in places that there really shouldn't be eyes?"
Ah. Past experience with close encounters of the aberrant kind. That would certainly explain the discomfort.
You assure the man that Briar has no such features, and in fact, looks almost entirely like a human being. She just happens to have pointy ears and butterfly wings.
"...that sounds like you're describing a fairy," Miss Vaughn says.
"Good guess," Briar replies, as she takes on her human-sized form.
Apart from Chris, all of the adult students jump at your partner's sudden appearance, with one or two choked-off exclamations of surprise, but nobody freaks out or tries to attack her.
Though Henderson does pose a question: "Are you a little fairy temporarily turned big, or a big fairy that was hanging around in a smaller form?"
"The first," Briar assures him.
"What's the difference?" Mrs. Kane wonders.
"The little ones are mostly harmless," Henderson tells the younger woman. "The big ones are mostly not."
A somewhat simplified assessment, but accurate enough.
The ensuing conversation isn't too long, as the adults have places to be before the sun goes down, and so don't spend more than a couple of minutes asking the polite questions about you and Briar: how you met; why a fairy girl is hanging out with a human boy; that sort of thing.
You keep your answers short and to the point, though not so much as to seem rude, and ask those present to keep Briar's existence a secret.
The departure of the last members of the previous class overlaps with the arrival of a few members of the last class of the evening, so you, Briar, and your teacher step into his office for a minute. You lay out the day's developments for your master, who takes everything in with only a few surprised blinks and a frustrated sigh.
Then you ask if he thinks Grandmaster Wen would be willing and able to contribute any assistance to the defense of the Quincy from Auswahlen.
"I have no doubt that the Grandmaster would be willing to help," your teacher replies promptly, "but I do have some concerns about how useful his skills would be for the task - unless it involved joining this invasion you're trying to arrange, and punching out the problem at the source. But I will be sure to pass this information on, the next time I summon him."
That's all you can really ask of him right now, and you mean that literally: though the office window, you can see the dojo starting to fill up; and beyond that, through the window at the front of the school, what you can see of the evening sky is starting to take on the hues of approaching sunset.
Thanking Lu-sensei for his time, you and Briar exit the office and the School of the Five Elements, and head home.
These people are your seniors in the School of Five Elements, and of being students of Lu Tze in particular, and you've absorbed enough Japanese culture by this point that there's a little voice in your head saying that you should trust your senpai to keep their promises.
Aside from that, there's the fact that your mutual teacher hasn't tried to chase anybody off or spin a tale that would convince the average Sunnydaler that everything was Perfectly Normal, they weren't actually seeing Strange Things, and they should just Go Home And Forget About It. It implies a certain level of trust, and once again, you have the urge to trust your sensei to know what he's doing and follow his lead.
And so, you do.
Gained Young King B (Plus) (Plus)
Upon returning home, you avail yourself of a late supper - leftover take-out pizza, which a simple cantrip warms up nicely - do your own dishes, and then head down to your Mirror Hideaway to call up Batreaux and fill him in on the day's developments.
The Risen Demon is both pleased and honestly relieved to hear that you've recruited Navi's assistance in the effort to save the Quincy. Your choice to ask her to create a couple of temporary demiplanes with altered time strikes him as a little odd, but he can certainly appreciate the practical advantages; his main concern is that, since they'll be directly adjacent to Earth, the pocket realms might be "close enough" to be within reach of Yhwach's powers.
"It depends on how many planar borders he can project across in one go," your sorcery tutor muses. "That fortress-city of his is somewhere on the Astral, and reaching from there to another part of the Astral, to Earth, or to any other plane coterminous with the Astral should be no hardship - though the way Silbern has been hidden adjacent to the Soul Society might well count as a boundary all on its own. Reaching across the boundaries to a third plane, all in the same go, rather than breaking it down into stages, is a tricker affair, and he'd have to do so while targeting a thousand different locations at once." Batreaux shakes his head, horn-like hair waving slightly. "If he didn't have those soul anchors linking him to the Quincy, I would say it was impossible. As it stands... it's unlikely, but no more than that."
An uncertain chance of survival is still worlds better than leaving the Quincy somewhere that the Sealed King can get at them for sure.
In any event, Batreaux can help you relocate Quincy to and from Navi's demiplanes. He'll have to consult with her about acquiring the necessary focuses for the Spell of Plane Shifting, but once that's done, he'll be able to move groups of eight (including himself) as needed. The demiplanes will be small enough that the spell's usual drawback of arriving miles off-target won't really matter, and while the return trips to Earth will be a little more complicated, Batreaux is perfectly capable of teleportation.
While you've got him here, do you have any other questions for Batreaux?
With Batreaux informed, the next magic-user on your list is Ambrose. He'll still be asleep at the moment, but if you wanted to, you could put the Magic Cellphone he gave you to good use, in... about five hours' time? If you instead feel the need to visit the old man in person, it's going to have to wait until the sun comes up again here at home, which would make it around two in the afternoon at the Drake residence.
It's been about a month since you last checked with Batreaux about his progress in finding someone willing to teach you the Clone Spell, so you decide to take advantage of his presence to ask about it.
A look of embarrassment crosses your teacher's face, and he awkwardly coughs into one meaty fist.
"Ah, yes. ABOUT that... my inquiries have turned up two individuals who have admitted to being versed in the spell in question, and who meet our various criteria."
Batreaux then proceeds to tell you about these two.
The first is a Zoran witch and healer who lived two centuries after the death of the Hero of Time and the sealing of the Demon King. He was one of the first to investigate the monstrous degeneration that afflicts his people, transforming them from a rational, civilized beings into the savage and bestial "River Zora" that haunt so many of modern Hyrule's waterways. The healer's goal was to uncover the cause of the ailment and work towards a cure, but the Zora of his time considered it taboo to even discuss the matter, which forced him to conduct his research in secret. In addition, when he found that he could not rule out the possibility that the affliction was a proper curse, the healer began delving into the murkier realms of necromancy, increasing his knowledge of curse-calling in the hope of better identifying and combatting the degeneration.
Needless to say, all of this got the man into quite a bit of trouble when he tried to take his preliminary findings to the King Zora of the day. His research was condemned and destroyed, and the healer himself was cast out of the Domain and the other territories claimed by the civilized Zora, forbidden to return on pain of death.
In a better age, the outcast witch might have sought aid from the Royal Family of Hyrule, desperation overcoming the stubborn pride that had prevented him from doing so in the first place. But Hyrule as a whole had been going steadily downhill for the last two hundred years and more, land and people equally ravaged by Ganondorf's seven-year reign of terror. The Hero had been killed by the Demon King, the Sages that yet survived were greatly diminished by age, and the descendant of the maimed Queen lacked her wisdom or care for "outsiders."
With nowhere to turn, the witch went into seclusion and spent the remainder of his life struggling to rebuild and further his work. He never succeeded, but he also never wholly lost his way to despair or darkness, holding fast to the healer's oaths he had sworn before a priestess of Nayru as a younger man. It was that dedication which earned him admission to the Divine Realm when his life finally came to an end.
The other potential teacher that Batreaux has located is a Kokiri with a love for the macabre, who spent more time hanging out in the darker parts of the Lost Woods than she perhaps should have. She did not take the death of the Great Deku Tree well, and her previous interest in spooky things turned into a fascination with necromancy, which did not abate when the Great Deku Sprout was reborn. She left the Kokiri Village and made a new home for herself in the Lost Woods proper, where she dealt with Skull Kids, Stalkin, and other eerie spirits of the forest in the years of darkness that followed the Hero's death.
"She never truly 'went bad,' as so many necromancers do," Batreaux explains. "The Lost Woods provided more than enough research materials for her to work with, without her once having to commit violence upon the innocent or desecrate hallowed ground. But she seldom raised a hand to help those she saw as intruders, either, which caused... friction with her fairy partner and the Deku Tree. On the other hand, the growing population of monsters and the youth of the Deku Tree meant that the Woods DID need a guardian, which was a role she fulfilled well enough."
Okay, so you've got a tragically noble Zora and a creepy Kokiri. Neither of them seem like so bad as to account for Batreaux's original reaction, unless there's something more about them he hasn't told you...?
"No, it's not either of them. It's just that... well... in my EAGERNESS to help the young vampire's spirit out of the limbo that holds her, I may have let my interest become known to the, ahem, wrong sort of people."
...oh?
Batreaux sighs. "I have been informed by reliable sources that the Twinrova found out."
Oh.
"I assure you, I never went ANYWHERE near the two of them. The Goddesses have those two set up in their own little closed-off VALLEY OF DOOM, and nothing and nobody gets in or out of there that their Golden Graces aren't aware of. But there is a VEXINGLY thorough gossip chain among the witches of Hyrule, and word of my interest in the Spell of Cloning made its way to Koume and Kotake at something like four or five removes."
Oh, boy.
What do you have to say to this?
Back during your birthday party, Koume and Kotake demonstrated the ability to hear and glare at members of the audience in the Ring of Trials. You've since attributed that feat to their having some version of the Spell to Detect Scrying up and running, one powerful enough to allow them to take advantage of the scrying effect generated by the Ring of Trials for the benefit of the audience.
It was honestly a near thing that the witches didn't identify you then, but perhaps because of that reminder that the Twinrova rank among the scarier spellcasters in Hyrule's history, and that you've had time to quietly freak out about and come to terms with the implications of the fact, you aren't as shocked now by the news that they're taking a roundabout interest in your magical education.
Still worried, of course, but not alarmed.
Getting back to the topic at hand, you ask Batreaux if his investigation of the Zoran witch and the Kokiri necromancer have reached the point of asking prices or not.
"As I have yet to speak with either of them except through intermediaries and Sending Spells, that would be a no," your tutor admits. "However, I am scheduled to meet with each of them in person in the next two weeks, to discuss my present interest in their arts face-to-face."
Alright, then. You look forward to hearing the developments.
With that matter once again tabled, you decide to ask Batreaux if he's up for an evening lesson in DARKEST SORCERY.
"Ahhh, my young student, I thought you would have learned by now; NIGHTTIME is the BEST TIME to practice DARKEST SORCERY! LET US BEGIN!"
And so goes the next few hours.
In the end, you decide that discussing Navi's contributions to the Plan To Save the Quincy with Ambrose (and later, with Balthazar) is the sort of thing that demands a face-to-face meeting.
It's partly a desire not to have sensitive information traveling the magical airwaves, and partly a wish to see the wizard's face in person when you reveal what you've been up to.
That said, when the sun finally comes up in the 'Dale, you do call ahead to make sure the wizard is available to speak with you.
*RIIIING*
...
*RIIIING*
...
*RII-*
"Merle's Magical Marvels, we cast it, you curse it," the old man's voice says cheerfully. From the background noise, it sounds like he's outdoors.
"Hi, Ambrose; it's Alex."
"Good afternoon, Alex. Or, I suppose in your case, good morning. What can I-"
"RRRROOOOAAAARRRR!"
You flinch and yank the phone away from your ear as something huge, hungry, and horrible announces itself.
Din damn it, right in the ear.
Gained Thunder Resistance E (Plus) (Plus)
"-one minute," the wizard says over the echoes of that thunderous bellow. With a loss of volume that indicates he's lowered his own phone, you hear him yell words of magic-
"Fulmenos venite!"
*ZAPPOW!*
-which are punctuated by a tearing, electrical discharge, a near-simultaneous thundercrack, and a second monstrous roar, which warbles over the suddenly static-filled line with a note of pain.
"-you to int**rupt *omeone **** they're on the phone!" Ambrose shouts, before readjusting his phone. "Right then, as I was saying, what can I do for you this fine day?"
Although you are concerned that you may have caught Ambrose at an inconvenient moment, you figure that if the wizard is confident enough to carry on his side of a conversation on the phone when something as large as the source of that roar is walking around, it's a situation he can handle - or at least survive long enough to call for help from and get bailed out by a second (or third?) party.
Sort of like that time he got sucked into Hell.
...
Recalling THAT incident almost makes you ask anyway, but you fight down your morbid curiosity enough to stick to the matter at hand.
"I was wondering if you were available for a face-to-face meeting today," you tell Ambrose.
"That would depend on what the meeting was about, and when you wanted to have it. You may have noticed that I'm a bit far from home at the moment-"
No, really?
"-and I do need to take care of- hang on."
More savage roaring ensues, although this time, there are multiple "voices," most of which sound somewhat smaller than the original. If the beast that Ambrose hit with that Lightning Bolt was the size of an elephant, these would be tigers - albeit ones that roar like lions.
This time, instead of calling down the lightning, Ambrose barks words commanding fire. These are followed by overlapping Doppler-shifted hisses of hot air, as projectiles race away from the wizard's position-
*BOOOOM!*
-with one detonating barely more than a second later-
*BOOOOM!*
-and another going off maybe half a second after that, both with a great deal of howling.
The violent detonations, rush of displaced air, and crackle of flames make you think "Fireball," though the basic spell has clearly been modified to allow for multiple explosions. You can't tell from over the phone if it was an entirely new spell, or "just" one that Ambrose modified.
"There's more where that came from!" the old man warns his unfriendly company.
From the way the defensive growls and pained whimpering start to fade into the distance, whatever creatures are out there with the wizard took the hint, and are retreating.
Ambrose makes a sound of grim satisfaction before resuming your conversation. "To continue, I do need to take care of business here before I head back to Arthur's place - unless you've stumbled over yet another apocalypse, and it won't keep for an hour or so?"
"Nothing like that, no. There have just been some developments regarding the Quincy that I thought I should let you know about."
"Ah. Good or bad?"
"Definitely good," you tell him, "but could be better, depending on what you and Balthazar can contribute. I was planning to call him next."
"Hmmm. It's, what, nine-ish in New York right now?"
That sounds about right to you.
"Good. In that case, let Balthazar know to expect me at ten, ten-thirty."
But you haven't even spoken to-!
"In the meantime," Ambrose forges on, over renewed noises of large, numerous, and angry critters storming his way, "I'm about to require the use of both hands, so if you will excuse me, I shall see you at the Arcana Cabana. Ta ta for now!"
And then he hangs up, leaving you to stare at your Magic Cellphone in consternation.
For better or worse, when you call Balthazar and inform him of Ambrose's "request," the Merlinean sorcerer is quite understanding of the old wizard's presumptuous nature.
Since you've got a little time to fill before you need to leave to meet the older magic-users, you sit down in your room to do some reading. You're still going through your "riddle a day" from the Book of Koans, but you managed to finish the Romantic Edition of Kitsune Legends and get started on your more recent purchases from the Arcana Cabana.
All things considered, you have a decent (if not truly outstanding) grasp of the "traditional" methods of making magic items. Brewing potions, scribing scrolls, imbuing lasting magical effects into hand-crafted objects of exceptional quality - this is all stuff you've already done, and can easily build on using your existing knowledge and with help from your summoned tutors.
Getting magic and modern technology working together, however, is a field that you've only dipped your toes in by comparison. It's likely that lack of familiarity, and the opportunity to start making up for your ignorance, which led you to select Electrical Enchantments as the first of your new books to read.
Although it wasn't a terribly long book, it took you most of the month to read, on account of the new ideas it introduced you to that you had to look up elsewhere. Your grasp of Lightning Elementalism wasn't particularly impressive to start with, and hampered somewhat in the true understanding of the forces at work by the limitations of Hyrule's grasp of "natural philosophy." Your three years of modern education at Sunnydale Elementary and the additional bits you picked up from hanging out at Uncle Rory's garage or reading that copy of the Infernal Combustion Engine were more helpful on the physical side of things, but even so, the information had its limits: your science teachers haven't gone into THAT much detail about electromagnetism; and your Dad, Uncle, and previous book were more concerned about practical, mechanical applications of electricity than the theory, and then mainly in relation to cars.
Electrical Enchantments is not so constrained.
Gained Lightning Affinity F (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Production (Electronics) F
Gained Raiden's Favor E (Plus) (Plus)
You finished reading that book last week, and have been been making your way through Weave of Magic since then. You're about a third of the way through the book, and so far, you haven't come across anything ground-breaking. Once you've accounted for the differences in ambient magical energies on Earth and Hyrule and the variations in personal crafting styles (both mundane and mystical), the basics of working magic into textile products seem to be pretty consistent between the worlds.
You remain hopeful that something more interesting will turn up in the later chapters, and it's with that aspiration in mind that you sit down on your bed to read for the next half-hour.
...
Hm. This chapter is starting to get into the qualitative differences between traditional "handmade" garments and those sewn together using electrical machines. Potentially useful, but a glance at the clock shows you need to be on your way shortly, so you mark your place and set the book down for now.
Since it's mid-morning in New York, you aim your teleportation spell at a spot farther back from the mouth of the alley than the place you stood when you left on your last visit.
Your arrival is greeted by a hair-raising feline yowl of alarm, which you will admit to starting in surprise at.
"Back, furry devil!" Briar hisses.
The striped brown tabby cat responds in kind, back arched and fur standing on end as it glares at your partner.
Sighing, you look around to see if the cat is the only local to have been disturbed by your sudden arrival, but the alley appears to be empty, and you neither see nor sense observers on the street ahead.
A low, warning growl draws your attention back to the cat, whose tail twitches nervously even as its glare shifts over to you.
Turning your back on the cat, you exit the alley and make your way across the street to the Arcana Cabana. The neighborhood's a bit busier at this hour of the day than you're used to, with an actual pedestrian presence, a couple of cars that go by before you cross - and a third shortly after - and the people you can see moving around in various stores. Again, your senses don't detect anything out of the ordinary, and that fact persists when you enter the Arcana Cabana and find nobody around.
welcome back, nice to see you, will you read us this time?
A quick look around shows that the place remains unchanged: whispering books; starry hat under glass; fake Grimholt; a whole lot of stuff that a lesser mind would call "junk"; and a lack of anyone other than yourself and Briar.
Idly, you wonder how often Balthazar actually gets customers in here. It must happen, right? Or does he have another source of income that he lives off of, and the magic shop is just a sideline, a hobby, or some kind of front?
"Sorry to have disturbed you."
You nod to the cat as you speak.
The animal responds with a low yowl and another tail-twitch as it continues to stare at you.
Well, you tried.
You've been standing in the Arcana Cabana for less than a minute when Balthazar appears, not from the back room, but up on the cobweb-strewn metal balcony that encircles the room. He's holding a stack of two large, heavy-looking books and a small metal box, and he peers around these to see who's just entered his shop.
"Ah, good morning, Alex, Briar," he greets you, as he begins making his way to the twisting stair in the corner. "I was wondering if you'd get here before Ambrose did."
"Didn't want to be trapped alone with the old man if you could help it?" Briar guesses.
Balthazar chuckles, but doesn't otherwise answer. Instead, he asks how you've enjoyed your recent purchases.
You explain that, due to your other commitments, you've only had time to get through Electrical Enchantments and a bit over a third of Weave of Magic. You also weren't able to do more than read the former book, and not just for a lack of time; in order to practice the magic-and-technology fusing techniques and spells described within, you're going to need some expendable electronics you can experiment with. Your lab doesn't really have the space for any further additions, and you'd rather not end up with the smell of melted plastic and burnt circuitry tainting your bedroom.
Balthazar just nods. "I'm not an expert on modern housing," he admits, "but from what I've seen of middle-class family residences over the years, they aren't really designed with lab-work in mind. There are reasons why isolated towers are a traditional residence for magic-users."
Mainly that solid stone construction tends to hold up better to the forces magic can unleash than more common and easier-worked materials, the altitude gives any explosions or noxious emanations more room to safely disperse, and being relatively remote cuts down on complaints from the neighbors.
Also, if said neighbors decide to assemble an angry mob, an elevated position gives the practitioner better odds of seeing them coming AND a clear line of fire, while stone walls are once again harder to break or burn down than a lot of the classic alternatives.
Not that you mention any of THAT out loud.
Your conversation with Balthazar is interrupted by the shop's doorbell ringing once again, and when you turn, there is Ambrose, looking... surprisingly normal for once. Instead of the robe and wizard hat that seem to be his preferred "duty" attire, the loud Hawaiian shirt and trunks he was wearing when you first met him back at the World Tournament, or that trenchcoat-and-hockey-stick "disguise" he showed up in when visiting Sunnydale, Ambrose is dressed in a casual brown suit and carrying the same briefcase he had his notes on the Grail War in, back at Castle Shuzen. If not for his beard and cane, the old man could walk down the street outside without drawing a second glance - and that includes from the magically-sensitive, as Ambrose currently has his aura masked to the point where he feels only slightly more magical than your mother.
"That's a different look for you," Briar comments.
"It's not one of my favorites, but..." Ambrose trails off for a moment, as he looks from your partner to you. "I assume young Mr. Stutler has regaled the two of you with the story of his first and second meetings with Balthazar Blake and Maxim Horvath?"
You nod.
"Well, whatever his personal failings, Maxim was never one to leave an opponent unwatched. He'll have eyes on this place, so it's best they only see an old man with just enough magic on him to be explained by a passing fascination with the occult."
That makes sense. Walking in here with his usual magical presence open to view would give up Ambrose's identity pretty quick, and tip off Horvath that something was up, but coming in with no magical traces on his aura at all could be a bit suspicious as well. You'd certainly think so, considering that of the seven people you know to have been in the Arcana Cabana, the only one without significant magical talent is Mrs. Stutler.
Granted, your sample is biased, but it's what you've got.
While you're thinking over that, Ambrose walks up to the shop's counter and sets his case down on top of it. He fiddles with the locking mechanism for a moment, then opens the case up and takes out-
"Really, Ambrose?" Balthazar asks. "At this hour?"
-a small bottle of some sort of pale golden-brown alcohol, and two shot glasses.
"Trust me," the wizard says to the sorcerer, "we're going to need it."
He opens the bottle, fills both glasses, and then hands one off to a disapproving and somewhat disbelieving Balthazar, while taking up the other.
"Right, then," Ambrose says, turning his attention to you. "I believe I am sufficiently prepared to deal with your latest nonsense, lad. Hit me."
You are briefly tempted to raise your fist and literally do as Ambrose requested, but given the seriousness of the matter you've all gathered to discuss and the fact that the old wizard is more or less behaving himself for once, you decide not to follow through on that mischievous impulse.
Instead, you explain that you made contact with Navi, and that she has agreed to create two demiplanes for you to exploit in hiding the Quincy, pocket realms where time moves differently than it does on Earth: one moving twice as fast, for the purposes of abetting magical recovery; and the other being timeless, so that the spells of protection you were planning to cast over the Quincy to shield their souls from Yhwach's notice and power will last indefinitely.
"...I think I will take that drink after all," Balthazar says, even though he's already holding it.
Ambrose raises his own glass, says "Cheers," and then downs it in one shot.
Balthazar does likewise.
"First question," the wizard says, as he begins refilling both glasses, "what did the Great Fairy want in exchange for her inestimable assistance?"
You explain that you'll be going on a quest for her to cover the costs of creating the demiplanes, and also, potentially, for the costs of ferrying people to and from them - which is why you wanted to talk to these two and Batreaux, to see if you could cut down on or even eliminate the need to "pay" Navi for a bunch of Plane Shifting and/or Gate spells.
"...that actually answers my second question as well," Ambrose muses, idly swirling his drink about. "But it also prompts a third: exactly what sort of quest will you be doing?"
Well, if Navi's past actions are any indication-
"They are," Briar says.
-then you're expecting to be sent to fetch some relic that has caught her interest, which will undoubtedly be held in some remote stronghold, full of life-threatening traps and guardian monsters and mind-numbing puzzles. Plus at least one very large and comparatively powerful "boss," which you'll invariably have to challenge to obtain the item.
"But you don't know for sure," Ambrose presses.
Well, no-
The wizard raises his glass for a second time.
-but that's because you haven't finalized the agreement yet.
Booze not quite to his lips, Ambrose pauses. "Eh?"
Like you said, you wanted to talk to your seniors in magic, to see if they were willing and able to handle some or all of the travel arrangements, so as to bring the final price of Navi's aid down. You add that Batreaux has already agreed to help, but that he would have to use the Spell of Plane Shifting, which would sharply limit how many of the Quincy could be moved out per casting AND make the return trips rather erratic.
"I haven't used the Spell of Plane Shifting in, oh, decades," Balthazar muses. "Too many beings start complaining when you don't use the existing portals and gates to get around."
"Well, of course they do," Ambrose mutters sourly. "It's so much EASIER for them to play their little power games when the rest of us are largely confined to our native planes, and can only cross the borders at places and times of THEIR choice. If planar travel were CONVENIENT, why, they'd have to get off their divine duffs and expend actual EFFORT keeping their borders secure."
...
You wonder if this would be a good time to mention that you've been studying the Gate Spell.
Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?
"Would this be a bad time to mention that I've been studying the Gate Spell myself?" you say out loud.
Ambrose and Balthazar turn to look at you, then trade glances.
"Are you surprised?" the wizard asks.
"Not as much as I probably would have been, if I hadn't been to his birthday party," the sorcerer replies. "All the space-time magic that went into the preparations for that?"
Ambrose nods. "It'd be stranger if he WASN'T working on Gates." He doesn't toss back his glass, but does take a sip before speaking to you again. "How far along are you? Do you think you'll be able to use the spell reliably, come our all-too-literal deadline?"
A brief technical discussion ensues, as you describe your efforts to produce a working inter-planar portal. In your practice sessions with Batreaux, you've gotten to the point where you can reliably form the basic matrix of a Gate four attempts out of five, but when it comes to actually connecting to your intended destination(s), your success rate is a lot lower.
Batreaux carries a number of planar focuses for the Spell of Plane Shift, which are compatible with the Gate Spell; however, most of those link to locations in or adjacent to Hyrule, making them too risky for you to use. This forced you to get creative with your practice sessions, using Mirror Hideaways to take yourself off of Earth's plane of existence, and then trying to open a Gate that leads back to a safe area on Earth.
The good news is that the focuses necessary for these spells aren't that difficult to make, provided you're actually ON the plane you want to attune them to. You just need to get a forked rod made from particular types of metal at certain levels of purity, ritually cleanse it of all magical traces, and then place it in a potion bath that helps it to absorb the energies of the world around it. Let it steep for anywhere from a day to a year and a day, depending on the material(s) used, the nature of the plane, and various other factors, and you're done.
Planar focuses attuned to Earth take about a month to make, and you've had plenty of time over the past year to produce one for yourself, another for Batreaux, and even one for Navi.
But WHERE did you make them?
The matter of focuses aside, the fact remains that you're still some time away from mastering the Gate Spell. Three weeks isn't a lot of time to work with, and there is a very real possibility that you still won't be able to use the spell reliably when the deadline arrives, or that circumstances will force you to take action even sooner than that. With that in mind, you've been making your plans with the assumption that you won't have learned how to create Gates on your own when Yhwach makes his move.
You say as much to Ambrose, and he nods.
"Get the two of us the necessary focuses to travel to Lady Navi's pocket realms, and we'll handle the rest."
"What do you mean 'we,' old man?" Balthazar says.
"Oh, like you were ever going to say no."
And that's the travel angle covered.
You were tempted to reach out to the Drakes, or your business partner Gen, for assistance with creating your planar focuses. Both parties have known you long enough, and on a close enough basis, that convincing them to let you have a Gate key attuned to their property (or in the case of the Drakes, the land just outside their property) wouldn't have been too difficult.
Convincing them to allow you to hand over said focus to Navi wouldn't have been much harder. Gen LIKES fairies, after all, and while Altria has some Fae-related trauma, that's mostly Ambrose's fault, and hasn't prevented all those little fairies from living on and around her family's domain.
The main reason you didn't get in touch with the Drakes is that you already owe Ambrose a couple of favors, and the more debt you build up with him, the worse it's going to be when he finally decides to call in your marker(s).
You decided to leave Gen out because he's not well set up to deal with the problems that could result, should one or more focuses attuned to his shop fall into the wrong hands, or a Gate end up being created there from some undesireable plane.
Ambrose's wards or no, you didn't even CONSIDER creating keys attuned to a spot on the Hellmouth, nor did you yet trust Urahara enough to leave an example of your spellcraft sitting out where he could poke at it.
In the end, it came down to a choice between creating the focuses on Bali Ha'i, which is protected against evil influences, and doing so outside the territory of the Shuzens, who are quite capable of dealing with most problems that could result. And since Kahine proved amenable to having multiple focusing items attuned to her domain, while the Shuzens were only willing to allow one such, that's what you went with.
Batreaux gained Forked Rod (Bali Ha'i)
Navi gained Forked Rod (Bali Ha'i)
Gained Forked Rod (Shuzen Estate Exterior)
It was easier to sell the vampires on the idea of the rod being in your possession than any of the alternatives, whereas Kahine had no complaints about entrusting planar keys linked to the island to a Great Fairy and a servant of the Golden Goddesses.
As a bonus, Kahine was willing to waive any favors owed for the keys, saying that she still owed you for keeping Ghido the Island Turtle from making a meal out of a significant chunk of Bali Ha'i's ecosystem. So that's nice.
The Shuzens hadn't called in their debt with you before the entire business with Jasmine came up; as it stands, they're quite willing to call that one squared if and when you resolve the issue of the girl's pseudo-resurrection.
Speaking of forked metal rods, you'll have to check with Navi about creating some attuned to her soon-to-be-conjured demiplanes. There probably isn't time to create more than two keys for the plane with accelerated time, and you have no idea how long it would take to produce even one key for the timeless realm. With as many as four spellcasters looking to gain access to the places...
Yeah, definitely need to talk to the Great Fairy.
With the travel angle taken care of, you take the opportunity to ask Balthazar if there have been any new developments with the New York Quincy, and to find out what Ambrose has been doing in regards to this entire affair.
On your last visit to the Arcana Cabana, you asked Balthazar to help you maintain operational security, and not reveal to his Quincy contacts that outsiders were aware of the existence of the Sealed King, or making plans to thwart his impending awakening. The Sorcerer of the Seven Hundred and Seventy-Seventh Degree has honored that request, though this has made it a little more difficult for him to get accurate information from or about the people he's been investigating. He's consulted public records of births, marriages, and deaths to try and work out just how many living relatives the New York Quincy have, used Divination Magic to confirm which of those relatives have Quincy powers, whether active or latent, and done some prognosticating to see how different members of the extended lineage would react to the names "Yhwach" and "Wandenreich," or to being told that there was a plan to thwart them.
All in all, Balthazar has expanded that initial list of a dozen names to just over twenty, at least half of whom are definitely Gemischt Quincy, as they have living parents who demonstrably lack Yhwach's mark on their souls. Most branches of the family returned neutral or positive results from the Merlinean master's auguries about thwarting Yhwach, but several members have consistently returned results of "woe," implying that revealing your plans to them would not be a good idea.
And speaking of possible intelligence leaks, you decided to hold off on approaching the New York Quincy until you had a concrete rescue plan to present them. You're on the verge of achieving that very condition, and Balthazar would like to know how you mean to proceed, once you've met Navi's price. He recommends getting in touch with two of the elders, a married couple who both yielded positive results when he divined their likely reactions to being told the whole story, and letting them weigh in on how best to broach the subject to the rest of their kin. However, other options are certainly available.
You have no issue with Balthazar's suggestion. If Ishida Souken's interactions with his daughter-in-law and "niece" are any indication, elders appear to retain a degree of authority in Quincy subculture that's... not exactly lost to the modern cultures you're familiar with, but less common than it used to be.
It makes sense to your Gerudo memories, and likewise rings true with what you know of monster culture; old warriors only live to BE old because they're good, lucky, or both, and experience added to either or both of those factors makes for quite a dangerous person. Quincy seem likely to remain combat-capable longer than some other old warriors, so long as their hands, eyes, and minds remain in good working order, which supports the idea of Quincy elders having more weight to throw around with their younger kin than ordinary grandparents might.
That said, you're probably not going to have the time and/or energy to be diplomatic after Navi gets through with you today. So "as soon as possible" is probably going to end up being this Saturday, unless Balthazar is willing to close up shop for an afternoon or something...?
He nods. "I'll get in touch with them after lunch and arrange a meeting. Do you have a preferred time?"
You've got class at Lu-sensei's Monday, Wednesday, and Friday after school, and dinner right after that - and by that point, it'd be after dark over here, thanks to the time difference between California and New York. Of course, it's not like missing a day of training will hurt you at this point, as long as you get permission from Lu-sensei ahead of time.
With the New York Quincy addressed, you mentally brace yourself, turn to Ambrose, and ask what he's been doing.
The answer turns out to be a number of things.
For starters, the old wizard performed some Divination rituals to see if there were any Quincy in Great Britain. The responses all came back negative, which Ambrose says he was kind of expecting, given the strong presence the Mages' Association has in the United Kingdom.
"Both sides are proud, fiercely protective of their traditions and secrets, not above using force to get their own way, and prone to seeking vengeance on their enemies," the wizard says, shaking his head. "The first magus and Quincy to ever meet probably tried to kill each other five minutes later."
"Depressingly likely," Balthazar admits.
"In any case, I also asked Mary to check the Association's files for mention of Quincy for me," Ambrose continues. "Just on the off chance there was something useful to be found thre. It turns out that the Quincy have their own little section in the archives, coming to a few hundred books in total, most of which are either centuries old or transcriptions of works even older. Every single one of them includes a preface warning the reader that Quincy powers can destroy Circuits and Crests, and any magus stupid enough to bring their wrath down on himself will find no sympathy or support from the rest of the Association."
...huh.
"Was there anything useful?" you ask.
"Mary found a couple of books that discussed how to attune combat spells for greater effectiveness against Quincy," the wizard answers sourly. "They both disagreed on the mechanics, the author of one appears to have gone and gotten himself killed testing his theories, and the other book had some of the critical information redacted."
...that'll be a no, then.
"At the very least, it was a hell of a lot less helpful than it could have been." Ambrose takes a deeper drink from his glass. "Bloody obsessive-compulsive information-hoarders..."
As Ambrose vents his irritation with magi, it occurs to you that you still don't have a clear definition of what, precisely, the difference between Magecraft and other forms of magic actually IS. You've got a wizard and a sorcerer, here, both of whom appear to be versed on the subject; maybe you should ask?
You want to make a good impression on these people, and skipping school (even martial arts school) isn't the sort of thing that grandparents typically approve of, even if you DO have a really good reason for it and can easily afford to miss one class.
So you tell Balthazar that you'll be available to meet the Quincy elders on Tuesday or Thursday, from about six o'clock onwards. And if those times are inconvenient for them, you can clear your schedule for this weekend.
Your fellow sorcerer nods.
"What exactly IS Magecraft, anyway?" you ask.
Once again, the two older men in the room turn to you.
"I mean, I've been hearing the term for a while, now-"
Ever since you first summoned Archer and observed him using that weapon-conjuring magic of his, to be precise.
"-but I've never heard a clear definition of the term, or how it differs from, say, sorcery or wizardry. And while it's probably not going to be very important for our current mess, given the fact that the Grail War is a ritual devised by magi..."
Ambrose nods. "Good point. Well, then; the short answer to your question is that Magecraft is the use of magical energy to realize any feat that is technically possible, within the bounds of current human knowledge."
You consider that. "And the long answer?"
"Is a long one," Ambrose says. "Grab a patch of the floor or something."
The wizard starts by asking you to define the forms of magic you're already familiar with, and you briefly go through the different types of arcane and divine magic-users that you've encountered: on the divine side, clerics, druids, and shamans; and on the arcane, sorcerers, warlocks, witches, and wizards. Ambrose hears you out, and then states that of those, Magecraft is closest in nature to wizardry, as it's dependent on the practitioner's knowledge. However, where a typical wizard mainly draws on external sources to fuel his spells, a magus's power is largely internal.
"Not entirely, of course," Ambrose notes. "The Grail War alone is proof enough of that, but it also demonstrates some of the limitations of Magecraft rituals. Magi can't simply perform them whenever and wherever they like; they have to find locations that provide the right kinds of mana in the necessary quantities to fuel whatever effect they're after, or else take the time to build up to it. Often enough, they need to do all three."
The reason for this is that Magecraft is fundamentally an attempt to analyze, recreate, and command the powers of non-human entities, from the smallest sprite to the greatest of gods to the forces of Nature itself, using strictly human knowledge, skill, and power.
"It's that last qualifier, along with the internal/external dichotomy, that truly distinguishes the magus from the wizard," Ambrose muses, staring at a point somewhere beyond the wall of the Arcana Cabana. "And that's always struck me as a bit suspect. Modern Magecraft traces its origins back to the Biblical King Solomon, who among other things, was renowned for his ability to command the Seventy-Two Demons. From that, it could be said that the principle of 'humanity subjugating the non-human' is part of the foundation of Magecraft - and magi definitely do have a history of trying to exploit magical creatures as sources of energy and reagents, as well as subjects of study. But on the whole, they're kind of terrible at actually commanding them."
"Solomon did have the God of Abraham backing him up," Balthazar points out. "Modern magi generally aren't big on religion, and have issues with the Catholic Church, in particular."
"Fair," the wizard admits. "Though as a counterpoint, one of Magecraft's major attractions is supposed to be that you don't need divine favor or a special bloodline to wield it."
"Counter-counterpoint," the sorcerer returns easily, "Solomon lived and died almost three millennia ago. The Clock Tower as an institution is only about half that old, and even the oldest magus lineages only claim to be five centuries older - and they've been hiding information and selectively breeding for stronger Magic Circuits more or less the entire time."
"Gasp of horror," Ambrose exclaims. "My dear Balthazar, are you suggesting that the ancient and noble families of the Clock Tower have LIED about something so basic to their craft?"
"I'm suggesting that there's enough of a gap between Solomon's day and the founding of the Mages' Association that any claims by people associated with the latter to know what the King of Magic actually intended should be taken with a grain of salt," Blake answers. "Especially when even the most capable magi don't live more than a couple of centuries without developing memory issues, or turning themselves into the sort of things that even the most peaceable servants of the Lord would smite on general principle."
Ambrose raises his glass to that.
Gained History (Ancient Earth) E (Plus) (Plus)
Gained Theology (Christianity) E (Plus)
Do you have any questions so far?
You turn to Balthazar, and ask him if he minds you working a little magic in his shop.
Your sorcerous senior nods, and you cast the Spell of Creation-
*FLOOMPH*
*Floomph*
-causing a matched pair of beanbag chairs to flop to the floor.
"Thank you, Alex," Briar says, as she descends onto the smaller seat, which is about the size of a softball.
"You're welcome, Briar," you reply, taking the other, more conventionally chair-sized seat.
Ambrose and Balthazar study your work in silence for a moment, and trade looks. Then Balthazar gestures for the older magic-user to go ahead.
Ambrose summons a plush upholstered seat that you recognize as coming from that private theatre of his, or at least matching the design of the chairs there.
Balthazar waits until Ambrose is settled into his seat before transforming a portion of the shop's floor, which rises up and reshapes itself into the frame of a chair, and subsequently grows cushioning.
Although you did learn a few things just now, one detail that Balthazar mentioned sticks out enough that you feel the need for clarification.
"You mentioned that mages 'breed' for stronger Magic Circuits," you state. "What's that about?"
Balthazar explains that Magic Circuits are present, if inactive, in the majority of the population - which is where the claim that anyone can learn Magecraft comes from. The average human being only has a small number of Circuits of unremarkable quality, but like any other human trait, there are exceptions and outliers. In addition, Circuits are a hereditary trait, and a dominant one, meaning that a person with an above-average number or quality of Circuits will tend to pass those traits on to their children.
"And when you're working off of the internal reserves of an otherwise normal human being," the Merlinean master states, "the amount of magical energy you can generate, store, and channel is directly dependent on the number and quality of your Magic Circuits. In the average person, that's not a lot of power, which means that a lot of first-generation practitioners of Magecraft tend to be fairly weak. Once the magi realized how Magic Circuits worked and that they were inheritable, they started picking their future partners with an eye towards making the next generation stronger."
"Circuit count and quality aren't the ONLY things they look for, of course," Ambrose notes. "Physical health, intelligence, material resources, beauty, and social status are all just as important for magi as they are for regular people, and there are other supernatural qualities to take into consideration, like aptitude for certain elements or schools, or rare abilities. But the Circuits are an important factor, as they're one of the few ethical and reliable ways to produce more powerful mages."
"If the mages want to improve their Magic Circuits that much, why don't they Wish for that?" you ask. "It only costs a few diamonds, after all."
The wizard laughs. "You're seriously overestimating the power and versatility of the average magus, lad. Most of them never come anywhere CLOSE to ninth-circle spellcraft, and the ones that do usually only manage it in their family's area of specialization." Ambrose frowns. "The Einzberns are one of the exceptions; they routinely create homunculi with inhumanly potent Magic Circuits, and can rarely produce special-model homunculi with a trait called 'Wish-Granting,' which lets them substitute additional magical energy for the specialized knowledge magic-users like ourselves would require. It's not enough for the individual homunculus to realize a full Wish on her own, but when they start working together or performing rituals..."
"The Grail War," you conclude.
Ambrose nods.
"I wouldn't be surprised if a few other magi HAVE employed Wishes to improve their Circuits, over the centuries," Balthazar adds. "But like Ambrose said, they don't really have the personal power or breadth of knowledge to make it work, which means they'd have had to outsource the actual casting, the same way anyone else lacking the ability would."
"Which would be reason enough NOT to do it, for some of them," Ambrose mutters. "Admit the inferiority of their family's craft to that of a rival lineage? The indignity! Bow their heads to a practitioner of another magical style? The outrage! Subject themselves to the whims of inhuman mercenaries? The scandal!"
Balthazar acknowledges that with a brief nod. "And then there's all the usual dangers of dealing with wish-granting entities, which I'm sure I don't need to go into."
Yeah, no; you're QUITE familiar with the issue. Even leaving aside your personal association with a certain divine wish-granting relic, Batreaux's added a number of cautionary tales during your study of the Spell of Limited Wishing.
"Ambrose loses a point for summoning a chair I've seen before."
The wizard scoffs. "I happen to LIKE these chairs, thank you very much."
Balthazar smirks. "The boy makes a valid argument, old man. Creativity is the soul of magic, after all."
"Oh, fine."
Ambrose gets up from his chair, dismisses it, and then casts a Spell of Illusion (suffused with elemental Shadow), bringing forth the quasi-real image of a chair that is unfamiliar to you. Vaguely resembling an inhuman hand with all seven fingers curled around the upturned palm, the substance of the seat is some glossy black material that could be stone, or perhaps just solidified shadow-stuff. It floats in place atop a cloud of grey and black mist, and is covered by cushions of deepest violet.
As he settles into his new chair, Ambrose shoots you a look. "Happy?"
You nod, and promptly turn to Balthazar. "Out of curiosity, is it rude or expected to try and show up other casters on small things like this? Or is it just for style?"
"Most people in the know expect magic-users to show off a bit," Balthazar admits. "More so when we get together in groups. Whether it counts as 'rude' or not depends on how much our hosts and fellow guests like us, how far over the top we go trying to show each other up, and whether or not we're a part of the planned festivities."
"Some people have no appreciation for good spontaneous theatre," Ambrose mutters. Then he shakes his head. "But we're getting sidetracked. I explained the technical distinctions between Magecraft, Sorcery, and Wizardry, but there's more to it than just the underlying mechanical differences."
Sorcerers, as you well know, tend to be independents, as the potential crops up too randomly and in too many different forms to be reliably replicable. Even in those bloodlines that manage to consistently produce sorcerers down through the generations, when and how the power actually manifests remains up in the air; and when it does emerge, you tend to find a small set of "common" abilities shared by all the members of the lineage, and a much broader pool of "individual" powers shaped by one soul's imagination and experiences.
The common wisdom is that there is no teaching a sorcerer, and that each much explore and develop his powers alone, with "masters" providing an example to aspire to, as well as a safety net in case of mishaps, rather than direct instruction. The Hyrulean and Merlinean styles are somewhat more cohesive than other methods, thanks to their emphasis on study and understanding of the world, but their manifestations are still shaped by individual ability and interpretation of the facts.
And then there's the fact that powerful sorcerers tend to start transforming into things that are more or less than human. Changes in appearance, alterations of form, shifts in behavior and even fundamental nature - all of these tend to disturb other people, even fellow sorcerers, and further isolate the individual.
All of this makes it difficult for sorcerers to develop their own culture. Even in Hyrule, where the art is relatively widespread and the long-term effects mostly minimized, sorcerers think of themselves as Hyruleans who happen to be capable of magic, rather than sorcerers who happen to live in Hyrule. It's similar with the Merlinean tradition, though even more pronounced due to their far smaller numbers in a far larger population.
Wizards are also prone to independence and isolation, but for very different reasons. For all that wizards don't require inherent magical power or the favor of a supernatural being to learn their craft, they DO need to be able to learn and properly leverage an extremely wide range of facts. That takes intelligence and education, and while an abundance of one trait can make up for a certain deficiency in the other, the fact remains that the highest levels of wizardry are ultimately inaccessible to anyone who isn't some kind of genius. And genius, like sorcerous potential, isn't a trait that's consistently passed down from one generation to the next - or at least no one's yet found a way to do so. Though that might simply be from lack of effort.
"As deeply as it pains me to admit it," Ambrose sighs, "most of my fellow wizards are so wrapped up in their studies that they don't have the time or the inclination to get about the business of producing that next generation. And I can't do it all myself, as much fun-"
"Thank you, Ambrose," Balthazar and Briar cut in.
Mages occupy a different paradigm. The Magic Circuits that are the foundation of their craft ARE inheritable with a fair degree of certainty, and the creation of Magic Crests takes that a step further, giving even weak heirs a boost to their personal reserves. Genius, though undeniably useful and valued when it appears, is not ESSENTIAL to Magecraft, for a dedicated magus of more ordinary intellect can achieve the same results that a brilliant mind would - it just takes more time. The Magic Crest comes into play here as well, allowing a possibly less-gifted mind to utilize the work of previous generations. And while some magi do turn into physical or spiritual monsters as a result of reckless experimentation upon themselves, the majority fall into the normal human range of appearance and behavior.
...actually, given that emphasis on selective breeding for favorable traits Ambrose mentioned, as well as the fact that a physically fit and healthy body can support higher levels of magical energy production, magi tend to be distinctly above-average in the looks department. A lifetime of having active human-aspected magical energy running through one's body doesn't exactly hurt matters in that regard, though it can occasionally produce minor physical mutations like atypical hair, eye, or skin colors, or the emergence of inherent magical powers.
The eyes seem to be particularly prone to the latter, although Ambrose and Balthazar don't go into much detail on the topic.
Ultimately, where sorcerers and wizards tend to be isolated anomalies, mages have a large enough population to be their own distinct minority among the greater human race, a sub-group that has persisted long enough to develop into its own society.
It's not a NICE society.
When Ambrose starts discussing how use of Magic Circuits can affect a person's appearance, it occurs to you to wonder what a magus looks like under Mage Sight, the Spell to Detect Magic, and similar sensory techniques. The fact that their craft runs off of an internal power source - Magic Crests and other enchanted items aside - which is supposed to be less powerful on average, as well as entirely "human" in origin, SHOULD make them harder to distinguish from the mundane crowd than, say, your average sorcerer. At least as long as they aren't casting spells.
Ambrose and Balthazar confirm that there is some truth to that, but add that even the weakest practicing magus will still register as more magical than an ordinary person - enough so that your usual methods will still be able to pick them out reliably, barring the use of spells of active concealment on their part. You just need to know what to look for.
"We'll have to arrange for you and Mary to visit Arthur's place at the same time in the near future," Ambrose says. "Give you a quick refresher course."
On a related note, you ask how to check someone for Magic Circuits, and how to determine the number and quality thereof.
"Certain forms of Divination Magic will let you do that, if you know what you're looking for," Balthazar says slowly, with a sidelong glance at the wizard.
"And no, we're not going to tell you what to look for," Ambrose adds firmly. "I know the sound of 'oooh, shiny, gimme!' when I hear it, and YOU, of all people, have no cause to go futzing around with parts of your own soul like that - rather the contrary. And if you're considering trying to wake up someone else's Circuits when you don't even know how to use them yourself, much LESS how to use any sort of Magecraft to make the process worthwhile, I will SMITE you one just on general principle."
He explains that while Magic Circuits are a naturally occuring part of the soul, the way they're used by Magi is NOT natural. Circuits are meant to gradually exchange energy between the self and the world - something of a mystical parallel to respiration or thermoregulation - and nothing more than that. However, Magi have learned to consciously control the opening and closing of the Circuits, as well as the rate at which energy flows through them. This is how they power their craft, and because it's not only overriding a natural process but forcing it into a sort of overdrive, it's rather more stressful than most forms of magic, short of the ones that involve active self-harm.
You try not to think too hard about the Spell of Blood Money.
Ambrose lists the various side-effects that can arise from use of Magic Circuits. At the lowest end, you have uncomfortably increased body temperature and actual, if bearable, pain; those are basically unavoidable whenever Magecraft is employed. When a magus OVERuses his skills, however, the issues can and do escalate into numbness, dizziness, temporary loss of fine motor control, heatstroke, paralysis, organ damage, brain damage, and at the extreme upper end, death. It's also possible to permanently damage the Circuits themselves, either making them more sensitive to the flow of magic energy - and thus, making any use of Magecraft more painful - or outright reducing their ability to conduct magical energy, thereby weakening the user.
"They have a saying, that 'to be a magus is to walk with death,'" Ambrose concludes sourly. "It's not just a melodramatic quote, it's a reminder that the human organism has limits, and overreaching yourself WILL have consequences."
Frowning at that, as well as the nasty list of potential consequences, you inquire if Circuits interfere or even just interact with other energies present in the human body, like ki, spiritual energy, or - in the case of those with exotic ancestry - youki and the like.
"They do," Balthazar tells you, "but not in a bad way. Like Ambrose said, the normal function of Circuits is equivalent to respiration. No matter what art you practice, any human or mostly-human capable of some form of supernatural energy manipulation is guaranteed to have at least one Magic Circuit; they're a part of how we exert our strength on the world around us, and how we recover that strength after we've spent it."
...so, he's saying you DO have Magic Circuits? Or at least the one?
"Yes," Balthazar says simply.
"...this is what Mr. Drake was referring to when he mentioned human experimentation with mana respiration, isn't it?" you ask.
"Bingo!" Ambrose congratulates you. At Balthazar's curious look, he adds, "On the boy's first visit to the Drake Estate, he asked why and HOW they eat so much."
"And it led to the origins of their style," the sorcerer concludes, nodding.
"Do you still say a wizard was responsible, Ambrose?" you wonder. "Not a magus?"
"Oh, yes. Don't get me wrong, magi can be right inhuman bastards when a line of research requires it of them, but wizards can be just as bad; my cheerfully benevolent disposition is hardly universal. And the level of knowledge and power it would have taken to develop those techniques, during the era when the magic knights are first documented in Europe?" He shakes his head. "Too much for all but the best magi of the day, and they didn't and still don't go around handing out power to mundanes - not without some means of long-term control."
"I seem to remember something being said about exposure to magic being incredibly painful for the knights, before they developed the technique for magic resistance," Briar interjects. "Couldn't that have been the control?"
Ambrose and Balthazar pause to consider that.
"Historically speaking, pain and the threat of pain have been the default method of controlling slaves," the sorcerer points out with a sigh.
"They tend to backfire where trained warriors are concerned, though," the wizard counters.
"Who says the knights' ancestors were empowered to BE warriors, to begin with?" Balthazar returns. "A superhuman workforce would be at least as 'useful' to the sort of mind that could come up with the idea in the first place. Grab one peasant, enhance him, and suddenly he can do the work of two men."
"And since he IS just a peasant, nobody's going to care if disappears, nor will it be any great hardship to replace him if he dies," Ambrose concludes, grumbling. "Not to mention, the increased dietary requirements would provide another link in the chain all on their own..." He trails off into a pensive silence, before muttering, "I may need to take another look at the subject."
That's fine by you, but before he does, could you convince him to at least give you a Magic Circuit check-up?
"I'm mostly asking so that I can be sure I'm not damaging them when I channel- wait a second."
You create a minor Illusion of a sheet of paper, and make a show of unfolding and reading off of it as you continue.
"Physical energy, mental energy, spiritual energy, mana, ki, divine power, the synthesis of most of those that I just call 'Power,' Fae energy coming from my bond with Briar, Hellmouth crud just from living in Sunnydale" - you lower the list, here - "plus whatever else I come across in the future that I either have a knack for or just can't avoid."
As it so often does, mention of the Hellmouth makes an impact, and Ambrose agrees to run a quick scan. He also walks around behind you and tells you to keep your energies calm and all your techniques inactive, as a) it would skew the readings and potentially give you hazardous information, and b) he still doesn't entirely trust you NOT to run off and experiment with the spell in question on your own time.
Since all you're interested in right now is making sure you aren't damaging yourself with your own power(s), you face forward and keep your mystical muscles relaxed as Ambrose places one hand on your shoulder.
You feel a prickly heat as the old man's magic seems to burrow into your skin and begin crawling about inside your body, like an invasion of insects - only, from what's been said about Magic Circuits today, and the way the Boar snorts in displeasure, you know it's on an even deeper level than THAT.
Gaaaah.
Gained Traumatic Memories D (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
"Twenty-seven Circuits," the wizard says after a moment. "Quality seems to be stupidly high, to absolutely no one's surprise, I'm sure. No signs of over-stress, and as far as contamination goes... you have a little bit of demonic taint lingering, but it's all about the vents rather than internalized, and mostly broken down already anyway."
The unpleasant warmth fades, and Ambrose lifts his hand.
"'Stupidly high'? Is that a technical term?"
"It might as well be," Ambrose replies. "Magi have an annoying habit of avoiding simple numerical notation when ranking the potency, scope, or importance of supernatural phenomenon. Instead, they'll use letter grades, colors, obtuse terminology - anything that makes it easier for them to befuddle the uninitiated and avoid having to give a straight answer."
You're sure you have no idea why anyone would do such a thing.
"It's not that they don't have good REASON for it," the wizard reluctantly admits. "Information security is important, and they're practically an entire society of researchers; they HAVE to be able to show off what they know to an appreciative audience to validate their work and entire lifestyle, but if the data they reveal is too precise, that same audience will figure out how to recreate their spells and techniques, and then go off and do precisely that. That's not even getting into the disasters that could occur if regular people started figuring Magecraft out for themselves."
Explosions ahoy?
"The reverse, actually," Balthazar says. "The thaumaturgical system that King Solomon established allows humans to use their energy to recreate various supernatural phenomena, but the fact that it's fueled BY human energy rather than the energies of those phenomena creates an imbalance - or given the number of magi and the variety in their abilities, more like a whole series of little imbalances. At low levels, they blend into the mystical 'background noise' of the Earth, but when the number of magi relative to the greater human population increases, the number of imbalances does as well, making them more noticeable; the problem also occurs when more people start invoking the same phenomena, as those SPECIFIC phenomena become easier to trace."
...noticeable to who? Or perhaps more accurately, what?
"The magi would have you believe that the World itself suppresses various forms of Magecraft, because they're just that special and important that Gaia herself would actually deign to notice their activities AND be annoyed by them." Ambrose's snort makes his opinion of THAT clear, and reminds you of his one-time claim that, from the perspective of the spirit of the planet, humans are little more than bacteria. "Still, they're not ENTIRELY wrong, just dramatically overstating the case. Those imbalances Balthazar mentioned are part of Earth's overall magical energy field, and the Powers DO pay close attention to that, watching for threats to their precious Balance. Some of those Powers don't LIKE humans being able to use magic, whether independently or even at all, so when humans start getting too good at wielding certain forms of power, they whine about it. Other Powers bow to their complaints in the name of maintaining the status quo, and since Magecraft explicitly DOESN'T have a patron, none of the benevolent or supportive Powers can really object." The wizard frowns. "That annoys me on several levels, if I'm being honest."
"Let me guess," Briar says. "You don't like empathizing with the mages, you also don't like the fact that something's messing with humans and getting away with it, and you're kind of concerned that no matter which way you jump, you're going to come down on the side of the jerks?"
"In a nutshell." Ambrose shakes his head. "Getting back on track, if I were to use the method of ranking Magic Circuit Quality that the Mages' Association prefers, young Alex's Circuits would be somewhere in the EX-rank, which on a scale of 1 to 10, is approximately 'cheese.'"
Let's hear it for remnant traces of divine Power!
"Yes, especially when it means most magi who found out about this would be honestly torn between marrying you to their daughters to get magically overpowered grandchildren, and just opening you up on their vivisection tables." Ambrose punctuates that remark by giving you a thumb up.
...yay?
"Couldn't they do both?" Briar asks. "You know, marry the kids, wait a bit, and once the grandkids have come along, whoops, accidental surgery?"
...
Okay, first of all, exactly whose side are you on again, oh fairy partner?
"I'm just saying..."
And secondly, you think the Goddesses would have a few things to say in that case.
I mean, if they're good enough to catch you and make it stick...
I'd like to think the wife in this situation would care more about the well-being of the father of her children- Nayru, why are you shaking your head?
Oh, don't get me wrong; some magus girls absolutely would care enough to put a stop to it. Others would just insist that he not be permanently damaged, and then there's the ones who either wouldn't be important or powerful enough in their family to make their opinion heard, or else would want to observe the procedure in person.
...okay, that's all KINDS of disturbing.
And that's just WITHIN the family. A spousal objection wouldn't do anything to stop a member of a rival lineage from grabbing the boy.
"You alright there, Alex?" Balthazar asks. "You seem a little... distracted, all of a sudden."
Shaking that off, you ask if the number of Circuits you have is unusual.
"Eh, so-so." Ambrose waggles one hand back and forth for emphasis. "The theoretical 'average' magus is supposed to have twenty Circuits of C-rank Quality. Twenty-seven would be considered unusual for a first generation magus, but not impossible, especially given that you're a sorcerer."
Sorcerers have more Circuits?
"More, higher Quality, or both," Ambrose confirms. "Their souls HAVE to be able to process larger amounts of mana than normal, or they wouldn't BE sorcerers to begin with."
Makes sense.
Gained Knowledge (Mages' Association) E (Plus) (Plus) (Plus)
Balthazar regards you in silence for a moment, and you have the feeling that he suspects there's more to your distracted pause than what you're admitting to. But then he nods and lets the matter tactfully drop.
Ambrose, meanwhile, has walked around you and returned to his Spiky Seat of Sinister Shadows.
"Now, then," the wizard says, lounging back on his floating doom-throne. "As much as I enjoy spreading knowledge and taking an opportunity to vent my many and varied frustrations with the Mages' Association, I think we've strayed far enough from the original purpose of this meeting."
Right, right. You're here to discuss saving the Quincy, and catch everyone up on what's been done towards that end. Did Ambrose have more to say on the matter?
"As a matter of fact, yes."
Once it became clear to him that your attempts to save the Quincy weren't going to be limited to the group in Karakura, and that Plan Trap the Soul was accordingly about to become largely untenable, the wizard started looking at ways to further augment your alternative plans. He delved into his personal library in search of more spells that would help bolster a living soul against attempts to drain it - or for preference, spells that would do the same for groups of souls. Such magic is generally the province of priests, shamans, and very specialized necromancers, so there's only so much Ambrose can do, but he IS a wizard, after all, and he has found one spell that a) will help and b) is obscure enough that he suspects you don't know it.
After Ambrose describes the effects, you agree that the Spell of the Positive Pulse is indeed not a magic you know, and might be worth adding to the list of protective effects, as greater resistance against slaying magic can only help the Quincy. From what Ambrose says, timing the spell correctly would be tricky...
While he's still got quite a lot of books to go through, Ambrose admits that defensive magic isn't his greatest forte; it's not that he's bad at it or anything, it's just that, in terms of ability and temperament, he favors the school of thought that the best defense is a good offense. And on that note, he's found himself wondering if his efforts wouldn't prove more effective, focused on supporting a preemptive strike on the soul-eating Quincy King.
You DO have access to Souken's stolen Gate Key, and Yoruichi trying to convince the Soul Society to use it to raid Silbern with an eye towards taking out Yhwach before he can make his move... however, suggesting that Ambrose help them out would necessitate putting him in touch with Urahara.
Based on your own experiences with the two men in question, this strikes you as a risky idea.
On the other hand, if Ambrose isn't going to be working with the Soul Society, you should probably discourage the idea of him taking a shot at the Wandenreich at all. No matter how good he is, Ambrose is ultimately just one old man; annoying as he might sometimes be, you can't in good conscience ask him to raid a city-sized fortress full of soul-destroying warriors and their immortal god-king all on his lonesome.
...you can't believe you're actually considering this, but there are a thousand lives on the line, desperate times call for desperate measures, and if you DIDN'T do it and things went poorly, you'd be asking yourself "what if?" for years and decades to come.
And so, you sigh, and take a deep breath.
"If you're serious about taking the fight to the evil Quincy, Ambrose, there's some people in Karakura I'll need to introduce you to..."
"I HAVE met the Kurosaki and Arisawa families before, lad," the wizard reminds you.
"They're involved, but they're not actually the people I'm talking about," you say, before biting the bullet and describing your meetings with Ishida Souken and the denizens of Urahara Shop.
You're not worried about what will happen when Ambrose meets Souken, beyond the inevitability of the wizard being his usual insufferable self. The prospect of him meeting Yoruichi or Tessai is only a little more worrisome, and then solely because Ambrose is not only wizard enough to recognize the two Shinigami for what they are - or at the very least, to notice that they're the same order of being as Kurosaki Isshin - but skilled enough to be a potential threat, if he so chose.
...though, now that you think on it, Ambrose HAS met Yoruichi before, back at the World Tournament. That might actually help.
Even so, you are deeply concerned by the potential consequences - be they short-term or long - that may result from introducing Ambrose and Urahara. Said prospects are worrying enough that you suggest Balthazar join the group, in the hope that his comparable power and relative sanity will serve to keep the two mad geniuses in check.
There's also the fact that, in your experience, more power tends to yield better results - but for once, power is honestly a secondary concern.
Blasphemy!
You just don't want the wizard and the Shinigami shopkeeper to break anything in their eagerness to one-up one another - like, say, Karakura. Or the planar boundaries between Earth and the Spirit Realm. Or maybe just the whole planet.
The last scenario is giving them both far too much credit.
...I notice you didn't say anything about the other two, Wise Girl.
For better or worse, it isn't possible to have that meeting today, as while it's still shy of eleven in the morning here in New York, it's more like midnight in Karakura. That's not even getting into how wizard, sorcerer, and Shinigami alike assuredly have other plans that would be difficult to change on such short notice. But there's nothing stopping you from getting in touch with Urahara later and letting him know that you want to introduce him to two more of your high-level magical contacts.
How do you want to handle this?
With this, Ambrose and Balthazar are as caught up as they can be. Is there anything else you'd like to discuss with them, here and now, that relates to the goal of saving the Quincy?
You didn't feel comfortable with discussing the details of your efforts to save the Quincy via Magic Cellphone, and the Spell of Sending is no more secure and even more impersonal. It's kind of hard to carry on a meaningful conversation when you're limited to speaking twenty-five words at a time.
For reasons of information security, clear and efficient communication, and just plain good manners, then, you feel it's necessary to meet Urahara in person to discuss the possibility of adding some magical support to the (hopefully) impending Shinigami assault on Silbern.
On a related note, swinging by the Urahara Shop will let you check to see if Yoruichi is back from the Soul Society yet, or at least been in touch to confirm what he's been up to.
It'll also give you a chance to see what progress Urahara has made with Jasmine's future temporary body.
Due to the difference in time zones and your committment to face Navi's latest Trial this afternoon, you'll have to put off visiting Urahara Shop until later this evening, Sunnydale time, and then only if you aren't wrung out by your imminent quest. If that's the case, you'll have to push the meeting back to tomorrow, following Lu-sensei's afterschool class.
Ambrose and Balthazar tell you they'll be waiting to hear back.
This effectively concludes today's business with the two older magic-users. Thanking them for their time, you rise from your conjured beanbag chair and dismiss it, then turn to Briar, still lounging in her seat.
"Come on, partner. We've got a meeting with your mother in a couple of hours; we should head home to get ready."
"Don't wanna get up," Briar returns lazily. "Too comfy."
You blink.
With a final nod to Balthazar - who's stood up and returned his transformed seat to the floor from whence it came, to see you off like a polite host - and Ambrose - who's made no move to leave his floating throne of semi-darkness, and merely waggles his fingers at you in farewell - you exit the Arcana Cabana and cross the street to the teleport site, heading home.
You're not sure what Navi is going to throw at you later, so you keep lunch modestly sized, going for a mix of sugars and carbs for energy rather than trying to fill your boots. That can wait for supper; you may well need it.
With your plate cleared, you withdraw to your room, going over your inventory, doing some maintenance, and wondering if you should arrive loaded for Lynel, or just keep your combat gear in your pocket until you actually need it. The former would show Navi you're taking this challenge seriously, though it would also draw questions from the family, unless of course you used the Spell to Disguise One's Self or something similar to hide the fact that you were dressed for battle.
Once your preparations are complete, you give Zelda a hug, scratch Moblin behind the ears, let your folks know you'll be back in a bit, and head out.
Based on Navi's previous behavior, there's a fair chance you'll get tossed into another plane of existence not long after you make contact with her. With that in mind, where do you go?
After a moment, you shrug. "Alright, then."
Reaching down-
"Hey, what-?"
-you carefully scoop up the beanbag chair and its occupant-
"Whooooaaaa!"
-doing your best to keep them both level as you stand up straight and leave the building.
"...I have to admit," Briar says, as the door of the Arcana Cabana swings shut behind you, "this is not what I was expecting to happen."
"What, did you think I'd just dismiss your comfy seat, or sic an illusion of your mother on you?"
"...maybe," Briar replies evasively. A moment passes before she adds, "You know, this arrangement is a lot more comfortable than trying to sit on that shoulder or thick skull of yours, and a lot less effort than keeping up with you on the wing. Do you think you can make me a permanent seat...?"
Wearing your Hyrulean Sorcerer's Robe and carrying the Blessed Sword strike you as the most appropriate attire for facing down a Great Fairy's challenge. However, the last - and only - time your family saw you dressed anything like this was the time you faced the Ring of Trials, and walking downstairs dressed for magical combat would trigger problematic responses as a result.
You decide that it's better to wait until you've reached your destination before readying yourself for combat.
While it would be rather appropriate to make the Ring of Trials on Bali Ha'i the starting point for this particular quest, good manners dictate that you should get Kahine's permission before you go summoning someone as powerful Navi to her domain - and by "before," you mean at least a few days in advance, rather than the somewhat less than an hour you'd have if you went and talked to the volcano spirit right now.
Since you didn't think to check with Kahine about this ahead of time, you figure you probably shouldn't go bothering her this late in the game.
Instead, you picture a certain patch of not-quite-desert some distance outside Los Angeles. You've only been there the one time, and that over a year ago, but the image of the place is still sharp and clear in your mind's eye.
What can you say? Being sucked into a portal created by a Great Fairy and sent on a potentially life- and limb-threatening jaunt through a hushed and haunted demiplane full of traps and trials is a memorable experience.
As a side benefit, the site where Navi tossed you into her Silent Realm is close enough that you don't need to use a full-powered Spell of Teleportation to reach it. Instead, by applying some of the calculations from the Greater Spell in reverse, you're able to simplify the spell's formula, shorten the distance the magic covers, conserve some mana, and make the whole thing weak enough that you can suppress its magical signature.
With your mastery of Summoning Magic making the Hellmouth's interference a non-issue, you could cast this "Lesser" Spell of Teleportation from inside your house if you so chose. It would save you the time and the negligible amount of ki that you'd otherwise expend moving beyond the town limits.
"Wait, what?" You feel Briar's miniscule weight shift as she sits up. "Really? You'll make me one?"
Why wouldn't you?
Briar punches the air. "Score!"
Of course, it might take a while. Conjuring a permanent fairy-sized beanbag chair is one thing; creating one that you could carry around in the open - or maybe just have following you under its own power?
"...I DO like the idea of my own flying chair," Briar admits.
You thought she might. Anyway, coming up with something like that, which WOULDN'T draw attention from everybody and their demonic neighbor, is going to take some work.
"Oh, no, I totally get that," your partner assures you. "My temporary comfort isn't worth turning you into bad guy bait, and Cordy wouldn't talk to either of us for a week if you showed up to class wearing a beanbag shoulder pad or hat on my account."
You're glad the two of you are on the same page about this.
"No problem, partner." Briar leans back in her seat, and after a moment, starts to sing to herself: "Comfy chair, comfy chair, I'm gonna get a comfy chair~..."
...was it really THAT comfortable?
After some thought, you decide that - young master of Summoning Magic or no - going straight from "do not use teleportation near the Hellmouth except when miles outside of town" to "teleport straight from home" might be taking things too far, too quickly.
At the very least, you should test this modified spell first, to see how well you can conceal the magic involved, and how greater proximity to the Hellmouth's energies interacts with this sort of magic. And you should probably check with Ambrose to confirm how the ward he put on your house will or won't interact with spells of the School of Summoning.
True, your Mirror Hideaway is a summoning effect that reaches "outside" the ward in an extra-dimensional manner, but its only point of ingress or egress remains within the ward at all times. That's distinct from a Spell of Teleportation which actually crosses the warded threshold, whether to leave the area or enter it from outside.
In any event, you finish up your preparations, make your goodbyes, and leave the house. It takes you maybe five minutes to find an alley that's sufficiently out of the way for your purposes, without being so narrow and shadowed that a corpse-demon could almost be hiding in it even just past midday.
Just to be on the safe side, you poke around with your Corruption Sense before actually entering the alley, but everything seems to be as clear as possible for Sunnydale.
Stepping between the buildings, you start gathering mana.
Four minutes of quiet chanting and focus later-
-fl-
-you abruptly find yourself standing on top of a vaguely-familiar boulder.
"King of the mountain!" Briar cries.
Very funny.
"Not quite the landing zone you had in mind?" she inquires, as you jump down from the high ground.
Landing on the boulder, no. But looking around, you do seem to have hit the general area you had in mind: L.A. is a smoggy smudge on the horizon; the highway is off in THAT direction; and a bunch of smaller details, like the rock, line up with what you remember.
Checking the magical energies clinging to the top of the rock, you confirm that you were able to suppress your own magic signature. The traces of the teleport ITSELF are still apparent, there being very little anyone can do to hide that distinctive twisting of space, time, and other dimensions, but the fourth-circle modified ritual created far less of a disturbance than the seventh-circle Greater Teleports you've been using for over a year now.
The only potential indication of Hellmouthy interference is the fact that you dropped back into the Material Plane on top of that rock instead of on the patch of ground you'd been picturing, and even that might well be down to your limited familiarity with this area, and the according inaccuracy of the spell.
All in all, you'd call that a successful test.
Now that you're here, you take a minute to mystically scrub off the Hellmouth's fingerprints, then pull your Hyrulean Sorcerer's Robe out of your pocket and put it on. Another moment to retrieve your Blessed Sword, and you're good to go.
Flipping your hood up, you make with the magic, and several minutes later, a nimbus of light and Fae magic hangs in the air before you.
Said radiant presence seems to look around in curiosity for a moment.
"Oh, I remember this place!" the Great Fairy exclaims. "And here I was expecting you to summon me at the Ring of Trials, or in that forest where you called me last time. Trying to start a tradition, are we?"
It seemed appropriate.
"So, I take it you've spoken with the sorcerers and the wizard?"
You have, and they've agreed to handle the travel arrangements, provided Navi is willing to provide or let them create the necessary planar focuses.
"Done and done," Navi agrees. "Just to be certain: that leaves you owing me for the cost of FOUR castings of the Spell to Create a Demiplane, with faster-flowing time for one plane, and timelessness for the other?"
You toy with the idea of dropping the demiplane of flowing time and just using mana restoratives, of which you have plenty in stock and could likely acquire a few more in the weeks that remain before Yhwach wakes up. In the end, however, you decide to stick with your original request for two demiplanes, with two different forms of altered time: one to radically extend the duration of your spells; and the other to speed up magical recovery for both you and the other spellcasters who've agreed to help you out.
You've been studying the lesser form of the Spell to Create A Demiplane with Batreaux for some months, now, and while you aren't quite at the stage where you can successfully cast it yourself, you have a pretty good understanding of what the spell is supposed to create. By extension, you know that - temporal shenanigans aside - what you're purchasing from Navi is really just the bare-bones version of a demiplane, which might take the form of a rocky platform floating in an endless void, a series of interconnected and unfurnished chambers completely closed off from a non-existent outside, or some other simplistic combination of air, earth, stone, water, and/or non-living wood.
Such conditions might be a little rough for the rescuees, as - to the best of your knowledge - all the Quincy you're going to try to pull out of harm's way in the coming weeks have lived in cities for most if not all of their lives. Still, if the worst thing that happens to them is having to spend a few days roughing it on an extra-dimensional camp-out, you think that will be a small price to pay for the safety of their immortal souls.
Besides, you're almost as skilled at Conjuration Magic as you are at Summoning Magic, and you'll have three other high-level magic-users to call upon. You're pretty sure Ambrose, at least, will try to show off by making the basic conditions a little more liveable - and he DEFINITELY will if you start conjuring camping gear or furniture or something.
With your "order" confirmed and finalized, Navi gathers her power. An aura of Summoning Magic appears and rapidly builds to the point where you have to dial down your mystical senses to cope with the intensity - though unlike the last time this happened, you don't need to shut those senses down entirely, or even all that far.
On that prior occasion, Navi summoned a portal that you privately compared to a miniature black hole, due to its relentless attempts to pull you and everything else nearby into itself. This time around, she just creates a disc of exotic energies that hangs there in mid-air, face oriented towards you as it slowly turns about its center, trailing luminous wisps and short-lived arcs of extraplanar power.
If that long-ago portal to the Silent Realm was a black hole, this Gate is more like a great galaxy viewed from above. You feel no forceful pull from it, whether physical or mystical in nature; the thing just sits there, rotating about a central point.
"Whenever you're ready," Navi comments.
"Just let me finish taking notes," you say lightly, as you observe the energies flowing around and through the active Gate, and mentally compare them to your own efforts at casting the Gate Spell under Batreaux's supervision.
There are differences: Navi is using Fae Magic rather than Sorcery; she's created a portal between Earth and somewhere that is definitely NOT the Plane of Mirrors, as you've been doing; and of course, she's somehow casting the spell to link two planes while being on a third. But there are similarities, too, and looking at those - and in particular, how they differ between Navi's Gate and your as-yet unsuccessful attempts at creating one of your own - is instructive.
You're half-tempted to ask that, when this Trial is over, Navi give you a few minutes to try and create a stable Gate back to Earth. True, you might end up outside the Shuzen Estate, given that's the location your planar key is attuned to, but it WOULD count as a successful casting all the same...
You are distracted from your musings by the sound of Navi delicately clearing her throat.
That would be your cue to get a move on, because even a Great Fairy can't keep a Gate open forever.
"Right, then," you declare, drawing your Blessed Blade with a flourish, and holding it at the ready before you. "Once more into the breach."
"Onward!" Briar cheers.
And with your partner at your side-
Okay, so she's really above and slightly behind you, but it's a figure of speech, not literal fact.
-you step through the portal.
One moment, you're in the dry, hot, not-quite-desert outside of Los Angeles. The next, you're standing next to an ancient trilithon covered with what look like Hylian symbols - from which you quickly avert your eyes, just in case - in a clearing in the middle of a temperate forest, under a twilight sky. Little motes of light zip around, glowing in shades of green, blue, and gold, with a few spots of pink here and there, and from somewhere just out of sight comes the sound of a babbling brook.
"Back to Faerie, huh?" you muse. "Makes sense, though I was half-expecting the Silent Realm again."
"You did say you wanted to make this deal as by-the-rules as possible," Navi reminds you. "That means I can't just throw together a few Trials for my own amusement-"
"Ah-ha!" Briar exclaims. "I knew it!"
"-and call it done," the Great Fairy continues. "You have to do something that has an actual, tangible benefit for me."
You nod. "Speaking of which..."
"Right." The sound of a single clap of hands emanates from the aura of Navi's presence. "So, thanks to what happened during your birthday party, my kids are trying to build a fairy robot."
Oh-ho! How's that going?
Navi sighs. "At last count, we had four separate groups working on their own projects. One bunch insisted that the 'fairy death machine' had to be made of plants and plant-based materials, and managed to convince some Deku Sprouts, Kokiri, and a few other woodland spirits to help them out. We're probably going to get something that's half Deku Baba out of that..."
Oh.
"The second group wanted it to be made of stone, and got together enough Rupees to convince a Hylian artisan to carve out the basic body for them. It's actually coming along rather well," the Great Fairy admits, "but I don't think they've realized how hard it is to permanently animate stone, or that, even if they pull it off, they're going to be left with the equivalent of a dwarf Armos."
Oh, dear.
"The third group started hooked up with a Skull Kid that convinced them necromancy was the way to go." Navi's disapproval is clear. "The last time I looked in on them, they were running away from a Stalchild."
Oh, boy.
"Is someone keeping an eye on that bunch, Mom?" Briar asks.
"Summer's watching them, dear."
"Oh, good."
"That brings us to the last group, who have agreed that the 'super fighting fairy robot' had to be made from 'super magic fairy metal.'"
And unless you miss your guess, that's why YOU are here, in the super magic fairy realm.
"Got it in one." There is a brief pause, and what you would swear is the sound of a piece of paper being pulled out of a pocket. "According to Robin," Navi continues, "we need a large quantity of Goddess copper, a smaller amount of moonsilver, and a minor quantity of sungold, but it all has to be of a particular quality as well. So, for the first of your Trials, you have to find suitable deposits and bring back samples for Robin to analyze."
...
Well.
Do you have any questions?
Your first concern is where exactly in Faerie you are. You don't want to run into representatives of either of the Courts while you're looking for shiny rocks, nor do you particularly care to risk offending some local independent Fae.
Navi clarifies that you're in a part of the Fae realm that lies closer to Hyrule than not, and which is within the territory of a Great Fairy that owed her a favor.
"Let me guess," Briar says abruptly. "You agreed to let her watch Alex wander around and get into trouble in exchange for access to her land."
"Among other things, yes."
What other things, exactly?
"Oh, nothing too outrageous; just enough to make things interesting."
"...Mom," Briar says slowly, "are you telling me that you agreed to let one of your bored girlfriends mess with my partner?"
"Briar!" Navi gasps. "I am hurt that you would suggest such a thing."
There is a pause.
"...well, did you?"
"...maybe just a little."
"Damn it, Mom..."
Navi further explains that you have this other Great Fairy's permission to wander freely within her domain, which is large enough that you could walk in any direction from this megalith for at least a full day without reaching the borders. Navi doesn't advise that you test that, though, as territorial lines are rather more fluid here in Faerie than they are in most mortal realms. A powerful Fae's word is law near the heart of her domain, and especially near her person, but the farther out you venture, the more negotiable the rules become.
In other words, you've got an area some forty miles across that you're free to search, though you should probably stick to within a ten-mile radius of these standing stones.
Speaking of which, you have no idea what these metals even look like, much less where they would be found. You ask Navi if she could provide some samples for the sake of reference.
Three clumps of stone and three very small bars of refined metal appear before you, floating in mid-air in paired sets. Although it's obvious that each finger-sized ingot has been placed alongside its respective unprocessed ore, you honestly can't make out any sort of difference by eye alone; only when you poke at the samples with your mystical senses do you start to register their auras.
After a moment, you reach into your pocket and pull out one gold coin and one silver coin, and prod them with those same senses. Mundane gold seems colder in the hand and less bright to the eye than sungold, lacking traces of Elemental Fire and Light that suffuse both the ore chunk and the refined bar. Moonsilver, meanwhile, carries an aura of Shadow and Water which is absent from its mundane counterpart. You don't have any convenient samples of copper to compare to this "Goddess copper," but that essence of Spirit wouldn't be present in ordinary metal.
All three metals are also suffused with Fae Magic, of course, but so is everything ELSE in Faerie. You're not going to find them that way.
Also, when you think back to that bag of Faerie Gold you found in the Memorian Outpost and handed off to Navi, its aura was distinct from Earth gold AND sungold, suggesting that it's a distinct form of the metal unto itself.
You really wonder how all of this works.
Gained Geology F
Gained Metallurgy F
Once you're sure you have the mystical signatures of the metals fixed in your memory, you put away your coins, and Navi dismisses the three bars. She lets you keep the ore chunks for the time being, however.
Gained Ore Chunks
With that done, you ask if there will be any special compensation for any ore deposits you find that aren't useful to Robin for some reason, be it poor quality, an excess of material, the wrong sort of metal, or something else of that nature.
"Better stick to finding what Robin needs for the project, and leaving the rest in the ground, Alex," Briar advises. "The whole point of this trip is to pay off what you owe Mom for creating those pocket realms for you; you'll skew the terms of the deal if you start making a profit."
...oh, right.
"On that note," Navi says, "I shall take my leave. The rest is up to you, Alex. Good luck."
With that, the Great Fairy's presence fades away. As it does so, the forest around you - which you belatedly realize has been rather hushed since your arrival - starts to sound with life and movement.
You take a long, slow look around.
You decide that your first order of business is to secure your immediate vicinity and load up on self-enhancement magic. You're in Faerie, after all, and you haven't forgotten your wrestling match with Grack the Troll, or the fact that you lost despite using ki techniques on top of a suite of size- and physical ability-boosting buffs. Given that he came from Faerie himself, Grack probably has distant cousins out this way, and there are nastier things than trolls lurking in the deep places of the Fae realm; you'd rather not meet any of them unprepared.
That said... you do have an audience to entertain.
"COME, PARTNER," you declaim.
"Gyah! Alex, what the he-!?"
"WE MUST MAKE SAFE THIS AREA. I SHALL VENTURE CLOCKWISE 'ROUND THESE ANCIENT STONES, SEEKING POTENTIAL DANGERS; YOU SHALL CIRCLE IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION, DOING THE SAME; AND WE WILL MEET BACK HERE AND COMPARE NOTES PROMPTLY. AGREED?"
"Alex," Briar grinds out through gritted teeth, "WHY are you talking like that?"
"WE WERE TOLD THERE WOULD BE AN AUDIENCE. AN AMUSING NARRATIVE SEEMED APPROPRIATE."
"...you're going to talk like that the entire time we're here." It isn't a question.
"I SHALL ENDEAVOR TO DO SO."
"...just... try to keep it down, so nothing hears you and comes looking to lodge a complaint?"
"...AGREED."
Boooo!
With that, the two of you split up and circle the trilithon in opposite directions, scanning the area with senses mundane and mystical as you probe for potential threats. You keep up a hushed monologue as you go, recounting your actions in grandiose form.
When you and Briar cross paths on the far side of the stone, she sighs.
Gained Oratory D (Plus) (Plus)
Meeting up back where you started, you exchange notes and confirm that there doesn't seem to be anything larger or more intelligent than the little fairies drifting about.
"Normally, I'd be worried about other Fae turning up to investigate whatever brought Mom here," Briar tells you. "But since this is another Great Fairy's turf, and Mom already got permission for us to be here, I think we're in the clear. For the moment."
"THIS IS NEWS MOST EXCELLENT," you say. "I SHALL BEGIN ENHANCING MINE OWN MIGHT FOR THE TRIALS AHEAD. WILT THOU KEEPEST THE WATCH, AND ALERT ME SHOULD ANY UNEXPECTED GUESTS SEEK TO APPROACH?"
"Yeah, yeah, just... get on with your magic."
You pause, and glance towards the dusky sky. "TO WHOMEVER IS WATCHING, WE APOLOGIZE IN ADVANCE FOR THE LACK OF INTERESTING DEVELOPMENTS OVER THE NEXT... TWENTY MINUTES OR SO."
There's no answer.
From a certain perspective, that's a good thing.
Keeping one eye and a couple of other senses on alert, you gather your mana and begin ritual-casting a Spell of Augmentation that combines the effects of the Spells of Bull's Strength, Cat's Grace, Bear's Endurance, Fox's Cunning, Owl's Wisdom, and Eagle's Splendor into one, while also increasing the duration. Next is the Spell of Protection From Chaos - always a good idea where the Fae are involved - a Spell of Overland Flight for mobility, and in deference to the perpetual twilight of this plane of existence, the Spell of Low-Light Vision. You spare a moment to consider adding the Spell to Endure Elements as well, but the temperature isn't extreme enough in either direction for that to seem necessary.
Feeling somewhat more secure now, you follow up with the Spell to Detect Scrying.
...
Nothing. You're not sure if that means the local Great Fairy just wildly outclasses you as a spellcaster (not impossible, though you think it somewhat unlikely where Divination Magic is concerned), if she's got defenses of her own up and running (more probable), or if there's some form of local interference (also a possibility).
"Done?" Briar asks.
"TWO SPELLS REMAIN TO BE CAST," you announce. "THE SECOND SHALL BE THE SPELL TO COMMUNE WITH NATURE, WHICH SEEMS BEST-SUITED TO LOCATING THE PRECIOUS ORES THAT WE SEEK THIS DAY. THE OTHER, I MUST GAIN OUR AUDIENCE'S PERMISSION TO CAST."
"Why's that?"
"IT IS THE SPELL OF NONDETECTION."
"Worried that something might notice your communion and trace it back to the source, huh?"
"VERILY."
No objection to your proposed spell manifests, and so you begin the ritual to cast Nondetection as well, substituting extra mana to get around the need for diamond dust.
With all your preparations thusly made, and not so much as a peep from your audience about a sudden loss of picture, you get on with the Spell to Commune With Nature. It's extremely convenient that this druidic ritual allows the caster to seek out three separate pieces of information about the surrounding area, as that's precisely enough for you to seek sources of each of the ores you've been drafted to retrieve samples of.
Your first "ping," for sources of Goddess copper, returns over twenty signals, scattered over an area some thirty miles and more across. Ignoring the outlying reactions to your magic, you focus on the deposits that lie within your pre-chosen ten-mile "safe zone"; that still leaves easily a dozen sites, but the majority of those are concentrated to your north and northwest, and the nearest of those is barely more than a mile away. The remaining locations are clustered to your southeast.
Your second sweep, for moonsilver, yields a much milder response. You sense only five deposits in range of your spell, and two of those are in the outer portion of your search radius, far enough for you to discount them out of hand, while a third lies worryingly close to the ten-mile line. The other two are located six miles north and seven miles southwest.
Finally, you seek for sources of sungold.
...
Somehow, it just figures that you'd only pick up a single source of the stuff, and that it would be twelve miles east.
With that, your spell fades.
Looking at your options, you are tempted to make a run for the sungold source, just to get it out of the way and be done with it. But when you consider how far out the site is, both from your current location and from all of the other deposits, as well as the odds against the rarest and presumably most valuable of these Fae metals being unguarded, you figure that it makes more sense to check out the nearby copper deposit first. And if you're going that way, you might as well extend your search to the rest of the abundant copper deposits lying to the northwest, before sweeping north to investigate the sites in that region, including that source of moonsilver.
With a rough course decided upon-
"COME, BRIAR! ADVENTURE AND TREASURE CALL, AND WE SHALL ANSWER!"
-you take off at a Ki Enhanced run.
If you were only going to travel a mile, you probably wouldn't have bothered with using ki at all, but you're going to be covering enough ground today that it seems a good idea to boost both your speed and endurance. Doing it this way also makes things a little more interesting for your Great Fairy audience, who may well not have ever seen a human move this fast without using a Spell of Expeditious Retreat or the like.
You keep the Body Flicker in reserve for the time being. You don't know the terrain at all, and a forest is a lot less forgiving of misplaced footing than concrete sidewalks or the shoulder of a highway.
...also, if the Great Fairy gets bored and decides to send something after you to spice up the afternoon show, the tactical value of surprise superspeed is not to be underestimated.
"AND LO, DID THE COURAGEOUS - BUT NOT RECKLESS - HERO BOLDLY - YET CAUTIOUSLY - VENTURE INTO THE VERDANT EAVES OF THE PRIMEVAL FOREST. THOUGH DANGER LURKED IN THE TWILIGHT ALL AROUND, HIS GAZE REMAINED FIXED UPON THE GLORIES AHEAD, EXCEPT FOR WHEN THE UNDERGROWTH GOT THICK ENOUGH THAT HE NEEDED TO PAY ATTENTION TO AVOID TRIPPING AND FLYING FACE-FIRST INTO AN ANCIENT ARBOREAL TITAN."
It might be a bit generous to call your maneuvers over, around, and through the trees proper parkour, but the basic lessons of looking before you leap and considering alternate approaches do help out.
The Spell of Overland Flight comes in handy, too, those handful of times you miscalculate the strength of a branch or the stability of a moss-covered boulder.
When you reach the general area of the first copper deposit a few minutes later, you are a little scuffed around the edges, but free of any real scrapes or bruises.
Although you're in the correct location, actually zeroing in on the Goddess copper takes some doing. Given that you're looking for ores of a certain level of quality, you're wary of using too much magic or other exotic energy, out of the concern that you might contaminate the metals and make them unuseable to Robin, or just a lot more trouble to purify to a workable state.
Sticking to passive senses would eliminate that problem, but would also make it difficult to pick out exactly which of the rocks underfoot - half-covered by twigs, fallen leaves, and the shadows of the undergrowth, and partially overgrown with moss besides - contain samples of the reddish metal. And you could just forget about locating the actual underground deposit that way; even your active scans can only penetrate about a foot or so of rock at best.
"AND SO THE HERO FACED HIS FIRST CHALLENGE: HOW WOULD ONE WITH SUCH LIMITED FAMILIARITY WITH THE SKILLS OF A PROSPECTOR FIND HIS FIRST CLAIM?"
"AN IDEA OCCURS!"
"What now?" Briar asks, as you take a knee and pluck a handful of loose stones from the ground.
"BEHOLD, THE SPELL OF THE ELEMENTAL BODY: EARTH FORM!"
And like that, you turn from flesh, blood, and bone to clay, earth, and stone. Reaching into the crack on your left hip that represents your pants pocket, you access your dimensional storage and pull out the Ore Chunks that Navi left you-
"Huh," Briar muses. "I guess this makes that a mineral pocket."
-blink, and turn to regard your partner with a stony expression.
"What?" she says with faux innocence.
Shaking your head, you turn your attention back to the three mineral samples and passively examine them with your various senses again, to see what effects, if any, your current form has on your ability to perceive the substances in question.
Midway through the process, your stomach rumbles.
...
You hope that's just lunch digesting.
In any case, your experiments bear fruit. The basic Spell of the Elemental Body only bestows some of the traits of a true elemental on the caster, but sensory changes are among those. Differences in sight are the most obvious, but once you start cycling magic and ki through your transformed body, more subtle features start to make themselves known.
You're not sure how to describe it, but even in their unrefined states, the Goddess copper, moonsilver, and sungold all FEEL different and distinct from one another, and the ordinary rock surrounding them. The elemental energies bound up in each metal play a part in that, the Goddess copper in particular almost seeming to call out to your current form.
Gained Earth Affinity C
Gained Elemental Sense F (Plus)
Gained Elementalogy D (Plus)
When you feel out your surroundings with this new sense, you discover that it's rather short ranged; you have to be almost literally on top of, or otherwise in physical contact with, whatever you're examining to really notice a difference. You're not sure if that's a limitation of the sense itself, or if your chosen elemental form is getting in the way somehow - you ARE currently an earth elemental surrounded by air on all but one side.
Another problem is your sheer lack of unfamiliarity with viewing the world in this manner. If not for the samples in your craggy palm and the almost magnetic pull the Goddess copper has on your elemental form, you don't think you'd be able to make any practical use of this skill.
As it is, though, you are able to locate a few stones that carry the same "feel" as your existing sample of Goddess copper. Mindful of your footing and keeping your aura as suppressed as possible, you carefully pluck one of the smallest rocks from its resting place with your clay-like fingers, and stow it in your pocket.
Gained Ore Sample
"Get it?" Briar asks.
"GOT IT."
"Good. We done here?"
You allow yourself a rough chuckle at Briar's pun.
Earlier, you were a little concerned by her exasperated reaction to your choice of theatrics. It's good to know that she's not really put out with you after all.
Also, it was a good joke.
The topographical map created by the Spell to Commune With Nature still glows in your mind's eye, nearly a dozen points of copper-colored light and a single spot of silver calling to you from farther north. But you set aside the temptation to start running to the next-nearest deposit of ore, because you don't think you're quite finished investigating this one.
Still holding the Chunk of Goddess copper that Navi provided, you reach out with your senses again, trying to get a better idea of the size of this deposit. After all, even if the metal here turns out to be of top quality, Robin's going to need quite a lot of the stuff to forge an entire robot body, and if there's only enough in this deposit to make a finger or two...
While your intentions are good, several factors are working against you. For one, the sensory skill most useful for detecting this elementally-charged ore is brand-new to you, and even the likely boosts you're experiencing from your currently Elemental Body aren't enough to overcome your inexperience. For another, you're trying to scan through several inches of undergrowth, forest litter, and soil, much less the stone beneath where the greater part of the ore deposit is concentrated. For a third, you have to avoid using active scans, for fear of contaminating the site and rendering it entirely useless. And THEN there's the fact that you're in Faerie, where the unchecked energies of nature flow stronger than anywhere you've been on Earth, even Bali Ha'i, blurring together in a rich, vivid tapestry of life and growth.
In the end, you have to give it up as a failed effort. You know there's more Goddess copper down there than is contained within this one rough patch of exposed rock and the pebbles that have cracked off and eroded from it over the ages, but the current conditions won't let you get even a rough estimate of how much.
You'd considered looking for other potentially useful minerals that might be mixed in with the Goddess copper you came here to find, but you have no idea what they'd even feel like to your new Elemental Sense, and your inventory lacks any pure samples to use as reference. Factor in those on top of all the other issues, and that notion's a wash before you even begin.
Putting the Ore Chunk away, you consult your mental map, and make for the next nearest deposit of Goddess copper.
As you navigate the forest, it occurs to you that you can't just grab samples from every ore deposit and shove them into your pocket. Yes, the interior conditions of your extradimensional inventory will prevent cross-contamination, but a certain amount of organization is necessary, so that you (and Robin) know where each rock came from.
You're perhaps halfway to the second site when you spot a particularly tall and broad mass of unworked stone. Its sides are steep enough and its top high enough off the forest floor that any land-bound predators smaller than, say, an elephant would have a time getting up it. Tree-borne creatures wouldn't be able to reach it, either, as the rock stands near the center of another clearing, somewhat smaller than the one with the trilith, and none of the nearby trees have the height or breadth of branch necessary to reach it.
Calling on your Spell of Overland Flight, you swiftly scale the natural tower and make a neat landing atop it.
"Problem, partner?" Briar asks, looking around at the forest.
"IT HAS OCCURRED TO ME THAT SIMPLY HANDING A BUNCH OF ROCKS OVER TO ROBIN, WITHOUT NOTING WHERE EACH CAME FROM, MIGHT LEAVE ME DEALING WITH AN ANNOYED TROLL-KILLING BLACKSMITH," you explain.
"Oooh, good point. Sorry I didn't think of that; prospecting isn't really my thing."
"YOU ARE FORGIVEN. NOW, IF YOU WOULD BE SO KIND AS TO TAKE THE WATCH WHILE I SORT THIS OUT?"
"Sure."
Fortunately, there's a relatively quick solution for your troubles. You take out the Carrying Case that held the second half of the Shuzens' payment for Kahlua's refurbished Gauntlets, spend a moment comparing the indentations in the foam insert to the shape of your first Ore Sample, and then decide that they wouldn't fit, and there'd be too much shifting of and contact between the contents.
That's easily fixed, though. You just remove the foam, pocket it for later disposal, and cast the Spell of Minor Creation to create a five-by-five grid of wooden slats within the case. This gives you enough separate spaces to handle all the samples you mean to collect, and then some. Though the bars are only temporary in nature, your advanced command of Conjuration Magic makes them very stable while they last, so there's little fear of contamination - especially since you'll be keeping them in your pocket most of the time.
Just to be sure, you follow up by casting a carefully-aimed Spell to Dispel Magic, clearing the residual energies of the first spell from the interior of the case.
Once that's done, you close the case, get out a sheet of paper, and make some notes about where the first deposit of Goddess copper lies, relative to the trilithon that Navi dropped you off at.
Thanks in large part to your partnership with Briar, you are pretty good at identifying and interacting with Faerie creatures for someone of your age. Not perfect, by any means, but definitely above average. Your knowledge of Faerie ITSELF, however, is rather more limited; just witness how you'd never even heard of the ores that Navi has you tracking down before today.
Given that you're collecting semi-magical ores for a major item creation project, that lack of information has your instincts twitching, and as such, you decide it would be best to go into some detail about the prevailing conditions at the site of each of the ore deposits you visit this afternoon, as well as the techniques you use to gather samples from them.
Approximate location, geography, placement and type of vegetation (and fungus), weather conditions, light level - you're going to be writing "twilight" a lot, there, unless some of these locations are under the shadow of the forest - strongest local auras, and so on.
You don't know if any of this data will prove relevant to Robin, but you also don't know that it WON'T. And speaking from painful past-life experience, when it comes to things magical, it's always the stuff you don't know that comes back to bite you. Especially when you don't know that you don't know.
You know?
Gained Local Knowledge (Faerie) E
It takes a few minutes to get everything down, especially since you have to keep stopping to ask Briar for the correct words in Sylvan to describe certain concepts. As one might expect for a language spoken mainly by nature spirits and forest-dwellers, Sylvan is VERY good at identifying and conveying natural environmental conditions, and you end up having to erase and re-write several different parts of your notes to get an accurate summation.
Gained Sylvan D (Plus)
Once you're finished, you apply a quick minor dispel to the paper to purge it of the ambient Faerie energy that it's been exposed to, and then fold it up and tuck it inside the Carrying Case in the same slot as your first Ore Sample.
That done, you put the Case away-
"ONCE AGAIN," you call up to the sky, "WE EXTEND OUR APOLOGIES FOR THE DELAY, AND THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE."
"We do?" Briar wonders. When you shoot her a quick look, she hastily clarifies, "I mean, WE DO!"
You nod. "NOW, ONWARD!"
-and resume your fetch quest.
You're just short of the second deposit of Goddess copper when you pause, realizing that aside from the fading echoes of your own ki-aided movement through the trees, this neck of the woods has suddenly gotten very quiet.
Something is out there.
You're not sure what, or where - aside from the fact that if you haven't picked it up, it's either supernaturally stealthy or out of passive sensory range - but if the behavior of the local prey animals is any indication, it's a predator of some sort.
One silver lining: the fact that you haven't been ambushed yet suggests that whatever is out there was surprised by your arrival, is unsure of its chances against you, or just hasn't spotted you.
If you switch over to active senses, there's a chance the emanations could provoke whatever creature is stalking about nearby, especially if you go so far as to use Power Sight or Power Sense. Similarly, if you obviously ready yourself for a fight, you could set off its territorial instincts; it would depend on how smart this thing is, and how familiar it is with melee weaponry.
Given some of the Fae you've met, and the stories you've heard or read about others, you're not going to bet against the ability of Faerie's native wildlife to recognize shield and sword for what they are.
And while you've got a Spell of Flight going, you don't think the situation yet merits taking to the sky. Plus, there's the canopy overhead to consider; Ki Enhancement and buff spells or no, you'd rather avoid getting whacked in the face by tree branches if you can help it. That just stings.
As such, you simply loosen up your shoulders, make sure your grip on your blade is steady, and keep your eyes peeled and other senses on alert as you venture forward.
"WE MAY BE ENTERING DANGEROUS TERRITORY, ENSIGN BRIAR," you note in a booming hush. "PROCEED AT YELLOW ALERT."
"I'm an ensign, now?"
"THAT IS THE ENTRY-LEVEL RANK FOR COMMISSIONED OFFICERS, AND YOU CERTAINLY DO AN OFFICER'S WORK."
"Cool." A tiny throat is cleared. "ORDERS RECEIVED, LIEUTENANT."
"...WAIT, WHY AM I ONLY A LIEUTENANT?"
"Not a lot of nine-year-old captains out there, Alex."
Under different circumstances, you might object to this, but with an unknown Fae beastie lurking in the area, it's really not the time.
Speaking of things that go bump in the twilight, as you continue to advance towards the second deposit of Goddess copper, you finally pick up a presence about ten meters ahead and off to your right. It's not easy to make out details, as the creature's life-force is a mix of familiar mortal energies and Faerie essence, on top of being shrouded in a way that reminds you of Ki Concealment; if you had to make a guess, though, you would venture that this being's vital essence is about as strong as yours.
It's also coming your way, at a slow speed that could be a cautious advance or a predatory stalk.
The distance between you diminishes further, and through a gap in the trees, you catch sight of your possible opponent. The combination of heavy forest terrain and twilight conditions would normally leave the details impossible to make out, but your Spell of Low-Light Vision neatly counters the poor lighting, revealing that you probably outmass the creature - but not by as much as you'd like, given that it seems to be a good four feet long in the body. Precise details are still a bit hard to make out, thanks to the undergrowth, but you have the distinct impression of a feline on the prowl.
This impression is reinforced by the eyes that glow luminous green around slitted pupils as they stare at you through the leaves, the twitching ears and tail you catch brief glimpses of, and the quiet rumbling that is somewhere between the growl of a big cat and the purr of a small one.
"Oh, goodie," Briar sighs. "Another monster cat."
"LOOK ON THE BRIGHT SIDE."
"There's a bright side?"
Regardless, you're facing down a Faerie cat approximately the size of a young human. It is, at the very least, curious about your presence, but hasn't yet given an indication that it means to attack you - though by the same token, it hasn't shown that it won't, either.
The lack of hostility makes you think that you could press on as you are. The Goddess copper is just over the next hill and a little further on, and if the cat sees that you're not hunting or threatening it, it might leave you be.
Of course, you can't exactly predict how a strange being from another plane of existence will react, even if it is at least part cat. Actually, maybe ESPECIALLY because it's a cat. And even if it doesn't decide to jump you, the idea of trying to write another batch of notes under that glowing gaze does not exactly appeal. That ever-cautious part of you would just as soon chase the Faerie cat off, if possible.
Your bond with Briar twinges in agreement with that impulse.
There's also the possibility that, due to its Fae essence, this cat is intelligent enough to communicate with. Or you could just use the Spell to Speak With Animals. Defusing a potential confrontation has its appeal, as does the notion of acquiring local intel, or even a guide - though for that to happen would take some luck, and probably a bribe of some kind. And you're fresh out of fish.
"THIS IS THE SECOND TIME THAT A MONSTER CAT HAS FAILED TO AMBUSH US."
"...that IS better than the alternative," Briar reluctantly agrees. "I would have preferred that we were never in a position where we were in danger of being ambushed in the first place, though."
You don't disagree with that sentiment, however...
"THE MULTIVERSE IS UNLIKELY TO RUN OUT OF CATS ANY TIME SOON, BRIAR."
"Yeah." The fairy sighs. "Reality is a pain like that."
What you have here is a chance to exercise diplomacy without resorting to violence. Even if the attempt fails, Nayru would likely appreciate it if you took the opportunity.
Since you're dealing with a creature of Faerie, you decide to treat it as an intelligent creature until you have good reason to believe otherwise. As such, you sheath your sword and start out by trying to speak to the cat-being in Sylvan.
This, naturally, requires you to raise your voice.
"HAIL, DENIZEN OF THIS FINE LAND! I AM A TRAVELER FROM ANOTHER REALM, QUESTING ON BEHALF OF A GREAT FAIRY, AND FOR THE AMUSEMENT OF ANOTHER. MAY WE SPEAK?"
There is a pause.
"I thought we agreed you'd keep it down?" Briar comments.
"SHE'S ALL THE WAY OVER THERE, BRIAR. I NEED TO BE SURE SHE HEARS ME."
"Which Great Fairy?" There is an odd sort of scratchiness to the voice that calls from the direction of the cat-being, but overall, it sounds like it belongs to a young girl.
This doesn't really surprise you.
"I DO NOT KNOW THE NAME OF THE SECOND ONE," you admit, "ONLY THAT SHE CLAIMS THIS PART OF FAERIE AS HER OWN."
There is a wordless sound of recognition.
"BUT THE GREAT FAIRY WHO SENT ME ON THIS QUEST IS KNOWN AS NAVI, OF THE LOST WOODS OF HYRULE," you continue.
This is answered by a grunt. You're not sure if it's a positive reaction or a negative one.
"Permission?"
"IF YOU MEAN, 'DO I HAVE THE LOCAL GREAT FAIRY'S PERMISSION TO BE IN HER TERRITORY?'" you venture, frowning as you try to make sense of the one-word question, "THEN, YES, I HAVE BEEN TOLD THAT SHE WAS WILLING TO ALLOW MY PRESENCE, IN EXCHANGE FOR THE RIGHT TO OBSERVE MY PROGRESS."
There is a funny choking sound. "Watching!?"
Before you can answer, a woman's laughter echoes overhead. It sounds distant, sort of like thunder in a storm miles away, but at the same time, it feels much closer.
There is a dull thump from behind the bushes where you think the cat-person is hiding, which are starting to shake.
You are... not sure how to respond to that.
"IS EVERYTHING ALRIGHT OVER THERE?"
Your answer is a distinctly feline noise of distress, followed by a whisper you have to strain your ears to catch: "Scary fairy."
You and Briar trade glances.
"On the one hand," your partner says slowly, "I have to admit that I kind of like the idea of a cat being scared to mess with a fairy."
"ON THE OTHER," you continue, "TAKING PLEASURE FROM THE FEAR OF OTHERS IS, WELL, WRONG."
More to the point, it's the sort of thing Ganondorf would have done. Enough said.
"Yeah, that. And that goes double when it's a kid. Kitten. Whatever."
"ONE MUST ALSO QUESTION WHETHER OR NOT THE NATURE OF OUR HOSTESS WILL AFFECT OUR QUEST, GOING FORWARD," you add. "AND IF SO, HOW?"
"That depends on what she did that makes her scary," Briar replies.
Both of you turn back to the still-hidden, still-trembling female feline.
With some reluctance, you pose the question: "MY APOLOGIES IF THIS TOUCHES ON BAD MEMORIES, BUT... WHAT DID SHE DO?"
The bushes shiver again. "Don't wanna say."
You frown. For all the signs of distress she's been throwing around, the catgirl - or maybe girl-cat? You'd know better if you could get a clear view of her - didn't sound terrified or hurt just now, merely...
...embarrassed?
While you are curious about what exactly happened between the local Great Fairy and the girl you're speaking with, your general disposition towards girls, Fae beings, animals, and just people in general is such that you decide not to press her for details on a sensitive topic.
"VERY WELL, THEN; I WITHDRAW THE QUESTION."
"...thank you."
"YOU ARE MOST WELCOME."
Is there anything else you want to say here?
"I SHOULD GO."
"PLACES TO GO, TREASURES TO UNCOVER, YOU KNOW HOW IT IS."
There is no immediate response to that, so you keep going.
"IF YOU WISH, YOU ARE WELCOME TO TAG ALONG TO WITNESS OUR GRAND ADVENTURE!"
"Of finding rocks?" Briar questions.
"OF FINDING INTERESTING ROCKS," you correct your partner.
At this, the bushes stop shaking for a moment. This pause is followed by a rustle of leaves and twigs, after which a face emerges from the greenery.
You briefly met three catgirls back at Kahlua's birthday party, when they were picking on Tatsuki. All three of them were in their human disguises at the time, and the only reason you're sure they WERE catgirls is because of their ears, which they hadn't done a great job of hiding.
Such is not the case for the definitely-a-catgirl staring blankly at you. She's not simply a human with cat-ears attached and odd pupils, although those features are certainly in evidence; the overall shape of her face is subtly different, particularly around the nose and mouth, and she lacks even the suggestion of human ears, something that changes her appearance in a way you hadn't expected. The sides of her head are covered by a very fine light brown fur, and there are whiskers sprouting from her upper lip, but aside from that, her face is no fuzzier than a typical human girl's would be.
Her actual hair is the same shade as her fur, and is cut off a bit raggedly at approximately shoulder length. It doesn't have the sort of sheen you're used to seeing from people who have access to modern hygenic products and hairstylists, which isn't to suggest that it's filthy or anything; it just hasn't had the benefit of shampoo, conditioner, and the more arcane techniques of hair-care professionals.
With her head sticking out from the bushes like this, you can't see much of her clothing, but she is wearing some kind of greyish cloth shirt, with what looks like a vest of brown leather atop it.
Muzzle scrunched up in a look of confusion, the catgirl repeats, "Rocks?"
"I AM COLLECTING ORE SAMPLES FOR A FAIRY SMITH," you explain quickly.
"Ah." Her confusion immediately abates, and is replaced by worry. A hand - distinctly fuzzy, and with sharp-looking nails - points to the sky in the direction the Great Fairy's laughter came from. "Related?"
You're actually not sure. Fortunately, you have a fairy. "BRIAR? ARE YOU RELATED TO THE LOCAL GREAT FAIRY?"
"What? Oh, no; Mom would have said something."
Green eyes widen, and feline ears perk up in surprise. "Family?"
"THE SMITH IS HER BIG BROTHER," you say. "THEIR MOTHER IS THE OTHER GREAT FAIRY I MENTIONED."
That earns a nod, and seems to ease the catgirl's immediate fears. Indeed, now she just looks curious. "Mining?"
The way she speaks is very odd, but you're starting to get the hang of interpreting the blunt, tending-towards-monepic style of expression. You think that she's not just asking what you're doing, but what exactly you're hoping to find.
Cat is curious, they say.
"MORE LIKE PROSPECTING, AT THIS POINT," you tell the catgirl. Reaching into your pocket, you pull out the Ore Samples that Navi left you, and hold them out so that she can see them - even though they probably just look like ordinary rocks from this distance. "I'VE BEEN ASKED TO FIND SAMPLES OF GODDESS COPPER, MOONSILVER, AND SUNGOLD."
She nods at the first couple of names, apparently recognizing the metals, but when you mention the mystical gold, she reacts with alarm, eyes widening and ears shooting straight up.
"Where!?"
You compare your surroundings against the magical map lingering in your mind, and point east and slightly south. "THATAWAY. ABOUT TWELVE-" Wait, no; considering the distance you've travelled from the trilith, that should be... "ACTUALLY, BETTER MAKE THAT THIRTEEN MILES."
The girl recoils into the bushes, almost hiding her face again. "Dangerous!"
"HOW SO?"
"Lord. Comes for gold each year. Summer. Leaves guardian. Killer!"
Oh, good; another Fae lord. It's been about two months since you almost crossed paths with the last one, you were starting to feel... what's the word? Neglected? Overlooked?
Safe?
Still, you can't say that you're surprised by this development. It makes sense that some of these ore deposits would have guardians, whether assigned by intelligent entities to enforce their claim on the material, or just as a consequence of their magical energies attracting creatures with sympathetic natures. And for the rarest and most valuable metal to be one of the ones that's guarded? By an agent of one of the Big Folk, no less? That checks out.
It IS nice to have confirmation ahead of time, though.
"WHAT SORT OF GUARDIAN?" you ask.
The catgirl shakes her head. "Don't know. Never see. Hides in shadows. Kills intruders. Hangs bodies!"
...okay, unless this lord contracted out to another plane, that almost has to be a Winter Fae.
Also, creepy.