Creation 



Kliza turned and directed a sharp glare at her younger brother. "Don't
mince words with me, Laermornan." Her voice dripped with scorn for her
inferior. "You had a reason for asking what orders were given to
Distanfae and it was more than mere curiousity. I sensed fear in you when
you asked. You know as well as I that he's had that rune sword for two
years, and that quicksilver golem for six months. There's been no secret
made of Matron Vitrue's having ordered him to produce a new rune weapon
for her. Why so curious, little brother?" There was no affection in the
words of the dark-skinned beauty, only malice, suspicion, and scorn.

Laermornan's dark face flushed with fear and an anger he dared not
express. He stared at the floor, his face partially concealed by his
long white hair, unwilling to meet her eyes. "Because I know my brother,
Kliza. To give him leeway with his orders is dangerous."

Kliza's eyes flashed. "So jealous of the second-boy's stature in our
mother's eyes, are you? Do you truly think Distanfae would dare betray
our mother?" Kliza's hand flashed out, grasping Laer's shirt and pulling
him to stare into her beautiful, deadly face. "I don't want to hear of
this again, Laermornan. Your jealousy has gone quite far enough."

Laermornan wanted to protest further but dared not. Inwardly he
wondered. What would Matron Vitrue do to Distanfae if he was right? It
was but the merest rumour he'd heard, but if in truth Distanfae had been
ordered to make a rune weapon without their traditional limitations,
they could all be in for terrible danger. After all, was not the ability
to be controlled by another a limitation?

---

"Surely you see this is madness? Do not do this, Distanfae!" Laermornan
Vitrue's dark face was flushed with fear and anger beneath his long
white hair as he stared at his younger brother. "I warned you against
pursuing these foolish studies of human magics! They've led to madness
before, you know this! You must build in controls for the Matron!" 

Laer paused in his pacing to direct a pleading gaze at his brother, who
lounged in the comfortable chair placed near the easel on which the
remnants of diagrams and scrawls could still be seen. The chair's
purpose there had confused Laermornan when Distanfae first brought him
to the room and began to explain his plan. It became clear though, when
Distanfae retreated to it upon Laer's interruption. Distanfae seemed
curiously unaffected by his sibling's discomfiture, merely watching him
with a cool, calculating smile.

With a visible effort, Laermornan broke off his tirade, focusing his
attention once more on his smirking brother. When he spoke again, it was
in a calmer and quieter tone. "You must realize that you are not the
first to attempt such a thing?"

"Of course, dear brother. I am not so foolish as you seem wont to think
me." His voice held a silent warning that Laer interpreted easily
enough. Distanfae was quietly warning Laer that his words of madness
were coming dangerously close to insult.

Laermornan sighed then nodded slowly, resuming his seat even as
Distanfae rose. He waved one hand wearily, gesturing for his brother to
continue, though every word that came from his brother's mouth was
confirming the fear he had been forbidden to speak further of.

"Thank you. Now, as I was saying, I have found the means to create a
weapon that is indestructible..."

Laer groaned inwardly but couldn't help interrupting. "Surely you mean
virtually indestructible, brother; nothing is completely indestructible.
I may be a warrior and not a wizard but that does not make me a fool.
Any sword can be broken, no matter how strong the spells that are on it.
It is simply a matter of how much force is required."

His brother actually stopped and graced him with an appraising look
followed by a wry smile. "Indeed, brother, you are correct. However,
there is documentary evidence of weapons of this particular variety that
the gods themselves have sought to destroy and yet failed. I suppose
that as you say, they cannot be truly and completely indestructible. Let
us say then that there exists no known force powerful enough to cause
their destruction."

Laermornan's eyes widened. "If what you say is true, Dist, then how is
it that these humans have not conquered all the world?"

Distanfae smiled humourlessly. "Indeed. That was one of my first avenues
of research. First, let me state that my materials for this work come
not from this world nor even this dimension." He smirked at his
brother's clueless expression. "Let me put it this way. The humans who
created these things are not from this plane of existence. Furthermore,
while the magic that I have is human in basis, humans are not the true
creators here. They have merely adapted the creation of vastly more
powerful evil races in the plane from whence my information comes. More
to the point, these evil races do, in fact, rule nearly all that is in
that plane.

"However, my research has also indicated that the primary point of
failure here is that while the weapon may be indestructible, the wielder
is not. Furthermore, the creation of these weapons involves the capture
and permanent imprisonment of a powerful soul, which hardly gives the
weapon a strong reason to protect its creator.

"Indeed, it seems that these weapons often do not reach their full
potential until they come across a wielder who fits with their
personality... much like more ordinary intelligent magical weapons."

Laer idly fingered the tassels on the arms of his chair as he
contemplated his brother's words. "Am I to understand then that you have
thought of a solution to these complications?" Perhaps his brother was
not so foolish as he had feared.

His brother's face seemed to be lit from within as his excitement broke
through the emotionless shell he ordinarily displayed. "Precisely! Allow
me to explain. You are aware of the existence of the quicksilver demon?"

"The ones that a recent exploring party was nearly destroyed by? Yes...
although I thought there was some question as to whether they might not
have been golems, left over guardians from some long ago wizard." Laer
was careful not to reveal the extent of his knowledge about them, nor
that he knew already that Distanfae had acquired one.

"Oh, yes, Laermornan, there was considerable question about those. It
might surprise you to know that I managed to obtain one. They are
neither demons, as has been the popular supposition, nor are they
golems. They are a form of living metal, constrained in human form and
infused with an elemental spirit."

Laer raised his eyebrows. "I thought you said they weren't golems? I
thought that a golem was something inanimate with an elemental spirit
bound to it?" He might not be capable of making one, but Laer was a
trained warrior; he had fought golems before and had learned of them in
the warrior's school.

Distanfae shrugged. "There are certain subtle distinctions between
elementals and golems but they aren't really important. The point is
that after I negated the spells that created it, I had a living metal.
Not intelligent, mind, but aware. It is capable of behaving like a
liquid, taking on the shape of its container. It is also capable of
retaining solid form. Furthermore, it can mimic forms. I am sure that
whoever discovered it found it perfect for creating cheap golems, since
it can take a more precise form than the best carver or silversmith
could give you.

"I've run a number of tests, including summoning elementals into the
metal. Without a constraining spell, the metal can be shaped by the will
of the spirit within, or even by the will of one merely touching it, if
it has no spirit. It will also absorb other metals, as if consuming
them. With proper coaxing, it will absorb other things as well.

"That has given me the answer, elder brother, for with what I have left
of the living metal and a supply of mithril and adamantite, I will
create an indestructible weapon that can change its form and can wield
itself."

Laermornan shook his head doubtfully, not noticing that his reaction had
caused his brother to palm a poisoned dart. "Wield itself? Surely the
first Matron it attacks will simply banish it to another plane and then
where will we be? Granted that a weapon that wields itself is less
danger to you, for it is not obvious to whom its attack should be
attributed, but the Matrons will doubtless have spells to handle
tracking the controller of such items. I do not see how this can work.
If your attempt displeases our Matron you will not long live."

"Too bad," his brother sighed, flicking his wrist. He watched his
brother collapse. "But I can't take the chance that you'll speak of
this. If you can't be convinced, then you'll simply have to forget."

With that he set to casting the spells that would ensure his slumbering
brother would forget all about this little conversation.

---

Ranma rose from his steaming corpse where it lay against the cold wood
of the dojo. Nabiki and Kasumi, to his surprise, had tried to convince
his mother that he must have done all that could have been done, but she
was adamant. No man amongst men would ever allow his fiancee, family,
and friends to be slain, even if he did slay their killer. 

He wanted to go to the grieving girls but knew there was nothing he
could do for them now. He was a failure. He was no man. He deserved the
curse that had been placed on him, for he had failed everyone.

He hung his head in shame and sadness, unable to bear to look any longer
upon the anguished faces of those who would have been his sisters, had
he not failed them, and waited for the end, for the gods to take his
spirit.

He was not in the least expecting the frozen hook that pierced his chest
with a frigid chill, sending a burning, freezing pain searing through
him. The sudden shock of pain broke through the barrier of depression
and loss and he reached out as the chain attached to the hook began to
tug at him and grabbed at that which was closest to hand in a vain
effort to secure himself.

His hand passed without obstruction through his dead body until to his
surprise it snagged on something within. He grasped it tightly even as
the hook pulled sharply. The object pulled free of his body as he passed
through the dojo wall and his eyes widened with sudden horror as he
stared at the glowing ball of white light. It could not be his soul, for
surely that was what he now was. His body was dead and the only thing he
could think of that this might be was the curse, and it terrified him. 

In his desperation to escape whatever fate awaited him, for nothing good
could be signified by being hooked like a fish, had he caused the curse
to follow him into the afterlife? His horror was confirmed as the ball
seemed to seep into his hand and as the white light passed down his arm,
it became more slender and shapely. "Even in death," he murmured,
finding it suddenly meet that he should become a woman in death. He had
not been a man in life, why should he be allowed to be a man after life?

He felt his grasp on consciousness fading as the light spread and when
the light finally reached his head, darkness consumed him. When he
recovered awareness he was completely female in form. He had a sinking
suspicion that the curse would no longer switch him. He wasn't sure why
he thought that, yet it somehow seemed appropriate. His own mother had
deemed him less than a man and if what he suspected were true, he... no,
she, would probably never be a man again.

A soft laugh filled with delight and mirth echoed around her and she
struggled to lift her head. After a moment her tired muscles responded.
That doesn't make sense, she thought even as she raised her head, I'm
dead, why do I have muscles still?

She was surrounded by a faint shimmer of white light that seemed to form
a cylinder around her. Beyond it she saw the figure who was laughing, a
man with sharp features, pointed ears, dark skin, and white hair that
reflected the glow that surrounded her. Was this her judge?

He stepped forward and, having restrained his delight, sketched a deep
bow in her direction. By ingrained response she bowed in return even as
she wondered where she was. Was this the afterlife? Was that freezing
hook really how souls were brought to the next plane? Or was she here to
be reincarnated?

"Despair."

The word seemed to echo throughout the room and strangely seemed to have
been said in a number of languages at once. The overlapping words did
not interfere with the clarity of the speech and the meaning was not
obscured.

"The pinnacle of skill you reached and it was not enough and so now you
despair," the voice continued and Ranma saw that the handsome man was
speaking. "You've nothing left to live for, have you?" He nodded when
she gestured her assent. 

Ranma wanted to protest, thinking that perhaps he was asking if she
desired reincarnation, but what was the point? She couldn't beat Saffron,
she couldn't save anyone, she failed her mother, and she was dead already
anyway. She dropped her head, unable to hold on to even a spark of
defiance. Let him do what he would. It could hardly be more than she
deserved for her failure. At the least she could retain this measure of
honor; that she would not protest the judgement given in the afterlife.

"You are a great warrior," he asked, though the tone of the question
made it clear that he knew and expected but one response. She nodded
once more. "What is your name?"

She struggled for a moment to decide how to respond. Ranma was her name
and seppuku had restored her honor, leaving her within her rights to
claim the name Saotome, but she felt a deep pain in her gut at the
thought of being reminded, every time someone said her name, that she had
been a man once, that she was a failure, that she had failed everyone she
had ever known.

"Saotome Ranko," she replied finally. She was somewhat surprised to note
that her voice sounded just as it always had in spite of her being a
spirit now, or at least, as her female voice had always sounded.

"I can offer you a second chance," he said and she looked at him in
puzzlement. "I can give you life again and a chance to change what
happened." He held up a restraining hand at her eager expression.
Reincarnation? She had feared that her earlier response and acquiescence
had removed that opportunity; but a chance to change what happened? She
could be reincarnated in the past? "You would not share in that change,
however. That is to say, if you prevented the deaths that led to your
despair, you would then never have despaired. A paradox, if you will. It
would undo itself and your effort would be in vain."

Ranma slumped in disappointment. Even if she had to remain a girl
forever, at least her mother would never have had to lose her family, her
father would keep his life, her friends and her fiancees would live. Yet
even this, it seemed, was still beyond her.

"There is a way," the man continued. "I can place your soul within a
rune weapon, an indestructible weapon. The power of a rune weapon is
such that even the gods themselves cannot destroy one. In such a form,
even paradox could not destroy you and both your old self and your new
weapon form would exist at the same time. But you yourself would be left
alone, for those you failed would have you still, as you were then."

Not reincarnation then, she realized. She was no longer certain that this
was the afterlife, but it mattered little. She stared at him, eyes wide
and hopeful, hands clasped together. Did it really matter what this was,
whether the afterlife, or who knew what else? She already feared that she
had been cursed to be a woman forever, would it be so different to serve
in a weapon? She imagined being a sword like her mother's. Swords had
honor, they carried the honor of families, if in that way she could
redeem her failure, could she refuse?

If even after death she could still triumph, how could her mother look at
her with disappointment in her eyes? She nodded eagerly, not trusting her
voice.

"You would live forever," he said in a warning tone. 

She shook her head and waved her hand, "Doesn't matter." 

"It might take hundreds, even thousands of years." Again she indicated
that she did not care.

"What could you give me for this boon?"

Ranma slumped. A being of the afterlife or no, he wasn't giving free
gifts. A moment later she brightened. He wasn't hiding the strings,
either. She wouldn't find out only too late that there really was a
cost; he was showing it to her upfront. But what had she to offer? Her
face sank again and she shrugged listlessly. "I have nothing."

"You think you have nothing to offer? You have your skill, do you not?
Offer me your fealty, warrior, your sworn loyalty to obey me as your
lord until my death, and I will grant you this boon." Ranma was startled
but a moment's thought made her realize that what she was being asked
for was much the same as any samurai had given his daimyo, and was not
she of samurai stock? Besides, what could he ask of his sword? That it
kill? If she had been more willing to kill when she fought Saffron, she
might have saved everyone. She wouldn't make that mistake again.

"How long?" she asked warily. "You said I'd be immortal. If you are
too, I'd be stuck forever. How would I save my family then?"

He nodded. "A wise caution. Until I die, then, or a thousand years hence."

She considered slowly then remembered other tales she'd heard. "Will I
age?"

"You will grow older, but only in mind, not in body or form."

She tried to think of anymore loopholes then sighed. I ain't Nabiki, she
thought despondently. If he's trying to cheat me, it ain't gonna be
hard. But it is a chance, a chance to regain my honor and to save my...
to save everyone. For just a moment she wondered if she ought not reveal
that she was a man, that there be no dishonesty on her part in accepting
this. A sudden fear struck her then. What if he demanded proof and she
could not give it? What if he took back his offer? This might well be
her one and only chance to undo what had been done, to correct her
terrible mistake. Could she take any chance on losing it? Inwardly,
silently, she swore an oath, that the oath she would next give might be
an honest one; "I renounce my manhood and my given name. From this day
forth, I am Saotome Ranko only."

"I swear on my honor," she said aloud, hoping against hope that he would
accept her oath and give her this chance, even if it took a thousand
times a thousand years, "that until you die or a thousand year's hence,
whichever comes first," thanks Nabiki, I guess I did learn something
after all, "I will obey you in all things, if you faithfully grant me the
chance to prevent the deaths that led to my," ahh... what was the word he
used, "to my despair." 

---

Distanfae nodded in acceptance of the warrior's oath. "So be it." He had
been surprised that the powerful warrior he had sought had been female
and human. Females might be the stronger in his race, but he was fairly
confident that it was the opposite amongst humans. Still, though she was
a tiny one, the strength was obvious in the well-muscled curves of her
naked form.

Distanfae watched with pleasure as the captive beauty was released into
the boiling pool of magically endowed molten metals, a mix of
adamantite, mithril, and the living quicksilver metal, which in spite of
the name it had been given was unquestionably not mercury, though its
appearance was quite similar. Strands of molten jade and onyx, liquified
by magic, threaded through the dark and light tapestry of the metals.
His attention was caught by the sight of a fresh strand of red curling
through the mixture. "Now where did that come from?" he wondered, "It's
not as if she were an item of magical power, to be drawn in by the spell
as a new element, she should be no more than a bound soul."

He waited as the mixture cooled. It retained its liquified state due to
the powerful enchantments laid upon the jade and onyx, designed to
extend the attributes of the mystery metal to the other four components
while preventing the metal from completely absorbing the other elements
of the mixture. When he deemed it cool enough he left the room. In the
next room, already prepared, a scrying pool awaited. He barred the door
then activated the pool.

The destruction of magic objects often caused considerable damage and he
wasn't entirely certain that what he was going to try to do would work,
so he intended to accomplish it from a distance. Casting a spell that
would allow him to move the objects in the room, he picked up the
simplest of the prepared items, a ring of eldritch missiles. 

It was a very minor item of power and its destruction would not be more
powerful than the number of missiles it held, at least to his estimation.
Lifting it, he cast it into the liquid pool, still swirling as the
immense spell energies he had released continued their work.

The ring vanished into a stream of gold but there was no sign of the
half-expected explosion. Distanfae barely resisted letting forth a cry of
exultation. "This will secure my place among the names of the greats!"

The ring was quickly followed by a wand of lightning magic. Once it was
completely dissolved, a wand of fire magic, then water, air, and earth
in quick succession. Each wand was among the more powerful of the
non-unique wands, bearing in addition to the basic powers of their
element, the power to summon elementals from the realms they accessed.

They were among Distanfae's most prized possessions yet he had never had
the opportunity to use them. After all, his first use would likely be
his last, for if his Matron knew he had them, they would be taken in
moments. By binding them to his servant, he gave up the ability to use
them directly, but they would never be able to be taken from him. Of
course, technically, he was tasked to make this weapon for the Matron,
but if it served him and he served the Matron, then he fulfilled the
letter of his duty.

The spell was beginning to wind down, so Distanfae wasted no time
supplying the next items. The cloak of shadows would allow his creation
to travel from shadow to shadow and to cloak herself in shadows that
would hide her even from the heat-sensitive eyes of his kin. He knew all
too well the dangers of possessing a flashy or obvious magical item,
even if that would fit his Matron's desires better. It would also allow
her to form a sphere of darkness, mimicking one of the innate abilities
of drow, particularly drow nobles. The ring of flight would ensure that
she could emulate their ability to levitate, as well as allow her, in
sword form, to act as a dancing sword, a sword that wields itself.

Lastly, an amulet of faerie fire would duplicate the drow talent for the
colorful, unburning magical fire that they used for decorative purposes.
The amulet was in fact stronger than a drow's native abilities, being
used to manipulate the permanent glows left, especially those created by
drow that had since died. Any drow could readily control their own
faerie fire, but manipulating that created by another was far more
difficult.

That constituted the larger part of his collection of magical items, at
least the ones with considerable power. Most of the remaining items were
defensive in nature. He didn't really care to supply his creation with
any defensive magic. Weapons of this sort were indestructible, according
to all the texts he found. What would the point of further defensive
magic be? Besides, while he might not be safely able to wield offensive
magic, the defensive magic he owned could well save his life. If after
it did it was taken as a prize by his mother, the Matron, well, it would
have served its purpose by then at any rate.

The last item lay on the table where the other items had been set out.
He gazed at it for a long time, uncertain whether to risk trying to add
it. It was a straight blade, about five and a half-feet long, of green
jade, with a simple hilt. It was also a weapon of exactly the sort he
was making. It claimed to be the soul of an ancient celestial dragon and
its knowledge had been the impetus for his effort. He had no doubts
about the likelihood of his surviving while trying to wield that sword.
He was no swordsman and its indestructibility would be little comfort as
the poisons of his kin destroyed him.

Glancing at the pool, he hesitated for a long moment. He hoped, though
without much assurance, that even after his creation had taken shape,
after the formative magics cooled and died, it might still be capable of
absorbing other magic items into itself. Indeed, he was somewhat afraid
that it might need to, might hunger for more. Another rune weapon,
though? That seemed a bit much to hope for. His hesitation was enough
and the decision was taken from him, for even as he watched, the
swirling stilled and the liquid in the pool pulled away from the edges,
rising quickly and flowing into its base shape, a simple sphere.

Distanfae nodded slowly to himself as he reentered the chamber where his
new weapon lay. He had gone too far, sacrificed too many of the house
slaves to the spell to take a chance on causing it to fail now. Besides
which, the danger of the spirit of the other rune weapon being still
active in the combined weapon was too great.

Moving carefully through the room, he eased past the now quiescent
sphere to where the second half of his creation rested on a shelf. It
was a thin wire mesh of gold and mithril. He lifted it up and set it
lightly upon his thick white hair, where it instantly vanished, passing
through his hair to bind itself to his head.

Bound together in the creation process, the thin mesh and the
vari-colored sphere were inextricably linked. Distanfae was too careful
to trust to the traditional means of controlling such powerful magic,
particularly not when he had made changes to its design that had never
been attempted before.

His insurance in place, he reached out and splayed his hand across the
sphere, not quite touching the surface. Breathing deeply and tensing his
hand to pull away if aught went wrong, he lowered his hand until it came
into contact with the sphere.

When nothing untoward occurred, he firmed his grip and turned his hand,
lifting up the sphere. Even as his hand turned, the massive sphere
shrank until it rested easily and lightly in his palm. He admired his
new weapon for a long moment then wrapped it in cloth and concealed it
within his robes. 

He turned to the door then paused a moment, reconsidering. The
priestesses of the house, his mother and sisters, often kept spells
ready that would let them feel the direction of another's thoughts, or
know if truth or lies were being offered them. He had to keep this new
weapon a secret until he had it trained, lest its incompetence bring
upon him his mother's wrath, and while he had timed events so that his
path from these chambers to those he intended to use for training would
be most probably empty, perhaps he did not need to take even that risk.

Slipping his hand within his robe, he insinuated it into the cloth
covering until his fingers came once more into contact with the smooth
orb, still slightly warm from its recent heat. Ignoring the aura of
depression and despair that was the captive soul, he made the first true
test of his creation. Under his breath he muttered the command words for
the cloak of shadows. A feral grin lit his face as the shadows on the
wall lengthened, embracing him. A moment later he stepped forth from the
shadows of an alcove in the training hall he had chosen.

The walls were a matte black and the entire hall was wreathed in
shadows, the only light coming from statues above the alcoves, limned in
the soft ethereal glow of faerie fire.

Removing the cloth wrapped bundle from his robe, he strode to an alcove
at the head of the room where awaited a pedastal. Upon the stone column
he placed the cloth, unveiling the weapon, tucking the cloth in around
its base that it might not move.

He stared at it for a long time, marveling at his success. He had gone
beyond the humans whose spells he had worked from, beyond even the great
evil intelligences that had crafted the first rune weapons. "You will be
ranked with the great artifacts," he thought to himself as he looked on
his creation, "the creations whose name every wizard knows, whose
creator's name every wizard fears."

Reaching out once more, he lay his hand upon it. Instantly his awareness
of the despairing soul within was renewed. Muttering under his breath he
invoked one of the powers of the light mesh helm that lay hidden beneath
his hair and this time when he withdrew his hand from the sphere, that
awareness remained.

Stepping back into a neighboring alcove, Distanfae focused his attention
on the soul in despair. "Awake," he commanded it. Receiving no response,
he pressed upon it with his will, forcing it to return to awareness.

"Where am I? I can't see anything, I can't feel anything?" He heard the
youthful female voice say, the same voice with which she had spoken to
him before, though he heard it only in his mind. It was in a language
unfamiliar to him but that mattered little, for the magic ensured that
he understood and was understood in his turn.

"Form an eye and then you will see," he suggested.

"Form? How? What do you mean? Who are you? Where are you?" There was a
hint of anger in the girl's tone. Distanfae was unsurprised. He knew
that the spirit he had taken would have, at first, no idea what it could
now do, nor how to do it. That she would be confused, perhaps even
forgetful of the events that so recently took place, was also within the
scope of his plans and expectations. Through the helm he brought his
will to bear and forcibly altered the form of his weapon, forming on the
surface facing into the room a lidded cat's eye.

He felt a shudder run through the spirit at the strange feeling but
before he could speak again he felt through the helm the eye opening.
"You learn quickly," he commented smugly. When a second eye formed
beside the first and opened as well, a frisson of shock ran through him.
Quickly indeed! He had not been expecting such prowess from one who had
been but a warrior.

A moment passed before the voice cried out again. "Where are you? And
where am I? There ain't nothing here but an empty room!" 

The uncertainty and frustration in the girl's mental voice restored
Distanfae's composure. There was no reason to be concerned when she
learned more swiftly than expected, it could not but help him.

"You died and I brought you back," he said dryly. "Now you will never
die. In return, you will serve me."

"What?!" There was a definite anger to the voice now, but it faded
almost instantly into resignation. "It doesn't matter. Nothing matters
now."

"Besides, how'm I supposed to serve you when all I got is eyeballs?"

"Indeed," he replied, wondering momentarily at the rough nature of the
girl's speech. Could she be as young as she appeared? He knew humans had
far shorter lives, so her appearance of being in her early fifties, to
his eyes, was probably well in excess of her actual years, but he had
assumed that a soul of sufficient power would have required time to
reach that power and so had theorized that the soul's power had kept the
body young, or that perhaps her mental image of herself was as she had
been in youth and so her soul had kept that form. The tone of the words
made him question that theory. "You will need a more useful form. I will
impose it on you and you will remember it, to take it again when I
require it of you."

Without waiting for a response, he bent his will against her form once
more. The sphere rocked forward then rolled over the cloth and off the
pedestal, striking sparks from the floor where it struck. It rolled for
but a moment before it swelled suddenly, growing upward, a shimmering
reflective column of black and silver that quickly took on a more solid
form.

The shape she now took was that of one of his former slaves, a strong
woman of his race, though a commoner. Her life had been taken in the
crafting of the spell, as had that of a male slave, their lives supplying
their form to his control. She was larger, in proportion, than the slave
had been, topping six feet by several inches and towering over him.

He released his grasp of her form finally. He had held on to it for
several minutes after imposing his slave's form, while he shifted about
the various materials that made her up. Imposing the form had worked
well enough but had left her with curls of different colors running all
over her body, even her hair. So he took extra time and submerged all
but the adamantite over her skin surface, giving her the proper black
sheen, then eliminated all but the mithril from her hair. It wasn't
quite the snowy white of most of his kin, but it was far closer than
that strange mix of silver, black, green, and red.

She remained as motionless as a statue until he moved forward behind her
and spoke again. "You may move."

That final permission activated a secondary magic that tied her spirit's
expectations and intentions to the body's simulated muscles and organs.
A sudden shuddering breath heralded its success. She took a stumbling
step forward then swayed before catching her balance. 

"Too tall," she murmured then raised her hand to her lips as if
surprised to hear her voice, deeper and rougher than the voice of her
soul.

"You will grow used to it," he said and she spun to face him. She was
still too new to the body to properly handle it, however, and the spin
threw off her balance. She tumbled to the floor. She struggled to rise
for a moment then pulled her legs beneath her, raising herself into a
kneeling position and looked up at him.

"You! I know you," she said, her eyes widening. "I remember you..."

"Yes," he said, smiling softly. "And well you should, for I am your
lord now."

"No," she hissed, shaking her head, her silver locks swaying with her
motion. "I serve no-one!" She glared up at him in defiance and he
chuckled softly. He had been expecting that, which was one reason he had
created his helm. As well as giving him a conduit for control, it also
served as a path for spells to affect her soul, for otherwise that which
she now was would prevent any such attack.

"Do not move," he said softly and with those words the magical
connection between her spirit's intentions and her body broke. She could
still change form, if she knew how, but he did not expect that she would
realize it.

While she knelt, motionless, he produced a powder and cast it in the air
between them, muttering and gesticulating. She watched in wonder as the
powder hung in the air, then began to glow softly. It swirled suddenly
then coalesced into three symbols she did not recognize. A white light
sprang from his hands, turning blue as it passed through the symbols,
projecting light and shadow over her. He did not wait for any response,
for he could feel the spell take affect and her resistance wane and then
vanish entirely.

"Now rise, and learn once more to move." This time he mentally activated
the spell, rather than verbally speaking its command words. Best not to
make the connections too obvious.

Distanfae watched in silence as the woman struggled once more to her
feet. At first she moved unsurely, wobbling occasionally as her balance
escaped her. As with forming the eye, though, she displayed remarkable
adaptiveness and was soon flowing through the moves of an intricate
dance of leaps and strikes.

She showed no modesty or concern for her lack of clothing but Distanfae
took no notice of this. He was used to females of his own race, who
displayed little concern regarding such proprieties. Indeed, many of the
rituals of their worship were performed in the nude.

---

A verbal command echoed about her but she ignored it. Moments later she
felt a rising pressure as her return to consciousness was forced. "Where
am I?" She asked. She realized that she couldn't hear her voice, then
other lacks made themselves known. To herself she murmured, though once
again she heard nothing, "I can't see anything, I can't feel anything?"

"Form an eye and then you will see." The words echoed around her,
sounding strangely familiar.

She protested then fell silent as for the first time she could feel her
skin. She concentrated all her attention on that sudden sensation,
fighting off a sudden wave of nausea as she felt her skin changing,
warping and rippling. In spite of the unsettling sensation, she forced
herself to pay attention. When the changes ceased she wondered what had
been done, for the only thing that had changed from her perspective was
that she could still feel her skin.

He must have made me an eye, like he told me to. She struggled to open
her eyes. It felt like she was half-asleep and trying to wake up. I'm
sending all the right signals, she groused, why does nothing happen? An
image formed in her mind, an image of an eye, and she tried to connect
its appearance with the feelings that she had experienced during the
change she had undergone.

Maybe, if I just... With a shuddery ripple, the eye reshaped into an
open state and she could see once more. Delighted at her success she
immediately went on, ignoring the words in the background, to form a
second eye and open it as well. Even with two eyes, however, she could
see nothing of particular interest and complained once more. She felt
irritable, as if something was wrong, or wasn't working. It took her
several moments to realize that she wasn't blinking, though her eyes
weren't watering either.

She heard that voice once more and it took a moment for it to register.
The last words she heard clearly, however. "You will serve me." Her
anger flared for a moment as she objected but she couldn't sustain it,
though after a brief return to her earlier despair the humor of her
situation struck her. "Besides, how'm I supposed to serve you when all I
got is eyeballs?"

She felt external pressure then a sudden sharp blow. Instantly she was
growing, changing, a far more complex and wild series of changes than
the formation of her eyes had been. In the blink of an eye she had gone
from having nothing but eyes to having everything back, though she was
not released for several long moments, while indecipherable changes
continued.

She heard his voice again, but this time she actually heard it, heard it
with her ears, not just her mind. The change was startling, perhaps more
than the reshaping of her body had been, for in one moment she was
motionless, capable of moving even her eyelids only by changing their
shape, and in the next it was as if nothing had ever happened to her.
She was breathing and moving perfectly normally, even if her breath had
been a bit jerky there at the start. 

Her balance was slightly off though and she took a step forward to
correct it, only to completely misjudge the move. She swayed for a
moment then murmured, "Too tall," in surprise. She had experienced the
strangeness of suddenly being too short the first time the Jusenkyou
curse had changed her from a well-built young man to a remarkably petite
if well-endowed young woman, but she had never experienced being too tall
before.

She heard a voice behind her again and spun to face it only to find
herself in a heap on the floor. She sought to rise before giving up and
settling back onto her legs to look up at the man who had spoken to her.
Her recognition sparked a momentary conflict that was resolved when he
revoked her ability to move, startling her and forcing her to realize
that there was very little she could do to resist him.

The powder that he cast into the air between them she at first thought
to be a sleeping powder or the like, such as Kodachi had once used
against her. When it remained in the air, suspended by nothing at all,
she felt a deep wariness. This was magic, unquestionably, and magic had
never been a good thing for her.

Light washed over her and then she was taken back into the memories that
had become hazy with her return to a corporeal form. She watched as he
propounded his arguments again and she agreed to serve him. For a moment
she felt that she should object but as the memory faded it fit in the
holes within her own memory. It was real, she decided. She had sworn and
she would honor her oath to the best of her ability, for the sake of her
family and friends. She remembered more than merely what he showed her,
as well. With the reminder, she remembered both the oath she'd sworn to
him and the oath she'd sworn just before, when she had renounced her name
and her manhood so that there would be no mistruth in the oath she gave
him. 

She fought against a sudden and stifling fear that rose in her. She had
expected to become a sword, not to have a human form again, a female
form. She had sworn to obey him in all things, what if... She forcefully
thrust the thought from her mind. She was a Saotome, she would honor her
oath, no matter the cost. It was her only chance to redeem her failure,
to save her friends, her family, her father. Her fear was washed away by
a sudden realization. She had a body, she was not just a sword! After she
saved them, she would be able to see her mother again, to hold her, be
with her! Surely, after what she had done for them, they would accept
her, even if it had to be as a daughter? She would have her family again.

Taken from her reverie by her new lord's command, which once more gave
her body to her control, she rose as he had ordered and began to learn
her new body. Different as her new body was from what she'd known, it was
far more familiar than what she'd experienced in those few moments of
awareness as an undifferentiated sphere, and this was not the first time
she'd had to get used to a change in form.

She quickly realized that the biggest difference between her current
body and the one she'd had before is that only her hair responded to
anything other than her direct intent. It swirled about her believably
as she spun and struck, but her breasts did not so much as shift on her
chest as she moved.

They were not all that was not reacting as expected. Even as she pushed
herself to move faster, her breathing remained even and steady when she
was paying attention to it and ceased completely when she was not. It
was several minutes before she herself grew aware that her breathing was
starting anew each time she turned her attention to it.

She stilled quite suddenly when she realized that and in the ensuing
silence she realized that she could not feel her heart beating, then
jerked when a hand fell on her shoulder. 

Her senses warped then went dead as her body was once more twisted and
altered. Finally a single eye was formed and returned to her control.
Opening it, she found herself in the hand of the man who had made her,
staring into a mirror at her own eye, set in the pommel of a long curved
sword.

"Enough training for one day," he stated. "I've other things that must
be done lest I raise suspicion." He looked her over. "Still too
obvious," he muttered and she felt him reshaping her again. This time
she was able to watch in the mirror as he reduced her length until she
was little more than a dagger. He tucked her into his belt, eye facing
outward. "Don't move your eye if anyone is looking at you," he ordered
her. 

This time she was awake and aware when he invoked the ability that took
him through the shadows to his rooms. Even as her single eye watched the
shadows stretch out to swallow him, she felt the response within her to
his request, felt herself causing the shadows to move, even though she
was neither deliberately nor consciously causing it.

"What was that?" Her query, though voiced from her perspective, was once
again silent due to her lack of a voice, and his response was equally
silent.

"That was one of the abilities of the magic items I fed you during your
creation. You are to inform me if you grow hungry."

"Oh," she said. She wondered what the connection was that had made him
comment on her hunger but refrained from asking. His words led her to
examine herself for hunger, of which she found none.

He had not told her not to move and whatever magic it was that had
allowed her to move almost normally still seemed to be in effect. When
he had first given her an eye there had been no indication which it was,
whether left or right, nor had she been able to blink or look about
readily. Now though it was clear that the eye he had left her with was
her right eye, and she could blink and look about just by trying to do
so, just as she had been able to when she had her full body. 

The implications of that were fairly clear, even to her. If she
resisted, she'd be a statue. That certainly limited the usefulness of
her martial arts ability. Not that she could reasonably resist, having
given her oath. She realized then that this was just such a string as
she had feared and made a mental note to bring it up with him. However
he was accomplishing this, if he was still doing it a thousand years
from now, her promise might prove irrelevant.

She briefly considered raising her ki, remembering that certain forms of
pressure point induced paralysis could be overcome by redirecting her
internal ki flows, but rejected the idea. He had warned against merely
moving her eye if anyone could see, he would certainly have still
greater objections to her glowing.

She held her silence therefore and in that silence she watched as he
moved about his room. It was a strange sensation, much like when she had
accidentally eaten the magic mushrooms and become five years old once
again, to look upon everything from the height of her lord's belt. It
seemed almost surprising to her that the level of her eye was stranger to
her than the fact that she was seeing only with one. She knew from having
to learn to fight with different handicaps that one needed two eyes for
proper depth perception. While she knew that she could not possibly have
accurate depth perception with her single eye, it seemed unimpaired. Of
course, a simple referral to memory pointed out that it was no different
than closing one eye and she had never noticed any particular lack when
doing that, yet somehow she felt as if everything ought to look flat,
even though it did not.

She continued to watch in silence for most of the remaining day,
observing her lord's interactions with his other servants and slaves,
and with his superiors. She was interested to note, in that vein, that
he seemed to show deference exclusively to certain women, never to men.
That observation sent a definite shudder of concern through her. She had
had more than enough experience with Amazons for one lifetime but it was
looking disturbingly like she was involved with another group of them.

She also noted that the majority of the people he encountered had dark
skin, pointed ears, and white hair, yet facially they looked, if not
Japanese, at least Asian. She also saw a few individuals that looked
deformed. The first one she spied received her sympathy for his
deformities, his rough green skin, small size, and ugly, exaggerated
features. When she saw several more that looked similarly deformed, she
began to question her conclusion. Perhaps these were victims of
Jusenkyou? Or could they be actually something other than human, like
kappa, or the houzanjin, the people of Pheonix Mountain?

As it turned out, she had little cause to concern herself about whether
she was visible. It seemed the magic that let her move normally was more
responsive than she had anticipated, for whenever she entered the range
of another person's eye she found her link suddenly severed, her eye held
motionless. She did push his rules enough to test and lower her eyelid
during one such time, when the one causing the effect was one of the
green-skinned people; she made sure that the misshapen creature was not
actually looking in her direction and from his lack of reaction she was
sure that her defiance had gone unnoticed. She had to reshape her eye to
lower the lid, rather than being able to simply close her right eye, but
it did work. It also sent a wave of uneasiness through her, knowing that
she had deliberately disobeyed him, her lord. It felt almost relieving to
know that she could do so, yet she found she had no wish to anger him. At
least he had not placed a geas on her to enforce her oath. Not that such
would ever have been needed with her, of course. She would not risk
losing her chance at redemption, her chance to regain her honor and her
family.

Besides which, he had already captured her soul even after her death at
her own hands, then given her an amazing new body that he seemed to be
able to reshape at his will. More importantly, while she had been able to
duplicate the reshaping trick and felt confident that she could also
accomplish the traveling through shadows that he had used her for, she
was all too aware that she felt nothing that could be replicated when he
activated or deactivated the connection that allowed her to move normally.

To be certain, she could reshape her body and could move in that fashion,
as she had already demonstrated by opening and closing her eye, but the
concentration that required was at odds with performing her martial arts.
Her art was meant to be done without direct thought, her mind free to
work on strategy while her body fought the direct action, moving at the
speed of reflex. She could still accomplish that when he turned on her
link, but without it?

When he returned to his chambers, he closed himself in, locking his
doors, then placed her on a table. He pulled a chair close and sat
beside her, looking into her eye. "Memorize the shape you are in, then
reshape yourself into a sphere," he ordered her.

Ranko concentrated, knowing that even had he not made it an order she
would have done as he asked. She needed to learn all she could about her
form, its strengths and weaknesses, if she was to succeed in her quest.
If he was willing to guide her, to teach her, then she would put all her
effort into learning whatever she could from him. 

Focusing her senses on her form, feeling the long sharp edge of her
blade, the curve of her cross-guard, the softer wrappings of her hilt.
Once she felt she understood the form she was in, she began drawing her
blade in. Since the pommel was nearly spherical already, she sought to
retain it, and her eye, pulling the blade into the pommel, followed by
the cross-guard and then the hilt, as the spherical end-piece swelled in
size.

Finally she was once again a simple sphere though she retained her eye,
looking up at her lord. He shook his head. "All the way."

Sighing internally, she closed her eye and then unmade it, becoming a
perfectly smooth, round sphere. "Now I want you to find each different
component of your make-up and bring them to the surface." Feeling her
confusion, he continued, "You are formed of several things. Primarily,
you are composed of what I will term 'quicksilver,' which is a
reflective silvery metal, mithril, which is also silvery, but without as
much blue in it, and adamantite, which is black. There is also onyx, a
black stone, and jade, a green stone. There is a red substance that I
haven't identified, and there should be strands of gold, silver, and a
number of other minor elements from the magic items I fed you. Since
these things have different colors, it is important that you become
aware of them, so that you can reshape yourself into a form retaining
the proper coloration."

Ranma thought about the different colors she'd seen in the mirror when
he first made her into a sword and nodded to herself. Her blade had been
silver. She had had a black handle with silver accents, and her eye had
been green instead of the deep blue she was used to.

She turned her attention inward, no longer having any external senses
except those of her 'skin,' and focused on finding the different
elements that made her up.

She found the quicksilver first, though she didn't know what color it
was, nor that it was the quicksilver, as she had no way to see it. It
felt different somehow from all the other elements that composed her;
more alive, more responsive to her touch. She focused on it, moving it
outward to cover her surface and was surprised to note an immediate
increase in sensation. Her sense of touch and temperature granted by her
skin and the connection that her lord had not yet revoked from her
was significantly enhanced by passing through the enlivened element.
She felt as if she could feel the very grain of the wood on which she
rested. She could even trace the subtle changes in the direction of the
weave of the cloth her lord had wrapped around her base to keep her
still, the variations between the angle at which the different folds met
her surface. After a moment she heard her lord's voice in her mind.
"That is quicksilver, or so we shall call it."

Reminding herself that she had a task to perform, she decided to return
to this substance later on. She wondered if it would improve her sight
if she were to use it to form her eyes.

Moving on, she sought next for the most common element. Finding it and
taking a hold of it, she found it seemed hard and unyielding, though it
responded to her efforts and flowed to coat her exterior. It was as if
she had suddenly been wrapped in cloth. Her senses were muffled and
vague. She could barely differentiate the soft cloth from the hard wood
beneath her, detecting only the deviation in pressure between the light
touch of the cloth resting against her and the stronger pressure of the
wood supporting her weight. Again he informed her. "This is adamantite."

Even as she reached for the next element, wrapping herself in what she
soon learned to be mithril in place of her adamantine shell, she felt
her lord's hand light upon her, not lifting nor moving, just resting
upon her. She stilled for a moment, waiting for him to speak, but when
he did nothing more, she returned to the task she'd been given.

This new substance felt lighter and more giving than the previous,
though no less strong. It was more sensitive, particularly to the warmth
of her lord's hand, though she could not resist letting the lively
metal she'd first found flow to the surface beneath one of his fingers.
That gave her a wonderful sensation of warmth and more, it gave her
flavor. She could taste the salt on his skin, feel the ridges of his
fingerprint, even follow the pulse of blood through the capillaries in
his fingertip.

She reveled in the sensations for a minute then withdrew the quicksilver
lest lingering overlong anger her lord. "Watch it," she warned herself.
She had to remember that much as she was used to teachers like Cologne
and her father, whom she was free to antagonize, if she angered this
teacher, he could do worse than rap her head, or suck her ki like Hinako.
He could strip her of her ability to move; worse, he might be able to
remove her soul completely, send her on to the next world as nothing more
than a failure.

Returning her attention to her current coat, she noted that it felt
energetic, though not lively. Where the sensitive metal had felt alive,
this merely felt charged, as if it were full of energy, waiting to be
released.

The next material gave her some difficulty, for it did not want to take
a perfectly smooth form. Instead it seemed to want to form sharp flat
edges, always at precise angles. It was unresponsive to pressure and
reacted hardly at all to the warmth of her lord's hand, yet somehow
she was still certain where everything touching her surface was. It took
her some time to realize that some of the responses it was returning
were off compared to the other materials. A bit of experimentation, as
she moved a bit of quicksilver about herself to compare the sensations,
made her believe that this sharp edged substance was reacting more to
the light falling on it than to the touch of her surroundings, for the
'off' regions all seemed to extend in the same direction, to a similar
degree, compared to what she sensed with the quicksilver.

Her subsequent attempt found a substance remarkably similar to the first
sharp-edge substance. It formed planes at a different angle but
otherwise reacted very similarly. The biggest difference was that when
she coated herself with it, she still felt sensation beneath it. Moving
quicksilver directly beneath it confirmed this. Whatever it was, it was
transparent to some degree.

It was becoming harder to focus on further substances, for the remaining
materials were far smaller in overall quantity to what she had been
working with. It took her some time to realize that one of the
substances in particular, a very soft substance that was easily formed
and quite sensitive to heat, was in fact a singular substance. The cause
of the difficulty was that there were innumerable divisions within it,
not of varying substance but of differing feel and behavior. Remembering
her lord's comments, Ranma wondered if she were not feeling somehow
the different powers of the items she'd been fed, as he put it. 

Far more startling, however, when she came upon it, was a rough
substance that when left to itself formed into twisted ropes that then
intertwined into flat planes. She felt it for some time with the
quicksilver, wondering at one point if it wasn't her braid, before
realizing that it was the same as the fabric that was bunched around
her. Feeling it more directly, actually experiencing it rather than
using her other substances to feel it externally, she found it was the
source of the response to the command he had given that had taken them
through the shadows.

---

Distanfae sat back and waited, watching the variegated sphere intently,
until its surface became quite suddenly a silver with a hint of blue.
Concerned about the consequences of coming into contact with the
quicksilver before his weapon had attained complete control of it, he
waited until it turned black to reach out for it, though he told her
what it was. It turned suddenly silver again as his hands came into
contact with it and he stilled instantly. He very nearly pulled away
before recognizing the whiter sheen of mithril.

While she was distracted by her ordered explorations, he slipped silently
into her mind, delving into her memory and personality. He very quickly
located several key problems. "How curious," he mused to himself, "a
warrior who avoids killing."

He slipped into place a temporary shield that would ensure her attention
remained on her task until he relieved her of it, then set to work. An
unwillingness to kill would make her useless in his society. He was
careful not to attempt to remove it. Leaving her with holes in her mind
would be a good way of setting a trap for himself at a later date.
Instead, he very carefully rerouted her impulses, working around her
strange notions of honor, unaware that she had already done basically the
same thing after having decided that her honor now dictated she not hold
back from the killing blow lest she fail her family a second time.

Finding a barrier in her soul he searched her memories until he learned
what it was. For a time he considered merely strengthening it, until a
better idea occurred to him. Once more he changed the pathways of her
mind, ensuring that the sensation of cats would no longer trigger her
fear. Debilitating fears were hardly a useful thing in his consideration,
but the final result of her fear had value of its own. Two triggers he
placed, that would allow him to activate or deactivate her feral state at
will.

He withdrew then, feeling his shield's strength waning under the power
of her mind. For a time he rested his hand on her still, thinking over
some of the things he'd seen in her mind. He had by no means explored all
of her memories but he had seen enough to know that she had experienced
magic before, and had been both male and female at different times.
Perhaps once he'd gained her confidence, she would tell him her story and
he would learn what magic was like where she was from. He could, of
course, simply take all that he wanted to know from her mind but he
thought she would be more inclined to work faithfully for him if she did
not feel violated. There was no need to push too quickly, he had time and
to spare.

"That is enough for now, Ranko. We will speak again in the morning."

---

Ranko waited impatiently, frustrated that she had no way of gauging the
passage of time. Several times she sought to find sleep but always it
eluded her. Finally she could wait no longer, feeling bored beyond
belief, and mentally crossing her fingers in the hope that her lord would
not object, she formed an eye and opened it. She was all too aware that
where her father had beat her for disobedience, a samurai's lord had the
right to claim her life if she disobeyed an order, or even for no reason
at all. She trusted that her lord did not intend such, else why would he
have saved her in the first place, but she was not foolish enough to push
it, at least not until she had had time to learn how far it was safe to
push him. Silently she thanked her luck that her lord had not removed the
connection between her spirit and her body, allowing her to easily look
about.

She had to shift her eye's position on her surface about herself but
finally she found what she sought. There across the room a large bed
held the sleeping form of her lord. For a time she was simply content to
watch him, wondering what he was. At first she had thought him an agent
of the after-life; now, she was not sure what he was, though he looked
human enough, apart from the white sheen of his hair, which looked
strange on someone who was lacking the other usual signs of age, his
ears, which came to points at the top, and his skin, which was a deeper
black than she'd seen before, with a hint of blue instead of the usual
brown. It was, at least, more interesting than feeling nothing but a
black emptiness, without even the comfort of dreams.

When he began tossing and turning and then crying out as if in pain she
quickly roused from her reverie. "So, I'm not the only one who has
nightmares," she mused. "Well, if I can't sleep, then I also can't
dream. I guess that means no more nightmares." She watched him for a few
minutes more, feeling a growing irritation as he tossed and moaned. "I
wish he'd quit that." It occurred to her suddenly that his well-being
was part of her duty as a samurai. That thought seemed to inevitably
draw up another, and she shuddered as she unwillingly remembered that
even male samurai had at times been used for a more... physical... form
of comfort for their daimyo, but she pushed that thought aside. There
was nothing she could do if it happened, so best not to think about it,
and simply hope it never did. "I won't let fear keep me from my duty,"
she growled to her recalcitrant mind.

Mentally asking his forgiveness, though he had not exactly ordered her
not to do anything in particular, she shifted her internals about,
thrusting the heavier materials to one side, so that she rolled forward
and fell from the table to land with a thump upon soft carpet. Surprise
stilled her for a moment when she landed with her open eye pressed
against the carpet fibers and yet felt no pain, but a whimper from the
bed returned her to motion.

Trying hard to remember, she swelled into a womanly form, trying to take
the form he had given her. Looking down at herself, she shook momentarily
in disgust. She looked rough, like a child's clay figure. Colors were
mixed and bunched across her skin in a manner painful to look upon. Her
hair, far from the thin, silky, and vibrant strands of red that had once
characterized her, hung in lumpy cords, like mottled threads of yarn.
"Yet another reason to protect him. If I want to stay a martial artist, I
need his magic."

She tried to utter a soft curse but it came out as a garbled moan and
she shuddered once again. Turning to the bed she took a step towards it
and immediately lost her balance, fetching up hard against the wood
side. Moaning another curse she gave up on trying to move properly, and
reshaped herself into a rough semblance of a woman lying already upon
the bed. 

Rolling onto her side she looked on the troubled face of her lord and
felt a pain deep within. She knew what it was to struggle through
nightmares with no-one to care. She had had horrific nightmares ever
since her father trained her in the Neko-ken and not once had he ever
sought to comfort her. The trouble was, she did not know what to do to
ease his pain... and get him to stop groaning like that. "Should I wake
him up? No, he might be angry if I do; then what?"

She tried to think of what one did in such a situation. Her memories of
her father and mother were of little help but finally she remembered one
particularly bad night, when she had awoken in Kasumi's arms being
cradled and rocked, Kasumi's hands stroking her hair.

She shifted closer, feeling thankful that while lying down she did not
have to worry about maintaining her balance. Trying not to think about what
he might think of this, or how he might take it, she deliberately
suppressed her inner disquiet. Reaching out with her lumpy, misshapen
arms, she drew him to her, running thick fingers through his soft white
hair, in attempted imitation of Kasumi's comforting behavior. "Damn, this
sucks." He quieted instantly, pressing against her. She looked at herself
again and groaned inwardly. He'd hardly get a good night's rest sleeping
on the equivalent of hard rocks. She shifted the softest materials to
that side of her, that she might not hurt him, and glancing down, she saw
a fine black cloth with gold glinting beneath.

When she felt him begin shifting as if to awaken, hours later, she
reshaped herself into a sphere as quickly as she was able. Reaching out
to the black cloth within her she fumbled for its trigger, trying to
mimic her lord's use of it, and fell through the shadows onto the
table. She waited uncertainly, once more reduced to merely feeling.

"Don't let him want that from me," she growled at the kami, unwilling to
even voice what 'that' was. "I didn't let fear keep me from my duty,
don't punish me for that." It was not a completely unfamiliar experience;
she had spent most of her time in Nerima all too aware that honor left
her little choice; but at least then her honor had led in multiple
directions and she had had some excuse to resist honoring one commitment
when to do so would break another. Now she had no such shield to hide
behind.

Finally she felt the touch of her lord's hand upon her. "You were in my
bed, last night," he said to her.

"You had a nightmare," she retorted defensively, torn between the
familiar desire to offer insult to reduce her cursed attractiveness and
the newer and still stronger desire not to hurt her chances of changing
her past.

"I understand, Ranko. Thank you," he said calmly. Ranko would have gaped
at him if she had had a mouth. He had actually listened to her? He had
believed her?!
 
"Wait here while I get ready, then we shall return to the training room."

Ranko did her best to wait patiently, playing around with her elements
to occupy her mind. She was beginning to get painfully bored when an
idea struck her. Once more she formed an eye, but this time she formed
it at her center. She gathered the material she had determined last
night to be at least partially transparent and formed a channel of the
substance from her eye to the surface. As soon as it reached her surface
she saw light and she cheered inwardly. The next thing she noticed was
that everything seemed to be a shade of green or black. "Must be the
jade," she decided of the transparent substance.

Unfortunately, the scene she was able to observe was as static and
unchanging as her own senses, leaving her just as bored as she had been
before. "Man, not being able to sleep sucks," she thought. If she had
had a body she would have sat bolt upright when another thought struck
her. "If I can't sleep... oh, man, what if I can't eat, either?"




Training


Once more she was placed upon a pedestal, resting against bunched up
cloth that held her still. At her lord's request, she formed an eye and
turned it upon him.

"You have learned to reshape yourself, to a degree. Indeed, you learned
this faster than I expected," he told her and she felt a warmth grow
within her at the praise, even as she tried to recover her startled wits.
He actually complimented her? Her father had been quick with the insults,
but he had never been free with support or congratulations. "Last night
you learned to locate and manipulate the different elements that compose
you. Today, we will take that further." Beside her on the pedestal he
placed a ring, wrought of gold and silver braided, with a diamond set in
a claw of gold. "Examine this however you wish. Take its form." He sat
back on a chair in one of the alcoves to watch her.

She turned her eye upon it first and tried to match it, not changing her
whole self, but merely extruding an extension of silver and gold and
attempting to wind them about each other.

She winced as she compared the two. Her attempt looked scarcely like a
ring at all. She absorbed it and tried again. Her second try was hardly
better. She felt a shiver of irritation go through her as her mind
played back insults as if Genma were there berating her inept efforts.
She realized then that she had not heard anything from her lord. Why was
he not saying anything? Had he just given up on her? She turned a
worried eye in his direction but he was merely sitting and watching.
Grumbling at Genma to get out of her mind, she redoubled her efforts.
She would show him that she could do this. "After all," she smirked to
herself, "I am the best."

"Sight is not enough," she mused, "or enough for me, anyhow. I ain't no
artist." That thought gave her the key though. She was skilled with her
body and hands, perhaps if she felt it, instead, she might do better. He
had, after all, said to examine in it whatever way she wanted.

Flowing outward, she engulfed the ring in her most sensitive substance,
which her eye could finally see and identify as what he had called
quicksilver, highly reflective, like a funhouse mirror as its shifting
form twisted and warped her reflection.

Her confidence grew as the quicksilver seemed to pour information into
her about the ring and it was almost without effort that she grew fine
strands of silver and gold, weaving them into a perfect ring, grasping a
translucent jade stone. The last bit proved the hardest, for no matter
how she tried, she could not convince the jade, which she had chosen as
the closest she had to a clear stone, to take on the shape of the
diamond. It simply did not want to form the same angles.

Finally she gave up on the jade, tried onyx briefly, then turned to
mithril. The mithril formed the diamond's shape readily, for though it
did not naturally form those flat planes and precise angles, neither did
it resist being formed into them.

Pleased, she lifted the ring up to show her lord. He stood and strode to
her. "Very good, Ranko. Now draw all of your substance within the ring,
hidden within the gold and silver."

She blinked in acquiescence before unforming her eye. The strands of gold
and silver grew in length and thickness as she poured herself within
them, stretching them into a thin veneer over her twisted surface. Soon
she had the appearance of the ring once more, but sized to fit a giant.

"Very good. Now, I am going to introduce you to another of your normal
abilities. It is a very common attribute of powerful magical items, that
they resize themselves to fit their bearers. It is a little more complex
for you, in that the magic will consider both your form, your wielder,
and your wielder's intent when sizing you. Since you bear the form of a
ring at the moment, when I take you in my hand, you will resize so that
you might fit upon my finger. I want you to concentrate on how this
feels. It is possible that you might be able to control this yourself."

With that said, she felt the warmth of his hands upon her once more.
Almost instantly vertigo swept her and she fought to focus as the touch
of his fingers seemed to swell tremendously. Confusing as the sudden
change was, her will forced the confusion away and even as the size
change slowed, she caught the mechanism for the change and forcibly
halted it. It felt like a pendulum, or a weight between springs, trying
to get to rest. She pushed against it. She felt the touch of his fingers
shrinking more than she sensed her own increase in size, but she also
felt the increasing pressure of the springy resistance. The touch of his
fingers left her and she felt the rap as she landed once more on the
pedestal. The weight of the spring vanished. She was able to move it
easily now, though she could not sense the change in size except in the
changing texture of the pedestal as her surfaces moved across it.

"But," she protested uncertainly, "when I am a sphere I am much smaller
than the human form you gave me. I don't remember feeling this change
then."

"Ah," he said, "That is a matter of density. In that form--which is not
human, incidentally, but drow, though you need not concern yourself with
the distinction just yet--you have a great deal of empty space within
you. For example, your bones are riddled with holes in the marrow, your
lungs are empty space, your stomach and digestive system are empty. More
to the point, your capillary system, the veins and arteries that run
throughout your body to carry blood are filled with but empty space, for
you are bloodless.

"You are mostly empty space in that form. Furthermore, you shrunk before
you regained consciousness, when I lifted you as a sphere to bring you
down here. I think in your natural state, given the volume of the
materials that went into your creation, your drow form would be a bit of
a giantess. Actually, you are even now larger in that form than a normal
woman by three-quarters of a foot or so."

Ranko thought about that. She didn't understand much of his explanation,
but thinking back to when she had tried to take on the form herself, she
realized that without thinking about it, she had ended up as basically a
single hollow shell. She had focused on the outward form and had ended up
empty. That was probably why she had moved so strangely.

"Well," he said, "now that you know how to adjust your size appropriately,
take on your drow form again."

"Uh, well, I tried that last night," Ranko admitted. "It didn't work well."

"Hmm. Granted, you weren't in the best shape to notice what I was doing
last night, though you caught on with the eye quickly. I'll make the
change for you this time, and I'll try to go slowly so that you can
follow."

She felt his hands on her again, lifting her up and placing her on the
floor. Even as he did so she shrank rapidly. Leaving her on the floor, he
began her transformation once more. She concentrated on the sensations of
the change. As she had, he began with the overall size and outward
appearance. This time he was more aware of her appearance than he had
been the first time he changed her and so her skin was the smooth black
of adamantite from the beginning.

She was focused inward until he completed the process and when she
redirected her attention outward she was startled to find that her eyes
were level with his knee. She looked down at herself, half expecting to
look as she had when she had eaten the mushroom that had reduced her age,
that he had deliberately made her a child. Her body was not that of a
child's, however. Her proportions, though small, were those of a mature
woman.

She stared at up at him for a moment then reached for that spot in her
mind that had moved when she changed sizes the first time, and lifted.
She stopped instantly, fighting vertigo. Her eyes were expanding and it
made the world seem to rush in toward her. Forcing down her unease, she
lifted again, fighting the dizziness caused by her increasing size until
she was looking at his shoulder. She raised her head slightly, a
challenging glint in her eye. 

"That better?" she asked. She knew that men tended to prefer to look down
on women and she had no intention of revealing that she was actually a
man. He had offered the body and the chance to save her family and
friends to her, Saotome Ranko, and she wasn't going to take a chance on
his mind changing if he learned that she was really Ranma.

He nodded then turned away and strode back to his seat in the alcove.
"You need to learn to take this form on your own. I suggest you start
piecemeal. Focus on one limb or organ and study it until you understand
it, then try to recreate it."

Ranko nodded and dropped to the floor sitting cross-legged, unconcerned
about her nudity. Focusing her attention on her hand, she soon had a
second hand projecting from her wrist. When it looked and felt right,
she absorbed both it and her original hand, then reformed and flexed it.
Nodding in satisfaction, she moved on.

Her attention returned to her lord when he stood, after she had
successfully formed an entire additional right arm. "Continue this," he
told her. "I will return for you later."

She nodded and watched him leave then returned her attention to her task.
Her focus and concentration were not entirely due to the fact that she'd
been ordered to do this. She did not want to experience trying to walk
around looking like a lumpy clay doll ever again.

He had still not returned when she had compressed herself back into a
sphere and successfully regained her form, complete in almost every
detail. Remembering a video game she had once seen, she stood and formed
two additional arms, increasing the height of her torso to accomodate
them and decreasing her overall height and size, and began trying to move
them.

She found that she could switch the mental connection controlling each
arm from one to another, but try as she might, she could still control
only two arms at a time. Moving the upper arm on the right and the lower
on the left, or vice versa, was also quite a challenge. She could manage
it but it felt strange and it threw off her reflexes.

Finally she gave up on that, retracting the extra arms. Closing her
eyes, she tried creating an eye in her palms, similar to a picture she
had seen in a manga once. It worked, somewhat to her surprise, but she
found that she could only reasonably look through one of her palms at a
time. Looking through both gave her a terrible headache, though it faded
quickly when she returned to looking through a single eye.

Removing the extra eyes, she glanced toward the door her lord had left
through. "Still not back yet," she muttered. "What else can I do?" The
question triggered a memory of the night before, when she had
experienced how sensitive her quicksilver was. Feeling into her eyes,
she realized that he had used jade to form the back of the eye and she
had followed suit when creating her own.

Closing her eyes against the vertigo she had felt so often, she slipped
quicksilver in place of the jade and opened her eyes. She staggered back
in shock at the initial brightness but it quickly became tolerable.
Though the room was basically poorly lit, with most of the illumination
coming from the soft colored glows of the statues above the alcoves
around the walls, it now seemed to be lit by bright sunlight.

"Definitely more sensitive," she murmured. A sudden noise caught her
attention and she spun to see her lord striding into the room. He paused
and stared for a moment at her eyes then closed the door behind himself
and walked to her.

Taking her face in his hands, he tilted her head from side to side,
staring into her eyes. She felt a momentary surge of anger as a blush
warmed her cheeks. "I haven't got blood, why the hell am I blushing," she
thought furiously.

"What is it like?" he asked, still looking into her eyes. His
obliviousness to her discomfiture calmed her and she replied.

"It's brighter... and I can see a bunch of glows around you."

"Oh?"

She nodded and began pointing to different items he was wearing and
telling him how they glowed. "You appear to be seeing magical auras, both
of wizardly and priestly magic," he informed her.

"How are you coming with your shifting?"

"I went all the way to a ball and back," she told him. He held her back
at arm's length and then turned her about, examining her both with his
eyes and his mind. He stopped several times to point out an error she
had made but throughout he was nodding and murmuring to himself and he
seemed pleased with her work.

"All right, that is enough for today," he said and placed his hand on her
shoulder.

She guessed his intention and put her hand on his. "Let me?" she asked.

"You know how now?"

She nodded. "You want to go back to your chamber, right? Through the
shadows? I've done it once already, last night."

He nodded and she reached for the black fabric, grasping its power and
wrapping them both in shadow. When the shadows receded, they were
standing by his bed.

Turning to look at her, he inclined his head for a moment then seemed to
come to a decision. "You look close enough and you've got the size right
now. You can take the form yourself, and flee through the shadows if
necessary. You have progressed sufficiently, I deem, that tonight you 
can sleep in the adjoining servant's quarters. I've had clothing
prepared therein." He noted her grimace of distaste and guessed at its
cause. "The clothing is appropriate for a warrior, I don't think you
will find cause to object to it."

She relaxed, reminding herself that he had shown no surprise that she, a
small female, was a warrior. She remembered his shows of deference the
day before. If this was, as she had feared, some sort of Amazon society,
then their clothing might be acceptable. On the other hand, if he
offered her a Chinese cheongsam like Shampoo had worn, she would scream.
Then again, maybe not. She was supposed to be a woman now, after all.
She could not refuse female clothing if it might risk losing her chance.
That was her reason to exist now and she dared not lose it.

She followed him through his chambers into an adjoining set of chambers,
rather smaller but still nicely appointed. She stared for a long moment
at the bed, realizing that she had not mentioned her inability to sleep.
He had moved past her and was opening a large closet.

"I found out last night... I can't sleep. I tried all night to fall
asleep. It didn't work."

He turned to face her, a tunic in his hands. "What? I wasn't aware of
that side-effect. Curious. Do you feel tired? Irritable? You've
experienced long stretches without sleep before I'm sure; do you feel now
like you did then? Like you need sleep?"

She thought for a moment then shook her head. "No, nothing like that.
Just... kinda frustratin', I guess. I used to really like to sleep. It
made me think, last night..." She paused, uncertain as to whether she
truly wanted to know the answer to this question or not. "Can I still
eat?" she asked in a rush.

He set the tunic down on a table and sat on the bed, his eyes steady on
her. "I'm not sure, actually. I'm sure you can masticate, that is. Chew,
I mean. You've a full digestive system, physically, but it hasn't any of
the liquids that are normally involved in digestion. You should be able
to taste, still, and foods should travel through normally, but I don't
know if you'll actually take any of it in. More to the point, anything
that you ingest that isn't properly absorbed would be in the way when you
tried to shift."

He frowned thoughtfully. "Though, you wouldn't need to wait for it to
pass all the way through to get rid of it, either. And I don't know how
that would relate to your potential appetite for magic items, either. Are
you feeling hungry?"

Ranko looked down and placed her hand on her tummy, stroking its surface
as she considered how unusual it felt to have not eaten for several days
and yet feel no hunger. She raised her quicksilver eyes to meet his,
which for the first time she noticed were a startling crimson, and shook her
head. "No, I don't feel any hunger."

"Good. Well, we'll see about letting you eat something tomorrow. For now,
you can spend the night getting familiar with your chambers and your
clothing. Whether you need sleep or no, I must have my rest. An exhausted
wizard is not safe to be around. If anyone comes, make sure you aren't
seen."

After waiting for her nod, he left her there. As he had suggested, she
first explored her quarters. The bed was quite soft and made her feel
almost sad that she could not sleep. It looked quite comfortable, a
definite step up from her usual futon. There was a mirror above one of
the dressers that rather forcibly reminded her of her nudity. She stared
at herself for some time. She had been cute. Now she was beautiful, with a
face that equalled any of her fiancees.

In the dresser she found women's undergarments. "At least I won't need
these," she smirked to herself. It was not likely her breasts were
liable to sag. The closet contained a variety of clothing and as her
lord had implied, much of it was well-suited to fighting.

She pulled out a few pieces and went to sit on the bed. Her mind wandered
to Shampoo and Ryouga. They had had to deal with suddenly getting
engulfed in their clothes when cold water found them unexpectedly, or
having to scramble to find clothing after obtaining hot water. Now it
seemed she would have to do the same.

She stared at the clothing for a long while, feeling as if there were
something she ought to be thinking of or realizing, tickling the back of
her mind. Shaking her head when she could not think of it, she tried on
the clothing. It fit well enough, she supposed, not that she was any
expert.

She was back in the closet rummaging through other clothing when the idea
that had been percolating in the back of her mind finally came to the
fore and she remembered the fabric that was part of her substance. She
hurried back to the bed and shrugged out of the clothes then stared at
them for a long while. Finally she picked them up again. From her hands a
flood of quicksilver poured forward as she took a sudden drop in height.

Nudging her internal weight upward, increasing her size to make up the
mass of the quicksilver she had stolen from her current form, she
duplicated the form of the clothes with the black fabric. Keeping it
attached where it would normally rest on her skin, at the shoulders,
around the hips, and so forth, she left the remainder free to move just
as normal clothing did. Retracting the quicksilver she balanced the
weight to keep her normal height, trying to move the weight as she
reabsorbed the quicksilver. "I'm gonna be able to do that without
changing size at all, one of these days," she promised herself.

Striding over to the mirror, she admired herself in it for a while. The
only problem she could see, other than the basic fact that her clothing
would not protect her from feeling the cold or someone's touch, was that
it was so uniform in appearance. "I look like a ninja," she said,
smirking at herself. The feel of the cloth sliding against her skin was
not quite what she half-expected. More like rubbing her thumb against
her fingers, she decided. It was strange, to sense both the cloth
rubbing her skin and her skin rubbing the cloth.

Having nothing better to do with her night, she sat by the table and
began working with her elements, weaving first one and then another into
tiny fibres, thicker strands, and finally woven material. The jade and
onyx stubbornly refused to behave, of course, and she could not form any
significant amount of fabric from the gold or silver, though they worked
well as highlights. She was able to get a number of shades between black
and silver by using strands of both adamantite and mithril in varying
quantities. There was a significant quantity of a metallic red substance
but it behaved strangely and resisted her manipulations.

"He mentioned absorbing stuff, magic and things. I wonder if I can get
some other colors later?" It occurred to her that if the chance arose,
she should obtain something that would match the blue of her eyes. If she
could get that red material to behave properly, it would work for her
hair. Not that even those changes would really make her new form look
much like her old one had.

Bored, Ranko poked about her room a bit more and then looked at the door
to her lord's chambers. "I wonder if...," she thought about what she'd
done the night before, trying to ease her lord's sleep. "Nah, that's
probably why he gave me my own room so quick. Shoulda' known I wouldn't
be any good at stuff like that." 

"What else," she mused. "Oh, wait, he told me to memorize that knife from
before. I should practice it."

She spent much of the night forming different weapons and practicing with
them in the limited space she had available, doing her best to remain
quiet. One of the first things that occurred to her, as she held the
first dagger in her hand, was that this solved one of the problems her
art had with weapons; their ability to be separated from their wielder.

Of course, it was a bit strange working with weapons that were a part of
herself. It was actually faster, she found, to withdraw the sword and
reform it in her other hand than to physically pass it. She couldn't
simply toss it, of course.

Not to mention the slight additional attention required to handle
reforming the hilt as it came into and out of contact with her hand was
rather distracting. Working on the speed of the changeover led her to
trying to improve the speed of her shifting in general.

She was still practicing absorbing and reforming her sword, dagger, an
eye in her palm, and other weapons, while smoothly moving her mental
pendulum about to retain her size, when her lord entered her chambers the
next morning.

She stopped when he entered but returned to what she was doing when he
asked her to. He watched her for several minutes before commenting.

"You are learning very quickly," he commented.

Ranko smirked. "I'm the best," she said, raising an eyebrow, her
confidence beginning to return as the idea that she would be able to
change what had happened slowly sank in, "I've always picked up
techniques quick." She rotated in place. "Like the clothes?"

He nodded but stepped forward to look more closely. "Not familiar," he
muttered then smiled. "Well done indeed. I suppose I needn't worry about
maintaining a wardrobe for you then?"

She grumbled inwardly at his having realized what she had done so quickly
but nodded happily nonetheless. It felt good to have someone willing to
acknowledge her achievements, instead of constantly deriding them.

At his request, she took them both to the training hall. There, she
demonstrated what she had learned the night before. He commented
favorably on her speed, and the ingenuity she had shown in crafting
metal fabrics to relieve the steadfastly black fabric that was the only
one she naturally possessed. She demonstrated some weapons kata, with
which he seemed suitably impressed. 

Finished with the short review, he brought her a dagger. "This is a
non-magical dagger." He handed it to her. "Try to absorb it, try to make
it part of you."

Nodding, she concentrated on it as it lay on her palm. Nothing happened
and nothing continued to happen until she finally tried enveloping it in
quicksilver. It was then absorbed in only a few moments. He seemed
pleased, but she could still feel it within her. Though it was
responding to her will, reshaping and taking its place within her, it
still felt separate, she could still tell exactly where it began and
ended.

"I can still feel it," she said, frowning. "I can reshape it, but it
doesn't really feel... I don't know how to say it." Her frown deepened,
her mouth turning down in an unconscious pout as she sought for words.

He sighed. "I wondered if that might happen. Try to let go of it." He
gestured at the pedestal on which she'd spent so much time. Stepping
over to it, she formed the material into a sphere and pushed it along
until it passed out of her hand. To her surprise, it readily dropped
away, separating completely. It lay there as she stared at, a small ball
of steel, gold, and leather.

"Take it back up and try to reform it into a dagger."

Nodding, she sucked in a breath and bit her lip as she put her hand on
the sphere and drew it back in. Sorting out the materials, she
straightened the steel back into a blade and gave it as sharp of an edge
as she could manage, then turned her attention to the hilt. Finally a
well-formed dagger, looking nearly, if not quite, identical to the one
she had been given, dropped out of her palm and onto the pedestal, where
she glared at it in frustration. Why had it not worked properly?

"Don't look so disappointed," he advised her, touching her shoulder. "You
were able to reshape it even without being able to truly absorb it. More
to the point, you were able to reshape it and then release it, which is a
better thing than you might realize. You could make a fair living just
using that ability to repair weapons or jewelry, or even make original
works."

She shook her head in protest. She was a martial artist not a jeweler! It
might have potential though. "Ah... well, I guess I could keep some metal
around to make throwing knives with."

"Right." Beside the dagger he now placed a clear gemstone. "Now try to
absorb this."

Ranko could see that he expected something different from this attempt,
so she did not begin with the quicksilver. Instead she started with the
adamantite, as she had the first time. She picked up the stone and
immediately it vanished into a pool of adamantite on her palm, showing
none of the resistance the dagger had. Feeling the substance and testing
its properties, she looked up in surprise. "This is the same thing that
was on that ring yesterday. The jade and onyx wouldn't match its angles,
but this seems to prefer those angles."

"It's a diamond."

"Oh." Ranko pushed at it for a moment then glanced up, a startlement
widening her eyes. "It's not staying separate," she said. "It feels like
it's really part of me now!"

A slow smile swept across her lord's face. His eyes glittered and she
noticed that he was rubbing his hands together. "I was right! The
difference, Ranko, is that the diamond you just absorbed has a spell on
it. You can absorb magical items completely, as I had hoped!"

She looked at her hand, allowing the diamond to float to the surface, the
center of her palm taking on a clear, crystalline quality. "What kinda
spell?"

"Oh, a very simple one. It is merely a light spell, that allows the gem
to act as a light source. See if you can activate it. Ordinarily it would
require a command word, but it is part of you now." She noticed that he
seemed curiously intent and eager and wondered about it briefly. Feeling
through the stone, she found the same tingle that she had felt in the
gold and several of her other elements, including the black fabric.
Trying the same technique she had used on the fabric had no effect.

Sighing, she felt it more gently, looking for anything that might affect
it. Finally she found it, a tight little bundle of energy which, as she
looked more closely at it, seemed to have a very definite pattern to it.
Examining it she seemed to quite suddenly know how to trigger it and she
did so.

Light spilled forth from her hand, a glow that lit the room as well as a
torch might have, deepening the shadows. She closed her hand, bemused as
she stared at the light escaping through her fingers.

She glanced at her lord. Her hand fell to her side and her jaw dropped.
He was dancing, capering about like a madman, chortling! "Uhm... what are
you doing?"

He finally stopped and staggered over to the chair in the alcove,
collapsing into it, sucking in ragged gulps of air. "Sorry, sorry, just
couldn't help it. You can't imagine what a marvelous feeling it gave me
to watch you do that. You absorbed a magic item and without knowing
anything more about than that it was magic and cast light, you
successfully triggered its effect! You have no idea, I'm sure, what an
achievement that is."

"Uhm... right... how do I turn it off?" Ranko was looking at her hand as
she asked, wondering if she was going to have a permanent built-in
flashlight. She pulled the diamond back and slid a thin sheen of jade
over it, casting a green light into the room.

Her lord leapt to his feet, startled. "Green?! How did you do that?" He
grabbed her hand in his excitement then stopped suddenly. "Oh, jade, of
course." He sighed. "It has a second command word to shut off the light.
Without that it will continue to glow until the crystal is completely
used up, at which point it will crumble into carbon dust."

Ranko nodded absently and looked into the diamond again. After a short
search she found it, a second tight pattern of energy. She looked at it
until she realized how to trigger it. Everything seemed to go dark for a
moment as the light vanished, before her eyes adjusted once more to the
dim lighting.

Her lord seemed to have completely regained his composure and she was
about to question him regarding parts of her turning into dust when she
suddenly realized that she still did not know his name. She stopped and
stared at her hand as she tried to remember. She went over each minute
she had spent with him, but for the life of her, she could not remember
him introducing himself.

Looking up at him with puzzled eyes, feeling embarrassed, for surely he
had told her at some point, she tentatively questioned him. "Uhmm... I...
What'm I s'pposed to call you, again?" 

His eyes widened and he laughed suddenly. "Oh! I didn't even realize I
hadn't told you. I am Distanfae Vitrue... or Vitrue Distanfae, I think,
in the style of your speech."

"Okay... Uhm... Lord Vitrue, if I use this light, will it hurt when it
crumbles? It won't make the rest of me turn to dust with it, will it?"

"No, no, no worries there. Remember, you are basically indestructible. It
won't overload the diamond, that is no longer possible. You may use that
spell freely."

"Oh... okay... Uhm... so... why did it make you so happy?"

He turned away to sit once more in his seat. Looking up at her, he said,
"You want to be remembered, don't you?"

"Well, yeah, I guess."

"You want to be remembered as the best, right?"

"Of course. I am the best."

"So do I, Ranko, so do I. Not the best warrior, of course. I am no great
fighter. The world of wizards has its names as well, though, names every
wizard knows. Creating this form for you was a masterwork I may never
succeed in surpassing, not that I won't try. A rune weapon that can act
on its own, that can take any form appropriate to its situation, that by
itself was an achievement! My name will go down in history for that
alone!" He grinned at her. "I am young for such an achievement, though
I've little doubt I'm much older than you, for drow have very long lives.
Many centuries a drow can live, even a thousand years or more, though
I'll not likely last another thousand. But I've done even more than that!
I hoped it might be so, I tried to do all I could to let that possibility
remain. You see, many weapons of great power have been created over the
years. Very few of these ever change afterward though, much less increase
in power as time passes.

"You, on the other hand, not only will you continue to grow in knowledge
and skill as long as you live, you can also increase in power directly!
You can take other magical items into yourself, gain their power for your
own use, even if you have little or no idea what they do or how they work.

"I'm not sure about the quicksilver... it can absorb things itself,
without respect to the spells I've placed, as you saw when it absorbed
that non-magical dagger." He tossed another gem, a small yellow stone,
onto the pedestal. 

"That is another light stone. Try it with your quicksilver."

Ranko placed her left hand over it this time, not picking it up. Strands
of quicksilver dripped from her palm to cover the gemstone. She felt a
minute surge of energy from the stone, then it melted as the dagger had.
It, like the dagger, refused to bond with her. Looking into it, she
searched in vain for the trigger to the spell. "It is not mixing," she
said, "and I can't access the spell."

He stepped up and held out his hand. The quicksilver retracted into her
palm then released the stone, returned to its original form, and she
handed it to him. He murmured something then said it again, louder, a
word that did not translate to her understanding. "You could not access
it because the spell is gone," he said raising his eyebrows.

"I wasn't certain it would work the same, but I wasn't expecting this,
all the same. At a guess, I'd say the quicksilver absorbed the magical
energy from it. If the spell was gone because of the crystal's
deformation, it should have destroyed the crystal." He looked up at her.
"Did you feel anything when you absorbed it?"

"Yeah, like a little jolt."

"Exactly," he muttered. "I think, from my understanding of the behavior
of the quicksilver, that anything that you absorb and leave in contact
with the quicksilver will be drained of magic first, beginning with the
simplest magic, then more slowly it will itself be dissolved and
absorbed, becoming more quicksilver. That, at least, is how it seems to
behave in the wild."

The sound of a door opening caught their attention. Ranko turned to see
a man much like her lord enter the room. His eyes lit up when he saw
Distanfae. "So, brother dear, you've finally left your laboratories!"

In her mind Ranko heard Distanfae hiss, "Make a sword, quickly, but
where he cannot see."

She turned slightly so that her right hand would be out of the new man's
sight. Behind her interposed body, a hilt rippled into being and a katana
like her mother's honor sword formed from it.

"Finally given up on that foolish human magic, I hope? Disappointed
though our mother would surely be." He turned his attention to Ranko and
his eyes widened slightly. "Or just here for a quick dalliance,
perhaps?"

"Neither!" Distanfae snapped irritably. "For your information,
Laermornan, Ranko here is helping me test an... unfinished.. hmm...
prototype, of the final product. Perhaps you'd care to see it in
action?"

Ranko's eyes narrowed at the implication that she was unfinished, though
she was more disturbed by the thought that she was supposed in some way
to fulfill Distanfae's mother's expectations. "He better not want to
marry me," she growled mentally.

The man she now knew to be Laermornan, Distanfae's brother, turned
towards her and raked her up and down with his eyes, eliciting an
unconscious growl from her. "Certainly, I'd be delighted to help you
test it."

He crossed the room quickly and from another alcove along the wall he
retrieved a single curving sword. Unlike Ranko's katana, which at
Distanfae's signal she held in front of her in guard position, it was
not a consistent breadth along its length. Rather, it had a rearward
swell about four-fifths of the blade to the end, where the taper
reversed until it came to a point.

When her lord's brother stepped up to face her, he gave her sword a long
look then glanced at Distanfae. "Why did you make the blade so unusual?"

Distanfae growled, throwing Ranko a glance she couldn't interpret. "It's
human magic, Laer, it works best with human weapons. This is close
enough to a scimitar."

Laer shook his head disbelievingly then moved fluidly into an attack. To
an average fighter he gave no indication of his intent, but Ranko read
him more easily than she could any book. She deftly turned aside his
attack. He recovered readily, blocking her attempt to relieve him of his
sword for a quick win, but she could not hold back her smirk. Though he
moved with a speed that many of the races that held the enmity of the
drow feared, it was nothing to her own speed, she who even before
learning the chestnut fist had been able to move faster than a normal
human's eye could follow.

She did not want to end her first chance at plying her art too quickly,
but it was not long before she was receiving a dark glare from
Laermornan. He leapt backward finally and did not move in again when she
failed to follow. He turned his glare to Distanfae. "Where did you find
her? She's toying with me! I, who can win one fall out of three with
Vitrue's weaponmaster, and I can't even make her sweat!"

He glanced back at her then at Distanfae's smirk. "It's the blade, isn't
it? The weapon you created, it is more than merely indestructible, it is
increasing her skill." Ranko wanted to protest but she did not even have
to look at Distanfae to know that she should keep silent. For whatever
reason, her lord wanted his brother to believe the sword she held was
what he was creating. True enough in its own light, but if she were to
claim that her skill was her own and he demanded she prove it; well, it
would prove no easy thing to cast her sword aside. Once more the memory
of her past and her fear for her future proved able to hold the tongue
that nothing else had ever stilled.

Laermornan did not wait to hear confirmation from Distanfae. Wiping his
forehead with a cloth, he bowed quickly in her direction. "Good fight,"
he said, then strode towards the door, swearing softly.

"Say nothing of this, elder brother. It is not yet ready," warned
Distanfae.

Laer glanced at him and nodded then exited the room, closing the door
with a resounding crash behind him. Ranko turned to Distanfae to see
what he thought of her performance.

"That was well-played, Ranko. Now he is convinced that I've created a
perfectly normal rune weapon."

"What..." Ranko paused, uncertain whether she should bring it up, then
went ahead regardless. "What did he mean about your mother?"

"She is the one who obtained the quicksilver golem for me. She is the
one who charged me with making a rune weapon. She doesn't need to know
all the details. If necessary, you can be just a sword long enough to
demonstrate, but I think we'll be able to work in a challenge. You,
wielding an ordinary weapon, demonstrate that you are a more capable
fighter than this House possesses... and your performance against Laer
makes me think that that will be no great challenge; and after a test of
loyalty, I expect they'll make you weaponsmaster, and designated bearer
of the rune weapon. We should be able to pull it off, if we play our
cards right."

---

Ranko stood poised in the center of the room, the blade of her katana
directed to the floor. At the end of the room within his accustomed
alcove Distanfae was chanting softly. Ranko forced herself not to react
as he completed his chant and a number of glowing arrows of light sprang
from his fingertips. They flashed across the room and slammed into her.

To her surprise, though she felt the impact as they hit her, she felt no
pain, nor had she been knocked off balance. She nodded to Distanfae's
questioning glance and as he began chanting again, she readied
quicksilver just beneath the surface of the blade. 

Once more arrows of light streaked across the room. Her katana flashed
out to intercept. She was too slow on the first two, and though her
katana blocked the arrows, the quicksilver was not there to meet them and
she suffered the full impact.

The third hit square on a patch of quicksilver newly risen to the sword's
surface but again she was too slow and had not yet begun to focus on the
quicksilver and she felt only the impact. The fourth seemed to flow into
her without obstruction as she focused on the patch of quicksilver,
sending a surge of pleasurable sensation like the taste of rich food
singing through her.

Another volley followed close behind and Ranko caught them all. That
first successful taste had given her a hunger for the sensation, though
even with the number of bolts she was catching, it was as a faint
appetizer, barely touching the edge of the hunger she had been previously
unaware of.

"Very well done," Distanfae spoke into her mind. "It certainly appears
that I was right about the quicksilver, and the fact that you can absorb
spells rather than merely drawing magic from enchanted items makes it far
more useful. Now let's try something a little stronger."

He picked up a bow that had been leaning against the wall behind him,
beside a sword and a crossbow, and began chanting. He did not fit an
arrow to the string, though he placed his fingers on it as if they were
encompassing the butt of an arrow. When his chant ended he drew back the
string and a glimmering line of red appeared between the bent string and
the bow. The bow twanged and an arrow of fire leapt through the
intervening space.

It was met by Ranko's katana, impacting on hungry quicksilver.
Immediately she noticed two things. First, the flavor was different,
spicy and hot, and second, it was more filling.

She said as much and Distanfae nodded thoughtfully. "Neither spell is
particularly strong, but I think we have enough now to begin to test.
I've not seen what the quicksilver can do in this respect, but it should
be possible for you to tap into the energy it has obtained. I'm not
certain what you'll be able to do with it..." He trailed off and looked
at her expectantly.

Ranko nodded, thinking to herself that he might be surprised. He had not
yet made mention of ki and she did not think that he was really aware of
the full extent of her prior capabilities. She was not exactly
inexperienced at wielding energy, even if this was a different sort than
that to which she was accustomed. She slipped her sword into the sheath
hanging from her belt. After the near discovery by his brother,
Distanfae had ordered her to keep the katana present whenever she wore
this form, so that he would not find himself unable to present it when
it was requested.

Reaching inward she focused her mind upon the quicksilver. Her awareness
of the rest of herself and her immediate surroundings faded and then she
became quite suddenly and very strongly aware of the energy flowing
through the quicksilver. Slowly her perceptions became more in tune with
the flows of energy and she was able to detect a deeper mass beneath the
swirling upper layers. As she watched she could see that the mass was
slowly assimilating the freer upper flows, which she realized were
somewhat distinct.

Concentrating on that difference her perspective seemed to warp and shift
suddenly, so that instead of looking at the flows from without, she was
feeling them from within, as if her very consciousness had moved into the
quicksilver. From this vantage point, the inner pool seemed quiet and
still, peaceful but with a quiescence like that of a sleeping cat, though
the thought made her shiver, as if it held a power that could be terrible
when roused.

About it flowed the myriad energies she had recently absorbed. There was
little remaining of one stream, a soft glow that tasted and felt like
cool water. Another felt solid and thick, moving with sluggish power,
reminding her of Ryouga, slow-moving but forceful. The last was spicy and
swirling rapidly, touching a deep pain within her as she compared it to
Akane's fiery rages.

They were slowly being absorbed, feeding the deeper, still pool, and 
the comparison of two of the flows to the feelings of his long lost 
friends put Ranma suddenly in the mind of his erstwhile English 
teacher, Ninomiya Hinako. There were definite similarities to the 
absorption of these energies and her ki-draining ability, leading 
Ranko to wonder if she might not be able to find a way to drain that 
energy away before a wizard had managed to shape it, the way that 
Hinako had drained their battle auras.

Reminding herself that Distanfae was waiting, she ignored the outer
flows, expecting that like emotionally charged ki, they would be
resistant to being shaped contrary to their nature, and drew instead from
the quiet pool of neutralized power. 

Her awareness expanded as she drew the power out, encompassing her whole
self once more even as she became aware that she had drawn the conduit of
power out of the quicksilver and into her adamantine element, though not
yet outside of herself.

That she could cause that power to move at all was promising. Cupping her
hand she guided the flows and smirked as Distanfae's eyes widened. Slowly
and then with greater speed, streamers of purple flowed into the space
between her hands, coalescing into an amethyst ball. It seemed to become
easier as she collected it, responding ever more readily to her will, and
she realized with a sudden start that it was more responsive than even
her ki had been.

She cut off the flow when the ball was six inches across, focusing on
maintaining the power and not allowing it to leak away into the air. Its
responsiveness was giving her ideas. She had never really learned any
really powerful ki moves. She knew from her experience with Prince Herb
that the few she knew were barely the tip of the iceberg. However, she
had had an idea for powering up her Moko Takabisha, though she had never
accomplished it. She knew that there was ki all about her and she had
occasionally wondered if she could gather that ki to fuel her attacks.
She had never managed it, but this energy was responding far more easily
to her demands, perhaps with it...

She glanced at Distanfae but though he had a look of curious attention,
he made no sign so she decided that she was free to experiment as she
would. "Control first," she whispered to herself. She concentrated on
the sphere, slowly moving her hands apart. A broad grin grew on her face
as the sphere swelled, lengthening into a sausage like shape. The center
thinned, pinching inward, then the energy split into two balls, one
following each hand.

A double Moko Takabisha was something she had accomplished before but she
was still startled at how easy it had been to divide the ball. Holding
her hands still she pulled the two spheres apart again, dividing them
into four. Laughing softly at how remarkably easy it was to control she
started them moving in a circle, orbiting about an invisible central
point, then brought the four back into a single sphere.

How much further could she go? She knew that under the influence of the
Neko-ken she formed claws of ki, though she had not succeeded in
duplicating that feat while conscious. The sphere between her hands
wavered for a moment then thinned, flattened, and extended. Smirking with
delight, she delicately reached out and touched the blade, then absorbed
it back into her arm. Concentrating, she drew up a bit more power,
channeling it into her arm to join the first, then held up her hand.

Five elegantly curved and paper-thin blades of deep purple flashed into
existence just beyond the tips of her digits. She waggled her fingers and
the blades moved in precise correspondence.

She was absorbed in her own achievement now and did not notice the look
of blank astonishment on Distanfae's face. She had only just accessed
that energy for the first time and already she could control it with
a precision that astounded him.

Banishing the blades she summoned a ball of purple fire into her open
hand and then gave it a sharp push. It streaked towards the wall in front
of her. A smirk appeared on her face at how easy that equivalent to the
Moko Takabisha had been. The smirk widened when a questing thought
stopped the sphere cold just before it impacted the wall and then brought
it arrowing back. She noticed as she absorbed it that it had lost some of
its substance, though hardly a worrisome amount. Of course, the fact that
she had fired it off with such a light thought that she had not even
begun to say the words did little to subdue her pleasure. While she had
no real desire to learn to be ninja, in spite of the shadow powers she
had been given by Distanfae, there was no harm in having an attack that
could be initiated silently.

She felt a sudden pressure on her mind as the sphere vanished and
realized that Distanfae had just exerted his control. "A scrying spell
just activated. We're being watched. Draw the sword and prepare to
defend. Don't absorb, just deflect."

She drew the sword in a single fluid motion and immediately entered the
first steps of a basic kendo form. With her senses still attuned to the
strange energy she could actually feel him casting the spell and it was a
simple matter to interpose the blade between herself and the arrow of
fire, dispersing it in a flash of sundered magic, the move made so
smoothly and precisely that it seemed but an ordinary part of the kendo
form.

It continued thus as he sent a wide variety of distance attacks at her,
her blade intercepting them without seeming to disrupt the pattern of her
motion in the slightest. Through the quicksilver, she felt the build up
of each attack as he began it, then the coursing path of the attack as
it crossed the room. Adjusting the kata so that her sword would
intercept it was child's play.

Without the aid of the quicksilver, the attacks pounded into her,
sending shockwaves through her, though none were strong enough to move
her, nor did she feel any pain from them.

"Deflect, he said," she mentally muttered to herself. Carefully she drew
up the quicksilver power again, holding it ready. She was taking a risk,
she knew. If she guessed wrong about how to manipulate the quicksilver,
she would end up absorbing the attack, which she had been ordered not to
do. But she needed to try, because allowing the spells to impact against
her, while resulting in flashy detonations that made it obvious she was
not absorbing the spells, was not 'deflecting' them.

Again she formed a blade of amethyst, within the katana, concentrating
on it in her mind, picturing a mirror sheen on a hard edge. As the next
attack came, she allowed the amethyst energy to surface on the katana's
edge.

An explosion flared against the wall to her left, courtesy of the bolt
she had deflected into it. She felt like crowing in triumph but held it
in, knowing that her lord would be displeased if she did anything that
revealed too much to whoever was watching them.

The idea came to her suddenly that she ought to be able to sense whoever
was watching. Distanfae had said it was a spell, well, she was able to
detect his spells through the quicksilver, and even absorb them. Should
she not be able to detect and neutralize this other spell?

"No!" Distanfae caught the current of her thought and quickly interposed
his objection. "If the scrying spell ends prematurely, they will know we
discovered them."

They continued their farce until Distanfae signaled that the scrying had
ended. "Laermornan," he growled. "I told him to say nothing! Well,
there's no help for it."

Ranko looked at him expectantly but he shook his head. "I've used too
much magic as it is, putting on that show for them. I had to use several
of my items to supplement my spells. I'll be able to do no more until
tomorrow." He looked down in seeming thought for a minute then raised
his head again. "Stay, if you like, and practice. I do not think they
will bother to scry again. Return to my quarters when you finish,
through the shadows."

He strode from the room and she watched him leave, thinking to herself
that he was exhausted but hiding it, as she had done so often. She shook
her head, dismissing him from her mind. He knew better than she how to
take care of himself and he had shown no inclination to having her serve
him in any more personal matter, for which she was profoundly thankful.
He would doubtless be better after getting rest.

She immersed herself once more in the pool of energy then drew some out
and into her adamantite again. Trading quicksilver for jade in her eyes
once more, she looked at her hands and saw the glows. She had a sort of
glow, all over, doubtless because she was magical, through and through.
The presence of the extra energy from the quicksilver was noticeable as
a deeper, richer color above the submerged substance. The energy she had
freed from the quiescent pool was even more noticeable, the glow being
brighter and richer. As well, it led her to notice that there were
variations in the base glow as well, veins and flows that moved and
shifted slowly, while in the brighter glow of active power, they flashed
and crackled like lightning, the flows warping and twisting
energetically.

Forcing a portion of the energy out of her body and into the open air,
she returned her attention to her environment. Immediately she noticed
that the area around her was heavily laden with energy, the residue of
the innumerable spells, slowly fading. A slow grin quirked the edges of
her lips as she contemplated the ambient glow that surrounded her.

She began breathing deeply and very slowly. Her breath grew ragged
though, as frantic concern flared in her mind. Why was her ki not
building below her stomach, in her hara? She felt nothing from the
breaths. A slow feeling of despair swept over her as she realized that
she had lost her ki. All the feeling of achievement and confidence
seemed to drain from her. The purple energy that had at first so excited
her now seemed little more than a fool's prize.

Her ki was a part of her, built up through pain and suffering of years,
most of her life, in fact. This was not the first time she had suffered
its loss. When under the effects of the Weakness Moxibustion, her ki
had been useless to her, and the despair of those first few hours after
Happosai had crippled him returned to her now with overwhelming force.

Through great strength of will Ranko eventually roused herself from
despair to learn once more to control the quicksilver energies, but her
heart was no longer in it. Dully, mechanically, she shifted quicksilver
around in her body as she breathed, seeking some way of positioning and
using it that would let her take advantage of the skill she had in
manipulating her ki. If those skills could not be applied then all of
that ambient energy might as well be so much hot air for all she could
get from it.

Eventually she gave up. Her breathing continued to have no discernable
effect on the energies. She sighed, dropping her hand and reabsorbing
the quicksilver energy. A moment later she slapped herself on the
forehead with a disturbingly metallic thunk. She had never succeeded in
the drawing in of environmental ki because she had never really been
able to feel it. Feeling someone's battle aura was easy as it made a
sharp contrast to normal experience. But nature's ki she was ever bathed
in and it always eluded her.

But why was she even trying? After all, she had felt the surrounding
magical energies as soon as she immersed herself in the quicksilver
energy? Purple energy flared about her hand and a dry sob cracked her
throat as with startling ease, streamers of energy became visible as
they coalesced from the surrounding air, swirling and settling into the
amethyst ball.

Maybe she had lost her ki and maybe not... but she had a thousand years
to master this new form of energy. "I'll be ready for you, Saffron," she
hissed. Using the amethyst sphere as a conduit, she began siphoning off
the external energies she was collecting, drawing them back within the
quicksilver where they could be absorbed.

It required little concentration, though the mental image of Kasumi
wandering around with a vacuum cleaner wafted through her mind. She
walked about the room, absorbing the ambient spell remnants and thinking
about what she had seen and heard that day. She had been created under
orders by Distanfae's mother. He had spoken of her as a weapon, and had
her pretend to be holding a sword for his brother.

"...after a test of loyalty..."

How did daimyo test their samurai's loyalty? How would this dark-skinned
family's matriarch test her loyalty? What would Cologne have done?

She felt a sudden stab of painful realization and was almost surprised
that it was not accompanied by clenching stomach pains. She would be
asked to kill someone, she felt suddenly certain. It would probably have
been someone close to her, had there been any such person.

"I can't sleep," she said softly, "but that doesn't mean I can't
meditate."

Wrapping herself in shadows, she reappeared in her quarters. Her clothes
shifted, largely vanishing, until she was garbed in what seemed to be a
singlet and boxers. She sat on the bed and drew herself up onto it,
settling into a lotus.

She focused on the Soul of Ice, having little general experience with
meditation, and knowing, in spite of the loss of her ki, that she
needed that emotional distance.




In The Service of the Drow


Ranko looked up as Distanfae entered her room. She noticed that he seemed
unusually agitated. "Laermornan can't keep his mouth shut," he growled.
"And now that they've seen the blade in action, I can't stave them off
with talk of tests and finishing it. My mother has demanded that you be
presented to her."

Less than a quarter of an hour later, Distanfae made his way through the
halls, Ranko with him.

"Remember what we have spoken of," Distanfae warned Ranko mentally. Not
waiting for a reponse, he strode through the doors of the chapel as they
opened before him. As with most events of importance in their dark
society, the presentation of a newly crafted weapon, representing as it
did the culmination of a task given him by his Matron, would be
performed under the auspices of the Spider Queen, the dark goddess whose
worship perpetuated the evil for which their race had become known.

Ranko rested in his hands for he would not trust her to a servant. She
wore the appearance of the katana she had fashioned to fight Laermornan,
though Distanfae had guided her through the process of decorating its
surface. Her hilt was plainly wrapped, while her blade, though otherwise
that of an ordinary katana, bore blood-grooves in a concession to the
weapon design expectations of the society it was to be used in. 

The plain wrap was deceptive, for Distanfae had provided her with a
silken wrap made from the webbing of a phase spider. It would be
recognizable to any drow familiar with the weapons of the nobility, for
it was oft-used in the better swords. A sword with such a grip could not
be knocked from its owner's hand, and so would help explain Ranko's hold
on herself, when and if she ended up as the weapon's apparent wielder.
That its effects were due to its inherently magical properties had
allowed her to make the silk part of herself.

She rested in a sheath, but unlike the silken wrap, it was not part of
her. He had provided the materials and she had shaped them under the
guidance of his mind, but she had done so with her quicksilver, for the
materials were non-magical and could not be made part of her.

Of course, that was quite deliberate. She knew, though it made her
nervous, that she would be placed in the hands of another, and possibly
tested, used to kill. If she could not be drawn from her scabbard she
would hardly seem a useful weapon.

He had informed her of the general patterns of behavior weapons such as
her displayed. He had also told her what would happen when another's
hand touched her, for which she still felt unprepared, though he had not
explained why it did not occur when he touched her. He had made it clear
that she should not allow Kliza to wield her. If the matron demanded
that she be wielded by a House noble, Laermornan would be a better
choice. Less strong-willed, he was male and younger, and could be
influenced by Distanfae far more easily than the higher-ranking female
priestess.

Without an eye, nor room in the hilt to form one, she was sightless. She
was not blind, however. Her consciousness was submerged in the
quicksilver pool and the chapel of this house was so wound about with
magic that she could see nearly every detail. Most of it was a light
magic that seemed without purpose, yet covered every surface, but there
were also magic weaves of great power on the door and the altar and
about several of the persons within.

Distanfae walked proudly forward, Ranko resting on his lifted palms. He
inclined his head as he stood at the foot of the dais where his mother
stood in front of the altar. Kliza, his sister, stood at her right hand.
The snake-headed whip of a high priestess hissed at him from her belt.
Laermornan stood to his mother's left, in front of, not on, the dais.

Kliza stepped forward after a nod from their mother, and grasped the
hilt firmly in her hands. Taking the sword from his hand, she looked at
it, examining the hilt, then drew it forth a few inches, examining the
blade.

"Why so strange a blade?" his mother asked, fixing him with a baleful
glare.

"It is the most elegant of the human blade styles capable of being
turned to the purpose, Matron," Distanfae said, inclining his head in
humility, but keeping his eyes on her.

---

Ranko wanted to shudder in disgust and revulsion when Kliza's hand
touched her. As Distanfae had warned her, the touch of his sibling
opened a conduit between them. Kliza's upper mind was opened to Ranko
and she was dismayed at the nature of it. "She's worse than Kodachi,"
Ranko thought in disgusted wonder. Indeed, the eldest child of Matron
Vitrue was a sadist, taking pleasure in inflicting pain and in her mind
now was pleasure at the thought of dominating the sword. Ranko felt
grateful that the conduit was at least partially one way. Kliza would
feel nothing from Ranko's mind excepting those thoughts and images she
deliberately sent, though Distanfae had also warned her that she might
send certain images and especially feelings across the conduit entirely
unconsciously.

Ranko felt the woman's eyes on her and wanted to vanish into the shadows
waiting within the sheath, feeling dirtied by Kliza's hungry gaze. She
forced herself to remain still and submit to the examination. Kliza ran
her finger against the blade's edge, opening a cut and painting a
portion of Ranko's edge red with blood. Ranko wished she could pull
away, feeling disturbingly as if Happosai were caressing her. The
pleasure Kliza was feeling at the pain of the wound was turning the drow
on and disgusting Ranko as a consequence, since she could feel the
woman's arousal. 

Ranko felt suddenly grateful that Distanfae had agreed that they should
conceal the quicksilver component of her, to avoid any questions about
its effects. She did not care for the thought of tasting Kliza's blood.
The liquid feel of it was ignorable, though in combination with Kliza's
arousal, it felt disturbingly like a nosebleed. Ranko grasped at her
sheath with hundreds of swiftly formed hooks, nauseous at the thought of
being aroused by this disgusting woman, and unwilling to be wielded by
her, even during their contest of wills. Hopefully it would not turn out
too ill, as long as she allowed Laermornan to draw her in his turn.

Kliza moved to draw her fully forth, then growled in anger, drawing the
eyes of the others to her as she jerked at the sheath. "So," she
growled, smiling, a feral gleam in her eyes, "it does not wish to be
wielded by me? Know this, blade, no weapon has yet defeated me. You will
not be the first."

Ranko felt Kliza's will pressing on her suddenly, through the conduit.
Now it was time. Kliza had initiated the battle, and Distanfae had made
clear the consequences. "She is familiar with intelligent magic weapons
and has experience in forcing her will on them. If you fall to her, then
you will be wielded by her until she dies or loses favor and there will
be nothing I can do about it. Our plan will work, but only if you can
defeat her in a contest of wills."

Ranko smirked, confidence growing. How had she defeated Saffron or Herb,
when all logic insisted that it could not be done? She prepared herself,
picturing herself mentally, an image that quickly gained strength,
standing ready to defend against Kliza's barrage. It was a technique
suggested by her maker as offering the best chance for her to use her
true skills in the battle. Prepared as she was, her mental avatar was
dropped to the floor by Kliza's first attack. She rolled across the
mental plain, howling in laughter at the images Kliza flung at her,
seeking to entice. "Ok," she gasped, struggling back to nonexistent
feet, "maybe she's not as bad as Kodachi." 

Apparently Kliza had heard of one of the key aspects of rune weapons
before; that they held the soul of a powerful being, and that they were
generally controllable through their inability to feel any sensation
except through their wielder. Worse yet, she was sending images and
scenes filled with sensation, yet deliberately avoiding the forms of
sensation that she was actually experienced in. Kliza apparently had
little taste for the sensual pleasures unless they were combined with
the giving of pain, and so her proffered temptations were amateurish at
best, as she tried to avoid any intimation of pain.

Kliza was quick enough to recognize the failure of her tactic, however,
as Ranko's amusement reached through the conduit, and so she switched to
intimidation. Ranko's laughter grew, as Kliza threw her true desires
into the fray, though she recognized that she could not win by staying
on the defensive. Still, images of pain were hardly intimidating to one
who could no longer feel pain, though perhaps Kliza believed it would be
painful for Ranko if her wielder was in pain. She flung Kuno's poetry in
retaliation for the images, poetry being recited by a painfully cute
animal that she had been unable to avoid seeing on posters in Nerima,
laughing wildly as Kliza withdrew in pain and confusion. With the poems
and images coming directly into her mind, it was not possible to tune
them out, and Kuno's efforts were horrible manglings to begin with, and
not in the least improved by a cutesy delivery.

As Kliza finally regained her control, Ranko launched the attack for
which Kuno's poetry had made such an excellent cover. Kliza shrieked in
disgust, dropping the sword to beat at the shriveled little monster that
was groping her as if it had a hundred hands. It vanished as the sword
rang loudly against the ground.

Laermornan and the Matron stared at Kliza in shock and disbelief. Never
before had she been bested in a contest of wills. The blade she wore
even now had driven its previous wielder mad in retaliation for trying
to take up another weapon as well, but Kliza had mastered five since
obtaining it and it had not been able to object.

Now she had been defeated in mere moments. The Matron turned her dark
red eyes on Distanfae. "What good is a sword if none can wield it?" she
asked in a voice crackling with anger.

"There is one who can," he replied calmly, hiding his surprise. She had
not even considered Laermornan. He knew that she was prejudiced against
the male gender. Most drow women were, especially the priestesses of
Lolth, but still, Laermonan was a weaponsmaster. He stifled a shudder,
realizing that he had just played into her hands. Her anger was not, as
he had thought, at Kliza's failure but at his own calm reaction to it.
She must think that he had deliberately designed the weapon to be
unwieldable by her.

Laermornan laughed, recognizing Distanfae's reference immediately. "That
wench? The sword was wielding her," he exclaimed, bristling defensively,
still angry over his defeat at Ranko's hands.

Distanfae kept his eyes on his mother, and spoke in a flat, even tone.
"The sword does not grant any skill." Laermornan's laughter stopped
short, cut off as by the stroke of a blade. Distanfae held in his smirk.
He knew exactly what his brother's response would be, and expected that
it would ease his mother's wrath.

"But... but she was toying with me!" Laermornan protested angrily,
certain that Distanfae was lying. The Matron smiled at the thought
of a sword wielder more skilled than her eldest son, wielding an
indestructible blade. Distanfae breathed a silent sigh of relief. She
would doubtless test his candidate, but with that sort of endorsement,
particularly given the circumstances under which it was offered, she
would, he hoped, give he and Ranko a fair chance.

"We shall see her skill," the Matron declared, silencing Kliza who had
been about to protest and demand another chance at the blade.

Laermornan fumed for a moment. "She's an outsider," he snapped, "she's
loyal to you, isn't she? Your pawn, to control this weapon!"

Kliza stepped forward, clearly angered by her failure and smarting at
her humiliation. She glanced at her mother and visibly took control of
herself, speaking calmly. "As my brother says, this woman is not known
to us. If she is skilled enough to be worthy, then letting the household
know of her before she is ready to be used is just as dangerous as
letting them know of the blade itself. If it were known that we had
acquired another blademaster, or even might do so, we would be seen as a
greater threat. Another house might move to eliminate us before we could
bring her and the weapon into play."

The matron looked back and forth between her children, then closed her
eyes in thought. Her son had expected Kliza's failure, which he should
not have, given her previous successes. So he must have made certain
that she could not wield the sword. She would have to punish him for
that, but if this alternative warrior was sufficiently skillful she
might well make up for his insolence to his sister. Laermornan's words
implied that she was, but Kliza's comment was true as well, though she
could easily see where it was directed, if more subtly than Laermornan's
last barb.

Kliza had obviously come to the same conclusion as her mother, and was
seeking to strike back at Distanfae by putting barriers in his way. That
did not, however, make her wrong.

Her eyes opened and fixed on Distanfae. "This woman of yours... she has
already handled the weapon." She paused and Distanfae nodded without
hesitation, knowing that his reaction to Laermornan's comment had
confirmed that the woman wielding the blade was his proffered warrior
and remembering that he had been scryed upon shortly afterwards in that
same training session.

The matron leaned forward, searching his face. "You will go with her and
the weapon and prove yourself in battle. Your life will depend on your
warrior. I hope your faith in her is not misplaced. I will send someone
to guide you to the battle in half an hour. Be ready. Now, be off!"

Distanfae bowed jerkily, allowing his anger to show, after a
lightning-quick evaluation of his options. If his siblings felt that he
was displeased or fearful of the outcome, they might be willing to allow
him to fail by himself, rather than risking a direct attempt at
sabotage, and possible detection.

His anger was not wholly feigned. He had not expected his mother to put
his own life on the line. He suspected that she would make sure he was
not actually at risk, at least until she had firm control over her
newest weapon, but the declaration had surely given his siblings reason
to think they might go unpunished if he failed to make it back alive.

Given that both his siblings had just been faced with failure before
their mother, a show of confidence on his part, which might normally be
expected to give them pause if they considered attacked him, would
merely goad them to action to save face. Striding quickly over to where
his sister stood, he took up the weapon, not meeting his sister's
mocking glare, then strode from the room. 

The matron looked at her daughter after Distanfae was well away. "You
will guide him, Kliza. Take Laermornan with you, find something for him
to fight." Her voice grew chill with warning. "Make absolutely certain
that he faces nothing you cannot retrieve him from if she should fail. I
will not lose both weapon and creator at once! Bring the weapon back, at
all costs. It must not fall into a rival's hands."

---

Distanfae slammed his door behind him as he strode angrily into his
room. He cast Ranko onto the bed, her sheath falling beside her. She
quickly reformed herself, then as quickly averted her eyes, for he was
stripping. "Garb yourself for battle," he said, pointing to the door.
She jumped from the bed and pulled open the door to her chamber. "Not in
yourself," he barked out over the sound of cloth sliding against cloth
as he pulled something out of his closet. "Dress in the clothing I've
given you. If you come through wholly unscathed, with nary a rent in
your clothing..." 

He did not continue, but Ranko caught his intent, as she examined her
options in her closet. She had to agree. She was as displeased with the
thought of the sadistic Kliza learning the truth about her. One Kodachi
was bad enough. She needed to avoid the appearance of being a rune
weapon, and thus, she had to seem less than indestructible.

Her task completed, she turned with some nervousness back to Distanfae's
chambers. She breathed out a sigh of relief when she saw that he was
dressed. Contrary to her half-formed expectation, he did not wear
flowing robes. If anything, his appearance made her think more of a
ninja. He was clad in tight-fitting black. In his belt were thrust
several thin rods of various sizes, while his belt itself was formed
into a series of pockets, which she could readily imagine holding
poisons or drugs. A small crossbow hung by his left hand. All that would
be needed to complete the picture would be a collection of shuriken and
a mask. 

In fact, aside from the obvious weaponry, it was not that dissimilar
from the outfit the lecherous grandmaster of her art, Happosai, whose
image and behavior she had used to defeat Kliza in their just passed
battle of wills, wore on his panty raids. She herself had considered
dressing similarly but apparently such garb was not common for female
warriors, or at least, had not come to Distanfae's mind when he prepared
the contents of her closet. She had settled for a simple outfit of tight
pants of a light grey hue that were suprisingly flexible, an attribute
she had tested with a quick series of kicks before settling on them, and
a thick shirt in black and silver, the only shirt there that was
actually sleeveless rather than merely short-sleeved. Thankfully it was
also round-necked with only a slight scoop in the front. Modest but
without impeding movement, it was still far enough from her desires as
to cause her to make a mental note to fashion some new clothes before
she had to go out again.

To complete the outfit, she formed bracers and leg guards of her own
substance, actually flowing through the weave of the pants in a few
spots rather than making a more visible connection around the edges.

Stepping up to his bed, she unfastened her belt, her face darkening at
the thought of her erstwhile fiancee's probable reaction to her doing
such beside the bed of a man. Shaking her head ruefully, she picked up
the sheath he had carried her in, and slipped it onto her belt, then
refastened it.

Holding her hand in the appropriate position to draw the blade, she
formed the hilt in her hands, the sword extending from it to fill the
sheath. Distanfae nodded appreciatively, noting in particular that her
overall size had not so much as wavered as she gave some of her
substance to the sword.

A thin band of silver trickled from where the hilt met the blade,
sliding down the sheath and over the belt, through the weave of the
cloth to her skin, allowing her to then disengage her hand from the hilt.

He looked her up and down then his eyes fixed on her chest. She felt a
momentary urge to cover herself against his gaze, but held back. She
would have to choose between disgust and dishonor if he demanded a
sexual favor from her, so she by no means desired to draw more attention
to the idea. She did send up a silent plea to the Kami. To her surprise,
instead of reaching out to her, or making a comment about his later
intentions, he questioned her lack of undergarments.

"My breasts don't shift about," she said. "I don't need them."

Distanfae shook his head. "That is exactly backwards, Ranko. Your
breasts don't move, so without undergarments to explain their
restraint, you will seem unnatural."

Ranko flushed and nodded, turning back to her room with a pout. She had
been so pleased to realize that she would not need to wear them...
Stripping off her top, she considered her options for a moment before
taking up a cloth and wrapping her breasts tightly. She might not get
away without wearing something, but at least a bandage was not overly
feminine, and she could explain it away as being better for fighting if
Distanfae should find it cause to question her. Silently she cursed at
herself for not having thought to do it before. Distasteful as she found
it, it was surely far better than ending up trapped with the sadistic
Kliza, or reminding Distanfae that she had sworn to obey him in all
things, even that. She suppressed a shudder.

She quickly finished dressing again and stepped back into his room,
where she found him seated by his desk, a dark look on his face. She sat
on his bed, facing him, and waited.

"I had hoped to have more time to prepare you," he said, his eyes dark
with anger, though she could see that it was not directed at her.

"Don't worry," she answered. "I'm a great martial artist, and even if I
don't prefer to use weapons, I am skilled with the katana. I won't fail
you!"

"It is not a lack of prowess in arms that concerns me. First, you are
not yet familiar with where we are, nor how to navigate down here.
You'll probably have to use your quicksilver eyes just to see. We are
underground, here. Far underground, and when we go hunting, it is in
tunnels that wind and intersect like a maze. Sound behaves oddly and
until you grow used to it, you won't be able to trust where a sound
seems to be coming from. We carry no light with us in these tunnels, for
light attracts predators and attention. We see well enough in the dark,
but you are not yet fully adjusted to that. I hope your quicksilver will
make up the difference."

Ranko nodded, hoping that her eyes would indeed function properly.
Blindfighting when she could not trust her ears would not be fun at all.
She remained silent though, listening with intent concentration on his
lecture. She had no intention of failing him or herself. She had no
desire to be wielded by Kliza.

He had paused in seeming thought for a long moment before shaking his
head and walking into a side room that Ranko had not yet seen the inside
of. She waited, wondering why he had cut off in the middle of what she
had sensed was going to be a lecture. She had been forced to listen to
enough of them from her father and the innumerable other quasi-authority
figures that had plagued her to recognize the signs. He returned after a
few moments and tossed her a ring of black metal set with a red gem.

"Don't absorb it just yet. Keep it handy. It is a darkvision ring; if
your quicksilver eyes aren't sufficient, put it on your finger. If your
vision doesn't improve, absorb it and activate its magic directly."

"More important, Ranko, is the sort of fight we're likely to face.
First, and most important, kill no spiders!" He paused, searching her
mind to be certain that she correctly identified and was familiar with
the creature he was describing. "They are sacred to the goddess we
worship here. Also, you must be circumspect. Use absolutely no shifting
that can be avoided. We will be watched by the Matron the entire time.
Remember that the darkness does not hide you here. Most creatures see
heat, and in spite of being metal, you are warmed by your energy. More
importantly, my magic masks the pattern of your heat, to make you look
normal. To conceal yourself, you will have to use the shadow cloak,
though I think there will be no need for that this time."

"The creatures that we might face out there often have special abilities
or even magic. It is not a matter of a merely physical battle. Avoid
looking into anything's eyes. Many creatures can stun or even kill with
a met glance. I don't think such should affect you, but I would rather
not find out in the middle of a fight. Many also attack with clouds of
spores or gas. Those you can safely ignore, normally, for you are not
vulnerable. However, in this fight we are trying to make you seem like
an ordinary drow, which means you will have to avoid any such clouds,
since you cannot reasonably imitate the effects without knowing what
they are."

"I will be in your mind the entire time, to guide your understanding of
what you see and here, to supplement your senses with my own, and to
give you advice on whatever the Matron finds for us to battle.
Eventually, you will probably learn to suppress your human instincts for
avoiding danger or pain, given your invulnerability, but do not try to
suppress them now! Hopefully they will lend some verisimilitude to your
portrayal of mortality."

"One last item in particular. If we run across a floating sphere with a
wide mouth, a single large eye, and numerous eyes on tentacles, avoid
the gaze of the central eye at all costs! It is an anti-magic ray,
suppressing magic within a conical region in its view. I don't know
exactly what affect that would have on you. Generally it does not damage
magical items, merely suppressing their power as long as they are in
it... but if you freeze solid under its gaze, your nature will be
immediately evident to Kliza and the Matron."

"Finally, don't suppress your killing instinct. I know you may be
skilled enough to take down many foes without doing them any long-term
damage, and we may well take advantage of that, later, to gain slaves.
This time out, though, you cannot afford to show any signs of weakness,
or Kliza will take immediate advantage of them."

---

It became quickly apparent to both Distanfae and Ranko that she still
had a great deal to learn. Without the mental link he held open between
them, she would quickly have shown their hand. 

Her first and biggest shock was when they exited her new home. She had
been quietly looking forward to getting 'outside.' Distanfae had told
her they were underground, but the plainly stated fact held none of the
emotional impact of stepping outside and seeing a vaulted cavern roof
far overhead. Distanfae firmly suppressed her movement for the moment it
took her to regain control of her urge to gawk.

It was by no means the last shock she would receive during their
comparatively short trek through the city itself. Even before they
exited the compound she had noticed movement on that far off ceiling and
focusing on it, discovered to her amazement that it was produced by drow
mounted... or perhaps belted was the more appropriate term... on the
backs of large lizards.

Once they passed through a small gate that led into an empty alleyway,
avoiding the main gates to shield their activities from the watchful
eyes of the House's enemies, she was subjected to continued shocks and
surprises. To this point, the only non-humans she had seen had been the
small green-skinned servants. She could not count the drow in that
number, they looked more human than not, differing only in their
slender lines, the points of their ears, and the coloration of their
skin, hair, and eyes.

Now she was quickly subjected to a dizzying array of sights. From seeing
the lizards up close, ridden by proud drow in armor, to seeing humans
led by in chains, accompanied in the same line by short, stocky figures
that nonetheless looked mostly human, more of the twisted figures she
had seen before, and larger, heavily muscled figures, all the non-drow
she saw bore faces etched with pain, loss, or sorrow.

Elsewhere humans and other figures hurried by, eyes averted
deferentially from the four drow, and in the distance her eyes caught a
figure moving through the bustling crowds, a man that stood as tall
above most of the crowd as they did above the ground.

Through it all Distanfae held her composure in his hands, guiding her
reactions, and providing a running commentary of learning. Before they
had passed three cross-streets, she had learned that the chained figures
she had seen were not prisoners but slaves, that the short, brutish
green-skins were a variety of goblin. The stocky figures she'd first
seen were dwarves, captives from the surface. Others that she saw moving
more freely, but with a dark skin like cold ashes, were duegar, dwarves
native to this underground realm, sometimes allies of the drow,
sometimes enemies.

The giant figure she had seen in the distance was exactly that, a cave
giant, a slave to one of the Houses. Her own House, Distanfae's House,
counted five cave giants in the ranks of its slaves, brutal,
dull-witted, delighting in cruelty.

For all that she was learning, Ranko's demeanor revealed nothing to the
watchful eyes of Distanfae's cold-hearted sister. It said much, however,
to the keener sight of the watching Matron, looking through those same
eyes through the magic the two drow females shared as priestesses of
Lolth, their dark goddess.

Old though she was, Distanfae's mother was more observant than her other
children. She recognized the face that Distanfae's warrioress wore. One
of the House's servants. Perhaps she might have been tempted to believe
the girl had been planted in the House by Distanfae, had she not herself
been responsible for testing that girl's loyalty some months before,
when she had been party to a ceremony to draw Lolth's favor. Fairly
clever and reasonably pretty she had found the girl, but still a
commoner, trained to household tasks and showing no signs of the trained
ways of a warrior or priestess.

She also took note of the calm visage the fighter displayed, the way her
eyes swept back and forth across the scene, but without the jerky motion
of a watchful warrior, focusing on one potential threat after another.
No, the motion was far too smooth for that. It almost... yes, it
definitely reminded her of the gaze of someone whose eyes were being
used by another. Not as she was even now using her daughter's eyes, for
she was merely seeing what her daughter saw, leaving her daughter in
full control, but as one who was using another as she might use a slave.
There were spells that had a similar effect to this. They were less
common than spells that let one see directly through another's eyes as
if they were one's own, with or without the ability to control the
other's movements and focus. The latter sort left one vulnerable to gaze
attacks, such as the petrifying gaze of a basilisk, while the former, in
which the vision seen by the subject was shown in a pool or a mirror,
could be enchanted to break the connection when hit by such an attack.

Still, it was odd. She would have thought it Distanfae peering through
her eyes had he not been there with them. She pondered the dilemma for a
while before hitting on what she felt certain was the right answer.
Almost she allowed a smile to cross her face. Deviously clever,
Distanfae was, to find such an ingenious way of circumventing the usual
limitations of those sorts of weapons. Her eyes narrowed, a frown
furrowing her brow, as a further question occurred to her. Was it
necessary that the subject's soul or mind be removed first, or had Kliza
been at a real risk of becoming the sword's puppet when she sought to
master it?

While the Matron watched and came to conclusions that though wrong were
still surprisingly close to the truth, Kliza and Laermornan covertly
watched Distanfae's chosen warrior. Neither recognized the servant her
form was taken from, nor suspected more to her than a blatant attempt by
Distanfae to retain control of the weapon their Matron had bid him create.

Nothing was said between the four as they made their way through the
crowded streets, Kliza leading as they followed a path that would take
them quickly to the city's edge, without traversing any of the larger
ways that would expose them to scrutiny. Doubtless they were watched
even on the course they chose, but so long as they avoided drawing too
much attention, there was a strong chance it would be passed off as a
band of nobles simply going out on a hunt for pleasure. Behind them
followed just such a guard of drow soldiers, commoners all, as would
accompany such an expedition.

They passed out of the city without incident, and as soon as they had
entered the smaller tunnels, Ranko's silent introduction to the art of
navigating by sound began, as Distanfae brought the sounds to her
attention, telling her what each sound revealed to him. They had some
time for this practice and training, for the tunnels in the city's near
vicinity were regularly patrolled, and were therefore free of hazards
other than the drow themselves, and the occasional outside incursion. No
beasts laired within a several mile radius of the city, though beyond
that various creatures lurked, their hunting grounds known and marked in
the secret ways of the dark elves, so that while the drow knew how to
avoid them, against any potential invader they served as an unwitting
outer defense.

Ranko had been in natural caverns before, and so she was surprised by
the rough but obviously unnatural tunnels she found herself in. Digging
through solid rock is dangerous at the best of times, and she saw none
of the wooden beams and bracings that she had seen in abandoned
mines. 

Her father being the greedy sort he was could not pass up an abandoned
mine without checking to make sure no one had forgotten some wondrous
treasure in it, a folly she had quickly recognized as such, since it was
always his son that he sent in search of treasure, not deigning to take
such risks with his own skin. In her opinion a mine would not be
abandoned if it was still producing wealth. The idea that mines would
hold riches sitting there for the taking had excited her the first time
he had sent his son to search a mine, but she had been quickly disabused
of the notion. So she was familiar with the sort of protections human
miners put in place to ensure that they were not crushed in a wall or
ceiling's collapse, and with the look of a cave-in where those
protections proved insufficient.

Of course, it became obvious to her a moment later. These folk had a
force on their side that none of the miners whose works she had seen had
had available to them: magic. 

Not all of the tunnels were so obviously hand-made. Occasionally they
would pass into an natural cavern, often entering it behind the
shielding bulk of a massive stalagmite, or through a passage that ran
for a short distance perpendicular to the cavern wall, thinning until
they had to walk single-file, and opening out where the cavern wall
itself thinned into sudden non-existence. These odd, sideways entrances
were practically invisible when Ranko looked back to see where she had
been. She knew, with the distraction of her aural training, that she
would not remember the way back were she to have to find it on her own.

Distanfae's attempts at training her were strongly aided by the
fascination she quickly developed with the skill. She had been taught
blind-fighting techniques before, though they had been more holistic,
focusing as much on sensing where the opponent was, and feeling the
motion of the air and the heat of the opponent, as on hearing his
movements. Later, too, the use of ki-senses had been added, diluting the
vitality of hearing alone still further.

Had her quicksilver eyes not let her see in even this pitch darkness,
for none of them bore a light, she would doubtless have learned to
navigate by sound more swiftly yet, but she would also have been exposed
as heat-blind to Distanfae's siblings, which would have brought into
question her semblance of a drow.

But being able to see even in the total absence of light did not reduce
her enthusiasm for this new training, for Distanfae's examples quickly
showed her that he could detect the approach of an adversary long before
he could be seen, and know exactly where he was coming from, in spite of
the strange way that sounds behaved in these limited environs. 

She had been disbelieving of Distanfae at first. When a sound came that
her ears told her was behind and above her, and he said that it was
water dripping in a tunnel several hundred yards ahead, she had wondered
what reason he had to mislead her. The way the sound's source changed as
they moved forward convinced her otherwise, and the brief sight of
ripples on the surface of water through a crack in a wall as they passed
by had banished the last of her doubts.

His facility at identifying the sources and causes of the sounds they
heard served to whet her appetite, but it was the sobering knowledge
that until she learned this new skill she would not be able to trust her
own ears lest they deceive her and cause her to fail this most important
test that caused her to give Distanfae her full attention, less the
slight awareness required to follow where Kliza led.

Distanfae informed Ranko when Kliza deliberately led them into one of
the marked regions where danger lurked. He had not expected her to do
this, since such creatures were usually left unmolested even by hunting
parties. "She may have obtained information about an interloper in the
area," he warned his champion. 

In spite of this warning, the entire group was taken off-guard when the
tunnel wall exploded outward, a massive claw on an armored forearm
smashing Laermornan across the tunnel. Kliza whipped instantly into a
series of backwards somersaults, putting herself behind her other
brother, while the new weapon's wielder leapt forward. "An umber hulk,"
Distanfae cautioned Ranko mentally, "avoid its gaze." The beast was like
a giant humanoid beetle to Ranko's eyes, heavily armored by a jointed
exoskeleton apparently strong enough to smash through stone.

Kliza's troops held back and she showed no sign of concern over the
probable demise of her two forward scouts, given their failure to warn
the party. Her troops had been well briefed. They knew what they were
there to see, what they had to do, the risks they ran, and the reward
they might receive. They lacked only knowledge of Ranko and her skills.

Ranko had already surged forward. She leveled her sword at the beast
that had emerged from the formerly solid wall and blasted it backward
with a short-lived, high-pressure stream of water from her sword,
courtesy of her elemental wand of water, preventing it from reaching
Distanfae's brother with a second attack.

Having moved it out of the range of the others, she threw her sword to
the side, a ray of black cold shining forth in the vision of the
watching drow, as she sealed the rubble filled hole with a wall of ice.
Her head cocked slightly to the side as she acknowledged Distanfae's
advice. She leapt forward in a tight spin that whipped her around,
giving her just a moment to look back past her creator and verify that
nothing was coming up behind him, before she landed, facing the beast.

As the mild shock of landing coursed up her legs like a standing wave in
still water, she let them fold beneath her, launching her into a forward
roll that sent her smashing through the creature's legs, knocking it to
the ground as she leapt back to her feet behind it, twirling in mid-air
to face it. She saw the fresh marks on the wall beside it and realized
that it had already recognized its peril and had been about to flee the
conflict, though whether for good, or merely to seek another surprise
attack, she could not tell.

It did not get the chance. With its face firmly planted in the stone
floor, one firm sweep of the adamantine blade Ranko held sheared cleanly
through armor and flesh alike, and the rounded head rolled forward. She
stepped away as the oddly beetle-like body spasmed and then lay still.
She cast her gaze back up the tunnel, seeing Laermornan only just
beginning to struggle to his feet, two soldiers nervously offering aid
that he had yet to accept, and Kliza sending a black gaze her way, while
Distanfae looked both approving and slightly shocked. The rest of the
soldiers had a sickly pale look about them that confused her. Surely
they were not unfamiliar with battle? Would Kliza have trusted her life
to untrained troops?

Only a few seconds had passed since the creature's surprise attack. Each
of those watching had had a different perspective on what was happening,
and therefore had distinctly different reactions. Distanfae knew that
his chosen had never seen an umber hulk before, nor fought in this sort
of an environment, nor made considerable use of magic before, so he was
mostly in awe of her adaptability, that not only had she almost
instinctively used a magical attack, she had even seen a strategic
non-offensive use for the magic, and had not wasted a moment in figuring
out an attack method that avoided the hulk's gaze attack.

Kliza was shocked at the skill the fighter had shown, and the sheer
speed of the attack, though Ranko's speed had not been even close to
what she had once been capable of. Even without making conscious use of
her ki, she had been able to move faster than a human could see over
short distances, and for short periods of time, but this body was slower
than either of her old ones. Kliza, however, knew nothing of what speeds
Ranko should have been able to attain, and was therefore suitably
impressed by the speed she had seen. She was more interested, however,
in the capabilities of the weapon itself. Water and ice were interesting
enough, but either that sword was vorpal--magically keen-edged, that is,
and capable of taking off even a magically armored limb with a good
hit--or that female was unnaturally strong, given the near magical
hardness of the umber hulk's armor. Since she did not look inordinately
strong, Kliza assumed that either the weapon was vorpal or granted
immense strength. Whichever it was, Kliza's desire for the weapon, and
her corresponding dislike of Ranko and anger at Distanfae, had grown in
proportion to the visibly increased worth of the weapon.

Laermornan was still smarting from the crushing blow he had been
dealt--and from the blow the umber hulk had just dealt him, of
course--when Distanfae had informed him that the sword granted no skill,
and so this commoner had in fact defeated him. He did not believe it. To
be certain, he, being a male drow in a matriarchal drow society, had no
illusions about the relative abilities of males and females. No, his
problem was in his belief in the inherent superiority of drow nobility
over the common rabble. Seeing the girl strike off an umber hulk's head
in a single swipe confirmed for him his opinion. The strength to do that
had to have come from the sword, for she looked considerably less strong
than Kliza. There was no question that the ice--he had not seen the
blast of water that first knocked the umber hulk away from him, being at
that point in considerable pain--had come from the sword. Logically
then, her skill came likewise. Damn his brother, it should have been
obvious that he was the appropriate wielder for the sword. Such a weapon
did not belong in the hands of a commoner.

Matron Vitrue, watching from her throne room within their House, saw
what Kliza saw and came to nearly the same conclusions. She did not
waste time considering strength, it being obvious to her that the girl
had not put any great force behind the blow. She made note of the
ice-wall and the blast of water. Unlike Kliza and Laermornan, she had
access to Distanfae's notes on the creation of his device, though he
knew it not, and while much of the arcana was beyond her, for she was a
priestess, not a wizard, she did understand clearly enough his obvious
intentions to endow his creation with abilities taken from other items.
So she took careful note of the nature of the abilities shown, and their
behaviors and limits, that in time she might find what he had copied
them from, and know their capabilities and inabilities in full.

---

Beneath the small troupe, who were once more traveling, having dealt
with the corpse and the three umber hulks that had ambushed them again
only a few hundred yards along, apparently part of the same group that
the first had belonged to, a great xorn moved through the ground.

Ten feet tall and equally wide, the tri-symmetric creature nonetheless
passed through the stone without so much as a ripple to mark its
passage. Unlike the umber hulks, which carved through solid rock as fast
as they could walk, digging side passages to established tunnels and
waiting in ambush to obtain flesh to eat, the xorn was an outsider, a
being from the elemental plane of earth that had sometime ago passed by
accident through a portal and been stranded here on the relatively
mineral poor material plane.

That was unfortunate for it, for xorns feed on metal and a variety of
natural crystals, including gems, both of which are exactly the sorts of
things that mortals spend so much effort extracting out of the bedrock
of the material plane.

Trapped in the equivalent of a sparse landscape that had been but
recently hunted out, hunger was the xorn's constant companion, though
the increased proportion of magical metals in its diet had hastened its
growth in spite of the relative lack of food. It would have taken little
comfort in knowing that its flesh was harder than it had been, its teeth
stronger, its three arms more powerful, its eyes farther-seeing, for
constant hunger and loneliness are a heavy price to pay.

So it was in no mood to be charitable when after several days skirting
the edges of the magically defended drow city, where it could sense much
metal, but could not enter, it detected a great mass of mixed metals in
the company of a few flesh-things. It had been nearly six days since the
last similar meal had passed, a heavily guarded shipment of metal from a
distant dwarven city that had fallen prey to its hunger, and it was by
no means willing to pass up an equal meal even less well-guarded.

Neither the three drow nobles remaining, two of whom were sulking over
Ranko's easy defeat of the three umber hulks that had attacked them
shortly after her first victory, and the other, who was angry that the
first two refused to concede the point proven and return, nor the
eighteen remaining drow commoners--the two scouts having never shown up
again--were in the least prepared when the pebbled green body of the
unusually massive xorn burst upwards from beneath them, knocking many
from their feet and into each other, as the nine-foot wide jaws
swallowed Ranko whole.

All three nobles moved to attack as soon as they were able, Kliza
directing her soldiers to do likewise, knowing the anger they would face
on their return if they lost the weapon on what was supposed to be a
mere trial venture, but the xorn had grown used to hit-and-run tactics
from attacking dwarven and gnomish mining caravans, since both races
were quite deadly in defense of their hard-won minerals, and had not
even slowed its motion, passing directly into the ceiling and out of
sight.

Ranko had barely a moment to even realize that something was happening
before jaws had risen all about her and she found herself staring at
stony flesh that pressed against her as the beast swallowed. Her first
impulse was simply to pass through the shadows and out of the beast, but
she suppressed it. Nothing should be able to hurt her, so she might as
well take it out while it could not defend itself against her.
Furthermore, she was protected, at the moment, from the watchful eyes of
her creator's siblings.

A moment after her decision was made, she was dropped into a slightly
less cramped area, which had liquid oozing from the walls. Ignoring it,
she raised her left hand, about which the purple light of her inner
power shone, flashing into a semi-solid crystalline shape surrounding
it. The point of the crystal lengthened, giving the appearance of a
blade not unlike that which she still held in her right hand. Though she
had managed to make use of the few lessons Distanfae had yet given her
on the use of the wands in her, she did not want to depend on that
uncertain resource when by merely taking the extra moment needed to draw
up her quicksilver energy, she could have an extremely flexible power
ready to hand, one that meshed well with her life's experience with ki,
especially since he had only had time so far to give her lessons on a
few of the abilities of three of her wands. After all, she had no idea
what she was now facing, much less whether the few abilities she
currently knew how to access, namely fire, ice, and water, in their
simplest manifestations, would be appropriate or effective.

Ignoring the muted rumble of the creature's responsive indigestion, she
looked downward, where the amethyst light was drawing a glimmering
response from below the pooling liquid's surface. A slow grin crossed
her lips as she realized she was still using her quicksilver eyes, and
so could see the emanations of magic. She sheathed her sword, then
reaching down, she drew up the source of the light and frowned in
disappointment. It was no magical item, but merely an unworked vein of
metal glowing softly in the stone that surrounded it. Shrugging, she
tugged at the magic, then stopped abruptly. The quicksilver faded from
her eyes as she lapsed back to normal vision before giving a cry of
delight.

Blue! The vein of metal or ore, or whatever it was, was blue even
beneath the glow, which itself still persisted, mixing with the purple
light emanating from her other hand to yield a purplish-azure
illumination. It was not quite the stormy blue her eyes had been, but
certainly a lot closer than the green or red or silver that were her
only real options till now. Her hand flowed about the stone, then the
stone dropped through the dark mass, an empty hole passing through it.
Still grinning in delight, she reformed her hand and extinguished the
amethyst blade, pulling out her real sword with a hand that had a blue
glow shining from the palm. She had taken too long, she felt, to waste
more time exploring, though she held no regrets considering what she had
found. Still, best to get this over with before Distanfae became too
worried, since either this creature's hide or something else was keeping
him from speaking to her. Perhaps he simply didn't want to distract her.
Either way, no reason to keep him waiting.

She thrust the sword deeply into the stony wall, smirking at the
occasional sparks that lit up the dark. As she pulled the sword across,
quicksilver flowed back over her eyes. She ignored the pained scream
that sounded. "Whatever you are," she smirked, "You made a big mistake
when you swallowed me." Drawing the blade out, she struck again, putting
more power into her strokes.

She was not in the least expecting the consequences of her actions. The
xorn had been passing through the stone as it sought to digest her, and
when she finally damaged it enough to kill it, it came into full
alignment with the plane, becoming embedded inside and out in the stone
through which it had been moving. One moment she was stabbing and
slicing, the next, held rigid, and seeing nothing.

This time she had no qualms about using the darkness to her advantage,
and she gratefully allowed the shadows to swallow her. As soon as she
was within the shadows, though, she realized that her clothing had not
made the journey with her. Quickly she formed a long skein of cloth and
rebound her breasts, then formed clothing as close to what she had had
as she could manage to recall. Thankfully, the clothing she had chosen
before had been black and silver and thus was easily within her
abilities. Still within the shadows, she quickly mimicked several holes
in her clothing, as if eaten at by acid, and thin spots on her boots,
then returned to her companions. She fell into their midst, thankfully
dry, the acidic digestive fluids having been absorbed by the dry stone
just like her clothing. Though she managed to avoid hitting anyone, the
suddenness of her appearance and the force of her impact with the stone
beneath her caused a number of the drow to lose their balance, sending
several of them falling into the others around them, or onto the floor.

Kliza rolled back to her feet and spun to face the upstart sword-bearer,
infuriated at having been sent sprawling a second time. That the first
had been no fault of Ranko's and the second technically caused by the
soldier who had fallen onto her meant nothing to her. Matron Vitrue had
informed her that she had seen enough, which meant it was time for the
final test. She backed up through the ranks of her soldiers as they
quickly reformed, and she threw her hand forward, even as Laermornan
dragged a dazed Distanfae out of the way.

"Kill her," Kliza screamed.

Distanfae shook his head, hearing his sister's cry, and concentrated.
"Ranko," he said through their link. "You must kill them. Hold back
nothing. It is another test."

Ranko gave no acknowledgement. She merely blurred forward, a whirlwind
of swiftly-dealt death. She showed no hesitation but she did evince
mercy. Every blow she dealt was a killing blow, every soldier dropped
after one hit, dead before they hit the ground, dead before they
realized. Dead, before they had time to feel pain.

Kliza said nothing after the slaughter ended. Ranko held her silence as
well, on Distanfae's orders. Finally Kliza spoke. "The Matron Mother is
satisfied. She has commanded we return."

In truth, Vitrue's command had not been predicated on any aspect of the
demonstration, but rather on the nature of the xorn's attack. Vitrue was
not unfamiliar with xorns and knew well that they rarely attacked
mortals except when very hungry. Moreover, she knew the reason: xorns
cannot digest flesh, only metals and gems, and attack only when very
hungry, and only to obtain whatever metals a party might have. To
swallow the warrior whole implied that the conclusion she had earlier
drawn about the girl was incorrect. The girl was not merely someone he
had mind-burnt so that the sword could control her, with her as its
puppet. No, that girl must have simply served as a model for the golem
he had crafted, and so it was that golem which served as the weapon's
puppet.

Once more she silently applauded her son's invention. Doubtless the soul
of the warrior he had bound to the weapon--she, unlike her daughter, was
well aware of the true nature of rune weapons, and would never have
tried to simply force her will on it, as one must do with an ordinary
intelligent weapon--had been female, as was only to be expected, and so
he had crafted a body that would be pleasing to it. The sword had
probably been displeased about having been separated from its body when
it had been brought before her, which would explain its rather violent
reaction to Kliza's ill-fated attempt to master it.

Yes, it made sense. A golem body made of metal--adamantite, she
assumed--would be far less vulnerable to the sorts of attacks
intelligent opponents would make when facing someone with an
invulnerable weapon. Sleep, charm, poison, even mental attacks would
likely fail against it, since they would be directed at the mindless
golem and not the intelligent, souled sword. Yes, her son had indeed
done well--but it was time to take control of this weapon for herself.
He would soon learn that no amount of skill would suffice to keep it
under his control now that she knew the truth.




An Advantageous Mission


Ranko spun on her heel as she looked about the room she had been given.
No longer was she in Distanfae's quarters. She had proven herself and
been brought to the attention of the clan Matron. Now she was a
weaponmaster of the House Vitrue, though it was a provisional position,
as Distanfae had explained it, dependent on her continued performance.

In the meantime she had been moved to quarters more befitting her
status. Like Distanfae's quarters, her new rooms had, aside from the
bedchamber, what appeared to be servant's quarters, currently empty,
directly attached via an inner door, among several other rooms. They
also had a few features that had not been present in Distanfae's rooms.
Distanfae had ranted about the move at some length, for her new rooms
were near the other high-ranking warriors and far from his chambers.

Furthermore, she was now under orders from Distanfae to accept orders
from the Matron and those acting as her representatives. She had not
really been prepared for the transitive nature of owing allegiance to
one who himself owed allegiance to another. Now, in spite of her
success, she could find herself taking orders from Kliza, a thought that
sent a mental shiver of disgust through her.

Still, her rooms were an improvement. Instead of the simple servant's
room she had had in Distanfae's chambers, she now possessed a suite of
rooms that included her delight, a private practice chamber, apparently
a feature of most of the rooms given to the higher warriors. 

She also had a private bath, though she was willing to bet that the
running water was somehow powered by magic. Stone walls and floors did
not seem conducive to running pipes, though of course she had no
practical experience there to draw on. Perhaps they were merely run by
magic?

Distanfae had allowed her to pack all of the clothing he had prepared
for her, and it hung now in a large walk-in closet that included a
full-length mirror. There was another large mirror in the bedroom above
the large dresser that contained various undergarments and nightclothes.
Ranko smirked at the recognition that any girl would probably be
delighted with the facilities she had, but the girls she had known would
probably expect her to be disgusted with the mirrors and the clothes.

In point of fact, she felt the mirrors would be very useful. After all,
they would help her maintain the illusion of her appearance, and not
ruin it by accidentally letting her new blue surface on her face, or her
teeth be jade green.

She sat in front of the mirror now, and let the blue substance flow into
her eyes, replacing the usual jade. Her eyes were momentarily blinded by
the sudden light. When they adjusted, she realized that the substance
was still glowing. She cursed softly, realizing that blue though it was,
it would not serve well for her eye-color. She snickered, picturing
herself clothed entirely in a black ninja-suit, sneaking down a corridor
while the guards stared at the moving beams of blue light that blinked
in and out of visibility.

Smirking, she drew it out of her eyes, replacing it with quicksilver as
hues of energy slid smoothly into life around her. She brought the blue
out through her palm, forming it into a ball until she held all of it in
her hand, lighting the room with a soft blue glow. As she had
half-expected, there was an indeed an additional luminescence about the
sphere, indicating that it was in some sense magical.

When she submerged her senses into it, exploring it from within as she
had done with her quicksilver, she found to her surprise that it was
entirely lacking the skeins of magic she was used to. There were no
tight weaves that might represent triggers, nor even any threads.
Instead, it was purely and simply suffused with magic, glowing with
contained power.

"Wow," she muttered. "How much magic do you gotta have to just glow like
that? Or is it because you're see-through?"

She played with the sphere as if molding playdough, squeezing it in her
hand until it ran out through her fingers, pulling it like taffy, and
rolling it back into a ball, getting a feel for how it reshaped, much as
she had earlier done with the other substances that formed her. She
found this confirmed, at least to her mind, her initial recognition of
the blue as a metal. It did not try to constrain itself to hard planes,
as the various gemstones she contained did.

Having recognized the essential metallic nature of the blue substance,
she proceeded to put it through one of the general patterns she had
learned to use on metals, drawing it out very finely and then weaving it
as thread. Woven into a cloth as fine as her cloak of shadow, it still
shone with its own light, casting odd shadows on the walls about it,
shadows that writhed as if alive as she rumpled the cloth up and then
smoothed it out again, thinking about where and when it would make sense
to wear a glowing cloth.

Remembering the green light she had obtained from the enspelled diamond
she had absorbed, she formed a thin sheet of jade and held it over the
cloth. To her surprise, it blocked the light completely, looking black
in the solely blue light and casting deep shadows as she lowered it over
the cloth. Reabsorbing it, she considered the cloth. Mixing it with
threads of adamantite darkened the color of the cloth considerably, but
had no apparent effect on the light coming from it.

Taking the cloth in her hands, she pulled on it, feeling the lack of
give. Oh, it moved smoothly enough, but it did not stretch. Was that
normal? She drew forth a skein of her cloak and stretched it between her
hands, watching as the fibers thinned and the gaps between them grew,
and then loosened her grip and felt it flow between her fingers as the
threads returned to their relaxed configuration. She had not
particularly noticed the difference before, but now she considered it.
Was there any advantage to be had there?

She drew forth the blue strands out of the cloth and reabsorbed them,
her interest caught now by the potential of the elasticity she had just
observed. Thinking back to her sparring sessions with Distanfae, she
remembered the crossbow leaning against the wall. She absorbed the
wayward threads of adamantite, then formed a simple slingshot, two
upward pointing forks and a handle beneath. Her shadow cloak flowed up
to form a cord bonded to the upper part of each fork.

She hooked her finger in the cord and drew it back, stretching it
further and further, half-expecting it to break, not sure whether that
would count as damage to her or not. It held, though, and snapped back
lazily when she released it. She frowned and began adjusting the pattern
of the threads in the cord until she found a style that seemed to
maximize the snap back when she released.

Looking about for something to cast with it, she frowned in irritation.
There were no small stones or similar loose objects in the room that she
could use. She drew the diamond forth into her palm and looked at it,
but shook her head. It was part of her now and she had yet to find a way
to undo that. She was not even certain that she could, since that might
constitute harm and thus be prevented by her very indestructability.

The diamond vanished into her hand as she stood and strode to the stone
wall. Her eyes flashed as she verified the absence of magic, then she
held up her hand to the wall. Quicksilver flowed forth from her palm,
settling smoothly against the wall. With a wry grin, she reshaped the
quicksilver into the kanji for 'wild'. It sank into the wall, absorbing
the stone, then she withdrew it, leaving part of her name, engraved as
if by a master, smooth with sharp edges and a face so flat it gleamed
when she shone the diamond's light on it to examine her handiwork.

"Hmph, I guess Dist was right, I could make a living doing that."

Turning her attention back to the stone she had absorbed, she reshaped
it then released it onto her palm as a half-dozen perfect spheres. They
too gleamed with a perfect finish in the light of the diamond she had
not yet shut off.

Shifting one between her first finger and thumb, she closed the rest of
her fingers against the palm and slid the sphere against the cord of her
makeshift slingshot and drew it back hard.

Aiming at the wooden door, she let fly and grinned when the stone
thunked into the door. Stepping up to examine it, she found the stone
deeply embedded, though it had not managed to make it all the way
through the thick door. Quicksilver flowed into the gap, drawing the
stone out and smoothing over the hole in the wood.

Pausing, she ran her hand across the wood, feeling the slightly rough
texture of it. "That's something I don't have," she thought to herself.
"I've got no wood. I wonder if I should try to get some?"

The wood vibrated beneath her fingers suddenly and she jerked back,
confused, until the knock was repeated. Recognizing the sound now, she
pulled the door open and admitted Distanfae, closing the door behind him.

He turned to her. "Well," he queried, "how is it?"

She glanced around her, then nodded. "It's fine," she answered, stepping
over to set the stone spheres down on the tabletop.

"Good," he said, nodding sharply, and ignoring the soft clatter of the
stones. "Do you think you'll be able to find your way back here?"

Ranko nodded. "I'm familiar enough with it, I'll be able to get here
through the shadows with no problem. It will probably take me a bit
longer to get used to the halls, though," she admitted, shrugging her
shoulders.

"You'll learn the paths," Distanfae agreed, waving off that concern.
"Have you felt any scrying spells while you've been here?"

"No, nothing."

"That's good. Remember to watch for them. It is vital that you not be
seen shifting nor absorbing magic or magical items. Now, Kliza is on her
way here to test you again. I can't be there to coach you and I think
Matron Vitrue must have some idea that I can communicate to you
mentally, because Laermornan rather snidely hinted that they would be
testing you in a shielded chamber. This is very important! You must be
seen to have skill with a blade. I'm rather worried that they may
require you to set aside the katana and fight with a different blade,
since Laer is still convinced that the blade is granting you the skill,
so, just in case..."


As he unbuckled and handed her a scimitar, telling her to reshape it
into a match for her katana form, they both heard booted footsteps in
the hall. 

"Quickly now, send me through the shadows back to my room!"

---

Ranko opened the door before it could be pounded on a second time. 

"Come," Kliza ordered. Ranko followed without comment, noting as she did
the contingent of guards and smirking to herself. Apparently Kliza was
not all that confident of her superiority.

Ranko tried to keep a careful eye on their turns, watching for anything
that she could use as a reference point. The sooner she could navigate
these halls on her own, the better off she would be. Unfortunately, she
was hampered by the need to work on the blade. She had barely managed to
get the sheath and rough structure complete before Kliza reached the
door and there was considerable detail left to finish.

Finally, bare minutes after Ranko finally finished the last of the
details on the blade, Kliza led her into a room not terribly dissimilar
to the one she had trained in with Distanfae. The critical differences
were the higher ceiling and the presence of a variety of weapons hung
on the walls. The high ceiling arched over and beyond the walls, which
ended before they reached that height. Above the walls rows of stone
benches rose outward. On one side the benches were interrupted by a more
elaborate assembly of cushioned seating where Matron Vitrue awaited
them.

The group of guards that had accompanied them now spread out around the
perimeter of the room as Kliza and Ranko walked to stand before the
Matron.

Kliza turned and smirked at Ranko. "Good luck," she hissed, "you'll need
it." She stepped up to the wall and rose smoothly into the air, stepping
forward as she reached the top of the wall. She turned and sat in a seat
at her mother's right hand, her mouth set in a derisive sneer.

A door opposite the one they had entered through opened, admitting a
slender male drow, dressed in what Ranko took to be fighting leathers.
Though there were swords on the walls in profusion, he bore a sword
already.

Somewhat to Ranko's surprise, and contrary to what Distanfae had led her
to expect, though Laermornan, stepping forward to referee the bout, did
speak of her sword skills, he did not ask her to cast aside her blade.
That left Ranko wondering whether or not they did understand, and
whether she should take advantage of their apparent lack of awareness to
allow the blade she held to be knocked from her grasp, cementing the
lack of connection between them, or if that would merely raise greater
doubts about her ability.

Deciding against allowing herself to be disarmed, Ranko insinuated
tendrils of quicksilver into and through the sword hilt as she drew the
blade, then, while the blade was still in motion, slid a thin skein of
her surface over the blade itself, to ensure that it could not be
broken.

She stepped forward to face the leather-clad swordsman, who met her gaze
with wary eyes as he drew his own blade. She was grateful that by
Laermornan's words this was not a death-duel, but it was solely an
intellectual gratitude. Any emotional uneasiness she might once have
felt at the earlier possibility of a match to the death had simply not
been present, something she guessed and hoped was due to Distanfae and
not simply to a hardening of her own heart.

The drow sprang at her abruptly and as she parried his blow, she admired
his skill. There had been remarkably little indication of his intent in
his stance and in his red eyes.

Though her father had had little respect for weapons-users, he had not
been lax in her instruction even there, and while she might not have
been among the top in the world in skill with a blade, she was far from
a poor swordswoman. The drow was indeed skilled himself, but it was
apparent that he was used to moving faster than he was, and she
suspected some form of magical speed boost that he had been denied in
this bout.

As a result, not only was he not so used to fighting at his natural
speed, he was also slower than she had expected a skilled swordsman to
be. He obviously did not make use of ki to boost his speed, and even
with the loss of speed she had suffered, she was still sufficiently
faster than him to balance out any additional skill he had.

More to the point, perhaps, was her considerable, and clearly at least
to him, unexpected strength advantage. Even her blocks were visibly
jarring him, and her parries regularly knocked him off-balance. She
marked each such loss of control by darting her blade in to nick his
flesh, scoring tiny wounds as if marking up a tally. She could have
knocked his blade out of his hands entirely but she did not want to
antagonize the Matron by prematurely ending her entertainment, lest the
Matron insist she finish him in spite of it being a non-death match.

She deliberately held back on the flashy moves of the Anything Goes
style, sticking to the ground instead of taking to the air. Distanfae
had said they would be interested in a demonstration of skill with a
sword, and she needed to convince the matron that she was the right one
to wield the blade that Distanfae was claiming to have created, not to
prove that she could be perfectly lethal without one.

As opportunities arose, Ranko risked glances at the watching nobles. The
Matron's visage seemed carven from stone, so little did it change, but
Kliza's face was progressively darkening, while Laermornan just looked
ill.

Finally, Kliza could take no more and rose to her feet. "Let's see how
well you handle a group, then," she snarled, and shouted at the guards.
They rushed forward, joining the swordsman's assault on Ranko.

Ranko changed tactics. Sweeping the swordsman's blade wide, she spun to
catch the dropping blade of one of the guards with an unrestrained
parry, shattering the sword. She dropped slightly and came in under the
next sword as she continued her spin, and rising, caught him with the
back of her hand and the hilt of her sword in the chest, throwing him
backward into his compatriots.

With deliberate moves she began to disarm the rest of her opponents,
never needing more than a single blow, with the power she had behind
them, to remove the fighter, or the weapon, as chance and opportunity
dictated. The swordsman she merely parried, until she had relieved all
the guards of their weapons. The one guard who was foolish enough to
scramble across the floor and take up a fallen sword had it shattered in
his hands. The other guards left their swords where they lay. There was
obviously no point in wasting good steel.

When she finally disarmed the swordsman, it was with confidence that she
had controlled the tone of the entire affair and definitively proven her
skills with a blade. She was surprised and disgruntled therefore, when
she was casually dismissed by Kliza, in a manner that made it clear she
was supremely unimpressed. She mastered her reaction before it was
visible, however, knowing that Distanfae would be rightly irritated with
her if she allowed Kliza to gain satisfaction from her response. He
seemed to like his sister almost as little as Ranko did.

She was grateful that the swordsman and the other soldiers exited
through the far door, rather than the one she came through, and was now
leaving through, for she could feel their eyes on her until she was out
of their sight, and she did not care to have another altercation away
from watchful eyes. If Distanfae were to be believed, and she had no
reason to doubt him, an altercation in an empty hallway might yet be
observed magically by those in distant parts of the house. 

More to the point, perhaps, were his comments about the Matron
potentially reading his mind. If she could read his, she could surely
read that of a common soldier, which meant that Ranko would have to
avoid behaving suspiciously when anyone at all was present, even if she
could feel certain that there was no scrying going on.

Her earlier focus on reshaping the sword Distanfae had given her into a
proper replica of her own sword form had unfortunately, and in spite of
her best efforts, taken too much of her concentration away from noting
the passages that they took as Kliza guided her, and so she soon found
herself lost.

Attuning herself to the sensations that had earlier indicated that
someone was scrying on her, she examined her surroundings until she felt
sure that she was not being observed from afar, then, once no one was in
sight of her, she slipped through the shadows back to her room.

She was unsettled to find that Distanfae was not waiting there for her.
She had expected, given his apparent concern about it, that he would
want to know the full details of what had happened immediately. She
pondered what he might doing that was more important, then finally
dismissed that concern. There was little to nothing that she could do
about it at any rate. Ranko turned her attention back to what she had
been doing before Kliza's untimely interruption.

Sitting down at her desk, she picked up one of the spheres. She squeezed
it lightly. Even though she had earlier absorbed it into her
quicksilver, it did not flow as her own substance did. She could reshape
it with her quicksilver, but not otherwise. She pressed steadily harder.
With a loud crack, the stone gave way, shattering and sending shards
flying amidst a small cloud of fine dust.

Ranko smirked at the destroyed stone, pleased that she had clearly not
lost all of her strength, weakened though she had been by the loss of
her ki. Thoughts of her ki reminded her of the other unique attribute of
her quicksilver: the purple energy that she had found so easy to
manipulate.

Picking up another sphere, she again held it between two fingers,
applying pressure. This time, however, she deliberately grasped it
off-center, and as her fingers closed with greater force, they pressed
at an angle until the strain was too great and friction lost the battle.
Her fingers snapped together and the sphere shot across the room.

It rebounded but a short distance off the wall, but Ranko did not seem
disappointed. She had not expected great things from that attempt. It
was merely a gauge, that she might measure the effectiveness of her next
try. Holding another sphere, she drew up the purple energy and focused
it in her fingers, marshaling her intent as she willed it to manifest as
kinetic energy.

This time, the sphere shot off from her fingers with an audible crack,
and smashed itself to splinters against the wall, leaving a starburst of
white, chalky residue.

"One last try," Ranko murmured, her eyes alight with happiness. If she
could pull this next trick off, she would have stepped well beyond what
she could previously accomplish with her ki. This time she drew the
amethyst glow into her fingers as before, and also drew power from one
of her wands, forcing it into the stone itself, filling its center with
glowing power. It was tricky, since she was striving to impose two
entirely different intents on the two segments of power.

Her effort was vindicated as the sphere impacted sharply against the
wall. It was destroyed, much as the first, but whatever pattern it might
have left was entirely obscured by the circular sheet of ice that now
clung to the wall, centered at the point of impact.

---

Ranko rose in utter silence from the shadows. Glancing back, she grinned
at the impenetrable fence she had just bypassed. It had been wound about
with spells designed to prevent exactly what she had just done, cloaks
of shadow being far from unheard of. That had not stopped her. The
ability to directly see the weave of magic about the fence and her own
skill at manipulating energy had guided her to a magical variation of
the Umisenken techniques of her father. It was not the Umisenken, per
se. That was a ki technique. But it was built on similar principles,
using the magical energy she possessed to conceal herself from that same
energy acting elsewhere.

Though she kept to the shadows as she crossed the open yard, she did not
use the cloak to draw them about herself. Darkness being ever-present
here, it posed little barrier to most eyes. No, here it was the absence
of the illusion that gave her a normal seeming heat signature that would
most strongly ward her against watchful eyes, so long as she remained
out of the light. Not that there was much light to speak of, only the
faint glimmers offered by the decorative faerie fire that adorned much
of the structure.

She was grateful that this was an acquisition mission for Distanfae, and
not a mission for his mother. She shuddered, remembering the poor drow's
screams as fire consumed her in her bed. Too long she had paused while
contemplating the murder she had been ordered to perform. She had known
that Distanfae could activate her abilities while holding her. She had
not expected that he could do so from a distance, nor that the Matron
would have become aware of it and would order him to do so. The streams
of fire that had burst suddenly from her hands had been most unexpected
and she had barely escaped unseen.

Though she now lacked the wholesale prohibition against killing that she
vaguely remembered from before her death, to kill a sleeping person in
cold blood was still harder to contemplate, much less perform, than the
slaying of those trying to kill her. The matron's actions had made it
clear, however, that if she failed to deal out a swift and merciful
death, then her targets would die slowly, in great pain. She had since
become swift to kill, though both Distanfae and she herself were
disgusted at the Matron's seeming perception of her as an assassin,
albeit for different reasons. Her disgust came from her upbringing as a
martial artist, trained to protect the innocent, while Distanfae was
simply infuriated by the silent and inglorious nature of the actions. He
wanted recognition for his genius and anonymous executions offered
nothing of value to him.

Slinking across the grass to the wall, she rested her back against the
cut stone and, hidden by her back, extruded quicksilver to absorb a thin
layer of it to cover her surface in a miniscule skein of like-colored
stone. To get the stone spread across her surface, she discovered, it
had to remain in contact with her quicksilver, which ended up spread
around her body just beneath the stone.

The carvings on the outer wall gave her handholds enough for the first
part of her climb, though she was grateful they were not limned in
eldritch flame as was most of the larger statuary, but she soon found
herself lacking a clear upward path, as the carvings gave way to smooth
wall.

She tried to rise further by finding imperfections in the wall's
surface, but after wasting two minutes trying to secure a handhold, she
gave up on the idea. The wall was simply too smooth. So instead she drew
her quicksilver to the surface, careful to bring it up only on the inner
palm of her hand, lest watching eyes learn her secrets. Distanfae had
warned her that though she might expect to get past one house's secrets,
every house was watched by its neighbors, be they enemy or ally, and
that she would eventually be seen was almost inevitable. It mattered
little so long as she was not captured, and bore nothing that could from
a distance identify her as a member of House Vitrue.

Placing her hand firmly against the wall, she extruded the quicksilver
from her palm into the wall, then reshaped it into an angled depression
with a slight outward lip. The quicksilver drew back in as her hand
slipped downward into the handhold left behind.

Tightening her grip, she drew herself up then lifted her other hand and
repeated the process. In this way she reached the upper walkway in short
order. Her flight ring could have done the same, as indeed could the
levitation ability of any elf noble, but she was far more likely to be
seen when silhouetted against the lights or warmth of some distant house
then pressed against a stone wall, colored almost identically to it, and
bearing a heat signature that blended in perfectly with the ambient
heat. She would also have risked making an audible contact with the wall
due to her relative lack of experience with the ring's magic. That
raised the specter of alerting someone inside the building, leaving her
unaware and giving her opponents the opportunity to prepare an ambush.

She might have been able to jump that height when she was human, but
this was neither the time nor the place to test unassisted jumping,
considering the consequences of a failure, given her probable weight and
mass. Too successful a jump might send her smashing right through the
walkway, while a failed leap would end with a mighty crash, whether into
the ground, or the wall of the tower.

The walkway was not the same color stone as the wall, so she pressed
against the edge and shifted the stone she had collected back to the
wall. It was slightly less than it had been, a bit of it having been
digested during the climb by her quicksilver, but it had served its
purpose.

The long balcony was of a black stone, so Ranko did not need to bother
absorbing it, instead merely bringing adamantite to the surface and
drawing all her other substances beneath it as she slid up to hang from
the bottom of it. The rather elaborate balustrade actually extended a
bit below the bottom of the walkway, providing ample hand and footholds
as she began to work her way along it, clinging to the underside of the
walkway like a great black spider.

"I need to find and absorb one of those spider-cloaks Distanfae
mentioned," Ranko thought to herself, with a tinge of amusement. Its
list of abilities had rather put her in mind of the infamous ninja of
her homeland, and in particular, the two she had known personally,
Konatsu and Sasuke. Now she was acting as if she were one of them, a far
cry from what she had expected when Distanfae had taken her on. She had
pictured something more of a bodyguard or honor champion, not an
assassin.

Of course, this task was a thieving run, not even so noble a task as
eliminating her lord's enemies, a task she had not yet been given. She
did account it more honorable than the killings she had performed for
his mother. This assignment was more akin to the sneaky tricks she had
played when first learning the Umisenken, before she had faced Ryu with
them. Reaching the end of the walkway, she swung around the bottom edge
to cling to one side of the balustrade, and peered along the walkway.
Seeing no-one about, she lifted herself quickly up and over and darted
into the doorway.

Her eyes flashed in the darkness as quicksilver flooded them, showing
her the weaves of magic in the corridor. As Distanfae had indicated, one
of the doors in the otherwise empty hallway was far more strongly
protected than the rest. "Gotcha," she crowed mentally, as she
approached the heavily warded door.

She stopped several feet from the door, examining the tight web of
protective spells. Unfortunately, her general inexperience with magic
made most of the spells impossible to identify. By analogy to her wands
she was able to identify a portion of one of the spells that was
connected in some fashion to fire, but little else.

Her inability to identify the magics did not prevent her from studying
them closely, however. She would probably be triggering several of them,
and having examined the weaves before they were triggered might help her
to recognize them in the future.

Satisfied that she had observed them as closely as she could, she
approached the door slowly, waiting for any sign that she had triggered
the protective mechanisms. She hoped to enter the room without setting
the traps off, though she knew it was unlikely. As soon as anything did
react, she would have to bull forward with full force, trusting to her
invulnerability to protect her. She knew that if the worst happened, she
would need to snatch her target as quickly as possible, in case a
portion of the spells were transportive magics that would send her to
some other location.

Finally deciding that she was as ready as she was likely to get, she
moved away from the door to the wall it was set in. The walls were of
course warded as well, but not as completely. Distanfae had suggested
that the door would likely be sealed against all forms of entry, no
matter if she slid beneath it without touching, or slid through the
shadows, etc. Drow sorcerors knew spells to take on misty forms, or to
pass through solid walls in the form of a ghost, or to take the shape of
a small insect.

Distanfae had made it very clear that the only offensive ability she had
that she could be reasonably confident that a drow wizard would not
have, nor be likely to have specific defenses against, was her
quicksilver; both its reshaping, and the energy it held. Even those came
from beings that existed in this world, so it was possible for other
wizard to have access to them, though that was far less likely than the
probability of their having defenses against the wands and rings she
bore, which were well-known creations.

Kneeling before the wall, she rested her palm on the floor and
quicksilver flooded forth, reshaping the flooring, creating a thin,
buried channel and a tiny opening. She spread out the minor amount of
substance removed into a wide but very thin rise in the floor level,
blending it smoothly at the edges. The likelihood of anyone noticing
was, in her opinion, very small. 

Shifting the connection to the pool of quicksilver from her hand to her
foot, she stood and stepped away from the wall and stood facing the
door. A thin skein of adamantite trailed almost unnoticeably across from
the floor to link her and to conceal the hole beneath which her
quicksilver continued to operate. She braced herself, as she prepared to
slide under the wall. The slightest reaction from any of the wards and
spells, and she would have to charge forward, shatter the door, and do
what she came to do while at the same time reeling back in the tendrils
of her extended substance.

Tentatively, carefully, she slid a miniscule tendril of quicksilver
beneath the wall. Instantly she knew that her gambit had failed, as the
wards swirled and stabbed at her substance. She cursed softly even as
she passed instantaneously from stillness into furious motion.

The wards raged as her foot impacted the door. Her foot was swirling
with amethyst vapors as she poured her energy into it, shattering the
stone of the door and detonating a massive explosion. She passed through
the smoke and flame without harm, and was not so much as slowed by a
blast of lightning that shot from the far wall and lanced through her,
grounding to the castle walls through her metallic surfaces.

Her eyes swept the room, casting purple shadows around the room as she
channeled power into them to enable her to identify the magical items
within. A strange, sickly orange mist rose in thin tendrils from a
shattered alchemical apparatus to her right; a long sliver of stone from
the door lying on the polished stone table just beyond, amidst a pile of
scattered scrolls, gave evidence to the cause of the destruction.

Drawn inexorably to her left by a glimmering that teased her peripheral
vision, she was shifting her momentum in that direction even as she
frantically drew in the far-flung strands of her substance.

There! Beams of shining gold trickled from a drawer in the stone desk,
but failed to illuminate the drifting smoke. A flaring mote of flame
slashed through the air behind her as her foot dug into the flagstones,
driving her toward the desk. The far wall rumbled as the mote expanded
suddenly, filling the room with flame. She ignored it, having reached
the desk, and drove her hand through the stone to grasp at what lay
beyond it.

Even as her slender fingers closed about a pair of small, hard objects,
she felt the tightening of a web that had been strengthening ever since
she first breached the wards. The first defense, it was more
appropriately timed for the speed of a cautious thief, to silently
disable before entrance could be obtained, while the flashier and more
immediately deadly attacks had been triggered by her forced entrance.

It constricted her movements for only the barest instant but even as it
passed she was swept up by vertigo as the world changed around her.

Turning in a slow circle, Ranko cursed quietly as she gazed at her new
surroundings. "I sure as hell hope I grabbed the right things," she
muttered, looking down at her hand, still clasped tightly about the
unknown magical items.

---

Thick black mists hugged the ground, becoming visibly impenetrable after
only a few yards. All around the stones were tortured, shattered and
melted, blackened. The only growing things she could see were clumps of
pale mushrooms that shifted and swayed as in an unseen wind. The air was
still and heavy and occasionally an agonized scream could be heard in
the distance, though whether from human or bestial throat she could not
tell.

The mists glowed red momentarily, as a forceful hiss sounded nearby. A
brighter point of red light pierced the mists and landed nearby, an
incandescent stone ejected from the tortured ground not far away.

Ranko examined the two items she held. One was a clear gemstone, though
without a stronger light source it was impossible to be certain of its
clarity and lack of occlusions. The other was an intricately devised
amulet, made of precious metals--she recognized platinum, gold, and
mithril--and set with tiny gems of several different colors and cuts.

A broad grin lit her face as she sat on the rough ground, focused on the
amulet. It fit the description she had been given, and if Distanfae had
been right about it, it would be able to bring her home no matter where
that spell had sent her.

If it was what they thought it was, then it was both extremely rare and
highly valuable. The only reason it had been at all accessible, and not
even more securely guarded than the greatest treasures of their own
house was the experiments being performed using it, by a rival of
Distanfae.

She was, it seemed, not his only spy, and his other spies had been
observing this rival wizard's recent purchases. They had pointed at
outer-planar experimentation, something normally reserved to the
priestesses of Lolth. Distanfae had considered it something of a gamble;
he had seen it as equally likely that this wizard was either performing
illicit attempts at demon-summoning and binding, or that he was
legitimately performing tests or research with the priceless artifact
known to be in the possession of his house.

Realizing that she would have to absorb the amulet and probe it before
she could get out of this place, Ranko decided to attempt to ensure that
she was not disturbed, and so melted into the form of a pool of liquid,
sloshing about until she had managed to construct a believable
approximation of a true liquid's habit of seeking the lowest accessible
path.

Wasting little time, Ranko absorbed the amulet, sucking the gemstone
into an internal cavity to hold until she finished with the amulet.
Distanfae had supplied her with several small magical items, whose
energy she had drained to prepare her for this absorption, but if it
took too much, she would drain the magic from the gem to complete
matters. 

She would prefer not to, since she had not had a chance to identify the
clear gemstone yet. The items Distanfae fed her energy with were all of
little relative value, but the stone's worth was not yet known.

Mere moments after she had begun the process of assimilating the amulet,
she felt a presence approach. She felt a series of taps on her surface,
and from the lack of a mental connection, she surmised that they were
from a tool or weapon.

Without her concentration, her liquid appearance was belied by her
behavior. Her surface offered no give, as if she were a flow of lava
that had cooled slowly, hardening into an unforgiving approximation of
its former liquid state.

Though she paid little attention to it at first, when the presence moved
away again, she diverted a portion of her concentration, with
difficulty, into deepening her subsurface anchor, sending out tendrils
of substance both wide and deep to ensure that any attempts to pry her
up wholesale during her enforced distraction would fail.

She felt no desire to end up in yet another wizard's laboratory, being
experimented on.

Ranko smirked as she finished absorbing the amulet. She had not been
forced to drink the magic of the gemstone. Ignoring, for the moment, the
weaves of magic she could now feel within the amulet, she began
absorbing the gemstone. The amulet's purpose she was already basically
aware of, so all she had left with it was to identify the various weaves
and match them up to the powers it was supposed to hold.

The stone, on the other hand, was an unknown, tickling her curiousity.
With the amulet safely absorbed, she had her escape route ready. She
could take her a bit of time to explore the stone.

She brushed off the momentary distraction of a pair of presences
returning, ignoring them even as they pried and prodded at her and the
ground with metal implements of some sort.

Much to her surprise, the stone was proving a greater challenge than the
amulet, teasing her with hints of its great power. Unfortunately, it was
also taking more magic than she had expected. 

"I need to have enough magic when I'm done to power this amulet," she
mused.

The next time one of the implements touched her surface, she allowed it
to enter then quickly sampled it. To her delight, it was magical, and
she managed to consume nearly half the magic she felt in it before it
was jerked forcefully from her grasp. She ignored the reactions of
whoever or whatever had been wielding the object, focusing instead on
pouring the stolen energy into finishing her absorption of the gemstone.

Her attention was recaptured when a blast of magic impacted her
accessible surface. 

"Just give up already," she growled, drawing in a bit of the residual
energies from the blast. "Hmm, fire magic," she mused, sampling the
energy.

An even more massive blast shattered the ground around her, and she
cursed even as she took her deepest elements and drove them still
further into the ground, improving her anchorage as another blast
destroyed more of the rocks she had been nestled among.

"Haven't you idiots got anything better to do?"

Finally she finished absorbing the stone, and immediately she delved
into it. There was only one major weave in the stone, with the smaller
bits that she had learned to identify as triggers to start and stop the
larger effect. She fed a trickle of her quicksilver energy into the
weave, and activated one of the triggers. When she perceived no result,
she tried the other trigger. This time the larger weave drew in magic,
but she still did not detect any overt effect.

"Damn. I guess I'll have to wait for Distanfae to figure it out. I'd
better get back, then."

Giving up on the stone for the time being, she focused her consciousness
within the amulet, examining the myriad weaves within it. Here she was
greatly aided by Distanfae's preparedness. Knowing the danger, given the
focus of his rival's experimentation, that anyone violating his
protections might be evicted from the dimension, Distanfae had given her
a scroll to examine.

It was inscribed with a spell that would open a passage back along the
most recent path that had been opened. It was an iffy proposition at
best, since he could not guarantee that the amulet would have this same
spell, nor could he let her take the scroll, as it would be missed, but
it at least gave her a strong chance of recognizing the type of spell
she needed, or even, if worst came to worst, of attempting to accomplish
the spell effect herself by twisting her quicksilver energies, which
Distanfae claimed were a variant of something he called spellfire, into
a duplicate of the weave in the scroll.

As it was, she was in luck, for the amulet held a weave that matched
what she had memorized from the scroll very closely indeed. Now all she
had to do was get rid of these annoyances. She really did not want to be
responsible for bringing demons back with her, and she rather expected
that she had been dumped on one of the Abyssal planes, indicating that
the beings accosting her were probably demons of some variety. Dumping
them unhindered by spell contracts and summoning constraints into the
drow city might reflect rather badly on Distanfae, and the future of her
quest was dependent on his goodwill.

She had been quite perturbed when she discovered the extent to which
deception and intrigue seemed to form the very fabric of daily life in
the drow city, and so she no longer put great faith in Distanfae's word.
He would aid her, of that she had little doubt, but he might turn on his
word, if pushed far enough.

Now, she was torn as to how best to deal with the things attacking her.
So far they posed little threat, but if she used enough power to defeat
or destroy them, who could know what worse creatures she might attract.
For that matter, there was no telling if these beings themselves did not
have the power to harm her, and simply had not hit upon the right
technique yet.

Why were they so interested, anyway? Could they detect her magic? Or
perhaps she had some residue of another plane, so registered as out of
place? Could it be as simple as seeing her as a vein of ore?

"Should I act like I'm softening and then melting under this barrage of
fire spells? Or will that just encourage them further?"

Ranko was sure that were she still human, her head would have been
aching. "I'm meant for fighting, not thinking," she groused, trying to
decide.

Making up her mind, she surreptitiously formed an eye, hidden behind a
shield of green stone, and shifted it about until she could see them.
They looked almost black through the green filter. One of them was
small, a winged demon with a pointed tail and small horns, it carried a
short stave with a blade on the end.

The other was massive, and clearly the source of the fire magic. She
could not reliably judge height at the moment, but it was easily five or
six times the size of the smaller demon, and equally demonic in
appearance. She did find it curious that both, like the images Distanfae
had shown her, resembled the Western conception of demons more than the
demons she was familiar with. In spite of the horns and the bat-like
wings, the hair-less skin stretched tight over thick corded muscles gave
the larger demon the appearance of being a caricature of a Western
bodybuilder, of the sort that cared only about the appearance of great
strength, and nothing about what it was meant for.

The larger demon cast another fireball at her. The ball of flame spat
out from a long, curved, and wickedly barbed sword that was itself
wreathed in flames.

Neither was using its wings, though the little one was hopping about a
fair bit. The larger demon seemed to have basically settled into a
pattern, destroying the rocks and ground that Ranko had infiltrated.

Having decided to take them out as unnoticeably as possible, and there
being no reasonable way she could see of taking her drow form without
thereby giving them a way to escape, she settled for infiltrating the
ground beneath them. She extruded a thin tendril of substance, a dark
black, with a rough surface to break up the shine, up and around the big
demon's ankle. She drew it tight very slowly, stopping before he would
be able to feel it through the boots he wore.

Then she lay snares for the swifter, smaller demon, loops of black on
the ground. When he settled to the ground for a moment, she lashed out,
pushing hard to get herself wrapped around his foot before he could take
off again.

As soon as she heard its squawk of surprise, she tightened the snare
around the larger demon's foot, then quickly she looped her way upward,
binding them both in unbreakable strands, ignoring the screech of metal
on metal as the big demon roared and hacked at her surface with his
flaming sword.

She lashed out, twirling around his hand, forced to bring her own
consciousness into it, moving as if she were the strands themselves to
keep the focus she needed to maintain her speed. When she stopped
consciously moving and reshaping those strands, he was held fast, his
sword arm bound immovably to his leg, in spite of the improbably small
thread strung between them.

A loop around the head and jaw, tightening each time their jaw moved, in
mimicry, though she knew it not, of the way a python constricts its
prey, served to cut off their cries and guard against the arrival of
reinforcements.

She thought she had them, and was trying to decide what to do with them,
whether to slay them, or bring them back alive for Distanfae's study, or
knock them out somehow and leave them here, when the larger demon
vanished from her grasp, leaving behind a strange free-standing
sculpture of thin lines mapping out the shape of one leg and arm, and
one wire for the head.

Cursing, her options swiftly dwindling, she began drawing her substance
back into herself, taking her drow shape as swiftly as she could. She
released the little one as she took shape behind it, reaching out with
hands now, grasping its neck and snapping it cleanly. She cast it aside
even as fire took it, surging down from the sky where the larger demon
had vanished to. She spun, staring upwards until she spied it. She
activated the spell as the last threads of her substance whirled back
into her womanly form.

She dived through the portal that appeared, coming out of a roll in the
very room she had so recently left. The room itself was empty but the
air of magic hung heavy about it, and outside was a buzz of noise and
activity. She began sucking the magic in, trying to replenish herself
and close the doorway at the same time. She was too slow.

The large demon barreled through the doorway, slamming into her. She
stopped it cold, its mass no match for her own, though it did force her
to step back to keep her balance.

"Perfect," she crowed, as she realized where she was. She had what she
had come for, and the demon would keep the locals well-occupied while
she escaped. She had not known that she would come back to the exact
point she had left from, or she would have been far less concerned.
Distanfae's spell would only have brought her to the same general
vicinity, as it lacked the precision and strength of the amulet, and a
demon let loose on the streets of the city was far different from a
demon released in the house of an enemy well-equipped to deal with
extra-planar beings. They would doubtless be able to contain it, and any
censure for its presence would fall on them, and they would likely
suffer in restraining or defeating it, at any rate.

Using her greater mass against it, she easily threw the demon out the
door, then sank into the floor herself. Once within the safe arms of the
cold stone, she drew on her cloak of shadows, and reappeared within a
dark corner some distance away, but still within the compound.
Immediately she slipped away, racing through the darkness. 

Funneling a portion of her mass into her hands she formed a long pole.
She slammed it into the ground as she reached the outer wall, vaulting
herself up and over. As she passed over the wall she thinned the
substance of the pole, drawing it back and flattening into a blade as
she shifted her hands on it, powering it into a forceful swing. The edge
whistled as it whipped through the air, dirt flying from where she had
pulled it free of the earth. The blade slammed into the stone street,
carving a deep gouge. She pulled it free, drawing it back into herself,
and cursing softly.

She had forgotten not to change her shape while in the drow city. She
could not know for certain if she was being observed, particularly when
she was not paying attention to the magic around her. Effective though
it had been on the other plane, at least initially, she needed to tuck
that ability back under her hat. She could only hope that the Matron had
not seen.

"You are back!" A voice spoke into her mind.

"Distanfae. Yes, you were right. I was sent to another plane."

"And you have returned, so I assume you obtained the amulet?"

"Yes, and another trinket besides. I can't identify it."

"You are on your way to the House?"

"Yes, I'll be there shortly."

---

Distanfae hummed as he examined the stone lying in Ranko's upheld hands.
"It is too bad that you have already absorbed it," he noted, "though I
understand why you did so. Unfortunately, now that it is part of you,
there is no way for me to cast an identification spell against it alone,
and given that it constitutes your newest power, it is likely that its
abilities would be the last that any identification spell would report."

He smirked as Ranko frowned at the crystal she held. "I guess you'll
just have to figure that one out on your own. It will be good practice
for you at any rate, since you still have untapped abilities within many
of your items. I have not had the time nor opportunity to introduce you
to any of the summoning aspects of your wands, and other such high
magic."

"And you aren't gonna, are you?" Ranko asked, glancing at him as she
considered the tone of his voice.

"No, I am not. There is no way for me to precisely identify the
appropriate weaves, which means you would have to actually activate
them, as you did for the lesser weaves. A summoning here would not go
undetected." He looked at her sharply, and she nodded her understanding.

"No experiments, then."

"Not with any weave that is near the weave of the amulet in complexity,
or bears it any significant similarity," Distanfae responded.

Ranko nodded and Distanfae turned towards the door. "I probably will not
be around for a week or so. Keep up your training, but do not neglect to
watch for scrying."

He swept out the door without waiting for her to respond. He knew her
mind, and knew without question that she would do as he asked. Ranko
closed the door behind him.

She sat gingerly on her bed, and held up the crystal to the glow of
faerie fire that limned her ceiling, gazing through it. She saw nothing
different, so at the least she knew that it was not another gem of true
seeing.

Her eyes slid shut as her vision faded, giving way to the inner sight
with which she perceived the weaves of magic that filled her being.
Locating her gem of true seeing, she brought the two crystals together,
where she could more directly compare their weaves.

They were similar, in areas, at least in the larger of the two unknown
weaves. The smaller held little if any likeness to the larger weave or
to the weave of true seeing. She was actually somewhat surprised by the
similarity that she detected. She had rather expected that the crystal
would have something to do with other planes.

Though the larger weave was still less complex than the weave of true
seeing, it was not so much less so as to allow her to believe it to be a
mere subset. She had, on first recognizing the similarity, guessed that
the stone might allow one to see the true form of an outer-planar being,
giving it the connection to the amulet that she had expected from its
proximity in the lab. The weave seemed more complex than would be called
for thereby, however.

Drawing up the amulet itself, she examined the weave within it. It was
quite complex. Though on the whole there was little resemblance between
the amulet's magic and that of the two crystals, she found a small
portion that actually seemed to match exactly between the amulet and the
unknown large weave. It did not belong to that portion of the spells
that seemed related to the true seeing spell.

The confirmation of the anticipated connection between the two was
sufficient to put a stop to any experimentation she might otherwise have
engaged in. If the stone's powers related to planar travel, or indeed,
to the outer planes in any fashion, then she did not want to chance
using it and having some connection to the outer planes arise in her
bedchamber.

Submerging the three items, she drew up the wand she had used to seal
the wall of the tunnel with ice, examining its weaves and comparing them
to the weave of the amulet. As Distanfae had implied, there were weaves
within the wand only slightly less complicated than that of the amulet,
and others that were far more complex, none of which she could play with
right now.

Her eyes slid slowly open, coming gradually back into focus as she
released her inner sight. If she could not test her truly powerful
spells, she might as well practice with her quicksilver energies. She
felt the most comfortable with them, at any rate, being of all that she
had gained most similar to what she had known before.

Her extensive use of her ability to mold external matter in her most
recent raid had given her an interesting idea with which to extend the
utility of the marbles she had formed shortly after first obtaining this
room of her own.

Opening the topmost right drawer of her dresser, she lifted out a small
bag and loosening the ties, spilled a half-dozen mirror-smooth marbles
onto the dresser-top. Lifting one up, she smirked at it. The pattern on
its surface was sheared, shifted along a fault line a quarter turn from
where it had shattered on hitting the wall and she had bonded it back
together instead of fully absorbing and reforming it. That had been a
test, not of her absorptive abilities, but of a power drawn and filtered
through her wand of earth, but not actually triggering any of the wand's
abilities directly.

It was representative of a success that promised extreme flexibility in
what she could accomplish with her quicksilver. Drawing up unfiltered
amethyst energy, she drew it out of herself. As before, she was readily
able to form it into a sphere outside of herself, and move it with
nothing more than her will.

Now she slid the glowing sphere of light into the stone. With bright
anticipation glowing in her eyes, she lifted her hand, focusing on the
energy in the stone, willing it to perform as she desired. Her eyes
flashed and she broke into a beaming smile as the stone rolled forward
then lifted, at first unsteadily, then smoothly, gracefully into the air.

More spheres of light appeared at her fingertips, flowing across the
table and sinking into the marbles, which shivered, then lifted into the
air.

In moments, she had six stone spheres orbiting about an empty focal
point above her outstretched palm. Glancing at the wall beyond, her eyes
narrowed and one stone after another left the circling pattern to smash
against the wall as if shot from a gun, or from between her fingers, as
so often before.

When the dust cleared, she saw all six stones arrayed in a circular
pattern on the wall, embedded an inch into the hard stone. She waggled
her fingers at them and they shot out of the wall, across the room, and
stopped in front of her, hanging in the air above her palm, with a
popping sound that reminded her of her father when he got his hands on a
bit of bubble-wrap.

They were shattered, every one of them. Indeed, it looked as though
portions of several of them had been pulverized completely. In spite of
the damage each had taken, they held their shapes due to the energy
within them.

A rap at the door startled her from her admiration, and the spheres
dropped to her palm, still held together. She closed her hand around
them, feeling them grinding and sliding against each other as she stood
to answer the door.

Her eyes widened as the door slid open. Instead of Distanfae or Kliza on
the other side, as she had expected, possibly accompanied by another
troop of guards, there stood a single drow female, of low birth, if she
was correctly remembering Distanfae's explanations. She was carrying a
small valise. Her expression was one of fear and resignation valiantly
suppressed. Only Ranko's nuanced skills at reading her opponents,
activated by her half-formed expectation of finding Kliza once more
outside her door allowed her to recognize the emotions on the girl's
face.

"Mistress," the girl said, her eyes directed at Ranko's feet.




Intrigue And Shadows


Bemused, Ranko stepped back to allow the girl to enter. She noted that
the girl, whom she guessed to be a servant newly assigned to her,
carried with her only a single small bag. The girl stepped nervously
into the room, her gaze steadfastly bound to the floor.

After a quick look into the hall, which remained empty, Ranko closed the
door, and turned to face the nervous servant girl. Reminding herself
that the appearance of youth could well be misleading, Ranko reached out
a hand, intending to tip the girl's face up. Perhaps a look into her
eyes could give her a better gauge on her new servant's age and
intentions.

She was startled when the girl visibly cringed, breath catching audibly,
as her hand came up. Ranko followed the motion smoothly, catching the
girl's chin and lifting her face. Her eyes held fear even more visibly
than her demeanor, and to Ranko's surprise, she looked to be near
Ranko's age in terms of maturity. Of course, that put her probably five
or six decades beyond Ranko in terms of actual age, but that was largely
irrelevant in Ranko's opinion.

For all that she might have several decades more experience in terms of
time, as a servant, Ranko was willing to bet that her actual life
experience paled in terms of breadth when compared to Ranko's, which
encompassed multiple worlds, multiple cultures, multiple genders, even
multiple states of being.

"What is your name?" Ranko queried, holding the girl's eyes with her own.

"Sraelee, Mistress," she replied.

"And why are you here?" Ranko asked, lifting an eyebrow and waiting to
find out if she had guessed correctly.

"To serve you, Mistress," the girl answered meekly, her eyes still
betraying her fearful resignation, and also thereby indicating a
relative lack of skill in the dissimulation so vital to the drow.

Ranko contacted Distanfae mentally as she walked her new servant to the
attached servant's quarters, and informed him of this development. He
confirmed her suspicion, that this new servant was not a sign that
someone in the household was gaining respect for her, but rather a spy,
placed by someone seeking to garner advantage for themselves.

She could, of course, ask the girl who she had been sent by, but not
only was there a better than even chance that she would be lied to, even
if she was given the truth as the girl knew it, it would only mean that
the girl herself was unaware of the true person behind the scenes.

Indeed, Distanfae had confirmed that if the person behind the action was
one of the priestesses, the girl could have been prepared with rituals
that would allow the priestess to see through her eyes and hear what she
heard, and she could easily be completely unaware of the significance of
the rituals she had participated in.

It was a given, however, that the girl could as easily be complicit in
the whole affair. Just because it could have been done without her
knowledge, cooperation, or assistance was no guarantee it had been.

To refuse her, Distanfae warned, might well mean her death. Distanfae
was aware that while he had removed the inhibitions that would have
blocked her from dealing death under any but the most stressful
conditions, his weapon was still far from a cold-blooded murderess, and
would definitely be disturbed to learn that an action she put no weight
in had led to the death of an innocent.

As she watched the girl examine her new quarters, Ranko pondered what
rumour must be saying about her to bring such fear into the eyes of her
servant. Although she supposed it might be nothing more than being
required to serve a drow noble that brought the fear. One of the aspects
of this society that she had learned is that anyone who was not a noble
was, whether in name or no, a slave, and subject to the whims of the
nobles, up to and including summary execution.

Ranko might not want to be responsible for the girl's death, but she was
also irritated at the loss of her privacy, at now having to maintain the
facade of continued life even in her own rooms, and that irritation was
sufficient that she made no move to ease her new servant's fear.

She would learn soon enough, by simply living it, that Ranko was not one
to give harsh punishments, or to demand services unwillingly given.

Ranko waited until the girl began unpacking her small valise, then she
turned away, swinging the door nearly, but not quite closed. She opened
her hand, looking at the stones still glowing faintly purple. She passed
her other hand over them, pushing magic through her earth wand. The
stones sealed back together, cracks vanishing, dust congealing and
hardening.

She stalked over to the dresser and carefully set the spheres down on
the counter. She could not play more with her quicksilver where her
unwanted new servant could see her, but she wanted a bowl to put the
balls in. She considered the spheres, thinking about the magic she had
used to reform them from the cracked and partially pulverized wrecks
they had been.

Settling on the low couch that ran along the wall opposite the door to
her bedchamber, she reached back and touched the wall. Inside, her magic
swirled up and into her earth wand. She did not seek to activate any of
its powers. She merely wanted the wand's influence on her quicksilver
energy.

One of the key things she had discovered about this was that the
untrained, unfiltered magic was difficult to shape without bringing it
out. Filtered through one of her wands, she could generally accomplish
external effects that matched the wand's field of influence without
actually drawing the magic out where it might be seen.

Behind her, the wall groaned, then shifted, strands of stone flowing
down and circling about. With a clatter, a smoothly formed stone bowl
dropped from the wall and landed on the couch. She lifted her arm and
the bowl flew to her hand.

Her fingers flicked, and the stones on the dresser shifted then leaped
across the room to her waiting hand. A startled shriek turned her head,
and she saw Sraelee standing in her doorway, her hand to her heart, her
dark skin unusually light. Sraelee's eyes turned to Ranko as Ranko
dropped the spheres in the bowl. Her eyes widened and her breath caught
as Ranko reached back. The wall seemed to shrink away from her hand,
forming an indented alcove upon which she set the bowl.

Ranko crooked her hand at Sraelee, and Sraelee ran to her side, dropping
her eyes. She fell to her knees beside the bed, trembling. Ranko looked
into her unwanted servant's eyes. Asking the girl to be silent would
only be counterproductive, revealing that this was something she wanted
kept silent. Threatening her would increase the tension between them,
and she simply could not match the threat level of the torture these
drow were willing to employ.

She spent only an instant contemplating. Making snap decisions under
pressure was nothing new to Ranma, and though many of her instincts
were tuned to physical combat, bluffs and mental games were also part of
being a martial artist.

She held out her hand, and snapped her fingers sharply. Sraelee looked
at her for a moment, uncertainly, then gingerly proffered her hand.
Ranko held Sraelee's eyes with hers as she took Sraelee's wrist in her
small hand, and twitched her fingers. A swirl of stone snaked out of the
wall, drifting across the intervening space and spun into a complex mix
of twisting strands around Sraelee's hand.

With Ranko's ability to shape the stone, the bracelet's surface became
almost perfectly smooth, giving the strands an amazing shine. Ranko
glanced down, releasing her servant's eyes. She suppressed her grin when
Sraelee gasped involuntarily at the sight of the gorgeous bracelet
encircling her wrist. Ranko's face was impassive when Sraelee's eyes
reached her face again. Ranko dropped her hand, and with a short, sharp
gesture, indicated that Sraelee should return to her room.

Ranko was not certain of the bet she had made, that Sraelee would be
unwilling to reveal the real source of her bracelet, where a simple gift
would be perfectly normal and acceptable, but a magically created
bracelet, if admitted to, would surely be taken to be investigated. If
she was wrong, then she had increased her exposure by revealing that she
could manipulate and shape stone, as opposed to merely being able to
move stones without touching them.

There was little she could do about it, at any rate, and she felt the
risk was worth it, particularly since the gift should ease Sraelee's
fears about Ranko's potential for cruelty.

She still wondered whether her secret had been blown to the point that
there was no reason to try to avoid Sraelee seeing her practice with the
stone, or whether she still should conceal the extent of her ability to
shape the stone. There was no question that she would conceal her other
abilities as much as possible. Certainly she was grateful she had not
exposed her ability to alter her own shape.

Thinking back over the last few minutes, she realized that Sraelee had
seen her summoning the stones, but based on the timing of her gasp, she
had probably not seen her drawing the stone from the wall to form the
bowl. Ranko felt a rush of embarrassment as she realized that in
attempting to salvage the situation, she had inadvertently exposed even
more of her abilities. 

Standing, she strode across the room and through the doorway to her
bedchamber. Only a few months had passed since she had succeeded in
becoming the house's weaponmaster, but they had been filled with
missions for both Distanfae and for the Matron, with tests and
challenges from Kliza and Laermornan, with theft, fighting, and death.
And now, on top of it all, she had to deal with a spy in her own rooms.

Ranko tried not to feel resentment at Sraelee for disturbing her
privacy. There was no guarantee that she was an unwitting spy, but as
long as the possibility was there, she should not take out her
frustrations on the girl. Even if she knew why she had been placed
there, chances would be good that was being coerced in some fashion, be
it by fear of her own punishment or death, or a threat to her family or
friends. Assuming, of course, that she had any friends. From what Ranko
had observed, friendship was not something commonly understood or
practiced in this city. There were simply too many incentives and
advantages to back-stabbing.

By the same token, Ranko had to be careful not to feel too sympathetic
towards her new spy, either. No matter that she might be being coerced,
she was still a dark elf, and chances were good that when her fear wore
away, she would be more than willing to stab Ranko in the back if she
thought it would improve her standing.

---

"I am not pleased with the Matron's interference," Distanfae told Ranko,
"and I've no doubt you like it no better, but we have no real options at
the moment. The worst of it is her insisting on all of this silent
assassination. You'll never develop the reputation that will cement my
legacy if no-one knows what you have done."

Ranko nodded, well aware of Distanfae's intent that she should be his
entree into the annals of history. "Perhaps a token?" she offered,
thinking of Kodachi and her black roses. Not that she wanted anything to
do with black roses, mind.

She and her master were in his chambers, far from her spy. Her master
had grown steadily more agitated as the months passed, and Matron Vitrue
co-opted her for mission after silent mission, but never in a way that
would allow any glory or recognition to come to her, or by association,
himself.

This was not the first time she had heard this complaint, but it was the
first time that she had had anything resembling an answer.

"Explain," he commanded, looking at her intently.

In response, she held up a a rearing horse she had crafted from black
stone. "I've been practicing my shaping. This is an animal from my
world, and part of my name once translated to mean this animal. If I
were to leave a token like this on each mission, it would tie them
together, but not necessarily to me. Not until you reveal it, but then
all of them would be associated with your work."

Distanfae reached out his dark hand, and Ranko handed him the small
figurine. He turned it over in his hands, looking at the intricate
detail. "How long does it take you to make one of these?"

"It took me a long time to make the first one," Ranko told him. "I had
to work at it for a while, making little changes, to get it to look
right, since I did not have any pictures to work off of. But now that
I've got it . . ."

Ranko stood up, and stepped over to the stone wall, rested her hand
against it for a moment, then passed him another stone horse. He
examined it briefly, comparing it to the other one he held, then set it
on the table beside his chair.

"Excellent. So you can form them from something at the mission site.
That will keep them from being tied to us until the right time."

"Gotcha, make 'em all on-site. Not a problem."

"Then the only question is whether they should all be identical or not,"
he mused.

Ranma shrugged. "I could do different shapes with practice, I'm sure, or
I could do all horses, but in different poses and patterns, or all the
same rearing stallion."

Distanfae paused in thought, and Ranko remained silent, giving him time
to think. In her opinion, it was all a matter of whether he wanted to
chance people putting things together too early versus risking them not
putting enough together later, and as such, was really a personal
decision for her master, and had little to do with her. 

To be sure, she would be the one leaving the tokens, unpleasant though
it seemed to be deliberately associating herself with assassinations.
She would certainly have preferred to at least face her lord's enemies
in personal combat, or to have even been facing her lord's enemies, and
not those of the Matron.

Either way, once she had realized the possibility inherent in her first
little creation, which had looked more like a child's clay rendering of
a horse, she had felt obligated to perfect it and present it as an
option for her Lord. The happier he was with his eventual fame, the more
likely he was to give her the help she needed to find her way home and
change what had happened.

So now she waited quietly, with a patience unknown to her former self,
while her Lord pondered.

Finally, he sighed. "Variations on a theme are fine, but keep it to this
animal. Just different poses, and such. If we're lucky, someone with
surface experience will recognize it and start some rumours. It looks
vaguely familiar, as if I've seen it somewhere before, so I think it is
something that exists here as well."

Ranko nodded in understanding.

"You should probably destroy these two. We don't want the Matron tying
these to us too quickly." He handed the two figurines to her, and she
nodded and quickly turned them into a single variegated sphere.

"Should I place them where they will be seen immediately? Or hide them,
so that they won't be tied directly to the event?"

Distanfae considered that for a minute. "Hide them," he sighed finally,
clearly wanting to say otherwise, but bowing to the necessity of
avoiding direct suspicion, "and I think you should also go back to those
sites you think you can safely revisit, and hide them there as well."

---

Ranko slipped quietly out of the shadows in an alley near the Vitrue
compound. This was her first open-ended assignment, the first time she
had not had a single definite goal to get to, accomplish, and return.

Instead, she was to return to those sites she felt she could safely gain
entry to and leave one of her new calling cards without being seen or
detected. She could do this in whatever order she chose, with little in
the way of time constraints.

So for the first time, she actually had an opportunity to walk through
the city while it was alive with activity, and her attention was not
demanded elsewhere. No-one was watching through her eyes, nor watching
her behavior, at least, no-one that knew who or what she was.

She was quite deliberately not wearing house colors or a house emblem.
If accosted, she should be able to overcome and evade any who might seek
to take her, and avoid anyone seeing the Vitrue symbols near the various
places she had previously visited.

With more freedom to observe, she was quickly entranced with the amazing
variety of near-human species walking the streets of the city. Without
Distanfae's influence, she could gaze on each and consider them at her
leisure.

This was unfortunately not as advantageous as she first felt, for she
felt first angry, and then ill as she watched chained groups of
different slaves marched past in the streets beyond the alley. She knew
there was nothing she could do without risking her return, but equally
she knew that Akane would never have stood by and allowed this to
continue. To be sure, she would not have succeeded in any attempt to
free them, at least, not for long, but she would have tried. And Ranma
was in a far better position to act than Akane ever would have been, but
to do so was to risk losing Akane a second time, and that she could not
do.

So she swallowed her ire, and promised herself that when Distanfae would
gone, she would do what she could to end this barbarism. In the
meantime, she had fear to sow. Though she was still sickened by her part
in the death of children, her anger now lead her to feel pleasure at the
thought that she had already ended the lives of some of these cruel
drow, though she knew that it was improbable that her acts had improved
anyone's situation. A death in this dark city left a vacuum, soon filled
by someone of equal or greater malice, for the soft did not survive,
neither amongst the slaves, nor amongst the drow.

Her back straight and her eyes ablaze with pride and anger, she strode
out of the alley and down the street, easily avoiding the mingled
crowds. She might not have the full strength she once bore, but while
Distanfae's spells linked her soul to her movement, she had all the
grace of a supreme predator, and the slaves and lesser drow parted
before her.

She was nearing one of her first targets, only two compounds away now,
when a procession caught her attention. She moved out of the way of the
passing matron and her escort of priestesses and warriors, and deepened
the shadows about her face, but one of the priestesses, not liking her
erect carriage and the defiant disdain in her still burning eyes, moved
toward her.

In an instant Ranko had decided her course, and after quickly verifying
that no scrying was directed specifically at her, though of course the
Matron and her lackeys were being observed from multiple points, she
focused her quicksilver, preparing to drink magic as fast as she
possibly could.

"Bow before the matron, filthy commoner," ordered the priestess, her
snake-headed whip already in motion to punish the unmarked drow
regardless of her reaction. The first snake head impacted uselessly
against Ranma's impervious flesh, but before it could slide down, she
drew powerfully on its magic.

The priestess gasped and cried out in horror when the snake head
shriveled and fell to ash. Ranko fell back into the shadows while the
priestess' attention was on her damaged weapon. Distanfae had told her
previously about the whip that Kliza carried, and the significance
of the number of heads, how they showed Lolth's favor. Ranko giggled
softly, then silenced abruptly, startled that she would make so feminine
a sound, be she emulating a woman or no, but scarcely able to contain
her mirth. She rather doubted that Lolth would look kindly on a
priestess that so easily lost a sign of her favor.

The matron had not been watching, obviously well-used to her daughters'
ways, and their habits of punishing anyone they got the chance to.
Doubtless she had done the same in her day. At least one of the other
priestesses had seen, she was sure, but she was not greatly concerned.
They had not had a good chance to peruse her, seeing her prior to the
strike as just one more of the faceless crowd waiting to be struck for
the glory of Lolth, and the planes of her face would have been obscured
by the shadows.

She quickly moved on, not wanting to wait for the matron to get involved
and pull her out of hiding with some spell. She slipped out of the
shadows in another alley, but kept them cloaked about her as, verifying
that the alley was clear, she descended into the stone roadbed. Having
inadvertently exposed her ability to manipulate stone to her personal
spy, she had no worries about being observed from within, and she had
ascertained that no scrying was observing her from afar.

Within the heart of the stone she began to move forward, passing
unnoticed and undetected beneath the iron fence and the grounds of the
great house. She had more difficulty upon reaching the house, as it
extended beneath the cavern's floor, rather than giving her solid stone
to pass through. Still the walls were thick and gave her plenty of room
to manuever without having to expose herself beyond them.

Occasionally she paused and forming an eye concealed behind a plane of
jade, she would locate a shadow and allow her hidden eye to reach the
surface of the stone, and verify the room beyond matched her memories of
her path.

Soon she found the room whose occupant she had slain. It did not appear
to have been put to a new purpose, though the remains of the prior
occupant's belongings had been removed, with the exception of the
furniture.

Ranko examined the room for several minutes, looking at the room in
different ways, and feeling out the magic, until she was sure that it
was not warded to detect her presence, nor being observed. Satisfied,
she then examined the room to decide what to use to make her stallion
model.

Finally, she decided to use the stone of the walls, and the substance of
the dresser, which looked from a distance like a well-polished marble.
In each case she avoided leaving any identifiable gaps in the material,
instead drawing the substances from many places, leaving areas with
numerous tiny bubbles of nothing in the material.

After forming the model, she stepped forward, the wall rippling around
her as she exited it, and examined the model in the light, so that she
could correct the color locations.

Walking around the space, she considered where it would be best to place
the small horse. Beneath the bed was an obvious choice, but she had no
idea what the cleaning patterns were here. She would prefer not to leave
it somewhere that would provide evidence that she had returned, when
someone realized that they had already cleaned that area. Eventually she
chose to lift the heavy wardrobe and check beneath it. As she had hoped,
it had a gap between the actual flat bottom, and the bottom of the
walls. It was not, however, large enough to leave the horse there. The
wardrobe balanced on it, rocking oddly.

She considered her options for a minute, then reshaped the figurine into
a shorter figure of three smaller horses in full gallop, tails and manes
streaming, and once more placed it beneath the wardrobe. Verifying that
the wardrobe was now properly seated and that there was no dust on the
floor to show that the wardrobe had been moved, she nodded in approval.

Returning to the wall, she passed through the stone and out of the
complex. She briefly considered stepping back out and traveling openly
through the streets again, but decided against it. She had already
caused one commotion. She did not want to have a whole series of
incidents that would allow someone to put together a picture of her
movements.

She could have stepped through the shadows to her next target, but
shadow-cloaks and similar magics were well-known to the drow, and they
would likely have protections against such a move. She might use the
cloak merely to move quickly across the city, but even there she could
not be sure that she would not trip some ward or spell that would call
attention to her.

So instead she passed through the stone, using the opportunity as a
learning experience, working on different ways to move beneath the
streets. Moving through the stone in the shape of a woman was slow work,
a fact she had learned previously. She had figured out a way that worked
reasonably well, however, which involved extending a tendril of
substance some distance ahead, and then shifting herself along that
tendril, while transferring the stone in the opposite direction. It
amused her, sometimes, to imagine what someone would think, when the
stone in her target location was substantially different in appearance
than that in her starting position, if they were excavating, and came
across stone that had a feminine profile.

Now, however, she began experimenting with looser shapes, traveling in a
shape more reminiscent of a worm or snake than a woman. She soon found
that moving like a worm was more effective. Unless she actually
excavated a fair area, she did not have enough room to move like a
snake. Instead, it seemed most effective to stretch forward, absorbing
the stone ahead of her while her lengthy body slimmed down in the
channel, then to extrude that stone at the rear of the passage,
restoring its solidity even as she shortened and thickened back to the
width of the passage.

This mode of transportation still required caution, however, as she had
to avoid extending herself out into any opening she might encounter, and
she had to constantly detect magic that might be ahead of her, and route
her way around it. Occasionally she was forced to go quite a bit out of
a direct line, when a large complex lay athwart her path. She also had
to pause regularly, to extend a probe up towards the surface, finding a
wall, and rising up to about five and a half feet above street level,
then forming an eye concealed behind a flat gemstone, to verify her
location.

To an extent, the spells and wards she had to avoid were an aid to her
navigation, as each compound of one of the ruling families would shine
to her senses as a great beacon of complicated magic. Nonetheless, they
were little more than massive blobs of magic to her senses at a
distance, and while they helped confirm her position, they were not
sufficiently identifiable from afar as to act as true landmarks.
Therefore regular position checks were necessary.

She soon arrived at her next target. This time the room had clearly been
put back into service, and it was occupied when she reached it, though
to her surprise, it was clearly a slave that had taken place of the drow
warrior she had slain there, the chains around the neck and arms making
that clear enough.

She examined the room carefully from her vantage point, a concealed eye
above the normal sight-line, on the wall opposite the main entrance to
the suite. From what she could see, the furnishings were still far too
rich to belong to the slave, so she guessed that the chained female
surface elf was a body-slave, a pleasure toy to whomever had taken the
room.

She considered whether there was anything that she could do for the
slave, as she formed a small statue of a rearing horse, much as she had
tried initially at her first stop, and slid it unnoticed onto a high
shelf.

She had learned little about the transportation artifact, and though she
could probably trigger it, she did not think the chained elf would fair
any better in that demonic environment than she was here. Perhaps in
time it could be used to return such a slave to the surface world, but
not, certainly, until Ranko herself had chanced to visit there.

She could kill the slave, and free her thusly from her bondage, while at
the same time inconveniencing one of her master's enemies. But this was
an enemy of her master only in the sense that any drow not of her
master's household was his enemy, and of course, at this point she could
not even be certain that the slave's owner, or the normal occupant of
this room, was a drow, though it was certainly the most likely
possibility. Not to mention which, the slave might well prefer to cling
to life, even in the face of her slavery.

She could steal the slave, but what then would she do with her? Freeing
her in this city would only result in her recapture and torment for
having escaped. Freeing her outside the city would likely only lead to
an unpleasant demise. Taking her to House Vitrue would simply mean
exchanging one dark master for another.

Showing herself to the elf and allowing her to choose whether to die was
also out of the question, as if the elf chose to live, she would then be
able to reveal Ranko's presence and appearance.

Lying in wait to slay the slave's master, if he or she should turn out
to be cruel, would likely only get the slave killed, or if not, she
would be turned over to yet another cruel master. Noble drow, she had
observed, were more often cruel than not, to the degree that only her
master had not shown cruelty when presented with the opportunity, and
that was likely only because he saw her as a prized creation.

It had been hard enough facing the idea that other people were kept here
as slaves, but somehow it was harder to see it right in front of her,
and harder still that it was a single slave. It was oddly easier to look
past the sympathetic horror she felt when she saw slaves in large groups
than it was to face one single elf.

Ranko shook herself free of her musings about the surface elf's possible
family and friends, and left the building quickly. She could not stand
to face such a horror when she felt so helpless to change it, especially
when she knew that Akane would never have stood for it. She would have
fought it to the last, just as she fought against perceived perversion,
and she would have either died or been taken a slave herself.

Ranko could take up her fight, but in doing so, she would be discarding
her chance to save Akane, and that she could not face. She would prove
herself by saving her life, and if they could then not accept her, she
would find a way to move on, knowing that at the last, Akane lived. But
she could not move on, could not live a life with honor, until she had
reversed the failure that lead to her atonement.

She did promise to herself that she would watch for anything that would
assist her in changing this society. Once Distanfae reached the end of
his years, and kept his end of the bargain, perhaps then she could take
the time to free the slaves. If she could reach the surface, she might
be able to figure out how to use the amulet to transport slaves to the
surface. She rather doubted that Distanfae, or even the Matron Vitrue,
would much object to her stealing and freeing the slaves of other
houses, as that would effectively weaken them. Of course, they would
probably be equally pleased if she simply slaughtered them all. She
would simply have to hope they never gave her such an order, because for
Akane, she would do it.

As each death stained her hands with more blood, Ranko was slowly coming
to the realization that she would either have to keep all that happened
to her here a secret, the keeping of which would inevitably, given
Akane's suspicious nature where she was concerned, lead to strife, or
face the disgust, and likely hatred of those she loved. Still, she had
no choice, if they were to live.

Though several of the sites she visited had boosted their wards, or
added new defenses, including one where there was a vicious, bestial
creature left chained in the room she had previously visited, she had no
difficulties with them.

As on her initial missions, her ability to detect the spells, and to
manipulate her own internal magics, as well as her ability to pass
through the stone without having to move out-of-phase with it, got her
past the additional magics with little trouble. Creatures such as the
one in whose belly she had discovered her enigmatically glowing blue
stone tended to either phase through the stone, passing through it like
a ghost, which was readily detectable through magic, or to claw their
way through it, as with the armored behemoths she had destroyed on that
same mission, causing both noise and vibrations which could be detected.

Her own passage through the stone was silent, and as yet, no wards or
spells had been devised against it. She had been warned by Distanfae
that if she was not careful to keep her powers hidden and secret, it
would not take long for the city's wizards and priestesses to devise
defenses attuned to her, at which point her missions would become ones
of brute force instead of stealth.

Ranko was of mixed minds about the possibilities, as she had little
desire for skulking about and killing without a fight, but the sort of
fights she would have in the open here would result in quite a bit of
collateral damage, killing relative innocents. Her own indecision on the
topic was irrelevant, however, as Distanfae's intentions were clear, and
she had no desire to cross him and risk her eventual reward.

When she finally returned to her new home, it was with a genuine feeling
of accomplishment. She had taken a concrete step towards furthering her
Lord's goals, and had done so in a creative rather than a destructive
fashion. In a small sense, this was almost a rebellion, a repudiation of
the silent assassinations the Matron had ordered her on through her
Lord.

It had been a bit of a challenge, thinking of enough different stances
for the horses, as well as finding suitable substrates for them in each
location, as well as suitable hiding places, but it was a challenge that
she found undeniably preferable to figuring out how to silently kill
someone before the Matron activated one of her area-effect destructive
magics.

She was pleased, when she slipped into her apartment, to see that
Sraelee was absent. Of course, she realized that the young girl was
probably even now, wittingly or no, willingly or no, reporting her
observations to someone.

This was not the first time that Ranko had dealt with an unwitting spy,
in point of fact. Her own fiancee, her uncute tomboy, had all too often
given over her secrets to her rival Ryouga, as he took advantage of his
porcine Jusenkyou curse to pose as her pet.

It was not easy to deal with then, either. 

Still, she decided, she should take advantage of this opportunity to
bathe, and leave some evidence for Sraelee to clean up, both to give her
something to do, and to ward off any potential rumours about her
inhumanity. Not to mention, she mused, wandering into the bathroom and
beginning to disrobe, it would avoid any possibility of Sraelee trying
to help her bathe.

She was more than a bit worried about that. She could hope that it was
not part of the drow custom to have a servant assist with bathing, but
that would certainly run contrary to her usual luck. It would be quite
difficult to retain the illusion that she was a living being with
someone running their hands over her unyielding surface.

Unfortunately for Ranko, her luck ran true to form, and even as she
lowered herself into the warm water, she heard the outer door of her
chambers open and shut, followed by quiet footsteps.

Almost instantly the realization came upon her that even though the
bathing room door had no obvious locking mechanism, she could have
locked it. It would have been trivially easy, a bit of quicksilver
absorption on the door and wall and she could have effectively joined
them at several points, making the door and wall a single unit, bonded
until she separated them.

She had made only the barest reach forward, however, before she had to
forestall her motion. It was too late, if she reached out to do it now,
the door would doubtless open with her halfway there, whether she moved
herself, or reshaped herself.

She waited tensely, expecting the door to open at any moment. When it
finally did swing inward, she had to stifle a gasp at the release of
tension. Sraelee slipped in, her body language still that of a timid
mouse as she crept to the side of the bath, holding a stack of towels
and what Ranko guessed was a robe, which Sraelee promptly set to the
side.

She knelt by the bath, and Ranko tensed for a moment, before relaxing as
the girl moved no further. At least she was not apparently going to put
herself at risk by touching Ranko uninvited, so she did not have to
worry about the girl passing on news of the inhuman and ungiving feel of
her skin just yet.

Ranko made a note to ask Distanfae if there was another level to the
control he could give her, something that could imitate the give of
flesh, the feel of skin sliding over hard muscle. She could emulate that
visually when she was moving without any difficulty, but unfortunately,
when she was not moving, she might as well have been a cast metal
statue, as far as anyone else's hands were concerned.

Her current situation was safe enough, as she was already ensconced in
the bath when Sraelee entered, and was not moving. What was to come
next, however, was a puzzle. If she rose nude from the bath, there would
simply be no way, if Sraelee looked at her at all, that she could
possibly miss the absence of movement in her breasts.

When fully clothed they could be passed off as being well wrapped,
though since they did not compress when being wrapped, she actually had
to slightly reshape herself to get the reduced reach and separation that
should result from the wrapping. Regardless, neither wrapping nor
reshaping would work here.

She could wrap herself in a towel, assuming that she could get her hands
on one without Sraelee lifting her eyes. That was doubtful though,
considering that Sraelee was holding them. She could form a cloth from
herself, but all her experience with fabrics, to this point, was of fine
weaves, not the thick substance of a towel. If she simply formed her
substance into something that thick, it would be solid and immovable,
not flexible and mobile. Of course, that was also ignoring having to
conceal the reshaping from the girl as well.

Ordering the girl to leave her was another possibility. Allowing her
quicksilver to rise in the back of her left eye, Ranko glanced toward
Sraelee without turning her head. She saw no noticeable sign of magic
about her face or eyes, so she did not think that there was anyone
watching through her eyes. Of course, there had not really been any
tasks for Sraelee to do for her so far, refusing service now could
trigger the darker consequences Distanfae had warned her about.

Ranko made a mental note to keep an eye out for a magical item focused
around illusions, and to ask Distanfae if any of her current items had
illusionary powers. A simple illusion would make this situation much
more manageable.

Fed up with waiting, she made up her mind, and stood suddenly, twisting
as she did, to place her back to Sraelee, drawing on her memories of
Kodachi to stand as imperiously expectant as she could, and held out a
hand.

Startled into awareness by the noise of water sheeting off of Ranko,
Sraelee lurched to her feet, hurrying to get a towel into her new
Mistress' outstretched hand.

Taking the towel and unfolding it in one quick motion, Ranko swirled the
towel about herself, securing it with a thin tendril of her own
substance all around, to ensure that no slippage could occur. She had
all too much experience with the sort of incidents that life liked to
throw at her in bathrooms.

A slight shift of her foot drew the stopper from the floor of the smooth
stone basin, then she stepped out of the bath. To her surprise, Sraelee
had managed to get another towel unfolded and onto the floor to accept
her feet. She glanced at her unwanted servant once more, a hint of
quicksilver still present in her eye showing no sign of magic about her.

The girl would expect to assist her in dressing . . . what to do about
that? After a moment's thought, she sent Sraelee to her closet to draw
out a set of leather fighting gear, and then, while Sraelee was
effectively two rooms away, Ranko dropped the towel and quickly
produced that portion of her substance that was drawn to the form of
cloth and wrapped herself, not wasting any time with trying to form
any of her metals into cloth. Speed was her goal, not appearance.

She would have preferred to have her entire clothing self-formed for
this, since then it could not be damaged, exposing her, but at least
this way, even if her clothing was torn, she would have an excuse for
her lack of sway.

Distanfae had informed her that she had another training session, and
she was not sure if it would be just the two of them, exploring more of
her minor powers, or more weaponmaster testing with observers.

Decided that she had given Sraelee enough time, Ranko drew a quick
breeze across herself from her wand of air, even as she used a momentary
morph to reduce her hair to a solid block, forcing out all the water,
before letting it relax back into innumerable strands, and stepped out
into her bedroom.

Having someone assist her in dressing was a strange experience, that
brought an unusual combination of reminiscence and longing over her.
Aside from being dressed by her father when she was very young, her most
clear memory of being dressed by someone else like this was when, during
her first year at the Tendo home, all of her clothes had been dirtied.
The Tendo sisters, Akane, Nabiki, and Kasumi had all banded together to
dress her in Akane's old clothes, which she was forced to be a girl to
wear.

Sraelee was far more timid and tentative in helping her than the 
forceful Tendo girls had been, so the nostalgia did not last long. It 
was also advantageous for her, as it made it easier to allow her to 
help without permitting skin contact. Soon she was well-attired, and 
left her servant in their rooms as she headed out to met Distanfae.

---

She was very pleased to find that it was to be a training session on her
wand abilities, with just the two of them present. He was equally
pleased to hear that she had finished her task of placing the statues at
the sites she had previously visited, excepting only the mage's room
where she had left a raging demon.

That building had suffered a partial collapse in defeating the demon,
and was undergoing active reconstruction, making an approach too
hazardous to attempt.

They were once more in the chamber where she had first experienced her
new form. Distanfae sat on a chair set in an alcove in the wall, a spot
where he had only a small area he would need to shield if she lost
control.

Ranko was hopeful and excited. Though she had been able to make use of
her wands in their first fighting, guided by her own instinct for combat
and Distanfae's constant coaching, she had not been permitted to explore
them further on her own.

She knew several higher techniques with her fire wand, as the Matron had
forced her to use Fireball and Burning Hands more than once. The first
sent out a tiny mote of light; when it reached its target or hit an
obstruction, it exploded out in a massive rush of flame. The second
could perhaps be best described as a personal flamethrower that shot out
from her fingers.

She had also learned most of her minor wand powers, on the job, as it
were, from Distanfae's coaching while she was in the field, and in
training sessions like this one. These mostly consisted of cantrip level
elemental control spells, such as lighting a fire, generating a shocking
spark, producing a gentle breeze, or propagating a crack through stone,
and minor attack spells, such as producing a flame that could be thrown,
a powerful gust that could turn back arrows in flight, electrocuting
anything she could touch, and similar minor effects.

She had managed more impressive feats than these in her first outing, by
simply channeling her quicksilver energies through a wand and willing an
effect, but she hoped that Distanfae was now going to touch on
summoning, something that she was sure she would not manage by simple
effort of will.

Ranko perked up when Distanfae shifted and began to speak. "Eventually,
you'll be able to summon elementals of immense power, however, to begin
with, you will need to practice with the smallest possible summonings,
to avoid undue attention and damage. We will begin with air, as I have
seen in your memories that you have a technique that produces a
whirlwind. You may be better suited to communicating and appreciating
air elements, as even the smallest air elemental can become a whirlwind."

"However," he continued, "we will not start with elementals. Each of
your wands should have the smallest summoning spell capable of obtaining
an elemental as the first spell that shows the attributes you've
identified in the amulet you recovered. However, while it can procure an
elemental, it can also draw weaker creatures, that will be merely
aligned with the element. In this case, I want you to focus on summoning
a snake. It will be a small but poisonous snake, useful for an
assassination if the victim is not someone likely to be protected from
poison. Later, we will discuss the other creatures you can summon, but
I'll warn you up front, spiders are within the power of the spell, yet
you should never summon them, lest you incur the wrath of the
Spider-Queen, Lloth, the goddess we worship above all others."

"You will need to picture the snake in your mind."

Nodding, Ranko delved inward. Though the wands, dissolute amongst
herself as they were, lacked any identifying physical features, they
contained both magical weaves, and independent pools of magic, the
flavor and feel of which made them easy to identify.

Focusing on the feel of her wand of air, she examined the weaves. There
were a series of weaves that held strong similarities to the amulet, of
steadily increasing complexity. Choosing the simplest, she examined it
until she found the much smaller weave that should activate it, and fed
it a trickle of energy while picturing a snake in her mind's eye.

With her focus turned inward, she saw a chunk of the magical energy in
the pool associated with the air wand get drawn into the weave and
vanish. She also noticed that a trickle of energy began to flow into
that pool from her quicksilver energy, as if the pool was suddenly
downhill from the much larger quicksilver pool.

Sending her focus back out, she stared in surprise at the three snakes
she could now see flitting through the air just below her eye-height.
"They're flying!" she exclaimed.

"Almost any air-aligned creature can fly," Distanfae confirmed in a
lecturing tone, prompting focused attention from Ranko, "as most
water-aligned creatures can swim without surfacing for air. Most earth
aligned creatures will be able to burrow even if they have no obvious
means of digging, and fire-aligned creatures will be immune to fire, but
vulnerable to cold. Lightning-aligned creatures, though spectacularly
rare, can travel almost instantaneously to any point in a body of water,
and some can also travel through clouds."

"Cold-aligned creatures, should you ever gain an ability to summon them,
are the inverse of fire, being immune to the cold but vulnerable to
heat."

Ranko held out her hand, allowing one of the snakes to coil around it.
She noticed that the scales along the back were lifted into two ridges,
and the snake actually had tiny horns.

"With time and experience, you will be able to focus more tightly
precisely which sort of snake you get, and what sort of effect its venom
is likely to have. And of course, simply being able to summon one of an
appropriate elemental alignment means you can get one adapted to flight,
swimming, or fire, and so forth."

The snakes vanished suddenly, and Ranko glanced questioningly at
Distanfae.

"How long they last will depend on how efficiently you fuel the spell,
and possibly, whether you can manage to continue feeding the spell or
not. That was about forty seconds or so, which puts you a bit above the
minimum level of efficiency for casting the spell at all. At its most
efficient, the spell can keep the creatures present for about two
minutes; a long time in a fight, but not much use outside of one.
Outside of a fight, an Unseen Servant is usually more effective, but I
have no magical item imbued with that spell. If you find one, be sure to
pick it up, they can be quite handy."

"As you learn more, you may be able to figure out how to extend the 
spell for more duration, or increase the number of creatures summoned, 
or the distance at which you summon them. For now, just know that the 
higher spells can all be used to summon snakes, but you won't get any 
benefit from it, as your minimum spell is already two steps above the 
spell to summon them."

"Keep an eye out for scrying spells, and I will leave you to practice.
You may practice summoning snakes, centipedes, and scorpions. There are
several other animals you can summon, but for now, those will do. Most
of the others are more likely to make enough noise to draw attention."

With those words he left, and Ranko quickly focused her attention
outward, making sure that there were no scrying effects focused on the
room or her, then turned to her fire wand and cast its first level
summoning, going for a scorpion this time. With her attention not
entirely turned inward, she actually witnessed the appearance from thin
air of five three to four foot long fiery red scorpions. There was a
faint shimmer in the air about them, as of a heat haze. Unlike the
snakes, these scorpions actually appeared and remained on the floor,
milling about as if looking for something other than her to attack.

She turned her attention inward again, examining the summoning weave she
had used until she found the ethereal tendrils of magic leading out from
it to the summoned creatures. A brief, testing tug on the tendrils had
instant effects, as the scorpions vanished.

Moving on, she summoned centipedes using her water wand, again getting
five centipedes. Lacking a good means to keep count, but wanting to test
whether she could make them stay longer, she also summoned snakes with
her air wand again, getting only two this time. Leaving the snakes
alone, she focused on her wand of water, found the threads of magic that
led to the centipedes, and studied where it went into the summoning
weave.

Attempting to push her quicksilver energy had the same effect as the tug
had, returning the centipedes to wherever they had been summoned from,
but she was undaunted. She proceeded to summon snakes using her earth
wand, and to attempt to do so using her lightning wand. The lightning
summons failed completely, and she remembered Distanfae's comment about
lightning creatures. Had no snakes appeared, or were they just not
obvious?

She examined the lightning weave, and concluded that it had in fact
failed, as there were no tendrils of magic leading out of it.

Thinking back to her first real battle in this body, she was reminded
that she had managed to seal the wall with ice, though she had no ice
wand. Studying her memories, she was surprised to realize that the wand
whose magic she had used for that was the one she now identified as her
wand of fire.

Somehow, acting on instinct, she had managed to not only use that wand,
but to alter its elemental nature. Feeling that this must have been tied
to using her quicksilver energy in the attack, she carefully filled the
fire wand's weakest summoning weave with quicksilver energy, letting the
energy take the pattern of the weave, but not activating it yet.

After several frustrating minutes of failed attempts, she finally
managed to draw the quicksilver away from the weave while keeping the
pattern unchanged, and successfully activated it.

Apparently, it was not a direct effect of the quicksilver, as the snakes
she summoned were clearly fire-aligned, bearing the reddish coloration
and visible heat haze identical to those she had first summoned with the
wand.

Repeating the procedure to get the weave again, she focused on it, not
changing it in any detail, merely willing that it should act with
elemental cold. After a moment she felt something had changed in the
weave, though she could not identify it. Activating it confirmed her
hopes, even without an ice wand, she had just summoned four cold-aligned
snakes. They were an almost crystalline blue, as if coated in ice, and
she could see delicate patterns of frost forming on the floor around
them.

She tried a variant of it, attempting to get a fire-aligned summoning
from her earth wand, but had no luck, even after six tries, so,
reluctantly, she gave up on it.

Growling in frustration, she moved on to trying other combinations.
Eventually, she came to the understanding that she could force any of
her elemental wands to act as a wand of cold, though no other change had
worked for her. The only explanation she could come up with was that it
had something to do with the Soul of Ice training from the Amazons.

Feeling sufficiently practiced in the various summonings, she turned
inward again, focusing on comparing the weaves, examining the
differences, both between the weaves of the same spell on different
wands, and between different levels of summoning on the same wand,
probing for what changed, and what remained the same.

This was unfortunately not as easy as she had hoped. Although the spells
she was looking at had been invented long before, each wizard that
learned them inevitably placed their own stamp on a spell, and the wands
she had, though similar in design and intent, had been made by different
wizards. She did not know this, though she came to suspect it. The air
and earth wands had weaves that were too similar, given the larger
differences from the other wands, making it evident that much of the
variances she was observing were not related to the change in element.

This was also demonstrated when she drew off a copy of the weave using
her quicksilver energy, then forced it to shift to a cold-based weave.
The changes in each case were more minor and less obvious than the
differences between wands.

Comparing the various levels of summoning showing that the levels were
more similar to each other than the spells were between wands, even as
they substantially increased in complexity. From what she could see, it
as really very similar to the difference between a drawing using a large
child's brush, and one made by a fine brush. All of the weaves were of
the same basic quality, as if it was not a child wielding the child's
brush, but the same master as wielded the fine brush.

Rather, it was the tool the master had used and the intricacy of what he
drew that varied, and as she slid her magic into them, she saw that the
thicker, simpler weaves would be easier to cast by simply throwing power
at them, with little finesse.

It was not merely that the higher levels required more power, although
they did. It was that they needed more power, but provided more slowly,
with more control. Tying it back to the arts, a desperate but otherwise
normal person might be motivated into a feat of strength, moving a car
off a loved one, or some other task that would normally be beyond them,
powered by a surge of adrenaline and emotion. A master of the art could
do the same thing, and would be able to apply that same power, with more
control, and for a longer time, by virtue of having trained their
strength and stamina.

At the same time, Ranko saw a distinct inefficiency, given that the
spells were in wands, activated from stored power, power channeled in
ways designed by the crafter of the wand, and not the wielder. Why was
the simpler weave drawn with a large brush, when from what she could
see, the same effect, if drawn and activated using the mastery implied
by the highest spell, could be achieved with far less power?

Eager as she was to explore this question, Distanfae's sudden
interruption was unexpected and startling, and would have set her heart
racing, if the spells that moved it at all had allowed it.

"We are under attack! Kill anyone not bearing the house rune, focus on
those that show skill, but waste no time with honor or fancy attacks.
I'll call if I need you."




In Defense of the House


Noting that she was not hearing anything unusual near her, Ranko
passed immediately into the shadows, stepping out in her apartment.
She checked quickly, but Sraelee was not present. She moved out into
the hallway, listening for the sounds of combat. Hearing nothing, she
slid through the shadows to the hall outside of Distanfae's quarters.

Instantly she was on the move towards the sounds of combat, forming a
sword matching the appearance she had previously presented to the
Matron. She called up her quicksilver energy as she raced down the
hall, both to have it ready, and sending it to her legs in an attempt
to speed her movement as she was used to doing when working with her ki.

She caught up with the fighting at the end of the corridor, took in
the combatants in an instant, and just as quickly had her blade
sliding into a ribcage, unerringly finding the space between two ribs
with the slender edge of her blade at the precise angle that led her
straight to the drow's heart.

It took a significant and unexpected effort to keep from stopping and
gagging at the unanticipated and slightly disgusting consequence of
using a sword that was a part of her own body. She actually felt the
skin and blood as her blade slid in, just as though she were sliding
her arm into his chest, like one of the old kung-fu masters snatching
someone's heart in a Hong Kong serial. With the end of her blade
hidden in his flesh, she pushed her prepared quicksilver energy out
through the tip, forming a concussive blast similar to her Moko
Takabisha, sending the dying drow flying off the end of her blade and
into another drow, this one a female, that she picked as being in the
opposition. The drow was knocked off balance long enough for Ranko's
blade to slide smoothly across her throat, opening it into a wide gash
and cleanly severing a blood vessel, to judge from the pulsing flow of
blood upward.

Ranko slid past the startled defender, who had gone in an instant from
being in a two-against-one deathmatch to being the only survivor, as a
dark figure swept past him. Ranko did not realize it, but she had
instinctively suppressed the enchantment that gave her a convincing
infrared signature, allowing her to appear normal to the drow
infravision. In its absence, she was as cold as the stone walls, and
so nearly invisible against them.

Since the drow generally did not bother with lighting in their halls,
aside from the gentle glow of faerie fire, the magical lights which
were easy on the eyes whether looking with heat sensitive vision or
light receptors, she passed down the hall towards the next knot of
fighters very like a moving shadow, though she was not actively using
the shadow cloak to conceal herself.

She was still not used to taking magic into account, and might have
been caught off guard by the healing magic the female drow whose
throat she had slit possessed, but the defender she had left behind
saw the drow's throat wound sealing, and promptly slid his sword into
her, before stripping the body of rings and necklaces in the hopes of
finding that healing magic for himself.

Her quicksilver energy was still pooling in her legs, and she was upon
the next group in only three impossibly swift and long strides, her
excessive mass, well beyond that of a normal human, much less a
slender and light drow, took her into and through the first opponent
in this group, a massive hulking figure that filled much of the
corridor before she encountered him. He was wearing an emblem that was
not that of House Vitrue, and when she plowed into him, he crumpled in
on one side and split in half as she moved through unimpeded, the two
not quite fully separated halves being sent down the hall and rising
up towards the ceiling.

The shock of her arrival was such that two more of the enemy slumped
dead to the floor before the last one broke and ran. Ranko raced after
him, catching up in an instant and lopping off his head as she passed
him at a run, her senses reaching out ahead, looking for more targets.
She was quickly growing accustomed to the feel of flesh sliding across
her blade, though the feel of that huge man-thing actually coming
apart as she impacted it was horrifying. She was sure that if she had
still had a normal body, she would have been promptly crouched in that
corridor, decorating it with the contents of her stomach.

Of course, if she had possessed a normal body, it would never have
happened like that in the first place.

Coming to an intersection, she cast a quick glance down the three
paths. Seeing a group charging toward her down one of them, she chose
it and raced to meet them. One of them hung back as the others met her
charge. As with the last group, this one was not purely drow, being
apparently led by two female drow, priestesses to judge by their
snake-headed whips, and three large furry though otherwise man-like
beings, heavily muscled though smaller than the hulk she had
encountered, and then the one male drow hanging back.

What little light there was suddenly vanished, as if a bag had been
drawn over her head, but Ranko was unperturbed, continuing forward
until she made contact with someone, then knocking their arms wide and
spearing her blade through them and pushing through another concussive
blast, while drawing her quicksilver itself, rather than merely the
energy of it, to the surface. She suspected the darkness was a magical
effect cast by one of the drow, and if it was, she might be able to
draw it in.

Snake heads skittered across her shoulder, fangs sliding uselessly
across her impervious surface, and she lashed out, catching the whip
in her palm and crushing the snake strands in her grip even as the
hand closing into a fist snapped up to where she expected a face to
be, and she heard a satisfying crack. A surge of pleasurable energy
flooded into her from the whip, which crumbled within her grasp.

When that same hand, quicksilver at the ready, lashed forward to grasp
the throat beneath the jaw she had struck, her other hand bringing her
sword around to strike, she felt a rush of uncontrollable lust and
heat race through her. An unearthly scream wailed out, vibrating her
palm through the very throat she was clutching, the body slumping in
death before her sword could come to bear.

An angry presence surged within her, as if part of herself had risen
in rebellion, but her iron will pressed it down with the power of her
infinite confidence in herself. She cast the body aside, using the
momentum of the exchange to spin her the other way. Her sword having
passed the halfway mark overhead and beginning to descend, she forced
its course back towards the right, away from the now dead body, and
she felt it bite into flesh.

She fired off a concussive blast through the sword, then pushed her
energy out into the air, seeking the source of the darkness and
drawing it in, unraveling the spell as she consumed the energy. The
aftershocks of pleasure were still ricocheting around within her, and
her eyes were burning with a fiery red glow as she leapt onto one of
the strange man-things, bearing it down even as her sword sank into
the chest of the one beside him, sliding down between the clavicle and
the ribs, into the chest cavity. Her left hand, gleaming silver in the
light, flared suddenly as her fingers closed on the chest of the man
she was bearing down, extending into claws as they sank into his flesh
and another rush of wild pleasure surged through her, as light and
strength fled his eyes.

Flame washed over her, the panicked mage who had hung back having shot
a fireball into the tight confines of the corridor, risking his own
life from the concussion wave racing down the hall, in his fear at
seeing her destroy the group of fighters before him. Red energy
filtered in amongst the others, as her quicksilver drank in the thin
threads of magic within the otherwise normal flames. A frustrated cry
sounded behind her, and she spun to see the last female drow, her face
blistered from the mage's panicked attack, throwing something at the
floor. A wave of spiders seemed to bubble up from it, expanding to
fill the width of the hall and flowing towards them.

Ranko smirked, tugged her sword free, incidentally breaking the dying
being's clavicle and top rib, took two running steps, and leaped over
the mass of spiders to smash into the angry priestess, leading with
her left hand. Again an unfamiliar wave of pleasure spread through
her, and she groaned at the sensation, noting at the same time the
pleasant softness of the breast she had grabbed, pierced though it was
by her taloned fingertips. The body grew quickly chill beneath her
hands as the drow died, and a forest of massive ice crystals suddenly
surrounded them both, piercing through the drow's body and
constricting Ranko's movement.
 
Embracing the shadows, Ranko fell through them to appear behind the
frantically casting mage, and slid her arm easily around his throat,
cutting off his words, and slipping a finger almost casually through
his skin to soak again in the exquisite pleasure. She was not sure
where the pleasure was coming from, or what was happening, just that
getting her quicksilver into someone while trying to draw in magic was
enough to draw out a rush of pleasure like nothing she had ever felt,
while killing them nearly instantly. She barely even noticed the
screams, after the fourth time.

With this group finished, she went back on the hunt, prowling down the
halls. She found one lonesome drow concealed in the shadows attempting
to pick a lock, and she slipped silently up behind him, then reached
out and spun him about, pinning him with her arms as she examined him
looking for House markings.

He stared at her with frightened eyes, tugging fruitlessly on his
trapped hands, then cringing in pain when an attempted kick hit what
felt like a steel post. Finding nothing that would reveal one way or
the other whether he was an invader, or merely a thief, or a member of
the house trying to take advantage of the commotion, and she growled
in frustration, but remembering Distanfae's demand that she focus on
the powerful, she threw herself off of him and down the hall,
searching for other targets.

Finding a hall with windows, she sprang to one and looked outside, and
grinned widely. There was quite the melee going on in the courtyard
below, and she bounced easily out the window and off of a ledge,
coming down with a smashing blow that took her straight through the
largest target, a man that towered two and a half times higher than
most of those around him, bearing the mark of the enemy house. She
entered his back just above his left shoulder, shattering his shoulder
bones, in a diving punch, and exited through his abdomen, clutching
the shredded remains of his heart in her hands like a prize, even as
she found herself crying out at the magnificent intensity of the
pleasure and lust roaring through her body like an inferno.

The rushing flood of energy crashed upon her like a tidal wave, and it
had no time to die before she was in amongst the fighters, her sword
wrapped in gleaming quicksilver as she charged through the throng,
hungrily drinking in their lives. Poisoned blades and crossbow bolts
shattered harmlessly on her skin as she tore her way through their
ranks, her entire being now surrounded by a rising glow of magic,
manifesting here as a flat plane of amethyst, here as hungry red
flames, and there as sickly green, as she began to draw in the
leftover energies of the magical battles that had been raging prior to
her arrival. Combined with the energies she was drinking in through
her quicksilver, whether it was their ki, or lifeforce, or magic, or
whatever she was drawing in from those she killed, she was overflowing
with it all.

Though the enemy quailed before her and sought to flee, she was too
fast, too relentless, and while here and there someone who had been
close enough to the periphery managed to slip unseen into a corridor
or gate and get out of sight, the vast majority fell at her hands. Her
own side stared in dumbfounded awe and fear, too overcome by the
terror of what they were seeing, and the fear that she might do the
same to them, to cheer at the sudden turning of the tide.

Bereft of enemies to slaughter, Ranko ran through the three main outer
courtyards, but the other two were free of violence, being further out
and have been already passed by the mob she had fought, so she
returned to the inner halls, searching out more combat. As the last
vestiges of the feelings the stolen energies sent through her faded,
Ranko slowed and finally stopped, pulling into the shelter of a closed
door to think. What had just happened?

"Was it bloodlust? Something Distanfae did? Or just a side effect of .
. . pulling whatever it was out of them?" She found she did not want
to think too deeply about what it might have been, and realizing in
retrospect the connection between drawing energy in through her
quicksilver and the intense feelings, she promptly submerged all of
her quicksilver, and took advantage of the pause to draw several balls
of stone from the wall, then headed back out on the hunt.

She would kill, but she did not want to like it, much less love it.
That was a sure route to madness. Now she prowled the halls with cold
purpose, finding that she had to not only suppress her quicksilver and
the urge to drink from those she killed, she also had to restrain her
own love for the fight. The joy she felt in fighting, in using her
skill and demonstrating her prowess, had generally been tempered in
battle by her training to resist the mind-clouding effects of
adrenaline. The training she had been put through to keep her from
devolving into a mindless brawler once the body's hormones and
chemical fight-or-flight responses kicked in were not being triggered.
This body had no hormones, no chemical reactions, it did not change as
she fought.

Her muscles did not loosen up a few minutes in, nor begin to tense up
and stiffen as the fight dragged on and on. Her fists did not begin to
ache from being clenched, nor her calves start to burn as she tried to
keep up her footwork. She had been killing now for several minutes,
and as she killed yet another drow, this one by a shot stone that
passed through her head, she was noticing the absence of fatigue. She
was almost instinctively cycling her quicksilver energies in the way
she would with ki, to refresh her muscles and clear them of the
buildup of acids, and now she forcibly clamped down on that. There was
no need to waste her energy and focus on something that could not
happen.

Every now and again she would pass dead bodies she had not killed, and
she spared them a glance only to see which House's seals and marks
they bore.

A thunderous boom echoed down the corridors, and Ranko, by now much
more accustomed to navigating using sound, and identifying the
direction of a sound, immediately shifted her direction to target the
source of the sound. Anything that could make that loud a sound,
whether it was an explosion, or a giant's hammer, was a legitimate
target by the guidelines Distanfae had given her.

She passed through a pair of door that had been shattered, and found
herself in a large amphitheatre, with stadium type seating leading
down to a central dais. This was indeed the focus of the strongest
fighters, for the Matron and Kliza were both on the central dais, a
cluster of defensive fighters around them, mostly sword wielders.

There were three mages, Distanfae among them, holding up some form of
glowing shieldwall against an advancing group that was hurling
obviously magical attacks at them. Ranko was surprised that her House
had chosen such a poor defensive position as the bottom of an
amphitheatre. Did they not understand the value of high ground in
combat?

At any rate, that was not a problem she suffered at the moment, being
probably twenty feet above the attacking group and behind them, though
at about a twenty degree angle to one side. They were well focused,
and while she was momentarily tempted to keep the high ground and rain
spells down on them from above, she suspected that they were probably
equally capable of throwing up a spell wall.

So she ghosted down the levels instead, racing up behind and diving
into their midst, letting her full force smash into the rear of the
group.

As they broke up and scattered, one quick witted wizard cast down a
small figurine, and a muscular horned demon appeared, wielding a
flaming sword in one hand, and a black shield with stylized points not
unlike his horns adorning it in the other.

Instantly she marked that wizard as her primary target, ignoring the
demon for the moment. Bad as the presence of the demon might be,
getting focused on him would simply allow the other wizard to summon
more. Spell fire was starting to land around them from lower down
where they had been able to drop the shield they had held up against
incoming fire, after she had disrupted said fire, and were now back on
the attack themselves.

She lunged at the remaining non-target, the female spell caster, as a
means of getting a better angle on her target while diverting his
expectations, even as she palmed the spheres she had drawn from the
walls earlier. More prepared now, the female drow drifted up and back
through the air, getting out of the range of Ranko's lunge. That
mattered little, since she had not intended to actually reach her yet
anyway.

Instead, she pivoted the moment her foot caught the ground again, and
fired several spheres, rapidly one after the other, at the mage she
was targeting. To her frustration, the spheres pinged off a suddenly
visible bubble around him, that faded out of view again a moment later.

Abandoning her attempt at misdirection, she shot towards him, now
having an angle to get past the demon, whose swing at her had
shattered a stone bench behind her, and who was even now spinning to
strike again. Quicksilver energy surged into her as she drew it up
again, to boost her speed, and into her sword, focusing on the idea of
breaking that shield. Her hands came together in front of her, sword
point leading the way, as she focused all the energy of her lunge into
the unbreakable tip of her blade, and her own strength on preventing
it from moving from one side to the other.

Unfortunately for Ranko, magic can be capricious in the rules it
follows. Her attempt to break the shield failed utterly, as she had no
real clue what the shield was, nor what it would mean to break it. The
shield held up beautifully, and attempted to redirect the entire
kinetic force of her attack into her. Here it too failed, not
particularly because of her unbreakability, as in fact it would have
done her no physical harm, but because of her innate resistance to
magic cast on her, something of which she as yet knew nothing.

Her only real experience with foreign magic, aside from the
ineffectual efforts of the demons in her brief extra-planar sojourn,
was from Distanfae, and as her creator and by the design of her very
self, she had no resistance to his power so long as he wore the
control mesh. So at this point, she was wholly unaware of the
anti-magic effect, but that made no difference to its operation, and
the attempted rebounding of the kinetic energy was a magical effect
that she unknowingly resisted. In doing so, the entire kinetic energy
of her leap ended up dumped into the shell itself, and the wizard was
sent rocketing across the chamber like a rifle bullet while Ranko
stopped dead, having dumped every drop of kinetic energy into the
strike.

A heavy blow from a flaming sword struck sparks across her back in her
brief moment of shocked astonishment, even as a strange swirling
blackness filled the center of the room, and a horrific being like a
misshapen lump of melted wax appeared, long blobs of wax like
tentacles waving about it.

Feeling that the wizard would at least be shaken up by his high speed
flight, Ranko ignored the demon again and targeted the remaining
enemy, only to find that she had already fallen.

"Ranko, get out of the way, let the servant past!"

Distanfae's voice echoed in her head, and when the disgusting wax lump
charged towards her and the demon, Ranko scrambled out of the way and
let the two collide.

Glancing back down at the group below, who had apparently summoned the
disgusting thing, she saw Distanfae wave at her. "Go on, there are
sure to be more of them. Find any that remain and end them, then
search all the fallen you find for any items that appear magical and
collect them."

Nodding, she sped over to where the first wizard slumped against
a wall. His shield had apparently not protected him from the kinetic
force of the impact against the wall, and he was either dead or out
cold.

Glancing about, she saw that the demon was apparently gone, whether
slain, or banished back to his source, though the other attackers
still clustered together, fewer now in number, with the molten wax
thing still there amongst them.

Coldly snapping his neck to be certain he was dead, she despoiled the
body, collecting a much larger variety of items than from most of
those she had killed. Two of these she set aside as of especial
interest. They bore markedly similar patterns on first glance to the
planar traveling artifact she had not yet begun to master, and so
probably had similar extra-planar magics.

Finishing with him, she returned to the site of her last conflict, and
returned to processing the bodies, then moved on. As she sped through
the halls, often coming upon unsuspecting members of her own House and
giving them a sudden shock when she appeared from the darkness to
scrutinize them before racing on, or rising from the shadows behind
their opponent to slay them, she pondered her unnerving loss of
control, and the strange and addicting sensations of pleasure.

Even now she could feel the desire to send her quicksilver to the
surface again and drink in the life of those she slew, as though she
was wasting them, as if she were casting good food on to the ground
uneaten, and it disturbed her. Aside from the Soul of Ice training she
had learned, her training had not focused overmuch on the ways of
emotional control. Primarily, she had been trained by the insults of
her father to ignore his jibes as best she could, but she had never
been terribly successful at this at the best of times. He knew her far
too well.

At the same time, he had fairly well inured her to the insults of most
others, as they knew far fewer of her weak points than he had, and he
had trained her well at spotting and using their own weaknesses
against them to cause them to lose their own emotional control, and so
maintain hers. That had fallen by the wayside with the shift to
killing attacks.

When you could kill someone within moments of laying eyes on them,
having the ability to rouse their temper to a fever pitch was a
useless ability, and she had said hardly a word since the battle
began. As such, she had not had her usual outlet of spewing her
emotions at her enemy, throwing them into the insults and epithets she
hurled at them along with her fists, and so her concern simply
festered, as she fretted over what she had done, and what she still
desired to do.

It was one thing to kill when you were ordered to do so by your lord,
when honor demanded it of you. The tweaks that Distanfae had made to
her mind had kept that from bothering her overmuch, unnecessary as
they might have been, even though she did not know of them. Now
though, she wanted to kill, desired to kill.

Even when she recognized that someone was from her House, it still
took an actual effort of will to hold back her strike. She wanted to
kill them, and more than that, she wanted to drink in their death, to
consume them and revel in the pleasure it gave her. It made her queasy
to think on it, this bloodlust, it left her feeling evil and dirty and
ashamed, but that was not enough to kill the hunger that grew inside
her.

Finally she remembered what Distanfae had said to her about telling
him if she felt hungry, and she wondered whether this was what he
meant. Had he intended for her to do this? Would he guess what she had
done if she told him? Still, now that she connected his words, his
orders, to her state of being, she could not hold back from telling
him, except to decide that it would have to wait until after the
crisis, lest she distract him at a critical moment.

Feeling more self-assured now that she at least had a plan regarding
her unnatural hunger, and with the hope that Distanfae would be able
to do something about it, she continued clearing the compound. Her
mop-up had not lasted very long before she was recalled to the
amphitheatre by Distanfae, where she found the wax thing blessedly
gone.

Before Kliza and the Matron, she was ordered to give an account of all
that she had slain, and she spent the next several minutes going over
every kill. It was only now, as she continued to tell of those she had
killed, that she realized that when she thought of some of those she
had killed, the ones she had so reveled in, she could remember their
names. It sent a chill of terror through her.

It was impossible, but she could not dwell on it, having to continue
explaining those she had killed, though she did not say anything about
relieving them of their magical items, and when all was complete, the
Matron had bent her wrinkled lips upwards in a pleased smile, of all
things!

That what she had done had made the old crone happy made Ranko feel
dirtier still, as if it somehow made every kill a little worse, a
heavier weight on her soul. She still remembered the child's body
embraced by flames, flames that had come from her body, from her spirit.

She knew that if the old lady knew that she had taken pleasure in
causing them such horrendous pain, it would have pleased her even
more, and she considered again whether it was possible she could keep
what had happened from Distanfae, but she knew it could not be.

Group leaders began coming to report, and soon it was confirmed that
the House was once more clear of invaders.

There was a brief period of discussion as they examined various tokens
the group leaders brought with them, and whether they were actually
representative of the House that had attacked, or if they might not be
false tokens meant to cause them to attack a stronger House and so be
destroyed.

Ranko listened in mild interest as the numbers of the attackers were
tallied and compared to the reported force levels of the various
primary threats, the Houses that would be most likely to attempt such
a move.

Finally they were released, and she followed Distanfae as he made his
way back to their training chamber.

"We only have a short time. They will be monitoring us as soon as they
get some privacy themselves."

Understanding his implicit command, Ranko quickly explained how events
had suddenly moved out of control when exposed quicksilver through
which she was attempted to drain magic had for the first time pierced
living flesh, and the rush of pleasure and power that had resulted.

Distanfae considered her words briefly, then a smile slid across his
face and Ranko shivered as she realized the implication. Far from
being shocked or worried, Distanfae was excited by this new ability
she had demonstrated, and would almost certainly want to test it out.

He had time for only a few quick questions before they sensed the
scrying begin, and they had to shift to a less revealing discussion,
but she understood the thrust of his question. Though she had been
attempting to draw magical power, the fact that she got the same rush
of pleasure from killing the slaves and fighters as from the wizards
confirmed that it was not magic that she was draining from them, but
something more universal.

Was it their ki? Ranko could hope so, but she rather feared that it
was more fundamental still, that she had somehow consumed their very
souls. As one who had been ensnared as an incorporeal soul after death
herself, she had no room for philosophizing about the existence or
absence thereof of souls. She knew that they were real, knew they
could be intercepted on their way to an afterlife, if there was such a
thing, by means of magic, and she had a dreadful certainty that this
is precisely what she had done.

Certainly the fact that she knew their names was evidence in favor of
her having consumed their memories, and while Happosai and Hinako had
both sucked the ki from their victims, she had never heard them
mention capturing any memories in that way.

When she finally returned to the relative privacy of her room, she
found herself simultaneously relieved, dismayed, and appalled at her
dismay at realizing that Sraelee had survived the attack. Though it
was disturbing, it was nothing to the turmoil she was already
experiencing about her actions during the conflict, so she forced
herself past it.

Allowing Sraelee to draw her a bath, she slid into the water and slid
into meditation, and began exploring what she had absorbed, mostly
going into items that lacked an obvious elemental focus.

Looking at her powers in meditation was like looking at a pool of water
into which someone had been dropping bits of other liquids, like dyes or
food colorings. Some mixed readily, others less so, and beneath it all
swirled the immense amethyst waters of her neutralized power. Unlike
when she had merely absorbed a few spells, the droplets were far more
varied and intricate, lacking the simple attributes that had made the
association of spell and resultant energy so obvious before. More
critically and disturbingly, there were chunks of color that looked
nearly solid, that seemed to float on the surface, dimpling it in but
not mixing.

As she slipped between these pooled energies, and sampled those which
had no strands being drawn into the amethyst energy to be neutralized,
she found herself experiencing brief flashes of memories that were not
her own. It was made especially peculiar, however, in that each memory
would bring up related memories, not for direct experience, but simply
as relevant facts and events, that made it clear that even the
memories she had not yet directly experienced had nonetheless made it
into her form's memory storage.

Were their souls mixing with hers? That she might become as evil as so
many of them had been was a sickening thought, and she wondered for
some time whether she had any hope of reaching the end of her
servitude as a person who would even seek to achieve the goals she
currently held, as a person who would give everything, do everything,
to save those she had loved, even if she then had to lose them.

She vainly sought to expunge some of these memories by drawing up the
energy of them and putting it through her wand of water and hence into
the waters of her bath, swirling the waters about in a passable
imitation of a Western spa, something she had only had the opportunity
to experience a few times before, while constraining them to remain
within the tub.

Unfortunately, she found that even this usage of the energy brought
the memories they contained to the forefront, though in this case it
was somewhat felicitous, as she was treated to the memories of an
early training session of a wizard struggling to learn the basics of
manipulating the elements.

That was sufficient for her to recognize that this was a situation
that could improve her ability to serve her lord. She exited the bath
and made ready for bed. The necessity to feign sleep, at least for a
reasonable period, was one of the more annoying aspects of Sraelee's
presence most of the time, but at this time it served her purposes
well.

Lying in the bed, she resumed her meditations, and proceeded to work
her way through the memories, gaining experience both in what they had
learned, and in manipulating the memories, finding related ones, and
particularly in sorting them out into coherent threads of a single
direction in time and a single individual, and so spent the night
reliving the more notable and salient memories of those she had slain,
along with quite a collection of less useful dross.

She came out of it in the morning with a nice collection of ideas to
apply to her own weaving of the amethyst energy. While for the most
part, the memories were not directly applicable to using her wands,
since they were pre-formed spells and not subject to much in the way
of changes, manipulating her amethyst energies to recreate spells was
both excellent practice, and in the long term, would hopefully allow
her to directly cast and thereby manipulate and alter, copies of the
spell matrices in her wands and rings.

It was also akin to cleaning her room, as she separated and integrated
the knotted masses of memories, they flattened and smoothed, and she
was able to slowly clear away the lumps and unpleasant blobs that were
clogging her core.

Though it felt wrong to her, to be stealing knowledge in this way, too
much like the cheap tricks her fiancees and rivals would pull back in
Nerima, her honor was in serving Distanfae well now, not in appeasing
her own conscience. She had committed herself to doing what it took to
fulfill her vows to him.

She realized that it was almost inevitable at this point that he would
have her consume several more people in tests to determine what she
was getting from them, so working out all the details she could now
would hopefully minimize the number of such tests that needed to be
done.

Of course, if the Matron found out what she could do, it would be just
like her to demand that all future kills be done in this way to
maximize the benefit to the House. Ranko was not sure what she would
do if it came to such an end. She hated the Matron, but Kliza was no
better as an alternative, and Houses simply were not ruled by men in
this city, so plotting an overthrow to put Distanfae in as the Head of
the House would only end in the House being a target for every other
House in the city, and even she could not defend against such an enemy
as a new weaponsmaster rather than a powerful magical artifact.

After confirming through the shadows that Distanfae was up and active
and not currently being scryed, she slid through the shadows to him.
Before they began, Distanfae warned her that she would be involved in
a retributive attack, once they had confirmed which House had been
involved. A failed strike against another House, one which did not
succeed in eliminating the members of the House's blood, the members
of the central family, would result in a protest before the Council of
Heads, and the Houses would band together to destroy the failing
House, as punishment for the failed attack, and House Distanfae would
be expected to lead the strike.

The attack would probably not happen until the next day, or possibly
the day after, so they had some time today to go over what she had
collected.

Ranko began to explain in more detail, now that they were not
expecting to be spied on at any moment, what had occurred the day
before. She also began explaining what she had learned while
processing their memories the night before, and with Distanfae's
coaching, she attempted to cast some simple spells for the first time
by replicating the methods of the casters in her memories.

She had a little success with the simplest cantrips, ones that needed
nothing more than words or gestures. Beyond that, however, she found
herself hampered by the limited senses of the people in her memories.
They could not see the threads of the spells they cast, nor did they
need to understand the forms the magic took when they cast them.

The shaping was done, at least in part, by ritual and physical
components, and there were no simple clear analogs for her to follow.
Replicating rote physical motions was certainly no hardship to one who
had trained for so long as a martial artist. She might be able to do
something with the physical components at some point in the future,
but they were esoteric and highly varied, and apparently most wizards
memorized a subset of their spells each day, and so knew which
material items they would need for the casting, and could carry them.

For her to carry items she would have to abandon her ability to travel
through stone, which was the only travel method she had that stood a
significant chance of eluding detection, so duplicating the spells in
that fashion did not seem to be a productive use of her time compared
to mastering her internal weaves.

Not only were her wands inbuilt and easily triggered, but she could
see their weaves, and as she got used to them, she could potentially
duplicate the weave, and in the longer term, hopefully begin creating
weaves herself, using the knowledge she learned from the wands,
without the need for external components, gestures, words, and the like.

If she was right and all these things served to structure the magical
weaves, and she could weave the strands of magic herself using her
long developed skills in the use of ki, she should be able to bypass
those crutches entirely.

This was somewhat confirmed when Distanfae revealed that it was not
uncommon for the truly powerful older mages to have some spells known
so well and so thoroughly understood that they could cast them on the
fly, with no obvious external actions at all. Indeed, it was rumored
that a certain infamous surface mage had protective spells that he
kept up all day long, or at least, they always seemed to be active in
the moment they were needed. Whether he could actually maintain them
without end, or could cast them without the slightest bit of delay was
a matter of some argument, albeit one that Distanfae did not care much
about.

So they returned to the study and development of her wand skills. This
time, he actually let her step up to summoning a more powerful
elemental, starting with her earth wand, since as he said the more
powerful elementals were among the few beings that could slow down
even a powerful demon, such as the one she had seen summoned in the
amphitheatre.

He also told her a little about the servant of the spider-goddess she
had also observed, the melted wax thing that had gone up against the
demon. None of her wands were for summoning demons or deific servants,
but there was no guarantee that a weave in something she had picked up
might not be.

Finally, after that bit of practice, they began going through the loot
she had collected the day before, and hidden in his quarters. Even now
she did not retrieve all of it, lest they be suddenly scryed and their
loot observed and despoiled. Instead, she would draw a few things at a
time through the shadows, and he would examine them.

Some he was able to identify, such as clothing that bore little more
than what might be termed seamstressing spells, spellwork that caused
it to adjust to fit the person that was waring it, or to repair minor
rips and tears, or weapons enchanted for sharpness and strength. These
were relatively useless to her, and he directed her to attempt to use
these to practice using her quicksilver to consume the magic from them
without absorbing them. She noted as she did so that it was not nearly
as pleasurable an experience as drinking the souls of the attackers
had been the day before.

The items she had held especial hope for Distanfae confirmed to be
likely related to summoning, indeed, one of them was probably the very
item that had summoned the demon the night before, though he could not
be sure which, and these he set aside with the intent that she should
absorb them, but at a later time, after he had set up to monitor the
process more closely.

She had captured one of the snake-headed whips as well, and he looked
at it for a long time, before shaking his head.

"I am deeply curious to find out if you can consume a divinely
enchanted item, but I am afraid that it might tie you somehow to the
service of that god or goddess, so if we ever try it, I will have to
consider very carefully what token it should be. It certainly will not
be hers. This will have to go to the Matron to be disposed of properly."

Other items of her collection were less easy to identify, amulets and
rings, hair ornaments, daggers and swords and hammers with less
obvious enchantments, and these were returned to their hiding place
until they could be gone over in more detail.

There were also seven wands and three rods in the collection, and
after a brief check to see if any were the sort that Distanfae wanted
to hold back for himself, he had her absorb them directly, giving her
a new collection of spell weaves to study. The rings would probably
end up going the same way, but rings were trickier to identify than
the wands, and while wands were generally purely wizarding, being
effectively a means of storing and casting spells, rings and amulets
were as often of religious significance as mystical, and could as
easily hold a divine blessing or curse as a stored set of spells.

She conducted a quick examination, scanning the weaves. One, she was
disappointed to note, appeared to be substantially similar to the
fireball spell from the Elemental Wand of Fire, and was the only weave
in that wand, so absorbing it had probably been a waste. She made a
note to work on trying to find a way to see the weaves in an item
without needing to absorb it.

The others were less obvious, though one bore some vague similarities
to the summoning weaves in the elemental wands, and another had a
portion that resembled the weave from his Ring of Flight, but not
closely enough to expect that it was specifically flight related.

The rods were even more unfamiliar in the form of their weaves, and
Distanfae informed her that they might have to be wielded like maces
to activate some of their powers, or cast to the ground for others. If
they needed to be cast to the ground, then it was likely that this
power would only be available if Ranko was in the form of the rod and
being wielded by someone else, since she could not cast part of
herself down, and even then it might well fail, if it tried to change
her form.

She practiced drawing the rods out a few times, reshaping them as
closely as she could match her memory of them, trying to use only the
substance that was originally part of them, something that had not
been an issue with the wands. Generally, triggering a wand's effect
caused it to come from whatever part of her was being pointed at
something, drawing on her or her wielder's intent. If the rod's magic
activated when it was used to attack, she was not sure if any attack
would suffice, or only an attack that actually used part of the rod's
original material. She was a little perturbed that he had revealed
this complication only after having her absorb them, as she was a
little worried that she might now trigger some magical effect anytime
she punched or kicked something or someone.

She was certainly not going to attempt it on him, and while she could
summon those snakes and scorpions, she suspected they might not
appreciate being summoned just to get beaten up, so unless Distanfae
actually ordered her to, she was not likely to do that. She was also
not going to suggest testing it on someone else, since as weapons the
effects would likely be harmful, she would probably end up killing or
maiming someone who was already unlucky enough to be a slave of the
House. If she could not attempt to free them, she could at least not
act to make their lives worse.

She described them as best she could to him, explaining what they
resembled, and what they did not.

"Set aside the one that looks like a fireball, as that is most likely
what it is. A bit of a waste, really, but if you can perceive any
differences, it may help you learn the spells a bit better. Bring out
one of the others." He provided her with a wooden target, before going
to stand behind her, setting up a shield for himself.

She drew out one of the wands, and finding it had only one weave in
it, pointed it at the target and triggered the effect. A brilliantly
white light shone forth in a beam from the tip of the wand to the
target, obliterating the target into a mass of shards and splinters.

Distanfae groaned, covering his eyes as they burned at the sudden
brightness, but gestured at the target, and it reassembled. "Painful,"
he commented. "Even if the damage was not significant, it could be
useful against a large group, blinding them all, but do not use it
when we go to crush the invading house. Too much chance it would blind
our own troops. No good for quiet infiltration, either."

Ranko nodded. It had not been exactly loud, though it had not been
silent. The shattering of the target had made more noise than the beam
itself, and the sound of the beam was hard to put to words, almost a
hissing sound, but not quite. As if it was boiling the air as it
passed, maybe. Definitely not a tool for stealth. She spent a moment
examining the weave, making sure that she would recognize it in the
future so as to avoid using it unintentionally, then withdrew the wand
and brought out another, glancing at Distanfae for agreement.

He nodded, and she felt the weave of it. She tried to activate the
weave, but though she poured power into it, it did nothing, the power
just swirling in the weave. "It is not working." She shook the wand
experimentally, but there was no change.

"Unusual," Distanfae commented, his eyes narrowing in thought. He
pressed his fingers together, then snapped his fingers suddenly. "Ah,
I might have it." He conjured a rat. "Try touching the wand to the rat."

The rat glowed with a much softer white light than the searing beam of
the last one, but there was no other apparent effect. "Wands of touch
spells are much less common," he explained, "but they are sometimes
made. From the white light, maybe a healing effect?" He cast a bolt of
energy at the rat, shattering its leg and mangling its side. "Try it
again," he instructed her, as the broken animal lay still, nearly dead.

She refilled the weave, and touched the rat again. The damage visibly
reversed, the rat squeaking as its leg straightened, and the skin
along its side came back together. The hair that had been burned away
did not return, leaving it with a bare patch, but it was clearly
healthy again.

She withdrew the wand, and pulled out another. This one caused the
target to lift into the air slightly, and she found she could raise
and lower it, though she could not direct it in any other direction.

Distanfae looked vaguely disgusted. "Levitation," he commented, "a
banal spell of little value, it is hard to believe the idiocy that
resulted in someone commissioning a wand of it. It only works on
willing targets, so don't bother trying to use it in a fight. Not
nearly as useful as a flight spell or mount, and only lasts a few
minutes anyway. A waste of good materials, that wand."

The next wand refused to cast against the target, but when cast on the
rat, a light struck the rat, but to no apparent effect. Distanfae had
her try again several times, in case it was just a fluke failure, but
the spell continued to have no noticeable effect.

The wand after that sent the rat squealing and running away to
scrabble at the door as if in terror, while Distanfae grimaced
uncomfortably. "Fear effect," he said shortly. "Indiscriminate, useful
to break up pursuit, but don't use it in a fight with allies. It won't
necessarily affect everyone the same way."

Distanfae dismissed the rat and conjured another one for her to test
her last wand on, after it also failed to cast against the target. To
her minor relief, it had no apparent effect on the rat either.

"Are the weaves of those two wands that will not cast on wood, but do
nothing to rats the same?" Distanfae watched curiously as she compared
them. She shook her head.

"They don't look the same at all."

"Well, one or the other might be something with a targeted creature,
but that only affects a particular sub-type, such as the undead, or
demons, devils, that type of limitation is not unknown."

She shrugged. "Maybe. It did not feel like it was not working,
though." Inside, she was wondering about what he meant by undead. Was
that not sort of what she was? Did he mean that some of them might
work on things like her? Or did he mean movie undead, zombies and
vampires and such? Were they real?

She did not ask, preferring not to know. After all, even if he told
her they were, until she saw them for herself, it could still be that
he was mistaken, or was just credulous of claims other people had made
in encountering them.

"Try one of the rods on the rat," he ordered, and Ranko cast the
levitation weave at the rat from her outstretched finger, not
bothering to produce the wand, and lifted it to where she did not need
to kneel to strike it. A rod formed in her grasp, and she struck the
rat lightly with it.

As it turned out, the lightness did not matter. The rat visibly
withered, its muscles shrinking away. It struggled weakly for air for
a moment, not even strong enough to fill its lungs, and expired.

"That looked like, hmm... either withering, or life drain," he said,
prodding at the floating dead rat before vanishing it. Another one
appeared before her, but the next two rods did nothing. Well, not
truly nothing - they killed the rats, since it apparently demanded a
true strike to activate effects and not merely a tap, so Distanfae was
not satisfied with a gentle prod. But there were no other visible
effects from them.

He looked ready to dismiss her, then paused. "I gave you the ring of
Flight to emulate a Drow noble's ability to levitate. Your new wand of
levitation is more suited to duplicating that without revealing
additional abilities; see if you can cast the weave on yourself."

Ranko nodded, and focusing on the weave, touched her fingers against
her body, and cast through it. She lifted smoothly, easily from the
ground, rose to touch the ceiling, and descended again.

"Excellent. Use that in future when pretending to be Drow. Go on now,
I need to think about this, and which of these you should be safe to
reveal in the next fight."

Ranko slid back through the shadows to her room, lurking in them for a
moment to determine where Sraelee was. Finding her in the room tidying
up, Ranko slid into the corridor and up it until she found a well
shadowed alcove, into which she stepped, and continued down the
corridor where she entered her rooms through the door.

She felt a little bad again, seeing the girl with her woven necklace
and remembering how she had felt on discovering that she had survived
the battle. It was not honorable to wish ill on others, and she made
up her mind to think of something nice to do for Sraelee and to do it.

"Good day, Sraelee," she said as she closed the door behind her.
Sralee sprang up from the floor, a dusting rag in her hand and bobbed
her head nervously. "Good day, mistress."

Ranko moved on into the room, paying attention to Sraelee from the
corner of her eye. As she expected, much of Sraelee's nervousness
eased when she was not the focus of Ranko's attention, presumably
because she was not as likely to be punished when no-one was watching
her. That might indicate that she had not actually served under the
two elder Vitrue, who had that scrying magic that bugged Distanfae so
much. Or it might just indicate they did not bother using it against
menial staff.

Ranko settled on to the bed and returned to her meditation. She was
particularly curious about the two white lights she had produced, one
that was healing, and the other destructive. She drew up a strand of
her magic and fed it through the healing wand, trying to let it color
it the way her elemental wands did. It took a bit of playing around
before she found a path she could send magic on through the weave and
out again, but she was finally able to draw out the white energy.

Holding the white aloof from the others in her pool for the time
being, she went through the adjustment process with the destructive
white beam. When she finished, she found she could not tell the
difference in the two pools of white energy, and when allowed to mix,
they merged into one blob with no sign of swirls of mixing color, nor
when pulled apart was there any overriding tendency to separate into
two of the same size. Whatever the underlying element or concept was,
it was apparently identical. Interesting.

She pulled up some fire magic and plucked off a bit of the white magic
and mixed the two to see what would happen. The blob of fire magic,
normally a fiery red-orange, rather than mellowing to a pink or light
red, simply became brighter, gleaming rather like the point of fiery
light that was the compressed form of the fireball spell before it
detonated.

When she tried the same thing with magic from the earth wand, she got
a brilliant green magic that surged and frothed, swirling, expanding
in little tendrils and then relaxing again. She drew it and the red
spark down into her purple quicksilver energy, subsuming and consuming
them rather than leaving them free in her pool. She kept the pool of
white energy, though, planning on playing with it later.

Much like her ring of magic missiles, running magic through the wand
of levitation caused no change at all. The wand of fear produced a
disgusting, oily black magic that she wanted to expel rather than
consume. Instead, she ran it through the healing wand, expecting that
to turn it to the more comfortable white energy. Instead, it came out
looking raw once more. Disturbed that she might have damaged her
healing wand, she quickly poured more magic through the wand, which
came out as white as when she had first done it.

Perhaps, then, they were some form of opposites? She ran some of the
white energy through the wand of fear, and it too lost the white
qualities, and looked like ordinary magic. Well, her ordinary magic,
anyway, the purple stuff from her quicksilver. She did not know what
truly ordinary magic looked like in this weird quicksilver view of
pooling energies.

Tired of being static, Ranko rose from the bed, noted that Sraelee had
retreated to her own room to give her peace as she lay, and slipped
out the door. She returned to that alcove, and moved through the
shadows to one of the rooms she had passed in her rampage through the
halls, and had noted as being empty. It was not merely empty as in
unoccupied, but empty as in nothing but bare walls.

The door was shut where it had been open when she had last passed it,
but there was no other sign of activity there, and it remained empty,
which suited her just fine.

Drawing out a katana-styled blade, and checking to be sure she was not
being observed by scrying spells, Ranko began a kata. Quicksilver
flowed up from her pool and down into her limbs, substituting for ki
to allow her to move as she remembered, with crisp speed and flowing
movements. Pulling at the white energy, she slid it into the blade,
watching to see how it showed in normal sight. The blade did not glow,
exactly, but it seemed to leave a shimmering white afterimage, a
visually pleasing effect whether it did anything interesting or not.

She pumped in the red energy, only then noticing that somewhere along
the line, she had started perceiving colors to the energies that at
first she had only noted as being cool, or spicy and fast flowing, or
sluggish. She was not sure what caused that, precisely, whether it was
because she know knew what they were associated with and so her mind
was applying that to interpreting the imagery, or whether they had
gained colors that they had not previously had. The blade burst into
red fire, leaving a trail of rising flames when she swished it about.
Pushing the energy up until only the top half had red energy likewise
limited the flames on the sword.

She drew back the flames and substituted the cool energy of the Wand
of Elemental Water, and a watery seeming blueness surrounded the
blade, though it was obviously not truly water, as nothing was
dripping from the sword. She slid in air, as she had done once before,
and the blade froze over as she stepped into the next move of the kata.

Back and forth she changed the energies, with this and that
interesting effect, until she tried the combination of earth and white
that had given her the green energies. The green energy that had
surrounded the sword then had looked like tendrils of vines or roots
wrapped about the blade, but the very next move of the kata, when she
swung the blade down, literal roots had surged forth, anchoring into
the walls as though an old tree had slowly grown there, working and
worming its way in over centuries. 

She pulled the energy back immediately, but the damage was done, and
the root system and the stunted trunk of some sort of plant remained.
As she watched in shock, a tiny bud swelled and burst, a flower
bloomed and died in seconds, and tiny petals fell.




Vengeance

Not yet posted.