- Location
- Argentina
Aren't all those 2000s Anime?
Anime Adjacent (90's anime megacross!)
- Thread starter Mister Ficser
- Start date
- Crossover
Aren't all those 2000s Anime?
Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
Flame of Recca and Hell Teacher Nube are both 90s anime.
Ghost Stories and Inuyasha both came out in 2000.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
And Ranma 1/2 came out in '89.
I think so long as it's at or around the '90s it should be good.
- Location
- Argentina
This one wouldn't really add anything interesting I think? And Hell Teacher Nube is.... a guy with a demon sealed in his arm? The manga was quite random from what I remember.
BethofDeath
Girls just wanna have pun
- Location
- Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
- Pronouns
- She/Her
And we stan our intersex ghost self-identifying girls, tyvm!
I feel Alchemist, or Areru, wouldn't care about such things, only about the content of the person's character. (And if otherwise I will drop this story and its author like I dropped a certain Orange Lantern story and its author, you better believe me.)
Which considering what the ghost girl gets up to (to my vague understanding, having never seen the movie), would likely be the dealbreaker.
On 90's anime and appearances of older anime bits... I wonder which version of Bubblegum Crisis will show up, if either does? The original OVA version, or the inferior-but-actually-FINISHED Tokyo 2040 TV-length series?
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Shadow Archon
Protoss Preserver
- Location
- Louisiana
I tried getting into it years ago. I should try again. It was definitely overshadowed by other shonens of the decade.
- Location
- Norway
Oh man, if anything it needs to be the English dubbed version. That thing is hysterical and I can't imagine how Areru would react to the insanity.
I doubt much if anything would show up Bubblegum Crisis, as the setting itself was set after 2030, and it's currently 1993 in story. Maybe he'll walk by a Genom corporation building that's working on genetics or prosthetics, but that's probably about it. The setting is decades away and the main cast hasn't been born yet.
That's rather why I don't expect to see quite a few 90's anime. Their setting doesn't mesh with the current world. A shame since I don't expect that he's going to be jumping into other settings anytime soon, nor would he really have the nostalgia or exact memory of the different settings to push him to go there anymore.
- Location
- Philippines
Is it wierd that I kinda miss reading about the frog spell being used?
BethofDeath
Girls just wanna have pun
- Location
- Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Nah, that's Toadally not weird.
Don't forget to give the tengu corpse and monkey skeleton a respectful burial or funeral.
Not is a funeral the polite thing to do, it's prevents the local spirits from getting upset at your conduct.
He already freed the soul of an inugami, so it's in character for Areru's personality.
- Location
- Argentina
As far as I remenber it does not make a good crossover material also the premise is that Recca will die if he loses even once so not my thing.
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You are correct, BUT...
The remains can be as little as the dust from a disintegrate spell. Literally ANYTHING of the remains is sufficient for a Resurrection, True Resurrection takes that to the next step of just needing the name of the deceased.
Arimai
Curmudgeon
Can't
He's offering to fix the weakness, not to make it worse
Ah, no, in this particular case (you're not wrong, but!...). I used Competence because Competence bonuses to Skills are 100 gp x bonus squared. (Other bonuses are not in the SRD other than alternate bonuses are always priced at least 500 gp/bonus higher than the 'best' bonus of a specific type).Stacking modifiers to bring the price and creation time down!
+50 each, Competence, Circumstance, Sacred(Profane if you're evil), Enhancement, Insight, and Luck bonuses on one item. That's only 2.4 million GP for +300 to your skill check of choice.
If you decide you'll be doing your world altering spellcasting as preparations instead of in combat, make it into a stationary ritual room in your base of operations for half price. (Stronghold Builders Guidebook)
If money is tight, don't make it epic. Non-Epic version, +30 x6 bonus for +180 to a skill check for 540k, or 270k for the room.
Yes its busted as hell. Epic anything tends to be
Circumstance, Sacred, Enhancement, Insight and Luck bonuses are somewhere from 500 to 1000 gp x bonus squared, MUCH more expensive (and +50% for being the secondary bonuses, too!). In the SRD, there's also not a single base item that doesn't use Competence bonuses for skills. I am aware such devices do exist, but they are always priced much higher than competence bonuses, because they stack with them.
I often do the price stacking thing with RISMaL/DISMaL Rings: +5 Resistance/Deflection, Insight, Sacred, Morale, and Luck bonuses to saving throws, for +25 to Saves and/or AC without tripping Epic Pricing. Comes in right about 300k for the saves. That's 1000/2000 base for the normal Resistance/Other effects, and 2000/2500 gp for all of the Deflection/stacking AC alternates.
My guess is that non-Competence bonuses to skills are either 500 or 1000 gp x bonus squared, making them MUCH more expensive than competence bonuses (note the +1000 gap for Saves, and the +500 gap for AC. Some minimum gp rule probably in play...)
So my guess is those 6 alternate +30 bonuses are 1000 x 30^2 (900), or 900k each, for 5.4 million, and if combined into one item, +50% for 8.1 million, added to the 90k of a +30 Competence item for +210 to the skill for 8.2 million. You really aren't saving anything vs just buying a +300 Competence item because of the price difference. Actually, buying 3 more items will put you over 9 million for the same benefit as just one bonus...
===============
WOOPS! Epic Pricing kicks in for Competence bonuses over +30! All of the other things have bonuses kick in for over +5!!! So we're looking at 90 million to create all this stuff!
Okay, Alchemist can do this because he grabs from so many systems. That is not going to be a cheap check to make for anyone else. 90 million is the WBL for a level 37 character.
Note that you can't get away from the +50% pricing. Either it's +50% for being a Secondary Item, for being on a different than optimal slot (likely the head), or for being Slotless (actually, I think Slotless is x2 cost!)
Eh, that's what I get for building a magic item by memory years later
I think it is Artificers who have the ability to change one bonus to another, and people use that as an excuse to make a slew of Competency Items for cheap, then change the bonuses to something else to stack them all up to great effect, then think that said bonuses can actually be made at the same price as competency bonuses.Eh, that's what I get for building a magic item by memory years later
I'm sure there's a theory gamer who could work out some way to get a +400 Spellcraft modifier, or better yet, a more efficient way of generating Vengeful Gaze of God as a spell. Likely involving lots of arms, Sudden Metamagic Rods, and the like.
Lycanthromancer
The Arcane Fuzz
- Location
- USA
Then just have a bunch of +29 items of different types that can stack.
Ah, you're missing the point. +30 is the price BEYOND which Competency bonuses go epic (x10 cost).
For all other bonus types, that Epic pricing point is over +5.
So, the price for all the other bonuses will be x10. Making a set of six +30 non-competency items would be 81 million gold (9 mil -> 13.5 mil each with the +50% kicker). The Competency would be 90k. Competency jumping to +40 would be 1.6 million gold with Epic Pricing. +100 just competency would be a cool 10 million gp. +300 would be 90 million, and a MUCH better deal than the extra +180 costing 81 million.
To avoid Epic Pricing, you'd have one Competency item for +30, and the six others at +5, for a total of +60, and a cost of 90k+ 6*25k, or 240k gp for +60 to your Skill Check.
BethofDeath
Girls just wanna have pun
- Location
- Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Ah, Epic Levels... truly, money makes the world go round dodecahedral!
- Location
- Argentina
Is not the weapons, is the source power behind it. The Sailor Senshi literally have a whole planet worth of power while again Sailor Moon is a big G God, one of the two strongest in her native universe.
Funny enough Sailor Moon even at her current season one power level could unseal Ryuko as long as she goes where her body is stored.
Funny enough Sailor Moon even at her current season one power level could unseal Ryuko as long as she goes where her body is stored.
Entry 052
New
Project: Gamer Ver. Error, File Not Found
Anime Adjacent Entry: 052
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
9/7/1993
Meeting up with the head of the Masaki family wasn't something that Areru ever really intended on doing. As a point of fact, he'd gone out of his way to figure out which parts of the forests and mountains the Masaki family actually owned just for the sake of avoiding them.
It actually ended up being a bit of a confusing mess, all said and done. There weren't any convenient maps that were available that just said 'This, this and this are owned by the old shrine family. Then this part here is yours. Then over here...'
The Masaki family owned the mountain the shrine was on, quite a few plots of farmland in the surrounding areas and then, not very far away, they had something like two-dozen individual plots of land situated in a remote village.
Areru had actually been through it a number of times. Strange people, he'd thought, but they were decent enough and hadn't given him any trouble for his mixed heritage. The grocery store over there was actually where he did a good bit of his shopping whenever he was staying 'local'.
Funnily enough, the Ginji family lands were, well, missing from the records office in Okayama City. The family name was referenced, and there was a copy of the family registry, but the actual details of the land ownership wasn't available.
Apparently, when Areru had once asked about it, the official records had been destroyed in the forties. Burned to the ground, as it were. Along with the whole damned records office.
There was a very old, hand drawn map and some official looking documents still in the Ginji house, though. Technically, the lands were still in Shinji's name according to the most recent stamps on them.
Technically.
What did all of this mean?
It meant that Areru knew well enough that Masaki Katsuhito didn't want to talk to him about trespassing onto his lands because Areru very explicitly hadn't. Even Ryoko's mountain wasn't covered, even by the largest possible interpretation, being anywhere from five-hundred meters to a full kilometer away from the Masaki holdings.
Did the old priest somehow detect the curse Areru had picked up from the VHS tape? The teen couldn't discount that possibility, no. And, if the man wanted information about it, he'd have to settle for Areru's observations. Areru had burned the tape after watching it a few days back.
The half of Areru that was still at home, stinking of smoke and ash from his relatively busy day printing money, was interrupted from his musings as Ryoko poked him in the cheek. The teen looked up to meet her eyes, one eyebrow arched in a clear question.
'What are you thinking?' she asked, her hands talking where her tongue failed.
"The Masaki priest finally wants to talk to me," Areru explained to her. "His grandson, Tenchi, passed the message to me earlier. Him and I are on our way back right now."
The woman crossed her legs and floated in the air, palming her cheek in clear thought for a moment before she asked 'What does he want?'
"...Tenchi doesn't know," Areru answered after a moment of silence, his other half asking the question that Ryoko had just asked him.
Areru had also asked earlier, at the start of the venture, but it never hurt to double-check.
Ryoko placed one finger on her chin, her eyes narrowing sharply.
'I'm going to be there,' Ryoko finally said after a moment of thought.
Areru... simply nodded to her. He could stop her, if he put in some effort, but he didn't actually have any reason to.
"Tenchi and I are about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes away from the shrine," Areru told the specter. "Do you know where it is?"
In response, Ryoko simply smirked at him before gently removing her gloves and setting them aside, giving Areru a brief glimpse at the sapphire rosary still wrapped around her wrist. Without any warning or fanfare, she dropped to the floor-
Through the floor-
-and disappeared.
Areru quietly sighed before he got up and got moving, puttering around the house for a few minutes as he decided what he wanted to do.
He could be working on figuring out where the cursed tape originated from. He had a few images to work from, and the caller ID had given him a phone number when he'd been called. 04992 was the area code for the island of Izu Ōshima, a small island south of Tokyo. He could probably just search the island by foot to find whatever location was haunted. It wasn't that large, really.
Alternatively, he could just get back to minting coins. Between the metal casting and the printing, he could average about one-hundred coins an hour.
Or...
Areru did a slow circle, looking around the house before he pursed his lips and nodded to himself. He needed information for one of his more important plans. Information that wasn't being offered when he asked. Information he was going to have to track down on his own...
Coming back around to the kitchen after his slow trek through the house, Areru opened his small fridge and extracted a small vial of clear liquid. He held it up to the light that was filtering in through the window of the kitchen and shook it, an unhappy grimace on his face.
Sugar wash alcohol. Sixty percent alcohol by volume. Technically safe for human consumption.
Areru was glad that Ryoko didn't know how alcohol was made. If she'd recognized that he knew how to brew his own? He knew she'd have been asking him to be her personal vintner when...
Areru shook his head as he moved through the kitchen, grabbing a jar filled with sand and a knife. The sand itself had been baked, sterilizing it before he'd stored it away. A small spoonful was taken from the jar and added to the vial.
Next came the critical ingredient. The bit that turned it from diarrhea in a bottle and into magical diarrhea in a bottle.
Focusing, Areru gritted his teeth as he intentionally suppressed his Shield of Glass. Once it was down, once he was vulnerable, Areru slid the blade of his knife across the meat of his palm, carving into the skin with a pained hiss.
Areru dropped the bloody knife into the sink and hurried to bring the vial under the bloody gash, crimson liquid dripping into the alcohol and sand, turning the thin liquid pink, then red in short order.
Only a few short seconds later and the cut healed over, first turning into a crusty scab before it flaked away to reveal healthy, unblemished skin underneath.
"...Hate doing that," Areru grumbled to himself before he brought the vial to his lips and, against the protests from his stomach, threw his head back to quaff the mixture!
Blood and grit and fire burned down his throat and Areru had to struggle to keep the mix down-
And then, between one blink and the next, another Areru appeared at his side.
The two teens nodded to each other for a moment before the original walked to the side door of the house and slid it open. He stepped out, into the heat as his temporary copy waited inside the house.
With a flex of will, an ability that wasn't quite magic twisted and tugged at the fabric of the world. Areru stepped forward, leaving behind a weak, temporary copy that stepped to the side, leaving behind a weak, temporary copy that...
Areru had multiple means of replicating himself. They each had their own strengths and weaknesses.
The potion that he'd consumed, the Extract of Twin Form, was disgusting in the extreme and a pain to manufacture. But the duplicate, while having a comparatively brief lifespan, was his equal in capability and was quite conversant should the need arise.
The lesser copies, the Wraiths, could be made en masse but they were categorically silent and were only a quarter as strong as he was. Anything created -from- them would also disappear when they did but anything they interacted with and changed, mechanically or magically, would remain altered.
Neither version offered him any additional points of view. He did not regain any memories or power when they faded away. The ones that would be tasked with gathering information would actually need to write down their findings for their existence to mean anything.
With a wave over his shoulder, Areru disappeared. He had his tasks and, being made from him, they knew their own roles.
Reappearing in a shaded nook, Areru saw an old, rusted gate before him. He'd seen it before, dozens upon dozens of times, and he'd never chosen to go beyond it. Ryoko... never wanted him to see what was inside the small, locked cave.
But...
Areru... knew he could be stupid sometimes. He knew he had his blind spots. The worst of them being people, their reasons and motivations.
But he did pay attention. He did think and reason.
If Ryoko was a ghost? Then she'd clearly died. And the ghost fixated on the mountain.
There was a reason for that. One he was fairly sure he'd guessed at. But guesses were not the same as knowledge.
Teleporting beyond the barred door, Areru carefully stepped around the gnarled, familiar roots that encompassed the cave like a series of veins until he came across a small shrine. Inside of which he saw the hilt of a sword, three red gems in the pomel.
Given how cramped the little box was, it'd be almost impossible to draw the weapon. Meaning the sword was embedded in the rock of the cave and the shrine had been built around it. It could be incredibly important...
Or it could just be a sword in a rock.
Exhaling slowly, Areru called upon his Elemental Mastery and tuned it to Earth and just... felt the cave.
The sword stood out starkly. Steel, poor quality, folded over and over to try and strengthen the impure metal found in Japan. Entirely unremarkable.
The walls of the cave were thoroughly violated by the roots that Areru knew were spread out like a cancer from the strange tree, hidden deep in the woods. Areru knew trees decently enough and, whatever that one was, it didn't match any leaf or bark patterns that Areru had been able to find in any books. And its roots had penetrated through stone, pushing through the material until it cracked before feeding into those cracks and just... expanding.
Gods, the cave should have collapsed! By now, the roots themselves were holding it together.
Areru shuddered as his awareness continued to expand. He could escape from a cave-in, sure, but it'd be... well, it'd be quite an experience.
Areru closed his eyes and focused. Stone and roots, water... and a chute? Smooth, carved stone behind a large rock and... mechanisms. Old ones. Activated by another rock that was... tied up in roots.
Areru wasn't willing to touch those. They were part of that giant tree and, somehow, Ryoko was connected to it.
Teleporting blind was generally a bad idea but the teen felt he had a solid enough grasp on the location to make it work. With a minor flex of his magic, he found himself in the hidden chute and slowly slid down.
There were patterns carved into the stone chute and Areru had to duck low to keep from hitting his head on any stalactites. The patterns formed harsh, angular shapes, almost like circuitry, and were filled with frigid water.
They were clearly carved with intent, though for what purpose Areru did not know. Sliding to the bottom, Areru was greeted by a round room, more channels cut to direct the water to the middle where a bright light glowed from within a pit.
Looking around as the dragon walked towards the center, he could see that the roots had penetrated even this far. None of the few he saw were large but the thread-like exploratory roots were unmistakable.
Areru... did not want to meet whatever will resided within that tree. Its hunger was insatiable.
Approaching the pit, Areru crouched down to look within.
What he saw was... horrific.
A body, barely wrapped in an old, rotten robe with a red demon mask upon its face. The flesh over the ribs had long since withered away, exposing bone, but the arms were intact if wilted and desiccated. Oddly enough, however, the abdomen seemed partially intact if not deeply sunken in.
Most telling, however, was the hair. Somehow, the body within the pit still had hair.
Ryoko's spiky white mane, one he'd recognize with ease.
Except...
None of that should have been there. Not after seven-hundred years. At most, the metal clasps of the robe might have remained but not the rest...
Areru licked his lips as his brow furrowed in thought.
Ryoko's body...
He knew she was inhuman, but...
The thing in the pit was still alive. Barely, just barely.
How, Areru couldn't begin to guess. Especially given Ryoko's condition.
This... changed things. A lot of things.
And yet, Areru grinned, his teeth sharp. It didn't really change anything at all.
-----
"Alright," the Extract clone said once Prime had left. "You guys know what to do, get to it."
"Can it wait a minute?" one of the Wraith's asked, drawing a confused glance from the Extract. "I need to take a shit."
"You?" One of the other Wraiths complained. "What about me? I've gotta go!"
"We've all gotta go!" another Wraith shouted. "That asshole made us after he took the damned potion!"
"That's not my fault!" a fourth Wraith shouted. "Now get outta the way!"
There was a lot of pushing and a lot of shoving before the Wraiths remembered one crucial, horrible thing.
The Ginji house only had one bathroom. And there were sixteen copies of Areru that needed to use it.
It was not a good day in the Ginji Household.
Anime Adjacent Entry: 052
Disclaimer Me Do: I own nothing you recognize. And most of what you don't recognize, I still don't own.
_________________________________________________________________________
9/7/1993
Meeting up with the head of the Masaki family wasn't something that Areru ever really intended on doing. As a point of fact, he'd gone out of his way to figure out which parts of the forests and mountains the Masaki family actually owned just for the sake of avoiding them.
It actually ended up being a bit of a confusing mess, all said and done. There weren't any convenient maps that were available that just said 'This, this and this are owned by the old shrine family. Then this part here is yours. Then over here...'
The Masaki family owned the mountain the shrine was on, quite a few plots of farmland in the surrounding areas and then, not very far away, they had something like two-dozen individual plots of land situated in a remote village.
Areru had actually been through it a number of times. Strange people, he'd thought, but they were decent enough and hadn't given him any trouble for his mixed heritage. The grocery store over there was actually where he did a good bit of his shopping whenever he was staying 'local'.
Funnily enough, the Ginji family lands were, well, missing from the records office in Okayama City. The family name was referenced, and there was a copy of the family registry, but the actual details of the land ownership wasn't available.
Apparently, when Areru had once asked about it, the official records had been destroyed in the forties. Burned to the ground, as it were. Along with the whole damned records office.
There was a very old, hand drawn map and some official looking documents still in the Ginji house, though. Technically, the lands were still in Shinji's name according to the most recent stamps on them.
Technically.
What did all of this mean?
It meant that Areru knew well enough that Masaki Katsuhito didn't want to talk to him about trespassing onto his lands because Areru very explicitly hadn't. Even Ryoko's mountain wasn't covered, even by the largest possible interpretation, being anywhere from five-hundred meters to a full kilometer away from the Masaki holdings.
Did the old priest somehow detect the curse Areru had picked up from the VHS tape? The teen couldn't discount that possibility, no. And, if the man wanted information about it, he'd have to settle for Areru's observations. Areru had burned the tape after watching it a few days back.
The half of Areru that was still at home, stinking of smoke and ash from his relatively busy day printing money, was interrupted from his musings as Ryoko poked him in the cheek. The teen looked up to meet her eyes, one eyebrow arched in a clear question.
'What are you thinking?' she asked, her hands talking where her tongue failed.
"The Masaki priest finally wants to talk to me," Areru explained to her. "His grandson, Tenchi, passed the message to me earlier. Him and I are on our way back right now."
The woman crossed her legs and floated in the air, palming her cheek in clear thought for a moment before she asked 'What does he want?'
"...Tenchi doesn't know," Areru answered after a moment of silence, his other half asking the question that Ryoko had just asked him.
Areru had also asked earlier, at the start of the venture, but it never hurt to double-check.
Ryoko placed one finger on her chin, her eyes narrowing sharply.
'I'm going to be there,' Ryoko finally said after a moment of thought.
Areru... simply nodded to her. He could stop her, if he put in some effort, but he didn't actually have any reason to.
"Tenchi and I are about fifteen, maybe twenty minutes away from the shrine," Areru told the specter. "Do you know where it is?"
In response, Ryoko simply smirked at him before gently removing her gloves and setting them aside, giving Areru a brief glimpse at the sapphire rosary still wrapped around her wrist. Without any warning or fanfare, she dropped to the floor-
Through the floor-
-and disappeared.
Areru quietly sighed before he got up and got moving, puttering around the house for a few minutes as he decided what he wanted to do.
He could be working on figuring out where the cursed tape originated from. He had a few images to work from, and the caller ID had given him a phone number when he'd been called. 04992 was the area code for the island of Izu Ōshima, a small island south of Tokyo. He could probably just search the island by foot to find whatever location was haunted. It wasn't that large, really.
Alternatively, he could just get back to minting coins. Between the metal casting and the printing, he could average about one-hundred coins an hour.
Or...
Areru did a slow circle, looking around the house before he pursed his lips and nodded to himself. He needed information for one of his more important plans. Information that wasn't being offered when he asked. Information he was going to have to track down on his own...
Coming back around to the kitchen after his slow trek through the house, Areru opened his small fridge and extracted a small vial of clear liquid. He held it up to the light that was filtering in through the window of the kitchen and shook it, an unhappy grimace on his face.
Sugar wash alcohol. Sixty percent alcohol by volume. Technically safe for human consumption.
Areru was glad that Ryoko didn't know how alcohol was made. If she'd recognized that he knew how to brew his own? He knew she'd have been asking him to be her personal vintner when...
Areru shook his head as he moved through the kitchen, grabbing a jar filled with sand and a knife. The sand itself had been baked, sterilizing it before he'd stored it away. A small spoonful was taken from the jar and added to the vial.
Next came the critical ingredient. The bit that turned it from diarrhea in a bottle and into magical diarrhea in a bottle.
Focusing, Areru gritted his teeth as he intentionally suppressed his Shield of Glass. Once it was down, once he was vulnerable, Areru slid the blade of his knife across the meat of his palm, carving into the skin with a pained hiss.
Areru dropped the bloody knife into the sink and hurried to bring the vial under the bloody gash, crimson liquid dripping into the alcohol and sand, turning the thin liquid pink, then red in short order.
Only a few short seconds later and the cut healed over, first turning into a crusty scab before it flaked away to reveal healthy, unblemished skin underneath.
"...Hate doing that," Areru grumbled to himself before he brought the vial to his lips and, against the protests from his stomach, threw his head back to quaff the mixture!
Blood and grit and fire burned down his throat and Areru had to struggle to keep the mix down-
And then, between one blink and the next, another Areru appeared at his side.
The two teens nodded to each other for a moment before the original walked to the side door of the house and slid it open. He stepped out, into the heat as his temporary copy waited inside the house.
With a flex of will, an ability that wasn't quite magic twisted and tugged at the fabric of the world. Areru stepped forward, leaving behind a weak, temporary copy that stepped to the side, leaving behind a weak, temporary copy that...
Areru had multiple means of replicating himself. They each had their own strengths and weaknesses.
The potion that he'd consumed, the Extract of Twin Form, was disgusting in the extreme and a pain to manufacture. But the duplicate, while having a comparatively brief lifespan, was his equal in capability and was quite conversant should the need arise.
The lesser copies, the Wraiths, could be made en masse but they were categorically silent and were only a quarter as strong as he was. Anything created -from- them would also disappear when they did but anything they interacted with and changed, mechanically or magically, would remain altered.
Neither version offered him any additional points of view. He did not regain any memories or power when they faded away. The ones that would be tasked with gathering information would actually need to write down their findings for their existence to mean anything.
With a wave over his shoulder, Areru disappeared. He had his tasks and, being made from him, they knew their own roles.
Reappearing in a shaded nook, Areru saw an old, rusted gate before him. He'd seen it before, dozens upon dozens of times, and he'd never chosen to go beyond it. Ryoko... never wanted him to see what was inside the small, locked cave.
But...
Areru... knew he could be stupid sometimes. He knew he had his blind spots. The worst of them being people, their reasons and motivations.
But he did pay attention. He did think and reason.
If Ryoko was a ghost? Then she'd clearly died. And the ghost fixated on the mountain.
There was a reason for that. One he was fairly sure he'd guessed at. But guesses were not the same as knowledge.
Teleporting beyond the barred door, Areru carefully stepped around the gnarled, familiar roots that encompassed the cave like a series of veins until he came across a small shrine. Inside of which he saw the hilt of a sword, three red gems in the pomel.
Given how cramped the little box was, it'd be almost impossible to draw the weapon. Meaning the sword was embedded in the rock of the cave and the shrine had been built around it. It could be incredibly important...
Or it could just be a sword in a rock.
Exhaling slowly, Areru called upon his Elemental Mastery and tuned it to Earth and just... felt the cave.
The sword stood out starkly. Steel, poor quality, folded over and over to try and strengthen the impure metal found in Japan. Entirely unremarkable.
The walls of the cave were thoroughly violated by the roots that Areru knew were spread out like a cancer from the strange tree, hidden deep in the woods. Areru knew trees decently enough and, whatever that one was, it didn't match any leaf or bark patterns that Areru had been able to find in any books. And its roots had penetrated through stone, pushing through the material until it cracked before feeding into those cracks and just... expanding.
Gods, the cave should have collapsed! By now, the roots themselves were holding it together.
Areru shuddered as his awareness continued to expand. He could escape from a cave-in, sure, but it'd be... well, it'd be quite an experience.
Areru closed his eyes and focused. Stone and roots, water... and a chute? Smooth, carved stone behind a large rock and... mechanisms. Old ones. Activated by another rock that was... tied up in roots.
Areru wasn't willing to touch those. They were part of that giant tree and, somehow, Ryoko was connected to it.
Teleporting blind was generally a bad idea but the teen felt he had a solid enough grasp on the location to make it work. With a minor flex of his magic, he found himself in the hidden chute and slowly slid down.
There were patterns carved into the stone chute and Areru had to duck low to keep from hitting his head on any stalactites. The patterns formed harsh, angular shapes, almost like circuitry, and were filled with frigid water.
They were clearly carved with intent, though for what purpose Areru did not know. Sliding to the bottom, Areru was greeted by a round room, more channels cut to direct the water to the middle where a bright light glowed from within a pit.
Looking around as the dragon walked towards the center, he could see that the roots had penetrated even this far. None of the few he saw were large but the thread-like exploratory roots were unmistakable.
Areru... did not want to meet whatever will resided within that tree. Its hunger was insatiable.
Approaching the pit, Areru crouched down to look within.
What he saw was... horrific.
A body, barely wrapped in an old, rotten robe with a red demon mask upon its face. The flesh over the ribs had long since withered away, exposing bone, but the arms were intact if wilted and desiccated. Oddly enough, however, the abdomen seemed partially intact if not deeply sunken in.
Most telling, however, was the hair. Somehow, the body within the pit still had hair.
Ryoko's spiky white mane, one he'd recognize with ease.
Except...
None of that should have been there. Not after seven-hundred years. At most, the metal clasps of the robe might have remained but not the rest...
Areru licked his lips as his brow furrowed in thought.
Ryoko's body...
He knew she was inhuman, but...
The thing in the pit was still alive. Barely, just barely.
How, Areru couldn't begin to guess. Especially given Ryoko's condition.
This... changed things. A lot of things.
And yet, Areru grinned, his teeth sharp. It didn't really change anything at all.
-----
"Alright," the Extract clone said once Prime had left. "You guys know what to do, get to it."
"Can it wait a minute?" one of the Wraith's asked, drawing a confused glance from the Extract. "I need to take a shit."
"You?" One of the other Wraiths complained. "What about me? I've gotta go!"
"We've all gotta go!" another Wraith shouted. "That asshole made us after he took the damned potion!"
"That's not my fault!" a fourth Wraith shouted. "Now get outta the way!"
There was a lot of pushing and a lot of shoving before the Wraiths remembered one crucial, horrible thing.
The Ginji house only had one bathroom. And there were sixteen copies of Areru that needed to use it.
It was not a good day in the Ginji Household.
LordofTentacles
Surprisingly Sturdy
- Location
- Louisiana
Awe man I wanted to see him talking with the priest. The chapter okay. Good job.
