Cologne smiled at Ranma. “Now, I would be pleased to tell Shampoo’s husband how to manipulate a magical focus into disenchantment,” she started.
Ranma snorted and flew through the door, making sure the enchanted in her hand slipped through the cracked glass. The broken edges sawed through the thin strand holding the necklace together, and the nonmagical beads fell to the ground with a clatter. “Then tell it ta Pops!” was the only reply Ranma gave.
Cologne stared at the departing spirit. Ranma was flying high above roof level, well above the range she could jump without being vulnerable. “Someday, Ranma,” she said to no one, “you will learn that Amazons do not lie. The rock is yours, for all the good it will do you.”
One of the other Amazons looked to Cologne and frowned. “Honored Elder, are you certain Xian’s intended must return here?”
Cologne turned to the girl and smiled. “It is wise to seek understanding, but not to question wisdom. Ranma’s only source of mysticism is that girl he is staying with, and she lacks the skills to break such a complex enchantment.”
The warrior nodded and bowed. “I understand. Thank you, Elder.”
”Now, replace the glass in the door. We need to open on time.” Ancient Amazon wisdom preached that only a fool trusted ancient wisdom to feed a tribe.
Nabiki scowled and went over her notes again. That imp’s suggestion to read Hidel’s writings was paying off, but just because Nabiki was glad to know these things did not mean she was terribly pleased with the things themselves.
Hidel’s studies did not merely cover spirits. Apparently the man had lived a very long time and studied equally many things, all of which could be summarized as the magical world without the interference of trained human mages.
His observations on public awareness of the supernatural were disturbing. Granted it was centuries out of date and a slew of annotations dated a few decades apart suggested increasing apathy and tolerance towards such things, roughly proportionate with increasing technologies and skyrocketing in the past century with the entertainment industry plundering the old legends to make movies books and games with. Ranma was lucky he didn’t fall in some spring of drowned vampire – not even Genma’s marriage scams could hook him up with that many over excitable fangirls.
Disturbing trends in modern media aside, the situation needed a save and fast. ‘Ranko’ had been attending Furinkan for over a week now, and the rumors in Nabiki’s care were flooded with references to the supernatural. So far she had kept them from spreading beyond the school grounds – since Ranko was first outted by Kuno it was easy to imply a connection to his delusions in those who didn’t have first-hand encounters with Ranma – but that wouldn’t last if she didn’t find a way to reduce the pressure on the Furinkan rumor mill within the next few days.
And if the truth got out, the big Truth, it would be chaos. Akane’s passing interest in Nabiki’s magic was only the tip of a very large iceberg of people who would want power, people who would envy that power, and then comes the fear leads to hate leads to the dark side shtick. That’s when the screaming starts.
“Hey Nabs!”
Nabiki looked up from her book and saw Ranma hovering outside her window. Well, partly. Her head was inside. “Ranma,” she said with a smile. “How did it go?”
Ranma grinned roguishly and tapped her prize against the window glass. “Open up and let me and my pet rock in.”
Nabiki laughed and opened up the window to let the rock in. “Perfect! If we can get ‘Ranma’ back to school tomorrow, the rumors will implode.”
Ranma blinked and tried to puzzle that out. “They’ll what?”
“Go away,” Nabiki simplified. “No, I don’t mean you,” she snapped as Ranma’s confusion increased. “The rumors will go away. People will be too busy wondering about how you came back and what happened to wonder about spirits and magic.”
“Great,” Ranma grumbled. “Any way to stop that? I don’t wanna be a freak.”
Nabiki smiled sympathetically. “I understand, but we need to get attention off ‘Ranko.’ Remember those books I got?”
“The ones that demon sent you to get?” Ranma growled out.
“Yeah, believe me I’m not comfortable with how comfortable that thought is becoming.”
Ranma blinked again. “That was very complicated.”
Nabiki hung her head. “Sign of a good con. Easy to pull off, hard to explain.”
“Er, right,” Ranma said slowly. “So, what did you learn?”
“Well, simply put, when people learn that magic exists there are three basic reactions. They want to learn it, ignore it, or control it. Now with a single Awakened that manifests as anything from a wise woman to a pariah.”
Ranma tried to remember what a ‘pariah’ was and decided it didn’t matter. “So what’s that have to do with me?”
“Well, with Saotome Ranma, martial arts genius cursed in China, almost nothing. For Saotome Ranko, nature spirit bonded to a human, quite a lot. The ‘Ranko’ line implies the existence of spirits who are capable of interacting with ordinary people. Gosunkugi’s magic photography means the reverse holds as well. Suddenly people realize there’s not just magic out there, but there are people and things with abilities they don’t understand.”
“I got ya. So they try ta learn.”
“Some,” Nabiki confirmed. “Others try and cover it up, or dismiss it as lies and try to punish the liars. Either way the result is a breeding ground for the worst humanity has to offer, and that attracts the worst the spiritual world has to offer.”
Ranma scowled. “So the demons wanted ya to learn this so ya would start this mess?”
Nabiki gave Ranma a light punch to the shoulder. “Baka. You don’t tell your mark what your plan is when she has time to prevent it. No, this is all human nature unfolding in the worst way. And demonologists are still divided on whether or not demons are manifestations of human evil or the other way around, so I can’t tell you if they are ultimately behind it all anyway.”
“And you think me turnin back ta normal fixes this?”
“It slows it down,” Nabiki corrected. “Which in this case, is actually a pretty good fix. Nerima’s always been a bit strange. It’s one of the few urban areas in the world that accepts superhuman ability as easily as a village like the Amazons, who still practice the old ways.”
“Yeah, I can’t believe how easy they’re taking me. I was expecting more screaming.”
“It helped that it was Kuno who outted you,” Nabiki snickered. “Until you showed up, he was the biggest source of loony for miles.”
“Hey!” Ranma sulked. “I’m not crazy like sword-boy.”
“Ranma, the only thing more insane than your life story is how calm you are when going over the highlights. In any case, let me see that rock.”
Ranma blinked and smiled. She had almost forgotten about the stone in her hand. She passed it to Nabiki.
Nabiki looked over the rock carefully. “Well, that’s a surprise. No markings, no aura, nothing to suggest…ah here’s something.” She pointed to the hole that once carried the necklace’s string. “She milled a hole into the rock, rather than putting it in a clasp.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means she didn’t care if the rock was damaged. Destroying the rock probably won’t break the curse at all. We need to disenchant it. Now, the good news is that this is actually a fairly weak anchor. No diagrams to channel the magic, and the drill would have damaged the internal geomantic properties. That also means that the rock isn’t natively magical, unless it is a very strong magic.”
Ranma scratched her head. “So can ya break it or not? The ol’ ghoul was pretty confident that the rock’s useless.”
Nabiki smiled and walked over to her closet. “A week ago she would have been right. But our mutual friend,” Nabiki and Ranma never referred to Nodoka directly when there was a chance the fathers could hear, “passed me a few tools when I told her about this. Ah, here we go.” Nabiki came back to her desk with a set of crystals. One, perfectly clear, she held to her eye and peered at the rock through it. “Ah, there’s the magic. It’s got three layers. Impressive work. Seriously, I’ve never seen this much fine detail. The bottom layer is sympathetic; it’s tied to something else. Probably you.” Nabiki glanced at Ranma through the crystal. “And that would be a yes to that.”
“Great. So how do we wreck it?”
“By getting past the other two layers first. The second layer is protecting the curse. It’s kind of like a safe that the curse has been put in. Most disenchantments I know would break against it. The third is camouflage, keeping the nature of the magic hidden from prying eyes. That one’s the easiest to get through, but this isn’t right.”
Frowning, Nabiki placed three red crystals in a triangle on her desk with the rock in the center. Another crystal turned out to be a container with an eyedropper of pink liquid in it. Nabiki placed a single drop on the rock. The crystals reacted instantly, casting a rainbow of lights in a slow pattern before settling down to a dull red glow that soon faded. “Damn, that’s some clever work.”
“What was that?”
“Sort of a simulation. The top layer enchantment has a trap built into it. It’s designed to break under a dispelling, but break in a specific way that interacts with the layers below it. It’s kind of like a safe that changes its combination if you try to guess it.”
Ranma scowled at the stone. “Okay, so I haveta get the mummy to break it?”
Nabiki smirked at her lover. “Not at all. Give me a minute.” Quickly and quietly Nabiki pulled a sheaf of paper and scrawled some chalk lines into it. She studied the rock a few times and corrected a line each time. Finally she cleaned up the smudges and placed the rock in the center. “The diagram changes the outer layer, attracting the spellshards that would normally rebuild themselves.”
“Okay,” Ranma said slowly, confused. “Now what?”
Nabiki tapped the rock twice with one finger and it flashed yellow. Ranma blinked – the rock was no longer solid in her sight. “Now you take a bath,” Nabiki said simply.
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(Posted Thu, 05 Aug 2010 06:49)
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