Recognizing a guy walking by, Ranma decided to borrow a page from Ryoga and ask for directions. "Hey, you're that Crystal guy ain't ya?"
The guy in the coveralls blinked back. "Oh. Yeah. Rumba, isn't it?"
"Ranma," corrected Ranma. "I'm lookin' for some stuff like maps and maybe rumors of ruins and stuff."
"I thought your pixie was sidelined, otherwise I'd say you were going adventuring," said Crystal. "Okay. Check at the Library. Take the next right and go down two blocks."
"Thanks!" said Ranma, dashing off. Why would he need a monster to go adventuring though.
He found the library quickly enough, with an old guy named Doyle and some gal in the back who was mostly hiding behind a bookshelf and watching him. Weird. "So ya know any places rumored to have stuff that can extend a Pixie's life?"
"Goodness gracious," said Doyle. "Most people just want me to translate old text samples. You want... hmmm. I may just have run across..."
Watching the old man shuffle off to a stack of books, Ranma felt a moment of triumph. He just KNEW that this would be another case where his old man was wrong and libraries had something useful. He'd never used them before now, but he was still going through all the things his father had told him and figuring out what was actually true and not.
"Oh yes," mumbled the old man, "it was somewhere around here - an old tome known as 'Tales Of The Wandering Pig' but the book seems to keep vanishing on me."
"The 'Tales Of The Wandering Pig'?" asked Ranma, wondering why he got this sudden feeling of this meaning something. Or something like that.
"Ah! Here it is!" The old man turned and snagged the book before it could get lost again. "Yes. A book from before the Ancient Cataclysm that caused the Gods to seal all the monsters in those Saucer Stones. Can't understand why it's never on its place in the shelf..."
"How can a book about some pig help me find stuff to fix a pixie?" Ranma asked.
"This ancient tome deals with a spirit-pig, a nearly immortal being who appeared and is believed to have helped cause the ancient uprising among the monsters that led to the Cataclysm and the Sealing," answered the old man. "Ah here we go."
"-and so it was that the Wandering Pig didst journey forth once again to seekest out his most mortal enemy, whose name he didst curst at least thrice daily."In a most circuitous route didst he travel, and came to the mountain retreat of Nietche near the volcano of Jusen. Speaking again the name of his hated foe, the Pig That Walked Like A Man did listen naetheless to the beauteous women he found there and did liken them to a scarlet dawn touched with gold that he had seen in ages past.
"Well pleased by his comments and curious as to his plight, the damsels did speak to him of many things. One in particular did catch his fancy - a great Spring Of Healing in the region of the Phoenix's Nest. There it was said, any curse could be cured and new life brought to old flesh.
"Thus did begin the last adventure of the Wandering Pig, to at last put his wanders behind him."
Ranma was a man. A manly man. Just ask his mother. So he could absolutely positively not have a sparkly look in his eyes. "Did you say 'any curse could be cured', Mister Librarian Sir?"
"Let's see, the village of Nietche was lost but the volcano of Jusen is familiar to me." The old man found a map (dislodging a pile of books in the process) and began going over it. "Yes, right here. If you take a boat to the port of Taip, you can probably get a guide to-"
Zooooom!
"- show you the rest of the way. Just whatever you do, don't go into the ?! Where'd he go? Oh dear, I was sure he was here a moment ago."
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(Posted Fri, 05 Dec 2003 11:49)
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