Lead/Lag

Annafrid

"Better than some of the alternatives" I grumble, looking around at the snoring demifoxes and human mage at our feet.

Let's count them, those alternatives we could have used here with the Crystallic. There's always the Moreau/Minetus option, changing your opponent/prey into different forms (i.e. doing the Matrix thing). Maybe into a creature who's brain couldn't possibly hold within the mosaic that makes an intelligent being a person, effectively killing them. Incredibly powerful and dangerous as we all know, but still would be effective. That is one (very horrible) option. Another (much more merciful) option than the last was just to kill them outright, which would definitely stop them from meddling further in our affairs, most likely. Can't do that, this or the first one. We're the 'good guys'.

Well, we could use the Crystallic to cast a less destructive spell which would change some of our opponents forms into something useful. It could be a reversible curse spell similar to those "frog prince" curses I hear so much about in those Earther Fairy Tales. Something into horses and donkeys so we could ride them out and away from here now instead of waiting for the corrals to open. Besides, it would be cheaper, eh? But...

No, a bit of sleep is what the Doctor ordered, as Manfox Fred might spring on us. The Timelord and his group had been known to use the sleep spell on quiet a few occasions. Does so very much stop your average enemy whilst leaving them alive and one's hand free of blood.

Besides, except for necromancers one would have a difficult time interrogating the dead, eh?

Which proves to be a bit more difficult than we first figure for Arkas , which leaves the native Synizn looking at us. He's utterly amazed that we don't know that even this "substandard mage" (his words) would have taken time to put up mind shields for just this possibility. It's just standard practice in his world, nothing special! But later Jarlath will whisper to me that he hadn't detected such a spell upon the "hedge mage" before the session.

As it was, Dragon Synizn just chuckles a little bit and reminds his analog that we are from another land, and unfortunately that sometimes means we aren't up to par on everything under the sun in other lands, right?

It's a lead/lag thing. In some areas (like us) we lead in knowledge on certain areas of magery. In other areas we there's a good chance eventually we'll be outclassed. Just the nature of the beast. Comes with the territory when one hops realities and all that. Inquirer's mother, Evis 7 had said as much applied also to high technology...

But all that said, we have the demifoxes still. They prove to be very pliable to magical questioning, religiously driven so as they are.

Let us just say we're not exactly happy to find out that the Crystallic can be homed in on, okay.

Again, the easiest solution to at least slow down other demifoxes from hunting us down (deny them the information these could give them on us) would be to kill or transform them into something that can't talk. But we won't. It's a "good guy" thing.

But we can still use the Crystallic (one last time to avoid future detection, I hope) to make our lives a bit easier. Cannot do it too often or rely on this trick more than once. Next hunter party probably will be luckier (and brighter)! The Crystallic's use seems to be able be detected by our opponents (and not just the demifoxes and any other mages under their hire). Yeah, anyway, all we have to do, after consulting something for a likely candidate AND right before we head out of this building to get our gear and transportation is use it to send them to a city that is VERY much like a similar sounding city we visited once upon an Earth.... We make sure that we have no visitors outside before we do it, just to be only a little bit safer even!

Vegas! City of splendor and riches. Of gambling and ill repute. Located in a desert FAR from here (which is what we want them to BE)! Do believe that Synizn, by his dropped jaw, hadn't been aware that the Crystallic could do that! Oh, he and a lot of other mages, I gather, can teleport themselves and others some bit of distance, but NOT that far at all!

So, with the demifoxes and their ally mage in Vegas ("Vegas" and not "Las Vegas, by the way), we at least have them out of our hair for a bit. Probably forever, as far as the Quest goes (Vegas is a LONG way away and a hard place to get to and from). We got a lot of things to get and we've little time to do it in (i.e. we're going to be in a huge rush to be away, of course)!

Boy, do wish that we could have used the Crystallic to transport ourselves down to our destination, ending this Quest in one fell swoop. But can't do it that way. Too easy. We have somebody (Sigin) who'd be able to operate/direct the Crystallic in teleporting us, but Dragon Synizn had already asked (sometime right before he'd restored the native Synizn to dragon form) the artifact about that. It had been most empathic in it's saying it wouldn't/couldn't do the teleport because the same thing that prevented the demifoxes (demifox Fred and demifox Astra) from being transformed prevented their teleportation. We Champions could go, but not the Key components...

Oh well, at least I think that the demifox hunters might enjoy a little bit of "R&R" in Vegas, heh.

One of our group rather enjoyed the destination that my husband suggested for the demifoxes....

1. "Viva Las Vegas!" my co-wife raves, kissing Jarlath right before she and the rest of us go out into the light of day.

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