[Saturday Night of 20XX] [Sometime in March]

  [The Ritual Room] [The Atelier] [The Skylark/The Harrier]

  [The Docks] [Holdport] [Somerset] [UK]

  [3rd Person]

  They had walked down the stairs, into the circular room leading into other rooms. They’d gone through the dark brown wooden door labelled with a big red, ‘R,’ with, ‘Ritual Room,’ in golden letters below the red R.

  Like the Brewing Room for Potions with a big red, ‘B,’ again with the words, ‘Brewing Room,’ in golden letters below. And the same for the Enchantment Room with an E, or the Theory Room with a T, or the Spellcasting Room with a S, or the Computer Room with a C. At least for the six rooms in this part of The Boat of The Skylark. All those doors had the same bit of wood as the Ritual Room door of what was the style Red Hen was rocking on her boat.

  They’d stepped into the Ritual Room though, into what was a large square room, with multiple gleaming silvery Argyros Circles built into seamless Slate on those parts of the floor. Slate what melded into the wooden floorboards of the boat. There were workbenches against the walls, with a chalkboard to one side, and a white board to the other side of the room. With chalk and marker pens for both boards.

  On said chalkboard there was chalk notation, writing, and numbers with a diagram drawn out on it. While on said white board, there was similar but different writings in marker pen and another diagram. Of what was some notation and thought on what were my ideas.

  For both ritual magic properties of the chalkboard and white board, in the same way a mad magic lab would have bubbling chemicals, a Jacob’s Ladder, a Tesla Coil, and such. If said bubbling chemicals were just carbonated drinks with food colouring and a bit of magic to make a mad magic lab.

  Like how the ritual room had a Stuffed Alligator hanging from the ceiling. The ritual magic of what people expect to be in a magical workshop of an Atelier due to the durability of Alligators in Apothecaries.

  An Alligator farmed on an Alt-Earth Terraformed from being a Snowball Earth into a Farm Earth. Of Alligators being one of the farmed animals on it for the ritual properties of various bits and pieces to allow for the proper ritual magic. Of one of the many Alt-Earth Farm Worlds.

  The circles? There were ones big enough for a person to stand in. While in the centre was a much larger one. Red Hen gestured to one of the circles near the door, to say, “Please step into the circle,” There was a nod and Jaggedy Annie did, as the Witch had stepped next to a workbench beside it.

  She checked a rack of seven plastic bottles, of the three hundred and thirty millilitre plastic bottles, which had been orange juice bottles once upon a time. Each one with a label on them for a specific potion.

  A flick of her basic telekinesis had a stick of chalk fly off from one of the workbenches, to start drawing out the chalk markings. At the same time another stick of chalk did the same just on the other side of the ritual circle.

  Of two telekinetic hands being drawn with each hand, to make out the markings in a way a natural human on their own couldn’t start doing. The chalk markings on the slate outside the Argyros Circle went out and marked out the formulations. Along with drawing out twelve perfect circles marked out around it. Circles had a bit of telekinesis to make LED Candles fly over to land inside.

  Jaggedy Annie watched, as she asked, “So this is the standard set-up then?”

  There was a head bob, as Red Hen drew from her Pocket Space a Tourney Girl Colour Scanner, rather than one of the Pulse Pens on her belt or in a wrist holster. She pressed the on-switch and she started tapping the screen of what she’d replaced with a touch screen.

  A Magic Scanner design, one put together originally put together in the nineteen nineties. A modification and improvement on the original Tourney Girl Handheld Game Console. What had been upgraded with a Tourney Girl Colour when it came out and had been built on.

  Of how the Supernatural Community had gotten the designs for The Tourney Girl Colour, to make their own non magical copies to sell to Supernaturals. Of the Haigehawk game company and the Haigehawkium of the near indestructibility of their Tourney Girl line. What was made to compete with a certain Japanese game console and line of games.

  And even if Haigehawk had gone under after building the Tourney Girl Advanced in the two thousands, parts of the Supernatural Community at this point bought the company. And kept building the originals of all three consoles, to be used by The Supernatural Community to build their magi-tech scanners out of.

  With Katie McCabe preferring to build her own out of a Tourney Girl Colour instead of a Tourney Girl Advanced. And with her own investments and such, had gone and bought the rights to sell and produce her own Tourney Girl Colour scanner with a Touch Screen. It did make parts of the Natural World and the Natural Internet asking who was still making Tourney Girls and why they kept having weird modifications.

  The Supernatural Community still builds and makes the games cartridges for them, including the original games. They were also modules like Katie McCabe’s own cartridges of a, ‘Scan,’ cartridge, joined by the, ‘Scan Pro,’ the, ‘Scan Advanced,’ or the, ‘Pulse Pen Scanner,’ as part of them. With those being the four lines of cartridges she made and sold, but numbering them, so you’d get say a, ‘Scan 1.0,’ a, ‘Scan 1.1,’ going up till the, ‘Scan 1.9,’ became the, ‘Scan 2.0.’

  The Tourney Girl Colour she was using had a Scan Advanced 12.5-P Cartridge in it as she looked at the data coming from it. P for Prototype, as the current Scan Pro Cartridges she sold were on 12.3, with the 12.4 ready to come out on production soon.

  And, yes, instead of a 13.0 to 13.9 there was going to be a 12.0-B to 12.9-B before it moved onto number 14, as planned with the other cartridges for her version of the scanner. Because she was a numerologist, she wasn’t going to fuck around and find out with The Number Thirteen. With what the Bluetooth she had built into it to connect to her own computers and such to give the scan data the Tourney Girl Colour made to her systems.

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  Katie worked on her Scanner though, as she finished the markings of the ritual circle as she’d done. She looked up at her cousin, to note, “Scans are going into the computer systems of The Skylark, I should have her up and together. She’s functional enough for this as I work on it. She isn't, say, a Piper Interceptor armed with Creation AIM-26 Falcons ready to nuke the shit out of a Flying Saucer.”

  Tara, or Jaggedy Annie froze, as she burst out, “Wait, aliens exist?! Other than you mentioning Heulwen!? What I still don’t believe. And what the hell is a Piper Interceptor and what the fuck is an AIM-26 Falcon!?”

  There was a nod of Red Hen as she hum-hummed, to point out, “You know aliens exist. I told you earlier. Heulwen is flying around, like when she turned up to stop the plane crash almost happening at Cardiff Airport. She’s not a Powered, her magical powers come from her heritage, they come from being an alien goddess.”

  There was a long silent stare from the Regenerator. The Supernatural returned the stare.

  A long, awkward, moment formed. And Red Hen moved on in what she was explaining, “A Piper Interceptor is the nickname of what is an Ophanim class Interceptor. They ride on a creation rocket, of created water from The Elemental Realm of water split into oxygen and hydrogen. While an AIM-26 is a Nuclear Armed Air-to-Air Missile, we now have AIM-26’s functioning as Space-to-Space Missiles for outside atmospheric operations. The missile was designed, redesigned, modified, and upgraded.”

  The witch commented, “It is two hundred and fifty tons of TNT,” of what are tonnes or a metric ton, “or quarter of a Kiloton yield. Sethari Fighters of the Short Greys? The Fury fighters have light energy shields and basic energising of their hulls,” Sethari are not to be confused with Short Goblins who in Goblin form look identical to them. “A two hundred and fifty kilograms of TNT, or quarter of a ton of TNT, could breach one, as a second missile will take them down. The nuke used for this is for the hilarious enough-kill in this case usually doesn’t cause overkill and cause any casualties when running an interception missile. Especially with the magic to make zero fallout.”

  The Supernatural said, “Also as a Raider Saucer the Sethari use most of the time on their Cattle Abduction and Civilian Raids? Would only take a ton of TNT to splash, the fact is, again, we’re trying to kill the bastards. And they’ve been taking an AIM-26 to the face for a long time now.”

  Jaggedy Annie paused, and slapped her forehead, as she realised, “The aliens are magical, so they’ve been covered up with this whole Masquerade.”

  Her cousin looked at her, and with an audible grin from behind her mask she went to say, “You mean The Deception. To quote a certain Meme, ‘You were Deceived,’ cousin, ‘And now your republic shall fall,’ and such and such!” The Powered glared at The Supernatural and tried to ignore said Supernatural giggling at the reaction of The Powered to the giggling one’s memeing.

  The Regenerator had to retort, “Oh, you did not just have to say something so ridiculous.”

  Red Hen brightly replied, “The internet would never forgive me if I did not follow the memeing traditions! At least for the M-Web of The Supernatural part of The Internet.” And as said glare sharpened, the Witch began, “Well, then, let’s get on with this!” and she pocketed the Scanner back into her Pocket Space.

  She proceeded to step forward to the edge of the Ritual Circle, she drew on The Ambient, reaching out for The Ambient Magical Background Fields. Power she couldn’t draw yet in a combat situation of the various magical fields, she could however reach out to it in controlled conditions.

  Power flowed into The Ritual Circle, energy sang as chalk lit up, with the LED Candles were turned on with a flick of a switch. And the whole magical array got started as the whole set-up lit up. The energy sung upwards through the magic circle, of the silvery physical ring of Argyros glowing a bright white. To make a shimmering cylinder of light. Even as the ritual circuit of symbols, lines, and designs glowed a bright blue.

  Tara went to speak, but before she could, out of the glowing white light a black cat leapt out of it and into her. It flowed over her a moment, as her mouth formed a silent O shape. It was joined by a red squirrel jumping out of the glowing white light.

  It was a red squirrel, as The Supernatural Community across the world has an interest in removing most if not all invasive species not meant to be in an environment. Other than humans and their pets. Meaning no grey squirrels in the UK, for example, or no Tumbleweeds in the US.

  And for the world of Earth Sierra-Hotel-1? There is no trope of Tumbleweeds in the US or in The Wild West, or no bouncing Tumbleweed notion. It is like the difference of Whaling being Alt-History, like the story of Moby Dick, because Whales with their own magical powers would murder the fuck out of any whalers. The Universe of Sierra-Hotel-1, The ‘Verse of Sierra Hotel 1? Is not forgiving or nice.

  After the red squirrel was a golden glowing snake of a Sophilius Cobra, of its hood flaring as it did the same. A soft white glow surrounded her as she had her human form be shown for the Human Maxima/Maximus empowerment ritual to be a Peak Human. To be added by a glow of green light for The Watch Ritual, followed up by a helix of a melange of light danced and swirled around her for the You’re a Natural was shown.

  And it was followed by the Intrinsic Field empowerment, of a glow of blue light. And the ritual power of the ritual circle stopped. The glow faded away, the LED Candles turned themselves off, the chalk faded away into nothing of what was just flickers of motes of glowing blue light dancing up into the air.

  Katie McCabe, or Red Hen in this form gestured to the potion bottles she had with her, to say, “Right now! Time to boost and enhance the rituals, as the Rituals in a Bottle of a Potion. What makes brewing potions, Harry Potter Fanfiction Authors, not Cooking. Potions are Ritual Magic,” she shook her head at what she had felt had needed to be said. She returned back to the railroad tracks of the conversation, “The point is, the potions are made to enhance the rituals. Define them and combine them with the magicks of both.”

  Jagged, Jaggedy Annie in full, or Tara Evans, she stepped open. She grimaced at a black potion Red Hen had passed over to her, and she had to ask, “Do I have to drink this?”

  There was a nod from The Witch, and she told her cousin, “Yes, yes you do.”

  She took a gulp, stopped, and had to say, “Did you use Supermarket Own Brand Cola to make this?”

  There was another head bob, and Red had to explain, “Cola as the liquid base for the potion, it’s actually more Ritually Powerful than just using easily obtained water for the liquid base of the potion,” she shrugged. “It made it less awful than what the Cat’s Grace potion would have,” she exchanged the empty potion bottle for a red one for Squirrel Agility.

  Annie drank it and noted, “Cranberry Juice?” There was another little gesture of the head in a yes, with what was the golden glowing potion of a Sophilius Cobra Precog Reflexes potion had Annie go, “Orange Juice?” what was confirmed again silently by Red Hen.

  The white glowing potion of Human Maxima/Maximus Potion tasted of white hot chocolate, the green glowing Watch Potion tasted of lime juice. And the You’re a Natural potion tasted of skittles. (How else are you meant to taste the rainbow?)

  The potion bottles went into what was the cleaning system. Katie McCabe gestured upwards out of the room, “Right then, back to the lounge! With the Mat-Fab to make some of what are The McCabe Crunchy Bacon Bit Sandwiches! And a drink to go with it! You can surf the Internet while I do four hours of Vi,” Elan Vital/Vitality, “Meditation!”

  Tara Evans paused, she noted, “Your family recipe of those Bacon Bits are nice,” and they headed up back to the lounge.