Chapter 15– An Offer Made

  Japan –Takeda Family Estate, inner courtyard- 08-10-22 (06:30 PM)

  Takeda Tomoko

  Tomoko smiled as she read the poems in the book in her p. Then as she felt the mystical currents around her suddenly shift and alter, she reached into her kimono for the jade dagger that she preferred to use to aid in her casting.

  A second ter a portal appeared in the courtyard, whoever they were must know that the trees would conceal it, or she was going to give a stern talking to who was about to exit it.

  “Master Takeda.” Master Keacilius said in greeting, before he led two more men into her courtyard.

  “Master Keacliius… thank you for associating with that exile there, now when you bungle again I will have even more reasons against your continued membership in our order," Tomoko said back to him as they walked to0wards her, she wasted only a gnce at them. If they were here to kill her, there wasn't much she could do against the three of them, but given their smiles, she doubted that was their purpose.

  Keacilius was followed by ex-Master Ortani. He was found not only researching but also performing forbidden magic from the banned school of necromancy. As the Ancient One stated, there is no reason for a member of Kamar-Taj to need to animate the dead.

  Then Tomoko was pleased to see that the other master’s disciple had courtesy enough to keep his distance while the masters talked. The young man stood at the ready near where he opened the portal in the first pce.

  “I needed his expertise on a transtion. One that I think you will be interested in.” Her current fellow master said to justify the exile being near her.

  “I highly doubt that.” She muttered before turning the page in her book.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Keaciliius reaching into his robes, so she renewed her grip on her dagger. She may have no chance in a three-on-one fight, but that didn't mean she would just go down without fighting back.

  When the scared master pulled out a handheld tape recorder, Tomoko rexed a little, but still generally ignored them.

  “I had assumed with you having hired many mundanes among your staff, you would prefer that I use this instead of spell.” Her fellow master said in expnation. As she didn’t respond and continued to read her poems he then pressed the rge py button on the recorder.

  “…bi’roth tok rekeen wori’dor mesh. So’kell doring tron forr kindel…”

  The recording sounded like young gibberish at first but then she recognized some of the tones. So she interrupted him. “You had the audacity to record the Founder? If the Ancient One knew you would…”

  Keacilius stopped the recorder and expined. “I didn’t record him, I used a spell to repy a memory, and as I said, I figured you would rather I use this, device, over a spell with the possibility of your people walking in on us.”

  "And that excuses you dragging this bck mark here?" She asks pointing at the old Indian man beside him.

  Instead of answering he gave the other man an order. “Read it.”

  The bding man used his own knee to hold his bag and he retrieved a memo pad from inside before he started reading the top page to her. "Born in the heart of a jungle of steel and stone, yet your heart never strayed from the pce of your people." Tomoko was about to interrupt the exile, but Keaclius held up a finger, so she let the man finish. “You are a hunter and stalker of the nd, and while you will hunt again. Not for yourself, but for your master, you must ready yourself to pierce where I direct, now arise, my Lancer.”

  “While impressive rhythm, what does all of that even mean?” she asked them.

  "It was the verbal component for his magic ritual," Ortani expined in pce of the soon to be exile.

  "And this is supposed to interest me because…" She began to say but was interrupted by Keaclius.

  “Because the Founder bound a dying woman to himself, as a Servant… He got the magic to work, the magic you have spent a life time researching, to work.” Her fellow master expined shocking her.

  Tomoko leaped to her feet, dropping her book of poetry. “Lies!”

  The two greying man shook his head before saying. "He did it before my very eyes, at the Battle for the Sun Temple." When she wasn't convinced he added. "I wasn't the only one who saw it. My disciple was there, as was another Master."

  Then a pair of the castle's security walked into the courtyard. Tomoko then remembered how everything would probably look, so she took a deep breath before nodding her head at the two men and requesting them in her native nguage. "(Everything is fine, just a surprising detail was revealed by my guests. Please leave us.)" The two security men looked over the other three sorcerers before bowing to her and leaving. Once they were gone, she snapped back at them in English. “And?”

  “And in three days, is Entreatment day. I remember when we were both disciples and we both dabbled in the Servant Thesis. With the Ancient One bowing out, you could be our representative this time around. We could go and ask him what it was you missed. Who knows, perhaps our copy of the theory is fwed or we miswrote something?" As Keacilius painted his pn out to her, Tomoko wondered what it was he wanted.

  ‘My life’s work, solved by another, a mage yes, but in the end it wasn’t me who solved it.’ Tomoko thought before shaking her head and saying. “I don’t believe you. I don’t know what you are pying at, but I still think you are lying. Why, I don’t know.”

  "I am not lying. Look, I know this is hard for you to accept, given your quest, but you can learn the truth and ask the other master who was there…. verify it, either way, we will be back tomorrow to finalize our pns." The other master suggested as if she had already agreed to their pn. Then he and the exile moved to rejoin the patient young man.

  “Verify it how?” Tomoko asked out of spite.

  Keacilius smiled before answering. “As I said, another master was there when I witnessed the miracle spell being cast. Ask him what he saw… And before you asked, it was Master Wong. You probably know where he is better than I.”

  The exile leaned closer to the other master and whispered something to him before the disciple donned his sling ring and summoned a portal. From the cold air that poured through the hole and she saw snow on the other side of the portal as well as a log cabin, Tomoko doubted that she would be able to follow after them.

  Once the portal closed, the Japanese master reached down for her book. When she stood back up she saw she wasn’t alone. One of the security men had returned and looked confused when he couldn’t see her guests. “(Yes?)” She asked him innocently.

  “(Ma’am, where are your guests?)” He asked while bowing towards her.

  She gestured with her book at the space that they once were standing in. “(Clearly they have left.)” Tomoko answered him.

  “(Yes…)” the guard mutters, still confused.

  “(Did you need something?)” She then asked him. The sorceress really wanted to find Master Wong and confirm her doubts, or he would give her hope for her life’s work.

  “(I guess not, if your guests are already gone.)” The guard said before bowing to her again.

  Before he left she told him. “(I am going to go take a nap, so do try to tell the others not to disturb me.)”

  “(Of course, mistress.)” He quickly replied to her.

  Then Tomoko left for her room, once in the bedroom, she looked immediately towards the bird in its cage. Inside the cage was a jumping white and bck bird with a redhead. Since it was the two of them the bird didn't hold back and asked in Japanese. "(What is bothering you Tomoko-sama?)”

  The bird was her familiar, Ami. The sorceress bound the animal with magic back when she was still only a disciple of Kamar-Taj. The magic gave the small bird intelligence that it would normally ck, as well as lengthen its life far longer than any other of its kind. Ami not only spoke and understood Japanese but also several dialects of Chinese and English as well.

  Tomoko moved to the chair beside the bird's cage and sighed, before saying. "A mean man made me realize something I should have acknowledged already."

  Just like the distracted woman, Ami also switched to English when it guessed. "That you will not succeed in the binding a Servant as you wish?"

  "No, his offer is for just that. But, if I take it I will not solve the riddle on my own. And I must acknowledge that the mysteries of the magic are still beyond me." As the sorceress spoke, she opened the door on the cage. Tomoko had picked this one, because it was one that Ami could open on her own, but she still wanted to be nice so she opened it herself.

  The small bird quickly flew out of the cage, before it circled the room once, and finally nded atop the woman's p.

  "But if it will give you what you want, why do you not take it? Even the Ancient One has asked for help from time to time." Ami reminded her.

  Tomoko pets the small bird’s head instead of responding. As she did, it strengthened the bond between them. Over the years their link had faded and waned, but by doing this the sorceress could feel the link strengthening. Once it was firm enough that she could close her eyes and point where the familiar was in the room without error, her familiar broke the silence.

  “So what are you going to do?” Ami asked her after a while.

  She sighed, before making a decision. “I have to verify what they told me, before I agree to anything.”

  “How?” The bird asked before hopping up onto her shoulder.

  Tomoko stood up and walked over to the bowl of water. Not all of the estate was updated to a modern standard. So instead of a sink, she had a rge bowl of water to wash her hands and face. However, she wasn't using it for that purpose. Instead, she used the water as a medium as she gestured and attracted the mystical energy.

  Ami aided her by serving as a second source of energy, vastly reducing the time it took to cast the scrying spell. A moment ter, the water in the bowl rippled and then she saw the image of a bar with a bright yellow sign with Chinese characters announcing the pce as the 'Bloody Swine'.

  Tomoko tapped the surface of the water, dispelling the image. When she moved to her jewelry cabinet and shifted a drawer, revealing the magic tools hidden inside the concealed space. She withdrew a gold strand, that he wrapped around her neck, and then withdrew her sling ring.

  Then she looked over at Ami, still sitting on her shoulder, and asked in Mandarin Chinese. “(Ready?)”

  Instead of speaking, Ami chirped in agreement.

  Then she swung her arms, to open the portal to an alleyway near the bar she saw in the water. However, before the portal opened, she stopped. Tomoko turned around and gathered the mystical energy, and while it took a couple of minutes to properly cast this, but the sorceress cast an illusion over her bed. So anyone that came in would find a copy of her sleeping in it.

  Then she went back to creating the portal to China.

  She shivered when she stepped out into the alleyway. The sorceress looked around; making sure no one saw the portal before moving on. She received stares here and there from the various men on the street. Worst I her opinion was the whispers of the women after she moved on.

  Tomoko hoped that nothing would stop her on her way to the bar. She even thought that she might make it inside without incident, but then three men in rough leather clothes stepped in front of her and blocked her path.

  “(You get lost on the way to the airport japo?)” The man in the middle asked her.

  “(She don’t understand you man.)” The thinnest of the trio guessed, before pying with his lips.

  Tomoko sighed, before asking. “(Would you move aside, please?)”

  The three men ughed at her instead of complying.

  Instead of showing them the mistake that picking on her would be, she reached up to her neckce and called mystical energy from the air into it, triggering the concealed spell inside. As she moved to go around them, the three men realized that she had suddenly vanished.

  The spell didn’t truly make her invisible, but to most people’s eyes would simply slide pass over her and she might as well be invisible.

  While it took another twenty steps to get to the doors, the timing worked as a man staggered outside as Tomoko neared the double doors of the bar. She used him taking a series of deep breaths, to sneak inside.

  Not surprising her in the least, given whom it was she was looking for, but the center of the bar was a fighting arena. Many of the patrons were cheering and betting on the fight that was already ongoing. What did surprise her was that one of the fighters was using a straight sword, and the other was what appeared to be a bear.

  She shook her head before telling Ami in English. “Look for Master Wong.” Then the bird took to the air and flew about the rather rge building. Her concealment spell flickering a touch when the bird left her, but the sorceress could tell that it was still ongoing after a moment. So she moved to one of the establishment’s three bars.

  She waited and watched, as the people moved about her as if she wasn't there, once she was certain that the man she sought wasn't in the main area she was about to tap the bartender and ask him. But then the bear picked up and threw the other fighter out of the fighting arena, barreling into three of the patrons.

  Then someone got on the speaker system speaking in Mandarin said. “(And that is the fight. Victory by ring out! But worry not folks, the Swine still has one st contender to beat the Russian Bear. The one, the only, the Master Wong.)”

  The lights in the bar dimmed, save for a spotlight that highlighted a side entrance, which a moment ter emerged the man she sought. Wong was still dressed in the robes of Kamar-Taj and held a staff in one hand while he waved at the bar's patrons with the other.

  "You've got to be kidding me," Tomoko compined at the sight of the man she sought.

  AnnouncementI may post a bonus chapter tomorrow. I've been dealing with some personal things and 'Father's Day' has hit me harder than I expected. It may be tter than my normal posting time, or I will curl up and ignore the world. We will see.