>"Quite the opposite, I think."
>Let's see what she can do
>Sanae nods. "Just makes a good thing better. Go for it, girl." she eggs Patchy on, a surprisingly eager look in her eyes.
>Patchy breaks off a chunk of salt from the cube on the table and dissolves it in the bowl of water. "In the deeps are secrets, old and new. " she intones after glancing at her book. "Let salt and water bring one to view." Patchy takes the piece of jade and places it in the bowl of water, which starts to glow ever so faintly.
>Hyozan, who had been padding his way quietly around the kotatsu towards you, stops and sniffs the air, and emits a quiet whine, sounding to your ear like a sound of worry. Heedless of this, Patchouli continues, "Stone of green and mystery, show your secrets now to me."
>The walnut-sized piece of jade flashes with a green light, and you feel a very faint wave of power emanate from it. And then following it immediately is a massive surge of formless power, like the blast wave of a bomb. The power is beyond anything that you have encountered so far, even beyond that of the Champions. So great and so sudden is the power swell that it nearly overwhelms your mystic senses. And you are not alone in detecting this wave. Reisen's red eyes widen in horror and then she closes and covers them desperately. Sanae stiffens in her seat, like a deer in the headlights. Hyozan barks angrily, the hackles on his neck standing on edge. And Patchouli, the mage who seems to have unleashed this wave, faints, dropping to the floor like a sack of grain.
>And in your mind, you hear Rin's voice scream,
What was that?!
