Rangfar's diary Chinmoku ment I should start to write down the events of my past-life to train writing. So here I am, sitting in my room, looking out over the ripe corn-fields of Lynnwood and thinking about how it all began. The first things I still remember are discontinued fragments of my family...although can just be 2 years ago it seems as remote as a different life to me. Living as a normal fox in a normal family.. fragments of travelling with a normal skulk... It was winter when I first changed. Although a winter in the Steppe of Salish-Shidhe is not much different from a summer. I remeber seeing colors for the first time but practically loosing smell altogether. It was a terrible experience. After probably the most confusing time of my life Master Talking-Leaves of the Sinsearach-tribe found me and sat by me. I was terrified of his apearance and tried to avoid his touch. But suddenly I was calm as a lamb...lost in his chanting voice. I later learned that he used a "calm-animal"-spell on me. A rather forcefull one as he had to break my will to let it take effect. After he touched me, for the first time in my life, I understood words and meanings. It was not like talking with my human mouth entirely but rather meanings, symbols in short a telepathy-spell. He took me in an thought me control of my transformation any the magic flowing through me. With the telepathy-spell I picked up the language of the Sinsearach and the language of the city very fast. I was to come to him every evening after sunset and he would teach me in the ways of man for when I transformed..or as he called it "shifted" I was a man. Gaining more control of the magic in me I even managed to control the transformation so that I could stop it in-between. I thus had Fingers and Voice but would not loose my sense of smell. I do not care much about colors for in my time the sun is fading anyway. I was to sleep in the day and when the sun fell instead of hunting I was with my Master. He was a shaman following the great Buffalo spirit, trying to share his wisdom with all he deems deserve it. When the time came to go on a dream-quest for me to find out about the totem that has chosen me and granted me my magic my world was going to change. After days of fastening and endless meditaion I once again opened my eyes in frustration as no vision has come only to see a Rat sitting in front of me. It did not run, nor did it seem to fear me the least. It smelled strange much like the cars some tribesman seeking help from Master Talking-Leaves drove. And it practically burned with magic. More intensive even then my Mentor did. So I was chosen by the Rat and my magic was granted only in exchange of following the ways of rat. The sheer irony in that made me lough and I fear back then I insulted my Totem with my thoughts. This couldn't be, after all I was a fox! I ate rats any day and of all spirits a rat has chosen me. Now that I am more experienced in the ways of my totem it makes sense to me by at that time it was an impossible thing. And it made demands. I was to stop my education with Master Talking-Leaves and travel to the city. I was to live among man and live of what man provided. I was to follow the ways of the rat. Of cause I didn't want to go. My training wasn't even half finished. My master had wanted to teach me so many more things. I had seen him talking to the spirits of his ancestors and he wanted to show me how to talk and even command spirits myself. He wanted to show me writing and improve on my speaking of the languages of man. How to improve my abilities by building foki and bind spells into contructs of feathers and earth. I had already learned a few things..how to channel my magic into healing a would and to take down prey without killing it. The healing was particular difficult to learn. Even though it happened natually with me or maybe because of this ability for a long time I did not manage to properly think about healing another being. In the end he provided me with a fetish that helped me to master this skill that he found important for any magic-user to possess. But my rat was insistent in forcing me to where it wanted me to go. First it offered to teach me new spells...and it were powerfull spells I learned from it. Illusions to trick not only the mind but to trick machines as well. I learned to walk in absolute silence, not just sneaking as I already did but walk and run and jump in total silence. I learned to apear as anything I wanted, even become invisible to all but the most skilled sentinels. Then I learned to create illusions of all kind. Trick the mind to see things, feel things that weren't there. But still my totem expected me to go, and it had ways to make me go. So going I did. The city way a living hell. I planned to walk the streets at night as I where; as a fox. But I had to find out, there was no night in Seattle. I settled in the area that I thought would most please my rat. It were the Redmond-Barrens. My Master had given me a bit of Money for a start. It really was only a bit. I had not used money myself before, although Master Talking-Leaves had thought be about it's ways. I was to learn that you couldn't run about the streets of Seattle as a fox at any time so I had to stay a human and would have to adopt the strange ways of humans. I rented a cheap flat in a run-down house and tried to life the low life that I could afford. The house was in a narrow street full of dirt and with patroled by smelly packs of humans that where known not as tribes but as "gangs". Opposite the house in the space left by a building that most likely simply collapsed was a dirty gray... maybe once white honeycomb where people had their den in lang tubes not even as high as an average human. It was there that Chinmoku lived who I was to get to know later but now back to the problems at paw. I had to find a job...this proved to be the most difficult problem of all. Unable to make sense of the strange symbols everywhere, knowing noone I had nearly no money left when I found out about the old factory. Every morning run-down, smelly and dirty people would gather, not at the gate but the back-door. Then 2 large orcs would open the door and select about 2 dozen of the people to work there for the day. It was simple, yet hard work. Cleaning vents full of burning smoke that took the air to breeze right out of your lungs. Oiling machines that noone ever thought to stop while we were working on..and in them. Often one or another of the others would collapse or get hurt in the spinning weels and acid fumes. Sometimes they would not be seen later when we were given our payment. Everyone who made it through the day got 50 to 70 nuyen, working from the dusk till after sunset. Because the fumes did not harm me for long and whenever I was injured I was standing at the gate again the other day I soon was to get 70 nuyen for my day. The others always looked at me for the cred-stick I got and spoke about me when they thought I could not hear them but noone ever touched me. Then one day when I went to the flat I was to call home I was alone in the street except for a woman in a long black coat made of tanned leather of their prey when I heart hasty footfalls. From both sides of the narrow street these smelly, loud "Gang"-people apeared and everything about them screamed "run". Alone I would be hard pressed to take on these people but to my surprise the woman was a skilled warrior of her own. First taking out the atackers on my side with a stun-ball, then resorting to atacks more natural to be using teeth and claws she took on the ones comming from my backside with bursts from her cold cobra. The held the weapon surprisingly steady and aimed as if it was a part of her. I got to know her by the name of Chinmoku. She said it ment "shadow" in a language spoken far to where the sun was rising. In the following weeks I got to know her better and we were going to a backyard- shooting range together where she tought me how to use the pistol (an Ares Predator) I had taken from one of my atackers while she trained with a sport-rifle. At one such ocassion she offered me to go on a run with her. She ment my abilities as a fighter and a magician could prove usefull and most of all well payed as a shadow-runner and that she could introduce me to a group that would most likely have a job for me. At first I hesitated as I was still uncomfortable among humans and dealing with a team of runners would most likely mean one thing: dealing with magicians. I had already learned that the government payed highly for the kind of me.....dead and for every magic-user I was a bright cristmas-tree. Thus things came to be..... This first run came to be a desaster. Everything was to be so easy..just escord this strange human and play bodyguard for him in a simple transaction. He would give a suitcase and get money and we would be gone. Except that first he was shot and then the police flodded the area. Everyone went running for the way out. I jumped into a side-way, bullets racing past only to find this a cul-de-sac. Trying to make my way over to the only way out I was shot my first time ...by a vehicle-mounted cannon. I must don't know if I was out for one second or ten but I opened my eyes and things had not changed much. I was fully healed. I was injured a few times in my life then and it seemed that wounds on everybody else took way more time to disapeared then on myself. But I did not think I could survive that one bullet. Master Talking-Leaves had told me that a well enough armed bullet could still kill me and he had shown me very... vividly why I should stay away from silver and open fires. Things I had not experienced in my prior life in the wild. But I don't want to wander too far of what happened on my first run... After everybody got out we were stuck with the suitcase our employer had given us to take care of and after a great deal of running about, hining from the policy, who were very insistent of hunting us down, and talking with a number of people I met my first two dragons. His astral form was glowing like nothing I had ever seen before. Even Master Talking Leaves was just a dim glow against this star. Only minutes later I met my second dragon, she had the physical body of a human woman but on the magical plane she looked like a giant snake covered in feathers... and then we had to fight the first dragon with her help. It was terrible. Everywhere there was fear and panik and death and fear. I concentrated to fight any spell the moment it was cast at me, not bothering with these meta-humans that got me here in the first plave of cause. Even the spirits were tearing each other apart, everything was covered in humans someone had killed but not bothered to eat from. Except one that it. I am not shure why the others were so shaken by that discovery, after all it was just a pile of food. Shure humans usually hunt other prey and not their own kind but they should not have made that much of a fuss about it. I did not see much of the actual battle upstairs, being behind the door with no safe way to get out into the field of action and Chinmoku knelling in the door with her rifle trying to get a clear shot. Suddenly something rumbled on the wall and she was thrown back, together with the debris being left from the door....her left arm left from below the elbow. I was not safe here....not safe at all. I panicked and threw one of the fog-grenades from Chinmoku's belt through the door before I came out. Thinking back now I see that the grenade would not have affected our enemy the slightest but I could no longer think clear with the air practically consisting of pure fear and terror. I saw our dragon and put all my force into a stunball to knock him down, not bothering to fight the drain at all. I had the stunball ready when a being of the spirit-worldapeared before me and materialized. But I had only eyes for that dragon and threw the ball...it did not effect him much but the blow from the ghost did effect me. It hurt...it hurt a lot. But like all wounds this would be gone in a moment and I teared and clawed at the ghost. Now it does not seem like the best thing to do but after all... back then I had never fought a ghost. Let it suffice to say that we won...it was a close match but we won. Shortly after my first run I moved from the smelly Barrens into Lynnwood in Snohomish. I still travel over to the barrens to the old factory and even maintain a small hideout there where I can find clothing and a weapon in case of need but I nolonger hunt down there but instead in the fields I can see from my new flat in the second floor at the edge of neiborhood that too has seen better days. I tend to hang out in Jay's Boathouse North from time to time. Of cause I need to avoid the Balckstone Zoo here but as the racists are no concern to me I find this part pf the city much more to my likings. I recently set up my own shamanic lodge in the smaller of my 2 rooms and, with a helping hand, brought a more-or-less working washing-machine and a refrigator up here. I am currently preparing for a long time of meditation in order to seek insight from my rat, who's ways I have tried to follow as good as I can and learned to apreciate. I know of a power I am seeking from her....the power to finally mask nor only my physical apearance but my aura as well to walk the ways of man and live of them like my totem ment me to. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here I am again, my writing has not improved much but she insists that I train some more. The last month I was out in the woods in hiding. It was a close thing I got there alive but I made it. I was using my time to meditate and seek a vision from my totem like my old Master had tought me to. I did not eat, I did not sleep, I sat in that abadones badger-hole for an endless time. I must have been many days of watching myself and feeling every bit of magic running throgh my body and through the world around me. Then there came the thirst...it was tearing me apart. It was burning inside me but I ignored it. For days it burned me up from the inside out but my mind was totally focused like never before and then finally after many days it was gone. My mind had won over my physical body. It stil took many days after that but finally she granted me a vision of herself, my rat. She had an aura of greatness of wisdom and... of greed. I had never seen her like this before. I had always imagined her as just a lowly rat. Something to be hunted and eaten and following her ways as a necessary evil one had to put up with. But she was radically different. We talked for a long time, a vely long time. Many things changed back then. I am a devotet follower of her ways as I understand them now. I see the logic in her way so very clear wher I had but a dim view of it before. That I must look for his own benefit in this world and she rewards me for doing so and that she does not dislike me for I am a fox, one who used to feed on rats in times now past, but that she chose me for I am following her ways. She does like the rats and to show her respect I do not harm them anymore whenever that choice is on me. But she likes the rats not because of what they are but because of them following her ways. And for devoting myself to her ways she granted me my most honored power. The power to mask not only my body but my aura as well as long as I follow her ways properly. But I should not talk too much about her and I will do so no further. As I wrote I had to hide, I shall write about how that came to be instead. It started a few days before... I was out in the streets hidden in human shape and form as I mostly do in the streets of man checking out a magic-store I had found in a cul-de-sac out in the barrens. Then foodstaps came closer, running. I hid behind a trash-can that contained enough fungus and plant-material to hide my astraly glowing body. I concentrated shortly and imagined myseld as a smaller trashcan...and my apearance changed. The foodsteps came from a group of one human and orc and a elf comming around the corner. The human was dressed in a fine suit and did not seem to belong here at all. The orc on the other hand was wearing torn jeans and a large amor-plated vest but below that he was more machine than orc anymore. The elf had a long coat with strange symbols on it like the ones hermetic magicians used and I just hoped she would not see me in my hiding-place. Following the first group came about two dozens of gangers armed with everything from clubs to sport-rifles and among them was thins made of metal that somehow resembled the shape of a man but there was no life in it and it was armed...well armed. When the rain of bullets started I saw that I was in no way safe here and that I needed to end this fight before a stray bullet hit me. The 3 were fighting well so I chose to turn against the side that was on the lose.. the gangers and the strange robot that so clearly was beyond everything these guys could affort. The magician kept the gangers at bay with his stun-balls while the orc and human took on the robot. But they had little chance as the machine was faster and better armed. I chose to help them by making the orc diasppear and gave the robot a new target by creating the illusion of another robot like it but working for the other side of this fight... it took a lot out of me to keep these two spells up but it turned the tides in favor of this group of three. After the fight they looked around who had helped them and as I could not hide from their magic- user anyway I showed myself. We talked a while about how they could show their gratitude but finally they decides it would look better for them if they decided to take me on and cash in the reward for the hide of a shape-shifter set out. Luckily it was the cyber-orc who atacked me first and not the mage. He knocked me out and made the mistake to think I would stay that way... I did not bother to open my eyes before I stunned the mage seeing him very well on the astral plane. With him out it was in no way easy to get away from them but I managed to. Suffice it to say they made it their personal goal to get me and the next days where hell. Finally I managed to get to the woods of Lynwood, just barely in one piece, where the mage could not see me glowing from a mile away and in the earth I hid myself. Totally invisible to anyone mage or not. And there I stayed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few days ago some human female tried to roast me after trying to recrut me for her gang. Luckily she was a very minor street-mage going for cyberware before discovering her talent. She did not even find out I was a magic-user too before I had her in my hand. It was so much fun playing with her. A voice from here, some foodsteps there, a stone hitting a trash-can over there... I had lots of fun. She ment her gang could use someone like me but I did not feel like commiting to it. I gave her my number so they could reach me in case they wanted something done and agreed to meet the others some time later. Maybe I can manipulate and use them for my purposes. Today I was hired by her to cause some rigger this gag had "problems" with as much trouble as I could. Deal was, I bought her old rating 1 sustaining-focus for half the stree-price (that's as much as a new one costs in an official shop) as she wanted to get herself a better one and I was to keep everything I wanted from the rigger as a payment. As long as no magicians are involved I agreed. It seems to be my lucky day. This guy ran a repair-shop with not much in the way of security. I observed him and his help a while invisible before woing to work. They had a small upper room with a small safe in there where I figured they kept their money, noone in the barrens can be expected to have a bank-account after all. It was an old model with a rotating dial to enter a combination and a mechanical lock. As I was in desperate need of money after purchasing the sustaining-focus with the next rent comming up and everything I wanted to get their money before doing anything else. I Overhearing the two I found out that this evening a client would come to collect a car they modified somehow. I did not understant what they had done but what was important was that the client was to pay. Of cause they would have to open the safe to put the money in there and I was to be ready. I observed as he got the key from the bottom of his toolkit downstairs and was standing invisibly next to him as he entered the combination. It was close that he did not touch my in that small room but it worked out nonetheless. (My first idea was to hide as a cat on the other side of the window but I could not see a thing from there so I had to change the plan.) Now getting the key was my next problem. Quite some time later the two of them were to eat..this was my chance. They were in the other corner of the shop with a car between them and the toolkit. I cast a silence-spell on the toolkit, dropping the one I held cast on me additionally to the invisibility-spell and carefully roamed the toolkit. Everything else was easy then. I got the money, placed the key where it came from and after they were gone I just had to wreak some havoc in the shop giving the camera downstairs the illusion of some yakuza-money-lenders "visiting" their shop. Thinking about it later I was lucky that they had no camera upstairs as there was only one entrance downstairs and the only dirty window up there had some strong plastic-bars on the inside. I counted 14'800 nuyen from their safe. I did not take any of the tools and there was no car in there. The next day I was to meet Steel's (that was her name) gang. They were pleased with the way I handled this, especially the yakuza-idea. Aperently they had in that time wracked his expensive car and stolen his second car. An not yet modified nissan Jackrabbit (they said he had just bought it at that time). They offered my to buy that one with the money I had stolen and would care for license-plates and a place to keep it for the next few month. Of cause that would give them the oportinity to wreak or steal it if they got angry at me but for the time being I accepted and started looking for a place to keep it myself. Somewhere in Lynnwood would be much more practical then to have to travel to Redmond to use it. I also asked Steel if she could look for some materials I needed to upgrade my lodge to my new magical abilities after initiating and she agreed to keep her eyes open for me and ask some contacts of her as she knew some shop-keeper in their territory (who pays them to avoid "accidents" like with the rigger). She could not get me the materials for now but I bought her old force-2 magic finger "spell-formula", actually a painting. Of cause I took the time place a meighty masked ward on the car, now having a mobile hiding-place in case I got into magical trouble. Not being able to shut on and off my magical presence like the magicians around be can be quite dangerous indeed and having them to overcome a ward that they cannot even see could prove...usefull to my life-expectency here in the city. After that really lucky day, leaving with a new car, a rating-1 spell-sustaining-focus and 2000 nuyen left over I found the concentration and calm to learn the new spell but not yet for the limited amor (only for bullets) spell I had kept around my lodge for weeks now nor the others. The next weeks I spent preparing a hiking-trip through the rocky mountians. Chinmoku was gone now for quite some time now, didn't tell anyone where, just that it would be for a number of month. Her rent was payed every month by a suit comming over to her landlord. The trip would bring me through some of the places where I once lived and end in a tourist-spot where I had aranged a place in the rock-climbing-for-beginners cource via trid-phone. I was considering buying a small-time levitation-formula, just in case. Maybe even my rat would teach me the spell so I could flee much easier. Now that I have the spell-sustaining-focus bound for invisibility it should be possible to use both spells and still be able to concentrate enough to use the magic finger or a stunball in case something goes totally wrong. I kept dragging learning that limited amor-spell along, never able to get myself to learn it. It's a difficult spell but still, it could mean my survival. On the trip I hoped to gather with the local medicine-man and maybe be allowed to gather some herbs that I couldn't find with the talismongers in the city in an acceptable quality. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2 days before the trip would start I got an invitation from Christopher by voice-mail, a street-doctor I know. He was invited to the wedding-party of a local dealer and did not want to go there alone as he knew nearly noone of the other guests. I went "shopping" for the right cloathing and face by having a look-see through some stores selling the kind of suits male humans are expected to wear on such occasions and trained my physical mask -spell some more in front of a mirror to get a perfect average tv-reporter's face. It did come out quite well and I do think the training helped. At the wedding I was hesistant at first, looking out if any mages where present but only found 2 ki-adepts who seldomly have the power of a second face and as far as I know it's unheard of for them to know the technique of astral (de)masking so I could move freely. It was interesing to say the least to overhear the different conversations of the other guests, many of whom being favored clients or personal friends of the dealer. They had some interesting chinese food complete with these strange fortune-cookies. This is where it became interesting. On the backside of my note (from the cookie) something hand-written. Christopher said it ment "Help me, I'm being held in a fortune-co", there the note ended. I aproached the waiter with the note, only to overhear the couple of ki-adepts already talking to him about the cookies. I set for listening in for a while and, seing them fumble with another such note, I gave them mine. It was interesting to see them talk. One of the two, a troll who seemed very unfomfortable in his fine cloathing, was aperantly unable to speak so the other, a female dwarf, spoke the words in voice and hand-gestures simulatiously. Very interesting. It turned out that the whole message was that somene who's name and adress was given in the notes was being held in a fortune-cookie-factory. I asked if I could follow the 2 to find out where this leads. More of interest in the strange couple then the actual incident, apearantly a kind of joke played with the guests or the like. To make a long story short it was no joke and the wife of the imprisoned man offered us 800Y for finding him. The ork would not take any money from her and just pointed her the bible in his hand and passed her a note along with it. I of cause accepted quite willingly, "take what you can" as they put it. I don't think the ork was terribly happy about that. It did not take us terribly long, certainly less work then I had expected, to find the place the man was imprisoned in. The ork turned out to be some kind of extremely religous type getting strong visions from his god or something. I had not taken much interest in religion so far but I think one day I should investigate on this, aperantly quite powerfull, spirit he refers to as god. The place was the kitchen of a closed down chinese restaurant with mediocre security. Sneaking around inside (me being well in the background) the 2 found one guard and hit him a few times. Not without him firing a number of rounds (but not hitting anything but walls). I saw the scene throuh a half opened door, having decided to stay out of view while they open the door. As the rounds flew I swung out of view and could hear a clank from the kittchen oppiside to my door. Getiing invisible and into my natual body I decided to investigate the kittchen while the 2 fought off the guard. They where quite effective at that sending him flying into the front-rooms in the process to not wake up again. In the kittchen we were surprised by 3 more guards, quite well equipped fellows, hiding behind the counters. I was about to take down two of them but was surprised by the dwarf jumping one of them and one of them ducking so my stun-ball took her and one of them down. I was not shure if I had hit the other one. As we where taking down the third guard (the ork having no clue that an invisible fox was helping him) I saw number two hiding between the sleeping bodies of our dwarf and number one but could not see our ork to warn him. Thus I decided to let that guard do the job for me by jumping him and biting into his neck. I did not manage to break it and must have somehow missed both his aorta somehow; I definately need to hunt more often. But he gave a gurgling sound and scrambled away and this was all I need to let him hear it. It turned out they where producing BTL-chips in a back-room. I had some trouble with the stunned ork as I apeared in human form but unmasked (well out of his reach, but sadly not out of reach for is teleskopic-staff). My world went black. It cannot have been more then 3 seconds before I was on my feet again, he seeming quite stunned that I wasn't out for long having regenerated the wounds and blackout as usual. As I took the dwark and remaining guard to the cars this bloody ork did someething so amazingly stupid I pondered strinign him down. There was a fortune in BTL that I'm shure chinmoku could find a dealer for in that back-room and the weapons and money of the 4 guards had their value as well but this guy simply cut out the gas-line for the cooking-plates and was about to simply burn that place to the ground, saying something along the lines of "the sin must be rooted out" or the like. We where using my new telepathy-spell I had learned at that time and (having just nocked me our, being way faster then me and well able to kill me if he wanted to) this ******* ork even made me promise not to take my offered payment for risking my **** life down here. In the end the only thing I left the place with was what I came with and a little bet of a better reputation in the streets and a somewhat better karma. I am pondering that my karma could just be enough to finally learn the limited amor- spell I have tucked away in my lodge for so long now. Giving the painting bearing the secret of a modified magic-finger spell to use teeth&calws-combat on range a try would not be a good Idea I think; my performance in biting this human was way too poor to justify that. Of cause the spell-shield -mandala would be an option too. For the time being I decided to stay with my goos karmic (unmasked ;) ) aura and prepare for a longer time of meditation to finally increase my skill in doing magic to the new level of manna I can channel after my initiaion. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today I had to flee Seattle. The house my flat in Lynwood is in was crawling from Longstar and someone hat broken the masked ward I had placed covering the stairs and elevator to alarm me should any magician come for me. I could not take any chances so I dumped everything in the hole I had set up in the redmond-sewers in my time there, glad that no rats had tempered with the lock, and ran over into salish-shide-land in my natural form. After everything had settled down I found out that someone was murdered in the flat above mine. Dam'n near had me running for my life. I ended up with a group of 3 runners investigating that case as a contact of them was involved. There was a reward involved for the murderer and a few days after he ended up in the gas-chamber.... Problem was, this guy wasn't the murderer but only possessed by some 2000+ year old demon or strange-ghost or whatever. Problem was too...this thing was following us. Everywhere in the streets, everywhere I was turning people where whistling this one melody...it nearly drove me mad! Well, we found out it changed bodies on contact and of his body dies it grew in power enormously for a few seconds and in that time it could fly at will and possess anyone "but the strongest of fate or will" to withstand him. We where working with Captn Grissom of Lonestar who was leading the investigation on the murders and...to make a long story short; after quite some investigation, one specially designed detection spell and lots or paranoia got him nailed using 3 drones firing net-guns and fast hardening riot-controll-foam to immobilise him and keep him from touching anyone or killing himself. Now he is not dead but safely locked away somewhere. ....raising the questions if with 2000 years of experience he will not some day find a way to flee. Lonestar and we can find him now and he has never seen our faces or heard our names...but this thing is simply powerfull and very very angry at us. After these weeks of excitement and quite a large reward from the Captn for the "murderer" for eveyone (with 12 dead bodies up to that time and countless lifes saved.) I finally spent the time to learn that limited amor spell and concentrated on training to improve my spell-casting. Should he ever escape in whatever body he meight take....I want to be ready for him! (I doubt that he can cast spells unless the body he used can.)