> Remilia: Charisma Break.
> Patchouli: Think about old wounds.Despite having been IMPALED and having nearly EVERY BONE IN YOUR BODY broken all those years ago, you are perfectly fine. Not only have you created the Philosopher's Stone, you have also become a FULL YOUKAI. You can eventually recover from even the most disastrous of physical wounds. That said, the Philosopher's Stone is no Hourai Elixir, so NOT GETTING KILLED is still very much a concern.
Your terrible health can be owed entirely to your sedentary lifestyle. You have nobody to blame but yourself!
> Patchouli: Use magic to make yourself better. Stronger. Faster.
If only solving your health problems was that easy!
Unfortunately, for the time being you think it'd be a good idea to avoid PERSONAL TRANSMUTATION MAGIC. Your difficulty in keeping up with the recitations of your spells, especially ones you're not accustomed to, makes MISCASTS a significant concern. You have enough mastery over your ELEMENTAL MAGIC that you can safely have them fizzle out, but miscasting spells that change your own body can have SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES (as anyone who has watched a significant number of cartoons can tell you).
You can get around this by BREWING POTIONS instead, but this is not often worth it due to the generally short durations relative to the time and effort it takes to make them, not to mention the complications presented in gathering the ingredients. Regardless, they are an option if you find yourself needing SUPER STRENGTH, or something of the sort, for whatever reason.
> Patchouli: Check spell cards.You have ALL THE SPELLCARDS. ALL OF THEM. Well, all of yours. As far as you know, Kirisame is the only person with more spellcards than you, but a bunch of them are jokes anyway so whatever.
But unlike her, you have all your spellcards on you at any given time. You store them inside your SPELLBOOK, which you always carry with you. Your versatility in danmaku is unsurpassed!
While you're at it, you examine your SPELLBOOK. This book, created by you, offers a wide variety of features for the busy magician:
- It can instantly flip to any page with the contents you're looking for.
- It can automatically organize any spells you write into it, so that they are always in alphabetical order.
- It can temporarily copy long passages of text from other books and store them inside itself for later perusal.
- It contains a partial catalogue of the books in the SDM's library, and where to find them (not always accurate, due to your LAZY FAMILIAR'S POOR ORGANIZATION and a CHRONIC PROBLEM WITH KIRISAME-RELATED THEFTS).
- It is, for all practical purposes, indestructible; furthermore, it can be imbued with magic to propel it at high speeds, making it suitable as a PHYSICAL WEAPON.
- It smells nice.
As you can see, there is basically no reason not to carry this thing everywhere.
> Patchouli: Think about Flandre.
Your first encounter with FLANDRE (which occured when she was let out by Remilia for the Centennial Festival in 1900) nearly resulted in you being obliterated by her EAGERNESS TO PLAY. Thankfully, she seems to have settled down quite a bit since moving to Gensokyo. Hopefully she'll be able to function as normally as any of the other SDM's residents someday, although unfortunately you have your doubts. She just has way too much power for her own good.
Remilia decided to allow Flandre out of the basement shortly after the SCARLET MIST INCIDENT. Kirisame had broken into the mansion again, and ran afoul of Flan, who had broken out; Remi was so shocked at Marisa's survival in the following firefight that she decided Gensokyo might be a rough enough place that it could handle Flan being on the prowl.
Flandre is still forbidden from leaving the mansion, an edict she has thankfully been happy to follow (so far). However, she still breaks things (and sometimes people) with ALARMING FREQUENCY. Flan-related maintenance accounts for more than two-thirds of the SDM's monthly budget. While you do lend MORAL SUPPORT for eventually introducing Flandre to society, you personally prefer to avoid her; you only see her once every few weeks. Having her around makes you nervous.
She's just a sticky subject in general. From a pragmatic standpoint, you can't say it was a bad idea to seal her in the basement in the first place, but you know Remilia had other reasons for doing it...
> Patchouli: Go get ready for the party.Sigh. You guess you'd better go to your room to get dressed and get your stuff.
You attempt to stand up, but you are hampered by all that READING you did. You flop back down in your chair and call for a fairy maid to go get you some coffee.
You relax and pick up one of the books at your desk, when SUDDENLY!
Everything goes dark!
Oh, it's just her again.
This is RUMIA, a darkness youkai that lives in the general area of the Misty Lake. She is probably the LEAST ANNOYING of your regular trespassers. But still a trespasser. She usually bothers you because she wants to KNOW THINGS. Her darkness aura feels kind of nice, though.
The other members of the SDM are familiar with her as well. She's played with Flandre a few times and has not once left without GRIEVOUS INJURIES, but she keeps coming back so you guess she doesn't care.
Rumia asks you if you have any books about DIGGING TUNNELS. You inform her that you are fresh out.
She responds in a very predictable manner.
> _
