The war had begun in the silence of the missing.
- Besieged


It is not difficult to lose something or someone inside a Nexus. The diasporic nature of the local population, when coupled with the tendency for visitors to come and go, made reporting a missing person a practically pointless affair. There was no one who had been here long who couldn?t name a voice that had disappeared without warning, without sign, without goodbye. Not everyone who found their way to the city?s arms did so smoothly. Sometimes they found a grave instead. Those that hunted others for survival or sport were rarely without lost souls from which to claim another day above ground for themselves. Who then, would notice when new predators came to town? Who then, would notice when the destitute and unrecorded went on the decline? No one, at first. For months: another day, another face gone.

By itself, the wind is often quiet. It takes the trees, the narrow alleys, the creaky signs to give it a sound. It takes collars turned up and the shell of ears to collect its rushing. You don?t often see the wind, just where it has been. Where it curls the water closer to shore with frothy white tips or where, over time, it smooths winding passages through stone. To live, creatures of air must be reflected in the way they move others. They seek people to push and pull, delighting to carry their wishes and their stories forward. They give the wind a voice, remind us of its presence when it is often all too easy to overlook the warm breeze that stirs your hair. When they leave us, it therefore takes time to notice the stillness. To notice the lack of energy in the air. To notice the silence of absence.

Hide and Seek, Part 2

He hisses a breath through his teeth. Turns his back on the half open doorway a second time, and unfolds the letter in his hands, angling it toward the light to skim its contents, rubbing the ache between his brows, borne of frustration at his own impatience and mental ruddiness.

Inside, Shae's handwriting scrawled out in a letter:

E --

I don't know when you are going to get this letter, or if you ever will, but I thought I should leave it for you, just in case. It's been awhile since I heard from you. I hope your searches are going well and you're not just living in bars drinking over your loss. I thought about calling, or texting, but I didn't want to put this on you. Not after Constance.

I know you told me to wait for you to use the herbs you gave me. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry to disappoint you. I can't wait anymore. That sounds ridiculous after how long I've been searching, even as I write it, but it's the truth. All being well, I'll tell you all the explanations after. All being well, I will take this letter back and you can upbraid me in person.

I will have Fox with me so I won't be alone. He's not thrilled with it either, but if I can contact someone it will be worth the risk and he knows it. There's no one to distract me anymore, and I can feel the days slipping by and I... If you find this letter before I find you, please come visit. I've moved to a place near the West End border of the Temple District. There's a sign out front that says Church House. I'm living there with a woman named Kate, but she's often on her own business.

I miss you and I'm sorry.

--S

He recognizes names. Constance, Fox, Kate. Reads and rereads in the pale light of her abandoned room. Flips the paper over so that he can read the "address" a second time. The letter tells him nothing, and it shouldn't. It isn't intended for him. Exhaling, he pulls a hand down his face, takes the letter with him, and lets himself out of her room, intent on heading to the one that belonged to this E.

The door down the hall was unremarkable. Just another Inn door. There was no sign of a light on inside.

He pulls Shae's door closed behind him, stuffs the letter back into his hoodie pocket on his way down the hall. It isn't far. He presumes that she wanted to be polite in sending this missive, so she used the cubbies instead of just stuffing it under the door. He doesn't know if E is the him she needs help locating, isn't sure if E is a he to begin with. Cris tests the door handle, bows his head near the closed door to listen for---something, anything.

The door is locked and the room is silent.

Leaning down, he tugs his stele from where it's tucked in his boot. Turns the crystalline tip toward the wood of the door. The closer it gets, the brighter the white-blue glow flares from within, until contact is made. He draws a rune the size of a large coin meant to quietly force the locks on the other side open, and he waits for them to click.

The door remained steadfastly locked despite his runic efforts.

He watches the molten image of the rune sink into the wood and turn black. He can't count on the Laws of his people and the Shadow World he knows all working here the same as they do back home, and his frown cuts in, disappointed, but not surprised, when no clicks come. He knocks at the door, but hears nothing in response. Finally, pushes away from it, with his stele, and the letter. The only place he has left to go is her new home. He looks down the hall toward the main room of the inn.

The common room remained as he had left it in the wake of her message. The addition of height to his vantage point didn't reveal any new secrets. There might have been more to her message, but it was lost to the efforts she had taken to make it reach him.

When he returns to the room outside the hall, he checks the dirt and leaves left behind on the floor, in case it's come together, somehow, to spell a word. He stuffs the letter in his pocket, pushes his hands back through his hair, closing his eyes as he thinks.

No letters in the leaves, no more words. The breeze had left and the Inn was quiet again.

His hands drag down his face. He turns to the mail cubbies first, though he doesn't know why. He doesn't, really, want to rip his way through mail that isn't meant for him. The cubby matching E's room number is stuffed full. He takes the wad of paper available to him from it. Takes the wad from Shae's corresponding room number, and begins to shuffle through them both.

The mysterious E turns out to be a man name Ezra Rowe. From the state of his mail cubby, he's not been in town in some time, or is very bad at checking his mail. Shae's contains a few advertisement flyers. Coupons and the like. There is a missive addressed to her from the Dragon?s Gate Orphanage, a bank statement, and a letter from the Academy.

He checks each item for a date to judge just how long the cubbies have been left to their own devices. He searches through Ezra's collection for anything else from Shae, surrendering to the uselessness of it all when he reaches the end of the piles a second time. Stacking them together, he shoves them back into their respective slots and marches out from behind the bar. He does not know exactly where her new home is, but he's sure that a cabby would.

The letter from Dragon?s Gate Orphanage is from November, the letter from the Academy is from December, and the bank statement is from the first of the year.

Throughout the short and haphazard investigation, it seemed like Shae's absence had lined up perfectly with his own. He assumes that means she missed the insanity of February. His shoulder hits the door, spilling him out into the early dark of the evening. He employs a hasty stride that will take him to a more populated street. It takes him longer than he's hoping to flag down a transport vehicle, this one an eighteenth century carriage, its driver sitting high on a small seat, with a curling whip in his hand. Cris reports his destination to the elder gentleman, then hops into the carriage.

The driver knows of the place. It was a church, an old Christian faith building that had been converted into a house. Still had the original cemetery attached to the yard, or so claimed the driver. He himself had dropped a few people off there from time to time. Younger people. The place had seen some loud parties from the new owner.

He spends the journey with the middle finger of his left hand up against his mouth, a thin crag of skin caught between his teeth despite the sting and subtle taste of salt and iron. He watches the city bump and pass them by, gritting his teeth at the carriage's jostling, and he's glad when it's all over. Hands the elder man payment and tip for his service and jumps down from the carriage to the street, passing around the gargantuan Clydesdale horse.

His gaze climbs to the apex of the church as he makes his way toward it.

Passing through the stone arch facing the street leads to a path that walks through the front yard and up to the door. A small herb garden has Shae's handiwork in sight, somewhat at odds with the way the yard tends towards 'unkempt' in the direction of the grave markers behind the building. Seems the driver's rumor mill wasn't inaccurate. It's a modest structure, for a church. Stone with stained glass windows. The door to the repurposed building is a heavy wooden thing with a camera pointing at the doorstep.

He gives the only trim spot of the yard a longer look, squinting at the herb garden for evidence of recent attention. Weeds, mulch, overturned earth. His thumbs smear over the scars on his knuckles, three loops of black elastic that's replaced a thick silver ring on the back of his right hand. His gaze zeroes in on the camera with an arch of one dark brow. He puts his hand on the heavy door, balls a fist, and bangs it six times into the wood.

Things sown were beginning to grow. Both intended and not. The little garden hadn't seen much attention, but it had been given a solid foundation. Including a mesh wire covering to keep animals out.

Knocking on the door gains no answer, but much like the door to her room at the Inn, there is a shift of warding and the door unlocks itself. Somehow, she had keyed him for entry here.

He pulls his hand back, retreats a step and a half until the door ceases with all of its clicking. Frowning, when it's silent, he grips the door handle tightly, opens the door with a quiet grunt of effort, and lets himself inside.

There's a small entrance for coats and shoes before a hallway. On the left are stairs that go up, on the right is a door to the main room. Straight ahead is what looks like a makeshift storage area for an unreasonable amount of clothing, all Kate's. The room to the right appears to contain a computer desk, a pool table, couches, a coffee table, and evidence of drinking and house guests. It leads into a kitchen area.

He doesn't think it's right that he's giving himself a tour of her home without her. He should have come sooner. He moves cautiously through the half dark of the spacious first floor, his senses on alert in the silence for any foreign sound or sight. Like back at the Red Dragon, he has absolutely no idea what he's looking for. Evidence, perhaps, of occupation. He looks up the staircase, but turns to canvass the rest of the first floor, looking quickly over it all, poking his head, briefly, into the kitchen at the far end, before he backtracks.

A spiral staircase leading up stands catty corner to the kitchen and a door off to the side is closed. Having seen the majority of the first floor, he can go poking in cupboards or head upstairs.

It takes less time to cross the first floor the second time than it had the first. He takes the stairs two at a time until they permit him to the second floor, stepping out onto the landing with the same caution as he had upon entering the building at all. He glances back over his shoulder before he presses on, choosing the first door he comes across, the bedroom on his right, to check.

The landing bears Shae's mark again. The space has been turned into a library. The books from her apartment are all here. Also in the space is a small bar with the supplies to make tea and a number of other drinks. The first door on the right stands open. A space that was a bedroom has been turned into a workroom. A large desk and shelves, scattered with the sort of supplies that had decorated her desk at the Inn, take up most of the space here. A box is prominent, as are some glass vials, notes on rare herbs, and a mortar and pestle.

He looks over the collection of vials and ingredients, evidence of working with magic, and his brow pulls in, wrinkling in the middle. He frowns at it all so that his expression will not twist up. It takes only a moment to discern that the room is empty but for its supplies. He retreats, heading past the library and bar, for the next door in front of him.

The next door, the one facing the stairs, is closed, locked. There is a similar sound of lock opening when he tries the handle.

He lets the locks undo themselves, presses his fingertips against the door to force it open and look inside. There's another door on the left side of the room that he gives a moment of his attention to, then he looks over the rest of the room before him.

This was Shae's bedroom, certainly. That door on the left led to a bathroom. The room itself was dominated by a queen size bed. A wardrobe stood against one wall, a dresser against another. Her chest was at the foot of the bed and there was a night table to one side. The door on the other side of the room was closed. A window was open here, letting a draft into the room.

The bed was unmade and the sheets wrinkled. A change of clothes lay over a chair and the night table was cluttered with more herbs and what looked to be a long dried paste in a bowl.

He can smell the city in the breeze letting itself in through the window. He's careful where he puts his boots, to be sure he doesn't step on anything. Any warmth on the bed would have been blown away by now, but he touches the wrinkles of the sheets with his fingertips anyway, the ruination of cuticles standing out sharply against the pallor of his skin where they meet the bedding. He pauses at the night table, picking the bowl up from where it rested to give it a sniff.

Even dried, the herbs had a heady smell that had that ethereal ozone flavor of magic to it. Probably best not to breathe too deeply. All that remained on the bed was fox fur.

He grunts, frowning, because it does not smell bad like he thinks it will, but something about it tugs him to inhale more. He sweeps a single fingertip across the dried crust, looking at what color it leaves behind on his skin. She couldn't have meant for him to help her find Fox, Fox had to be with her. He grits his teeth, sets the bowl down, and continues to look around the room.

Color has been leached from the mixture by time and air and sun, leaving little more than a white powder that tingles against his flesh. Thankfully it was sapped of potency, or else the contact might have had some unpleasant side effects.

Hide and Seek, Part 4

The club in question has a line of people out front waiting to get in. Some are dressed as priests and there is the occasional slutty angel or demon, but most are in 'normal' clubbing attire. The loud music spills onto the street every time a new patron is let inside by the stoic faced bouncer. A larger poster for the theme party suggests attendees 'Enjoy All the Sins You Gave Up!' and offers 'Dancer Confessional Booths'.

Cris passes the fare around to the cabby and thanks him for his service before the cab even rolls to a stop. He spills out of the Beetle in a tangle of legs and stiff leather, takes a look at the line, and falls back to search for the club's adjacent alley. Along the way, he catches the hem of his shirt with the curl of his fist and forces it up, cutting a single rune into the taut, rangy plane of his lower abdomen, the rune meant to render him invisible to all but the most keen of perceptions. He doubts the club's clientele will pay him much attention regardless, but it won't hurt.

The alley exit has a group of dancers and a bouncer smoking. around it. Further down the alley a pair of someones is enjoying themselves in the shadows.

That isn't anything he needs to be watching, for the Angel's fucking sake. He slips between the clustered bodies, around the bouncers, assuming the door's latch has been taped or stoppered in some way to prevent it from locking the dancers out, forcing them to get back in line once they've finished their cigarettes. He puts his hand on the door handle, gives it an experimental tug.

The door swings in easily, a piece of glow in the dark tape has been placed over the latch to keep it from catching while the employees take their smoke breaks. It opens to the backstage area that leads to the DJ stand and the dancer 'confessional' cages.

He slips in through the space he's made for himself and lingers near the wall while he cuts the fifth rune into the back of his hand, grits his teeth at the discomfort burning above his knuckles. The pulse of music thunder in his chest, in his throat. He refuses to take stock of any but the necessary details.

The lights flash in time to the music in his vision. The perspective has changed, from the table to the bar, where women were surrounding the subject of the vision and reaching their hands towards his head.

Cris searches for the way down to the main floor, cautiously skirting the snake pit of electric cables underfoot, clinging to the wall to avoid as much contact as he can. Here and there, his arm is winged by an errant elbow, or shoulder, of passersby, that are jostled by the contact, but puzzled when they look and find nothing where they're sure they felt something solid. He angles himself around a tall, platinum blond in a white sheath dress made of vinyl, an uneven C cut out of the mid-section to expose her taut stomach. He needs to navigate half the floor to make it to the bar. The lights flash off his grim expression, leeching color from his gaze, adding it back moments later. He can't hear himself think, or breathe. It's suffocatingly hot, there, on the dancefloor, with the writhing of bodies and limbs, the stench of sweat and sin, the sweetness of liquor and fruit.

Nearly two minutes later, he spots the target of his search in between passing heads. Discreetly, he cuts another, smaller rune next to the one he'd originally added on his stomach. Once he joins the cluster at the bar, he reaches for the shoulder of the nearest woman in attempts to gently guide her aside with a, "Pardon me," pitched louder so it can fight against the volume of the music around them.

As he drew closer to the small group of women, there was the low musical lilt of a man's voice telling a story. The woman Cris turned shot him a look of confusion for the intrusion, and then a flashed him a squint of annoyance. The source of the voice was a handsome man with hair that appeared black in the dim club lighting. His arm was laced around the waist of a woman sitting in his lap and another woman was enjoying herself by toying with his hair. He had yet to notice the addition to the circle, or if he did he didn't let on. The story continued. "...all I could do was hope she could hold her breath until the innkeeper left." One flash of a devastating smile had a few of the women blushing.

The stele is too thin to fit in the empty sling on the outside of his right leg. He stuffs it down his belt, into his gear, at his back and covers it like a gun. "I beg your pardon for interrupting such a fascinatingly grotesque story, but may I speak to you," with a nod at the man piled upon by at least four different limbs, "in private?"

The man looked Cris up and down lazily, making no effort to extricate himself from that tangle. "That depends. Do I know you?" Affable amusement seeped from his tones, his frame relaxed. "If it's about your sister, I maintain I haven't met her either. I've been with these lovely ladies all evening."

"I haven't any siblings, but I do, at least, have an extremely close friend that bade me find you. Perhaps you can enlighten me as to why that is, and I do hope it has nothing to with the this prescription for a highly contagious, genital rash that I found among your possessions," he says, tugging half of the crumpled letter from his hoodie pocket, "three weeks of follow-up appointments, by the Angel, what did you stick it in?"

His smile faltered and the spell of the atmosphere around him seemed to dim. A few of the women peeled off, confused, disgusted, or bored. "So you're suggesting that you've gone through my possessions at the bid of a friend, and you were so concerned about my health that you came to bring me my mail? That's very kind of you. In a crazy stalker sort of way.? He helped the woman off his lap. "Be a dear and go get the bouncer would you? And stay clear. This man may be unstable."

"No, this I kept so that I may have it framed, because I found it hilarious. I've only seen a symptom list this long on experimental prescriptions," he says, watching the last woman peel off from the man before him. "Shall we?" canting his head toward a darker corner of the club. "Privately, please."

"This feels private enough for a man who is casting aspersions on my bodily health. You chased all the better company away" He reached for a glass of whiskey on the bar behind him, bringing it to his lips. Without the woman playing with his hair, the shadow of a black eye was clear. "So who are you and what do you want?"

Perhaps this was what she meant by hiding. Was it real, or a complete fabrication? He watches the other man with his drink, looks over the discoloration around one eye socket. "You haven't any idea who I am at all."

"Should I?" Another glance up and down. "Are you in some sort of band?" In his defense, that was a lot of dark colors. The amusement was returning.

"I haven't the time for this," he says quietly, rolling his eyes. He stuffs the letter back into his pocket and reaches for the crook of the other man's neck in attempts to firmly guide him from the edge of the bar to a less populated corner of the venue. "What we have to discuss is not for anyone's ears but ours."

The affable annoyance is broken slightly by the hard set of the man's eyes when Crispin puts his hand on him. "Hands off, friend." Attempting to remove the limb in question. "Unless you want trouble and not a conversation." He takes one more lazy sip before allowing himself to stand up. "If it's that important to you, we can talk about it." He gestures Cris to lead the way.

He feels the same, on most occasions, and it doesn't take effort for the other man to shrug free of his hand. Cris holds it up, open, but does not trust him to follow. Instead, he falls in step beside him, pointing out the mouth of a dark hallway at the other end of the bar as their destination.

The man picks up the leather coat he was sitting on and shrugs it on, sliding his hands into the pockets. Cris makes it clear that he's not going to be taking the lead, so he sighs and walks with him towards the hallway. "So I hope you're going to tell me who you are so I know who to blame for my disappointing evening."

He doesn't know if this has anything to do with the white crust in the bowl he'd found in Shae's room. Does not speak until he joins the other man in the hallway. "My name is Cris. Our mutual friend, Shae, bade me locate you, and no, it had nothing to do with any prescription, but more about the fact, I'm certain, that you could aid me in finding her. Something tells me, though, that you haven't any idea who she is either."

The man yawned and didn't bother to try to hide it. "Look. Mate. I'm sorry you've lost your friend, but have you tried checking in with the town guard? I'm not a hound, nor am I a hunter. I don't know you or this woman. I don't see why you think I can help you."

He squints at the man that used to be Fox, crossing his arms. This did not seem like a simple case of amnesia, though that may explain the black eye. He'd said it before, he hadn't the time to be gentle, and even if he did, he didn't really know how to go about doing it. "I tracked you. Here. I know who you are, even if you do not, presently." He pulls his phone from his gear, taps the screen a few times to open one of the gallery's several folders. "You were meant to accompany her, somewhere. Clearly, that is not the case now. Perhaps there's some truth to this, as if you'd seen her, I'm certain you'd remember her." He pauses on a candid image of a woman against a twilight sky, standing upon the edge of a roof. It's her profile, at a distance, that's given toward the camera, a wisp of foggy blue captured as it passed across her cheek when he took it. He didn't even remember doing so. He hadn't as many photographs of Shae as he'd like to have. He turns the phone to show the other man. "She called you Fox. If you could, at least, give me the rundown of your last few months in town. Something, that I might use to locate her."

The man leaned to look at the offered phone and squinted at the picture on the screen, his face impassive. "Not the best picture. There's a lot of women with black hair in this city. I'm telling you though, I don't know her." One more look and then he leaned back. "And it's not a case of 'kiss and don't tell'. Or shoddy memory. I actually have a fine memory, thank you. I've been working for an advertising firm. I'd give you my card but I'm still not sure about you. I am a fox, though, so if she called me that she must have seen one of my commercials."

"Which firm is this?" He locks the phone, and puts it away. He has enough fur, back in Shae's room to locate the man again, if he needs to.

"It's a subsidiary of Whafyle Corporation called RhyLyfe. Have you seen the one for Maltida's Flowers?" There was that grin again, bright and confident.

"I may have," he's sure he hasn't. He rubs his head. He gropes for the next step.

Her room. There had to be something else in her room. Perhaps some sort of-----countermeasure for whatever it is that had been done to Fox. "What happened to your eye?"

Of course he hasn?t, the man was lying, and he was good at it. Anything to spin Cris away from him. "A gentleman took exception to the fact that his lady friend preferred my company to his. As I didn't know she had arrived with him, I played the cad to let him save face." A casual shrug.

"I take it that happens to you often."

"Not so often as you'd think."

He grunts, pulls his hand down his face. "Fine, for the Angel's sake. What is your name, then."

The man hesitated, but then relented. "Noah."

"Noah?" he fails to keep his tone even, or quiet. "Noah what?"

He snorted once, losing patience. The longer Cris remained the more the words and the name he couldn?t say clashed around his head trying to beat down his resolve to disconnect. "I don't see how that's your business...just Cris, wasn't it? I think I've humored you enough. I've established I don't know your friend. And frankly you're lucky that girl didn't call the bouncer like I told her to." He turned to leave, muttering about a wasted evening.

"Look," he says, abruptly, his arm shooting forward. The flat of his palm hits the wall beside "Noah's" shoulder. "You would not have abandoned her, I know that, at least. I do not know what the **** happened to you, or how it all connects to Shae, but I am going to figure it out. I will not leave her where she is. And she needs you." He drops his arm. "If something has happened to her, our next conversation will not be this pleasant."

"Call. The. Guard." He said the words slowly as if he suspected the man across from him had something wrong with him. "Whatever featherbrained concoction of a relationship you think we have, at least do that. If your friend really is missing you need to notify someone. Someone whose job it is to deal with these sort of things. I get that you're worried, but you're just making an ass of yourself here, mate."

He looks the other man over, tucking away the deep black of his hair, the color of his eyes, and what his face looks like when it isn't pulled thin in a charming smile. Then he turns, strides with purpose out of the narrow hallway, back into the pulsing heat of the club around him. It's too late, now, to seek out the corporation 'Noah' mentioned. The only course of action open to him, now, is the heap of abandoned research material Shae had left behind.

'Noah' waited for Cris to leave before pulling a face and making his own exit. He hadn't expected to be found so easily. He had until the morning to correct the oversight.

Translation, Part 2

"So. Fox is acting weird, as a person. No mention of Shae at all." He clucked his tongue, and tilted his head up at Cris, leaning forward and pushing a note pad and a pen towards him. "So that's Fox. What about this Mirini person?" He closed an eye, tapping on the name.

The herbs were also an interest to him, pointing out the pad, "I'm going to give you a list of herbs. We can go check out the places where they grow.. some locations here. Might be clue?" Of course, Cianan snorted, "****, if we're unlucky, she might have wandered into a Nymph or Dryad, and gotten herself enthralled."

The list of herbs were the ones from the specially labeled vials in her workroom. Cris had found the remains of the paste she had made from them.

He shakes his head, rubs the furrow in his brow as he exhales a cloud of blue. "No. Nothing. You mentioned Constance..... The only Constance I am aware of is Constance O'Connor. You and I both know her. What does she have to do with any of this?"

"Oh. I just like saying her name." He pointed to the book and stared at Crispin. Seriously? "Fae seemed to be after her. She went to Connie for help. Which didn't seem to work out. There might be clues there." He bounced his head back and forth a bit, mulling and chewing on things. Before going back and re-reading incase there was something he missed. Slower, this time. He'd pull back the pad of paper and start writing down the names and locations of the herbs himself. His handwriting far worse, and even far more jumbled than Shae's.. a mixture of common, Drow, Goblin, Dwarf and a few other things, whatever made sense to his translation brain at the time.

He matches Cianan's dubious look with one of his own. Spreads his fingers in a wordless gesture that speaks well enough for itself: You're the only one that can read the ****ing book.

"Dream based Spirit walk.." Was she on another dimension? Did she wander into the ethereal." Cianan drew the pen back up and chewed on the end of it.

"If I remember, Connie does stuff with dreams. It's been awhile since I've seen her." He had so much un-popped popcorn. "So. Connie. Dreams. Going on without her." Cianan ripped off the page he was taking notes on, and started a new one, writing much slower now, with long pauses. He was translating.. "Do any of these herb names sound, or look familiar? We might be able to figure out what she was doing with them. The effect she was looking for."

The names of the herbs were as follows: Nilssonia, another Williamsonia, and the last Zamite

From her notes, they were highly toxic if used incorrectly, and she'd been unable to find them.

He smokes as he listens to Cianan string his own thoughts together. Then nods, points two fingers at the Drow. "Shae had written a note to a man named Ezra. He has a relation to Constance, but the letter implies....." He holds the cigarette in his teeth, pats himself down for the crumpled letter he'd kept on his person for most of the evening. Once he finds it, he steps up to the desk. Around it, to read over Cianan's shoulder. Or at least make the proper attempt to. He frowns, a moment later, as the familiarity of some letters did not carry with it the meaning of all. "Read them to me, I can make absolutely nothing of your atrocious penmanship."

A scan for other mentions of Connie's name shows something from the year before. Presumably, before Cris was brought back to life:

...found Ezra in a hole in the wall bar today. I had gone there to think, to sit and ponder whether or not what we were trying to do for Cris was right. It turns out I wasn't the only one with loss on my mind. Constance is dead. I'm not exactly sure how, or when, but it weighed on him like an anchor. With her goes yet another chance for answers. I'll have to start the search over again for someone who can help me.

Well, that was a small, strange way to find out. Cianan's eyes opened briefly. He hadn't heard anything, and just kind of fell back into the chair. A small exhale, and his tongue dabbed over his bottom lip, while he gathered himself.

"Hold on." He held up a finger, and took a few slow deep breaths, closing his eyes, and then moving on.

"Nilssonia. Williamsonia and Zamite." Softly, he spoke. All the snark, and sass drained out of him for the time being, he was a little quiet, and even some of the more nasally aspects of his voice, seemed to vanish away.

He squints, but it does not take long to come up short. His head starts to shake, he looks aside to Cianan, two beats longer than he wants to. "What?"

"I didn't know Connie died." He held up his hand, "Excuse me." His eyebrows knit together, and he sighed, "I suppose I'm just so used to people just.. vanishing, that maybe I.." Right. He closed his eyes, "That's not why we're here, and I can deal with that later." He slapped his hand down on the top of his desk, and wheeled himself back in closer, "We may need to scry another plane of existance.. look for her consciousness?" He was spit balling, but he was rattled.

The room skids, and tilts. Cris puts one hand, swiftly, against the edge of the desk. Stares down upon it, Shae's journal and the sheet of paper with Cianan's blocky writing on it without really seeing it. His eyes close a beat later. With his balance intact, he smears his palm across one half of his face, down his jaw, and murmurs something about Angels. Twice. Cianan's suggestion hits his back as he moves away from the desk. "Worth a shot," he answers, roughly. "Perhaps we could use the same method of travel she did. Look through another plane, to escape the restrictions of this one. The fact that I was able to connect with her at all at least tells me that she is still here. She is still on this one, but that may be a fabrication."

"I see a shaft when I attempt to track her. A narrow cylinder of space, deep, through which sunlight beats down. There are loops of chain, far off to one side. That is all I can make out before the vision skids off into the city. She's casting about, searching, I think------- When she made contact with me, she bade me locate Fox. That was all she could tell me. But I do not know why he's chosen to abandon her, now."

Cianan brushed his tongue over his lips, and took a deep breath, "We can attempt that." Cianan would much prefer to keep his soul, in himself. "I will say.. they could all be right? Certain planes of existence even if they touch ours, have different rules about distance and speed. Also, she could have her soul and body separated.. so, that could further jumble things up." His nose twitches, "Could be some mix up.. Shae and Fox are.. kinda connected. Something could be messing with it? Distance. Separation. Maybe we can hit the watch, and see if we can find some those places."

"If that's true, then whatever is at work here must be a formidable force to erode a relationship like theirs, that completely." He rubs his left eyebrow. "You mentioned something before, about the possibility that she became enthralled......"

"Could be that. That was more me throwing out a quick guess seeing the herbs. Lots of creatures like to enthrall others to do their bidding in the forest. Some for food, others just 'cause." Cianan didn't know why other elves loved their stupid forrest so much.

He ran his fingers through his hair, and scuffled out the hold the pomade as made. "****." He just needed to say that. "Could still be that. Something could have just taken or have control over her soul, too."

He pointed at Cris, "I want to come with you checking out those places. We can also find someone and see if they can scry different planes for her consciousness." Cianan would keep hold of the journal for now, it wouldn't do Cris much good anyways.

"There were other letters she had begun, unfinished ones. The last I read mentioned that she feared she'd been followed to this plane. A spell of this magnitude must give off some sort of resonation to those that have the ability to sense that sort of thing, yes? If she was worried about discovery......perhaps the casting of this spell was enough to give away her location. In a dream state, she would be completely at the mercy of whomever came upon her body."

He waves off Cianan's gesture. He'd already made peace with the idea that he'd have to work in close quarters with the Drow. "Have you any contacts you can call?"

"Any blood around her apartment? Usually lot of her spells take up blood?" He grumbled, "And how skinny did man-Fox look? Skin and bones? Or was he starting to get festively plump?" Cianan clicked his tongue, "There are always contacts to call. Most of them might even pick up the phone." Might could be kind. "She might also be drifting in the nothing without any idea how to get back. Or have just gotten lost. Both things are possible, when you're in certain spaces.. or, if we're truly unlucky, a being from the ethereal plane as taken over and displaced her soul." Always plan for the worst.

There had been no evidence of 'fresh' blood, at least in Shae's quarters. There was no speaking for Kate or her kinks, or her visitors.

"No, not that I could see. There are piles of spell components. I found a bowl of long dried, white paste beside her bed that may have been the culmination of all the ingredients you've listed, there." He stubs out his cigarette on his bootheel and pockets the filter. "You know where her house is, yes?"

"I do." Cianan nodded his head. If he hadn't looked scrawny, it meant that Shae hasn't been casting any spells recently, or attempting to. "We can search through.. paste beside her bed, in a pattern? Or just scrawled around?"

The man-Fox, to Cris' memory, hadn't looked wasting or plump. The paste had been in a bowl, and there had been barely any left before it had dried into an unusable crust. There were finger marks in what remained, suggesting it had been applied by hand to something.

"Fox looked like a man. There wasn't anything extremely outstanding about him. Dark, black hair. Congenial. I thought that it was, at least, a glamour, or something." He pushes his hands through his hair, his expression momentarily twisting while he has his palms to block it. The moment passes. He hisses a harsh breath. "In a bowl. Perhaps for consumption, or application upon her skin."

"I can meet you there, in an hour," fielding the suggestion. "There are some things that I'd like to collect before we hunt these components down. Likewise you will have time to make whatever calls you need to, and at least take a look at what I've seen. I'd rather us on the same page."

"Sounds fine." They had things wrapped up here, they didn't need him here, after all. He had a manager. He clicked his teeth and stood up slowly, this could well require something a bit more than a vest with elvish chain mail on under it. His phone was drawn out of his pocket, and before Cris even left, he was starting to make the rounds with phone calls. Mages, witches, and sorcerers that specialized in planar travel.

He nods. Pulls back a single step, then turns to let himself out of Cianan's office. All of these public transport trips were taking chunks from the small collection of funds he'd only begun to start building, but he did not have any choice.

Remnants, Part 2

The disturbances weave through the markers towards the wall. Broken plants had healed over in their wake, but the reach of branches had been altered. There are similar rubber shoe scuffs on the property wall, showing that the one they tracked had scrambled up over the wall. From there it was a short drop to the street and the rest of the Temple District.

Cianan still had his detect magic going on, just in case. He was also, easily making his way through the brush. When they hit the street and the rest of the Temple District, Cianan grunted. Hoping for any stupid lingering bits, even if he doubted he'd get them. Tracking on roads was hard.

"We've done all that we can inside. You, more than I, given that I've spent the night here already. Ew, indeed." He tugs a thin cylinder forged of black metal from the back of his belt. A flick of his wrist extends the full foot and a half length of the collapsible baton. He uses its thin end to clear some undergrowth gently from his path. "The more I look at this, the more it seems like she was taken completely off guard. Or, at least, discovered in a state where she could do very little to defend herself. She is not weak, and she is far from stupid. Whatever did this knew exactly what it was doing."

"Indeed." Cianan nodded his head, quietly elated that they might not need to go into the ethereal plane after all. He did not look forwards to removing his soul from his body at any point. All the easier for spidery legs to catch it all in a web. "We should make note to talk to that Not-Fox, too." He took a slow breath, and moved along through the path that Cris had kind of cleared, "Next stop, after we go back and lock up."

"I disagree. I do not trust him, and therefore see absolutely no point in wasting the energy and time we have tracking him down. If you'd like to, I will not stop you. There is enough of his fur back in Shae's bedroom, and I presume to be his own hair clippings in the bathroom sink, but I will not accompany you. Of the two trackable people on this list, I'd rather find Shae. We can deal with him later."

Tracking on the street was a difficult affair, especially after so much time to turn a trail cold, but both of them were hunters of a sort. The neighborhood was neglected by street cleaners, some knocked over crates and a few more sheltered scuff marks, a dried branch picked off and tossed aside. Between the two of them, their debate, and several false starts, they follow the passage of faded trail to a hole in the wall bar not too far away. The place is half-deserted. Only a small scattering of people doing their best to drink alone. Cris gives the dilapidated little bar a once-over, then he puts his forearm to the door, and heads inside. One jaded bartender eyed them blankly as they entered.

"Fox is connected to Shae." Cianan pushed through the door, and his demeanor instantly changes. Stock straight back, a sneer across his face, that nasally bit that had been dropped comes back into his voice. A drow, looking and acting like he's ready for a fight, might just get them through some of the annoying parts of this. "Fox being weird, points to something being wrong. If Fox is taken over, or is not actually Fox.. it could be a lead to finding Shae." Mumbled as they came closer to the bar.

"Or, the connection they once had has been severed, and we expend resources we need to find her dilly-dallying on a shaky foundation. If he has been taken over, or if he's being manipulated in some way, my tracking him down will have tipped them off already," he answers, just as quietly, through a thin slit in his lips. "Have you a clear photograph of her on your phone, Cianan?" a little louder.

The bartender sighed as the Drow approached. He was an older man who had a face that was aged past his years by the cigarette that hung from his lips and the thousands of smokes that came before it. He waited with an expectant silence. Gaze wavering over to Cris as he raised his voice to make inquiry of Cianan.

He offered his phone over to Crispin after finding a photo of Shae. He wouldn't stare, he just would turn and glance around. It'd even be a good face shot of Shae too, not blurry in the slightest.

The man had been loathe to break the silence near the bar by engaging first, but seeing as the Drow was just looking around, he floated the question: "Can I help ya? Lost or sommit?"

Better than his, at least. He has too many photographs, videos, and files mucking up his phone, regardless. "Thank you." He takes the phone from Cianan, frowning at the back lit screen. His thumb against the side of her chin skids the photo a little to the left. He re-centers it, with a quiet, "Excuse me," towards the bartender. He turns Cianan's phone for his weathered eyes to meet. "Do you know this woman?"

Watery eyes regarded the phone in Crispin's hand. "She run out on ya, boy?" A second squint and a shrug. "I wish I could say I seen her, but not many pretty things walk in here."

He snorts, pulls the phone back. "In a manner of speaking, though I doubt it's by her choice," he looks up. "You're certain? She lives just up the road, in the old refurbished church."

"Any assholes you've yelled at for mud on their shoes?" Cianan tipped his chin up, lip curling down.

"That place? Yeah, I seen the woman that lives there. Doesn't look like her, though. She's...diff'rent." The mention of mud raises an eyebrow nowhere near as manicured as the Drow's. "I get lots of assholes. You'll have ta be more specific."

"How is she different?" Cianan turned looking at the bar tender, he could go back into that line of questioning, about assholes later.

"Looks diff'rent." The man gestured to his face. "No blue, for starters." Kate, the bartender must have seen Kate.

Cris grunts, wordlessly hands the phone back to Cianan. He uses one finger to push it into the Drow's shoulder, then lets go. Cianan will have to catch it. The bar is quiet enough to hear them, even if he does not remain in their immediate vicinity. Cris casts his gaze around the bar, from one corner of it to the other. Across the walls, through the rafters, over the patrons. He does not have the same sensitivities that Cianan currently does, but his Sight is a sense the can not turn off and it is rarely fooled, these days.

It's not uncommon for lone drinkers to not want to be disturbed or recognized. So it should come as no surprise that a handful of the patrons are not all they appear. But aside from the bartender, the occupants of the bar are resolved to their self-constructed solitude.

Cris looks them over, one at a time. From quiet man to quiet man, or woman, if applicable. "Has there been any kind of disturbance in the area, these last few months, that you know of?" He hasn't quite left yet, in the middle of the floor, actually, turning back to the bartender as he asks.

"Strangest thing ta happen 'round here is the occasional crazy what can't hold his liquor. Had one in February m'self. Round about when all that...crazed cult nonsense was going on. I stayed open of course. Times like that, people need a drink. Fella didn't cope well, I guess."

"No? What happened?" It could be nothing, it more than likely was. He had been taught, however, some time ago, that rapport was extremely important.

Cianan would be quiet at this moment, Cris seemed to be handling this conversation. He?d taken his phone back, glanced at it, and tucked it away. Now, Cianan would casually observe the door behind them, leaving his hands in the open, though his head tilted to the side, listening in.

"Much like I said. Man comes in, wild eyes. The sort who had ground pulled out from under him but hasn't quite fallen down yet. Stared into nothing and drank through near two of my best bottles before closing. Told 'im to leave and he got violent. Had to have a regular wrestle 'im out." The bartender stares at a spot down the bar, seeing the ghost of the man sitting there in his memory.

One brow lifts, "What did this man look like?"

"I sispect he might have been a decent lookin' fella on a better day. He was pale as a ghost and someone had given him a shite job with a pair of clippers. Bit rangy, needed a few pounds. Leather jacket, boots that hadn't seen polish in a while." Here a grunt. "You never would've expected him to be able to break a table like that."

He turns, slowly. Raises a hand to indicate a height similar to Fox's, give or take an inch. "'Round this tall, perhaps? Dark hair?"

Cianan remained quiet, putting his hands on his hips on the outside of his piwafwi, doing his best not to to look like he was suspicious, and just waiting for a friend of sorts, Cris had this guy talking. There was no reason for Cianan to mess it up with bluster.

"Yeah 'bou' that. You know 'im? He still owes me for the table." Squinting at Cris now, perhaps debating if he could leverage the repair costs from the hunter.

He grunts, "Only a guess. We're, actually, looking for him, as well. We believe him to be involved in whatever happened to the woman we seek. There's evidence of trespassing upon her property, by a being that's shaped and built like a man, but sports bestial qualities," flexing his fingers, mimicking claws. "When he became violent, did you notice anything like that?"

The bartender looks at his hands after Cris mimics claws with his own. "Eh, no can't say I did. Just a man throwing punches and furniture, really. You're with the guard then, are you? Investigatin' a disappearance?"

Cianan almost appeared to be delighted to be confused for the watch!

"In a manner of speaking," Cris repeats. "A kidnapping, actually. Did this man say anything while he was here, or did he merely slip into violence? Perhaps the shift into violence happened abruptly, or in tandem with another strange occurrence." He swings his gaze over the rest of the room. "If any of you were present, that evening, any contribution will be appreciated."

The bartender frowned and rubbed at the back of his neck, stretching his memory about the incident. "Barely said a thing. Seemed in shock, maybe. I remember 'im just saying 'no' over and over when I tried ta close up." A few faces from the crowd look towards Cris and then look away. One, quietly listening down the bar, summoned the energy to reply. "I was the one that threw him out, if you must know." The voice came from a large man with patches of scales on his forearms.

His frown cuts in a little deeper as what the bartender adds rucks up his perception of the events thus far. When the other man speaks, Cris turns that way instead. He rubs his jaw, moves to join him there. "Were you? Can you tell me what happened?" He reaches into his coat, counts off a few bills from the modest collection, enough to cover at least one round of drinks for the others in the bar with them. He shows it to the tender, slaps it down on the counter.

Cianan would slowly turn around now to look at the man that had just spoke, Cris had that part covered, but Cianan would lean against the bar, and point up towards the top shelf for a drink. It was easier than tipping him for the information.

The scaled man eyes the three of them and, having already tipped his hand, continues with a shrug. "It's what Horne said,? nodding towards the bartender, the man finally given a name. ?Guy probably couldn't handle the things happening. Seemed determined not to come out of the bottle he'd crawled in and go outside. No sense in calling the watch that day, they'd never come with so much else on their hands. We were far enough away from it, though. This may be the Temple District still, but no one gives a shit in this neighborhood. In case you haven't noticed, half the buildings are falling apart." He took a swig of the new drink Cianan's suggestion and Crispin's money had bought for him. "I threw him off when we got outside. He hit a wall. Dazed him for a bit. Snapped him out of whatever the hell. I lowered my guard a minute and he just took off running down an alley."

"And------that happened the night the Temple's enchantment covered the town? The fourteenth?" He squints.

The man nodded. "I remember because there were decorations everywhere."

He does not know enough about exactly when Shae disappeared to cross reference it with this new information. He rubs his jaw, frowning. He did not want Cianan to be right about Fox. "And you've never seen him again, yes?"

Cianan would tip for the man's drink as well, a little extra on what Cris had put down for being accommodating to their questioning. Maybe a little extra money could cause a few more details to fall out as well.

"Didn't come back while I've been here. And I'm here a few times a week. Horne?" The scaled man bounced the inquiry over to the bartender, who also shook his head.

"Likely not. One does not often return to an establishment where one becomes violent else one is either stupid, or cocky." He hisses through his teeth, something about Angels, and draws back from the bar, reaching into his coat pocket. He comes up with a short pencil without an eraser, finds a crumpled receipt in another pocket of his coat, and scrawls his cell phone number on it. "Thank you very much for your time. Presently, he goes by the name Noah, and he's claimed to have had modest success as a model for local business advertisements. If you think of anything else, or if you run into this man again, please give me a call." He slides the paper toward the scale-armed man.

Scale Arms takes the number and folds it before putting it in the pocket of his jeans. "Yeah sure, if I see him I'll call." And thanks to the drinks, it sounded like he meant it. "Want I should knock the **** out of him first? Follow him around a bit?"

He starts to smile for the order of the man's suggestions. "Perhaps-----the latter first, then the former, should he wisen up to it. He most likely has information we need that he may be disinclined to give us should any of his "****" be missing." He offers his hand to the other man.

"Mm." Cianan would nod his head, and point again to the top shelf bottle, putting some of his own money down, and sliding it to the bartender, "Thanks for the help."

The hand that shakes the one Cris offers is coarse and warm, with scarred scales over the knuckles. "I'll do what I can. Good luck finding the missing lady." Meanwhile, the bartender passes the bottle Cianan's way in exchange for the cash. Horne not being one to turn down requests from generous tippers, asks: "Anythin' else?"

His own slender hand is rough and dry, firm where it grips. He keeps the shake brief, offers a nod when it breaks. "Thank you." He looks aside to Cianan, who was shaking his head no to the bartender and turning for the door. He follows the Drow back out onto the street.

The Fox and the Hounds, Part 1
South of the City, Nightfall, April 10th, 2017

He hopes there aren't any airbags. Unblinking, Cris stares, his features set, seemingly petrified, but he isn't seeing the dashboard display of Cianan?s car. Two beats turn into four, five. The trickle in of details of the car around him overlays what he sees of the woods. "He's trying to hide from us. Whatever it is that separates them had better be worth all of this effort," he says through gritted teeth. He misses his cigarette, he'd lost it somewhere in the sprint to the street. Once more, he traces a clean, crisp rune across the wreckage of the back of his left hand.

"If he's trying to hide from us, then he knows we're onto him.. and he's got something to hide that we want." Cianan snorted. They were getting close to the edge, where the roads would go, weaving a bit in and out of traffic, and a few times going the wrong way, Cianan would spy a spot to drift towards, hitting the brake, and e-brake to shift the momentum of the car into a slide stop. He was going to leave the piwafwi behind, as he opened up the door, "Let's go." Move, move, move!

He's fast, their quarry. The tear through the woods hasn't stopped. The directional pull of the vision was steering as far clear of the roads as possible, looping towards the southern glen.

"Tell me you have something on your person that will aid with this," Cris snaps, throwing himself onto the passenger door when they skid to a stop. One stumbled hurdle forward sends a spray of dirt and loose grass in motion. Cris zips his coat closed up to his neck, tucks the stele in tightly against the inside of his forearm and eases, swiftly, into the loping sprint of a seasoned runner. Controlled breaths, loose curl of his fists. His boots hit fallen trunks. He leaps over piles of underbrush, boulders that jut up like teeth, and tangled nests of tree roots as they tear into the forest.

Cianan was off, after sliding over the hood of the car, because he'd always wanted to do that. He had to follow after Cris, but he was widening their search just a bit, twenty or so feet to the side. Elf hearing, elf vision, and things were a bit better in the shade of the trees. "I got me." It was starting to get dark, Cianan's infravision was going to be helpful now. "Nothing for tracking, though. As as you catch any kind of sight of him, let me know and I can mark him." That would make this one hell of a lot easier. Cianan ran, most of the time, it was his primary way to keep in shape, the obstacles of a forest, really didn't seem to give him too much problem either, that and he was short, easier to duck under errant tree branches!

The target had a strong lead, but they were gaining on him as the terrain changed. Longer legs able to leap over obstacles he was forced to divert around on four shorter ones. The trees were beginning to thin out as they neared the glen, the ground sloping downwards the further into the river valley they traveled.

His gaze does not stop moving. As Cris looks over the army of tree trunks gathered around them, he keeps his eyes peeled for anything familiar that matches up to the phantom image of the forest that he sees through Fox's eyes in those spare moments he needs to pause and re-Mark the blistered, raw, skin on the back of his left hand. "Toward the clearing. The glen!" he calls out, his pauses letting Cianan gain a little distance on him. He adjusts, and throws himself into the run to catch up.

Cianan nodded his head, as he bounded over a fallen tree, and used the side of the other to push him forward back into a strong gait, he was going quiet now. The hunt was on, and soon his infravision was going to kick in.. he was just waiting for it, for the final rays of the sun to disappear. The clearing and beyond was his goal now, and whomever lay in it! Glen! Glen! Legs pumping and pushing him forward.

The screech of a large avian predator forces the target to turn and follow the tree-line rather than make the intended break onto flat grassland. The hesitation allows the duo to gain further ground. Cianan is the first to come across the tracks where the turn was forced. Canid paws transform into human footprints as the trail continues along the border of the Glen. Crispin's frame of reference changes from low to high, making it easier for him to recognize the trees he was passing. The time from landmark to landmark was decreasing.

Night descended as the sun set in full, bringing the forest to light in Cianan's vision, stretching deeper shadows across Cris' path and rendering his vision hazy and undefined. In the distance ahead, the flash of heat from the fleeing target would be a beacon for the Drow follow.

"Follow me." Cianan could undoubtedly follow it, and was heading on. Hopefully Crispin wouldn't have too much trouble in the low light, Cianan wasn't exactly waiting to find out. Not while he had a fresh trail and heat signature to go on. His fingers were wiggling, ready to point out the target as soon as he saw it.

It's disorienting to watch from eyes that are not his own. He leaps, all his weight on his left palm when it comes down on a fat, fallen log. He propels himself forward, shoving the burn in his lungs to the back of his head, the pain in his throat, and the sweat and heat choking him in his gear.

He counts the landmarks he sees as he passes them by. A forked birch, a small boulder stacked on a rock, what looks to be remnants of an old altar. As the sun sets, shadows grow and stretch broadly in the crevices between tree trunks and bush. He does not possess the same keen senses as Cianan did, but he'd had time, enough, to test the limits of the new night vision his awakening had granted him. Twilight leeches color from the forest, but the wash out does not impede his speed or ability to follow Cianan. He runs like it is not dark, like he is not squinting to coax his Sight to focus. He unclips the sheng biao from his belt loop, gathering the length of chain in his hand, ready for Cianan's signal.

After another thirty seconds, the duo suddenly begins shaving large chunks from the lead as the target slows down from a flat sprint to more of a long distance lope. There. Cianan saw the figure of the man through a break in the trees ahead. Still moving on, but looking around as he did so.

There! As soon as Cianan saw the figure, he's throw out Faerie fire to envelope the man, and make him easier to track and spot. That should be a good signal for Cris, right? The man they see to be hunting bursting into non-burning purple fire? Cianan hoped so, and he'd keep moving in, not drawing a weapon just yet.. he didn't want to slow himself down. He was slowing down, and looking around.. he wasn't focused on just going! Time to eat more into that lead!

Night vision aside, anything bright in the dark is appreciated. The shifting of the weapons he carries on his body sounds louder than his footfalls in the underbrush. He wraps the ball weight of the chain once around the fingers of his left hand as he rushes past Cianan in pursuit, and wings further to the left. His pace slows only when he begins to dart, moving from the cover of one trunk to the next in his approach.

The dim glow created by the purple Faerie Fire was met by a cry of surprise from the target a few seconds later. The hunted was looking around now, listening as he moved with more caution. He knew he'd been spotted, but he didn't know the direction of approach and he seemed to be preparing for a scuffle.

Good! Cianan continued to close on in, without stopping. The target knew he couldn't get away, and Cianan wasn't going to let him wander off now. He hadn't found a good defense point, which means they still had time!

Throat to sole in black and as thin as some of the trees that surround them, he's able to blend in, at least, when he pauses. Cris takes advantage of Fox's squawk and caution, gaining seven strides instead of a mere two at a time. He moves when Fox does, pausing when the other man's gaze swings their way. Sixty feet becomes forty. Thirty. Twenty.

He counts to four, swings the dart in a tight circle, knowing he only has a short supply of seconds to build up enough momentum. Abruptly, he leaps out from under the cover of a crooked oak tree. When he throws the dart and length of chain, he means for it to wrap tightly around Fox's corded throat, with a sharp, backward yank attempting to bring him down.

With only trees in one direction and open glen in the other, the man didn't have many choices when it came to a defensible position. He did, however, angle his back to a larger tree and settle into a prepared pose. "I don't know who you are, but you're making a mista--" The tree wasn't large enough to protect the full of him and the coil of chain squeezes viciously against his vocal chords as he is yanked off his feet and onto his back.

The surprise is shaken shortly. He rolls after he falls, wrapping the chain around an arm held wide to displace the pressure away from his windpipe. "Assholes." He wheezes as he digs his heels and levers back to his feet using the tension in the metal links.

"Are we?" The man was caught, and out came the knife. Cianan's run was slowing down to let him breathe and catch up, "I don't think we are." He glanced over towards Crispin, "How often is that thing of yours wrong?" An eyebrow raised.

Then, he swirled his hand around, a small show to put a few globed of light in the air around them, more for Cris' sake than anything else. Dancing lights hovering around. "Hi there. We have questions. You have answers."

They're thin, an intricate braid of thousands of small metal links, gleaming like white gold. They're soft like silk to the touch, but strong when tested by Fox's lever against them. There's fifteen feet of it still separating himself from Fox. Slowly dwindling as he wraps more of it around his left hand as he approaches with the Drow, watching for any contact reactions from electrum to flesh. He does not answer Cianan.

The voice of the Drow gives the man pause and he looks towards Cianan with dismay plain on his face before he shutters the expression away again. "What the **** is wrong with you." Gritted through his teeth as he engages in a tug of war with the Nephilim. "I-I have nothing to say that you want to hear. Just...just leave me alone."

"Can't do that. Not until we find Shae." Now is when Cianan would lean in a bit. Note the hair, both the cutting of it, and the hair color, "So. Who, and what exactly are you.." That knife of Cianan's wasn't that normal shiny kind he carried, but cold iron. There were enough Fae around that he had a supply made, "Are you running around in a body that doesn't belong to you? With a life that doesn't belong to you? "

Cris stuffs the stele in his hand into one of his coat pockets. Throws his other hand in a tight grip around the chain.

Anger then and the sudden slack and jerk against the chain might pull an unprepared man a step off balance. The motion seemed more of spite than anything else. Frustration threaded through the man's features, burying another emotion. "I'm serious, **** off. It's better that way."

"Oh please, if I ****** off whenever someone told me to, I'd never have gotten anywhere. SO! Back to square one. Time to spill it." Cianan would get in close, prepared now, for whatever comes his way, "You and me. We're gonna go all the way together, and if I have to take you to meet Lloth with me? I will."

"She'll have to be disappointed. I have a prior engagement." The man snarled the sarcastic response, his eyes flashing gold in the darkness. He turns those glaring, precious metal daggers in Crispin's direction. "This is your fault."

He needs the step forward, regardless. Fox's tug pulls him in. One boot skids a half a step in. He jogs another to steady himself. Right hand slaps down upon the outside of his thigh. He palms a slim throwing dagger from its sheath, flips it around in his hand. "No. This is yours. You did not lie well enough, Fox."

"Eh. I don't think we should call him Fox. You're just in there for a small joy ride, aren't you?" Cianan leaned in closer, "Hair is different, how you act is different." He doubted the real Fox would run from him under any circumstance. Dive tackle him and be asked to taken out for a burger? Yes. Or a steak. "So. Let's start here. Who the hell are you. How did you get here, and where is Shae?"

Prospect, Interlude, Part 1
Crossing the City to the Northern Mountains, Night, April 10th, 2017

Fox hadn't said a word on the walk back, but he did crack a reluctant smile when Cianan handed him a picture of Lucy to look at on his cell phone. At the car, Cianan had allowed a mundane complaint filter through: "Fox. Dude. I have a cloak back there. Just like.. don't get your ass all over my seat. Jesus."

Fox kilts himself in Cianan's cloak and settles into the back after nudging aside various sharp objects and potential explosives. ?My ass is less of a hazard to your seat than these daggers,? he mutters, clearing his throat as the other men climb into the vehicle. Back to the reason they were out here in the first place. "The 'spirit' that took her was a Fae that was pretending to be one of her relatives. I don't know exactly where he would have taken her." He nods towards Cris. "You mentioned a cave. That makes some sense. Underground would be the most secure place to keep her. But even then...she's hard to contain. And with a skylight? The chains you mentioned can't be normal."

He hadn't on the way here, but when they return to the car, Cris tugs the two crystalline weapons from their sheaths in his coat. Leans them, blade point down, against the floor of the car between his legs, and cracks a window as he lights what is likely his last hand rolled. He presumes the car ride back, or wherever they were headed next, will be less dangerous. "I do not doubt it. I do not think the opening a skylight so much as merely a hole through which to look down upon her that just so happens to let sunlight in. Have you any idea what this spirit wants with her?" Turning, slightly, to look into the back seat.

"Given that it's a Fae? You might as well ask what the moon wants." Came a quick reply from the back. Afterwards, the man called Fox appeared to rethink the snap response. "Maybe it's something to do with where we came from. I don't think she's managed to irritate any of the local Fae. Between Mirini and--" Frowning, he shook his head. "No, it has to be something to do with where we came from. The face it used when it pretended...that was too targeted."

The sweet scent of herbs wafts from the blue smoke coiling from his cigarette. He thumbs the filter as he listens to Fox, frowning in thought, at nothing. "In my experience, vengeance is considered highly motivational. Perhaps her prison has something to do with that, as well. You did not see this face, yes? Only she did?"

Cianan was going to not drive like a maniac at this time, the running, and now driving, he was going to enjoy the downtime, and just listen for a bit. "Just point me to where we need to go. I'll get us there."

"I saw the disguise. I was put off, at first, because it was a face that seemed familiar to me. He said he was her father and later I realized I knew him before. Before Shae, I knew him. At the time I couldn't remember enough to say that, only that he seemed familiar. But it wasn't actually the person I knew, clearly. When I got past my confusion and began to question, the trap was already sprung and it put me to sleep." He shifts on the seat. "Do you know where there are underground caves?? Asked to the car at large, but mostly to the Drow. Then his questioning swung back to Cris. ?Do you have any other information from your vision of her? I don't know where she was taken."

He hums, thoughtfully, sticking the cigarette deeper into his frown. He pulls the hairbrush and stele from inside his coat as he shakes his head in response to Fox's questions. Two fingertips depress the overhead light in the roof of the car, spilling weak light in the center of the cab, and he cuts another tracking rune into the bed of scars on the back of his fist curled tightly around the bristles.

Cianan slowly pulled the car over, and turned a bit around to stare at Fox a bit. Asking a Drow if he knew where underground caves were? Cianan's been on this block, and around it a few times. "Yeah. I know underground caves. There are a few that go straight down to the Underdark." Not the club Underdark, but the actual Underdark Underdark. "If I can get it narrowed down a bit.."

A vision of the three, in a dimly lit car on the side of the road. The vistas from the rest of the city have stopped. Them. The cave. Them. The cave. Night has fallen and the shaft of light is of no use. In full dark a faint glow comes from the cave walls. Some material in the rock or some manner of bioluminescence. The chain is a darker length against the floor. Stretching from the point sunk into the wall towards a set of shackles that appear empty.

He ducks his chin, squinting tightly enough that the little muscles around his eyes begin to ache. When the vision of the shaft fades, he cuts a second rune into the back of his hand. A trickle of ice starts to work its way down his spine.

Them. The cave. Them. The cave. The empty shackles stir without sound as the silent movie plays in his head. The flicker of ghost limbs that cast no shadow. Bare legs chained at the ankles. Invisible again.

He does not let his skin rest between the runes. As he watches the scene before him, he reaches blindly for the crank, or the switch, that lets the window down, allowing the night air to rush into the car. The third rune he cuts sees blood well in the grooves the Mark leaves behind. "Give me something," he murmurs. "We got him, tell us something. -Anything- that will get us closer."

Cianan would wait, holding the car there until he got a good description, Cris seemed to be having troubles, but he could just sit back and enjoy the smell of blood in his car.

Tangy, salt and copper, and likely to both their heightened senses, the unmistakable seasoning of Divinity.

The vision of the cave clouds with dust kicked into a moving air. When it settles, there is an uneven patch on the floor. Cris can just make out a trio of upward pointing chevrons and the letter N.

"Pen, paper," he barks, dropping the stele in his lap to free his hand for the items he asks for.

"Pocket, Fox. Left side." Cianan stretched his arm back between the seats!

Fox scrambled for the supplies in the location he was directed to. Passing a sheet of paper and a chewed on pen into the waiting hands.

He spreads the paper on his leg. Sketches out the chevrons, the uppercase letter. He looks it over for a moment before he turns it around, to the both of them. "Does this mean anything to you?" more to Fox, than Cianan, but he'd take input from the Drow, too.

Gripping the back of the seats in front of him, Fox pulls himself forward to examine the sketch. "Looks like a direction, and a landmark. Three peaks. To the north."

"I kind of know the area. What's there that you saw?" Cianan?s head leaned back to get a better look of the map, his nose wrinkling. "You were saying.. cave, before, didn't you? Anything about the caves in general?"

"Do you know of any caves in that direction, Cianan?"

"Plenty. Some in a mountain range like that, too. Three peaks in a row-ish?" He shifted the car into gear, and they were soon heading towards the city exit. "That's three mountains worth of caves, though. Lots of creepies and crawlies in there too. There was nothing worth it for me to ever clear out, and a bit too far for monster bounties to ever come into play."

"These were drawn in dust upon the stone. Blown there, by a targeted gust, I suppose. I saw nothing more than that shaft, and all of us in this vehicle." He looks over to Fox, "she must know you're with us, I was not subjected to an aerial, warpspeed tour of the town." His shoulder hits the seat as Cianan puts the car in gear. "I saw nothing of her, at first. But when the vision panned aside," he motions with his hand, smearing out the itch of blood across runes, "shackles, around slim ankles, that faded in and out of view."

Black brows furrowed at the descriptions shared by Cris. "That seems to confirm that the contract was broken. The only thing that could shackle her like that would be meteoric iron."

He nods, "They seemed to flicker----" He returns the hairbrush and stele to his coat, finally ashes the tall stack collecting on his hand rolled. Some had already fallen on his gear, leaving dust behind. "-----is there any kind of material that would keep her from returning to her body?"

"Flicker, Flicker." Cianan grumbled, "Anything else unusual, anything.. that you don't normally see in caves?" He was trying to narrow down the gaps at all, from what it could be, they finally passed through the gate, and started driving along, shifting into another gear. "Lots of stuff can keep a person from going back into their own body.. spells, locks, banishments. Lots of magical items too. Might be a spell, and not just a material."

"Maybe? I doubt that's the problem. The most likely explanation is that she doesn't know how. The contract was meant to keep her contained. Her body isn't sitting empty somewhere. It's gone. Transformed to air and storm. She...she never had someone to teach her how to control it. It's what she was looking for. All her life, really."

He shakes his head at Cianan. "Nothing beyond the shaft. Darkness, above. It is at least the same time where she is as it is where we are. But my perception can't stray farther than hers. I see all that she sees, and if she can't see outside of where she is, then----" he rolls his hand, looking back to Fox. "Does that mean she is unable to regain corporeality at all?"

Fox shook his head. "Not unless someone does it for her. Or she learns how. She must be hoping the contract can be restored." Here Fox looks stricken. "But I don?t know if I can do that."

"Well. If it's getting light, it has to be close to the surface. That does cut down on some of the searches, then." Grumbling! They were hitting rather high speeds of travel at this point, with Cianan really putting the petal to the metal. Probably unsafe levels of speed! But the faster they got there, the faster they got to Shae.

Advanced Reclamation, Part 1
Three Peaks, Eastern Mountain, Late Night, April 10th, 2017

Three quiet shadows ascended through the foothills. Although barefoot, Fox does well to keep up. Pushed along despite discomfort on the force of the anxiety that lived in the lines of his facial expression. Tight lips, eyes pinched with worry. He brought up the rear, as he could not be wholly stealthy in chain mail, thus relying on signals from the other two.

Sorry Fox, Cianan didn't have enough Elven chain for everyone. Keeping low, he wasn't slowed by tumultuous terrain, moving easily across it towards the first of the chosen places to check out, as it started getting a bit steep. His detect magic still waiting to issue forth some kind of ping. He lifted his hand to pause and wait, hold on for them to catch up a bit.

As they drew closer, Cianan could detect the residue for many spells. They seem to be of a concealment variety. The place is changed from how he might remember it. All around were subtle signs of Fae activity. Cris could see them all. Strange plants, odd formations of rock and earth. Insects behaving oddly. One clearing over, a small pile of squirrel skeletons existed beneath a diseased oak. And lo, just near that tree over there, an unmistakable ring of fungi, with a half-buried body lumped in the center.

Cris walks with his hands free, but his elbows pulled in tight to avoid touching anything he does not want to. His gaze shoots from one oddity to the next, brows pulling in and down at the insurmountable evidence laid out before them, even this far from the summit. Pausing on the tree, he slows even before Cianan calls for it.

He'd wait for them to approach, "Seems like we're on the right path." Hrm. Cianan frowned a bit, taking in the sights, he was getting the sense of some witchery going on, and took a deep breath, glancing back over to Fox and Cris. Illusions could be easy to pierce if they needed to. Traps. That was the next thing to look out for, and the door way.

He raises one hand, motioning for them either to follow or to tell them, simply, the direction he's to take, briefly. Breaking away from the pair of them, Cris turns, heads with caution toward the wilting tree, its ring and the mysterious, foreboding lump in its center.

"It does look like it." The body in the faerie ring had caught Fox's eye, mostly for the way it seemed to be missing an arm and most of a leg. What remained had teeth marks on it, possibly from the dead wolf just on the other side of the clearing. The creature may have dug it up and thought to feast, but it ended poorly for the would-be scavenger. Closer inspection of the amputated areas showed surgical lines through bone.

Fox, meanwhile, was inhaling sharply. "He's been here recently." There was a strange scent on the air. Like burnt cinnamon. This odd odor was able to suppress the smell of the decay. That is, until Cris got close.

One boot in front of the other, care taken before every footfall. He avoids stepping on any of the mushrooms, his expression souring immediately when the stench of rot reaches him. Cris follows the ring, waving his hand through the air over its border to test it for any warding. "Do you know who it is?" Not the corpse, but the scent, he meant, when he'd asked.

Cianan would hold still, waiting. Keeping his eyes open on what's going on around them. The last thing he wanted was to be some kinda snack. Cianan glanced back towards Fox, "Hrm." His hands out stretched, and he now had a weapon ready. A long, wicked blade, that had a curved hook cut into the metal. Cianan would move closer to the body, to try and get a look at it. Maybe he could ID it?

"No, but it's the same smell that entered our room at the Church House when the 'spirit' arrived." There was no warding on the ring. From the tattoos that Cianan gets a closer look at, the body might well have belonged to a human dock worker. What was a dock worker doing this far inland? "It's like cinnamon, but not."

Save for the mushrooms, which themselves looked subtly wrong, and the tree, which seemed sick, no plants grew near the shallow grave. "Poisoned meat." The observation made by Fox when he spots the dead wolf.

Ah! Cianan wasn't quite good with certain scents. "This whole place is bad." Cianan grumped, "Keep a look out.. I'm hoping for no undead." He narrowed his eyes, "Shall we move on?" It was going to get steeper from here.

He had too many questions vying for utterance. Frowning, Cris withdraws from the body, and the ring. The amputations were deliberate, he presumed they had something to do with the poisoned meat that Fox mentioned. He waits, once again, for Cianan to take point.

"You just want me to get eaten first." Cianan grumped. It wasn't at all that he could see in the dark. Cianan wasn't pleased. They had reached a wall of rock where the mountain abruptly stepped higher in elevation. Cianan was climbing up, his boots were spider climbing, it made things easy for him. He?d spied something that had pushed him forward without considering an alternate route. If they needed help up, he could give it to them, pointing towards a cave mouth that beckoned.

"That would serve as a warning, yes," rolling his eyes. One brow goes up as he watches Cianan, judging the height of the wall with a tight squint.

Fox made no commentary on the surgical cuts, having not wanted to get a close look at the body. He was happy to press on at Cianan's suggestion, even if that meant scaling a short cliff without shoes. The first cave entrance was nearing as he hauled himself upwards after the Drow.

At first approach, it appeared relatively inaccessible as a point on the small cliff wall they were climbing, However this changed when they gained sufficient height. There was a trail, cleverly hidden by rock and visual illusion, that curved to the west as it descended from the mouth of the cave. Cianan would be able to see evidence of traffic from several creatures, both humanoid and non. As Cris picked his path to climb, he was able to see familiar looking indents in the rock. Spaced like claw holds. The thing that had climbed to Shae's window had climbed this wall too.

He resigns himself to make up the caboose of their group. And, also, to try not to look up because Fox had preceded him and the view would definitely be a revolting distraction. He hisses a quiet exhale, fingers the wall, following the grooves where claws had dug into the rock. He hoists himself up afterward, out of practice with rock climbing, but a few holds later, muscle memory takes over.

Cianan'd move to put his back against the wall on the very inside of the cave, peeking in. Dropping down low to take a knee. He gave a few sniffs to see if there was more carrion smell, and if he could see any traps that were lingering about.

There was no smell of carrion, but that burnt cinnamon odor was stronger here. Ahead, the Drow spotted a glyph of warding just beyond the mouth of the cave. Fox pulled himself up to the ledge and knelt to examine the tracks on the path.

Cris pulls himself up a few beats later with a grunt of effort and a tight exhale of relief. He flexes his hands to work out their aches, turns to look out at the land surrounding them from this new vantage point. There was a sickly quality to the land spread out below them, more visible from above. Tilts his head to listen, though Cianan will pick something up before he will.

Probably his good ear wasn't just for show. The warding glyph wasn't unexpected, at least it wasn't something far worse. Cianan pointed out the glyph incase Fox or Cris had something ready to remove it. Cris seemed to be good with that kind of magic.. so, maybe?

Withdrawing from the ledge, Cris turns back to the other two men, catching the tail end of Cianan's gesture. With Fox inspecting the tracks, he joins the Drow at the mouth of the cave, shoving the back of his hand under his nose in response to the scent. He rifles through the pockets of his coat until he finds what appears to be an uncut piece of quartz, but in the curl of his hand, the same white-blue glow that burns at the tip of his stele grows in ferocity. He holds his hand high, aiming it toward the mouth of the cave to see how far it stretches. They may be able to see in the dark, but light always helped.

Fox frowned at the quantity of footprints and then straightened up to follow Cris. The interior of the cave was shadowy, phosphorous glowing came from veins of fungus running along the walls. The entrance they were in currently descended in a sloping tunnel straight forward. It appeared to open up into an area below. As for the warding glyph, Fox made no move to handle it. "There will be a key mark, somewhere. You can disarm it if you erase the right one. Otherwise, it will activate when we pass it." His voice as quiet as he could make it.

"Brilliant," half impressed, half displeased. He turns his gaze aside to the glyph. "Is there some kind of rhyme or reason to these?"

Cianan was turning back on the detect magic! Time to look for that key mark, so he didn't set off anything!

He approaches the glyph as close as he dares without its deactivation, searching the surrounding walls with the witchlight's soft glow.

Cianan's search proved fruitful. He locates a marking that, while small, if erased would break the continuous lines of the glyph. Smudging it with some dirt causes the entire glyph to go dark, deactivated.

The path continues downward, to the north. No alarm cry is raised by the destruction of the ward.

Advanced Reclamation, Part 3
Dark Words, Dark Halls

As soon as the large canine came into view Cianan'd fire his crossbow, looking to put a bolt between the eyes of the dog.

"The what?" squinting. His gaze comes back down at the same time Fox freezes. He turns his stele over, aiming its glowing tip at the sketches he'd just given Fox, inscribing a swift rune upon them meant to set them ablaze as Cianan's crossbow goes off. "Get rid of them," he tells Fox, stuffing the stele down the back of his belt.

The canine creature is indeed a large specimen and it had scented Fox. It had just rounded the corner and begun a charge when the bolt went off. But the creature is fast. Supernaturally so, as no dog has that speed. The bolt meant for his skull strikes his flank instead. Fox is overrun by the unexpected speed and the recently lit papers go flying into the air as he tries to bring his sword up. The beast digs into the floor and turns, preparing to charge again.

Hell. It was a Cooshee. Cianan was maneuvering around stalactites, he knew the dangers! He was going to cast silence on the beast, before it could howl and alert anything within a mile. Everything in fifteen feet of the dog, was magically quiet, everything completely blank. It might be a bit unnerving for those not prepared for it.

A look of pure, unadulterated shock shoots across his face. Cris leaps backward as the momentum of the "dog's" attack rushes past. His right hand flies to the glass hilt jutting up over his shoulder. He rips the blade free, hissing a quiet, "Raphael," as he does, a white-blue gleam like a trapped bolt of lightning filling the crystal clear length of it. He lopes to fill the space between the "dog" and Fox as it wheels for its second charge.

Just in time, the creature opened its mouth to sound an alert, but silence meant that only the vibration of what would have been an ear-splitting howl was felt by Cris and Fox. The creature's canine features are pointed, elven. A silent snarl curls back lips from viscous jaws. It is staring at Fox but it's nose is working overtime. It moves again, easily ten times the speed of a normal canine as it approaches.

The reload of the crossbow, and he was going to fire again! Keeping way the far away from the mongrel. It was all he could do to not just completely run out of there. He knew those kind of dogs, he knew them, he hated them, and even though his hand was trembling on the hand crossbow, Cianan fired again.

He can feel it all over his skin, but there's no time to think about that at all. The alcove is too small, this is likely what Cianan meant by fighting in caves. Cris has only enough time to turn the blade like a lance, bolster the pommel with his other hand when the charge comes, like it alone will catch the "dog," and he knows it won't. He knows how far the alcove wall is, and he knows, by the Angel, that it's going to hurt. But the crystalline blade in his hand will not burn him like he's counting on it to do to the "dog."

Fox lashed out with the blade to parry aside the jaws intent on closing on his bare legs and dragging him to the ground, but the jaws don't quite reach him. The creature is unable to dodge the glowing blade of the Nephilim. Cris is pushed back into Fox and they are both born to the ground by the weight of the Cooshee. It snarls silently and snaps its jaws inches from Cris' face despite the blade in its chest cavity. Until the second shot from Cianan hits true. There is a literal dog pile, now, as 200 pounds of dead canine collapses onto Cris and Fox.

Even with it dead, Cianan was still not exactly wanting to go down there. He was going to load up the crossbow again, though. How were those voices sounding? He could sneak his way, knowing the area of the silence to check in, if only by sneaking his head past the edge.

Cris feels something softer at his back instead of the stone wall of the alcove, and he's grateful for it and the lack of a headache as the corpse sags on him, and he in turn, sags against Fox. Breath still in his lungs forced out by assault, his inhale scrapes painfully as he throws the brunt of his strength into bucking his hips against the dog at the same time he shoves its muzzle away from him with his free hand. His palm slips on its slick lips. He slithers his way free, ungracefully, and fights his way up to his feet. The seraph blade spins in his palm, flicking a spray of blood from its gleaming edge. He swaps it to his other hand, reaches to give one to Fox to help haul him up.

Cianan would leave the zone of silence on, in the way just in case there was any noise being made that he wasn't able to hear. He bit his lip and wiggled his ear, trying to listen for any of the voices or noise coming from that path up ahead. His crossbow was reloaded and prepped, ready to go just in case there were more of those horrible monsters ready to bust out from behind the wall.

The unintentional body pillow was less comfortable for the chain mail coating. Fox was certain his skin would now sport a permanent pattern. In this fresh hell, he was also treated to the Nephilim squirming and hip bucking around while extracting himself from the dead weight. It was a sign of his state of mind that after all that he still quietly accepted the hand up.

The voices to the west were a rise and fall of susurration, hissing white noise at this distance with a few syllables peaking and threatening to be discerned. Cianan was able to identify three separate voices. One low pitched, one barely audible, and one that defied description.

Wonderful! Three. Cianan slowly dropped back down in the zone of silence, and then did a hand wave motion, pointing to the unexplained part of the cave. Then held up three fingers, while making mouth opening and closing noises, followed by a touch to his good ear. Hopefully they would get it without him having to vocalize. He lifted the hand crossbow after that. Normally not his go-to, but they were being stealthy.

He hauls, and lets go, a muted whisper dousing the glow of the blade in his hand. Cris keeps a hold of it, but it will no longer give away their position. That is, if they can continue undetected. Someone might have heard something, if not all of it before Cianan's spell came down. He looks up as the Drow signals them. Glances back at Fox, then heads in the direction the dog had charged from.

In his investigation of the hall to the west, Cianan noticed a stretch of dark passage splits to the southwest and the northwest. Light creeps from the southwest area, breaking up the shadow of the hall. The northwest remains darkened.

The burning papers Fox had been holding were now a dozen smoldering marks on the cave floor. Fox looks at them in regret before Cianan's hand signals draw his attention. He adjusts the mail shirt and nods, bending to pick up his borrowed blade.

As Cris moves further west, the voices continue. They are emanating from the region to the southwest. However, Cris soon takes note of the sound of movement to the northwest.

Cianan's silence had only a fifteen foot radius, they'd be clear of it soon after, but he'd motion to them before they breached the radius, repeatedly tapping at his ear, and drawing a line with his boot. As soon as they passed the line, they'd be flooded with sound again, the unnatural silence leaving them behind. That first crunch of boots in gravel was always distracting, but Cianan moved forwards as well, trying to find a good spot to spy from. Any reflective surfaces to peek in?

Cris tilts his head, straining his ears to see if he can make out any words, slowing momentarily as he does to shrug halfway from his coat and trace the image of a rune on the inside of his left arm. It may not have helped with Shae's journal, but might be of some use here. Movement joining the voices has him pulling back near the right hand wall of the path they've chosen.

There is quite a lot of reflective surfaces, if one peers to the south into the lighted area. This part of the cave has been transformed into some manner of laboratory. Metal and glass cabinetry, work benches, vats of fluids, artificial, arcane lighting. The reflection of the bodies in conversation is a fun house picture on the door of what was probably a large standing freezer. Two figures in a robe were talking to a man whose outline refused to stay still.

As Cris activated his rune, the shifting voices gained clarity of meaning:

"...promised us that you could restore her."

"She's a child. A defective, untaught child. Amusing, but stubborn."

"It doesn't change the fact that your fit of boredom has ruined months of planning. You assured us you had no love for the Council and their followers."

"And I don't, but I will keep my broken toy since it is of no use to you, anymore. There was a whole month where you could have come to claim her if you wanted her so badly. It's not my fault you were late."

His frown deepens as the voices prattle on. They answer no question, give no validation but the single fact that she is there. His hand kneads the hot, smooth grip of the blade as he listens.

Cris could apparently hear what they were saying, or at least understand it, from Cianan's read on his face. He'd stay low, though, wait and maybe peek down that dark hallway, just in case something new would pop up to spoil their parade.

Figures stood in the dark, misshapen bodies milled in place to the northwest, rustling chains. A larger set of footprints patrolled further north in the dark. Lighting similar to that in the southwest lab stood dark on the walls. If Cianan used his special eyes, he would note that the heat patterns on the bodies he could see were practically cold.

Cianan held back a bit of a groan, because he wasn't really a fan of all that. His hand went to his hip pouch, and he'd reach in. Quietly, and well practiced drawing out a baseball bat from it. Silver coated, magically enhanced. His favorite! Still, he was making no motion to go forward just yet. He did however check back on Fox, who was being quiet.

Fox approached slowly, conscious of the noise made by his motions. He, too, peered down the dark hallway. His expression had shifted from stark dismay to resigned anger. One hand came up to communicate in Drow hand sign: Flesh constructs.

His gaze pans over to Cianan. Any noise now, back here, would alert them to the fact that their guard dog lay dead near the entrance. Cris searches the walls and floors for any more signs of glyphs or warding, holding the seraph blade point down between his elbow and ribs as he shoves his coat and shirt up from his torso together. A collection of scars outnumber the sweeping black lines of Marks, there. He draws on an empty section, swiftly like he's leaving ink behind instead of a burn, the glamour pouring over him from head to toe like water. He doubts that it will be strong enough to conceal him from all the perceptions in this cave with them, but for his purpose, a quick, soundless dart beyond the "doorway" of the southwest passage in favor of the northwest one, he hopes it will do fine.

The voices continued from the lab.

"The souls here are practically meaningless. We need natives, and for that we needed her. The Council will never come out of hiding."

"For now. Meaningless for now. I'm sure there is some value to be had."

"After you?ve ruined this? You?re lucky if she doesn?t demand your corpse instead. You?re going to have to get us some of your own to make up for it. There may be value outside of that goal, yes, but these bodies...there's more loss of volume."

"But it's gotten better, hasn't it? You just need to refine your methods to adjust for the environment. Did that sound sciency enough? I thought it did."

His gaze skips aside as their voices still reach him, he hadn't moved far enough away yet. Natives, Collector. Both terms ping off each other in his skull. He remains close to the wall, his weight balanced on the balls of his feet with each trotted step. He takes eight, pausing when he can no longer see the "doorway" to the other passage, only the idea of its glow behind him.

Cianan would follow right after, crossbow in one hand, and baseball bat in the other. Preparing, and keeping low, trying to stick to cover, and stealth where he could. The Drow was always a bit oddly quiet, unless he went out of his way not to be, and it greatly worked towards his advantage here.

The shifting bodies, of which there are four, do not react immediately to Cris moving closer to their huddle. The sound of chains isn't coming from them, but is coming from an area just past them.

It was Fox who was holding up the works. Every little noise he made in the chain shirt caused the constructs to twitch. They turned towards the moving trio, trying to home in on the sound. Meanwhile, heavy footsteps continued from the north.

Advanced Reclamation, Part 5
Juggernaut

The light throws half of the moving construct in sharp relief. Cris leans in, staring at the lumbering thing in something like disbelief and exasperation. "Angel's mercy, it's as if we've stumbled upon a toy box spilled of all its contents," under his breath. He breaks away from the other two, crouched slightly, ducking to the right to give Cianan room.

Aside from the artificial lighting, there wasn't anything else in the cavern. The three men take advantage of a small rocky outcropping to hide themselves while inspecting the construct. Fox grunts at Cris' statement. "More like a few toy soldiers escaped from the factory. It looks like they're still experimenting here. They'll all have numbers on the backs of their necks to show the progress."

Cianan stuck his tongue out, as well as the hand crossbow, waiting for a good shot. Was there anything else in the cavern? And voices still going beyond it? When he could get a good look, at what seemed to be a vulnerable spot, if the monster had the same sort of build as the other ones, with the chest metal, and alchemical bits, he'd fire.

The build on this one was different than those before. The others had been streamlined for hunting, this one was clearly afforded a more defensive body. The bolt fired with patient study managed to find a chink in the flesh and plating near the creature's shoulder. Black liquid began leaking down its back as it turned to try and find the source of the sudden assault. It's cannon arm appeared to be stuck in a forward facing position.

"Isthatacannon," comes the rushed enquiry. Cris glances aside at Fox.

One step. Two. Three. It began a charge towards the outcropping concealing them. "Movemovemovemove!" Came Fox's panicked reply.

"****----" he hisses, taking one scrambled step to gain purchase. He launches himself into a somersault, comes up in a crouch that gives power to the sprint that takes him east of the charging troll.

"Can you guys fight in pitch black?!" Cianan asked quickly, once more going low as he rushed on in, he was again going for a knee, hoping to knock the thing off kilter, or hopefully take the leg off to prevent the firing! Oh.. lord, Cianan opened the regeneration was gone.

The three men scrambled their own ways past the creature. Cris went wide, Cianan went low, Fox ducked beneath the cannon, took a swipe with his sword, and stumbled past into the open space. The once-troll hit the outcropping at speed, shaking the whole cavern and cracking stone. Stealth was probably a thing of the past. A jagged wound was evident on the leg Cianan had targeted. A much shallower slash ran across the creature's ribs, showing metal where bone should be.

Cianan's hopes were shortly dashed. Already the sword wounds were beginning to show signs of regeneration. The bolt lodged in its shoulder refused to heal over and continued to leak fluid.

Cris could fight in pitch black, but he refuses to call that out. Instead, he rips both seraph blades free of their sheaths in his coat. Neglecting to invoke their namesakes, they are two and a half feet of wickedly sharp glass in his palms. He goes wide, but circles back in an arc, his arms crossed tightly over his chest as he darts in. When he's close enough, he swings them both outward, swiftly, looking to further hamstring the "troll" in the same place Cianan had already slashed open. He'd yet to note the regeneration.

"Crap! Crap!" Cianan quickly exclaimed, patting himself down for his lighter! "We need fire. Or acid. Or Fire Acid!" He'd still swing the blade again, trying to take the leg off at the knee if he could. Magical weapons would help out, but not enough if they couldn't get fire on those wounds. "Fox. Check my pockets. I have a lighter in there, maybe some wants." He'd finish his move stepping back, reaching into his hip pouch. He had to have something there!

The construct was extracting itself from the rubble when Cris darted in. Cianan would have to check that swing lest he cut the Nephilim by mistake. Vicious slashes bite deeper into the creature's leg, but before Cris could apply the full weight of his strike, a thick arm was swinging like a battering ram towards his chest.

Fox had regained his footing and was looking for any other weakness to exploit. He checked the pockets on the cloak he was wearing as a kilt and found a lighter. "We have to hurry. There is no way they didn't hear that thing crashing into the wall."

The blow hits one of the blades first, forcing it back at an awkward angle that rips free of his grip. The length of adamas spirals from his fist across the stone floor, like he himself is. A leaf on a very short wind. The ground drops away from him, and all of a suddenly resurges to meet him. He skids back a few feet after his sound landing, rolling over and counting a single moment to get his bearings, shake the half lit cave back into focus.

"Oh. I know." Cianan grumbled. Cris darted in the way, and was soon bounced out. Cianan was on the move, feet attaching to the wall, and he was going after the thing's head to keep it off balance, repeated swings with the sword, chop a gash in the skull, or the metal under it. "Let me know when you find the lighter, Fox!"

Still patting himself down with one hand, Fox is casting about for anything flammable when Cris goes sailing past him across the cavern. "I have it! Catch!" He tossed the lighter towards Cianan. Blows to the skull shred the flesh coating over a metal dome. The construct angles itself so that the cannon is facing Fox and Cris. It fires. Literally. Not a cannon. Not a cannon at all, but a large flamethrower. "Oh what the ****." Fox throws himself to the side to avoid the gout of flame.

The creature cannot presently move forward due to the extreme damage to its leg, but that is slowly healing.

Cianan would catch the lighter when thrown! That was the first part of it! "Fire on a Troll?! For **** sake!" Cianan exhaled, seeing the liquid that was dripping from the troll. "Oh this is going to hurt.." He'd light the lighter, and then apply it to said liquid.. if they were lucky it'd do what he wanted. It was just going to suuuuuck to be so close.

It hurts when he breathes, but that isn't anything new. Cris balls the sensation together in his mind and stuffs it to the back, shoving up to his feet. A murmured word ignites the length of adamas in his hand, but he has no time to close in. He leaps, instead, to the right, as a jet of fire illuminate the cave with a roar. He sees his second blade laying there, ducks, mid-sprint, to collect it on his way back around to the battle at hand.

Left leg thrown forward, he pitches the gleaming blade in his hand like a javelin at the lumpy target of the "troll's" head across the cave.

The sword pierces cleanly through the eye socket of the construct's head when hurled, causing a gout of more of the black liquid. At this moment, Cianan chooses to ignite the seeping liquid on the troll's back. It blossoms in a cloak of flame. The creature rakes a hand towards its face to try and remove the sword, but the artificial bulk prevents it from being able to reach and dislodge the weapon.

The spread of the flame finally registers to deadened nerves and the construct attempts to put itself out by applying its back to the rock wall. The damaged leg gives out, having not had enough time to regenerate. The jostle ignites the liquid pouring from its eye socket onto its chest. Run Cianan!

Cianan was running, running back towards where they had come from! There was a wall there. He'd leave the sword behind for the mean time, it was magic. It'd live! He'd beat feet as fast as he could, with a, "**** **** **** ****" on repeat.

Fox was also running, in the opposite direction, one arm grabbing for Cris on the way.

Divine, not magic, there was a difference, and even seraph blades had a lifespan. He grits his teeth, sheaths the other in his hand and turns on his heel about the same time Fox grabs for him. He doesn't protest. He just runs.

Flammable contents, under pressure, exposed to air and flame. The construct exploded when the pressure became too great. Cris' sword was returned in his direction with deadly velocity. The area was peppered with metal shrapnel sunk into stone, chunks of flesh and wiring, and flaming puddles of liquid. The blast shook the cavern for a second time and raised a choking cloud of dust.

Running back the way they came, Cianan had just enough time to register the startled expression on a robed figure that had been approaching before the air pressure blew the necromancer off his feet.

Well, double hell. Cianan'd just swing for a face. He had surprise! Where'd that sword go? It didn't matter at the moment! "Peek-A-Boo!" Closed knuckles, above pinnacle of human strength, as well as some nasty jeweled rings on his fingers, would probably make this an unfriendly punch, he was hoping for a jaw. Breaking that would make their jobs a lot easier if it was any kind of spell caster.

Halfway through their sprint, Cris throws his arm up, looking to hook Fox around the neck and bring him down to the ground with him before the blast forces them all from their feet anyway. Covering the back of his own head and neck with his other arm, riding out the zing of pain from impact with the stone floor aggravating blunt force wounds already sustained. The seraph blade rockets outward, a lance of pure white lightning. When it hits a wall of the cave, it takes a chunk of stone with it at the same time that it shatters with the sound of breaking glass, raining bits of crystal down in the numbing silence.

Fox doesn't resist the take down. He closes his eyes and tries to protect himself. As a result, he misses the strange effect taking place above him and Cris. The worst of the shrapnel somehow avoids them, as if bouncing off of something in mid air. Many smaller bits are a narrow miss, but better a few scrapes than being impaled by something. Even the dust is subject to being shunted to the side.

The necromancer had been blown out of melee range, but the Drow could close the distance fairly quickly. The sword was a cavern away, and thus of no use. Already dazed from hitting the wall due to the concussive pressure, the crack of a jeweled fist against his jaw sent the necromancer's head back into stone with a wet sounding thwack. He slumped in place, out cold.

"...Am I on fire?" Cianan exhaled, "I feel like I might be on fire." Well beside the large troll throwing fire, there was now a loud explosion, enough to rattle the walls of a cave. Stealth was going to be done for a while. Even if he was burning, Cianan was leaning over to put his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. So much running in the last few hours!

The flaming wreckage of the troll was spread between Cianan and the cavern where Cris and Fox were sprawled on the ground. He could pick his way past without too much trouble, if he wished. The Drow caught his breath in the shadowy hallway with the unconscious necromancer as a poor conversational partner.

There might be a few light flames on him, that he'd pat out. That hip pouch of his was being dug through, and Cianan finally came up with handcuffs. Rolling the cloaked man onto his front, Cianan'd try to handcuff an ankle to a wrist, if it were at possible. Just to prevent running. "You guys good?"

It's only when he doesn't hear any other debris falling that he looks up, frowning, shoots a look backward into the cavern. He shoves up to his knees. Then to his feet. Offers Fox a hand if he needs one. "We shouldn't linger."

"Nah. Want to talk to this guy first? Or feed him rotting, burned, troll corpse flesh?" His eyebrows went up with a brief smile, before he went hunting down his sword, grabbing onto it. A few new dings and dents, but it'd probably be fine.

Ankle to wrist achieved. My that looked uncomfortable. Fox was getting to his feet with a silent prayer of thanks that his foxy bits were in one piece. He was surprised to see the shattered state of Cris' sword. As such, his reply to Cianan was a somewhat distracted: "M'fine."

Speaking of swords, Fox had to go hunting for the short sword. He'd dropped it at some point.

"Kill him," his own input to Cianan's suggestions. Cris looks between the two passages now open to them.

"Might have information." Cianan shrugged his shoulders, that didn't stop him from placing the tip of his sword at the back of the man's neck. He wasn't pushing it through just yet.

"If only we could hide him somewhere. He knows things." There it was. Fox was carefully digging it out of a flaming pile of troll leg. "If we can't stash him anywhere, kill him." Fox continued with a sigh. "We can't drag him around with us, and we don't want to leave him for his friends."

He motions with a stain of exasperation for the Drow to proceed with the interrogation. "I shall look ahead." When Cris strides through the pile of adamas dust, his boots do not make a sound. The glamour he'd applied earlier had worked well enough. On his way to investigate the pathway to his left, he shoves up the hem of his shirt and coat, and swiftly traces over the white scar echo of the rune.

CIanan just really didn't feel like interrogation at the moment. Too much work, could take too much time, and then they'd have to deal with all the lies and misdirection before they actually got anything. The blade came down, right between two of the vertebrae. Quick, and easy. He'd collect his handcuffs after that, might as well keep them if something new came up.

A clean, quiet death granted to the undeserving for the sake of time. At least this way he couldn't raise the alarm further. Time gained before the others would come investigate the explosion, hopefully.

Following Cris through the northern passage leads to a disorienting hallway stuffed with bizarre sights. Food and drink sloppily laid out and rotting next to a body hung up by a meathook through the ankles, being drained of blood. Odd species of fungus climbed the walls and the ceiling. A haze in the air, if inhaled, distorted the viewer's perception to show a verdant, innocuous passage. The smell of cinnamon is thick and cloying.

Advanced Reclamation, Part 7
Doppelganger

Cianan's sword was back out again, and he was backing up to be near the entrance of the cave. He'd act as soon as he heard foot steps.

"I know a few runes that I might try, but I do not know exactly how well-----" Shae's warning halts his words, but he'd already touched the stele down his belt. He retreats from the light, shoves up his coat and shirt, swiftly Marking over the active glamour on his skin to be certain it was still there. He lays an iratze next to it to deaden the throbbing ache of swelling bruises. He mimicks Cianan, pressing his back to the other side of the little cave's entrance, but does not draw a weapon, yet.

Whoever they might have expected is not what comes into the prisoner's cave. A black blur, barely knee high, darts with unnatural speed past the trio on guard, sliding in a turn to place itself between Shae's near invisible form and their backs. It bears teeth and emits a series of snarls directed at the chainmail clad Fox The man in the chain mail shirt looks just as surprised to see the black furred reynard that is growling threateningly at him.

Well, that was pretty terrible! Cianan's plan was gone. Cianan held up his sword now, ready to just dive in and strike. It had gotten around them, Cianan's first action was to point, and cause purple fire to surround the creature that just came in, making it a bright, gleaming target for anyone else. Much easier to hit. "You know him?"

The stele still in his hand, the continuous movement of his fingers around it causes the device to inch up, up along his palm. The blue rockets past them both at the door, stands its ground. Cianan's flames leap first. He grits his teeth, watching the trapped creature.

Purple fire blooms around the canid. Less than a second later, the Fox they brought with them also is enshrouded in the purple glow. The furred Fox continues its threatening display towards the man. "I...I can't hear either of them." The chains shift as Shae attempts to draw back into the cave.

"Cianan, will these flames burn?" As he asks, he recalls the same fire that engulfed Fox on their impromptu cardio workout through the woods.

Cianan shook his head, "No." They're just to make sure everyone can see where a target is, through illusion and darkness. He was trying to figure out, what exactly was going on!

Cianan gives him his answer, and Cris shoves away from the wall. One jogged step forward takes all his weight. The momentum of what would have been his second step is swung in a relentless kick, meant to punt the small canid across the cavern.

Fox the man is not amused. He levels the short sword in the direction of the canid. "Show yourself." The words had a ring of command to them. The furry arrival shifts into a mirror image of the man holding a sword, sans clothing. He's staring daggers at the man in the chain mail. This transformation happens in the space of Cris' movement.

Cianan was just going to glance over towards the Chainmail Fox, to see what was going on. He was checking in.. really, he wanted to just.. never mind. "That the Fae?" Cianan's nose wrinkled, "Fox.. Stay back." He didn't want to do the, 'Which One Is It' thing. A deep breath, and he'd move over to Chainmail Fox, and yanked a ring out of his ear to put on Fox's finger. A lean in and he whispered.

Seeing Cris' unrelenting strike, the nude Fox attempts to dodge. "****'s sake featherbrain! You brought him--"

The notion that some sort of enchantment had been laid down to link the fox with its bipedal counterpart trickles in afterward. What is supposed to have been a kick falters instead. He stumbles to a halt, reaching with his left hand for Fox's dodging form, both in attempts to keep him still and for his own balance's sake. His balled right fist barrels down for whatever part of the man he can reach. Nose, chest. He is not picky.

Cianan popped up a finger. "Fox. Which gal is your favorite?" His lip curled. There were options! He was asking the one dodging around Cris.

"We know which one he ****ing is, BY THE ANGEL!"

Chainmail Fox has a short conference with Cianan. Not drawing any closer to the man Cris was punching. Cris' fist connects with the man's jaw. He rips himself away from Cris and spits a glob of blood onto the cave floor. "I've been trying to track you since the club to tell you..."

"What?" Chainmail Fox takes a step forward. "You lying sack of ****."

"And it's hard to choose."

"Silence," bolstered by the connection, the split of flesh under his knuckles, Cris advances. A second right handed blow digging in low, an uppercut meant to drive the breath from his target's lungs.

"You can give me a list then." Cianan snorted. Fae were tricky, and Cianan wasn't trusting anything. But, he did have one marked now! Cianan wasn't going to take anything for granted.

The protesting man takes one in the gut, despite his attempts to move back from the advancing Nephilim. "By bust size or hair co-- **** off Crispin!" A hard cross comes sailing for the Nephilim's jaw.

"Hair color." Cianan was twirling the wand between his fingers. Just waiting to strike.

"It took us hours to reach this place," he continues. Cris' head snaps roughly to the side, and the explosion of dull pain momentarily jars him, but spurs his advance. He shoves his knuckles against the side of his mouth. This time, he reaches for the other man's shoulders in attempts to yank his upper body down into the upward jut of his right knee. "Hours, during which you could have shown yourself."

Chainmail Fox restrains himself from closing the distance, knowing it would only cause confusion. He seethes in place, adjusting his grip on the sword. "Just kill him! Don't let him near her!" He urges Cris.

The man makes a grab for Cris' knee as it rises towards him, attempting to grapple the limb and unbalance him. "You try running after a car!" He fails, taking the knee to the breastbone instead, and staggers further back with a shallow gasp for breath.

Cianan was grabbing hold of the chain mail Fox around the waist, and throwing him back, holding out a hand. A slow breath, and he'd keep his finger pointed at him with the wand gripped. "Nah. You hold on until I get my answer. Cris. Let him answer."

In the months since he'd discovered that effort behind his bare-handed blows could leave gouges in stone, he'd trained with a ferocity that left pockmarks all over his warehouse. Left several of Nica's dummies and weapons in shambles in his wake. Teeth grit, he forces the bulk of his weight on his left heel. Whirling tightly, he puts the same effort in the swift arc of his right leg, bootheel on course for the staggered man's temple.

Well, this was going bad. Cianan groaned a bit, not wanting to take his eyes off of Fox, "Better answer quick, before he.. resumes being mean."

Cris has no such intentions, clearly. A moment later, the arcing kick passes through empty air. The nude Fox drops down to avoid having his brains scrambled. "Lucy, Serah, Lirs-"

Chainmail Fox interjects. "They have sketches, Ci. They've been watching us."

"Locate the culprit behind this charade, for ****'s sake." Cris wastes the rest of his momentum, darting backward a sloppy pace and a half out of grappling range. "This is a ****ing distraction."

Cianan was turning, and popping Chainmail Fox in the face, a shift to the side, aiming for the side of the jaw to disrupt the nerves to the brain a bit. Chainmail Fox did not see that coming and is momentarily dazed by the pop to the jaw.

Cris rips the only glass sword he has free of its sheath upon his back, its hilt spinning once in the flat of his hand. He hisses the word, "Raphael," in the small cavern like it's poison to his mouth, and the length of the weapon he has erupts in a ferocious, white-blue glow that spears the shadows clinging to the walls of Shae's "cell" and drives them back. He plants his feet wide in defense of the empty space and snaking chains at his back.

With the addition of light to the space, They are able to locate Shae by the shade of her shape cast on the wall behind her. No shadow stretches from Chainmail Fox. The shadow behind the one Cris is beating on, however, looms larger than life. The nude Fox seems to notice this, and drops the pretense. He straightens and sighs. "Just as much of a buzzkill as always, eh featherbrain?"

His jaw works around, he slowly raises his chin. The shadow he casts hits the wall at an angle, stretched awkwardly and amorphous where his shoulders should be. "Your derision stings thrice more than your punch. Who are you?"

A deep breath, and there was a shadow crawling. A grump, and Cianan snorted at Fox! Hell. Sorry Fox. But, then he wrinkled his nose when the non-fox Fox started talking. He cursed himself a bit. He was just going to hang back a bit now. One less Fox to deal with for the moment.

The nude man's form changes into a well dressed stranger with a lavender tint to his skin. "Awful presumptuous to be asking questions after breaking into someone's home. Leave the familiar, and the two of you can go."

"Forgive us, we thought that appropriate response to years of stalking, secret experimentation, and the abduction of a friend of ours. We will take what we came for."

"Nah." Cianan snorted a bit, and pointed the wand. His bleeding ear was slowly fixing itself up, the skin and cartilage slowly knitting together.

One moment the fae was in front of Cris, the next he was standing by the chained Shae, curling clawed fingers around a wrist. "This broken toy?" For the moment that her wrist was held captive, she became more corporeal. He released her before she could solidify completely. "Hardly abducted. She came with me."

"She went with who she thought you were. Were she willing in the first place, you would not need such tricks." He turns to keep the Fae in his sights, gaze narrowing. "I ask you again, who are you?"

Cianan was going to remain quiet for the most part now, giving a small offer of a hand to Fox. He was just waiting.. was the Fae still on Faerie Fire?

"She doesn't belong here, you know. I didn't lie to her. I will take her back to her kind. You want to, what, free her? Let her dissipate on the wind?" Soft tsking, a hand falling to tap the hilt of a sword on his hip. The man still was backlit by the purple flames.

Fox huffs at Cianan and rubs at his jaw. He hadn't been knocked down, so he doesn't take the offered hand. "Can we kill him now?"

"Neither do you." His shadow moves as he does, the shape of his shoulders unfocused where it hits the stone, shifting a half beat later than the rest of his body. He lowers the seraph blade burning in his hand. "What is it that you want with her, exactly."

"Mm." Cianan gave a shrug of his shoulder, "None of us belong here. This is a shitty world. So. She's here now. We all still exist, until we.. Blammo." That would activate the wand in hand, which would fire out magic missiles. "Blammo. Blammo." He'd activate it over and over again.

"Son of a bitch, stop it!" Cris takes a step like he means to stand in front of the Fae instead, but neither does he want to be blasted with whatever it is Cianan's firing. "We do not know how to ****ing get her out yet, for the Angel's sake."

"They're not that strong. You were just trying to beat him to death." The magical darts would go around Cris, and hit their target, as per the spell. A few more "Blammos" And he'd toss the wand and hold up the sword.

"If I set out to kill him, he would be dead, you idiot."

"Same." He hadn't lunged in with the sword yet.

The Fae absorbs the strikes from the magic missile spell, looking none the worse for wear as a result. As the two of them bicker, he begins to chuckle, commenting aside to his prisoner. "From the faces you made when I made you think they were here before, I have to say, I'm disappointed." A derisive wind buffets the Fae, ruffling his attire. "Potent as ever." He croons.

Well, that was a good thing to learn, that a magic missile was absorbed. He gave a small exhale, and his head lolled back, "I ****ing hate Fae." Of course, at one point Cianan had sat on an Unseelie council, so he knew from personal experience. He threw the wand to the ground, it at least narrowed things down a bit.

He doesn't know what it is. Proximity, some sort of enchantment, physical contact. Something to do with the sword the Fae had touched. He does not know which part connects him to Shae. There had been no glyphs when they'd entered, but that meant nothing. They could be somewhere else. He looks between Shae and the Fae, the little muscles around his eyes straining in their slit thin petrification.

The Fae laughs again and the air fills with the scent of baked cinnamon. "Leave the fox and you can go. I'll even keep the surviving necromancer from killing you. It's a good bargain."

"I say I slit your throat and leave your body for the necromancer." Fox levels his sword at the well dressed figure. "We make no bargains."

Cianan just sucked on his teeth, that sword of his was itching for some blood, maybe literally. That hook in the blade, wanted to cut into some Fae flesh, and a deep breath. "I mean. We could?" He shrugged his shoulders, "But, I do kinda like Fox."

Gaze flits aside to Shae, the space where she used to be. She'd had the ability, in her body, to speak to people in a way that only they could hear. He does not know if she still has it now, but he lets the weight of his gaze rest there, emphatically. All he needs is an idea, because he did not want to be wrong, and become the cause of her dispersion.

"Ah-ah. None of that." The Fae makes a gesture with his hand, closing his fist on empty air. He brings the hand to his ear and seems to be listening to something. "I guess I made a mistake only taking one name from you. Is that how you got them here?"

The line of his mouth splits open, his breath escapes in a hiss, then Cris grits his teeth around it.

Again the wind blows at the Fae, with more force this time, causing him to stagger slightly. He laughs and smooths clawed hands down his shirt. "Now, now. Behave." He clears his throat and shines a wide smile towards Cris. "Where were we?"

Cris shakes his head, slowly. "If you mean to return her to her kind, you would have done so by now. Either you enjoy this, or you need her for something."

Cianan made a face when he saw that, "We don't have to kill him. We can just beat the ever loving hell out of him, and restrain him." Iron. Iron. He glanced over to Shae, and his free hand was reaching to his hip pouch.

"I'm waiting for the right price. Silly. There's many who would be interested. The necromancers, for example. They would love to get their hands on her, but she's gone and made herself untouchable to them." He spoke as if lamenting over a naughty pet. Half amused.

Fox made a sudden dash towards Shae, reaching out to try and touch her. The composed man's image turns bestial as he retaliates in kind. Hardened claws swipe across the chainmail with a horrible sound of stressed metal. Fox is knocked back forcibly, sporting two rents in the mail and deep scratches in his chest.

He claps his free hand down upon his left leg as Fox rushes forward. With the other man blown backward, Cris frees one of three iron throwing daggers from its sheath and whips it low instead of high, aiming for the Fae's navel instead.

The Fae was distracted, Cianan was moving in. The bag of iron shavings he had from Izumi's forge was being thrown at the Fae. "Shae. I need a whirl wind.. " Maybe even just a bit of a dust devil to keep him coated. Cianan was moving in after that.. but there'd be iron shavings around the Fae.

Quick, with unnatural flexibility, the Fae unsheathes the sword on his hip to deflect the dagger. The wind picks up in the cave, pulling the tossed iron shavings towards the clawed courtier. He hisses and draws back from his pursuit of Fox. "Drow. Always so rude."

It's clear that the shavings are causing the Fae great discomfort. Burning and burrowing into his skin. His solution is to swipe at Shae. Her form flickers solid for the contact, voice audible for a brief moment before the wind dies. "The chain."

"S'up." Cianan was moving in now, with his sword. He was attacking, and going, for the moment, non-lethal. Buuuut, he wanted to make sure the Fae couldn't escape. It could take a bit to bleed out, right. Then he heard the chain.

Cris had turned, taken one loping stride in Fox's direction, but he about faces at the breathy whisper he hears instead. He leaps three fourths of the distance that still separate them, swinging Raphael's gleaming blade like the katana that it is not at one of the several links of chain snaking away from her ankles.

The Fae engaged Cianan in a flurry of sword strikes, focusing on holding his ground as the Drow pressed for any advantage he could. The two traded slices of flesh here and there. Fox was picking himself up and soon hurled himself into the fray to flank the trickster. Occupied in keeping the two of them from lopping off anything irreplaceable, the Fae was unable to stop Crispin's rush towards the chain.

Cris' first stirke dents in the pure iron chain link that he's aiming at. The chain ripples from wall to shackle with a haze of some sort of enchantment. Hearing the impact, Fox looks over and tosses the short sword towards the ground at Cris' feet.

The Fae makes another swipe towards Fox while he's distracted.

Fox tosses the sword as Cris swings the second strike down in the same exact place. He doesn't know what the additional sword is for. He does not think that Raphael will shatter like his other blade had, but maybe it had something to do with the enchantment in place. He lets the seraph blade dangle while he crouches, snatches up the sword Fox pitched, and brings its point down toward the links glowing orange after two slices of adamas.

Cianan kept moving, and then would use that ol' Drow trick of Darkness, surrounding him and the Fae with it, before he swiped in with another swing. He was versed in blind fighting, and was taking the blows, letting them hit his elvish chainmail. It might give him an advantage with the attacks, though, and surprise him enough enough to let a good swing through.

On the third hit the link of the chain snaps and the enchantment flares to life. A flash of heat erupts into the striking sword, twisting and melting the blade Fox had tossed over from the point up. It doesn't stop at just the blade. Hopefully Cris knows when to let go. The chain now lies lifeless, connected to the wall. The shackled Sylph moves to the other side of the cave, out of the Fae's reach.

Advanced Reclamation, Part 9
Let's Make a Deal

"Nah." Cianan shrugged, "I can keep you alive a loooong time, in a lot of pieces before you die, and she does." He waggled his eyebrows, "And there's also a lot of chain here, that I think would fit inside of you pretty well."

"What is it that we need. Merely her name, to speak it, for you to speak it?" Cris asks, looking up at Fox.

The Fae is regarding Cianan warily now, judging whether or not he'd be willing to make good on that particular threat. Fox presses his lips together into a thin line before he replies to Cris. "He needs to release ownership of it. Because he owns it, I can't say it. If I can say it, maybe the contract can be repaired. Maybe. But even if he can't, we need to get him to give it up."

Cianan just smiled! Maybe he should just pull out his pack of surgical supplies, but there was also the fun stuff the necromancer probably used on the corpses. That could be more fun.

"Whilst also being quick enough to avoid attracting any other unwanted attention. Brilliant," dryly.

"Ready to bargain?" The Fae repeated hoarsely.

Depends. Cianan does seem to be at odds with the others, aside from the Necromancer that is supposedly working about. "Here's my bargain. I'm going to go find the surgical supplies of your necromancer. I'm going to open you up, repeatedly. Insert that chain inside your abdomen, and make sure you stay alive... potentially forever, if I have to."

"No. Pain does not scare him. He knows that we will kill him whether or not he tells us what we need. He is not the only threat in this cave. It's whatever else they're doing in here."

"And while you're performing the Drow form of masturbation, what do I get out of it? Hmm? The satisfaction of your friend living 'potentially forever' in this cave with me?" The bloodied courtier smiles at Cianan with reddened teeth.

Fox sighs. "I'm not agreeing to anything. But what will it take for you to give up all knowledge of her name and return it to her?"

The Fae crows: "Finally! It's simple. Release me and cause me no further harm."

"What is to stop him from taking it back?" Cris throws up his hands.

Cianan pointed, "For the bargain. We get the soul, you go free.. but, you also can't return to this plane, or realm."

"Ooo." The Fae wiggles in place. "I suppose. If she gives it to me again though, that's not my fault!" His eyes glint. "Do we have a bargain?"

"I will have no part in this. Your deal is with Cianan, not me." Cris wrenches the dagger free, not before turning it another ninety degrees in the Fae's flesh, and shoves to his feet.

Fox frowns. "Wait,..." then mutters, " they're worse than damn djinn with loopholes." When Cris speaks, the Fae chimes in hurriedly. "You mustn't allow your associate here to hurt me either!"

Fox then adds: "You can't give the knowledge of her name to any others, or allow it to be taken from you. You must forget."

"Likewise, our presence is to remain undetected. You will do nothing on your way out of this place but leave. There will be no warnings, nor clues, nor signs that lead in our direction."

"Else, I will hurt him," flatly, for Cianan. "Worse," in addendum.

"Let's review!" The Fae licks his lips. "I will give up all knowledge of her name and release her soul. I will not pass any knowledge of it on, nor allow it to be taken. In exchange. You will release me and let me go free, without further injury by yourself or the others here...and I am not to return to this plane or realm." Eyes like a goat tick from face to face, settling on Cris. "If you wish to add an addendum you must agree to be part of the bargain. Will you?"

"My addition was for the sole benefit of my comrades to consider." It wasn't, but he offers a frigid smile down upon the Fae regardless. "They may add it, or not, at their leisure."

"No. That sounds reasonable, Cris." Cianan nodded his head agreeing to Cris' addendum.

"I've had enough experience with bargains in my last life. I do not look to sully this one. My people do not deal with your kind, we kill your kind. Happily." He dusts his hands clean, withdrawing from the small group. Once there's some distance between himself and the other three, he looks aside for the ghostly woman with shackles still around her ankles.

"Is that so? Why haven't you killed her, then? She's one of us. Mostly." The Fae wrinkles his nose and sighs at Cianan. "Fine, fine. No alarms raised. No cute blood cave drawings of you fornicating with yourselves and a helpful series of arrows. Is it a bargain?"

"She is my friend," Cris answers simply.

"And mine." Cianan agreed.

The Trickster stares for a long time at the both of them, clearly baffled. "I'm beginning to see why these ham fingered body artists wanted her so badly. It's like watching a bunch of flies who want to hug a spider." He nods to Cianan. "Her real father waged war on your people." Then looks to Cris and Fox. "And you divine sorts have been playing with her far longer than I have." A short laugh and then he slowly stands. "Let's make this bargain. I'm ready to leave."

He rolls his eyes, and crosses his arms. "Recall that I have no part in this, Cianan." But he looks from the Fae, to Fox.

Cianan gave as shrug of his shoulders, "Cool. Don't blame him to be honest. My people are kind of dicks." Cianan nodded his head toward Cris, "We know. Fox? I think you're up."

One could never be too careful. It was an Angel forsaken Fae, after all. Despite how seriously they took their word, their word only encompassed what was spoken.

Fox frowns and then steps over. He didn't look thrilled to be making any bargains, but he didn't know what else to do. "Unlock the shackle, Cianan. Cris, can you lend me one of those daggers?"

He chooses the iron one still caked in the Fae's blood, makes a mental note to clean his gear when they all escaped this, and offers it to Fox, handle first.

Cianan grunted, and drew out the key from his hip pouch, and moved to unlock the shackles. Well, he'd at least free the one connecting him to the chain. Cianan was then shifting over to watch the outside. The last thing they needed was Mr. Necromancer coming home to see all this.

Fox looks at the dagger and pulls a face at Cris before taking it and trying to wipe it off on Cianan's piwafwi. Clean enough, Fox uses it to cut a small gash in his palm. The Faerie merely offers out the hand that had been repeatedly impaled by said dagger. Both parties make a fist, dripping blood onto the ground. In turn, they speak in Sylvan. "The Folk of the Land bear witness."

The Fae looks delighted when the gesture is complete, gesturing with a flourish to the chain around his neck. Fox pulls a face as he steps in to remove it.

Cris, as he watches, withdraws another step. He keeps his gaze, for the most part, on the bargain being struck, but like Cianan, shoots a glance or three to the opening of the small "cell" just in case.

Chain choke collar removed, the Fae leans in to whisper into Fox's ear, claws making dents in the chainmail. After a moment, the creature leans back, blows a kiss towards Shae, and walks towards the exit of the cave with a hum.

Cianan was glancing back over towards the cell, and back over towards the exterior. He was going to watch after Shae. Watching her, his attention was split three ways now.

Fox, nauseated from the close encounter with the cloying scent of cinnamon, hands the dagger back to Cris without a word.

Likewise silent, he takes it, sliding it back into its sheath.

The humming recedes down the hall of decay. When the Trickster withdraws, Shae's ability to speak returns. "Stars only know what ways he intends to bend the wording of that bargain. We should leave."

He grunts his agreement, coming up with at least two footnotes they should have added to their terms. He shoots a gaze upward at where the shaft of light comes down into the "cell," then toward the exit of their small cavern.

He dropped down into a crouch, and looked at Fox. His arms hanging between his legs, with an eyebrow up. Then he looked back over to Shae.

i]"He's already tried. Haven't you Fox?" Fox frowns and looks down, hands on his hips. "Maybe if we can get the shackles off in a place where she can't..." Fox gestures lamely to the air. "Someplace sealed."

"Have you discerned why it was that he could touch her? Perhaps that has something to do with it. He took hold of her wrist and her form briefly solidified." That's what it had looked like, at least.

"It's because he is Fae, or so he told me. Of course, he neglected to tell me how it worked, exactly." No longer burdened by the chains, she appeared able to move well enough with just the iron shackles keeping her grounded. "Is the way out safe?"

"We left ourselves corpse shaped breadcrumbs," aside to her with a slight smile. "Is there a more feasible way to exit this place rather than scaling the cliffside back down?"

"We need to check out the rest of this place first." Cianan sighed, "There are notes, books, there's that portal.. that we don't know where it goes." He smeared his hand over his face, his head tilting back. He was moving back to stand up.

"There's the teleportation circle, wherever that goes to. There might be something in the section of the cave we haven't been to. Or something in that room there." Fox gestures towards the Fae's den.

"Beyond ascertaining that there are no more prisoners other than the three that we met, I vote that we take advantage of this silence and leave. The circle could lead to one of any numerous places. I've taken what I could find of their maps."

Cianan grumbled, "Could be clues to where Shae is written down somewhere. He has other people. Could give us insight into who they are." Study sessions. "We run off half cocked and leave something behind, we might regret it. Though, I do want to torch this place when we do leave."

He grits his teeth but does not voice his disagreement, because the Drow's judgement is sound, for some ****ing reason. "Well, then...." gesturing toward the mouth of their small cave cell. He turns, and heads that way.

Cianan was heading out, moving along the walls, running one hand over, just to check for any magic, illusion, or transmutation, or secret passages or hidey holes.

The four of them cautiously retrace their footsteps. Cianan's investigation of the walls turns up nothing in the cave where Shae was held. However, a thorough search of the Fae's den and 'dining' hall turn up a few items of note: First, a silver wax seal with a Court crest. Second, a vest of emerald green with four bulging pockets and numerous blood stains. Third, a crown of briarthorn carefully woven.

Back in the cave with the troll chunks and shrapnel, there's no sound of anyone approaching. The passageway to the east remains unexplored. Cianan can just see the body of the first necromancer where he left it.

Wonderful. Cianan would however still check the Necromancer in case he had any signs on him, or anything. The people they had left behind would be attended to as well. Then it'd be off to the books. Cianan would stash things in his hip pouch, until he could get them identified to make sure they weren't cursed, because Fae can be fucks.

Cris lingers to inspect the bloodstained vest and the crown, when they locate it. But he, otherwise, elects to keep moving, remaining close by the trio they set free on their way back.

The necromancer has a small notebook written in Necril and a carcanet of iron chains that bears the aura of conjuration magic upon it.. He also has a set of knives, two rings, and two scrolls. The prisoners are where they left them, however, the other necromancer is no longer in the Lab. He is investigating the dead Cooshee.

Cianan would be lamenting the fact he didn't have a bear trap to put on the teleportation circle, when they'd probably come across the other necromancer. He'd just be quiet and let this play out.

He offers them warnings, primarily to be silent despite what they see and hear, and what reassurances he can, as they move, until they pass the laboratory's open space he can no longer see anything among its tables and tubes. He puts one scarred finger to his mouth for the three additions to their small party, and continues on in Cianan's wake.

Shae would sneak down the unexplored corridor when Fox points it out. Being just a set of shackles and a near invisible lady helped with the stealth factor. Fox waits in the Troll cavern for Shae to return. When she does, she speaks quietly. "There's no one there, but I know that there's a squad of men staying here." Fox sighs and nods, gesturing in the direction Cianan and Cris have forged ahead. He shows her to where the prisoners were held with a series of hand gestures, and then points to where they are sneaking ahead with Cris.

The necromancer moves from the Cooshee to the burned sketches on the floor. Then he's moving to the workbenches where he is taking account of what is missing.

Cianan climbed the walls using his boots, quietly stalking after the necromancer on the ceiling, remaining hunkered down, and stealthy. He was waiting, and listening, the necromancer could be reporting to someone, he just wanted to be sure they were all clear.

His right hand falls to the trio of silver daggers on his leg. Gently, Cris works one free until he can feel its comfortable, familiar weight in his palm. He turns it so he grips the blade instead when he sees movement around the corner of the last open cavern they'd been through. His steps are cautious. He measures his weight across the soles of his boots though they already make no sound. He presses his back to the wall, gaze rising to take note of Cianan's position. He raises his hand, the dagger pinched in it, but squints, as he waits.

The man picks up one of the books left on the work tables and turns, walking towards the circle to the south with purposeful strides. He hasn't noticed the ceiling dweller, nor the group of six watching from the west.

Cianan's bat was out of the hip bag, and he was just waiting, lining up for a clear shot at the head if he needed to. He'd swing to clean the guy's clock when he started moving towards the circle.

Unaware of what Cris is waiting for, the necromancer continues his stroll in the direction of 'out of Cris' line of sight'. That is, until Cianan introduces him to his baseball bat. The blow to the head staggers the necromancer to the side and into the wall.

Magical baseball bats were fun like that. Cianan dropped from the ceiling, and landed close by, blocking the way to the circle. "Hi."

Back to Town, Interlude
Cianan's Car, The Small Hours, April 11th, 2017

Shae was quiet for most of the trip back towards the city. It was impossible to buckle up, so she didn't try. During one of the stretches of road, she finally broke her hollow silence of her own accord. "Thank you...both of you. What...um. What day is it?"

If he'd been more mentally sound, Cris could have told her that she was, likewise, a natural at catching him, but it was a reply thought of too late to bother uttering. He rolls the window up, props his elbow against the door, head on his palm, and lets his eyes close. Pieces of the journey shift in and out. He loses some minutes here and there to a doze that he allows himself despite their driver. Shae's airy voice drags his awareness up.

Whatever day it was. Cris was asleep, or partially sleeping, and Cianan would just let him without complaints.

"Tuesday now, most likely." Asleep his ass.

"The date though...?"

His head comes up, abruptly, from his hand. Knuckles peeling from his temple where dried blood had smeared and stuck. He cusses in disgust, pulls his clean hand down his face to rouse himself. "The......." he squints so tightly it aches. Exhales another curse and rifles through the innards of his coat, packed full with stolen maps, for his phone. A swipe of his thumb unlocks the screen. He shows her an image of the Grand Canyon with a vast array of stars overhead. The thin font proclaims it to be April 11th, somewhere in the early morning.

"Can you take me to the Inn tonight? Or somewhere. Fox will probably be at the Church House waiting, but? I can't fix the wards like this."

"When I examined their maps earlier," Cris tucks his phone away among them, "I noted the same teleportation circle at various points throughout town. The Red Dragon was one of them. I do not know where their corresponding partner circles are, if there are any. But perhaps, until you're restored, it will be safer in a place that does not have one of them."

"I can take you to the Inn. My room is warded. You can stay there." Cianan exhaled, "Heavily." Of course, now it was all starting to catch up to him! Lots of action, and running around, and regeneration! Oooof! He paused after that, when he heard Cris talk. "Mm. If that's the case, I have a few places. Also warded." Hooray for Drow paranoia!

"Whatever is easiest."

Cris has yet to leave his pockets alone. He believes he's earned this hand rolled, the last one he has in his coat for now, and tucks it into his frown. Lights up, behind the curve of his palm, with his eyes closed. He does not ask permission, but he at least cracks the window.

Cianan offered to light it up with the fireball wand. Which was, thankfully, out of charges.

Too much light makes him crack his eyes open. He grimaces, smacks the Drow's hand sharply away from him. "Have you any idea how to remedy your situation, Shae?"

She fell quiet again until Cris' question. "Hope that Fox can restore the contract once the shackles are off in a controlled environment. That's all I've got. He made the contract in the first place, he should know how."

Boy was she in for a surprise.

"Know any sealed off areas?"

He lifts his gaze to the rearview mirror. Plucks the hand rolled from his mouth and flicks some ash from the tip of the cigarette. "Lest this place of yours, Cianan, has some sort of airtight compartment."

"Yes. He should.. know." Cianan agreed. Heading along, "Just sit back.. get some rest.. sealed off areas? As in magically?" He made a face, "Air tight? Like an industrial refrigerator?"

"Air tight."

"The Fae's blood will have no effect on your solidity, will it?" Cris still had the dagger, he does not know if that will help.

"I don't think it will. Maybe another Fae. Know any you trust?"

"I mean.. There are some pocket dimensions in some of my places." Cianan thought about his sister, Fae.. but wasn't often sure she counted.

Cris grunts. "I know one Fae, period. Whether I trust her, however, or would with this, is unlikely."

Cianan thought of a few, but none he'd want to owe or ask favors from. Fae was.. weird, more of a strange imp-ish thing, than a Fae. At least as far as he was concerned.

"What about...no that's probably a bad idea. The morning. Figure it out then."

Cianan glanced back in the rear view mirror at Shae, with an eyebrow raised.. if he could, you know, see her in a mirror.

"Your home has a landline, yes? Something that I may call? I do not know if a fire message will work the same with him as it does with you."

"I...I can tell him, I think. Yes. I can. With the wind." As that sentence goes on, it's obvious that she's relieved about it.

"No landline." Cianan shook his head, "Just cell. ...Who?"

"I'll see if he can find my phone. I think it's somewhere in the graveyard. Fox."

"Who, by the ****ing Angel......." exasperated. He pinches the bridge of his nose.

Shae would be okay, but Cianan was taking sharp zag to bounce Cris' head off the window, "You were talking about how not calling someone would be a good idea. I thought we were still talking about Faeries to call." They jumped convo topic on him! That's why he was confused!

"Oh, I was thinking about Fin just then, but I don't know if he's Fae. Does he know? Did he ever figure that out?"

He braces himself against the door, and the seat to ride out the swerve. "I do not think so. He's mentioned that over time, Lucy has been helping him gain mastery over what he can do. He's pretty good at it."

"He is not as you left him," Cris says, looking over his shoulder into the back seat.

A Matter of Divinity, Part 2

"If we are not to go to this entity," Cris began, looking aside to Shae. "Is there a way to contact her?"

Fox shook his head. "If the contract can be reformed without Her influence...it should be."

"I do know a few Gods. Some I'd rather not contact at all." Cianan wiggled his fingers, and exhaled.

"But you haven't the adequate knowledge to do this. What, then, do you suggest?"

"We can try to set the terms of the contract again, see if the barest threads are there, still." Fox dragged his eyes in Cris' direction. His gaze looking through him. Or more specifically, through his shoulders. "It would probably help to have the will of someone divine."

Cianan put another cookie in his mouth, letting it hang. Did he ever get Cris that drink? He was a bad host. Distraction would keep him from worrying, though. "So we need a God. Something divine-ish.. and probably not creepy."

"And some safe way to take the shackles off."

Cris does not know what Fox is looking at, or what he sees. But the phantom target of Fox's attention shifts. First one side, and then the other. A rustle, perhaps, and resettling of bulk. Cris squints back at Fox. Then looks aside to Shae. "When I cut into the chain with my seraph blade, it left a mark. I may be able to unlock them with runes, but I may not be."

"They are just metal now, I believe. But it is still a weight." At that phantom shift, Fox raised his brow.

"We can't be certain, can we, that they're what's keeping you from completely dispersing into the air around us?"

"Don't you know someone divine?" Murmured Fox as he stared at Cris.

Shae replied to his question. "Dispersing? I think he might have been...deliberately misleading. I'm more concerned about the potential increase in the effect of my presence, unbound." Cianan's place held a draft now, she didn't want it to hold a storm.

He looks back at Fox. "I haven't any Angels on my speed dial, if that is what you're getting at." Not one strong enough, anyway. He leans into the edge of the table. "I do not know if what energy I have now, within my own body, will be enough."

"What about these gods you know, Cianan?"

"Mm." Cianan grumbled a bit, "I'm sure I can send one a message. I haven't seen her around today." He was pulling out his phone, and dialing up some stuff. "Chryrie. Would probably be the best one to go to. She's a little cray, but usually more stable."

His gaze narrows as it outlines Fox with the same, subtlely emphatic stare that the other man had previously pinned him with. "What of you?"

"If we can't find a properly sealed place, at least let's go out of the city to try anything. I don't--" Cris' interjection cut her off.

"What of me?" Fox blinked at the stare from the Nephilim.

In turn, he blinks back. Slowly straightens from his lean against the table. "Prior to his exit, the Faerie remarked about us divine sorts, and how we've played with Shae for a longer time than he has. He was not only looking at me when he said that."

"Maybe he sensed something of Her." The conclusion Fox leaned towards was not the one Cris had posited. "If that's so, the contract might still somehow be viable."

He frowns. Glances back and forth between Fox and the idea of where Shae sits. "What do you recall about enacting this contract?"

Cianan sat down at the table once again, his legs crossed. He think he recalled the story, but he wasn't going to butt in.

"I spoke an offer to Shae. The words had power. She accepted. My Groun-- ah. I guess you could call it my nature? My mantle? Some of it passed to her. Likewise, some of her nature came to me. And the goddess made it so I did not die, I assume."

"And for that, you need the divine will of another entity." Attempting to get the story correct first.

"All I know is there was a bargain and there was divine power. I told you I don't know the theory behind this. Not a lot of people to ask about it where we come from, but I can only assume she orchestrated things, because... whatever I was before, I'm a ****ing fox? you know. With some bells and whistles." He might have added 'and devastatingly good looks', were he in a better mood.

"With all things there is will, or intent. He most likely had to mean the offer just as much as I meant to accept it."

Quiet, quiet. Cianan remained quiet, chewing on a cookie, as he considered thinks. Really, had nothing to add for the moment, not even stupid jokes.

He starts to shake his head. Then his gaze drops to the dormant seraph blade laying parallel to the table's edge. "I do not know what it is you are, but you are not just a ****ing fox. I have a way to test this theory, if you're willing."

Fox sighed and looked in Shae's direction before allowing himself to consider Cris' intentions. "What is it you want to do?"

"This blade is forged of a piece of pure adamas," he says, breaking the lock of his arms. His fingertips land softly upon its smooth surface, hilt and sharp edge. "It is a divine metal, the strongest that my people know of, and it can only be tooled and forged in its purest form by an elite sect of female Nephilim known as the Iron Sisters. Those without divine blood or physicality can not touch it, even when it sleeps, like this, for it will burn. Even my people must be Marked to withstand its potency. Prolonged exposure to it, should you come from where I think you do, should not harm you." He looks up. "Touch it, for five full seconds, and we will have our answer."

Considering the blade as Cris spoke, Fox reached out with his right hand. The motion faltered at the mention of the burning. He frowned, withdrew his right hand and offered the left instead. Reluctantly, he stretched his fingers to brush the hilt, prepared to pull back at the first sign of singed flesh. When they didn't melt at the cautious touch, he lets them linger. There was warmth there, and the texture was different than the weapons his skin vaguely remembered. The seconds ticked by, the warmth grew, but it wasn't the burning Cris had implied. "Are you putting me on?"

Cianan just wasn't going to get close to the thing. He'd sit there on the pillows, putting his hands on the floor and leaning back. It was something he certainly hadn't seen before.

"Putting you on what, exactly?" He squints at Fox across the table. "There is absolutely no way to lie about this. You are able to do as you are, now, because something within you comes either from Angels, or from another divine power." Like Fox, he counts the seconds that Fox's hand rests against the crystal clear blade hilt. "Without Marks, without training, and yet....." He gestures, "If all that we need is the will of divine beings, your will that this contract be enacted, Shae's that it be revived-----perhaps we have all we need right here in this room."

Fox removes his touch from the weapon, attention on his fingertips. The thoughtful grunt that passes his lips, while not wholly convinced, was certainly strongly swayed. "Let's say we try that. We still need a place."

"Can we not simply make a space airtight with a an excess of duct tape?" He's serious.

Cianan just stared at Cris for a while. "Gonna guess that the duct tape may not hold up to the potential punishment it might go through.

"So strengthen it," he snaps. "Lay the barrier down, stack wards atop it afterward. Lest you have a massive walk-in freezer that we might use."

"I can't place wards in this form. And the work required for them may be extensive. Anywhere reinforced? Underground maybe?"

"I do." Cianan scratched the tip of his nose, "A freezer that is. A bank vault, as i said before could also be used. A big enough donation, and we might be able to do it." Or an illusion to cover them when the bank vault closes.

"The freezer then." Fox suggested.

"Wait...is it the one we used?"

"That sounds questionable, by the way," aside to Shae.

"What?" Ah the familiar hint of cultural confusion. "It was for Antonia, at the time."

"That makes it worse." But Cris smiles, quick and sharp, the amount of time it takes to look from Shae to Fox. "Where is this place?"

"Edge of the city." If it was the same one he was thinking of. "But no, I had another in mind. Let me make some calls, so we can get the workers to move off site for a bit, and not have to delay what they do." Cianan rolled up to his feet, and went back to the kitchen, grabbing his phone.

Cris nods, scoots back on the pillow and rises to his feet. Collecting his coat, he shrugs it on. Sheaths the blade securely on his back. "Shall we leave this all here, or would you like to bring them with," asking Shae. Regarding the maps, we should say.

"Is there somewhere secure to put them? I don't want to risk the documents being damaged or stolen before I have a chance to look at them." Soft clinking was the shackles moving against each other.

"Other than back inside my coat---- Once this is over, I will give them to you. Else, I can bring them to your home afterward." He begins to stack the maps altogether, much more neatly this time now that he did not have to concern himself with getting caught.

Fox stood, rubbing his left hand against his pants. "Let us know when things are ready, Cianan. I'm going to get some air."

"Right. Right. No. We have a kitchen in the Underdark. They can do their prep after, just get started a little early so you can just switch off." He turned to give them both a thumbs up after the dealings were done. "Everything should be cleared out tomorrow." He stuck his tongue out. "We can wait." He nodded to Fox.

Wind in the Walk-in, Part 2

With a grunt, Cianan hefted the door closed, and made a small wince when he heard the latch click shut. At least he had a cell phone. The last sounded normal, he just wasn't excited to be latched in there with Cris, Fox and what could be a living hurricane.

"Is there anything we must do first?" The freezer feels different with its door swung closed. "Any part of this ritual that can be performed ahead of time?"

Fox exhaled slowly. "You're making a lot of assumptions about my knowledge of how this works. The last time, I called an offer and she accepted it. I tried making the offer to her as she is, but it didn't work. I'm just hoping that with the star iron not in the way she'll be able to respond."

Cianan crouched down in the corner, letting them do their thing for the time being, "We'll see how it works, and move on from there." He exhaled slowly, it was cold, and he could see his breath, he was hoping they weren't in here for too long. He had an extra layer with the piwafwi, and what was under it, the others didn't.

His mouth thins out. He waits a couple beats before, "It was a simple question." Cris, himself, is not the only one that's tired, nor concerned. He refuses to inject another measure of personal ire into this task. Steps forward with the stele spinning through the length of his fingers. He approaches the circle of melting frost, crouching by the pair of manacles floating a couple inches off the ground.

"On three," he says, counting to himself. The closer his stele comes to the star iron, the brighter its adamas tip glows. He cuts the first rune in swiftly with all the practice and surety of a calligrapher holding his favorite pen. One for each, the furrows he leaves behind meant to burn orange, then sink in to do its work. If they could.

"Sorry," murmured Fox quietly. His breathing was irregular and his brows twisted towards each other as he tried to concentrate on the memory of how that day had felt so long ago. Were it not for the freezer's chill, he felt like he should be coming over in beads of sweat. Orange glowed violently over the basic locks. The protest of metal against metal spoke to the effect of Cris' runes. The mechanism that held the shackles closed was coming unfastened.

Cris darts backward immediately after he cuts the second rune into the second shackle. Pulls the seraph blade loose from its sheath, he'd brought it on the off chance the runes didn't work, and tucks it securely under his arm while he finds a place at the far end of the freezer, hopefully close to something bolted down that he can hold onto when the time comes.

Cianan was up, moving in front of Cris. There was a good chance if there was a burst of magic, it wouldn't work on him, and if there was physical damage, he could regenerate. Cianan crossed his arms in front of his face, he was keeping watch, even if he was squinting.

"Are you ****ing serious? Get back here----" Get back where, was the real question. There isn't anything nearby to really hide behind, and Cianan was short.

"Yes." Cianan snorted, "Shut up, and hunker down." At least Cianan's feet wouldn't move. He could walk on walls, a little weather? Well, it'd peel him off, but it'd take a bit.

The pressure inside the freezer changes drastically at first. A sensation like the world is inhaling as it drops. A vacuum formed at the center caused the shackles to fall to the floor in utter silence. Fox, against the closer side wall, felt the ache of breath being pulled from his lungs. He fell to his knees while hanging onto the shelf beside him, face red with strain. Suddenly free, Shae let go of the effort she had been putting into gathering enough strength to move, to call to them.

And then? Chaos.

The air that had been pulled in with the remnants of the Sylph's struggle, straining the seals of the freezer, spiraled outward with increasing force. A rapid acceleration of the cold wind of the freezer followed by warmth. Khamsin, Sirocco, Simoon, Cyclone. Earth had names for such disturbances, and none of them belonged locked in a metal box. The wind shrieked, howled triumphant. Stealing voices from their throats and clouding their ears with the noise.

He doesn't know what to expect. He's been in a handful of natural storms, but those were at a distance, chased from behind, or watched from above, and he had never been in danger of getting sucked into one. The abrupt theft of all the air in his lungs makes him cold. Cris holds tightly to the seraph blade he'd tucked under his arm, held fast to his ribs and bows his head so that it's the floor that gets the picture of his strained face, beads of sweat on his brow, and a very real, potent dose of fear because he's felt like this twice before in his life, that he can remember, and both of those times had killed him.

The eruption afterward shoves him back across the floor, his boots and gear screeching on the frost coating until it picks him up. It's a short distance from the floor to the nearest wall, but breathless and at a hundred miles an hour, it hurts, and his vocalization of that pain, weak as it is, gets lost in the gale.

The howling of the winds was a pretty bad part for Cianan, heightened hearing, and a loud whistle don't make for happy times.

He shut his eyes, and threw his arm up over them, widening his stance a bit, but even if he stood in front of Cris, he still felt like a flag in the torrent of wind. He could feel breaks in his skin, small ones, wind lashing at his face, and he was suddenly wishing he had taken all of his piercings out. Trying to call out was useless, he tried, but couldn't even hear his own words through the wind.

The ring was doing it's best to keep up with all that was going on, regenerating from the whips of air, cutting at him. Teeth gritting, and Cianan dropped down to a knee, the widening of the stance not doing enough to let him keep his balance, he needed to be lower, lower to avoid being swept up and flung into the hard metal walls and ceiling.

Cris balls up as much as he can, up against the wall. Forces his left arm and shoulder down tightly to keep the seraph blade from getting loose. His other fist, locked tightly around the stele comes down over the back of his neck.

Across the way, Fox's voice was lost to the rotation. He struggled low and pushed himself with a listing motion towards the room's center. He has to lay himself nearly flat once as the one projectile they didn't think about, the discarded shackles, hurtled past his head to impact the shelf near Crispin with enough force to bend one of the vertical supports.

As the seconds passed, a space was forming in the center. There began to coalesce the shape of the woman. The winds poured from the edges of her, but in the eye the translucent body turned towards Fox. The suggestion of white eyes narrowed, and turned to look towards Cianan and Cris. Phantom arms reached out and then gathered inward with effort. With the motion, the wall of the whirlwind drew towards her, releasing the edges of the freezer intermittently from its wrath.

Fox continued to push in, as he did, Cris' ability to sense that 'other' would grow. The familiar's voice became audible in fits and starts, seeming a strange mixture of languages, gaining strength that would remind one of the burning force in the Nephilim's angelic weapons. "...bind your?-isha'elina-...in the name of..."

Cianan's ears were able to pick out Drow from the mixture, once they stopped ringing.

Cianan was muttering a return of Drow, he was leaving behind all illusion for the time being, and it might just be a rapid and repeated swearing in his native language, even when things started to calm down, nothing that would interfere with a spell, he hoped, but it was mostly reflex and keeping him from panicking, and easing his own nerves.

He clamped his good ear down, trying to save it from anymore wind torment, but left his eyes open, but narrowed to watch.

Cris flinches as the shelf near him dents in, the sound and threat of something heavy enough to make dents flying around forces him to put his face against his knees. He does not look up, even when the wind starts to recede and the constant pressure shoving him into the wall lets up. Not until he hears threads of language mingling in with the roar of wind.

Straining towards the center, the black haired man reached out his hand. The specter of wind enveloped it. "I accept. Take it." The voice was unmistakably Shae's, and it filled the full of the space they had trapped themselves in. Pleading, desperate and raw, filled the four words.

An exchange of sorts followed in stages. The winds began to recede from their biting assault on skin and tearing of clothing. Fox's black hair began to lighten, invisible links between himself and the Sylph seemed to be offering the color to her. Solidity came to her gaseous existence, a body formed from next to nothing tore itself back into reality, releasing a dirtied, thinned witch from the violent air, clothed in a bloody garment that made suggestions about having once been a dress. White gold hair and white featureless eyes were the last bits of her to regain their normal coloring. In the end, she'd stolen Fox's black hair and borrowed his wild gold for her own. Her skin, normally so decorated with marks of blue, is an empty canvas at present. Her feet touch the ground and stillness returns to the air in the freezer.

What Was Lost, Part 1
The Inn, Night, April 11th, 2017

The car ride back into the city proper had been a quiet affair. Although she no longer lived in the immediate air they breathed, the weight of the tension had settled heavily into the bottom of her lungs. Watching the lights of Cianan's car diminish into the distance, the cool night air she inhaled stung. Each exhale unraveled the poisonous knots of unvoiced feelings. They scurried away into the corners of her mind to regroup, awaiting the unwary stray thought. Head tilted back, the stars above swam for a moment before several quick blinks brought them to clarity again.

Dirtied fingers pulled tighter at the cloak Cianan had given her to cover the bloody and bedraggled attire she'd been wearing. Her hair and eyes were haunted wild, and her bare feet did not touch the street beneath her.

Cris had extracted himself from the car when she asked to be let off but had not yet taken his leave, something she was grateful for. She grabbed a passing thought from the litany of relief and gratitude running in an undercurrent to her fatigue, tossing it towards him in the hopes that he would stay. "You know. I'm humbled by the fact that you two put your personal feelings aside to help me." Her voice still felt foreign coming from her own throat, somehow diminished.

He'd hang the sign of "thorough concern," probably borderline "paranoia" on the truth of his lingering presence: the kind of desperate unrest that leads to children begging their parents for just one more story, because then they would not need to turn out the light just yet. Fear lived in the dark, and so did solitude, and he had not yet resigned himself to seeing her leave his sight, although he would if she asked him to. He's glad she hasn't.

Cris had clapped his hand firmly around the Drow's shoulder, not the headrest as he's prone to, let the weight of it settle as he conveyed his gratitude, and got out of the car to follow Shae along the short trek to the inn with his hands stuffed in the pockets of his coat and his elbows pulled in tight. Three loops of chain whisper at his left hip. His footfalls do not make a sound next to hers, although his heels hit the ground. "It was not as difficult as it would seem at first glance. I needed the skills he possessed, but more than that, he is your friend too. Your safety superseded all our personal reservations."

He hadn't offered her solitude, and she didn't ask for it. She'd had enough of it. Too much. Fingers gripped handfuls of fabric as she tucked her folded arms tight to her ribs, white knuckles hidden from sight. "The fact that it did is a kindness I am grateful for." She didn't harbor any delusions that the endeavor would improve the impressions left by the track record of interactions between the two men, but it warmed her to reflect on it. Their quiet passage ate through the distance to the Inn steadily. The space between them never widening far from companionable.

"I feel like I have asked a lot of you." His face had worn fatigue and stress as she had watched him search for her. "I know I said it before, but thank you."

He neglects to tell her that it would have been easier if he'd been able to call Salome. She would have done it all faster, she would have kept him together better, she would have been able to deal with Cianan when he no longer wanted to. But he couldn't, and so he didn't. Ushered that to the back of his mind like everything else that happened in her absence that he dreaded to tell her. "You asked for nothing that I would not have freely given, Shae. I can only thank the Angel that I understood your intentions. You had not been calling out for long before you were able to reach me, yes?"

When she replied, after weighing what he might hope to hear against how it had felt, she was pleased with the middle ground of truth. "In the presence of that Fae, time was occasionally hard to measure. It took far longer for me to figure out how to reach someone than it did for the words to find their target. It got easier, in a way, once they did." With her attention split in so many directions, hours might have been days and days might have been hours. "I'm just glad you were able to figure out what I needed."

He'd take the truth over a lie, likely already prepared to hear the worst. He allows the little spurt of relief to ice his blood. Gives her a nod. "It certainly does wonders to bolster confidence in one's cognitive speed and problem solving capabilities," slight smile.

"Oh no, you caught onto my plans. It was all a ruse to keep your wits sharp." The words lacked the warm humor and sarcasm that the thin attempt at a joke deserved. Humor was a defense mechanism that faltered with the small shake to her voice and the sobriety of the relief she felt. The Inn was in sight and she could feel one of the knots she'd loosened beginning to tighten again. Pale gold reflections of streetlight darted from the building ahead to him and then to her feet. "Would you resent me terribly if I asked you to keep me company for a while longer?" Before he could answer she was adding on. "I trust my wards. I do. It's just that..."

His snort carries in the dark silence of their empty street. Even the most avid night owls had found themselves a roof. "It was a well-rounded exercise, what with practical tests of patience, stealth, and physical exertion. How kind of you to set it all up, I shall recommend your services, most definitely, in the future." Her soft request pulls his gaze from where it's been resting on the Red Dragon, a familiar, inviting shape in the dark. For a few beats, he simply looks at her, attempting to gauge how much she really thought he would resent it. "I wouldn't. Of course I will stay."

The corner of her mouth tugged up at his snort, and then twitched a little further as he deigned to continue the charade. Then she was waiting for his answer. She could feel the weight of his evaluation as they reached the porch steps, and she held her lips closed with her teeth. Agreement voiced, she allowed them free. "Thank you." Muted words and muted expression should not be taken as an indication for how she felt. That space of seconds between the vulnerable request and his acceptance had been a kind of torture. Her scalp itched for a shower, her skin begged for clean clothes, but most of all: "I really could use a drink. Do you want anything to take up?"

"Certainly." It could be any other night. Approaching the inn from afar, lingering a moment on the porch to decide the course of their evening. Polite, but for some reason he does not feel the need to open the door for her. He rolls one shoulder for her question. "There's a bottle of whiskey I've yet to drink completely down. I wouldn't mind bringing it along."

"Yeah, that'll do." She led the way up the steps, appreciative of the familiarity of the place as much as she had a need to find a point of security to exist in. "I moved almost everything out of this room, so my own supply is gone." There was a pause in the doorway before she could force herself through it. Mercifully, the common room was empty at this gods forsaken hour.

He hums a quiet sound of affirmation. He'd heard, and he'd noticed, the room's emptiness when he was there before. Recalls that he left it in a slight mess when he'd taken the cab to her refurbished church home. He waits at her back for as long as it takes for her to get her bearings, keeps the door open with a gentle bump of his open hand when he follows her inside. "What would you like, I shall bring it." he asks, starting to split off toward the bar.

The Inn, beloved staple of the city that it was, had its own ways of cleaning up after itself. Years of blessings (and curses) from stars knew how many wandering souls. That and a small, but dedicated staff of underpaid workers, no doubt. Tables and chairs had been righted, leaves had been swept out. Shae made a mental note to add a little extra to her deliveries of rent payments on the room she'd been unwilling to completely let go of. "If you're willing, some hot tea. I can see about cleaning myself up, in the meantime." Even if he wasn't willing, she was turning for the stairs.

"Of course." Tea sounds good to him too. It always did. He slips through the bar break, taking the red kettle from its burner to rinse and refill. He flicks the small flame on high and searches for a serving tray, where he puts a pair of cups and saucers. None of their motifs match. He keeps an eye on the stairs as he does to look after her ascent.

Absent a white dress, no one would mistake her for a ghost again. At least, not tonight. Her progress to her room had no stops. There had been a nod on the stairs that was more to herself than it was for him. It was standing in front of her door that delayed her. Obsessively checking each ward ate into the time she'd bought herself with the tea request. It took a second run through before she opened the door and slipped inside.

He thumbs through the selection of teas the Inn keeps readily available. Chooses one for her that smells faintly floral with a touch of cinnamon. For himself, a simple packet of English Breakfast, electing to override his personal rule of "doctoring" tea with anything other than honey. One cup of whiskey laced tea will not kill him. Everything else will.

It's a full seven minutes later by the time he's prepared both cups, tucked the whiskey under his arm, he'll add it once his own cup steeps, and heads up to join her laden with the small tray. Reaching the threshold, he knocks lightly with the curl of one scarred finger.

There was no answer or sound at the door, presently. There was light from inside the room, though. She was probably still cleaning up in the bathroom.

He glances up along the doorframe, frowning, before his hand drops to the door handle. He trusts her wards not to activate and electrocute him where he stood, but he still tests it with caution on the off chance she threw the bolt too.

The wards recognize him as they did before. There is a faint resistance and then the lock clicks over to let him in. The room is as he left if before, save for the 'dress' balled up in the trash can by her desk and the cloak hanging on the open door of the wardrobe. The door to the bathroom was closed, as were the blinds to the alley below, but the air in the room had lost the stale quality it had on his earlier visit.

He exhales in relief. Slips in quickly and lets the tray go to the nearest flat surface once he eases the door closed. Pulls the bottle out from under his arm, sets that down too. He pulls his hand down his face in the silence of the room around him. He can breathe easier here than he'd been able to last time. His throat didn't itch with dust and the scent of old paper. He can do nothing while he waits but unpack himself, starting with the single crystal clear blade sheathed over his right shoulder. He tugs it free, leaning it up against the wall, point down. It takes a couple attempts to find the right angle so that it does not fall. His coat comes next, with the neat pile of maps folded into the center of the book he'd taken from the caverns.

About ten minutes after he let himself in, the door to the bathroom cracked open. Shae emerged, hair damp and loose against the shoulders of an old hoodie. A pair of loose cotton pants was too long for her legs, hems dragging at the floor. She looked, and felt, better for it. Her eyes still said otherwise, but she managed a small smile when she saw him wherever he had settled. Of places to sit, there was the desk chair, the desk itself, two chairs near the door, her bed, and the floor.

His relationship with sitting hadn't improved. The time spent upon Cianan's cushions filled his quota for relaxation for the next two days. She finds him leaning against the chair tucked in under the desk, leafing through the book in his hand. His boots are crossed at the ankle. His unclipped sheng biao rests upon the folds of his coat behind him, the tray nearby, steam still wafting from both cups. He'd taken out the tea bags while she'd cleaned up. He looks up when she appears from the open bathroom door, raises both brows as he closes the book. "Better?"

Pulling the door to the bathroom shut behind her, she paused. Fingers gradually fell from the handle as she considered him there. One of many people she wasn't sure she would see again. One of many people whose face had been cruelly borrowed. There were many words that fought to spill their way past her lips. So many that they choked her. The silence after his question stretched as she fought her composure. She managed a step forward and forced herself to nod.

What Was Lost, Part 3

"You got your hands on my journal." It wasn't a question, merely a statement masquerading as nonchalant. She would indeed have to retrieve that from the Drow. "I trust it was helpful. Hopefully by now he hasn't delved too deeply." There were things written there that she was sure Cianan would never let her live down. "You can just leave the hairbrush with me." She returned to the desk, where she found a seat on the uncharacteristically vacant surface. "I'm glad you like it. It's not quite as spacious when Kate has company over." The small talk gave her the space to further lubricate her tongue. A silence stretched, finally to be broken by the utterance of self-disgust: "None of this should have happened."

"Believe me, had it not been of the utmost necessity, I would not have touched it. In those early hours, I often felt as though the skin was peeling off my bones for the discomfort of it all." He tracks her movements, does not move over when she sits upon the desk, but he does take care to tuck the dormant seraph blade further under the folds of his coat to avoid a mishap. "But it turned out to be one of the only useful things I found. I could not read it, but I at least recognized the language. It led me to approach Cianan." He rolls his hand, looking over her profile. "What were you hoping to find by doing this?"

Teeth abused her lower lip as she turned the bottle in her hands. Fingertips tracing the raised letter 'T' over and over. "Control. I wanted to find control. A friend of mine thought that if I contacted one of my ancestors I would be able to learn enough about my biology to no longer be quite such an unstable entity. And, maybe, get some answers about my family."

"But this shouldn't have happened. I let my guard down because... because I wanted the answers. I wanted the help."

He pinches the corner of his mouth between his teeth for a completely different reason than she does hers. "Ezra," he ventures. "Yes?"

"Yes." The affirmation came easily before the whiskey made her lips sting. "He gave me the herbs, but this isn't his fault. After all the research I still must have made some error."

"No, no, from the letters that I could read, it seems that he advised you to wait either for his assistance or-----that of someone else's. Constance," he rolls his hand a second time, then exhales, smearing the wrinkle in his brow smooth. "I do not think you made an error."

"Yes, he wanted me to wait for him...but after a year my impatience was more than I could suppress." And, really, she would never have pressured the man when he was grieving. "Constance, well, she might have been able to help, but I never got the chance to meet her. Both John and Ezra suggested talking to her, but offered no guarantee that she would or could give me answers. Their family has rules when it comes to information and outsiders." Shae shakes her head. "I must have. It's supposed to contact a spirit of a relative. I refuse to believe that I am related to that...that thing."

"There was no one exactly like her," he says, pulling his hand down his face. "Exquisite carriage and style. Incredibly warm, respectful, and kind. She was a very good friend. I think you may have liked her, if you'd had the chance." He leans away from the desk, rolling his shoulders for the brittle ice trying to settle across them. "From what I discovered in the cave, it looks as though they have been watching you, watching us, for a very long time. I doubt that it would be very hard for that kind of surveillance to turn up nothing about your intentions.

"This spell you cast may have worked on mere generalization. If you come from the same kind, or from the same distant ancestor....." that does not make it sound any better. "Else, they had access to a relative of yours and simply found a way to hijack the spell meant for them. Taking their place. I do not know. Working magic is very low on my strengths list, even less so Fae magic."

Shae was quiet as he reflected on the woman she hadn't had the chance to know. Things were touch and go with the often volatile Fae personalities in and around town, but she trusted Cris' judgment and therefore was inclined to believe him. Something about the way he spoke drew her eyes towards him. She didn't know about the surreal notice of passing she had given both men through the notes in her journal, but her lips drew down at the corners.

Cris pressed on and the frown she wore pressed to a thin line of concern. "Ah, the cave." More specifically the fact that it had been inhabited by people other than the Fae creature that had kidnapped her. "You're certain they've been watching you as well?" Her gaze slid to the folded stack of maps and the book Cris had set down on the other corner of the desk. The discussion of the spell that had either been hijacked or performed in error was left hanging.

"Mhm," he affirms with a nod of his head. "That's something that I have come to expect once I decided not to let the possibility dictate whether or not I venture out of doors." He turns back to her. "My face was one of several sketches that I happened upon. Ketch, Lucy, Fin." Returning to the desk, his coat, he searches through several inner lining pockets and comes up, finally, with a sheet of paper he'd folded neatly into a square. He offers it to her so that she could look it over. "I thought about taking them too, but I'd already had the maps. Our presence was discovered shortly afterward. I destroyed the rest, instead."

Taking the paper from Cris necessitated putting the bottle aside. When she had it in hand, she unfolded it and began to inspect it. Flipping it to the back, she took note of the block of text there. "This...hmm." Sigh. "This is Necril. Did they all have writing like this on them?"

Clearing her throat, Shae read. "Subject named Salome appears to be an ally of comparable arcane ability. Location references seem to indicate that her origin lies outside the home plane making her a valuable test subject, though not fit for full harvest. Appears networked with several other allies, though the exact nature of the relationships cannot be confirmed. Subject has shown a preference for drink and sociability. Subject last seen leaving town for unknown reasons. Subject has yet to return and may no longer be of concern."

The detached style of writing left a bad taste in her mouth. "She's not going to be happy about this."

He trades the paper for the bottle. Takes a swig from it then leaves it there on the desk as he leaves her to study the sheet. He grips the crooked mattress and shoves at it to right it on its frame. "Yes, they did. I could not read it, but I presumed it was a short description, a list of habits, sightings. Et cetera." Shae's continuation layers over the last few words he says. He straightens from his lean over the bed and its wrinkled covers at the abrupt onset of nausea clenching his gut and icing his lungs. He looks over the bed, the nightstand, the wardrobe and pulled blinds, stalling for time until he has to turn around and continue this discussion like he could breathe evenly. When he rubs his mouth, his palm is cold.

It's in his mind to make a joke. Gloss it over, leap from one minute to the next without looking back, but the humor gets jumbled with a very real and palpable wave of sorrow that does not allow for much speech. "She may surprise you," he says instead, simply.

If the other drawings were gone, there was no use worrying about them for now. She'd spared a glance for him as he wrestled the mattress back in place for her, but had missed some of the other behaviors that might have set off warning bells in her mind. "I'll have to take a look at the maps. If there is any way to safeguard those they have been watching or any way to lay a trap for the watchers," Shae gestures to the pile, "those may have a clue." She didn't leap to investigate. Instead she turned the sketch back over. "Did she say when she'd be back in town? I wouldn't mind her help combing over Church House to make sure I don't miss anything."

Lids close to block out the view of the window. Clears his throat, softly, a moment later, resigns to turn first. To just turn around. And then to sit, sit on the foot of her bed, with his boots spread shoulder width and his palms gripping just above his knees to support his lean. Of all the things he knew he had to tell her, Salome's whereabouts paled in comparison to just about everything else. He sucks his teeth against the sour taste of whiskey and too much adrenaline, looks up slowly from the floor.

The very pregnant pause between her question and a response drew her attention fully in his direction. What she watched of his body language then birthed a tight pain of anxiety in her stomach. Her lips paused mid-sound when he sat down. She'd intended to call his attention with his name, thinking maybe he hadn't heard her question, but to see him sit down had thrown her. Now, as his eyes lifted, he would see her sitting very still, the sketch held loosely in one hand such that the paper bent and touched her leg.

Enough time has passed that he thinks he can articulate his way around it, say the words as emptily as the list on the back of the Warlock's paper had been. Observational bullets, fired in an even rhythm. Eighty-six years of a life of mercy, compassion, ferocity, and strength whittled down to a paragraph. His lips press to a flat line. He swallows thickly, hates the way his insides feel like they're floating around, clipped free of their anchors, and he shakes his head.

That shake of his head was her undoing. Because it meant he had heard her. It meant there was an answer that he struggled to voice. The sketch said she had left town. Had they fought? Thoughts scrambled to shuffle themselves into an acceptable answer where his reactions made sense but everything was fine. Before she knew it, she was standing in front of him. Standing? No, she had knelt down in front of him where he sat. Yes, that was it, because his face was above her again and she was looking up into it as she heard herself ask. "Cris...where is she?"

He sits still under her study. Even when she advances, when she kneels, his face follows her descent with rocks at the back of his jaw and cables of the tendons in his throat. His hands keep his knees from moving, grip keeping his fingers busy where he'd surely pick them, bite them, shove them through his hair, pull them down his face. The sound of his name puts Shae's face into greater focus, fanning away some of the fog that's started to cloud the sharp edges of his gaze, a vacancy resulting from a most desperate attempt at compartmentalization. He hasn't spoken in so long, he doesn't know what his voice will sound like. He doesn't want it to crack or scrape, but the longer he sits, the longer he looks into Shae's upturned face, the worse it will become if he does not at least try.

His mouth cinches up into a tight, uneven line. The same kind of rucked up stress mars his brow. He shakes his head, bows it, then wets his frown with dart of his tongue. "She's gone," he says, when he looks back up. Smoothly, thank the Angel, but with no voice behind it, his whisper too soft and with very little enunciation. "For months, she's gone."

Something was wrong, terribly wrong. Her instincts screamed it at her while she made study of his body language, the whites of his knuckles, and the lack of focus in his eyes. A pressure was mounting in her skull that spread a chill through her body and left her flush with heat in its wake. It didn't make sense. If she'd left to visit New York, he would have said so. If they'd fought...he would gloss over it. Unless he felt guilty. His reply was such a quiet struggle. "She...she's coming back. Isn't she?" If something had happened to Salome, he would be working on fixing it. Like he had helped her. Surely there was a plan already.

She's too close for him to shove up and march around her. He can't scoot back either. The space he has left is all he will get. Abruptly, he lets go of his knees, pulls both hands roughly down his face, and he shakes his head again. "No. No, no she isn't." There's a bottle on the desk behind her that looks incredibly inviting. He focuses on that, instead. "Months ago, she became wrapped up in the task of killing the demon that plagued Glenn, that plagued Leena." He gains volume the more he talks. They are just words, he tells himself. He could, possibly, make believe that he's talking about someone else. "She was there when it happened, she saw it happen. She------e-erm...." frowning, he pinches the bridge of his nose. "------they were successful. But she was lost in the process."

He quietly wishes Shae luck in deciphering those pronouns. He can't yet bring himself to say her name.

There was only one 'she' that Shae was focused on. It wasn't what she wanted to hear. Hope sputtered and died where it had barely lived in the back of her gaze. Crushed by the weight of his obvious dismay and of her own shock. Months ago. While she had been buried in her own research. Maybe even while she had been trapped. Months ago these events had come to pass and she hadn't known. "Nnnn--" The noise that escaped her was a keening, aborted denial. Fingers balled themselves into the fabric of the sweatshirt she wore, stilling hands that ached to do something, anything, to turn Cris into a liar. Shae stared into nothing at the level of his breastbone.

He sits still as long as he can. Counts the seconds tick-tocking in his brain, in time to his pulse, surprisingly even despite how it felt. He gives up the attempt at composure as the sound of her own misery cuts itself off. He shoves back into the foot of her bed to give himself room to pivot. Stand, walk out of the little space she'd pinned him in when she knelt. He gets two paces away and pauses. Spreads four fingers along his brow.

The last time Shae had seen the Warlock's face, it had been worn by an impostor. How could she have known that she had been speaking to the mockery of her friend's ghost? Anger, white and bright, seated itself in her sight, such that she didn't even notice at first that Cris had moved. She could feel her hands shaking against her stomach. How dare he. How dare that thing steal away her last memory of Salome's countenance. Last memory. Final. Like so many others. The room swam back into focus, a jarring tilt to the image as she pushed herself back to her feet and turned. Cris. Her lips mouthed the name but it was movement without sound. It struck her in stages. The Warlock had come back to save him. Had helped Leena. And had paid. At odds though they might have been at times, she still remembered the feeling of Salome's face in Cris' memories. After what he had lost, she wasn't something he should have had to let go of too.

"Cris I..." Her voice was thick at the edges, fuzzy to her own ears. "I'm so sorry." One hand reached out towards his back, hovering just shy of his shoulder blades, fearing to burden him with her comfort.

It must just be his imagination, that he can smell blood behind the soap on his fingers. He turns his face to his hand, smears his palm along the growth of whiskers on his jaw, lets it drag his frown out long and thin. He does not know where he finds the strength not to sink to the floor and curl up around his knees. It's a wonder that at this time, last night, he'd been armed to the teeth, the whole of his insides burning with mounting with enough anger and fear that it drowned everything else out, and he missed that. He missed when he could think of something else. Not about Salome, or her death, or of the last time he had ever seen her face. Pinched above him in disgust first, then pity, then nothing.

He exhales at the sound of his name. He scrapes his fingernails along his jawline. Saves her from her uncertainty over where to put her hand when he turns to face her, his mouth pursed and tight, his throat jumping through a swallow. He nods quickly, three times.

Wayward, outstretched hand settled on his shoulder once as she passed, offering a squeeze as its sister reached for the bottle that had been abandoned on the desk behind him. Snake oil potion to soften the blow of the hole that had been carved out of her, the whiskey burned all the way down to the pit of her stomach. Eyes closed, she pressed damp lips to the back of the hand holding the bottle. The seconds passed like an age before she opened her eyes and offered the bottle to him. Voice small, she asks the one question she most fears the answer to. "Was...is anyone else...gone?"

He doesn't shy away from it. Half of him wants to, half of him still wants to sink. So he remains on that thin tightrope between the two labeled indecision. One of its phantom fibers snaps and falls away. He doesn't know how many are left, or how much longer it will support him. "One," he says, taking the bottle from her, "but not in the same way. Merely-----unreachable, at present, according to Fin."

Turning her back to the desk again, she finds support in gripping the edge of it with both hands. Fin. In her circle that meant Cris was talking about Lucy or "Ketch. It's Ketch, isn't it." The name echoes in another, smaller hole inside her, one that was less jagged and a bit to the left. She turns her gaze towards the window, tucking her chin down against her shoulder.

She answers when he's mid-swig. He sucks what is close to one and a half shots through his teeth and passes the bottle back with an emphatic sweep of his gaze aside to meet hers when he swallows. "I've been told that a woman named Billie came from Arizona in search of him. Fin's told me that she is Ketch's cousin, and that the only certainty she has concerning him is that he is not dead. Merely in an unreachable place as atonement for something he's done."

"Fin is deeply concerned for him." He pulls his hand down his face, exhales through his fingers.

"He was killing himself over Mimi, and the guilt of her ghost come back to visit him in the flesh. It may be that. Or something else." Fin, she needed to see him again, too. She'd ask the Scot about the unreachable man when the Shifter's name stopped causing an arrowhead to move inside her ribcage. Ketch's face was another one she'd seen, but it had been the easiest to see through because it told her what, months ago, she would have wanted to hear. She knew him enough not to believe in that change of heart.

He grunts a quiet sound of acknowledgement, of understanding that goes deeper than merely the grasp of English. He crosses his arms tightly, over his chest. "He has withdrawn incredibly far into himself," he says, quietly, "it is a surreal thing. To see the mirror image of one's own face on another's. I've told him that Ketch will return. I believe that to be true, and at least----if he does not return to town, he will at least exit wherever it is that he is now. We can do nothing else but put faith in him."

Cris' quiet observation draws her attention back towards him. "Maybe you can help each other, for I would see both of you less in shadow. The both of you have enough bruises on your souls, after all. And Ketch," a hand reached towards the top right drawer. From there she took out a small metal case filled with slightly stale, filtered, hand-rolled cigarettes. Plucking one from the line to put to her lips, she continued. "Ketch has witch blood. The bastard wouldn't dare go easy."