Tsuminar -- City Outskirts -- Hab Complex seventeen




The seventeenth floor of the hab complex was roughly the same as the last sixteen he'd traversed. Sterile, light blue and grey walls, door after door that all looked the same. How did the song go? Little boxes on the hillside? little boxes all the same?
It applied well here.

He pulled his jacket closer around his sinewy frame. Almond shaped eyes of calculating grey. Black pants, simple shoes. Olive-toned skin and short-cropped black hair. The man looked to be maybe twenty two, but already moved with a predatory grace.

The man made his way along the desolate corridor, heading for a specific door. If things went according to plan . . . he'd be in and out in less than six minutes. With an extra two minutes of leeway, in case of complications.

He swept the hallway once more, checking the far door with the glowing exit light. His man would be out there, waiting. A secondary precaution.

He checked his messages once more, and then knocked on the door. Twice, short and sharp. Time to see if the plan was going to go like it should. Or if it would go to hell. Again.

Edited by Ajax on September 9, 2014 at 4:57:52

Terrel's anger stuttered for a moment at that. She hadn't thought about that, yet. In fact, if she would have expected anything, it would have been to have a pair of cuffs around her hands as she got dragged onto some awful ship out of this place.

"You beat her?" she asked, unsure what else this could mean. A thought struck her a moment later, and she ran a hand across her neckline hopefully, but it proved to be disappointing. Maybe Rua could kindly explain that too.

---

"My father's will clearly dictated that his position--" Elle'n cut in as quickly as she could, but Pius' soft tone managed to steamroll her jaw shut without much effort.

"Your father's will," he interrupted easily, "was always subject to Stamaria's board and leader, and he understood that. Your father's will for you, once he was gone, is now little more than a recommendation in weight. Of course, he was a great man, but part of his greatness was always putting Stamaria first."

The young woman felt her blood chill at that, all parts of her so poised and so intentional that one may have mistaken her something inhuman, at first glance. Anger raged through her, but it was a cold, relentless malice.

"So," she said tensely, after a moment, "You're just going to throw me onto the street, is that it? Give me a hug, a condolence, and then spit on the grave of my father as I walk out the door?"

"Well, let's not be hasty, of course," the man came back slowly, but his aversion was not disagreement, it was sheltering the fact she had just exposed him. "We've discussed a number of options, and we think it would be best to move you into the third sector under a regional director, something less demanding as you transition during this time."

"Third? Pius, that's basically intern work. For the last three years I have run nearly every political claim Stamaria has taken part of. Including the one for this tower, if you will remember. This is what I get?" She could hear the anger creeping into her words, despite her best effort to keep them icy cold.

"Times change, Elle'n. The dynamic has shifted, and we want to bring in new people, now. Of course your work has always been most prized, but now we need to consider the future. You of all people should understand that, shouldn't you?"

She understood. She had been played at her own game when she least expected them to swing, and it infuriated her more than she cared to admit. She took a breath, though, and calmed herself far enough to regain all her composure, at least on the surface. After a moment, she stood up from her chair and walked to one of the large windows that overlooked the city beneath them.

"Do you read your Bible, Pius?" she asked coldly, and she could tell it took him off-guard even from the corner of her vision.

Rua scoffed. "Beat her? Oh, no, not when she's wearing freakin' power armor and all I've got is a sword. No, I convinced her to leave after she saw who exactly she was after," he informed her. He saw her reach for the corded ring that was no longer around her neck, and grimaced. "And no, she doesn't have the ring, though that's what her main objective was. We're out here because she spared us."

"I don't get it," Terrel said bluntly, now completely lost. "What do you mean, she saw who she was after? She's been chasing me for months. And if she gave the ring back, then she's as dead as I am."

After a moment, though, an uncomfortable thought occurred to her. So uncomfortable, she almost didn't want to ask, but she couldn't keep it to herself for longer than a moment.

"Do I know this woman, or something? Like, from somewhere else?" She asked the question, but if she was completely honest with herself... she wasn't so sure she wanted to know.

"I'd say so, yeah," Rua said with a short nod. He fished out the ring from his pocket, holding it up by the chain for Terrel to see. "She'd been chasing you for a while, but she didn't know who you actually were because of this thing."

He looked down at the Eden Ring, noting how it looked just like Maia had shown him. He grimaced. "She told me that this thing scrambled your character data and put you in some sort of shadow effect," he explained to her. "So she didn't actually have any idea who you were until I took the ring off of you, and after that, she got cold feet because she recognized you. Before that, all Maia knew of you was that you were really good at getting away and really good at getting your partners in crime killed."

Sera stopped at the mouth of a street heading back down towards the docks. In the distance, smoke from the buildings closest to the jungles, the smell easily making it to her nose. She sniffed once or twice, grimacing as the smell of charred wood and metal made itself known.

"Is he scared of you, then?" She asked curiously, turning her gaze to her comrade, noting that she too had pricked her nose at the smell.

____

Four and a half minutes after he entered the room. There was a trio of gunshots, and then he stepped quickly out of it, closing the door behind him with a soft "click".

Seconds ticked by as he walked calmly down towards the exit. Pistol already back under his jacket. Doors opened, weary factory workers poking their heads out warily. Gunshots weren't regular sounds in the hab blocks, nor violence of any kind.

whispers cracked the tense silence, several eyes staring at him fearfully. The man smiled politely to one woman, half-obscured behind her door. "Accidental discharge." He said simply. In the dimmed lighting the hab blocks used for the evenings, his clothing was intentionally easy to mistake for building security. "Go back to sleep, sorry for the disturbance." He added with a measured, steady air of confidence. Equal parts soothing, reassuring and commanding. With the strength of his voice carrying down the hall, the nervousness seemed to die down.

Not all of them bought it, oh no. But enough did, and as they closed their doors, the holdouts buckled to peer pressure, following suite. Seconds later he was through the door and slipping off his jacket, tossing it into the trash can and taking the stairs two at a time as he headed down and to the waiting vehicle. Only now did he let his annoyance show, where none could see. It hadn't gone to plan. Not nearly.


Edited by Ajax on September 10, 2014 at 5:49:25

"No, no more than any NPC is scared of a player," Fille said, shrugging. She glanced aside, though, hesitant. "I do, ah, have blackmail on him though. Which he's not happy about."

The Bard smiled in amusement at that. A player having blackmail on an NPC. The lengths the game creators went to in mimicking life. . . When you couldn't readily tell the difference, was there one?

"Do you want to see him right now? I don't have any plans besides living long enough to sing tonight." She took a deep breath, clamping down on the gag reflex from the myriad of smells. It was better to breath in putrid, slightly fishy air, she reflected, than the stuff she'd been breathing for the last decade. Somewhere in her head, she knew her body was still breathing in that eternally recycled stuff. But here, her mind thought she was breathing differently. And for the moment, it was good.

Fille shook her head, causing her hair to flutter about. "No, no, visiting him now won't do me any good. He'd just get angry," she said. "I only approached him the day before last, so there's no way he would've gotten the info I want yet. He's good at what he does, but it still takes some time."

Terrel looked away from Rua as he mentioned her partners. It wasn't that simple, but how could you explain that to someone? Still, it was a minor point compared to the rest... Maia knew her? And Rua got the ring anyway? She itched to grab it out of his hand but refrained for the time being. There was a more pressing concern.

"Well, did she say anything? Did she say who she was?" Terrel couldn't think of anyone who would play this game and respond like that. Not to mention, it was weird beyond measure that something like this could coincide.

---

"I'm sorry?"

"The prophet Jeremiah once wrote, in response to treachery,

'“If you have raced with men on foot, and they have wearied you,
how will you compete with horses?
And if in a safe land you are so trusting,
what will you do in the thicket of the Jordan?
For even your brothers and the house of your father,
even they have dealt treacherously with you;
they are in full cry after you;
do not believe them,
though they speak friendly words to you.”
“I have forsaken my house;
I have abandoned my heritage;
I have given the beloved of my soul
into the hands of her enemies.
My heritage has become to me
like a lion in the forest;
she has lifted up her voice against me;
therefore I hate her.'

Do you know how it ends, for the betrayers?" She quoted and questioned coldly, reciting the thing from memory and turning to face him after she had finished. Not to her surprise, he seemed confused and discomforted by the whole thing. When he didn't respond quickly, she answered her own question.

"'They shall die of deadly diseases. They shall not be lamented, nor shall they be buried. They shall be as dung on the surface of the ground. They shall perish by the sword and by famine, and their dead bodies shall be food for the birds of the air and for the beasts of the earth.'" she quoted again, also from memory.

A chilled silence fell between the two of them in the room, Elle'n occupying herself by looking out over the city again, waiting for Pius' reaction. She knew he had won this one, but she also knew she had a reputation. If she could bring him even the slightest amount of discomfort and fear from it, then that was a start.

After a long moment, his voice came through, terse and not terribly cowed. "Is that a threat, Ms. Gladish?" he asked her, using the last name now instead of the first as a sort of condescension.

"Yes," she responded simply.

She heard him leaning back in his chair, probably unsure what to think of that. Words weren't enough to get a man like Pius riled up, especially when the person throwing punches was already in handcuffs. She turned to face him, now looking down on him in his chair as he steepled his fingers in front of his face.

"You're not a threat to us, as much as you'd like to think you are. Without us, you have no manpower, no currency. Your file access is now removed, and just incase you decide to try anything else, we've assigned an intelligence officer to keep tabs on you specifically. Don't screw with us."

An intelligence officer? Elle'n wouldn't frown in front of this man, but that wasn't good news. Off the top of her head, she could think of the men of rank likely to get that job, and she wasn't on good terms with any of them. She'd never had to be, before now.

There was nothing for it but to fold this hand and plan for the next one. "So now what? I suppose you have an honor guard waiting to escort me out of the building, standing right outside that door?"

"In that case, if we're going to die, at least let's eat lunch first." Sera quipped, eyes sparkling. Down the street a smell wafted that wasn't quite as disgusting as fresh fish. One might even say . .it smelled good. Bacon--no, Bacon-y. that was the best way to describe it. "I'll buy. If the men here don't kill us, maybe the food will." She spun, boots tapping along the wood as she headed down the street towards the smell.


_____


Tsuminar-- Stamarian Tower, 142nd floor

As it turned it. Things hadn't gone "quite" as bad as he'd first thought. In fact, given where he was standing now, just outside the elevator, one might even say things had gone "well". Not a word he particularly liked. He much preferred outstanding. But anything better than bad was at least some form of win.

He'd made it back, turned in his written report---and been told the promotion he had been working for was snapped up by Fitzgerald. Of all women. That truly annoying and--he grudgingly would admit, devious old hag had snapped up the Section Chief position for her own department, claiming she needed a secondary underling.

Fortunately, a new opportunity had presented itself. The tower had sent word it wanted an intelligence officer, assigned to a special case. Immediately the flags on it had sent half the young bucks fleeing for the hills. This job would be murder, perhaps literally, considering the rumors about the target. Again, Fitzgerald had tried to intercept it with one of her own. But in the last hour he'd managed to sidle his way into the running, and then carefully make sure the other two prospects didn't get to their briefings in time. It hadn't made him friends, but if he could pull off this job, he was one step closer to not just section chief . . . but something higher.

So there he stood, straight and slender, a modestly handsome, mostly nondescript man, if you didn't look into his eyes. Waiting with hands clasped behind his back for the door to Pius' office to open, just a few dozen feet away.

"You flatter yourself, Elle'n. As of this moment, the only thing you can do here is take the elevator back down. You'll leave your crest and badges here, of course," Pius said smoothly. That meant even working in the third sector had just gone out the door too, a useless formality that had proven itself.

With a sneer, the young woman tore the crest off her shoulder with one hand, using the other to yank off the tassels on the opposite shoulder. At once, she felt practically naked without the familiar weight, but she kept that from showing on her face. Soon enough, it'd be his face that contorted with disgrace. Without bothering to give another word, she turned her back on him and left his office.

As she swung the doors open again, though, she did see someone. Not a guard--Pius had told the truth on that--but a different man. She recognized his face as someone who had worked in intelligence, and something inside her resonated. He wasn't of rank to watch an individual of her profile, but he was close. Could the promotion be recent?

She almost laughed, when she realized what had just happened. Pius had arranged the briefing on following her to come immediately next, hadn't he? The invisible hand of Stamaria came into focus at once. It was a foolish mistake--now she knew.

Of course, this man would recognize her. Her father had headed intelligence from the top practically since Stamaria had been formed, and she had been his right hand for over two years now, until this. He would know her face and, more importantly, her reputation.

Beyond the first glance, she refused to make eye-contact with him, walking straight toward the elevator, an almost palpable frigid wind in her wake.

---

After a few minutes, Pius' secretary looked up and nodded to the man waiting.

"He'll see you now," she informed him.

"She opened up that visor of hers, and I got a pretty good look at her face," Rua said pointedly, as he stashed the Eden Ring safely away in his inventory--he didn't want to risk activating the damn thing by keeping it on him. "She looked a lot like you, Terrel, and she told me to ask you about her sometime."

Fille nodded at the course of action. "Yeah, some food sounds good right now," she agreed as she trailed after the bard. "Just don't start staring at any strangers, I'd rather not have a repeat of Liam so soon."

Terrel's mouth went dry at that, and she suddenly felt her face grow much warmer in the heat. Glancing around, she tried to distract herself, but all she found to look at was a smoking, mess of a city on one side, and some traveler meandering in their direction on the other side. Taking a deep breath, she set her jaw and looked at her companion closely.

"What exactly are you trying to say, Rua?" She thought she already knew, though, and she felt like she was going to be sick.

"I don't---well . . " the Bard paused for a moment, one foot half-lifted, poised to take a step. "Okay, I do stare sometimes, yes." She brought her foot down, continuing onwards, trying to ignore the smoke, focus on the bacon. At least it didn't make her want to gag. "Liam did come to us, though." She added on a moment later, a touch more defensively than she meant it to sound.

____

If Stamarian Intelligence had a princess, the woman who had just given him the proverbial cold shoulder would have been it. For his own part, he kept his eyes straight ahead after the single glance to her. His stance the same until she made it into the elevator and the doors closed.

From there, the few short minutes until he was invited into the office were passed by going over what he knew of the woman he was to be charged with, and the man who was to charge him. Finally, as the secretary spoke, he inclined his head once and entered Pius' office.

"Officer Larent Shepard, reporting. Sir." He said with not a touch of the formal military tone that should have accompanied such a phrase. Officer he was, but intelligence was a more tricky business. Trained to mimic anyone and everyone, he kept a relatively lax, calm tone when not playing a part.

"That this Maia girl is your sister, I guess? I remember you saying you had a brother and a sister," he remarked, which reminded him uncomfortably of having the same sibling set-up in his own family. How similar were they? "She cares, obviously, because she freaked out and stood down when she saw it was you. I told her when we met you were a Theta, which is probably why she panicked so much."

"Yes, he did, which is bad enough here," Fille pointed out. "This is very much a place where you keep your head down low. Next place you go, make sure you find out what it's like beforehand, okay?"

If she had seen it coming, it didn't seem to help. Her sister? The girl she had practically raised? The girl she had dropped out of school for, had stolen for, had given up a life for? Her chest seized up at the thought.

Had it always been like this, then? Had her sister always looked at her like a disappointment, like a stain on society, but had always been too polite to say it? For the longest time, Kat had been her only victory. Even when she had dropped out of school, she had been doing it for her family. Even when she had spent a week in a jail cell, she knew she'd have done it again so her sister could have a real life. It had always been worth it.

But now?

They hadn't talked in almost two years. Kat had made it out, gotten a job, and then always been too busy to talk. If that was the price of victory, she would gladly take it. Was this the real reason? Everything seemed suspect, now. If she didn't have this, what did she have? Her sister was smart, smarter than she'd ever hope to be, and this was her conclusion. It made Terrel shudder.

But that traveler down the road was almost on them, now, and Terrel suddenly felt vulnerable. Stuck with a face full of tears and her only protection now in Rua's inventory, she flinched with the traveler welcomed them loudly.

"Greetings!" he boomed, his voice powerful and sonorous, and Terrel couldn't help but steal a glance.

The figure was surprisingly tall and wide, towering at least a foot above her and easily three times the depth. From top to bottom, he was covered by a thick cloak that completely obscured his face and other bodily features. The only things really visible were his hands inside the voluminous sleeves, a fruit in one hand and a glass vial in another.

"Care to buy something, friends?" he continued, waving his hands broadly. "I sell death itself, finely crafted from the greatest of sources. No foe will stand against you, if my spells sharpen your sword!"

For her part, Terrel's heart raced in her chest, and she blinked furiously to fight the tears. From top to bottom, her world was exploding, and she couldn't make heads or tails of it.

"I... I need to be alone right now," she managed at last, hardly more than a whisper as she decided that the jungles were preferable to the road for her. Right now, she just wanted to be as far from people as she could be.

Taking a few slow steps back, she turned on her heel and darted into the edge of the jungle at its nearest entrance, vanishing from sight.

---

As the woman darted off into the cover of the jungle, the large, cloaked merchant turned to the young man instead.

"Bad break-up, my boy?" he asked concernedly, though it sounded funny coming from the deep, echoing voice within the monstrous cloak.

---

Pius waved the young man in, earnestly, beckoning to the same straight-backed chair he had offered his last victim.

"Ah, Mr. Shepard, thank you for coming on such short notice. I understand congratulations are in order, for your most recent promotion?"

"Realistically." Sera replied, her voice growing more somber with the thought. "Anywhere in this game is bad for a Theta. Rogueport may be more "evident" about it. But lots of people are going to start wanting us dead in a bit."

Three stalls down, an open-air eatery was located. Rickety tables and chairs, grubby patrons and . . oh god. Bacon. Actual. Honest to goodness virtual bacon for her virtual mouth. She could practically hear her stomach growl at the sight. Her mind following her words a moment later, trying to summarize her feelings without sounding crazy, dire or whathave you. "It's just---if you keep your head too low, you miss the sunsets. And I've missed a lot of sunsets. Recently. Don't have many left. If that makes sense." She half turned, gazing to Fille, her expression a muddled concoction of confusion and something deeper, a desperate need to try and see her quest through.

____

He made it to the chair in a few easy strides, sitting down and nodding. "Thank you, sir." He said, managing not to roll his eyes. The man was bothering with pleasantries. Why? "My superior's said I was in the running for a new operation. Sent me straight over."

"Good, good," Pius said slowly, leaning back in his chair easily and fiddling with something on his desk. "Well, let's make this quick, I suppose. You've already received the briefing, and they sent you to me so I could give you the scope of the assignment.

"You are, of course, going to follow and track Ms. Elle'n Gladish, of whom you are familiar with, I'm sure. Her recent departure from Stamaria is... not a threat, but given her previous influence here, we'd like to make sure everything stays nice and quiet with her. She is a Theta, of course, so no lethal measures in any circumstance, but as far as her personal life goes, everything is on the table for you. If it's relevant, I want to know where she eats, sleeps, does her shopping, and anything in between."

He paused for a moment, seemingly weighing a couple of options in his mind, but when he spoke he seemed relatively relaxed. "We don't anticipate her being much of a problem, I don't think. Everything she had here was thanks to her father, and without that she's basically nothing," he said, shooting a corny grin across the table to the young man. "Should be a good assignment to get your feet wet, hm?"

Rua just about jumped out of his skin when the booming voice announced that they had a visitor in their midst. The rotund figure in the cloak sounded familiar to Rua--not from his voice, but from his manner of speech--but he had more pressing concerns on his hands, like how his party member was on the verge of a nervous breakdown from his turning her world up on her head.

And then she bolted. Rua blinked, and he felt his jaw drop as she made an excuse and darted off into the jungle outside of Rogueport. "Aw, shit," he growled, sprinting off after her. Relayia yelped at the action and took flight, flapping her wings hard to keep up with her owner.

"You're going to miss all of the sunsets if you keep acting like you have in this place," Fille said grimly, glancing down at the planks in which she walked. She sounded somewhat bitter. "I told you before, your goal won't mean anything if you get yourself killed for being an idiot."

She may not have been the brightest, strongest, or sharpest person, but, by God, she had plenty of experience running, no ring required. Not pausing to look back, Terrel burst into the jungle at full force, dipping under overhanging branches and vaulting over fallen trees as she went. More than anywhere else, these places were home to her, and she focused on running fast to keep her mind off anything else. At least she was good at it.

---

The large, cloaked man jumped as the young man took off too, leaving him on the path without a moment's notice. "Very bad break-up, hmm," he muttered to himself, watching the swordsman head toward the brush. Well, if this man wasn't going to give up, neither would he!

Picking up the edges of his cloak with his hands, the cloaked figure broke into a trot of his own, calling after the swordsman in his large, booming voice.

"Wait! Wait! I can help you find her!" he called out, keeping one hand on his cloak while using the other to rummage across his person, looking for something.

Sera sat down, silent for a moment. What Fille said was true. Part of her wanted to go on the defense, to point out that she really hadn't done anything "especially eye-catching" besides sing in a Hell. Her mind said that would be rude, however. And rude was not something she had been raised to be. She smiled and shrugged, eyes thoughtful as she glanced around, not meeting Fille's gaze for several moments. "I have---roughly ninety sunsets left, maybe." She replied, her voice more cheerful than she thought it would sound. "I intend to spend those ninety sunsets singing, dancing if I can, and most definitely bringing a smile to people's faces. That doesn't change because the place is dangerous. If I hide because it's hard . . . what's the damn point?"

_____

Larent's grey eyes stayed locked on Pius's face, reading his expression. His ears heard the man's words, and he remained totally impassive as Pius shot him the cheesy grin. Something, felt off. The pause in the man's words was annoying, more than anything else.

He spoke softly, casually, eyes glittering with mild interest "If my feet were not already wet, sir, you wouldn't be giving me this assignment. I'll make sure the target remains quiet and unobtrusive to your life and the Empire." He took a moment to pause as well, carefully mirroring the length and time of Pius's pause. "Is there anything else I should know about her, sir?"

Edited by Ajax on September 12, 2014 at 4:26:35

That idiot! Rua screamed in his mind. Just how deficient in brain cells was that woman? She only had half of the supplies, she had little in the way of equipment from everything he saw, and she took off in a moment's notice when she's a bloody Theta?! The hell with my apology! Her decisions couldn't get any dumber!

The area was dangerous. Not terribly long after he'd put Terrel on the ground a small column of mean-looking Stamarians rode out of the town proper. They were sparsely equipped, but none of them looked like he'd want to fuck with them. And Terrel just went screaming out of here into their midst, from all he knew!

Terrel was a damn good runner, that much he could tell. He could barely keep up with her in this mess. He ducked under branches that she could ignore, threw himself over dips in the ground, slammed through shrubbery and other flora as he gave chase. Dammit, he needed a mount for this shit! Distantly, he heard the stranger's voice calling out, but he could barely make out what he was shouting.

"Dammit, Terrel, will you stop!" he bellowed as he continued the chase. Slowly but surely, she was beginning to outpace him, and any minute now she could disappear into the jungle.

Fille wasn't ignorant of what goes on around her. She paid attention, more than most people thought she did, probably even more than he suspected. She hadn't missed the earlier statements Sera had made, back in the warehouse when they were talking to Audra.

Sera was dying, or at least believed she was.

She didn't take her seat next to the bard, choosing instead to stand and watch Sera, considering what she had said. She felt she had three months to live. "I never said you should quit," she finally told her, an odd edge to her accented voice. "I don't think your plan is... bad. No. But you're missing the point of it, I think."

The man in the cloak huffed and puffed, doing his best to keep up with the swordsman while also keeping his cloak on, still trying to find something as well. For him, though, the pursuit was not going well, as his cloak kept getting snagged on random branches and snares. At last, though, he managed to find the thing he was looking for. Pulling out a vial from within his cloak, he examined it only for a moment before smashing it into the ground.

At once, a mist rose up in front of him, a yellow-ish color that formed a shield in front of his body in short order. Now, as branches tried to fall in front of his large form, they snapped off the moment they touched the aura.

The large man let out a tremendous laugh, bellowing a loud "OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" to no one in particular as he charged forward. Buckling down, he began smashing everything that came in front of him as he clear-cut his way through the forest, even sending fallen trees into splinters and gaining more and more momentum with every unhindered step.

---

"She's not like the rest, Mr. Shepard," Pius replied, suddenly more serious than he had been before as he leaned in toward the man. "Just because she isn't dangerous to Stamaria, doesn't mean she might not be dangerous to you. Keep your distance, and don't talk with her under any circumstances."

He leaned back again, though, his face a smile and a laugh once more as he nodded to the door, "But, sounds like you better get going. Fry her, Mr. Shepard. I want you to destroy any hope she has before the month is over."

Rua came to a halt and looked about wildly, cursing. She must've heard him and bolted off in another direction without him seeing. She'd disappearing. "Dammit!" he snarled with a heavy breath. Relayia circled overhead, looking about but seeing nothing of her master's interest.

"Where the hell is she?" he growled, looking left and right for signs of her path. Unfortunately the whole area looked like something had stampeded through here, probably those Stamarians from earlier. He couldn't hear her running, but he--the hell was that noise?

He craned his neck around just in time to see something big and yellow and misty smashing through a goddamn tree right at him. With a yelp, he flung himself to the side, rolling through the grass and into another tree as the cloaked man from before crashed through where he'd been standing.

"What the hell!?"

Digging his heels in, the cloaked man skidded to a halt just past the swordsman. His chest heaved, his frame shook, and his hidden face was sweating, but he felt more alive than he had in weeks. Hardly taking a moment to catch his breath, the imposing man took a bow before the swordsman.

"A Master Alchemist, at your service," he introduced himself while reaching into his cloak for something. "I've hunted many people, in my day, and can reveal even the most hidden paths!" Triumphantly, he pulled out another potion, this one a dark, murky color.

"Watch!"

With a particularly extravagant flourish, he smashed the thing at his feet. Unfortunately for the alchemist, though, the potion did not seem to have the effect he had intended. The thing exploded loudly beneath him, and immediately a putrid, brown smoke flooded the air, making it almost impossible to see. For the alchemist in particular, the smoke filled his cloak, and within a moment he was gagging on his knees, tearing off his covering in order to try and get some air while cursing loudly.

Without his cloak, the man suddenly looked much less imposing. He was a short and stocky man, probably somewhere in his late forties, with a thick mustache and hair balding in a horseshoe pattern. Most notably, though, he was impressively overweight, especially in comparison to most people in this game world. He wore a massive backpack, filled with vials, straps, shovels, and still more packs hanging off it.

He coughed loudly, waving the smoke away from his face and struggling for breath against the noxious cloud that was only now beginning to dissipate. Stubbornly, he raised a hand to Rua with his index finger up, silently demanding that he be given a few more moments to recover.

Again she felt herself wanting to go on the defensive, and this time was only mildly successful in curbing it. The words were better than the exasperated ones in her head, but they still carried a defensive snap to them. "What is the point of "my" life, then?"

____

Larent inclined his head once, keeping his face cool and impassive despite his annoyance over the time-frame. A month would be harder to work with. But not necessarily impossible. "Consider her fried, director." He said with a glimmer of a predatory smile.

He stood a few seconds later, exiting the Director of Personnel's office and heading for the elevator. He gave the ever-so-smallest of nods to the secretary, entered the elevator and waited for the doors to close. Already his mind dancing along the paths and twisting ways that would be his next step up.

Rua groaned and pushed himself off the ground, away from the tree and the awful miasma wafting from the broken vial underneath the other man. He covered his nose and mouth before he could gag from the vile smell, staring at the newcomer in pity for the plight he had put himself in.

So the tall, imposing man in the cloak had been nothing but a glamour of sorts, and its dispelling revealed that the real person underneath was... far less impressive. Far, far less. "Take your time," he said as the man requested a moment to recover. Relayia landed on his shoulder and chirped concernedly at the alchemist.

He took the moment to survey the area around him. There was no sign that could’ve clued him in on which direction the thief had run off in, no clue to tell him where he could go to follow and catch up to her. She was gone.

Maia was going to kill him.

"You seem desperate to fulfill this goal of yours, but the way you act... does it mean so little to you?" Fille demanded back. "You can't fulfill anything if you got killed because you threw caution to the wind, Sera."

She shook her head in frustration. "You don't... you don't just throw away something important like that."

"But what," Sera asked thoughtfully. "If part of the goal is to act like I am? To sing across every city I can, not just the safe ones?" She snagged a passing waiter, smiling up at the woman. "What're the chances you'll take items in trade for food?"

The waiter, a scruffy looking woman with heavy freckles and tired eyes. Sighed wearily. "Depending on the items . . ." she muttered. "Sure. But no trash. We aren't a loot dump."

The alchemist gagged particularly loudly, beating his chest fiercely to try and clear his lungs. As the smoke filtered out, though, he began to recover his breath, finally pulling himself against a tree and sitting upright. Even though his massive chest still heaved rapidly, he wiped his forehead and smiled at the swordsman--a cheeky, apologetic grin that held a good deal less shame than it should have.

"Sorry about that, boy. Grabbed the wrong vial, must have," he said between breaths, rummaging through his pack again, frowning for a moment, and then extracting another potion with a bright, orange color. "Ah! Here it is," he exclaimed, popping the cap and smelling the contents to be sure.

This time, much more gently, he poured the contents onto the ground, and the smell of an English garden washed over them, sending a soft, orange haze over the ground as it settled comfortably. A few moments later, the haze consolidated itself, turning into footprints that led them in the general direction they had been going before.

"See? Knew it was in there somewhere," the man said proudly, standing to his feet and extending the swordsman a hand. "Orup Mepple, at your service."

---

Elle'n pulled a particularly baggy, worn hooded sweatshirt over her, yanking up the zipper and donning the hood. Immediately, she felt like a walking stereotype.

After getting punted out the top of the Stamarian Tower, she'd done nothing to avoid looking like she had hit rock bottom. Her fancy robes and dresses were gone, the lavish apartment replaced by a dingy one almost on ground level, and her reputation now lower than her appearances. Good.

Pius would want this. He believed that her previous title, position, and power were nothing but byproducts of her father's success, and without them she would be nothing. No doubt he had told her IO the same thing, and she had no intention of deviating from that pattern.

Larent Shepard. She'd been watching for him now for the last few days, but so far she hadn't seen anything. She had pulled up the private files she kept on all the Stamarian personnel, but it hadn't revealed much on this man she had seen outside of Pius' office. He was fresh--fresh as he could be for this position--but that didn't mean much right now. Stamarians didn't promote people on a whim, so even if he was green, that didn't mean he wasn't entirely capable of the job. It took enough to get there in the first place.

But time was on her side, right now. Likely this man had been put on a timetable, so she would just wait for him to make a mistake. Grabbing her keys, the young woman left her apartment, locking the door behind her. Right now, she really wanted some Chinese food.