The Library

[Kestrel]

Codename: Midsummer Explosion

"Y-yes, yes of course."

Max Midsummer politely nodded; impressed by the proffesionality of the Library's mercenary branch. "I will up security, but please listen to what we have retrieved. My secretary has all the information you need, please, one minute."

Max pulled a chord dangling above his desk and a ring could be heard in the next room. His secreatary came in shortly, followed by a pale, bald woman without pupils or irises. The woman walked as if she were a learning child, actively attempting to maintain her balance with every step she took. The secretary held her hand, guiding her to Max Midsummer and Ramza and Orian, then left the room.

"As you gentlemen may know," Max Midsummer began, folding his hands and bending forward over his desk, "Midsummer & co. is funded by the Library to develop something we like to call dolls; artificial humans. This is one of our first succesful prototypes; Tabatha." He nodded towards the bald woman. "Tabatha is not the final product we plan on releasing, I assure you, but this was a big step for us. The experiment that has been stolen... Was the second prototype."

Max stood up and put his hands on Tabatha's shoulders and swallowed the slime that had been building up in his throat. "Tabatha, execute operative function zero three, yesterday, ten forty-five."

Tabatha's otherwise empty eyes began flickering as she turned to a wall and began projecting an animated image on the wall of Max' office. The gentlemen in the room were able to see a black and white laboratory, from a diagonal point of view. In the laboratory there were a young, lanky man and redheaded woman, putting something that looked an awful lot like Tabatha into a bag, before finally leaving with it.

"Thank you Tabatha. End the procedure."

Tabatha's eyes stopped flickering and the image disappeared.

"What you saw was exactly what Tabatha saw at the time of the theft. She was not meant to record this but... There have been complications in this function. Regardless we are happy this was recorded nonetheless. The man and woman on the video were two of our previous interns, Michael and Ashley Vagren. Two very ambitious, young people. They had the keys to the laboratory and came in at night. We assume they want to use to use, Simonette, our second prototype, for their own careers. However they were interns; not unbeknown of the details. Tabatha and Simonette, they run on an artificially altered manaflow; radiona. Should a malfunction persist, the radiona may leak. Radiona is highly explosive matter in unregulated environments. In a regulated environment, such as our laboratories, this is not a problem... Outside however... It could blow up an entire neighbourhood"

Max shook his head. "This is why we have called in your help. We need you to track down Micheal and Ashely. You now know their faces and I have their address and university-connections within the Library for you here." Max handed Orian and Ramza two papers filled with contact information and references. "We assume they are no longer in their home, but given the weight of Simonette and the recent hijack of the transport train, we assume they have not yet left Olivia Town. Please track them down... It would be... Disastrous, should anything happen."

Before Ramza and Orian got to leave, Max stopped them; "Oh and gentlemen, I assume this speaks for itself, but everything you've seen and heard today is highly classified information, for both Midsummer & co. and our contractor; your employer. Speak about this with no one."

The X-files

Andre was right; they were being watched.

Suddenly the waiter came to their table, asking for their attention. Or more specifically; Adeline's "From the sir, two tables at your left, miss." He said as he placed a beverage in front of the girl. More than a few people seemed to look up, but none of them acted. If Adeline would try to see who the drink was on, the man would have already left.

There was a paper stuck underneath the cup. "Please return this book for me. Be careful. You are being followed."

Inside the cup drifted, they could see a key with an address engraved into it. 33 Bellon Road; one of the roads they had walked from the pier to the restaurant.

[Valeric]

"Huh, so we didn't need to search for him after all," Adeline said as she fished the keys out of the drink. It was a simple brass key with the address etched neatly into it. "That is, if this is even from our man."

This whole thing was just too mysterious. Were they really supposed to follow such a shady request from a simple note? For all they knew, there might be an ambush waiting to kill and rob them. These folks could be desperate for some foreign cash. Adeline pushed away the thought and calmed down.

"So... do you think we should check it out? Seems like a bad idea to me." she asked, while twirling a lock of hair with a finger.

[Animus]

Aven eyed the waiter throughout the brief exchange of words between him and Adeline, either he was an extremely talented undercover agent or he was just a plain old water. He was leaning more towards the idea of the latter. Although his words were directed towards Adeline, it was hard not to them. The man the waiter spoke of was already gone when Aven had turned to look. Talk about an extremely secretive man. He suddenly felt really annoyed at the contractor, assuming the man was actually the contractor. If he really was the contractor, then it meant he had been in the town all along. What was all that searching for?, thought Aven.

"Of course with should check it out," Aven responded. "Its the only lead we got." Sure, it could have been a trap. But just as traps have to be setup, they could also be taken down. Adeline was worrying too much. He turned to Andre, expecting a similar response.

[Alphakoka]

Andre curiously watched the waiter as he talked to Adeline. There was nothing Andre could distinguish the waiter if he was not a real waiter. He secretly took a glance to the seat the waiter mentioned to see aforementioned man, however the seat was already empty. He returned his focus as Adeline fished a key out of the glass sent to her.

"So... do you think we should check it out? Seems like a bad idea to me." Adeline asked, while twirling a lock of hair with a finger.

"Of course with should check it out," Aven responded before looking towards him, looking for a response. "Its the only lead we got."

Andre gave a nod to both of them, "I don't think this a trap. We should be careful, though. If we there are people people following us, we can expect that they are after the same thing as us and that would mean they'll jump at us after we got the intel."

He sighed as he leaned on his couch's back, Man, this missions are never simple, aren't they?. He then leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. "We should split up," he whispered. "It'll be a pain to lose whoever followed us without knowing how many they are and going there right away would certainly means we're getting a warm welcome party. You two go get the item, I'll provide support."

[Rilla]

Great Spring Cleaning

"Think they know yet, boss?" Said Alpha, one of the grunts that allegedly fowled up a mission. A short stocky Rook, though he was a weak one. He was at the lower echoleon of the men that betrayed the Library.

"By now? Probably,"B] Kest said. "But that just means we have to keep a guard up. They have to know we are here by now," he peeked through the blinds of the small little hut they were hiding in -- it wasn't much but it was fortified enough to sustain them through a season or two.

Kest was a short, 4'7 leader, weighing in at about one hundred eighty odd pounds. A strong Rook, whose spirit was nothing short of a fire breathing dragon, providing him with a huge flaming claymore, a ball and chain, and a cannon capable of launching mounds of earth in a fiery explosion. "Shouldn't be too long before they find this place," he mused -- then ordered his men to line up around the base in anticipation.

Dragons in the Dunes

The Drake hid beneath the sand, slithering as though it were naught but water. It could feel the movements above, and waited for its moment to strike. It was not directly beneath the people, but a little bit behind. They, likely, could not feel it moving through the sand.

Sand suddenly shot up and rained down on the mercenaries, clouding the vision of all of them, if possible. The sheer amount of sand and the height that it was lifted would cause the sand to fall for quite some time -- perfect for the drake to set up and pick off the people one by one. It was a damn dragon after all, what the hell could these mercs do to it, before he could do it to them?

[Valeric]

"You two go get the item, I'll provide support," Andre whispered.

They ended up going with the idea. It was true that they were going nowhere with their search for the contractor.

As far as Adeline could tell, no one was following them. They had finished their meal at the restaurant before heading towards the location gives by the key. A simple, unassuming street branched off from the main road. Adeline thought it looked exactly the same as the street they had just passed.

"Are you sure about this? We're sitting ducks if anything happens, and Andre is nowhere in sight," she complained to Aven as they made their way down the silent street. "29, 30, 31, 32... there it is."

A plain building sat at the address, painted white but left grey by the weather and age. There was a large double wooden door at the front, where a keyhole sat beneath the metal handle. It was too dark to see into the windows. Adeline checked around the area, but found nothing of suspicion.

She held out the key with two fingers to Aven.

"Um... can you open it?" she asked.

[Lyzan]

It was just as Ramza had thought. Wasn't much of a surprise though. Orion was after all from the Political Relations department. It was one of the reasons why he would want Orion to start questioning the man instead of himself. The way he'd handled the client was very smooth and very well done. If it was to be him, things might just get across a little differently than how this had turned out to be.

Ramza had stood with folded arms when Max Midsummer started talking. He remained quiet and interrupted not the details on the theft. When he called forth the artificial human known as Tabatha, Ramza straightened himself up, interested. He'd not expected the item stolen to actually be of a human size. This would be a very interesting and challenging task. Well, at least that's what he thought. He studied the faces, their poise and even the way the thieves moved just so that he could recognize them later in their search.

Soon, they were back in the lift with papers in their hands. He ran the objectives in his mind; track down young, lanky Micheal and redheaded Ashley Vagren, retrieve Simonette and make sure the highly explosive radiona didn't leak. Sounds no easier than he'd first thought. Ramza studied the paper then.

"I think we could start looking for more clues in their house," Ramza said as he turned to look at Orion. "Hopefully from there, we could find something that might point us to their current location. Otherwise, we could try the university where they'd once been to. Probably we could start with those closer to the laboratory. They must've planned for this so they have to start somewhere. What do you think?" he asked.

[Shade13]

“Yeah, the cloak’s not’s really go to do much more for me in this environment anyways. As for Am, it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing I’ve created a body for him out of.” He shrugged taking of his cloak and slinging it over his shoulder. “Sorry Will, but Am is the one who makes the traps. Unfortunately we still have no idea what where up against so Am will not be joining us until I can figure out what would be an effective body for him to use. Wouldn’t want to find out I’m putting a wooden body up against a dragon now would we.” He replied settling down with his back to a tree facing them.

“Considering we’ve stopped we might as well get around to planning our actions. Personally I think we should remain here and get Will to go and fly over the surrounding area, once he return we can make our plans based on the terrain. Of course that implies that you will have to leave the group and fly over the general area possibly alerting the enemy to our positions, and also having something chasing down and trying to kill you Will. Considering that you’d be the only one risking you’re life on this and I couldn’t force you to do it anyways, I’ll leave that decision up to you Will.”

[Animus]

The walk towards the designated building had been silent until Adeline started complaining mildly about the situation. Aven didn't really catch it because he was too busy with his own thoughts. He instincts told him trouble probably lay ahead, and he was one to trust them. Which was why he was contemplating possible scenarios and was preparing for them, mentally.

Aven snapped out of his thoughts when Adeline came to a stop. Apparently, they had reached their destination. "Um... can you open it?" she asked, while holding out the keys. He raised an eyebrow at this, Adeline was weird in the sense she lacked the confidence that a holder usually had and she was even a full-fledged knight! He would ask her about it another time, the mission came first at the moment. "Yeah, sure," he said while inserting the keys.

*Click!*

The door unlocked without any explosives going off or the house collapsing. A door trap would have been so cliche. He casually pushed both sides of the door open and went in. Aven examined his surroundings. It was a hallway which three rooms on either side and had stairs at the end. "I'll check the second floor," he said, already walking forward. "Holler if find you anything, I'll come down right away!"

[Alphakoka]

After he split up with his teammates, Andre took a detour to the street mentioned in the key to at least loosen the people following. He had actually got a little bit lost during the detour. When he did reach the street, he looked for a position in a corner overlooking the house number 33. He didn't see any of his teammates, but judging from the open door, they must have entered the house.
Assuming they're not jumped on their way to this place, robbed of the keys, and it's someone else in the house, a voice chime besides him. You sure you don't want to go in there and chuck a handful of my jars inside?

Andre made a sharp glance to the speaker, a man wearing an incredibly suspicious outfit, his spirit. "Shut that idea, Shadow. I'll tell you when I need you."

Oh boo, the spirit replied. Fine, go back to your boring watch duty and ignore this old genius, you even refused when I offered to gave some upgrades on the bow!

Andre ignored his spirit's antics and focused on watching the house and its surroundings. Everything seemed to be fine, but that could change within a blink of an eye.