Quint looked at the small girl ghost with a bemused smile.

"I'm not here to hurt you, miss." He said in a voice with tones like honey and whiskey, fresh grass and the earth underneath. "I simply noticed your distress, and wondered as to the cause?"

He paused for a moment, looking over the terrified little waif. What he felt was half pity for the girl and half rage against whoever had tormented such a young one so grievously as to cause her an uneasy death.

"I'm not a monster. I'm a friend." As Quint spoke, a flicker of light like a ghostly lantern, brilliant and blue, flashed through his eyes.

Zeke was disappointed that this woman wasn't the right target. He decided to take his chances and find another volunteer for his experiments. Zeke walked back into the Kingdom and walked examining every single person he passed. He would kidnap someone out og the blue but he wasn't in the mood for another bloody bath. As if right on queue Zeke eyes came across a young child by his lone some. Zeke approached the boy from behind and wrapped his giant gauntlet hand around Lo's head. He leaned down and stopped near the boys ear. "Scream or attempt to fight back and your skull is reduced to dust within mere seconds." Zeke threatened as his grip on the boys head became somewhat tough. Kidnaping a child is easier but their small bodies make it frustrating to test on. It didn't matter Zeke needed a new volunteer in order to complete his experiments.

"I-I-I saw something earlier today," she began to tell him what happened. "There was this thing that looked like a man, and I was following him because he started talking to another monster that spoke of a 'doctor'. And I thought it was connected to me because I don't know how I died or why I'm like this... I just know the name: Doctor Steinburg... Oh, but I shouldn't have followed them because I just watched him easily kill many guards without any hesitation and I couldn't follow them anyways because they disappeared too quickly..." her lips started to quiver. She was surprised that she was able to tell him all this, unsure whether it was because she hasn't been able to talk to anyone for 70-80 years or because his aura was so comforting. "A-anyways, for some reason, I am drawn here... I don't know why, but I intend on finding out."

She looked down at the ground. "I shouldn't have done that, he is going to find me so annoying and stupid. Who wants to listen to a ghost like me," she thought to herself, already regretting what she has done.

Quint listened intently to the dead girl's story, and by the end he head heard enough to warrant an investigation into this Steinberg fellow, as well as the strangers. The last lamenting little pout of the ghost's story didn't seem to bother him all that much. Nor did the supposed monster who had killed almost a hundred men, the guards of this city were hardly better than farmers with weapons in their hands, in his opinion.

"I know your kind well, girl. Come with me. I can keep you safe, and you can guide me around the area. Maybe even to this "doctor" hack."

The tall fae smiled and reached into his belt pouch. He brought out a necklace that looked to be made of some silvery glass, and he offered it to the ghost girl.

"This will strengthen your ties to this realm, and also allow me to channel energy to or through you, if need be."

Io fumbled with the straps on the sword as a strange man wrapped and arm around his head. Damn these straps. They could be hella' pesky sometimes. Well, you get some you lose some. Io began to panic slightly, fingers fumbling on the straps in panic. Io did not want to die. And getting kidnapped wasn't really a good thing if you don't want to die

Feon stretched for a moment then turned to face Ixi."You know I never liked Steinburg to tell the truth." Feon said all of a sudden going off on a drunken tangent. "He was crazy and sometimes he would even do experiments on me! And I won't even get started on some of the things that he made his other experiments do. But he did find out that when you swallow a slug it stays alive in your body for a few minutes before it's dissolved by the stomach acid." Feon rambled obviously she was a bit drunk at this point. "So then! Are you sober enough to find the bad doctor or do you want to sober up first?" Feon asked Ixi.

Artholath kept a stoic expression on his face, although his hopes sank a little at the doctor’s clearly less than optimal state of mind. Still, even he had to realize that to aim at a higher ambition, he would have to start a little lower… he had an idea.

“There is nothing wrong with aiming high as that… however, one step at a time. Besides, if you create beings I could call worthy brothers, I happen to know of a laboratory… one that I began my own life in…”

He was lying; he destroyed that lab with several brothers on their killing sprees. His plan was to bring the doctor to the volcano - very few knew of what it truly held, but everyone knew it was highly potent. Placing the location of the lab at the mountain would be lucrative.

Another thought came into his mind.

“...do you happen to have a certain ring? One with a small eagle imprinted on it, made of bronze?”

__________________________________________________

A few minutes had passed. The guards were cold and still; no life was seen in the area.

Then one of them raised his hand.

With one of the mysterious arrows having gone through his shoulder and another into the side of his chest, he crawled with a single hand down the road a few meters. His patrol mission wasn’t expected back for days. He wouldn’t survive by then, feeling bitter chills taking a deeper grasp on his body and, he could have sworn, his very soul.

It wasn’t a matter of if he would die, but when. He had to inform someone of this massacre or nobody would know.

He fell unconscious, barely breathing, some distance away from the inn where several others who may or may not be able to help him were located. He was a dismal sight indeed. Blood trailed from where he crawled and two large holes were in his body. The only thing that saved him was his will to continue and a stronger than usual anatomy.

As the sun set, it began to rain.

"W-why are you being so nice to me?" she asked, not really because she was suspicious of him but because she saw no reason for him to help a pathetic thing like herself. Still, she accepted the necklace graciously, and put it around her neck. She began to feel more solidified, and looked a lot less transparent. "Wow," she gasped in awed. "It's almost like I'm alive again."

She took his hands and looked at him with appreciation. "You're like my first real friend. It's been so long. I hope you don't get tired of me," she said, in complete seriousness. She felt happiness for the first time in almost a hundred years. "Thank you so much, thank you."

Lance thought for a moment about the idea of starting with demons. "You know now that I think about it, demons wouldn't be a bad place to start, I can already create creatures from scratch and advancing that method would be a great idea." Lance said as he pointed to the test tubes in his lab. "As for a new lab, I'm afraid I can't move at the moment, it would take a few months as one of my recent experiments requires a stable environment." He then turned back to his desk and took out and entire drawer from it filled with rings and other metal things from his experiment subjects. "If your looking for a certain ring I'm afraid your going to have to find it yourself, I don't exactly keep track of my subjects to tell the truth." Lance stated before going back to his desk to grab a few things, mainly measuring tools. "Oh if you hold out your arm so I could measure it would be kind." He said as he was now starting to calm down a be a bit more calm. He was lost in his own world now though hoping to study this new specimen in front of him.

Zeke rapped his arm around the boy's neck and picked him up. Holding him like this would allow him to easily snap the boy's neck if he made the wrong move. "We're gonna play a little game called Operated." Zeke insanely laughed rapping his arm tighter around the boy's throat. When he carried the boy out far enough beyond the Kingdom's reach he tossed him against a tree. Zeke reached for his scaple located in his coat pocket and eyed the boys body. Hopefully this kid wouldn't die from the experiment like the children before him did. Zeke's gauntlets were activated so he was ready for anything the kid would try to do.

"I'm ready. I'll probably sober up a bit while walking but I should be okay," Ixi said, after listening to Feon's drunken rant. The small rant worsened Ixi's already bad opinion of Dr. No Good... Dr. Steinburg.

Io cried out a bit when he hit the tree. This man was definitely scary. But, Io couldn't get to his sword. It was closed and sheathed too well.
"Ia... Ia... please," he muttered softly. He didn't want to have to resort to her, nor did he really know to make her show up. But Io was aware that currently Ia may be his only chance of survival.

Artholath had no qualms with obliging the doctor and held out his arm. After all, his own creation took time and many steps, which he had the luck of observing on a few occasions with later demons. Letting him take some rather pointless measurements was no issue.

He thought of offering to reveal his demonic form, but decided against it for the moment. He wouldn’t bring it up unless the doctor did.

After a while, Diego stood up, groaning. He was going to have a horrible hangover. He dragged himself outside and stumbled around aimlessly. Nope. He already had a bad hangover. He didn't need to wait...

If Diego had been more sober, perhaps he would have noticed the creature that had tried to save his life. After a while, Diego passed out again, in one of the alleyways he sometimes frequented.

Eventually, Diego awoke once more and left the alley way. He had a slight headache, but now he was able to think clearly. He was hungry and decided to look around for vermin to eat. As he searched, he saw a boy confronted by an odd man wearing strange gloves. He rose his eyebrows in surprise as he realized what the man was doing. He grinned, hoping that he could potentially take advantage of a clumsy thug looking for money, but upon further inspection, he realized that he was not planning to rob Lo, but kill or kidnap him. Too bad.

Diego ignored the pair and slipped off, only to spot a trail of blood. A guard was bleeding heavily from a hole.

"Hello, could I be of assistance?" asked Diego politely, kneeling down and frowning with fake concern. In truth, Diego , ever the opportunist, was trying to take advantage of the situation. The guard was dying, and had a few last wishes, perhaps some that could get him a bite to eat.

"Right then! I'll show you where it is, course it's not exactly close." Feon stated to Ixi, before she started moving though she realized that she didn't even know this womans name. "Oh before we get going, I would like to know your name and reason for going after Steinburg." Feon said not even realizing that they were near a Fea and Ghost girl.

Zeke was going through his regular procedure for dissecting his test subjects. Everything was looking okay until his eyed met Lo's. Zeke's demonic eye flickered as he continued to look at the boy. He had a sudden urge to see what the boy was hiding under the eye patch. Zeke place the gauntlet on the boys face and forced him against the tree. He moved his fingers so he can have a perfect view of the eye patch. In his other hand was a scaple which was slowly cutting the material of the eye patch. "What are we hidding here? He asked the rhetorical question cutting through more of the eye patch.

Lance finished his measurements before standing up straight to think for a moment. "You know if you allowed me to do a few tweaks to your arm I would bet I could increase the magic flow within you." Lance said as a wicked smile started to come to his face. To him this would allow him to test a theory on this man while also being able to study him. Lance had performed many of these procedures on himself. At this point Lance was starting to ramble on about his own discoveries and how he could help to improve Artholaths body, still unaware that this man wasn't in his other form. "Oh I almost forgot to ask for your name." Lance added forgetting his own manners.

Artholath doubted anything could be done to improve his arm without disrupting his ability to change forms. He responded to the doctor’s inquiry about his name, “I am Artholath.” He decided to go through the human motion of greeting, holding out his hand for a shake.

____________________________________________________

The guard chuckled, although it sounded more like choking with blood coming out of his mouth. “...doubt it… but… if you go… a little ways… back… there was a massacre… the king… needs to know…” his breathing became slower, and his life was slowly draining, he knew.

((I used the word arrow to describe the type of holes he had, by the way; the spell that caused them has since dissolved.))

Perfect! Diego would alert the king and receive a sizable reward. Plus, he was helping out a dying man. Although Diego certainly didn't go out of his way to help others, he always did feel good when he made someone smile.

"I will do my best. Do you have any family, friends?" He asked in fake concern. Diego decided at this point it wouldn't hurt to at least ask. He could receive even more rewards, after all!

The guard managed a chuckle without coughing out blood this time. "I haven't seen my family in a long time... doubt they would care..." He would be able to notice the somewhat selfish nature of the man before him had he not been dying and coughing blood every so often. He slipped a little further away...

"I am Dr. Lance Steinburg." Steinburg greeted as he shook Artholaths hand. "Anyways you said there was a way to make demons what exactly does this include and what kind of materials would I need for these creations?" Steinburg said as he sat in his chair offering another chair that was near by. There was a plate of cookies on the desk next to him from Vernika who was currently out looking into something.