"Well, I brought Teraem here last time I came, about a month ago now. He was allowed in without much issue." Iyl responded without glancing at her friend, her eyes glued to the building they were headed toward. She dare not mention that they had left much earlier than she'd wanted because she introduced him to a friend, and the meeting didn't go well.

She still wasn't sure why.

---

Sarik'ahn

The room was filled with screaming. Another body was thrown out of the door to the cellar, mangled and broken. Sari winced. "Come on! We're trying! You're not the only one we have to cater to at the moment." The mage yelled through the grated door, her bright green eyes darting through the lines of shelves to the door that would take her to the Grand Hall. She only hoped she could quiet him long enough to get Iyl into the building. Since the girl's energy had touched the barrier he had begun to rampage. At first, he had screamed something unintelligible, now he was just growling over and over again. Whenever anyone went in, he devoured them and then spit them back out in a mess of blood and entrails.

Sari really didn't have time for this. "Will it make you feel better if we bring her down to you once she's settled?" The mage yelled over the creature's growling, and waited for his response. She wouldn't have to wait long.

"ℱine." A deep, echoing male voice spoke, and the growling subsided.

With a sigh of relief, The mage rushed out of the room and down the corridor. By the time she'd reached the Grand Hall, Iyl and another friend she'd brought with her were already at the base of the massive staircase that would lead them inside. "Iyl! Welcome back!" Sari called out to the girl, meeting the two individuals half way on the stairs. She wrapped the younger mage in a hug and squeezed. "We've missed you!"

After a moment or two, Sari took a step back and smiled at the person standing by Iyl's side. A man. A handsome man at that. "Who's this, Iyl?"

---

"Fair enough," he responded, though he hardly failed to notice that she hadn't looked at him when she'd said it. Turning his gaze back to the Citadel as they made their approach, he wondered what sort of place this was that Iyl had decided to take them. Part of him wanted to ask, but something told him that now was not the time, at least not just yet. So it was that he pondered the place's nature while ever so slightly trying to figure out how its protective barrier's functioned an what being within them would entail.

Becoming lost in the activity, Lacain was roused from his experimentation when a rather fetching woman met them at the stairs and hugged Iyl. Looking her over when her attention wasn't on him, he couldn't help but wonder what someone as attractive as her was doing in a strange place like this. Then again, he'd seen stranger things, though it was a bit odd that the woman had used we rather than I.

When the woman disengaged and asked Iyl who he was he took the initiative, stepping forwards and giving her a winning smile as he spoke up, "My name is Lacain, I'm a good friend of Iyl's. May I ask your name?" As he said it there was a slight glimmer in his eyes. He hoped that Iyl wouldn't mind too much...and that she wouldn't call him out either.