---

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When it came down to the final, bottom line about his presence in the church dealt with an exchange of favors. Perhaps fate or God or the Powers That Be had set him onto this path for a reason. Caesar couldn't even say for certain how long he had been directed this way. Maybe since his birth. Maybe longer. The problem with destiny was that, regardless of whether you knew you were part of something, you still were part of it. Unavoidably, inescapably. It was the difference between knowing the path and walking the path. But herein lay the difficulty: Now that he knew what path he was supposed to be on, if indeed he was, he had no idea what the hell he was supposed to do next.

Slowly, Caesar pulled in a breath of air and let it out. "That is a story, Padre. You have told me a lot of things that I didn't know and put a few things I did know in a different light." He growled an affirmation as he nodded. "My brother says that God puts us where he needs us. Okay. If that is true, he has been throwing me at this for a while now. M'hija paid a price for her involvement. If God wants me on this, fine. Who am I to question?" He shrugged, giving a nonchalant look to his grizzled features. "But you said that you wanted to cash in that favor, and showed me the die. Okay. I'm your man. What do you need me to do? Look for others? Take up the Pope's command? Or is there something more personal going on here?" For all Caesar knew, the priest wanted him to take up the die and see of he could activate some hidden power of the thing with his brutal masculinity alone. Caesar had to admit, he was kind of curious.

Caesar felt his phone vibrate in his vest pocket. It was a short buzz, indicating a message rather than a call. He gave it a quick glance before returning his gaze to Father Pearson. "If this is a holy quest, Padre, then I hope that God wants me in Grimm, Indiana. It is where I have to go now."

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"Bloody 'ell is this bronzecockery about, then?" growled Keystone. He had done something stupid, forgetting that he was in a country where they drove on the other side of the street like brazen dumbarses, and turned left on a red light. Granted, the other guy stopped in time, so that was good. But it served to remind that, if distracted by the dulcet yet powerful notes of the "21" album, he might adopt the driving habits of a man still in the United Kingdom. Luckily no one was hit, no cop was there to make his life difficult, and all he got for his DUH moment was the extended middle finger of the brake-squealing errand runner in his mid sized sedan who almost plowed into him. He could live with that. Besides, it was his fault and he didn't want to waste the time it would take to make the poor guy wet himself.

Not just that, but what the arse was with these Americans? It was two fingers for that gesture, not one. They just had to be different, that's all. Hell with them, Keystone had somewhere he needed to be. He was a professional, damnit. Just file it away until he had an opportunity to vent his frustrations on some poor bastard who actually deserves it. "Yeah, that was my fault - myyyyy fault," he repeated, following the electronic route directions on the GPS.

Keystone finally pulled in front of the church where he and Claire had dropped off Caesar earlier. He punched in a quick message to the older man, informing him that he was back out front whenever he wanted to leave, and kept the SUV running. With measured consideration, he moved the music away from Adele and found a local radio station, turned the volume lower, and decided to just give it a wait for the meantime.

*Okay, I am going to be posting less and less straight out information for you all. Mystery is heating up and so the rolls and such need to pick up. Check your skills, use them, call for rolls. You can call for a roll before you post or you can leave a roll request at the end of your post and your results will be placed in the next update.

Chicago, Illinois: Adelaide looked over to Robert and shrugged slightly. "I don't know. That was what got me. The article never mentioned a name. Of who she killed. And when I tried to access the police records, public record and all that, there were none. The sheriff at the time told me he figured they had just gotten lost to time or something like that. I figured he just wasn't telling me since I was a high school kid at the time. I didn't think much of it after graduation, I just wanted the hell out of town, like most of us did."

Running her fingers through her hair she sighed and then her head snapped to the side. There was a buzz that rang through the vault. Walking over to a monitor she looked and there was some guy in a pageboy cap standing at the door. Hitting the intercom button, she spoke. "I'm sorry, we're closed," she said through it. The man hit the button near the door.

"Yeah, I'm with Wentworth Security. Was sent over," he said before looking at the camera. His face shown finally. Holding up his Wentworth id he showed it to the camera. "See. Was told to get my skinny ass over here, gonna let me in?"

Adelaide looked closely and sighed. "Yeah, be right up," she said before casting a glance towards Robert. "Well, he wasn't lying about getting someone over here quick."

Back at the church, Atticus looked over at Caesar and shrugged. "Seriously, I got no fucking clue. Just let me know if you find out anything about Juno along the way. If I had answers I would be in the fucking Vatican and does this look like the Vatican?" he asked as he reached over and took the dice before getting up. Placing it back in the box along with the photocopy he locked it tight and took it back over to the shelf. "The fact you already knew something, that I felt the need to tell you, I dunno, just hoping it's God whispering in my ear and not something worse," he said before looking over towards Caesar.

"All I do know is every piece of information I can dig up on these things coincidences with some person or nation or religion coming to major power. Last time it was on the church's radar was back during World War 2, if you get my drift," he added before turning back to Caesar. "Go to Grimm, do your thing there, I'll relay the message to your family, you relay anything you find out to me. We'll call it even. Hopefully something will come of it," he said before looking at his watch. "Fuck, I got an AA meeting I gotta oversee in a few."

Road To Grimm: Zoie nodded and turned back to the speaker. Putting the order in and then getting the total and told to drive forward. One window to pay, one to get the food. It didn't take long before they had their order and she was pulling away from the drive thru window. Pulling into an empty spot in the parking lot she threw the car in park and sided before pulling out her food from the bag and then handing the bag over to Mali. Sure they could have gone in to eat instead of sitting in the parking lot but after everything that had happened recently, it was probably best to just chow down there, switch seats since Mali offered to drive, and then get the hell out of dodge. Not to mention small towns weren't exactly the most accepting of places and her and Mali stuck out like sore thumbs in this neck of the woods. They were in corn farming territory.

"Oh yeah, I knows how to treat a lady," Zoie joked as she held up a chicken nugget before popping it into her mouth. As bad as McDonald's could be she had had far worse growing up in South Georgia. She remembered when they got their first Hardee's and flashing red light on the highway that ran through the town she was born and raised in. They thought they were big time then. Of course they still had to drive thirty minutes just to get to the nearest Piggly Wiggly. "I swears, no matters how far I get away from the south, every damn small town is the same. Red necks are everywhere," she said as she pointed to a large pick up truck that had wheels on it far too big for the truck itself and it was jacked up beyond belief. "That's what I call a sorry about yer dick mobile," she teased. The truck was obviously not for farm work. It was too clean, too pretty. That truck had probably never been on a dirt road.

Grimm, Indiana (Grimaldi Manor): Down in the basement, as Priya tried to turn the music off, it didn't exactly work. The button switched the songs only and suddenly a rather disturbing song was playing on a vinyl record.

"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't." I invite you to a world where there is no such thing as time and every creature lends themselves to change your state of mind and the girl that chased the rabbit, drank the wine, and took the pill has locked herself in limbo to see how it truly feels. To stand outside your virtue no one can ever hurt you or so they say. Her name is...

As the song got to that point the record seemed to scratch violently and then the system fizzled and sparked before it died fully. The draft picked up and the sound of someone chuckling faded off in the distance somewhere down in the basement.

Grimm, Indiana (Police Station): Roy shook his head slowly. "No and I don't fucking like it," he muttered as the track lighting above them flickered. He was turning around slowly, looking around with his gun out, ready to pull the trigger at any moment. He took a step and his foot didn't exactly plant fully. It slipped a little. Stopping he looked down at the white and gray speckle tile. There was something dark on the floor and he grumbled under his breath. "Fucking hell," he said as the lights above flickered again and he caught a dark red sheen from the substance on the ground. He didn't bother kneeling down to check it, the man had been a cop in Justice long enough to know what it was. Hell anyone that had lived in Justice more than a day probably knew what it was. The streets seemed to always run with the shit. Blood was as common as water in that town.

"We're in the middle of a god damn crime scene," he said over his shoulder to Cecily. Pulling out a flashlight from his back pocket he clicked it on and held it under his gun as he kept moving forward. The security cameras behind the counter were flickering with snow feed and there were papers torn from the bulletin board on the wall. Roy was half tempted to call out to see if anyone responded but he wasn't going to be that dumb ass white guy in a movie calling to see if the killer was around. Like the fucker would suddenly reply with a yeah, I'm in the kitchen, you want a sandwich?

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"Oh yeah, heard THAT one a few times myself." Robert had to say out loud with a cynical chuckle, at the fact Adelaide had been told the papers were lost. It wasn't in on itself, not to Robert anyway, but in his profession you'd be a millionaire if you got a dollar every time you were given that excuse. Too bad Robert had opted out of that bet, and was still stuck with the same pay he had for so many years. But what Adelaide said stuck with him. Paperwork didn't just disappear or gotten lost, not those kinds of papers. Like the medical records, they posed themselves as more paperwork for Robert to dig up.

Speaking of paperwork, Robert started evaluating that situation as Adelaide went to answer the kid at the intercom. It was her establishment, not his. Leaning forward with his hands firmly planted at the table with the files, he quickly tried to think of the best approach to get hold of ol' Lady Fisher's medical records. He toyed with the idea of calling up someone in his office for a favour, giving them the old excuse of "Nah, you don't want to know. It's just as boring as it sounds. It always is.". That however was the least direct approaching, which as Adelaide finished speaking with the Wentworth kid and spoke to Robert, he locked onto.

Go straight to the source. Well not entirely straight to the source, that would be Patty Fisher herself. Next best source the, the bureaucrats; Either they could attempt to get the records from the State Records Department, the county of Grimm, Indiana, or her relative. Only known relative Robert saw before him was the Wallace character, and he wouldn't be talking anytime soon. "Think we've got time to visit the county office in Grimm? Got some records to dig up."

Looking up at Adelaide, Robert pushed himself off the table and stood straight, scratching his head after removing one of the gloves. "One of the pros of having connection within the business. Customers are always right, but friends you care about. Hope he knows more about this techno-gizmo stuff that either of us then." he told Adelaide, looking back at the vault and all it's technology, then at the folders scattered around on the table. "Two folders down, several to go. We got time to read while we're going to Grimm, hope you don't get car-sickness."

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The intentions of the priest were still a little unclear to Caesar. He had this thing that was supposed to be a major artifact with possible mythical origins that apparently everyone was after. Had been after for thousands of years, apparently. Wars, big ones, were fought over and/or with that tiny dodecahedron and its eleven siblings. But if all he wanted was to be kept in the loop, now that he knew that Caesar was caught up in the quagmire that was the Lunillud Aleae quest, then there was no problem there. That was the price for the message that might keep his family safe. It wasn't even a thought worth deliberating on. The older Mexican nodded and growled an affirmative, "Hmm." He reached out and grasped the Padre's hand, giving it a firm shake. "Deal. Gracias, Father. Let me know if I can help in any other way." He took a business card from the man's desk and slipped it into a pocket, exchanging it for one of his own. A custom that was beginning to fall out of use, but again more secure than pure digital storage these days, apparently.

There was the slightest air or relief around Caesar as he exited Atticus's office and made his way downstairs to the SUV, parked in exactly the same place it was earlier, as if it never left. Well, maybe not exactly in the same spot. It did seem a hair crooked, one tire threatening to jump up onto the curb if the driver pushed on the gas a little bit more. Caesar tried to peer into the tinted windows of the company vehicle, but was unable to tell much about the guy behind the wheel except that he was a really big guy with short-cropped hair, an penchant for a certain British female vocalist, and probably was involved in some dalliance with the older man's daughter before her untimely death. Yeah, it was Keystone. As it turned out, the big fellow wasn't quite as skilled a driver as their Chicago contact, Claire. Not that it mattered that much to Caesar. It seemed that the whims of fate held his life, and much like the thing he was now questing for (aside from that Tinder asshole for some much deserved agony), it was a roll of the die most days. If a car crash was his destiny and not some epic end involving ancient Aztec thunder god and hordes of infernal creatures, then who was he to argue?

Caesar opened the door to the vehicle and slid into the passenger's seat just as Keystone was moving a bag full of mysterious goodies that he no doubt picked up at the local MSS office. He scoped out the interior of the SUV, noting the room it had and the possibility that they might have to use it for a convenient place to crash, depending upon what went down in Grimm and how long they were going to be in the field. "Plan has changed a little. Let's get out of here, I will explain on the way." He took a deep breath of the air inside of the car, noting the smell of MSG and starch. He realized that he was actually very hungry. His meal from earlier was still in there, the bag at his feet containing takeout boxes of Chinese food, and began to help himself. Through a mouthful of Lo Mein, he grunted out, "Grimm, Indiana," and pointed forward.

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"On it, Boss." It was a simple phrase; one that he had used many times during his extended involvement with the company. Keystone was not some grovelling yes-man, nor was he anyone's toady. But so far as things went between he and Caesar, well... the guy earned the title of "Boss" a long while ago. In any case, heeding the direction of the old man, the large Brit put the SUV in gear and pulled away from the front of the church. And yes, he wound up jumping the curb in the process. But just a little. The event jostled the box of noodles that Caesar was busy trying to cram into his face, drawing a growl from the older man. "Sorry 'bout that," he mumbled, merging into traffic.

Once they hit their first red light, Keystone plugged Grimm, IN into the GPS. The basic rundown of the directions got pretty simple as soon as they got out of Chicago proper, so this was really just a means of finding the right road to get them out of town. After a couple of minutes (allowing the old man to get the edge of his hunger sated), Keystone made direct inquiry to his employer. "So, eh... You was sayin' that the plan'd changed a little. How's that, then?" He was the man's partner in this epic, continent-spanning drama. He might as well be read in.

To his credit, Caesar was open with the conversation. He filled Keystone in on the issue with his (their) family, what he was doing and why he was doing it. He spoke of the Lunillud Aleae, which was not news to the big man, but the Church's new information about it definitely piqued his interest. Be it that it was his deal to make, Keystone agreed with it wholeheartedly. "You got a spot for them to land yet?" he inquired further, talking about his son and the others back in Justice. "I might 'ave a place." Be it that he wouldn't mind if they went someplace warm and sunny, with umbrella drinks and business owners that didn't ask questions, he did know of a place that was perhaps more practical to survival for them. But that wasn't the end of it. Keystone couldn't help but poke a little fun at the situation that Caesar had gotten them into.

"Wait, wait... You're meanin' to tell me that a representative of the Catholic Bloody Church just put the two of us on a epic fongin' quest to find an' report back on some magic doodads what's got powers keen on influencin' mankind, yeah? Well, innat bloody neat! Oi, tell me... tell me - Which one of us's Percival an' which one of us's Galahad? I'd make me a kick-arse Bors the Younger, I would! HA! Oh God, I was raised on that tripe. Lemme know if we find any spare Grails along the way, right?"

Evidently, Caesar didn't have as much of a sense of humor about it as Keystone did. Or if he did, he didn't show it. All the large Brit was able to see as he glanced over occasionally (being that he was driving at the time) was the elder Gonzalez, lo mein noodles hanging out of his mouth and staring daggers at his younger associate. A closer look might have revealed him gripping his chopsticks in such a way that suggested he had something very uncomfortable planned for Keystone.

"Sorry, Boss. Back on business, then." The company vehicle made its way down the crowded streets of Chicago as its driver and passenger hammered out an outline of their midwest itinerary.

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Priya was not playing around anymore. Now there was even creepier music playing, some distant laughter, and a cool breeze. “You know what? Fuck this. Fuck ALL of this. Are we in some Friday the 13th horror movie? Because the colored character always dies quickly, and I’ll be damned if that is me this time.” She ignored the music now, not attempting to shut it off for a second time only for it to start playing some slasher movie theme song. She turned back to Riley. “I’ll understand if you want to leave, but I am figuring this out. Someone is messing with us and I am not all right with that.”

She looked around. The breeze had to be coming from somewhere, surely. She came upon some curtains up that didn’t seem out of place until she got closer, feeling the cool air emanating from it. She moved it to the side, revealing a tunnel broken into behind it. “Son of a bitch. A secret tunnel. Was this here before?” She asked Riley, hoping the girl was still there.

Whoever was down here had to be that way. And as long as the tunnel didn’t span multiple directions, wherever it led would lead them to whoever was in the mansion. “Well, I am going in. Anything I can do to leave this hell mansion behind I am going to take.” Gun out, pulse quickening, she entered the tunnel carefully. She let a silent breath out before she moved further in.

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Riley watched as Pyria made her way over towards the sound system when she tried to turn it off, only for it to be turned to a rather creepy song that she knew pretty well. It was a band that she knew and liked, and she was a fan of the band Shinedown, but given the sudden song change Riley started to get really creeped out by it. Given the atmosphere that they were in right now they were in the manor and not a single person was inside of the building. "Okay, really fucking creeped out. Personal fan of the band but honestly this song really fucking creeps me out.." Riley said towards Pyira as soon as the song was about to reach the chorus the system fizzled out and died, running a hand through her hair and tried to calm herself down as well.

The draft continued to go off as Riley could hear the chuckling starting to fade, Riley unholstered the gun looking over at Pyira. "So, any ideas on what the fuck is going on down here?" Riley asked, she got the feeling that someone was watching them but Riley really didn't have a clue and she just simply wanted to get out and leave already now as well. "And can we, just like go back up and leave now?" Riley asked trying to calm herself down as best as she could. Riley did start to think about texting her friend Adalaide to see if there would be any reason for anyone to even be inside of the manor while there her family was gone and out of town. "And should we call Tim in on this?" Riley knew that Tim was busy telling the Tinders what had happened to Marc as she sighed a little bit she was starting to think maybe she was starting to become bad luck.

Then Pyira found a tunnel hidden behind a curtain, which she had not seen at all before during her time at the manor. "Not that I remember.." Riley said, and sighed as Pyria decided to go down the fucking creepy tunnel. "Fuck it, might as well join you. Someone has to try and make sure your ass is safe." Riley said as she started to follow Pyria now.

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Cecily grimaced slightly, hearing Roy slip slightly as he walked. The news that they were at a crime scene was not in itself alarming. Cecily had been to hundreds of crime scenes before. She would take her kit with her, collect all of the evidence she could, and write up a report for the coroner. This entire mess she was in had started with her running to secure the crime scene that was Danica's death before it could be contaminated. A small part of her even contemplated telling Roy to put on protective booties right now and gloves, in order to avoid touching anything that was evidence, but there was the reason why this was alarming. This crime scene could very well still have the criminal present.

She glanced around, trying not to feel too unsettled. She had to wonder what sort of forensic set up they had here - her first instinct would have been to say small, but this was Murder Town USA. They had to have recognized the need for forensics, right? Maybe she could volunteer to assist... her thoughts drifted off slightly, wondering if they could trust the law enforcement here. Roy seemed to, but then again, he could have just been watching them warily and waiting for them to slip up. She took a deep breath, deciding to stay as quiet as she could and follow Roy - though her gut instinct was telling her to take a quick sample of the blood on the ground too.

"...If you could not contaminate the scene, that would be great," she told Roy softly.

"Well yeah. Everywhere has poor people. Take a trip over to Tanzania, find a small town and you'll probably find their equivalent of rednecks. Names are probably a lot longer and harder to pronounce. Say what you will, but Bubba doesn't pose a challenge for anyone to holler." She'd run into some African immigrants in the past. Not Tanzania, but... she actually forget where the guy said he was from. Nigeria? Let's go with that. It was an entirely different country, but the principle still followed suit. His last name was some 15 letters long and began with an N but was spoken with a W- sound. Mali didn't even bother to try thinking through the rest.

Mali fished out one of her chicken sandwiches from the bag and unwrapped it. It never ceased to amaze her how different the pictures on the menu and advertisements were from the food item itself. Yeah, she knew that those had the benefits of food photography, she wouldn't have been surprised if they were actually plastic models or something. But you unwrap the sandwich and sitting in front of you is a squished, misshapen mass, lettuce strewn haphazardly about it and one of the tomato's barely hanging in the bun. But hey, nobody went to McDonalds for presentation.

When Zoie pointed out the truck, Mali's gaze followed, her mouth rendered unable to reply due to it being filled to capacity on chicken. It was rather odd that the type of ego truck that was normally reserved for suburbs was hanging around a location that could actually use those vehicles for their intended purpose. She didn't want to get to wrapped up in conspiracy theory before she could finish this sandwich; however, she wouldn't have a ton of time before becoming commandeer of the wheel.

*Okay, I am going to be posting less and less straight out information for you all. Mystery is heating up and so the rolls and such need to pick up. Check your skills, use them, call for rolls. You can call for a roll before you post or you can leave a roll request at the end of your post and your results will be placed in the next update.

Chicago, Illinois (Grimaldi Books): Adelaide nodded. "Yeah, hopefully I can get an old high school friend to get us better access than I had back then. Listen, if you leave the room push the vault door shut behind you, it will lock on it's own," she said before heading up the stairs to deal with the tech that had showed up at her door. The bell above the front door rang as she unlocked the door and let the man in before closing and locking it behind her. "Yeah I hope you can help," she said as she walked over to the back room door and unlocked it.

"Well Wentworth told me to take care of shit, so here I am," the man said taking off his cap and looking around.

"Seems that way, so what do I call you?" she asked as pushed the door open.

"Rapture, call me Rapture," he said and she looked at him oddly. "It's my handle." she shrugged and flipped the light on. He let out a small whistle as he walked over to the console and sat down. "Wenty wasn't lying when he said you paid." Dropping his bag he sat down and cracked his knuckles.

"Yeah.. So you think you can.." she started and he turned his head slightly.

"Lady, this is what I do," he said cutting her off before fanning his fingers a bit and got to typing.

Chicago, Illinois (Roads of Chicago): Taking the card, Atticus pocketed it and nodded. "Gods fucking speed," he said before putting his cigarette out and heading out of his office. Locking it behind him as he left before heading to the AA meeting he was hosting. Once Caesar was in the vehicle and they were on their way, they were not moving quickly. It was afternoon now, on a Monday, in downtown Chicago. Traffic has reared it's ugly head and things are going slower than molasses in January, or whatever the British/Mexican equivalent of that is. But hey, it's not boring. Why? There is a flash on their GPS screen...



Road To Grimm: Zoie took a sip of her drink and nodded as the straw popped from her lips. "Yeah, ain't that the damn truth. Though, one Bubba ain't a problem but when you get a shit ton of them dumb asses together, eating their smokie wieners at their local 'rally', then shit gets bad. They're like cockroaches that way. One's just a nuisance, but there's always more just waitin' in the dark," she said before popping another nugget in her mouth. Shrugging she kept eating and looking around.

The truck looked out of place but in the end Mali would figure it was just some guy who likes to spend more on his truck than anything else. While it probably wouldn't have gotten attention had it been dirty, thing was, red necks loved their trucks. He was probably wanting attention, so he jacked it up, made the muffler louder and as he pulled out of the parking lot, hit the gas so hard it roared and left tire tracks in its wake.

Grimm, Indiana (Beneath Grimaldi Manor): The tunnel smelled more of artificial strawberry than the basement had but now that the curtain was drawn back and they were actually in it, it smelled old and musty as well. This didn't look like a new tunnel, this looked old. Real old. Granted where they walked through, it looked like it had just been hammered out recently. The walls were dirt and held up with braces. Some were metal, some were wood. The ground was old boards. There was a line of lights that lined the tunnel. It only seemed to go in one direction for now. Towards the east and slightly south from the manor itself if one was looking from above. As far as any of the kids from back in the day knew, it hadn't been there back when they partied in the basement.

Grimm, Indiana (Police Station): Roy looked over to Cecily slowly. "I ain't good at multi tasking," he said with a smirk before turning his attention back forward and pointing his gun slowly out as he swept the area. "But, I'll try to stay out of the blood," he added as he looked around. Letting out a huff he rounded the corner and moved slowly down the hallway.

There wasn't anything in the area that Cecily could use to collect samples. This was just the front lobby area and it was mostly just some paper work, the broken phone, and such. There was a slight cough down the hallway and the flashlight beam came down the hallway that Roy had gone down. "Um, Rogue, you might want to see this..." Roy said quietly.

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With the information gathering segue out of the way, and the prospect of new inquiries firmly set in their minds, Caesar and Keystone set off on the next leg of their whirlwind midwestern adventure. Being as Keystone was somewhat less emotionally invested in the mission to find information about and/or do horrible things to that Tinder guy (who may or may not be dead, though they were counting on him breathing still), he felt a lot less guilt about looking at their situation with more objectivity. It was not accurate to say that he didn't care, nor that he did not want his own chunk of vengeance; Lord knew that he'd love to feel the guy's bones crunch under the continued assault of his ham-sized fists, but it was hard to top the depth of simmering emotion present in a man who had lost his daughter, which would rightly be Caesar. In comparison, Keystone was the woman's former paramour and unknowingly the father of her child. Now the boy, little Liam? That was someone who he would kill mercilessly to protect, and much like the old man, do many unconscionable and brutal things to avenge.

But speaking to his greater sense of objectivity, these Lunillud Aleae, if all was to be believed about them, were so much more important than any single person or a quest for revenge. It was a limited piece of irony, but it was also amazingly possible that it contributed to the death of a woman for which they were trying to account. Furthermore, if this was part of the reason that Alicia was infiltrating the world's most dangerous Women's Book Club, then it made so much more sense to continue her work. Or as best that they could, considering the disadvantages of their gender for this type of work; such liabilities evident by the presence of a Y chromosome and exterior vs. interior plumbing. The facial hair was a dead giveaway for Caesar, as was the expansive muscle mass for Keystone. Attempting to masquerade as anything other than male would be met with suspicion at absolute, grain-alcohol-involved-lapse-of-judgement best, and being shot outright at worst. The long and short of it was that Keystone was good with adding this to their reasons for doing what they were there to do.

Unfortunately, their mission hit the smallest of hiccups while they were just starting out, and by the most mundane of reasons: Traffic. Caesar was used to dealing with traffic in Mexico City, Monterrey, and various other major cities elsewhere in the North and Central America. He should have seen this coming. Likewise Keystone, though his was mostly in London and spots of mainland China. It wasn't so bad as a whole, but it was a fantastically easy thing to overlook, what with everything else going on. Traffic. They were stymied by road congestion. All they needed now was another easily forgettable but equally as delaying factor like a sudden weather development or a drive-by pigeoning. It was going to be a while before they got far enough out to make real headway into their trip to Grimm. Might as well put on some music and grab an extra egg roll from the bag.

The initial planned action to put something on the radio was halted by some interesting and suspicious activity coming from the GPS. There was more than a touch of concern on Keystone's face, mirrored in its own way by the snarl forming on Caesar's when he noticed it, too. Neither of them even thought that the GPS was capable of doing that, much like the screen on the private plane. But there it was, another transmission by this mystery person who was able to pick out where they were and infiltrate the electronics on board. While it seemed like whomever it was on the other end of the transmission was trying to nudge them in the right direction to complete their mission, the fact that they were everpresent and anonymous was disturbing. "Well, least we're on the proper track, then," muttered Keystone, noting that the word Grimm was spelled in the same way as the town they were already moving (albeit slowly) toward, not to mention that the first letter was capitalized like a location might be. "Supposin' that word 'Crypt' means somethin' else, too? All skulduggery-like, eh?"

So long as they were moving at a snail's pace anyway, Keystone waited until an opportune stop to do a quick online search on both "Grimm, IN" and "Crypt". Maybe it would be something, maybe it would be nothing. Or maybe they would have to get into town and look up hardcopy records anyway. Never hurt to try, and it's not like they didn't have the time right then. Caesar, on the other hand, was looking intently at the GPS. Sure this guy was helpful, but the nature of the sudden intrusions was bothering him. Help or not, Caesar wanted to know more.

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Robert stood over the table with the FBI-files as Adelaide went to leave, telling him to close the vault door behind him if he left. The door would lock on it's own? Robert swallowed hard at those words, his heart beating a little faster at the thought of that. Locked. Locked down in the vault that he had no idea of how to get out of. While it wasn't really small enough to push him out of it and follow suit after Adelaide immediatly, it was claustrophobic enough to give him second thoughts. But he swallowed down hard again, giving Adelaide a determined nod as she left. "Sure thing, I won't be long."

He still had folders to go through, paperwork to read and shit to solve. Just another day at the job, and like his immense lack of motivation for his normal work, he would push on through. Robert stacked the two folders he'd already read to the side, and picked up another one. This one was different. As the insurance-fraud agent opened it up and started reading, he raised his brows in confusion, his eyes scanning what his mind couldn't read. "Arabic...what just in Hell is this folder doing here?" This wasn't making any sense to him, much less with the picture of an old woman with white hair and clear lines in her face. The picture itself was quite old too, so what just the blazin' had this to do with the case? It was nonsense to Robert. In fact, it made a whole lot more sense to him if these folders weren't connected at all, but just random folders Marc and Lawson had grabbed in a hurry. But was that the right answer?

Robert didn't dwell long on it, closing the folder and stacking it with the others he'd read before making his way out of the vault. No way in Hell that he was staying there alone, not after he'd been told he could get locked up in there. He shuddered at the thought, closing the vault door behind him, glad that he wasn't on the inside as it locked up. Robert could hear Adelaide talking with the guy he presumed was the tech-wizard, and got up the stairs to follow their voices to the back room, where the scrawny guy was getting to work. "How long will it take for you to...do your stuff, kid?" Robert asked Rapture matter-of-factly, leaning agains the door frame before turning to Adelaide. "Might sound bonkers, but you don't happen to read Arabic?"

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Cecily had to roll her eyes slightly - practically every guy she knew sucked at multitasking. She remembered in one of her gen ed's in college, the professor was talking about the differences between the brains of men and women - how women supposedly were better at doing multiple tasks at once, while men had to focus on a single one. She had a moment where she tried to picture Roy taking college courses and she tried to get the weird image out of her head. She looked around, trying to see if there was anything she could take a makeshift blood sample with, but there wasn't anything really. Sample collection would have to wait then.

"...What is it?" Cecily asked, having heard the cough and it made the hair on her arms stand up. By his quiet voice, Cecily was paranoid that they were about to find the murder victim - someone they knew, maybe even. If it had been a stranger, she doubted that Roy would've been this quiet about it. Holding her breath slightly, as if that could protect her from all of the horror going on in this place already, Cecily carefully tried her best not to step in the blood as she made her way over to Roy and she peered down the hallway. She didn't really want to be in this situation, not at all, but she braced herself to see the worst. She was prepared to see Riley somehow there... Riley... Her heart started to pound more and more, as her mind jumped to the worst case scenario.

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Riley looked towards Pyira as she rubbed her arms ever so slightly she was getting weirded out, she had never seen this tunnel before either they had it all covered up with some kind of wall or she was just really dumb and just never noticed it before. [color=cyan["Yeah, I don't even remember this being here at all. And I've been to the manor hundreds of times before.."[/color] Riley said towards her as she made sue that the gun was out at the read just in case. Though the smell of Strawberry was stronger now, it did remind her of Cynthia a little bit, the last time she met her she was going on and on about Strawberry Quick as well. But the smell down here was also really musty to, as she looked around for any other passage ways.

"I think we should call this in to Tim now, and i'm not sure if I can get reception down here at all either." Riley whispered she took notice of the support beams, some were metal while the others were older and made of wood. "Ever seen that movie My Bloody Valentine 3D?" Riley asked, seeing the movie back in 2009 the tunnels reminded her of those mines in that movie. "It was about a coal miner or something that goes on a killing spree. This really feels like a scene out of that movie." Riley said as she took out her phone to see if she could try and get reception down here.

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Priya could feel the tenseness of the situation grow as she inched forward into the tunnels. They appeared to be like a labyrinth of tunnels like the underground railroad. It could also be like a fallout shelter dug into the wall in case the bombs dropped. Either way, it didn’t inspire much confidence. And she had Riley to watch after also. Even if the girl wasn’t scared, she was scared enough for both. But that only pushed her forward.

“Try to call him then if you can. I doubt there will be much signal down here. Not to mention we would have to wait for them to come and, by then, whoever this is may be gone. Don’t forget we were tasked with finding out what is going on here. I’m not about to let this person escape, especially if it is who I think it is.”

She continued down, trying to make as little noise as possible, but the ground itself was like it was made to elicit sound from each step. She kept her gun trained in front of her. “If only we knew where the tunnel led out to. What direction are we even going in? If we knew that, perhaps with your knowledge of the town we could figure it out. There must be an end to it and whoever this is is either heading there or leading us there. I don’t know which one is worse."

*Okay, I am going to be posting less and less straight out information for you all. Mystery is heating up and so the rolls and such need to pick up. Check your skills, use them, call for rolls. You can call for a roll before you post or you can leave a roll request at the end of your post and your results will be placed in the next update.

Chicago, Illinois (Grimaldi Books): Adelaide sat down slowly and pushed her hair back as Rapture clacked away on the keyboard. She glanced over towards Robert as he came in and motioned to one of the chairs. "Depends on how good they were," Rapture said as he kept working, the screen seemed to flicker going from one screen to another. He was working quickly, that was until he stopped. Rapture chuckled a bit and turned around in his chair. Pulling a sucker out of his mouth and looked up at Robert. "I speak one. One Zero One Zero Zero. And with that I can do anything," he said rather smugly. He grinned. "Like find out about a wreck that happened on the highway coming back from college or a failed law career," he added with a wink before looking back at the screen.

Adelaide swallowed hard, that wasn't something that was just out in the open about her. Sighing she rubbed her hands together. "Apparently," she said before casting a glance towards Robert. Clearing her throat she looked back at Rapture. "So, um, any ideas?" she asked.

Rapture was already back typing away. "Well whoever did this, knew what they were doing. This wasn't some fly by night job. If I didn't..." he started to say before his voice trailed off and he pulled the sucker slowly back out of his mouth. "Holy fuck... Prometheus..."

Chicago, Illinois (Roads of Chicago): Unfortunately for both Caesar and Keystone, neither of them are able to yield anything. Security is one thing, but this is far beyond the general knowledge even he would have. The thing was hacked but knowing how would take someone much more specialized at this point. As far as searching things like crypt and Grimm, there isn't really anything coming up. Just some mentions of unmarked graves over by the Asylum. The traffic, thankfully was lightening up and starting to move again. They would be out of the city within half an hour at this rate.

Road To Grimm (Indiana): Will update next post.

Grimm, Indiana (Beneath Grimm): The tunnel kept going and didn't seem to have any off shoots, it was just nearly impossible to see further down the tunnel than around fifty feet at a time due to the low lighting and how it was spaced out. Dark portions between each light along the wall. For Riley, there was no cell surface under there but she would remember back in middle school, while having to take State Studies, there was a quarter just on the history of Grimm Indiana. While Indiana was part of the north during the Civil War, due to it being heavy with farming, there were slaves and some families were willing to do anything to keep them. Which also meant that there was resistance to that. There were talks and rumors of how Grimm was a stop along the underground railroad before going further north and even into Canada. Granted, there were only a handful of homes or buildings in Grimm today that were standing during that time. One was the Grimaldi's house, which had been passed down from generation to generation. Another, was the Asylum.

Grimm, Indiana (Police Station): Roy waited for Cecily to come around the corner, keeping the light trained low until she did. Slowly he lifted it and started shining it over the wall slowly. There, spelled out in blood, were words. At least it looked like blood, the way the light shinned off it. It was wetter than what had been in the hallway, so it was easily figured out that it was fresher. "Once all the stars are gone, then the night will return to Grimm." Roy shook his head slightly and looked back over to Cecily. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" he asked her, not really figuring she would know but even in Justice, spelling out cryptic messages on the walls with blood wasn't a really common thing. "This is like some bad horror flick. The fact we're in corn country ain't helping," he said. He had seen one too many Children of the Corn movies.

Well on the bright side, the truck just seemed to be a truck, and not someone tailing them from Juno in the aftermath of the party or trying to track down the little artifact dice-thing that they seemed to be after. They had run into Caesar earlier, but maybe there really wasn't anything too fishy going on in the area and she had just been letting the neurotic parts of her head get the better of her. Probably not, but it was a good reminder regardless that not everything is part of an insidious conspiracy out to ruin things for everyone.

Mali finished her chicken sandwich, feeling pretty satisfied. It was a fast food chicken sandwich all right. Sure she'd had better/worse ones, but simply having the heft of a significant amount of food in her gut after all this time provided pleasure enough. She briefly took stock of her physical wellbeing at this point. She felt decent enough overall, maybe starting to get a bit sluggish. She could eat the other chicken sandwich pretty easily now, but if she did, she'd probably end up feeling pretty sleepy behind the wheel. Well, leftovers it was.

"Hey, you ready to trade places, Zoie? I'll take over for a bit." Mali wiped her hands as clean as she could with one of the spare napkins that they got with the food before she roughly sealed the opening of the paper bag before rolling it up tightly. Had to make sure that there'd be no accidental spills. And the car was a rental, but it was still bad form to cover the steering wheel with greasy hands.

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Robert wasn't about to let go of Adelaide's silent offer of a chair, and calmly made his way over to somewhere he could rest his sorry ass for the first time since...he figured it had to be around the time Caesar and Keystone arrived, which wasn't that long ago but sure felt like it. Sitting down and leaning back on it, Robert took note of the geek brat's answer. He was cocky, probably thought he was as good as he dreamed or something, and sure liked to show it.

That theory was only made more likely as Rapture continued to answer Robert, this time his question to Adelaide about speaking Arabic. At first Robert looked at him with his infamous "I'm tired of your bullshit" look, which in turn changed into a look of worry. How...how did he knew about Robert's failed career in law? Around Richard it had been an unspoken, yet known secret, though he tried to not talk about it before. So when this kid out of nowhere told him he could find out about it, Robert wondered what he meant. Was it a threat, or just an insult?

Robert sat uncomfortably in his chair, eyeing Rapture as he tried to read the kid's face. He figured it wasn't meant as either, just to make a point that he was indeed as good as he claimed. It was one hell of a way to prove a point though, one Robert didn't appriciate, especially not from Adelaide's look. "I didn't ask you, Kid. So unless you can magically learn Arabic with your fancy tech-fingers, you've got better things to hack into and whatnot." Robert said annoyingly to Rapture, shaking his head giving Adelaide an equal look. What was this city coming to? Robert would have loved to have gotten an answer for that, but instead Rapture only came with a single word in the end. "Prom-who? Is it bad?"

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The good news: Traffic was starting to suck a lot, lot less than it had been for the past ... Ok, so they weren't sure exactly how long. It seemed to close in on them the moment that they decided to leave Chicago, like the city itself had taken on a Mafia mentality. The harder I try to get out, the more they pull me back in. Well, Chicago was known for that, But it's one thing to hear about it, and quite another to get smacked with the wonder and majesty of rush hour as three or four million people decided to use the same road all at once; clogging the roadways of the Jewel of the Midwest like so much human cholesterol through out the arteries of a great, lumbering giant. Yeah. It sucked a bit, but finally it was opening up. That was the good news.

The bad news: Caesar, for his curiosity about the equipment in the vehicle, or that of the private plane for that matter, decided to look into the difficulty with his GPS. Difficulty might have been the wrong word, giving it some consideration. It was still functioning admirably as a System that Positioned them Globally to within a meter or so. That was okay. The deal he was curious about was the epic smooth job someone did hacking it. Now, if it was an equipment addition, he might have been able to spot something. But no, it seemed to look fine to him. The problem was, no matter how good Caesar might have been with technology related to security and surveillance, he wasn't a hacker kind of guy. This must have been one hell of a job, too. But he came up with the confounding combination of Jack and Shit in regards to anything that might give him the barest of clues. Back to square one. At least this electronic interloper seemed to want to help them.

More bad news: Keystone, upon doing a quick 'net search in hopes of finding something obvious that connected Grimm, IN and the word and/or name Crypt came up with just about the same amount of success as Caesar had just found for himself. Yeah, there was mention of a graveyard. That seemed like it would be the obvious place, all things being equal. But it just didn't set right with him. Nope, there had to be more than just this going on. Maybe he would try again after they stopped for gas or something, as it was a little dangerous to go poking around on one's sat phone while trying to drive. At least they had that going for them, the opening roads. Naturally, Keystone thought that it was a longshot anyway, being as last report of Grimm had them stuck in the past so far as technology went. Ok, no big. Tried, failed. Try again from a different angle later on. But there was one nagging thought to what little information he found: The graves were unmarked, and by an asylum. That had the makings of a place you probably wanted to visit during the day. And there were worse places to start an investigation. Scenic, maybe.

So the first salvos launched in the investigation didn't appear to turn anything of amazing or obvious value. At least that were on the right road, going in the right direction, with full bellies and a solid tank of gas. Things could be worse. It was a dangerous thought to have, that. More dangerous to say out loud, most especially as they had been tempting fate lately. So Keystone looked to Caesar, Caesar looked to Keystone. They shared a mutual look of "fuck it", shrugged, and focused straight ahead onto the streets of Chicago leading out of town. It was all they could do right then anyway, until one of them got another bright idea.

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Cecily bit her lip slightly, not really shell shocked at seeing the blood on the wall. She was telling herself this was just a crime scene in order to stay calm, to not let her paranoia get the better of her. The type of killer that left behind messages like these... They were the ones that got nicknames, that the press would sensationalize. This wasn't a contract killer, not someone who did this for a living. "Once all the stars are gone..." she mumbled, feeling a lot of dread. There was a star in her life that came from Grimm - Riley Ridgeway. And for a small sleepy little town, a lot of important individuals seemed to come out of it - the deceased FBI agent, for example. "Where's Riley?" Cecily then asked Roy.

"Since I don't know about you, but is it a coincidence that the murderous hometown of a rockstar just happens to have a message like this written? Maybe it is just a coincidence but... I'd rather be careful. I don't want to risk anything happening to her..." she finished, her voice a bit soft. Cecily didn't know what her feelings for Riley were. She knew that she didn't want to sleep with Riley - but she liked the idea of having someone to cuddle, someone's hand to hold, and someone to argue over whether to get generic cereal or Frosted Flakes for breakfast. The blood was definitely fresher going this way, and she wished again that she had a sample kit with her.

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Riley continued to look down at her phone, seeing that she wasn't even getting a single bar and grumbled to herself it was worth a shot but sadly she couldn't get a single bit of reception down here. "Yeah, we are in a dead zone it seems cant get any bars right now.." Riley said towards Pyira as she turned to look over her shoulder just in case something seemed to jump out from behind. There weren't any sort of separate tunnels just yet as she started to think back a little bit. There were a few older buildings, she didn't pay to much attention to some of her classes history wasn't really her favorite class but she did a lot better in it than her other classes. The Grimaldi Manor was one of the oldest in the town along with the asylum.

"I remember from history class back in the day, that Grimm was kind of a pitstop for the Underground if you will. So maybe this is one of those tunnels under the town just to get slaves around. If I am right it might lead to the Asylum maybe, which is about South East from the mansion." Riley said, she wasn't good with directions but it was the only thing that she could think of that sounded right. Riley really just wanted to get the hell out of here. "I think we should really call Tim or Roy the moment we get reception back again." Riley said.