[IC] Paragon's End [Modern/Fantasy/Anime/Adventure]

[ShiningSector]

One by one, every member took their opportunity and crossed through the portal and out to wherever it lead to. Travis the took his turn and stepped through and soon arrived in their new industrialized environment. Shifting between the more cozier and quite place and into the now lauder and sea-pungent locale was certainly a very unusual sensation to experience. Travis could almost conceptualize the notion of simply stepping out of the mansion to busy urban dock.

Like everyone else, Travis took the moment to familiarize himself with his surroundings and determined they has exited into a confined area between buildings, away from anyone's notice or care. It was a good place to start for now before they get going into the more dangerous territory. As he looked back at the portal to see if anyone else was coming through, Travis spoke his mind but took care to keep his voice down, "now that we're here, what's next?"

[Prodigal Son]

"Yup. Cornelius Morningstar is the current papal magi." Raiya replied.

Shortly after, Felix opened up a portal that linked between their living room and a destination that was close to the mission location. Raiya stepped through behind Nemo. The warm woodsy air of the cabin was replaced with a cool salty air of a coastal area. The were in an alley between two warehouses, it was increasingly obvious they were at a trading port.

"So what now?" Raiya looked at Nemo who planned out the current mission.

[Cottonmouth]

"For now it's easy, we continue on without scaring our ride away." Nemo responded as he continued walking. A couple minutes later and after passing about five more warehouses. The maze like confinement of the metal buildings opened up to a view of the docks. The hundreds of shipping containers made it feel like they'd probably be looking for a needle in a haystack, but thankfully Nemo was able to save them from that. He pointed out a group of containers off in the distance, closer to the water where they'd be ready to be loaded. They were easier to pick out from the others due to the light blue color with a trident and cartoon tuna fish logo plastered on the side.

"There they are, now we just need to get inside without being seen." Nemo explained, putting his hands on his hips in thought. "You know... I'm starting to think it was a bad idea to wear the pink pants when I was gonna be sneaking around in broad daylight." He confessed. "Thankfully this is just a harbor, not a prison; no guard towers to be seen. All we have to worry about is the workers. Which unfortunately there are quite a surplus of." He added, turning around. "Zoey, if I'm not mistaken you use illusion magic. Do you have any spells that could help us along?" He asked, then turned to Travis. "Seidon's containers probably also have runic locks on them. You worked like a charm opening the catacombs up for us Travis, so I'm sure you could cover that?"

[ShiningSector]

"Centuries old runic writing methods and techniques are one thing, but something that was probably cooked up recently and is likely to involve more intricate and current standards is another entirely," Travis argued as Nemo presented the task to him, perhaps unintentionally in the manner of assuming the scenarios were without specific and important technicalities.

With a brief sigh though, he accepted the challenge that stood before them, seeing that no one else possessed the knowledge in dealing with the presented issue as he did, "but I can definitely take a crack at it. All I need is plenty of time to study the runes - if there are any - and devise a solution to get by without being noticed."

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya followed closely behind Nemo, listening to what he had to say about the mission. As they continued to walk, they passed a few warehouses and came up to a yard of varicolored giant shipping containers. No doubt every single one of them each had priceless cargo being transported, and with how many there were it might have seemed like a daunting task to find a specific one. However, Nemo seemed to pick out the important containers with relative ease, volunteering Travis to disarm any wards that may prevent them from entering.

"Not to rush you or anything, but we do have a time limit. Just in terms of common sense, I am sure there is a boat coming to get these specific containers soon." Raiya pursed her lips. "We'll protect you while you work, but as soon as the boat gets here, and the containers get loaded up, we will have missed our window." Raiya explained, "So, we are going to need you to get it done before then." Raiya finished

[Dawnpath]

Zoey frowns, "I could make a bubble where we are essentially invisible, but that makes a bit of a signature magically speaking. If there weren't so many, I could simply trance all the workers into not noticing us. Hmmm..." She thinks for a moment, studying the distance, "Another more risky option. I could teleport us there individually through a shadow. The unfortunate thing is that the sun is out. If it weren't, not being seen would be no problem." She shrugs, "Up to you. What do you want to risk? Possibly alerting a mage presence, or possibly jumping into a trap."

[Cottonmouth]

Nemo put his hand over his head to block the sun and looked out to their destination. By his guess it was about a mile out if they went in a straight line. He then turned his head to the main office building of the docks, which was much further away. The view caused him to ponder for a moment, which then sprung an idea in Nemo's mind.

"I have no doubt there's a magical presence somewhere within this compound. If your bubble leaves a trace, then we'll be found. So option B is probably the best. The only problem is that once we get there we can't just slip inside. If there are any locks we'd probably be spotted while trying to crack them... But I have something a bit more practical in mind to fix that." Nemo said, lifting his arm up and activating his manadial. After navigating a menu for a couple seconds radio sounds began to play to the group. It was the dock workers radio feed.

Nemo's expression didn't seem to be interested in the various conversations. But once a monotonous voice played out and gave an order in between the various babbling, a small grin crossed his face. "Prepare containers 246C and STEV6 for inspection."

"A harbor as big as this uses a basic artificial intelligence system to keep things organized though the radio. As compared to our other options, I don't think anybody would be too suspicious if it just so happened to 'malfunction'?" Nemo suggested. As he spoke he began to input various commands into his watch's holographic interface. "Mariners aren't exactly the most tech-savvy bunch around. So infiltrating their system should be. quite. easy." Nemo finished by pressing one last command, causing the usually white display to suddenly turn green. "...you know that was actually a lot easier than I thought." Nemo muttered afterwards, mostly to himself.

After using his hand to massage his throat for a moment, Nemo adjusted his voice like before and spoke into the manadial like it was a microphone. "Emergency alert, all personnel please report to the main office immediately." His voice pretty much perfectly mimicked the tone and mannerisims of the AI. Directly afterwards Nemo pushed a small red holographic input on the dial's display; one marked with a foreboding looking skull and crossbones icon. The effect was obvious, all the radio noise went dead, crashing the communications before anybody in charge could sort out Nemo's faux command. The only thing which could be heard was multiple vulgar complaints from the workers getting cut short. "That should keep them busy." Nemo noted as he saw workers on the dock all begin to walk from the shipping container area to their next time-waster. Luckily this time it was far from the group.

Nemo turned back to Zoey and gave her the go ahead signal to start her part in the form of comically 'shooting' finger guns in her direction.

[Dawnpath]

She deadpanned at his silly expression, and did not warn him about any of the sensations associated with being teleported through a shadow. Sensations like suddenly falling through the floor, becoming numbingly cold, and being ejected at a speed that may put you off balance. Or maybe she just did that on purpose. Either way, with Nemo gone, she had a desision to make about who to send next. Either Travis, or Raiya. Raiya because she was Nemo's partner (at least in Zoey's eyes), or Travis because he was supposed to de-ward. She went with Travis.

"Close your eyes, mate, and think of a nice dream. This won't hurt a bit," she says to him, pushing him gently into a wall. He'd fall through it and, if he followed her instruction, probably come out on the other end with a significantly better experience.

[Accurian]

Zuri followed the group as the made their way past the multiple warehouses before arriving to a yard with stacks of shipping containers. She felt a bit useless as she watched Nemo pulling the strings from the inside and putting the plan into action as things started to unfold. Zuri had a feeling that Zoey wasn't aware that she was with them since she hasn't said much or done anything, so she approaches her from behind and taps her shoulder gently and asks "Excuse me but.. did you forget about me?" in a polite and non-sarcastic manner.

[Dawnpath]

"What? No, mate. We're just going one at a time. You'll have a chance here in a minute, but Raiya will be next. There's a bit of an order here, so we don't all get fudged on the other side. Right now, I'm giving it a minute so that Travis has the opportunity to disarm any traps on the other side. And also so he can get his bearings, because I don't think he was quite expecting what happened to happen. The Coven's magic isn't the most common in the world."

[ShiningSector]

"I'll get it done," Travis reassured after Raiya reminded him of the time table that stood against them. Hopefully.

It was then Zoey made several proposals regarding how their group could make it across to the industrial containers unnoticed. However many of them as Zoey herself and Nemo pointed out that either method presented would give them away in some fashion, making the trek to the containers risky and difficult to go about unnoticed. But Nemo in all of his cleverness picked up the dock's automated radio frequency with his mana dial and imitated it, creating a false workplace wide broadcast before crashing the entire networked radio system. The misleading message grabbed the attention of all the dock works as they abandoned their stations, following the broadcast's instructions in assemble elsewhere and leaving the way clear. I really need to give these things more attention, thought a fascinated Travis.

It was then Zoey's time to shine as she begun transiting members of their team to the containers they sought to commandeer, starting with Nemo whom she nonchalantly and without warning made vanished in through a shadowy aura. Travis felt somewhat tense with the concept of being consumed in darkness in such a fashion, even though the method was likely harmless and ferrying them over a long distance. Unlike how she phased Nemo out from their location, Zoey this time bothered to inform Travis about how she would do him the same service. As instructed and with a nod in compliance, Travis gave the effort of at least calming himself in positive before feeling Zoey's light press and the encompassing embrace of darkness for a split moment.

The instance of immediate travel nearly put Travis off balance upon reaching the other side of the docks and right where the containers would be. The Untalent fought the slight feeling of his stomach churning as he set about his designated part of scoping out the containers for any protective wards. He gave a small smirk as he worked before batting a brief eye to Nemo, "how was the ride?"

After a quick minute of searching, he eventually picked up the presence of an installed spell on each of the containers. Casting a passive and unobtrusive spell, Travis summoned the ward's rune to manifest itself visually, "Found it" he announced.

Keeping in mind with Raiya's words, Travis did his best to note every important and relevant details of the presented rune. Luckily for him and everyone, the rune was not booby-trapped with a grossly fatal curse unlike the design they had encountered back it the Redwood catacombs from what he gathered. However his suspicions were confirmed as he noted several modern-written scripts woven in the spell's structure. The rune's purpose was undoubtedly clear in preventing unauthorized access or tampering with the containers. The method in how it operated exactly Travis couldn't be sure but it was seemingly non-violent through his interpretation. He soon found a security measure imprinted with the transcript that pulsated outward to an unspecified location. Travis deduced that this functioned service as some sort of silent alarm if the spell itself was handled improperly. The man named Seidon, assuming this was his handiwork, would be notified almost instantly if Travis slipped up.

"It a pretty secure runic model," Travis commented aloud as he continued his analysis of the drawing, not expecting an answer during the process.

Upon glossing into other sections of the spell, Travis made out what looked like multi-dialed lock with an array of shapes and glyphs to choose from. It made sense to assume this was the method of unlocking the rune though a closer inspection also revealed a series of rules detailing the implementation of corresponding aura frequencies that would add up to each correctly set graphic. The Untalent eased back from the whole design to view it from fuller perspective.

"...I believe I can crack this without being noticed," Travis reported to his teammates that made it over thought mindful in how he would select his next words as he set the expectations, "Its well designed but I should have it unlocked...at best, five minutes perhaps?"

[Cottonmouth]

"Frankly I could go for another." Nemo replied "Anything to get me out of this sun is welcome, especially if it comes with free cool air conditioning as well." The pale man added, using his hand to shade himself from the sun. Nemo clearly did most of his work at night for a reason.

"I'd calculate we have about fifteen minutes before the workers sort out my diversion. So that should work out just fine." Nemo assured him, turning to wait for the rest of the team to teleport in.

[Dawnpath]

The reast of the team appeared, one by one, in order of Raiya, Zuri, and finally herself. She got there in time to hear Nemo's comment about getting out of the sun, which instantly earned him a tiny fragment of respect. A little bump in her opinion of him. She looked around, seeing they were still alone, and crossed her arms. "Hey, uhh, Nemo? You don't think they'd have protocols if an alarm blares to search their goods for nasties, do you? Or like, we have an overterrified patron who'd want that done in the first place?"

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya felt her weight drop away from her as her center of gravity shifted when she melted into the shadows. This combined with all the alcohol she drank earlier and the dark claustrophobia of it all almost made her vomit. After being spit out at the destination, she huddled over herself, latching onto what little feeling of easiness she had left. After gaining her bearings back she stood back up straight. She saw that Travis was hard at work, and from the look of it, it looked as if he was almost finished.

"Well, I hope he finishes before the ship shows up to load these crates on them, otherwise, we will be in for quite the treat." Raiya said with what sounded almost like hunger.

[Cottonmouth]

Nemo heard Zoey and shrugged in response. "I sure hope not." He replied, looking up to the sky. He entertained himself by watching a small flock of birds fly by above the group. However Nemo's viewing pleasure was suddenly cut short when all of the birds suddenly froze in place, as if somebody pressed pause on a movie. His expression turned from slightly pleased to completely deadpan. Uh-oh he thought. It was a tell tale sign that a realm spell had just been activated.

Nemo quickly looked down from the spectacle, now on alert. It was just in time to see a large crescent shaped wave of orange energy travel straight towards Travis as he worked on the rune. Despite the high speed which it was travelling, it barely made a noise. Clearly whoever generated it had the intentions of a surprise attack.

With no time to warn Travis, a quick usage of his warp spell placed Nemo in the line of the attack before it could hit Travis. The lack of time also made Nemo's absorption ability not as effective, the runic X he generated from his glove wasn't able to grow big enough to swallow the whole spell, causing the excess to explode around the pair. Smoke and dust surrounded them, but they were unharmed by the attack. Nemo snapped his gloved fingers, using a small spell to quickly swish out the smoke from around them and clear their view.

Across from their container, atop another, were two people waiting. One of them lazily sat down with his legs handing off the side, with the other standing tall. The sitting fellow wore a blue working jumpsuit with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, white undershirt, khaki boots, and various jewelry, including multiple piercings. He had tanned skin and dirty blonde shoulder length hair tied into the ponytail. The ends of his hair were dyed bright orange. Resting on his shoulder was a wooden baseball bat with multiple runic circles burned into it link a brand. The standing man seemed to be much more formal, he had short silver colored hair with bright blue eyes, a thin mustache, light skin, and a dark navy blue suit, white dress shirt, silver tie, and black loafers. Both of the men seemed to be somewhere in their thirties.

The sitting man suddenly dropped down from the container, causing the other to teleport down afterwards. "Well well well, looks like we've got some hooligans in our harbor huh Boslan?" The man asked his partner. He spoke with a noticeable Boston accent.

"Looks like it." The suited man replied shortly with his hands resting behind his back.

[Prodigal Son]

Raiya felt the familiar pull of a realm spell and immediately went on the defensive. Her hands snapping outwards, summoning her main weapon, her custom katana, in a flurry of purple electricity.

Raiya's attention snapped to the magic attack whizzing towards Travis. She felt the attack before it got within range, and as she was about to move in to intercept it, Nemo jumped into its path instead. An explosion briefly enveloped the two but as the dust settled, it could be seen that they were more than alright.

Raiya's attention then switched to the two who were atop the shipping crate. They certainly were a motley crew. The dirtiness of the working class blue collar outfit of the man on the left, completely contrasted the neatness and privileged elegance of the gentleman's zoot suit. They dropped down from their perch and began to walk towards the group.

"So much for the element of surprise..." Raiya murmured. "You got any ideas, Nemo?" Raiya asked genuinely, her teeth gritted in anticipation.

[Cottonmouth]

Nemo activated his manalysis as he walked over to Raiya. A stream of energy flowed out from the suited man up high into the air, then curved over into a giant dome that covered most of the harbor. Clearly this was the realm spell, creating a snap-shot copy of the real world. I suppose that's a smart idea, Nemo thought not only does it trap us inside, it also prevents us from damaging the merchandise in the inevitable fight. While our marks will be erased once the spell goes down, luckily it doesn't prevent us from tampering with the magical elements in the real world from here, so Travis can still work on the lock.

"I've got one." Nemo replied to Raiya, turning to the two opponents. "You're Harris' boy right?" Nemo asked, referencing Harris Hunley. A mage who used to run the harbor.

"Logan Hunley, what's it to ya, Nemo?" The working man replied curtly, picking up on Raiya's namedrop.

"Nothing really, I see the security here has improved." Nemo commented casually. "I take it your father passed and now you're running the show."

"Smart guy huh?" Logan said with a slight scoff. "Yeah, that's how it is. My old man was lenient on the security, too soft. But that's in the past now. Mr. Kaprico here is the best security system money can buy. That little trick you did with the comms was neat, but nothin' can hide from a clairvoyant mage."

"Oh? Does he know any other tricks too? Have you taught him to roll over?" Nemo sarcastically joked, slowly rolling his pointer finger in a circle.

A scowl appeared on Boslan's face from the jest, but he held his tongue "A comedian too? I really hate funny guys, don't you Boslan?" Logan asked. "Hate em." Kaprico affirmed with an unamused face. "But I suppose that trait suits ya well, with that white skin and those pink pants ya sure look like a clown to me."

"Would you like it if I came to your birthday party?" Nemo asked. "I can pull off the balloon animals that most can only dream of." He boasted. "Bet you've never seen a balloon hippopotamus before."

"...I think I've heard enough outta you." Logan seemed to finally reach his limit with Nemo's antics. He lifted the runic inscribed baseball bat from his shoulder and generated a concentrated ball of mana in his free hand.

Nemo turned to Raiya and the rest of the group, figuring diplomacy was over. "Zoey and Zuri, you two take care of the clairvoyant. Raiya and I will entertain the birthday boy over here. Just make sure to cover Travis." He ordered.

Logan tossed the baseball like ball of mana up into the air, giving it a bit of spin. After it reached the peak of it's height and began to fall he swung at it with his bat. It connected with one of the runes on his weapon, lighting the inscription up bright red. The act seemed to imprint on the ball as well, turning the blue energy ball purple. The hit sent it flying straight towards Nemo, but right as Nemo prepared to block the attack it suddenly veered off course towards Zoey and Zuri.

The energy ball was travelling quite fast towards their feet. And as soon as it would come into contact with anything physical or magical it was set to explode with high power.

[Dawnpath]

Zoey intercepted the energy ball with a throwing star and grabbed Zuri, popping up a few feet away from where the shadow she dragged them through. Upon coming out of that shadow, Zoey was a full wolf, with glowing purple lines tattooing her body. She hopped on top of a bin and howled, the scene around them slowly changing to night.

What was really happening was that Zoey had put Zuri down on a different cargo bin and popped up on the other one, starting an illusion. It was strong, but it was mostly for our friend the birthday boy. She was still trying to figure out the best way to take out someone who could known everything before it happens. Some leading theories: Act erratic and unpredictable, which was unlikely to work. Do so much at the same time it's difficult to keep track. Or just be a better fighter. Lets see which works.

She fell through the ground again and popped up out of a shadow, throwing an elbow to the back of his head.

[Accurian]

After getting transported by Zoey's shadowy magic, she watches from a distance as they converse. One thing led to another, and after Nemo gave Zoey and her an order, a large ball of energy flew over towards her. Before she could react, Zoey transported her to safely. "Thanks, that was a close one.." she said as she looked around to see where she was at. Zuri wondered who the 'clairvoyant' was, looking around and trying to figure out. "So.. who's the clairvoyant, Zo-" Zuri paused for a bit to look at her transformed body. She couldn't waste any more time in such a hostile environment, so she visualizes her staff and says "vocāre.." as her staff materializes, putting herself on standby until she sees an opportunity to contribute to the fight.

[ShiningSector]

He worked through decrypting the rest of the rune, ensuring there were no hushed functions he had missed. Since orchestrating one of his most ambitious spells yet, there were several tricks and methods he had picked up through his arduous research. Many of which corresponded with how a rune could be constructed and the many intertwined commands that not only defined its function but its intention as well. This could include secondary and additional protocols and safe guards if needed to support a glyphic spell's basis and determine its efficiently too. If anything, writing a rune held little differences in principle if it were compared to designing a computer program.

Travis soon verified that there were no elaborate schemes to the runic lock that stood before them. The locking algorithm was complex enough to prevent most violators access into whatever the spell was securing. So theoretically, there was little reason to implement any additional measures than what already was considered and proposed as acceptably efficient.

It was then that Zoey's and Raiya's voices bled into the scene, confirming that they had just transitioned over, He? The least you could do is address me in second person; I'm literally right here, thought Travis, only sparing a mental remark against Raiya's statement while he worked on the rune. Matching the characters with their frequencies proved to be a complex matter at first but a closer inspection of the glyphs revealed a clue Travis soon picked up on. Each small drawing characterized the kind of state activity one’s aura would behave in the presence of mana circulation. The more edgy and dynamic glyphs seemingly represented an aura’s active state while the more curvy and rounded shapes hinted to a more relaxed state. While this was certainly something to work with, Travis however identified that he would need to probe each character in order to find which combination order was the right one to disengage the spell.

As he looked through his notes and looked back to the rune, Travis couldn’t help but take notice everything suddenly became silent. The overhead chirping of seagulls, the never-motionless waves rocking against the docks, and the many artificial sounds of bells and machines nearby, all came to unusual circumstance of quietness. This what of course broken when the loud bang of a small explosion erupted right behind him; the sound was enough to make the unprepared Untalent jump. Smolder and debris surged around him as a result of the detonation occurring is such close proximity.

"What the hell?" Travis frantically yelp as he spun around to investigate the source of the interruption, waving his arm repeatedly as he tried to clear the cloud of burnt dust that currently engulfed him.

With the sound of a finger snap, the dust quickly vanished and what he found was Nemo directly behind him with another one of his “X” spell deployed as traces of steam and smoke fuming from it. Raiya now armed with her katana stood firm and alerted as she faced the direction of the disturbance. It then seemed clear that Nemo had responded to some kind of attack, given how it seemed aimed at Travis’ general location. He gulped at this startling realization, now coming to know that he was being targeted by someone; but who? He soon got his answer when two men in came into the scene; one of them armed with a bat enchanted with runic designs and dressed rather unusually in a gruff work attire however fashionably displayed their collection of jewelry and piercings all over their body and jumpsuit whereas the other individual dressed more professionally in a dark blue suit.

"Oh great" Travis sighed under his breathed, fearing that he was about to get caught up in a brawl with some nasty-looking fellows whom were likely the ones responsible for taking a pot shot at him in which Nemo has countered in the nick of time.

Travis was about to stand up to meet to respond to this new threat but after Nemo just got done in a short dialogue of smack-talking and even the verbal burning in one of the interlopers, it became apparent that the fight had just started. Right away, Nemo had ordered the rest of the team to split up and engage the two while specifically declaring that they would also cover Travis as he worked.; everyone responded silently in-kind as the battle got underway. Travis resumed his work on the rune as best he could but now knowing there was fighting taking place around him, the focus and concentration he needed to unravel the spell had been unhinged in the initial commotion, putting him in a not so good situation. He tackled this dilemma as best he could by reminding himself what was at stake if he should not finish on time. The pressure was certainly rising but Travis bitterly continued on.