Carantathraiel

Wanderers

Ruli exhaled, shaking his head. While he didn't like their plan, he had no better one. So he reached out to offer him his arm, recalling her preference for clutching his forearm, and they were suddenly before the warehouse door.

The half-breed turned when Kire opened the door, his eyes an odd murky red-brown. While the Kartaians boasted pure black pools around their red irises, his sclera was a strange pinkish red, like he'd been standing downwind of acidic smoke. He turned in place for a moment, trying to figure out how Ruli, and the woman who had slipped inside, had managed to get past him.
"That's right." Ruli said softly. "I can Shadow-Walk." He took a step, vanished, and reemerged on the half-breed's left, well out of reach. He blinked, utterly surprised. "Just like your sires. The elves that claimed your mother."
The emotion that rippled across the elf's face was not what Ruli expected. Anger, annoyance, sure. Not confusion. Not curiosity.

So Ruli kept taunting. "You've no weapon." He pointed out. "That means you can kill with thought, right? By touching someone?" Indeed, the elf raised his hands, peered at them as if he'd never seen them before, then looked up again, searching as Ruli Walked once more, appearing back in front of the warehouse. To better listen for Kire. "Can you not?" He asked as the figure spun again, his strange eyes pinpointing him. "Have they never told you the stories?" Ruli pressed. "Do you know who you are? You and I, we're brothers. Elf blood. And yet you're helping to capture others? Hurt them? Do you know what your masters are doing to them? How they're hurting them?"
The figure inhaled, shoulders squaring. "You let one go, didn't you?" Ruli asked sharply, noticing the indignation in the half-breed's eyes. "Fuschia coloured eyes. Not too far from yours. Fuschia hair. Wolf smile?" The elf raised his hand, burrowing fingers beneath his greasy, rust-coloured strands of hair, to where his own pointed ears sat hidden.

A flicker of blue light behind him told him Kire had left the building. Without tearing his eyes from the half-breed, Ruli stretched out his arm for her. "You're on the wrong side." He said, before he and Kire vanished.
With a grunt, the figure darted forward, eyes wide in fear, and he frantically searched for them as the warehouse door was flung open.

Ruli took them back to the edge of the slums, where he and Kire had emerged from the black emptiness every time. He pulled his arm free, glancing back toward the warehouse, curiosity tearing across his countenance. "What did you learn?" He asked Kire quietly, leaning back against the wall. His heart was racing, sweat dotting his brow despite the cold.

Wanderers

Ruli blinked upon hearing her question, and after some thought, he nodded. "It could. Its high level enchanting, however. I've only ever managed such a thing once before. It took me nearly a week to get it working properly."

He studied the tall figure ahead, still in awe over him. "Not all, no. Matter of chance, like any breeding." Ruli whispered. His eyes roamed the figure, then the building behind. "Mmm. I'd rather not risk taunting him unless we know what weapons he has. And no, I have to know where I'm going in order to Walk us there. Best I could do is get us to the door." Ruli whispered. His eyes slid to her, disliking that their best option for the moment was for him to distract the half-breed while she slipped inside.

"What will you do once you're in there? I don't like you going in blind. I don't want to go in blind." He declared, looking back toward the watchman. "If you face trouble, do your portal thing and get out. Scout. I'll work on him."

Wanderers

He narrowed his eyes at the building, still unable to see what she meant, to sense anything beyond cold and chill. "Like I did with you?" He repeated, clarifying. Indeed, doing that with a whole building would take a lot of work, but it wasn't impossible. He and Envy had managed it at least once in Ziad, though it had only been temporary. Being unable to cut into the building itself, they'd painted the enchantment on in the night, but the ruthless morning sun caused the paint to flake off before the day had passed.

As Kire yanked on his sleeve, he hurried after her, ducking behind one shacks, standing behind her as they both peered around. He inhaled softly through his teeth when his eyes fell on the man with the tinted skin, both in awe and fear. In silence, they watched in inaudible conversation, one-sided as it was, before the older man stalked off.
"I don't know." Ruli whispered. "Underground? Here? Seems like it would be only muck underground." He pointed out, his eyes still on the man left watching. "He's half-Kartaian." He gestured. "The blue-ish tint. They're rare to see. Dangerous, I'm sure. So don't get close."

Wanderers

"That was the point." Ruli informed quietly. "He isn't bound to bash in his own face. Mine, on the other hand. I figured your face has seen enough for a while." He shivered, glad that his every exhalation sent warmth across its cheeks. He fell into quiet after that, as speaking didn't warm his skin as much, and, coinciding with his own personal comfort, the surrounding area sent a chill unrelated to the cold up his spine. The footsteps, the many places one could hide, the silence.

Ruli swallowed when she said they were going the right way. He'd seen no clues, nor seen her gesture to one, so assumed she'd managed to sense the enemy. When she confirmed it a short while later, almost growling the word out, Ruli looked left and right. He could sense nothing. No tingle in the nape of his neck, no scent in the air that didn't smell right.
Maybe only she could smell it because they were from a different world. A different brand of magic his own couldn't locate.

It had been the issue with Akuma, hadn't it? A voice reminded him, forcing a hidden frown.

"What is it?" He whispered quietly, looking forward. "I can't sense anything." His eyes looked toward the building they had carefully avoided, finding no sign of movement. Then they dropped, to her tapping foot, and his eyes skimmed the ground. No, still nothing. Ruli felt oddly useless, and he wasn't happy with that.
"Why is it so quiet?" he whispered. "They can't possibly have day jobs, right?"

Wanderers

Ruli audibly exhaled. "Fuck." He swore. "I didn't think of that. That they'd move." What were the chances of them hunting them down, were that the case? "We'll need to press her for more details." He said firmly, knowing full well that conversation would not go smoothly. "What she remembered, how far, if Bolym could give us any further details. I think if she ordered it, he'd tell us." The man seemed to obey every order the elf spoke in his direction, even if he hated it. Even if he felt the need to argue about it, first.

He glanced her way again as she spoke about the temptations of power and the problems sitting on a throne carried. It sounded very much like first hand experience. She was a chieftess, so suppose she would have some experience.

And then she asked about Zeke and his enchantment, and he let out a huff of laughter, though no smile accompanied it. "You wanted to look like a local. Zeke is as close as you can get." He pointed out. "Giving you an identity that ties you to someone else isn't a bad idea. Having the ability to claim kinship can always be helpful. That, and he's human."
Ruli glanced her way as the buildings grew less and less maintained, less extravagant, less tall. The smell in the air changed, too, the reek of rot and mud clogging his nostrils. "Zeke was only pissed because he doesn't like you. If I had made you look like me, he'd have been just as pissed." Or more so, potentially. It hardly seemed like the man was fond of anyone, at the moment.

They stepped into what was undoubtedly the beginning of the slums. Paths cut through short, lopsided homes that could have been habitable, were it not for the rot creeping up the wood, introduced by the pools of water that had begun devouring the base of the walls. The roof and frame tilted and dipped threateningly on most of them. Following the 'road' that wound through the shacks, between the reeds and bushes, leaping over the small pools and swerving around the larger ones, they made slow progress. Ruli kept his head up, his arms tucked close. It was somehow colder here than in the city, the pools likely contributing to the lack of warmth.

"I see a lot of tracks in the dirt. So I would like to say we're in the right direction." Ruli shivered, gesturing with his elbow the boot prints in the ground, left while the earth was soft and wet, now hardened and imprisoned.

Wanderers

Ruli kept thoughtfully quiet as they wandered away again. Like any lord usually does, Kire had said, but Ruli had no inkling to that. The King of Ziad had never tried to branch out, only to maintain control of his isolated city, and he secretly didn't even control it. Envy did. Envy was trying to expand his reach only to protect and aid.
The world was a very odd place.

Ambition. That was the word she used to describe Itallo and the other lords who wanted to expand. Maybe that had been the missing characteristic.
"Who would want to be a king?" Ruli found himself asking aloud, unable to fathom wanting to be like the late Ziadi King. He shook his head. "Let's look for the warehouse. Would you mind? Maybe we'll learn more, there. If not, at least we know where to start."

Wanderers

Ruli nodded, glad she also doubted they'd be welcome. "Considering we have little else to go on beyond you abysmal hunches, they're still the best we have." He tried to offer. Certainly more than he had in his months waiting in Ziad for some clue, some trail to follow.

He remained quiet the rest of the way, his eyes searching the streets for any sign of what they needed as Kire cornered a man in rags, his oily hair thin and sticking up at odd angles. When the vagabond confirmed that the man Ruli had spotted was in fact a Gemini, or at least boasted the name, he refrained from glancing to Kire. No need to suggest to the man they were bribing that his information was that good.
Still, the man demanded more drink, and Ruli pursed his lips. Having gotten a confirmation, he wanted answers on another topic.

"We hear elves are a problem here. That they attack people on the street. If we want to avoid them?" He asked. The man shook the bottle again, grinning cheekily, and Ruli's frown deepened. "We can't give you more if our throats are slit in the dark."
The vagabond, realizing this, lost his grin. "South east part of town. All wetlands, not much else there."
Ruli glanced in that direction, thinking it would be easy enough to follow. The location where Ysaryn had instructed him to arrive was in the eastern part of town, the land uneven and damp, but not quite wetland.

Wanderers

He was relieved she didn't mock him in anyway for being nervous around the elf. He said little, but the piercing gaze she often settled on him was far too much like a predator debating on whether or not she was hungry enough to eat. The smile she tossed together with it was worse, somehow.
As Kire mentioned the blood sacrifice, and the dormant magic in the blood of the elves, he inhaled. He couldn't imagine the sight of something like that, so many dead and slain, their blood being used for darker deeds.

"Edge of the festivities, for vagabonds." He suggested. "They'll be hoping for dropped food, or people leaving who need to discard what they don't want to carry. Offering food or coin would work in our favour. For children, watch for the ones running through the crowd, bumping into people. Thieves, more than likely. If we catch one, we can threaten reporting to loosen tongues."
"I don't know if I want to hunt down Ysaryn's people without her with us," Ruli offered as they wandered the street. He shivered whenever the wind blew, his shoulders hunching against the breeze. "At least not initially. Even with Bolym here, I doubt they'd be receptive."

Wanderers

"Don't need coin if you know where to look." Ruli pointed out. "Vagabonds and children. That's where I'd start. Observant, and ignored by most. Though, well, coin wouldn't hurt in trade." He realized, that offering coins to either in exchange would be a polite exchange. "Did Ysaryn mention how long ago she was taken? Or how long she's been with Envy and the others?" Logically speaking, it had to be less than six months since Ysaryn joined. She'd said she'd heard about Ziad being hit, after all, and thats not something one would hear easily while in captivity.
If they had tried to turn her into a doll, perhaps she hadn't been held long.

Ruli pursed his lips at her offer, shaking his head. "No. I want to find this location they're holding the elves, if possible. Or the place where her family is hiding." He glanced sideways to Kire. "I didn't mention back in the mountains out of fear of Ysaryn overhearing, but I overheard a small snippet while the Gemini man walked by. Something about the problem with the elves being dealt with soon. Permanently. I have no idea if he meant the ones the have, or the ones that have avoided captivity."
His blue eyes met hers. "I am a little ashamed to admit that I am honestly afraid of telling her that I overheard that. She's sort of terrifying." That, and he doubted he could prevent her from storming back here and endangering herself. Headstrong, just as Kire was. Chieftesses, the two of them, Ysaryn had mentioned. Must be a qualifying trait.

"Let's see if we can figure out where the elves live, or where they're being taken. Anything that would help." Ruli countered her suggestions.

Wanderers

Ruli groaned in response to her affirmation, but did as he promised and sat up when she returned with coffee. She was quiet, though he didn't know the reason. It was nice to enjoy coffee in silence instead of dealing with her constant questions. He downed his cup, then rose, dressed, and fetched a second cup before nodding to her to signify he was ready to go.

Back to Cordon.
He shoved his hands immediately into his pockets for warmth, tucking his arms against his torso as he looked around. Every time he exhaled his cheeks grew warm against the fabric of his keffiyeh, but it answered with a chilling cold whenever he exhaled. He recalled Kire saying her family was currently living in the snow and frowned, unable to fathom that sort of cold.
"I'm sorry to point out, that could be anywhere." Ruli answered her, looking around the coastal town. Much of it was built on water. The streets were even angled so that every house had views of the sea, depending on which window they looked out of.

As she asked about the age of the man he'd seen, Ruli shrugged. "To be honest, I'm a terrible judge for age." He admitted. He tried to think, though, trying to compare the man he'd seen with people he knew. "Older then Aeron, for sure. By a few years. Grown into manhood, but his cheeks were still full. So ... not too old?" He made a face. "I don't know how to look for glamour, but magic calls to magic, and during his little walk, I didn't sense anything." Unless he was just unfamiliar and unable to detect Gemini magic as Kire could.
Wordlessly, he directed her through the streets to where the man had walked yesterday, gesturing with a jerk of his chin.