Author: Aspect, Posted: Sat Mar 23, 2019 1:18 AM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Aspect listened to the young pale woman as she spoke. Natsumi. That is what she claimed her name to be after a moment. There was something about her, some strange, alien presence that was incredibly unique. This second time the woman spoke, there was firm and quiet confidence about her. Aspect had a feeling deep inside her that Natsumi spoke the truth. She felt the tension build in the air as something important was about to happen as the sounds of footsteps grew louder. In no time, the guards that had attempted to capture her and Robin in the city surrounded them. She suppressed a growl to the best of her ability and did nothing more than tense her muscles and bare her teeth at them. For some reason, she waited for the pale woman to make the first move. If an attack were to take place, it should be her to initiate it. 

The attack never came and she watched in interest as the woman bargained with the guards, first through the use of threats and later through situational control and conversational manipulation. It was a feat to see the young woman take on the large group of guards and be successful. She felt that she was incredibly powerful, both in the arts of magic and communication, but also in strategy and psychology. In different circumstances, she would probably be a groundbreaking teacher or mentor of such subjects. As for now, she was able to skillfully move through the conversation, as if it were a dance, it was fascinating to watch. Even when the Captian felt that he was a getting a jump on her, by coming in from a different angle, she still remained several steps ahead.

She seemed to know how to read people to a microscopic degree, being able to feel their weak points and sensitivities and exploit them if the need arose. It seemed that way to her at least, watching the banter take place and seeing how the Captian responded, both through anger and embarrassment. In the span of the conversation, she was even able to see him contemplate his morals and adjust them for the circumstance to save himself trouble later. It was incredible to see the power Natsumi had over those around her, it was almost as if she were a magnet. She just knew how to work every angle, every possible outlet, outlook, or rebuttal so that in the end, it was able to work in her favor. Even when the bodies fell from the tree above them, they didn't shock more than just a slight surprise. The woman had really thought of everything.

Once she had gotten the captain's agreement, she'd released her prisoner to him, though only after being put into a light sleep through magical means. After a short moment, she moved off the scraps of stone that she'd been standing on and constructed a type of pillar out of it with her magic. Aspect was careful to stay out of the way of the pieces as they were put into position. The design was soon filled with light and she only comprehended what the young woman intended to do with it only moments before the guards. Her eyes widened in shock as she stared at Natsumi, torn between deciding if she was indeed the genius she appeared to be, or genuinely insane. That was all she had time to do, as in the next moment she was hit by a blindingly white light that consumed her vision. 

The next moment, she was standing on the bridge of a ship, sailing away from the island. She had no recollection of how she got there, only assuming it had to be another part of Natsumi's magic. She was too far away to see the explosion when it happened, but even from this distance, she could feel something. She never did figure out what it was exactly. She walked towards the edge of the ship, leaning on the railing as she looked towards the island, watching the seagulls soar above her. They reminded her of the crows she had seen following them for most of the day. With a quiet sigh, she thought about all that had transpired in the last few hours.

What she had originally thought to be a simple burglary investigation had turned into something much more complicated. It was difficult for her to even think out the course of the events in a way that made sense. She'd need a few days to go over it all again, possibly more than once. If she did know better, nor had the bag of coins still, she could have convinced herself that it was all a dream. It was real though. As real as she was here, breathing in the sea air and feeling the breeze go through her hair. She closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying the feeling of being alive. She closed her eyes for a second and then opened them, a determined look on her face. Even if she never saw them again, at least in this life, she promised herself that she wouldn't forget the three young women she'd encountered that day. The elf…Nea, the rabbit…Robin, and the woman…Natsumi. 

Author: CodeAni, Posted: Mon Mar 11, 2019 6:43 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

[OOC: Gmode permission was granted to say that Aspect followed Nat’s request for silence during the negotiation.]

Aspect’s response to these actions and words was typical of those meeting me under such outlandish circumstances, but her touch in that situation was no more welcome than anyone else’s. The attempt she made to lay a hand on my shoulder merely pushed me back, causing my upper body to twist and recoil even as my feet barely moved an inch. Perhaps she mistook business acumen for want of friendship, but, either way, the only thing I welcomed under those corpse-ridden trees was her question.

“Natsumi.” I told the young shapeshifter my name at her request, but only after some brief trepidation. I saw no reason or benefit in saying ‘Nameless’ this time around since she had at least proven herself marginally trustworthy; and yet there was no conclusive reason in getting so buddy-buddy up front. Aspect was still a mercenary and could easily defect no matter how gracious I behaved. A forename was good enough for her, especially since her will was about to be tested quite heavily in just a few moments.  “Now, as a warning for what’s to come,” I told the red-headed woman just as I could faintly hear the footsteps of Stalhadt’s men approaching, “you should let me do the talking with the guards and do your best not to panic at my methods. You should also think of the place you want to go from here, as we will not be teleporting to the same location after we leave the island.”

As expected, the previously humiliated captain had surrounded our refuge post haste. His men formed a sort of bull’s-eye pattern around us: 3 layers deep with dwindling numbers directly proportional to the radius they were stationed at. Most were out of normal earshot - judging by the sound - no doubt under orders to shoot anything not wearing a guard uniform that tried to escape. The captain himself led a small squad into the heart of that formation, accompanied by his most elite subordinates as they attempted to capture the “fugitives” once more.

“Hold!” The dirty faces of the watchmen were silent as the grave as their vanguard came slowly into view. The captain was the one who had spoke in their stead, his voice unmistakable despite the sizeable distance he maintained between himself and us. Clearly he had learned that he was not dealing with humans by this point, for he appeared in no hurry to physically apprehend us. He even had an emergency smoke bolt (a canister enchanted to send up a smoke signal on command or death) attached to his belt in case things went wrong, no doubt to dissuade us from attacking him as he continued to speak.“You’re surrounded, mercenaries. Give yourselves and your co-conspirators up and we’ll be merciful!”

Unfortunately for Stalhadt, however, my negotiator’s persona was already coming out by the time he issued that threat. The mask for my plague doctor ensemble had started to manifest the second I heard his footsteps, bubbling to the surface of my skin and hiding my features before anyone was the wiser. Even my voice changed from this transition, lightly distorting itself for the extra intimidation and anonymity factor.

“If you’re looking for the rabbit and elf, captain, they’re already gone,” I replied with that nightmarish tone, confirming the captain’s suspicions about inhuman criminals. He tensed up from the act, and started fiddling with the smoke canister on his belt before trying to regain his composure. In fact, he maintained that pattern for the next several exchanges between us, his men holding their positions whilst he did the talking.

“So you admit to aiding a criminal then, stranger? You do realize that you’re admitting to a crime?”

“You may think that you have the upper hand here, Captain Stalhadt, but you are definitely wrong in that assumption.”

With a small expenditure of power, I took a break from talking to the good captain at that moment in order to reveal one of my trump cards. Suddenly, the bodies of the men I had slaughtered earlier that day revealed themselves from the canopy. One by one, their heads poked out, until some of them finally fell down like strange fruit, their necks strangled by the vines I had created.

“Captain Stalhadt,” cried out the youngest member of the group once this macabre display appeared! Even Stalhadt himself was shaken.

“Madness,” he proclaimed, just before quickly noticing who these men were! “Those are Gyndnegle security. You’ll pay for their-” But I wasn’t done. The young heiress herself was still there – my other trump card - and I lowered her too whilst her would-be rescuers were busy panicking. It seemed enough to silence them, even though I knew they could barely see the young woman’s face beyond the webbed cocoon I had built for her.

“Even behind these webs, there’s no mistaking Melody Gyndnegle is there?” I spoke to them with a slight hint of deviousness in my voice: an unintentional reflection of arrogance. They knew, as did I, that I had their full attention now, especially given recent events. That said, Stalhadt was not one to be openly intimidated, and he intimated as much with his words despite the fact that his fidgeting portrayed a different picture.

“What do you want, foul creature…” And there was the question I was looking for: the question that had an immediate response.

“For you to forget,” I told him plainly. “You can’t leave this forest without arresting or executing someone, and all I’m asking is that you pretend you did. Pretend that you tried to arrest the women who fled here, and that they resisted; that there were no corpses left after the skirmish. You can even play at rescuing the young mistress to gain yourself favor, should you choose to do so.”

Obviously, the captain was none too pleased with this proposition, and neither were his men.

“You’re surrounded,” he tried to threaten. “Harm even one hair on her head and you won’t be getting out alive.”

All he succeeded in doing, however, was causing me to tighten the cocoon around Melody to elicit a small whimper. That shut him up right quick, though certainly made trigger fingers antsy during my continuation.

“Do you really want to risk young Melody here bringing the wrath of her parents down on your head even in death, captain? If they find out that she was hurt because of a blunder by the watch – and they will find out – it won’t matter what lie you try to sell them. They’ll sniff out the whole guard, and it’s only a matter of time before someone breaks. You know this to be true. Don’t pretend that the merchant families have ever been benevolent during your service, Mark.”

Gritting his teeth, Captain Mark Stalhadt was clearly being backed into a corner by my words. Part of him wanted to rip me to shreds, the same part that was tired of the high-to-do merchants and their politics getting in the way of his job. The other part, however, was more pragmatic. It wanted to avoid more bloodshed, wanted a way out. And so the man was caught between a rock and a hard place: between pragmatism and ethics.

Eventually though, and despite his normally stalwart dedication to the law, Stalhadt tested the waters of temptation.

“And what about her,” he asked? “She’ll tell the truth even if we do make up a story. You said it yourself: her family will sniff us out. And besides, you’re asking us to pretend three fugitives escaped, and that the watch was completely outmatched by a lone stranger.”

Luckily for him, I had already planned that far ahead.

“Fugitives that you, yourself, were reluctant to arrest. Sometimes it’s better to forget than to enforce an arbitrary law, captain, as much as that goes against your code. She’ll remember whatever story you decide to go with. That I promise. And, lucky for you, only a few of your men have actually heard us, so your inner circle just needs to keep their facts straight for everyone to walk away happy.”

The beauties of memory alteration were ever so valuable for situations like this. Indeed, I had the power to alter Melody’s memories, but I would only do so if Stalhadt and his men kept their end of the bargain. Thus far, they were only testing their choices pensively, and I grew weary of their hesitation. I had places to be, so I pressed my point.

“The choice is yours. Is it worth it to you to risk the wrath of the Gyndnegle family because you didn’t believe my threats? Or would you rather everyone gets to walk away with exactly what they wanted? I expect an answer post-haste.”

Pushed into activity by those words, Stalhadt stopped dallying. He realized he would lose no matter what under normal circumstances, especially considering how he had failed to apprehend the serial robber in the first place. He’d been humiliated, blockaded and treated like an insignificant dog even by those he was supposed to serve. For once today, he wanted a victory, and so he succumbed to the lie.

“Fine,” the captain said with a sort of bittersweet acceptance. “In exchange for Lady Gyndnegle’s safe return, you are free to go.” Of course, that wasn’t quite enough for me. I cleared my throat to signify something more, and then tilted my head towards Aspect who had thus far been a good girl. The captain got the memo, and continued his full story much to the shock of his lieutenant and every other guard present. “Never saw her. We chased a black garbed mercenary accompanied by a puca into the lumber yard while they were rescuing the fugitive elf Nea. They refused to surrender, and so we were forced to battle them. Unfortunately, Melody Gyndnegle and her personal guard got into the mix and there were casualties. We managed to save the young lady, but could not peacefully apprehend the criminals nor recover their bodies. They disintegrated themselves rather than allow us to take them into custody.”

“Good,” was my sole response to that acceptable story. The captain understood his place, making things a lot simpler than they might have otherwise been.

However, I wasn’t quite done with the man who called himself captain just yet. Using a touch of memory flux and hibernation magic, I did put Melody Gyndneggle to sleep and implant the story that he had constructed. I also freed her from the webs and stepped back for the man’s subordinates to grab her, but I didn’t simply wait until everyone’s job was done. You see the captain’s story needed some believability, and believability I would give him.

Of primary concern, bodies didn’t just vanish on their own. There needed to be a cause, a cause that I decided to give the captain in the form of a runed pillar. I constructed the edifice from the ground that I had been standing on just before backing away from the young lady, and then observed patiently as its intricate structure lit up with a blue shimmer.

“What are you doing,” Stalhadt questioned when he saw this, immediately assuming treachery? “I agreed to your terms!”

“I’m just helping you with your credibility issue,” I professed calmly whilst finally preparing to teleport myself and Aspect away. “After all, bodies don’t just vaporize on their own. That said, I suggest you start running if you value your own health.” Suddenly, the color started draining from the bright pillar I had created. It began at the top and slowly moved toward the base, showing the countdown timer that I had imposed on this magical bomb. “Tik-tok, captain. Tik-tok,” was the last thing I said to him once my intentions were laid bare, and I followed that up by disappearing in the wake of the guards’ hasty retreat. Aspect, too, was allowed to escape, going to whatever destination (within reason) that she had picked whilst the negotiation was ongoing. Even if she had failed to pick one, she would have ended up in Adeluna anyway; but that was the least of my concern. For my part, I decided to stand watch briefly from a nearby mountain top just as the lumberyard we had been standing in exploded like a New Years firework.

Author: Aspect, Posted: Tue Feb 19, 2019 12:12 AM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Aspect watched Robin run up to a woman who was sitting on a log. The woman was pale, her hair completely white in color. She appeared older than both her and the rabbit, but it was apparent that she held a very close bond to Robin. She was silent as she watched their interaction. She watched carefully as the white-haired woman checked on the young elf they had brought with them through the city. Quietly, she remained standing near the young elf, unsure of what to do or say in such a situation. Her eyes widened in surprise as she saw the older woman create something in the air. A portal of some sort, unlike any she had ever seen before.

She listened as the older woman spoke. Robin carefully picked up the elf next to her and carried her over to the entrance of the portal. She called out a brief thank you to her and she couldn't help but smile. She opened her mouth to call back, but the rabbit had already turned and left into the portal, taking the young elf with her. Moments after Robin disappeared, the older woman closed the portal and turned her attention to her. Her gaze was something unique and Aspect felt herself begin to grow uncomfortable. She felt the woman was more than what was initially assumed and this quality was disconcerting. She thought for a moment that this is what others felt when looking upon her, the shapeshifter that she was.

The woman's tone changed to one more serious, and for a moment she was prepared for a scolding of a sort. She watched in both awe and disgust as the woman's clothes bubbled into a new form. She mentioned meeting her before, back when she was a prisoner in Karith. The memory of the sailor was very faint, almost like a dream partially remembered. It was hard for her to believe that that blurred memory was this powerful woman before her. It was so long ago it almost didn't feel real, so much had changed since then. For the most part, Aspect had remained out of trouble since then and had gone on to live a better life than she had before. Criminal acts, in the long run, didn't seem to pay out as well as she originally thought. 

The woman paused for a moment, allowing Aspect to collect her thoughts. But before she could speak, the woman began again, this time in gratitude. She summoned quite easily a small sack of which could only be money of some sort. The woman tossed them to her and she caught it with both hands. She eyed the woman a moment, in both hesitancy and surprise before looking inside the small bag. It was indeed money, crescents, enough to pay for her room, board, food, clothes, whatever she needed for a long time. She turned to look up at the older woman, her mouth open but no words coming out. It took her a short amount of time before she was able to speak.

"Thank you," she said, almost breathless. It wasn't often she was given gifts, never anything so valuable as this. She held it in her hands and looked at it, still having a hard time believing it was real. The woman mentioned the guards and she was drawn back into the reality she was in. She was still a fugitive and the guards would be here in no time. This woman appeared ready to handle them but it also meant that she didn't have much time to talk with her. Slowly she reached out and touched the older woman on the shoulder, her gray eyes meeting the older woman. "Please just answer me this," she said quietly. She thought about the sailor in her dreams, that evidently wasn't a dream. She thought about the armor bubbling up and changing forms in an instant. The older woman, so quiet and self-assured, whose presence was unlike any others she'd ever encountered in her life. "What is your name?"

Author: CodeAni, Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 5:06 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Amnesia

Thankfully, though, Robin no longer cared what her pursuers were planning once she made her way into the clearing. Her faith in me was almost blinding – a stark contrast considering my own lack of self-faith – and so the mere sight of me proved to be enough to lift her spirits in the face of encroaching doom.

“Natsumi” she cried out as soon as she saw me sitting on that log, smiling against her better nature! Her rose-tinted lenses blinded her to the reality of her surroundings, at least until she drew near enough to me and the clear signs of fatigue that riddled my face. “Natsumi?” Suddenly her smile faded when she saw the full detail of my gaze. My eyes were dead and listless – the sign of an insomniac who had missed one too many nights - and the gallant hero that she had been expecting to see at the end of her tribulation was nothing more than a mere husk of the mental image she kept.

But typical of the woman I fell in love with, Robin didn’t shy away from this hot mess that currently wore her wife’s skin when she saw it. Instead, she kept coming closer with a new emotion in her eyes: not happiness or fear, but concern. “Are you alright?”

Forcing a smile despite myself, I greeted my friend’s disquiet with what warmth I could muster. I looked upon her face as best I could, and tried to project some semblance of peace in a very unromantic setting.

“No, I am not, Robin. But that is not our concern for the moment.” By then, I had already moved the bodies from earlier further up into the surrounding trees so that they were out of sight. There was no need to frighten Aspect, Nea or Robin at all, and since I knew they would be arriving ahead of the people I truly intended to frighten I had already made preparations. Now I was easily able to walk toward Robin and Nea, placing the back of my hand on the latter’s forehead like a properly concerned doctor instead of a deranged psychopath; especially since I had gagged the still alive heiress so she couldn't interrupt me from her hiding place. “She has a fever,” I remarked after pulling my hand away from the limp elf in that situation, and not once did I display any hint to depict the corpses that secretly surrounded us all. “But it’s nothing we can’t handle,"I continued. "Adel and Eden will be able to attend to her back home.”

“Then we-“

“Yes, for now.”

Thanks to my telepathic bond I shared with Robin, I knew what she had been thinking from the moment she had lunged out to rescue Nea at docks. I felt incredibly apologetic about the whole affair from the beginning, forcing her to choose like that; and I had already come to the conclusion that I would accept whatever choice she made regarding Nea’s fate. I was fully prepared to commit to that, long before she could even convey her request in words; and I had already prepped a sick bed for the young Nea back home in anticipation of my wife's delivery.

Even after all these years, however, Robin was still shocked by that level of foresight. She had expected having to argue with me because of my stinginess toward the children situation, and was thrown for a loop that such a thing didn’t occur this time. That’s why her words caught in her throat when she realized I was already planning to take the young elf home; showing her vulnerable, more girlish side that I so adored.

There were caveats, of course, but I was quick to explain them while opening a portal to the house.
 
“You don’t have to ask or beg or anything in between. I already know your feelings, and I’ve been watching you since you called me here. I agree with you that we can’t simply leave her here when we have the resources to do otherwise. We will adopt Nea, but only so long as she herself accepts that arrangement. Until she is cognizant enough to make that decision for herself, we will tend to her and make sure she is safe enough to grieve.” Hugging Robin weakly, I rubbed Nea’s head with one hand and then said my farewells to the two of them. “Take her back to the house. I will deal with our guests and then meet you there shortly.”

Ears folding in happiness, the bun basked in my embrace for the brief time that it occurred. She carried Nea with her to the border of my portal henceforth, but stopped just short of it so that she could turn toward the mercenary shapeshifter that had followed her this entire time.
 
“Thank you for your help, Aspect.” The shapeshifter had assumed her human form once more by this point, and had been on standby like a respectful audience. She probably had a response to give to those last words she heard from Robin, but she had nary a chance. The rabbit was gone in a flash, disappearing immediately after her message of gratitude. I closed the portal behind her for safety, and then immediately turned my gaze toward the woman left behind.
 
“Now then, back to business.” Shifting my personality to a more professional one in the absence of my wife, I regarded Aspect with a straight face and recalled my past memories of her whilst SAI transitioned me into my plague doctor attire. “You certainly seem to have luck on your side Aspect. Last time I saw you, I sprung you from prison in Karith to retrieve an artifact for me in this very city. However, that was ages ago, and I did so under the guise of a long dead sailor. Even if your memory survived my purge of the world, I doubt you would even recognize me as I stand before you now.” Under normal circumstances, I might have shown her the face of the same sailor I had impersonated those many years ago; but, suffice to say, I felt that was a waste of energy in the moment leading up to my next comments. The story was probably enough, and, even if it wasn’t, Aspect seemed so different this second time around that I almost felt it was irrelevant to bring up such memories – a view that was reflected in my followup. “But that was another lifetime. Fact of the matter is that I’m more focused on your self-sacrifice today.” Summoning a sack coin containing the exact value that the city watch had promised to pay for Nea’s capture, I tossed it gently in Aspect’s direction and then continued. “Consider this sack of crescents as hazard pay for forfeiting the job you took and also slandering your name when you didn’t have to for the sake of my wife. I can also provide transportation off the island should you need it, but only after I deal with the guards. No doubt they will be here soon, so, if you have questions, I recommend you ask them now.”

Author: Anima, Posted: Mon Feb 11, 2019 4:28 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Robin’s mind fluttered in response to Nea’s mistake. There she was, saving a girl that she knew barely anything about, and yet that same girl had just called her “momma” during a time in her life where she craved hearing that word more than anything else. It was an interesting mix of confusion and overprotection that this event brought to the young rabbit's head, but the end result was undeniable: she started to move faster.

While it’s true that Robin didn’t notice the crossbow being trained on her in her moment of hesitation – the same one that Aspect managed to stop – the archer who was aiming at her would’ve missed anyway following the "mother" mishap. His target’s jump in acceleration following Nea's case of mistaken identity was too great of a difference in magnitude for him to follow, and the fact that Robin took to jumping on the rooftops shortly thereafter made targeting her an impossible task for any average marksman. She had secured Nea’s body to her back in the heat of the moment as well, so her speed increased naturally even more than it already had in the absence of having to worry about dropping her “daughter." Conclusively, that made the hare's escape a vastly expedited process, far more than Stalhadt had anticipated.

Aspect did well in keeping up during this chase, following the thread alongside her rabbit companion until they reached the lumber mill. The guards, on the other hand, did not.

“Regroup!” Stalhadt called to the last of his men once it became clear that the criminals had evaded the watch's disorganized and impromptu ambushes. He hadn’t planned on anything more than a single, tired – albeit magical – girl; and now his ill preparations were showing. The guardsmen, stretched thin by the rabbit and shapeshifter’s maneuvering, would be foolhardy to pursue them any further without regrouping; and so the senior captain called them back.

Of course, their retreat was only temporary: the calm before the storm. Robin’s justice had won out in this particular instance, but the Guards’ duty could not be so easily extinguished. They slowly encroached upon the lumber yard, surrounding it with the full intent to take victory from the jaws of defeat.

Author: Aspect, Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2019 10:45 AM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Aspect bounded after Robin and the white-haired elf. She could see the girl's condition deteriorate as she rode on the back of the pink bunny. The fever, though originally flushing her face of all color, now caused her cheeks and nose to be a stark pink. Her pale complexion making the shock of color even more prominent. As she pulled level with Robin, she could see her face. It had changed it seemed, from powerful and confident to sad. She seemed distracted by something. Her eyes had glazed over, almost as if she was in a trance as she was lost in her inner thought. Aspect worried about her for a moment.

She looked up to see a guard focusing his crossbow on the pair. She sped up and ducked her head, catching the contraption in her prongs. After a very brief struggle, she commandeered it from the guard. It remained attached to her horns as she continued to catch up with Robin, she hadn't even seemed to notice the guard at the time. Suddenly she looked up, noticing the flock of crows that had been following them almost the entire day. Suddenly a string appeared out of nowhere from Robin and leading to a place out of sight. Aspect looked at her confused when she said to follow the thread, but she had no other ideas on what to do, so she followed it.

It led them to a lumber mill on the far side of the city. They had run a short distance before she flung the crossbow and it's attachments aside. They were heavy and awkward and had made seeing difficult. She continued to run next to the rabbit, glancing up to see the elf girl's eyes start to open. She perked her ears as she listened to the girl speak, low and mumbled, but still speaking nonetheless. She didn't know how to answer these questions and was momentarily relieved when Robin chose to answer them. She heard the elf speak one word after Robin answered her questions. She was slightly shocked by the statement and said nothing.

She followed Robin up to the lumber mill, which quickly became in sight after a brief run through the streets. It was an older building and from the looks of it, relatively abandoned. There were no people here that she could sense or see, except for one and she couldn't see her right away. This woman emitted strong power and as they got closer she could make her out. She was thin and pale, with long white hair, very similar to the elf on Robin's back. They stopped at the mill and she stood nearby in case either Robin or this new woman needed help with anything. She shifted quickly back into human form and waited, watching the young elf carefully.

Author: Anima, Posted: Sun Jan 20, 2019 5:49 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

The guards were quick to respond once they regained their footing, and Stalhadt’s sorrow was broken by a mixture of shock and annoyance at how easily his troop had been duped. He barked out orders to his men, even as the fishy smell surrounding him threatened to consume his otherwise dour expression.

“After them!” Stalhadt’s lieutenant was the first to rise to that call, but he unceremoniously slipped on a cod and knocked himself out before he could be much of a threat. His subordinates were not so unfortunate, but it quickly became clear that they were slowed in their advance even if they weren’t falling all over themselves anymore.

Meanwhile, Robin and Aspect sped on ahead with a dazed Nea in tow, unhindered by the piscatorial minefield that the more pinkish member of their group had left behind. The guards they encountered along their way were official entities of the state trying to stop them, but they were not inherently part of Stalhadt’s unit. They simply heard the voice of a commanding officer and reacted, though Aspect’s horns and Robin’s dexterity were sufficient enough to keep them at bay for the time being - especially given their lack of opportunity to organize.

Regrettably, however, that was the greatest danger in this new situation that the three women were now entering: time or rather the lack thereof. Run as they might, Robin, Aspect and Nea would not even begin to enjoy the comfort of safety unless and until they could leave the island; and now that Nea was running a fever – a fact which Robin was keenly aware of, having to carry the girl on her back  – they also had to worry about finding a doctor who wouldn’t just sell them out at the slightest opportunity. Their clock was already limited, counting down even as the rabbit ran aimlessly trying to avoid the ambushes she heard in front of them.

‘Why must I be so powerless,’ she eventually lamented once she realized the bleakness of this situation she now found herself in? ‘I can’t even save one little girl without screwing up.’ Dismayed at the prospect that Nea might just wither away from her fever while her rescuer was trying to find a way out, Robin thought of and dreaded the possibility that she might just end up having to bury the girl anyway. Thanks to her lack of magical ability she couldn’t just gate travel away, and it wasn’t like she could walk on water either. In desperation, she looked up, hoping for something, anything that would give her hope.

That’s when she saw the crows for the first time. Until now, her eyes had been single-mindedly focused on finding and saving the girl who now rode on her back. She hadn’t actually bothered to pay attention to the sky, and so hadn’t noticed that I was watching her through the crow amulet around my neck this entire time. With the presence of those illusory spies overhead, however, Robin finally realized I was nearby. The flames of hope in her heart sparked alive once more, ever so fragile but still strong enough to where she forcibly willed the heart string on her finger to appear visible.

“Follow the thread,” the fugitive at last said to her pronghorned companion as the heartstring on her finger stretched out to me in the eastern lumber mill. “That’s our way out and our way to a doctor!” Nea finally woke up then, having passed out shortly before Robin dove in to rescue her.

‘Am I dead?’ she thought to herself as my wife’s pink hair came into focus. It wasn’t long before she realized that this was not the case; because, despite the fever’s effects on her, she could tell from the hollering of guards and townsfolk alike that she hadn’t actually been shot. The figure her arms were wrapped around had apparently saved her, and they were now trying to run away alongside a deer-like companion that could talk.

“Why are you two trying to save me,” the sick elf mumbled with this realization, not even questioning the oddity of her saviors at this point. “You could easily escape without me. Just let me go and you can get away.”

But Robin would not listen to this request. Despite being unwilling to admit it to herself, this was her chance to be more like me: to be a savior rather than someone who was always being saved. It was also a situation that was slowly morphing into a fantasy of hers ever since she realized Nea had white hair just like me. Her interaction with the girl up until that point had been about passing forward the good will she had been afforded earlier in her life at Nea’s age: a way to pass on a second chance at life to another girl who didn’t deserve the hand that fate had dealt. Now, however, that motivational story was twisting into a false narrative about saving family. The young rabbit saw me when she looked at Nea, and subconsciously started equating her to a daughter, perhaps even the daughter she wished she could have with me.
 
“No,” this confused but adorable rabbit finally responded to the elf on her back when that thought pattern solidified. “I won’t abandon you.” Ironically enough, Nea started hallucinating at that point. She couldn’t actually see Robin’s face, but her fever addled brain imagined it like the picture that Njall always kept of her mother in the living room. The young girl knew that was impossible, having been told from an early age that her mother was dead; but she wanted to believe at least for the moment. And it was in that belief that a single word came from her lips just before she fell back to sleep.

“Momma.”

Author: Aspect, Posted: Wed Jan 2, 2019 10:11 AM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Aspect watched the scene before her unfold, her keen canine ears picking up the sounds of the men speaking. The guards had surrounded the white-haired elf that she and Robin were seeking. She couldn't help a low growl in her throat as she watched the guards prepare to shoot the elf. Suddenly, she saw a barrel fly over from the other side of the walkway, seeing the shock of pink hair of it was thrown. Robin was distracting them. She watched the officer miss his shot and then was subsequently subdued by Robin's lasso. Her ears perked in curiosity as she saw the other guards struggle to stand upright over the pile of slimy fish. 

She ducked out from her hiding spot as Robin ran forward to retrieve Nea from the ground. A guard tried to stand upright and shoot at them and she caught his knees with her legs, causing him to fall. She waited until Robin had the elf and was running away before she took off after them. She wasn't fast enough in her dog form to catch up with the rabbit, shifting instead to her pronghorn form. She caught up to them while using both her horns and her bulk to protect the pair from any guards that tried to stop them. Her hooves clattered rapidly on the ground behind the speeding rabbit.

"So what's the plan now?" she asked. They were marked individuals now for helping the elf escape, it wouldn't be long before people were also sent to hunt them down as well. "Where are we going even?" She saw a guard peek out of a door and attempt to make a grab for Robin. She ducked her head and smacked it shut with her horns. She followed her around the corners of the alleyway as they made their way rapidly through the city. She leaped over a box to keep pace with them. She looked at the elf as they ran. "She doesn't look the best, we should take her to see a doctor or something." She was still trying to wrap her head about everything that had been going on. It was hard to keep everything straight, this was more than just a rescue mission. She felt like there was something deeper going on that Robin wasn't telling her. She kept her suspicions to herself as they made their way down the busy streets. 

Author: Anima, Posted: Tue Jan 1, 2019 3:48 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Back at the docks and far away from the sudden graveyard of “royalty,” Nea had been abandoned once more. Efrain tried to speak to her after she was tossed out onto the pier by that heartless captain, but, in her shock as well as the slight haze of fever now clouding over her vision, she never actually responded to him. He likely took her silence as an unwillingness to cooperate or converse, and so stopped bothering before wasting more of his effort. Either way, the young Rosenite left the beleaguered elf in her stupor once the Chadwhicks had demonstrated the ferocity of the Egjoran navy, and eventually he left the island altogether somewhere further down the line.

Robin and Aspect arrived sometime after that mysteriously unfortunate apothecary had departed. The former had used the directions of the latter to speed up her path, but the seconds they saved by doing so were not enough to arrive before Efrain had time to disappear. Their path, guided by Aspect, also generated some property damage along the way in the form of boot impressions on the building corners to Robin cut - much to the chagrin of the local property owners. Those were ultimately the least of Robin’s concerns, however: thanks entirely to the fact that Stalhadt's group had already surrounded Nea before the rescue party arrived at the docks.

“Gods damn it.” Stalhadt was mumbling unto himself as his men circled the still collapsed elf on the pier. He did not look happy or vengeful at having found her. Instead, his expression was incredibly somber as he compared the faces between the paper he held in front of him and the girl on the ground. Somewhere deep down he knew what he had been ordered to do was wrong, and he was torn between choosing what was dutiful and choosing what was just.

“I almost wish you had gotten away, girl,” he whispered to himself before putting away the poster he had been carrying since the most recent edition of the herald broke. His lieutenant noticed his trepidation in that moment of weakness and walked over to him in concern as the rest of the guard solidified their posts.

“If it’s too much, sir, I can take the shot for you.” But the captain, being a dutiful officer of the seaside city, simply waved him off before loading his crossbow.

“No, I can’t let my pity overrule my orders. If the captain won’t even carry out what he’s told to do, how can I expect my men to do the same?”

“As you say, Captain Stalhadt.”

Robin had been hiding behind some barrels while this conversation was going on, wishing to survey the scene for some way to get Nea out of there without sending the guards into a frenzy. Aspect was hanging around nearby – presumably for the same reason – but the pink haired guardian could see no solution to their predicament in the absence of a miracle. Stalhadt’s lieutenant was backing away, and the captain himself was preparing to shoot a bolt right into Nea’s head. He was going to execute her in broad daylight without a trial, presumably on the orders of the merchant families themselves. Nea, in pathetic contrast, just lay there, accepting her fate even as one of my crows gently tugged on her hair to get her to move.

This story at the docks could have gone a very different way than it ultimately did. I am not without pity, and I very much wanted to help Nea when I saw her through my black spies on that day in Egjora. Yet I was also torn on how to go about that assistance. Even if I saved that small, sad child on that specific day, for instance, I could not guarantee her a happy existence for the rest of her life; and I actually feared that I may inadvertently worsen her lot by interfering at all. Part of me thought it would be more merciful to just let young Nea die right then rather than force her to live out the rest of her potentially cruel existence. It was one of those instances where I decided to let someone else make the final move, even though, thinking back with perfect hindsight, I knew what the outcome would be.

Robin, heroic to a fault, would never stand idly by in such a situation. Before she knew what she was doing, she picked up the barrel of fish she had been hiding behind and threw it into the back of the captain’s head. Stalhadt missed his shot from the impact, instead shooting Amos - the sailor who had so recently watched his ship go up in flames - in the butt before he went tumbling to the wooden planks below. The fish within the barrel scattered all along the pier after that nick-of-time rescue, causing more guards to slip and fall while creating a path for Robin to reach Nea – save, of course, for the lone lieutenant who managed to stay upright.

“We’re under-“ ‘Attack’ was probably what he intended to say before Robin lariated him to the ground, but the lieutenant swiftly joined his commanding officer in stupor just long enough for his pink-haired assailant to grab the target behind him.

“Sorry, sorry!” She repeated the word over and over, my wife, as she was collecting Nea from the ground in a hurry. She had no time to be gentle with the hurt elf, lest she be surrounded when the guards regained their footing. Instead, she bolted at the first chance she got, getting behind the line just before the fish stopped keeping them incapacitated.

Author: Mithridate, Posted: Sun Dec 23, 2018 9:09 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

While the high and mighty were being kicked off their high horses, Efrain was growing more and more agitated with his current predicament. The matter with Stalhadt was resolved but that did little to change the fact that he was still landlocked in the duchy. He and the would-have-been stowaway had parted ways, fortunately before a copy of the latest edition blew by him. His eyes caught the headline, and a quick skim left him with the realization that he likely just had a run-in with the suspect. From the way she acted, she didn't seem capable of murder. Not in the physical sense, but her behavior and general disposition from what he gathered. But the world was full of possibilities. If the poor panicked girl did kill Lumerre, there was a high chance that it had been a complete accident. That wasn't the attitude of premeditated killing. The apothecary's doubts still remained, as the vivid description of the supposed murderer didn't entirely match who he saw. That snow-haired girl was an elf, but she didn't look anything like a spider from his perspective. It could be another case of journalistic libel hyped up to rally the masses into a full-blown witch hunt.

If leaving by air or sea was out of the question, then how in the Conclave was he going to bloody leave? This same question had been unanswered for hours ever since this whole murder incident stirred Egjora into a frenzy. He was at his wits' end, and down the frayed fibers of the metaphorical rope. Then, it hit him. Of course. Smacking himself on the side of the head with a hiss, Efrain muttered. "Gods–! I'm such a bloody fool!" Here he had been walking on eggshells trying to do things the standard way under fear of suspicion. But now that a certain officer had essentially cleared him of all charges–there was no need to skulk about like a wanted man anymore. Heisei said nothing, keeping mum about his owner's belated epiphany. All the better for him, as Efrain wasn't in a very good mood since they set foot on the island. The Rosenite walked with his bags in hand, discreetly glancing to see if any other officers of the law were noticing. When he was confident that they were in the clear, he slipped out of sight into a blind alley and cast the spell.

Swirling energies formed a portal in the fabric of space and time, revealing the busy plaza streets of Adeluna City. With one last look over his shoulder, he darted in. In the blink of an eye the portal closed, vanishing into thin air. Leaving without a trace, Efrain made his final exit as the curtain on this sordid act was drawing to a close. Although his escape from the duchy had been a success, little did he know that this would not be the last time he would encounter the Chadwicks–if that was their true surname. And of course, his draconic assistant would never let him live that brief intellectual faux pas down as long as they could remember.

Author: CodeAni, Posted: Sat Dec 15, 2018 5:41 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

[OOC: This is part 1 of my post. Another will be coming on Robin either today or tomorrow. Sorry it’s taking me so long to respond, by the way. :\ ]

Elsewhere in the city, the cloaked figure that had originally been heading toward the docks took a turn away from that area before Nea had been found. The conversations about her had ceased as soon as she disappeared into a group of men heading east, and the lot of them arrived at the entrance to a logging camp around the same time that Nea had been removed from her unwilling host. It was there in that eerily quiet and forebodingly empty clearing that the figure finally reemerged, speaking in a feminine, almost playful voice in the presence of yet another figure: one that had been sitting against a tree on the line furthest into the camp where the lumberjacks had yet to fell most of the trees.
 
“Found you!” The redheaded woman leaned in toward the other figure on her tiptoes while keeping her distance, acting more like a child rather than an adult. She restrained her poorly hidden excitement as best she could, yet couldn’t help but practically dance giddy when she asked her entourage for confirmation. “Is she the one, Harry?”

The man closest to her – whose name was obviously Harry – took one look at the figure in front of him and nodded.

“White hair, avoiding the public eye, blue eyes,” he remarked as if reading from a shopping list. “Yes, that’s her, Lady Melody. We found the perpetrator.” And suddenly it became clear that the hooded figure people had been talking about was actually Melody Gyndnegle. At last, she had come out into the open, seeking the woman that had killed her beloved.

“So you’re the tramp that took my dear Lumerre from me? Hmph!” She stood before the person she thought was Nea, maintaining a safe distance while still acting like she had the high ground. Her disdain was palpable, her tact less so. “Well, have anything to say for yourself ugly?!” She issued a poor insult based on vanity, the best her childish mind could muster; and yet, predictably, the hooded figure in front of her did not respond. She remained silent, at least until the great Melody lost her patience. “Ugh, fine,” she exclaimed as if throwing a tantrum! “Harry! Remove her from my sight!”

I did not move in the face of her threats, however. Instead, I issued a warning to the men that she had ordered toward me even as my haunting crows watched them from overhead.

“You have one warning,” I spoke without amusement or joy. “Do not take another step, because, if you do, you’re going to have a bad time.” But, of course, they didn’t listen. No one ever listens under those circumstances; and these men just chuckled while continuing their advance. It was their final joke, especially since Case 10666’s negative influence was already growing in me. These people would find no compassion on that day, even with how I led off my next statements in that deadly case of mistaken identity.  “What a beautiful day," I began while looking at the sky, "Birds are singing. Flowers are blooming. On days like these, kids like you… “ And, in that instant, the influence spiked. After a sudden blink, one of my eyes glowed an eerie shade of red. My voice vibrated as it conjoined with that of 10666, and the characteristic scarves that each of these private guardsmen wore came alive with a final farewell. “Should be burning in Inferos.”

Melody’s personal guard screamed in unison as one after another met a violent end. Some were hung outright by their scarves, gasping for air before the branches of the nearby trees filled their throats to finish the job. Others were just snapped in two by ephemeral ents that I temporarily summoned, and then left in the branches as everything turned back to a crimson shade of normal. 24 men and one woman had gone into that camp before these events took place, and, at the end, only the woman remained in frantic terror.

“She’s a monster! Somebody! Anybody! Help!!!!” No longer capable of arrogance, the lone Gyndnegle tried to run. Before she could escape, however, a magical web tied her to the ground. One end attached to her neck, while the other to her hips. She was trapped, and could not move away from me even as I approached her from behind.

“From where I’m standing,” I began as I regained a little more of my mind among the carnage I had just unleashed. “There’s only one monster here. You Egjoran nobles really are the cancer of society, especially those who are like you, Melody Gyndnegle.” Moving in front of my captive, I reached out toward her throat with my hand as if to grab it. She winced as she anticipated what was about to happen, but was left surprised when I stopped short with an open palm and loose lips instead. “You came here because you wanted to get revenge with your own hands – or rather the hands of your personal guard – and you didn’t want to listen to your elders who told you to stay out of this arena.”

Shocked by hearing that information that I should rightfully not have known, the girl finally spoke up amidst her whimpering.
 
“How do you know that,” she questioned, to which I simply gave a straight faced response?

“My eyes are all over the city now in the form of those crows that have been following you, and your memories are easy enough to read.” Indeed, Lumerre’s fiance was how I found out about this whole war among the merchant families: a lone, overzealous girl who was at the center of the affair and had a predictably pliable mind once I found her. Her thoughts were all I needed to understand the last bits of what had happened before my arrival, and, in an effort to taunt her helplessness, I elucidated every aspect of that sequence of events that she and her ilk had tried so hard to keep hidden. “At first you were just interested in Lumerre because you loved his taste in fashion. Then your affections turned more serious, but in a pet-master sort of way instead of husband and wife. He was your precious possession, someone you were marrying just so that no one else could ever have him. Yet, shock and surprise, someone took him away from you anyway. You thought it was Ashur Leuvarden at first, the young upstart in your rival family who you despised since that embarrassing birthday party 8 years ago. You even overheard your mother talking with a family spy the day after Lumerre’s store got hit, and he said that he saw the two men conversing with each just a few days earlier. Your prejudgments got the better of you in that instant – as did your impatience – and so you decided to kidnap and torture this perceived threat.” Pausing, I backed off a bit from Melody and leaned against a hanging tree before continuing to taunt her. “But he didn’t talk, did he? Or rather he couldn’t talk because you eventually got tired of his constant smiling. You had the late Harry cut out his tongue, and the poor bastard bled to death afterwards. You broke the cardinal rule in doing so, and, naturally, the Leuvardens retaliated. They blew up your family’s latest achievement in banking, and would have done more if someone hadn’t intervened. Yes, Marcello Medicci, a well-respected elder among your kind, decided to involve himself. He knew that the last thing Egjora needed right now so soon after the divine tragedies inflicted upon them was more infighting, so he found the person who actually killed Lumerre and had the press pin everything on her in exchange for a ceasefire among the families. Your parents, along with the heads of the Gyndnegle and Leuvarden families, agreed to those demands in an effort to keep the peace, and you, as a matter of protocol, were given a slap on the wrist.” Yet again assuming the position of open palm toward my captive, I started tightening the webs on her piece by piece while finishing my recount of past events. “That didn’t satisfy you, however, and so here we are: you chasing me through the forest while believing I am someone else. You got your personal guard killed here for petty revenge, and now you finally know what it is to fear someone you thought was beneath you.”

Many people in Melody's position would have broken down in that situation. I'll give the girl credit that she had more backbone than that, however, because she put up one last font of strength in the face of her perceived and impending death.

“You’ll never get away with this! My family will hunt you down if you kill me!” Unfortunately for her, that retort - while brave - did little to sway me toward her cause. The statement only incensed my temper further, fueled by an upbringing among callous nobles whom I had learned to hate.

“I despise your kind," I said while the memories flickered in my head from those unhappy times. "You think your money can protect you, that everyone is just a pawn simply because you assume their worth based on the size of their pocketbook.” Tightening the webs even further, I could hear Melody bite her tongue to keep herself from screaming. “By all rights,” I told her just as I was thinking of killing her right there, “I should snap you in two this instant, get rid of the cancer at its root and be done with it.” Yet I stopped myself before the webs could do just that. Part of my mind in that negative swirl of emotions generated by the ongoing release of 10666's vault was still there, and it surfaced just barely in time to spare Miss Gyndnegle a most gruesome fate. The webs eased as my sanity crept back in, and my demeanor returned to one of a very tired woman. “But that wouldn’t teach you anything. It wouldn’t solve anything.” Sitting back on the ground in that moment of reprieve, I summoned more webs to keep my captive contained; but no longer was I trying to kill her. I just sat there with bags under my eyes watching her as SAI played Air to calm me down and professing to this selfish girl in front of me what I now intended to do with her. “I’d prefer to break your pride rather than your back, so you will sit and wait with me among these strange, dangling fruit until I see fit to release you. Judging from what my crows are saying, we’re going to be doing a hostage exchange anyway.”

Author: Aspect, Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2018 11:42 AM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Aspect sat quietly on Robin's shoulder as she spoke about the girl in the paper. She turned her head to the side as she saw the strange gesture, but didn't say anything. She shuffled her wings as Robin talked about the hourglass. They wouldn't be able to use it, at least not in this case. She was rather disappointed, it was a handy little device, but she understood that power that strong could be dangerous and draining. "I understand," she said, tilting her head back. Her blue eyes stood out in sharp contrast against her black facial markings as she looked around the alley. There was no one here, save for the annoyingly loud man further down, but even he was leaving. It was just them.

Robin was still for a moment, then reached up to remove her hat. Aspect fluttered over toward a box in the alley at the sudden movement. Underneath the hat was a pair of very large pink rabbit ears. Her eyes widened slightly. She had never seen rabbit ears so large, or in such an unnatural shade. It was an oddity she could appreciate, especially, with them being so useful. If she didn't have a beak, the rabbit would have been able to see her smile. She fluttered up to a taller box in order for her to get a better look at them. Incredible. In all of her travels, she'd never seen anything like this sort before. She was unable to decide if the ears were by her original design or some sort of magical ability. Either way, she was rather impressed. 

She was so fixated by the beautiful pink ears, that when Robin made a sudden declaration, she almost fell off the box in surprise. She had to flap her wings quickly and reach out with her claws in order to stay on. Her feathers ruffled in slight annoyance as she comprehended what was being said. She had a slew of questions in her head but had very little time to ask any. She went with Robin's judgment, not that she had much time to form her own assumption. With a quick word, Robin was up and running, leaving her in the alley alone, a trail of dust behind her. She barely had time to open her mouth and give out a short syllable or two before she was out of sight. She closed her mouth and stood still a moment, watching the newspaper fall gently to the ground. She gave an annoyed snort, or at least as good a snort as a magpie could do, before changing form again.

The magpie took no time into changing into the larger gyrfalcon. With a huff of irritation, she spread her wings and launched up into the sky. It took her only a brief period to get above the buildings and spot the fast-moving pink blur beneath her. She tucked her wings in and dived down towards her. She caught herself with her tail feathers and flew along about thirty or forty feet above her. Low enough she could yell down to her, but also high enough that she could see the fastest route to the docks. "Take a right," she called down. "It'll be faster." The docks were soon in sight and from her height, she could see a dispute going on below by one of the ships. With her sharp eyes, she was able to pick out the white-haired elf that she and Robin had seen in the hourglass.

"She's by the ship in the loading docks," she called down to Robin. With a quick flip of her feathers, she dived down towards the earth at a remarkable speed. However, even then, she was only just ahead of her rabbit companion. Just above the ground, she shot out her wings, halting her descent and cheating the impact that was supposed to occur. For a brief moment, she hovered above the ground, before changing forms into that of a standard mongrel, with a wiry coat, a thin body, long legs, and scruffy perked ears. She loped along next to the rabbit as she slowed down to a pace she could keep up with, at least in this form. The dark red dog stopped just behind a dark-haired young man and the pale elf as she watched the ship go out to see. It seemed apparent that the two had intended to board, however, it was evident that their requests were denied. 

She stood with them and watched the ship continue out. All of a sudden a loud noise penetrated the air and the stern of the ship disappeared. She pinned her ears back in shock. An explosion had occurred onboard the ship and she watched the people on the deck scurry around. From this far away they looked like ants. She saw them scramble into lifeboats and were then met further out by the Egjoran navy. She sat down on the dock and looked up at Robin briefly before turning and looking back out to sea. 

Author: Mithridate, Posted: Mon Nov 19, 2018 6:54 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Indeed the apothecary was unnerved by the brief drop in the crow's guise, though he had the mettle to keep his disagreeable temper. It wasn't every day that his suspicions were confirmed immediately. If Heisei had a different opinion, then so be it. Efrain knew the truth now and no amount of playing dumb would change his mind. Though since the birds weren't actually doing anything, he let them be. A few rough men tossed out a young girl with snow-white hair onto the docks. She looked awful, in more ways than one. She begged the sailor to let her on board, but to no avail. He spat saying he didn't help stowaways, and before the man could get too far away Efrain was hot on his heels. "Now look, I'm more than willing to pay a considerable sum for you to take me off this bloody rock in the ocean. What'll it be? Fifty–no, seventy silvers? Eighty?"

The sea dog turned to the new person pestering him not noticing a certain husband and wife slip onto his vessel behind his back."Didn't ya hear what I said to the girl? I don't care how much coin you throw at me, nobody's getting on my ship–" His tirade was cut off by the scream of one of the deckhands as the man was thrown out and the anchor pulled up. "AMOS! THEY'VE GOT THE HELM!" The sailor's compatriot hollered as he got to his feet and chased after the boat now heading out of the harbor.

The old sailor's eyes went wide and he bolted like a deer to join the rest of the ship's crew vainly trying to prevent the ship's departure. Out on the deck, a familiar duo was making a quick getaway. The apothecary's hand dropped to his side with a sigh as his chance to leave Egjora sailed–literally and figuratively. While the sailors were busy, he turned to the supposed stowaway and walked next to her. "Looks like that makes the two of us. Good luck finding a way off the duchy Miss; all maritime traffic has been forcibly stalled and the port's on lockdown. You could possibly try to make it out on your own, but that would require stealing a ship. Not that I'd do something like that anyway." In his haste to the docks Efrain had conveniently missed seeing the latest edition of the local paper, and thus wasn't aware that he was speaking with the main suspect of Lumerre's murder. "Yoohoo~" Looking up he narrowed his eyes at the sight of two faces he'd rather not see. It was none other than 'Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick', if that was their real names. The overdressed redhead waved at him on the very ship both he and the white-haired girl tried to board moments ago. 

"Talk about smooth sailing, right Ruthie? Them rubbernecked sailors never saw us coming!" The dandy chortled. 'Mrs. Chadwick' was beside him, dressed in a slinky burgundy gown with a mink stole wrapped around her neckline. "You were absolutely perfect darling~ Did you see how shocked that peg-legged swab was when you sent him flying without a scratch at all? The moment I laid eyes on you I knew you were a dependable man." The redhead leaned down and planted a stamp of red rouge on the dandy's left cheek. As the distance between the ship and the docks widened, the two petty thieves waved at the hoodwinked sailors. Turning their attentions back on the sea, the woman lounged on the deck with a handheld mirror and case of powder. "You see darling? I knew he was a thief like us." The dandy snorted. "Thief? Pah–more like a common bandit! Blokes like him come a dime a dozen, while we are the real deal!"

Their celebration was short-lived as a shot was heard across the harbor followed by the explosion of the ship's backside. The vessel was going under and the two scrambled to a lifeboat before they were swimming with the fishes. The pickpockets were even determined to make it out with a rowboat when they were cut off by the Egjoran naval fleet. The Rosenite and his dragon assistant watched the whole fiasco unfold on the docks in grim silence. Well there went that possibility. He was starting to believe he was truly trapped on this bloody island. 

Author: Anima, Posted: Sun Nov 18, 2018 1:07 AM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Ears of the Rabbit

While Robin had been reading the newspaper alongside the rest of Egjora’s literate, Aspect had made her way downstairs in the form of a magpie. The young woman noticed her approach from the scent alone, but had yet to react until the shapeshifter commented on Nea’s particularly unfair fate.

“It’s sad,” she responded at that moment with the disinterested tone expected of someone lost in memory, “but that’s the way that so many nobles react to these types of situations and the people beneath them. If a person isn’t of the same social class or higher, rich families only think of them as pawns to use in politics or matters of family honor. I know that system personally, and it's an evil reality.” Subconsciously, my wife placed one hand on her thigh then, remembering the time that she was told she would never walk again thanks to a superior’s jealousy driven lynching of her. The physical wounds from that time had long healed, but the emotional scars remained. For that reason alone, looking at Nea in that paper was like looking in a metaphorical mirror for Robin, especially since she knew what it felt like to be abandoned and left for dead.

But pity alone would not save this girl who had been cast aside by the very person she trusted most in this world. Robin realized that, and began working on ways to track her down before she met the grizzly fate awaiting her. Aspect had some ideas on that end, but, unfortunately, none of them were currently feasible: including the hourglass suggestion that she finished with.

“That artifact, no matter how powerful it is, won’t work here,” the concerned rabbit piped up when her partner mentioned its existence. “It’s only useful if I know exactly what I’m looking for and when down to the nearest hour. I can't use it too much without becoming weak, either, so I can’t just repeatedly trigger it until I find what we’re looking for. Not to mention, that girl could be killed on sight while I’m messing around in the past, and I don’t want to take that chance.”

Indeed, the hourglass was not feasible in this particular instance; but, soon, Robin would realize that she was running out of options. Neither Aspect nor she could track Nea so many days after the theft had occurred, and they had no way of finding out where Lumerre was killed without wasting precious time on a line of investigation that led straight through the watch. Alas, the young woman quickly realized she would have to remove her hat, no matter how much she wished not to; because regardless of how self-conscious Robin was about showing her ears in public, she knew they were the only way for her to get a beat on Nea who had left no obvious clues to follow in the situation at hand. For her sake, she relented; removing her hat and unfurling her ears for the world to see the bright pink fur she had been hiding this entire time.

Now with the rabbit’s ears fully exposed, Robin could hear over a vast swathe of the city far larger than she could have before taking off that silly hat. A rabbit’s ears, especially those empowered by my design, were incredibly sensitive tools, after all. She was quickly able to pick up multiple conversations throughout Egjora with them; and, due to that advantage, it didn’t take her long at all to notice that there was a lot of chatter about a cloaked figure heading toward the docks. Technically, that figure was not Nea, but my wife, not wanting to take chances at the time, assumed that it was, and that the elf was trying to escape after reading the article about herself.

“She might be headed for the docks,” the pink-haired woman said in this moment of reckless hypothesizing. Obviously, she wanted to get to the girl as soon as possible, but her instincts in that instant were not exactly kind to the magpie perched on her shoulder. She warned Aspect about the itchiness in her legs, of course, going so far as to say, “Hold on tight,” but that statement proved an insufficient qualifier for the impending rush and burst of speed that happened so shortly after it was voiced.

Robin had always been naturally fast, especially for a human. Dexterity was far more her thing than raw strength before she met me, and she retained that base attribute even after transitioning to her current form. The rabbit transformation, in fact, drastically improved upon these attributes, and so now she was able to move with the force of a whirlwind when properly motivated. Nea’s situation back in Egjora definitely qualified as proper motivation at the time; and so there was barely any warning for Aspect before her perch went sprinting off into the north at speeds fast enough shame even the hardiest of steeds. It would not be long before Robin reached the docks at that rate, but, in the end, she would fail to prevent the beginnings of tragedy.

Eyes of the Crow

Meanwhile, a dejected Efrain was once again looking for safe passage off of the island that he had so recently learned to detest. Yet again he was at the same impasse, the one that seemed to plague his very existence from the moment he set foot on the island; but this time, while at the docks, he noticed that he was not alone in his suffering. Unlike most of the people around him, the young acupuncturist began taking note of the sudden influx of crows visiting the city. They were congregating around points of Egjoran interest, which just so happened to follow Rosenite’s path to the docks. Now, as he waited for some sign of gaining passage via a ferry to the mainland, one of those crows was watching him with acute interest.

Efrain – despite his companion’s nonchalance about the whole affair – could swear that the corvid was spying on him in that moment. He was right about one thing: it was spying but it wasn’t a normal crow. As soon as the bird noticed that he was staring back at it, it pivoted toward him from its perch and cawed a melody most haunting. For a brief moment, its eyes split into four and turned deep crimson red, resembling a demon’s occules more than an animal’s. Then, just like that, it went back to normal, preening itself to maintain the avian illusion whilst everyone else went about their business.

Surely the young man who witnessed this was unnerved by it, but, just as soon as it had occurred, Nea was discovered in a ship next to him.

“Oi! Stowaways ain’t welcome! Git out of my ship!” Her pristine white hair now caked in mud, the young elf was promptly dragged out of the hold of a nearby ferry. Her cloak had been removed from her face and her arm was grabbed by the classical image of a sailor now forcing her back to the docks. He threw her on the planks after crossing the gangway, no more than a few meters from Efrain himself, and then attempted to fetch the guards before Nea grabbed his pant leg.

“Please, let me back on board!” She pleaded with him even as he tried to shake her off, but he refused to listen or show mercy.

“Let me go!”

“But I have to get to the mainland!”

“I don’t care!” Using his other leg, he kicked Nea away from him and was about to go fetch the guard again before he decided to add insult to injury. “You want to get to the mainland so bad, swim and take your chances with the sharks! I don’t help stowaways!” Nea was left whimpering in the aftermath of those cruel words and the boot to her rib cage. She was in pain both physically and emotionally thanks to the burdens that she had suffered under Egjoran cruelty; and her will to live that had sustained her for so long was finally crumbling.

“Why does everyone hate me so much,” she asked herself in a muted, sobbing voice while still collapsed on the planks of the pier? “I never asked for this. I just want to go home, but I can’t anymore.” But, of course, the fisherman did not hear nor care. Only the crows came to comfort her in her tears, the one from before flying down to sit next to her head as the cruel sailor left her behind.

Author: Aspect, Posted: Tue Nov 6, 2018 2:33 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Aspect listened to Robin speak before she went down the stairs. She looked at her, her blue eyes sharp and her pointed ears forward. She watched her place her hand tentatively on the hilt of her sword and then put away her small hourglass. She was choosing to look for the elf girl with her, but she wouldn't go through with the contract to turn her over to the proper authorities. Aspect hadn't intended to turn her over to anybody, at least not right away. The proper authorities could very likely not exist, at least not in this city. She was not one to judge a thief, given some of her previous actions, she didn't have the moral backing to support any claim against her. She nodded quietly at the rabbit as she made her way down the stairs. 

The wood creaked beneath her weight, her claws making faint clicking noises that echoed in the small space. As she got nearer to the bar on the first floor of the inn, she closed her eyes and changed quickly into a small magpie. She fluttered quickly through the hallway, back flapping quickly in one instance to avoid hitting a barmaid carrying a tray of food. She didn't need to cause any more commotion than necessary. She flipped quickly out the open window and flew quickly towards the young woman waiting for her in the alley. She perched on a broom handle leaning against a wall to watch the small woman jump quickly out the window, a thin piece of wire following her down to the ground. She tipped her head to the side in curiosity. 

With a flick of her wrist, Robin had pulled the wire back out of the crack in the window and Aspect heard a very faint click as the window was again locked. She flew over and landed lightly on her shoulder as she wrapped the wire back up to put it away. "Very clever," she said quietly, looking back up at the window. "I have never seen that technique before. I shall definitely remember that one." Something rustled nearby and she looked up to see a newspaper drift through the air. She jumped up and hovered nearby as best she could as Robin grabbed it. 

She resumed her place on the woman's shoulder as they scanned the paper. It was about the thievery the night before in Lummere's shop. Apparently, the girl was part snow elf and spider, her name being Nea, at least according to the paper. She was also supposedly tied into the explosion that had occurred a short while ago. Evidently, the building that had exploded was a bank, which left her rather surprised. It seemed like a big jump to be stealing trinkets from a shop at night to blowing up a large facility in broad daylight. She wondered if the rabbit also thought the accusation was rather odd and squinted her eyes at the page.  

"Execution?" She whispered under her breath. "She isn't even getting a trial for any of these things she's accused of?" She shuffled her wings annoyingly and chirped deep in her throat. "Things seem to be going downhill rather fast for this Nea girl…" her speech was cut off by the loud exclamations from a heavy fellow further down the alleyway. She turned and looked at him, her eyes glaring in distaste as he pigged out on food. Such a slob. She'd met hogs with better manners. He was complaining noisily about the paper and evidently had been involved in the creation of the article by his comments. 

She turned her attention back to Robin and the paper. "Do you have any way of figuring out where she last was? Or a way to get any of her possessions before the robbery last night? The shop was too contaminated, but if we can find something she touched recently that hasn't been touched by someone else, I can track her down better than any dog." She perked up with an idea, giving a soft chirp. "Use your hourglass thing," she suggested, pointing at the small pocket with her beak. "She went out the back door, use it to see which way she went so we can follow her, or at least to see what she touched along the way. It's worth a shot." 

Author: Mithridate, Posted: Mon Nov 5, 2018 3:28 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

The mention of spiders was more accurate than Efrain had realized. Having skimmed the herald, he managed to skip over a few details. Stalhadt on the other hand was quick to make the connection. "Of course! That's it–a giant spider!" The apothecary turned from facing the cadaver to the guard captain with a deadpan face. "…What?" The guard captain was quite pleased with himself, and continued with an explanation. "It all connects perfectly. The scene of the theft, and the victim's death. Both occurred in the evening, thus giving the spider a greater chance to hide in the shadows undetected. While we were searching on foot, it could climb up the walls until its owner called." Efrain blinked. What? "Are you insinuating that some abnormally large aberration of a house spider was the cause of death?" Stalhadt looked over at him with impatience. "Well isn't that what you said through your process of deduction?" For a brief moment, Efrain had the compelling urge to clock him with his reference book but knew better.

"Alright, now allow me to lay out a few more reasonable possibilities." Efrain had dressed the cadaver back to how it had been and cleaned up his instruments. Heisei had finished recording their observations and was lounging on the apothecary's shoulder. "As convenient as the 'giant spider' theory sounds, have you ever considered the chance of there being a hired drow assassin? The largest drow settlements are deep within the Umbral Depths, which happen to house some of the most venomous and efficient hunters in near-darkness. It wouldn't be too difficult to imagine the creation of some aberrant variant of giant spiders as hunting hounds for drow hunters. And with their expertise in stalking human and non-human quarry, it would be natural for them to take a job as an assassin." 

"A very probable theory. Though further investigation will see if it holds water. We have yet to find any witnesses to Gusteau's murder, though I will keep your suggestions in mind." Stalhadt was beginning to cooperate finally, but Efrain still wasn't sure if the good captain would keep his word. "I am glad to hear it, Captain Stalhadt. Though I do hope that you won't forget our little arrangement while you're performing your duties as enforcer of the law?" The captain gave a glance, and his upper lip tightened. "Yes, I haven't forgotten. You are no longer a suspect, though if I find you before me again I intend to exercise my authority as guard captain." And so it was settled. He was free to go at last. Unfortunately for Efrain, leaving would be delayed yet again despite the captain upholding his promise. 

Once his business at the morgue had concluded, Stalhadt was hurriedly informed by an inferior officer of the recent edition of the herald. A look at the headline itself made him pale. "What is this?! Why was the watch not informed of this information?!" The beanpole of a guardsman shook his head, stating they just discovered this now. The captain grit his teeth in anger, crumpling the newspaper into a ball and throwing it onto the floor once his subordinate was gone. Those bloody merchants, they were at it again! Someone must have been paid by the families to stir things up with this information leak. Whether or not the information was true still needed confirmation, but as a former member of the duchy's naval fleet he would not tolerate those two-faced moneylenders tiptoeing around the duchy's law enforcement! He had a special kind of resentment towards the merchant families, despite their wealth being the pillars of the duchy's prosperity. Officers of the law had to look the other way when they played their game of politics. He was supposed to uphold the law, not bend it for those with the strings of people's purses. But his hands were tied. 

Efrain found the docks were on lockdown and more guards were in search parties roving the city. No matter how he tried to bargain or explain, no one would ferry him to the mainland. Frustrated that he was still stuck in the duchy, he and his dragon assistant took a walk to figure out a new plan to leave. He hadn't given it much thought, but there were quite the number of crows this time of year. When he left the morgue there was a large black bird perched on a building ledge overhead. Then as he left the city towards the docks there were more of them, some in groups and some alone in various roosting places. At that time he had murmured to himself about the irony of there being a murder of crows in light of the circumstances. Now he was getting the impression that there wasn't a sudden migration of corvids.

At the pier on a high point, Efrain spotted a crow looking his way. For some reason it gave him an odd feeling, and he turned to the Ataiyan dragon resting comfortably around his neck. "…Do you see that?" Heisei looked up from filing his claws at the bird. "A crow, yes." Lowering his voice to a whisper, he spoke while keeping his eyes on the avian watcher. "Why do I feel as if its eyes are following us?" Heisei shrugged, and went back to finishing up his remaining claws.

Author: Anima, Posted: Mon Nov 5, 2018 2:17 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

T’was in that moment of weakness just before Aspect tried comforting her that Robin also attempted to grasp at her memories to calm herself for the trials ahead. Her thoughts drifted back to me at first effort; and she remembered in her search for strength that she, at one point, had asked the same of me. I had horrible nightmares from my past, crippling memories and so many scars on my body that I had taken to using magic to remove or hide them just to go out in public. These were burdens no mere mortal could reasonably be expected to bear and still function; yet I was still pushing forward despite them with a strength that Robin envied. So, as you might expect, she eventually asked me point blank what drove me to do that; and I answered her candidly.

‘Because I refuse to lay down and die,’ I had begun that day. ‘Fate would dictate I go to sleep for a very long time given all that I have endured throughout my existence, but I sleep with a knife under my pillow and delight in stabbing fate in the eye when it tries to smother me with my own guilt. Destiny, I admit, is annoying and exists to some extent, but anyone who believes you can’t fight destiny is either too weak to do so or has given up before the battle has even started. And to those who try to stop me from living my life as I wish in spite of all the hardships I have suffered, I would tell them this: denigrate me, degrade me, stab me all you want: I will persist in the face of your opposition because I refuse to lay down and let you decide for me what is right or what my destiny should be.'

My wife could still hear those words from me even years later in that store of a dead man. They helped ease her tension with the addition of Aspect’s attempts, although she still wished Mushu was there while she was finally calming down enough to speak normally once again.

“I doubt the guard will see it that way,” she said while, at last, taking her hands back from the shapeshifter and placing one of them gently on Seikou’s intricate but inactive hilt. “But maybe my best friend is right that I don’t have what it takes to be a true mercenary. She says I’m not cold-blooded enough despite having been a soldier, and she's right. I don’t plan to be that way, either, for money I never needed in the first place.” Finally putting the hourglass of deadtime away in her necklace’s pocket dimension, the young hare at last made a decision on what she would do going forward. “I can’t help not see the fear in that girl's eyes, and I identify with her. I will still track her down with you, but I will likely not complete the contract on her life or may even fight against it. If we end up on opposing sides because of that decision, I want you to know I'm sorry and that I'm glad to have met you under better circumstances. Until then, Aspect, please don’t call me rabbit anymore. I prefer the sound of my own name.”

And so the two women left the building as temporary partners, but not through the same route. Aspect could easily slip out from the downstairs lobby, but Robin had no desire to break down any locks to get out that way. Instead, she briefly departed from her shapeshifter acquaintance and went another way.

“I still have to lock the window up here,” she said while Aspect started making her way toward the staircase. “So I’ll meet you at the entrance to the side-alley.” Robin took out a spool of wire from her belt pouch then, and ran over to the window she had unlocked earlier. She tied the thin, metallic thread around that window’s lock using a Highwayman’s Hitch, and then jumped outside to the empty alleyway below. She pulled the tight end of her knot to close the window after landing, locked it with the same end, and then finally pulled on the loose end to retrieve the wire which she quickly spooled back up into her belt pouch. Voilà: a locked room just the same as it had been once before, therefore allowing the woman to leave as if she had never visited in the first place.

Betrayal

Shortly thereafter, the shapeshifter and hare prepared to depart from the building without an owner; but, while the latter awaited the former’s arrival at the entrance to the side alleyway, a fresh edition of the herald was just about to go out. Unbeknownst to Stalhadt’s division or anyone in the watch for that matter, there had been a lone witness to Lumerre’s murder. He was a self-proclaimed journalist by the name of Hugo Schwartz: a foreigner who loved collecting information that he could sensationalize for money. That man had somehow managed to spy on the elven thief and human tailor as the latter assaulted the former on a back road; and he watched the whole fight unfold without interfering until the end.

 Perhaps, originally, Mr. Schwartz thought to blackmail Lumerre after the fight was done, because murder, unless sanctioned by the ruling elite of Egjora, was strictly forbidden to all in the seaside Duchy. But his plans definitely changed when he saw the elf briefly overpower the enraged human on top of her. Lumerre had gotten himself bitten on the neck during that moment of carelessness; and he immediately fell into a catatonic state from the wound as if he had been poisoned. Schwartz, sensing a story unfolding from that turn of events, tried to intervene; but he barely had time to approach the scene after Gusteau had fallen let alone before the elven girl fled. His story had, thus, seemingly disappeared before it could even begin.

However, Hugo was a crafty man that got around. Elves with white hair were not a common breed to find on the streets of Egjora, and the journalist himself had a nasty habit of eavesdropping on unique individuals wherever and whenever he could find them. It just so happened that he had overheard about runaway a while back before this encounter on the back road: an elven girl with white hair by the name of Nea. Her apparent father, Njall, had been loudly criticized by a neighbor for not exerting more effort to find her after she went missing, and it was on that back road several days after the incident that the big-eared, greedy gossiper finally connected the dots.

Leaving the lost cause of Lumerre behind to die, Hugo tracked down this unconcerned father and incessantly nagged him for information about his runaway daughter. Eventually, that interrogation devolved down into threats; but, luckily for the human of the pair – given Njall’s formal training – , no violence came from the disagreements that followed.
 
In the end, Njall told Schwartz what he wanted to hear on the condition that he be left alone. Apparently, the former highland warrior had already made plans to leave the island and abandon Nea to her fate long before Schwartz decided to pester him at the docks. He thought he had finally shed the responsibility for his one-time lover’s child until the moment that that smarmy reporter cornered him; and only because of that man’s interference did his apathy toward Nea finally turn into malice.

Through persistence alone, the gossiper got his story, given by the vitriolic testimony of Njall himself; but, before he could present it to the herald for publishing and thereby get himself killed for trying to do so without express permission of the ruling party, another faction intercepted him. A trusted retainer representing the families not directly involved in the current feud approached Schwartz on their behalf. During that meeting - which occurred in the company of small contingent of private soldiers - Hugo Schwartz was presented with an offer he couldn’t refuse. In exchange for the information he had gathered along with a vow for his silence, he would be paid a sum of silver to do with as he saw fit.

Obviously, the foreigner accepted the deal, figuring that the families were just trying to cover something up that they wanted hidden and that he preferred to stay alive long enough to spend any money he made off of making deals with them. However, even he was just as surprised as the rest of the citizens when a special edition of the herald came out shortly after that meeting: spearheaded by the official editor of the Egjoran Herald itself.

A copy of that edition blew past Robin as she was waiting for Aspect to arrive, and she managed to catch it just as everyone in the nearby neighborhoods was reacting to the news. The story that Hugo had helped make was featured on the front page of the paper along with a picture of Nea herself that had been drawn up by Schwartz during his interview with Njall. It read as follows:

“Spider Elf Monster Terrorizes Our Streets!

Anonymous sources have at last identified the thief who has been robbing our stores in the dead of night. The snow elf and spider hybrid known as Nea has apparently been unleashed onto our streets by her irresponsible caretaker, Njall of the Highlands. He has disowned her as of this article and escaped to the north, however, leaving us, the people of Egjora, to clean up his mess.

In addition to the many burglaries of late, the arachnid is believed to be responsible for the death of Lumerre Gusteau as well as the destruction of the bank that we witnessed here just a few moments ago. As such, Egjora’s safety demands her quick apprehension and execution.

If anyone has any information about the spider’s whereabouts at this time, you are to report it to the guard immediately. Anyone aiding or abetting this monster will suffer the same fate awaiting her!”

Ironically, Hugo was in earshot of my wife while reading that same article that she was. He recognized his information instantly, and began scoffing in kind.

“Those idiots,” he had proclaimed while stuffing his mouth with bread using one hand and holding the paper in the other! “They took out all the juicy tidbits of adultery and pirates! Now she looks like a common thug instead of an interesting story. Come on, at least sell the monster angle more!” Curiously enough, he didn’t die for those words even though he was laughing quite obnoxiously and in earshot of a nearby watch member; but they were more than enough for Robin to make a final decision about who she would serve in this moment of crisis. And I can tell you with great certainty that it was not the Egjoran government.

Author: Aspect, Posted: Sat Nov 3, 2018 2:09 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Aspected leaned in slightly to get a better look at the small hourglass that Robin held in her hand. She had never seen the likes of it before, and she doubted she'd probably ever see one again, at least in this lifetime. She was intrigued by the little device and was disappointed when the explosion occurred and Robin put it back for safe keeping. She hurried to the window and looked out. A column of smoke was rising steadily from the other side of the city. She saw the rabbit tense up, probably focusing its sharp hearing on the source of the commotion. She glanced back to the rabbit as she spoke.

A terrorist attack? In the city of Egjora? Of all the places, this was the last that Aspect would have thought really any terrorism would occur. The city itself was rather opposed to violence. She heard Robin's breath quicken slightly and looked at her. The rabbit suddenly looked nervous and unconfident, quite the unlike the little warrior she'd met before. The change was a surprise to her. She felt herself change unconsciously into that of an Epicyon, a large extinct wolf-bear creature. She walked up to the rabbit, her heavy head slightly higher than her waist. She looked up at the anxious rabbit, a determined look on her face. 

"Don't be afraid, Rabbit," she said quietly. "We can't control our fates, we can only control our reactions. We entered this contract in good faith. Yes, we agree to find the perpetrator, the elf with silk. However. I believe we can take advantage of a particular loophole in the contract, as it doesn't explicitly say who the proper authorities are in each case. We will find this girl and we will find out her motives for the damage to this store. Only after we find out more from her, will we determine our course of action and who the proper authorities should be."

She was quiet for a moment, then set her heavy head in the woman's hands. "Don't be scared. Rabbits are not hunters or predators by any means, but you are a powerful warrior just the same." She gave her a half smile before stepping back and heading towards the door. She glanced back, her bright blue eyes sparkling as she flicked her small pointed ears forward. "Come on, she couldn't have gotten too far since last night." Her claws clicked on the wooden floor, but fortunately, the guards had all run over towards the explosion on the other side of the city. They wouldn't have to worry about being discovered now. 

Author: Mithridate, Posted: Tue Oct 30, 2018 9:50 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Down at the morgue, the apothecary entered the room where the body was being temporarily kept. Captain Stalhadt ordered for the late Lumerre to be taken out onto a table for examination, having informed the appropriate staff beforehand. Strapping on a plague doctor's mask, he rolled up his sleeves, then washed his hands in a basin of hot water and lather. Pulling on a pair of clean gloves, he opened his case of medical tools and began his work with professional punctuality and precision. "Heisei, begin recording." At his behest a small blue Ataiyan dragon emerged out from his overcoat with quill and book in claws. Captain Stalhadt furrowed his brow. "What's with the mask?" "Just a basic medical practitioner's precaution." Efrain answered curtly. "On the off chance that the dearly departed might have died from something contagious, I won't be next on the list of victims." Taking out a thin metal rod, he used it to carefully move away hair and clothing as he inspected the corpse. 

The first glance at the body showed very little signs of injury–some shallow scratches and scrapes here and there, but nothing lethal. No noticeable bruising to hint at a death by impact, nor stab wounds or marks of strangulation. Setting his rod down, he spoke for his dragon assistant to hear: "No obvious signs of a violent death, a more detailed inspection is in order. Disrobing the cadaver will now commence." While the guard captain and a few employees of the local morgue observed, he began systematically stripping the body naked. Each piece of clothing that was removed was turned about for possible traces that would shed light on the cause of the dead man's demise, then set aside on an empty table. The lack of blood or anything aside from dirt was puzzling, and he was beginning to narrow down his assumptions.

When Gusteau's lifeless body was half-undressed, Efrain noticed a peculiar set of puncture wounds on the man's neck. They were impossible to miss–as the area around the two holes were red and inflamed like a bad rash. "Interesting…" Stalhadt came over and saw the reddened patch. "Bite wounds. A rather unusual way to kill a man, but not unexpected. The assassin certainly had a flair for the dramatic."  Killing with venomous animals was one of the oldest techniques in the books, but rather petty. Owning an exotic creature and training it for the sole purpose of murder was a highly inefficient method from Efrain's point of view. First you would have to bring said creature within biting distance, which required an element of surprise and incredible luck to catch their target with an exposed neck. He was happy to note that the puncture wounds were the wrong shape for needles, something he made sure to address to all who were present. Stalhadt was an obstinate man of many doubts, something that would be an excellent trait for a man navigating the ranks of workplace politics to have, but a terrible flaw for a discerning member of law enforcement. The man was not so easily convinced that the holes couldn't be made by needles dipped in poison.

"And just what makes you so sure that he couldn't have been stabbed with something coated in poison?" The apothecary answered his doubts with a rebuttal of his own: "The shape of the holes, obviously. A bite would produce punctures with uneven shape and edges, accommodating for an angled entry breaking through the skin. Stab wounds from a standard stiletto dagger or needle would be rounded and smoother. The wounds themselves are not very deep, so loss of blood would not have been an issue." What was strange was the odd rash around the bite however. "The bite's fairly normal, but this rash doesn't make any sense." Taking off his mask, he sat down and stared at the body as he racked his brain for answers. "How so?" One of the morgue workers asked. Leaning back as he peeled off his gloves, Efrain explained. "The symptoms don't match with a snake bite; no ballooned swelling around the wound. The rash is only constrained around the bite area, meaning he would have died very shortly after receiving it. Cease of biological functions limiting the reaction, naturally." Washing his hands in the lukewarm soap water, he dried them on a towel and pulled out a book. Flipping through the pages he frowned as he skimmed the contents. "You know, what that reminds me of…no that's impossible." 

As he grumbled to himself Captain Stalhadt impatiently interrupted. "Of what? Speak, man! Don't leave us grasping in the dark here!" Heisei cleared his throat and shushed the man, earning a glare and moment of silence. Slamming his book shut, Efrain sighed in exasperation. "The physical symptoms look uncannily similar to an acute allergic reaction. Now unless the man had a severe allergy to bees, I have no idea what could possibly trigger a rash like that. And I am absolutely sure that wasps weren't what killed him. Did the man have any allergies or sensitivities?" Stalhadt was quick on the reply: "No, not that I've heard of. If he did, then he hid it quite well." That brought them all back to square one. Pinching the bridge of his nose in annoyance, the other idea Efrain had was just him going out on a limb. "There is another possible cause of that sort of rash forming after a bite, but that's hardly lethal." "And that is?" Everyone looked at him expectantly. Rubbing his face with his hands, he reluctantly replied."A bite from a spider–the common variety."

"Now before you all start jumping to conclusions, I'll have you know that it is completely impossible to die from a common garden spider. A few days to weeks of discomfort and skin discoloration yes, but dying? No. To start, the amount of venom given by those arachnids is incredibly low. I suppose hypothetically injecting a massive quantity of said venom might put someone into a state of shock, but that would take several hundreds of spiders." Milking that many spiders for to extract that hypothetical dose was completely beyond the realm of logic, as you'd have to drain them dry of all their fluids–killing them as well.  

Author: Anima, Posted: Sun Oct 28, 2018 12:39 AM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

The sounds of the explosion and the resulting panic it produced were actually loud enough to be heard all the way from Lumerre’s shop the moment they occured. Someone had used a great amount of magical power mixed with volatile substances to detonate an explosion large enough to the level the face of a bank building. The magnitude of the earthquake it produced made that fact abundantly clear, as did the potent smell of alcohol that eventually lingered in the air as the smoke from the resulting fires proliferated across the sky. If ever there was a declaration of war against the Gyndnegle’s, that was it; and who knew what would come now that a potential shadow conflict had been touched off between the richest merchant families in all the seas.

An Impromptu Alliance? Part 2

Back at Lumerre’s proper, however, – and sometime before the Gyndnegle’s First Branch went up in flames – Robin and Aspect were busy sorting out the details of their relationship. Despite the rather talkative nature of the latter of these two, however, the rabbit herself was noticeably quiet during the initial moments of their exchange. She respectfully listened to Aspect, taking note of her similarities to me in the curiosity department and acknowledging her desire for a partnership, but she also largely just stared in an almost disinterested manner while her would-be companion monologued.

Especially in regard to the question about her origin that Aspect led with, Robin didn’t feel the need to actually specify a response. Her accent was more than enough to determine her Ataiyan roots for anyone who had above average travelling experience – something especially common in mercenaries those days. She also wasn’t in the habit of divulging personal details to complete strangers – let alone strangers that she may or may not ever meet again. The one time she did noticeably change her expression in front of Aspect was, in fact, when the shapeshifter complimented her, at which point her eyes squinted ever so slightly to reveal that she was grinning underneath her mask.

Even if the woman in front of her had only been a passerby instead of a potential ally, my wife loved compliments from anyone. They fueled her self-esteem, especially when they were about her intelligence; because most people just paid attention to her strength and/or her looks to tiring effect. In this way, Aspect gained some brownie points with Robin; although seemingly not enough to garner answers to her questions about the hourglass before it took her on a trip through time.

After that escapade, however, my bunbun did remember the small flattery she had received. She was more than willing to reveal to her “partner” what her previously praised intelligence was telling her now, and so she did.

“It’s an hourglass of deadtime,” she said softly while holding up the item that Aspect was so curious about. “They were made many years ago during the Deadtime crisis, and allow the user to view the past of an area or person for up to an hour at a time. Users and company see exactly what happened during that chosen hour as if they were actually there, but unlike the subjects in the vision they cannot affect the events within. It’s a very useful item I always bring with me whenever I need to do some work that… well that I need to know what happened before I arrived.” The bank exploded right at that moment, triggering Aspect to shout out incredulously as the flames rose in the distance. Thankfully the guards downstairs were already leaving in a hurry, cordoning off Lumerre’s shop as they left, so they weren’t able to hear the shapeshifter’s comment or even discern that they were hearing noises coming from inside the building. Rather, those louts, along with the pudgy clerk that commanded them, rushed off to contain the situation on the other side of town that was already slipping through their fingers; leaving Robin and Aspect time to actually have a longer conversation without the added pressure of being discovered.

“Sounds like an explosion on the other side of town,” my honey bun said to start that period off, now turning to see the smoke on the horizon. “From what I can hear outside, someone blew up a new branch building to what might as well be the national bank of Egjora. Sounds like a terrorist attack.” Subconsciously, Robin tugged on the heartstring she always kept tied between us right then. She struggled to keep her breath steady, now slowly realizing the full extent of what was going on in that vision of hers and fearing that she may need my help in the end. “I’m having second thoughts about this contract,” she finally said while adopting a nervous expression in front of her partner of circumstance. “I don’t like politics, and I have a sickly feeling that we’re about to be tossed into the Menomori of them if we continue with this contract; but…” Pausing, Robin suddenly recalled the girl from her vision, and decided to voice her gut feeling aloud. “That girl didn’t look like a normal thief. She looked homeless. She was scared, and I want to know why.”

Indeed, the appearance of the “spider thief” in Robin’s vision was a far cry from what she had originally imagined when she read that contract outside the guesthouse. She was used to bandits, people with faces and souls only a mother could love; people who were easy to apprehend and send off to a likely grisly end without a crisis of conscience. Yet this girl was not among that group. She was clearly not trained in the art of burglary, and she was dirty like someone who lived on the street. What’s more, she was mainly going for anything warm just after a storm had hit Egjora 5 days prior. She could have very likely just been desperate, which would fully explain the list of items she had stolen thus far; and that realization raised a bunch of red flags in Robin’s mind.

Was she pursuing a homeless person? Perhaps an outcast? And was the reward really worth it if she was potentially punishing someone just trying to survive the next cold night? If anything, Robin wanted to see the contract through to the end just to find out the truth about this young, seemingly harmless girl who may have been forced into a life of crime by her circumstances. One thing was for certain, though: whatever Robin decided to do upon meeting that individual would be determined by nothing other than her conscience, even if her final decision set her at odds with the very people she was originally working for. And the fact that such a decision could be wrong was why she reached out to me in the north.

Author: Aspect, Posted: Fri Oct 26, 2018 7:13 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Aspect shook hands with the small rabbit woman, at least she would call it shaking hands. It appeared she was unfamiliar with the gesture, shown through her slow and overly exaggerated movements. She couldn't help but give her a half smile and was glad she had at least attempted the greeting. More often than not others had simply not acknowledged her approach and disregarded her. It was a nice change. "You aren't from around here, are you, Rabbit?" She chuckled lightly, but still asked with sincerity. "Doesn't matter, we were all strangers to this place at least once. It's nice to meet you, Robin."

She crossed her arms casually and leaned against the wall, careful to avoid disturbing any of the hanging items or those of which sitting delicately on shelves. There couldn't be any evidence that they were up here. "Technically, I could be considered a mercenary, money is nice compensation for work done at any time. However, I'm just a naturally curious sort, money itself has no real value to me. I can catch, steal, or get food from almost anyone and I never have to worry about clothes, as furs are just as good as any coat a person can make. I appreciate the mystery of the circumstances, and that of which is what lured me into this case."

"As far as a partnership goes, I can adapt either way. I enjoy having a companion to talk to, but I'm just as comfortable going alone. You seem like an interesting sort and have caught my interest. I wouldn't be against your company. You have proven to be rather careful and intelligent. Two traits I can definitely appreciate. And I will make a note about the loud noises, I forgot you guys have more sensitive ears than most."  She saw Robin make a gesture to her armor, creating a blue light while pulling what seemed to be an hourglass out of her collarbone. She bit back a comment regarding that pockets existed for a reason, even though she found it painfully appropriate. Quietly and cautiously, so as not to alarm the smaller woman, she approached from the side, looking over her shoulder at the small item. 

It was unlike any hourglass she'd ever seen before. It was small, small enough to sit perfectly in the Rabbit's hand, but it gave off a presence of extreme power unfamiliar to her. She had just enough time to ask, "The building's past?" before they and everything near them was sucked into the hourglass. Suddenly it was dark, even though it was the middle of the day as if someone had just decided to turn off the light. It put her on edge, the magic was incredibly powerful and she was hesitant to shift forms in this mirror world. She hung close to the Rabbit, as they watched who could only be the deceased Lumerre talk with another young man. 

They listened closely to what they were saying, initially confused, she quickly grasped the conversation at hand. It was a wicked plot and she felt herself growl deep in her chest. These were nasty people with black souls and horrible intentions to destroy the reputation of an entire line of people. At one point they stood and walked down the steps, searching eagerly for the source of the noise they had heard below. Robin walked after them, and after deciding she didn't want to be alone in a dreamscape not of her design, she followed quickly after her. She arrived just as the men were fighting with a smaller figure in the confines of the shop. It was this smaller figure that threw out webs unlike any she had seen before, trapping men in cocoons or slamming them against the wall.

It made sense now, the unusual nature of the material, it was from magical means, something she hadn't even considered. The elf girl, as she was later revealed, fled out the door shortly before large men in black cloaks appeared in the shop. These were the individuals that ransacked and raided the entire shop. The webs were not connected to the shop's destruction. It was while these men were taking items that the vision stopped, and she and Robin were put back into their timeline. The sun was almost blinding and shielded her eyes momentarily. She had time for a brief, "What was that?" before she felt a rumbling through the floorboards. She rushed to the window and looked out as a column of smoke rose into the air from another part of town. "A building's on fire?!"

Author: Mithridate, Posted: Thu Oct 25, 2018 11:11 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

The constable was soon joined by his superior, Captain Werner Stalhadt. A stern man with an aquiline nose and shortly trimmed hair, he looked more like a petty naval officer than a defender of civil tranquility. Compared to him, the constables looked like rabble they drafted in at the last minute to cover a shortage of manpower. The kind you'd see hovering about the taverns and pubhouses with a pint of ale, only to show up snoring away in a horse trough. The three of them were all towed along for further questioning back at the captain of the guard's office, which happened to be on the way past the prestigious bank. Efrain stubbornly insisted on finishing his coffee before being pulled away. Duchy be cursed if he was forced to abandon his drink after paying for it! The two burglars in sheep's clothing were oddly quiet during their solemn march, throwing anxious furtive glances at each other. The Rosenite was more peeved than anything, having what might have been an uneventful day soured before he could even begin.

When they turned onto the main street and guard captain's office came into view, a panic took hold of the Chadwicks and the husband began running his mouth. "N-now look here sirs, I'm telling you this is all a big misunderstanding! Ruthie and I were just doing our duty as upstanding folk! I mean what kind of person keeps a bunch of needles around like that?! Isn't that right, sweetie-pie?" The wife took a lacy handkerchief out of her handbag and dabbed the corners of her eyes furiously, sniffling. She nodded, while making herself look as pitiful a she could. Throwing a few sorrowful looks the constables' way, it was like she was timing the batting of her heavily curled eyelashes. Efrain rolled his eyes as he stuffed the remaining morsel of the croissant sandwich into his mouth. "Oh can it you pinstriped popinjay. I'm not letting either of you two out of my sight until the guards give you a thorough once-over. How should I know if you don't have any of my personal effects still on your person?" Mrs. Chadwick gasped in offense, placing a gloved hand on her velvet and black lace bodice. "Why you–you slimy snake! How dare you accuse us of such a thing?" Without missing a beat he remarked dryly, "Snakes aren't slimy, dear madam–are you sure you're not talking about slugs?"

"Quiet, both of you!" The boar-like guard holding Efrain bellowed, shoving the apothecary to emphasize his point. "If you got any complaints, bring 'em to the judge!" Nobody said a word after Captain Stalhadt followed up the command from his inferior officer with a hawk-like glare. In silence they passed by the famous Byen Statskassen bank. The three in custody gave their glances at the impressive yet flamboyantly overdone piece of architecture. The Chadwicks looked intrigued, but kept their curiosity in check. Efrain gave a dismissive huff. Nothing to write home about. And then–the explosion!

It was completely unexpected, throwing the normally unflappable young man off guard. His first instinct was to drop to the ground, but the guard who had held his hands behind his back was not as fortunate. Everyone's reaction was to duck, then screams and cries of terror from the townsfolk gave way to confusion. Captain Stalhadt had gotten down and turned to see one of the duchy's symbols of prosperity up in flames, the meticulously carved stonework blasted. The stone letters spelling out the bank's lengthy title was missing most of its parts. In the brief moment of pandemonium Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick broke free and made a break for it; the captain catching one last glimpse of the pair before the crowd got in the way. The man cursed vehemently as he got back on his feet, noting Efrain was still present. The lout of a constable was out cold with a nasty bump forming on the side of his head.

"Kleishner, get yourself off the ground!" The remaining member of the three supposed guilty parties rolled over and grabbed the man's wrist, then held a hand before Kleishner's mouth and nose. "Don't bother, he's out cold. A concussion from the looks of it. Give him a few hours then try again." The grim-faced guard captain let out a sigh in exasperation. Of all the things to happen, having two potential criminals escape before they were even interrogated was the last thing he wanted to mar his spotless record. "First Gusteau turns up dead, now this!" The name rang a bell for Efrain, and he recalled that being in the few concrete details from the morning papers. As much as he sympathized with the man, this was a prime opportunity to bargain. "You mean the man reported dead in the duchy's herald?" The guard captain glared in frustration. "Yes, yes! What of it?" "How did he die?" Efrain already knew the answer to his question judging by the look on Stalhadt's face. "I'll wager you haven't the foggiest idea?"

Having worked his way up the ranks, Stalhadt was no fool. "What do you want?" Efrain dusted off his clothes and faced the guard captain. "I suppose I could lend a hand with your investigation…but only if you agree that there won't be any 'records' of any misdemeanors related to me in your books–ever. I am by trade a doctor, after all." Stalhadt narrowed his eyes, furrowing his brow. "And why should I be interested?" Efrain casually pushed away a stone shard with his toe. "Think of it this way Sir Captain; I have no connections with any of the merchant families in the duchy. Now if you were to call a local coroner to do the examination, they could very easily be bought to protect a family's personal interests. That would delay progress on resolving the case at hand, making your job much more difficult. And the last thing the duchy wants is for her citizens to lose trust in their local law enforcement. But if you allow me, an complete outsider to examine the corpse, wouldn't there be a far lower chance of medical bias?" 

Stalhadt mulled over the thought for several minutes. Considering his options and possible impact on his professional performance, he was willing to turn a blind eye just this once. "Alright, you have yourself a deal. But, I promise to uphold my end only for this particular incident." Clapping, Efrain took the man's hand in a firm handshake. "Splendid! Allow me to remind you that this whole murder fiasco is your problem, and not mine. Now, how about a trip to the morgue? Let me gather my instruments and we'll get started." 

Author: Anima, Posted: Wed Oct 24, 2018 2:52 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

[OOC: I make the assumption that Aspect didn’t leave the room to avoid the effects of the hourglass, but feel free to ignore it if you wish her to remain in the dark. The vision shows about 20-25 minutes of time, but the whole trip takes one second. It’ll be like nothing happened if you avoid it, so you can just ignore the “A Hidden Plot” part.]

Sadly, that woman turned bird did not respond in the manner that Robin would have wished her to had she known about the creature’s humanity before asking it for silence. In fact, the stranger was so offended by the notion of being mistaken for an actual bird by my wife that she opened her beak to chide this impromptu ninja even as the two of them were suspiciously hanging around a closed window like a burglar and her pet waiting for their chance to strike. Luckily, her voice, no matter how squeaky and jarring it was to the human in front of her, wasn’t loud enough to garner much attention; otherwise the guard might have thought to go further into the room. Instead, he left without much of a fuss, not even noticing that one of the windows on the far side of the chamber was now unlocked.

With his departure, Robin could finally let out a sigh of relief. She could safely reenter the second floor alongside her new acquaintance, and exchange proper introductions for a time.
 

An Impromptu Alliance? Part 1

When the tiny humming bird shed her disguise following the close call with the guardsman, Robin calmly greeted her with a light bow of the head. There was a time, relatively not too long ago, when she would have been shocked by such a transformation: ooing and awing as this tiny creature transformed into a woman several inches taller than her. But now? Aspect was a person just like any other; her shapeshifting ability functioning only as a quirk to make her unique.  For that reason, Robin was no more startled by her than she would be startled by any other stranger; albeit her respect toward said stranger, in this case, was thankfully not contingent on trust like my own.

“Sorry. I didn’t recognize the smell from the cat downstairs at first.” Not wishing to be rude, the warrior did shake Aspect’s hand at that point, but with an obvious air of awkwardness about her attempt. Rarely, if ever, did she do handshakes, so she wasn’t aware of any proper protocol she should have been taking in that instant with the mercenary in front of her. Instead of doing a normal one-handed shake like others, for example, she clasped both hands around Aspect’s offer, and steadily raised it up and down in slow, exaggerated motions. Only after a couple rounds did she finally let go and introduce herself properly. “Uhm, my name is Robin,” she said while subconsciously backing away from her guest. “I assume you’re another mercenary for this job, Aspect, and that you’re about to propose a partnership? I mean I can’t rightly say no if that’s the case, but please don’t make any sudden noises anymore if we’re going to work together. Technically, we’re not supposed to be here, and they also just put me on edge.”

Evidently, my wife’s business acumen had grown a little bit by this point in her life, because, unlike how her younger self would have handled the shapeshifter, she wasn’t immediately stumbling over her own tongue like an embarrassed girl trying to find the right words for a crush. She was still clearly out of her element in this social context, true, but she knew enough to voice her own concerns now instead of letting other people push her around. That said, she didn’t really grasp the concept of waiting for a response from strangers yet. She would easily do it for me or the people she trusted (soldier’s loyalty and all that), but Aspect was not afforded the same courtesy.

Instead of waiting for a yes or no to her own question, Robin immediately touched on her armor where her collarbone would be. A blue flash of light emanated from her outfit with this motion, followed by the appearance of a strange looking hourglass in her hand. It was an hourglass of deadtime, one that she quickly turned over after giving a brief, unsatisfactory explanation about her intent.

“Well, since we can’t tell much just from looking at this room right now and we don’t have the luxury of staying here too long, we should look at the building’s past using what time we have.” T’was then that the hourglass activated, transporting everyone and everything in that room back to the night of the burglary.

A Hidden Plot

Nothing in the world could be affected anymore as Robin drew back the clock. It could only be observed, like looking at the past through a telescope. My wife did just that when given the chance; but it was during the course of this tear in time that she ended up spying something she wished she hadn’t.

“You’re late.” The voice of the recently deceased Lumerre suddenly came from the formerly empty seat by the fireplace. The ashes in front had given way to warm flames like Robin suspected from her preliminary investigation, but, alongside them, a face had also appeared in the charcoal.

“You complain an awful lot for someone who stands to make so much from just a little bit of disloyalty.” The twisted and burnt visage was that of a man: young and probably barely into his thirties. He had a malicious grin on his face, with teeth that probably would have looked far too rich for his own good had they not already been substituted by flecks of blackened wood in the fireplace. Amusement seemed to possess him even in that clearly magical state, but Lumerre did not share in the experience.

“You said two hours ago. Closing time was then; and that was the time we agreed to pull off this charade.” Gripping his overpriced chair tightly, Lumerre made the wood crackle under his fingers. He was stronger than he looked, and definitely had a temper. “It looks suspicious now that I just happened to stay late on the night I was supposed to be kidnapped.”

And so the plot thickened, but not in a way that Robin had expected. The conversation continued in a very dark manner, one that made my wife feel way in over her head.

“Calm yourself, Lumerre,” the voice from the flames retorted even as his host remained blatantly irritated with him. “We didn’t wait for nothing.” As if musing, the young, magically gifted man paused. Suddenly there was a rustling coming from downstairs, just as if he had signaled something to begin. “The later this happens the less likely there will be witnesses to inform the Gyndnegle’s about the truth. The young lady that you’ve gained the heart of will be less likely to employ her mother’s funds for the ransom if it’s revealed that one of their rivals had a hand in it.”

Scoffing, Lumerre finally calmed himself, seemingly assured by the noises he was now hearing. “You’ve a point,” he said while relaxing in his chair, “But you should have let me know ahead of time. I could have come up with a reasonable excuse and told Melody before hand to make her worry even more.”

“Perhaps,” replied the mysterious individual with less of a grin than he started with, “but we needed to make sure you were actually willing to work with us. It’s how the game is played: one family trying to make another look bad without openly appearing dishonorable. I want the Gyndnegle’s to lose face, and you want your money. So long as everything goes according to plan, you’ll replace all your merchandise and still have hundreds of thousands leftover. Plus, the Gyndnegle’s will look weak in the face of the scandal that will result from this. Everyone wins; except for the Gyndnegle’s, of course.”

“As you say, but I wish I could keep some of those pieces from Arri. They’re valuable silks: irreplaceable!”

“You know the rules, Lumerre. Everything must go for it to be believable.”


Their conversation continued beyond that point – both Lumerre and his mysterious coconspirator taking turns with each other. Mostly, their chat focused on the girl they mentioned earlier. Apparently Melody Gyndnegle was a young member of the wealthiest family in all of Egjora. She had been courted by Lumerre over the past two years, drawn to him by his extravagant taste in clothing and impeccable fashion sense. He was now her fiancé, but he was more interested in Melody’s money than Melody herself. In fact, the only reason he was agreeing to this cockamamie scheme now was because her father was getting uncomfortably close to his true motives. Because of that man and the fact that Lumerre now feared the marriage would be called off, he was all too happy to accept the scheme of the Leuvarden family when approached.

But during the span of that meeting that revealed all this information to Robin and Aspect, the source of the spider webs had yet to appear. Lumerre and the man of flames were talking for a good 10 to 15 minutes in the temporal illusion that Robin had generated, and there hadn’t even been the slightest hint of a spider until the man in the chair became concerned about how long the noises had been going on.

“Your men are awfully slow, aren’t they,” he asked while the noises from downstairs were still persisting? “We’re already behind schedule. Tell them to hurry up.” Even the man in flame was curious about the delay. He seemed to signal for someone on his side of the communication channel, because his face moved like an attendant was whispering in his ear. Then, in a rapid disappearance of smugness, the young merchant became irate.

“What do you mean our men haven’t made it there yet?!” Suddenly, the atmosphere grew tense. Mr. Gusteau rose from his seat in a hurry, running down the stairs with lantern in hand. Robin followed him in the dreamscape, watching as he used the lantern’s light to look out into the lines of clothes that decorated his overpriced store.

“Who’s there?! Show yourself!” In that moment, the frightened gasp of a young girl came from further in the store. She was wearing items she had stolen from Lumerre’s stock, and was attempting to find some socks when the owner himself caught her red handed. She apparently wasn’t expecting him to still be there, nor was she prepared for him to run at her with angry breath. “Gods damned thief,” the misleadingly skinny man shouted as he rushed her without a moment’s notice, suddenly realizing that the noises he had heard up till now were actually caused by the petty thief terrorizing the business community in Egjora of late. He lunged at her, tackling her through the stands as if to be a “hero,” when he actually began trying to choke her to death instead.

The woman, whose face was initially obscured by the cloak Lumerre used to cover it, struggled to try throwing him off. When that didn’t work, however, she revealed herself to be more than a normal person. She actually shot webs out of her wrists in desperation. They weren’t ordinary webs either. They came out in globs, forceful enough to throw the man on top of her back against his own wall and into an impromptu cocoon. He was effectively muted and disabled in an instant, but the webs didn’t stop after that.

Frightened and on an adrenaline high, the woman hurriedly unearthed herself from the stands, continuously and uncontrollably shooting web everywhere her feet and hands went until she finally tore the cloth from her face.

‘An elf?’ Robin could only stand there in the time flux as the young, elven woman with pure white hair now stood breathing in the darkness in front of her. The whole room had been webbed by her struggle against Lumerre until it resembled present day, and the sight of that apparently frightened the young thief. She suddenly and violently grabbed a handful of clothes in a hurry when she realized what she had done and then bolted out the backdoor before anyone was the wiser.

It was shortly after that that Leuvarden’s men appeared in cloaks. They took one look at the store upon arrival, seemingly whispered something into a stone in front of Lumerre and then started leaving in silent procession.

‘Everything’s gone to hell,’ they had apparently whispered. ‘Abandoning the deal.’ Obviously, they had judged Lumerre to be too much trouble now, even as a pawn. The store was destroyed in a chaotic fight and any merchandise that wasn’t ruined or missing was now free pickings for these men that were once Mr. Gusteau’s allies. Lumerre’s precious clothes were cleaned out piece by piece thanks to those masked men, and all he could do whilst this was going on right in front of him was issue muffled complaints from beneath the web over his mouth. So ended the vision, cut short early by Robin herself.

Gyndnegle’s First Branch

In total, the vision of the past took all of one second to complete. Robin hadn’t actually moved from where she stood on the second floor during its duration, and she was pondering what she had seen whilst she waited for Aspect to speak up.

Meanwhile, the world continued to spiral out of control. In another part of town, near to where the late Lumerre Gusteau had met his end, a group of three people were being escorted for interrogation. This was Efrain’s group. He and the two thieves that attempted to steal from him had gotten themselves arrested by the guardsman that had visited their inn. Now, they were passing by the newest branch of the Byen Statskassen bank: the Gyndnegle’s First Branch.

In a show of union and prosperity – or, as some others in the city might say, careless arrogance – that building had been constructed in a joint effort between the richest family in the city, the Gyndnegle’s, and the bank that funded all the merchant families. It was a pretty piece of architecture: ostentatious but overall unassuming as far as banks go. No one was expecting it to go up in flames the day that Lumerre had been murdered, nor did the explosion that tore off its face draw anything from the surrounding neighborhood except pure, abject terror. As for the guard escorting Efrain and company, the last thing he remembered from that day was a piece of the “Y” in “Gyndnegle” striking him in the head just after it was blown free from the building across the street.

[OOC: Begin the merchant war I had planned.]

Author: Aspect, Posted: Tue Oct 16, 2018 12:14 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Aspect heard a noise nearby as she was hovering nearby to look at the items in the room closer. She was adapting quickly to this form and was enjoying the benefits of both flying and the ability to hover. She didn't take forms often that could do both at the same time. It was usually one or the other, but as a hummingbird, she had increased speed and maneuverability. Getting inside the window and into the room without making a sound was remarkably easy. With wings, she didn't have to worry about the floor creaking or moving under her footsteps, nor leave tracks for anyone else to find. The only thing that gave her away was the faint buzzing of her wing feathers.

She heard the noise again, and slightly annoyed now, she flew over to the window. She looked around and didn't see anything worthy of notice. Suddenly a dark shape filled her vision and came in fast. She just had time to process the shape as a pair of legs before she dived out of the way with a squeak of surprise. She hit the floor hard and skidded a little on her belly feathers. She landed in a corner and sent up a small cloud of dust. Coughing, she stood on her small legs and shook the cobwebs and dust from her wings. She gave a shake before launching back up into the air. 

The person that had jumped through the window was standing quietly on the floor. It was a woman, with a muscular build like her, but several inches shorter. She wore armor, but even that couldn't hide her female physique. She flew up to her face, rather annoyed now, and looked through the faceguard with her bright blue eyes. She held a finger up to her face and told her to "Shh." Now she was starting to get angry with this petty thief. How dare she treat her like a simple-minded beast. "Excuse me," she hissed at her. "I will not take orders from you…" She would have said more but she heard heavy footsteps just outside the door.

She spotted a turned over piano or desk or some other large piece of furniture. "Over here." She ducked down behind the large furniture and hid quietly behind a large pot sitting on top of it. She'd barely landed and stilled her wings before she heard the door open. She hoped the woman had listened to her and hid somewhere. She could only assume that she had because the door was only open a short time and then it was closed. She heard the guard walk back down the steps and only after she didn't hear him anymore, did she turned and look at the woman.

"Let's try this again," she said quietly. She jumped off the furniture and changed back into her human shape. She brushed some dust off her leather jacket before straightening it. She held out her hand, her face sincere. "My name's Aspect." As she looked down at the woman she caught the hint of a rabbit again. So she was the were-rabbit she had smelled from earlier. Interesting. It was usually not a bad thing to have another shapeshifter around. Each form had their advantages over the others. 

Author: Mithridate, Posted: Sun Oct 14, 2018 2:05 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

After an awful evening, Efrain spent the rest of the night awake into the late hours of darkness reading. A warm cup of black tea and his assistant–whom he had expertly smuggled along–Heisei, kept him company. The Ataiyan dragon was the size of a small cat when coiled together, and was easily hidden underneath an overcoat. Time passed as the incessant chatter from the ground floor ceased, and he assumed the two annoyances had retired for the night. Before the madame could find out about his late-night endeavors, he snuffed out the light. He must have overslept, as when he woke he remembered not having been called to breakfast. Pushing himself out of bed he cracked open the drapes a smidgen. The bright light was blinding, he reeled back and hissed as his eyes were in protest. By the gods, it could be noon already.

Making himself presentable, he fussed and grumbled as he prepared to leave for another sordid day trapped on this island. Heisei came along like always. Choosing a new spot to buy a late brunch, he was leaving the premises as two burly…no, more like portly men wearing ill-fitted uniforms of the duchy's watch blocked his path. Efrain glared, his hands full with a ham and cheese croissant and a large mug of the blackest brew he could buy. "What do you want, you sodding brutes?" Being hungry wasn't helping his capacity for courtesy right now. The next voices he heard made him visibly roll his eyes with a snort of frustration."There he is constable! I'd know that sour face and grim get-up a mile away!" "Oh darling, what will we do? Should we find a new inn to stay at? I'd hate to leave dear Gertrude after we've grown so close!" Wouldn't you know it–it was the garish lady and dandy now cavorting with the local law enforcement. 

The boar in guard's clothing attempted to accost Efrain with his grimy paws, to which the apothecary gave a death glare and implied he'd use the steaming coffee in his hand with the same glance. "You're under arrest for the possession of some very suspicious objects sonny. Now we here in Egjora aren't cold-blooded, so how 'bout you start explainin' what a bunch of needles the length of hair were doing in your baggage?" Somewhat in shock, while he was still trying to process what was happening he looked over at the two simpering simpletons pretending to be frightened. "…You little rats. You went through my things didn't you?" They tried to look innocent and the guard stepped in to their defense. "Not to be heavy-handed or anything, but I think you should know that a very prestigious businessman has been found murdered. I heard they found two puncture wounds on his neck…just the size of those needles." 

Eyes wide, he gave an incredulous laugh. "You're accusing me of murder? Well if you're going to arrest me, then I'll have you know Mr. Constable that those two fools hiding behind you very likely broke into my room while I wasn't looking." The dandy and his 'wife' paled but Efrain didn't care. If they thought they could throw him under the carriage for a baseless accusation like that, he was dragging them down with him to the depths of the Infernos. "I would know, since I never left them out in the open to begin with. What else did you rifle through in there, Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick? My pockets, my coinpurse?" The two were too terrified to respond, and he took the chance to clarify a few things. "By the way constable, those needles they 'found' are used in acupuncture as a part of Karithian medicine. Those glass bottles inside my luggage contain medicine. Have a man run some tests. He'll confirm everything I've said. Now if you'll excuse me, my coffee has turned lukewarm."

Author: Anima, Posted: Mon Oct 8, 2018 1:05 AM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Robin’s hunch about the stairway sentinel eventually proved true in that web-strewn disaster of a store. As soon as the clerk had given him new orders, the man grew distracted and aloof. He meandered away from his previous location just far enough to where his body wasn’t blocking the whole of the stairwell anymore, and then took a long yawn while turning his gaze to the spot his impromptu superior had directed him. In the carefree demeanor with which he executed the order, however, he hadn’t realized that he had closed his eyes just long enough for a mischievous rabbit to take advantage. She did just that when the opportunity presented itself, slipping up the stairs behind him while everyone else was seemingly too preoccupied to notice.

The capped outsider advanced silently and swiftly into the immaculate confines of Lumere’s, 2nd floor office after gaining access to those stairs; and, much like she had surmised before entering the building - as well as what she had been told by the pudgy clerk – the room was ostensibly devoid of outside influence. Nothing appeared to have been tossed about like one would expect in a burglary, but, despite the lack of obvious interference, there were definitely suspicious abnormalities. Mainly, Lumere’s office - which was surprisingly big for your average, high-end merchant - was more like a nobleman’s suite rather than a shopkeeper’s record chamber. Robin had expected to find a desk and files along with some sewing equipment within; but, while she did find those things, they were all piled against the perimeter of the room. Everything further in and away from the sight of the public painted a drastically different picture of the merchant and his “honest” wealth; very much like Lumere was trying to put up a front.

Rather than find some humble pieces of furniture or maybe even empty floor space altogether in the rest of the room, Robin, instead, found a bed in the back left corner with the finest Mamlakian fabrics that money could buy. She also found several other pieces of furniture far too rich for someone of Lumere’s standing while wandering around; and even a fireplace which, while presently unlit, was filled with ashes. Next to that fixture was a luxurious lounge chair with a deep impression on the seat cushion and a throw rug with boots next to it. All of these were clean and far newer than anything next to the windows.

‘Doesn’t normally stay late in his shop, huh?’ Indeed, my wife’s question after being presented with this unexpected scene was an apt one, for clearly someone lived in that building in order for them to invest so much in the furnishings. What’s more, the amount of ash in the fireplace along with the indentation in the chair nearby suggested that someone had been keeping a long-burning fire active the night of the incident. Most likely, the culprit was Lumere, but why? For what purpose was he waiting that night?

The discovery of these clues just confused Robin more than she already had been. She wanted to use one of my gifts to discover what had transpired that night, but had nary a chance to act on that desire before she heard shouting from downstairs.

“Alright everyone, get out!” Apparently the clerk had returned early, and he was not in the best of moods. The hare practically jumped when she heard his voice coming from below, figuring herself caught; but that was far from the grim reality of what was about to be printed in a special edition of the town’s paper. “This case is now a murder investigation! Lumere’s been found dead after apparently following a woman into an alleyway: a woman he apparently claimed reminded him of the thief that robbed him blind two nights ago. We don’t have any other information at this point other than he likely died from poison; and, until the morgue can determine the exact circumstances of his death, you mercenaries will have to leave! We will post another notice within the day, and the reward will officially be doubled. That is all.”

Shocked at hearing this news, Robin now found herself smack dab in the middle of a murder investigation. She could hear people suddenly shuffling downstairs in response to the news, and knew, implicitly, there was no way she could escape back the way she came anymore without being noticed. She could also vaguely hear the clerk shouting at the guard from before; followed by that man’s heavy footsteps as he started up the base of the staircase. It was then she realized that she needed to leave, lest she be treated as a common criminal in the absence of an appropriate explanation.

Unfortunately, the nearest exit on that second floor to the mercenary was now only an alleyway window, one that had been locked shut from the inside. Robin was able to quickly unfasten it and jump out in time to cling to the side of the building, true, but she could not devise a plan to lock it back up before the guard arrived to take one final sweep. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice the newly unlatched window, because, if he did, the conspicuous “ninja” on the side of the building – the one who lucked out in the fact that the alleyway was almost entirely devoid of onlookers – would have to make a run for it before she was spotted. For the moment, she’d just have to remain silent and hope for the best; at least until he went back downstairs.

Of course, the shapeshifter in the form of a hummingbird next to her might have had other plans in store when my wife’s bum practically came barreling toward her beak at break neck speed. Robin was aware of that animal’s presence before jumping out, but she hadn’t considered its potential humanity during their follow-up interaction. Rather, she acted like she was conversing with any other bird once they locked eyes, simply placing a solitary finger over her faceguard with a quiet but firm “shh” to follow it up - as she so often did to our own birds when she wanted them to be quiet.

Author: Aspect, Posted: Sun Oct 7, 2018 12:43 AM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Aspect patrolled the inside of the shop silently while keeping a careful eye on both the guards and her fellow investigators. Some of them, like her, were more eager to go inside and explore, find out as much as they could early on in the game. Others were content to wait until it was less empty, focusing on the details from afar and looking at the big picture. Her peers were an interesting bunch, judging from the scents on their clothes, a lot of them came from all sorts of different places. Some weren't human either, there was a half-elf down the way and a small girl that smelled faintly of a rabbit. The girl caught her attention briefly, as she'd never met a were-rabbit before.

She hmphed quietly to herself. Bless her soul, she thought to herself. At least werewolves and things can eat meat. I'd hate to eat salads and roots for the rest of my bloody life. She moved her attention onward to the other objects in the room. Most items that were left were broken and bits of their remains and residues laid on the counters or the floor. She stepped around these piles of powder and splashes of liquid carefully, the last thing she wanted was to cause trouble, draw attention, or turn into a frog or something else small and pathetic and be unable to change back. She couldn't be too careful, sometimes the magic of others affected her ability to shift and she didn't want to waste any more time than needed

Using her flexible body, she ventured nimbly between objects and the webbing, keeping a relatively consistent distance away from the other people in the vicinity, but still being close enough to overhear what they were saying. She appreciated having the ears of an animal as she was able to tune into certain sounds based on the location and distance from her. It was rude to eavesdrop purposefully, that much was common knowledge. But to casually overhear something, especially if you just happened to be nearby and not making it obvious that you were trying to listen in, she felt those cases were socially appropriate. Such was the case when she saw the were-rabbit talking with a guard and the clerk down by the stairs. She sniffed some broken pottery and cloth while she carefully turned her ears in their direction. 

Here ears gave her a lot more information than her nose. The webbing was plain and scentless, it was like sniffing plain wax. She wasn't able to identify the creature she made it, nevermind just assumes it was some sort of gigantic spider variant. There had never been a spider in the natural world so large that it'd be able to spin a web this massive and strong. Nor would a simple charm on a spider to enlarge its size to an increased proportion would be able to generate enough web this fast and be as durable as it was. Spider silk was strong, but it takes a while for the spider to produce. A spider at an advanced size would still produce silk at the same rate it would have if it was smaller. There would be no way for a spider to set this all up in a few hours.

So instead she focused on her ears. The were-rabbit was talking with the clerk and the guard about a few sets of tracks she's found. She perked her ears briefly and slightly widened her eyes as the girl seemed to know right away how many tracks and sets of tracks there were. She couldn't tell if she was just making up numbers or if that was the correct number, but she was rather impressed by her accuracy. In a dog or pig form, she would be able to tell more information about each set of tracks, possibly even be able to track them to their place of origin if the weather didn't change too much since the break-in happened. 

They finished talking and she casually went back to sniffing broken bits of junk. There was not a lot of scents to be found, even on the broken items. The least she could get was that there was one human man amongst the group at one point. The rest of the individuals had covered their scents and traces very well with magical methods. She wasn't the big fan of magic. It was such a cheat at times in the natural world. She lifted her head of up and flicked her tail quickly as she saw that some of the guards and the clerk were leaving the store. She again caught sight of the were-rabbit and where she was casually training her gaze. The soldier at the steps had become exhausted and easily distractible. 

Now was an opportunity for her that she wasn't going to miss. Carefully she made her way across counters,  chairs, and thick pieces of spider web until she reached an open window. As careful as a cat, she jumped gracefully out the open window to the streets below. A few people walking by gave her odd looks as she made her way down the street a little way to a small alley. Here, after seeing that the place of clear, she closed her eyes on the shape of a small bird. Hummingbird. Within moments, the red cat became a small red-tinted hummingbird. Her wings flapped powerfully as she hovered in place getting used to the small form and its abilities. She didn't take the form of small creatures often, so this was a big change. After taking a few practices runs in the alley, she shot up and headed for the second-floor window. 

Author: Mithridate, Posted: Sun Sep 30, 2018 12:59 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Having slaked his thirst and medicated his headache, there wasn't anything else to do besides kill time. Thumbing through an edition of the local papers wasn't much help with the distinct lack of anything meaningful. The only thing that did catch his attention was this headline: 'Rampant Crime Spree in Our Fair Duchy, Guards Request Assistance'. At last, a piece of real news. Scanning the pages, Efrain began cherry-picking the most important bits out of the heavy pro-Egjoran slant of the herald's editorial. Much to the shock and dismay of loyal members of the duchy, crime was afoot. Robberies of several high-profile stores and small shops with the local guard running about like hounds after a fox. Very little details were written about the actual robberies themselves, with an overabundance of side commentary from the editor and pointless interviews of the victims. He tossed the paper onto the table in disgust. All those words just to explain a half dozen places were broken into. What a waste of time.

Tired of sitting, he left his spot to find a more private place for lodgings. As much as he hated the suffocating hospitality, his best bet would lie in one of the small bed and breakfasts further from the commercial districts. Heavy footsteps led to a sideways glance, showing a few people dressed like sellswords hurrying down a street. They seemed to be discussing something, dropping the words 'paydirt' and 'reward'. They were excited and in good spirits as one of the group with a thin scar over his eyebrow crooked the side of his mouth in a smirk. Just another fortune hunter out of the rabble–none of his business. The oddness didn't come to him until long after, remembering that Egjora presented itself too genteel for hired blades to breathe the same air as their folk.

"Oh hello there! How may I–" "A room for one, second floor." "Why certainly! Is there anything else I can–" "Yes, I'll be having breakfast in the morning. Coffee–black please." The older man with spectacles was somewhat flustered by the Rosenite's blunt way of speaking, but was good-natured enough to recover without being upset. Efrain procured a key to his room and was informed dinner would be at six in the evening for all boarders before peeling off his thick layers for a much needed bath. Gods, how he missed warm water so much. With his clothes on a coat rack he was partially submerged in a modest porcelain tub raised off the ground with carved feet. The other occupants of the rooms were out to see the sights, if there were any. The madame who ran this little cottage with her husband was busy making meal preparations so he had the tub all to himself. Reaching out towards a small glass bottle with crystals, he pulled it over and popped off the cork before dumping the contents into the bathwater. The salts dissolved immediately creating a fizzing reaction, soothing his nerves. Marinating in the mixture for half an hour, he decided the water was too lukewarm and had enough. 

In a fresh set of clothes, he went to the dining hall to check if people were returning. The couple and staff were busy, and he was nearly sure he'd get the privilege of eating alone when the door burst open with a noxious fog of musky perfume. Scratch that, it was musk and perfume. About several bottles' worth. As he was suffocating on a lack of fresh air, the offenders strode in like dandies straight off a gilded carriage. A tall, svelte redhead with a fake beauty mark under her right eye sashayed in under a flood of mink fur strips called a coat followed by a man half her height with an outfit just as gaudy. Whoever thought a saffron yellow neckerchief could go with a carmine striped suit should be drawn and quartered. Their clothes were ostentatious in multiple senses of the term and they were sickeningly sweet on each other. Why two people like these would be rooming in this quaint little place was beyond him, and Efrain was making himself scarce when the madame saw they had returned.

"Oh my, welcome back Mr. and Mrs. Chadwick! You're just in time for dinner! Did you have a lovely stroll this afternoon?" The madame asked. The short mustachioed man pulled out a chair at the table for the lady, who fell into it with the exaggerated grace of a primadonna. "Yes, it was absolutely charming Gertrude! Oh the little shops and old-fashioned streets are just like a painting out of a storybook. Isn't that right darling?" "Myes, indeed dear! It was po-si-tively bucolic!" The way the man punctuated his syllables set Efrain's teeth on edge. He slipped away up the stairwell while the three prattled on with their chatter. He should've said he would have dinner outside tonight. 

"Did you hear about the terrible news Mrs. Chadwick? Some ne'er-do-wells have taken upon themselves to rob the good folk here in Egjora." The madame shook her head. "What is this world coming to?" The redhead feigned the stages of ignorance and shock as she was comforted by her darling husband. "How awful! Gertrude you must be so worried! And your husband Charles, running an inn all by yourselves." She offered a silk handkerchief to the madame who dried the corners of her eyes. "There there, call me Ruthie. You remind me of my dear darling mother, before she passed away." "Oh bless your heart…" Efrain rolled his eyes as he continued his stealthy attempt to climb the stairs when they continued their conversation. "You have our condolences ma'am. Now, what about them robberies?" 

Eavesdropping gave snippets of the stores that were mentioned in that day's paper, but with more detail on the investigations' current state of affairs. The Egjoran guards were so stumped as to finally admit they needed help, and mercenaries were coming in to take the job. They were offering a hefty reward of one grand in silver, tantalizing enough to draw all sorts of people out of the woodwork. So far no one was sure about anything besides the obvious. There was a mention of cobwebs being left at the scene of the biggest retail loss to date, which Efrain dryly mused that someone must have forgotten to clean up after their pet spider. His hopes of avoiding social contact were ruined as his stomach demanded food, and he was forced to sit through an awkward dinner of breaded cod and simmered vegetables. He finished first out of everybody and excused himself to retreat back to his room. The guards had better get their act together soon, or else he'd get himself a rowboat to paddle across the strait.

Author: Anima, Posted: Sat Sep 29, 2018 7:31 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Despite what you might imagine for someone married to yours truly, the first to take up the offer of entry from Egjora’s primary case for weight loss programs was not actually my bunny lass. The other mercenaries were far more eager than she to enter that decrepit corpse standing in the middle of an otherwise busy shopping district, and they were all led by a shapeshifter who took the form of a cat instead of the foreigner dressed in black and red armor who seemed perfectly content to stand in the back. Robin was not like them, you see. She did not possess their visceral impatience: the kind that possesses people to take one too many risks just for the next payday. Nay, her past experiences had stripped her of that dangerous, hot-blooded nature that so often coincides with youth; and so she took her time in front of that store when others either cast caution to the wind or ran in fear.

It was for that very reason, however, that Robin began to notice things that others had not; or, at the very least, things they hadn’t talked about. For example, only the front of the first floor looked like a spider’s den the day after the grand theft had occurred. The second floor, in contrast, was almost entirely clean at first glance. It looked uncharacteristically untouched, especially given what was common knowledge about Lumerre thanks to the gossip that occurred so shortly after he had been robbed.

Lumerre Gusteau – the proprietor of the store – was a successful businessman in the port city of Egjora. He clearly wasn’t hard-up for cash, judging by the size of his storefront in the primary business district; and, given how much of a nuisance it would be to deposit proceeds from such a business at the end of every business day – not to mention the opportunity cost of closing early to do such a thing – he very likely kept a safe somewhere inside the building to protect his earnings until he could make it to the bank at the end of the week. The most logical place to keep a safe like that in a building without a cellar like Lumerre’s store would be upstairs, and yet the second floor looked completely undisturbed.

 That raised some red flags for my wife, and she immediately tried to go upstairs to satisfy her suspicions. But, before she could go any further than the base of the staircase, the guard from before stopped her.

“There’s nothing up there,” he called out from the front entrance while another guardsman blocked her path. “And just so everyone else here knows, the second floor is off limits. Mr. Gusteau himself has requested that specifically, and the watch has agreed to grant his request since nothing up there appears to have been taken. That is all. You may proceed with what you were doing before.” Beyond those comments, the pudgy clerk fell silent again, grabbing some jerky from his pouch while everyone else got back to canvassing.

‘They’re hiding something,’ Robin thought as he began chewing on that meat, even though she obeyed his command to step away in the end. Drops of my own cynicism had worn off on her during our time together, and so the usually happy bunbun felt that something was amiss in that otherwise ordinary heist; something that required the watch to lie to her about its extent. Whether it was the guard or Lumerre himself behind that deceit, she could not say; but her gut told her that this crime she was investigating was more than a simple burglary.

Regardless of Robin’s misgivings about that incident at the staircase, however, there was little she could do to directly remedy them without making herself an enemy of the watch. The man guarding the stairs in front of her was heavily armed, and, even though she knew she could beat him in a one on one fight, his assault would inevitably bring the full force of Egjora down on her head. For the moment, her best option was to give up on the second floor and focus on examining what she could downstairs. Perhaps later on she could find evidence that would convince law enforcement to change their minds about upholding Mr. Gusteau’s request, but, until that point, there was plenty of other evidence to look at: not least of which were the cordoned off areas on the first floor.

The Mysterious Set of Footprints

While true that a vast majority of the store’s merchandise floor was open to investigation, there were several pockets throughout the room that had been sealed off from regular traffic. For one reason or another, they were determined to be hazardous or simply insufficiently documented; and so the mercenaries were barred from entering them via ropes and “do not enter” signs. One of these areas was next to the stairwell that Robin had been blocked from using; and that particular region had something unusual about it that stopped the woman in her tracks.

As far as anyone could assume based on how the watch was handling the current state of affairs, the thief that had been raiding Egjora was thought to be a solo act. Yet judging by the content of Lumerre’s store, there was an awful lot of damage for just one individual to have caused. The store looked like it had been hit by a web-spinning tornado instead of being robbed in the dead of night, with the greatest concentrations of silk also appearing in areas closest to the front of the store near the counter. The whole scene lent itself more to a botched burglary rather than just an extreme case of vandalism; and that viewpoint was reinforced by the sets of footprints that Robin found inside the area next to her.

Although obscured by web in some places, there were several different trails in the area that did not match the metallic boots the watchmen were wearing inside the building. These prints had treads, signifying that the boots used to make them were leather; and most also had nicks in their patterns as if the boots themselves were well worn by previous owners. Some of the prints even had lengthy trails over the web, meaning that someone other than the watch had been stepping in that area after the silk was already placed there.

Feeling the need to bring these details to the attention of the watch, Robin struck up a conversation with the fat clerk near the entrance to the store after making her way over to him.

“Excuse me, are you sure there’s only one thief,” she asked politely after getting his attention? He quickly turned toward her in response, but with an indignant expression as if she were interrupting his lunch. He didn’t even stop chewing during the conversation that followed, just answering as the questions came up no matter how full his mouth was: an overall vulgar individual.

“We’ve never confirmed that. Why?”

“There’s footprints in the cordoned off sections of the room: multiple sets that don’t look consistent with the boots I see on the watchmen around here. Unless there was someone other than the watch that went inside-”

“True. We saw those footprints already, and assumed that most were just from previous customers the day of the theft. I can assure you that the watchmen you see here didn’t make those prints; but, unfortunately, we haven’t been able to determine if any of them were made after the attack. The web has made it difficult for us to confirm since there are so many tracks and many of them are overlapped. Plus, that area of the store used to hold Master Gusteau’s most valuable pieces. He put them there so as to always keep an eye on the entrance to his second floor. Therefore, it’d be impossible to trace all of those footprints without destroying-.” He was droning on, lecturing the mercenary in front of him even though he didn’t know her and was spitting food at her face without a care because he couldn’t be bothered to stop eating. Robin eventually cut him off during that rude episode, though not before he had already done the same to her.

“There’s seven,” she said while wiping the food from her faceguard, to which he retorted incredulously with,

“Pardon?” She persisted despite his skepticism, and continued in that same polite but subservient voice she had a bad habit of perpetuating.

“Seven sets of foot prints are on top of the web in the space near the stairwell with deep enough impressions to signify that they were made while it was still moist. The rest of the other 20 tracks in that area have portions overlapped by the silk and no continuous tracks like the primary seven I have observed. That means that at least seven people who weren’t guardsmen went into the cordoned off area near the stairs while the silk was still wet. Also, six of them had boots, while one was barefoot.”

The clerk, baffled by this testimony, didn’t initially know how to reply to it. He quickly swallowed his jerky first, and then looked over toward the area before finally turning back to Robin herself with a sideways expression.

“You’re not human, are you miss,” he asked after a long pause which sent chills down Robin’s spine? She was afraid to answer the question at all, freezing in place until the midget in front of her eased up. “You don’t need to answer,” he continued with a sigh. “Egjora isn’t like our sister-city Adeluna when it comes to nonhumans, but I have been there before and I understand your apprehension. I’ll forward your information to the lead investigator, because, if there are indeed seven sets of footprints from non-guards – even if we assume that one set is from Mr. Gusteau himself – that means we might be dealing with a group instead of an individual. It would also explain why this scene is worse than the others.”

That last part caught the foreign mercenary’s attention, finally forcing her back to reality. It was something the guard had failed to mention before, and so she pressed for more information before he temporarily left to relay what she had already given him.

“Worse? The thefts before this weren’t as bad,” she asked while her rabbit ears perked up underneath the burgeoning cap she wore to hide them?

“Crime is crime, but even I admit the previous incidents were less severe than this one. They only involved a few missing articles each time and the webs were only traces unlike the globs you see here. Lumerre’s burglary was very different. He lost his whole inventory. He’ll have to replace it from scratch once he gets rid of the webs. Good thing he has good insurance, I guess.” There was something in that statement that made Robin feel as if she needed to know more, so she pushed her luck further.

“What did they steal? In the heists before this one, I mean.”

“Clothes, food, hygiene items. Recently a jewelry and magic store were hit too, but, before that, the thefts seemed solely focused on everyday items. No doubt testing guard response times before the big heist, if you ask me; but it does seem quite the jump to go from petty theft to robbing an honest man blind.” It was after saying that that the guard finally cut off all further questioning. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to report this to my superior,” he said while leaving the building. He signaled the remaining guards before his exit to watch the cordoned areas even more strictly than they already were; but, unbeknownst to him, that order also distracted the stairway guard from his pre-existing duties. Soon he would move from his post, allowing an especially stealthy individual to slip through to the second floor and discover what was being hidden.

Author: Aspect, Posted: Mon Sep 24, 2018 7:22 AM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

Aspect flew over the city for a short time, using her keen eyesight to observe the occupants below. She couldn't remember if she'd been here before or not, but the whole city held a sense of familiarity. Everything there was clean and the people were unusually pleasant. She dipped her wings slightly and dropped lower until she was just above the tallest buildings. She perched gracefully on the top of the largest building and started looking at the shops and taverns. She was looking for one in particular. After finding it, the small falcon pushed off from the building and dived down. She had heard that there was a thief running loose here and they were offering a substantial reward for his capture. She was eager to find out what that was.

Once she got close to the ground, she hovered briefly, and her form changed to that of her human shape. She dropped onto the cobblestones and proceeded to dust off her leather jacket. She paid no mind to the people watching her as she adjusted her hair and walked towards the tavern. She quietly opened the door and headed directly towards the small group of people gathered around a heavy man who stood behind a desk. She debated about taking the form of an insect to listen better, but she didn't trust the people around her to not squish her. They appeared to be a rather dense and phony lot. She didn't trust any of them from the start.

She perked up at the mention of 1000 silver for his capture, noting the split reward if the captive was brought back dead. Either way, that was still a fair chunk of change for her time. Her eyes followed him as he showed them the storefront, once very nice, was now covered in a sticky strong silk material. Possibly a large spider. She thought to herself. She had taken the form of spiders before and was capable of using her spinnerettes to make silk like the kind found on the shop, but none of the spider forms she could take would be capable of making a web this large and resilient. 

The short man finished his speech, she narrowed her eyes at the thought of being watched by the guards. She had no intention of taking anything, but the thought of being spied on was rather annoying. She was one of the first to walk into the store, finding many of the goods either taken, destroyed, or caught in the notorious webbing that blocked the front of the store. She touched it with her hand, finding it both soft and incredibly flexible, but completely immune from almost any kind of damage. It wasn't a surprise that they had to burn it in order for them to get Lumerre off of the wall. She bent over, taking the form of a cat, and using her small size to her advantage to sneak around objects and webbing where people would be too big to fit.

Author: Mithridate, Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2018 10:37 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

"Bloody guardsmen…who shuts down all nautical traffic coming and going out at the drop of a hat? I'm practically thawing out from frostbite here!" Out on the corner of the duchy's pristine cobblestone walkways, there sat a young man who clearly wasn't part of the local populace. His dark overcoat, crisp gloves, and black polished leather boots made him look more like an undertaker or director of a funeral parlor than a practitioner of Karithian medicine. Efrain had just arrived in Egjora after a long and uncomfortable trip aboard a small flagship from Itjivut. The trip was no holiday; he had went to that gods-forsaken frozen piece of land for the express purpose of procuring some elusive materials said to possess extraordinary magical properties. Things like these wouldn't be sold internationally, the locals jumping at the chance to monopolize and likely profit off travelers simultaneously. He spent hours trudging through blasted subzero temperatures and still had nothing to show for it. The ride back wasn't any better, with the seas being abnormally choppy. He had reserved a private cabin, but that was hardly luxury accommodations when you could still hear grown men in the next room violently vomiting with every toss of the waves. Fortunately he didn't get seasick, but enduring days of poor sleep due to various disturbances left Efrain less than a happy camper once he set foot on solid land.

Everything about this bloody city was annoying. Coming into the nearest cafe for coffee he was peppered with small talk and plastered smiles. When the proprietor began prying about his profession he refused to answer, and that was when they mistook him for an employee of a mortuary. All the better, as they would never leave him alone otherwise. The old woman was probably scouting for potential mates for her unmarried relatives. Taking his coffee black, he sat outside at the tables where at least he had an excuse to not respond to the cafe owner's prattling. The only thing he could find worth praising of the duchy was their acknowledgement of public cleanliness. He had a nagging headache from sleep deprivation and was already on his third cup when he noticed a group of men with the insignia of the local guard plod by. A lower eyelid twitched as he remembered how they forcibly docked all sailing vessels due to some overreaction of a thief running amok. 

Leaning his head back in a jerk to drain the rest of the potent brew in one gulp, he leaned his head on a hand as he faced the fact he would have to spend the night in this sodding place. If he hadn't felt sick to his stomach on the ship, he was feeling it now. All those cheery smiles and overly-affable greetings were like nettles rubbing against his skin. Oh and don't get him started on their attempts to 'cheer' him up too. Feeling better with the bitter taste of coffee on his tongue, he ducked inside to leave his payment on the counter while the proprietor's back was turned and left immediately.

Author: Anima, Posted: Sun Sep 23, 2018 3:57 PM, Post Subject: Arachnea's Web[P][R]

[OOC: Robin is wearing a hat this time to hide her ears(lack of human as well as presence of rabbit), in case that wasn’t clear enough in the “A Misleading Contract” segment. Her cap looks somewhat like the hat in the following link, only puffier since it has to hold more volume and slightly oversized: Click Here For Newsboy Cap. It is also black to match her clothes.]

Although it had been a cornerstone of our family’s wealth in Revaliir, mercenary work never really sat well with my wife, Robin, whenever she was involved in the decision making process. She did not see the profession as I did, sadly – i.e. a market where you got to choose what you did and weren’t beholden to a potentially unscrupulous employer. Rather, the former Ataiyan warrior in her thought of the mercenary trade as dishonorable at its base. She believed that the individuals involved in it were far too focused on money and not enough on people. For that reason, she preferred the both of us taking on honest labor whenever possible: like monster hunting or even just artisan jobs. It was a decision I didn’t mind, although it was one I didn’t understand given what I knew of her tendencies.

Despite that strong opinion of hers, you see, there were times in the past that even Robin had taken mercenary work, specifically when it aligned with her values. If she thought the cause of a contract was just, for example, she would take it, oft in partnership with local authorities and other mercenaries. Many of those incidents occurred in Canelux and Parvpora to great success, ending in the capture of murderers and kidnappers who had evaded the local authorities until outside help got involved.

But, now that I think about it, there was one event, one contract in particular that probably soured her attitude toward any future mercenary work regardless of cause. It was a contract that she still remembers, and one that really made her question the “purity of the law” concept that she had believed in as a guard on those Ataiyan streets of her childhood.


It was a muggy Terra morning back then. The stormy season was finally starting to calm down, and so more vessels were beginning to dock in Egjora in preparation for the first harvests of the year. Robin was among the newest arrivals stepping off those early ships, showing up in the great Harbor wearing her usual black and red gear that she always adorned in public. She had been going stir-crazy from staying inside our family home too much before then, and had it in her head as she disembarked with cap over ear that it was long past time to look for work again. A little sea air in the open world would do her some good, she thought, and so she chose Egjora to start her search for contracts in the new year.

Unfortunately for my wife, however, she had only been to that city by the sea in passing before stepping off the ship this time. Much like a layover in airship flights, she had only docked in the kingdom once before, many years prior to this arrival and only for the express purpose of boarding another vessel on her way to Itjivut. She’d not actually been properly introduced to the city before the ill-fated contract came up, and, sadly, that also meant she didn’t know how zealous the watch of Egjora could be when it came to perceived criminals.

The contract that Robin eventually accepted was one that had been posted in front of the Beryl Moon Guesthouse in the heart of the capital for about a day. Apparently there had been a rash of strange thefts in the city recently, ones that were beginning to get out of control and turn into cases of vandalism. The watch, in response to that crime spree, was looking for mercenaries to help them bring it to a close: to track down the perpetrator and turn them over to the proper authorities so they could face justice for what they had done.

Truth be told, though, this contract, while mundane in other cities and familiar to Robin’s eyes, was actually an unusual one for Egjora in general; not because the city lacked in crime but because its ruling elite preferred to coddle the idea that crime didn’t exist on their island. The merchant families favored their rosy tint, the Stepford effect they worked so hard to maintain. Everything was to be perfect, a shining beacon on the sea; and anyone who threatened that status quo was to be removed, their deeds hidden from public eye.
    
Of course, Robin did not know this ugly, Egjoran truth; and, by the same token, she didn’t realize how bad the situation must have been for the guards to admit they had a problem in the first place. In fact, she remained oblivious of the difficulties ahead of her up until the point when she finally visited the last site hit by the thief before her arrival: a clothing store in uptown Egjora by the name of Lumerre’s.

The First Soft Touches of Silk

When Robin arrived at the storefront for that latest target, she had expected to find smashed windows or, at the very least, a trail from a gavril’s ring. You know: something that would suggest a break-in. What she found instead, though, looked more like it belonged in a child’s nightmare rather than in reality.

“By the sun.” It was true that none of the windows had been broken like in Robin’s expectations, but there was definitely something unusual about them. Because even though the building showed no sign of forced entry through any of the glass panes on its front face, the insides of every window were covered in superfluous amounts of web: enough that you couldn’t even see inside the building. It was as if an army of spiders had invaded the store alongside the thief, and used their spinnerets to obscure the scene of the crime before it took place.

From that first impression alone, it was obvious to my friend that she was not dealing with a normal criminal. Thoughts abounded in her head as to what the thief could possibly use to conjure so much silk, and she worried that she might be dealing with a drider in those first few moments. But what drider steals clothes in the middle of a human city? There wasn’t enough information for her to assume anything just yet, but there was, thankfully, a guard of some sort available to explain.

“Another group of mercenaries, I take it,” he began, for more than just Robin had arrived to seek the bounty that day? “Come closer if any of ye intend to pursue the contract.” The man who spoke had a raspy voice, like someone who smoked one too many pipes. He was an overweight chap, definitely not young and certainly not anywhere close to retirement age. In fact, while he wore the watch’s coat of arms, he didn’t possess any remarkable trait that would suggest he was someone regularly involved in guardsmen affairs. More likely, he was just a clerk in charge of providing additional information to fortune seekers. Maybe a former employee of Lumerre himself who had been temporarily conscripted?

Regardless of his true identity, however, Robin was among the group that answered the man’s invitation that morning. She stepped forward from the crowd, stopping in front of his desk alongside the others, and listened patiently as he began telling the would-be hunters all the details for the contract at hand.

“The reward, as you saw on the poster, is 1000 silver, but only for the live return of the thief.  If you kill them, you forfeit half the reward. Also, the stores that have been robbed will pay you a portion of the value for any of their stolen goods you may recover; provided, of course, they are undamaged. As for how much, we will put you in contact with them once you have merchandise so they can tell you themselves.” Pausing for a moment, the stout watchmen finally stood up from his makeshift office and turned toward the shop itself. “As you can see, this is no ordinary thief you’re going to be dealing with. Whatever they are, they’re capable of generating a large amount of silk that’s resistant to blade and tear alike. Every storefront or warehouse they’ve hit thus far has left some of this residue behind, but Lumerre’s is by far the worst yet. We found Lumerre himself plastered to the wall next to the stairwell in his shop the morning after the theft occurred, and he claimed – after we managed to burn the webs off his mouth – that he saw the shadow of the perpetrator in action before he was captured. We suspect the thief was startled by his sudden arrival since he normally doesn’t stay that late in his store, and this theory appears to be corroborated by Lumerre’s claim that he heard someone leaving through the back door shortly after he was immobilized.” Turning back to the day’s mercenaries, he concluded with some additional details. “Just so you know, the front door, which you can see from here, was knocked off its hinges by us. When we first arrived at word of trouble, the perpetrator had sealed the lock with web, so no key would even go in it. Rather than wait for a mage to figure out what was wrong, we decided to just bash it down to rescue Lumerre as soon as possible. Beyond that, the task of hunting the criminal falls to you lot from this point forward; and to whatever help the watch can provide you. You will be allowed to peruse this crime scene under the supervision of the guards inside, during which I am authorized to share any additional information that we have already gathered before your arrival. You need only ask. Just don’t get cheeky and try to steal anything else while blaming it on the thief. We are watching you.” And with that, the pudgy clerk finally stepped out of the way for any brave soul willing to enter.