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"Okay,I got the shards location,But this is a huge strain on me.",Neo said, before he cough up blood.Yup,huge strain.He really wasn't used to using this much energy,but he needed do something before other figure out.He tapped Rudra's head, before saying "Now you got their location,but it only where they are when I sense them.Now wake them up,so we can move at least..."He would throw Rudra in the tree house,before falling out the tree.

There's way too much bizarre in the room for Raven to properly take it all in and fully listen to what the Magistrate has to say. First of all, food. Inside, the savory smell is overwhelming. Her jaw drops to get the best whiff she could possibly get as her stomach starts to growl. Doesn't matter that she just ate half an hour ago; she'd gladly take a few nibbles of whatever's in that bowl.

Second, sooo many pounce-able things: the little fae folk, Kylarion's seven tails, the trail of his shiny embroidered robes...

Wait, robed fox with too many tails. This seems kind of familiar.

As if broken from a trance, the little animal gasps and asks, "Do I know you?" She strolls into the room, tail in the air as she follows her question with a sweet little chirp. This might strike him as a genuinely friendly greeting or a ploy for affection, but Raven's eyes are locked on the space between the fairy creatures and one of his coppery tails like she can't decide what to target.

Lisa meets Adriannu's look with only a tired mix of a groan and a sigh, too stressed to care about how the child must think her a fool. Then she turns and starts creeping toward the door, dagger resting in her bandaged hand.

She scoffs at the way Raven nonchalantly strolls through the door, but she does take it as a sign that they shouldn't bother hiding and stands. This doesn't make her approach any less careful. She keeps out of view of the crack in the door and takes the knob in the gentlest of grips before slowly pulling the door open. She holds her blade behind her back as she sets eyes on an strangely familiar form tending to her fireplace. Knowing could be either a terrible or fortunate turn of events, she freezes in fear of the former and pleads silently for the latter.

Drake lets out a wry chuckle as the wave of light energy washes over them. "You know, this is exactly what I was just thinking about when you decided to hang around the coast and be nice all of the sudden."

"So! Uh," Drake pulls the shard from his shirt pocket, using his newly-healed hand, of course. "We need to hide this somewhere? Hope you know how to keep away from that scrying spell because it'd suck to let them get their hands on it."

"I expect you would know of me, at the very least," he replies politely, "I sent you the warning regarding the one who seeks the Vase's power. Recent developments demand that I speak with each of you again, and provide me an opportunity to do so in person."

"I am of no harm to you, miss Adeptus, miss Adriannu, and I do appologize for my intrusion. The one you should fear is taller, of silver fur, rarely clothed, and, allegedly, entirely incapable of preparing any meal more complex than seared meat. Nor can she summon creatures which cats ought not pounce upon," he continues, pointedly calling out Raven's impending attack, "Touching the tails of one of my kind without permission is considered rather bad luck, you know, dear Raven, and these fey are quite a bit less forgiving. Shall the other two of you come in while the tea and food are still hot?"

"Ha! yeah, no. Not with the amount of mana, time, or other priorities I've got right now. Those things are thorough and are a pain to dispel," she says irritably."

"I have... hmmm... I have a couple ideas. Both are risky in different ways, though," she says after a moment of thought, "One, we keep it with us en-route, then I leave it in the Shriker's storage, and it tears off across the ocean or up the coast leading them on a fun chase. Risky because it puts my bike at risk, and because it leaves us on foot unless we get riding-beasts, but keeps the shard moving and away from us. The other one is attaching it to my sword. I can teleport it to me without using my own magic, and I know a spell cheap enough that I could cast it right now. Real simple: any metal that wasn't there before gets within a shortish distance, ten meters or so, the spell just drops itself. I notice the spell end, I call the sword to me. It tracks back to us, but only where we were, hopefully now where we are if we keep moving. Depending on how hard people come after us, and how long we stay and help, we risk people eventually catching up, but we can also travel by Shriker way more easily. "

They're both terrible, but Drake isn't the kind of person who'd outright say that. He sees the holes, sure, but since he's drawing a blank as to how they could cover them, he can't say much against her.

"You know, if it wasn't the ruins of a town we were headed toward, we would be able to send the shard away on a messenger bird or ship," he crosses his arms and shoots her a pointed glare. "We'd be able to pay someone for protective enchantments, even, but we don't have that now, do we?" He sighs, but his gaze softens as a cool smile stretches across his face.

"I suppose we'll have to use your ideas until we can get a message to my affiliates."

"Oh! enchantments! right! I need to pay you still!" she realizes, ears perking up as she ignores the rest of what he said for a moment, "I can actually lay the groundwork for most enchantments without needing much mana, it's all theory, more or less."

She gently coaxes her bike forward, getting up to a good pace where they can still talk.

"I'm assuming you'll want a wide range of protections, and probably....hmm.... I may need you to swap shapes back and forth a bunch to do an optimized calibration...." she says, clearly a bit off in her own thoughts now, "Oh, and if I could make any weapon ensigiling redistribute along the tail...."

Adriannu ignores Lisa's tired sigh and instead simply follows after her as they creep towards the door, a dagger held ready in each hand. As she sees Raven nonchalantly stroll in, she raises an eyebrow at the lack of caution, only to see the Chimera eschew her cover as well. Well they can boldly walk into whatever awaited them, but she was going to keep hiding until she knew for certain what sort of situation they were in.

As such, the child took cover behind the now opened door and listened carefully to find out what was going on. Upon hearing the voice of the useless magistrate who didn't know how to properly aid someone. Yes that gold had been oh so useful that she had left it behind in favor of more useful things like blankets and a pot. After all, there was no way she'd be able to carry more than a quarter of her own body weight in gold and still travel effectively.

Yet despite her low opinion of the man, Adriannu still came out from behind the door once properly addressed, though she still look extremely wary. This also gave the magistrate a first hand look at the ten year old, prepubescent child he was effectively throwing into the warpath of Victi Aurora Silverfur. Now unlike Raven, the food wasn't a temptation as she was still full from the pheasant she ate half an hour earlier. The last thing she needed was to overeat and then feel sick afterwards for it. Instead the Cathera was more focused on what this warning was and also prepared to be even less impressed with the magistrate then she already was.

(Yeah an hiking article I read advised against having a pack over 20% of one's body weight so Adriannu is being quite sensible about the 10kg of gold in that case. )

"At last, the cautious warrior shows her face," he says pleasantly, "I suspect you have the most questions for me among the three of you here, miss Adriannu. I saw that you had hunted earlier. If you do not wish to eat, that is fine. Generally, breaking into someone's home and waiting for them presents ill intent. Cleaning and preparing food for them is a good way to convey a lack of such ill will immediately and fairly credibly, as well as giving an excuse to sit down and talk. Whether or not they eat is secondary to this."

"I do not know the details of your grievances against me, but observing you as you recieved my message made their existence clear as they came into being. Perhaps I can resolve some of them, clearing up misunderstandings and elaborating on details, yes? I admit, I only had enough time to do a single recording with a skeleton script. The add in I sent you was done at the very last moment. Your device was the last to arrive, you know, I delayed it on account of your clever way of reliably using your shard, and feeling that you were more prepared for this situation than most, at least in that regard."

"Miss Adeptus, again, I do appologize for my intrusion. May I ask you to wait until miss Adriannu's inquiries are complete before presenting your concerns? Her displeasure at seeing me is quite palpable."

She heard something hit inside the tree house as well as a thud on the ground below. She quickly got up and picked up Rudra. "W-What happened? What's going on?" She looks out and sees Neo on the ground. She flies down with Rudra in hand and sees some blood on Neo.

"What the hell... Rudra what happened!?" She whispered as she places a hand on Neo. "Does he need healing?" She tilts her head.

Liliath woke uo very sleepy "Hey hello?" She grabbed her plushie and climbed downstairs. "Is he dead?" Liliath asked soft

"No,he's not dead,he just used a lot of energy to use a pulse to find the other shards.But he's probably near death."Rudra said.Neo groan,and slowly got up,"Now we have their location,well...when I used the pulse.. I'll go ahead and find them.Keep Rudra,he tell you where I am."Before he started walking,his legs gave out and he fell to the base of the tree.

"No stay here, we need to stay together. How does a shard work? I wanna try to use it!"

Still displeasured by his intrusion, Lisa replies with only a cold flick of her ears, but she sheathes her dagger and steps inside.

Knowing Raven would completely ignore the magistrate’s warning, she snatches the cat off the floor. Her impish familiar lets out a surprised squeak that turns into a series of frustrated mrrrows as she realizes she won’t be allowed to harass the Magistrate’s fairies. Without taking her eyes off Kylarion or his companions, Lisa places Raven on the table, where she stays in favor of investigating the contents of the four bowls. The cat starts by sniffing at the one the kitsune presumably prepared for himself, as it sits closest to his place in front of the fire.

Lisa leaves Raven to that while she starts going through her belongings. First, she ascertains that their shard has not, in fact, been moved or stolen. Neither has anything else she’d left out. Furthermore, nothing has been damaged or modified, only cleaned. So far, so good.

Then she opens her cabinets to make sure he hasn’t rearranged her belongings there. What she most worries about is that he’d stolen, maybe even used, the impressive collection of poisons she keeps stored on the wall opposite her door, to the left of the window.

Alright, he hasn’t messed with those. Her first aid supplies and experimental potions lay untouched, too.

He might have brought his own poisons. His food isn’t safe to eat.

“Raven, wait.”

The cat looks up from the bowl, from which she hasn’t yet eaten. Instead she’d taken to playing with it. She sees exactly where this is going and groans. “Here we go.”

New thoughts- new fears -pour into her head as she draws her dagger and brings it as close to the Magistrate’s neck as he might allow. Ideally, the sharp blade brushes his fur.

Her voice is as cold as the steel in her hand. “Magistrate Kylarion, how can you prove to us that’s who you really are?”

Knowing that their apparent enemy is a master illusionist, she can’t trust anything she sees or most of what he says. Of course, unless Victi has cast a disguise over herself, Lisa isn’t actually threatening anybody. This knowledge sends her senses scattered all over the room and cast to the wind outside; she is as acutely aware of her surroundings as she can possibly be while interrogating a stranger.

Oh, “and hell, even if you are who you claim to be, did you really expect me to trust someone who thinks they enter my home uninvited? How can I know you mean nothing ill by this quote-unquote visit? How do I know you’re even the side we should take?”

The magistrate seems vaguely bemused by her paranoid searching, suspecting that she feared poison, what with the... unnerving selection of them she seemed to keep, as his summons had reported while they worked. A legitimate concern, granted, but still amusing.

His bemused look turns sour as he points her weapon at her. While he appreciates the chimera's paranoia, her blatant and unrepentant rudeness annoys him greatly.

"Proving that I am not the product of illusion is very difficult unless you yourself have the ability to sense magic. Her own illusions can be touched, even carrying texture, by the use of other magics, so making contact with me is unproductive. That, and she frequently modifies her illusions to electrocute those who strike them or to detonate on contact. She cannot emulate smell or taste with her illusions, she is capable neither of mind-magic nor of summoning, but to even bother with testing those requires you to take my word as truth," he muses irritably, "Though I would argue that my faeries having not taken Raven hostage would be a possible clue that she is not involved."

"As for trusting me, assuming you do decide that I am not a product of your enemy's sorcery, please permit me to explain my situation. While the sorceress's recent actions have left her fatigued and forced her to be less active, there are still threats on this world. To appease my security detail, I needed to scout the area to ensure that it was safe, and remain out of sight as much as possible. Additionally, were you to have found me lingering outside, especially with protection, I doubt we would even be having this conversation. You would either have waited until I left for my next... appointment, or would have attacked me, I suspect. Regarding who's side to take, indulge me, please, in answering a pair of questions. The first: What reasons would someone have to arrive on a world so abruptly, seeking a power that would let them control it? The second: Were you not warned of her coming, what would you be doing on the day she came for your shard?"

“Woah, woah!” Drake laughs, raising his hands to signal her to slow down. Her sudden eagerness to pay him catches him completely by surprise. As the Shriker picks up speed, he wraps his arms around her waist, leaning a little too close as she gets herself carried away about planning her enchantments. Her excitement strikes him as...kind of adorable, really.

“Nice to know you actually plan to pay me, but we have places to be and I don’t think I got the energy to shift back and forth for your ‘optimized calibrations.’ That’s if you mean we should do this now.”

“We should focus on helping people and getting this shard off our backs for awhile, don’t you think?”

Evelyn watches both men. She decides that the sleeping one would be easy but she needs to get the other one away. She decides to just wing it. She walks over to them. "Hello, sirs. I'm new in town, do you perhaps know where the inn is?" She inwardly sighed as she hated pretending to be naive.

"Obviously not right right now, but I may as well do some more hypothetical planning first," she replies, "And yes, provide relief, lose the shard while we're under threat, and.... yeah, that seems good enough for now. Good that you're already holding on!"

She twists the accelerator, and they zip off toward the coast.

"Listen Neo stay seated and let me heal you. It's one thing I can do right it just takes a few minutes since I have to learn your-- well that's not important. Just dont move to much." She says calmly. "It wont hurt I promise. Oh and the shards are activated by blood. I wouldnt recommend trying it until after I heal him and everyone is prepared okay? Give me a few minutes if you dont mind." She smiles as she rests a hand on Neos chest.

Her eyes glow white as her hand illuminates a bit of white light as well. Her veins begin to glow slightly in her hand and around her eyes. She whispers something in a different language for a few moments then she closes her eyes. You can see her eyes quickly moving under her eyelids. She knits her brows for a moment.

"Neo... you used a hell of a lot of power there..." she says with concern as her eyes open white once more.

As she heals him her white glowing eyes and hands vein into black. Almost as if she was taking the pain from him and giving it to herself. She takes a deep breath. "There. How are you feeling?" She says as her eyes return to normal and her hand is removed from his chest.