Furrae Chronicles: Webs of Destiny (IC) [M] {2}

[Tapewolf]

"I may have to go after him," said Jakob, standing up.  "Look sharp, don't take any risks and try not to separate if you can avoid it.  It might just be me, but I don't think we're entirely safe here.  Remember - only the paranoid survive!"

So saying, he crawled under the table.  When they looked under it, he was gone.

[Gareeku]

Making his way to one of the rooms that had no yet been taken by any of the others after a least a couple of hours standing on one of the many balconies dotted around the temple as he lost himself in his thoughts, Gareeku sighed as his hand gripped the door handle. It seemed that tiredness had finally caught up with the wolf, as he was quickly beginning to feel that sleep could not come quick enough. Out of the corner of his eye he could see James also making his way to a room, but decided that it would be best not to say anything for now.

Closed the door gently behind him, Gareeku then removed his hooded cloak and top, exposing the white furred torso he possessed, though he knew that he would need to shower sometime. taking the sandals on his feet off, the wolf then removed the katana from the side of his waist, setting it down on the bedside table, close to where he would lie. Falling back onto the bed, Gareeku closed his eyes, and in a matter of minutes was immersed in a deep slumber.

[Stygian]

Night fell, quite quickly, and apart from mirrored candles and braziers the monastery was slowly beginning to plunge into a deep, warm darkness, the only servants remaining awake being the personal ones and the phoenixes themselves retreating to their rooms. Quite as one might expect in such a place. But probably still unnerving, seeing the general mindset of the company. It didn't seem that anything dramatic happened though, or would happen.
   As with so many other things that seem a particular way, this was dead wrong.

   Near where Gareeku had entered his bedroom, in fact so close as in the room adjacent to it, its occupant a blond canine man who was seemingly sleeping in his bed, whimpering and thrashing but unable to wake up, something had been waiting for him. It was not visible, not in the ordinary sense. It was there, and one could see it, but rather than something that was visible because it reflected the light, this was currently detectable because it didn't. It swallowed it up instead.
   When the wolf got to his room and settled down, setting his things in order and getting to bed, the thing, which had been holding in a corner of the room, sensed this and waited. It moved a part of itself to the shadows under the bed in the wolf's room, listening to his breathing and his heartbeat, taking in what it could of his scent and biding its time. Hours passed while it waited, just to be sure that darkness had settled.
   Once it was ready, the thing slid out of the shadows, releasing its hold on the canine in the room, and slipping into Gareeku's, where it finally took shape.
   Soundly asleep, 'sister'. This will not take long... it thought, communicating through an already established link to someone, and moved.

   The wolf slept, still deeply. But as an adventurer, he was practiced and cautious, his senses used to picking up the minute little things that others did not. Still, it was impossible to hear the dark figure that slowly, smoothly strode up to the side of his bed, right next to the table where he had set his sword, and looked down at him with gleaming eyes. Had the wolf been more conscious, and had the floor been wooden, he might have felt a creak or a shifting of weight on it. But now, the only thing to alert him was the sudden presence of a faint, foreign smell, like ash and blood, cold and chemical, and with a slight touch of tobacco to it as well.
   Gareeku did not have time to respond to it though, before something else stirred him rather rudely. One second, the wolf was laying peacefully in bed, breathing slowly. The next, he found his airway blocked and his neck aching as something gripped it like iron, forcefully pulling him up with it.
   The room was nearly pitch black, the only source of illumination the ambient light from outside the window. The figure stood in the shadow almost completely, so it was hard to see. But as Gareeku was hoisted into the air, by a strength decidedly demonic in nature, he could make out its humanoid outline, as tall as he, perhaps a bit taller, slender but powerful and shaped. And behind and around it, things seemed to be moving, snaking through the darkness...
   Still, it was neither of those things that really drew the eye. Instead, it was the creature's eyes. Black corneas, nearly no pupils, and irises that glowed dimly like fire. It made a wordless growl, a low, rumbling sound that sounded much deeper and stronger than should have fit its size. It was demon allright.
   Before the wolf had a chance to move in its grip, he felt something whip out through the darkness, and then snake around his wrists and up a bit, bending his arms back uncomfortably with that same strength. Then, something like a hand pressed over his muzzle, closing his mouth forcefully and together with the large hand around his throat only allowing him to breathe through his nose.

[Gareeku]

It had all happened so fast. In his sleep, he had sensed something slight, though had paid no heed to it until it was too late. Feeling the powerful grip around his throat, Gareeku's eyes snapped open and before he could do anything was hoisted up into the air, before finding that his hands were binded and his mouth shut tight, though still being able to breath through his nose. From the sheer strength he could tell the attacker was demonic. Looking at the assailant, the wolf saw the creeping darkness, glaring into the dark eyes with a look not of shock or fear, but with one of rage. In his current situation, however, the warrior was powerless, completely at the attacker's mercy.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

The window in the room was small and high and faced nothing but a sheer drop into the valley below the temple, but it was only a moment later that it swung open and a surprisingly wingless Mel wiggled herself inside. Her wings reformed once she had her feet on the floor. She quirked one brow at the creature of darkness. "While I understand your urgency, how do you intend to get the wolf out of here? That cubi didn't go back to his room and who knows where or who he might be."

[Sunblink]

Keaton had entered her room without any commentation, blending into the group of adventurers like a chameleon would blend into its environment. She had no interest in interacting with anyone, preferring to remain distant throughout the entirety of dinner. Her plans were simple: she would leave the temple in the morning, abandoning any and all efforts to glean information from the accursed Phoenix Oracles and resuming her neverending hunt for her remaining family members.

Now safely reclining on her bed, Keaton toyed with the marble she constantly carried in her pocket, tossing it in the air and watching as it returned into her hands. Being one of the few Cubi who still enjoyed sleeping, she probably would've either went to bed without any suspicions or worries, or would've continued playing with the marble well until morning if it weren't for the sudden surge of emotion she felt a few rooms away from her own. Blinking, Keaton caught the marble in her hand and pocketed it, climbing to her feet.

She assumed it was nothing outrageous at first, but she had always surmised that the Oracle temples were usually placid areas because of the entranced state of the Oracles themselves. When the rush of emotions did not cease, she decided to investigate, slightly perturbed by this raging whirlwind of panic, surprise, and most of all anger. Unusual things to feel in a normally peaceful atmosphere... very unusual.

It seemed to grow stronger as she exited her room, walking towards where the pulse originated. Her hand rested on the doorknob, she turned it...

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Aisha deCabre]

It hadn't taken Aisha too long for her to drift into sleep as the night started to wear on.  She heard little in the way of noises after she had collapsed, other than any weary and lagging adventurers from their group or perhaps other visitors and servants giving the temple a last inspection.  Whatever it was, the sounds only served to help her move further into her dreams.

However, like any trained adventurer, her sleep only served its convenience to bring enough energy back, and not to have given her away to the subconscious completely.  Her sleep was light, ears often flickering at any slight sounds, mostly that of the mountain breeze from the window.  However, she would not have even noticed that there was anything going on, had it not been for a most trusted factor.

Some long moments into her sleep, the darkness of her eyelids was shattered by a faint emerald glow and an almost electrical, humming pulse.  She opened one dark crimson eye to glimpse at the artifact she set close to her on the bedside table.  Her enchanted tail ring, where it could easily be seen, was picking up something dark...and was bathing the dim room in a glow of green.

The huntress wasn't one to ignore her sensor.  Narrowing her eyes, her arm reached down to grab the nearest weapon available from her belt in the niche, which turned out to be the hilt of her dragonblade, while her other grabbed the ring and placed it back on her tail as she sat up.

The panthress hopped up and quickly moved to glimpse down the corridor, where the jackal newcomer had stopped in front of a room...precisely the one where, she assumed, the sensor was coming from.  Placing her blade down to her side in a peaceful manner, Aisha nodded to the jackal, but her eyes were fixed on the door, suspiciously.  "What's going on?"

[Stygian]

The thing holding Gareeku snorted, standing still as its gaze moved to Mel upon her entry. It didn't seem to scowl or get angry with her for either her entry, nor her words, just regarding her casually and easily. Still, when it answered her its speech could have been taken for disdainful or scathing. But that was just the feeling one got from it. Its voice sounded dual, and like it crawled or rasped out, as if its vocal chords were burning or crumbling at the same time as the words formed from it.
   "Same way that you entered, Shivers. The wolf and the others are no concern. We shall be long gone before they have a chance to catch up. And even if they knew..." it growled, slowly moving into the light as it held the wolf steadily a bit over the floor, "what chance do they have of helping him?"
   The creature's words didn't really get to Gareeku before he saw it.
   It looked like some sort of fur, but it was hard to tell its distinctive features, other than grayened and scorched, almost parched and ashen-colored fur, lined and cracked with black that seethed and crawled in some horrid manner. The hand that held Gareeku's throat was large, long-fingered and wickedly clawed, the creature's arm almost completely black save for a few specks of ash around it that grew tighter until they re-knitted into its charred-looking skin and fur about halfway up its upper arm. The same cracks and lines spread over most of its form, which seemed draped in lengths of some sort of jet black torn cloth, covering part of it. Its torso seemed reasonably intact, as did much of its thighs, and also its head, from which fell shoulderlength, grayened hair, but its face had one great gash into its right side just at the jaw, so deeply black that one could not see its shape, spreading cracks over that side. And its back was completely ripped open, tentacles and tendrils of concentrated blackness, two of which were what held Gareeku's arms spilling out of it and snaking and seething about it, some detatching from it and flowing a bit before slipping back into the creature's shape. The glow of its eyes seemed to amplify in the moon, two dots seething inside eyes that looked like bottomless wells of darkness. It was no sort of demon that Gareeku had seen before.

   The thing stood there, looking up at the wolf for a moment, holding him steady. Then it grinned. Sharp ebon teeth and glossy black mouthflesh showed, as it slid out a long, pointed black tongue and licked over them a bit, making for a horrid sight. And then, it began to change. Its somewhat pointed muzzle flattened, its pointed ears smoothened out a bit and became furrier as its fur and skin moved and changed color, its hair shortened just a bit and...
   "Really sorry about this, wolf, but it's the one option we have right now," Ignatz said, grinning up at Gareeku, his blackened out, speck-irised eyes the only thing remaining of his former physiology. There was shock in the wolf's face for just a brief second, before he was knocked out and everything blurred to black.
   "Now, let's leave..." the feline said, and moved toward the window.

   That was when the door opened, and all of a sudden the Jackal from before and Aisha, her emerald tailring illuminating the whole room with its intensity now, saw into the room. There was a moment's silence, as Ignatz, still holding Gareeku as if he weighed no more than a small child, turned and looked at the two intruders. Then he made a raw curse, glaring at them.
   "Well, as if we could have hoped for secrecy from the start..." he said irritatedly. Then, in a sweeping move, he moved past Mel and without any further fuss leapt out the window with the wolf in his arms.

[Tapewolf]

Jakob was half-invisible.  Full invisibility was something he could do, and had done in the dining hall - but it made it very difficult for him to see as well.  Bright lights would have given the game away, but fortunately the corridor he was in was fairly dim, so as long as he kept to the shadows he was safe.

As he approached the dormitories he could still feel James' waking mind, so he lurked outside his door waiting for him to sleep.

[Gabi]

Gabi couldn't get herself to sleep. It was a hard task at the best of times, and now that she was nervous it seemed impossible. She tried to think of something else, make up a story or anything that would keep her mind distracted, but her thoughts kept going back to all the questions she had.

Then she realized the sounds she was hearing did not come from within her mind. Something was going on in the corridor. She got out of her bed, but didn't find it wise to get out on her own and face whatever was outside without even knowing what it was, especially at a place like this. So he pressed her ear against the door and listened carefully, trying to figure out what was happening.

[Paladin Sheppard]

Dining Room

Stretching and yawning, Ephrael stood up and looked around seeng most had gone to their rooms she padded softly to the room she had been given. As it was at the end of the hall from Gareeku's she heard not a thing and quickly fell asleep.

[Sunblink]

"Something weird's up," Keaton said in response to Aisha's inquiring, her digits wrapping around the ornate brass knob before her. "Something ain't right here..."

Much to her confusion, the rage radiating behind the door had intensified briefly, palpitating angrily in her head for that one, fleeting headache of a moment before it died as abruptly as it came. Panicked, Keaton jerked open the door with no warning whatsoever--normally when someone's pulsating emotions ended so quickly it never was a good thing.

Darkness rushed over her like an atramentous tidal wave as she entered the room, not bothering to look where she was going, urgency propelling her movements. She skidded to a halt somewhere in the middle of the room, finally stopping to comprehend what was going on in front of her. The feline from the feast who was once casually holding conversation with everyone was looming over Gareeku, having knocked him unconscious. Moonlight and florescent emerald energy oscillated through the room, illuminating the entirety of the chamber with ethereal, silver-shamrock light.

"Alrighty kitty," Keaton said nastily, wishing ardently that she hadn't forgotten her mace in the other room, "I think now is the time you back the hell off."

Unfortunately, the feline happened to do more than what she ordered, leaping out of the window with Gareeku in tow. Cursing loudly, Keaton rushed over to the window, ignoring the pearlescent feline seated nearby as she peered down at the abyss below, swearing fitfully under her breath. "...%^&*."

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Stygian]

Outside the window there was nothing but a sheer drop, at least three hundred feet down onto hard, steep and jagged rockface, down which one foolish enough to jump out would most probably roll hard for a long while, crushing their bones. But Keaton could see no trace of the feline nor of Gareeku, neither down the side of the cliff, nor on the wall of the monastery. The feline might have flown off with the wolf, but if that had been the case she should still have been able to see them, and there was not a hint of either of them in sight. It was as if they had been swallowed up by the night itself.
   Just how correct this was, none in the group could suspect, except possibly Gareeku himself, had he been awake. But right then he was in no state to make any speculations at all, bumping along unconscious over the feline's shoulder as he emerged running from the shadows further down and around the cliff, making a rounding turn to avoid detection before he could hit the forest further up and really start moving. When the wolf awoke, he was going to find himself far from his room...
   Get moving, Mel! 'Ignatz' thought, before he would slip away from the spell.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

Mel suppressed a frustrated growl as the cubi rushed after Ignatz and got between her and the window. The feline stayed closer to the door. She heard Ignatz demanding that she follow. "I'm trying she thought impatiently. She cast a quick illusion, hopefully the pantheress was close enough to be caught as well. It only took a moment for the spell to take effect, a hungry look coming into the jackal's eyes. The spell was an illusion that tapped the subject's own memory so they saw something intensely desired. Mel gently prodded the girl out of the way and jumped onto the windowsill and out.

[Aisha deCabre]

Listening to the jackal's answer, Aisha followed her with the same intense urgency as she yanked the knob and rushed into the darkness of the room, her tail ring causing an immense flash to the eyes in the mist of the flowing and malicious energy within, and her sword taking on the gleam as she raised it against whatever was inside.

What she saw made her freeze, and made her grip on the hilt loosen to the point of almost dropping the blade.  No.

Gareeku, bound and helpless in the grasp of a horrid presence...she would have instantly thought "demon" with the levels of darkness that her ring had been picking up.

And it took a moment to recognize the face in the mixed glow of the light that she was casting.  Ignatz...the stranger...her eyes shot wide open in surprise before returning to something resembling seething anger for the deception.  The thing had before radiated such darkness that it sent a shudder through the warrior's spine.  Despite that, her eyes narrowed with such dangerous intensity, and she almost leaped immediately after them, were it not for the fact that the jackal had rushed forth with her own assault.

Aisha only quirked an eyebrow to the note of fact that she was a 'Cubi...but her grip on the sword tightened, and she too rushed forth, too preoccupied.  "Put him down!"  She roared, swiping and missing at the feline-beast as he dove out of the window, carrying the wolf with him.  "HALT!"  She leaned out of the window, frantically scanning the night...but to no avail.  They had vanished, and all that was left was her voice echoing off the mountain, a steep drop to which there was no hope of leaping out of.  "Gareeku!"

She stood listening to the jackal's cursing, and inwardly, she cursed herself too, closing her eyes while her claws futiley tried to gouge into the windowsill.  No way is this happening.  No way.  Should have sensed it earlier.  Too preoccupied with her inner frustration she was, in fact, to have noticed the other feline's illusion...but her eyes only opened to an empty room, bar for herself and Keaton.

They had a determined gleam to them.  Not...going...to happen.  I swore on it.  I swore I would help.  I won't sit here.  With that, she moved away from the open window, only pausing to give the jackal's shoulder a gentle shove.  There would have to be time for introductions a little later.  She rushed with loud footfalls out of the door and back to her room to get her weapons belt.

Along the way, the scuffle and shouting might have awakened a few...but Aisha would make sure that they were awakened indeed, shouting down the corridor.  "They took him!  They took Gareeku!"

[Sunblink]

Keaton withdrew herself from the window frame after realizing that there was no way to pursue Gareeku's abductor, releasing one, final profanity before whirling around to face the afore-ignored feline standing nearby. "You!" she snapped, her chocolaty eyes narrowed, "Who the hell are you and what are you doing--"

Before she could finish her interrogations, the spell smacked her right in the face, mist hazing over the cocoa surface of her eyes from behind the mismatched, bizarrely-shaped lenses of her glasses. Keaton backed away from both feline and window, dizziness sending her mind spinning like a whirlwinding top. Gripping her forehead, the jackal groaned as the illusionary enchantment started to cloud her mind, warping reality and shaping it to fit what her innermost desires quested for...

At first dismissing this spell as a mere distraction, Keaton started to glare triumphantly at the feline with a nasty, snide comment on her lips, but stopped abruptly once the room and everything in it--save the ebony panther standing across from her--vanished. Standing before her, making no movement nor saying anything, were two figures: both jackals, both decorated with spiraling markings identical to hers, albeit different in coloration--one was hued in shades of black; the other a lurid yellow, her hair and part of her fur having been dyed a vibrant shade of florescent pink and black--both females, and both sporting leathery pairs of wings.

Almost instantly their names came to Keaton's lips, unconsciously forming the words but not speaking them aloud. She didn't need to. She knew them perfectly well, had loved them, and had known them for almost all her life.

Mom? Lian--

A gentle push startled Keaton out of her delusional status, the jackal grunting in surprise as the hallucination around her faded away instantly. There was no trace of any spell having taken place in the room, no sign of her family...

Instinctual rage seized Keaton's mind. Snarling in fury at the one who would DARE manipulate her memories and desires, Keaton bared her pearlescent teeth like enamel daggers as her head snapped back and forth, eyes scanning the room fervently for the feline who had cast the mirage. No sign of her. The deceitful feline's absence only infuriated Keaton even more, the jackal Cubi clenching her fists. Growling rolled like echoing thunder in the back of her throat, fire leaping like dancing sparks in Keaton's eyes. It took every conscious shred of effort in her body to restrain her from whipping out her wings and shredding the room to pieces, but instead of giving into her anger, Keaton choked out one last, unintelligible, incoherent--and ultimately indecipherable in emotion or gesture--sound, the only exposure of her weakness.

Then after Aisha had stormed out of the room, she grabbed the nearest thing she could find--an unfortunate pillow from off of Gareeku's bed--and flung it with all her might out the window, stifling an enraged roar.

Standing resolutely, her breaths coming in short gasps, Keaton watched in cruel satisfaction as the overstuffed cushion flew out of sight, swallowed up by darkness in the pit of the abyss.

And with that out of the way, Keaton whirled around on her heels, schooled her face into an expression of shock and horror, and stormed out the door in search of her weapon.

~Keaton the Black Jackal

[Tapewolf]

Jakob was so intent on the problem of James that he totally failed to hear or sense the kerfuffle going on at the further end of the dormitory.  Aisha's distraught cry quickly brought him to his senses though, and becoming fully visible, he tore down the corridor to meet her.

Shit! he thought, I knew there would be trouble.  I hate it when my paranoia is justified.

"What happened?" he asked her urgently.

[Paladin Sheppard]

Ephrael's Room

Very much asleep, Eph barely heard Aisha's yell. Rolling over she murmured, "just 5 more minutes Jade." and dozed off again.

[Stygian]

It was quite some time left until dawn, and even though Gareeku had set himself to resting earlier, being knocked out and then manhandled for a couple of hours was not exactly the best way to stay asleep. Feeling heat on his face and his back against a rather rough support, and being propped up in a more or less uncomfortable position 'helped' him to consciousness too. Blurry-eyed and feeling dizzy, the wolf found himself sitting slumped sideways against something, probably a rock, in front of a small, crackling fire, out in the open woods. Looking down, he could see that his feet were shackled, a heavy but loose chain between them. A quick feel to his wrists revealed that they were similarly restrained, though probably with a solid metal rod between them to keep him from moving his hands too much.
   The wolf did not have time to assay the situation more carefully before he heard faint steps, and a dark shape walked around the rock, even more silently than its determined and smooth movements should have accounted for.
   "You're awake, I see. I had expected you to sleep until morning, but it seems you're tougher than that." The wolf recognized the smooth voice, and he could see Ignatz clearly as the feline sat down into the light from the fire. He was dressed differently from before, with some sort of black wrappings over his arms under an open, loose shirt of some sort, pants in some heavy cloth, tough shoes that were much like boots, some wraps and a huge knife stuck to his belt. A pair of holsters were strapped to his thighs on the pants, holding a pair of huge guns. Had the man just had a black coat and duster hat, he would have been the very image of some uppity bounty hunter. Then again, there was the book he was holding thumbed in his right hand and the glasses that he shifted back on the bridge of his muzzle as he leaned back against a felled tree and relaxed, smiling at the wolf.
   "Don't bother struggling. We're forty miles from your friends, and that's a long way to run in chains," the big cat murred lowly.

[Aisha deCabre]

As she gathered herself, there were angered throughts racing through Aisha's mind that had no hope yet of stopping.  Not until the problem was solved.  A part of her wondered quite a few things about the strangers...among the questions, just why were they after Gareeku?  And how it was possible that the creatures responsible leaped from a window and disappeared entirely without breaking their necks on the mountainside?

Or Gareeku's, for that matter...the thought made her shudder.  We're getting you back, amigo.  Just to figure out how...

As she stormed from her room, she almost ran into Jakob, and she had a slight look of relief, for at least he would have been awake.  The huntress's crimson eyes seemed to flash as she answered, only accentuating the severe truth of the events.

"That stranger, Ignatz, and his 'sister'.  Damn those beasts, they tricked us.  Captured Gareeku and leaped out of the window before we could stop them."  She growled with frustration, then set to wake everybody.  "We're going after them."

[Gareeku]

With a slight groan, Gareeku slowly came to. His head throbbed slightly from the blow he had received. At first the wolf didn't remember what had happened, but it soon came flooding back to him, causing his eyes to snap open as he sat up quickly. Looking around his surroundings, Gareeku found himself to be in a dark forest, still in the cover of night.

Seemed like he definitely wasn't in the temple anymore.

Suddenly hearing the familiar smooth voice, Gareeku quickly looked up and found himself looking at a familiar face; Ignatz, dressed ina different attire than before.
"You..." the wolf growled. Although the feline was smiling at him, Gareeku had no intention upon returning the smile, displaying a slight grimace, his eyes narrowed as he glared into Ignatz's own pair. He didn't know whether Ignatz's so-called "sister" was, and right then he didn't care. Ignatz would do perfectly for a verbal punching bag.

However, Gareeku decided not to let his anger get the better of him, and so with a bit of effort, calmed himself down.
"Just what is it you want?" he asked, preferring to get straight to the point. It wasn't as if he was in the most ideal situation to be anything but, anyway.

[Tapewolf]

"The map!" said Jakob desperately to Aisha.  "Is it still there?  Did they take his possessions too or just him?  Because if it's the same group who kidnapped my father that map may be our only clue!"

[Stygian]

The feline chuckled at Gareeku's question, setting down his book beside him and looking over at the wolf over the rim of those glasses, and then smiled as one might to a dog who executes a trick just as it should.
   "Reasonable. Good. I can imagine how upset you are, but..." Ignatz said, still as smoothly. He wasn't about to say that he could smell it. "Well, it's basically you that I want. And what you know."
   The feline settled a bit against the tree close behind him, and fingered his pocket. He pulled out an etui of slim cigars that looked handrolled and put one in his mouth, then snapped his fingers and lit a flame on his thumb. Lighting his cigar on it, he pulled on the length, leaned back, and then looked up and breathed out a long stream of bluish smoke.
   "You have quite the bounty on you, Mr. Manoko. Enough to mark you as a target to anyone on this end of the whole continent. One wonders what a seemingly straight-cut guy like you might have done to deserve that," the cat said, beginning to small-talk to get to his point. "It would be unfortunate to miss out on such a thing, if there's only weeks left for you to go..." That was a good hint to get under the wolf's skin; he didn't know much about Gareeku's curse other than that he was doomed to die in short time, and that he seemed to have some darkness within him, though tightly locked up.
   "That's mostly a bonus though," Ignatz continued, puffing slightly. For a second he looked over at the wolf. "You want one?" he said, indicating his cigar. "I've got shine too." When all he got was silence, he went back to leaning and looking up. "Ah, well. As I said, it's but a bonus. What's in your head is a lot more useful than the price that's on it." The feline made a smoke ring, and then grinned. "See, you're going to tell me about those kidnappings you've been involved with."

[Aisha deCabre]

"...I don't know..."

Aisha froze in place as she heard Jakob's suggestion, before slightly grinding her teeth and calming herself down.  Of course!  She made a quick turn back into what had been Gareeku's room, eyes quickly scanning around in the darkness.  Momentarily, they fell back to the window, and there was a silent plea going through her head.  Please let it be here...

The panthress made a quick and thorough search, hoping that it hadn't been taken along with the wolf's other possessions.  Or that it had at least fallen off of him.  If it wasn't there, then all of their hope for finding their comrade would have been hinged only on the direction that they had gone...or a knowledge of the area that none of the others perhaps even had.

And then she spotted something in the dark shadows, a parchment beneath the bed.  She pulled it out, dusted it off, and glanced over the markings.  She had only ever glimpsed the map once when she had joined the party.  But she remembered the riddle...and she was certain this was it.  "Only the gods give this kind of luck," she muttered before turning around and back to Jakob.

The panthress paused to try reading the landmarks, before handing it to him.  "This would be it?  You all have had more chances to look at it than I have."  She crossed her arms.  At least now there was an idea of where to go...and soon.

[Gareeku]

Listening to Ignatz talk, Gareeku's eyes narrowed once more.
"I have my reasons..." the wolf stated flatly in response to the feline's comment on why he would have a bounty on his head. Now that Ignatz had spoke of the bounty, Gareeku immediately assumed that this was the reason he had been captured. In his time as an adventurer he had most likely pissed off a creature or two, that was only natural in a world such as Furrae. If you're going to undertake a profession such as adventuring or bounty hunting, you were almost certain to get on the wrong side of a few people. Though the fact that he was still alive at this point was at that moment somewhat surprising to him, but the wolf assumed that it was probably only a matter of time before his captor did something about that. From Gareeku's experience, people who had put a bounty on your head tended to want the head the bounty had been put on. Literally.

What the feline commented on next, however, immediately struck a chord with the wolf, causing him to growl softly with anger.
"How did you know?!" he snapped in response, his temper getting the better of him for a second. True, he had shared his dilemma with his allies and friends, albeit somewhat unwillingly, but he had not expected what he regarded as a total stranger to know of it. Pushing this thought aside for the time being, Gareeku listened as Ignatz continued speaking. "No thanks. I don't smoke."

What Ignatz would say next, however, would cause Gareeku to raise his eyebrow somewhat from the mix of confusion and curiosity. Why would this guy want to know what he knew about the kidnappings? Had someone he had known been kidnapped by the same person too? Had he too gotten a letter similar to the others? Hadn't they already got all the letters they needed to complete the map? The answers to these questions were, at that point at least, unknown to him, but the wolf had a funny feeling he would find out sooner or later, and he preferred it to be sooner.

Still, the wolf's eyebrow soon lowered as he resumed the samer hard look he had been displaying throughout the time he had been listening to the feline talk. "Give me one good reason why I should tell you anything."

[Stygian]

The shock received by his knowledge of the wolf's 'issue' was as expected, though perhaps a bit more composed and less sorrow-inducing than Ignatz had hoped. It was the comment about refusing to tell though, that brought a smile to his face again. The feline chuckled a bit, showing sharp teeth, and there came an air about him that turned his handsome, smooth composure to nearing cruelty for a second. The guy had a practiced aura of evil to him at least.
   "You're sounding as if you won't cooperate. I wonder how easy that could be..." the feline purred, and studied his claws as if he'd never seen them before, as they blackened and lengthened out of his fingers slightly. He shot Gareeku a sharp, gleaming-eyed look, which made the fire in front of him reflect more than it should have in his eyes. "Of course with me you have a choice, if I am still to claim the full bounty on you. But even if I'm good at... extracting information, I don't have a snowball's chance against a certain close friend of mine. Mel, if you please?"
   The feline grinned, and looked up at the other cat, approaching from out of the forest on the opposite side of the fire.

[Mel Dragonkitty]

The grey feline made her way around the fire, skirting to the edges of the pool of light it formed. It was visible that she had changed from the impractical flowing gown she had dined in to a long slim, calf-length jacket of grey suede and high boots of the same color. When she had to step into the light to approach Gareeku it became apparent that her outfit was of the same high quality as the gown she had worn earlier. If Ignatz looked to be the perfect bounty hunter, his "sister" looked like a rich kid playing at being an adventurer.

Mel knelt beside Gareeku, neatly tucking the tails of her coat behind her to show black trousers tucked into her boots. She pulled a glove off and picked a wayward strand of hair out of the wolf's face. "Don't worry, Mr. Manoko. It's a painless and entirely non-damaging procedure. In fact most people never realize anything has occurred." Her blue eyes seemed to become brighter and her voice very soft and reassuring, like a mother soothing her child through a medical procedure. She even continued to neaten his hair as a mother would. "All you need to do is sit there and listen to me talk about kidnappings... relatives... friends... letters... a map... bounty hunters..." She paused quite a while between each word, her eyes going a bit distant as if she was thinking hard or concentrating on hearing a sound far away. Eventually her hand dropped away and she stared into the darkness for a long moment before turning to the other feline. "He adds little."

[Stygian]

Ignatz snorted lowly and looked almost irritatedly up at Mel.
   "He was the main target. There has to be something there," he said, and made a short pause to fix his 'sister's' gaze. "Show me."
   Mel didn't seem to fluster, but simply looked back. For a second, both of their pairs of eyes glowed as if lit slightly from the inside, before they broke the connection and Ignatz simply looked back at her, daring her to keep it up. When she averted her gaze, so did he, looking into the fire instead and seeming to ponder for a moment. Then his face turned just a bit into a scowl, and his gaze fixed solidly on Gareeku.
   "You're not hiding anything from us, are you, mister?" he murred, getting up and walking over to sit down on his haunches right next to the wolf. "Chances are that you don't know the slightest about how to trick Mel here, but I don't gamble much..." His voice was even smoother and lower than before, but the edge behind it was apparrent, like silk pulled over a blade. "It would be better for you to tell."
   Ignatz's face wasn't lit anymore, yet his eyes kept their glow. And this close, Gareeku could see as something moved inside his neck, as if a snake or something had crawled up under his skin and over his neck and shoulder. It passed only for a second, then grew still. But the feline's point was made.

[Gareeku]

Gareeku said nothing as the others, spoke, choosing to let Mel search his mind for information, though not before giving her a look that, if looks could kill, would have seen a fair few people at least. He didn't resist because he had nothing to hide, and Mel's statement to her "brother" after she had searched his mind only served to prove this.

At Ignatz sat next to him, Gareeku glared at the feline, looking into his eyes eyes without a single flinch, even when his face wasn't lit anymore and when the wolf notice what looked like something crawling underneath the feline's skin out of the corner of his eye.
"I have nothing to hide." the wolf replied in a dangerous sounding growl. "I am trying to find my family. If I don't get to them before my time runs out then they will probably die too."

[Stygian]

Ignat'z scowl did not let up, but his lips quirked at least a bit as he held Gareeku's gaze.
   "A pity then. My condolences." He grinned after that statement, showing just what he thought of that, and then got up, walking over and propping himself against that tree again. "Your choice to hide it away. Might just have been a bad move, puppy. Not that I care," he said smugly, and then closed his eyes, staying silent for a bit. Mel had already begun distancing herself from the fire, and he called back after her after a while.
   "We'll go back to town after we rest out. Then I think there's still places to look around in Garin's Bay and Zinvth," he called, just loud enough that she should hear him clearly. Then he spoke again with a smirk, not opening his eyes but clearly directing his words toward Gareeku. "Too bad you're not worth anything more than money, wolf. I guess you'll just end up dead now. But it's not as if you had expected anything else, now did you?"