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Fandom: FFXIV
Summary: Snowballed Headcanon!
Chapter Summary: Awkward times, and getting introduced to Urianger, to whom we again apologize deeplyand are secretly glad he doesn't end up with a lot of screen time because of his speech patterns, and what happens when a pirate enters law enforcement.
Warnings: None for this!
“Abylghota!” If they hadn't been dramatically different races, the greeting and hug that interrupted the awkward moment fast would've had most thinking they were blood siblings themselves, in spite of the alchemist barely making it up to the Roegadyn's collarbone. After that embrace, Lavinia stepped back, leaning a little to look around at the rest of the room and the door. “Where's your partner? He's not trying to work without breaks again is he?”
The Roegadyn laughed, mostly managing to bury the tinge of nervousness and the faint almost-glance Thancred's direction. “Nah, he's dead to the world asleep; I managed to talk him into a couple drinks, and I might've had the bartender spike his stronger than what he'd ordered, just to be sure.” She rubbed the back of her head. “Work's been close to literal Hell lately.”
Lavinia gave a look that couldn't decide if it was thoughtfully dubious or worried and somehow made him more nervous. “Dare I even ask?”
Thankfully, Abylghota responded with a sort of flat, weary look and a helpless handwave at Louisoix, a gesture that just tipped it into worry and mild awe of the less pleasant sort. “It's a long story, I'll have to tell you later when we've got a better idea which end's up and which's our arse.” The marksman clapped a hand on the shorter woman's shoulder. “So, how's old anchors-for-brains?”
“Getting better, still a touch hazy and some of the medicines to settle it have him loonier than Gridanian booze; if he were awake right now it wouldn't be so quiet. Nudging him a little wouldn't do any harm at this stage.”
“Well, then -” She stopped, as if remembering something, and turned to Louisoix; Thancred had quietly edged to keep the Elezen between him and them as much as he could without looking like he was trying to hide. “You might want to check in with your man that keeps trying to live in the library; he's had his carbuncle summoned and guarding the door the whole time they've been tearing out the walls up there, and it's starting to make the students nervous.”
Louisoix chuckled with a slow headshake. “I'll go talk to him.”
Thancred was getting a sinking suspicion that he might've seen this one before, settling nice and comfortably into a tired stage-smile and acting relaxed while internally there was a litany of swearing and wondering how likely the carbuncle was to recognize him the whole way there. The route up through the library was also too familiar. Thancred noticed a few armed guards that had less obtrusive posts around the floor the door was on, at least three of them with easy line of sight on the door without obviously 'guarding' it, none of which had been there when he'd been up here before; the carbuncle in question was sitting just outside the door, perking up with its ears raised and a tiny, bristly growl at the slightest sign of movement.
It perked up at Louisoix's approach, one ear raised slightly with a headtilt at Thancred, but instead of any threatening moves, it simply yawned, relaxed, and curled up on the floor, head and paws resting on its tails.
One problem passed. Louisoix opened the door with his own set of keys, holding it open just long enough for Thancred to enter.
The place seemed considerably more cramped than when he'd been there before, the bookshelves moved inward away from the walls; the outer plaster of the walls had been stripped away, leaving bare stone etched all over with intricate metal runes that shimmered faintly in the light. The lamps that had been attached to the walls had been moved to temporary stands, and the ceiling was now covered by some kind of device, fine cables and thin rods angled out across it like some kind of mismatched spider-sea urchin hybrid in a web.
He'd called right as to who it was; the Elezen had barely glanced aside as they walked in, attention focused on fine tools and chasing further patterns into the metal inlay. A worktable had been brought in, further adding to the cramped feeling, goldsmithing tools and sheets of metal spread across it alongside alchemical powders and glazes.
Louisoix waited quietly while he found a breaking point in whatever he was adding; Thancred quietly edged to sit on a ledge of one of the bookcases.
Even with the odd workgoggles hiding his eyes, it was hard to miss that the Elezen was less than happy when he turned, giving Louisoix a formal nod.
Louisoix returned it, gesturing to the door. “Are you sure you want your familiar outside the door? If something were to get past the guards, it would be better able to respond in a timely manner to a threat if it were here.”
The Elezen almost answered, then gave the door a long, considering look; he reached up to disconnect something, then picked up a metal-trimmed tome from the worktable; it half-fell open with very little paging, faint shimmers running across it as there was a faintly familiar sort of airless popping sound outside, then the carbuncle appeared in the center of the room in a short burst of pale green light and a stirring of wind.
It hit the ground at the ready, but only took a moment to scan the room, deem that there weren't any threats, and return to curling up comfortably.
Whatever he'd disconnected, he reconnected it as soon as it was settled.
Louisoix was giving a faint, approving nod to whatever it was. “I hadn't known that there was an aetherometer to spare.”
“To spare would be entirely too strong of a phrase; more that, of the myriad uses 'twas needed for, this was deemed most urgent and necessary. There is another under construction to serve as its replacement.” He inclined his head. “I was told to inquire with you as to the details of the theft and how it was accomplished, and how the tomes were recovered.”
There were suddenly about a hundred places Thancred would have rather been.
“Recovery was a matter of luck; one of the Inspectors managed to trip across their location while pursuing a different matter related to our shadowy friend. Under the circumstances, there is no fear that anything within was used; as for how the theft was accomplished, those are details I am yet filling in.” Louisoix was keeping carefully neutral, although Thancred caught edges of the sense there was a private joke, and dearly wished he wasn't the punchline.
The other Elezen thinned his lips, cradling the tome in one hand with the other resting on its cover. “I never fail to be impressed by your capacity for calm, if the means have eluded even you; no amount of running over the details has yielded any answers I could find. All the keys were accounted for, nothing but those two were disturbed, the wards and locks were as if nothing had even happened, and my familiar has ne'er lost a familiar scent so thoroughly before.” A finger tapped the tome, and there was a brief, momentary quirk at the corner of Louisoix's mouth. “This has proven to be a theft most fiendishly clever and subtle, and the context they were discovered in does little to allay my fears.”
“I suspect that you may be overthinking somewhat, although extra alarms and wards against teleportation are a precaution that might prove needed regardless, if an Ascian does choose this as a target.”
The hooded Elezen's expression went even more humorless.
No wonder he'd been so agitated, if he thought the Ascian had been the one responsible for the theft; Thancred almost didn't quite realize he'd made a small gesture for attention until his hand was already moving, but it succeeded too well before he could sit on it, earning him a sharp and expectant look.
“Is it possible for the lock wards to recognize if the stone part of the keys are in unfamiliar hands?”
“'Twould be more time and added complication in their crafting, and recruiting the aid of the goblins, although a closer binding than what now exists may prove another wise precaution against future potentialities; as for this incident, none of the keys were missing.” The fraying patience was reined in well enough to be undertones, at least.
“Do the people with the keys have a hand on them every minute to be sure? A skilled enough pickpocket smart enough to spend time learning schedules and habits could filch one, use it, and return it before the owner noticed it missing.”
The humorless flattening turned into a very brief, quiet grimace, a hand raised over the tome tapping the air, then the hooded Elezen just lowered his head, pinching the bridge of his nose where the goggles crossed it and muttering something quiet, breathless, and in at least a couple languages Thancred didn't recognize at all. While he was distracted, Louisoix did slip into an odd smirk with a small movement of stifling laughter, a lapse of expression that was back to carefully schooled calm before the other Elezen looked up again.
“Urianger, this is Thancred; Thancred, Urianger.” Louisoix gestured between them in introduction.
He could feel the suspicious look he was getting through the tinted lenses, and the faint hint of the hood shifting as Urianger glanced to the carbuncle. The familiar cracked an eyelid and yawned, nestling its face between two of its tails as if there were nothing wrong in the world. Urianger's lips twitched unhappily, but he gave a faint sigh, at least dropping the overly pointed part of studying him. “So you finally did locate our young bard of the Nymian tradition?”
...And it was in favor of a direction that felt like he was missing half the significance.
“And not a moment too soon; he's confirmed Ascian involvement in certain recent affairs, and volunteered to locate it and its mortal followers.”
The moment of relaxation Urianger had lapsed into passed, faint movement from the man's lips as if he were factoring something out before he spoke. “Perhaps too late; it is possible it may have a voidgate yawning open even as we speak.”
There was some things referenced in what he'd been reading, but it was half-formed concepts and complicated mathematics that had passed out of his grasp; he gave the both of them a helpless, questioning look, raising a hand. Urianger noted it with an acknowledging incline, simply continuing.
“E'en without the meddling of an Ascian, the most clumsy of those foolish enough to attempt to contact denizens of the void and manipulate it raw can draw beings through or find great power in the sacrifice of blood and lives, the trauma of a violent death directed towards them leaving enough darkened aether to give such things a swifter foothold; there are handed down accounts of the Shadowless ones granting a guiding hand to better refine and direct such efforts, layering death upon death interwoven with the will of the one cooperating until the result is as an acid, weakening and dissolving the thresholds of reality to create a lasting hole most difficult to seal.” He set the tome down. “The known deaths would not be enough to accomplish such a feat, but the victims have been individuals difficult to keep an accounting of in life, so we must assume there have been others whose remains have escaped location; add to that how loathe they are to show themselves unless they are surprised or feel assured of victory, and I fear its appearance to thine eyes may be a case of the latter.”
He almost said something, but it died a tiny, sickened death; he closed his mouth, nodding and trying not to think about how many people he knew that could disappear that easily, with no sign it was anything other than them relocating or lying low for a while.
They needed to stop it; he closed his eyes, swallowing the ill dread and pushing away the image of the one gutted child's corpse he'd seen. “I can't – when word of the killings started to spread, everyone made themselves scarce – I haven't seen enough of most of the people I know that would be 'not missed' to guess if they were victims or just hiding to try to escape it.” There was the other part he liked less, even, a hand raised for a moment while he drug it out. “...And – the one at the church – I knew him. Not well, but I knew him.” Somehow, the idea of more victims was easier to face than more accomplices.
The room was silent for a few long moments before Urianger broke it, voice just enough to be heard, grave yet tinged with sympathy. “Despair, hopelessness, and fear; they prey upon the suffering, offering false succor. It is fortunate that you escaped its snare.”
“If you can find others to take over some of this work, we will need to prepare for the hunt.” Louisoix motioned to the walls; Urianger nodded.
“There are others capable of this; I will render what support I am able.”
The carbuncle's ear flicked briefly, an eye cracking open under the shimmering fur of its tails.
Louisoix left him at a small restaurant on the campus grounds, tucked in among the larger buildings, after begging off on an unspecified errand and checking that he could find his way back to his room on his own if it went on too late. Ordering half at random left him faced with another meal that was more than he was used to even considering as a regular occurrence, and some of it completely unfamiliar; trying to figure out what was in the sauce at least managed to slow down the habit of eating in a hurry.
He noticed someone approaching the tiny corner table, but didn't quite register who it was until there was a hand on the other chair; his first instinct on seeing Abylghota was still freezing, even with her awkwardly raising a hand in some sort of greeting.
“Oh don't look at me like that; I'm not going to shoot you. The Inspector's kind of sore, but not all of it's the reasons you think.” She shifted her weight uncomfortably. “We're not in a line of work that leaves any room for mistakes.” He swallowed what was in his mouth, setting his fork down; she glanced around the room, shifted again, and then just pulled the chair out to sit; he was still in an awkward pause. “I know I wasn't there for the part where you tried to report things, but I did want to get an apology in; it was hard to not read the whole thing all sketchy. Even as paranoid as he gets, he didn't think you were okay with – things, just that you were panicking and covering for your friend. We see it a lot, people afraid of losing any more than they already have do dumb things.”
He nodded slowly. “That's pretty much how they work, and we all played right into it.” He pushed the food on his plate with a fork.
The silence went more awkward. “I guess we should all be glad the Allseer was around, or it just would've kept running rings around outwitting us. Bloody unfair, some ancient evil picking on a bunch of law officers and street kids.” She leaned her chin on her hand, elbow on the table. “So could you read anything out've what you lifted?”
It was one of the last questions he really expected to be getting, especially not phrased with honest curiosity. “Ah. Well, one of them? It was slow going, the other one I'm not even sure what it was written in.”
“Well, they were listed to us as Allagan and Amdapori, as if half of us would know that if we saw it.”
Well... that was something. “The Amdapori must be the one I didn't recognize. I know a little bit about them but all of it's from the other sides.”
One of the wait staff brought a drink by in a heavy mug, getting a nod in thanks, but only a brief distraction from the conversation. “So …. Find anything useful? Some kind of weakness or anything?”
He slumped with a shrug. “Not really. You're better off asking some of Louisoix's people, they've been studying this for years; the only thing I came up with that might be useful is that there's three or four different languages that call them 'The Shadowless', and I don't know if that's supposed to be literal, metaphorical, or what.”
She had a long, considering and slightly disappointed silence. “Right. Tell everyone to be wary of anyone without a shadow, just in case. Got it.”
“So they haven't had any pointers for any of you in the field?”
“'If it's showing itself, Do Not Engage, it will kill you, we'll handle it'. That's about it. We're just trying to track down the minion types.”
“Any luck so far?” He was pretty sure he knew the answer, but confronting this one too head-on wouldn't get anywhere.
It seemed to hit home, enough for there to be a small, sideways, glance away and a scowl. “Just one so far, caught him killing a priest to try to summon something.”
He gave a faint snort. “He was a rash idiot that picked fights even before the Ascian got to him.”
There was a half beat, and she was suddenly a lot more alert. “You were there?!”
Every single instinct was going back to the “freeze, drop everything, and run” strategy, but after a moment of frustration and hand gestures, she laughed; even if it was still frustrated, off-kilter, and worn through a little on sanity. “Gods, you must've been maybe a few yalms from us there.”
“Well, there is a point there. How good are you at figuring out where people disappear to when they go to ground?”
The laughter died and went back towards bits of frustration and irritation. “...We manage.”, she grumbled.
“I know every bolt-hole, catacomb, abandoned basement, empty tower, maintenance loft, and hiding space on this half of the city almost. Give me a few days and I'll find them, I might need a few things, but I'll find them.”
She ran a finger around the top of the mug. “...If you can actually do it, we've not got a lot to lose. Off the table for now, what're you asking?”
“Same thing Louisoix was lobbying for. If they see you coming, they'll just leave that hiding place and go somewhere else; all they really need is a couple people down on their luck enough to know the good spots and they can keep you running in circles forever. Back off a little so we've got space and can make sure they don't spook on us so we can corner them.”
There was a long moment; she went from studying him, to studying her drink, to downing half of it. “Not my choice to make but I'll see if I can't pull for you a bit. You screw this up or rabbit on us, though, and I'll use your skin for couch cushions.”
“Those are friends of mine dying.”
“There's a lot of folk where that doesn't mean a Hell of a lot.” She sighed. “But if you weren't serious you probably wouldn't have gone breaking into the college like that.”
Summary: Snowballed Headcanon!
Chapter Summary: Awkward times, and getting introduced to Urianger, to whom we again apologize deeply
Warnings: None for this!
“Abylghota!” If they hadn't been dramatically different races, the greeting and hug that interrupted the awkward moment fast would've had most thinking they were blood siblings themselves, in spite of the alchemist barely making it up to the Roegadyn's collarbone. After that embrace, Lavinia stepped back, leaning a little to look around at the rest of the room and the door. “Where's your partner? He's not trying to work without breaks again is he?”
The Roegadyn laughed, mostly managing to bury the tinge of nervousness and the faint almost-glance Thancred's direction. “Nah, he's dead to the world asleep; I managed to talk him into a couple drinks, and I might've had the bartender spike his stronger than what he'd ordered, just to be sure.” She rubbed the back of her head. “Work's been close to literal Hell lately.”
Lavinia gave a look that couldn't decide if it was thoughtfully dubious or worried and somehow made him more nervous. “Dare I even ask?”
Thankfully, Abylghota responded with a sort of flat, weary look and a helpless handwave at Louisoix, a gesture that just tipped it into worry and mild awe of the less pleasant sort. “It's a long story, I'll have to tell you later when we've got a better idea which end's up and which's our arse.” The marksman clapped a hand on the shorter woman's shoulder. “So, how's old anchors-for-brains?”
“Getting better, still a touch hazy and some of the medicines to settle it have him loonier than Gridanian booze; if he were awake right now it wouldn't be so quiet. Nudging him a little wouldn't do any harm at this stage.”
“Well, then -” She stopped, as if remembering something, and turned to Louisoix; Thancred had quietly edged to keep the Elezen between him and them as much as he could without looking like he was trying to hide. “You might want to check in with your man that keeps trying to live in the library; he's had his carbuncle summoned and guarding the door the whole time they've been tearing out the walls up there, and it's starting to make the students nervous.”
Louisoix chuckled with a slow headshake. “I'll go talk to him.”
Thancred was getting a sinking suspicion that he might've seen this one before, settling nice and comfortably into a tired stage-smile and acting relaxed while internally there was a litany of swearing and wondering how likely the carbuncle was to recognize him the whole way there. The route up through the library was also too familiar. Thancred noticed a few armed guards that had less obtrusive posts around the floor the door was on, at least three of them with easy line of sight on the door without obviously 'guarding' it, none of which had been there when he'd been up here before; the carbuncle in question was sitting just outside the door, perking up with its ears raised and a tiny, bristly growl at the slightest sign of movement.
It perked up at Louisoix's approach, one ear raised slightly with a headtilt at Thancred, but instead of any threatening moves, it simply yawned, relaxed, and curled up on the floor, head and paws resting on its tails.
One problem passed. Louisoix opened the door with his own set of keys, holding it open just long enough for Thancred to enter.
The place seemed considerably more cramped than when he'd been there before, the bookshelves moved inward away from the walls; the outer plaster of the walls had been stripped away, leaving bare stone etched all over with intricate metal runes that shimmered faintly in the light. The lamps that had been attached to the walls had been moved to temporary stands, and the ceiling was now covered by some kind of device, fine cables and thin rods angled out across it like some kind of mismatched spider-sea urchin hybrid in a web.
He'd called right as to who it was; the Elezen had barely glanced aside as they walked in, attention focused on fine tools and chasing further patterns into the metal inlay. A worktable had been brought in, further adding to the cramped feeling, goldsmithing tools and sheets of metal spread across it alongside alchemical powders and glazes.
Louisoix waited quietly while he found a breaking point in whatever he was adding; Thancred quietly edged to sit on a ledge of one of the bookcases.
Even with the odd workgoggles hiding his eyes, it was hard to miss that the Elezen was less than happy when he turned, giving Louisoix a formal nod.
Louisoix returned it, gesturing to the door. “Are you sure you want your familiar outside the door? If something were to get past the guards, it would be better able to respond in a timely manner to a threat if it were here.”
The Elezen almost answered, then gave the door a long, considering look; he reached up to disconnect something, then picked up a metal-trimmed tome from the worktable; it half-fell open with very little paging, faint shimmers running across it as there was a faintly familiar sort of airless popping sound outside, then the carbuncle appeared in the center of the room in a short burst of pale green light and a stirring of wind.
It hit the ground at the ready, but only took a moment to scan the room, deem that there weren't any threats, and return to curling up comfortably.
Whatever he'd disconnected, he reconnected it as soon as it was settled.
Louisoix was giving a faint, approving nod to whatever it was. “I hadn't known that there was an aetherometer to spare.”
“To spare would be entirely too strong of a phrase; more that, of the myriad uses 'twas needed for, this was deemed most urgent and necessary. There is another under construction to serve as its replacement.” He inclined his head. “I was told to inquire with you as to the details of the theft and how it was accomplished, and how the tomes were recovered.”
There were suddenly about a hundred places Thancred would have rather been.
“Recovery was a matter of luck; one of the Inspectors managed to trip across their location while pursuing a different matter related to our shadowy friend. Under the circumstances, there is no fear that anything within was used; as for how the theft was accomplished, those are details I am yet filling in.” Louisoix was keeping carefully neutral, although Thancred caught edges of the sense there was a private joke, and dearly wished he wasn't the punchline.
The other Elezen thinned his lips, cradling the tome in one hand with the other resting on its cover. “I never fail to be impressed by your capacity for calm, if the means have eluded even you; no amount of running over the details has yielded any answers I could find. All the keys were accounted for, nothing but those two were disturbed, the wards and locks were as if nothing had even happened, and my familiar has ne'er lost a familiar scent so thoroughly before.” A finger tapped the tome, and there was a brief, momentary quirk at the corner of Louisoix's mouth. “This has proven to be a theft most fiendishly clever and subtle, and the context they were discovered in does little to allay my fears.”
“I suspect that you may be overthinking somewhat, although extra alarms and wards against teleportation are a precaution that might prove needed regardless, if an Ascian does choose this as a target.”
The hooded Elezen's expression went even more humorless.
No wonder he'd been so agitated, if he thought the Ascian had been the one responsible for the theft; Thancred almost didn't quite realize he'd made a small gesture for attention until his hand was already moving, but it succeeded too well before he could sit on it, earning him a sharp and expectant look.
“Is it possible for the lock wards to recognize if the stone part of the keys are in unfamiliar hands?”
“'Twould be more time and added complication in their crafting, and recruiting the aid of the goblins, although a closer binding than what now exists may prove another wise precaution against future potentialities; as for this incident, none of the keys were missing.” The fraying patience was reined in well enough to be undertones, at least.
“Do the people with the keys have a hand on them every minute to be sure? A skilled enough pickpocket smart enough to spend time learning schedules and habits could filch one, use it, and return it before the owner noticed it missing.”
The humorless flattening turned into a very brief, quiet grimace, a hand raised over the tome tapping the air, then the hooded Elezen just lowered his head, pinching the bridge of his nose where the goggles crossed it and muttering something quiet, breathless, and in at least a couple languages Thancred didn't recognize at all. While he was distracted, Louisoix did slip into an odd smirk with a small movement of stifling laughter, a lapse of expression that was back to carefully schooled calm before the other Elezen looked up again.
“Urianger, this is Thancred; Thancred, Urianger.” Louisoix gestured between them in introduction.
He could feel the suspicious look he was getting through the tinted lenses, and the faint hint of the hood shifting as Urianger glanced to the carbuncle. The familiar cracked an eyelid and yawned, nestling its face between two of its tails as if there were nothing wrong in the world. Urianger's lips twitched unhappily, but he gave a faint sigh, at least dropping the overly pointed part of studying him. “So you finally did locate our young bard of the Nymian tradition?”
...And it was in favor of a direction that felt like he was missing half the significance.
“And not a moment too soon; he's confirmed Ascian involvement in certain recent affairs, and volunteered to locate it and its mortal followers.”
The moment of relaxation Urianger had lapsed into passed, faint movement from the man's lips as if he were factoring something out before he spoke. “Perhaps too late; it is possible it may have a voidgate yawning open even as we speak.”
There was some things referenced in what he'd been reading, but it was half-formed concepts and complicated mathematics that had passed out of his grasp; he gave the both of them a helpless, questioning look, raising a hand. Urianger noted it with an acknowledging incline, simply continuing.
“E'en without the meddling of an Ascian, the most clumsy of those foolish enough to attempt to contact denizens of the void and manipulate it raw can draw beings through or find great power in the sacrifice of blood and lives, the trauma of a violent death directed towards them leaving enough darkened aether to give such things a swifter foothold; there are handed down accounts of the Shadowless ones granting a guiding hand to better refine and direct such efforts, layering death upon death interwoven with the will of the one cooperating until the result is as an acid, weakening and dissolving the thresholds of reality to create a lasting hole most difficult to seal.” He set the tome down. “The known deaths would not be enough to accomplish such a feat, but the victims have been individuals difficult to keep an accounting of in life, so we must assume there have been others whose remains have escaped location; add to that how loathe they are to show themselves unless they are surprised or feel assured of victory, and I fear its appearance to thine eyes may be a case of the latter.”
He almost said something, but it died a tiny, sickened death; he closed his mouth, nodding and trying not to think about how many people he knew that could disappear that easily, with no sign it was anything other than them relocating or lying low for a while.
They needed to stop it; he closed his eyes, swallowing the ill dread and pushing away the image of the one gutted child's corpse he'd seen. “I can't – when word of the killings started to spread, everyone made themselves scarce – I haven't seen enough of most of the people I know that would be 'not missed' to guess if they were victims or just hiding to try to escape it.” There was the other part he liked less, even, a hand raised for a moment while he drug it out. “...And – the one at the church – I knew him. Not well, but I knew him.” Somehow, the idea of more victims was easier to face than more accomplices.
The room was silent for a few long moments before Urianger broke it, voice just enough to be heard, grave yet tinged with sympathy. “Despair, hopelessness, and fear; they prey upon the suffering, offering false succor. It is fortunate that you escaped its snare.”
“If you can find others to take over some of this work, we will need to prepare for the hunt.” Louisoix motioned to the walls; Urianger nodded.
“There are others capable of this; I will render what support I am able.”
The carbuncle's ear flicked briefly, an eye cracking open under the shimmering fur of its tails.
Louisoix left him at a small restaurant on the campus grounds, tucked in among the larger buildings, after begging off on an unspecified errand and checking that he could find his way back to his room on his own if it went on too late. Ordering half at random left him faced with another meal that was more than he was used to even considering as a regular occurrence, and some of it completely unfamiliar; trying to figure out what was in the sauce at least managed to slow down the habit of eating in a hurry.
He noticed someone approaching the tiny corner table, but didn't quite register who it was until there was a hand on the other chair; his first instinct on seeing Abylghota was still freezing, even with her awkwardly raising a hand in some sort of greeting.
“Oh don't look at me like that; I'm not going to shoot you. The Inspector's kind of sore, but not all of it's the reasons you think.” She shifted her weight uncomfortably. “We're not in a line of work that leaves any room for mistakes.” He swallowed what was in his mouth, setting his fork down; she glanced around the room, shifted again, and then just pulled the chair out to sit; he was still in an awkward pause. “I know I wasn't there for the part where you tried to report things, but I did want to get an apology in; it was hard to not read the whole thing all sketchy. Even as paranoid as he gets, he didn't think you were okay with – things, just that you were panicking and covering for your friend. We see it a lot, people afraid of losing any more than they already have do dumb things.”
He nodded slowly. “That's pretty much how they work, and we all played right into it.” He pushed the food on his plate with a fork.
The silence went more awkward. “I guess we should all be glad the Allseer was around, or it just would've kept running rings around outwitting us. Bloody unfair, some ancient evil picking on a bunch of law officers and street kids.” She leaned her chin on her hand, elbow on the table. “So could you read anything out've what you lifted?”
It was one of the last questions he really expected to be getting, especially not phrased with honest curiosity. “Ah. Well, one of them? It was slow going, the other one I'm not even sure what it was written in.”
“Well, they were listed to us as Allagan and Amdapori, as if half of us would know that if we saw it.”
Well... that was something. “The Amdapori must be the one I didn't recognize. I know a little bit about them but all of it's from the other sides.”
One of the wait staff brought a drink by in a heavy mug, getting a nod in thanks, but only a brief distraction from the conversation. “So …. Find anything useful? Some kind of weakness or anything?”
He slumped with a shrug. “Not really. You're better off asking some of Louisoix's people, they've been studying this for years; the only thing I came up with that might be useful is that there's three or four different languages that call them 'The Shadowless', and I don't know if that's supposed to be literal, metaphorical, or what.”
She had a long, considering and slightly disappointed silence. “Right. Tell everyone to be wary of anyone without a shadow, just in case. Got it.”
“So they haven't had any pointers for any of you in the field?”
“'If it's showing itself, Do Not Engage, it will kill you, we'll handle it'. That's about it. We're just trying to track down the minion types.”
“Any luck so far?” He was pretty sure he knew the answer, but confronting this one too head-on wouldn't get anywhere.
It seemed to hit home, enough for there to be a small, sideways, glance away and a scowl. “Just one so far, caught him killing a priest to try to summon something.”
He gave a faint snort. “He was a rash idiot that picked fights even before the Ascian got to him.”
There was a half beat, and she was suddenly a lot more alert. “You were there?!”
Every single instinct was going back to the “freeze, drop everything, and run” strategy, but after a moment of frustration and hand gestures, she laughed; even if it was still frustrated, off-kilter, and worn through a little on sanity. “Gods, you must've been maybe a few yalms from us there.”
“Well, there is a point there. How good are you at figuring out where people disappear to when they go to ground?”
The laughter died and went back towards bits of frustration and irritation. “...We manage.”, she grumbled.
“I know every bolt-hole, catacomb, abandoned basement, empty tower, maintenance loft, and hiding space on this half of the city almost. Give me a few days and I'll find them, I might need a few things, but I'll find them.”
She ran a finger around the top of the mug. “...If you can actually do it, we've not got a lot to lose. Off the table for now, what're you asking?”
“Same thing Louisoix was lobbying for. If they see you coming, they'll just leave that hiding place and go somewhere else; all they really need is a couple people down on their luck enough to know the good spots and they can keep you running in circles forever. Back off a little so we've got space and can make sure they don't spook on us so we can corner them.”
There was a long moment; she went from studying him, to studying her drink, to downing half of it. “Not my choice to make but I'll see if I can't pull for you a bit. You screw this up or rabbit on us, though, and I'll use your skin for couch cushions.”
“Those are friends of mine dying.”
“There's a lot of folk where that doesn't mean a Hell of a lot.” She sighed. “But if you weren't serious you probably wouldn't have gone breaking into the college like that.”
