"I see, you are most powerfully acquainted, Hawk-san," Kraltha says as they come within sight of the 'hospital' several miles onward. "Tell me Hawk-san, are you expected as well? If not I fear this may be where we should part; as if the mistresses of the area are as temperamental as you say it would probably be unwise for you to appear uninvited..." Kraltha asks judiciously.
Shesten walks over, prising the extract token from Key'Lin's hand. "Now, I think we have a meeting with the lords. Get ready to travel." (What did the letter say?)
Dromani(Merkos): "I need to see this for verification." The tallest guard approaches in their armor. Upon further examination, there is no body in the black armor. A living suit of armor that moves oddly mobile despite it's nature and takes the invitation, before examining it. As a faceless armor, it's difficult to gauge what it's reaction is just by looking. But it hands it back to you. "Stay here for a moment." It marches back, to where a couple of other armors are. They seem to possess their own secret language that isn't quite based on words, but they turn their heads to look at you a few times before fixating on each other. Two walk past the entrance and leave, but the empty space is quickly filled in again by five more flooding in. The tall one that appears to be the leader approaches you again. "We're going to need to ask for proof of identification." With all these eyes on you, it seems like one of them is waiting for an excuse to take action. While most of the looks come in front of you, something in your senses can't shake the feeling that you're being watched. By someone or something. Kralthanlaghan(Nemo): The crow man laughs as if you just told a funny joke. "You think Eli is going to be mad at me if I decided to pop in? Well...Atis is someone I'd rather avoid, so I'm not really going to. Though...worst case scenario...Ash owes me a favor. But..still none of this is my business. I'm just the messenger. All I do, is make sure people get what they need and end up going where they need to go." His half grin makes the last part seem like an odd thing to say. Especially since he doesn't seem very interested in this postal job as a rule. He doesn't wait for a reaction however. "With that in mind...I need to get going. You should just about be where you need to be anyway. I'm kind of half tempted to stick around to watch how this plays out....okay, I'm lying. I'm tempted to watch you strut your stuff. But....wouldn't be a good time for it. I'm going have to let you get to where you going and issue a goodbye for now." He takes a fast dive into some dark clouds without waiting for a response. You can track his movements for a bit, but they are fast and not the most important thing to follow. Seeing the castle in the horizon, you are greeted with the sounds of anti air weaponry of magical and mechanical nature buzzing and whirling. Exploring your options, you can see the entrance way in front of you. From your position above, you can see what looks like a man with cat ears talking to the guards in front of the gate. You're too far away to hear what they are talking about, but from the general impression it seems like they are trying to bar him entry for an unknown reason. Shesten(Generic): Taking a look at the missive that the kobold held, it has incredibly neat and formal looking writing. Shensten, Kobold, Squad Leader You have been issued the honor of being summoned to the castle of Archmage Tenebris Princess Kaita , God Lord Krauss You will be allotted a reasonable amount of travel time. Enclosed is a black card for access to the hospital and a recall gem that you may use to reach the castle instantly. You will not be issued these items again. The black card may only be used by you and will be expected to be returned upon completion of your task. The gem can safely transport four at a time and only works once as a security measure. From the office of Grand Knight Zander. Dictated, but not read. The letter is short with almost no explanation of it's purpose or why, but clearly seems to be a critically important one. You never met the Grand Knight who issued it in question, but he seems to know of you. However, that isn't the only thing to think about. The letter clearly stated that there should be two items for use. The gem and a black card. But the black card is nowhere to be found on the dead Kobold's body. He's probably not smart enough to have hid it. At least intentionally. It's also possible that knowing how the empire works, they never really sent it. Maybe to test you. Maybe just to simply make things unnecessarily complicated. Either way, it presents a problem.
Like trumpets in a power drive, Kralthanlaghan heads down for the landing platform in one of those falcon-esque spiral dives pulling up as late as seems feasible to have minimal risk of crashing. "Greetings Lackyehs, I have business with Eli and Ash in the castle beyond. Are you going to bar my way or be sane about this?" She says after she lands and straightens her satchel, smiling a toothsome grin...
"Oh for... someone search this moron's den for a black card." Shesten says. It probably won't be there, but he has to check, because apart from that, he has no idea where it could be. He could wait and hope it will be delivered, but he has no idea how much time he has to get there. Waiting might take too long. He calms himself, thinking strategically. What is the most likely place for it to be?
(I don't think I would just give him the Black Card so easily, but eh) "Somehow I don't think that Madam Ash will appreciate this sort of delay nor do I have time for this sort of chicanery." I mutter mildly irritated. These armor creatures clearly have some sort of intelligence(Such as it is). Otherwise they wouldn't be speak. Hence, I'm simply going to attempt to use my Riddleform ability on them and walk past.
Dromani(Merkos): Shifting forms, is left with them simply standing idly, not being made to react to anything outside of a few basic situations. The minds of them are like falling sand. Only made for the most simple of tasks, they almost fold immediately. They hold no real faces but they seem to carry an expression that this is all purely their idea and they are doing you a favor by moving out of the way. "Verified identification. Cause no trouble." The armors seem no longer dead set on causing you problems, now seeming content to just stand in position and resume their patrols as if you were no longer visible. They don't even seem to acknowledge the dragon like woman who just landed as if it's all beneath notice. The gateway opens, exposing a clear path to the white and almost celestial type bridge to the castle. Nothing tries to stop you from walking past all of them, though you are smart enough to be aware they're is undoubtedly much more dangerous things than living armors probably tracking your movements since you first landed. Other than the occasional fast movement in the corners and shadows along the walls, nothing would seem out of place. However, whatever is focusing on you doesn't seem concerned with preventing you from getting to your destination. Kralthanlaghan(Nemo): Your question is met with the guard armors ignoring your existence and going about their business. That person...or person seems like an odd word seeing it has shifted into a four legged winged creature. You're able to immediately recognize it as a sphinx. Not something that you see every day even among all the kinds of beings in the empire. Whatever it did to their minds seems to have worked inadvertently in your favor, though they don't seem to give the slightest amount of concern to your presence. Shesten(Generic): A couple of your people make the move to search through his belongings and objects. It probably hasn't really been as long as it feels, but it's starting to try your patience when they return and shake their heads having cleaned, and tore out everything he has. They seem to have managed finding everything but the card. Food, some small amounts of gold, cheap weapons, and for whatever reason, a lantern that was stashed into a small hole in the wall. All of this stuffed hidden away, only validates your feelings in keeling him with satisfaction. It did feel like too much to hope for that he would have had it. Thinking about it for a minute, the most obvious thing to you is that it was either lost on delivery or never really sent. If it was lost, it could be anywhere between accidentally dropped in the village or in some ravine halfway through the travel distance. If that's the case, the odds of finding it would be almost zero. If they didn't send it, it could be part of them wanting to see what you will do. If unintentional, it's doubtful that you will ever get them to admit that. To make matters worse, travelling on foot from the outskirts would take days. It might be worse to keep them waiting for too long rather than show up almost immediately but without a card. At least, your squad seems content on doing whatever it is you decide. It's just a question of how much they higher ups will be willing to put up with.
"Well then..." I continue forward towards my destination. I presume instruction on where to go was already provided to me. (I wasn't really planning on having to transform to utilize Riddleform, but I wouldn't complain if that was a limitation of it)
My mistake then. I had thought that was how you had it designed when I read your character sheet. That's my fault.
"Such nice boys: I'll be sure to tell them inside that you're doing a good job." Kraltha says and saunters past following the Sphinx. At the gates proper she makes a small "Ahem." to get his attention. "You have one of the black cards as well, was any reason vouchsafed to you as for this assemblage?" The horned black Draconian skull with lips inquires in her prettiest tones, showing a fair amount of razor edged and pointed pearl white tooth as she speaks.
"Hmm?" I turn my attention towards Kraltha as she clears her throat and eyes her up. Indeed up being the important word as while the young dragon's body was just slightly larger than his own. Her long serpentine neck gives the image of her towering above him somewhat. "My apologies milady. I am afraid that the nature of such a caucus has not been afforded to me. I almost must apologize for not noticing you. It is not typical of me. Truly I must have been engaged in thought. I do not believe that we have had the pleasure of chancing upon each other in the past. My name is Dromani. " I lift my paw and put it over my chest and give her a polite bow before continuing. "I presume from your inference that you too have a Black Card? Perhaps we may accompany each other to our destination. Surely such amity will provide more engaging discussion than those fools at the entrance."
(Search the lantern, just in case the idiot put the card inside it, then search outside in the village in case he dropped it (or threw it away) when he opened the letter, and if no luck - use the gem and hope for the best? I admit I too would have had no idea what to do if that sort of thing had happened to Cera.)
A small trill of laughter escapes the long serpentine throat beneath the black-skull like visage of the young black dragoness. "Hahaha! That t'were not hard to compass good sir! But for myself you may refer to me as Kraltha, more properly Kraltha-Tan, and you are in fact correct that I bear such a card also and will hopefully know when to take it forth and use it for its appointed purpose." The Young dragoness says rapping five times in quick succession on the front gate, using the pass code from the last time she visited some three days ago. (Though only to the Watch-Comander's Office to deliver her team's reports, they were going far deeper than that this time...)
Kralthanlaghan(Nemo) + Dromani(Merkos): As the gate opens and exposes the inner workings of the castle, it's clean. Another way to put it would be completely barren. No sights to set on anyone inside and not even any decorations. Not so much as a candle to keep the interior lit. Both of you having seen the inside of the castle before(At different points in time) this seems odd, given how much the nobles love to spend on themselves and things they don't need. The layout is almost entirely different as well. Where stairs normally would be leading up, there is solid wall and one door that let's ajar, can be peeked into to see no hallway behind it. Only more wall. Looking around, there's no indication of any pathway to actually move upwards or downwards. Shesten(Generic): While trying to determine the next course of action, which is difficult given the circumstances, something hits you on the head. Quite literally. It doesn't really hurt that bad, but is quite sore when the object bounces from the forehead on to the floor. Looking upwards, the ceiling is still perfectly intact and unchanged. It leads to more than a few confused faces from your followers who look at the thing on the floor. It appears to be a vial, with a small note on the label. Take drugs. They solve all your problems. El Aniomn Anyi An Someone (Ooc: I didn't think I was being unreasonably difficult but, I'll just give you a Deus Ex Machina, if you want it, so the rest of things can get going.) Cera(Moonblack) + Carmen(Majus): A shift to the tone of the namely empty waiting area is changed when what looks like a combination of light and air seems to actively gather in the center of it. The mix of the two things seems to create of what looks like an almost human but almost slime like creature that remains mostly transparent. The thing flips back it's long hair(Or what looks like it) as it half shambles to raise itself up right though the lower half of it's body isn't visible, with it's waist ending at the floor. "It seems that your arrival group is being delayed for...reasons that I am not privy to knowing. From what I understand, the good doctor was greatly amused by this to begin with but now feels that pity should be taken on them. Lord Zander seems to be sharing this line of thinking, not having been interested in waiting around. This is however, met with disagreement from Lady Atis and Ash. Lady Atis believes this to be a test of sorts. Miss Ash seems to simply enjoy watching them struggle. However, since they will be part of your mission, you are offered a say in the matter." The slime-like air thing gives a grin from it's androgynous features. "Do you want to make things easy for them because you lack the confidence in your own abilities to do things yourself? Or are you afraid of angering one of your superiors that you're willing to let people on your team die just to protect your own skin?" The thing smiles. Obviously it will be satisfied with any answer you give it. And it will be wrong.
Cera rolls her eyes at the obviously misleading questions. “Neither. I do not doubt my own abilities – but I am also not arrogant enough to think that I posses enough skill, power, and knowledge to handle anything and everything on my own. It's probably the same for the other people that were called here, or else there would have been no need to summon us all.” She pauses briefly. “Speaking of, can you at least tell us who the other people we are waiting for are?” She asks as she goes over what she had just learned. The doctor, Lord Zander and Lady Ash were all names she had heard, even if she had not met the people personally (at least as far as she knew). They were all important people, just like Lady Atis, making her think that this was more important than she had initially thought.
"Well, that answers that question. I guess they just forgot to add it to the letter, so they had to magic it here. Anyway, gather up some supplies. We should be going." Shesten gathers some food for himself, preparing for several day's trek to the hospital. Sure, it would be inconvenient for him and for them, but they'd said he had a reasonable amount of time to travel, and he wanted to bring some support along.
Carmen smiled softly “Heh.” She chuckles highly amused. “Knowing the situation, you manage such a bad interpretation.” She looks at the creature. “Two points.” She raises her fist and straightened her index finger. “First, if the others can't come to the meeting place in a friendly territory under their own strength, what good are they for?” She paused for a moment, shook her head then straightened her middle finger. “Second, in the end, it's inconsequential. As you said yourself, we just have a... 'say' in the matter, which can be, or not be taken into consideration. Which is, as I said – inconsequential. The decision, in the end, will be made by Lord Zender and Lady Ash... according to their whims, not ours.” Carmen smirk widens as her eyes focus on the creature. “Such a bad interpretation of the will, intentions and orders of your masters - you are truly a dull creature.” She finished, smiling wildly, as she mocked the creature...
"Hmm, I see they have redecorated. I do not like it..." I start looking around the barren room; looking for anything odd or off that might suggest a way to continue forward. Meanwhile, I use my empathic abilities to try and touch the minds of anyone who might be farther out to get a hint as to what might be going on. (since my empathic ability is unfocused. It meant that it would also touch Kraltha's mind or anyone else who isn't immune or mentally shielded)
Kraltha is a woman of action and strides forward, she approaches the door and closes it, then painstakingly removes the black card from it's slot in her satchel and presses it to the door. (Kraltha's emotional reading will be forthcoming in a PM...)
