[center][h2]Death Rattle[/h2]

[i]Themerlinhawk[/i] 

Crow, Ralrisk, Megelis, Lady Silver

Day 1, Morning[/center]

Megelis looked down at his PDA as he led his group out into the staging ground. It was a message from Ralrisk. A typically passive aggressive one but it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. Lady Solver had changed the mission lead. It was an ex stygia officer. One of the few others of her kind within the Tower one of Shards decisions in an attempt to make amends with the people who he’d killed by the thousands. At Least that was how Megelis saw it. There was little way for him to really speculate but the wounds of the wars still scarred the land decades after they were over. Perhaps The Master of Stars had done what he’d done for other reasons but they were a step above his pay grade. 

Ralrisk was off to get their new Captain for the mission which meant that he was off to find Kirane. Turning to the others he pointed. “Wait here. I have to go take care of something I will be right back. Also If you call Crow a creep to his face, he Might actually just rip your soul out and feed it to his bird. I've seen him do it before. Its not pretty” It was all bullshit of course but Crow was the kind of person that might surprise him one day by actually doing what he'd just described. Turning he started for the elevators again. 

“Sentinel? Would you bring up my armor? I think the Mercury Mark IV Autogun is an appropriate armament. I'll need the firepower.” 

With that Megelis made his mere moments before Crow and Ayala stepped off their elevator.

[@CollectorOfMyst][@ChickenTeriyaki]

[hr]

Crow held the elevator for Ayala while she stuffed out. “It is. My understanding is that it is unique. Though it certainly reminds me of a spirit lure. It compels spirits across the Veil. Less….nice than its counterparts.” shifting his shoulder Vulture ruffled it's feathers before finally taking it's eyes off Ayala. It was becoming rapidly clear that Ayala was fully talent and little knowledge. It was very unusual given that she was so very talented from what little he actually knew about her. 

At the question about seeing spirits constantly Crow furrowed his brow. It wasn't usual in the slightest but it suggested that she was either unaware or incapable of closing off her spirit sight. That or she was part of the way IN the spirit realm pretty much constantly. Crow had never once encountered someone like that but then again he had seen the recordings of Master Pavaine. Even he had been unsettled by the footage of the Master of Sight raising siege engines and ships, castle ramparts, whole villages. The Avatar had been a master of all the paths and his capacity to raise the corpses of dead buildings and engines of war was legendary. 

The next comment was equally surprising. “Its unusual to see spirits constantly and I've never heard of one completely converting their physical form into a spirit form. Crossing the Veil is mostly an exercise in encasing your form in spirit magic and then moving across.”

[I]she doesn't recognize a Reaper?[/i] 

Crow flicked his eyes to Vulture. [I]”I don't think you really count”[/i]

[I]”Is what she talking about typical for a Veilwalker?”[/i] 

Vulture astutely avoided eyeing Ayala again. [I]It's not impossible.[/i]

[I]”Strange”[/i]

[I]Agreed[/i]

The whole exchange lasted but a few seconds but as it finished they both looked at Ayala. Crow simply volunteered “Those are an unusual set of gifts.” with that he lead Ayala out into the staging ground where the others were already waiting for them. 

[@Lyla]

[hr]


Ralrisk steps carried her down the hallway towards the mess. She had been rerouted on her way to a meeting about some ruins discovered under the city. Not exactly her speed but Lady Silver had told her that she’d changed the lead for the mission to Miriam. It was an odd choice but Miriam had comparable experience to Adela and she was ex stygian. 

Walking in the doors of the mess Ralrisk huffed a sigh. There were already plenty of Knights eating breakfast and she was not in the mood to sift through them. Tapping her PDA she called up her roster and located Miriam on the list. Tapping the name she fired off a simple ping:

[B]Your presence is requested outside the mess. Lady Silver has requested your lead on a mission. I'll brief you when you arrive. Your team is on standby in the tier three staging ground. Wheels up in fourth five minutes. You're being sent to the Narrows.[/b]

Tapping g her PDA one more time Ralrisk stepped back into the hallway to wait. Today was already turning into a mess...little did she know.

[@Rtron]

[hr]

With light steps Calrissa was carried deeper into the Tower. She’d had to reassign Adela. Ralrisk has made a good call in terms of her experience but Lady Silver didn’t want her going back into the Narrows so soon. Best to just keep her here, let her adjust more and let Miriam handle it. Not that Calrissa [i]really[/i] trusted Miriam but, she was predictable. Hopefully the mission went off without a hitch. In the meantime she needed the last of her things.

The first stop after talking with the Clarke children had been a change of clothes. Instead of her usual business clothes she’d switched into something out of an adventure novel from a hundred years ago. The tank top and cargo pants felt appropriate for what she was up to: treasure hunting. Stepping off of the elevator she had hopped on to descend to the Tower’s ground floor Calrissa made a beeline directly for the center of the Tower. After more walking she finally approached a set of heavy double doors. At her approach Sentinel disabled their locks and the might doors swung open. Within the heart and bowels of the Tower were systems and storage for all manner of things. Crossing the floor of the Forge, Lady Calrissa wove in between some of the most sophisticated fabrication equipment in the whole world all of which surrounded the heart of the Forge. It was a Mage furnace of titanic proportions and had served to produce the Tower’s most powerful weapons since its creation. Supposedly it had been the Forge of Westhaven, brought back to life by Thomas Paviane himself. 

Stepping into the elevator on the other side of the Forge Lady Calrissa didn’t bother hitting any buttons for their were none. “Reliquary. Tier Nine, authorization: Mistress of Stars.” The elevator descended swiftly into the depths of the earth below the Tower. Few Knights knew about the network of rooms beneath the Tower. Many of them composed the Tower’s safest places containing relics, artifacts and other things of note. The rest had largely been the purview of Urthar and the Order of Sight during the last Stygian War. Christian had needed a place to confine Urthar’s dangerous experiments. Even then Calrissa had never really plumbed the depths of the Tower’s lower basements, it was probably for the best. At Least for now.

When the elevators doors slid open again Calrissa was confronted by a series of massive circular vault doors which slowly unlocked and opened for her. The idea behind the vault had been that anyone who could get into the Reliquary was going to require the personal attention of one of the Tower’s more powerful inhabitants so the vaults were designed to slow down anyone attempting to get into them. Which was why many of the Artifacts had their own vaults. 

As the final door opened before her Calrissa stepped into a room with a single object sitting on a waist height pedestal. Crossing the room which might actually have enough firepower built in it to harm her, Lady Calrissa reached out and picked up the object. It was a golden disk slightly larger than the center of her palm. A series of round holes marked its surface, taking the disk in one hand Calrissa stuck the fingers of her right hand into the disk twisting it slightly as she did it. 

With the motion the disk shifted and a series of smaller internal disks extended from the center of the original disk. Looking at the series of other gear like rings which now hovered in air above the disk made her head hurt. The way her husband had explained it had also made her head hurt but the gist of it was that the rings were infinitely concentric and the initial outer ring could be used to select any of the infinite inner circles. The reason it had hurt her head was that it seemed to suggest that the way the world understood physics even in this enlightened age was fundamentally flawed as it seemed to suggest that space and matter were on a certain level infinitely divisible. Calrissa did her best not to contemplate the reality warping nature of the object. It was frightening enough that it even existed. And it was just one of six such objects. She couldn’t even begin to fathom how her husband carried such a weapon with him constantly. 

Twisting the disk Calrissa stuck it in the belt she was wearing. Best not to use it until they were on sight. Using the Architect always made Calrissa sick, supposedly if she continued to use it regularly she would build up a resistance to its effects but she wasn’t sure she ever wanted such a thing. 

Shivering Calrissa exited the vault and made her way up to the landing platform where the Siblings had docked their personal craft. In the process she stopped to collect the field deployment unit for Cartographer. This outing was going to be interesting to say the least.

[@Fairess]