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[center][h2]Siobhan[/h2][/center]

"For..." Ana began, before frowning again and turning to the man. She said something, identifiably in Polish, at great length. It was like she was describing something abstract - but something that the scarred gentleman no doubt recognised by the look in his eyes.

"Yes. Teleportation. Using a portal of sorts." He turned and said to Siobhan directly, in perfect English. "We are the Violet Underground, who protect magicians like yourself. I am here to activate a form of magic that will take you far away to relative safety amongst the rest of our colleagues - in order to do this, I will use a form of magic myself."

He rolled his shoulders with a satisfying pop, then his neck with a skin twitching crack, then his fingers with a chorus of the same.

"Please forgive the esoteric location, these sorts of things necessitate a degree of discretion, and a place of permissible power. I do enjoy the theatrics, but that's not why we're here." He said with a faint, stern smile, as he turned and entered the building with Ana close at his heels.

The vestibule was grand, a spiral staircase gracing each side of the room with an air of dead elegance, the floor made from cracked marble striated thoroughly with peculiar molds and mosses. In sunlight it would have been magnificent, rich with greens and blacks; in darkness it was morbid, and stank of ill memory. Empty frames decorated the hallways, devoid of what must one have been pictures, paintings, and portraits.

Or mirrors.

From upstairs there came a tinkling - like a glass windchime. The man leading them had already started up the left hand staircase.

"My name is Nikolai. Call me Niko." He added as an afterthought.

[@Lady Selune]