“We’ll find it,” Kire stressed. She hoped Ysaryn would be willing to talk to them more about the details, or at least ask her help to vouch for them to her people. Maybe there were others who had a brush with danger like her, or knew somebody who had been taken. Given what the elf had already told her, no doubt there would be many who would fall under the latter. “No matter how secretive they might be, something of that scale is bound to leave traces behind, especially if they’re attempting any sort of blood magic, too.”

She listened to his explanation about Zeke and the likeness, and like Ruli she noted the change in the air, as well as the more decrepit homes the further they went from the center of festivities. “Me?” She raised a brow at him then. “Between the two of us, you might be ahead on the list of people he currently dislikes. If you had made me look like you, he’d probably throw more of a fit.” She felt the chill in the air as they walked, silently berating herself for again forgetting to dress properly for the cooler seaside city. She glanced at her companion, guessing that he was probably having a worse time, being more used to heat. 

The slums into which they had walked reminded Kire that there were, sadly, so many things Amria had in common with this world. She wondered if there were humans who lived here that would mingle with other outcasts like the elves, or if the prejudices extended to the outskirts, too. She nodded when he gestured at the tracks; she would need more to go on to know this was the right direction, but nevertheless she kept her hand on her sword-hilt. As they made their way forward, following the tracks, Kire felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. “We’re going the right way,” she said, looking around them for more signs. The feeling was faint, but it did remind her of the presence she felt in the city the other day.

Following the tracks and the traces she was sensing, they came to a place where even the slums began to thin out. The ground looked like it had been disturbed by a lot of activity recently. “We’re close,” she murmured. Ahead of them, there appeared to be a ramshackle building that looked to be partway through being dismantled. She straightened up, looked to Ruli and nodded.  “Gemini magic,” she growled. The traces were still faint, like it hadn’t been activated for a while, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t any danger present. Rather than walk straight towards the building, Kire paced around it, looking at the ground, their surroundings, trying to find traces of runes like the one she had seen on the Kartaian corpse, or any sign of a trap. She wondered vaguely if her nose would bleed from being so close to a Gemini site, though something was different about the way this particular one felt. Back home, though of course the aura of each Gemini was unique, there would be a similar undercurrent, a same feeling or smell, which had helped her identify that fleeting sensation in Cordon. But now that she was exposed to it longer, the ‘signature’ was slightly different, too. 

[i]Now for the building.[/i] “Hmm.” The closer she stepped towards the building, the more peculiar she felt. She stopped, her eyes on the ground, tapping her foot on it. Something was off about the grounds around the building.