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[indent][indent][indent][hr]Alex flipped through his own notes with a quiet sort of shame that adults had to keep to themselves. Seele's own discoveries and strategies had revealed quite a few spots in his ideas, and he found himself coming to terms with a pang of self-consciousness that seemed out of place for a grown-up. Ironically, one of his primary motivations had been to conduct research in a way that avoided any sort of tunnel vision or incomplete conclusions, and now he'd realized he was headed for a similar outcome if nothing were to change. He had been too focused on the human element rather than the logistics involved in travel routes and locations. His former guild had chastised him for that often. He was a people person who preferred talking it out in contrast to the more pen and paper approach his brother and the rest had favored. 

[color=#87c735]"Still good."[/color] He muttered, updating his notes with Seele's findings. [color=#87c735]"We can... still do my thingy. Good to have a lot of perspectives."[/color] He could combine them too. Interviews conducted with an emphasis on the shady hotspots, possible witnesses that didn't show up in registries but inhabited the same areas as the disappeared, there was a lot of information to play with in front of him, and a lot of good moves to make. 

A disagreement had sparked at some point, one which only escalated and later advanced outside. It worried him, but so did the mission at hand. The two would duke it out, the pain would register, and then they'd forget about it. Guys did that all the time. Alex wasn't thrilled at the prospect of using Seele like fishing bait, but it was the fast and punchy thing to do, and it seemed to him that they were already late to the trail. Their shouting eventually became lost within the noise of the tavern, and he went back to muttering to his notes. 

[color=#87c735]"We can do it."[/color] He bit his tongue as he underlined a particularly confusing passage. The fighters would fight, the talkers would talk, the awkward ranger would figure something out within his  labyrinth of scribbles. 

Whoever was orchestrating this mess had a particular interest in wayfarers that had a harder time fighting back, to summarize their findings. In other words, they didn't [i]want[/i] someone fighting back. That was a bad outcome for them, a condition an all-powerful force wouldn't be sporting. It was what galvanized Alex the most. He knew if you wanted to beat up a rogue or stealthy guy in a videogame, you wanted to take them on directly, where they're at their weakest. With the element of surprise propelling a head-on strike, he was confident things would be in their favor. They also had, for a lack of a better term that didn't sound psychopathic, a second shot. Artemis was fine with being goat in a dinosaur enclosure number two if things got to that point and Seele hadn't died. He brushed a stray hair back. He'd be number three, he silently decided, if he were able to find a way to pass off as a support character. 

[color=#87c735]"Everyone's gonna be fine. We've been holding on, we can really do it."[/color][/indent][/indent][/indent]