[center][img]https://images2.imgbox.com/a8/b5/xHNz9NyO_o.png[/img] [color=red]& Friends.[/color][/center] [hr] Ismette went in hard on Captain Vyrachi and his crew and they proved... she'd have liked to say 'useful idiots', but it was far more of the latter than the former. Mostly, the captain spent time regaling her with tales of his many adventures. It was clear that his sole mission was going to be sleeping with her. He wasn't ugly, by any means, but not nearly as fetching as he thought he was. She bided her time and plied him for drinks and what little information she could glean, waiting for the opportunity to slip away and try somewhere else. She wondered what sort of luck poor Trypano was having. Indeed, what the human among yasoi witnessed was... not what she had expected. Hair down in a tangled mess, clothes baggy, height far too tall for a human woman, she avoided questioning as she entered. The gruff man at the door merely held out a hand and barked an order that she pay the fee. A coin found his palm and she was inside the vast backroom of the Mermaid's Knees. It was a drug den, and a prison. In one area were great black chests: man-sized or larger. Chained to the floor, walls, ceiling, and pillars, they rocked and reeled. Unholy noises came from inside: noises that sounded like... it was hard to say with all of the distance and other ambient noise, but it almost sounded like people were in there. As she watched with growing fascination and apprehension, one of the stiller black chests, which seemed to be home only to a gentle, persistent knocking and a muffled voice, was opened by three burly-looking guards. A scrawny man launched himself out of it, cursing and swearing in a language similar to Mycormish. “You could've let mem out an hour ago!" he howled at them. “I'm fine! You can see I'm fine." Their response was partially lost amid the racket of another chest jerking violently, but Trypano could make out something about him being let out too early last time. If she understood correctly, he had bitten someone's ear off. She turned her attention to the other part of the vast, subdivided room. Against the walls and between the pillars were shadowed booths and individuals hunched over tables in groups. The magic that permeated the air was like nothing she had ever felt before save... it reminded her, however, slightly, of the Temporal Magic that Hugo Hunghorasz had employed, actually. There was something different about it, though: something sickeningly... sweet, for lack of a better descriptor. She was just starting to wonder - with the diligence of a scientist's mind - what it was they were doing in those booths, with what may or may not have been a form of Temporal Magic, when she saw her first aberration. The size of a bushel, it was unmistakable. The four yasoi pirates clustered around it bounced up and down in their seats excitedly, chattering amongst themselves in anticipation. Then, as one, they reached for the aberration and... the room seemed to flutter for a moment. Trypano linked. The three women and one man at the booth slumped back in their seats. Two were holding their temples, eyes bugged out, breathing laboured. The lone man's head lolled to the side, a look of contentment on his face as he stared up at the ceiling with a dopey smile and drool dripping from the corner of his mouth. The final member of the quartet, however, was staring straight at the human interloper and, as the Binding mage watched, the yasoi hurled herself forward, screaming something unintelligible but very, very angry. Quietly Trypano had been piecing together the scene before her. It all struck the tone of a drug den, sailors abusing some form of anomalous substance after which they’re locked away during their period of instability. This also held the potential to be what was fueling the rumors of yasoian pirates using magic more commonly than other crews. Someone was distributing them a dangerous substance of unclear stability. This was worthy of investigation. Her eyes fixed themselves on the quartet of pirates sitting around this unidentified substance. Whatever happened in the juncture of seconds between her looking at the substance and it suddenly being consumed it seemed to escape her. Due to its link to temporal magic it was entirely possible it simply blinked out of this world into an unknown space or even time. Even more fascinating was the physiological effects that were imposed upon them. Despite having been standing within view of this it seemed she had been outside of its effects at the time as she felt the same as before… Or, at least she believed she did. She made a mental note to re-evaluate her physical and chemical status shortly after this. She carefully watched the dilation of their eyes, their rate of breathing, the coloration changes of their skin, the fluctuations of mana in their system, just any and all alterations to their biological systems she could pick up on. Before she could form a plan of action moving forward one of the yasoi exposed to this substance suddenly peaked in aggression, lunging for her. For the most part Trypano seemed oddly unphased by the sudden bout of violence. There was a momentary start from her as she was pulled from her train of thought by the unintelligible screaming but there was little to any shock on her porcelain mask of a face. Rather, in a measured motion she reached out and caught the woman by the throat as though she were snatching a bird out of the air. There was an only slightly audible breath of exertion as she hoisted the aggressor up by their neck. Her grip was firm but not crushing as her intent wasn’t to strangle them but to halt them. She cast a quick glance down at her hands to make sure their belt wasn’t sporting a dagger or blade of some variety as that could quickly complicate things. She turned her gaze over to the aggressor’s hands, watching for latent energy in case her attacker attempted to use magic. Despite the overall threat to her life however this situation largely bothered her only in that it was a distraction from this potential discovery. [color=crimson]“Have a spare place to put this one?”[/color] She asked aloud, speaking indirectly to the guards she passed while keeping her focus on who she was holding and just assuming they were listening. Trypano managed to get a guard's attention. He turned and made noises of acknowledgement, but then she was far from alone with her captive. Two of the woman’s friends were also running in her direction, shouting both at her and the guards in a language that seemed… related to Mycormish but distinctly different and difficult to grasp. She made out the odd broken word: something about understand, something about control, and something about not taking or absorbing. They were holding their hands out and gesturing wildly as Trypano’s attacker struggled. From the other side, the guard replied in that same tongue, his voice gruff and unhappy. It seemed the situation grew a little hectic. Not good. Trypano took a moment as she processed what little she could make out of their language before closing her eyes briefly and shoving the woman in her grip back into her two friends. Looking back over to gauge the reaction of the guards and then back over to the three she kept her chin tall and continued to stride forward with an air of confidence, as though she were untouchable. With a light [color=crimson]“Hmph”[/color] she strode past and continued on her business with the hopes that this was a sufficient defusal of the situation. She hoped, mostly for their sakes, that they left well enough alone. She was both not so fortunate and fortunate at the same time. The aberration-mad woman bolted at Trypano again, only to be restrained by her friends. A pair of guards arrived to haul her away, kicking and screaming, towards one of those black chests. Meanwhile, a third placed himself in her way. “What are you doing here?” he demanded in heavily accented Avincian. His face and bearing suggested implacability, though he didn’t seem to be drawing any sort of energy. Alas, attention had been drawn to her. Unfortunate, truly. While she had put the attacker’s incident behind her it seemed they had outed her as an outsider, or so it seemed. Still, the person before her didn’t seem to be drawing upon energy which either meant they didn’t expect much conflict or that this guard didn’t have the capacity to cast. Made sense not to have the guards keeping track of this magic-boosting substance also addicted to it. Now, Trypano was no master of espionage, far from it really. What she was good at however was thinking, both in depth and on her feet. She wasn’t afraid to try throwing ideas at the wall either. Considering she was in a den full of people with mild magical potential she figured light usage of magic wouldn’t register strongly to others looking in on the site. With that and the notion that the guard before her wouldn’t pick up on it she let slip a slow closed mouth smile, buying a few seconds while she gently ran her own tongue down her teeth, elongating the enamel of the teeth upon the crown until they were finely pointed, each tooth now longer and sharp like the canines. The idea was a simple one. If she couldn’t blend in as well pretending to be like them then she would pretend to be something else. Something… Different. She wasn’t going to lie but she wasn’t going to meet their expectations either. It was time to change the dynamic. [color=crimson]“Really? Breaking out the tongue of intelligentsia already?”[/color] She answered back in Mycormish, reaching up and giving an elegant flip of her hair. [color=crimson]“I might know my magic but I’m a pirate first. In with my crew, wherever they crawled off to.”[/color] She casually leaned over against one of the dividers for the various booths whilst she spoke, changing back over to Avincian since the guard decided to drop into conversation with it. [color=crimson]“I’m a mana aficionado you see. It’s fascinating, truly, the influence goods imported from alternate timelines can have on those native to a separate timeline. I’m quite impressed your provider managed to talk so many into becoming guinea pigs for a test of this scale… Or were you not aware?”[/color] It was in major part educated guessing and pure conjecture her argument. Her plan relied heavily on this grunt knowing less about the proper origins of this unique magic substance they were abusing. It was little more than a loosely fitting theory that the stuff that brought about this jump in their magical capacity had origins in alternate timelines. She understood little on the subject of alternate timelines themselves outside of the conceptual basis surrounding them. Time, after all, was a fiendishly complex field of study and one not presently available to her as even she was not counted amongst the elite privileged to study such subjects. With her question left hanging she gave a sharp smile, the edges of her teeth peeking out from the slight gap of her mouth as it gradually receded back to a close. “Yeeeaaah nah, missy,” said the guard, shaking his head. “Just ‘cause I break heads for a living doesn’t mean I’m stupid.” He crossed his arms and she could feel a cautionary buildup in energy around him. A couple of lights dimmed, addicts moved sluggishly or groaned, and there was a chill in the air. A crate of… something unknown dematerialized. It was evident from the speed, variety, and ease of his drawing that this man was strong indeed. Perhaps he wasn’t quite at her level, but he was close. “I dunno what your game here is, but I’m gonna have to ask you to leave.” A couple of other goons began moving subtly in the pair’s direction. However, before anything more could happen, a lanky yasoi woman hurried up from the direction of the door. “Gentlemen, [i]gentlemen,[/i]” she crooned in Mycormish. “Let’s not do anything rash, shall we?” She inserted herself into the guard’s and Trypano’s immediate space, shooting the latter a flicker of a warning look. “I had to bring my human friend with me since we’re the only women in our crew. Wouldn’t want to leave her alone out there, much as she can handle herself.” She flashed a smirk. “Besides, just look at her: the fine specimen! You’re telling me there isn’t yasoi blood in there somewhere?” Ismette shook her head lightly. “She’s just the curious sort. No harm, no foul.” Three goons had gathered. A handful of the apparent drug addicts were staring out from their booths a bit less blankly than usual. “She is sticking her big human nose in directions it shouldn't go,” growled the lead guard. ‘Yes, yes,” Ismette admitted, “but what has she really seen aside from a few addicts? We have our own here, just like everyone else.” A couple of gold coins appeared in her palms and she smiled appeasingly. Her blouse was unbuttoned and she smelled of a perfume that she hadn’t before. “This is something you can forget about now,” she said, reaching out to place the coins in each of the guard’s hands, “and so will we. My adventurous friend agrees with me. Right?” Trypano could feel it, then: chemical magic so subtle that someone with less expertise than her would’ve missed it entirely. Ismette was stimulating all of the right receptors here in service of provoking the desired response. Sometimes she gave others more credit than they deserved. They held magic yet they understood so little. It did little to humanize them in her eyes. With so basic a nature was it really so strange to see them not as people but the flesh, bone, strings and nerves which keep them moving? [color=crimson]“Sometimes I wonder why I bother.”[/color] She announced, sighing deeply with a frown, the first genuine expression of hers this whole trip. All this work keeping up a mask to try and slip in and now she was expected to leave completely empty handed. She wasn’t surprised given how she was neither Yasoian nor terribly worldly but this barrier between her and a genuine anomaly was most vexing. Every fiber inside her wanted to reach and extend the glass nails at her fingertips through each of their throats but at the same time her mind swam with all the ways this situation could go wrong. Their victory was not guaranteed and she was not well versed in direct combat. More than anything she wasn’t about to let her research end with her at the hands of some gods damned pirates. The only thing to cool the sting of this racist refusal was the intrigue born of Ismette’s talented use of chemical magic. As someone who’s spent nearly every day of her life studying biological functions the use of chemistry to influence the state of these pirate’s moods wasn’t particularly special. What was surprising was how little movement or visible usage of many she employed. She’d contemplated the arts of free casting, casting without overt motions or a foci before but seeing it in action she definitely felt impressed with Ismettes skill in the field. It wouldn’t be bad to find out how she does that sometime. Regardless, with that being said she and (presumably) Ismette left the establishment unimpeded by the guards. Still, Trypano wasn’t one to let good opportunities go to waste. Her red eyes scoured their surroundings to see if there was a yasoian anomaly-addict loitering about in the many alleys of the dark open streets. A sample was a sample after all, even if it had to come from the blood of a Yasoian that had recently been exposed to this anomalous material. She was already using her binding to fabricate a steel framed glass syringe, sealing the tip and drawing away the gasses within to create a natural vacuum in place of an ordinary plunger. Without rubbers or plastics the kinds of syringes she was familiar with were veritably primitive compared to this elegant creation of hers, a mage's solution to make up where society falls short. “I thought you were going to do something rash,” Ismette admitted. “Thank Dami you didn’t.” She shoved her hands in her pockets as she walked. “My people have… changed,” she sighed, “and very much not for the better.” She glanced up at the moons overhead, two of them close to setting. “Sorry if I said anything bad, by the way. Nothing meant. All in the service of getting us out of there with our limbs still attached.” A silence lingered for a moment. “We’ve always resented humans, even in the old days: how there are just so many of you, how you look at us as oddities, how you used to hunt us down for samples of blood and tears as if they were tonics to cure your stupid illnesses when the true illness was one of the soul.” She shook her head and tamped down on a subtly rising voice. “But now it is us who have such an illness. This newfound secrecy of ours is… not like us. I can read the old texts and hear the old stories and piece it together.” She turned to Trypano, always surprised at having to look upwards, however slightly, and searched for her eyes. “We are addicts, almost all of us. I was too. We have always used temporal magic. Maybe you felt it in there: yasoi magic, thick in the air! Ours is the art of drawing all as one and casting all as one. Gifts of time and space were a part of that, in the past, in a dozen subtle ways, and they served us well.” The ramshackle town was a dimly lit place at night, the wild forest encroaching at its edges, hazy silhouettes coming and going like loud ghosts, inns, taverns, and shops occasional oases of light in the darkness. “But then humans discovered Temporal magic. They didn’t hold back like we did. They tore freely from the canvas of space and time and they left holes in it.” A small group of sailors staggered past, somewhere between arguing and singing and the two women paused to watch them. “You must understand something about my people: we look like you, but we are not like you. We are… natural addicts, curious to a… maladaptive degree, and aberrations -” She furrowed her brow for a moment “-the taste of them is so sweet, so full and heady. You get little snippets of another time and place as you absorb them: a peek into other lives.” Ismette blinked. “Did you know that they’re always displaced from their origin?” she asked-but-not-really. “Think about it: you never see one pop up right beside where temporal magic is used.” She shrugged. “I wanna stop it, of course, it’s ruining us - utterly - but I’ve no idea how and now is not the time for that crusade.” [color=crimson]“The issue with our people is that they make no effort to try and further their understanding of what it is they have. They’ve taken things and simply jammed them into themselves in order to see if it will suddenly fix all their problems. For all the refinements and intricacies we’ve developed in mastering the fields of magic our treatments for our bodies largely boils down to consuming the right materials or cutting out the ill parts and letting our biology handle the rest.”[/color] Whilst speaking as they walked Trypano was straightening out her costume, correcting it for a more standard approach as they gradually left their district towards the more general regions of the island. [color=crimson]“Worst yet is that we all depend on Mana yet so little remains understood about them. A fundamental building block of all magic and yet all that has been explored of them are general guidelines and trends in how they behave or respond. It’s no surprise however that such an important fundamental understanding would fall by the wayside.”[/color] Trypano returned her gaze to the way forward, searching within the shadows and keeping an eye out for potential ambushes that could lay in wait for two women waltzing about an island of criminals. [color=crimson]“Human or Yasoi, all are prey to the obsession with the things we build. Friendships, rivalries, communities, societies, people can become absorbed with thinking about these things yet when the dust settles none of it truly matters. A sparrow will never care about the schemes of The Doge of Revidia. An otter will live it’s entire life without ever knowing the tensions growing between Perrence and Revidia. For all the concern people make of events that we’d be made to believe will change the world it never truly changes, just the details. Time and time again…”[/color] With her eyes scanning for trouble as they made their way forward she definitely recalled how little time was spent discussing where they’d meet up after gathering info. She figured they’d probably end up making their way back to the point where they started but without any noteworthy landmarks to navigate back to that’d make the task just that much more difficult. Failing that, she figured visiting the other inns and seeing how each of the other sub-groups were doing would be the natural progression provided the others hadn’t left already and gotten lost somewhere on the island. Or worse.