"Where's it located?" Beren asked, though the question was rhetorical. He pulled out an old map they found and laid it carefully over the table, crinkling loudly. Jocasta moved aside the leftovers of the meat pie and stood up, rounding the table and overlooking the map over Beren's large shoulder. 

"How old is this map?" She asked, and he knew why. Much of the Grey Marches were a mystery in detail, even though the rough borders and length of the land was well known. Mountains and roads were well mapped, but the specifics of forests, marshes, or even rough peaks were largely unexplored or were needing to be rediscovered for human knowledge. 

"Twenty one oh nine of the current era. Eighty years old." Beren said, placing a finger on the date at the far bottom of the map. He traced the finger upwards to Iskura, and with Jocasta's help found the general area based on anecdotes of the Morloke's writings to hone in on a small mountain to the west. It was unnamed, but it was closer to one of the other cities known as Demercia. Beren chuckled and shook his head, his thick unkempt mane of hair tickling Jocasta's arm. "I know we spent an afternoon here, but it can't be that easy..."

The bookshelves around them towered like ancient walls, but they weren't made of stone. Nor were they too thick to listen through. Unbeknownst to Beren and Jocasta, a listener pulled away from the hole in the shelf he had been watching through and rushed away, disappearing into the crowd... 

[hr]

[i]Thirty minutes later...[/i] 

The Dre Costan, Oscar Rodelo, gave a bow before a large, mahogany desk nestled in a quaint manor across the city. He had come in through the back as instructed, for such a low-life couldn't be seen fraternizing with the lord or lady Vandenhartd. Even the guards would not have recognized him, and so he had been given secret knowledge of a small entrance behind the gardens. He had been allowed in within minutes of his arrival, and now he knelt before the lady of the house, Janyce Vandenhardt. A plump, lovely redhead. She did not seem pleased to have Oscar in her presence, but her eyes were alight with curiosity as she commanded him to hurry past the formalities. 

"Speak, worm" she ordered, and crossed her legs beneath her frilled dress. 

"I have found the two who made it out of Helmguart. The ones who had delivered the letter to the baron." He started, but she rolled her eyes. 

"Yes, I know cur! That's why you were to follow them-" 

"Your grace, they are the same two who survived the expedition led by the merchant Falkenrath, and they have met the dwarves your husband has kept an eye on. They believe the might have found a lost hold in the mountains west of here." He said, fervently outlining his information. He had rehearsed the small message on his way here, wanting to recount it all in as exact and prudent a manner as possible. The low-life had been in the service of many scum who thought themselves greater than their station. The Lady was the first noble he had been recruited by to act as her runner, and the rewards she had promised were something beyond what he had hoped. 

The woman sat up, staring at him hard. She was a youthfully pretty woman, forty years of age with little to betray the fact save a wrinkle beside her red lips. Oscar had seen her smile as pleasantly as any maid, though he knew just how cruel and grasping she was. Still, he had his fantasies about her. Something any man might imagine when in proximity to such a well-pampered senora. He quaked under her gaze though. 

"How can they be one and the same?" She asked aloud, pondering. 

"I think-" 

"Shut up!" She growled irritably, standing up. The distraction was momentary, however. The woman began to think again, speaking as if no one where there but her. "Could it be coincidence? These two have first hand knowledge of Bedregar's realm, the ire of the Dead Lions, the friendship of Baron Marius, and the potential knowledge of a dwarven treasure..." 

"Shall I leak the information to your husband?" He asked her tentatively. It was a loveless, and in fact hate-filled marriage. They had not shared a bed for years, if Oscar did not miss his guess. He rarely did, he considered himself a womanizer and knowledgable in such things. 

"No, he likely knows part of it already. And that's all I would want him to find out. But I need to get one of them alone. Perhaps both... squeeze them for information. Yes, I'll look through my contacts. Yes, you've done well Oscar." She purred, giving him a smile that showed her perfect white teeth. 

"My reward?" He asked, hope in his eyes. 

"I remember. Those months ago I told you I make you worth more than your weight in gold, and you would be given to the most ethereal woman in the city, and I am a lady of my word." She said, sitting back down and reached under her desk to retrieve a small, brass chest. Oscar perked up, wondering what valuables were inside. Was it pure platinum? Or valdium? He approached the desk, even though she did not invite him to. The noblewoman did not mind, calmly unlatching the chest with a bronze key and turning it around for him to take. He looked at her, and slowly placed his hands upon either side of the lid. Without much caution, he opened it up. 

Nothing. Just a shadow. 

"What?" He had begun to ask, before it died in his lips when the shadow began to swirl. At its center, something glowed like the sun. It hadn't been a shadow, no, it had been an endless abyss, somehow located within the chest. The slow movement of the living darkness had been slow, but it swiftly grew and billowed out of the chest to coalesce before them both into a woman. Or something like a woman. Its skin was a dark red, like the glow within the cracks of igneous rock. Her hair was long and made of flame, and her eyes opened to reveal smoldering orbs like molten coals. 

Oscar screamed, falling onto his back and trying to crawl away. The demon-woman grew and grew until she was nine, no, ten feet tall with her lower legs naught by shadow connected to the confines of the chest. 

"Ifrit consider slaves very valuable." Janyce explained as the dark thing grabbed scrambling Oscar by the leg, and she reached into her bodice to produce a ruby tied around her neck by a silver lace. Oscar screeched and struggled like a hob within the coils of a constrictor, begging Janyce for his life. She just jingled the ruby. "Oh, I can't help you. This ruby only keeps me from being targeted. Don't fret, my dear. She'll keep you nice and warm." 

The Ifrit bent space and time before Janyce as the she-demon was sucked back into the chest, dragging a terrified Oscar along with it. His olive skinned hand grabbed the table desperately, but Janyce just pinched the hand playfully and closed the chest once it let go, the arm disappearing into the pocket dimension within the chest. The room stank of sulphur and burning meat, so she opened the door. The cold air felt nice on her skin, and she crossed her arms as she looked over the center of the city. 

"Now to deal with those other two..."