[center][h2][b]Ophelia[/b][/h2][/center]

The confounding fog and general sensory assault of the Industrial Zone made fine perceptive work more difficult than Ophelia liked, and it was really only Farren's voice and footsteps that she was able to follow--but she found him quickly enough and moved to check out what he'd found. The skulls of... crows, if she had to guess, though not the mutated kind she'd had the misfortune of coming across in Hemwick. She'd taken enough of them apart to recognise the shape of their skulls, after they'd been brought to the Witches' abode--though she was more used to seeing them bloody and fractured rather than pristinely polished like they were. And engraved onto them, not just here but all across the Industrial Ward it seemed, were runes... though she had no idea what they meant.

"A rune... is it like the one you acquired from Skinner, Farren?" She asked, half musing aloud but with enough inflection to make it clear she was legitimately posing a question.

It certainly didn't look like any of the runes she was familiar with. She knelt down to beckon forth the little ones and fetched the runebrand once more, bringing the projection case up to the Rune to see if she could infer something. When that didn't work she passed the tool back to them and gave them a grateful nod. She cradled her cheek next to the Holy Moonlight Sword, asking if it could offer her any guidance on what the mysterious symbol might be or represent, and its response resonated brightly in her mind:

[i]"It seems to be intended as some manner of ward. Against what it does not know."[/i]

"Hmm... folk superstition, copied from something with real power. Folks would do the same in Hemwick all the time." she shrugged, before turning on her heel to follow the new instructions from Liam and head in that direction. She looked up at the crows and gave them a nod, knowing well just how smart the little creatures were--a little respect offered to them would go a long way, though she regretted she did not have any feed to give them to help them understand her subtle supplication.

Ophelia noticed the clawmarks first, and her slight smile shrank into a thin line across her lips as she pondered how big the beast must have been to damage the stone in such a manner, as well as leave gouges that sunk deeply into the soil. They seemed recent enough, though the lack of beastly sounds had her wondering how recent it could be if they were still hunting this thing--or perhaps if someone had already beaten them to the chase. Perhaps the only reason it had come to this place at all was fleeing a superior foe--though she knew that Dietrich was still high up in Cathedral Ward and Moira was here with them. What could frighten such a beast into fleeing eluded her somewhat, given that she knew the location of the two most powerful mortal Hunters she was familiar with.

There was also a concerning [i]smash[/i] of stone, but Ophelia left Farren to investigate that: he was far more knowledgeable about the kinds of weapons that might cause such a thing, or the various flavours of beast that might be able... Or at least he'd seemed to be, especially with his last message to Victor. It was clear that he had some connection with the workshops, though he was reticent about those details--or perhaps it simply hadn't really come up. She would never profess to know the inside of such an enigmatic figure's mind, and perhaps after the ministration he didn't either. 

She observed the slain creatures ahead with interest, quickly peering over the corpses to try and determine what had killed them specifically. Years of dismembering the corpses hauled to Hemwick had given her something of a keen eye for that sort of thing.

That done, she joined Moira and the others and looked up at the corpse impaled on the statue with equal parts awe and concern.

"Mother Moon above... This isn't the work of another beast, is it? Seems someone's beaten us to our prey, but... I can't fathom who. This is a considerable amount of carnage."