[center][abbr=Ace Cadet][img]https://fontmeme.com/permalink/190924/544c85ab5c75bc61a4bb5ce40dc0caa6.png[/img][/abbr]
[color=salmon]Word Count: 1774 (+3 exp)[/color]
[color=salmon][u]Level[/u]: [b]9[/b] - [u]Total EXP[/u]: 361/90
[sub][i]Wednesday Morning.[/i][/sub]
[b]Location:[/b] the Frozen Highlands[/color][/center]
As the group continued, following Blazermate getting her unsettling zombie golem thing out of the way, any carcasses that happened close were swiftly put to sword. The walk -as they were back to a walk now, given the layout and danger around the area- was not leisurely in the slightest, but there was at least free time enough to look around and get a sense of where the path might take them. Heismay pointed out those distant flames and left with Roxas to look into them, and Ace pointed out the massive greenhouse that stood behind a tall, thick earthen wall. 

[color=salmon]"Once we swing around that way we should definitely check that out,"[/color] he said. They still needed their secret weapon after all, and so far hadn't spotted any wild grown in the forests they'd traveled through or hunted the reindrix in.

The speakers around the area crackling to life and delivering a message from someone Sandalphon had aptly dubbed the 'mastermind' was a surprise, but the vague threat was not followed up on immediately, so the Seekers were left to keep their guard up even more as they progressed. Ace sighed. Just one more thing to look out for.

He considered going ahead to help clear out the way forward, though Edward's golems were doing a fine job of it - and once Geralt had returned from discovering a survivor among the zoo's ruins, he opted to follow the dreadnought's request to investigate the rather suspiciously healthy looking animal. He could have backed the Witcher up in this, but there was one other thing that the Seekers' leader informed them of. If she thought it important enough to mention, then someone ought to look into it.

[color=salmon]"Strange like dangerous?"[/color] Ace asked her, already preparing to depart from the caravan to check.

Sandalphon tilted her head slightly as her pupils became loading rings for a brief moment. "Indeterminate. It's not a life sign, and what I can read seems low-yield, but one can never be certain." Her pupils narrowed into ovals as she glanced at Ace. "It is most likely magical in origin," she advised him.

[i]Ah.[/i] Of course it was. There was a pause, hesitation clear in the hunter's expression. After a long moment of weighing the pros and cons of investigating, Ace pulled a smile back onto his face. It was perhaps less sure than his usual ones, but it was there all the same.

[color=salmon]"Thanks for the heads up,"[/color] he told Sandalphon. Knowing ahead of time had proven to be really helpful when confronting the mystical, even if it was impossible to truly know what the expect. And maybe he was still feeling a little confident since his experiment with the amulet had gone well, because he followed with, [color=salmon]"I'll chill go check it out just in case. Besides, if I really wanna get over this thing I gotta freeze the opportunity for some easy exposure therapy while I can, right?"[/color]

He stepped to the edge of the emptied river and then slid down the steep embankment, drawing his sword and shield if only to be on the safe side. As the archangel has suggested and Geralt had demonstrated earlier when he doubled back for the wolves, it was a good idea to clear out as many dangers in this area as possible; for the Seekers presently here in case their neglect in ensuring their surroundings were safe led to an ambush, for the allies trailing behind that would have had to contend with whatever they left behind, and for future travelers on the that they could make a little less dangerous. 

The iced over dry river bed didn't look much different from the bottom than it had from above. Though the water way had clearly been carved by human hands, once upon a time if looked that great lengths had been taken to make the river as natural a habitat as possible. The ground was hard packed sand, now frozen completely over and producing a soft crunching noise with every step. Smooth water eroded rocks large and small lay scattered around the basin, along with once-sunken logs that hadn't yet crumbled away from the elements. There were grates in the embankment wall that had probably been camouflaged when the river ran, and likely were part of the mechanism that pushed the water along in the first place. It might have looked nice at some point in time, filled with aquatic life. Now, there was nothing here. 

Like, literally nothing. There were no carved runes or glowing circles, or anything else that indicated to Ace there was some sort of mysterious magic around the area. He wasn't the best at figuring that stuff out in the first place, so he was trusting Sandalphon's senses, but to his eyes all looked clear. The hunter wasn't about to let a job go unfinished though, so he took to looking around a little longer. Only when he stood at the deepest part of the river basin, a relatively wide area compared to the rest of the canal, did something happen. 

Ace's scoutflies reacted first, stirring slightly in their cage and shifting from their green hue to a more subdued, blue-ish one. Then the soft sound of a chime filled Ace's ears, followed immediately by a shimmery flicker around him. Even with the heads up going into the empty river, there was no stopping the swell of anxiety at the sudden magic spell going off, especially when it was accompanied by movement.

The Cadet swung first before anything else, a hard and fast backhanded slash as he twisted around to actually get a look at what had happened. His sword collided with something, briefly solid before it yielded to the blade's edge and all but melted away. The hunter caught a glimpse of soft white wings before it was gone completely. 

[color=salmon]"Huh?"[/color] he said aloud to himself. That couldn't be all, could it? He hadn't felt any hex cast upon him when it died (thankfully), so what was that about? He turned back and spotted a pair of ephemeral butterflies floating off in opposite directions, white but bathed slightly in the blue light still showing through cage affixed to the hunter's coat.

Ace watched them for a moment, trying to puzzle out what their purpose was, if any. They couldn't have been a natural part of the exhibit, assuming the zoo had been normal even after being brought into this world's quilt and it had just degraded over time. As some kind of alarm system they seemed redundant, since this Markiona person already knew the group was here. Still, in the interest of not taking chances Ace raised his slinger at once of the butterflies and fired it. The chain shot out and the claw at the end snatched the insect mid-air, clamping around it and swiftly snapping back to rest in its holster, its capture target snug between the metal claws. Even with the odd situation Ace was elated to see Gemma's tune up had worked out, the speed and accuracy of the slinger increased enough to snatch distant things on the move. Unfortunately, the tool was still built for digging into tough monster hides, rock faces, or catching the hard-shelled backs of his own world's insects - so the clutch claw had actually crushed the butterfly, and this one too faded away before the hunter could get a proper look at it.

[i]One more shot,[/i] he thought, flicking a small lever on the slinger and swapping it over to the net attachment. He wasn't sure if he should be destroying these butterflies or not, but he at least knew he didn't want to leave them alone. He shot the slinger once more, and this time the capture net flew out and closed around the last butterfly before it got too high up. It remained intact as it was pulled back in, and the Cadet gingerly pinched the insect's thorax between his fingers as he drew it out of the net. 

It was large for a butterfly, and it was pretty. Ethereal, even, as it almost looked to made of delicate light. Definitely not natural, but neither was it hostile. It hardly reacted even as Ace turned it over to look at the pale designs on its wings. He considered what to do with it (bring it to someone else that might be able to deduce more about it, maybe?) when he thought he heard another, far off chiming sound. He was reminded that this thing was probably something like the summons of his allies - created from magic. And so, since it wasn't really alive anyway, Ace gave in to the urge to simply crush it in his hand. Best not leave anything to chance. 

He hadn't been expecting an item to form like when crushing a spirit, so when he felt something smooth and heavy come into being in his closed fist a fresh wave of goosebumps formed on his skin. He snapped his hand open, on the verge of just chucking whatever it was, but he was not greeted with anything sinister. Instead, a beautiful opalescent [url=https://i.ibb.co/QFs2bdYD/full-moonstone-of-the-covenant-materials-liesofp-wiki-guide128px-min.png]stone[/url] sat in his palm. 

He took a moment, and a deep breath to quell the last of his nerves, as the scoutflies' blue light faded back to their neutral green. Ace held the sphere up towards the sky, trying to catch any sunlight from behind the clouds. [color=salmon]"Well look at you,"[/color] he said, rolling the stone over between his fingers. It looked like a gem of some sort, the kind that might just slot perfectly into a weapon... or perhaps useful for something else. though the Cadet was still confused about the whole summoned butterfly thing, he couldn't complain when this stone was the result. 

A few moments later after ensuring there was nothing else at the bottom of the river bed, Ace's slinger wrapped around the remains of one of the iron bridges leaning out over the dry canal. He pulled himself back up out of the basin just as Blazermate's zom-ball was rolling over, avoiding the thing entirely as it swayed around the area. Now the old river was being used as a dumping ground apparently, cementing its defunct status. Since the stagecoach's pace had slowed considerably it wasn't long at all before the Cadet caught back up. When he arrived to find Geralt back and flecked with ash and blood, he told the man light-heartedly, [color=salmon]"man, you should have picked the other quest!"[/color]

He showed off his prize to the group, willing to part with it if someone among them could appraise the stone.