Scrawl Banditta
RPM
esqueleto
xVampire3go
Guardian Angel Haruki
Neziul
Chinami Nadakai
"Liliya Montoya"
@Dezuel@Aqutanama@AtomicNut@MagusDream
As "Liliya" canvassed the entrance to the "Restricted Section" from afar, several problems presented themselves.
Though she obviously hadn't gotten close enough to check, firstly, such a place would surely have some manner of magical security -if not an alarm, silent or otherwise. Secondly, there was more mundane security. After all, the Grand Library was hardly a place that couldn't afford to have a camera system installed, and to not have one pointed at the Restricted Section would be the height of foolishness. There was even plenty chance of such devices being beyond the doorway itself, but for her part, Liliya could only hope that they'd simply considered it more secure to not allow anyone down there at all, no matter the potential benefits.
Thirdly, population. The library was big and rarely not crowded. The odds of going unseen, even with a distraction, were distressingly (or perhaps reassuringly?) low. Even if one got past the library's security and the librarians and guards alike, there was as much a chance as anything that they'd be caught out by -of all things- someone's cell phone. It was easy to forget -in this rather advanced society- that even the average civilian witness could be a grave security threat to any stealth operation.
And worse still, Liliya had every reason to suspect that Reverio had no clue that such threats were to be factored... if he acknowledged their existence at all, entirely focused on the magical half of the equation. He didn't even have a fucking bargain bin burner phone equivalent, for Pete's sake!
Head ducked inconspicuously, as though reading the random book in her hands, Liliya's crimson ears darted through the gaps in the short curtain of her bone-white hair. One camera... two... three... a backup atop the third floor? With the context of that last little bit of cleverness in mind, her more focused searching gaze caught out two more cameras sitting in "deceptive" positions, seemingly placed to look like they were merely guarding a more inconsequential viewpoint.
'Tch'. They aren't pulling as many punches as I'd like.' If it were only one or two, she might could have done this quietly, but this was going to look suspicious as shit from whatever security room this place has. The only silver lining was that she could theoretically at least keep Reverio and her faces out of things.
Her Spirit palmed the handful of pens and pencils she had stealthily swiped when passing through the reception area.
Darla's scream rang out.
Reverio was moving.
'Showtime.'
Her Spirit's invisible arms whipped away from her body and around the corners of her hiding space, the pens and pencils fanned between its curled fingers flickering into unseeable blurs themselves and becoming projectiles of inhuman precision and range.
Crack. Crrrk. Crick.
The backup cameras met a swift fate, lenses pierced dead center one after another, the sound of their demise concealed quite thoroughly beneath the racket Darla and the nutbar creep were making. Though it would perhaps only misdirect for an all too limited time, she had targeted these first to not make it overtly obvious why they were being brought down.
Shhikk. Chaack. Thhrrnk.
Unrelated cameras were targeted next, hopefully further muddying the waters.
KKrrrkk. Shhuurnk. Shlunk.
Finally, the true goal, the cameras most directly standing watch over the Restricted Section, were extinguished.
All of this occurred before Darla's initial accusations could even complete, thoroughly covering (at least in that area) for Reverio's infiltration.
Meanwhile, as the confrontation between far too loud people progressed- And oh, hello there, it was that Pinkie with the ghastly hair. It looked like he really was responsible for the musical zone, the sound of which oh-so-conveniently further muddied the waters of ambient noise pollution. Even despite Reverio's brief slip-up in drawing his sword (it seemed his ally had not seen fit to inform him of her impulsive plan), the sheer spectacle the other idiots were making of themselves, seemed to cover for Reverio shockingly well.
Liliya, for her part, waited until she was certain all eyes were on the confrontation, for the time when the so-called "Maverick" was thoroughly indulging in his transparently obvious lie (Because, really, even if Darla was full of shit, was she supposed to side with the guy accosting random women?), to act. Her Spirit enveloping and enhancing her body to inhuman heights, Liliya moved. With a blurred lunge low to the ground, she hurtled pell-mell over to the restricted entrance in an extended dive roll, the sound of her tumble covered by the clamor.
Such was her hurry, she barely spared the ruined lock more than half a glance, nor the thought of how Reverio had almost trivially broken whatever enchantments must surely have been upon it. Crouched low and out of casual sight, she paused only ever so slightly to listen carefully to the doorway and ensure the footsteps of the intruder within were sufficiently far, before swinging it open as quietly as she could manage and slithering inside beneath doorknob level. Her backpack caught slightly on the doorway, but after a hurried readjustment and shimmy, the door was closed behind her with a sound that seemed very final to her Spirit's enhanced hearing.
This was it. The first step to committing to this absurdity.
Even though she was alone, for integrity's sake, Liliya restrained the scowl that wanted to grow on her impassive face. Just how had her week turned into this?!
A quiet clink echoed off of what she now -and had perhaps already subconsciously- noticed were stone steps, hewn smoothly, like- A smell hit her then, the blast of nostalgia almost rocking her off her feet, as she gazed down the darkened stairwell, lit only by the orange flicker of the pocket lighter now held open in her left hand... and the distant glow of Reverio's power, reflecting off the walls.
Drifting up from below, carried by a breeze only a sense of smell as powerful as her Spirit's could pick up at this distance. Aged stone and wood. Musty parchment and leather.
Almost subconsciously, her right hand traced along the wall. How... long had it been? Five years? Six...? How long since she had last gazed down into the abyss of... of a dungeon, a tomb, a lost repository of relics and knowledge? All of a sudden, she felt... parched, not in a physical sense but in... perhaps a spiritual one. For all the danger. For all the risk. For all that it had ended in tragedy... She missed this, craved this. This had been her entire world for a decade and more. This was...
'You can take the girl out of the adventure... but I guess you can't take the adventure out of the girl. Shame' It was a disquieting thought, to know that she still had some bit of thrill-seeking within her. Such a thing... should not be nurtured. It was surely a threat to her sticking to her noble goal of a peaceful existence.
Shaking her head free of such thoughts, Liliya waited till Reverio's light was out of sight before taking a single step in pursuit, immediately wincing at the sound of her low-heeled pump clacking on the stairwell. She knew it was mostly her brain playing tricks on her, but the sound felt almost impossibly loud to her Spirit's senses, as though she were a naughty child trying to sneak a late-night snack past their sleeping parents.
Wracking her brains, she tried to come up with a solution. She could tip-toe, but that would definitely be unacceptably slower, especially if she wanted to move truly silently. She could forgo her shoes entirely... but that would surely ruin her new socks. And besides, she definitely didn't want to go into whatever she might find below all but barefoot. Her lips downturned with restrained severity. If only there were a way for her to avoid touching the ground entirely. Without her Spirit's greatest power, flight or -better yet- true silence was out of reach...
...Or was it?
What were her assets? Well, nominally: her Spirit. And disregarding its now restricted capacity to alter the world around her, what did her Spirit have for assets?
Great strength and speed: crude but useful, far more often than she'd prefer, but now -where subtlety was needed- was not one of those times. Her limited range of application didn't much mitigate things either.
Enhanced senses: once more, a truly remarkably invaluable tool, but they didn't aid her here in more than choosing her moments carefully.
Which brought her to... the selective tangibility. Honestly, dead useful and hilariously underrated. Admittedly, even she was prone to forgetting to utilize it. It just had so much breadth to its possibilities, but nearly every time she might have thought to put it to work, her ability to alter things with a touch would end up presenting an easier solution... like a crutch, admittedly. It was honestly probably only her dedication to keeping the true nature of her power concealed that had forced her to be as innovative as she had till now. It would have been all too easy to rely on that power for everything if she had any looser scruples.
So... her Spirit could fly. It could carry things while flying with no concern for gravity. As long as the target was not spiritual in nature, it could -in theory- even act as an effectively immovable object against something that would otherwise be far too heavy for it to conventionally lift or otherwise manipulate. That said... Liliya's body was most certainly not such an overtly spiritual object, and even if it were, her weight was trivially within her Spirit's capacity.
Her invisible Spirit, snugly enveloping her body, began to rise several inches off the stairwell.
Liliya's feet left the ground... and stayed.
A thrill of triumph rolled down her spine, a glee rippling through her bones that she couldn't recall feeling in all too long. This feeling... of accomplishment, particularly through innovation, it satisfied her in a deep, abiding way she couldn't quite describe.
'I-! I can fly!' she definitely didn't internally squeak, starry-eyed. Absolutely not.
Right. Left. Up. Down. Her Spirit and body moved in concert with a buttery smooth ease. Strafing came naturally. It was nothing new. All of this... It was just the culmination, the application of a variety of principles that she had oh so casually taken at face value. Everything suddenly had a new dimension. How was it that she'd never thought of this before? In the somewhat cramped space, such was her jubilation that she almost bashed her -admittedly mostly inviolable- head against the ceiling. She clawed at the surge of glee and jubilation, all too reluctantly tempering it down for later.
Excitement and experiments could come after. Right now? She had a job to do.
Suspended half a foot above the stairwell steps, Liliya quietly descended into the darkness, her only company the orange glow of the lighter.
