Adrianne walked through the burning remnants of the brothel with her staff in hand and her three manipulated fire extinguishers swishing through the air around her, attacking and extinguishing any flames in her path.
There was something unusual about the building that caught the psyker's attention, invisible to anyone who might not have her acute psychic sensitivity.
It was usual for places that gathered strong feelings from its inhabitants to emanate with some kind of psychic aura, and even as it was being reduced to ash and cinder all around her, she could still feel the aura of the brothel still very much alive. Strong desires, hopes and broken dreams. Lust and fear lingering together, covering a dreadful emptiness of the soul itself.
Yet there was something more, something not inherent of the brothel's aura that called out for her. A psychic presence, far more potent than the rest of the aura of the house, a stranger.
"There is something here... I am moving to investigate." Adrianne would report through her com as she entered into another side room, gently pushing away broken furniture and the half naked corpses of the dead as she continued down towards the basement of the burning brothel.
Like a moth to the flame, Adrianne felt drawn to its presence, following an invisible trail down the stairs to the basement of the Inn. Indeed, it was almost as if the stranger called out to her from somewhere, inviting her to come and join it. The fire of the brothel had not spread so much to the basement area of the brothel, which mostly consisted of heavy corridors built by solid concrete. But to cover up the cold interior, velvet curtains and richly embroidered carpets had been placed out across the concrete corridors, alongside ornate furniture and explicit paintings on the walls.
Entering what seemed like an office some sort in the back of the basement, consisting of a large office desk in the middle, alongside various luxury furniture and sofas scattered around as well as including a mini-bar in the corner, Adrianne would quickly notice a corpse lying towards the corner of the room, face down onto the carpet. It was one of the clerks of the brothel, the corpse of a thin, old man adorned in velvet robes.
The presence was strong now.
Walking past the office desk to stand gazing over the corpse, Adrianne could see past the drapery covering the wall in front of the corpse, a glimpse of an open deposit box made out of solid metal. The door was halfway open, and she could see various coins, gems, paper and jewelry lying inside of it, glittering all the way out. It seemed like the clerk had been trying to retrieve something from the deposit box in the office, before one of the rioters had clubbed him in the back of the head, evidenced by a large gathering of blood in the back of the old man's silvery hair.
Yet the presence did not emanate from the safe, nor from the old man. Adrianne's eyes moved away from the dead clerk, and over to his arm lying in front of him, his cold, dead grasp still clutching something in his fist.
Stepping forward and kneeling down next to him, the psyker would reach out and open his hand; revealing an ornate silver medallion the palm of his hand. Adorned with mythic scripture and eldritch symbols, perhaps the most striking feature of the medallion would be a living eye entrenched in the center of the medallion, twitching erratically around.
As she picked up the medallion to hold it in her glove, the eye immediately turned to look directly up at her with an eerie intensity, never blinking or looking away.
The touch of the medallion, even through her glove, felt warm. A tingling sensation emanated from her left hand holding it, a strange sense of arousal flowing through her body from the arcane medallion.
It was now no doubt that this was the presence she had initially felt in the brothel.
"Inquisitor Zhevon, I have found the... " Adrianne spoke through her comm as she rose to her feet, but suddenly paused mid sentence. Images flashed across the face of her mind, a shadowy assailant, followed by a scene of Zhevon falling to the ground at his feet!
" ... Inquisitor Zhevon, watch out!"
Adrianne would suddenly yell in the comm, quickly turning around to rush back out from the office and into the basement corridor!
*
On the outside of the brothel, where Inquisitor Zhevon was briefing the newcomer, Echo Nurian, the fighting between the rioters and arbite line would still be ensuing.
Yet amidst the organized ranks of arbites supporting the shield wall, there would be one arbite enforcer who spent more time looking back from the shield wall and towards the newly arrived party than the rioters right in front of them. As Echo walked up to report to Zhevon, the Inquisitor's back now turned towards the line of arbites, the enforcer decided that the time had come.
Suddenly retreating his shock baton back from the rioters in front of him, he'd instead slip to his side, stunning first the arbite on his right, and then the arbite on his left, causing the two men to immediately slump with painful groans to the ground as the electricity burst through their bodies!
"The line is breaking, reinforce the line!"
Sounded the voice of one supervising arbite officer when he saw the line wall apart, as the rioters began to break through the opening made by the rogue arbite! The rogue arbite was quick to step back as the rioters broke through, dropping his shield and baton to reach down into his fortified vestment to unholster two heavy pistols. The officer looked at him in confusion, before the rogue arbite raised his pistols and fired off a shot, going straight through the less protected lower portion of the officer's helmet, striking right through his neck and exploding in a shower of blood on the other side! As the officer tumbled to the ground, blood gushing from the back and front of his neck, the rogue arbite continued to step forward, this time moving his pistols towards the back of Zhevon!
"Die... " The man muttered behind his arbite helmet as he quickly advanced, both of his guns raised, and behind him; the rioters poured forth through the gap in the line, preventing any of the arbites from stopping their rogue comrade who was now going for the Inquisitor!
Echo Nurian got a clear view past Zhevon's shoulder as the assailant began to mercilessly unload of his dual wielded pistols! A barrage of rapid fire rained against the protective field of Zhevon's rosarius. Most of the shots were stopped, yet the first shot to break through would be striking into the back of Zhevon's right shoulder, the second into the right side of his backpack, and third into his lower thigh!
