Once More Unto the Breach

[Aurin]

"No, Elwes," he stage whispered to the serpent around his shoulders, "you can't eat him."

Aurin cast an apologetic smile at the rathari after Talon looked to him to ask his questions. He wasn't certain Twitch could help him, really. That was, he didn't know what Aurin wanted to know, but he might know a few things that would allow Aurin to use his skills to seek out the answers.

"Twitch, my furry, furry friend. What do you know about the Hound? Secretive, sure. Good or evil...?" His open palms moved up and down as if he were balancing the answers. "Above our pay grade, perhaps, but we need to know more about him. Is he trying to protect us from something or is he trying to unleash the Hellmaw upon us? I don't think your dear old dad would be pleased at that, do you?"

Smarmy, perhaps, but if Talon was stolid, he had to be other than that for this to be a successful interrogation. Certainly, he could start lopping off the tip of his tail, inch by painful inch, but he didn't think Talon would allow it and while he knew how to use pain as a tool, it wasn't his first choice.

"Is he connected to the Siltori? Do you know? Are there members of the Myriad who have had more dealings with him that we could question? Help me out here. I'm looking for reasons not to just take a pleasure cruise to Auris and drop the key into Mount Kaladon." A thought came to him and he grinned. "There's a certain Siltori lady I'd like another shot at anyway... hm..." But he set lascivious thoughts aside for the moment. "Anyway, might just be easier. Then the Hound can go swimming in magma if he wants it."

Though he rather thought it would be destroyed if those fires and the energies of them had been enough to imprison two moritasi.

"Should I just do that?" he asked Talon, in part for theatrics' sake, but also in case the self-proclaimed guardian angel of Kalzasi thought it would be the most expedient way to ensure the safety of his people. "I'd suggest a sea, but there are sea elves. Are there fire elves, too? Living in volcanoes?"

He rather thought he might have heard of them when he visited Solunarium to make sure Arry wasn't a prisoner of his insane family.

[Chronicle]

Once More Unto the Breach

62nd of Frost, 124th Year, A.o.S.

While it seemed that everything Twitch shared had been enough for the Almighty Poobah himself, the extra inquisitiveness on Aurin's behalf led the Rathari to quiver his whiskers a few times. Admittedly, he didn't like the sound of the idea about getting eaten, especially since it was him and his cohorts that had decidedly nabbed Ewles in the first place.

"I... I don't have much to go on, at least, nothing further beyond your initial impression." He admitted with apprehension in his tone, but whether it was due to humility or sheer anxiety from his interrogation remained to be determined. "He didn't seem all that bad when he first gave the contract. Certainly a bit gruff and intimidating, but that's any lonesome merc you meet from the topside."

Beyond that initial impression, the Rat could only raise the cloak around his shoulders with a shrug. "Far as I can tell, his intentions were straightforward before. He wanted some other key inside the vault, so that he could get to the bottom of the Midden. Which... Didn't he say he wanted to exterminate something down there?" Though he posited that much from memory it seemed like the influence on time earlier also influenced Twitch, indicating that his perceptions were stopped as well during the moment Hound warned of another determined to reach the same facility.

"Listen I... I know I don't have much to offer here, but if I can, I'll help you do whatever you feel is right by that key." Twitch then proceeded to offer with a genuinely apologetic look to Aurin. "There's bound to be a few of my colleagues who have had dealings with the Siltori. I can reach out and check with them, then feed you any further information you need from there. Sounds good, yeah?" The Rat opened his claws in offering of a partnership, which hopefully came off as a gesture of good faith on his part. After all, he never quite had the full scope of understanding Aurin's role with the key prior to, and now, the Rathari certainly seemed involved in something far bigger than he initially anticipated.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Beyond the threshold of Talon's very junction, the throes of Slipspace hummed and echoed with vibrance from the aetherial frequencies, signaling the hallmark of a master Traverser that could garner explicit interest from even the subtlest of entities within the Inbetween. One such individual, who had noticed its creation, approached in silence, waiting for the moment of opportunity to spectate from the outside by generating a very slim window in the junction's boundary.

After hearing the conclusion of the meeting between the Rat, the shiny Draegir, and the delicious devil that took place on the other side, a wicked smile parted the dark lips of the Siltori that slowly stalked away from her prey. Turning her back to the Junction domain she marched onward, her eyes alight with amused glee now that she'd witnessed the turn of events.

Before too long, her walk brought her to cross through another threshold, a portal of her own making, as what seemingly appeared to be a Rune of Traversion crackled and sparked with vibrancy upon exiting the Realm of Slipspace itself. Her exit brought her to a very dimly lit area, where the light of lanterns only illuminated the rocky walls of the cavern the Siltori had walked within. There she had been greeted by another elven lady, one with eyes that remained narrowed with passionate vengeance.

"Did he get the key?" Eadra asked with a patience bordered with earnest demand, the other Siltori minding her portal as it closed to a complete shut.

"Unfortunately, no." The response from the other Siltori brought an aggravated growl out of Eadra, a fist clenched as she looked toward a nearby table littered with parchment, coins and dragonshards, and even several different types of maps oriented around Kalzasi and the Astralar Mountain range. "But not to worry..."

Eadra turned to face the Siltori once again, her eyes narrowed on the strange woman whose eyes glowed like liquid amber. "It'll be my turn soon." the Siltori remarked with a drift of her gaze toward the wall, clearly looking beyond the confines of the cavern they were hidden within. "And we're going to have so much fun!" The Siltori added with a sinister grin of malice on her face, elated at the prospect of investigating the subjects she'd watched from beyond the shadows.

"Into the channels, into the shadows."

All Participants

Points: 15 XP, can be used for Traversion (Talon)
Loot: Aurin gets a new contact from the Myriad (Details below)
Injuries: N/A

Comments: Firstly, I apologize that this took me a bit longer to wrap up than expected; for that, I sincerely appreciate the patience you've had in that regard. Overall, this was a very fun and unexpected turn of events for me that was a joy to write, and I am very excited about the stipulations that are now in play with the conclusion of this thread.

Aurin
You've specifically earned a fence/contact from the Myriad through Twitch! He's better at swiping things than he is gathering information, but at the very least, you now have a contact that can serve as a proxy between Aurin and the Thieves Guild in Kalzasi. If you require a specific write-up or just a general overview of deets on him, I will gladly provide that via PM or DM on Discord; whichever you may choose.

Also, stay tuned! There's going to be a follow-up to this thread at a more recent/closer date in our timeline, one that will certainly involve Aurin and a couple of other unexpected individuals.