Episode 76

Aristespha, Bach, Cideeda, Dretphi, and Sotalia stand around the humvee in the small parking lot in front of a thematically aged wooden building. They all collectively study the many questionable facets of the kitschy styling towards a classic inn. Beneath the thin outer facade, hints of modern design peek through, revealing the tourist attraction intentions. A minute of silent analysis later, Sotalia lifts a critical eyebrow above her sunglasses and glances over to Aristespha, slightly curling her upper lip. "So... How much was this place a night?"

Quickly flipping through a few screens on her aetherphone, Aristespha presents the display towards Sotalia and rolls her violet eyes under the shade of her floppy hat. "Economical enough."

Sotalia lowers her sunglasses, reads the modest pricing on the device, and shrugs her shoulders, returning her attention to the themed structure. "Okay. Fair enough. Guess I'll tolerate it for that price."

Twisting his mouth, Bach releases an unenthusiastic sigh, mustering up a smirk. "Yeah. Damn. I think Goff's place has really broken the scale I judge this stuff by."

Cideeda crosses her arms, tapping her clawed fingers on her arms, and snorts in agreement. "Gods, yes. Was just thinking the same thing."

She waves a hand towards the structure and smirks. "Admittedly, it's not THAT bad. Just geared for a different crowd than us. I know a few reenactment geeks that would LOVE to stay the weekend in a place like this."

Bach smiles slightly, putting his hands in his pockets, perks a humored brow, and chuckles. "And what, get their character sheets out and start rolling the dice?"

Cideeda glances up, barely contains her grin, and rolls her emerald green eyes with a wag of her tail. "OH. Please. THAT is NOT dedicated enough. They'd be wearing the outfits and speaking old dialects..."

She glances off to the side with a tilt of head. "Kind of fun, occasionally..."

Dretphi slowly pivots around, lifts her hand, shading her steely gray eyes, and scans the scenery along the riverfront. "It does have a nice location. Pleasant view."

The wind blows across the parking lot, ruffling clothing and hair. The team shifts their attention over to the forested opposite bank. They quietly watch the water flow warp the reflective surface of the river. Mixing with the scenic beauty of the ambient natural background sounds, the distant changes of the green horizon and blue sky mirror fluidly upon the open waters. Sotalia spots a sandy lot within a park nearby and cracks a reserved smile with a sway of her hips. "Hopefully, we'll get this job handled soon enough. Gods, I wouldn't mind a day of sunbathing with a few drinks."

Nodding with a sly smirk, Aristespha reveals her aetherphone display to Sotalia and motions towards a direction. "Looks like there are a few promising establishments along the bank."

The large wooden double doors open, and a middle aged woman steps out with a customer service smile. "Welcome to The Ark Inn! I see that you've already discovered the wonderful view our fine establishment offers, AND that your room overlooks. My name is Katherine."

Aristespha spins around, steps forwards towards Katherine, and greets her. "I am Aristespha. I believe we talked on the phone."

Katherine nods a confirmation, perks up the grin on her tan face, and motions the group towards the entrance. "If you'd like, allow me to show you around and help get you settled in."

The team quickly acknowledges between each other and starts to retrieve their luggage from the humvee. With an assuring tone, Katherine waves for the team's attention and proposes. "Oh, if you want I can have your belongings brought up for you. Please, allow me to spare you all that trouble."

Aristespha glances over to Bach, Cideeda, Dretphi, and Sotalia, gauging the receptiveness, and nods to Katherine with an appreciative smile. "That would certainly be nice."

Promptly pivoting around, Katherine narrows her stare towards the open doors and sternly signals two figures just within the doorway. A teenage girl lugs out a luggage cart, and a teenage boy pushes a heavy duty hand truck. Katherine resumes her customer service smile, nods towards both teenagers, and introduces them. "This is my daughter, Kristine, and my son, Brennon. They're quite helpful around here, and will be happy to ferry your belongings to your room."

Both lanky, awkward teenagers struggle to project serviceable smiles in stark contrast to thinly veiled feelings beneath, hints of adolescent contempt for their current existence slipping through the facade. Aristespha, Bach, Cideeda, Dretphi, and Sotalia unload their baggage onto both cart and truck. Minutes of unloading later, Cideeda locks up the humvee and rejoins the group slowly migrating inside the establishment. Both Kristine and Brennon strain against the sheer mass, slowly moving their carriers. Brennon checks for mother and customers and whispers over to Kristine. "The fuck did these people bring? Rocks? Good fucking gods..."

Glancing around behind her, Kristine drags her cart along, returning her gaze back towards Brennon. "Gods. I don't know. That half-emin woman's pouch belt is clanking around, and the fvalian dropped a case holding something heavy."

With a hard shove over a crack in the pavement, Brennon nods, furrowing a curious brow towards his sister. "Did you see that sword around the evuukian's waist? That thing actually looks real."

Inside The Ark Inn, Katherine recites a well rehearsed explanation of the establishment, motioning to the internal architecture. "The Ark Inn focuses on providing a focused experience for our guests. The adventuring party suite is our largest suite with plenty of beds, a large bathroom, and a dedicated conference area. It also has the best view of the riverfront and beautiful views of both sunrises and sunsets."

The congregation follows Katherine to the base of a staircase where a middle aged man stands. Katherine smiles brightly and directs the group's attention to the man. "This is my wonderful husband, Johnathan. He'll be happy to show you up to your room and make sure it is to your approval. I must handle some business for now. Hope to see you tonight in the common room!"

Nodding his head of brown, graying hair, Johnathan respectfully directs the team and starts up the stairs. "Follow me."

Climbing up the staircase, the gathering arrives at the middle door of a long hallway, and Johnathan opens the door. He leads Aristespha, Bach, Cideeda, Dretphi, and Sotalia inside and presents a modest room with quality beds and decent accommodations, a natural material theme edging on rustic. "Please check over everything, and let me know if there's anything you all need."

From the apron around his waist, he retrieves a number of pamphlets and hands them to Aristespha with an encouraging tone. "Now, while we don't do a full dinner service, we have worked out agreements with a few good places nearby. They all deliver here, and we'll even take it up to your room for you. But, you are more than welcome to come down to the dining area, where the bar will be open tonight."

Nodding appreciatively, Aristespha passes the various menus to the rest of the group for review. Seconds later, muffled sounds of quiet cursing peak out of the background. Kristine's mumbling voice drifts barely through the door. "That old elevator sounds worse everyday."

Brennon's grumbles faintly rise out from the hallway. "Gods... It wants to die. But, we just won't let it."

The sounds of luggage cart and hand truck stop just outside the room. Johnathan maintains a calm exterior, eyeing the teenagers in the hallway. Kristine walks into the room with a cloak on a hanger in one hand and a belt of pouches in the other. Feeling out of the significant heft in each, she awaits instruction, standing in front of Sotalia. "Um, where would you like these, ma'am?"

Sotalia directs the girl towards a bed. "Oh. Just on there for now. Thank you."

Laying the garment and accessory on the bed, Kristine pauses in thought a moment and politely inquires. "Uh... If you don't mind me asking, is there anything special about these? They're heavy."

Within an intrigued smile, Sotalia pries open the snap on a pouch flap with her long, thick, black nails, and slides out a stoppered tube of faintly glowing liquid. "Well, it is loaded with a variety of potions right now, since we're traveling. Usually pair it down before we go out."

With an uncertain expression on his tan face, Brennon arrives into the room carefully carrying Bach's helmet and presents it to Bach cautiously with both hands. "Hey, um... Where would you like this, sir?"

Noticing the odd twist to the teenage boy's face, Bach pauses in thought and chuckles apologetically. "Oh. Yeah. Sorry, I didn't warn you. That helmet has protective enchantment on it. So, it makes it feel weird, especially if you aren't expecting it."

He hooks up his hand into the helmet, flicks a finger onto the surface, triggering the faint, fading golden barrier, and shrugs his shoulders. With blank acknowledgement, Brennon and Kristine depart to the hallway. Both pick up more luggage and exchange glances in an unspoken conversion of excitement out of sight of everyone else.

---

Sitting around a large dining table in the common area of the inn, Aristespha, Bach, Cideeda, Dretphi, and Sotalia pick through the different plates filled with food from several kinds of containers, different delivery bags off to the side. Johnathan arrives next to the table between Aristespha and Sotalia and places down fanciful alcoholic beverages next to them. "It's been awhile, but I think I remembered all the steps for these. And, thankfully, I had all the right ingredients, too."

Aristespha and Sotalia eagerly sweep up their respective drinks into their hands and quickly sample them. Moments of deliberation later, they give satisfied nods to Johnathan. Sotalia smirks slyly, tosses back her fiery orange, wavy hair, and chuckles to herself. "Just perfect. Admittedly, if I have more than one of these, I'm probably not going to tell the difference between what you put in them anymore."

With a relaxing sigh, Aristespha smiles contentedly. "Tastes just right. I am quite surprised you had everything for this. Not many places in the area have enough evuukian liquors in one place to fill the bill."

Grinning proudly, Johnathan shrugs his shoulders nonchalantly and laughs. "Well, despite current appearances, we often get a lot of guests with broad tastes in their beverage choices."

Quickly depositing mugs of beer, large glasses of teas, and a few pitchers of water, Katherine relaxes her arms and rests her hands on her hips, presenting an entrepreneurial smile. "You all have happened to arrive here during one of our off-seasons. So, you're getting our special attention to all your needs. While we aim to provide the best experience for everyone, I have to admit it gets a bit hectic depending on the clients we have."

Bach finishes a long swig of his milk tea, thinks a moment, and glances over to Katherine. "I have to ask. What types of clients do you normally get out here?"

Katherine searches through her mind, twists her mouth contemplatively, and begins to count out on her hands. "In the winter, we get the same families and groups that come to experience Ark's holiday festivities. Spring, we typically get a number of people going to agricultural conferences that don't want to pay outlandishly for the main hotels. We also get a few people doing long weekend breaks scattered throughout. But..."

An excited grin grows on her face, and she steps next to Johnathan. "Soon all the adventuring and reenactment fans will arrive!"

Lifting an amused, reserved brow to Katherine, Johnathan places his arm around her and smiles towards the team. "Those are the guests we like to cater to during the summer and into the fall. They like the area, and the town enjoys their business."

Katherine tosses back her light brown hair, smiling boldly, and gazes out to the team. "It's also the time we all get to dress up for a good reason. I can't wait to put on my dashing rogue outfit."

Cideeda's furry ears perk up, and she settles a curious emerald eyed glance towards the inn owners. "Okay... So, is there some smaller adventuring convention happening around here soon? I haven't heard of anything lately."

Rocking his head side to side indecisively, Johnathan focuses down upon his words. "Somewhat? We have a few different groups that like to spend the week... And lose themselves in the pockets of wilderness around Ark."

With hints of accusation, Katherine narrows her stare at Johnathan. She beams an eager smile at the group, jumping into her excited explanation. "Not everyone is like THAT! But, the best ones are the summer camps for the children. We host their events and give them a memorable Ark Inn experience! In fact, even Brennon and Kristine play characters and have wonderful costumes."

At a nearby table, both Brennon and Kristine halt mid bite of their meals and shift their embarrassed gazes over towards their mother, cringing visibly with teenage revulsion. With hints of young defiance, Brennon mumbles loudly and rolls his dark brown eyes. "The only reason they come here is because NOTHING ever happens here. It's SO SAFE and PEACEFUL."

Kristine twists her mouth uncomfortably and glances over to the team's table. "Well, usually... There have been a bunch of weird noises and clouds of steam appearing lately."

Pausing a moment, Aristespha rests her hand on the sword at her side, ponders out a silent conversation, and lifts an intrigued eyebrow towards the family overall. "Speaking of that... Do you happen to know of anything related to those incidents? We have actually been assigned to investigate those phenomena."

Johnathan and Katherine exchange surprised glances. Johnathan meets the new attention from Aristespha, Bach, Cideeda, Dretphi, and Sotalia, sorting through his memory. "Unfortunately... Not as much as I would like to. But, my son is right. Things are normally very quiet around here, so I think the first incident I know of happened over a week ago? Maybe two?"

Meeting her husband's gaze, Katherine draws in an uncomfortable breath and sighs. "Yes. It was really worrisome last week. We had strange noises, steam eruptions, and other weird things. But, oddly..."

She wrestles a frown. "It's gotten quiet again. Maybe a little too quiet."

Gritting her teeth briefly, she gazes at the group with a mix of pleading and hopeful thinking and sighs. "It's good to know you all are investigating. I just hope you find it was nothing worth worrying about."

Dretphi presents a comforting smile and nods appreciatively. "We hope the same. Can not expect that. Hope it is."

Brennon frowns slightly with an irritated tint to his voice. "I keep telling you all that it had to have been that strange evuukian man I saw in Cumber Woods."

Kristine rolls her green eyes, shakes her head of light brown hair, and groans dismissively. "Not THIS again. You saw him over a week before any of this started happening. And, there's no way one guy could still be causing all this. It'd take some real magic to do all this."

Narrowing his glare upon his sister, Brennon curls his upper lip and argues loudly. "Okay! Well, YOU explain why some evuukian weirdo was wandering around the woods dressed up in leaves, leather, and odd drawings on his clothes?"

Standing her figurative ground, Kristine leans over the table slightly and growls out. "Says the guy wandering around the woods with his loser friends at the same time! Maybe he was some reenactment dork doing some solo thing."

Angles over the table, Brennon stares down his sibling and retorts. "That BOW over his shoulder was NOT some cheap knock off! It looked REAL, and the arrows were nothing like I've seen before. You can't buy stuff like THAT. He looked really suspicious, too. Like he was up to something, or looking for something-"

In the tense lull between the clash of teenager attitudes, Bach exchanges glances with developing intrigue from the rest of the team. Focusing his gaze at Brennon, he calls out to the teenager. "You know that actually sounds REALLY strange to us. And, oddly familiar..."

Both Brennon and Kristine halt mid breath, pivot their heads toward Bach, the interested team, and their parents. Crossing her arms, Katherine narrows a parental stare upon her children. Johnathan lifts an inquisitive brow, glances over to the team and motions over his son. "Brennon, tell the nice people what you saw."

---

Through the few windows in the large, long inn room wall, the dim glow of late evening light radiates into the area, softly spreading out into the space. Bach, Cideeda, Dretphi, Aristespha, and Sotalia slumber in the line of beds, and the sounds of sleep mix with the low drone of the lone air conditioning unit running. Outside from the distance, a muted and barely audible high-pitched whistle echoes and resonates against the glass of the windows. One of Cideeda's furry ears flicks reflexively, and she rolls over with a grumble. Seconds later, a metallic straining groan roars out across the river, rippling across the surface of the water, and vibrates the inn. Cideeda groggily mumbles incoherently, lifting her head up off the pillow, and lazily aims her furry ears towards the rattling glass. Bach stirs in his bed, surges of consciousness prodding him further out of slumber. Aristespha softly snores undisturbed, and Sotalia snorts, unconsciously pulling a pillow to cover the side of her head. Dretphi fidgets briefly. The resonating, echoing noise outside halts, moments of silence contrasting.

A sudden low eruption thunders powerfully into the area, bowling harshly over the inn. Cideeda springs wide awake with wide emerald eyes and abruptly sits up in bed, her tail puffing out behind her. "What the fuck was THAT?!"

Crashing hard into consciousness, Bach pulls himself up in a daze and searches around the dark room. "Wha- Fuc- The hell is going on?"

Dretphi stirs awake, and Aristespha and Sotalia fumble for understanding the situation. Throwing the covers off, Cideeda rushes over to the closest window and throws it open. She leans out of the opening, closes her eyes, and searches the outside air with her furry ears twitching. Surrounding buildings light up with activity, and specs illumination flicker on along the riverfront. A constant reverberating hiss escapes the natural baffles of the forest and drones over the background water flows of the river. Bach finally arrives at the same window and stands curiously, peering out. "Okay. Uh, any idea what THAT noise is?"

Cideeda moves her head side to side, allowing each furry ear an attempt to home in on the source, and twists her mouth uncertainly. "I... I don't know... It sounds like gas escaping? But, huge? Steam? It's really hard to pick out the details right now."

Sebastian's ethereal form materializes over Bach and Cideeda, and he searches out along the distant opposing river bank. "Yeah. THAT doesn't seem like something that should be happening around here."

Aristespha, Dretphi, and Sotalia join the gathering, open up windows, and scan the dark horizon. They spend minutes hunting for information with magical and mechanical optics. The ambient hiss fades below the recovering sounds of nature and emerging town activity. Dretphi lowers a pair of binoculars down, resting them into her nearby bag, and sighs uneasily. "I do not think we can gather information tonight. Contact authorities tomorrow. Start looking for answers."

Blinking her glowing violet eyes back to normal, Aristespha gazes over to the rest of the team and frowns slightly. "I cannot see any traces of magic. At least, no from what I can. Unfortunately, being this far away from the source, that does not indicate anything definite."

Sotalia dismisses a visual spell between her hands, crosses her arms, and pulls at the corner of her mouth unsatisfied. "Well, I certainly don't feel anything magical about this. Still, that doesn't make me happy at all. Something that loud and powerful, I should feel... Something."

Gritting his teeth into an uncomfortable grimace, Sebastian ethereally hisses out his reservations and slowly shakes his head. "Well... Let's all just try to get some more sleep for now. We can't solve it right now, and we'll be useless if we are sleep deprived."

Cideeda slowly slides down the window firmly, rubs her eyes, and pivots back towards her bed. "Yeah... Gods dammit, I was really enjoying that dream, too."

Closing her window, Sotalia massages the side of her temples, wincing briefly, and steps over to the bathroom door. "Ooo... I think I need a glass of water."

Aristespha pauses, closes her eyes hard, and flutters them back open towards Sotalia. "Pour me a glass, too."

Drifting over next to Aristespha, Sebastian narrows an accusatory stare at her and chides her through his expressions. Rolling her violet eyes away, Aristespha grumbles back at Sebastian and playfully waves him off. "Oh, please. Sebastian. You, of all people..."

The team settles back into an uneasy slumber. The locals of Ark calm back down. The domestic lights flip off in homes around the area. A faint haze graces the treetops in the horizon. Expanding slowly out, a misty fog filters through the trees and fields, and gradually spills out along the flowing river surface. The cloud fades, wafting over the water, and disappears in the night haze.

---

Aristespha, Bach, Cideeda, Dretphi, Sebastian, and Sotalia maneuver through the clear corridors in a dense field of three meter tall protellow plants. Shielding the late morning sun from her tablet screen, Aristespha studies the map and glances back towards the access road at the mouth of the passage. "We should be coming up to the area that the local police believe last night's disturbance happened."

Sebastian drifts up above the tops of the surrounding protellow plants, searching out into the distance, and aims his voice down. "Yeah. Looks like there's a dip in the plants just ahead, over in the next row."

Eyeing around the area, Sotalia hums in thought, and twists her grimace uncertainly, furrowing her brow. "Still not feeling anything magical. This just doesn't seem like the work of most spells I know of that would be that loud. I should have felt something by now."

Slipping in through the gaps between the thick plant stems and huge, broad leaves, Bach navigates to the next row, surveys the long run, and comments back over his shoulders. "Yeah. I mean, there should be some left overs or even faint flow residue around here."

He blinks his eyes hard, reopens them to a bright blue glow, and scans the vicinity carefully. "And... I'm not seeing anything that would be such around here..."

Deftly flexing her small, agile frame through the closely packed protellows, Cideeda hops out into the row with Bach and cautiously walks ahead, furrowing a suspicious brow. "If it was magic, that would be an easy explanation. But whatever THAT was last night, sounded and felt like an explosion. And, I'd expect a HUGE crater for something like that."

Sebastian zips back overhead of the team and points towards a section of the field, instructing the group forward. "Up ahead! Something weird definitely happened."

Aristespha, Dretphi, and Sotalia find passage through the crop lines into the clear dirt corridor with Bach and Cideeda. The team slowly approaches their destination with Sebastian in the lead. Stopping suddenly, Cideeda's face contorts and her nose twitches. She draws in cautious sniffs of the air, twisting her mouth, and grumbles apprehensively. "Okay... That's a WEIRD smell. I think I should know it..."

She scratches her chin with a claw tip and deliberates to herself. "But... What is it?"

Widening her eyes, Aristespha motions the team to halt, steps ahead, and gestures out an incantation for a complicated spell. With a violet glow in her eyes, she holds her arms out, aims her palms ahead, and releases a faint pulse of magical flow ahead. Pondering inside her mind, she relaxes her posture and eases out a sigh of relief. "Oh. Good. No obvious toxins or hazardous compounds."

Sebastian smiles appreciatively at Aristespha and nods. "Good call, dear."

The team arrives at the sparser spot in the field of protellows. Fanning out into the area, they individually search for clues in their surroundings. Bach stands next to a curved stalk and examines the deformed, wilted leaves barely hanging on. "The hell happened to these protellows?"

Cocking his head to the side puzzling, he calls out to the rest of the group. "Hey. Uh... What would make these things sag so much but still be green? They're not withered or dried out..."

Dretphi grasps another floppy protellow leaf from a nearby plant, feels out the shape and integrity, and tests its strength, the flora easily pulling apart. She works the material into a green mush in her gauntlet, widens her steely gray eyes in sudden recognition, and gazes towards Bach. "Steamed. They were steamed."

Blinking her golden eyes in surprise, Sotalia studies the area around her and lifts an intrigued brow. "THAT would be A LOT of sustained steam to do this thorough of a job. Or... A really powerful blast."

She narrows her stare to the surrounding fairly healthy protellows, crosses her arms, and frowns slightly. "That much heat and water, I would have thought it would affect the other ones nearby more."

Nodding in agreement, Aristespha gazes above at the drooping plants, the slack leaves, and the sagging flowers. She slowly shakes her head contemplatively, biting her lower lip in thought, and tries to step forward. Recovering her briefly lost of balance, she snaps her glance down at her leather boots partially sunk into the ground and tilts her head to the side confused, springing her eyes wide at her discovery. "The soil is absolutely saturated here."

The team drops their attention upon the dirt, searching for more information. Kneeling down, Cideeda sniffs cautiously and widens her emerald green eyes at a revelation. "That smell is coming from the ground."

She continues searching along the ground, sifting the air through her nose, and follows an odor. "It's got a stale metallic scent to it. Humid, of course. Iron? Copper? Both? A lot of clay and earth in it, too."

Sebastian stares down from overhead, squinting towards the center point of the destruction, and motions towards a spot. "Hey! There's a hole right there!"

Quickly responding, the rest of the team gathers close to the nearly ten centimeter wide hole of strangely smooth and discolored mud. Briefly, Cideeda leans close to the port, draws in air through her nose, and backs away, nodding. "Gods. THAT is strong. It's definitely got an iron and copper tinge to it and still hot and humid."

Dretphi pulls out a flashlight, aims the directional spot down the hole, and carefully gazes into the darkness through her full face helm. "Deep. Strangely deep."

Kneeling down next to the opening, she puts her light away, searching her utility pouch, and retrieves her range finder. Cautiously, she positions the device above the hole, presses a button, and studies the display of numbers. Finely aiming the range finder, she ponders the readings to an emerging surprise and glances towards the team. "At least fifteen meters deep."

The group exchange bewildered stares, and contemplate the new information. Furrowing his translucent brow, Sebastian searches his mind and lifts a curious brow towards Bach. "Never heard of them tilling soil that deep around here, or even in High Alton."

Bach nods uneasily, his blue illuminated eyes gazing at the hole. "Yeah. That doesn't make any sense."

Putting away the range tool, Dretphi stands back up and ponders the situation out loud. "This is related to last night. The bore is smooth. Recently made. Has not filled with ground water. Still warm. Steam."

Bach blinks his glowing blue eyes back to the normal, shakes his head, and shrugs his shoulders. "Well, I mean... Nothing magical going on. So... What the hell is causing this?"

Twisting her frown, Aristespha deliberates in her mind and grumbles out a bit of frustration. "I know a few spells for archaeological purposes, but at that depth the most I could detect are that there are cavities underground..."

Rolling her violet eyes away from a glance at the hole, she sighs. "Which is a bit redundant at the moment."

An idea hops to the front of Cideeda's mind, and she eagerly searches the various pockets in her vest. Donning a toothy grin, she gazes up to Bach and opens her hand, revealing a small portable camera. "Want to do that remote controlled camera setup again?"

Bach spots the device in Cideeda's palm and nods quickly with a smile. "Worth trying at least."

Minutes later, Dretphi stands over the gathering and shields out the bright near noon sun off of Cideeda sitting on the ground. Cideeda checks the connections of the receiver unit to her aetherphone and taps out some adjustments to the video feed on her screen. "Looks good here. Ready when you are."

Bach places the magical machinery encasing the camera into a hover upon the ground in front of him. Concentrating with a blue glow in his eyes, he gently moves his fingers and adjusts a series of magical threads wrapping into a flowing thread to the energy construct. "Let's see what we got."

Aristespha, Sebastian, and Sotalia find spots around and above Cideeda and Bach's shoulders, spying on the progress. The hovering camera drifts up to the mouth of the hole, edges to the lip, and floats down inside. Watching the video feed, the group studies the smooth downwards tunnel, a faint glow of magical flow illuminating the mud walls. Seconds of tension pass. The stream shows a gradually widening passage of converging branches delving deeper into the earth. Bach maintains his focus, magical energy flowing out from his hands to the lengthening cord pulsing down into the small tunnel. Cideeda's emerald green eyes remain fixed upon the imagery on her phone, the strange geology beneath unfolding on screen. A minute later, her emerald eyes spring wide open, and she instinctively leans close to her phone in surprise. "Is that a-?! Bach, can you make it shine a light ahead? The glow is too dim to see clearly enough."

Bach thinks, smiles at Cideeda, and nods. "Yeah, give me a moment."

The screen on Cideeda's phone washes out briefly, gradually readjusting the camera's systems. The scene refocuses. Cideeda's jaw drops open, and she blurts out. "Good gods! That's massive steel... and copper pipe... What is that even doing here? And, why the hell is blown completely open?!"

---

Standing around the large table in a side room from the large inn bedroom, Aristespha, Bach, Cideeda, Dretphi, Sebastian, and Sotalia focus upon an assembled collection of printouts forming a large map of the area. Cideeda confirms with Dretphi and marks a spot across the river in a designed farming plot, carefully drawing out an arrow in both directions with a protractor. "Okay. So. That pipeline seems to run these directions. Now..."

Lifting the protractor away, she stares down at the symbols and furrows her light brown brow. "The fuck does that actually mean for us?"

Dretphi narrows her stare at the map and tosses back her platinum blonde braids, sighing. "Locations are spread out. Erratic. What is the purpose?"

Uncrossing her arms, Sotalia leans over and studies the map, squinting, and idly raps her long, black nails on the table top. "There's got to be SOMETHING going on. All these places have roughly the same signs. Steam erupting from the ground and no magic involved. But, now it might be some kind of pipe network? I guess?"

Sebastian's ghostly visage hums with an ethereal reverb, and he narrows his stare upon the spread out points of data, pondering out loud. "Yeah... That would make some sense. But, even that's just an assumption. A good one, given what we've found out. But, still..."

He drifts over above the tabletop, thoughts following the map. "It'd take some effort to really confirm it, and we still need to get some more data."

Twisting her grimace, Cideeda straightens her posture and runs her finger claw tips through her short, multi-colored hair with a sigh. "If we could just find another intact enough pipeline to check, that would definitely confirm suspicions. Maybe we'd figure out an intersection between the directions of the runs. But..."

She rolls her emerald green eyes, drooping her furry ears, and grumbles loudly. "That's assuming that a supposed pipeline doesn't suddenly change directions underground. We'd honestly need at least three or more vectors around town to get a decent triangulation... IF they are all running to some central place."

Working through a mix of commiseration and frustration, Bach slowly shakes his head and grits his teeth briefly. "Gods dammit, it just seems like tons of ways to possibly waste our time."

Sebastian groans out, slowly nodding, and contorts the contemplation upon his face. "I know, bro. The reports we got from Captain Hackle, that he got from the local police, never mentioned underground pipes. Or, centimeters wide, deep holes. This could be an unrelated fluke, and some side effect triggered."

Cideeda's long fluffy tail wags sharply, and she sneers her upper lip and sighs. "Even if we rented a backhoe and spent days digging, I doubt the town would appreciate fifteen meter deep holes everywhere."

A frown grows on Dretphi, and she gradually slumps her shoulders, an unfortunate realization forming in her mind. "If they are the correct places to dig."

The group's attention settles upon Dretphi. Grimacing, she sighs with a frown. "Geology could lead steam away from the source. We dig down. May not find the source. Waste days trying."

Aristespha sadly nods, places her tablet down on the table, and rests her hands on her hips. "Very true. Even with a focused version of the archaeological ground detection spells I know, if the disruptions underground are not significant enough... It will be very difficult to differentiate, if at all. Those spells are designed for sharp contrasts in materials."

Defeat slowly fills the air in the room. The team idly stares at the pieced together map on the tabletop. Unsatisfied grimaces and frowns seep out onto everyone, the pressure from looming frustration weighing down. Blowing the white streak in his hair out of his face, Bach stands back up straight, scratches the side of his head with a sneer, and sharply shrugs his shoulders. "You know, for the hell of it, put down that spot that Brennon says he saw that evuukian guy."

Aristespha perks her eyebrow, intrigue overtaking her ivory face. She thinks a moment and nods with hopeful curiosity. "Yes. Let us do that. I have my own suspicions that whoever may be a Terra Priest... And may be involved... Somehow..."

Searching the map briefly, Cideeda finds a spot within an area designated as Cumber Wood and neatly circles a rough area on a marked access road. The team analyzes the relations between the existing points and the newest addition. With each second, interest grows within everyone, sparks of intuition driving greater focus upon the map. Flicking her furry ears in thought, Cideeda reaches out for a ruler and pencil, aligns the straight edge along the new and an old data point, and gauges reactions from everyone. With growing encouragement and interest from the rest of the group, she draws lines between the Cumber Wood location and all the other disturbance sites. Minutes later, she finishes the last line and steps back from the drawing. Her eyes widen with recognition, and she cocks her head to the side.. "Okay. We might be assuming A LOT here... But... I really can't shake this feeling that there's something to THIS."

Twisting her mouth apprehensively, Sotalia crosses her arms and sorts through her doubts out loud. "So... I want to believe this is something... But, the distances are all different from that point."

From above the tabletop, Sebastian stares straight down at the map and smirks. "Yeah. That's true. BUT, the angles between the lines are REALLY even and consistent."

Dretphi reaches out, slides over the protractor, and measures the angles, nodding. "Indeed. Minor variations. Correctable. The intersection still would be near this central point."

Swiftly sweeping up her tablet, Aristespha holds it above the drawings on map and taps a few on screen buttons, capturing the image. She cracks an eager smile, tapping through a few application functions. "I will see about charting a few of those possibilities. And, I do suggest we talk to Brennon again for a bit more information about that area."

---

Late morning sun slips through the overhead canopy of leafy trees and lights up scattered spots of tall grasses along the forest floor. A gentle wind sways old branches and fills the air with a soft background drone into the serene soundscape. Wooden snaps and dry, light crackles grow rhythmically louder. Dretphi's camouflage pattern covered, armored arm pushes through the full branches of a tall shrub, opening a route into a thinning section of the undergrowth. Cideeda quietly slinks out and steps softly into the area, cautiously pivoting her head around. A quick visual scan later, she closes her eyes and focuses her attention. Perking her furry ears, she searches the subtle sounds surrounding her. Reopening her emerald green eyes, she glances back at Dretphi and the rest of the team in hiding and shrugs her shoulders. "Nothing out of the ordinary."

Sebastian's ghostly visage flies into the vicinity, hovering high above, and surveys the nearby forest. "Dammit. I was hoping there would be something obvious. Guess we'll have to search the hard way for something of interest."

Bach snorts, shaking his head, and steps out into the space between a number of tall trees, glancing up to Sebastian. "I don't know, man. That mock up of a fort was pretty cool. Might need to check that out further."

Rolling his translucent blue eyes amused, Sebastian drifts down next to Bach, smirking. "Yeah. Trying to figure out if that was for combat sims or the cheap roleplaying events."

Cideeda perks a humored eyebrow and cracks a greedy smile. "Whichever group is paying the rental fees that day."

Sotalia arrives from behind the perimeter of the underbrush, and Aristespha follows behind, studying her tablet. Glancing over to the discussion, Sotalia smiles and chuckles to herself. "Gods, that all sounds so goofy. But... I can't help but to think it might be pretty fun."

Bach lifts a curious brow at Sotalia and tilts his head to the side. "The combat sims, or roleplaying?"

With a sly grin to Bach, Sotalia winks with an amused tone. "Maybe both. Depends on the mood that day."

Blinking off his confusion, Bach gradually, awkwardly shifts his attention to the surrounding area and ponders out loud. "So... This is the spot that Brennon mentioned?"

Aristespha lowers her tablet down, presents the display between the group, and confirms. "From his directions and descriptions of landmarks. We are also near the intersection between all the different vectors we determined. So..."

She twists her grimace, sighing, and gazes at the rest of the team. "Hopefully, this will help our odds in finding something further to go on. Otherwise, I really do not know what more to do."

Sebastian nods slowly, hovering up into the air, and directs the group outwards. "Well, let's spread out a bit and start looking for something out of the ordinary."

Fanning out into the region, Aristespha, Bach, Cideeda, Dretphi, Sebastian, and Sotalia start their individual investigations. The morning sun rises close to high noon. The clouds drift overhead, casting a fluffy shade over the region. And, the team continues their hunt for clues, time passing by. Mixtures of frustration emerge, and disappointment materializes upon the team, fruitless searches growing gradually more aimless by the minute.

Sebastian lands back onto the ground and calls out to the team, motioning all to gather. "Okay everybody! Anyone got anything to report?"

The group convenes in a rough circle, sorting through their unamused expressions. Dretphi crosses her arms, glances around the area, and sighs. "Nothing out of place. Forest seems typical for the region. No tracks. No signs of campsites. Nothing unusual."

Cideeda taps her foot onto the forest floor, shifts her weight around between fidgets, and shrugs her shoulders. "Same for me. I'm not smelling anything weird. It all looks fine. Sounds like it should for a forest."

Flexing her clawed fingers, she grumbles with a glance off to the side. "Certainly haven't found anything man-made. Gods, not even an old fucking beer bottle even."

Sotalia slowly shakes her head, tossing back a stray fiery orange, wavy lock over her swept back horn, and contorts the rising dissatisfaction upon her face. "I'm STILL feeling NOTHING magical. Well... Apart from the normal, barely perceivable background flows. So..."

Slightly slumping her shoulder, she faintly pouts. "No help from me... Unfortunately."

With a similar sentiment, Aristespha sorts through some menus on her tablet and glances over towards the team, frowning. "My impressions exactly. Unfortunately..."

She gazes hopefully to Bach and inquires. "Have you found anything?"

Bach shrugs his shoulders, gritting his teeth briefly, and exhales with a hint of a groan. "No. Dammit. I mean, I've been trying, but NOTHING obvious is showing up. If it wasn't for Brennon saying he saw that guy here and the description of the guy he gave..."

He motions out to the scenic wilderness, searching for the contrary. "I probably would have just kept walking along and never paid any attention to this place myself. It looks like what it should, out here."

With a disappointed curl to his frown, Sebastian arrives at a reluctant acceptance, rubbing the back of his head, and ethereally sighs out tinges of defeat. "Yeah, bro. I'm the same as you there. Looking overhead, this place doesn't stick out at all. If it wasn't for all of you wandering around down here, I probably would have drifted off course and dropped in somewhere else without knowing I did."

Working through a grimace on his face, he hums ethereally and musters up his determination. "Well. This is the best spot we got to check out at the moment. Any ideas?"

Aristespha straightens his posture in thought, pans her gaze around the area, and uncomfortably cringes. "I have the few spells that might help. Unfortunately, to get any useful information, I have to narrow the focus down significantly. Which means, it will take some time to methodically survey the area."

Tugging at the corner of her mouth, Cideeda nods reluctantly and perks her furry ears. "Still worth a shot, in my opinion. We can section off the area. Maybe get lucky finding the right-"

A muffled chain of solid impacts faintly shakes ground below. A strange undercurrent of noises resonate from an ambiguous source. The powerful vibrations rattle up the nearby trees into a shuddering chorus among the leaves. Cideeda's emerald green eyes widen, and she slowly pivots herself, facing the direction her furry ears home in on. Narrowing her stare at a location, she points a claw tipped finger towards an area, struggling for the correct term. "I heard an... Echo? Reverb? Something hollow?"

Stepping next to Cideeda, Aristespha gestures out an incantation. She targets the spot indicated by Cideeda and releases her spell in a faint wave towards that direction. A moment later, she blinks her violet eyes in surprise and calls out to the team. "There is a LARGE cavity in the ground there... Contained inside a solid structure."

Dretphi carefully approaches, studies the dirt and debris of the forest floor, and glances over to Sotalia. "Could you clear off the loose material?"

Grinning eagerly, Sotalia steps up, readying a spell, and positions herself with her arms aimed down. "Why of course!"

She unleashes a projected vortex of wind down upon the ground, blasting clear centimeters of loosely packed dirt, leaves, twigs, and other fodder in a methodical sweep. Seconds later, the torrent of air uncovers a slight, straight indentation in hard dirt beneath patches of loose grassy soil. Concentrating the stream, Sotalia clears out the long straight section, further revealing a deep crack in the earth leading to a straight mechanical join between to concrete surfaces. Sebastian swiftly flies over the spot, nods to the team, and phases down. Seconds later, he emerges with a hopeful grin on his face and points down. "It's a thick cover to a ramp that leads down into... Well, something BIG!"

The team collaborates on the task. Dretphi and Sotalia finish clearing the outline of the huge earth layered hatch. Aristespha documents and searches for information. Sebastian repeatedly dips down through deep ground and relays updates to Cideeda and Bach. Pondering through the problem in her mind, Cideeda coaches Bach through weaving threads of magical flow down through the crevice leading into the gap of the massive door. With a final draw of a thoughtful breath, Cideeda nods and smiles towards Bach. "Okay. If it's still working and we've tapped into the right wiring, we should be able to trigger the opening sequence. Hit it!"

Focusing upon a remote task, Bach narrows his glowing blue eyes, grimacing, and winces hopefully. "Okay... Now!"

A mechanical groan sounds out, and old machinery hums back to life. An over three meter wide, five meter long hatch gradually rises upwards. Old hydraulic pumps pressurize powerful rams and lift the thick concrete slab beneath multiple layers of crumbling earth and rock. Cautiously backing away from the rising entrance, the team stares apprehensively down a long, sunken ramp into a dark corridor, faint light flickering at the distant end.