RP: "A clue! A clue!"

Summary: Most of the Syndicate for Shadows members present for Enchantment's peace summit immediately head to HQ to talk about the disappearance of Mayor Valrae. Quintessa spills a few beans and the crew is off to search for any evidence regarding Val's disappearance.

The Syndicate Grand Council Hall

Magikrios skips the make-shift "elavator" as he appears in his smokey form. The black cloud heads straight for a vacant seat at the meeting table to materialize, but doesn't sit down. He stands behind the chair and places his hands on the back rest. He's almost looking at absolutely nothing as he waits for the rest of the crew to make their appearances.

Karasu is one of the first to arrive after the clan leader, having wanted to avoid the eyes of those who may whisper about her unfortune. Seated in the one of the high backed chairs, the demifeline has a leg haphazardly draped upwards to cover a second chair. This is her very ladylike way of reserving a seat. "How obnoxious, this kind of political nonsense was supposed to be over with." She grumbles to her adoptive father.

Quintessa appears similarly to Magikrios, skipping the elevator and manifesting from the darkness itself, her black robes appearing as if they are cut from the very shadows she steps from. Her form glides silently through the room, walking over to her normal seat next to Karasu. She only just catches her lover’s comment about the nonsense of politics, a soft smirk growing on her black-painted lips as she sinks into her chair. “It never truly ends, does it?” Quintessa asks rhetorically, mismatched eyes moving from Magik and Karasu to scan the empty seats at the table.

Magikrios blinks as Karasu breaks the silence. He shakes his head, "This.." He pauses as quick as he started. After taking a deep breath in then out he continues, "Who.." He stops again. Magik looks around the room for an answer to the questions he has floating around in his head but all he can find is Tessa dropping into the seat next to Karasu. He looks back and forth between the couple before finding a good place to start, "Who was that? The two sent to represent Cenril.." Is this actually political? Or was this more of a 'Meri blurted out what everyone was thinking and now here we are' type of situation? Let's discuss. That question was more directed towards Tessa since she was in the room. Karasu was present as well, just..You know..Angrily outside of the meeting.

Quintessa laces her fingers together on the top of the table as she levels her gaze back to Magikrios. “Hector Cyprian and Jaxson Ravencroft. Hector is acting Mayor during Valrae’s… absence. I do not know much about him. Jaxson on the other hand is a spellcaster from a family of aristocrats. I believe he is House Head of the Ravencrofts? I do not know- perhaps he only stands to inherit it. Either way, I have been watching him try to weasel his way into Valrae’s administration in Cenril for some time now. It appears he got his wish...” Karasu empties the last of a bottle of spice infused whiskey into a glass. As she moves to slide the bottle to the center of the table to be disposed of later, she answers. "One of them was a tournament hotshot that goes by Jaxson Ravencroft. He's down bad for Valrae, but I don't know off the top of my head what seat he holds in Cenril." She downs half of the glass at once. "The other one seemed less important, I forgot his name." Karasu holds out the half-empty glass to Quintessa in a silent offer, though there's a pointed look with an eyebrow raise to indicate she has nothing left to add.

Quintessa takes the glass as it is offered to her, downing the other half before passing it back.

Magikrios starts to rap his fingers against the chair he's holding on to, "Never heard of either of them..I don't like 'em." He looks to the entrance to the totally cool underground meeting room that doesn't actually exist then back to Kara and Tessa, "Think they are covering up something? The lashing out could have been a ruse, no? Put the eyes on Larket while those two play innocent and stick to whatever play they might be on about.."

Rumiko was there the whole time, honest! She'd come in right behind Quintessa in a very similar fashion and had just been quiet while she processed the words of the meeting she'd come from. The soft click of heels came as she followed after the changeling, veering off last minute to unceremoniously bump into her brother before claiming a seat next to the one in which he stood behind. The nymph knew nothing about the current ongoings of Cenril, so for now she'd just pay attention.

Karasu leans forward to rest her elbows on the table. "I saw the spellcaster fight in Frostmaw. If he wanted to upsurp Valrae's position, his arcane control over water could have made for twenty easier 'accidental' deaths that don't involve antagonizing Larket. They have to know that Larket's telemancers would rat them out." Karasu sighs. "Plus... We do know my sister's stupid lead about the visitor logs on the Cenril bridge were right, don't we." This is said with narrowed eyes towards her lover.

Quintessa shrugs simply. “Perhaps. Hector is simply a puppet, but Jaxson is a man with a lot of secrets and he protects those secrets well. But to cover something up? No, I believe he’s devoted to Valrae, the concern and indignation in his voice was real… Besides, what Karasu says is correct, Valrae left Cenril without them.” There is a piece of information that Quintessa hasn’t told anyone yet, but she is prepared to reveal it. “And when she and I met in Larket days before the Vailkrin summit, we both came alone.”

Magikrios takes a moment to stop rapping his fingers on the chair to do his best to ruffle Rumi's hair the best he can. Serious or not, she asked for it when she bumped into him. He then pulls out his chair to sit his bum down and put his feet up. Black slippers. Nice and comfy. "Alright so, Jaxson's reaction was legitimate..Fine." Tessa's next words ruins Mag's comfy position. That didn't last long. With his feet removed and now sitting straight up in his chair, he listens to Tessa then blinks, "So..You met in Larket and left Larket with Val, right?" Magik was about to question what those two were doing in Larket of all places, but that wasn't really his business. Everyone is entitled to their privacy. "She went missing after?" Cue the 'why is it always you three' gif..

Karasu nods. "I found out for myself after the fact. I was able to find the location itself, but interestingly, no amount of divination magic could track Valrae's movements the second she stepped over the boundary from Kelay to Larket." Raising a finger as if to silence an objection no one has made yet, she adds, "Whatever erased her traces has a different arcane signature than Quintessa or any of our servants. I also implemented my new studies from the necromancers' tomes to implement a revivication scan. If Valrae was murdered already, it's not within the borders of Larket's kingdom. They either have her alive, or they don't have her at all."

Rumiko snapped her teeth Magik's way for the hair tussle, and her own hands moved to fix the mess of crimson as her brother both relaxed and returned to that more rigid state. Where the male Lyastri didn't ask, the female did, "Isn't Larket trying to kill her? Seems an odd place to meet." Her gaze moved to Quintessa then, curious and not accusing.

Quintessa hesitates for a moment before she answers. “She left first, without me. I lingered at our meeting spot and left shortly thereafter. I didn’t even know she was missing until she didn’t turn up at the Vailkrin Summit. The Cenril newspaper confirmed it not long after.`` Quintessa shrugs at the questions surrounding why they would meet in Larket of all places. “I met on her terms,” she says defensively, “When I asked for a meeting I expected Cenril or Kelay, not Larket, but I relented and followed Val’s lead.” Mismatched eyes flicker to Karasu, considering a solution outside of divination magic. “No, she’s alive. She has to be. If magic isn’t working I can take you to the spot I last saw her. Maybe some physical clue was left behind that will lead us in the right direction.”

Magikrios quietly chuckles to himself. Time for another adventure! "Meri is on her way to Cenril now to see if the streets are talking. I'm sure she was cursing Larket the entire way too." Magik's gaze shifts between the couple before him then back to Rumi, "So, field trip? Is that what we're doing?" Magikrios is already trying to think of a way to get in to Larket without it seeming like "Kelay is invading Larket!" due to him not being just a regular ole citizen now. "I've gotten no reports from our rangers close to the Sage-Larket bridge so I'm assuming you two got in without them seeing.." Magik will add that to his to-do list. He might have to swap out some positions at the border..

Rumiko frowned, but covered it with a hand relatively quickly. There were already quite a few things on her to-do list, and each one seemed to keep her away from where she wanted to be longer and longer. "Together? Or splitting up?" Her question was towards her brother. A group outing could come across as hostile, given how the summit had just gone.

Karasu nods at Quintessa. "I can try again at the exact meeting spot; what I found was just the general area." Seeing how Magikrios and Rumiko reacted, there was no doubt that things would go south very quickly if this information got out. "Field trip. I don't know how she does it," Referring to Quintessa, "But the Fengoth river has nooks that are perpetually fogged. Using that as a cover for my smoke transformation at night was how I got across."

Quintessa offers a sheepish smile to Magik as he asks how Quintessa got into Larket. “Well, you see, after the rumor that I tried to assassinate Valrae got around I’ve become somewhat of a folk hero to the people of Larket- at least among the knights and soldiers, those most zealous of the Larketian apostasy. When it comes to getting into Larket, those who bear the sigil of House Blackwell are welcome so I just cross the border as normal, at the bridge.”

Karasu snaps her head around. "I could have just wheeled myself over instead of wasting mana?'

Quintessa said to Karasu, "You'd know this if you ever came with me on my diplomatic meetings with King Macon..."

Magikrios considers everything rather quickly, "We'll split up then reconvene at the location. Tessa, Karasu can get you as close as possible to Larket's borders then you are going to have to get there by waving your sigil around." He then looks to Karasu and Rumi, but more to Kara, "Try to stretch yourself thin when traveling. Sounds odd, but you'll get it. You'll want that smoke trail barely visible.." There was some logic somewhere in that comment. Nothing more obvious that huge smoke clouds descending somewhere. Much sneak needed. Magik's sure everyone know what they need to do to remain hidden, but it makes him feel better saying it out loud. "Tessa, where's the spot?"

Rumiko blinked. "Are we going now?" A glance was sent Quintessa's way briefly, covered by continuing her rounds of those gathered. Shouldn't they have all hands on deck? "Meri will want in on this, no?"

Quintessa nods once before describing their meeting place and how she got there. “A secret place hidden among the hemlock trees, on the east side of the Vibrance as you head north along it just before the botanical gardens.” She looks to Rumiko and then back to Magik again. “If we want to go now I can shadow-step- it will be much quicker than the bridge.”

Magikrios stands and takes a deep breath in, "Alright. Let's do this. In and out. Get there, we do a quick sweep and we get out. We cannot be seen there, especially me." With that, Magik poofs into his black smoke and heads to the surface to begin his quick trip to Larket.

Rumiko blew out a breath before getting to her feet. "In and out. Got it." When was the last time she'd been in Larket?

Quintessa nods her head before she quietly utters a phrase that causes the shadows in the room to shift and contort, swirling around both Quintessa and Karasu before consuming them with a loud pop.

Behind a Hemlock Grove

Magikrios stuck close to the ground as much as possible on his way to the investigation spot and did his best to stretch out that smoke cloud to look like a thin gray line of smoke rather than the obvious black smoke trail that he's known for. Finally arriving at the last known place Valrae was seen, Magikrios makes himself known as he seems to step out of the shadow of a tree. He keeps his voice low just in case, "Let's get to work.."

Rumiko had taken a different route than Magik; her form had vanished in a cloud of black smoke, but rather than slither across the ground, the nymph had kept to the trees. Following along with the shifts of leaves in the wind, she arrived at the pin-pointed location just moments after her brother and appearing much the same way. A step from the darker parts of the forest and she was there, her eyes already scanning the ground around them for any signs of a struggle. "Any idea what we are looking for?" She didn't know Valrae, but from what she had heard, the woman should be able to handle herself.

Quintessa and Karasu both appear essentially exactly where Quintessa and Valrae had been seated the last night the changeling saw her, right below a giant juniper tree, an empty bottle of Elimdor wine resting where they had been seated together- but this was not a clue. “We were here,” Quintessa points out before moving away, looking east. “And she left in this direction. I finished the bottle of wine and left this way too… We should check in that direction for anything off- signs of a struggle, bits of scrap clothing or a discarded weapon- anything might be related to the case.” Quintessa did not like the idea that Valrae might have been abducted in the fifteenth minute gap between their departures and never noticed it, but she had to consider every avenue no matter how uncomfortable it made her.

Magikrios nods and starts walking towards the east as well. He stays a few feet to the side to cover a bit more ground as he lightly kicks the ground with his feet, trying to feel for anything man-made. Quietly, he finally asks the question, "What were you two doing out here, Tessa?"

Rumiko closed her eyes. Not being familiar with this part of the kingdom, the nymph wouldn't know what exactly would be considered out of place here, thuse chose to search another way. She reached out with tendrils of magic; invisible hands that ran across the ground like hounds sniffing out a scent. How long had it been since the meeting? The Vailkrin summit was a while ago, and Tessa had said she'd met Valrae a few days before that. She wasn't sure there was anything left to find, or if magic was used at all. Plenty of people could be taken down with little more than surprise. If she was paying attention to the others talking, she didn't let on.

Quintessa blinks away from the scenery for a moment to look back at Magik, parting her lips to fill him in on the last bit of information as to why they were here in the first place. “We talked about my future. What I could do to make up for my crimes against her. We did not talk about much else.” Her mismatched eyes drift away again, this time fixing upon Rumiko. “Do you sense anything?”

Magikrios only looks up long enough to hear what Quintessa is saying, but is back to his search for something, anything that can help determine where Val might have gone. The Lyastri then stops in his tracks as he could feel something different in the air. He looks over to his sister and pauses for a quick moment before slowly dropping down to a single knee. He scans the immediate area and runs his fingers just above the ground below him to try to get his own sense of anything really. The elf looks towards Tessa then back to Rumiko. He quickly gets to his feet and walks towards his sister, but stops at a tree close to her. He kneels down out of Rumi's view and whispers a "ah ha.." Magik stands as he starts to wipe something off on his pants. It looks to be a silver coin with a hammer on one side and a seven pointed star on the other. He holds it up for either to observe, "Any ideas?"

Rumiko 's brows furrowed just before the changeling's question, "Dark magic." The invisible tendrils, though still reaching out to feel, struggled in a singular direction, the almost appendage-like extensions of the nymph pulling away from the thicker brush not far past where Quintessa had directed them to look. "It is not familiar to me." Her magic was withdrawn, her head tilting in the direction in which whatever had happened had actually happened. Oddly- or mayhap less so- it was the same direction in which Magik had found a silver coin. Green eyes studied the object in her brother's hand before a shake of her head came, "No idea." But her attention drifted past him suddenly, "That is not what I felt." There was more to be found, and the nymph made slow steps in the direction her magic shied from.

Quintessa gazes at the coin with trepidation, a pale hand reaching out to touch it but recoiling at the lingering dark magic that clung to it. A sudden, suffocating, stabbing feeling assaults her mind, causing her to reach up to hold her temple as Rumiko continued to explore in the direction the energy was strongest. “This is…” Quintessa knew this magic, she was sure of it, but it was too faint to grasp just yet. She follows after the nymph, her own natural ability to sense magic pulling her like a magnet to where Rumi was standing. There was scorched earth under their feet. Something terrible took place here. Quintessa rolls her right sleeve up, exposing her Bloodstone Bracer of Thorns and commanding the druidic magic held within it. “Plygu.” She says to the weeds and vines, causing them to reel away from her quickly as if repelled in a large circle. As the greenery peels back it exposes a witch bottle among the scorched earth, the glass slightly blackened by whatever heat caused the fire to begin with. “Witchcraft.” Quintessa finally finished her sentence, a hint of confusion in her voice. “But not Valrae’s. This witch wielded hate and vengeance… But… Why? It can’t be related, can it?” Quintessa’s eyes slowly drift back to the red ribbons hanging from the branches of the trees, each a fallen witch in the fight against tyranny and discrimination- But what about those that were sacrificed and never honored in the same way? What about those that accepted the rule of King Macon? “Elazul’s Bite.” Is all the changeling can finally muster, still unsure if she was jumping to conclusions.

Magikrios has never felt so helpless before. As Tessa retracts her hand he decides to pocket the coin. He walks around the scene before them as Rumiko makes it know she doesn't know what the coin is. The Guardian of Sage starts looking for anything else they might have missed. He looks at the newly found bottle, the scorched earth beneath them, and then the red ribbons hanging. Nothing. He can't seem to link all of this together. The Lyastri only returned just after the witch hunts were over, but boy is he getting a crash course on witches right now, "What does this all mean, Tessa?" asked the teacher to the student. Time to learn something, Magikrios.

Rumiko had only heard of witches in passing, having arrived much later than Magik and been in and out of contact with her ties here for more times than she would care to admit. A glance up to Quintessa as she stepped closer was all the motion from the nymph, at least until the flora around their feet was pushed backwards to reveal the charred earth on which they stood. With little more to do, she pulled on her own druidic magics, prying the outer circle of plants further back and out of the way in case there was more to find. "Hate and vengeance. Witch, or spirit?" Or both? The idea that it might be the latter had the nymph pulling on other magic in her repertoire, darker magic that was afforded to her kind. Green eyes darkened as she pulled on the sight of her kin; if there were spirits about, she'd find them.

Quintessa ‘s head was swimming with possibilities and she didn’t know what the truth behind these clues could be. “I…” Quintessa turns in a circle slowly, taking in the surroundings again as if that would offer a clearer perspective. It doesn’t. “I don’t know for certain. All I know is that dark witchcraft was recently used here. A coven, a lone practitioner, or even a vengeful spirit could be behind it… They could be working for Larket or they could be acting alone… And there is also the possibility it was all placed here to throw us off…” Quintessa shakes her head, still unsure. “We should link up with the Cenril investigators and see what they know. See if we can corroborate our information.”

Magikrios is continuing his own search as are the other two. The idea of meeting up with the Cenril folk doesn't stop Mag from looking between every scorch mark and blade of grass. His head remains lowered, but his words are directed to the others, "We took the first step. We have something to go by.." He pats his pocket to make sure the coin didn't fall out and finally lifts his head after convincing himself that there's nothing else here for them, "That's a good idea. I'm going to head by the treehouse then out to the art gallery if Meri isn't home by now. Let's meet up with those two as soon as possible."

Rumiko looks to Magik, "I'll drop by the treehouse with you."

Magikrios nods and looks over to Tessa, "Be careful getting out of here. Same way out, you two." With that, Magik takes to that same grey smoke/fog-like form and slowly slips out of this part of the Larket forest.

Quintessa stoops down to pocket the witch bottle before she too leaves this place behind, bending the shadows to her will the same she did when she came to this place.