Sorana

@Ookla the Maybe-Existent @Ookla the Evil Penguin @Ookla the Random

Mike shrank back at the questions, quickly shook his head. "Who are you?" He asked, tried to pull his hand out of the stranger's grip. Different persona? He had no idea. No idea at all. "Why, what do you want from me?" He added, his voice shaking. Lucky him, he stumbled into the one person who wanted to use him again, to pry on him, to reveal his secrets. Wes. Mike silently wished that his friend was here, to hold him, to tell him that things would be alright. The strange feeling inside of his head intensified, but for now nothing changed. Instead he simply looked at Corenar, tried to think of a good way to escape all the questions.

Ophelia paused when the urchin placed down his second to last card. They had only played three rounds, there was no way he could have gotten rid of all of - her eyes widened when she understood that they cheated, probably had been cheating all the time. "But - " She started to protest and silenced herself when she saw Aoryen's expression. Lowering her glance she drew a card, sighed at the yellow four and then didn't even look up to see what the next urchin would do. He played another draw four, but it didn't matter anyway anymore.

Ophelia took her chance and placed her draw two card on the stack. With a little luck the next urchin would have draw - she paled when he laughed and placed another draw two card on top of hers. Apologetically she looked over to Ana, feeling cold. It was going badly, really really bad for them. And if they lost, then she would have to - looking down she stared at her useless cards, wished she had something else. @Ookla the Silent

Wita followed his gesture, inhaled, held her breath for a moment and then exhaled again. She repeated it once, twice, concentrated on his hand on her shoulder and then looked up at him. She wasn't alone anymore. He was here, and he hadn't left when he learned who she was. How she usually was. She smiled at Marcel, took another deep breath and then nodded. "We could see if someone takes us?" Pausing for a moment she looked at him. "Or we walk for a little, and then try to get a taxi. If you claim to found a disabled person, maybe they would drive us to a place close by?" It wasn't nice, but - "Or we see if we can find some money here and pay for one."

Shana suppressed a grin when he mentioned Tracey. He was right, she was extra nice to him. "I'm not sure if Tracy is the right person for that." She replied, but still considered the possibility. She opened the door and hopped out of the car. "But I suppose it can't hurt to take a closer look at those around." Waiting for the others to get out of the car she pulled out her mobile. Did you sleep well? Didn't want to disturb you this morning, but I made sure to straighten the blanket on the matress. Ben liked it tidy- although he would see it the moment he opened his eyes. She sighed, thumb hovering over the display. How are you? She finally typed unsure how to voice her concern for him. It wasn't like Ben to miss the first hour, but maybe he had school later today, because of a special occassion. @Ookla the Excessive

Lena followed the woman inside, mostly to keep the appearance of being nothing but a harmless student. No working fabrials? This guild really was a sorry sight. But they had the money to build all of this, to pay for all of this - so maybe they could find a vault or something? She rubbed to fingers together behind the woman's back, wordlessly asking the others if they wanted to focus more on money, or if they should go on here. A fabrial that produced grain sounded interesting and an emerald - they would have to steal it somewhere, but that shouldn't be a problem. "So what exactly is wrong with it?" She asked curiuosly, interested to see if maybe she could repair it on her own.

Mike nodded and pulled his hand back. "Glad to meet you Corenar." He replied and wondered what to do now. There was a vague uneasy feeling in the back of his head, but he ignored it for now. He realized Corenar hadn't replied to his question and so he looked around, finally found a street sign. Close to the Baker's district. Turning he found another one and nodded more to himself, when he knew how to get back to the headquarters. Or maybe the bleeding spike? Lusk would gut him for running off. He had told him, to keep them in check, and not to endanger the mission. He sighed and then forced a polite smile on his face. "Thank you for offering your help. But I know where I have to go now." He started, his eyes resting on the shadowy figure for a moment, noticing the tattoo and then he looked away as if he had seen nothing. He didn't know about the other person's orders, so he wouldn't interfer. "I grew up in these streets, so I am positive I will find my way home."

Hello mathiau! Great that you thinking about joining the Alleyverse and welcome! This is exactly the right place to ask. F-Copper would be 30 // A-Tin is 35 //I wouldn't consider F-Copper/ A-Tin a complimentary combination Scholarship skilled is 30 (depending a little on the scholarship itself) // I would count the unkeyed metalminds at 10 points for this character, since they only up one skill to expert. If he were to hand them over to another character, they would be at 40 as they would have to pay for the whole scholarship expert

Wita tilted her head to the side at the mention of his mother, at the way he quoted her and at the same time spoke of her, as if he didn't like her at all. She must have been an expert. There was something there he didn't agree with, but she didn't ask, only reached out for his arm and gave it a gentle squeeze. If her mother - she pressed her eyes together at the overwhelming sense of loss and pressed a hand to her chest, as if to hold something close. "We have to stop them." She agreed mostly to speak of something else. "No matter what it is, if they are really responsible for all of this, then we have to." Swallowing at the loss that still ripped at her heart, at the scream that threatened to - Wita continued to keep her eyes closed, breathing erratic. She could do this, stop it, someone. Marcel had told her that there was a way to stop the flood to be bright and swimming. Mother, her mother. She gasped, as if ringing for air, hand still pressed against her chest and then forced herself to look at the clues. "DoyouhaveanideahowtogetintoBigBen?" She asked quickly, words bluring together.

Mike looked up, saw a man stand next to him and he only stared at him for a moment. Where was he? Looking around, he saw the food in his hand, couldn't remember buying it. But he had the taste in his mouth, so he - Snake. Snake had bought the food. "I, where am I?" He asked and looked around for a street sign. He felt empty, as if something vital had been ripped out of him, as if there was only darkness and no light surrounding him. No chance to do something else but fall and fall and fight and fall even more. "I lost track of my way." He added as a kind of vague explanation why he might ask where he was and slowly got to his feet. "I am Mike." He greeted the stranger, tried to appear normal, although he didn't feel like talking at all. And yet he offered his hand, nearly astonished that for once it looked human.

@Ookla the Random ======================== "Because he knew." Wita said quietly, when all the little pieaces fell into place. Her voice grew excited and she found herself stopping to store completely. She tapped a finger against one of the newspapers. "He suspected, that whoever wants to do something with the portal, was also behind a part of these accidents. There is always no reason - but what if that is, because there can be no reason? If there is no reason, because it was magic, just like you do and the police can't detect it, or maybe they don't know about all the different kinds." She collected the newspapers and stacked them neatly in their box with all the other findings. "So if he suspected that they want to do something with the portal this morning - then maybe he knew that they try something evil, something that will harm those in the city, or maybe he wasn't sure about it." Spreading her hands, she nodded at her conclusion. "And then they killed him, to make sure he couldn't tell anybody. Except that we were there. And we stopped them from finishing their deeds." She swallowed and a questioning tone entered her voice. "Do you think we should go and see what happens at Big Ben? That we should try to stop them? We didn't catch the brutes that killed Christopher - so they know about us. If we don't stop them - will they...?" stop us?

@Ookla the Roleplayer ======================= "They had to watch the building." She agreed. "They knew when we left it, to go somewhere - quieter." Shana smiled at the memory. Despite the way it had ended she had very much liked the way it begun. "All of us go to the same school, so it would be logical for them to have at least one spy in place. Or maybe they simply heard about the prom, realized that we would be there and decided to look for a good opporunity. In that case it was purely accidental that Ben and me happened about them, it could have been everybody else as well." On the other hand, they had weakened them significantly by binding her and they had known who she was. They had hurt Ben to make sure she wouldn't act in any way against them. "I think you are right." She said slowly. "If they have a spy at school, it would explain a lot. The attack yesterday as well. They knew all of us were there, that we were distracted."

You laugh softly at his words, the way he asks if you have the money to pay for him, compared to the casual way he indicates that he has many customers already. He has to be good if he has a schedule after only a couple of days in town. "Where I come from, class and money are mostly the same." Your voice is slightly amused, when you hand his mistrust back to him, without batting an eye. You don't doubt that you can pay him, and should he be really expensive - you can always draw on other ressources as well. "The only question is, which class do you belong to?" You ask and continue to smile at him and rise an eyebrow when he downs his whiskey in one go without showing any sign of the alcohol at all. He has to be drinking a lot to be able to drink this stuff without the slightest grimace on his face. In a perfectly calculated gesture you order another whiskey for him and take another sip of your wine. It's your second glass and you know, that you have to be careful. Already you can feel the slight tingling of your legs and fingers, the way your head feels a little lighter. You're far from drunk, but you aren't sober as well. Still you realize, that the alcohol is making you a little careless - to even consider to hire a random guy you meet in a bar, and yet - something about him fascinates you and so you don't mind this little carelessness at all. Leaning against the bar you take up the other half of his sentence. "I doubt that rules like that change. In the end it always comes down to the same possibilities to motivate other to work together." And it was rare that money wasn't the number one on that list.

Zokora closed her eyes again, and forced herself to relax her shoulders and arms. She was stressed, and anxious and she absolutely hated days when everything went shouth. Today was such a day. She read through the text in front of her a last time and then finally, sent it. It was short, maybe lacked information, but then it was mostly supposed to inform them and nothing more. She had tried to contact Lusk and Lord Arkos immediatly, but in the end it had taken her some time to find out where they were. Still, she felt positive that her messages should reach them. With a sigh she opened her next message, wrote a quick reply and then continued, assigend some of the tastks to other members, some to herself and some she simply sent over to Althea. She could decide a part, but not everything and she wasn't going to step into fire and put herself into the first row. After she sent the last message, she was about to get up, talk to some members, so that she could cross of these points off her list, when another message arrived. Rolling her eyes she opened it without even sitting down again, mostly to get rid of it in her inbox, when she saw who it was from. Deteca. She hadn't heard of her in a while, suspected that the other woman was as busy as she was and that made her reply even more precious. Smiling she settled into her stool completely again and started to type a reply. @Ookla the Roleplayer @Ookla the Maybe-Existent @Ookla the Dog Hater

The Underling was right. They all had an agenda. Everybody here, including herself. "I'm not sure if a real neutral party exists." She told him quietly, but still inclined her head in agreement. "There are still buildings, that were severly damaged during the last invasion." She followed his trail of thought. "If we create a council of some sorts, dedicated to use the atium for the repairs, all of us would be in control, all of us would know what happens with it." And yet, nobody could decline that there was the huge chance that it would be sold the guilds and in the end, it would still end up somewhere. But at least, maybe it had at least done something good before upsetting every balance they had. They were at a standstill - Karin had expressed openly that she wouldn't make any decisions for the DA, TUBA wasn't here - at least not officially, that left her. And if she decided for them all - she couldn't. But as long as nothing fundamentally changed the situation - they would remain like this. In the end, the only sure thing was to destroy it all.

Snake walked along the streets, glad that the boy whose body she was using was finally occupied with something else. She liked how her scales reflected the light on his arms, how the people tended to avoid the lanky male teen with the scales and the eyes that look like a snakes. Of course they did. She was in charge. Snake knew that Mike was still there, somewhere in the darkness they all returned to when they weren't in charge, but for now the body belonged to her, without Wolf or Squirrel interfering. And of course without Mike trying to get back in control. She smiled when she used his money to buy some food and grinned at the man standing there. He shrank back at her glance, and quickly shoved the sandwhich into her hand. Snake turned around and idly walked along the street, wondered what she was going to do now. She felt like doing something exciting and maybe - Mike opened his hands, when Squid was gone, nothing but thin air left between his hands. He lifted a hand to wipe away the tears off his face and stared at them, as if he couldn't believe he was crying. Tears. He was crying for the ghost of a spike. He itched to take squids spike and rip it out of his chest, just like he had used Porcupine's during the invasion. It had been so easy. Take it in your hand and rip it out of your body. Except that without someone to heal him, he would bleed out soon. Salmon swam over and Mike looked at the calm fish, felt it's wet, slicky scales underneath his fingertips. Disgust rippled through his body and he flinched away a little, but Salmon stayed, offered silent comfort. Mike had never really looked at him, Squid had been his friend, his pillar, with Squirrel and Wolf to keep him upright, to help him against Snake and Fox. Fox. Pain seared through his chest when he saw Squid again, her lifeless body in Fox teeth. Grimly he stood up, and reached out, grabbed Snake and pulled her back down. Wolf was behind him, kept Fox in check and yet, nothing happened. Mike continued to pull, to fight, used all his power, everything he hand and finally, finally Snake gave way and he surfaced again. Mike gasped, when he could feel his limbs again, fell to the ground and buried his face in his hands, his fingertips feeling his short hair. They were growing stronger. And he had no idea what to do now. @Coda

Temeria whirled around in surprise, drawing her sword a little when suddenly, finally, something changed behind her. A figure had appeared, but before she could do something, reposition herself or even judge if the figure was a threat or not, they moved, stepped past her and stopped only when he, it was obviously a man given his figure and the way he moved, stood in between of the two that had greeted her earlier. He dismissed her question without even looking her way - not that she really had understood KanMien's explanation completely, but it had felt better than this simple - it's not your business. Apart from that he was right. It wasn't her business. And yet, at least the part she had been able to follow had helped to grasp this eerie place to a certain degree. It was sounded a little like the thing she had used to travel here. A portal, in the shape of an alley. Given the length of KanMien's explanation that was probably mostly wrong, but it was something she could picture and so she went with it. The figure turned around, allowed her to see his face, the short hair and his eyes. The eyes. They were dark, endless pools that seemed to reach out for her, while they first focused on the spren and she instinctively lifted a hand, as if to shield it from them. Feeling stupid at her defensive reaction, she slowly lowered her hand, but still shifted her weight, to be able to move more quickly. Then the eyes brushed over her sword and finally locked onto hers and she nearly immediatly looked away, down at the ground unable to stand them even for a heartbeat. She could still feel his stare, as if he was looking past her skin, as if he tried to pry her open with nothing but his eyes and she moved a step away, unconciously trying to get rid of this gaze, of the feeling. The cold fear returned, grabbed her with relentless, icy hands and she felt her grip around her sword grow tight when she fought the urge to start running right here and now. When he spoke again his voice had changed a little, tensed when he refered to Mac and the little slip of control changed him from awful spirit of the dark to something else. Something a little more human. No, not human, she immediatly corrected her own thought. Mac had declined to be a god and yet referred to himself as one, he had told her, that his guild had created this world. Whoever this man was, it would be safest to assume he was the same category. Powerful enough to create a world. A god. Temeria considered to fall to her knees, and decided against it. It would have been the wrong way with Mac, and at the moment he was the only thing she had as reference. She swallowed, tried to keep her thoughts in one place and to avoid the dread that rose in her throat. One step after the other. She forced herself to look up again, focused her own gaze on his chest, just below his neck. It would make it possible to see if he moved, without meeting his stare directly. She had been taught to look there, to avoid her eyes giving away where she aimed her next blow at. It was as far up as she could bring herself to, fear holding her throat in a tight grip. And maybe she should be proud that she was still standing anyway. There was no option to keep silent when he asked a question, no hesitation to think about her reply or to shape it in a good way. She went with the truth, without really thinking about it. "No, I wasn't." She shook her head. "The street wasn't empty, I am sure, others have to have seen him as well. But I am positive I was the last one he spoke to, at least outside of the alley he walked into." @Voidus

"Green." He said and Ophelia grimaced. If he had said red, she could have forced the urchin after her to draw 6 cards, but as she had no green draw two card there was nothing she could do. She picked up four additional ones and her heart sank when she looked at them. A one, a nine, a three and a blue reverse card. More cards, that wouldn't really help to win this thing. She placed down a green zero and then looked over to the next urchin. He grinned at her, his eyes not on her face, but a hand below her chin and she grimaced when he used a reverse card. His eyes never left her chest and she moved a little, sank down so that her cloths obscured more of her figure. Quickly she played her blue reverse card, and thankfully this time the urchin simply played a blue seven. It was Ana's turn now. @Ookla the Silent

Shana looked at him, at the one who had her back, at her best friend and smiled. "There's no need to ask Cup. I can't even tell you how much your opinion matters to me." "I can do it." She repeated. "No matter how hard it might be one day. I will do my best to stop them, and to protect those that need protection." Her smile widened a little and she leaned back, looked outside. "For now, my next battle is to convince my teacher to go easy on my grades. And it would be really nice to eat that cheesecake, without a Voidbringer running into the room. I didn't even get to dance a lot with Ben at the prom. It would be great to at least have some cheesecake without an emergency."

"I like cassettes." She smiled. "Their players are fascinating." She continued to hold on to him for a moment, before stepping back. She sat down in front of the newspapaers again. "Look." She pointed at them, at the different dates. "Accidents, murders," her fingers tipped on one that depicted a ruin, "a house that crumbled." Again she carefully skipped over those that spoke of a fire, trusted him to fill that part in by himself. "And in every single case there was no reason. No murderer. They never found out how." she reached out for the postcard of Big Ben Ryan had found. "And now this guy is dead, and we've got nothing left but the postcard and some cryptic messages." It was too much to be a coincidence. All of them had some kind of magic, but before this night she had rarely met anybody like herself before. Maybe someone covered all of this. Maybe non of these had been an accident. Wita closed her eyes and took a deep breath. It was unlikely. It was impossible to explain every crime that happened. But even if only a half of them - she continued to look at the different reports, the accidents, the crimes and considered the situation. Someone had killed Christopher. There had to be some kind of reason.

Wita continued to look through the newspapers, at least through the pages that the man had kept. It was the same. An accident, a murder, a crumbling house. And everytime, there was no reason. She spread them out on the ground, looked them over, carefully leaving the others about fires away. Idly she sorted them so that they were lying there in chronological order and only turned her head when Marcel adressed her again. "I did." She replied quietly to his question. "For a while, then they stopped. I was storing, all the time. At one point, they gave up, accepted it as consequence of -" her hand described a vague circle. "They organized someone to look after me, got me a place in a house with disabled children and that was it. I repair the printers now and then, and help in the kitchen. Nobody expects me to talk anymore, so I don't." A wry grin touched her lips. "No and then I leave, go to a disco and dance. I like music. It doesn't care who you are, or what you do. It just is." It felt strange to speak about it, stranger even that she could do so. She hadn't talked about this. Never. But then, nobody had listened so far. Getting up she walked over, wrapped her arms around him, burried her face against his chest.

Shana nodded quietly, while the others got into the car and Cassie started the engine. "You are right." She admitted, replayed his words in her head. It will never feel right, because she was human. "I can do it." she said quietly. "I can do the hard thing to save the others, to protect. And I can be mercyfull to those that fell and I won't be swayed from that path, no matter how hard it will be." And yet she wondered if one day she would someone that turned everything upside down, that would upset her path. Someone she couldn't fight, someone she didn't want to fight. You never knew. Maybe the next person she saw with these red eyes was her teacher. Could she really face her teacher, and do the right thing? Hopefully Rob was right and there was a different solution.