Encounterlogs
Isoldes Odd Encounter Sr Ritsuka 241123
Isolde, upon beginning her day by observing a bird outside her window, finds herself entangled in a peculiar investigation when Detective Kornblume arrives at her door, requesting her expertise for a case. The investigation revolves around the mysterious death of a member of The Golden Shadow, a mercenary group. Detective Kornblume, emphasizing Isolde's unique abilities as crucial for the case, seeks to unveil the truth behind the arcane murder. As they proceed to the crime scene, Isolde dresses appropriately, hinting at her readiness to dive into the depths of mystery that Haven shelters within its borders. Their investigation leads them to a victim slain by a seemingly enchanted frozen flower, revealing layers of intrigue tied to mercenary politics, arcane artifacts, and the ever-pervasive shadow that cloaks Haven's underbelly.
As the story unfolds, the investigation takes a sharp turn when Isolde and Detective Kornblume discover crucial evidence linking the murder to illicit experiments and shadowy figures known as 'The Observer' and Iron Camella. Amidst their sleuthing, they face challenges that test their resolve, including a confrontation with the murderer in a dramatic escape involving gunfire and magic. Elora and Emily join the fray, adding their own strengths to the chaotic mix, from Elora's arcane proficiency to Emily's fiery resolve. Throughout this ordeal, Isolde's tactful navigation through detective work, conflict, and her own arcane interventions leads to significant discoveries about the artifact known as The Seraphim Blade, Aurelia Genesis Laboratories, and the clandestine dealings of The Golden Shadow. The story crescendos with the murderer's escape, shedding light on the murky waters of Haven's politics and the ongoing battles that lie hidden from the ordinary eye, leaving the group with more questions than answers and a crime scene that whispers tales of power, betrayal, and the search for truth in a city that thrives on secrets.
(Isolde's odd encounter(SRRitsuka):SRRitsuka)
[Fri Nov 22 2024]
In Worksite Retreat
The interior of the Worksite Retreat is simple and functional, built for temporary use on construction projects. The space features a narrow kitchenette with a small sink and a microwave, a fold-out table with two benches, and a row of cots lined up against one wall, each with a basic blanket and thin mattress. The walls are plain and scuffed from frequent use, while overhead storage compartments hold essential supplies. Dim, overhead lighting gives the space a utilitarian feel, and the faint scent of sawdust and industrial cleaner lingers in the air.
It is morning, about 36F(2C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky.
(A member of The Golden Shadow has been found dead under mysterious circumstances. Your target has been hired to investigate the death, and they must navigate the treacherous world of mercenary politics, using their wits and powers to find the truth while avoiding becoming the next victim.)
wakes up, staring at a bird outside her window. The bird, it stares back. Both of them safe from one another at their respective distances, closed of by the might of glass and wood- ever distance by a lack of conversion language. The bird chirps, Isolde snorts. Such is the relationship.
Isolde's Room is a motley, messy thing. Organized in piles according to function, but ultimately left aesthetic space to put them. It's better than a barn, but perhaps worse than a trailer.
Still the early morning hours in Haven, still not quite noon and still morning, where the birds do fly and sing, of which one of them had settled down on the other side of a window to Isolde. It squeaks out and chirps loudly at the window, and watches Isolde with something of a birdly curiosity, as some rare birds are prone to sometimes do. It twists its head, and then lets out a chirp, as if to communicate something, and then falls to silence, watching Isolde through the window.
It is then only a few seconds later, a dozen or so, that someone knocks on the door to Isolde's resting place. It is a firm double knock, not hasty, not rushed and not slow either. The bird makes another chirp, and then takes two hops to the left and watches from Isolde towards the door.
Isolde props up the old rusted rifle against the wall like a decoration, or a mop. She smiles at it, happy in a motherly way, and then moves over to the door. She clasps her hands in front of herself, fixes the runed bracelet into her hair, and then calls out, "Who are you!?"
"Detective Kornblume, I would like to request your help with a case that I am stuck on," A light, feminine voice asks from the other side of the door and there is some German accent in her voice. "My contacts have brought your file to me, and it requires someone along your line of expertise, you were rated as a safe option for this case." The feminine voice adds, and then asks "May I come inside, so that we may talk about the precise circumstance, miss Kim? I am sure we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement."
Isolde considers, doubly considers. She tries to get a good look through at his feet, shuffling around on the wood, creating volume, but it is a hopeless task. She stands, a shimmering fae dress mistaken for a sleeping shift, and shrugs. She takes a white handbag into her hands, unzips it to see the handgun inside, and opens the door.
Isolde says "Who gave you my information?"
Isolde has given more diplomatic greetings.
There is a brief moment of consideration before Kornblume does provide an answer "We have access to information to nearly everyone in Haven. It is a hotspot of activity, of course, and every relevant group has their fingers in the soup here. I work for a detective agency, there has been a murder but none of the available staff have your gift, miss." There is a light tapping tapping against the window, the bird outside, and it chirps another two notes and then tilts its head again. "But we quite need someone with yours to proceed and make progress in our investigation. I am sure you will understand when you see the file."
Isolde stares one eye more lidded than the other, looking like the victim of waking up that she is: well decorated face adorning war-torn wakeup. There's no shower in the portable, she'll have to do that at the clinic later. Though, there is perhaps a 'witchy' gravitas to tangled hair and exhaustion. Maybe this is a uniform of sorts, then.
"I understand." Isolde nods.
Isolde not so subtly looks past him to attempt to see his car, "Will we be going elsewhere? To see this file? I'm not decent."
Finally, the detective opens the door, and in steps an average, female geek. Sneakers, bootcut jeans, a shirt that is almost cute and hair curled together, and of course, glasses. There Isolde can see that she did arrive with a vehicle, a pretty much regular black car, definitely below economy class. "We should," She says, looking down to a file she is holding, and she looks more embarrassed than not after barging in when Isolde says she is not decent. "We would head to the murder scene, the body hasn't been moved yet. He belonged to the Golden Shadow, had their symbol on his coat. But if you prefer we could leave it at hiring you and I can just give you the address?" She looks away, not trying to look to Isolde after the mention of indecency.
"I bought a motorcycle second hand without a license and every day is a new adventure." Isolde says past the detective as one does to the horrors of war. She begins to turns around, mumbling to the southwestern corner wherein sits three suitcases, two shopping bags, a Spear, and the remains of seven dead flip phones. "We can take your car.. won't that be fun."
"I'm not really a voyeur," Isolde begins, turning over her shoulder, "so you can decide how awkward it will be to watch me dress- and choose whether to wait in the car or not."
Isolde will dress in a Reservoir dog suit; Ribbon tie, black blazer, satin gloves, dress shoes and pants.
"I do not mean to burden, miss, I will wait in the car," and with that, the woman turns around and makes her way to her own car, unlocks it by inserting the key in the side, and then sliding into the driver's seat. There is another chirp from outside the Window, and the bird turns and begins to flutter its wings to rise into the air, only to land on the roof of the car itself. It leaves a dirty messy on the front-window, of course, and then flies way. If only birds could be persecuted.
Isolde is better fashioned as the hired killer. She almost seems professional, were it not that she lives in a temporary home- so far from outside the city that a frog man actively stares at the detective from the trees like a Neanderthal stalker. She reenters her building twice for forgetting things, and once more for thinking she had forgotten something, before she locks the door and jogs over to the car like she may be shot for standing outside. To be fair, in this neck of woods, she just might.
Isolde says "Okay, take me to a dead body."
Makes a nod of her head, she starts up the engine. The road back to Haven is a slow one, past the frog men that stare and wait for prey between the trunks of trees, past the unicorns that stalk virgins secretly and past the monsters that otherwise roam - the streets are safe from them, no one likes to be driven over by a car after all. The geek detective is a note more quiet initially, but then does tell a little bit more about the case. "Merc got hit with something sharp, this much we know, but there is flowers with him, one of them frozen over and turned to ice, with its stem sharp as a blade. It is where the blood is coated over, so we are thinking that the flower must have been used." She says that much at least, and then adds "There got to be an arcane trail that we can follow on, something to explain the cause. Would not be something to think on usually, but it's Haven where people do not typically die to being murked like that. So something is clearly not right."
Whence arriving upon the location, it is in the middle of the industrial district, a short distance away from the arkwrights warehouses inside of a home of an apartment building on the second floor. No damage to the door, it's just unlocked. The apartment itself is small, two rooms, a closed up laptop, and thee corpse. The aforementioned flower is present, one of ice and the air feels incredibly cold, probably what has kept the flower from melting. Red petals, that would probably fit to the flower of ice, lie strewn around the corpse itself.@line
The corpse is of a middle-aged man, a clean slice on the throat with blood splayed all around, he clearly tried to stem the bleeding, but there was no saving it here. He wears near to nothing, pants and an opened coat with the symbol of the Golden Shadow at a corner of the hem. A black shirt lies nearby on the ground.
walks around the portions of the crime scene that the movies say you shouldn't step in. Isolde bows over the man's body, face coveted by fringe and bangs from all but the dull dead stare. "I can give you theory." Isolde begins , "That it's stayed cold means it's enchanted, or something naturally from the Other or something- I don't know, I'm hardly even worldy much less Otherworldly. That which is already cold- absent, closest to vacuum, from heat- is more affected, afflicted, or otherwise strengthened by cold."
Isolde says "A flower is a strange weapon. Dumb, really, I don't know. It's more of a message I guess. Have anyone that can smell around? Literally- like a dogman or God."
Isolde says "They could have escaped through dream or shadow otherwise. I'm not sure you can smell in dream. We could try."
Before Isolde's eyes plays a small and little scene of two shadows that dance across the man's face, it is starved, but there is a little dance where one then comes to slice at the other shadow, only for both of them to disappear. The detective did not seem to notice it, but she does say "The petals and the flowers are from a Camellia, their petals read." She sits down by the laptop and tries to turn it on, but to her, it is entirely unresponsive. If Isolde were to look over, she could see a small magical symbol on it. The flower itself, trying to read it, it was definitely not meant to linger for so long, and it lacks the vibrancy of the Other. But there is rumors of gem-like petaled flowers going around recently. Coincidence? Hard to find out.
Suddenly, the flower begins to shine in a bright and blinding light, that has the detective wince and shut her eyes as well.
Isolde doesn't look away. Shutting down her autonomic system has the wonderful affect of; stopping her heart, digestive system, and among others things, causing her eyes to dilate! Blinded but not reeling, should the light diminish her eyes will simply be just as focused as they were prior to the light- no need to refocus. She takes out the handgun from her handbag in her handhand, of which the safety is never on-
-and aims at the area just in front of her self- Isolde taking a quick step back where she's forgotten the detective is.
Raising a handgun, Isolde would certainly be read. In the shining light, Isolde recognizes that it is the usual clue to a decursing, though the air remains clear, and no one is visible. It is perhaps now becoming more clear to Isolde that the man laid a curse onto it with his dying breathe. And someone appears to be in the middle of decursing it, though again, there is no one to be seen, no one to witness.
Isolde steps back, but it stops short just before crashing into the Detective, whom needs a moment to rub her own eyes now. "What was that? It didn't do that when we visited earlier."
, without tact, leans in close to Detective Kornblume's ear. It's more evocative than it seems to be, and rather beside the time and place- "It may be that the rose is desired?" Isolde begins in a whisper. Her expression is not veiled, and the tone of her voice is only less still than silence. "Someone is removing a curse on the flower. I do not know if they have to be nearby, but they should be. I'm going to look around the room very quickly, and call my teacher, okay?"
Isolde says, On the phone, quietly, "I'm near Deadwood, industrial- black car. I'm on a side job, murder- I can't talk about it over the phone. Could you come?"
Isolde steps around the scene very casually. The abruptly snickers into the phone and remarks about a small bit of gossip. She takes in the smells that have been here most recent, her head movements only slightly estranged with her intent.
Elora casually says, not to the phone, but to the person in the room with her, "Jiae has gotten mixed up with something strange and is pretending she has a job." She puts her hand over the receiver as she speaks. "Do you want to drive out to Devilwood with me and check out what is going on?"
Elora says "Sorry, Deadwood."
Elora yawns
Isolde texts on her burner flip-phone, A woman named Detective Kornblume hired me as a Cryomancer. It's irritating so many people know, but what can I do? Jiae was rather loud about it, apparently. I would like you to come as they might still be in the room. A flower of ice, possibly enchanted, has been cursed by the dead man before his death. It is actively being decursed. The detective, I presume, did not bring in someone before me.
Isolde says, on the phone, "Haha- I get it, yeah, okay. Well, whatever you need, okay?"
Looking a little confused, the detective adjusts her geeky glasses again and then looks back to the laptop. Her fingers brush over the magical symbol that lies on it, and then she tries to boot it up again, leaving Isolde to the call to Elora she wishes to make. The laptop still does not boot up, and she turns it around, inspecting it for damages and finds none. She lets out a frustrated sigh.
Elora was upon Guardian Lane in an expansive cabin. "If so, just follow me out there in your car when you're ready. Best to have your things with you, just in case," Elora suggests. Then she puts the phone back to her ear and says, "I'm on my way now. See you soon?" She leaves the cabin she was in, leaving a sleepy girl who had just woken up in the bed she had been resting in. She moves to a non-descript van and then starts the drive toward Deadwood,
Isolde strolls along the edges of the room. Some apartments are furnished with mirrors near their closets, and always in the bathrooms. She checks her reflection in them, pretending to find love in vanity- but moreso checks to see if any lay inside the Nightmare across the other side. Then, she moves over to the computer and sighs. She treats the device like an arcane focus for a moment, attempting to use it test if a spell goes off, and then attempts to press the power button.
Isolde's reinforce will proc on the flower if the laptop is an arcane focus, perhaps.
Isolde trains her gun on the rose, "If I see one more light I'm shooting the rose."
Isolde remembers it's not a 'rose.' ahem.
Elora adjusts her werewolf hide scarf while at a stop sign.
It takes a couple of minutes for Emily and Elora to arrive at the location, meanwhile, the Detective and Isolde both get to suffer some more, as the room suddenly begins to grow burning hot, and then freezing cold again. The sight into the nightmare itself does not reveal anyone to be there on that side, but Isolde finds success with channeling some magic into the symbol that resides on the laptop, and when she presses the power on button - it starts up into windows 7. Fortunately it does not ask for a password and goes straight to desktop. There is a bunch of different folders, one named financial, one named competition and another objective, and then one that is named 'AGL incident'.
When Elora and Emily leave, they find that the door to the apartment is wide open. Isolde has taken up space near a laptop that is running and a geeky looking woman with sneakers and jeans and a shirt that could almost be cute is seated on a chair near the laptop, too. "You got access!" She chirps out.
On the ground, there is a corpse of a man, wearing pants but no socks or shoes. A jacket is wrapped around his shoulders and at the corner of the hem is the small symbol of the Golden Shadow. He is bare under the jacket. His throat looks to have been sliced. A shirt lies in a corner somewhere else and several red petals lie strewn around him on the floor, and between it, a frozen, icy flower with a very sharp stem soaked in blood. Those more familiar with flowers may recognize the petals to come from a red Camellia, and the frozen flower to be formed and shaped like such a flower. The air is freezing cold here.
opens the 'AGL incident' file- half crouched like a Russian gangster, gun in her hand. She's wearing a suit that most have seen. "Mmm." Isolde responds. She hears the footsteps from further away than the door- from a cooridor down, and has enough fantasies of Elora's shoes to recognize her gait before she arrives.
Isolde probably doesn't hear Elora, actually.
Elora had a power surge. Last seen was Ritsuka's post.
Emily is wearing casual jeans and a scuffed leather jacket, looking wary and alert as she arrives with Elora, making sure to open the car door for her like a chauffeur would before she makes her way up to the apartment. "What the hell is even goin' on? What do ya need me for?", she finally asks her companion.
Elora looks over the scene, paying little attention to the laptop itself, instead focusing in on the source of the cold, if she can find it.
"Hi." Isolde responds, distracted. "Detective Kornblume hired me."
"I'm not sure," Elora lilts out in answer to Emily as she looks about the room upon entering it. "I can't say I am fond of the Golden Shadow. That mercenary group has at times opposed the Knights in operations. They would work for Gonothorian himself for the right price. It surprises me little that a cryomancer would kill one, if that is what has happened here."
"Is that what that is?" Isolde remarks, frowning. "Well, I am just being hired for the cause of death- but the flower is being decursed- which means it's probably cursed."
Elora shrugs, not particularly sure, having only just arrived, merely guessing.
Opening the file, and skimming through it, AGL refers to Aurelia Genesis Laboratories and the Golden Shadow seems to have been working closely with someone that signs as 'The Observer' in the exchange. They seem to have been involved in the theft of an augmenting artifact - The Seraphim Blade in some fashion, from White Oak, and note that an agent had taken it and was killed, but not by who. Later it reports an 'infraction' into the laboratory itself, with more trouble to be expected in the coming weeks as a report notes that there has been 'activities' with the Hand and that AGL experiments may be at risk. One of the files reports that a few new children would have been delivered to a facility outside of the Haven forest, outside of Sanctuary's reach to the 'agreed upon side'.
The detective leans in, and reads along closely. The air holds something that is floral in note and smell mixed with something that tells female, the man and the apartment itself have a different kind of smell. The floral one is faint, but present. Elora and Isolde can hear the slightest shift of something moving, just so very very quietly just before the frozen flower begins to light up again and blind everyone - before the room starts to slowly warm up, and the flower begins to to show a single bead of melting. (roll: 28) Emily notices a faint shimmer just after the light went up, out in the air. Not like it would with a ghost moving, but something more here, more present. It was brief, but it is there.
Isolde eidetisizes the contents with a blink per laptop-scrollwheel page. "Ehh.. It is like a conspiracy or something.help augmenting"
Isolde says "The Observer, 'The Seraphim Blade?' "
Isolde stands up, training her gun down on the flower and then sighing. "I threatened to shoot the flower earlier. Should I?"
Emily gives Isolde a quick and nervous nod in greeting and shudders as she lays eyes on the bloody scene, averting her eyes as her cheeks grow pale. She starts to say something but gets cut short by the blinding light. Quickly she holds up her right arm to shield her eyes, an instinctive reaction that is far too late to actually shield her from the flash, but as she lowers it again, her gaze stays affixed to a point in the room. "The fuck...?!", she exhales and tries to step in front of Elora protectively. "Hello?! What the hell are ya?", she asks seemingly no one in particular.
Isolde starts to stop around the flower, trying to catch invisible arms.
Elora upon hearing the noise is paranoid enough to assume something is present and skittish enough that her first reaction is to bolt back out the door, heading for her van, and for the duffel bag therein with her weapons.
Isolde stomp* around
Elora would hide the moment anyone unexpected appeared or made a threatening motion toward her, if such things occurred.
Nothing answers at first when Emily calls out, and Isolde finds nothing to linger in the immediate of the frozen flower now, except that it grows distinctly warmer, and the flower begins to melt quicker than it should. Elora begins to storm out, and this is when someone follows and bolts after her! The steps are light, but they are most definitely not Elora's, but definitely seem to 'chase' after Elora out the door and towards the stairs. Of course, whether the figure also sees Elora or not is a different question, but the absence of her here she was did create an opening to get out.
Isolde clenches her jaw, and with a spiteful curse, invokes the vacuum on the flower.
Isolde says "Vanessa- chase her down, you are fast, okay!?"
Emily stares at the air for a few moments longer before she shrugs at Isolde and mumbles, averting her gaze: "I don't fuckin' know, chica... maybe my eyes played tricks on me... and what the hell's wrong with Kath again? Jeez, I swear, she doesn't take her pills and....", she sighs at Isolde and gives her a quick nod. "Right, I'll make sure she doesn't do something crazy..."
Emily bolts out the door to chase after Elora.
"THE FOOTSTEPS CHASING AFTER AVELINE!" Isolde calls out.
Elora is not unlike a frightened animal in the moment: reacting instinctually, fight and flight, and the sound of footsteps behind her would only heighten that instinct. She isn't fast, like some are fast. So she draws on her true strengths as an arcanist, reaching out for the bound spirit of Envy that had once attacked her brother and which was now in a two-tailed fox, calling for it. Her choker glows.
Elora however, in her running glances back, terror fading in part, for some unknown reason, even though the summon has already went out.
Elora stills in her mad dashing, looking back behind her, eyes roving over the world.
Alas, it is on the second floor in an apartment building, and that means stairs down. It is a rush, the neighbors definitely hear, and the Detective squeaks and rushes after everyone as well - and is also the one that slips and slides across Isolde's cold floor and falls with another squeak.
The person chasing after Elora is quick, as much as Emily is and does catch up, and tries to rush past Elora, followed by Emily. The ground is cold, first, and where it hasn't yet, it will soon grow slippery. A two-tailed fox appears at Elora's will and make, but the invisible figure still tries to slip and pass Elora by, down the stairs.
Isolde takes the black shirt on the floor and maneuvers it to pick up the flower. She begins a decursing ritual of her own, focused on the object.
Cleansing* Ritual, is what Isolde does.
Elora as the figure comes closer to her kneels, hands going to her hidden boot-sheathe and the blade she keeps there for ritual and self-protection, only partially drawing it, moving to the side in an effort to let the rushing figure past. Elora is much, much slower, than the angelborn girl.
Elora would not fully draw and would even conceal the dagger as long as the figure rushed past her rather than trying to attack her.
Emily seems to be chasing after Elora at first, but the coldness and the slippery floor tip her off that not all is as it seems and as she gets close to Elora, she jumps, tackling a random spot in the air haphazardly without knowing if something is there or if she even is close enough to tackle 'it'.
Isolde disregards the Detective slipping on ice innocuously as she does her own ritual.
As Isolde reaches for the flower, it melts in her hand, and what remains is something she would recognize far more - it is a needle, a long one, the kind usually put in one's hair. It is of silver, with a small, floral shaped end on one side. It is not very elaborate, but simple, likely not expensive silver either, but a cheaper one. And it bears no more curse, but could perhaps be sold at the market later.
The figure rushes past Elora, and just two steps past, the stairs go down, and Emily tackles right into the invisible figure, and both plumet the floor down onto the ground. Fortunately, Emily had a cushion, though she surely would not have have gotten dragged along down if the figure she had found was not actually there and did not start to struggle; and even as they land bellow it does not subside, trying to free themselves from the mess of doubled people-ness below, their strength at about equal.
Isolde sticks the needle in her handbag.
Isolde takes the needle back out- which is a dangerous proposition to make with sharp objects. Putting it instead in her hair, she uses the dead man's face as a platform to stand, literally scuffing the crime scene, and-
Isolde slips on her own ice out the door.
Elora winces, several times, as Emily and the person she tackles make their painful way down the stairs. By the time the two are neared to the bottom of the stairs, the wince has turned into a smile. For her part, she does not rush down the stairs, but makes a decided point of holding the railing if there is one as she treks down after the pair.
As Emily is struggling with the invisible figure, trying to grapple it she shouts out to Elora "Fuckin' hell! Do somethin' Kath!" A glow spreads over her body, seemingly instinctively as she pants and curses, her skin visibly glowing softly where it is exposed and when this glow reaches her hands it flickers into flames for a mere moment. But as Emily is struggling and fighting, her movements grow sluggish, hesitant, not putting in her full energy, more defensive now than offensive, protecting herself from invisible hands instead of trying to hold her opponent down at all costs.
Elora says "Fine, fine."
Elora gestures with a hand, channeling negative energy toward the figure wrestling with Emily as she walks down the stairs.
SLIP-WOOSH, the touch of precious ice greets Isolde, and she joins the Detective on the floor whom, looking a touch confused, has now turned her gaze to Isolde. "The ground is very cold." She remarks, as if it was not totally obvious already.
More interestingly, as Emily grows more fiery and proper struggle ensues, the person down below does become visible. A young woman with auburn hair and hazel eyes and a tanned shade of a skin tone. She struggles and gets bitten by the two-tailed fox, which bites into, as it turned out, flesh, she scarcely wears anything at all, a tube top and short pants with fishnet stockings, and when Emily grows to be more defensive, she looks to break herself free - and it is such a confusing mess because everything seems to shift for her, her gaze is on Emily for one moment, and then suddenly on Elora, which leaves a few seconds as her gaze grows focused, shakes her head and her body begins to turn away...
Isolde tries to rub a spot on her spine where she hit the wall, but the suit doesn't allow her the reach. She struggles for a few seconds like a concussed snake held by the neck before she bitterly responds, "-The cause of death was a frozen flower. Flower melted. Now pay me money or something."
Elora tries not to smile at the conversation she hears behind her, cool teal eyes not managing to quite hide the amusement from Isolde's intention and the way the fleeing girl is growing confused beneath the assault on her mind. "Surrender," Elora lilts out. She isn't as concerned with the woman running away. Not when she is bleeding and has a known scent. There would be a trail and it would only give the woman time to realize the pain of her injuries, not to recover from it. Though, there is some risk of the woman slipping into shadow, Elora is not overly invested in stopping the stranger. The fox doesn't stop in its worrying at the woman, but Elora does worry in a different way. She wears a ring of bone and through it she has some sense of the aura of a person. That sense, now, she directs toward understanding whether her fox will instinctively hold back enough to avoid killing the stranger.
Elora assumes a person bit by a fox on skin would bleed.
Emily lets go of the woman she is grappling, a confused look on her face and seemingly not intent on stopping her anymore. Her gaze wanders from Elora to the woman then to Envy and back up to Elora.
Those that have killed, are left with a red aura typically, and this woman is no different. The fox attacks her, and Elora's words are drowned out by the immediate danger to the woman whom then draws a firearm, a glock, to point it at the creature and to fire once - that will definitely get the attention of the authorities, but whether or not she misses, she starts to rush away, to run for her life, in a very real manner of speaking, and once the fox no longer gives chase, the shadows draw over her, envelop her, and take her with them. Emily is no longer touched, and the firearm never even goes to her direction. She was not a threat to the fleeing killer anymore.
The detective looks to Isolde, and then to Elora, can't look to Emily and there is just the lightest blush over her cheeks. "It looks like the murderer escaped?" She asks, now somewhere between meek and confused before her gaze turns to Isolde "Of course, miss." She tries to sit herself upright and to reach into her wallet, but doesn't find it. It embarrasses the geeky detective a little bit "I must have left it in the coor. I'm going to go and grab it."
"Thank. You." Isolde should get non slip shoes given her profession. She crawls up to her hands and knees, limping off the pain through a stride. She concerns herself with the blood trail, then clears her throat at Elora, "There's, like, modification going on with an artifact- or relic- or something." Her tone cuts quiet before she continues on another subject, "She wanted to make sure the murder wasn't found for some reason."
Elora flinches at the sound of gunfire, tensing, but not overtly concerned. Her eyes widen in alarm as her fox is shot at, but she is content to let the presumed cyromancer escape. Reaching Emily she offers the woman a hand while checking over both Emily and the fox for injuries. As she does, she offers some explanation in a low voice, "The victim was a Golden Shadow, if the symbol they wore said anything at all. Not a friend of ours. And not friendly, either, if he could die -here-." To Isolde she says, "Easier to get away with it, if no one catches you, I presume."
Isolde says "Mmm.. The cold trapped it there. I don't know. "
Emily accepts the helping hand and gets up, visibly rattled by the shot that just went off right next to her. She glances at the spot where the bullet hit before turning to Elora to answers with loud: "WHAT? WHAT DID YA SAY?"
The Detective hurries on to her vehicle - and then begins to handle something on it, on her phone, too. The two-tailed fox makes its way over to the van, and disappears into it. Emily, beyond the deafness from the bullet, looks unhurt and unbruised, fortunately and some blood has flown down to the ground and painted the concrete red. Forensics will likely have a look at it, and yes, find it. There is a mist that forms... and that whispers some quiet- silent words.
There is - some information that trickles back, when the Detective reaches out again, be it to Isolde or Elora or Emily, who can share what they know with one another or choose not to. There is two names that came from something involving a professor at White Oak, Professor Whitemill, a teacher in Bioethics and Genetics: Illyana and Ash. The 'Observer' had a keen interested in one of them and had hired the Golden Shadow towards a specific purpose with them, but the details are unknown. As for this murder, it traced back to a single name: Iron Camella. And that is as far as the Detective could find.
As the story unfolds, the investigation takes a sharp turn when Isolde and Detective Kornblume discover crucial evidence linking the murder to illicit experiments and shadowy figures known as 'The Observer' and Iron Camella. Amidst their sleuthing, they face challenges that test their resolve, including a confrontation with the murderer in a dramatic escape involving gunfire and magic. Elora and Emily join the fray, adding their own strengths to the chaotic mix, from Elora's arcane proficiency to Emily's fiery resolve. Throughout this ordeal, Isolde's tactful navigation through detective work, conflict, and her own arcane interventions leads to significant discoveries about the artifact known as The Seraphim Blade, Aurelia Genesis Laboratories, and the clandestine dealings of The Golden Shadow. The story crescendos with the murderer's escape, shedding light on the murky waters of Haven's politics and the ongoing battles that lie hidden from the ordinary eye, leaving the group with more questions than answers and a crime scene that whispers tales of power, betrayal, and the search for truth in a city that thrives on secrets.
(Isolde's odd encounter(SRRitsuka):SRRitsuka)
[Fri Nov 22 2024]
In Worksite Retreat
The interior of the Worksite Retreat is simple and functional, built for temporary use on construction projects. The space features a narrow kitchenette with a small sink and a microwave, a fold-out table with two benches, and a row of cots lined up against one wall, each with a basic blanket and thin mattress. The walls are plain and scuffed from frequent use, while overhead storage compartments hold essential supplies. Dim, overhead lighting gives the space a utilitarian feel, and the faint scent of sawdust and industrial cleaner lingers in the air.
It is morning, about 36F(2C) degrees, and there are a few dark grey stormclouds in the sky.
(A member of The Golden Shadow has been found dead under mysterious circumstances. Your target has been hired to investigate the death, and they must navigate the treacherous world of mercenary politics, using their wits and powers to find the truth while avoiding becoming the next victim.)
wakes up, staring at a bird outside her window. The bird, it stares back. Both of them safe from one another at their respective distances, closed of by the might of glass and wood- ever distance by a lack of conversion language. The bird chirps, Isolde snorts. Such is the relationship.
Isolde's Room is a motley, messy thing. Organized in piles according to function, but ultimately left aesthetic space to put them. It's better than a barn, but perhaps worse than a trailer.
Still the early morning hours in Haven, still not quite noon and still morning, where the birds do fly and sing, of which one of them had settled down on the other side of a window to Isolde. It squeaks out and chirps loudly at the window, and watches Isolde with something of a birdly curiosity, as some rare birds are prone to sometimes do. It twists its head, and then lets out a chirp, as if to communicate something, and then falls to silence, watching Isolde through the window.
It is then only a few seconds later, a dozen or so, that someone knocks on the door to Isolde's resting place. It is a firm double knock, not hasty, not rushed and not slow either. The bird makes another chirp, and then takes two hops to the left and watches from Isolde towards the door.
Isolde props up the old rusted rifle against the wall like a decoration, or a mop. She smiles at it, happy in a motherly way, and then moves over to the door. She clasps her hands in front of herself, fixes the runed bracelet into her hair, and then calls out, "Who are you!?"
"Detective Kornblume, I would like to request your help with a case that I am stuck on," A light, feminine voice asks from the other side of the door and there is some German accent in her voice. "My contacts have brought your file to me, and it requires someone along your line of expertise, you were rated as a safe option for this case." The feminine voice adds, and then asks "May I come inside, so that we may talk about the precise circumstance, miss Kim? I am sure we can come to a mutually beneficial agreement."
Isolde considers, doubly considers. She tries to get a good look through at his feet, shuffling around on the wood, creating volume, but it is a hopeless task. She stands, a shimmering fae dress mistaken for a sleeping shift, and shrugs. She takes a white handbag into her hands, unzips it to see the handgun inside, and opens the door.
Isolde says "Who gave you my information?"
Isolde has given more diplomatic greetings.
There is a brief moment of consideration before Kornblume does provide an answer "We have access to information to nearly everyone in Haven. It is a hotspot of activity, of course, and every relevant group has their fingers in the soup here. I work for a detective agency, there has been a murder but none of the available staff have your gift, miss." There is a light tapping tapping against the window, the bird outside, and it chirps another two notes and then tilts its head again. "But we quite need someone with yours to proceed and make progress in our investigation. I am sure you will understand when you see the file."
Isolde stares one eye more lidded than the other, looking like the victim of waking up that she is: well decorated face adorning war-torn wakeup. There's no shower in the portable, she'll have to do that at the clinic later. Though, there is perhaps a 'witchy' gravitas to tangled hair and exhaustion. Maybe this is a uniform of sorts, then.
"I understand." Isolde nods.
Isolde not so subtly looks past him to attempt to see his car, "Will we be going elsewhere? To see this file? I'm not decent."
Finally, the detective opens the door, and in steps an average, female geek. Sneakers, bootcut jeans, a shirt that is almost cute and hair curled together, and of course, glasses. There Isolde can see that she did arrive with a vehicle, a pretty much regular black car, definitely below economy class. "We should," She says, looking down to a file she is holding, and she looks more embarrassed than not after barging in when Isolde says she is not decent. "We would head to the murder scene, the body hasn't been moved yet. He belonged to the Golden Shadow, had their symbol on his coat. But if you prefer we could leave it at hiring you and I can just give you the address?" She looks away, not trying to look to Isolde after the mention of indecency.
"I bought a motorcycle second hand without a license and every day is a new adventure." Isolde says past the detective as one does to the horrors of war. She begins to turns around, mumbling to the southwestern corner wherein sits three suitcases, two shopping bags, a Spear, and the remains of seven dead flip phones. "We can take your car.. won't that be fun."
"I'm not really a voyeur," Isolde begins, turning over her shoulder, "so you can decide how awkward it will be to watch me dress- and choose whether to wait in the car or not."
Isolde will dress in a Reservoir dog suit; Ribbon tie, black blazer, satin gloves, dress shoes and pants.
"I do not mean to burden, miss, I will wait in the car," and with that, the woman turns around and makes her way to her own car, unlocks it by inserting the key in the side, and then sliding into the driver's seat. There is another chirp from outside the Window, and the bird turns and begins to flutter its wings to rise into the air, only to land on the roof of the car itself. It leaves a dirty messy on the front-window, of course, and then flies way. If only birds could be persecuted.
Isolde is better fashioned as the hired killer. She almost seems professional, were it not that she lives in a temporary home- so far from outside the city that a frog man actively stares at the detective from the trees like a Neanderthal stalker. She reenters her building twice for forgetting things, and once more for thinking she had forgotten something, before she locks the door and jogs over to the car like she may be shot for standing outside. To be fair, in this neck of woods, she just might.
Isolde says "Okay, take me to a dead body."
Makes a nod of her head, she starts up the engine. The road back to Haven is a slow one, past the frog men that stare and wait for prey between the trunks of trees, past the unicorns that stalk virgins secretly and past the monsters that otherwise roam - the streets are safe from them, no one likes to be driven over by a car after all. The geek detective is a note more quiet initially, but then does tell a little bit more about the case. "Merc got hit with something sharp, this much we know, but there is flowers with him, one of them frozen over and turned to ice, with its stem sharp as a blade. It is where the blood is coated over, so we are thinking that the flower must have been used." She says that much at least, and then adds "There got to be an arcane trail that we can follow on, something to explain the cause. Would not be something to think on usually, but it's Haven where people do not typically die to being murked like that. So something is clearly not right."
Whence arriving upon the location, it is in the middle of the industrial district, a short distance away from the arkwrights warehouses inside of a home of an apartment building on the second floor. No damage to the door, it's just unlocked. The apartment itself is small, two rooms, a closed up laptop, and thee corpse. The aforementioned flower is present, one of ice and the air feels incredibly cold, probably what has kept the flower from melting. Red petals, that would probably fit to the flower of ice, lie strewn around the corpse itself.@line
The corpse is of a middle-aged man, a clean slice on the throat with blood splayed all around, he clearly tried to stem the bleeding, but there was no saving it here. He wears near to nothing, pants and an opened coat with the symbol of the Golden Shadow at a corner of the hem. A black shirt lies nearby on the ground.
walks around the portions of the crime scene that the movies say you shouldn't step in. Isolde bows over the man's body, face coveted by fringe and bangs from all but the dull dead stare. "I can give you theory." Isolde begins , "That it's stayed cold means it's enchanted, or something naturally from the Other or something- I don't know, I'm hardly even worldy much less Otherworldly. That which is already cold- absent, closest to vacuum, from heat- is more affected, afflicted, or otherwise strengthened by cold."
Isolde says "A flower is a strange weapon. Dumb, really, I don't know. It's more of a message I guess. Have anyone that can smell around? Literally- like a dogman or God."
Isolde says "They could have escaped through dream or shadow otherwise. I'm not sure you can smell in dream. We could try."
Before Isolde's eyes plays a small and little scene of two shadows that dance across the man's face, it is starved, but there is a little dance where one then comes to slice at the other shadow, only for both of them to disappear. The detective did not seem to notice it, but she does say "The petals and the flowers are from a Camellia, their petals read." She sits down by the laptop and tries to turn it on, but to her, it is entirely unresponsive. If Isolde were to look over, she could see a small magical symbol on it. The flower itself, trying to read it, it was definitely not meant to linger for so long, and it lacks the vibrancy of the Other. But there is rumors of gem-like petaled flowers going around recently. Coincidence? Hard to find out.
Suddenly, the flower begins to shine in a bright and blinding light, that has the detective wince and shut her eyes as well.
Isolde doesn't look away. Shutting down her autonomic system has the wonderful affect of; stopping her heart, digestive system, and among others things, causing her eyes to dilate! Blinded but not reeling, should the light diminish her eyes will simply be just as focused as they were prior to the light- no need to refocus. She takes out the handgun from her handbag in her handhand, of which the safety is never on-
-and aims at the area just in front of her self- Isolde taking a quick step back where she's forgotten the detective is.
Raising a handgun, Isolde would certainly be read. In the shining light, Isolde recognizes that it is the usual clue to a decursing, though the air remains clear, and no one is visible. It is perhaps now becoming more clear to Isolde that the man laid a curse onto it with his dying breathe. And someone appears to be in the middle of decursing it, though again, there is no one to be seen, no one to witness.
Isolde steps back, but it stops short just before crashing into the Detective, whom needs a moment to rub her own eyes now. "What was that? It didn't do that when we visited earlier."
, without tact, leans in close to Detective Kornblume's ear. It's more evocative than it seems to be, and rather beside the time and place- "It may be that the rose is desired?" Isolde begins in a whisper. Her expression is not veiled, and the tone of her voice is only less still than silence. "Someone is removing a curse on the flower. I do not know if they have to be nearby, but they should be. I'm going to look around the room very quickly, and call my teacher, okay?"
Isolde says, On the phone, quietly, "I'm near Deadwood, industrial- black car. I'm on a side job, murder- I can't talk about it over the phone. Could you come?"
Isolde steps around the scene very casually. The abruptly snickers into the phone and remarks about a small bit of gossip. She takes in the smells that have been here most recent, her head movements only slightly estranged with her intent.
Elora casually says, not to the phone, but to the person in the room with her, "Jiae has gotten mixed up with something strange and is pretending she has a job." She puts her hand over the receiver as she speaks. "Do you want to drive out to Devilwood with me and check out what is going on?"
Elora says "Sorry, Deadwood."
Elora yawns
Isolde texts on her burner flip-phone, A woman named Detective Kornblume hired me as a Cryomancer. It's irritating so many people know, but what can I do? Jiae was rather loud about it, apparently. I would like you to come as they might still be in the room. A flower of ice, possibly enchanted, has been cursed by the dead man before his death. It is actively being decursed. The detective, I presume, did not bring in someone before me.
Isolde says, on the phone, "Haha- I get it, yeah, okay. Well, whatever you need, okay?"
Looking a little confused, the detective adjusts her geeky glasses again and then looks back to the laptop. Her fingers brush over the magical symbol that lies on it, and then she tries to boot it up again, leaving Isolde to the call to Elora she wishes to make. The laptop still does not boot up, and she turns it around, inspecting it for damages and finds none. She lets out a frustrated sigh.
Elora was upon Guardian Lane in an expansive cabin. "If so, just follow me out there in your car when you're ready. Best to have your things with you, just in case," Elora suggests. Then she puts the phone back to her ear and says, "I'm on my way now. See you soon?" She leaves the cabin she was in, leaving a sleepy girl who had just woken up in the bed she had been resting in. She moves to a non-descript van and then starts the drive toward Deadwood,
Isolde strolls along the edges of the room. Some apartments are furnished with mirrors near their closets, and always in the bathrooms. She checks her reflection in them, pretending to find love in vanity- but moreso checks to see if any lay inside the Nightmare across the other side. Then, she moves over to the computer and sighs. She treats the device like an arcane focus for a moment, attempting to use it test if a spell goes off, and then attempts to press the power button.
Isolde's reinforce will proc on the flower if the laptop is an arcane focus, perhaps.
Isolde trains her gun on the rose, "If I see one more light I'm shooting the rose."
Isolde remembers it's not a 'rose.' ahem.
Elora adjusts her werewolf hide scarf while at a stop sign.
It takes a couple of minutes for Emily and Elora to arrive at the location, meanwhile, the Detective and Isolde both get to suffer some more, as the room suddenly begins to grow burning hot, and then freezing cold again. The sight into the nightmare itself does not reveal anyone to be there on that side, but Isolde finds success with channeling some magic into the symbol that resides on the laptop, and when she presses the power on button - it starts up into windows 7. Fortunately it does not ask for a password and goes straight to desktop. There is a bunch of different folders, one named financial, one named competition and another objective, and then one that is named 'AGL incident'.
When Elora and Emily leave, they find that the door to the apartment is wide open. Isolde has taken up space near a laptop that is running and a geeky looking woman with sneakers and jeans and a shirt that could almost be cute is seated on a chair near the laptop, too. "You got access!" She chirps out.
On the ground, there is a corpse of a man, wearing pants but no socks or shoes. A jacket is wrapped around his shoulders and at the corner of the hem is the small symbol of the Golden Shadow. He is bare under the jacket. His throat looks to have been sliced. A shirt lies in a corner somewhere else and several red petals lie strewn around him on the floor, and between it, a frozen, icy flower with a very sharp stem soaked in blood. Those more familiar with flowers may recognize the petals to come from a red Camellia, and the frozen flower to be formed and shaped like such a flower. The air is freezing cold here.
opens the 'AGL incident' file- half crouched like a Russian gangster, gun in her hand. She's wearing a suit that most have seen. "Mmm." Isolde responds. She hears the footsteps from further away than the door- from a cooridor down, and has enough fantasies of Elora's shoes to recognize her gait before she arrives.
Isolde probably doesn't hear Elora, actually.
Elora had a power surge. Last seen was Ritsuka's post.
Emily is wearing casual jeans and a scuffed leather jacket, looking wary and alert as she arrives with Elora, making sure to open the car door for her like a chauffeur would before she makes her way up to the apartment. "What the hell is even goin' on? What do ya need me for?", she finally asks her companion.
Elora looks over the scene, paying little attention to the laptop itself, instead focusing in on the source of the cold, if she can find it.
"Hi." Isolde responds, distracted. "Detective Kornblume hired me."
"I'm not sure," Elora lilts out in answer to Emily as she looks about the room upon entering it. "I can't say I am fond of the Golden Shadow. That mercenary group has at times opposed the Knights in operations. They would work for Gonothorian himself for the right price. It surprises me little that a cryomancer would kill one, if that is what has happened here."
"Is that what that is?" Isolde remarks, frowning. "Well, I am just being hired for the cause of death- but the flower is being decursed- which means it's probably cursed."
Elora shrugs, not particularly sure, having only just arrived, merely guessing.
Opening the file, and skimming through it, AGL refers to Aurelia Genesis Laboratories and the Golden Shadow seems to have been working closely with someone that signs as 'The Observer' in the exchange. They seem to have been involved in the theft of an augmenting artifact - The Seraphim Blade in some fashion, from White Oak, and note that an agent had taken it and was killed, but not by who. Later it reports an 'infraction' into the laboratory itself, with more trouble to be expected in the coming weeks as a report notes that there has been 'activities' with the Hand and that AGL experiments may be at risk. One of the files reports that a few new children would have been delivered to a facility outside of the Haven forest, outside of Sanctuary's reach to the 'agreed upon side'.
The detective leans in, and reads along closely. The air holds something that is floral in note and smell mixed with something that tells female, the man and the apartment itself have a different kind of smell. The floral one is faint, but present. Elora and Isolde can hear the slightest shift of something moving, just so very very quietly just before the frozen flower begins to light up again and blind everyone - before the room starts to slowly warm up, and the flower begins to to show a single bead of melting. (roll: 28) Emily notices a faint shimmer just after the light went up, out in the air. Not like it would with a ghost moving, but something more here, more present. It was brief, but it is there.
Isolde eidetisizes the contents with a blink per laptop-scrollwheel page. "Ehh.. It is like a conspiracy or something.help augmenting"
Isolde says "The Observer, 'The Seraphim Blade?' "
Isolde stands up, training her gun down on the flower and then sighing. "I threatened to shoot the flower earlier. Should I?"
Emily gives Isolde a quick and nervous nod in greeting and shudders as she lays eyes on the bloody scene, averting her eyes as her cheeks grow pale. She starts to say something but gets cut short by the blinding light. Quickly she holds up her right arm to shield her eyes, an instinctive reaction that is far too late to actually shield her from the flash, but as she lowers it again, her gaze stays affixed to a point in the room. "The fuck...?!", she exhales and tries to step in front of Elora protectively. "Hello?! What the hell are ya?", she asks seemingly no one in particular.
Isolde starts to stop around the flower, trying to catch invisible arms.
Elora upon hearing the noise is paranoid enough to assume something is present and skittish enough that her first reaction is to bolt back out the door, heading for her van, and for the duffel bag therein with her weapons.
Isolde stomp* around
Elora would hide the moment anyone unexpected appeared or made a threatening motion toward her, if such things occurred.
Nothing answers at first when Emily calls out, and Isolde finds nothing to linger in the immediate of the frozen flower now, except that it grows distinctly warmer, and the flower begins to melt quicker than it should. Elora begins to storm out, and this is when someone follows and bolts after her! The steps are light, but they are most definitely not Elora's, but definitely seem to 'chase' after Elora out the door and towards the stairs. Of course, whether the figure also sees Elora or not is a different question, but the absence of her here she was did create an opening to get out.
Isolde clenches her jaw, and with a spiteful curse, invokes the vacuum on the flower.
Isolde says "Vanessa- chase her down, you are fast, okay!?"
Emily stares at the air for a few moments longer before she shrugs at Isolde and mumbles, averting her gaze: "I don't fuckin' know, chica... maybe my eyes played tricks on me... and what the hell's wrong with Kath again? Jeez, I swear, she doesn't take her pills and....", she sighs at Isolde and gives her a quick nod. "Right, I'll make sure she doesn't do something crazy..."
Emily bolts out the door to chase after Elora.
"THE FOOTSTEPS CHASING AFTER AVELINE!" Isolde calls out.
Elora is not unlike a frightened animal in the moment: reacting instinctually, fight and flight, and the sound of footsteps behind her would only heighten that instinct. She isn't fast, like some are fast. So she draws on her true strengths as an arcanist, reaching out for the bound spirit of Envy that had once attacked her brother and which was now in a two-tailed fox, calling for it. Her choker glows.
Elora however, in her running glances back, terror fading in part, for some unknown reason, even though the summon has already went out.
Elora stills in her mad dashing, looking back behind her, eyes roving over the world.
Alas, it is on the second floor in an apartment building, and that means stairs down. It is a rush, the neighbors definitely hear, and the Detective squeaks and rushes after everyone as well - and is also the one that slips and slides across Isolde's cold floor and falls with another squeak.
The person chasing after Elora is quick, as much as Emily is and does catch up, and tries to rush past Elora, followed by Emily. The ground is cold, first, and where it hasn't yet, it will soon grow slippery. A two-tailed fox appears at Elora's will and make, but the invisible figure still tries to slip and pass Elora by, down the stairs.
Isolde takes the black shirt on the floor and maneuvers it to pick up the flower. She begins a decursing ritual of her own, focused on the object.
Cleansing* Ritual, is what Isolde does.
Elora as the figure comes closer to her kneels, hands going to her hidden boot-sheathe and the blade she keeps there for ritual and self-protection, only partially drawing it, moving to the side in an effort to let the rushing figure past. Elora is much, much slower, than the angelborn girl.
Elora would not fully draw and would even conceal the dagger as long as the figure rushed past her rather than trying to attack her.
Emily seems to be chasing after Elora at first, but the coldness and the slippery floor tip her off that not all is as it seems and as she gets close to Elora, she jumps, tackling a random spot in the air haphazardly without knowing if something is there or if she even is close enough to tackle 'it'.
Isolde disregards the Detective slipping on ice innocuously as she does her own ritual.
As Isolde reaches for the flower, it melts in her hand, and what remains is something she would recognize far more - it is a needle, a long one, the kind usually put in one's hair. It is of silver, with a small, floral shaped end on one side. It is not very elaborate, but simple, likely not expensive silver either, but a cheaper one. And it bears no more curse, but could perhaps be sold at the market later.
The figure rushes past Elora, and just two steps past, the stairs go down, and Emily tackles right into the invisible figure, and both plumet the floor down onto the ground. Fortunately, Emily had a cushion, though she surely would not have have gotten dragged along down if the figure she had found was not actually there and did not start to struggle; and even as they land bellow it does not subside, trying to free themselves from the mess of doubled people-ness below, their strength at about equal.
Isolde sticks the needle in her handbag.
Isolde takes the needle back out- which is a dangerous proposition to make with sharp objects. Putting it instead in her hair, she uses the dead man's face as a platform to stand, literally scuffing the crime scene, and-
Isolde slips on her own ice out the door.
Elora winces, several times, as Emily and the person she tackles make their painful way down the stairs. By the time the two are neared to the bottom of the stairs, the wince has turned into a smile. For her part, she does not rush down the stairs, but makes a decided point of holding the railing if there is one as she treks down after the pair.
As Emily is struggling with the invisible figure, trying to grapple it she shouts out to Elora "Fuckin' hell! Do somethin' Kath!" A glow spreads over her body, seemingly instinctively as she pants and curses, her skin visibly glowing softly where it is exposed and when this glow reaches her hands it flickers into flames for a mere moment. But as Emily is struggling and fighting, her movements grow sluggish, hesitant, not putting in her full energy, more defensive now than offensive, protecting herself from invisible hands instead of trying to hold her opponent down at all costs.
Elora says "Fine, fine."
Elora gestures with a hand, channeling negative energy toward the figure wrestling with Emily as she walks down the stairs.
SLIP-WOOSH, the touch of precious ice greets Isolde, and she joins the Detective on the floor whom, looking a touch confused, has now turned her gaze to Isolde. "The ground is very cold." She remarks, as if it was not totally obvious already.
More interestingly, as Emily grows more fiery and proper struggle ensues, the person down below does become visible. A young woman with auburn hair and hazel eyes and a tanned shade of a skin tone. She struggles and gets bitten by the two-tailed fox, which bites into, as it turned out, flesh, she scarcely wears anything at all, a tube top and short pants with fishnet stockings, and when Emily grows to be more defensive, she looks to break herself free - and it is such a confusing mess because everything seems to shift for her, her gaze is on Emily for one moment, and then suddenly on Elora, which leaves a few seconds as her gaze grows focused, shakes her head and her body begins to turn away...
Isolde tries to rub a spot on her spine where she hit the wall, but the suit doesn't allow her the reach. She struggles for a few seconds like a concussed snake held by the neck before she bitterly responds, "-The cause of death was a frozen flower. Flower melted. Now pay me money or something."
Elora tries not to smile at the conversation she hears behind her, cool teal eyes not managing to quite hide the amusement from Isolde's intention and the way the fleeing girl is growing confused beneath the assault on her mind. "Surrender," Elora lilts out. She isn't as concerned with the woman running away. Not when she is bleeding and has a known scent. There would be a trail and it would only give the woman time to realize the pain of her injuries, not to recover from it. Though, there is some risk of the woman slipping into shadow, Elora is not overly invested in stopping the stranger. The fox doesn't stop in its worrying at the woman, but Elora does worry in a different way. She wears a ring of bone and through it she has some sense of the aura of a person. That sense, now, she directs toward understanding whether her fox will instinctively hold back enough to avoid killing the stranger.
Elora assumes a person bit by a fox on skin would bleed.
Emily lets go of the woman she is grappling, a confused look on her face and seemingly not intent on stopping her anymore. Her gaze wanders from Elora to the woman then to Envy and back up to Elora.
Those that have killed, are left with a red aura typically, and this woman is no different. The fox attacks her, and Elora's words are drowned out by the immediate danger to the woman whom then draws a firearm, a glock, to point it at the creature and to fire once - that will definitely get the attention of the authorities, but whether or not she misses, she starts to rush away, to run for her life, in a very real manner of speaking, and once the fox no longer gives chase, the shadows draw over her, envelop her, and take her with them. Emily is no longer touched, and the firearm never even goes to her direction. She was not a threat to the fleeing killer anymore.
The detective looks to Isolde, and then to Elora, can't look to Emily and there is just the lightest blush over her cheeks. "It looks like the murderer escaped?" She asks, now somewhere between meek and confused before her gaze turns to Isolde "Of course, miss." She tries to sit herself upright and to reach into her wallet, but doesn't find it. It embarrasses the geeky detective a little bit "I must have left it in the coor. I'm going to go and grab it."
"Thank. You." Isolde should get non slip shoes given her profession. She crawls up to her hands and knees, limping off the pain through a stride. She concerns herself with the blood trail, then clears her throat at Elora, "There's, like, modification going on with an artifact- or relic- or something." Her tone cuts quiet before she continues on another subject, "She wanted to make sure the murder wasn't found for some reason."
Elora flinches at the sound of gunfire, tensing, but not overtly concerned. Her eyes widen in alarm as her fox is shot at, but she is content to let the presumed cyromancer escape. Reaching Emily she offers the woman a hand while checking over both Emily and the fox for injuries. As she does, she offers some explanation in a low voice, "The victim was a Golden Shadow, if the symbol they wore said anything at all. Not a friend of ours. And not friendly, either, if he could die -here-." To Isolde she says, "Easier to get away with it, if no one catches you, I presume."
Isolde says "Mmm.. The cold trapped it there. I don't know. "
Emily accepts the helping hand and gets up, visibly rattled by the shot that just went off right next to her. She glances at the spot where the bullet hit before turning to Elora to answers with loud: "WHAT? WHAT DID YA SAY?"
The Detective hurries on to her vehicle - and then begins to handle something on it, on her phone, too. The two-tailed fox makes its way over to the van, and disappears into it. Emily, beyond the deafness from the bullet, looks unhurt and unbruised, fortunately and some blood has flown down to the ground and painted the concrete red. Forensics will likely have a look at it, and yes, find it. There is a mist that forms... and that whispers some quiet- silent words.
There is - some information that trickles back, when the Detective reaches out again, be it to Isolde or Elora or Emily, who can share what they know with one another or choose not to. There is two names that came from something involving a professor at White Oak, Professor Whitemill, a teacher in Bioethics and Genetics: Illyana and Ash. The 'Observer' had a keen interested in one of them and had hired the Golden Shadow towards a specific purpose with them, but the details are unknown. As for this murder, it traced back to a single name: Iron Camella. And that is as far as the Detective could find.