Magical Mystical Fox Hunt

[MadEmperor]

"Yeah, yeah, I look ridiculous wet," Thrax chuckled as he reflexively smoothed out his fur.

He grinned. "You look fabulous though, m'lady."

[DragonSong]

"It's adorable," Hana laughed. Then she gave a little spin and flicked open her new fan--a real one she'd bought on the street just outside, no illusion required--to flutter coquettishly in front of her face.

"Think I'm selling this, then?" she asked, letting her voice lilt with a faint, upper-class Arcan accent she didn't normally have.

[MadEmperor]

The bard nodded and grinned. "Maybe not in Arca, but here? Most definitely."

"So, uhh, do you think I need better anything? My combat armor might be a bit too on the cheap for an heiress' bodyguard. And my clothes aren't much better."

[DragonSong]

"Hmmmm..." She tapped one finger to her lips, frowning at him. "Yes," she decided. "But we should probably head back to the docks and see what we can trade for there--the more of an immediate impression we can make on the people we're actually trying to get information from, the better."

[MadEmperor]

"Agreed." He nodded, smiling.


It took a lot of haggling, but Thrax eventually found himself with a new set of travel clothes. He also swapped out his leather armor for a suit of slightly battle-worn scale mail. All in all, he looked much more like a bodyguard than a traveling bard.

"How do I look? I think I pull it off." He turned in circle to show off his shiny look

[DragonSong]

Hana nodded approvingly, holding her hands up to the side and tapping her fingers lightly to her palm in a dramatic parody of "polite applause". "Very nice, very nice," she said with a nod.

Steepling her hands in front of her mouth, she mused, "So...we don't really need to use fake names, do we? It's not like we're likely to run into anyone who knows us around here."

[MadEmperor]

"The chances of that are slim, yeah," he agreed with a nod. The bard smirked. "Could've been fun, though."

"So... Where should we go first? One of the fancier taverns?... For information, obviously."

[DragonSong]

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Right. Information." She considered for a few seconds, then shrugged. "Well, it's not a terrible idea. We'll say that I'm some rich merchant's daughter with a fascination with archeology, and we'd heard there were some interesting local stories. That'll get all the conmen crawling out of the woodwork so we can sort through that nonsense first."

[MadEmperor]

"Sounds like a good plan, Lady Hanako." He did his best to sound professional and properly subservient. Clearly, it chafed him a little, but he managed to be believable.

[DragonSong]

She immediately crinkled her nose. "Oh, blech. I know I'm going to have to get used to that, but blech."

Shaking it off, she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin imperiously, and flicked her fan out again. "Right then. Let's go find our lovely new accommodations, shall we?"


Finding a well-upkept inn closer to the center of the city, Hana and Thrax managed to gather a bit of groundwork information before evening fell; there were in fact local legends about a village about halfway up the mountain range that cut through Thanatos's main island, which was inhabited by spirits, or demons, or possibly accomplished nature mages--this was relayed with typical distaste for the topic in this area--but that it had been abandoned over forty years ago.

They got three different conflicting accounts of where the ruins might be located, which Hana was attempting to triangulate on their map later that evening in their room.

[MadEmperor]

Thrax, out of his armor for the night, loomed over her shoulder to watch her work. He frowned slightly. "Are you sure the timeline adds up? I mean, you aren't old enough. Unless it took your parents two decades to have you."

[DragonSong]

Hana shook her head. "This won't be the right village," she muttered, frowning at the map. "This would be the place they lived before. My mother's people. Before the massacre. She was...I think she was a teenager when that happened, and she met my father about ten years later..."

Biting at her lower lip, she added quietly. "And I had older siblings. Six, I think. That's probably a decade's worth of kids..."

[MadEmperor]

"Oh. R-right. That... makes more sense." He looked away, embarrassed.

"Ahem. So... have you narrowed it down at all?"

[DragonSong]

She continued to frown down at the map, then abruptly made a noise of supreme frustration and flopped onto her back, covering her face with her hands. "No," she growled, letting both tails and ears out to more visibly convey her displeasure. "Maybe we could triangulate to the center of these three reported sightings, but that apparently puts us at a goddamn cliff edge, which no sane village would be built on, fox or no."

Groaning, she dropped her hands and pouted up at him from her upside down position. "Other option: we check each of the three spots individually. Which is doable, but will take forever."

[MadEmperor]

"Ugh." Thrax flopped down next to her. "Did I ever mention I hate climbing. I'm in good shape, but I always end up exhausted. I mean--I can do it, but don't be surprised if I complain."

[DragonSong]

"I'm well aware what kind of shape you're in," Hana pointed out with a wry chuckle. The humor quickly bled from her face though and she sighed. "Maybe..."

She pursed her lips. "Blood magic isn't so iffy here as it is in some places. Maybe we could find someone to do some sort of tracking spell. Blood calls to blood and all that--I probably still have relatives somewhere in that village."

[MadEmperor]

"I would have learned to do that, y'know, had I gotten that far. So I have no squeamish objection to blood magic on principle." He looked over at her. "Unless you do?"

[DragonSong]

She shook her head. "Nah. It's just magic, right? All schools have their dangers and benefits." She sat up and ran her fingers back through her hair, ears flicking back and forth. "So. I guess that's a place to start in the morning, trying to find where mage's sell their skills around here." A quick shrug. "And, if all else fails...climbing."

[MadEmperor]

"Uuugh..." he groaned.


The primal mage squeezed a final drop of Hana's blood into a small bowl. "Blood to blood, like to like..." The old Thanati woman began reciting a spell as she added various strange ingredients to the bowl.

[DragonSong]

Hana snatched her hand back and stuck her pricked finger in her mouth, grumbling about the tiny drop of blood as though she hadn't suffered a full-on lightning strike and just been knocked unconscious from it.

She cast a glance at her "bodyguard" over her shoulder—the mage hadn't asked too many questions about their situation, but they were still keeping up the ruse, just to be safe.