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Cassandra went through to Darkstar with her hunter-seeker team from the Assassins' Guild, where she met up with Gil, Peekaboo, Mecha-Jean, Pattern Suhuy, and his apprentice.
People look around. The hand and blood are laced with too much order for Ilk to determine which Patterns are in it. There was definitely a struggle. There were at least three hoofed and clawed beings fighting Ingold, possibly winged as well. They left no physical means behind. Ingold was fencing and not using magic. The fight wasn't very long in duration. There are Logrus trails in the area; there are no Pattern trails in the area.
The hunter-seeker team is split into four groups. Each group follows one of the Logrus trails; Ilk sends a bundle of tendrils along with each. Two of the trails lead to a place where neither Logrus nor magic work; two lead into the Abyss.
Darkstar whips off a few trumps for the people in the nasty place and trumps them back. They report that they were under heavy attack by traps the moment that they entered.
Cassandra trumps Osric. Osric comes through and goes pit diving, but fails to find any trace of Ingold.
[Not many details, because the logger was eating pizza at the time]
Three taiga attack Osric as he leaves the Abyss. Ilk melts one, and Osric grabs the others in bubbles of his energy.
One of the hunters approaches Cassandra with the tip of a claw that was found embedded in a tree. It was probably severed by a sword being wielded with great force.
Osric tries to interrogate the tiaga; they refuse to share information, and claim that they cannot be forced to do so. Cassandra pulls out her compact and chats with Lord Talos, who agrees to send her one of his more talented and enthusiastic students to help.
[Marked Swain]
Lord Talos trumps Cassandra and introduces her to Du'Rog, a Minbari. Cassandra fills him in on the situation and passes him through to Osric. Osric hands him a marble of his power.
"How do I get it out?"
Osric lets the tiaga out, and Du'Rog casually waves his hands, beating the snot out of the tiaga without directly touching it.
Osric contributes. "In case this one breaks, I have a spare."
Du'Rog is causing problems both up and down the link controlling the demon, so whatever is holding the link is also being tortured.
Du'Rog reaches through and pulls someone else to his location. He reaches into his carry-all and pulls out a piece of board that he unfolds repeatedly until it is human sized, then grabs the puppeteer and slaps him against the surface.
"Okay... now we can begin."
The puppeteer does not have the signature that Ilk saw on the Logrus trails or the claw.
The puppeteer starts trying to shapeshift. The Minbari looks puzzled and then dives into his work. He stands up a few moments later, and states that he has failed. The puppeteer has poisoned himself. The Minbari digs around a bit more and then pulls out a broken vial, and reports that the poison was extremely complex.
They torture the second tiaga, and find another puppet-master. Before working on the second tiaga, the Minbari pulls out a different kind of field. The puppet-master completely stops moving when he hits the field. The Minbari starts exploratory surgery. He pulls eight or ten nasty looking vials out of the body.
The first tiaga is now completely tractable.
The Minbari removes everything that he doesn't recognize, and separately bags and seals them.
He takes out an atomizer, sprays the area, pulls the puppeteer out of the field and throws him onto the table. The organs are artistically arranged on the ground such that they are in plain sight to the victim, but some are concealed beneath others.
"Is there anything that you wish to tell me before I begin?"
The puppeteer blusters.
"You know, you're the fourth person to say that to me this week."
The information is gathered by the end of the session. Ingold (the individual in question) is associated with the Assassins' Guild upon whom the Poisoners' Guild has declared vendetta... his genetic material can be used for keyed poisons...
Cassandra has a hunter send the information back to Princess Chandra. Darhyse is pacing. Peekaboo is poking her nose at a dryad inside an nearby tree. Ilk points out that the dryad possibly saw the conflict.
Osric offers the dryad fertilizer for her tree; she asks to be freed from the binding holding her within her tree. The dryad says that one of those in the conflict bound her into the tree before the fight. Ilk looks at it -- it seems to be a kind of elemental, earthy magic. Not his specialty. Cassandra looks - it's raw molded power. She releases the dryad.
[Some hedge wizard put a spell on a tree!]
The dryad tells about the fight.
Ingold did indeed show up here through a space that was not a space before and met someone here who claimed to have information. The person claiming to have the information was the one who had bound the dryad before Ingold arrived. The information was never exchanged. The person laughed hideously, then four fiery, winged, clawed, and taloned beings ripped out of his body, consumed the body, and then attacked Ingold. Ingold defended himself, and fight ranged all over the meadow. When Ingold struck down two of the beings, they consumed themselves, leaving no trace. When Ingold's hand was struck off, he switched his sword to his other hand, continuing to defend himself, and then ripped another hole and left. The remaining fiery creatures then left.
Osric prepares to enter the trapped shadow. The rest of the mob trumps through to Osric just outside the shadow, and prepares for the assault.
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