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Neville receives a message from one of his agents, "Contact has been established". Neville heads off into shadow to meet Rudaulf and finds his apartment several days empty, with the lock broken in. Neville searches and finds some magical components, a bit of chaosian memorabilia, and a pressed flower folded into a piece of paper with an address written on it. Neville flips through the phone book and calls the number associated with the address. A little girl answers, and asks if he has seen her mommy, who disappeared a few days ago. She hasn't seen her mommy's boyfriend since then, either.
Neville looks out the window. There are a number of people that appear to be staking out the place. His contact must be a really popular guy. He walks downstairs. One guy sitting on a chair approaches him, then tries to look subtle. He fails miserably. After a few words, the guy is completely inept, decides that Neville is Internal Affairs, and gives Neville lots of interesting information. The locals apparently have been staking out this place for a long time, but there was a screw up several days ago and then he left. They think that he might be trafficking.
Neville borrows packages that were Logrus-pushed there for his agent, moulds crude copies of the packages, then hands the packages back to the fool.
The guy climbs out of the car, brushing the edge of his coat against Neville as he does so. An electrical induction device gives him a tingle. "Your batteries are low." He reaches for a gun, and Neville plucks the gun out of his hand. The guy starts posing martially. Neville tosses him into the passenger seat and reaches into the back. The guy in back pulls a strange powder-driven weapon. Neville uses his driver as a shield and starts heating the gun. The passenger starts trying to threaten Neville. Neville has the driver disarm the passenger, and the driver dies horribly. The passenger suicides.
Neville finds a burning fuse that goes into the trunk. He pulls it and hears a 'click' just before the car is slagged by explosives. A couple of cops are looking at him and talking on their radios. He reaches through his escape hatch and pulls out one of his knives.
Neville goes over to talk to one of the cops, who points out that the back of his shirt is on fire. The cop asks if he would like to visit a hospital.
"Nah - I've had worse." "You guys are pretty tough. I thought IA was a cushy job." "It is ... _now_."
The cop drives him to section six. As the cop pulls into a parking spot, he loses consciousness instantly. Neville feels Logrus everywhere. There are cars parked nearby with unconscious cars in them. Neville enters the building. There are people sleeping everywhere. Due to the smell, they've been asleep for several days.
The spell is old, but Neville can feel the Logrus being used actively somewhere in the building. He tracks down the room that the Logrus is being used in, and calls up the Pattern. They attack instantly, albiet ineffectually, with Logrus. He can see two Logrus sorcerers in that room. Neville considers disabling them and rips off a chunk of countertop.
Neville writes a note in Thari, "There's no need to attack me" and sticks it under the door. The attacks stop. "Thank you. May I come in?" The door opens. Neville walks in. They say that they tracked certain habits to this location, but they don't recognize Rudulph's name. Neville proposes cooperation. They're tracking down the guy trafficking in the substance in the box Neville is holding. It's a mind-altering drug developed by the Shapeshifters' Guild to make people think that shifting is happening all around them so they can get away with shifting. But they're not (directly?) working for the shapeshifters' guild. The conversation continues. They agree to hold a duel next Redsky turning if they discover that they are enemies, but when the Logrus sorcerers notice the Helgramite colors, they mention that a duel may not be allowed due to old alliances. They grump about the idiots native to this shadow. The Logrus sorcerers complain about an old spell that randomly spews Logrus around the shadow, and suggest that Neville could take it out. Neville leaves the room, ramps up a Pattern Lens, and spots an island off thataway that is a mad scientist's dream due to the Logrus energies extant. The spell is at least 75-80 years old.
Neville shadow-walks to the island, allows the spell to detonate against his Pattern, and most of the animals die immediately. Rudalph walks towards him across the island. "Hi - figured it was the best place to hide." Rudulph tells Neville that those two were apparently not sent by Dara, but they were sitting on her drop box. Dara bugged out, and she was also the person supplying the drugs.
Dara wasn't leaving many trails, but the kid was extremely sloppy. Yes, the kid is Dara's kid.
Neville does a Pattern-lens search for Dara, and for more Pattern. He doesn't find anything, and is pretty sure that he should find traces, at least.
Dara was calling herself Malaica in this shadow. Ellen was the kid. Dara was tied in with a couple of the drug agencies in this place. Rudulph is planning on kidnapping the kid and seeing what turns up; Neville gives him a trump off the "A" list. Rudulph heads off to find some place safer; Neville returns to the Logrus sorcerers. The sorcerers kick off their locating spells, and Neville "accidentally" wanders through their tendrils to give Rudulph a chance to escape.
Neville and the Logrus sorcerers check out the the island, and fail to find anything of interest. They threaten to follow Neville everywhere if he doesn't give him the boxes that he found.
Neville gives one of the boxes to the Logrus sorcerers, who then look for and find the guy that delivered the packages to Rudulph. Neville mind-reams the guy. The drugs were delivered in an alley by a person in a long trenchcoat, wearing a mask, with a masculine voice. One of the sorcerers shifts into his shape and heads to the alley.
The person finally retuns and says that the person in the alley was non-shadow local and that he found traces.
Neville returns home the fast way and gets one of the mages that he was working with earlier to look at the package. The spells on it would cause assorted nasties, including slagging the area with primal chaos. The mage declines to learn possibly privileged information and suggests that Neville find a different guinea pig.
Ygg - lots of research. Laws are changing all over the place.