>>5338709"Well, I do want to send one of the teams to the Ikean Fortress to find out anything they can about this mysterious power-player. “You admit, the ghost of a plan forming in your head. “Sam's at the Fortress right now, I think to visit her friend…so we could send her a message ahead of time, to see if she wants to help with the investigation. Oh, and if we could make some kind of symbol on the shells, something only other Spiritus users could identify? Is that doable?”
“T-totally. If you need to step away f-for a sec, I can finish up here.” Julia offers, and you’re about to insist on helping her when another thought occurs to you, one that’s only slightly past due.
“Oh! Shit, I almost forgot; could we make a shell for Orwell, too? I told her we’d make one since her old one started stress-cracking.”
“…Orwell’s in a c-construct?”
Ah, you probably should’ve mentioned that. You feel bad for only about a half-second, before Julia quickly walks around the table to give you a quick hug and another reassuring smile. “G-go. Talk to Sam, and I’ll finish up here, okay?”
Thanking her once more for her diligence, you give a quick glance about the room and, seeing the Dream Team out of sight, you open a crackling line of communique to your…sister.
Yeah, you’ll go with that.
“Hey.” Greets static echo of your own voice, though you can’t help but notice it lacks the same edge as before. “I take it you heard about the shit-show?”
“I did. Are you and Samantha okay?”
A pause, then the hint of a smile in her answer.
“Yeah, she’s good. We both are. She was in the cafeteria when Burke—that’s Magnus’ ex-friend, by the way—made her move, so I had to fill Sam-Squared in after it all went down.”
“So what happened, exactly? I’ve been a little preoccupied with…stuff.” You say, not quite ready to drop that particular bombshell quite yet.
“It was quick, but the gist of it is this;” Sam begins with a sigh. “Aliyah Burke had snuck in to the Fortress and had basically been living in the goddamn walls for a couple weeks, slithering about and infesting the machinery Magnus had started work on before the whole Arcadia debacle. She and a few followers of hers had been working in secret to finish what your boy Mag had started, though Paloma and her secret police (“Yeah, that’s a fuckin’ thing” Sam interrupted when you made a sound of alarm) had caught on to something weird going on. Apparently, when Rath rolled up with Behemoth, Burke panicked; Magnus was out riding Behemoth—oh, they’re besties now, by the way—when Burke activated all the garbage she’d been working on, and the Fortress actually started moving. She almost got out of the blackstone forest before Paloma, Em, and I showed up…’cept nobody knew I was there, thanks to my bag of bullshit.”
(Continued)
