Welcome to Gaia! ::

Catspaw tucked his silver-tipped quill into his bag and filled a canteen with ink. Most of the time, he preferred to use a pen with a steel nub, but his magic was stronger when he had the real thing. Beside him, Quil paced and stretched. While most of the time she was just a big lazy brindle cat, at heart, she was still a hunter. Like all chimera, she was a predator. Once packed, he picked up the notice on his desk, skimmed through it one more time just to make sure, and strode out the door while fastening his cloak around his shoulders.

Maron Catspaw was seldom uneasy about anything that concerned his apprentice. Ves was of extraodinary ability when it came to venoms, which was lucky because he was venomous himself. However, now he would have to really use that knowledge, and not in the best of ways.

When he arrived at the dormitories, he rapped sharply on Ves's door, almost hoping that he'd be away.

"Snaketail. We have a mission."

He hesitated, mentally scrolling through the ways in which this could be accomplished.

"You'll want durable outerwear. This might be a bit messy. You shouldn't need any armor if you stay close to me." That was it for the actual mission, but it was the first time that he had taken Ves along for a task like this. Was there anything else? "A bottle of water, something light to settle your stomach afterwards." Omarr would probably not have any problem with this. It was what he was born for. His handler, however, might be sick.

"... ...Don't bring any antidote." he added, stepping back out into the hall. "We can stop by the cafeteria first. I'll explain on the way."

"Our target is an underground cult facility at the far end of Akea. It's still in its early stages, so there are only three facilities. Akea is the largest one, and probably the headquarters. So far, the registry shows about six thousand followers. We should have access to about four thousand of them, as the other two strongholds are fairly small. "

He spoke briskly and walked briskly. Quil paced at his heels, head down, ears forward, and eager to get started. Since she was a Loremaster, it wasn't often that she had the chance to shed blood.

The cafeteria was nearly empty at this hour of the afternoon, and Catspaw was able to obtain a bowl of oatmeal and some sort of glutenous protein. He set them both in front of Ves and motioned for him to eat. For himself, there was a cup of hot tea. His chimera lay down on his feet, purring loudly. Quil, of course, wouldn't need to be fed beforehand. There was plenty of food in it for her.

"Ves," he started, addressing his apprentice by his given name, and then hesitating again. "Do you have any guesses about why chimera are created? You already know how, but why?"

You've already been taught about the universal energies of Sisperia. The Guardian who fights the Soul Eaters in space are fueled by the energies that come from the natural systems of the planet. The rain, the wind belts, the moving of the techtonic plates, the tides of the sea and many other things that feed the Guardians are carefully nurtured by the Maintainers, who in turn, draw their energy from life energy released into the environment by the Predators, when they kill other creatures.

The truth is, our world runs on the exact same system. However, our world is weakening and the Soul Eaters are beginning to swarm around us. Sisperia is strong because it has hundreds upon hundreds of Maintainers backing its Guardian. How many do you think our world has?


(( Bear with me and pretend to get this. I haven't typed up the class yet. Sorry. ;_; ))

"Not many is a bit of an understatement, but you've got the basic idea." he sighed, thinking of the fate of the world "Once upon a time, we too, had thousands, just like Sisperia; creatures of the sea, air, land and sky. Now, we're down to just one.

All the crazy things, that big earthquake in China, the huge hurricanes that hit the coast of North America, even the tsunami from a few years ago, and the abnormal weather that we've been having for the last ten years or so; it's because those systems aren't being properly looked after. A full quarter of this planet is being haphazardly put through its paces by FactS spellcrafters, but it's not enough. We're not Maintainers.

In our genes, we carry the blueprints for Predators. I've always made it clear in my lectures that we aren't human. Our ancestors were our world's predators. Slaughtered to extinction by humans during the feudal ages, our magic has sealed itself into human form wherever it could find the right DNA. Humans are notorious for mating outside their species, anyway." he coughed, managing not to stumble over the last sentence. It was awkward but necessary. "A hundred generations later, and you get us. We may look human, but we're Predators. Look at your chimera. That's what you are. That is the Predator hidden in your DNA.

FactS is just a research institute on the outside, but we as Predators have been charged with a much more important mission, restoring the damage that humans have inflicted upon our world. We have three goals. The first is to patch up the systems as best we can with magic. That's the Spellcrafter's duty. The second is to learn what's going on, speak with the Maintainers and the Guardian, and find a more effective long-term solution. That's the Lorecrafter's duty. The final one, is to support the last Maintainer by restoring an energy balance. While we say this is a Warcrafter's duty, it is the natural instinct of every Predator.

Right now, Warmaster Dragonspine and his team are away on another mission. The timing of our task is crucial. We must complete our task within the next 36 hours or there may not be another chance for several years. We are going in there to kill everyone."

"Snaketail, I hate to sound patronizing, but we're exterminating a cult. According to the scouts, that's four thousand people who no longer have the ability to think for themselves. They're just brainless puppets, taking up space and life energy. As long as we do it quickly and painlessly, they may not even react. The upper echelons were immobilized two months ago. The majority of the guards left when their paychecks didn't come. We should be fine.

Besides," he teased "I used to do this all the time. Dragonspine may be a goofball, but he's not about to send a creaky old Lorecrafter out to fight."

Predators usually had a much longer lifespan than their prey. The ancient beasts that used to roam the earth could live for hundreds of years, and FactS hadn't been going for long enough to find out how long chimera-handler would last. Though he was well into his forties, Catspaw was neither old nor creaky, and he was not about to admit defeat just yet. He hadn't tried in a while, but he was willing to bet that he could still stop a bullet with ink.

"Finish your food and then we'll get going. Since it'll be in the same dimension, I can portal directly into the building."

"It's an effect of the chimeras." he chuckled. "Hard to tell. Just look at Spellmaster Vixeneye. It seems like she hasn't aged a day since she turned 16."

He, Gloria Vixeneye Weaver, and Sebastian Dragonspine Slyph were the founders of FactS after the original project had been canceled. At the time, Vixeneye, then Gloria Springs, was only 13. He had been in his twenties and Sebastian Lionfields was a headstrong lad of 17 or 18. They banded together again and emerged as FactS, ten years later. Now, another decade later, he was proud to see that FactS had grown considerably, but it still wasn't nearly large enough.

"All right then. Let's go."

He dipped his pen into the canteen at his side and began to chant. Pricking her ears at the familiar but long unused routine, Quil got up immediately. She watched for a moment, and then walked in a slow, deliberate circle around him. Her pawpads left dark watery marks and when she had retraced the path several times, there was a solid dark line on the ground. Catspaw splashed ink on the ground, and motioned for his apprentice to step inside.

The next moment, they were rising out of the linolium floor of what looked like it might be a catholic school dormitory. Steel cots lined the walls, all of them neatly folded with pristine white sheets and not a single trace of personality.

Eager to start the bloodbath, Quil raised her ears and sniffed the air carefully. She and her handler started off at a brisk pace towards one of the four entrances to the room. "Just follow your instincts, and if you find anyone with half a brain left, run!" advised Catspaw as he trotted after his chimera. They disappeared around the corner and Snaketail was alone.

Ears swiveling and whiskers twitching, Quil never faltered in her path. It wasn't long before Catspaw came upon a throng of people dressed in white, all walking in an orderly line with perfectly blank expressions on their faces. He paused just long enough to spare them a sympathetic glance before darting forward and thrusting his weapon into the neck of the nearest. Quil launched herself into the group, slaying each one with a precise bite to the neck. Her claws left shallow grooves in the floor where she had dug them in for greater traction, already springing upon her next victim before the previous had even hit the ground.

Marron wasn't doing nearly as well as his partner, but he'd gotten his fair share of the killing. His cloak was heavy with blood and he frowned distastefully at the feeling of some of it drying on his cheek. The pair of them were already tracking red footprints through the desolate hallways. He was only slightly bothered by how the victims were too far gone to notice their companions falling into bloody heaps beside them. She wasn't bothered at all.