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Owle resisted the temptation to stick her tongue out at the preacher. Her face quickly turned serious, though, as she heard what the man had to say. He was fortunate he'd offered to heal it straight away...

"What now?" She glanced at Vahn's arms...she'd never exactly noticed this abomination. But still...

And then she heard what Vahn had to say.

There was a weight dragging the mercenary back, what seemed a small pressure wrapped around his left arm. It was Owle, clinging to him, her eyes looking up at him like she'd been betrayed.

"Dammit, Vahn, if someone can heal you you should damn well let them!"

After taking several heaving breaths to try and force her voice to calm, she turned to the preacher. "How long does this healing take? I trust it won't be...inconvenient?"

She still hadn't let go of Vahn. It seemed like she'd probably tie him down if she had to.

"Victor Fah?" the preacher mumbled under his breath.

The preacher had recently canceled all missions to find Victor because he considered it a waste of manpower and resourses. Iskugawa had been just as intent on the program as Yaits was. According to the records, it had been a blind search anyway, nothing, not so much as a clue turned up, except for a few artifacts in Barthovos which even Iskugawa had trouble deciphering.

Isn't that what drove Yaits mad in the first place, his inability to locate this Victor Fah. To what lengths would that demon go in order to find something he wanted?





"I'm going to seal the threads with a transmutation ring," the preacher explained, pulling a small notebook containing copies from Iskugawa's journals. "Hatred is a powerful emotion that creates negative energy, the threads throughout Vahn's arm grow by feeding off of that. The circle I designed will divert any negative energy the threads attempt to harness into himself and purify it. Since Vahn isn't evil, it should be as simple as that."

It wasn't quite that simple, every time something akin to hatred, spite, or revenge surfaced in Vahn. The seal would purify the affects of those emotions, I.E. negative energy, not the emotions themselves, which was impossible without basically killing the host anyway. After the seal was placed, every time the threads absorbed negative energy, Vahn would know it, as the seal would convert it into heat, light, and electricity. The preacher knew heat wouldn't be a problem for Vahn, but the light might be annoying, and the electricity would be anywhere from hellishly painful to a slight tingle depending on Vahn's mood. If Vahn allowed his darker emotions to be tapped too often, he would be plagued with headaches as well. If too much negative energy was forced through the seal, it would break, though that would require enough negative energy to convert into 10,000 volts of power, way beyond the limit of what one man could create in a single moment. This could be explained in the garden though, after the work that needed to be done was finished, before those threads grew into the man's heart, or worse, his mind.

If they'd let him, and Vahn would follow, he would proceed to the garden.

"That....doesn't answer my question," Owle said to the preacher, matter of factly. She hated it when people did that to her...she would ask them a very simple question, and they would just up and give her all this vaguely related information that didn't answer her in the slightest.

I'm going to seal the threads with a transmutation ring in no way answered How long will this healing take?

But if Vahn was agreeing to it now, she was happy.

"Thank you..." she whispered to him gratefully. She still didn't let go of him, though, as they followed Lucind into the garden.

"My apologies," the Preacher said, "I tend to get carried away the details. Really, it won't take longer than a few minutes to prepare, and no more than a few seconds to apply. And it can all be done here. This is a peaceful enough setting. No pomp, no circumstance required."

Most of the work had already been done, the materials prepared through forty-eight hours of fasting alone in prayer and meditation, without sleep. The preparation and traveling to Latent for this were the reason some..... things..... had slipped through his grasp in former Ymiristan, causing him to lose power over the situation, which he still required to put things in proper order, as he saw it. The purging of the pentagon being one of those things, he was shut off from his work there when it was nowhere near complete. Still, this visit was required if he was a man of any integrity, in fact, it was beyond required, it was unavoidably necessary.

"Oh, about Yaits," the preacher said, "One might say he's dead, but how can you kill a man that never existed in the first place?"

The preacher's heels were lifted by Vahn's enthusiastic grab, so that only the front portion of his brown docksides touched the floor, yet supporting little weight. The preachers face turned a little red as his collar tightened, but he did nothing to resist except stare into Vahn's eyes without backing down.



The preacher could sense a small portion of demonic conciousness mixed in with the aura from Vahn's arm. This man was obsessed with his hunt to the point of being a threat to himself and others, and the threads in his arm encouraged that. Were they designed to be a beacon as well, leading Vahn, and then the demon masquerading as Ymir's spirit, to Victor? And what if these unsealed threads came in contact with the sealed spirit of Ymir, what would happen then? These threads needed to be dealt with before anything like that ever happened. The lives of too many people were now at stake for the preacher to fail at sealing their power. It had to be done.

"Son, be calm," the preacher said, "If you want to kill me, I suggest you take me to the streets so we do no harm to this place."

His voice cracked because he was being choked off, those three words utilized a small amount of the preacher's hypnotic power for the first time. Hopefully, Vahn would calm down a little.

"Is this Victor Fah so important to you that you would sell your soul to an agent of hell? I'll help you find him myself then! But you must keep your wits about you!

As long as the threads remained sealed, then he could even deal with Vahn finding Victor, so he spoke the truth.

The preacher hoped Vahn would regain his composure, he didn't want to have to purify that arm by force, that would be messy, and would most likely result in both their deaths.

((I don't mind, I was gone all weekend. You guys can skip me if I'm gone for extraordinary lengths of time.))

"Vahn, calm."

Her voice was level, as if she didn't particularly care one way or the other about the outcome of this. She didn't believe Vahn would actually kill a helpless man, and if beating him up a bit would make him feel better...

...just as long as he didn't go too far.

Without realizing it, she had placed a hand on his shoulder.

What does he mean, him? Who's Victor Fah? Isn't that...Vahn's last name?

And why does this man's voice sound...

Her mental shields slammed tight around her, even at the merest amount of hypnotic power. It might have been just her imagination, and it wasn't targeted at her, but still...

Goddammit! How many people were going to try and mess with Vahn's head today?

"If you need to find someone, I'll help you find him. You know I'm a good tracker..."

Her voice may have been soothing, but to a psionic eye Owle seemed anything but calm. Little golden snakes were dancing about her head, emerging from the back of her skull, hissing and spitting...

Black eyes focused on the preacher.

((The snakes are only visible to Vahn and those capable of sensing psychic powers.))

Most likely, the preacher was still in Vahn's grip.

"I certainly have every intention of peacefully sealing his arm," the preacher said, "And as soon as my feet are on the ground we can go to the garden so I may prepare the seal."

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