Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Aiolos." He took the hand and shook it with a tight grip. This Xallen person seemed trustworthy enough, if Zen and Alan brought him along, he can't be all that bad. Besides, like he said, better to be together than alone. The musican let go and put his flute in his cloak pocket. He took the maps from Tadashi and a pen that was lying around.

"And we're off. Finally!"

And he followed Xallen out, stage right.

((One way only, I'm afraid. twisted Don't worry, you want Tadashi to be able to send you messages.))

Adam stepped into the Institute, his AK slung loosely over his shoulder. Eying the metal furniture adorning the interior of the building, he quickly decided that he'd rather stand. He sighed, and pulled his ballistics mask from his face. Reaching into one of the pockets of his pants, he pulled out a small, leather bound book and flipped to a red-ribbon bookmark, then began reading intently. "They better be here soon." Adam said aloud "Or I might as well shoot myself in the face than risk fighting for these god forsaken marbles."

Skitterskitterskitterskitterskitterskitter-PUT.

Mmm, the warm yet tentatively ominous sound of an engine winding down. When the ignition has freshly been cut and the belts and fans inside continue to stir for just a few seconds longer and the sound of the engine housing readjusting when the cold air outside is no longer countered by the heat of internal combustion... Above everything, though, it announces that someone has just arrived.

That someone was none other than the 'someone'; the guy that everybody wants to know even if they don't know that they want to know and certainly not if they don't want to know that they don't know that they want to know... Arriving in an unmarked white van that parked just shy of a fire hydrant on the curb and nefariously was toeing the line between normal and shamefully illegal parking was none other than the man, the legend, and sometimes the drunken lush, Mr. James Black.

The van, as always, was a-rockin'. And, as always, nobody came a-knockin'. About forty-five seconds later, however, the rear doors were kicked open and the bed-headed man hopped out off the rear bumper; clad, as always, in his signature black overcoat and business-casual attire.

This was the place, after all. If it wasn't the seven dollars worth of candy he bought for the kids hanging out at the construction yard was a big waste. So, as confident as always when strolling into a semi-secret underground research facility, he put his knuckles to the door and rapped thrice.

"Spectacular!"

Man, these guys. Once they get a foot in the door they never leave, isn't that how it is?

Well, actually, it was more along the lines of as soon as Tadashi opened the door he got a foot in there, and then inch after inch he worked the rest of him that way while energetically and voraciously shaking the half-asleep man's hand and rambling off a long, albeit entirely pointless, string of pleasantries and greetings that could have easily stopped after the first 'good afternoon' but didn't seem to.

"So I heard you guys lost your marbles."

Hey! The rambling stopped!

It just so happened that he had... and, having been around Gaia long enough to know how things like this work, he'd gone through the foresight of having it checked out. Lo and behold, it wasn't just some ordinary marble... and what was even more amazing was, it seemed that there were people out there who were looking for things like this.

That, with the addition of a bit of curiosity, was what brought Mr. Black to Tadashi's doorstep today. He produced from his pocket a yellow and black marble; flicking it into the air with his thumb and catching it in the palm of his hand like he was playing with a quarter, rather than an object of uncertain magical potency.

...then again, that wasn't the first time he'd done things like that with fragments of the cosmos.

"Yeah, in fact I did. Funny thing, it dropped right into my soup. Must be lucky, because I managed to argue my way into a refund."

He smirked, palming the marble once more and rolling it along his fingertips in a closed hand.

"What's so special about them that makes it worth your time?"

They were in a room with chairs.

"Ah, chairs."

The chairs were made of metal.

"Ah, metal chairs."

They chairs looked undoubtedly uncomfortable.

"My a** hurts just thinking about it."

Anyways, back to the lost marbles.

"You certainly seem to have confidence in them..." he started, glancing around the room at the scattered notes and research materials concerning the marbles (as well as tactlessly hidden pornographic magazines slid under the desk... hey, the life of a researcher is long and loveless), "but what do they do, then?"

You insinuatin' somethin' bub?

Insanity aside-

"Interface, huh?" He brushed a few pages on one of the tables with his hand, looking under a formatted report at a page that had a couple pencil sketches of some triangle thing on it.

"Whatchuu talkin' 'bout, Willis?"