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Nothing worth having is ever easy.

Maximos felt Reinharts memories slamming on the walls of the unguarded fortress that was his mind. And even as he faught to make a sort of sense out of them, like soldiers to combat the oncoming wave his own memories escape the stronghold to assault the troops. The two blended together in an fusion of events, stories and tales.

His past, his memories were Maximos' greatest and oldest secret. His name, his adventures, his family, they were all subjects of the greatest taboo to the Shadow. He hardly ever spoke of them, choosing, willing, wanting even to remain insubstantial to everyone he met. Everyone on this world, that was not home. Little did he know that his request for this ability would shake those very secretive foundations to their core. Did he truly trust Reinhart? No...

That was not the question. Did he trust himself? Reinhart had several monsters inside of him, a feeling Maximos knew as behind close door he was one himself. A killer. A murderer. A Reaper. Would that cold machine one day take over and turn these abilities on those innocent?

Doubt.

Maximos tried to turn away, but it was entirely too late. The wave was upon him, the link to Reinhart was made. And even as he wanted to break it, he could feel the mans confidence. Maximos doubted himself, but Reinhar did not doubt him. He had faith. They were alike in many a regard. They shared a similar fate, a similar goal, and a similar way about them. His foot dug deep into the rocky turf beneath the snow. The ridges of his boot sole stealing a foundation which would not be shaken.

Then came the lightning. It crackled and exploded, it shoved and shone, and like the man across him Maximos' convictions, his strength, and his footing held strong. His right eye bled a black stream down his pale cheek staining the ground, but he refused to give in.

Then it a breath it shrunk to nothing and exploded out across everything. Maximos right foot was ripped from its home, and he was knocked back, but quickly recovered by slamming the foot down again a pace behind his left. His arms moved infront of his face, in a completely futile effort to hold or defend against the blast. His upper body bent back, his left foot peeling off the ground.

Grk!

But he fought through grinding teeth, even as his foot was peeled off the ground, he recovered by quickly bringing it back for another back step mirroring the last. His form bent into the explosion at a stark aganle, its force holding him up, while his wieght and strength pushed into it. And then it was gone.

Without it to hold him, he fell to his knees. And then back, sitting on his legs. His arms dropped out to either side. His head hung back, gasping for mouthfuls of fresh cold air.

"Give me a minute or two..."

Indeed...or three...

He replied. Even in his mind he was breathing hard. Very hard. As he had no mirror he failed to see it, but a plume of violet and white rose from his right eye. It looked like fire and smoke. A white fire, a torch in his eye, and wispy violet smoke from the cool down of the "download". When that eye recovered he would be able to see now, in a way he never imagined before. He would have to thank Cris when he woke up.

Maximos listened, silently, quick gasping breath's slowly drifting into long deep breathes as his heart began to even out.

At first, he smiled and nodded slowly, in complete agreement. Then his face turned to express the sort of serious that Reinhart hinted on the potential for abuse. He chuckled a light hearted chuckle, as the man before him. A man who's life was inexorable joined to his. Who's memories were now stolen away in the dark of his mind, behind closed doors where they were being slowly digested, and replayed in sensible form.

As Reinhart approached, Maximos found himself blinking his right eye, involuntarily and yet repeatedly until, he ventured a hand over to the organ and found it stained in a wide streak of black tears, which he wiped long down his sleeve.

His teeth gritted in silent. The entire area was incredibly sore, and as his attention fell on it, he realized it was burning rather irritated as well. But such was the price of advancement.

Monsters?

A smirk, grew into a smile. As Reinharts words caused an irresistible urge. Is that what they would appear as? Monsters? Maximos spoke, a small thing, but so very signature. So completely trademark to the shadow, that there truly was nothing better, that could be said. He looked Reinhart eye to eye, and said.

Indeed.

And extended his hand to Reinhart's for a proper, firm, first introduction.

Then monsters we shall be.

Scarker looks out over the tundra. A few good meals in his stomach, some dried foods in his pockets, and a map on a page of a small notebook to help him find the weather anomaly. Going from the topographical map in his hand to the view that the greatest extent of his magesight could give him, he marked a point on the map with the same, fast drying embossing ink that he'd used to make the map.

With that, he set off. Every few minutes he'd send out a 'pulse' of mage sight. It was more like radar than what he normally surrounded himself with, and would travel the full half mile extent of his vision. If he saw anything unusual with those bursts, he would mark where he was on the map again and head towards it in the most direct route possible.

Honestly, his search method could use some work, but at least having his nice trenchcoat would keep him from freezing. And while his path was rather random, at least he was searching a mile-wide line at a time, one that would see through mountains or other visual obstructions, so things could always be worse.

Still, he had enough to keep him going for a few weeks, so he wouldn't be surprised if it took him a while to find what he sought.

The wonderful thing about Scarker's mage sight was that it didn't show him energy. Oh sure, he could 'see' magic energy all the time, so if there was anyone casting a spell in his range, he'd know, but his sight actually showed him physical objects. It was limited to a gray spectrum of vision, because color is an odd property, but it could show relative densities and, more importantly, heats.

What the mage was looking for was thus a change in heat. A spell meant that there was someone casting something, but the place he was looking for would be a big secret, right? Heat on the other hand was something that gardens needed to survive, they'd need at least more heat than the rest of the tundra had. A building or cave that someone was living in would divert his attention much better, otherwise he would keep traveling in a random direction until he ran out of tundra.

Northwest? Why not! He probably caught sight of some sort of interesting shrub or something and just kept going that way once he'd found that it wasn't that interesting. With the tundra being the tundra, there probably wasn't much to catch his attention, so he just kept watching for that heat increase.

If it looked like he was headed for an animal, even a dangerous looking one, he wouldn't turn away. After all, what was a mere animal when he had 5 weapons and magic?

Hmm, two interesting things? Well, that made things different. Let's see, if we call one of those points of interest 'the one on the right,' and the other one 'the one on the left,' then we can make the decision much better.

"Eenie meenie miney moe, catch a tiger... how does that rhyme go? Hmm... Whatever, Left it is!"

With that, Scarker point in the direction of the interesting thing that more to the left, spins around once and heads toward the point of interest on the right, chewing merrily away on a strip of jerky (he didn't ask what kind it was, the guy told him it was a bargain and he didn't want to know, so why would he ask?)

So yeah, whichever point of interest is more to his right is the one that he's heading towards.

As for the trees... Well, since Scarker isn't a botanist he's not sure about if they're strange or not, but he'll take a picture or two of them, just to make sure. Also, he adds a dot at his location to his map, since he's just made a directional change.

While seeing the tower at a great number of kilometers would be a wonderful thing to do, that's not very possible for Scarker. At best, he'll see it when he's one kilometer away.

We take a moment to tear open Scarker's vision. As for his eyes, they've been useless since birth, thus he cannot see light. How does he function then? Magesight makes up for the lack in vision. The mage can 'see' magic energies, and by forcing these energies to attach to matter, he can see matter, how thick it is, and how much it's moving (heat). However, his 'sight' ends at a distance of half a mile, no matter how much he might want it to extend past that. He can only concentrate on small patches at a time as well, so he's normally only aware of what's close to him, but that patch can be moved around to show him everything else in his range. Energy that isn't connected to matter is just seen as energy, and can be seen outside the patch of viewing. Distance make little difference to the sight's view, Scarker will be able to estimate the range, but he'll 'see' the area he's looking at in full 3-dimensional detail as though he were standing right next to it. The only sort of obstruction that could possibly bar the mage's view is an anti-magic field, but he'll be able to see all around it, and physical obstructions would mean nothing to him at all.

Now that you know, back to the scheduled quest.

Somewhere less than a half-mile to the tower, the mage drops to one knee so that he can concentrate on seeing his full range. Shifting around his view, he discovers... A building! But wait a moment, he wasn't out here to find a building, he was out here to find a paradise. He gets up, chewing a fresh piece of jerky, and turns around only to stop with his foot in mid-air. His thought process has started.

Building=People, People=Information, Building with People=Heated building.

That figured out, he drops back to his knee and moves his sight bubble back out to the tower. If his sight detects anything humanoid, or any increase in temperature, in or around the tower, he would turn back around and head toward the structure, knocking on the closest thing to a door if he got to one without incident. If there were no people and no significant heat increases, than he would head back to the weird forest and go towards the other strange thing.

Lost? Well, there's a concept that the mage hadn't considered. He wasn't exactly trying not to get lost, but it is a lot easier to know where you're going when you can see everything. Still, he had his trusty map, and was diligently marking his path on it, so nothing could go wrong, right?

Well, let's just hold that determination until we reach the second point of interest, shall we?

A hop, skip, and a jump over the ice would solve the crossing of the creek. With a little bit of energy to lift him up, he wouldn't even get the toe of his boot wet.

His camera snapped away at the things he was passing that he hadn't seen before, but he wasn't concentrating on taking very good shots since he knew he wasn't there yet.

Then he saw the tree wall. So many perfectly healthy trees, many of them even leaf-bearing. His simple knowledge held enough to know that was unheard of for the tundra, and he sprinted through the last quarter mile to reach them so that he could pull out his second camera and take a picture, then mark his map.

Trees were fine and all, don't get him wrong, but he wanted more. He was looking for a paradise and all he had was a wall, so he knelt down outside of the wall and sent his magesight within it, looking for warmth, plants that didn't look like they belonged in the tundra, etc. Of course the big thing he was looking for was a way past the wall, even if that way meant climbing, but he'd take the easiest way he could find.