Welcome to Gaia! ::

Erik mulled over his allies for a moment. Takeshi was more dangerous than Erik had originally guessed. Evidently magic did not require a vast intellect. He would be good at directing attention to himself. Erik felt that Siber's summoning was different somehow, but it seemed just as effective. His personality was hard to read. Joe, like Takeshi, seemed to have more of a natural knack. A resourceful fighter was good to have around. Erik decided Siber and Joe required more study. Tomas interrupted,

Erik gave a mental , and sat down to make sure he had the precise shape and feel of each summoning circle. He wanted to be able to execute either summon at a moment's notice.

"All right, then, Alan. Show us the way," Paul said simply, slowly pushing his handgun back into its small holster. If anything went wrong, he'd take care of it. His guard was up and he wasn't letting it back down unless he knew he was safe.

Siber returned to the practice room as an initial guess. The one guy he hadn't really met was standing there, shadows flickering around him.

Siber asked, watching quietly as the man shimmered and disappeared.


feel your way through the light and shadow and he ought to be where you feel a disruption. Light's really more of a tapestry than you think.>
Siber did as advised, and after a few failures found the other guy and approached him. "That's pretty nifty. I don't think I met you before- my name's Siber." He held out his hand to nothing, hoping the other guy at least reappeared before shaking it.

"Yah, my Warlock said something about the 'style' he uses. I think different Demoniacs must use differenst methods. What's yours based on?"
know you'll have to reciprocate.> Keldan sounded exasperated.

The Warlock was not convinced.

he said disdainfully.

Incantatis and chakras are much more sophisticated.>

"I use more of a chakra-based approach- concentrate on one of the seven spiritual foci of the body. I don't even know what a summoning circle looks like."
know how much I enjoy theater and effect! If I can be drawing pentacles and such, I can screw around with people's psyches much more easily.>
"Care for an exchange of practices?" he asked, knowing he could just learn the summoning circles from Keldan. But by this point, he was set on defying Keldan's opinion on whether or not to make an ally of Erik. A trade, however simple, would serve as a nice introduction.

It seemed like Kayla was punishing each stair of the walkup to her New York apartment. She was absolutely furious at her boss, an inexpliably uncreative art director at the wildly sucessful Everware videogame company, who had trashed half a sketchbook of hard work because it was "inconsistent". Who wants consistency anyway? It's dull as dog leavings. To make matters worse, ever since they'd found out she was gay, a good third of her female coworkers had harbored the delusion that she was lusting after them. All in all, she was very pleased to see the weekend.


Ah, of course. Vassily. Possibly the


all my thoughts loose at you? I know how you love hearing about the girlfriend of the week>


He stopped as Kayla opened the door to the apartment. Apparently, he had picked up on the smell that had also halted her in the dorrframe; a gonspicuous stench of rotting flesh. She glanced down. On the floor a few feet away was an envelope with Legion written on the front. She stooped to pick it up off the bare floorboards.
came a bare whisper from Vassily.
A knot of foreboding gripped her insides. Her instincts were generally good, and she was not feeling very optimistic about this letter.

Kayla hesitated. She had experienced Vassily's apparently unique demon-channeling ability a handful of times, and hadn't enjoyed herself.
she cut herself off, and wouldn't continue, even at her ancestor's prodding. She opened the letter, and read through the invitation and plane ticket therein. Her feeling of foreboding doubled.



Another thought occurred to her: The prospect of finding more magic users was extremely tempting to her, though Legion still scared her.

Not twelve hours later she was in LAX, a frame pack full of clothes, food, and art supplies on her back. She made a strange figure, dressed in a medley of punk and hiphop fashion, with red-streaked auburn hair and a huge pack. She drew more than one stare as she went outside, hailed a cab, and took it to a place five blocks away from the headquarters address Legion had sent. She walked the rest of the way, and knocked on the door. The wood felt strange on her knuckles, and the air in the general vicinty thicker and harder to breathe.


She didn't rise to the taunt. Her misgivings about this decision were too strong for that. <...Yes. Right on all counts.>
"Huh," she said out loud.

Joe woke up groggily. "Coming!" he called, still half-asleep. He trudged downstairs and put his hand on the doorknob before Roland intervened.

What?
Joe instantly came to full awareness, alert and on-guard. He slowly relaxed when he saw nothing was wrong.
Why was I so deep asleep? That's not like me at all!

Joe just shook he head to clear it and looked at the door.
Umm....someone knocked. Should I open it?

But if the person can see it, doesn't that mean they're one of us? I mean, the Hunters couldn't see it before. Besides, I think I can handle myself long enough to get some help from the others.
Before waiting for a reply from Roland, Joe took a fighting stance and opened the door.

Legion watched with amusement through his unique ability to see through the eyes of his zombie. He would let the two of them carry on, and only intervene if there was a consequential danger of injury to them. He was fully prepared to suppress any magic attempted by either of them.

~~

Alan led Paul and Linda, with Melissa following, a grand total distance of one room over, during which absolutely nothing of consequence occurred. The room he showed them was absolutely empty, with shimmering walls, floor, and ceiling.

"Everything in this room is reinforced against magic attacks with a mana-scattering field; it'll disperse whatever hits it," Alan explained. "You can blast at it as much as you want. I'll explain whatever your Warlock Souls cannot. Go ahead and start practicing." He moved over to a corner and sat down.

Arturo began Linda's first lesson on thaumaturgy.