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Tome walked along, not looking back as the pattering sound of small, running feet caught up to him. Though, when she began talking, he dropped his glance to her - not his face, just the deep red eyes sliding towards her. She she finished, clearly agitated he spoke again, voice lowered to a rusty whisper. "Do you think he is in danger of being taken by monsters?" He bristled subtly, the aqueous spines along his back raising a little in pre-emptive defense. "Keep close then, small one. We may run into danger yet." He reached a hand out to her, offering for her to take it.

Tomb slowed his pace for her sake, his long legs shortening their stride. Her hand was small and hot in his. Physical Contact...a strange sensation. What a pair they were, two social outcasts in search of an imaginary friend that had seen too much.

Then she was speaking again, in a sing-song query. Tomb listened attentively, pausing when she'd finished to consider her point. "In my readings..." Tomb began at last, tentatively holding conversation rather than answering a direct question - odd for him. "I came across a man who spoke of limits of knowledge. Not by any shortage of wits, but a self-imposed end. One's inability to deal with certain information would cause him to simple go blind int he face of that which he cannot accept." He looked at her for a moment. "Have you considered that perhaps there is no malevolence in this charade? Perhaps these people would be happier in their ignorance, in their safety, than to quake in the fear of uncertainty and exposure? I have thought on it, the many times I have brought forth Ea's knowledge and watched the chaos unfolding in its wake. Would not they choose their peace instead of tormented thoughts whirring 'round in their brains, keeping them awake at night and far from their dreams? Fear is a sign of the caveman. Can you blame them for striving for civilization?" He fell silent again. These were not thoughts he had spoken with any Empyrean. Only Ea had heard his queries, held this discourse, but perhaps this young thing beside him would find his meaning where he had doubted others of truly seeing it.

Tomb listened as she sang her verse, wondering idly if it was an original composition or something old she'd read somewhere...
He nodded, thinking the lines through to their nuance, and their double intentions.

"Do you...remember?" He paused, sensing a vague wisp of something lost in the back of his memory, like the burnt impression from atom bomb explosions left on concrete walls. "From before, the life of your husk out there? At times,t he way you speak of these things, I get the feeling that not all of it was erased from you in the embracing. And that, perhaps, it is that struggle to co-habit two opposing lives that causes you to be...Broken." The last word was a bit softer-spoken than the rest of his hard, cold words. A bit of a whisper, as if a hint of appology remained in his capacity.

"Aaah...." Tomb said suddenly, his normally low voice rising in volume just a little. He stopped in his tracks and turned to regard her silently for a moment, a strange light in his eyes. "It all makes sense now. Why the God wanted Scalpel found, and why it would be so bad if the Outsiders were to get hands on him." He stared at her a moment longer, very conscious of a sudden that he was holding her hand. "Half and whole, split and marrow. To let its juices permeate the flesh would be to poison and to corrupt. Instead, to divide, and keep both cogent...Of course." He nodded to himself. "It is, of course, of utmost need that we find him immediately. Do you not have a sense of connection to him? A sense of location?" He thought it over then shook his head. "Of course not, or he would not be lost... Then, we are in need of a Nephilim. Shall we summon one, young thing?"

Tomb intook a breath, observing this show of emotion in her and feeling decidedly discomfited by it. He paused a moment, unsure, then stooping he scooped her into his arms and stood tall again, carrying her against his hip like a young child. "Come, none of that. Tomb is here, and he is on Ea's mission." He gave her a stern look from under his dark bangs. "Have you any doubt that he will do his utmost to see the task completed?" He offered a tentative, rare smile then, a small thing, half-shy in its disuse.
He rounded the corner and came out into a courtyard branching out beside the rooms that housed the Amphitheatre. Here he stilled, and tapping a technoring on his opposite hip he called out his Golem. "Locust, rise! He have need of faster feet to carry us to our will!" Before him, under the raised ceiling,t he insectoid golem rose, after fashion of its namesake, a Golem of plagued Essence and decay. It rustled to its full height towering above them and Tomb gripped one of the long slung arms. As soon as Locust felt his grip, it scooped him up and opened up the chest mandibles to allow him and his guest to climb into the mucous-filled chamber there.

Tomb climbed into the disgusting slime with the ease of one who's done it many times before. He sank to rest with a squelch, and shifted Somber to sit on his knees so that she would not be submerged in the mucous.
"You'll have to hide yourself as we get close to the gates to the outer districts." He motioned for the mandibles to close and Locust complied with a chuttering motion. "I am technically your guardian in this journey, Three as I am, but I am a member of the Chorus, not the Gatekeepers or Grigori. So, my protocol could be called into question. For both our sakes, keep yourself hidden, and if needed, allow me to do the speaking. We go in search of the nephilim. They will have picked up on or seen your Scalpel." He hugged her to him to keep her in the Golem's inner shadows and in a commanding voice called to the faintly warm husk surrounding them. "Locust, forward!" With an ungainly lurch the Golem began walking in it's loping, stuttering fashion, exiting the conservatory and out into the streets of the colour districts, heading East for the burnt out ruins where the Nephilim congregated.

It was not an especially strange sight to see Tomb riding his toxic Golem through the City streets, nor was it odd that he headed for the blasted lands home to the Scorched Souls. Locust was quite massive, and Tombs perch in the insectoid Golem was mostly hidden from view. It was so, that the two travelled unmolested through the colour districts towards the Melancholia District on the far Eastern reaches of Empyrean City.

Once they were at the shambles of stones that were the only visible indication of the invisible East Gate, Tomb raised his voice again. "Have a look, little one. This is a sight I think you'd like to see..." He tapped the fronds folded before them, and obediently they opened, leaving a chartreuse green streak on his blood red fingertips for a moment before it faded. Beyond, the view of blasted buildings stretched on as far as the eye could see. Tottering husks of once magnificent buildings, twisted rebar and concrete slabs - the building materials of a dead people. Among the rubble, though, the scorched marks could be seen, and wavering above them, like cords on imbedded anchors, were the Scorched Souls. There were hundreds of thousands of them, some clustered and cowering as they had been at the moment of the blast, some at full face running in the street - except pinned to the spot, like a crackling hologram. A few of the more desperate souls stretched themselves high, coming up to crowd around the chest cavity of Locust to peer in at them, moaning for succour, for attention, for a listening ear or a shoulder upon which to weep. Tomb looked down into her face, his own immobile and stern as stone. "Welcome," he murmured "to the brink of Empyrean City."