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Acar stood before the High Lord Marcus, hands resting casually on his belt. A few other creatures stood next to him, all paying attention to the High Lord, in case he had something to add to what they already knew. High Priestess missing, Globe of Levitation missing, the sky realms slowly falling out of the sky.

"You must bring back the High Priestess before it is too late," he repeated, for about the third time. "We need her and her magic."

"My lord," Acar said, floating forward a little. "If that is all, my companions and I will look into the matter."

Nodding vigorously, the High Lord dismissed them with a wave. Turning, Acar floated past the others.

"I suggest we adjourn to my quarters to discuss strategy. They are but a short distance from here."

Scanning the room, Aryeh wondered if she was supposed to know who any of these people were. She hadn't been keeping up with bards: maybe the smoke monster and the tall lady were great heroes. Maybe the red-winged human had strangled seven giants bare handed and shat out the Poet's Mountain.

Or maybe they'd found the real heroes, ripped out their throats, and were leading her back to their lair. Or, much more likely, yell at her for being an imposter.

Aryeh leaned against the doorframe. Maybe they'd take her silence for strong stoicism, instead of stupefied incompetence. The smith did her best to look imposing.

Acar took in his silent companions. Judging from how they stood and held themselves, he was dealing with a blood Mage, an artificer and a warrior of some sort.

Pulling a book from one of his many shelves of tomes, he flipped it open to a large picture of a globe. Turning, he passed the book to the dwarf.

"Can you make an item to track the globe? If you can, all the information you may need is in the pages after that picture."

Turning to the blood Mage, he studied her hands and her arms for a moment before pulling an ornamental dagger from a box. Its blade was thin and straight edged with lines engraved in the shape of various runes. A blood red gemstone sat in it's pommel.

"Blood Mage, please accept this gift. I have no use for it, as my magic is channelled in another way and I believe that we will need everything that we have."

Aryeh glanced at the pages to be polite, then shoved the book under her arm. "Ken, I can make a compass," she said. "Give me a forge and three days: I'll make you a proper gyrocompass. Much better. Much more accurate."

It wasn't, not really. But Aryeh's metal scars tended to ruin traditional compasses. They always ended up spinning madly around her. Kovacs had taught her how to make a new kind of compass, one that was unaffected by metals. They were rather popular on metal airships, even if they were a pain in the a** to carry around.

She did her best not to make eye contact with the blood mage. She'd only met one blood mage before; she hadn't talked much, but it was hard to forget the b*****d who ripped open her skin and melded her blood with metal.

Aryeh glanced at the Djinn and his outstretched hand. Who in their right mind would give a blood mage a weapon? Aren't Djinn's supposed to be smart?

"I'll get started," she said, slipping out of the room. No way she was going to be around when the blood mage started using that weapon.

Aima listened to the conversation between the Djinn and Artificer. It seemed they could make a compass to search out what they were looking for, but she doubted that it would be so easy. It never was.

At the Djinn's offering of a gift, she looked at him for a moment, trying to discern why the man would give a relative stranger such a dangerous gift. Perhaps it was simply because she would have more use of it than he as he claimed, or perhaps it was something more sinister. However, as she examines the dagger more closely, her eyes widened a fraction.

"This is a Blood Mage dagger. Where did you get it?" she asked after watching the other woman leave to begin the creation of the compass. She noticed that she wasn't comfortable around her, and Aima hardly had to guess why. Blood Magic was very potent, and it left traces that other Blood Mages could recognise. While it was faint, she knew that Blood Magic had been used on this woman, and she wondered why. Of course, not all Blood Magic was destructive, but it was obvious that in this case it hadn't exactly been pleasant. If she was an enemy to the Blood Mages, Aima would have to be careful.

Aima nodded at his explanation, although she wondered which Blood Mage had lost her life to this 'fairly evil' mage. Thankfully she didn't recognise the personal runes that were etched into the blade- it wasn't someone she knew. She picked up the dagger and weighed it gently in her hands. Knowing it was a Blood Mage dagger and therefore couldn't be spelled by any other magic, she nodded at him.

"Thank you. This is a generous gift. And I too am remiss in my manners. I am Aima. As you've surely observed, I am a Blood Mage."

Gentian heaved himself from his perch against the door frame and lumbered toward the table in the corner of the room. While pointing his head toward the table, his eyes wandered to get a closer view of the thin clay pot. The writing on it was a language he didn't understand; flowing and ornate with many diacritic dots, etched purposefully in and around the characters. As there was nothing else he could immediately discern, his attention turned to the box of pistols before him.

Gentian peered inside the glass lid of the pistol case, then opened it with one hand, drawing his own dirty flintlock from its holster with the other and placing it on the table. The first thing Gentian noticed was the writing. The same esoteric script was written in goldleaf on the lid of the box, in what appeared to be exactly the same handwriting; possibly printed from the same stock. There were three pistols in the box, each shaped identically and arranged horizontally an inch apart. He didn't have to look back at his own weapon; these pistols were several inches shorter in barrel than his own trusty dwarvish Shoutken.

He lifted the first pistol from its velvet-covered holdings. It was extremely highly polished, with the short barrel made of smooth bright metal and the handle from what appeared to be the rare Tortleback Twistwood, with a deep, gnarled grain which had been sanded and lightly varnished. A small brand was burnt into the wood. A few flowing lines. Perhaps wind, or rushing water.

Without taking the others out, he bent closer to inspect them. They were more or less the same as the first one, with slightly differently coloured wood on the handle but with the same gnarled grain. They also carried different brands to the first. One, of fire, and the other, of a leaf. Gentian could sense that these weapons were either a force to be truly reckoned with, or collector's trinkets, but if Acar's words were true, it would be wise to at least try them out.

Gentian replaced the pistol and closed the lid. He tucked the box under his arm and nodded in thanks to the djinn, taking his place at the doorframe again. He would need to find a more permanent place for the pistols. Something to occupy his mind, lest the tedium continue for much longer.