barring emergencies

[the_very_best]

Bella's not sure where she has wandered. She thought she was about to walk into a shop, but this appears to be an unattended bar. With none of the windows associated with the shop she thought she was entering. It could be an elaborate psychic assault of some kind, but it doesn't feel very... assault-y... and she was in the middle of a town and doesn't think any humans want to sic their 'mon on her. It's strange. She approaches the bar, looking around warily, hand hovering near her belt.

with Max (Benedict)

with Earth and Lightning (kappa)

with Ann and Sabrina (kuuskytkolme)

Comments

[imeanforever]

"You don't know his owner's name?"

[just_a_shadow]

...Shadow blinks at her.

[imeanforever]

"If I have a human's name, I can command them to do anything. I don't like doing this, and I'd want to be sure the human wouldn't get hurt following my orders, but that's how I got Kisonde to release you all."

[just_a_shadow]

"...As long as you didn't make him release Fire, probably nothing would happen to him..." says Shadow.

[imeanforever]

"Can Kisonde do it, if I make him give over the amulet?"

[just_a_shadow]

"Sure, why not," sighs Kisonde. "I'm not going to get set on fire, right?"

"I got you covered," says Shine, giving Kisonde wingsnugs.

"...okay," says Shadow. "His... his name is Caharas."

[imeanforever]

"Then if somebody from your world holds the door and will take me to the place I can do this."

[just_a_shadow]

"I can take you to the place," says Shadow. "I just need a shadow to do it from."

"I'll hold the door," says Earth.

[from_scratch]

"If we assume for the moment that Promise and I are willing to live in Milliways for the next five years spending most of our time respectively ordering elemental owners to hand over the amulets and holding the door to Hell, how many of these can we get?"

[just_a_shadow]

"...some," says Shadow. "Maybe a lot. I don't know. I think probably more if we do a lot of them now before people know it's a thing that's happening."

"I think I heard somewhere that the estimated global population of captured elementals was a hundred million," says Earth. "Some of those are going to be hard to reach by shadow walking, but not all of them."

[from_scratch]

"And you can search for them with the scrying? Are there any other elementals that do scrying-and-going-places or is that just Shadows?"

[just_a_shadow]

"I don't think there's anything that works the same as shadow walking," says Shadow.

"I can barely scry," says Earth. "Unless the thing you want to find happens to be a plant. I definitely can't do fast transport like Shadow can."

"I can scry like nothing else, but I can't go somewhere near-instantly by magic once I find it," says Shine. "I think only Shadow has something like the shadow places... everyone else has to pass through the physical space in between where they're starting and where they're going somehow or other."

[from_scratch]

"Okay. So ideally we don't want it generally known that shadow-walking is instrumental to the process."

[just_a_shadow]

"People will probably guess," says Shadow.

"Unless we get together a big group of free Airs and Air hybrids, and have them swoop down out of the sky with Promise and grab amulets," says Earth. "Enough of them together and it'll be hard for anyone to get caught; and if it's Air, well, Air is the best at flying and the second-best at scrying. It's the closest we could get to shadow walking without a Shadow. It'll make it less obvious that we're using shadow walking some of the time if most of the time we ostentatiously don't."

[from_scratch]

"I feel like it's worth mentioning that somebody is going to have to be holding the door at all times, and it's not in a deserted or fortified location."

[just_a_shadow]

"I could illusion it so it looks like it's still closed," muses Shine. "And Air can make things invisible. I bet at least one of the ones you already rescued knows how. So that takes care of casually getting found out at the door end..."

"But not people trying to walk through the door while you're holding it," murmurs Shadow.

[from_scratch]

"If somebody turns me invisible I can guard the door. The most nonviolent method is probably drugging anyone who investigates, nice and gentle, night-night, and then shoving them out of the building again. But I can't see invisible things, so if invisible people start poking around..."

[pythbox]

"Air can detect invisible people, too," says Shine. "I think it's harder than making them invisible in the first place, but maybe we've got somebody out there who can do it. Want me to go check?"

[from_scratch]

"Yeah. Then me and an Air can repel anybody who shows up, and if they have amulets on them - can we just steal those? If I break the chains and they fall off and somebody picks them up and gives 'em to Kisonde?"

[pythbox]

"Yes," says Earth. "Bound elementals can't pick up amulets, even someone else's amulet, but I think free ones can. And if not, well, you and Kisonde and Promise aren't elementals."

[from_scratch]

"Okay then. We're in good shape at least to start out, I think, although I'd like to have at least a few elementals besides the one holding the door sharing guard duty with me at any given time in case something I can't or wouldn't know how to notice starts happening."

[pythbox]

Shine comes back, leading an elemental with wings made of swirling grey-and-black dust.

"This is Dust," she announces. "Air/Stone hybrid. She can do all the invisibility things."

"I can go collect volunteers," says Earth. "Should I? Or do you think me and Dust and Shine will be enough to keep you company while Shadow and Promise go rescue that Fire?"

[from_scratch]

"Hi, Dust. This'll probably do for the time being, I doubt if anyone's even noticed Kisonde and the university elementals missing if the time pause thing works like Bar said."

[pythbox]

"Then..."

Earth opens the door.

Shine stands in the doorway for a moment, then steps back.

"Who or what am I supposed to be making invisible?" inquires Dust.

[just_a_shadow]

"Me, I think," says Shadow. "And Promise if it won't do anything to whatever you do with people's names."