After you confirm that Andrew is ready with his electric-attachment, you Agility Flow, 50-Mana Haste, and 50-Mana Weak Blur. You accelerate slow enough to keep your passenger from getting whiplash, but still end up hurtling yourself through the eastern path like a bullet.

A bullet discharging extraneous heat and cackling with electricity.

You approach Gabel fairly quickly, and you easily clear the entire town with a kinetic-enhanced leap (and what seems to be a magnetic propulsion, courtesy of Andrew), and continue blazing your way until you reach Venari, applying additional kinetics to slow and then stop yourself gracefully.

The town looks like it's still standing, and tall, armored lupus swarm the area.

A squad of them approach you with startling speed, but stop a considerate distance away.

Venari Wolf: "Hail! What brings you this way with such haste?"


____________________


You manage to grab a hold of Tuhota, but as you forcefully pull her off, you feel a sort of tearing on the surface of your skin, where she was contacting you.

Flinging her to the ground, she hits the ground rolling and recovers quickly into a moderate crouch, ready to leap again.

Looking at the parts of your body that feel like they're burning, you see that the fur is missing and there's a bit of, removed, skin, but nothing serious.

Tuhota: "Um, sorry. I didn't mean to do that much."


____________________


"They are of independent mind, but obey my commands. They are my children. If I should die, one will replace me as queen.


One has found your friend, let us go."

You feel the armor move your hand to point in a direction, closer to the center of the city.

Venari Wolf: "The leviathan has been attacking the construct, and the construct only. The witches and dragon, they have been focusing on the construct as well. If you told us the construct was the thing worse than the leviathan, we would believe you - it can accelerate itself with light magic and has armor that is invulnerable to everything we, Fluustern shamans, and Caelum and Vranhal mages can do."

Venari Wolf: "The shamans are the most exotic mages we know. If you happen to come across mages that do something more exotic than opening rifts to the Other, feel free to send them our way."


____________________


You begin walking in the directed direction. Fast walking. Jogging.

Okay, running. No time to to take your time, apparently, your witch armor seems to be in a rush.

Sprinting through the city, you quickly make it to the base of one of the towers near the center of the city. Nothing looks out of place, as far as you can tell.

"Ninth floor."


____________________



Tuhota: "Aaaahhhh..."

Looking at the wound, you see that it isn't an ordinary bite. The affected area is larger than your hand, multiple of your hands even, not really any way for her to have just bitten down. It looks more like you scraped a large portion of your skin off by rubbing yourself against rough stone.


____________________


Well-Dressed Man: "I see! Well, come in, we'll get you sorted out right away!"

He opens up the gate and gestures for you to follow, the two of you heading up the path and into the mansion.

The building looks, well, rich. Polished granite floors, dark hardwood furniture with comfortable cushions, large paintings and tapestry that cover the walls.

Well-Dressed Man: "Please, have a seat, I'll be right with you."

The man leaves while another brings a tray with baked goods and tea. Might as well have a snack while you wait.