Great Things Come in Odd Packages

There was no good reason to be out here. There was no sane person who was out here right now. Carzeah was almost literally bullet proof and any Rossi with half a brain knew no one should fuck with The Warden. So that made him pretty safe around these parts right? Right. It was just a simple patrol around, a favor for a Rossi member smaller than him and even his hooligans. The guy had to bring his sick kid to the doctor or some lame excuse but Carz wasn't one to put up the effort to say no to people, especially if there really was some sick brat involved. It didn't bother him any, he already knew he was going to be walking around the city lost in his own thoughts anyway so what was it to him?

The midday air did well to keep the temperature cool and the annoyance of wind out of his face. As he traversed along the sidewalk he made a few stops to look about the streets. Things were a little quiet here, too quiet. Even if you didn't have a lot of Valentine activity here in the slums, that didn't mean Rossi's weren't trying to hold ground from some lesser gangs in these streets. Rossi's may not of been the most well collaborated of criminal organizations in the city, but each member was definitely a powerful wild card. Their ability to hold their ground could attest to that, as well as multiple other things they were good at. Like making noise and breaking windows. However small the job though, they were all important. Making sure the streets stayed quiet for the day was apparently one such mission of utmost priority.

At least so the man of stone forced himself to believe as he had nothing better to do. If he wasn't thinking about the task at hand he was likely fighting old battles again in his head. Over and over and over...and over. He had the time to think and recollect on these things. What he could have done and what he should have done differently in his life. Carzeah had a rough one, that was for sure. Now to be such a high power? Reduced to a meager street thug? He killed a god dragon and an entire race of people in the course of a single day long conflict. And this is where he was now? Remarkable how life was sometimes. He wondered if anyone in this world felt as low as he did. To have been something so great just to become...whatever this was.

Valdrá huffed in frustration as she rounded a corner she could have sworn sheʼd rounded an hour ago or more. Being ground bound had to be the most frustrating, ineffective method of travel sheʼd ever had to endure. How did anyone stand it? White eyes looking around for a street sign, anything to place herself in this blasted city, she could have sighed again at the state of the buildings she found herself among. Even as inexperienced as she was on the standards of city architecture, she knew she must have been in the poorer part of town. The part of town Harper had been pretty clear about her avoiding. But of course sheʼd find herself lost in the middle of it, because where else would she find herself?

It was a lot more empty than other parts of the city had been, and she found the calm peaceful, if not exactly helpful. Sad, that some poor souls were stuck living on so little, but wouldnʼt that be her, if she were honest? If Harper hadnʼt found her? With the wolf womanʼs warnings ringing around in her head, it was thoughts of imminent danger that she held as she rounded another corner and found herself across the street from the first being sheʼd seen in blocks.

Briefly making eye contact before immediately looking away she kept walking with purpose. That was what people did, right? Walked in a direction like they knew exactly what they were doing, and where they were going and there was no reason to strike up a conversation with anyone. She was Valdrá Eingana, daughter of Tarasque the First and she would find the blasted library in this ridiculous humanoid city if it killed her.

Carzeah supposed he was going to be lost in his thoughts forever at this rate. Nothing was going on that was of even remote interest. But this was odd for this end of town on a temperate day like today. No kids? No cars? No paper boys? Well, he supposed paper boys were a dying art, but to not have any activity going on was a little disturbing. What was he missing? It was starting to look as if he was the only guy working today. That...or he was set up? No. What fellow Rossi would ever...well. The Rossi's were known to have a few snakes in the grass actually. But a set up that everyone knew about but him? Well, they could try.

The man of hardened igneous reached into his inner jacket pocket for his cigarette case, perhaps his most used item. In the small container was just one lone roll of tobacco left. Sure was going to be a long day, wasn't it? Though breathing was a foreign concept to his kind, like eating and drinking, such mortal vices could be made useful in some cases. Swallowing the smoke displaced the tiny pockets of oxygen in his self contained structure of literal molten magma, which caused an ever so slight, yet a cooling effect. The lower he kept his temperature the more he kept a hold of his head and kept himself under control from blowing his top. It was funny how common objects like these could tend to have the same effect on his kind.

As he lit up the end of the cigarette with a snap of his fingers, he couldn't help but pay mind to movement in his peripherals. His head slowly and casually raised from his hand to face the stranger on the other side of the road, who seemed to meet his gaze and proceed with disinterest. Carzeah kept his psionic abilities to himself and typically stayed out of people's heads nowadays, but even without the read he could tell she was perhaps a bit nervous. Noted. For all he knew she could be some badass underground drug lord or something. A face that he hadn't seen around actually made him quite off put himself. What were they capable of? But soon the woman became the least of all of his worries as his attention to the other side of the street revealed movement down one of the alley's she was about to pass by.

A touch of give a fuck and scrutiny down the darkened path revealed a metallic shimmer in the alley. A gun. Normally such devices of man didn't scare the creature made of literal rock, but the high power or explosive sort disguised as regular firearms would definitely be his bane if he risked underestimating the situation. Even then, with an innocent pedestrian about to stroll by, it wasn't going to be pretty for her to get caught in this crossfire, if this was a set up for him. And who was to say she wasn't involved? Well, innocent until proven guilty he supposed. He had to think quickly now and observe the surroundings before they decided to take their move first.

Time was ticking before the young woman across the street was just before the alley he identified as a danger to her. But who else was here to pose a threat? Thankfully a man like him didn't need to be able to see to know what was around him. He purposely dropped his cigarette case to the ground as he attempted to put it back in his jacket. It fell to the ground with a sharp pang to his hearing orifices but he felt the vibration at his feet. He bent down to pick the object up, a full knee and hand down to the ground as the earth spoke to him. One getting antsy just three more doors down and he had actually missed one about another 5 doors back. They had him triangle boxed in, a nice set up indeed. But what were they waiting for?

His answer lied in simply standing up as a firearm discharged from across the street, the bullet zipping by his face and catching his cigarette as it passed him by. Good play. It just took the one in front and the one behind to take their shots and he could be as good as melty Swiss cheese in another instant. First things first though, he'd try to get the thug across the street over to their side so at least the lady wouldn't be harmed. It took a stomp of his boot sending a wave over across the way which in turn raised the ground the bastard stood on. With enough force, it flung him toward the other side, trajecting him right into the well timed fist of The Warden. Heated up just for him so the punch left a nasty burn right on the face of the individual. He wouldn't get away, even if he tried to run now.

As for the other two, he had realized that they had been shooting at him the entire time, bullets pinging off as if they were nothing. Really? This was a waste of fucking time. The boiling point was reached as annoyance fueled him to the edge. When their clips ran dry, all they had left was to drop their guns and start running like cowards. Carzeah stilled himself a moment, shutting down his orifices so that he could hope to cool down. His Core temperature dropped as he took a few moments to balance himself again, which made his bloodflow of sorts a little more bearable. Still hot to the touch, Carzeah stomped once more but on the man's ankle as he tried to crawl away, breaking it under him. The clothing of the volcanic man did not burn, as they were for all intents and purposes a magical extension of himself. A gift from his daughter. But with that, even his boot was probably sweltering to the touch, enough to warn but not to burn. Paired with a broken ankle it probably hurt a bit though. "You fucking stay there or I'll send you to hell in my own fashion." With that he left the man there to go walk after the others. Give them a bit of a head start before he got hot and bothered again. He stopped in the middle of the road though, wondering if it was even worth it at this point. They could run and tell whoever put them up to it that they failed. Their punishment might be even worse than even what he would give.

The faint ting of metal on concrete rang behind her as Valdrá kept walking, feeling confident sheʼd avoided any unnecessary attention yet still somewhat uneasy that the man she was leaving behind was the only soul around. She did not glance back, but surely the emptiness wasnʼt normal? Perhaps Harperʼs warning about this particular side of town was because it was so isolated, though even with a brief glance around, it was obvious the neighbouredhood was lived in. Or it had been not so long ago. Her unease only grew as she took another step and as if on cue the blast of a gun sounded, bouncing around between the buildings, and continued to reverberate as other guns joined in the chorus. Eyes snapping down the alley sheʼd just stepped in front of, she found the source of the shot, held in the hands of a man not paying attention to her in the least, instead focused behind her entirely. Not meant for her then, yet while her true body would have found being shot by a typical man made gun annoying at most, testing the limits of her new, far squishier form, was pretty low on her lists of a good time. Not so soon after sheʼd nearly broken it getting here. Guns were to primitive though, from what sheʼd read and heard about their use against her own kind. Still better to not test her already piss poor luck.

The tattooʼs across her body started to burn as she reflexively started to weave a doorway into a dream and out of reach of the firefight that was erupting around her. It was her first attempt at entering a dream physically in years, and the binding etched into her body fought her every second of it, even as her current form attempted to find cracks in the marks meant to contain a dragon body, not a drowʼs. Yet, it became obvious she neednʼt have bothered as the man she kept her eyes trained on suddenly flew past her, along with the ground he stood on, and right into a fist. White eyes narrowed at the scorch mark that bloomed across the shooters face.

“Well Iʼll be banished.” Valdrá muttered, the man across the street having her full attention, even as his own attention seemed elsewhere. She was not exactly an expert in all form of magical beings, but she knew quite a bit about some, and her suspicious put her in a bit of a quandary. Keep walking, unfazed, and hope that she finally got to where she was intending to go. Or sate her curiosity and stick around, putting herself in potentially more danger than was sane in the process. Sheʼd read a human book with a phrase consisting of curiosity and dead cats, though as far as she knew, curiosity did not murder dragons. Just seriously endanger them her mind decided to quip, though as the man with the fiery punch crushed bone beneath his food and started to walk away, and before she could think better of it, her tattoos were burning again and she disappeared entirely.

Reappearing moments later, she stood directly in front of the bone crusher man, another man standing right beside her, completely expressionless, his eyes a glazed over, milky white, entirely unseeing. The effort it had taken to step through a dream, out to acquire one of the shooters, and back again had obviously cost her, tattoos still vaguely glowing as she kept the man in a dream. Small beads of sweat and slightly pale though she was, she still found it satisfying that she was capable of something even so small, with how much less she was than before. Still connected to the Dream, even in such a breakable state. “Is this what you are looking for?” Valdrá asked, somewhat breathless. A gift, but also a test, and also an incredibly vulnerable position to put herself, but she had to know. And drowʼs were capable of dream magic….werenʼt they? But if the man was what she suspected, it wouldnʼt matter either way. He would have known what she was from the beginning. And if he knew, she needed to know that. And if he didnʼt well, all the better.

Her conscious had briefly considered the morality of assisting a complete stranger that had just burned and broke another being, but the other man had shot first, and had seemed indifferent to Valdráʼs own safety in the process. Her actions seemed justified. Or so she concluded.

Carzeah was ready to lose his interest this whole affair. That easily. It wasn't worth overheating himself over. Those bastards could come back if they dared or go home and cry off the nightmares. The male turned his head to see the thug he had down for the count and burned. He shook in either fear or pain, or some mix between the two. No matter though, he was free to go whenever he wished to at this point too. The volcanic man faced forward and released a light huff, expelling a bit of heat from his mouth. He held himself still from there and shut out all other things for a moment in order to cool off once again.

What ever became of that bystander though? Carzeah let his eyes slowly open and looked to the side of the street the young woman had been walking on. She wasn't there, but there was no blood either which mean't she may have passed this all by without any harm done. Maybe she was spooked too, but at least she would be alright. With his mind somewhat at ease now, the now dormant volcano turned his eyes forward with intentions to begin progression toward somewhere else. Before he could take even half his stride, two figures appeared before him. The half taken step darted back into a defensive stance before the two until he realized it was the woman from before. And she brought him...one of the shooters? The man of igneous rock blinked in disbelief for a moment, actually taken off guard.

The strange woman asked him if he was looking for the gift she had brought to him. Golden eyes flickered over to the offender, his state of mind obviously not his own as he drooled on himself as if she had some kind of powers that turned individuals into vegetables. The non edible kind. "No." Carzeah answered in his typical dry tone, his face indicating he was not impressed. Truth be told, he was dumbfounded himself. What sort of sorceress was she? A being with powers like these was not exactly one he had heard of in his time, though perhaps it was too early to say as he only had perhaps to examples of abilities to go by here. "Not anymore. Thanks. If you want to punish them yourself though, they're all yours." The Warden then closed his eyes, his hands entering his jacket pockets as he attempted to move along from this place now.

Valdrá stared back at him a moment, a small frown creasing her brow, obviously considering something, before she merely shrugged. “They were not shooting at me.” She stated simply, though she seemed inexplicably disappointed. Not the salamander sheʼd met briefly early on during her…stay outside her Horde then. Or at least, if it was, they either didnʼt recognize the marks across her face, or simply did not care to acknowledge her. That meant the same thing in the end, she supposed. Somehow bound to a wealthy human woman, who was one of her capturesʼ many guests, the salamander hadnʼt told her their name, but theyʼd spent the evening telepathically lamenting their fate, and discussing creative ways to dispose of their tormentors. The salamander seemed particularly keen on cooking the bastards alive, and she had hoped that maybe theyʼd escaped after all, burning anyone who dared shoot at them. By the disinterested look on the man in front of herʼs face, he was not them, and no more knew who she was than any random stranger on the street had. For the best, she assured herself. Whatever manner of being he was, they couldnʼt seem to have cared less what she was, and that, at least, was a relief.

Still, she sighed before blinking out of existence, muttering to herself about ʼputting him backʼ before reappearing a few moments later, back in the exact spot sheʼd been in before the shooting had started. And, in a true display of elegance and grace, found herself retching all over the sidewalk. Nope, note to self, that second trip had definitely been too much, this mornings breakfast of cooked steak forcing its way out of her system. It took a moment to regain her composure, though the slow fade of her tattooʼs glow had her sighing in relief. Digging in her bag to pull out her notebook, she started to move in the direction sheʼd originally intended, putting some distance between herself and the mess sheʼd made. Scribbling a note to herself to add laws regarding magic, shooting, and people consuming other people to her list of research topics, she wondering whether Harper would have approved of her giving a person over to be killed or eaten, or burned alive, whatever the case would have been had her suspicion panned out to be correct. She suspected not. There was a lot about the justice system in humanoid society she was just going to have to get used to, along with a thousand other things she would need to appear to know if she had any chance of pulling this off.

The woman sounded somewhat disappointed when she spoke. Maybe it was a slight miscommunication, but did she not think he was appreciative? Of course, the living volcano probably hadn't shown an emotion other than anger and self hatred in hundreds of years. Expressing himself was a very far off concept for him at this point. He was able to turn her way before the mysterious woman disappeared with the criminal right before his eyes. Why don't share a few drinks sometime? That wasn't a forward advance of courtship to him, but another way to show gratitude. Maybe this old fossil could use a few lessons on how things actually work in this modern time. But alas, she was gone in the next moment. Well, there went that. At the distance she was now, she wouldn't be able to answer him unless she herself had a way to telepathically link back to him. Carzeah just continued his way in the other direction. The igneous man still had to finish the rest of his patrol before returning home and doing whatever he wished to for the remainder of the evening.

Valdrá paused a moment as the manʼs thoughts reached her, debating whether it was worth responding, and what the implications would mean if she did so. She knew that telepathic communication wasnʼt available to all species, (which had often made communication difficult between dragonʼs lacking a Veil and other beings) but the man had spoken to her and he was no dragon, so surely it wasnʼt so uncommon. At least in this city. “If you can find me," she finally replied. It wasnʼt a challenge, but simply an acknowledgement that she couldnʼt seem to navigate her way to the simplest of destinations, let alone back to wherever this place was. She tried not to think about what attempting to find her way back to Harperʼs would entail, though she supposed if she found another officer she could get directions to her place of work. That sounded like an even more stressful endeavor though than wandering around aimlessly. With that though, she kept walking. Maybe if she did ever run into the man who could burn faces again, sheʼd have researched enough to know what not to say. Or so she hoped.

There was a bit of a pause, so Carzeah did not assume at all that she would get back to him. Not expecting her voice to reach his mind, it stopped him in his tracks and he turned in the direction of where it reached him from. The obsidian plated being stood for a long moment, calculating his next move. It didn't sound like a challenge. In fact, she sounded pretty flat about it. He was inclined to believe that she meant what she said, that 'sure whatever' sort of attitude. The young woman was a puzzling creature but curiosity was getting the best of the Hellkin. What other creature could respond to him by opening her own line of contact at this distance? It was impressive. For now, he'd walk along on his current path and if they met again, they'd meet again.

Putting the strange man out of her mind, Valdá renewed her focus on finding her destination. No messing around, the situation was getting desperate. She only had so many hours before it got dark, which wouldnʼt have mattered in the least little bit in any other situation, but Harper had been pretty insistent that aside from avoiding certain areas of town (such as the one she was in currently) she should also avoid wandering around too late at night if she could help it, especially if she wasnʼt totally feeling her best. Valdrá felt like drowʼs were nocturnal creatures by nature, but honestly, what did she know? Nothing, and she would continue to know nothing if she didnʼt manage to find this damn library before she ʼdied of old ageʼ. She snorted to herself at her own mental joke, sheʼd overheard an impatient human mutter once. The city would crumble and the books along with it before that happened, she assured herself. But by then, sheʼd have an entirely different set of problems.

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An hour and a half later, 3 dozen turns, 2 stops of frustration, and a series of increasingly anger scribbled notes later, and Valdrá still was as turned around as she had been nearly since the beginning. She swore that sheʼd even walked past Harperʼs place at one point, about half an hour ago. Her feet, still not entirely healed from the three day trek to the city itself, were not too pleased with her, and while the burning and nausea that sheʼd felt after sheʼd done too much for her body or binding to take was largely gone, the nail like pain in her head still throbbed, only fed by her ever growing frustration.

Turning another corner and passing yet another bodega that, flipping her notes back three pages, looked exactly like the five sheʼd already passed, she could have screamed as the same earth bending man from a ground blasted two hours ago sauntered once again across the street from her. It seemed only a small comfort that sheʼd not been born a fire dragon, if only for the sake of her own safety, as well as those in her immediate vicinity. As it were, annoyance alone didnʼt seem enough to make all these disgustingly tall buildings bend until she had a clear view of her target, but damned if her scowl alone couldnʼt try. Fine. Fine. She would do what she had been hoping to avoid all day. If it got her to where she was going, which at this point was a matter of pride, then she would ask, of all things, for directions. It was, she was certain, the first way of telling the population she was not from there. This she knew. But the earth moving man had already seen her, twice now. What he was up to, wandering around, was his business. Better to just put an end to it.

Scorching man, she started, reaching out to him mentally. If she had to ask, at least he would be the only one to hear her do so. Where do they keep the books? Whereʼs your library?