nevegallus | The Case of the Second City

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The Case of the Second City

It’s unlike anything she’s ever seen before. She and Shion had talked about it, putting the pieces together, but to see it, to feel it, is another matter.

It isn’t the Fade, she knows that much. If it were, she would feel it, and she might even understand it. The Fade can show memories of an existing place, but this… This isn’t that, of that Neve is certain. This looks like another Darrow altogether, just like they’d been hearing. But if it’s meant to be a perfect copy, whoever made it got it all wrong. Buildings are crumbling. The ground is warm beneath her foot in some areas, like there’s a fire smouldering beneath the surface. And here and there, creatures skuttle. Her metal foot is dirtied with the remains of crawling bugs she’d stomped. In the distance, she’s seen lumbering, armless creatures who seem to retch and spasm before moving on. She’s kept that distance between them. There’s no reason to be reckless.

It’s been less than an hour since she stepped into the rift that had appeared in front of her. It had felt like tempting fate: She’d told Shion she needs more information, and she still believes that’s true, but… An eluvian that she can’t exactly see, taking her to a place she can’t exactly plan for but needs to investigate all the same.

She’d taken the chance. It might be a way out, or it might lead to one, and she wouldn’t be much of a detective if she didn’t pursue all leads. The Gilded Prison Job continues, and now she realizes she’s stepped into a new case altogether: The Case of the Second City.

Now she needs to find out how deep this goes, and who else is here besides her.

“Well… time to get to work,” she murmurs. Scepter in hand, Neve continues deeper into the crumbling, smouldering second city of Darrow.

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It's not Shion's first time in this second Darrow. It is, admittedly, also not his second. He does his best only to stay for a little while each time, making himself leave every time he finds an exit. This is, in part, out of caution and in part because he's studying the exits, too, to see if there's any consistency in how and when and where they appear. There's a slim chance that what he finds here below may be mirrored above, an exit hidden in the air. So far, that hasn't proven to be the case, but he still pursues it doggedly. While he's not sure he's yet learned anything of real value, he still feels like he's seeing enough that, sooner or later, something is going to click. It just needs time.

In the meanwhile, it's an outlet. He gets to feel he's doing something, making some kind of progress, and to work out his frustrations on the monsters that meander his way. He's figured out which ones to skirt as much as possible and which aren't any kind of a challenge at all, and sometimes he's not in the mood to fight or he wants to conserve his energy and the supply of blood he's brought as snacks again, but every now and then, it feels good just to let off some steam. There aren't often other people down here, so he doesn't have to worry about being seen. Anyone he does run into either knows to keep their mouth shut or can be quite easily told to.

He's not counting on running into Neve. It occurs to him, when he spots her coming up the street, her gait and wardrobe familiar, that he should have mentioned it to her when he first found a way in. They've discussed it, after all, and Neve is capable of holding her own. The thing is, she doesn't need to know that he's also capable, in very different ways. Having to restrain himself during his search was too tedious a notion to entertain for long, but now there's no alternative unless he just dodges behind a ruin and hides. There's too much predator in him for him to consider that seriously.

Giving himself a quick glance to be sure there's no noticeable blood on him, only ashes, he adjusts his bag against his hip and starts down the street, slow and cautious, but not hiding. When he gets closer, he darts across the cracked pavement toward her, his voice a worried hiss. "Neve!"

She feels eyes on her before she hears her name, and her hand tightens on her scepter. The chill of the focus settles her, reminds her that she isn't helpless. But then she sees Shion, and her hand relaxes.

"Shion," she greets, casual as anything. "And here I thought I'd debrief you once I'd found my way back to Darrow," she says, offering a smirk. "And here you are."

It's charming, how at ease Neve affects to be. Shion tends to do the same, though at the moment, he's keen not to be seen as too comfortable in this kind of a situation. There's no good that comes out of raising more questions about who and what he is.

Still, he lets himself visibly relax, focuses on his relief at meeting up with a familiar face. He's been hiding his identity for more than a century now; he can manage it just fine for a day or two. "I thought I'd have to do the same," he says, then adds, "Provided I find a way back. I haven't seen anything yet that looked like an escape route."

"Neither have I," she admits, though she doesn't sound worried. "Plenty of creatures, but no shimmering doorways into other realms." Whether or not the other realm is Darrow. She looks around, her fascinator hat keeping the ash from falling into her face. No parasol, largely because she hadn't been expecting to come here to begin with. She nods at the bag on his hip.

"Find anything good? Or is that from the first Darrow?"

Shion glances down, his baggage half-forgotten until she mentioned it. "Oh, brought it with me," he says, and lets out a rueful laugh. "I was planning on buying groceries before I ended up here." It's worked in his favor, the couple times he's been down here, having supplies on hand. As much faith as he has in his own abilities, he also knows he can't risk getting caught alone and weakened from fighting when it's hard to predict when he'll find the exit. Strength and skill are important, but strategy is equally so. Sometimes it matters more.

"I did notice something, though," he adds, snapping his fingers and gesturing behind him. "They seem to stay away from the churches."

"Churches?" she asks, tilting her head thoughtfully. "Interesting. I wonder if that's an actual barrier or a psychological one." She doesn't necessarily believe in the power of religion, and certainly didn't want to believe that Solas was an Elven god, but she knows that religion, and religious iconography, can hold away over all sorts of people.

Creatures, too, if what Shion is saying is true.

"You've kept safe?" she asks, though it's as much an observation. He's here. He's talking to her.

Shion nods emphatically at her question. "A lot of ducking behind things and keeping quiet," he says, "which is, you know, unusual for me, but it seems to be working okay so far. I thought it wouldn't a couple times." He shudders dramatically, and it doesn't require much acting. These... creatures are gross and creepy, even to him, unsettling and different from what he's encountered before. He's seen enough to suspect there's something that unites them all, a sameness of type, rather than the usual disparate origins he's seen in Darrow's transplants. Whatever's down here, they belong together, even if they're all different.

"I haven't really tested the church thing," he adds, "but those areas are quiet. I don't think it's a coincidence, whatever the reason. All of them, too, not just any one given faith. Sacred ground maybe."

He beats her to the joke — Shion, keeping quiet? — which doesn't happen often but perhaps happens the most with Shion, whose mind and mouth work fast enough to be on par with Bellara most days. Still, she cants him a small smile for his victory and then says, "People imbue all sorts of power to things and places. I wouldn't be surprised to learn the same is true here. But that implies a level of, well, evil in the creatures kept at bay by it."

Neve isn't so sure 'evil' and 'good' are the proper terms for anything anymore — though Darkspawn come closer than most to 'evil', and she's sure plenty will agree that Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain do as well, if she's honest — but the power of sacred ground against ghastly creatures might well be evidence enough, if true.

Shion flashes her an answering smile, a genuine note of relief in it. He's fine down here. He wouldn't seek this place out repeatedly if he weren't; he wants answers, but they won't do him any good if he gets killed. Even so, searching alone means he's working in a near silence that makes him unsettled. He's not good at that, being by himself with his thoughts. There are too many of those for his comfort.

"It might," he agrees. He's not sure these things seem evil so much as mindless, but there may not be much of a base distinction there. "Or maybe people with magic put down wards against these things back whenever there were people here. If there ever were. It could be targeted. Though, I mean, if I could do that, I'd just do it everywhere, right? Get rid of them entirely."

"Magic doesn't usually work like that," she says. "You need balance. Too much magic in one place can be just as dangerous as whatever you're using it against." She shrugs and smirks. "At least where I'm from." She gestures with her scepter. "Give me the tour, won't you?" Sure, it looks like a mirror of Darrow, but that doesn't mean everything is the same.

That, Shion supposes, actually makes sense. It would be a good explanation for why only the churches seem to be warded. That, or these things really are just evil. He doesn't know. He's not entirely sure he wants to know, except he does because learning as much as he can is how he gets home. It has to be.

"I guess that makes sense," he muses. "Kinda disappointing for magic to be real and still have rules." Everything does. He doesn't care to follow a good number of them, but those rules still exist. "Anyway, this place is... it's sort of like back there but dirtier. And more broken. And abandoned. I was gonna try to find City Hall."

Neve could tell Shion all sorts of rules that magic has and why they exist, and when she breaks them or why she doesn't. Now doesn't really seem the place for it, though, so instead she smirks a little at his comment and moves on.

"Well, if this place is that place, then City Hall can only be in one spot," Neve points out. "Any particular reason you want to start there?" She has her own reasons, of course, but she's curious what Shion's are.

"Seems like as good a place as any to find information," Shion says, shrugging. "For there to be a whole city, there must have been people at some point. So what happened to them?"

The monsters are a distraction. They're also a catalyst, he's pretty sure, somehow tied to the absence of a human population here. The real mystery, though, is what became of that population. If he can find that answer, he might find others.

Neve nods towards one of the armless, stumbling creatures further down the street. It doesn't seem to have noticed them yet, and she's content to keep it that way.

"Maybe that happened to them," she guesses. "What's to say they didn't somehow change into the creatures we've been seeing? I suppose city records might reveal that, if we can find any."

And that's if the creatures themselves didn't appear as suddenly as Neve arrived to Darrow Proper, and just ate or killed the citizens of this Second Darrow.

Shion follows her gaze, his expression shifting in a vaguely pained way. He hadn't considered that. He's been down here a few times now, and he of all people probably should have considered that these creatures might once have been human, but it never occurred to him. The thing is, had they been people lumbering around, attacking, he'd have no qualms about hurting them back or killing them as he's been doing, but the possibility that they were and no longer are makes him feel distantly guilty. No one asked for this. Not them, not the people who used to live here, not most of the people who stumble blindly into this place. Just him, really, looking for cracks in the borders between worlds so he can leave all this behind him.

Jakah would tell him to stop thinking about it. That they can't change what did or didn't happen here, that they can only look out for themselves.

"They're at least a place to start," he says. He starts down the street in the direction of City Hall, stuffing his hands in his pockets, his gaze sweeping the path ahead of them for anything moving a little faster, a little more aggressive. "Maybe we'll get lucky and they found a way to somewhere safer than this and left a little map behind."

"That would be some luck," she agrees. She walks beside him, still holding her scepter. The creatures haven't come any closer, but Neve isn't going to take any chances.

"The doorway I walked through disappeared as soon as I passed through it," she offers. "I expect I'll come across another soon enough."

"Well, that's reassuring," Shion says wryly. He hasn't seen any yet today, but he hasn't been down here all that long yet. Sometimes it takes longer. Besides, they still have detective work to do, which is neat. Usually, for him, detective work just means waltzing in and asking people to tell him exactly what he wants to know, so it's a fun little challenge to have to do more. Granted, he'd be happy if he didn't have to work for it in this case, but he's trying to find fun wherever he can.

"I guess it's like back in Darrow and they just show up willy nilly and without warning."

"Probably," she agrees. "I have no reason to think differently, anyway." She looks behind them, like the the doorway might have reappeared, but it isn't there. "Is this your first time through?" she asks. "Or are you speaking from experience when you say they appear anywhere in the other Darrow?"

Whoops. Shion had meant to keep the farce of his having only come down here this once, since he was supposed to keep Neve informed of anything he learned. At least, that was the implicit agreement. To be fair, he supposes, he hasn't found out anything of use. And he hasn't actually said it's his first time down, so he hasn't been caught in a lie. That's helpful.

"Second," he says with a rueful sigh, unfaltering. "I didn't find anything useful before. I just wanted to find a way out." Too panicked, he implies, to linger and investigate, but sheepish about admitting it. Granted, it really did require a lot of searching to find his way out the last couple times. It takes patience. "I hoped I'd be more productive this time."

His answer is smooth and seems honest enough, at least, but something sits just wrong about it.

It's the implicit apology. I didn't find anything useful before. Like she might be disappointed he hadn't told her, and he's explaining himself before she can ask. That doesn't make it a lie, but it does mean it could be one, and if it is, then Shion is damn good at lying. And that's something else to keep in mind.

"The important thing is to stay safe," she reminds, keeping her thoughts close to the vest. "'Useful' is secondary. Maybe even to 'getting out'. Did you see any of these creatures last time?"

Shion pulls a face and nods. "There are several different kinds," he says. That, at least, probably is useful knowledge. "All extremely creepy. I don't know if I would have stayed safe if I weren't fast. Good at climbing, too, that helps. They don't seem so inclined to follow up walls and stuff. But they're very inclined to violence."

He can hold his own, of course. It would be a lie if he said that wasn't part of the appeal of coming here. Finding answers is the most important part as far as he's concerned, but it feels good, really, to stretch his muscles both literally and metaphorically. He's not touching a drop of whatever comes out of these things, though. He doesn't trust it.

"What kinds have you seen?" she asks. She needs this sort of data, so she can be better prepared. If she knows what she's going to be fighting, she can fight it more effectively. "And once you've told me that," she adds, "you can tell me how you got out of here the first time." That'll be good to know, too, of course, even if their current objective is Second City Hall for information on who or what these creatures used to be.

Shion nods, short and firm, though some amusement creeps into his expression, his shoulders relaxing slightly. It is comforting, really, not to be alone in this place. More than that, reporting to her has him feeling oddly nostalgic, like he's bringing intel back to Heli.

"Let's see," he says, "where to start? Uh, I saw a pack of creepy little things that sort of looked like kids if they were made of burning embers, and others that aren't on fire but they have knives. There were a couple — I think it was different ones I saw, not the same guy twice, but it's sort of hard to tell, because they don't have faces. Or arms. But they shoot something weird and dark from their chests, some kind of liquid maybe? There were some I only saw from a distance, so I'm not sure if they were something different or not."

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The Case of the Second City

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