2019-01-11: Defectors

From Dream Chasers
Jump to navigation Jump to search
  • Log: Defectors
  • Cast: Cassidy Cain, Jude Moshe, and a very special guest
  • Where: Gunsmoke Desert
  • Date: January 11 2019
  • Summary: Following up on a curious piece of information they received months ago, Jude and Cassidy investigate what appears to be an old fortress left over from the Metal Demon Wars, discovering a network of such installations threading through Ignas and Aquvy. But in the midst of their explorations, the shadows of their connected pasts rise up to meet them in an unexpected way.

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

The Metal Demon Wars-era fort took a long time to locate.

Coordinates of a base that existed prior to the Day of Collapse are useful, but they are closer to guidelines than facts. Damage taken to the hillside in the death throes of those days caused part of the fort to be buried. The result was a metallic ruin, preserved and buried underneath the rubble. However, after locating it, it was simple enough to dynamite a way through.

The path through has required caution and care. A species of aggressive, overly large desert crustacean had taken up residence. A few automated machinegun turrets still functioned. One memorable clockwork puzzle made an elevator shaft more of a metallic origami nightmare.

Said elevator shaft rattles, as the elevator car drops down into a large room. The old command center stretches out before Cassidy and Jude; chairs have been overturned, and some screens are shattered. Glass lay on the floor, and consoles wait, though they are turned off. The computers are relatively primitive.

The real find may be the series of maps and bound books, which rest on a huge table at the center of the room. The table is the sort that was used to prosecute a war. However, no one stands at it, now; the dark room's only living occupants are Cassidy and Jude.

A skeleton, however, is slumped against a door in the distance -- a formerly secret one, meant to blend into the wall, but it has been left open. It was likely an escape shaft.

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

After all the green in Lunar, there's some part of her that finds some measure of relief in spending some time back out in the desert, appreciating all the more the dying and secretive world that she has spent the last decade familiarizing herself with. Now that they've managed to find the Metal Demon Wars-era fort that Jude Moshe had decribed to her close to a year ago, she doesn't even hesitate in slipping in with a few choice quips that stayed with her even through the challenges that lead them to the end of the run.

Perilous traps were abundant, because of course there would be. There's a reason why she doesn't particularly relish mining Filgaia's dessicated heart of its secrets - she isn't particularly invested in that game, involving herself just enough so she could keep her head above water and nothing further. After all, she has spent the last decade attempting to enjoy her life and amuse herself with whatever trouble came across her path; it would certainly defeat the purpose if she did things she didn't enjoy.

That elevator, especially. Surprisingly, it was the worst. At least they could use the large desert crustaceans for food.

She is screaming some colorful expletives, in various languages, all the way down when the cramped metal cube shoots all the way down the shaft because of course the mechanisms would fail in the last few feet. Her grapple gun keeps her hooked to the top, keeping her feet clear off the floor, and she hangs on for dear life until the ride goes on an abrupt halt that crumples the floor and rips its frame on impact.

"....ow. Bloody hell."

It takes some doing to pry the door open, but when they finally pick their way into the control room, the first thing Cassidy does, after a faint squint towards the monitors, turns towards the war table and picks up one of the maps and the books to look at whatever inscriptions are left. She'll inspect the contents with a quick, but discerning eye. And the most important one she finds is...

After quickly examining a book on military operations against the Metal Demons, she sorts through the maps and stops at one in the middle of the pile. "Huh. I've nae heard of this network before," she murmurs, turning to her partner and showing it to him. "Do these look familiar to you? These points, looks like they're other installations from the Metal Demon Wars era...all over Ignas. Aquvy, too." She also casts an eye on the weapons lockers in the chamber.

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

It's a simple truth more applicable to places than people:

Things change over time.

Kingdoms rise and fall. Buildings crumble and new architecture are built on their bones. Even the land masses of the world shift and deviate over the passage of time and calamity. Where something once was isn't necessarily where it will be, if it is even there at all. And then, of course, there's the matter of what horrible new thing has decided to make that place their home, or what overly elaborate security measures are still in play.

All this to say, grave robbing old fortresses, in Jude Moshe's humble opinion, is a tremendous pain in the ass.

This is why, of course, said humble man named Jude is currently taking a smoke break as the elevator from hell begins its descent. Leaned against the car wall, gloved fingers pincer the filtered end of that stick of tobacco as he exhales plums of white-gray into the open air.

"You know, I don't even like origami," he announces, off-handedly, to Cassidy, just as the elevator fails completely and they plummet with the scream of rust and Cassidys all the way down to the...

BANG

Moments later, with the angry sound of metal scraping concrete, Jude Moshe stumbles out of the elevator after Cassidy, clothes a dirtied mess and now down exactly one (1) unfinished cigarette.

"... And now I like them even less."

And so they arrive in what was once a war room, and is now more a tomb. Amber eyes watch with a sort of expectant stare as the doors groan apart and the shambles of what was once a place to stage conflict peels open before him. Computers, largely old and dead, of course. It's never that easy. Everything else, in varying states of disrepair. And towards the back...

Jude makes his way further in, mild curiosity in his stare as he places gloved fingertips on the dust-caked cover of one of those large tomes decorating the war table.

"... huh," breathes out the reporter, before his attention turns towards their decomposing skeletal friend. He makes his way to that opened, once secret exit, the flare of nostrils following a well-dusted cough to clear his throat as he peers inside that escape shaft. Amber eyes glance back. Dark red brows lift at the material Cassidy presents him.

"Not much of a Metal Demon Wars buff," he claims, "but if they're all connected, maybe they were working on something. Or maybe it was just a unified war effort." He pries open that escape hatch just a bit more, peering within.

"Guess that's just part of the thrill of discovery, huh?"

Somehow, his ability to sound utterly ambivalent about this thrill is like a work of art unto itself.

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

For people with experience, there are little clues when they're not alone. It takes a second, of course. The first clue is a stray gust of wind, which ruffles one of the maps that Cassidy is looking over. That might be excused; the air flow through this place, with vents clogged by dirt but holes punched through the walls by shifting earth, is not what it was intended to be.

But then there is a rustling followed by stillness -- the telltale sign of an alert, seasoned veteran that realizes someone just heard them speaking and tensed. The sound comes from the hallway.

There is a moment to prepare, because in short order, footsteps are heard from the tunnel that skeleton sits outside of. The skeleton tumbles, before a pair of men rush in. Each is wearing a black uniform, with a helmet half-covering his face. There is a third set of footsteps behind them.

"Sir!" one calls, "we have intruder--"

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

You know, I don't even like origami.

"Ay, well. Nae surprise there. You're picky about the things you do like, luv."

All said with that perpetual good-humor and easy cheer, though as she listens to the reporter's conclusions about the map, Cassidy carefully folds it up, sticks it in the book, and tucks both in the inner pocket of her jacket, close to her heart. Taking a few steps towards the lockers, she toes it open and takes a look within, finding the usual - ARMs, supplies, bullets. Jude tends to make his own, but the generic ones fit her twin revolvers, so she takes a spare pack and a few grenades, because one can't have too many of those.

Moving over to where Jude's prying the escape hatch open, she lets him do the heavy manual labor (as usual, whenever she can get away with it), and crouches down on one knee to examine the skeletal remains of the only other body in the room outside of the two of them. And of course, she searches through the pockets and makes note of whatever uniform he's wearing, if there are such signs and sigils of note.

"Sorry, mate," she murmurs to the skeleton. "Dinnae look like you moved fast enough."

Looking up towards her partner as he peers inside the escape shaft, she smirks faintly. "Nae like we're here for loot. Just poking and prying as to just why our mutual friend Marcus Rider's so interested in this place."

With that, unless she finds anything else that's significant, she rises on her feet, fishing for her lighter, the pretty silver thing with its ouroboros decal finding the light, its blue crystal eyes staring frozen into the yawning darkness before them. She sparks a flame and peers within as well.

But before she could shine the light into the tunnel, she hears footsteps and a call to a commanding officer somewhere down in the tunnel.

Sir, we have intruder-- She doesn't even wait for the man to finish, moving to take up the wall on one side of the opening, pressing her back flat against it and as the first uniformed lackey slips out of the tunnel, she reverses her grip on her revolver and tries to blindside him by cracking him across the face with it.

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

"What can I say? I'm one of the few people left insane enough to have taste on a dead planet, I guess."

It's a point of pride.

Or possibly, madness.

"You sure those are going to work, after all this time?" he notes of the grenades as Cassidy begins to swipe a handful of them; not her actually taking them, of course. Grenades are to Cassidy as breathing is to everyone else. The question of the aging weapons' efficacy is punctuated as Jude opens that door up just a little bit more before leaning back, a frown settling on tan lips.

"Or his employers," remarks the journalist absently, before taking a single step back. He wordlessly taps Cassidy on the shoulder; tilts his head towards the rustle of papers. The sound of movement.

They're not alone.

"Either way, I get the feeling their interest is more of a pain in the ass than it's worth."

And he keeps up that casual conversation, even as he slides his way to one side of the escape hatch. He flattens against it. Tucks his hand inside his frock coat. Two sets of footsteps. Three.

He looks sidelong at Cassidy, and his expression is a hapless one complemented by the lackadaisical shrug of his shoulders--

-- that lasts -just- long enough to be interrupted by two men in uniform, plowing in.

Sir! We have an intruder--

Just in time for one to be introduced to the butt of Jude's ARM, scalp-first.

Jude's ARM, mysterious intruder.

Mysterious intruder, Jude's ARM.

CRACK

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

The escape hatch is a narrow thing. It is tall, though; it seems it was built to roll out carts of material, though those carts are not in evidence. However, it is only two people wide.

THis leads to a quick collapse for the man who runs into him. His head snaps back from the butt of Jude's ARM; his nose snaps to the side from Cassidy's. Blood runs down his face as he collapses to the ground in a heap. A second soldier, wearing black, rushes around the corner, with a gunsmoke rifle clutched in hand. He lifts it up.

A gloved hand from behind him shoves it down.

"Don't be foolhardy, kid," a gruff voice says.

The man that steps out behind the black-uniformed soldier is a head taller than him -- and taller than Jude and Cassidy both. He has tanned skin, with an olive shirt left open, revealing his muscular frame and a wicked scar across his chest. A scar has also closed over his left eye.

His left arm is most notable: it ends in a massive, wicked, bladed ARM instead of a hand.

"You'll get yourself killed." For Cassidy, there is a flicker of something familiar -- but a flicker only. He looks at her, his good eye wide, and then to Jude. "...It's you. And... a reporter? Heh, too funny..."

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

You sure those re going to work after all this time?

"Only one way to find out, luv," Cassidy replies with that same broad, brilliant smile, flashing the red-haired journalist a wink, before that tap on her shoulder signals that they should be moving as they aren't alone. Commentary regarding Marcus Rider or the puppet masters who pull his strings will have to wait until later.

It isn't long until they take their places on either sides of the tunnel and move like a synchronized unit when they attack both officers clad in black uniforms. Almost two years running in Filgaia together, they never needed to talk much whenever they have to move - a kind of synchronicity that can only be achieved by two people who in most days occupy the same wavelength.

But the first one is down and while the second gun lifts in a foolhardy attempt to try and kill two veteran drifters in a cramped space with nowhere else to go but back to where they came, Cassidy's gun is already in the proper position to fire, her emerald-and-gold eyes lining up the next dead body on what most have assumed (correctly) is a long list for a woman who claims to be a largely retired con artist who doesn't entertain the lethal path unless it's absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, those who manage to actually annoy her tend to insist on that more times than she prefers.

Though whoever this is seems to be familiar. Something tugs at her from the back of her mind - into the places that she keeps buttressed and hidden from the rest. It's enough to make her uncomfortable; the air around her changes.

When the hulking shadow reveals himself after stressing that the younger officer will only die if he tries (and he isn't wrong), that eagle-eyed look turns to the scar on his chest, the blade that replaces his arm.

It's you.

He knows her, but she doesn't...

And a reporter?

She takes a step forward, though she doesn't put away her ARM - something prevents her from stepping in front of Jude despite the overwhelming urge to do so after the man's acknowledgment of his presence. Rather, she undertakes a subtler move in an effort to keep his attention on herself.

"I must've been drunk," she murmurs. "When we met, because how could anyone forget such a pretty face like yours? Who are you again?"

Her knuckles grow white as she tightens her finger on the trigger, that nagging feeling starting to blossom from the back of her head like a rose. Apprehension she rarely feels fills her stomach.

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

A one-ARMed man.

It's hardly the first time Jude Moshe has seen someone decked out with dangerously high-tech prosthetics that shouldn't be possible -- at least, for most, in Ignas. Already that tells the reporter something, as the black-uniformed guard falls beneath him and his shotgun swings up in perfect tandem with Cassidy's firearm to lock on to the last goon and his commander. An advanced prosthetic. A look of familiarity.

Even without a name, this person is already telling their story to Jude without so many words, and it makes his fingers curl that much more securely around his weapon.

Despite that, amber eyes remain cool and calm as they study the newcomer and his cohort. It's a veteran's detachment that underlies Jude Moshe's quiet, unspoken assessment of just how screwed he and Cassidy might be. Already, he can tell having the first clean shot isn't going to provide either of them any meaningful advantage. He knows the look of a professional when he sees one. He knows the look of a soldier. And this man is on another level entirely. Fighting might well be pointless. Besides...

...It's you.

... there's something else going on here.

"I'm that easy a mark, huh? Guess I've just got one of those faces," he remarks glibly, ARM not quite lowering despite the amicable nature of his tone. Amber eyes slide towards Cassidy as she speaks. Drawing attention. Trying to get answers. The reporter's gaze returns back to the man in question. Big weapon. Advanced prosthetics. He takes a guess.

"You're a long way from home, huh?"

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

"The name's Ptolomea. It's not the one your father knew me by. I think you'd know something about that, Miss Cain." The huge, one-eyed man grins; that wolf-like, cheerful, but protective grin. He isn't looking for a fight, but a soldier like this rarely would shy away from one.

He takes the man with the gun in front of him, and moves him -- bodily shoving the trooper back behind him. He stumbles but he stays put. Ptolomea's eye drifts down to the barrel of the ARM trained on him.

Cassidy may remember him, then: a man in the halls of power, younger and less scarred, and with both arms. He walked side-by-side with her father, discussing something, in a different uniform than the one he wears now. He never gave his name; it wasn't something she needed to know.

Whatever that name was, it's irrelevant now.

"You do," Ptolomea says. "And I am. There's a little bit of business that I'm taking care of, though. It looks like... you're far away from home, too. Caught up in this Metal Demon mess? Or the war over here? Both? Or..."

His good eye looks between the two. "...Running away from the people who'd keep you locked up?"

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

The prosthetics are huge tells enough, but one wouldn't know it by the look on Cassidy's face. She seems utterly oblivious as to what Jude could mean when he says that whoever this man is, he must be very far from home. In fact, in spite of her smile, her expression is largely empty of anything else but the bladed edge of the stare she levies at his direction.

On the other side of the hulking figure, Jude's already got his ARM locked and loaded, around the same time she has, as if they've practiced this many times when nothing could be further from the truth. It speaks plenty of the woman's steely moxie that despite whatever tumult she has been thrown in internally by her discomfiture of this specific confrontation, she still manages to hold onto her easy trickster's expression.

The name's Ptolomea.

"Oh, ay? Unusual, that. That dinnae seem familiar at all."

It's not the one your father knew me by.

For the first time since the man emerged from the escape shaft, something changes in Cassidy's eyes, images from the far past that she doesn't want to remember, that she has locked away and buried, never to see the light of day again. Her attempts at reprogramming herself have been so thorough that even in these brief glimpses, her father's face is enshrouded in shadow, the details of it left in the bleak dark where they belong. But a memory as good as hers, no matter how many times she soaks it in alcohol and blurs its nuances with drugs, is just as much of a blessing as it is a curse - no matter how much she ingests, the things that she tries to submerge resurface. In that quick cascade where Time and Space matter little, she suddenly remembers that day, the place where she had first glimpsed the man before her, walking along her father's shadow clad in a familiar uniform.

....a uniform that she once wore.

The brief moment when her eyes met his own before they passed her by.

"What business is that, Tolly?" she forces herself to say, though her contralto is pitched low. She grips her gun like an anchor. "Am I going tae find sommat very interesting down the place you just came from? Why don't you give me a dime tour?"

The shield of her stolen identity doesn't serve her here because Ptolomea, too, knows and remembers and it takes everything in her to keep her fingers from shaking. Because now he knows. Now, he can confirm it.

Running way from the people who'd keep you locked up?

The black room. The white room.

Her eyes slowly lift to meet Jude's across the way, though her words still address the professional sharing the same room as them. "Dinnae think you were the type tae run errands. You're nae thinking tae convince a prodigal daughter tae return home, are you?"

Because that is non-negotiable. She won't. She can't.

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

The name's Ptolomea.

Jude Moshe's finger twitches around the trigger.

It's not the one your father knew me by.

There are certain things you cannot help but notice. Reactions in people. Tells. You pick them up as a matter of survival, and they stick with you like glue. The implication behind Ptolomea's words are clear as day. And the lower pitch of Cassidy's voice is a singular, subtle tell that only someone who's had to pick up on those singular, subtle tells would really recognize.

"..."

As a matter of survival.

Jude Moshe's eyes squeeze shut. A world-weary sigh escapes him a second later. He has all the look of someone accustomed to the taste of defeat. But despite it, his ARM never twitches once, never strays from its mark.

"What can I say?" he laments, shaking his head. "It's not anything lofty like that. I go where the story goes, or I don't get paid. And I've got too many vices and not enough ways to cover my ass for them. Her alone? She's worse than all my bad habits put together."

Amber eyes crack open. The smile he offers is one of those half-heartedly friendly ones people offer when they're just trying to be polite.

"I guess the job takes you where the job takes you. Right?"

He listens to Cassie and Ptolomea's exchange. He can already tell where this is heading. Or at least, measure a valid guess. Her father. Cages. She won't go back. A bird cage. Do it again, a voice rings in his head. A songbird chirps. Do it again.

Until it's perfect.

He continues, casually. But in the peripherals of his vision, he's looking.

"But this seems like one of those family matters I like to keep myself out of. My experience?"

Looking for that exit strategy.

"Family's the messiest habit of all."

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

"Is that so?" Ptolomea says, with a glance at Jude. "Where the story is... well, looks like you found yourself another story. But if you're out here... I think you're trying to get away from something, too. Mister Reporter."

He looks back at Cassidy. The twitch of fingers on the trigger is impossible for him to miss; if his missing eye slows him down in noticing details, it is a slowness by microseconds. He watches them both, his eye carefully looking between them. Finally, he looks to Cassidy.

"I left too," he concludes.

He lets that refutation -- that redirection of where this could be going -- hang in the air, like the crash landing and rapid reconfiguration of this situation that is is. "I got so... so tired," he says. "Of being meat for the machine. Of watching my men fight, bleed, and die in our little unending war against Solaris. Fought by proxy on the surface. There's no family in that, Mister Reporter."

He shakes his head. "I'm not asking you to go back to your father," he says. "I'm telling you that there's a new order. One where the people who make the sacrifices are the people who rule this world. And I'm telling you, Miss Cain..."

His eye narrows. "...You're not free. You've just made those chains longer. The chains are the world -- and we have to break it, before we can rebuild it."

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

I think you're trying to get away from something, too. Mister Reporter.

Someone emerging so close from her father's shadow addressing Jude feels like nails on a chalkboard to her, clawing across her mind and it takes every ounce of her willpower not to bare her teeth. Her tone is casual, but her look is dangerous - the trickster's mien is suddenly gone, replaced by the lurking creature underneath all of her layers. "The term is Drifter, Tolly," Cassidy says, her light, easy tone running incongrous to the suddenly not-so-empty look in her gold-shot green eyes. "The profession's teeming with people who're running from sommat. You dinnae exactly drift too well if you've got an anchor somewhere, ay? 'Sides, all Jude's running from these days are his editors whenever he breaks sommat in a hotel room, or the deadlines he constantly misses."

And when that single eye finds hers, the hits don't stop coming:

I left too.

She manages to rein in her surprise also. The three words barely has her batting a lash, but those within the room would know that it hits a mark - Ptolomea because he's a professional, Jude because he knows her.

I got so...so tired...

She lets the man's words fill the stone and sand chamber, unremarked upon until the end. And when she finally deigns to move, it's a gradual thing. Slowly, surely, and typical of the way she gambles - instinctively, recklessly - she flips her revolver and stows it away on her right holster, her thumb hooking in her weapons belt. While relieved of the gun, it does keep her knuckles close to her grenades.

She keeps silent about his words about her freedom, no matter how illusory he thinks it to be, what she has fought and paid for severely in the last decade.

"Alright, Tolly. I'm listening. If you broke away, who're you answering tae, now? Who's trying tae establish the new order?"

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

"Don't forget the debt," is Jude Moshe's aside, to the long list Cassidy assembles. "I know I can't, no matter how hard I try." A second passes by. His head tilts.

"Huh. Guess I am running from a lot."

But for however glib his tone might be, the would-be reporter is on edge. It's for any number of reasons -- the most obvious being how plainly and utterly dangerous Ptolomea has the potential to be, something even someone oblivious could tell. The other reasons, well...

... They're things he doesn't dare to wear on his sleeve. Especially not here. It's just like he said:

I left too.

It's part of the job.

He listens to that conversation, revealing so much in both what Cassidy and Ptolomea say and do not say, and during this time, he plays his part of a confused bystander to the exchange with aplomb. Dark red brows furrow; his lips purse; confusion stains amber eyes as he looks from Cassidy, to Ptolomea.

"I don't know," he says, voice tight in a subtle way.

"That sounds an awful lot like family to me."

But he doesn't forget. Ptolomea's face. His name. The implication is clear -- but there's too many variables. Jude needs to know more. And besides...

I think you're trying to get away from something, too.

... there's just something about this guy that Jude doesn't like.

Cassidy speaks up. Amber eyes shutter in a blink. It's a perfect look of surprise, of course. He's gotten pretty good at acting ways he doesn't feel, over the years.

"Cassie? You sure this is okay-- ?"

Making lies palatable. It's all part of the job, after all.


<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

"Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus." A man who had vanished, after he led the Slayheim Liberation Army -- only for it to win the war, then have their nation destroyed by its rulers. No one knew where he went.

He glances between the two.

"Don't bother trying to find him -- you won't. Not yet," Ptolomea says. "But... he'll make himself known soon. When he does, and when you see what he's about, come find me. I don't owe your father anything, but I owe something to the people who were used by them."

He cracks a brief smile. Then, Ptolomea reaches down. He grabs the knocked out soldier by the collar, and drags him behind him. Ptolomea looks up, again, and back to them.

"You can decide for yourself," he says. "But if you want to come to our side... you'll have a place there. You can bring the reporter, if you want. You can be your own person -- not what they wanted to mold you to become."

<Pose Tracker> Cassidy Cain has posed.

Cassie? You sure this is okay-- ?

Those green-and-gold eyes find her partner's amber ones and Cassidy lifts her shoulders in a shrug. "I'm sure it'll be less okay if he tried tae kill us," she quips. "But he's nae, methinks this is the best outcome we can hope for here, luv." Because she, too, has eyes. Ptolomea is dangerous, and no matter how thoroughly her father has tried to mold her into a Blade, even she isn't all too confident that she and Jude would be able to take Ptolomea on in an actual fight.

The fact that she can sense the reporter's own uneasiness does nothing but convince her further into the path of least resistance. She would not have had a choice, if he had been sent to return her. But since he isn't...

...though she is curious, now, as to why he left. The reason he gave was general enough that she's certain there are a few back in her old outfit who believed the same. It's just that not many dare to leave, not while her father oversees the branch he does; a scalpel wielded with ruthless precision by the whims of the immortals.

And those who do dare leave...those who survive what follows after are rarer, still, leaving the truly dangerous ones to roam.

"Vinsfield Rhadamanthus?" she echoes, brows faintly furrowing. Her expression is dubious, briefly, but smoothes out in favor of a sigh.

"I'll think about it," she says - and to her surprise, she finds that she even actually means it. "Though if I cannae find the man himself if he dinnae want tae be found, I figured by coming tae find you, you mean through the old channels?" Her lashes lower; there must be something about his body language that mollifies her - the smile, or perhaps the way he doesn't leave the fallen man behind.

"Tolly." Her tone shifts, into something infinitely more serious and uncharacteristic of her usual way. "May just be the skeptic in me, ay? Y'ken how it is, when you're out here long enough. What makes you think he's nae playing you like they have?"

That is when she finally moves, to fall a step next to Jude.

<Pose Tracker> Jude Moshe has posed.

He shares a look with Cassidy. It's a brief one, but there all the same, for her to pick up on.

"I'd like to say none of this is my problem, but I don't know -- at the very least, I think I've lived a full life."

The look of someone on the same wavelength.

Vinsfeld Rhadamanthus.

That's a name that Jude recognizes, and the way it makes him knot his brow in consternation is, for once, earnest. His grip on his weapon eases just a little, lowering by a fraction of an inch -- enough to indicate he's not intending to take any hostile action, but still high enough he can respond to violence in an instant if he has to. That little mark of experience.

"Never really been all that fond of hunting ghosts anyway," mutters the redheaded reporter with wry aplomb as he takes a sideways look Cassidy's way.

"Look at that. I get to come along for the ride. Isn't that nice?"

He watches, as Ptolomea drags that soldier back towards safety; the reporter's expression is impassive in those moments, a sublimely blank poker face that tilts upward just enough to quietly regard the scarred man.

He can see the shape of this, now, for all that he excels at biting his tongue. He knows what it means. Knows the implications of what's happening here.

Knows he can't just let it lie.

Knows it's going to be more work for him.

What a pain, he thinks, as he takes that sole step necessary to meet Cassidy halfway. How does he know Vinsfeld isn't just playing him?

"You can tell. Just look at him," says Jude Moshe.

"He looks like he's rediscovered love for the first time."

Maybe that's what he doesn't like.

<Pose Tracker> Talia has posed.

"Because he was played like we were," Ptolomea concludes. If the nickname 'Tolly' bothers him, it doesn't show. He glances, sideways, at Jude. There is a hint of a frown for a moment. He shakes his head. "I'm loyal. He earned that loyalty. He's shown the caliber of person he is... and the soldiers who serve under me, they're not having their lives thrown away."

He straightens his back out, then, and takes a step back. The other guard has the one who was knocked out held up, arm supporting him. He backs up when Ptolomea does.

"The regular channels will work," he says. "Lord Vinsfeld... maybe later. But contact me, first."

Because Vinsfeld is nothing if not particular -- and according to some, dead.

"I'll leave you to it," he says. "If you're looking for the exit... left, then right. We'll take the right fork coming up, so we don't get ourselves tangled up in a fight we don't want."

The huge soldier nods. Then, he backs up a few more steps -- and a few more, before he dares to turn. By the time his back is to them, it has soon vanished into the shadows.