Fate / Stained Inheritance

-Make a break for it

Really, it's a perfect chance for you. Pierre's so distracted by trying to drag you to catch up to the bald man that he's really not paying much attention to you at all. And as you shoulderbarge him into the shelving, wrench your arm out of his grip, you get to savour the look of rage on his face as he realises how sloppy he's gotten. Just because you've not done this the last few times you've been let out doesn't mean you've stopped doing it full stop. Shows how good his magic is when he can't see this coming.

Boxes tumble into the pathway as you kick out a rickety shelf, putting enough of an obstacle between you and Pierre that you're able to dodge away from his attempt to grab you back, before you sprint down the path away from him, as him and the bald man begin to give chase, angry yells filling the archives.

Of course, you know you can't just sprint out of here. Even this little bit of exertion here, of sprinting away, jinking round a few corners to get you out of their line of sight, knocking down a shelf or two as an obstacle or decoy is already starting to drain you, and after barely a minute of running you're already having to pause, smothering your mouth with a hand to muffle the sound of you coughing your lungs out. But you've lost them for now, and they're making a lot of noise as they try and find you in the maze of their own archives. All the better for you to hear.

Softly, silently, you begin making your way through the stacks, looking to find the edge of the piles. Really, even if this attempt ends in failure again, you'll be remembering the look on Pierres face for months. After a few minutes of creeping ahead, you see the outer wall. And there's a door, right there. Peeking around the edges of the shelving, you take a moment to check if your pursuers are in sight. But it's clear. Stepping up to the door, you give it a tentative push, and it opens, revealing a corridor before you, lined with more doors at regular intervals.

That's when it all goes wrong; as you step through the door, you freeze as a bell starts ringing loudly above your head. An alarm. Shouts from behind. You're rumbled.

Dashing forwards, you try the first door you reach. Locked. The second- dead end room, nowhere to go. Third- there, through the window, stairs. Locked. Locked dammit. Shout's getting closer. There, opposite you- number 4's ajar. Sprinting to the door, you slam through it, emerging into a carpeted, well lit off-

"PAI-RILIS"

Something icy stabs your chest, and you crash to the ground as your body freezes in place, refusing to move, a cold numbness filling every limb. Your chest spasms, half coughing a spray of blood onto the carpet as you land.

From your collapsed position on your side you can see a short haired, wide-eyed blonde woman over on the other side of a desk, holding an arm out towards the door. She's breathing about as heavily as you were, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a flat grey skirt, along with a pair of smart black flats. There's some bandages wrapped around her forearm.

You grunt wordlessly as she gets up from behind the desk and walks over to you, your tongue also frozen up, though you think you can feel something at your fingertips again.
Actually, now the woman's getting closer to you, there's something about her that looks familiar.

[] Force yourself to speak, ask if you've met.
[] Force yourself to speak, ask what her problem is.
[] Don't say anything, just look around the room as you wait for Pierre to catch up.

-Force yourself to speak, ask what her problem is.

Still collapsed on the floor, you try and get your body to move, scrabbling for that scattering of feeling at your fingertips, forcing them to move, to get control back.

"Hillis yur prblm?" You grunt out through leaden lips as the woman approaches. "Doat teveryne?"

She ignores you, instead grabbing your arms, scanning over them. Her eyes narrow slightly on seeing your barcode, but whatever she was looking for, it's not that, as she then grabs you by the collar and looks down your neck, ignoring your muffled grunt of protest.

As she's yanking you around, the bandage around her arm's come loose, revealing an ugly mess of raw flesh underneath, as if the skin's been hacked away. As the woman hastily wraps the bandages around the unhealed wound, you catch a glimpse of something at the very edge of the skinless area- two small patches of red ink. The remains of a tattoo?

Regardless, once she's finished rebandaging herself, the woman grabs a bit of charcoal from a shelf, and holding you by the chin, harshly scrawls a sigil on your forehead while you're still struggling to move.

"Gluais, gèilleadh, freagair, GEAS" She commands, and you stop. You're not moving. You're not thinking.

"Stand up." She says with a scottish lilt, and you find your body doing so. "Who are you."

"Mimi Yagami, Archive ID Code- RMJM:LSNM-F-1054." You say flatly.

"Who sent you- why are you here?" There's a nervous edge to her voice.

"Nobody. I was attempting to escape." Her eyes narrow as you reply.

"From us, Doctor McDonald. I'm terribly sorry for the disturbance- she was being checked out by archeology." Pierres voice, out of breath from behind you. A pair of hands grabbing you roughly by the shoulders.

"Well Archeology should be thankful I didn't do worse to it. Don't let this happen again." She's back to the usual magus arrogance now, no sign of the edginess you saw earlier as she takes a cloth and wipes the rune off your forehead, control returning to your body.

"The hell was that abo-" Your yells cut off by the bodyguard clamping a hand over your mouth, as him and Pierre drag you backwards and out of Dr McDonalds office. You'd spit, but your throat's too dry from the sprint in the dusty archives, and the pair of them aren't giving you any chance to break free and try anything else.

There's still no chance to try anything as you get led out the building and bundled into the back of a car. There's a second of the bodyguard types in the car, who handcuffs you as the first one gets into the drivers seat, leaving Pierre to go back to his archives.

With that, you get taken to a nearby infirmary first, where you spend a couple of hours getting checked to make sure that your little escape attempt and unfortunate encounter haven't damaged the merchandise.

It ends up being the end of the afternoon by the time you're done there, what with how bad the London traffic is, as you slump back into the car seat. No lasting damage, just a little lingering numbness from the paralysis hex. It should clear up in a day or so. You didn't tell them that you're already just fine and can't feel any of that anymore. No point drawing attention. You end up driving east, and, after another chunk of time stuck in traffic, arrive down by the river, wharfs and docks lining the waters edge.

The car pulls up by a fairly large yacht, and you're dragged out by the pair of bodyguards, who bundle you up to the gangplank.

"Here's the material Doctor Lainur ordered." One of your minders says to the security at the base of the gangplank, who stands aside to let you get frogmarched up and onto the boat.

It's luxurious here. Carpeted floors, rich wooden cabinets holding all manner of historical artifacts, plush sofas. It stinks of money. Still, there's something… more here. As you step onto the boat, you feel goosebumps spring up all over. The air is heavy here, oily and static. And the feeling only gets worse as you get led below into the underparts of the boat, to the hold. You're being led towards a room on the far side of the hold, light spilling out from under the heavy door.

You can't breathe.

There's a sigil carved into the floor of the hold, glinting silver under the lights.

You feel sick.

You're staring at it.

Your hearts beating out your chest.

You've never seen it before.

Pain shoots through your body, your legs giving out from under you like they were kicked out, sending you crashing to the floor by the sigil.

Your minders yell as you try and force air into your lungs. The static feeling's getting worse by the second.

Your hand cramps, as sourceless shocks arc through it, pain tracing around it.

You cough up blood again, more than usual as you retch and gasp.

Sparks flare as your blood hits the sigil and it lights up, a silver glow filling the hold.

There's sounds of a panic from outside this hold.

Your body feels like it's failing- there's so much sensation it's overwhelming, from the static the shocks the breathlessness the retching the iron taste on your lips the heavy pressure feeling like it's crushing you.

It's agony, a burning nail in your chest.

It's almost enough to make you pass out

But you cling on.

You stay conscious, grasping onto a single sensation

[] That brief moment of freedom you had hours ago, after so long.
[] This burning inside you here and now. It's painful. But it's something you can hold onto.