Taken
22st of July 2006 A.D.
"Rescuing a girl kidnapped by necromancers to blackmail her grandfather" you yell back as the grinding of stone on stone gets a little less."Say hi to Cindy. This is my dad Michael. And the lady is a volunteer." Your eyes flicker briefly to the witchlight in her hands and back up to her face. "I recognized your shoes in the muck, and I worried. What brings you down here alone?"
Spent 1 Essence -> Now at 7/12
"Hi Cindy," the girl pipes up. Apparently a brisk ride on the back of an earth wyrm was more than enough for her to get over the whole 'find out you are magic by performing an ads hoc exorcism on herself' thing.
Alas Lydia does not seem to be in the mood for jokes, as she leans over the creaking balustrade of the stairway her eyes widen looking first at the elemental, which fair enough he's plenty scary when you don't know him, to dad, which you guess might be more than a little intimidating if she has the senses to perceive Amoracchius for what it is, but then she looks at Gard and worry suddenly turns to something much deeper, her pale cheeks turning white as snow.
"I was just..." she cuts herself off. "I was just exploring, I mean there is a lot of stuff down here that is worth learning about, the hidden side of Chicago you know. I'm just getting into my groove with the..." she makes the witchlight bob in her hand, a little higher than it aught perhaps. "You know the magic. Look I
really can't stay and chat. I have to get home..."
"Home?" you glance towards the pale light above. For all you are not sure what is up there, but it doesn't look very homey.
"By the Ways you know the paths through the Otherworld. It wouldn't be safe for you and it won't stay open long either since it's a natural way. I kind of ran down the clock down here, having too much fun you know."
"She lies," the familiar voice calls in the midst of your own confusion. You do not need Usum's counsel to tell that, but why is she lying. Is she just embarrassed about whatever she's been doing? About spying on you? How would she even know you know that? Other posibilities about what she could be hiding present themselves, ones far darker. If one were inclined to practice the magics of death and the heritage of Arwan one could scarce find people and beings less likely to be missed than those of Undertown.
While you had been speaking your dad had set Cindy gently on her feet and found somewhere a piece of rotted barrel that could still bear his weight enough to serve as a seat. "There's other ways to the same place no matter if it is on this side of the veil or the other. It's worth stopping for a while and talking to others on the road rather than try to do everything yourself. Maybe we can help with word or with deed."
"I'm not a..." Lydia's voice cuts off again as she hesitates. "I'm not able to stop now, please understand I have to go home or my dad will worry. I'll talk to you soon, but it would be really dangerous for me to stay here. I need to be home by the hour or I'll... well let's just say that Cinderella got the details wrong, but not the essence of it."
Some kind of fey bargain then. You had seen her summon something, if it had been fey and agreed to help her only until a certain hour it makes sense that she would want to be home on time. The Ways are a lot faster than any mortal transportation so long as you know what you are doing.
But something niggles you about the way she had phased that. 'I am not able to stop.' She is obviously physically stopped now so it can't be the
literal truth in a fairy tale sort of way. Like a leaf bobbing to the surface of murky waters you recall the shape of her face when she had cut herself off. She had not been about to sound off a 'b' but an 'l'. I'm not... alone. The moment the thought passes through your mind you cannot unseen it, the way Lydia is standing unlike her voice has no shred of hesitation to it, she is relaxed, but only in the way a runner is relaxed when they are about to run into a sprint or a poker player blandly watching the table behind what they think is a winning hand. You think you fear, the girl, your friend and the daughter of a former death god is
possessed and whatever had been advising her before had taken a more direct hand when she had been about to reveal it in response to your dad.
Hardly daring to breathe, lest some twitch of your face or shift in your manner give away the game, you breathe in the essence of the lie in stillness, buying yourself that one precious moment more.
"Your move Princess of the All Seeing Eye," Usum hisses and there is more truth that flattery to that one.
Spent 1 Essence -> Now at 6/12
What do you do?
[] Warn dad, he's the one with the sword and faith can banish dark things that cloud the mind of the innocent
[] Get your elemental friend to ram the stair, Lydia will most likely get hurt, but it's better than some monster pulling her strings like a puppet
[] Write in
OOC: The second expenditure of Essence was for a Subterfuge Excellency without which it would have been very unlikely for you guys to hide that you know, thus costing you the surprise round. I figured that was worth spending. 
