Due to Ayden's intervention, Emily was feeling a lot better about herself. She had been kept quite busy as of late, but a good majority of her personal moving was done. Rachel had fully moved in and had started classes. Everything was going great.

Meeting Dorian had been fun and Emily was glad for her sister. She was sure that Rachel and Cruz were talking at school when they could and Rachel had gone out a couple of times dressed nice. It seemed like there were a few dates that were happening.

Emily turned on the news and watched. She had worked most of the day and was ready to turn in for the night, but she thought that a quick viewing of what was going on in the world would be helpful.

Once again, there was coverage of Sierra Leone, and Emily frowned. Jacques Danjou was essentially building his own army now. Something big was going to happen. Investors were angry and threatening lawsuits. Emily could understand. She had investments and those people were likely to lose profits. Emily would likely be angry too in that situation.

However, she felt for the people of Sierra Leone. Many had been killed and all so one man could gain power. It was sad. Danjou wanted to fight that injustice. Emily had a hard time deciding if it was right or not. She truthfully didn't know. But she wanted to do something.

Elyse wore all black with armor underneath her shirt. She was on a hunt. Rumors of a creature feeding on human flesh had perked up her ears and she decided to take a look and investigate.

After the incident outside of Moscow, Elyse had spoken with the police and the hospital staff. She told the truth, not speaking about the others that had been there, but as she was not guilty of any crime, she told them about the accident and the death of woman. After some questioning she was released.

The puppy now lived with her. Elyse had taken the poor thing to the veterinarian and got all of his shots up to date and got him some food. The little guy seemed happy at least. That was something.

Elyse had made sure to check into Atharim Headquarters, so the Moscow branch knew she was here. When she had heard the rumors, she headed to the underground city to investigate. Underneath her coat she carried both her pistol and her crossbow with extra ammunition and a bolts. She planned on getting more information and assessing the validity of the rumors and from there on out, making a plan.

If you've thought about buying the entire wheel of time collection in ebook format now is the time.

http://www.tor.com/2015/09/01/complete-w...kend-sale/

On sale for $44.99 this Labor Day weekend!

It really sucks because I have about 80% of them as my hubby started rereading them, and I have the end so I could finish. But all in one searchable format might be of use.

The world spun so out of control. There was little Nox could to do control anything. Ever since his mother had died, the world just kept through shitty events at him. She died. Their father died. They found out they were godlings. They crashed in a plane. Lost their memories. Now when things started looking up, they'd found their memories, each other, a home. Now things started going poorly again. This fucking roller coaster was making Nox sick.

Everyone wanted to help but Nox didn't know where to start. Aria could only track the car so much. It would become too difficult. Hunting monsters that way was easiest. It would take too long and it might already be too late. That thought sent Nox's mind reeling again back into despair. He'd lost his sister because he had been too busy with someone else - too busy in his new life. Now she might be hurt or worse - dead.

Aria's arms were wrapped around him, he could feel hear her heart beating in her chest. She had her own issues and she was fighting her own self just to help him. He had to get it together.

Nox pulled away from his friend and looked down at her. She frowned and he gave her a weak smile. It was going to be a tough ride the whole way through this. He pulled himself up and out of the arms of his friend. He could do this. He had to.

"Aria can talk to our new friend here."
He pointed at the man sitting on the holoscreen with a smile that was not very nice.


Edited by Nox, Sep 8 2015, 12:04 PM.

Ricky took a deep breath. He hadn't felt nervous until now waiting at the gate of Damien Oakland's estate. There were guards stationed on the outside. It was something he had anticipated. As he walked, he pulled out a picture of Marta at the zoo. He was doing this for her and all those like her. The picture gave him courage.

Ricky approached the guards, standing tall. He exhaled the breath he had taken and waited for the guards to acknowledge his presence. "My name is Enrique Salguero. I'm requesting to see Señor Oakland. Camila Muñoz sent me here."


Ricky had a brief meeting with Camila. The discussion led to this. Apparently she worked for Oakland and now Ricky was hoping to do the same. If the guards decided to check for weapons, they would find Ricky unarmed. If the rumors were true, then Ricky didn't want to in any way appear to be a threat. Besides, he wasn't here to harm Damien anyways. He was here to discuss a partnership.

(Camila with permission)
Edited by Enrique, Aug 24 2015, 11:18 AM.

http://www.gizoogle.net/

Use the texilizer to translate chunks of text.

Use the Web Tranzizzle to translate a URL page.

Trust me, you'll thank me once you try it.

Rajani Misra had taken the train from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City. It was not the location she sought, that would be Moscow. But it was the best way for her to travel. A plane would need identification, something Rajani had never been inclined to offer. Especially as the most known River of Magic user, in her estimation, was a wanted terrorist. The train went from Bangkok to Ho Chi Minh City to Beijing to Moscow. Not a straightforward path or a short trip compared to the ease of flight, but she had dealt with worse in the past.

It was daytime. Only a few short hours before the moon’s rising, but Rajani had wanted to at least walk around the city. Even if it was briefly, while she was temporarily there. It was good to feel the sun as well, even if it felt of betrayal. Before leaving Malaysia, she had not in truth ever been to a city and now she had been to two in just a few days. Granted her stay in Bangkok was short, her stay here would be even shorter. Rajani did not like for it to be noted about her failings though and would much prefer seeming to have much experience with great cities than none. Short ventures like this would make it all the more easier to pass off being knowledgeable.

Rounding to enter a park within the city, there were trees and flowers maintained to look wonderful along the shaded path. There were chants coming from a clearing and open grass area. She supposed it was a rally of some sort, but could not be concerned with the politics of Vietnam anymore. Rajani wondered for a moment if it was still called Vietnam within the CCD. It was a realization of knowing she knew too little of it all. That would need to be corrected.

Shaking her head, Rajani stood in the background and listened as a speaker went on with speakers reverberating his voice. The man spoke of unity and greater purpose of seeing the message within the muddled mess. Rajani was not truly interested in the religious speech, but something held her there as if she should at least make note of it. The man went on, “The world is united and embracing the path. But the True Path is the lesson all religions speak of. The True Path that was given to us to be exemplary, to be what humanity can be. All we must do is embrace it. This light given to us is more remarkable than…
”

Rajani was interested of a sort. Not in the religious nonsense, that was droll. But in the opportunity these fools did not realize they had. The CCD would look to unite cultures and create bonds throughout their empire. Before long they may have invented such a religion themselves to do so, or maybe they already had? An interesting though, but not one she believed. It was too small scale and too shoddily done for the government to be backing it, even underhandedly. The government would have seen to more press being in attendance at the least.

No, these were just fools who may actually believe their drivel. It did not matter so much to Rajani, but she was interested in the potential influence this could lead towards. Once the government did catch wind of an unifying religion, they may very well support it whole hardily. And at that point whatever leader came forward for this religious movement would have the ear of the CCD. An interesting thing to keep an eye on.

Her obsidian eyes captured those standing before the crowd. It was not a large gathering, nor were many on the impromptu stage. But Rajani was sure to remember each of their faces in case they ever became noteworthy. Not a good chance, but still a chance. With that, she continued on. Her next train would be departing in only a few hours, then she would be in Beijing. A step closer to Moscow and finding out about the River of Magic. Closer to learning how to be stronger with it.

Rajani Misra stood upon the peaceful deck of the boat with the crescent shape of the moon glowing high above her. She had easily found a man willing to take her and all her things across the calm sea into the Gulf of Thailand. It was headed toward Bangkok. Firmly into the CCD, but that was hardly a problem. Half of Malaysia was already in the CCD, the richer half. But the eastern half that Rajani had grown up in was permitted some licenses because of this, dual citizenship without ever having been in the CCD government.

She hoped being a citizen already would make it more difficult for her to be tracked. Rajani did not plan on being caught up in whatever that foolish terrorist was doing. But, there was always a chance of some occurrence. The less they knew of her or where she came from, all the better. That was always an opinion she had. Even the british man, who had for all purposes given her his apartment, had never known her last name.

These thoughts were all distractions though. Rajani could sense the River of Magic as if it flowed and swirled around her at all times, waiting for her to embrace the river. And so she did. The euphoria of the River of Magic enveloping her brought a smile to her face as she watched over the railing. The gulf was peaceful this night, but Rajani would not pass up the chance to experiment. There were five currents within the River of Magic and she selected one of them. A somewhat, although to call it so would not be true, blue band of flowing current. Water.

Focusing on the current of water, Rajani swept the blue band out further from the ship but still easily within sight. Her ability did not expand too much further even with a full moon. This would be safe. The ship’s crew would not know it was her or anyone onboard. And so she began to create waves, rushing water upwards even, and then have bursts of water shoot up. All using the same band of current. It was like the River of Magic could run with the natural world or it could alter it. But the magnitude of the changes were greater than her limited tests in the Malaysian town had shown. The River of Magic was far greater than she had imagined.

In the distance, she could see the beginning flickers of light on the horizon. Recently, she had learned the moon still held some sway during the hours of dusk and dawn, but her ability was weakened. During the day, there was no ability at all until the moon rose again. With a sudden feeling of loss, Rajani released the River of Magic. It would be good for her to take advantage of this. The River of Magic was the not the only trait she had been gifted.

Going to her cabin below deck, Rajani sat with her legs crossed on her bed. The door was locked and barred. She meditated. Entering the Waking Dream when tired was possible, but not always a guarantee. Through meditation though, there was a more direct link to the Waking Dream. Even more, in her mind at least, meditation was a more accurate view of its effect on the body as the Waking Dream did little to restore the body or make her feel rested. In time, Rajani could feel herself slip from this physical world and entering the Waking Dream…

The Domovoi task force had been slow to find it's feet. The team members had been gathered from across the breadth of the CCD, and had only a few relatively quiet days to sort themselves out before their first case had emerged. A serial rapist, suspected to be using 'magic' to lure and render unconscious women at night along the river parks areas. With so little physical evidence at the scenes of the crime, and no reliable information provided by the targeted women, it had proven a challenging case for the newly formed task force.

Detectives Favager and Köhl had worked tirelessly to track down the suspect, whom they had become certain worked in some capacity with park maintenance and security; the attacks all happened out of sight of cameras, and whomever the attacker was had proven quite adept at avoiding them elsewhere in the park; the most they had was movement, obscured by trees and other obstacles, moving off the main paths.

That investigation was called short, when the two detectives, working in tandem to question city park staff, received an all-hands-on-deck call moments before the news broke and chimed on their Wallet feeds.

The pair of detectives arrived at the site of carnage along Garden Ring Road quickly, having fallen in with a veritable motorcade of police and first-responder vehicles. Nearly half of Domovoi was already on scene, with the rest either remaining at the task force's HQ or still making their way in from where ever they had been on their off-duty hours.

The scene was chaos, and would be for hours to come as wounded were treated and witnesses gathered, damage cleaned up. The Garden Ring Road was too important to the daily functioning of the city to be allowed to be treated as a sealed crime scene forever; even if officially it wasn't one. There would be scientists and their like on the scene once the bodies were removed to take atmosphere samples and come up with whatever excuse they would to cover the event, while Domovoi would work more quietly to piece together the picture. Questioning witnesses was proving a challenge, when saying things like 'did you see the evil warlock that did this' wasn't allowed.

By early afternoon, the scene was under control, portions of the important thoroughfare already reopened to the public, and the city's hospitals were already discharging some of the day's more mildly injured.

Then the plane crashed. It wasn't the first to go down under mysterious causes in Moscow, and surely wouldn't be the last. This time though, while most emergency personnel rushed towards the downed plane, Detectives Köhl and Favager were rushing to the airport, there to question people regarding the sudden arrival of a fog bank dense enough to confound modern aircraft equipment enough to bring down a plane. A series of questions that brought up little of interest, and a lot of stone walls, as airport staff clearly suspected the police investigation was in regards to criminal negligence on the airport staff's part.

The breakthrough came with the deaths of comrades. Another rush across the city, to where a number of officers had been cut down in a blatant attack. There would be cameras, there were witnesses, and there was a direct, visible human involvement in the attack. An attack that could be spun as the use of some new-age tazer weapon on steroids, perhaps.

The weight that Domovoi could bring to bear was finally turned onto finding leads and evidence, while Captain Aleksandrov petitioned to the Chief Inspector for warrants and mandated cooperation of various city departments. The man's bad luck, being stopped as he had been in what would likely have been a simple search and release, would be his downfall.

A second team was tasked to investigating Theo Andlain, who claimed both responsibility for and leadership of the group behind the attacks. In a world powered by social media, it was entirely possible Andlain was just claiming responsibility to glean extra followers on his video blog or some such, but Captain Aleksandrov was not so arrogant as to simply turn a blind eye.

They had the man's name and image. They would have the same on the one who had struck down those officers within the day, god willing. Bank accounts, family members, friends and more would follow suit.


Edited by Drayson, Aug 4 2015, 08:55 PM.

The water rolled over the back of his neck and washed down shoulders slowly releasing their stresses from the morning. Taking a breath every three strokes was the extent of concentration needed to reach the end of another lap. Breathe. Stretch. Glide. The weightlessness of water rendered the image of one soaring through open sky.

A thousand stresses delegated to a thousand people flickered in his mind like lightning. Another stroke, another wash of water rinsed them away. Another lap gone, another minute worn. But what was time to a man whose decades were as other men's years? Sixty-one years old and he appeared thirty, if that. What were minutes, even decades, to the immortal? Nikolai was unwilling to test the theory of murder, but even the ancient gods could be killed. The Atharim knew as much, but for the patient, time immeasureable was his gift. He began with molding the world into a new map, but the memory of the ruin on which he built his power faded in mortal minds. New calamities were needed to draw the remaining nations beneath his banner, but the decay of economic ruin was slower to be felt than that of earthquakes. There was no hurry for Nikolai.

One last deep breath and the surface of the pool moved on smooth ripples as he dived for the turning of a lap. He stretched, eyes closed, and flew far through the water when the loom of a distant power caused his form to break. His arms and legs bent, slowing him. The water suddenly grew too heavy and he raced for the surface, sputtering and coughing as he found air.

He was in the middle of the pool. Humidity filled his lungs even as his throat burnt from swallowing water forcefully. He was alone, but a menace bred of pure darkness crept along the walls, threatening to smother him with its presence. Solitary and darkness were his domain. His. He focused on steady breaths, and alarm subsided into demand.

"What's happening!"
He spoke to the rocky ceiling. The Ascendancy was never truly alone. A Barrier Preator agent hurried in. The entireity of his focus fell upon the Ascendancy in the center of the water. "Sir?"
He asked, but Nikolai knew the pursuit of answers from such as he was useless. "Alric! Now."
He ordered for the presence of the former GSG9 and a god in his direct employ.

Going to the edge, he pushed himself from the water and wrapped a towel tight around his waist. "And track down Commander Vellas. I want to know exactly where he is."
His voice hissed of anger. Michael was the only one Nikolai was aware that was capable of power of this magnitude, but if he were responsible for summoning it so near the Kremlin, he better have a damned good explanation.