…..:::::|. The Ladi: Ward Plaza West .|:::::…..

“Marvynn!” Percival cried and rolled his head in frustration almost more with himself than with the escapee. Why did he agree to apprehend him alive?

The others in line with Percival spread to flank the supremely spry old mage. They understood the danger of losing eye on a quarry of a master hunter like Percival. He let them pass him as they fanned out. “I hate transmuters.” With one hop he broke from his cloaks and took to a blazing fast bolt through the parting crowds. The furs and heavy fabrics fell to the arms of the Margrave while the fox-women in black, Agent Veygornne, and Agent Critza took to chasing the chase. Veygornne was old but he was just as fast as Percival bounding over bench and plinth.

When Percival got to full speed he turned a peculiar piece of stone against a ring of metal on his left wrist. The troll gallstones that always hung in the air drew inward a close white hot glowing net of about fifteen or so as he ran. Percival called quickly into them, “Mage running!” then shut the thing off with another twist.

The Exemplariat had, in his history, caught many of the most elusive and dangerous mis-users of Power. It wasn't often they fled upon apprehension but those that thought they had a sliver's chance soon found out why the others never did. He stayed close on Marvynn, hurling promises of death at him.

Percival's call to arms rung with members of the Agency that only happened to be in the vicinity and two other young Agents on separate sides of town took to tracking the Mad Mage's whereabouts.

A happy mess of braids stood picking out yet more pink and orange fabrics the shopkeeps were shoving into her arms. When from her left, an Agent tapped her shoulder. He cut urgent eyes to her and giddy chills ran up her eager spine. Kodlaa dropped her choices and took to a bolt after him through a line of Grui and townsfolk moving out of their way as they ran.

Marvynn dashed directionless. He'd only aimed to get way for good from the one following him but the golden-haired man was so close and closing in. The Mad Mage flapped hands through provincials, jumped bushes and slipped between slats within what looked like a folding of his body into the material of the buildings he touched.

A scatter en-masse unfolded as Gruhavians rushed for whatever entrances and exits they could make to escape the chase. To the screaming townsfolk Percival looked like those feline juntze from the land he hailed; leaping and bursting from bench and railing to head off the lightning fast mage.

Into a shop Marvynn bolted. Pulling over statues and buckets and bows and quivers. Percival realized they'd run into a Bowyer's shop. He made a mental note as the shop-owner cried in protest. The weight of the obstructions slowed him none as he hopped with deft feet. However, Marvynn seemed to be proving why he'd been so hard to apprehend these past few bends. His magecraft must have been increasing and his spellcraft must have grown a longer list.

As Percival sighted his lead and chose a route to cut off his run, Marvynn scouted his pursuer again and squealed a nasty cry. Percival's face, then, twisted in near disgust and close to fret as he watched the Mad Mage grip his own shoulder and tear himself from himself, and then do it a second time. Percival slapped a twist at his wrist again and belted raw hate as the Grui zoomed in. “Multiplier!”

Those giving him way, covered their ears, he was so loud. Those heading off the mage, split the chase to pursue now three fast getawayers. This was starting to lose its edge and Percival, with narrowing eyes, made a choice. He was trying not to make this a battle of mages but he let streams of green-blue craft crawl down his forearms to his now clinching fists.

…..:::::|. The Glorious Toot .|:::::…..

Siin stumbled back into the tavern feeling a bit dehydrated but better. He strolled to the innkeep and requested a much needed water, which he gleefully anticipated would be coming from the fresh spring. Just as he was handed the cool drink, a face he'd only seen a few times in his childhood came darting around the tables and leaping over the ponds. “We've got a live one!” I'eladh called. He snatched Siin's arm away from his cool deliverance and pulled him running through the terrace pools.

Halycind shot looks to the running. Siin shot two flashes of craft toward her as she was compelled to rise to view the trouble. Her clothes jumped onto her body, in flashes of blue sparks, as he cried to her, “Get on it, Cash!”

She confusedly followed the two...barefooted. “What am I getting on?!”

“We'll find out when we catch it!” Siin answered almost happy to have such an exhilarating interruption; albeit still so very thirsty. They bolted out of the other side of the terrace pools into a flock of fleeing crowds and yelling townsfolk.

Without questioning the situation the hunters took to scoping their quarry. To the rest of the world, a Weroance on scout was one of the scariest sights to ever behold. Their paints and feathers and tantantoa spelling out all the kills they'd garnered was enough to keep subjects and foreigners in perfect line. The Agency taught Kingdoms what success a man's hunt could be; Ashok taught the Agency what it looked like when wolves hunted. The Agency had always taken notice and taken cue. Be they man, woman, or creature, if they were titled as Weroance the Agency wanted their aid.

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Weroance I'eladh sniffed a foul earthy acridness then he saw the Mad Mage. He tossed out a howl and Halycind suddenly pick up on the trail of the one they searched for. Her nose moved her head for her and she howled before taking to top speed to flank Marvynn staying on the right of the Mad Mage.

Siin knew in his state, his running chase would not be suitable, so he planned for a trap instead. In a magically amplified tone, he called to the two Weroances, in their country's first language--one he knew Marynn wouldn't know--and told them to herd the mage toward the alleyways eastward.

…..:::::|. Ward Plaza West .|:::::…..

As folks tugged at carts of vegetables and flowers to pull them out of the path of those chasing, Kodlaa and one of the Agents in town hurried over hill and garden up onto the back of one of the Mad Mage's duplicates. Kodlaa snatched from her thighs two knives, tossed them, then grabbed three more from other places hidden on her person to embed them in the runner's legs. They hit with heavy slinks of edge into meat like the chop of a butcher's blade. The Agent beside her yelped with glee at her expert throws, until the Mad Mage turned and twisted the knives sticking out of his lower half into melting metal liquids.

Kodlaa's face melted, just as her knives did, into sorrow. She ran dumbfounded as the Agent beside her realized the Mad Mage's talent. He yelled at the duplicate and his brown face went flush with hate. Transmutation skill could have been among the world's most troublesome mage skills. Troublesome and unpredictable. Knowing his freedom was nigh, the Mad Mage smacked his hands together the slammed them against two large wooden gate posts as he ran through the crowds. The two followers after him fret openly as the posts turned into heavy rotted chunks of wood. Troublesome and viciously dangerous. That Agent beside Kodlaa burst a spreading of flower-coloured feathers from his back to shield everyone from the falling wood shards as he shouted to scatter and shoo townsfolk from being pelted with pieces of posts that would have certainly crushed them.

Kodlaa blessed his splendor and cursed at the mage as she grabbed the Agent's daggers to follow Marvynn again. She was sure a knife in the base of his skull he wouldn't be able to transmute. The hard corners of these cobbles were aching her feet and she remembered mentioning the trouble of terrain un-run to Halycind the night before. In groans, she eyed a semeguard helping fallen onlookers and stole away his daggers as well. She whizzed to the front of another Agent now helping herd screaming passersby, stopped, and steeled her wolven gaze on the back of the duplicate running.

…..:::::|. Ward Plaza Center .|:::::…..

The Mad Mage moving many paces in front of Percival suddenly yelped is disgust. He had run upon a mound of rotted carcasses, viscera and skinned animals lying across the middle of the market. Knowing it was a false projection crafted by the nearby Siin, Percival took the opportunity to slap down a curious glyph of craft at the foot of the mage. Marvynn tripped over it and his right leg was near cut to ribbons on glass spires the shot up from the rune glowing under his foot. His cry tore the muzzle from his face and he tugged at parts of himself to get free.

Percival ran near sideways to collect his prize but the Mad Mage screamed into his glowing hands, slapped them to his shredded thighs and sealed up his most grotesque wounds in a matter of moments. Running again he smacked a hand on a garden bench and folded into its wood with a blink and reappeared out further from a tree along the city line.

Percival roared a rancorous roar. The green-blue of his fists drew to a bright white as, through the crowds, he tossed a halo of glass toward the back of the mage. It kissed the cobbles and stone and garden turf kicking up sparks and dirt and girl's screams to cut straight up Marvynn's back.

Not many had really seen Percival hunt. Had never really seen the man chase down his quarry in such a calculated fashion but if any of them had ever questioned why he was considered an Exemplariat in the Zadagen Agency, this was the reason. In all his cycles he had tailored much and taken cue from many.

…..:::::|. Ward Plaza East .|:::::…..

Her legs hurt. They were heavy, she could feel them from yesterday. Halycind in the midst of tracking one of the duplicates had managed to howl out her position for Siin to catch notice of him. But she was nearing the end of her strength. She had to dig for the hunt within her. The two wolaenki and Weroance I'eladh chased down the duplicate to a jammed cluster of taverns and theatres. This was too crowded. This, they did not want to make a battlefield. Jugglers and troubadours skirted out of the way as they herded the Mage to a less populated end of their mummer's lane.

There, Siin made motions in the air casting some unseen craft. As the duplicate ran, he found the streets bubbling like lava and the facades of the shops slowly closing in on him. The Mad Mage squealed again and ran away from the tableau only to find his face smacking hard against the nothing of the air in front of him. He shook his senses, curious as to what barricaded him from his escape.

As far as he could see, there was only street and cottages ahead. The cobbles below him began to turn over as slats on a shutter and he hopped to flee the holes opening and closing. He took to the left of him in a run again only to find more hard nothing halting his dash. Siin tightened in on his concentration as every time the duplicate ran from some illusion he created, it smacked into a wall of nothing.

The duplicate watched the battlemage walk slowly—eyes square—upon him behind shimmers and hazes and shifting vista. Without looking, Siin could sense the Weroance's approaching, even as he still worked somatic gestures. Halycind, watching him walk this duplicate down, bit her lip in an odd bewilderment, witnessing this mage weave his craft in the middle of this emptying alley. She'd never seen him work real magic before.

Siin's illusions and walls of hard nothing continued on as he also had now stacked a spilling of children's rhymes in confusing ciphers upon the ears of the duplicate growing lost in this maze of blank openness. His torture went on for three more illusions before the Mad Mage finally let out a frustrated and frightened caw.

At that, all motion in the city’s squares came to a halt as what could only be described as a great golden feline with iridescent wings began to form itself out of the cobbles, buildings, trees, lampposts, and every organic thing that surrounded the city square. The summoning of this creature shook the mountain. Runners tripped. Townspeople fell. Some of the wind-resistant buildings cracked.

The Margrave, staring up at the coalescing beast, whispered to himself as a wave of fright washed over his noble person.

He had only seen an Aagenite once before in life and were it not for a dug out cave nearby he'd have been roasted to chard.