A few minutes later, they’re walking up the street, across from the garrison. No one seems to recognize Levine, and he’s not wearing any identification. That’s probably for the best, Julia figures, because they’re casing the area as a means of doing some really bad stuff to stop worse things from happening.

“Keep walking, eyes forward, staggered formation,” Levine says quietly to Drenar ahead of him, and Julia is in the rear. To everyone else, they’re just walking around town like dozens of others. “Like I said, I have a plan. I accessed the plot locations of the garrison and the schematics of the teleportal platform. They’re available to the public, and are part of the Conclave's municipal records. There's a maintenance area for the teleportal platform down the walkway, to the left. Bulkhead door.” Drenar glances left, looks at the narrow area where there’s trash canisters, a few people lingering, and what looks like a steel-reinforced door. It's also past a security checkpoint. "This has 'bad idea' written all over it."

“Lockpick isn't gonna cut it for that. Too exposed, and past security. Even if we got the guy distracted, the garrison is right there. We’ll get busted in an instant. Eyes on the door, too, small camera on the brick wall.” Drenar's assessment is tactically correct.

“Disruption gel can fix that. It’ll short out electronics. Or Julia could.”

“You don’t want me in destroyer mode, Levine,” she sighs, even though the thought is quite an exciting notion. “We save that for when it comes to saving lives. I *have* shot several people this week.”

“That doesn’t bother you at all?” Drenar asks anxiously.

“Nope. They all started shooting at us or others, first. Plus, as far as I know, they all survived. Mage shields make it harder to land a lethal blow before they can hide in cover.” When she thinks about it, she has been consciously aiming to disable, not kill.

The day that changes, means things are truly dire.

“So, security is a camera, plus people nearby as witnesses. The door could be picked. What about other accessways?” Drenar asks while they keep walking.

“Sewers?” Julia asks dryly. “Gross. I’d die first.”

“Do you prefer indignity, or the Talons getting the keys to godhood?” he retorts.

“Indignity. But only if you jumped in first.”

“Nah. I’d toss in James first,” Drenar says with a grin.

“Don’t pick on the fledgling mage. He might become the chosen one or the destroyer, if Angela’s any indicator. Are we sure he isn’t a dragon?” Julia asks.

“I looked through some of that data. King was bluffing, some of it was regular readable files. Others, I’m still running a cracking program,” Levine responds calmly. “Five percent draconic DNA. same as Angela–well, was for Angela, Awakening modifies the base genetic code in strange ways. Definitely a mage family, and their parents were exceedingly uncooperative. They left their damn kids high and dry. They wouldn’t commit to coming home! I’m going to slap their parents in their faces when they get back.”

“Speaking like a father, there,” Julia says shrewdly. He grunts audibly while they follow Drenar down the street, and Levine directs them to a small park bench, with a fountain bubbling up blue and green fluid. Even the water is magical around here, she thinks silently, because it arcs, whirls, and does everything but follow gravity when it flows out of the fountainhead. Levine relaxes for a second and glances at the walkway, and up above at the second level of the promenade. The sky is bright and crisp today, and just a hint of chill in the air.

“I’ve got a teenage daughter, a few years younger than you. Mystra’s fourteen. I think that…you and her…you’d get along well, if you met her,” he says with a slight hesitation. “I might be divorced, but it wasn’t because I was a bad husband or a bad father. It was the price I paid to focus on the job. Focusing on the goodwill of Kin, and making the world safer for them." His head slowly torsions back and forth, as if disapproving his own rationale. “No parent should just abandon their kids like that. I always saw to it between me and her mum, Mystra was cared for, and she knew she was loved by both of us. Her rebellion moments are best described as garish music that I can’t stand,” he adds with a soft laugh. “I can live with that.”

“Are we stalling for something?” Julia picks up on the intent.

“Yes. But those parts were true.” He subtly gestures to the second floor. “Our blondie boy and Jackie are still lurking. They have been following us.” Levine nods just off to the right with a slight tilt of his head. “We are going to have to play this carefully. Young lass sounds like she’s in over her head, blondie is jittery. Dangerous mix, panicked agents. Prone to irrational, messy outcomes, people get hurt or worse.”

“So, we do nothing?” Drenar says warily while keeping the guise of normal. He’s picked up on this quickly, Julia notices.

“For now, they know we are here. But Nick is likely making progress. I left behind the arcanlink on purpose, King's surveillance tech and countering methods are too good to tip him off just yet. No, we’ve got other cards to play. I know a way into that maintenance area.”

“Oh? How’s that?”

“We’ll just walk in the front door.”

“You work for SAF. Someone could recognize you,” Drenar counters. “How are we just gonna ‘walk’ in, exactly?”

“Scheduled maintenance.”

Julia pops a scintillating spark into her hand and smiles. “Ooh. I do like this plan. We’re gonna fry something else, to get them to open up the door?”

“Precisely.”

----------------------------------------

“Remind me. Why are we here, when we need the Tsundere dragon to do her wizard magic to find stuff?” James grouses on the second floor of the library. He’s busy taking the sights of the fine-hewn stone and warm color notes of wood paneling throughout the floor, along with neatly stacked rows of bookshelves.

Bookshelves are supposed to be haphazard, messy, and unorganized. This town must have the best librarians in the country, for them to be this well-kept. He can’t find a single book out of order. And they arrange them by popularity?!

At least it made it easy to tell where most people spent their time, the carpeted floor has decreasing wear tracks the further down the row they go. Nick is busy pretending to examine a book and keeps stealing glances with his equipment–a set of goggles tuned for spotting mana, and he handed one to him, Angela, and Evan earlier.

“Biding time. Plus, we need to assume the secondary entrances won’t just open up automatically. We need to trigger a failsafe. We just need to find the arcane circuitry.” Nick shows utter disinterest in small talk with him. James decides to press the issue while Evan and Angela are downstairs on the first floor, doing the same task as them.

“So, seriously, you’re seventy years old.”

“Yep. We’ve been over this.”

“You’re old enough to be her grandfather.”

“Are we really having this discussion here?” Nick sighs. James can see he’s finally caught Double-o-dragon off guard for a bit, so it’s time to press the advantage.

“Yeah, we are. Look, I get it, dragons don’t age the same. But she’s off limits.” James of course knew otherwise, because she’d talked to him the night prior, mostly worrying about Drenar.

He knew Drenar would eventually get his head back into the game. He always did, even if it took a little while for him.

“Have you asked her about her feelings on that? Or is that your assertion?” Nick asks with a soft laugh. James whirls around, narrowing his eyes. This dragon is too bold all of a sudden.

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“It's weird, alright?”

“My father was three hundred and five when he met my mother. She was early twenties. Believe me, it sounds awkward now. But they were a very loving couple. Look, I get it, we've been hiding feelings from each other because both of us are likely scared of that barrier of entry. If I had to hazard a good guess.” He peels the goggles off after a second. “Unlimited magical technology in this world, and ze goggles, they do nothing.”

James laughs uncontrollably at this, though he has at best, lukewarm feelings about Nick. “Doctor Strangelove?!”

“Oh, you're acquainted,” Nick muses. “There's hope for this generation.”

“You still look like you're at best, twenty. That has to be so awkward to have boyish charm, when you've been killing monsters and likely people for a long time.”

Nick shrugs and doesn't look offended. “I keep a few friends close. It helps take the edge off the tougher moments of the job. Also, that awkward feeling when I get carded at the bar. I have to get a new one made every few years so that people don't question why a seventy-year-old man looks so young. The Conclave does have a headache with Kin that spend most of their time outside the Veil, let me tell you.”

“But how?”

“Spoofing electronic records. Memories fade if you keep moving, which most people do if they age out of an area. Some…awkward reunions occur every now and then,” he mutters. “I got a couple of those in town, a few old-timers. I had to gently persuade them I was the son of the person they knew. I do look quite a bit like my father. I got Mom's hair, though.”

“She’s…how did it happen?” James stops for a second, intrigued by this history. “I know you mentioned it over the weekend, but…you didn’t talk about it much.”

Nick tucks away the goggles for a minute, and has a solemn look that he usually wears when he talks about his past. “Old age. Eventually, the body just quits, it's merely a part of the cycle of life. Though…when you've got my perspective…it's not so easy.” Nick's eyes soften a bit, and he looks down at the table, playing errantly with a tool out of his bag. “Perfect conditions? I could be here when humans travel the stars, and beyond. Most dragons…these days… there are very few of us that are old. Most of the elders took off during the Ascension events. What a generational gap that caused. Angie was telling me about that, when Crosomer just looked worn down, beaten…like he's stuck in the past. That's after seven hundred years, alone. Whether he deserved that or not, I feel, is a matter of historical perspective.”

“So what you're saying is, Angie needs someone close to grow old with. Or at least, be there as a constant.” James does hesitate for just a beat. Has he been unduly harsh on Nick? Probably not. “And you think you're the one?”

“I think at a minimum…she's fun to be around. She's got that quiet charm. Hell, I remember when I first started taking up the position she wouldn't stop trying to get me to open up.”

“Wait. She approached you?” James keeps the conversation going and peers through the goggles at a row of books, scanning through the walls. Nick's instruction had paid off, and he could feel that faint tingle of mana energy. It’s almost instinctive, but very weak. The device would have never worked if he wasn't a mage. The visual overlay is also giving him a slight tension headache, so he has to stop every few minutes. So far, they haven’t found anything of even remote noteworthyness.

“She did. Like every other girl that wanted to be attached to me, for bizarre reasons. I was the new kid, mysterious–everyone wanted to know who I was. So, I put out a simple image. It wasn’t hard, really. I suppose when you’ve got as long a life as me, and you have to keep reinventing yourself, it gets easier every time. But…I always felt like I could sneak in a kernel of truth to her, when she was asking me.”

“You know something? I thought she’d have stuck with Drenar. I really did.” James doesn’t hold the words back anymore. “Say what you will about him, but he's a good-hearted kid. I knew that from the get-go, while I was getting beaten into the playground years ago. He jumps in to protect me, gets punched in the face so hard his nose is still slightly crooked, and then proceeds to savage that brat, and Julia was an utter demon against the other two. He keeps to his word. He always does. Even after last night, he’s still up and running. I think he’s tougher than any of us give him credit for.”

“He’s tougher than most. King was extremely tactical in his fight. Everyone held up well last night, Angela, too. That ring–I should have taken it off of him,” Nick sighs. “Stupid oversight.”

“Just learn from it. If King wanted you guys dead, he would have succeeded,” James offers quietly. “Look, just…I know you have issues, Nick. Whether you’ve seen too many dead friends or had to do awful things to survive, Angela is going to have to know about those things eventually.”

“But…her and Drenar are–”

“I think that moment’s coming. Maybe it’s better that they didn’t get more…involved… before we got thrown into this chaos blender.” James winces when he says it like that, and he’s picturing them being…more than friends. “Question is, what do I do about you?”

“You could just let us figure it out,” Nick suggests. “You’ve seen me in action. You know I’d keep her safe, put my life on the line for her without a second thought, no matter what the price to me might be. If that scenario played out…”

James lets out a soft exhale and shakes his head. “You know, despite you having a stick up your arse at times Nick, you’re still alright, you know that? I think you’ve earned that distinction.”

“What’s that? Was that a compliment?” It’s so unusual to see Nick hint at a smile.

“Me? Nah, I’m just a fledgling wizard. Seriously when do I get my first fireball spell?” James asks with a twist of his lip. “C’mon, I got the best news this morning, I gotta roll with it!”

“It doesn’t quite work like that. Most mages have basic abilities like the spell shield and maybe slightly better natural healing, and the ability to use and manipulate mana. Drenar and the others attune theirs naturally–and quite intuitively, I gotta comment. Mages use draconic invocations, magical devices, or equipment. Mana itself is the lynchpin of most of it, and the goggles are a slight drain on the body’s mana. Because yours just developed, it’ll be taxing.” They continue past the stairwell, where there’s a fireplace sitting in a recess of brick and mortar at the landing.

James pulls the goggles down and takes a quick glance. He hates that dizziness as the image projects onto his eyes, and–

“Nick, put on your goggles. The fireplace. Something’s there.” He sees the wash of false black, white, and light blue auras, and he sees it–a faint current, a line of white light going to something beyond the fireplace, behind it. “Nick, assessment?”

“Trigger rune, on the far side. I can just make it out.” It’s disorienting to see Nick staring inches from the fireplace, and that aura of blue lines that form his nervous system and other connective systems. He clicks on the arcanlink, then frowns. “Right, Levine ditched his. Didn’t want us to communicate till we got back to the house. Let’s get the rest, and be discreet.”

Evan and Angela join them a minute later, and they’re all peering at the fireplace. “The chimney goes down into the underground, maybe?” Angela proposes. “I can…feel an air current. It’s chilly. Plus my…telekinetics are acting weird. Like there’s a hollow. I can feel forces and vibrations.”

“Echolocation?” James proposes. She shrugs while rubbing her arms uneasily.

“Maybe. It’s hard to describe. Drenar seems to have an overlap with Julia’s abilities and mine, but doesn’t have both our sets in full. That’s weird.”

“We need the Tsundere dragon to kick down another wall,” James mutters while staring at this obstacle. Angela reaches for the back side of the fireplace, and a shimmer of light just barely outlines her hand.

“James, you suck with the nicknames,” Evan sighs.

“Fine, punching bag.”

“I will claw and shred you worse than our cat.”

“Why is Diane's cat so savage against me, anyway?”

“You’re just not a cat person. Or a dragon person,” Evan retorts. Angela shakes her head and taps at the wall with a silvery puff from her hand. It reacts with a blue shimmer.

“Arcane shielding. It’s reinforced. That circuit is powering it.”

“So, we should cut it.”

“Sure James, let’s open a massive gaping hole in a structural wall, and see what happens,” Evan sighs. “You’re the smart one. How do we get in?”

“Trip the circuit,” Nick says quietly. “If the primary teleportal system goes down, fail safes open for secondary access points. That’s what Levine was telling me.”

“Let’s just hope the Talon's murder army doesn’t take that as their cue to start with the slaughter. What’s their ingress point, the teleportal inside Asqualia?” James asks.

“The biometric ID access is a big problem for them. Unless they have someone inside SAF to override it for them. Or the Valkyries. And the Valkyries would never do that. Their organization is nigh-incorruptible,” Nick says proudly.

“But SAF is,” James concludes. “Bruh, you might want to quit and form a merc army with Levine. The writings’ on the wall, the Conclave is going to shit, from what I’m piecing together.”

“Sure James, encourage a power vacuum,” Evan retorts. “Or that’s something Drenar would say. Let’s hope those three are staying out of trouble right now.”

“I’d like to make an easy bet with you, then,” James says with resignation. “Things went to hell the second they got into town, and Tsundere is busy setting a record for insurance payments for property damage.”

Evan laughs at this, and has a childish grin on his face. "Don't let her hear you say that, she'll either murder you, or marry you."

An involuntary wisp of a laugh escapes his lips. "Evan, either outcome would be hazardous for my health."