--- Kat ---
Kat decided to be as tricky as possible while sitting on watch. She transford herself into water and spread herself across the ceiling until she controlled a thin, nearly invisible film. It didn’t quite give her the vision she’d like, only really covering the top half of the room and required her to slide down a bit to keep watch over the cell, just in case. The barrel of orbs was left in Ramor’s office to be picked up later, and it was simply ti to sit in and wait.
Which was what Kat ended up doing all the way until Steel ca back. Nobody suspicious even entered her range. The only person who did was the guard watching over the cells and he didn’t get close to the one Kat cared about. They mostly kept watch on the corridor, while occasionally walking down it to make sure everyone was where they were ant to be. An easy task considering only two cells had occupants at the mont.
Ramor ca down the hall and knocked on the wall, causing Kat to reform next to him. "That’s creepy you know that? Damned effective, but creepy," said Ramor.
Kat shrugged, "Well I was able to watch basically everything I needed to and remain out of sight so I’d say it was a good idea. What’s up?"
"Steel is back but he’s not exactly pleased," answered Ramor as he turned in place and gestured for her to follow him, leading the way back to his office where Steel was sitting in a chair slumped in defeat.
"What happened?" asked Kat.
"I failed to push things through. The best I could get was an agreent that it should happen, and sooner rather than later. There were so challengers but it beca clear pretty fast this was going to happen anyway... then they pivoted to ’safety concerns’. Like, wanting to make sure the room was secure, adding a new set of enchantnts to it. Perhaps even training a guard force just to guard it," sighed Steel.
"I thought this was going through sooner rather than later ALREADY. This seems like it could be MONTHS out, and while I might want to help you out, I really can’t justify waiting around that long. I have other things I need to do," said Kat. *Like contacting Weaver for example and proving the holdup is NOT on my end. If I wasn’t already planning to chat with her tonight I am now.*
Steel shrugged. "I’m really not sure how much I can talk them down from it. They are, on the surface, reasonable precautions. I just don’t really trust anyone to do the improved enchantnts right now. I think we already have a few different places that are good enough and all but one could be updated with better enchantnts later... and we really don’t need a special guard force for this unless they want it to be a toll station where you need to pay for its use."
"So... what do you think is going to happen?" asked Kat.
"I think I’m going to need to make a proper plea to the king to just bypass his advisors on this. It’s a divisive issue so I have so support. It’s not sothing where I’d be trying to skip over everyone... but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth about it all," sighed Steel.
Kat was ready to ask another question when an explosion rocked the building. The whole place remained standing, but a clear wave of force past through everything, tilting the world. Kat recovered quickly and sprinted out of the door, heading for the cells as quickly as possible. This was annoyingly slow. Limited to Rank 2 and with half a dozen doors in the way by the ti Kat had made it to the cells, she was left with just the remains of the wall. Kat wanted to chase after the culprits but she couldn’t see them imdiately.
What she could see, was the guard in charge of the cells being pinned under the heavy iron bars of the cell, alongside pieces of the wall. He seed to still be breathing, so that was good, but he didn’t look conscious. Kat had no idea how much damage had been done to him, but it didn’t seem right to leave him under there while chasing after a culprit. Still...
*What’s best?* Thought Kat as her mind spun up to even greater speeds to save real world ti. *I shouldn’t leave this guy here... but Thy isn’t going to let him die. Though I should treat this all as real because it might cause ripple effects if he ’died’ in scenario. So does that an I should stick to my first thought and help him? Is that even the right call? What if I move sothing wrong while trying to lift him out?
Shit. If I was full strength I could just hurl everything off of him at once which would be rather safe and give ti to chase as well but I’m just NOT. Dammit. I wish Lily or Hedera were here, but I get why they need there sleep. The problem is... how did this happen? Based on the blast, shouldn’t the thief they were trying to grab be in this ss?*
Kat considered that for a few sped up monts. It was a good point. Weren’t they trying to get the thief out? Kat counted the cells again and realised that the main source of the explosion was actually a few cells past the one she should’ve been focused on. The explosion had taken out a number of cells... and it was probably a ’shaped’ charge or the magical equivalent because the damage was far more contained in one direction.
Which still didn’t an the thief was fine. There was a lot of rubble around and it was hard to tell if they’d been able to escape unhard or not. It was possible they were buried sowhere else under all of this, or that they’d had so sort of hidden charm on them... or perhaps they’d thrown a shield charm in through the windows? Kat didn’t know if the cells were warded against sothing like that.
Which of course, just made it harder and harder to know where to go. If both ’targets’ were here, perhaps it was best to stay. Or maybe finding the person trying to silence the witness, or perhaps just kill a Halebloom just beca extra important... but who even knew if they were still there? Kat hadn’t been able to see the entire room with her trick. She’d spread herself too thin and it ant her vision bubble didn’t cover soone crawling on the ground.
She’d made sure the prisoner couldn’t escape... but what if the culprit had just snuck in, set the explosives and then left? If they’d only planted and set them off just now, Kat could catch them... but if they were ten, twenty, thirty minutes gone Kat didn’t like her chances. Worse... what if they’d been there longer? This wasn’t an original guard station built for purpose. What if so nasty surprises were left behind or added later on?
It made the decision on what to do so paralysing. She’d love to ask Steel or Ramor for advice, heck even Angie would work but she’d bolted out before even raising the question. Sure ti was, and still is of the essence but that split second question would’ve solved a LOT of her internal conflict that followed. Probably saved her ti too because even though she was speeding through these thoughts she wasn’t really moving. Part of her wanted to just get started on moving the debris while thinking this over...
But that felt a bit too much like making a choice and she still didn’t know what the right one was. *Dammit, dammit, dammit. Do I just wait for soone else to run in behind ? Steel didn’t have his armour on because of Ramor’s chairs so he might not be rushing right in. Ramor will probably be here soon on account of being the second strongest and he can tell what he recomnds.
But once again, that’s precious seconds I lose. I keep going around in circles trying to work out what the best play is but there isn’t one. So I NEED to do sothing. I.. I think I’m just going to help. Not only do I know I’m strong enough to do that, I don’t know if it’s possible to catch the killer nor do I know if Jen is still here or not. If this was an attempt to kill her, making sure they don’t succeed is probably a good thing. I could check with my water form, but if I’m already staying behind getting the rubble cleared seems more important.*
Kat let out a breath as her ntal speed returned to... still elevated rates, just less so. Kat was moving as fast as her limiter would allow and keeping her ntal speed high to make it seem like she was just walking at a casual pace from her perspective. It ant she could be careful as she started to lift the blocks off the guard. Hoping this was the right call.
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