--- Kat ---
Kat frowned as she left the second house. Lily was on her way to see if she’d have better look slling where the sound had co from, but so far, Kat hadn’t had any luck. Kat had initially transford into water to try not to leave any trace of her passage but found that the poison was causing her so issues with vison. If her water got too ’infected’ by the poison it started to shrink how far she could see and it just wasn’t worth dealing with. Instead, she stuck to flying around. Kat even resummoned her shoes just in case there was any dirt.
Still, she found no sign of passage so far. Moving onto the third house she transford just for a mont to sneak under the door and then started to look around once more. Checking room by room Kat looked for signs of forced entry... which was harder then you’d think. With the poison having co out of essentially nowhere plenty of people had needed to book it out of their houses with a great deal of haste.
That open cupboard? Was that because there was a secret basent... or was it just that soone needed to grab a jacket before they ran from the house and didn’t bother to shut it on the way? What about the many chairs thrown to the ground. Did soone barrel through kitchen with a bunch of equipnt or did the table get knocked over when they rushed out of the room?
The answers to all of those questions, so far, was that they’d been running away. Though it was odd that pretty much all of the front doors in the area were closed. Plenty inside were open, if the doorway even had a door at all. Kat frowned, even as she felt Lily approaching. The third house was once again a dead end. Blegh. I was hoping to be done with this before you got here... still thanks for making your way over.
[Of course I’d co help. Even if the fact that there’s poison everywhere makes things super awkward. Show where this dirt is?] Kat floated over to the area in question and pointed it out. Lily landed nearby and sniffed at the air. [Alright... there’s... at least three people in the group but I think there’s more than that. They’re closely related, one of them is a woman and I think she was the one to wipe her shoe here... hmm... they didn’t stop nearby.]
*You can tell what GENDER soone is as well as how related they are?*
[The relation thing is more of a guess. They sll too similar for them not to be related... but that might also include like... spouses? Like, you don’t hold scents well but even still my scent manages to stick itself to you and because I spend so much ti just in your arms or on your shoulders I always sll faintly like you do.]
*Huh... never really picked up on that...*
[I think it’s more of an undertone thing? Regardless that’s what I’m slling here.]
*Why can’t you tell exactly how many people there are then?*
[Because they’re using so fancy suits and maybe fancy enchantnts as well. Their scents are actually fainter then the ones from all the people that used to live here... it’s only the fact that I can also sort of sll how old they are AND the fact they’re all wearing the sa outfit that clued into the fact that sothing weird was going on. Plus it was fairly concentrated on the dirt.]
[When it cos to the numbers? Because at least a handful of them are related and things are so muted its hard to tell if I’m actually slling soone different or if it’s more of a mixing of scents as they’re walking. When I said ’at least three’ I really ant that ’three is the absolute smallest number of people it could be’ but I don’t think I can be higher then... five? Maybe six?]
[Six is probably already pushing it but I’m pretty sure that if there was more than that I could sll the difference. Even just the ’volu’ of scent they left behind would tell that.]
*Well, I might have more questions later but we really should get to tracking them. Lead the way.* Kat’s slight concern over Lily once again being inside of the poison was completely washed away when Lily lead them off the street entirely. Kat realised in that mont she would’ve spent a huge amount of ti checking houses the group hadn’t even gone into...
Lily lead them down a few streets and towards a moderately sized park. It wasn’t in the direction she thought she’d heard the sound from... but Kat trusted Lily so she followed along. Lily shifted around the park a bit before circling the fountain in the centre. Lily sniffed around the edges a bit before frowning. [Alright. They definitely managed to sneak into an area below this fountain. The problem is that it’s sealed properly. I can’t even get a shadow in under there. Not sure if it’s because they magically shielded it with a barrier or if they just have the fountain sitting properly against the entrance.]
*Should we poke around in case there’s a gap?*
[Might as well. We can both check and then report back.] Kat transford and then the pair started to look for gaps. Kat tried to take over the water in the fountain as well, but it was so filled with poison after its ti in the area that her power didn’t recognise it as compatible for her mind. Instead she just had to push water down along the edges. She controlled it in two batches. One for the outside of the fountain and one for the inside.
Lily anwhile simply pressed her shadow up against the base of the fountain and tried her best to find so sort of gap. It wasn’t until Kat reford and inford her of her lack of success in both areas that Lily felt the need to test both as well. So Lily did a second circle with her shadow running around the inside edge. The poison tried to break her shadows down but simply spending a bit more mana to ignore the fact worked wonders.
Even still, no hidden button was found and they couldn’t get in through the cracks. "Alright so what’s the plan? You said it’s definitely under the fountain... I could probably just try to pick it up?"
[You know what? Go for it. I was going to suggest looking around a bit for the button. I’d probably have rechecked the scent trail to see if there was anything weird in it like an odd stop or extra scent on a tree or sothing hiding a hidden button... but just lifting it might work. Just don’t break anything.]
Kat bent down to lift then thing... and then paused for a mont. Shifting around a bit to adjust so that her ass ’just so happened’ to be in Lily’s face Kat dug her fingers into the stone path around the fountain and then heaved. This proved to be a mistake, not because anything broke, but because even for Rank 2 strength the fountain wasn’t actually that heavy. It wasn’t a particularly large fountain and the water inside of it was limited in amount.
Instead, because Kat wasn’t really holding the fountain so much as she was cupping it with her hands, instead of lifting it, she launched it into the air where it started to spin a few tis before dropping back down. Kat went to curse aloud for her stupidity before biting down on her curse to ensure she didn’t scare anyone. Kat wanted to dash forward to catch it but Lily’s sense of sll had been accurate. There was a secret staircase down below her... so there was nowhere to place her feet. Further, as light as the fountain was for a fountain, it wasn’t so light Kat could fly with it.
Luckily, Lily was there to help. A flurry of shadows and soon there was a big pillow above the hole in the ground. When the fountain crashed into the ground, instead of making a loud noise and shattering, it instead let out a soft ’pomf’ noise as the fountain compressed the pillow. Lily then moved it off to the side and gave Kat her best raised eyebrow.
Kat looked away slightly embarrassed. "Ok so I might have been more focused on flustering you instead of the fountain but I really wasn’t expecting it to be so light. I an, sure the bracelet is limiting but it’s not like I feel the extra weight until it tries to hold back... so I basically just threw it with peak Rank 2 shape."
[It’s ok Kat. I forgive you... but only because your little joke didn’t lead to us getting caught. I was honestly so shocked I didn’t really have ti to be properly embarrassed about it.]
*Sigh. Sorry, again.*
[Nah, you have a great ass. Feel free to remind of that fact whenever the situation is less serious.]
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