It's a beautiful day in the village - TAKE A LOAD OFF, LOG 1

[libraryassistants]

Who: Readers and Actors
What: Beta Story Start - At the start of any particular Story, characters will be drawn to a section of the Stacks. Those inclined to resist will find themselves there anyway, through the shifts and changes inherent to the Library's structure. The Story manuscript will be laid out neatly on a side table, its pages lit by a faint aura that draws focus and beckons insistently to the Editors. Touching it will bring them into the Story.
Characters can either voluntarily touch the Story to enter it, or the Librarian will eventually sweep them in. Regardless of how long it takes them to enter, everyone will arrive at the same point in time.
When: November 14- November 27
Where: Woodhurst (UK) and the SS Radiance (in space!), 2019
Content warnings: Please tag warnings in comment headers!

In Woodhurst

It’s another Monday morning in Woodhurst, and as is often the case for the United Kingdom in the fall, it is raining. It is, all in all, a rather typical Monday morning. People shuffle off to work, dropping by the various cafes and shops for their morning caffeine. Polite (if meaningless) greetings are exchanged, vague comments about the weather are made. Heads down, trudging along, just keeping things going.

By midday, it’s clear that this Monday is a little bit… different. There are some people who seem especially cheerful and helpful. Perhaps you’ve just been served a free upsize of your morning coffee. Or a stranger held an umbrella up for you. People keep talking about the benefits of yoga? And it’s not just a bunch of people seeming to be having an especially good day and paying it forward (that would be strange enough). Some of your friends and loved ones aren’t acting like themselves, aside from being remarkably cheerful. They don’t seem to remember basic things, don’t know their normal rituals, and are generally just very off. You think one of them might have blinked sideways? Whatever it is that’s happened, it doesn’t seem right.

As for those ‘friends and loved ones’… The novices from the Interstellar Group are largely inexperienced with such a thing as covert operations. Fresh off the ship and with no frame of reference, their human disguises may have a few significant flaws.

However many fingers it is they have, they’re keen to help - perhaps a little too much so. Whatever it takes to make these human lives easier, whatever they can do to help them relax - the Group are on it! Hopefully they’ll catch on quietly.


On the IMW Group Supply Ship: Radiance

No plan survives contact with the enemy, is how the saying goes. But within the Interstellar Mindfulness & Wellness Group, the concept is usually applied to patients. Patients are, almost entirely across the board, unpredictable creatures - and while the science behind wellness is robust, there’s simply too much individual variation for a standardised approach. That being said, this particular plan seems to be going… rather more poorly than expected. It starts to break down once the word ‘kidnapping’ is brought up. It’s such an ugly word to use. The Group tries to avoid it. But in some of these cases, the humans need the Group’s own facilities! The idea was to convince the humans to follow them to a very not suspicious space capsule, or to get them to touch this particularly strange teleportation device, and they’d be on their way to recovery. However, most if not all the humans seem to be reacting… quite negatively to that. It’s almost like they don’t understand that this is for their benefit!

The ship is very nice, and perfectly designed to relax and comfort (--for the species the Group are familiar with, at least). Soothing music plays along the spaceship’s halls, which are lit in a soft violet glow. Potted plants are artfully displayed, though none of them are recognisable as any species found on Earth. For those with a sensitive nose, the flowers give off a bright, delicate scent; not unlike that of lavender and lemon myrtle. An entire stretch of glass is dedicated to the view outside, the Earth looking so serene from this distance; stars shining in the space around it.

For those Aliens aboard the mothership, maybe you’re delivering this hour’s yoga session. Maybe you’re leading a group chant or meditation. Are you perhaps talking humans into resting in the healing spa, or - for those so inclined - are you delving deeper, forming a connection, and really getting to know these humans? For the humans… well, at least the spa looks really nice, right?

[Space Spa Features:
Yoga - you’ve been herded into a room where a flexible alien encourages you to breathe deeply; holding it in your stomach and feeling your heart beat before letting it out in a big sigh. The routine is not very different to yoga on Earth, except… well, if you can’t find your proboscis, maybe that particular pose won’t work for you.
Sauna - the heat promotes circulation, but the temperature in here seems to be a little off.
Spa - you know what a spa is. Or, you thought you did. It looks like the aliens aren’t quite on the same page. Where there would normally be cucumbers, there’s a strange pink fruit. Where you’d expect water, there’s… a viscous fluid, gently rotating through a myriad of colours, that seems to soften and soothe your muscles as you soak in it.
And Others - the aliens have no shortage of remedies for what ails you! Since this is their first time experiencing humans, results may vary.]


Optional prompts (player-run):
An alien adrift, unsure what task to complete? Seek guidance from your leader.

In Woodhurst, unnerved and skeptical? Drop in at your local seedy bookshop to chat with some alien enthusiasts.

[Have a plan to drive the Story direction? Let us know, and we’ll add it to the list!

Info post can be found here.]

Comments

Konrad Curze - Reader.

[curzed]

Konrad Curze isn't out and about during daylight. Could he be? Yes. Is it very uncomfortable? .. Also yes. His vision isn't tuned to the full glaring unpleasantry of the midday sun, even if that sun is hidden behind clouds and rain, but he is listening, and he's watching.

Watching some people react with disquiet to their family members ... not quite acting right. Disguises aren't flawless. His own isn't 'flawless', though he's closer to baseline human than these things running around in human skins. He's just shorter. Still tall for a human, but not the giant he usually is. But he has the right amount of fingers, and he's not strangely, obscenely cheerful.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers had been a warning, making it clear that human colonies are under attack by things that replace the innocent humans with facsimiles that don't quite blend in the way they should.

Clearly the xenos plants are adapting.

True to his preferred name of Night Haunter, as soon as dark falls, Curze pads through Woodhurst on bare feet, his black feather cloak replaced by an equally battered, careworn and ragged looking trench coat and bedraggled dark jeans that do absolutely nothing for keeping off the rain. He's not doing anything yet to the people he's following, but repeatedly any given alien might find a different kind of shadow dogging their footsteps as soon as night falls.

Even fellow Readers in disguise might be trailed a bit if they're out after sunset, til he figures out who they are.

He's not doing anything else. Not yet.

[hellandbackpack]

It's three a.m. Do you know where your idiot teen is?

Because this one is up on the roof of a derelict video shop with a pile of crumpled cans and a cricket bat. There's the occasional clink of aluminium against wood, then the ping of the metal hitting pavement, or the side of a tree, or a fence somewhere across the street. He doesn't see the person lurking in the dark just yet or he'dve waited to send his next shot flying, arcing neatly on a collision course with the side of the stranger's head if he didn't do something about it.

[curzed]

It's three a.m., and most people are NOT out and about. Most people are safe at home, in their beds, where they're supposed to be.

Except that kid up there.

Konrad can see perfectly well in pitch blackness; this amount of light, cast from windows and streetlamps, means nothing Charles is doing up there is a surprise even without the crack of aluminum being launched into the air can by can.

Knowing why the boy's doing it is another matter entirely, as another can is sent soaring into the night. He stays where he is for a while, observing, trying to puzzle out exactly what the teen is doing besides littering. In a town full of aliens, this behavior could be indicative of another--

The next can whalloped into the night is caught before it can actually hit him, a distinctly unclattery sort of muffled sound, no satisfying tink of aluminum bouncing off pavement or bark.

... another alien, perhaps. No time like the present to find out.

The can is tossed back up onto the roof.

[hellandbackpack]

Charles does what he wants!

He frowns as he hears the strange sound... or lack thereof from that distance really. He can't help but worry at first that he might've accidentally pegged one of the town strays, but he doesn't hear any offended animal sounds or see one darting away in the barely-there lighting of where the can had gone hurtling.

And aside from that, a cat or dog isn't gonna just... throw the can back, skittering to a halt against one of his trainers. He huffs a quiet, confused sound as he stoops to pick it up, looking from it to the dim area, squinting as if he could maybe see who was out there.

"Shadow? That you?"

[curzed]

He still can't quite tell if he's dealing with a human or not.

Not a pod person, at least, from the pict-feed they were expected to watch, that sure looks like shifting emotion to him. But that left a lot of other, utterly non-terrestrial options.

Shadow may or may not be also an alien. "Afraid not."

The voice that rises from the dark is pleasant enough, not friendly exactly but not particularly hostile. "A friend of yours, this Shadow?"

[hellandbackpack]

Shadow's alien-hood was up in the air, but Charles liked him well enough regardless.

Which meant there was a visible puff of defensiveness to his shoulders from that question lobbed by a stranger in the dark, the teen lifting his chin in a defiant sort of way. And while he definitely looked younger than he had before, he was certainly familiar enough as the ghost teen that Curze had run into in the stacks. Not that he seemed to recognize the voice in the night, as he was trying to squint into the shadows to see who was out there.

"What's it to you?"

[curzed]

"Curiosity. It's always wise to know who to kill and who to let live." That's terribly honest, and maybe such honesty will backfire, but surely it'll be fine.

And true, besides. The finer points of murder for good reasons did require subjects deserving of it, and Charles wasn't an alien. Odd how he seems much younger than before, but ... not some body snatching xenos. "There are people disappearing, after all."

He hasn't found the pods yet. Were there pods? If there weren't pods, why did they have that entire pict-feed about them?

[hellandbackpack]

"Right, sure. A picky murderer, absolutely brills."

It was not in fact brills, and while Charles was in the moment glad for some distance at that little bit of honesty, some scrap of danger awareness that had been ground into him over the years had him somewhat aware that being up on the roof wouldn't be much of a deterrent. He wasn't about to put his cricket bat down, though there was something of a perk of attention at the next thing being said.

"...D'you know where they're endin' up?" Was he suspicious of this guy? Absolutely. Was that going to stop him trying to figure out what he knew? Hell no. "I mean... there's copies runnin' around, but they're pants at tryin' to mimic who they're pretendin' to be and all."

[curzed]

Enough illumination at night to spot Curze isn't an easy thing, not with what passes sadly for human night vision, but he's making his way closer. "The best kind. It's the indiscriminate ones that need rebuking."

He's not ashamed to be a murderer. It's what he's made for.

Nor is he deterred by .. some kind of oddly flat club. That doesn't look much like a useful weapon to him. "They are indeed terrible at it. While they've improved at mimicking real people, since now they can display emotion, their behavior is.. as you said.. 'pants'." Context clues tell him what THAT'S suppsoed to be besides trousers.

"Unfortunately all the stolen may be dead, their components used to create their copies." The Night Haunter is not particularly sympathetic to mortal losses, but-- "None of your kith or kin have been replaced, I hope."

[hellandbackpack]

"I mean ideally, no murder is the goal... but I guess picky's preferrable over not."

Charles is definitely not coming down yet, but the building he's on? Not that tall. And there's a ladder to one side, so really, not a deterrent. (Not at all, but he has no clue that this nighttime weirdo is anything other than Bog Standard Creepy Human Guy #2783.)

And pay no attention to the way he pales slightly at the mention of potential fatalities. Charles can't help the way his grasp on the cricket bat tightens with a faint creak, brows drawing. "I suppose that... may be possible. But they also might not be. Plenty of stories like that where the person has to be alive so they can use their memories and such to sell the fake. And seein' how they've got my best mates, I'm gonna hope for the best, yeah?"

[curzed]

"Mm. If they did not wish murder, they should have perhaps not stolen people from their homes." The opinions of aliens .. and well meaning mortals .. did not weigh into it much! If retribution wasn't taken, they'd just keep coming back.

Charles, it seems, is missing people. "Hope is a dangerous thing, balance it with realism. Once I find these creatures' true base of operations, if any still live, I will .. endeavor to help them as I am able." Which isn't all that much. He's a killer, not a savior. But maybe they'll just need to be cut loose.

[hellandbackpack]

Any sensible teen would've taken off by now probably. Climbed down that ladder and booked it in one way or another. This weird dude hiding in the shadows was talking about murdering people after all.

Charles was not a sensible teen. He frowned at what was said, but while sense said he should make tracks? Gut instinct said otherwise. And gut instinct had him, once he'd crossed to start coming down the ladder, speaking up as he did.

"If you're lookin' to find everyone, I'm comin' with you."

[curzed]

Murdering aliens, the difference is very important!

Charles is not the first person to decide to throw away their lives without thinking about it overmuch. Following the Night Haunter into a warzone is never a good idea. Especially when he intended to create said warzone. "I intend also quite a bit of killing. It's unlikely, if their victims still live, that they would be unguarded."

[unsheathedfromreality]

There's aliens about in Woodhurst, and then there's aliens, and "Forster Green" is one of the latter.

Dropped unexpectedly into the Story -- in human shape, though his ((outself)) had changed not at all, nor the fact of his undeath -- Illarion had spent his first unsleeping days hiding and surveying the territory. Learning as much as he could to fit in and craft a cover identity for himself, because that's --

That's what an Unearthed infiltrator did, without thinking much about it. Thrown into something like the field he's gone on autopilot, selecting a name for himself from among the town's graveyard dead and stealing new clothing to hide his battered kit. The resulting persona he's crafted -- some damaged veteran of some recent war, somewhere, blown into town for God-knew-what-reason -- isn't a fully convincing one, to the gossipy residents.

But Forster Green has not accumulated any accusations that he's inhuman, only unpleasant, only an out-of-towner and maybe from outside the country, with that faint Slavic accent. (It's being from out of town that's less forgivable.) No one's actually caught him lairing in the town graveyard, yet, or prowling the streets after dark hunting for who-knows-what.

But if they did, accusations might fly.

For now, though -- for this drizzly night -- he's keeping out of the streetlights as he collects a variety of flyers from wherever they've been posted. Any flyer at all might merit his attention -- but it's the especially odd ones, the "graphics design is my passion" ads for therapy or yoga or drum circles in Beautiful Natural Venues that get the most attention.

Maybe because someone not up on human visual capabilities printed a few with an ultraviolet overprint. The shrike pulls down another, staring intently at the UV-bright circle of dancing figures at the top of the page. Huh.

[curzed]

Once more the illusion fools only the eyes, a flaw inherent perhaps in what the aliens are struggling to do here.

There's no whisper of a heartbeat in that pale blond shape collecting flyers, and when he can catch it over the dampening effect of the drizzle and occasional rainshower, the scent isn't that of a living human either. Curze has been following the trail for most of the evening, starting from the graveyard when he'd simply passed through and caught a trail that wasn't man or woman but that self-claimed 'elf' from the library.

Who was, as memory supplied, reanimated dead. In a graveyard.

Nothing seemed disturbed as yet.

And so Illarion's followed. Curze isn't in a hurry, and tracking by scent alone through town and down streets and paths takes some time and patience. It's possible the primarch can be spotted in the gloom and drizzle, he's not bothering to hide exactly though he avoids the pools of streetlamp radiance as if they were a personal affront to his senses (which frankly they are), his approach gradual at best.

And following the exact trail Illarion had walked not long before. Every step the shrike's taken, every stop, a trailing ragged shadow of pale skin and dark clothes.

[unsheathedfromreality]

It does not take Illarion that long to realize he's being stalked -- old instinct more than anything tips him off to an unchanging shadow in the environment, a constant presence like a pressure at the edge of his vision.

Time to do something about it, he thinks, as he rolls up the latest poster with a tube of his other finds and tucks it away. (Where, exactly, he tucks it away might be a mystery to a close observer. It surely did not go in any of his visible pockets.) He takes a long look around him as if looking for more, then sets off at a light-avoiding amble toward the nearest cross street -- and obliquely toward his unidentified tail. If whoever-it-is doesn't move, he'll pass within twenty yards on his way to his next destination.

[curzed]

Night is no hindrance to Illarion being seen and watched, the only other biped moving out here this late for quite some distance. It may or may not be his target, he's not sure as of yet. The appearance is different, and it's too far for him to be sure whether or not there's a heartbeat, the steady light drizzling wet muffling scent more than he liked.

He remains where he is as Illarion turns and heads ... back towards him. He doesn't know how acute these aliens' night vision is, if he can be percieved in turn, but Curze is content to wait and let the potential mortal pass by unremarked upon.

Until the faint breeze shifts slightly, a barely perceptible thing except for how it alters air currents just enough. He turns neatly on bare feet and pads after the Shrike once more, silent, not bothering to follow the trail he'd been making use of anymore. Why bother, when his target is so easy to see?

[unsheathedfromreality]

A shrike's low-light vision was sharper than a human's -- and was only aided by Illarion's stalker having UV-bright patches of his own. That, and the psychic pressure that beats unease against his mind aren't proof-positive identification... But they definitely suggests who might be following him through the dark and the drizzle.

If he's right in his guess, this might be a very -- informative -- chase. (Does he imagine the tiniest flicker of challenge in his breast at the thought? The littlest hint of predatory interest?)

His current track will take him further toward Woodhurst's meager town center, and brighter lights. A moment's consideration and he turns, casually as one pleases, down the mouth of a dead-end alley. The wall at its end would be trivial for him to step past -- but it's not much harder to climb in the usual fashion, assisted by his talons and a knocked-over bin. He perches atop it for a few minutes -- or his hunter's arrival at the alley's mouth -- before slipping down the other side into the weed-strewn lot beyond.

Now he's headed for the edge of town, and the woods.

[curzed]

There's something very lazy in the manner of pursuit going on. No rushing, no hurry to catch up, not now that he had Illarion located and every sense registering the elf's presence. Undead elf in disguise.

The sound of claws on brick and creak of bin shifting under the weight of one (1) zombi bird elf marks where Illarion had gone and what he's doing before Curze rounds the corner neatly and pauses to watch his perched target for a handful of moments, bracketed by the dim glow of a streetlamp across the road. It's almost like he's perfectly happy to be seen, since there's little effort at stealth beyond avoiding most of the light.

Can the dead feel fear? Can they feel anything at all? He's not sure, but he's going to find out, picking his way up the wall as easily as a lizard might two minutes or so behind Illarion.

The delay isn't long, but it is deliberate.

[unsheathedfromreality]

Illarion marks the time it takes for the sounds of pursuit to resume, staying just in sight of the wall until he notes the primarch cresting it after him. The lazy ease about the other man -- the bigger man, though not so much bigger now, which will make the odds more even if they come to blows, won't it? -- certainly conveys that his pursuer thinks he's got all the time in the world.

It's that kind of hunt now, is it?

Even better. Time to see if that arrogance is earned.

Once he's sure he's been spotted, the shrike takes off at a ground-eating pace -- one a well-trained living runner might maintain for hours, but at tremendous physical cost. He covers the mile or so down the road to the woods effortlessly, then cuts down a berm and into the scrub, hardly slowing. These over-managed, sickly stands of trees are a far cry from the Shroudwood and a damn sight easier to navigate even at a jog -- he doesn't make much more noise through the wet leaf litter than the wood's other nighttime inhabitants about their business.

[curzed]

Barely even bigger, now. Curze's disguise is within human bounds, Illarion's not being patiently stalked by a veritable giant at least.

The drizzle is the only real obstacle, and that barely so, muting telltale smells that would make it even easier. But where scent fails, sound and sight make up for, in disturbed earth and the sound of retreating footsteps.

That's not a flight of panic.

Illarion outdistances him without effort, a mile ticking off, then further, through scrub and brush and the lonely bare trees. Any pause, any moment to stop and listen, is time spent catching up at that same unhurried pace, following the exact path the shrike had taken. It will take a while for him to catch up, so long as Illarion keeps running. But he has all night, and this time of year, the nights are long and dark.

[unsheathedfromreality]

Dawn is a long way off, but the hours stretching til then are nothing to the longest runs Illarion's made in undeath. He hasn't slept, hasn't rested a moment since being raised in Eyes' service -- one night is a fraction of an instant to that.

And if he chose to take this seriously -- if he chose to treat his pursuer as a real threat -- he'd simply use that night to run straight away from Woodhurst. Better, he'd circle back to the train station, run the tracks until he found a car to ride, work his way to the nearest port and further out into the world.

But this is a game, a test of skill against skill, so he draws himself a little boundary in his mind in which to lead the primarch on a merry chase.

It feels almost insulting to try the elementary tricks -- false trails, walking backward in his own footsteps, forging up and down rain-swollen streams. He doesn't expect those to work and isn't surprised when they don't, instead changing tactics to take to the trees. The etiolated canopy is his enemy there -- a squirrel can surely cross the woods without touching paw to ground, but something man-sized can't.

Still, he's careful about ascents and descents, mindful to not scuff bark or snap branches or leave talon-marks anywhere. Eventually he locates the largest oak left in the forest, a centuries-old monster, and makes his way into its crown from the branches of its own children. Holes up there to wait, and watch every approach with unblinking eyes and ((eyes)).

[curzed]

Few targets bother to try tricks besides hiding, and it makes things a little more interesting. All these methods to evade a hunter are rarely used, and the Night Haunter's not fooled for even a heartbeat but he is pleased to see it. The slight blurring of a footprint marking a second overlaying the first, pressure of a body's weight on the toes instead of the heel, disturbed pebbles in water, small amounts of overturned leaves and lingering scent marking a hop from one trail to another.

An effort that isn't blind, panicky running. On clearer straightaways, where he can tell Illarion shifted from one track to another, he breaks his easy steady pursuit and moves significantly faster, well aware his target is far ahead.

He doesn't climb the trees after Illarion when the shrike goes vertical most times, the smell of him aloft marking some place where he'd gone up even without claws and damage to show for it, and inevitably a mark when he reaches the ground again; it slows Konrad only marginally.

Climbing up after him right now is a waste of energy. There's nowhere to hide in these smaller trees. Not so much the enormous oak somehow missed by loggers and time; once more scent isn't on the ground, it's in the air.

An obvious place to try to hide. Could dead things get tired? Could they grow weary of running and seek a place to rest?

Through the trees and across the forest floor on bare feet comes Illarion's bemused hunter, rather sooner than he should at that easy pace - he must have broken it at some point and chosen to run instead of stroll. And to normal vision he's not easy to spot, long shadows strangely obscuring beyond even what little the damp, cloudy forest would normally allow for. To other, less mundane senses in other dimensions there's no mistaking where he is at any given time.

The oak and its largest surviving children are circled on silent bare feet slowly, testing wind direction and signs of his target having left the area. No. No, the undead xenos is still here, and a flicker of the impression of the next few minutes leaves him certain of it. The speed Curze is used to is still thoroughly absent, much to his annoyance, but ascent of something so large and sturdy is a simple enough task, pulling himself up with an ease that belied using only short ragged sharp nails and strength to accomplish.

[unsheathedfromreality]

There are stories among elves, from the morning of the world, of the terror of humans on the hunt. Elven ancestors -- little dragons, kin to modern reaper-hawks -- were ambush hunters, tuned for the sprint, the stoop, and the explosive kill. Humans had always favored endurance, implacable and bloody-minded once they had their eyes on something. Only their own comparatively weak senses gave their prey a chance at slipping pursuit -- if it could just fade away and hide without being noticed. Befriending wolves had patched up part of that weakness, but here's a human -- a "human" in name only, maybe -- who's got a wolf's nose and a hunting cat's eyes on top of his native endurance. All in one solitary, bloody-minded package -- and that's ...

Exhilarating. Disquieting. Both -- it would be terrifying if this hunt held any stakes for Illarion, if he were taking it seriously. (He does not know he should be.) But he's yet got tricks up his sleeve, the sort no hunter expects if they haven't tracked Shroudwood prey in the broken-mirror maze the pillar had made of the shrike homeland. So he waits until the primarch's circled the stand of oak and ascertained his presence -- waits until the other man's committed to the climb -- then abruptly vanishes from his perch.

Or so it would look to anyone without ((eyes)) to see, as he twists kata of the oak's crown and slides down ((around)) it. He can't go too far this way, outside the surface of the world more limited creatures can see, but he does go to ground and walk straight out of the grove two hundred yards -- three hundred -- before stepping ana again and resuming his usual shape in the world.

He's put the whole bole of the ancient oak between himself and any prying eyes, and he's downwind of his pursuer. He creeps directly away as soundless as a cat, passing ((around)) rather than stepping on anything that would give him away.

It's an expensive trick, but he's never had to do it for long, in his experience. The break in his trail should be disorienting enough.

[curzed]

... This is new.

Curze pulls himself onto a branch barely strong enough to hold his weight and crouches there, hands resting on his knees, otherwise immobile for the span of several breaths. He's pursued all kinds of sapient prey, most human, some not, but few of the tricks they pulled could fool him for long.

And yet the dead xenos is missing. Not entirely, there's a strange feeling he associated with the shifting tides of the Immaterium, not quite a scent or a sound but almost. Nothing he could see, though, only something like a smell, briefly close by.

No longer above. That much is certain.

He drops back to the ground without bothering to climb, the impact of his weight in this lesser form easily absorbed by leaves and wet earth, still again for a moment or two before he circles the tree again like a hound seeking a trail. It's much harder to find, almost bafflingly so, but when he catches the not-scent again as he crosses its trail, he reorients neatly on it and spends a moment familiarizing himself with the foreign feeling.

Then follows it, unerringly but with slow caution as he learns, senses strained to catch the faint impressions that weren't really part of the usual suite of experience at all. The only divergence is necessity, he can't move through solid objects without destroying them first.

It's been decades since anything not another primarch taxed his ability to track a target. This is as difficult to get his teeth around as stalking Corax. But oh, the warm pleasure of satisfaction when the trail blooms into the comparatively heavy scent of tears and fabric, faint but concrete, some three or four minutes after Illarion passes.