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Mar 31, 2019 12:54:44 GMT -6
Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2019 12:54:44 GMT -6
No it wouldn't, would it? The problem was Molly didn't know what would. She sighed and nodded. "If you want to sit this one out, go ahead. I'll find another person to help with the sigils. Don't worry about the paperwork either. We just need to catalog it and then get it into storage. I can do that on my own." Hell, it was heavy enough it'd be a pain in the ass to move it anywhere but to storage.
They had done this a few times. Usually Xiaolian did the paperwork, but Molly would handle it for this one. Artifact retrieval was usually fairly easy after all. She just needed to identify what the artifacts were, note them in the records, and get them into artifact storage. The only part thattripped her up was they had both noted something appeared to be missing, but depending on what was decoded about the damn thing, there may be no search for the item at all. and if there was, well, Molly would handle it.
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Mar 31, 2019 13:00:01 GMT -6
Post by Circe on Mar 31, 2019 13:00:01 GMT -6
Xiaolian nodded, more than eager to end their conversation about the artifacts and their casket then and there. She was however, surprised that Molly wasn't asking more questions about how she knew the sigils or why they would need nullification items; not a natural null. But she supposed Molly would have the pleasure of finding that out herself, the other woman always did seem to enjoy throwing herself headlong into her work, and Xiaolian couldn't blame her. When a person found something that truly fascinated them and held their attention, there was no limit to the amount of time they would spend on it.
However, Xiaolian just didn't find this recent find fascinating, she instead found it terrifying. But, admitting her fears was the potential to showing weakness that could be exploited by a partner. A partner who despite the best efforts had only lately seen her as a tool and underling.
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Mar 31, 2019 13:03:58 GMT -6
Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2019 13:03:58 GMT -6
Most of the ride back was silent, Molly trying to think of how she could make it better, her mind half on how she had been treating Xiaolian lately when they were on case - like Molly was in charge, not the other, like the other was a tool, not a friend - and half on the case. The other was clearly afraid of the items. She knew her well enough to know that. Nothing effected Xiaolian openly, not like this.
As they were pulling in, Molly gripped her seat belt tightly and then asked a single question. "How worried should I be about this Xiao? Should I break out the big runes?" That would suck, and probably mean she needed the help of the local runes master. Molly was good, yes, but she wasn't a specialist by a long shot.
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Mar 31, 2019 13:24:01 GMT -6
Post by Circe on Mar 31, 2019 13:24:01 GMT -6
"Very." Was the single answer the woman gave her partner. "Not...hm.. world ending, but fairly serious." She said thoughtfully, trying to remember what the thing had been capable of. It had been so long since she had last seen it and encountered it, that the details were still a little fuzzy. "I'm more concerned about what's missing to be honest." Xiaolian added. At least their group had gotten the majority of the set before anyone else could get it. Without the rest of the items present, especially the scroll, crisis could be theoretically averted. But, she wasn't sure if there were additional copies of the scroll elsewhere or if someone had just decided to bury the casket as a cache to come back to later once they'd managed to locate and obtain the missing item.
For all she knew, it could be anywhere and in the hands of anyone. Such seemed to be the nature of weaponry that tended to exploit it's owner. Sometimes, people were smart enough to destroy one part or separate them, or scatter them across the planes in inaccessible places. Frowning, lost in thought, Xiaolian weighed her options. They were unlikely to get anyone who could translate the Ba-Shu inscriptions on the casket, and were equally unlikely to find anyone with a knowledge of how the items worked together in concert to make their owner do their desired bidding.
"...Ba-Shu is a dead language, from the spaces in between. The spaces in between is what this is..."
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Mar 31, 2019 13:29:47 GMT -6
Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2019 13:29:47 GMT -6
Oh no. The spaces in between were...it could mean any number of things, but it never meant good. Molly nodded. "I'll get someone to get a strong set on each item and make sure they're separated under different catalog headings and numbers. It's best to make them hard to connect if that's the case, I think." Molly swallowed and girded herself. "I'm...I'm not sure, but I think you actually recognized it. I know nobody talks about their past, in the unseen, but if you want to..."
Molly trailed off and shrugged, then got out of the SUV after they parked. No one asked questions about each other in the unseen. A name to call someone, their job title, you may get that. No one asked each other about their families, about their background. Too much information was a serious thing. She had never named her mentor for that reason, had never discussed her life before MCU for that reason. It was dangerous to share information, and she never quite understood why, but she obeyed that unwritten rule.
And maybe it was just MCU that was like that, maybe it was just her team that was like that, but she knew everyone hoarded every scrap of their identity around her, and she never pushed. And maybe that was what cost her now.
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Mar 31, 2019 13:38:14 GMT -6
Post by Circe on Mar 31, 2019 13:38:14 GMT -6
Xiaolian looked over at Molly uncertain how the other would even respond to what she would say to the invitation. "Do that, and then we'll talk." She replied as she climbed out of the SUV. It wasn't that Xiaolian was terribly secretive, it was that she didn't give information unless asked or it was necessary. Volunteering information could sink an individual in the unseen faster than anything else, it also opened them up to exploitation by unsavory individuals and groups. It was such a concern that many of the unseen were taught from the time they were small to only give the absolute minimum and necessary information if and when they needed to. Many children of the unseen were also taught by their parents to blend as much as possible, out of fear or out of valid concern how the mundane world would treat them.
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Mar 31, 2019 13:49:09 GMT -6
Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2019 13:49:09 GMT -6
Molly nodded and took care of the artifacts, filing them under ritual of asian origin, ritual dagger, and after some thought, magical container. They'd all be taken off the storage and sorted into different places, hopefully far from each other. she finished up the paperwork and made certain that she had correctly filled out and filed the paperwork before she went to see Xiaolian again.
She knocked at the edge of the other's cube and managed a weak smile. "Hey. The artifact case is wrapped up. Artifact pickup is scheduled for tomorrow, early morning hours." She shrugged. "They should be going to three separate places. I gave them pretty standard names, so they'll hopefully be lost in a sea of like items." Seriously, there were a ton of ritual daggers out there. You'd need an in depth description and a unique looking dagger to tell one from another.
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Mar 31, 2019 14:16:48 GMT -6
Post by Circe on Mar 31, 2019 14:16:48 GMT -6
"Good." Xiaolian replied with a slight nod as she closed out a window on her computer screen, leaving only a bland blue desktop with a few scattered icons on it. "I assume standard protocol with ritual items? Nullification containers, standard description, separate...secure places?" She asked looking at the other questioningly. Normally she was the one who did all the paperwork for their cases, but it was time that Molly started doing her fair share as well. Xiaolian was getting a bit tired of the way they had split their duties, and was at least happy that the other hand agreed that change was in order once she realized it.
"I said I would answer your question about the items." She said scanning the other's face for a moment, noting the uncertainty and anxiety. "So yes.. I did recognize them. They're part of a ritual designed to call an army of the damned and unwilling dead, and anything else it can. These hordes then go looking for war, and something to end their suffering. It was a last ditch effort by the Ba-Shu people using forbidden magics to expel invaders from their plane, the inbetween. Some of them.. some of us managed to make it to here afterwards and quietly went about our lives." Xiaolian explained to Molly. The inbetween was a mix of things, and constantly influx. "The items were sealed away in a casket, which I had naively assumed was forgotten to the ages. Fortunately though, I found the missing item sitting in our Iceland branch's inventory."
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Mar 31, 2019 14:24:21 GMT -6
Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2019 14:24:21 GMT -6
"Standard protocol. I do know it, even if you do most of the paperwork. Which has to change. I can't keep leaning on you like this." And she planned on stopping too. She could do paperwork herself, and knew how to. "So I'm going to handle my portion from now on. Promise." And Molly kept her promises. She was careful about that. In the unseen, you were only as good as your word. Molly smiled at the other uncertain.
"That makes you probably older than the warden, doesn't it?" She wrinkled her nose at the thought. That was a long time to live. No wonder nothing seemed to phase her. And army of the damned was serious business though, and Molly was all too happy that they had managed to get the components separated. They'd be going to very different facilities too. "You must have had people like me to make it out of the in between, or from another plane." Was the other like her? Did she just keep quieter about it than Molly did?
Everyone not on the team knew she could go places all around the earth. That was in her profile, and she handled ward breaking cases for other branches some times, if they asked and the Warden okayed it. But only her team really knew how Molly could travel any more than that.
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Mar 31, 2019 14:43:18 GMT -6
Post by Circe on Mar 31, 2019 14:43:18 GMT -6
Xiaolian thought for a minute trying to figure out a answer to Molly's question. "First off I don't know how old the warden is, and I am damn sure not about to ask. Secondly, sometimes a language or culture survives elsewhere once it's no longer here. The Ba-Shu had been there for longer than anyone really knows before the invasion." She explained thoughtfully. Xiaolian really hadn't thought about the spaces inbetween or home in a very long time. Many days it was the furthest thing from her mind and instead it was just trying to get through another day of whatever antics Molly came up with. "I've only been here since 1920... I think. We had people like yourselves help us leave, but.. we also had our own." She added having been a small child when it happened. Though there had been much back and forth when she was much older, with attempts to retrieve the ritual items and potentially search for a new home for the Ba-Shu.
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Mar 31, 2019 15:17:44 GMT -6
Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2019 15:17:44 GMT -6
"That's not too bad then." She said and smiled, uncertain. "And I'm terrified to ask myself. I just know she's up there." No one asked anyone's age anyway. It was rude. Molly hesitated a moment, then offered uncertain. "If...if you want, or anyone like you wants, I can try and find a path back. For forgotten things, since going back is probably not a good idea, if there's undead there." An army would take a lot of power to dispel, and she didn't know anyone with that strength.
Still, she could at least offer. She had the ability to track down other places, based on their description. "It might mean revealing more than you're comfortable with though. I'd need details to find it. Possibly a lot, depending on how close it is to others." In nature, among other things. Finding this plane was interesting enough. She knew it because she had walked it, but there were an awful lot close to it that she didn't like admitting existed.
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Mar 31, 2019 15:43:24 GMT -6
Post by Circe on Mar 31, 2019 15:43:24 GMT -6
Xiaolian just shook her head and looked at Molly strangely. "No... I've tried. It's been sealed off somehow."
The last excursion that the program she'd been part of before a series of unfortunate assignments and partners had been to find a way back to that plane or dimension. Instead, they had always ended up just a few spaces shy of it, sometimes even in the void itself until they were able to find a way back. The Council had wanted the artifacts secured by any means necessary, and were only too happy to send someone who had been there back to retrieve them. Their excuse was that she knew the lay of the land so to speak, not to mention the language. Those two things, and her ability to get them there were all that mattered to the Council. "The lotus program tried decades ago. Some didn't survive the trip." She added, dropping her voice to a low whisper, knowing the Council would have her head if they found out she had said anything.
By all technicalities, Xiaolian was still part of the program, as she had never been debriefed or reassigned permanently. She suspected that the Council was still looking for a way to prevent incursions from other planes out there in the aether. Ones that had already corrupted several branches on the world tree and were eager to encompass more territory in their own grasp.
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Mar 31, 2019 15:55:41 GMT -6
Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2019 15:55:41 GMT -6
Molly bit her lip and whispered back. "It's not safe to travel there. I'm not surprised." That the other might have been in some program that would encourage inter-planar excursions was horrific. Molly had walked in the in between, in the spaces between the planes up and down the world tree, much like Ratatoskr. She suggested them for no one at all, given how she knew the cold dark in between was, the hard truths it forced on you and those you went with. She had extensive training from others like her.
Molly wet her lips and swallowed. The Council was mad for financing that sort of excursion. Only others like Molly should ever face that place. And they weren't exactly plentiful and would never attempt anything like that. It was an insular community that you got brought into as a child. She managed a bland smile and glanced around. "So. You've shared, so I guess I should too. To make it fair. Is there anything you want to know?"
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Mar 31, 2019 17:57:03 GMT -6
Post by Circe on Mar 31, 2019 17:57:03 GMT -6
"I feel like you don't understand Molly... my home isn't accessible to anyone at all." Xiaolian stressed, unsure if the other was even paying attention to the context clues she'd used. The other could be incredibly dense at times, and this seemed to be one of those times. However, she soldiered on with trying to explain everything to the other.
"And of course it isn't safe.. as far as I know there's nothing there but blight." She sighed. The Ba-Shu had largely minded their own, of course there was the occasional disagreement between families or the larger groups, but that had been it. The last time she had been back it had been nothing but a baren wasteland, cold and desolate, with little sign of life that made Xiaolian shiver at the thought.
"Well.. I am curious... is it normal for someone where you come from to be so tall? Most of us Ba-Shu are small and ideal for fighting the dangers of home." Xiaolian asked with a sly grin. She couldn't resist the urge to poke Molly a bit about her size.
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Truths
Mar 31, 2019 18:05:48 GMT -6
Post by demikara on Mar 31, 2019 18:05:48 GMT -6
Molly laughed and shook her head. "I'm actually gee....four foot something I think. This is just a physical glamour. It's pretty advanced, but I've been holding it up since I was a kid." She shrugged, amused. "No one questions a model-esque blond. The only second look I ever get is someone stunned by my glamours beauty." She snickered, amused. "I was adopted, so I can't tell you much about my parents. But my extended family, well, they come in all sizes." She shrugged. She hesitated a moment and then smiled.
"I only know they're my extended family because of a family gift. None of us look alike and no one knows who my parents were either." It wasn't a gift that hit everyone equally after all. It could skip multiple generations before showing up again. There was no concentrating it, or having children with another of them in hopes that child would have the gift too. It didn't work like that, as far as Molly knew.
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