Breaking and Entering for a Bird [Luna/Inv]

[Lorencia]

"Let's see here... Destiny Island? I think this is the place." The mage stepped out of her gateway with a green nature spirit following close by. Said spirit was normally 7-foot tall, but for this excursion, she elected to shrink to half her size. It was easier to move around this way and didn't draw as much attention.

"This feels... unusual, but... the world feels much bigger... I feel much smaller..."

"Well, you can turn back if you want, you know. Nothing is really stopping you."

"Well I suppose--"

"Hey, lady!"

The mage and her familiar were interrupted by a pair of children, about the age of 7 or 8, running up to them. Before she could ask what the rush was, the elder of the two asked, "Have you seen a bird fly past here?"

"A bird?" she repeated, scanning the skies in a swaying manner. She didn't see a lot of birds up there, but there was the occasional bat, which made sense since it was a little past midnight. They couldn't be looking for an owl, would they? "Not since we got here, no. Did you lose your pet?"

The children nodded, with the younger one on the verge of tearing up. "Oh. Well, sorry I couldn't help," she said before marching off.

"Lorencia!" The nature spirit had a disapproving tone towards the mage. While she had no particular love for humans and their enslavement of other creatures, she simply couldn't stand to watch the shocked disappointment on both children's faces, and that tipped the scale against her disgust for said slavery of a creature, namely a bird, one of the freest creature in nature.

"Her pet spoke!"

"I am not a pet, I'm a companion." The spirit sighed and walked towards the direction of one of the more prominent-looking houses. "I sense a bird with your scent over there. It might be trapped."

"Oh boy! Lorencia and Terra to the rescue!"

"Lorencia, please. People are asleep."

When they reached the house, Lorencia immediately tried the door to find that it was locked. Terra did the sensible thing and lead the two children around the house to look for the bird as it may have only settled into a small space like a crack in the wood, or settled into an enclosed space somewhere that was hard to reach. Lorencia on the other hand, decided to take her investigation inside.

Holding her hand out, a metal staff with a key-like end and a large ruby at the top appeared. "Aaaaaand tap~" she said as the tip of her staff gently touched the knob, and the door simply opened for her. "Hello~! Anyone home? I'm here for the bird!" she shouted into the house as she invited herself in to look for the winged creature.

[Wielder Luna]

Luna gasped for air, “Exhausted, again.”


She glared toward the object a few feet in front of her, a floating sapphire mask illuminated by several floating purple spheres which provided the only light in the room. Upon the mask’s forehead area is a circular golden seal, several arcane symbols dotting its circumference.


After she regained her energy, Luna let out a deep sigh, “It is getting late now, isn’t it?” She stood up, brushing herself off before holding her palm out toward the mask, “]Dispel]”


The floating orbs fizzled out and the mask lightly floated down, a small clank echoed as it touched the ground. She turned and walked out of the room, getting ready to close and lock it before she heard another door open in her house.


Who could that be? I don’t remember having...wait, was that the front door?!


Her fears were confirmed when she heard someone call out asking if anyone was home and something about a bird. Luna readied herself, her hands coated with Thunder magic before she strode into the guest’s sight.


Luna shot a glare at the uninvited guest, “Who are you and what are you doing barging in my house like that?!”

[Lorencia]

It wasn't that long until someone appeared before the mage, electricity charged up in her hand. Despite appearing hostile and ready to gut her, and with great reason, Lorencia simply shot a grin towards the homeowner, giving her a friendly wave. "Hiya! My name's Lorencia, and this is--" she looked behind her and saw that her familiar was not there. She would have thought she'd have entered after her by now. "Oh, um... it looks like she's still outside."

She turned back towards the home owner and continued on to explain why she was here, setting her keystaff on her side. "A couple of kids were looking for their pet bird, and my familiar said it was this way, so we came here to retrieve it. I don't suppose you have it caged in here?" she asked, leaning forward to look further into the house.

"Nice home by the way."

[Wielder Luna]

Luna gave Lorencia a look. Her wave and friendly act caught Luna off guard. It did seem that this Lorencia didn’t have any hostile intentions at heart, so she lowered her fists, but kept some light Thunder magic flowing through her hands just in case.


“Um, thanks, but I don’t have a bird here,” she said, “besides, isn’t it kind of late to go looking for a lost pet out here anyway? Especially a pet bird at that.”


She shook her head, “That still doesn’t change the fact you just barged in here. You could have knocked first at the very least.”

[Lorencia]

Lorencia shrugged. "It is, yeah, but the kids were out looking for it when we came here, and my trusty companion said she sensed it somewhere here... so... I half-expected a birdnapper."

The Nobody tapped the floor twice and a gateway portal appeared behind her. It fizzled into existence, its size just a bit bigger than the door she went through. "I'll just have Nichole's spiderlings look around the places a bird might hide in, and we'll be on our way." Behind the portal was the insides of a dank cave with very little light, but one could see the millions of eyes staring through the gate.

"Lorencia! Stop this at once!" came the authoritative tone of the nature spirit, whose figure was hidden behind the gate. "We are here to retrieve the bird, not give it a heart attack!"

The graceful, green spirit walked around the portal to Lorencia's side, and held a deeply apologetic look towards the home owner. "My apologies, human. I hope we haven't disturbed any important activities with this intrusion."

Lorencia didn't seem at all affected by being scolded, nor did she look apologetic in the slightest, yet she kept her friendly demeanor throughout, although her attention was dedicated to admiring the house.

[Wielder Luna]

Luna is usually one to keep her head in a stressful situation. Since the days she was trained in combat, she was taught to keep her fear at bay and not let any intimidation show. She was made to be a master of her own fear and the strength of her Heart would conquer those who would try and take it.


That all went out the window as soon as a portal of spiders was brought in.


Luna let out a shriek before she thrust her palm out, a golden sphere of magic streaking toward the portal, “NO NO no, nope! We are not having any of that!”


Once the spell touches the portal’s center, it would unravel into a golden arcane seal that covers the surface area of the portal with a shimmering weave.


She turns to the spirit, calming her breath, “No, no. It’s fine, I’m fine, everything's just fine. Anyway, is this bird the only thing you two are after? I suppose I can help you if you really need it that bad.”

[Lorencia]

The mage turned around to touch the now-golden sealed portal, and was, in a way, surprised that her hand couldn't go past it. "Aww, those guys could have sped things up a little..." Seeing as the portal had no use anymore, she commanded it to disappear. Wait, did any of those spiderlings scuttle out before the portal was sealed? If they did, they shouldn't be a problem. They normally don't spit acid unless they saw their mother do it.

"Well, the bird is more of a secondary objective, but it is a quicker thing to do."

"Your help will be much appreciated. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll carry on with the search outside with the children. Enclosures make me uneasy."

"Bye, Terra~" Lorencia said, waving her off as the spirit exited the building where the two kids were peeking just around the corner.

Lorencia looked back to the home owner. "So... where do we start?"

[Wielder Luna]

Luna let out a sigh of relief as the portal closed, silently hoping that the seal acted fast enough that there weren’t any stragglers. She acknowledged the leaving spirit, giving her(him? It? She’ll have to ask later...) a small nod.


Hearing Lorencia’s question, she groaned, “I’m supposing you mean in my house, right? If that’s the case, then follow me.”


Luna summoned a small ball of light, having it over upward over a flattened palm. She turned her back on the guest and began heading down the back hallway, the clicks of her heels echoing throughout.

[Lorencia]

"Alright, following your lead!" The staff in her hands disappeared with a faint flash that lasted for a split second. Her footsteps followed close behind the home owner's, while her eyes looked for any clues of a bird being there. A feather or... well, feathers are the only clues a bird can leave behind, and she doubted it could build a nest so quickly.

"What birds do people here keep as pets?"

[Wielder Luna]

She’s an excitable one, Luna thought. Granted, she did show her excitability the moment she showed up.


Upon hearing Lorencia’s question, she gave a shrug, “Not really sure. I’ve never really been a pet person.” She turned toward one of the double doors on the left wall, “Maybe parrots, or something. Either way, here’s the library.”


With her words and a flick of her wrist, the doors sweeped open, several blue wisps floating from her palm and lighting several candles along the library’s walls. The room was brightened within seconds, revealing its vastness and the assortment of neatly assortment of books and scrolls.


“Well,” she said, “if this bird is anywhere, this will be the first place I’d look.”

[Lorencia]

"Parrots, huh?" She hummed in thought for a moment as she paused while the home owner opened the doors to their first room. "I should go get some crackers then. Parrots love those, don't they?" She looked towards the library and was impressed by the sheer collection there. She must really like reading.

"Are you a scholar by any chance? You don't normally find scrolls in someone's personal library." Lorencia walked down the aisles, quickly looking through the book titles as she passed her fingers over each of them. "Some of these books aren't in the castle's library or archive. Do you think we could borrow them sometime? We'll just have the scribes duplicate it and it'll be back here in no time!"

What were they here for again? "Oh right, the bird." It would definitely have been easier with the spiders crawling around this place, but it seems her eyes and ears would have to do. She looked for feathers, maybe some bug remains, or even a few dried grass that a bird could have dropped when they were trying to build their nest. So far, she couldn't find anything on her side.

[Wielder Luna]

Luna gave a shrug to Lorencia’s question, “Maybe, makes sense I suppose.”


As she scanned the ceiling, she considered what her guest asked, “I wouldn’t call myself a scholar, really. Some of these I came across, some of them are, well, experiments.” She picked up one of the scrolls, unraveling it and revealing a number of runes arranged in a circular pattern, “only about half of these and the books have been translated. So I suppose that I can let you look through some of those ones.”

She rolled up the scroll and put it back in its place, then gave Lorencia a glare.

"But, " she said, "make sure you ask me before even cracking one of these open."

[Lorencia]

Lorencia had picked up a book as she passed by it and had her thumb on the edge of it, about to crack it open when Luna's warning fell to her ears. "Oh. Well, can I open this one?" she asked, showing the cover to Luna. It was a bound book with a strange symbol on the front. It was of a spider with a rune on its back, but she forgot what it was called, but the moment she touched it, the hairs on her body stood on end.

[Wielder Luna]

Luna took a look at the book, her spine tingling at the sight of the symbol on the front. Though she did recognize it, she placed her hand on the book, “Actually, this one shouldn’t be too bad,” she said, turning around and searching the ceiling, “that spider is a symbol of a god from the world where it came from.”


She tapped her chin walking back to Lorencia, “Specifically the god of balance. His name was, ah, ‘Derech.’” Luna gave Lorencia an amused smile, patting the cover of the book, “If you’re looking for a book of magic, I would try to find another one. From what I’ve learned reading books like those, Derech was not fond of magic and summoning was pretty much forbidden to his devoted. Though,” she said, tapping her chin again, “I have read tales of wards and Silencing from books revolving around him and his devoted. Who knows,” she shrugged, “maybe you can figure something out reading that.”

[Lorencia]

Lorencia stroked her chin in thought. She was learning something new already, and all in the span of five minutes in the library. People say that libraries were places of knowledge, but learning something that fast must be a record or something. "Derech, you say? That's a new one for me." As she listened to the homeowner explain who Derech was, she returned the book to where she found it, saving herself from the trouble of forgetting about the bird they were looking for.

Derech's world was definitely not a world she would be welcomed in, considering she was all about magic and summoning. What spell blew up in face to make that illegal? "Hmm, learning to silence other mages would be helpful at times. I'll get back to that book when we find that bird." She couldn't find a single spot where a bird could hide. Usually they'd be in corners and cracks in the walls, right? Somewhere they could be comfortable and not easily affected by the weather.

"Can't find any clues here... Say, do you have an attic, or any other place you haven't been to often? I'm thinking that if I was a bird in a place that's completely new, I'd probably go for places where not a lot of people are hanging around."

[Wielder Luna]

Luna gave a nod, “Of course. Just be sure to remind me.”


Lorencia’s next question forced Luna to pause. She made a good point.


“Well, I do have an attic, but…” her words strayed off. She was looking for a good excuse to go up there again.


After some consideration, she nodded to Lorencia, “You know what, alright. How about we pay the attic a visit?”


She exited the library, motioning for her guest to follow, “This way.”

[Lorencia]

Lorencia turned fully towards the homeowner, confirming the existence of an attic within the home. "Excellent!" she exclaimed, pumped up on the thought of them getting somewhere with this bird hunt. She followed the woman every step of the way, passing her hands over a few more books as they walked out of the library. There wasn't a lot of dust on her glove when she checked, so she knew the books were taken care of. "By the way, I didn't catch your name."

[Wielder Luna]

Luna continued down the main hallway, heading toward a dead end.


She stopped a few feet short of the wall before turning her head, “Oh, sorry, it kind of slipped my mind back there. You know, with the spiders and all. My name’s Luna. It’s a, well, pleasure to meet you.”


She turned her attention back to the wall before her and took a deep breath. Luna then removed her right glove before she placed her index finger on the back of her hand.


“I certainly hope the bird isn’t in here,” she said, a bright purple glow emanating from beneath her finger, “but, we should check just in case.”


Several purple lines stretched out from beneath from the light, forming a cross shape on the back of her hand and stretched toward her palm.


“Ah,” she said, pained gasps breaking her words, “I hate using this, you know. The things you do for security though, right?”


She turned her hand, her palm now facing upward. The lines came together on the center of her palm, forming a hollow circle. A bulge of flesh then rose from the circle covered by deep grey skin. Luna’s gasps grew more and more intense before the bulge rose to a height of a few centimeters, her gasp then became a full on cry when the skin peeled back and revealed an almost human eyeball.


After she caught her breath, Luna stood back up, “‘The Eye of Jyd’, I hate using it, but like I said, not very many people can use it.”


The purple energy pulsed around her hand and the eyeball seemed to be focused upward facing the way her palm was.

She turned to face the wall before them, "This thing here will be our key to get into the attic," she said, "but, ah, just give me a second, I'm going to need to catch my breath for this."

[Lorencia]

"You don't like spiders? But they're so fluffy and hug-able!" she said with nothing but enthusiasm in her voice. "Well, it's a pleasure to meet you too, Luna!"

Lorencia watched as she did something with her hands. For security? It seemed a little complex, but if she was the only one who could do it, then that would make it extremely secure for sure. Though as Lorencia continued to watch Luna in pain, she wondered if this might be taking security too far. Surely there were... less painful ways of achieving the right effects, but that was none of her business. Maybe she liked doing it that way, who knows?

"Is that eye an artifact, or did you make it yourself? Oh wait, let me guess, you defeated a mage, sorcerer, wizard, necromancer or whatever and ripped out their eye, and enchanted it to make things like entrances to the attic invisible to the naked eye?! Hmm... I sort of recall having been taught how to do that..."

[Wielder Luna]

Luna shot a glare over her shoulder to Lorencia, “I will have to respectfully disagree with you about spiders, but yes, it is nice to meet you as well, Miss. Lorencia.”

After listening to her second question, she thought for a second, facing forward as she aimed her palm toward the wall before them, a bright violet light emulating from her palm.

“A friend of mine actually gave me this. It’s a bit of a favor, really. Never asked for the specifics of this, didn’t really want to know, but it’s kind of handy despite the drawbacks.”

Soon, a matching colored cross mirroring the symbol on the back of Luna’s hand appeared on the wall an eye shape forming in the center. Soon after, the symbol shimmered out and the wall vanished with it revealing a spiraling stone staircase. With it, the symbol on Luna’s hand vanished, a turn of her wrist showed that the eye did as well.

Putting her glove back on, Luna said, “Well, shall we go up?”

[Lorencia]

"Just call me Lorencia. Save those formality stuff for formal gatherings," she'd say with a little chuckle. She herself didn't use those honorifics much unless she was with someone she didn't know the name of, haven't met with yet or during times where using them was expected like in formal gatherings, like she said.

As Luna's key revealed a secret passage, Lorencia was staring in awe. It didn't matter that she knew a number of methods to hide a passage with magic, she could faintly remember learning about it before her heart was taken from her, yet seeing someone actually demonstrate something like it was outstanding.

"Are you kidding? I'd like to have one of those, taken from the body of an adversary or not. Hmm... maybe I should make something like it. How hard could it be, right?" Asked whether they'd proceed, the mage nodded. "Of course! Lead the way! Oh, before we do though, there's nothing up there that's going to try and kill anyone that's not you, right? Hidden rooms are usually booby trapped"

[Wielder Luna]

“Lorencia it is then,” Luna said, giving her a quick smile.

She chose to overlook her comment on having someone’s eye. Some mages are more unique than others, just something she had to live with.

“Don’t worry,” she said, responding to Lorencia’s concern, “If you were really an intruder, well, an unwelcome one I should say, you wouldn't be standing there right now,” she gave Lorencia another smile, “I had to specifically enscribe into the spell that you were with me. Should I not have done that, the ‘lock’ on the wall would have responded accordingly and I would end up having to pick your remains up in a dustpan.”

She turned back, heading up the stone stairs, “Now then, let’s not keep the bird waiting.”

[Lorencia]

"Yikes. That wouldn't have been a pleasant experience. Let's hope the bird doesn't end up like that." Considering neither one of them knew the bird, it was unlikely Luna could have added that into the spell. Unless there was an exception on birds in general. Terra was going to be furious if they went out with a pile of dust in place of the bird.

Lorencia followed her hostess up the stone steps, eager to see what Luna had stashed up there. Probably a couple of important things considering the lock that needed an eye artifact to unlock. "There must be some powerful things up here, what with the lock and lethal security system in place here."

[Wielder Luna]

Luna nodded, continuing up the stairs, “Yes, there are a few things of importance up here.”

A bright light signalled their approach to the end of the staircase and the two of them would emerge into an enormous and well lit circular room. This room seemed to be far too large to fit into the house Luna lived in, the ceiling just barely visible from where the two would stand. An almost endless amount of books lining the walls, separated into several floors, a spiraling staircase on the other side of the room connecting them.

The first thing that would likely catch anyone’s eye out of anything though would be the massive silver statue in the middle of the room. It had the appearance of a man’s torso, several arms with their palms facing upward. Above each palm was a floating orb, most of them were a light pinkish hue with the remainder being deep black and purple. The head of the torso had three faces, one facing left, another right, and the last forward. On its back, was a massive heart shaped symbol.

“Here we are,” she said, walking toward the statue, “the Globus Incarthum. This statue is able to show the Hearts of worlds, however I’m not able to do more than that.”

She put her finger to her chin, tapping it, examining the statue, “Wait, something’s not right. One, two…”

She continued counting before she stopped, and started again, “That’s not right. Two worlds have fallen to Darkness? Impossible, that can’t be right.”

Luna wandered off to the edge of the room, reaching a small desk. She pulled out a leather bound notebook, flipping frantically through its pages while muttering to herself.

“This can’t be right,” she continued to repeat.

In the book was a number of symbols and barely legible handwriting, the Heart and Heartless sigils cropping up consistently through it.

[Lorencia]

Lorencia felt that all this impossible space they walked up to was the work of some spacial manipulation magic, but this could just easily be a pocket dimension, and the stairs were actually leading them through a portal. Was her magic suppressed here? While Luna continued onwards, Lorencia paused for a moment to check if her own portals still worked. She opened one up, leading to another part of her own miniature world without the spiders, and saw that everything was fine, which shouldn't have really surprised her considering most of her innate Nobody magic were hardly ever considered in most warding magic. Once she saw the portal open, she immediately closed it before any of her pets eagerly escaped into Luna's attic.

Quickly catching up to Luna, she took a moment to circle the silver statue to get as much detail on it as she could. It honestly looked like an image of an old religion to her for some reason, though the statue's name didn't ring any bells.

Luna seemed distressed about something, franticly looking through her notes. She heard something about two worlds falling into darkness, and she remembered the anomaly she was sent to investigate in Wonderland, later finding out that other agents in the other worlds reported massive heartless attacks much like the one she was subjected to in Wonderland. This also made her remember why she was here in the first place.

"You must be talking about Wonderland and Land of Dragons?" she asked. "Can't say anything for Dragonland, but Wonderland was a mess when I left..." While Lorencia was talking, she started looking at the rows of books on one of the nearer shelves, straying a little from Luna.

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