Re: When neighbors come to call.

[Røse]

Firelight broke the still darkness behind Redpointe’s distillery compound. Huge, insulated silos of grain hid both Whinnie and Rose from any prying eyes, say, belonging to the children or those of hired hands such as Harken and Anton. Both likely wouldn’t have snitched on the girls for lighting up with what most certainly wasn’t tobacco but something filched from the Madam’s stash of more exotic herbal blends: marijuana with passionflower and whisky soaked marshmallow leaf.

“Oh my god, you’re giggling like a got-damned goat, Whin. Calm down!” one voice whispered harshly; followed by a deluge of equally goat-like giggling. A fine bit of hypocrisy. Rose flicked the grill lighter again while grinning and held it over the carved stone pipe for Whinnie Sloane to sample. A bit of coughing and phlegm being expelled ensued after they’d completed another trade of the pipe.

They’d come out to smoke as usual because it was so very boring around the compound these days. In the dead of winter there’d been a lull in snowfall this close to the border between the general moist and temperate evergreen woodlands and the Taiga. Sleet littered the ground, the plows were currently slotted in the garages with full tanks and frosty windshields. The food stores would be full for months to come and the Helion steeds and hounds were all well behaved and no pregnant mares or bitches were due for weeks.

Sophonax was out west on yet another distribution run. With everything going so smoothly and their third, Khooey, wrapped around the finger of the King of Space’s son, as Rose called him, what more was there to do for young adult women than get a little stoned, dip into the whisky stores and spend the night baking and being generally vulgar?

And speaking of vulgarity, the subject turned eventually to one of the mainstays who’d join them last year- Harken, the sullen firebrand who topped nearly eight feet in height and seemed to spend more time frowning than much of anything else. Rose seemed to have a slight obsession with him: both seeing him as a bit of a tumor on the face of the ranch but also having a bit of an obvious crush on him. The young mother had a thing for exotic men with attitudes as horrid as her own.

Just as they had begun to discuss his theoretical anatomy in ways unsuited for children’s ears the matching cuffs they wore on their right wrists (required for ranch security) lit up; a circular object made out of a white, milky metal attached to a loop on the leather band began to jingle and pull at the air as if tugged. Most would mistake it for fancy Northern-Bohemian jewelry that both girls wore as a fashion statement when actually-- they had a utilitarian purpose.

They alerted the wearers when one of the nearly three hundred invisible wards on the vast expanse of the north in Redpointe territory was breached. Those who breached the security ward would likely remain completely unaware unless they were ‘tapped in’, as they say, to the conduits of power running throughout the land; juxtaposed between the strange and dangerous anomalies littered throughout the evergreens and the Taiga.

Both girls, one somewhat stocky and well built with crimson eyes and short hair so dark in color it shone blue and the other of too large silver irises, browner skin and tresses that shone like a puddle of gasoline froze and raised their arms in unison to observe the strange glowing ring. The shine from the preternatural metal was electric blue-- signifying more than one person, a party and both non-djinn related. No sign that they were able to consult the Lines or see the wards or anomalies were given. Both charms pointed north east and none too far from Søren’s peak.


The charms hadn’t lit up in nearly a year-- and what was someone, or several someone’s or anyone doing in such a direction? Most living on Sanctum weren’t even aware of the mines.

“It could be those wolves again. The weird ones?” Rose would nearly croak; grimacing already at the possibility they were going to have to ride north and re-confirm the wards.

Whinnie, always more pragmatic shook her head. The time for getting high behind the grain silos had come to an abrupt halt.

“Get your gear on. We ride up in five. You know the rules…I’ll go get Gwen.” before she turned away; her buzz failing to inhibit her sense of duty as she stalked away.

Rose knit her brows and took one last hit before rolling her eyes, tapping the ash against her palm and stashing the piece under a rusted old tin coffee can they tilted against the base of the silo.

“Whatever.” she grumbled; understanding the task was inevitable.

[Røse]

Twenty minutes later and mostly thanks to Rose dragging ass— she’d been a bit ill affected ever since all the drama had erupted on Redpointe grounds— they had on their field gear and had mounted their Helios’ to make way further up north into the true Taiga. Why had it taken so long? A woman who’d birthed children reared by Redpointe hands had met her end at Rose and Gwenna’s doing and intentionally at that. Ever since Rose had been acting a bit funny. For all she’d been through prior it had taken that strange, high octane scenario to leave her with some form of PTSD.

Whinnie-Sloane clearly didn’t appreciate the delay. While she did appreciate Rose’s friendship and understood she was as important to the ranch constables as Khooey had formerly been— she was going to have to get over blowing that woman’s head off at some point. And soon. It was really putting a cramp in team cohesion. As they took off toward Soren’s peak; Whinnie seemed to have nothing to say to Rose until both of thier bangles seemed intent on rattling with enough power to lift their arms in the direction of the unwanted guests if either girl wasn’t consciously trying to keep the limb tucked at her side.

“We’re less than two miles from whoever’s come to ground….” from Rose; her brows knit down toward the bangle. Whinnie grunted something; more than likely assuming they were more traveling vagabonds who’s wandered into dangerous grounds and would likely get themselves killed by the more violent anomolies or one of the spots where the Conduit had broken ground and enacted little warps in space/time throughout the land.

“Yeah, I don’t— “ Whinnie-Sloane was cut off and both girls bristled; eyes narrowing as they shivered and turned their heads toward what had disturbed their discourse. One of the conduit lines was roaring with feedback; something had been introduced to it which was foreign and not unlike a taint. Whatever blood based magic the Shaman was doing had disturbed the tier three wards even fifty miles from their active area.

“Okay….that ain’t wolves and that ain’t vagabonds.” From Rose who pulled her protective mask down. “Get on the radio and call for Gwenna to join us but come up from the other direction and start tapping into the conduits. Bring out new temp wards and try to lock them in...whoever they are. Lets go in silent. Don't know what they're doing this close to Soren's peak, but I dont like it. Might have to temp ward the whole damned mountain face”

Now, a different approach was in order and they even dismounted their Helios’ at two points to keep vigilant and quiet.

[Røse]

“We got some kinda blindspot now. Right where the dousers were pointing.” from Whinnie-Sloane who then cocked a brow and looked to Rose with a pointed expression. Things were getting more complicated by the moment. They both had an inkling of what it meant: magic user of some sort.

The wards wouldn’t be brought under control by non-Djinn or untrained hands, but they would certainly fizzle out and eventually go dormant as whatever corrupted them disrupted the flow of energy throughout the lands. The Conduits however, they weren’t so easily corrupted. The illusion of success would present itself to the Shaman as he was granted a small, tertiary access to the power— but it also meant the protection from the anomolies would be severely lessened. The Sentinels knew this...those not native to the Taiga and the marsh would not.

Whinnie did as asked and bought out her four-way; attempting to patch in with Gwenna and finding that it didn’t want to work. She even rapped on the butt of the small belt-clip radio a bit and earned a “Whippin’ it aint gonna do shit but break it! It’s the interference from the lines!” scolding from Rose who then shook her head.

“Just us, then. Time to go.” Rose sighed and checked her armaments both manufactured and preternatural. She had the same full artillery attached to her horse as Whinnie— both manufactured by her hand in her workshop: Iron-alloy laced machete with dynamic construction for better balance, her Springfield customized 30.0.6, two eight shooters with prototype spellstorm bullets she’d picked up from Sune’ere (Whinnie had been given six herself. What better time to test them out?), a pistol and two extra clips stowed on the thigh of her minimalist body armor along with magnetic quick-release short rhombus-shaped blades in either gauntlet. Whinnie packed lighter….she had every reason to as she was insurance if the blades and guns failed. One semi automatic rifle with Fleschette ammunition also of Rose’s design, a single pistol and one of the meanest ‘unzipper’ knives her partner had ever had the pleasure of constructing.

Would it be enough against whatever was messing with the lines and invading their land? Only time would tell. Both girls pulled black hoods up over their hair and brought down padded masks before seizing the reigns of both there strange steeds and setting off at full speed. It was risky business searching for one of the small, unstable ‘tears’ on the land but luckily for them an oft used one a mile to the right of their current position was guaranteed a whopping seventyfive percent of the time to deposit them close to areas where the conduits concentrated power.

Just so happened one of those spots was an easy two mile distance from the source of their concern.

For untrained eyes though non surely were trained on them for the time being; there was a sort of window in the air. It was difficult to spot as it would only appear from certain angles— the trees stopped lining up correctly; the scenery seemed to shift and it could only be noticed from the front of the window. Behind it, the trunks of the coniferous growth were uninterrupted. Both girls knew the land enough that spotting the spacial anomalies were a walk in the park. On horseback, they appeared to vanish into thin air while riding. Not too far from the truth.

On the other side their Equus Helios’ appeared briefly aflame; the beasts glowing for a moment with violet flame which persisted seconds after passing through. Rose prayed they hadn’t been seen. Both sentinels lifted their dousing cuffs— they had a much stronger glow now.

“Aint far now…” casually from Rose. Good at pretending she wasn’t anxious at all about what could be coming over the horizon.

Both Sentinels took their horse on a circular path toward what the Dousers insisted was ‘ground zero’.

“Y’ think they know about the Grinder?” asked Whinnie; hardly above a whisper. “Because whatever or whoever it is has got going on, its about to rain down hell ‘pon their pretty little heads. This aint the safest zone to go fuckin’ with the Lines. Next up...hot spots.”

And just as she said that, coincidentally, one of the guards standing watch in the intruders’ camp would, without warning or time for him to vocalize, suddenly be lifted, twisted and crushed before ripped to shreds by an invisible enemy. The shaman would likely be able to sense a localized concentration of strange energy in the area it had happened in— hovering like a ghost over what was now only so much ground meat and bone.

The nickname for the anomaly wasn’t simple hyperbole.

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