There's no answer at Connie's door. Caio's enhanced senses do not detect anyone inside.
Caio frowns as he catches up with Shin. "I don't think she is inside. I can't smell her."
After several minutes, your tracking spell on Quincy indicates movement. He's heading toward downtown Halcyon. If he stays on the same course, he'll pass through the Tower District.
Shin turns to Caio. "Well if she's not here, where is she?" He asks him. "Didn't she give you some way to track her phone?"
He's panicking a little right now. This is worrying to Shin, as he calls out on the team channel that everyone can hear. "Conflux, I would appreciate it if you'd give us some sign that you're not captured or in peril when we don't know where you are right now. Does anyone else have eyes on Conflux?" He calls out - briefly forgetting that with Max and Percy missing and Caio next to him, there's not many on the team left to call.
"...We should suit up and head out." He tells Caio. "Let's be quick about it."
Oh no… Connie?! I should not have used my Perfect Princess voice with her!
Femtite’s voice is barely audible over the comm. ”Shin? What’s wrong? Did Connie run off—“ She does not say ‘because of me.’
"Conflux was investigating Max and Percy's disappearance. We're trying to find them, and now suddenly Conflux has gone missing too." Shin says, now feeling very anxious.
He tries the doorknob, and is surprised to find it unlocked. He opens the door up into Conflux's room, hoping to find her even though Caio's certain she isn't here.
Max and Percy are ”WHAT?!”
By the time the door opens, Femtite is already pulling the other side of it. The wards will not be set off.
”Oh… good thing you’re here. I actually don’t have a comm with me.” She does not mention that she would have repurposed the TV remote to compensate.
Shin checks out Connie's room, which looks like she was there recently. Nothing indicates there was a struggle. A Y-shaped stick with runes carved in it is sitting on her bed. The rest of her belongings are in their places.
Fem points to the stick. ”That looks… new.”
She decides the TV remote is useful after all.
Femtite points the remote at the Y shaped thing and presses the only button on the Fem TV Remote.
The TV screen shows a fuzzy blanket of a color that matches the one that's on Connie's bed right now.
Whatever the Y-shaped stick is, it's not currently active.
"Good to see you too, Fem. And yeah, Max and Percy appear to have been abducted. And I wanted to work with Conflux to find them, but it looks like she went off on her own...which worries me."
He looks at the stick on the bed, tilting his head. "That looks like some kind of dowsing rod? Maybe that's what she's built to help find Max and Percy..."
Where did she go then?
Shin will pick up the stick by the Y handles, trying to point it around to see if it reacts in some way to a direction.
"Yeah, but, as I've said before, magic and tech have a tendency to interfere with each other." Caio replies, picking up his phone and, after a couple seconds, he points out. "Here she is... well, here it is her phone."
Caio then takes a good whiff of the room, trying to figure out at least the direction Connie went, imagining it is the same direction Percy went. "Can I take a look on the stick and the runes?"
Not a magical sling shot then.
She points the remote at the stick as Caio examines it.
Caio examines it, and going off of Shin's idea that it's a dowsing rod along with Femtite's technical analysis, determines that it is a sort of dowsing rod. Except it's not one to find water. The runes enhance sympathetic magic to pinpoint the direction of someone or something, so long as there's something from that person or a piece of that something. It's the same kind of magic that a seeking spell accomplishes, but constructed into a device so any layperson can use it without specialized training.
What do you do??
Caio explains to the others about the magical device. He picks Connie's scent and tries to pinpoint the direction it goes. "You realise that Connie wanted to go on her own, right?" She asks Shin. "We'll go after them, of course, but I think it is important to keep this in mind if we want to understand what we'll find... if I had to guess, I'd say this is related to her family."
”I’ll respect Connie’s choices when it comes to her family,” Fem says. ”But if Max and Percy are missing, that is a team concern.”
Her tone displays a hint of propriety but lacks passion. She’s not upset, or doesn’t seem to be. She’s putting her personal feelings aside, and interested in simply being valuable to the team.
Caio points the magic dowsing rod. "Right, this charm isn't attuned to anyone yet... I have Connie's scent and the location of her phone. I have Percy's scent and his clue about the 'Fancy Tower', but we have nothing on Max aside from our guess that she is with Percy... I believe we need to attune the charm to her, just to be safe. Could one of you fly to the base and pick something from her room, like hair or a hair tie, a sock, or whatever?"
Fem says, ”I can do that. I’ll call you boys from the station.”
She flies off…
Femtite grabs a hairbrush, then returns to the girls’ dorm.
She hands over the brush, then says to the guys, ”If there’s any real threat, I don’t fight well without my Bug. But if you need me to make fire or light or whatever… y’know. Here to help.”
"Considering Percy and Max are gone and they are more than capable to handling themselves, I do expect we'll find some very real threat." With that, he removes a strand of hair from the hairbrush and wraps it around Connie's magical charm, before giving it back to Fems.
"This magic charm should allow even non-magic users to feel a thug that will direct them towards the person attuned to it, which should be Max now." He then offers his phone to Shin. "Connie's phone location is marked here. Perhaps you can fly and also keep a look on a 'fency tower'... I'll concentrate on following their scents. Are we ready?"
Amethyst particles form in Femtite’s aura and converge onto her body, forming Wonder-Womanly armor plating.
”Ready,” she fibs.
"All right, I'll look for Connie with your phone - but every stay on comms," he says, as he hands over his spare to Femtite. "Seriously, check in every five minutes on the open channel so I know you haven't been abducted too."
He leaves Femtite and Caio with the dowsing rod, along with Percy's note in case it can be used with the rod. He'll take to skies as Horizon, trying to pinpoint Connie's location. Maybe Caio had a point about her wanting to do this alone. But after having been basically reborn from being a tiny alien bug, he's worried about what might happen to her without some back up.
It takes a while. Halcyon City covers a lot of real estate, and walking to keep your scent trail live means that more than an hour passes before you arrive at the heart of the Tower District. The glittering spires rise to impossible heights, illuminated with colorful spotlights while the impressive skyrails roar along their tracks hundreds of feet overhead.
After your tracker suddenly flips to saying Quincy is behind you, all it takes is a few direction changes to identify the skyscraper that he's in.
Now all it takes is finding which floor he's in.
You wake up, feeling intensely fatigued. The book is again in your captor's possession and he looks to have completed his spell. The runes surrounding you are incredibly complex.
"Good. You're awake. Now, I need to know that you should NOT say intuedamos fuearati. It's bad. It'll reverse the whole thing. Intuedamos fuearati. Don't say that."
Caio begins following the scent trail of Connie, which does seem to be headed in the direction of the Tower District. The most famous district of Halcyon City is known for its skyscrapers -- if you were to find a "fancy tower" it was certainly a good place to start, although how to pick out the right one of the hundreds of skyscrapers in Halcyon?
Femtite flies up to a traffic camera.
Femtite flies back down with what looks like a pink bazooka, but is actually a camera that hooks up to the Dousing Rod. Pink arrows appear on the rectangular screen to tell the operator which way to point, and the desired target is outlined in yellow.
Once the target is found, the building is outlined in yellow as well.
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Not content to simply use a magical dowsing rod, Femtite repurposes a traffic camera and uses the two together to try and locate Max. When she activates the cobbled-together device, she gets a highlight -- back at Connie's dorm room!
But… but I??
”Is this a Dowsing Rod or a Fetching Stick? I’m being led right back to the dorm,” she says over the comm.
She starts to move, and is totally convinced magic is improved exponentially by superior technology. Magitech. It’s a thing.
"I think so long as you don't mess around with how it works, it should be pointing you in the right direction. Maybe Max is in the dorms, just somewhere else. Or it could be detecting all of the Max things in her room," Horizon suggests as he follows the phone signal to Connie.
Mess it up? Ummm…….
”Mess it up? How can I… I mean, umm, it’s a stick. It appears durable.”
I hope I’m not holding it backwards.
Fem points the modded rod at the highlighted building, going room by room in search of Max.
"Max has moved to the base, remember?" Caio tells the others. "If it is pointing back to Connie's room, perhaps it is detecting saliva, hair, and whatever Connie has collected and hidden there... she likes these stuff."
Meanwhile, he keeps following the scent trail.
”Wait, what, really? How do I.. hold that thought. I’m right there anyway.”
Femtite checks room by room to see if Max shows up. Or does the stick really find her fingernail clipping lodged in the carpet?
You found the samples. The device thingie doesn't seem to be able to locate Max
You can confirm that the device is attuned to Max because it found her samples. But since it's not finding her, there's something up with Max
”So… I’m totally reading this rune stick thingy as it was designed, and I definitely didn’t do something to somehow mess it up. Therefore, I must conclude there is something up with Max.
“So assuming Max is within the city limits.” Femtite knows the range because of her attachment. ”Or, y’know, whatever the full range of the Magical Letter Y might be… how can I find Max?
“Telepathy? I don’t get magic, but is there any reason to believe if a Dousing Rod can’t find Max, telepathy can?”
Connie starts tucking away overly identifiable parts of her outfit as she scopes out her target. Silver lining - this hair color is a lot less obvious
A quick inspection of the skyscraper in question reveals it to be a fairly standard Tower District spire -- that is, impressive. It's easily over a hundred stories, likely with expensive living quarters in the upper floors, and shops and offices on the first and lower floors.
As you try to get an idea of where your father might have chosen to reside (penthouse seems too obvious), you sense a heavy pressure in the vicinity. It's almost like you're under water and diving deep. Best you can guess is that there's an incredible buildup of magical energy. That's a good enough indicator.
As for what's vulnerable, without seeing what Dear Old Dad is doing to cause this pressure of magic, it's hard to say what can be done about it.
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Percy barely acknowledges the man by pushing himself over slightly so that he was laying in a slightly more comfortable position. And after a while of fighting iff falling asleep again or looking like he simply had he speaks weakly.
"You said... a spell plague. What's the deal with that?" He croqked having felt like he hadn't drank anything for days, but he figured that was mostly the being sick bit.
Femtite removes her traffic cam tech. Because obviously my tech made the stick too good, and it detects only samples.
She moves back the way she was going before, letting the stick lead the way. (Or failing that, she’ll call Shin and Caio on her comm and ask directions.)
"Comm check people. What's everyone's situation?" Horizon calls out as he flies deeper into the financial district. "Let's not go completely silent if we can help it. Caio's phone is pointing me close to Connie. I'm going to keep my distance in case there's something she needs to stay in cover for though."
Femtite replies, ”Why am I following a stick? It’s finding DD one piece at a time, and none of the parts are attached to the whole.”
Connie heads in and starts looking for a directory, being all too personally aware of her Dear Old Dad's penchant for too-cute naming schemes.
The man smirks when Percy doesn't say the phrase. "Spellplague is just a little head cold for magic users. Weakens them, if they're not smart enough to check out what they're reading. Honestly, I'm doing you a favor taking all this away from you. There's a lot of forces out there that would flay the skin off your bones in a heartbeat."
A voice comes from behind the man. "Father?" Percy can see the newcomer, coming into view. He recognizes him.
"Quincy? What are you doing here? If I'd needed you, I'd have summoned you!" The man runs a hand through his hair in an irritated gesture and looks over his shoulder.
Quincy falters a step, nervously rolling his d20 in his hand. His eyes glance in Quincy's direction but he doesn't acknowledge him. "You might want to know... Connie called. Told me you were... working."
"So you came here? To lead my wayward child here? What were you thinking?" The man remains composed, though there is real heat in his voice.
"...That she was going to show up anyway, so you might as well be warned?"
He stares at Quincy for a moment. "I've made preparations for 'Conflux's' team." He waves a hand towards the door. "You might as well make yourself useful. Lay a trap for... let's see... do something about the glowing alien, won't you."
Quincy looks at Percy at last, then looks down. "Yes, Father."
Unfortunately, Conflux's hope for an old-style name directory at the first floor is dashed. There is, however, a security guard that reeks of magic. Though human-looking, she can quickly detect that it's one of Dear Old Dad's summoned and/or bound creatures with a glamor over it.
It eyes Conflux warily, and folds its arms across its broad chest.
What do you do??
The search of Connie's room for Max frustratingly only leads to the samples of the demon that Connie had taken at the Franklin High football field. While the device worked well, for whatever reason it does not seem to be able to find the real Max!
Meanwhile, Horizon flies towards the Tower District following the phone signal and Caio follows Connie's scent trail, both seeming to be heading in the right direction.
Femtite wants to burn the stick. Seriously, is there a magic word or something? Max doesn’t seem to be anywhere.
She places the stick (whose fault this totally is) and comms on a park bench and flies to another traffic cam. She enters subatomically and makes another pinkish-purplish contraption!
Femtite wonders if she needs to seek Violet, not Max. She creates a Violet Energy Detector that can seek a trail of energy as Fem had seen at the club.
Connie waves without breaking stride, heading straight for the elevator with confidence.
"Hi there, I believe I'm on the guest list? Mathers, Constance? Maybe CW? Lemme know if you need to call it in, I'll wait."
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"Thought better of you Quincy..." He continues leaning on the runic wall and lets his head roll a bit. At least he knew that Connie was on the way, maybe if she was close he'd be able to contact her. If only he wasn't so damn tired.
"Really gonna just let him do this? Thought we were friends, that the world could be made better with our abilities. I thought you were the Game master, but he's the only one I see pulling the strings right now."
Femtite's newest device picks up the trail of Violet energy back at Percy's room, but it suddenly ceases to exist. She can trace where Max had been up to when she entered into the dorm, and then the trail abruptly ends there, like it was swallowed up completely.
The guard opens up the elevator and hits a button. Connie can tell that the elevator has its own wards and enchantments placed upon it. One of Dear Old Dad's favorite tricks to strip away visitor's defenses and any secret tricks of their own before entering his domain.
The creature gestures at the lift car expressionlessly.
What do you do?
Quincy scowls. "Damn it, you really have no clue, do you? When your teammate shows up, why not ask her why she won't lift a finger to help you either?"
He turns his back on Percy and starts working a spell of his own.
Caio replies to Horizon, just for him to know that he was heard, before continuing to follow Connie's trail.
Femtite's newest device picks up the trail of Violet energy back at Percy's room, but it suddenly ceases to exist. She can trace where Max had been up to when she entered into the dorm, and then the trail abruptly ends there, like it was swallowed up completely.
Femtite’s voice calls over the comm, ”Heyyyy, good news! That stick is worse than useless, but of course by repurposing a traffic cam to seek Violet energy, I am able to trace DD to—
“Hang on. I gotta put down the comms and stuff to subatomically slip into Percy’s dorm.”
There’s a light thud, and seconds later, a muffled yell, ”OH CAN I EVER GET A BREAK?!”
A door opens.
”Okay… DD’s not in here… the trail ends—here! There are circles. Like, magic circles? And the Violet trail just ends. She was here last, and now.. gone.
“Caio? You know how this sorta thing works, right?”
"That's where we came from. Sorry, I guess the dousing rod might be a dead end if it can't track someone who's been teleported," Horizon clarifies to Femtite as he follows Connie's signal.
"Wait, did you try following Indarius instead of Max?" He asks her. "There's a chance that could work. It's worth trying, there's plenty of Indarius stuff to use in his room."
Femtite considers Caio’s expertise and decides to take pictures.
If only Percy gave away his passwords like that football player in my anatomy class always does.
She looks for a means to hack in, and thinks a calculator will do.
HI-84? More like ‘bye 84.’
Femtite hooks up the odd device to Percy’s laptop.
Heeding Shin’s advice, Femtite finds some Percy samples.
”Okay, stick. Second chances are like Halloween candy, and I’m that crotchety old man in the yellow house who only gives you one.”
She points the stick out the window.
”Point me to Percy, stick!”
"That's the one," he sighs.
Femtite is able to hack into Percy's laptop and send the emails to everyone.
The stick, however, continues to be uncooperative. This time it doesn't give any indication of direction to Percy, unlike when it was looking for Max and found specially preserved samples of her demonic essence.