Trase made his way to an alley that was away from the eyes of the people in the area. The crowds of the people were completely oblivious to the dangers that lurked near them but ignorance was a bliss. It wasn't like they could deal with those dangers themselves. Most of them would die in their attempt and cause even more despair, something Trase knew too well. Inside of the alley a portal into Sorie's dimension opened up and Trase quickly walked inside of it to see Sorie with her arms crossed. "Bossman, you didn't do a good job with those others at all. They will probably get in the way." Trase scoffed at his partner's comment. "She is with them so they will do what they want anyways. My warning won't make her think much at all and I'm sure the others will follow her. That man seemed like he was chasing after the same group we are so it is unavoidable. We will deal with them if we have to."

Sorie sighed and let go of the topic for now. "The target is in a building that has guards and others patrolling around. It is surprisingly short handed though." Trase didn't waste much time in moving towards the portal as he listened to Sorie. "Keep an eye out but be discrete for anything. I'm going to use 'that' to get around so make sure to not do anything unless you know for certain what is what."

Without waiting for a word back he walked through the portal and quickly used his ability with his magic and in stealth to use the darkness to his advantage. He found a lone guard and quickly used a swift strike to the man's neck to knock him unconscious. He then stared down at the body and started to cast a spell in order to continue his infiltration of the building and find his target. He would be completely disguised in the guard's shadow as well as have control of the guard's body until he was somehow removed from his shadow. He was limited to only what the guard could use but it was a great tool in infiltrating areas as well as masking himself.

Mosa raised his eyebrows when she put her hand on his shoulder. Her aura certainly resonated with his, and he knew that their magic was connected on a very deep level. Mosa turned his head to her to look into her eyes as if they held answers, but then they were falling through chaos and void.

This is an Arcane Realm pathway...

Shivers ran down his spine. This was the first other Arcane mage that he had encountered, and she was more experienced than him. Perhaps she could teach him. The very thought of it filled him with energy, motivation and excitement. The next portal led out onto the top of one of Hargeon's towers. Vierra walked out in front of him and scanned the area. Mosa scratched his head as she started talking to herself, or at least that's what it seemed like initially. After Vierra explained to him something about the entity known as 'Pantu', there was a vibration in the air and a deep voice echoed within his mind as well.

"Vierra, child, stop. He wields the Arcane Realm as a weapon beyond my understanding."

Mosa was surprised. They knew about his powers, and whoever this Pantu was seemed to know more than even Mosa himself was aware of. Mosa had first learned about his connection to what was known as the Arcane Realm when he got desperately lost in the woods as a child. He had been about eight years old when he started hunting rabbits for sport. One faithful day he slipped and rolled down a very steep hill straight into a sinkhole. After having been unconscious for quite a while, he woke up while the sun was setting. It was getting dark fast and climbing back up was not an option. The only way that seemed to be lead anywhere was further down into the cave. As fear rushed and swarmed his mind, Mosa panically tried to find his way out through the darkness, hoping to find light before anything dangerous found him. The tunnel narrowed and he had to squish himself through a crack in the wall before reaching a cavern where very faint beams of light were coming own from cracks and holes high above. The cavern itself was big and he could not discern any walls or further tunnels. Mosa was getting desperate and panic was taking a hold of him. Then his body flinched and went sprawling across the floor when he noticed a massive sleeping cave bear not five meters away from him. As muscles started to contract and the beast began to move, Mosa's breathing got out of control. His body was paralyzed with fear. A deafening roar signalled certain death as the furry giant rose to stand tall considering human meat for breakfast. Everything became blurry when the bear came at him. All he can still recall to this day is raising his arms and unleashing something from within. At the time, it had felt like breathing out all the fear from his being. When he opened his eyes, he was no longer in a cave. He was in a place that had been the landscape of his dreams for as long as he could remember. A strange realm filled with swirling energy, colors that he had never seen before, strange shadows and the sensed presence of entities beyond his comprehension. Yet the magnificence of this place, he understood it inately to his very core. This time, however, he knew that he was not dreaming. A voice spoke to him that day, or rather, a collective of voices all speaking in sync. The voices explained that he was in birthplace of magic and that from that day forward, he could call upon it to give him strength and power. It would protect him and teach him how to bind pure magic to his will. Over the years, he had come to learn that he was one of the Chosen, a Servant of Arcana, a Hand of Fate. They told him he had a great destiny to fulfill and, being an only child, he never questioned it. He accepted it as his responsibility. That day, he was marked with various strange arcane markings on his body that hold different specific forms of Arcana magic. However, it has been sixteen years since then, and only two tattoos have revealed their secrets to him thus far, both of which he has far from mastered.

"What are you talking about?" Mosa asked aloud, his face clearly displaying his confusion. But his question was ignored. Vierra looked into his eyes and ordered the voice to instruct Mosa on a specific task. This whole time, Mosa had been trying to figure out what she was trying to do, until he realized that his very first lesson was starting now. She must have known about his connection to the Arcane Realm since the moment he shoved her at the market. Mosa was impressed.

The deep voice interrupted his thoughts and was granted his full attention. Mosa closed his eyes and followed the instructions closely, until he realized he had no idea what he was doing. He felt the wind rush past his skin, his robes dancing along, and he heard the waves hit the shores, but no sign from the Arcane Realm permeated through the sensory stimuli.

"Two questions," the arcane mage said, "who is Gilgamesh and how am I suppposed to 'feel' this guy?"

Using his spell, Trase made the guard move around the area while he was hiding in the guard's shadow. No one would be able to tell Trase was there unless they had some sort of ability to sense his control over the man which he figured not many of the people there would know how to do at all. The controlled guard moved around the outside of the complex until a voice called out to him causing Trase to stop in his tracks. "Hey Griff, Why are you over here? Thought they had you patrolling the other side of the complex?" Thoughts of how to reply quickly ran through Trase's head. He didn't know much at all about the guard he was in control over or any of the regular duties of the guards around them.
"Uhh.. Sorry. I really have to go to the bathroom now. It just suddenly hit me out of nowhere really, really bad. Feels like I have a truck backed up in there, you know?" He made the Griff's body move his hand onto the back of his head a scratch nervously.
"Don't say anything to the boss about this please! Its natural after all but I'd rather not get scolded for this." He then quickly ran off into the complex as the other guard nodded and rolled his eyes.

He felt that he might not get as lucky as he had just did many more times. He had to quickly use his current disguise to find his target and then figure out his next move before the enemy could react well enough. If he was too slow or got caught like that again then he could get into a situation which forced him into a dire situation.

Once inside the complex he quickly saw what was going on in the place. A moderately sized facility that was manufacturing different types of drugs. A anger grew in Trase as he looked at the different children being used to work on the drugs. It was a common thing to use children for their innocence for working on different things back underground organizations. The anger was shown on Griff's face also which Trase quickly remembered that his expressions and feelings were now just as much Griff's as his own so he regained control of himself.
"I'll save you all...." He spoke under his breath as he moved deeper into the facility where he found his target who glared at him like he was nothing but trash. The young man's blue eyes were bright and vibrant which easily displayed he was not all human if not at all. They stood in a corridor between what looked like a main meeting room with multiple shady looking men inside of it.  

"Griff... Why are you not in your area patrolling...?" The young man asked coldly. 

Mosa waited for an answer and more instructions, but was given a mysterious card he had never seen before instead. Though before Vierra even took it out of her pocket, Mosa had felt the magnetic pull toward it. At first he thought it was Vierra herself, hitting on him with seductive arcane powers, but it was the card that had been pulsating. He was a bit nervous, but much more than that was he excited and intrigued. He eagerly reached out and gently took the card between his fingers. Many different feelings were rushing through him, but all he could distinguish was that it felt right. As he gazed upon the image on the card, it began to disintegrate in pure white light. When the light began to fade, a sudden intense burning sensation on his chest. It was unlike any chestpain he had ever felt, and he had been stabbed before, and he could even feel heat radiate through his clothes. He loosened the straps and unbuttoned to reveal that the arcane marking on his chest was glowing a fiery orange and smoke was escaping from its surface. The marking itself was a collection of rings of symbols on the left side of his chest, above the heart. The rings were centralized and organized in three layers, outer, middle and inner. The outer circle were arcane symbols of which Mosa had not yet learnt the meaning. The middle circle were the arcane symbols of certain celestial bodies, though not all of them. The inner circle was filled with letter numbers, he guessed they corresponded to the respective symbols in the higher layers. The symbol that was lighting up was the number 9.



Then the burning settled but the glow remained. The energy within surged and Mosa found himself tapping into a new, incredibly powerful area of Arcana magic. One he was eager to meditate upon to discover all of its secrets. The magic focused itself on his eyes and it was as if all of his other senses were heightened and translated into visual stimuli somehow. He could see for miles, identify scents in the streets by colored fumes, discern specific sounds by observing the vibrational distortions in the air, feel surfaces by the focusing on the texture of objects, analyze the emotional disposition of living beings by picking up on released hormones and heightened heartbeat. The main attribute that Mosa could identify, was intensity. The variation of intensity in visual representation of sensory stimuli gave rise to a wide degree of meaning and interpretation. The stronger a scent, the more saturated its colour; the rougher a surface, the sharper its texture, etc.

"Amazing..." Mosa whispered to himself. Then the sense of urgency came to him and he remembered why they were here in the first place. This power would allow him to find his target somehow, he only had to focus it correctly. Following his intuition, the arcane mage dug into his memories and tried to summon as many details about the dealer as he could, as well as the van that he escaped in. He gazed in the direction of the building from which he had fallen and a trail became lit up brightly. The trail started with the fading tire tracks, which where now blazing an azure blue, sparkling in the sun, then other shining objects and scratches on surfaces continued to lead him towards an old abandoned industrial building on the edge of town. Suddenly, without even trying, his sight was focused on one of the guards. The guard was unconscious in front of the facility, until he suddenly stood up but his aura felt strange. Something was off. The guard disappeared into the building and Mosa's arcane vision faded and returned to normal. The quick change of visual input made him steady himself on his legs for a moment and shake his head.

He smiled to himself as if he couldn't believe what had just happened, then he looked at Vierra. "I know where we need to go. There's an old industrial facility on the edge of town in that direction," he said as he pointed his index finger straight at the building, though they could not really see it from here.

"I have the feeling something is about to happen in there, we must hurry. Is it possible for your portals to reach that far?"


He then noticed the dryad had appeared on the rooftop with them. He had not given her much attention yet, and realized it had been rude. He tried to meet her eyes to give her a kind nod and a smile, though he wasn't entirely sure if human body language would translate the same way to dryads..

Trase was too fixated on the young man with glowing blue eyes to hear the sudden noise of a foot slamming against one of the crates nearby over and over again. He had found his target and was in a situation where he needed to decide between continuing his with his disguise or abandoning it in order to reveal himself and move on to the next step of his plan. His deep thought was cut off suddenly by his target speaking about the loud noise though. "What the hell is that?!" The young man took his focus off of the Trase controlled Griff and looked back at one of the many crates near them, summoning a bluish-white flame to his right hand as the crate had part of it fly off. A white powder swarmed the air around the crate which caused both the young man and Trase controlling Griff to cover their faces with their free hand(s) due to their enhanced sense of smell. Trase instinctively did it but played it out as if he had meant to.

"Who the hell...!? Who goes there!?" Trase spoke out through Griff but felt somewhat weird sounding like he was speaking out unlike some random city thug and more like a royal guard of the king. He turned his view on the mess created by the box being kicked opened to see Vierra moving around sluggishly and yelling directly at him as if she was going to attack him. Griff's eyes widened from Trase's anger and confusion as to why and how the woman decided to appear like that in a place that they knew completely nothing about. Before he could respond in any sort of way the young man did.

Fire erupted from the young man's right hand and he dashed forward towards Vierra with his fist cocked back to strike. "Intruders!" He yelled out as he quickly moved towards her and flung his flaming fist at her causing bluish-white flames to erupt all around the area but something was off about how his fist connected. He couldn't immediately tell because of how the flames covered where his fist had hit but his eyes widened in shock as he found a purplish-black sheet of metal had stopped his attack.

Trase stood just in front of Vierra, having gave up on controlling Griff who now laid unconscious near them. "Nice way to infiltrate the area, idiot." He spoke out to her and then released his spell to drop the metallic shield he had placed in front of them. He was wearing a purplish-black metallic mask over his nose and mouth to avoid breathing in the drug in the air which muffled his voice a bit. His blue and red eyes locked onto the bright blue eyes of the young man. "Hello Lusin, my brother." Lusin quickly jumped back from the two as the guards of the building and others came to see what was going on all around them. "Why are you here!? To kill me too!?" Lusin yelled out angrily at his older brother. Trase only looked ahead to his brother, not caring about anything else going on around them. "I'm here to be a big brother finally and stop you."

A feeling of déjà vu greeted him as Mosa fell forward over the edge of the roof. His heart surged as he fell through the portal and landed in a dark confined space. He looked around in the chaos and confusion, but found himself caught in a fog of blue powder that conquered his airways as Vierra kicked the crate open. He had not even had the time to cover his face, and he knew exactly what kind of powder he had just inhaled.

"Whoa..." He uttered while his eyelids twitched uncontrollably and his consciousness retreated into his mind for a brief moment.

Immediately, he found himself tapping into his magic, involuntarily. He felt it radiate through his body on many different levels of awareness. Every heartbeat released a pulse of ecstasy, reinforced by the sensory impulses his brain was receiving from his heightened senses. Mosa had never felt this great before and stepped out of the crate taking in his surroundings. He was basking in energy and all the magic around him seemed to add more to it. His fears and worries dissolved and he felt untouchable, blissfully oblivious to the escalating fight only a few meters away from him, until the dryad's releases of her inner spirit drew his attention.

What a majestic creature... Mosa thought to himself as he gazed over the hybrid features of the being. The beast unfolded and isolated them from the approaching guards by controlling the element of earth itself. It then took off, seemingly eager to unleash itself upon the hostiles.

Time then slowed down, Mosa realized that he had become a conscious observer to the actions of his body, as if he had swapped places with his unconscious. He saw the others: Vierra, the man who was with her when she had healed Mosa, and another stranger with remarkable blue eyes, whom they seemed to be facing off against. Then, he realized why he seemed to be stuck in slow-motion, he understood it internally and immediately. From the shadows, another figure arose. In fact, the same figure stepped through the darkness of surrounding shadows several times. It was the man whom he had been following, the man with the burned hand, though he had abandoned all of his costumes. There never was more than one dealer transporting the goods, it had been this guy all along. As time crawled to a stand-still, Mosa tried to move, but nothing happened. He had been reduced to an observing state, taking in the information, responding to them mentally, but not actively.

As the dealer and his doppelgangers stepped from the shadows to surround Vierra and the two others, Mosa felt the urge to act. The features of the man were being burned into his memory. White long hair was slowly waving behind his neck, a slender figure that seemed as strong as steel, skin as white as snow and fiery orange eyes in stark contrast to his ice cold appearance, facial features so sharp he seemed almost elven. The man was wearing a grey sleeveless vest, decorated with black symbols that seemed to bleed over onto his arms in the form of tattoos. His index figure was a silver claw in which surrounding magic seemed to disappear. A syphon.

This man was deadly to the core, and Mosa did not understand his purpose.

The white-skinned mage had been present during each and every run-in with the drug dealers Mosa had had over the course of his chase. He had always been in disguise, and given the impression, not only on the level of appearance, but also on the subtle levels of body languages and magical vibrations, that he was a minor subordinate victim to his circumstances. Mosa dubbed him 'White Shadow' It was very likely that he had been the same dealer that Mosa had beat up at the tavern, all those nights ago. The night that he started following this trail. Without a doubt, this man had also been responsible for Mosa's unfortunate fall from the roof, after which he had come to meet all others that were currently there with him. Not only were they there with him, but it seemed as if they would have been there regardless of whether he had met them on the way or not.

Fate. Once again. But was it divine or by intelligent design?

Then, time began to pick up pace and gain momentum once more. Mosa understood his role. His unconscious had assumed control, his conscious self was in charge of analyzing the situation and his surroundings and coming up with the best response, his body would do the rest.

He watched as his right arm stretched out before him, time was still going at least half as slowly as normal, his fingers spread and the arcane marking on his forearm glowed bright, the white light pierced through his clothing. A white thunderbolt was released from the palm of his hand, leaping from the nearest white haired mage to the next, zapping each one in turn. Though the spell did not seem to have an immediate damaging effect, its properties became clear once the nearest White Shadow turned around to face Mosa, all copies of him turned around.

Time returned to its normal pace, and Mosa felt the rush of the drugs return more intensely, surging through his every vein. With a crooked smile he greeted the White Shadow, hungry for a fight.