#cloakedinfall

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Closed starter for @cloakedinfall​!

Kahann couldn’t believe that he had fallen for an ambush yet again-- And this time, there was no possibility of escape in sight, be it by combat or otherwise. Were he to pay attention while he was finishing a trial in this neck of the desert, he wouldn’t have been caught off-guard this easily.

Not like he enjoyed it, even if it had something he would otherwise have an incentive to solve it. That said, had he been followed whole time? He could see in front of him four imps, two Hell Knights, a Marauder... And oh dear, was that a Baalgar? What happened to it though that it ended up having biomechanical parts? And why was it serving a court rather than lording over one?

“End of the road, stranger.” Hissed a fiendish voice. Just listening to it alone, Kahann definitely recognized it as a Summoner’s. And that voice was feminine. She was right behind him, wasn’t she?

He could feel something tainted very close to his proximity. It was something akin to a blade-- Only, it was made of Hell energy, being dangerously close to the lower section of his helmet. Any movement and his head would have been lopped off. It was either that, or stay still. He had a lot of questions here, including that demon's ability to shape weapons out of literal Hell energy. He couldn't do anything as a mere Life Sphere though, could he? "Move even one step and off goes your head."

Kahann had to remain silent and still. It was his survival or who knows what the demons would do to him if he got reduced into what basically is a soul container.

"...You made the right choice." The Summoner spoke again, this time with a hint of purring. The hellish blade dissipated afterwards. "Turn around." At her command, the demons' captive-to-be slowly turned towards her direction.

"You don't mind me having a look at your face, do you?" And there she was, taller than the Primeval was, skull with protruding, back-facing ornate like a bizarre crown, with where one's eyes would be adorned with a blindfold. Even as an abomination, she possessed beauty in manifest form-- The shelled armor bound to her being elegant in make.

Immediately, however, he could notice that she was different from Summoners he had encountered-- When she lifted the helmet of his armor off his head, her hands were more the shape of a human's rather than that of other Summoners-- She had five fingers each hand, rather than the usual four. The nails were still long and probably sharp though.

Kahann's face was soon revealed-- Fair skin, face of angular shape, and hair as black as obsidian; Braided to hang on his right shoulder. The colored orbs of his eyes gave off a steel-blue glare. Even in the face of danger, he still braved himself, a gaze of rage ever-present, slowly lighting them into strain-inducing cyan.

"Ah, a Primeval." Sthusa, the Summoner responsible for Kahann's predicament began. "And one having caused so much trouble in Hell that he is marked for capture, no less." With a snap of her fingers, red-lit bindings restrained both her captive’s hands, enough to put him in place rather than corrupt him in any way.

“Take this man to the fortress. He is to be placed in the prison quarters.” The Archagent issued the order to the pair of Hell Knights.

“As you wish, Archagent.” Both Hell Knights spoke in unison, taking the Primeval and walking him away.

---

Kahann took mental notes in his surroundings while being walked through the interior of what happened to be these demons’ dwellings. While he had seen a lot of buildings in Hell before, this was something that he almost never heard of since he came back here. Most demons he met were by all means, nomads.

But for them to have a place to stay got him an idea on how thing work in the Crimson Dunes. Well, not in full picture, but he would pick up what they were up to.

“You’ve got a new inmate. Savor your moments here while they last.”

His thoughts were cut short as soon as one of the Hell Knights’ voices was heard. He could feel himself being shoved over to a space of sorts. It did almost hurt from the force of the shove the two Hell Knights gave him and he almost hit the wall, but when he turned around, he was already behind bars. The cell door was locked with a skull key, both demons leaving afterwards.

...At least Kahann wasn’t all alone, eh? Sthusa still had his helmet, so his face could be seen by whomever was also imprisoned.

“You don’t actually think there’s something on the ship----  do you?”

She should be doing her wiring. She should. She really really should. But how could she focus, with everything that’d happened that morning?

---Is morning even a thing up here?

She’s not even sure. The only thing she is sure about;; is the fact that they’d spent the whole morning gathered around in the cafeteria. ---While everyone threw accusations around about what had happened to their crew-mate.

Which, yes. It was incredibly suspicious to see--- just a pair of red overalls lying in security. Well, ok. Suspicious isn’t the word. It was terrifying;; to see the bloodstained clothes. It was terrifying to know that there was no good explanation for it. There’d been explanations for everything else so far. After all;;; the ship was kindof a piece of shit--- who would bat an eye when alarms went off with no cause?

But a dead body? Or, more specifically--- the absence of a dead body? Couldn’t be explained away easily.

Which was a pretty good excuse for why she was currently leaning against the wall. The pink sleeves of her cover-alls tied around her waist, as she looked over at Sid. Hoping, for some unknown reason, that he would be on her side of all of this.

     Wagyl Desert was, by all means, a place of death. To the untrained eye or inexperienced traveler, it was a barren wasteland filled to the brim with vicious monsters that would hide under the sand only to burst out underfoot and eat adventurers whole. The sand seemed to stretch endlessly for miles, the dunes rising and falling far into the horizon and offering no shade aside from at sunrise and sunset.

     It was midday now and the sun was at its peak, glaring down with relentless heat and light that was nearly blinding as it bounced off the pale dunes. But in the distance, a single stone broke the surface of the sea of sand. A strange jagged yellowish rock, looking almost like a stalagmite sticking right out of the top of a dune, casting the only shade for miles around.

Hood raised an eyebrow.

Sid.

Now there was a question.

     Her hands were stained red with the blood of innocence but it didn’t matter. Not when she got closer to uncovering more about Ethan’s current whereabouts and plotting her revenge. She’d taken her current job as the client promised to give her information on Ethan if she got ahold of someone by the name of Sid.

     She hadn’t been given much on the target but that wouldn’t be the first time. She’d gone in blind plenty of times and saw this time as no different. Her search brought her outside the city limits where the roads shifted from asphalt to dirt and the air was fresh and crisp. There were no peering eyes to witness something that they shouldn’t and become a casualty of her work. She was silent as she moved, looking for any sign of the target.