"We are a respectable holy order and I am not going to let us stoop to that level, Caius." Edmund slammed his fist down on the table in the main meeting room. Caius was seated, looking extremely calm with a gourd in his hand.

"Calm down, Edmund," Caius said, taking another swig. "It's a witch, not a child."

"It's a Little. Girl."

Caius shrugged. "Whatever." He let out a sigh. "I just say, we track down the magical blackgaurd that told me about her. Even if she's not evil, something about punching people in the face with shadows seems like something we should be directly opposed to."

Gustav peeks a helmeted head into the meeting room and clears his throat. "Ich weib, du kannst mich nicht verstehen, aber bitte hor auf zu schreien. Es ist besorgniserregend."

Dio poked his head in the door under Gustav and looked around. "Oh, it's just you guys. What was that about punching people with shadow?"

Hearing the commotion Zendra stopped by the door of the meeting room and listened in for a moment, remaining silent and not announcing her presence there unlike Gustav and Dio. She was a little concerned about what she was hearing.

Balbadorf had his head on the table, he muttered in exasperation, "Are we ever going to run into any normal children?"

Caius chuckled at Blabdorf's statement. "What I'm saying is, there's a dark knight who knew a witch, and earlier today Elie with his weird soul seeing thing was talking about a little girl with a... different soul. Witches are dangerous, and there's one about, and frankly, its easier to kill a witch now than kill a demon later."

"But what kind of soul is it? I don't know how I would feel about killing a girl with the soul of an eggplant." Dio seems completely serious about this question.

Gustav finds himself suddenly dealing with two other people just being right there. Shaking his head, the Knight abandons his attempts at reading through a book he had found, instead attending the meeting of people he couldn't understand.

Zendra sighed and stepped in, "It is best to be cautious. If we are to do anything we should look into the this first, then determine how much of a threat we are dealing with. Killing a child is no small matter, Caius. Do not treat it so."

"Agreed, snuffing out life is something few should ever have to do." Balbadorf lifted his head up at Zendra's remark.

Caius let out an exasperated sigh. "Why is my opinion always so unpopular?" He rubbed his forhead and turned back to Edmund. "Alright. But, the antipaladin. At least let me take some people and question him."

Edmund groaned. "And you say that I'm the psychopath here." He turned to the others who had gathered and rubbed his neck. "Fine. Find the black knight. But come back here afterwards and then we'll discuss what's going to happen."

"Right, well I guess I have to go walk to my vanship and get it ready to fly. Where is this girl supposed to be at?" Dio pulls out his pistol and frowns at it. "Guess I'll get a better pistol while I'm out."

"Direct me to where and I shall go." Zendra nodded.

"As they say, We have ways..." Balbadorf stated matter of factly as he headed out of the room.

"Perfect. That's a full party." Caius got up from the table and walked out with a look of victory in his eyes. If his mouth was exposed, it'd probably be smiling. "Follow me then. I know where he was last spotted."

Some time passes as the party travels by foot down the mountains and through other familiar territories. The sun is beginning to set as they enter Wutai, the odd city from the east.

Never much one for complaining out loud, Gustav has endured this journey through his standard outfit of full plate armor. By the time they managed to reach Wutai, the knight seems to have suffered all of none from the trek, looking about the town with signs of interest. "Caius, Wo sind wir?"

Zendra didn't mind the walk, she was used to traveling on foot. But she wouldn't lie about feeling a bit tired and wanting a place to sit for a while if anyone asked.

"That was terrible." Dio flops down on a bench to rest and wipes his forehead with his sleeve. "I'm a pilot, not a foot soldier." He shakes his head. "So, where can we find this girl?"

Balbadorf patted the cooling sweat on his forehead as he sat next to Dio, "I'm getting too old for this shit. Where's our guy Caius? I beter not have walked all that way for nothing."

Caius stretched his sore muscles. "Last I heard, he was in Wutai and he was expecting to stay for awhile. But, also, Dark Knights aren't exactly those to stay out in the open." He crossed his arms. "I got enough cash for an inn. We can rest and look tomorrow or we could try to get everything done tonight. You all look beat."

"I'm fine either way, really." Dio looks up at the sky, resting his head on the back of the bench.

Resting for the night sounded good, however the sooner the task got done the better. She did not like the idea of idling about when there was still a task to be done. Zendra had enough energy still to spare for it. "I am for searching. We can aquire a room if our search yeilds no results."

Gustav takes to examining some of the more interesting storefronts nearby, looking into the displays and windowshopping.

Caius nodded. "Makes sense to me." Caius looked around. Spotting someone in full black plate armor shouldn't be as hard as it's seeming right now. The night life seemed surprisingly baren, most people had already gone inside. Howeve, one man with crimson red hair and a full beard was sitting on a bench in a black and grey robe, drinking what looked like tea. He also seemed to be looking over his shoulder, and had a gladius by his side.

Gustav pats the leather bag on his hip and, after hearing the reassuring clink of coin inside, enters one of the shops that displays various styles of armor on the wall.

Balbadorf followed Cauis' line of sight, "You think thats our guy? If so,we shouldn't go around making bold accusations in public, maybe reason with him and attempt to coerce the information from him."

Zendra approached the man on the bench, that seemed to have caught the attention of the others. "We need a moment of your time." Her tone is blunt as she looks down at him. "Perhapes you can answer a few of our questions?"

The man looked up at the woman. When he noticed her white hair and staff he seemed somewhat uncomfortable. "Of course," he said. "I'm just passing through, but... I should have time to spare a few questions." Caius leaned against a nearbly light pole and observed Zendra talk to the man, keeping careful watch on how he reacted.

Meanwhile, inside the armor shop, Gustav could find many shining new sets of armor, mostly of an eastern samurai appearence, but some seemed to be more familiar to the german knight following a more western traditional plate armor. The shopkeeper smiled to him. "Tell me if you see anything you like. Feel free to ask me about some info about any specific items."

Gustav nods to the shopkeeper, gravitating immediately towards the plate armor and checking the thickness of the metal, as well as the quality of the leather support straps.

Balbadorf stood by Caius as they both watched Zendra, "If we can get what we need without violence, I believe it best."

"I'll be back in a moment Caius, I'm going to take a leaf out of Gustav's book and poke my head into the weapon shop and see if they have any better guns." Dio waves and hurries over to the store.

"It is appriciated." Zendra said, nodding to the man. "We are looking for a little girl that might have gotten into trouble. You are a dark knight with the information we need." It was actually a question, but Zendra purposely did not make it sound as such. "Where is she?"

Suddenly the robed man looked worried. "Did you say that she was in trouble? What's happened to her?" He stood up, leaving the cup on the bench. He seemingly ignored the dark knight comment.

So he did know something, and judging by his reaction he was concerned about the girl. Zendra decided to try to use this. "Your information could important in being able to help her. Please calm down and tell us what you know."

Dio hurried back over from the store. "The guy tried to sell me a popgun. What the hell?" He looked over at Zendra and the standing man. "Well, she seems to have made some progress."

"I left her with some swordsman who said that he knew her, and she seemed to be okay with it." The man looked confused and worried at the same time. Then, he re-examined Zendra. "...Where are you from, by the way? You look errily familiar. You're not from Iria are you?"

caius nodded at Dio. "Yeah. I'm curious. He didn't deny the black knight thing though. He looks... concerned."

Dio tilted his head. "Maybe it means something else to him?" He shrugged. "I wonder where uh... Iraea? Whatever. I wonder where it is."

Gustav wanders out of the armor shop with some new leather straps in his pouch. Seeing the group with some person whom he didn't know, Gustav wandered over to try and glean something about what was going on.

"Be prepared. This can go wrong at any moment." Balbadorf heard the suspicion in his voice, he was afraid for Zendra's safety for the time being. One thought crossed his mind currently, the fear that their outfit was about to be found out. "Perhaps we should be honest with him." Balbadorf muttered to the group.

"I am not exactly from Iria. Why do you ask me this?" Zendra replied, looking him over as well. She did not know why this man would thing she looked familiar as she didn't recognize him. And Zendra was not one to forget faces. "Why did you leave her with that swordsman, and where is he at this moment?"

"I met her and she looked very scared and confused, and said she was looking for someone," he said, calming down slightly. "I know what it's like to lose someone, so I agreed to help. When the swordsman showed up, they both said that they'd been looking for each other. I thought that my job was done, so I left." He crossed his arms. "As for your question about Iria, I had to retrieve some artifacts there and... the shamans want to see me dead."

Zendra shook her head, "We are not shamans, therefore we are not the ones seeking to kill you. We only want to find answers regarding a little girl and now, that swordsman. Do you know anything else about them or where they are?"

"The swordsman carried many duplicates of his weapon, at a glace I would guess that he had thirty or more of the same sword in his case, which he kept around his shoulder with police tape. It was... very strange, but, the kid seemed to like him." He shook his head. "My name is Ruairi by the way," the man said. "I know where I left them, but I'd like to know more about why you think they're in trouble."

Caius, upon hearing about the swordsman, shifted uncomfortably. "Yikes... yeah, we might have an issue here. That swordsman has been known to side with demons and witches in the past. I don't like the sound of this." He spoke quietly and under his breath, hoping that Ruairi couldn't hear him.

"Reardless, we have our information, I think we should take what we know back to the guild and pool our resources in order to find this man. Police tapes and dozens of swords should stick out." Balbadorf looked on at the scene.

Dio nodded and lowered his voice as well. "This sounds like it could get messy if we aren't careful. Should we introduce ourselves yet or let Zendra keep talking?" The pilot idly played with the goggles around his neck.

Zendra ignored Balbadorf's comment. The more time they spent wasting the harder they were bound to be to locate, especially if they ended up moving. Caius mentioned that they were going to stay in wutai for a while, but who knew how long that would be. As far as she was concerned they were not ready to go back yet, and she had not gotten all the information she could from this man. "The man is of the questionable sort. It is possible that the girl did not know this. Someone on our team with an unusual ability reported something wrong about the girl he was with so we came here to look into it." Zendra explained. "Could you show us where you left the two of them?"

Ruairi tried to piece what was being said together. "Wrong with her...? She seemed just fine to me. I mean, she was a witch, but, that's not too unusual." He Sat back down, having relaxed. Zendra didn't seem hostile. "I stopped talking to them in Truce. Said they were going to take the ferri to Shrike to get on the Red Rose. I don't know where they were planning on going from there."

Gustav watches the ongoing questions and nods to himself. It seems like this group was getting a little better at handling things. No one had tried to attack someone yet. Gustav made a mental note to encourage Zendra's behavior later.

So the man knew she was a witch. But he said this in a rather casual manner which seemed odd. Zendra closed her eyes for a moment trying to figure out what to do about the situation. Where did the Red Rose Fly after shrike? Likely the people who ran the it would know. "Thank you Ruairi. You have been very helpful." The woman flashed a small smile to the man and then turned to the rest of the group, the expression fading to her usual deadpanned expression, "Anyone of you know where the Red Rose flys after Shrike?"

"Barring dangerous weather, I believe it goes to Gold city." Dio thinks for a moment. "Yeah, it's Gold city."

Caius nods. "Well, we have two options. Follow them, or go back to the Guild Hall like Edmund asked us to." He shrugged. "You guys were told what the plan was by him, but you know my general opinion of Edmund as well, so, overall I'm going to leave the decision up to you."

As they were talking, Ruairi took the oppurtunity to leave, taking a brisk walk away. Caius tried to follow where he went with his eyes, but quickly lost track of him in the shadows of the now night sky.

"I vote we gather our thoughts back at Mandala, we can catch the Red rose at any time there. There are too many unknowns at this point to safetly continue our search." Balbadorf said, arms crossed.

"I do not like knowing where they went and not pursuing, however there could be a reason why we were asked to return." Zendra leaned her staff against her shoulder and folded her arms. She had enough experience hunting down people around this world to last her a lifetime.

"Personally, I think we should follow them to Gold City at least." Dio crossed his arms. "Walking back up to the guild hall and then back down here would take far too long and their trail would get even colder than it already is. Let's go see of we can see anything at the Gold City airship dock."

Gustav looks around and stretches, wondering when the group was going to be done with this shopping trip so they could all go home. It was getting late, after all.

Caius nods. "It's possible for us to split up from here. I lead a team to follow the pursuit and the rest go onward." He shakes his head. "I want to have some words with that swordsman."

"Caius No. Me and Caius will report back to mandala and hire a private vessel to gold city. Zendra, can you take Gusav and Dio to Gold City? And make sure they don't cause trouble." Balbadorf stated grabbing Caius' shoulder.

Gustav cocks his head to the side as he looks to Caius. "Wann werden wir verlassen, Caius?" The knight began to slowly thing that the purpose of this trip wasn't actually to go shopping. Was that why Zendra had been talking to that person?

"I'll volunteer to pursue, but I'd like to have the second group to bring my vanship to Gold City in my absence. I would normally go get it myself, but I think time is of the essence here and walking up a mountain to go get it." Dio checks his pistol. "Is anybody else coming with us?"

Zendra glanced to Caius, "I will go. If they have moved beyond gold city I will leave a note at the in reporting the new location. Otherwise, you will find us there." Even if Caius wasn't going this was the route she wanted to take. Unfortunately if he was going to go back to mandala she wouldn't get a chance to speak with him.

Caius was caught off guard by Balbadorf, but he thought he understood. "Right. I'm the leader. If I don't show back up, I'd be in a lot more trouble than if you all didn't show up." He nooded to Zendra. "We'll try to be there soon."

"Right, we should go get ferry tickets. And maybe something to keep in contact. I can get the tickets if you look for something like that, Zendra." Dio looked out towards the boardwalk. "Pretty sure tickets are over there..."

"We will try to hold off on taking any action until you catch up with us." Zendra assured Caius and Balbadorf, then she looked to Gustav and Dio, taking her staff into her hands and moving off in the direction of the City's. "Let's go."