Wolf Pack Photo Watchout [SW]

-Silver Wolf Guild Hall, Guild Mistress' Office-

Wearing her green, gold, and white outfit with bike shorts underneath the skirt and Argent Gloves on her hands plus PG-13 standing guard to her left, Leona was reading the manual to her new Daggerbook laptop when she should be wading through a medium-sized stack of guild paperwork instead. Leona had tried her best to be a dutiful administrator, but the lure of finally learning to work with modern technology was too great to resist. She was poring over the manual to the Daggerbook when she heard footsteps approaching the door.

Leona panicked and hastily hid the manual in a desk drawer, then shut it and began examining the stack of paperwork she should have already been working on. It was another stack dealing with expenditures on food and drinks for the guild cafe, expenditures which were quite taxing on the guild budget. However, the increased number of visitors to the guild hall and the frequent patronage by guild members helped cover that expense with a small profit left over, so Leona was not terribly worried. She set the paper aside and began to read over the next item, which was a summary of the guild's purchases of coffee.

Leona blushed a little because she had contributed quite a bit to that with her coffee habit. She set the paper aside and moved on to the next item, which detailed the number of visitors to the guild spa. She was about to read it when there was a knock on the door before it opened.

"Excuse me Guild Mistress, but there's something I'd like to tell you." The middle-aged staff member informed Leona. The blonde looked up and spoke to him.

"Yes?" Leona inquired.

"There's someone... jumping up and down... while taking pictures." The man reported as if he could not believe what he was saying. Leona too was incredulous. While someone jumping up and down taking pictures was kind of strange, it was not something that required her intervention. Still, it was something worth looking into.

"I'll go check it out. Thanks for the heads-up." Leona replied. He nodded and left the Guild Mistress to prepare to go outside. Leona checked to make sure that Ses Revanche was in her right boot; it was there. PG-13 moved to follow her but Leona did not need him.

"Please stay and guard my office." Leona requested of PG-13. He stopped moving after four steps and returned to his place to the left of her desk.

"Understood." He replied laconically. Leona left the office to go outside and see just what this mystery person was up to.

-Outside the Guild Hall-

Leona stepped outside the guild hall and began to look for the mystery person. She did not have very far to look because a magic signature was soon felt... but where was it coming from? The blonde looked towards the sky and found the source.

A young woman with taupe hair and wearing a thick parka jacket with snow goggles and purple boots was slowly floating down while snapping pictures. Leona blinked. She could hardly believe what she was seeing. While the sight was strange, it did not require an armed response, so Ses Revanche stayed in its boot.

"Hi there. Can I help you with anything?" Leona called out to the floating young woman.

[Post Word Count: 561]
[Leona's Word Count: 561]

Leona saw the strange mage float to the ground, then land on her hands and knees after getting exhausted from running in midair in what looked like an attempt to escape after being called to by Leona. The Wizard Saint was not quite sure what she was dealing with as the young woman floated to the ground, but she clearly meant no harm. Leona learned that the young photographer's name was Willow and that she was no threat to anyone before the latter began pleading for the blonde not to hurt her.

Leona paused when she heard that.

Was her reputation really that bad?

Did everyone in Earthland think that the only way she interacted with people was through violence?

To be fair, Leona had built a reputation for fighting over the years, so such a perception was not entirely unwarranted. Still, she was not so eager to fight that her first inclination was to attack anything that could be remotely construed as a threat. Leona could peacefully interact with other people; among other projects she was trying to improve her weak social skills so that she could change the public's perception of her. Maybe one day she could prove to the world that there was more to Leona Jarnefeldt than just fighting.

"Don't worry Willow, I won't hurt you." Leona assured the taupe-haired young woman that she would not be harmed by the Wizard Saint. The blonde could tell from the latter's magic signature that Willow was no threat to Leona. Besides, if Willow was a threat the spirit wolves would have either led her astray or taken other action against her. Leona thought of approaching to help Willow but decided against it because at the moment the latter seemed to fear violence directed against her person. Leona did not want to add fuel to the fire and mess up her first contact with the unusual but harmless outsider.

"I'm Leona Jarnefeldt, Guild Mistress of Silver Wolf. How can I help you, Willow?" Leona asked while staying right where she was. Leona did not see Willow as a threat, so now the Wizard Saint was focused on showing the visitor the hospitality that Silver Wolf's Guild Mistress should show to visitors to the Phoenix Mountains.

[Post Word Count: 376]
[Leona's Word Count: 937]

Leona blinked when she heard Willow talk about her reason for being here. According to the photographer, the town she was from did not just disappear from the physical world, but also maps. That change was not just limited to maps of the region where the disappearance had happened. The change had also happened to maps in places far from the missing area. Leona had never heard of anything like that in her life.

"It's OK, Willow. You're not talking too fast. I understood everything you said." Leona said in a calm voice to reassure the young woman that she had not made a mistake that would drive the Wizard Saint away.

The situation was beyond anything Leona had ever heard about or experienced. The Crimson Sashes undoubtedly wanted to wipe Nebdoui and its allies off the map just because they could, but somehow it was different from what had happened to Willow's place. The desert raiders planned to kill the villagers, take whatever valuables they wanted, torch the place, and move onto the next target. While that approach would have wiped Nebdoui from the map, it would have still existed on maps and in the memory of Desierto's citizens.

Whatever had happened to Willow's town was "wipe somewhere off the map" taken to the extreme. The worst thing about it was had Willow failed to escape the region or had been in the area when the mass disappearance happened, Willow would have vanished too and Leona would have never known what happened. That in itself was unsettling to think about, but more was yet to come.

To make matters worse, all of Willow's friends and family had gone missing too by being "engulfed in the blackness." Somehow Willow was the only one who remembered that they had ever existed. Leona found that story disturbing in more ways than one. She could not wrap her mind around the idea of an entire series of towns disappearing, their locations disappearing from any and all maps ever made like they had never existed, and their citizens vanishing both physically and from the memory of everyone except Willow.

Leona felt a dim but gradually growing sense of horror at the level of magical power it would take to accomplish something like that. The fact that Willow was the only one left who even knew that this had happened somehow made it worse. And she had survived all this time with the knowledge that she was the only one who knew what had happened. How the photographer had made it here without experiencing more distress was beyond the Wizard Saint.

"Tell me something, Willow." Leona said to the young woman, suppressing her sense of horror at both the incident itself and the magical power required to make it happen. She had a hypothesis.

"Before the towns disappeared, did you know of any wizards in the area with a grudge against any of the towns? Like one strong enough to make things disappear? Or a group of them that could combine their power to make it happen?" Leona asked Willow. The Wizard Saint's hypothesis was just that, a hypothesis. It was also a bit cliche to blame mages, but Leona had nothing else to go on and decided to start with that line of inquiry first.

[Post Word Count: 551]
[Leona's Word Count: 1,488]

OOC: I have TOGA's permission to move Willow from outside of Silver Wolf Guild Hall to inside the guild hall.

Leona watched patiently as Willow took a moment to get her breath after the rapid-fire speaking she had just done. She then noticed the hapless photographer crouch down in the snow and shiver as a cold wind blew between them and rustled Leona's hair. The Wizard Saint was wearing an outfit that left most of her legs exposed, so she should be colder than Willow, but since she had spent a little over two years in this region, she was mostly used to it.

"C'mon Willow, let's go inside. I can tell that you're cold." Leona bade the photographer to enter the guild hall so that they could converse in a place that was more comfortable for the newcomer. Leona walked slowly so that Willow could keep up with her as the Wizard Saint headed back towards the guild hall. The former opened the door and let Willow in first, then closed the door behind her.

-Inside the guild hall, the guild foyer-

The pair entered the guild hall and paused in front of the blazing fireplace in the guild foyer. A metal guard prevented stray embers from popping out and setting anything or anyone on fire. It was in this warmer environment that the attempt to learn more about what had led to Willow's village and family disappearing would continue.

Leona listened to Willow explain that as far as she knew there was no grudge against Willow's hometown, only nine figures. These nine figures were "smoky" and "like a collection of wisps of smog that formed into these strange-looking figures." Leona had never heard of such a thing before, but what was more disturbing was Willow's reaction to them. The poor photographer curled into a ball on the wooden floor and looked genuinely disturbed.

Willow then added how she witnessed what might have been a tenth one trying to form that came out of the town, but she was not sure because the mere sight of the creatures had done a number on Willow's sanity. Leona knew exactly what that felt like. The Halloween in Hargeon Town where she had went to the lower docks and encountered the ghost of Jacob Goodnight and all the other evildoers she had killed up to that point walking up to the dock on a blood-red ocean had done a number on Leona's sanity too. The rest of the story was not any better.

Willow spoke of "empty orange orange glowing things" gazing at each other before they gazed at her in unison. Willow recalled feeling like she was having a nightmare, but then they walked away together and disappeared. That was an abrupt departure for the things out of a nightmare, but it sounded like something that such a being would do. Leona was not sure what to ask next because Willow's memory might have been affected by the "stretching" of her sanity, but the Wizard Saint needed just a bit more information to go on.

"This might sound really stupid, but I have to ask. Do you remember in what direction the creatures you saw walked in? Did they head for a forest, for mountains, or for any other local landmark?" Leona asked Willow.

[Post Word Count: 532]
[Leona's Word Count: 2,020]

Leona had asked the burning question and had gotten her answer. It was not exactly the one she wanted, but if Willow did not know where the mystery figures who had given her nightmares went, Willow did not know where they went. Besides, the answers to every question in life were not going to jump out and slap Leona in the face. Like with the mystery surrounding King Saarghon of Desierto, the Wizard Saint would just have to go looking for the answers to the questions surrounding the ten mystery figures.

"That's fine if you don't know where they went, Willow. They're magical figures, after all. If magical figures don't want to be followed, they'll find ways to discourage people from following them." Leona assured Willow that it was OK if she did not know where the people went. Willow had reported that just seeing them and being around them had "stretched" her sanity to an uncomfortable extent. She had very little evidence to base it on, but that description made Leona come up with the hypothesis that the sanity-stretching effect was both a defense and a warning that said "don't follow us" in no uncertain terms. If they could do that, the Wizard Saint would hate to see what the mystery figures could do if they ever got serious about keeping someone from following them.

Maybe they just wiped the person out of existence with their mysterious magic.

Leona did not know for certain and she was not really sure if she wanted to know the answer to that question. She was still trying to wrap her mind around how much magic power it took to make entire towns disappear from the world and from maps. However, Willow needed help with her quandary and Leona would do her best to help. Of particular importance to the young photographer was getting her home back.

"I'll help you get your home back, Willow. I'll also help you get photographic proof of their existence so that you can show everyone that they exist in a way that can't be easily dismissed." Leona pledged to help Willow with her problem. Leona knew what it was like to have a home in danger. While Nebdoui's problems were not as extreme as being wiped from physical existence and maps, Leona's home was in very real danger of being wiped out by one good bandit raid. She was working to keep that from happening and she would work to recover Willow's home before it was too late.

[Post Word Count: 421]
[Leona's Word Count: 2,441]

Leona heard the request to change the subject and was glad to oblige. She could tell that Willow was having a tough time coming to grips with what had happened to her village and did not want to keep being reminded of it. Leona also heard the gratitude that Willow had for Leona's pledge to help her restore her home to the real world again.

"It's no problem, Willow." Leona said in response to Willow's gratitude, being careful not to keep bringing up a subject that the photographer really wanted to avoid discussing for awhile. Now it was time to shift gears and discuss something else. Fortunately for Leona the photographer had provided a couple of subjects she wanted to talk about such as the guild's history or whether there were any good spots for photo ops. Leona would be happy to oblige Willow on the first.

"Silver Wolf was in existence long before I came along, Willow. I joined Silver Wolf a little over two years ago when I was recruited by its first Guild Mistress, a mage named Leila Vergious. I had just finished a job that nearly killed me, which was to apprehend or kill a serial killer who was terrorizing Hargeon Town. His name was Jacob Goodnight and he used to be a miner before he took up the tools of a butcher and began killing people." Leona started talking about the history of Silver Wolf while adding how she had come to join the guild she now led.

"I encountered him at Hargeon Town's lower docks and managed to win the fight... barely. I spent a couple days in the hospital recovering from cuts inflicted by a butcher knife and after I was released I went to a tavern and happened to meet this silver-haired young woman with blue eyes who was really strong. She was named Leila Vergious and after I told her that I was tired of being Guildless and wanted some stability she told me that she led a guild named Silver Wolf and that Silver Wolf was always looking for new members." Leona continued the story.

"I decided to join and, as the saying goes, the rest is history. I've been with Silver Wolf for a little over two years, but there are people who've been with it since the very beginning. If you want to learn more I'd suggest talking to Kitalpha Aurence or Yuvon Mu-Myu. They were part of Silver Wolf long before I was." Leona suggested a couple of people to Willow if she was interested in learning more about Silver Wolf from the guild's oldest members. The Wizard Saint then took a pause to let Willow ask questions if she wanted to.

[Post Word Count: 455]
[Leona's Word Count: 2,896]

"There's quite a bit of background information on Silver Wolf that even I don't know just yet, but it's not because it's some big secret. It's likely available in the guild library. You can also ask some of the older members about it." Leona said to Willow. There was a lot that the Wizard Saint did not know about the guild she led, but that was not due to a conspiracy by the guild staff. It was the fault of Leona herself that she did not know more about the guild and yet another shortcoming the blonde had to rectify. The blonde always had to be on the move, always taking a job to keep Silver Wolf in the public eye.

Leona next heard Willow ask if she could join Silver Wolf. The Wizard Saint heard that Willow had the ability to sneak around and get information... she was clearly offering that skill as a way to earn her keep should she be allowed to join the guild. The young photographer then stated that she needed a place to stay and a way to earn money, both of which Leona could provide by allowing her to join.

Willow next declared her intent to find out what happened to her home and to get strong enough to take on one of those beings she had described to the Wizard Saint. Leona could easily sympathize with that goal since her own home was under constant attack. She wondered how Chief Elijah was doing lately. She was not sure if no news was good news or if things were really bad but Joshua and her mother were keeping things under wraps so that the people of Nebdoui did not panic.

To top it all off the young photographer vowed that she would go back into the world to pursue the "scoop of a century" and get her aunt, uncle, and cousins back even if she were not allowed to join Silver Wolf. Leona was impressed with the youth's fortitude. Earlier it seemed like she was not doing so well, but now she had found the inner strength to not only get back on her feet but also to focus on finding out what had happened to her home and family even if she had to do it without the support of a Wizard Saint. Then again, clear goals tended to give people focus, especially when the stakes were personal. Again Leona could sympathize with Willow's situation because her own family was in constant danger of being killed by bandits or captured by slavers.

"Don't worry, Willow. You're welcome to join Silver Wolf, but before you do, would you like to hear about the guild's three divisions?" Leona stated that there was room in the guild for Willow before asking the latter if she would like to hear about the guild's three divisions before making the decision to join Silver Wolf.

[Post Word Count: 488]
[Leona's Word Count: 3,384]

"We have three divisions to our guild, Willow. The first is the Hunters. The second is the Scholars. The third is the Defenders." Leona started explaining to the young photographer how the guild was broken up into three divisions. The Wizard Saint was mildly amused by the joke and let it pass without comment, instead focusing on how to explain the guild's divisions without insulting her intelligence with overly simple word choice.

"The guild's mission is treasure-hunting, the conservation of magical artifacts, and magical research. The divisions all have a particular task that works towards those goals. The Hunters are the ones who travel across Earthland and find treasure and artifacts. The Scholars research the magical properties of artifacts and work to preserve them for future generations. The Defenders protect both the guild hall and the guild vault from would-be thieves who want to steal the artifacts we've collected." Leona gave Willow a brief rundown of what the three divisions did and how all three worked towards Silver Wolf's mission. She saw the photographer snapping shots of the guild hall and saw that Willow was starting to be in better spirits than she was when she first arrived at the guild hall. She then recalled Willow's question about whether everything was legal and decided to answer it the best she could.

"Silver Wolf is an Independent guild, meaning that while we don't follow the Magic Council, we're not their enemy either. As long as we don't commit mass murder or other terrible crimes, the Magic Council pretty much leaves us alone." Leona answered Willow's question the best she could. There was a lot of gray area considering how artifacts were acquired, but as an Independent guild the gray area should not bother them too much... at least in theory. Leona herself wanted to keep a good relationship with the sultans of Desierto and the ruling class of Midi, so she did not just saunter in and take what she wanted. She tried to respect the countries in which she traveled and took only from sites that had not been claimed by the ruler of the country.

That in itself was another gray area, but something had to give. Running a guild was not cheap. Leona also was not going to let artifacts like tomes of eldritch lore or powerful weapons sit out in the open waiting for dark mages to collect and use. She had possibly violated the law by going into Silent Cemetery with the intent of trespassing to keep the Aggression Pack from being taken and use to commit some atrocity by Dark mages or criminal gangs, but she would do it all over again to keep dangerous items out of the wrong hands.

[Post Word Count: 456]
[Leona's Word Count: 3,840]