[In this channel! Katherine and Frei successfully overcame the lock on Maris's trunk, unfortunately that set off a trap scorching the belongings inside.] [They're currently outside of the school.] * Frei drums his fingers on his thigh, observing the now-useless remains of the chest. He eloquently decides to summarize the situation! "Well, fuck." * Katherine folds her arms, eyeing the contents. Or what's left of them. "That about covers it." * Frei tips the chest with his toe. He's also floaty out of habit. "She had something to hide, though, and that's a fact. This was not set up to protect her diary entries about which boys are dreamy from her girlfriends." [Frei and Katherine both hear an animal like sound.] * Katherine blinks. She steps over to the chest and looks in, while still keeping her distance. * Frei blinks and looks around all paranoid-like. "Aw, damnit. There's probably some nasty dragon-spider-dire parrot fiend thing wandering around out here. I could sweard I just hear something." You did, but it's not a parrot. [Katherine notices the unicorn in the chest, the charged plushy, is squirming slightly and neighing weakly.] * Frei raises an eyebrow. "What was it, then, o she of apparent radar hearing?" * Katherine sighs. "The stuffed animal." She moves closer and plucks the thing from the chest, if it'll let her. [It doesn't resist much, but it does try to poke at her with its plush horn, the horn is somewhat firm, probably having something more than stuffing inside, but doesn't actually hurt.] * Katherine eyes the unicorn. "That's not going to work, you know. Can you talk?" * Frei raises an eyebrow at the unicorn. "Now that's new." He tilts his head, then grins. "Oh, the possibilities!" He's clearly off in whatever sex-crazed capitalist dream flits through his head. * Katherine ignores Frei, unless he feels like sharing. * Unicorn whinnies angrily, you think that if it could talk, its not in the mood, what with being scorched. * Katherine brushes some ashes off the thing. "It wasn't our idea to trap your living quarters." * Frei gives the unicorn the eye, floating a bit behind Kate's shoulder. "Yeah, seriously. Blame the geek who's played too much D&D." [Unicorn looks a little better, still looks like it was hurt though and it just gives a glare that seems to say you people are the ones that broke into my house.] * Frei tilts his head. "You think if it's good and eats its vegetables, it'll grow up to be a real pony?" * Katherine thinks about that. Possibly. Though it's a plush, not a puppet. One has to wonder why she was keeping it in a box, coincidentally. I don't suppose if you're kissed by a pure maiden you turn into David Bowie or something, right? * Katherine snickers. * Katherine holds one hand over the unicorn while keeping it steady with the other, a light gust forming and effectively blowing off the char and ashes. * Frei blinks, and switches sides behind Kate's back. "Nice trick." [The unicorn settles a little, there are still some burn marks on the fabric that makes up it's skin but it seems more ameniable at the moment.] * Katherine shrugs. "Pick up a few things here and there." She eyes the unicorn. "Want to go back in the chest?" * Frei looks at the chest. "I sure as hell don't, unless you're referring to what is, I admit, a fairly nice rack. You work out?" * Unicorn whinnies in a way that sounds suspiously like Maris. * Katherine blinks, looks towards Frei, blinks again, and just shakes her head. "Not particularly." That causes her attention to go back to the unicorn. "So you can talk." * Unicorn settles down into Katherine's hand, having said its piece.] * Frei hmms and looks at the unicorn critically. "Well, I doubt it's a familiar. We know it belongs to Maris, and it can sort of talk. But it's not really doing us any good." * Katherine pets the unicorn a bit. "Well, if we put you back in there, you'll likely be returned to her eventually." She nods to Frei and sets the unicorn back in the chest. This is followed by her removing the lantern. * Frei awws and pouts. "I was thinking we could torture it for information. But if all it says is 'Maris', I guess that's not much good." He looks at the school in the distance and whines. "I don't WANT to go back in!" Then don't? * Frei shakes his head. "I gotta get that incense burner back. It's not safe for kids to be using it." * Frei pauses, then picks at his nails. "Never mind that it's worth a considerable chunk of MONEY." [Unicorn glares at Frei from the chest.] * Frei blinks, then looks at the chest. "What? It's not like we actually DID it." * Katherine doesn't look away from the lantern, but she does say, "Unicorn thought police. Who would have suspected?" * Frei turns his gaze back to Kate. "...okay, you're actually TALKING to it?" He pauses. "Well, you were a sparrow." * Katherine grins. A little. * Katherine glances from the lantern to the reciepts, peers for a moment, then goes back to the lantern. "Likely more illegal books." Spent enough money on them, though. I wonder how she manages to convince her father a few extra thousand pounds are school expenses. * Frei blinks, then makes a T with his hands. "Time! Technical foul by excluding me. Do you have super hearing or something or is there hoof-based sign language or what?" ... No, I just looked at what's left of those reciepts in there. [The lamp lights up, but nothing more.] Oh. Alright, I guess that's allowed. So she's reading stuff not on the curriculum, right? Big deal, all school kids do that. * Katherine looks at the lantern, puzzled, before handing it over to Frei. "Can you make anything of this?" [There's a neighing sound again.] * Frei takes the lantern, but then frowns and looks around, then at the unicorn. "Was that you?" * Unicorn shakes its little head. But it has a pouty look for having to deal more with Frei. Yeah, I was sort of afraid you'd neigh that. [There's sort of a hoof sound like a horse moving. Awareness, vision checks. +8 penalty.] * Katherine glances around, then transforms into a sparrow and flies up to perch on one of the branches. * Frei is left holding the lantern. "Man, you SUCK." He whispers another invisibility spell. [Neither of you are seeing anything at all as the sound gets louder, Frei, give me a powerusage roll for casting speed.] [Frei succeeds in casting his invisibility spell, but it was a bit difficult and so he feels a sudden fairly burning pain in his side as if he was just stabbed by an acidic spear point or something.] * Frei winces! Not that you can see it. "Ow! Gawdamnit." No sense in staying too quiet, but he doesn't make any extraneous noise after that. [Frei, Katherine, Unseen beasty. Everybody just give your orders and I'll resolve them.] * Frei heads up in the air toward the last known sparrow position, trying to figure out what just hit him. * Katherine flies up higher, a wind picking up at ground level, near the chest. It throws itself at the unicorn. [The unicorn, which Frei still doesn't see, is knocked off to the side and searches about ineffectually for its target. Frei just hears a thuump hit a tree and sees leaves disturbed.] * Frei raises an inivisible eyebrow. "Okay, what the hell?" * Katherine doesn't make a noise, but you can bet she'd tell Frei to be quiet if she did. * Katherine instead looks down at the unicorn, making another wind, farther away from the chest (and herself and Frei). It also aims to wreak havoc on the poor, not-so-innocent animal. [The unicorn is knocked back again and loses its footing, it starts whinning quite loudly and slowly regains its footing. The thing seems troubled by the wind, but quite capable of taking a beating.] * Katherine doesn't attack it this time. She watches and makes another gust even further away. This one doesn't reach the unicorn, and it wasn't intended to. * Frei makes sure he's nice and off the ground, well out of jumping distance of anything, and frowns. "Okay, hold up, whatever it is down there that's being all nasty. We don't have any bones to pick with you, so why don't we just call it even for now, alright?" [Unicorn rushes back towards the chest on the grown, knocking it shut with its horn and then grabbing it with its teeth. Frei justs sees the chest lift up.] * Frei blinks, then adds two and two together. "Oh. Must be a unicorn. Maybe the little one has a homing beacon or something." * Katherine chirps and flies into the air, hovering a moment before taking off, away from the unicorn. [Unicorn runs off chest in teeth. Or the chest just levitates away.] [The unicorn incidentally does charge in the location the wind went, but it's likely to be disappointed.] * Katherine looks around, but she can't see Frei. She chirps once in annoyance. * Frei sighs and drops the spell once the unicorn's gone. He's got a nice gash in his side, and coincidentally has two little demon wings on the sides of his head, and two larger ones off the small of his back (think Etna or Morrigan). "Well, that SUCKED. Ow." [Unicorn doesn't turn around.] * Katherine flies down lower, landing on a thicker branch and transforming into a sitting Katherine in a tree. She looks at him critically. "We'd better get going," she says quietly. "They'll know a demon attacked soon enough." * Frei looks down at Kat and pouts. "I didn't attack anything! A damn unicorn tried to GORE me and one of their people stole my stuff! *I* am the victim, here!" * Katherine smiles faintly. "Of course you are." * Frei frowns. "Fine, let's just go already. Do you have an actual GOAL in mind, Miss I'm So Smart?" [Katherine, incidentally, completely loses sight of the black unicorn when she switches back to human form.] * Katherine shrugs, not fazed at all. "If you didn't want me to help you, you should have let me know. Let's move." And with that, she melts back into her sparrow form, chirping once before taking to the air and the opposite way the unicorn went. * Frei frowns and flies after. "Who was opening doors and windows for who, bird lady?" * Katherine doesn't respond. Maybe she can't talk this way. * Frei continues babbling on. "If you're expecting me to go back in there like this, you might want to wait so I can cast another spell." * Katherine keeps flying until she's what she deems a safe distance away, then lands on the ground and transforms back. "Not yet. I'm wondering what you know." * Frei comes to a stop and floats on down, hovering an inch or so off the ground distractedly. "Not much. An artifact I happen to own, an Indian incense burner, got stolen from Harrod's... I gave London a look around, didn't find it, and figured the next logical place to look was here, since the thing has magic properties." * Katherine nods. * Frei grins and puts his chin in his right hand. "Well, I showed you mine, now you show me yours." * Katherine sighs faintly, looking off towards the school. "There's a black market here. A few things were stolen, and one of the students was caught on camera from the most recent theft." * Frei huhs. "Well, that makes sense, I guess. Where better to hide valuable magical stuff than in a school full of it?" * Katherine nods once. "And where to better find a consumer base?" Now she looks back towards Frei; more like past him. "The boy caught was Isaac Maddox. You wouldn't know anything about him, would you?" * Frei snaps his fingers. "Wait, actually, I do remember. He's not a little boy, he's a unicorn. Nice kid. Bit goofy, does good work with charms and such though." * Frei babbles on. "I met this one fallen guardian angel once who was absolutely smitten with him, which to ME says Earth's spiritual beings need to get out more, frankly..." * Katherine raises an eyebrow. "I'm sorry?" * Frei waves his hand. "Anyhow. That's the guy they saw on tape? I wonder what his angle is..." I am, too. ... You were saying he's a unicorn? * Frei nods. "Yeah, Unicorn House." * Katherine frowns faintly. Back in, I suppose. * Frei grumbles and turns around to look at his back. Wings gone yet? [Wings gone.] * Frei gives a thumbs up. "Alright. We don't really have a choice. But I don't think me being invisible or you being sparrow's going to hold 'em for long. I bet they're on alert now that we've absconded with that chest and they're not going to buy our line on Maris." That's what I'm worried about. Though if you don't have any suggestions on how to handle that, we'll just have to wing it. * Frei hmmms and looks at the castle. "Actually... I have an idea." * Katherine tilts her head. * Frei smiles innocently. "What are your feelings on red leather?" It reminds me of someone, and it can be uncomfortable. What do you have in mind? * Frei sets down on the ground. "Well, this is a school full of magically- endowed adolescents, right? They summon incubi and succubi all the time." * Katherine looks vaguely amused. "I don't think I'll pass as a succubus." * Frei hmms. "You can control the wind, though, right?" * Katherine nods. Well, then, we'll say you're from an elemental plane. We both ended up here "by mistake". And once they try exorcising us? * Frei pauses. "Alright, granted." How about we take a look before we try anything. * Frei shrugs. "Fair enough. Lead on." * Katherine does, as she turns back into a sparrow and wings her way to the Unicorn dorms. Just can't leave it alone. * Frei grumbles, then knits his brow, humming "Anything you can do, I can do better", but substituting "at least with a fraction of similar competence" for "better". [Katherine heads back in the direction of the dorms. There's a fair number of students brooming around this time, seems like classes are out.] * Frei sparrowizes! Sort of. * Katherine avoids the brooming students. Scuse me, coming through. * Frei follows as best he can. He's not as used to the whole bird thing. [You successfully get their, Frei, by the way, does have a slightly sinister bird feel about him, offset slightly by the fact that he's a rather pretty bird.] * Katherine begins to circle, checking for open windows, psychotic centaurs searching the dorms, students, that sort of thing. * Frei follows Katie. She's got sharp eyes! [The dorm has all of its windows closed and locked, including the ones that were open earlier, but no centaurs. [You can see inside.] * Frei alights on a sill. This flapping stuff is hard. * Katherine does, too, looking inside. She's an annoyed sparrow, if sparrows look annoyed. * Frei looks around, then blinks his little bird eyes. * Katherine lets Frei catch his breath, then takes to the air again, this time checking for any signs that one might be Isaac's room. * Frei flaps alongside Katie, then makes a little sparrow noise and points a wing at the broomstick types. * Frei tries to accompany this with the Look of They Have To Get In And Out Somehow, but it probably doesn't work so well, because, you know... bird. * Katherine glances that way. She chirps, and apparently the look doesn't work, because she goes back to concentrating on flying and finding that room. * Frei mehs (in his head) and keeps flying, giving Katie the Indecipherable Look of You Suck. * Katherine completely misses that one! [Katherine notices a paper with the name Isaac Maddox written on in one of the rooms using her ungodly good vision.] * Katherine lands on that sill. Any one in there? [Nope!] * Frei follows like a good little birdy who is beginning to feel the incense burner isn't worth it. [The room is moderately clean aside from a few scattered books and papers and badly made beds. There's the chestss as before. Only odditity is a blue furry looking lump in one corner. About half the size of a bean bag. Hard to tell whether its just an odd pillow or something else folded up. * Frei gives the lump the Look of Oh My God, They Kidnapped Cookie Monster. * Katherine tilts her head and looks at it, too. He's probably right. * Frei takes back the Look of Oh My God, They Kidnapped Cookie Monster and instead goes for the Look of I WIsh I Could Blow This Door Open With A Fireball. [The latch strains a little then is blown off by the an unexpected breeze.] * Frei would woo, but bird. * Katherine lets the breeze push open the window, too, and flies in, landing on the floor and just changing back to her normal self. She immediately heads over to Isaac's section of the room and has a look around. * Frei flaps on over to Katherine's shoulder and alights there. Haha, my turn. * Katherine lets him! [Isaac's part of the room is actually fairly unremarkable, no books out of note, no hidden magical items, nothing obvious that seems any different from what the rest of the students have. Although some of his possessions are on the beat up not cared for all that well side.] * Katherine frowns a bit, then starts nosing around in his desk. She's such a snoop. [Desk don't have much of anything of note, although his books on charms are far more advanced than any of the rest of his books, which are more introductory texts.] * Katherine picks up one of his charm books and flips through, paying attention to the inside front and back covers and whichever sections seem to be most read. * Frei finds a spare piece of floor and also ditches the bird form. "Bah, that is really getting old. I need some sort of talisman for that sort of stuff." How do you mean? * Frei waves his hand. "You have to spend a little bit of your energy to keep a spell up, you know? It's not hard, I'm actually quite good at it, but I'd like to save my strength in case something comes along." He skims the covers of the books. "Hey, this is some heavy-duty reading for this type of spell." [He doesn't seem to have spent much time on seduction and subversion, more on one time uses that won't prove memorable.] * Frei picks one up and flips through it. "Mostly one-off stuff to impress your friends. It's not like he's studying how to bind people to his will or anything." * Katherine hmms faintly. "Impressing his friends." She goes back to looking around. "I wonder who his friends are." * Katherine absently sets the book where she found it. * Frei finds a bookmark and thumbs to that page. "Hm, maybe I was wrong. This is actually a pretty decent compulsion charm..." He flips through to the index. "The rest is stuff like... memory charms." * Katherine looks over at Frei. "Memory as in improvement, or memory as in erasure?" * Frei flips a page. "Erasure." * Katherine nods and goes back to looking for any hints as to who he may be working with, or affiliated with, or anything. Once she's done with Isaac's section of the room, she starts checking out the rest of it. * Frei flips another page and mouths some words. "Let's see..." He knits his brow, then mouths a few more words. "This one is sort of preemptive. You cast it, then they forget whatever happened once you did so. Not too hard. Useful stuff, too. Magical rohypnol, basically." Lovely. [No hints there. Oh, and his chest hasn't been checked yet. Rest of the room is pretty dull.] * Frei nods, then flips the book shut. "Kind of advanced for what he's studying with everything else, but..." He puts it back wherever it was. "Not exactly world destroying dark sorcery." * Katherine lets out a breath before walking over to Isaac's chest. "I didn't expect world-destroying dark sorcery. Think you can handle this one?" * Frei looks at the chest critically. "Dunno. How good are you with mundane traps? I don't want any more surprises." [End]