Closed Playing a Card in a Delicate Game

[Coren]

Coren dispelled the magic shield surrounding his arm as soon as Sliver had punched him in the arm, the shield had absorbed all of the impact and coren honestly hadn't even felt anything of the punch. He saw the man's eyes swirl with colour, but he didn't know the man so he didn't really manage to pin an emotion on him that would have caused those shifts. At the mans laste request coren nodded, he doubted sliver would turn around and just hand it over if the man broke that promise, she looked a bit to honorable to do that, but from what he had seen from Jaerith was that while he tried to play mind games with him, to not much success, unless he wanted him to do what he was asked during the interogation, but since he didn't need any convincing for that they where completely useless. “As long as I get them back I don't mind, it is not as if you two can read what is written in the book anyway.” Coren said in a dispassionate tone as he shoved his right arm into one of the pockets of his robe before slowly beginning to push out the astral body of his right arm. To onlookers it wouldn't really seem as if anything was happening, yes his arm was getting limp, but the heavy robe covered up that part of the projection quite wall though. It didn't take to long for a practiced user like coren to push out his astral body and he rummaged in the inside of his robe, feeling around for a few seconds before pulling out his practice book out of his robes. He deposited the old and well worn book in slivers palm without any trouble. As Sliver gave her version of the facts coren just nodded. “Yes, that was what happened, not the best way to handle things, but I doubted those drunks would have listened to reason from anybody, let alone a mage who they wanted to beat up. So I'm not really sorry for breaking the mans shoulder, he probably deserved it for what they did to the other mages.”

[Valkyrie]

Jaerith watched silently as the practice book emerged from Coren’s robes and was quickly deposited in Sliver’s hands. He noticed how effortlessly the man seemed to accomplish his magical tasks and the lack of any sign of strain.

“We all lose our temper at times when faced with irritation.” Jaerith nodded in acceptance of Sliver and Coren’s description of the events. Bar brawls happened all the time, especially in an isolated place like Avanthal. Tempers seemed to flare quickly but were smothered with the same speed. Bar brawls mattered little to him but it did give him a bit of a feel for Coren’s personality. Jaerith stood and stepped closer to Sliver. Looking over her shoulder, Jaerith reached a hand forward and gently flipped open the book to a random page. The precise scrawls of Coren’s glyphs were laid out on the page in a precise arrangement though Jaerith could not say what the purpose or point of it was. So the man was capable of great precision as well.

“Thank you for your cooperation Coren.” Jaerith flipped the book shut and lifted it from Sliver’s hands. He deposited it gently on the table in front of Coren. Sitting back down on his chair he was quiet a moment as he scribbled a bit on the paper.

“Have you ever been interested in animation yourself, Coren?” Jaerith asked with a raised brow. He turned his head to face Sliver and softly jerked his head toward Coren, indicating that he wished her to take over the current line of questioning. He had allowed her to watch him for a while and now he wished to see what this younger guard could do. Interrogation was a delicate matter; the most seemingly useless question had the most interesting implications if phrased appropriately. Each person who performed interrogations regularly had to find their own style and method of going about it.

[Coren]

Coren just nodded at the mans response to both of their stories of why he had been in contact with the icewatch before. While usually he would be a bit put at ease by the way the man didn't make a fuss about it, he reminded this was still an interrogation and the man could just as easily be trying to butter him up for later questioning. “It wasn't a problem, besides if I didn't show my face you probably would have dragged me down here later anyway. I highly doubt that would be even half as pleasant as this was.” Coren said in his usual aphatic and polite tone. Though seeing as he had made it clear how much he disliked this interrogation already it was it already gave the sole reason why he complied to the icewatches command. He gathered up the book and shoved it back in his robe after after both of them where done with it. He just kept quiet while the man was once more scribbling on his paper, wondering when the man was finally going to let him go, or stop being so mysterious about those things he was writing down. He probably was just noting down the things he learned from the interrogation. His disciplines that he knew and such. At the question of he ever wanted to learn animation coren let out an amused chuckle. “As a mage I'm interested in all branches and disciplines by default Jaerith.” Coren answered. “Though in the current climate I wouldn't think of learning it or practicing it. With the entire city completely scared out of their wits by animated creations I would be painting an even bigger target on my back then by just being a mage.” Coren stated. “Which might be something to write down too now that I mention it. To do something about the people attacking mages.”

[Sliver]

The Kelvic swapped places with Jaerith as she listened to Coren speak. Though it was clear what her superior wanted her to do, Sliver was still unsure of exactly how to go about, or how deeply they should rpobe into the Mage's affairs before satisfied that he was no culprit. At the mention of the abuse to mage's Sliver's face hardened. She had heard of such incidents from whispers through the barracks. The attacks had sparked people's fear, and had made them bolder in their dislike of magic. A vicious circle that would continue as long as someone put people in danger with magic. "The Icewatch does all it can to protect all of its citizens." It was the only reply she could muster without leaping to the defense of her organization in more blatant a fashion, and he had changed the subject anyway. She contemplated the questions Jaerith had asked and spoke, attempting to follow his line of interrogation. "You say you are interested in all fields of magic? So what made you specialize in the one's you employ now and not say, animation? Current magical events aside."

[Valkyrie]

Jaerith stood near the back of the room having allowed Sliver to take his place at the table. He shifted from one foot to the other as Coren spoke. It was much more difficult to take his insolence now that he was standing and more able to tackle the impudent mage. Flecks of orange began to populate his irises but beyond that he kept his cool.

“Yes, as Sliver said, we do all we can to protect all citizens. We cannot control the actions of all but we do what we can to help things, like question mages to try and figure out who might be capable of masterminding recent events.” Jaerith reiterated Sliver’s words to add emphasis to her point. It wasn’t as though Icewatch had been sitting back with warm cider while tensions were rising. Icewatch was being assaulted on all sides by the wildlife problems and now with this issue of a mage they were stretched thinner then ever before.

Jaerith kept silent after that, allowing Sliver to take the lead in questioning. He knew how difficult it was to question a person and he feared that many interruptions might break her concentration or thought process. Questioning someone was never easy and took time to get the handle of. He knew she could do it if she tried and thought through it well enough. It wasn’t as though he could feed her questions but he would jump in when he felt she was going in the wrong direction or began to lack things to say. They still had ground to cover though. They could discuss Coren’s thoughts on animation, whether he knew many other mages and if any could perform animation, and just anything unique he may have witnessed about the strange creatures.

[Coren]

“I'm sure you do.” Coren replied in a bitter tone, honestly coren did not believe a thing about that, if they truly did give a damn about the mages who lived in the frozen city, even with their forces stretched thin as it was. It didn't take much more then to make an example out of a single man who attacked another vantha to let the rest of the population think twice. But he wasn't about to say that in the face of an icewatch, they might not enjoy being told how to run their organization. When Sliver asked the question why he specialized in the magicks he utilized and not in others his lips twitched in faint amusement about the ignorance behind the magic. Still she was a kelvic, while mature in body she most likely was lacking severely in real life experience and knowledge. “Well, I didn't have a choice which disciplines I learned at the start of my life as a mage. I just had to take what I was offered.” Coren explained. “And since my master only knew those disciplines I mentioned those are the ones I learned.” He kept the fact that he highly doubted that his master limited himself to only those disciplines, the man always had seemed to enjoy having a few aces up his sleeve. But he wasn't going to tell that to them, or they might start thinking that he picked up that habit of him.

[Sliver]

It was interesting how Coren took her question for ignorance. It was certainly due to a cetain lack of understanding. While Sliver did her best to forget her times with magic, quite horrible times they had been at some points, her knowledge was based off of the island of Sahova. If one needed to learn a discipline it was there in books, and experience could be gotten from a quick lesson from a Nuit. True nothing came without a price, but if one was willing to pay there was literally no limit to what magical disciplines one could learn, so realizing that this plethora of knowledge was not available for all mages was logical, yet not something the Kelvic had taken into account. Sliver did not appreciate Coren's bitter tone, but she also could not fault him for his attitude. She glanced at Jaerith, and for an instant caught a definite level of anger brewing beneath the surface, and took comfort in the fact that this was not her superior's idea of a fun day either. Sliver contemplated her next move quietly for a moment, nodding at the Mage's explanation of his master's limited knowledge. Then cocked her head to the side curiously. "You are very adamant about protecting the magical community here in Avanthal, which is completely understandable. I am not familiar with many Mages outside of the Icewatch and yourself, do you know of any mages who practice Animation, even if they do not have the skill to be able to make the creatures that have been sighted?"

[Valkyrie]

Jaerith looked coolly at Coren and listened to his words carefully. The man certainly seemed bitter and frustrated with the city and Icewatch. He wondered if that was solely because of the events at hand or if other events and times had played into his dislike. He felt no need to bring that up nor defend the city and its guard any further. It was clear no matter his explanation Coren would not accept it as reasonable and rational. But then, everyone had different ideas of what was the right course of action depending on their priorities. Coren had his priorities and the Icewatch had their priorities. Likely they were not the same.

Jaerith turned his gaze upon Sliver and raised an eyebrow as she posed her question to Coren. She was doing well, in his opinion. Her questions were reasonable and followed a logical progression. That was one of the important lessons of interrogation, make questions follow a logical progression. If one question seems to naturally arise from someone’s answer then it was likely to be seen as more curiosity then targeted interrogation. Random questions that seemed to pop up out of the nowhere generally made the person being interrogated suspicious about what the questioner is probing for. Jaerith kept his mouth firmly clamped shut. He didn’t want to interrupt Sliver or the natural flow of the conversation. However, he was beginning to feel like they weren’t going to get anywhere with this suspect. He would let Sliver have a few more questions and then wrap up the process. No sense wasting the entire day on someone who didn’t anything, or at least wouldn’t talk even if they did know something.

[Coren]

“No, I never have met any vantha who practiced animation in avanthal. The mayority of the mage population leans more towards personal magic then the world magicks. Though there are a few spiritists around obviously.” Coren honestly replied to Sliver, He already had a few theories about why that was the case, though since he still had large gaps in his knowledge about disciplines he doubted those theories where watertight. “And even though some of those could be witholding some of their knowledge I highly doubt they are the ones who are creating those automatons. The sigil's covering the majority of their shells do not match the..” Coren paused for a moment, wondering how he should express how the glyph's of one mage was different then another. ” Handwriting of the mages I know who know glyphing.” Coren fessed up, hoping that his confession would keep some of the other mages out of the fireline, even if they where animators.

[Sliver]

Sliver nodded. Glyphing, though as incomprehensible to the wolverine as any kind of writing, had always seemed elegant in its own way, more like painting than writing in a way, and to continue with that analogy, everyone had their own painting style, no? She smirked a little, just thinking of how Coren would probably tear apart her analogy with that apathetic and 'know-it-all' tone he had, but wiped the expression swiftly from her features, hoping it escaped notice, returning to a straight faced and almost bored look, nodding seriously. She also observed how Coren's tone had changed from the bitterness into a more of an open honest tone, regardless of the fact that he clearly didn't want to implicate any mages he knew, Sliver was utterly confident in the fact that he was telling her the truth, as much as he cared to divulge anyway, and she took a little pride in that. Now however, came the hard part. It was clear to her that this train of questioning was getting them nowhere. Even if Coren had valuable information, which she doubted, it was very unlikely he was going to divulge it. She was unsure, however, if even after someone became aware of this if they were supposed to probe deeper, or if Jaerith would approve of letting Coren go now. Her gaze turned in a sideways glance towards Jaerith, hoping to assess any leaning one way or another. In the end the conclusion she came to was to try to retrieve any knowledge at all, but shift it away from Coren directly, and perhaps even the Mages he so starkly defended. "I am somewhat familiar with glyphing, so I understand a bit what you are saying. Would you say that because of the unfamiliar part of the patterns, that you believe whatever mage is doing this is not in fact Vantha, perhaps an outsider?" In theory it could just be a Vantha hiding their magical skills, there were plenty of reason to do it within the city. This question posed more of a test to see how willingly Coren would shove the blame to someone else. honestly Sliver didn't see Coren as much of the type, though his cloaked nature and apathetic manner always spoke of hidden things and secrecy, he seemed the blunt sort of man who didn't like to eliminate any possibilities.