Another rumble of thunder rattled the roof overhead, causing Anja's glaze to lift up towards the rafters of the ceiling. Battle and Sayeth's eyes were exploring the room fully, even as they kept themselves in place beneath the Drykas' feet. The nose of the dark colored twin twitched, and his ears shifted to follow something unseen skitter from one side of the room to the next. Anja followed Sayeth's gaze, briefly touching his Gnosis mark on his palm, but though he could sense the presence of a ghost somewhere, as usual it remained elusive. After a moment of concentration, Anja sighed and returned his gaze to the young courier.
"The way I understand it, purity has more to do with the concept of innocence and naivety," Anja said, resting his head in his hand with his elbows in the bar. "So young children would be considered pure. Murderers, cheaters and liars not so much. Another reason why I prefer to use my own blood. Unless you are lucky enough find someone old enough to understand what their offering and yet somehow hasn't become jaded by life's experiences, taking blood from an individual who can be considered pure can be unsavory. There are some Spiritist who would not be bothered by it, but I am not one of them."
When Calla called Anja out for being vague, the man dipped his head and ran has fingers over his reddened cheeks. "I suppose I was trying not to alarm you any more than I already have," Anja said. "The concept of mortality can be unsettling for some people. And magic often uses ingredients that make people unused to it uncomfortable. This blood was not taken from a living body. It was extracted from the girl's body after her death, by the Envoyers, at my request. I'm not even entirely sure if it's going to work, but at this point I'm a little desperate and willing to try anything."
Morte tilted his head under Calla's curious prodding and a noise rasped out of his beak that might be mistaken for a laugh. Under a closer observation, Calla might notice that hidden beneath the skull mask covering the crow's face, his gold eyes were tinted with a sunburst of blue. It was similar to Anja's eyes, excepting the hue. Morte didn't seem to mind the girl's touch, and simply cackled in a voice that seemed a little bit too close to human.
"She certainly seems to have a lot of energy," Anja agreed with a short nod as the two of them continued the conversation. "I'm not sure if it's because she has a child's energy or if it's because she wishes not to be found. If it's the second one, she's clever. Not something you see often in ghosts who die as young as her."
When Calla hooked her fingers into the bowl and yanked it over towards her, Anja raised an eyebrow but didn't protest. His lips twitched as she confirmed her name. "As you say, C," he smiled, handing the cloth over to her so she could wipe down the Lodestone. Anja spun on the stool away from Calla and turned to face the bulk of the room. Even in the short time he and the courier had spoken, the room had been filled to bursting as people fled from the rain. The low hum of muttered conversation had risen to a full roar, and with that and the rain most people had to shout in order to be heard.
Anja leaned back against the bar and he closed his eyes. With all the speed of molasses, those noises surrounding them filtered out, one after another. The thrum of voices, the pound of the rain against the roof. Soon, Anja filtered out the sound of his own breath until all that was left was the thud of his heart beating against his rib cage. Patient, methodical. Anja drained away the voices from around him and even his own voice inside of his head. The man's focus was so intense, he didn't even notice when Morte left the top of the bar and fluttered back to Anja's shoulder.
Honing his internal eye, Anja searched the darkness until he found a bright and shimmering well of light. The light bubbled, frothed and flickered like a glowing fountain, shining dozens of colors Anja knew and many that there were no names for, flickering and changing with each beat of his heart. The mage reached forward with an invisible hand and seized that light, feeling the familiar shudder of power as his djed reached out and seized him with the same fervor. Anja took hold of the djed, now pulsing with violet light, and guided it from his stomach towards his spine. Finding the familiar pathway it was growing used to, the magic crawled up his back and pooled in his skull. Anja pushed it forward a tiny bit more, and it gathered behind his eyes. Anja felt a satisfying internal click that signaled his magic had taken hold, and his Pathfinding was active. With a sigh of relief, Anja opened his eyes.
Almost immediately the mage groaned. "Ah, damn it," the Drykas muttered. Morte let out a croak of sympathetic agreement. The room was all but glowing with hundreds of bright colored trails. There was simply too many people packed in too tight of a space to make heads or tails of what path belonged to whom. It made the Drykas slightly nauseated to look at. Grimacing, Anja looked over at C.
"The room is packed with trails. I can't tell where one begins and the other ends. We're going to need that Lodestone if we're going to have any chance of making heads or tails of this."
