-Do not fret the Night-

The distraction was necessary. He knew he couldn't stay alone in Hosenka and do nothing, but he had a hard time thinking. It has been some time since the last he sit down that he had remembered. Things have been a little hazy while trying to comprehend what to do for the last while. Part of Aegis wanted to understand why things played out the way that they had, but the majority didn't even want to dare trying to add a reason to the mindlessness. To him, walking the streets of the city didn't seemed to help him process his thoughts, so maybe doing something to help would.

It seemed to be a relatively cold at night in the city, although that was to be expected for the time of year. He made his way to a nearby Adventurer hall, where bounties and missions are always posted day and night by those that need things solved. You looked around the bulletin board after entering the building to see if he could try and find any questions that needed done in the area. As he walked in, a few images that were on the bounty board caught him and you turned away quickly. A couple he recognized, didn't want to think about right now. Not quite sure if it was some form of anger or regret, he couldn't be sure. But he knew that the feeling existed and he pushed on.

At the board itself there were various missions throughout the city and the nearby area that could be done. He noticed one that was actually in the town, tim required some investigation or clean up if necessary. Aegis carefully took the paper off the board, making sure not to rip it with the tack still embedded into it. After pulling down the form.

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-Do not fret the Night-

He placed the small metallic spike back into the cork. "This one will do." he thought to himself, as he turned around not saying much to anyone, and headed to the exit of the warm building, heading back into the cool and crisp air.

He took a deep breath inside into the night air, leaving a plume of heated mist hanging out in front of them before raising up into the sky and fading from view. He slowly looked up into the sky on this cloudless night, spying a great many stars hanging delicately in the sky up above. After a few moments of gazing upward, he brought his keys back downward to the street in front of him and slowly began his stride towards the crimson area of the city.

As he walked he kept pondering questions to himself over and over again. Why did the betrayal happen in the first place? If any, what were the signs before hand? Was there a possibility of other people having a hand in play? And most importantly, was there any way where he could he have seen this coming? One who helps and is kind gets used by people. That statement just kept ringing through his mind over and over as he walked. Even though he knew he wouldn't change who he was and how he was, Aegis knew he had to take it more to heart then as he would have normally before. Well meaning people that give are in short supply, there are no end to people that take, nor will those people stop taking.

His mind suddenly changed tracks like a train at a busy rail station. Guilt. For not being there when they needed him. For not being strong enough to confront them right away. Then, a pang of anger etched into the guilt.

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-Do not fret the Night-

For allowing himself to be set up, whether he knew what was going on or not. He shook his head slightly, as if to get those particular thoughts out.
he had things to focus on for the time being, and he wanted, if nothing else, to get the job done. The note that was still in his hand listed a few different sites that needed to be dealt with or reconned. After reading up on the general location of the Crimson quarter that he needed to investigate, He gently put the rough parchment back into his lower left jacket pocket, keeping it rolled up nicely as to not damage it.

For being as large as city as it was, there were not many people out at the moment. There would most definitely be more people out and about once he got down to the sections of town categorized as more... unsightly or unruly, but that would still be a bit of a walk. Aegis looked around at the people that were around him and the buildings because to him something didn't quite feel right but he couldn't place exactly what it was. In addition, recent circumstances had made him a bit more cautious and wary of the things going on around him. Which is saying a lot for someone that already took significant preparation and focus in any given situation. But yet not much seemed out of place or suspicious to him, so he continued at his normal pace walking down the brick and mortar twisting path through the cities intestines.

Even after close to an hour of walking, other than the cautiousness, and the weird feeling that still hadn't gone away, it was a pretty uneventful stroll. Most shops were closed but some were still open, some of them having a few guests or a single one in particular but nothing out of the ordinary.

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-Do not fret the Night-

The trip however came across quite a few restaurants though, as the one alleviation of his current predicament was the smell of the fresh food, mixed with the occasional laughter of the occupants. He smiled slightly out of the corner of his mouth, as he felt some weird form of happiness of people enjoying themselves, with everything that was going on in the world right now it was becoming not as clear to see. Not to mention as well as definitively less often and more difficult to notice. Things such as the news from Marigold, random attacks being much more common, people were becoming more weary and protective almost to the point of paranoia in some degree. Although to himself he thought that this was actually not necessarily paranoia, but people were starting to get an understanding that things that were happening didn't involve just other people, but them themselves. Well he didn't wish it upon people, this was a true that they were starting to recognize.Well he did enjoy teaching people about defending themselves, techniques, and various other useful information, he never truly wanted them to have to put them into practice.

But it seemed that it failed, for the time being. He definitely felt defeated in some regard, but not entirely. They were always more ideas in his mind, but right now the issue was the focussing of them was not being correctly done in his mind, and he was having a hard time fixing this issue. Most of his longer-term have been put on hold due to recent events, and the short term ones were utterly abolished in most regards. "Hmmmm..." he audibly thought out loud while scratching the side of his face. He had a few ideas, but they were currently jumbled and he wasn't really sure what to work on, or towards, first.

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-Do not fret the Night-

While all this conversation was going on inside of his head and having it thoroughly wrung about, by the time he snapped back into it Aegis was much closer to the Crimson quarter. It was almost like a border crossing in a sense, as the atmosphere and now the buildings themselves started to change. It was much less kept, and the frequency of guards and officials seemed quite few and far between. Generally, the people here were left to their own accord and grime. Well it wasn't wholly dirty or and unkept, it was significantly more so than the rest of the city.

The location that he needed to scout wasn't necessarily far by any means, but sadly it wasn't necessarily just around the bend either. Further along the main road to the east was the location, and there wasn't a lot of informative intelligence on the paper about what the building was other than it was a large one at specified coordinates and some odd landmarks. As he looked around taking in the sights, which weren't necessary all to beautiful themselves, he was glad Rashida was still safe at the airship. It had been hard for her as well recently, especially of the loss of the relatively new home that they had built relatively together. He knew it was hitting her harder than it actually appeared, but she was taking it in stride, and he was proud of her for that.

Oh she came to one of the landmarks that was listed in the scroll, it was almost mentionable how many more people were gathering around. Or at least people that were transporting themselves through the area. He amped is consciousness a little bit, concerning the nature of the operation into the area and the building itself being a rather large structure, he was concerned with the amount of people that could be involved at the area or around.

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-Do not fret the Night-

People were weaving in and out of each other on both sides of the street, not really following any semblance of a direct flow pattern. He made his way over to the far right side of the road, trying to use the terrain and the walls of the buildings to make his way through the busy street. It was starting to get so crowded he needed to use his hands to weave in between people by creating a space with his hands not that dissimilar to a wedge. You can see ahead of him another large building with a sign that said Marsha's. He was pretty sure that this was one of the other landmarks spoken about in the scroll, but didn't really want to take out the scroll right now in the risk of losing it in the crowd.

He suck on to the right hand side of the road, making his way to the crude and congested intersection and taking a right turn. Something could easily be called amiss however upon turning the corner of the building. There was a very large stone and brick building on the right side of the street a few buildings down from the intersection. The building itself didn't look too stand out, if not for the wide berth all of the pedestrians were giving it. Almost if the building itself was the centre of a circle and it eject it out of the confines of the square and out into the middle of the street.
He leaned up against the wall to allow people to walk by him easily, so he could try and scout the building and the surrounding area a little bit without being bumped around by passing by individuals. The white birds that they were giving the building didn't seem necessarily enforced, yet everyone did so.  

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-Do not fret the Night-

There were two guards that seemed to be watching the entrance of the property, but nothing more than that from just the brief view that he had. To get a better view, he probably needed to find his way over to the left side of the street, he thought to himself. Trying to manoeuvre himself through the moving crowd was a little bit more difficult, but not necessarily impossible. After a minute of weaving back left and right and moving forward Whenever there was an opportunity, he made it to the other side against the wall of the closest building. The tall populace of the area seem to make looking in at the building a little bit more difficult the normal because of all of the passing heads. However from this position he was indeed able to get a better view of the premises.

The building itself was a size of what could be considered a small assembly Factory, although not nearly as tall as one would assume for that type of structure. The stone fence, although it looked more like a barrier from the size and thickness of the pieces, that surrounded it looks generally well kept,  which was generally untrue for the rest of the area. There indeed was two guards managing the entrance to the building, standing on each side of a stone door that look to be the only entrance through the stone barricade. They looked pretty lightly armored, but looks can definitely be misleading as he more recently found out, even with people that you trust. As he scanned the building further, there seem to be an additional two guards standing top of the building at each corner, and he presumed that there were would also be two additional at the back on the rear corners of the structure.

---

-Do not fret the Night-

He followed the crowd on the left hand side across from the target building, but the building seems pretty symmetrical as he worked his way around. The ground floor seem to have windows but they were barred and what seemed to be darkened pretty well as to be so that one could not directly look in. The second floor seem to have windows as well, but it was almost impossible to see in at from Aegis' current downward angle compared to the buildings second layer. As inopportune as was, visions of his failure suddenly came to mind. He put a hand to the soft cloth that was on his head and held it has to try and orient himself. He shook it off slightly, trying to direct his attention to the task at hand. But something kept ringing true in his mind. For all the abilities in the things that he's went through to protect the people that he held dear, it wasn't enough, and hadn't been enough. All the things that he had done in order to gain the ability to protect, were currently for not. Aegis shook his head a little harder for a second time, making himself dizzy slightly. As it passed, he slid the cold hand back into the pockets of his cloak as he refocused on the building.

There we're not many ways that he could foresee successfully getting inside the building or viewing inside. However, two of the very few ways that he he foresaw that he could get in was either fighting his way in, which was not very preferable currently, or being able to make his way to the ladders that were on either side of the building, east and west respectively. The ladders themselves didn't enter the building, they were there to allow the guards to climb onto the roof as it seemed.

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-Do not fret the Night-

However, by using them he considered it was very probable that he could easily able to see into the second floor windows from the ladder on either side. As his mission this time wasn't necessarily looking for a fight, or starting one for that matter, he thought it would be preferable to gain the information and leave. Once again he had to make his way across the street, but went a little bit further up in order to be able to cross and come down on the west side of the building. Very carefully separating himself from the crowd, he made his way along the stone fence to where estimated the ladder would be. As he walked along the wall to that side he thought he would have a hard time fitting through the cracks of the wall that were in a cross pattern. However, upon coming to the the spot where he needed to enter, he rather easily slid through after watching the guards until they both looked away.

Quickly and quietly he maneuvered over to the base of the metal ladder. As quietly as early as he could, he begin climbing up the ladder step by step. Luckily the heavy Crossing pattern of the stone wall would generally hide him climbing up the side from the people at the street, but he could generally be seen if someone intentionally looked in. It didn't take him very long to get up to the correct height in order to look in the windows.

From what he saw through the barred but undarkened windows, he was glad that he came. Though they weren't entirely children, a vast amount of young individuals were sitting at a various number tables, and seem to be packing something into cubes. Most of them had barely anything on this far as clothing was concerned.  

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-Do not fret the Night-

Quite a few of the youths backs that were facing him very clearly showed marks of whippings. He carefully brought out the scroll from his pocket and began recording what he saw. He wrote down the general layout of the building inside from what he could see, what they were working on at this time, as well as other information such as that there were over 40 individuals there. He continued with the conditions that they were in, and from sight, the treatment that they were getting or undergoing. There were a few guards inside, but none were very focused on the outside, mostly keeping their intention at the service crew that they had at their disposal. One thing that wasn't noticed at first but was clear after was that they were chained. One of the guards moved over towards one of the individuals that wasn't working, he bent down and grab the chain from the ground and pulled sharply, causing the brown haired kid to fall off the chair onto the ground.

Aegis new unfortunately there wasn't much he could do right now other than make sure all and any information got back to the Guild, so he quickly put back the scroll and the pencil, securely as he could, in his pockets. As his head came up from the pockets he froze for a quick second. The guard that had went to check on the boy was also in shock, both of them staring at each other directly in the eye. Just before he started to slide, the guard from inside shot a silvery projectile spell straight out the window towards him. As the spell became larger in his view, he knew something was wrong. The spell was not dissipating. He quickly moved his feet around the outside of the ladder dropping down quickly as he barely missed the spell whizzing past his head. The split second he was dropping down, a vision slipped past him. What are you up to the bottom he ran immediately back through the stone wall, diving through the opening he came in before. As he quickly ran into the crowd of people in the street to become hidden by proxy, for some reason the cold really got to him now. This feeling that he had had before, it just confused them all the more. Through the reflective glass of the black glass of the first story windows, there was no lich, but a man. Rotating his hands around confirms but confuses him more, as it's the first time he's processing them directly.
[Exit]

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