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Let it never be said that Harry Dresden was not a forgiving, kind boss, especially around the holidays. For instance, even though he had his newest employee working all day on Christmas Eve he had no problem with adding an extra coal to the fire to keep warm.

You know, if there was a fireplace in the office. Or if the heating worked right half the time.

Harry had set his newest deputy Guardian to work on the task that nobody ever wanted to do but what every new guy in history had managed to pull: inventory, taking stock of all the various supernatural objects and spells he had locked up in the office's evidence room. He had given him a clipboard, a pen and a set of specific instructions such as "don't read anything outloud, ignore any voices whispering to you, and for God's sake, leave the glass case with the doll alone."

Harry, meanwhile, was up front at his desk looking over charts and maps of the town and scribbling down a few eldritch calculations. Even in this town, an invasion by giant zombies was not business as usual and when things weren't business as usual he got suspicious and started poking at things.

Finally, he sat back, scrubbing a hand over his face thoughtfully and stood up, heading to the door to the evidence room and calling inside.

"Hey, kid, grab your coat. It's time for some legwork."

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"Nah, it'll be fine." Harry waves a hand and jogged up the mossy steps leading up to the heavy wooden doors.

He paused at the door, extending his senses into the wood, searching for any wards or traps. Satisfied with that he raised his staff up to the door.

"Huffus Puffus." And he tapped the end of the length of oak against the door, releasing a blast of force. With a loud crack of splintering wood the two doors blow off the hinges and tip forward to hit the ground with a deafening thud. "Knock knock!"

Jaune can only watch as Harry checks for wards and spells. He's never actually SEEN Harry perform any magic before, so for a while Jaune has no idea what Harry's even doing.

Then he says his magic words.

"What the he--"

*CRACK!* The door splinters and is forced intwards with such a resounding force that Jaune jumps, scrambles back, and has his sword and shield lifted out of sheer terror. There's a moment when the dust settles where he says nothin, and Harry just marches inside.

"Whoa dude, what the heck was THAT?" Jaune laughs, jogging in after Harry, "That was awesome."

Harry doesn't really do the "subtle" part of "subtle and quick to anger." Not that there was any point to it right now, anyway, if there was somebody in this tower they would have known they were coming for awhile now. Better to come in with a nice, big display of power.

"Just a little trick for dealing with doors. Didn't look like the doorbell was working." It really wasn't that impressive, from a magical point of view. Just a simple application of raw force, really. Everything had its breaking point.

Harry let his staff strike the wooden floor loudly with each step as he walked into the room and looked around, before tilting his head upwards.

"So, what do you think? Upstairs?"

Yeesh Harry, shouldn't we be quiet? If something hears you and Jaune dies, he's haunting you forever.

Jaune chuckles at Harry's little joke. That guy was full of sarcasm, wasn't he? Well, so was Jaune, so maybe that's why he likes the guy. It seems like nothing shambling out to attack them. "This is weird. Shouldn't a necromancer have some kinda... I dunno, skeleton bodyguards or something? This place is empty!"

His voice echoing through the halls is a pretty decent nod towards this fact.

"Yeah. In games, it's always the very top or very bottom of any place," Jaune answers. Yeah, he's comparing this to a video game, "... And in books too, right? It's just cliché enough to be a real thing."

In that case, he's got a little bag of depleted uranium and other ingredients with your name on it.

"You'd think so." He frowns for a moment and then just shrugs. "Maybe they ate him."

Despite the joke, it really is out of the ordinary. Sure, he'd marched in here with a head full of steam like there was nothing to it but he'd expected to hit something whether it was minions or wards.

His gut was telling him that they had the right place, but something was definitely off. Either this guy didn't know enough to defend his stronghold or he was stupid and arrogant enough to think he didn't need to.

Either way, it was starting to look like this guy was a lot more small-time than Harry thought.

"Fiction is usually a little based in reality. Like the first guy who ever wrote the line 'it's too quiet' probably knew what he was talking about." He frowns, but starts heading for the stairs anyway. "Keep your guard up."

"Haha, maybe they did eat him..." Jaune said that in a tone that conveyed he really did kinda wish that had happened. It'd save them the trouble of looking for the guy.

But Harry didn't have to tell Jaune twice to keep his guard up - Jaune kept it up! While Harry marches onwards, Jaune's looking all over the place, even behind them, taking a few backwards steps from time to time in order to do so.

There, that's the kind of optimism you need in this line of work. Never give up on your dreams, Jaune.

Harry will let him worry about the lookout, keeping his own eyes forward while they march up the steps. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Okay, this was getting ridiculous.

Finally, he shoves open another heavy door at the top of the belltower and stops a couple of steps in when he realizes that they aren't alone all of a sudden.

"Aw, you didn't need to wait up for us." Smart-ass remark and a quick warning to Jaune that trouble might be at hand at the same time. Look at this guy go.

Jaune stepped in backwards through the grand doors at the top of the bell tower, and when Harry puts down that subtle, snarky hint that there's trouble afoot, Jaune perks right up pretty darn quick. "What? Who? What're you talking about? Who's there?!"

Then he bumps into Harry's back and whips around quickly, sword and shield up. "GAH- oh. Heh." n_n;

"We meet again," Lust smiled, closing her eyes and inclining her head slightly at Jaune.

If she was annoyed at the snark, or at the long wait while the two paranoid adventurers tip-toe'd into the old mausoleum, it sure didn't show.

"I was wondering how long it would take you to come up here. Judging by the looks on your faces, I'd say you were expecting somebody else."

They didn't really think the necromancer would be somewhere so cliched and obvious, did they? ........Oh, they did. How foolish. Lust shook her head, never budging from where she perched on the stone still with her long legs crossed. She turned her head to gaze out across the town and surrounding woods, blanketed by a thick fog. "Come here, wizard. I have a task for you."

"Erf." Harry grunted when Jaune bumped into him, and he slowly shot a look back over his shoulder. Okay, okay. They could work on the subtle cues.

Wait, meet again? He turned back to the mysterious woman with the question already loaded before he realized just who it was directed at. And Jaune got another, questioning look, You two know each other?

That would have to wait though, as the mystery strumpet speaks up again.

"Oh yeah? Well, I can hear you just fine from over here so howsabout we all stay where we are before we start talking about tasks?"

He never met this woman before, but mysterious beautiful woman in a slinky black dress waiting at the top of a scary tower? Yeah, that was setting off almost all of the alarm bells up in Harry's head.

Jaune could hardly believe his eyes... it was HER. He nudged Harry with his shield somewhat, speechless to Lust, but he leaned aside and quietly whispered to his new wizard mentor. "Harry, this lady isn't normal," He said in as hushed a tone as he could, "I saw her when I got attacked by some troll zombies in Everglade. She took two of them out. Cut them right in two."

Poor Jaune was almost shaking, but he took a deep breath and settled down as best he can in such a situation. If this lady wanted to talk to Harry, then that was fine - but the guy had better be careful.

Lust sighed, brushing an ebony lock of hair away from her face. "If I wanted to speak with you, I wouldn't bother asking you to change your location. I want to show you something, and you can hardly see it from there."

Folding her arms again, and ignoring Jaune's rude hushed comments, she gazed out over the fog-enshrouded landscape before. "You are a wizard, from what I understand. If you are able to clear the fog for a few moments, I think we'll both find what we're looking for."

Harry turned his head slightly, listening to Jaune's hushed report without letting Lust leave his line of sight. Cut two of the roid-zombies in half, huh? Those things weren't exactly pushovers, and anybody who could take them down like that had to be pretty bad news.

He took a second to consider his next move.

"Aw, hell, since you asked so nicely and all." He walked forward, keeping an eye on the woman the whole time until he was at the window. "Ventus Cyclis."

His staff cracked against the ground as he unleashed the spell and immediately the air inside the room whipped up into a strong, biting cold wind. But it was nothing compared to the howling that sprang up outside, whipping up the fog and pushing it away from the tower and lifting a swirling vortex of fallen leaves and debris into the air and clearing the line of sight for several dozen feet in all directions. Then, with one final effort of will, he pushed the spell outward, the winds building on each other and carrying throughout the graveyard, driving a wall of mist ahead of them.

"That oughta give us a little while."

Edited (These people are never happy.) 2014-01-16 03:24 (UTC)

Jaune stepped in after Harry, following along like the ever-dutiful sidekick he now was. He kept an eye on Lust, because the woman freaked the ever-living heck out of him, and he let Harry have his space to perform his spell while Jaune just watched and waited.

... Oh, right, Harry could perform magic spells. The wind that kicked up surprised Jaune, and he shielded his face from the wind with his sword arm, more or less using his elbow to cover him. He stepped closer and stood on his toes to curiously watch out the window as Harry pushed the spell outwards - which sounded much less impressive than it was. Poomph! Just wind in all directions!

"Whoa..."

Edited 2014-01-16 07:06 (UTC)

Lust wasn't watching Harry watch her. All of her attention was fixed on the landscape spread out below. Honestly, this would have been far less suspicious if she just told them flat out what she wanted and why, but she wasn't about to let them ditch her when she wanted to find this necromancer as well.

But still, the spell was impressive, and just what she'd hoped for.

"Watch the forest," she instructed. "With the fog cleared, he should be easy enough to find. Just look for barren trees and rotten vegetation." That was her theory, anyway. Any person who exercised so much unnatural death-related magic couldn't possibly be healthy for the environment.

She crooked a finger at Jaune as well. "You too. Come and tell us what you see."

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