The City Lower

Inana listened, and reacted quickly. He had been running the black market, exclusively, in Gaiaton for so long that he knew when to wash. All of the disturbance at the back entrance made a perfect distraction.

"Let's go," he said quietly to Opong, and shoved him out the front door and into the darkness of the City Lower.

Meanwhile, the man that had been trying to stab Rafaela cried out in shock when first, Krypt'sword sliced into his back, and then strong hands gripped him and pinned him down. He swore malevolently as he watched Rafaela pick up the statue and make a dash for it.

The second man that was coming after Rafaela burst through the doorway and saw what was happening. Foreigners. Attacking. Like Rafaela, he decided not to engage, and instead tried to go nimbly chasing after her.

Meanwhile, Inam got tugged back behind a building and into Robert's arms. He tipped her lovely face up with a finger, and promised to protect her. "Oh," she said quietly. Her curves softened against him, and her lashes hooded her eyes. Although there was a scuffle going on that she could hear, her mind was wrapped around the bravery of Robert, his valiant declaration to protect her, his courage in coming down to this awful place.

She wanted a kiss from her hero!

Ooh, against a wall! Shivers race up her spine and her warm and slender arms wrap around Robert's neck as she sinks into his kiss. Her lips are soft as velvet, full and inviting as they press and caress against his. That curvaceous, youthful, tight body of hers arches forward, pressing from thigh to breast against the line of his own. It's very clear that Inam had done this sort of thing before, just as it was clear to her that she wasn't Robert's first.

Oh, but none of that mattered! Wedding bells were going off in her head, visions of many hot nights and long days ahead of her, children with golden skin and silver hair-- at least a dozen! Her father was going to be so proud when she told him the news.

No, no, when she AND Robert told him the news. A lovely smile curled the corner of her lips as she kissed and kissed him, a slender hand sliding into his hair, gripping it a little, her breasts pillowed against his chest as she ran her tongue over his bottom lip.

Making out in the City Lower. Oh baby.

Fenris turned the pommel of his blade to strike at the man's temple and knock him out, after the male was cut, while Robert and Inama made out at the wall. What a disaster. "Fucking amateur hour." he cursed. He flung the mans now limp body in the way of the statue, while rolling on the ground, seeking to snatch it up as he would rise to the other side of the Alley to face Rafaela in case she got outright hostile, seeking to hold the statue under his arm in its blue wrapped cloth. All he needed was for that "She Bear" to start attacking people.

Krypt no longer had any idea what was happening, or why all these people where there. Things would have gone much simpler if he had been alone, but apparently he hadn't been the only one to find a suspicious enough looking lead to follow it down into the worst part of Gaiaton.

He said little, for it seemed that after Rafaela made to run and escape, most of the people who had shown up went after her. Instead, Krypt chose to follow the other path available and enter the warehouse, where no doubt he could find at least some clues as to what had happened. If he was correct in his assumptions that fighting had taken place inside, there yet be another individual alive and willing to talk.

So he kept his sword at the ready and moved quietly so that he could be the surprise rather than taken by it. Unless anything tried to stop him, he would investigate every corridor and room in the building until he came across something interesting.

Inam moaned softly, prettily against Robert's mouth, when Bennik's chirping ruined the whole thing. Robert pulled his lips away from hers, and she panted a little. No tunic, she had loose cloth that draped over her shoulder, making it all too easy for Robert's hands to learn the ripe and plump shape of Inam's chest.

"What...?" The young woman asks, a little dazed. "Oh, um, alright..." Robert leaves her with Bennik, to whom she smiles and pats on the head.

Meanwhile, inside the warehouse is a candle only recently snuffed out for Krypt to see, and a golden tassle left over on the floor. Opong and Inana have slipped away, and the only thug left to hang around was the unconscious one Fenris threw in the statue's path.

Robert runs around the corner, panting slightly, and sees Rafaela.

"Me? I'm the mayor of Ozmodias! I was visiting Neferet! What are you doing here? What did you do, Rafaela?"

He glances at Fenris, but doesn't say anything.

Rafaela turned back from Robert, unable to answer his question at the moment as she suddenly became too busy narrowing her gaze at Fenris. She didn't like him. Rafaela felt threatened by him, and not just in the obvious way. She jerked on the statue again, to try and get it out of his grip.

"Yeah, good luck selling THAT to the public," she said flippantly to Fenris of his theory on Inana and Opong. "You don't have any idea what you're getting involved with, and believe me, it's not pretty. So why don't you let go of the statue and let me go on my merry way?"

She tilted her head back and laughed, but it didn't sound as if she found him very funny. "Oh, you did NOT just call me doll," she said and she stepped a little closer to him, her gaze narrowed once more. Pretty though Rafaela may be, she certainly wasn't making herself all that attractive to Fenris given that she openly disliked him.

"Listen, PAL, I would have been fine without your interference-- and who throws a body anyway?" she said back at him, unwilling to let go of her side of the statue. "Killing either one of those idiots would do literally nothing to change the situation and would PROBABLY make things worse, so why don't YOU slow your roll and leave me to mine."

She jogged the statue in her hand once he had let go of it, and then she offered him a sarcastic little smile. "Thanks," she said, her tone indicately that she absolutely didn't mean it. She rolled her pretty blue eyes when he called her doll. "Pig," she muttered beneath her breath, and then stepped away towards the alley she had wanted to escape from when she hesitated.

She looked over at Robert, glanced at the others, and then stepped over to her cousin. She wasn't close to most of them, but she did care about them on a level that surpassed even her selfishness. Most of the time. "Listen," she said quietly, glancing over at the others. "You need to get out of Gaiaton, okay? Take Bennik and whatever servants you brought with you, and get some distance. If something happened to you... ... Gran would never let me live it down." It was the easier excuse to fall back on, rather than real feelings. "Don't ask questions, alright? Just trust me on this one."

She smacked Robert lightly in the stomach with the back of her hand. "Nice bumping into you again." Another glance at the others, and Rafaela went off into the night, with the tracker on her statue.

Unaware that it was there, the tracker was leading up and out of the City Lower..... .... and out of Gaiaton, away from its main road, and headed into the Living Jungle itself, regardless that it was night... regardless that the Demon and the Pitch were probably prowling and looking for blood.