Karol was leading the group, "Estelle! Come on, hurry!"

Estelle no longer had a book in hand, hurrying through the city. "I'm sorry. I just hope Repede, or Strider can get us to Yuri and Deesh before something bad happens."

Shadow was confident, going at a walking pace behind them. "With partners like them, you'd never get separated for long. Though I don't get why you two are running."

Karol stopped, "We could ask around, but somehow," looking at mages carried books off somewhere or were reading while they walked through the plaza, "I feel like it'll be tough asking…these people."

They were caught off guard as an explosion happened and a hole appeared in a building isolated from the other buildings. Strider and Repede raced off toward the explosion now, "Repede!?"

"Not bad," Yuri was looking at the hole left in the wall, "But if you can pull tricks like that, why'd you bother skipping town back in Zaphias?"

"Huh? Skipping town? Why would I need to skip town?"

Deesh kept her stance as Yuri pointed out, "You know what you did."

Yuri was about to attack until the door was busted open with Estelle yelling, "Please calm down! Don't add any more to your crimes!"

Deesh managed to keep one eye on the mage as she looked to Estelle, "What is she doing here?"

Shadow entered the hut, "Yeah, she's a bold one."

"Yu-Yuri, Deesh, calm down!" Estelle was completely flustered as she yelled at them, trying to catch her breath all at the same time, "N-n-no matter how bad a person is, I-I'm sure we can still talk things over… If we…"

"You are the one who needs to calm first," Deesh putting her armored finger to Estelle's lips and silencing her for a moment.

Yuri sheathed his sword, "And that's why we asked you to wait outside… You'll turn everything into a complicated mess."

"B-but…"

Estelle was interrupted by Strider and Repede as they were at the mage. "Wha… Stop it!" The hood flung back as Repede sniffed and Strider was trying to lick Mordio. Mordio turned out to be a young girl. "What's with these dogs!?"

With a moment to breathe, Mordio insisted, "…I'm telling you. I don't know what you're talking about with the aque blastia. You've got the wrong person. Also, do you honestly think that a thief would go around telling people their real name?"

"A true master thief could," Deesh pulled out measuring tape, much to Rita's surprise as she looked under her cloak, "for you would not realize something was taken from you until long after the procurement." Deesh then tossed the rolled-up tape to Mordio. "Besides, appearances can be deceiving. Taking on the job of a researcher could easily allow one into areas otherwise difficult to sneak into."

Yuri had to agree, "When I confronted the thief, he was wearing a mantel, was short and his name was Mordio. So…"

"Hmm, well Mordio is certainly my name. Rita Mordio, to be exact." Rita started to scratch the back of her head, "Jeez, I seriously don't get it. I was able to avoid this random Knight's request, and now this?"

"Ex-excuse me!" Estelle rushed her with questions, "Is that Knight named Flynn? Did he come here?!"

"Wa-What are you…" Rita's face flustered as Estelle grabbed her hands and got in her face.

"Ah," Estelle stepped back, "Pardon me. I'm Estellise," courteously bowing to her. "But you can call me Estelle."

"I'm Kar—"

"I didn't ask you, brat." Both Repede and Strider started to bark now, as Rita shifted her finger toward them, "Nor your dogs, either." The three deepstalkers jumped out of Deesh's bag and were circling her, "And get these…things away from me," threatening to start kicking them as they danced around her attempts. Shadow was looking at one of the models in the room picking it up, only for Rita to yell at her, "Hey, don't touch my stuff! Put her down!"

Estelle tried getting her question asked again, "Umm…and where is Flynn now?"

"No idea. At the ruins nearby, perhaps? Catching some…" Rita stopped herself in mid-sentence to think about something, "…Oh, I hadn't thought of that. Follow me."

The stalkers jumped away as Rita walked toward the door. Deesh managed to step in the way, "I don't believe we're finished here."

Rita just waved to her, "'Seeing is believing', right? Just follow me, would you? But first…" Rita turned back and moved behind the massive crystalline structure the shack had been built around, undoing part of her cloak, "There's been talk that some thieves have turned up in the Shaikos Ruins." She reappeared without her cloak on, revealing her truly estranged attire with notepad and tools of measurement covering her clothes stashed in a few pockets lining her body shirt. Rita adjusted the goggles sitting on her head as the tails to a yellow ribbon on her right arm flapped around. Her bodi blastia was fashioned as a chocker that she seemed to wear with pride. The most eye-catching thing was her mismatched footwear, a long red boot going up to her thigh on her left leg and the right had a normal black book with white legging covering the rest of her leg.

Yuri still had doubts about this, "All right, but don't even think of making a break for it."

"You don't have to come." She started to smirk at Yuri, "If you want, I'll just call the guards."

Deesh turned to Yuri, "For now we should follow her. It could lead us to your blastia thief and Flynn."

Rita couldn't care less what they did, "It's up to you: Go to jail, make a run for it, or follow me. Pick one."

Faced with those choices, the answer was obvious. "Okay, okay. We'll go with you."

Rita knew what they'd chose, "The Shaikos Ruins are even further to the east, once we leave the city. But I do have a few things to grab here now that I remember them."

Rita climbed up a ladder to her bedroom, digging around another pile of books and tossing one down. Estelle managed to catch the thick book, curiously looking at the cover, "Collector's Book?"

"It's a self-updating book that makes it easy to record all the items you find."

Shadow picked up the model again, checking it out. "Really good design. What's it supposed to be?"

Rita yelled down at Shadow, "Hey, get your hands off her!"

Yuri used that to go up the ladder to start snooping around the area. "It takes a pretty wicked person to lie so convincingly about her crimes."

"Hey! Wait!"

Estelle followed him up to stop him, "A girl's dresser is strictly off-limits!"

Deesh also managed to sneak up, stopping Rita, "Which can be countered should evidence of misdeeds be found."

Estelle couldn't abide by it, "I'll be the one to look."

"Wait…what are you…" Rita was too late to stop Estelle from looking.

After a rather embarrassing moment, Estelle was trying to comfort Rita. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone."

Karol was curious, whispering to the others, "What do you think she found?"

Shadow chuckled, "Feminine secrets!"

Rita quickly shouted, "Hey! I'll get you back for that!"

Yuri deflected, "Estelle, you'd better watch out."

Rita yelled, "No, it's you I'm talking about! You! And you! And you!" pointing down Yuri, Deesh and Shadow.

The Knights returned to Halure to find the barrier was back, stronger than ever. Witcher took some of the men to investigate the blastia further after his preliminary findings while Sodia returned to report to Flynn. "…Prior to those events, everything seems to be functioning normally… That's all for my report regarding Halure's barrier blastia. In addition, there was also a report regarding Lady Estellise being abducted by a man who just broke out from jail," Sodia pulled one of the wanted posters she received from the Schwann Brigade, handing it to Flynn, "This is the wanted poster for that person."

Flynn was surprised, though he had an unusually calm smile on his face. "Sodia, prepare for our departure. There are still things to be done."

Sodia never knew Flynn to shrug off such duties before, "Lieutenant Flynn…? Are you certain that we don't need to wait for Lady Estellise? And what of that lizard creature? Can we let such a creature roam freely?"

Flynn was already walking away. "Yes. There is no need to worry about either of those. I am certain." He quickly wrote out a small message on the back of the wanted poster, certain he would be meeting him and the reptile soon enough as he approached the village's mayor while folding the poster up.

Following Rita though a valley eventually lead them to a worn-out road, "These are the Shaikos Ruins."

The area around them was nothing but remnants of a city. Estelle only had one thing on her mind, "It looks like there aren't any Imperial Knights around."

Repede, Strider, and Deesh all moved to an exposed patch of dirt amid the worn stone road, sniffing the spot laced with footprints. Deesh used a finger to check the impression, "They're fresh. And some of the scents are familiar to me."

Shadow nodded, "Which means they belong to the Knights and the thief."

That was all Estelle needed to hear. "Some of these footprints must be Flynn's."

Ignoring that, Rita continued to walk the road, "Hey, over here. Hurry up."

"I see." Yuri turning away to hide his smirk, "So first you get us alone in the dark, then you zap us, huh?"

Rita paused, "…Hmm, 'ZAP.' I like the way that sounds…"

"H-hey what's that supposed to mean? Why are you smiling like that?" Karol yelling at Rita and Yuri.

Estelle tried to moderate things once more before they might escalate, "Let's try to get along now, okay?"

Deesh was too focused on the scents now to heed them. Shadow was worried when Deesh started to turn away from the ruins. "We should get moving instead."

Rita, Shadow, Strider and the stalkers stopped near a statue as Estelle tried to search the area, "Looks like no one's here… No Imperial Knights, thieves, or anyone else! Maybe they're further in."

Yuri wasn't really into pushing too far without more proof, "How far in are we talking, here?"

Karol wasn't as certain either, "It doesn't look like anyone's been here, does it?"

Repede and Strider's noses were leading them straight to a statue, but there was nothing. Rita started to mutter to herself, "The information about the underground couldn't have gotten out, could it?"

"The underground?" Deesh started slowly walk around the statue, looking for something.

Rita could see Deesh was already on the right trail now, "Recently, an entrance to an underground area was uncovered here. A handful of mages are supposed to be the only people who know about it…"

Yuri knew info like that came with a price, "But it's okay for us to know this?"

"I don't have much choice if I'm to clear my name, do I?" Rita glared at Yuri.

"Clear your name, huh…"

Rita moved to examine the other side of the statue as Deesh reached the same area and was running her fingers against the stone tiles. "The ground is scratched here. And I don't see any sort of mechanism."

"It's not like I would've minded letting the thieves have the ruins above ground after we finished the excavation," Rita kicked some of the pebbles around, "but it's a good thing we came here when we did."

"Well then, we'd better hurry up and follow them. All we have to do is move this?" Karol ran over to try and move the statue now on his own but to only tire himself out.

Yuri moved to help, "Come on. You have to put your shoulder into it."

"Um, r-right."

Deesh and Shadow both lent a helping push, making the effort not as strenuous. Deesh looked down the stairs, "This will be interesting." She continued ahead of the others now to see the ruins herself.

Deesh did not expect to see the place build around an underground reservoir though it would explain why the surface ruin had running fresh water. This place had nothing on the dwemer ruins of Skyrim.

As the others started to join her now, Estelle was as amazed by the sights, "This is my first time going inside ruins…"

Shadow shrugged, "Once you look beyond the majesty, you start seeing the tragedy of it all."

"Be careful over there it's slippery." Karol barely heard her before slipping and nearly plummeting into the water if it wasn't for Shadow grabbing the strap of his oversized bag. Rita finished the descent, as Estelle turned to her. Rita looked away slightly embarrassed, only to notice Yuri's gaze and quickly iced up, "What are you looking at?"

"I was just surprised. You're actually a nice person."

Rita turned away and started walking, "I knew it would be a pain to bring you along. I should've just come by myself…"

Deesh was keeping her satchel sealed, preventing the deepstalkers from jumping out, "I understand. It's harder to sneak when others trip every trap or alert the enemy."

Estelle followed Rita down, "Do you always come to research these ruins alone?"

"Yeah."

"Aren't you afraid you'll get hurt by monsters or traps?"

"There are always risks if you're trying to actually do something. If someone gets hurt, it's an acceptable loss."

Estelle stopped, "Even if you're the one who gets hurt?"

"Yeah," as if it wasn't even a question to Rita.

"Don't you ever worry or hesitate?"

Rita finally stopped to turn to Estelle, "Worrying about getting what you want without anyone getting hurt? You've had a pretty easy life."

"An easy life…"

Rita continued onward, "And blastia will never betray me. So, they're easy to deal with."

Estelle seemed disheartened until she let out, "Rita's amazing! She just comes right out and says what she has to say."

Yuri came to her side, "She knows exactly what's important to her."

"I wish I knew what was important to me…"

Yuri quickly assured her, "Just travel around for a while. You'll figure it out."

"But for now," Deesh continued down the path, "we should keep our eyes out for any traps hidden within these ruins."

Shadow was about to shoot down a few bats but was stopped by Deesh. She quietly pulled out her dragonbone bow, watching the path of the bats as they shifted to another area of the cavern. But her target was the amphibian hopping around instead. She fired an arrow that struck right between its large eyes, felling the creature as Rita continued to walk pass without missing a beat.

Rita knelt to some smashed stones, or so it seemed to be to Deesh. "Looks like this little one is no good…"

Estelle was all but enthralled by Rita as she examined the pile of junk, "Wow, so this is what blastia look like before they're excavated." She then looked around, "I wonder why ancient people buried blastia in ruins like this in the first place?"

"I wish I could tell you. That's something else being researched."

Deesh had no real interest in these bobbles, "When things are buried, it is usually because someone is trying to hide something, or it is for ceremonial purposes. Since this place doesn't look like a tomb, I'd have to say the former." Deesh moved to examine one portion of the wall.

Yuri checked some of the scrap, "With all of these blastia here. I don't suppose there are any aque blastia lying around too…"

Rita finished her examination, "None of them have cores in them."

"Really?" Karol looked at a few of them, "Then they don't work, do they?"

"Blastia aren't excavated with the core and the bodies together."

"Cores produce magic through formulas," Estelle reciting information from another book, "Bodies control that magic. The two combined are referred to as blastia. Each blastia possesses different attributes and is marked by a crest that indicates those attributes. With current technology, blastia bodies can be manufactured, but the production of blastia cores is impossible."

Shadow was also examining one of the defunct blastia close up, "So without a core these things are just fancy paper weights… And no one has figured out how to create new cores? No wonder a thief could be tempted to steal one."

Deesh had to agree. "With such rarity, a thief could turn an easy profit on the black market."

"That's not quite true," even so Rita was impressed by Estelle, "It seems Estellise's information is a little outdated."

"What's outdated about it?" Shadow questioned, wanting to find another motive for a thief.

"There's some degradation of quality, but there's been some success in the synthesis of simple blastia cores."

Estelle was excited by the news, "Really?!"

Rita glanced to Yuri, "That's why I wouldn't do anything stupid like go stealing people's cores! If I had time to waste doing things like that," Rita turned away, clenching her fist, "I'd rather be spending it researching better ways to completely restore incomplete or degraded cores. That's what being a mage is all about!"

Realizing she was around others when she said that Rita quickly dropped the pose she was doing, turning away from them to hide her embarrassment. Even so, Yuri commented, "A noble creed. But that doesn't clear your name."

Yuri's snide remark helped cool Rita down, "…Yes, talk is cheap, I suppose."

Estelle didn't want Rita to be the thief, she wanted another way to resolve this. "Perhaps there are still some blastia left that can be used!"

Aile spotted a new group of travelers entering the section of the ruins she was in, mostly kids. This little band was different from the knights, un-uniformed as the guy with long black hair led them through the area. So far, the thief has kept to his hiding spot and Aile managed to get back to the ceiling to observe the area. "Hey, guys, does anyone know what that thing is? The lizard in the cloak looks like a pseudoroid…but not at the same time…"

Scanning… Model H floated a bit down to get a better reading. There is little to no metal on it. This creature is completely organic. Possibly sentient since it is armed with many armaments both on its person and in its storage unit.

Aile saw the weaponry brandished by one outlier in the group, "At least there's one person who we won't have to explain everything to, weapon wise."

Model Z floated out, looking down at the new group. That's definitely Yuri and Estelle. Can't say if they'll be as strong as when we knew them, but I think we can trust them.

"And jumping down unexpectedly amidst these hostile creatures would probably be a bad idea. At least not until they find what they're looking for or need our assistance. Though I am curious about that ring that condenses the energy in the air into a projectile that can power up those modules."