Mar’Kir set Varo’K with Vashnoruk after his wife ran off to do one of her favorite things. Their sweet little girl was an odd one, and he had a feeling she was going to take after her mother. He smiled just thinking about it. The two of them were going to be such handfuls together.

Now that T’Kere had started things off with the bandits, however, he had to get moving. He had a feeling the perpetrator of such violence was going to be a bit more difficult to pin down. What they wanted, he couldn't begin to guess. It seemed as though they wanted to spark a conflict between the two towns, but he couldn’t think of any reason why. No one stood to gain from this that he could think of.

What concerned him was that they were clearly well connected; it was only through his mercenary contacts that he and T’Kere were able to acquire the goods they did. Wood, nevermind quality wood, required a very good relationship with the fae, lest you anger one and start a cycle no one really wants any part of. You did not merely go chop a tree; you made a bargain.

Meaning whoever made these weapons had such a connection to the fae. This was alarming, to say the least. They were an unruly and chaotic lot, the only certainty was that they would hold to their vows by some definition and they died to cold iron.

Mar’Kir paced the floor in his isolation chamber, a space he had built far under the ground in secret. It was a small stone cube, more or less, but the spiritual space he had built around it was much more impressive. It was like the captain’s cabin of a ship, with circular nautical windows giving a view out to the ocean, accomplished with small portals to the plane of water outside each window.

The cabin itself was made of energy shaped to look like wood, with many colored sheaves of paper spread around at various places; a few on a couch here, a couple on the side table next to the icewine, and only one on the actual desk made of a rich, dark red wood from a now-extinct tree made into beautiful, whirling designs of kelpies, mermaids, and selkies. All of this was lit by shaped fire slime lanterns made of fine crystal.

This was all illusory in a sense, of course. Not even he had the funds for this kind of luxury. But it was HIS pocket dimension; it created whatever sensory experience he desired, so long as he had the energy to spare for it.

Mar’Kir could interact with it all as normal, though, given as it was only his spirit here. To the spirit, energy was little different than physical matter, albeit of very light density.

Snapping his fingers, another pile of papers appeared on the desk as he seated himself in the similarly designed chair, and it had cushions packed with pegasus down feathers for comfort. A large silver bowl appeared beside it, full of blessed water. This wasn’t a fabrication of energy like the rest of the room; it was a real object, a sacred artifact of a cult they once destroyed. It had been blessed by their then-dead god to enhance one's scrying efforts, as well as make interactions with the scene within it far easier than normal.

Just one more snap had a sheet of white silk beneath the bowl, with intricate summoning markings full of crossing lines on it. This wasn’t real either, but the kind of spirits he summoned only really cared about energy anyway, and it wasn’t meant to contain. Rather, it was meant to feed power to the spirit brought forth. An offering.

One did not call a god empty handed.

The one he summoned was known by many names. To him he was known as Saint Atibon, though he had heard from others names such as Legba, Ati-Gbon, Lwa, or Oricha Elegua. A well travelled deity. Fitting for a god of roads and crossroads. It seemed the universe was more like a series of open doors to him.

Of course, he wasn’t conjuring him directly. Only a fool, and a powerful one at that, dared call the physical presence of a trickster god of deals, knowledge, and fertility. No, he merely spoke to him, making his requests known. To learn a sign of the location of who was responsible. He never asked much; his prices could be steep, and often those prices were antagonistic in nature. A Monkey’s Paw.

Mar’Kir kept those prices low by asking little, and rarely. He wouldn’t have uttered his name at all but for the pressing nature of this quest. If he didn’t do this now, they might get away, and if that happened… it could well be a matter of time before they did this again. Before they threatened his home again.

Threatened his family again.

A dark cloud of fury spread through the fringes of his thoughts despite his effort to stay calm. They would not get the chance. He wouldn’t let them.

A large ripple passed through the water and he heard the sounds of dogs in the distance, a sign of amusement from Saint Atibon.

Concern touched the darkening gloom of his thoughts. The attention and entertainment of a trickster could be a great blessing or curse… but most often both. An intuitive knowledge came to him, not words so much as… understanding.

He would get their names and locations, but the god would get entertainment in turn for guaranteeing his success.

A cold chill spread through his body, a signal of the signing of this pact. This just made Mar’Kir grimace. He had not intended things to go this way… but he supposed things could have gone worse. At least he didn’t anger the crossroads deity. But he had the sneaking suspicion that when he did act on the information that began to appear on the blank stack of papers that appeared beside him without his beckoning, things were going to go very, very poorly for the fools on the receiving end of his wrath.

Mar’Kir hated violence. Most of the time, he’d take just about any other option, even if it got worse results… but there was no time. So he would do what he had to do. He would make their ends quick.

But with how that fury from before spread through his thoughts like a poison, like blood in the water, he knew those quick ends would not be pleasant. Whether the growing hatred was his own or the influence of the god lost importance. What mattered now was the task before him as he stripped bare and began drawing sigils and symbols upon himself and in the environment, as well as on the now plain white cloth underneath the scrying bowl. Mostly ones he already knew, but a few that he didn’t; likely another “gift” from Saint Atibon.

He’d have to investigate them later, but for now he had a task at hand.