Roxie pokes him with her tail “Well then, let’s not wait for that to happen. Where are these dealers?”

He ignores the poking as it clinks against armour and explains “There’s one at the edge of the city getting ready to deliver in the next day or two. You want to wait until whoever it is picks it up and ambush them?”

“I doubt that they would pick it up in person, or have it be delivered to their doorstep” Roxie rubs the bridge of her nose.

Ilia chimes in “We could just follow whoever does then”

“Or, more likely, whatever—” Roxie sighs “We could just smash in and make them talk”

Donovan looks up to her blankly, before he cracks a smile “I like the sound of that. Let’s go crack some heads”

Ilia moans “Do we have to”

“Hey, don’t let your Jonson go to waste” Donovan turns his head to look back to her.

She gives him an unimpressed look and asks, “How fucking long where you waiting to say that?”

“The moment you said the name” He flinches as Roxie bonks him on the head.

They travel through the city for an hour, eventually coming to the edge where the buildings become sparser and eventually fade into rolling fields. Donovan beelines across the various dirt paths up to a building that’s a mishmash of various styles and looks to have once been part of a builder’s yard, with a large fenced off area behind.

Roxie pulls him back a bit and pushes her sights out through the building “There’s about six people inside, I don’t see any food ready to be delivered but there’s definitely a basement”

Donovan looks to Iliana who shrugs back before he suggest “Try to get one with the door?”

Ilia shakes her head as she summons Jonson who then rears back and punches the door inwards, setting the occupants of the building screaming and shouting in surprise. Roxie and Donovan charge in as Ilia follows behind, Roxie nudges her to follow Donovan as they split.

Roxie barges into a living room where two people were playing cards, one of which is taken out by Roxie twisting and swinging her tail into their back, sending them flipping over the table and spawled over the floor; the second one stumbles under the tail swing only to be punched in the face and thrown across the floor, slowly clutching their broken nose.

………….

Donovan and Ilia push into a large kitchen-dining area where four people are quickly packing up paperwork and crates, two at a large dining table, one at the kitchen counter and the last has thrown their crate at the entering pair whilst running into the back yard. Donovan side steps the crate as he throws a handful of sand which causes three of them to flinch, he then kicks the large table into the two besides it before swinging his arm as the weight flies out to slam into the chest of the one at the table. Ilia meanwhile has sent her shadow out and has frozen the pair at the table as they recover before opening her jars and letting the tar familiars out and sending them after the one that ran.

They leap over the paralyzed pair and follow the fleeing person into the yard, which has been converted into a barn and storage. They rush over to one of the horses as the trio of familiars’ leap onto him; one swallowing his foot and sticking him to the ground, another wrapping around his arm and wrenching it behind him and the third latches onto his head. They then start steering him back into the building.

The people are then quickly dragged and tied together with the tar familiars.

Donovan is checking the ones Roxie subdued “Maybe avoid hitting their heads” He starts bandaging the face of the one Roxie punched “I’m pretty sure these two have concussions”

Roxie sighs “Are they going to die?”

He looks them over “Hmm, probably not. Smugglers tend to be at east basic SC’s and learn to use Chi”

“Can they tell us anything?” Roxie crouches besides the pair.

“We have like, four others to question, they aren’t important” He stands and moves over to the others.

Roxie frowns but follows “Ilia?”

She waves her hand and her shadow latches onto them “Ready to question”

“We ain’t gonna tell you shit, especially not to any Tillite!” One of them starts spitting at the trio.

“Well, fuck—” Roxie and Ilia look to Donovan with a frown as he rubs his face “These are a bunch of traditionalists. Till’s position is supposed to be earned through a duel, but she had her aides fight in her stead”

The dealers goes to add but freezes before Ilia chides “That’s enough out of you”

“So, they’re dealing stuff too?” Roxie quirks a brow as she asks.

He points to one side as he starts “The Goldies are happy with her because she’s, actually done something with our economy—” Then points to his other side “So, they think if they ruin that, then she’ll be kicked off”

Roxie sighs and looks down to them “Unless these Goldies are stupid, that’s not how it’s going to work”

“You tell them that” He gestures to them.

“Another time—” She crouches in front of the more vocal of the lot and grabs his face “They have things to tell us. Like, have you delivered a large amount of raw meat recently? To who and where?”

She releases them to answer but they just grit their teeth, so she then stabs their hand with her stinger; Ilia looks away as they cry in pain whilst Donovan just flinches back.

Roxie waits as they calm down and eventually talks “A-a few days ago. To our boss. He’s got a client that trade for some weird stuff”

“Weird how?” Roxie quirks a brow.

They think for a second, but another chimes in “Those closest to him have metal arms, or just become something like a completely different race”

Roxie tilts her head to the side “Four arms? Extendable necks?”

“Yeah”

Roxie looks to Donovan who shrugs before asking them “Where is he?”

They looks between each other before one answers “Don’t know, he left the old hideout”

“Well, that confirms that the angels are here—” She stands and sighs “And the necromancers are definitely not far if they’re being this cautious” She then looks back down at them “The question is, do you know anything about the people going missing” They collectively grumble no’s, causing Roxie to then ask “Anyone asking for bodies?”

One of them in the back explains “Some weirdo has put up a bounty for corpses”

Roxie turns to Donovan who shrugs “I can ask around, anyone else will probably know more than these guys”

Ilia, who’s become slightly pale “What are we going to do with them now?”

Donovan perks up “We hand them into the Gracefuls, they’ll pay a decent bounty for them”

“Sure, where are they?”

“Gimme a minuet” He winks and heads out.

Just as Roxie goes to say something to Ilia, their interrupted by Donovan screaming “Ka Kaw” on the roof top before coming back in.

Roxie and Ilia give him off looks before Roxie asks “Please don’t tell me that’s how people actually call them over”

“It’s how I do it” He shrugs with a knowing smile.

Ilia states “I get the feeling that they don’t appreciate it”

“Meh” He just shrugs again.

In a short while, in which Roxie gets the location of the old hideout, a figure in a brightly coloured robe and hood with stylised rocks embroidered on the bottom hem strides in, with only their beak not being obscured or covered. They look down at the busted door, then across to everyone before they finally look to Donovan and Tilt their head.

“Uh, bunch of smugglers” He raises his hand to get their attention before the walk off “Tell Till about them, they’re traditionalists”

They nod before gesturing them to get to their feet and follow, which they don’t do, so Jonson does it for them. Roxie and co follow them out to where a wagon with a cage bolted on the back is stopped with a couple other Gracefuls standing at attention besides it. Jonson deposits them in the cage before stepping back and, one their locked in, flying apart as his pieces return to the road.

Ilia crouches as her tar familiars return to their jars “So, we going to kick down another door?”

“I think for now we focus on why we’re here, let Till deal with that boss of theirs. But we do have a basement to check out first” Roxie and others watch as the dealers are carted off before returning to the house with a pair of the Gracefuls who start hauling the goods out. Roxie descends into the basement where more boxes are stored. Roxie strides up to one and opens it to find it’s actually a large boxed bottle of green fluid which causes Donovan to immediately freak out at upon spotting it.

He pushes Roxie and Ilia back to the stairs down “Fuck! Get back! Don’t use any magic!”

Roxie and Ilia both step back into the room as he starts rushing between the stacked crates, checking them over and testing if they’re sealed “Mind telling what these are?”

“These fucks have been making deals with those fucking scale brains!” Donovan starts pulling his hair as he mumbles “These are crates and crates of their SC hunter, stuff”

Roxie tilts her head and looks to Ilia who shrugs before asking him “Hunter stuff?”

“It explodes when it comes into contact with any power. Generally being larger the more powerful you are and causing a massive fuckoff jolt of feedback” He returns to mumbling to himself “If they have this much here in bum fuck nowhere. We need to hunt those fucks down”

“Donovan” Roxie firmly calls him before explaining “We’re going to focus on the angels and Necromancers, or else Blackroom will have another—”

Roxie’s interrupted by the Gracefuls coming down and repeating Donovan’s earlier panic, though they push all three of them upstairs.

Roxie huffs as they stop pushing her and change to guarding the entrance to the basement “As I was saying, if we don’t focus, we could have ancient, near unkillable warriors of war pouring over the city” She gives Donovan a pointed look “I appreciate that this is a big thing, but leave it to Till, there’s only three of us and if you start rushing off to deal with this then who’s going to help us?”

Donovan shakes his fists and starts chewing his lip as he growls under his breath before relaxing and taking a deep breath “Fine. Just. Fine”

Roxie shakes her head before waving for everyone to leave the house “Do you know anyone who’d be willing to run around with salt do you?”

Donovan pauses for a second before slowly nodding “Yeah, I can think of a few people, if you have some money

After returning to Till’s cottage, Roxie retrieved her changed money and the salt whilst updating Till on what they find. After they meet with Donovan’s people, a large collection of random handymen and odd jobbers, who happily take most of her money in return for exploring the city with the salt and reporting if it turns black.

Donovan asks, “So it turning black means?” As they wander the city themselves.

“Salt picks up spirit and soul, and broken soul is perceived as black. And, if those dealers were telling the truth, the body swapping will definitely cause enough to be picked up” Roxie looks back the way they came “Though if any of them are spiritually dull, then they could just not spot it”

“Hey!” The trio turn as one of the people they asked to carry salt around is rushing down the street towards them. Roxie catches him as he barrels into her, before he screams out “Martine, Martine, we, we were going down some alleys and some lanky fucker with fucking scythes cut his arm off. Some bald guy came out of nowhere and is keeping them busy”

Roxie pushes him and growls “Show us where they are!”

They follow him as he runs back to the alley, pushing their way through the large crowd that has formed. Someone is tending to his friend who’s lost their arm past the elbow who he joins to comfort. The alley itself is a mess of shattered walls and upturned road, with the fight seemingly having moved to the rooftop.

Roxie leaps atop the roof to find a large bald man, wearing just a pair of trousers and wielding a large sledgehammer, facing off against a tall stick of ‘person’ wielding scythes, who’s skin is a dark blue and stretched over muscle and bone without a hint of fat underneath, most of their head is obscured by a hood with only a clock face showing.

Roxie’s appearance breaks their lock, the clock faced thing stopping its attempt at crushing the bald man who has put his hammer between them. She rushes after the thing as it jumps back before then continuing to flee.

Roxie reaches out with a wing, sending her mana out to grab onto the roof tiles before attempting to pull a large chunk out from under the thing’s feet, which it counters by stomping the tiles to pieces. It then folds into a crouch before launching off the side of the roof and into the distance, closely followed by Roxie who empowers her legs to match it’s hight.

With a beat of her wings, she closes the distance between them in mid-air and grabs it, wrestling it and managing to start wrapping her tail around it before it kicks her away and they start descending.