The longer Asra thinks about the situation, the more curious and, yes, concerned she grows. She puts it aside for a little while as being overly paranoid. After all, she'd been in with the Headmaster first and Adaye and Risine later and hadn't bothered to get in touch with anyone. When she'd tried to get in touch with Georg, he hadn't answered.
Asra, satisfied with that explanation for the time being, starts toward Adaye's offices to get a little bit of work done. She gets maybe twenty steps in that direction.
As she considers that line of argument further, Finch gets in touch again and lets her know that Georg is out and safe and has plans to go to Opal College to talk to another faculty member while she runs an errand for him. She makes a wisecrack about having turned into errand girl and how she never gets any of the lead roles in this business.
That leaves Asra wondering solely about Iana and Garnyn. She thinks back on how she and FInch and Sa'ablo had been ambushed in the Canal District.
That had been this 'Macie' character's doing and they'd been lucky to get out of that one.
Iana and Garnyn had gone to Obsidian to do some research into Macie's identity.
Now neither Iana or Garnyn were keeping in touch.
It could be security magic around Obsidian. That undoubtedly was part of it. There were few places on campus that could possibly contain even a fraction of the sensitive information and materials that Obsidian headquarters does. But no matter how she turned that around in her head, she couldn't shake the feeling -- the
instinct -- that something was wrong. Anything connected to Macie ended up sour. And potentially lethal.
The feeling wasn't going to go away on its own. The only way to make it go away was to go check.
It was going to take more than just a disguise, of that she has no doubt.
* * *
In hindsight, Asra realizes that she was utterly unprepared to try and infiltrate Obsidian College on a whim. These are professional spies, individuals educated and experienced in infilitration, in detection of deception, in a whole raft of things that should have clued them into her. For some reason, though, it felt distinctly like people were mostly distracted, their attention on something else. Not that she was experienced with what it was like inside Obsidian, but she thought there was an awful lot of whispering in corners, people hurrying this way and that as though they didn't want to be spotted in a certain part of the compound, others keeping their heads down over their work without a thought for gossip. Something was going on here, she thinks. On a regular day, it feels entirely likely she'd have been found out five minutes in. She just hopes it doesn't have anything to do with Iana and/or Garnyn.
She's peeking into some place called the Bin when she's nearly bowled completely over by a large, bearded man with dark hair. For sheer size, he could compete with Georg, though this fellow is clearly not her Granite friend. For one thing, he's got far too much hair, and for another, he's still four or five inches shorter. The man makes some mumbled, perfunctory apology as he pushes past her and hurries off down the hallway.
Following her instincts has gotten her this far. She checks the craft on her illusory disguise and follows him at what she thinks ought to be a discreet distance.
* * *
To Asra's great frustration, she loses sight of the big fellow a little distance later as two... maintenance men? cross in front of her, carrying a large piece of tinted window glass. Asra can't imagine for the life of her what it would be used for, considering she's deep within the building and if there are any external walls anywhere near her, then her sense of direction has abandoned her completely. She has to stop until they carefully walk it down the opposing hallway, but it's a close thing. She practically has to skid to a halt before she careens right through it. One of the maintenance men makes a nervous laugh.
"O's and A, it's a bloody good thing you stopped in time. Master Kharik would have our ears," he says, and the other snorts.
"Balls, most like." The first fellow considers that, then nods sagely.
"You're probably right."
They pause long enough that Asra thinks she's going to have to ask if they'll get out of the way, but they realize they ought to keep moving and slowly, slowly clear the way.
Asra scurries down the hallway toward where her suspect fled, but she's lost sight of him. It does appear that the only thing this hallway leads to, however, is the library. There's an officious looking human woman, tall and broad and dark haired wearing what looks like a blue robe of office. Her scowl is enough to give her pause, but there's nothing to be done but try and bluff her way past this one as well.
In the end, their conversation (which was getting nowhere) is interrupted by another blue-robed official, a dwarven man who is there to start his duty shift. When the human woman reclutantly gives up her seat behind the desk, instead of leaving the library, she goes on in, a serious set to her expression as she sets off in search of something. Or someone. The new worker looks curiously at Asra.
"Were you going to go in?" he asks mildly, as if Asra's not quite all there. Asra doesn't question. She follows her nemesis-of-the-moment, reflecting that she's starting to build up a list, into the library.
* * *
Her luck, it seems, has run out. Not that she's been discovered, thank goodness. More that she can't find anything she's looking for. She's familiar with the Whitestone Library, which to her mind is laid out with exquisite logic and sense and she could find aisles and passages to get just about anywhere she wants to be without having to think much about it. Obsidian, to her mind, is laid out like the demented web of a drunken spider and she can't figure out how to get
anywhere, much less find anyone. Plus the damned lift platform, just like the one in the main administration building to the Headmaster's office, is out here too!
It's the stairs for her, clearly.
She spends some time meandering up and down a couple of floors and spots no one of interest. Not the big guy, not Iana, not Garnyn, not even the blue-robed woman with the perpetual sneer.
Feeling a little sorry for herself, wondering how it all went wrong when it was going so well, Asra considers the books on a nearby shelf which has such dazzling titles as 'Travels in Central Ardraven, 93-95AA' and 'Rocks of Central Ardraven and Their Use as Improvised Weapons'. From what she recalls from geography lessons as a girl, Central Ardraven is dead boring and is almost entirely grassland with about three kinds of rocks. It's almost enough to put her to sleep. It's been a very long and stressful day, after all.
Until she hears a shelf topple over in the adjoining room.
She carefully moves to check it out, and overhears voices. A woman's, raised in indignation. A man's, low and sad. Asra creeps forward, not wanting to be seen, and is just about to peek her head around the corner when Iana goes running by.
It's such a surprise that it takes a moment or two to realize what's just happened and furthermore to wonder where Garnyn is. Maybe it's the man with her? But why would Iana be running away from Garnyn? Unless...
The man is still here, judging by the world-weary sigh and the fact that he calls after the fleeing Iana, and Asra does indeed peek around the corner. It's the big man she's been following! What a remarkable turn of events!
Then, for some reason, he's talking to her. Something about a spat and it blowing over, and all Asra can think are two things: 1. Thank goodness it wasn't Garnyn after all and 2. this cannot be a simple lover's spat, or any good thing at all, the way this guy took off toward the library over something significant going on in the building. Unfortunately, despite there only being two things, she thinks about them too long and now HE'S gone too!
She thinks a third thing.
Not again...
* * *
Iana, naturally, realizes none of this whatsoever. Her mind is turned solely to thoughts of escape. As she stumbles past the Archivist's cart, her hip gives an alarming twinge, but adrenaline carries her forward despite the pain there and in her knee, and she darts away down one of the aisles, hoping to lose Ishan in the process. She fears she'll have to do it fast before her fresh injury gets any worse, and the amount of time before that happens could be ten seconds, it could be ten minutes. Impossible to know, deeply concerning to think about.
Ishan, on the other hand, is both more athletic and less impeded by a scattered cart than Iana was by the intact cart. He's able to clear the rubble, such as it is, with one leap, though he stumbles a bit on landing. He catches sight of her taking a quick detour down a nearby aisle and considers that heading her off might be the wiser choice here. He takes the next aisle closer and takes off at a run. With any luck, he's confident he'll be able to overtake her quickly. He wasn't kidding when he said they had always been friends and that he didn't like doing any of this, and he's not at all sure about what's going to happen to her when he does catch her, but that's a decision above his pay grade and if he's learned one thing through this experience, it's that he does
not question orders. Hell no. The one time was bad enough.
