Just before full dematerialization, Sammy made sure Gabriel bounced back, too, as she planned on resummoning her for the best speed back to Geirkos. Michael’s weightless carriage was already temporarily traded to the Angel ferrying Azure ahead to place the mirrors, so it could be attached to Gabriel once she caught up for another boost.

As soon as the Green Avatar was clear, Sammy zipped to her primary one in the elven cabin. ‘Stillwater’ beelined for the mirror, though she took one forlorn glance at the cozy place they hadn’t gotten to enjoy fully.

Another time, Thirikira.

The mirrors had been getting placed for quite a while by then, and so she Mirror Walked through eight of them, crossing almost a hundred kilometers in a blur of trees, brush, and occasionally startled wildlife, all in something under a minute. She switched to her [Relic Plate] at some point while cloaking herself with illusory greenery camouflage, mainly in the hopes of avoiding Mirror Walking as a big, shimmering lady right into a bear.

Hmm, I bet I could kick a bear’s ass, now…

After the eighth mirror, Azure was in her head, calling, “One more jump is almost ready! I’m just looking for a spot now. Ten kilometers or so.”

Sammy gave a mental thumbs up and waited while looking into the mirror she’d come through. “Nice. That’ll be over a third of the way. Could make all the difference.”

“I’m on the ground, so you can-”

Sammy Mirror Walked targeting Azure instead, choosing a ‘facet’ on the back of her head to walk out from. She turned around to see Azure (from the back) shake herself and hurry ahead, muttering, “So weird,” before proceeding toward a big, old oak tree she was obviously targeting to place the mirror on.

“Oh yeah, well, just wait until I Mirror Walk through your-”

“Don’t finish that sentence!” Azure interrupted firmly. She hesitated before the tree, a hammer in one hand and a wood-backed mirror in the other. “Hmm. Maybe I should just keep doing this further ahead… I can pop back into the city next to you once you get there, or when needed…”

Sammy shrugged as she summoned Pegasus Gabriel to her, at which point the other Angel — Jeramiel — began connecting the harness straps of the carriage to the new, faster mount. Frowning as she began considering what Azure was saying, Sammy replied, “Hey, Azure, you know that you shouldn’t be getting into combat still, right? You’re not at one hundred percent yet, not by a long shot.”

Turning around and fixing her goddess with a flat expression, Azure raised her chin. “Don’t jump in directly, yes, I get it. I won’t. As long as you understand nothing will stop me from coming to you if you get into trouble or get injured. I can heal you more effectively than anyone.”

Sammy retained her frown and crossed her arms. “I can handle a little injury, Blueberry.”

Azure just raised her eyebrows and shrugged. “And I, Oh Chestiest of Chestnuts, can avoid fighting while still being useful. If necessary. And there are always wound negations, which have no level comparison. Jeramiel! You’re finished there, so come along, hmm? Let’s go ahead and nail this a bit further. I’ll be riding atop, now.”

Jeramiel glanced nervously between them and muttered, “Yes, Madame,” before transforming back into Pegasus form and clomping over to the blue beauty.

Still frowning, Sammy had no time for argument, so she hopped into the carriage so Gabriel could take off — which she did with gusto, and soon they were blasting high-speed through the sky.

Sammy sent approving energies mentally, along with, “Go-go Gabriel! Giddyup! Is your buff still going?”

Gabriel sent back almost evil, cackling glee. “It is — Hhnn! With the level-up and weight penalty canceled, I shattered that punk’s record! 224 kilometers an hour! Eat it, Michael, EAT IT! Nyahahaha!”

Sammy sighed and rolled her eyes. She cast her invisibility buff over them once more and then buckled up, all while sending, “Look, whatever, I’m going to zone out. Just book it hardcore. As breakneck fast as you can possibly go!”

“Roger that, Madam! With pleasure.”

Less than 200 kilometers back, so under an hour… good, good — it has to be good enough. Fuck! I should’ve done this before blasting off to Caneboro… but Aramis could’ve helped by fucking warning me…

Like speaking of the devil, Aramis touched her mind as she was projecting back to her throne realm. “I’m sorry, Your Majesty. I got a bit carried away trying to see this information gathering through. I’ve been entirely engaged with it for days without end and I didn’t even think about an Avatar not being close. I… didn’t keep track. A lapse.”

“It’s alright — I get it. My fault, too. A somewhat spontaneous decision to move the Backenhome Avatar anyway. I almost interrupted you to get the lowdown a while back, but I didn’t want to bust your groove. But… Orswyth still has the Relic to reach through. When it comes down to it, we’ll probably be okay, and I’ll never be able to be everywhere at once. So. Let’s just focus on what we do from here.”

“As you say, Madam. Currently, Resemblants are trying to track down Nestaire, and our mortal brigade — as it were — is preparing to storm the manor to free our spy. Under illusory disguises and physical masks. It won’t be pretty… the place is fortified. The walls are no issue at least, as we have the capability to fly our group right over them.”

It was a worrisome scenario. Would more of her people die? “If I could just Mirror Walk in, grab her, and go, I would. But I have to scry in order to do that, and I’m blocked.”

“Trust me, that frustration is well known to us. It would’ve been quite a boon to simply see inside instead of needing constant mental communion with agents. But at least we know where she is. Currently. I’ve also confirmed we can mar the wards on the walls, as we’ve studied them extensively. We only need to breach one and Servitors can occupy the yard. The manor wards are a different story. We’ll likely need to blow through them, especially as fighting will be inevitable by then.”

“Ha! More than something! Make sure to take Michael. I think he’s the only one with level 6 destructive Light spells right now. The rest are still shy of concurrency with my level.”

“Understood, though Level 4 and 5 are plenty destructive. Furthermore, Bast already has everyone beat on this, Madam, and rivaling or exceeding even you offensively. He’s a Calrenazzod Airstrike, he’s the battering ram to breach the house once we’re over the walls. Again, stealth will not work for this raid.”

“Well damn! Awesome. Make sure we record this, i-if it isn’t too much trouble… anyway. Timeframe?”

“We plan to move fast once all is ready. If we push hard, maybe 30 minutes to the raid… but I’d rather we have a move to make on the other front, first. We’re monitoring our girl closely and will be ready to strike regardless. Again, she’s doing well so far crying, perfusing apologies, and pretending to be a dumb thief. Not far from the truth, I suppose. Sadly, her gear is just too advanced to get out of this.”

“All she needs to do is stall and bullshit. Okay. Is there anything I can do along the way?”

“Search with the Resemblants. You’re still the best at everything to do with mirrors — individually, at least. Or perhaps your divination can help. We don’t think he’s close, but whether he’s in the city isn’t clear. Dick is leading the way in terms of actual presence in Geirkos.”

“Alright, sounds logical. Will do. Remember to be ready to ping me if I’m occupied during the raid, but am needed through the Relic. Capiche?”

“Capiche. Actually, why don’t we hand that to Pythia? She can watch and decide more objectively than anyone. I’m involving myself intimately in this one, you know.”

“Salient. Go for it. And good luck.” Sammy disconnected and drummed her fingers on her thone’s arm as she contemplated the best way to go about finding her quarry. Unless he was seeable by mirrors and vulnerable to scrying at the time…

Shrugging, she did the obvious first step: pulled out her tarot deck and began shuffling the cards. She asked Fate, “How do I find Nestaire Linateri?”

The single card was flung out in a gleaming flash, spinning several times before stopping. The tarot card showed the upside-down image of a man face down, ten narrow swords stabbing into his back.

Reversed Ten of Swords? Rise above… survive disaster… learning from the past… uhhhh…

But she noticed the card was not very classic — she flipped it and drew it back closer to her to study the details. A man with dark hair in a long braid and the remnants of partial mail and leather armor. His face was turned away and not visible, sadly. A portion of his arm was bare and showed tattoos.

“The tattoos… wait, is this Bagatta? The tattoo is the focus?” She contemplated that for a moment. The explosive tattoo they’d taken? It was in her organization’s possession, possibly in storage. But what would she do with it?

If it’s instrumentally tied to him… if he were the maker or fashioner… Sympathy. Sympathetic Targeting. Okay…. What would I target him with?

There was Seeking… but it was almost certainly in the realm of ‘scrying’ too, she imagined. It was worth considering, but she felt like she needed to sidestep that if she could. Utilize the ‘cheat-around’ correctly.

Could I use Detect Magic? If he has anything of a similar magical resonance on him, that would easily satisfy the conditions and I could presumably track the location. Sympathetic Targeting makes range zero which would be like touching a magic item.

It seemed worth a shot. Ultimately both options did… there was just the issue of using it through the damn mirror instead of physically touching it before she could get to Geirkos.

“System, can I target an item through a mirror as a Sympathetic link?”

Yes, User Sammy, so long as the item touched a mirror you are interfacing through. However, an additional -2 penalty is assessed for the Effective Levels of the link. To avoid this penalty, another form of Sympathetic link may be utilized (such as their possession of your personal item).

“Fuck! Not going to be any dice there… wait, wait! A physical, artistic representation is another method, right?! If I create it inside my realm, would that count?”

If the representation sufficiently ties and is accurately reflective to the individual, is ‘physical’ within the realm, and is invested with an FE, then yes. A real-world representation remains more effective. You would eliminate the penalty, and also gain an additional bonus from the separate physical item.

“Nice! It should be enough unless this ends up being an actual contest… I’d hope not with an ostensibly passive ability...”

She checked with her realm for the status of the item, and as it happened, Tashome had just extracted it for potential use in the raid as an explosive. She vetoed this because she didn’t trust the item anymore, even with her as the technical ‘owner.’

Did that wily bastard have some hidden backdoor access? It was perhaps unlikely, considering he hadn’t used it, and if he could track through it he would have made use of it by then. Still, she wasn’t taking such chances as bringing it practically to his doorstep. So, she had Tashome stick the tattoo on a mirror and leave it in a non-essential area of the hideout’s grounds. Just in case.

That done, she set about drawing from the various sources on the man’s appearance. This was easy as pie. He’d been spied in a mirror and identified outside of the manor extensively by Dick, who’d made whole damn obsessive flowcharts through days and days of the comings and goings at the location. They had physical snapshots of his ass!

“Ha! I see you, Mr. Smile. One way or another we’re going to take you down, motherfucker.”