Eld was fighting the growing urge to shout, panic, or otherwise take actions that would only get him in trouble given that he was relatively powerless here. He hadn't heard Kageko speak for awhile, it was true, but he'd attributed it to her heeding his advice to be patient. He had no idea she was taken, and now he had no idea where she was.

He had some clues for where to start, though.

"Has anyone else been in here recently?" Eld asked the guard, referring to the building as a whole, not the room in particular.

Someone had walked off with both his scythe and Lelan's gauntlet, and nothing else--this was definitely no random crime. He had no idea who could have taken it, but Lelan might, though he didn't want to discuss such things in front of the guard...

There was also the problem of being kicked out of the city--if they still kicked them out, even though they were missing their equipment, what were they to do? He wasn't willing to leave Kageko behind, but he'd rather not have a running battle with city guards if he could avoid it.

The guard thought for a moment. It didn't make any sense! How could a couple of items just disappear? The only idea he could think of was that one of the other guards must have taken them personally or moved them elsewhere. Not that it really mattered . . .

He shook his head. "The jails are watched; we'd have noticed if someone came in."

"'tch, or you're all blind," Lelan grumbled.

Well, in the end, although he'd have preferred that this didn't happen, they were just a gauntlet and a farming scythe--nothing that couldn't be replaced. Since Eldridge and Lelan were both disturbers of the peace and were being promptly expelled from Emain Macha, the town guards saw no reason to reimburse them the cost of their lost items, nor did they feel the need to look for them for any real length of time. He had checked the place he thought they might be, they weren't there, and that was that. He wasn't looking anywhere else, nor were any of his colleagues.

"I'm sure you can replace them," he declared, making it known that both Lelan and Eld had to leave . . . now. He wasn't going to put up with them remaining there any longer. "The rest of your personal effects are in tact, money included. Now, escort yourselves from the city limits, lest we escort you ourselves."

"But-" He cut himself off abruptly. There was no way to make them understand; any attempt would probably just seem like a lie at this point, and get him escorted out.

Heaving a frustrated sigh, he turned and left, but not too quickly--whereas before he would have been happy to try and leave Lelan in the dust, now, as much as he hated to admit it, he'd need his help.

Once he was out of sight of the guards, he'd wait for him to catch up--or start speaking if he already caught up. "So...I take it one of your competitors is hanging around?"

He didn't know about collectors, so he wasn't sure how to find one. Lelan would have an idea, and maybe would even know who took Kageko...

In the end, they had been told to leave the city, and dejected, both boys quietly left, not saying a word until they stepped foot outside of the city. They weren't getting back in, either. Lelan caught something out of the corner of his eyes, a simple something, a quick something--a flash. It was a quick and vibrant flash that spread over the open gateway to the city, all in temporary motion, barely showing the slightest signs of change--but Lelan noticed it. He caught a glimpse of it, and then he knew they weren't going to be getting back into the city for the next week or so. They were quite literally banished for the time being.

The guards had kept an eye on both of them until after they were out of the city; Eld wound up not saying a word to Lelan until after they were past the city limits, and essentially banned from returning for a week. That's what they could do to foreigners with no intentions of stimulating the economy. If the foreigner caused trouble, they could be kicked out--or worse, all depending on the crime.

Lelan walked fairly fast as soon as he was out of the city, and for a moment, may have left Eld in the dust 'til the Reaper caught back up. Lelan was bound and determined to go grab a room from that goddamn inn, beat a pillow senseless, and drink excessively until he could forget about all this Collector shit for the rest of the night. It was a fate he couldn't escape, and could be extremely frustrating, especially during times like this.

"Yeah," Lelan grumbled in mid stride, "Probably long fucking gone by now, too. We both lost. Happy?"

Eld felt his temper flare, but he quickly suppressed it. No, Lelan couldn't be blamed for not understanding why Kageko was important to him--he was used to thinking of Gaiasouls as crotchety old beings, bitter from confinement and uncaring about who wielded them.

He placed a hand on his shoulder so that he'd face him, not as roughly as he honestly wanted to, and made sure to look at him with a deadly serious impression. "Look--this isn't a game to me. Whoever has it, I'm going to get it back from them. So I want your help, because I think you have some idea where he'd go and he what he'd do. I don't--I'm not a Collector."

"So here's the deal: you can have yours back, and if you can get them, whatever other ones he's carrying. I get my scythe, but that's all I want. I don't care about any others."

If there were any other way, he'd have taken it--he blamed Lelan for what happened as much as Lelan seemed to blame him. But he couldn't let that feeling get in the way of getting Kageko back.

Lelan would have kept on walking if Eld hadn't stopped him. He grumbled, suddenly filled with the urge to take a swing at Eld. It wouldn't have made anything better getting into another fight with him; there was nothing to gain from it, so he didn't. That was the thing about Lelan Jericho: he only started fights when there was something to gain, and not even as a matter of ego or pride. An innocent person lacking one of these special weapons was far from his concern, and he wasn't going to start issues with them--though, he might still use them as shields against someone he knew he wasn't going to attack them to get to him.

Eld's proposition about made Lelan laugh. If it weren't for the fact that his gauntlet was special to him, he'd have shrugged Eld off and kept walking--to look for somewhere else to start over. When one knew what to look for, it wasn't hard to find a person with a Gaiasoul. And if they didn't know it, it was easy to steal it from them.

"Fine . . ." Lelan sighed, "But I can't promise I won't look for you afterward. There's something special about that Gaiasoul of yours."

"And I can't promise I'll hold back if you try and take it again." If it were just a weapon, Eld would have chalked Lelan up to just being a nuisance, but it was Kageko--he wasn't going to let anyone take her. Dirige laws be damned, he'd sooner defend himself with all he had than condemn her to a life of just being someone's tool.

He wondered what he'd think if he told him that she was only about six months old, not ancient like most of the Gaiasouls. But he wasn't about to fill him in just in case the it would only encourage him to go after her.

"In any case, I'll follow your lead. Though, I have to ask...are you any good in a fight without your gauntlet, or is it going to be just me if it comes to that?" He'd prefer simply stealing Kageko back and bailing into Purgatory, but things didn't tend to go his way often.

"'tch, yeah, 'course I'm good in a fight!" Lelan announced, a bit offended by Eld's remark.

Come on! Eld had, at the very least, observed that Lelan could jump extensive heights and cover long distances in a fairly short period of time. Or instantly, to anyone else that may have been the area . . .

"They say that the fourth dimension is time, the fifth dimension is duration, and the sixth dimension is potential times," Lelan narrated as a science lecture to Eld--who no doubt knew nothing of this sort! Well, as far as Lelan was concerned. "I was born with a skill of my own, y'know! And that's it. I can move in the fifth dimension. Whaddya say about that, huh Reaper?"

By this point, they were before the inn. It wasn't a large place, just outside of a city full of larger places to stay and all, but it was a good roadside inn. Lelan stopped in front of it and sized it up for a moment. It only took a second, before he started towards the door.

"At least . . ." Lelan muttered under his breath as he pushed the door open, "That's what my mentor told me."

I remember reading something about that. Truthfully, he'd been a bit slack on his studies since joining the Dirige. Whatever off-duty time he had was usually either spent with Etsu or Kageko--when the latter could be coaxed into showing herself in reality for a bit; otherwise, they tended to meet while he slept at night. He tried to keep studying, even if there was no chance of being able to go to school, but he was probably behind what an educated person of his age would otherwise be at by now.

"So...you didn't stop time or anything, you just made it so that we were only fighting for a split second." Essentially, Lelan changed the duration of the fight so it was shorter than it would otherwise be. It was a difficult power for him to wrap his head around; he couldn't do anything like that.

That's a strange skill for someone to be born with, though. He wondered if it was really just a talent or if, like with him, there was an underlying reason for his power.

"Right," Lelan nodded, "And no one noticed a thing. Not even when the street or sides of buildings or anything got fucked up."

The first floor of the two floor inn had a pub attached--and just like the inn was small, it wasn't busy. Only a few people sat at a bar, drinking pints of whatever it was they had want of. Lelan couldn't imagine why they'd be here rather than in Emain Macha. It wasn't like this place was more inexpensive than inns in the city or anything. Prices were so damn cheap there it was unbelievable.

Lelan stopped short, hands digging into his pockets. Again, he was silent, his brow furrowed as he searched and searched . . .

"Hey, you got any cash on you?" Lelan coughed as he stopped, turning to face Eld, "Since you screwed everything up for the both of us, you should be buying our rooms for the night and all."

And so Eld realized that there was going to be a small problem. When missions took more than one day, he usually just slept in Purgatory--Reapers didn't really need to buy much, at least not while on missions.

"I don't carry much money on me--wouldn't want someone to rob me or anything," he replied coolly.

"Besides...I'm not sure they take what I have." He fished in his pocket and held out an example--he'd never been in the country before, so he didn't know what they used as currency.

Eld's offhand comment managed to make Lelan quite a bit annoyed--that much was for sure. But he was annoyed with Eld anyways, so it wasn't too huge of a difference or anything. Nonetheless, he was able to ignore Eld's comment in order to focus on something different--money. Money was required to obtain a room, and if they did not, then there might be trouble.

"Gold coins, man," Lelan sighed, "Everyone takes gold coins. Or even silver. Or bronze. Whatever you got."

Lelan folded his arms over his chest. He failed to note that he was completely broke. He wasn't going to say it, either.

Still nothing? Eld would hear in his ear--Scott's voice, and it didn't take long for him to sigh, Goddamnit.

"Well..." Eld really didn't like the idea of paying for a room for the man who was more or less at fault for the situation, but he needed Lelan in order to track down the man who took Kageko--he didn't want to risk aggravating him too much and having him try to decide to do it on his own.

"Fine, will this-" He stopped abruptly as a voice rang in his ear. Scott's voice surprised him, as he'd been so preoccupied with getting Kageko back he forgot to keep checking to see if he could hear him.

"Here, get us a room--and I'd better get the change back," he instructed, giving Lelan a few coins. It would be plenty, he figured. Once Lelan complied, he stepped back out the door for a moment so he could talk to his operator in privacy.

"Scott? Can you hear me?" He didn't know why his communicator had suddenly stopped working--he'd suspected it had to do with Lelan, but he had no proof of that.

"Heh, right, thanks," Lelan declared as he took the coins and started off towards the bar.

Ideally, someone there would know where to get a room here. He figured as much, at least. Maybe. Possibly. Or, he could always get something for himself to drink and then get a couple of rooms. Or one room. Eld didn't really have much. Just a few coins, that was all. How much did he expect to get with that?

Whatever, Lelan thought. He'd make do with what he was given.

Eld?! Eld! Jesus--Is that you?! Scott frantically shouted the rhetorical question, Holy shit, man. It was like forever ago when I lost contact with you. What the hell happened out there?

The last time Scott had been in contact was right before Lelan attacked him, after all. He had every reason to be concerned.

"Ugh, it's a mess--I got attacked by a boy named Lelan Jericho," Eld began explaining quietly. "He calls himself a collector...he was after Kageko. Well, we both get thrown in jail for a bit--because for some reason I was cut off from Purgatory--and while we're there, she gets taken taken from the police station along with the kid's gauntlet--also a Gaiasoul--so now I'm working with him to find the guy who did it."

"So now I'm outside of town, because we were essentially kicked out, he's broke and you know I don't have much..."

He sighed...he didn't make anything up because he knew Scott would notice if he was lying, but there was a problem the situation and he needed help with it. "Look, I need a favor...there's no Ame Voleur, but I can't just leave Kageko, so I can't come back yet."

He wasn't sure if he was technically allowed the time to search for Kageko; if someone higher up knew there was no Ame Voleur, he might get called back and be forced to leave her. (Or rather, be forced to disobey orders, and he wasn't sure what they would do in that case.) If that was the case, he needed Scott to cover for him--claim he was chasing an Ame Voleur, still investigating, or even still missing.