[crow]

Rhodes had had enough of the keeping of the estate to know its grounds perfectly well. He could have drawn a blueprint of it if someone had really tasked him to do so, though it would have taken some time just to lay out all the lines.

Within his mind, however, it was fast and easy to figure out where it was he had been, where it was he needed to go. In no time, he had arrived at his destination.

[crow]

Or at least he felt that he was growing near to it, anyway, and as a result he slowed himself down somewhat. As he had mentioned before, it was always better to be cautious, even when one did not think there was any imminent danger present. And in this case, Rhodes did not trust this stuff enough to keep from suspecting that it was, in fact, dangerous.

In fact, that was exactly what he suspected of it.

[crow]

That was why he was here in the first place, coming down to investigate it. If it had merely been something like a badger on the grounds, then he would have been perfectly content to leave it be. An animal was nothing unusual, and most of hem would make their way elsewhere as soon as they had attended to whatever it was that had drawn them here in the first place.

And if they made a nuisance of themselves...

[crow]

In such cases, Rhodes would deal with the issue as it arose. As a magical animal himself, he liked to flatter himself that he had some skill with it--- more skill than might be afforded those coming at the problem from a human perspective. At least, he had always found this to be true when the issue came up in his past experience, anyway.

It made sense, didn't it? That animals knew each other's needs better, as a whole.

[crow]

But Rhodes was in for a bit of an unpleasant surprise when he arrived at his destination. He rounded the corner, and now the mist should have been within sight... It had been big enough from where he had seen it from above, so he didn't see how he could miss seeing it now, at this distance, from below.

Except he did miss seeing it. He couldn't see it anywhere. And that sense of magical presence from before was gone too.

[crow]

But where could it possibly have gone to in the intervening time? It wasn't as if he had waited an hour, or even fifteen minutes, to come down and address the issue. What kind of thing--- what kind of phenomenon was it, that it could vanish so quickly?

As the thought struck him, however, Rhodes also realized that he had never seen it appear. He had merely had a sense of it, and then looked down to see all of... that.

[crow]

So it had appeared suddenly too, as far as he knew. Which meant that it was either moving quickly, or it had the ability to appear and disappear at will. Neither of these were comfortable thoughts for Rhodes to be entertaining, especially since he didn't know what it was, what it intended--- if indeed it had enough sentience to have an intention at all.

The only thing he could ascertain, sadly enough, was that the grass beneath it was doing fine.

[crow]

Well, it wasn't poisonous to the touch. That was something, anyway. Any amount of information was useful, he knew... But he still felt a little disappointed, especially because he felt as though he had been acting with all due expediency. He couldn't very well teleport himself, so short of jumping out the window outright, he couldn't have gotten out here any faster.

And if he wasn't young enough to bolt down the stairs, he definitely wasn't young enough for that jump.

[Event posts end here]