Well it's my very little wonder and it's one that I will keep

[lesstravelled]

Something was going on.

Something was always going on. The world was a big and bustling place full of the small evils people committed against each other. Road enjoyed that about life. Anywhere you went you'd find people being people everywhere, and it never mattered if those people were tall or short or old or young or lizards or dogs or boring old humes. People transcended the species barrier, and people were awful. Terrible.

Fun.

Sometimes there were the larger evils people committed against each other too, and Road was part of more than one of those. They were Noah. Clandestine, dangerous, remorseless. They had their spoons in more than one pot of evil and gave them a stir occasionally to make sure the nastiness didn't just sink to the bottom and stay there.

They didn't concern themselves with the lowerworld much. Road, and Tyki, and the others, had been busily stirring another pot on Jylland, their usual playground, when the summons had come from Khamja on the lowerworld. They'd had some work from them, in the past, but their relationship with Khamja was normally distant. The Earl had maintained the connection, because connections were good, and maybe once they were done playing on Jylland it'd be fun to find a new place to play, but when the summons had come, he hadn't been able to attend himself.

He'd sent Road in his stead, and Tyki to go with her. It was easier to be underestimated when you dressed cute and sounded cute and looked cute, and had someone that definitely looked like an adult with you.

Something was going on. Khamja were playing their cards close to their chest, but they'd requested the presence of every single member, both shadow and open, for an important meeting.

Road didn't try to surmise what exactly it was that was going on. It wouldn't involve them, at any rate, at least not yet, but there was always the opportunity for new opoortunities. New people, new places, new things to learn and use.

Their directions to the Desert Palace hadn't been the best. The place was hidden, and marking it on maps would be a good way of making it no longer hidden. Not that maps were any help when you were approaching from the other side.

Road gave their transport an affectionate stroke along its bony mask. The journey from Niflheim, where they'd been, to Rabanastre, would have been a boringly long walk if they hadn't hitched a ride. Fortunately, there wasn't a Hollow in existence that would deny a Noah asking a favour.

"Do you think The Earl will be upset if we set off their alarms?" she asked, tilting back from her perch on the Hollow's head to look at Tyki upside down. Her legs dangled down, her feet brushing dangerously close to its teeth, but it wouldn't bite. It wouldn't dare.

The route had been surprisingly well trodden for something in the depths like this. Hollows came this way regularly, but if you were used to Hollows you could tell where they veered away from a spot. They gave population centres a wide berth, or the smart ones did, so you found the paths they took might open out within sight of one, but almost never in one. Not unless they were told to.

The same thing happened here. There were probably wards, or some kind of defense mechanism to keep even the Hollows out of an area that would, normally, be one of their gathering places. Some old, forgotten, sunken ruin beneath the sands, deep in the heart of the Zertinan Caverns would be teeming with Hollows if it wasn't for the fact it wasn't forgotten, or abandoned.

The Hollows stayed away. Whatever was there was too powerful for them to think it worth taking on.

They'd come out of the Garganta into the Caverns, and then pressed on, but now might be a good time to let the Hollow leave. Not that Road was against making an entrance, but it would spoil the fun if everyone knew what they were before they knew what everyone else was.

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[lesstravelled]

"It sank beneath the sand hundreds of years ago," Road said, sounding, for a moment, less childish. "Now it's accessible only by a door in the Zertinan Caverns, unless you have an airship."

She sat up again, and pushed herself off the Hollow's head to land on her feet in a jump. Her skirt flew up as she did, but she landed lightly, and turned towards the Hollow, which stopped obediently.

She could kill it. The temptation was certainly there. She could get rid of it while it was unable to resist and spend a few minutes enjoying it.

But that would be a waste of a good Hollow.

"It's not far from here," she said, to Tyki. There was magic in the air, here. Someone had a few local creatures in their thrall, and probably kept them as guards. "But unless we want to upset everyone, this is as close as an Akuma can get."

It might be fun to test their defences sometime. Although being where it was, it probably didn't need many from its inhabitants anyway.

[intangibleman]

An airship? Tyki's expression went flat, his bright gold eyes dulling for a brief moment. They could have saved the journey through the Unseen World if they'd used an airship, huh? Nice to find out so late.

He looked at the back of the creature beneath him, its skin grey, its appearance sinewy. It didn't feel like an animal, merely an approximation of one. It moved like you'd expect, but there was no warmth in it, no give to its flesh.

"People do get a bit funny about them, don't they?"

That was no surprise. Everybody knew that if a soul didn't move on like they should, return to the planet or Etro or the Farplane or whatever belief or terminology the individual preferred, the soul would eventually corrupt and become a creature of evil, even if the exact reasoning and process wasn't well known. Nevertheless, they had somehow captured the imagination of people, albeit in an overall negative fashion, like poltergeists. They had different names, but they were all the same. They preferred Fiend in some parts of Ivalice, or so Tyki had heard, and Hollow in the rest. On Jylland they tended to refer to them as Akuma, though those of Lucian nationality tended towards using the term Daemon instead. Regardless, they were always the same. Predatory monsters without exception, but varying intelligence.

[lesstravelled]

Road giggled, her mouth twisting into a cruel grin. People did indeed get a bit funny about Akuma, or Hollows, or Fiends, or Daemons.

Road was happy to call them anything. None of them mattered. They were dead, and vengeful, and that was useful, but the only thing that made them really different from other people was the part about being dead.

They consumed each other, and fought with each other, and kept going until the strongest ones came out on top, just like they'd done when they were alive.

Road was one of the strong. So was Tyki, although he was still getting used to that. None of the rest mattered in comparison. They could do what they liked to them. What they felt like to them.

"You're never met anyone in Khamja, have you?" she asked, as she set off walking. It wouldn't be too far. There was Mist within these Caverns and it made her skin prickle.

[intangibleman]

Tyki felt glad to be off the Hollow. He wasn't used to riding astride a beast, as he'd never been in a position to ride chocobos. The closest he'd come was eating one. He'd found out later, from a news crier and definitely not the men who had traded him the cut, that it was likely a stolen racing bird and not an animal raised for meat. He thought, in retrospect, that it was a little stringy, but it was much better than what he'd eaten for the past few weeks. At least it wasn't scavenged.

"No," he said, scowling at sand-coloured dust clinging to the hems of his trouserlegs already. "Why?"

[lesstravelled]

Road clasped her hands behind her back as she walked. The sand was everywhere. It poured from holes in the cavern's roof in great sandfalls in places, and trickled like dust in others. It was fine, and hung in the air, and clung to clothing, and shoes.

"Because people get a bit funny about them, too," she said, turning to flash Tyki a dangerous smile. Their little Akuma wouldn't scare most of the people inside Khamja. Gotei Captains and worse called this place home. "Or they would if they knew who they were."

She could see the entrance ahead. She could feel it, too, the magic binding it and protecting it. Someone had taken measures to keep the world out.

Or the biggest monsters within.

[intangibleman]

Tyki had heard that there were two distinct types of members. There were those who were openly affiliated with the Clan, those with dodgy pasts and nothing to hide with their association. Others, those with high profile assets or positions of public office, were the shadow members, or those who kept their membership private.

Khamja was made up of all sorts, the Earl had told him. Weapons dealers, members of Ivalice's anti-Akuma force, scientists, random psychos, criminals, people with insane abilities who wanted a steady outlet for them... and those who wanted to keep an eye on world events and a finger in useful pies, like the Earl himself.

He looked up at the door ahead and let out a low whistle. The air seemed to be charged with magical energy and it wasn't even particularly low-key. It felt like the crispy, near-static field left in the immediate aftermath of a spell. It was lucky that the amount of Jagd in Ivalice probably did enough to conceal even this hotbed of eldritch weirdness from prying eyes, or whatever organ detected magic.

He could feel some large creatures nearby, far out of sight. It made him feel a little bit like prey.

"Huh," he said. "Think they'll be pleased to see us?"

[lesstravelled]

"Would you?" Road asked.

But Khamja had invited them. Actually, Khamja had summoned them, from across the continents, to discuss a little problem Khamja had right now which was, inevitably, that one of its shadow members was currently in prison.

Khamja probably wasn't happy to see anyone right now.

She fell serious again as they approached the doors. Road could almost feel the magic crackle and fizzle in her hair and along her skin. It was like walking through a storm; there was a charge in the air if you knew how to feel it.

"They've called together everyone. There are going to be a lot of people here that don't like each other." There would, inevitably, be ones that worked at cross purposes to themselves. They had more than one Gotei Captain in their ranks, and more than one monster, too. Khamja wasn't a neat collective for the meeting of minds, it was a haphazard mishmash of people that found other people useful. It made for common enemies, and strange bedfellows.

"We might make some new friends," she added, perking up and giving Tyki a long look out of the corner of her eye.

She didn't have to tell Tyki to be careful of what he said. That was one thing she liked about Tyki more than any of the others. He was good at convincing others to like him, and he knew when to keep his mouth shut.

He was also good at cleaning up messes if he made any mistakes, or someone else did.

That and he was fun, unlike any of the others except the Earl himself. If Road needed a fake babysitter, she was glad it was Tyki.

The door opened for them without a fight. It was as if they'd been granted entry, rather than the door just being left unlocked.

[intangibleman]

Tyki gave her a smile that, on anybody else's face, might have been suave. When he did it, without reining in his amusement, it just looked dangerous. He would have to keep that in check. There was nothing to be gained by going into this meeting of Clan members looking like one of the troublemakers.

"Perhaps we will," he said, brightly.

He blinked at the door opening at Road's hand. That was magic, if ever he'd seen it. A light spread out from the center, pearly and soft, and then disappeared when the latch gave. Interesting. And probably expensive or difficult to make work.

"After you," he said, gesturing.

It wasn't gentlemanly. It would have been in an upmarket restaurant or luxury hotel, but here it was simply him allowing the more formidable of the two of them, or at least the more durable, to walk into danger first.

[lesstravelled]

Road didn't care about Tyki letting her go in ahead of him. Tyki was supposed to be her minder, but he wasn't the one in charge, or the more dangerous. Not unless you really upset him, anyway. When Tyki pulled out the stops he could be nasty.

It was another reason he was Road's favourite.

She all but skipped inside, entering with a cheery, carefree air about her. There was a small vestibule, like a chokepoint, that once upon a time would have throttled incoming forces and allowed anyone inside time to move. Now, she thought, it probably kept some of the bigger monsters from breaking in.

It would also bottleneck anyone rushing out to defend.

Beyond that was an entrance hall. The feel of a dozen different kinds of monster lingered in the air within, and all of them were people shaped.

[intangibleman]

Tyki stepped in after her, closing the door behind him. His well-made shoes clicked hollowly on the marble floor and he looked down at it, eyes raised. For a more than slightly villainous headquarters, it was certainly posh.

He, like Road, felt those within. He wasn't as good at is as her, being too used to the muzzy background noise found in cities to be able to discern current individuals clearly. It was a little like a magic eye puzzle to him, or trying to see a shape in fog. He'd probably get used to it over time, if he spent enough time here, but he rather hoped it wouldn't come to that.

He didn't feel anybody being openly hostile, at least. Nobody had rushed to meet them, weapons bared, so he supposed they hadn't just been granted entry to the palace on a fluke. Maybe somewhere, deep in the building, somebody was counting off arriving members.

"I half expected a welcoming committee," he said, a little disappointed. Well, it was all a bit of a let down.

[lesstravelled]

Road made a noise of open disappointment. She'd have liked a welcoming committee. It seemed like a bad idea, in the long run, not to have someone greet members at the door and herd them off to different parts of the Palace so that you could limit how much they ran into each other.

Then again, it might be much more interesting to let them just stumble into each other from the outset.

"Maybe there's no one here to make trouble with," she said, sounding a little bit disappointed in that possibility. She turned, following her senses towards a doorway further in. It was closed, but she could feel people beyond it. "We should find someone to show us around." There was no telling what might run into them, otherwise.

[intangibleman]

"I doubt that," Tyki said, with a laugh. "The Earl said that a lot of people would flock here, but that there are some residents that live here full time."

He did consider it odd that nobody was about though, not even to provide non-automated security. If somebody managed to get past the monsters and then get through the door, there was nothing to stop them storming the palace with a rifle. The ones with the rifles should be vetting the people walking in.

He shook his head and smoothed his clothes down, brushing sand from his sleeve. He wasn't about to be seen with a dusty suit, regardless of who met him, gun or not. He pushed his hair back with one hand and let the state he'd willed his appearance into revert back to normal. At one time, he'd always looked like this, slightly tanned skin, dark eyes... now it was a chore to maintain. His Noah blood, unknown to him for years, had won out and changed him. With his concentration dropped, his skin darkened to an ashy grey and his eyes brightened to yellow.

"I'm sure they can't be far," he said.

[lesstravelled]

"There are some in there," Road said, pointing towards the door. She could feel others around, too, but to say they were expecting the whole of Khamja to descend on them for a meeting, the Palace wasn't very full.

Perhaps they were earlier than she'd anticipated. She hadn't wanted them to walk in stylishly late; Road preferred to get to know a place, and the people in it before she made a move, but she'd thought some of the others might be the same.

Unless some of the long term residents were out dealing with Aizen's predicament at the moment. Maybe that was why the place felt emptier than it should?

She turned and looked at Tyki as he let his hume mask drop and his Noah come through. Road had good control over hers; she only let it through when she wanted, but Tyki, well Tyki was still a bit new. Keeping their true nature locked away beneath the surface took effort, especially when you were new.

But the dark grey skin of a Noah suited him better.

"If you break any hearts, can I watch?"

[intangibleman]

Tyki gave a smirk at that, but shook his head. It wasn't a refusal, merely mild disbelief. Road was a sadist, perhaps more than him.

"Let's see who we find, then."

It could be interesting. At least they were expected, so it wouldn't be likely to be a disaster. At least hopefully not. He didn't want to have to kill anybody, at least not this early on. It might ruin the mood for the meeting if he entered it with blood on his hands.

He made for the door.