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.

Comments

[intangibleman]

"I think whoever set up the alarm system would be more annoyed," Tyki said, half distracted, eyes on the cavern around him. It was sandy, but still an improvement on the inside of the Garganta.

Tyki Mikk, a latecomer to the legacy of the Noah Clan, had struggled to get used to their preternatural connection with Akuma, or Hollows as they were called on the Lowerworld. He was long used to it now, just as he had grown plenty accustomed to his newfound wealth, the high quality clothes he got to wear and the food he got to enjoy, but travelling in the dark side of the world, the bits that lay hidden behind the scenes, was something else. It made him slightly uncomfortable, even now. Being out of that and back in the real world was better, but the Zertinan Caverns were still aggressively claustrophobic.

"It won't be the Earl who has to come to turn it off," he added in a mutter, eyeing Road's upside down face with an uncomfortable scowl as the Hollow's hard and stringy form moved beneath him.

He had let Road figure out how to get to the meeting place, the 'Palace'. She'd sorted out the route, the timing and all else. He'd just followed, feeling slightly put upon, and knowing he was playing fake babysitter so that the other members of Clan Khamja took Road more seriously than they otherwise would. He could have been playing cards or drinking away the day, but instead he'd been sent off on an errand, another one, one of many in the past few weeks, to the Lowerworld, of all places.

"Where's this palace?" He asked, voice flat and unimpressed.

[declaregamuza]

Kreeth was the first of what was set to be a veritable onslaught of new people into the Palace. Nel had never been so glad of having sent Szayel and the more rambunctious Arrancar away to retrieve Aizen's children than she was at the moment she'd learned that. Szayel would have tried to cause problems with the people already there. Give him people that didn't know him to play with too and he'd have definitely started something. To say nothing of the risk of Grimmjow and company finding someone they butted heads with. They didn't need a rehash of their introduction to Kadaj.

Information on Aizen's welfare was thin on the ground, too. He was in D-District prison, and that was all anyone could say. L was trying to break through their systems to get access to their security systems and computerised information, but he wasn't currently sure if he could do it at all, and even if he could, it would take days.

It left Nel feeling like she was spinning her wheels in the Palace. The day was a long routine of waiting for more information, and hoping Grimmjow and the others weren't in a rush to return. She whiled away time in the kitchen because if she was there everyone knew where to find her.

When the Palace's doors opened she lifted her head. More visitors, inevitably, more Khamja members, were on their way in.

A few seconds later something changed, and Nel felt what she could only describe as her Hollow cowering. The two that were approaching were Dark elemental, which was enough to set her own teeth on edge although she'd learned never to judge by an elemental alignment, but that wouldn't be enough to frighten Gamuza.

Still she could feel it, that fight or flight response coming from deep within, hotwired into the back of her own spine where her instincts met the Hollow's. It was definitely pulling in the direction of flight, fighting almost vanished as an option.

Her fingers tightened around her cup, her newspaper lying forgotten on the table as she looked up at the doorway.

[lilinette]

There were new people in the Palace.

There were more and more new people in the Palace these days, and there were going to be more still. Mostly she spent her time with Halibel, or Stark. Stark because around him was a good place to hide; no one went to bother Stark unless it was really important. He'd been bothered a lot recently, with Aizen being imprisoned, but it wasn't enough to warrant him doing anything yet.

Halibel had effectively taken her under wing to train. Halibel trained anyone that needed it, or that came to her, and Nel had passed her off to Halibel because Lilinette found Nel easy to wind up.

When Lilinette wasn't around either of them she liked to go and stick near Nnoitra. The Palace was boring, and she didn't have anyone to play with. Not that Nnoitra played with her, but he was at least not as dismissive of her for being a kid as the rest.

But Nnoitra needed to do things like train, and shower, and sleep, so she couldn't find entertainment in him all the time. That was usually when she'd go to the infirmary and bother Szayel until he chased her out, and then keep going back, but Szayel wasn't here.

So Lilinette was bored.

Which was why, when she sensed people that felt like Ulquiorra in a Nnoitra mood, she decided to go and see them. Nel wanted her, and most of the others, to stay away from the new people that were coming in, but that was all the more reason not to, for Lilinette.

She could feel Nel in there, with them, which made Nel a hypocrite if she was telling others to stay away.

Lilinette walked into the kitchen, bold as brass, and looked around. There was a girl with dark spiky hair and skin that was dark grey, not the pale grey of Ulquiorra, and the creepy winged woman Lilinette had seen lately. She looked at both of them with a critical eye, and then at Nel.

Then she turned back to the strange new people. "Hi," she said, as if she was challenging Nel to stop her.