Tegan) Ghost Town (Zo

"Why did I take this job...?" Rose asked herself. "Oh, that's right, because I'm an idiot who wants an enormous book that has an equally large price tag to go with it!" It took her a few minutes to finally realize that she was in a ghost town, definitely NOT where she needed to be. "Oh for the love of freshly pressed grape juice could my sense of direction be ANY worse?!" She looked around and gave a very unhappy sigh. "I guess I need to invest more of my time into map-reading." After consciously looking for any signs of life she took to wandering around looking for anyone from which to ask directions. "Hello? Is there anyone around who can hear me?!" she called.

Her ears pricked and she looked around hearing a deep gruff voice. "I'm here!" she called loudly. She followed the sound through the streets and ran every-which-a-way trying to find the source of the sound. "Hey, whoever you are, say something so I can find you! Please!" she said pausing in a four-way intersection. She listened intently for any answer and looked around her seeing faint shadows of people milling about. "Under a spell perhaps? They can't see me at all...It's like a two way mirror in a segmented dance studio. You can't see them and they can't see you, but they're still there just the same. Man I gotta stop talking to myself or people will think I'm a few sticks short of a bonfire."

She turned to face him and nearly jumped. "Well hello there. Nice to know I'm not the only one actually VISIBLE here. I'm Axel, and who are you with a mask around your neck?" Her almost glowing yellow eyes were wary of this person in front of her it didn't matter what he looked like. She blinked and her ears twitched as she glanced around. "Please don't tell me you're lost here too. Apparently my sense of direction is horrid. . .I don't know how far away I am from my actual destination." she said with distaste. "What brings you to this weird place?"

"Actually where I'm headed was just a set of directions, no name attached to the town at all. Of course things like that come with the territory in my area of expertise, but after a while it gets to be a pain." She pulled out a list of instructions based on landmarks and held it out to him. "If you can tell me where the Hades my employer is sending me I'll be more than grateful." she said sounding a bit worried. Honestly she didn't exactly feel threatened by this mysterious Mask, but she was a little put-off by the fact he said he was looking for someone who was lost. That fit her description for the moment and she didn't exactly know 'who' this man was. After a long moment of deliberation she decided that she was just being a paranoid pain in the rear and pushed it aside. "Can you tell me what this person looks like? Two sets of eyes looking for someone are better than one."

She looked at the picture and shook her head. "I'm sorry I haven't seen anyone that looks like her." She blinked at his response to her directions. "Oh dear...That's not good." Her ears drooped slightly and she sighed. "Seeing as this is a wild goose chase maybe I could help you find your sister? I mean obviously whoever lives here I can't even see much less kill. My employer has sent me here for no reason. Note to self: kill employer upon returning home."

She looked at him like she was stating something about the weather and her reply was quite simple and without much importance. "I'm a bounty hunter, have been for several decades. I never thought of it as being of much consequence really. I'm building a rather vast library and this was the easiest way to do it." She wasn't very much to look at in her own opinion, being so thin and pale and her eyes having an eerie shine to them. "I was told my target was some old man who owed my employer a rather large sum of money." Here she shrugged. "And seeing as nobody but you and the horse can hear me, my name is really Rose. And the only other question I have is do you want me to help you look for her? I don't have a schedule and she's apparently someone of great importance to you."

She set a hand on his shoulder and smiled a little. "You're not forcing me into anything. If you were I wouldn't be standing here still. I'll help you find her for as long as I can. I give you my word." She gave a small laugh. "Come to think of it I was an only child I guess since I wasn't lucky or unlucky enough to have a sibling I can only imagine how much you care for her. You wouldn't believe it but in the 167 years I've been alive my parents never had other children after they had me." She looked at the horse and then at her new acquaintance. "Akar, where have you 'not' looked for your sister? I know certain areas better than others and if we can get out of 'here' I have the feeling we'll be better off any way you look at it."

She nodded and looked around. "If I were a kidnapper where would I put my charge...?" she asked rhetorically. She looked closer at each building and ruled them out one by one. "We can rule out actual houses too many windows I think." She stopped herself before she got into a full blown self-conversation and looked at Akar again. "She could be hidden away just about anywhere given the circumstances surrounding this place. Looks like we should search the city like reading a book: top to bottom and left to right. Should we split up or stick together?" She weighed the options in her head and figured that sticking together would mean less chance of missing anything, but it also slowed progress. "It's up to you really I mean it's your loved one we're trying to find so it's only logical that you call the shots."

She nodded and looked in the direction he'd come from. "Seems logical enough to me. I suspect that past the borders of the city the spell is ineffective." She examined the nearby buildings just for good measure then started off walking toward the back entrance to the town. "So tell me a little about yourself, Akar?" She didn't know exactly what to talk about and that was the only thing that came to mind. She felt so awkward a bit of color rose to her cheeks and she shook her head. "Y-You don't really have to answer, just trying to make conversation." she said quickly.

She smiled a little. "I'm from a very simple place, if you've ever heard of Bolarf then you understand simplicity. Taking on a job as a bounty hunter was the only way I could think of to get out of there. My parents are middle class as far as I know and are more than likely happy to live in a quiet town. I'm a bookworm and always wanted to run a library or a bookshop." She paused hearing 'chivalry' and smiled ear to ear. "And here I thought ideas like that were dead. That's the way my father is: never let's anything past him especially involving mother or me. Quite a few nights he'd come home with black eyes from being a gentleman and defending his wife." She laughed a little at one particular memory of what he said and shook her head. "Many fond memories of home, but not a place I want to go back to." She saddened a bit and wondered if her parents ever had another child after she lost contact with them. "Let's start turning over every rock we can find so to speak." she said straightening a bit and scanning the area.

"I say we check out the farmhouse first, more to search through." She pulled a knife out of her sleeve -she had quite a few scattered about her person this was a common thing to see her do- and ventured forward into the trees. "Fair warning I throw these at anything that moves in places like this. Wouldn't want to end up throwing one at you by mistake." It had been some time since she had last met anyone who stayed and talked with her for more than 5 seconds after she mentioned wanting to own a book shop, and she didn't want to ruin that by accidentally nailing him with a throwing knife. She wasn't about to say anything to him about that little thought though, at least not yet.

She searched the area around her and found nothing but small animals that you normally find in the woods. "Thankfully nothing bigger than a rabbit just yet," she said quietly. "but that doesn't mean that we're proverbially "out of the woods" just yet." She realized after the fact that she'd made a bit of a joke and smiled to herself for finally opening up enough to crack a joke. She studied the house and frowned slightly. "Don't like the look of that house too much..." she mused. "Might be in for a little trouble after all on this trip."

She smiled at him and walked in cautiously. "Nicely done with the door. Doesn't seem to be much of a house does it?" She glanced around and didn't notice anything too out of place except an excess of dust and cobwebs, the first causing her to sneeze profusely. "Sorry, severely allergic to dust...It's a curse." She kept her daggers ready and sniffled again from the amount of dust in the building. She wasn't about to let her allergies get to her 'now' of all times when she was actually doing something important! She shuffled around avoiding things that would make her sneeze but still doing her best to look around. "I don't think we'll find anything here, Akar."