The middle aged man frowned as he picked the paper plane up, then he infused it with more of his power and tossed it out again. The paper plane did not even fly an inch further this time before returning to his side.

Some kind of spell stopped the paper plane from reaching outside of a certain range from the rooms of this inn. The middle aged man examined his paper plane, and he suppressed the idea of going to the receptionist “Rash” to ask about it - the energy remnant on the tip and wings of the paper plane was not very significant, but experienced power wielder as he was, he could tell what the paper plane was sent back because a kind of a very meticulously crafted information protection array, and the name Natalie Brown was being protected.

It was unclear to him how strong the array was or if he could work around it, so he decided not to even try and would like to try some other way - he could either trick Natalie Brown into giving him consent to reveal to others the information about her, or better, he could bring Natalie Brown back, maybe along with the rest of her team and her family members.

There was no intelligence or any other sort of tell on why Natalie Brown’s team did not report back to Lady Vyn or respond to any of their attempts at making contact. But from the sight of her hanging around with random civilians staying in this inn, it was easy to deduce that she somehow defected and stayed, and possibly in exchange, the Division, or whoever it was that had connections to this very inn went ahead and rescued her family from the place where her family members were held.

Thinking of this, the middle aged man decided to look around in his room - he could tell that the inn was built with incredible art of magical architecture. And unlike other magical buildings with a lot of flare and shine that would scream powerful builders and insightful designers, this place was mostly very plain, humble and comfortable, with just enough hints of the finer arts behind for those who could appreciate them to marvel at.

After some thinking and planning, this middle aged man decided that it would be prudent of him to go around and to find the room where Natalie Brown was staying, and maybe find more information from there.

Unfortunately for him, he just sensed that his last encounter with Natalie Brown might have alerted her - she hadn't met him before, though when he was wearing a different look. Yet for shapeshifters like him, there was still something that would remain on him even when he shifted to another completely different look - and that would be the “observant aura” around him, which would function like a “scanner” of sorts that allow him to copy the look and even energy signature of almost any subject he came into contact with closely. And if he, or any other shapeshifters were to be in the presence of other power wielders that had high affinities to energy signatures and energy fields, this aura could be a faint tell of who and what they actually were.

“Natalie Brown ...” this middle aged man opened up some of the documents he brought with him and found the short profile he had on the team that came here before him: “... junior member just recently out of probation, medium high potential of making it to senior, specialties include energy field detection and array construction, fuck.”

On Natalie Brown’s side - though she had gradually adjusted to the life of being a prisoner in this inn with the assurance that her safety will be ensured to the best of the abilities of the owner of this inn, she was still on alert about how the forces of Lady Vyn would come for her. Her younger brother had already made a friend while he was here, and she was happy for him. But her younger teenage sister, due to the lack of peers here and any other meaningful human contact, was beginning to get grumpy and lonely.

But just when she was about to bring the younger ones out for a walk and get some fresh air actually outside of her prison, she walked past this unknown middle aged man. She had seen the face of this man before, but when she walked past him, she could feel that there was something quite familiar and maybe frightening about him, which was the reason that she had to cancel the plan to go for a walk at the last minute by faking some discomfort and come back to their room.

This decision made the younger ones a little unhappy, especially her younger teenage sister, but she did not have the heart to tell them what she felt; for one, she did not feel certain about her worries and fear at all, and for two, she did not want to make her younger sister and brother feel even more unsafe.

Later in the night, less than five minutes after sending Alex back to the much more luxurious looking room where he and his father were staying, Natalie Brown heard a knock on the door.

“Who is it?”

“Hey, Natalie, I think I’ve forgotten my phone.” it was Alex’s voice: “Can I go in and see if I can find it?”

“Hmm, sure! Just give me a second.” Natalie gave her younger sister a hug and went for the door.