22 Moons- Hunt For The Stolen Child (6th Night, 2nd Trail)

--- Jon ---

After finding out who’d built this particular warehouse, he did a quick series of searches on the internet before eventually scrounging up a copy of the warehouse’s blueprints. Something that he felt would be a fairly decent boon to planning out his assault on said warehouse, even if it wasn’t an exact map of the building.

“Okay, according to that Dealer I talked to yesterday Kenneth will be in the warehouse’s office which is located on the second floor here.” He began, pointing the office out to Pix before pointing at a location along the building’s outer wall. “Now over here is a power junction box that I can jury rig to blow a few of the building’s breakers, which’ll make it easier to sneak through the building. The thing is that I need a distraction if I want to rig the box proper, and that’s where you come in.”

The little fairy gave him a curious look.

“Given what I saw and heard yesterday, it seems like Ramirez is getting on the nerves of a few of the Dealers that have been stationed here for a while. Meaning that if you were to make a few illusions to spark a fight between him and them, that would make it a lot easier for us to maneuver around without getting caught.” He explained.

Pix tilted her head to one side and then the other before glowing a bit as she lightly flexed her healing magic.

“If all goes well, then I won’t need your healing because I won’t actually be fighting anyone.” He assured her. “And if something does happen I can always summon you in an emergency.”

The little fairy gave him a reluctant nod before bringing up another point as she put her hands over the warehouse and slowly dimmed her glow as she spread them out.

“That… could be a problem.” He admitted with a grimace, knowing her illusions would drain more power the more people she put under her spell. “How many people do you think you can keep confused for say… fifteen minutes?”

As much as he regretted it, he wasn’t all too familiar with her limits as far as her illusions went given how back in Blackwell they weren’t very useful with the Corrupted, and at most she used them to play with the few kids who knew about her.

Pix seemed to think about it for a moment before raising three fingers while raising and lowering a fourth.

(So three maybe four…) He thought gnawing on his lip. “Okay, what if you shuffle a few weak illusions between people, rather than the heavy stuff? If you get enough people under maybe they can keep the conflict going themselves. Mass hysteria and all that.”

The little fairy gave him a confused look.

“Think of it as a sort of crowd mentality, the way a few people think infecting everyone in said crowd.” He tried explaining, only vaguely knowing what it was in the first place.

Pix thought about it some more before eventually just shrugging.

“Yeah, I guess you’ve never needed to work a crowd before…” (We’ll need to fix that at some point…) “Well in that case let’s take a gamble on... a bunch of shallow illusions, since it doesn't matter how distracted they are so long as they are distracted.”

being enough. It might not be ideal, but at the very least it should get a fight going, which is the whole point of this part of the plan.”

Pix gave him a nod as he looked the blueprints over once more.

“I think that’s the last of what we can plan for if we want to get this done tonight.” He admitted putting the documents away. “Anything else, we try to plan for will fall apart even faster than what we’ve got. So I’ll largely have to wing it based on how your part of this goes.”

The little fairy trilled out a response, her voice a mix of sympathy and determination.

“Then let’s wait for our moment, and get to work.” He nodded back, filling his own determination as something stirred in the depths of his mind.

---

Their moment came shortly before sunset in the form of Ramirez leaving the warehouse to do a walk around the main lot and check in with the other Dealers. At which point Pix took off as stealthily as she could to trail after the man in the hopes of dragging him into a fight.

Meanwhile Jon took this opportunity to slip on the disguise he’d worn the day previous, knowing that as long as he acted like he belonged where he was at most he’d get asked a question or two that he could pass off with his cover from the day before.

And as madness would have it he could hear the sounds of a fight brewing just as he arrived at the junction box he’d pointed out to Pix. (Meaning no one will notice me doing this.)

He jammed one of his arrows into the junction box, more specifically one of the few to have a metal head and a wooden body.

It took a few moments, and a few more sparks but eventually he managed to do enough damage that what lights he could see through the warehouse flickered off, signalling it as the perfect time for him to infiltrate the building.

Knowing it was time to fill in the gaps of his plan, he took a look around the warehouse yard noting that no one was watching the entrance and what little sound he could hear from inside the building were distant enough to not be an immediate threat.

As he put his hand on the entrance door, he could feel the thing in his head growling as the beast in his mind stood ready for whatever this night would demand of it on this the last moon of it’s hunt.

“Almost done.” He told himself, “Just this last bit, and then I can stop.”

(Until the next hunt at least.)

(No,) he shook his head. (This’ll be the last time…)

He pretended not to hear the mad laughter coming from the shadows of his mind.