Out of the Frying Pan, and into the Firemind

Ciela watched the whole scene play out from a nearby rooftop. She channeled a little mana to create a sound-amplifying air current from the black-clad man to her ear, so she could listen to him whispering to wisps of smoke that had once been people. He was clearly an off-worlder, probably new to Walking, definitely new to Ravnica if he didn't know what Nivix Aerie was. Curiosity took hold and she decided to follow him, walking along the rooftops and gliding silently between them. The wind tunnel labs could wait.

Gadrick had never been a man of subtlety. He wasn't subtle as a cathar, and he certainly wasn't now. Sure, he could create a distraction as a cover, but the very reason that he needed to create distractions was that he generally had an aura of chaos and destruction around him. Today was no different. And today, he learned that escaping from Boros Skyjeks was harder than it sounded. At first, he had just assumed that they were some sort of glorified bird-riders, which was partially true, but he soon learned that they were more than that. They were damn good at chasing.

It all started shortly after he left the annoying spiritcaller, and arrived at his destination: a secret Orzhov bank, disguised as some sort of laboratory. Thinking back to his previous actions, Gadrick realised that using dormant roots in the ground to tear the entire building down just to find the item he was looking for had been a bad idea.

Clutching the stolen item inside his fist, he jumped sidewards into a downgoing tunnel, hoping to rid himself of the far too stubborn Skyjeks. He could hear bird feet scraping against cobblestone, and soldiers shouting to each other as he descended into increasing darkness. Once he reached a turn, Gadrick threw himself around the corner. He was safe now, as long as the soldiers didn't come to get him. And he had a feeling they wouldn't. Face shining with expectation, he slowly opened his fist, revealing a small amulet, hardly the size of a coin. The amulet was shaped like the Orzhov emblem, and emitted a weak, purple light, obvious in the almost complete darkness. Now, he thought, time for my next goal. Time to go to Nivix!

Suddenly, someone grabbed Gadrick's arms from behind. A stench of rot and moss overpowered him as a cold, wet hand was placed in front of his mouth. Gadrick passed out.

"Aw, dude, really?!" Ciela untangled herself and her wing cloak from the young Izzet and looked up to see the man in black was gone. She growled in frustration but then looked at the small human missile who'd just hit her. "Hey, you're Izzet and you're obviously fast, you think you can keep up with me in flight?" She didn't let the guildrunner respond before continuing. "We gotta get to Nivix. If we were both following the same guy, something tells me there's gonna be some trouble up at the library tonight...potentially of the bloody variety." She positioned herself for takeoff, unfurled the wings of her cloak, and jumped off the balcony.

Gadrick slowly woke up, his sight becoming gradually clearer, and a feeling of something heavy pressing down on his body fading away. He tried to ignore that he could feel every heartbeat like a sledgehammer beating against the inside of his skull. The ground was solid, but covered in something soft and a bit wet. After checking, he realised that he still wore all his clothes, and that his hammer was intact. Everything seemed to be alright, considering the situation. Apart from the huge crowd of scary-looking people around him, that wasn't exactly alright. Gadrick sighed. This was the worst day in a long time.

A gulp slid visibly down Chickenleg's throat at the thought of not sounding the alarm as soon as possible - what would Niv-Mizzet think if, when he found out what role she'd been playing in this whole goose chase? Still, the aeronaut was right - if anyone was crazy enough to try and infiltrate Nivix without even an escort, who knew how crazy they would become when cornered?

Hesitantly, the runner gave in, glancing up as a tailwind coming from seemingly nowhere carried the other up the side of the guildhall's skyscraping tower. "A-alright, see you up topside then."

At a rooftop just across the grand guild entrance plaza from the front gates, she slowed her pace and hopped down balconies and pipes back to street level. Aside from the flow of the golden statue-fountain of Niv-Mizzet at the center of the plaza; the whispers of the fountain water flowing out into streams carved into the outline of the starlit mosaic of the League's insignia; the familiar hum of electrical currents running all through the district; and the equally familiar but distant tick-tock clockwork of machines within the massive tower --

Well, damn. Her elemental gauntlets escalated from a whirring hum to an erratic series of buzzes and sparks in tune with Chickenlegs's own growing paranoia. There was a missing sound - a whole section of instruments missing in this quiet symphony. Where were the guards? Izzet guards were definitely not the bumbling, obvious bucketheads that the Azorius and Boros were; they didn't stand out there like the standard soldier, but neither was it typical of them to be completely silent in their patrols - one could sense their presence if they listened for the hum of elemental gauntlets and machine weaponry like hers, or even for the excited whispered babbling over some new research project between colleagues.

As far as Chickenlegs knew, her instruments were the only ones playing in the plaza.

She broke into a panicked sprint through the guildgate and to the towering aerie doors. A crack of light running down the middle and empty posts - the runner's gauntlets were shrieking now as she slipped through the doors and shut them behind her.

The thummm of the thick metal closing must have done something, because when she did close the doors, she noticed a muffled... something, and many of them. The sound led her off into the shadows behind a couple of dragon statues in a corner of the massive lobby -

"Mmmph! Mmm-hmmph mm!" Sparks flew out of her hands and Chickenlegs nearly shrieked - welp, there was the whole musical section, wrapped up like mummies in some sort of ethereal cloth and dogpiled on top of one another in a wriggling mountain of indignant and disarmed Izzet patrols. Thankfully, all of them were still alive - though a couple of unlucky folks on the bottom of the pile were obviously much less so. "MM!!"

"G-gimme a sec!" She ran up to the nearest patrol - a very panicked-looking goblin poking his nose at the air between them back and forth frantically - and ripped off the sticky cloth from his mouth.

"Behind you!" Chickenlegs didn't even bother looking; she dropped like lightning and rolled off to the side before the barely-humanoid ethereal claw could swipe at her from behind. It was only when she bounced back onto her feet that the messenger got a good look at the opposition and culprits - ghosts. Not a lot of them, but certainly enough to take down these guards by surprise, certainly friends of Lanky Leather, and certainly not the kind of spirits she'd ever encountered before. And they were moving in, fast.

So Chickenlegs did the only thing she knew how to do - she bolted for the stairs, and the geists followed. "Damn it, Adrastos! At least untie us before you run!"

Zap! Zap! Firing off electric shots from her hands at her pursuers, Chickenlegs quite literally bounced off the walls and pillars; as she picked up speed, she began to skip stairs and hallways for overhangs and catwalks up the floors of Nivix, slipping just a step ahead of the ghost intruders' claws and binds but knocking over instruments and decor as she went. The noise reverberated throughout each floor, sleep-deprived researchers and guildmages poked their heads out of their labs, and all were jolted awake when they saw the chaos breaking out and trailing a pathetically shrieking messenger's tail.

"Chickenlegs brought company!"

"Kill 'em with fire!"

"Get the ethereal containment units! I want samples!"

... In short, the runner ended up doing exactly what she was told not to do.

"Well... well... well." Each low, drawn-out word was slower and more unimpressed than the last, and each rang in step with the deliberate scratch, scratch of the ancient dragon's index claw against a fittingly dragon-sized scroll rolled out on the seat of the massive waterfall-framed throne he reclined on. A glowing blue trail followed each scratch across the surface, and the little trails formed runes in some arcane, long-forgotten Ravnican dialect.

"Well." The guildmaster's scratching stopped. "Well." Forepaws crossed. "Well." Chin raised, crown fins fanned out, and sulfur-yellow eyes gazed down at the uninvited visitor with a regal stoicism.

With a subtle growl and a sigh of steam beneath a voice like a choir of dozens, rumbling and full, the dragon Niv-Mizzet mused with a finality: "Well." Oh, he was already aware of the disturbance through the Firemind - and through that, was also fully aware of the rest of the chaos going on in the guildhall. And, for the most part, the guildmaster didn't care - it was one mage. One particularly talented mage, perhaps, but one whose mind he could easily set ablaze on a whim at this range if he so desired.

For the most part. The little visitor had managed to put the Aerie's front guards out of commission and somehow made his way to the top of the tower without anyone noticing - given, it was late at night and many had gone home, but if this kind of slip-up happened again, the dragon would not be so forgiving. As for the man, he was either incredibly curious or incredibly foolish - no one, especially no one from outside the League, simply walks up to the Dracogenius, even with intention. From the looks of the scrawny man's excited but bewildered face, he had arrived here by accident.

So, Niv-Mizzet concluded, this was a curious fool. "So. Entertain an old soul, little mage. So long as you can do that, Niv-Mizzet may consider letting you leave with your head still on your shoulders, and the rest of your body parts not in test tubes." Invisible hands slammed the grand aerie doors shut, and the dragon shifted to a more comfortable position on his mizzium throne.

"Who is it that Niv-Mizzet has graced with his presence tonight? And for what sort of knowledge did you come all the way into the heart of Niv-Mizzet's operations - without membership, permission, or escort - to seek?"

From behind the Mizzium throne Kaelyn breathed softly as not to be heard by the man now quibbling for his life. She had arrived nigh an hour previous to this point from several years in the future. In a recent deviant reality Rafn had blundered into the chamber and Niv had eviscerated him without a second thought. She knew all too well, however, the ramifications of that future. Rafn needed to survive this night and she had come to rescue him, in a round about way.

Niv-Mizzet had bent his normal practice of dealing with intruders for Kaelyn only out of curiosity about the time traveler. He knew of her project, and its resounding success, but had not come to know her, in this time, as he would down the road. Time travel was such a strong and unusual skill that he wanted her as an ally, not an enemy. This was exactly what Ms. Tempierro was counting on.

As Rafn asserted his name and quest she felt the dragon's mind speak in her own "he really is a raving idiot, is he not?" She smiled at the thoughts of the 'raving idiot' but informed the guildmaster that the foreign walker would learn in time but that he needed to be taught subtlety, how to blend in, and why you don't randomly walk into rooms. The first two couldn't be taught by the second place runner up for the definition of egotistical dragons and the last was not a lesson that she wanted him to learn for Niv, at least not the way the Dracogenius wanted to teach it. For that matter, she couldn't either, at least not without some very strange splintering of realities.

That aside, Niv-Mizzet probably did have the answers Rafn was after. He had informed her, the first time they had discussed the events of this particular day, that he never found the answers. He was making his way to Nivix Aerie, but he was stopped by Ciela who was pivotal in Rafn's learning curve about planeswalking. Kaelyn would have rather fixed it so that aeronaut could get caught up to Rafn before this point but she hadn't figured out how without creating a line in which Adrastos died too early thus creating a steaming pile of paradox.