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While Maki's back was turned, Gabriel began the delicate and unpleasant ritual to permanently seal the chamber from any possible entry other than the natural and wholly controllable means of the door.

There was a soft, slightly wet slicing sound. With the glistening red blade he inscribed a circle of intricate and hideously alien glyphs upon the large keystone of the arch, chanting all the while in a sort of mongrel Latin unlike anything any of the Chasers had heard before. Once completed, Gabriel returned his stiletto to its sheath and, dipping a finger into the gash in his palm, painted a wide, slightly obtuse star of the usual five-pointed sort, within the center of which he added a simple, almost impressionistic eye.



There was a noiseless crackle, felt like a sudden shift in one's karma, and the shimmering red sign etched itself into the stone, turning placidly white as its benign powers subdued the room across every conceivable dimension of time, space, light and dark, cutting it off from all but the physical world.

"Well what do you propose?" Maki asked cooly while still paying attention to the prisoner and tugging on his ears.

"He hurt my ears first." Maki huffed and released him, standing up, putting her hands on her hips and still glaring at the arrivee.

"Take him anywhere you like, there's no harm he can do. Let's take him to the lounge, see what the others think of him." Gabriel's voice was calm, downright whimsical, and his hand already bandaged by the time the others turned. "Maki, you don't pull ears like that. You pull them like this." He suddenly pinched Maki's ears and twisted them backwards like radio dials, letting them go before they had a chance to come off in his hands. "See? Much more persuasive. And...Scyre, was it? I'd advise against trying that point-to-point trick in here from now on. Trying to cross the Elder Seal that way is, to put it mildly, fatal."

"Aye, capitane." Scyre saluted to Gabriel, "I figured it would be something irreversible like that."
Scyre nodded, motioning the visiter towards the exit.
Scyre would follow behind the boy, making sure he didn't get lost.

Gabriel just smiled, waiting until he was completely alone in the chamber to test the Elder Seal's strength, casting various magics at the keys on their pedestals and at the protective symbol itself. Much to his own relief, his spells fizzled on his fingertips. The only magic left in the room was the alarm spell bound to the presence of the keys, formed from a magic nearly as ancient as the power of the keys themselves, and thus senior and superior even to the Seal itself.

He made a mental note to find out more about such a spell, and began work on the door itself, jogging down to the hangar now and again for tools and parts until the door to the Chamber of Keys was secured to his liking. Meaning, of course, that the only attacks strong enough to breach it would also collapse the entire chamber and the corridor outside. Finally finished, he pulled the door closed on his way out, the mechanisms within throwing the bolts and bars to lock it immovably in its place until someone with one of the objective Keys should come to open it.

Gabriel thought about following the others to the lounge, but changed his mind and went back to the hangar to unpack. Even if his authority was pro tempore, he couldn't just walk away now. He resolved to set himself up in the now-vacant lab downstairs, and headed for the hangar to relocate his things to it.

Tau ran into the chamber, with the doors shutting behind him. He looked around for the place where Oblivion would go and took the key out. He found the imprint of Oblivion on the wall and he held it up to it. Something seemed off toned about it, though, like it was too easy. He stood there for a minute, conimplating on whether or not to place the key where it belongs or stash it back in his room, in a container that could heavily dampen it's aura to a range of 3.5ft. Something about placing it here with the other keys could make it too tempting for a suprise attack.

Tau slowly lowered his hand, holding onto Oblivion. He would tell Manton to leave and tell Prinz that he was here, guarding for a possible attack, since all the Chaser's were out on assignment and the keys would be vornuible. He placed the dark key in his pocket and left the chamber.

Gabriel threw open the locks as fast as he could, juggling the combination of bolts until the door swung wide...on an empty chamber. Disbelief almost took the last of the air out of his lungs. His eyes snapped to the capstone of the arch above the door, and he froze in horror at as he saw that the entire stone had vanished, not just the Elder Seal.

Something began to tick in his mind, a touch of guilt at having not already voiced his suspicions about it.

Someone among them...had betrayed them.