Welcome to Gaia! ::

Located within Barton, bordering on the slums and and the nicer sections of town, a large building stands. Unmolested by the gangs of the area, it's a large villa that serves as a hostel, practicing quite a bit of legitimate business. It contains a rather spacious common room for the patrons, a well stocked kitchen, a master bedroom for the owners, and 4 other bedrooms for the patrons. The building is a classic white plaster and bare wooden beam design, looking homely with a smokestack from the large fireplace in the commons merrily puffing smoke out at all hours.

However, despite the pleasant appearance, this place is actually the main headquarters for the Life Clan. Beneath the building through a secret passage in the wine cellar, the real construct begins. The place, though brightly lit and well furnished, holds a no-nonsense aura of military precision. All of the walls, floors, and ceilings are concrete, making the place safe and secure from collapses, even if the Villa burned to the ground. The complex actually sprawls out beneath the neighborhood, being quite large, filled with points to secure the building, such as barred doors and dropping gates. It is quite large enough to hold the Life Clan and all of its erroneous members and keep them serviced.

"Uh..." Direction... orders... Xander snapped to attention; still not quite grasping the full gravity of the situation, he was at least now responding to his immediate surroundings. "Yeah, I can do that. Um, just for myself? Or do I need to bring it somewhere?"

((We're erroneous now, are we? xd ))

"Uh, right," Xander (yeesh, you almost got me writing opaj, too... sweatdrop ) headed towards where he vaguely remembered the kitchen being. Fortunately, his memory was not too far off, and he soon found some nondescript meat and a flask of alcoholic beverage.

After a few laps through the halls, he finally managed to find the medical wing, and quickly made his way to where Eradiel and Xander's father waited.

"I'm here," Xander pointlessly announced.

"Left here... straight on through this street... Here it is!" Al'erka started humming cheerfully as she stepped through the door to the house and floundered around a bit for the entrance to the secret passage, waving energetically to everyone she passed in her way through the complex. Blinking curiously at her new surroundings, she glanced around for anyone who was not mindlessly going about their business or might need a hand, somewhere.

((No sweat, it happens.))

"Thank you," Xander said as he took the glass and looked at it uncertainly. Well, he was in no condition to question the wisdom of his elders. He downed half of it in one gulp. The liquid burned slightly going down, but years of working with potions had steeled him against such effects.

Suddenly reminded if his father's death, Xander heavily sat down in a nearby chair. "Y-yeah..." He stared at the floor. At this moment, he wanted nothing more than to be able to turn everything off, to simply cease to exist until the pain passed.

Xander continued to stare at the floor as Eradiel went through his speech. He opened his mouth to speak when the swordsman trailed of, but he could find no words. So, instead, he ended up sitting their with his mouth gaping open.

"Y-yeah..." he replied as Eradiel took to the other side of the room.

Cali trembled as she looked around, still holding tightly to Lumitae's hand. If she were any bigger, she probably would have cut off the blood flow, but her hand was no larger than a child's. She shook even more as they went down the cellar, giving him a look as if to say "We're going down there?!" Nothing she could do about it now- she was in a completely different town. And who knows, maybe the throat-cutting Death Cult was here, too, just waiting for her outside the 'safety' of the building.

She stared about in awe, half surprised they weren't in a dungeon of sorts. She still clung helplessly to his hand, nowhere near ready to let go yet, but instead began pulling -him- around as she looked at everything in the room.

Xander wasn't fully aware of what Eradiel had said, but he nodded vacantly nonetheless. A single ant scurried across the floor and into his vision. It was carrying a crumb, though how and why it had come from the kitchen to the infirmary was a mystery. Xander's eyes followed the insect for several minutes until it vanished into a crack in the wall.

Looking back up, Xander felt both a deadening of reality and a lifting of the haze. Everything was clear, but unreal. Taking the room in, he got back up to his feet and walked to one of the cabinets. Finding several standard medicinal herbs, nothing too specialized but relatively potent, he stuffed them in the pouches hanging from his belt, before turning to walk out the door and search the halls, seeking out his superiors.