A massive stoneworks multi-terrain palace within the grey realm. Parts of the castle exist below ground, parts above, and two towers actually float high in the sky. Many vampires live here, a whole clan's worth, the head of which is a male named Ian Connely. He is a rare example of a turned vampire creating his own clan.

---

Grey Realm
Connely Keep Archive I
Connely Keep Archive 2

---

"I think I might have something, Hal, if you're interested." A mid-level vampire - a seer by his elaborate violet and grassy green garb - informs the goddess as soon as he finds her. "According to a few things I've seen, miss Minna is in a bar."

"Prrreow?" Hal wiggles her nose, and looks up at the seer. "Hi! And...uh...where? Is she okay? Who's she with? How hammered is she? Is she still clothed anyway? Pretty clothes!"

He grins. Everyone likes Hal at this point. It was only a matter of time, really.

"With a sorcerer, it seems, and the woman who abducted her. She seems alright, but... who knows how long that might last. Brevity works, babe." 

"Hmm...what color is his hair? Is it pretty too?"

"White, maybe?" The seer closes his eyes. "He's wearing a hood, like a typical cryptic ass. He's older, though, and smells like turnips and cat." He grins. "no offense."

"None taken! You smell like funky plants." She sniffs. "And mothballs a week ago. Hmm...can you see his lips? What do they look like?"

"Black," the seer nods. "So he's a goth chick."

"Yus! Thanks now I think I reaaaaally need to talk to Ian I mean Lord Connely I mean whatever." She chases her tail agitatedly. "So um anything else?" She stops frighteningly quickly, and tilts her head at the seer, listening.

"Just watch your step. There is a disembodied head about twenty three steps along your path. It used to belong to a sand-golem." He grins at her antics, and pats her head. "Go ahead."

"Eeew. They make me sneeze." Hal wrinkles her nose, springs up on the seer's shoulder, and pecks his cheek briefly before she springs away and scampers in the direction Ian had disappeared to. "Thanksha bye now! Oh Lord Coooonnely! Hey! Wait up! Stop! Pull over, long legs!"

The seer touches his cheek. Shivers. And goes on about his bidness.

Ian stands alone in the fountain room, staring at the water. An emblem of death, right there inside his own keep. He used to find that amusing.

"Hal? I was just heading to my study," he notes as he sees her barreling towards him. "What is on your mind?'

"Creepy guys even creepier than you guys." Hal hops up on the fountain's edge, and wrinkles her nose. "What do you know about vampires in the area who have studied a lot of dumen lore? Maybe emulate their appearance?" She doesn't even think to consider it really being a dumen. As far as she knows, they'd all been wiped out a long time ago by that really nasty Radish guy.

Ian tilts his head. "That's a funny sort of question, Hal. I might. It depends on why."

"'Cause one of the seers said he saw Minna and she's in a bar with a sorcerer and he couldn't see the guy's hair but I asked what colour his lips were and he said black." She nods.

"A fellow living out in the country a ways used to be a species historian, tracking the development of other humanoid races. Trying to see where we'd all end up." Ian shrugs. "He was nuts, though. Had very little grasp on reality."

"Hmmm. Well. Does that sound like it might be the guy it really doesn't to me but you're the one who knows stuff about 'im." Shira'hesaranthi'ulhalu bats at the water. "Oh and the girl who took Minna is there too. I was kinda fixated on asking about the sorcerer guy though, so I forgot to ask many questions about her."

Ian's eyebrow lifts a bit. "Did you ask where they are exactly, Hal?" Playing in the water. So cute, and yet so... okay, cute.

"Yeah, but he didn't seem to know. You can ask, I'm sure he'll be waiting if you were going to. 'cause, you know. Seer." She snickers, and looks up, then yelps and bounces when her tail ends up under a spray of water. "Hmph." She gathers it up in her hands and sucks the water out of the tuft. "Mmm. Furry. Bleh. But yes. We need to find Minna. She's sweet." She nods.

The elder vampire wonders a little bit to himself, tucking his chin behind a thumb and forefinger. "Actually... I think I may know, come to think of it. Hal." He looks at the cat-goddess-thing. "Go and rouse Kaies. Bite and scratch if you must, but bring the moping dunderhead back here."

Hal's ears perk. "Okay! I'll blame you." She smiles happily and scampers off to Kaies's room.

Kaies is there, sleeping in his sitting-up position. Amilei has gone, summoned back to her homeworld not long after waking up.

"The door is open," he mutters sleepily.

"Can I bite it anyway?" Hal peeks her head in. "Up, sleepyhead! Lord Ian thinks he might know where Minna is. So let's go get her!"

Kaies looks at her for a moment, his features unreadable, and looks down again. "Hal, that is not funny." 

"Blah. Do I look like I'd screw around?" She twitches her ears. "Don't answer that. But seriously. I don't joke mean, you know that. Let's hurry it up, huh?"

The newly-made medium rises from his place, though enthusiasm is obviously not about him. "I am hurrying, I am. Sorry for that, Hal."

"Hee. It's okay. I know you're stressed...but we'll get her back! You'll see. Don't worry!" Hal grins, hugs his leg briefly, and then scampers out the door as quickly as she'd come.

"She's right, you know," someone observes softly from behind him. The voice belongs to a hooded figure now sitting cross-legged on his bed. She's little. Not Hal-little...but no more than five feet tall, and she looks smaller in this position. "Minna will come through this just fine so long as she has you to help her."

Kaies's eyes only seem to wish to close more tightly then they already are. "I know you," he quietly begins, "but at the same time... the familiarity does not explain why you are on my bed, nor why I fail to be alarmed at that."

Felina smiles. A faint, sad smile. she's in a human illusion, the one he'd met her in last time, mostly to keep familiarity from becoming too strong. "You remember enough to know that you don't have to be. Not enough to remember me precisely...but that's for the better." She tilts her head ever-so-slightly. "Please sit down. Just for a minute. I won't be long."

Kaies pauses a moment. Thinking. Wondering at the various tugs in his heart and mind.

"Alright," he acquiesces at last, the door clicking shut beneath his gloved fingertips. "Felina." The name just makes sense, somehow. Maybe he's wrong. Either way, he sits before this intruder, trying to make sense of the things warbling in his brain.

He remembered. It hits her pretty deeply, to hear it from his lips, but she doesn't show it. "This, I'll just say all at once." She meets his eyes quietly, pale yellow irises soft, and voice quiet and slow. "You were my retainer once. A long time ago. You were good at it. And you were good at it because you were strong. Not powerful, not at first...truly strong. In your heart, through your dedication. That is all you need, and that cannot be taught. Skill and power will follow." She pauses. "You always overcame things eventually. Even when there didn't seem to be any possible way for you to do it...you always found a way. Because of that great strength that you possess. That strength is why you're a retainer again." And here, there's a pause.

"You didn't just happen to become Minna's retainer. It was not freak chance. It was choice. Her god came looking for someone to help her in this life. To look out for her when she needed it most. You barely knew her, but knew enough to like her. And you volunteered to be reborn, to help this near stranger." She'd closed her eyes partway through all of this, for both their sakes. Now she opens them again, any intensity is nestled within an overwhelming hush. "You and I both know, Kaies, that you never would have made a committment like that without knowing that you could do it. You have a great gift for really, truly thinking about others. You're a born protector, it's how we understood one another so deeply." There's another pause. Tangent. Back on track. Right. "It wasn't pride that led you to this life, Kaies. If there were any chance that you could not protect Miss Adair, you would have honestly admitted that to yourself, and to anyone else who needed to know. Because that would have been best for her. And because that's the kind of strength you have, that you can think that way.

"Minna needs you now. She needs the strength of your heart, all of it, the heart I know you can muster despite a hard blow. Recover, and give everything you have to this, and the rest will follow. I promise. And I believe in you. Just like I always have."

Kaies allows himself several long moments, that this might all sink in before his mouth sets a precedent of haste. Every word from this creature's mouth sparks a flash in his mind, a random snatch of memory just like the ones the cat demon had caused. What this time, though? An inn. A garden, and a grave. A strange world filled with monsters. 

"You believe... in me?"

A man with black eyes. An albino boy with wings. Intrigue, misfortune.

"Guardian Topaz. That's right. I remember..."

A ring.

A promise.

Kaies's eyes clear abruptly, their emerging color the dew left behind a retreating mist. "Everything," he whispers, for his voice cannot find the strength for volume. "I lived to serve. You. It cannot be the same with Minna, though... can it?"

Only years of training in emotional control are keeping Felina steady now. She stands up, face and eyes still quiet, and starts towards the door. Stops beside Kaies, as though on a whim, and sets a deceptively delicate hand on his shoulder. "Only you can decide that, Kaies. Commitments...are like people. They don't have to be the same to be equally powerful."

Kaies has no such training. He is shivering, and his mouth is as dry as the floor beneath him. The hand on his shoulder nearly pushes him over the edge.

"... I know you have to go," he admits reluctantly. "Come back and... sometime when you have some time. I will cook for you again." The words come, but his mind is elsewhere. Far, far away, scrambling for memories that feel like his own, but in fact belonged to another man by the same name. Or perhaps they are his, as well?

Felina smiles softly, and is quiet for several moments. Her face remains quiet and still, oblivious to the single tear rolling down her cheek. "When the time is right, we'll see each other again. That, I promise." She brushes her fingers gently through his hair, for just a moment, fondly. She knows it will be the only chance she'll get for a very long time. He's married. She's married. This life may not be theirs any more than the last. "Enjoy the gloves, and forgive me for the claws. Take care, Kaies." And she continues towards the door, closing her eyes and not allowing herself to look back.

"... I never stopped loving you..." The words only scarcely rise above a whisper, but he is certain that she can hear. He understands too well that what had been, what is now so firmly instilled in his mind, may never be again. He does not turn, or try to stop her, though. To do so would be unfair to the both of them. Instead he pulls himself to his feet, trying his best to still his nerves enough to find Hal.

And I will never think back to our time together, and fail to smile. Be well, Kaies...and don't forget: I believe in you. Now go look out for that girl the way you would look out for me. There are no words, and no sound. Even so, the thoughts whispering clearly through his mind are, beyond any doubt, hers.

Predictably, Felina isn't on the other side of the door. Or anywhere in sight. Maybe nowhere in the world. But at least he can be sure that she's watching.

Hal is trotting back towards Kaies's room, ready to poke him out of his stupor again and sighing to herself. She isn't quite sure how to fix him. Maybe biting him will work. "Hey! Get lost?" She peeks around the doorframe.

"Sorry. I was looking for the back of my head." Kaies smiles at her, a deeper sort of smile hidden behind the silliness, and steps for the door. "I remembered a few important things. We can go now, though."

Hal blinks. A couple times. Then bounces. "Yay!" She springs off in the general direction of Ian. "Hey didja cut your hair muscles you look different than you did two and a half minutes ago. Or was it one and a half? One and three quarters? Two and a quarter? Gah! You smell like cat." She gives up, and just scampers off towards the Keep's master.

He watches Hal go, and looks up, gazing at the ceiling. No words, no thoughts really, just looks.

"Hal, wait up!" He calls this to her and takes off after her, running like a big man generally avoids.

Hal is a bit beside herself, but thrilled. "Hee." She waits. Scampers, bats at him here and there, pleased at his seemingly improved mood, but making good time back to Lord Connely. "Lookie! And I didn't even have to bite him." She looks proud.

Ian is talking with another vampire when the two arrive, but waves him away at the sight of them. "Hal, you are fabulous. Kaies, is everything in order?"

"Of course." The medium grins at Hal. How much better he feels, simply cannot be put into words.

"Then you will be pleased to know that this," he hands a map to Hal, "is where you are going."

The goddess unrolls it, purring. "Hey! It looks kinda like your watermark." She's looking at the bag of the map. Upside-down.

Kaies reaches down, and pats Hal's head. "Halu, dear. The map is in the bag."

Ian suppresses a snicker.

Hal purrs sweetly, and holds up her hands for Kaies to pick her up. "So. You navigate, then?"

The medium obliges her, chuckling just a bit. "Sure."

"Just so you know," Ian puts in, "they way might well be dangerous. Please keep your eyes open. Expect assistance should things go bad."

"And bitings! Those help too. Okay." Halu smiles happily. "So? Let's go! Mush!" She taps Kaies's head.

"Quite." And Kaies heads for the doors at a quick clip, ducking whenever appropriate, heading in general for the road marked upon the map. 

Hal just sits atop his head, chatting along about everything she sees. She yawns, and sets her chin on his head as they leave the ouside permimeter of the keep. "So what got you all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, anyway? That's my job, you know."

Kaies trots quietly along, considering his answer. "Well," he hesitates. "I remembered why I was fighting. Sometimes, when everything stands against me, and I can only see my failures, I feel like giving up. Going to bed, and never getting back up. Today I saw potential for success."

"Hmm...Musta been a weird two minutes." Hal grins. "But yay! I won't tell In I'm not just a great pep talker if you won't." She grins down to him.

He laughs, and looks up. "My lips are sealed on the matter. You know, you are awfully cute when your claws are put away."

Hal sniffles. "You don't think I'm cute very often, do'ya?"

"I think you are cute right now, though!"

"Well, yay for that!"

And, little by little, they made their way towards the Silver Knee Pub.

---

About a third of the way back to the keep, Minna lets out a breath. Even with a cane, this is hard work. "Hey...would you mind stopping for a bit of a rest? I just need to catch my breath for a few minutes."

"Of course not," Kaies nods. "Hal, rest stop!" And back to Minna. A worry for her safety creeps into his mind, of course. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah...just winded." She smiles at him as she sits down with her makeshift cane. "I can move all right on one leg, but it's a lot of work."

Hal had been way ahead, and is still scampering back.

"I am sure," Kaies nods, sitting as well. "How did you come to survive all this, Minna?"

Minna's little smile grows a little amused. "Well, to be honest...I think the sorceror was pretty upset with Felara--that's the tattooed lady's name--when I got there a bit beat up. He only wanted a few drops of blood...and after that, was trying to figure out how to safely get me back to all of you at the Keep, and keep from being implicated too strongly as an enemy." She nods.

---

The rest of the trip is mercifully uneventful. Minna's more than greatful to Kaies for coming to get her...and also just glad to be alive. However, she's more than a little perplexed at her prosthetic after they find it in the tunnel...it no longer fits. Thus, she's sitting a lot, and using her cane heavily for the rest of it. Hal hangs out for awhile, but can't stay all the time anymore...part of her banishment involves being unable to stay in one place too long without repurcussions, which she doesn't care to excite.

"Welcome back." Ian is there to greet them, of course, with about ten seers and spellcasters analyzing them for traps, tricks, enchantments, or other threats that might have been planted en route.

Kaies ignores them. He's just thrilled to have Minna back, and so allows the vampires their peculiarities. Actually, he is a bit disappointed at Hal's leaving, but that doesn't show. Much.

"Strangest thing," he continues, "another visitor came asking for you, Minna. This one was all smiles, all kindness, and he dropped off a letter for you. I would ask, though, that you let someone else open it."

Minna smiles a bit. "That's probably a good idea...just one peculiar circumstance after another, huh? And, thank you for the welcome, of course." She's tired, but feels oddly safe back in the keep.

"Yes, well, I left the letter in your room. After we had analyzed it, of course." Ian reaches out to her, a key dangling from around his finger. "Here is the pantry key. Get yourself something to eat."

Minna smiles and nods. "Right. Thanks. Coming, Kaies?" She looks over to the medium.

"Of course," he nods. "Shall we eat first, or see to the letter?"

"Well...I'm curious about the letter. Maybe we can see to that on the way?"

"Sure thing. So long as it isn't paperwork." Kaies grins, and leads the way back to Minna's room. "I am sure that I speak for both of us when I say that we have had enough paperwork for one lifetime."

Minna laughs softly. "Oh, goodness yes. Grants are murder...as I'm sure you're more than experienced with." Once they reach her room, her eyes rest quickly on the letter amidst the familiarity, examining it as she takes it lightly in hand.

Kaies stares at it thoughtfully. Smiles, and pulls off a glove.

"Want to borrow my new letter openers, Minna?"

Minna grins, and holds it out to him, smiling. "Here you are, handy."

Laughing quietly, the medium reaches out to snag the letter but is rewarded only with a firecracker-like pop and a sparkle of shocks when his fingers touch the paper. He jerks his hand back, more out of surprise than anything.

Minna jumps, wide-eyed. "Kaies, are you okay?"

"Yeah," he nods. "Just scared me a little, is all. I suppose someone only wants you to open it...?"

Minna nods after a moment. "That would be logical. That sounds like a potential trap...but, I'm getting paranoid, too." She smiles sheepishly, eyeing the letter and fingers playing thoughtfully over the seal. "So. Opening and being ready to run, then?"

Kaies nods. This troubles him, of course, but what can he do? Except, of course, to wait for Minna to read the Letter from Aramuse. The lack of a violent reaction from Minna's touch is encouraging, at least.

It isn't without a good deal of wariness that Minna cracks the seal, and she lets out a relieved breath when nothing leaps out to bite, bind, or otherwise injure her. Her eyes pass quickly through the letter, expressive as ever...perplexed, unsure, confused again, curious. She blinks, shakes her head. "I...don't know. What do you suppose this is all about? 'Lessons'?" She holds it out to Kaies. "Let me know if there's any problem, I'll just hold it while you read if there is."

Kaies takes the letter with barley a squint of his eyes, though he does breath a relieved breath when nothing explodes. Swiftly he reads through the letter.

"Well... either someone is going to a lot of trouble to bother you, or there is much more going on than we know." He looks at her, eyes shining with wonder. "Who the hell names their kid 'Dreamscaper'?"

Minna snickers. "Someone pregnant in the Age of Aquarius?" She looks over the letter. "Anyway...we should probably run this by Ian."

"Absolutely," Kaies nods. "We might well be in over our heads again." He chuckles. "Shall we eat, or would you rather do this first?"

"Well...how hungry are you?" Minna smiles a little, and tilts her head. She wants to get this taken care of. But she doesn't want to starve him, especially considering how he alraedy bends over backwards for her.

"Less than you, however you are," Kaies nods. He's dutiful, almost to the point of idiotic, but he really cannot help it. "This does seem important, though..."

Minna grins a bit, and sets a greatful hand on his shoulder a moment before starting off for the door at her hobbling gait, letter in hand. "Off with the business-y stuff, then. Then with the food."

Ian is standing again by the fountain, looking over a few things. Mostly estimates as to cost and labor required for fixing up the keep. When Kaies and Minna enter, his chin lifts just a bit.

"Back so soon? I would have thought the booze would have kept you." He's referring to the well-stocked pantry, of course.

Minna grins wryly. "We'll get to it soon, I'm quite sure." She glances back down to the letter, then holds it out. "What do you make of this, Lord Connely? Is there something on the horizon Kaies and I didn't know about?"

Ian's features screw up a bit. "So you could open it. Well then." He rises, tossing his other papers aside. "I hoped they were all wrong. Ah well. The seed of divinity grows in you, Minna. The people of Leviniarel came to me some time ago, saying that a promising youngling had appeared, but of course would not provide further information. Now I know that it is you." He glances at Kaies, and then back to Minna. "Leviniarel is the rough equivalent of 'Asgard' if you have heard of it."

"Of course." Minna's referring to having heard of 'Asgard.' Her eyes travel off to the side for a moment, before travelling back up to Ian. She's so bloody confused. "I...thought that I was to reamain here during the transition, and help the keep once I had the power?" She doesn't really want things to change again. There's been too much of that in the last few weks, she needs constants.

"Well... the exact details of your stay are unknown even to me. My clan's duty was to protect you from harm, and we did, to an extent. One enemy made it inside, but a dozen more never made it to the keep." Ian grins a little. "The Leviniarelans will show you the way, Minna. They can show you how to make the most of your gifts."

Minna smiles, just a little. Looks back down to the letter. "So. It's...a good idea, then?"

"Only if you wish to go along with it. Of course, otherwise means you will be hunted eternally." The vampire shakes his head. "Let us say it is not the worst option."

Minna reads over it still again, thoughfully. Looks over to Kaies. "Well...what do you think?"

"It might be a shot at a return to normalcy, Minna. If Ian thinks it is alright... it certainly does not feel wrong to me." Kaies, though, feels as helpless as an ant underwater. 

Normalcy...

Minna looks down and aside, for several seconds. There's quiet resolution in her eyes when she looks back up to Kaies. "I don't think you should come."

"Beg pardon?" Kaies looks at Ian, and then back at Minna. "I must be getting old. Did you say you do not think I should go with you?" The look in his eyes is certainly evidence that he has not even entertained that notion.

Minna doesn't speak for a few more seconds. This is the hardest thing she's said...for a long, long time. But she's sure. "Kaies...you're the only constant I've had through all of this. Were it not for you...I'd probably have lost my mind, or panicked, or...something. And...thank you. For that. But..." she finally looks up to him again. "I don't know what this next venue might be like. But even in the letter, it was very clear that you wouldn't be welcome. Maybe barely tolerated. This is going to be hard enough, everything changing, again, even if there's some level of kindness involved. Or at least tolerance. You have a life and people who love you back at home, Kaies. I think that you should go back to that...not get your whole world traded for a miserable one."

Her words sting him, though not through intent. Deep down, in the same place he had stored the memories of that cat-woman Felina and the understanding of these claws and gloves, he feels a sudden, and distinct, lack of purpose.

"I did not come to you to leave the job half-done," he notes quietly, "but I cannot make you let me come."

"Your shrew is waiting for you anyway, Kaies." Ian shrugs. "Though how you will get along there with those claws is anyone's guess."

Believe me, Kaies, you did more than you know. Complications to that last situation would have killed her without your intervention. It's how fate works. You're not half-done...just finished for now. The words are soft, and manifest in his mind only.

"Kaies..." Minna sets her hand lightly on his forearm. "Won't it be nice to get home?" Her heart is positively breaking at her own actions. But she's not unsure of them.

He wonders, for a moment, why it is that he feels so like a child being patted on the head. The voice in his mind soothes him, of course, but in another sense it only seems to make this harder. It reminds him that this will be the second time he has involuntarily abandoned someone he has promised to protect. For the sheer wonder of all this he would have left his life behind without a thought.  He misses his wife, yes. Even meeting Felina again would not displace that promise. 

"I suppose I am getting behind at work, anyway," he notes with a half-smile. "Kintune will be furious at me, but then there is that whole 'making up' phase to look forward to..." He's trying to convince himself, he really is.

Minna smiles, and nods a bit. "Yes. Besides...Linna needs attention. She can't stay deactivated forever." Her power units hadn't stayed stable, and she'd be deactivated for her own safety.

The medium just nods. He can't really trust himself to speak on the matter.

Ian takes the opportunity to smack him upon the shoulder. "She will be fine. Leviniarelans are decent enough.  Go home, Kaies."

Another nod. "Just show me the way." He looks at Minna, but if he has something else to say, it really isn't apparent.

Minna looks down. "I'm...sorry, Kaies."

"You shouldn't be. Just drop me a line now and again." He nods. "Let me know that you are alright."

"If that is all," Ian glances to the door. "I can go ahead and send this idiot home."

Minna smiles weakly at Ian. "I think so...take care, Kaies. I'll miss you." She looks back down and starts reading the letter again, trying not to force him to prolong goodbyes.

Kaies's lips part, but Ian's touch has already begun its work. Blue spectres shimmer into life all around the medium, and in the blink of an eye he is gone, sent back home to hold his wife and, with any luck, beat the ass off of one Dan.

Ian looks at her. "Going to be okay?"

Minna looks up, after a moment. For once, she lacks both a smile and the almost indistinguishable false smile she often wears. "I'll survive. After all, that's pretty much my whole life's goal for the time being, right?" She fingers the letter thoughtfully. "I just hope this will be okay...the last place I need to go for at least awhile." Then, the convincing false smile, a small. "But, it may be. Is there anything in particular I should do before I go?"

Ian smiles his no-nonsense smile.

"Shower."

There's a pause. Then she laughs quietly. "Flattered. But, good plan." She's already learned to not chat aimlessly with Ian, and just smiles a bit for the tension-breaker, and wanders off that way.

While she is away, Ian and a few cohorts go about preparing for Minna's departure. It troubles the vampire that the call has come so soon, but then, it is probably a wise decision on the part of Leviniarel's council. Danger seems to lurk in more places than there are places, where Minna is concerned.

A circle of candles awaits her, and a candlestick is set up for the blue candle Aramuse had sent with the letter.

The albino showers quietly. She stares up into the hot water for awhile. Sitting down, part of the time, supporting herself on a handbar the rest, just...trying to clear her mind. Not really to think, just...to not think. About another life upset. About the fact that her deep-set religion is probably about to be tested like never before. About hurting Kaies, just tossing him aside like that...she doesn't regret that. He'd have been miserable. But...still.

After awhile, she dresses neatly, tying her hair in a semi-traditional way she often wears, and, with a nudge from someone who had been waiting to fill her in, starts off towards the circle of candles.

Her eyes take the scene in quietly. She's carrying only her cane and a small bag with a single book and one change of clothes. And the prosthetic, which she just can't bring herself to leave behind despite its sudden, inexplicable refusal to fit.

And, of course, the candle, and the letter.

Ian is, strangely enough, not present when Minna returns. The seer from before is the one leading the ceremonies, and he is quick to explain.

"Because he is partly human, Ian cannot be in the area with this device." He points at the candle. "It would transport him as well, and we do not want that."

That is another thing she didn't want to hear. If she had ears, they'd have drooped right then. And then, a slight smile. "Well...tell him that I said goodbye, and am infinitely greatful for everything he's done me?"

The vampire smiles. "He can hear you. Telepathy, you know. He says that you can pay him back by taking care of yourself. Now." He glances at the candle. "Apparently, you just light it," he hands her a box of stick matches, "and off you go, to Leviniarel.

Minna lets out her breath...smiles weakly, and takes the box. She doesn't want to have time to second-guess what she's doing, strikes one, and hands the box back while the match burns towards her fingers. She closes her eyes a moment, then opens them, takes note of the empty candleholder, and sets the blue candle into it. "I'll miss you all," she murmurs. Her eyes are actually glittering with withheld tears. She's grown very attached to the people in this keep in a short time, maybe just because she'd needed to cling to something in a very difficult time...and isn't ready to leave them already. Or to go without Kaies.

Ready or not, she holds the match to the candle's wick even as she speaks, closing her eyes. One tear escapes to slip down her cheek, but no others do.

A warm aura exudes from the lit candle. Pure sorcery rises like billows of acrid smoke, twisting all around Minna.

"Don't let them push your beliefs around, Minna," a voice that is not entirely unlike Ian's calls to her. "You will not be alone there. Seek out Zalika."

A flash of ether floods the room, and Minna is transported to Leviniarel.