Recudor: Lost in Quarantine

Airgetlam takes off with Lox following behind her. She's aware of him but not in a way that she can tell what he is doing, simply that he is following her. They run for quite a while, but then fall into more of a fast paced walk. Lox confronts Airgetlam but as she turns to answer to him she realizes she doesn't recognize the street they just passed.

They're lost.

Airgetlam looks about, each turn becoming faster as her heart starts to race. That feeling of being trapped in a maze of buildings, or a forest or underground, that feeling of dread, it comes to her, as if it's standing slightly behind her and tapping her shoulder, but moving out of the way whenever she tries to see it. That dread is finding her now, and she pulls back the hood of her cloak, revealing her silky, brown hair. She set the butt of her crossbow down to the ground and scratches the back of her head.

"Looks like we've lost our way, I guess I was so pumped from seeing that thing that I just wanted to get the hell out of dodge..." She remarks on their current situation. She turns toward Lox and offers her hand.

"I guess I might make introductions, I'm Airgetlam Whyte. I'd prefer if you didn't call me an assassin, I'm just an infiltrator. I just get in and get out without being seen is all I do.

She looks to the sky to find the sun, keeping her hand level with her brow to shield the sun. She finds it seems to be at about between the 0900 and 1000 positions, and figures which way east must be.

She looks down at his hands and sees some odd ink and... stones of some sort? She doesn't really understand what they're supposed to be other than perhaps some craft.

"Uhm, what are those if I may ask?"

Lox cocks an eyebrow as the woman removed her hood and extends her hand. It was pretty clear that he still didn't trust the woman, even through her reassurance that she was simply an 'infiltrator' he was still under the assumption that she was an assassin of some sort... An assassin wouldn't just outright admit it... right? Either way, he simply held up his hand, showing her one of the designs he had painted onto his hand, two wavy lines ending in mirrored spirals. "I'd rather not mess up your hand...or this rune to be honest." He nodded a bit as she gave him her name, he was surprised that she gave it so easily assuming it was her real name. He wasn't sure whether to take the woman at her word, but he figured he could give her his own in return. His assumption was she was after the Doc, not him, so he could be a bit friendlier, it's not like he had any legitimate info on the doc to send her on his tail again anyway. "Airgetlam huh? That's a bit of a mouthful." He chuckled lightly before taking a few quick steps so as to walk beside her, rather than behind. "I'm Lox Nilheim." He said soon after, so as not to leave her hanging for a intro in turn. "Oh and these?" He says in reference to the ink she had seen on his hand. "These are runes. I kinda came to this place...er...well not THIS place, but this town in general so I could spread them around a bit and continue my research on them a bit more." He sighed a bit and looked back over his shoulder at the direction they had left the doc in. "I was chasing the Doc down to question him before all this hell broke loose."

His gaze turned back to the woman as he continued. "By the way miss 'infiltrator', if you're not an assassin why were you tailing him? Then again I guess a better question would be; If you're after his bounty why would he care if you got attacked?" Lox fired his questions off recklessly and simply eyed the woman curiously as he waited for a response, as if she would have all the answers he was looking for. He couldn't help but think this is why he preferred books, no interrogation, just flip a page for your answers. Nonetheless he tried to keep up somewhat of an intimidating demeanor, even though he was fairly sure if it came down to it, she would easily kick his ass.

Airgetlam withdraws her hand and brings her crossbow back up to bear, intently eyeing Lox, suspicious of his motives. He seems keen on presenting her in a bad light.

"Doc's a friend of mine. I went after him because he very abruptly left my presence, which he doesn't really do with explanation. I decided to follow him, having a hunch that he might have been going in over his head on something, and I followed him from the shoreline until these things attacked." she says to the man.

She checks her crossbow again, frowning that she didn't try and look for a mod the extend her capacity, or acting upon the protraction weave. It would really come in handy now, with her limited current capacity.

"Well, it looks to be that it's oh-nine-hundred about, so we should head... This way, to the west. I think that's the direction of the ocean."

She begins walking, but with increased caution so as to not alert the kill squad if they are encountered.

"A friend huh?" Lox remarked a bit skeptically before continuing. "He just took off huh? Do you have any idea what her left for and why he was so urgent about it? That might help us meet up with him. Speaking of those things, what WERE those things anyway?" Lox continues to fire of questions at Air for a while as they walk, though seeing her bring up her crossbow for examination seemed to distract him, upon seeing her crossbow it became clear that he was drifting off into his own little world. In his mind he began to dissect the crossbow, analyzing each piece of the crossbow as if it were before him. The stock, the lathe, the catch, the trigger, he unwittingly lipped the words of all the different pieces to himself as he examined her crossbow. He began wondering to himself how he could improve it, which places would be optimal for rune placement, and what kind of runes would best fit it. His thoughts then shifted to the bolts, and how, if at all, he could ever fit a rune onto them, though after a little while he figures it'd be more or less impossible and snaps back into reality.

"Oh, what? West? Ocean? Yeah sure, lead the way I'm just along for the ride." He chuckles a bit nonchalantly and continues to follow the woman. It was going to take time but after being stuck with her for long enough he would begin to start trusting her."

Airgetlam and Lox make their way through the district, in a surprisingly casual walk considering they are in a locked off zone. They backtrack through some alleyways without encountering any more troubles and head off in the direction of the ocean. The walk seems to take a lot longer, but considering there was quite a bit of sprinting involved on the way here it doesnt seem too unimaginable that they'd have to walk a bit longer. Eventually they come up to a bend that nobody recognizes, being rather tightly placed between some buildings forming an intersection with stairs going down the front adjacent to them and a main road leading down either side to them. They are still lost and Airgetlam realizes she's been walking in the wrong direction all this time.

Airgetlam looks up again at the sun and realizes that the ocean was not in the western direction. She looks up and down the intersection, and back to Lox.

"It looks as though I've drawn us further into the district, sorry." She says to him, a tad disappointed in herself for getting lost so easily.

"To answer your question earlier also, those things we saw were the mutated and possessed remains of some people my group and I had managed to free from a sinister experiment and operation. It seems though that they have been tainted, or are still being experimented on but others. So, now they roam the central district until the kill team manages to clear the place out or something else takes place. This place is getting stranger by the hour, and I wouldn't be surprised if we started seeing apparitions of all sorts popping up.

She returns to looking at him, this time in the eyes.

"If you want, go ahead and pick a direction, we could take turns and maybe one of us will luck out."

"Nah, don't be sorry." Lox says in a calm tone as he examines their surroundings for a bit, though his eyes seem to be somewhat fixed on the stairs before them. He figured the main road could lead them to a familiar scene...well at east for Airgetlam, or even picking a cardinal direction like she suggested, but his brain just kept dragging his train of thought back to those stairs.

"Hmmm... We could keep guessing directions, make it to the ocean eventually, and make our way back. OR the way I see it with all these things roaming around these streets the creators might have set up shop in this town. Even if the experiments didn't take place here, maybe one of the experimenters had a lab set up somewhere in town." Lox's eyes practically began to glow as he spoke, his beaming eyes meeting with hers as she looked him in the eyes. A big grin began to grow across his face as he took a few steps down the mysterious stairway. "If we get lucky maybe we'll even stumble across some notes! I love notes, they're like books that are unhindered by the editing process! A full uncensored look into the mind and process of the writer and his partners!"

Lox continued making his way down the stairs slowly as he spoke, almost as if he were getting dragged in by his own obsession. He looked back to Airgetlam with a smirk on his face. "This seems like as good a place as any to start looking." With that last note, Lox turned away from her and continued down the stairs.

Lox arrives at the end of the stairs with a sort of underpass leading next to him. A strange place to put this sort of architecture but the city has expanded over many different generations of architects and respective rulers thereof, giving the whole city a very strange architecture that varied from each part to the next. He looks into the underpass and notices an array of shops and buildings. Looks like some of the district was built upon the other, but at the far end it looks like there is light on the other side coming from yet another corner on the far end. To his surprise, there are still people walking back and forth on the far end, despite the quarantine. It would make sense that some people aren't willing to give up their homes, albeit temporarily, just for the sake of not having to confront these horrible monster-like creatures. And afterall, rules are ment to be broken. Without the breaking of rules there would never have been groundbreaking discoveries, or theories, or anything of the sort. Without the breaking of rules, he might not have found himself in this position to begin with. The thought reminds him of his home, and what happened in his childhood but he snaps out of it when Airgetlam rounds the corner to join him, also seeing the long underground locale.

"I guess we could explore for a bit, but I don't like the thought of hunting for whoever - or whatever - created those things without the rest of my rabble." She walks down, following him, and leans from the corner and peeks around, seeing what she would honestly not expect at all, people, commoners, folks just living their lives.

"I thought everyone would have been evacuated by now, don't they know there's a kill team scouring the district? I'd feel terrible for these people if they end up getting gunned down..."

Airgetlam slides her crossbow behind her, under her cloak, suspended by it's sling. She doesn't want to attract unwanted attention or cause alarm.

"The rest of your rabble?" Lox looked back at the woman with a smirk on his face. "Who would that be, the assassin's guild?" He snickered a bit, with a taunting tone in his voice more than an accusatory one. "Either way, don't worry about it too much, if we run into some of the people who created those monsters, it might be a good change to cut off the creation of them and give the kill teams an easier time managing them. If they're not there, then I can still try to get a peek at some notes, maybe learn about future experiments! Either way it's a tota-..." Lox stopped dead in both his words and tracks as they stumbled across the pseudo-abandoned district. His smirk, and slightly snarky attitude towards the woman, it was all gone. His eyes simply took in the spectacle for a moment, and even though it was only a few short moments his statuesque state seemed like it took an eternity to pass. Lox blinked a few times as he heard Airgetlam speak, his previously teasing voice now taking a dull, almost empty tone. "I... I guess some homes are harder to leave than others..." Once he had taken in the site of the district and the few people roaming it he shook his head a bit, though it didn't seem to do the trick much, the image of the flames were still burning in the back of his head and he could still feel the smoke filling his lungs.

Lox cleared his throat before speaking, and began walking into the district. "Well it would obviously be easy to start with the abandoned houses, if any of the shops are abandoned we should probably check those too, what better place to experiment than a shop you own? I mean all you need is a locked door, and you can get your supplies delivered right to you without suspicion. Failing that maybe we could ask around and see where some of the unmarried people lived, kinda hard to run a secret lab with a family at your heels." Lox's eyes still slowly scanned his surroundings, and his voice trailed off a bit every so often as he spoke it was clear that this place had rattled him a bit. Not so much as to derail his mission or make him significantly less efficient, but still enough to show in his attitude.

"Hmph..." Airgetlam pouts at how Lox keeps teasing her.

"If you must know, it's just a bunch of my friends, and we're not assassins. If you keep doing that, we're not going to be on friendly terms when the time comes that we need to be! I don't want you ready to stab me in the back if we find another of those things!" She says at him with disdain.

She notices him starting to go into for all she knows a trance, and she starts to walk after him, putting her arm out as if to pull on his clothing.

"H-hey! Now isn't the time to go after their secret hideaway or whatever! We need to link back up with Doc! We can't really do anything without him anyway!" She says, but she fears that rational logic might be lost on Lox, in it's place empiricism. She sighs heavily and continues on following him.

"Besides, the original reason I think he went out might have been to search for a way to save a group member, she's very ill and needs specialized attention - one only the Doctor has, or can find if he doesn't have that kind of expertise... so please, at least, help me find him for the sake of someone who's life is on the line? I'm not making this stuff up either, I swear I'm telling you the truth." She pleads. She hope maybe he will listen to that, if not... she might just abandon him. But no, that would be quite out of character for herself, and it goes against her moral of nobody gets left behind. Though, she would really like him to stop teasing her.

Lox shakes his head at Airgetlam and stops for a moment to look her in the eyes. "Trust me Airgetlam, I'm not the backstabbing kind of guy." Once she attempts to pull him out of his little episode, he sighs a bit and simply continues walking as he speaks, peering into a few of the shops windows as he walked forth. "I'm sorry you feel that way, but I can assure you, I can do plenty without him! I only just met the guy, and while I do have a mountain of questions for him, he's by no means my lifeline. The guy is clearly very capable, he stood up to one of those creatures without us so I have no doubts that he's strong, but there's none of those creatures here, I don't think we need shadow hands to deal with refugees." Lox sighed, most of the shops seemed to be in a fair state of upkeep, non that he had looked at seemed to be abandoned. Though there was still a few more around he decided maybe he could catch one of the refugees for questions, though before he could, he stopped in his tracks to turn back to Airgetlam once more with a small sigh, and a bit of a somber look in his eyes. "Look...I'm sorry about your friend, I really am, and I by no means want to keep help from her. Honestly though, we don't know where he is. We could go back and look for him where we ran into the monsters, but then we run the risk of running into that death squad, and possibly more monsters. If Doc was dumb enough to stick around there then there might be even more bad news waiting there for us. So assuming he got out of there we still have no idea as to his end goal, we don't know where he went, when he'll get there, or how he'll get there. All we have is the why, and that's not gonna help us much in this situation." Lox stopped for a moment and took a breath. He knew he was being a bit cold to her, but as he looked around the small hub of refugees he couldn't bring himself to leave he felt like there was something important to be discovered, and he didn't want to leave without giving it an honest look. He sighed a bit and thought back to his home, more specifically his father. The giant man's big grin and hearty chuckle, his carefree attitude and warm, welcoming personality. Lox's eyes broke their gaze from the woman as he began to wonder what his father might say were he in Lox's shoes, and after a moment his eyes returned to Airgetlam.

"I'm sorry...I know you just want what's best for your sick friend, and to be honest I know if I were in your shoes I would want exactly the same. In this situation though, right here right now, we have a chance to make a difference to these people. We could put a dent in the lives of these people here and now we could, at the least, slow the process of development for these creatures and make their lives easier! From what it seems, your friend can only be saved by Doc, who we would have to hunt down in this big city, with no clues as to his destination. We know he wants to save her right? That means he's working on doing that right now, and whether or not we look for him, he's still working towards that outcome." He sighed a bit, he felt like he was failing at channeling his father's warm, comforting aura. "We have a fifty percent chance with each step we take, we are either stepping further, or closer, that means even if we do this, there's a chance we could find a passage that leads us back to him, or further away. If we do it your way, leave and pick a direction at random over and over, we have that same chance, we just don't get to learn more about the enemy, or change the lives of some innocent people in the process. I know this is tough for you, but I really feel like this is a 'needs of the many' situation, and whether we do this or not, your friend still has someone looking for that cure. Airgetlam you have no obligation to help me I know that, and if you leave now I will understand, but I feel like I need to do this."

With Lox finally done rambling at her, he turned back to the refugees, he knew if she was going to leave he could not stop her, and while having someone at his back during this would help, if he had to search this alone, he was going to. With that thought he stopped a nearby refugee with a hand to their shoulder and gave them a small smile. "I'm sorry to bother you, but I was just wondering, have there been any shops that went out of business in the area?"

The man Lox approaches turns around and looks at him in surprise. A face he can't recognize from around here. The man as well as most of the others are dressed in decent clothing. Nothing too fancy, but nothing too plain either. They don't look like workers, nor Nobles. Something inbetween. The man answers with a deep voice. "Well... I guess you could say this whole district has. But things are being fixed I mean... The Guild will clean up the mess up above and then people will return back to their homes and businesses but to ask if anyone has so far gone out of business well who can even really tell, ya know? Its not like..."
The man drifts off in a rant as Air and Lox are watching. Lox is a little distracted because out of the corner of his eye he keeps seeing rapid movement down the underpass, but everytime he looks he can't see anything afterall. Might just be his imagination.
"...And for all it matters that damn duke has done nothing for us of late, the guild is the real governing power I say." the man sighs. "Ahhw man. Listen to me ramble. I'm not even that old and I ramble as if I was 20 years ahead of my time."
Airgetlam notices Lox occasionally looking down the underpass suddenly, as if he was trying to catch something visually. She looks around him down the hall and can't see anything either. A few people walking back and forth, or sitting near some buildings. It's surprising that these people are willing to stay outside their homes as if nothing was going on, but then again life must go on sometimes.
The man shakes his head at Lox. "Sorry. I don't think I can help ya with your question. I've only just recently moved here."

Airgetlam looks down for a moment, thinking about the man's reasoning. He was right about Doc, he could take care of himself, but they honestly still don't actually know the why of the issue.

"Fine, we'll do it your way. But If you get yourself in over your head, it's your fault, not mine." She warns.

As the man that Lox asked for help just keeps blabbing and blabbing, she can't help but glimpse recurrently off to the side.

"Tell me I'm not the only one seeing that, right? There's gotta be something there, maybe something cloaked? When this guy's done gabbing we should investigate."

Could it be something cloaked? She knows from her own experience that you're not completely invisible, there's a slight distortion in the field. Slight being the keyword. If you don't pay it much attention you can easily slip by, but if you're too curious, it could spell the cloaked user's folly.

Whatever it is, she's definitely curious as to it's nature.

"Don't worry, I have a knack for getting in over my head, you'll have every chance to mock me for it later." Lox chuckled a bit before listening to the man drone on about...well...everything... Lox tried to follow the man, but he could only focus his attention for so long before catching glimpses of...something. Once he heard Air whispering to him he almost let out a sigh of relief, it was good to know he wasn't going crazy, and that she had seen it as well. Lox simply nodded in confirmation at her comment and once the man was done ranting lox was about to turn back to Air, but something he had said had caught Lox's attention. " Only...just recently? " Lox muttered to himself with a puzzled look on his face before he shook his head and turned back to Air. " Yeah I'm glad you saw that too, we should definitely check it out! " He whispered to her before making his way towards the underpass where he had seen the figure.

As he walked to the underpass he turned to Air, whispering once more. " This may be nothing, but why would someone just recently have moved here? I could understand why people would stay here to defend their homes...but JUST having moved in? That makes no sense! This place isn't exactly a prime vacation spot."

Lox and Air part from the man and move past some people towards where the anomoly is thought to be. They're generally not paid much attention. From afar, a bunch of boxes are stacked infront of a store, with a cart next to it. Whenever either of them turn away slightly, its as if they could almost see the thing behind the boxes. But when looked at directly, there is nothing there. As they move closer, a person gets up from behind the boxes, facing away from them. Whoever they are must have been resting against them. The person begins moving away towards the other end of the underpass.
Lox is stopped by a woman that approached the two. "Excuse me, you seem to be looking for something, are you new here?" she asks. "My father runs a general goods store down here, if you'd like to check it out?"

Airgetlam shrugs at Lox's perplexity.

"It doesn't really seem to weird to me, maybe he moved here just before the quarantine, and people move other places all the time. Perhaps, Central might be a better deal for a home, so maybe it was due to costs. Either way It's not that odd." She says in a low tone.

She follows him and looks ahead, and finds that whatever was there wasn't at all what they expected.

"I guess it wasn't the big anomaly we hoped for..." She says again, and then turns to find they are greeted by a young woman.

"Um, yes, sorta. We're just passing through central. My friend here is the one that's looking for something, I'm just along for the ride." She says, gesturing to Lox with her thumb. She tilts her head back to face him and nods, smiling a bit.

"So a general store? Anything special I might find by chance? Perhaps things for archery or marksmanship, maybe? Sorry, that's probably a stretch to ask..." She says, cupping her cheek with her hand and looking away a bit, whilst tilting her head away in the same direction.

Lox raises an eyebrow a bit at Airgetlam's nonchalance, as he continues forth he continues whispering to her, his back turned to her as he examines their surroundings. " Really? That doesn't strike you as odd? I mean if he had JUST moved in before the quarantine, why would he be so attached to his home that he would be willing to face a firing squad? If he moved in after the quarantine how did he move in under their nose? " Lox sighed slightly and smacks himself on the forehead "Aw man I should have gotten his name! I'm gonna have to keep him in mind, and maybe hunt him down later...also...it was kinda bad manners. "

Lox stops his searching as he is approached by the woman, obviously he didn't want to seem like he was blatantly shaking down everyone. Although once she mentioned her father's shop Lox's attention was clearly shifted, and his attention was very clearly obtained by the woman. As Airgetlam asked about the supplies Lox beamed with excitement, finally a good place to start a search! He practically shoved Air aside in an attempt to regain the woman's attention, as he exclaimed. "Yes! We'd love to see your father's shop! Please lead the way miss...uh...I'm sorry I don't believe I caught your name."

The girl smiles. "Great!" she exclaims, returning Lox' enthusiasm. She points at the shop directly behind herself. "This right here is it. My father should be inside." she says and begins walking towards the hosue. Lox follows eagerly at first, but with every step he takes he begins to notice that irritation from the corner of his eye. Looking back at the underpass, there are simply a few civilians hanging out together, with that man from the boxes walking past. The two of them arrive a few meters from Airgetlam at the shop and the girl opens the door. From a quick glance, the store carries many items for casual and every day use. Anything you could need, but more common things than interesting. A rather elderly man is standing at a service desk, reading through a newspaper.

Airgetlam shifts her mouth to one side as she follows Lox and the girl into the general store. She looks back at the underpass, and then back ahead. She still can't shake the feeling that something's up again, but she will have to deal with it later.

"Since you put it that way, I guess it does sound a tad bit strange."

She walks into the general store herself and finds it to be, well, general. Not much that really sticks out, though she knows that places like this can have hidden gems. She peruses the walls and turns to look at the elderly man behind the counter, nodding. She approaches the counter and puts her hands on it, but she looks to Lox and thinks that maybe he'll say something, so she remains silent, so as to let him ask his questions, then maybe she can see about her request.

Once they were inside the shop Lox looked around casually for a bit, observing the items around the shop, the old man at the counter, and looking around for any doors that might lead to a basement, backroom, anything really. Though he knew it didn't really matter if he did find one, with the old man sitting right there even if he did find a secret room, the old man wouldn't let Lox just stroll in and start poking his nose around. Still this didn't mean there wasn't anything he could do to search the place. Lox smirked a bit and pulled the inkwell from his backpack and looked back to make sure the old man was still occupied with his newspaper. Lox then walked to the door and knelt down, opening the door very slowly while doing his best not to make any noise. Once the door was open enough to reveal the latch inside the door knob, Lox dipped his finger in the inkwell and drew a tiny circle just under the latch, then a slightly bigger circle around the first. He then slowly closed the door, though opened it again right after to make sure his ink wasn't smudging, luckily it didn't so he closed the door one last time and stood up to approach Airgetlam.

"Looks like they don't have what I was looking for right now, I'm gonna go on ahead and keep looking, if you wanna poke around for supplies feel free, I'll just be checking out...the...uh...'anomaly' " Lox hoped she would know what he was referring to as he walked out the door to the shop, his eyes immediately shifting to the underpass as he began making his way towards it, placing his inkwell back into his backpack as he wandered over to it.

As Airgetlam approaches the counter, the man looks up from his newspaper. "Hello, can I help you?" he asks, at first not noticing Lox. As Lox leaves and mentions there is nothing he could need from this store the man gets a sad look on his face. "Ah, that's no problem. It's not the best store in central for sure. But if you ever find yourself in need of anything let me know."

Lox leaves the shop and directs his attention down the rest of the underpass. There are significantly less people here suddenly. He moves down the lengthy stretch until he gets to a crowd of people standing around something on the floor. As he approaches the group, he slowly begins to notice some sort of fluid spreading from around them. For a brief moment he could have sworn to see a black mass dart between them and sink into the ground. Too late he notices the fluid beneath them is blood, as one of the people standing there turns slightly and falls over towards Lox. Then he suddenly gets a good look at the people infront of him. Most are staring at a corpse on the ground, but some have turned to look at him. They look intensely sick, and their skin is discoloured. They look dried up and shadows are leaking from their mouth and nose and eyes. Some even have parts of their flesh missing, revealing bone underneeth. Horrified, he shifts his attention back to the other man who had fallen before him, afflicted with the same type of thing as he crawls towards Lox, trying to grab his legs.

Airgetlam nods to Lox as he heads out, and looks back to the shopkeep, smiling brightly.

"Hey! Um, I do a lot of marksmanship, and I was wondering what you had in stock for crossbows, ammunition-wise? If you don't that's fine. Oh! And I should ask, why are you people still here in Central? This place has been locked down for quarantine, and they have a team going through to district, combing for infected and hostiles. I'm honestly concerned for your safety, these things are being possessed by shadow magic of some sentience sort to move about, and they look like a combination of undead and magical or toxic waste victims! I can understand if you feel you can defend yourselves and if you have valuables here, but it's not like you will lose them."

After a few seconds, she slides a hand into one of the pockets on her bandoleer and pulls out a normal bolt and shows it to the man.

"That's the general size and type of ammunition I use. I have a bunch of specialist ammunition as well, I'm just wondering if perhaps you can procured something special. Sorry if I really changed topics on you, just figured I should mention." She says.

"WOAH!" Lox jumps back away from the sickly figure attempting to grab at his legs, though he almost tripped over himself as he backed away. He regained his balance quickly and took a short moment to observe the...people? He wasn't sure if they could even be categorized as such anymore, were they hostile? Were they even sentient? And those shadows leaking from their eyes and mouths, his first assumption was that he was looking at the early stages of the giant creature that the doc had been left with. This thought oddly enough brought a big smile to Lox's face as he faced the hideous creatures. "Well, looks like I'm starting in the right place!" Lox's smile turned into a smirk as he looked down at his right palm, which he had drawn on much earlier, that diamond teardrop rune, with another smaller diamond inside of the first, lines crossing through the smaller diamond to connect the corners. He lets out a small sigh and mutters to himself. " I REALLY hope this works... " And with that he kneels down, his palm pressed firmly to the earth beneath him.

Lox eyes the puddle of blood before his site turns back to the creature closest to himself, though his voice was emitted loud enough to be audible to the lot of them. "Okay guys, if you're still in there, if you still have any control, back away! This is the only warning I can afford to give you." Another relaxing sigh and Lox's palm began to glow with an orange light. A few crunches and cracks could be heard in the earth underneath him, and almost as soon as the noises could be heard, some stone began to emerge from the ground in a small circle around his hand. A small grunt and soon the stone erupted up even further, until his hand was covered in stone as well as his wrist, and even a bit up his forearm. Lox stood back up, seeming to yank his arm off the ground as he stood, his right hand now covered in a bit of a makeshift stone gauntlet. He faced the creatures and with another grunt took another step back, grunting as the fingers of this new gauntlet slowly cracked and crunched into a fist. Lox took an admittedly sloppy fighting stance, though this was his first real fight, and to be honest he was just happy he didn't crush his own hand making that stone gauntlet.