Catalyst

[Lakot]

Benjamin grimaced and shivered, pulling his hat down further around his ears as the chill winter wind blew across the tidal marsh. He stepped carefully, using his oar to test the ground ahead of him for the pits of muck he had already had to pull his boots out of so many times today. Checking his watch, he paused on the edge of one of the many streams that wound their way through the sea of grass. "Low tide is in fifteen minutes" he called out, waiting for his companion to catch up. "I think we'll have two hours before the tide rises enough to make it difficult to get around out here" he said, shading his blue eyes with his hand and looking around. The grass went from horizon to horizon all around them, he could barely make out the trees at the marshes edge.

"We've been walking for a good long time" he said, turning around to face her and fumbling with his gloved hands to pull the zipper so his heavy coat would close. Once he sealed himself properly from the cold he sat down on a solid piece of ground to give his feet a rest and cradled his oar in his lap. "Are we close? There was supposed to be a cluster of them around here right?" he asked, looking up at his partner.

[Peeker]

Moretta (Mori to her friends) cradled her hands in front of her, and exhaled loudly. She could feel that little vein in her forehead throbbing frantically. "You know that isn't how it works. I told you that like, a hundred times, now." That vein was sooo annoying. It only happened when she was stressed, and something about being in an icy-cold swamp with an invisible but inevitable timer counting down before their complete, abject, and miserable failure made her very stressed.

"Each page emits a field which from a distance we can sense. It doesn't -have- to be centered on the page, but it means that we can narrow it down to a pretty general area." she squelched a boot and grumbled. "Like this gods-forsaken swamp. And I'm positive there's more than one page, and double-positive that this is the first day they've been around - so unless someone was looking for them last night-" at that thought, she shivers in sheer sympathy for the poor fools "-then we've got as much a chance as anyone else."

They already had two pages, which was... well... better than no pages. No one really knew how many pages had already been claimed, except by counting all the ones they'd missed. Mori was pretty sure more than half were still out there-

Squelch

-or in here, as it were. She hugged her cloak - er, no they called them coats here - so she hugged her puffy, bubbly, unnaturally warm coat closer to herself and shook her head. "I still don't hear the resonance, so we're still going in the not-wrong direction." It was like playing that awful children's game of Gam the Hunter, with everyone yelling at the blindfolded Fool to come catch them.... but for much higher stakes.

The eyes of the Empire were on her. It wouldn't do to let them down. They wanted a show, and she was going to deliver!

[Lakot]

Ben sat for a moment, wriggling his toes in his boots before he heaved himself to his feet. "Right, okay" he said, dusting off his butt. "Not wrong is better than nothing right?" he said with a hopeful smile. He climbed down the bank of the drained stream and jumped over the little bit of water that remained, holding out his hand to help her across. Wet anything would be miserable with the wind that was blowing across the marsh. "I think you're right, no one'd be crazy to be out here last night, especially since it was raining" he said as he climbed up a shallow part of the opposite bank, holding out his oar so Mori could pull herself up.

"And if there is anyone else out here right now, we'll see them coming ten miles away" he said optimistically as a wind gust challenged their coats again. "Hey, do you think we'll have to worry about them blowing away? Are they affected by things like that? I know we found that one up in that tree, should be go the way the winds blowing?" he asked, turning his back to the wind and peering into the distance again, half-expecting to see them blowing away as he spoke.

[Peeker]

"I... I uhm..." Mori's dark hair overshadowed her eyes as her brow crinkled in concentration. When she looked back up at Benjamin, her freckled cheeks seemed a little paler than they should, allowing for the cold. "Uhm."

She actually didn't know how the pages reacted to things. They'd found one in a store, and the other up that tree. The tree one hadn't been moving at all from nook of branches it was wadded into, but there hadn't been a scrap of breeze that afternoon - she remembered because she had climbed the darn tree, and hadn't felt it swaying around under her.

"If... if the paper moves... than either the boundaries move, or it can only move within the boundaries. Which either means we're following a moving target, that we're going in the wrong direction, or that you're just getting me worried for no darn reason!"

It wasn't like the pages floated in columns of shimmering starlight waiting for the chosen Prince to come and rip them from their bonds. They were pages. Magical pages, magically -indestructable- pages, but just pages. ....totems. Trophies, really - just something flexible and identifiable that they were all tasked with collecting.

Mori pulled fiercely on the fuzzy grey earmuffs and ran her fingers through her hair, knotting them tightly near her scalp, and then let out another loud sigh. "Argh! I don't know! If I suddenly feel resonance then we'll know we're in the wrong spot. Lets just keep looking while we've still got the advantage!" and immediately continued stomping in the same direction they'd been heading, at double-time, now.

Maybe this page would be in a column of light, so no matter how fast she walked, she couldn't miss it. Who knew?

[Lakot]

"Wait wait, hold on" he said, hurrying after her and grunting as he yanked his foot out of particularly well-camouflaged muck-pit. "This might give us an advantage" he said as he caught up, walking alongside her. "We know the pages can be moved before one of you finds them, since someone brought that one into the store that we found it in. And since we know they can move, we know what direction its gonna be in" he said, grinning as he swept his arm to the south as the wind blew, as if to emphasize his point.

"Unless its buried, which would be stupid, there's a pretty good chance its blowing in the wind right now" Ben looked downwind, glad for the cloud cover keeping the sun out of his eyes. "Plus, we're pretty close to the county line. Since you can't leave, I bet the pages can't either. It would kind of defeat the purpose of looking for 'em if you can't get to 'em" he said, taking a moment to breathe into his gloves to warm his chilled face. "So I think there might be a few pages built up at the line. It's worth a look, don't you think?"

[Peeker]

If there was one thing you could be sure of, it was that down deep inside, Moretta of the Chasewode was ambitious, and maybe even a little bit greedy. Any hope of independent leadership and sticking to her original plan crumbled like dust at the idea that a few pages might just be stacked up neatly at the edge of this swamp, waiting for her. A few? That could mean... oh gosh. She could jump to the six or seven that were generally considered 'required' before it was worth mentioning her participation, here. Then they could really get started!

"W-well... fine." the girl pouted again, and turned on her heel - grasping at Ben's shoulder for balance as her ankle threatened to twist. "But in that case we've probably got a very long walk and we've been going the wrong way, so lets -hurry- already!"

[Lakot]

"Hurrying isn't exactly easy around here" Ben said as he steadied her and the wind gusted again. "Too much muck and too many drained creek beds get across" he muttered, looking over at the next bed they had to cross. "Hm, d'you think you could uh, magic up something that'd get us over there faster?" he said hopefully. Ben hadn't seen too much of Moris magic, but what he had was undeniably impressive. He was a little bit greedy to see more of her skills himself. "Because if we've thought of it, chances are someone else might have too" he said, squinting down the marsh again. There was no one else that he could see, but given that his closet door now led to an otherwordly cabin, invisibility might not be a far fetched idea.

[Peeker]

"D-darn it..." she stuck her hands under her poofy-cloak'd armpits. "Yes, but there's a chance someone else will hear it, and know where we are. Its not really a good to do until we're -sure- we're close..." But her feet were sticking and she was cold and impatient, and if there WERE a stack of pages pressed against the boundaries of this region's geography, as determined by the game's makers, then... argh.

"Okay! Okay..." jeez, he had to go and play on her fears of someone else getting there first?! Rude! "Maybe a little something. Lift a foot up, huh?"

It wouldn't be a very big expenditure of magic. It was just ratios. Of course Ben was a bit heavier than her, so the change would be bigger than for herself, but not noticibly-so. A light blue haze might have tickled the corners of Ben's vision if he squinted properly. It only took a moment but his boots - and then both of their boots - would be sliding through the muck as smoothly as if it were nothing but air. Repelling the damp and speeding their journey, a bit of surefootedness to lighten their load --- and to give them an advantage in this desperate little leg of their race.

[Lakot]

Ben tested his feet on the closest much he could find, grinning broadly as the sole of his boot refused to sink into the marsh goo. "Perfect" he said, taking his oar up in both hands and shifting his weight from foot to foot. "We just follow the wind until we see the signs. Easy" he said as he bound off across the marsh. He found his boots worked even better than before, the ground felt completely flat and even, like he was running on springy asphalt. Even the drained creek beds became more manageable, the boots cushioned his fall as he leaped down one bank and they made footholds easier to find on the way up the other side.

After a good bit of running (that didn't seem to wind Ben at all, maybe a side effect of the boots?) the pair began to see the signs that marked the edge of the county. Ben slowed, coming to a halt among the long grass and looking around. They still seemed to be the only people around on this dreary winter day. "Okay, we're here" he said, holding up his oar. "If we split up we mi-" he stopped as he spotted something strange. A short way away, suspended in the air was a snow-white piece of paper, pressed flat as if pushed up against a piece of glass. "Not exactly a jackpot, but its a start" he laughed jogging over towards the paper.

[Peeker]

"Yes! Oh! Come here you beautiful thing!" Mori rushed over and neatly grasped the page - well - tried to. Much like the paper, when her hand tried to curl around its edge, she found her knuckles pressed quite inexplicably by an invisible barrier. She drew an inch closer, sliding her hand, and found to her dismay that the paper slid with it - straight up the 'wall'.

"Aah!" impatiently, Mori grasped again - her fingers lightly gained purchase on the smooth white sheet, but slid right off. Frustration growing, her eyes followed the sheet of paper up, skywards, and the girl gasped.

Apparently, the wind had been affecting these pages for a while. And was quite good at doing so. Because about eight feet in the air, well out of Moretta's reach, another two pieces of paper were 'stuck' against thin air, only a little ways off from the first page.

"D...do you think you can get them? Maybe with the oar?" she asked, looking flustered - if they KNEW where they were and still couldn't get them. Ugh. If someone was flying or something, and swooped down and took them right out of their hands....! She'd scream! She'd just die! But no, she had to remain calm, here. Ben was resourceful, maybe he could manage.