At the gates stood two guards. Guard duty was boring. Not just any boring, but BORING. Nothing interesting ever came this way. Oh wait. turned to the other guard on duty.

"Hey. You seeing what I'm seeing?"

"If you're talking about the girl coming this way, yeah."

"Girl. Right. Nothing comes this way but sweaty old farts in their armor and cloaks giving orders."

"Shhh. You want them to hear you? Seriously though, she is coming this way."

---

The run had been great. Short but great. Damn bastards, always rushing her. Oh well, if she was lucky the Empire would send her back with a return note. It had been nice to see the sloop captain again as well, even if he had a perverse sense of humor. It was a good thing she was still quite young. As it was, he acted more like a perverted older brother. The good thing was that that friendly attitude was spread throughout his crew, meaning it was a fairly good trip and any idiot that tried to hit on her had to go through roughly twenty overly protective sailors. Uh oh, her innate six sense was telling her the guards ahead were going to be trouble. As she got closer, Cornelia could practically smell the perversion coming off the two. Damn, and today had been a good day.

"Oi, open up the damn gates!" she called out, hoping they would just let her be. Her luck couldn't be that bad could it? Her gaze was hopeful as the gates creaked open, though the guards were swift to block the way.

"Hey little lady, what brings you here?" Oh hell no. That grin was definitely not a friendly "hi".

Picking up her jog to a full run, her long legs pumping harder to pick up some speed, she rushed the two guards. When she got close, she dropped into a slide, neatly going under the little blockade the two had setup. "Sorry boys!" she called back as she took off in search of Lord Zaleran. She had seen him before, delivered a message actually, but that had been a long time ago. "Got an important letter to deliver!"

OOC: IF YOU WANT TO JOIN YOU CAN, WE AREN'T PICKY.

The weather outside was dreary. Rainclouds were moving across the horizon placing lulled shadows onto the land below. Kaleb was in a decent mood; accented by the fact that he had received news of good tidings in Roft. No word from Yevela had came through, not even a rumor. He had left his armor back in his room. There was no reason to hulk the mass around in his castle. That fact was true until Kaleb saw a woman masquerade across the alley with troops in close pursuit.

A long and exaggerated exhale of air marked his frustration. Might as well invite the entire demon army as it seems almost anyone can just walk right in. Truth be told was that she was the ninth person in two weeks to get past the guards. Nine in nine attempts all succeeded in entering the castle.

A transparent barrier was thrown up around the woman instantly as Kaleb approached. It would keep her still and unable to escape while he questioned her about how to improve his fortifications so people like her couldn't walk right in.

Cornelia ran full speed into what she believed to be a brick wall. Mind you she had no idea how the hell a wall appeared in front of her, but it wasn't the first time she had done something like that. In many cases, due to her traveling so fast, she had only mere seconds before running into a wall going around a corner or so. She'd run into quite a few doors this way too.

It took her some time to realized that her position on the floor gave a nice view of both her legs, and most of everything under her skirt. Blushing, she pushed her skirt down and attempted to collect herself. The "wall" she had run into was apparently non existent, which meant she was dealing with one of those psychic weirdo's. Honestly, she didn't like them much with the whole my brain can do weird things. She stood up and patted the dust off her uniform, granted she liked the damn thing but it just wasn't practical at times. Comfortable short sleeve button up placed over a definitely not regulation length sleeveless top, shortened skirt to allow for movement with extremely short shorts under. Fingerless gloves, knee high boots, and a set of thigh highs topped it off. Oh and she definitely couldn't forget the beret, she loved the damn thing even though they had phased it out of the uniform about two years ago.

When she had stood up, Cornelia palmed the little tag from earlier, intent on setting the damn message ablaze if she couldn't get the message through. Now she just had to wait for whenever the "Lord Zaleran" appeared or some idiot was smart enough to notice the several insignias of the group of messengers that traveled almost the entire world- they wouldn't step foot near the dark lands.. unless payed very damn well.

Kalebs eyes were still on fire. His irritability had grown to intolerable levels as his security mocked him on a daily level. The woman was now trapped, sealed within his mental barrier. She was fairly attractive and had the eyes of a trickster. On a small glance you couldn't tell but now that she wasn't moving it was easily apparent that she was of the messenger guild.

Great, more bad news he thought. These last couple weeks had been extremely warring on his mind. His normal sleep routine of seven hours seemed to have fallen back to three hours. Kaleb stood beside her making aware of the golden Z emblem on his right shoulder.

"What message to you bring messenger," he asked simply. Hundreds of scenarios were grazing his mind. Everything said and done he assumed it was something about the demon movement, or something related to the matter. Either way his stomach was already churning his morning breakfast. "Speak quickly then leave," Kaleb finished.

It took half a second upon approach for Cornelia to spot the "Z" mark on the man's shoulder. It took perhaps another second for her to remember who the hell carried the mark. It took less then half a second for her to snap from her relaxed pose into a more formal salute. She slid the leather case from her shoulder, unlatching the top in the process and pulling out the scroll. "I wouldn't know Lord Zaleran. I've come straight from Nazca, message was for your eyes only." She offered up the message, the unbroken seal facing upwards to show that it indeed was legitimate and from the Nazca officials. "I am to await a reply." Cornelia figured he knew that she was supposed to wait for a reply, but with something this urgent she was certain he might just go himself.

((Sorry to pop in here, but I too have a message for Lord Zaleran =) ))

A Zaleran soldier entered the gates, huffing and puffing from having come as fast as he could from Roft. He searched for a few moments before finding Lord Zaleran receiving a message from a woman.

"Sir," he said with a salute. "A message from Roft, sir." The soldier stood at attention, waiting until Zaleran was finished with the first message to deliver his own rather disturbing one. He had a feeling that the Zaleran would most certainly not be pleased, but it was not his job to do that. He assumed the Lord had people to do that sort of thing. The soldier preferred not to think about it.

It any case, the soldier was regretting not having brought his shield with him. He was now fearing that he may need it to protect himself if Zaleran went on a rampage.

The barrier withdrew itself and the woman was let free. Kaleb reached out and grabbed the letter hesitantly. Its handwriting was atrocious and it was easy to see that the person that wrote this was not very educated. It read:

Kaleb finished reading the letter and set it in his pocket. Kaleb turned to the runner to speak, "Tell Langster he is to bring Leopold Crowley to Ascantha as soon as possible under my orders. He is not to be harmed, and restraints wont be necessary. If he wanted to break out he would have done it already." Kaleb was about to turn around and grab his lunch when another runner of the same guild came running up.

I swear if its bad news I am going to level the city for lunch Kalebs voice had clear agitation within it. "What is it, and please hurry"

The soldier took a deep breath, half out of exhaustion and half out of anxiety for the message he was about to deliver. He settled his nerves and spoke.

"This is a message from General Seatamer to Lord Zaleran:

'We found one survivor at Roft. He seemed completely insane, and kept repeating the same thing. He said that Roft was attacked on the orders of General Ashbringer. We are also currently in the process of rebuilding the city, but there are limited resources, and the food has all been burned.'"

The soldier braced himself for whatever was about to happen. He knew this news would certainly not sit well with the Lord. Hell, it didn't sit well with him, and he was only a lowly soldier. He could only imagine what implications this message held for the empire.

"At once my lord." Cornelia replied, not waiting a second longer to turn around and take off at a run. She knew the tales of Crowley, especially Leopold's, and understood that if they didn't bring him to Ascantha soon there was a good chance he would grow bored and leave. She flung the scroll case's strap over her head as her long strides carried her past the gates, two different guards now on duty. Her trip would be quick, and perhaps if she got lucky she might get a return trip with Leopold to the city with a few days of leave to go exploring.

Grimmjowh appeared in the blink of an eye behind his master with his sword by his side.

"Reporting as requested, sir." He said slowly examining the surroundings. He noticed a few things that were different since he last was here, but nothing extremely drastic. Then again he had been here only a week before he had met with his leader not too long ago, purposely avoiding confrontation with anyone the first time.

Kaleb listened to the soldiers story. It was obvious that the Empire had been set up. Kaleb had known Demarkos for years and he knew that he would never give such orders. The Empire would not attack its only food source, especially one that was so vital. Kaleb turned to the messenger, "Return to Roft with news that the Zaleran Engineers are on their way to salvage what they can."

A shift in the air alerted Kaleb to Grimmjowh's presence. "Old friend, this is not looking good for the Empire. The demons are hitting us where it counts. It probably wont be long before something even worse happens. We need to be very careful of our next moves." Kaleb shifted to his right and proceeded into the courtyard to finally get something to eat.

His mind was made up and Kaleb knew what he would do. The first priority was getting Roft back on its feat and getting food to the people. If they did not get that under control mass riots were bound to occur. He also knew that Leopold Crowley would be here shortly, and with any luck a solution to the demons could be found soon.

The soldier nodded once and turned to leave. He hoped that Ashbringer did not attack Roft. He didn't believe the general would do something like that, but one never truly knew until the truth came out. All he could do was run as fast as he could back to Roft and deliver the message. That was his job. Errand Boy. He wasn't happy with it, but he did whatever he could to help the Empire.