Torquil was in China with a Hogwarts student wanting to have some intern experience. The girl, Raine Almasy, didn't seem too keen on much of anything, but he had given her manuscripts, journals and notes of his companion to go over the day before, that needed to be understood before continuing their trek into the Forbidden City.

The research materials detailed the whereabouts of several entrances to an ancient city that was like a mysterious maze in that it could hide neighbors from each other like Gringotts could lock away treasure. On top of that, it could take its inhabitants to several other cities like it with one wrong turn around a corner. Torquil, was much more interested in its architecture and magical structure, while his companion wanted the whereabouts of some puzzling device.

"He drew a picture of it, of course," Torquil pointed out the drawing he kept in his small pocketbook, to Raine, "and after being unable to deduce the riddles of how to get to this place he's hired me after it." He closed his book and motioned Raine to follow him into the Imperial Gardens of the city and back along the various rock and stone walls.

"He could never figure out what or where the key was to open the entrance." He shook his head as he looked at Raine again, "Years of study and he has yet to understand that you must understand and respect a culture to understand their secrets." Finally he came to a secluded area of the wall, shrouded in shrubs and an artistic community of leafy arching trees. The wall itself was carved with dragons and various other designs, and some carvings, especially of dragon's mouths were deeply carved into the wall.

"It's as simple as this: to open a sealed door you must use your hands," Torquil lifted up both his hand to the girl and then turned towards the wall, "So, if you take the time to learn and study the drawings of people in the various manuscripts you will see that they often make gestures with their hands, that we often call hand seals." Torquil made a few gestures with his hands and smiled at the girl before finally focusing on the wall. "It's not something I've been taught to do, but after studying those notes and scripts for so long it's the only thing that makes sense--my colleague thought it was unfounded nonsense." He sighed.

"Sometimes, even as wizards, we believe to know so much we like to cloud our judgement and refuse to understand the possibilities of magic," he found a hand posture to fit his hand in the engraved mouth of one dragon, like a piece to a puzzle, "but sometimes, if we want to discover the truth we just have to trust and respect the history, language, and path left by the past," then he fit his hand into the mouth of an opposing dragon, "without question, else we could doom ourselves." Torquil finished with an ominous tune, before the wall before him creaked, and the mouths of the stone carvings cracked their jaws opened, moved out from the wall, swallowing the red-headed man's arms.

Torquil's mouth twitched to the edges of his scruffy mustache, but despite his nervous demeanor, he kept his arms still. "And damned if we do and damned if we don't." The dragons clamped their jaws just below his shoulders before they pulled themselves back into the wall carvings, while splitting the researcher into two rushing blurs that fell down both their throats.

The dragons became unmovable stone carvings, once again. Lifeless, and waiting once again.

---------------

Torquil had landed somewhere dark, with a faint light pouring in from an exit above him. He stood up and slid over what looked like and felt like a jade tongue, and then he climbed over and ducked under some fangs. The Irishman jumped out of the head of a large jade dragon statue, overlooking a stone stairway on a mountainside, twisting into the towering ruins of a cavernous city.

He chuckled to himself before he turned back to the mouth of the statue, which swallowed his voice like a heavy echo, "You in there yet?"

This was beginning to border on ridiculous.

At the start of the summer, Raine had deduced (rather illogically) that the most efficient way to spend the least amount of time around her family would be to take any opportunity that led her as far away as possible from members of said family. Of course, she loved her parents but they too often brought up memories that, rather selfishly, she wanted to keep for herself. Hence it simply would not do, staying at home.

China might have been stretching it.

What was she doing here? This internship might have better suited someone with more archeological aspirations. But it satisfied her inclination to move around and to distract oneself. At the rate Torquil Foley went on, Raine would hardly have the time to brood or sulk. Not that she would; being in another country was fascinating. Experiencing Egypt had inspired a sort of wanderlust.

So it was with quiet interest and curiousity that she watched as the unflinching wizard explained the use of hands in unlocking the secrets to the carved dragons before them. Strange man. Would have made a rather disconcerting teacher. The dragons' jaws moved. "And damned if we do and damned if we don't," he said. A phrase he must live by, Raine supposed as her red eyebrows rose a little in surprise.

But then, as the jaws shut, she made an exclamation of surprise and stepped forward instinctively to try and grab Foley's shoulder-- missing him only by an inch before he was gone, quick as a flash, down their unyielding throats. The Gryffindor stared at the empty space where her 'mentor' had been, blinking. "You in there yet.... you in there yet...you in there yet..."

The echo came from the dragons' mouths and she scowled momentarily at their reptilian faces, cold stone eyes staring back almost defiantly. Well this was going to be fun. Raine breathed out slowly before, in accurate imitation, following suit by slipping her hands into the toothy mouths. And then those stone eyes were suddenly alive, carved scales suddenly flexible, jaws reaching forward and SNAP! She grit her teeth but didn't wince at the sound.

The pull tugged at her shoulders powerfully and the fall was mildly dizzying (nothing compared to the Portkey ride here). Raine landed nimbly, like a cat, skidding on her feet and leaning forwards slightly. "Coming!" she called out as soon as she'd adjusted to the dark, taking in the green flooring with a prickle of admiration. No expense spared. She glanced up, squinting into the light as she began to clamber upwards. The fangs made for good footholds.

Her mess of red hair popped up between the jaws of the huge dragon, and Raine finally pulled herself up to look out. "Merlin, no such thing as an easy entrance, is there?" Even entering the Ministry was a bother. She hauled herself out of the mouth, looking to Foley once she'd gotten onto the crumbling, ancient steps. He seemed amused by all this. It was grand, no doubt. The witch nodded in the direction of the city: "We're going to have to climb the whole way down, aren't we?"

Torquil helped the girl back onto the ground before properly positioning his straw fedora and reaching back to unlatch his bag, "Civilizations in centuries, some milleniums," he grunted, as he undid his bag, "of hiding tends to put a damper on transportation, doesn't it?" A large falcon then poked it's grey beak out of the bag, before popping its black and cream streaked head all the way out from the bag to look around. Having Kaz back by his side was a relief for the explorer--there was something comforting about having an extra set of eyes, especially ones in the sky.

"But nothing beats a good walk," the Irishman sang as he hugged his arms close to him and excitedly hopped on his toes. The bird them took that moment to propel itself from Torquil's bag and flew off into the air, flying off into the city. Torquil closed his bag and ushered Raine Almasy to accompany him, "Come on, let's go--most endeavors like this involve, you know, just wandering around... getting lost... getting frustrated," he looked at his fellow red-head with a quirky and contemplative expression, "You get fascinated by the strangest things."

His tone remained sing-songy as he kept up a chipper walk, and watched Kaz shrink into the scenery, "Now, are you just interested in running around the world? Or something about the Ancient Chinese got your interest?"

The falcon had already disappeared into a small speck above the city, engulfed in the towering and misty shadows of the mountain. It was like a faint purple and blue blur dashed with patches of green foliage infesting the elderly mountains, one of which was inlaid with a quiet and patient city, seeming to go against time by refusing to crumble into the dark and bottomless fog surrounding the range.

But as the bird landed and perched on a tower in the middle of a city, something disrupted the silence. There was a noise and a flash of light, and in flutter of cloak and shadows a figure had appeared below. He looked around him, then looked at the sky, and then spotted the shadow of the bird perched above him through the labyrinth of roofs. The falcon simply tilted its head in return.

There was one perk to working for the Department of Mysteries: when you got vacation time, you got vacation time.

Which, technically, most of this was. That paradoxical term called a 'business vacation' was at work here. Dorian L MacCullen had not been pulling his leg[1] when he had been talking about some monk like Seers in Tibet that made TTI's study of the timeline look like a blindfolded man trying to pick winning lottery tickets out of a bag. They knew things, and the Cowled Figure investigation was going nowhere. So with heavily implied pressure, Sissel got a one way portkey to the Far East and a last minute meeting with the Seers on short notice.

Well, not them. One of the attendants that handled the 'worldly affairs' while the Seers minds could marvel at the full space time continuum in a locked, heavily protected wing of the monastery. "The Masters feel it proper to only tell you two things."

"Right," Sissel said, unfazed. Of course they would know he was coming. "What's the first thing?"

"You will not find who you seek by looking for him."

That was a blow to the reasons why he had come here. There seemed to be something salvageable. "So, is it really a he or is that a--"

"--figure of speech." Of course it was. "The second thing was this: You are required where you are Forbidden."

And that was it. He had the rest of the day to muse over these oblique clues. Did every Eastern philosophical waxing end in a near hypothetical riddle? He even had paper copies of the statements. It was during his respite in the inn he was staying at when he realized that 'Forbidden' was capitalized. Did that mean something? Hell, it could be the forrest back at school. He was on one side of the world and traveling to another seemed fruitless, even for the lengths Sissel went to.

And then when the idea struck him, there was the buzzing on his egg timer.

These puppies have some amazing range. But then so did the two way mirrors TTI agents had for when Apparating to work would take too long.

"Jarvis, I'm seeing your face about a third of a day behind. You don't look good in the super early morning. What has you at work late?"

"When is work ever considered late for us? I've just gotten in myself."

"Touche. So why am I getting buzzed, I think I'm far outside our jurisdiction."

"It's because you're in the area. We have a report of a legendary artifact in the Forbidden--"

"--City," Sissel finished. There was a mad grin on his face. "Is it a Centennial?"

"No, something unprecedented. If it exists it's something that's been lost for ages. We're talking really obscure history here. Check it out to see if it's authentic."

---

Blending in with a typical tour group was simple. Slipper away was easier when you were a wizard. Sissel looked nonchalant but he was on edge. There were a few magical hotspots around the City, so there was no telling what he could get into. He scanned the walls and buildings behind his mirrored sunglasses. If this was easy, he would have some story to tell the other people at work. Not a great story, but a story if this legendary trinket proved to be interesting.

1.	Thank God for a Good Chair

Idly, in the back of her head, Raine wondered if the long walk into the ancient city would feel any longer than it looked if Torquil Foley was going to be speaking in so melodic a tone all their way down. She decided that the answer to this was yes but wasn't really sure if she cared enough to worry about it. After all, she was away from home and perfectly happy with any reason that facilitated her condition.

The Gryffindor adjusted her satchel across her chest and pushed her hat down before following after the chipper wizard, countenance perfectly neutral. The falcon had been a little surprising but she had eyed it earlier with interest. A pet would be useful at Hogwarts this year. Perhaps something less... feathered.

"Now, are you just interested in running around the world? " Foley asked as they descended the steps steadily, though his gaze was skywards, "Or something about the Ancient Chinese got your interest?"

Raine turned away from admiring the mountainous landscape and frowned to herself musingly. Some measure of the truth, then. She skipped a couple of crumbling steps as she spoke, "Running around, mostly..." the witch balanced herself against the side of the mountain: "I like to keep myself rather busy. Less time thinking, more time doing." They were making good progress but it was clearly still the beginning of the descent.

To be honest, even with all her holiday activities, there was plenty thinking time. But she wasn't going to be accused of sitting at home and moping all summer, "Do you suppose they've left any traps, this civilization?" Raine veered the subject away from her interests: "I've read that some ancient cultures have set up tricks to lure explorers away from their treasures." Or perhaps she'd heard that somewhere, on a muggle television set. Untrustworthy things.

Running around, keeping one's self busy, the only time in his life Torquil indulged himself in such chores was during the time he spent with his cursebreaking friends, and after his first marriage. Surely the Irishman couldn't consider himself a friend, so he considered her situation more similar to the one after his first marriage.

"Ah," he began roughly before dropping into his Irish hum, "Been there, done that. Took me some time to settle down-what with expectations to live up to, people to please," then the man ran a forefinger over his scruffy red mustache, "then somehow, I ended up with a wife and a kid."

Then, realizing that might not be the most comforting thing, added, "Although, I'm positive some heavy drinks played a part in that, and a learned how to use a machete rather quickly." The thought that Miss Almasy may not have any idea how those two things related did not cross the Irishman's mind at all, as he still had a thoughtful and contemplative expression on his face.

"But that's the rule of life, never goes quite as excepted," he threw up his hands at the city at the end up the steps, "Always doubt the information laid before you but--" then his eyebrows rose and he looked up at the young witch, "never doubt."

"So traps?" He added with an eerily jolly and foolish tone, "With my luck, now that you've said, it's sure to happen. But we'll worry about that when strange things start happening." Torquil Foley didn't even make an effort to say "if". If there was anyone who was bound to get into a ridiculous mess, it was himself.

Discreet, magic revealing spells were pointing Sissel to one location and soon he stood before a small shrine with statues of carved dragons. Having a Department of Magical Transportation ID was not just for a cover story, next to the magic of time the magic of travel was one of Sissel's favorite pursuits. He recognized what these dragons were, a kind of situational portkey. Clever. Built into one spot for easy access, but that meant the means of activation would be difficult to determine, otherwise anyone that knew where these were could go to the secret hidden location whatever.

He spent several minutes trying spells and tapping the carved dragons with his wand, then fruitlessly searched every inch of the stone with his fingers for a physical trigger. Sissel grew frustrated and about gave up the scrutiny, wanting to walk the failure off and see if there was some other magical hotspot that was more accessible.

Unknowingly, leaning against the statue with knuckles bent in a certain way had been the hand seal needed for this pair of carved dragons. So the normally iron-stomached Sissel, when it came to extreme changes in momentum, had to hold back the nausea at the unforeseen teleportation...[1]

---

Sissel arrived at a stunningly authentic replica of where he had just been, so it took a moment to get his bearings on whether he had just traveled far or not. This Forbidden City looked much more undisturbed, with buildings crowding closer together. The air pressure also felt different, which Sissel took for an increase in elevation.

Above him there was a piercing cry and he caught a glimpse of a falcon passing over the stretch of open sky. Not the kind of bird he had been expecting to see over here. He wondered if that meant any other people were here or not. Choosing a direction, Sissel began walking deeper into the city, wand ready for another revelation type spell.

It wasn't by spell that he detected the next evidence of magical activity. It was a acrid, rarified smell he knew, lingering in the air because of the higher altitude. Someone or ones had apparated in, and if they could they probably frequented this location enough. Maybe they could give Sissel some answers. He heard singular footsteps around the corner.

"Hello out there," Sissel called, quickening his pace. "Could you help a guy out, buddy?"

The sounds changed and now the person was at a running pace going away from him. Sissel whipped around the corner to catch the edge of a cloak vanishing into an alleyway. Sissel ran pellmell after this unknown figure, the echoing footsteps from ahead mocking his own.

He jumped over some steps, landing in an open pavilion. The person he was chasing was nowhere to be seen but there was something marvelous on the wall towards the East. The wall was taken up with a mural of a dragon, similar to the kinds used in the portkeys. The dragon was moving and staring at him with eyes flashing red. It opened it's mouth and breathed fire out of the wall into the pavilion.

Dragon's flame was very very hot.

It was times like these Sissel wished he could grab his flying doormat but sometimes running was the fastest way to get away from a problem.

1.	this isn't the same pair that Torquil and Raine used, I'm reading it like Sissel is entering from the 'back door' coming from another direction

Foley's response to Raine's comment on running about and trying to keep busy was... perturbing. Nonsensical, perhaps. It gave her a thoroughly irrational inclination to wield a machete and to never (ever) get married.

But she rather liked his mention of doubt and smiled amusedly down at the Irish wizard as he glanced behind at her: "never doubt." The man had a point. There would be no getting anything done at Hogwarts this year if she was constantly second-guessing herself in class; she worked well without Sanya before. No reason she couldn't hobble on without her second half.

"With my luck, now that you've said, it's sure to happen. But we'll worry about that when strange things start happening," Foley continued without so much as hesitating at the mention of traps, a sure sign of an explorer who'd had his fair share of such experiences. Or at least Raine hoped so. Anything she knew of ancient traps came either from books, stories or a fairly dodgy muggle documentary to which she'd only given half of her attention.

They continued to make progress down the archaic stairwell... some parts of it of them crumbled underfoot but short of stumbling or leaping hastily to the next step, nothing serious happened. It wasn't a short descent and Raine felt comfortable not talking through parts of it but the echo of their footsteps made for an undesirable tune. "I don't mean to sound suspicious but," she broke the silence: "Don't you think we would have run into something by n--"

The Gryffindor broke off, feeling something solid click below her boot. A sinking feeling dropped into the bottom of her stomach and she instinctively reached for her wand, only to find herself falling down the stairs as soon as she had it in her hand. Without much warning, each step on the carved stairwell had flattened down with a booming thud-- essentially transforming it into an extremely steep and precarious slide.

Where Sissel missed the fringe of the cloak, a pair of grey talons swooped over the brunette's head and clawed into the mysterious figure's dark clothes, pushing the man forward while tearing off a long and large strip of the cloak. The bird then pushed off the figure's back, spread it's long wings, and took off into the air again, soaring towards the red-headed duo at the entrance of the city.

Torquil was happily stepping and dodging around the crumbling steps towards the city, humming to himself before the whole thing collapsed into a slide! The Irishman couldn't help but give out a whoop as a hand reached to keep his hat on his head, and the other swiped out his wand.

With a flick of his heavy wrist and a few choice words, a puff of snow wafted out of Torquil's wand. It only took a moment before a hollow and fragile cracking echoed against the mountain-side. Then ice began to grow on the stony slide, guiding Torquil and Raine towards the city with more and more speed as Torquil bellowed, "On your feet, keep it steady!"

Torquil and Raine slid beneath an elaborate arch, where the ice began to meld into a grassy floor. Before he hit the grass, Torquil wobbled up onto his feet and skated onto the grass, where he skipped and hopped to a stop.

Now that the elder Foley had finally stopped moving, the short and broad-shouldered man adjusted his fedora and admired the towering and detailed architecture, and the elaborate and confusing levels of the city. "Quite an entrance," he said with a glitter of pride in his hazel eyes, before his voice suddenly and matter-of-factly dropped, "but I imagine our exit will be less graceful."

A journal was quickly procured from his backpack and he slipped out an ink pen from his coat; Torquil quickly flicked through the pages of the notebook and then poised his pen against the air around him, as if drawing on the scenery, "Now... we'll be keeping an eye out for Kaz, in case we get lost," he nodded, "And we need to follow the path of the dragon... something like," his gaze rose from the book and scoured the surroundings, "Ah!"

He walked over to a cobblestone bridge, with its stones erected and carved like the scales on a reptile, and with its railing spiked like a dragon's spine. "See the ground and the railings, we follow it like we're climbing a sea serpent, going against the direction of the 'scales' and towards the 'head'--whatever that is."

It was then that there was a flash of light ahead in the city, and before Torquil could decide put together some theories as to what was occurring, a piece of fabric fell over his head, followed by the grumpy caw of his winged companion.

"I assume this means we're not alone," Torquil said beneath the torn piece of cloak. Then he pointed his pen towards the air and swiped the piece of fabric from his face, "Right, this way then!" And then Torquil started to follow the cobblestone scales, completely disregarding any possible danger he and Raine might be in. Afterall, there was no sense worrying about it until it happened, or until they figured out what in the world was going on.

With a bit more warning, Sissel might have been able to outpace the Dragon's Flame but this was a lost cause as he felt the heat intensify behind him. There had to be an escape around here. The moment he saw an opening along the street he was running down, Sissel pounced into the nook. Anything would be better than being fried by a mural.

Even if escape meant that he was falling a far greater height than he had anticipated for this mysterious city. The architect of this place must have decided to use elevation whimsically. Not about to test whether he would survive the fall like a first year in a flying lesson, Sissel fished into one of his roomy inner pockets for his Flying Doormat.

He barely managed to get his legs in position before hitting the ground, shifting his weight so the doormat rebounded from ker-splat! off an invisible buffer, the twisting acceleration propelling him to the roof of next building. As Sissel cleared the edge and climbed higher, the doormat started to waver. Not being very powerful it never liked to go higher than twenty feet in elevation from whatever section of ground. The moment he passed the roof Sissel would have to be ready to fall down again, unless he had enough momentum to glide across.

Being up, if briefly, revealed a few things. One, that falcon he had seen earlier was circling closer to one of the grand entrances to the city. The other was that, a few blocks ahead in the street, there was a dark cloaked figure running towards the vicinity of the falcon's orbit. That must be the person he was chasing earlier.

Sissel did his best to stay balanced, skillfully skipping the doormat across the roofline, keeping his footing whenever the underside of the mat scraped roofing tile.

As in most things in life, their fall down the flattened stairwell happened far more quickly than Raine would have liked. Foley's reaction seemed almost instinctive to her and she grit her teeth together to keep from biting her tongue in surprise when the entire slide began to freeze over.

All she heard after that was "on your feet," which was more than enough to get her up as they begin gliding down the steep decline. Their surroundings were a blur and the Gryffindor only barely managed to absorb the general impression of the towering city, followed by what must have been a an impossibly intricate arch. She had only just managed to find her bearings on the slippery slope when it began to level out onto grassy earth.

"Thank Merli--" she was going to say but suddenly went toppling over headfirst, quickly turning the fall into a roll forward so that she landed fluidly onto her knees. Her hat had blown away (she did not have her mentor's good sense to keep a hold of it) but everything else was fortunately still put-together.

Raine stood up and dusted off her trousers as Foley spoke. Something about entrances or exists, she wasn't paying much attention. The view before her demanded more consideration. It was like no other city she had ever been to before. In many ways, as convoluted and elaborate as most wizarding structures... but with much more grandeur.

"This is amazing..." she murmured and glanced to the other red head, only to realize he had already began walking away. Raine sighed softly and followed the wizard towards the stone bridge, listening to him with renewed interest now. Climbing a sea serpent. That sounded more impressive than she suspected this was going to be.

And that was when the falcon showed itself again. The witch stared up at the bird with wide eyes, following its graceful movement while Foley dealt with the cloth. She didn't know why but it comforted her to know that they weren't alone here. Places this big simply demanded more people, surely? But before that thought was finished, they were on their way again.

"What do you mean that we're not alone?" Raine asked, as any other sane person would have: "Were you expecting company? It's such a large city. I can't imagine running into anyone else here."

Torquil nearly skipped to a stop as he turned his broad body to look back at Raine, to calmly respond to her, "Very old, big, and empty." "Should be, wasn''t expecting a soul here,"

He raised the piece of fabric up to her, and stretched it, snapping something in the fabric as it shuddered and became invisible. "A special demiguise cloak. I've seen a few in my time, but they cost a fortune," he shook his head and looked around at the towering maze of a city they were in again, before looking back at Raine, "You have this if you're either a very accomplished cursebreaker," his voice dropped into a heavy and scruffy tone, "or a very accomplished thief."

"If you've ever have the opportunity to become stranded with a cursebreaker," Torquil said in a more lighthearted tune, "butting heads with unwelcomed raiders, curesbreakers, or et cetera will never be at the top of your list of things to do."

As if on cue, a loud and thunderous noise roared from behind Torquil, and he jumped around, wand at the ready to get a better look at where it was coming from and what was going on.

From his aerial vantage point, Sissel was able to gauge that he was getting closer and closer to the cloaked figure he was chasing. All while thinking: is this or is this not the same person as the Cowled Figure? There was the motive, possibly, if not the aesthetic qualities of his pursuit's attire.

Whatever the case, Sissel was approaching a prime vantage point just above the cloaked individual that had to deal with stairs and, seemingly, struggling with trying to bunch up or run with the cloak, as if trying to pull it off without actively doing so.

"This would be the time for appropriate but culturally stereotypical and inaccurate catch phrases," Sissel said just before going into a dive off of the roofline. A dive as fast as a plummet. He caught shady unawares and with such force that both were propelled over another balcony into lower sections of the gardens, with trimmed grass and dragon statues big enough to serve as bridges. Sissel and the cloaked figure rolled, the doormat falling to the wayside.

"Now buddy," Sissel knocked a wand that appeared in the figure's hand away, "you have quite a bit of explaining to do--"

That comment was cut short. One, to prevent the assailant's other hand from gripping some strange device half emerged from a pocket. Two, because a massive stone column slammed right next to them causing a localized earthquake. The previous fight was forgotten as Sissel jumped to his feet, his combatant following as more of the cloak was torn from being trapped under the rock, threads fading in and out of sight. No, Sissel realized as he turned on the spot. It wasn't some stone column or rock. It was one of the large surrounding dragon statues come to life.

Hopefully it wouldn't breathe fire. "Merlin's saggy--" was all Sissel could say before cutting off the exclamation was the other foreleg of the dragon statue threatened to squish him. Again, Sissel was chasing the figure in the ragged cloak for different reasons, both running away from present danger. Sissel struggling for his wand, the other for the object trapped in a ruined pocket.

And up ahead, more people. Whether they were in it with cloaky here or just by some bizarre circumstance present in a benign fashion Sissel couldn't postulate in the intensity of the moment. Instead, as the dragon statue pursuing the members of the previous chase scene nearly squished them with another leg, Sissel yelled "DO SOMETHING!"

What was going on.

Raine was accustomed to acting instinctively to events and motions but this adventure of theirs was beginning to test how wisely she reacted to sudden shifts of situations. First the sliding stairwell and now this. Whatever this was. The two redheads were on the verge of crossing over the dragon bridge when the sound erupted.

Foley's back had been turned to the commotion and he twirled around just as the Raine herself was trying to focus on what was going on ahead of them. Two figures had fallen... jumped? They had somehow appeared in the area, neither of them recognizable but one of the figures was clearly wearing a garment made from the material that the falcon had grabbed a sample of, earlier. Demiguise.

Not that she had time to think about that or its significance. The ground was shaking, quaking; it was growling, a low and grinding sound that the Gryffindor could feel resonating in her chest. Dragon. The stone dragon was coming alive. It was coming alive. Raine already had her wand at hand when one of the figures, clearly running for his life, yelled out at them.

"DO SOMETHING!"

The man had a point. She didn't need to think twice. "Consisto cilicis!"[1] Raine yelled as she waved her wand in the direction of the draconic statue. Large and monstrous-- but, she might have noted under other circumstances, beautiful. The stone creature only made a louder, thunderous sound at the spell. But then it froze.

Sort of... she stepped back a few paces. It hadn't stopped completely, if anything it looked like it was very slowly trying to break loose of restraints, one reptilian claw posed inches away from landing against the ground. "I don't think that's going to last," Raine muttered to Foley as she tightened the grip on her wand. He'd know what to do... she wasn't particularly confident about messing with ancient magics.

1.	Freezing or paralyzing charm for non-living objects, to be added to Wiki.

No harm, here to help and protect, "Nah, resistant to harmful tampering--persistence and loyalty also doesn't go with age," but one's mind did.

Everything happened quickly the two men arriving, the torn cloth matching the other man's cape, the dragon coming to life, the magical and architectural construction of the city, and Torquil's mind began reeling at everything. Part of him was deducing who these people were, another was deducing an escape route, and another was thinking of a distraction. Incomplete and racing thoughts stormed through his mind.

• "DO SOMETHING!"

Raine was quick to react, good girl,  and she bought a few extra moments for Torquil to pick out and finish two thoughts: distract and escape.

"Nah," he said in response to his companion's concern, "Resistance to harmful tampering--persistence and loyalty don't go with age--" but the mind did; he needed a twist on technical instructions. He didn't finish his sentence as he focused on how he and Raine were helpful and protective, how the man who asked for help needed some form of protection, and the same might be true for his cloaked companion. The thought was vague and indecisive, but it was enough, he didn't have time to force his will to finish it as the dragon's movements became more fluid and he broke free from Raine's spell. The Irishman quickly raised his wand and his voice boomed around them:

"CONFUNDUS OMNINO[1]!"

With a dazed look in its eyes, the dragon immediately sucked in a breath and reared its head back and rather than breathe fire it shook its head violently before it looked back down on the four people trespassing in its realm. Or were there only two trespassers? It narrowed and squinted its eyes as it looked between everyone, looking for an answer between them, but before he could think too much about it Torquil held onto his hat and swiftly jogged beneath the stone beast, as if he were running late to work. The dragon only glanced at the Irishman before it focused on the others.

As Torquil got past the stone beast he continued on the short sidewalk of scales before reaching a strange and old stone lift that seemed to be connected to a track that rose and disappeared into a tunnel that led to a twisted and curling track. The broad-shouldered wizard took out a scalpel and poised it on a nearby panel with his wand, as if he were magically welding something. The stone lifted seemed to breathe an air of life and shift a little at Torquil's tampering before the man finally looked up at the others (Raine primarily) and yelled, "Come on! Let's go kid!"

1.	added completely to the Confundus spell