It... it wasn't really all that astonishing.

"Uh... No, thanks..." John said before Robyn could open her mouth to speak again. Her amber-colored eyes narrowed slightly at him as he gave his answer, and slowly the atmosphere in the room changed. Whatever sexual and awkward charge that his presence had caused in their 'all girls' organization was gone for the time being. John was left to stand there as Robyn stared at him, and something shook Eddie out of her stupor. She, too, glared at John for a moment before she rushed back over to her table and, with a loud squeak from a nearby chair, sat down to work on Robyn's mechanical arm.

"What do you mean... 'no, thanks?'" Robyn growled out at him, and the one good arm she had tensed slightly as she stepped out from around the other side of the worktable and came face to face with John. Her teeth ground together audibly as she moved to be within an arm’s reach of him... and then stopped, and she locked eyes with the young Gamer. She didn't let him look away or awkwardly try to hide behind one of his hands, she demanded that he look back at her if he was going to turn her down.

"I mean..." he paused for a moment and watched as Eddie tried and failed to discreetly steal a glance at the two of them from the edge of her vision. She didn't actually turn to face him. Instead, she made a point not to... like she was already trying to give him some kind of 'cold shoulder treatment'. "...I already dealt with those 'Cabalists' once. I don't mean to risk my life just so all of you can try to do it again."

"Your life?!" Robyn exclaimed. Her jaw had clenched so tightly that her lower lip began to shake as her face flushed into an angry shade of red, but he couldn't look much further past her hand or her eyes. As soon as she had barked at him at least once, her only hand lashed out and seized the front of his shirt like she expected him to run away. "You wouldn't even have a life right now if not for us! You only had to fight one of them, thanks to us! You-"

"I got lucky!" he snapped back and somehow surprised Robyn enough to make her eyes widen and jump back away from him. "I know that! This whole damn week has just been an endless series of lucky moments for me... but I... I can't keep relying or waiting for something good to happen when I need it to. I'm sorry, but there's no sane reason for me to help you." There was a long beat of silence as Robyn stared at him hard and Eddie failed to watch them discreetly before the one-armed woman's features hardened up again.

"You owe them this," she insisted, and John shook his head. "They saved your life! They saved-"

"Both of them tried to kill me!" A loud clank echoed throughout the room followed by a horrible snap of metal as Eddie, with her eyes still locked onto the two of them, twisted something so far inside the mechanical arm that it broke. The robotic hand abruptly clenched and tightened into a iron fist as Eddie yanked her hand away swearing and a hissing spray of steam shot out of the gap that she had been tinkering through, but neither John nor Robyn seemed ready to back down or look away from one another. A part of him hated the idea of turning them down, because in a way... she was right. He just didn't want to risk his life, Grace's life, or his mom's again. The part that really made his stomach twist and turn though came from what he said next. It wasn't exactly necessary for the conversation, a part of him just said it to try and get her to back down. "...And so did you."

A computer beeped in the far back corner of the little cove they had all been standing in, and Eddie quickly rushed over to the screen. Robyn took another step back away from John, disarmed by his most recent statement before she let her face soften while the Gamer turned back to the exit. Nobody tried to stop him, and as far as he could tell, there wasn't a reason for him to stay. If he were stronger... then he might have tried to help, but at the moment, he couldn't stop thinking about the moment when he saw Grace get shot. The image of her body jerking uselessly on the ground played back through his head like some kind of online video that had been set to repeat over and over again.

"In other news, I tested that frozen dagger you found in the room where we thought Cassandra might have been taken from," Eddie stated suddenly, and John hesitated. It wasn't necessarily the worst idea to just try to eavesdrop on some information. At the very least, he might have been able to learn something that would have helped him to avoid more danger in the future. It was... useful. He swallowed and stepped just far enough away from the other two to move out of sight and behind one of the nearby curtains that separated the basement into little rooms and coves. The hanging, purple, woolen cloth was surprisingly heavy and difficult to close behind himself. "As far as I can tell though, there wasn't any trace, magical or biological, on it that could be used to detect or locate its owner. They covered their tracks really well... almost like they called someone in to clean up the mess after they were done."

"That's not possible. We were there before anyone could have finished erasing any trace of their presence and have had the barrier locked down and under surveillance since the event took place at Crescent Meadows." Robyn paused long enough to reach out for the curtain that John had stepped through and pulled it back far enough to look at the Gamer. Her nose scrunched up like she had smelled something horrible, and she stood there silently for a long moment, as if struggling with an idea, before she finally let out a **** sigh and addressed him again. "Alright, John... what if we paid you for your services?"

"Oh?" he said and cocked an eyebrow at Robyn as she braced her hand on her hip. The prospect of being rewarded certainly interested him, but he wasn't sure about how much danger he wanted to get into. On the other side of Robyn, he watched as Eddie picked up and opened a large cardboard box and then began sifting through it. She was careful and slow as she worked, but it didn't take her long to draw out the dagger she was talking about, which still had thick layer of frost coating its long, narrow blade, and then she pulled out a number of other small things. She retrieved a small, crumpled, red cap, a flattened cigarette, and the pieces of the machine that had all come from the 'Fateweaver hedge mage' that John's observe had told him about. It wasn't much to work with, but a part of him was already eyeing it up like it was stuff that he could possibly loot or safely identify. It seemed like he had a chance to make it so that he didn't even have to fight with them. He just had to look at some things and tell them about it.

"We're nowhere near as rich as the Brightons, but, yes, we can try to compensate you for your work, either through fresh equipment or money. Whatever... help you can provide would be greatly appreciated." It took her a couple of seconds, but when Robyn had finally strained through the rest of her request, she gestured him back over to the table behind her. John looked at the clues again... and then over to the bag of E.M.P. grenades... and then back over to Eddie... The potential for earning himself some kind of strange science fiction gear was too tempting to pass up. Robyn had a hammer with an engine in it! How could he turn down the chance to get one of his own?

"From what I can tell, this is some kind of fateweaving-" Eddie started to brief him on what they knew as soon as John crossed the room and touched his fingers to the pieces of the fateweaver machine. She didn't get very far though before John interrupted her.

"I don't know what a Fateweaver is," he stated, and Robyn sighed... loudly. A part of him did, however, remember observing the device, and with a couple of thoughts and presses to his screens, he pulled the Observe sheet back up. "I mean I have an idea, but... maybe you should explain it."

"Maybe this was a mistake," Robyn muttered and shook her head. "A Fateweaver is essentially a barrier professional. They do crazy shit with magical worlds and time," she said, and Eddie blinked slowly at the blonde soldier. That was pretty much what John had been thinking.

"That was probably the simplest way of describing that... and the worst," Eddie muttered under a soft breath. Again, the redhead turned her attention back to the broken box and pointed at it for him again. "It's-

"It's a 'Barrier Locator And Displacement Device,'" John read the name of the object off his screen and then quickly read the description he had of the object to the two of them.

Barrier Locator And Displacement Device
This heavy piece of equipment was made, under duress, to try and emulate some of the many barrier powers that Fateweavers use. This machine has no visible user interface, a part of an intentional, **** design put in to try and guarantee the continued need of its creator. To try and save his own life, the maker of this box tried to make it so that he was the only one left who could use it. While in the hands of an experienced and knowledgeable user, this box can be used to move, procure, or extract people from, in and out of a barrier.
+100% Additional Time Dilation

As soon as he was done talking though, the room fell silent. Both girls stared hard at him as he casually looked up from his screen, blushed at the amount of blatant staring being done towards him, and then looked back down at the other items. Unfortunately, using Observe on the box again didn't tell him anything new other than the fact that it was now broken and could not be used.

"The uh... guy that this hat and cigarette belonged to... did you manage to save him?" he asked, and they both continued staring at him. Eddie was the first to return to her senses after John had switched topics, but she didn't give him an answer he liked. She just shook her head and was on the verge of repeating the victim's name before John told her to stop and asked her not to. There was still too much of that day that plagued his thoughts already, he didn't want to learn that and try and deal with any more of it.

It was hard enough already hearing Eddie confirm that the stranger was dead, so he didn't even bother using Observe on his personal items either. The dagger, on the other hand, was a different story. He was more than ready to Observe that and almost smiled when he did.

Observe has leveled up!
Observe is now level 6!

"I wasn't able to find any traces of the person who might have used this knife, but I did reach out to a buddy of mine in New Rome about what he, or some of the other people there, might know about this dagger. I briefed Robyn on this already, but I guess we might as well tell you in case you suddenly know something that we don't... again." Eddie leaned forward as John stared at the space between the dagger and himself, but as far as she and Robyn could tell, he wasn't casting any magic.

"Yeah, how did you know that about the box if you only joined the Abyss a week ago?" Robyn cocked an eyebrow at him, and John simply shrugged.

"I have an ability that can give me information on things." He avoided giving a better explanation than that. As far as he was concerned, the specifics were still his secret to keep.

"Right... well, my buddy told me that the picture I gave him of the dagger seemed similar to a weapon that was used in the assassinations of some Spanish officials. The culprit was never caught, nor was there ever a picture or a proper face applied to the criminal, but there was always a name that she left behind with her crimes... or an alias... or whatever you want to call it. She used a nom de plume- No, guerre. She-" Eddie's rambling was cut off finally when Robyn stepped in to finish what she was trying to say.

"The assassin calls herself Otrov. A quick search in a web browser revealed it to be nothing more than a Bosnian word for 'Poison'. It's a taunt she throws at her victims and witnesses to try and tease them with the fact that she's coated her weapons in the stuff. Probably because she likes feeling smarter than the people that she stabs in the back." Robyn scowled at the knife for a moment like she could see the narcotic that had been wiped onto its blade before John finally piped up again. "This one has a paralytic on it, one of the many variants of Hydra venom."

"Can you search for people on your computers?" he asked Eddie who quickly nodded at him.

"Well, I can look them up; I can't necessarily always find them. That depends on how well hidden they are."

"...Look up Michel Alexeev Vitaly for me..." A large, strange lump appeared in his throat as soon as he finished the request. It wasn't a hard thing to do. Eddie simply shrugged and went to the computer while Robyn put a hand on his shoulder.

"John..." she said, and he ignored her. Almost as soon as the words had been typed in, a picture of John's friend and workout buddy popped up on the screen. His blond hair, blue eyes, and giant, bright, white smile stared back hard at the Gamer as the rest of the web page loaded... and then Eddie scrolled down to the information that she had found about him. According to the information she found, Michel had actually been born in Bosnia, not America. As a child he had never been a part of the Abyss, or the world of magic, he was born into a world of terror and ****, with black hair and dark, grey eyes... in the early 1940's. His family was systematically slaughtered in front of him during a time of war, until he was the only one left... and then he was somehow miraculously saved and pulled out of Bosnia before the end of the decade. The very next time he was sighted was a decade later when he started moving all across Germany and had inexplicably grown into a full head of golden blond hair and shiny blue eyes. His mysterious disappearance and then reappearance was preceded with the sudden influx of thousands of necromancer deaths caused by the Order of the Golden Rose, and then he disappeared again after thirty long years. The Cabal thrived briefly in the time that Michel stayed in Germany, as if the Order and the locals had finally backed off after he arrived, and then the majority of the Cabal's business disappeared inexplicably along with Michel until he reappeared again... in Springfield.

John didn't have to read much more than that; he knew quite a lot about what happened to Michel after he got to Springfield, and he didn't care to read about the specifics of what his old friend did. He brought his attention back to the matter at hand... and then immediately lost it again when he thought about who else he could get information on here. The more dangerous ones that he knew of the Flame was already researching, but there was still one person that he could think of that he wanted to know about.

Daniel Salvador.

The short, bald, male biker that John had met at the hospital wasn't actually very well known to the rest of the Abyss. By all accounts, he was incredibly new to the scene, just like John, and had only recently caught the eye of some Abyssal spy when he stumbled across 'a group of Rockers' and brought them to heel. The previous leader, who didn't even get a physical description in the report on Salvador, was killed off in a coup that Daniel had convinced his men to help him with and then was immediately forgotten about. The remaining loyalists to the old leader were also killed off, and since then, Daniel has sat in Springfield and slowly pushed his group up into a higher state of luxury.

"That's pretty much all that there is on him. It doesn't really say where he came from or what he can do," Eddie said and then shrugged and apologized.

"It's okay, I think I have an idea of what it is that he can do," John said, and both girls blinked at him again. "Now, can you look up Alanah Walsh." Robyn's brow furrowed on the edge of John's vision as Eddie typed in yet another name. The two of them sighed slowly as they waited for some kind of answer for what John was doing, but when he didn't give it, Robyn had to ask him what it was about.

Eventually, the picture of Daniel disappeared, and a shapely brunette with a slim waist took his place. Her short, curly, jet-black hair glistened in the light of her picture and would have drawn attention to how well she took care of it, if not for the fact that her wide, innocent smile outshone her face's other prominent features. It was a just a single shot of the upper half of her body, and all of the information that it had was mostly just stuff about the kinds of things that Alanah liked... like Scotch or frozen yogurt... but it was more than enough for John.

"I kind of understand searching for the others, but why Alanah Walsh?" Robyn asked, and a small smile crept across his face.

"Because that... is Otrov..."

The Hydra's Eighth Fang / Unusable, Frozen.
Poisonous Stiletto - Legendary Weapon.
This dagger is one piece of a whole set. The set of weapons that this piece comes from belongs to a member of the Cabal that has quickly earned herself the nickname 'Hydra', otherwise known as Alanah Walsh or 'Otrov', for her love of poisons and seemingly endless supply of knives. The opal encrusted into its hilt glistens with a sickly green sheen, if one can catch a glimpse of proof of the magic it has been infused with, but otherwise looks like a simple knife. Despite the assumptions that many people make upon seeing this knife, it is not in fact coated with poison but instead is poisonous itself, and the slick, dark blade might usually hint at that if it weren't for the fact that it has been permanently covered in a thin layer of ice.
+Unusable
+Unusable
+Unusable