Lost Section of Eisriesenwelt Caves

"For real." It stabbed at his heart how she no longer trusted his word. He'd work his hardest to fight his natural inclination.

She smiles, kissing him.  "Thank you..."

"You're welcome.." He kissed her back, and decided that now may be a good time to get Artisan to make some defenses around their home. 

OOC Because when you're Crest, you can never be too paranoid

Arriving with the criminal in hand to the icy and black caves, it was clear that Crest had made some renovations since his time as a 'fugitive' here. All ice that made up the floor had been bewitched to not be slippery, and the cavern walls were lined with either confiscated artifacts that were deemed too useful to destroy or too dangerous to allow even into the aurors hands. 

A desk made of ice lined one of the walls with only Crest's wand as light. Several rooms had been carved out by magic, some serving as makeshift cells, storage rooms for food and water, and others meeting rooms for Crest's vast network. 

Crest took him into one of the cells and threw him in there. With a wave of his wand the ice around the outside of the door frame froze inward to seal him in. 

"Are you hurt?" Crest asked Meredia, finally allowing his hunter instincts to lower once he felt secure.

"No, but he is." She had sustained minor injuries such as grazes and srapes on her knees, but she did not complain in the slightest. "It will hurt his mind more if you toss him like a piece of garbage." Meredia only had her concerns for the man's welfare, wondering how they would extract information from him if he was in constant fear.

"Perhaps you did sustain a head injury. This man just tried to kidnap you." Crest argued dryly as he examined her wounds.

They were extremely minor, hardly worth the healing spells necessarily but Crest applied them regardless. Meredia of all people didn't deserve pain.

Her delicate lips thinned into a frown, not thanking him for the healing spell.

"He's just a pawn in a greater scheme. He was offered money and told to do a job. He isn't evil." She stated how she saw it, casting a charm on the man to improve his slumber.

"His memory has been tampered with, so maybe that didn't even happen. He couldve been cursed into thinking he accepted money from a masked man to kidnap me. We won't know the truth unless his mind is given a chance to recover." Meredia witheld her judgement of people until the truth was almost certain, deeming it unfair to do otherwise.

"He couldn't be under the imperius curse. Victims of that curse feel no fear when they do what they were ordered. And they both did. They did it of their own free will and pawn or not, he may have information."

Meredia was far too soft to get the job done. These people didn't deserve any sort of pity or empathy. It was trash like him that kept him necessary...

And he couldn't forgive him for that.

"Once I've gotten all I can get from him, I'm sending him to Cayden. What she does with him afterwards will be mercy." Hoping that will ease her mind. 

"Do you have any idea why someone would be after you?"

Her shoulders lost some of their tension. "I like Cayden, she's a just woman." Meredia had fond memories of the senior auror, respecting someone who had remained just.

"Promise me you won't scar him. Too many people have suffered for you to induce more suffering." She insisted, before considering her options.

"I would assume it's because of my family. I keep my head down, I don't cause trouble. I'll be a target just because I'm a Desouza." She added, tone weighted with sadness.

"That certainly is Death Eater thinking." Crest concurred, "You should stay here. Only a few people know about this place, and I thoroughly trust them." 

"I'll inform Bryn of this development as well. When I return, I'm going to try and get as much information as I can out of the prisoner...""

"W-Where are you going? Why am i staying here?" Meredia felt trapped, and it wasn't that she distrusted Crest, she just hated to be alone in enclosed spaces. She was wary, to say the least.

"I already told you. To find Bryn and tell him of what's happened."

"No one knows of this place. You're perfectly safe here." He promised her, unsure as to why she'd feel uneasy. It was just a dark cave with no people. This place should be the most liberating location in the world.

ooc not her idea of liberation lmao

ic "Then bring him here." she insisted again, peering over at the unconscious man. In all honesty, she felt uncomfortable in his presence because she would be too tempted to let him out, which would anger her friend. Meredia knew it was the right thing to do - eventually - but maybe enabling her attacker to escape at this moment wasn't the best idea.

"You can trust my brother as much as you can trust me."

OOC Maybe not, but it is his! XD

IC

"Remains to be seen." 

"He is capable. But his methods are..." He tried to find the right word, "Unorthodox. We are aligned yes, but..."

"I don't trust him the way I do you. At least not yet. I'm trying." He assured her earnestly, "I don't want to go through life alone anymore, but I can't just open the floodgates yet..."

He sighed, "I'll bring him here... if it means that much to you."

"I just think that you and Bryn are different, but you aren't as different as you appear. If you don't trust him, then you can't work together as well. Believe me, he wants you to trust him." Meredia clearly spoke fondly of her brother, willing to put herself in gruelling situations for him if it was necessary. He loved her, and that was all she needed. 

"He really is like you. You can both get under the skin and mindset of the Death Eaters without becoming corrupted. Bryn would rather kill them with kindness, whilst you try and do it your way." 

"Maybe bringing him here would ease your wariness."

"Unlikely." Crest never felt at ease. He couldn't even remember the last time he did. Pressure came to him as simply as a flow of oxygen. 
Could he trust this person?
Could he capture the suspects in time?
Could he save them?
Did his wife see him as a monster?
Did he conceal himself well enough from his foes?
Did he have a chance at being normal, even after this?

But he vanished, to act on his promise. He'd at bare minimum try to open up, even with all the anxieties that came with it.
What if he was captured?
What if he were interrogated about my location?
What if he and everyone in here was killed as a result of him knowing where they were?

All he could rationalize in an attempt to ease himself was:
What if you need him to know?

She attempted to ease him by placing a gentle hand on his shoulder. "It's gonna be alright." She spoke quietly, watching as his body had stiffened whilst all the thoughts had raced through his mind.

"I know.. trust people isn't easy, especially when nobody seems to deserve it, but my brother does. He's had a lot to prove to people, and he's not one to break a promise. If you're worried about safety, then you needn't be with him. Sure, he can pry and ask too many personal questions of people, but he would always put his friends and family first. That includes you, y'know."

Meredia offered him a smile, one that easily reached her eyes and lit up her usually sombre expression. "You're a good friend to me."

He remained quiet, but not out of disinterest but rather lack of knowing what to say. He was grateful for her friendship and words, but he knew not how to express it.

He disapparated, seeking to find Bryn. But mere seconds before he disappeared, was that a smile?

ooc gonna magically assume crest agreed and brought bryn here  

ic Bryn rushed over to his sister, drawing her into his embrace and stroking her bark-coloured hair. "Oh Mer, I'm so sorry." The guilt he felt for causing her to be a target almost crippled him, but he knew it was neccessary.

But the girl did not seem to mind, still smiling at Crest and relieved he had allowed her brother to be here. She was certain the two would work their methodological issues out and become a force of their own. The fact she had been almost kidnapped - and potentially killed - did not seem to hinder at all.

"You both need to worry about the man, not me." She stepped back, taking a seat on a frozen ledge and allowing the two to hopefully get on with their work without interference from her. 

Bryn crouched by the man's cell, who was still unconscious. He was concerned that even if his impaired memories were recovered, they would offer little to no fruitful information. Maybe the attacker had fought that far, but presumed not if the Death Eaters - or "masked men" - were behind it.

"are you good with legillimens Crest?" Bryn had had no need for learning the spell, as his method of extracting information had usually involved talking with the person until they fixed the jigsaw themselves.

"Yes," He pulled out his wand and allowed him and Bryn to enter the cell. But what he didn't share was that he was a little out of practice with Ye spell. His more direct approach was typically enough for him to draw any information he wanted.

But intimidating and beating a man who didn't remember what he wanted to know would be an exercise in futility.

He took a breath in, placing his wand at his forehead as he remembered the steps. "Legillimens!!"

Bryn eyed both Crest and the assailant carefully, studying them for reactions.

The man screamed, jolted awake by the mental intrusion. Thoughts shifted through his mind of the masked man, in a forest shrouded in mist and darkness. The voice was distorted as his mind's eye focused on the figure.

"Bring the Desouza girl to me. There will be no other questions. We will rise." The same scene seemed to replay itself, as if the attacker's mind was a crack in a broken record.

Whoever did this clearly knew what they were doing.

He needed to break out of that loop and get more details. While he scrutinized the scene that continued to play, it was not enough information. Once he was sure he memorized every detail, he pressed in with his legillimens strengthening his intrusion. The spell came back to him like a muscle he'd failed to flex for a while. There had to be more he could gleam.

The man's yelling increased sharply as he tried to resist the legillimens, purely because the act of trying to unearth the memories was causing him mental anguish. 

However, the record seemed to stop, revealing another figure at the scene. The silhouette shrouded his sharpened ears under a death eater mask, his golden eyes gleaming from underneath.

"This will be fun." Lukas tucked his tail beneath the long cloak.

The other figure remained mute, simply repeating the words from before.


Bryn watched the man with deep concern, taking his hands and trying to soothe him. He would not allow Crest to mentally break him.

The scream however fell on deaf ears to Crest. He had long become immune to the sounds of interrogation, in no small part to his former mentor desensitizing him to it. 

'Lukas... benefactor.' It seemed unlikely that Lukas directly organized this. That wasn't his style. He'd aide and abet, but masterminding didn't seem like him. 

'Coward.'

But he'd reserve that judgment until he could see the other face, an eye color, any incriminating detail that would put him on the path.

He pressed on again, even harder. He'd extract every last morsel of information from his mind until he was ready to drop dead. Only when he was a mere inch away from collapse would he cease.

The man's mind seemed close to snapping, the shrieking clearly seeming to affect the Desouza boy. The longer the spell lasted, the deeper the anxiety pitted in his stomach. His need to stop the spell increasingly ate away at him.

However, the illusion placed on the man seemed to crack at the edges, for the mask of the Death Eater repeating the words seemed to fade slightly. Bright blue eyes could be made out, but the man could not seem to surrender any more detail. Perhaps he'd never seen the face to begin with, and the spell was exacerbating the little detail that he already knew.

"Crest, you need to stop. Right now." Bryn warned him, drawing his wand and speaking in an authoritative tone that was foreign on the boy's tongue. "He doesn't know anything."