Not every silence need be awkward, but the young general had a nervous tension about her that pushed the deliberation well into the sphere of the uncomfortable. Storm had grown accustomed to allowing the vulnerability of his intellectual limits to be known to Shinsou, but amongst others he enjoyed a terrific air of superiority that he rarely failed to lord. Pulling the sweet cherry richness from his pipe, the wizard stared briefly at his shoes for answers that weren’t available on the beaten leather boots. They lacked the sheen he would prefer to garnish, but riding into town on horseback looked patently absurd if you didn’t wear boots.

“Time magic… shit, we get a chance to feel how the townfolk feel about us. Time? This asshole’s more than powerful, it makes him a god.”

Click. Light had dawned, as he tried to work the logic out loud.

“I had presumed he had shot back to you using a portal, but if he can control time, wouldn’t we be dead?”

In his own modest mental capacities, Storm was sure he’d discerned something here. Freezing time altogether or popping back and forth through time would render someone literally invincible. It’s very easy to win a fight when you’ve already fought it and know your opponents moves; easier still to simply put a wire across his throat in his sleep as a child.

Still the same, we’ve just jumped into water over our heads.

Another puff of smoke filled him; his lungs tingled and heartrate settled. There was something reassuring about the posit that he had made. If he was going to embark on a mission against someone with something so intimidating as fucking time at their disposal, then he’d need a dose of confidence in his corner.

“He’s bound by rules. He HAS to be, or we’d be long dead by now. He wouldn’t have waited through Radasanth or allowed us to come close to stopping him in Tylermande.” Storm was facing the bookshelf now, trying to glean information through the copious stacks of green and black-backed hardcovers that he absolutely had not read.

“That’s the good news. The bad news is time is still a trump card far and above my big fancy magnets and your assorted bags of tricks.” He wondered about the young-looking stranger introduced as “Canen”, who apparently didn’t age. Did he have any magic to bring to the table? Perhaps something equally preposterous? The ability to summon meteorites, perhaps? Those seemed to do a number on the place.

Probably a fancy turn of phrase for a vampire. Ageless, silly, and weak as an elderly fart.

With this, he turned an eye toward General Rhyolite, who appeared to move back and forth. She was still a bit of a mystery to him; perhaps she had something up her sleeve as well. After all, it was unlikely she rose to the ranks of General based on cheekbones and an extra strong jaw.

“Still the same, not too many can make a scene better than we can. If we can’t figure out his rules, do we have anything? Does your old-teenage-looking buddy know anything of value? A family home that I could torch in the cold light of day? A few similarly long-toothed friends of Arius that he’d be upset to see turned into a human firework?”

Veritas turned back to the others in the small room, rubbing his temples with his right hand. “Would like to play offense for a change. Make him act irrationally, out of rage, and outside his comfort zone.”

A cunning smile as he turned to the relative newcomer. “Generally General-like general ideas, General?”