Just a simple task.

Place: The ruins of Torch, far from the soul production company E-vita.
Surroundings: Ashes, dust and dirt. Some faint hints of what once could have been houses and buildings.
Weather: Unknown.
Topic for: @Omen

This place gave him the creeps. He hadnt been alive when this place had been in it’s former glory, so he had no image to compare it to. There had been many stories and recollections from books, how the sun used to nourish the natural beauty with no distractions of food produce of any kind. Daemons did after all live by ingesting souls, so whatever production that had been on Torch had been for export purposes only.
Now it was all just a wasteland, a burned down nothingness. The smoke still thick above ground to block out the sun, making the sky seem like a red copper. “There were no definitive directions,” Baal said as he moved forward, his hound running wild to scout the area. He was unsure of what they really had been asked to do, because a book somewhere in the ancient ruins was mentioned. But since when had that been a summoner’s job to go and collect? “It’s hard to believe that this place has been a capitol for daemons,” he mumbled a little to himself stopping as he crouched down to grab some dirt mixed with ash. It was never windy, so he’d guess that the ashes laid where they had burned. There was a lot of dark energy in the air, like a buzzing electrisity.

It had been a bit since he'd been sent out on a mission - if you asked Omen, it was about damn time. He had been itching to get out and do just something, even if this something wasn't really anything he judged as fitting for his own capabilities. No matter, though. While Baal's hound searched in one direction, Omen's searched in another, making sure they covered as much ground as they could, as fast as they could.

Whereas Baal seemed to get the creeps from being here, Omen felt quite at ease, truth be told. The desolate wastes were somehow calming to him. "Well... Anything that is built can just as easily be destroyed." he commented - capitol or not, a war could wipe out almost anything, if it dragged on for long enough, or the attacks were sufficiently violent.

He looked at where Ball stopped, bending down to pick at some of the ashes, before he suddenly looked up - seeming to be sniffing in the air... As his hound had caught a scent that differed from everything else around here. Something that wasn't just dust and ash and earth. Almost automatically, he turned to the direction his hound had been running. "Hang on... I might have found something." he couldn't quite place it, though... He began walking towards the spot, where his hound - like a drug dog in the city might - had sat down in the spot where it had found the scent trail.

"Just proof of exactly how fierce the war was, I guess." Omen said, shrugging a little - before his hound, and thereby himself, too, had caught the scent... And they followed it. He did know more than a few people who found him odd with just how strong his connection was to his summons, with how animalistic it made him seem, sometimes.

And once they were over there, he, himself, did not begin to dig like Baal... His hound did, instead, after a single mental order... No need to tell it to do it out loud. Another bonus of that stronger bond, never needing to tell his summons anything out loud, it was enough to just think of the command. And of course - he smelled it, too. He wrinkled his nose a little, the smell sharp and pungent... Very possibly s body or the likes that had been buried underground for centuries to turn into nothing but mush inside.

"Well, at least I found something. Even if it's probably just the remains of an age-old corpse." he said, shrugging. Not at all as repulsed by it as Baal seemed to be. "But maybe it would be good to bring a sample, just in case..." and then he reached into his clothes, pulling out a vial... And rather than dip his own hand into the goo, he went over to Baal, to scrape the worst of it off of the summoner's hand, and into the vial, before he screwed the lid on as tight as possible. Then, he simply looked over at his hound - and it immediately began to cover the hole with the dirt again.

“Well I doubt that it will be the last one today,” he said, looking down at the black mass with a thoughtful expression. It had to be a corpse or something like it. There was just something about the mass that felt powerful. He didnt refuse to cooperate as Omen reached out to sample the goo in a vial, since the temple wanted anything they could get from this forsaken land. It was said that daemons had to be on their guard at all times, or the ghosts of former living daemons would come out of their hiding to find a new host body. Baal didnt believe in it at all, but he wasnt stupid either. Baal’s hound continued it’s walk as it’s snout stuck to the ground.

Baal dried his hand off on his pants, getting the worst of the goo off. For the last bit, he just dug into the dirt below and made sure that his hands would be dried out by the dust and dirt. He got up on his feet again and ran his hand over each other, removing the worst layer of dust. “Did you get any hints as to what we should be searching for?” He asked - Clearly he had recieved none of the sort. But then again, he hadnt exactly been showing much of unconditional obidience, which was probably why they wouldnt tell him anything.

"Indeed. With a war of that magnitude - there's thousands of decaying corpses hidden in the soil." Omen sighed, as he stretched his back a little, having scraped the stuff off of Baal's hand into the vial. Once it was safely stowed away in his inner pocket, he began walking away, his hound done covering the goop up again, and scouting ahead with Baal's hound once more.

"I did." he then said, looking around - both through his own, and his hound's eyes, knowing exactly what to be on the lookout for, although he knew it was more a feeling than the look of the spot that might tell something about him being the right place to find the object. "You won't be in doubt when you feel it. If it feels pretty much like it does when a seraphim stands in front of you, then we're on the right track." he said - not disclosing any more at this point in time. He had received a briefing all alone, before they'd briefed him and Baal together - apparently they trusted Omen a lot more with the more crucial information, but then again, he had never questioned an order, never wavered in his loyalty and faith. Seemed like they appreciated that.

He should have known that the other summoner would have recieved far better instructions, afterall his loyalty had never wavered, not once it seemed. Baal couldnt say the same, he had had his fair fights with the ones in charge. He just couldnt see the point in fighting the seraphim just because their god willed it - It seemed mindless. So when Omen explained that it had the same feeling as sharing presence with a seraph, Baal had to search his mind for what that once felt like. He had been so determined on following his own will, that he barely felt that natural repulsiveness to the blessed beings. “Might be a problem down the road,” he mumbled to himself, looking back at the hole with the substance.
It didnt add up that there would be a corpse there, everything had been scorched by godly hands, a trace of what had once been shouldnt have been possible. He looked around, frowning a little to himself. “Dont forget the way back. Everything’s so alike, we could end up spending months on getting out if we get lazy now,” he said before he continued. Last thing he wanted right now was to be caught on this island with the other daemon.

Omen did notice how Baal seemed to just stop up and think for a bit - did the guy really not remember what that felt like, any longer? By Bael, just why had they put them together on this mission when the guy might not even be able to recognize that feeling anymore? Omen very obviously rolled his eyes when he heard Baal's mumbling to himself, before he turned and began to follow his own hound's footprints. Maybe they counted on Omen being able to convince him to listen a bit more - but if that was it, couldn't they just have told him so? He huffed slightly as he walked along.

"Don't worry, that won't be a problem." he just said, dismissing Baal's concerns about finding their way back. His hound led him over to an area of the barren land that was slightly lighter in color than everything else, and when he got over there, he froze, and wrinkled his nose in disgust at the feeling. "... I think we found the spot." he said, and his hound began digging.

// Sorry for the late reply!

Omen's nose was still twitching a little in apparent disgust at the feeling he got right here around this place, but he stood still, arms crossed as he calmly watched his hound dig down to whatever might be hiding down there. As far as he'd been told, it was a book that might hold quite a bit of information their order could use. Information that had been lost since the destruction of Torch.

"Hmm? A few rumors, yes, but nothing more than that. As far as I know, it's just that. Rumors. There's no solid evidence of such experiments actually having taken place." he sighed and then shook his head. "And if it is real, then whoever tried to do that, should be ashamed. And punished for it." as strong as Omen's faith was, he would, of course, be against anything of that sort. "It's tempting to have a final answer against them, yes, but not at that price."

// And sorry for mine being a bit shorter and late, too ^^;