- flinches with some invisible pain -

- pulls out a gun of his own, and shoots the gruff in the head. Green fire blazes from both sides of the wound. The gruff topples to the ground.

Harry exhales heavily. "Well, that was invigorating."

"No kidding." He drops the invisibility, looking Harry over. He has no injuries himself, unless the blooding and gnawed upon arm from the dragon counts. "Sorry, thought I got that one, you okay?"

"Got what?"

Harry takes a look at Veron's arm. "Also, have we been running around all day without getting you first aid for that bite wound? I am very disappointed in myself."

"The one that shot at you. I thought I'd stabbed him enough that he'd been persuaded not to try it, sorry. You flinched, I was a bit worried something actually hit. And—oh, yes. That." He looks at his arm. "Should be fine, one of my many accessories does slow regeneration. It's healing."

"Oh. It was probably mental strain from the magic, that stuff can hurt if you put too much into it. And, uh, good. Regeneration is good."

"Yeah. It'll probably still scar but, eh, what's another." He looks around at the carnage. "... Do you um, have some way to clean this mess up? I feel like people might find the site of an explosion a bit, ah. Alarming?"

"I... do not. Um."

There's a strange howling in the distance, an unnaturally regular up-and-down wailing sound. Harry winces slightly.

"Shit. That would be the constabulary. Uh, let's walk briskly but unsuspiciously somewhere else?"

Veron considers this, and how well Harry is likely to be at being sneaky. ... Not the worst, probably not Valen bad, but. Not up to Veron's level of sneak.

"Better idea," he says, reaching into his pack and retrieving something that looks like black silk cloth. "Why don't I just put you in my portable hole and then run off with you." ... There were definitely better ways to explain that. "Um. Since I'm really good at being sneaky. And the portable hole is perfectly safe."

"Okay. That is... conceptually terrifying, but I really don't want to be arrested on terrorism charges today. So... go ahead."

"Perfectly safe. I've done this sort of thing before. Practically a staple of being a lost person, really. And you'll have air!" He notes that he's really shit at selling this idea, and also at being reassuring, and changes gears. "And I will get you out the minute we are away."

He unfurls the circular sheet of black silk on the ground, and the silk fades away to reveal a hole in the ground, six feet in diameter, and about ten feet deep. It's filled with what could charitably be called 'junk,' and doesn't look particularly roomy. Nonetheless, a ladder has been conscientiously placed at the edge, for anyone that would like to descend into the hole.

"Nothing will fall on you, probably," Veron assures, because for some reason he's trying that again. "I cleaned it, recently." It does not look like anyone has cleaned this thing in centuries, which probably says a lot about what it was like before.

"Your marketing is impeccable," Harry notes, descending the ladder. "Don't worry, this is actually kind of cool now I think about it. I'm not gonna get jostled or anything, right?"

"Nah, doesn't work like that. You'll be able to hear things on the outside. It'll get dark, though, so you might want to turn on your light thingy."

Harry flickers his amulet on as he touches down, its blue-white glow casting stark shadows across the piles of junk. "Roger wilco. Ready for action."

"Bang on the ceiling if you need out," says Veron, and then he peels up the edge of the cloth and rolls it up to return it to his bag. From Harry's view, the open top fades to black silk, and he is left alone in darkness. With a lot of junk.

And now it's time to sneak away! Which is easy enough, he's in charge of the sneaking for a reason, here.

Harry, for want of anything better to do (like considering who might have taken Marcone and why) elects to look through the junk. Very carefully, in case he finds another one of those explosive traps.

No explosive traps! Probably. There are no explosive traps where he can see them immediately, anyway. A whole lot of junk, though. Some of it looks safe, but some of it doesn't. There are books written in an unfamiliar language, a box of stakes and holy water, several instruments, a few sets of boots, armor in a really ugly shade of red, an array of knives, fishing tackle, a jug of water, stale looking travel rations, several wands...

The list goes on. There is a lot of junk in here.

Neat! Harry will leave those wands the everloving hell alone, because unfamiliar magic! Frankly that's what he should be doing with all of this, everything in here is unfamiliar magic. He sits down to await his release.

...do any of the books have pictures?

This one book has anatomical pictures with drawings of where to surgically insert stones into a human body for... some reason! And also how to vivisect someone. Does that count?

Nope! Harry is putting that book down now. And sitting back down. Far away from it. And shaking his head with his tongue out a little bit to get rid of the gross feeling.

The book does not sprout legs and crawl towards him, insisting that he should read more about it. Though, 'far from it' is rather hard to do, he doesn't have a lot of room in here, but he can hide behind a pile of junk, next to the ugly red armor.

He can still hear some sounds from outside of the portable hole. The sirens are more distant now, and there's a faint shuffling—

—and then sunlight, from above.

"We're clear," says Veron, poking his head over the edge of the hole.

"My savior," Harry says brightly, kipping up and starting up the ladder. "But, seriously, thanks. Also, what the hell is up with that creepy surgery book in there?"

"Sure, anytime. Creepy surgery book...?" Blink. "... Did you find the creepy Netherese books. Were you reading the creepy Netherese books. Because the pictures did not fill me with warm fuzzies and I didn't want to leave them where I found them for other people to find, it's not, they're not mine. I just. Have them. Because I don't know what to do with them."

"I can't read Nether, I was just looking at the extremely unfuzzy pictures. I'm not accusing you of being some kind of mad vivisectionist, that's a perfectly reasonable explanation. The amount of crap I've got lying around for that exact reason, I swear."

He surfaces and Toot-Toot zips up to them, vibrating with nervous energy. "Milord! Are you well? Are Summer's agents duly thrashed? Do you still have that donut??"

"I lost the donut," Harry apologizes. "But we did thrash the gruffs, and we're both well, thanks to your warning." Toot-Toot puffs up with pride, though still somewhat crestfallen about the donut. "And Veron was going to give you a shiny thing before we got distracted." He perks up further.