"My friend's on his way.  He'll..."

She trails off as a pop comes from just outside the entrance.

"Yeah, that's him."

She looks down at the stuff in her hands, and decides to just set it down.  "Sorry, I have something more important to deal with," she tells the shopkeeper, who just nods.  Whatever is going on, she'll just let the Legendary handle it.  

And a young man steps in to the shop, trailed by a green and white humanoid thing.  He's currently wearing pajamas, which is considerably more casual than even he prefers.

"There's some sort of emergency?"

"We need to get out of here.  Please, I'll owe you a favor."

He considers what he knows of Verity.  "I'll want a full explanation," he decides, then with another pop a minute later, Azure, Verity, and Ira and their daemons vanish.

They're in a circular pad marked with a large eye, on the side of what looks like the lobby of a nice apartment building.  

Ira starts when they're moved and bristles, brandishing the metal bar some, clearly unnerved.

"My house is nearby," she says.  She's unnerved too.  The sooner she can get to her house, the sooner they'll be able to figure everything out.  

She takes a few steps, motioning for them to start following. 

"If this is a trick or trap," Ira warns, but does seem willing to follow.

Araeneve glances down at the aron.  If that was a threat, it's not a very big one.  They do consider the possibility that the aron is actually one of the rare daemons who stays a ditto into adulthood, and could turn into a copy of them.  They'll keep an eye out.  

The apartment is nearby, after only a few doors.  Large and windowless, with five other doors leading out of the open-plan central room.  The ceiling is vaulted and fine, with intricate mouldings and a central chandelier providing most of the room's light.  All of the furniture is in a matching set together on the comfortable side of high-end.  Despite that, it's messy and haphazard with boxes everywhere, dirty dishes in the sink, and unfolded clothes mostly in baskets in three different spots.  The rugs look uneven, and things like brooms have been left out rather than put away properly.  There are four tables, and all of them have at least one unfinished thing sitting on them.  Altogether the aesthetic is a bit like 'a teen threw a wild party in their parents mansion when left alone for the weekend'.  

Ira eyes the surroundings, looking more than a little unimpressed. "What now?"

"Why don't we find somewhere to sit, and you can describe the problem.  Since apparently Verity has decided that the police aren't worth informing," he gives a strange look at her, then stalks off to find somewhere for them to sit.  The dining table only has some kind of headset and a screwdriver on it, and that can be moved easily enough.

(Florentho has noticed her arm and gone to find some bandages and antiseptic.  Unlike Verity and Araeneve, they chose to separate not long after settling and can walk to the bathroom on their own.)

"She said she was chained up, and when she escaped the Hall was in lockdown.  That might have been a coincidence, but that implies there might be someone in charge of both."

"You have a problem with authority," he tells her.  "But you also know more than I do right now.  I don't know.

"What do you think?  I can take us to the police - getting to emergency services is one of the first things a teleporter learns.  Also, what are your names?"

(Florentho returns with the bandages, and puts them in reach of Ira on the table.)

"No police," she states firmly, feeling her grip on the bolt cutters start to weaken. She chooses to set them down, rather than drop them, and after a momentary hesitation, sets the metal bar next to them and reaches for the medical supplies. (She does not, immediately, sit.) "S'pose you can call me Ira."

She doesn't introduce the aron, that has now settled beside her.

Florentho sits near the aron.  There seems to be something strange about it.  "How are you doing?" he asks quietly.  The implication that he means both sides of the pair, not just the daemon, is obvious, at least to a normal daemon.  

Simultaneously, Azure continues.  "I'm Azure-and-Florentho," introducing himself the standard way for locals.  "And if you don't like police either, there won't be police."  It's borderline, but the ships laws don't technically require people to report crimes and didn't see any lockdown notices himself, so he won't get in any real trouble.  Not that it would be easy to stick anything to him anyway.  "Perhaps you could tell us what happened, in order?"

The aron tilts its head. "I- We- I don't-"

Ira considers that introduction. "You speak like you're one?"

"We are, in most respects.  Daemons are a part of ourselves, literally our souls.  Do you consider them differently wherever you're from?"

"We don't have them where I'm from."

That doesn't register as possible, and he considers the words over again.  "That... What form was your soul in, if not a daemon?"

Ira is silent for a moment, working through the awkward task of bandaging her arm one handed. "If we have souls," she says carefully, "they don't manifest separately."

"Well, you're a person.  That means you probably had something."  Would they have been invisible?  Internal, hiding in the stomach somewhere?

There are possibly theological implications to this conversation, the way it's headed.  Which means Verity wants to head it off before it gets there.

"We may have gotten off-track.  What happened earlier?"

Which is a conversation Ira had been trying to head off some, but ah well.

"Like I said: woke up in some kind of mad science lab, with this guy," here she rests her hand in the Aaron's head. "Mad scientist type said something about studying the effects of Binding. Decided I wasn't gonna hang around and be a lab rat."

"Binding... I guess that might be putting your soul into a daemon?"  He types some notes into his phone to look up later, holding it so the screen is clearly visible as his notes app - Ira seems even more paranoid than Verity.  "Was it close to the convenience store, or had you been walking for a while?"

"Somewhere down below. Seemed abandoned. Walked up past a janitor's store and restrooms."