[Salone]

A breeze rolled lazily over the furnishings in the room, caressing the runner on the bed until it finally rose upwards to drift across Leilah's ear, carrying the hint of Rasputin's voice.

"I hear and obey. Matters will be arranged."

His tone was a mix of calculated obedience and just the slightest shade of impatience. With another sigh of air, he was off.

But he would always be watching.

The invisible figure floated through the night. The palace was his destination, but he must set to work. He had little time. He would have to start small. But it was a start. And it would grow.

Always watching.

Rasputin plunged downward through the night, extending out on to the streets that were well before the palace. Off to the side of these ancient pathways rested even older soil. The dust from which Man had been formed. The dust that which Man tread upon. And eventually, the dust that Man would return to. For this minor blip on the timeline of the world, the dust here was simply dirt serving as the anchor for greenery. It would suffice. Here he would break ground.

Rasputin drew in upon himself, siphoning the mana flowing in to him through his bond with Leilah. Through his 'limited' magic, he wrought the power in to material form. In his unseen hands, he held a shovel. A mere shovel. But he had also been a mere man. With this peasant's tool, he would move the very earth. He would stir the dust. The dust had seen all, would see all that there was. And for this mere flicker of time, he would see as it saw.

He dug. And yet he did not. He burrowed, but did not disturb. Deeper in to the ground, Rasputin channeled his strength in to this hole that was not. It outgrew its definition, shaping and molding to become a series of passages. They crisscrossed, running in to each other, spiraling out deeper in to the lower groundwork, tendrils of hollowed halls snaking around the hallowed walls of the palace, only to branch further outward. The tunelling voids grew slowly as the hours progressed, feeling tenderly through the works and infrastructure of the city that lay before them. They pressed in to nooks and crannies, mere inches to basements and cellar doors, of forgotten Avignon passages and ducts and sewers. Openings that could be cut off or exposed at a moment's notice. For the limited time he had, Rasputin worked. He had only extended his network of territory to a fifth of what he was capable of around the palace. It was crude, and yet refined in its simplicity. For everywhere but the grounds of the palace, he could feel the footsteps and life of all. He extended his lair's roof to mere feet and inches to the ground where he could, sensing the slice of city teeming above him.

For the time being, he would do as he was told. He would watch. He would observe. All would stand above him, as so many had thought they had done before. All would trod above his sanctum of twisted paths that played mockery to those above. He would note from where each Master approached as they entered the area above him. And after business was over and when the time was right, he would see where they ran to.

Rasputin's grin was lost to the shadows in which his sightless body resided. He would be among the station that mankind had forgotten had once been theirs. He waited. For the time being, that is what he would do. Rasputin would be waiting.

And always watching.