[Salone]

With a gust of wind the windows were thrown back. The air rattled the mannequin from its balance, and its form was mere dust before it reached the floor.

Upon the night sky, the ash whirled and drifted downward. In to the drains and sewers it went, down in to the bowels of the city. And as Rasputin moved, he labored.

He dug. And yet he did not. He burrowed, but did not disturb. Deeper in to the ground, Rasputin channeled his strength in to these holes that were 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. It was crude, and yet refined in its simplicity. For everywhere but the grounds of the palace and the nearby church 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 ash 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.