Dessie's demeanor obviously relaxed the moment he returned a smile. It seems like humor works here - she'd keep a note of that. Back in her dad's offices, humor was not the way to go. Shaking his hand, she smiled back. "Pleasure to meet you too RJ," she said, going by the name his friends call him.

After all, who was she to call anyone by their proper names? She hardly ever turned at the name Destiny and had forced herself to tell people that it was her actual name, and not Dessie.

ANYWAYS, back to RJ. Blonde, blue eyed, fit RJ. Hehe. "English?" she asked, assuming as much since his accent didn't really hint at anywhere else. But you never know... With a world like their's he could really be any nationality. Plus, to normal people it wasn't that hard to fake an accent.

Seeing her feature relax was a very good sign for Ryan. Why working in a stressful environment anyway. Yeah it was true than meeting new peoples was a bit stressful for some but not for him. What was cause him to be nervous was the unknown ahead of him but he wouldn't be a Black if he didn't like challenge.

So far his first exchange with his new co-worker was fine. Dessie seems to be the perfect one that have first contact with. Friendly with a good sense of humor. This was absolutely the kind of person Ryan loved to work with. He had doubt that he would have met any snobbish rich here that had monstrous ego but you never know.

As he heard her question, he couldn't help but chuckles. "Nope. I was born in France but I spent most of my life near the shore of Loch Ewe. Laide to be more precise so I guess you could say French with a bit of a Scotland flavor to it." Putting on finger on his nose and teasing her with his eyes, he was trying to analyze where she was from. "Let me guess... I'm usually not too bad when it comes to guess so I'll have to say I'm detecting a subtle American accent in your voice but I'm not one hundred percent sure... Am I even close?"

"We are?" Alina said with a raised eyebrow. "I'm more interested in stopping the supply of these masks first. Once we find where they are, we can then find out who has already bought them. I don't envisage any of us making a scene at a masquerade ball - as even if we did find the pocketwatch, and it worked, we still can't interupt a ball without being noticed. Not good in a room full of Muggles. And I don't want the hassle of taking a load of Obliviators with us."

She paused, and look of sterness flickered across her face. She was the Division Head here, and wanted to be in control of all that was happening on this case. Returning from her thoughts, her expression softened. "Priority is location and understanding. Suzanne is on the location of shops. And I want you Herod to look into what we DO know about this mask, and how exactly it compares with the other previous Patents you found." She straightened robes. "I'm going to look into possible inventors behind this, those with links to the dark arts...and those that think a prank like this a clever."

Herod was trying not to overstep, so he posed this statment as a question. "Um, thats a very good point, but I am confused. Isn't the only lead we have that masquerade ball that was mentioned in the patent file? If we had more leads I would agree with you 100 percent. " He pased and then added, "You are doing a wonderful job on this case, and I will repect your decision, but I do advise we start with our lead. Nevertheless, I am off to review the patents more, like you said....."

With that, he left for the filing room. He considered taking the baord with him, but thought that it would be more useful in the main area so he waved his wand and the full text was copied onto a sheet of parchament.

Dessie was impressed. This guy seemed to be a bit of everything. Well, not EVERYTHING but certainly more than her. "Nice," Dessie nodded, chuckling lightly. He was nice which was perfect for her since she really didn't want to be stuck with unfriendly co-workers. She'd been there and done that.

Time for something NEW. And preferably more fun. Leaning on his table, Dessie raised her eyebrows, amused, as he tried to figure out where she was from. It wasn't that hard, to be honest... And yep, he got it. "Subtle? You're being nice - and yes, I'm American. I moved here about a week ago to start afresh, and I have to say that apart from the weather, I'm loving it here," she nodded, smiling again.

And now that she had met a person who worked with her and was to her liking - even better. Of course, he was a guy which meant that he could turn out to be a real idiot, but she'd give him the benefit of the doubt. After all, she had nothing bad to blame RJ for... yet.

Tom looked around the room, was he the only person from the Gobstone section here, he wanted to sort this mess out quickly otherwise he knew Rex would come down on him with a ton of bricks.

Tom sat down at his desk and waited for any ideas he was sure they were nearly ready to show Rex but he just wanted to make sure everyone agreed. "So I think we are nearly ready to show Rex what we have, I just want to make sure you lot don't have any more ideas for the reforming of the Gobstone League." He smiled at all the Gobstone employees.

hermygirl & quidditch_captain
 

Suzanna got up and grabbed a few newspapers lying around, scanning them for the recently opened stores she had just spotted. "There's a cluster in the middle of London," she noticed, flipping through them quickly. "And a few new groups opening together around the outskirts of London," she commented. "It's like they're surrounding this city." She put a note on the parchment to keep the pages marked, and looked back up at the chart.

"The cloak and the whip," she started. "I think I spotted a few advertisements about something along the lines of them. They look like they're coming from the newly opened stores," she said, double checking.

Gobstone Employees.
 

Tom looked at the Gobstone Employees. "Can all the Gobstone Employees please report to the conference room." He said as quietly as he could be loud enough so everyone can here.

Tom hoped that all the Gobstone Employees would go to the conference room as quickly and as quietly as they could, he didn't want to disturb the other Division Heads.

Oooh, Bossman Beckett was here. Signaling to RJ with her eyes, Dessie hopped lightly off the table she had eventually begun to sit on made her way over to Mr. Beckett who was apparently going to tell them something important. This was exciting - her first assignment was about to be given to her!

... o_O Wait, what? Colin MacKenzie? THE Colin MacKenzie? The one situated in Bossman Vindictus' office? Hmm. Interesting. She didn't know how they were supposed to decide who was going to be assigned to what, so she just assigned herself to the MacKenzie case.

It seemed to be a tad more interesting. "Yes, sir, Mr. Beckett," Dessie nodded to him and, seeing as they were probably done, made her way to the files and archives she had spotted while coming in which contained information about the players. Colin MacKenzie had one big file.

Time to get to work.

Herod walked back into the work area. "Phew....ok. Well after like four hours, I found AND learned the counter curse the the Subjoinment Charm. If any of you were wondering, its called a Splintering Charm. So, if we find a person with a mask attached to their face, we CAN seperate it. I'm still waiting for a Regression Charm though. or for any hint of this mask!" he said the his team.

"At least now, we are fully prepared in case anything goes wrong in the Muggle World. We can seperate it and trace it and remove the Dark magic. The problem now is getting a mask so we can trace it back to its owner." he thought out loud.

Elise nodded, walking over towards where her collegues were working.
"Hi, any way I can help?"

OOC: Sorry I've not been on in a while. Midterm exams have just finished, so I'll be on more often.

Dessie peered over the archives, her nose scrunched up as she concentrated on reading the entire article on Mackenzie's injury a few years back. Sure, it was likely that nothing of importance would be there, but she knew better than to just discard it. There MIGHT be so- AHA!

Summoning a parchment, quill and some ink from her bag, Dessie caught them all and placed them next to her as she started copying down the things that looked worthwhile.

Hmm... Who was Bruno De Luca? He sounded a little familiar. Skimming through the article yet again, Dessie sighed as shes saw that who he was, wasn't mentioned. It was weird, though - usually everyone mentioned got at least a small introduction. Maybe he had been mentioned before, in a previous article in the paper? Looking up, Dessie searched around to see if there were any old copies of the Daily Prophet, as it was them who had covered the injury.

Delighted to see a small pile in the far corner of them room, she grabbed her things and made a beeline for it, quickly finding the issue she wanted. Leafing through the paper, her eyes landed on Bruno De Luca's name and a small grin stretched across her face.

There we go.

Scribbling down the page number and the issue, just in case this particular copy got lost, Dessie made her way back to Bossman Beckett. "Sir, I've found something you might want to look into," Dessie stated and held out the Daily Prophet copy at the page with Mackenzie's injury. "If you read here, sir, you'll see that a certain Bruno De Luca was very interested in Colin's injury, and I took the liberty of pulling out some information on him - which can be found here," Dessie flicked one page back and showed him the article.

Yeah, no need to state that the reason De Luca had sounded so familiar was the fact that her father had represented him in court. And won the case.

No, no need for that.

ooc: away, sorry

Eugine sighed and sat down at her desk. She sighed and sucked her sugar quill.

Herod ran back in the room, smiling like a cheery child in a candy store. "I've got it!!!" he said, approaching the work table. "We have been way too focused on the info and not the evidence. This sheet..." he said, pulling out the application filled out by the dark wizard, "was written by the culprit! I was in the back and came across this....." He got a menella file out of his pile "...file! Its a patent for a spell. This spell will take ink and trace it back to the location is was written in. If this letter was written anywhere near his/her house, we've got 'em!!!! I think, from reading, that if we put a map by the paper and perform the spell, the ink will rise off the paper and flow onto the map. It will then follow the streets to the location it was laid to paper!" he said, very excited.

"I want to get the department head first though...." he said, hesitating to continue without him. "Where is he?" he asked.

Alina looked up from the file she was reading. "You have?" she asked with a raised eyebrow. She nodded as he said about the sheet. "Yes, that was the original he sent in..." She wondered where this was all going. She eyed the new file, wondering what it contained. Most of the Patents they got were useless, and or very dangerous. Occasionally they got something interesting, or that actually worked. Anyway, she disgressed in her thoughts.

"Sounds like a good lead," Alina said with a smile. "But I think we should test it first. You know, to check that it's safe, and isn't going to randomly take us around half of London on a wild goose chase. We all know the risks of various Patents we've had in the past." She took a moment to look at them seriously, to make her point clear. "I also vote we take a copy of the original, since if the ink comes off of the page we won't have anything to enclose in our report for future reference otherwise."

"Rex is in an important meeting with the Gobstones division," Alina replied. She'd seen him, Tom and several members of the Gobstones team enter the conference room, with both Heads looking quite serious. "How about whilst we're waiting, you nip down to Diagon Alley and write something for us to test the spell on? You could have a spot of lunch whilst you're there." THe guy had been working hard on this case, and whilst the spell seemed a good pla, she wasn't using it until it was tested. "Then you can bring it back and we can see how accurate this spell is likely to be."

"Sounds like a great idea. In fact...... I can copy the letter down there. I'd be killing two birds with one stone!" he said, happy that his hardwork had paid off. "I'll be back in about an hour, see you then!" he said, taking the letter, folding it in his inside robe pocket and heading for the lifts.

Herod walked back into the Department just in time to hear his Department Head ask for a report. Normally he would not have interputed, but today, he WAS what was going on.

"Well, Sir. Nothing until now....." he said, taking the letter out of his pocket. "They were all waiting for me to return. Yesterday found a spell that could find the original location that ink was laid to paper, and we wanted to test it. Therefore, i went to Diagon Alley and wrote this letter..." he said, holding it up. "Now we see if this spell works....." he said, unfolding the letter and looking to his Division Head for the OK.

Alina eyed Herod. Sure he'd had good timing, coming in just as Rex appeared (well, his head did from the Conference room), but to say they'd done nothing? Not a good move. They'd actually done a fair bit since the Department Head had last come to see Patents for an update. Plus, Rex had asked Alina. She gave Rex an almost apologetic smile.

"Forgive Herod's enthusiasm," she said with a soft smile. "We're on the verge of a discovery, and since he found the idea...I think he's rather excited about seeing the result." She gave Herod a little wink. "Before that though, perhaps I should bring you up to date with other developments?"

He frowned at the man. "You are not Alina. Allow your division head to address questions directed to her."

"Please do," Rex promptly responded. "And then if you have employees that can add more details, then you should tell them when to speak."

just saying that if she doesn't answer, i will......in 1 day
 

Herod knew that the Department Head thought that he had overs stepped, but Herod disagreed. It was obvious that Mr. Vindictus was a hierarchy kind of guy. Herod completly disagreed. To him, it dodn't matter your rank or fancy title. If you had the news or were constructively contributing, then you had the right to speak. Unfortunetly, it was the Head's opinion that mattered......

Also unfortunate was the fact the his Divison head was not answering. Very strange. A cat had obviously got her tongue (not literally....seriously). He decided to hold his tongue. but only for a few more seconds.

Just cos I didn't reply straight away, doesn't mean to say Alina hasn't...
 

Alina bit her lip. She wondered what had been going on with the Gobstones lot, what with Rex's reaction. It seemed...short. To the point. And like he didn't appreciate others butting in. All fair points really, and Alina hoped Herod appreciated that. Else it might be an easy way to get fired, especially if Rex was lacking coffee. had he taken one to the conference room with him?!

Anyway, report time. Alina cleared her throat. "Well, Suzanne managed to locate a fair few masks." She held up the map, with all the places marked in red. "It seems new shops have been popping up around the outskirts of London, but most seem to be clustered in the centre of the city." She pointed out these regions to emphasise the point. "Suzanne also reported a couple of items similar to those Herod had picked out from the filing cabinet to help us with the search. The cloak and whip. Rejected patents from the past, seemingly resurfacing in a slightly different form."

She paused. "I've been looking at possible inventors. I can't see an obvious link between the inventors of the cloak whip that have reappeared, and then this mask. That's not to say an alias has been used, of course. In fact, I'd say that was likely, really." She sighed. This case had been frustrating, as they had struggled with useful leads. "The closest theory I've got is someone craving attention, with previously rejected Patents, rather than someone meddling in the Dark Arts...but I couldn't say for certain."

She looked at Herod, who obviously wanted to speak and tell his news. She turned to him. "Perhaps you'd like to explain to Rex about the spell you found...what it should do, and how it'll help. And then we can get on with testing the theory to see if it'll help us..."

"Yes of course!" he said enthusiastically. "A few days ago, I uncovered this spell that will link any ink to the place it was laid to paper. If it works properly, it should lead us right to the perpatrator. But we were not sure of the spells accuracy, so I went somewhere and worte a letter. This spell should tell us where. If my theory is correct, then once we successfully test my letter, we can move on to the real patent application that the perpatrator used here" he said, holding said application up.

"Would you like to do the honors, sir" he said politely. "The incantation is Fateor satus!" he said, handing his Head of Department the application. "Also, you will need this!" He put a map of London (with special Diagon Alley insert.....hint hint) on the table beside the application. "What should happen is the ink will rise off the paper and land on the map. The ink should then follow the streets to the place of origin and concentrate there." he said.

Herod then stepped back and waited for the moment of truth........