Private In Pursuit of Pursuit

When Alby saw the cat, he took a second to actually register what was there. When he did, he shut his eyes tight and opened them again shortly after. The cat was still there, staring. Then Alby finally noticed Bastet for the first time. He eyed her for a moment, completely unsure of how to react to any of this. He raised an eyebrow and spoke quietly. "Do I know you?" He recognized her somehow but couldn't put a finger on where.

The man in the background was busy poking at a tree again, giving them a chance to chat without losing him.

“Hmm.” Alby scratched his chin for a second, considering what Bastet said and trying his best to figure out where he remembered her from. Perhaps she just went to the academy and he’d passed her in the hall a few times.

Regardless of whether he did or didn’t know them from somewhere, he answered her question, we’ll sort of. “That depends. What are you doing here?”

Alby was surprised by that at first, but in hindsight it made sense. "So you're here for the same reason I am." That seemed to assure Alby that this man had to be up to no good then. It was one thing for just him to find something suspicious, but as soon as two people thought the same thing, it had a much higher chance of being true.

Alby quickly glanced over to the man to make sure he was still there, then back to Baste. "Where'd you hear that, do you know anything about what this guy's doing?"

The man continued examining the tree in the background, beginning to analyze the surrounding forest's floor.

“Huh. Guess I’m not the only one who thought this was suspicious then.” Alby’s eyes followed the man as he shrugged something off and moved on from examining the ground around the tree.

“Looks like I need to get a move on, but feel free to tag along if you’d like. As long as you can keep up.” Alby chuckles a little as he stumbled not so elegantly onward through the brush.

Alby would have loved to have had some sort of aerial view or just some sign of how close they were getting to the forbidden forest. It seemed like they had walked pretty far but it was impossible to know for certain where they were. He glanced toward Bastet for a moment, considering asking her, but decided to just keep following the man for now.

The suspicious man stopped very suddenly. He took no time in dropping down to inspect something. Alby couldn’t see what was happening, so he resorted to carefully trying to get closer.