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Part of Hector's plan here today was minimizing how much he spoke--if at all possible. He didn't want to be needlessly rude or obtuse, but at the same time, he wanted to avoid saying anything that might accidentally give away his true age or lack of leadership qualities.

So even though he wanted to prod Leo about where his reaper, Ericoros, was, Hector chose to hold his tongue for the time being. Ideally, the man would realize what Hector was waiting for on his own, as meeting Ericoros was one of the primary purposes of this rendezvous.

And it required a bit more staring, but Leo did indeed figure it out.

"Oh! Um!" Leo reached behind him toward the bench that he'd been sitting on and retrieved a black box, about the size of house cat. "Here you go! As requested!"

Hector received the box with both hands.

"Just, er, be careful with that," Leo added, taking a few steps back and raising his hands a bit. "I'm sure you wanna check to make sure he's really in there, so... eh, you ready?"

Hector understood what he was getting at. He glanced at the others, then gave Leo a nod.

Leo flicked his wrist, and the box of solid boron annihilated itself from the top down.

Immediately, the reaper within bolted out of it, but Hector was ready with a soul-empowered hand and caught Ericoros in his grip.

The reaper struggled, wriggling like an eel, but without a physical body to work with, there was really no hope of getting away.

Ericoros remained quiet, though, which Hector found surprising. Given all prior experience with reapers, he fully expected this one to complain loudly and often about his current circumstances, but that didn't appear to be the case.

Hector looked to Leo again. "Have you already explained the situation to Ericoros?"

"Ah--yeah. More or less."