Too Little, Too Late? (Chyril 24rd, late MT)

[Morg]

"Everything is perfectly in order," Morgan intoned, secretly very tickled at being referred to as 'master mage'. "The passage is clear. All obstacles have been removed. However..." He sniffed the fresh air, finding it hard to believe how fragrant it smelled after only a matter of burns underground. "You may want to check your footwear before going down there. A sewer wall's been breached."

Morgan lingered in the opening for a few flickers, taking another couple of gulps of fresh air before turning and heading down the stairs in a leisurely fashion to allow the goons access to the basement. He didn't want to give Becca too much time to load herself up with loot, but nor did he want her to be caught in the act, so he sloshed and clumped purposefully through the faecal matter carpeting the corridor. A good thing these boots were made for cattle-farmers. Morgan was rarely proud of his agricultural upbringing, but at this moment it was proving very useful.

[Becca Acerbi]

"Oh, now that's just pretty," Becca breathed, stopping despite herself to admire the lightshow she got when she moved her hand. "Definitely shouldn't have been left under here." For a flicker she considered opening the crate again and seeing if there was anything to match it inside, but - well, that would be greedy. And Morgan apparantly Did Not Approve - which might not be enough to get her to put it back, but it was enough to make her think twice about getting more. No matter how tempted she was. She had to get all this sorted before Morgan brought the thugs down (Why had he done that?) - and before she tried to get into that room above.

She was just knocking the last nail back in - and Mister Motricé lectured her on not thinking ahead! If she thought he'd either believe or not lecture her, she'd tell him about this - when Aerin spoke up behind her. Becca turned immediately, expression slightly guilty - but as Aerin put a finger to her lips, a rather mischievious smile spread across her face, and Becca dropped the rock she'd been holding to mimic the gesture.

Becca gave Aerin's question Serious Thought, eying the dresses ('Well at least someone found them interesting...' she found herself thinking) and came to the obvious conclusion. "They might object a little, but only if they notice." She tilted her head slightly, grin still in place as she leaned back against the crates. "I can't imagine they'd pay that much attention to some dresses anyway - it's not like they'd fit those idiots up there, is it?"

It was at that point she heard the clomping from down the corridor, and her expression changed to one of righteous indignation. Morgan had brought the thugs! Of all the -

"I think we should have a last look round before we let the others in," Becca told Aerin quickly, moving to the stairs and starting to gather more light energy to her. "I mean, there's another room here - it's our duty to check it out, right?" She laughed a little, glancing quickly at her ring. "And you never know, there might be more shinies in it."

Becca worked quickly, weaving a screen of illusions a couple of feet away from the stairs - she needed room to move, because there was no way she was standing under a door while she opened it - so that from the doorway, it would appear that the corner was empty. The framework could wait until her illusion was right; so long as she concentrated it would stand, and hopefully it would be long enough if... "Could you do me a favour and stall whoever that is? Please?"

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

"They might object a little, but only if they notice. I can't imagine they'd pay that much attention to some dresses anyway - it's not like they'd fit those idiots up there, is it?"

Aerin’s fingers went to her lips as she hushed a laugh. “Oh, I don’t know… Some of them might look cute in them…” the redhead joked, walking closer to Becca and swaying her hips exaggeratingly. “Like your friend… I bet his rump would look just tasty in…” Aerin’s lighthearted joke was cut short by the sloshing of feet from outside. She shushed and shot Becca a wide-eyed look, wondering what to do.

"I think we should have a last look round before we let the others in, I mean, there's another room here - it's our duty to check it out, right?"

Aerin nodded, Becca reading her mind without mindcraft as she spoke Aerin’s thoughts aloud as far as hidden treasure was concerned.

"Could you do me a favour and stall whoever that is? Please?"

“What should I…?”, she whispered, pondering a diversion as Becca worked her magic. Aerin then thought of a plan… it wasn’t the best of plans, but it was a plan. Being careful of her footing in the water, she turned and moved toward the door. “Mister…Morgan…sir?”, she called down the passageway, true nervousness in her voice. “Could you and the others wait outside for a bit? The rubble sounds like it’s shifting and we are trying to prop it up as best we can. Should something happen though, we may need you men safe up there to dig us back out…not trapped here with us and possibly injured…I can come get you when it is safe, okay?”

It was a lie, a hastily made up lie, but she had always had to come up with such impromptu lies for her father growing up and he had always believed them…or made it seem that way, at least… Aerin leaned back into the room and mouthed the word 'sorry' while giving a small shrug before leaning back out of the doorway to await a response from either Morgan or the thugs. If they had heard Becca's hammering before, perhaps they would buy the noise as being what Aerin claimed it to be and nothing more.

[Grey Wolf]

The thugs were quick to react, if not too quick to descend into the cellar and the infested water within it, the smaller man turning to one of the workers and barking a command. “You there. Go and fetch us some waterproof boots. A dozen pairs will be enough. Go, there’s bonus in it for you if you are back in less than five burns.” The man nodded, pulled another along to help him and they disappeared from sight leaving Morgan and two thugs, as well as a dozen or so workers to wait for their return. “What is the state of the basement? Is it safe to go down? Master Crane used the back room for storage and needs the goods that were back there. His other businesses need supplies.” They made no move to enter, and thus Aerin’s had to trudge through the water all the way to the stairs before she could call up to them. The smaller thugs called back to her, raising his voice, making it carry all the way down to where Becca was. “If you get stuck, try to make your way to the back entrance in the last room. There was a trapdoor leading to the alley we used to get stuff into the storage room.”

[Morg]

"It's safe down there now," Morgan responded to the thug - as if he'd had to do anything other than clear the entrance and break in through a door. "Filthy, but safe." He considered asking what Master Crane's other businesses actually were, but got the feeling he didn't really want to know.

Then he heard Aerin's words and raised an eyebrow involuntarily. Rubble shifting? My arse. That room was completely undamaged! Still, the thugs didn't know that, and didn't have to. It was only fair to give the girls a bit more time for thieving. He'd already made his way into Becca's bad books for the flicker, he felt, and he didn't want to make the situation any worse. Anyway, they wouldn't be coming down until they had the boots, most likely. He turned to the short thug who seemed to be running the show. "I'm sorry about this," he said in what he hoped was a conciliatory voice. "We'd better wait until they've got everything stable. Safety first."

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Aerin’s brow furrowed as the guard’s message came across loud…exceptionally loud within the confined space…and clear as he whipped away the mystery behind the second door. Then why…? she pondered as she turned to face back down to the storage room. There was a back door all along? And we waded through this shit for… she thought as she reassessed her trinkets. A vial with a little glowing fluid in it, three dresses that (while pretty) would possibly reek for weeks, a bracelet, an anklet, and a few coins. …NOTHING? her thoughts continued as she trudged swiftly back to the room. “Pardon me…” she smiled sweetly as she gazed over the crates in the room, knowing that Becca’s precious had come from one of them.

“A back door… A back door…can you believe that?” She frowned, keeping her voice low, calm, and sweet as if discussing the weather with the other woman. “We do all this legwork and they had a back door all the while? I think that deserves a little more than a nice, warm feeling inside, don’t you?” She frowned furthur as she noted the superb job that Becca had seemingly done with the crates and decided that there was no way that she could re-open them in a timely manner, not without Becca’s help anyway, although she probably could have but just couldn’t be bothered with something that required that much effort. Without pause, she moved to the bales and inspected one, her eyes widening as she saw what they seemingly contained.

“Tobacco! Yesss!” she whispered as she reached for a handful or two, not bothering to closely inspect the leaves, merely noting that the aroma would smell awfully good as a smoke and probably taste just as nice. If Becca, and ‘whatever all-seeing being of the week’ (as Aerin often put it) watching over them would allow, she would take as much as she could carry without drawing attention, using the rolled up dresses, pockets, even the empty space in her coin purse if needed, re-covering the bale unless Becca was a smoker too and wished to take a few banner’s worth as well.

[Becca Acerbi]

Becca's response to the thug's message was very short and precise, consisting of a few words that would probably have been more appropriate coming from the morons themselves. When Aerin came back, Becca shoved some pages of air into her illusion to hold it up - useless as it was, she was not letting it go that quickly, for the sake of her pride - and repeated what she just said, along with a rather colourful description of what sort of barnyard animals the clearance supervisors' mothers must have been have relations with to end up with sons so stupid they wouldn't go to the backdoor first, or even tell the people clearing the area for them that was a back door.

When she was done, Becca smiled at Aerin, sweet and innocent. "I feel better now. And yes, I can believe they did that - if they had enough brains to do anything but stand around shouting at people, they'd be doing it." She followed Aerin to the back of the room, shoving her hands into her pockets. "Oh, I'm sure we deserve something nice - Morgan definitely does for today, but as he's off talking to the idiots, we'll just have to grab some stuff on his behalf." On reflection, he probably wouldn't appreciate it, but she'd try to do something nice for him to make up for it at some point.

Becca looked at Aerin blankly as she started grabbing leaves. "Tobacco? Is that what it is?" She shrugged - Becca had picked up all the leaves she wanted, and now she knew what they were, she lost interest in them - and headed back towards the corner with the stairs. "I'm gonna try and get the door open, if that's all right?" She hopped up the stairs, trying to work out where she could open it from without getting smacked in the head by the doors, then started dragging the wooden bar away.

[Grey Wolf]

It was quite a task pulling the wooden beam out, the door it held closed bent inward and pressing upon it heavily, forcing Becca to put all her strength into it. Inch by inch it slid out, until she managed to get a good grip of it and tug properly. Aerin found herself with two good handfuls of dried leaves that smelled like tobacco, but definitely did not look like it, though it was a question whether she had ever seen what the whole leaves looked like. They were fairly easy to hide, especially considering the thugs were quite willing to wait for their boots, shifting nervously from one foot to the other. "Are you okay down there? Just yell if you need help." The smaller of the thugs called over Morgan's shoulder and into the darkness bellow.

Then Becca's pulled the beam through the steel bracket that held the door closed and all Nether broke loose in the storage room. Entire back wall had fallen over the back entrance, the fall breaking it into many smaller pieces, with Morgan's clearing efforts piling more and more rocks on top of the horizontal door. It was the bar that kept the door from breaking, supporting the planks that made it across the middle. With it gone the planks groaned under pressure and then the door swung inward, weight of the rocks bending the hinges enough to allow it. By the time it happened, Becca was already safely out of the way, sailing back through the air, before landing unceremoniously upon her butt, right smack down into the cold water they have been walking through for some time. Rocks cascaded in, burying the stairs under them, with a cloud of dust expanding quickly from the doorway. Sunlight flashed in for a brief flicker before being drowned with dust, though a few rays shone through the cracks. With a bit of effort they would be able to dig themselves out, or walk through the door and up the stairs they originally descended. Somewhere above them another body must have lain, this one too belonging to a girl, her dust covered hand and forearm hanging over the doorframe and hanging limply above Becca.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

The redheaded sewer spelunker was no stranger to foul language, but her companion's use of it made her take notes – Aerin was both impressed and intrigued by the scenarios Becca dreamed up, confused if half of it was even physically possible, nodding along with the other woman's well-worded sentiments. She shrugged, however, at Becca's question about the 'tobacco'. “It doesn't smell poisonous, as far as I can tell. Smells like the same type of rich tobacco Rat smoked on occasion...” Aerin offered as she tucked the last bit away. “I figure it is probably rare or expensive, considering he did not smoke it a lot and that it is stored here in this treasure trove, don't you think?

Aerin stood by, ready to catch Becca if needed, as the other woman prepared to pry the door open, the redhead's shoulders arching in frightened reflex as the guard's voice cut through the relative silence.

“Knock that off!” she yelled back, irritation in her voice at being startled. “You're making us all....” she was so rattled that she was momentarily at a loss for words. “...twitchy! Now shush and...” The rest of her comment was lost, even to herself, as the door opened and sent Becca flying, delivering the payload of rocks and corpse in its stead. Aerin's eyes darted back and forth between Becca and the rubble and the door, her lips in a silent 'o' of shock until they finally – both silently and slowly – mouthed the words “What...the...fuck...?”

She moved toward Becca, offering the woman her free hand to help Becca lift herself up from the muck. “SEE?!?!?!” she yelled at the guard, as if his voice were to blame for the cave-in. “TWITCHY!!!” Aerin did not relish the idea of tempting that pile of rocks any more than she had to despite the fact that she could see light glimmering through the crevice. As far as she was concerned, she would take whatever risk that came along with backtracking. “Back door is open though...” she added loudly before lowering her voice to normal tones. “Sort of...” With another glance at the rock pile and crates, she gave Becca a wink, lowering her voice for the sake of both proximity and secrecy.

“Did one of those rocks bust a box open by chance?” she hinted with a smile, knowing that it would probably be less than a burn before they were checked up on. “I think we deserve it...”

[Morg]

Morgan's first reaction upon hearing the noise from within was to think: Well, well. Looks like they did manage to shift some rubble after all. Then concern got the better of him. He cursed and turned from the thugs, splashing down the corridor towards the two women in the room. He was met with a cloud of dust as he did so, and raised a hand to his eyes to ward it off, blinking rapidly.

“SEE?!?!?! TWITCHY!!!”

“Back door is open though...”

Presumably no harm was done, but Morgan felt like he had to check. Unaware of Aerin's intent for further looting, the tall magus rounded the corner and stuck his head round the doorframe, eyes narrowed as he tried to perceive what was going on inside. "Are you okay? Is anyone hurt?"

[Becca Acerbi]

"Well, judging by the rest of what he kept down here, you're probably right about the quality." Becca waved a hand distractedly, and the supports fell out of her illusion, leaving it to collapse in a shower of pages and dissipitate. "What sort of idiot leaves anything of value down here though -" She jumped as well at the thug's voice, but let Aerin answer for them, because the stupid beam was coming loose, finally, and the door was about ope -

Becca shrieked as she flew backwards, and again when she landed in the cold water, not entirely sure how she ended up doing either. She coughed and spluttered curses, covering her mouth and nose with her sleeve against the dust, then accepted Aerin's hand, letting her help her rise without putting any more of herself into the filthy water. "What just... What in the name of all the gods just...?" Well, the question was mostly rhetorical; she looked around her at the chaos, and the mass of rock where the stairs - and Becca herself for that matter - had been. Becca's face twisted for a moment, like she was trying to decide whether or not she was going to panic or lose her temper, before her face smoothed out into a rather worryingly sunny smile. Morgan would probably recognise it - and he'd know that it meant that someone, somewhere, was about to have a Bad Day. "Deserve it? Come on, we earned whatever we get here." She glanced up sharply at Morgan's voice, then turned back to Aerin. "Just let me assure Himself that we're still alive and in one piece and I'll help you look."

She was in the doorway flickers later, bracing herself with a hand on each doorpost and still wearing the dazzling smile. "Are we okay?" An answer sprang to mind very quickly, although she had to edit it for obscenities before she actually used it - and even then, she spoke with the precision of someone trying to cover slight drunkeness to keep it that way. "Well, we didn't end up crushed by falling rock, although that certainly wasn't for lack of trying." She looked quickly over his shoulder towards the corridor, and her hands clenched into fists against the posts.

"Perhaps you could take a message for me, and tell those nice, intelligent clearance supervisors that when we tell them that there's rubble shifting, they should perhaps think before they tell us to use the back door. Not too hard - I wouldn't want them to hurt themselves -" 'Not before I get to the idiotic pieces of -' "- but just enough to make them wonder why they didn't go to back door themselves, or perhaps why they can't see the back door - that way the people doing their bloody jobs for them aren't nearly crushed when half a fucking building falls through the door." Becca took a deep breath, and noticed almost absently that she was shaking. She couldn't have said whether it was anger or shock finally setting in, but it made her step forwards, leaning her head against Morgan's shoulder. "We're fine. Absolutely fine. Just don't go in there until Aerin's done, all right?"

[Grey Wolf]

The sudden burst of light into the dim chamber left Becca and Aerin with a bit of a problem in distinguishing shapes clearly for a few flickers, Morgan vision further hampered by the time he spent on the surface. He still managed to make his way to the girls, by feeling with his hands where the walls were and after a couple of steps by actually being able to see the rough outlines of the walls. The sight that greeted him in the room was one of controlled destruction, as dust began settling down, the water helping greatly, as it absorbed the particles and made short work of the cloud. A hand was hanging out of the newly formed opening, the side turned towards him bearing some sort of marking upon it, several dark lines running down the skin from the shoulder all the way down to the fingertips.

Voices came through the crack in the rubble still piled above the back door, followed by a loud Oooomph and a new cascade of rocks and dust filtering through the cracks. "SORRY. Are you alright down there? We'll be down there in a few burns. We need the boots. Is it safe to start moving the rubble from the back door?" The voice was somewhat muffled by the rocks, but it was clearly not belonging to either of the two thugs. Morgan might recognize it as belonging to one of the worker that he witnessed arguing with Michael's men.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Aerin had nodded to the retreating Beccan and had only begun to draw her eyes over the crates when the voices called down from atop the rubble, jerking her gaze toward the pile of rocks as she prepared to answer ‘yes’…

…but she stopped the word even before her body had drawn in enough breath to say it…

Aerin’s eyes fell upon the arm and something urgently nagged at the back of her mind. Back…door… Back...door? she thought, her light brows furrowing as she made her way toward the arm. "Forget the back door and come in the other way….” Aerin called up to the voices. “We have another dead body here and at least one very live one who is going to try to dig her out – and the live body would really not like any rocks to be dropped on either herself or the dead girl, understand? I have made it this far in my life without any broken bones and do not intend to break that tradition this yahren.” Carefully, Aerin began lifting away rubble, trying to expose enough of the body to lift it from the stones because something was really bothering the redhead about how this one body had managed to fall into the building. The door that Becca had pried open had been the back door and, in Aerin’s experience, interior rooms only had second doors…no true ‘back’ doors. Her lips pursed together as if anticipating a shift in the rocks.

“I will need more help down here quickly…” Aerin called out, glancing over at Becca and Morgan, raising her voice loud enough to be heard, hopefully, by the thugs outside, their comments about needing boots provoking her ire while she, herself, waded about in whatever the nether the fluid around their ankles and calves was. She quickly tossed back her hair and took a short pause to both stash her dress-roll in a safe, dry, (and hopefully inconspicuous) place as well as vent out fear and anger at the thugs above. “…and by Dominicus’ itching, shit-smeared ass-crack, you have had two...TWO women down here without boots, digging around for you. Now get your asses moving without your precious boots, and stop being such women about it. If your feet are that damned dainty, turn in your cocks at the temple, put on your precious boots, and pick out some dresses while you are down here..." Aerin’s thoughts of treasure went to the wayside as her curiosity grew about the ‘back door body’ and her worry of a furthered landslide from above within such close proximity growing exponentially in relation.

“Come on, you dumb fucks…do as I asked…” Aerin muttered under her breath, loudly enough for Becca and Morgan to probably make out the words as she sloshed back over to the pile of rubble and trapped woman. “Later, if you useless shits still want to squeeze in through a blocked back door, I'm sure you can go fuck each other..."

She had been neither officially hired nor invited to join the excavation crew, simple curiosity seeming payment enough until she had found the bracelet and dresses. Those trinkets had enough of a payment until she had garnered coins, more jewelry, and the glowing liquid still in its vial between her breasts. All of the above had driven her to keep working seemingly until the handfuls of ‘tobacco’ had made her think that it was payment enough.

Now, someone or something had sweetened the pot even more as questions continued to form in her mind. Did she die before the fire, or after? If she was not trapped inside, what killed her? Or rather…who and why? Walking out with what she currently had would cause her no loss of sleep over what she had left behind, but living with the continuous low, hungry growl of curiosity would haunt her for nights to come if she did not at least try for the answers. Try for personal closure.

Aerin’s teeth bared in a cross between a grimace and a smile as she continued to try to clear away the rubble surrounding the woman’s face.

[Morg]

As Becca leant against him, Morgan could feel her shaking. Reflexively he wrapped his arms around her, squeezing her tightly to him for a few flickers. He still shook his head at her endeavour to hide their misdemeanours; given the rockslide, he'd have thought it would take a back seat. But crime was crime, and he had no desire to watch them commit it. He just wanted to make sure that the two women were still in one piece. A slim hand reached up to tousle her hair affectionately. "I'll stay out of sight," he replied softly.

He was himself in the process of composing a response to the clearance supervisor when Aerin opened her mouth. What emerged was a tirade of profanity that was quite shocking to Morgan's innocent, rural sensibilities. He was still a teenager, though, and as such couldn't help being grudgingly impressed. "I think what she said covers it nicely," he murmured with a wry smile, letting Becca go. "I'll leave you to it. Don't steal more than you can carry..." Morgan grinned and turned back down the corridor.

His target was the lone, eyeless corpse in the room at the end of the hall. Morgan had envisaged the trip to the ruins as a rescue mission. It had ended up with them partly restoring a crime lord's ill-gotten gains to him and partly stealing it for themselves, but he could at least make a token gesture in the direction of his original purpose by taking the woman's body out into the open. Reaching down under the filmy surface of the standing sewage, he hefted the body over his shoulder, wincing as the gases escaping from the corpse added to the already unpleasant mixture of smells in the room. Attempting to breathe in as little as possible, he began to make his way back to the surface, light and fresh air.

[Becca Acerbi]

Becca sighed almost contentedly as Morgan wrapped his arms around her, folding her arms around him in return, laughing a little shakily when he started messing up her hair. "I'd prefer it if you didn't, to be honest."

Aerin's tirade startled a proper laugh out of her, and she stepped back as Morgan let go to peer after the other woman. "That - that was impressive. I feel like I should be making notes. Or maybe applauding." Becca huffed at Morgan's comment, tugging him back so she could kiss him quickly. "I was done before you left to get Themselves." She jerked her head back towards where the idiots were still waiting for their waterproof shoes. "It's just that someone left the crates open, so I had to put everything back the way it was." She sighed plaintively, trudging back to look at the mess the rockfall had caused. "Not that anyone can tell..."

Becca looked back when she heard Aerin sloshing through the muck, and greeted her with the round of applause she deserved, and a rather admiring wolfwhistle. Becca fell into step with Aerin, grinning at her mischeviously. "That was beautiful, I have to say. You should give lessons. I'd pay for them, anyway." Becca hmmed thoughtfully, then joined Aerin in excavating the corpse without really thinking about it. It seemed a little... Unfair to leave her there, especially as the men yelling down probably wouldn't do anything as kind for her. She didn't want to think what might happen if they didn't look where they were putting their shovels.

"Knock yourselves out!" Becca yelled back through the rubble, before adding in an undertone for Aerin "And in the case of those two idiots by the stairs, I do mean that literally."

[Grey Wolf]

With confusing shouts coming from bellow and the clearly irritated tone of Aerin's voice, even through the rubble and debris, the workers upstairs decided it was in their best interest to get as far away from the back door and wait for the boots. The girl seemed quite pissed off and nobody wanted to mess with a pissed off mage. Flaming death was the least of their worries, much less dreaded than being turned into a fat woman or having body parts shrivel and fall off. Especially not the shrivel and fall off bit. Thus the girls were free to get themselves in trouble for a good couple of burns, the boy sent to fetch the boots distracted by a milkmaid in need of a strong pair of arms to help her carry the milk three block in the opposite direction.

Morgan found the task he set before himself relatively easy, once he managed to get past the terrible stench of the girl's rotting corpse, mixed with the noxious smell of the sewage that permeated everything. Thick, viscous liquid that had been blood once seeped out of her wounds, staining his clothes and making the stench cling to him even after she was lowered to the ground. The workers were just about ready to descend into the basement when he came up the stairs, the stench causing the men to back off and help him put the body down, peeking at the body with curiosity and disgust. "What happened to her? It looks like someone took her eyes out. Disgusting."

Meanwhile, Becca and Aerin found that digging the girl out was not as easy as it might have seemed, but certainly easier than had they be doing it from above, each tugged rock and brick unsettling a few more and causing the debris to cascade down and reveal more. Up close the dark stain upon the girl's hand turned out to be dried blood, and as they freed her shoulder and part of her torso the source of all that blood became clear. Her throat had been slit, though that could have been done in an act of mercy, to speed her pass into the afterlife caused by the arrow that pierced her neck cleanly through. Then a curl of her blond hair peeked through and finally a face Becca definitely could recognize. He once shining hair was the dull color of honey still, and the bright azure eyes stared blankly, wide from shock and surprise. Ever a Duchess, she looks almost humbled now, with the endearing and at the same time irritating bubbliness. It was Fauna Winthorpe and there was no doubt she was very dead.

[Becca Acerbi]

Becca continued to mutter to herself contentedly, muttering good-tempered mutiny about the fact that she didn't hear anyone coming downstairs and at this point in the day she wasn't so sure that the idiots actually had cocks to turn in - until they actually got somewhere and the body started to reveal herself.

"... Okay," Becca murmured, tugging the debris away faster and wondering how the arrow in the woman's neck hadn't broken. "So maybe there was something more than a fire going on last night -"

As the woman's face came into view from its covering of rubble, Becca froze, the colour draining from her face. She knew exactly who that was. "Shit," she whispered. "Shit shit shit shit shit." The illusionist backed away slowly, scrubbing her hands against each other as though trying to get something off her hands, looking at Aerin as though Aerin could explain why someone Becca knew was lying under the Banner with their throat cut. "It's Fauna. What in the name of - it's Fauna." Becca shook her head quickly, as though that would help clear it, returning to her task with slightly shakier hands than she'd began it. She should call Morgan, perhaps - although she hastily squashed that thought; it wasn't like there was anything he could do.

"I have to say, Duchess," Becca told the corpse - and that was all it was, it was just a corpse and not the emptyheaded mageling she'd wanted to throttle on more than one occasion. Which didn't explain why Becca was talking to it, apart from the fact that chattering snideness at Fauna's expense felt a little more normal than excavating Fauna's corpse. "I'm not suprised to see you here. Of all the places in the world you could be, a brothel would make the most sense. And I can't say I'm even surprised at finding you with your throat cut - maybe that it didn't happen sooner, but that's neither here nor there." The illusionist sighed and threw a handful of rubble away with a little more violence than was necessary. Her voice was a smooth layer of sarcasm when she added "And now I'm going to have to tell Mister Motricé and the other professors where you are, and they'll all be so upset. How very inconsiderate of you Duchess!"

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Aerin nodded in response to Becca’s observation of both arrow and knife wound, the mysterious wounds only adding credibility to Aerin’s thoughts that someone perishing outside of the building when they could have – theoretically – run away only suggested foul play to her. And then the face was uncovered as were Becca’s favorite explicative of the moment and the name of the fallen body.

At first Aerin watched Becca dubiously as recognition set in, unsure as to whether or not the woman was in need of a hug or anything over the loss of this Fauna. Her dubious expression melted into curiosity as Becca launched into her soliloquy to the dead woman, referring to the dead woman as nobility in one breath and a whore the next. Aerin looked back and forth from Fauna to Becca and decided, spontaneously, that she would try to either cheer Becca up if the snide remarks were a defense against pain or – if something was indeed wrong with her fellow mage – to snap Becca out of whatever spell she was under through a macabre act of sheer absurdity.

Aerin quickly reached out to place her hand over Fauna’s chin, her index finger and thumb squeezing together in an attempt to purse the dead woman’s lips repeatedly (if rigor had already set in and passed), the thumb moving to just tug at the lower lip if the skin proved to be too rigid. Raising her voice to a comic octave – a woman’s parody of a woman – and adding a touch of ‘noble accent for mirth, Aerin began to speak to Becca through her new ‘puppet’.

“I’m sorry… I meant to tell you of my role in the bawdy play ‘The Dirty Duchess and the Donkey from Dort’, but…well…the donkey asked me not to in order to hide his shame…” Aerin looked to Becca for a flicker before continuing. “As for the throat…” the redhead continued, undaunted. “I couldn’t get the donkey to bend right, so I thought this would help me go deeper and be able to smile at the audience at the same time. I guess I was wrong.” At those last words, Aerin pulled the mouth down into a momentary frown.

“Please, oh please don’t tell them…” puppet-Fauna pleaded via Aerin’s vocal cords and hand movements. “I’ll do anything you want. I’ll…” Aerin paused, manipulating the mouth into a slight smirk of thought. “I’ll hold a door open for you… Or keep birds out of your crops…” Aerin offered, trying to think up things a dead body could do. “I’ll stand in for you at fancy dinners…well…sit in for you…maybe lay my head on the table and draw the flies away from the food or something.” Aerin gave a little giggle before continuing.

“You can touch my breasts if you want… They are nice and soft and the longer I lay here…” Aerin continued, picturing Fauna’s flesh growing doughy from decay as time passed. “..the softer they will get…”

Aerin stopped her dark puppet show and looked up to Becca with a smile, hoping the little display swayed the shaken woman in one form or another.

[Morg]

Fortunately Morgan, with his mental part-passenger, wasn't around to witness Aerin's act with Fauna's dead body. Maintaining his sanity under such conditions might well have been a challenge too far. Lugging unidentified corpses around was an altogether safer way of spending his time - although by now he felt that a wash was necessary.

He couldn't help grimacing as he relinquished the body to the men at the entrance. "I don't know how she died," Morgan forced himself to say. "Apart from the eyes, I couldn't find a wound. But she was the only person I could find down there." He neglected to mention the slight magical aura he'd sensed around the body when he'd first entered the cellar. After all, what would these men be able to make of that?

His legs suddenly felt rather weak, and he sought a pile of rubble or the remnant of a wall to sit down upon. There were certainly far more pleasant ways to spend a morningtide.

[Grey Wolf]

Art from a momentary disgust and worry about what the stench would do to his robe and how heard it would be best to burn the robe and go buy something fashionable later, as his color sense was atrocious, Morgan felt little of the presence of his passenger. By that time the boots were brought back and workers set about donning them, the foreman pausing at the bottom of the stairs and shouting into the darkness. “Ladies, is it safe to come down? We got the boots now and we can clear the rest of the rubble. Do you need help?” The thugs showed no interest in the dead woman, the taller one looking at the eyeless corpse with morbid fascination, while his companion went about donning a pair of water-proof boots so he could venture down. “Pay the sorcerer and his assistants when they come out, Joe. You got enough?” The big thug nodded and moved to Morgan’s side, pulling his head in between the shoulders slightly and coughing to get the mage’s attention. “Master? Will five coronets be enough for you help? For you and your assistants?”

OOC: Girls time to leave the premises, unless you want to help the nice workers. What you grab is what you get. Sorry. Sale is over.

[Becca Acerbi]

Becca stared at Aerin blankly as she started on her rather macabre puppet show. By the time she got to the embarrassed donkey, a grin was tugging at the corner of Becca's mouth, and by the offer of a sit-in, Becca was leaning on the pile of rubble and laughing helplessly. "And the terrifying thing about that - about what you said - is how accurate it is." For the second time that day, Becca found herself applauding Aerin's efforts, although this time she finished by touching Aerin's arm lightly and saying "Thanks. I needed the laugh." She really would have to explain to Mister Motricé and Professor Peckerton what she'd found, and gods she wasn't looking forwards to it, but at least she'd got a last laugh at Fauna's expense. There was always that.

The thug's yell got Becca's attention, and she turned quickly to Aerin with a smile that was suddenly sugar-sweet and mischevious. "I'm going to go be nice to the idiots. Think we could probably get them to carry her out for us?" Becca dusted her hands off again briskly. "If you're after anything else, I'll stall 'em for a little while, if you want?"

Whether Aerin agreed or not, Becca flitted back to the stairs, yelling a rather chirpy "I'm sure if it's safe enough for two delicate young women like us, it'll be perfectly safe for such strong, brave men as yourselves," up them with the smile still firmly in place. "Just be careful if anyone tells you to open the back door - which reminds me!" Becca swung herself up the stairs, relishing the fresh air - well, relatively fresh, although anything would be sweeter than the air under the Banner. She stopped in the opening, looking as innocent and helpful as she could manage while deliberately being in the way. "We found a body during the cave-in, and I'm sure the University would be very interested in seeing it, so I do hope you'll be careful with it - you're having the bodies taken to the Mother's Temple, right?"

Becca glanced around quickly for Morgan, hoping for a little back-up (He was quite good at the Mysterious Man Of Magic Who Was Quite Forbidding To People Who Hadn't Seen Him In Purple Tights thing, really.), and frowned in concern, suddenly losing her desire to play with the nice little idiots. 'Sorry Aerin...' She turned the frown on the thug she'd accosted, as though that would make him please hurry his answer up so she could go make sure shifting a building wasn't having any terrible effects on Morgan.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Aerin smiled at Becca’s response and gave a nod when Becca stated that she needed the laugh. Aerin had needed it too, the morbidity and grueling labor – although mostly self-inflicted…she had volunteered after all – wearing down on her as noted in her cursing of the guards. “I shall be along shortly – you won’t have to stall for long.” Aerin replied as Becca stood and left. Aerin’s eyes looked back upon Fauna’s fair face again, her hands moving down to the girl’s bosom the very flicker that Becca had slipped from view. [i]Let’s see if you were anything like me, beautiful…” Aerin whispered as one hand pulled Fauna’s neckline a bit further from her chest and the other hand plunged between soiled cloth and cold flesh. Aerin was not groping for sexual pleasure, although the actions did remind her a bit of her first and only murder as she felt around to see if Fauna had hidden any items where no pickpocket dared to look on a living woman, her hands ready to retreat the very flicker that she heard noise of approaching feet.

If she found anything, she would pocket it without close inspection, and even if she came up empty, she would venture one more post-mortum grope under Fauna’s skirts, feeling along thighs and crotch for hidden items as her eyes looked to Fauna’s waist, wrists, ankles, and fingers for pouches or whatnot, figuring them to be already taken by the murderer if it was a case of mugging, attempting to take anything that had remained Fauna’s possession despite the attack. Aerin was not a greedy girl, but all items save for the tobacco were ‘treasures’ to her, mementos of her grand adventures in the river of shit which was the Red Banner, having no idea that there was a payment waiting for her topside.

She did her searches as quickly as humanly possible and scurried to collect her rolled up dresses (with her tobacco hidden inside) after giving one final goodbye to the shell which was Fauna in the form of a short, but lingering kiss upon the dead woman’s cold, lifeless lips. As she neared the door, Aerin turned a final time to gaze upon the dead woman in the rubble. “I love a good mystery, my dear, and you can bet your once-luscious tits that I will drop your name on careful occasion to find out why and how you died. The story behind it, I mean… We both know how you bit it.” Aerin sighed, running her tongue lightly along her lower lip as if still tasting Fauna’s essence.

With a final bow of her head, Aerin would ascend the stairs herself and join the others on the surface. "I salvaged some dresses for myself, if that is all right..." she would tell anyone who inquired - if they did - showing the rolled up cloth with the hopes that it would not be inspected closely. "With the stench and water down there, I imagine the rest will be ruined before long."

[Morg]

Blinking up at the tall clearance supervisor offering him payment, the sewage-smeared Morgan was faced with possibly his toughest ethical dilemma of the day so far. They want to pay me?

Many things about Morgan were subject to change, but one aspect that remained more or less constant was his wholesale distaste for mercantilism in all his forms. He'd come down to the remains of the Red Banner on what he thought would be a rescue mission. Granted, it hadn't worked out that way. The only thing they'd been able to rescue was an eyeless corpse and some quantity of loot on Becca's part. But he'd never intended to be providing a service, and certainly not to the owner of the brothel, who he now suspected of all sorts of illicit dealings. This is dirty money.

Still, there were many things about the situation that made him feel better about accepting it. His sheer lack of success made it very tempting to try to glean at least something positive from the morningtide's work. If nothing else, Becca and Aerin had made it worth their while. Why shouldn't he benefit too? Besides, he'd surely be able to put the money to better use than the goons.

Armed with this dubious logic, Morgan rose from his sitting-place and replied. "Five coronets..." He made a brief show of mulling the sum over in his mind, as if this were something he did every day. "Yes, that will be just fine. Thank you." The young magus smiled at the taller thug. He may have been a goon, but he'd been extremely polite and accommodating.

Of course, Morgan had no intention of sharing the money unless he was prompted to do so. After all, he said it was for me and my assistants. Technically speaking, I don't have any assistants. Aerin just turned up off the street, and Becca's just... Becca.

[Grey Wolf]

Aerin found that she could hardly explored Fauna’s body as thoroughly as she might have wanted, the lower part of the sorceress’ body still buried under the rubble, with only her torso dug out and hanging a bit awkwardly from the collapsed back cellar entrance. There was nothing hidden upon the dead girl’s body, though a pair of silver earring hung from her earlobes, the left one bent and twisted by the stones that laid upon her since the building collapsed. As close as she was to the still well-preserved corpse, Aerin was able to detect a ring under the caked blood that covered Fauna’ arm. Removing both the earrings and the ring before the workers arrived would be impossible, unless the red-head forcibly ripped the earrings off or broke the dead girls finger in order to swiftly take the ring away.

“Yes, mam. We’ll take the bodies to the Temple so relatives can come and take them away for burial, or in case nobody shows up to be buried by the priestesses.” First down the stairs was the aged foreman, followed by half a dozen of his men, though every single one of them pressed back against the wall so the lady mage could leave the stinking cellar. “Thanks, miss. You three saved us a lot of trouble, though the master turned aside before getting to the back door. Would have been less stinky if we got there directly, but we’ll get it all out eventally.” His men echoed the leader’s sentiments, though they barely managed to smile as nauseating smell kept making them frown.

Joe dropped the coins into Morgan’s hand, which the young mage would find amounted to a banner more than agreed upon five coronets. As tall and burly as the man was, he was also obviously nervous, shuffling his feet uneasily, nodding quickly. “Thank you, Master. Master Crane will be happy to hear we already got the path cleared. Thank you. Good bye.” He had witnessed the ages power in moving the rocks and rubble and did ot wish to do or say anything that might anger the spellcaster and cause him to turn his awesome and probably destructive powers on poor Joe.

The smaller thug was on his way down the stairs when Aerin ran into him, a rug covering his mouth and nose, and her question was replied to with a quick nod. “Sure, sure. Keep the dresses. It’s not like the whores are gonna need them anymore.” Then, remembering whom he spoke to and how big a service they have done to him and Michael Crane he moved the rug away and smiled. “Thanks, miss. You three were sent by the Gods.” He was moving down the hallway then, groaning at the stench and trying to keep it away with the rug, and obviously failing.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Aerin gave a bright smile as the guard thanked her, wondering how it was that he was so ill from the smell, but her stomach remained calm. Was it a side-effect of eating the dead that their stench did not bother her as much? A trick of her senses, her nose blind as she went about her task doing what needed be done? Or was it simply something that she had ‘tuned out’, her mind wrapping around the stench as if it were normal and adapting quickly to the fetid air? She hardly had time to think on the matter when his speech of gods and gratitude reached her ears.

The same gods who allowed this to happen? Aerin scowled silently as the guard fought the smell and moved away from her. Just like my father, you are… Praising a phantom who had nothing to do with it. I hope you puke… Aerin’s eyebrow chose a flicker of dark mirth to rise and called out after him. “Mind the rats…” She gave a small giggle and thanked her own fortune that the bites had not accompanied the squeaking down there as she rose up the passageway and emerged from the mass grave.

“Well now…” she chuckled, moving closer to Morgan and Becca. “Wasn’t that fun?” Aerin shifted her load up under one arm and extended her hand to both in turn, Morgan first. “Thank you so much for allowing me to help down there. It was a real learning experience, I assure you and – thankfully – not an act of free donation on my part as they are letting me keep the dresses as a form of payment, I assume.” She said, giving a small wink to Becca, who knew that her bundle contained more than dresses. Not much more, but more. Having missed the talk of payment and the handoff of coins, the redhead remained oblivious to the fact that Morgan had been paid and was too preoccupied with slipping home with her goodies to press the matter and risk having them taken away in afterthought.

“I shall be at the Burpin’ Dragon if either of you have the need or desire to find me.” She offered. “If I am not there, then I am most likely serving drinks and food at Simple Pleasures although…” she said, suddenly catching the difference in the air coming off of her own skin in comparison to the fresh air around her. “…if I do not shave this stench off, Claire won’t even assign me the task of rummaging through the bins to look for utensils that may have accidentally been thrown away with the refuse.”

Aerin thought for a flicker about the vial of glowing liquid still between her breasts and decided against mentioning or showing it to the mages. If it were important, the thugs would probably take it, and she did not want that – with mages like Morgan and Becca doing work like this for the city, Aerin had the feeling that she would run into them again at a safer time – perhaps even at the university if and when she decided to take the vial to Pralix.

Bath…and more importantly, bag…first… she silently reminded herself, flexing hidden inner muscles and trying to move the bag within her body into a more comfortable position for the walk to her room. “Again, it has been a privilege…thank you both.” Aerin would say after either Morgan or Becca said whatever they wished to say to her (if they chose to) before turning toward the Dragon and heading off to a warm bath, her new treasures staying hidden from her curiosity, Cicero’s happy hands, or the sight of others until her skin smelled sweeter than a freshly-plucked rose on a warm spring day.

OOC: Fin for me, guys – It was a blast on this side of the screen as well – thanks for the epic RP.