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

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Aerin’s eyes and ears were focused on the gaggle of men as they argued, the scant morsels that she had worked free finding their way into her pocket for later perusal. Master Crane? Possessions?? The redhead looked back at the passage that Morgan and Becca had vanished into, trying to see what lay below before giving a final glance at the guards and workers.

“Sorry, dear… It has been grand, but…” Aerin whispered to the faceless woman before descending as rapidly as she dared, trying to catch up to the two more experienced mages without breaking her neck in the process, slipping her pack from her back and clutching it gently to her breasts, should her little simian passenger awaken and startle in the darkness.

She hated leaving the mystery of the woman’s identity a secret, but the sight and smell of the meat as it further ripped open was proving far too tempting for such an open forum. She needed a distraction fast and hoped that this ‘Master Crane’ fellow, presumably the mage that she was following, would like her assistance in retrieving his possessions. From what Aerin had seen on the surface, Morgan had certainly seemed like a ‘master’ – at least as far as her limited experience had shown.

[Becca Acerbi]

Becca made a small, heartfelt noise of disgust when she saw what was on the floor of the basement. "I thought we'd had enough walking through this stuff when we went after Arden," she grumbled, shaping a light to bob along ahead of her as she followed Morgan. Her expression was eloquent as the floor squelched around her shoes, and she did her best to watch where she was putting her feet without actually seeing what they were walking through. Eew is exactly right...

While Morgan went to the open door, Becca went to the nearest of the closed doors, checking it first in the Aether - Elvin's paranoia was infectious, she'd found - before she tried to open it. If she couldn't get the door open, then she'd try the other one, or carry on down the corridor. "You know, after what happened at the temple, I don't think we should let you open any of these doors." She turned in time to catch the smile, offering a wry one in return. "You never know - we might have a day that doesn't involve demons for once."

[Grey Wolf]

While Morgan moved down the hall, Becca found her target much closer to the stair and the door unlocked. No traces of energy clung to the door frame and soon she found herself in a simple room, its large bed obviously meant to hold someone of considerable stature. A number of dresses lay scattered over its surface, a faint scent of smoke mixing with stench of refuse around her feet, coming from the blackened ceiling above. Had Morgan been by her side, his expert eye might have recognized the dresses as Audrey's design, some of them the very height of fashion. Something even he would not mind being seen in. One looked just perfectly suited for bosom heaving, but Becca would have to turn to Morgan's expertly eye to learn such a fact.

Aerin found herself alone in a dimly lit corridor, though her loneliness was quickly diffused as she turned a corner and saw Morgan moving down the passage twards the end of it. The young mage discovered that the passage contained another door to the left, at the very end of the passage, set in a small alcove that looked like a turn in the passage. The door was somewhat loose, but still closed and obviously locked. Of the energy that drew him inside and bellow the ground there was little trace, only a faint lingering aura around a body in the room he entered at the end of the hallway. His presence and more importantly the light he carried sent a few rats scurrying away through a hole in the wall through which refuse entered. The woman was quite obviously dead, though no wounds were visible upon her body, apart from the fact her eyes were gone, twin gaping holes staring at the ceiling, her lower lip half eaten and showing a couple of pearly white teeth that glimmered in the pale light of his shining ball of magicky twine.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Since she had apparently not been fast enough to see where Becca had gone, Aerin kept her eyes focused on Morgan as she moved to catch up with him, the smell of rot within the chambers doing very little to help keep down the rather freakish snack that she had just consumed as she felt her nose hairs practically singe from the stench.

What treasure is worth all of this…? she pondered as the sight of the woman filled her eyes and the sound of her gasp of shock issued from her lips.

[Becca Acerbi]

Becca sighed when she saw what the room contained - she wouldn't know an Audrey's original if the woman herself forced her into one, so to her eye there was nothing worth looking at in the room. She wasn't even going to let herself speculate about the need for such a huge bed; considering where they were, she probably didn't want to know.

"Nothing interesting in this one," Becca called, walking back out into the corridor, before sighing and picking her way down the corridor to catch up with Morgan. "Well, unless you're suddenly interested in dresses - gods!"

Becca flicked her light forwards to bob around Aerin, using the hand not stopping her heart jumping out of her ribs to start gathering air energy to her - not that she expected Aerin to do anything, but she objected to people popping up out of nowhere in a place like this. "Where in the name of all the gods did you come from?" The strange woman didn't look like she'd come from the work crew, but she was - well, she was still breathing, so that was enough to suggest that she wasn't one of the women from the Banner.

She'd probably regret that thought when she saw what the others were looking at.

[Morg]

Back in the old days, Morgan would have vomited at the sight of a corpse such as the one with which he was now confronted. As it was, it set his stomach churning again, but he merely frowned and observed it more carefully. Don't know whose side she was on. Jolanda had been on his side, and he should have prevented her death - even if she had done little to prevent it herself. A dead person was just that: lifeless, devoid of significance. A rotting corpse was little more interesting than a rotten apple - except for the puzzle this one posed.

No obvious wounds. The eyes and lip were most likely taken by the rats. Looks like she was killed by magic. Elemental energies seem out of the question - they would have left a mark. So it was likely some sort of poison, or maybe a mental assault. Morgan guessed the latter, with the perpetrator possibly having escaped through the unnatural hole in the wall. Whoever had done it was in any case long gone. It all seemed more and more likely that the night of the fire had witnessed much more than a simple accident.

Upon hearing Becca's voice, Morgan realised, bizarrely, that he was suddenly interested in dresses. He didn't have time to chase the thought, though, because when he turned around he saw Aerin and heard her gasp. Like Becca, he looked her up and down in surprise. His conclusion was that she had a rather appealing pair of breasts - and as well as vague arousal, Morgan felt something that could only be described as a competitive instinct coming to the fore. By the Mother. Why am I suddenly feeling an urge to heave my bosom? The mixture of feelings was unsettling, to say the least.

The magus gave Aerin a hesitant smile before continuing more confidently. He wasn't great with new people, especially ones with breasts. "Nothing interesting in this one either," he stated to both, rather coldly and wrinkling his nose, "unless you're interested in corpses and sewage. If you check the middle door, I'll try the one at the end of the corridor." Any removal could be done by Master Crane's men, not him. Morgan had come to investigate the use of magic in the incident and to try to save lives. The latter objective now seemed impossible, and the former had been achieved to the extent that it was possible to do so. Once Morgan had assuaged his curiosity by checking all the remaining rooms, he would happily leave the Banner basement to its fate. It wasn't just the strange new feelings that were telling him to get himself out of the vile place.

Morgan moved down the corridor to the closed and locked door in the alcove at the end, trying the handle on the off chance it might come open and then glancing around at its frame for structural weaknesses.

[Grey Wolf]

Pair of eyes observed the trio from the darkness beyond the hole in the wall, the fiery points burning from only a few inches above the infested waters, barely an inch apart. They did not move closer, but a few flickers later another pair joined them, the one more, and soon scores of eyes watched them, standing beyond the circle of ligth cast by Morgan's magickal torch. Only the sound of running water disturbed the utter silence, the shouts from above dimmed by the walls and inaudible now. Perhaps the workers have stopped arguing and were coming down to join them?

It is locked. Soft feminine voice, whispered those words into Morgan's ear, a flicker passing before it added. It was always locked. Her words proved to be right, the door held securely by a sturdy lock, though the metal holding it in place had a bit of room to move, the rock into which it was set crumbled on the other side somewhat. There was something about that voice that sounded familiar, but it was a passable feeling and nothing more. The thick wood stared back at him, its dark surface polished by the passage of time, the dust that covered it smudged in two spots roughly at shoulder-height.

The middle room, should the girls choose to investigate, would reveal itself to be a bedroom of sorts, the bed there considerably shorter than the one Becca saw before. A wardrobe stood open near the left hand wall, a plethora of dresses visible inside. The room clearly belonged to a woman, but without Morgan's eye for fashion, Becca or Aerin had no way of knowing just how fashionable and stylish the dresses were.

EDIT Added the last paragraph since I forgot to put it in before

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

"Nothing interesting in this one, Well, unless you're suddenly interested in dresses - gods!"

Aerin had been staring intently at the dead woman and only faintly heard the voice behind her until the final few words. As if Morgan was not having a hard enough time with his chore, Aerin’s own shriek answered Becca’s in the narrow space, the redhead’s back pressing swiftly against what remained of the doorframe and/or wall as she recoiled from Becca in a small burst of fright, the bag containing her new pet nudging softly into her back as if to remind her that Cicero wished to remain un-squished.

Her hands came up in what would most likely be useless defense as her widening eyes tried to shut themselves away from whatever spell Becca may have decided to unleash upon her.

"Where in the name of all the gods did you come from?"

A lone index finger stood while the others slowly curled downward, relaxing cautiously. “Uh…up there…” Aerin mumbled, her voice a shadow of normalcy. “He called for help, so…” she offered before her meek reply was cut off (probably unintentionally) by Morgan.

"Nothing interesting in this one either, unless you're interested in corpses and sewage. If you check the middle door, I'll try the one at the end of the corridor."

Do you mean me, or…? Aerin thought, looking at Morgan before turning her eyes back to Becca. Why would he mean me? She was his helper before I came along… she concluded, choosing not to make a big deal of it. She could, however, offer the help that she had referred to. “I can help you…” she told Becca, as Morgan seemed to be more of a loner. “I am not afraid of getting my hands dirty and my little friend Cicero could fit into places we might not and…” she said, hoping that the next part of her offer would be of some use to either mage. “…he is already trained to fetch shiny things, if that is the sort of thing that you are after…”

I must make note of the dresses though… This ‘Master Crane’ is probably not interested in clothes, as these two have dismissed them as ‘nothing’... she pondered as she waited for a reply.

[Becca Acerbi]

"Hey, it's okay," Becca told Aerin soothingly, or at least as soothingly as she could manage when she'd just been given cause to jump out of her skin. "You don't need to look so scared - you just startled me, that's all." Becca stepped forwards, and tentatively offered her a hand. "I'm sorry about scaring you like that, miss...?"

She shot Morgan a rather bewildered look as she spoke - people screaming in fear at the very sight of her was a new experience to say the least - before turning back to Aerin. "Well, we can always use the help. I don't suppose any of them told you what this 'stash' we're supposed to be looking for is, did they?"

Becca sighed at Morgan's words. "Lovely. I think we've had enough of those today." She hesitated, looking him up and down. For someone who'd just dragged the equivalent of half a building out of a hole, he was doing pretty well, but... Becca shook her head and smiled. "If you need any help, just shout, okay?" She turned the smile on Aerin and indicated for her to come down the corridor.

"Friend?" she asked as she went through the same process of checking the aether before she opened the door. There was nothing interesting to her in it - more dresses. Really, didn't people keep books or things any more? - but she stepped aside to let Aerin have a look around. "I'll never turn down shiny things, but I haven't seen anyone else down here..."

Becca hesitated in the doorway of the room, tugging absentmindedly on the chain of her pendant. "Will you be alright on your own for a minute? I just want to make sure Morgan's not doing anything -" That Mister Moticé would consider a good idea, was what she [i]would[i] have said, but she stopped herself. "Or you can come with, if you want," she added quickly. "I don't mind either way."

[Morg]

Truth be told, Morgan didn't really care which of Becca or Aerin checked the middle door at that flicker. He was more preoccupied with the strange things that seemed to be going on inside his own head. A voice that spoke to him and provided him with what sounded like answers. At any rate, the voice gave him enough information to know that he wasn't going to be leaving the cellar until he'd found out what was behind the door.

It was possible that one of the thugs upstairs held the key. Or if not, Master Crane certainly would... if he was still alive and not buried under the rubble. But Morgan's curiosity had been sufficiently piqued that he wasn't going to leave it to them. Which meant that a sturdy door was between him and his target.

He could have laughed. There he was, a magus, if not a fully fledged one, prevented from getting where he wanted to be by a simple slab of wood and some heavy metalwork. Brute Aetheric force slammed against the door might have done the trick, but Morgan wasn't convinced that it would, given the amount he trusted himself to channel. Besides, he'd always prided himself on intelligent solutions to problems rather than charging blindly in. After a few flickers he decided to adopt a similar approach to that he'd taken with the larger chunks of debris blocking the stairway earlier. He could see that the rock on the other side of the lock was already crumbling a little. He just needed to cause the taut strands of earth energy within it to vibrate and resonate. Structural rock would likely be more of a challenge than the rubble on the surface, but the principle was the same. He would unweave the rock, causing it to fracture and fall away around the point where the metal of the lock dug into the wall.

Taking a deep breath, he began to weave, pausing every now and then to give the door a gentle push. If his strategy worked, that would be all it would take to get it open in the end.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

"Hey, it's okay, You don't need to look so scared - you just startled me, that's all. I'm sorry about scaring you like that, miss...?"

Unaware that Morgan’s attentions had been focused - for a time - upon her breasts, Aerin brought her left hand to that very spot on her body and pressed her fingertips into the apex of her cleavage as if trying to still her racing heart while the other extended to Becca in greeting.

“A-aerin… Aerin Seleratus. I am sorry for the start as well – I was expecting you before me and not behind me…” She allowed herself a smile and giggle of relief that Becca was Becca and not one of the owners of the as-yet unnoticed creatures in the darkness.

"Well, we can always use the help. I don't suppose any of them told you what this 'stash' we're supposed to be looking for is, did they?"

“No… ‘They’ told me nothing, except that you were looking for possessions and that they were recovering bodies…” Aerin offered, looking at Morgan as well for a moment before turning back to Becca with a shrug. “I think that it is safe for me to assume that it is not a stash of dresses, yes?” Another grin came as well as a nod to Morgan at his instructions.

“Friend? I'll never turn down shiny things, but I haven't seen anyone else down here..."

Aerin nodded at the word ‘friend’, unaware of the magic flowing through the air around Becca, but more than happy to take a peek in at the dresses. It was, to the redhead, like a morbid mall – having seen nothing of dresses of this quality at the stores that she could afford to shop at. Reluctantly, she bit back an urge to request salvaging one or two for herself. It would be a shame for them all to be buried and rotting in this tomb.

"Will you be alright on your own for a minute? I just want to make sure Morgan's not doing anything - Or you can come with, if you want, I don't mind either way."

The other woman’s voice broke through into Aerin’s fantasies of seeing her curves filling out some of the fantastic designs for a moment. “Hmm? Oh… Mmm…hmmm… I’ll be fine, I think…” she answered around her fingernail which she found herself absentmindedly chewing on as she smiled at Becca, the finger leaving her mouth a flicker later when she realized how rude the act may come off as.

Once Becca left to find Morgan, Aerin would turn her attention once more to the new room of dresses. Just a quick peek and besides… she thought to herself as she stepped further into the room. …a smart girl might hide her valuables in places that others might not think to look, just for that very reason… Aerin thought as she remembered hanging baubles of her own within carefully-folded sleeves of her clothing when she was a child. Besides looking for hidden trinkets, she did, indeed, inspect the dresses quickly, looking for ones that had not been too badly damaged and that could possibly fit into her bag once Cicero was removed from his slumber, if she decided to actually ‘shop’ that is…

[Grey Wolf]

Drip-drip-drip. As they stopped splashing about so much, the trio in the cellar became more aware of the multitude of sounds in the dank, dark space under the ground they now occupied. Screech-screech-squeak. The stench was still there, but with time it had withdrawn to the back of their consciousness, not bothering either of them that much. The air above ground would still smell like a spring, flowery meadow once they got to that point.

Aerin found that the items within the middle room had been mostly intact, only one of the dresses slightly wet at the hem where the stinky water reached high enough to foul the fine fabric. The rest of the dresses were shorter, and if her casual examination were to be believed she could fit in a few of those, perhaps with some minor adjustments. Of jewelry however there was no trace, at least within the wardrobe she was examining at the moment. Perhaps the bedside table held some in its drawer, or maybe a bed itself hid something valuable under its pillows, or in the thick soft mattress, that was sure to become moldy given the dampness it was exposed to.

Had Morgan tried to force the door open rather than approaching it subtly, he would have found the task far easier than he imagined. Valsert and Danomel had been only half a dozen attempts away from forcing their way into the chamber beyond. As it were the young mage gathered the strands of Aether around him, the red energy coalescing out of thin ai, flowing from under his fingernails, eager to please its new master. Even as his own strands of earth energy reached outwards, the red tentacles rushed to be there first, finding small cracks in the stone, wedging themselves in it. Then came his own energy strengthening the wedge, widening it, working together with blood red strands to make the crack bigger, the stone literally crumbling before his onslaught. Less than a short burn later both he and Becca heard a soft screech of metal against stone and the door swung slightly inward, exposing a glimpse of the room's interior to their eyes. Festering water had reached that room too, soaking the bottom of dozens of wooden crates that sat on the floor, more crates resting atop them. Several bales of white rough textured white cloth could be seen in the background, though whether they were made out of cloth or the cloth protected something different within was not readily apparent.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Aerin had begun to hear the noises of dripping and squeaking as she and the others had become still, but she did not consciously wonder about them until after Becca had left her to find Morgan and she had begun to examine the dresses.

Water…more water…, she thought to herself as she glanced around the room in a cursory attempt to triangulate the sound. …and I doubt that the squeaking is the mattress of even the horniest little tart who does not yet know that the building has fallen… her thoughts continued as she selected three dresses and quickly rolled them up, deciding against the bag due to the sounds and possibility of either attack or further flooding. [Still…[/i] she smirked, moving her way over to the nightstand where she tried to open a drawer, her ‘shopping spree’ evidently not to be denied and, with time seeming to draw short, she was already eyeing the pillow and mattress as future targets even as she gave the first tug on the drawer.

[Morg]

Morgan permitted himself a smile as his weaving worked out right, turning to give Becca a sudden, warm victory hug. As he looked over her shoulder, he could hear squeaks and see points of light in the darkness. It unsettled him a little, as it reminded him of the ratmen who'd taken Jolanda and Arden and who'd sliced his arm open. The scar still itched occasionally. Furthermore, the sights and sounds seemed to be eliciting an altogether more primal, feminine response of affected disgust on his part. He wrinkled his nose.

Still, all that was immaterial for the flicker. It worried him slightly that the red energy still didn't seem to be dissipating, but after all it had been there since the night of the conflagration - he could only assume - and so it wasn't likely to disappear in a flash. Far more important was that he now had access to the last of the rooms... the one that was always locked. "Whatever this Master Crane was storing down here, it looks like this is it." He frowned, disentangling himself from Becca. "Some rescue operation this has turned out to be. Helping a brothel owner retrieve his property."

Although it was part of neither his own mission nor that of the thuggish men, the desire to find out what was in the room was foremost in his mind, so he strode over to the nearest stack of crates, pulling out his knife, and began to lever it open with the blade.

[Becca Acerbi]

Becca glanced around her sharply, trying to pinpoint the squeaking noises. The time they'd spent in the sewers with the rat men gave her a - a healthy disinclination to lurk in places like sewers. Especially when they had rats in them. She sent her light spinning into the darker corners as she headed back to Morgan, resisting the urge to do something Elvin-ish herself.

She reached Morgan in time to see the door swinging open and cheered, kissing him quickly as he hugged her. "Well, look at it this way - you've saved some of the poor idiots upstairs some work, and that's got to be good, right?" She ran a hand over his arm and shoulder, then wandered into the room he'd broken into. "Aerin's having a look around that other room - I really hope no one's going to check us for things on the way out." Becca gave him a rather mischevious smile. "If you want any shiny things, I'd get it now." For her part, Becca was running her hand over the bales of cloth, trying to judge what was under them. If it didn't feel like more fabric, she'd tug the fabric away. Just to get a look at what it was, of course...

[Grey Wolf]

Morgan found the crate nailed down quite securely, but the nails gave way under his attempts after a few flickers, a single board detaching itself from the top. The lack of lighting made it a bit hard to glimpse into the crate, but with magick so readily available to the young mage, soon he found himself staring into a fine golden necklace, piled upon a dozen other pieces of jewelry, including several rings, a pearly necklace, silver choker and quite a dazzling emerald pendant. With just a slight shift of a box sitting on top of the crate he opened, and removal of another board, it would be quite easy for Morgan to reach out and pick out a piece of jewelry. That emerald pendant would sit just perfectly in his cleavage, the golden necklace just the right length to nestle it against his chest bone.

Becca found that the cloth shifted under her touch, whatever it was it hid rustling like leaves in the wind, the whole pile soft and probably quite light. The cloth had been wrapped securely about the bale's content, but a few flickers later, the young librarian mage found her hand under the cloth reaching into a..... Yup, it was a pile of leaves for sure, and the one she pulled out proved to be vaguely star shaped, the leaves closest to the stalk shorter than the upper ones. One might even compare it to a hand, fingers outstretched, spread apart, the scent it gave off musky and sweet, but not sickeningly so. The plant did not seem familiar to her, though it could be compared to fern in the shape of its leaves, though only vaguely so.

Aerin on the other hand found herself foiled, the drawer locked with no key in sight. The look did not look particularly complex and it was safe to assume it would give way under a determined assault, though the table itself would be damaged without a doubt. It was then that she felt something brush against her ankle, a moment later a soft tinkle sounding against the bedside table leg. A beaker it was, somehow left undamaged in all the water and fire that struck the place, floating upon the surface, holding a tiny amount of softly glowing red liquid within it. An unseen current carried it past the small table, pulling it away and under the bed, though with quick reaction it would be easy to reach and catch it before it went too far and forced Aerin to kneel down into the filth.

[Morg]

Morgan stood for a few flickers, gobsmacked. Not just by the loot that stood before him, but also by his own reaction to it. Green and gold... hmm... would that clash with a grey-brown robe? And by Great Anasis, why am I wearing a grey-brown robe? He almost did reach down, his long fingers magpie-like, but he stayed his hand at the last minute.

"Shiny things..." the student magus echoed Becca. "Ah... I think we have all the shiny things we need, right here..." In his musings he didn't bother to keep his voice down. Anyone in the cellar could likely hear what he was saying.

Loot. No other way to describe it, really. If all these crates are full of the same thing, there's enough shinies here to kit out a whole army of whores. The idea of an army of whores was in fact strangely appealing. Morgan wasn't sure if it was his Strange New Thoughts telling him this, or a rather repressed part of his original mind. Absently he began to check the next crate along, again using his knife to lever a nail or two free of the wood. "This Crane must be a rich man. Or at least he will be, when he gets his hands on this lot."

Most less scrupulous men would have at least considered the possibility of taking a 'cut' of the treasure for themselves, but to Morgan's credit it never crossed his mind. Well, it did, but only very briefly, and he didn't consider it seriously. At least, not very seriously. Sickening, really, all this wealth in the hands of a brothel owner, but Morgan couldn't think of anything immediate to do about it. He couldn't get it all out alone, and what would he do with it if he did?

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Drip... drip... drip... The dripping water continued to fall, providing a backbeat...

Slosh... Slosh... Slosh... The fluid around her feet sang like woodwinds which used neither wood nor wind...

Squeak... Squeak... Squeak... The unseen animals - rats, most likely - were tiny living horns furnishing a syncopated rhythm...

Smack... Smack... Smack... The drawer refused to open, its stubborn lock striking the wood and rendering a short bass line...

"Dammit... Dammit... Dammit..." Aerin's cursings with every fruitless tug provided vocals...

She was a regular one-girl band playing a symphony of frustration...until a soft tinkling threw itself into the chorus and caught her attention. "Hmm... What?" Aerin asked herself as she stopped working on the table and reached for the vial, noting its movement and attempted escape from her grasp. The soft glow of the fluid intrigued her as she gazed into the glass in her hand, her eyebrow raising in silent query for a moment.

Her mind, of course, gave her a non-physical shrug - she was nowhere near trained in alchemy or any other magickal art to be able to discern what it was aside from knowing that it was not blood - at least not any type of blood that she had ever seen before. Blood does not glow like that..., she thought to herself as the vial found its way into her cleavage. She did not want to drop it into a bag with the monkey, lest the monkey decide to drink it, nor did she want to put it in her pocket where it could be crushed or in the dresses which could be confiscated.

"Some of the best stuff in the life often fits between the tits..." Aerin chuckled as she withdrew her dagger and eyed the drawer. "...and speaking of tight fits..." she continued as she tried to force the blade inward to jimmy the drawer open by force.

[Becca Acerbi]

Becca stared blankly at the leaves, trying to remember if she'd seen the plant before. It didn't look familiar - Mender Abagail grew herbs, and as far as she knew, this wasn't one of them - but considering where it was, she could make an educated guess at what it was for. Still... If in doubt about a plant, especially one that smelt as interesting as this one, ask a Mender. Even if it involved swiping samples. Becca fumbled through her bag until she found the book she kept notes for Elvin in, and tucked a few of the plants away as best she could between the pages.

"Shiny - Morgan, what've you found?" Becca straightened out the cloth as best she could, trying to make it look like it hadn't been disturbed, before she drifted back towards him. When she saw what was in the crate, Becca whistled softly. She wasn't much inclined to wearing necklaces, but - well, anyone would be excused any magpie tendencies when it came to these. "Shiny things indeed!" She glanced at Morgan quickly, her expression that of a child about do something it knew was naughty, then looked back into the crate. "Rich probably doesn't even cover it. Especially if he can leave this much loot lying around under the Banner." Becca sniffed primly and pushed the box on top of the crate back a little, tugging at it a little to see if it would open. "I mean, he's just asking to be robbed, leaving it here."

And of course if someone was asking so very obviously, it would rude to refuse, wouldn't it? Nodding at her own impeccable logic (It was even logic that someone else could follow! Throwing in the fact that Morgan deserved shinies for his work today and was too sensible to take advantage would only ruin that.), Becca slipped her hand into the crate and started fishing about.

[Grey Wolf]

Aerin's choice of vial container may not have been so badly thought out, but it did give her shivers, as cold bottle slipped into her cleavage, nestling there safely, hardly about to be crushed in such a soft spot. It took her a bit of time to jam the dagger securely enough in the well made drawer, a loud squeak following each of her attempt to open it, finally the lock breaking with a metallic snap. The drawer slid open fairly easily, revealing its contents. A few colorful ribbons, a small pouch with several coronets in it, making the total of about two and a half Crowns, as well as a beautifully crafted silver ankle band, covered in a scattering of tiny opals.

Becca meanwhile had much more luck in her search, her hand digging into the full crate of jewelry, and leaving it with a long necklace trailing behind her hand, each link crafted like into a tiny eye, the other end catching onto something and coming out only after a little more tugging. Unfortunate side effect of her quick grab in the dark was that a ring, perfectly fitting over her ring finger slipped onto it, the rather impressive diamond it bore marking it as an engagement ring most likely. It looked quite good on her hand, a fact that even Morgan's newfound fashion sense agreed with. Once someone popped the question to her, the ring she wore now would be a perfect way to make it official.

As it turned out only the original crate held the jewelry, Morgan's dagger once more doing remarkably well at prying the board away, revealing the crate he opened this time to be full of bottles, laid down upon their sides, a full dozen of them visible. He would need to remove another board if he wanted to get a bottle out, but judging from the shape of them, they likely contained wine, the flowing script that was partially visible most likely adhiel letters, though the young mage had no way of knowing for sure, given his limited knowledge of other scripts.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

OOC: Edited for clarity only.

Aerin gave a small gasp of glee about her findings as the drawer came open, even the tiniest of treasures looking to her as if the drawer were a barrel overflowing with priceless gems. Her eyes shot toward the doorway for a flicker to insure that there were no eyes upon her before her hands began moving as quickly as her mind.

She emptied the pouch first after withdrawing her own, the new coins mingling with her old and tip-toeing her closer to admission into the University of Magic. Her hand went back into her pocket, dropping her coinpurse with the coins within the pouch and withdrawing the gold bracelet that she had collected from the dead girl above. With a smile, Aerin placed the bracelet within the freshly emptied bag.

There was neither hesitation nor much afterthought involved in her next act as she squished the near-empty pouch into a tight roll and hastily (and tightly) tied one of the ribbons to the ‘open’ end of the pouch before guiding it up under her skirt and placing the package into a spot where only lovers or her fingers ever tread, the ribbon dangling out between her thighs in short length to facilitate the pouch’s retrieval at a later date. It was a slightly disconcerting feeling as her vaginal muscles flexed and tightened around the intruding cloth as if to reshape the package into the most comfortable shape imaginable.

I’m no professional thief, but I’m no idiot either… Aerin mused to herself as she examined the ankle band and the remaining ribbons. A few dresses, I can stand to lose, but the bracelet and this trinket… Those I do not wish to part with… A small sparkle of idea entered her eyes as she plucked up both band and a single ribbon, carefully winding the ribbon around the metal in an effort to disguise its true nature.

OOC: Please nudge me if these simple actions are too assumptive. Thanks.

[Morg]

The second crate contained bottles. Some sort of alcohol, most likely. Perhaps Kislovani wine, given the obviously expensive nature of everything else he'd seen. Regardless, Morgan had seen enough. Just loot, loot and more loot.

Then Becca appeared to be starting to loot the loot.

"Um," said Morgan. "Um." He twisted around uncomfortably. Now he was in a quandary. He didn't exactly object to the idea of Becca stealing Crane's loot, but he certainly didn't approve of it either. The best option, he decided, was to pretend that he knew nothing about it, and the best way he could think of doing that was to look the other way. Until a better idea struck him.

"It looks like we've found everything there is to find," he announced. "I think we should head back outside and tell the..." ...goons... "...clearance supervisors. They can probably take it from here." Without waiting for a response, he made his way out of the room, down the corridor and back up into daylight, squinting as he glanced around for the man he'd originally spoken to. Hopefully in his absence Becca would be able to conceal her ill-gotten gains without anyone, including him, noticing. Or maybe she'd even think better of it. But Morgan was aware that his track record on talking Becca out of things wasn't exactly brilliant.

[Becca Acerbi]

Becca cheered to herself as she drew out her treasures, barely even glancing at them as she turned to show Morgan - who appeared to be rather determinedly not looking. Becca stared at him for a few flickers, a trifle bemused, then graced his back with the sort of offended look that was generally reserved for the use of cats who'd not been shown the proper level of gratitude for the dead rats they brought. She managed to maintain the look until she actually saw what she'd rescued from the crate. After that, she had no chance of maintaining it; she let the necklace puddle into her hand and cooed over both it and the diamond ring until Morgan spoke.

"Is that what they call thugs these days?" she asked absent mindedly, smiling at him as she tugged her book out of her satchel and let the necklace drip between two pages. "Can we get them after we make it look a little less like we've been rooting through the crates? Or after we've got Aerin?"

She shouted the last part after him as he left, hoping that Aerin heard. Becca would check on Aerin in a moment - she didn't want to leave her down here with the goons - but at that particular moment, she was more concerned with reaching to the aether and wrapping the book in a net of pages from her aetheric library. A layer of air to hold the book closed around the things she'd "found" and to hold the shape of the light energy she wove over it. She wasn't doing anything complicated - shaping the light to be the same as the book beneath, albeit without any peculiar bulges or leaves poking out the edges. Once it looked like it would stand up to scrutiny - Becca wasn't actually planning to let anyone look at it, but if the clearance supervisors searched her bag, she wanted to be reasonably sure that they wouldn't immediately think she was hiding something in her book - she slid it back into her bag and turned back to the crates.

Tempting as it was to fish about for some more treasures, Becca tugged the boards back into place as quickly as she could manage. She had a feeling she'd need to knock the nails back in or out of shape to make the boards lie at all flat, so on her way back to the door, trying to listen for the goons coming, she picked up a rock from Morgan's efforts with the door and used that.

[Grey Wolf]

Morgan sloshed his way through sewage back to the stairs, the sunlight blinding him for a flicker, sounds of a muffled argument reaching him from above. It was not until his head peeked over the edge of the former floor that the sounds from bellow intensified, the muffle argument becoming a shouting match in a short flicker, the clearance supervisors standing with their backs to the entrance, workers huddled in a group opposite them. A renegotiation of a price for the rubble clearing was in process, the workers asking for the money they were promised before the mages appeared and the goons refusing to pay the full price.

Her pouch nearly doubled its weight resting neatly in the pocket, Aerin prepared a little package for safe deposit in a rather unique spot, hitching her skirt up without much trouble. There was just one trouble with her plan and it became apparent a moment later when she found that skin was not quite the smoothest material to brush against her more sensitive parts. While there was no doubt enough room for the package and its contents down there, actual insertion of a foreign object did not go as easily as she might have planned. Discomfort lasted only as long as the bundle was being inserted in her vagina, and for a few loooooong flickers afterward, while it settled in the most suitable spot, her motions making it chafe her insides slightly.

Becca's idea while it did take a bit more time to be implemented, and required a bit of magickal skill worked far more smoothly, the book hiding the necklace within its folds. Unless someone actually opened the book and leafed through it, chances of them spotting the necklace hidden within were slim at best. The ring looked as if it were made for her hand, fitting around her finger snugly, the diamond sending a cascade of light even in the dimly lit room. As she reached for the rock, another fixture of the room became apparent, a set of wooden steps near the back leading towards a sturdy double door built into the ceiling. A thick wooden board held it firmly in place, but she would probably be able to remove it. After all Morgan had been gone barely a burn by the time she hammered, or rather rocked the nails back into the crate.

Morgan's appearance up top caused the argument to stop suddenly, all eyes turning towards him, the goons flashing an angry look at the workers before becoming far more polite, the short guy clasping his hands together. "Is everything in order down there, Master Mage? Is the hallway passable?" The tried to glance over his shoulder, but with the sun bright in the sky, they had no way of piercing the gloom within and seeing past the few steps the sunlight reached.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Aerin bit her lip against the discomfort, turning her attentions to the dresses on the bed to distract herself, folding the materials up into tighter rolls for easier carry. She was about to start tearing into the mattress in the futile search for more trinkets when Becca’s voice wafted down the hallway.

"Can we get them after we make it look a little less like we've been rooting through the crates? Or after we've got Aerin?"

Crates? Crates of what? Aerin grabbed her wad of fabric and began to slosh her way back out through the door and down the hallway, being mindful of the feel of the floor below her feet and scooting rather than stepping just to make sure she didn’t mis-step. “What did you…oh wow…” Aerin asked as she stood at the doorway, her eyes on the crates at first, then at Becca, then at the rock on her finger. “Oh WOW…” she repeated, an impish smile on her face, one finger coming up to her lips in the universal sign for silence, a promise to Becca that she wouldn’t say a thing.

“Do you think they would mind..?” Aerin asked, holding up the dresses for Becca to see, hoping that Becca would tell her that she could keep them.