Things Held in Darkness

[Glenn]

Preparation.

Elliot Brown learned his lessons. If you are going to do something.. no, if you CHOOSE to do something, do it well. Do it right. And this, in particular, was what the young rogueling had chosen. Dangerous? Yes. Foolish? Most likely. But it was his decision, and he had his reasons.

There was a box. A beguiling, maddening box. A box with a lock that would not be tickled no matter what he did with it. He had learned so many skills over the last year. Precarious tricks of balance, tumbling, sneaking, more murderous arts, but the one that he excelled at the most was lockpicking. There was no logical reason for it. It was just a knack, a natural skill. He couldn't figure out the right thing to say to Niall. He couldn't figure out how to help Nova. He couldn't connect well with N'vek, but locks? They just made sense to him. His hands seemed smarter than his head in this one instance (and in others, but especially this one).

Why then, couldn't he open that blasted box of Solena's? He'd seen her do it. He'd watched carefully, but the lock was just too much. Too complex. Too unassailable. For a while, he saw the problem as a flaw in himself. His training wasn't enough. So he worked, and worked, and worked. Elliot Brown had large swaths of free time in his days. Every few weeks after he had reached a new level of skill, he would try again and invariably fail. This was well and good for he knew he was getting better and better. There were always new, more challenging locks to try his luck against around town.

Until there suddenly simply weren't. He had run out of easily located locks to practice on. The targets became far fewer and farther between. Lothbury Estate, the Governor's Inquisitory. Councilor Vanidor's Hidden Refuge. So he had mentally chosen the least frightening of the lot. Darkenhold. Madness, no? A fortress, and a secret rumored vault within it, one that might not even exist.

How did he even hear about it? About Ariane Emory's trove of forbidden treasures? That he would not admit. There were possibilities certainly: Niall or Nova may have sensed something profane. His mentor may have let something slip. It may have been a rumor among other thieves in town, a virtual "city of gold" within those walls. He may have found clues towards such a thing while picking at some other secret lock. Regardless of how exactly he knew, the fact of the matter was that he knew SOMETHING was there, hidden away within the Hold.

Why then Darkenhold? Because she was away. He had given birth to his plans six months before when the Lady of the manor was away, and now that she was back, even long back, he was too stubborn, to prideful to change course. No, instead he continued to hone his plans, just as Solena would have wanted. Preparation was key, and he was prepared.

What sort of folk petition the walls of Darkenhold? The curious, for one. A boy with a pale girl with a tail beside him or with a scarred, tattooed mage, or maybe even a large, hairy madman. Elliot was a frequent tourist in the most harmless of ways. It was part of his homeland and he showed it off to others over the last year or two. Or he might come himself, might talk with the inhabitants, might pester the guards. Before the Lady's return, he might even spend some time in the library, working on his fledgling reading skills. Afterwards, however, that would stop. His profile would become much lower, even as his preparations became all the more complex.

Because she was Ariane Emory, and for a boy growing up on a Myrken farm just a few years before, she was the bogeyman. So many stories. Rumors of people killed, of words written upon their flesh, of metal that could come from her skin itself. She killed and no one did a damned thing about it. She had been The bodyguard or lover of governors. She trained Burnie. Took him from a scrawny mapmaker to whatever he was now. She created her own fortress within Myrken. If Quincy Randall was a folk hero, Ariane Emory was something else entirely. She rode a dragon at Haberdasher's Row. She. Rode. A. Dragon. And then she was gone, just like that. Elliot Brown had encountered strange things. He had seen the worst of Myrken Wood before his eyes. But she was a story to frighten boys and girls with before bed.

Still, the teenager was undaunted. No, that wasn't true. He was plenty daunted. But he had planned too long and too hard for this. It was a careful chain reaction. Stables opened at a key moment. Mice released into the kitchen. A red liquid that vaguely looked and smelled like blood (but was actually harmless) found surrounding two the wells. It was a young man utilizing the total sum of his skills and ingenuity.

All to get him to Ariane Emory's room, where surely this lock would be found.

[Carnath-Emory]

There's a horse in the kitchen.

It's the sort of news which has a person up out of their bed like that.

There's a horse in the kitchen and something ghastly in the yards - and is the something ghastly a Hrimfax, perhaps? Her first question, asked of the first person to stroll past in the state of bemused confusion that seems to rule the place this early morning. And this person is really not so certain, except that she'd heard from someone who'd sworn he'd seen, and Ariane might kindly deal with the ghastly herself? As we're a little pre-occupied with the mice.

And that is the point at which a woman begins to imagine that Catch has paid an unannounced visit and become mistaken for something else entirely.

Are the mice perhaps the property of the ghastly? Are they, in fact, actually mice at all? But there are people revolving around the kitchens with expressions that hint at a faint disgust, and a cautious peek past their shoulders in search of things silver-scarred, scaled or vaguely equine proves fruitless. Immediate threats proving vaporous, she need only seize the shoulder of someone responsible and with whom she shares a common language, in order to deliver swift, simple assurances. This is not a difficult problem, after all. This is easily solved. If there is a horse, he need only lure it back to the stables with apples, honey and affection. If there is a Catch perhaps hiding in there, he need only ply it with much the same until she can be fetched to manage him herself. If there are mice, they need only be trapped, killed and fed to the Farazh.

In the wake of simple solutions and subsequent industry, the swordswoman removes herself to Darkenhold's grounds. Squinting a little under the morning sun, it must be said, each breath filling her with the soft scent of flowers and green and rich, dark soil, and whole minutes pass in this way before the builder intercepts with news of the damndest thing, no, she really must see this for herself.

Oh, and incidentally the stables appear to have un-repaired themselves.

She hears the hooves before she sees what's gotten loose. Which is seven heavy shapes clearly enjoying their newfound freedom; coats gone glossy and warm beneath the sun, bodies now-and-then colliding in a fit of impish good spirits. It is a sight of uncommon beauty, and despite herself - despite mice and murderous southerners and the possibility of cleft-skulled madmen - she has paused to watch, to wholly stare. Perhaps the breath catches in her throat. Perhaps the heart quietly, gently stills -

The thing is, explains Betzalel, that the well's bleeding and he's just not sure why.

***

Elliot Brown learned his lessons.

He knows this already from the soft hum of activity down below - and the occasional shout that he hears from even up here. If he doubts, he need only pause long enough to glance from one of the second floor's tall windows, and there are so many of these, their shutters all drawn back in deference to a population's love of warm sunlight. The horses. The passage of bodies back and forth across the grass and its winding, paved walkways. The distinct shape of builder and swordswoman, crouched down by one of his well-prepared wells.

What a clever young man he is.

But how disappointed he must be, if his anticipation had involved locks, devilish or otherwise. The bogeyman might have slipped closed a latch while vacating her room, but it melts beneath his deft fingers as such common mechanisms invariably do. There is no resistance here, certainly no struggle even remotely worthy of a lockbreaker such as himself. But perhaps it doesn't matter. Perhaps what he'd longed for is what waits within: a city of gold! Or a few blocks of it at least. Artifacts of arcane origins! Or at least a schematic or two. The armour that knows how to be worn under the skin, just waiting for some clever boy to sneak up to its rack and make it his own!

A nicer rug, at least.

If there is gold to be found it awaits him at the room's far edge: the rich, warm glow of sunlit silken drapes, fluttering by a window left carelessly open. If there is anything inclined to glitter at all it is the row of slender bottles arranged upon a tabletop over there; their glass contours capture the morning sunlight, not unlike the scaled candelabra near the windowsill, and the tiny crystal bird which hangs nearby refracts thin rainbows back and forth, back and forth across the walls.

It is one of the few points of light in an interior inclined towards the spare and functional.

Does it discourage him from further explorations? For there waits a writing-desk lined with tiny ink-bottles and stained with much the same; there is a small collection of books set upon its one edge, and they anchor a handful of pages which feature very little text at all. Nearby its cousins: a feather cut from pale paper, a tiny bird folded so cunningly from more of the same; a page upon which has been inked a broad oak-tree, stunningly lifelike and fabulously unprofitable. If he presses further though, if he is determined to really look, the clever rogue will find a silver face-mask of simple, elegant design - real silver, perhaps - and a looking glass with a lens of brilliant emerald which is, if he's to be honest with himself, probably just green glass.

And a very messy bed. And a well-dusted trunk at its foot. And a set of odd black boots in the corner.

Perhaps they're sneaky, and keep the gold hidden in the kitchen pantries.

[Glenn]

"No." A simple statement for the walls to hear. "Nononononono." A somewhat less simple statement muttered under the young rogue's breath as he walked around the room and kicked at the curtains. This was wrong. Very wrong. Of COURSE the lock had to be in her room. Who would be insane enough to go into Ariane Emory's room? It was the best place to hide something! In plain sight! He snatched up the looking glass with a significant lack of care and flopped down upon that very messy bed. It reminded him a bit of the condition of his own bed.

How comforting.

So he laid there, one eye through the looking glass, other eye wearing this strange eyepatch he found, glancing this way and that within the room. The mask wasn't quite his style. Obviously he knew he had a limited amount of time. He also knew, however, that he would maybe, just maybe, be able to pull a trick like this once again. Maybe. And he would be no closer to finding the lock, the vault, the trove, the whatever, then than he was now. No, he had to maximize this visit. This was Ariane Emory! Of COURSE there had to be something in here. He shimmied his way off the bed, having scurried away the looking glass, and opened the trunk.

Nothing particularly interesting there? Fine. Back to the papers and books. Maybe there was a blueprint of Darkenhold! Or a map to somewhere worthwhile. Or some particularly interesting letter. Or maybe if he combined the feather with the mask with the looking glass (which was unscurried), with the picture of the tree! Or he could shine the light through the looking glass, and then have it land in the crystal bird, which would then create some pattern on the papers from the small text upon them!

It was midway through trying such various combinations that he realized exactly how ridiculous all of this was. How could the bedroom of Ariane Emory hold no secrets at all? It was enough to make a teenage boy scream!

[Carnath-Emory]

"No." A simple statement for the builder's ears. "No." Emphatically. To the laughing agreement of St. Betzalel of the Perpetually Good Cheer, who nudges the swordswoman into a closer examination of the stuff. Interesting, he explains. And bloody annoying at first, of course, because at that point they'd still been imagining something must have died down there, and no-one much wanted to dredge the well for dead dogs. But then there were the horses - she's seen the horses? damn mess - and it was only when they'd returned from that very special adventure that they'd realised what they were looking at. And can the swordswoman guess? No? Wouldn't like to take a stab at it? haha. A smear of his fingers through the stuff proves to be demonstration enough: she knows when she sees how smoothly that redness separates from the rest, knows for certain when he lifts his reddened fingertips for her examination.

Interesting, he explains, because if this was done deliberately, then it was done with painstaking care. The colour. The smell. Everything but the coagulating texture and in fact, he suggests, perhaps even the taste, would she like to - ? No - ? Just the tiniest - ? So that there's laughter amidst chaos out upon the Darkenhold grounds, and two bodies dusting off their palms as they rise in pursuit of the second site. Both of them being wells, he explains as they move; both being wells presently in use, and by the time they reach the second one the swordswoman discovers that Hrimfax wasn't roaming with the rest of the horses because he's right here, licking reddish stuff off the bricks.

Even the builder slightly grimaces.

***

Elliot Brown has unearthed one of Myrkentown's least interesting clothes chests.

Unless he has an fondness for all things equine, in which case he'll find several shirts embroidered in very appealing designs, each entirely too large for a boy of his size, but then perhaps that's the fashion amongst rogues this year. No, better that he explore the books, which - while notably absent of arcane pattern and ritual - at least feature the most stunning illustrations. Such colours! Such desperately-strange creatures! They are an artist's fantasies, an explorer's nightmares; this one has six teats and one wing, which must strike even a boy of his age and limited experience as deeply impractical.

But what a clever creature that he has. If there were secrets hidden here surely the room would have yielded them up by now, if not because he'd happened upon the right combination of crystal and paper and prop then at least because he's been trying so hard. Effort ought to be rewarded. Audacity certainly should. Doesn't he think so? Doesn't everyone? And throughout his sweaty endeavours young Elliot must surely have been aware of the occasional passage of footsteps past the closed door, sometimes lazily strolling and sometimes with some haste. Even engrossed in a thousand instances of trial and error (mostly error), he might have noticed when two of them stopped and quietly retraced a few paces of their path.

"Rhaid iddo fod yn llygod mwy - neu waeth." Whispers some feet short of a sternly closed door. "Ewch yn dawel. Nôl y wraig ... a chlwb."

[Glenn]

Elliot Brown thought.

It had taken planning to get this far. Getting out of somewhere was far easier than getting in. For instance, enough of the guards and whoever else knew him, by sight if not name, that he could just mingle as if he had been visiting or using the library, or any number of things. Or he could pretend to actively be trying to catch the mice! (he might still do that) Or he could simply slip away in the confusion. And then there was another bit of chaos he could unleash if need be. For once he had prepared.

Obviously, though, it had been for naught. He had to make a few decisions. Flight from the window? A charging out the door and a fight that would ensue? Guile? Perhaps to hide under those covers with his shirt off and give EVERYONE in Darkenhold something to talk about for a while (so long as it wasn't Ariane that walked in). There were options.

Elliot Brown started to take his shirt off. He knew the languages of Darkenhold well enough to know that those were not the harsh tones of Northern New Dauntless. Whoever was out there, it was not the Lady of the manor. So he'd let these come in and then say something idle like "Oh, Ari, you're back. Did you fetch the wine?" and in the confusion buy himself all the time in the world. That's exactly what he'd do.

That's... ohgod, what was he thinking! He couldn't do that! The teenager came rather close to throwing up for a moment before regaining his composure. No, he could NOT do that, but he was still in control of this situation. The eyeglass was scurried away once more. He was keeping something from this excursion. Alright, then. The window! He'd just duck out and scale around and down. He was even dressed to match the stone somewhat. Oh... look at that, Ariane Emory had a lovely view of a well therefore he had a lovely view of Ariane Emory.

Alright, more plans. He needed to dispatch whoever those two were, ideally without killing them. With a bounce off the bed, Elliot moved from wall to wall, leaving small holes where hands had just been through the wood and then grasping marks upon the stone below it. He managed this until he was crouched back into the ceiling, right over the door, waiting for it to open so he could pounce from above upon those who entered. Then he'd make his run for it.

[Carnath-Emory]

Mice in the kitchen. The possibility of a Catch in the kitchen pantry, but no-one's sure about that because no-one's mad enough to open the pantry door and see for sure. Wells that bleed red in a manner that's not actually bleeding at all. And horses scattered across the grounds, which hadn't bothered anybody until they'd seen a bloody-mawed Hrimfax wandering sedately back towards the stables.

And all of this before more than half the household had even had their breakfasts.

Darkenhold is gripped to a bemused sort of chaos, but a chaos it certainly is, and the result is things which move more slowly than they should and often in directions that they oughtn't. What else could explain the occupation of a room whose owner is distinctly elsewhere? And they'd checked from the corridor windows; checked twice, in fact, before sending a third in search of assistance. This is not the action of a cowardly soul, but of one who realises that on a morning like this absolutely anything is possible, who very much imagines that opening the door will unleash a Baie.

By the time young Elliot's ascended to his ceiling perch, these two have seized torches from the walls. By the time he's settled in to wait, they've approached that door, brandishing them like the very clubs for which one of them had just called. Perhaps he realises this, having been prepared for so many contingencies by his very talented mentor. Perhaps he senses that cautious approach, perhaps even the moment in which a hand reaches towards the door only to pause just short of its varnished surface. From his vantage point the boy is unable to see at exactly what point the swordswoman down below is stirred from her examination of wells, but -

"Mae hi'n dod! Peidiwch â gadael iddo ddianc."

- he might notice when the sheath propped up in the corner no longer holds a weapon.

If his eye for detail is good.
And if he is not unduly distracted by the two emboldened women who've just shouldered through the door, flameless torches at the fore.

"Ble mae'n cuddio?" cries the one of them, all braids and ink and bravado; the other wastes no time in stamping a foot upon the rug, as if it were mice after all.

[Glenn]

Women.

Of course. Thankfully, Elliot Brown had a healthy respect for women and their martial abilities. Niall had been his companion for years and few in Myrken were her equal in combat. His mentor, Solena, had perhaps even fewer equals, and then Ariane Emory, if one believed the surely fabricated stories, had almost none at all. He had been knocked out by Agnieszka Kaczmarek and almost killed by Jirai. Oh no, he respected women and how dangerous they could be. Now these two didn't look particularly dangerous but he still wasn't going to take any chances, ESPECIALLY when there was that movement outside.

One woman stomps and the moment her foot falls, he falls as well, all knees and elbows. He meant to drive both women down with the full force of his momentum. He didn't want to hurt them much; it had not been that long since he had so haphazardly hurt someone in the mill. This was far more knowing, but he had more control over it as well. It was a simple plan.

Elliot Brown's Most Daring Plan to Escape from the Dread Ariane Emory's Terribly Personal Boudoir.
Step one: Hide on ceiling.
Step two: Fall upon two guards/servants/women who spoke a very strange language.
Step three: When they are stunned, exit the room, shut the door quickly and immediately break the lock in a way that will make the door very hard to open.
Step four: Run down the hallway with the women not once having gotten a good look at him.

That was the plan. The question would be just closely he could get reality to match it.

[Carnath-Emory]

Death from above.

Rogue from above, as it happens, but the result is not entirely different: three bodies hit the rug in a tangle of arms and legs and braids and the most tremendously startled squawk. It places young Elliot in a position of distinct advantage, very much due to the fact that of these two women, both were thoroughly startled, one had fetched her head a fine knock against the flagstones and neither even now is quite sure of what actually hit them or whether there's more yet to come.

It is an exquisite chaos. It is one prone body and another only just starting to push herself up on both hands, eyes a dazed blink. It is clearly the perfect opportunity for the canny rogue to leap over the both of them, making good his escape before the elder of the pair can stop her blinking and start getting ideas involving clubs and heads.

"Uwch na llygod. Efallai y llofrudd eto?"

From the corridor, and the words echo so thinly that their speaker must be distant yet, and the clatter of footsteps on wood which follows signals a pursuit which can't even have cleared the first-floor staircase. It is only a moment's work for this nimble boy to get to that doorway, a moment more to do something so dreadful to the door itself that they'll likely have to take it right off its hinges to get inside. And he'll be gone long before then: the corridor is his! and he is so very fleet of foot

Who knows what he might have been capable of, if an arm from out of nowhere hadn't caught him by the neck?

[Glenn]

Elliot Brown's Most Cunning Plan to Escape Down the Hallway And Shorly Thereafter Darkenhold
1. Get grabbed by the neck.

"Uhtn." No. No no. Nononono. This was not the plan. He had a far better plan and it was absolutely not this. Thankfully, there were reflexes! Well-honed reflexes. Well-honed reflexes and hesitation. He wasn't against HURTING people who got in his way. Yes, his scope had broadened widely over the last few months from people who annoyed him, to people who could afford to be stolen from, to well.. anyone whom he didn't like immensely, and if he had to hurt someone to survive, even to thrive, that was Myrken. He understood that now.

Stabbing someone, however? Well,that was a little different. So there was hesitation. He had daggers. He had other things. He refrained. Would it cost him? Perhaps, but he had heard that crack of head upon flagstones, and unless his back was much further against the proverbial or literal wall, Elliot Brown was not quite ready to escalate matters.

He was, however, ready to stomp on a foot, to throw an elbow into someone's solar plexus and to recoil with the momentum to throw his body somewhere in the vicinity of "that way." That was the problem with such black and white dichotomies (not that he knew either what the problem was nor what the word dichotomy meant): why have it be fight or flight when fight then flight worked so much better!

[Carnath-Emory]

"Edrychwch hyn yr wyf wedi eu dal!" he cries, breathless with amusement and quite a bit of effort. "A grand catch!"

What she finds dangling from his hand is a scrawny, writhing boy. Lanky thing; a squirming tousle from head to toe, the dark eyes clearly startled. His appearance as perplexing as - as bleeding wells and broken stables, and clearing the last of the stairs she means to approach. It is only the sudden thunder of fists on her door that arrests this intent. And that is when they learn that even if the boy fears, it does not paralyze him, for of a sudden he's become all knees and stabbing elbows -

"Drewgi siffilitig!" gasps his captor, doubled over by a particularly well-placed jab. It stumbles him back a pace. More significantly, it loosens his grip. Less fortunately has swapped bemusement for a frown, hesitating for one crucial moment between youth and fastened door before:

"See to that." With a jerk of her chin towards that noisy door: a quiet command to the two who'd accompanied her, for she is already setting herself in pursuit of this strange, living puzzle. It begins as a walk, but within moments it has become a sprint just as if her legs had forgotten their pain.

There has never been a more opportune moment for a young thief to run like hell.

[Glenn]

Elliot Brown's Highly Amended Plan to Escape Down the Hallway and Shortly Thereafter Darkenhold
1. Damn it.
2. Damn it.
3. Damn it.
4. Damn it.
5. Damn it.

This was by no means good. Not good at all. She had seen his face. That would, if nothing else, make repeat attempts far more difficult. Ha. Repeat attempts. In the midst of the chaos, Elliot had to smile a little at himself. He was thinking about that instead of self-preservation. Would Solena be proud? But then, he knew the answer to that. She'd be proud if he got out of this. She'd be proud if he learned. She'd be proud if he didn't point this back to her.

Elliot Brown's Highly Amended Plan to Escape Down the Hallway and etc and so on - Mark Two
1. Remain Calm

"Damn it." He muttered. Not part of the plan, yes, but that didn't mean he couldn't say it. Remain Calm. Check. Cover his tracks? Well, he didn't have acid to throw like his mentor (and he might not in this situation anyway), but what he did have was the specially compressed balls of paint Solena had created for him as a baby step TOWARDS that acid. Eventually she would let him use poisons too. Those would be nice now. Maybe. It's not like he'd have used something fatal! At least not EXTREMELY fatal or anything.

So, as the boy squirmed, turned, and started to dash, he would lob three small black balls that he pulled out of a conveniently hidden pouch. No matter where they landed (and his aim were for the man who had just held him and the woman that had approached and barked out orders), they would splatter outwards launching black paint everywhere. It was the sort of stuff that could get in one's eyes or mouth or what not. Hopefully, it would slow down pursuit even as he started down the hallway towards the far set of stairs. As he dashed, he released the cap on a long thing, sturdy container that was built into the lining of his pants; he shook his leg slightly as he ran and a slick, slippery ink like substance spilled out upon the ground behind him.

He did not look back.

[Carnath-Emory]

She had seen his face. Tousled hair. Startled, eager eyes. Plucky little juvenile, the sort you'd rather speak with than beat into a daze. And precisely the sort of wiry little scrapper you'd have to hold down first in either case.

Why else this pursuit, without any attempt at all to hail him first?

And a pursuit is very much what this is. In the wake of fists that hammer with an increasing urgency and a door gone stubborn until they begin to put their shoulders into it, she is a light sprint down that corridor. With a weapon at hand and kept well clear of her legs, a weapon very much dormant until he complicates that pursuit with projectiles. The first detonates against the blade's edge, the second against its flat; two distinct flinches that buy the boy precious seconds and leave her paint-splattered from shoulder to thigh. It is a swift recovery - but it is a recovery; a swordswoman who'd received paint had expected something far, far worse, and if he hastens now as she corrects her posture, if he is so very quick -

Far behind in her wake two burly fellows have met with hinge-creaking success. The sound of splintering wood is a wrench through her stomach, but what is a door? Only a thing, easily replaced. What it had secured is something else entirely; what it means to have a thief successfully infiltrate what is hers is something significantly more. Behind her a rush of indecipherable urgencies: two women have tumbled from that room, pointing arms and shouting unnecessary alerts at rescuers who've already turned towards this unlikely pursuit.

They have a taste of its strangeness the moment a swordswoman's boot-heel comes down onto something so slippery that it sends her skidding.

How their eyes must widen! When she's suddenly all arms akimbo, and one leg shot over like that. It is how a creature recovers itself that has dedicated a decade to the pursuit of balance: indelicate but effective, and the next heel that comes down strikes true, lunging her across the treacherous slick and onto the very edge of the next. She has left behind her a man spluttering black paint and two more who've learned to be more cautious in their chase, but as the boy hits those stairs and begins his headlong descent she is pausing just long enough to look - to judge - and with a press of the lips she steps sidelong into the wall -

disappearing.

[Glenn]

Research.

He promised Solena, not promised, not vowed. No, there was an understanding between mentor and student that he would be more careful, that he would do things he deigned worth doing, but he would do them with care, with meaning, with focus, with skill. There would be no more impulsive bits of foolishness, not on a grand scale.

And this was a grand scale.

So he researched. He scouted. He trained specifically for Darkenhold. He prepared his surprises, and when the time was right, he sprung them. There was always a possibility that the lock would not be in her room. It was a small one for that was such a forbidden, foreboding place, but it was always a possibility. Still, that he didn't even find a clue there? That was maddening. It was also telling. If so little was hidden there, if so little was hidden in the most obvious places in the fortress, it meant there had to be something more. He'd escape, he'd regroup and he'd try again. Despite appearances, this had not been a fruitless trip.

It was addition by subtraction. By ruling out her room in so definitive a way, it meant that there had to be a true secret of the 'Hold. It was a bit of information that no one had. He just had to use it to pry out whatever he was missing.

For now, though? Flight. Zilliah would be useful. Maybe not. Flight, the running sort, down the stairs, down the next hallway. There was an alert but they had to be looking for anyone but him. He was just some harmless kid freaked out by weird stuff in the well and the rampaging horses and whatever else. Flight down the stairs and then when he hit the bottom, he would slow, would walk quickly but try to fit in. Once he made it to the gates he'd be golden.

[Carnath-Emory]

She'd seen the plans they made for this fortress, both during and well before its construction. Broad sheets of pale, heavy paper; one end pinned to the floor and then you unroll the scroll into what seems like a half-dozen yards of paper. Ink spiderwebs its length and breadth, clean and measured lines annotated in a mixture of two languages of which she'd read maybe one word in five. Which is to say that even when they spread these things before her and explained, she'd understood more in terms of size than in functional detail, and concerned herself anyway with her own expertise: reinforcement; armament. So that to walk the breadth of this fortress as it was being built, to explore the winding stretch of each corridor, was to be endlessly surprised - and she had done just that. During the weeks which followed, the months; walked these well-lit paths, doubled back to retrace her steps over again, fingertips tracing the walls as if to transmute texture into map through some sort of strange, nerve-tip osmosis...

That boy was going to be stuck on the staircase and nowhere else for an essential span of moments.
And a swordswoman hesitated, but not because she didn't know which path to take.

He emerges into the hallway before she does, very much because he'd taken those stairs at a run and she hadn't quite needed to at all. The hallway and the back-and-forth flow of bodies there, all leathers and skirts and rich old colours, and he'd been right to imagine that it would be quite a few people down here. Mice, after all: the catching and dispatching of. Horses, for goodness' sakes; there are exasperated faces here, there are muddy boots and sweaty brows, and incidentally those wells, have you seen them? Have you? Maybe it wasn't blood, but it's a ghastly sort of prank and a week before Samhain, at that! is that traditional? a Myrken thing? and is there perhaps something to eat that hasn't been infested with - ? It is a jumble of bodies and words and a population not yet informed of the second-floor upset, a living tide that swallows a boy willingly when his headlong dash becomes something far more measured, something cleverly controlled, and he will never know that what watches this wears just the slightest edge of a smile. It is a silent approval, and it is already swallowed away as she steps into the hallway proper. Quiet amongst these people, dispatching half-spoken questions with a wave of the hand and when she has neared there is only this:

An arresting touch to his shoulder.
The smallest thing.

"If you're here for adventure, you'll ask, the next time." Quietly, just past the back of his neck. "If you're here for thieving, you'll see that it's returned. If there are more of you tomorrow - a week from now - a month. Then, consequences. And it'll begin with you."

Fingertips fall away.
It is freedom, like a gift.

[Glenn]

The best ditch-digger in Myrken Wood is named pride.

And the ditches are so, so deep.

The boy was caught. The boy was caught and he could WALK. She was letting him go, just like that. And why? Out of respect that he got that far? Out of admiration for his skill? Because he was formidable and she did not want to see escalation? No, because he was young, because he was a child and she saw it a fancy. It chafed. It also meant a closed door. If he walked out, if he just lived with this, there would be no coming back. Unacceptable.

Instead, the thiefling's eyes narrowed. "Shoddy. Shabby. Pathetic. Hmph." A tone of disgust. "I was hired, by his lord most fowl." Apparently he had rehearsed this, because Elliot Brown was not usually quite so good at improvising an act in the moment. "By the Silver Duck-Noose himself." Not exactly wonderful with reading either, though to be fair, those were hardly normal words. From not being able to read at all, he had come a very, very long way in a year. With a flash of annoyance, he all but slammed the looking glass back into her hand. "This is all I took, and he said you'd know the meaning behind it. Congratulations on catching me, but look at how far I got! It's...It's..." and look, here was the young man's most impressive word, one used to describe him once or twice when he was actually listening, "reprehensible!"

One finger would reach out to poke at her shoulder. Once, twice, thrice. "That I was able to get this far? Under your watch. It would be one thing if you were away, but no, you were here." He tsked her boldly. "And just to your room. What if I was going for the secret passage. What if I was going for all of the stuff there, huh? Or maybe I was just a diversion. Did you even check it!" Bold, matter-of-fact, craning his neck a bit to try to seem older than he was.