{Spirit x Eldar} Trouble just seems to find us {Nickolai x Siofra}

‘Around the corner, behind another stack of boxes and barrels,’ Siofra repeated in her head as she crept along the wall, trying to blend into the shadows and the background. That should be easy enough to find even though the place was littered with those. She only hoped they wouldn’t have to move too many of the things back and forth, otherwise someone was bound to notice and come inspect the noise sooner or later.

“Okay, so technically, it should be around here somewhere,” Siofra muttered as she began inspecting the wall and the ground. She wasn’t particularly fond of the fact that they were basically boxes in now, with the way they had come the only way out again. If the barrels held, precariously stacked as some of them were, they would at least provide a sort of ladder onto the roof, but if someone came unexpectedly…

“Any further pointers would be useful,” she added when she was none the wiser from just looking around. There was no way around it. They would have to start moving the crates. Couldn’t they just put a flashy sign somewhere with a blinking lightbulb that pointed to the entrance?
Positioning herself next to a smaller stack, which seemed to make the most sense to her – why would they hide the entrance behind one of the enormous stacks? – she looked at Nickolai expectantly.

“This one? Please tell me it’s a smaller pile so we have less work?” She wasn’t going to start moving anything however if he wasn’t sure. Yet, tentatively, she pushed against the top box a little to test the weight and it almost started moving of its own accord. “Empty.”
If all these crates were empty, then they could very well have hidden the entrance behind a larger stack because it would take very little work to move them all. It made their life harder now but it would also make for less noise. Intrigued, Siofra began testing a few of the other boxes and barrels and realised that most of them were empty. "There are hardly any filled crates here." Weird. This was an inn though, right? On the surface at least. Where were the wares then?

Nickolai followed Siofra as she walked, keeping an eye out for anyone who might be sneaking around as well and would be likely to catch them. They seemed thankfully alone for the time being, but he knew all too well how quickly that could change. With any luck they would be in the taverns or at work, or otherwise doing something productive that didn't involve this specific alleyway. If he had to fight his way out he could and would despite the faint headache that still lingered (hopefully he didn't have a concussion, but he didn't have time to stop by a healer to see and he didn't particularly care if he did).

"Yes, it was just right here somewhere," he replied, having been attempting to count his steps and figure out around where it was supposed to be. Too bad he'd been walking differently then since he didn't have to sneak around, but he knew they were close. With a little logic he didn't think it would be that difficult to figure out where the entrance was. It couldn't be that difficult to find or else no one would be able to find it.

"All right, it has to be somewhere that doesn't have a lot of stuff on it because I don't think they moved that much," he replied. There was nothing obvious except for the fact that some stacks of crates had more dust on them than others. Too bad most of the smaller stacks were completely lacking dust, so he couldn't go by that either. However when she pushed one of the boxes and it shifted easily he became wary. The more she tested that proved to be the same, the more tense he got. "Great. Obviously it's a front, and I'll bet whatever it is they're dealing in is underneath," he commented softly, pointing towards the ground. He wasn't sure he wanted to know now, but they were going to have to find out what they were shipping.

The black market was just not his thing.

"Okay, hang on, let me think here." Nickolai glanced back towards the entrance, silently counting steps. "Those ones," he said suddenly, indicating a set of three boxes on the ground against the wall. He stacked the two in the front off to the side where they would block the view of the door underneath from the road, because they wouldn't be able to put the boxes back once they went through the trap door. "Oh good. At least I'm somewhat useful," he muttered, lifting the door and peering into the darkness. It was a stairway, and he couldn't see what was at the bottom. "Usually I'd let the lady go first but in this case I think I ought to," he said, heading down into the darkness, feeling along the wall once he hit the end of the stairs so that he didn't get lost.

Siofra was glad that Nickolai had figured out behind which the stack the entry had been hidden because despite the fact that most of them seemed to be empty and just stacked for show, she hadn’t looked forward to moving all of them. This saved them quite a bit of hassle.

“Yes, it has to be a front, which is what’s making me nervous,” Siofra agreed. “Did you see anything that could give an explanation? Anything at all?” The thought of this being an inn circled back and she wondered how they managed to pull off whatever it was they were doing. And how on earth had the rebels gotten into the black market trade so quickly – if that was what the evidence was but it was starting to point in that direction. She would have to take a closer look at the actual activities of the inn in the coming days.

The entrance didn’t look all that brilliant however. “Dark, eh?” Siofra muttered when she took a look. Could they risk light? Then again, could they go in without light? The floor might be littered with obstacles needing to be navigated and stumbling across them would give them away instantly, which would definitely not be a good thing.
She was about to protest when he mentioned he should go first but he was already on the stairwell before she’d uttered the first word, so she merely grunted and followed. Her senses were on high alert and she constantly turned her head slightly so as to keep an ear out for any suspicious noise from behind them. She wasn’t particularly keen on being surprised from behind.

The stairs were surprisingly short but there seemed to be a corridor up ahead. The half-elf slowly followed in Nickolai’s footsteps, one hand braced against the wall, the other loosely holding a dagger. She wasn’t sure it would come in useful since it was very gloomy after all – and she didn’t want to accidentally stab an ally – but she felt a little more secure. The hallway was too narrow for her weapon of choice and she didn’t like it very much.

“Wait,” she suddenly whispered, letting go of the wall and searching for Nickolai’s shoulder to make him stop in case he didn’t hear her. “There are voices up ahead. Can you hear them?” She was straining her ears and had forced herself to breathe as shallowly as possible so as not to disrupt her hearing but still she couldn’t quite figure out how many people there were. “I can hear three.. four voices?”

Thank goodness he was useful for something! Nickolai breathed a sigh of relief as his intuition proved to be correct and he unearthed the entrance to the tunnels. Not that it was going to get any easier from here on out so he should have kept his mouth shut, but there was one task accomplished at least. Okay, now to just get through the rest of them without dying or losing any limbs. Or losing Arenia. That'd be good too.

The Magpie tucked herself into his shirt as he looked down into the darkness, steeling himself to enter it. Fear wasn't the problem, it was wariness and years of getting into tight spaces and having to get himself out again. "No, but then I didn't have too much time to poke around. All I could see were a bunch more crates and bundles of stuff. I don't know what it was." He'd wanted to find out though, but that'd probably been what had tipped them off that he was a snitch. He was going to figure out what was going on now though, or else he wasn't going to leave. One of the two. Preferably the former.

"Way dark," he agreed. No doubt they came down here with a light so that there wouldn't be a glow visible from the outside at night. Which also hopefully meant there was no one down there if he couldn't see. Except he'd almost rather he could see. Nickolai heard a grunt from behind him and glanced back to see Siofra following him, so he didn't understand the sound until he felt Arenia laughing silently against his chest. Oh, well, chivalry wasn't wanted here. Okay then, mental note taken.

He was well aware that he was going to have difficulty fighting here with his sword, so he hoped it would open up soon. Even if they didn't run into anyone else he disliked being in a space he couldn't easily defend. Having a bow wouldn't really help either he supposed, so he hoped Siofra had another weapon on her somewhere. There wasn't time to ask so he would simply trust she did, but either way he was going to do his best to defend her.

When she spoke up he immediately stopped, listening intently as he felt her hand on his shoulder. Oh, she was correct. He hadn't heard them because they were so faint but now that she mentioned it he could hear a faint murmur of voices. Arenia poked her head out of his shirt and he held his breath for a moment so that she could listen clearly. "Yes, four," he replied in answer to Siofra when he felt four quick taps on his skin before the Magpie retreated into his shirt. "Arenia hears four. We should get closer so we can hear what they're saying." He continued to creep forward slowly, all his attention on keeping as silent as possible for the time being. Of course if Siofra tugged at him or told him to stop he would but he thought it best if they spied on their quarry before jumping to any conclusions or into a battle.

Dead men told no tales after all, and that was true regardless of whether it was their quarry or them.

Siofra nodded, then realised that Nickolai could not see the motion in the darkness of the narrow passage and spoke up: “Four, alright. Thanks you two.” It was a good thing to have more than just one pair of ears to listen to any possible danger. She was not all too pleased by the odds however, though two against four, plus a dragon on their side if a young one, might turn out rather well for them.

Unless there were a few more people in there who held their tongue. Siofra hoped that wasn’t the case, in the event that they were detected and would have to fight their way out of here. At least it would be just as tight for their opponents to use any weapons as it was for them.

“Mmh,” the half-elf agreed with nothing more than a sound when Nickolai crept forward to listen in on the conversation. She followed not too closely behind.
It seemed like they were almost to the door but still the voices were somewhat muffled and Siofra began to suspect that they had soundproofed the door somehow, when there was a slight bend in the passage and the voices became clearer as soon as they had rounded it.

“...can’t do that! What if someone notices?”
“That’s the point, isn’t it?”
“The point is to get their attention, not to flat-out kill every breathing thing in the vicinity.”
“If you want out...”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Would you guys cut it out? We have more important things to discuss and we don’t have all night. Besides, the boss will be back soon and he will want to know what we’re going to do about it.”

Siofra tapped Nickolai on the shoulder to get his attention before she bent close to his ear. “Any idea what this is about?”

Nickolai wondered how Siofra could hear that well, only to remember who he was dealing with. She wasn't just some random person off the streets after all, so he shouldn't have been at all surprised to find that her hearing was exceptional. Arenia's was pretty good too so he supposed it wasn't that big of a deal, nor was it all that odd. At least they somewhat knew they were getting into, though somewhat was a very loose way to phrase it. Better than going in blind though.

To his frustration though, he still couldn't hear anything even when they continued to creep forward. And then he rounded a bend and it was like he was hearing in stereo or someone had taken some gauze out of his ears. Too bad he couldn't really make sense of what he was hearing because it was completely out of context, but the one thing he could say with absolute certainty was that it didn't sound good. Everything in the vicinity? That could be precious few things and none of them were particularly preferable.

"Not a clue," he whispered back, keeping his voice as low as possible. "Sounds like they're creating some sort of weapon though..." He paused for a moment as dawning horror overcame him. "Wait, what if they're not shipping things? What if all those crates were for receiving things? If they needed supplies to do whatever they're planning it makes sense. It almost sounds like they're going to set off a bomb of some sort." It would explain their concern about killing everyone because then they would be in danger too. "Whatever it is, it isn't good," he finished.

They didn't have much time to figure out what they were going to do either because he had a feeling that once the boss came back (whoever he was) the decision would be taken out of their hands.

It was worrying; that much was certain. Siofra wasn’t neither happy that these men were obviously planning something nefarious, something nobody else seemed to be aware of amongst the rebel groups, so these really had to be extremists. Nor was she happy that Nickolai had no clue what they were on about. It suggested that he had not gotten in very deep, which in turn meant that infiltrating them again through somebody else would most likely result in the same thing.

Hesitating, the half-elf listened for a while longer but they were still bickering and she couldn’t shake the feeling that they should get out of there before the announced boss arrived. If they weren’t sure when he would come, then Siofra and Nickolai should make sure that they were far, far away when he did arrive.

“Let’s go,” she whispered to Nickolai. “We should get out before it’s too late. We don’t know when the big guy might show up and I don’t know about you but I’m not particularly keen on being caught down here.”

Said and done. Siofra didn’t wait to see if Nickolai agreed but simply turned away from the door and headed down the tunnel to leave the place. If they were to get caught, she preferred it not to be in that hallway with people blocking their exit and others behind them, who would no doubt come running instantly should they be detected.

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