loch lemach gives zero fucks (cutandthrust) wrote in emillion, @ 2014-04-18 03:31:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, audrey leradine, loch lemach |
here i am, stuck in the middle with you.
Who: Loch Lemach and Audrey Leradine
What: A job for Vivi. (Quest board).
Where: The Vinila Estate, Nobles' District.
When: 4/16 (backdated)
Rating: R (includes Loch's potty mouth, violence, NPC death)
Status: Complete
Countess Albrecht had said ten, and so by nine-thirty Loch was already outside the Vinila Estate. A preliminary tour of the vicinity under the veil of Vanish showed nothing suspicious—or indeed any trace of the mysterious second person Albrecht had mentioned. That Loch could not see them, of course, did not mean that they were not there—invisibility and subterfuge were hardly skills exclusive to her—but they would materialise eventually. For the moment, she would wait. A better suit for her; waiting was never as dangerous as having others lying in wait. Albrecht's contact came out of the woodwork at ten on the dot. The Cathedral's bells tolling rang in the air as Loch unveiled herself and approached—spotting, out of the corner of her eye, a second figure. Shorter, slight of build, shawl wrapped over her nose and mouth. By the time she was close enough for Loch to see the momentary widening of her eyes, Loch had already identified the outfit. "However much I'm getting out of this job," she muttered, as the contact fetched up beside them, "won't be enough to compensate having to put up with you, Audrey." Audrey clicked her tongue shaking her head. “Of course, why would this be easy. Should’ve never accepted,” she spat. The shorter blonde had been ready to snap back at the older ninja, when rustling behind them caught her attention. Spinning on the balls of her heels, she tilted her head at the sight of the guard. This must have been the employer Vivi had mentioned. Audrey’s gaze had shifted to the Vinila Estate, giving it one look over before returning her attention to the man. “I assume you are both the recruits the Countess has given me?” he questioned, looking both women up and down. The two merely rolled their eyes at each other in a quick glance before Audrey intervened with a, “Yes. We are.” The contact, a sturdy-looking man in black uniform, looked between the two women and cleared his throat. “Well. If you know each other, we can skip the formalities.” He thrust a hand in his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. “Here’s the floor plan. I’ll make sure a route’s clear for you; it’s marked here. Just give me another hour. And I’m sure you’ll find,” he said, glancing at Loch, “the rewards more than sufficient. Any questions?” Loch crossed her arms. “I was promised a special poison in your employer’s profession. Where’ll that be?” “Basement, like everything else.” The man frowned, impatient. “Listen, you got nothing more, I should really be going back.” Audrey shook her head, waving him off. “That’s all we need,” she muttered back at him. The man took his leave, both ninjas staying behind. Audrey held the map in her hands, eyes skimming through the blueprints quickly memorizing every possible exit in case trouble were to arise. “One hour, huh,” the shorter blonde rolled her eyes, handing the map back to the older ninja. “How riveting.” Resting her weight on a tree, she observed the house from a distance. “My dream. Ought to get a bigger share of the loot just for putting up with you.” Loch pulled out a silver case and lit a cigarette. She took a long drag, and did not bother to face away to avoid blowing out the smoke in Audrey’s eyes. One hour was more than long enough to memorize a route. The manor, as their contact had promised, was quiet. As they made their way down the corridors, Loch was constantly scanning their surroundings, looking for any kind of security they would need to be rid of, any detail their contact may have forgotten, anything that would lead them into a trap. She found nothing, and no sign of any guards. It was what they’d been told to expect—and that calm bothered her. At the rate they were going, they’d get to the basement and take what they wanted with no resistance. No plan ever went so smoothly. “Keep your eyes peeled,” she whispered to Audrey. “I’ve been keeping them shut,” she retorted with a roll of her eyes. “No shit.” Audrey’s neck would crane again and again over her shoulder, just to cover their asses as they made their way closer and closer to the basement. Despite both ninjas under the guise of vanish, they could never be too careful. Her lower lip had snaked its way under her teeth before glancing in the general direction of Loch’s voice. “Something’s not right. It doesn’t feel right,” she mumbled back, reaching the stairway to the basement. Privately, Loch agreed. She did not say anything; instead, she crouched by the door to check for any sort of alarm around the frame. But like everything else so far, it was too easy to be true: all the had to do to open it was turn the knob. The basement was dark, and a strong smell of dust and humidity clouded the air. There was another scent underlying―something putrid, that could have been anything from a few dead rats to a noxious gas. Immediately Loch’s hands went to pull out a face mask from her toolkit and adjust it over her face, even as she knew that it might not do her a fat lot of good. If it was something poisonous, she had no guarantee it was simply airborne, and she had already breathed some of it in. She could not tell how Leradine was doing, but muttered, “Try to breathe through the cowl. You start feeling weak, let me know.” Better to spare an antidote than suffer Countess Albrecht’s wrath for letting her ward die in some noblewoman’s basement. The stench immediately had Audrey stumbling back, pulling her cowl tighter and around her nose to keep whatever noxious fumes from getting to her. However, she knew very well cotton wouldn’t do the trick. Despite suffering from the horrendous stench she didn’t feel bad—at least not yet. Realizing she had nodded and gave no verbal cue, Audrey grave a confirming sound as the two continued down the stairs. The closer they got to the bottom the more she could hear something inhuman, as though something viscous was dragging itself across the floor. Whatever it was, it was heading towards them. The urge to unsheath her weapons was strong, but instead Loch pulled out the small handheld lamp she would normally have used for a Blinding Flash against her opponents; on a lower setting, it cast a sheen of golden light over the room, revealing at least a half-dozen flan wobbling towards the two invisible intruders. The light would have given away their position—but Loch wasn’t about to fight an unseen enemy. “Knew there was something I didn’t like about this,” Loch muttered, tying the small lamp to her belt and retrieving Fat Lord and Little Bitch. “Just assumed it was your being here.” Exhaling, she gave another tired roll of her eyes. Audrey had been ready to retort with something when she felt a drop of goo drop on her shoulder and slime its way down her arm. Not even bothering to glance up, Audrey’s hand darted to grip Loch’s upper arm as she roughly pulled her back far enough to suffer no damage from the flan that had dropped from the ceiling. “Yeah, you’re welcome,” she seethed. Her own hand reached for a pouch strapped on her back to pull out a fire scroll. Tossing it towards the center of the congregation, she watched the fire ignite around the blobs of caramel, shielding her eyes from the sudden burst of light. Unsheathing her daggers, she entered the fray. “Whatever the stink in the air is, now we know it’s not flammable, since the air didn’t catch fire,” Loch said sardonically. “Good job, Audrey.” “Have you ever even smelled flan before?!” she shouted of her shoulder, avoiding one of the monsters and leading him towards another as he spun around slapping. The flan were beginning to converge on Loch, following the light of her lamp, and she reached down to flip the settings. If they wanted to look at her, let them look. A Blinding flash burst forth from the lamp, and several of the flan staggered, disoriented. Taking advantage of the opportunity, Loch slashed down at the nearest blob. “Sure. Stink’s so bad it could be covering anything else. And,” she paused, kicking the flan as it reached out as if to attach itself to her, “newsflash for you, a compound doesn’t need to smell to be poisonous. Some gases, you could breathe them in and not know it until you’re dead.” Beneath the mask, there was a nasty smirk which, although invisible to Audrey, seeped into her voice as she talked. “Did I ask for the chemistry lesson?” Her blade slashed the side of one, leaving a deep gash. “Besides,” she struggled, avoiding several more slaps, “nothing bad happened, and they’re weak against fire. You’re welcome.” “Did I thank you, Leradine?” Another slash of Little Bitch’s blade, and the flan was frozen in place; Loch finished it off and watched it dissolve into a puddle of green gunk before continuing, “Let’s just clean up here, the flan and the lady’s riches, and be on our way.” Audrey had finished her fair share, carefully stepping over a combination of caramel and other visceral matter. “Should have,” she muttered, eyes skimming the room for what they were looking for. Her head motioned to a certain box on a table. “Is that it?” The last of the flan fell to Loch’s next attack. She stepped over the remains to see what Audrey was talking about. It looked like a jewelry box, but it was almost the size of an adult cat. “Check it out,” Loch said, and headed further into the basement, towards an old dresser she had glimpsed. She inspected it for a few moments, then began to sift through the drawers, looking for the vial the contact had promised she’d find. She had just located it and slipped it into a pocket (along with a few lucky finds that seemed like they’d fetch a good price with Miller) when she heard, muffled by the thick coat of dust on the floor, approaching footsteps. At once she extinguished the lamp and remained very still, waiting for whoever it was to make their appearance. Audrey had been so close to opening the strange box, adept fingers working with tools to click the lock open when the light had unexpectedly gone out. Perking up, something was wrong. Immediately she had vanished, leaving her work and stepping behind a box to observe (or rather listen) to the darkness. The light came over in her direction as Aud stood perfectly still, her breathing slow and quiet. He seemed to be looking around, surveying the damage Audrey and Loch had done, puzzled but with a certain goal in mind. He pushed off a box, revealing another large chest. Pulling the key out from his pocket, he unlocked it revealing a myriad of treasures. Loch saw the contents of this chest would be far more valuable than anything they had found so far; the man clearly knew where to look, and he hadn’t shared that information with them. Her knife was in her hand again; she had sneaked up from behind, invisible, her footsteps silenced by the dust and gunk on the floor. But perhaps he, too, sensed something was wrong; he stopped shoving items into a sack on the floor next to him and instead stilled, as if listening for something. The approach of flan, perhaps. His betrayal was clear to Loch, who stepped out of her Vanish veil and flicked the lamp on again. “You wanted your employees to be eaten by the flan,” she whispered, her voice cold as ice, “you ought to have hired a couple of thieves fresh off their apprenticeship.” “That’s not how it is,” the contact protested—an unconvincing argument for a man in his situation. “Loch, leave him alone,” Audrey was quick to interject, stepping out of her own vanish. Pocketing her lockpicks from the table, she neared the two. Her eyes drifted down the crate he had opened, lips pursing. “What he did wasn’t right, but neither is what we’re doing.” She was aware of what this could potentially turn into. Loch had a history, and Audrey did not want to get involved. Loch looked at Audrey as though she couldn’t believe her ears, then snorted. “You can talk to the higher-ups and resign when we get back, if you’re so conflicted about what we’re doing.” She jabbed a thumb at the man. “But I ain’t gonna just stand here and take this bullshit.” “This wasn’t part of the plan,” she shot back at the older blonde, slowly getting in between both the ninja and the guard. “We were just sent down here to get the poison and whatever treasure. Can’t you just use one of your poisons and we can pin this whole thing on him? I don’t understand why we have to take it this—” Audrey was cut off by the sound of a blade unsheathing. Full adrenaline had kicked in as she spun on her heels, her hands catching his arm jabbing the dagger towards her. She had meant only to catch it, but the man had moved — she sweared her had moved — and the dagger had sliced across his stomach. Blood had begun seeping out and the younger ninja couldn’t help but gasp as she let go, watching the body slump to her feet. Her hands were covered in blood. In his blood. They were covered. “L-Loch, help me!” she had stuttered out dropping down and pressing on his wound, trying to stop the bleeding. Loch made no move to help; she was looking at Audrey as though she’d never quite seen her before, and there was amusement in her tone as she said, “Sorry, Audrey. Guess that plan you suggested’s out. None of my poisons do that.” The man’s every breath rattled. She looked down at the wound, but did not kneel as Audrey had; never a good thing, to have someone else’s blood found on your clothes. “That won’t do much,” she said. Audrey’s hands were red, but the bleeding wasn’t stopping. Audrey had glared back at her, though the look held more helplessness than spite. The man’s breathing was slowing until finally it had given out. Standing up, and stumbling away from the body, she looked down at the floor and at her own mess. “W-what do I do? I didn’t mean to. There’s blood on me!” she grew into borderline hysterics. But Loch was only half listening. She sidestepped the body neatly and headed to the chest the man had been pillaging before he’d been discovered. It was a better haul than anything they’d found by themselves, and she made sure to transfer every item into her own bag, leaving the contact’s there (this too was smeared with blood, and too incriminating to take). As she finished, she thought she heard a viscous sound from the depths of the basement, and glanced at Audrey. “We leave now, is what we do. Seems like the flan we cleaned up earlier had friends.” They would be leaving a trace whether they wished to or not—both their boots had stepped on the pool of blood―but as Loch heard the monsters approach, she knew she could not leave Countess Albrecht’s ward to stumble home in the dead of night covered in blood from head to foot. Reluctantly, she said. “You come with me. I’ll give you something to wear that doesn’t scream murder.” “B-but I didn’t!” she struggled to argue with her. Loch smirked but didn’t correct her, and obediently Audrey followed behind Loch giving the dead body one last glance before casting it behind her. |