faderift | TIS I, A HUMBLE CAPITALIST.

Mhavos knows his strengths. Well, he knows his strengths for this particular mission. It seems everyone he's with is a little squeamish about throats being slit, and honestly, that speaks to their character. It also means Mhavos is a clerk, and nothing more.

So he goes through the files and- ah. One of the ledgers is... it's not off, but Mhavos knows what missing information, however carefully hidden, looks like. He begins checking drawers, and then... yes.

Anyone in the room will then see him pick out a letter opener from the desk, sigh, and begin picking the lock. "Nothing about servants and their propensity for theft, please," he says.

This is all rather nostalgic for John, who had once been very practiced at rooting out valuables from warehouses. He pauses, leaning one hand against a stack of boxes and raps his crutch a few times against the floorboards.

"Not a word," he answers, abandoning the crate he'd broken open to make his way towards Mhavos. "I've found picking locks to be a highly useful skill in any line of work."

And really, who is John to judge people based on their semi-shady life skills?

Mhavos gives a hushed laugh. "A nobleman taught me, actually." His voice does not sound fond. "He was over my master's house for a soiree, and considered it petty revenge for losing at cards. Enable the servants to steal, how clever."

He continues to twist the knife, his ear to the desk.

"I used it to sneak food to other servants. Merde, I need a..." He really doesn't know the word for tension wrench in Trade. "A thin, long metal rod. Unless someone would like to wrench the thing open."

Ilias, who has spent his life more interested in earning permission to lock doors than in trying to open any, nonetheless spares a glance to watch his petit friend work with unencumbered curiosity.

Tension wrenches aren't anything he knows anything about, either, but basic physics, he can gather. A searching motion, a smooth fan of the hand, and -- Ah. He plucks up a fire poker, narrow enough at the tip. Looks to Mhavos's arms, then his own.

Hm.

"Why don't I--" He gestures. You know, do the part requiring muscles.

Ilias' petit friend looks up with surprise and, once identifying the fire poker in the other man's hand-- something approaching joy. He has no idea what Ilias' is planning. He supports it whole-heatedly.

Stepping neatly aside, "be my guest."

John gives a soft hum of approval. Whatever he might say were they in different company is held in that hum. The sweep of his hand echoes Mhavos' sentiment: Let's see what you have in mind.

Ilias withers slightly under the attention — Maker, don't look at him, it really isn't that exciting — but all the same, undoes the buttons of his shirt cuffs and steps in. He's by no means a large man, but is apparently accustomed to doing more with his arms than just holding his staff, you're welcome.

The narrow end of the poker shimmies between drawer face and frame, twists to lever behind the former, and— with a brisk but precise application of said muscles, cracks free of the track. There.

Mhavos is sure he's felt pure, unbridled lust before now, but he can't remember when. It must have been a very long time ago. Which is good, because it means the memory is so distant it doesn't trigger the embarrassment that would invariably lead to a full-faced blush. His smile does grow warmer-- not predatory or hungry, just appreciative-- and he forgets to hide the way he's quite obviously looking at Ilias' forearms, not his work with the poker.

It takes about a heartbeat too long for Mhavos to snap back to himself. He raises a hand to his mouth, curled as though thinking, trying to hide the smile he can't quite rid himself of. His eyes carefully drift from Ilias.

It is overall an unsubtle display, but only if one is looking directly at Mhavos. He hopes above all that no one has been.

"Very- very good. Thank you, Speaker." He wants to call him Ilias. He worries that would be over-familiar at the moment.

Is this a circumstance particular to Ilias? This is the second outing he's been on where Ilias elicited this same fraught emotion. John looks from Ilias to Mhavos, then turns his head to find Darras, who currently seems immune to the good Speaker's charms.

"Fine work indeed," John echoes as he leans forward, pulls the draw out to reveal it's contents. "And it seems it's yielded something worth our attention."

Hopefully it's what they need to achieve some results. It would be nice if at least of his outings were straightforward as pulling answers from a locked drawer.

"Yes- yes, thank you." Mhavos moves to compose himself-- there's still a warm feeling in his chest that he hopes isn't somehow luminously obvious-- taking a step forward to retrieve the ledger. He flips through it quickly, with the air of someone very accustomed to skimming tomes for the relevant nuggets of information.

"Here- here." He taps a page. "I will never understand why fraudulent financiers feel the need to keep record of it. One would think a criteria of criminality would be a good memory." He flips a few more pages, and his smile becomes the clever, curved thing of venal interest.

"Which is to say, this is perfectly legal, but politically problematic. They're supplying both sides."

Invariably, they have a woman and her young son tied up. Mhavos knows with sickening surety what he'd do, were he alone. He doesn't have to, and he's selfishly lucky for it. At the same time, that means the problem falls to another.

Uneasily, he looks to their captives. He's far away not to be heard. For the moment, they're sitting in the darkness, gagged and waiting.

Standing on the stair, he murmurs quietly, "we have a mage."

"We do," John agrees evenly. His tone doesn't waver. The memory of what Ilias is capable of is foremost in his mind, certain it's a useful tool. "That could make this much easier."

But John looks between the four of them assembled, and spreads one hand out in front of himself, offering.

"I can try talking to her, if you'd rather not," to Ilias, casually confident in his own persuasive abilities. But it's always easier to be the alternative, to have something dangerous and terrible at your back as an incentive. It's not entirely the out John's presenting it to him as. The truth remains: the threat of magic will make this go much easier.

Edited (lol i can count) 2019-09-25 16:52 (UTC)

This isn't a battlefield. There wouldn't be time to step aside into a stairwell there, to whisper and plot. The woman in the corner would either be their enemy, or she wouldn't. Ilias would know what to do with his hands.

They have a mage. (They have two.) His mouth makes a line.

"If you would like her to say anything intelligible, that may be a wiser place to start," he whispers back like scanning for an exit. Fingers shove into his trouser pockets. "It is not subtle, what these spells do to the mind. We do not even know that she has done anything wrong."

The shame rises up in Mhavos like bile. He should be the one doing it. He is already a monster. He should offer, and simply ask Ilias to blanket the place in sound-swallowing darkness.

A muscle twitches in his jaw.

He can't. He has obligation beyond his fickle heart. He is a coward.

"If Silver's ploy does not work... magic could be threatened. Never used." It's the most he can promise, and it isn't much; is isn't as though anyone here will listen to him if he puts his tiny food down.

"A knife in the dark is twice worse and a sword seen in sunlight." It's a quote from a play about an assassin. Mhavos, wanting desperately to distance himself from this situation, falls back on memorized fantasy.

"I don't disagree, but in the event our hand is forced..."

John lets the sentence hang, eyes moving directly to Ilias' face. He knows a little of what Ilias can do to horrify a person. It's a valuable tool, even of John agrees in delaying it's use.

"But we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. And we may not come to it, if all goes well."

The idea of what "well" means is probably debatable. John's tone is light, but he isn't unaware of the unease among their company. Any apprehension he has about his chances of success can't be shown.

"Shall we?"

And then turns and heads down the steps towards their captives, expecting the others to follow.

Threatened.

Mhavos is both more and less comfortable with this than he would have imagined. Ilias wants to tell them he's about as threatening as a butter knife at a mid-day picnic, on that scale. And in one particular way, that's not untrue. As his shoulders wind with tension at John's unspoken suggestion, as the Fade gathers delicate as electricity at his fingertips, there is a simultaneous something in the air between the three of them that says he isn't anything to be threatened by at all. That the otherworldly pull his anxiety exerts on the room around them is— nothing to worry about, really.

With any luck, that sensation won't reach as far as their captives, however. Even if it did, the glow of unnatural light that follows it is likely reason enough for concern. A palm raised to the air, and with a resigned sigh, he drags a wisp through the Veil. Fine. He can make an opening demonstration.

He neglects to mention said wisp has the temperament and insatiable curiosity of a child; that doesn't mean it can't be made to do terrible things.

Mhavos is moments away from giving up. He is forming his request in the mind-- Ilias, Speaker, could you make the room dark as pitch and soundless? I have a better idea-- when a something intangible and mysterious blooms into life at Ilias' fingertips.

Mhavos is accustomed to being afraid of magic. He has had it used against him, seen it used against others, to both harm and amuse. But he has never seen Ilias use magic. That is... something completely different. He knows the man is a necromancer, he knows he speaks to the dead, to biting corpses and can conjure horrors that could twist the mind.

And yet, the thing Ilias chooses to summon is a tiny ball of light.

It's fantastic.

"Thank you," Mhavos says. "The average person-- myself included-- has no clue of magic's workings, and they have no clue of your character. I don't think much more than a light show will be needed. And if it is not enough, I-... I swear, I will handle it. You should not do something you think is unworthy of you."

They have the information they need, is the thing. The question is, what to do with it. He doesn't imagine he'll have much a say-- the only elf in a group of humans, what a joke-- but he does have an idea.

"I admit," he says, holding some incriminating files between his fingers, "my grasp of Nevarran politics leaves something to be desired. But I do understand the flow of money, and that Riftwatch is often at low tide. Whatever is decided, we ought to..."

He doesn't want to sound too comfortable with this.

"In Trade, I believe the term is 'take a cut'?"

No great reader, Darras looks over. He's been keeping a kind of watch, sifting dubiously through files and glancing over the letters like they mean more than they do. The thing is, you don't need to be a great reader to put together what that might mean. Nevarran politics, something written down, something that might make them some coin...

"Think I've heard of that." He folds his arms over his chest and settles back against the doorframe, perfectly at ease. "It's when you can profit on the side a bit, yeah? Or a great deal of profit, depending. And all of it usually without anyone being the wiser. An interesting suggestion to have in the moment. What's on that parchment that has you so convinced we'll be looked after?"

Mhavos nods, and taps his fingers against the pages. "I do not know this brewing conflict intimately," he says, "but I doubt either side would be pleased to learn that one of their suppliers is playing both angles."

He holds the papers a little higher. "And what we have is proof of just that."

"Suppose we're inclined to control the flow of goods?"

A question that begs asking, as Mhavos has already graciously introduced the idea of taking a share. It would have been taxing to have to advocate for both.

Ilias looks a little like taking a cut is some sort of conversational tar he doesn't want to get on his shoe. If they must, though.

"To whose benefit?" Not rhetorical; considering. Riftwatch's, certainly, but-- "Both sides are preparing for war. Our ambitious importer has profited from soothing that conflict, not fanning its flames. But does it help us any, if Nevarra should erupt into chaos sooner rather than later?"

Mhavos nods. "I am generally a proponent of less chaos, where possible."

He doubts his word matters much, but he's said it. Often that feels like all he can do.

"Consider that through her we have an opportunity to influence the outcome of that war."

It feels like a valuable opportunity to work towards a desirable outcome. He senses already that this will be difficult to convince the assembled party. Ilias is the sticking point.

There is only so far John cares to push at him after their last excursion in Nevarra. His eyes move to Darras, gaze sharpening as he awaits some sort of response.

TIS I, A HUMBLE CAPITALIST.

[HACKER VOICE] I'M IN.

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THEY'RE ILLUSIONS.

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S-S-S-SABOTAGE.

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