Reconnaissance (part 2)
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
8:15 PM
It was not unlike Szol's hidden wall, deep in the belly of what was once the Boarding House. Her hand fell across the valve, the jut of metal refusing stubbornly to budge, rusted and grimed into immobility. "Come on..move," a pained exhale forcibly growled between clenched teeth. Her hand slipped its grip twice, wet with water, mud, and chalk. Finally she stepped back to kick it with the heel of her boot. Perhaps not the wisest of choices, but it moved, a harsh spitting of rust rained down and the wall slid back and up slowly groaning in protest being woken from its ancient slumber.
Greeted with more darkness, she stepped from the vast opening and closed the portal behind her. This, she surmised, was the basement of basements in the cylinder. It looked no better than a dungeon, and as she passed the empty cells strewn with soiled straw, she realized that was exactly where the tunnels had spat her. It was empty now though of those it might have once housed, instead appearing to have become a storage facility. Crates stacked one atop the other cluttered the walk ways and even inside the cells. A quick inspection ruled out the unlikely event the contents were the substance she was looking for.
"I am not going down there. You go. I went last time," a red haired fellow spoke up, breaking the silence of the catacomb below. Behind him, looking over his shoulder a bearded man grunted, "Then get out of my way. If you're going to be a woman about it, I'll go myself." The red haired guard bristled and began to trudge down the stone steps, bits of dirt and small stones skittering ahead of him to the basement floor, "Oh no. I'll never hear the end of it, I'm going." The bickering had her stop in her tracks, backing up behind a pillar of crates. The duo passed, picking up one of the wooden boxes and began to carry it by the rope handles back up the steps, "Careful..hey slow down! I can't walk backwards as fast as you can walk forward," The bearded man looked over his shoulder, backing up the steps slowly with the crate. The door was left ajar as they passed, their bickering finally fading away the further they ventured from the catacomb.
Leaning out slightly, she looked toward the stairs and began to navigate from crate tower to crate tower, a path to the stairs. Silence was a good sign, but time was not on her side. They, or someone else, could return at any moment. A sliver of light cast a diagonal ribbon across the stone, piercing the darkness below. Step by step she ascended the stone, her back set to the shadowed portion of the stairwell, listening before slowly nudging the door open and glancing out into the hallway.
At this ahn, the lights were low. It was, she gathered, probably the first or second ahn. Guards would be changing shifts. In the interim, the hallway was empty however, and she took one last glance before turning and walking quickly down the corridor. She'd been here before, under other circumstances, once upon a time perched at the desk of Lady Sidney Nalius. The little bird. The channels were familiar to her, and yet it was long enough ago, that she nearly passed by the office of the Deputy in her haste. Fingertips curled around the knob, a turn indicated it was locked, as predicted.
The pack tied to her back was slid off, and within it removed the set of lock picks. Picking locks was not her skill set, but she usually managed well enough. Though, it wasn't often she was under this sort of time limit, however.
"That woman is a pain in my ass!" a voice rang out, causing her shoulders to hitch slightly. "If her father was not so close to the family, I'd have thrown her to her belly ages ago," it was coming closer. Her eyes narrowed on the lock, a soft audible click finally gave way and she turned the door, slipping in and quietly shutting it behind her. Her back pressed to the door, the sound of the voices rounded the corridor's corner and passed by, "Well you know, it's only for a year. Have you considered purchasing another slave girl?"
Exhaling heavily, she leaned up from the door and scanned the dark room, shrugging back on the leather pack and securing it tight to her waist. From the window she could hear the sounds of the city below, even at this late ahn the Square was active. The pads of her fingertips traced the scalloped edge of the desk, falling upon papers piled atop one another. She shuffled through each, documents the sort of mindless drudgery that would have kept her out of politics if she had been born a man and a citizen.
She pushed back the chair, sitting in it and reaching down, peering in every drawer. Nothing. Not even a bottle of good alcohol to be found squirreled away in a side drawer. Slouching back in the chair with a low sigh of frustration, she cast her gaze down, and there it suddenly snagged upon something jutting down from under the desk. Her brow furrowed, she scooted the chair back further and reached beneath, tugging free a folded bit of paper. Four names thereupon were inscribed, four names and nothing else:
Lysander Manus
Claudius Marselius
Titus Octavian
Anastasia Contessa
Labels: Central Cylinder Ar
