Shade

The Party Job 1/5 ( Part three of A & S's adventure series)

(The Party Job is divided into five parts, this will include violence and mentions of child slavery and human trafficking. This is cooperative writing between myself and Audemus. Just a reminder that no information found in this story can be used by any other player other than those involved in each scene. Thank you and enjoy ~) 

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She dipped a rather graceful curtsy, “My lord,” she greeted, an impish grin curling the corners of her lips, “Shall we?” She straightened, waiting patiently.

He grinned, crooking his arm out for her to thread her palm through. “We shall. Just this way, your ladyship.” Audemus guided her down the gilded thoroughfare lined with stately manors, making small, idle conversation in case they were being watched. Their steps took them to the front of a highly-walled estate, two guards just outside of a barred gate adorned with a faintly burning emblem (petty enchantment, how very trite) of a quickly-growing-familiar seal. Their hauberks and weapons were made of expensive (but thin) golden metals, but their posture and young, nervous faces revealed they were scarcely hardened sentries. The taller one, with a hawkish nose and quivering, thin lips, held out his palm and spoke with a reedy voice. “Your names?” 

The mage’s voice slipped into clipped, overly posh Thalassian, and he upturned his nose as if he had smelled something disdainful. “Lord Audemus Wyrran Sunsworn, and this is my guest, the Lady Dawnstrider.” He moved his hand to rest in the small of her back, nudging her closer.

She had shed her appearance as they walked, raven’s wing hair fading to the color of corn silk, her skin lightening with a dappling of freckles. Even the shape of her face rounded to that of a younger, more innocent visage. The magic of it tasted like lightning on the back of her tongue as she shed fear alongside her natural looks. A determined steel settling in her spine. They approached the residence and the performance began. Shade’s expression was one of sweet vapidness, her grin welcoming as she openly eyed the young guard with pale green eyes – more like the green of new spring growth – and a finger twirling one lux curl around her finger. “Good evening,” she murmured in a warmer tone, her Thalassian as posh and perfect as any well-bred noblewoman, “Don’t mind him, I dragged him out.”

She leaned into Audemus’ side, casting a gently teasing look up to him, adoration clear on her features.

The guard cast a lingering look over Shade, and Audemus snapped his fingers beneath the younger elf’s nose, haughty. Embarrassed, the other elf’s head dipped in deference and he shakily withdrew a guest list tucked into his belt, stuttering out a quick apology before tapping the scroll with a gauntleted finger. “Oh, yes. I see – Lord Sunsworn. Open the gate!” Ushering Shade through, he dipped his head low to whisper, amused, into her ear. “I think I prefer the black.” But his posture straightened just as quickly as they moved into the extravagant courtyard, bustling with the pompous elite. It was a lavish affair – thronged with self-important gentility – but despite the crowd, they might as well have been invisible. Could always count on the self-important to also be very self-absorbed. Removing his hand from her waist, he whisked two crystal flutes from a passing servant’s tray and pushed one gently into her grasp as they paused near a bubbling fountain. “See anyone you recognize?”

She smirked but smoothed it away as they joined the party proper, accepting the flute of bubbling alcohol from Audemus with a gracious nod. Shade reclined against the fountain well in his space, pretending to sip as her pale gaze swept almost carelessly across the crowded soiree. “I see three people on the hit list at work,” she murmured, “but that’s unsurprising. Our host is not present.” Her head tipped as if to listen to him, a cordial smile flashed at a couple who occupied a space close to them at the fountain. There were too many people at the event to make a quick job of it. Natural cause of death it is then, she mused, tapping the inside of Aud’s thigh subtly to gesture toward a bookcase that was shifting closed at the far end of the ornate ballroom. She glanced up at him in askance.

He disguised his trailing glance as a mere surveying of the room, bringing the champagne to his lips as he slightly turned. No one else seemed to have caught the tail end of the subtle movement, but he acknowledged it by pressing an amorous-for-show kiss to Shade’s temple, tucking a piece of flaxen hair behind her ear with his free hand. “I believe that is the Lord’s private study. If my memory proves correct, there’s a false switch behind a Flamerest family genealogy.” At Shade’s minor, inquiring noise, he expanded his knowledge of such succinctly. “He’s a tangentially related cousin by marriage. I’ve been here in my youth. Also a stickler for dramatics and tradition, so I very much doubt he has changed anything since his father’s passing.” He straightened, leaving the empty flute on the marble basin of the fountain, and held out an open palm for her, the other, angling towards the ballroom. “Do you want to dance?”

She set aside her own glass carelessly on the fountain and took his hand. She stepped gracefully away from the fountain and fit easily into his side. Shade’s almost bored expression never changed as she sighed, “If we must,” drolly for the couple nearby. When he swept her out into the throng of other couples, she murmured, “There are six guards inside this room, all at entrances. I counted eight more coming in here – he’s got four posted in the hall and four posing as servers. Each of them favors their right sides – their swords are glamoured to look like simple knives.” Shade was an accomplished dancer – as if she’d been trained in the formal arts befitting a lady since childhood. She affected a smile, lips barely moving, “I will handle our lord if you wish to wander elsewhere for your bauble,” she told him.

It had been quite a while since he had engaged in such a formal dance, a youth spent in court and extravagant soirees such as this one had ingrained dancing as almost second-nature. He lead easily – although Shade’s deft footwork deserved just as much credit – and eyed each of the guards she pointed out in turn as he guided her through the delicate spins. “I think you’ll need a distraction to get through that bookshelf unnoticed, don’t you?” In his mind, the mage kept both time and the placement of the other dancers. An idea, half-formed and only half-likely to be agreed with, began to coalesce in his mind. He spotted a pair that would suit his plan – young lord coupled with a much older and likely widowed sort – and began to direct their steps towards the two.

It was easy to be led by him, the pressure of hands on her guiding her to glide where he wished was simple enough to fall into. He was a rather fine dancer which made her darkly amused. He vapid, leaf green gaze drifted from where she’d been studying a server to the direction in which he was dancing them. “On your cue, then,” she murmured, lips barely moving in their sweet grin, “Because yes, there are eyes on the door but nobody, so a distraction will help me greatly.” “Where do you suggest we meet?” Shade asked, fingers drawing a seemingly idle pattern into his shoulder that he would feel underneath his clothing – like something warm and fluttering resided there, a heartbeat even. A simple charm to locate her. Her flaxen head tipped, gaze asking. “You are the one who knows this place,” she said, smiling.

“Unless that study’s been renovated, there was an exit that comes out in the kitchens – comes out in the larder. That’ll be in the servant’s wing.” As he spoke in a hushed, but conversational whisper, he drifted towards the couple, his movements half a pace too long and wide for the typical steps of the dance. “Did you know I once, em, kissed a Viscountess twice my age in there? Never thought her the type for a romp with the onion sacks, but, I wasn’t about to tell her that. I can meet you there, but, right now – let’s get you into that study unnoticed, yeah?” He gave Shade a cheeky wink and spun her one last time, angling himself with his back to the young noble. He leaned back and drove his foot down hair, right onto the back of the other’s heel, before wrenching his foot to the side to sweep the leg out from underneath. The lord went down as planned, but took his dancing partner down with him, not as planned. The two of them fell over with a synchronized, surprised yelp and the mage gave Shade a slight push before throwing himself down as well for good measure, landing with his elbow directly in the good lady’s side that could have plausibly been considered not his own doing (ideally, the other male elf’s knee would be considered the culprit) in their impromptu dogpile.

Spotting one of the disguised guards nearby, still processing this dancing disaster and carrying a fresh tray of canapes, he quickly acted on that as well: pressing his hand to the ground he hissed out a hurried incantation, creating a nearly invisible sheet of slick ice that was directed towards the path of the watchman’s oblivious feet. A comical, and extremely loud, slip occurred a moment later as he went down in a pile of metal tray, ceramic serving ware, and smoked salmon bruschetta. “You idiot!” Audemus seethed, jumping up immediately and kicking the still-dazed young elf in the side. He made sure to focus his attention entirely on this diversion: Shade had disappeared from his side but he wouldn’t chance a glance towards the bookshelf to ruin her chance. He knelt to help the still-screeching, and now nursing a blooming bruise in her side, noblewoman to her feet and made a grand show of brushing her off and guiding her affronted fury to her ‘inept’ dance partner. “Who taught you how to dance like that?! Ridiculous. Get up, you sniveling moron.”