Part 1

"The facts are these," Ticris started in a hushed voice. "The doors and windows will be locked. The main entry will be guarded by two guards, the back of the building by one. They are armed, but it's the traps inside we should be most wary of. You have done your part in the preparations, I assume." He sat there, cross armed, casting his unblinking eyes across the group in front of him.

A cloaked and masked figure leaned forward. His rasping voice sounded hoarse and unpleasant. "My observation of the location in question has lead to the discovery of a small but inconspicuous window on the west side of the building. This part of the building is inspected two to three times a night, but the time between the patrols should prove ample for us to act."

"Skrahl is an infamous spy. His unrivalled experience and a Nagura's innate ability to see in the dark will be of vital importance," Ticris praised the cloaked stranger. Then he turned to a young Aiuran woman clad in tight leather. "As is your expertise in the assassination business, as the uncatchable and untraceable killer," he winked. Her hair and mouth were covered by pitch black cloth, leaving only an opening for her feline eyes --a piercing green-- to see.

"You will not be disappointed. My blade strikes true and clean." Quenn unsheathed her dagger just long enough for the rest to see its razor-sharp blade. The candle light reflected in the metal held a hint of red, as if coated with the blood of countless victims.

"What's in it for us? I ain't doin' anythin 'till I see some hard cash."

The fourth member of the group had been standing in the corner of the backroom of the Bulging Barrel Inn and now walked up to the table the others sat around. The light of the single candle shimmered across crude facial features and crooked horns. The man's complexion had a striking resemblance to that of coalesced rock, rough and bloodless.

"I have told you before, Corodh." Ticris' voice sounded irritable. "The exact gaining depends on the outcome of the mission. Your competence decides its success, or failure." The hulking Ceratan warrior grunted, yanked a chair violently from under the table and plumped down on the seat. The old wood creaked under his sheer weight. "The loot we after must be sum'thin' fancy then."

Ticris smirked silently and leaned back in his chair. The soft light touched his aquatic features. His Rashari ancestry had given him an appealingly shiny skin and bright ocean-blue eyes. He briefly twisted a luxurious cigar between his webbed fingers and lit it. Ticris took a deep draft before he answered.

"The loot we're after," he started and exhaled a puff of smoke, "is the largest shipment of maevi ever to have been deposited in one place at once." This information raised many an eyebrow and even seemed to please the blunt warrior.

Maevi is a plant which grows on the shores of the Blood Lakes in Taran-Ceroth and depending on the method of consumption, have different, but each potent effects. The black market pays a fortune for fresh maevi and many addicts an even greater fortune for the processed plant.

"How can such a valuable cargo be so poorly guarded?" Quenn sounded concerned but the glistening in her eyes betrayed her anticipation.

"If they would have placed an army of guards around the storage building, people would get suspicious and curious to know what's inside. This would draw unwanted attention. Since no soul knows about this top secret information, the customs think it's perfectly save to store this treasure for one night with little guard." Ticris exhaled and watched the smoke drift up to the tavern's shabbily patched ceiling.

"The circumstances for an operation of this calibre could not have been more favourable." Skrahl brought forth a rasping noise the others would come to recognize as his laugh. "The moonless night will cover us under her black cloak when we meet at the docks."

Corodh, his expression now considerably brighter, stood from his chair and coughed ostentatiously. "Well, let's have a drink again sum time, ay. Good night to ya an' catch ya'll later." Turning his broad body in the narrow facility required the most of his seemingly underdeveloped motor skills and under the sounds of breaking pottery and knocked over chairs, Corodh left the shady inn. It took some time for the agitated remarks of the other customers to die out. Ticris watched the door close and leaned back in his chair again.

"I guess we ought to be going too." When he got no response, the jovial thief turned his head to see Quenn and Skrahl's already abandoned seats. Ticris smiled and crumpled out the stub in the ashtray.

Part 2

The moonless night was black as jet. A cold wind blew over the desolate port of Vira'Erana. The docked ship's riggings swept against metal surfaces, clattering like shackles dragging over crude, uneven dungeon floors. Low mists shrouded the derelict storage buildings at the fringes of the docks in intense darkness, drowning the light of the flames coming from the few torches still alight.

Skrahl had been sitting crouched at the edge of a nearby roof, still like a statue. His serpentine figure was well suited for soundlessly slithering into enemy territory. The Nagura spy flashed an unseen smile beneath his dark hood as he let his gaze slide across the harbour. He could make out the silhouettes of the guards down at the dock, hunching together around a brazier's woodfire. The cloaked spy threw a small pebble up and caught it in his hand again a couple of times before he took aim and threw it into the waters below. The splash that followed drew the guards' attention long enough for Quenn to silently slice the throat of the only guard patrolling the westside unnoticed. Skrahl's window proved just wide enough to allow the assassin's lithe body through with modest effort. Quenn eased through with the skill of a veteran assassin, swift, silent and purposeful. Her nimble movements made no sound and left no traces. As soon as she dropped herself to the floor on the other side of the window, she paused, senses sharpened and weapon drawn.

Nothing.

Quenn took a deep but unheard breath and tucked her weapon back in its sheath before she commenced her part of the job. Brushing her hand across the array of pouches hung from her belt, she extracted a sabarite pebble from one and a glass container filled with vinegar from another. She popped the pebble in the vinegar, which immediately began to dissolve with a bright yellow glow. Instantly, the makeshift torch flooded the dusty room, chasing away the gloom to reveal arrays of shelves set up in several aisles. The sacks, crates and baskets filling them were labelled as things like 'wheat', 'rice' and 'dried grapes', she saw as she scanned the wares. Of course, no one would simply label a crate of addictive substances as such, so Quenn paid it little mind and instead focussed on the traps. The warehouse was rigged with tripwires. One glance along the wall revealed some of those to be triggers for arrow traps, if the telltale holes at chest height were anything to go by. Drawing her dagger, the assassin crouched low and snipped the wires with deft efficiency. Once she had convinced herself that all traps were disarmed, she moved to carefully open the twin doors of the main entry.

It was quiet. Quenn carefully peeked around the corner, making sure the guards were still captivated by Skrahl's pebbles, when she saw a silhouette not two yards away. Her heart skipped a beat. She leaped up, flowing into stance with the grace of a martial artist, dagger poised.

"Woah, easy! I was bored so I killed sum' time with these guys." The voice coming from behind sounded inappropriately casual. In the blink of an eye she whirled around and stopped her blade just an inch from the man's throat.

"Corodh...!" Quenn hissed. "What were you thinking?" The assassin had to do all in her power to keep herself from shouting at the conspicuous Ceratan. She turned back to see the silhouettes belonged to the piled up bodies of two men. Judging by their unnatural positions, two dead men. Her face took on several different expressions within a single moment, opening her mouth and closing it again a few times until she made up her mind.

"I will let you in now that I've cleared the way according to plan. I will cooperate with you for the remainder of this job, but after that we part ways and pretend we do not know each other."

Skrahl had not understood this unpleasant feeling he had been having about the whole operation until he caught up with Quenn and Corodh in the warehouse. His two accomplices scoured the shelves, upturning pots and opening crates left and right. The Ceratan eyed a row of earthenware pots critically.

"The goods be in them jars. I smash them to pieces an' we get outta here," Corodh explained his view on the situation.

"There is nothing but wine and oil in those jars, blockhead," whispered Quenn as she read the labels by the light of her rudimentary torch. "Cris must have made a miscalculation." She turned to face Skrahl, who now stood next to them, hiding a reserved expression under his hood. "Are you sure this is the right building, Skrahl?" The notorious spy took his time to answer.

"This is the building I had been told to investigate."

"So either Cris told you to spy on the wrong building or we're just looking in the wrong place. When was Cris going to join up with us again?" Quenn mumbled.

The revelation struck the spy like an arrow.

Skrahl grind his teeth in suppressed rage. The unease he had felt transformed into an angry shame now that he wished he had listened to his intuition. "Ticris is not going to join up with us."

Quenn and Corodh had no time to ponder this statement: the sounds of a dozen running footsteps and clattering of weaponry came in from further up the docks. A moment later the room was flooded with heavily armed guards. The dumbstruck trio was quickly surrounded.

"What... where did they all come from so suddenly?" Quenn whispered so softly only her partners could hear. It was Skrahl who answered in a monotonous, matter-of-fact voice. He made no effort to resist arrest as the guards twist his arms to his back, handcuffing him.

"This little army of guards," he explained, "who were originally guarding the maevi storage building elsewhere in the port, got tipped off about our presence here, by the person who now has all the time in the world to make away with the greatest plunder of the decade: Ticris 'the Magpie', the most cunning member of the thieves' guild."