The Black Lotus Guild Hall

The days passed by in a flash as all four members of Seshwan’s team made preparations. Xerxes trained his communications ability while Colm purchased large amounts of essence enhancers. In order for the infiltration to succeed these two must be able to use their essences to their limits for an extent of time, these enhancement pills would act as a stimulant to sustain long term use easily with minor drawbacks.

Of all the jobs Colm’s was the most critical and he could not afford to let his cloaking slip up even for a second or else he would be detected and it would mean him being captured. Elsewhere within the hall, Seshwan confirmed shipment documents and information they had gathered in the days prior, such as guard rotation and merchant on-site that would be escorting Seshwan. As for Elise, she had spent the last week tailing a merchant named Cedric Locke; their mark for seduction and their ticket into the scarlet cove treasures vault.

The man was an arrogant and prideful piece of trash that used women as toys for his own self pleasure. Most days he roamed the markets of the city, strong-arming the none guild merchants into raising their prices. These underhanded tactics and the shady dealings were enough to have the guards investigate the man. Though no one in the city touched him because of his enormous wealth that dwarfed most other merchants.

A perfect man to have let thieves into the treasure vault. In the end, Elise hoped to gather enough information before they began to frame this bastard for the theft. Seshwan agreed that they should have someone take the fall, being a well-educated student in his earlier years he forged letters to use as a red herring for the guards to throw them off their trail, in hopes of leading them directly to Cedric.

All that was left was to present the plan to Master Lotus for approval, once they had approval Elise would move forward with the first stage of the plan. Though she dreaded the idea of being close to such scum.

That afternoon the four apprentices gathered to make their case. some were still skeptical of the finer details though they had all over the past week had grown to like the plan.

"Master here is the plan we've come up with and with your sanction, we wish to carry it out as our first assignment." Seshwan and company stood in a line before the master as they presented him with their full file of marks, briefings, maps and all information pertaining to the shipments.

"Very good apprentices, now let me have a look at what you’re after." Master Lotus looked within the file, and his eyes widened to double their normal squnited size. "You children are ambitious I’ll give you that! Ill approve this if the guild is given a 30% cut for all looted materials, pills, weapons, armors and artifacts. Deal?" The guild master was being generous only because if four untrained apprentice thieves stole a pile of items from the city vault they deserved to be commended for their abilities. The master personally didn’t believe this heist was something they could succeed with but they won’t learn by being told. a few of them being tossed in jail may be whats best for them to learn a lesson. Master Lotus thought while reading the file, 'I will need to have the masters watch them to ensure nothing to drastic happenes.'

None of black lotus' thieves have ever stolen anything from that vault, the guards always found them during their attempt to exit. Even Master DeRosa had never gotten an item past the guards and his nether techniques are the closest one could come to short range teleportation over three meters.

"Though you have my approval I must warn you all, this is a dangerous mission you’ve chosen, watch each other’s backs and don’t get caught. I don’t need to remind you, do not kill anyone! Xerxes! Lastly, everyone come home safely, your lives are more important than treasure." With this scolding to Xerxes and the warning to the rest the team had the approval to move ahead with the operation.

Scarlet Lounge

The Scarlet lounge was a brothel for merchants and rich nobles on the higher tiers of the city, this establishment housed only the finest women and a few other attractions for those seeking another company. Sneaking Elise in as a member of the staff was rather easy in this establishment her features were even more impressive than some of the actual employees. of all the lounges in the city Cedric frequented this particular one often, in search of new women to keep him company. The lounge area was packed with women in fine silk dresses, nobles and merchants surrounded tables with girls accompanying them. The atmosphere was thick with the smell of pipe weeds, tobacco, and alcohol of all kinds. A heavy cloud of smoke hung near the roof with rays of candle light piercing the cloud slightly illuminating the space.

Elise entered the room as she scanned the surrounding tables she spotted Cedric sitting in the corner drinking alone with a single girl. On the other side of the bar Seshwan had entered no longer dressed in his rags he had been dressed in the past week in the sewer. This evening he had returned to his home briefly and retrieved permission from his uncle's steward to go to the vault to pick out an item for his birthday, his uncle didn’t care much for him as he firmly believed seshwan was complete trash and ignored him sending his stewards to deal with the announce. Now donning a leather tunic embroidered with silver and gold and a green cloak draped down his back. Seshwan had returned to being a regular noble brat. Looking as if he was there primarily to celebrate his youth. A luxury noble children often took in the city. No one paid him much attention.

As the night progressed Cedric took notice of Elise from across the room as she flirted with young nobles and one of Cedric’s underlings. To him, this young beauty of around eighteen was unlike any other woman in the lounge. Her pale white skin could clearly be seen from the deep cut neckline of her red silk dress, her hair was tied back but even still the natural shade of red coupled with her figure made her extremely alluring not only to the men in the room. other women occasionally shot catty glances of jealousy.

Cedric downed his drink and waved to his underling that he would like to have a word with that young lady. The underlying shuttered as he felt bad for this young miss but he could not deny his master. "Excuse me miss..., Ling was it? My master over in the corner would like to have you join him."

"Oh that handsome man, of course, I would love to join him!" Elise had gotten fully immersed into her role, though inside her mind she was disgusted by this place. 'God I wish we could just kill this guy. He’s so gross!' as she began to walk over to the merchant Cedric's table out of the corner of her eye she could have sworn she spotted her master, DeRosa at the bar with a woman in each arm. perhaps it was just her imagination, he was a wanted thief and wouldn't make his way into such a populated lounge just for a good time.

Elise approached the table being welcomed by Cedric, this man was even more disgusting up close. He was overweight and looked as if he had not bathed in days, though bathing a man this size would no doubt be a task in itself, it may require two days. Regardless, Elise had a mission to steal his seal from his office and she was determined to succeed.

Seshwan sat across the lounge from Elise who had now arrived at Cedric's table though he couldn’t hear what they were discussing Elise put on a good show for the merchant; laughing and flattering him as much as possible.

After about an hour Cedric motioned to get up and as a pair with Elise under his arm they left the lounge. Seshwan followed suit as he passed the bar he set down some money next to a suavely dressed man with two women one under each arm. Master DeRosa looked up from his current engagement and smiled, "Told you she would leave with him!"

"This isn’t for our private matters; the ‘pool’ is still open till she returns with the seal. You only win if she sleeps with him in order to get the seal. This money is so you will enjoy your next drink on me and not follow us! I don’t need you making things worse for us." Seshwan left the money and headed out the door he hoped the masters would not try to ruin this job for them, though they had the right too. the rules applied to all apprentices looking to join the guild, they were no exception.

Before the job started the three male members of the team made bets how far Elise would have to go to get the seal from Cedric, Seshwan had bet she wouldn’t need to sleep with him, though the other two both went with she would have too. Along with that Xerxes opened the betting to the masters and their apprentices. The consensus from the bets was she would have to sleep with him. Figures that Xerxes the demon to tempt mortals into gambling.

Outside the bar Xerxes stood on a rooftop across the street, motioning to Seshwan the direction they had headed after leaving the bar. They refrained from using communications cause of the draw back it had on Xerxes to use it frequently would be a waste. Seshwan set out after the pair to make sure nothing bad happened to Elise, or better yet make sure she doesn’t kill Cedric.

Xerxes moved across the rooftops silently clad in black only his silhouette and the faint glint of his red eye could be seen, after dark, even half-demons cannot control their eyes, but in exchange, he did gain exceptional night vision. These demon features, paired with his newly acquired [shadow step] technique he jumped from one building to another closing the gap with Elise and Seshwan.

Elise spotted Xerxes in the shadows above the street further ahead. 'that guys getting ahead of himself. Xerxes was no doubt bored, he did get a lame job' Elise quickly swept her mind of all thoughts not pertaining to the current mission, she walked along with Cedric’s arm around her waist. As a prideful and strong young woman she hated the fact that she was in this position. Not only did she hate this part of the plan the men around her were rumored to have taken bets on how far she was willing to go. That alone had made her want to back out, after weighing the options she could gain a decent cut in money and training materials if she put up with it and for money she would do just about anything, if the price was right.

They had walked for a while before arriving at an extravagant mansion, gold trim bordered the windows, white limestone and shale cliff rocks made up the grand outer wall of the estate. With rod iron fences painted black on the walls to keep others out. This was Cedric's home in scarlet cove, no doubt just one of many mansions in the countryside owned by his merchant’s guild. Within the home were glazed tile floors, marble stair cases and vaulted ceilings. The nobles in the capital may not even have this nice of homes.

"You have a lovely home" Elise was still putting on an act, though her amazed expression, was genuine. She was used to seeing some nice homes but nothing like this, the three story massive estate was truly on a different level from other nobles and lords.

"Thank you, my dear, but don’t mind these areas, the best is yet to come." Cedric slide toward Elise. As he did Elise’s hair on the back of her neck stood up, her intuition was screaming for her to leave but something had a hold on her, her body no longer moved as she wanted it too. Her head went light and her fingers felt numb. She'd be drugged somehow.

'When did this bastard!' her mind panicked as she collapsed. As her eyes began to dim Cedric look over to her smiling a sinister smile.

"My dear you will become my new toy. We can get started after you rest." he laughed loudly as Elise began to black out.

Outside the residence

Seshwan had been waiting outside for no more than twenty minutes before he began to worry, no lights came on in the house. He had no way to enter the house and couldn’t get any sort of signal from Elise. His heart jumped to his throat as he thought of losing so much money to his team mates if she actually had to seduce Cedric to that point.

A hum could be heard in his ear followed by Xerxes' voice. "Team lead, red is not on the upper floors, I found an open window and top floors completely empty. Nothings here!"

Seshwan broke out into a cold sweat they knew this mansion was indeed Cedric’s residence. But it shouldn’t be empty. Seshwan hopped the wall and looked for a route inside the mansion, finding a small root cellar door for servants he attempted to gain entry to find it was locked. With no time to waste and one of his teammates missing, he had to get it.

Manipulating his essence into his hand he placed it on the lock, sand and fine dust particles collected from the area surrounding him. Collecting into a fluid like powder in his hand the sand and dirt rotated quickly; in such a small place the friction generated began to wear the locks iron away. Two minutes later the corroded iron snapped. This was no special technique, just a trick Master Crest had mentioned in passing the day before, and he had decided to give it a try.

Now within the basement of the estate, the space was dimly lit nothing was in the cellar it was completely cleared out, for a Lord's home it should be stocked full. Seshwan now full well expected a trap at some point. He and his team were now in danger, he as the leader was responsible for the members and had to get them out.

The hum began again in Seshwan's ear, "Seshwan I found the seal, there’s next to nothing on the second floor, by the looks of things this guy lives a lavish façade. Cedric had nothing aside from few nice clothes and worthless junk other than that. I found no trace of Elise on the second or main floor she has got to be down in the basement. I’m heading down there."

Now Xerxes was on his way down they could at least discuss what the hell’s going on. Seshwan scanned the room, it was smaller than the house. For an open cellar, there was no supports, just a servant room, and some wine casks.