Paving decided on a name for our crew, so we're calling ourselves the Extractors now. Sounds a bit boring to me, but I suppose it does describe what we've been doing so far: extracting information.
Don't know what happened to Maralie, she never showed up again after the carriage job. We have a Whisper now, though. He goes by Locust; he's a kinda grimy, twitchy guy, maybe a couple or more years older than me, and he's about as odd as you'd expect a Whisper to be.
Paving did a bit of investigating and figured out that the Red Sashes are using some bookshop cafe owner by the name of Sanaf as a dead drop contact for keeping sensitive information and stuff under lock and key for later collection.
And then he came up with the bright idea of me dressing up and posing as a noble girl, looking to put a family heirloom from a recently deceased uncle in safekeeping for me. The 'heirloom' was a crystal bracelet, but Locust was going to enchant it so that it carried a ghost inside of it. The bracelet would have looked cheap and tacky if not for the swirling, shimmering effect the ghost inside gave it. Dumb thing gave me the creeps, but luckily I didn't have to carry it; Hammer was posing as my bodyguard, so I got him to hold on to it for me.
We showed up at the bookshop cafe, and I introduced myself to Sanaf, telling him that he was recommended by Vicky, a name Paving got hold of for us. I gave him the story about my dead uncle and that, because I didn't want it to be recorded by the creditors, I needed him to hold onto it for me for a while. He bought the story, and took the box with the bracelet in it to be placed in his safe. I finished my tea and then Hammer and I said our goodbyes.
The ghost from the bracelet showed up later and told Locust that the box was taken to an Iruvian smoking den in the alleyway behind the bookshop. From there, it went upstairs to a bedroom with one person in it, a lady. The spirit said there was some sort of clouding effect which made it harder for it to exit the box, so there must be some sort of supernatural defense in place. It said the safe is hidden under the bed in that room.
Paving decided to split us up. Hammer and I climbed onto the roof from an adjacent building and used a rope to get down to the window into the upstairs bedroom. Paving and Locust went in the front, posing as customers to run distraction if needed. Not really sure why Locust didn't come along with us. If the safe had supernatural defenses, surely our Whisper should have gone in with us? Well, whatever.
Hammer went down first and cut a hole into the glass of the window, but then the lady inside opened the curtains to let in some air right as he was reaching for the lock. Hammer's pretty quick though, he pulled out a needle and stuck her with some sort of paralysis drug before she could cry out.
Once we were inside, we checked under the bed and found the safe there. Hammer tried to open it, but he triggered the defensive wards. The safe vanished - into the ghost field, I guess - and a ghost dragged itself out from under the bed where it was. The thing lunged at Hammer and tried to possess him, but I drew the sword I had with me and charged it up with energy before stabbing it clean through the ghost. It went up in electroplasmic flames and burnt away to nothing; unfortunately my sword didn't survive the energies I channeled through it either. Oops.
Locust showed up soon after and gave me crap for destroying the ghost, since he could have captured it and made use of it. Typical bloody Whisper. I told him to forget about it and just try to get the box back, while I checked on Hammer. Poor guy was in some kind of shock, so I shook him and gave him some light slaps to snap him out of it. Well, he came out of it frothing mad, tried to punch me and ranting something like 'kill you all'. I dodged the punch and gave him another good slap to knock some sense into him, and he seemed to remember where he was again.
Then I turned to check on Locust. He was taking his time getting the box back, so I tried to help out with some ideas from what I remembered from
Just as we'd got the box out and opened it to look inside, Sanaf showed up in the room. Locust was about to go for him with a knife, but I know we need this guy alive, because the whole point is to use this as leverage to convince him to work for us instead of the Sashes. So I kicked Locust in the knees, he went down like a big baby, and called for Hammer to do something about Sanaf. Of course, Hammer has to go and pull a bloody grenade and pull the pin. Locust grabs for it, causing Hammer to lose hold of the grenade, but I catch it and pull the fuse before it can go off. By this point, Sanaf is running, and I give Hammer and Locust an earful for being such a pair of idiots.
Then Locust gives me this sly grin, like he's pleased with himself, before we head down the stairs after Sanaf. We catch up to him, after some friend of Locust's - he called him Flint - blocked his path and knocked him out with some slumber essence that Locust gave him, which he got from Paving, apparently. Whatever, he's still an idiot. We got Sanaf and the safe contents out through the window we came in by, and headed back to our lair. Paving had a conversation with him afterwards and convinced him to work for us from now on.
Later, Paving finished going through the documents from the carriage job and I approached Grace with a snippet of the dirt we'd got on her from it. I managed to convince her to keep my past a secret and compensate us for 'retrieving' the information for her. She still managed to be a condescending cow and advise me on how best to blackmail her. Ugh!
- Shrike
