2:28 Dodging.

Much preparation had gone into this breach.

Mi'ishaen had been happy to learn that she'd be let loose in the very manse that she'd been marking before, but Stone had been concerned.  While the Hawke's gated courtyard and first floor were guarded, there were far too many of them for Stone to simply destroy.  No one would miss four rogue mages in a community where unregistered magic was punished with imprisonment and torture, at best.  People would certainly talk about the death of at least ten good former town guards and mercenaries- it was far too much of a risk, even if the Orc were to accomplish the near impossible task of eliminating all of them alone.  So, Mi'ishaen suggested that she simply avoid the lower portion of the building entirely, heading straight for the second floor and accessing the storage room- wherever it was- from there.  Dark liked the idea, instantly speaking of it as though it would happen, and Mi'ishaen agreed to do some training to prepare for the mostly solo mission.

Dark requested Stone's presence a few nights later, in her "office" under the perpetually dark quarter of Urmlaspyr.  The Orc showed up, thick, tattooed arms crossed over his muscular chest, with a carefully plain face.

"I know you don't like it," Dark began, looking up from the plans for an unrelated assassination mission.  "What I don't know is why."

"She's new," Stone replied bluntly.  "Spectre can spare better."

"I'll make sure that she's aware of what to do with witnesses," Dark nodded, leaning back from the table and focusing her attention on Stone.  "If that's what you mean."

"You're sending an illiterate to find a scroll."

And Dark had reason to cross her own arms.  "You're doubting my ability to see talent levels?  I'm hurt."

"You're Tiefling," Stone said flatly, not taking Dark's bait.  "I got more feel for kin than you?"

Dark shook her head with a sigh.  "I could have sent one of the older associates- even ones who had been in the manse before.  But you'll just have to trust my judgement of the big picture.  As for your inability to cover her- here.  Take these candles."  And from her small desk, Dark pulled out two candles so completely  black that it seemed as though they had been carved out of the solid night sky.  "The Only owes me a favor for Eagle."

Stone contemplated the two candles before accepting them, feeling as though he were taking part in a wicked pact of some sort.  He retained that strange feeling of borderline occult activity all the way down to the agreed-upon night, where he and Mi'ishaen sat in the tower of the temple to an Elven goddess that neither knew, preparing her line.  She wrapped cloth strips around the palms of both hands and gingerly stepped across the rope to a second floor window, and Stone began to count to one hundred.  It seemed unrealistic, to him, to expect a new associate to come up with heavily guarded paperwork in less than two minutes, but he kept that annoyance to himself.  Both Tieflings involved seemed to have every faith that it would work out just perfectly.

At the bare stone window, Mi'ishaen pushed herself into the small opening and checked around herself to get her bearings.  She'd planned to enter the guest room, mainly because there would be little reason to guard an empty and unused room.  However, when she cautiously looked around the heavy wood door, she didn't see any guards on the inside of the manse at all.  She sneaked out anyway, being sure to keep her body below the level of the banister on her left side.  According to the building plans, which Dark had somehow supplied, there was another guest room on the far end of the hall, a master bedroom to the right of that, and then a study room between that and the guest room that she had targeted for entry.  Her creeping position was the perfect distance from the floor to discern that there was a slight glowing on the floor between each one of the doors.  In order to avoid stepping on a trap, Mi'ishaen hopped up onto the banister and moved toward the study room, only to find that there were extensive illustrations on the study room door- there was no way to tell whether it was a concealed trap, or a genuine decoration.

Stone, still sitting on the same roof, had decided to give Mi'ishaen an extra minute or two.  She couldn't be seen from the windows, which was good for her, but bad for him.  With a sigh, he watched the manse guards below him change positions- none of them were looking at him, but he still got the tingly sensation of being watched.  His inability to even give her a sign that she needed to push through the mission weighed heavily on his mind.

Thankfully, the illustration on the door had been just that- an idle decoration.  Once inside, Mi'ishaen was presented with a bare desk at the center of the room, a door on her left and right, and a door in the ceiling that the building plans had not referenced.  There was a chandelier immediately in front of it, but if the intent was to obscure the door, the attempt failed miserably.  The two doors had illustrations on them, as did the floor on either side of the desk.

"It's like you want me to steal your stuff," Mi'ishaen breathed, checking the cloths on her hands.  Pulling the one on her left hand a little tighter, she took two running steps, planted one hoof on the desk and grabbed the chandelier with both hands, using the force of her motion to swing her up to the unknown door.  Fortunately, it was just resting inside its frame, not locked in any way.  It took her a few moments to reorient herself after essentially slinging herself up into it, but she was rewarded by the realization that she'd managed to find a small library of scrolls around her.

Outside, Stone was shaken from his brooding by the mingling sound of voices echoing in the empty avenue.  Carefully looking out of the tower, he was surprised- and strangely gratified- by the appearance of Dresan Hawke and his wife, returning from the docks.

This is not my fault, he thought to himself grimly.  My hands are clean of her blood.  Dark will answer.  

He put his hands into his bag to find the grappling rope that he had used to get Mi'ishaen into the manse before, and hit the smoothness of the two candles.  There was one last thing he had to do before he could claim that he was clear of what would soon be a coterie betrayal.  With a half hearted snort, he began to search for his flint.

Mi'ishaen lit a small candle that she had nicked from the temple on the way up.  The potion that she held, thin and milky looking, was somehow even more concerning than the version coming from Bahlzair had been, even though she knew she should have been more worried about the poisoner's brew.  She downed it anyway, closing her eyes and counting to five before opening them again.  For a few daring moments, nothing happened, and there was a twinge of panic, but then the mists of illiteracy passed like wind-driven clouds, leaving Mi'ishaen with the task of finding which scroll or set of scrolls had been the ones required.

There was no response to the candles- or at least so it seemed.  Stone blew on them in the effort to put them out, but found that he couldn't do so.  Licking his fingers to extinguish them that way only resulted in mild burns, and by that time, the Hawke couple was nearly underneath the temple.  Leaving the two candles precisely where they were in the tower, Stone hooked the grappler onto the other side of the tower and let himself down.  Within a few minutes, he was safe in a sewer, wondering what wickedness Dark and The Only had done to create jet black candles that would not be extinguished.

Elven, Elven, Sylvan, Elven, Eladrin, Elven- oh!  Common.  With a great big dragon on it.  We like dragons.  Mi'ishaen scooted herself over to the scroll rack that had been marked with the large silver dragon of Cormyr.  The rack was alphabetized, and most of the scrolls on it seemed as though they had not been touched in some time.  Each scroll began with a short descriptive paragraph, then listed names and dates.  The Tiefling was prepared to go through each scroll carefully until she heard movement somewhere in the manse. Putting quick fingers into the records, she found one that mentioned deportations to Sembia and another two that mentioned public executions in the top paragraph.  Hoping that she would not have to return and find the second part of the deportations, she began to search for another way out of the attic space.  Below her, two voices became clearer and clearer as their irritation rose.  Mi'ishaen found a crawlspace just as she heard the voices begin to get closer, but was chilled to the bone by one thing-

"I swear it to you- there is another here.  I smell kindred blood!"

Stone entered the Forge with a grim look severe enough to make Hammer stop working and notice.

"No Minx?" the Dwarf asked curtly.

"Don't know," Stone replied, moving through the actual forge room to get to the hallway on the other side.  "Got hot.  Had to leave."

"Left the candles?"

Stone threw Hammer a look, and the Dwarf smiled.

"Old alliance," she nodded confidently, returning to the armor she was augmenting.  "Good investment."

Inside the manse, Mi'ishaen made it to the end of the crawlspace and discovered an attic window, locked with a simple latch, with a spiked balustrade in front of it.  Taking her own grappling rope from her shoulder, she quickly hooked it onto a nearby stone rooftop and tied the other end to one of the spikes.   She rubbed the rope on the briefly, cutting approximately a quarter inch into the rope.  Making sure the scrolls were secure in her sack, she flipped the sack so that it was in front of her instead of behind, then began running across the grappling rope.  Halfway across the rope, she pulled herself into a forward spring, used her cloth-protected hands to grab hold of the rope beneath her, and made contact with the top part of the wall to which she'd grappled.  It took just a few more moments to climb the rest of the way, lay flat on the roof, and reclaim the rope end with the severed knot.

"What was that?" an unknown voice whispered fiercely.  "Quite the daredevil, aren't you?"

Mi'ishaen turned her head to look into the blood red eyes of what once was a Sylvan.  "Who are you?" she asked, readying her rope between her hands for strangling.

"Don't mind that," the masked and hooded creature replied simply.  "  You'll note I'm dressed to hide as well.  I'm Eagle, the emissary of The Only, allied with Spectre.  In fact, I used to be a Spectre operative, so I know the witness rules.  That's what I'm here for, but I had to drop and roll when you picked my roof to practice your tumbling act."

"You had to have seen the hook coming," Mi'ishaen reasoned.  "Why didn't you just move?"

The female's eyes squinted behind her mask, and Mi'ishaen could tell that a fanged smile was happening.  "Not everyone is your kind, young miss.  Where did you learn to be an acrobat like that?"

"You're mad," Mi'ishaen breathed, lying back down and feeling the sack to ensure that all three scrolls had made it with her.  "I'm no acrobat.  All I'm doing is dodging."