Early that same morning, the plainclothes guard that had been assigned to the Tiefling suspected to go by the name "Mishka Luzkaya" had finally reported to Oversword Garimond that her mark's trail had gone completely cold. He'd asked about the paths that she'd been assigned before- following up with the various mercenary companies known to hire travelers, checking through the border guard records, and shadowing the taverns near the docks- but she complained that not only had no one seen a Tiefling, people were becoming suspicious of her near-constant presence. Garimond replied that no improperly documented Tieflings had crossed out of the Suzail borders, but processed the guard's request for reassignment without any further argument. As the guard walked away with minor traces of frustration, Garimond decided that he would have to simply hope that Iordyn had gained some mileage with the Shadar-kai peaceably.
The Coalwater Mercenary base was slightly smaller than that of the Sunfire Mercenaries, who obviously had been in operation a bit longer than their current competitor. One only had to spend about twenty steps to get from the front door through the back, to the patch of grass on the other side of the building that pretended to be a courtyard. Greyscale's office, which was really a converted store room, sat immediately underneath the right stairwell to the second floor. From there, every creak and thud made anywhere between the front door and its rear twin echoed back to him. While this made sure that he was leaning on the door frame, ready to personally receive those who came looking to hire his operatives, most of those operatives didn't make a lot of noise. In order to have any warning about their entrances or exits, Greyscale allowed Cypher to lace the place with ward spells, all of which sent up a light tapping every time they were crossed. It was a harmless sound, like that of a small child knocking, soft enough that the Dragonborn was often the only being in the room that could hear it. For his purposes, that was usually sufficient.
The mark, however, swung herself into the building through a second story window. No magic knock heralded her. The window she'd used made no noise, and the door to the room she'd entered was just as mute. Not a single stair whined at her weight. Yet, when Greyscale's door blew open ahead of her, slamming into the wall on the other side, no one in the room was surprised.
Greyscale, who had been adding up some figures on one of his ledgers at the time, didn't even look up. He simply tilted his head toward his right, where the oncoming Tiefling was stepping through the door frame. In response, a very small, grey skinned creature slung itself down out of the dark space above him. The perfectly executed somersault phased the black leather armored young woman not one bit, even though it came with a dagger and a short sword. The mark simply pivoted to her left, swept back in once the blur had already passed her, and delivered a stunning kick to the side of the grey skinned creature's head. The resulting minute-long match was a flurry of back flips, turns and kicks, during which it became glaringly obvious that the smaller creature would be outpaced by its acrobatic better. Immediately after the hand that had the short sword in it was grabbed and twisted painfully behind its owner's back- which caused the weapon to clatter to the ground- Cypher moved into the fray from the far left corner of Greyscale's room, popping the near-victor in the small of the back with enough force to cause a slight stumble forward. Released, the grey-skinned assailant escaped out the still-open door.
The black cloth cowl came off and was rapidly wrapped around the young woman's left hand, revealing her loose raven hair, her wheat colored horns and her furious crimson eyes. Cypher was taken aback at the dangerous glare.
"Mish-"
"No, fuck you."
Mi'ishaen grabbed up the abandoned short sword and began a much more lethal assault. Cypher moved and dodged admirably, but still received a solid punch in the face, two daring slashes to her upper left arm, and a good kick in the lower right side of her back. To prevent being fully beaten, the Human female attempted to cast a minor misdirection spell, but Mi'ishaen shook the enchantment off as though the spell rogue hadn't said a thing. In the short time that it took to cast the spell, the Tiefling changed position, and instead of popping Cypher in the side of the face with the pommel of the short sword as was originally intended, Mi'ishaen opted for a brutal headbutt.
Greyscale only allowed himself to listen to the crack of solid horn on bare Human skull one time.
He closed the ledger and put his pen down.
And approximately ninety seconds later, Mi'ishaen found herself disarmed, locked in a standing half nelson choke.
Cypher, who was cringing and holding her bleeding head as she laid on the floor, took the opportunity to spit.
"This bitch is in too deep," she managed after Greyscale adjusted the hold to accommodate the fact that Mi'ishaen moved to kick Cypher immediately. "Pull her."
"I don't- unh!- edit Dark's picks," Greyscale managed as he shifted the hold again. "I can add som-"
"She is going to get herself caught," Cypher argued. "She practically made cont-"
"Fuck you, you useless cunt! Smoke and mirror, wand and sparkle bitch!" Mi'ishaen hollered with the benefit of half her voice.
"Calm down, Mishka," Greyscale counseled, leveling his rose-pink eyed glare at Cypher to keep the Human from retaliating.
"When I'm dead, you thrice-damned handbag!" the struggling female screeched in response. "You, and her, and every bloody mage from here to the ends of the world can go to the lowest, darkest, deepest pits of Baator and rut in a fire pit until your bits bleed!"
The Human female jumped to her feet at once to storm over toward the Tiefling, but Greyscale shook his head.
"I got it, Cy."
"She'll screw the project," Cypher insisted again, stopping in her tracks and crossing her arms. "It's too volatile-"
And this time, it was Mi'ishaen's turn to spit. Unlike Cypher, whose crude projectile had fallen short, Mi'ishaen caught her mark straight in the face, which elicited an enraged scream.
"Listen you," Greyscale managed as he adjusted himself again, strengthening the choke on Mi'ishaen until she could do no more twisting or writhing in his grasp. "Listen. As I heard it, Dark was told- repeatedly- to treat Rasha like any other operative. But Dark won't ask Rasha to do what you do, and that's because you are different from her, got it? Not the same skill set, not the same temperament, so not the same treatment. Not only can she pick a guy's pocket while staring him straight in the face, not only can she write rather convincing copies of things, but Rasha is good with secrets. She's the kind of girl who is almost always the best informed person in the room- and she's also the kind of girl about whom you will know nothing until she gets ready to tell you- that is the makings of a deep cover infiltrator. I'm almost amazed that you- you of all people, with all the trust issues printed big and bold on you- you caught feelings for this girl that I guarantee you know so little about that it's pathetic. But lucky for you, the feeling's mutual. Rasha's crazy about you; we all saw it. She practically asked you if she could take this mission, remember? She asked you if you thought she was going to be alright in there. She asked you if you trusted her, too."
Mi'ishaen took the opportunity to attempt to twist her way out of Greyscale's grasp, only to have the Dragonborn lock his hold in even more tightly around her neck. Wise enough to know about the Tiefling's prehensile tail, Greyscale dropped to one knee and pinned it beneath his leg.
"Unh! Mmff, now, there we go; you're not going anywhere, honey. That was a good try, though. This- this hurts in a way you understand. You've learned to work through this kind of pain long ago. But watching that green-eyed, fork-tongued, spindle-shanked, 'smoke-and-mirror' prick put his hands on the woman you care about- watching him force her to kneel with power you don't understand and can't stop- that's a whole new pain. You've never felt it before, so you haven't desensitized yourself to it, and that is what's killing you. That is what is burning your blood, sending you crazy, so that you're furiously attacking people that at any other time, you'd know are on your side, Mi-Mi, we are on your side. The magic sparkle bitch and the raw handbag are on your side, got it?"
Mi'ishaen made a last grand thrashing attempt to get out of Greyscale's grasp, accompanied by a loud cry so desperate that Cypher shifted from foot to foot while trying to look away from the situation.
"Stop it, stop; you're making this harder for yourself," Greyscale murmured quietly. "I know it hurts. I know this hurts. And I know you hate to give up- you're a tenacious little bitch, I know. I really don't want to hurt you, so c'mon, honey. I got this one. I got it. C'mon. Tap this one out, hun, tap for me."
Unable to do anything else, Mi'ishaen wriggled her tail just enough to tap the floor behind the Dragonborn's leg. He let go immediately, and the Tiefling flopped to the floor with an ungracious thud. Cypher turned her back to the situation and moved back toward the dark left side of the office.
"Take your time," Greyscale sighed as he moved to close the door to his office completely. "Probably feels like your lungs are on fire- just give it two minutes or so. Back might hurt for a day, neck and shoulders for two. Cy, how's your head?"
"I'm fine," came the quiet reply from the corner.
"And yes," the Dragonborn admitted very quietly, "this is what it was like. This is exactly what it was like."
"But she didn't make you watch," Cypher contended, turning over her shoulder to look at Greyscale. "This is like tor-"
"She didn't make me watch, no," Greyscale interrupted. "I asked, and she said I could do what I liked. Said she didn't quite understand why I... but then there was Eagle, so..."
Cypher crossed her arms over her chest and turned away from Greyscale without saying another word.
Mi'ishaen opened her eyes and shifted, prompting the Dragonborn to focus on her.
"Dark owes you a debt of thanks, Mi-Mi. Rasha is good; she's doing a great job of getting us the tips we need to split the Sunfire. Cypher's worked against that particular Sunfire mage before, but Rasha is a solid abjurer, and that enabled us to run a different operation than we'd planned. You are the best aerialist in here- you just proved it, beating the other one nearly to a pulp- so if there's any one of us qualified to go leaping from rooftop to rooftop without getting people to look up and point, it's you. We will need you in a more active role pretty soon, but you have to let your girl do the inside work first."
Mi'ishaen, who had been laying quietly on the floor, sat up with a loud intake of breath that startled Cypher. She laid back down for a few seconds, then began rolling around the floor.
"I know," Greyscale said with a tone that was nearly repentant. "That hold kept the Human boys around here from calling me 'Lizardface,' and I still put grown men down with it. Can lock it in from about any angle. But... never locked in a female before."
"I wasn't really thinking," Cypher admitted. "About how you might feel. She... she's doing really well... using some... really powerful... distraction tactics. Um... should I ask her for a message? To give you? Maybe?"
"No, Cy," Greyscale warned. "They can do this. Dark thought so, and... and, well, I do too."
At this, Mi'ishaen laid still and sighed.
"Talk to me, Mi-Mi," the Dragonborn breathed, the request made in a tone so low that it was hardly audible.
Mi'ishaen's reply was likewise low and quiet, but no less fierce.
"Fucking mage."
"I know," Greyscale replied. "His name is Mordren."
"I'll fucking kill him."
And the Dragonborn shook his head, just slightly. "Think that over for a bit."
Mi'ishaen sat up, discovered the pain was still present, and laid back on the floor of the office, closing her eyes.
"If she leaves him alive, I will make his life such hell, he'll wish she hadn't."
"Atta girl," the Dragonborn smirked.
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