Characters:RavenLogs/TTS PayingForDeal
The Treacherous Sea: Paying For the Deal
Marius finishes his dinner at long last. He really did eat all of that food. He looks quite a bit healthier than he did when Raven came in and he seems to be moving more steadily than he was when Raven entered the cell.
"I think I could do this," he says. "Are you ready?"
"As charming as it is to stand around watching someone eat, this ain't exactly my idea of a good time," Raven answers. "I'm ready."
Marius smiles as he comes to his feet and moves to the door. It bodes ill for the Gatwegians.
He gestures to Raven to get into place. "You force it, and I'll deal with their magic. It should come free quickly enough."
Raven positions herself appropriately and then nods. "Ready." It has not escaped her notice that she'll be first through the door and first to find out if there are guards out there (and how many). Not that she blames him, but it's nice to know that her fellow prisoner is self-serving enough to let someone else be attacked first. It's not the most charitable of thoughts, but given some of his claims so far, it doesn't seem entirely undeserved.
As soon as Marius indicates he's also ready, Raven applies her boot to the door with extreme prejudice, aiming for the weakest point. If it's actually going to give, it'll give there, and she'll give it her best effort.
The door rattles on its hinges. Whatever Marius is back there doing, it's having some effect, because when Raven inspected it before, it wasn't moving at all. "Again," he says, and there's some strain in his voice.
She assaults the door again, with no less vigor, and will continue to do so until either the door breaks, stops moving, or Marius passes out, all of which seem to be reasonable outcomes to her. And if she happens to be taking out some of her irritation at the Harbormaster on the door at the same, well... it's not undeserved, and the door is there whereas he is not.
It takes two more tries before the door falls. Marius almost does the same, but then he picks himself up to make good his departure. Breaking the door and the bar are a feat of strength Raven hardly thought she had in her, but still, people can do amazing things in extremity, and this is extreme.
Once she's sure she won't have to sling Marius over her shoulder and carry him out, Raven makes a point of being first out the door. "You been out of the room enough to know which way we're going?" she asks as she looks left and right for guards and witnesses that might cause a problem later. "Or are we going off my memory of how I got here?"
Marius takes a moment to recover from his exertions but once he does, he's moving through the door as fast as he can. He has no more desire to stay in the gaol than Raven. "You'll need to be our guide. That took more from me than I expected."
He's moving steadily, despite the appearance of a splitting headache: wincing at the sunlight outside and care for how his head moves when he jogs.
"Done, and done."
She does her best to navigate them back to the Harbormaster's office, although she'll choose whatever seems to lead towards the docks if she isn't sure. After all, finding that particular office from the docks is supposed to be fairly easy. She keeps half an eye on her companion - enough to make sure he doesn't fall too far behind (or over) with the fast pace she's inclined to - but otherwise leaves him and his headache to commune with each other in silence.
Assuming they make it as far as the dock area, she'll momentarily stop their progress, turning off into an alley if there's one convenient. "Right," Raven says lowly. "So is part two of this plan 'walk casual' or 'charge in swinging'?"
Marius grins in a way that shows his teeth. "We'll 'walk casual' until we need to break heads, and then we'll charge in, or out as the case may be, swinging. Let me see if I can find something to make it a bit easier to walk casual."
They're in a nest of small warehouses like the one that served them as a gaol. As they move along between the buildings, Marius finds a door and tries it. Surprisingly, it comes open and he ducks inside, gesturing to Raven to join him.
It's a bit strange; Raven wouldn't have expected the building to be unlocked.
"I'm starting to think this isn't your first jail break," Raven says, sounding amused, as she follows him. She frowns slightly and quirks an eyebrow at the door as she passes it, despite her amusement; it's strange that it wouldn't be locked... but then, Marius seems to be a bit strange all around. On the other hand, this could also be a set-up; it would be a shame if it was, though - he was doing so well at lulling her into a sense of fellowship to go and screw it up with a 'luckily' unlocked door. She shrugs just slightly as she looks around. Time will tell, after all.
"It is a useful skill if one travels a great deal," Marius says agreeably. He looks at the crates and locked trunks in this warehouse. "There should be a crowbar around here somewhere. See if you can't get one of those crates open--quietly. I'll work on this." His foot nudges a trunk with a padlock on it.
"I got more sense than to make noise fit to wake the dead," Raven answers drily. "Say something if you need help."
A bit of searching turns up a crowbar on top of one of the crates, as though someone had set it down to do some other task and forgot to pick it up again. She hefts it for a moment, testing the weight, and decides to take it with her when they leave; she'd always liked the utility of crowbars. And then, badly humming a tune about a particularly bloody sea battle under her breath, sets off along the row of crates in search of a likely suspect: a crate with shipping marks indicating it contained clothes, boots, hats, or some other useful thing.
Searching through the warehouse, Raven finds and opens what proves out to be a crate of bolts of cloth of the right weight for cloaks. When she digs around the edges a bit, she finds two cloaks that she wouldn't describe as perfect fits for herself and Marius, but certainly adequate for disguise. When she looks down from her perch on top of some boxes, she finds Marius has joined her. He has a sword in hand and looks like he knows how to use it, which is no surprise.
"Can you make do with knives, or should I keep looking?" Marius asks.
"Knives'll work," Raven agrees, "and I'm taking the crowbar, too. Might come in handy. Here." She tosses down one of the cloaks. "Finder's right - I'm taking the less ugly one. 'Ware below; I'm coming down."
Marius catches the cloak, laughing at the comment about finders, and steps back to clear a space for Raven to leap down into. When she's steady on her feet again, he passes her the knives, haft first. They seem like they'll do for throwing from the way the weight is distributed, which leaves her with the crowbar for any melee they get into.
The blade Marius took is a bit longer than the ones sailors use for close-in work; more of a landsman's duelling weapon. He draws the cloak around his shoulders and fastens it with his free hand. "Lead on, Captain Raven. We have your men to free and your vessel to escape to."
"And my papers to collect," Raven reminds him pointedly as she tucks away the knives and hooks the crowbar on her belt. "I ain't about to try explaining the last few years to the higher-ups without 'em. And I hope you're planning to hide that thing," she adds, with a gesture at the sword. "You did say 'walk casual' and not 'stalk around like a young idiot with more gold than sense'?"
She fastens her own cloak and leads the way back out of the warehouse, returning to where they'd turned off. She picks a pace that is not so fast as to be conspicuously running away from something, but brisk enough to look like they have someplace to be and something to do - which is entirely true - and sets off down what she thinks is the correct way.
"We'll find them," Marius says, closing his cloak in a way that somewhat conceals his blade, but not enough to suit Raven's taste. But he walks behind her swiftly and silently, and as if he's well used to moving with the blade, not just sitting and dancing.
When Raven identifies the Harbormaster's office, Marius nods and suggests they see if they can't get behind it, with an eye to entering via a back door or some such. He judges the risks as being more likely to be seen if they bluff their way in, and more likely to be caught by magic if they try to sneak in. He'd have an easier time if he went it alone and Raven rescued her crew, but he certainly understands that she's unlikely to think much of that plan.
The just slightly mutinous look that briefly crosses Raven's face when he suggests the plan of splitting up is probably a good indication of how she feels about it. She tempers her actual reply to a succinct, "Terrible idea."
The back door seems like a reasonable plan to her, and she somewhat prefers bluffing over having magic tip off unknown and unseen numbers of people and maybe just catching them like flies in honey. At least if they're bluffing, they have half a chance of seeing who they tip off and a fighting chance of getting away.
[in progress]
