Shadow at the temple – Chapter 4

Evening has come upon the water-circled landscape as the event closing in, and it’s in the terminating hours at that. With the contract having been settled with Minhai, Eyren lands in the outskirts of the warehouse which she was pointed towards and scopes the place out. It’s none of what she would deem to be an offbeat region, what with it designated as nothing but a plain-vanilla and voluminous wooden construction, lacking decorations and passages to gaze through. It bears a couple of doors situated on diametric ends, and the back-entrance is the one which Eyren has nailed her limelight upon, but she warrants Minhai and her colleagues to arrange a form of distraction ahead of mooching inside. Obviously, she didn’t funnel Razz with her to this avenue, in defiance of that she had been great company, but the raptor is a mite inordinately lumbering to be of service in this juncture.

Weeding through the exterior, Eyren is intrigued right from the get-go by the notion that there are guards posted in the vicinity. This was calculated to be a simplistic warehouse which wasn’t of severe consequence to anyone, and notwithstanding that certain constructions of analogous quality are endowed with safekeeping measures in order to assure that their goods aren’t misappropriated, Eyren would’ve suspected a mere padlock or two could suffice for this rank of joint. How tightly fenced is this property, then? Perhaps Minhai had a fair point, that this site is fishy after all.

Over her perusing of the region, Eyren’s eyes slowly traverse upwards, where she singles out a creature fixed on the roof of another complex just to the west of her – a raven, picking at the panels of its foothold and intermittently tidying its feathers. This is mildly quirky in Eyren’s mind. It…couldn’t be the exact one she noted on the awning of the inn, could it? And in noticing that Eyren is staring at it, the bird shifts and sharpens its dark orbs at her in return, teasingly bouncing its tiny noggin. What’s a raven up to in the midst of the this night anyway? How come it doesn’t caw at her? There is something off with this one, she has to admit. Would it be better if she chases it off? Then again, delving into the exploits of avians isn’t what she’s getting compensated for, so she overlooks this trespass for the time being.
Similarly, she gets other matters on her mind when she heeds bluster forward of the storage, signifying the commencement of the distraction. Just as planned, the guards at the rear of the construction vanishes to inspect this intrusion.

Embracing this bit of space which unfurls for her, Eyren edges up to the closest reachable entrance and tests the handle. Finding it unsealed and fluently employable, she pulls the handle and though not completely soundless, it is quiet enough.
Crossing the threshold and peeking around, from the very onset, she can’t assert to spot any particularly dodgy regions nearest to the door, all things considered. What she gets into is a moderately spacious room, littered with boxes, pots and diverse containers, some in piles and others situated in rows. She’s perceived urban storage facilities in the past and having lived on a farm in her childhood, she’s familiar with the setup of those too and nothing here comes off as out of the ordinary. Likewise, there’s not a soul present either, which downscales her caution even deeper. The highest on the table of priorities which sends a verdict to her is of course the absence of a conspicuous feel for the Herdbrand. There isn’t so much as a whiff of a beast in these walls, and from this range, she would be able to tell quite intuitively.

What she does catch to the left end, somewhere in the middle, is a separate door, one that stands ajar and suggests to be guiding one into a detached and narrower corridor. Best to scout this one out as well.
Upon advancing on it and browsing inside, she doesn’t spot any activity to begin with here either, but most curiously is that she’s accessed a form of minor office-like space. A segment of shelves is situated by one wall, plus a minor and worn desk in the center, not to overlook the boxes with scrolls and other papers along its flank. Not exactly facets which she’s sitting on time to inspect at this very stage, but incontestably a commodity which piques her interest. Could this be a foreman’s office? In either case, she isn’t fed with surplus indications of Herdbrand proximity, and as a result, she esteems that it’s prudent to move on.

Regrettably, this judgment of hers emerges at an unsuitable moment, for around the stage when she’s quitting the office, a pair of individuals are roaming within eyeshot and paces right at this very station, which she readily assesses has to be guards on watch. Well, shit. How come she didn’t take note of those she went through the backdoor? Or did they just backpedal after having dealt with Minhai and her comrades? That bait of theirs couldn’t possibly have been this brief, could it? Did her contact for some reason fancy that Eyren would be done so promptly?

In either event, Eyren uncovers no range anywhere that she can enshroud herself behind, leastwise not in the mere heartbeats it will warrant for the guards to notice her. And sight her they do, prodding them to rivet their concentration headlong at her and whisk nearer on short notice. In an instant, Eyren is eligible to quantify them as a couple of men, by her estimate, and they sear her with their watchful gazes.
“What the-…who in Deyunnu are you?!”, she can make out them asking in Junvishti. If she’s not mistaken, that’s a phrase for the underworld or death across plenty of Shaim Xil.

“…skitabal”, she curses in a low voice. Even with this, Eyren has no inclination to stick around and exemplify what her reasoning for invading their workspace is, and she turns on her heel, to ready a feasible exit.

Nonetheless, in mere winks prior to her escape, Eyren’s vision engages with an integer she pinpoints behind these guys. Initially, her mind tricks her into conceiving that it’s nothing at all, a modest flicker of shadows in the night which plays around with mortal conceptions, but this thought is modified a moment thereafter. This shadow does not hail from an accident of the light roaming closer or her sight lumping it together with another shape, because it’s assuredly moving.
Once the pair of men have reduced the stretch between them and her a handful of meters, Eyren finally catches up with that it’s a person who’s stealthing at the rear of them, keeping some manner of rod in their hand. Eyren can’t pin down features, but at this time, that’s immaterial anyway. In a beat, the stalker has gone from behind a box to standing right alongside one man’s back, where they crane the implement in their hand up and smacks it hard into the fellow’s temple, knocking them out flat. With the second man startling at this event and swiveling in a 180 to confront the attacker, Eyren can’t let her ambivalence and befuddlement take ahold of her amid this stroke of luck, ergo she acts on a whim. Lunging at him, she snatches him by the back of the head and smacks it dead center towards a wall, incapacitating him in a snap.

Once this is done and dusted, with no additional interlopers, the duo with the unpredicted cooperation peer at one another, to gauge who it is that they made a stand for. From Eyren’s perspective, she notes a person who’s a tad shorter than her, in a snug and dark outfit, including a hood, a shirt collar which obscures their mouth and nose, lithe boots and gloves. The exclusive aspects which she may place are the medium brown skin from what minimal surface of their visage is on display, the emerald-green feline irises, the slender and slick physique…and the spotted blonde-colored tail poking out from their rear, flicking about playfully.

Amid the duo checking one another out silently, Eyren senses herself dithering, and though this undistinguished companion of hers isn’t an immediate peril by her assessment, Eyren can pick out how a sword-like article rests in their right hand.
“Well…”, mumbles Eyren in Ahteron. “…this is awkward.”

“Heh”, issues the other.

“Hadn’t reckoned I’d run into someone else infiltrating this building in sync with me, frankly.”

The second person tips their hips to the left and snorts, their tail jiggling mirthfully.
“Indeed, quite curious”, they enunciate in a moderately suave tone. Eyren can’t quite peg whether it’s a man or woman either. And what is that accent? Central? Eastern?

“Did you filter in when the guards launched their distraction?”

“Correct. By chance, I gained knowledge of that this manner of maneuver would come to light.”

“Huh. Wonder who spilled that…”

“Who knows?”, they tease. “Then again, I had not estimated this breach in the defenses was devised distinctly for a specific person to exploit.”

Eyren is made to deliberate on what the most optimal outcome is here. Should she make a move or simply suggest a peaceful workaround? This actor certainly doesn’t come off as combative, after all…
“Okay, maybe it would be…plausible for the two of us to part ways here? Nonviolently, hands down. I go out where I came, and you by your road. Neither of us have to lose from this.”

With their tail swaying once again, her associate crosses their arms to a degree.
“That is one recourse, which is all well and good, but what do you say if I can envision one better? In effect, I invite you to work with me – I help you and you help me, where neither of us has to tattle on the other.”

“…really? Just like that?”

“Mhm.”

“That sounds…kind of sudden, in my ears.”

“I do not blame you for the wariness, but there is a more effective angle: we are both pursuing intelligence, we are partners in the crime of committing violence against the sentries of this establishment, neither of us would choose to get caught – I presume – and on the basis that supplemental forces report in, we don’t have to stand alone. To me, this is a win-win scenario.”

“Erm, where did you get it that I’m seeking something at all?”

“Well, you were skulking around.”

Eyren grimaces stiffly.
“…you clocked that, huh?”

The unnamed party discontinues for a stretch, but then appears to smirk underneath the mask.
“No. It was an educated guess, as a matter of fact, which you just verified for me.”

Oh c’mon…
“…dammit.” Expiring in a jaded capacity, Eyren shrugs. “Uh…well, guess I don’t have a choice.”

“False. I will not be dragooning you into this.”

“Yeah, but…I don’t fancy there is substantial motivation for me to blow you off.”

“I concur.”

Furrowing her brow for a minute patch, Eyren is wondering whether this person is honestly just ribbing her or altogether making to engineer her against the comprehension that she truly has no better avenue.
“…okay, what is it you’re after, then?”

“I was planning to sift through the foreman’s office, which I daresay you recently withdrew from?”

“…I mean, effectively, yes. That wasn’t quite my intention, though…”

“It wasn’t? Then what is your ambition in this storehouse?”

“I’m tracking apparent signs of Herdbrand movement.”

One of the blonde eyebrows from the sneaker bends up.
“Herdbrand? In Dezasha?”

“Yeah, I sympathize with your confusion. It’s very abnormal, but I’m not the one who claimed it. And in any case, I can’t sense them in here…”

“Hmm. Yours is the simpler legwork, I surmise. Shall we inspect the containers in the roomier quarters?”

“Sure thing.”

Transporting their feet back into the further spacious compartment of the warehouse, they enact fleeting audits of a couple of the more considerable receptables, under the assumption that a Herdbrand could only be fixed into a commodity of this magnitude. Their main method for this operation is to knock softly on the walls or peek past cracks in them, but this equally grants few answers. In the meantime, Eyren is endeavoring by fits and starts to identify more characteristics about her abrupt partner in crime, and whilst she doesn’t remotely draw enormous new finds, one component does stand as rather peculiar – the left arm is awfully stiff. Throughout their positioning back and forth across the room, the left arm barely alters its inclination or curvature in any capacity, as if it’s stuck in this mildly bent direction.

A minute down the line, her collaborator gradually inches up to her again.
“Shadi, may I ask a question of you?”

Shadi? Isn’t that a form of honorific in a Ngoyamen tongue?
“Uh, yeah, shoot.”

“You professed previously that you didn’t ‘sense’ anything, while speaking of Herdbrand. Could it be that you…are Fateworn?”

Eyren casts her scrutiny at them, and puts this into perspective for a spell.
“You know that classification, do you?”

In a renewed manner, an amused glimmer comes over them.
“Don’t many people?”

The ex-knight shakes her head and expires a breath.
“…not everyone. But to clarify, yeah, I am. It’s generally the largest inspiration for people who hire me. The guard force in the city did, for instance.”

“Hmm, how exciting”, they express calmly. “May I request your name?”

“Eyren.”

And it’s here that the knight distinguishes how an excess shimmer races through this person’s optics, and their tail coil keenly, resembling that they’ve registered something vital. At the rear of this reflex, they reach out a hand.
“What a fortuitous event, for I know of you – and I am Malkiz.”

Still mixed-up as to what in Hel this regards, Eyren does take the outstretched limb, but crinkles her brow unmindfully.
“…alright. Do we…know each other?”

“Not yet, but I suspect this will be amended imminently.”

Eyren holds that this befuddling utterance makes her decipher the factuality of this scene even less, but thereafter shrugs. Imaginably, she’ll get an explanation yet.
“If you say so. Like I wagered, though, there aren’t any marks for Herdbrand around. No clue what my contacts were reckoning, but this spot is clean.”

“No objections here. But this is a positive thing, yes?”

“That depends. Unless this bastard is buried elsewhere, it should be.”

Next up, the two re-emerge at the office, where Eyren sort of remains as a lookout, simultaneously that Malkiz bends down to rummage around in boxes and drawers. They pull up a variety of documents which they lay on the desk and dip into very succinctly, eyes narrowed in thought. Not hugely long after, they nod slightly and mutter.
“Hmm…so, it’s not this one.”

“It’s not what?”, wonders Eyren.

Rising to their full height, Malkiz swings to her and offers a consoling smile under the mask.
“I have what I require, that is all.”

“…that doesn’t really answer my question, though.”

“True. And I am convinced of that you have more, which I could indulge you in. What say you we catch up outside, once you have reported to your employers?”