Getting past the night guard patrols was the easy part. The vault, in truth, was little more than a glorified warehouse owned by the Artificers’ Union. For weathered professionals like Ceil and Moher, it should be just another night of work in the shadows.
From all of Loricus’s men, Moher was the one Ceil liked the most - or, to be exact, disliked the least. The slender man was quiet, efficient, and kept largely to himself. Among that crowd of criminals and cutthroats, that was more than what she could hope for.
As she worked on the door’s locks, he stood on the lookout for anything that could give them away. Most small-time crooks probably knew better than to mess with a member of the Guild of Gray, but the city’s patrolmen weren’t nearly as accommodating.
“Blazes”, Ceil cursed under her breath as another of her lockpicks broke. The lock was unlike any she’d seen before - most likely the product of an overeager inventor’s work.
Moher glanced over at her, his thin brow furrowed.
“Can you do it?”, he whispered.
“Of course I can do it”, she snapped back. “You can give it a try yourself, if you don’t like waiting.”
“Then do it. Our time is precious little.”
For a moment, Ceil considered bolting. She was doing this job as a courtesy to the Guild of Gray, so that Loricus - Quortain’s de facto crime lord and kingpin of the shadows - would let her work in his city in peace. For a courtesy job, however, it was proving to be more trouble than it was worth.
After considering alternatives carefully and finding none, she reached into one of her many pouches and pockets and drew a tiny funnel and two vials. If she could not pick her way past the lock, she might as well brute force it.
“Moher!”, she whispered sharply. “Get behind that corner!”
Moving like a ghost, the man obliged. Good. He had been standing downwind, and staying in the way of the caustic fumes she was about to produce would be unadvisable to say in the least.
Ceil put on her thick leather gloves and protective goggles, affixed the funnel at the lock’s opening, and poured the contents of the first vial into its mouth. She uncorked the second vial, carefully poured the liquid into the funnel, and took a step back.
The reaction was swift, violent, and effective. With a sharp hiss and a huge tulip of noxious smoke, the intricate lock became little more than molten slag running down the surface of the warehouse door.
Even Moher, usually dispassionate, looked impressed.
“What was that?”
“The last of my very rare and wildly expensive solvent”, she grumbled as she pushed the now-ruined door open with her boot-clad foot. “The Alchemist charges an arm and a leg for it. Make sure you mention that to your boss.”
Not wasting a breath to reply, he sneaked to the door, and they both slipped through it, unseen.
They were in now, and the game was afoot.
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