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Chapter 2 - Caught

The pair of thieves moved with startling silence through the mansion. Beyond the entryway lay a hall that stretched out perpendicular to the entrance. Dougal had been in plenty of elven homes that were similar to this one. One way was bound to lead towards a dining room and kitchen, while another would lead towards the drawing room and guest bedrooms.

If Jinn's nose was right (as it often was), there was likely no one else in the building save for the lord and lady of the house and one or two other personal guards that the elf likely kept on retainer. The lack of servants was strange, but Dougal figured that perhaps the lord was rich because he was frugal with his money rather than having any real assets.

If not for Freya, the dwarf would never have known to search the house for the treasure they sought. He wasn't familiar with the noble houses of Altair, and Astor seemed more like a rich bureaucrat rather than someone who had descended from the first King.

Dougal crept along the walls, seeking out the master study. Judging by the size of the manor prior to entering it, and the lay out, it was bound to be on the upper floor. The dwarf cringed. Without the aid of magic, it was difficult to walk on a raised floor without it creaking to some extent. In the dead of night, such a noise would be as loud as a herd of elephants rampaging through the yard.

"What're you thinking?" Jinn whispered. He kept a vigilant eye out for anyone else that would be in the area. His hearing was incredibly sharp, and he could've picked out the sound of a mouse scurrying by without any trouble.

"The study is on the second floor. The guard is likely up there, too." Dougal scratched his chin. "The question remains, where?"

Jinn sniffed the air. "Too many stinks down here from people milling about during the day. I could probably tell you if we got closer." He gazed at the staircase. "This looks like it'll be noisy."

The dwarf nodded. He'd been liberating treasures from the hands of the wealthy elite for a number of years before meeting Jinn, and thinking back on his exploits, he wondered how he'd ever been able to do anything without the gnoll's sharp nose and acute sense of hearing. There'd definitely been a few close calls, and the scars on his arms and face stung to think about it.

"Okay, let's do it," Dougal whispered after a moment's thought.

"I don't like it when you say that," Jinn muttered. "It usually means there's going to be trouble."

"What are you talking about? I don't get into trouble." Dougal grinned at him, his teeth a faint white chasm between a bushy orange beard. "You head up the stairs, carefully, and sniff 'em out. Wave me over when you think it's safe."

Jinn nodded his shaggy head and moved down the hall with Dougal close behind. They stayed close to the wall, but refrained from rubbing against it and making noise. The gnoll's cloak fluttered quietly, like the curtains of a drape in front of a window. Dougal swatted Jinn's tail away when it got close to his nose, and he tried not to sputter and spit every time it hit his face.

The stairwell was adjacent to what Dougal could only assume was the drawing room. The gilded banister looked to be made of gold, but when he touched it he realized it was just wood painted gold. It looked as if the paint had been mixed with flecks of glass to help it catch light and appear shiny.

"A pity," Dougal sighed and retracted his hand. "I guess he ain't as rich as we thought."

What did you expect from a man who can barely afford more than one guard?

Dougal winced at the sound, and tried to ignore it. He had better things to focus on. He waited downstairs and kept a close eye on Jinn as he crept up the stairs. Though Dougal was trying to keep watch for any guardsmen or servants the lord had on retainer, he was also watching the gnoll's footpaws, noting where he placed them and which steps creaked when he put his weight down on them. He could hear the quiet sniffing the gnoll was doing as he tried to pinpoint the location of the other beings in the home.

Jinn reached the top of the first half of the stairwell, and then was out of sight as he climbed the second half as it rounded its way upwards. Dougal watched through the banister as Jinn dropped onto all fours as he neared the top, and peeked over the edge while keeping his ears flat against the top of his head.

A hand shot over the edge and waved to him, indicating he could come up. Dougal was about to move from the spot where he was standing when a door at the opposite end of the hall opened up.

The dwarf froze. Someone was coming out of the kitchen, and the door swung closed as someone stepped out of it. Dougal was grateful to be in the shadows, but he knew even then that would not last as the person crept towards them. He tried to pick out who it could be but his eyes could not penetrate the darkness.

Dougal fell back against the wall and slid in behind a small end table, never taking his eyes off the person. His left hand fell upon his dagger in reflex, his fingers fumbling with the grip. He hoped that Jinn would realize that him not heading up the stairs was indicative of something wrong. He wanted to signal the gnoll somehow, but feared doing so would give his position away. If Jinn said or did anything at this point, it would likely give them away and then they'd have to do something drastic to finish the job.

Dougal hated drastic.

As the person walked slowly towards them, Dougal could now see clearly that she was not armed. She looked to be the lord's wife, or perhaps a daughter. He couldn't tell, and the dwarf wasn't too concerned. Either way, she was a beautiful woman, and he couldn't help but admit her body from his hiding place. She wore loose silk garments that were barely tied around her lithe frame. Her smooth skin peeked out between the openings in her robe, tempting the dwarf with glances that were hard to ignore. Dougal tried to get the carnal thoughts her appearance evoked out of his mind, but that proved to be quite difficult.

Heh, sometimes I worry about you . . .

Focus, damn it! He scolded himself. If she goes up the stairs, we're as good as dead. Her scream could probably wake everyone in the manor.

Her quiet footfalls could now be heard as her slippers slid along the floor. She dragged her feet, and looked to be holding something in her hands. A beam of moonlight from an open window hit her, and Dougal realized it was a small snack of sorts.

Looks like she's going to head up to bed to eat it, Dougal noted grimly as she passed by the guest room. His fingers came off his dagger and moved slowly up to his belt pouch. He paused after he opened the button snap, waiting to see if she heard it. Once he was certain that she hadn't, he reached inside. His hands closed around a pinch of sand and he lifted it out.

In as low a voice as he could manage, Dougal began to enunciate words in Arcanus, a language that most would not have understood. "Skialy falonandyr." As he spoke, he dropped the sand from his fingers into the palm of his other hand. The grains vanished as they landed, and Dougal could feel a small buildup of energy as he worked his spell.

The woman gasped, and tried to ask who was in the hall with her, but she did not have a chance to finish her sentence as her eyelids grew heavy and her body wouldn't respond to her. She began to fall, and that's when Dougal sprang from his hiding spot, moving to catch her and the porcelain dish she held before they could make a racket.

The floorboards above the dwarf creaked. Dougal looked up to see Jinn poking his head over the banister with a confused look on his face. He flashed a series of intricate hand gestures, trying to ask the dwarf what had happened.

Dougal's knowledge of the signs was fledging at best. Jinn had begun teaching him some time ago, but it was difficult to grasp. The Darkpaw gnolls had crafted the language to communicate over the wide open plains where their keen eyes could pick out the gestures at a distance so they would not have to shout. However, the signals relied on having an understanding of Gnoll to be able to convey meaning, which had a different structure than Dwarvish.

What Dougal could pick out, however, was clear enough. [What are you using magic for?]

He responded with a few hand signs of his own, but they only served to further confuse Jinn. Dougal sighed, figuring that the gnoll probably couldn't see the elf sleeping peacefully on the floor. He got up and scaled the stairs, joining his friend at the top.

"What does your aunt's holiday pudding have to do with anything?" Jinn whispered, sounding annoyed. His straining grin told a different story, however.

"I can't get these blasted gestures right," Dougal fumed. "Someone was downstairs. I had to put her to sleep or she'd find you on the stairs."

Jinn nodded. "Pity. With any luck no one else would've noticed your spell work."

"I hope so," Dougal said gloomily. The elves had a habit of being in tune with the use of magic, much like his own kind. If they were paying attention, they'd be able to notice the subtle shift in the magical energy in the air caused by his spell. "So, where's the guard?"

Jinn pointed down the hall. "Over there, by the window. I think he's asleep."

"You're kidding right?" Dougal asked. He'd been breaking into plenty of homes in his life, but this had been one of the first times he'd ever heard of a guard sleeping on the job.

"Nope. I can hear him snoring," Jinn affirmed, his right ear flicking. "Which way do you think the study is?"

Dougal couldn't be sure. He hadn't taken the time to look in the windows when they were scouting the mansion earlier that week, and he couldn't remember what Freya had told him about the layout. He didn't think it would be above the kitchen though. The heat rising from there wouldn't be good for maintaining the library.

The dwarf looked left down the hall, at the only door on that end. It had to be there, he reasoned, above the drawing room. He motion for Jinn to follow him and they crept down the hall, away from the sleeping guard. Even though the gnoll assured him that he could still hear snoring, Dougal still looked over his shoulders periodically to make sure that no one was advancing towards them.

Before reaching the door, he could've sworn that the hallway got shorter, and that the guard was now closer to them than he was originally. Was it a trick of the moonlight coming through the windows? Was he merely being paranoid? Dougal rubbed his eyes and tried to focus, but when he opened them again, it seemed like the guard had moved another couple feet towards them.

Yet the elf was still slumped over in the same pose, his arms crossed and his head nodding to the side as he half-leaned, half-sat on the window sill. The white moon was to his back, and the glare made it impossible to tell if his eyes were open or not. For all Dougal knew, the elf could've been watching their every move, all the while pretending to sleep.

That wouldn't explain why it seemed like with every passing moment, that the guard was getting closer to them. Dougal was intelligent enough to know that something about what he saw was wrong. When Jinn realized that his friend was staring at the elf, he tapped him on the shoulders.

[Is something the matter?] he signed.

Dougal leveled his hand horizontally and moved it from left to right. [No.]

Dougal's hands found the door handle, and to his relief, it was unlocked. He doubted he would have had a problem picking it if it was, but he always felt extra nervous when there were potentially eyes watching his every move. As they stepped inside the study, Dougal took one last look down the hall, ensuring that the guard had indeed not moved since they spotted him, and then closed it quietly.

"That was easy enough," Jinn remarked quietly, removing the hood from his head. "So, where was it that Freya said we should look for?"

"She wasn't clear on that, as is usual for her," Dougal shrugged. "It's magical, and hidden away somewhere."

Jinn looked around the room that was illuminated by the dim moonlight. The walls were covered in shelves, which they themselves were overflowing with books of all kinds. Their thickness ranged from a few sheets of bound paper to entire volumes as thick as his forearm. If there was a secret entrance to another room, it would take forever to find the trigger for it.

The floor had the same colored rug as the hallway, though it was much larger and covered most of the floor. The room was sparsely furnished, to allow its master to move around from bookshelf to bookshelf unhindered. There was a desk near the window that had a few select volumes strewn about it, with a stoppered inkwell in the corner. There was a pair of luxurious, soft looking chairs positioned across from each other in the center of the room, with a short table between them. Each chair was also accompanied with a smaller, circular end table, likely used to hold food or tea.

Adjacent to the door was a suit of armor. Out of curiosity, Dougal checked it for any insignias or weapons that might be of value, but he spotted nothing out of the ordinary. The armor itself was dented and well worn, which likely meant it had been from the lord's time in the army or from one of his relatives before they became rich enough to avoid the draft.

"I really hope that Freya wasn't talking about a book when she told us about this place," Jinn grumbled. "We'd be here until the Harvest Festival."

Dougal patted Jinn on the back. "Don't worry. When you've been doing this as long as I have, you learn to have an eye for valuable things."

The gnoll scoffed at him. "So why do you carry around those rusted pigstickers, then?"

"Sentimental value is just as important as monetary value." Dougal waved his hand, dismissing Jinn's remark. "Just keep an eye out for something out of the ordinary. Anything not written in elvish, common, or dwarven is likely to be significant."

Jinn nodded. "So if it's written in Gnoll, I should assume it's a treasure of the highest regard?"

"If you've got time to crack jokes, you've got time to start looking," Dougal said with a sigh.

The two thieves got to work searching the book shelves for something out of the ordinary. Dougal had only twice before seen a secret wall hidden behind a bookshelf, but that was more than enough times to tell him that it was worth looking for one when he had the chance. Even the slightest out of place object could betray the location of such a secret.

The dwarf couldn't reach the top shelves of the book cases without using a ladder or stepping stool. One book was sticking out a bit more than the others, up near the top shelves. Normally that wouldn't have looked important, but he could also see that the script along the spine wasn't the usual fare for a rare spellbook. He looked back at Jinn and waited for the gnoll to glance in his direction, then waved him over so he wouldn't have to shout.

As Jinn crossed the room, the sound of his footsteps shifted audibly when he passed near the middle of the carpet, between the desk and the center table. They sounded deeper and more hollow. Dougal stopped and listened for a second to his friend move a few more steps before the sounds shifted back to normal.

"Stop," Dougal said firmly. The gnoll did as he was asked. "Go back a few feet. Straight back the way you came."

Jinn backed up, watching behind him as he moved cautiously. When he reached the spot where Dougal had heard the change in pitch of the creaking floorboards, he bid the gnoll to stop again.

"Wait there," Dougal hurried over to where his friend was waiting, then waved him away to inspect the floor. He pressed his ear to the ground and tapped lightly on the floor, then a few inches to the side.

The floor was hollow.

"There's something under the rug here," Dougal announced quietly. He was brimming with energy now, and he couldn't wait to figure out what the lord of the house had hidden. In a flash one of his daggers came out of its sheathe and he was slicing open the carpet.

"Isn't stealing enough?" Jinn whispered dubiously. "Why do we need to destroy his property, too?"

"He won't miss a tacky rug like this. He should be grateful, really. I'm doing him a favor," Dougal replied. "Now he can get himself a new one." He continued his work, the tip of his tongue sticking out from between his lips as he cut a square piece of the rug apart.

Dougal had to tug hard to fully sever the carpet and pull it off the ground. Once he removed it though, he revealed a small trap door. A quick inspection of the lock told him there was no magic or traps keeping it sealed. The dwarf whipped his pack open and began working on the lock with his picks faster than Jinn could blink, and soon the door was open.

Dougal flung the latch open, not caring if it made a bunch of noise or not. The top of the door would've swung open and hit the ground had Jinn not caught it with his hand and set it down gently.

The dwarf's blood was on fire, and couldn't care less about what was going on around him. It wasn't from pain, but from excitement. The kind of feeling he felt any time he was near a magical artifact of any significance. He was surprised he hadn't sensed it sooner. Dougal's eyes lit up brighter than an alchemical lantern and his fingers trembled. The excitement of knowing that there was something valuable hidden between the floorboards and the ceiling below them made him salivate.

"There's magic in here," Dougal said nonsensically, in a tone that only a crazed madman would use.

Jinn shook his head and sighed at his friend's behaviour. "Sometimes I think you like magic more than the company of women."

"I don't, they're two distinctly different things," Dougal replied absentmindedly. He rubbed his hands together and fished a small wooden chest out from inside the hidden cache.

Once again, Dougal was forced to tackle a lock, though this one was much simpler. It was hooked around some chains that were wound tightly around the chest. When he unlocked it, it all clattered to the ground and he lifted the chest up to fully wrest them from their metalline grip.

Dougal licked his lips and cracked the chest open as a door latch clicked shut behind him.