un: wisdom | audio | the night of the auction

[mashiara]

( muffled voices in the background, and then a clear voice speaking directly into the pendant: )

I need at least one person to run distraction while I invite myself into this study, who's here? At the auction, in this House of Commerce nonsense.

Comments

un : dappled peals of the parted seas (voice)

[beitangmoran]

I am already inside the main hall. I might as well.

[mashiara]

Please, restrain your enthusiasm.

( more than a bit dry there, but she breathes out in an audible huffing sigh. not at moran, but at the situation. )

The service staff have been overly attentive. Do you know where the study is?

[beitangmoran]

I have mapped out the area for myself as I came in. I am sitting near the stage.

(If she turns around, she'll see a fan flutter. He's... not easy to miss, dressed in his royal blue and silver regalia.]

Give me about ten minutes?

[mashiara]

( Meanwhile she had dressed up minimally, more out of a stubborn sense of familiarity for what she's not been wearing here anyway (too hot for her sturdy, sensible wools) and more to ensure she looked like part of this whole 'celebration.'

It's an auction. Light, what nonsense will they be claiming to handle next! There's still those people, largely women aren't they, trying to get everything all cursed and she's here! Working! On getting closer to home! )

I trust the extra time is for authenticity's sake.

( Patience... is not a virtue she wears easily, but is one she's wearing right now. To a degree. )

[beitangmoran]

Have some faith.

[And indeed, the extra time is to distract... and also to engineer the problem. Soon voices are raised from where he was sitting and a very visible wine stain now on his beautiful silk robes.

Have you ever seen a prince throw a tantrum because someone dirtied his clothing, Nynaeve? If not, you're about to, and Moran plays the part to perfection, demanding to see every waiter in the room so he can identify the culprit and refusing to be pacified until he's seen all of them.]

[mashiara]

( She watches all this begin before she... attempts, and eventually manages to get into the office through the simple expediency of funding her way through the door. There may or may not be a lock submitting to her will, but the door closes again behind her as she mutters to herself and looks for the rune or whatever key thing makes that active beacon work.

Light, can they not ask just get home already? She has people to literally find!

When she does find one, in a desk drawer, she grimaces and looks back towards the door. )

I have it, keep them distracted for a little longer.

( She has to figure out if she can just slip back out the door, or if she'll need to arrange some other nonsense. That window might lead to the roof, or the ground, but it's hardly a first choice if she can just slip back into the hall unnoticed. )

[beitangmoran]

[There us no verbal acknowledgment on the other side but the noise level seems to go up considerably for a while.

Don't worry Nynaeve, he's got you covered.]

[mashiara]

( She manages to slip back into the hallway, sharing looks when back in the main hall with other guests watching Moran's performance and giving her best nods of "some men are just like that, aren't they? Utterly foolish way to behave."

Enough so that when she grabs refreshments and heads toward one of the open doors, commenting in passing with a stiff expression easy to attribute to what horrors have been visited on her eardrums with someone throwing a royal fit, no one questions it: she's far from the only one less enchanted with the display.

When she does eventually send a message, it's now text: )

Retrieved.

(voice)

[beitangmoran]

[It will take a while for another message to come, after Moran has staged his flouncing exit from the House of Commerce.]

Very efficient. I trust no one paid attention to you?

[mashiara]

Nothing lingering that I noticed, but I didn't stay around to see if anyone had. What nonsense did they give you for that dramatic fit?

[beitangmoran]

One doesn't give nonsense to person with the biggest purse in the room, my lady. It will be fine.

[mashiara]

You were actively bidding?

[beitangmoran]

Of course. I needed to keep up the cover story after all.

[mashiara]

( Light help her. She looks skyward for a moment, simply shaking her head. )

Who'd you leave hanging on the high bids?

[beitangmoran]

I didn't take names, and ultimately, it doesn't matter. I wasn't planning on closing any of them from the start, simply give them something to hang onto.

[mashiara]

Now that's the most sensible thing I've heard tonight.

audio

[downswing]

Distraction? Of what manner?

Re: audio

[mashiara]

Of any manner that distracts the servers and everyone else here, right now, what what?

[downswing]

'Anything.' Understood.

[mashiara]

Really? Good. The Moran fellow's starting his version now, aid him or further divide as you like.

[downswing]

...quick to instruct.

[mashiara]

Do people coordinate here without instruction? There's a magic I've never heard of.

( It's not to any point that she knows very little about magic whatever the source, given she had no understanding of her own even, not relevant. )

[downswing]

One of etiquette.

[mashiara]

How are you with timing?

[downswing]

Swords are swift.

[mashiara]

Glad you understand efficiency.

[downswing]

And you understand risk?

[mashiara]

Weighed risk. Keeping them minimal here is easiest with assistance.

( Annoyingly. )

[downswing]

In this, your will be done.

[mashiara]

( She'll take reasonableness, even in unreasonable situations. Particularly when it agrees with her. )

Thank you. Good hunting.

( A touch dry, since no hunting is actually happening, and she's setting up to thieve, but that's neither here nor there. It's what must be done. )

un: such a waterful girl; audio

[datapoint]

Do you need help with the other part?

[mashiara]

I won't say no, it'll make this nonsense run slightly less terribly.

( The fact they're having to resort to this is annoying, and nothing in this town has proven more amenable to sense, so. Time to be light fingered getting the key to sending people home.

It does at least seem more tenable than traveling the Ways. )

[datapoint]

[The sound of conversation ebbs and flows in the background: Aloy is making her way through the nonsense.]

Is it only locked? Or are there people watching you suspiciously?

[mashiara]

Locked, no idea if there's any other mechanism involved. I don't feel anything that might be magic, which isn't saying enough, frustratingly.

( And the huff of air at the admission indicates some of the grudging nature behind that honesty. )

No one yet, but the servers use this hall somewhat regularly moving down to a second stair back to the kitchens. Usually with empty trays, from what I've seen.