Searing 1 124
The four of them stood (or sat) in a nondescript room in a nondescript tenement on the Northside of Gel’Grandal. Or Grandal, if you were a native, and Carina was trying to blend in. It was two years since she moved here and it was starting to feel like home, even if “home” was the floor of her rented office space. She flung her ponytail behind her shoulder and propped her feet on the table while the “leader” of this scrappy gang drew a map on a chalkboard.
The gig? Robbing a pawn shop blind. Now it was a Northside pawn shop but it was a scummy one, and robbing from thieves and cursed-item-pawnbrokers was not above Carina’s loose list of morals. She had already scoped out the pawn shop, and the map on the board was wrong. She was not compelled to correct him.
Unfortunately for her, she tried to keep her magic under wraps — honestly, the only reason she was even allowed on this damn gig was because she was willing to stand around as lookout. It was fine with her. She’d rather be underestimated and get her foot in the door, and she wasn’t willing to risk the pride of the ringleader. She knew better.
Carina felt the hair on her arms stand up, and realized the crime maestro was staring right at her. She put her feet down off the table with a sheepish expression. His name was Eugene, or something. The other two guys were Aaron and Adam, which were names that were just a little bit too similar for her to be able to tell which belonged to whom. It was fine.
“Take off your coat, it’s too obvious.” Eugene said, quite stern in his Kathalan. But Kathalan always sounded stern.
”Mm. Sure.” Carina stifled a groan and responded in Kathalan. It was getting hot out, and she’d be standing directly in the sun. Though he did not know it was so good at magically regulating temperature, so she slipped it off. A small crossbody bag was hidden under it, now revealed. That was something she wouldn’t take off — her whole world was inside it.
Soon enough, the plan was explained in such detail that even Carina was impressed. But the layout on the chalkboard was wrong, and it started to bother her. There was another door they weren’t accounting for. She wouldn’t have noticed it at first if she hadn’t scanned out the place, but…
It’d be fine.
Step one: Getting There
They piled into a car. Four seats, four people, a perfect fit. Carina watched the sickly trees on Northside streets go by while the rest of them chatted, though she tried to keep her ears open for a good opportunity to quip. No such opportunity came, and as they turned down the street to the pawn shop, everyone grew quiet. Masks on for those three. Carina got out of the car first and walked down the street, while those three managed to park right in front of it. Two of them got out. Adam… or was it Aaron? Was the getaway driver, and he waited with the mask pushed up on his head. They were sweltering knitted things, and Carina was glad she didn’t have to wear one.
It wasn’t very busy today, which was a blessing, she thought.
Step two: Robbing him blind
Her mind was open, absorbing and scouring the area for adverse auras. Any sourpuss who seemed to know too much would be on her radar.
—
Three hours prior, she had casually walked back and forth up the street with a cigarette in her hand, temporarily manipulating the auras of the sickly street-trees to act as nodes in her network so she didn’t have to do all of the work herself. Ping. Ping. Each one was about 5 meters apart, so she did every third tree, all down the block. Then she crossed the street and did it again, making a lovely little mesh for her Semblance to reach further with less effort from her later.
—
Ping. She leaned against a tree, info-gathering the auras that walked by. It was hard enough work filtering through the information that she almost did not notice the sound of a shotgun and the breaking of glass.
We didn’t have a shotgun.
With little thought, Carina teleported inside the pawn shop behind the counter, just in time to see the shop owner obliterate one of her companions. ”FUCK!” she yelled, in Common this time — and that grabbed the attention of the man with the shotgun.
He pulled the trigger in her direction, but not before she had opened the portal within herself, the shotgun shells passing through and destroying the vase on the shelf behind her. She returned to normal while the man reloaded, and portaled to the second story. She didn’t know shit about fighting, that was what Immy was for. And she hadn’t seen Immy in a very, very long time. She looked at the ring on her finger. Soon, but now was not the time for yearning.
It was not a good look to get away from a crime as the only survivor. She had her daggers, but she was shit at using them, and her rifle was only good if she could get into position some distance away.
Well.
She could.
Carina rushed to the window of the apartment as she heard the man coming up the stairs, grumbling while Eugene scrambled out the front door with nothing in hand and into the car. She could hear him yelling about the paste that was Aaron. Or Adam. Eugene looked out the window and met eyes with Carina on the second floor just moments before they peeled out. They were almost certainly going to be caught by guards, and Carina had already revealed too much about her magic. She slipped out of the open window and into another portal back into the pawn shop with a thud as she landed.
She wasn’t leaving empty handed. The glass case of the counter was broken and she grabbed whatever shinies she could fit in her pockets before she ducked under a table in the center of the room full of shit and opened another portal into the nondescript room of the nondescript tenement on the Northside of Gel’Grandal.
Aaron and Eugene arrived seven minutes later.
Carina was sweating, but her loot was piled on the table, like an apology. She had already vomited at the memory of the bloodied Adam, but they didn’t have to know that. Not much she could’ve done, anyway, but she wanted them to keep her secret. Her aura would be all over the fucking place, the remnants of her magic, and if any, any Kathar or constables decided to take notice of a robbery in the Northside, they’d track her down like that.
No one said anything. No one asked how she had returned so quickly before them.
”That place wasn’t affiliated with a family, right?” She broke the silence. It was Eugene’s turn to look sheepish. Fuck, maybe the Kathar would take an interest. She didn’t need a fucking family up her ass for using magic and messing with business, let alone a murder that could easily be pinned on her.
She stood up, grabbed Eugene by the shoulders, and stared into his eyes. ”You’re fucking stupid. That’s prime stupidity. Fucking with a family? Who put you up to this?”
She could figure she already knew the answer — someone else, another family, someone wealthy enough to pay him off and get the dirty work done, or get someone off their back to focus on something else like that fucking botched bullshit.
”Gods…” Nothing was ever simple in Grandal. Maybe it was time to get out of the city. She left the jewelry on the table. They could fence it or bring it to someone themselves. She had enough money already. Carina shrank her aura into itself and made it look as mundane as possible, as different from the aura she had left all over the pawn shop and the trees surrounding it, splattered like the guts of the man who was shot. She hated seeing people die like that.
Carina had better plans. Bigger plans. She needed Immy back, but she had to go to Ecith to find her.
Fuck petty thievery.
Carina lit another cigarette as she started the long walk to the Southside’s Wintergarten Circle, to her Transcription business. There were some things she had left lying around that she’d need to pack up. She didn’t want to risk traversion again, especially not into her business.
The hard part was finding travel accommodations to Ecith from the Imperium, the sworn enemies of each other — it was likely she’d have to go to Kalzasi. Maybe Aurin would be able to hook her up, or she’d be able to find something naturally. And getting to Kalzasi was easy enough, but she’d have to rest first, and she’d be resting elsewhere. Nothing provoked her paranoia like knowing how easily she could be tracked because of carelessness.
The four of them stood (or sat) in a nondescript room in a nondescript tenement on the Northside of Gel’Grandal. Or Grandal, if you were a native, and Carina was trying to blend in. It was two years since she moved here and it was starting to feel like home, even if “home” was the floor of her rented office space. She flung her ponytail behind her shoulder and propped her feet on the table while the “leader” of this scrappy gang drew a map on a chalkboard.
The gig? Robbing a pawn shop blind. Now it was a Northside pawn shop but it was a scummy one, and robbing from thieves and cursed-item-pawnbrokers was not above Carina’s loose list of morals. She had already scoped out the pawn shop, and the map on the board was wrong. She was not compelled to correct him.
Unfortunately for her, she tried to keep her magic under wraps — honestly, the only reason she was even allowed on this damn gig was because she was willing to stand around as lookout. It was fine with her. She’d rather be underestimated and get her foot in the door, and she wasn’t willing to risk the pride of the ringleader. She knew better.
Carina felt the hair on her arms stand up, and realized the crime maestro was staring right at her. She put her feet down off the table with a sheepish expression. His name was Eugene, or something. The other two guys were Aaron and Adam, which were names that were just a little bit too similar for her to be able to tell which belonged to whom. It was fine.
“Take off your coat, it’s too obvious.” Eugene said, quite stern in his Kathalan. But Kathalan always sounded stern.
”Mm. Sure.” Carina stifled a groan and responded in Kathalan. It was getting hot out, and she’d be standing directly in the sun. Though he did not know it was so good at magically regulating temperature, so she slipped it off. A small crossbody bag was hidden under it, now revealed. That was something she wouldn’t take off — her whole world was inside it.
Soon enough, the plan was explained in such detail that even Carina was impressed. But the layout on the chalkboard was wrong, and it started to bother her. There was another door they weren’t accounting for. She wouldn’t have noticed it at first if she hadn’t scanned out the place, but…
It’d be fine.
Step one: Getting There
They piled into a car. Four seats, four people, a perfect fit. Carina watched the sickly trees on Northside streets go by while the rest of them chatted, though she tried to keep her ears open for a good opportunity to quip. No such opportunity came, and as they turned down the street to the pawn shop, everyone grew quiet. Masks on for those three. Carina got out of the car first and walked down the street, while those three managed to park right in front of it. Two of them got out. Adam… or was it Aaron? Was the getaway driver, and he waited with the mask pushed up on his head. They were sweltering knitted things, and Carina was glad she didn’t have to wear one.
It wasn’t very busy today, which was a blessing, she thought.
Step two: Robbing him blind
Her mind was open, absorbing and scouring the area for adverse auras. Any sourpuss who seemed to know too much would be on her radar.
—
Three hours prior, she had casually walked back and forth up the street with a cigarette in her hand, temporarily manipulating the auras of the sickly street-trees to act as nodes in her network so she didn’t have to do all of the work herself. Ping. Ping. Each one was about 5 meters apart, so she did every third tree, all down the block. Then she crossed the street and did it again, making a lovely little mesh for her Semblance to reach further with less effort from her later.
—
Ping. She leaned against a tree, info-gathering the auras that walked by. It was hard enough work filtering through the information that she almost did not notice the sound of a shotgun and the breaking of glass.
We didn’t have a shotgun.
With little thought, Carina teleported inside the pawn shop behind the counter, just in time to see the shop owner obliterate one of her companions. ”FUCK!” she yelled, in Common this time — and that grabbed the attention of the man with the shotgun.
He pulled the trigger in her direction, but not before she had opened the portal within herself, the shotgun shells passing through and destroying the vase on the shelf behind her. She returned to normal while the man reloaded, and portaled to the second story. She didn’t know shit about fighting, that was what Immy was for. And she hadn’t seen Immy in a very, very long time. She looked at the ring on her finger. Soon, but now was not the time for yearning.
It was not a good look to get away from a crime as the only survivor. She had her daggers, but she was shit at using them, and her rifle was only good if she could get into position some distance away.
Well.
She could.
Carina rushed to the window of the apartment as she heard the man coming up the stairs, grumbling while Eugene scrambled out the front door with nothing in hand and into the car. She could hear him yelling about the paste that was Aaron. Or Adam. Eugene looked out the window and met eyes with Carina on the second floor just moments before they peeled out. They were almost certainly going to be caught by guards, and Carina had already revealed too much about her magic. She slipped out of the open window and into another portal back into the pawn shop with a thud as she landed.
She wasn’t leaving empty handed. The glass case of the counter was broken and she grabbed whatever shinies she could fit in her pockets before she ducked under a table in the center of the room full of shit and opened another portal into the nondescript room of the nondescript tenement on the Northside of Gel’Grandal.
Aaron and Eugene arrived seven minutes later.
Carina was sweating, but her loot was piled on the table, like an apology. She had already vomited at the memory of the bloodied Adam, but they didn’t have to know that. Not much she could’ve done, anyway, but she wanted them to keep her secret. Her aura would be all over the fucking place, the remnants of her magic, and if any, any Kathar or constables decided to take notice of a robbery in the Northside, they’d track her down like that.
No one said anything. No one asked how she had returned so quickly before them.
”That place wasn’t affiliated with a family, right?” She broke the silence. It was Eugene’s turn to look sheepish. Fuck, maybe the Kathar would take an interest. She didn’t need a fucking family up her ass for using magic and messing with business, let alone a murder that could easily be pinned on her.
She stood up, grabbed Eugene by the shoulders, and stared into his eyes. ”You’re fucking stupid. That’s prime stupidity. Fucking with a family? Who put you up to this?”
She could figure she already knew the answer — someone else, another family, someone wealthy enough to pay him off and get the dirty work done, or get someone off their back to focus on something else like that fucking botched bullshit.
”Gods…” Nothing was ever simple in Grandal. Maybe it was time to get out of the city. She left the jewelry on the table. They could fence it or bring it to someone themselves. She had enough money already. Carina shrank her aura into itself and made it look as mundane as possible, as different from the aura she had left all over the pawn shop and the trees surrounding it, splattered like the guts of the man who was shot. She hated seeing people die like that.
Carina had better plans. Bigger plans. She needed Immy back, but she had to go to Ecith to find her.
Fuck petty thievery.
Carina lit another cigarette as she started the long walk to the Southside’s Wintergarten Circle, to her Transcription business. There were some things she had left lying around that she’d need to pack up. She didn’t want to risk traversion again, especially not into her business.
The hard part was finding travel accommodations to Ecith from the Imperium, the sworn enemies of each other — it was likely she’d have to go to Kalzasi. Maybe Aurin would be able to hook her up, or she’d be able to find something naturally. And getting to Kalzasi was easy enough, but she’d have to rest first, and she’d be resting elsewhere. Nothing provoked her paranoia like knowing how easily she could be tracked because of carelessness.