[I've left a few of Mariana's brilliant words intact here; this is pretty much just most of the RP, edited into an easier read as I dislike just posting the script-style logs.]
Rizula needed a new knife. She’d dropped her old one running from a mark earlier that day. She didn’t even manage to snag any gold from that burly dwarf’s crate. She still had her big dagger, of course, but it wasn’t an all-purpose tool like a little knife was. She couldn't easily eat with it and wouldn’t throw it so willingly if she needed to attack from a distance. Given, she didn’t fight much either way, but she felt much safer having something deadly - and a backup-deadly-item - on her person in case of getting caught.
The dwarf had eventually stopped chasing her. He probably didn’t want to leave his precious ore alone too long. She didn’t know her way through the woods off the road well enough to go back without encountering him, so she walked along the top of the hills that formed a bowl of land between the capital and Gugrontid. The idea that the Howling Well might hold something valuable crossed her mind, and she waited at a distance until the creepy Dark Way trainer had to go relieve himself against one of the nearby trees.
Silently, she scurried along the hilltop and dropped into the well, pausing to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. She wrinkled her nose at the smell of rot, but followed it anyway, seeking out corpses that may still have something valuable on them, if they hadn’t been picked over by others like herself.
Cautiously, she picked her way along the tunnels, overturning skulls, bones, fresher corpses. Old clothes crumbled to dust under her feet and what little jewelry she found was rotten, worthless stuff made of leather or fabric. The Consumers ignored her in favor of the fresh corpses. She dared not go near those, but she cussed under her breath. The good stuff was probably in their bellies, carelessly swallowed along with the meat of the deceased. Learning her way around a big weapon that’d break through those thick grey skins would be too much effort, though, when other peoples’ tria pouches provided for her.
She wasn’t surprised to find that there were also Grendols down here. Whatever the semi-intelligent beasts’ orders were, they seemed to leave her alone, though. She took extra care, in case some necromancer was around. After all, alone in a well like this, the sort of girl that never stayed in one place too long, she probably wouldn’t be missed by anyone. She’d had plenty of acquaintances go missing without anybody questioning it before.
A concentrated stench and painting on the floor tipped her off before she found the lab. She wondered if the pool of gore under a pile of rotting bodies was covering an important part of the image. She didn’t dwell on the thought long, though. Her purpose here was to find something worth taking, not solve the mystery of who was using the cave. Disappointed with the other bodies so far, she didn’t bother to approach the ones here. If she stepped in the mess of gunk surrounding them, she’d need new shoes as well as a new knife. Besides, they were all lined up in order, probably stripped of any valuables they’d been tossed in with. She made a beeline for the table in back, pushed against the wall like it belonged in this gruesome place. Her eyes locked on an ornate box perched temptingly on the table and she picked it up, holding it to the torch and peering inside the lock.
A reddish shimmer across the metal indicated that there was an enchantment on the masterfully made box, seeming so out of place in this dark, ugly cave. It felt heavy in the nolthrir’s hands. She smirked. The container must have something valuable in it. She didn't know much about magic, so she tried her good old fashioned lock picks, pulling a little set of roughly-crafted tools from her purse. Some furs were piled to her left and she settled onto the pile, getting comfortable before she started working. The shimmering metal grew brighter and sparks flew from it, like an angry thing waiting to erupt. Small tendrils and bursts of flame erupted from it, but not enough to damage her. Still, she stopped before she was burned. She set the box down in front of her, withdrawing her picks, waiting to see if it would stop, poised to flee if it were to get worse.
The box spat and sputtered, as if frustrated that it could not perform its task accurately. Then, with a powerful pop, it suddenly ceased, and the lid creaked open slowly, the hinge bent and warped. Rizula arched a brow as the box so easily opened for her.
"Not gonna slam down on my hand, are ya?" she whispered to it, as if it could reply, leaning forward to see if there are still any contents left for her to take.
It was merely a black leather journal, the initials “T.D” stamped in gold on the front cover. Rizula felt her hopes deflating a little already. But maybe there was something useful inside - information she could use - or, she allowed herself to hope for a second, perhaps the pages were carved out with some goodie inside them. She flipped through the journal to check for this first, before turning to the beginning of the book and squinting at the letters in the dim light.
Numbers. Pages and pages of numbers. Rizula decided the book belonged to either a merchant or some kind of madman. She sighed in disappointment and got up. She rummaged in the crate of other books by the table, but nothing caught her eye. Not wanting to leave entirely empty-handed, she put the leather tome in her purse and made her way back to the entrance. Perhaps, she thought as she snuck past the creatures again, she could just “borrow” a few circles here and there to get that new knife, since snagging one directly would probably result in the item being jammed in to her throat.
Once back in Hydlaa, she tore full pages from the book, littering them, letting the breeze carry them away, planning to use the empty ones to sketch out new disguises. Something odd happened when the last number-laden page was gone, though – the inside cover flickered and the numbers turned to script, dotted by a fingerprint the distinct brown of dried blood. It was in the Dermorian language. She furrowed her brows, looking at the journal, and shrugged. Someone at the hideout could translate for her later, maybe.
She didn’t end up picking any pockets that night. The last thing she did before going home was speak to a masked stranger who introduced himself as Teeleh Daleth.
