Café de Nuit

Kat waits for Van to complete her circuit and assuming all is clear addresses herself to opening the door with appropriate caution and stealth

THE BURGLARY
Sara makes a circuit of the large, rundown brick and timber house. She sees no obvious signs of occupation, but with half the windows and doors boarded up, she cannot get a look into all the outer rooms.

Kat goes to the side door, in the alley, where she had seen the red-headed man enter.

She slips her pick case into her hand with a deft motion and checks the door.

It's not locked.

Raen, keeping lookout at the mouth of the alley, sees no gendarmes about.
Scattered pedestrians wear hats and face-cloths.

Kat pauses in surprise, then signals the others, before edging the door quietly open just a crack, listening intently, and slipping in, alert for ambush and waiting until the others have arrived to cover her

kintire wrote:Kat pauses in surprise, then signals the others, before edging the door quietly open just a crack, listening intently, and slipping in, alert for ambush and waiting until the others have arrived to cover her

She does not hear anything more than the creak of the hinge.


Slipping inside, the boards groan a little under her feet.
Without a light, relying only on the dim illumination of the alley, Kat can hardly see the whole of the dark room she's stepped into.

But she can hear-- not far away, something squeaks and scurries below her, maybe on the floor or under it.

Then, nothing.

Kat is used to rats scurrying about and pays it little mind. She waits for her eyes to grow accustomed to the dark, then moves forward as quietly as she can, sliding her feet along the floor to stop the boards creaking

Raen attempts to hide as near to the entrance as possible and certainly within earshot.

THE BURGLARY


Kat clears the first room, but only by moving slowly and feeling about the walls and floor.

Unless she missed something, there's just one inner door. The hallway beyond it is pitch-black.

Kat reaches around to the back of her belt and produces what looks like a small container with a handle on the back. Opening a shutter on the front, she reveals a small dark lantern. Flicking a flint and steel in its direction she gets a small oil flame which she lifts to peer into the darkened hallway.

If she sees nothing drmatic, she advances down the hall as silently as she can, checking each exit in turn

kintire wrote:Kat reaches around to the back of her belt and produces what looks like a small container with a handle on the back. Opening a shutter on the front, she reveals a small dark lantern. Flicking a flint and steel in its direction she gets a small oil flame which she lifts to peer into the darkened hallway.

If she sees nothing drmatic, she advances down the hall as silently as she can, checking each exit in turn

The shadowy hallway appears clear of anything other than cobwebs.Rat-holes perforate the moldering wainscoting, yet Kat sees no rats or mice, not even trails of droppings on the floor.

Searching the rest of the house, room by room, she finds no one home.
It looks as if no one's been home in years.
One thing seems off, though she only notices it after the third room she checks.
Despite the musty odor, the dust on the walls, the blocked up windows, large sections of the floorboards appear clear of dust. Peering closer, Kat sees the marks of a broom.
No footprints but her own.

Some areas of floor boards have rotted so badly that Kat has to walk around or risk falling through.

A rotted, splintered staircase on the far side of the house runs up into the second story.

Another staircase, stone, leads down into a cellar from a room closer to where Kat entered from the alley.

OUTSIDE


RAEN and SARA see the sky darken further as more of the black ash sweeps in on the wind from the west.

People begin to scurry inside buildings.

Outside "That can't be healthy... " Raen considers as he puts a handkerchief around his face. Not having heard from Katherine for a while, he decides to slip in the entrance. Inside he finds near-pitch darkness. Assuming that if anything bad was there it would have made itself known by now, Raen starts chanting in draconic and a soft magical blue glow flows out of him to illuminate the area. He uses the bulk of his body to cover much of the illumination to prevent it from being easily visible from outside.

alhoon wrote:Outside "That can't be healthy... " Raen considers as he puts a handkerchief around his face. Not having heard from Katherine for a while, he decides to slip in the entrance. Inside he finds near-pitch darkness. Assuming that if anything bad was there it would have made itself known by now, Raen starts chanting in draconic and a soft magical blue glow flows out of him to illuminate the area. He uses the bulk of his body to cover much of the illumination to prevent it from being easily visible from outside.

Kat isn't in this part of the house.

But Raen can hear someone moving about, off in the gloomy farther reaches...

Kat, in fact, is falling back to the entrance, realising how far ahead of her companions she has got.

"ground floor is clear. There's an upstairs and a cellar. I think we should stick together, there's something off about this place..."

kintire wrote:Kat, in fact, is falling back to the entrance, realising how far ahead of her companions she has got.

"ground floor is clear. There's an upstairs and a cellar. I think we should stick together, there's something off about this place..."

KAT hears the floorboards behind her creak.

Sounds like something big, and it's coming her way!

Then someone in the alley slams the door behind Raen, closing off the only immediate route of escape.

RAEN hears the door slam shut behind him.

He sees Kat coming down the hall with a lantern.

Somebody just closed them both into this house.

In the alley


Sara has come round again.

She sees someone near the side door to the alley.

It's not Kat. The man his back turned.
He's not Raen. A stranger...
The red-headed man slams the door shut and leans against the jamb. He's doing something Sara cannot see, something to the door, maybe...