Orp's Apartment

[Orp Boon]

Orp had been moving up in the real estate world. His shack with no roof was long gone and he was living now in a small apartment in the basement of a cheap boarding house near the docks.

The old woman who owned the place cleaned (which Orp thought was unnecessary) and provided two meals a day (which Orp regarded as a good deal for the rent he paid). Her late husband was a sailor and the boarding house showed it. It was filled with nautical paraphernalia and even some of the structure of the place was made of parts of ships.

[Orp Boon]

Orp entered his room and shut the door. He flicked the lock closed. Wouldn't want anyone breaking in to kill him and steal his stuff. Not that there was much to steal at the moment. He had a pretty heavy wallet and it was even heavier if you counted his overseas accounts. Those damn Arcadians hadn't gotten back to him for a month though, so there was reason to believe they had taken his money and ran.

He sat down on his discolored bed and took out his notebook from the drawer in the warped bedside table. He flipped through for a bit until he got to the entry for Arcadia.

Largely agriculture based economy. Many luxury resources like wines, spices, and dyes. Greedy.

He added a line to the end.

Either untrustworthy or reluctant to contact.

Orp looked at the word wine. Wine needed bottles. Lots of bottles. Maybe somewhere in the neighborhood of 49,212 bottles, which of course need 49,212 corks.

He threw the ledger across the room and fell back violently onto his sad excuse for a bed. He stared at the ceiling. Many spots were stained from water damage. He could hear Mrs. Bonny yelling at Mr. Yetsun, the tenant in the attic room. His midnight guests had been making a pigsty of the building as they came and left. Mr. Yetsun claimed that Mrs. Bonny cleaned as part of his rent contract. She retorted that the contract stated that she would clean up after one person, not twenty a month.

Orp heard Mr. Yetsun's distinctive wood-bottomed shoes walk out of the boarding house. Orp got up, put his ledger back in the drawer and let himself fall asleep on the bed. He'd wake up when Mrs. Bonny called for meal 2.

[Neko]

::Evening is coming and the work around the docks is dying down as people head off in search of dinner, either at home or a local Inn. A few people linger, beggars and merchants unlucky enough to still have product to sell. Some children run through the streets getting in a last bit of play before being called home for the night.

The house ahead is lit and people can be seen moving about inside, but the apartment is in the basement level an thus there are no windows to give anything away, only a door at the rear of the house that leads directly to the basement.::

[Tauer]

The day seemed to go by so fast. Tauer had spent most of it pinching food here and there about town, making sure his energy levels were running at their best. All the better to perform shadow magic, my dear, he thought. Then the demon prince's mind turned towards the mysterious job Piper had brought him here to do and what it might involve.

Tauer looked at the address on the note again. Yes, this was the place. He knocked on the door twice. Anxiety levels were low; evening was drawing in and darkness was the demon's protector.

[Neko]

::Tauer is stopped as he approaches the door by a group of kids rushing into him as they run down the street. He's spun around a bit and feels the weight of something being pressed into his jacket pocket.::

[Tauer]

Bloody kids, Tauer thought, before realising it was all part of some cloak-and-dagger performance. He watched the kids run down the street then reached into his jacket pocket.

[Neko]

::Inside his pocket Tauer finds another note. This one more direct.::

"Thanks for coming.

As you may have guessed by now, there is something inside the apartment that your friends would like very much if you would be a good lad and assist in its retrieval. A small, leather bound ledger seems to have made its way inside.

Once you are done here, return to your tower.

Yours friends are anxious to see you again."

::Once again, the note is unsigned::

[Tauer]

Tauer guessed that he wasn't going to be meeting anyone here after all. THIS was the job. He pocketed the note and looked back at the door, glad he'd only knocked mentally rather than physically. Now, how to get past this door...

The demon, first, tried to see if the door was unlocked. Wishful thinking, perhaps? Or maybe "Wistvale" thinking?

[Neko]

::Surprisingly enough, the door was unlocked. It gave way with a bit of a creak on old hinges and opened to show the apartment within. ::

[Tauer]

Tauer's eyebrows lifted in surprise. That had been easy. One might say it was child's play. Then why hadn't Piper employed one of his little followers to snatch the ledger? Surely the apartment's owner wasn't stupid enough to leave the door unlocked and it couldn't be a coincidence that they forgot to lock it the very night the demon was to break in.

An unsettling feeling rested in his stomach as he ran scenarios through his head. Maybe the owner was inside. Maybe this was a trap. Maybe those kids were on their way to get the town guards, to catch the demon prince in the act of stealing. But why? Perhaps Piper wanted to get Tauer out of the way so he wouldn't meddle in the cathian's affairs. Uncertainty welled up inside Tauer, drawing in the surrounding shadows, covering him in a shroud of darkness.

He pushed the door open to see what he might be up against.

[Neko]

::The door to Orp's aparment swings wide and a dark shadowy figure fills the doorway, blocking out any light shining down from the street. There is a small room that appears to open up to at least one other room that can't be seen from this angle, perhaps a sitting area or maybe a bedroom. The room Tauer can see appears decorated in a nautical theme, no doubt with items that just came with the rooms when they were rented. The squeak of the hinges echoes throughout the space within. ::

[Orp Boon]

Orp wakes up from the sound of the door opening. He sits up in his bed with his eye only half open. He stretches out his arms and yawns.

"Huh...wha...tax day isn't for a few months. Who is it?"

[Tauer]

Tauer thought the nautical things made sense seeing as the apartment was by the docks. Then he froze. There was someone in the next room!

The demon kept quiet. Maybe that person was sleep-talking. He quickly glanced around the room, searching for the small leather bound ledger. If he could find it before the unknown resident found Tauer in their apartment, perhaps the demon prince could go and not get caught in the act of thievery.

[Neko]

::There were a few books scattered about the room that Tauer could see. Some look like they had been cleaned around, like someone was afraid to disturb the reader's place while they worked. ::

[Tauer]

The demon gathered more darkness about him and decided he wasn't afraid to disturb the reader's place. Tauer frantically - and as quietly as he could - rummaged through the books around the room, using the shadows to bring him books that may have been too far away to get to quickly. The ledger had to be here somewhere...he hoped.