Nora stood in an alley on the side of town opposite the prison break about to go underway. She sighed as she adjusted her shabby wool cap- a covering for her pale hair. She was dressed in the greys of early evening, and she awaited her partners in crime. She was told she would be joined by a one Stickypaws, who she had yet to meet. Hopefully he would be an adept noisemaker.

She had been given few details. She merely knew that she would be in charge of causing as large a distraction as she could, without getting caught, to tie up at least a few of the Seventen. The point being, of course, to have as few of them as possible in the prison to hinder the escape.

She heard footsteps coming near the alley. She leaned on a crate at the opening and said quietly, "You got a light, kitten?"

If he was her contact, he would respond, "If you have a pipe, puppy."

She sighed internally at the silly things she had said since joining the resistance.

Seth had arrived home early in the morning, weary from the long journey from Old Rose, to find a message awaiting him- a message from the resistance. He now sidled through the darkening alleys of Vienda aimlessly- or in a manner which appeared to be aimless- making his way slowly to his destination, where he was to meet one “Lucky,” who was to address him by--



He smirked to himself, a reaction to the name ‘kitten’ that he had grown so accustomed to from Murmur, now being used by a fellow resistance member, and recalled the words he was to use in response, “If you have a pipe, Puppy.” He smiled at the wick who greeted him- he was certain he had seen her before, somewhere, but didn’t remember from where- it must have been a while back, or very brief, or both. At any rate, they had a job to do- a loud distraction to make, and a lot of magically-inclined authorities to avoid all at once. He was apprehensive, to say the least, and excited all in one- his fingers tingled with the anticipation.

"Nice to have you, Stickypaws," Nora backed further into the alley to make room for Seth to sidle in, "I'm assuming you know what's going on. What'd you bring, then?"

She pulled a sack from inside her ash-grey jacket. It contained smoke bombs and whistlers (glass contraptions she had come up with, which she could fill with water and set up beside the smoke bombs-- when it heated, the water inside steamed rapidly, letting out a loud, shrill whistle). She was prepared to cast various wild lights and illusions to garner further attention, and had been told of a rental house that was empty and could do with a good burning-down.

He slipped in after her, looking around before speaking in a low voice, “Yea, we’re causing some ruckus. I have my typical lock picks and daggers, not that those will do us much good, some rope, matches, ummm… oh, and this gun I got in Old Rose- it could be useful… in making a lot of noise…” He rummaged in his pockets as he labeled each thing that came to mind- and hand. “We could use the matches for good ol’ arson, yea?” He chuckled; perhaps too lightheartedly for what was called for in the given situation- but then, as long as the arson didn’t kill any innocents, he was sure he could handle it. “But seriously, you have a plan?”

Nora nodded at the items Seth produced, eyes widening slightly at the gun. Even in the resistance, she was always surprised to see the illicit items. She bit her lip, calculating.

After a moment, she nodded, whispering "Ok, here's the deal. We'll go over some walls and fences and let off some smoke 'n whistlers where they'll be hard to get to and put out. The smoke'll last a good while, but the whistlers won't last as long, since they can't hold a whole lot of water. After that, I know a place that's empty we can light up. That'll gather a whole lot of people, Uncles an' Aunties included. It's, uh, gonna be risky, but that's when we'll let this off," she indicated the gun, "How good are you at hidin' when someone's lookin' for you?"

Seth listened intently as she spoke, hints of fear and excitement lighting in his eyes at different aspects of the plan. Smoke bombs and whistles? Those would be fun toys to play with- but of course this wasn’t a game, it was serious, and he had to remind himself of this- that he had to take this entire mission seriously and do his best- but that didn’t mean he couldn’t have fun, did it? And then there was the aspect of setting fire to an empty house- a viable distraction, well worth the risks, and nobody would get hurt. And then he got to fire the gun- his own personal new toy- which could be very dangerous, weather he was shooting his eye out or not. His heart leapt at the thought, firing the weapon amongst an already-riled crowd- particularly in front of highly trained seventen- it was certainly a risk, very dangerous, but still exceedingly exciting.



“Oh, hiding’s easy for me- it’s just a matter of how much cover I have, and how much light the people looking for me have. I should be fine, as long as we can scout the area first for any possible hiding spots.”

She had been told a ridiculous line to tell a strange person in order to make a commotion. It was against everything that the shrewish human had ever dreamed for her life. Yet this was one did when one was in the resistance. One also was forced to wear dark clothing that had been made for a woman of a substantially more athletic variety. Pulling her too tight pants over her tummy rolls, she scowled into the night air.

"How droll."

Waiting for her was what looked like a woman and a overgrown cat, if her nose was telling her anything. She took a special dislike to anything of a animal nature, and cats made her sneeze. The man made her nose tickle. What a pleasant evening it was turning out to be... she sniffed loudly once, but then realized it was this or go home.

sighing, she sauntered over to the pair, trying to remember the damned codewords. What kind of association used nursery rhymes as logistical passwords? It was almost laughably idiotic. "Urm. The small fuzzy one inquires about pets and--- oh Hulali blast it! Hingle reports to kitten and puppy." She crossed her arms over her chest, as if daring them to ridicule her lack of formality. "What now."

Nora jerked her head up at the sudden appearance of the-- to put it delicately-- plain woman. It seemed she had been attempting to make the code sound better, but had failed in the face of its ridiculous words.

Nora bobbed her head in greeting with a grin, "I'm Lucky. This is Stickypaws. Fine animal troupe we are tonight."

She resisted the urge to laugh, as this woman seemed so incredibly serious. And grumpy.

Nora took out a flask of water she had brought with her, "So, here's the deal. We're putting up whistlers and smoke bombs in some walled yards. We'll have to set them up like this," she placed the little smoke bomb, a dollop of chemicals with a fuse, on the ground and set the glass contraption over it, its little tripod legs straddling the smoke bomb, and poured a measure of water down its slender opening, "When you light it, you have a good fifteen seconds to get out of the yard before the smoke starts, and it'll be a minute or so for the whistler to start screaming. By then we can be on our way to the next place..."

She shuffled in her bag, "I have... six whistlers and a ton of smoke bombs... so we can just light 'n' chuck a few of them. Here," she held out the bag of smoke bombs for them to take a handful, "Then after that, we'll burn down the empty place on Berry Avenue. Stickypaws can pick us in through the back so we can set it deep inside and get out fast. If we're lucky, they'll think the smoke is just another fake out, so the fire will have time to really get goin'. We'll get around to the plaza nearby an' wait till there's a crowd. You'll fire a shot," she pointed at Seth, "Then we'll make a break for it. I should be able to cover us with Cloak or Blackout, since it'll be night by then. Unless you just want to split up after?"

She looked the other two in the eye. To her, it was really up to them. If they split up, they would have less chance of getting caught. But if they stayed together, she would be able to hide them more effectively.

Seth raised a brow at the new, less attractive woman, slightly put off by her irritable nature. She was too serious. This aside, he offered her a warm smile and nodded- it was in his nature to at least attempt at friendliness, even when someone seemed like a right stiff. "'Lo."



Seth took a handful of smoke bombs, narrowing his eyes in thought, "We could split up and cover more ground. We each take two whistlers and several smoke bombs and set them up in different places. Then circle around and meet up at Berry Avenue and I can get to work on those locks... how's that sound?" He grinned, eyes sparkling with excitement he wasn't even bothering to hide.



"That depends... I think we should wait and see how things work out before we decide if we split up or stay together..." He shrugged, "What do you think?" The question was directed mostly at the newcomer, though Nora was of course free to debate.

Baena looked at the chemical contraption with a begrudging respect. She'd read something about small smoke bombs, however the how-to had been too trivial for her. The witch better know what she was doing, though. She nodded at the other, not one to totally deny polite conversation but only giving him the barest of acknowledgment.

"Yes. Fine. Fifteen seconds." She personally thought she could do it; she may have difficulty running a marathon but a dash for mere moments? Utterly manageable. With a flippant shrug she nodded. "And I am merely here to be another set of hands. I will live by what you choose. Or die." She really wasn't so pessimistic... but she wanted to remind them that this wasn't a pleasant stroll. Beana didn't do strolling.

Nora balked slightly at Hingle's statement. It seemed she had a flair for the dramatic. Or perhaps an obsession with death. Either way, the statement was unsettling. She personally held high hopes that they would all get out alive.

She bowed her head a moment in silence, mentally asking the circle for a little guidance... And protection. She raised her head, eyelids fluttering open, "Alright. We'll split up. Scatter out from here and try to set your bombs off random, otherwise they'll just follow it along to the house. It's at the south end of the street. There's a sign on it that says 'Hunter House,' the sign has a bow and arrow crossed on it. The only one on the street, I'm told."

She filled and handed two of the whistlers to each of her partners in crime. The opening was so narrow they weren't liable to spill in transit if they were careful. She snagged a cluster of matches from Seth's box and dumped a few extra smoke bombs along with them. She had plenty. She inhaled, long and deep, through her nose, and let it out with a quick sigh, "We'll meet at the house in twenty minutes. The clocks about town should be going off by then. Stickypaws, even if we're not there when you get there, go ahead and start picking the lock. Any questions?"

She looked the other two in the eyes. It was time. It was do or, as Baena had put it, die.

Seth rolled his eyes, "Clocks, woman, this is a simple diversion. Nobody's gonna die- 'sides," He smirked playfully, "You've got me to protect you." Not so much a reassurance as an attempt to get the woman to lighten up, or at least to crack a smile- he was fairly certain that if the seventen caught them, he could do nothing to protect himself, much less the others. Still, he gave her one of his friendliest smiles.



"Twenty minutes- got it." Seth took two whistlers, cramming a few more smoke bombs into his sack, "When the lock is picked, what do I do- just go in and wait for you, or should I go ahead and start the fire?" He turned to go his own way, waiting only for Nora's instruction before he would set to work.

Baena knew she set people off. However, those that missed the subtle humor, the intellectual style of her behavior were far below her anyways. Her mouth in a straight line against the practicality of the Witches words, she shrugged and accepted the smoke offerings.

The lad was another matter. Eyes squinting angrily, her lips pursed at him. A lad, no older than seventeen in her reckoning, protecting her. Oh pish tosh. It was ridiculous. She was dead if a Seventen merely looked at her, and she doubted whether a few magical bastards of their 'overlords' could protect her. "If I recall correctly, usually diversions are to bring people out to one point. We set the diversions, we are at the point. People come. What do you think will happen, when whatever is being diverted, comes to fruition?" As she was speaking, she places the bombs within the pockets of her outfit, the only reason she'd worn something so tight, and began to walk away.

"Yes, bells, I will be there." In her mind she was already glaring, back at the How with a cup of tea.

"No," Nora told Seth, "I want us to set it together so we can flee together and be strategic about where and when we fire the shot. Be careful, now. I'll see you there."

Checking that her pouch was secure, she pulled herself to her feet and ran out of the alley. Twenty minutes.

She got started right away, lighting a smoke bomb and chucking it down a cellar someone had left open. It gave her a strange sense of satisfaction to hear the hiss of the fuse as it lit. This was exciting stuff. And the fact that they were helping someone, somewhere, to keep from getting caught doing something important gave her a thrill. She kept a wary eye out for a properly walled yard to set off her first whistler.

“That’s why we work quickly,” Seth grumbled, losing his patience with the woman- she was being rather difficult, even if she did have a point, “That way, we won’t be around when the diversion ‘comes to fruition’ as you put it. You’ll be fine.” She wasn’t the one who had to fire a gun in the middle of a crowd- which would doubtlessly contain a number of Seventen.



“Alright. See you there. ” He took a deep breath before running off in the opposite direction, keeping to shadows where possible, lighting a few smoke bombs and tossing them into random yards, onto tile roofs and down alleys- one he tossed into an open window of a closed shop. It wasn’t long before he found a fenced in yard and smirked, jumping the fence and looking around warily, heart pounding in his throat. Feeling sure that there was nobody there to witness him, he began to set up the whistler as Nora had shown him, then was immediately off again, hoping the whistler would not go off while he was too close, but would still work. That left him with one whistler left. He would have to find another place- random- not too close to the building they intended upon burning down.

Baena swore beautifully and with much poetry as she made her tired legs run, and she ignored as things bounced uncomfortably. She didn't have enough of a chest for it to be a problem but her tummy was starting to hurt. She never ran this much, not when she was working in Mugroba, not when she walked from Brunnhold to Vienda. Nope. The Revolution or whatever the hell they called themselves had done this to her and she was never going to forgive them.

Slowing down for a breath, she looked about and found two likely candidates; one would be more difficult to reach, but was much more strategic; no one would expect someone to climb half a fence to throw something as innocent as a smoke bomb in. The other was an open parlor window forgotten by a maid. If she did both, suspicious would be aroused, so it was either easy or hard.

"Vrunta." Hitching her pants up over her navel, she started the climb up to the fence, praying only that there were no banders in there. She hated banders.

Nora zig-zagged down streets and alleys. She was actually rather enjoying herself, having been a restrained galdor child and an uncertain wick teen, she had never had free-run over a city. It was fascinating to her, all the twists and turns that would land you right back where you started if you planned it right.

She looped around a house, hearing her first whistler going off down the street. She didn't have to look back to know that there was a plume of smoke rising from the enclosed yard. She glanced through a nearby window to see an empty washbasin. She lit a bomb and chucked it in through the window. The heat wouldn't start a fire in the tin bucket, but on a wooden floor, the risked it. She realized that she hadn't warned the other two about that little detail.

Crap.

She could hear bells as fire brigades swept through the streets to all their decoys, as well as crowds shouting "Fire!" and gathering in the streets to watch the supposed spectacles. If she knew people, they would wander from smoke bomb to smoke bomb, clogging the streets, making it harder for the brigade to reach the real fire when it started. And that's where the biggest crowd would be-- the release of a true fire after dozens of fakes.

She bent her path away from Berry Avenue to find a location for her second whistler. She passed a public clock. Ten minutes to go.

Seth continued his run through the streets and alleys, throwing more smoke bombs here and there, and setting up his last whistler behind a stack of boxes and barrels in an alley, before making a circle around back toward where they had met, letting his last few smoke bombs off at random. Then came the building- along with the lock.

Settling himself down before the door, Seth pulled out his picks and examined the lock thoroughly, counting the number of pins he would have to push into place- it would be one of the more advanced locks, upon his inspection. Focusing all his attention on the task at hand, he set to work, hoping to the gods that no one would catch him- especially not a seventen officer.

((Woo. Mods for lock-picking success? ))

The lock was complicated, expensive. Perhaps almost out of place. The first few pins went smooth enough, but as Seth progressed through the mechanism, he could tell that there was an increasing difficulty. Just as the lock seemed to be almost unlocked, the pick got stuck. It would take a bit of work to tug the pick out and try again without breaking it. There was also a small chance of continuing.

It was while he paused to consider the best course of action that the sound of distant scuffling—foot steps? animals moving?—could be heard from further down the dark alley.

"Mmmph... Oh, hell..." Seth held the pick in it's place, rummaging in his pocket for a torsion wrench, sliding a few spare picks in between his teeth in case the one he currently manipulated should break. Sliding the torsion wrench in, he- paused, tensing, heart stopping as he heard the scuffling. "Shhiiiii....." The curse was a long, low hiss through his teeth as he attempted to hold the picks in place while simultaneously looking around for the source of the noise- preparing to run or to whip out his dagger on the first sign of hostile activity- in the event that there was danger, the lock could wait- it wasn't like he couldn't get back to it later.

Nora came jogging around the corner. The streets were sufficiently clogged to her satisfaction with fire-seeking spectators. Soon they would have their show.

She looked around the alley. It looked like Seth wasn't there.

Dangit! I hoped he'd be here already. We need to make this quick.

"Stickypaws? You here? Hingle?"

She looked around the alley uncertainly.

The sounds of movement seemed to grow louder, then the silhouettes of a handful of running people passed by the entrance to the alley, none of the figures even pausing to notice Seth. It was too dark to tell who they were, whether they were Seventen or not, but their fields and the pace of their jogging gave that away even without visibility.

Thankfully, it didn't appear they'd even glanced in the direction Seth was hiding in.

After a few moments, all sounds of activity nearby had faded and it seemed to be clear again to return to the lock.

Seth pressed himself to the wall as the crowd ran by, using the poor lighting to his advantage. While he didn't know if they were seventen or ordinary citizens, he was relieved when they passed him by without noticing him- if he was caught by anyone- seventen or not- it could be very bad. When the coast was clear, he returned to the door, trying to wriggle out the pick to start over. It was then that he heard someone else approaching and froze.



Breathing a sigh of relief at the familiar voice and code names, Seth relaxed and beckoned to Nora, "Over here, Lucky," He called in a soft voice, "I'm still working on this lock..." Resettling the pick, Seth returned to picking the lock, this time using the torsion wrench to aid in this endeavor. "Lotsa pins..." he mumbled, mostly to himself, "Each one requires a different amount of pressure to set it properly..." While he would normally be enjoying the challenge, right now they were pressed for time. "Almost there..."

Nora leaned over Seth anxiously. She wanted to get in quietly, a function the lock pick served quite well. But if they had to, she could easily break a window.

Oh, I really want to avoid that... Not for the aesthetic of the home, of course, since they woere going to be burning the place down anyway.

Where's Hingle? Did she get in trouble? Nora bit her lip. Now that she was standing still, all the nerve wracking pressures of the situation were settling in on her.

Perhaps it was the rush of adrenaline from the sudden risk of danger or perhaps it was the renewed focus on the lock, but once Seth returned his full attention to the stubborn, slightly complicated thing, it seemed a lot easier than it had before. Still, it was difficult enough that Seth found himself sweating a little in the care it took to keep from breaking a pick.

With a satisfying click, the lock finally opened.

Once again, the sound of footsteps were approaching the alley, this time with voices, but it was unclear just how far away they were.