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Sanary Rondel "There it is. Fort... Something. I forgot the name. Not important."

To be fair, Sanary isn't necessarily wrong. Forts of varying sizes dot the landscape all around the hill not too far from the warp gate she's invited collaborators to join her at, and the one that they're facing in particular doesn't look much different from the others. There's a mixture of grassy plains leading into dryer, sandier roads, and the marks of war are scattered all around with scorch marks everywhere and the occasional weapon that hasn't been looted already. Patrols bearing the banners of Ylisse and Plegia can be seen making their rounds even further away from where everyone is gathered, and there's even a few minor skirmishes in the extremely far distance.

Luckily, there's not a lot of action at this specific fort. The reason for the axe healer picking this one becomes clear ^once a convoy passes them by and approaches the fort. A guard in an impractically flowing cloak that somehow leaves nothing to the imagination beneath it takes a book offered by one of the people from the convoy, and Sanary points them out.

"That's what we want. Those tomes." She places her hand on the giant axe at her back, pausing after a moment to turn to the Elites gathered as well as the comparably giant Gerudo archers accompanying her today. Compared to herself and the Gerudo, there's quite a few guards posted at this fort and with the convoy. Some of them are bearing the insignia of Plegia and donning the traditional cloak and bodysuits of their sorcerors, and others are wearing more standard armor along with swords and spears.

"So! My plan is we go in, hit 'em fast before they know what's going on and before they can call for help, grab as many of those tomes and staves as we can, and get outta there before the cavalry arrives. Unless any of you got better ideas?"

The Gerudo look uncertain. Concerned, too, although it's not clear if they're more concerned for themselves or for the healer that's raring to charge into the fort headfirst. They're really hoping somoene has a better idea than this.
Penelope Vasquez     One hop, skip, and warpgate travel away leads one Penelope Vasquez to Sanary's side. She looks... very out of place. Not many women wearing rubber trenchcoats around here. But she's calm and at ease as the squad squats on a hill, scanning the fort idly; general state of readiness, entrances and exits, areas the guards seem to pay particular focus to, the usual. She clicks her teeth in thought as she does some mental math regarding how viable simply smashing and grabbing really is. A glance exchanged with one of the worried Gerudo, only offering a shrug in reassurance. She speaks up, speaking with the same tones often used to discuss what you want to eat for lunch.

     "...smash and grab'll probably work. We wanna act fast before they unload those carts. I smell... mm." A tap at her chin, eyes cold, despite her casual airs. "If someone makes a ruckus on the far side of the fort, it'll draw attention from the convoy. Gives me time to run up, take out a cart driver, jack it for myself and ride it into the hills. We can pick over the contents after."
Rean Schwarzer Rean shows up in his usual uniform, sword at his side again. Maybe if this were another similar world he'd look less out of place, but here at least, he stuck out.

"...You sure these are the right ones?" Rean says, looking at the tomes. The last thing they needed to do was to grab the wrong thing again. Sanary seemed pretty sure about it though, about as sure as she was on her plan to just grab things and go. He looks between the gathered Gerudo and the fort. Stealing? /Really?/

He takes a glance at the Gerudo again and sighs. They needed this. Their long shot already missed, and wound up being worse than it already was, from what he'd heard at least.

...If anything, he could leave some money at the fort to make up at least some of the difference, right?

"...I can handle the distraction." Rean says. "Just...be careful with the cart driver...I guess."
Sanary Rondel Smashing and grabbing their prize may seems implausible, but with a group this size?

Well, still kinda of implausible, but that's still not a complete impossibility. There's multiple entrances to the fort by foot alone: The side facing the group, two at the other side merging into a single road, and that's not even counting the various windows and battlements lining the walls. The guards are largely focused on the front gate where the wagons had just rolled in through, likely due to the cargo that's just been brought in.

Dark mages like their dark magic tomes. Who knew?

"A ruckus, you say? Heh... Yeah, that makes sense. In that case..." Sanary looks from Penelope to Rean, grinning confidently at the latter when he offers to take on the decoy duty. "You sure? Hm... Yeah, we'll try not to bang 'em up too much. I'll be there in case they lose a limb or two, anyway." Laughing after a moment, the Gerudo each slap the healer on the back of the head to shut her up, drawing some irritated glances before she clears her throat.

"... Alright, then. You two stick with Rean. I'll cover Penelope, and we'll all get outta here in one piece. There's a village not too far from here that I've got in good with, so regroup there if things go real bad."

With the plan set, it's time to get to work! One archer gives Rean a nod while the other gives him a thumbs-up, waiting to move on his signal. Sanary, meanwhile, creeps along closer to the front side of the fort.
Penelope Vasquez     Creeping along the frontside of forts is basically Penelope's whole resume. Rean's meaning is... missed entirely, before she and Sanary head off. "Be careful with the driver? What's he gonna do, hit me with his horse whip? I'll be fine."

    She stalks along the front walk, sidling quietly next to Sanary along the stone's edge. No words exchanged; this is a Sneaking Mission until it isn't, and sneaking means quiet. Presuming they arrive safely and unmolested, Penelope peers into the gate as subtly as she can- before inspiration strikes. No words, still- instead, only a few hand motions. She points to herself, then jams a finger skyward- before gripping the stone wall and beginning to hoist herself up the wall. Her aim is to establish a position on top of the wall to keep watch on the interior of the fort, and perhaps throw an archer or similar eye-in-the-sky off if this proves prudent.
Sanary Rondel "Oh, nah. I think he means.. Like. Don't cut the driver in half or something. Just doin' a job, so I don't plan on messing with the driver, anyway." Sanary murmurs to Penelope as she follows the soldier's lead, more confident in following someone else that's better at sneaking around than she is. There's a few close calls when the healer steps on some particularly dry grass, but getting to the wall is rather easy with patience and time!

Next up: Getting to the top of the wall. Lacking much in the way of climbing supplies, the healer opts for plan B: FLIGHT. Or just sort of slowly hovering upwards by pumping magic into her flight anklets. It's slow, it's awkward, but it's enough to keep them out of sight for the time being. As they draw closer to the top, though, Penelope will be the first to see a new obstacle: A pair of archers!

Because of course there's going to be archers atop the walls. Pegasus knights are dangerous, after all. The archers don't seem to notice Penelope yet, but one of them is dangerously close to turning just enough to spot her!
Penelope Vasquez      Of course there are archers atop the walls. Why wouldn't there be? There's usually someone posted high-up to keep an eye on things, Pegasus-mounted cavalry aside. But, two of them at once? Hm. Penelope hangs low to think for a split second- before spotting the unsteadily-rising healer beside her. She almost shouts by instinct, but contains herself, her wide-eyed expression conveying her dismay at the far more boisterous woman's attempts. But there's no time to yell, or even to think; there's two enemy combatants up top, and if they won't see Penelope clinging to the wall's face, they'll definitely see the axewielding healer wobbling her way up in midair. Not much to be done about it, then!

     She positions herself between both archers, and jams her boots into the rock; tiny little blades stick from the toes of her boots, digging into the stone like a warm knife into butter. This frees up her hands as she 'stands' on the side of the wall. One hand draws a boxy little weapon from a belt inside her coat, aims it up, and a shotgun blast of flechettes whips upwards into the lefthand archer with a polite cough. The other hand reaches up, grabs a leg, and yanks towards the edge. Towards Sanary.
Rean Schwarzer "Yeah, exactly. What Sanary said." Rean says.  He then gives the two archers an nod, and waves them towards the side road. He ducks low to the ground, trying to get to the side entrance as quietly as possible. He signals to the archers to keep an eye out for him as he gets closer to the gate, and then peers inside. A distraction, right? He looks around, trying to see if there's something breakable or flammable nearby that might attract the guards' attention.  Or he could just pretend to be an extremely lost traveller, that might work too...Though the goal was to hold attention for a while.
Sanary Rondel The pair of archers follow Rean towards the side road, hunching over so as to not draw too much attention to themselves just yet. It's kind of hard not to be noticed being giants next to just about everyone in this world, but for Rean's purposes? It'll probably be useful later, especially when they can take to a hill near the second set of gates that the swordsman is approaching.

Luckily for Rean, there's quite a bevy of breakable things to choose from. Massive lidded vases undoubtedly filled with magic reagants, ladders set up inside the gates that could be knocked over or set aflame fairly easily, and the gates themselves look like the rusty noisy sort. There's quite a few guards standing... Guard, too, and one of them approaches Rean when he notices the out-of-place student.

"Hey, boy! You lost or something? There's nothing in here for you." The guard calls out in a vaguely menacing, yet bored tone as he rests a fairly oversized sword on his shoulder in his approach. He's a pretty beefy looking one, too, albeit lightly armored in favor of showing off his BIG GUNS. A pair of mages approach a few moments later, apparently curious at what's going on over at Rean's side of the fort.
Sanary Rondel Sanary doesn't quite notice what Penelope's up to as she has to focus a fair bit on not hurtling herself up the wall too quickly. It's not a way of entering a fort she's used to, but it's certainly a novel one! She has to pause briefly to steady herself, and that's roughly when Penelope sets her own plan into motion.

The archers don't know what hit them. The flechettes hammer into the first archer's side before he knows what's happening, leaving him a bleeding mess and sending him into shock from suddenly being covered with holes. The second archer, hearing the cough, only has enough time to turn around before being pulled off the wall and falling right at the healer. Reaching up on instinct, she catches archer's legs, then awkwardly swings her downwards and slams said archer's face into the wall before dropping her the rest of the way down.

Someone may have heard that. Sanary hurriedly gets herself to the top of the wall just before some guards come out from the front gate to try and find out what the commotion was. Luckily, they haven't found the body yet! This is going to make things a little dicier for them, but they can also see into the fort from the top now.

There's considerably more mages in the fort than sword-wielding guards, most of them focused on their own studies and discussing boring nerd mage things with each other. The wagon from earlier can be seen as well, currently unattended save for the driver taking a nap while a heavily armored knight and a mage discuss their own nerd things. (It's money they're talking about money.)
Penelope Vasquez      Hardened murderess as she is, Penelope can't help but wince as Sanary swings the archer into the side of a sheer stone face, using the momentum of her fall against her in a very, very brutal way. A little hiss as the body flops heavily and dully to the ground, Penelope reaching a hand for the bloodied archer; first stabilizing him to ensure they don't teeter off the edge. Then stabbing him in the neck with a blade retrieved from her coatsleeve to ensure he can't loose any last-gasp calls of alarm. She looks up from her utalitarian bloody work, gives Sanary a whispered "Nice work," before heading on along. Until Rean gets that distraction going or the guards below find the archer's body, it's time to sneak it up.

     Stalking across the wall, Penelope is all eyes on the target; that being the wagon. Steps to get herself into position, guiding Sanary along with her. She comes to a stop as close to above the wagon as she can, peering over the side to try and see what kind of Dosh the knight and mage duo are discussing. Is it stealable dosh? Can she get paid while she steals these priceless magical tomes? Lovely.
Rean Schwarzer Indeed, there's lots of things that are breakable inside the fort! But then some guards show up and start asking what he's doing here. He can't really do super obvious casting and set the urns on fire while the guard's looking, so lost traveler it is!

...Also, doing something dumb and showy was already the plan, Penelope. "Uh, right. I was just looking for directions. My cart broke down and I seem to have gotten lost."
Sanary Rondel "Totally meant to do that." Sanary lies through her teeth as she cuts the flow of energy to her anklets and settles onto solid ground, barely even flinching when Penelope finishes off the archer. Work is work, and she's got more things to worry about that aren't people even unluckier than herself. Trailing behind Penelope, Sanary sticks to keeping her eye open around them while the soldier gets her recon on.

At that closer distance, they can actually hear the conversation fairly easily. It seems the knight and the mage are haggling over payment, trying to add or subtract a few thousand coins each time and hovering in the thirty thousand range. Behind the negotiations, a pair of mages are busy counting coins and referring to their own scrolls as if trying to keep all those numbers arranged properly.

Whether that's actually a good amount of money or not is another matter entirely, but the wagon looks like it's holding a couple of crates of those tomes along with a few that have staves sticking out the top. They're certainly not rare, but still clearly valuable enough to be delivered for such a number of money. With all that stuff in there, it's a wonder the knight even fit in there in the first place.
Sanary Rondel "Really? That so...?" The mercenary raises an eyebrow slowly at Rean as he talks of a malfunctioning cart, glancing back slowly at the mages behind him who simply give him a light shrug. He turns back to Rean, looks past him down the road and somehow missing the Gerudo taking positions by the wall proper, then back at the swordsman.

"I don't see any carts around here. How lost did you get?" He sighs and adjusts his headband before stepping further out of the gate to peer down the road. "Where're you headed? We're facin' west out here, so if you know the name or direction of the place..." He glances back at the mages again, and they shrug once more before gesturing towards the interior of the fort. It seems that the mages are getting impatient already. The mercenary himself looks eager to get rid of Rean, but at least he's not rude about it.

He's just vaguely threatening with that giant sword resting on his shoulder, as if he could just swing it down at a moment's notice.
Rean Schwarzer Oh great, there were dead soldiers.  Aidios above, this is /why/ he said to be careful!

"Shoot the urns!" Rean shouts to the archers.  He then quickly lobs a fireball at the ladders and tries to book it, obvious spell casting ring be damned.
Penelope Vasquez     Penelope waits. And waits, and waits. She eyes the moneycounters with obvious avarice. And then, in the distance: an explosion. Multiple. Ideally enough to raise the alarm.

     Wait a moment for everyone to turn towards the explosion. One missisipi. She draws her blade from her back, the scabbard hidden in her coat; it's a long, slim, brutal looking thing, like a fat longsword with a hook on the end made of more sword. A small shift of her grip- perfect. Two missisipi.

     Now. She jerks a finger at Sanary, and then the mage below- before leaping from the battlements! Normally this would call for a warcry, but ostensibly this is an occasion for subtlety. She's aiming to strike the heavily armored knight below her, blade poised to drive itself right into the man's melon! If the pair can take out the most important-looking people, they might be able to just stick up the moneycounting mages and make off with the goods!
Sanary Rondel That'll have to do. The archers swing around from their hiding spots with their bows already nocked and ready. Before the mercenary and the mages can figure out what's going on, all hell starts to break loose.

The urns shatter, spilling their powdery contents. The ladders burst into flame, one falling into the next and starting a chain reaction of fires around the inner walls. Some of those flames reach the magic-infused powder, creating literal explosions further around the fort. "The hell do you...? Oh, hell with it!" The mercenary shouts at Rean as he finally pulls that sword off his shoulder to chase after the outworld swordsman, halting only to deflect arrows being launched his way by the archers that had accompanied Rean.

"How fast can you run?" One of the Gerudo archers asks Rean, both of them firing as quickly as their arms let them while starting to back off. They haven't seen just how fast he can go yet, but it's clear that they're more than ready to bolt with him.

Where, though?
Sanary Rondel That is a lot of explosions. Even Sanary's looking mildly worried about the sheer number of them, but only mildly. The rest of her expression is filled with the sort of childish glee that only comes back once every few months. By the time Penelope gestures at Sanary to take the mage down, she's already ready to fling herself down at the unfortunate negotiator.

As does Penelope, it seems. The pair take down their targets quickly and relatively cleanly, or... As cleanly as stabbing someone in the head with a funky sword and landing boots-to-head on a skinny nerdlinger can be. The accountant mages shriek in surprise and horror at the bloody mess before them, and that (combined with the explosions) startle the driver awake. Before the cargo can even be unloaded, the driver picks up the reins and snaps them against the waiting horses, stirring the wagon into moving once again as he tries to make a getaway himself!

MEANWHILE

The fort itself is in terrible shape. Guards and mages are running about, hurling water and conjuring clouds of rain over flames to try and control the spread. The distraction may have worked a little too well.
Penelope Vasquez     The sword SHUNKS into the knight with a very satisfying, meaty sound, bisecting him messily from head to mid-chest. Penelope takes the fall in stride, using the man's body to break her fall safely. She jerks the bloody blade up, swipes it through the air to dislodge blood and any stray chunks- which splatters the nearby money-mages, only freaking them out further, most likely. A hoot of laughter as she aims the sword point-first at the mages, a broad grin at the pair, played-up to look manic and deranged. "You didn' see NUTHIN'." She steps forwards, swipes for a bag of coinage- then shouts in alarm as the carriage's whip cracks, sending the horses fleeing from the rapidly exploding fort!

     A haltering pause, eyes swiping to Sanary- before she just curses, and breaks into a sprint, trying to catch up to the accelerating cart! With any luck, thanks to it's heavy cargo of books, it can't get to galloping speed right away. A quick shout of "Run, San!" as she lowers her head and dives, aiming to land herself in the back of the cart as the driver guides the horses to freedom! If she lands, a turn, and a hand extended to catch the slower healer!
Rean Schwarzer "Uh...Pretty fast?" Rean says, running past the archers. Indeed, he's going pretty fast, but that guard might still catch up with him. As for where to run, well...He's headed for where he left Sanary and Penny...and the runaway cart.
Sanary Rondel Between the fire, the explosions, the knight being split in half, and the mage getting splattered? Yeah, the mages from accounting aren't really in any state of mind to level any real counterattack. Just as well, since Penelope's gotten into the wagon and manages to pull Sanary in at the last moment. The healer hollers excitedly as the driver makes their getaway for them, the wagon barreling through the fort and past an unfamiliar (to herself and Penelope) set of double gates...

Which Rean can see the wagon coming through like a beast out of hell. The mercenary is so focused on chasing him that he doesn't even notice the wagon until it just straight up runs him over in its path towards freedom. The Gerudo, sensing their best chance of escaping this exploding fort, move in unison to just pick up Rean and toss him into the speedwagon before leaping onto it themselves, making for a rather cramped fit for everyone involved.

"Hah! That went way better than expected!" Sanary lets out another excited cheer as she tumbles around in the back of the wagon, not quite finding it easy to stay in one spot with the wagon moving so quickly and bumping around with everyone else on board. "Got our stuff, and nobody noticed a thing!"

She says as the fort is still partially epxloding behind them. Also, where is this wagon even going?
Penelope Vasquez     "...people definitely noticed, San." Penelope replies, deadpan; she's half-stuck and half-nestled between two heavy boxes, and is squished into the little cramped space further as Rean, then two amazonian Gerudo launch themselves inside. There's worse things to be stuck inside, though, as the rapidly rolling cart rattles around.

     That is a point, though. Where /is/ this thing going? She wrestles herself out of her nook, crawls across the crates and the other people, and addresses the cloth wall separating them from the driver's seat. She judges where the man himself is sitting, pulls that knife from her sleeve again, aims it carefully...

     And stabs the cloth beside the man, where the 'shotgun' seat on the driver's bench is. She pokes her head through. "Don't scream, keep going, eyes forwards. Where we headed."
Rean Schwarzer Aaaaaaaaaaaaaand incoming flying teenager, en route to the runaway cart! Rean lands with a thud inside the cart, with the two Gerudo women following after him. "Agh..." He says sitting up and making room for the others.

Penelope's threatening the driver, and things were a mess, including the exploding fort behind them, but they did it. Kinda. They just needed to get out of here.

(And maybe ignore the bit of guilt he was feeling.)
Sanary Rondel "... Well, yeah, but we still got our stuff!" Sanary won't let a little tihng like making everything explode dampen her spirits. It's not like she'll...

Shit. She will be back here, won't she? Well, maybe nobody saw her face too clearly. She's content to just enjoy the rest of the ride, kicking back with the two Gerudo and Rean while Penelope moves over to intimidate the shit out of the driver.

It works pretty damn well. "Yes, ma'am. I was just going straight please don't set me on fire where do you want to go?" He spits out in one unbroken string of words, following the road at a steadier pace now that things around him are no longer on fire. "This road will take us further into Plegia but I'm going to guess you don't want to go there so hey there's a fork that can take us around that fort how does that sound?"

They should be able to get home safely at this point. Now it's just a matter of when they get back with their cargo. Should they inspect their cargo, it's a massive haul of tomes.

Relatively massive. There's twenty five of the books with the purple and black covers, ten tomes with red or green covers, and another ten staves with different patterns etched into them. Sanary and the Gerudo are only laying claim to the purple and black books along with half of the staves, so the rest are up for grabs!
Penelope Vasquez     Penelope stares at the driver for a long moment, before slowly retracting her head back into the cloth-covered cabin. She pulls her swiped sack of coinage from... wherever she stowed, it and pours out about half into her palm.

     She thinks for a little bit, then re-fills until a quarter is in her hand. This is set through the little hole in the cloth she's made for herself, placed on the driver's bench. "Just get us outta here and stay calm. Don't worry, mi hermano." She settles in as best she can and nods to herself. Mission accomplished.