His question was not one she was happy to readily answer. She’d rather be stubborn about it. But alas, it wasn’t an option she could indulge in. If they were going to work together efficiently at all, she had to swallow her pride.

“Oleander.” She answered him curtly, her tail now flicking with annoyance as she tried to maintain the flame over her palm, “And what should I call you?”

Without missing a beat he got back to work, searching the area before them with slow steps forward, “You can call me Fionn.”

That wasn’t a common name, not by any means, and she knew it had to be an alias. Not that it mattered much. Rather it was expected, given he was clearly a thief. Just one of those common sense rules that they practiced. Hell, she wasn’t beyond practicing it too.

She couldn’t help letting out another sigh as she focused on the flame, making it a little larger before raising it to float above her head. Freeing up her hands was a must, and she joined him in the searching by checking the walls herself. If there were any traps they could stumble upon, their delivery mechanisms would be obvious enough on the walls.

Not that there were any to be seen anywhere near them. Though the lack of any traps to be seen between either of them had allowed them to walk down the hallway at a leisurely pace. It was progress that Oleander happily welcomed.

At least for a while.

About halfway down the hall Fionn slowed down to a halt, gesturing to a gap in the wood panels of the wall, “Could you bring the light down a bit over here?”

“Sure. You notice something?” It was easy enough for her to oblige, and she even leaned in to get a look herself at the gap.

“I think so…” He pulled out a dagger from a sheath on his chest, pressing the blade into the gap carefully before slowly running it down from the ceiling towards the floor.

It wasn’t long until they both heard a click of the blade striking some sort of switch, and they both moved back. Fionn even instinctively raised his arm in an reflexive effort to protect her. A gesture Oleander took note of as she eyed the gap with him. 

If anything, that display meant he might be more handy than she considered at first.

Not that she had time to really think about it as the sound of gears behind the wall began to fill the hall. Like the hidden door before the wood panels were moving, but this time with a ceiling to floor sized door. What laid behind it was an equal surprise: A lift.

Whether or not it still worked was another story, and Fionn already moved ahead of her to investigate the mechanism. It wasn’t a large lift, by any means, but sturdy looking at a glance. However deep the shaft below it was, however, was the most important question.

There was little time to consider it as they heard the splintering of wood and heavy footsteps behind them, though muffled, from the storehouse they entered through. Someone had caught up with them; or, more aptly, with Oleander.

She didn’t like any part of it, letting her concentration slip as the light of the flame dimmed, “Shit.”

“Shit, indeed…” Fionn added, getting onto the lift platform and checking the mechanism, “Hurry over here. Make that flame smaller if you can, too.”

“Sure, I can do that.” That was easier said than done as she struggled to reign in all her focus on the flame, before moving it back down over her palm.

Her nerves were getting frayed, though, as the clomping of those boots were accompanied by the chatter of impatient men. She could hear them arguing through the walls as they searched the storehouse, and how dangerously close they were lingering to the hidden door leading to the passage. It would only be a matter of time before they figured out where the door was, simply by elimination.

Fionn seemed calm about it in comparison, as he grabbed a handle along the interior of the sliding panel that once hid the lift and began slowly pulling it shut. He seemed to be timing his longer pulls of the door with the sound of the crates being broken past the wall. Though she began to think that maybe he was just as equally nervous, as she caught the glimmer of sweat coming off his brow.

“...Pull that control lever over there to your right,” He groaned, finally pulling the lift door shut as the gears clicked into place, “but do it slowly. I don’t know how loud it’s going to be.”

Oleander put out the flame in her hand once she grabbed the control lever, pulling it slowly with a grimace. She feared how loud it would be as well, and if it even had power. It hadn’t been turned on in who knows how long. She didn’t even know if she was operating it right.

When nothing happened for a while even after she pulled the lever it only left her with more worries, making her heart start to race. She didn’t even know where to begin trying to get this lift moving, and now she could hear those men in the storehouse banging on the wall by the hidden door. Idling in the dark certainly wasn’t helping much and she made another small flame over her palm, looking for any sign of what was going wrong.

“They probably cut the wires when they closed up shop. Damn it all.” He looked up to the cage-like ceiling of the lift, and to the inactive engine that was supposed to be moving it, “A decent jolt of power could get it moving. Can you do anything like that?”

She could only shake her head at him, mulling over the thought, “Not really.”

Lightning magic wasn’t really her forte, and the metal cage making up a good part of the lift had her wary to even cast it. The electricity had a nasty habit of arcing through any metal in a lethal way, no matter its conductivity. It was more complex magic to control than she liked, and wasn’t suited for such closed spaces as this.

“Can you try?” He knelt down to the exposed gears of the lift door, jamming some sort of tiny bomb between them.

Oleander sighed, raising her left hand up to the ceiling of the lift as she struggled to think of how to even work around the dangers of the magic. Their pursuers were already closing in, the sound of the hidden door to the hall being forced open, and found herself hesitating all the more. She really didn’t want to overload the engine or blow the cage with even the slightest mistake.

She knew the command word for such a lightning spell, but much like the wind magic she used back at the tavern it would be too unstable. Something that was inherent when she used any elemental magic that way. Something that she didn’t want to have to bother with trying to balance out on an arbitrary clock ticking down on her. 

“Damn it all. Stay away from the walls.” The fire over her right palm quivered before becoming the size of a match flame, before purple electricity surged over her left arm to the tips of her fingers.

The arcs licked at the metal of the cage ceiling, forming a circular pattern with a large rune in the center briefly. The circle didn’t linger long, illuminating them in the eerie glow before it converged on the exposed engine and made it roar to life. It was loud and the metal of the lift still crackled with purple sparks from the lighting, as it started moving down the shaft with rusty shrieks. And of course, just to be the devious cherry on top, she heard a voice she was dreading to hear again.

“Break down that wall and bring me that fucking bitch!” It was Darcy, personally hunting her, “What do I even pay you idiots for?”