The underground basement was dark and damp and dead quiet. Glances like daggers were occasionally thrown between party members.
Brin was polishing a dagger at his bunk. Darha was sitting on the floor across the room, reading the tome she picked up yesterday. Cress was muttering under her breath, spell componates in hand, and moving from hidden door to hidden door.
"No one knows where we are." Darha's voice drifted through the humid room, airy and irreverent, as she rolled her eyes in Cress's direction.
Above them came a bang, like a door being thrown open, and an uproar of voices. All three glanced up, momentarily tense, then relaxed again as the noise lulled into the regular murmur of tavern activity.
"You know that's not a guarantee," Cress spat over her shoulder, moving onto another door, barely visible and sunken into the stone wall, before adding, "After your stunt."
"You would have done the same." Darha said, with a slight bite.
"We made a plan for a reason," came Brin's voice, sharp and piercing. "You had no right to deviate in-"
There was a knock at the door; the main door leading upstairs had a visible doorframe and handle, unlike the others. The three tensed again, and then - with another knock - they all flew to their feet various weapons and readied magic raised. Finally there came another knock, no attempt at entry, and a bird call echoing through the returned silence.
"Is that-?" Cress asked, breathlessly.
"I could kill him," Darha muttered, the green magic pulsing angrily around her hands.
"Get in line," Brin snarled, pushing back the other two, sword gripped tightly in front of him.
He wrenched the door open revealing a young man clad in thieves' black leather armor and dark hair framing the pale face and usual smirk.
"Merrick," Brin growled.
"Honey, I'm home," the thief's lips curled even further.
Brin reached through the doorway, knotted his fist in the thieves' shirt, tugged him over the threshold, and threw him to the floor behind them, as the others made way. Cress shut the door, Brin kept the thief at sword point, and Darha let her magic fizzle out.
"I knew you'd miss me, D," the thief sniggered from the floor.
"You're not worth the spell components," Darha crossed her arms and moved so the thief was surrounded.
"What do you want?" Brin asked.
"Just the comforts of home." The faces looking down at him remained stony. "You may not remember, but this was my home too."
"Was," Cress emphasized. "When you ran, you forfeited all rights to the guild. And now you're trespassing."
"I just knocked," the thief threw up his hands in innocence.
"Why are you here, Merrick?" Brin demanded.
"I told you, I was just-"
Cress's hand began to glow purple as she traced an invisible rune in the air.
"Okay, okay!" the thief shouted, and Cress halted the rune but the purple magic still glowed around her. "I just needed to establish an alibi."
"Of course you did," Darha sighed.
And almost on cue, there was a muffled explosion coming from nearby above ground. Shouts and thundering footfalls came from the tavern above them.
Before they could say anything, Merrick sputtered, "I promise it's not what you think."
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