Brynjolf

As soon as it had crushed Shadow, the wretched beast had disolved into ashes, revealing the fallen thief, looking disgruntled, but otherwise unconcerned about her wounds. She glared at me as I walked over, but reluctantly accepted my offered hand so I could pull her to her feet.

'Right.' She said, flicking her hair over her shoulder. 'Now that I've made a point, I think it's time we had a little chat. Delvin, open the vault.'

Delvin being a smart lad, obeyed Shadow's orders while the Khajiit turned to the rest of the guild and began to return them to their usual duties.

'Sapphire, watch the enrance. If Mercer comes back, chain him.'

'Eteienne you watch the Flagon entrance. Niruin go alert Tonilia of a special password to enter. All other access is denied this includes Brynjolf and I.'

The guild go straight to work with a huge cry of triumph. They had gotten back their best thief. Shadow led the way over to the vault before making way for Delvin to open it, he returned to us with a perplexed look on his face. As if she had read his mind, Shadow took Delvin's place by the door and unlocked it with a key.

'How did you get a key?' I asked as she pushed the doors open.

'For the second best thief in the guild, you're no match for Elsweyri techniques.' She purred, dangling my key to the vault from the tip of her finger.

She flicked it into the air and caught it, tossing it up and down playfully as she ushered us all into the vault before leaning against the door and continuing to play with her new key, it flew up into the air, hit the ceiling and bounced back down, I lunged to catch it, but Shadow leaped into my way to catch the glittering key and I ended up catching her instead of the key.

The khajiit let out a little mrrow of laughter as I tried to hold her with one arm and grasp for the key with the other, she concentrated hard on the key, which began to glow faintly and drift away through the air, seemingly suspended by invisible stings.

'So.' said Shadow as I set her down. 'Tell me what you see.'

Vex and Delvin turned in a full circle.

'Where's the gold?'

'Where do you think it is?'

Realisation dawned on their faces as to where the gold had gone, Vex drew her dagger and Delvin sank to the floor in tears. Shadow, however, was suddenly on the floor clutching her side in pain. Both Vex and I moved towards Shadow, but again I was late enough to look like I didn't care.

Once Vex had managed to remove Shadow's hands from her side, she discovered a minuscule dart embedded in the Khajiit's side. Grimacing in pain, Shadow's clawed hand grasped the dart and yanked it out of her skin, before it moved to her pouch and produced a healing potion, which she downed quickly and scrunched up her nose in distaste afterwards.

Rune had wandered over, and offered a hand before pulling Shadow to her feet. Just before she had arrived, Shadow had evidently changed her hair colour to pearly white, because I was very sure that she was trying to keep her head down and be normal now.

'Lass, this is the last place I want to send you, but we need you to break into Mercer's house to see what he's up to.' I said softly, reaching out to place a hand on her shoulder.

'I'll be back later. Hopefully with some information for you.' She replied coldly after recoiling from my touch with a hiss.

'BE QUICK!' I yelled after her as she stalked away, Rune in tow.

After Shadow had exited the cistern, I set Cynric off with Karliah to scour the city and surrounding area, while Vex and Delvin left to watch the Flagon. Sapphire and Vipir stood stiffly near the entrance, weapons close at hand while cooking and cleaning.

This would be a long day.