While his brother spoke, Argent nodded. They thought alike, on many levels and on most topics. This was no different. There were many questions left unanswered, and to be honest, Argent thought the whole business smelled.

On Thiferl's remarks, Argent spoke, so everybody could hear: "You know what I prefer. Going in without proper precautions would be suicide. We cannot know who or what is waiting for us there. I say we sneak in, find out what is going on, and if force is necessary, we limit it to small but effective strikes."

He looked around the room to check the reactions of the other members of what now was a team. At least, they now had a common goal. If they would be a team would be proven in the days to come.

"If I may be so bold to speak my mind," he continued, "I am not sure whether this is an honest call for help. As the Blue Hand is still a small guild, I say we need to take great caution in moving forward. Me and my brother will go and find out how this letter was received. In the mean time somebody should go and see if they can find information on the brand. A triskele in a circle should be known by somebody."

He makes eye contact with all of them to see who is willing to help them out. He didn't want to be the one to take initiatives, but he was not going to let any opportunity to get Thiferl and himself in a good position within the guild slip by.

"I say we meet again, here, in one hour with new information. If you haven't found out anything by then, don't worry. My proposition would be to go out as a team, and scout the Northern Outskirts. Ask around a bit. Any other thoughts?"

Daleel was still a bit nervous around this new crew. He wasn't sure what to expect from any of them but he was ready to figure it out. He was happy to know he could communicate in more than one language with at least half the others. He was a bit worried about the last member though, he seemed a bit clumsy.

Daleel still sat in his chair while the job was being discussed. He spoke up quietly "I'll see what I can find out about the brand. Is there anything else I should try to get information on?"

Needing to confirm his suspicions he blurted out another quick question, directed to the man leaning against the wall. "I have heard of you. Umm...you're Echo right?"

In his usual dramatic manner Echario looked at the halfling that had addressed him and simply nodded then did a flourishing bow as if to say, "Why yes, I am, nice to know you're heard of me." Nothing was ever said, nothing needed to be said as far as he was concerned.

He listened quietly to the plan the two dwarves had proposed and shrugged mentally (not physically, nothing about his posture really changes). He had thought the same thing himself, this job seemed a bit like a job for one of the more established Thieves' Guilds, yet it had been given to them. He made a mental note that this could very well be a trap set up by one of the larger guilds, but then again he thought everything was a trap, it helped him stay alive and prepared.

The group splits from the guild hall, seeking out information on both the brand and the messenger. One hour later, everyone manages to meet back at the guild hall without incident.

(PMs have been sent to those who specifically mentioned they would be researching one aspect or another. It is up to them to reveal what they have learned. And bear in mind, when conversations are going on amongst the group or with NPCs you aren't limited to a single post in a week. )

The time is now one hour after Selene's zenith (noon) on the first day.

The midday meal is being served in the mess hall so the common room is relatively bare. The usual loud raucous emanates from behind the mess hall doors. Other than the usual interior guards and the guild's contact point (for potential clients) at the main desk the common room is empty.

From the common room, double doors lead into the mess hall, stairs lead up to the guild members' private rooms, and several doors lead to meeting rooms similar to the one you started in. Lastly a passage heads to the southern end of the building, containing the small library and various crafting supply rooms. (The smithy is outside on the southern end of the building).

Aurion Decided to stay behind and wait for the others. In truth he wanted to try and make a better impression on the group. After everyone else had left he stood up and made sure that there was no one else left in the room. His father had taught him that people will respect you if you are strong. There was no mirror in the room but he took out his sword anyway and tried to come across as fierce and strong. He started grunting and changing battle stances, attacking invisible foes. He turned to a chair in the room and stared intensely at it. “What are looking at!” he proclaimed as threatening as possible.
The chair sat unmoved and unimpressed, as well as the rest of the room. Defeated by his non intimidating nature he sat back down and started scratching pictures into table.

Echario had made a half-hearted attempt to ask some of his past companions from other jobs about the brand on their latest orders. As he had expected from the start he learned nothing, just as he had expected; if the brand had been well-known the client probably would not have included it, nor would he have needed the aid of a guild rather than local law enforcement. Echario made a quick stop into the mess hall to grab a bite to eat before heading back into the meeting room the dwarves had wanted to meet in after the allotted time had passed.

The two brothers came back to the common room to find Aurion was already there. Argent felt a bit disgruntled by the lack of information with which they returned. He had hoped that his superiors would’ve been able to give them some news that might’ve proven vital in their task. Most of all, he felt that he was treated in an inferior manner. Here they were, members of the Blue Hand guild, but the guild leadership apparently didn’t trust them enough to give them vital information.
He understood, of course, the reasons why they were excluded from the circle of confidence, but it made him realize once more that he and his brother had a long way to go before getting somewhere in this city.

He looked at Aurion with high hopes. The human might’ve learned something they hadn’t. They had visited two messenger services located nearby the guild headquarters, and inquired about the message. They had returned empty handed. Which was of course a logical thing, and they should’ve known that even if the messengers had been hired to deliver the note, they wouldn’t share such information with anybody.

But even though that made sense, he couldn’t shake the feeling of unease. It crawled around in his lower back, where he couldn’t shake it. He might be mistaking eagerness for adventure with a feeling of misguidance, as they both resulted in a similar nervousness in the joints. Still, he made sure to be on his guard.

Echo arrived as well, and Argent turned to the two humans.

“So,” he started, “did you find out anything?”

Once again the half-elf sorcerer known as Echo looked to the dwarf that had addressed and replied with a simple shake of his head. No words were necessary to inform him short companion that he had failed to learn anything. Sure he could explain what methods he had used and what information he had been seeking, but what was the point of wasting time and breath just to say what a simple shake of the head so clearly said.

As they wandered around the area trying to find messaging services Thiferl and Argent fell into old habits of old arguments of old ideas. Neither one being very outgoing, they took turns asking the pertinent questions. When Argent spoke, it was direct and to the point, and when they found out that the messenger wasn't the one they were looking for, that was the end of the conversation and the brothers would move on. When it was Thiferl's turn, the discussion not only took more time, but it took a while before the actual question was asked, as Thiferl seemed to go off on irrelevant tangents.
No, they were both much more comfortable in each others company. They never needed to say much to know what the other was feeling. They had often spent long days where the only sound they made was the clanging of hammers on anvils and the hiss of dousing red hot metal in oil. That's what they really wanted someday, a smithy of their own.
The name was always something of contention, Argent would want something practical like, "Two Brother's Armory," or "Agamud's Emporium," while Thiferl wanted to represent the spirit of what they did with more whimsical titles: "Water of Life", or "Phoenix Talons" were some of his favorite.
After an hour and no luck, they returned to the Blue Hand guild hall. Argent was disgruntled, Thiferl felt defeated. This was there first task as a group, and they had failed. Hopefully in the coming hours and days they would do better. He let Argent do the talking once they returned.

Daleel left the meeting room and immediately started looking for some of his normal contacts. He walked here and there. He had a few drinks with this person and that. He jumped into conversations that he could interject his query. He took the entire hour and a few extra minutes searching for answers.

He returned to the guild hall common room a bit tired and very hungry. He spotted the rest of the new crew he was working with and made his way over. He caught the end of what the dwarves found out and Echo's lack of info as well. This was not looking good.

Daleel sat on one of the chairs with the group and as soon as he was sure no one else was going to speak he shared his information. "I am ashamed to admit defeat. It turns out I don't have much information either. There were a few people who recognized the symbol. Those that did couldn't or wouldn't divulge who it belongs to."

Feeling even more defeated now that all the members of the group were unsuccessful he posed the only logical question. "So, um where do we go from here?"

Another hour passes as the group returns and discusses the apparent lack of success in locating any further information regarding either the messenger or the brand. By now the mess hall is beginning to empty out, though loud conversations often carry into the common room and at times out onto the street.

Notably the group has not yet decided on a course of action regarding the warehouse and the stolen goods. Everything around this job seems a bit suspicious, yet the job was approved by guild leadership, so it must have some measure of importance.

The time is now two hours passed Selene's zenith. It is not known how long the cargo will remain at the warehouse before being taking north across the sands to North Harbor. Once it leaves the city it will likely be much more difficult to recapture and return without raising questions with the city guards.

(If you guys take action before tomorrow night I will give another update. If not, you may have to wait until the weekend, depending on if I have a chance to check in this week.)

Ivellios looked at the map and the letter and then sighed. He didn't know anything else just like the rest of the group and he wanted to know the answers to the questions too. He looked around the room as the one who was named Argent spoke, saying that they should go out in small teams and figure out as much as they can about this mission. He nodded in silent contemplation, always being one for keeping his thoughts to himself.

After everyone decided on what their first actions would be, he set out around the grounds to see what information he could find. Noon quickly came though and he set out to the mess hall to get his meal knowing how strict they were about serving times, and he poked around then too and tried to find out any information but he came up empty handed. His lunch though was quite satisfying to say the least.

An hour later he found himself back in the meeting room with the rest of the group, full stomach but empty handed on information. It seemed that mostly everyone else came up short also and they wasted two hours and nothing else new has been found.

He looked around the room at the group, and ran his fingers through his shoulder length hair. Through a sigh a shrug he spoke up.

"I say we just head out to this warehouse. No one said it's totally closed off, maybe we can get a peak inside if we take off our tabards. At least we'll feel like we're doing something and not just sitting here wandering around. And this stuff was stolen three days ago, so it might be shipping out soon. I really think we should head out."

Ivellios walks over to the map and looks at the paper. He smiles and nods his head slowly. His index finger trailed their headquarters to the warehouse, and tapped the destination three times with his finger and pulled away from the table.

"Yeah, see we can make it there in an hour on foot being discrete. I know what i'll be doing, so unless anyone can come up with anything else i'll be heading out soon."

Echario straightens up his posture and cleared his throat, ready to address the room in a soft spoken voice, "If I may offer a suggestion gentlemen, if we want to be discrete about this perhaps my talents can be of some use here. If I can just get within 30 feet of the guard at the door, assuming there is one; which there should be if they are storing stolen goods, I may be able to "convince" him with a little magical help that our ragtag group here is there to relieve the current shift of guards." He looks around the room once more, looking over each of them before continuing, "If this works we may be able to get in and out without anyone knowing any different, however there is a chance that we may just alert the entire warehouse of our presence, thus destroying any element of surprise we had before."

He looks to the dwarves, "I couldn't help but overhear bits and pieces of a conversation regarding potential locations for a shop of some sort, perhaps this could be our cover story. If I could get one or both of you to approach the guard, ask questions about the location, ask about high traffic areas, things like that, then it may provide enough of a distraction for me to cast the spell without alarming the guard."

Looking to the halfling he speaks again, "I don't mean to profile, but I know your kind is renowned for being stealthier than us larger folks. Before we act on my plan I think it would be a good idea for you to do a little recon on the warehouse, find out if there even is a guard outside, perhaps see if you can get a good estimate on total guards, and maybe even see if you can spot the crates we are after."

Looking around the room again he addressing the group as a whole, "I agree with what has already been said, guild colors should not be worn, we'd draw too much attention to ourselves, so no tabards, or any other items that would tie us to the guild. It seems the general consensus is that it will take an hour to get to the warehouse, I think a 20 minute head start should give Skit here enough time to get there ahead of us and gather some information before meeting us a block from the warehouse. If the information he supplies makes my plan obsolete then we will need a back up plan, any one have any other ideas?"

Argent didn't need long to think about the proposals of both Ivelios and the one who had been identified as Echo. There wasn't much else to add. And so he nodded to their words, and added:

"Does anybody need any equipment from their rooms? Let's go then."

Then a thought struck him, and he turned to the others.

"Wait... if you want my brother and me to be the distraction, why not combine the good with the necessary? If we put some money together we can rent a coach or something to get us there faster. We'll be much more impressive if we arrive by coach and do the wealthy investor twist."

He looked at Thiferl. The wealthy investor trick, or the Gorgonstreet Turnaround, as they called it, was something that had gotten them out of a nasty situation before. Now Argent didn't like lying to people. In fact he despised it. But if he had a choice between fooling somebody or having to bash their brains in, he would choose the former.

Thiferl slyly looked at his brother and winked remembering the last time they had used that trick. It had been several years, and their belts were a lot tighter then, but he had not forgotten his role.
Looking down at his burned and stained attire and apron, he said, "I guess I'll be the blacksmith, and you'll be the wealthy investor. I'll have to grab my tools before we go."
Jingling his coin purse he calculated that he could spend a little on a coach and still have enough to get by until they were paid next. Especially if it meant not hauling heavy crates all over town. In his head he prepared a list of things to bring: a couple tools, his breastplate to show the end product, and maybe a couple flasks of certain alchemical substances, not labeled of course, but said to be dousing reagents to give the work a certain patina.
He clapped excitedly to himself, knowing that he was a terrible liar, but loving this role because he was playing himself. He wouldn't be lying per say, just leaving out certain bits of information.
He then looked around the room expectantly seeing if anyone else had anything to add to the plan.