"Perhaps I do, and yet, perhaps I don't. Just as you perhaps hold the item to exchange for it, or perhaps not. How is one supposed to tell if it is covered?" Jevaf says softly, her voice betraying no emotion, because in truth she felt none.
While the thief removed the bundle from the painting, to reveal the old king, he remarked "not the very trusting one, are we? Well here it is out for you to see." Slipping the sunrod in his belt and beckoned with two fingers. "Now the money? No tricks now."

If Jevaf begins to step forward, he will stop her. "Ah-ah" he says, "Throw me the payment, in a bag. If you have payed correctly, you will receive the item."

Jevaf smiles, although there is no emotion in her smile. "I certainly have to commend you; that is a very fine fake you chose to provide. Do you take me for a fool? The master will not be pleased about this."

Drawing a dagger, the thief holds it up to it and says in a low voice. "You and I both know that this is real, stolen personally from the manor of Lord Vincent. If you do not care for it, as you say, I will simply dispose of it and be done with it." There are no hints in the theif's voice to determine whether he is lying or not, but the dagger is very real.

"Are you really that stupid? I gave you more credit than I should have. I suppose it's true that you brought something, and so should be rewarded for bringing something..."

At this point, Jevaf's hands are closed around both daggers in her sleeves.

Jevaf raises her voice, so that it echoes around the cave, and hopefully outside, "Treachery is rewarded with death!"

Even before she finishes speaking, she pulls both hands from her sleeves and with a flick of her wrist, hurls the dagger in her left hand at the thief.

((Yes, penalties for overshooting range, but whatever. This following happens if Jevaf wins the initiative))

Even before her hand follows through with the throw, Jevaf already rushes forward, bringing her left hand across and smoothly drawing the rapier from its sheath at her right hip. Reaching a part of the cave where she notes it is easier to hurl the dagger and successfully hit the thief, she does so, flicking her right wrist and the curved dagger flies end over end horizontally toward the thief.

((Moving 30 feet of the 40 separating the two then hurling the other dagger))

Jevaf's words echoed out of the cave for all close ears to hear, 'Treachery is rewarded with death', not very subtle but it made him laugh as he began his run into the cave.

A slight pause between hearing the words and him moving were almost undetectable such was his speed and as he ran he drew his blade, judging his run to cover the distance between where his run started and the turn in the cave, their is no chance of him running around the corner. His golden fur rippling as he ran and his long brown hair whipping out behind him.

((OOC: I believe that Drassarr is now 40ft from the thief, so if he gets better initiative then Jevaf on the next round he should be able to move and make a single attack. Am I correct?))

When Maaht saw the brighter light coming from the off-shoot to the right, he knew that the game had really started, and he looked back at the dwarf with a grin. But he still couldn't hear clearly enough to distinguish what exactly was being said in the lit area, even with the silence he and Gorsh were "providing".

Jevaf's raised-voice threat, was the trigger he waited for. Pushing off the wall behind him, Maaht launched himself into a full-out run into the lit area.

[[ Run at x4, maybe reduced to x2 for uneven floor, still gets him 60'/round and at baddie approximately the same time as Jevaf (hopefully) ]]

His intent:

Activate Energy Shield Draconic Aura on entry to lighted area: Affects Maaht and Jevaf (currently). Any opponent receives an automatic 2 points fire damage on a successful hit on Jevaf or Maaht with a natural or non-reach weapon (basically, that's any melee weapon). Lasts until free-action release. Approaching Jevaf from behind, Maaht will then Jump [[+8]] directly over Jevaf's head from behind (imagine Superman's leaping take-off), disregarding her weapon

[[ I know. He's shorter than she is ]]

He will place his hands on her shoulders, shoving downward to help gain height and distance, to carry him into the baddie, and if she drops and removes that lift, his own jumping momentum will carry him past her as her "support" is removed. Intent is to surprise baddie and bowl him over, gaining time ...

Gorshak heard the words of Jevaf's signal as clearly as Maaht must have but, again, his reaction time was a little off. As Maaht pushed off the wall Gorsh was in the process of reaching up to unsheath Foecutter.

Instead, and as if planned, at Maaht's movement Gorsh removed his hand from Foecutter's hilt and turned around to put fingers to mouth for a loud whistle to the others outside. To his chagrin, as he was drawing breath for the signal, he saw the silhouette of the cat-man barreling toward him at full tilt.

Too late he learned that at least Drassar had heard Jevaf's words as well. Gorsh hesitated a split-second to decide whether to turn and try and run ahead of the cat-man, or simply dodge out of the way of the running Drassar. Unfortunately, indecision won out and he was bowled over by Drassar's moving mass.

Frantically he tried to clamber to his feet and follow as quickly as possible, this time grabbing his bow and pulling an arrow instead of his scimitar.

Rouinding the corner after the others, he moves to the left, arrow nocked and half-drawn, looking for others who might be hiding amongst the stalagmites

When Jevaf's cry of treachery rebounded outside, Gamiates was leaning against the cave entrance. He sucked his breath in quickly and pulled away from the rockface, startled. Drassar dissappeared into the cave within a flash, which Gamiates took after. Once he made it deep enough to see the theif, he would immediately begin casting a magic missle spell at the man. Whatever had transpired within the cave was unguessable, but clearly Jevaf had called for aid to defeat the man.

Jevaf pulls both hands from her sleeves and with a flick of her wrist, hurls the dagger in her left hand at the thief.

This effort is amiss, for the thief dodges as if expecting it, by quickly darting out of the way and he is untuched by this. "Such a rash move. I thought we were getting along nice too, heh"

Reaching a part of the cave where she notes it is easier to hurl the dagger and successfully hit the thief, she does so, flicking her right wrist and the curved dagger flies end over end horizontally toward the thief.

The thief quickly dodges this one, he is off to one side to dodge the first, then he lowers himself barely, to have the other dagger streak past him.

Jevaf's cry was heard from some distance it easily to get out to Drassarr and Gamiates, Drassarr seeded ready to jump the gun to race in, his battle sense was right to zip off. After Drassarr's quickly followed Gamiates quickly stopping at the site of the thief.

Maaht came out from "hiding", he ran to Jevaf and proceeded to clutch her shoulder for the proper leverage and commenced to launch over his friend. Maaht's jump of epic proportions wasn't so epic, halfway through the jump was the fall just above Jevaf, Jevaf's body reacted accordingly to this accident waiting to happen, leaped out of the way to see the falling man impact the ground and the whining of his leather armour stretching with the force and gravity of the impromptu landing (-2 lethal to Maaht 51/53).

After Maaht's departure Gorshak tried to clamber to his feet and follow as quickly as possible, this time grabbing his bow and pulling an arrow instead of his scimitar.

Rouinding the corner after the others, he moves to the left, arrow nocked and half-drawn, looking for others who might be hiding amongst the stalagmites. To Gorshak's relief he found no others.

The man in front of Jevaf was thrown off guard by the sudden appearance of the many people, including the one that potently was jumping at him. In his startled state the man turned on his heel and pules something in front of him, in that moment the wall dislodged it's self and swings open with the sound of scraping rock and a sudden loud bang with the stop of the door, he then dashed through the opening and the door swung closed at fast as it opened.

((I think you should still say whether or not Jevaf's attacks hit the man or not, rather than just that you already covered her actions))

Thought so. It was too convenient that it was a dead end. Jevaf thinks, before retrieving and sheathing her daggers and rapier.

"Pursuit at this point would be too reckless on our part." Jevaf says aloud, "We've done all we can here."

He acked to rush after him, these seconds were precious and he was reluctant to let prey get away. He addressed the drow, his scowl obvious but he knew that they must stay together as a pack if they were to win, or was that important, surly his 'enjoyment' at their tasks when they cam were more important.

In hissed urgent tones he said "Not follow! My rracce arre hunterrsss. We chassse our prrey like the great cat. Why ssshould I not if I can out rrun him?"

In his heart of hearts he knew this was a pointless argument, the thief was too far away, but he was enraged at that a creature who's race spent it's life skulking around in the dark.

It was vaguely amusing, how by her word one of her companions thought she was forbidding them from continuing. Apparently they hadn't completely gotten used to her way of speech or how she thought.

"Do what you will; I've said my thoughts." Jevaf says with only trace emotion in her voice, as she heads back toward the cave entrance.

This was surely among the more foolish missions that she had ever bothered herself with attempting; even if they had entered the cave and caught the two trading parties, they still held a key advantage that would've made most people back down. Even though they were still at a disadvantage with the mistake of the thief thinking they were the 'buyers', he had now gained a second key advantage, and that was something Jevaf was not going to bother taking risks with. True, there might have been something called 'pride' that made it vaguely feel sour, but why should she care? A small smile tugs at the ends of Jevaf's lips; she didn't, for it was only one mission among many that have been done, and are yet to be done.

"The hands of time cannot be turned back." Jevaf murmurs, setting it all aside in her mind.

To her, this mission was already over. Uncompleted, true, however, given the circumstances, aborting it was only logical.

Sprawling on the cave floor as he did, hard and unceremoniously, Maaht screamed through cleched teeth in frustration. As he scrambled to his feet, frustrated, he watched the thief use a device to open a section of rock wall, pass through, and close it before he could move a foot.

Maaht sat down on the floor of the cave. He pulled his knees toward his chest and placed his elbows on those knees, looking sideways and up at Drassar.

"Cat man? I think you're right about huntin' him down. But we can't follow his trail without passing this wall. We can either try to open this again, or sit here until someone from the other side opens it. And we know someone is on the other side. Or we can try to find another opening to that area. any thief worth his salt would not have only one escape route. What'cha think?"

"Hey, Gorshie! Drassar and I have an idea. Wouldjz go ask the others to join us here in our new digs?" Chuckling at his own joke, he waits to see what ideas Drassar has to add to his own.

Grshak started to rankle at Maaht's request, then realized it was just that -- a request. He knew by now that the red-wearing half orc was crude in his delivery most times. It just seemed to be his way. Gorsh was finally getting used to it. He shrugged, and said,"Yeah, no problem." Then he finally stashed the unused arrow and walked toward the main entrance, the light of which he could see dimly around the corner.

[[ If the others are on their way in, or if they are already there, he won't have to call them. If they are not currently coming, or they are not there yet ... ]]

" ...'Ey! Guys and gals! Yoo-hooooo! Maaht and Drassar have a plan, I think. I'm in. How about you people?"

Without waiting for a reply, he heads back to where Maaht and Drassar are, cursing at himself under his breath for not remembering to purchase a few torcnes in town ...

As Grshak returns the word plan rings in Drassarr's ears, it was less of a plan and more a point of argument, in fact it was no plan, it was pride and instinct and emotion. Maybe he should control himself around these beings, they obviously have no knowledge of his culture, all this though with some acid on the words.
"Yesss, first we muct ssearrrch where he left. I trust we saw where he disssapearrded, once we find it ssome of you mussst follow me down, I sshould be able to catch him up and hold him, theirrr is no doubt he belivess hisself frree. The rest should try to find the other exit, it'll have an exit ssomewherre, I am told dwarrvesss are good with stone. We play to ourr strrengthss."

[Spot check to see if he can find where the thife ran through, taking 10]

Trusting he can find where the thief ran Dresserr beckons the dwarf to help him look.

[Search check]