Mibbet and Rosalind examined their rather worse for wear assassins for a moment, one of them was looking like they’d been beaten black and blue, and another shot her a smouldering look. (Not defiant mind you, he had just clearly been on fire in the recent past, and even after that he STILL stank, how the hell did he manage that?) She quickly pondered the best interrogation tactic to use in this situation, it seemed the group were doing their level best to look brave, but frankly, their situation was clearly very much brown trousers time, (for those wearing trousers at least, but brown miniskirt time just didn’t have the same ring to it somehow). They were slowly coming to the realisation of just how much trouble they were in. If they were lucky they would get off with a treason charge, which was only an execution, otherwise, well the term “no quarter given” was often overlooked, but in this case, would lead to the poor sod on the receiving end finding they actually had FOUR quarters in a long drawn out process that left them hanging around for awhile after.

“You do realise that right now your best option would be to tell me who hired you right?” Mibbet stated, arms folded, oversized hatchet on her back granting her a definite bonus on intimidation. While behind her Sir Leeroy and Addy LOOMED, the effect somewhat spoiled unfortunately by Errol, who had no sense for these things was using a flameproof toy to play with Rascal off to one side. (In all fairness if they could look at the speed said feline was swiping at that Phoenix feather and hear the cracks as they struck that would probably terrify the hell out of them by accident, after all, who hasn’t been on the business end of a normal sized kitty scratch at least once in their lives? So maybe Errol was actually doing a decent job after all.)

“If Mi mate Steve was ‘ere they’d tell us what we needed to know.” Dodgy Dave chimed in, completely demolishing any progress that had been made on making the group talk so far, as they groaned. It was hard to really feel intimidated by Dave given that he had been given a kicking more often than the copper coins he cadged on a regular basis. But he did tend to always be on the side with the bigger threat.

“If we talk they’ll kill us,” Belinda whined. “What’s in it for us?” She was rather used to negotiations being from an advantageous position, and this definitely was not one of those, so all she could do was try her best to pretend it was and hope her bluff wasn’t called.

“Well for starters the worst they can do to you is kill you,” Mibbet replied. “But if you don’t tell us then I’ll tell MY MUM.” Mibbet shot back, it may have been overkill, but she needed answers, and she needed them yesterday, but since temporal shenanigans were off the table she had to settle for right now.

The Assassins almost scoffed at this, telling their mum on an assassin? What kind of threat was that? Then what passed for their brains clicked into gear, and they processed who this girl was, and by extension who their mum was, and suddenly it seemed that a direct hit mega-spell to the face was a preferable option. Nick had once snuck his team into the arena to see the so-called “Berserker queen” in action, and he had to admit that she did make quite the impression, especially on poor Iron head’s supposedly unbreakable head-plate. The group paled at the memory.

“We want protection,” Nick ventured, edging carefully away from any shadows, he was by no means the best in the business, but that was partially because if you got too good you were taken off the board in a hurry, but he at least had the good sense to figure out very quickly that if you are in a shady line of work it was best to stay out of shady bits of the local environment, particularly if you were about to shed some light on the situation.

“Well that will depend on how good your intel is won’t it, I’d ask about your intelligence directly, but you took a pot shot at a Princess, specifically a Crown Princess, so I hope for your sakes your intel is good at the least.” Mibbet snarked.

Nick would have snapped about that, but in the circumstances, she had a fair point. “We don’t know who hired us for this job” Nick started.

“Not really the best start there, want to try again?” Mibbet replied brow raised, “I think you mumbled there, who hired you?” She tapped her foot impatiently, she was in no mood for a round of silly buggers here, she had been shot at, a most disagreeable situation from her perspective, and not one she wanted people making a habit of. “Tell us and we’ll get you protection and a new job that uses your expertise to their fullest, keep quiet and you’ll wish I’d grassed you up to Mum, we clear?”

“WEDON’TKNOWWHOTOOKUSFORTHISJOBBUTWECANTELLYOUOURHANDLER.” Nick stammered out, trying his best to make sure he got all his words across before things got any worse. He really couldn’t afford the time to pause between words.

“Who?”

“They was a butler, they thought they were being all subtle about it, but I got curious see? Followed ‘im back to the big place up on the hilltop over there, dunno how much ‘e knows, but there’s got to be something.”

Sir Leeroy paled at that.

“What’s on your mind?”

“That house,” Sir Leeroy started then seemed to hesitate for a minute, his tone of voice turning grave, clearly there was something big going on here.

“Who does it belong to?” Rosalind asked, she’d figured out if Sir Leeroy was hesitant it was a big deal, but they still had to know.

Sir Leroy hesitated a moment longer, if he was involved then things were definitely about to get messy.

“That place was granted by the king, we can’t just charge in there demanding answers it’s the home of General Vayste.”