[IC] The Manor of House Falchetto
"I do. And faith in myself." She tapped the blade at her side. "If you meet a Falchetto who cannot handle a blade, it's because they miss an arm, are too old, or have not yet learned to walk."
She spat to the side at the mention of the Oasis. ""The Oasis? Ugh. At least you learned how not to run a state.
I do not know if you will work with us, but I promise you this: we do not betray allies. Even when we were removed from the council, our family died and bled for this city. We prefer to deal with our allies and our enemies straight."
She eyes Gaja, sizing her up. Her eyes light up as she meets Gaja's. Of course they did. It was hard not to like someone with supernatural charisma.
"Hmm. An interesting little idea. The problem with going after Lorenzi is that it's hard to do that without pissing off half the city. Everyone eats fish, after all. Even I have a weakness for sardines."
She considered a few moments.
"Besides, Lorenzi are coin obsessed fishermen, but at least ONE of those professions is honorable. There are other families who I'm far more concerned with.
There's something I've been trying to figure out for a while with another family, and I haven't been able to work it out. You ever get one of those bad feelings? Like that someone was about to do something stupid that might get a lot of people killed?
I'm getting that, right in my gut, and I'm usually right about such things."
For some reason, the Don looked like he was suppressing a chuckle for a moment. There was clearly a story there.
"If you could find out a few things for me about a certain affair involving
Del Schiavone, I'd not only reward you, you'd be in our families good graces. It would show you can handle yourself with discretion."
She smiled, impishly.
"After all, we don't dare you incurring the wraith of the fishwives of the city. Not even our walls could withstand their cursing. Of course, if that's not really your desire or suitable to your talents, we'll work something else.
But hey, you just sort of dropped out of the sky here, so I figured I'd ask if you could swat this particular unswattable gnat, right?"
* * *
Down in the vault, Vasati was busy making it look easy, and looking good doing it.
The stairs formed in the closed room, descending downward. There was a momentary force pushing back against him, probably some minor magical effect, but Vasati's innate magic crushed it after a moment, and a small spiral staircase suddenly formed into the vault downstairs.
Vasati made his way down into the vault.
It was a two part affair: there was a cage set up on the far side of the vault, where Vasati worked out where the actual "entrance" would be. Barely visible on the other side of the cage were drawers and small vaults that looked like they might conceal papers. There were also numerous ledger books and a few buckets of what looked like petty change.
What was on this side was far more interesting.. larger vaulted safes on four corners of the room, and a large structure that reminded Vasati of a stone tomb with a removable lid.
Scrawled on the tomb(??) are the motto for the house in careful relief, and the name of some ancient hero. Scrawled onto the large stone top is "BREAK ONLY IN THE EVENT WE ARE UTTERLY FUCKED" and "IF THIS LID IS AJAR AND YOUR LAST NAME ISN'T FALACHETTO, YOU ARE ALREADY DEAD." A palpable sense of dread eminates from it.
The entire back end of this place behind the cage looks like it hasn't been used in a while. One of the vaults looks like it, at least, has been opened a few times. The other three don't look like they have been opened in a long, long time. The stone lid is quite heavy, and it would take a lot of men working with crowbars to pry it off, and it would make quite a noise from clattering to the ground. You recall that, if they are keeping to protocol, there are two guards behind the vault door. At least they'd have trouble getting in here quickly.
The stone/steel that Vasasti is looking for is beneath the tomb. Of course it is, it would have to be, wouldn't it?