Jonathan easily pops the simple latch on the window to the parlor and climbs through without much trouble. The room is fairly nice, though perhaps a little tacky. There are two couches where guests might sit as well as a large cabinet with a glass front revealing the contents to be glasses and bottles of expensive alcohol. A pair of fine tapestries hang from the walls, adding some color to the room. The room is otherwise empty and the door is closed.
Triel doesn't say much as Jonathan works, keeping her head on a swivel.
"OF course." Aramus nods and waits for Elek to climb through the window before offering his hand toward the others. "After you," he says with a smile. Whether they accept his gesture or not, the big hotspur clambers in after the others, doing his best to remain quiet.
Zalika gracefully vaults through the window after everyone else. "I am in no need of assistance to climb through a simple window, but thanks for the offer all the same."
Zalika rolls her eyes, after entering the room, watching everyone standard around quietly, before pointing at the closed door. "So, any reason why we are all standing around looking pretty?" she enquires casually before casually opening the door and looking out. She decides that a priestess isn't really the scariest thing around and so leads up a short distance, deciding that at in the event she was accidentally spotted, someone skewering her with a blade might not make the top of the list which might give her an opportunity to talk her way out.
'How unexpected,' Jonathan thinks, watching Zalika take the lead farther inside the manor. 'Her dislike of espionage is apparently more selective that I believed.' Jonathan follows close behind, on the lookout for guards and other threats, while waiting for Zalika's signal if a door needed to be opened or a trap, for whatever reason, be disarmed.
Triel looks to Jonathan for direction.
Frankly, I have no idea how to proceed from here. This was your area of expertise, Vindir.
The door is neither locked nor trapped, and Zalika opens it, revealing a slightly ornate entrance hall. Another door on the far side of the hall leads into another room, though it seems to be closed, while a staircase leads up to the second floor. Another hallways leads toward the back of the house.
Triel purses her lips and inches over to Jonathan.
"If our target is involved in the murder, he won't be keeping proof of it someplace where anyone can find it. The cellar & his private chambers would be the most likely places to find evidence--barring that, he might have a secret room on the premises where he would stash it." She whispers.
"Aside from that, we might need to leave soon--if one of the servants sees us, they'll likely run for the guards."
Aramus creeps about with the others, his shoulders hunched over and his gait a pronounced creep, in some attempt to move more inconspicuously. "Wait, the guard? Couldn't we explain ourselves?"
"I don't intend to allow the servants to leave," Jonathan remarks, pulling a small, padded club from its spot at his waist. "Reasoning with the servants is likely a fool's errand; they are either complicit in his misdeeds, or will find such an idea preposterous. As for the evidence, I intend to investigate both of those places... along with searching for any sort of hidden passages or compartments." After pausing for a second, Jonathan motions for the others to wait while he slinks across the entrance hall towards the stairs, keeping a look-out for guards or anything suspicious while he prowls towards the stairwell.
Jonathan's practiced footsteps are completely silent on the carpeted floor. The entrance hall is lightly decorated and mostly empty. The stairs lead up to a second floor hallway while the hall near the stairs seem to lead back in to the house. Jonathan can distantly hear the servant they saw earlier still at work somewhere back on the first floor.
"Perhaps; if we are going to spread ourselves thin, removing any potential problems should come first," Jonathan says, gesturing in the direction from which he heard the servant. "I would be surprised if there are not others, but incapacitating the servant may be a wise starting place. Even if he does not spot us directly, it would be smart to make sure the man does not notice, say, any signs of us having been here. If he cannot identify us, we can easily treat this business as a common robbery if the Captain is in fact innocent."
Zalika make a gesture identical to the one Jonathan just made. "Well you might as well go on then, the spells I have today are purely offensive, not something I can tailor to merely knock someone out. If you want to incapacitate him, then you unfortunately wont be able to get assistance from me."
Aramus continues to defer to those who seem more used to these activities--namely everyone present--but he does clear his throat and raise a hand at the mention of spells. "I do have a knack for some magic myself. Mostly to help with what I already did. But, uh, it's less sneaky knock-out and more big fiery punch of pain."
"I did not mention it with the intention of receiving aid; I merely believed it was in our best interests that we remained on the same page. I will go deal with the servant myself, and return shortly." Striding towards the servant's location, Jonathan attempts to quietly peer through the door closest to where he heard the servant working.
Jonathan heads down the hall toward the back of the house. The furthest door down the hall is cracked open and he can clearly hear someone moving around inside. He peaks around the door frame to see an older man who seems to be cleaning the kitchen and making occasional marks on a piece of paper. He seems completely oblivious to Jonathan's presence.
"I don't think thats necessary. As its been stated, the three of us cannot actually help him with his mission, therefore there is absolutely no point in following him. I suspect none of us are quieter than him, therefore following him could actually make his job harder. In my opinion, there's nothing to be gained following him, nor do I feel guilty about him facing this challenge enough. This was his preferred method of entry, therefore he must be confident in his abilities, otherwise we would probably have announced ourselves".
Feeling happy that she rationalised the situation somewhat, Zalika falls quiet for a moment, before opening her mouth again. Standing around doing nothing wasn't really her strong point, and she already had to do it once today. "That said, if our friend is taking care of the servant, then thats one less person doing the rounds, which means we can do a little bit of looking around while we wait". Zalika glances around, not really thinking it wise to abandon the area, but she was bored, and looked around for something to investigate while she was waiting.
Jonathan, spying the servant, slips through the door like a shadow. The padded club still in his hand, he tries to position himself behind the servant before striking. Once he does so, he quickly wraps one arm around the man's face and neck, while the other strikes him violently over the head with the blunt instrument. Assuming that one strike doesn't do it, the Gardener rears back for another, repeating the process until the man's muffled voice fades and his body starts to collapse, unconscious, to the floor.
Jonathan easily moves behind the man and strikes him across the back of the head. He cries out in shock and stumbles forward, but before he can react the second strike comes down on his temple and he's knocked completely unconscious.
Taking the man under his shoulders, Jonathan drags the unconscious servant towards the pantry, then gently sets the man's unconscious frame inside, careful not bang his head or do anything that might cause the man permanent damage. Afterward, he drags forth a chair and bars the door with the man inside, making sure it will hold before going back to the others.
"I have barricaded him inside the pantry; someone will find him eventually," Jonathan says nonchalantly, before swinging the blackjack in his hand slightly in his grip. "It is prudent we canvas the house as quickly as possible, but I do not believe it is wise that we travel alone; it is possible there are other servants or guards, or that we will run into the Captain himself."
"There is little point in staying together if certain individuals need to split off to get things done anyway". Zalika remarks casually at Elek's remark. "The problem is that some of us are quieter than others therefore having all of us stick together actually hinders our sneaky ones, I think splitting up into smaller groups is probably best here so we can cover more ground. There will always be people where stealth isn't a strong point, might as well make it so some groups are unaffected than sticking together and having everyone be hindered".
"Are any of you trained in evading detection? If so, I would suggest that you travel with me; if not, perhaps I should act as a scout and travel ahead of whomever comes with me."
Triel just shakes her head.
Once again, that's more Vindir's expertise.
"In my line of work it's usually better to be stand out than hide." Aramus shrugs helplessly and hangs back. "I think this is all you, friend."
"If you so choose, however I still believe splitting into two groups to be the smarter course of action; whether we find evidence that indicts the Captain or exonerates him, the longer we allow whomever committed this atrocity to roam free and potentially escape our grasp." Jonathan, seemingly thinking whatever they were looking for would be upstairs, heads to the staircase. "If you all wish to follow me, do so; if not, split off and search the ground floor. If there is some sort of secret section of the manor, it will likely be below ground, and therefore more easily accessed from the ground floor."
Zalika heads in the direction of the man's private quarters (assuming they are on the ground floor), heading into the bedroom first, checking to see who, if anyone was there, before moving to searching the office as the next place to look on her mental checklist.
Triel goes with Elek, looking for a cellar entrance.
At a slight loss for what to do, Aramus decides to stick with someone who seems to know what they're doing here. Being that the masked man seems to prefer solitary sneaking, the hotspur joins Zalika, following her into whatever quarters she finds and assisting in the search as best he can.
"Whoa! Is that a BOOK?! Do you think it's important?"
Jonathan, seeing the others decide to continue searching the ground floor, simply shrugs and lets them go. "If you all encounter resistance, simply shout; at that point, our cover has been blown regardless. I will do the same." Jonathan takes a moment, a frown beneath his mask at Aramus's outburst, but he moves up the stairs to search the building's top floor. In particular, he seems to be looking for a study; however, he explores every room he comes across. "What are you hiding, Captain? Why disappear, without your men having known where you went..."
The group hunting through the lower floor finds a number of pieces of art and trinkets that are of monetary value, but they find very little of note otherwise. The bookshelf that Aramus examines in-fact has several extremely rare tombs on magic and mysticism, but he doesn't recognize them and instead picks out a book on interior decorating. However, Elek finds a door with a staircase leading down to a cellar directly past the kitchen where Jonathan ambushed the poor old servant.
Upstairs, Jonathan goes to work searching the rooms with trained efficiency. His experience raiding people's homes for incriminating evidence quickly helps him deduce exactly where the bedroom would be. It's a rather nice room, with a large comfortable looking four-poster bed. Next door, he finds a small office with two large bookshelves and a desk in it. Searching the bedroom doesn't reveal much, though he does find a several letters to what seems to be a mistress hidden under a book in the captain's dresser.
Jonathan, despite his eye for such things, scoffs as he finds so little of use. Still, he pockets the few letters for now and keeps them with him. Deciding it would be unlikely that the man would keep anything in his bathroom, of all places, he decides to regroup with those downstairs. "All I have found is a few letters, to what appear to be his mistress," Jonathan remarks, pulling them from his bag. "Still, it is possible she may be involved, or the letters are coded. If nothing else, they will keep the captain honest."
Zalika holds out a slum hand for the lettets. "You should let me talk to her about them, try and get further insight into the situation, you would probably scare her half to death if you showed up at her door asking about them"
Triel blinks and turns away from Elek's torchlight. "Very well."
Heading down the steps, it quickly becomes obvious that the cellar is in fact a wine cellar. Racks with a wide variety of bottles line the walls while a shelf covered in casks sits against the far side.