Prologue: Just another day

The fact they have an audience gets Steve's attention. He winks at Mihai and says, "Don't worry, I'll take care of it. I wanted to practice my singing anyway." He laughs mischievously, like he always does before a prank.

RorytheRomulan wrote:

"I will go as well. Steve, Breeze and Fedler can remain behind."

He gives Konrad the thumbs up. "Yup! I have a thing I need to do here anyway."

"Let's go then," one of the sailors says to Mihai and Konrad. The carriage begins to advance towards the warehouses.

"See you later!" Breeze shouts while waving at her colleagues.

Fedler is as vigilant as ever, and although she trusts the crew not to look into the crates, she nevertheless keeps an eye on them.
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It takes no more than five minutes for the carriage to reach warehouse #7. Leaning against the large doors of the building stands a man in his thirties who's wearing leather armor and who is carrying a short sword at his side. As soon as he sees Mihai and Konrad, he straightens up.

"And you are?" he asks.
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Still sitting at the edge of the docks, her legs hanging in the air, the bored woman keeps watching the ship and the people around it.

"Mihai, Konrad. Coins, 113th Adjunct."

"It's you then," responds the gruff looking man. "I'm Stefan. I'm also working for the Coins. Gimme a moment, I'll open that door."

As Stefan takes a key out of his pocket to unlock the padlock, Mihai notices that although the man is very calm, he seems tense for some reason. On top of that, Konrad however believes that Stefan isn't the man's name, but the rest sounds true.

"There you go." The Coins agent opens the large doors and lets the carriage go in. "It's empty for now, so you can put the crates anywhere."

Konrad nods to the sailors, and tries to make casual conversation with Stephan to suss out what's bothering him. "Was it as boring waiting for us as it was to guard these things on the boat?"

"I've been here only for the past hour or so," Stefan answer nonchalantly. "I like boring too."

Konrad believes he's telling the truth.

"You're the only detail? No one else to keep an eye on the crates while we go back?"

"The others will come later," he responds with a shrug. "You can keep me company if you want."

Mihai and Konrad know that Stefan is as vigilant as before, but still calm. While everything he says is the truth, Stefan is not looking forward to meeting with the "others". Like a kid who doesn't want to speak to their teacher after school.

"Keep an eye out, will you?" - Mihai says to Konrad, then goes in the warehouse.

He'll have a look around, keeping an eye out for anything out of the ordinary.

"Hey Breeze, come here. I need to tell you about comedy in great detail."

"Oh oh! I'm listening!" She hovers in front of Steve and expectantly waits for him to reveal his big secret.

Steve makes sure his back is to their unwanted audience before launching into his philosophy on Knock-Knock jokes, all the while Whispering to her his plan on how to deal with the girl. He repeats it as is needed and finally Breeze acknowledges it by nodding and smiling.

And so the friends put Steve's plan into action. First they walk over to the fairies. "Hey everybody. How are you? My name is Steve and this is my friend Breeze. I'm wondering if you guys would like to make some easy money?"

When Mihai goes inside to look at the warehouse, Konrad says with the guard, and lights his pipe for a quick smoke. "Been in the Coins long?"

Awareness 25
keeping an eye out

The warehouse is approximately 100 by 200 feet, and like Stefan told Mihai, it is mostly empty. Except for the dust that covers the wooden floor, there's not much to see here except for the carriage and the crates the sailors are now unloading in a corner of the building.
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Stefan leans against the wall and crosses his arms. "Yes. But you get used to the odd working hours."

Except for a few people that Konrad can see walking in the distance - probably a main street - there's nothing particular about this alleyway.
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The local fairies jump in the air and abandon their fishing poles when Steve mentions easy money.

"Oh sweet! We're always up for coins!"

                "How much are we talking about? Thousands? Eh, eh?"

     "Nothing illegal though, right? People are already on our asses about stupid stuff like that."

                                     "Better not be copper coins!"

            "Can't we ask for food instead? I want ice cream."
                                                  
                                                           "Money buys food!"

"So what's the job?"

Breeze seems overjoyed to meet new fairies.

"Oh no, nothing illegal. I just want you to learn a song and then perform it with me until I say we are done. We may have to keep singing it for a long time but it's very easy to learn. I was thinking a silver each if that will work for you?"

"A silver each? Not near enough!"

                                                        "Gold! Yes, gold!"
 
                   "Isn't that too much?"

         "Two silvers would be better, no?"

                                          "Yeah, two silvers! We're respectable fairies after all."

                                "Two silvers it is!"
  
"What about the ice cream though?"

Konrad nods. "I renew after this job. Boss is fair, and the perks make up for the odd hours."

"Rest of my squad is with the ship. What about you, yours dump you on guard duty?"

"No, no 1 silver each is more than enough but I'll tell you what, if you do a good job I'll buy you pizza and ice cream too!"

"Oh no, our boss put me here," the agent explains. "It's not like you can avoid guard duty forever."
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"Pizza?"

                       "Pizza, really?"

              "Oh man, pizza!"

   "I want to taste it so bad..."

                                     "Pizza is good, right?"

                     "Ice cream is better."

        "You're still going on about that?"

"Okay, what do we have to do!?"

"Fairy huddle," declares Steve, pulling them in closer so he can teach them the words to the song. After he quietly sings it to them a few times, he asks if they've got it.

"Got it!"
 
              "Got it!"

      "Got it!"

                                     "Got it!"

                           "Got it!"

                                                    "Got it!"
                   "Got it!"
 
    "Got it!"

"Got it!" Breeze exclaims.

"No, you can't. Gotta shift in." He takes a draft. "What are they doing, anyway?"

"Waiting for these guys to be done," the gruff man replies while gesturing at the sailors inside.

Konrad realizes that while Stefan likes this small talk between them, he actually doesn't want it to continue. It troubles him for some reason.

"Wonderful! Follow me my new friends." With a big dopey smile on his face, Steve leads the fairies over to the young woman. When he is a few feet from her, he stops, turns around and says, "Places everyone! Good, good, just like that Piffle. Come forward a bit more Ember. There you go. Everybody ready? And here we go!"

Steve busts into song, singing the Song that Doesn't End. He signals the fairies to join him on the second stanza and they repeat it loud and proud for the foreseeable future while Breeze does her thing.

The bored woman, a somewhat pretty gal, is taken aback by the group's singing. After a minute of this, she finally stands up, joins the line of fairies, puts a hand on her heart and joins the song.

Meanwhile, Breeze examines the woman's mind like Steve asked her to do, and whatever she discovers momentarily makes her stop singing, but she quickly regains her composure and continues with the plan. The blue-haired fairy doesn't seem worried; just surprised.