(2026-04-03) Grand Theft Cannon

Details

Author:	inkie
Summary:	Bryn Baird wants a mogu cannon. (For his Captain.) Shine and Mrs. Shine have agreed to assist in the caper. Mrs. Shine's apprentice Melancholy gets to tag along with the Big Kids! The plan requires two demons and a yak.
Rating:	T for Teen

Arc: Vale of Eternal Blossoms

Dusk has draped itself softly over the Vale of Eternal Blossoms, and has begun to settle between houses and in hollows of Mistfall Village in pools of deeper shadow that presage the coming night. The rolling golden slopes of the Vale are gradually being washed of color by the fading light. A few early stars glimmer above the mountain horizon, but moonlight will be scant; the White Mother is new tonight, and the Blue Child, ranging early this time of the month, has already sunk below the hulking dark line of the wall in the west.

Mistfall Village is quiet. Warm light spills from windows and braziers burn around the terraces and bridges. A pair of elderly pandaren women still sit stooped over a jihui board on a table in the market, but the market stalls are vacant now, the grills and woks cold and unattended.

The village quiet is not entirely tranquil, though. The occasional restless silhouettes of a pair of Golden Lotus defenders or one of the foreign mercenaries on patrol makes its way around the village perimeter. The watchtower that rises beside the inn has been completed; the watchers at its top aren't visible from below, but their presence there weighs heavily in the awareness of the villagers. The fields beyond the village, though, seem untroubled this evening by anything more dangerous than a wolf's far-off cry.

Bryn Baird is waiting quietly on the porch of the inn, gazing into the darkening distance. He is not, for once, carrying a rifle; instead there is a crossbow slung over his shoulder on its strap. He is also not wearing his blue-trimmed Alliance mail and leather armor, but is dressed in looser, lighter clothing in shades of gray and black that fade into the shadows around him, and a pair of black field tactical boots.

Shine approaches the inn from the terrace below. He is dressed similarly to Baird, but instead of a crossbow he is armed with two (2) knives. Visibly. "Got the yak," he tells the younger man, low-voiced. "We should be good."

Baird, whose intent focus had shifted immediately at the other man’s approach, nods.

Lena steps out of the inn, and she seems to have made an effort to match the dress code for stealth. Her dress is a soft, dark gray, and her golden hair is tied up under a matching kerchief. Dark, sturdy boots peek out from beneath the cloth. She nods to the two men. "Melancholy should be down soon. I told her to wear black or gray — I don't think she'll have any trouble with that part. I hope we can do this without fighting the whole mogu army."

"I expect we can," Shine says, and steps up beside Lena to put an arm around her, hand on her hip. "They've got cannon on the lowest terrace of the place. We'll aim for one on the outside edge of the camp, hopefully just have to take out the mogu from that corner of the place. And we'll go quiet."

Baird smiles over at Lena and reaches over his shoulder to touch the crossbow. "There's a snap but not a shot. The sound doesn't carry the same. Like with the gryphon riders outside the Scarlet stronghold in Icecrown." His voice is quiet, like they're already in stealth mode.

"We've got a yak to haul the thing once we get it down from the camp," Shine tells Lena. "Ye remember Hua?"

Lena's face lights with a fond smile at the mention of the yak, and she bumps her shoulder gently against Shine's chest. "Aye, Hua bore me well, when my knee was still mending. Strong and sturdy, should be up to the task." Then she nods over at Baird, her gaze flicking to the crossbow. "My own magic can be fairly quiet as well, recalling from that same time. So long's I don't use the fiery stuff. Think we'll need any demons?"

It turns out that Melancholy doesn't have any trouble putting together a black outfit, as expected. It's only difficult to tell if she's actually dressed for a heist or simply gotten dressed. Black top, black skirt — lifted up by two side strings already to her knees, exposing the black fishnet over black tights — black boots, black hat, black lace veil, black eye make up, and — oh ho! A difference! Black lipstick.

She strides over to the others, waggling her fingers as she closes in, no demon in sight. "Here we are, then," she says as she steps in next to Lena, glancing at Baird and Shine both.

Lena nods in approval as Melancholy arrives. "I expect the four of us will blend in well with the night."

Shine nods courteously to Melancholy. Baird flashes a smile. He is staring at her face. It is entirely possible he has never beheld black lipstick before.

There's really not much Melancholy can do about being so pale she practically reflects moonlight, but the black lace over her face at least minimizes it. She gives Lena a black-lipped smile. "'We grow accustomed to the Dark / When light is put away,'" Melancholy quotes again.

"Aye, we'd best do," Lena says with a slight smile. "If any demons, I'd say sayaads, for an extra pair of hands. I think we'll be well off just us humans, though."

Shine nods. "Aye. Let's get moving." He lets go of Lena to head down the road and across the bridge out of the village.

Melancholy looks to Lena for a last check. Her focusing cane is nowhere in sight, but she removes a dark athame from a pocket that must serve the same purpose. "The same soulstone arrangement as before? Mine on you, yours on reserve?"

"That'll do," Lena says with a nod. "And we'll avoid combat if we can, but if we can't…" Lena's gaze drifts to Shine. "We'll be able to handle it just fine, I expect."

Melancholy casts as she walks, focusing through the athame as she ties a soul stone on Lena.

Baird ambles down the road after Shine, hands in pockets.

At the foot of the village, where the ancient road reverts to dirt and broken paving tiles, Shine goes to the paddock where the yaks and goats are contained, to untie a familiar cream-colored yak from the fence.

The yak wears a heavy harness, to which nothing is presently attached. She lumbers placidly along where Shine leads her.

Lena pats the yak affectionately on the shoulder, and walks along with the others. "I wonder if Fallon will find a use for this sort of cannon," Lena muses. "Or if it'll just be for military intelligence."

"If it's powered by souls at all, maybe it'll end up a warlock weapon," Melancholy suggests. "That would certainly be a sight to see if so. Maybe a Demon specialist with a cannon toting fel guard?"

Shine makes a noncommittal noise.

Baird, who has turned to watch the exchange, says quietly, "Have to take it apart to find out. See how it works. Farleigh and your brother and I can handle it, maybe. Didn't have a touch-hole like a standard cannon, so couldn't be spiked, couldn't get powder in the usual way. Might be souls."

Melancholy taps a finger by her lips in thought. "So far the mogu seem a sort of 'hammer with every problem a nail,' of what can't they solve by applying souls to the problem," she says lightly. "I have not the slightest knowledge in how they would accomplish this one though. Animated statues seems straightforward in comparison. You don't think they imbue the cannon balls with a soul and animate them, do you?"

Shine and Baird both look to Lena, who is the expert on souls here, if not on cannons.

"It's hard to say, so much soul energy in the air," Lena says with a frown. "The Golden Stair was crawling with soulbinders doing dreadful things to the pandaren there, bringing stone to life, and the like. It could be soul-powered cannons, or might just be they run them with fireworks somehow."

"I don't know anywhere near enough about cannons to dispute any possibility of that," Melancholy says cheerfully.

"They could be using charges," Baird says thoughtfully. It sounds like agreement with Lena. "But we'll have to see where they're running fuses, then. You put a pre-lit charge direct into the barrel, it's either going to go out once inside the cannon or it's going to take your hand off — most of you off — before you can fire it."

"Like holding onto a grenade after you've pulled the pin and released the spoon?" Melancholy asks. She doesn't know about cannons, but grenades seem to be another matter.

"Yeah." Baird flashes her a smile. "Pretty much just like."

Shine looks over at Melancholy. "Ye know explosives?"

Melancholy shakes her head. "Oh, no, no, not in a general way at all. I have practical experience with using grenades, specifically a gnomish creation combining holy water and other explosives, the U.G.G., Undead Gone Grenade. Back home, before I could use the fel, it was my only defense against unwanted undead wandering by the house or on the roads." She pauses to think on that. "Well, unless I could convince Theris to walk with me somewhere, of course. Most of the time, he simply worked proactively to ensure the road was cleared already."

Lena's shoulders tense ever-so-slightly at the explanation, and she reaches out to rest one hand on the fuzzy yak. Nothing changes in her expression, though, and she only asks mildly, "Theris?"

"Lysander?" Shine fills in, both completing the question and giving a partial explanation.

Melancholy perks up in a black lipped smile. "That's right. Theris Lysander, he's my friend," she says. Some might take particular notice of the use of present tense. "He protects and guards Duskwood."

Lena looks back at Melancholy then with a touch of curiosity, but she simply nods. "I suppose the Lysanders have a history there, in the region."

Melancholy nods in return. "They're Duskwood, through and through, just like the Grimlockes. Although, most of the others have been displaced to Stormwind by necessity. Raven Hill is dangerous to occupy by the living." A brief expression is fleeting over her face. "I was apprenticed by his mother, Lady Renna Lysander, at the Stormwind Keep Library, before. It was Theris who led me there in the first place. It seemed like fate." A Pause. "Then."

Baird is just watching her.

"Then?" Shine prompts.

"Then it didn't," Melancholy concludes, not quite managing a truly blithe tone, something darker and bitter underneath. "When you're a librarian-in-training killed by a falling bookshelf, you realize you missed one of those moments when you were meant to push back against fate." She picks at her gloves as they walk. "So, that was that, and here I am instead. I should think I'm far more useful now than I would have been before with some spirit potential cannons."

"Sometimes…" Lena starts, but then she stops, and pats the yak one more time. "I expect you will be, but I do hope you've managed to keep your friendships with the Lysanders. I know a few of the family myself, Lady Alaisa and Lord Kyris, though not all that well. They seem to be good people."

"Lady Alaisa's a good friend of Sintha Fallon, and Lord Kyris a friend of Admiral Fallon," Shine observes.

"Oh?" Melancholy says. "Well, I'm still a Grimlocke, no matter what, so we'll always have Duskwood."

"That connection, for certain," Lena says with a faint smile. "Like the kinship I might feel to someone from northern Silverpine."

Baird looks away to sweep his intense gaze across the road and hills around them. They are coming to the pavilion at the far end of Whitepetal Lake, and the massive mogu sentries that flank the Golden Pagoda are pitch-black silhouettes ahead against the now-dark sky. The crossroads is coming up.

"You hear anything?" Baird asks Shine quietly.

"No," says Shine. "Not yet."

Melancholy can't do Discretion, but she can do quiet pretty well, as she takes a cue from the boys.

Lena does quiet pretty well herself, though she might not do the surefootedness of a rogue. She keeps close to the yak, and lets Shine and Baird lead onward into the darkness.

"We got lights," says Baird. Far in the distance, a tiny orange spark wavers: the barest glimpse of a mogu brazier through the darkness.

Melancholy looks immediately for them, squints, and then temporarily lifts her veil up to better see with a quiet, "Oh, there they are," before she lets the veil fall back in place.

Lena peers into the darkness, and nods. It isn't entirely clear whether she sees the light, or simply trusts Baird as to its existence.

Baird carefully takes the crossbow from his back and a bolt from a pouch on his belt. He loads the crossbow carefully as he walks, his gaze still straight ahead, and then carries the weapon casually in front of him.

"All right," says Shine, low-voiced. "When we're a little closer I'll tether the yak and scout our angle of approach."

Melancholy gives him a completely incorrect, civilian's idea of a salute — wrong hand, wrong fingers, wrong hand placement — for a nonverbal agreement.

Lena smiles faintly in the darkness at Melancholy, but doesn't correct her right now. Instead, she just whispers, "Understood."

They proceed up the road in silence until several of the orange sparks are clear ahead, in a curving row. Shine tips his head in a wordless signal, and he and Baird step off the right side of the road and into the grass below the hills on their right. They continue walking, silently skirting the hills.

They come to a place near the end of the range of hills where the braziers are ruddy circles ahead and they can make out the pillars of the mogu ruins as rigid shadows against the faintly firelit background. Large shadows occasionally move between pillars. Farther in the background and to the left of their position, there is a smear of eerie violet light against the darkness within the mogu camp.

"All right," says Shine quietly. "I'm leaving Hua here to wait for us. We'll move forward until I say to hold, and then the three of ye wait for me to report back."

Baird, watching him, touches a knuckle to his forehead in casual salute: his wordless reply.

Melancholy mimics the gesture with a little oh! of someone who has Learned A Thing and is making a note.

Lena glances at Melancholy and then gives a quick sketch of a salute herself, with a glint of good-natured amusement in her eyes. She probably doesn't salute her husband often, but if the situation calls for it…

Lena continues forward with a carefully soft tread, close behind Shine.

Hua seems perfectly content to be tethered on a long line to a tree where she can wander and snuffle at the grass and fallen leaves. She does not salute anyone as the humans leave her behind.

Shine leads them to a sort of bowl-shaped depression in the field just below the slope where the mogu terraces rise above. He signals a halt, then leans over to Baird and makes another discreet set of hand signals. Baird nods and settles down in the hollow, crouched to wait and watch, crossbow at the ready.

Shine looks back at the two women and with a gesture indicates they should get down as well, and then he slips away by himself up the slope ahead.

Lena gets down into the depression as well, a little more awkwardly in her skirt. From the way she kneels, she must not care so much if it gets grass stains on it. She checks her kerchief to make sure its still covering her hair — that's the pale part of Lena that might catch mogu eyes — and then nods to Baird, getting into position where she can both see ahead and move her hands.

Melancholy has clearly spent some time playing in the dirt or perhaps outdoors hide and go seek, because despite her usual primness, she seems right at home crouching down in the dark next to the other two. She seems more excited than afraid, as if she's been allowed into an amusing game as Little Melancholy playing with the Big Kids.

Baird is motionless, gazing ahead with the intensity and focus of a hound on a scent. Twice when big shadows move above them on the terrace he lifts the crossbow, but on both occasions he lowers it again without firing. His breathing is slow and even, and apart from the watchfulness of his manner he appears completely calm.

Lena shifts slightly each time Baird lifts his crossbow, but stills when he lowers it again, trusting in his eyes and sniper's instinct. She waits in a kind of tense stillness, like a coiled spring. More than fear or calmness, there's a sense of readiness about her, waiting for something to happen.

There is the softest of sounds from the right: a rustle in the grass, so solitary it sounds deliberate. Baird does not react but keeps his gaze trained above. Shine's voice says softly from the darkness, "Lena. It's me."

Melancholy makes an aborted half meep and slaps a hand over her mouth.

Baird turns sharply at Melancholy's movement.

Lena bites back a laugh, drawing in her breath before she actually makes a sound. Then she whispers, "How's it look? Path to the cannon clear?"

Shine slips down into the hollow with them. "Path there is clear until someone catches on to a couple of dead sentries. Area around the cannon itself not so clear. We can get to the far corner of the camp there in the east and have our pick of three cannons, but there are a couple of tents nearby and four mogu sitting outside 'em with a clear line of sight to the guns. They're not looking at 'em, but they'll see us for sure if we show up at one.

"They're isolated from the rest of the camp, though, some rocks and rubble shield 'em from the main camp, which is where most of the mogu are. If we can get in there quick and quiet and take those four out, we can get a gun."

Melancholy listens with her hand still over her mouth, eyes wide as she nods along.

Baird watches Shine in that intent, unblinking way, and then lifts the crossbow briefly. "I can draw them out. If I take one, and the rest come looking."

Shine shakes his head. "Just as likely — more — that they raise the alarm. I think we need to go at all four at once."

Melancholy removes her hand from her mouth. "I killed my felhunter earlier — I am better at killing it than controlling it — so I can silence someone for three seconds, if that will help," she whispers.

"I'd done the same," Lena says, with a nod of approval. "But in this particular case might actually be better if I called Syrah? She ought to keep one of them occupied for a while and quiet, while we handle the other three, and she's stealthy. I can handle her fine. That'd be one charm, one silence. A bolt and a knife, and then you can take the silenced, then the charmed?"

Shine nods and looks to Baird, who has been watching each of them silently. Baird nods.

"All right," says Shine. "I'll lead the safe route, we'll get into some cover, and each of us will pick a target so there's no mistaken overlap."

"We're far enough here to summon demons, or ought I go out further?" Lena asks.

"Ye can do it here. Ye can keep her quiet, aye?" Shine asks.

Melancholy listens curiously while they plan, waiting for her cue of being told when to pick a target.
"She'll not speak," Lena says with a smile, and there's steel beneath her words.

Lena quickly casts her summon, carefully precise this time, and deadly serious. The sayaad pops into being next to them with a smug smile, opens her mouth, and then clicks it shut. There's a flicker of alarm in her demonic eyes, as she looks from the warlocks to the men.

"You're charming a mogu," Lena says. "Keep him still and quiet till he's dead. Keep quiet yourself, too."

Shine nods at her and beckons the group wordlessly before slipping out into the night again. He is a faint shadow.

Baird rises, crossbow still at the ready, and follows him. He skirts a little more widely than necessary around the sayaad without looking at her.

Syrah pouts a little at Baird, but she seems unable to say a word and Baird isn't looking. Lena follows behind the two men, and Syrah slips into invisibility behind her, a faint ripple in the air of a demon in the night.

Melancholy knows her book instructions for dealing with a succubus, as she carefully makes no eye contact. She may be taking mental notes on Lena though, for future use of modeled behavior. She follows behind Lena.

Shine leads them on a meandering course toward the shadowy pillars and ruddy firelight. The mogu camp is quieter than one would expect for an encampment this size; the mogu do not seem big on conversation. Here and there an occasional rough voice sounds.

They skirt around the edge of the camp — and two dead mogu in the grass, several yards apart from one another — to the far right end, where three cannons sit on the low stone wall that surrounds the terrace. Peaked tent-roofs are visible beyond them, and as the group draws closer, they can see four mogu before the tents. Three are seated around a fire; the fourth is standing.

Shine crouches down, and Baird crouches with him reflexively.

Lena crouches as well. Syrah is probably not crouching with the team. Lena glances at Shine and nods. She's ready for his signal.

Melancholy is with the Big Kids! She also crouches.

Shine turns his head to address them. "I'll take the one on the outer right. Baird, you've got the outer left. On my signal, we'll strike, and then Lena and Melancholy, ye silence the other two as soon as. I'm asking ye to do it just after rather than simultaneous because we may want full use of those three seconds." He nods at Melancholy. "If we're all ready, I'm going to get into position now."

Baird gives him the knuckled salute again to acknowledge.

"I'll be inner right, you're left," Lena says to Melancholy. She doesn't move to get any closer to the mogu, but there's an intent quality to her gaze that indicates that someone she's controlling is doing so.

Melancholy uses the knuckled salute with gusto.

Shine nods once, rises into a half-crouch, and soundlessly draws a pair of knives with blades blackened so they don't catch the light. He slips forward into the deeper shadow of a pillar, and then he's gone.

Melancholy takes out her athame as Shine starts moving, keeping it low.

Baird raises his crossbow and levels it. He waits.

A small stone drops from low in the air beside the outer right seated mogu with a click so faint it's nearly inaudible beneath the crackle of the fire, and rolls a small distance.

Baird does not appear to move in response, but the crossbow snaps and a bolt stands from the outer left mogu's throat at the same moment that a black blade opens the throat of the mogu on the right. Baird is already moving in a swift, economical flow to reload the crossbow.

At the same moment, Syrah shimmers into visibility in front of the inner right mogu. He starts to rise, when the demon catches his gaze. He pauses, half-standing, staring at the sayaad in dazed fascination.

Melancholy is already naturally behind in her casting because her reaction time is nowhere near the others, but this only means she's also following instructions. It takes her a few seconds to decidedly clench her fist held over the athame as she focuses on the inner left mogu, who has just begun to open his mouth to bellow, and finds himself abruptly choked by a felhunter's lock.

The mogu Baird shot has developed a second crossbow bolt, this one from an eye. He keels slowly over from his seat as Baird reloads again.

Shine moves fast to make use of his three seconds, and the silently choking mogu gets an uncomfortable knife to the kidney before a second one cuts his throat.

The crossbow snaps a third time and the charmed mogu stops staring at the sayaad because he too has developed an acute case of eye-bolt.

Shine stands over a mogu corpse and lifts a finger to his lips in the universal signal for silence. He listens.

Lena holds her breath, one hand raised, and waits to see if any of the mogu stirs. Her reluctantly obedient demon holds her whip ready without cracking it, which from her expression is a major source of indignation.

Baird watches intently, his gaze shifting from Shine to the camp at his back and then back to Shine again. He has a bolt in hand but has not reloaded the crossbow.

Shine relaxes and shakes his head. He makes a small hand signal, and Baird murmurs, "All clear," to the two women, and rises to ease into the light at the edge of the encampment. He does not join Shine by the fire; instead he moves silently around the perimeter to their left to the nearest cannon and crouches to examine it.

Lena rises as well, and Syrah steps back to stand by Shine, as if waiting for instructions. She still doesn't speak, but her eye-roll expresses pretty clearly how she feels about the situation. Paying no obvious attention to the sayaad, Lena moves after Baird and looks down at the cannon, circling it to check for handholds.

Melancholy follows Lena and Baird, peering curiously at the cannon. "This makes me sure that I don't know anywhere near enough about cannons to know what's so unusual about this one," she whispers softly. She looks like if she had a stick, she'd be poking the cannon with it.

Baird glances up at Melancholy and gazes at her in that intent way for a moment, and then looks back to the cannon.

Shine comes to join them, moving around to stand on Baird's left, at the outermost edge of the terrace. "What d'ye think?" he asks.

Baird reaches out to touch the cannon, almost a caress. "Carriage fittings are brass. Don't know the metal of the gun itself. Ghost iron?"

Shine crouches too. "Trillium," he decides.

Baird nods. "Barrel's solid all the way around. There's no touchhole for powder or fuse." He lays his hand atop the cannon, close to its back end. "No idea how they set it off." He's silent for a moment, then rises and goes around to the front of the gun to… sniff at the barrel. He reaches in briefly and then takes his hand out and examines his fingertips. They are smudged black.

He shows Shine his hand. "Ordinary blackpowder. How do they light the charge, though?"

"Without wrecking the cannon," Lena murmurs with a nod of agreement. "Even if they'd used magic to ignite… seems likely to cause problems, with the barrel, doesn't it?"

Shine nods at Lena. "Aye."

"It's going to be heavy as shit," Baird says prosaically. "Carriage is on wheels, though, and it's downhill to the yak, so if we can get it that far, she can pull it. Getting it that far’s the trick. Have to figure out how to get it over the edge of the terrace safely."

"Oh, should we get the Voidwalkers involved?" Melancholy asks quietly, mostly to Lena. "They really can lift a great deal of weight — as I've seen personally myself. That's also the one I feel I have the best control over."

"Would leave the rest of us free in case of ambush," Lena nods, and glances to Shine and Baird. "More demons? Or void creatures, anyway."

Baird is watching Melancholy. Shine nods at her. "Aye. A fine idea." He turns and speaks down to Baird, who turns his gaze to him. "How much would ye guess they weigh?"

"They're short guns. Half-ton, maybe," Baird says. "Not a full ton, unless I'm wrong about how much trillium weighs."

Shine looks back at the two women. "Ye think a pair of voidwalkers can handle a half-ton of weight between them?"

"Between both of them?" Lena weighs this in her mind. "I think they could. One way to find out for sure, though." She raises a hand, ready to dismiss and summon.

Melancholy taps a finger by her mouth. "Let's see, a bookcase full of books can weigh several hundred pounds easily, and the ones in the Stormwind Keep are especially large. One Voidwalker alone was enough to lift that up, so, with two, that sounds like something they could possibly do. Even if it strains them to death, it's not like it's permanent," she says blithely. She readies the athame again in preparation.

Baird rises to his feet and steps back. Shine does likewise. Baird turns his head to gaze into the mogu camp and watch.

Lena gestures, and Syrah disappears into the void. She begins another summoning ritual, but quietly, and nods to Melancholy to do the same. A few seconds later, a large creature, like an elemental of void, takes form.

Melancholy starts her own — it's much slower than Lena's, but steady and precise. She appears to be concentrating intently, her lips moving ever so slightly like she's almost saying something inaudibly. Melancholy's void walker emerges silently into the air, and on appearance, waggles its hands like jazz hands.

Melancholy pops up a black lipped smile. "Ta daaa," she whispers.

Shine nods approvingly. "Baird," he says, and the younger man turns back. "I'll keep watch. Ye get down off the wall and guide the operation."

Baird nods. He eyes the voidwalkers, glances back at the camp once, and then slings his crossbow across his back again and steps to the side to drop over the terrace's edge. He turns his back to the night and gazes up at the group and the gun. "Right," he says. "They're going to need to lift it from below, close to the wheels. The carriage is usually a separate piece and we don't want to just lift the barrel off it," he instructs in a hushed voice.

"Understood," Lena says, and she directs her voidwalker over to the side of the cannon. To Melancholy, she adds, "We'll want to give them a little autonomy, to manage the load."

"All right," Melancholy agrees quietly, as she points to the opposite side of the cannon with a black gloved finger. "Jhazmon, go there." And then she waits for Lena's example on how to instruct her own Voidwalker for the task itself.

Shine gazes intently into the firelit mogu camp.

"We're carrying the cannon," Lena instructs. "From below, be careful not to break it. The two of you are working together. Follow us down the incline."

Release me…. Lena's voidwalker says in response, in a voice as low and dark as the void itself. Lena does not answer it, and then the voidwalker bends to its task.

Melancholy repeats the instructions exactly, although she helpfully adds, perhaps as a forestalling, while holding up a hand, "I won't be releasing you either, to be clear, so don't bother asking." She sets her hands together up by her chest as she smiles at her Voidwalker.

Jhazmon echoes Lena's voidwalker, as it bends obediently to the same task at hand.

"Okay," says Baird quietly. He backs up a couple of steps and then to one side. "They'll have to ease it down together. Dropping it fast could unseat it too." He beckons with both hands.

Lena's voidwalker obeys the gestured instructions perfectly. She keeps her eyes on it as she drops down off the terrace as well.

Jhazmon is as much of an obedient echo as his studious and exacting master (mistress?) is to her teacher. But Melancholy isn't only keeping an eye on her void walker; her attention seems much more focused and deliberate, as though she's not as used to having a demon out at all for an extended time or complex task. She doesn't move anywhere yet because of it, a bit like someone who can't walk and chew gum at the same time.

Shine remains atop the wall too, poised in the shadow of a pillar and gazing west into the camp. Large shadows continue to move occasionally through the distant firelight.

Abruptly, Baird — who is looking upward into the camp area from which they've just come — says sharply, "Shine," and steps forward past the cannon to reach a hand up toward Melancholy.

Behind her, from the shadows behind the tents where the dead mogu lie, two ghosts are drifting toward them, their faces malevolently twisted masks.

Melancholy shudders, like she's felt a gust of something cold, and blinks at Baird for a moment before turning to look over her shoulder. "Oh, spirits," she says, and the tone is both a confirmation, and somehow a bit of a minced oath. "What can I — do we banish them? Can we banish them?" she asks Lena.

"The damn spirits," Lena says, not mincing her oaths, her face twisting with annoyance. "We should've counted on that, the way they carry on. Can't banish undead, no. But they're just soul energy, aye? We can drain that."

"Soul energy, right, yes, of course," Melancholy says. She lifts the athame up, and targets the one on the left, because that was her last target designation, so it might seem to follow she still is. It takes her a little moment to fully complete the initial cast for [Drain Soul], as she tethers the fel to funnel the spirit's energy to herself.

Shine has drawn knives and stepped toward the spirits' path, but he halts, seeming confident of his Souls Expert Wife and her Goth Apprentice. He turns his watchful gaze back toward the main camp.

Lena sets up a little tether of her own on the right target. That is, the one on the right, but it is also her correct target based on their previous assignments. When the channeling concludes and the spirit is not quite gone, she casts a quick corruption and channels the drain again. This time, the spirit disperses.

As Melancholy drains her own spirit, four little glowing soul shards form to hover above her hand over the athame. Her first cast ends, and she starts up a new one, not having jumped to the potential yet for putting on another spell first, simply repeating the exact same one, as the four soul shards glow and pulse, but no additional ones form. The spirit draws closer and closer, and she holds her ground. Eventually, the spirit frays, withers, and then at last disperses before it can do any harm.

Melancholy sags with relief, blowing out a breath.

Baird is smiling that crooked smile over at Lena, and then turns it up on Melancholy. "Nice," he says softly, his hand still extended up toward her.

Shine nods approval and steps back into the pillar's shadow, waiting for Melancholy to get down from the wall first.

"Thank you," Melancholy says, clearly proud of herself and lit up with praise, directing a black lipped smile at him. She puts the athame away — don't run with athame scissors, kids — and then she takes his hand to get down from the wall with a lady's delicacy.

Her left hand still has the four soul shards floating above it, tethered to the warlock. It takes her a moment to realize. When she does she gasps quietly with an oh! and holds them up. "Soul shards! Look at that. Right then, I should probably…" She tips her hand palm up, and after a little hovering, the shards drop into her palm, and she closes the black glove over them, dimming the faint shadow glow. "There we are."

Shine jumps down lightly from the wall. "Let's move before anything else turns up. Lena, Melancholy, ye walk with your demons and the gun. Baird and I will flank ye out to the sides to watch for anything on our periphery." He arches his eyebrow at Baird, who nods. "Right. To the yak, then, quiet as ye can. Baird, ye take the left. Stay sharp."

"Got it," Lena says, turning to her apprentice, "Melancholy, we can hold them up to a fair distance, but of course it's easier if we're close and keep an eye on them."

Baird takes his crossbow from his back again and heads out into the darkness toward the left. He is soon no more than a faint, elusive shadow in the night, the sort that makes you squint and wonder, 'Did that shadow move? Is it a shadow?'

Shine moves away to the right, and he actually fades completely out of sight. Show-off.

Melancholy keeps up alongside Lena, on the left, because that's her designation so far, and no one has told her otherwise. She mostly looks like a black shadow that's stood up from the ground and gained sentience. She may often look a bit like that though, even in daylight, depending on her commitment to black on the day in question. Her focus is on her voidwalker again, and she walks with a bit of an autopilot sense to her, like she's just given herself an internal order of walk, follow.

Lena does naturally blend into the shadows to some extent, but not in an invisible or even near-invisible way — more in a way that could be missed by someone not looking closely. She seems to have a sense of how to move so as to not draw the eye and make little sound. Her focus is on her voidwalker, but also on her apprentice, keeping watch in case something in the night wants to attack a sentient shadow. If so, the shadow will be protected.

"There," says Shine's voice at last, and the pale shape of Hua still grazing idly by the trees comes into view through the darkness. The yak lifts her shaggy head at the approach of familiar people.

"Have them set the cannon just there on the road," Shine says, materializing again beside Lena. "Then we'll bring her over and hitch her to it."

Baird approaches from beyond Melancholy, smiling. "Hey," he says. "We did it. Stole a cannon."

"Let's get it safely back before we say that," Shine cautions, but he's smiling faintly as well.

Lena stifles another laugh, and gestures her voidwalker imperiously towards the fuzzy yak. "And however it works, I expect you can puzzle it out in time."

"Oh, I mean to," says Baird in a tone that might make the cannon blush if cannons did that. He looks to Melancholy. "Your brother's going to be impressed as hell."

Melancholy laughs, a dark little bell, behind a hand as if to catch the sound before it goes very far. She perks up in a practically visible exclamation of a thought. "Well, if you're going to deliver it in person, maybe I could come with you. Then I could see the look on his face when he finds out just what Little Melancholy's been up to," she suggests brightly. "Won't he be so surprised, and impressed?"

Baird flashes that one-sided grin at her, a little broader and less one-sided than usual. "Yeah, he will. You're welcome if you want to. Could meet the Captain, too, and impress him." He looks past Melancholy to Lena. "Right?"

Lena considers for a moment, then nods. "Good moment for a meet — showing off our good work and bringing a gift."

Shine laughs quietly from where he stands by Hua, hooking her harness to the cannon's carriage. "Well, then. Let's get this yak on the road."