- The City East

@Wen Rui ᵈᶦˢᵍʳᵃᶜᵉᵈ ᵖʳᶦⁿᶜᵉ A variety of emotions were cycling through her, brief flashes of fear followed by a mix of disappointment and frustration as her eyes glanced between each of the people, watching their leader as he stopped his followers and spoke. “Merchants?” she repeated sarcastically looking them up and down. “I’ve seen your type and sharing is never an option. All or nothing right?”
She kept her eyes on the man, watching him pick up the cup. Her breath was slow, and as she watched it she found herself holding her breath a handful of times, aware of what would happen if it were to fall. Then as the man spoke she rolled her eyes before glancing down at the pouch tied around her waist and beginning to untie it, aware that there were too many people to fight, and that even she was willing to risk it, they were too organised and too well put together for any makeshift plan runnin through her head to work.
“I don’t do groups, and I know enough of this city to know that generosity is fake.” she finished in lacing the pouch and held it out to the leader, glaring at him as she did so. “Take the , it’s not worth the ing hassle.” she kept her voice low, just loud enough for the man to hear but being cautious of the family above them.

@Han Xing Guang ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵒⁿ ᵀʰᶦᵉᶠ Holding his hand up to prevent his bandits from moving in closer Rui walked towards them, his other hand tucked firmly behind his back he walked with a natural elegance. The intruder seemed to be working independently from anyone else and it amused the bandit leader. He wondered what sort of short man would be robbing a house alone in such a prominent area, whoever he was he must have had massive balls or been completely stupid. It was up to Rui to find out which.
"Hold off." Rui commanded, pausing mid-step as he tilted his head to one side. Since he was curious about the other he didn't want to react rashly and cause an incident that could be avoided. "We are simply merchants with a desire to share." He toyed with the intruder in a teasing tone. "Would you like to share with us? Or... Would you like to cause problems for us?" Rui scooped up a ceramic cup from a nearby table, waving it in the air between them whilst nimbly rolling the cup between his fingertips. One mistake and it would fall to the floor. If he dropped it the sheer cracking sound would alert the whole house, along with their neighbours, that something was taking place.
"It's your choice whether you join us or not, perhaps I'll feel generous and give you a nice cut of our... borrowing."

@Wen Rui ᵈᶦˢᵍʳᵃᶜᵉᵈ ᵖʳᶦⁿᶜᵉ As soon as she was aware of other people approaching, Xingguang held her breath, trying to work out what she could do. She didn’t know who it was but her brain was working overtime trying to come up with some ideas as to who it was, her mind suddenly becoming certain that she’d messed up and got the times of the guards routes wrong and that now she was surrounded by the city guard.
‘A month of work down the gutter…’ the thought echoed through her mind. ‘Now you’ll never get out of here, you’ll die here as a nobody, no one will remember you…’ the thought continue, interrupted as the sound of a man’s voice came a bit too loud for her liking and her eyes trailed to the wooden boards above her, hoping that the merchant and his family would stay asleep, or at least stay upstairs.
Weighing up her options, Xingguang gripped her dagger tightly, working out whether she should just turn and deal with the consequences or bolt for the door and hope to take anyone blocking her way by surprise. Sighing as she realised that while she was fast, she probably wasn’t fast enough to get out of the building, and so she turned, a brief look of confusion as she saw that these definitely weren’t the city guard.
“Come any closer and I will slice your faces off…” she threatened, eyes glancing over the people and noting their clothes, trying to work out who they were and how she could get out of the situation without losing the gems and metals she’d grabbed already. “What business do you have here?”

@Han Xing Guang ᶜᵒᵐᵐᵒⁿ ᵀʰᶦᵉᶠ Rui and his group of bandits had pulled off a few successful robberies in the area. This area wasn't as well guarded as say the north of the city, and that worked to Rui's advantage. The group had recently stole enough weapons from a swordsmith to give every bandit a new weapon of some kind. Rui was fine with the daggers he had and instead had taken a set of keys for his own. Keys that belonged to every local house in the area. With his bandits Rui had been planning to sweep through the east section of the city and haul everything out to traders and investors on the underground market. It was a solid plan which would earn them a lot of money. Rui perched on a nearby roof, instead of his usual white veil a deep crimson one sat around his mouth and connected to his undershirt, concealing the majority of his skin save for his eyes. His bandits were dressed exactly the same to aid in Rui's visual confusion tactics. He glanced over to the buildings surrounding the jewelcrafters, gesturing with his fingertips at his men. All of whom began scaling down the buildings. Rui ran forward and jumped across to the target's roof, pausing when he heard a thud. It wasn't so loud but it echoed just like wood. He climbed down from the roof and slipped in the already opened entrance. There he noticed someone scrambling at the goods, his men slipped in through windows as well as the back entrance, all surrounding the intruder.
"Show yourself!" Rui commanded, as the group zoned in on the person.

@Wen Rui ᵈᶦˢᵍʳᵃᶜᵉᵈ ᵖʳᶦⁿᶜᵉ The past few weeks had been risky, spending her nights walking through the east of the city and the areas where all of the merchants had their workshops and stored some of the important valuables that they were planning to sell. She had tried her best to avoid standing out too much, avoiding any of the city guards that she could whilst also trying to remember the routes that the guards had taken.
She had split her attention between those, and the various buildings as she tried to decide which would be best to steal from, trying to devise a way to get into the buildings, take what she could, and leave before anyone would be alerted to her presence. In the end she'd decided on a jewelcrafters home and workshop. From what she'd seen, the jewelcrafter and his family stayed towards the upstairs of the building in the evenings, and the workshop and storage was all kept downstairs, in an area a little further from their living areas.
Now today was the day. She wasn't wearing her usual clothes, instead wanting something a darker colour, something that would allow her to fade into the darkness so much easier. So, she'd managed to find some of her older clothes, a pair of dark leather pants, a linen long sleeved coat, and a fur vest that, while not as dark as she'd have liked, was more fitting than her regular offwhite garb.
Gritting her teeth, she gripped a knife in her hand and made her way to the building, pushing her knife through the crack in the door, sliding it upwards to push the wooden plank out of it's casing, quickly pulling the door open and grabbing the rest of the plank before it could fall to the ground. She smirked, glancing around checking behind her and quickly getting to raiding the workshop, frantically grabbing whatever stones and metals looked expensive to her and pushing them into a pouch that was tied around her waist, desperate to get as much as she could to be able to fund her way out of the city.