Recudor: Northern District

The door to the messy office swings open as the guard out front lets Frazil and Jian enter.
Just like before the place is pretty messy but the first thing frazil spots is that the personal safe she earlier cracked open is awkwardly closed back up, as best as it can with the broken mechanism.

She directs Jian to the table and briefly shows him the little mechanism on the front side of the desk.

After fiddling around with it a little Jian can confirm their theory. Each tile has a different array of symbols but only one element is ever present on one tile. Sure enough after setting each tile to their respective element an audible click can be heard from somewhere on the desk. After a little while of inspecting Jian notices a small tile on the underside of the desk that is ever so slightly misplaced and he starts fiddling around with it until he realizes it acts as a form of lever.
Another click- and on the front of the table another tile falls out of place, revealing a keyhole.


The door opens to the office opens. From outside comes a face all too familiar to Jian. It's sam, and she's in her previous undercover get-up, a loose tank-top, tight pants and her hair pulled back into a ponytail. She seems somewhat surprised to see him.

On the way over, Frazil handed Jian the diary to look at. Considering that he's one of the Easterners, it only makes sense that he should get the info.

Looking at the keyhole Frazil sighs. Well at least he wasn't a complete idiot. Though, what the hell is the point of a super simple puzzle that just unlocks a keyhole? Could have just put the keyhole in the first place.

He gets up, stretching once, his tall appearance making it a bit uncomfortable sometimes to kneel or bend down. Giving the keyhole a bit of a weird look, he silently tilts his head briefly, thinking his part on that well crafted, yet pointless thing. A brief inspection upon the diary that Frazil then handed him, he was about to open it.

Before he could even take a look at the first page, Sam pops in, not that he was to recognize her at first, he wasn't even facing her way. Yet, he does turn right afterwards, giving her a look filled with a lot of thought. About five seconds later, his eyes snap open a bit wider, realizing who's actually standing across of him.

"Good... god. I didn't expect for us to meet again.", he says, clearly surprised. He does know that she can't speak, so he adds a reassuring nod afterwards. "Well! It's good to have you, another pair of eyes are always helpful. And I am sure yours are sharper than ours, given your position you are in.", he exclaims afterwards, clearly complimenting that the lack of words probably are compensated by her other senses working even better.

Sam fully enters the room and closes the door behind her. She nods at frazil and then nods at jian, giving them a small waving gesture with her hand. She looks about the room briefly and then walks over to examine the safe. It's still broken but other than parts of the safe having broken from the inside out there is no sign of any water damage. She forces the safe open but it's empty. She takes out a notepad and writes on it briefly before presenting Frazil the note reading; Greetings. Are you here on investigation?

She presents Jian the note as well.

The note handed to him, he gives her a nod to confirm her question, then taking over to explain who Sam is to Frazil.
"Her name is Sam. We had our first encounter a while back at a place called Caslte Vikuur, crazy ride and the likes, not sure how much you heard of that yet. In any case, she's fine, there's no harm in telling her what you're working on, she's been good with us back then. It's good to see that she's in a better condition now, it used to look a little grim back then."

Without much of a pause, he turns to Sam afterwards.

"I personally don't know the details that well, yet. I briefly read over some of it. I mostly tagged along after I was asked about the combination of the desk's locking mechanism...", his finger pointing at the keyhole Frazil is currently inspecting, he then continues, "For some reason, there's just another lock behind it once we snapped open the first one. Are you keen on opening those things without having the actual key? I bet you're just as curious about it as we are."

Sam shifts over to the desk to examine the keyhole. After a brief while she shakes her head and shrugs before writing another note; I have lost my pick at the Castle, they are not sold here so I am having them ordered from up north.

She continues examining the rest of the room, briefly picking up various papers to skim over them, but she finds nothing else of interest. She writes another note; We could break it. But... the blues won't like that. Never stopped me before.

Frazil nods at Jian's explanation, then turns her attention back to the lock. While picking the lock would be ideal, I'm not going to just leave it here for whoever else to get to it first. The guard aren't being all that helpful to my own investigation, I don't see why I should go out of my way for theirs. Give me just a moment, I've got this.

A small trickle of water makes its way up Frazil's body to her finger where she has pressed it to the keyhole. Once she has filled the mechanism, she uses the freeze expansion trick again. This time making sure to freeze from the depths of the lock, out to her hand, in order to pop the tumblers free from the setting. Just in case the lock isn't a direct latch, she wants to be able to get inside to any rods, wires, or the like that would operate a mechanism within the desk. Also, if she's lucky, she'll be able to put the tumblers back, and make it look like just a broken setting. That part is a long shot though, as she is using a form of brute force.

Stepping back just in case, he just gives off one, quite obvious concerned look. He just inspects her going at it with her attempt of getting open the lock. Not that there would be a different way, given that the key seems to not be anywhere, Sam not having her pick either. Yet, he personally didn't even search yet, maybe he should've checked before, too late now though, he thinks.
"Let's hope that cuts it", he exclaims, standing behind Frazil like someone would watching a person setting of self-made fireworks, crossing his arms.

There is a faint scraping and crackling as frazil works the lock. After a short while Sam's attention returns to the desk where the two others are trying to open a secret compartment. After a short moment there is a click, followed by a snap and the lock is bust.

Frazil tugs on the little compartment and it slides out of the desk only to reveal a disappointingly  empty compartment only about half as tall as the lock itself was.

Sam shrugs, figuring it was either never used or someone had found out the whole thing prior, and turns her attention back to the rest of the room. She pulls out a small camera, the style of which is outlandish and outdated to frazil, and begins to snap pictures of various parts of the room for study later.

Frazil sighs. Really? She taps around the empty socket the compartment was in, looking for yet another false/puzzle/lever/lock type thing. Surely this whole thing wasn't a wild goose chase!

He would sigh, but he isn't as connected to this case as Frazil seems to be. Yet, the size of the compartment compared to the lock does strike him odd, so he taps Frazil's shoulder.
"See the size difference of the compartment compared to the lock? Maybe there's something we're missing? We should take a closer look, really.", he then simply says after leaning closer to her, pointing at the compartment to point out what he said.

With Jian's suggestion in mind Frazil examines the compartment a little closer. While from the top there doesn't seem to be anything amiss, the bottom seems to hold a tiny hole just big enough for something the size of a sewing needle.

Hoping this is the end of this far to intricate lock frazil uses her magic one last time to conjure up a small ice needle that she inserts into the hole. Sure enough the bottom of the compartment lifts up after being pushed by the ice.
Jian leans in to take out the wooden plate that was acting as the false bottom whilst frazil gets up again.

There are photos of Feli standing inside the militia tent, with a note clipped to one reading; "A girl this age accepting bounties. Something is amiss. Should I die at the Eman Ytiurcsbo Inn tonight it will confirm my suspicions."

Underneeth the Photo is a sealed letter, directed at someone simply named "Lover", alongside a small case with a pretty necklace within.
There is also an oddly shaped key alongside a note on how to open the Safe.

Frazil laughs. Already know how to open the safe, thanks. In the mean time, she opens the letter and scoots closer to Jian so he can read it too. As they're reading, it occurs to her... Isn't that RD's friend... the one Jack mugged?

"That seems to be her indeed... Well, this is quite an interesting thing to discover now, isn't it? This case might be a bit more connected to us than we might think at this rate. Not sure, maybe we should see where this leads us and then, given the context, maybe inform RD with what's going on, at the same time... I might just use that to then ask RD about the plan I had in mind with my own case I am working on."

He shuffles through his things for a moment, just checking if he has everything with him, then focusing his attention back at the pictures and Frazil.

With a brief flash Sam takes a photo of the hidden compartment. Unable to say anything she simply nods at the two and continues taking photos of the rest of the room.

A brief knock interrupts the group and the door opens just enough for the guard to see inside. "Excuse me," he says with a bit of a gruff voice. "Are you about done? We are going to start clearing out the place soon, if you don't mind."

Frazil raises her voice so the guard can hear her. Should only be a few more minutes, thanks. She then turns to Sam in a more hushed voice. What's with the pictures?

The guard nods and then closes the door behind himself.

Sam shrugs mockingly then writes down another note; Guards. Can't trust em. They try to keep people from sticking their noses into places they don't belong but they have a deal with the militia to not withhold information regarding bounties. Photos are for study in-case they won't let me back in again.

Sam takes a brief look around the room, taking a few more pictures of places that catch her interest- most notably an open vent in the ceiling with a broken fan. She packs up her things and waves goodbye, getting ready to leave the office.

Frazil gathers up her own batch of things, including her sketch book, and the journal which she retrieves from Jian. Oh? You working a bounty too, Sam? Mind if I ask which?

Sam shakes her head vaguely but gives Frazil a friendly smile, something that seems to be a bit of a rarity around here. She writes down a brief note; No bounty. Work for the Trader's Guild.

Ah. Well if you need any help, or come across something useful. I have much less qualms against sharing of information than the local guard. I'm working 196 BTW. With that, Frazil drags Jian back to the house, pretty much done for the day. She plans to examine the journal a bit closer as it seems to be the only lead.