First rule of fight club is no one talks about the fact they are zombies

[jeoha]

WHO: Lee Chang, Bai Mingyu, Lan Wangji, Five (and potentially others?? hit us up )
WHEN: A week after the dragon shenanigans are finished
WHERE: A decrepit warehouse in the necromancy district, but like, fancy dress party fight club style
WHAT: Lee Chang secured an invite to a secretive underground fight ring where rakes like him gamble big with coin and undead lives as they put them in pit fights. The ticket was expensive, but hey, who better to steal from than a bunch of necromantic gamblers?
WARNINGS: gambling, undead, theft, shenanigans, possibly things going horribly wrong we will sure find out

Lee Chang was almost getting used to his facade these days. A rake, a gambler, a drunk and just a little bit of an idiot (to sell the former), he was nonetheless dressed to the nines in long flowing silk (with convenient deep boob window neck line to show off the hint of zombie apocalpyse honed chiseled abs. It also distracted from the fact that the rest of him had enough fabric to hide a little box, hanging from his belt under his skirts and snug against his thigh. It was uncomfortable to walk with, but the security it granted was worth the discomfort. For within lay his secret weapons: friends tucked safely (if a little too snug) into the box, for when they needed extra hands on deck. Or swords.

At his side (and not in a box) stood Mingyu - a shining jewel on these grimy streets - and Lee Chang made a show both of clearly coveting the man (from a distance) while also attempting to be secretive in his approach. If one could be secretive when he looked like he was wearing half a brothel worth of silk. Just don't ask him where he got it.

He checked the small black card he had received as an invitation - nothing upon it save a time and an address in small gold foil letters - as they approached the warehouse. It looked abandoned from the outside, but there was a man in a dark mask loitering against the door. With a smug half smirk and a palmed purse of 10,000, the doorman waved the two hedonists into the building.

Though the interior was dimly lit, as soon as they crossed the threshold the sound of revelry was nearly deafening. People packed into the winding corridors as they spread around the central pit, leading to booths and seats and tables full of questionable food and piled high with coins and jewels for the betting. In the center pit lay the fighters - undead tearing each other limb from limb until one was no longer fit to keep standing. It took everything in his power not to scowl, but Lee Chang managed to feign piqued interest instead, leaning over to whisper and point to Mingyu. "Let's find somewhere to talk."

Once lost into the crowd, Lee Chang pulled Mingy to the side - a dark corner where they could speak in private, voices lost to the din of the crowd.

[ ooc: I'm gonna make a few starters, as well as an ooc thread for "things that the lot of them planned to do during the heist planning that i just thought of now but my character totally planned in advance" in case anyone has any ideas mid thread! ]

Comments

OOC: Heist Planning

[jeoha]

Use this thread to pitch ideas for what they plan to do / add in elements you think of later that you think your character would have planned in advance!

Mingyu

[jeoha]

"Alright. I think we should split up, take a look around. Keep in eyesight. I've got our friends -" He tapped his thigh where the box was located, "And I'll pull them out if we get in trouble, or when we need them."

release of lan zhan from the gd box!!! | lee chang

[downswing]

[ Wei Ying will have last laugh of it — how Lan Wangji stumbled, from chaotic possibility to certain disaster at a scattered stride. What did he know of the miniature coffin to which he entrusted himself? Only that the witches Lily and Hermione brokered the deed, and that sorcery, gravity and a haze of the mind propelled him within without question. Bone steeled, but body — lessened with each step, until his mind and his biology both compromise their clarity, sundered. He knows himself, a man grown to hearty measure. Feels, with intimate, itches and prickles, the shrivelling of his skin.

No matter. The sect Gusu Lan prides in proselytises confinement. One knee bent, the second follows. He bides his time in captivity on hard, plain ground that is splintered rough by what were once diminutive striations. The grain aches in punishments of friction. Now and then, tumult erupts in Lan Wangji's torture chamber, shifting it like roiling waters. He thinks, were he a man of more wine than meditation, he might take sick.

Time races itself. In a world of detail, each second dilates. Then, the token signals are exchanged, a staccato succession of what might be Lee Chang's fingers rapping the skins of the box, translating as tectonic vibrato within it — and Lan Wangji extricates himself..

He comes to in unfamiliar, if not unanticipated dark, in the dubious splendours of an insalubre location. Dust motes and angry scratches on wall posts and the looming, heaving pillars of halls that barely linger upright. They infiltrate the venue of 'an underground fight' — then, no doubt, Lee Chang has delivered Wangji after inserting him unseen on the premise, in the privacy of the first back quarter of their fine, hosting establishment. The place bears those marks: humidity, mould, rats scuttling at their feet. Briefly, Lan Wangji is a body recalling itself to scale, confused by dysphoria. Small, now great again, disoriented. His legs nearly give.

On a hunting dog's instinct, he raises Bichen before him, yet fettered — lowers the blade, gaze bright-white and barely blinked, once he sees and knows Lee Chang before him. ]

What do we face? [ And it burns him, the craving to kick at the box, if not for the private understanding that it has helped more than hindered him. ] What do you need?

[jeoha]

For the most part, we face drunks and gamblers, [ He says mildly, watching Lan Wangji emerge with a sympathetic twisting of his stomach. He would never get used to magic, especially not magic like this. It was horrifying. ]

For the rest - necromancers, many of them. They've raised undead to fight each other for sport. Unconcious angry creatures that tear each other limb from limb.

[ He carefully replaced the box back under his skirts and smoothed them. ]

From what I can tell, they are held between fights in a back room, but I haven't managed to slip back there yet. There are a few guards between, and I am trying to keep up pretences. But--

[ He pauses, grimaces. ]

Master Lan, I do not need to illustrate to you just how deeply repulsed I am by these fights in general. If we can make the operation more trouble than it is worth--

[downswing]

[ ...then, sword in hand and Lan Wangji's gaze trailing the walls and the man and the futility of him, absent — they will.

The assignment finds them ill suited: Lee Chang fairly motivated, but often absent the instrument of his sword, the veteran experience of charging against the dead in close combat. And Bai Mingyu has shown more facilities as a courtesan than an assassin.

They want ( need ) machines of slaughter. A man of Lan alone cannot achieve what a sect might boast for its accomplishments, but, starting at a stiff pace to trail down the rooms and inspect the walls for red stains or blood aged, he will try. Clatter, beyond closed doors. The muttered sound of crowds, rearranging themselves. ]

Released, the creatures will turn on their captors. [ A pause. ] But might divert unto innocents.