Maeve stood casually leaning against the white marble wall, watching Sinbad working through a series of stretches as he limbered up. She especially liked the one where he stood turned away from her and bent over to touch his toes, though she would never admit to that.
Sinbad practically jumped up, ready and energized. It took Maeve a second longer to drag her eyes all the way back up to his face. He pretended not to notice, that the small smug smile playing on his lips was completely unrelated to catching her check him out.
"You ready for this?" He asked, bouncing from one foot to the other to keep warm and limber.
She cracked her knuckles and lightly bumped his shoulder with her fist. "Let's do this."
He clasped her right hand with his, the sheer energy of him rolling off of him in waves. This was the kind of stuff he lived for and he was doing it with her. The burning in his eyes pulled her in for a moment but then she grinned wolfishly and regained her focus. Completely in sync they nodded to each other and let go. Quietly they walked through the halls, Sinbad first, Maeve bringing up the rear. Every corner, every doorway they passed was a potential trap they navigated slowly and with the utmost care.
They stopped at a pre-arranged spot. Sinbad flattened himself against the wall, weaving his fingers together in front of him, forming a little basket. Maeve placed her right foot in Sinbad's entwined hands and with a last look of encouragement shared between them they hoisted her up to a small ledge well above head-height on the wall that had used to host a bank of windows but those had been removed when the palace grew and this wall became an inner-wall instead of an outer wall. Maeve used the dusty ledge to carefully, quietly make her way forward, unseen and unheard. Sinbad disappeared around a corner, gone to take up his own position.
The hallway eventually opened up into a large circular room and this was the trickiest bit for Maeve: she had to round the corner and lodge herself between the decorative balustrade and the wall without being seen or heard. Holding her breath she peered around the corner. She spotted two on the floor and a third wedged behind the balustrade in much the same way she was planning on doing. That just left the whole side of the room that she couldn't see- odds were good that it contained the fourth.
She decided to take out the two on the floor first- she had a pretty open shot at them and clearing them now would give Sinbad a much better chance later. She raised herself up just a little bit and started forming an orb in her hand. She took a deep breath to center herself and then, fast as she could, rounded the corner, tossed the ball and dove behind the balustrade just as objects came flying at her from the third guard.
Down-below Doubar and Firouz stood spluttering and muttering, completely drenched by the ball of water that had been flung at them. "You didn't need to soak us through lass!" Doubar complained. "We would've agreed to be dead with half the water you threw at us!"
Maeve longed to answer the tubby with a few remarks of her own but she needed to focus if her team was going to win this. Across the room Rongar winked at her before throwing yet another water balloon at her. She managed to flatten herself a little more and the balloon harmlessly splat against the wall. The problem was: she needed her hands to cast a spell to "kill" Rongar but he was such a good thrower that he would probably skewer her hand before she could finish the spell. Her problem was solved when Sinbad lowered himself from the rafters and, hanging upside down, quietly upended a bucket over Rongar's head.
Maeve caught Sinbad's eye across the room and nodded curtly. Three down, one to go; but where was Bryn? With a series of hand-movements that Rongar had taught them long ago, Maeve communicated to Sinbad what she had planned. Then she jumped over the balustrade and landed with a perfect roll that would make her teacher proud. She checked. Yup, Sinbad looked very proud.
Still no Bryn, and Maeve didn't feel like getting stabbed in the back, but what was a girl to do? In the centre of the room, on a raised dais stood a little ship in a bottle, a perfect replica of the Nomad. She and Sinbad were out to steal it while the rest of the crew were trying to guard it. 'Cause hey, what was a little light murder and larceny between friends? Maeve feinted towards the bottled ship and succeeded in drawing Bryn out. The petite sorceress literally appeared out of thin air and sent a waterspout in Maeve's direction. It was the feint that saved her, she was already moving the other way when Bryn tried to shoot her so she only needed an extra spurt of energy to launch herself across the room. In seconds the sorceresses were throwing everything they had at each other. Water sprayed everywhere, drenching the already soaked "dead" men beside them but leaving the two women bone dry as neither got a good hit off. Still Maeve was a little chagrined. The plan was to get Sinbad close enough to a pre-occupied Bryn to "kill" her, but with water being an agreed upon deadly weapon, it would be suicide to come even close to this epic water-fight.
She hadn't counted on Sinbad's ingenuity- or his robbing a fake-corpse of its water balloons. It took two tries but he managed to hit Bryn over the head with one of his projectiles. Shocked, she looked up, dropping her defences that same instant. Maeve was not fast enough pulling back her own advance though, so accidentally blasted the poor girl.
"Hey!" Bryn protested, gently dripping.
"My bad!" Maeve acknowledged, practically skipping towards the bottle.
Sinbad shouted a warning but he was too late. She hadn't seen the trip-wire and wasn't quick enough to dodge the load of water balloons that came falling onto her head.
"Firouz!" Maeve huffed at the sniggering inventor.
"Welcome to the afterlife," Firouz said with a wide grin.
This just left Sinbad to jump down from the balustrade and- after a short inspection- to saunter up to the tiny Nomad and grab it.
"Well ladies and gentlemen, I guess this means I win," he said, looking far too smug.
"What? Wouldn't you say that we won?" Maeve asked, making a grab for the bottled ship.
"Nope, you're dead!" Sinbad smirked, easily dodging aside.
"The dead have risen," Doubar said, standing right behind his little brother.
"Get him guys!" Maeve shouted.
The entire crew dove onto Sinbad, pulling the prize from his hands and proceeding to get him just as soaked as they all were. Sinbad would have tried to defend himself, but he could only helplessly clutch at his stomach as he was overcome by laughter.