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This particular excursion was going to leave a bad taste in Éliane’s mouth. She was a pragmatic person as almost everybody else in the team, but as a member of the Household Guards, one of Skael’s highest officers in both keeping the peace and protecting the Overseer, a mission that had her cavorting with criminal elements –pirates—for transport left her feeling uncomfortable. This was reinforced by the fact that the favor was predicated on some particularly nasty quid pro quo—removing rival criminal elements, no matter how pragmatic or sympathetic Captain Bikke tried to phrase the entire thing. 

There were no objections from the rest of the party, though; they needed discrete passage, and taking out a criminal element was still taking out a shithead, even if some other crime lord was going to benefit from it. No doubt Esben would take no issue with it, though. That was the difference with SEED, and it was part of why Éliane had left that organization, even if she had been temporarily subordinated back into it for part of her overall mission to stop the Blight. 

Standing in front of the mansion as the others discussed their plan to infiltrate the place, she shook her head. Should this have been planned [i]before[/i]? Nonetheless, Éliane always had a tried-and-true trick. In fact, Izayoi had already suggested it, even though the flow of the conversation was away from simply blowing up the front entrance and mounting a massive frontal attack.

Because that was what Éliane would do, naturally. 

[b]“I would just like to say that I’m still in favor of a frontal assault,”[/b] she added, unhelpfully unfortunately, given that Esben was already infiltrating and opening the gate. 

With a sigh, she stepped through as it opened. [b]“Okay, fine. But don’t rely on me to keep things quiet. Everyone knows why I’m no longer in SEED, right?” [/b]