Msaka waited until well past midnight, when the last pair of visitors finally straggled from the inn, somewhat tipsy from the quantities of drink they had consumed during their late night conversation. While irritated by the delay, Msaka kept his patience by rationalizing that the owner of whatever object he was sensing would most likely be deeply asleep by that time.

Msaka rose from his seat and paced quietly towards the rooms, nodding tiredly to the serving girl, who had remained awake to serve the pair and who was now closing the place up for the few hours that remained of the night. Striding down the hallway to his room, he unlocked the door and stepped through, peering about the interior. It was unlikely that the item's owner knew of his interest, but Msaka had experienced enough attempts on his life over local disputes that he wasn't about to take chances.

He sensed no one in the room, and allowed himself to relax a little. Bothersome though it was, he needed to wait a short while longer, so the girl would be in bed. As time passed, he closed his eyes and let his mind wander again, feeling for the location of the mysterious object. Being closer in his room than he had been out in the dining room, he found the sensation easier to latch onto, now that he knew what he was looking for. His eyes snapped open as he found the source of the emanations. "Two rooms down this side of the hallway, judging from the distance," he whispered quietly to himself. "But where in there..."

A moment later, he sighed, having resigned himself to the fact that he wasn't going to be able to sense it any more precisely from where he was. Stepping back to the door, he opened the door slightly, peering through the crack and listening carefully for any sounds from the common room. When he heard nothing, he slowly pulled the door further open and looked down the hall, careful not to make any noise.

As far as he could tell, the dining room was dark and empty. "Good," he thought. "A few moments more to make sure she is asleep, and then I can take care of things."

He swung the door back ajar and counted the seconds away. When he was certain at least five minutes had passed, he quickly enacted his spell of invisibility and opened the door again, stealing out into the hallway. Closing the door silently behind him, he crept down the hallway, the spell in abeyance as he moved.

Coming to a halt two doors down, he immediately faded from sight. Dropping to one knee, he peeked through the keyhole below the door's latch, noting almost total darkness in the room beyond. "Only the light through the window in there," he thought, slowly pressing his hands to either side of the lock.

He scowled as he concentrated on the lock, uncomfortable at having to deal with such a device. While he knew spells existed that could open them with ease, he didn't possess any of them. There was little enough call for it in his homeland, and he had not yet chanced across those magics in his travels. "I shall have to visit that annoying gnome as soon as I can and see if I can wrest such a secret from him," he thought briefly.

Still, he did know one spell that allowed minor manipulations to be performed, and it was that which he was going to have to rely on to get the lock open. Unfortunately, it wasn't one he'd practiced much, and he wasn't sure whether he'd be able to work the lock deftly enough to avoid alerting whomever was inside.

Invisible to the unaided eye, thin tendrils of magical energy slowly extended from his palms into the door and futher into the lock, gently meeting one another in its midst. Msaka's scowl faded, replaced by a frown of intense concentration as he focused on feeling the lock's interior with his magical probe.

The lock didn't seem very complex; unlocking it might not be so difficult after all. He altered the energy slightly, allowing it to take a slightly solid form within the lock. A few moments later, the semisolid force had gently pushed the tumblers into place. "Now, one final push..." he thought.

Msaka's efforts were rewarded a couple of seconds later, as a faint click from the lock signalled success. Msaka slowly exhaled, feeling a bit weary from his magical exertions. Silently reaffirming his resolve to locate a more suitable spell for this sort of work, Msaka rose and cautiously opened the door a fraction of an inch, thankful that the hinges were maintained well enough to let it open quietly.

Msaka waited a few moments to see if the room's occupant would be awakened by the faint light filtering through the doorway, but a faint snoring was the only sound heard from within. Msaka widened the gap just enough to fit through, and slipped inside, taking care to silently close the door once he had.

He stood still, feeling for the magical presence, and quickly sensed it to his left, near the head of the bed. Peering across the murky room, he spied several small boxes stacked there. "I hope they aren't sealed, it was enough work getting the lock open," he thought as he crept towards them, casting a wary eye at the sleeping form on the bed. Though Msaka could see that the individual was quite pudgy and sported a beard, it was too dim to clearly distinguish the flabby figure's finer facial features.

Msaka turned his attention back to the boxes at his feet. Crouching down, he felt for the object again, slowly reaching towards where it seemed to lie. A few seconds later, his hand came to rest upon one of the smaller containers. Msaka carefully felt over its surface, quickly determining that it to be some sort of small chest that would fit in one hand.

Extending his claws, Msaka pried gently at the lid, frowning when he discovered it to be locked. "I should have expected that," he thought, suppressing a sigh. "Well then, I shall just have to take it."

He carefully picked the thing up, wary of rattling whatever might be inside around. Gliding over to the door, opened it a little ways and peered out into the hall. Finding the coast clear, he slipped out, casting a glance back at the sleeping form in the room before pulling the door quietly shut.

He returned to his room and locked his own door securely before setting the small chest down on the table. "Here I go again," he grumbled, placing his hands on either end and summoning forth the same spell which had earlier gained him entry to the trader's room.

A few minutes later, the chest's lock snicked softly open. Not trusting the contents to have been so lightly protected, Msaka rose and strode to the far corner of the room, launching a Fetch spell towards the lid. A quick tug from it flipped the lid back, and a faint clinking noise told Msaka that his instincts had been correct. As he paced back to the chest, he spied a small needle protruding from just above the the lock, obviously intended to stab into whomever might open it carelessly; the faint traces of some kind of residue giving clear indication that it would be far more than a merely painful mistake.

Coming around to the front of the chest, Msaka finally lay eyes upon what it contained. Nestled within the chest's interior padding lay a large, beautifully detailed carving of a snake tooth, fashioned of an unrecognizable white stone.

Msaka stared down at the relic in silence, the power within the thing clearly visible to his magical senses and almost physically tangible as well. The tooth was unquestionably the property of the python tribe - the workmanship and the essence it held left that beyond doubt. The energies emanating from the artifact were potent, more than enough to explain his having sensed it the ways he had, and the fact that it was the creation of another tribe in his home region explained the dual feeling of familiarity and alien nature.

Finally, Msaka closed his eyes, unwilling to stare at the thing any longer as a growing sense of unease came over him. How had the trader gained it? By the power within, it must certainly be the python tribe's most powerful relic, much as the Drum of Magic was to his own. It would take no small skill or luck to have a chance at absconding with the thing, and the python tribe would be furious at the loss.

Msaka clenched his fists, growing angry at the implications. The trader, or whomever had originally pilfered the thing, may very well have set off another war much as had happened the previous year. A war which might well end up drawing his tribe into it, with all the death and destruction that would bring. Msaka growled a string of curses at the trader's meddling, even more angry at the fact that he didn't dare confront the man lest the fact that he'd taken it become obvious.

Msaka sank down into a pillow, holding his head in his hands. The tooth would be be a powerful thing to command, and could certainly be used as a weapon against the python tribe should they attack his. The shaman would certainly see it in that light, and holding the tooth combined with whatever he was going to make with the things Msaka was collecting might well be enough to dissuade the python tribe from attacking Msaka's tribe to recover it.

But for all the power that would bring, the strife it would cause might well overshadow whatever benefits resulted. The python tribe would never forgive the insult, and sooner or later they might be in a position to exact bloody revenge, even if it was years in the future. Other tribes might take poorly to the affront as well, if they felt their own relics were in danger of being stolen and exploited in the same way.

But the shaman would have his hide if he didn't turn the tooth over, and would probably have little difficulty convincing others to his view - enough so that Msaka might be considered traitorous for having concealed his possession of the thing.

Msaka groaned softly, feeling slightly ill. Handing it over to the shaman was the safest thing to do personally, as being branded a traitor would most likely get him killed by his own tribe, especially with the shaman's anger driving them. Yet returning it to the python tribe would probably be better for his people in the long run, even if it meant the shaman's wrath. Torn between the two choices, he raised his eyes, his gaze falling upon the tooth once again.

Msaka took a deep breath, shivering slightly, as he came to his decision. The tooth had to be returned, in spite of the risk. He would simply have to ensure that the shaman didn't find out about it.