Empty. The damned apartment was empty. Marluxia had kept tabs on where people of note lived, and Sal was one of those in recent memory that needed to keep a tab open. Finding his place was no problem. But he didn't expect it to be empty.

Not only empty, but not lived in. Looks like a good tenday or more, by the dust in the room and the condition of the food. Carefully, the halfling took his time to investigate the place. It didn't seem like Sal was planning to be gone that long, but the condition of the place suggested otherwise.

Either he got himself a lady, found himself unlucky, or was called away for something important. Marluxia chuckled. Probably got unlucky. Just his luck. In any case, the bottle of liquor on the floor was good enough, so he took it up and began to take deep gulps as a down payment for what was owed him. It had been a long night. The early rays of dawn were creeping up over the Sunrise wall, and he was tired.

Only - Marluxia had been in this business a long, long time. He did have to make a note before laying down. He may have been shit on, but he wasn't going to let exhaustion keep him from shitting on the person who put the asshole in his direction. At the very least, Sal needed to know what was coming.

Finding a pen and paper, a note was quickly scribed in a classic Clink code - Sal would get it, few others would, not after the organization dissolved years ago - and placed in a location Sal would know to look. They may not have been close friends, but Marluxia knew Sal better than most. Consider this a down payment and fulfillment of any favors you thought I owed you, he thought to himself as he put the note in its place, disposing of any evidence of a note being written in the process.

After the bottle was finished, the note hidden, and food eaten, the drunk and very relieved halfling decided it was time to lay down and rest. If Sal even thinks to mention this as a breach of hospitality, I'll give it to him straight. He owes ME. Even so, I need to see that horned freak soon... Marluxia did not take long at all to fall straight into a deep sleep in the bed of Salxius's apartment. Tucked away safely in the abandoned home of an associate, the halfling rogue knew only peaceful sleep in his final moments, as he did not wake to see the day mature, nor any of the days that followed thereafter.