Peter's thoughts turned back to the matter at hand.
"We couldn't have a quiet word, could we?" he whispered, indicating the double doors leading to the stairwell.
Intrigued, Tank, still holding his half full pint of beer, squeezed past the two of them before heading through the doors, followed immediately by Janice and Peter.
"I'm all ears," slurred the rugby playing dragon, slightly intoxicated from drinking with all his teammates.
Despite the seriousness of the situation, Peter burst into laughter at the exact same time as Janice. Tank watched them both, with a less than amused look on his face.
"Well, you're not eyes, or a nose, are you?" mocked Peter through a fit of giggles, referring to his rugby inflicted injuries.
A few seconds passed, during which time Peter and Janice shrugged off their giggles. Peter wanted Janice to tell Tank exactly what she'd told him, but first there was something else he had to do.
"In some ways it's a shame you've had so much alcohol. I could really use you being sober for all of this," pleaded Peter.
"Well, it's a bit too late for that now," chipped in Janice, wondering why Peter would even mention such a thing. "We could of course make him drink a million cups of coffee, if you like?"
Having turned to face Peter while saying all of this, she'd failed to notice Tank's barely audible whispers to himself. Janice turned back just in time for the rugby playing dragon to give her his biggest smile.
"I'll be alright," he announced, clear as a bell. "In fact, I'm already feeling a lot better. What is it that's so important, you needed to drag me out here... all secretly? Engagement announcement?"
Peter started coughing furiously as Janice looked on, and Tank just smiled. Fun over, Peter asked Janice to recount exactly what she'd told him, word for word. When she got to the part about the black box and the metal inside, Tank stopped her.
"Uhhhh... can you just repeat the last part please?"
She did, and the concerned look on Peter's face mirrored itself on his friend's.
"Did he take it with him?" asked Tank.
Peter shook his head in response to his friend's question.
"We have to get a look inside his office," exclaimed Tank.
"There are no spare keys, and the chairman's gone off with his," answered the bubbly blonde, wondering what on earth was going on.
"Who said anything about needing a key?" whispered the rugby player, squeezing between the two of them, starting to climb the stairs.
Both Janice and Peter followed.
"What's so important about the box and the metal inside?" asked Janice, all innocently.
Deciding he should take this one, particularly as it was he who'd gotten her involved in all of this, Peter spoke in hushed tones, even though they were the only ones in the stairwell and probably on the whole of the upper level.
"It's probably nothing," he replied, hoping this would be enough. But from the look on her face, it clearly wasn't. In return, she raised her eyebrows at him sceptically, on reaching the top of the stairs.
"It's related to my job at Cropptech. I can't tell you all about it because it's top secret I'm afraid."
It wasn't a lie a such, because the laminium was part of his job at Cropptech, and he couldn't tell her all about it. But the look that she gave him left him in no doubt at all that she really wasn't buying it.
Following Tank's giant strides across the thick, lush carpet of the function room until they arrived at the locked door to the chairman's office, given that there were no windows to see through, it was hard to see what was going to happen next. Leaning against the door, Tank quickly came to the conclusion that it was locked and quite sturdy. Turning to Janice, he asked,
"Whereabouts in the office did you say the box was?"
"On a wooden desk on the left hand side, about... hmmm, let me see. About eight feet in."
"That's all I need to know," uttered Tank, deep in thought.
Peter had a fair idea what his friend had in mind, but not exactly how he was going to do it though. And he was pretty sure Janice should be as far away as possible.
Leaning into her, the delicate scent of the perfume she was wearing intoxicating him momentarily, he just about recovered before whispering,
"I think perhaps it's better if you leave. I don't want you to get into any trouble."
In response, she jabbed a sharp finger into his chest.
"TROUBLE! I think I'm already in quite deep... don't you? And besides, I want to see exactly what the two of you are up to."
Turning, Tank gave him a look. Peter just shook his head in response.
"Well," announced Tank, "if you're staying, then you'd better stand back." While the other two had been talking, Tank had been busy casting a mantra he was used to working with back at the Emporium. Basically the mantra formed a magical shield around anything that was being worked on, which came in handy in his line of work. You wouldn't believe the number of completely unknown or uncategorised mantras, spells and artefacts the old shopkeeper had found himself with over the centuries. Sometimes barely a day passed without an explosion going off that would level a human house. If not for the shield mantra and the other mantras crisscrossing the shop's substructure, the whole area would have been decimated many times over. What the dragons living around there thought, goodness only knows.
Anyhow, Tank had cast the relatively simple shield mantra to take shape behind the office door, some three feet back. It should in theory catch the door itself, and any flying fragments from the wood, lock or hinges. With Peter and Janice both having stood back, Tank took four steps back, turned and... CHARGED! Hitting the door smack bang in the middle with his left shoulder, adding just enough of his dragon power to make sure there was no doubt about the outcome, in an ear splitting CRUNCH the door flew inwards and came to a stop as it hit the invisible wall that was Tank's cunning mantra. Janice looked on, astonished, as Tank straightened himself up, brushed himself off and set about pulling the door out of the office, placing it up against one of the walls of the much bigger function room.
"Ohhh this is going to be sooo bad," the petite little blonde muttered, hardly able to comprehend what she'd got herself into. It was a good job she didn't know what was really going on.
Walking over, Peter was just about to step through the door when Tank's outstretched arm stopped him.
"One second," he said, muttering something under his breath, the flicker of a faint blue light dispelling the shield mantra, freeing the room of any obstacles. As one, the two friends gazed in and sure enough, sitting exactly where Janice had said, was the black box in question.
Having already decided to keep a look out after the deafening noise of the door coming off, Janice was sure staff would be charging up the stairs at any moment to find out exactly what was going on. She had no idea how on earth she was going to get out of all of this, but it seemed massively important to Peter to go through with it, and she did trust him implicitly. What she didn't know was that as well as the shield mantra, Tank had also added a simple noise suppression mantra that any eleventh year nursery ring student could have come up with. Nobody else would have heard the sound of the door coming off, not even if they'd been in the adjacent corridor.
Tiptoeing beneath the threshold of the office, careful not to make any noise at all, Tank and Peter approached the box as if it were a bomb about to go off. It wouldn't be long before they realised the irony.
Putting his hand on his friend's shoulder, Tank indicated that he should go first, and Peter was in no mood to argue. Carefully, Tank got within an arm's length of it. From where he was, he moved in a semicircle around the box, examining it from all angles, mindful of touching the surface it sat on. All the time, Peter stood and watched, holding his breath. Part of him hoped that it had all been a mistake and that on busting the door down, there would be no sign of any box, or the rare metal that it contained. Unfortunately that wasn't the case, and that sinking feeling had once again started to wrap itself around his insides.