By the time Cayde came stumbling out of the staff door and caught Tony's eye, absolutely no one in the room was listening to him anymore as they had devolved into a dissatisfied and accusatory howling once he had declared whatever mystery lot he had just thrown to them sold. It didn't matter at all that his attempt at personable chatter for the lucky winner stuttered as he watched Cayde's weird swaying and the rope trailing after him, and that his lip and eyebrow slowly raised in a question that wasn't nearly as important as, How do we get out of here now?

Cayde, or however much of him was functioning up there, was half a story above Tony, and across what was effectively a brewing mosh pit, closer to their known elevator evacuation route. Closer, too, to the three brutes that had come crashing out before him, position by then at the top of the stairs leading down into the bowl containing the auction, and Tony and the by then very restless auctioneer on stage. Without bothering to finish his sentence, Tony shoved the microphone back at the frazzled man, creating a spike of feedback as they fumbled with it and the auctioneer yelped, "What, huh?" out over the crowd. He was the only one that could barely hear Tony then as Tony slowly backed away, effusively thanking everyone for being such a wonderful audience as he tried to edge his way toward the wall under Cayde.