Sign, Steal, Deliver

[Inoadar]

26th of Spring, 513 AV

'Tonight?' he croaked silently, 'I have to get it tonight?'

Inoadar didn't mind a challenge, but it was already late and he had only left The Spot a few chimes ago. Just long enough to turn a pair of corners, find a blind spot, and unroll the parchment to see the instructions for his new task. It had mentioned a home in the 'Docks' district, one with which he was quite familiar. It mentioned the 'Bayden' family, one with which he was not.

It mentioned a signet ring. Inoadar could guess that whoever belonged to the signet was more well known than this vague 'Bayden' family. It stood to reason that the signet would be used to validate things that the real owners of the signet would normally oppose. The simplest thing would be to wait and see what newly authorized ordinances came to light under protest. But, of course, that was no doubt exactly what the signet owners were trying to prevent.

If he knew who the signet belonged to, it would probably help him deduce who stood to gain by wielding an unauthorized signet. But, that would also give away information the owners wanted suppressed. He sighed, rolled the parchment back up and took a moment to consider what he knew.

He knew the docks. He was confident that his theory was correct. That the signet was already stolen and that the owners suspected who'd taken it. 'Why then,' he began to himself, '...if the owners were influential enough to even HAVE a signet of any significance,' he continued, '...why wouldn't they just confront this 'Bayden' family with a crew of muscle and be done with it?'

The answer was as immediate as it was obvious: Politics. Facades of dignity and non-involvement had to be maintained. This was being "farmed out", as they say. Probably, they wished to have the fact that they had allowed it to be stolen in the first place kept from certain ears. Good enough. This probably meant the Bayden family home was a farmed out location as well. Wealthy, influential citizens didn't have their homes in The Docks district.

He needed to find the right house, get inside of it, locate the stolen ring and get back in, oh... He looked at the night sky, thinking about the vague deadline, 'it must be done tonight.' He figured he had about six bells. Luckily, he was not that far from his room at Tarsin's Boarding House.

[Inoadar]

He hurried there and set himself up in his 'old man' disguise, with the gray-streaked wig, a beat-up old hat and the 'putty' gloves and collar, which imitated wrinkled, spotted skin. He added the nose-tip, ash-lightened brows and a thin goatee. He spent a good half bell, touching up his face with putty, aging cream, a few liver spots and a mole. He realized that he needed to update, or rather 'back'-date his wardrobe with a few 'classic' styles. Which was to say, items out of style for a good thirty years or so.

The clothes he had would do for tonight's jaunt though. Beneath the wig, on the back side and wrapping around, was a rubber pad designed to absorb the better part of a sap's impact. There was also a thin metal band beneath the putty collar. It's function was obvious. He slipped on the Nettle Cloak over his clothes, just in case things got further out of hand than he intended to allow.

He made his mock-feeble way down the street, his cane in prominent use. It occurred to him that if both sides of this conflict were farming out their interests to lower-class personnel, then it was very likely that this Bayden family had a lookout at the Silver Sliver as well as his contractor. He appeared to tremble with the effort of opening the fairly heavy door with his tired old arms. He carried the rolled-up parchment in plain sight as he entered the tavern.

He went to the barkeep, a man by the name of 'Jeb' and ordered a dark ale. He asked loudly, in the way that a hard-of-hearing old gentleman will do, if there was a Mr. or Mrs. Bayden here tonight, that he'd found a note with their name on it. He brandished the parchment in evidence. The barkeep just shrugged and Inoadar wobbled over to a corner seat and sat with his back to the bar, the dark ale reflecting the images in the glass mug.

A few chimes later, though the reflection was blurry, he saw a man approach the barkeep. The barkeep appeared to be waiting for him and as he pointed, the customer's face turned in Inoadar's direction. But instead of approaching Inoadar, the other customer returned to his seat at a table near the bar.

Inoadar reasoned that if the man was connected with the group that had consigned the job at The Spot, they would recognize the parchment and realize that something had gone wrong. They would be taking action, instead of playing the waiting game. This customer obviously didn't know exactly what the parchment indicated. This strongly suggested that this customer was connected to the people currently in possession of the ring.

Inoadar finished his ale and made his way back out into the darkness to wait.

[Inoadar]

A man stepped out shortly and paused in the light of the lamp to look around. Inoadar sighed with disgust at the lack of any attempt by the man to disguise his intent. The man's ineptitude, standing in plain sight, allowing his vision to be affected by the light while he tries to see details in the shadows beyond, was a clear indicator of his level, or rather, lack, of training.

"Amateur." Inoadar muffled a contemptuous chuckle as he "accidentally" flapped the parchment, to give away his position. He turned his back to the man, rerolled the parchment and stood, as though confused as to where to go next.

He did have to hand it to the approaching assailant that he HAD taken notice of the apparent poor hearing Inoadar had deliberately displayed inside the tavern, while at the same time mentally shaking his head with disdain at the fool for not considering that it might have been faked. The man's approach was all too easy to perceive.

Inoadar spun when the man sounded as though he was twenty feet away, whipping the blowgun portion of his 'cane' to his lips and hissing a dart into the mans shirt. From eighteen feet, he could hardly miss. By the time the man jerked, stepped back to run his hands over his torso to pull the dart free, and found his voice to shout for help, Inoadar had closed the distance and the stiletto portion of his cane had found its way to the underside of the man's chin.

The man froze, his eyes showing white all around. Inoadar cooed quietly, "Shhhh....don't worry, the dart wasn't poisoned. The poison is on the blade at your throat, but I don't really need it, do I. Arms up....that's right...Just blink your eyes, once for 'yes', twice for 'no'. We don't want you to nod your head right now, do we."

There was a pause, and then the man blinked twice...for 'no'.

"Now, you may be stupid enough to think you can make some quick move to disable me before I can move this blade four inches to scratch the inside of your skull, but I truly hope not. No, really, I hope you can just answer my questions. Neck wounds are such a mess, blood everywhere. You can't even scream with this metal spike pinning your jaw shut...So what do you think? Shall I ask you a few questions?...Nicely?"

Inoadar chuckled mirthlessly at the ensuing single blink. "Don't blink so hard, you'll sprain your eyelids...So, you are with the people that have the ring, yes?" He leaned forward, letting the blade in his boot pop out. "Oh dear, was that two blinks for 'no'?" he pushed the tip of the boot blade into the front of the man's ankle and leaned heavily on it. "...or were you saying what I think you were saying and blinking once for 'yes', two times in a row?"

The man trembled and Inoadar's left hand, gripping the back of the man's head was getting slippery from the sweat. He already had what he needed. He didn't need his questions answered. He could tell by the responses that the man was with the faction holding the ring. He'd shown no confusion at all. He knew what ring Inoadar was asking about. His quick denial was all the confirmation Inoadar needed.

The man swallowed and the blade scratched the skin. The man whimpered and trembled as his eyes somehow got even wider.

"Oh, now you've done it. Now the poison will take effect...Well you didn't talk. Congratulations, you died bravely." He got a harder grip on the man's head and pushed the blade up as he spoke the last word. The man shrieked a muffled "NO!" between gritted teeth as he somehow found a few inches of spare height, teetering off-balance.

Inoadar swung his foot behind the man's knees and brought him toppling backwards, guiding his head to a vicious slam against the cobblestones. The man went limp. Inoadar dragged him to some deeper shadows and rifled through his clothes. There was a wallet with identifying citizenship papers and an address belonging to a 'Wallace Bayden'.

"Jackpot." Inoadar crowed.

[Inoadar]

In addition to the verification of the man's identity, there was a street plan designation, and it was only two or three blocks from where Inoadar was right now.

He removed the wig and the hat, took a moment to strip off the putty, fake brows and moles and wiped off the aging cream with the help of some very diluted acid from the shop, which he brought in one of his alchemy vials for this exact purpose. It worked just as well as the solvent that came with the disguise kit and Inoadar had consistently found that it was the first thing that was exhausted from the items in the kit.

He then took off the Nettle Cloak and stuffed it, along with the hat and the 'putty' gloves into a beat-up crate among several others in the alley. He walked back into the Silver Sliver and ordered a bottle of fine wine without doing anything to bring any particular notice to himself. Exiting the night spot, he headed casually down the walk, circling around to make his way through the shadows back to the alley.

He slipped the Nettle Cloak back on, pocketing the hat and gloves, and poured most of the bottle of wine on the unfortunate Wallace Bayden. He slipped the hat on him, covering the nasty bump still swelling on the back of his head and hoisted him to his unconscious feet. He drug him out into the less-dark area closer to the front of the tavern and, after a few chimes, hailed a passing citizen for some help getting his "drunken friend" home, citing the convenience of it being only a few blocks away.

With the added incentive of five gold mizas, he soon achieved his goal and said goodbye to the gentlemen stirring his finger through the pouch of silver, making sure all five mizas' worth were there. When the man left, Inoadar swept through Mr. Bayden's pockets and found the door key.

On a hunch, he lifted the prone man's arm and formed the man's hand around the key, using both hands to manipulate the turning of the key in the lock. The click of the mechanism sounded innocent enough, but being the neurotically cautious man he was, Inoadar struggled to get the limp body on its feet, braced against himself, and put its right hand on the knob, doing the same thing with it as he had done with the key.

The knob turned without incident and Inoadar let the body fall forward, wondering if he was not getting paranoid in his dealings. His self-doubt was answered by a flash of lightning as the body broke the threshold of the doorway and fell, jerking and smoking, onto the floor.

There was an alarmed cry, a woman's voice, "Wallace! Oh gods! Didn't you disarm the glyph? Wallace? WALLACE?" Inoadar himself, was almost too surprised to react, but manged to slip in and duck behind a chair as the woman came wailing out from a back bedroom and dropped, crying and begging for the twitching body to answer.

A sharp stroke on the back of her head quieted her noise and Inoadar closed the door and took an appraising look around the room. "Where would it be?" he posed quietly to himself.

[Inoadar]

There were a few books in a narrow cabinet. He grabbed them and fanned them one by one, but found none with a cut-out for concealing anything. He pulled the mirror and paintings off the wall. He pulled all the drawers out of the furnishings to check for false backs and bottoms, both in the drawers themselves and the enclosing cabinetry. There were none.

There were drawers in the kitchen as well, but they had no secret compartments either. He slid just about every item he found on end tables, counters, vanities, wardrobes and the mantle. Nothing caught on any hidden latches or triggered sliding covers. There was nothing perched on hard-to-see inner flanges of the door jambs.

He tugged on the corners of nailed down carpets and slid throw rugs aside, looking for hidden trap doors or cubby holes. It was only a one-story building, so there were no stairs to check. He gave the fireplace a rough sweeping and looked for loose bricks, finding none. He even looked in the body cavity of a frozen game bird of some kind in the icebox. There was no ring to be found.

He started pulling candles out of candelabras, sconces and candle-holders. By this time he heard a moan and sapped the woman again. He dumped her clutch purse out, but found nothing unusual. There was something unusual that he had perceived on the way to the kitchen, but he had chalked it up to the scattered mess strewn everywhere. Now he stood back and scanned the room, looking for irregularities. He was still holding one of the candles and he looked around absentmindedly for which holder it belonged to.

He caught sight of the lone floor candle lamp in the corner. He noticed its styling was different than any of the sconces on the walls. He also noticed there were currently no candles in it. He knew he had taken no candles out of it, so it was there for no good reason...or perhaps there was a reason for it.

[Inoadar]

There was a round base and a central pole that led to the small array of decorative holders spreading like trimmed tree branches from the top of the thing. The pole had decorative grooves running the length of it. There was one small span that showed a slightly burnished look to it, as if it was handled regularly there, but not actually worn down.

Inoadar tried turning portions of the pole, assuming the "handled" look was due to it being the point where you gripped it while loosening one end or the other. He shook it slightly, but heard nothing. No sound of a loose item hidden inside.

He studied it for a moment and found a tiny, vertical scratch. He had assumed that it was a threaded item that would be unscrewed to be opened. But the scratch made him think it could be something that was slid vertically instead. He lined up the point where a ring would rest on his finger, with the scratch on the pole, and gripped tightly while attempting to slide it up or down. There was no effect.

He shook his head at his own stupidity. The scratch would have been made from someone trying to force it. If it was held correctly, there would be no need to push hard enough to scratch. He moved his hand so his finger lined up with a groove section that was not scratched and pulled down. Still nothing, but when he pushed up, every third grooved panel slid up as one piece, revealing a very small keyhole.

Now he wracked his brain. He had seen some keys, but where? He started walking through the house, giving a sort of vague stare, allowing all the little images to pique his memory. It wasn't until he went down the hall that he remembered that they had been in one of the drawers of the vanity. He had found no lock boxes or locked cabinets, so he'd disregarded them. He grabbed them and returned to the main room.

He didn't notice that the body of the woman had moved slightly. He pushed up on the pole section, and started trying different keys. There was a telltale creak and an arm snaked around his head. At the same time, a second arm whipped around his shoulder from the other side and he felt something press against his neck. He assumed it was a knife, but the metal band in his "putty" collar equalized the pressure over a large portion of his neck, so he could only trust what experience told him.

Experience also told him that this woman had made her move because both his arms were extended enough to keep him from reacting sooner than she could cut his throat. It also told him that she would know in a second that his neck didn't have the feel of flesh under her blade. If she repositioned the blade where the hidden metal band didn't protect his neck, he'd be sunk. There was no time to think. he made his move even as she started to hiss in his ear.

"Just keep your arms wh-..." she began. He pushed forward, feeling the blade scrape across the metal. At the same time he swung the lamp pole array over his head, hoping to bash her head with it. She slipped to the side, and he felt steel slash his throat. There wasn't time to concern himself with the seriousness of the wound as he swung the lamp like a halberd at the lithe figure squirming around objects he'd cast on the floor.

More than once, a swing that would have dealt a serious blow, got caught up in the debris of his own searching. She got her legs tucked beneath her and leaped for the door. Inoadar kicked a table in her direction and she tripped over it in her effort, falling into the door, but failing to get hold of the handle. He pinned her to the floor with the spreading candle holder array at the top end of the pole.

He took a moment to wipe his neck, there was blood, but not so much as if she'd cut his jugular. "Okay, here's what we're going to do..." he began.

[Inoadar]

"You're going to lay perfectly still...while I...see..." He kept her pinned face down as he slowly crouched. "...what's under...HERE!" he called with a small measure of triumph, disguising his voice as he pulled the wig off her head. He saw that, like him, she had a pad in the wig to absorb impacts.

"Not bad. You're a pro. No, no...you stay there like that. So you weren't unconscious, just looking to gather a little information." He made a motion with his ankle and the four-inch blade in the toe of his boots snapped out close to her face. She winced reflexively. "That's all the intel I'm giving you sweetheart. Unless you refuse to cooperate, in which case, you can add a detailed account of what it feels like to have that slide into the side of your neck to your report, if you live to deliver it."

"Do you see me resisting?" she sneered. Inoadar grinned at her defiance. He found that he liked her. He hoped she didn't make him kill her. "So what did you have in mind?" she purred with sultry sarcasm. "A little 'R and R', robbery and rape?" She lifted her backside with a suggestive wiggle.

Knowing the game, Inoadar immediately looked at her hands instead. He grinned again. "Aaah, the ploys that only a woman can exploit." He grabbed her hand, which had just closed on something lying on the floor. "Distract me with that sweet round miza-maker, while you grab this, thinking my eyes are elsewhere."

"Oh, you're one of those kind of boys, eh?" She said teasingly, giving up the necklace she was gripping.

"Think what you will, Doll. You'll never know. I'm afraid I don't have time to accommodate you. Work and all. You know how it is." He examined the necklace as he spoke, It was a simple flower-shaped work of silver with two opposed leaves sprouting from the stem. The stem was straight, the bud attached in a purely perpendicular position, which he found odd. Usually the stem would curl so the bud would lie more comfortably against the skin.

On a hunch, he gripped the bud in his left hand and torqued on the leaves with his right, as you would do to a wing-nut. The bud came unscrewed from the top, revealing the business end of a tiny key. "Jackpot." he crowed for the second time that night, while she sighed in defeat.

"Okay, honey. Hands behind your back please." He crouched down on top of her, pulling the garrotte from his inside pocket. He wrapped the throat-cutting wire around her wrists tightly, drawing a little blood as the edges coaxed her to push them together more tightly. He then passed the wire between them to bind them tighter still, and wound them once again, looping it through the knotted center.

"There, that'll hold you a while. Feel free to keep the wire when you get it off. Call it a consolation gift. Don't cut your wrists gettin' in a hurry. I'm giving you a chance to get out of town before whoever hired you to play 'wife' finds out you blew it. I strongly suggest you take me up on it." He found a pillow case and pulled it over her head, knotting it tightly enough not to pull off, but not to choke her. He didn't think she'd gotten much of a look at his face, and he wanted to keep it that way.

He kept a foot on her back for warning against any move she might make, and returned his focus to the candle array. He pushed up, revealing the keyhole. He inserted the key and turned. There was a click and the entire top of the candle array came off in one piece. There was a hook screw with a thread attached to it that connected to a small paper wad stuffed into the shaft. He pulled it out and unwrapped it. There was the signet ring, featuring a large, ornate letter "L" with a variety of background bits, scrolls and border embosses.

For a moment, he considered going back to the shop and making an impression in clay of the signet image, but decided not to push his luck. He guessed it belonged to the 'Lazarin' estate. He supposed they were already taking precautions against the thing being copied. Probably in the process of designing a new one to register with the city right now. They would still want this one back though, to prevent back-dated forgeries.

It occurred to Inoadar that this was the most likely reason for the one-night deadline on the job. To prevent anyone from having time to do that very thing. He wanted to make a name for himself at The Spot. He would do it by NOT taking liberties with the contracts.

[Inoadar]

He made his way back to the Silver Sliver and slipped into the alley to the side, working his way around to the back, between barrels, over boxes, and under leaning planks and boards. He turned the last corner and located the eye-bolt set into the reinforced wood of the pier.

There was a cord hanging down towards the water, but disappearing into a slot in the floating platform just above the water line. He pulled it, and a canister slipped from the shadowed niche and rose with the cord as Inoadar pulled it. He noticed a small coil of the same cord disappearing INTO a hole in the wood of the platform a few feet away. He stopped pulling the cord and the coil stopped slipping into the hole.

He realized that this secondary cord was to pull the canister back into the slot above the waterline. He smiled with appreciation and pulled the canister the rest of the way up. He slipped the ring inside and let it drop as he tugged on the other line. It took a bit of trial and error to get the canister to slip back into the niche in the side of the pier, but he got it done shortly. Now it was to wait twenty-four hours and then pick up his pay back at The Spot.

He wondered about the woman. Would she take his advice and leave town? Would she live long enough? But the real question...'Had she seen my face?'

He didn't think she had gotten much of a look at him during the struggle. But then again, he hadn't really seen hers either and he still felt confident that he could spot her in a crowd. Was she just a professional tease, gifted in techniques to get men to loosen their lips and spill secrets to her without realizing it.

'No doubt she's trained sufficiently in ways to kill, when her target's guard...and pants...were down.' he mused with a grin. She'd almost got the drop on him. Only his neck guard had saved him. He'd underestimated her, dismissed her as just a silly housewife. She'd done a good job of fooling him, before she even knew he was there.

'Well...' he shrugged, '...time will tell.'

He waited the twenty-four hours, more actually, since it would have been the grey predawn bells at that time. He went ahead to the shop as normal, embarking, as he often did, on a run of vague errands to keep his assistant, whom he believed may be spying on him, off guard. He included The Spot in this morning's circuit.

He went to the bar and sat, catching Bohir's eye. The barkeep came over and took his order for the breakfast special. The only thing truly 'special' about it was the bulge in the napkin. When he was done eating, he dabbed the crumbs and grease from his lips with the napkin and slipped it, seemingly without thinking, into his pocket.

He finished his rounds, stopping just short of his return to Ino Vations to pull the napkin and empty the mizas into his pocket. He would count them later.

[Verilian]

. . Thread Award . . Name +1 Politics +1 Tactics +2 Disguise +2 Acting +2 Observation +1 Blowgun +2 Brawling +2 Subterfuge +2 Interrogation +1 Stealth +2 Intimidation You Question My Logic? : Lots of random stuff. If you feel I missed anything, feel free to ask. Lores: Drawing Out One's Targets, Using Drunk Bodys to Activate Traps, The Mystery "L" Signet, A Lovely New Rival Loot: 60gm Notes: Good thread. I might surprise you in the future with that NPC, but we'll see. Keep it up, and keep writing! Notice As per the request of the Founders, threads cannot be graded unless your CS is up to date. This means you need to add threads to your thread list when you make new threads, keep your skills up to date, ledger, living expenses, ect. If you aren't up to date, you'll get a PM from me before i grade your thread. If you are up to date, disregard this notice.