Solo Oportunity in treachery

[Yisanareysin]

35th of Fall, 514 AV The cool, somber atmosphere at the Withering Rose was a far cry from the rambunctious common room in the Wolf's Cave. Rey found it surprisingly soothing, especially after the brawl that had broken out in the Cave the night before. Ordering a beef dish, something he hadn't had since leaving Ahnatep, he settled down at the bar to wait. Looking around, he saw that most of the patrons were sitting at the tables, and that each table was adorned with a rose. He'd been warned about the roses, and the meaning they held. He'd also been told that, more unofficially, sitting alone at a table with a white rose was an invitation to make friends, which was why he was staying at the bar instead. Around him, he could see a fair number of white and red roses, and only a few black ones, scattered around the room. There was even one near the bar, he noted. It could have just been his imagination, but he could have sworn the employees made a point of passing by, or being near the black rose tables a little more than with the others. It made sense. If there were tables specifically marked for angry conversations, it was only sensible to make sure that it didn't escalate into violence. Turning back to the bar, he found the bartender looking at him questioningly. "One glass of wine, please." Rey told her. "Red, if possible." The woman nodded, and turned to choose a bottle from the rack. A plate was slid in front of him, and the smell of beef filled his nostrils. A glass was set down next to it as well, and he nodded in thanks to the bartender before digging in. The food was, to his surprise and delight, not overcooked, as most human dishes were, and seasoned lightly, which was a relief to his sensitive tongue. As he ate, he listened to the sounds around him, trying to pick out individual conversations. Everyone was rather quiet, and the voices all blended together into a low murmur. Focusing intently as he chewed, he began to tease out individual voices. He started with an easy one. There was a male, fairly close to Rey, with a low, nasally voice, and it was fairly easy to make out what he was saying. "...a very successful caravan, you might be interested to know. We went all around Sylira, braving the woods and bandits. I was the head guard, of course. The best of the lot." Rey snickered softly. He turned slightly, expecting to see a man trying to impress his date. Instead, he found a boy, barely eighteen, sitting at a white rose table, with a very unimpressed looking sailor before him. "... bring me onto your ship as a guard, and I can guarantee you no pirates would dare to attack you!" Ah, that explained it. Well, the boy was most likely out of luck then. Tuning him out, Rey focused on another voice. It was getting easier to pick them out now, now that his ears had adjusted. This voice was a female, talking about some actor or another being injured. A second voice, also a female, chimed in in agreement. Two old friends,from the sound of it. A white rose table, without a doubt. A quick glance confirmed that. Lazily, Rey took a sip of his wine. This was going to be interesting.

[Yisanareysin]

After half a bell, Rey had correctly guessed one red rose, one white rose, mistaken a red rose for a black, a white rose for red, and the game was growing a little stale. He forgot sometimes just how inane most humans were, until he listened to their conversations and realized they had nothing interesting to say. The couple on the one red table he had correctly identified had been especially boring, with the man stuttering out awkward questions, and the woman (Coiya Winterflame, from Avanthal, a baker visiting Alvadas to find new ingredients, no she didn't know this other Vantha the man did) patiently, then, not so patiently, answer his questions. That seemed to be most of the tables within his earshot. Odd. He could have sworn there was another one... Turning around, he scanned the nearby tables. The bragging boy, now alone, the two women, the couples, all those he had been listening to were within a few tables of him. And yes, there was another table within hearing distance. What color rose would this one be? He averted his eyes before he could spoil the game for himself. They were being very quiet though. Even more so than everyone else. No wonder he hadn't noticed their conversation earlier. Still, if he focused, and ignored the boy with the nasally voice grumbling to himself, he could just make out a little of their conversation. "... what do I pay you...Marcus can't possibly...find nothing!" A female voice, it seemed. Angry, as well. Black rose, then. That was quick. A little disappointing, really. Still, he had half a meal to finish, and he might as well keep listening for lack of anything better to do. Maybe try to figure out what they were arguing about. "...doing what you said...not my fault...nothing happening...unloading ships, like usual..." A male. He sounded a little upset, maybe a bit defensive. Odd. "..he's undercutting me like...impossibly low prices...the petch kind of spy are you... need to know, Serim...might have to leave early" That caught his attention. A spy? He ran through their conversation again in his head. Ships, undercutting, impossibly low... a merchant? Why did a merchant have a spy? He'd have expected that in Ahnatep, but not here. How odd. Although he supposed when it came to mizas, every little bit helped. "...anything suspicious...well hidden...sorry, but there's just nothing to find." Rey heard a chair scraping against the floor, and resisted the urge to turn around to look. Taking another bite of his meal, he focused, and sensed. The voices had been coming from behind, slightly to his right, and he breathed in, searching for their auras. There they were. Yes, the woman was on her feet. He could taste spice, sharply stinging his tongue. A fierce, harsh anger. And something thick in the back of his throat.. frustration. Strong feelings, those. And a tinge of.. something else. It was on the tip of his tongue, quite literally, but he couldn't quite identify it. No matter. His attention turned to the man. His emotions were more muted, harder for Rey to pick out. But there was a little tingle at the back of his nose that could be either annoyance or disgust or something in that general vicinity. Maybe if he focused.... best not to push it. Besides, it was best to conserve his energy. Who knew what else he might have to do tonight? And he was going to do things tonight. Rey grinned as he released his sense, ignoring the fatigue flooding him. He could hear the woman stalking away now, but it didn't seem like the man was following her. But he'd have to get up eventually. And when he did, Rey would find out exactly what was going on.

[Yisanareysin]

After Rey finished his meal, he sat at the bar, slowly sipping his wine. This was one area where his enhanced sense of taste was a blessing. It really was excellent wine, well worth the gold miza it cost. He never looked back at the man, instead using his sense periodically. Nor did he try to sense if the man was going to leave. That was a little beyond Rey's abilities at the moment. Instead, he simply checked the man's meal. Not the most accurate judge, but it worked well enough. When the man's place was almost cleared, Rey drained his glass, and stood. He reached into his bag, set two gold mizas on the bar, and sauntered out, nodding to the bartender on the way out. As he passed the man's table, out of the corner of his eye, Rey saw him take a final bite out of his meal, and push the plate away. Excellent timing. With any luck, the man would leave soon. Rey stepped out into the cold, and pulled his jacket closer around him. It was beginning to grow dark already. Hopefully that would help hide him. Stepping to the side of the door, he set his bag down against the wall, then knelt. Opening it, he pretended to rummage through, stalling for time. The door opened behind him, and Rey pulled out his gloves. He took his time slipping them on, ears pricked for the footsteps leading away from him. When he judged the man to be sufficiently far enough, he picked up his bag, and turned. There he was. Now, the tricky part was going to be following him without tipping him off. At least there were other people around. Akajia knew if it was just the two of them he'd be caught before they got anywhere Rey strolled down the street in the direction the man was headed, trying to act nonchalant. That was not nearly as easy as he had thought it would be, especially since he was nearly vibrating with curiosity. Weaving through the crowd, he kept a close eye on the man, also harder than he'd thought it would be. The streets were hardly crowded, but there were still enough people around that he sometimes lost sight of his prey. He itched to get closer to the man, close the distance between them just a little, make it easier to spot him. But if he got too close the man (what was his name again? Serim?), he might notice Rey. And then that would be it, and he'd never find out what was going on. But keeping his distance like this made him anxious, especially here, of all cities, where his target could just turn the corner, and end up halfway across the city. Silently, he sent up a prayer to Ionu to not let the city separate them. Luckily, Ionu smiled upon him that night, and Rey managed to follow the man all the way to the Patchwork Port. But the jumbled mess of buildings was far too confusing, and Rey was unfamiliar with the area. He wandered around for a few chimes, hoping to stumble on his prey, but instead just ended up walking in circles. Rey sat down to think. He'd had a vague hope that following this man would lead to something interesting, but it seemed like he had just followed the man home. Sort of. On the other hand... Unloading ships... and here they were at the docks. Made sense. If he had been yelled at for not doing his job properly, he'd go straight to doing it just to prove his employer wrong. So down to the waterfront then? It was worth a shot. He could follow the smell of salt down to... Follow the smell. Hmmm. That was an idea. Quickly, he pulled of his clothes, and shifted, stowing away his clothes and pack behind a line of barrels. Slithering around, he tried to find the man's scent. Flicking his tongue out, he caught the slightest smell of human, and grinned. He followed the faint trail eagerly (hoping he was going in the right direction), pausing at every corner to sense his surroundings. The last thing he wanted was to be caught and killed, which he assumed would be the immediate reaction of anyone spotting a large venomous snake. He rather liked staying alive, thank you very much. Still, the docks seemed more or less deserted, and no one was out on the streets, at least not nearby that he could sense. So he slithered between buildings, his tongue practically pressed to the ground. The scent suddenly grew stronger at in intersection, and Rey frowned (as much as a snake could, anyways). Had what's his name stopped here? This was an odd place to rest. He slithered around, trying to sniff out which way the man had gone. It smelled like.... he'd gone both ways? One trail led left, where there was a dead end, and the other went straight ahead. Both smelled like human, but why would the man double ba... Oh. Of course. He must have crossed paths with another human here, and muddled the scent. Which meant he had no clue which way to go. Rey hissed in annoyance, and flopped down onto the ground. Well, he was officially out of ideas.

[Yisanareysin]

Rey was about to just give up and go home when an odd thought struck him. The path to the left... led to a dead end. But there was no one there. And the path clearly led nowhere. So... why had the man headed down that way? Rey slithered down the alley, puzzled and intrigued. There was nowhere to go, as far as Rey could tell. Either he'd managed to climb up the wall, or he must have come here, then doubled back. Unless there was a secret entrance or something? That was pretty suspicious. So suspicious, in fact, that Rey was half convinced that this was a trick, or that Rey was overthinking it. If this spy had really been doing spy-y things here, why would he leave an unmasked trail leading right to this location? Sure, humans couldn't smell as well as Dhani and admitedly, it wasn't like there were that many non humans here with the nose or tongue to follow the scent... alright, so that suddenly seemed a lot less implausible than he'd thought at first. Cautiously, he slithered up to the wall blocking off the dead end. It seem normal enough. Everything was wood of some sort, it all smelled of fish and salt, and there didn't seem to be any seams or anything to indicate a hidden door or anything. He looked around the ground. Nothing there either that he could see or smell. Well, if he couldn't see anything, perhaps he should sense instead. Accustomed to sensing in his human form, he tried to close his eyes. Naturally, the lack of eyelids made that difficult, so he turned to look at a dark corner instead. Nope, that didn't work either. Arrrrgggggggg. It was harder, too, to detach himself from his senses when they were so enhanced. Even with his tongue kept firmly in his mouth, he could taste the alley around him, and hear the occasional sound much more acutely than he did as a human. He had never thought that would ever prove to be a hinderance. He coiled up, and mentally took in a deep breath. Turning to face the wall, he concentrated at it, trying to understand it without really seeing it. It didn't matter, what he saw or smelt or felt. All that really mattered was what it was. He ignored the sight of the wall looming before him, ignored the feel of his own coils shifting under his head, ignored the stink of salt and fish, as hard as that was. All that mattered was... there. The aura was coming to him now, slower than it normally did. Yes, the wall was wood. Great. That sure was helpful. He focused harder. It was all one wall. Well, technically, it was a bunch of planks all nailed together, but there was also a wholeness to it, a wallness. And it was all solid, as much as a set of wood pieces held together by small sharp metal rods could be. No hidden doors or entrances. Well, it had been a bit of a stretch to think that he'd stumbled onto a secret door. As fun as that would have been. Now that he thought about it, it might even have been another entrance to the underground, if it had existed. Pity it didn't. That still left him with the question: why had the man come this way? He continued to study the wall intently. There had to be something! Why else would the man have just stopped here at a dead end? He was beginning to sense more now. The wall followed a pattern of items, with nails connecting two layers of planks, holding it all together One unbroken pattern of objects, all tying together to make this one whole, this w- Wait. There was something wrong. There were small flaws in the wall, naturally. Here and there there were rusted nails, splintered planks, but those were fairly minor. And then there was one big flaw. Rey slithered closer, towards one of the planks on the bottom left of the wall. This plank had nails driven through it, but it wasn't.. connected. It wasn't part of the wall, it was a piece of wood covering a hole in the wall. Rey released his sense, and flopped down onto the ground. Sweet Siku, that took a lot out of him. He took a few ticks to gather his strength, then slithered over to the loose board. It was hard to make out in the darkness (this would be a really good time for Akajia to be sympathetic to his plight), but it looked like it was a little out of place. Cursing his lack of opposable thumbs, Rey carefully began to wiggle the board out, nudging it with his head and tail. It was slow work, and there was a moment of temptation to just sink a fang in and yank the board out. Although the way things were going he'd probably end up losing the fang. Still, he eventually managed to work out a large enough gap for him to slip the tip of his tail inside. From there he was able to lever the board away from the wall in one quick movement.

[Yisanareysin]

As the board flung away, a scrap of paper came with it, floating down onto his head. He shook it off, nudging it over to look, and brightened up. There were markings, probably letters on it! Unfortunately, it was too dark to read anything, and Rey wasn't really sure how well he could read in this form. Instead, he took the scrap of paper into his mouth, thankful for his lack of saliva as a snake. He slithered around the docks, looking for his pack. To his displeasure, the barrels, and his pack, had moved closer to the actual docks, and closer to the few people who were still awake at this hour. He darted quickly from shadow to shadow, trying to keep out of sight. Twice, groups of sailors walked pass him as he hid in the shadows, coiled and unmoving, praying to Akajia silently that the darkness would be enough. It was harder than he'd thought it would be, hiding as he moved, but luck was with him that night. When he reached his backpack, he glanced around, scenting the air, wanting to be certain that no one was around. Spitting out the piece of paper, he shifted into his human form, and quickly dressed. Slipping the scrap of paper into his pocket, he walked away from the docks, trying to act casual. Now that Rey was back in his human form, his heart was beginning to race. He'd found.. well he'd found something. Something that must have been important, or it wouldn't have been hidden like that. Although now that he thought about it, he probably should have put the plank back. Hm. And he still wasn't really sure what was happening. Or, for that matter, if what he had just done was a good idea. But he'd done it! He'd done something, even if he wasn't really sure what. As if to make up for his streak of luck earlier, it took nearly a bell for him to find the Wolf's Cave. It was nearly deserted, and it looked like Micah was still picking up from last night's disaster. Making his way straight to his room, he dropped the scrap of paper onto his desk, tossed his bag into the corner, and flopped onto his bed. He was, he decided, going to sleep until noon.

[Yisanareysin]

36th of Fall His prediction of noon had been a little early. When he finally crawled out of bed, it was near the fourteenth bell already, or so he guessed. Sitting down at the desk, he flattened out the scrap of paper, and squinted at the small words scribbled on it. Or, at least, he thought they were words. He might have been close to illiterate as he was in common, but even to his eyes there was something clearly wrong about the message. He didn't recognize any of the words, even the few two or three letter one that he should have known. In fact, there were far more X's and V's than Rey had ever seen in a message this short. Could it be a different language? But the letters were Common. What other language would use the Common alphabet? Mysteries upon mysteries. Perhaps... Back in the nest, he'd heard tales of Eypharian politics and intrigue. It was said that Eypharian spies would encode their messages, making them unreadable to any who didn't know the code. Of course, at least one of those stories had ended in the execution of the less intelligent spy, so there was probably some way of breaking these codes. Something for him to consider learning. Still, he couldn't keep the message as it was. For one thing, a scrap of paper was easy to lose, and he wanted to keep it until he figured out what it said. Pulling out his journal, Rey carefully copied down the message, making sure each letter was correct. He even tried to copy the handwriting as best he could, just in case there was something important about that. When he was done, he took the message with him into the common room. Warming his hands over the fire, he waited until no one was looking and dropped the scrap of paper into the flames. As he watched it shrivel into a small black dot, he grinned, pleased with himself. That had been quite an eventful night. And, now he had another little mystery to solve. Not too bad, all things considered. Message : W, V cryevn zkmu ez gsdrsx dro cokcyx. Xog cdymu: Pyyncdepp, rsnoc, vokdrob, nioc, dy boqevkb mvsoxdc. Xybwkv zbsmoc. Cro qbygc ceczsmsyec. S rkfo dy qsfo rob cywodrsxq ~C

[Fable]

Grade Awarded!

Skills

➢ Intelligence +4
➢ Observation +5
➢ Socialization +1
➢ Aursitics +2
➢ Subterfuge +3
➢ Land Navigation +2
➢ Endurance +1
➢ Investigation +2
➢ Planning +2
➢ Stealth +4
➢ Tactics +1
➢ Tracking +1
➢ Copying +1
➢ Writing +1

Lores

➢ Alvadas: The Withering Rose
➢ Alvadas: The Patchwork Port
➢ Stealth: Shadow Hopping
➢ Tracking: Following a Scent
➢ Subterfuge: Getting Rid of Evidence

Rewards/Consequences

Please subtract 2GM from your ledger for the meal and wine if you have not already.
Reysin has added a poorly scrawled copy of the letter he found to his journal. Certain letters (x and y) are relatively interchangeable due to his novice level of writing and copying, but the rest is mostly legible.
For the next seven days, Reysin is extremely sensitive to smells in his human form, with it being nearly unbearable in his snake form due to overgiving with aursitics.

Comments

Please keep in mind that the Patchwork Port is actually outside of the main city, and thus is isn't part of Ionu's blessing of illusions. Also, I had to withold some of the points for your auristics usage: while you did have some really great usages, writing in a simple "Rey sensed" is beyond his current level. At novice, it should be quite taxing and take a fair amount of effort on his part. Please keep this in mind.

What a fun thread! This is one I actually read while I was walking to class a few weeks ago, and I was interested to see what you were going to do with it. If you had been planning to put in a secret door in the docks, I'm glad you refrained, haha. Other than that though, very nice use of intelligence! It was a good balance between Rey's thought processes and what was going on around him. I didn't award a cryptography lore, as he hasn't really done anything about it and only suspects it to be a code. Once he starts working on it, however, I sure the lores will flow!

If you have any questions, please let me know!