Confirmation (solo)

[Inoadar]

42nd of Summer, 512

Inoadar walked into what passed for a lobby at Tarsin's Boarding House. He did not check to see if he got any mail. There wouldn't be any. There shouldn't be any. There WAS a message, however.

"Mr. Porellis, there's a visitor waiting for you in your room." the man at the counter called.

Inoadar nodded and continued on to the stairs. The use of the name "Porellis" let him know what group this visitor represented. He used a different variation for every separate group or person he wished to identify. Any strangers who made themselves known to him would immediately be assessed and responded to in accordance with which group they had ties to, which would be determined by what name they had used to address him.

Also, there was no mention of any room key, or the necessity of one, which also served to confirm who this would be. It was somewhat of a surprise that they would be coming to him. It was supposed to be the other way around. He went to the door and knocked, even though it was his own room.

"Who's there?" said the voice inside.

Two words, Inoadar thought to himself, requiring a three word answer. "It's only me." he replied. A moment later, the bolt slid back and he went in, one hand on the handle of his garrotte, the other ready to twist the head of his cane and access his blowgun and stiletto.

As anticipated, two of the Ravosalamen sat in his room. They both had their hands raised, empty palms out, knowing their presence here was unusual. He nodded to each and released his grips on his weapons, pulling his own empty hands free for display. Everyone relaxed.

He sat across from them. "To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked.

"The sheet beside you has locations associated with the name you gave us." the man said, indicating a sheet of notes lying on the table near where Inoadar was sitting. "We need you to confirm which is the...valuable...one."

"That was not part of the original bargain. Am I going to be paid for this effort?" Inoadar asked as he leaned back, steepling his finger in his lap.

"We expected you would view it that way, and while some small compensation is probably merited, WE are of the opinion that verification of the legitimacy of the name you provided us with, is every bit a part of any deal where the name is treated as having value."

"And if I prefer only to concern myself with MY viewpoint?" he asked, casually hooking his cane behind his head. He was prepared to give a quick twist to free up the blowgun portion of the cane, the mouthpiece being, in this position, only inches from his mouth.

"There will be no reprisal, if that is what you are thinking." the man across from him stated blandly, as though unaware of the concealed weapon. "The result will be that the second name, which was going to confirm your reliability, will simply be assumed to be of no more value than this first name is, at present. What effect that may have on future business is surely obvious."

They held each others' eyes expressionlessly for several seconds. Inoadar sighed, "Very well. I will go so far as to say that I find it mildly insulting that I am held to provide fraudulent information until proven otherwise, but I guess I can see your point. How long do I have?" he asked, picking up the sheet of notes.

"The speed with which you provide confirmation will be considered when we conclude how much, if any, compensation you will receive." The man said, as he and his partner walked to the door with courteous nods. "We will show ourselves out, thank you."

"Have an enjoyable evening and say hello to everyone for me." Inoadar droned distractedly as he looked over the list of locations.

[Inoadar]

A simple matter of disguise, to talc his skin for paleness; to shim an extra half inch to the soles of his shoes; to unpin the hems on the legs of his pants to hide the doctored shoes; to wear the padded wig that adds the appearance of an extra inch of height.

He practiced his walk with the costume crutch that came with the kit, the one with a three inch pad on the support. It took several minutes to get the walk down, to walk very straight-backed, but to lean to the side where he held the crutch to give the appearance of leaning on it. A pad under his shirt to give him the look of walking stoop-shouldered. All together, it gave the appearance of an additional three inches of height, his hair now light brown and curly with a bushy mustache.

He sat on a bench, nursing a bottle, poorly concealed in a rag. The bottle was empty, but he tipped it with increasing angle to make it look as though he was slowly emptying it. A half-bell later, the woman with the name in question came out, a canvas bag slung over her shoulder. He followed her to the canal edge, where she emptied the bag - dirty clothes. She began washing them in the canal. He watched for a while to listen for any codes in the pattern she beat, or any unlikely gestures that could be signals.

Detecting nothing, he made his way back, emphasizing the limp requiring the crutch. As he reached where her house was - the first location - he sat as though spent with the effort of his disability and sat, leaning back against her door. He "accidentally" knocked his crutch against it a few times. No one came to answer, so he slipped a piece of paper under the door.

He rose several chimes later, and made his way back to the bench, muttering as he went about the miseries of infirmity and old poorly healed injuries. He moved from spot to spot for another bell as he waited for the woman to return. When she did, she carried the bag of clothes through the front door, stopping to pick up the paper.

Her face blanched and she dropped the bag as she staggered back against the door jam, holding the paper as if it were a poisonous snake. A pair of Ebonstryfe patrolmen were walking by and she ran to them crying out that some traitor had left a seditious note on her porch and she wanted them to know, to find these criminals, to save her from the threat they posed to the stability of life in Rhysol's great city.

Inoadar limped off, back to Tarsin's Boarding House, satisfied that she was not the one.

[Inoadar]

His routine produced similar results from the next two locations. These women also, were not the 'important' one with that name. One simply on her way to work at a tavern, the other giving care to neighborhood children.

Inoadar was well aware then any of the three women he had followed thus far COULD still be agents of the Rising Dawn, though he was pretty sure the first was not. But it was this first cycle of elimination he wanted to finish. Then, if nothing panned out, he would reanalyze the results of his initial surveillance.

The next target lived in a considerably better part of the city. There was an increased presence of guards on these streets. Not drastically so, but where you might see a pair of guards pass by every ten or twelve chimes in he neighborhoods he had been in previously, it was more like every seven or eight here. He found the home easily enough, but he had not prepared sufficiently for covert entry and the men at the door, mercenaries or not, looked very competent. There would be no leaving of provocative notes at this door.

He could see that they had already taken note of him. They didn't appear to be suspicious of him, but clearly he could not loiter like a drunken vagrant, as he had done at the first three locations, without arousing their suspicions. So he headed up the road, not looking back as he looked for a good spot to mount surveillance.

One of the homes further down had it's own small pier and canal boat. He watched for an opportunity and hurried out onto the pier, sliding a barrel from one side of the pier, over alongside a second on his side, to give a small visibility shield to hide behind while he pulled out his sighting lens to watch the other estate.

At about the 21st chime, a coach pulled up in front of the far estate. 'Time to move.' he thought as he started to get to his feet.

He froze just then, stifling a curse as the wooden planks of the pier carried the sound of bootsteps coming closer.

[Inoadar]

He slipped his whip around a nearby piling and pulled the short end to center its length. Then he crossed the ends over each other once, grabbed hold and rolled over the side of the pier, being sure to tuck his legs to avoid splashing. It was dark enough that no one would know that it was a whip and not a rope. Nor would anyone question the presence of just one more loop of rope around a piling on a pier.

The man on the pier stopped suddenly and Inoadar remembered he had left the phony crutch laying there. "What is this?..." there were a few more hesitant steps, "a crutch?...Damn it, they better still be there." The footsteps hurried to the edge of the pier near where Inoadar hung by his whip. When the ends had uncrossed, it had allowed him to rotate back, facing outwards, and now he hooked his left leg on the piling and pulled himself further underneath the pier.

Feet, legs and torso appeared over the edge of the pier as the man climbed down the rope ladder to the little boat. Inoadar pushed himself back and tucked his right leg up, ready to kick. The man's head appeared, looking down into the boat to place his feet steadily. One more step down, and Inoadar slammed his heel into the side of the man's head. The one blow might not have knocked him cold, but when he dropped from the ladder, he hit his head on the far edge of the boat and lay in an unmoving heap in the middle of it.

Inoadar swung out and hooked the boat with his foot, pulling it under him and stepping down. He had taken note of the man's concern that something "still be there", so he took a moment to look around and found an odd, wet bag, tied tightly shut. Other than that, there was only fishing gear. He grabbed it and tucked it under his cloak. He thought about killing the man, but he really didn't think the man had gotten any kind of look at him. He hurried up the ladder and started to run back up the street to where the coach was parked.

A pair of Ebonstryfe patrolmen turned a corner half a block away and started towards him. Inoadar knew there was no avoiding them, especially given the way one nudged the other and pointed at him. "Hey, you, stop right there!"

"Thank the Voice you're here! There are three rebels down at that pier!" he cried in feigned distress, pointing back the way he came, "They're trying to steal my cousin's boat! I think they killed him. One of them was called 'Don', I think."

The two guards looked at each other in realization, "Rising Dawn?" one of them grabbed Inoadar by the lapels of his coat and pulled him close. "Is that what he said? Rising Dawn?"

Inoadar stammered a moment, "Wait..yeah...yeah, that's what he said. What does it mean?"

One of the men called back as they ran off, "Never mind, just stay there until we get back!"

"Yes sir!" Inoadar called as they got further away. As soon as they got lost in the gloom, he turned and ran the other way, pulling off his wig, cloak and outer shirt. He ducked into an alley and pulled his Tamo daggers, using them to pry the shims off the soles of his boots.

He stepped back into the road, looking three inches shorter, much younger, with short hair and different color clothes. He smiled to himself and began heading back to the coach.

[Inoadar]

Something caught his eye as he neared the coach. He slowed slightly, not wanting to be obvious about it. Nothing became clearer as he got alongside it. Then suddenly, it struck him. The coach was exactly the same as the one the man had been in a week ago when he had first made his contact with the Ravosalamen.

He realized it might be a different one of the same design, and he didn't want to tarry, as the guards at the front door had taken note of him and were getting that "ready-for-trouble" look about them. Then one more thing occurred to him.

He turned his back on the guards, as though they were the furthest thing from his mind and hailed the coachman, "Excuse me sir, is this a 'Pannstaller' coach?" making the name up on the spot.

The coachman started and looked around for a second, finding Inoadar, who noted that, sure enough, the man was the same coachman from a week ago as well. 'Well now, that's quite a coincidence.' he thought as the driver answered him.

"Never heard of it, sir. This is a 'Brennerman', made right here in Ravok. Master craft quality and available for sale or rentals. I can't take you for a demonstration, I'm afraid. This coach has been reserved for the evening. But if you want to come to the display office sometime, it could be arranged for you."

"Oh, I see now, it's a "B", not a "P". My eyes aren't good in this light." He asked for the location of the place, and the man complied. He made more small talk, noting all the man said. While he already knew the man worked with the Ebonstryfe, he was clearly also an employee of the coachwrights, trying to drum up business. Inoadar took this to mean that the coachwrights were not a 'front' for the Stryfers, but that this lone man was planted there for certain operations, 'like last week's abduction.'

He wondered if this was another operation. Was the woman on the list going to be abducted? He gave his farewells and continued on his way, pondering the situation. All he was expected to do was verify that this was the right woman. The fact of an Ebonstryfer agent being on this job was certainly indication of it. But, by the same token, if she was about to be taken down, her name would no longer be worth anything. It might be nothing more than a coincidence that this man was given this charge. But he needed to make sure, and without being recognized.

[Inoadar]

The coachman had mentioned an A-list get together of nobles at the art studio, Yae Varone, the proprietor. He shrugged, no one he knew, but he knew the general area. There were people out, as well as patrolling guards, but they took no real note of him, as long as he moved as one needing the cane he carried.

Problem was, it was forcing him to go slower than he would have liked. He found a spot to sit after a pair of guards passed him and wrote a note:

They might suspect, driver is one of them.

He folded it once and tucked it in his pocket as he stood and continued on his way.

He was just arriving at an intersection when he saw the coach pass through the intersection on the other street. He cursed silently and unhooked the stiletto handle on his blowgun/cane. He feigned a stretching yawn as he brought the blowgun to his lips and shot a dart of bloodroot poison into the horse's side. He knew this would not be enough to affect a horse, though.

He made as though scratching his arm and retrieved a dark tongue dart and inserted it. He cursed his need for remaining unnoticed as the coach drew further away. He dared not break into a run for the same reason. He followed as best he could.

Turning a corner, he was surprised to find the coach not so far ahead as he'd expected. The driver seemed to be having trouble getting the horse to obey. It occurred to Inoadar just then that bloodroot also had a "confusion" effect, in addition to the weakness. Perhaps the animal's lesser intelligence made it susceptible to the poison after all, if only the one aspect of it.

At any rate, it allowed him to get close enough to shoot the dark tongue dart into the animal's flank as well. Within a few blocks, the combined weakening effects, along with the confusion, brought the horse to a stop. The driver was furious and a crowd was gathering. The woman got out of the coach and spoke with the driver, who was looking at the horse's mouth for suspicious matter and eyes for dilation.

Inoadar reached the coach as someone approached the woman holding one of the darts. She looked around, a look of uncertainty on her face. Inoadar waited by the door of her coach as she approached. He slipped the note inside as she arrived, so she would find it without knowing who had placed it.

He never knew what became of the second dart, perhaps the horse knocked it loose somehow, or someone found it and kept it. But for now it was to slip away and check a few last loose ends.

[Inoadar]

Inoadar headed on to the Art Studio by a different route. He had no invitation, but there were other ways in. He wouldn't even have bothered if he could have seen the goings-on inside. But unfortunately, there was a walled-in lobby preventing visibility of the inner area. There were many coaches outside, those with instructions to stay available for the duration, where the rest probably had been told when to return.

He saw the coach the woman had arrived in, which meant the driver was still around. He would have to be careful. All in all, he did not want ANY incident, involving ANYone. If he had to kill the driver, the Ebonstryfe would be alerted, and any suspicion of the woman would likely be considered confirmed. She would be abducted and the value of her name would vanish.

Equally unwelcome was recognition by the woman herself. He did not want her or her organization to take note of him. He was an independent and wished to remain so. If he was labeled as an ally, his activities would be greatly hindered and his association with the boatmen would likely be terminated. As well as the possibility of ending up a target of the Ebonstryfe. Likewise, any action benefiting the "Stryfers" was to be avoided, for all the same reasons. All he wanted was to watch.

He slipped into the shadows and made his way to an alley two buildings down. With a combination of stacked barrels, balconies, standing on railings, his whip, poorly aligned bricks and his rope and grapple, he made his way to the roof. Keeping to the shadows, he made his way across to where he could see through a side window into a portion of the interior of the building, as well as a large part of the rear courtyard. He pulled out his sighting lens.

On the occasions where he could see the woman, there didn't appear to be any anxiety, no whispers with worried faces, no looking over her shoulder, no subtle slipping of messages to nonchalant neighbors. Nothing to indicate her having received a warning of danger. Her playacting was perfection.

Equally indicative was the frustration on the face of the driver, sitting alone at a table in another room, one obviously reserved for drivers that had instructions to remain at hand during the party. Other drivers would approach him to invite him to their card game or their drinks and snacks. He would comply, for the most part, but his interest was clearly elsewhere. His every action spoke of a man whose expectations had been stymied by unforeseen results.

Inoadar did not know what trap had been laid, or what plan had been upset, but he was satisfied that his warning to the woman had allowed her the edge to avoid discovery. He rose to return to his rope, turning to come face to face with a man dressed entirely in dark clothing who looked as surprised as he was.

"Stryfe bastard!" the man hissed as a knife appeared in his hand.

[Inoadar]

The knife seemed to anticipate the parry attempt and laid open a long gash on Inoadar's forearm. Falling back, he ignored the pain and shock of injury, but playacted horrified distraction, staring at the cut, which would have been much worse if not for the leather bracer that held darts for his blowgun. He was glad now that he had left it on when it had been necessary to leave the cane/blowgun below to climb the building.

But his opponent was having none of it, "Had enough presence of mind to pack away the spyglass, but you'd try to make me think you're in shock, eh? Well, I'm not gonna fall for it." He circled around as he spoke, coming between Inoadar and the edge where his rope/grapple was secured. Clearly, he had used it to reach the roof as well.

Inoadar cursed his decision to leave his Tamo set below as well. He had assumed it would be a hindrance, catching on things with its leather straps as he tried to climb. Now he could certainly use it. The only actual weapon he had was his garrotte and that was about as ineffective at this sort of arm's-length melee range as his whip, which he had left hanging from a support brace halfway up, meaning to retrieve on his way down. He also had his boot blades, but with the slope of the roof, kick attacks were out of the question. He sneered fearlessly, "Well, it was worth a shot."

The man made careful thrust feints, trying to create an opening. Inoadar was no longer pretending to care about his wound and the man could see this. He could tell that Inoadar would willingly take another wound to get his hands on the knife arm. The two matched steps as they crossed the roof, silently gauging opportunities and getting further from the rope with every step. Both accepting that words were pointless.

Then Inoadar surprised him, he backed up and tore away the sleeve that had been cut, tossing it aside, but holding on to the bracer by its cut strap and letting it swing in the air at his side. He switched his hold on it to his left hand, which his opponent took to be due to his slashed arm being weak and slippery from the bleeding wound. He took no notice of the odd way Inoadar cupped his right hand. His eyes were all on the set of darts secured to the swinging bracer, any one of which might scratch him with a well directed swing.

What the man did NOT know was that the bracer was really no threat. The loops holding the darts also had narrow sheaths in place to cover the tips. No blowgun practitioner would leave exposed poisoned dart tips within an inch of his skin, no matter HOW proficient he was. But he counted on the ignorance of his foe.

He made several wide swings, easily dodged, hoping his enemy would just assume that he had no practice with such an improvised weapon. And while it was true, it was not the point. He watched his opponents eyes as he swung back and forth, giving ground bit by bit, to allow the man with the knife to believe he had no other ideas.

Then it happened, on one wide backswing he saw the man's eyes follow it wide to Inoadar's left. He let go of the bracer, seeing the man's eyes follow its flight for a crucial split second. He stepped in and swung his seemingly empty right hand right at face level. While there was no conventional weapon in his hand, the blood from his gashed arm had been pooling there for a chime as they had faced off and now a handful of it struck him in the eyes, sticky and salty and blinding.

As he reeled back with a croaking gasp of surprise, he swung his knife blindly at arm level, which Inoadar ducked under, diving into him at waist level and sending them both tumbling unstoppably towards the roof's edge.

[Inoadar]

Though the drop was probably not lethal, depending on how or what you hit when you landed, Inoadar had no intention of going over. His opponent was no longer concerned with the fight and was instead scrambling desperately to find something to get hold of. Finding nothing, he grabbed at Inoadar, thinking to transfer some of his momentum to him.

With the same motion that kicked his enemy in the face and decided the inevitability of his fall over the edge, Inoadar popped the lock on his blade boots and kicked his toes into the roof. The blades bit, but his weight tore chunks of wood up and he continued to slide. He heard the other man's scream fade over the edge as he kicked in a second time with his boots. His momentum already largely slowed from the first kick, the boot blades dug in and held the second time.

He breathed a heavy sigh of relief, discarding his plan to roll so as to go head first, the better to see where the body of his enemy was, so as to try to adjust his drop to land atop him. He lay still for a moment, testing his senses for any indication that something might not have held as well as he thought.

He pulled himself up, away from the edge, got to his feet and retrieved his bracer. The man had gone off the back side of the building, into a yard adjacent to the walled in courtyard of the art studio. Inoadar climbed down the rope, swinging to reach where his whip was still anchored. Loosening his grapple with a few flicks of the rope, he dislodged the whip and dropped the last story into the back yard where his enemy lay groaning and moving as though afflicted with several broken bones.

Inoadar walked over to him and crouched beside him. "I could easily torture you right now, yes?" The man started to beg weakly, but Inoadar shushed him. "I'm not going to though, if you cooperate. Ok with you?" The man tried to nod, but grimaced with a hiss of pain.

"Just lie still and listen, I doubt there's any move you can make that doesn't hurt and I want you focused on this. People will probably be arriving from next door before long, you made a lot of noise. I am not your enemy, but neither am I your friend. If I was Stryfe, I'd either kill you or question you. If I was Dawn, I'd stay and help. What I am is leaving. And what you are is saying nothing. You want to say a 'stryfer' attacked you, fine, but you better then describe someone that looks completely different, you understand. I wouldn't mind doing jobs for you guys if you need an outsider, you can tell them that. Just drop a note for "Torval" at Tarsin's Boarding House."

Voices were getting nearer, and Inoadar ran to a far corner of the courtyard and climbed the wall. He ran on top of it to reach the end of the next alley down. He jumped down into the shadows there and waited. before long there were enough people milling around that he could emerge and quickly blend in. He returned to his original alley and retrieved his cane, his tamo set and the odd wet bag. Then he went home.

[Inoadar]

The next day he left a sign for the Ravosalamen, to let them know he had something for them. Within the bell, he was lying back on the cushioned seats of the boat in innocent-looking discussion with the poleman.

He recounted his surveillance of the women he did NOT believe to be the significant ones. He gave a detailed recap of his discussion with the coach driver for the other woman and made a pointed mention that it was the same man that was driver for the previous week's abduction. He gave his reasons why he did NOT think the coach company was an actual ally of the Ebonstryfe, but rather, nothing more than a company with one of their agents employed as a driver.

He gave an account of his efforts to warn the woman so he could gauge her reaction. He also recalled the frustrated behavior of the driver and how he might still have been persuaded that these things were coincidental if not for the attack by the man naming him a "stryfe bastard".

He explained that he now felt there were lookouts for what may have been a Rising Dawn meeting, called off due to his warning to the woman of a possible Ebonstryfe presence. And that the man who attacked him was one of those lookouts.

The boatman nodded as he finished up his briefing, asking only if he had killed the lookout.

"Of course." Inoadar answered without hesitation.

After a pause, the boatman pulled out a small heavy bag and covertly slid it to Inoadar. "All in all, a very thorough effort, here is your reward." The slight 'clink' of coins was too muffled to tell if it was gold, silver or even copper. At the back of his mind was the loss of two more dart doses as well as a large enough portion of his False Faces Kit to account for one full disguise. Only two now remained.

Inoadar pocketed the bag without examining it, wishing to display trust and willingness to accept their judgment, figuring that even if they shortchanged him now, such an attitude would bring recompense later.

"Thank you, sir." Inoadar said, nodding a bow, eager to get home and see if any of the eels in the wet bag were the type that were rumored to surrender a mucus that had poisoncrafter applications. He had been neglecting that pursuit lately and it was time to get back to it.