Infiltration

Jadelere walked up to the guard's house whilst leaning heavily on his crutch. Well, walking wasn't the exact word. He scurried, moving far to the side whenever the rare passer-by would cross paths with him or even share the same walkway. It was like this for everyone, what with the plague and the uncertainty of the situation, that they would actively keep a large distance between themselves.

Jadelere sighed as he reached the portcullis which was Groamburk's great gateway to the outside. Or inside, depending on your point of view. Towards the side there was a guard's house with a number of undesirable individuals assigned to this post; most of the times, the guards assigned at the city's entrance were old army veterans that had lost the will to fight or simply armed thugs not fit for patrolling the streets. They were good for scaring unwanted visitors with nefarious intentions, though.

Jadelere raised his hand and knocked five times in quick succession. After just a few moments, a small hinge slid to the side and a pair of stern-looking eyes showed up from behind a small opening and examined Jadelere completely. A man guffawed and, after a few seconds, the lock clanked and the door was pulled open by a tall and muscular guard with a thick moustache.

"Colour me surprised!" He exclaimed while he grinned. "If it isn't Jadelere the imp. To what do I owe the displeasure of your visit?"

"Shut your mouth, Gyors, I've come for business." Grunted Jadelere.

"Business with the plague around the city and forcing everyone into their homes? I'm flabbergasted."

"Flabbergasted? Since when have you learned to use big words like that one?"

"Since I'm mostly locked in here with nothing to do but read books and beat inmates up." Explained Gyors. "Makes me sound like an intellectual."

"Indeed it does." Nodded Jadelere to show his agreement, although inside he was snickering to himself. "Inmates?"

"Aye, people trying to flee the city even though the city lord ordered a shut down of the gates." Gyors yawned. "But most of them just get sent back home. The ones we keep here are those that take advantage of the situation and appropriate the stuff of others. There's a bastard born every minute, you know."

"How right you are." Sighed Jadelere and then he quickly changed the subject. "You don't intend for us to catch up standing out here like this, right? Will you let me in or not?"

"No can do, bozo, it's a health risk and all that." Gyors leaned against the door-frame in a manner that suggested there was no way he would let Jadelere pass.

"Hardly." Rebuked Jadelere as he began fumbling around the inside of his coat pockets. "The health risk is having you live in there with your peers without some good old fashion entertainment. I'm surprised you haven't gone absolutely insane by now."

Gyors shrugged. "Like I said, books and beatings."

"A fine variety of pastimes, I'm certain of it, but I bring you a more reasonable alternative ideal for men with your degree of sophistication." He said as he pulled out a pouch the size of a cart-wheel from the inside of his coat. "I bring cards and two bottles of dwarven liquor; the kind that punches you in the gut. Don't you think that would be far more fun while we talk business?"

"Abyss take you, imp, you should of started with that!" Gyors was evidently thrilled with Jadelere's proposition because he grabbed the accountant's arm and dragged him into the guardhouse immediately, fearing Jadelere would change his mind. "Come, come, I'll show you around."

With that, Gyors led Jadelere into a room where there were six other guards sitting around and doing random things like cleaning the area between their toes and/or breaking bread into tiny little pieces and tossing those into another person's mouth from across the room. The epitome of boredom.

Gyors introduced Jadelere and the purpose behind his visit. Before Jadelere could begin exchanging pleasantries with them, the guards all rushed to their feet, cleared a table from the left-overs of their lunch, and pushed the startled accountant onto one of the chairs as they all sat around him. Whether they were more excited about the alcohol or the cards was unknown, but Jadelere knew for certain that it wasn't because of him.

"Let's get on with it, shall we?" Smiled Gyors, the idea of Jadelere saying he wanted to do business long forgotten.

--

In the meantime, Jack was crawling through a small air tunnel with some difficulty which connected the inside of the guardhouse with the outside; at the height equivalent to a three storey building. Jack had to climb up there and then crawl into the small opening and slowly pull himself down the moment Jadelere arrived at the portcullis.

The plan, drawn up between Jack and Erik, was to have him infiltrate the guard's house whilst Jadelere had them all distracted with cards.

It seemed like a good idea at the time, but Jack was beginning to regret it given the sheer stench he was having to contend with in the small, cramped, space. After all, he was effectively breathing in the combined human odours of at least two dozen people cohabitating in a small city's guardhouse.

Jack quietly swore to himself as he continued on with his way down the small tunnel but he said nothing out loud; after all, sound travelled very far and very easily in these kinds of spaces.

After half a quarter of an hour he managed to reach an opening which led to a large chamber with cells lining up the walls. Clearly, he had managed to successfully get into the guardhouse undetected.

The cells all had two or three people in each one, and they all looked to be suffering from various degrees of the plague that was tormenting Groamburk. Jack sighed silently at the poor living conditions they were faced with but ultimately decided it was best to ignore it.

He used Shadow Steps to move from the small air tunnel to the rafters and concealed himself in the darkness behind them. Then he began creeping forward, remaining unnoticed by anyone. Soon enough he was out of that room and into a long, dimly lit, corridor. He appreciated the lack of lighting as it made it all the easier to sneak around.

From afar he could just make out the excited shouting and crazed laughter of the drunk guards enjoying the card game as well as Jadelere exclaiming in excitement: "…fleeced again, Breo, lady luck doesn't smile on you!" and someone responding "He can't even read!" which was met with another round of laughter and one person cursing rather creatively for an illiterate person. No doubt another one of Jadelere's tricks to keep their rapt attention on himself.

Jack decided to ignore them. He sent out his spiritual sense to scope out his surroundings and was glad to notice that there was no one in his vicinity, nor were there any traps or array formations around to bar his passage. In truth, the overall lack of security left him somewhat surprised because it meant he could have infiltrated this place without Jadelere's distraction.

'Whatever.' He thought to himself. 'At least I have more leeway now.'

Jack dropped down to the floor and landed with cat-like gracefulness, allowing his body weight and momentum to carry him forward as he rolled over the moment his toes connected with the ground. The endings of his clothes hadn't touched the tiles on the floor by the time he was already back on his feet and moving onwards to the records room, silent as a ghost. He found it a few doors down, without an ounce of protection around it, not even a small padlock.

Jack sighed in disappointment, opened the unlocked door, snuck in, and carefully close the door behind him.

The records room, to Jack's surprise, was very well kept. He'd expected documents and scrolls to just be tossed and spread around inconsistently and he foresaw spending a long time finding the information he was searching for. Instead, he was astounded to see neatly organised filing bookcases which were accurately catalogued and inventoried.

With just a glance, he was able to locate the record of the people who came to Groamburk in the period of dates between four and five weeks earlier. There was more than he'd expected, but still less than one hundred travellers.

Jack grabbed one of the ledgers and read its contents. That was when he understood why these records were so well kept. Each entry was detailed and comprehensive with regards to the people that walked into Groamburk, when they arrived, their purpose, where they intended to stay, as well as their belongings. Next to each name and date was a series of small vertical lines side by side. With a larger number of lines, the lesser detailed was the information in the registry.

Evidently, these lines represented bribes.

The guards would certainly want to keep an accurate register of how much coin they got from collecting bribes and also from whom so that they could avoid getting into trouble whenever an inspection came around by sharing a portion of their unlawful profits. Not to mention being able to locate the people if things happened to get out of hand.

It's always amazing how well organised corrupt officials are when performing their petty criminal acts.

Jack chuckled and began filtering the names on there. First, he removed everyone that had arrived to Groamburk as part of a group because he knew that someone carrying a powerful poison would stay far away from other people when travelling. That alone removed about eighty of the names in the ledgers. Next, he checked for those which weren't bringing any goods to sell or didn't have any goods registered under their names; leaving him with just six people who could potentially be the person that smuggled the poison into Groamburk. Of the last six names, Jack chose the three with the highest bribe given to the guards.

In his analysis, the person who came into the city carrying the poison would want to stand out as little as possible in order to avoid arousing suspicion, which meant bribing the guards into not recording almost any details of his passing; and that would would require a rather large expenditure of coin. As such, Jack chose the one with the second-highest bribe as his first target.

He chose that person because the first name would stand out too much to anyone who checked the ledgers, and that person's bribe wasn't much larger than others on the list. It was safe to assume that the smuggler would have given a hefty sum of money to whomever guard was stationed at the city gate at the time; a much larger sum than previous travellers would have given. Considering the fact that the guards were intelligent enough to keep detailed records of their bribes but not intelligent enough to hide them properly, the only feasible possibility that remained was that the guard that received it would falsify the entry by placing the smuggler second in the list. In other words, high enough on the list to share the bribe without raising suspicion amongst the others, but low enough to keep most of the coin.

The name in question was of a man called Soltan and, according to the registry, he was an adventurer staying at a run-down inn called the Brink of Dawn. This only confirmed Jack's suspicions given the fact that someone with enough coin to pay such a hefty bribe definitely had the coin to afford accommodation at the Wishful Hare. The fact that they weren't staying at the region's most famous inn despite being able to do so, was suspicious in and of itself.

Jack closed the ledger, put it back in its place, and left the room back the way he came. There was a strange smile on his face as he climbed back up the air tunnel.

--

"You took your sweet time."

"I was being thorough." Chuckled Jadelere as he bounced a large leather pouch in his hand which chinked with the sound of being full of coins. "Thorough with fleecing the buggers, that is."

"This is hardly the time to use your card skills to rob hard-working folk of their hard-earned coin."

"Relax, Erik, I know what I'm doing." Jadelere hid his winnings within the depths of his coat. "They know me and how good I am; If I'd lost it would have been suspicious. They weren't upset because they've been cooped up for so long that they simply appreciated the company."

"Very well." Sighed Erik. "Now just tell me where young master Hare is so that we can rendezvous with him."

"You mean he isn't with you?"

"No." Erik shook his head. "It was my belief that he'd be following you."

"Fuck." Cursed Jadelere as he realised what had happened. "He's gone on without us."

"Abyss take us…"