Shadows

Tom Miller was the son of a miller, he lived the first part of his life in the country helping his father to work in the mill but when a storm destroyed their mill the family, having no money to fix it, had to find another way to earn a living.

Tom moved to Planky Town at the age of 15 looking for work to help his family, he found a job in a tavern and worked there for two years before being recruited to work at the Hogwarts Toy Company. Thanks to his intelligence and charisma, he rose through the ranks to work directly under Prince Doran himself, becoming part of his inner circle.

When the prince opened the Game House in Planky Town, Tom was assigned as its manager, and in the shadows he became the Master of Planky Town Shadows.

The Shadows is a secret group of spies founded by the prince.

"It's good to see you again Tom. How long has it been since our last meeting? Half a year?" Doran says as he walks over to the Master Spy.

"8 Moon to be more precise my prince." Tom bows to his prince, Doran motions for him to stand up, and they both sit down.

The room has a poker table on one side and two sofas facing each other on the other side. The walls are decorated with various paintings and some shelves with various ornaments.

"It's been longer since we last saw each other, Janna." Doran says this in the Common Tongue, as his conversation with Tom was in Rhyonish as is protocol for the high ranking members of the Shadows.

Janna is a rather attractive twenty-eight-year-old woman, not very tall but very curvy. She used to work at an inn as a waitress until during the epidemic a few years ago her boss died and the inn was taken over by a greedy and cruel man. From then on she was treated almost like a prostitute, her boss forcing her to wear suggestive clothing and inciting clients to grope her. He almost raped her himself, and he would have if it weren't for Prince Doran's intervention.

The prince was looking for places to quarantine the sick to prevent the disease from spreading further, when he entered the inn he heard Janna's screams and rushed to her rescue.

After dealing with the criminal, the prince bought the inn and offered the woman to work for him. That same inn, and a few other buildings, were demolished to make way for the Game House, where Janna now works as a waitress on the third floor.

She, before becoming an official member of the Shadows, discovered a Tyrell spy among the employees of the Game House. Janna reported her discovery to her boss and Tom, impressed with her insight, recruited her into the Shadows.

"Yes, my prince" Janna replies, "Almost two years."

"Time flies," Tom jokes. "Would you like something to eat or drink, my prince? Or shall we go straight to business?"

"The night is long, Tom, and a bottle of Lilac Wine will make it more transient. Oh, and some fries. Lothar," Doran turns to his knight who is still standing in front of the door with Janna. "Would you like something to eat?"

"Fries always go better with a hamburger, my prince." The knight answers.

"Janna will bring the food while we get started." Tom says, the waitress bows and leaves the room.

`"Inventing" fast food was a great move.` Doran smirks at the memory of Prince Aerys's birthday banquet a few years ago. He had just introduced several new modern food recipes and it so happened that the king loved pizza so much that he made it a regular dish at banquets. The look on the faces of several nobles upon seeing a pizza for the first time was priceless, their indecision at not knowing how they were supposed to eat it was hilarious.

As the door closes Doran's expression changes from casual and friendly to serious and intimidating.

"Tom, it's not like you to be late with a report." Doran narrows his eyes. "A few days is acceptable but almost a moon... Without giving any explanation." The disapproval is clear in the prince's tone and Tom looks away in shame.

"My apologies, my prince. I know I should have warned you in advance, but something unforeseen happened. Something that shook me to my bones. I wanted to investigate the matter further before presenting my report. I never intended to give the impression of disloyalty. My sincerest apologies." Tom gets up from his chair and kneels in front of his prince.

Doran looks at him intrigued and motions for him to sit back down.

The prince never really doubted Tom's loyalty, mostly because in every meeting with his spies Doran uses legilimency to detect lies.

This use of the mental arts is little known, Harry learned it from a Norwegian wizard during his travels, in it the user does not "read the mind" of his target but "reads his intentions". Unfortunately this technique requires a lot of concentration and puts a great strain on the user's mind, so Doran can only use it for a few hours every few weeks so as not to cause permanent damage to his mind.

Doran doesn't use this technique during all the duration of the meetings he has with his spies, if that were the case he would only be able to verify the loyalty of a few spies every few weeks (he has hundreds of them) and that's not practical at all. Instead he uses the technique for a few minutes during each meeting. During those minutes he asks his spies several questions that are meant to test their loyalty and sincerity.

"As ordered, I began the investigation into House Uller's Maester, Maester Umbert, four moons ago. At first I found nothing alarming about him. Maester Umbert is the son of an Oldtown fishmonger and was recruited by the deceased Seneschal Harry at age ten. His years as an acolyte were very ordinary, he got on quite well with most of his peers and had a couple of close friends. After eleven years he forged 38 links and took his vows.

As is normal among Maesters, he spent the first few years of his new life further increasing his knowledge and researching various topics that interested him. After four years he was sent to King's Landing to be one of Grand Maester Theon's assistants and after the death of the Grand Maester, Maester Umbert returned to the Citadel. Shortly after he was sent to Hellhold.

Umbert earned a reputation for being an affable, calm and understanding man, nobody has anything bad to say about him but nothing excessively positive either; he makes a good impression on the people he interacts with but nothing remarkable. As for his friendships, two of his friends became Maesters of poor Knight Houses, another became a scribe in Lannisport, and another works for a Braavosi merchant as an accountant.

At first glance nothing seems suspicious."

Doran watches as his spy fidgets in his seat.

"Go on," Doran softens his expression and smiles reassuringly at him.

"Not finding anything suspicious at first glance, I decided to look deeper. I had men watch his every move, intercept his mail and find out more about his friends. The first few days I didn't get anything, it seemed like Maester Umbert is an ordinary maester, so I decided to increase the range even more. I started to investigate every person with whom he interacted, nothing in depth because I did not have enough men or time, just enough to know who the person is and what relationship he or she has with Maester Umbert.

After obtaining all the information, I spent days analyzing, looking for connections. An insignificant detail that, if you had not told me that this investigation is of the utmost importance, I would not have taken into account. Two of Maester Umbert's patients had similar fame.

The first, a lad of four and ten who died of a head injury, said that he was able to control animals.

The second, a five-year-old boy who died of a fever, claimed to have seen his grandfather die in a fishing accident; That day the boy insisted that his grandfather stay at home and the grandfather agreed, the fishing boat sank and all the fishmongers died."

Tom stops for a moment and looks nervously at the prince, Doran had a concentrated expression and was looking at him attentively. After taking a breath, the spy continued with his story.

"I didn't expect much from that lead, but I investigated all the patients that the maester treated. I found another five cases of people reputed to have some supernatural ability. After consulting with one of our healers, we came to the conclusion that the maester killed those innocents, because the healer was able to prove that in all cases the cause of death could not have been due to the patient's injuries or illness. All deaths have a pattern, and Jon found the true cause of the deaths: poison."

`Jon? Ah yes, one of the healers I trained` Doran vaguely remembers a man with curly hair and a soft expression.

"I wish that was all." The prince hears his spy murmur.

`What could be so unexpected that it bothers him so much? If it wasn't Umbert`s murders then what?`