Evening Shadow

[Celisasu]

Returning to her place Aliele gets into more comfortable(not to mention practical) clothes.  She then arranges to meet with a contact or two that she knows she can trust and hopefully will be able to tell her a bit about her mysterious spy as well if he's alone or with others.   She also arranges a note to be sent to someone higher up than she is in the Shadow with a description of the spy just in case something happens to her.

[Brian]

Aliele returns to the inn where she is staying.  The old couple that owns it is under the impression that she's visiting her mother's grave, and leave her to her own devices.

In short order, Aliele has both identified her underlings, and dispatched a message to her superior.

Unfortunately, the message is returned very quickly:

The evening has just begun, the last vestiges of the sunset vanishing from the sky and plunging everything into darkness.  It's at that time that Aliele hears a knock from her window on the second story.

[Celisasu]

Aliele walked over to the window.  She didn't think it was an assassin as most assassins would have the commen sense not to knock but you could never be sure.  She opened it and stepped back to let whoever it was in.  Friend or foe, it wouldn't do to have them shatter the window and thus alert everyone else in the inn to what's going on(the position she's taking depends on who she sees in the window, but either way she's letting them in).

[Brian]

The messenger Aliele dispatched earlier is at the window, looking over his shoulder and behind him in a panic.  "Mistress!" he hisses quietly.  "Your superior is dead!  I nearly walked into an Imperial trap trying to deliver this note."

Aliele realizes that she has no way to contact her superior's superior ... and doesn't really even know if he has one.  The less she's told, the less that could be tortured out of her, one supposes.  At the same time, it also means that Aliele is now in charge of the Night's Shadow.  At least, in this region.

"What should I do?" the messenger asks, looking behind him, to make sure no one is noticing the fact that he's standing on the awning beneath a second-story window in the darkness.

[Celisasu]

"They know who you are now don't they?  It's best if you lie low for now.  Leave the town and get the message to one of our other contacts.  I'll do something about this but the less you know the better."


Aliele sent the messanger off while slipping into some rather stereotypical but undeniably effective black pajamas.  She'd hoped to be subtle about things but it looked like the Imperials were forcing her hand.  It was time to go pay a visit and get the information she needed in a more direct manner.  And maybe a bit of justice in the process.

[Brian]

The messenger nods, and vanishes once more into the night.

It takes only a moment for Aliele to reach the roof of the inn she's staying at (the Unshod Horse).  If her information is correct, the greatest concentration of Imperial officers in the area is an inn called the Bubbling Kettle ... but it's probably fairly well guarded, if that's true.

[Celisasu]

Never one to be bothered by a challenge, Alielle heads towards the Bubbling Kettle.  She stays in the shadows for the entire trip taking a somewhat roundabout route to see if anyone was following her and if so either catch or evade them.  If she ran into nobody she'd find a nice spot near the Kettle and wait until it was late enough that the majority of the guards were asleep.  Even if they expected someone to come in at night it didn't change the fact that she would be much harder to spot.

[Brian]

Alielle's caution is warranted.  At a glance, the street is unguarded, save a single man sitting on the steps of the inn's porch.

However, the beggar in she shadows of the closed herbal remedy shop and the neighboring butcher shop leaves an imperial sword's hilt showing from behind his blankets.  And then, across the street there was a house with and  an open window.  Some small light sparked occasionally, shadows revealing brief movements from within, to Alielle's night-sensitive eyes.

[Celisasu]

Hmmm.....there must be someone important indeed for there to be this much security.  Aliele continued to moniter the inn, keeping an eye out on where people were positioned, if there were any active patrols, and which way in might attract the least attention, including of course a check for possible sewers, ways through the bushes, the midden, or whatever else.  If no path in was available(she's taking in account her talent for jumping and running on walls too) a distraction would probably become necessary.

[Brian]

The town is too small to have a developed sewer system, but that doesn't mean that Alielle can't spot a way to exploit it.  The privy is a separate building outside the back of the inn.  There's another bored looking guard on the back porch, and looking around carefully reveals another on the roof, though this one is huddled against a chimney for warmth.  His blue imperial blanket stands out against the gray stone, even at night.

But no one guards the privy, which is large enough for someone to hide in quite easily.  If neccessary, a body could be hidden there -- dropped into the cesspool below, it wouldn't be seen until morning.  While the guard has a clear line of sight to the privy's door, he doesn't generally glance in that direction.  He seems to be drinking, though he's not quite lethargic or obviously drunk enough to indicate what he's drinking; it could be water.

The guard on the roof would probably see anyone coming from the rooftop, which would be the next possible point of entry.  Some of the upper windows were left unlatched, and could probably be climbed into.

[Celisasu]

Figuring that the guard on the roof has the best chance of spotting her, Aliele decides the best direction to come from is the one opposite of the side of the chimeny that he's huddling against.  There's no rush getting into position as it's more important not to be noticed.  From there she waits until no guards are watching the path she intends to take.  Alielle figured she'd be fast enough to get across and leap to the window before being noticed as long as she timed her movements just right.  If a guard did spot her she'd have to hope that she could throw a dagger into his throat before he could shout a warning.  Still nothing worthwhile is gained without risk and she would have to try.  And if she failed....well she'd be sure that a few Imperials wouldn't live to regret trying to prevent her escape.

[Brian]

The path that Aliele chooses is from the roof of the building east of the inn.  A flower shop, to appearances.

Getting into position quietly takes a bit of time.  Not much, but the evening is already wearing on; it's now closer to sunrise than sunset.  None of the guards seem to react to Aliele.  She's able to slip in through the window effortlessly.  Either this room is empty, or whoever's inside it is dead for all of the noise they make.

Aliele now moves to: Midnight Encounter.