The lengthening evening shadows are dispelled by the lamps that the cafe owner has lit. Aliele is currently waiting for a contact to meet her, and lead her to another of the Night's Shadow.
The cafe is in the middle of the main road of a very small village. There's probably only fifty buildings in the entire city, and twice that number of families.
The Imperial Guard are nowhere in sight, which is always a good sign. In the fading light of the sun, Aliele can just see a traveler walking down the road into town. He'll reach the cafe in a few minutes.
Aliele watched the traveler out of the corner of her eye. Most would be going home at this time so he'd probably be her contact. On the other hand she had a healthy dose of paranoia after recent events so she wouldn't take anything for granted. Still years of training tought her the fine art of concealing her true feelings so she continued to pretend to be the pampered low ranking noblewoman that she was dressed like.
Leaning back in her chair Aliele asked cafe owner for another cup of tea and continued to wait patiently.
The cafe owner, a twitchy, compulsive man with the mannerisms and social graces of a ferret, pours Aliele a fresh cup of tea, and then backs away from her table, bowing slightly, and dry-washing his hands nervously. This behavior is distracting, but doesn't keep Aliele from observing the dagger tucked into the waistband of her supposed contact when a breeze tugs at his jacket.
This particular dagger is interesting, because while the Night's Shadow tends to avoid easily identifying insignia, this dagger bears the imperial crest. Of course ... some among the Night's Shadow might carry a trophy of their enemy, so it could still be to soon to judge.
Stepping into the cafe, the man pauses, adjusting his eyes to the interior dimness before taking a seat. He's dressed in the loose gray pants and shirt of an artisan, not the more tight-fighting and durable clothes of a workman. Above that, he wears a dark brown leather jacket, though not one so heavy it can resist the wind tugging at it.
After entering, he chooses a table a few seats from Aliele and loudly calls out the code words to identify himself as a contact: "Tea, with mint and jasmine, brew it hot, and serve it to me cold."
The owner spasms slightly at this new customer (as he has for the last dozen, since Aliele came in), and nods, running into the back room to fetch the requested tea.
Aliele nodded to the man. Even if he was an imperial spy or assassin perhaps she could get some useful information out of him. She wasn't really afraid of one individual. The fact that the cafe owner was as twitchy as he seemed to be was a bad sign, but in a way almost a good sign as it indicated even if he knew something he was probably in it against his will meaning he would be more likely to run than assist. Cowards were nothing if not predictable. Aliele had no doubt about her ability to be gone before he got help.
Eyeing the contact speculatively she gave him a coy smile. "Would you care to join me good sir? It's been a long evening and my husband to be seems to be late in picking me up. Perhaps we could share a few stories while we drink."
The man blinks, then turns to regard Aliele speculatively. His eyes stop at the fine embroidery of Aliele's sleeves, and whatever he was going to say is cut off as he remembers to close his mouth. Swallowing, he rises from his own seat, and sits across the table from Aliele.
"I could easily be persuaded, madame," he says, winking, and resting both hands on the table. Both hands are palm down, showing no scars, no tattoos, and no jewelry. The pinky finger on his right hand slides towards him, folding to make a peak before he pulls both hands from the table and lets them fall into his lap. "What stories would you like to hear?"
Aliele recognizes the sign as false, however. While this man may be capable, he's not truly a part of Night's Shadow. She might be able to brush him off by not giving the recognition phrase, which is to ask for a tale of the empire.
"I've always been fond of travel even if I don't get to do so myself very often. Perhaps you know stories of the Monks of Zenia? I saw one once when I was but a young child. It always fascinated me how different they were than most others." Aliele thought to herself how tempting it'd be to kill this dog, but sometimes subtlety was necessary. If she could let him live without him realizing what she was, then she could tell the rest of the Shadow and they could feed him the information the Shadow wanted him to know.
The man frowns, slightly taken aback. "I'm ... not sure I know any stories about monks," he says slowly. "But I know stories of wars, of adventure, and the empire."
"Alas, everyone seems to love stories of war. In these troubled times I believe we need stories to take our minds off of the wars." Aliele smiled sadly. "Don't you agree?"
The man nods at Aliele, but his eyes are already elsewhere, looking (evidently) for someone else. "I know a story," he says after a moment. "The tale of three sisters."
The cafe owner emerges from the kitchen with the man's lookwarm tea, and explains that it will be properly cold if he just lets it sit for about five minutes. The man nods, and once the inkeeper is gone, he launches into a story of the three sisters who founded the Emnpire.
Aliele nods politely as she listens to the story. When he finishes she smiles. "Well told. You seem to be looking for someone. Might I inquire as to who? I might've seen him or her as I've been here for awhile."
The man shrugs, and smiles awkwardly. "Well," he says slowly, "I was looking for someone I had exchanged letters with for some time.... We were to meet here." He laughs nervously. "I was ... to tell her stories of the empire, which she so loved."
He had his escape bid outlined neatly. A member of the Night's Shadow who used that fall-back story would be able to tell any Imperial guards it was the truth, and probably had a stack of letters, possibly from another member of the Night's Shadow to corroberate the story.
It appears from this man that the Empire is trying to keep its hunting of the Night's Shadow on the subtle side of things....
"Ah. Her?" Alliele smiled as if imagining an illicite union between a man and woman. "I'm afraid I haven't seen women for over an hour now. Perhaps she got lost? Or something happened to keep her busy? In these times one can't be too careful."
"Probably," the man says, nodding slowly. "I should go looking for her now." He rises, and bows to Alliele. "May you enjoy your tea in peace. I am sorry to have disturbed you." With that, he drops an Imperial silver on the table behind him, and starts walking towards the exit.
Aliele considered whether or not to follow the spy but decided it'd be best to talk to her contacts and find where he was staying. After all if he had anyone watching him they'd be suspicious about her leaving right after he did. Instead she'd go to his place later tonight or perhaps tomorrow night and see what she could learn then when she was dressed more appropriately for sneaking around.
Aliele spends enough time at the cafe to make it look like she's just a lady stopping for a drink, and not a meeting. This does prompt a few (somewhat polite) requests for some time with Aliele from one or two other patrons before she leaves, however.
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.
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.
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).
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 (http://www.pishoque.net/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?p=51669#51669).