Chương 30: Infiltration (1)

Completing her daily hadn't taken Alexandra that much time. It was still early afternoon when she returned to the harbor, ready to tackle a skill quest. A Face Among Many was simply a skill she had to get. Not only that, the condition for its unlock meant she couldn't do so in Lanterne. A Face Among Many: Infiltrate a crowded place you're not welcome in without being noticed (0/1). While there were a few places where she wasn't welcome in the village, none of them could be considered crowded. She frowned.

By now, she was barely welcomed in Lanterne altogether. But even then, it wouldn't feel crowded if the entire population gathered in one place. Esmera was the perfect place to do that quest. She stared at the ship where the crew was still loading merchandise. That was her first idea, a place where she wasn't supposed to be. Alexandra grabbed a small crate from the dock. It was heavy. Heavier than it looked. Acting like she belonged, she followed three steps behind a broad-shouldered man, entering the line.

The gangplank bowed under their weight. She kept her head low. She made it three steps onto the deck.

"You." A hand closed around her arm. The man who grabbed her was short, sun-darkened and scarred along the jaw. His grip didn't leave room for her to move.

"Who the fuck are you?"

"New hire." She kept her voice flat.

"Dockmaster sent me up."

"New hire." He repeated it without inflection. Two other men drifted closer.

"Merinus ships never hire locals. Especially not hooded ones." The crate was taken from her hands. The scarred man walked her backward toward the rail.

"Off the ship."

"There's been a misunderstanding—""Off the ship, and into the hands of the port authorities."

"Look, I'll just go. No need to take things too far." The man didn't answer, and kept pushing her toward the docks. They deboarded the ship, and walked toward the white robed priestess Alexandra had observed earlier.

"Arame. I found this one trying to sneak up on our ship," The man said, sending Alexandra forward. Arame looked at him, then at Alexandra who didn't dare to meet her gaze.

"I'll take it from there." The man frowned.

"To be clear, she's not with us."

"I know. Don't worry about it." He turned around and left. Arame turned her head to look at the sea. Alexandra waited, looking at her feet. What a disaster.

"What were you trying to do?" Alexandra opened her mouth. Closed it.

"I wanted to see the ship." Arame watched the water. A gull landed on a piling twenty feet out.

"The ship."

"The loading process. I'm interested in seeing… how… it is?" Alexandra shut up.

"Right." The gull left. Arame watched it go.

"Now, the real reason." Alexandra flinched.

"Come on," Arame pressed.

"You're not expecting me to believe an excuse this weak. Are you?"

"I'm sorry." She shifted on her feet. Arame looked at her.

"Then." Alexandra hesitated. The priestess shook her head.

"See the size of this ship. Anyone capable of chartering something that large isn't someone you can mess with. So you're going to tell me why you tried to sneak on their ship, or I'll take you to custody."

"For a skill quest," Alexandra blurted out.

"Which one?"

"A Face Among Many." Arame scratched her chin and scanned her outfit.

"I can see why."

"I'm not a demon worshiper."

"That's exactly what a demon worshiper would say." Arame smiled.

"I'm just kidding. I can tell you're not." Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Alexandra paused and looked at Arame, the leader of the local branch of the Hands of the Well. Esmera wasn't that large of a city, so she shouldn't be too powerful. Still stronger than her, though. Much stronger. She could feel it, somehow.

"You put me in a pinch, young lady…"

"Alexandra."

"Alexandra," she repeated.

"You put me in a pinch. I'm inclined to look past your transgression, but it seems to me that you'll just try again somewhere else." Alexandra let out a nervous laugh.

"Haha, don't worry. I've learned my lesson. I'll give up on that skill." Arame shook her head.

"Perhaps finding an acting skill would help you lie better."

"I'm not—""Don't get caught." Arame turned her head and walked away, leaving Alexandra alone on the deck. Alexandra stared at the space Arame had occupied. Don't get caught. That was the whole point, wasn't it? She turned back toward the city. The market ran along the main street of Esmera, spilling out from under its permanent awnings into the surrounding streets until the boundary between market and city dissolved entirely. As far as she could tell, it was the most active part of the city.

A low, continuous roar, the sound of hundreds of people conducting their business filled her ears. She stopped at the entrance to the main avenue and let it wash over her. This was a start. Crowded enough, at least. Though she wasn't exactly infiltrating anything just yet. She pulled her hood down. That was the first thing. It said she had something to hide, which meant people would wonder what. She tucked it back and shook her hair loose and walked in.

It was a gamble, but it looked like the city was well managed enough that people wouldn't jump at conclusions. The Hands would have caught her, or whoever else was in charge. Furthermore, it wasn't like white hair was a rarity. It was the mismatch between her youth and that color that could draw attention. As long as people didn't look too closely, it should be fine. The crowd swallowed her.

It was dense enough that she had to angle her shoulders to move, threading between a woman haggling over dried fish and two men carrying a rolled carpet between them. Stalls lined both sides of the avenue, packed so close their awnings overlapped, and the vendors called over each other in a layered choral that made individual words impossible to track. She let herself drift with the current of foot traffic. The market was crowded. But she needed to find a place where she wasn't supposed to be.

She thought about it as she moved past a flower stall, the air thickening with scents she knew from the plains. She scanned the market as she walked. Past the open stalls the buildings began, their ground floors converted into storefronts with the upper floors intact. Warehouses. Counting houses. She spotted a customs office with two port officials standing outside it, bored and watching the crowd. A guild hall with its door propped open, a carved seal above the lintel she didn't recognize.

Then she saw the merchant's exchange. It sat at the intersection of the main road and a small plaza, a two-story building with tall windows and a guarded entrance. Four men at the door, guards, well dressed, watching the crowd. A steady stream of people moved in and out.. She watched from across the avenue, standing at a textile stall and pretending to examine a bolt of cloth. There were two types of people coming and going from the building.

The firsts were not many, richly dressed, and accompanied by a host of followers. Merchants. The others reminded her of the people of Lanterne. She guessed that they came here to sell their harvest. Nobody in that building would have any reason to recognize her. But nobody in that building would have any reason to let her in either. The guards were attentive, and she didn't have anything to sell, nor was she deluded enough to think she could pass as a merchant. She put the cloth down and drifted closer.

Then came a man, barely older than her. He pushed through the entrance with an armful of documents and not a glance exchanged with the guards. Busy hands. Somewhere to be. She wanted to do the same. That was the yellow vest tactic she knew. But she didn't have documents, nor the confidence to pull it off. Arame had warned her once, not twice. She crossed the road. There was a narrow alley running along the building's flank. She walked into it. When she reached the other side, she realized there was no back door.

She looked up. A window, on the second floor. Open. It wasn't quite what she envisioned when she decided to complete that quest, but she went with it. Using the opposite wall for support, she climbed to the second floor and peeked inside. It was dark, but she could see barrels stacked on top of each other, and nobody in sight. Afraid that someone would spot her from outside, she went in. Wooden floor, plastered walls, the smell of dried Aetherveil. Barrels and crates stacked everywhere, a door to her right.

She heard voices from behind and footsteps below. She moved to the door, and listened. There were people behind. A lot of people. She put her hand on the door and didn't open it. The voices on the other side were close. Too close to the door, or not close enough to each other. She couldn't tell. She needed a crowd, not a hallway. If she walked into a corridor with people in it, it was the ship again. She pulled her hand back.

The window she'd come through let in a strip of afternoon light and the continuous noise of the market below. She crossed back to it and looked out. The alley lay beneath her, dark, empty. She'd come this far. She looked at the door again. Then she looked left. The wall ran another six feet before it met a second window, narrower, with the shutters pushed out rather than up. Through it she could see open air and the top edge of a railing. A balcony. She crossed to it and went through sideways.

The balcony ran the width of the building's front face, overlooking the intersection directly. Below her the plaza moved in its slow churn. Merchants, farmers, runners, guards; all of it compressed into the space between the surrounding buildings, and none of them looking up. She stepped to the railing and put her hands on it and looked down into the crowd. It should count… She wasn't supposed to be on this balcony, and it was crowded. If someone spotted her from below, they wouldn't think twice about it, too.

It was perfect. As long as the system agreed that it indeed counted. She waited. A cart pushed through the near edge of the crowd and the mass of people shifted to absorb it, closing behind it without pause. A woman below was arguing with a vendor, one hand on a bolt of cloth, the other gesturing at the sky. Two children cut through the adult legs at knee height and vanished into the press of bodies. A warm, soft wind hit her face. It was nice.

"Enjoying the view?" The voice came from her left. A man stood at the balcony's far end, close to the wall, close enough that she hadn't seen him when she came through the window. He was about her age, late twenties. Unlike her, he was well dressed, without being showy about it. A book in one hand, now lowered. His posture was relaxed, like he'd been there for a while. Alexandra opened her mouth.

"I…"