‘I tell ya, Jakob, these double shifts are gonna kill me faster than any Marcher bunny.’

Robin froze as the voice drifted through the door to the small office he was currently ransacking for information on the northern gate’s shift changes. He was wearing a version of his ‘average guy’ disguise, this time with a watchman-trainee uniform for extra camouflage. The outfit was easy enough to duplicate. It was basically just a navy blue hat and coat (with a brown armband for the trainee bit).

That didn’t mean he wanted to get caught with his hand in the cookie jar, however. Though in this case, the cookies were a small stack of guard rotas. Not at all appetising.

He especially didn’t want to get caught before he’d had a chance to swipe what he was after. He’d found the guard rota easily enough. That was information the people working the wall needed, and it fluctuated enough that there needed to be reliable, easy access.

What he couldn’t find was any information on the actual procedures and passcodes employed at each gate. There was some kind of hidden mark that the papers needed to pass inspection, and the local forgers had yet to uncover what it was. It was just one more thing that the Sisters Sharp had to grapple with in their attempts to get home.

Robin had really been hoping to solve that problem. And he thought he might be close. There was a strange seal that didn’t have any wax stuck to it in the watch-captain’s desk. Something about it twigged Robin’s sixth sense.

Of course the thing was locked up tighter than a CEO’s Cayman accounts. Robin really needed more practice at lockpicking. Especially under high-pressure situations like this one.

Robin relaxed slightly as the voices moved away from the door. Best get out of here, and soon. He was working on borrowed time, but he was so close to the seal! Maybe there was a key hidden somewhere, like how people in his world kept spares under flower pots and in decorative rocks.

He carefully went over the desk again. Hang on. Something wasn’t right. Robin eyed the angles along the right-hand side. It looked like there was a small compartment up and under…there!

Robin’s questing fingers found a hidden niche, not even a compartment. No key, but there was a small leather satchel full of paper. Reports! It looked like they were from Gis’s agent provocateur, too. There were all sorts of subversive mutterings documented here, more than he could memorise, and he didn’t dare steal this lot. Robin picked out a few of the names and listed activities. Lantha should be able to make good use of the information.

His eyes widened as he looked at one of the papers near the top. The watch-captain was meeting with this mysterious agent provocateur today. As in right now. As in that was why his office was currently empty for Robin to burgle!

Robin checked the time against the details in his hand. He could just about make it to the designated rendezvous. He’d have to give up his chance to continue searching this place to do so, however, and there was no telling the next time he’d have a chance to inspect that seal.

On the other hand, he didn’t know that the seal was the thing that made the gate-passes unforgeable. And he didn’t know when else he’d have a chance to unmask Gis’s agent. Either way, it was a gamble.

Robin quickly stuffed everything back where he’d found it. He was going to try and catch up with the watch-captain and the secret agent. He knew where the seal was. He didn’t know where the agent was roaming. Take the chance at the rarer target.

He straightened his fake uniform, peered out the window, and darted out of the door as soon as the coast was clear. Once free of the watch-station, he slipped into an alleyway then slipped into a run, willing his appearance to change as he went.

It wouldn’t do for some puffed-up patrolman to yell at the new recruit for running. He’d draw less attention as a kid, young enough to work as a runner for the merchants. That gave him an excuse as well, in case anyone did try to stop him.

Not long left if he was going to make that meeting. Robin put his head down and ran.

***

Robin’s nose itched from the violent clash of perfume and cologne in the air. The meeting place was a brothel, all dim and shuttered light (in spite of the afternoon hour), tacky satin and brocade designed to look expensive in the seductive gloom. Of course they were meeting here. And of course Robin’s first time in a brothel wasn’t for the regular reason, but because he was chasing a particularly nasty spy.

As secret meeting locations went, it was a good one. Plenty of discreet entrances and exits, lots of people who don’t want to ask questions of anyone lest they be asked questions in return.

And a nosy madam at the door keeping track of everyone who came in and out that might possibly reek of authority. Or at least anyone that reeked of non-corrupted authority. Robin watched as a seedy-looking city guard greeted the woman with easy familiarity. A small amount of money changed hands.

He really needed an invisibility spell. As it was, he was just about able to make do in the dim light with judicious use of illusion and moving very carefully when attention was elsewhere. But there were a lot of rooms in this place, and no way of knowing precisely which one he was looking for.

Not without taking a risk.

Robin waited until one of the working boys walked past, alone. Then he slipped into the guise of the madam and, using [Lesser Phantasm] to duplicate her voice, asked which room the watch-captain had ended up in.

He was counting on the man being notable enough for the working boys and girls to both take note of and gossip about.

‘Top floor, little garret room, as usual, why?’ The lad wasn’t sour, but he carried a bit of a resentful air about him.

Robin wondered if that was usual or if something had happened recently to annoy him. Didn’t matter! Focus.

‘Never you mind! Now off you fuck.’ Robin couldn’t risk extended dialogue so had to hope the command would suffice to end the interaction now he had what he needed.

It did. Thankfully Robin had heard several examples of the madam’s colourful language as he was slowly sneaking into the place.

As soon as the lad was out of sight, Robin stole his appearance and made his way quickly up the stairs. No one gave him a second glance.

The top floor was mercifully empty, only a short hallway with a few doors. Only one had voices behind it. Robin wrapped an illusion around himself and settled in, straining to catch any snippets of conversation. This could be very valuable intelligence, in addition to finally giving him a glimpse of Gis’s mysterious agent provocateur.

It took a while to make out the individual voices, but Robin’s investment in Perception paid of here as well. After a few moments, he managed to separate the sounds coming through the door into distinct voices. One was clearly the watch-captain.

The other, however…the other was strange. There was a curious affectlessness to the voice. It was like it had somehow been stripped of all identifying character. It was the vocal equivalent to his ‘forgettably average guy’ disguise.

That was a neat trick. He’d have to try and replicate it later with [Lesser Phantasm]. Robin filed the idea away for later and concentrated on picking the conversation out from through the door. Unfortunately, it sounded like the bulk of the meeting had already happened.

‘I don’t care about your problems. The priest promised Lord Basgar results and you are to deliver them!’

That was clearly the watch-captain.

‘The price we agreed upon doesn’t cover working while some of my targets are aware they’re being manipulated,’ the mysterious voice answered. ‘I’m going to require more funds or…other compensation.’

Robin blinked. How was the agent already aware they were onto them? He’d only just informed Avanus of their existence. It only made sense if—frell. It only made sense if the agent was someone already deeply embedded in one of the groups. And of course they were! How else would they be manipulating things so effectively?

He really needed to find out who this person was.

‘That’s between you and Gis,’ the watch-captain was saying.

This guy really didn’t think much of the priest, did he? Interesting. Robin filed that away as something they might be able to exploit later.

‘Yes, well, his Eminence tasked you with seeing to my needs, and my needs are not being met. If my needs are not met, I cannot effectively do my job.’

‘Not my problem!’

‘It will be your problem when you and your men are facing a highly-motivated and organised insurrection against Lord Basgar’s rule.’

‘Peasants,’ the watch-captain sneered, ‘townsfolk. What are they going to do? Threaten me with a rolling pin? Menace me with a frying pan?’

‘Don’t underestimate—’

Someone must have moved in the room. The conversation drifted out of his hearing. Robin bit back a growl of frustration. He shifted about, trying to bring their words back into focus, but all he could hear were muffled sounds.

His repositioning did something else, however. His shifting weight pressed down on a loose board and the thing creaked loudly.

The conversation through the door ceased. There were a few more muffled words, which Robin could only assume were something to the effect of ‘Did you hear something?’

Acting almost on instinct, Robin took several light steps back and wrapped himself in a new illusion. He was only just in time, too, as no sooner had he frozen into his new place than the door swung open and the watch-captain thrust his head and neck out into the hall.

Too bad Robin wasn’t an axe-wielding maniac. He could have parted the man’s head from his shoulders in a trice. Such a tempting target.

But Robin was still quite a ways away from casual slaughter, if he would ever reach that point. So the bard kept still, kept quiet, and watched, [Cutting Words] hovering on his lips just in case.

‘There’s no one here,’ the watch-captain huffed.

‘Are you quite certain?’

The owner of the mysteriously blank voice stepped into the hall. When Robin saw them step out the door, his heart surged briefly with hope but it quickly crashed down and out into disappointment. Not only was the agent provocateur’ s voice blanked out, their whole body was as well! They were shrouded in some kind of form-blurring illusion that bled all colour and distinction from the person’s form.

He should have guessed that he wasn’t the only one with some illusory tricks up his sleeve. And he really should have predicted that someone playing as dangerous a game as pitting potentially violent rebels against one another would take great care that their identity never be discovered.

Though that was an opportunity as well. Robin quickly filed away as many details of the blurring effect and the blank voice as he could. This was a disguise he might be able to use against the watch-captain or even Gis in the future.

The hackles on Robin’s neck rose as that featureless gaze slid over his hiding spot. Did it pause and linger on him, for just a moment? He dared not even breathe. And he certainly dared not attack. There was no way he’d win in a two-on-one fight in a brothel against two opponents of unknown capabilities.

There was no way the watch-captain didn’t know his way around that sword at his hip, and no way a secret agent of any kind didn’t fight all kinds of dirty. No, Robin was best hid, if he could stay that way.

‘Nothing,’ the featureless voice finally said. ‘The same as we managed to accomplish at this meeting. We’re done here, anyway. If Lords Gis and Basgar wish to continue employing my services, leave the sum I requested or its equivalent in the usual space in three days or less.’ The figure paused. ‘Or I vanish from this town and none of you will hear from me again.’

And with those words, the figure literally vanished. Robin cursed mentally. Of course they’d have invisibility magic. Though hopefully not in the form of a ring of great and evil power. That would be a Brandywine Bridge too far.

The watch-captain muttered to himself before stomping off down the stairs. Robin silently renewed the [Visual Phantasm] he was hiding in and waited. And stewed.

This had not turned out at all as he’d hoped. Not only was he no closer to finding out the identity of the agent provocateur, he’d also lost his best chance at cracking the protection on the paperwork that would allow him and the Sisters Sharp passage through the northern gate.

And to cap it all off, he was standing alone in a brothel.

How was that fair!?