114. Marked: Wiremu

Two known Imperial spies in the city. One in the city and one returning to the city on the Swift Wave. We will plan for the Swift Wave to make it back to Obalno despite the best efforts of the Royal Navy. They are experienced smugglers. I aim to find and remove the one in the city before the Swift Wave returns.

Sione had the same intel I do. The cover identity was a Produce Merchant selling fresh fruit and vegetables to the Navy. He worked for the Merchant House, Farmer’s Market, which had held the Navy contract for many years. There were Marines currently going through his house and workplace and bringing in all known contacts. He would have some fallback safe houses, which may not be actual houses. I had a description of him. He was a dwarf with brown hair and brown eyes. In other words, as common looking as possible. He will have a new name and look but will still be a dwarf.

One person would be hard to find. Approximately a third of the population of Obalno are dwarves, and half of those are male. There will be a contact system in place for the other spy and a target they are preparing for. If I knew the target and the type of attack, I might be able to track them from the preparation. Hanging around the preparation area for the Gala and looking for strange-acting male dwarves will only work for the most basic amateur. They don’t send amateurs for long-term spying.

It is possible he went into hiding with the Spiders organisation, but last I heard, there had been no communication since the assassination of Tjenner. He is probably on his own, which is good for me. He has been in Obalno for a reasonable time and knows how to fit in. That is bad for me. I don’t know any diviners or seers, and they are so rare they might as well not exist.

Ruku has a skill that lets him monitor the environment and picks out any anomalies. Ocean Sense, I think he called it. He said it came from sitting and soaking in the ocean environment he loves. Eventually, he got a sense of what might not be quite right, and it developed into a Skill. It is the closest thing I have heard of to a Diviner or seer. Unfortunately, it took years to develop. I have a lot of Sensing Skills. Can I make this Spy my Treasure and use my Sense Treasure Skill? That feels very wrong. A male Dwarf is not something I would treasure. A certain female human might be different. It has been about a year since I saw Lieutenant Kelda. She doesn’t fit the definition of treasure either, but maybe a little less so.

My Spy Class is only Level 8. I would need another two levels before I could specialise. Skills and Classes are the keys. I have two Classes I can Specialise, Hunter and Quarry Worker. Quarry Worker gave me Prospector, which gave me Sense Treasure. Hunter has given me Monster Hunter, Scout, and Assassin. Another common specialisation of Hunter is the Bounty Hunter Class. I understood that I couldn’t get Bounty Hunter because I lacked a skill to see people's Status. Maybe that is not quite true. Maybe the Skill will come from the Class. My internal Identification indicated that it could happen either way.

A person-tracking Skill is what I need. I have Tracking, which is in Journeyman Level and can be used to track anything that leaves tracks. Sometimes my intelligence amazes me with a statement like that. That is not a good thing.

What else do I have that might help? People are Spiritual beings. Can I combine Tracking with Sense Spiritual? That has possibilities. I will need to add my Physical Sensing Skills, Farsight, Darksight, Hearing Aid, and Bond Senses. I need to focus through my Perception Attributes, which are Physical, Mental and Spiritual. Mental Perception is by far my lowest. I do have nine free attribute points, and if I spent them all on Mental Perception, it would raise it from the current 21 to 30. That would make the Perceptions, Physical 44, Spiritual 32 and Mental up to 30. That is a lot to invest in one attribute. What would I get for it, and would it be worth it?

I am going to need to hunt down people. I have a certain Inquisitor Smythe in my sights if Koza doesn’t get there first. Koza had the Bounty Hunter Class. I wish he were here to ask. Not that he would necessarily answer.

How do I use those Skills with those attributes to hunt people? I will use four of my free attribute points to bring Mental Perception up to 25. It will bolster my Manipulate Status Skill as well. I got the feeling that if my Novice Sentient Lore were higher, I would get more hints from that. At the moment, all it was saying was Dwarves like to be underground or in enclosed spaces. Not all that helpful.

I am a hunter and tracker. Hunting people is just an extension of my animal hunting skills. My Sense Spiritual is sitting at the top apprentice level, and Ruku said there were bonuses to having it at the Journeyman Level. Sensing Spiritual Flows, but if I can combine it with my tracking and add a spiritual aspect to my tracking Identify is telling me there is a skill for me there. The question is how?

I started by watching people. I tried to see the differences in their spirits. I was pushing my Sense Spiritual here, but I started to see how each person had a different Spiritual signature. Some were stronger than others, and there were different colours or maybe flavours. I kept pushing to see the differences, and suddenly, it became easier. Sense Spiritual moved to the Journeyman Level. I could see Spiritual flows in the body easier. What I couldn't see was anything I could track.

People had their personal spirituality flowing through their bodies, which was unique to them. As they moved, it affected the ambient spiritual flows around them, but how could I track one particular person from this? There didn’t seem to be any residue left behind, at least not that he could detect. This meant passive tracking was not going to work for me at this time. What about active tracking?

Could I affect the spiritual fields in a way that makes a trail, like a wounded animal dripping blood is easier to track? I followed a young courier for a while, trying to affect his spiritual field to leave a trail. I had a sudden inspiration that this was, infact, how auras work, by creating a Spiritual field that affected a wide area with the flavour of the aura. I would have to test that inspiration with Tabitha and Ört, who were the only two I knew with aura skills. That wasn’t going to help me now.

What about if I tried spiritually tagging them? Sort of like tagging an animal to help track down its lair. How would I do that? I would need to hook a spiritual mark onto them or an object they carry that links back to me. I experimented first on objects that people were carrying as I thought that doing it to the people themselves might be noticeable, especially for the spiritually sensitive. I worked with different methods, and the concept of a fishing hook worked best for me. Objects also had spiritual signatures, and with the Journeyman level in my Sense Spiritual, I could sense it better now. Spiritually enhanced items were the strongest, right down to basic rock. When I thought to engage Granite Sense, rock became very easy for me. I got familiar with putting my hooks into objects and tracking them from a distance. I was about to try hooking people when I got the Skill, Trackers Mark 1.

Trackers Mark let me put my hooks into objects and track them. At the Novice Level, the number of marks was a tenth of my Spiritual Agility, and the distance I could track was a tenth of my Spiritual Strength in kilometres. So at level 1, I could place four marks and track them 3.8km. Each level increased that by twenty percent, so at Journeyman Level, it would be five marks and 5.3km, and I am assuming if I increased my Spiritual Attributes, that would also increase the skill. I could attach my hooks to people and monsters. Whether they noticed or not would be a function of their Spiritual Perception and, of course, any Skills they had. Each level of Trackers Mark meant a greater chance it would be unnoticed.

Then something happened I had not experienced before. I think it was my Sense Spiritual getting to Journeyman Level that made me aware. Trackers Mark morphed into Hunters Mark 1. Trackers Mark requires Spiritual Agility of 20 and Spiritual Strength of 20. Hunters Mark required 30 in each Attribute, which I had. I could feel the Hunters Class influencing this as well. Then I remembered this had happened before when I was learning Granite Quake, and I was aware I skipped Granite Tremor as I had higher attributes. I wasn’t aware of the process then, and I think I could only sense it now because it was a combination of Identify and Sense Spiritual, both in the Journeyman Levels.

Hunters Mark allowed the number of my hooks to be twenty percent of my Spiritual Agility and the Distance to be 20% of my Spiritual Strenght per level. So at level 1, I had seven marks available and a 7.6km distance. The big difference was that if I put my hooks into living creatures, I could ‘tug’ on those hooks and slow down the creature or person. This was also a function of my Spiritual Strenght but as a percentage. At level 1, a mark could slow the beast by 1.9%, but I could stack multiple hooks, and I would have seven available at level 1, so I could slow them by 13%, which, if applied to me, would equate to five Points in Physical Agility. At Journeyman Level, I would have ten hooks available and be able to slow them over 25% of their Physical Agility. More if I levelled my Spiritual Agility. I would probably have some hooks assigned to keep track of allies in some situations. If they got out of range, the hook would disappear and be able to be reused. In other words, I would lose the target. The range at the Journeyman Level would be over 10km. Using the Hooks to slow people cost Spiritual Energy, so I would have to manage the energy usage, but this could be very effective at crucial times in a fight.

I immediately started to level it on various passersby and monitored their position until they got out of range. I quickly went up to Level 2, and I started to think about how I could use this Skill to catch a spy.

If the cave contents are any indication, they want to blow something up. There were a lot of explosives in the cave. If that is still the plan, where would they get more explosives? Some Alchemists specialise in Explosive mixtures, and I think there is one of those in Obalno. They would be sensible only to mix explosives when they have an order. The spy could order explosives for various mining operations, but he was in the fruit and veg field, not the mining field.

A more likely source would be a Navy ammunition supply depot. They will keep a certain amount in stock at all times. Sione doesn’t know about the explosives in the cave, and the captured spy claimed not to know what they were up to, and they may not have known yet. My guess is they will try to raid a Navy Supply depot, which is risky. Who would they get to help? The Seadogs are not available and would not be up to this task anyway. They will be looking for a high-level thief.

If we set Tabitha up as a thief for hire… I don’t think that would work. She is too easily linked to the Enchanter robbery, and they will try to shake the plans out of her. We are not stupid enough to think that there will not be leaks from the Pack Rats. They would try to get it out of her even if they weren’t sure of the connection. Those plans are the primary reason they are active.

My plan of action would be to get some of my new Hunters Marks into some of those explosives and track them if they move off the base. I could Stealth in to do that, but that is as risky for me as it is for the person who tries to steal them. There is an easier way. I will ask Ruku and his mate Tait to give me a tour of the base. Sounds simple enough, even if the explosives are in a restricted part of the base, my Marks can reach as far as my Spiritual Senses. With my new Journeyman level of Sense Spiritual and my Journeyman Level Granite Sense, I don’t think I would have a problem. I would store explosives in a stone bunker.

Wiremu Status

Wiremu Hunter

Class

Hunt

QW

Spy

Pros

MHunt

Scout

Assn

Total

Type

Attribute

Level

11

11

8

3

5

5

1

Constitution

Physical

Strength (PS)

9

11

2

22

1 5

50

132.0

Agility (PA)

12

5

11 4 5

1

38

Perception (PP)

11

2

22

1

3 5 44

Mental

Strength (MS)

9

12

5 5

31

88.0

Agility (MA)

12

3

2

8

1

5

1

32

Perception (MP)

11

1

10

1

2

25

Spiritual

Strength (SS)

10

3

6

11

3

5

38

105.0

Agility (SA)

8

2

5

8

1

5

6 35

Perception (SP)

10

5

8

4 5 32 Totals

92

44

53

33

40

12

25

22

4

321 Free Points

2

0

0

0

0

3

0

Resistances: Poison +19, Crushing +22, Cold +29, Pain +28, Heat +20, Fire +13, Disease 1

Skills:

Novice:

Lock Pick 4, Disarm Traps 4, Disarm Spiritual Trap1,

Detect Spiritual Trap 3, Detect Traps 4, Spiritual Trapping 4,

Petrification 4, Monster Lore 4, Sentient Lore 4

Granite Sand 4, Roleplay 2, Sudden Strike 3, Hunters Mark 4

Apprentice:

Fishing 8, Sewing 8, Cooking 8, Tutor 9,

Truth Sensing 8, Sense Treasure 6,

Butchering 7, Weapon Repair 7, Repair Leather Armour 6

Plant Lore 8, Animal Lore 9, Mineral Lore 6,

Granite Quake 7, Granite Wall 5, Animal Care 7, Venom Arrow 8, Veneer 7,

Map Making 7, Dwarvish 9,

Triple Shot 6, Longbow 7, Granite Manipulation 5

Journeyman:

Hearing Aid 13, Hammer 13, Mapping 10,

Identify 11, Deceive 12, Manipulate Status 10,

Granite Spike 13, Granite Sense 11, Granite Bones 12, Granite Shield 11,

Trapping 10, Tracking 11, Skinning 10,

Bow 12, Small Blades 13, Unarmed Combat 11, Throw Weapons 12, Spear 12,

Quick Strike 11, Power Strike 10

Darksight 11, Far Sight 11, Bond Senses 11,

Orcish 11, Camouflage 10,

Imbue Venom 11, Snakeskin 11, Regeneration 10

Hide Armourer 11, Riding 10, Sense Spiritual 10

Master:

Stealth 16, Animal Bond 15

Affinity: Granite

Monster Kills: 8

Bond: Tāoke, Venom Serpent.

Resistances: Crushing +22, Cold +29, Heat +20, Fire +13, Pain +11

Skills:

Novice: Granite Sand 2, Sudden Strike 1, Hunters Mark 1

Apprentice: Power Strike 9, Granite Spike 6, Strength Boost 9,

Venom Spit 9, Granite Shield 7, Grow 9, Regeneration 7,

Granite Sense 7, Granite Manipulation 8

Journeyman: Camouflage 13

Master: Venom Bite 16, Quick Strike 17

Affinity: Granite