“Unusual.”

“Huh?” he turned. Her fine friend Lene was folding her hand, gazing at his face. Intently, he must admit, considering that she had said a weird thing, no, a wrong thing.

“Because if it as per usual, you’d be complaining,” she said it again but this time she said it with more oomph, more confidence, more unwarranted gravitas.

“Hey that’s uncalled for!” he replied, announcing his displeasure to her baseless accusation. How could she? He never— hmm…. “...what usually I was complaining again?”

“That.” she pointed to the crowd in front of them. Twenty maybe thirty people were surrounding a piece of stele in genuflects. Their head bowed down as they prayed, uselessly he might add, to the most ordinary and common white marble his eyes ever seen.

“What’s wrong with Rene?” he said, finally getting ‘hint’ where she was going with this. Which was fair, but a man gotta ask either way.

“Not what’s wrong with him,” she replied, her eyes rolling at his very valid question. “What is wrong with what he is doing. You know what I mean Clem…”

“I… don’t?” he replied innocently, giving her the best smile he could: teeth to teeth.

“All right, all right.” she threw her hand in the air, admitting her graceful defeat. At least that was what he thought while as it turned out, true to the reputation of her kind, a beat later she turned her head and said a single word — a single word most damning that it was impossible for her to not rehearsed it before. “Lyd," she said. "If you would?”

“Umm. I don’t know, Arl…”

“Lyd…”

“...what Arl means that you typically umm…” the poor girl stuttered for a while before firing the answer in one breath, condemning him so. “Prefer to rest at once instead of ‘stupidly mumbling to a useless slab of—’ oh light I can’t say it!”

“Hey. Hey!” he stepped forward, putting his hand on his hips. “I never did such a thing.” he said, loudly. Loudly so everyone in the earshot might hear, he was a good person! He wasn’t an apostate!

“That denial?” his friend smirked. “That is usual.”

“...how do you even know that?” he grumbled. He was pretty sure he muttered when he was complaining about the fifth obligatory prayer. As much as he loathed how these ‘pilgrims’ wasted his and their own time he wasn’t insane enough to announce it out loud, he still wanted to live, thank you.

“...Woolie had a good hearing.”

“Really?” he folded his hand, inching closer to his mage friend’s familiar who wiggled uselessly to the deeper end of her master pocket. “Woolie?”

“Why?” Lene quipped, smirking if he had to guess “Can’t rat have a good hearing?”

“...not what I meant.” he rolled his eyes, grasping the little mouse by his pinkish-white ears. “Fine.” he gave the boy rat one last glare before throwing him back to Lyd’s pocket causing the latter to eep. “You got me. Happy?”

“Very.”

“Really Lene?” he turned to her, lips pursed, eyebrow dropped — the best hurt face in all Freetown “Can a man not change?”

“I know all of you and I mean all, Lyd.” he turned to the mage to emphasize the seriousness of his 'all'.

“All of you thought that I’m incapable to undertake a change," he said, pausing after. Allowing the silence to let the word sunk in. "That change is such a monumental task for a fellow like me.”

“Which sadden me!” he wailed, putting his right hand on his forehead, opened as if he was grasping the sky. “All my past actions, all of those, Lyd, Lene, should indicate otherwise, so”—he put both of his hand in the back of his head, parting his hair—”while my past mishap might have been teetering on the side of less than good, I had since mend my ways. Learned! Me! I had learned that respecting other belief is what a good teammate do!”

“Even though their belief is stupid.”

“Did Woolie heard that, Lyd?”

“Woolie heard that…” his eye twitched, looking at the chittering rat who currently whispered his mumble to the mage. Again. The white thing even had the gall to smirked at him while nodding.

“Hey! Privacy please, ladies. And you Mr.“ he glared at the rat. “Snitching isn’t cool.”

Of course, snitching was cool. In fact, the only reason why he wasn’t complaining when Rene was praying to the stupid slab of rock was because he was planning to do the same thing as the rat did to him: snitching. Snitching the cat out.

Also, he shouldn’t need to say this but it was a fact that most obvious that complaining drew attention. And attention was the last thing you needed when you plan to snitch. Kinda unfortunate that Lene noticed his lack of complaining though. Who would have thought that he shutting his trap was an indicator that he wasn’t being his usual self?

Although getting busted there was kinda, arguably, ...good. Breach in ones’ mask was inevitable. Even the best spy slipped. Better to have it happened in front of people who he trusted rather those who he didn’t.

Overall, it was a good lesson. That when he was near people who knew him well, he didn’t need to overthink things. Do not change his own behavior. Just be himself and still keep an eye. Simple.

Not that he would admit the truthiness of Lene’s ‘observation’. Ears. Ears were always listening. It kinda caught him off-guard there, so like a good rogue he was, he did his emergency thing. Redirection — shifting focus. Diversion. He steered the conversation so it ended with ‘snitching wasn’t cool’ instead of ‘Clem being unusual’. Not hard. He just needed to act like, well, like himself. Talking smacks, laughing things off, the stuff. By the end of the conversation, he would still be able to continue to observe whether there were any pilgrims that approaching the cat. All without arousing any suspicion. A not-rogue might crack under the suddenness and the ‘innocentness’ of the girl’s statement. Not him. Once you were a rogue never forgot being a rogue.

That included understanding the basics of being sneaky.

For example, in the basic pickpocketing you were taught to pick a mark, bump to them, say you were sorry, then meld back to the crowd. It was a good technique. Most wouldn’t even know that in that split breath their purse already got cut. Same concept with passing information (which he suspected the cat would do). If the cat didn’t use a message scroll (which Lene should be able to detect), he needed to pass the information the old-fashioned way: by giving it to someone. Meant a back alley, a handout, or like before — one coincidental bump. A purse cut. Sneaky.

If this was like any other time, he’d confront the man just as the deed being done as his knife three-fingers depth on the messenger’s wrist. That was his standard. And a good one. It built rep.

Anyone who was anyone knew to respect a rep. Also, the fellow would know to not cross him again next time. After he demanded compensation in kind of course.

Unfortunately, the race toward the sixteenth was a time-sensitive thing. If it was possible to march there without hiring a transporter, he betted his good finger that the party would do it. But they couldn’t and there it lay the problem; rumors. It was no secret that the stair was selling information left and right to the highest bidder. But what often people didn’t know were their agents. Their agents weren’t just their members. That’d be stupid. Too limiting. Their agent couldn’t be everywhere. So like a good bastard, sorry, a proper information collector they were, their information was often volunteered by groups of freelancers; Mercenaries, people who just so happened to have sensitive information due to their line of work. These people like the stair would ‘sell the information’ to the latter. Which then the latter would ‘distribute’ after a reasonable fee of course.

“Rene’s done?” he said, letting his brow creased for the slightest bit. Emmy was approaching him. And oh, man, her hair had seen a better day. The crowd must not agree with hers.

“Almost,” she replied, stretching her back. “Just two more passages then he’s done.”

“All right!” he gave her a thumb up, glad that it was finally over. Even with the mana storm outside, the number of people here didn’t seem to decrease. Which was a shame. Or... they simply hadn’t left yet. Which was also a shame. But, hey, it after all, a moon before sunburst. Compared to other moon, people from all nearby villages, even from the neighboring towns, drove here to visit the useless slab for a week-long service. He knew! It was like their usual three days of mumbling wasn’t bad enough. Now it was extended to a week? Honestly…

Also from the censers and the open braziers that were on display, he knew that there’d be a service tonight. He really, really glad he at least wouldn’t need to spend those time here.

Not to mention it’d be much, much easier to track down the cat when their surrounding wasn’t so packed. What was so great about the stele anyway? Just because it had the Lady’s symbol it didn’t mean that it meant something. The one on the seventh at least was magic. Able to—

“Finally! We’re done?” the enchanter shouted, putting out his thought. She and her other not-religious-but-religious-enough-to-diss-their-more-unreligious-friend was running back toward the not-religious-enough waiting spot. On her hand were several meat cubes. The flame-grilled erwee cut was one of the most famous street food here. Roasted and served with secret sauce.

“Almost,” Emmy said, still stretching every now and then.

“But you’re here.”

“Rene still has two passages, Lene”

“And you don’t?”

“Eh…” the spearmistress shrugged.

“E—Emily is a moderate, Arl.” Lyd who was feeding some of her cubes to that traitor of familiar helpfully answered her friend’s question.

“Moderate?”

“They didn’t read adoration, you heathen,” he said, smirking.

“I know what a moderate is,” she said throwing one of her already emptied skewers at him — which he nimbly dodge of course. “I just surprised that neither of you crossed the bridge after both of you, you knew...”

“Married?” Emmy smiled.

“Yes.”

“It’s a belief, Arl. I have mine, he has his. It’s just one more passage here and there, one more food on the table sometimes. It’s not hard.”

“So wonderful...” the mage smiled. “Your love for each other is really strong, Emily...”

“Agreed. It’s almost sickening.” he echoed her fine friend’s sentiment. Even with the look that Emmy slapped at him, it was a petty price to pay.

“Anyway,” Lene said. “How long till....”

“Three wicks give or take.”

“Ugh, come on Lyd.” his fine friend groaned. “I think I saw a good palchite there, help me appraise it will you?”

“Uh… okay, Arl!”

“So,” Emmy said after seeing both girls disappeared to the jungle of tents and stalls. “How is it?”

“Nothing so far,” he whispered. “Are you sure we can’t just search him?”

“Not without proofs, Clem. You know that.”

“Eh, proofs are overrated anyway. Haven’t you heard? First chuck and scrag, then apologize if you got the wrong sleazebag.”

“Your choice of action concerns me.” she shook her head. “ It doesn’t matter — the Brothers are a legitimate, guild-approved, transporter company.”

“Eh—”

“Must I remind you that we need to be in the guild’s good grace to sell the map?”

“Oh, right.”

“So do your thing. And by her holy name, be discreet.”

“Fine, fine…”

Proof. He groaned. He hated that word — that concept. The cat had done the deed, he was sure of that. The man had somehow managed to prepare the information and despite what Emmy said to her, it was ready to be transferred. When it happened and where it was located were the two and most important things he didn’t know. The only time his eyes weren’t on him was when he was unconscious and when they split for that damn couchee. But even at those time, the cat hadn’t done anything. He knew. [Intuit: Item of Interest], his level 30’s, was almost never wrong.

Imagined his surprise when he woke up this morning to find out that despite his and the rest of the group’s constant watch, the cat had done it somehow. And Emmy asked him to prove it. Impossible. Was it Rishi, then? Unlikely. Transporter usually didn’t get involved in company politics. But it didn’t mean the man couldn’t. Or involved in a way that he didn’t know.

As much as it pained him in the keister, it looked like he needed to get a bit more ...intrusive.