Two options.

Two options and neither of them was good.

There was the dwarf and he could follow him — shadowing him. At least until dawn when they finally could depart to sixth. This had a clear benefit: even if the dwarf just got jittery from him following (he failed to catch him in the act), that could at least bough the party one whole day, maybe two depended on whether the next team arrived just before the dawn or light bless them, after the dawn. Compounded that with the mana storm outside, they could net two to three days headstart. Which should, no, would be enough to put a claim.

On the other hand, he could try to search the crates — rummaging and finding where the message was. Disadvantage: he couldn’t be sure that dwarf didn’t carry the message with him; but there was a chance — a good one — that the message was simply stuffed inside the crates. Under a sock or something.

Supporting this ‘postulate’ was the fact that he didn’t see the cat handing the dwarf anything. Which meant instead of the dwarf being a step, he was a door. Someone who didn’t know he had the message and just inadvertently passed it to other people.

Tough choices. Lots to mull. He was hoping to do both of course. Ideally, the dwarf would sleep there right there and he’d search him and the crates. Ideally. Unfortunately and not even a wick later, the choice had been made for him. The dwarf; was exiting the tent. Now and in front of his peeping eyes, the shorter man was glancing outside left and right; twice and thrice to each side before tightening his cloak and putting his hood and downing his head and scurrying fast and honestly, honestly, this smelled, smelled like a trap. But what could a man do? What could a man do besides following his suspect?

Getting it wrong, apparently.

Because as it turned out while the rogue was following the dwarf, the real door, inadvertent to himself and the rogue, had just arrived on the tent.

“Finn, the lady came first. Finn, pray before eating, Finn, why aren’t you at the service last night?” the human boy grumbled as he lifted all of the crates one by one and putting them inside the four-wheeled cart. It was a half-bell after the clients were gone, the usual time for the boy to move the clients’ submitted item to the warehouse-tent which Fred would sort it later according to the order note — but it was his job to bring it immediately. After all while the dawn renewal often gave them some breathing room, it was a good service to have it done before they expected it. As Master Mig always said, a satisfied customer was a repeating customer. Well, the boy thought, his master certainly practiced that saying to his heart.

“Think Finn doesn’t know he played at Pink Ladies with Miss. Tiff! Finn just wants a spirit, just a bottle, Master. How is that so wrong?” he said, dragging all the crates outside.

“Selfish! Master Mig so selfish!” the boy decided to kick one of the crates, which thanks to the structural integrity of the hardwood, caused nothing but attracting curious looks of onlookers whose upon realizing who the boy was, gave chuckles and kept walking. “Finn got it...” he said, grin blossomed on his face, the wincing pain on his feet forgotten. “Finn would rat him out to Mistress!”

“Yes! Yes! Finn would!” he said. “Haha! Master would taste Finn’s revenge!”

The human boy spent the next wick smirking, realizing the brilliance of his plan, imagining pans and pots Mistress would throw at Master. If he was lucky maybe he could see Mistress burning Master’s beard! Oh, that would be really something Finn loved to see! But after putting most of the crates in the warehouse-tent, and passing to Fred the order notes, the boy realized one important thing he had been missing. “Master would ask how Mistress know...”

He shuddered. Sure Master would be on the floor while asking it, and his cheek and jaw would be bruised from Mistress hitting him with his own pan, so of course he would of course not think clearly. But while it might bed him for a day, which he imagined it would, he’d catch on Finn’s name! And on the next day. assuming Master survive (which again, Finn said he would) it would be his butt then!

“It’d be better if the Mistress found out by herself…” the boy mulled as he brought the remaining two crates to the washing-tent, he was to pass them to Annie who would laundry them. He didn’t need to search for long though, not even a breath entering the tent, he found the girl inside, tying the laundry’s lines from one pole to another. Her feet splashing softly inside the water catcher.

“Annie! Finn brings washing for you!”

“Another one? For who?” the girl asked, carefully tilting one of the smaller water catchers so all the water poured down inside the reservoir without too much spill. She couldn’t have the floor wet again. Mistress had warned her that while wetting the floor was inevitable while washing, she would only visit at the end of the day. So if the floor was too wet, the girl would be the one who suffer the slippery floor all day long since you couldn’t really make drainages if the floor couldn’t be dug.

“Umm…” the boy squinted, reading from the order note’s copy. “T— the Brothers!”

“All clothes?”

“No, bowls and spoons too!”

“Put them on the corner then, I need to finish these first.”

“Okay!” the boy said, satisfied that he had finished his job. Pulling his cart out he returned toward the warehouse, all the while thinking how he could make the Mistress ‘coincidentally found’ where Master was.

Meanwhile, the girl who was more concerned about her washing than stealing a bit of flower-water and spraying it into his deserving Master clothes just outside his Master nuptial bedroom was currently in a frown.

“Stupid Finn!” she exclaimed after reading the order note once more. “This is for an overnight! That boy forget to tell me again!”

Sighing, she open the crates as fast as her finger allowed, stacking the bowl with the bowl, the utensil with each other, and the clothes which she would sort later according to the fabric and the color. Thankfully all of them were either owsh-made or erwee-spun, not even the most extravagant mages brought stem-silk to the dungeon which meant she only need to do a regular washing, not the painstaking, dry method. Small mercy, the girl thought.

“Wait, what is this?” she glanced at one of the bedrolls, in its left corner an image of manastone stitched, gleaming under the fifth’s white light. It was a tailor’s warning! “I can’t wash this… do they forget?”

“How about the rest?” she flipped every clothes carefully, every innerwears, and tunics; every doublets and cloak, making sure there were no more tailor’s warning. A half wick later she nodded, it just that one stray bedroll, everything else didn’t have it.

Thus following the Mistress procedure of not-washing enchanted item, the girl brought it out to the back of the tent where the wall-light was stronger. Putting it snugly on one of the laundry lines that was prepared for such occasion, she nodded. She would warn the clients later, they needed to be more careful. As much as she wanted to help them, only Enchanter could wash Enchanted items safely. Otherwise, even though it would not ruin it completely, long immersion of running water would degrade the enchantment up to twenty percent within a normal washing cycle.

Thus, like the boy who nodded satisfied, that he had done his job, she did the same; returning to the washing-tent to finish the overnight order.

That was where the man struck.

Putting a sign that he would be back later, he carried his bag with him. No one suspected anything of course, since he, the meat-cube seller, usually did so; traveling back and forth between the market-tent and his corner stall every three bells. When his customer asked this, he simply answered that he was just a small peddler who couldn’t afford preservation rune but still wanted to give his customer the freshest meat he could grill. This touched his customers’ hearts, snagging him a nickname of ‘stall owner who cared about his customer’. A mouthful, yes. But it did its job. No one bat an eye as he walked to the washing-tent. Everyone else, busy with their own thing, assumed that he was, well, running for another round of meat. However, instead of a slab of shank and shoulder which he would make tender with his skill, his bag contained a rolled-up, packed down, bedroll.

Contrary to what most people including the rogue who prided himself for his trap’s specialization instead of being a mere sneaky bastard, you didn’t need to make contact to make contact.

If the contactee knew that the ‘contactor’ had arrived, well, then the contact could happen without a single contact. What the cat-kin did actually very simple; he just passed on the front of the stall when the party arrived at fifth. Repeatedly and until he was seen. Thus even if the meatcube seller didn’t see him then (because he either was on the outhouse or just happen to be away), as long as for several of the agreed times, the kin stopped in the front of the stele (which was in the meatcube seller’s field of vision). Then as the day passed, one chance or another, the seller who had been trained to recognize who was who, would eventually spot the beastman.

That was why, as for now and as it had been set, and as it designed and as it was inevitable and as it was foretold, the gears were rolling. Moving. The seller, tip-toeing and with a very careful trot, made sure that the girl was busy washing. Then carefully and adroitly and silently and sneakily, he swapped the bedroll with his own copy all the while when the rogue was wondering what series of life choices he made in the past that led him to spend his afternoon spying on another man’s bedroom activity.

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