The Roar

Penelope took great care when taking on an assignment she wasn’t going to haphazardly run in there without knowing the coming and goings of guards, where said ledger was kept and the habits of those that could play witness if everything went wrong. But in order to obtain such information it had to be gathered first, part one of a three step mantra to make sure the job would be a success. Step one Assessment.

The salt was thick in the air by the docks, the hustle and bustle of dock workers unloading ships. Fisher men trying to find buyers for their freshly caught wears. But all of them at the end of the day needed a stout, affordable drink. Penelope had got herself a temporary job, she only intended to be there a week at most, behind that sticky crusty tap house bar. Now she had been told that their opposition was based in the docks, but the docks were vast with many a hiding hole, if she could narrow down where to start looking it would be a blessing.

Penelope had been trusted as a new hire to handle any exchange of gold but that did bother her, she wasn’t here to steal so petty change from an establishment that only saw income based on the dock. However they had seen more business since the arrival of the refugees who were looking for ale that reminded them of home. So a new wench to collect the empty tankards was hired and Penelope had found her new flow of information. Most of what have heard was useless prattle, some exaggerating to try to impress the young new pretty face. Which was what she was relying on, that men were predictable as ever. No one ever assumed it was the innocent face.

Polishing a tanked Penelope look in the reflection to see Yannis. His face wasn’t disapproving, he had a big smile on his face “Be careful or we could be a gladiator for longer and you wouldn’t want that.” But he definitely did but he wasn’t about to sabotage his sister but encourage her “you’ve got this just listen, just think of the pay out. Deal with these asshoes and then you can get mum that necklace she was looking at the other day.” And to the duo their parents were everything to them “You win your first round in the sand and I’ll make sure they look the part.” She offered her brother encouragement back. But she did need to focus and set the reflection of her brother down.

It was on one of these night that a group of men came in together, rowdy and excitable, half intoxicated already. While most in the group looked like they were having a good time, there was a quieter one. Now most wouldn’t noticed but the way he scouted the room for exist, had his back against a wall, eyes that wandered to coin pouches. This man was her mark, if anyone could lead her to the den it was him. Penelope didn’t have the charisma to charm the information out of him, didn’t have the intellect to trick him, nor the strength to beat the information out of him. But she had one thing that no other thief had. Her ability to change her form to water.

She didn’t need this job, nor did she need the gold from being the bar wench, so she didn’t think twice slipping off unannounced. It did mean she had to ditch some of her belongings, finding a crate near the docks that was empty and not set to move anywhere till the morning. In the dark of night striped herself of all her belongings and clothing. Not wanting to be exposed for long she changed her whole form to water before slipping herself into the sea. Not one would expect a tail from the sea as it would have complications such as breathing but that wasn’t an issue for Penelope.

Laid there in the sea, naturally ebbing with the tide, she waited for that man to leave. And with time he eventually did. Now it was time to get to work, following someone by normal means was an art work, keeping them in your vision, making sure that they didn’t notice you or become suspicious that they were being followed. But because Peneleope took jobs near bodies of water specifically she didn't have to do that song and dance the normal way. Shifting into her water form made it so she didn’t have to break the surface of the water and could follow underneath him, spy on them between the gaps in the planks. All was going as expected until all of a sudden the man in his intoxicated state began to look green, he bent over gagging. Penelope could see what was going to happen and attempted to shift herself out of the way, she was so close to having vomit spewed into her it almost made her want to give up on this whole mission entirely. What had this man eaten? It looked disgusting in the water, however there had been one perk she noticed this man had keys. They were on a thick ring, dangling from his hip. Now most of these keys didn’t have much significance but there was one, it was five pointed and not like any other key she had seen before.

She hadn’t expected to steal the ledger tonight but there was an opportunity here, if this man had the key, he’d have access to the area and he wouldn’t be going there tonight. It was a window of opportunity to be taken here. But she couldn’t take the keys, he probably needed one of the mundane ones for lodgings. A shame but a lock had never stopped her before and it won’t now. After the man had finished pouring his guts out on the dock, he started to walk again, more into the residential side of the dock. There wasn’t much movement around here as most by now were asleep. only this man she was following and a couple guards patrolling. It looked like the guards had a rotation so they wouldn’t be difficult to get around, predictable if she didn’t make much noise, but they stayed oddly near one building in particular. It didn’t look any differ from the others in the street, no defining features, looked lived in but somewhat cared for. It was no surprise to her that the man was heading that way but this was as far as she could follow this way, wood had turned to stone. So now all she could do was pop her head above the water and watch to make sure she got the correct home.

Penelope was certain she got the home correct but those guards came round again as the man was thumberling at the door. They stopped and approached the leader of the rival guild. She couldn’t make out the words but it looked like they were asking if he was okay, pointing at some vomit that had trickled down his front from earlier. There was more conversation between them but no obvious hand gestures to discern what they were talking about. Once the guards were satisfied they watched to make sure the leader had entered safely and had locked the front door behind them. That house was definitely the place no doubt about it. To not draw anymore attention to the safe house they continued their patrol. Penelope waited at the water's edge, she wasn’t ready to go yet. While it was risking not knowing where the leader was in the home she wanted to get a sense of how long it took the guards to circle back around. She waited there twenty, thirsty minutes and watched as they came around twice in that time. So their route was about ten to fifteen minutes. Good to know. With that information under her belt she made her way out of the water and approached the front door. The door wasn’t tight in place; there was a gap at the bottom about one inch, but it was big enough for her. Rolling her shoulders for the tight squeeze, Penelope turned into what looked like a puddle and rolled beneath the doorway.

On the other side of the door it had not been what she’d been expecting of a safe house. Normally they weren’t filled with possessions, didn’t look lived in. But this one she could feel the wear and tear of use. There had been life here and not just staying a night or two. It made her wonder who they had bought out to take this home from. There was a point in her life that her own family would have taken the deal for the right amount of gold. Thankfully working for the guild had saved them from that fate. It had given her a purpose, one that she didn’t feel for being a gladiator like Yannis. It wasn’t just that she wasn’t good at it but the violence it wasn’t necessary, she didn’t want to hurt anyone, especially from the outset you intend to do harm. If it happened accidentally then fair enough but going into it to intentionally do harm was uncomfortable for her.

As she stood upright from the puddle she was, Penelope changed her feet back to their normal form so that she didn’t leave wet footprints behind her that could water stain the wooden floor. Creeping through the home she kept an ear out for any movement as to where the drunk man had gone. Hearing snoring coming from upstairs, she assumed that was him and made her way up there. Though she hadn’t expected him to be passed out at the top of the stares, face smushed into the floor, a pool of drool at his open mouth. It meant he was safe to leave on his own without her worrying if he’d choke on his own vomit. Carefully stepping over him she now had to find this ledger. She had what she believed was a clue, the five pronged key, such an unusual key had to have an unusual keyhole right? So the search began. She tried to be systematic about this by first checking one room at a time, looking for scuff marks on the floor just in case a piece of furniture had to be moved. Check for any irregularity in room sizes. To most it was probably hard to find, as maybe they didn’t know exactly what they were looking for but Penelope knew how these people think.

There was a broom closet underneath the stairs, it was full of cleaning supplies, mop bucket, slat and sweeping brush. But what was unusual was that if you moved the mop to one side there was a keyhole. Now she could go back upstairs to get the key off the unconscious man but there was no need. While normally these locks were almost impossible to unlock with normal lock pick, Penelope didn’t have normal lock picks. A tendril of water came from her back and pushed it way into the lock, filling out the space inside that the key would normally take up. With a little fine tuning of how much pressure she needed to deliver, she could turn the mechanism til it unlocked the door with a satisfying click. It seemed like they never expected anyone to get this far as everything was laid out quite plainly behind the door. They really trusted that lock too much.

There was a treasure trove of information in this small closet, part of her wanted to read everything, collect it for the guild. But that wasn’t the mission… sadly. Not wanting to get any of this valuable paperwork wet she turned back to her normal form, water was only going to lead to them being caught inside this room. Did that mean she was exposed in the room? Yes but it wasn’t like anyone was here to witness her immodesty right? She would just deal with the chill till she could turn back and get to her belongings. Amongst other things there was a desk in the room with a book, quill and ink. Well at least she didn’t have to take it anywhere to write, she could even use their own ink which could only lend authenticity to the entries she was about to write.

Pulling out the chair of the desk, getting comfortable as she pondered what treasonous acts to add to the ledger. As she thought about it she opened to see what and how these entries were written. Like she had expected they were in code, a code that only people like her knew. Yeah there was always some variation but she could easily pick out the differences. The main challenge would be to match the hand writing. She went months back in the ledger to just memorise the hand writing alone. Though she couldn’t help pick up on some of the information they had collected like how there was a queen's guard that was a changeling. Now that was something she would save for later but all of the entries did give her a good basis that she was now confident to enter false entries. Going back a few pages so the new entries wouldn’t raises any eyebrows. Dipping the quill that was on the desk into the ink Penelope took the tip to the paper and wrote in there code that they had sold ten keg of gunpowder, sixty longswords, twenty kilograms of mindspike powder but most damning of them all, blueprints of Lysara weapons and defenses to a Astoirian merchant known in the criminal world. This merchant would never want to be found by authorities so it was likely they would never be found for questioning on this matter. And why would they question it with all the other damning evidence that was in this very room.