Gathering Intelligence [Kearn/Saturos]

[Kearn O'Sorley]

Kearn had been watching for a couple of days. Time was running away from him, and he still didn't have a plan he was confident in available for use. He'd been holed up in a tavern, The Weathered Hands, since he arrived. He was here to figure out how Fort Macendew's capture by the rebels was having an impact on the surrounding population centers. So here he was in a large town about a week's distance from Fort Macendew. If you followed the road and moved on horseback, that is. Except, all he could see so far was warnings of increased rebel activity in the area. A few people were trying to stir up trouble, warning folks of bloodthirsty murderers who would kill them all in their sleep if Macendew wasn't liberated soon. "We're next!" they would claim. Perhaps so, but Kearn didn't believe that Sir Kelvin would be the sort to wipe the life from a town like that. Cruelly snuffing a population before moving onto the next wouldn't go well in his legend.

Maybe he was overcomplicating things, Kearn thought to himself. While decently sized, there wasn't a massive amount of security here. The town was not of any particularly great importance. An intersection on a couple of roads? Yes, but both roads were still out in the sticks. It wasn't the heaviest of fortifications that defended them. So, maybe their guardians would be similarly lacking. Maybe, he could just walk in and take what he needed from the guards.... After a bit of sweet talking, of course.

"Okay Kearn. What did you have in mind?" The red headed bard still was busy thinking to himself, idly playing with a collection of long pointed thorns he'd pulled out of his pack. He made a habit of collecting things of use while he traveled. Thorns could provide nasty little surprises at times when they were least expected... Well, how much would they even know here? He fiddled with them, shaping them into a little cluster and winding some twine back and forth tightly around the spikes. When he was done, a little spike ball was in the place where the thorns had been before. Calmly, he dropped it into a pouch on his belt, where he'd put about sixty more in over the course of his stay here.

Standing up from his table near the window and resolving to act rashly, he tipped his bottle back one last time and finished the last swig of the whiskey he'd bought when he first arrived a couple of days ago. Following that, he promptly headed out the door with it, and up to the sheriff's office. Or the local constabulary. Or the brig. Except he wasn't on a ship, so nix that last one.

It wasn't an impressive structure when compared with the fortresses of justice or a king's palace in all the stories. This was just a humble building. Sturdily built to be sure, but with only what looked like a front office, a bunk room, and a few small holding cells near the office. Oh well. It was the bold that Lady Luck favored the most.

He quickly moved through the alleys around the area to get to the back of the prison office, and dropped off a little present there. He quickly took the pieces and components he needed from a couple of small pouches and vials on his person, set them in place, then backed off. It was a functioning mine now. This mix would be more of what he called a "barker" than anything else. It would have a burn, and a very loud bang. He'd set them off by accident before, and didn't envy the fate of the person who discovered this one. His ears would be ringing for hours.

With his exit strategy taken care of, he headed around to the front once more, and barged into the guardshack with his best belligerent expression. The door slammed open so hard that it bounced off it's hinges, and almost knocked into him again.

"Thish ish a holdup! Gimme yur guld and yur boozeeeeeeeee!" Alright. About now, looking into the first startled, then resolved eyes of the guardsman in light armor behind the desk, Kearn was starting to think that maybe he'd made a mistake. This wasn't bold. This was stupid. He brandished the empty bottle in his hand menacingly, leaving the sword at his side in its sheath and completely untouched. Yes, this was definitely about as far from brilliance as one could get. He felt that realization reaffirmed several times over as the guardsman leapt- yes, leapt!- over the table, and took a swing at him. Kearn went ahead and went down on the first punch, and felt the guardsman leap onto him, punching him a few times in the ribs and bloodying him once on the head before realizing that the idiot with the deathwish was already down for the count.

"What the heck!? Hey what's going on in there?!" came from the backroom as Light Armor got off of the rogue.

"Dunno, Swain. Some half-wit with a bottle came in here and started tried to hold us up." Light Armor burst out laughing after he said this, and Swain and a third guardsman came into the front from back room. The groans that Kearn gave out now were not effected as part of his deception. Dammit, didn't need to hit me seven times....

"I don't think he's getting up for awhile. Is he really just that stupid? Here... Help me get his weapons off of him, then we'll let him cool off in a cell."

Kearn groaned painfully as they picked him up, and dropped him on a rag thin blanket on the floor in one of the cells. That could have gone better. His sword and his driver's whip they took and hung on the other side of wall of the main office. Still visible from the cells, but inaccessible. That was ok. He wasn't worried for his exit. Right now, he was going to play the part of the injured drunkard, and lick his wounds. As he turned his eyes over towards the desk, he was happy to see that he at least had a decent view of where Light Armor was reaching as he went back to his paperwork.

"Tony, why don't you head out, and see if you can get a story about a hammered red head heading towards us. Might help us when he comes around, and we're ready to listen."

"Sure. I bet the others would appreciate hearing a little about what they have to look forward to meeting tonight too."

"Hey, don't take too long. Be back in a couple hours"

Kearn collected himself somewhat, still a little stunned from being laid into so quickly. These Bernese didn't mess around before a fight. He caught light armor looking over towards him, before rolling his eyes up in his head and closing them. Oh yeah. Supposed to be passed-out drunk.

[Saturos Prox]

Saturos rubbed the knuckles on his aching punching hand before glancing back at the piles of paperwork he’d strewn about the guard desk. Boy, did that red-head sure had one hard skull. The Eturian’s hand still hurt from that punch, though he suspected that the intruder was feeling far worse pain than just a sore hand, judging by the blood. He hadn’t meant to hit the man quite so hard, but brute force was kind of the status quo around here and he was trying to blend in with the other soldiers. The last thing he needed were the other guardsman getting on his case because they thought he was the weak transfer soldier. Saturos shook his head. Trying to hold up a sheriff's office with nothing but a bottle of booze; who did that? Drunk or no, at least draw the sword hanging obviously on your waist before you waltz in and threaten a building filled with local authorities. Or better yet, don’t do it at all.

Oh well, now that he was locked away he couldn’t serve as a distraction. Distractions were not something he wanted right now. He was already nearing his wit’s end. Now just where were those personnel transfer reports? Saturos had spent the last four days looking for them, and despite the office’s extensive bookwork, there seemed to no sign of the rebel insurgents that had been shipped out of here not two weeks ago. Were prisoner records no longer something people bothered to keep? Or was the local law enforcement just sloppy? Normally Saturos would assume the latter, but given how well all their other records were kept, in this case he found such a thing just a bit hard to believe.

The men who had gotten captured had been the leaders of a local rebel sect, so Saturos imagined that Ilia would want to keep track of them, if just to know where to go to interrogate them, but it was entirely plausible that the Ilian soldiers that had come and picked up the men for transportation had taken the reports with them to reduce the paper trail. Was Ilia actually getting a little better at their anti-spying efforts? Unfortunately that seemed to be the case. Espionage may take a far back seat to swords and spears up in the blistery cold of the North, but now that they were fighting an opponent that struck from within, one that functioned almost entirely off of what information they could steal and capitalize on, espionage suddenly became that much more attractive. Sure, they were no Etruria, but they were no Sacae either.

Saturos bit his lip, leaning back in his chair. Hopefully this wasn’t going to turn into a big waste of time. It hadn’t been easy forging the necessary transfer forms to get himself in here hassle-free, nor, for that matter, had it been cheap. Sure, he wasn’t exactly short on time or funds, but regardless of that, he wasn’t a wasteful person, and spending either to get absolutely nothing was exactly that: waste.

He glanced back over to jail cell, taking another look at the newly acquired prisoner. A slight pang of guilt struck him. Man, the other guards would be giving him a nasty beating tonight. They were never fond of drunks, but one that had the audacity to march into the sheriff’s office and “hold the place up”? Hoo boy, that was going to be rough. Saturos did not envy him in slightest.

"Hey, I saw you move. You awake, drunk?"

[Kearn O'Sorley]

"I- think sooo...." Kearn said, slurring his words a little to play on the illusion. "If I wassh a women there'd be ashleep... asheep... aslep. Say," Kearn pushed himself sloppily to his feet, focusing his eyes beyond the guardsman addressing him.

"You don't think you could... Hah! You don't thnk...." Kearn stopped mid sentence and laughed out loud as though he'd said the funniest thing in the world, rasping on in an annoying volume. As he neared the door, he planted his hands around the bars of the iron gate holding him in, and let his head slump forward into a "drunken" slouch with a clang. He was doing his best to appear completely unhinged right now. His eyes now cast down at the lock and away from the guard. About what he'd expected for a smallish town like this. Something efficient, reliable, of common construction pattern.

"Jist outshide. I left my other bottle. I left my other bottel and some hits of shum of the good shtuff just outshide.... Around back. My bag back there. Yeah? Yeah. Culd you get it?" Kearn looked back up at the guardman mournfully.

"I'm tired. 'nd hungry. 'nd I dun wanna go get it rit now."

[Saturos Prox]

Saturos paused, looking at the orange haired man with a mix of curiosity and annoyance. The impounded man looked less like he was drunk, and more like he had taken one too many blows to the head. Of course, both could be equally true given the pounding Saturos had given him just a few minutes ago. The Etrurian glanced at his hand, rubbing his slightly bruised knuckles once again. He wasn't much of a fist fighter, so he really didn't think he had punched him that hard, but Saturos had been venting a little frustration. He may have hit harder than he had intended to. That being said, he highly doubted he had doled out any brain damage upon the man, so if the man was retarded, it was definitely a pre-existing issue.

"And just why would I want to get you a bag full of booze?" muttered Saturos, turning back to the paper-strewn desk. "That's the whole reason you're in there in the first place." The disguised Etrurian operative shook his head. He wasn't a teetotaler by any means. No, in fact, he really enjoyed his alcoholic drinks, be it ale or spirits, but this guy had used the enjoyable drink to turn himself into a slobbering mess. Saturos wasn't much for holding people outside of himself up to any sort of standards since he had learned long ago doing such was destined for nothing but disappointment, but he prized his mental clarity, and to see someone else throw their own away was, well, disappointing.

The Etrurian grabbed a random piece of paper off of the desk and looked it over. Nope, he had already read this one. It was just an old shipping manifest for an Ilian military caravan that had recently come through town. With the rebellion going on, Ilia was requiring all city outposts to collect up-to-date versions of their supply caravan manifests to ensure than nothing was getting looted without their knowledge. It was a lengthy process, going through all the supplies every time the caravan had to stop for one reason or another, but it allowed Ilia to better locate missing goods by pinpointing between which two stops the supplies had disappeared. If weapons, or gold, or even food went missing, they'd know where it happened, and would come in with a full platoon of men if they even suspected that it could be tied to the rebels. Ilia was taking this rebellion very seriously.

Saturos sighed, putting the manifest down on the desk before reaching for another document. But he stopped mid-reach and glanced at the drunk in the cage. Wait, hadn't he said that he'd left his stuff around back? Hmm, maybe he was some bum that hung around the area. Maybe that meant he'd seen or heard something about the transferred prisoners? It was a stretch, and even if the man did know, there was no telling what his drunk mind would allow him to say, but the Etrurian figured he might as well ask before going back to his papers.

"So, have you heard anything about prisoners being moved out of this jail?" he said inquisitively, making sure to speak as slow as possible. "You know, since you seem to hang around."

[Kearn O'Sorley]

Kearn made certain to watch the man as vacantly as he could manage as the guard lowered his voice and spoke to him. That was a little odd. What was the guardsman playing at by asking about whether or not he knew of people taken out of jail recently. Ah well. In his current persona, Kearn knew exactly what to answer with.

"Outta tha jail?.... Outta tha jail?" the red-headed man took a moment to make matching gestures, using his fingers as if they were little people running out of a building in a childish and simple display.

"Outta tha jailllll... Gotta be put in tha jail b'for ya can get outta tha jail...." He wasn't being overly loud, but neither was he being quiet. It was about the level of volume that you'd expect from someone who'd just had the living daylights beat out of them. Kearn left the door and toddled back over to the bench against the back wall, shoulders slouched in pain. It was actually somewhat genuine. He was going to take awhile to get the kinks worked out of him from those knocks.

"I seen people go inta the jail rezently.... Sneaky people... Ther wer at tleast two." He sat down with his back to the wall and fixed the blue haired guardsman with his most serious of faux drunken glare while holding up a magificently posed hand with two fingers on it. He shook his head a little for show, as though losing interest and glanced around the room.

Confiscated weapons and equipment on the far wall. Desk in the center. Papers scattered and looking disorganized from here. Guardsman has been rifling through things a bit. He lose something?

"... I know where they areeee...."

Damn this stupid drunken ruse! Of all tricks he could have picked, this one was one of the most annoying and rediculous to have to keep up!

[Saturos Prox]

Saturos's eyes narrowed as he listened to the man speak. Something was...not right. The more that he paid attention, the less and less the way the orange haired man moved and spoke seemed authentic. The Etrurian didn't feel like he was speaking to a drunk man, he felt like he was speaking to a sober man who had been drinking grape juice all night and thought he was drunk on wine. It was like a man from Lycia who had just found out he was Ilian and was doing his best to talk and act like a man of the north, but it was an act that would only fool those not from Ilia because they had no familiarity with it. The blind fooling the blind, as it were.

Still, the prisoner was being compliant, or at least as compliant as a drunkard could be, so Saturos had little reason to complain despite his suspicions. Sure, he used lots of repeated, useless phrases and slurred words, but he seemed to believe what he was saying, which was more than anything else the operative had to go on.

"Sneaky people?" Saturos mouthed, though no noise actually escaped from his lips. His eyes drifted from the face of the orange-haired prisoner to the window behind him. Hmm, could they have broken out? Possibly, but if they had, why had they not reported back to Macendew? Were the men he mentioned Ilians, trying to cover their tracks?

"Where are they?" demanded Saturos, slapping the bars of the cell for effect. "Tell me or I'll keep you locked in there for a week." He wasn't a prison guard, but he figured if he made enough empty threats he could act like one.

[Kearn O'Sorley]

Kearn only laughed, letting himself lean back and slouch against the wall as he chuckled to himself. His eyes drifted around the room once more, seemingly aimlessly. He was gathering in the size and shape of the room in more specifics than he had before. The information would be good to bear in mind when and if he needed to have a fight inside here. Ideally though, he wouldn't. He had all the time in the world, after all. All it took was getting himself set for the rest of his visit with Mr Fists.

"Wellll.... One iz in the jailzell...," Kearn wheezed and the other is right thaar. "And, the other iz right... there." Kearn pointed at the blue-haired guardsman, apparently losing it in all of his ridiculous and wild ramblings. He drowned himself in softening fits of laughter at the expressions passing over the man's face as he leaned off to the side and laid down on the bench.

The rogue had about had it with his little charade. If nothing else was going to come of this immediately, he'd just settle himself down and let Mr Fist attend to his guarded duties. Right then, Kearn had other things to think about. This wasn't a bad place to be to set off a ruse or a heist. Not for someone like him. If it was a larger prison, that could have become problematic, but small cities like these weren't hard to crack for someone with his particular set of talents and expertise. He'd been let off the leash by Kelvin fairly early, and he'd come here with a task to steal some information for the Rebellion. That task was not going as planned, as he still had yet to locate any. Settling back, he went to think about what else he could do here. Perhaps a bit of sabotage would be in order. Even just little things could add up with enough of them together.

[Saturos Prox]

Saturos just rolled his eyes in frustration as the orange haired man’s words devolved into idiocy. But what had he really expected? That a drunk would actually provide useful information that he could use? No, it would have been too convenient and too easy a fix for such a frustrating situation. Days of preparation, and this was all he had to show for it? He'd have to ask around town to see if he could find out in which direction the last caravan out had gone.

So operative turned his gaze away from the prison cell and grabbed the door keys off of the hook that poked out from the wall, sticking them in his back pocket. He shook his head, then took a deep breath. It wasn't like him to let such frustration get to him like this. Perhaps he was getting too into his chosen role?
"Have it your way then," he said with a casual air as he got up from his chair and walked towards the door. Time to go take a walk. He gave the orange haired drunk a quick glance over his shoulder, then stepped out of the office.

Saturos reflected on the outdoors as he left the building. He particularly enjoyed the low flying sun of the late afternoon. Its golden hue lit up the streets like a painting, and turned even the most dull, dusty towns into something interesting to look at. It was also a nice change of pace from the dark, musty indoors of the local sheriff's office, and it was especially nice to get away from the smelly drunkard they'd hauled in.

The Etrurian paused. Wait a second. Smelly drunkard? No, not smelly. In fact, now that Saturos thought about it, the man hadn't smelled of alcohol. He snapped his fingers as he had his "aha" moment. Something had been off about the "drunken" intruder from the moment he had barged in. He wasn't drunk, and he probably hadn't been drinking at all.

A spy perhaps? Who would spy on a dingy old office like this? Besides himself, of course. Oh well, he had gotten himself thrown in prison, and Saturos had already confirmed there was little to no evidence here of what he was looking for.

"May our paths cross again, hmm?" he said as he walked out the door

[Thread End]