Week 4: April 12th - 19th April

It sort of sounds like you want to dispose of him right after. Now, i don't know if we have anything resembling holding cells back at the exchange, but i sort of suggest we use those if we do. I mean, you bring him into the Veil, you have to take him through the streets, right by the general population, and that's just rich territory for him to make an escape. Ditto for the veil - he loses us in there, it's gonna be hard to find him. Now granted, i can run really fast and have good awareness, but it seems like an unwanted risk, overall.

I suppose you could take him in there without telling him we're on to him, but he'll figure it out pretty fast, i think. I mean, i assume this dude is hanging out at the Exchange HQ already; it'd just be a matter of taking him a few yards down to the office or the pen (that we imprisoned those Sho assassins in, incidentally). Heck, we could just tell him we found this guy that has been selling information about us, and we'd like him to conduct the interrogation - that'd probably make him jump to get to that cell in a hurry, then he'd be trapped.


Either way, this is gonna be a lot of observing his reactions. I'll certainly ask him about Sareth (dammit, if we'd known earlier, we might've been able to use that against him), but the primary thing i want to ascertain is if he's doing it for the money or some higher purpose. I don't expect him to give out the name of his employer (and torture would be really ineffective, not to mention just plain wrong), so i won't give him the satisfaction, but his tongue might loosen a bit as to why he's doing it.

Now, as for questions, i wish this was more of a dynamic thing than just a list of stuff i want to ask, because again, how he'll say what he'll say, and how he'll react to what i say will tell us a lot more than what i expect will actually come out of his mouth, and that would dictate how i would proceed. There's a lot of nuance and wits that goes into an actual interrogation that makes it more of a thing you adjust as you go, but i understand the limitations here, so i'll draft up some bullet points.

**

First things first, once we've got him cornered, i'll imply he's been exposed instead of telling him directly, but i won't take long to get to the point either, or he'll have time to think, and i don't want that. If the rooms at the Exchange have climate control, turn up the heat ever so slightly once we're in one of them (if that's where we end up going). I'm gonna imply that i think he did for the money, and sort of make it look like i'm just stupid and arrogant enough to not think he might have stronger reasons (i won't be overt about it, obviously, that'd just be dumb). That might bait him into gloating a bit, and that's the thread i'll pull on. The more i find out about his motives or his mindset, the better, and maybe we'll get lucky and he'll let slip some detail about his bosses or his agenda. Either way, i'm fine with letting my enemies think i'm dumber than i am.

That's the general outline. Now for specific questions along the way, well...

Ask about Sareth, that's for sure.

Ask about the attack that provoked us into going into Sho in the first place. I'd like to congratulate him on a well-played move if he admits to it, but i won't. Rather, i'll just play the kinda dumb zealot of a Monk who thinks we were the ones who were too smart for them (with that brainwash tracking rune move and whatnot). I'll act offended that he targeted my comrades' families (Higaide is certainly pissed off about it, but he'll play it rather unprofessional).

At the same time, if we could scramble someone to scan all his stuff, and bring the findings to us as we're doing the interrogation, that'd be great, as we can press him with evidence that we're on to who his employers are, and how unhappy they'll be if they find out he's been caught.

I'll also be on guard to any funny business he might pull, like some hidden gadget to whisk himself away or try to attack us. Heck, i welcome that he try - it all adds to the puzzle.

I'm a bit lost on more individual questions, now that we're down to it (heck, it's not even a given yet that we can actually secure him). Feel free to post whatever you want to ask him as i try to think of more.

I was under the impression he was already into the Veil. The Exchange is based there after all. So no risk of exposing him into the streets.

So we're good to go.

My bad, then.

I feel like you deserve a post before I leave for the week, was originally typing up a fairly lengthy in character thing but... well, it's this or nothing, so here's the summarized version.

Higaide's methods prove completely ineffective at rattling the guy, he betrays no reaction and maintains his innocence as you question him. Higaide's WIS is high enough as he questions him to piece together from how he answers his questions that the man has no particular allegiance or loyalty to... well, anyone, as a proper spy should, but instead simply works for whomever happens to be paying. He's good, surprisingly good (his existence in Zeiss' new network has been helpful in gaining large amounts of information), but it's likely he sells that information to others the same way he does to you guys.

Higaide, growing frustrated with the innocent act despite having what he believes to be concrete proof, begins pushing harder, threatening, intimidating... nothing seems to crack the exterior until Higaide mentions the possibility of killing him. At this the gentleman, for the first time, reacts with what looks like contempt before it fades under his facade again and he lunges for the door with astonishing speed, moving faster than Higaide can even (and he's a Monk and all that). The man bolts out and is halfway down the corridor when he suddenly screams horribly, and Higaide whirls outside in time to watch a massive electrical discharge envelop the man and he falls to the ground, a charrged corpse.

Well, it will surely be for nothing, but we'll have a yellow mage check the body for the cause of death. We'll also take all the spy's equipment (I hope there' no technological ring on him). What color was the electrical discharge?

Now that we're done with this guy, we're going to week 5.

*shove shove shove the other party members on the other thread*

Hold on, i'll rush to the body and check for anyone nearby, since we don't know for sure there wasn't at least a spotter or another spy to tell the bad guys what was up (hey, gotta make sure). After that, i recommend we scan him specifically for any tracking urns or magical residue, both on him and his belongings (not saying we shouldn't scan for anything else, obviously, but i think that's critical).

There were only about 20 people witness to the odd death. There was plenty of magical residue on him but all of it from normal Woven items that most of the spies in general have. The lightning discharge itself strikes the party as familiar, as they've seen it before in Janwall (before it was destroyed of course). No ring on him though.

If the party springs an additional 2g for a thorough Scan they will find a small metal device lodged in the man's spine which is made of an unknown metal and was connected to another device immediately adjacent that seems to be some sort of power source of some sort.

As an aside, Zeiss' spy network has just lost about half of its bonus to rolls.

The Vyeotians, huh?

I pay the extra 2gp. We extract the device on the spy's body to study it... without touching it. And we'll ask that all our employees go through the same scan. If any of my employees ask why this guy died, we'll say the truth: he was working for another group who decided to kill him once he was discovered.

I understand the need for the scan, but we'd best be tactful about this or morale is gonna suffer even more than it has to.

Also, i make mental note of everyone who was watching, and later on make an actual written note for myself. I'll just title it "monday groceries" or something, and put the names down. Moreover, i'll skip two letters forward for vowels, four backwards for consonants, and flip the order of the last names. Not much of a cypher, but better than nothing (ooc, i'll refer to this as cypher-1 whenever i want to encode my notes in this fashion). I'll keep it to myself, since i don't want to go spreading suspicion on innocent people (or spook any possible culprit, for that matter). I don't find it likely that any of them have had a hand in this in the first place, but no harm in being prepared.

Yeah, let's not tell them about the scan or schedule it. We'll bring in each person quietly. I would theorize that the moment we scan one person and they have a spinal suicide disc, the Vyeotians will know if it's been scanned and detected. And they will destroy the subject. We can theorize a way to magically short or disable the device, but we'd have to do it immediately once a scan has detected the device. Who would have the right knowledge...hmm...got something to do with magic, maybe engineering...

We might need to hire some NPCs with Knowledge Engineering to help us with this.

Sure, let's do that. We'll put off the scan for now.

I'll try and make the most of this; now that the story of the spy's death - and the reasons thereto, are circulating throughout the exchange, i'm gonna make note of any suspicious changes in behavior among our people. Some overall change in attitude is to be expected, i guess (and not really for the better), but i'll make special note of people who seem edgier, more anxious or worried or shifty. Heck, i want to know which people are losing their appetite, if possible.

On the other hand, people who carry on exactly as before (like it didn't even bother them) will catch my eye even more. In short, i'm looking for deviations to the trend.


Whoever it was that executed the spy, they really screwed up when they tipped their hand like that. I want to see to it that it costs them as much as possible.

And you can do all of that... next week!

*shoves the other party members out of the Week 4 room.*

"Come on! Get... out... of... here!"

*still pushing on them while the butterflies enjoy the show*

Lol. Yeah, why is Week 4 still a thing? On to Week 5 friends!

My actions for this week are on page 3. I wonder how I did with those...

Rory wrote:Martial Training
The two black mages on the payroll as trainers will offer to teach people black magic, if they have the capacity and the desire to learn this type of magic. Mandatory: Specialization in up to two 'types' of combat(close combat, projectile, and magic - not "jobs" per sei, like scout, trooper, etc) is the limit. There will be no jacks of trades in this outfit.

Rory will dedicate morning and afternoon to overseeing training/practice this week and make note of any change in efficiency in regard to compensating for this expanding facet of his role.

Crafting
The smiths will be paid per order. They will craft with the chittick material we've given them. All light infantry are to report to the smiths to requisition chittick armor early in the week, which will be made to suit their style(from the light and medium types). This armor will not be used for training.

Fundraising
In the evening, instead of drinking himself to death, Rory will start raising funds by looking into a local fighting ring that he can join, and gamble with his unarmed fighting, following their rules of course, if they call for removing fancy magical items like the bracers. Of course, if they don't say anything about magic items, and don't notice or bother checking, why bother declaring them...?

Training Black Mages is... feasible, and will only take about 2 years to produce a new level 1 Black Mage. Up to you on the investment.

Armor smithing will take most of the week to make but will be done and equipped by the end of said week. Fortunately it's all completed before the Spacial Ley Line detonated so no screw ups there.

Rory finds only a single fighting ring, very recently setup by the Stoneholder refugees. They allow Rory to fight (minus magical items) if he wants to, mainly because he's a Human and as such they consider him to be a fellow refugee. Rory will gain some spending money out of this, but an amount that is less than a gold total.

Magic training
We'll allow the black magic training for anyone interested. Since the training takes much longer than feasible practicality, it excluded from the specializations as far as immediacy and long-term are concerned, limiting 'type' specialization to close combat and projectile.

Fighting ring
The instance in which I do participate, seeing as how it's almost impossible to profit from this refugee fight night, we'll be good sports about it instead of playing to win. And probably not become invested in it as something to dedicate a lot of time towards.