***Tirnanog, Thich Fortress City***

***Gunner***

Getting into Thich’s inner city was easier than expected. Simply being flown in as one of the scouts was the best idea I ever had. The only problem I had now was that the situation I found myself in was slightly different from what I expected to encounter. But it was nothing I couldn’t deal with.

After going through Ivona’s description of her life with the Thich, I had gotten the impression there would be some serious safety measures in place. Not only against foreign intrusion but also against Thich’s own citizenry. In fact, I was prepared to violently bust my way out of a military complex to go into hiding among a suppressed population.

Things weren’t quite so totalitarian.

It seemed like all the safety checks I feared were aimed purely at newly inducted exiles who had yet to be vetted. This academy Ivona described must be mainly meant for teaching and indoctrination, providing a double-door system before the newcomers receive citizenship.

It was a vetting process which didn’t apply to the rest of society.

I hummed and scratched my cheek while watching the street. Admittedly, the Thich as a whole were without doubt a militant and hierarchical society.

At a glance, it looked like any other city with people busily moving here and there. There were differences to Earth, like the predominantly linen clothes which were wide and flabby, similar to the other clans’ fashion preferences. From time to time I noticed some leather armour mixed in. Thich’s preferred colour was a sandy brown compared to, Aerie’s blueish grey, or Jeng’s leaf green which meshed well with the forest they lived in.

It suddenly struck me that most of the clan civilians I encountered so far seemed to prefer colours which camouflaged well with the environment they were living in. A thought I would have to keep in mind.

Nonetheless, the overall practical fashion sense among the clans was the same – wide trousers and jackets which were easy to move around in. In most cases, they were simple clothes that could be easily discarded.

I couldn’t help but notice that while the overall style was similar for everyone, there were people with better and worse clothes. The stern expressions of those in less fancy outfits became only obvious on a second look.

After watching their behaviour for a while, I also noticed people changing the side of the road when someone in military garb used the same side as them. Clearly to avoid becoming the target of scrutiny for someone in a higher social position. In some cases, it even looked like the higher-ranked party expected this behaviour.

And then there were those who were off the worst, marked by iron collars around their necks. They usually followed someone who didn’t have a collar or took care of the wagons which came down the road from time to time, drawn by some type of lizard.

Menial labour in the form of slavery. Just as I had been warned.

The houses and the streets were made from concrete. The entire city was built like some madman had stacked building bricks on top of each other whenever more living space was needed. With each brick representing a container-like housing space. Or should I rather call it living space?

Just by looking at the effort put into building this, it was apparent that Thich City was the oldest colony in Tirnanog.

Surrounding the hive-like central structure was an impressive wall which would have no trouble repelling adult sahernas. Judging by what I had seen when flying in, it was at least a hundred metres in height. There was also a large structure of similar construction on the outside of the wall, presumable this academy of theirs.

In case the wall was breached, the citizens could easily seek shelter inside their insane hive city. Any pursuers would have no easy time if they were forced to fight an angered population among the convoluted brick structure.

Above it all towered something akin to a medieval castle or palace, though modern building considerations had flown into the structure.

Any general tasked with assaulting this city would either have to pay a high price in lives or consider pounding it with artillery till none but dust remained. I wasn’t naive enough to think that there weren’t underground bunkers. Maybe a tunnel system too? Those were features I would add if I were in charge of designing things.

My eyes locked onto a pair of drunks who were hollering while they swayed into a side alley which disappeared inside the labyrinthian hive city. Nodding to myself, I leisurely followed them making sure not to look too eager.

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After landing, I had dodged out of the hangar which housed about two dozen of those stinky bats. It was a large structure built into the outer wall. Thankfully, my uniform and acquired rank allowed me to leave unchallenged. Meanwhile, my fellow scouts were without doubt already questioning why ‘Raja’ had shirked his duties and ran off instead of reporting in like the others.

Oh, threatening to piss oneself always worked wonders when it came to leaving without permission.

I had to get rid of this incriminating uniform, urgently so.

While impersonating someone of high rank was sometimes the best solution to get access to high-security places, it also required detailed knowledge of the organisational proceedings which came with the job. Something I simply did not have – not yet at least. I nonetheless had the firm intention to acquire this knowledge at the next opportunity. The prisoners back at the fleet had already given me a good idea of how to pretend to be someone of high rank, but I didn’t want to risk my neck on purely theoretical knowledge.

First, I needed to observe one of the ‘big bads’ in the field to copy their mannerisms.

So for the moment, it would be best to ditch my current uniform and disappear among the nameless masses of low-ranking workers and service providers. What most people didn’t realize was that some of those unseen masses had access to places which were normally reserved for the highest of generals.

Whistling good-naturedly, I caught up to one of the wasted revellers just as he fumbled with the lock of a downtrodden door. The wood was scratched and withered, not giving the impression it could hold off the meagrest of this world's monsters. The other reveller had continued down the alley once delivering his much more wasted companion to his home. They looked like drinking buddies who destroyed the alcohol stores of a nearby pub. At least the generous sway in their steps told me they couldn’t have gone far in their current state.

While watching the guy’s efforts of fumbling with his keys, I shifted my sensor suit to his living arrangements, sensing no other people inside.

Nodding, I took off my scout’s jacket and put it on backwards to hide the military insignia on it. Meanwhile, my facial features shifted subtly, making me look more like a close relative of Raja’s than the man I impersonated. Which was another reason to ditch this identity. If questioned, I knew nothing of the man. Thankfully, the strong winds on the bat had discouraged my riding partner from holding a discussion which would have easily revealed the ruse. Just as anticipated.

Like I always said, the key to becoming a good spy was the ability to improvise and to switch identities as often as possible.

If someone gave me a closer inspection now, they would question what I was doing with my clothes. But a glance from the main street would mark me as an indistinct guy leaning against a wall, not a military scout who was clearly out of place.

My bat-rider’s clothes were still made out of leather, making me stand out somewhat, but it wasn’t like there were no people in leather at all.

Thankfully, it was already getting dark and there were no street lights. Belatedly, I wondered what to do about being caught outside when the monsters came. The inner city didn’t look like it was especially protected against a monster breach. None of the doors looked like they could hold back a night terror.

Maybe the wall and the soldiers provided enough protection to be lax about safety? Or the local critters didn’t cause the same level of trouble as in the other regions.

I gave it an hour, patiently waiting while watching whether the traffic on the nearby main street would decrease. If people suddenly started disappearing inside their houses or some bunker system, I wanted a heads-up about it.

In my opinion, an hour was a generous amount of time to allow that drunkard to fall asleep.

There was always the danger of him having some mutation which allowed him to sense me or recover quickly from his delirious state. But if he still could get drunk in the first place, there was little chance of it being the case. According to my research, most mutations to one’s metabolism made it either impossible to get drunk or they kept things the same. The guy also hadn’t looked like he was partnered, so even less of a risk there.

After a quick glance up and down the alley, I crossed over to the door the man had disappeared in. All I could sense inside was one sleeping man. Standing right at the door, I could even hear him snoring without my enhanced senses.

A look through my X-ray vision told me that the lock on the door was rudimentary. Nothing like the stuff I was used to. A roughly engineered deadbolt with a normal handle having primary control over the locking mechanism on the other side. Which meant picking the thing would be a waste of time.

I pulled one of my universal keys out of the hidden skin pocket on my forearm, a wire with a loop at the end, which did a marvellous job of getting in between the doorframe and the door to open the lock from the other side. I only had to slip the loop onto the handle and pull.

Three seconds were all it took to have me standing in a poor apartment with the drunkard sleeping on a sofa. I wrinkled my nose at the sight and went straight for the lockers where I started my search for suitable clothes.

I moved quickly, but silently, so I wouldn’t wake the man who would provide me the outfit for my next identity.

Ten minutes later, I was out the door and dressed as an average Thich citizen, with the nice donor of the clothes being none the wiser. He hadn’t woken up, which thankfully spared me the trouble of doing something about him reporting a stranger stealing his clothes.

It would have been troublesome if I had to kill him to hide my traces. Or if he had reported some kind of robbery. Ideally, he wouldn’t even notice the missing clothes.

My uniform ended up set aflame in one of the dirtier side streets and a newly minted member of Thich society ended up strolling back onto the main street while I wondered which problem I should tangle next.

There had to be a recruitment office somewhere. Authoritarian regimes were notorious for keeping detailed records of their citizens. From there, it should be easy to find the first trace of Evanne.

If I found the time, paying a visit to a weapon stockpile or some other highly flammable installation would be nice. Fire made going to places so much easier. I liked it when everyone was screaming while the dumb sheep lost their heads in a panicked evacuation attempt of normally strictly secured buildings while the spy from next door took his time perusing some classified documents.

Yeah, I should probably stick to the classics on a mission like this.