Unfortunately they had to continue this process for two more nights. There were no defensive formations around the perimeter, but apparently some preventing any sound from leaking out. When they didn’t get noticed, the three youths became braver and started testing almost every possible spot around the building without any result until finally Zia found out that one room the second floor either wasn’t protected or the formation was flawed.
Unfortunately that was a regular bedroom and no meetings or discussions were held there, but Nick didn’t loose hope and after another boring night they finally got rewarded.
Two people were having an argument and, from the sound of it, they were approaching the room Nick and the girls were currently stalking.
“I’m telling you for the tenth time! Nothing could’ve happened to the elder!” A young man in annoyed voice said.
“It’s been over a week and there are still no news!” Another almost shouted back.
“So what? Do you think that we are important enough for the elder to report to us? I bet he was bored with this place to death and went back to the mountains. You heard how he spoke with bishop, he obviously dislikes the guy.” The first one argued.
“I understand, you have it easy! But I have to go and report to him twice a day! Do you know how embarrassing it is to go to the temple every day without being able to actually report anything? At least we wear these robes and those bastards in the temple would never lay a finger on us. Otherwise I believe I would’ve become food long time ago!”
“Shhh! What the hell are you spouting!” Sounded like the first one quickly closed the door and now the two were inside the room, “You can’t say stuff like that! I hope the others didn’t hear that, you know Silas would love to have your job. Don’t give him any chances to get rid of you!”
“Fine, fine! Anyway. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow the messenger should finally arrive. If the elder hasn’t been back at the sect, we should immediately raise all the possible alarms.”
“What alarm can we raise here? And even if we could, do you think there’s a place in the city bishop’s forces haven’t checked yet? The only thing we can do is to send the messenger back to inform the grand elder and await further instructions.”
“Alright. I’ll go see what are the other two up to. What do you plan to do?”
“I’m too tired to deal with them. Silas is becoming increasingly annoying. I’ll rather go to bed.”
The strange discussion ended and Nick immediately beckoned the girls to fall back. They had gotten a load of information and now there was a lot to process.
Back in the “Desert Rose” the three drank herbal tea Nick prepared and weighted their options.
“We should just intercept the messenger, question him first, then one of us pretends to be him and …” Zia’s plan was not bad, bug Nick didn’t like it and interrupted.
“Won’t work. First of all, there is no guarantee the messenger will wear the dark red robes and we will recognize him from the thousands of people who enter the city every day. Second, we don’t even know from were he would enter to create an ambush. Third, even if we capture him, how will we interrogate him? There is low chance for the ‘truth serum’ to work since it was the Holy Order’s recipe and their key people probably are immune or resistant to it. Therefore, which one of you is going to torture the man – you can’t expect he’ll divulge all the secrets willingly, right?”
“Then … what’s the use of all the work we did?” Zia was instantly upset.
“Zia, we got a ton of information! And your idea is not bad, we’ll just do it the other way around.” Nick smiled at her.
“You mean, we wait for the Holy Order’s messenger to come, learn how he looks like and then intercept on his way back?” YunYun asked.
“And not only that. Immediately after we intercept the messenger, we will clean up the mansion. In the worst case scenario we would have invested few days to get rid of five Holy Order’s members. But there is a high chance we will get written orders from the grand elder and a written report that was to be sent back. In addition, the mansion could hold a lot of important information as well.” Nick explained, “Of course, we will need Feroz’s help again.”
Unfortunately it wasn’t possible for Feroz to put a large squad on the surveillance job. Thus he stationed two people close to the Holy Order’s mansion somewhere near the entrance and another nearby to monitor the route messenger was most likely to take. When Nick and the girls expressed their readiness to dress up like Lori priests again and patrol the surrounding streets, Feroz persuaded them to drop the idea. It was fine to stroll around few times, but if particular priests started to hang out around the same place for a longer period, some people might become suspicious. They could not bet on everyone in Moira to be an idiot.
The three stayed in the inn and continued their discussions and preparations when the next evening after the nightfall Feroz rushed in.
The person who highly likely was the messenger they were waiting for arrived few minutes ago. There was no telling if he would stay for the night or depart with urgent news right away, therefore the trio immediately rushed out.
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“The man was dressed in a dirty linen shirt and pants with a linen sack on his shoulder and looked almost like a beggar, but definitely wasn’t local. Also, he came from the north and my guess is he will leave the same way.” Nick recalled Feroz’s report while running through the shadows.
They already had a plan and according to it Zia directly went to the north and YunYun to the east to cover the most likely routes which the messenger could take in case he immediately departed and they didn’t manage to intercept on time, while Nick’s task was to go to the mansion.
‘Hopefully he didn’t leave yet … and I really hope Zia is not too rush and doesn’t kidnap an innocent passerby’ Nick thought to himself.
To avoid such incidents they agreed that if there was a suspicious person, the girls would knock them out first.
Fortunately it didn’t come to that. As soon as Nick approached the mansion, a person hurriedly left and immediately started running down the street towards the north.
‘Are we lucky or the news of the elder’s disappearance are so important? I bet he previously has gone into seclusion for months to train his sword.’ Nick pondered while trying to stealthily keep up.
This guy turned out to be incredibly fast and, for some reason, was not afraid to attract any attention from the patrolling guards. Nick, on the other hand, already started to think of running on the roofs since he couldn’t run so fast on the street and remain unnoticed when suddenly a shadow darted out from a side alley, grabbed the guy and vanished across the street. It happened so fast that one could miss it if they blinked at the wrong time.
Nick, of course, recognized Zia and quickly followed her.
“There is nothing on him!” Zia was proud of her stunt, but disappointed at the same time.
“Doesn’t matter.” Nick consoled her, “What’s important – you caught him. Let’s meet up with YunYun and clean up the mansion.”
“Alright, but you should put him in you wristband. I doubt we should leave the body here.” Zia said while Nick facepalmed. The guy was already dead before he arrived! This girl was really ruthless.
Few minutes later the three of them were already at the Holy Order’s mansion. Following their plan, they stealthily entered the room they stalked the previous night and a second later its only inhabitant accompanied the messenger in Nick’s wristband.
The voices of the three other Qi masters arguing came from downstairs.
“If Juri wants to sleep, let him. We will inform him in the morning.”
“This isn’t the time to argue, Silas! The grand elder has sent instructions, we should all read them together.”
“I agree with both of you, there is no need to argue. If Juri doesn’t care to even come down during this commotion, it’s not important enough for him – he can read the orders in the morning.”
“Silas, I know you simply want to be the one to run to the bishop every day ...”
The three invaders, hearing the argument, immediately dashed down just to find themselves in a larger room with three men in it. They chose their respective targets wordlessly and like three black angels of death jumped towards them already from the staircase.
While Nick and his weapon were well suited for this job and YunYun at a lightning speed stabbed her opponent in the neck, Zia was used to wide and slashing motions with her ‘Pig sticker’ and, when her weapon appeared in her hand, she slashed at the last stunned Qi master with a loud boom breaking the table, a couple of chairs and a cupboard and, at the end, her weapon stuck in the wall before it could harm the target.
That woke up the guy and he quickly drew his sword. But instead of using this opportunity to kill or at least wound Zia, he speedily retreated towards the closest window. Luckily Nick guessed his intention on time and before he could jump out and escape, Wakizashi took his life.
After the short ruckus silence filled the mansion and only Nick, YunYun and Zia were left standing. While the job should’ve been relatively simple and, most importantly, stealthy, the room they were in was half-destroyed.
The main perpetrator was currently blushed from shame and clumsily tried to get her weapon out of the wall mumbling something like ‘not fair … mine is too big’, while YunYun went over to her and tried to console. Nick, on the other hand, turned to the fallen and began to search them.
Even after searching multiple times he couldn’t find anything that resembled written orders, but then YunYun solved this ‘mystery’ when found a suspicious looking note on the floor. Apparently it was laying on the table until Zia … entered.
The trio sat down to discuss their next steps. From the moment they left the “Desert Rose” not even thirty minutes had passed, but they basically achieved everything they came for. Unfortunately for none of them it felt enough and their mood was kind of weird.
“That’s it, I guess …” Nick said fiddling with the note that supposed to contain the orders from the grand elder. As expected, it was written in some code and there was no real way for any of them to crack it. They had to pass the message over to Simon Den and there was no telling if he had the time or means for that and if he had, when they could read it.
“What do you mean ‘that’s it’? Can’t we really do anything? At least burn down a temple or two?” Zia was still upset from her previous fiasco.
“I’m kind of with Zia on this one. It all feels quite underwhelming.” YunYun bitterly smiled.
Nick looked back at the two of them and scratched his head while pondering.
“Alright. Let’s brainstorm a little.” He said after a minute, “First, what do we know, then what can we do and the last part – how. Go!”
Both girls had taken part in such conversations therefore immediately threw in their opinions.
“First, we know that there are no news about elder Sonor and no one knows what happened to him. And then we know there are some instructions we can’t read.” YunYun started.
“We know that the people from the Holy Order argued between themselves.” Zia added, “And fought for a spot to deliver reports to the bishop. I don’t know why, though.”
“Maybe it had something to do with staying in Moira. Ambassador's status or something similar – this place is a dump after all. Ok, they argued and wanted to report to the bishop personally. Where does it lead us?” Nick asked.