Rain poured from the skies in a torrent of bullet-sized drops over the city of Lluthcaster. The roar of falling water over the cobblestone streets was more than enough to scare even the most hardened traveller away to the safe comforts of an overhead roof, roaring fire, and a bowl of hot barley stew.
Somehow, the one cloaked figure making their way through the streets was unaware of what they should’ve been doing, too focused on the road ahead of them. Water pelted the simple oil-treated fabric they wore for protection, squeezing through the many gaps where the cloak overlapped with itself, soaking its owner cold all the way down to the bone.
“Dammit Khethiwe, sending me out in the rain like this,” grumbled the lone traveller as they held their cloak with an iron grip, rusted by the cold. “I swear, I’m going to spend half of our operational budget on booze after this is all over, just out of spite!”
Eventually the lone wanderer arrived at their destination and relaxed their eroding grip as they finally made their way inside. A large tavern situated in the middle of the seedier part of the city stood tall, surrounded by smaller shacks and tenements, its rotting wood panels covered in faded paint hinting at days of glory long gone.
Its doors opened and slammed against the back wall, the sound of the impact audible through the roll of far off thunder, and in walked the drenched traveller who earned several careful glances from the more cautious clientele. They didn’t mind. Their goal was to get noticed, after all.
The wanderer took several squelching footsteps to a very specific table at the back that already housed a single occupant. Dressed in a cloak of his own and covered in tattoos across his arms, a very angry looking man barked at the stranger who dared take a seat beside him.
“Beat it!” he said with a scowl. “I’m expecting someone important, and my friends don’t like interruptions.”
Several large men and women seated in nearby tables glared at the traveller. They could only be described as a collection of brutes and thugs, one of them perhaps even a hench! Either way, they all sat with angry expressions and a thirst for blood.
The traveller sighed and pulled down their cloak. Behind the black fabric was a young man with tanned skin who showcased a 5 o’clock shadow, head of medium brown hair, and a very tired face. “Easy now,” he said with his hands up in the air in a display of supplication. “I come with interesting tidings. Interesting tidings.”
As he repeated the phrase, everyone around him relaxed, with the belligerent man opposite of him properly settling down into his seat.
“Yup, that’s the code phrase. So we finally meet face to face,” he said with a cocksure smile. One that would’ve looked at home on a career killer. “You have a name, or should I still refer to you as my ‘mysterious merchant of secrets’?”
“You can call me Ash,” replied the traveller, shaking off the rest of the loose droplets stuck to his clothes and open skin.
“You got a full name?”
“Asher,” he grunted. “Now are you going to continue playing 20 questions for my name, or are you ready to do business?”
“Pfft, looks like some of your secrets aren’t for sale,” the man chuckled in a raspy voice. “But don’t we all have our own skeletons in the closet? Sure, let’s do business. What do you have for me?”
“Payment first.”
“Like hell!” he shouted, rousing his compatriots out of their complacency and onto their feet. “Secret first, then if it’s any good, I’ll pay you what I think it’s worth.”
“Hmm… how about a compromise then? A secret without proof is just a rumor. So how about if I tell you what’s going on, and you’ll pay the agreed upon amount if you like it in exchange for the proof.”
The thug regarded the traveller with careful eyes. “Fine,” he finally said, slapping his hand down onto the table. “What do you have for us to hear?”
“That the head general is planning a coup on King Reginald.”
All eyes were upon the wanderer, who simply sat still with an austere smile on his face.
“You’d better not be playing me, that information’s worth a fortune!” rasped the thug excitedly. “Where’s the proof?”
“Right here,” the tanned man fished out a white envelope from his pocket, somehow entirely untouched by the rain, unlike the rest of his clothes. “Everything is in this letter written by the general himself.”
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“That’s his seal on it, alright,” he said with a quick observation, before the secretive merchant placed it on the table facing downwards. “So how about if you go and slide that over here and we’ll get back to you on your payment later.”
“Payment now, or I walk,” he deadpanned.
“No, no, no, that’s not how things work around here,” said the tattooed man with a shake of his head. “You hand over that letter now or we’ll gut you like a fish.”
“Gut me like a fish, and you have no letter.”
“Ha! Hear that lads? Looks like the poor sod’s never been mugged before! The letter we want happens to be right over here, so with you dead, there’s nothing stopping us from taking it for ourselves. What do they teach you children nowadays?”
The wanderer took a slow breath as they picked up the sealed document. “You mean this letter?” he asked, raising a flame-covered right hand towards the dry parchment.
The air was tense. Nobody dared make a move lest they lose a possible goldmine of information… or their lives. Eventually, frayed nerves reached their breaking point and someone broke the silence.
“To hell with it, kill him!” shouted the head thug.
The tanned man simply smiled, and let loose a small gout of flame right onto the seal of the envelope, turning the red wax to a runny dribble and singing the outer layer of the cover before dropping the paper and making a break for it. He dodged all manner of thrown knives and broken glass bottles as he made his way towards the exit.
As the rest of the medieval gangsters made their way to follow in pursuit, they were called back by their boss.
“Wait!” he shouted, pouring his glass of cheap ale over the flames to extinguish them. “We’ve got the letter, there’s no need to go after him. Besides, he’s likely to collect even more information and try selling it to one of our sub-a-sidiaries. All the more money to be made for us, and all the more favor we gain from our Splendid King.”
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Several hours later in a small shack, far away from any prying eyes, sat a young man with tanned skin and the beginnings of a beard. He balanced himself on an old, wooden chair as he spoke into a walkie talkie with a smile.
“Mission complete, Khethiwe.”
“The letter’s been delivered?” replied a feminine voice with a Zimbabwean accent with a clear British tinge. She sounded both calm and forceful in her words.
“Yuuupp,” said Asher in a single long, drawn out syllable. “Even melted off the seal and gave it a bit of burn damage, so there’s no way for them to tell that we forged it.”
“We can thank Ashley for making that move necessary,” the voice deadpanned.
“Hey, it’s not my fault the seal wasn’t in the general’s room! Besides, I left Reggie’s royal amulet in one of the drawers before I left, the one Artyom gave us.”
“Which allowed us to complete phase 2 of the plan while we were still preparing for phase 1. Good work.”
“Thank you,” he replied with a big smile. “But I don’t see why we don’t just kill Reggie? They can’t exactly track down our researchers and send an army after them if Dear Leader is out of the picture.”
“The people of this World are vain, not stupid. Well, at least not that stupid. If the king drops dead, their successor will do whatever it takes to keep it from happening to them, and that means immediately scrambling the army on a direct path towards our people.”
“So instead, we make the king think the general is trying to kill him, and make the general think that the king is having an affair with his wife, so they start fighting each other instead of us? You said they weren’t that stupid, how long will this little misdirection last?”
“Long enough for us to find those Earthers and bring them to safety. Abhi’s done this before, I trust him to finish things quickly.”
“Fair enough. Do I get to take a break yet?”
“One more mission, and then you can take a nice, long vacation. We’re going to be doing a repeat performance for the enemy kingdom. They’re farther away, so we have some time before they can launch a counterattack against us, but I don’t want to depend on that luxury alone. We’re going to need Ashley for this, and we’re going to need her now.”
“Ugh,” Asher groaned. “Today really isn’t an Ashley day.” He let out a sigh and pulled out a small vial. “But whatever, let’s just get this over with.”
He uncorked the glass container and downed its contents in a single gulp. Immediately, his body began to contort. His face began to lose its edge as his facial hair began to fall off and onto the ground. His muscles began to shrink, and torso began to take on a curvier shape rather than the blocky build he previously hosted.
“Well, at least it beats shaving,” said Ash, their voice higher pitched than before. Gone was Asher, the cloaked seller of secrets and shadow skulker, and in his place was Ashley, femme fatale and… also shadow skulker. But for now, she would play the role of the other head general’s new maid.
“Alright Khethiwe,” said Ashley into her walkie-talkie. “I’m ready, just get me some transport and a maid outfit that isn’t as… revealing as the last one.”
“I don’t dictate the tastes of our targets, Ash. But you’re in luck, all of the skimpy outfits are reserved for the butlers!”
The woman let out a sigh. “On second thought, maybe today is an Ashley day.”