Agnes spent the day pouring over her notes, comparing symbols and letters, trying to make sense of it all. The letters looked familiar, she recognized quite a few, but the words they made up were completely new to her. From what she could gather it seemed instructions were written in emerald while numeric values were in gold. Compared to the simple letter combinations used for basic functions these were long and elaborate, almost sentence-like structures, but still at a character level were a lot simpler than the ones she had used for her shooting "arrow" runes for instance. Which they had used just today. This was all very fascinating to her as if a new world had just opened up. Unfortunately, the queries of Frederick which he pointed at her now and again kept pulling her back to the reality that as is, she could use this information for very little. Once she understood it, oh then it would be a different story but in the here and now, it offered precious little that she could use.

While she was struggling to find meaning in the runes, Harek and the others worked out a backup plan.

* "And you're sure that would work?"

Harek asked Robert while they were making their way to the blacksmith.

* "Sure I am! Did this plenty of times before."

* "Somehow I have a hard time believing that"

He retorted cynically.

* "Oh come on, have a little faith, a few of these darlings and no one will even glance in our way. For a few minutes anyway."

Robert boasted while tossing a fist-sized grenade with a long fuse while carrying the others in a sack.

* "It's not the grenades I'm doubting, that's quite ingenious honestly-"

* "Thank you!"

He cut in with a smile

* "What I'm doubting is Erick will not get shot to pieces while climbing up a rope that we just throw and pray that it will catch something on the other end."

* "Who- wait!"

Erick caught up to them as soon as he heard him getting shot.

* "Weren't you supposed to go in front of me with your fancy shield?!"

* "If the steps work then yes, I can get up fast enough before, but if not then we just don't have enough time for that."

* "Hey there's gotta be a better way to do this, I never even agreed to this-"

Harek stopped in his tracks and turned to him, visibly angry, while being careful not to raise his voice.

* "And I never agreed to be a part of a fraud and impersonate the goddamn governor. You better pray Agnes's hooks will work because you're going up that fucking wall one way or the other."

He pointed at his chest intensely and almost spit the last words, then turned around and continued walking.

* "It wasn't just me!"

Erick shouted after him, arms to the side in confused anger.

The three of them left some space behind him and patted Erick on the back.

* "Don't take it too personally, he always gets irritable like this when she comes with us for a dangerous job."

Robert said reassuringly.

* "Yeah, he'll probably even apologize."

Adrian added.

* "It was your idea to begin with you asshole!"

Erick got Adrian in a headlock, just to mess with him, before he kicked down on his feet in return to let him go, after which Adrian started jogging after Harek and taunting Erick, to which he just answered with various hand signs of affection. Robert rolled his eyes and followed them both.

* "Aren't you two a bit old for this? You can't be that much younger than Harek I swear."

They were about to begin another round of wrestling, which was interrupted by that thought.

* "How old is that grumpy prick anyway?" Erick asked.

* "40 something I'd guess." Adrian said. "But we've been over this, there's no way you can get it out of him."

* "Pff, no way, 30 max." Erick disagreed.

* "Bullshit, Grandpa Robert acts with more youth than he does!"

* "Well fuck you too then thank you very much!"

Robert said.

* "Oh come on Grandpa you know we love you!"

Adrian quipped.

* "Then you can come and kiss my ass! We got things to do still, enough with the tomfoolery."

He put the sack on his shoulder and headed towards their destination.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Although it was an unusual request the blacksmith had been informed as well to provide them with whatever they needed, so he fashioned a grappling hook for them as requested along with a long thick rope, and then began working on the hooks. They were simple enough, not too dissimilar from a horseshoe except thinner, with sharp, pointy ends and a flattened middle to allow space for Agnes's work, but there were quite a few of them so in the meanwhile they headed for the quartermaster. From here they requisitioned some nondescript dark clothes to help them blend in in the evening, which even Robert did begrudgingly. It was not often they had an excuse to wear their best clothes.

With all the preparations done, pending the hooks, they found a folding wooden desk with some chairs and sat down to play cards.

* "Furnitures are such an amazing invention don't you think?"

Erick said after loudly enjoying the act of sitting down and started shuffling a deck that he produced from one of his pockets.

* "That they are, perks of being an officer I guess."

Harek agreed while he took out a water flask from his sack and started drinking.

* "And so he speaks!"

Erick cried out jokingly.

Harek finished his drink then screwed back on its top and answered:

* "You're a good friend, Erick, as much as an ass you can be. So why did you screw us over like this?"

The mood immediately soured, which Harek picked up on so he added:

* "Same goes for you Adrian, minus the friend part."

* "Oh, fuck you!"

That earned a few chuckles from everyone. Then Adrian said:

"Look it was my idea, Erick just helped me forge it and then sell it to the Count."

* "Frederick you mean?"

Harek asked.

* "Yeah, him. You know, the story. Can sell anything easier with a story."

Adrian continued, then took the deck from Erick and began to deal the cards to Harek first, who looked back at him and said:

* "All the same, why? We weren't that hard-pressed for money."

* "Look, I had a short affair with an inquisitor back in Gormavar and-"

Adrian said before Harek cut him off.

* "You did what?!"

He shouted, Roberts's eyes widened and even Erick looked at him in disbelief, before saying:

* "You told me-"

Erick caught himself and forcefully lowered his volume.

* "You told me it was a servant!"

He whispered loudly, then Harek asked Adrian, more baffled than angry at this point:

* "How in the hell did you get entangled with an inquisitor?!"

* "You'd be surprised how many interesting people you can meet when you move in the circles I do."

Adrian pulled a sly smile while dealing a hand to Erick, who then butt in:

* "Okay just say it was a weird sex thing no need for the smoke and mirrors."

* "It wasn't a sex thing! I mean yeah with him it was but anyway, as I was saying he mentioned that there was an investigation going on into house Szhabady about some lost runic artifact or whatever and I knew we wanted to surprise Agnes with something so I thought, what would be better than that?"

* "I have several questions."

Harek said and the others grunted in agreement.

* "First of all, how did that even come up?"

* "Just because you call it a weird sex thing doesn't make it so! Mostly we just have free stimulating conversations with some drinks."

Adrian answered defensively, to which Erick answered with a face:

* "Yeah right, then why the hell are you naked?"

Adrian answered half-offended:

* "It's freeing! Especially with the masks, honestly, it's almost always a great time, most people don't even have sex you should really-"

* "Yeah, we're not buying that one."

Harek cut in and Robert shook his head.

* "So then why didn't you tell me?"

* "Oh, you would have never agreed to it, plus we had no chance to get hired without some damn strong credentials, hence the letter. Frederick didn't even know he would need mercenaries for anything here. I was hoping that the book was burning his hand enough that he'd want to get rid of it as soon as he could, which it did, so congrats to me!"

* "Of course, I wouldn't have agreed! The last thing we need is a capital offense on our heads!"

Harek said.

* "Relax friend."

Adrian continued as he dealt the cards to Robert then offered the deck to Erick to split it, who wordlessly obliged.

* "It's all going to be fine. Frederick is already pissing off the Governor by doing this whole thing."

He gestured towards everything around them.

* "And the last thing he needs is to bring any attention to the details of his deal with us. It's a win-win!"

Harek sighed, then turned to Erick.

* "And you? "

* "Well, I wasn't quite as familiar with the details as I was led to believe..."

He glared at Adrian, who shrugged apologetically.

* but I just wanted to get something nice for her as well. She saved all our lives one way or another with her healing pills or whatever she calls them and it's not like buying a nice dress or something would be worth much to her since fiddling with her runes is essentially all she does as you know so...might as well."

* "Robert, what's your take on this?"

Harek asked the man who was leaning back and stroking his beard.

* "Well, they should have told us...but it's also kind of nice of them."

After some deliberation, Harek continued.

* "Don't keep me in the dark again okay? And...thanks."