“Intelligence is one of the most important and valuable things in the relation between nations of this day and age. Any nation worth its salt would have agents present in most neighboring states, be they friendly or hostile. Most would have agents spread out even further away.

Most of the time, these agents would just blend into the local populace so well to the point that it was impossible to distinguish them. The greatest coup one such agent had made in the history books was when a long-time agent from the then nascent Clangeddin Empire became so valued by one of their enemies to the point that they appointed said agent as their prime minister.

Needless to say, that case leads to one of the easiest conquests in the Empire’s history.” - From a lecture by Garth Wainwrought, Professor of Socioeconomy at the Levain Institute for Higher Learning, circa 653 FP.

A somewhat open secret amongst the leaders from the various nations of Ur-Teros was that Ptolodecca had intelligence agents practically everywhere. It was a fact that they lived with and came to accept as there simply was no good way to deal with the situation to begin with. The infiltration was far too widespread and deeply concealed to the point that nothing short of several generations of complete and total isolation would be able to root it out.

The beginning of Ptolodecca’s intelligence network was something that started during the days of the First Elmaiya Empire, when some of the Bone Lord’s disciples from that time considered the possibility of the strong empire potentially causing trouble for the Lichdom. As such, they had proposed an initiative to start an intelligence network that would encompass not only the Empire, but also all the other nations of the southern continent.

An approval was granted by the Bone Lord for that proposal.

Given how the population of the Lichdom were cobbled together out of refugees from practically everywhere in the continent in its past, they had people of all shades and hues thinkable, as well as various mixes as those people intermarried with one another. As such, it was easy enough to find volunteers for their intelligence network who would not look out of place at all in their intended destination.

People of eastern descent were sent to the Jarldoms of the east, while those of western or therian descent went to the Elmaiya Empire in the west, with similar steps taken for the north. Given the poor state of the population records system of the time – if any even existed – it was easy for these agents to assimilate into the local culture and establish themselves, as the Lichdom had given their agents plenty of funds to start a comfortable life in their destination.

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Unlike most intelligence operations, the Lichdom’s was one intended for an absurdly long term. Their agents built up whole new lives at their destination, started successful businesses, found themselves a family, and had descendants. Every generation, the most promising ones of those descendants would then pay a discreet visit to their relatives elsewhere, where they would be taken in on the secret mission their parents had been doing all their life.

And thus the baton was passed from generation to generation. Some of the descendants from the original agents had even started businesses so large and prosperous they regularly crossed national boundaries, which made it even more convenient for them to do their intelligence gathering. Even so, these deep sleeper agents generally only “traded” the information they gathered by idly gossiping with people they would accidentally sit nearby to in taverns, or with friends visiting from afar, and the like.

Naturally said strangers or visiting friends would be traveling agents from the Lichdom who came by to gather information. Only in emergency situations were the sleepers required to send a direct message to the Lichdom. Otherwise, there was simply no way to determine who was a Ptolodeccan intelligence agent and who wasn’t.

The agent whose trading house Aideen’s trio was headed towards was one such deep sleeper agent. His ancestor was sent to the north over a millennia ago, when the dwarves were still new arrivals in the north and had yet to found the Caliphate. Said ancestor saw the way the tides were flowing and made himself noticeable as a rich merchant who supported the dwarves in his early days.

That earned him the gratitude of the dwarves and the title of royal merchant, which gave benefits still enjoyed by his descendants in the present day. His trading operation also grew into a great size, and his descendants today operated one of the largest trading houses in the Caliphate, with branches in many of the northern nations.

Naturally, each branch had a descendant who was in the know heading the operations.

Given how the trading house also actively traded with both the Jarldoms and the Empire, visiting foreigners wouldn’t even be out of place there at all either, which made their establishments convenient temporary safe houses for traveling agents like Aideen’s trio. It helped that given the credentials gained by their ancestor, the trading house had high status in most of the north.

When the three of them reached the trading house, Kino showed a token – one that belonged to another trading house in the Empire that the local trading house did business with – and told the clerk on duty that they brought news and goods from Elmaiya for the master of the house. A display of said goods, namely luxury wines and fabrics prepared for that very purpose, was plenty to convince the clerk.

It only took a few minutes before the three of them were ushered to a comfortable waiting room set with comfortable divans to sit on in the local style. Beverages – chilled like in the empire, as the north was also quite hot in terms of local temperature – and finger foods were also presented for their enjoyment while they waited.

Not too long after they were seated, a middle-aged man with clear dwarven blood in him walked into the room with a smile. From the way he was richly dressed, it was clearly the master of the house himself.