Silaes was in a rush to find an appropriate disguise and reach the front gate before his marks did. He had made the decision to pick up his outfit on the go as he made his way to the destination, but he was growing increasingly frustrated in his attempts to find what he needed. A military uniform, preferably something high ranking, would be required to convincingly play the part of a general’s representative. Silaes caught himself wishing he’d more thoroughly researched the armies of Oromis during his time spent planning his assassination, rather than simply focusing on the man himself and those immediately surrounding him.
Eventually luck did end up smiling on Silaes as he found a man passed out, drunk by the smell of his breath, in an alley behind one of the inns along his path. Silaes considered for a moment that it seemed awfully unbecoming of an officer to be so drunk at such an early hour, but he could not argue with the prominent red sash that set the man apart from the common soldiers he’d seen so far. Rather than hesitating further with more questions, Silaes chose instead to thank the dice that the man was so near to his own size and don the uniform that had been so conveniently placed before him.
Silaes hurriedly continued on his way, satisfied by the wide berth others gave him in his Officer’s uniform. He was too busy trying to brush splotches of mud from his uniform to notice the looks of contempt that accompanied the space he was given. He arrived at the front gate to see the Night Hunter leader Jalek waiting with a man bearing the appearance of one from the Qaylu Confederation. That must be the one named Chuko Wolong, who Arshan never mentioned would be attending. Silaes cursed Arshan’s shoddy spycraft under his breath, but then straightened his uniform and began approaching the pair in hopes of successfully impersonating the representative from General Astra. If he could pull it off they could probably get out of there before the other one even showed up…
"Captain Marko Elias, on behalf of General Astra, ma'am. I've been ordered to report to command about what you have to show." Silaes heard immediately to his left just before he opened his mouth to speak. Rather than give himself away by looking at the newcomer Silaes simply kept walking, straight out the gate, covering another string of curses with a cough. The way his luck was running tonight he doubted he would get any useful information about his recently-acquired compatriots, but he decided he would keep trying anyway.
With considerable, pain-staking, effort Silaes trailed the group down their path, treading lightly and hanging back to ensure he always remained unseen. His efforts to remain undetected were aided by the fact that the story-telling trio didn’t seem all that intent on detecting him in the first place. Eventually the group arrived at an aptly named pub called ‘The Cliffside’, and went in. That left Silaes outside in the cold and the wet, trying to hear what he could though the only window he could find that didn’t seem like it would have much traffic. He stayed off to the side of the window so as not to be seen, and only listened.
Silaes couldn’t hear much through the window, just the muffled ruckus one would expect to hear from a mass of drinking people. But that ruckus was soon quieted down and Selena delivered some distressing news to the group. Silaes couldn’t gather much, but he did manage to figure out that a person or some people that were somehow related to this group had died. With a frustrated sigh, Silaes resigned any further attempts to gather information and started to head back to the castle. He didn’t know what he’d expected to find out tonight, but it was clear at this point that he would not be finding it.
Just as he started down the path again the door to ‘The Cliffside’ swung open and a night hunter stepped out saying something about “I just need to be alone for a bit”. Silaes froze in his tracks but it was already too late. “Hey wait a minute, who’s that out there on the track?” For a brief moment Silaes considered running, but decided against it on the grounds that he’d rather not find out how good these Night Hunters were on the tracking end of a man-hunt. Instead he turned on his heel to attempt to talk his way out of this.
”Excuse me for intruding, it just seems I’m a bit lost. I was supposed to deliver a message, but I’m not sure I’m in the right place so I’ll just be on my way...”
“Hold on a minute, your message’s recipient might just be here.” said the woman who had noticed him. “What’s the name of the person you’re looking for?”
Knowing he couldn’t afford to hesitate on this question, Silaes said the first name to come to his mind ”Chuko Wolong”, and immediately regretted it.
“Yeah he’s in there” said his would be captor, “go on in. Just tread lightly, we’ve already received some bad news tonight.”
Not willing to make her ask twice, Silaes stepped awkwardly inside the pub. Immediately he was greeted by someone, he couldn’t see who, saying “What do you want, convict?” Silaes looked down at his red sash and suddenly he understood so much more about his predicament.
”I’m supposed to deliver this message to General Wolong.” He said with all the confidence he could muster. He held up a note he fortunately had written for one of his contacts in Tolos earlier today. The note was written in a cypher only the recipient would know, so Silaes was confident he wouldn’t blow his own cover this way, but his mind was racing for a way out of this situation once the General revealed the fact that he could not understand the contents of the note.
