Frost 63, 121
There are three ways to get something through Zaichaeri security.
First, of course, is to bring the contraband across the city limits without passing customs. This was Imogen Ward’s go-to in most things; one of the great conveniences of a partnership with the Railrunners was the ability to have a mage make a gateway directly into the city. The process was fast and virtually without risk, as the Railrunner magic was nigh-indetectable to every ward the Order had. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work today. Imogen had left the city through customs aboard the train, and it was sure to lead to questions later if she re-appeared in the city without passing a single security checkpoint.
Second, one could try to bring it past the checkpoint by stealth. A lot of non-Coven folks tried to do just that, and it could work if your cargo was light, possessed of ordinary aetheric qualities, and easy to conceal. Depending on the sense of security in the city, very few of the guardsmen bothered to actually run through every element of a thorough check, and as long as your hiding place wasn’t too obvious, you could probably sneak something past them. Unfortunately, that would never work here; the box Imogen was transporting was large enough to merit its own container, and was sealed by magic. There was simply no hope that even a very lazy guard would miss it.
Third, and the method of choice for today, was bribery. Bribery was not a simple matter in the customs setting; if Imogen Ward sidled up to a random inspector and offered him a handful of coins, she’d be detained in a heartbeat. Even Zaichaer was wise to the basic realities of corruption, and so the inspectors were the subject of special scrutiny, and could receive significant bonuses if they reported bribery. Furthermore, if caught, the inspectors could receive lightened sentences if they turned in their co-conspirators, and so a single corrupt inspector could take down any number of smugglers who made the mistake of working with them. It was an elegant solution to a common problem.
…to the problem of an individual bribery attempt, that is. The Sunsingers were an institution, and therefore had institutional solutions. In this case, that consisted of bribing not a border inspector, but of a pre-existing agreement with the staff of the train.
To that end, Imogen Ward entered the checkpoint entirely devoid of contraband, allowing the inspectors to open and rummage through her meager belongings with total confidence. Even though Imogen had only a single bag and the contents were innocuous, she was nevertheless forced to wait for nearly half an hour; the inspectors apparently desired to make some sort of point about the place of Orks in customs lines.
It didn't matter. This method of crossing through customs was always going to take at least an hour, even if they waived her through in seconds.
While she sat, the box was transferred from the train’s kitchen car by the cook, alongside the trash, to the facilities in the station. From there, it made its way to the back of the employee lounge. The item was unusually large for this particular method, and so it was hidden in a barrel behind the lounge, marked separately from the rest of the empty (or garbage-filled) containers by leaving a leather glove atop it.
Altogether, the employees of the kitchen car probably made about three months’ wages for moving one box around, an action which would never be scrutinized and carried virtually no risk, and Imogen got through the customs line as quickly as it would have taken to spirit the box over the walls in any other fashion. This was in accordance with the advice from her mother which she treasured most of all: whenever undertaking any felonious plot, do so casually and with as little work as Orkhanly possible.
So it was that two hours after Imogen got off the train, she sauntered through the city with her prize, making a beeline for the Theater. There were a lot of people among the Sunsingers who would have tried to duck into a building, or an alleyway, or otherwise lose any tails which might be following. Imogen did not do this. As far as she was concerned, spycraft was most effective as an infrequent spice. Too much skullduggery and you’d give yourself heartburn.
~~~
”I’m back!” Imogen announced to the empty Pfenning as she marched through the service entry. ”No need to weep with joy, I know you all missed me.”
The building was empty, of course.
~~~
The Ork woman took a quick detour to the janitor’s closet to get the spare keys she knew would be waiting, unhooking them from their space above the interior doorjamb. According to the Theater rules, she should be in uniform any time she had the keys out, but she wasn’t planning to do any cleaning tonight.
(Although the interim cleaners had done an absolutely abysmal job, she’d noticed. If she weren’t so tired from the train, she would consider getting the trolley out and trying to at least get the main thoroughfare in shape.)
Generally speaking, the Sunsingers were employed to smuggle people, not boxes, but this wasn’t so unusual as to lack a procedure. In a theater the size of the Pfenning, props for shows had to be regularly built and torn down on and off-site, but certain valuable, generic or simply sentimental props were kept in a long-term storage room, awaiting the day that a repeat performance might be scheduled or one of the directors convinced the Theater management to let them disassemble it for parts.
Imogen went straight for the storage room, picking the right key with just a single guess and sliding it in for that smart, smooth *click*. It took only a moment of careful maneuvering through the crowded, cobwebbed storeroom to locate the corner she was looking for- a wooden stool, empty of props or boxes and set deliberately in front of a tall mirror. The procedure was simple. Put the thing on the stool, close the door, it would be gone within the hour.
Except today. Today, the mirror was not there. Instead there was a swirling oval of slipspace, a hallway cut into the fabric of spacetime. It led into darkness beyond, and although Imogen did not yet possess the sense of the Railrunners which permitted them to see space like a model in their minds, she knew immediately where it would lead.
Backstage.
There was an entire complex beneath the Theater, rooms separated by layers of stone and wood from the public-facing sections. Without Traversion, there was no way into the backstage, and no way out, either. If she stepped through that portal and it closed behind her, there was no return; none at all.
But nobody simply left such a gateway open; some mage was sustaining this tunnel, and she trusted the Railrunners with her life on a regular basis. With only minor trepidation, Imogen stepped backstage.
~~~
As soon as the Sunsinger passed the tunnel and into the darkness beyond, she summoned her sword. As the Reaved weapon faded into being, the silver Nova flame lit up the chamber, revealing that she was standing in the middle of a long, empty hallway. This, she knew from her talks with Carina, was meant to make the Railrunners’ work easier. A complex filled with open spaces was conducive to the activities of teleporters, presenting them with an easy “target” for jumps through slipspace and a guarantee that they wouldn’t show up in the middle of a busy area.
Imogen advanced forward, the black-laquer crate held tightly beneath her left arm, her sword burning in her right. At first, the backstage seemed just as empty as the rest of the Pfenning, but as she rounded out into the main hallway, she came face-to-face with…
The Orkhan girl grunted with surprise, suppressing a scream as she was presented with a translucent Human form, one wavering and indistinct. The strange, distorted face on the ghost worked its mouth, as though trying to shout something, but nothing more than nauseating moans issued from the thing.
Imogen swung blindly at the ghost with her flaming sword, cleaving easily through the… wooden frame? And cloth?
“Hah! Got you!”
Imogen stood, blinking in disbelief as she took stock of the rest of the hallway, her eyes focusing for a moment on the mirror-projector which had fixed the ghostly image onto the screen she had just cut to shreds, then looking over to the old man standing next to it, grinning from ear to ear.
”M-master Gerhard?” Imogen said, disbelieving. ”What was that-”
“It’s well known, Miss Ward, that you’re jumpy about ghosts.” the master Sunsinger replied, still smiling wider than could possibly be healthy. “It is my solemn duty to train that out of you. Have you got my box?”
”Train that-” Imogen huffed, partly from the sudden scare, but mostly from annoyance. It wasn’t as though the Sunsingers had official job postings, but she very much doubted that this little prank had any purpose besides the Master’s amusement. ”Yes, Master Gerhard, right here.”
Imogen offered the elder Sunsinger the box and he took it, examining it with an undisguised interest which she had seldom seen out of the composed witch. “Excellent. Did you open it?”
She had been given strict instructions not to. ”Yes, Master.”
“Did you recognize the contents?” Gerhard said lightly, as though she had not just admitted to violating orders. Frankly, she suspected that none of her superiors would expect anyone in the order to keep the box closed without some explanation.
”...no, Master.”
“Wonderful. Well, thank you again- you’re dismissed for tonight.”
And that was the end of that.
There are three ways to get something through Zaichaeri security.
First, of course, is to bring the contraband across the city limits without passing customs. This was Imogen Ward’s go-to in most things; one of the great conveniences of a partnership with the Railrunners was the ability to have a mage make a gateway directly into the city. The process was fast and virtually without risk, as the Railrunner magic was nigh-indetectable to every ward the Order had. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t work today. Imogen had left the city through customs aboard the train, and it was sure to lead to questions later if she re-appeared in the city without passing a single security checkpoint.
Second, one could try to bring it past the checkpoint by stealth. A lot of non-Coven folks tried to do just that, and it could work if your cargo was light, possessed of ordinary aetheric qualities, and easy to conceal. Depending on the sense of security in the city, very few of the guardsmen bothered to actually run through every element of a thorough check, and as long as your hiding place wasn’t too obvious, you could probably sneak something past them. Unfortunately, that would never work here; the box Imogen was transporting was large enough to merit its own container, and was sealed by magic. There was simply no hope that even a very lazy guard would miss it.
Third, and the method of choice for today, was bribery. Bribery was not a simple matter in the customs setting; if Imogen Ward sidled up to a random inspector and offered him a handful of coins, she’d be detained in a heartbeat. Even Zaichaer was wise to the basic realities of corruption, and so the inspectors were the subject of special scrutiny, and could receive significant bonuses if they reported bribery. Furthermore, if caught, the inspectors could receive lightened sentences if they turned in their co-conspirators, and so a single corrupt inspector could take down any number of smugglers who made the mistake of working with them. It was an elegant solution to a common problem.
…to the problem of an individual bribery attempt, that is. The Sunsingers were an institution, and therefore had institutional solutions. In this case, that consisted of bribing not a border inspector, but of a pre-existing agreement with the staff of the train.
To that end, Imogen Ward entered the checkpoint entirely devoid of contraband, allowing the inspectors to open and rummage through her meager belongings with total confidence. Even though Imogen had only a single bag and the contents were innocuous, she was nevertheless forced to wait for nearly half an hour; the inspectors apparently desired to make some sort of point about the place of Orks in customs lines.
It didn't matter. This method of crossing through customs was always going to take at least an hour, even if they waived her through in seconds.
While she sat, the box was transferred from the train’s kitchen car by the cook, alongside the trash, to the facilities in the station. From there, it made its way to the back of the employee lounge. The item was unusually large for this particular method, and so it was hidden in a barrel behind the lounge, marked separately from the rest of the empty (or garbage-filled) containers by leaving a leather glove atop it.
Altogether, the employees of the kitchen car probably made about three months’ wages for moving one box around, an action which would never be scrutinized and carried virtually no risk, and Imogen got through the customs line as quickly as it would have taken to spirit the box over the walls in any other fashion. This was in accordance with the advice from her mother which she treasured most of all: whenever undertaking any felonious plot, do so casually and with as little work as Orkhanly possible.
So it was that two hours after Imogen got off the train, she sauntered through the city with her prize, making a beeline for the Theater. There were a lot of people among the Sunsingers who would have tried to duck into a building, or an alleyway, or otherwise lose any tails which might be following. Imogen did not do this. As far as she was concerned, spycraft was most effective as an infrequent spice. Too much skullduggery and you’d give yourself heartburn.
~~~
”I’m back!” Imogen announced to the empty Pfenning as she marched through the service entry. ”No need to weep with joy, I know you all missed me.”
The building was empty, of course.
~~~
The Ork woman took a quick detour to the janitor’s closet to get the spare keys she knew would be waiting, unhooking them from their space above the interior doorjamb. According to the Theater rules, she should be in uniform any time she had the keys out, but she wasn’t planning to do any cleaning tonight.
(Although the interim cleaners had done an absolutely abysmal job, she’d noticed. If she weren’t so tired from the train, she would consider getting the trolley out and trying to at least get the main thoroughfare in shape.)
Generally speaking, the Sunsingers were employed to smuggle people, not boxes, but this wasn’t so unusual as to lack a procedure. In a theater the size of the Pfenning, props for shows had to be regularly built and torn down on and off-site, but certain valuable, generic or simply sentimental props were kept in a long-term storage room, awaiting the day that a repeat performance might be scheduled or one of the directors convinced the Theater management to let them disassemble it for parts.
Imogen went straight for the storage room, picking the right key with just a single guess and sliding it in for that smart, smooth *click*. It took only a moment of careful maneuvering through the crowded, cobwebbed storeroom to locate the corner she was looking for- a wooden stool, empty of props or boxes and set deliberately in front of a tall mirror. The procedure was simple. Put the thing on the stool, close the door, it would be gone within the hour.
Except today. Today, the mirror was not there. Instead there was a swirling oval of slipspace, a hallway cut into the fabric of spacetime. It led into darkness beyond, and although Imogen did not yet possess the sense of the Railrunners which permitted them to see space like a model in their minds, she knew immediately where it would lead.
Backstage.
There was an entire complex beneath the Theater, rooms separated by layers of stone and wood from the public-facing sections. Without Traversion, there was no way into the backstage, and no way out, either. If she stepped through that portal and it closed behind her, there was no return; none at all.
But nobody simply left such a gateway open; some mage was sustaining this tunnel, and she trusted the Railrunners with her life on a regular basis. With only minor trepidation, Imogen stepped backstage.
~~~
As soon as the Sunsinger passed the tunnel and into the darkness beyond, she summoned her sword. As the Reaved weapon faded into being, the silver Nova flame lit up the chamber, revealing that she was standing in the middle of a long, empty hallway. This, she knew from her talks with Carina, was meant to make the Railrunners’ work easier. A complex filled with open spaces was conducive to the activities of teleporters, presenting them with an easy “target” for jumps through slipspace and a guarantee that they wouldn’t show up in the middle of a busy area.
Imogen advanced forward, the black-laquer crate held tightly beneath her left arm, her sword burning in her right. At first, the backstage seemed just as empty as the rest of the Pfenning, but as she rounded out into the main hallway, she came face-to-face with…
The Orkhan girl grunted with surprise, suppressing a scream as she was presented with a translucent Human form, one wavering and indistinct. The strange, distorted face on the ghost worked its mouth, as though trying to shout something, but nothing more than nauseating moans issued from the thing.
Imogen swung blindly at the ghost with her flaming sword, cleaving easily through the… wooden frame? And cloth?
“Hah! Got you!”
Imogen stood, blinking in disbelief as she took stock of the rest of the hallway, her eyes focusing for a moment on the mirror-projector which had fixed the ghostly image onto the screen she had just cut to shreds, then looking over to the old man standing next to it, grinning from ear to ear.
”M-master Gerhard?” Imogen said, disbelieving. ”What was that-”
“It’s well known, Miss Ward, that you’re jumpy about ghosts.” the master Sunsinger replied, still smiling wider than could possibly be healthy. “It is my solemn duty to train that out of you. Have you got my box?”
”Train that-” Imogen huffed, partly from the sudden scare, but mostly from annoyance. It wasn’t as though the Sunsingers had official job postings, but she very much doubted that this little prank had any purpose besides the Master’s amusement. ”Yes, Master Gerhard, right here.”
Imogen offered the elder Sunsinger the box and he took it, examining it with an undisguised interest which she had seldom seen out of the composed witch. “Excellent. Did you open it?”
She had been given strict instructions not to. ”Yes, Master.”
“Did you recognize the contents?” Gerhard said lightly, as though she had not just admitted to violating orders. Frankly, she suspected that none of her superiors would expect anyone in the order to keep the box closed without some explanation.
”...no, Master.”
“Wonderful. Well, thank you again- you’re dismissed for tonight.”
And that was the end of that.