• Completed • The Laws of Men and of the Heart

[Quio]

16th of Ashan, Arc 717
morning

Two seasons spent in darkness with nothing to account for it. Quio had been doing his job, as his superiors had instructed, and nothing. Nothing. Not even the budding civil rights gang called the Rynmere Citizens Alliance helped.

And then the news.

Guttey rushed into the office, eyes as wild as Quio had ever seen them, and gasped out, "Derek Smith!"

He was panting and coughing and the others --well, Quio and Irene, Artem was too busy-- gathered around him. Irene patted his back. Quio, with a quick glance to his boss, snatched the cup of steaming coffee off her desk and pressed it into Guttey's hands. Hand.

The ex-knight, not as in shape as he'd used to be, took the coffee, took a slurp, and then managed to get out, gasping in between, "Ran-- ran all the way-- here."

"You said Derek Smith?" Quio asked. He didn't know what the other man was going to say, but Quio had been working all night, and he hadn't seen Hart in days, weeks maybe. He had been feeling for a long time like a light had gone out in his head. He doubted whatever it was was good news. He didn't think he could stand any more bad.

"Yes, Derek-- Smith." Guttey said. He took another gulp of coffee, grimacing, though at the heat of it or at something else Quio didn't know. Then said, regaining his usual voice, "He's at the Fighting Pits."

"What?" Quio asked. Yes, that light inside him was definitely gone. He wasn't suprised, he was angry. He felt his fingers gripping at the files he was still holding in one hand, threatening to crumple them. He turned his back on the others and set them down on the nearest desk.

"The boy's there and he's set to fight," Guttey said.

"When?" Quio asked.

"Soon. No more than a week, at most," Guttey said, and Quio was out the door.

He heard someone, maybe Irene, call after him. He kept walking. The patter of feet, and then there was a hand, small, which tugged at his elbow. He looked over but didn't stop.

"Iaan," Artem said in her authoritative voice, "Don't."

Then he had pushed past her, leaving her stumbling behind, and he was picking up speed. It was cold and too late he realized he had forgotten his coat. He shoved his hands into his pockets and kept going. He could feel himself breathing fast. But he just kept walking. Walking where he didn't know. He just had to leave. He just had to get out.

---

He ended up outside the Fighting Pits and he knew what he had to do. He didn't know if he had ever been this angry--

Yes. Yes he had. On the ship to Ne'haer. He tried to calm himself down before something, something like that could happen again.

Just breathe. Breathe and think. He stood and watched the outside of the building for a long time.

Long enough that sometime later, much later, a man bumped into his side, and it was Guttey.

"I know what you're thinking," Guttey said, "And man, I've thought the same things myself. But there's no way, Iaan. There's no way. Come back to the office. The
law--"

"Fuck the law," Quio said, and walked away.

---

This was a matter of urgency, getting the kid --Derek Smith-- and his father out of there before the boy would have to fight and fight and perhaps die. The urgency was what made it so hard to concentrate. Quio went back to the inn where he and Hart shared a room --a room and the distance that had been deepening between them-- and then he changed his mind. He couldn't think.

He left and went to find another inn, ending up at a seedier place called the Blacksmith Arms. He was halfway through paying for a room when he remembered that the Arms didn't rent rooms, not of any kind. He scowled at himself, and at the untrustworthy man at the counter, and shoved the coins back into his pocket, heading back towards Ye Olde Inn.

There, he rented a new room, apart from the one he and Hart had together. For this, he had to be alone.

Then he started planning.

It was quick and simple and felt a bit like running downhill. Felt like losing control, even as he kept going. The further he went the more he lost.

He looked down at the empty desktop that he had sat himself at, and breathed, and pressed his palms flat to the wood.

That was all there was to it, then? He ran the plan, what there was of it, over. Again and again in his mind.

He couldn't think of anything else.

"Oh, just forget it," he snarled, standing up from the desk. He searched for a moment for his coat, which he realized again wasn't there. He wasn't going back to the office. "Just forget it. Just do it." And he left.

He figured his time in Andaris --in Andaris, and with Hart-- was spent.

He told himself not to stop and definitely not to look back.

Off Topic

a poor-quality room at Ye Olde Inn for 10 nights = 0.1.0gn/night = -1.0.0gn

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"

[Quio]

The plan composed of four parts. Learn. Distract. Heist. Escape.

Learn, that was the first thing he had to do. Over the next few trials, he set up patterns of surveillance. He changed out of his lawyer's clothes and into street clothes, leaving the flamboyent red jacket he usually wore behind. Too flashy. He would be spotted right away and recognized.

Instead he took the grey blazer that he'd first used for work, but which Hart had gotten into the habit of stealing. That was enough to keep him warm for the long breaks he waited outside.

Quio had thought up until this point that he understood the workings of the Fighting Pits. They fought animals in the day, people at night. They paid off the knights, or the nobles, or whoever else they needed to keep running. They kept their people in cages probably meant for animals, and treated their animals better than the slaves whose bodies they used to make their money.

But not without sitting a discreet distance away, bottle of liquour in hand, pretending to be a loitering drunk, did he really learn what the Pits were about.

Business. Every hour of every day. Business.

People coming and going, most likely making deals and placing bets. New slaves shuttled in at night when no one was looking, one or two at a time, and bodies carried out. Someone was there to collect the ones that died, a man with a cart. The Pits didn't only do business with the living but made their coin off their dead as well. Money was exchanged, and the bodies were taken away-- used for what, Quio didn't know. He didn't follow to find out. Another man came and collected animal bodies. Exotics, to be stripped of skin and teeth and claws and turned into meat.

By the fourth day of surveillance he was seeing patterns. He knew when the morning deliveries came, when the meeting hours were, when lunch break was, and when the deliveries came at night. He knew which hours were spent fighting animals and watched the crowds wax and wane-- less people in the day, swelling about an hour before lunch, then the crowds broke up and dispersed and the workers thinned out. A quiet period during the afternoon was spent readying the slaves. Getting them their daily food, water, and checkups before the fights at night.

By second-seven the big crowds had filed in and the cheering and booing could be heard for blocks around. By early morn the next trial, the last of the revelers had gone and the place quieted til all that was left was the graveyard
shift-- literally.

Doctors were called in the early mornings, even before the suns had touched the sky, their palms greased in the darkness with bribes so they might inspect slaves involved in illegal fighting. In the earliest breaks of the morning was when most of the bodies went out. After the fights were over with, and the doctors had come to do what little they could.

As far as Quio could tell, a good number of people --maybe ten to fifteen, not including the doctors that came and went-- worked the hours of darkness from first break to fifth. These were the men paid to clean out the cells and pits, let the doctors in and out, settle the slaves and animals, and go over the money ledgers from the night before. At five in the morning, more workers tended to show up, getting ready for the day's business. The night people stayed to help them, and didn't leave until nine.

It was one of these night workers that Quio needed. And he only needed one.

Off Topic

bottle of rum = -10.0.0gn

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"

[Quio]

21st of Ashan, Arc 717

On the fifth day, early in the grey hours of the morning, he waited. It was cold but no longer miserably cold, and snowing. He waited until the Pits had closed to gamblers and the doctors had come and gone, waited through the quiet period in the morning, and then picked a man who left at nine sharp and followed him home.

The man lived in midtown and wasn't expecting a stalker. He walked without noticing that Quio was ever behind him. Probably tired from work, the man kept his eyes down on the frost-slick cobblestones. He entered a small one-story stone house, and Quio took up his vigil down the street, pretending to beg for coins as he watched.

The house was sleepy throughout the day and not a lot happened. A little girl left for school in the early morning and a woman went with her, probably the man's child and wife. A little while later the woman came back. The curtains were closed against the chill of the early Ashan air, and so Quio could not see what she did within the house.

At lunch she kissed the man goodbye in the doorway with a bag in her hands, and Quio figured she was running errands. Breaks passed and she wasn't running errands, not for that long; she was probably at a job. That left the man alone in the house from twelve-noon to four. At four o'clock, the little girl walked home with her friends. The wife came home about two breaks after that, just in time for them all to eat dinner.

They all left the house a break later, hand in hand, as the suns were setting to night, and Quio took his chance. He knew they probably wouldn't be out long. Maybe going on a walk or to visit friends.

As soon as the family was gone, the Yludih snuck to the house and tried the door. Not locked. They felt safe here. Living in midtown meant living elbow-to-elbow with most of the city guard and military. He would have to be careful. He opened the door as if he belonged there and stepped inside.

The door opened to a kitchen. Quio did a quick run-through of the little house.

There turned out to be four rooms: the kitchen, which seemed to double as a living area, two bedrooms, and a bath. The bathroom was small and dark and had no windows and only one door, almost like a closet. Quio memorized as much as he could of the house on a simple sweep-through, then returned to the kitchen.

He tested the table and chairs, determining them to be of solid craft, then rifled through the kitchen's cabinets and drawers. He found no hidden weapons other than the cutlery drawer, and happened across a key. He wanted to test the key in the front door's lock but didn't want to spend any more time or attract attention. The family had left a low fire on in the kitchen, so they were bound to be coming home soon. Instead, he slipped the key into a pocket and left the way he'd come, trying to look as natural as he could.

Out of the way, a block down and in an alley, he took the key and clutched it to his chest, feeling his heartstone try to beat it's way out from inside him. He had to sag against the building to keep to his feet, and pounded his hand against the stone there.

He was not made to be a criminal. He hated, hated what he had just done. Yet he knew what he had to do. He told himself there was no other choice.

And for better or worse, he made himself believe it.

Bright and early the next morning he went to the marketplace and bought a length of rope, a jute sack, a set of torches, and three tins of lantern oil. The rope he cut into three parts.

Then he settled in his beggar's place outside the small family's home and watched their goings-on for a half day more. After the man came home in the morning, and the daughter went off to school, and the wife left at lunch for her job, Quio waited twenty more bits, walked to the door, and let himself inside.

---

Breaks later, when night had fallen and the Yludih next left, he had a different face entirely. The man whose identity he had stolen was named Earnest Freeman, and Quio had found out as much as he could about the man and his job at the Fighting Pits.

Then the Yludih had left the family behind. The father Earnest, daughter Agatha, and wife whose name Quio had never learned. They would remain there for who knows how long, until they broke free. Until then they remained, locked in their house in fear.

OOC: Sidethread called Breaking and Taking here.

Off Topic

50 ft of hemp rope = 1.0.0gn
jute sack (medium bag) = 0.2.0gn
set of 6 torches = 3.0.0gn
three tins of burner fuel (lamp oil) = 5.0.0gn x 3 = 15.0.0gn
TOTAL = -19.2.0gn

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"

[Quio]

22nd of Ashan, Arc 717
just past first break

The next part of the plan was to set a distraction. Then peform the heist itself. Then escape.

Simple, Quio thought, as he sprinted down the winding streets towards his destination, simple.

Yeah.

His heartstone was nearly pounding out of his chest by the time he got to the Fighting Pits. He was late, just a little; he'd wanted to set the distraction before one AM. It was about fifteen past now. But he couldn't help that. The plan had to work through to completion, tonight, or it wouldn't work at all.

So he ran to the side of the building farthest from the front door and loading bays, and got two tins of lantern oil out of his rucksack. The dagger's belt he removed from his clothes and instead lashed flat to the skin of his belly, pulling the shirt over it so it would be concealed. Then he took the caps off the tins and starting dousing the exterior of the building and the ground around it with oil.

All that was left was to light a torch and drop it into the puddles of liquid. There was no one around to witness; it was the middle of the night. In an instant the fire leapt up, licking the side of the building, and Quio backed away and then started running. He ran around the opposite side of the building, completing a full circle back to the front doors. There he paused to catch his breath, and then walked calmly inside like he was supposed to be there.

"Ey Freeman," someone grunted at him, a man at a front desk who opened a secondary door with a key to let him in. Quio did his best to grunt back.

"First the ledgers, then the cells," the man said, and Quio scrambled to remember information, what had Earnest told him?

"Keys to to the safe?" Quio requested, a little breathless, and the man squinted at him. The imposter hurried to fill the silence between them. "A-Any of the other guys here?"

"Well yeah, you're late," the man snickered, still squinting at him, and Quio nodded his head. "Hey," the guy said, still watching his face, "Everything okay with you?"

"Aggie's sick," Quio muttered, referring to Earnest Freeman's daughter. He wiped at his forehead, "Honestly I don't feel so good myself."

"Well don't bring it to the workplace, Finn'll kill ya. How 'bout you just do the ledgers tonight? Can't let the merchandise catch anything."

"I won't," Quio assured him, and turned and walked off like he knew which way he was supposed to be going.

He had grilled Earnest for all the information he could, but hearing something was different than actually being there. Quio walked as slowly as he could down the hall leading from the front door, then turned the nearest corner and stopped. Then he racked his mind. He didn't know if he remembered.

He had only ever been to the public areas of the Fighting Pits and down to the cells, never in the offices. If the cells were one way, and the pits were another, it made sense that the business offices would be away from the rest, didn't it? Taking a risk, Quio turned and walked down a strange corridor, knowing that if he didn't recognize where he was he was probably going in the right direction.

He was right.

A bit or so later, he pulled up to an office and heard talking inside. Quio swung his way through the door. Three men sat at a table, counting coins and dividing them into piles, with stacks of papers and tickets sitting neatly on the tabletop-- probably the business ledgers and the bets that had been placed earlier in the night. As soon as the man saw Quio they all piped up in greeting, haranguing him about his lateness.

"Aggie was sick," he said, using the same excuse as before, and one of the men looked at him seriously.

"Don't go anywhere near the slaves."

"I got it," Quio said, and plopped himself into a seat next to a huge pile of gold.

He was there, bullshitting his way through inspecting a ledger, when a dull ringing came to his ears, carrying down the hallway he'd just come from. Outside the door he heard something like a scuffle. Two people ran past.

"What's--?" he asked, but the other men were already up out of their seats and rushing towards the door.

"Something's wrong, get the gold in the safe," someone ordered at him, and then the others had fled down the hallway. Distantly, he heard the shout of, "Fire!"

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"

[Quio]

Heist.

As soon as he was left alone Quio turned to the gold stacked on the table, turned to the door, turned back to the gold, and then took his rucksack from his shoulders and began shoveling the gold in as quick as he could.

He gave himself fifteen trills. Fifteen trills to steal as much dirty money from these fucks as he possibly could, what with it all laid out for him.

Then he slung the rucksack --which was noticeably heavier-- back to his shoulders and booked it out of there.

Once more he didn't know where he was going, only this time people dashed through the hallways and there was a faint smell of smoke. For a moment he stood almost dazed in the middle of the hall, not knowing what to do or where to go. Instinctively he turned towards the direction he'd come from, and then he stopped, and said, "Idiot!" and ran back into the room he'd just left.

A copy to the keys to the cells were in the safe just like Earnest had told him, and Quio snatched them up with trembling hands. Then, once more, he ran.

Down the hallway, back towards the front of the building. When he was back in familiar territory he turned and streaked towards the cells.

There were two men standing nervously outside of the cell room's doors, and Quio nearly plowed into the both of them in his rush. "Hurry, get the slaves out!" he said. "Boss' orders!"

"Boss' orders are to let 'em burn, that's company policy," one of the men said snidely back, and then Quio's fist had found his face.

He wasn't the perfect brawler, and he managed to hit the guy in the nose, probably breaking it, but it wasn't enough to knock him out. "Fuck!" Quio shouted, and then took the cheapshot and drove his foot into the man's balls.

The guy went down to the floor and Quio kicked him again, this time in the side of the head. Then he turned and threw the cell keys, hard as he could, into the other man's unprotected face.

Quio didn't exactly see what happened. The man screamed and bent, blood dripping from his face to his hands to the floor. He stumbled back, apparently blinded by the metal that must have impacted his eyes. Quio snatched the bloodied keys back up and began running through them, trying to find the right one to fit the door.

He went through three before he realized that one key was bigger and of a different make than the rest, and he tried that one instead. Before him, the door clicked open.

Inside was a long hallway lined with cages, and the slaves clammored at him as he entered. "Smoke!" someone yelled from the side, "I smell smoke!" Others were rattling their bars.

Quio ignored them as best he could and ran down the hallway, looking for the man he needed.

Soon enough he found him.

"Vernon!" he called, stopping in front of one cell in particular, and the occupant looked up from where he'd been staring at the floor.

Vernon Smith's face was one big bruise, and Quio winced as the man said, tonelessly, "Yes boss?"

"Get out," Quio said, and fumbled with the keys. Once more he started shuffling through them, trying them one at a time in the door's lock to try to find the right one.

Inside, Vernon stood and slowly walked over. "Try the one with the matching number," he intoned lifelessly, and Quio looked up to see that the cell door was marked. Thirteen. He searched through the keys and found one with the same number and tried it. It worked, and the cell door rolled open.

"Out," he said again, and Vernon Smith did as he was told. Much much too slow. Quio grabbed him by the arm.

He was halfway to the door with Vernon when the screeching of the other slaves became coherent to him once more. "Let us out!" they were screaming.

Quio hesitated.

Then, shaking his head, he rushed to the nearest cell door. As he found the correctly-numbered key, number four, he called out to Vernon, "Which cell is Derek in?"

"He's not in here," Vernon muttered, as the cell door popped open. "He's in med bay." Quio shoved the keys into number four's hands.

"Free the others," he said, and made sure the slave was actually going to do it before he grabbed Vernon again.

"Take me to med bay," Quio told him, and once more Vernon answered, "Yes boss."

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"

[Quio]

Escape.

There was only one man outside the cell room's door as they left, the one with the bloodied face. He sat moaning huddled against the wall, hands obscuring whatever injuries the keys had left him with. His hands were covered with gore.

The other man, the one Quio had kicked, was gone. Probably off to get reinforcements. They had to move fast.

"Run, take me there!" Quio said, and pushed Vernon into a sprint.

They ran the halls, and with every turn Quio was sure they would be caught.

---

The medical bay was close to the loading doors, miraculously close considering those doors were Quio's way out. It made sense in a sick logical way; any slaves who needed serious medical care were likely to die, their bodies needing to be unloaded out the back.

The room was nothing like any doctor's office he had ever seen. It was more like a closet with a couple of cots crammed in. There was little room to walk.

On one of the cots laid a prone figure.

Quio was at the boy's side, though Vernon hovered, unmoving, in the doorway. "Wake up!" Quio shook him, but the boy didn't wake. He didn't move.

"He's dead, isn't he?" Vernon asked softly from the door.

"When was his fight?" Quio demanded. He pressed a hand to the boy's cheek and realized the body under his hands was hot, too hot, not cold. Unconscious, then, with fever. "He's alive."

"He fought for the first time two nights ago," Vernon said, and Quio swore. He had thought he had timed it so well, but he had taken too long. He had spent too many days surveilling the place. He had been too cautious. "Got wounded in the leg. Then he fought again last night. It was no good. He was stabbed in the gut." Vernon's voice wavered.

"He's alive," Quio repeated, walking over and dragging Vernon into the room. "And if you want him and you and me to stay that way, help me get him out of here."

"Get him out?" Vernon asked, as if trying to make sense of the words.

"Yes, out," Quio said, and then grabbed the boy under the arms and lifted.

Cautiously, Vernon took his son's feet.

"Out," Vernon muttered again, and something like life flooded into his face.

After that, he moved more quickly.

Out the door and down the hall, and Quio prayed they wouldn't meet anyone. The Yludih waddled, having taken on most of Derek's weight, and Vernon pushed almost too fast now, threatening to overbalance them all. "Watch it!" Quio hissed at him, and the man had the presence of mind to slow to match Quio's pace.

It was infuriating how slowly they had to walk, though. The Yludih had thought the three of them would be able to run while they made their escape. Not that two would have to carry the third.

But there was no way he was leaving Derek behind, and from the looks of things Vernon wasn't either.

"The loading bay," Quio told him, and Vernon motioned the way.

---

Somehow they made it there. Maybe because of how close the bay doors had been. It was a close thing. Once they came across someone in the halls but the man just ran past, too distracted to really notice them.

At the doors to freedom, Vernon dropped Derek's feet to let them out. The two of them dragged the boy outside.

In the night the air was smoky and rife with noise. Neighbors had woken up and had come outside to see what was going on. There was a small crowd gathered, most of them further down the side of the building. Fighting Pits workers ran around, putting out the last of the flames, along with a couple of knights. From the front of the building, all the way on the other side, Quio heard shouting, and maybe even fighting. Maybe some of the other slaves had gotten out.

He hoped so.

He was sure the three of them were spotted, but in the confusion those who noticed them let them pass. Nobody called out to stop them. Maybe they thought Derek was one of the workers, burned by flames. He and Vernon carried the boy down the dark street and into an alley. Then Quio shrugged off his rucksack, handed it to Vernon, and Vernon helped him get Derek up onto the Yludih's back so he could carry the boy more easily.

At this Derek showed his first signs of stirring. He groaned, then whimpered, the position putting pressure on his wounds.

Vernon hushed him and his son seemed to fall back into unconsciousness. Then quickly and quietly they made their final escape away from the Fighting Pits.

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"

[Quio]

23rd of Ashan, Arc 717

By the light of morning they were outside the walls of Andaris and well on their way towards the Docks. Quio had used some of the stolen gold to rent a horse and cart, and he drove it while Derek and Vernon laid in the back.

He wished there had been time to get Derek to a doctor, but he hadn't had anywhere to hide him in the city. He couldn't have taken him to the inn, not where people might see. And the Smiths didn't have a place to stay in Andaris. They hailed from Warrick.

---

25th of Ashan, Arc 717

When they reached the Docks on the second day after the heist, the news had already spread on the backs of horses much faster than the one they had rented. Word was that someone had attacked the Fighting Pits and stolen Finn Craig's property. Some of the slaves had gone missing, along with some of the riches, and the building had suffered a bit of fire damage on one side.

According to talk there was some confusion among the knights as to who had done it. Most suspected the Rynmere Citizens Alliance, an obvious scapegoat. Others reported that one of the employees was to blame and that he was being questioned on the matter. Still others said that they had seen a strange figure lurking outside the Pits on the days before the heist, though nobody had yet been able to put a name to a face.

That was all well and good, Quio thought, But he and Vernon and Derek still needed to get the hell out of Andaris.

Luckily, he had a ship.

Vernon and Derek were hustled below decks of the Blackheart in the dead of night, when less people would see. Then Quio called Yanaqi using the twin sea shells U'frek had given him, and the four of them were off.

---

It was only after they were making good headway around the southwestern curve of the island, passing Venora towards Warrick, that Quio allowed himself to look back in the direction of the city.

Hart was there.

But if Quio was to be truthful, he hadn't been good for Hart, not in a long while.

Quio couldn't go back to fix the things that were wrong between them, no matter how much it hurt him to leave Hart behind. No matter how the feeling of this is wrong twisted inside him, and how much he wanted to go home. He had done what he had set out to do, and he had freed at least two men from slavery, and he had stolen and maimed and burned and held a family against their will.

He had shown what he was to three separate people and that was the same as showing himself to the whole of Andaris. Once the guards interviewed the real Earnest Freeman, news would be out about a rogue Yludih. Time would connect the dots between Iaan Krome and the one who had stolen Freeman's face and used it against the Fighting Pits and the city. And if Iaan Krome was no longer safe around Andaris, then neither was Ruq Qy'ihadi, whose face was the same.

He had done it all knowing the price he would pay. He had known that afterwards, if there was an afterwards, he would both hate and love himself for what he had done, and not be able to forfeit either the pride he felt or the self-disgust despite how much he wanted to. He had known that there were other prices to be paid, and not only by himself.

He just hoped that Hart might one day forgive him.

Because he doubted that for what he had done, for the people he had hurt weighed against the ones he had freed, he would ever forgive himself.

"Speaking in Rakahi"
"Speaking in Common"
"Speaking in Ulehi"

[Niv]

Player 1

Knowledge:

Acting: pretending to be a loitering drunk
Acting: pretending to be a begger
Deception: play along and act cool
Deception: Use what you know
Deception: if it works once it will likely work again
Investigation: observing the goings on at the Fighting pits
Investigation: where to the bodies go?
Investigation: Errands don’t last that long
Investigation: Memorizing the layout room by room
Interrogation: finding out the what
Interrogation: finding out the When
Intimidation: fuck the law
Intelligence: setting up patterns of surveillance
Intelligence: getting a feel for a time table
Intelligence: getting a head count of night shift workers
Intelligence: spying on the house hold of your next target
logistics: Learn. Distract. Heist. Escape
Logistics: First part complete
Meditation: breathe and think
Medicine: Signs of a fever
Navigation: Filling the gaps using the info you already know
Pickpocketing: if they aren’t looking the gold is as good as yours
Stealth: don’t wear flashy clothes
Stealth: stalking a tired unobservant man from midtown
Stealth: it works better at night
Strength: carrying the weight of an injured and unconscious man
Running: Running around a building as quickly as possible
Unarmed: A punch to the face
Unarmed: When all else fails go for the nuts
Unarmed: keys to the face
Irene and Artem: lost in their work
Guttey: Former Knight
Artem: Didn’t want you to leave
Derek Smith: He’s in the fighting pits
Vernon Smith: Badly beaten while in the fighting pits
Blacksmith Arms: doesn’t rent rooms
Fighting Pits of Andaris: paid off the knights and nobles to keep running
Fighting Pits of Andaris:Treats the animals better than the slaves.
Fighting Pits of Andaris: knowledge of their schedule and general goings on.

Loot: 

N/A

Injuries: 

N/A

Fame:

+10 For saving a large group of slaves -2 for stealing

Magic:

These points can NOT be used for Domain Magic

Devotion:

N/A

Story: 

5/5

Collaboration:

0/5

Structure:

5/5

Notes: Really awesome story, some suspense, badassory, and thrills. I guess really the only thing to say is that you kept using day instead or trial but like who cares
Art credit to Yoshitaka Amano