Swamped

"Well, I'd better not distract you from that for too long," you say. "So can you tell me how to get to the temple, so I can get out of your way?"

He seems a little annoyed.

"That is your guide's responsibility," he says simply. "All of us have our tasks, and we do not interfere in the work of others."

Well, that's inconvenient.

"But I'm not sure where my guide is."

"Then it is their responsibility to find you. Tell me the name of your guide, however, and I shall report their negligence."

A name. Dammit. Then again, you can handle this easily with the act you've been putting on.

"Er, I forgot it," you admit a bit sheepishly. "Never been that good with names, you see."

He doesn't seem happy. You decide to push your luck a bit, if only to see how he responds.

"It might have been something like Azel?"

"You must be confused. Azel is one of the Pilgrims," says the guard. "Those who journey the world to spread word of the Master's arrival. Perhaps you heard the guide praising his name."

"That must have been it," you say.

So this must be the group's base of operations. They pass their work off as holy - and who knows, maybe they even believe it is - and control an entire city of slaves.

That still leaves you with questions as to just what they're trying to accomplish, but it's no wonder they had no qualms about sending you here alone. This whole city is their territory, and you have no idea how far it extends.

"What's your name, then?" you ask. "You've been very helpful and understanding, and I'd like to pass that along. And I'll make an effort to remember this time."

The guard smiles a little. No matter where you are, people are always looking for a chance to move up the ladder.

"I am Vils, and I am simply pleased that I could aid an honored guest. You need do me no favors."

"Vils," you say, acting as though you're having trouble with it. "At least it's short. Where would you recommend I wait for my guide to find me?"

They won't, but you might as well go through the motions.

Vils points down the street.

"Walk that way and you will soon see a building with the Master's symbol above the door. That is the Kabracam. Your guide will be certain to go there sooner or later, unless they are even more negligent than they appear to be."

You don't know what a Kabracam is, or what the Master's symbol looks like, but there's a strong tone of reverence in his voice when he mentions them. You get the distinct impression that these are important enough that anyone who was supposed to be here would know about them. Even your attempt to pass yourself off as a simpleton might not work here.

So. Do you attempt to get clearer directions out of him, or just head the way he's pointing and hope you can find the building?

>Head the way he's pointing. Even if you dont know exactly what it looks like, there can't be that many buildings with insignia on them, can there?

You've carried this bluff long enough. You thank him, making sure to mention his name and seem like you're struggling with it a little.

Chances are there won't be many buildings with symbols on the door. Even if there are, this "Master's Symbol" is likely to stand out, considering how important he seems to be.

As you walk, you try to sort through what you've learned.

You're still missing some details, but as best as you can tell, the Master is the head of Azel's organization and the Pilgrims are his direct underlings. You also wouldn't be surprised if their dealings with the Guild have something to do with all the slaves here - either as a seller or a buyer.

Why have they taken an interest in the swamp, though? Presumably they want whatever's in the Marsh Fortress, but how would they even find out what it is? You don't know what it is and you've lived in the damn swamp for years. You might have found out if the vote had gone your way, but even if you somehow still had enough support after how this night went, it's not as if you'd be around to take the position.

That's when it strikes you that the sun is directly overhead. It's around noon. But... you weren't locked up for that long. And while you were disoriented for a bit after they told you about the delivery, you're fairly sure you didn't fall unconscious...

Well. Now that you think about it, it gets light sooner in the east, doesn't it? When you were in Tallus, the sun was about three hours ahead of what you were used to, so if it's that high now, that would put you...

Well beyond the edge of the continent.

The realization is unsettling. You already didn't know where you were, but if you're on another continent entirely, even fleeing the city wouldn't be much help. You'd never find familiar territory.

Which leaves you with little to do except find this Kabracam place, and hopefully from there you can get directions to the temple. You don't know what's going to happen after that, but it's not as if you have any other plans at all right now.

You stop suddenly, as the street opens up into a circle. You can see that there's a ring of several buildings up ahead, all with various ornate symbols over the doors.

Figures. Now how are you supposed to find the right one?

>You know at the very least that people use the building you're looking for. So just enter buildings other people are entering or leaving, and stay out of buildings they aren't, and hope you stumble across your guide.

Well. Vils said the guide would turn up there sooner or later. So maybe if you wait around, you'll see somebody who isn't a Silent One. You don't even really need to be at the right building as long as you can get some directions.

So, you wait. Before long, you see someone wearing colorful robes and a strange hat. This might be a priest, or it might be someone else entirely. However, the fact that they're not carrying anything around suggests they aren't one of the Silent Ones.

You walk over to them, and follow them into one of the buildings. You have no idea what sort of building it is, but you don't really care at this point. Presumably, if you're not supposed to be there, they'll tell you as much.

The entrance immediately opens into a stairway, which heads down into the ground. The person you're following shows no sign of acknowledging you, even as you continue through an ornate door.

And you find yourself in what is clearly a war room, only it's a much fancier one than you had back at the swamp. There are tactical maps all over the place, only a few of which look familiar. The rest probably depict places on this continent.

You're surprised how lax their security is. You could have walked right in without any trouble. Perhaps that's just what you get used to in a city full of slaves.

Of course, you don't understand the language here. So the various notes on the maps are unreadable, and while people are talking, you have no idea what they're saying. They don't seem to be acknowledging you at all.

What now?

>Inspect the maps. What places do they seem to be focused on? Do you know any of them?

Move some pieces subtly on the maps, mess up their plans!

You take another glimpse at the maps you do recognize, starting with the ones on the walls.

One is rather clearly the swamp. No surprise there. There's a lot of pins in it - a good number of them appear to be black pins in areas that you know are very unsafe. Perhaps that's them marking the danger zones for themselves.

The other one that jumps out at you is the desert. Not that you know it by heart like you do the swamp, but they also have a lot of pins in that one.

Aside from that... well, you can see the area around the Kandrian capital, and a few maps detailing small kingdoms. Nothing else is particularly recognizable.

You contemplate moving things around on the maps, since they seem completely unfazed by your presence. But that might just be enough to get them to intervene, and you're not sure you'd like that. Besides, you can't really grasp what their plans are...

Well. That's not entirely true. You see a mass of white pins in the Marsh Fortress and the Bog Hill base on the swamp map, and a very ornate blue pin in the former. There's also a small orange pin that appears to have been moved off the map... and you see a recent hole in the Bogknight base.

That's you, isn't it. Someone they view as a potential asset.

And now that you take another look at the Marsh Fortress, there's a small cluster of orange pins. Seems they're working quite hard over there.

Although, it's nothing compared to Kandria, where it looks like a third of the capital is orange.

None in the desert, though. That's interesting. Seems to be a few clusters of white, one grey, and a few scattered specks of green.

Oh. And another fancy blue pin, this one surrounded by white ones.

Those must indicate their targets. Grey and green, you have no idea on... grey might be neutral? Or perhaps it's forces under their direct control? What's with the small scattering of green, though?

You take a glance. Nobody seems to be looking your way, so you try grabbing a green pin and moving it over a bit.

A grebling, who you hadn't noticed until now, suddenly bounds over and moves the pin back.

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that," he grumbles. You're about to respond, but he just wanders off and starts talking to two others, including the person you were following. And now you can't understand what he's saying.

Now what?

>wander into some other rooms, with an aim to learn as much as you can.

You've seen just about everything you can make sense of in here. You might as well see if they'll intervene if you go anywhere else.

You step out another doorway and see... well, nothing. Or rather, a completely empty room. No furniture, nothing on the walls, no people. The only thing you can see is a series of squares marked on the floor. There's a small red one, surrounded by a slightly larger green one, and the pattern continues for a while. All different colors. Aside from that, the room is just a very dull shade of white.

You're just about to leave when a muscular person walks in, carrying a large scroll. He stares at you for a moment, walks around you, and steps in the middle of the smallest square.

Then he just stands there, as if he's expecting something to happen.

Now what?

>wait to see what happens

Walk around the outside, staying in the outermost colored square.

If something cool happens....Go step in the same place, after he leaves

You decide to just wait. He doesn't seem to care about your presence at all.

Before long, with nothing happening, you get bored. So you start pacing around, though you keep to the outermost square. If only to avoid giving any sense that you're trying to threaten him.

Still he's just standing there... until, all of a sudden, he isn't.

If you hadn't yourself gone from the Bogknight base to somewhere else, and then to a crowded street on a completely different continent, you'd have no clue what happened. But you think you can guess. He's probably gone to meet with someone, not that you have any idea why.

So that's what the squares are for. Stand in them, probably after sending some kind of signal to indicate what size square to use, and then wait, and you get sent who-knows-where. Could be used for receiving, too.

But in that case... why weren't you sent to this room? Why send you somewhere else with vague directions instead?

Oh hells, this must be some kind of test. They want to see how capable you are of finding your way around or something. The actual package might not even be important, it's just that if you do a good job they'll let you work for them instead of keeping you locked up.

That could also explain why none of these people seems bothered by your presence. They know you're being tested, if not because they've received advance word, then because they're used to this sort of thing happening.

Well. You're not sure if you want to go along with them just yet, but after what happened back at the base... you don't exactly have many alternatives. Might as well at least play along.

And now that things are starting to make sense, you're able to think a bit more clearly, focus on things beyond the strangeness of the city. Most notably, you're struck by the realization that this is, when you get down to it, a courier job. And you spent a good chunk of your youth as a courier.

So maybe it's time for you to think like a courier. What did you do when you had unclear directions on where to go, and no chance to go back and ask for better ones?

>You went to the people who were in charge, or at least the ones who visibly were. The ones who went around yelling orders and making sure people were doing their jobs.

You found someone else who'd had to deliver to the same location before

Well. Back in the day, the first thing you did was check if your old pal - what's his name now, Corvus? - had done the same route. Or you'd check with the other couriers if he wasn't around or didn't know. They could see the boss liked you, so they tended to cooperate to get on your good side.

Not really applicable here, seeing as you've got neither allies nor subordinates.

So when that failed, what you did was look for someone who liked giving orders. Didn't matter who they were, really. The important thing is that if you ask someone like that a question, they like showing off what they know. And if they didn't know, they'd order someone who did to tell you, because they liked showing that they could order people around.

Doesn't seem like it would work too well here, though, considering you're apparently not supposed to speak before you're spoken to. And that might even be a condition of this test, if that's what it is.

So you dig into your memories a little harder. You remember something, from about a month before you alerted the guards on your boss and ran off. He gave you a special job, because he couldn't trust anyone else, and he was very clear that you couldn't talk about it. But all he told you was the name of the recipient, nothing about where to find them.

With all the warnings he'd given you, it was far too risky to ask around. And he left town right after handing you the package, so you couldn't clear it up with him.

On top of that, you remember that it soon became clear that this person didn't want to be found by the general public. Considering that a temple probably isn't trying to hide nearly that hard, it shouldn't take as much work to locate.

So what did you do to track down this elusive person back in the day?

>you went to the places with food.

The insight you had was that everyone needed to eat. Even if someone was staying out of sight, they'd need to either venture out for food or send someone to get it.

By this time, you knew the city rather well. You knew where the food markets were, and where the city watch focused their patrols.

That was enough to work out where you'd go if you were trying to avoid attention. The rest was observation. You knew there were other couriers besides your group, so it seemed natural that the recipient would take that route. With someone they could either trust or scare - more likely the latter.

And when you saw that scared kid slip a note to a greengrocer you were sure was crooked, well. That was good enough to be worth tailing.

Sure, you were kind of lucky that it paid off; they might not have done a food run that day, and it might have been another nervous kid working for another recluse. But your boss was out of town for a few days, plenty of time for another chance.

Now that you're thinking along those lines, maybe this Kabracam is where they get food around here. And if it isn't, well. Can't hurt to figure out where the food is anyways.

You head back out, with no one acknowledging you at all. Then you take another look at the buildings and try to figure out if any of them serve food.

How would you even be able to tell?

>the smell.

You've been in that damn swamp for too long, had too much swamp mush.

It took you this long to remember that most food has an actual aroma. So if there's any food around here, you should be able to smell it. You're just not very sure what it smells like when everything smells so much better than swamp.

Hmm. But something smells almost as bad. That's interesting. You follow the aroma and find a large pile of rotting things behind one of the buildings. A few "Silent Ones" are stuffing it into bags and carrying it away.

Well. Food rots. Maybe this is the place. You go back around towards the front door and enter.

Then you freeze up. There's an overwhelming smell here. It's not unpleasant, not to someone who's used to the swamp, but it's strong. What are they even making?

"No one told me we would have a guest."

You turn towards the voice. Whoever they are, they've got a real fancy robe.

"I was unprepared for this. But then, I suppose the Master must be especially busy, with all that has been happening lately."

Maybe this is one of the guides? What should you say to them?

Smile politely and compliment their beautiful coat. Ask to see the temple.

>You're used to this kind of situation. You know that it's important to appear like you have a purpose being here. So bring up your job, though keep it vague in case you are actually in the totally wrong place for your guide.

In your experience, a little flattery never hurts a conversation, as long as you can sound sincere about it.

"That's quite a nice robe."

"Naturally. It is of the Master's design, after all. As is nearly everything in this city. Why did he invite you here?"

That's not a question you want to answer too honestly. But you'll work with the truth where you can.

"I'm here to visit the Temple," you say. "And to deliver something to them."

"A delivery? The Master is not in the habit of asking his guests to run errands."

"As you said, the Master is very busy," you say calmly. "I'm simply helping where I can."

"Now that you mention it, we did just send Monin to respond to a sudden request for more manpower," they muse. "Still, though. There is no need for a guest of the Master to trouble himself with such trivialities. Leave the package here and a Silent One will take it to the temple by the end of the day."

"That may be longer than the Master can wait. It would be best if I could just be guided to the Temple, to ensure it gets done promptly."

"But then it would not be blessed by the journey of a Silent One," they protest. "That would be an ill omen."

Now you're not sure if this is some kind of test or if this city is just that strange.

How should you handle this?

>it has already been blessed