CALIMPORT GAME

Ane knows the staff well enough that she knows of an out-of-the-way, upstairs office she can use that has a small mirror. She does not look like herself, and does not want have to explain if she does not have to, so she does not ask permission, leaving such explanations for is she is caught. She spends some time experimenting with the Disguise spell, trying to work out why it produced the face of her sister, and, more importantly, how to avoid that particular complication again in the future.

It would, maybe, be easier to test with Asha present, but she needs to rest and recover, apparently her spell really took it out of her.

Ane is curious about differences between their casting styles, and wants to do all sorts of experiments, but they discovered —when Ane came back from Thet with ideas about sharing spells between them— that Asha can't express her spells in terms of rote memorisable sequences and can not see how to implement the sequences Ane has written down. It was frustrating.

In the meantime, Ane has asked Asha is she wants to experiment with the Disguise spell, try out different bodies and such. Sure, 'to gain more control', but also because it seems like fun.

Garrett will move into the surrounding area. He hates the smell of Inki's and the way it makes him feel. He won't wander far but you never when a chance at easy money might present itself.

"OK, sure. Let's do that." Ane says to Asha. She should have know her friend would want to hit the markets, though shopping has never been something that excited Ane... but then, she never had the sorts of money she currently has.

"Maybe we can also find somewhere to buy a spellbook?" Ane speculates, she has never seen spells, let alone books of spell, for sale, but those specialised markets may be just the place. She would love to get her hands on a tome she can spend time digging into and slowly unravelling the secrets of.

Ane is tired from a day of experimenting and careful shopping.

The Disguise seemed to work well in the market. It might be Ane's imagination, but she is sure everyone responded better to her as a pretty elf than as her boring old self.

Ane was hoping for a bit of time to relax and unwind —she had not even gotten her pipe yet— but the lackey seems stressed, so she sighs, and stands to follow him.

"Where we expecting him?" Ane enquires when Asha asks about Garrett. She knows he does not like it at Inki's, and does not spend 'free time' there, only showing up for work. Ane 'knows' she, herself, has a problem with the drugs, but she is trying to get it under control, and is not sure his judgement is helping her, already she has resisted all evening, but now, suddenly she is being called away, losing her opportunity, and her cravings ramp up, the 'need' making her face itch.

For a moment Ane panics, the lack of smoke making her paranoid. She thinks Big Zhad is referring to the armored dwarf Disguise, but he should have no way of knowing they were poking around the market, that is the point of the disguise.

Thinking fast she settles on the next option. "Who? ... Garrett?" Ane asks, possibly with a guilty glance towards Asha who was asking about him minutes before. "I don't know." Big Zhad knows that Ane is a really bad liar, so, even in the unlikely event he noticed the hesitation, he can be fairly assured Ane does not know where Garrett is.

"'Red robes'?" Ane asks, ignoring the 'small talk' about how their day was. "There were Red Robes on our way to the Ginseng job." Ane, obviously does not need to go into specifics about what that job was, in case someone is listening. "And Garrett said he thought people in red robes were following us when were doing deliveries. We gave them the slip.

"I looked for them while we were looking for Dalana, just in case those previous two times were not a coincidence, but did not see anything. Maybe they were ahead of us?" Ane says. "That's every one of your jobs, recently. They were there before us each time: stopped us from travelling the wall, and then picked up our trail right after the priest..." Ane leaves unspoken the implications that Big Zhad has a leak in his operation, if he has not already realised this she does not want to be the one to point it out —he is sometimes the type to shoot the messenger— but if he has then he now knows that she now knows, too, they can be careful and work together to rout out the mole.