OPEN | they've given you a number

[hassaran]

WHO: Open to all, plus a couple specific closed starters
WHAT: Moving into the DH quarters, general routines, and kicking off some particular intel-gathering ops
WHEN: Now-ish
WHERE: Around the Gallows, but if you'd prefer somewhere else hit me up on plurk and we can work something out.
NOTES: n/a, will be updated if that changes

Yseult's move into the Scouting office and Division Head quarters isn't immediate. There are Beleth's things to be packed up and new chosen to replace them, options scavenged from unused quarters or dusted off after years in storage. Gallows staff come and go, bearing away rolled-up wall-hangings and grumbling about how to get the old desk back out through the doorway (they got it in here so there must be a way without sawing it in half), and Yseult can be found "overseeing" the minor commotion. This appears to mostly involve her ignoring it, except to shift from perching on this windowsill to that end-table or crate corner as needed, rotating around the emptying rooms as she reads through a stack of files, occasionally making notes with a stub of pencil otherwise tucked behind an ear or rolled absent-mindedly between knuckles.

When she runs out of reading material she might instead be found even further up the central tower in the aerie, visiting with the griffons. One of the adolescents, a white female with grey-tan markings on face and wings, seems to delight in prowling on tip-toes behind her, attempting to discreetly sidle up and steal things out of her pockets as Yseult pretends not to notice, only to coincidentally shift out of reach just at the key moment. When this game grows old there are others: a version of Find-the-Lady played with three wooden cups and a hidden treat, or catch played with bits of food or a leather ball and other random objects tossed around the aerie, griffons darting between rafters and racing to beat their siblings to catch it.

The training grounds are another common haunt, though she prefers odd hours--at dusk or dawn, or during mealtimes--when they are at their emptiest. She trains most often empty-handed or with knives, obviously a favored weapon whether thrown or wielded against one of the straw-filled bags hung from the ceiling. But sometimes it's a long staff, or two short ones, a whip-fast rapier, occasionally even a regular longsword or mace if she really wants to sweat through a challenge. Most sessions begin and end with her scaling the walls of the training hall building up to the roof, light on her feet across the ridgeline to a far corner within leaping distance of the isle's outer wall and from there across parapets and rooftops and forgotten banner-line ropes back to the main towers. She usually chooses her moment carefully to make this climb without being spotted, but can occasionally be caught dangling from a gutter on her way up or down. With the Scouting suite in flux, she can still be found in the common baths in the Templar tower afterwards.

After a couple days, the dust settles on the eighth floor, and from then she can be often found in the re-fitted Scouting office, its door always cracked open to eavesdrop on the hallway invite a knock unless she is in conference with someone. The space has been rearranged, but some of the spirit of Beleth's office remains in the pair of armchairs and tea-table now set in front of the fire and in the bookcases that still line the walls. The desk, large but simply carved on its solid front, is already accumulating files and missives neatly collected in stacks around the central blotter and pewter inkwells. The walls are bare, but that seems likely to be temporary, a few rolled tapestries in a corner and paintings in frames propped against the wall. When not bent over a report, pen in hand, she might be found flipping through them, or contemplating the merits of a seaside landscape in various positions on the wall, frowning thoughtfully over a cup of tea late into the evening.

Comments

[keenly]

[That smile from Bastien gets an awkward return smile before Colin looks back to the conversation between his boss and his partner. Is partner the term? He thinks he read it in a crime serial somewhere. Either way, the posture shifts back to something more relaxed when he sees he's not the long-term focus of this mustachioed stranger's attention.]

[hassaran]

[ Yseult would very much like to roll her eyes at Byerly's considerable skills but annoyingly he really is considerably more skilled and experienced than nearly all of the agents at her disposal. She doesn't quite sigh, but there's something of it in her nod. ] Within reason. I won't ask that you risk keeping written record of your expenses but I will expect you--all of you [ a glance includes the other three as well ]--to be able to account for your spending if asked.

[ She plucks out a couple pages from the folder beneath her notebook, and offers it out to Byerly and Colin. It contains a list of five or so names, all nobility of various ranks and reputations. There is a summarized dossier on each, noting potential motivation for preferring a treaty and vulnerabilities to outside influence. ]

It's thin, I know. I would begin with either Lucienne du Pre [ a dowager comtesse with a young son and a gambling problem, rumored to be struggling to afford the troops Celene demands ] or Georges-Clement Lito [ a baron of notoriously outsized jealousy whose nemesis owns an iron mine and is making a fortune supplying the war effort ] but I leave that decision to the two of you. Questions?

[bouchonne]

I think this will be sufficient.

[ He takes the folder, and then looks over at Colin with widened eyes. In a conspiratorial murmur - ]

How exciting.

[keenly]

[He can't tell if Byerly is mocking him, but either way, a broad smile creeps across his face, and it is genuine. He likes being around Byerly. They have fun.]

Do servants in Orlais wear livery? If I mingle with them, how would I know who works for who?

[cozen]

[ Someone else can actually answer the young man's question, but Bastien supplies the beginnings of a response by smiling and tapping the bridge of his nose—where a mask is not, because he's neither a noble nor in the service of one—before giving Yseult his attention again. ]

[bouchonne]

[ By gives a crooked smile, and mimes lifting a toast to Bastien in thanks. To Colin: ]

Don't worry, my boy. I'll teach you everything.

[hassaran]

[ For once, Yseult seems not to mind Byerly butting in with an answer. She flicks a quick look between him and Colin, and then nods, and picks up the next file, even slimmer than the last, and hands it to Bastien. ]

Messeres Triamour and Almary, your mission is to gather information on Lord Tomas Van de Marche. Lord Van de Marche is the last survivor of a very old Marcher family, and is reportedly half-mad and very rich. He is also the most avid collector of everything to do with the magisters sidereal, and currently the subject of Venatori interest. We assume these things are connected, and that among his collection of junk, there might be something real that could be of use to us against Corypheus.

[cozen]

Only half mad?

[ A rhetorical question, and his tone is approving, gracious. That's something. Better than full mad. Arguably also better than not mad at all. ]

Is he married?

[ —it's relevant. ]

[hassaran]

He is not.

[ It is relevant. ]

There are rumors that he's come near to it a few times, but it never quite works out.

[triamour]

[ how sad, and some joke about lifting veils, and her mouth purses like a chicken trying to work out sums. ]

This Venatori interest, how long has this interested us?

[ how recent is their information? how'd they find out? it's a dumb way to ask. but dumb questions can be asked again, and the other two are still in the room. ]