Avuri

Despite Emery's clear anxiousness over being inside the enemy stronghold, things went awkwardly well for us while sneaking around their camp. As it turned out, the general distaste among normal people for fully suppressing yourself out of fear of getting ambushed made people who were even just a little bit full of themselves quite lax on mundane security.

There were moments where we could feel a blanket of Qi moving over us in a normal scan of the area to see if there were any unusual Qi signatures within their range. But with our Qi locked up tight, without deeper investigation on their part, they simply would receive no response from us.

Admittedly, had their security made even a token direct effort to use their Qi to look at shapes in the area - which was absolutely possible with some effort - we would have been caught. But it seemed that the security in the camp deemed the possibility of intruders locking themselves down an impossibility. Or at least such a small possibility that it wasn't worth the extra effort to look into it.

Emery and I agreed we needed to move fast, however, because there was a non-zero chance that the deeper scan of the camp was just something they only did once every so often. Which meant our luck could run out pretty quickly if they checked over the camp with any regularity. We were banking on the potential of months of safety down here and a lack of excitement making the guards lax on their duties.

After a mental discussion, we had a few plans to put into action that would hopefully give us further direction on what to do next. First things first, we needed to sneak into the quartermaster's tent and the tent that we judged to be the leader's. Both locations, if they were continuing to follow traditional sect procedure, would have useful personnel lists that could tell us both Realms of members as well as how many people here regularly did work.

The hope being, of course, that despite the group being large, there might only be five people out of the thirty or so that were actually truly dangerous.

The supply tent was the closer of our two targets, so we moved toward it first. We were able to slip around the back edges of the cavern behind the various tents near the walls. With everything facing center and solid cloth in the rear of the nice tent buildings, we actually felt quite safe skirting around behind the tents. There were some empty barrels and things that had been tossed behind them to save space, but moving around them was easy enough.

When we made it to the back of the supply tent, we were able to pick the rear cloth up off the ground far enough to peak inside safely.

It was large and held a smattering of crates of various supplies. While I was curious whether they had a lack of storage items or too many supplies to store in what they did have, I didn't question the presence of places to hide.

In addition, it seemed like the people who were in charge of managing the supplies were busy in the front of the tent working with the newly stolen goods from their most recent venture.

As long as we were careful and quiet, Emery and I had almost free reign of the space to slink about. Emery dropped the cloth back to the ground and grabbed my hand to talk before we made any moves.

"I think we'd be dumb to go in there together. One person can hide better alone than two can."

"I agree. But who goes in?" I asked, fully expecting her answer.

"Me. But that's because I have something you need to do in the meantime."

I could see the look of deep worry that overtook Emery's face for a moment as she stared at her storage ring. It hadn't been long since the last scan had gone over us, and they had been fairly regular so far, so she was apparently satisfied with the potential danger of using it.

With a deep breath, Emery let the smallest amount of Qi she could manage to still use the storage ring, and a bundle of dark cloth popped into existence between us.

"Change. Your clothing is too bright to sneak around in the dark. I should've thought about that sooner, that's on me. But you're not allowed to sneak around inside anywhere until you're not wearing bright, "Look at me!" clothing."

I only barely held back a snicker at her attempt at levity, but I could see the anxiety on her face lessen when she felt my amusement come through the link between us. "I understand. By the time you get back out of there, I'll be changed. It's a shame to lose these clothes, though."

"Just stash them here somewhere. We can come grab them once we clean out the rot."

"Be careful." I said, pulling Emery in for a kiss and short hug for luck before ducked under the back of the tent.

I had never changed my clothing so quickly and awkwardly in my life. Not only was I already defenseless to begin with here, given my Qi situation, but stripping out of my clothing to put on a much tighter fitting darker outfit wasn't exactly a situation I wanted to potentially be caught in.

While I didn't know when or where Emery had gotten the new outfit made, I was thankful that the form-fitting clothing was sized correctly. I was able to get some of it on before actually removing my other clothing, leaving me mostly covered for the duration of the change.

Stolen novel; please report.

It took a few minutes to get everything situated in the right place, but I was eventually fully covered in a darker, tighter fitting outfit, more prepared to skulk in the shadows. I frowned at the pile of cloth I was leaving behind. I had grown attached to the anti-sharp-grass clothing over the last several days. But Emery was right - I couldn't wear something that might attract attention in a dark corner so easily.

It wasn't long before a particularly smug looking Emery returned, scuttling out from under the tent, small ledger in hand. Most of the anxiety that had been present on her face previously seemed to have been run off, and I suspected that it was her relative tendency to thrive in dangerous but still under control situations that had replaced it.

"I took last month's log of contributions, left the most recent one so they hopefully won't realize it's gone. It may not be the most up to date, but I doubt their little splinter sect changes much day to day." She sent, holding my arm.

"Good call. Should we go try to get something like a sect roster from the leaders' tent so we can cross reference?"

"I think so. If we read just this one now, we'll have to reread it later anyway. Let's go."

Once again, we silently set off, skulking around the edges of the cavern. Occasionally, we were in positions to get glimpses of the center of the cave where the vast majority of the demonic sect was still congregated. There were too many people and too many superfluous noises to really get any sense of what they were doing in the center of the room, but the short glimpses we could see of the two new hostages were enough to keep us satisfied that being careful was the right move.

When we ended up behind what I had noted as the leaders' tent, I pulled Emery up short by her wrist. "My turn to go in, this time."

I felt an immediate, emotional surge of protectiveness flood our connection, but shook my head. "Listen - the supply tent was one thing, but sect elder tents like this one tend to be laid out in specific ways. I'll know my way around. If it's set up weirdly, I'll come back."

Emery narrowed her eyes suspiciously but nodded. She should have been able to tell I was sincere - lying while in direct connection through the link was very difficult. Like I did before, she pulled me in for a hug and kiss, told me she loved me, and wished me luck. I responded in kind before sliding under the tent wall on my stomach.

I genuinely had not lied about the larger tents designed for sect elders or leaders having a specific and standardized layout. It was apparently because most of the major sects worked with one of a few high class textile merchants that set up the camp and tent kits the same way for most sects. Once you could tell which company had cut the tent cloth to size and shape, it was easy to tell which layout the tent had been crafted to follow.

I had entered in the very middle of the tent all the way in the back, and had slid into a small separated store room that was a square shaped section with tent walls on each side and a tied up flap to the rest of the tent.

I knew that meant it was a Sea of Silk branded tent. I supposed I owed a thank you to Elder Rendu and the Frozen Mountain sect.

I stayed as quiet as I could while trying to get as clear a visual as I could to every corner of the tent to be sure I was alone before I left the little storage room. Once I was confident I was alone, I darted out of the small section in the back and immediately to my left. As expected, the back right portion of the tent from the entrance was cordoned off as an office of sorts. In the middle of the cloth-walled room was a rather impressive looking wooden desk as well as some small shelving units left around.

I didn't want to spend a lot of time there, so I got to work quickly. Logically, it made the most sense for a leader or elder to keep their current ledgers and the like on them in some kind of storage ring or other item. However, it was also quite common for the previous allotment of paperwork to be shunted off to either a drawer or other storage unit of some kind that could then be quickly moved into a storage item in a single move.

The desk was large, but the top of it was clean of any and all paperwork. There were scroll weights and writing implements in place, but nothing of note for my purposes. Additionally, the drawers that were built into the desk were locked - and probably trapped.

I left that for last, if it was needed at all, and moved to the shelving units. There were small jars and pots that held various scrolls, but each of them looked far too well kept to be a regularly used ledger, so I passed them over as well.

Except for one. One scroll had been dyed a deep red and looked as though the paper it used was too thick to be a normal scroll. Without thinking too hard about it, I snatched it from the jar it was displayed in and slid it out from the tent by my feet. I wasn't sure if Emery would notice it or not, but I could pick it up either way when I left.

Then I slid over the small side table that had two drawers built into it in the corner. I closed my eyes for a moment, considering what to do with it. Unlike the desk, which had both keyholes on each drawer as well as an Array sealed over each, this table had neither.

That could mean that it was trapped in a less obvious matter, or that the demons here were just as lax on security as their guards were. And while I was 50/50 on either option, with my Qi suppressed I wasn't sure it was worth taking the gamble. On top of that, I would absolutely get an earful from Emery later about being cautious despite the deep hypocrisy of it. She threw caution to the wind all the damn time, and knew it. Her entire family - myself and our girls, included - knew it.

Everything on our little infiltration trip had gone remarkably well so far, and Emery had even remarked on our luck so far. Leaps of faith seemed to generally go well for us, too. I swallowed thickly while staring at the top drawer on the little side table, and threw caution to the wind.

I slid it open just a hair. Waited. Nothing happened.

It was dark in the tent, so I got close to try to examine the inside of the drawer. I couldn't see any signs of any sort of trap or Array. If anything, the ease with which the wood slid out without squeaking and the distinct lack of dust on anything made me think that, perhaps, this drawer wasn't trapped because it was used so regularly that the inconvenience of trapping it would outweigh the chances of someone sneaking in.

I slipped the drawer open the rest of the way and quickly shuffled through what was inside. There were lots of scattered notes on top, scribbled on loose papers. Dates, times, perhaps names. They seemed like they had been noted, then tossed into the drawer with little care.

Underneath it all wasn't exactly the paperwork I had been looking for, but still held exactly the information we needed. It was a fairly decently sized scroll that had been folded instead of rolled, and had notes and scribbled on it.

Notes and scribbles of someone trying to work out a routine schedule for errands and chores around the camp, complete with a list of names and notes on strengths for each person.

I slid that out of the drawer, careful to leave the scattered, loose notes above it more or less untouched.

And then I heard talking coming from the entrance of the tent.

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