View source for RP: Dinner with Egg

As the party had decided to institute a regime of strict information control, after your successful strike against the purification poisoners, everyone decides to quickly but stealthily head back to Germain's apartment to debrief, regroup, and discuss their next move. Now the ad hoc headquarters of the nascent Azure Geese, much changed since Edrell suffered his drunken nadir here. The room is immaculately clean and meticulously organized. During your time in the swamp, Egg has clearly been hard at work and the only similarities to the apartment Germain (and Edrell) left behind are one very sturdy desk, a bed, and the door you just walked through.

Now, every free wall has a floor to ceiling bookshelves, crammed overfull with codices and folios - including those walls that once contained windows, making the once mildly uncomfortable room now dark and stiffing, made more so by the injection of six bodies where normally there is only one. On the table you notice Egg's satchel, goggles, and a smooth obsidian(?) sphere, which some of you might recognize as the Nondetection Stone used by Edrell in the past. As soon as you walk in, prisoners in tow, Egg puts his finger to his mouth and makes a shushing noise. He walks over to the stone and activates it in the same manner as Edrell earlier. In this very same room, appropriately enough. In addition to the bookshelves, you notice the addition of a sizable steel chest with a high quality lock. 

{{egg}}: "I borrowed this from Edrell. Well, actually, Germain did. I just carried the letter of request."


{{germain}} chuckles: "I do seem to think of everything."


{{egg}} (smiles, but continues in a very businesslike manner; indicating the cleric prisoners from the sewer): "Shove those guys in the corner and I'll deafen them, or Kimika can silence the corner, so we can talk without them overhearing. I'd hate to have taken all these precautions against our friends eavesdropping just for these guys to hear everything. You can go ahead and assume that up until this point, none of you have any secrets. You can go ahead and assume that anything any of you have said or done - alone or in a group - has been observed by, at the very least, Naprid, the Theives' Guild, and Edrell himself. Depending on how high your profile has become among the enemy, possibly the Besiegers, as well."


{{LE}} seems more interested in taking a look at the stone again, so she approaches it with a curious expression.
:<i>The sphere is a wondrous item, with substantial weight and heft due to its size. The obsidian has been worked into a perfectly smooth and blemish free sphere about a foot in diameter. It has been set up on a cheap wooden tripod. Concentrating on it for a time with </I>Detect Magic<i>, it radiates strongly (between 12th-20th caster level) of Abjuration magic. You also detect a similar aura of abjuration invisibility permeating the room.</i> 


{{Mose}}: Surely Edrell and Naprid have no need to spy on us, half the time we're off doing things they cooked-up. If they are spying on us then we might as well throw away those ridiculous fire-side chat toys, because what's the point? Egg, are you saying we can't trust them?


{{egg}} (smiles) : I didn't say anything about *trust*, and I don't mean at all times. Although, it wouldn't hurt to assume that - precautions absent - the Thieves' Guild, at the very least, has been keeping more or less a constant watch on you since you've exploded into their awareness. But, no, I didn't mean to insinuate nobody was trustworthy. I suppose I should be more careful of my words. "spying," "surveying," "observing," "monitoring," or even simply "investment protection." My take-away from conversations with Germain, though, is that clearly *someone* can't be trusted, and that means compartmentalizing information is pretty important. "<Old Ubreki: The air has eyes and ears>," as the old saying goes. Surely you've seen that fine Mithril cane Naprid carries. You think that's just for show? Hardly.  
<BR><BR>
I do know this - you all have been growing a profile now for over a year, and have become central to the siege efforts. I know that if I were Naprid, or Edrell, or the Mole, or Fenn, that I would want to keep close tabs on your activities. When you didn't care that people watched you, it didn't matter. Now that you do care, it does matter. And, so, I've taken efforts in the direction. <He gestures to the sphere> Until Edrell takes his toy back, you can pretty safely count on the fact that anything you say or do <i>in here</i> will be free from observation. Does that mean that outside of here you are always being watched? No. But when you can't tell one way or the other, it's best to assume the worst, wouldn't you agree?


{{Mose}} gets a little lost trying to follow Egg's quick explanation, but his gut says that Egg's advice is wise.

{{Mose}} nods and says: Do you think this stone's magic is enough to keep their snouts out of our business? The mole would have to be a slippery weasel indeed to avoid detection this far.


{{egg}} (slightly surprised): That's actually an excellent question. When active, it will make active scrying of the area difficult, but not impossible. A seer of sufficient level could  brute force their way through the effect and we'd have no way to know, but from my own examinations of the device that seer would need to be powerful, indeed. (The effect generates is as if cast by a Level 18 caster.) Knowing something of Naprid's abilities, for example, I don't think he or his stick could penetrate it easily. The thought is worth considering, but at the moment it's the best we have. The Silverwalkers have the best idea the situation on the ground: if you think it's likely this is insufficient protection, there are at spells that can detect the presence of scrying magicks in an area. We don't have this capability at present, but we could acquire it with some time and money.

As to the Mole, I agree and disagree. From what I've heard, it doesn't sound like too much effort has actually gone into rooting the mole out. I mean, it was known that there were agents operating in the city: the arsonist proved that much, and the precision of the first headhunter attack both required a lot of inside work. But, the first assassination that suggested any sort All Access Agent was the mayor, whose location was known only to the War Room. (Germain has not told Egg about the Silverwalker's part in that. -gm) How things proceeded from that point, I have no idea - you all were in the swamp, and I was still trying to set up the organization here. Confirmation of just how deeply compromised everything was  came only with the turncoat. In the War Room, Naprid claims to have a search ongoing, but one coming up against formidable magical barriers. Edrell reports the same from Dandrell.


{{quinalin}} What do we know so far about the Mole? Based on the Dwarf's intel, the mole is from Odessa or at least working for them, right?  Do we have a breakdown of when each of the people in the war room first came to Wydmoor?  Maybe we could sort each person in order of likelihood of being an agent.  Further, we could try to come up with motives for each one and see if anything floats to the surface.  I'm sorry if this is all basic stuff for you, Egg.  You can feel free to tell me to go off and swing my sword at stuff. (Quinn grins briefly)  I wonder if there is any spying we can do of our own on the enemy leadership... find out what intel they might be getting out of the war room.  Another plan that I considered was whether we might be able to come up with a series of interesting false leads we could share with different portions of the war room.  Things like, "Quin said that he had to go into the burned out district at midnight to meet with X".  Eventually, if Egg is right about the interest in our doings, one of these false leads should prompt an ambush.  Rather than foiling it out-right, if we could manage to barely escape it, then we could come away with knowledge of who was likely to leak the information (we have to control for magical eavesdropping when we plant the false lead though) and they won't be the wiser which will give us plenty of opportunity for reverse espionage.


{{egg}} (chuckles) Mose goes to show, there's no such thing as bad input. Besides, I'm relatively new here and still don't really know my way around so there's almost never something that's "too basic." You guys have been working around here for, what, two years? Letters of credit will get me in a lot of doors, but I don't know the social dynamic of this place and I don't really know any of the people, my noncontributing and passive allowance into the War Room not withstanding. <Gnomish: A thousand ways missing one right answer.> Anyway! 

From what I've picked up in there, and from talking to Germain (gm: you can assume Egg has been filled in on everything from the quest notes that the whole party knows, but probably no secrets other being put onto LE's. He thinks Al is a human, probably, and might not know that Kimika was a spy for the hadriarch), we know surprisingly little. I mean, everyone has known for awhile that there were some kind of hostile agents working in the city. The assassinations, for example. Coincidental, but after the arson an impossible conclusion not to draw. I'm still fuzzy on the details, and one of you could probably fill me in better - either before or after the Silverwalkers discovered the Odessans had occupied the Forge. I think it was before... But, anyway. No reason to believe it was anything other than an observant and well entrenched, though not necessarily well placed, saboteur and spy. 

After the mayor was assassinated, though, it was pretty clear the War Room itself was infiltrated, or is now in retrospect. No one really looked into things, probably because of other pressing issues or not wanting to look because everyone was secretly glad to be rid of the old man. Who knows, you guys were out starting your assignment in the swamp by that period so who knows what down in the War Room after news broke. The runecrafter only confirms to everyone what should have been obvious a month ago, but better late than never. I expect Naprid is looking into things, and has hinted as much, but is not sharing the results with the War Room. Probably telling Ralth, but not us. Too much answer for a little question, sorry. So, clearly, whoever the Mole is has been in the city long enough to be well established and influential. Or has been paid off directly or in promises under a new regime, maybe.  Or perhaps both, since there's no guarantee there's only one enemy in our midst. Wydmoor is as easy to enter as Hell, so establishing a hundred sleepers would only take time and money. Or perhaps there were infiltrators and only recently has someone secretly turned to the Odessans. False leads are a pretty good idea, especially if this is the first you've mentioned of them, but I doubt they'd fall for a ruse so bare as the one you suggest. Honestly, I don't know that the Silverwalkers need fear a direct attack or ambush under any circumstances within the city walls. So long as the teleport ward stays up, no strike force should be able to get in and move so freely as that, and your reputations are all enough that no local toughs will bother you. But, the larger idea is a good one.

Long story short, there's a bit we know, but a lot we don't. As to the enemy leadership, the turncoat has actually been able to reveal quite a bit about the command structure of the Odessans but not much direct intelligence about plans or operations. For reasons that should now be obvious. (grins) From what I've picked up, the command structure is quite unusual for an Odessan operation: there are a couple of different, independently commanded operations. He was attached to one of the smaller groups, mostly rangers and scholars, and its goals were apparently non-military in scope and unattached to the seige. I think the woman you described from the Hobgoblin camp was also part of that group. 

The larger siege force is under the command of [[Rogert Theadrik]], Earl of Wetherfeld, a long time confidant and ally of the Royals and well blooded in reprisal campaigns against the Celstians of the Eastern Hills. The troops themselves seem to be largely conscript in origin, but surprisingly experienced; Many have been rotated in from the Alexian occupation to the north. In fact, one of the Geese is a deserter from those same forces I'm proud to say. I'm less thrilled to say that, despite the early setbacks the Silverwalkers inflicted on the advance force, the Odessans have managed to establish fairly robust supply lines across the mountains, and might even have resumed operation of the Iros Mines. So, while your efforts have definitely saved the city from a quick fall, the Odessan forces are well established despite the poor morale among the common troop.