I managed an entire day in the outlander's quarter before I made up my mind to break into the city.
Chankota wasn't quite out of the desert and, as such, most of the caravan still hadn't transitioned back into a day shift. The caravan was respectably sized and I'd been hoping that I'd be able to get to know more of my fellow travelers as a way to spend the time. Aside from some overly optimistic merchants who'd set up shop in a desperate attempt to sell to people who hated them, there were few people to meet.
The Chankotans themselves certainly weren't friendly. We'd been visited by perhaps a dozen people total, and all of them were either guards or officials of some kind. They were there to intimidate, take bribes disguised as fees, and ruefully arrange transport of some essential items so their town wouldn't starve to death. There was a single translator among them, and he was the only one who spoke to us.
The only reason the translator was on speaking terms with us was that he was getting paid to be: That was literally the first thing I heard him say. He spent quite some time after that going over the rules of the city, nearly all of which were "Don't go anywhere near the city." He described, in far more vivid detail than required, the fate of the last "outlander spy" to try to sneak in. That might have dismayed other people; it just made me angry I'd never met my predecessor, but he'd apparently been well respected in the organization. That they'd not only done away with him but were celebrating that fact grated on me.
Even then, I wouldn't have been tempted to repeat the original Bishop's mistake. He'd been an agent for over a decade longer than I had, he was experienced, and he could probably hide his thoughts better than I could. They'd still caught him. But the question had occurred to me: Why had he gone into the city? Its citizens had proven violent and hateful, but they seemed to leave everyone who stayed in the outlander's quarter alone. What had he known, that he'd forsake its comparative safety?
Even that wasn't enough to convince me to try to break into the city, really, because I'd just get caught the same way he had. But it did make me wonder what had happened to him and - more importantly - his effects. The Queen believed that he'd come back early from his mission because he'd found important information. While the safest way to carry that information would be to simply memorize it, everyone in the organization knew at least a few ciphers in case we needed to write anything down.
Over the course of the day, I struck up a very one-sided friendship with the translator. He tolerated my presence because he was getting paid to (another fact he explicitly told me), and I acted the part of the naive bumpkin that just wanted to talk to the exotic Empire man. I even managed to have my surface thoughts reflect this, since what I actually wanted was information about the city and what happened to those that dare enter it uninvited.
At least he was willing to give plenty of information about the latter: Taunting outsiders with their fates should they transgress seemed to be the only part of his job that he liked. I wondered out loud what happened to all the criminal's stuff. If one of our merchants were to go inside, it seemed they'd be able to take all of his wares without paying. The translator had told me that that was in fact the case - trespasser's property became property of the city, likely to be auctioned off or more likely to be auctioned off to other travelers because nobody in Chankota wanted outsider wares if they could help it. The Sheriff of the town - and that was not the right word, but he didn't care to explain how - was the one who would hold auctions and keep tabs on the property until one could happen. No such auctions were forthcoming, though; they'd either sold the old Bishop's stuff or simply weren't ready to get rid of it.
I decided to bet on the latter. I hung around the translator the rest of the day until his shift was either over or he simply couldn't stand my presence anymore. He left to go back to the city, and I left to find which of our merchants who was still open. I'd need concealing clothing for what I had in mind, preferably a light robe. I also needed a very specific set of clothes that I doubted any one merchant had all of, but I could make do. It'd be dark, after all.
When night fell, I made my way to the edge of the outlander's quarter. There were a few guards from the city there, and they were not there for our safety - they faced in to the area rather than out. They spotted me in no time. Crap. So far I hadn't done anything wrong, but over the years I'd developed a keen sense for how likely someone was to resort to physical violence, and the answer in the case of these guards was 'very'. I had a contingency plan, but I'd been hoping I wouldn't have to use it until I got closer to the city.
"There you are, lad!" A familiar voice shouted as an arm came down on my shoulder. "You're going the wrong way, outhouses are clear on the other side of the quarter!" Dalostaed steered me away from a confrontation with the guards. I could have sworn they looked disappointed.
"Actually, I wasn't-" I managed to say before he cut me off.
"I know what you were doing," Dalostaed said quietly. "Just keep walking with me until we're out of sight and out of hearing. It's not safe to wander here, boy."
I frowned. I didn't especially care for the 'boy' moniker, but at the moment it seemed more important to just let Dalostaed have his say. I'd get another opportunity to get into the city, we were probably going to be here for several days.
I was suddenly flanked, as the wizard appeared to the other side of me. Teleportation wasn't something that magic could do, but there were a whole lot of things wizards could do that looked like it, so I had to imagine he was showing off for some reason. Was it to deter the guards? We'd already been out of their sight for a while.
As though just realizing this fact, Dalostaed called a halt. "Now," he started to talk again, "it looked to me that you were thinking of maybe crossing a few guards."
"I hoped to get by without a fight." I said. I gestured to the robes I was wearing. "This was apparently not nondescript enough."
"It's not bad," Dalostaed said. "If you weren't already suspicious by virtue of being a foreigner, it would be fine. But you're in the outlander's quarter, it's not going to do a damn thing for you there. And are you wearing a mask underneath that? You look like a bandit trying to hide under covers."
I managed not to glance at the wizard. He was one to talk about not wearing blankets. Then again, it was possible that Dalostaed's comment had also been a subtle dig at his employer. If that was the case, the latter didn't notice. He barely seemed to realize we were there at all.
"There a reason you're so eager to get yourself killed?" Dalostaed asked.
"It's not that, I just need to get into the city."
"Oh, is that all?" Dalostaed rolled his eyes. "Makes perfect sense, the shining jewel of Chankota is irresistible after all."
"It's just...." I paused, frustrated. "It's personal, okay?" Dalostaed peered at me. I managed to make my surface thoughts chaotic and perturbed, which wasn't too far from their actual state. After a few more uncomfortable moments, he leaned back. "Okay. We'll help you, then. But at a cost. Later, when it's safe, you'll tell me what this is about."
"What?" The confusion in my thoughts was real. "What do you mean, you'll help me."
Dalostaed gestured at the wizard. "You may have noticed, we're packing some magical punch here. You'll be able to get in and out of the city unnoticed, so long as you don't do anything stupid. Stupider than going into the city in the first place, that is."
"I..." I wasn't sure how to respond. "Thank you?"
Dalostaed shook his head. "Don't thank me - promise you'll tell me what it's about when the time comes."
"I'm not sure I can do that." I said truthfully. I didn't want to lie to Dalostaed, either now by promising something I couldn't deliver, or later by giving him some made-up reason for my need to get into the city.
He leaned forward and began peering again, looking for something. He eventually shook his head. "If I didn't know damn well you'd try without me, I'd just let you go right now. Kids. You'll learn you're not immortal some day, hope it's not because you're dying at the time. Now face the wizard and get magicked."
I turned around and faced the wizard, whose blankets seemed in even greater disarray than normal. He'd already extended one sleeve and I could see there was a black glove at the end of it, though I couldn't make out any other details. Before I could ask what I needed to do, the wizard placed his finger on my forehead and spoke a word I couldn't understand. It felt like getting buffeted by a very small but very insistent gust of wind.
Dalostaed grunted, apparently in reply to whatever the wizard had said. "It'll last a few hours," he explained. "Hopefully that's enough time?"
I only needed to get into the city; my contingency plan would get me out. I nodded. "Sure. How's it work? Am I invisible?" Invisibility was also impossible, but I knew I'd get the real explanation by leaping to that conclusion first.
Dalostaed looked directly at me. "No you're not invisible! You're just... bland."
I hadn't expected that. "Bland?"
"Exactly. It's a bit of mind magic, both for you, so you'll show the proper body language, and for anyone who looks at you. Their first instinct will be to ignore you. Like you belong wherever you are, but you're beneath notice."
I'd been a beggar. I was familiar with the concept. "I can do that." I said.
Dalostaed turned me back around the way we'd come and started walking. "Just don't talk!" he warned me.
I followed him back, glancing over to the wizard only to discover that he had disappeared sometime in the middle of the conversation. I spent a little time more carefully scrutinizing the other people I saw, just in case he'd done the same thing to himself that he'd done to me, but I didn't see him anywhere. "Why not?" I asked quietly, hoping Dalostaed hadn't meant right now.
"Because it'll get attention." he explained. "The spell's a subtle one, anything un-subtle you do will break it. Walking through a guarded gate is fine so long as you don't talk or make eye contact. Plus you only speak Trade, that's a dead giveaway. Don't try Hidna, your accent is still terrible."
We were nearly back to where he'd first found me. This time the guards occasionally glanced at him but didn't look my way at all. "Good luck, Bishop." he said. "Don't die on me."
I just nodded, taking his advice and not speaking where the guards could hear. For the first time tonight, he smiled broadly. I felt like I'd passed some test. Then, he retreated back toward the caravan, and I started walking out of the foreign quarter.
This time the guards did look at me, and I quickly shifted my own gaze downward. There were a tense few moments as I walked forward, but they didn't call out, and nothing stopped me as I left the packed dirt of the outlander's quarter and started walking on the cobbled path that joined it to the city.
Before, I hadn't been sure I would actually be able to succeed where my predecessor had failed. Now, though, with the wizard's magic hiding me, I might actually pull it off.
There were another pair of guards outside the city walls. Chankota had several, each built before people dared expand into the surrounding areas, but the only ones that mattered were these outer ones. I'd planned to scale them, but climbing up walls was probably the sort of un-subtle behavior that'd break my concealment. Instead, I head toward the gate that the guards were stationed at, and I kept my gaze averted.
This time I got a vague grunt of acknowledgement from one of them, but that seemed to be the limit of how much they wanted to interact with me.
And just like that, I was inside the city.