…kill him now.

As the pirate’s mercifully short urination came to a close he starts to speak.

“So... HERK!” his sentence cut-off by the stiletto you ram through his heart. He turns to you slowly, the shock very viable on his face and on yours as well, and he collapses to his knees, he reaches for your arm. You step back and see a curiously hurt look on his face before he falls forward into the sand.

Looking at his fallen body, you try to reason it out, your stalled mind eventually concluding that if you were in his position, heart run through with seconds left to live, you would want someone to hold you as well. Even if it was the person who killed you.

You shake your head and try to focus. His will be meaningless if the information you gained from him isn’t used. A warped way of seeing things you admit, but an unusual situation requires unusual thoughts to navigate. You step towards the body, grab his arms and begin to drag him into the tree line. You quickly notice -with some measure of regret- that he voided his bowls on . Thankfully, none of it got on the shorts which were safely dropped at the time and remain on the stones where he stood.

Wait, why are they over there?

You stop your dragging for a moment, thankful for something to distract you. They are not dragged from the spot or turned and coiled, they aren’t still about his ankles as you would have thought. He must have stepped out of his shorts to free his legs! No wonder he was suddenly more confident near the end. You should listen to your gut more often. You only wish you didn’t have to smell the contents of his. You continue your dragging and hope no passer-by investigates the odour, but you consider that most people would not.

With his heart stopped immediately and the fact that he fell onto his front, his body lost little blood. When you get to the bushes, you try to remove the jacket and the dagger without staining the garment any further, and after a short struggle you are mostly successful. As long as no one looks too closely at the back of the jacket then you should be fine. The hole sits in a naturally red pattered area and the added redness isn’t noticeable. You fold it up neatly and put it in the pack you swam in with before covering him with some loose leaves and fallen branches. You make a quick trip back out to retrieve his shorts, the yellow material looking washed out more by time rather than actual washing, before similarly folding and storing them inside your pack. You sling the bag over your shoulder, thread your arms through its leather loops and get your bearings.

Standing on the beach, you can see the scattered lights of the docks the man referred to. Judging from what you can see and the gestures he provided when talking, the path went up a hill and should go straight to the centre of this small island. So, half a mile into the island there is a village and at the back of the village is a manor of some kind. Checking the stars for your direction, you set off into the thick foliage of the woods and start your half mile hike.

Moving through the complete darkness of the woods is quite difficult and you’re to take a more measured pace, occasionally stopping to look through the canopy and try to get your bearings from your starlight guides. After 20 minutes or so, carefully climbing up the persistently uphill slope of the island, you arrive at the outskirts of a small village with nary a thorny scratch or twisted ankle.

The village looks to be a dirt road affair, with lines of derelict houses that are already beginning to rot with disuse and collapse into old age. Near the middle of it all and far down the street, a single jewel of light shines, marking an inn of some kind. The sounds of drink filled joy float faintly across the wind, even at this distance. Hopefully it holds the majority of the islands infestation and continues to distract them for the night to come; drowning them in liquor, whores, and whatever other foul sins distract such people.

Moving around the outer edge of the village, still in the darkness of the tree line, you make your way to the hamlets far rear and notice that there is indeed a manor on a hill. It sits apart from the village; separated by a long path, a lawn, and a thick line of trees, but also by its grandeur. It’s been made in the early Coronac elite style, which is mostly the same style as the principalities but with more oddities; eager to differentiate the new world from the old, architects and their wealthy patrons would experiment with the norms of construction. In this case the mansions not too bad, it just looks slightly off. Its windows are not uniform, some too small and some too big, while its ground floor looks tall and upper floor looks less so. Its stonework is uninspired, which leave the walls looking like plain slabs, and it looks misshapen in layout, a fatter rectangle on one side than the other. It’s also built with sand stone instead of regular stone, which would make the whole thing look light yellow if not for the washed-out effects of the moonlight. Your recent years in Coronac have made building built with sandstone less of an oddity, but the cost of transporting all of that stone via ship must have been phenomenal.

You can see the front of the manor, its snaking path and grand front door made small by the distance. Someone guards the entrance, leaning against the nearby wall and lit only by light from a nearby window. Either that door (and by extension, the whole manor) is smaller than you think, or that man is intimidatingly large. The red and white of clothing is clearly visible, even at this distance, which is good to see as it confirms what the now dead pirate told you of the manors occupancy. Red and white are Captain Washkin’s colours; she must be inside.

You could retreat to the woods and change into your own red and yellow disguise before trying the front door. They will either let you in or turn you away, you’d wager, the former being success and the latter leaving you only were you are now. After a moment of drumming your figures on a nearby tree, you decide to move on, looking for other options while you’re still cloaked in black garb. You can always come back if you find nothing. You circle around the manor, sticking to the wild darkness of its outermost tree line, looking for another way in.

There is a garden, of sorts; it’s so overgrown that it’s hard to tell the land was ever cultivated. It sits secluded outside the mansions perimeter lawn, a slightly lower section of wild land with the occasional stones that could have been paths long ago. Beyond the garden lies the grassy lawn that leads to the manor walls, leaving a lot of open ground to cover for any nocturnal pedestrians looking to gain access. Still, it’s still less open ground than anywhere else around the mansion, and you cannot see any guards on this side either. While perhaps not so useful without a way in, you do see a pipe going up the side of the house here, leading up to the roof. It may be worth going through the gardens and having a closer look, but the shrubbery is low enough that you would have to be on your belly for some of the way. You continue your circle around the property. Again, you can come back if you need to.

You stop when you see the back door. It’s open and spills light across the lawn from the lanterns inside. It is also guarded, this time by a far more normal sized man who seems half asleep with his inattentive head bowed. There are bushes nearby on the path leading up to him, and places to hide if you were to attack from the darkness and gain entrance that way, far more so than the front anyway. You ready to press onwards, though doubtful you’ll see anything more from this distance, when you accidently step on a dry branch and your meagre weight is enough to snap. The crack whips the guards head up and sets his eyes scanning the woods. Not so asleep after all. You remain frozen, hidden by your dark clothes and the darkness of the trees. It takes a minute before he stops his search. A minute more for you to move again.

Weary of further branches, you make a slow return to the garden. It didn’t look like there’s anything more that way anyway as that half of the building gets more rectangular and plain. You can’t be sure but the forest also looks like it starts to thin that way as well, and would offer less protection from watching eyes and not so asleep guards. You return without incident and scan over the overgrown shrubbery, slipping off the leather backpack and leaving it nestled in the roots of a nearby tree. Its bulk would only make you easier to see as you crawl forwards. You don’t relish the idea of crawling through the dirt on your belly but you have little choice.

Slipping under a nearby bush, you head for what you take to be an overgrown path. It’s barely a ditch full of loose stones, but it takes you most of the way down its length before rising and being overrun by vines. You sneak through the bushes instead and though overgrown flower beds, dark sleeves and trousers catching and puling on errant branches. You keep a slow pace, silently thanking whatever long absent gardener cleansed the grounds of barbed and stinging varieties of flora. Roses were notoriously hard to grow in the archipelago and not even desiccated husks remain; everything similar had evidently been classed as weeds unfit for noble perusal. Said weeds would make a comeback in time. You glance at the manor; in some way they already had.

Your look does more than carry a dismissive insult to the islands current occupiers; it picks up new movement coming from the roof of the manor. The silhouette of a guard is barely visible against the starry sky, marked only by the absence of stars that flicker as they move. How long were they there!? You freeze as the guard continues their slow patrol; with your dark clothing hiding your location, only movement can give you away, and it looks like you’re still unseen for now. You hope so anyway.

You should have seen him from the woods and wonder why you didn’t. Is it possible he’s only just started his patrol? Or is it just that you’re just blind? He disappears behind the small wall that marks the roofs edge, continuing his lofty stroll at its lazy pace. Could he have just gone slow and been moving about the buildings other side? Whatever the case, with three other sides to the house and his own laziness working against him you’re fairly sure he won’t be much a threat. Still, best to keep one eye up. Continuing on to the edge, you eventually come to hide under the fanning leaves of some exotic plant you’ve never seen before.

The mansion is just a short dash away. You’re not exactly an expert on breaking into places, and truth be told, you’ve never really done it yourself before, but part of the life of a law woman hinges on knowing your enemy, and you’ve caught one or two burglars in your time. Only one of them tackled buildings as big as this one; his name was Job. What was it he said in his interrogation? ‘To attack a building is to attack a man: you capture the high ground.’ You remember everyone laughing at this. The man was far smaller than average, smaller even than you, a partially dwarfed creature. He had laughed as well, though more nervously now that you think about it. You smile at the memory. He had been quite affable, even in defeat. His interrogation was more the memoirs of a deluded ‘master thief’, and half the fences in the city were put out of business by the deals he made.

The smile slips when you remember that he was caught. Nevertheless, the drainpipe you saw looks quite sturdy, leading all the way up to the roof. There’s a guard up there, of course, but the building is big and it’s been a while since he passed. If you wait for him to pass again then you have no doubt you’ll have time to climb up it and find somewhere to hide.

Now that you’re here, another option presents itself: a long length of roof where the lower floor juts out further than the upper one. It goes past many narrow windows, but ends in a bend that has a wide open window in it. Some ivy is near one side but it looks climbable… and dry, and likely to rustle considerably, and the windows all along the second floor that look out over the lower roof, look out over the moonlight as well and would send your shadow through them. The more you look, the less appealing the option becomes. The night is so still and quiet that the idea of climbing that ivy seems suicidal, and the roof tiles are made of rounded pot and ready to clink loudly as well. May as well scream for Captain Washkin to come out and face you.

As you dismiss the one way, another, far more friendly way catches your eye. It’s a small, long window that sits right next to the ground, half buried in overgrown grass and leading to a cellar most likely. It looks like it has some wooden boards over it, but even from here you can see the way they sag with rot, and there is space enough between them to note that lack of light present, assuring you of no waiting company. It would be far easier to access than either of the other two options, but is down the way to go? What if there is no way out?

The final option is of course the front door you saw previously. You would have to go back to your back, then change into your disguise, but that may be the easiest way of them all. You mull over the options, playing with a clod of dry soil with your fingers.

Definitely not the ivy. Eliminating the worst choice makes your next one much easier.