…walk through the foyer to the other room and talk to the servant.

You decide to talk to the servant girl; after all you can always choose another option if this doesn’t work out as long as you’re careful with what you say. You walk over to the sitting room and see her running a cloth along the shelves that line the walls. She’s definitely a servant of some kind; the short brown dress sports a slightly stained white apron down the front and both her hands and the bridge of her nose have smudges of dirt on them. She looks about your age and like most people your age, also looks slightly taller than you. Her skin is tanned, like most born and raised in the archipelago, but lacks the wear of sea life, even sporting a little excess weight on her form. Her hair is nevertheless blond, all be it a naturally dark and dirty variation, plaited on each side of her head and joining up in a thick cord that hangs between her shoulders.

As you approach, the garish merchants spare you as little of a glance as you do them. Your eyes (and occasionally some of theirs) are on the girl, who stands on a small stool and reaches up to dusts the top most shelf, revealing a good half of her thighs in the process. You’ve seen similar uniforms in the houses of the merchant lords, but wearing such a short skirt on an island like this seems like a bad idea on so many levels. Leaning against the middle table behind her, you decide to start the conversation with some simple banter, keeping it casual and working up to anything that may incriminate you.

“So, how’s it going?”

She half turns and looks down, her prior expression of bored frustration melting into a warm smile. “Oh, ello there! Didn’t see you come in. Er, well I’m near done with this room actually, seen as ow as you asked.” She turns back to her task but keeps on talking, “Am the only bleedin one what does anything round ear, so I don’t do it then it don’t get done!” She steps of her stool before moving it along and stepping back up, baring her legs to the room once more. “For Gods sakes! I got Misty, what’s supposed to be elpin with the downstairs an all, but she’s pissed off somewhere, prolly bendin over for some guy, again, which means she’s gonna have ta drink one o Greada’s brews, again, which throws my cycle out as well...Again!” She sighs, finishing her shelf before getting down again. You judge that she is actually a few years younger than you, yet still taller and...fuller in the chest and hips. She gives you a frustrated smile as she walks over to an unseen bucket, picking it up along with one of the room’s lanterns and walking out through a side door and into a corridor. She continues her talking and you follow her with a strategically sympathetic look on your face. “Course I’ve had to sneak off to Greada ones or twice miself but at least I don’t do it every other week! Some folk don’t got no shame, ya know?”

She opens a door into one of the nearby side rooms and steps in, and the moonlight bleeding in through the windows puts up a half-hearted fight against the lantern light before yielding to its yellow glow. She puts it down in the middle of the room as you take position against a wall, and with no prodding on your part, she continues to vent her frustrations.

“Then you got Garran an Benji what’s supposed to be doin upstairs. Well Garran’s never worked a day in is life and Benji’s with is new ‘girlfriend’.” The way girlfriend leaves her lips sounds full of scorn, you decide to use it against her, gently steering the tirade towards news of the upstairs.

“You don’t like her?”

“She’s no good for him, bloody sea woman! Er, no offence. An Benji’s a good guy an all. Really thought we’d end up together, im an me. I mean that’s not why I don’t like er, don’t think it is! Is just that she’s bad for im is all. Gonna use im up an leave im. Bitch is prolly upstairs with im right now.” Her voice turns into a bitter mutter as she leans before a blackened fireplace. “Up there, bumpin ugly’s. Serve em right if Captain Washkin caught em both in the act.”

As she fully bends down over the fireplace, this time shamelessly revealing a good three quarters of her thighs to the room, your mind digests the information. She starts to use the water bucket and scrub the stonework, jiggling her behind as she does so, and after a moment’s thought, you deliver your well-crafted response in return.

“Why not get back at her? If the captains upstairs right now then you could, er, discover them.” You wait to see if she takes the bait, watching her shaking behind for any kind of reaction. You see that the skin of her thighs gets much less tanned as it reaches up under her skirt.

Her response comes from the dark of the fireplace. “Oh I’ve thought about it, believe me. Captains up there right now, havin a meetin with ya man. What’s is name? Roland? That an’t somthin I would want to interrupt. Not no way, not no how. Not until they’re done, an even then I’m stayin out o their way. Sides, got me a heap o work to do thanks to them ingrates. I don’t know. Captain gave me a job after pa bit it an I bloody well do it! The rest o them lot got more interest in, in, in gettin their own downstairs dirty than cleanin this one!” Her agitation is evident and building rapidly as she talks herself into distress.

“Now I got Lord Prissy in the other room who looks at me like dirt every time I go in, just cuz is masters gone and got some statue stolen or some such rubbish. I got some fancy pants merchants tryin ta grab a feel every time I walk by. I got all the bother in the basement thanks to them two idiots. Seven more rooms what need a once over tonight and to make it all even better, I go an spill wine on me best dress! Bloody brilliant!” Tears and hysteria were on the way, you could feel it radiating out from the woman. The interrogation was going very well, all things considered. She still hadn’t given you the most important information, but lots of good titbits regardless.

You walk up to her and lean down, gently pulling her out of the fireplace with the aim of giving her some conciliatory gestures. A hug and a ‘there there’, perhaps. When she’s sitting upright, you give her a pat on the back and you best smile. Her face cracks, the stew of negative emotion twisting her features and spilling tears, and she leans into your left breast, crying like a child. You stroke her head and tell her it will be all right. You have vague memories of you mother doing this for you all those years ago... that night. You like to think that you had more to cry about.

She sniffs and cry’s into the thin leather over your bosom, her misery abating slightly under your motherly, if inexperienced, ministration. You hear her muffled mouth wail something. Something like,

“Bu ah dow wan er to be wi im, ee s-s-should be wi mee.”

Your head stroking gently continues and you feel slightly guilty for your upcoming manipulation. You start to quietly shush her, hoping to get her listening before the killing blow.

“Hey, hey, don’t cry. I’ll tell you what. Would you like me to go upstairs and chase her off you? Hum?”

She snivels under your chin, “How? s’impossible.”

You explain your plan to the head of yellow plaited hair in a slow, confident voice. “I go up and deliver a message to my captain, I have to anyway so it’s no bother, and I say there were strange noises coming from the room your Benji and this woman are in. The two captains check it out and catch them. They get a bit of punishment and probably get told to break it off. Benji gets sad and you swoop in and pick up the pieces. Simple.”

She looks up at you, wide watery eyes filled with hope, staring out of her round and innocent looking face. You feel like a monster. Such a plan wouldn’t work for many reasons, chief among them being that your here to kill her employer more than anything.

“You’d do that for me?”

You stand up and pull her to her feet, “Sure, why not. Now-“

She hugs you tightly, squeezing the air out of you. “Oh thank you so much!”

Trapped in her heavy embrace, you manage to finish your sentence, wheezing out the needed words.

“Now I’m going to need a quiet way up there and I’m going to need to know where they are”.

It’s the moment of truth. The dice have been rolled. Hopefully she is too relieved to question your willingness to help her with her love life. She pulls away from you and grabs your hand in her own before pulling you out of the room and down the corridor with giddy hope. You are soon standing before another of the mansions doors, small and easy to miss, tucked away at the end of a corridor. She opens it to reveal a small set of stairs made exclusively for servants before pulling you up them. After climbing up a floor, she opens another door and reveals another dark corridor. The stairs continue up, probably to the roof, but you both move out into the corridor instead, both you stumbling and freezing in place, eyes fixed on the two captains walking towards you in the distance.

Despite the long hallway and the space between, Captain Washkin’s blond hair and red/white coat is clearly visible. The short man walking beside her must be the other pirate captain, Captain Roland, but save for a garish coat, he seems less immediately noticeable. They talk to each other at first glance, arguing at second glance, with her brandishing some kind of rolled up paper to hammer home her points. A tingle runs through you at the first sight of your target; cold fire, full of anticipation and dread. They walk into what must be the light of the foyer landing before walking through the set of double doors at the top of the stairs. With them in the light of the landing and you crouching in the dark of the corridor, they never stood a chance of seeing you.

You hear the woman next to you give out a sigh of relief as they disappear, whispering to you.

“Those two will be in the Captains room. Benji an, an, an that trollop will be in the room next to it on the far side...Are you sure-”

You cut her off before common sense can take hold, “Don’t worry about it. You get downstairs, finish your jobs and look nice for Benji. I’ll handle things up here.”

Gods, you’re a monster.

You look at the long corridor, broken in the middle by the light coming up from the foyer, which is split by the balconies banister rail. Doors line its length on either side, the contents of the rooms unknown to you, though unlit and dark with a lifeless quality; the large set of double doors and the room to the far right of them are the only ones you are familiar with, containing the captains in the former and Benji and his lover in the latter.

A big wet kiss lands on the side of your cheek and you turn to see the round smiling face of the servant beaming at you.

“Thanks again”, she stands and goes back down the stairs, halting and turning in the dark to look at you. You hear where she is for the sniff and the words that follow. “Gods! I don’t even know your name!”

You smile down at her and whisper, “Just go! I’ll tell you later.” which makes her disappears down the stairs and into darkness.

You sneak out and down the long hallway, passing silent doors on either side of you. You aim towards the double doors and the glow of the foyer, stopping in the dark just before the banister split yellow light catches you. You try to listen for signs of activity coming from the room beyond the double doors, but the voices you hear get muffled after a door slams from further within; you’d bet money that there’s more than one room through the double doors, and the two captains have taken their argument into the deeper room.

You look around the corner, into the foyer below. The ‘fancy pants merchants’ still group together in the middle of the hall, their heads down and there suspicious eyes on each other as they deal amongst themselves. You could sneak across the landing and go through the double doors. The question is, should you?

If the doors lead to Captain Washkins room then that is undoubtedly your destination, sooner or later, but you don’t know what they are doing in there. An ambush is something that needs to be planned out, while walking into the room blind could lead to trouble. You had hoped to wait -perhaps kill her in her sleep- but it seems naive now that your actually here. She’s on the island to do business, not to lounge about. She may even go back to her ship when whatever deal she’s working on is struck. At best she will simply start dealing with the merchants, or ‘Lord Prissy’ if you remember the maid’s description correctly, or some other pressing business. Sneaking in now may be your best bet.

You look for other options. The door to the left of the double doors leads into whatever room is next to the captains. Perhaps the walls are thin enough to listen to their conversation? Perhaps you lose your only chance for an ambush. Or perhaps an ambush against two armed opponents is foolish to begin with.

On the one hand, more information can only increase your odds of success, but on the other… You play it out in your mind. It’s not so ridiculous. Even two on one odds can be shifted in your favour with a poisoned blade; you would only need to scratch them to kill them in moments.

So; haste or waste? Gain potentially useless knowledge or take the risk of a lifetime?