[center][h1]Jared Morvayn[/h1][/center] If one thought of secret organizations, the world of official agents and those acting against those officials while trying to hide from them at the same time, one probably thought of clandestine meetings in the very humblest, most inconspicuous corners of the city. Shadows flickering across empty streets in pale moonlight, tiny candles being the only thing to illuminate the dark paths of those who did seek to remain unnoticed. People that would wander along on their toes while wearing dark cloaks and hiding their faces deep inside large capes. Secret rooms and weird, artificial languages to obfuscate one's true intentions just in case... Yet the truth was that this was a very one-sided imagination. It was purely focused on the aspect of protecting against the terrible noises caused by a lousy bard who couldn't handle his instrument. How much better would it be however if one could simply get rid of the lousy bard ? The equivalent of this in said world of agents kinda was not to trigger any attention in the first place. Goldroot had informers and hidden channels that could tell them about changes in the guard's schedules, provide them with some advance warning in case a larger raid was planned or even commit to minor acts of sabotage. Yet all of this was dangerous and not available in every region and at every point of time, so the much simpler way to prevent attention was just to make things boring. Very boring. Even so boring that Jared was quite a little surprised. What had been so wrong about expecting something more exciting than a simple man in shabby clothes sitting opposed to him at the same table of a very average-ish tavern called 'The Round Corner'? "You look a little confused, my man." also was the first rection of Mr. Shabby-Clothes towards Jared, just after they had gone through inspecting each other's outer appearance. It threw Jared into immediate insecurity about what to answer, simply because he didn't know what was he allowed to tell. Could he even dare to openly mention the word 'Goldroot' ? Not opening his mouth, he stared back and forth between the man and the empty table separating them. "I like not to eat during serious business, it just... distracts my mind." Shabby-Clothes continued, only confusing Jared further. "Two acres of goldroot are waiting to be harvested and I've got some other potential customers waiting in line, so are we up to a deal or not ?" Luckily this time of the year was the right one to make such statements. Hopefully this Jared would get it... "Erm... yes. I think so. What is your price ?" Shabby-Clothes' face immediately turned into a more friendly one. If one paid close attention one could see his eyes scan the room behind Jared's hulking shape in one swift move before his hand started digging into the depths of his rags. He shoved a pretty fresh and nice looking roll of parchment towards Jared, smiling. Even without unfolding it one could already see an overly large and nice signature on what appeared to be the top page of a document spanning several pages. Still a bit hesitantly, Jared undid the rope holding the pieces together. "On the second page you'll find the price listing, scope of delivery and so on... We can still discuss about the price, of course, that's why some parts of the text have been left empty so we can fill them in later. Your final signature goes on page 4." Was there a hint of a grin on Shabby-Clothes' face ? As Jared unfolded the document, he could indeed see a large amount of written words on pages two and three to be followed by a blank page number four. Knowing that this whole thing could not really be about a real contract about some large amount of Goldroots, he didn't really care much about the numbers. He read it out of interest, hoping to find some clues about what this really was intended to be about. Some minutes passed with Shabby-Clothes watching patiently, then Jared pretended to have come to a conclusion: "That, erm... sounds all nice. I do have to talk to some people though before signing this. Can I take this with me ?" he asked. "Of course you can! And please make to point out the watermark to your bosses. I want to make sure that your people know I'm an honorable and serious business partner." Jared arched an eyebrow, then lifted the parchment to hold it against the light of a candle which happened to stand on the table they sat on. There indeed were some weak lines behind those made out of ink. It was impossible to see them when one didn't knew they were there or just was lucky enough to look at the right places in the right lighting conditions. Yet it was obvious they did not represent some kind of a well-known merchant's seal like the decorated insignia on the first page, but something else... ---- A few hours later, Jared found himself knocking against the same piece of metal as Cherry. He was a few hours behind her though.