[h2]Miina Malina[/h2]

Miina's preparations for entry were fairly straightforward, so far as these things went: put just enough effort into dying her hair (and tail) that they were no longer a vivid red, change out of her nice clothes again… and more or less just go in through the normal entrances. Isolde had no information about [i]her[/i] background and, once split up from the group, Miina was just one more tribal girl headed to Brightlam for some reason or another.

… she even gave a mostly true reason! There was [i]way[/i] better drink available here than out home.

Once inside, the first port of call was to find enough funding for the rest of her mission. In that regard, Brightlam wasn't amazingly different from Costa del Sol… all you had to do was keep an eye out for someone looking well enough off and [i]not[/i] incredibly attentive. After that… Miina had a sharp knife and near-invisibility, plus plenty of manual dexterity; it wasn't too hard to be a cutpurse with an advantage like that.

[s]Drinking money[/s] Mission funding acquired, that meant it was time for the fun part: finding off-duty guards and seeing if she could ferret out information. Normally, she would be looking for where someone [i]wasn't[/i] to know where it was safe to break in, but hey, it worked just as well if you did it the other way round, right? Not that she was sure why she seemed to have such luck with getting them to big themselves up and let information slip; even with [i]practice[/i] at this Miina couldn't ever sound confident… but that worked in her favour? She didn't understand guards.

Well, she understood that a [i]lot[/i] of the more manly ones liked it when a girl was happy to drink and [i]pay[/i] for drinks. Shame for them that Miina could just surreptitiously cure most of her own inebriation. And if, [i]if[/i] someone kept pushing… ah, Mr. Guard must've overdone his own drinking, he just [i]fell asleep[/i]. That was a shame, wasn't it?

Of course, anything too close to the cathedral itself would be… too pricey, too [i]nice[/i], but this was where the practice really came in. It couldn't be too seedy, after all, but it still needed to be out of the way [i]enough[/i] that nobody would rope a poor, unfortunate off-duty guard into doing their job once they were free. And if Miina got to enjoy herself sampling along the way, what was the harm in that? It was just [i]building cover[/i] or… something like that.

Lack of professionalism or not, Miina's approach to information gathering was still enough to find out some basic things. Knowing when the changing of the guard was? Helpful for slipping in. The information that each of the Grovemasters had their own personal guards? Well, not the sort of tidbit that would usually interest her, but it might be useful here…

A notable clump coming in [i]not[/i] at the aforementioned changing, glad to be off and grumbling? Ah, why don't they come join the friends she was already making, get it off their shoulders? She could even afford to get them drinks, after all… really, she could! Hey, just because she was an uncivilised wildcat didn't mean she couldn't make money here in the city, she had [i]talents…[/i]

And what an interesting find it was! Alambert had let his guards go [i]early?[/i] That was awful! The Grovemasters were so [i]strong[/i], but they weren't invincible… were they at least getting paid the same? Yes, doing something like that sounded terrible… oh, Miina would go get them another round to make up for it, don't you worry.

So their boss was moving about on his own at [i]night[/i]? Ah, that was a scary thought, she wouldn't want to do that… she could understand that there were some things that an important public figure might want to do without an entire entourage watching, unless that made it more interesting, but surely that didn't need [i]him[/i] to be the one go—

Oh, she had the wrong idea? Sorry, sorry, her mind was in the gutter… so he wasn't meeting someone? Were they [i]really[/i] sure it wasn't a potential lover? Well, no, but why would he go off to the north like that, etc…

The annoying part was having to make small talk about other things rather than bouncing straight away, but at least she got another drink out of it, and… well, maybe slipping away wasn't the [i]easiest[/i] thing, but if Miina had one talent, it was extricating herself from situations. And someone [i]that[/i] drunk probably wouldn't think too much of not remembering doing anything interesting before falling asleep…

She even had some of her drinks money left, this was great. Everyone liked a present, right? So, there was a bottle to share, and… another one for the road.

So, Alambert was creeping out to meet someone at the north? Time to join them. [i]Somewhat[/i] stealthily… just enough to get close. It would be hard to actually talk if the Grovemaster ran away before she got there…