Chapter 12.2: Vigil Infiltration

Though he’d prepared himself to interact with the others, Skixx hadn’t expected he’d have to so quickly. It was midday, and he hadn’t even reached the civilian quarters yet when he encountered Penny in the stairwell.

The conversation, as he’d anticipated, was short. If he didn’t press the conversation—and this time he didn’t—she seemed just as happy not talking to him and getting back about her business. “I think I’m going to take a nap,” was sufficient to bring the chat to a close and get both of them back on their ways, Penny disappearing up the spiral staircase toward the vendors on the surface of the keep and toward his plan.

“These people are so predictable,” Skixx said under his breath, glancing in each direction to check for anyone else. Seeing no one, he proceeded into the hall.

Instead of turning immediately into their dormitory, though, he slid farther down the hall with the silent alacrity expected of his profession, turning an ear to each wooden door that punctuated the stone corridor, just in case anyone inhabited one of those other rooms. It surprised him, in a disgusted sort of way, that there were as many civilian quarters in this facility as there were military, as though people from all over Tyria would one day be interested in vacationing in this lusterless pit. He might have snorted his derision, were it not for his present sneaking.

Down the hall, he rounded the first bend, pressing himself against the wall and sliding right into corner. He looked around again, more out of habit than concern. Crouching just a little, Skixx took a firm grasp of a stone in the wall and slowly pulled. He paused briefly, wincing at the residual pain in his arm, but he braced himself and continued through it. The same had happened the previous night, when he’d first hidden his cache behind this stone.

The infirmary’s alchemist had administered his final dose of sleep elixir and left Skixx to rest the remainder of the night. Skixx, who of course spat out the concoction the moment the human turned away, had slipped down from his bed and out of the darkened infirmary to see what opportunities the fortress might afford him toward his objective. According to Penny, his time was limited, so he had to either learn something that night or find tools that would help him learn it later. Relevant information he didn’t find, but tools he did.

Not only had he found his way to the closed doors of the central war room and discovered the studies of the warmasters, but he’d also discovered a laundry room stacked high with freshly laundered uniforms, a useful thing indeed. Of course, the only one to properly fit him was not yet laundered—it smelled of eggs and vinegar—but with a sneer, he’d taken what was available to him.

After depositing his costume in the wall he now stood at again, the only thing he’d still needed to complete the disguise was an official seal of the Vigil, and that was as easy as pickpocketing it off one of his medical attendants, which he did in the morning. For good measure, he also stole two stray vials of sleep elixir from another patient’s bedstand. He had a feeling he’d find a good use for it.

The stone came away from the wall, and tucked tightly behind it was his new Vigil uniform, exactly as he’d left it the night before, scent and all. With this disguise, he was certain he could talk his way into any corner of the Vigil Keep.

Putting the stone down on the ground, he drew the folded clothing out and tucked it into his shirt before replacing the stone and heading back silently toward his bunk.

After a quick change of attire, Skixx was up and gone, heading up the staircase and out into the afternoon sunlight, the same way Penny had gone just several minutes before. As he stepped out the door and onto the smooth, limestone deck, he pulled his hood up over his head.

He’d noticed that while all Vigil soldiers wore one of several order uniforms, many had made modifications to suit their own personal needs or style. Thus, he wore the sleeveless remains of his own hooded coat beneath the new charcoal and silver one. At once he was both distinguishable as a Vigil soldier and indistinguishable as an individual.

He reached into his pocket, feeling the engravings on the Vigil seal he’d picked from the pocket of a healer in the infirmary. It wasn’t anything like reaching into his pocket to finger a dagger or pistol, but a crooked grin still spread across his shadowed face. There was a certain exhilaration to the whole thing. Infiltrating a military base was a challenge, but infiltrating a military base with no weapons and only the beginning of a plan, that was a challenge worthy of an asura, a challenge worthy of him. He started a confident, seemingly thoughtless gait toward the central hall.

Approaching the heavily armored norn guarding the door, Skixx gave the customary salute of the Vigil and quickly raised his seal as clearance. To the guard’s eye, it was little more than a brief flicker of steel rising no higher than his knee, despite Skixx’s effort to lift it as high as he could. The monstrous man, unwilling to duck for a closer look, waved him by.

Fool, Skixx thought with a sneer. I could have flashed a copper penny, and he would have accepted it.

Pushing with all his weight, he swung open one, huge mahogany door as far as he could. It was just enough for him to slip through the gap. The door’s weight was itself enough to pull it closed again behind him, ending with a latch-click that echoed through the circular chamber.

This was one part of the complex he hadn’t visited on his previous reconnaissance. Access to it was much tighter, even into the early morning, than almost any other part of the complex, except perhaps for the armory. Without that seal, he didn’t know how else he would have entered it.

Though Skixx had gathered knowledge that it was the entryway into all the offices and meeting chambers of the Vigil’s highest leaders, it looked from this vantage like the room was little more than a glorified foyer crossed with a trophy room. From the second-floor balcony he’d entered onto, he could see several walls of tomes below, a fairly large hearth, and some administrators working at desks beside the central staircase that ran from his level down to the lower, central floor of the chamber. The top floor, which circled the perimeter of the room, displayed various paintings, plaques, and some decorative suits of armor. He approached one such display to read its engraving, which told of a famed charr warrior of Ascalon who did something impressive to some group of people until he regained— Skixx rolled his eyes and continued his course along the walkway.

There were several Vigil personnel of various ranks scattered about, but by and large, the space felt hushed, like a library, which was not what Skixx had hoped for.

What he knew was that these people were studying Kikka’s stone shards somewhere in this complex, attempting to reveal what they really were. What he didn’t know, but needed to learn, was where the objects were, who was studying them, and what they’d found. To do that, he’d work first at subtly overhearing everything he could from the uniformed rabble standing around the place.

As he strode around the walkway, appearing to study each display with deep interest, he kept one ear tilted ever so slightly toward whichever cadre of soldiers was camped nearby. One norn chattered arrogantly about friends who’d died heroic—Skixx would have argued idiotic—deaths, a pair of humans discussed platoon formations, and a sylvari regaled his asura counterparts with something he claimed was poetry. Skixx winced at the sound of the butchered verse as he continued past.

He’d made his way almost entirely around the upper ring when he noticed a dark-haired human male working his way through the stacks directly below him. This fellow, to Skixx’s wonder, appeared to be studying, looking for something among those volumes, actually putting his unimpressive human mind to work. The man was muttering something too.

“I’ve looked through every Maguuma record from the archives,” he bemoaned, barely above a whisper, as he continued to pull tomes from the shelves and put them back. “We don’t record the kind of thing she’s looking for in our field reports, but does she listen? No. The great warmaster knows better.” That sounded promising.

Right then, though, the main doors, now some twenty yards ahead of Skixx again, opened. Voices poured in with the crisp, springtime air, and Skixx knew immediately who it was. Of them all, Penny was the most obvious. Sometimes the human seemed entirely unable to control her volume.

The hooded asura spun himself behind a nearby pillar, completely hiding his small frame from their view as they strode down the staircase to the lower floor. Peering around from behind them now, Skixx saw the whole company: Penny, Minkus, the sylvari, and some female asura dressed in proud Vigil garb. He turned his ears in their direction.

“Ah, Tactician,” the asura female said as she rounded the bannister and noticed the man at the bookshelves. “Still searching I see.”

He turned on his heel with a tinge of surprise and saluted. “Warmaster. Yes. As you commanded, I’ve continued to scour, though I’m far beyond searching Maguuma records.”

“And have you found anything new?” she asked. Ventyr looked the least bit hopeful, but it was quickly dashed.

“No, Warmaster. And I truly doubt I’m going to. As I said—”

She cut him off, “Yes, I know. ‘Not the kind of thing we include in field reports.'” She waived the words away even as she quoted them. “Thank you, Michael. That will be all. We’ll continue with the alternate plan.” He nodded, gave another salute, and departed the room, exiting through another tall pair of doors in the back of the circular room.

The warmaster sighed, turning back toward the group behind her and stepping toward the desks alongside the staircase. “It looks like there’s no alternative, Sergeant. It’s time to sign the documents. You and your team here—” she eyed Penny and Minkus hesitantly. “You’re headed to the Durmand Priory. We can only hope they do indeed have answers about your mysterious item, since we do not.” She set her attention on a rather slender charr seated at one of the administrative desks. “Crusader Sheezah,” she instructed, “please help these two with the contracts we discussed earlier.”

“Yes, Warmaster,” the administrator replied.

Efut raised a salute that the sylvari reflected back to her. “Alchemy’s fortune, Sergeant,” she said, releasing the gesture. “May your journey be productive.” The little warmaster crossed the room and disappeared into a door.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Penny groaned, quickly holding her face in her hands.

“Helping the plight of Tyria, you mean?” the sylvari asked. It was unclear how much he was actually trying to provoke her, but even at a distance, Skixx felt her distaste.

“Look, Carrot-stick,” she said, “I just want to get my money and get back to my shop. I’ll help with this little mission of yours, but that’s all I care about; it’s all I’m here for.”

At that, Ventyr nodded as though he had no more fight in him. There was something there, Skixx realized, something about the woman and that shop. It seemed important to her, and Skixx knew that important things were exploitable.

The conversation dithered off into a worthless back-and-forth with the charr about payments and lines to sign on and releases of responsibility under the laws of this nation and that accords and— Skixx’s thoughts soon moved on, and so did he, just a shadow slipping out the main doors on the heels of a pair of crusaders.

That sharp grin shown out from under the shade of his hood once more in the lowering afternoon sun. Things could not have worked better if he’d staged the whole event. They’d literally told him everything they knew, which was next to nothing, and revealed the next step of their plan: the Durmand Priory.

Skixx frowned a little as he came to the the stairs to the dormitory. The implications of this discovery were twofold. On the one hand, it was fortuitous that he’d first given them an alibi that put him on a path to Lornar’s Pass, without being specific as to exactly where in the region he was going. That could easily be manipulated into a tale that put him on a common path with them still. As well, he’d now be able to make his theft outside of a military fortress—he hadn’t been afraid of that prospect, of course, but this way would still be a welcome advantage. At the same time, though, some new challenges had arisen in this change. His original mission would now be extended yet again, which would certainly make it harder for Wepp to keep them in Kikka’s fragile graces, something they still needed to maintain for a while longer. What’s more, Skixx realized with a shudder, he would have to travel with these people even further, maintaining his guise of friendship.