The gate guards of the Southern Celestin trade hub Trachn'ir were so bland Ulric would never be able to place them in a crowd. Their faces were neutral. Their voices were neutral. They had the same amount of personality as the sodden mud beneath his boots. Even their fair, Elfin features, normally striking enough to catch his attention, even after all this time with the Aes'r, were unable to make these lightly armored and professionally bored men interesting.
Speaking of mud, a steady flow of traffic into and out of this trade hub of the Lowland forest Elves had beaten the ground for a solid hundred meters leading up to the city's incredibly sturdy tree trunk walls, woven with living limbs like a fuck off huge hedge that would make a lumberjack sweat to contemplate penetrating, into a cloying paste that defied attempts to keep it from weighing one's boots. So much traffic there was that it did not manage to clear the entryway procedures before another set of travelers made their way to the same entrance he and Taipan now stood beside. They had arrived at the gate to find that there was a small line of peopledom outside. A queue! The first he'd seen in this world. It gave him flashbacks of grocery stores.
Ulric was relieved to see that he was not the only Human in the line. There were two others and a cat featured Beastkin as well, a novelty for Ulric. Brighteyes had told him that the Beastkin came in a somewhat wide variety but he'd thus far only met the one, a wolf-headed giant who was somewhat intent on harpooning him. Ulric had stopped the dick head's heart with a lightning pulse across his meridians after blinding him with steam and still almost ended up skewered. It was a good lesson on how magic was an incredibly unfair advantage against an enemy that could not wield the aether as Ulric did.
All of the individuals in the line were outfitted for long travel. Great packs, heavily laden. Cookwear strapped to the sides, bedrolls underneath, and many had a small pull cart to boot. Near the front of the line was even a full-sized wagon, pulled by some rather burly oxen, horns sheared off or who knows how widely they'd have spread.
Leaning over to his pixy-cut Shadow, Ulric asked in a hushed whisper, "Why don't more people travel with such wagons? I have seen none since I came to this world."
Taipan glanced at him in surprise for a moment before answering, "Because you have been in the Deep Wood Ulric, the forests where there are few roads wide enough to accommodate such beasts or their burdens. Besides, they are slow, they require attention and care, and they attract predators in the depths of the forests. You would never get one of those things alive to Irielhos." Divulged the tall beauty with total certainty.
He let that sink in a bit. It made some amount of sense. He and Taipan had averaged some sixty to eighty kilometers a day on their trek. That was a ridiculous pace according to his conceptions but, quite simply, the people of this world were just stronger than in his old one. They were naturally heartier, more robust. Even the purely average Joes and Janes would be considered definitely athletic to the standards of his prior life.
Absent the convenience of mechanized conveyance, it sort of made sense that individual, non-commercial travel would be optimal on foot then. Those pull carts with their two by three-meter beds and the great round wheels would have pulled nearly everything Ulric had ever had need of, with the exception of the lumber they'd loaded from his glade. As it was, a few Elves and a man pushing in concert had made incredible time. Granted, some degree of desperation had driven them, but still!
And he'd never even considered the fact that a lethargic herbivore would amount to little more than bait for the vicious creatures that made the forests of Iriel their home. Just Varda things, Ulric supposed.
Ulric returned his gaze to the motley assortment that made up the line outside the gate, "So I won't look odd, being a trader that doesn't have a great big cart or anything?"
"No, Glade Chief." She said, adjusting her pack, "You will look odd because you are too young and too pretty to be a barbarian trader."
He turned to see her almost hidden smile.
"I thought I was a seven." He teased, recalling their conversation in the baths so long ago.
Her eyes canvassed the crowd, looking for any who might remotely overhear them or be paying them undue attention before she replied, utterly serious, "That was before you were wealthy."
It was, perhaps, the most un-Taipan thing Taipan could have said and he stared blankly until he realized she'd gotten him pretty good. He'd taken entirely too long to realize she was joking.
"Point scored Taipan, point scored." He allowed as they stepped forward with the moving line.
The line moved forwards the gate looming tall with equally towering walls. It was a palisade wall, the way the Hoover Dam was a brick wall. Each of the logs that made up this fortified city was about as big around as to be wrapped by three large men with arms linked, maybe a meter and a half in diameter. They were none of them less than thirty meters high where they'd been trimmed to present a vertical face, the frontage tended to form a solid, surface, polished smooth. Upon the living crowns, stone masonry was built into the trunks creating a sort of parapet that would prevent a climber from coming over the top without an inverted climb. The base of the wall was defended by a wide moat, at least twenty meters across, actually a part of the nearby river diverted specifically for the task. Between the unsteady roots exposed in the moat and the water and the sheer vertical climb it was a hell of a deterrent, was that wall. Ulric had trouble fathoming the time it would have taken to cultivate the barrier trees into this kind of fortification.
This was what Ulric imagined when he thought of a fantastic wilderness city. A little more Tolkienesque than had been the arboreal cityscape of Irielhos. Of course, Ulric was willing to bet that a living god tree wasn't secretly shepherding this town and its people. Irielhos wasn't the name of a place so much as it was the name of the colossal [Heartwood] that was the patriarch of all of the [Heartwood] trees of Iriel. Ulric had been inside the core chamber of that massive entity, had felt its nourishing mana as it was actively taking part in the rituals to halt the Bane that was killing Bald'rt.
Here, they were relying on the advantage of terrain and force of arms to keep their city protected. Ulric had to admit that they'd made a good try of it, this wall was damned imposing. It appeared to have been slathered in mortar a good third of the way up its height, to prevent easy fire from being applied. The city itself made Seinajok look like a backward little hamlet, which, Ulric had to admit it probably was. Trachn'ir stretched in a bilobed oblong ovoid, nearly three kilometers along its longest axis and a solid kilometer on its widest diameter. One end of the city projected deeply into the river, its entrance sectioned off by a secondary wall and almost forming an island unto itself.
Ulric saw more buildings and structures than he could count, many of them of stone, rising four and even five stories above the ground. A few towers rose here and there, which gave the impression of the Eiffel Tower, being made up of beams of wood to create the latticed structures. By far though, most of the city had a similar style as their diminutive cousin in Seinajok, stone foundations with one to two-story wood walls, roofed by clay tiles, from what he could see.
The slight rise that preceded the long, flat approach to the city was sufficient to see over the walls a bit but not to get a true bird's eye view of the place. Just a hint of what lay inside. At the barbican gates, guardhouses to either side projecting slightly, Ulric was able to see somewhat into the city. He tried not to gawp.
He got a cursory once over from the guards, who might as well have been made of the wood they stood next to, and Taipan got slightly more attention, abbreviated when she leveled a cold glare down at them, but, the two of them had next to nothing but their traveling equipment and so, were of little interest. They were motioned inwards and the travelers, a pair of Saurian Beastkin, sidled up behind the two of them without regard for personal space, which spurred the two of them on through the gate.
"I didn't know necromancy was openly practiced." Ulric commented offhand.
Taipan looked around, short locks of hair flying as she looked for the animated corpse, a rare showing.
"Where? Where do you see this Ulric?! I have not seen a corpse raiser since I was a child!" She said excitedly.
He was both thrilled, and a little sad, to burst her bubble, "I was referring to those deadly boring men guarding the gates."
Taipan cuffed his arm, not so gently, scolding him "You should not get mine hopes up like that Ulric! I was excited to see a rare practitioner."
Ulric accepted his penalty gladly, having recovered a point from his Shadow's earlier sarcasm.
They traipsed down a wide thoroughfare mud clinging to their boots, the snow having been cleared by the sheer volume of foot traffic. It was a clay-heavy, clinging blend that absolutely caked their feet, adding a solid three kilos to the ends of his legs. Frowning down at the stuff he saw that his partner was no better pleased by the stuff than he was.
"We needs get off the main avenues Ulric. The gates will be watched and, even if we are not recognized immediately as the quarry, there is no guarantee that they will not know who the intended targets are after they review the gate entry logs." Taipan informed him.
"So, what's the plan, disappear into the mass of the city, track down the known associates, capture them, and turn them in?" Ulric outlined, though he had his doubts as to the last bit.
His reservations were confirmed when his Shadow said, "Almost. Just one difference." and drew her finger again across her throat meaningfully.
Yeah, he had a feeling that was what she had intended.
"First, we need to visit an apothecary, or herbalist shop. I have a few things that I am needing to pick up. It is time that I stop wearing my heritage openly. It will confuse our quarry if, instead of a Human accompanied by an Iriel'en, they only ever see a Human with a Narii'. Those sort are common enough in places like this. Also, I will obtain a wig to further throw our potential enemies, we will find a Tailor who can assist us in obtaining the requisite needs."
Narii' were the second nomadic tribe of Orlethrem, the counterparts to the Legranel, the plains Elves. They weren't even truly a tribe so much as they were a diffuse collection of associated families who lived and moved according to precepts that they did not share with any not married into the clan or born to it. In a way, they were of a kindred spirit to the Gypsy's of old Earth or, more appropriately, the Roma. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Narii' is that they did not have distinguishing characteristics. The blending of blood lines, the constant movements of families, these precluded the normal strengthening of certain traits that had ended up making the various tribes of Orlethrem fairly distinct.
Amongst the Iriel'en, Taipan was very nearly the representative specimen. Actually, according to her status, she was exactly the representative specimen of her kin carrying the trait [Paragon Aes'r-Iriel'en]. She was as easy to spot in a crowd as could be found. Ulric was interested in how she intended to mask herself.
He found out soon enough. First, as soon as they left the entry pavilion to Trachn'ir, Taipan put on a scarf headdress that Ulric had seen worn around Iriel which was similar to a shemagh. It thoroughly covered her hair, most of her face and neck, and left basically only her eyes uncovered. Next, she led him a dizzying journey through the labyrinthian backstreets of the city. They wandered from alley, to warren, to causeway, through no fewer than three different ghettos, and across most of the kilometer-wide region located closest to the Southern gate, known as the Mercantalia.
It was with great relief that the city streets turned to cobbles off of that entry gate to the city. Apparently, there were, in fact, cobbles somewhere down beneath the accumulated layers of what turned out to be a mix of straw, carried in dirt, and animal shit in that place, but the volume of traffic precluded their ever being visible or tread upon. Ulric saw most varieties of people that Varda had to offer upon the continent. Each of the five varieties of Beastkin, Humans of considerable diversity in ethnicity, none quite familiar with his Earthen brethren, and, of course, most of the tribes of the Orlethrem were represented plentifully.
Notably, Iriel'en were scarce. Taipan had initially drawn many glances from her cousins for her kin's rarity in these parts, at least until she hid her features beneath the heavy scarf. Their curiosity was not the only she had to endure, not even close. Ulric leveled an unending series of questions at her, trying to understand this trade city, the people they passed by in it, and details of which any native would consider to be common sense. She answered his questions patiently, regarding this and that, and the seemingly unconnected spiderwebs of his logical associations as they roamed.
With the wall looming high overhead this close to the edge of town Ulric knew they were on the paths less traveled. He could distinctly smell the foul reek of a tannery nearby. Taipan's searching brought them up and down the claustrophobic streets, frequently in too close proximity with their hard-eyed denizens, in her quest. Eventually, they gained what she sought. In three different apothecaries, they stopped, from each of which his Shadow perused their wares carefully, selecting out a variety of roots, herbs, and a particular species of toadstool which the proprietor of the shop refused to handle without tongs and heavy gloves. That one went into a glass vial with a wax-sealed cap. The shopkeeper had gone pale when Taipan uttered its name. Ulric wasn't sure that he wanted to know for what she intended that little beauty, with its golden tendrils, finer than the thinnest hairs, and broad silver cap.
Upon leaving that last purveyor of the dank, damp, and mostly toxic, his Shadow crossed the street to enter a door marked with the now familiar sign of silk and a needle. A tailor. The smell of moth repellant was loud in his nose and they were met by a heavy set Human woman with a fairly jovial nature. She smiled readily, gap-toothed but not without charm, and flicked her blond braid over her shoulder to take Taipan's measurements eagerly when his compatriot explained her needs. Ulric was flatly stunned by the apparent success of this business compared to the seedy alleys outside.
Firstly, a long cotton dress in the familiar Celestin style, colored deep violet with verdant trims. Secondly a pair of thin calf-height boots, not precisely cobbled but passable, and thick woolen socks of the same length. Finally, she selected three wigs, in a variety of common Elven colors, a soft auburn, pale blond, and a black that wasn't so deep or lustrous as her own native locks. Each of these was long enough to reach down her mid back, which Ulric supposed, gave her freedom to do in a variety of styles, the better to be capable of changing her most obvious silhouette.
Unlike the village, with its rather short peoples, and limited clientele, this establishment had a stock that required only very minimal adjustment to produce an appropriate fit. A mere quarter Round of the Twins saw them paid up and departing with a distinctly pleased Tailor at their backs who had promised discretion, though neither of them had asked for such. What Taipan had planned with her orders made it clear enough what she intended. Ulric had barely even received a glance, which, he supposed, was exactly what they wanted.
His agile Shadow-Wife darted through the city like she'd been born there, taking back streets and side cut-throughs, to bring them to an altogether nicer district, far more central within the city. Ulric knew it was for the more successful merchants thanks to the cleaner gutters, the far greater density of carts, and the presence of several stables holding wagons, along with their teams of heavy oxen, but not, he noted, for the lack of trash. Contrary to many dense packings of humanity on old Earth, there was no litter at all in the streets, whether the peoples be rich or poor. Ulric had commented on it and his Shadow had revealed shock that anyone would care so little for their land as to scatter trash on it. He couldn't very well disagree with her.
They came out from a particularly narrow little junction onto a wide avenue that led to a large square whose center was occupied by several mature trees planted around a central stone fountain carved in the shape of a Mountain giving birth to a waterfall that fell to a shallow "lake". It was a lovely scene, with the picturesque buildings behind and around.
From there, Ulric trailed behind and they were barely down another wide street but before Taipan strode through a door, marked as an inn.
Immediately the kitchen smells brought wetness to his mouth. Something amazing was being prepared, meaty and rich. In addition, he clearly detected the fragrance of sourdough bread, one of his favorites from his old life and which was not commonly found in Iriel.
The innkeeper was a middling tall Celestin, a woman of similar indeterminate age as many of the Elven adults. They were virtually the same from around fifty to five hundred, at which point they began to show some small signs of age, such as crow's feet, or laugh lines, or even facial hair. This particular specimen had a large bust, a rarity, and, even more uncommon, had it displayed by a generous cleavage in her plush frill trimmed kilt.
Ulric was slightly thrown off by that, most of the Elves he'd seen in public went about in a rather modest dress, they almost never showed significant skin unless they were in the open-air baths. He wasn't going to complain over much, the innkeeper was nicely put together, if lacking compared to his wife in several departments. After a glance, his attention wandered to the source of the smells. The one who truly had his heart at the moment was whoever was baking that bread.
He wasn't able to spot the artisan in question though, he had to obtain rooms. The dark-haired Celestin woman behind the desk had a much lighter variant of the heavy brogue of her boonies kin.
"Welcome guests, to the Shady Brook Inn. I will be taking care of you now, for however long you stay with us. Rooms are paid daily and include two meals, one of which is being served now. It will be an Eld Drake per night for regular rooms and an Eld Crown for our suites, which include a sitting room. What may your pleasure be this day?" the Hostess asked with the practiced insincere pleasantness of a career in the service industry.
Ulric cleared his throat, not wanting to choke on his own drool from that damned delicious-smelling bread.
"One suite, second floor, if one is available. I'm gonna require a large bathing tub, the mud of my travel clings something fierce." Ulric requested easily, purposefully not including Taipan in his request, as dismissive of her as they had discussed he should be.
"Do these suites include a separate sleeping arrangement for hired hands? I've got business arrangements to be made and I don't need her underfoot all the damned time muttering her curses while I haggle. Matter of fact, I've got a partner coming upriver before it breaks up, and I'd really prefer a servant's quarters for this one anyway." Ulric asked, jerking his thumb backward to indicate the scowling Iriel'en woman behind him.
The Innkeeper's eyes flicked towards Taipan and she frowned a touch, before her empty smile returned, "Of course. For an additional Eld Drake, we'd be glad to house your guide separately. The servant's quarters are on the fourth floor, if that interests."
Ulric agreed readily, as if glad to be parted, "Done and done. Finally, I am free from her endless bitching for a while. Gods above and below if they weren't worth the coin in the wilds I'd never put up with their company." He complained loudly.
That sentiment found more than a couple of nods of agreement from the various tables, Elves included, in the packed common room, much larger than the one in Seinajok's humble inn.
With a raised hand and a snap of fingers, the Innkeeper summoned a young Celestin man in a rough tunic and pants, with a short apron, to escort him to their rooms. Ulric entered the indicated room immediately, without looking back as the door closed, though he burned with the effort. It wasn't that he was necessarily worried about Taipan, she could handle herself just fine. More like this was the part of the whole thing where shit could go wrong in a meaningful way.
He strode to open a window, facing a small alley that ran at a right angle to the one that had brought them to the front door. From there, he dropped his pack on an admittedly comfortable bed, wide and long enough for his feet to not drape over the edge, unlike the one in Seinajok, which had clearly been designed for Elven frames, not his too-tall one.
It was somewhat refreshing being in this city since he wasn't the most obviously tall person within sight. Especially the Beastkin, who tended to be that much taller than him than he was to the Elves, most of whom came up to his chin. Galed Uldin had been the largest Elf Ulric had come across, the Smith was an absolute giant of his folk. Here though, he could much more easily blend into the crowd and move unnoticed by casual observation.
Ulric had barely been able to do a quick examination of the suite's layout, his bedroom, and a large open sitting room before a knock called him to the heavy, wooden door. He opened it to find a slip of an Elven girl, in servant's attire, hauling a great wooden tub that looked way too big for so slight a person to be moving it. He stood free of the doorway and kept his face intentionally still when the attendant easily flipped the tub on its side and rolled it into the room, with the casual ease of thousands of iterations.
As usual, the sort of easy strength of people continued to amaze. That tub might not be so very heavy but it had elicited not even a slight sound to indicate effort in its moving from a rather small lady.
The tub was settled in the sitting room and he was informed that one would be along soon to fill it with hot water. She laid a pouch containing soaps, a small jug that housed something floral, a shampoo? Also included was a washcloth and a scrub brush next to the tub, gestured by the girl briefly before bowing herself out efficiently.
Ulric was left standing there marveling at the level of room service he'd not have expected from a five-star resort back in his old world.
The sound of scrabbling coming from the bedroom drew his attention and he entered just in time to see Taipan rise to her feet, having climbed into the room from the open window. This was why they'd chosen a suite on the second floor of this particular inn. Taipan knew the room layouts, and knew this one could be accessed from the servant's quarters while staying in the relative obscurity of the side alley. If all had gone to order, she was, so far as anyone knew, locked within her room indulging in joyous isolation, as many Iriel'en guides did when they deigned to take scouting jobs from merchants.
All according to keikaku.
They both turned when they heard a shuffle of feet outside the door, and Ulric whispered, "Hide!"
His Shadow called her namesake, her mana shrouding her using the room's dense patches of candle-thrown darkness. She rolled underneath the bed and became still as death as Ulric answered the door as soon as it was knocked upon, as if he'd been alone and expecting the interruption, which was false, and then true.
A third attendant came in, this one wearing much finer attire, and Ulric followed as this one, clearly an Aktinian, of the coastal tribes, began to use a spell to fill the tub with water from his own magic. Then he performed another casting, this one with a set of complex hand gestures that caused the water to begin to emit a gentle steam. The Elf wordlessly bowed himself out, closing the door gently behind himself, and left Ulric standing there next to the tub, alone.
He dipped a finger into the water and found it at that perfect temperature, bordering too hot.
"Well damn my eyes, this place has some serious accommodations going on. A private bath? And magically generated and heated water? Talk about service." He lauded.
Without so much as a how do you do, his Shadow rolled from cover, stripped buck naked, clearly calling "Shotgun!" and climbed into the tub to moan softly as its heat embraced her form.
Ulric wished, sometimes, he'd never taught her about this old-world tradition.
*************Sometime Later that Day*************
The soft sound of grinding and constant motion of pestle against mortar had been most of Ulric's existence for the last hour. While Taipan exercised her victory rights via declaration of dibs, she instructed him in the manufacturing of her disguise. First came the skin-toning concoction.
The already finely ground root, which had become a reddish brown powder, was sat to the side while Ulric processed three herbs together in the large mortar. He was down to an almost talc consistency before the nude woman propped up on the sides of the tub declared his work to be at an end. He listened to her instructions to combine the two powders and to heat them gently over a candle flame until the smell of almonds became detectable.
Ulric passed the stone mortar over the flame, moving it slowly backward and forward to even the heating. Nothing happened for a good few minutes until he was suddenly aware of the deepening fragrance of almonds.
I'll be damned, he thought, hurriedly passing the mortar to Taipan, who had sat up to take the gently smoking mixture and unceremoniously dumped it into the tub with herself. Ulric realized that he probably wouldn't be getting the bath he'd looked forward to when the water turned a soft orange color.
Closing her eyes, Taipan submerged herself for two minutes, and balled up beneath the water before rising to take a fresh breath and repeating. This extended submersion soaking went on for another twenty minutes before she climbed summarily from the tub and Ulric was shocked to see that every square centimeter of his Shadow was paler than himself. Her skin was almost as pale as her brother's, a smooth alabaster expanse. He saw now why she had to remain submerged, her ears and face had to match the tone of her arms and body. Even the skin of her scalp was dyed to pale cream.
He whistled softly, in appreciation of the transformation. And of what had remained unchanged.
Toweling herself dry, his now pale partner sat on the bed.
"Well hot damn." Ulric began, "That actually worked way better than I thought it would when you described your plan. How long does that last?"
Scrubbing her hair aggressively to remove the remnants of the skin treatment her muffled response of "Three weeks, or until my skin peels."
Oh. That did not sound fun.
"We must dispose of this water now Ulric, and do not let it touch you. The dye will turn somewhat toxic once it cools." She informed him.
So that was why she looked like she was being so fastidious about the drying. The used towel was sent soaring across the room to land in a corner, accompanied by a hissed "Do not touch it!", which implied that "somewhat toxic" may have been an understatement. Ulric would burn it outside later, using his sword to pick it up.
The next step in her transformation was just as impressive.
Careless of her nudity the now light-skinned She-Elf put one of the leaves into a cup of water poured from their water jug and had Ulric again steeping it slowly over candle flame while she worked a different set of herbs with the mortar and pestle. When the herbal tea Ulric was holding had turned a deep blue, she decanted the top third of the liquid into the bowl of crushed herbs and instructed him to throw the remains into the bath water that needed disposal.
The paste Taipan stirred until it was thoroughly cooled. At her request, Ulric left the room to obtain the next component of her alchemical miracle, a bottle of blue wine, not the green wine, and this she used to dilute the paste. It got another slow cook over flame and, when it had reduced by half, the small cup of fluid she poured off into a vial stoppered with a dropper.
He saw why after it was cooled.
Carefully, his partner put one drop each into the corners of her slanted eyes and blinked rapidly before holding them closed for a minute, small tears forming. That must not have been pleasant but she made not a noise and, when she opened those wondrous orbs, they were a deep indigo with the bronze flecks strikingly contrasted. The auburn wig went on in a few moments and then his familiar partner of four months stood striking a pose with hands-on flared hips, still in the buff, completely transformed.
Ulric's mouth dropped. This was unreal. She was unrecognizable to anyone who hadn't memorized her bones. Long red-gold hair, pale skin, and dark blue eyes, there was almost nothing to remind of the prototypical Iriel'en.
Taipan grinned, satisfied by her partner's suitable stunned response. She had worked on the skills needed to produce such a transformation for years, learning the herbs, the techniques to process them, and the methods to create a near complete revolution of her appearance in a minimum of time. Her reward was to be now almost a new person in the eyes of strangers.
"Wow." Ulric said, dumbly, "Now that is an impressive trick."
Donning the set of recently purchased local's garb she completed her disguise.
"Thank you, Glade Chief. This is how we are going to leave behind any rumor of our passage. I have enough herbs to do this three more times and, by changing the ratios of them, I can adjust the coloration of my skin from this paleness to a tone more like that of your own hide. The eye drops must be applied daily but I can make another dropper vial to create a lighter cyan. Between these, and the wigs, you will be accompanied by a different Elf in every town, and our trail will vanish over the leagues between." His Shadow rightfully gloated.
Full of surprises was this wily Huntress. He'd been right way back when, Taipan was a bonafide counterintelligence expert.
"Should we do me as well?" He asked.
She nodded her affirmation, "Yes, but not now. You are not as odd a sight as myself and it would be noted if you greatly changed appearance to the staff. I am now your business partner. Your troublesome scout has retired to her quarters and refuses to answer or be found for the forseeable future. It happens that Iriel'en will fulfill the contract and vanish without trace away from such confining cities. None would think anything much of it." the changeling before him declared.
"No," Taipan instructed, "We will adjust your appearance once we have left Trachn'ir where none will have any reference with which to compare you. So long as none see your scars, you are nearly invisible."
Fair enough.
"Alright, this is way beyond what I was expecting. I'm down though, what's next in your master plan?" He prompted, intensely curious.
"Now, I am going to take you out and have you memorize the city streets, as I have memorized them." his pale beauty of a partner promised.
"Damnit." He complained, hanging his head but following her nevertheless as she sauntered out of the room.
The glamorous part was over. Now came the hard work part of being a spy catcher, the intelligence gathering.
For the rest of the day, they canvassed this portion of the city. Starting with ground zero, their inn, they circled outwards in a tight spiral, with his Shadow insisting he memorized every single entry and exit point of every single path a man could take. When he failed to remember one she took a coin from his purse. It was a purely psychological game, they both knew she could use whatever she wanted from the purse, it was the act of losing something though that gave the lessons teeth. When Ulric mapped an entire district from memory, Taipan gave him a coin back. It was a bizarrely effective method of learning the lay of the city streets.
That night, Ulric claimed one of the three owed forfeits. It was incredibly odd seeing his pale Shadow dance in the moonlight, so familiar silhouette moving through familiar movements, the long wig feathering in turns as they stepped through the imagined music of a dead world's waltzes.
The gate guards of the Southern Celestin trade hub Trachn'ir were so bland Ulric would never be able to place them in a crowd. Their faces were neutral. Their voices were neutral. They had the same amount of personality as the sodden mud beneath his boots. Even their fair, Elfin features, normally striking enough to catch his attention, even after all this time with the Aes'r, were unable to make these lightly armored and professionally bored men interesting.
Speaking of mud, a steady flow of traffic into and out of this trade hub of the Lowland forest Elves had beaten the ground for a solid hundred meters leading up to the city's incredibly sturdy tree trunk walls, woven with living limbs like a fuck off huge hedge that would make a lumberjack sweat to contemplate penetrating, into a cloying paste that defied attempts to keep it from weighing one's boots. So much traffic there was that it did not manage to clear the entryway procedures before another set of travelers made their way to the same entrance he and Taipan now stood beside. They had arrived at the gate to find that there was a small line of peopledom outside. A queue! The first he'd seen in this world. It gave him flashbacks of grocery stores.
Ulric was relieved to see that he was not the only Human in the line. There were two others and a cat featured Beastkin as well, a novelty for Ulric. Brighteyes had told him that the Beastkin came in a somewhat wide variety but he'd thus far only met the one, a wolf-headed giant who was somewhat intent on harpooning him. Ulric had stopped the dick head's heart with a lightning pulse across his meridians after blinding him with steam and still almost ended up skewered. It was a good lesson on how magic was an incredibly unfair advantage against an enemy that could not wield the aether as Ulric did.
All of the individuals in the line were outfitted for long travel. Great packs, heavily laden. Cookwear strapped to the sides, bedrolls underneath, and many had a small pull cart to boot. Near the front of the line was even a full-sized wagon, pulled by some rather burly oxen, horns sheared off or who knows how widely they'd have spread.
Leaning over to his pixy-cut Shadow, Ulric asked in a hushed whisper, "Why don't more people travel with such wagons? I have seen none since I came to this world."
Taipan glanced at him in surprise for a moment before answering, "Because you have been in the Deep Wood Ulric, the forests where there are few roads wide enough to accommodate such beasts or their burdens. Besides, they are slow, they require attention and care, and they attract predators in the depths of the forests. You would never get one of those things alive to Irielhos." Divulged the tall beauty with total certainty.
He let that sink in a bit. It made some amount of sense. He and Taipan had averaged some sixty to eighty kilometers a day on their trek. That was a ridiculous pace according to his conceptions but, quite simply, the people of this world were just stronger than in his old one. They were naturally heartier, more robust. Even the purely average Joes and Janes would be considered definitely athletic to the standards of his prior life.
Absent the convenience of mechanized conveyance, it sort of made sense that individual, non-commercial travel would be optimal on foot then. Those pull carts with their two by three-meter beds and the great round wheels would have pulled nearly everything Ulric had ever had need of, with the exception of the lumber they'd loaded from his glade. As it was, a few Elves and a man pushing in concert had made incredible time. Granted, some degree of desperation had driven them, but still!
And he'd never even considered the fact that a lethargic herbivore would amount to little more than bait for the vicious creatures that made the forests of Iriel their home. Just Varda things, Ulric supposed.
Ulric returned his gaze to the motley assortment that made up the line outside the gate, "So I won't look odd, being a trader that doesn't have a great big cart or anything?"
"No, Glade Chief." She said, adjusting her pack, "You will look odd because you are too young and too pretty to be a barbarian trader."
He turned to see her almost hidden smile.
"I thought I was a seven." He teased, recalling their conversation in the baths so long ago.
Her eyes canvassed the crowd, looking for any who might remotely overhear them or be paying them undue attention before she replied, utterly serious, "That was before you were wealthy."
It was, perhaps, the most un-Taipan thing Taipan could have said and he stared blankly until he realized she'd gotten him pretty good. He'd taken entirely too long to realize she was joking.
"Point scored Taipan, point scored." He allowed as they stepped forward with the moving line.
The line moved forwards the gate looming tall with equally towering walls. It was a palisade wall, the way the Hoover Dam was a brick wall. Each of the logs that made up this fortified city was about as big around as to be wrapped by three large men with arms linked, maybe a meter and a half in diameter. They were none of them less than thirty meters high where they'd been trimmed to present a vertical face, the frontage tended to form a solid, surface, polished smooth. Upon the living crowns, stone masonry was built into the trunks creating a sort of parapet that would prevent a climber from coming over the top without an inverted climb. The base of the wall was defended by a wide moat, at least twenty meters across, actually a part of the nearby river diverted specifically for the task. Between the unsteady roots exposed in the moat and the water and the sheer vertical climb it was a hell of a deterrent, was that wall. Ulric had trouble fathoming the time it would have taken to cultivate the barrier trees into this kind of fortification.
This was what Ulric imagined when he thought of a fantastic wilderness city. A little more Tolkienesque than had been the arboreal cityscape of Irielhos. Of course, Ulric was willing to bet that a living god tree wasn't secretly shepherding this town and its people. Irielhos wasn't the name of a place so much as it was the name of the colossal [Heartwood] that was the patriarch of all of the [Heartwood] trees of Iriel. Ulric had been inside the core chamber of that massive entity, had felt its nourishing mana as it was actively taking part in the rituals to halt the Bane that was killing Bald'rt.
Here, they were relying on the advantage of terrain and force of arms to keep their city protected. Ulric had to admit that they'd made a good try of it, this wall was damned imposing. It appeared to have been slathered in mortar a good third of the way up its height, to prevent easy fire from being applied. The city itself made Seinajok look like a backward little hamlet, which, Ulric had to admit it probably was. Trachn'ir stretched in a bilobed oblong ovoid, nearly three kilometers along its longest axis and a solid kilometer on its widest diameter. One end of the city projected deeply into the river, its entrance sectioned off by a secondary wall and almost forming an island unto itself.
Ulric saw more buildings and structures than he could count, many of them of stone, rising four and even five stories above the ground. A few towers rose here and there, which gave the impression of the Eiffel Tower, being made up of beams of wood to create the latticed structures. By far though, most of the city had a similar style as their diminutive cousin in Seinajok, stone foundations with one to two-story wood walls, roofed by clay tiles, from what he could see.
The slight rise that preceded the long, flat approach to the city was sufficient to see over the walls a bit but not to get a true bird's eye view of the place. Just a hint of what lay inside. At the barbican gates, guardhouses to either side projecting slightly, Ulric was able to see somewhat into the city. He tried not to gawp.
He got a cursory once over from the guards, who might as well have been made of the wood they stood next to, and Taipan got slightly more attention, abbreviated when she leveled a cold glare down at them, but, the two of them had next to nothing but their traveling equipment and so, were of little interest. They were motioned inwards and the travelers, a pair of Saurian Beastkin, sidled up behind the two of them without regard for personal space, which spurred the two of them on through the gate.
"I didn't know necromancy was openly practiced." Ulric commented offhand.
Taipan looked around, short locks of hair flying as she looked for the animated corpse, a rare showing.
"Where? Where do you see this Ulric?! I have not seen a corpse raiser since I was a child!" She said excitedly.
He was both thrilled, and a little sad, to burst her bubble, "I was referring to those deadly boring men guarding the gates."
Taipan cuffed his arm, not so gently, scolding him "You should not get mine hopes up like that Ulric! I was excited to see a rare practitioner."
Ulric accepted his penalty gladly, having recovered a point from his Shadow's earlier sarcasm.
They traipsed down a wide thoroughfare mud clinging to their boots, the snow having been cleared by the sheer volume of foot traffic. It was a clay-heavy, clinging blend that absolutely caked their feet, adding a solid three kilos to the ends of his legs. Frowning down at the stuff he saw that his partner was no better pleased by the stuff than he was.
"We needs get off the main avenues Ulric. The gates will be watched and, even if we are not recognized immediately as the quarry, there is no guarantee that they will not know who the intended targets are after they review the gate entry logs." Taipan informed him.
"So, what's the plan, disappear into the mass of the city, track down the known associates, capture them, and turn them in?" Ulric outlined, though he had his doubts as to the last bit.
His reservations were confirmed when his Shadow said, "Almost. Just one difference." and drew her finger again across her throat meaningfully.
Yeah, he had a feeling that was what she had intended.
"First, we need to visit an apothecary, or herbalist shop. I have a few things that I am needing to pick up. It is time that I stop wearing my heritage openly. It will confuse our quarry if, instead of a Human accompanied by an Iriel'en, they only ever see a Human with a Narii'. Those sort are common enough in places like this. Also, I will obtain a wig to further throw our potential enemies, we will find a Tailor who can assist us in obtaining the requisite needs."
Narii' were the second nomadic tribe of Orlethrem, the counterparts to the Legranel, the plains Elves. They weren't even truly a tribe so much as they were a diffuse collection of associated families who lived and moved according to precepts that they did not share with any not married into the clan or born to it. In a way, they were of a kindred spirit to the Gypsy's of old Earth or, more appropriately, the Roma. One of the distinguishing characteristics of the Narii' is that they did not have distinguishing characteristics. The blending of blood lines, the constant movements of families, these precluded the normal strengthening of certain traits that had ended up making the various tribes of Orlethrem fairly distinct.
Amongst the Iriel'en, Taipan was very nearly the representative specimen. Actually, according to her status, she was exactly the representative specimen of her kin carrying the trait [Paragon Aes'r-Iriel'en]. She was as easy to spot in a crowd as could be found. Ulric was interested in how she intended to mask herself.
He found out soon enough. First, as soon as they left the entry pavilion to Trachn'ir, Taipan put on a scarf headdress that Ulric had seen worn around Iriel which was similar to a shemagh. It thoroughly covered her hair, most of her face and neck, and left basically only her eyes uncovered. Next, she led him a dizzying journey through the labyrinthian backstreets of the city. They wandered from alley, to warren, to causeway, through no fewer than three different ghettos, and across most of the kilometer-wide region located closest to the Southern gate, known as the Mercantalia.
It was with great relief that the city streets turned to cobbles off of that entry gate to the city. Apparently, there were, in fact, cobbles somewhere down beneath the accumulated layers of what turned out to be a mix of straw, carried in dirt, and animal shit in that place, but the volume of traffic precluded their ever being visible or tread upon. Ulric saw most varieties of people that Varda had to offer upon the continent. Each of the five varieties of Beastkin, Humans of considerable diversity in ethnicity, none quite familiar with his Earthen brethren, and, of course, most of the tribes of the Orlethrem were represented plentifully.
Notably, Iriel'en were scarce. Taipan had initially drawn many glances from her cousins for her kin's rarity in these parts, at least until she hid her features beneath the heavy scarf. Their curiosity was not the only she had to endure, not even close. Ulric leveled an unending series of questions at her, trying to understand this trade city, the people they passed by in it, and details of which any native would consider to be common sense. She answered his questions patiently, regarding this and that, and the seemingly unconnected spiderwebs of his logical associations as they roamed.
With the wall looming high overhead this close to the edge of town Ulric knew they were on the paths less traveled. He could distinctly smell the foul reek of a tannery nearby. Taipan's searching brought them up and down the claustrophobic streets, frequently in too close proximity with their hard-eyed denizens, in her quest. Eventually, they gained what she sought. In three different apothecaries, they stopped, from each of which his Shadow perused their wares carefully, selecting out a variety of roots, herbs, and a particular species of toadstool which the proprietor of the shop refused to handle without tongs and heavy gloves. That one went into a glass vial with a wax-sealed cap. The shopkeeper had gone pale when Taipan uttered its name. Ulric wasn't sure that he wanted to know for what she intended that little beauty, with its golden tendrils, finer than the thinnest hairs, and broad silver cap.
Upon leaving that last purveyor of the dank, damp, and mostly toxic, his Shadow crossed the street to enter a door marked with the now familiar sign of silk and a needle. A tailor. The smell of moth repellant was loud in his nose and they were met by a heavy set Human woman with a fairly jovial nature. She smiled readily, gap-toothed but not without charm, and flicked her blond braid over her shoulder to take Taipan's measurements eagerly when his compatriot explained her needs. Ulric was flatly stunned by the apparent success of this business compared to the seedy alleys outside.
Firstly, a long cotton dress in the familiar Celestin style, colored deep violet with verdant trims. Secondly a pair of thin calf-height boots, not precisely cobbled but passable, and thick woolen socks of the same length. Finally, she selected three wigs, in a variety of common Elven colors, a soft auburn, pale blond, and a black that wasn't so deep or lustrous as her own native locks. Each of these was long enough to reach down her mid back, which Ulric supposed, gave her freedom to do in a variety of styles, the better to be capable of changing her most obvious silhouette.
Unlike the village, with its rather short peoples, and limited clientele, this establishment had a stock that required only very minimal adjustment to produce an appropriate fit. A mere quarter Round of the Twins saw them paid up and departing with a distinctly pleased Tailor at their backs who had promised discretion, though neither of them had asked for such. What Taipan had planned with her orders made it clear enough what she intended. Ulric had barely even received a glance, which, he supposed, was exactly what they wanted.
His agile Shadow-Wife darted through the city like she'd been born there, taking back streets and side cut-throughs, to bring them to an altogether nicer district, far more central within the city. Ulric knew it was for the more successful merchants thanks to the cleaner gutters, the far greater density of carts, and the presence of several stables holding wagons, along with their teams of heavy oxen, but not, he noted, for the lack of trash. Contrary to many dense packings of humanity on old Earth, there was no litter at all in the streets, whether the peoples be rich or poor. Ulric had commented on it and his Shadow had revealed shock that anyone would care so little for their land as to scatter trash on it. He couldn't very well disagree with her.
They came out from a particularly narrow little junction onto a wide avenue that led to a large square whose center was occupied by several mature trees planted around a central stone fountain carved in the shape of a Mountain giving birth to a waterfall that fell to a shallow "lake". It was a lovely scene, with the picturesque buildings behind and around.
From there, Ulric trailed behind and they were barely down another wide street but before Taipan strode through a door, marked as an inn.
Immediately the kitchen smells brought wetness to his mouth. Something amazing was being prepared, meaty and rich. In addition, he clearly detected the fragrance of sourdough bread, one of his favorites from his old life and which was not commonly found in Iriel.
The innkeeper was a middling tall Celestin, a woman of similar indeterminate age as many of the Elven adults. They were virtually the same from around fifty to five hundred, at which point they began to show some small signs of age, such as crow's feet, or laugh lines, or even facial hair. This particular specimen had a large bust, a rarity, and, even more uncommon, had it displayed by a generous cleavage in her plush frill trimmed kilt.
Ulric was slightly thrown off by that, most of the Elves he'd seen in public went about in a rather modest dress, they almost never showed significant skin unless they were in the open-air baths. He wasn't going to complain over much, the innkeeper was nicely put together, if lacking compared to his wife in several departments. After a glance, his attention wandered to the source of the smells. The one who truly had his heart at the moment was whoever was baking that bread.
He wasn't able to spot the artisan in question though, he had to obtain rooms. The dark-haired Celestin woman behind the desk had a much lighter variant of the heavy brogue of her boonies kin.
"Welcome guests, to the Shady Brook Inn. I will be taking care of you now, for however long you stay with us. Rooms are paid daily and include two meals, one of which is being served now. It will be an Eld Drake per night for regular rooms and an Eld Crown for our suites, which include a sitting room. What may your pleasure be this day?" the Hostess asked with the practiced insincere pleasantness of a career in the service industry.
Ulric cleared his throat, not wanting to choke on his own drool from that damned delicious-smelling bread.
"One suite, second floor, if one is available. I'm gonna require a large bathing tub, the mud of my travel clings something fierce." Ulric requested easily, purposefully not including Taipan in his request, as dismissive of her as they had discussed he should be.
"Do these suites include a separate sleeping arrangement for hired hands? I've got business arrangements to be made and I don't need her underfoot all the damned time muttering her curses while I haggle. Matter of fact, I've got a partner coming upriver before it breaks up, and I'd really prefer a servant's quarters for this one anyway." Ulric asked, jerking his thumb backward to indicate the scowling Iriel'en woman behind him.
The Innkeeper's eyes flicked towards Taipan and she frowned a touch, before her empty smile returned, "Of course. For an additional Eld Drake, we'd be glad to house your guide separately. The servant's quarters are on the fourth floor, if that interests."
Ulric agreed readily, as if glad to be parted, "Done and done. Finally, I am free from her endless bitching for a while. Gods above and below if they weren't worth the coin in the wilds I'd never put up with their company." He complained loudly.
That sentiment found more than a couple of nods of agreement from the various tables, Elves included, in the packed common room, much larger than the one in Seinajok's humble inn.
With a raised hand and a snap of fingers, the Innkeeper summoned a young Celestin man in a rough tunic and pants, with a short apron, to escort him to their rooms. Ulric entered the indicated room immediately, without looking back as the door closed, though he burned with the effort. It wasn't that he was necessarily worried about Taipan, she could handle herself just fine. More like this was the part of the whole thing where shit could go wrong in a meaningful way.
He strode to open a window, facing a small alley that ran at a right angle to the one that had brought them to the front door. From there, he dropped his pack on an admittedly comfortable bed, wide and long enough for his feet to not drape over the edge, unlike the one in Seinajok, which had clearly been designed for Elven frames, not his too-tall one.
It was somewhat refreshing being in this city since he wasn't the most obviously tall person within sight. Especially the Beastkin, who tended to be that much taller than him than he was to the Elves, most of whom came up to his chin. Galed Uldin had been the largest Elf Ulric had come across, the Smith was an absolute giant of his folk. Here though, he could much more easily blend into the crowd and move unnoticed by casual observation.
Ulric had barely been able to do a quick examination of the suite's layout, his bedroom, and a large open sitting room before a knock called him to the heavy, wooden door. He opened it to find a slip of an Elven girl, in servant's attire, hauling a great wooden tub that looked way too big for so slight a person to be moving it. He stood free of the doorway and kept his face intentionally still when the attendant easily flipped the tub on its side and rolled it into the room, with the casual ease of thousands of iterations.
As usual, the sort of easy strength of people continued to amaze. That tub might not be so very heavy but it had elicited not even a slight sound to indicate effort in its moving from a rather small lady.
The tub was settled in the sitting room and he was informed that one would be along soon to fill it with hot water. She laid a pouch containing soaps, a small jug that housed something floral, a shampoo? Also included was a washcloth and a scrub brush next to the tub, gestured by the girl briefly before bowing herself out efficiently.
Ulric was left standing there marveling at the level of room service he'd not have expected from a five-star resort back in his old world.
The sound of scrabbling coming from the bedroom drew his attention and he entered just in time to see Taipan rise to her feet, having climbed into the room from the open window. This was why they'd chosen a suite on the second floor of this particular inn. Taipan knew the room layouts, and knew this one could be accessed from the servant's quarters while staying in the relative obscurity of the side alley. If all had gone to order, she was, so far as anyone knew, locked within her room indulging in joyous isolation, as many Iriel'en guides did when they deigned to take scouting jobs from merchants.
All according to keikaku.
They both turned when they heard a shuffle of feet outside the door, and Ulric whispered, "Hide!"
His Shadow called her namesake, her mana shrouding her using the room's dense patches of candle-thrown darkness. She rolled underneath the bed and became still as death as Ulric answered the door as soon as it was knocked upon, as if he'd been alone and expecting the interruption, which was false, and then true.
A third attendant came in, this one wearing much finer attire, and Ulric followed as this one, clearly an Aktinian, of the coastal tribes, began to use a spell to fill the tub with water from his own magic. Then he performed another casting, this one with a set of complex hand gestures that caused the water to begin to emit a gentle steam. The Elf wordlessly bowed himself out, closing the door gently behind himself, and left Ulric standing there next to the tub, alone.
He dipped a finger into the water and found it at that perfect temperature, bordering too hot.
"Well damn my eyes, this place has some serious accommodations going on. A private bath? And magically generated and heated water? Talk about service." He lauded.
Without so much as a how do you do, his Shadow rolled from cover, stripped buck naked, clearly calling "Shotgun!" and climbed into the tub to moan softly as its heat embraced her form.
Ulric wished, sometimes, he'd never taught her about this old-world tradition.
*************Sometime Later that Day*************
The soft sound of grinding and constant motion of pestle against mortar had been most of Ulric's existence for the last hour. While Taipan exercised her victory rights via declaration of dibs, she instructed him in the manufacturing of her disguise. First came the skin-toning concoction.
The already finely ground root, which had become a reddish brown powder, was sat to the side while Ulric processed three herbs together in the large mortar. He was down to an almost talc consistency before the nude woman propped up on the sides of the tub declared his work to be at an end. He listened to her instructions to combine the two powders and to heat them gently over a candle flame until the smell of almonds became detectable.
Ulric passed the stone mortar over the flame, moving it slowly backward and forward to even the heating. Nothing happened for a good few minutes until he was suddenly aware of the deepening fragrance of almonds.
I'll be damned, he thought, hurriedly passing the mortar to Taipan, who had sat up to take the gently smoking mixture and unceremoniously dumped it into the tub with herself. Ulric realized that he probably wouldn't be getting the bath he'd looked forward to when the water turned a soft orange color.
Closing her eyes, Taipan submerged herself for two minutes, and balled up beneath the water before rising to take a fresh breath and repeating. This extended submersion soaking went on for another twenty minutes before she climbed summarily from the tub and Ulric was shocked to see that every square centimeter of his Shadow was paler than himself. Her skin was almost as pale as her brother's, a smooth alabaster expanse. He saw now why she had to remain submerged, her ears and face had to match the tone of her arms and body. Even the skin of her scalp was dyed to pale cream.
He whistled softly, in appreciation of the transformation. And of what had remained unchanged.
Toweling herself dry, his now pale partner sat on the bed.
"Well hot damn." Ulric began, "That actually worked way better than I thought it would when you described your plan. How long does that last?"
Scrubbing her hair aggressively to remove the remnants of the skin treatment her muffled response of "Three weeks, or until my skin peels."
Oh. That did not sound fun.
"We must dispose of this water now Ulric, and do not let it touch you. The dye will turn somewhat toxic once it cools." She informed him.
So that was why she looked like she was being so fastidious about the drying. The used towel was sent soaring across the room to land in a corner, accompanied by a hissed "Do not touch it!", which implied that "somewhat toxic" may have been an understatement. Ulric would burn it outside later, using his sword to pick it up.
The next step in her transformation was just as impressive.
Careless of her nudity the now light-skinned She-Elf put one of the leaves into a cup of water poured from their water jug and had Ulric again steeping it slowly over candle flame while she worked a different set of herbs with the mortar and pestle. When the herbal tea Ulric was holding had turned a deep blue, she decanted the top third of the liquid into the bowl of crushed herbs and instructed him to throw the remains into the bath water that needed disposal.
The paste Taipan stirred until it was thoroughly cooled. At her request, Ulric left the room to obtain the next component of her alchemical miracle, a bottle of blue wine, not the green wine, and this she used to dilute the paste. It got another slow cook over flame and, when it had reduced by half, the small cup of fluid she poured off into a vial stoppered with a dropper.
He saw why after it was cooled.
Carefully, his partner put one drop each into the corners of her slanted eyes and blinked rapidly before holding them closed for a minute, small tears forming. That must not have been pleasant but she made not a noise and, when she opened those wondrous orbs, they were a deep indigo with the bronze flecks strikingly contrasted. The auburn wig went on in a few moments and then his familiar partner of four months stood striking a pose with hands-on flared hips, still in the buff, completely transformed.
Ulric's mouth dropped. This was unreal. She was unrecognizable to anyone who hadn't memorized her bones. Long red-gold hair, pale skin, and dark blue eyes, there was almost nothing to remind of the prototypical Iriel'en.
Taipan grinned, satisfied by her partner's suitable stunned response. She had worked on the skills needed to produce such a transformation for years, learning the herbs, the techniques to process them, and the methods to create a near complete revolution of her appearance in a minimum of time. Her reward was to be now almost a new person in the eyes of strangers.
"Wow." Ulric said, dumbly, "Now that is an impressive trick."
Donning the set of recently purchased local's garb she completed her disguise.
"Thank you, Glade Chief. This is how we are going to leave behind any rumor of our passage. I have enough herbs to do this three more times and, by changing the ratios of them, I can adjust the coloration of my skin from this paleness to a tone more like that of your own hide. The eye drops must be applied daily but I can make another dropper vial to create a lighter cyan. Between these, and the wigs, you will be accompanied by a different Elf in every town, and our trail will vanish over the leagues between." His Shadow rightfully gloated.
Full of surprises was this wily Huntress. He'd been right way back when, Taipan was a bonafide counterintelligence expert.
"Should we do me as well?" He asked.
She nodded her affirmation, "Yes, but not now. You are not as odd a sight as myself and it would be noted if you greatly changed appearance to the staff. I am now your business partner. Your troublesome scout has retired to her quarters and refuses to answer or be found for the forseeable future. It happens that Iriel'en will fulfill the contract and vanish without trace away from such confining cities. None would think anything much of it." the changeling before him declared.
"No," Taipan instructed, "We will adjust your appearance once we have left Trachn'ir where none will have any reference with which to compare you. So long as none see your scars, you are nearly invisible."
Fair enough.
"Alright, this is way beyond what I was expecting. I'm down though, what's next in your master plan?" He prompted, intensely curious.
"Now, I am going to take you out and have you memorize the city streets, as I have memorized them." his pale beauty of a partner promised.
"Damnit." He complained, hanging his head but following her nevertheless as she sauntered out of the room.
The glamorous part was over. Now came the hard work part of being a spy catcher, the intelligence gathering.
For the rest of the day, they canvassed this portion of the city. Starting with ground zero, their inn, they circled outwards in a tight spiral, with his Shadow insisting he memorized every single entry and exit point of every single path a man could take. When he failed to remember one she took a coin from his purse. It was a purely psychological game, they both knew she could use whatever she wanted from the purse, it was the act of losing something though that gave the lessons teeth. When Ulric mapped an entire district from memory, Taipan gave him a coin back. It was a bizarrely effective method of learning the lay of the city streets.
That night, Ulric claimed one of the three owed forfeits. It was incredibly odd seeing his pale Shadow dance in the moonlight, so familiar silhouette moving through familiar movements, the long wig feathering in turns as they stepped through the imagined music of a dead world's waltzes.
