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Through your normal contacts, a short letter is passed off to you. It comes in an unadorned dark envelope sealed with the wax mark of a house. Within, on solid cream-colored paper, is the following:
Dear Ms. Hobbes,
Your name comes well recommended. I am planning a rather large job and wish to secure assurances that items acquired by those in my employ are indeed the articles I seek. Discretion is of utmost importance. I can pay well, in various forms. I hope I have piqued your interest. If that is indeed so, meet me in the confessional of Saint Victoria’s early on Sunday before services.
Sincerely,
A.
Follow-up
I’m assuming for the next section that you’ll go along with the proposal and meet “A”.
Saint Victoria’s Church occupies much of a small hill in Wileden. It forms a strange juxtaposition of calm against the industrial bustle just outside its grounds. The graveyard now sits in the shadow of Indigo Station and the rumbling of the passing trains is noticeable even inside the nave.
Sunday services begin early. To make your appointment you are forced to take your morning tea in predawn light. The streets are mostly empty at this hour, but you can hear the great machines around you being woken to their tasks. The church is offering breakfast, so you’re greeted by a small pack of parishioners taking their meal. The halls smell of bread yeast.
Pleasant non-specific utterances allow you to gracefully detach yourself and find the confessional. Its oak walls are incredibly solid, despite likely having been in this same spot since you were in diapers. From outside you can see the priest’s room is occupied—its door barred.
Taking the position of the penitent, you make your presence known. A figure stirs in the darkness of the far side. The smell of citrus oil hits you abruptly, underscored with the wisp of something rotten. A Teutarch-accented voice speaks up in a hoarse whisper:
Welcome… and thank you for coming. Forgive this old man for an early morning: many plans converge here and I find myself over-scheduled. I am… facilitating… a large job that I hope will occur in the coming days. Timing is still settl—I ramble, apologize.
To the core of the matter. This job has many layers. At its core are a number of artifacts, to be added to the collection at the Museum of Heavenly Pursuits. They are stolen, and they do not belong there. I must have someone close to the job that can ensure the provenance of what is taken. I hope this to be you. Your skill set is rare, and with you age I trust your instincts more than many.
The job itself pays well, and I wish you to involve yourself normally. Keep your extra role in this to yourself until the time is right. I will pay you extra on the top. I have left word with a number of contacts around town to recruit for this. A number of groups are needed: casing, distraction, acquisition, and extraction. You must at the very least get on the acquisition crew. They will be the first to handle the artifacts. I suspect some may be counterfeits or forgeries and must be discarded. The extraction team will do better the lighter there load, so it will be up to you to narrow the field.
To get involved, the first groups are meeting each other at the opening ceremony tomorrow, in All Saints Plaza. A tour group lead there will be flying a blue banner of a rooster. Join that group as if you were following it about town. They will take you in.
He takes a moment to cough wetly. It does not sound totally voluntary.
I assume you trust Carys? I shall leave materials with her midweek for you to study. An advance will be included with them.