Spies are the most simplistic method to gain information from one who may regard you an enemy. Their art is no easy feat to learn and to master it would mean such agility that i would no longer possess, but it is wise to have an understanding of the school's foundations.
You first learn that shadows are only perfect blackness, in complete darkness and remains in this form only for a minute. Eyes adjust from black to shades of grey. In the blackness, reds and yellows, even the brightest colours cannot be seen, but as soon as eyes begin to settle, they become immediately noticeable, black itself acts the same, in pure darkness it cannot be seen, but once settled, black stands out from the grey. We learn that as desirable black is, grey is our safe option when deciding our wears.
Our next lesson is on noise, conversations within the walls of a busy inn become blended with rowdy crowds to easily, we learn to focus our ears upon a target, our goal is to listen and not be seen, so it is best to ensure you cannot see them in return. Buildings mostly made of timber have knot holes, easy enough if you can find one but in there absence, we must listen and wait, the most secret of details are taken into private rooms which makes better for us to spot and listen.
After this our teachings regard trickery, one i failed to recall when first faced with Mae which means it is of the up most importance, have prepared several reasonings to why you are where you are. Ensure an exit is there before you enter any place, be sure that you know to guise yourself and can tell stories of a false life if ever approached. Simple tricks that grant you passage in or out of almost everything condition. Any further teaching are most likely to cover the art of an assassin, a spies natural progression.
All this i used over months of watching Esclyn, as greater a subject as one could hope to master skills of a spy. I learnt her web of lies, her power to seduce and gain what she wanted through intimate touches. I learnt she did not act alone, others constantly nearby and a learnt of something greater than I had invested hope. She was indeed one of the bandits, or brigands as I had heard of, but not in the common form of highwaymen or robbers, this was far to organised to conclude such a thing. She belonged to a circle, this unnamed gathering that had complete control throughout the underbelly of Bree, had guardsmen looking the other way while they tossed their enemies from the top of waterfalls, while they took shares from the innocent caravan who knew not what he was taxed for. They had spies, blades, assassins and brutes and the bree folk all in fear of them, they muttered a name so few times it was almost as if they didn't exist, 'Avasa' I would hear.
Your next lesson is by far the most important. Time spent on a subject, is there time spent learning of you. Spies quite easily smell there own and when you watch a subject who in turn is being watched by another, they have the greatest chance to spot you. I had been discovered, but I wished to learn more of them, confident at this time, I was not there enemy.
Several weeks passed and where I could spare it, I would track members of this circle. Otherwise I had began to intercept contracts of my own, perhaps intended for Esclyn and her circle but I made them my own, missions of spying and such, attack a target and mean them harm so the blame had fallen on a particular, many many contract began to come my way and I earned enough to have my own residence in Bree, a neighbourhood I learnt that harbours the barracks of this circle became my ideal location.
