"Welcome to the Warrens of Mice and Men," the Queen declared, formally recognizing Shay's entrance into the organization. "I am truly glad that you have joined us, and you will soon see in the weeks to come that you have not chosen wrong. Now, there is one who can answer the detailed questions of your work better than I. Beletheep!"<br/><br/>"Your majesty," Beletheep announced in a low, pleasant baritone from the entrance to the throne room, behind Shay. He was a ratfolk, with graying fur that clumped together naturally making him look perpetually as though he had just swum out of the sea. He wore a threadbare white vest and a pair of frayed pants cut off around the calves, with no shoes on his clawed feet.<br/><br/>Beletheep approached Shay, carrying himself with more than a bit of swagger despite having a pronounced limp in his right leg, and bent down to kiss her hand like a gentleman. "And you must be...?"<br/><br/>"Beletheep will be your contact. Information, supplies, a fence, anything you need, he can provide or he knows a friend who does. Good luck, Titania." The light behind the paper panel vanished, and with it the Queen's shadow cast upon it. Shay had obviously been dismissed.<br/><br/>"An honour to meet you, Titania. Shall we continue this discussion somewhere a tad less stuffy?" He straightened himself with a wink.<br/><br/><hr/><br/>Beletheep led Shay through the tunnels and back to the surface. It turned out his idea of somewhere less stuffy was a bar of questionable reputation, the<em>Bloated Whaler</em>, in the Sailor's Ghetto. Like many others of its kind, it was filled with sailors on shore leave pissing away their wages on weak ale, cheap whores, and loaded dice. Beletheep strode through the place like he owned it, guiding Shay through the carousing to a small table for two at the back.<br/><br/>"The deck of a lady and the bowels of a drinkhouse, the only two places where an old sailor like me can truly feel at home," the ratfolk sighed, kicking his feet up on the table. He must be a regular patron, because a busty wench dropped off a pair of frothy mugs on the table without needing to be told. The beverage was cold and refreshing, unlike the swill being served out front. "I used to be a privateer, believe it... never was there a scourge upon the waves like me, and never will there be again," he continued after taking a deep draught. He rolled up the pant of his bad leg, showing a long deep scar that ran down the length of his hamstring. "Then I was forced into early retirement, and I would have spent the latter half of my life at the bottom of a bottle, if her majesty hadn't given me a new calling. Now I'm a bit of everything: handler, contact, supplier, fence, broker... whatever you need, come see me and I'll hook you up."<br/><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Lady Keslie Huninghorn's estate</div><div class="spoiler_body">"Here's her address," Beletheep passed Shay the location of the estate in the Civic Quarter, "It's a typical ancestral estate in the city center - smallish mansion with multiple floors, build up if you don't have space to build wide, you see - a strip of garden not a stone's throw wide surrounding it, and then a high wall around the whole affair."</div></div><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Trade Council</div><div class="spoiler_body">"I looked into that lead and it doesn't look like it goes anywhere. Huninghorn never shows up to council meetings except on voting days, and then only if she has to make a veto. It's clear as a humpback's blow that somebody's telling her how to vote, but there's no way to stop her. Legally, I mean."</div></div><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Fence and Broker</div><div class="spoiler_body">"You come across anything you think will fetch a pretty penny while you're working, you can bring it to me. You try to hawk it at a merchant, and you'll be lucky to get half of what it's worth, and gods help you if they catch wind that it used to belong to someone else. But if you bring it to me, I can give you a full seventy-five percent, and that's with all the fees, guild's cuts, and whatnot baked in so you don't have to worry about a copper in extra charges. And if you find yourself needing some exotic tools that you can't just up and buy at the store to carry out your mission, I can hook you up with the good stuff for a discount too."<br/><br/>"Same goes for information - you can'd hold it in your hand but it's just as real. In honour of her majesty, I won't charge you for anything related to her jobs, but everything else is fair game."<br/><br/>"If you happen to go poking around Huninghorn's estate, keep an eye out for the iridescent coral statue she's rumoured to have. It's supposedly an ancestral treasure that's never to be sold even in dire straits. I've got a buyer who's willing to pay very good gold for it. You might need to find a way to shrink it to carry it out though."</div></div><br/><br/><div class="spoiler_container"><div class="spoiler_header" onclick="hideSecond (this);" role="button">Sewers</div><div class="spoiler_body">"You can use the sewers under the Sailor's Ghetto and the Trade Quarter to get around and bypass the curfew, that's our turf so you'll be safe there. Can't say the same for the rest of the city though, the sewers tend to attract monsters that thrive in the filth and damp and dark... and definitely stay away from the Civic Quarter's sewers, lots of Knobs running around down there, must be their base or something."</div></div><br/><br/>"If there's anything else you wish to know, just ask away, I'll be right here if you need me."