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He was dozing lightly, head resting against his bent knees, when the barest scrape and click from the door indicated someone had unlocked it.

Karl froze in place, taking slow, shallow breaths so he didn’t make any noise.

The door bounced off the waiting shoe and a muffled curse followed, and then the shape of a person’s head appeared in the narrow opening as a dim outline in the darkened room.

“His damned shoes are in the way,” a woman’s voice whispered in a low hiss to someone else in the hallway. She sounded like the proprietress Karl had spoken to when he checked in.

“Then he’s probably still there,” a man’s voice whispered back.

“He’s lying right there, dead to the world. It stinks of human in here too. I’m gonna need hours tomorrow to scrub out the stench from those blankets.” The door clicked shut before the man responded, and muffled footsteps outside the door indicated they’d left.

Karl grinned. His subterfuge had worked. The shoes kept them from actually entering the room, and his smell and the lump in the bed was enough to convince them he was drugged for the night. Now all Karl needed to do was evade anyone watching outside.

Another two hours crept by as he waited, dozing and trying not to make any noise.

At approximately midnight, Karl finally stood and stretched, pushing his arms over his head until his shoulders cracked and the accumulated tension in his spine relaxed.

By this point, any watching guards would have reached a stage of complacency when their mind was more focused on the nearing end of their shift than on the actual job.

Still, Karl needed to be extremely cautious.

Yarokians were some of the most suspicious and untrusting people on the continent, so the end-of-shift complacency Karl was used to in Toval might be significantly more relaxed than Yaroi’s version.

Karl slowly opened the door to his bedroom and paused, listening at the jamb for any telltale rustle indicating someone had shifted in response.

He didn’t hear anything, so he opened the door the width his shoe allowed and peeked carefully into the hallway.

Still nothing. Karl let out a silent breath of relief before squeezing his body through the narrow opening, glad he was on the smaller side.

If he had to guess, Karl would say the proprietress had gone to bed for the night.

The man with her for the earlier searches was likely either downstairs by the front desk where he could listen for any creaks or footsteps, or was outside watching the windows for movement within the rooms belonging to travelers like Karl.

Of course, they could also assume after that check-in that the drugs were working and no one was actually watching Karl anymore, but this was Yaroi and it paid to be cautious when any Yarokian was involved.

Karl locked his door and started walking, placing his feet slowly and carefully to avoid the floorboards creaking.

Loud snores emanated through the closed door of the room next to Karl’s, so he kept moving.

The next room along the even side of the hall was the one Karl had tested his key in.

He pressed his ear to the wood, listening for any sign someone was inside and awake.

Hearing nothing, Karl very carefully slid his key into the lock and turned, only the faintest click audible.

Karl pushed the door open only a crack, listening hard, and still didn’t hear anything.

He let himself inside and quietly closed the door behind him, relocking it before turning to survey the room.

The bed was bare, stripped down to the mattress with no sign of blankets or pillows, and the rest of the room equally empty.

Karl let out a relieved breath and moved over to the window.

The shade was down, but Karl could still peek outside through where the edges didn’t meet the window frame.

A glance was all he needed to understand why this room wasn’t in use.

If the rooms in this inn were primarily to keep track of travelers as they transited through Yaroi, this particular room wasn’t situated in such a way to facilitate that.

The roof of the entryway below partially blocked the view of the window, and a tree growing in the neighbor’s yard had stretched branches between the building, blocking the rest.

Not about to ignore a gift like this one, Karl quickly unhooked the lock on the window and carefully slid it up.

He left the shade down, slipping beneath as he climbed outside.

Karl only hung from the sill long enough to slide the window down again, before using the entry roof and a convenient tree limb to make his way to the ground where he immediately ducked into the shadows cast by the building in the scant moonlight from the waxing crescent.

The air was brisk with the last vestiges of winter, and Karl started walking so the movement could warm him up.

The palace loomed large overhead, a beacon for Karl to follow as he dashed from shadow to shadow, making his way down the streets and closer to whichever palace courtyard Ama was located near.

After about forty minutes of slinking around, Karl arrived at what appeared to be an open-air market.

All the stalls were shuttered for the night, the space as quiet as the rest of the city.

Eerily quiet. In Etoval, the markets never fully shut down for the night.

Many stalls did close, but some shifted to accommodate a different sort of clientele.

Other shops simply had evening or night clerks, rather than closing.

Mage lights kept the areas well-lit, and the guard patrolled regularly.

Here, there wasn’t even a breeze off the ocean to cut the oppressive silence, the surrounding buildings too tall in the winding streets to allow for even that much relief.

Only the pervasive stench from old manure and human sweat indicated the market had ever been alive.

The market might be eerie, but it provided an opportunity Karl wasn’t about to pass up.

He wandered around from stall to stall, sticking to the shadows in case a guard might be patrolling while still spreading his trackable scent all over the market.

His scent might be newer than the previous day’s stench, but if the manure and sweat was strong enough for Karl’s human nose to smell, the stronger noses of the Yarokai would be overwhelmed.

Finding Karl’s scent amid that would be very difficult, especially when the market reopened in the morning and fresh manure and sweat were added to the mix.

As Karl meandered, he slowly and carefully called on his magic.

Body sweat was easy to rot, already partially decomposed the moment it touched air.

As Karl walked, he focused his magic on his body’s sweat.

Every step increased the growing putrid stench of a rotten flesh, until his own scent was completely subsumed.

Karl swallowed back a gag, breathing shallowly through his mouth as he fought the urge to plug his nose.

He wandered through the market for another ten minutes, crisscrossing his previous path to help obfuscate any potential link someone might make between his two scents.

Only once Karl felt he had done everything possible, did he return to his goal of finding one courtyard around a massive palace, sliding between shadows as he snuck down the streets ever closer to the looming palace ahead.

Another half hour of walking brought him to the outer wall, built of thick stone blocks with no attempts to coat or seal it.

Karl could scale the wall easily if he wanted.

For a safety-obsessed city, that was odd and was therefore probably a trap.

Karl bared his teeth at the wall, unwilling to get caught in such an obvious ploy, then looked around to see what his other options were.

To Karl’s right he found a brightly lit area, probably the main gates, he assumed.

Better for him to avoid that area too. Instead, Karl went left, sticking to the shadows as he followed the wall, hoping he would find an unmanned gate where he could jimmy the lock.

The last thing Karl expected to find was an abrupt end to the wall.

The last stone blocks suddenly stopped, revealing a garden with crushed stone paths and carefully maintained dormant flower beds.

The only colors visible were from small evergreen bushes carefully pruned back for winter.

This far north, the first bulbs hadn’t started peeking out from the earth yet, but back home in Etoval the first green stems would be appearing.

He couldn’t wait to get home again, but first he had to finish this mission.

Karl remained where he was for a few long moments, crouched in the last bit of darkness cast by the wall and staring out into the open space of the garden for any hint of movement.

He saw nothing, not even a decent patch of shadow where someone could be hiding.

This had to be another trap, though, same as the wall.

Etoval was a very safe city with relatively low crime, yet the royal palace was fully enclosed by a protective wall.

It made zero sense that Yaroi wouldn’t have the same.

Still, this was too good of an opportunity to pass up.