OOC: Tags to
@Cinnabar
A man by the name Crampas was about as old as dirt, and perhaps as faithful as it, but he was also as muted, too. He himself, was unassuming in nature, being a man with a peg leg and a bad back, weighing barely over 50 lbs and adorning a long, wispy white beard. There was more hair on his chin than growing on his bald head, which was wrinkled and well speckled with spots from age.
Clearly Crampas was too old for anything conniving, and that's exactly what made the 70 year old quite valuable to the Blood Wardens. Although the man suffered on occasional boughts of dementia, his heart was true, as was most of his information. Crampas had sons, and his sons had sons, and many of his family was well rooted into the military. He himself, had once been a great military leader of his past, but arthritic hands lamed any chances of him ever lifting a sword in the name of the crown.
But if the old man could spit on the Grand Duke, he certainly would! He follow Ansgarism to the 'A', regarding mages with pity, not fear- especially since he himself had sired many generations of mages as well! He himself, was no mage, but to see his granddaughters shipped off so mercilessly left little love towards the current Grand Duke- too bad no body ever paid much attention to the old man's angry prattles.
One man had, however, as James Cullen couldn't have even fathomed the benefit of the relationship forming from nearly a year ago. Now it seemed Crampas almost saw James like a son, and was using his own family as a means to leak knowledge back to the Blood Wardens-
And also, apparently, to The Red Legion as well.
Being so old, Crampas couldn't remember one rebel from the other, and hadn't realized that when he associated with a young lady named Maddison, that her rebel team wasn't the same as James Cullen's rebel association, and was trying to plan to meet the pair for a drop off of knowledge. Most precisely, he had a satchel
full of letters, all of which held at least some amount of military intel. They were mostly discarded letters from soldiers writing home that just 'never made it' to their final destination. But even Crampas was well enough aware of what some of the letters held in value.
Had the old man's feeble mind been not so well known, Cullen may have caught on that the drop off was
actually meant for another- and a woman, no doubt. But he blamed the inconsistencies on the man's failing mind, and chose to meet him out on Lake Athervann to collect these military letters. He just hoped Crampas would remember to come.
He was trusting Crampas's grandson, a potential new recruit into the blood wardens, but the boy was a bit too young for even Cullen to bring on board without guilt. So this was simply seen as a test. The young boy named Jent would bring old man Crampas out onto the lake. Row boats weren't too uncommon and in fact, were out on the lake quite a plenty that day. But the sun was setting and casting the lake over in a mild rainbow of orange shades that was too pretty to ignore.
Cullen had been admiring the view, coming quite early out on the water, that he wasn't entirely worried if the old man showed up or not. They both agreed to meet precisely in the middle of hte lake, and with the waning hours of daylight, all other row boats began to make their way towards shore. Sure, other fishermen who believed night fishing was the best time would be beginning to make their way across the great lake soon, but Cullen wasn't catching a bite. perhaps he should have tried some better means at fishing than a simple rod and no bait, but he wasn't really out on the water for this sort of a catch. And he was glad not too many were, either.
He'd worry for being the only boat out there as the stars were beginning to freckle the skies as the sun was closing it's eyes for the night, except he did see one other row boat making it's way and smirked. Looks like Crampas hadn't fallen asleep and Jent had gotten the old man out at such an hour. Hopefully no one would question it, but then again, if one knew Crampas, the old man held odd habits for one so old.
However, the closer the boat got to where his was bobbing upon the waters he began to realize it wasn't Crampas at all- and no other rowboats were even beginning to come his way. And as the boat neared, he saw it was a woman-
By herself.
And also seeming to scan the waters for something...
Or was it someone?
Cullen had been wearing a tricornered hat, which he lowered a bit on his head. Yes... the boat was definitely heading his way..... but why?
The woman was close enough for him to make eye contact as he tipped his hat to her, soft white wisps of smoke puffing up from his pipe.
"Lovely evening for a fish," he told her, giving a smirk behind his pipe.