Chapter 8 - The wrong kind of raid
"Is this really necessary?" Kat asked from the side, the woman pulling at the mask that covered the lower part of her face. Scarlett glanced at the B-ranked member of the Shields Guild. In addition to the mask, the woman was also wearing a black hood that covered the rest of her head so that only most of her eyes were visible.
"No, it is not," Scarlett said before she turned her attention back to the building they were observing across the pier. They hadn't arrived yet. "But I believe it will make parts of this easier. Both for you and for me," she continued after a moment.
"If you say so." Kat moved up next to Scarlett. She seemed to have stopped fidgeting with her mask. "When were these guys supposed to appear?"
"Uncertain. Sometime in the evening." It was already beginning to grow dark and much of the activity in Freybrook's harbor area had started dying down. Scarlett had honestly expected them to arrive much earlier. She didn't like waiting around in open places like this for extended periods of time. Neither she nor the Scarlett part of her.
"While I'm a bit late in pointing it out, wouldn't it have been easier to just alert the guards? Or work together with the Guild. Though I'm technically allowed to perform arrests, I'm not really supposed to accept jobs like this by myself."
Scarlett wanted to shake her head and sigh but her impulses stopped her from blatantly showcasing her frustration outwardly like that.
She would have loved it if all she had to do to solve this situation was to sic the guards on these people. But that would most likely mean implicating herself in the process. Instead she could only hope to solve this swiftly and by herself. Well, and with Kat's help. She was lucky the Shielder appeared to be rather lax when it came to rules.
"That would not lead to good results for either party," she eventually said. "We want the people responsible, not merely their subordinates. And unfortunately the news of this came too suddenly to organize a larger response."
The Shielder seemed to accept that excuse for now as she leaned back against the wall of the nearby building. They were currently staying out of sight between two warehouses not too far away from their target and that appeared to be vacated for now.
Scarlett kept quiet as they waited. Half an hour passed, where they watched the people that were still around the harbor perform their last activities for the day before leaving the area. Then a new group of people finally arrived. There were over a dozen and ahead of them they were pushing wagons stacked with large wooden crates. The group crossed the bay area close to Scarlett and Kat before eventually stopping in front of a large building with a stone base and wooden walls. One of the men from the group opened a pair of large doors at the side of the building before the rest of them pushed the wagons inside. Scarlett had already confirmed that this was the aforementioned 'Warehouse 37'. Many of the buildings in this area of Freybrook's harbor were designated warehouses owned by the count who was the local authority around here. The warehouses were then rented out to different organizations. Supposedly there were inspections performed on these warehouses to detect any illegal activities every night, but Scarlett knew such things weren't always airtight.
"That them?" Kat asked as they watched a pair of burly men close the warehouse gates and stand guard outside the building.
"It is," Scarlett replied. Her voice came out colder than usual.