Chapter 380: Beggar Network

Sage’s private office on the second floor of the Adventurer Guild Hall had become considerably more crowded over the past few months, though not because he had suddenly developed a taste for decoration.

Maps covered one side of the room, several shelves were packed with reports from the growing Guild branches, and his desk had almost disappeared beneath stacks of documents that Lyana insisted needed his signature.

At the moment, however, most of those documents had been pushed aside to make room for a large map of the Evergreen Region, its major cities, towns, roads, rivers, and surrounding territories carefully marked in dark ink.

Small wooden pieces rested over several locations, some clustered around Greyvale while others stretched toward Riverdale City, Stonebridge City, Silvercrest City, and settlements Sage barely remembered hearing about.

Standing on the opposite side of the desk was Pax, looking almost exactly as Sage remembered him despite the months that had passed, though there was something different in the young man’s posture now.

The uncertainty he once carried had faded. He stood straight, hands behind his back, and when Sage looked at the growing number of markers scattered across the map before raising his eyes toward him, Pax met his gaze without hesitation.

"So," Sage began as he leaned back in his chair, adjusting his gold-rimmed glasses before looking once more at the map, "you asked for a private meeting because apparently the little information network I told you to build has stopped being little. Considering how many marks you’ve put on my map, I’m starting to suspect you’ve been much busier than your reports suggested."

Pax’s lips twitched slightly. "You told me not to send detailed written reports unless something required your immediate attention. You said an intelligence organization that constantly writes down everything it knows is eventually going to give someone else a very convenient intelligence organization."

Sage paused before slowly nodding. "That does sound like something I would say."

"You said it three times."

"Then it was probably important."

Pax ignored the shameless response and reached toward the map, placing one finger over Greyvale. "We started here, just as you instructed. At first, there were only a few people willing to work with us, mostly beggars who already knew one another and could recognize unfamiliar faces around the streets. Once we began paying consistently for useful information, word spread. Not publicly, of course. One person introduced another, that person knew someone in another district, and eventually we had enough people that keeping everyone directly connected to me became impossible."

Sage’s amused expression gradually faded as he listened. When he had originally given Pax the task, his reasoning had been simple. Nobles watched other nobles. Merchants watched competitors.

Guards watched criminals. Yet almost nobody watched the people sitting beside alleys with empty bowls or sleeping beneath market awnings.

Beggars occupied the streets from sunrise until nightfall and saw far more than most people realized, while being treated as part of the scenery by those who believed themselves important.

Sage had thought it would make a useful foundation for an information network. He had not expected Pax to turn that foundation into something covering half the region so quickly.

Pax moved his finger eastward across the map. "Greyvale is completely covered now. Riverdale City has a stable network, and Stonebridge City has grown considerably during the past month. Silvercrest City was slower because the local guards regularly remove beggars from the wealthier districts, but we adjusted by placing more people around markets, carriage stations, taverns, and the roads entering the city. We also have people operating in smaller towns between the major cities, especially settlements along trade routes. There are even several villages where we don’t maintain permanent members, but someone passing through knows who to contact if something unusual happens."

Sage looked over the markers again, this time understanding what each represented. "How many people are we talking about?"

"Enough that I stopped thinking of them as one group several weeks ago," Pax admitted. "The number changes constantly. Some people work with us once and disappear. Others become regular sources. A smaller number are dependable enough to be given actual responsibilities. The network grows almost every day because there is no shortage of people living on the streets, and most of them don’t need much convincing once they realize we’re paying for information rather than asking them to steal or fight."

That made Sage smile faintly. It was precisely why he had chosen this method. Training professional spies from nothing would have required enormous amounts of money and time, while infiltrating established noble households would have been dangerous before the Guild possessed the resources to protect its people.

Beggars already existed everywhere. More importantly, they occupied places professional spies often struggled to enter naturally.

A beggar could sit outside a tavern for six hours without anyone wondering why he was there.

He could watch carriages entering a noble estate, hear merchants arguing in the market, notice unfamiliar mercenaries arriving in a city, and disappear into another street without anyone remembering his face.

"So how are you controlling something this spread out?" Sage asked. "If every beggar who hears an interesting rumor comes running directly to you, you’re going to die from paperwork before an assassin ever gets the chance."

"I realized that early." Pax reached into his coat and placed a folded sheet beside the map. "I divided everyone by function. The names aren’t official yet because I wanted the structure working before wasting time making it sound impressive."

Sage unfolded the sheet.

Pax pointed toward the first section. "Street Eyes form the largest group. They’re ordinary observers. Most are beggars, homeless children, crippled veterans, street vendors, or people who spend most of their days outside. They aren’t trained to investigate anything dangerous. They watch, remember, and report. If a noble carriage begins visiting a building every night, they notice. If unfamiliar mercenaries enter the city carrying weapons from another region, they notice. If guards suddenly start gathering around one district, they report it rather than trying to discover why themselves."

"Good," Sage said immediately. "I don’t want someone getting stabbed because he became curious about the wrong carriage."

"That was my thinking as well. Above them are Runners. They move information between locations and make sure most Street Eyes never need to know who is actually managing the network. Some Runners handle written messages, but we’ve started relying more on verbal codes for sensitive information."