Over the wall you go. Normally there would be vigilant guards peering from the gatehouse towers, ready to catch any such brazen attempt, but unfortunately they're all downstairs, making sure that they have numerical parity with the corsairs. You hear the shouting grow more strident and hostile shortly after you touch the ground again, and can hear Kaylen shouting back, with a note of real fear in her voice, as she tries to press through the mob. On this side of the wall is a fantastical garden, covered with shimmering and iridescent flora from all across the column, sculpted and magically twisted into living works of art. More importantly, there is cover here, at least from anyone on your level. The Ruby Palace itself rears up behind, a spray of slender towers, connected to each other at apparently random places by arcing interior bridges. The building itself seems to be constructed, at least on the outside, of some kind of translucent red stone. Not actually ruby; it's easy enough to tell the difference when you get close, but still otherworldly, ostentatious, and undoubtedly impressive.

Although you're unlikely ot be spotted by others walking the gardens, you'd be in clear view of anyone watching from the towers themselves. Though if they didn't witness your flight over the walls, you'd be anonnymous rasuls to them.

After several tense minutes, Kaylen stumbles into view, a look of real outrage on her face. "The actual fuck." She gestures to the arm of her robe, which is now halfway to falling off, the stitches badly torn. "Okay, so I set this up, karma, I get it. But as far as they know, I'm just a fucking messenger. That lord actually tried to grab me up, and now my robe looks like this." She sighs. "Oh well. If anyone asks, I can just tell them the truth, more or less." She tries to find a way to disguise the tear, but it isn't happening. Eventually she gives up. "They are furious. I'm starting to worry that I ACTUALLY started a war."

you can hear them well before you see them. They're obviously trying to be quiet, but the alchohol has made that effort less than effective. Their laughter, and the occasional sound of their romp makes it obvious that the guards are doing something, but not their job.

As predicted, a terrified pause signals the couple's sudden awareness of your presence. Both of them scramble to their feet, desperately grasping at hanging bits of metal and leather that had been previously discarded. The woman seems to be a little calmer than her counterpart, and calls out in her best attempt at pretending that everything is normal. "The Ruby Palace... The palace... It asks your porpoise." The man is still trying to strap armor back on.

The infiltration seems almost absurdly easy. The residence of possibly the richest person in the world, and the biggest obstacle so far has been a pair of drunken, amorous guards. The Ruby Palace should be bristling with wards and defenses, but here you are, skipping through its passages as though you had every right to be there. You genuinely don't sense any danger here... and it's obvious that this shouldn't be the case. Fallen simply marches you up to the room, and solemnly nods. "And here we arrive, only to find the room locked! Oh, a tragedy! Except that your good friend and neighbor happens to be THE best lockpickeryier in the city." He stands in front of the door, a baroque confection of precious metals inlaid on unyielding steel, rubs his hands together over the lock, and then takes a matching key out of his pocket, which he uses to unlock the door. "Taaaa daaaaa! Greatest lockpickeryier of all time."

At the far end of the room, at the apparent hidden entrance to the smaller chamber, is a dense nexus of hostile magic. It seems unlikely that you would have found it on your own, but Kaylen guides you towards it. It feels like the sharp edges of a set of fangs, ready to snap shut on anyone who would dare to open the door, like dozens of knives waiting to to fall upon any intruders... but there are no intruders. The spell is sure of it. There cannot be any intruders here. It's simply impossible.

The door opens without issue. On the other side is a smaller room, lit by a trio of bright sparks hanging in the air. The walls are covered in scrolls and folios and letters, sometimes in rows, sometimes in stacks, sometimes in piles. Among them are a great number of shabby, hand-bound volumes, marked with dates in a slashing hand upon the covers.

Many of the documents seem to be of a personal nature... correspondence with actual friends, and with a number of illegitimate children. There are also huge numbers of diary entries which contain everything from complex intellectual musings on the nature of rulership to a ranked list of berry jams. However, your attention is quickly drawn to a tightly bound stack of letters written on tough parchment, the kind designed to be carried in the open for perhaps months without falling apart or allowing the ink to fade. Each folded letter is marked, not with a wax seal, but with a brand, depicting a nine pointed star, the wavering spokes of which end in the heads of fanged serpents.

The letter opens, and while nothing terrible occurs, you immediately feel a powerful sense of *weight,* as if the words on the page are solid, and everything else an illusion. The stolid, harsh lines of infernal script stands out on the page, punctuated in places with another language, like jagged lightning rending the pages apart.