Rosellina sighed, pushing a pile of paperwork aside on her desk and reaching over to her 'in' bin to process some more shipment manifests. She'd spent most of the morning catching up with her duties at Blackleaf in an attempt to keep her cover story solid. Faleseth had not really intruded on her operations so far, and as long as Rosellina continued to produce an adequate amount of work she suspected the reclusive Highborne witch would leave her to her work.
Just as she had completed another form and was ready to dig into the pile again, a shadow fell over her desk. She looked up to see a man standing there, a sealed folder in hand. He flashed an intricate hand signal that only an SI:7 operative would know, and Rosellina nodded at him and gave him the reply signal. He placed the folder on her desk and walked out of the Blackleaf offices, not saying a word.
Rosellina smiled, taking the folder and tearing open the seal. She pushed her work to the side for a moment, leaning back in her chair as she pulled the documents she'd requested out. After returning to Stormwind via a portal, she had decided to approach her assignment from a different angle. Braeth'el had the weapons and the information she needed, and running across the desert sands in a random direction was not the way to find him. It had also allowed her to spend some time in the city furthering the development of her network of contacts while she awaited the information she'd requested.
There were two files in the folder, the first sealed with a black 'confidential' label and the second a less critical file that had no seal and no classification codes. Rosellina took the sealed document up first, tearing the seal and quickly beginning to page through the file. She slipped her sandals off and put her feet up on the desk in front of her, as if perusing a fashion magazine or paper. Anyone looking in would have thought nothing of it other than perhaps that the Blackleaf offices had some lazy clerks working for them.
The file was on Braeth'el, or as close to being about Braeth'el as an intelligence file could be. He was an unknown, his record and his duties concealed in myriad layers of secret documents and of course the divide between Horde and Alliance. Despite this, it was possible to piece together a few clues about the elf, or at least about his intelligence network, and Rosellina had requested that SI:7's archives provide her with a summary report.
To say it was sparse was an understatement. Here there was a report of a Quel'dorei turning out to be a Sin'dorei and making off with blueprints for an airship. There was a report of a campaign commander's map being exchanged with a false one during the Northrend Campaign, redirecting an entire Alliance company into a impassible canyon and oncoming blizzard. The other reports were of similar sabotage, thefts, or information leaks that were suspected of being applicable to the particular spy that Rosellina was interested in. None of them were concrete of course, but wherever the alleged spy was spotted he had matched the meticulous description that Rosellina had provided of the blood elf.
She blushed for a moment as she thought about how easily she could recall his features. He certainly had made an impression, even if he was an enemy. It was a dangerous game to interact with enemy agents in such a fashion and Rosellina knew that she walked a thin line. A false move would result in her letting down her guard as she had at the bandit camp, resulting in disaster.
The thought of the bandit camp made Rosellina sigh and shake her head in disgust. She set the report down, rubbing her temples as she recalled the revelations of the past few days. Her father was a bandit. He was nothing more than a murderous desert raider and likely in collusion with pirates. What he did with his life didn't matter all that much to Rosellina since she had grown up with her own moral code, but what he had done to her mother was a mystery that she wished to solve. It nagged at her mind even as she tried to sort through the case in front of her.
"That is one investigation that will have to wait," she murmured. She had to work on the weapons first, and private research when she was free to do so. Duty demanded it, and it would take a long time to piece together the past anyway.
She reached for the second folder, putting the Braeth'el file aside for a moment. This one had been easily obtained and contained reports not only from SI:7, but from other Alliance organizations and even the military. It was a complete, detailed history about the actions of the Sin'dorei noble house of Sunfire, formerly known as House Dayfire. Rosellina's eyes widened as she studied the information in the file, noting the lengthy history of the two co-rulers of the House and the endless war they seemed to wage against...well...everyone. A constant threat to the Alliance, the two sisters had apparently engaged in many battles across both continents before disaster struck them and left them fighting politically and sometimes physically with other houses in Quel'Thalas. To say that the two were a major threat to Alliance security was an understatement.
"Your mistresses are not the nicest of people Braeth'el," Rosellina murmured as she flipped through page after page of detailed reports about the two Sin'dorei. "I would say that SI:7 can be the same at times, but not like...this. How do you sleep at night my rival? At least when I am done with my duty, I know I've done the right thing and that my blade is only drawn in the most dire of circumstances."
As Rosellina neared the end of the report, she discovered some rather interesting facts about the Sunfire sisters. Although the two were aggressive and violent, they had been known to negotiate with Alliance forces before. This meant that at some point Braeth'el had been in contact with human agents, which is likely why he was able to speak Common so fluently; his handlers ensured that he had the skills needed to deal with his contacts, making him perfect for hunting down the origin of the weapons.
More telling though was the fact that House Sunfire currently was conducting raids on the Kor'kron in the Barrens, and that they had sent a ship up to Ratchet where men and equipment were disgorged. They'd created a war camp in the region to help launch their assaults with more strength. Weapons and armor bearing their emblems had been spotted in engagements in several locations. It seemed that the Sunfire sisters had become distressed with the direction their Warchief was heading and, typical to their nature from what Rosellina could see in the reports, they had decided to protest his leadership in the only way they knew how, with extreme violence.
Braeth'el would be heading towards that camp if he wanted to reconnect with House Sunfire forces and return to Quel'Thalas. Although he had the jump on her, he still had to proceed across Thousand Needles and then the Southern Barrens and its warzones before he could reach the camp. Rosellina was in Stormwind, but a portal could fix that relatively quickly, and she might just beat him there.
She smiled as she took the two top secret reports and placed them in the hearth, lighting them on fire. She had just the way to beat her sneaky adversary to his destination. He might have the full power of a blood elf noble house behind him, but SI:7 had resources and technology that he didn't know about. She knew just the thing to get there faster than him.
Her smile faded as she reached into her desk for her anti-nausea herbs. She was going to need them for what she planned next.
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