A woman approaches you, and you recognize her station immediately. She wears a silky purple top with an alarmingly low neckline belted to a flowing sash, her hips and thighs bared to the salty air all the way down to her knee-high boots. She stands near you, leaning into your space in a way that exposes her throat distractingly, and she pleads at you with bright blue eyes.
An enigmatic prostitute at Port Krez.
Sought out Fox on North Port Row. In the ensuing conversation, she indicated that she had somehow received news from Regalport (“a magician never reveals her secrets”) that Captain Arazka had boasted of sinking the Crown of Mishann. She gave Fox a chart of Watchdog Island, off the east coast of Traglorn Isle, indicating that Arazka makes land there frequently, and she would love to know why.
Whatever else she may be after, she offers the usual array of services.
Zia is one of the King’s Dark Lanterns—Breland’s elite cadre of spies and assassins. As with all Lanterns, she is patient and enigmatic, a capable actor and a cunning warrior. Even among the Lanterns, however, Zia is unique in her daring and drive, in her willingness to seize initiative and ask for forgiveness rather than permission.
She’s been a Lantern since a very young age and has already been involved in a number of operations. Being selected as the lead agent on this mission was supposed to be an honor—and it is, and she sees it that way—but her reputation with her superiors has been somewhat marred by her choice to go into deep cover as a prostitute. She insists that it was best to select a persona whose communications and professional duties were least likely to be scrutinized: Brelish diplomats in Lhazaar tend to constantly find themselves in chaotic, precarious circumstances. At any rate, she sees herself as a true believer and not a careerist, and as a result she mostly ignores their whispered rumors and their snide remarks.