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Her voice: tired, thin. She's been at her desk for many hours.

It sounds like a hit list.

Hesitation in her voice.

Hesitation in her voice.

The heavy silence that follows signals that this particular engine has run out of steam.

Pen at the ready, considering how she'll phrase the emergency extraction order.

Something in her tone makes you imagine her winking at you.

You hear her flip a notebook closed with a satisfying snap. That's the closest you're going to get to 'well done' on this one.

Voice level and dry as a salt flat.

This is a robbery, not an assassination.

That sounded very un-dolphin-like.

An odd smile -- there's something insincere about this woman.

She doesn't look that young.

A spark of annoyance flashes into her expression of serene affability.

She tries to flutter her eyelashes, flirtatious and clumsy.

She nods at the other woman in the room with an air of admiration.

Heard? Sure, with her own ears, when she picked up the receiver.

The next two weeks flash before his eyes...

This little performance is for his own benefit.

His voice is indifferent, but his eyes drift back towards the building, curious.

The scene feels correctly blocked. You are gazing upwards at her. All is right with the world.

He will make that mistake as many times as he's given opportunities.

He knew that already.

There's no need for counter-measures, this man is deluding himself.

He's about to blow.

Her first real sleep in months, maybe years. Your voices won't wake her.

His fingers go to her hair, reflexive. Blunt nails scratching gently against her scalp.

Strands of her long, dark hair falling through his fingers as he pulls his hand away from her.

And beneath that is the part that desperately wants to hear the whole sordid tale.

Catching the look in your eye, Septimus shifts his stance, weight on the back foot.

He bounces a little on the balls of his feet, considering combat.

Not the first time he's taken a hit like this. Not even close.

Something about him has relaxed at this information, a performance partly abandoned.

Same nose. Same dark eyes. Wildly different posture.

Other people's distaste is a warm blanket, familiar in its itchiness.

His tone changes as your identity dawns on him -- wary, curious, teetering on the edge of hostile.

He's much more comfortable with this line of inquiry.

The muscles in his ropey calves tense visibly.

The muscles in his ropey calves tense visibly.

And Yana's favourite.

A metric tonne of silence falls between the two of you.

A metric tonne of silence falls between the three of you.

The smile of a girl visiting her grandmother on the dementia ward.

He really doesn't want to be doing business with Gonza, or you, for that matter.

Ramses may be high, but this guy is somewhere in low-orbit.

Somewhere behind his bloodshot eyes, a slow, yet impeccable calculation emerges.

The words pass through Goat Eyes' lie detector.

A childishly stylised gesture, practiced for countless hours in front of a mirror.

He doesn't quite buy it.

774 skill checks - ZERO PARADES field manual - Page 10 of 16