Hazelnuts and plaid

[Varric]

"How can you be sure you do?" Varric asks curiously. 

[Nikolaos "Niko" Kingfisher]

Niko stares at him a long moment, tail lashing in thought. "My diary," he concludes, after a moment. "It doesn't record stuff I don't remember doing."

[Varric]

"Sure you had a diary?" He shakes his head. "Sorry, things I think about."

[Nikolaos "Niko" Kingfisher]

"If someone's going to edit my memory that extensively, I'd be swiss cheese. I'd notice."

[Varric]

"...if I had more free time, I might take that as a bet," Varric remarks with a hum. "But I don't. I fact..." He leans back, looking out the window again. "I think I might be just about out."

[Nikolaos "Niko" Kingfisher]

Niko finishes looting the cash register and bounds to the door. "Right. See you on the other side, Tethras."

[Varric]

"Maybe so," Varric replies politely, not thinking for a moment that the catfolk is heading to Astra's domain.

[Varric]

Having hit a dead end there, Varric makes his way out of Cattown. As he does so, he tries to come up with ideas on what to do with his other potential lead. Anyone who knew a lot about (ignorant shitstains) Humanity First's poisoning plan will be in Blackwater. Or dead (could try to find their corpses). Anyone that knew only a little would be out and about (most still geased, could try to use Registry but...). And it's been more than three years. Gods only (hyperbole) know where they're at now. Or if they even remember any details (time and/or magic). So my best bets are... corpses, Hindagio (will need an appropriate object first), breaking into (and back out of) Blackwater (yeah no), Helene (over-reliance, nagging gods), using the Geas Registry (better than Blackwater but not by much) to locate the rank and file in the (limited) know, or trying to find successor cults with former HF members. 

He reaches the edge of Cattolk territory, still mulling over those options. Which are his only options. Obviously variations and combinations of those options exist but those are all the options he can think of being helpful. Just those ones. Just... Just...

"Crack and shatter," he growls, deeply irritated both with life and with himself. "Only thing the match of my mind in me is my damn pride."  Scowling darkly, the dwarf stalks off to the 'office' of Patrick Oslow, information broker and karaoke enthusiast. 

[GamesMaster]

The ratfolk makes a lot of noise about being paid -- and have his prices gone up? Sounds like they have, more's the pity -- before he relents, but relent he does. "Now, I can't get you the ringleader, but I can get you their new Clean Face. You can probably get it out of him, right? Bloke's an aasmar by the name of Scotty Jergins." 

[Varric]

"So you're saying that you only have, hmm, two-thirds of the answer I'm paying for?" Varric observes mildly, pride still smarting.

[GamesMaster]

"Now, I didn't say that. I can give you Scotty's address -- he lives in Meadows, see. Lives alone now that his brother's gone to uni."

[Varric]

"Still only intel on a surface level member," Varric points out slyly. "If he's th Face, then he won't know about anything as serious as lethal poisons." Toxins (need to restrict what he learns from me, let it go). "I'll only get a name or few about mid levels from him, who might know something or might only have more names." He sighs gustily. "But if that's all you have..."

[GamesMaster]

"Sorry, man. This org's legit. Way more buttoned up than Humans First. I don't even have a name for them."

[Varric]

"That so?" Interesting... Shame the goad didn't work (felt good though) but suppose it's a start. "If there's no name, what's he the face of?"

[GamesMaster]

"A group where they call each other Comrades but they're not associated with the Party," he says slowly. "Human supremacists. I had to see the pattern in the incidents to figure it out -- and this guy's the front, the guy who speaks with the guard and somehow comes away with reduced sentences and clean records. He knows just who to talk to to get his boys off."