The Echani walked into the cantina wearing little of his normal battle attire, his slugthrower and blaster accompanied by a second slug on his belt, but his Brotherhood protections were replaced with his armorweave body armor.
The ruckus of the people within the bar was something he counted on, numerous people walking around, chatting at tables, drinking at bars, a normal sight, but still one he was glad for being in effect.
Ordering a drink at the bar, his eyes roam the area around him. The warrior would normally worry about being obvious, but at a bar, doing such a thing was normal, if anything, it’d be weird if he didn’t. Species of all kinds filled the area, middle and low class dress permeated the area, there was plenty that made this tavern as common as any other.
Thankfully, it also made his search for the tell-tale armor of his prey far simpler. A group of individuals surrounded a table decorated with chips and cards, some standing, some sitting, had a small number of helmets sat atop it, clearly of Mandalorian make and style. While sighted was good, next was set up.
With his drink delivered and payment made, Azler took it and began to make his way around the area, looking at each table he walked near. Unbeknownst to those he approached, the man focused on his Sense and purposefully came nearest the most nervous or agitated feeling, raising a hand as if to talk to them, but with the predicted scowl thrown his way, he quickly backed off and moved to the next. Planned rejection after rejection, eventually he came to the assorted table and this time changed target, this time heading towards the one who gave off the most confidence.
”Any chance you guys have room for one more to test his luck?” Inquires the Echani, looking between the group.
While some gave him the similar scowls he had already passed by previously, his proximity, and attention, being mainly given to the one next to him, his hopes paid off.
”If you got the creds, by all means, I’ll gladly lighten your load.” Answered the cocky individual, waving a hand towards an empty seat.
The man sat and soon enough was dealt into the group. From there, he played it straight, made small talk, giving honest answers when questioned; details about a life from an area far away, having made his credits through bounty hunting and odd jobs, about running into a few personal problems that made a tempting job offer in a whole new region very tempting, but upon arriving in a new area, and the job proving to be not quite what he was expecting, well, he had to figure something out.
And a simple but honest story like that? Not much to really pry into, not with strangers of course, and no lie to see through, yet still relatable to most. So after a bit of time, getting more friendly with the group, drinks had, rounds won and lost, eventually he finally felt confident enough to get the information he was wanting.
”So, like I said, being a new guy around here and probably going to stick around long enough to make the time and credits wasted on fuel worth it, what’s good to eat around some of these systems?” Wilder inquires earnestly.
’Well, in these parts, you can’t go wrong with Old Baron’s, their burgers are fantastic.”
”Their burgers are great, you’re right, but ain’t much else, trust me, if you want some real food, go to the Clink-Clank, best chili for systems.”
”Hey hey, no worries guys, I’ll gladly give them all a shot. Gonna be stuck here for a while, why not?” He says with a chuckle, taking out a data pad and jotting down all the names mentioned, as well the names of who suggested them, though he purposely slightly misspelled any suggestions made to him by the non-Mandalorians.
Even after getting the information, he still stayed and continued to play, chatting until it felt like a natural time to do so. A job well done, simple enough.
He continued to visit that cantina a handful more times, tagging new Mandorian-suited individuals with much the same setup, but even revisiting ones he had before simply to avoid suspicious behaviors.
Throughout the week and more, he also kept a tab on the local bounties, talking about them with the groups only after the bounty had been captured and turned in, inquiring curiosities of the circumstances of the capture, looking for interesting stories and blunders.
After a while, he stopped and moved onto the next cantina a notable distance away and repeated much the same, again and again, the same stories, the same truths, and the same innocent enough questions that only made sense for someone new to the area.
Every small detail added to the greater whole;
Cross-referencing the bounty stories he had heard from everyone, the locations of the fights that had broken out, even marking cleaner stories that were more likely done by the more professional and organized Mandalorians, he could make decent guesses at the areas they patrolled more heavily. If a certain section of space was constantly being ‘cleaned’, well, the people there wanted it spic and span obviously, perhaps even hiding something. That bit was the more straight-forward portion of his map.
The food was the fun part, contrary to what his apprentices thought. “People on a job or just off a job eat local”, he explained to them. “You don’t get a ‘favorite place’ by eating there once, and it is a ‘treat’ when you go somewhere far away and expensive.”
These were truths, simple enough, and information that was all too willing to be shared by most people. A group of guards aren’t going to drive or fly too far away from their stations to grab some grub for their lunch break, that wastes break time. If you’re off duty and looking to go home, you tend to get food on the way, not out of the way.
So by collecting this information from various groupings of Mandalorians across Clan Feros’ territory, listening for specifics in regards to if it was somewhere they went to often or rarely, somewhere they ate because it was ‘cheap and close’ versus ‘actually good but a bit out of the way’, little details that made it clear where they were most of their time.
Put those data points onto a map with the same data points of where most bounties were picked up and it doesn’t take the wisest Jedi Master to figure their highest concentration of units are quite likely where they overlap the heaviest.
After visiting each recommendation once just to see their stock and prices, he even had some base data for an idea of how well some of them were paid based on how often they went somewhere pricier than the average costing diner. Less reliable than figuring out their location, but still a surprisingly good rough guess.
Eventually, it finally culminated in the map he laid out for his higher-ups that marked heavy concentration of where he believed Feros forces to be, even if he’d probably never tell them how he got it.