Can always count on wormhole community

I have been stalking a Russian corp. After killing their Noctis and Dominix the plan was to move on. Only problem was I did not have where to move. I was staying relatively stealthy and haven't scanned surrounding systems. Now that the jig is up, I launch my sister probes and do the unglamorous part of wormhole stalking - scanning.

Home system has c2 and c4 statics and since c2 is end of life I go to the c4. It has a lot of signatures. It takes me a good while to scan them out. Quite few of those signatures are wormholes. After finishing scanning I warp to 10 to the first connection on my list. Daily tip from Cloaky Bastard: never warp to 0. I land at the wormhole and as I approach within jump range I do one final check of  the d-scan. Procurer appears as a result. What the hell? He was not in the system before. I have been probing for a long time and haven't been clicking d-scan all that often so I am quite sure he has been enough time to see my probes. Something doesn't smell right here. Random miner decides to mine with probes in the system? I warp to ore site to investigate.

I make position bookmark and start doing background research of the pilot and his corp. Miner checks out. He really looks legit. Nothing suspicious on the killboard history. Bunch of high-sec mining ship losses. Corp has various activity, but no procurer baits that I could see. Could this guy be for real?

Corp sticker says BAIT. It would be hilarious if I went for it, but I don't buy it. It doesn't have that legit feel. I do a bit more research of the corp and it's fleets composition. I see mostly 7 people in fleets on average, flying quite squishy ships. I think I could take them on, assuming I get my spider tank up and running in time. Question is, do they bait me or my ship? Did they see my name when I jumped to the system or only Proteus on scan? I haven't jumped anywhere since I came here, so it would be quite a coincidence if they saw me come in. Then again, if they bait unknown Proteus, that also feels like a big gamble. But Procurer is not really a ship I feel using my effort of moving three Navy Dominixes. Ore site will spawn some sleepers at some point and if this miner guy is actually mining, he will have to bring something to kill them. If he is baiting, he will have to bring more shiny bait.

It takes around 20 minutes for sleepers to spawn, but they finally do. I watch Procurer leave and warp to the next Ore site. Well, I guess it's all clear. Second site spawns sleepers and he warps to a third. If that was not enough, I also see Helios, piloted by the Russian corp I've ganked few hours ago, land right on top of him.

Zero reaction from Procurer. I watch and wait for this baiting to end. I am very interested of which out of these 4 present connections he came from. Soon I see him warp back to one of c2s. I follow and set orbit. Procurer is followed by a cloaky Stratios from the same corp. I guess baiting is over. Without much happening afterwards,  I poke around in surrounding systems only to find emptiness. I decide to move back to my dear Russians and stay for the night. I'm sure they won't mind.

Strange things were happening back in the "home" system. Tower was absent of at least 2/3 of ships. Now bunch of Ospreys are left floating.

There are still a lot of pilots logged in. At least 14, but all I see is few at the tower and few at the customs office. Where the hell did just disappear half of my watch list? I run a locator, but get message that they are all unreachable in w-space.  I watch Tempest warp off to a customs office and find him together with Hyperion and Gila. Sleeper wrecks are still on scan which means that not even two hours have passed since my gank and they are shooting the poco now? And what happened to most of the pilots? So many questions without answers. It's either an elaborate bait or I don't know what it is. In case it's a bait, I get an idea and convo Disciples of Aphrodite, my baiters.

Turns out they came across The Dark Space Initiative corp from Scary Wormhole People alliance and my baiting fleet got decimated. I invite them to ambush the poco bashing party and they in turn invite scary wormhole people. Now with bunch of Frenemies ready, sitting two jumps out, it was a moment of truth. I would go in and tackle Hyperion with Tempest and invite everyone to come. If it's a bait, they are in for some surprise. If not, I just hope I do not become the target for blood thirsty pilots.

To be honest, I had some second thoughts about warping my Proteus in. Let alone my full fleet with Dominixes. But I was in the wormhole space, dealing with wormhole people. Reputation in w-space carries a big weight. I would never do it with low-sec or null-sec residents. But with wormhole corps, I go in YOLO and send my whole fleet in hopes to escalate the fight.

The fight went very anticlimactically.  Hyperion gets killed and Tempest warps out. It soon becomes clear why.

I guess in the end it was just a petty customs office bash with warpcore stabilizers fitted. Had it not been for my faction scrambler, Hyperion would have warped away too. I don't extend my stay too long and as soon Hyperion is dead, I warp away.

Big shout out to The Dark Space Initiative and Disciples of Aphrodite for forming a fleet and joining me on the op. And especially thanks for not blowing me up for content.