Notes :
Blergh. Tried to write. Didn't end up with much. Got told my new neighbors would actually move in next weekend. In the mean time I got my new PC slated for delivery and then everything to handle pertaining to that.
At least I can sleep. That's something.
But yeah, upping the schedule to four a week seems premature now.
Also didn't end up rewriting this chapter. I'll just wing it at this point. I hate rewriting my own text so this causes less issues, particularly when it feels I'm already burning out.
Chapter 432
Red Sands Desert, Aurorean Empire
Trade City of Darthar
CQ paced back and forth nervously.
Everyone back home was preparing for combat. And she was here! She wished she was there.
No. Not that she was there. Because she could be there. She touched the talisman, resting on her armored collarbone. Crush it, or speak the right words, and she would be home in an instant.
But that would be expensive. And she couldn't always be there. Besides, what would she do? This was a covert operation. She was the single most recognizable person under her mom's banner, outside of mom, Allya and Pyn.
She was even more well known than mommy. And it wasn't like there wasn't plenty of competent people. From Seraph to Subtlety to Glitch and even that new Whiskey girl.
The boss sighed. She just didn't like being left out. But at the same time she wasn't being left out. She had her own part to play, and couldn't help even if she went home. The only person she'd be helping was herself.
Is that how mom felt whenever she had to hand command over to her or anyone else? That was awful.
"You look nervous."
CQ whipped around, and smiled widely.
"Rice!"
The count braced, and she flew into his arms, hugging him.
"Itsbeentoolonghowhaveyoubeenandhow-"
"Wow! Calm down!" Said the count with a smile and a chuckle, and CQ let go of him, smiling.
"Sorry sorry sorry! Just got excited! I haven't seen you in a while!"
"Yeah. You had a war to fight. Still do." He smiled wryly. "Though it seems you have a smaller ship this time."
"Subtlety wasn't mine."
"Neither is the Windwrath." They both turned around to look at the ship's AI, who bowed. "Tornado, my lord. Commander of this vessel and second in command of this flotilla."
"Enchanted." The count returned the bow. "Count Rice, of Darthar. I have a list of other titles, but they seem somewhat superfluous these days. I must express my surprise, I was given to understand you would share the name of your vessel."
"The tradition was broken due to the name of this vessel. Given the fact that the Empress consort is a personal friend of lady Crystal, it would have made things awkward."
"Of course." Rice turned back towards CQ. "I was told you wouldn't be staying here long, and that you're racing off to the Western Baronies?" The boss nodded. "I have rearranged my schedule in consequence." He extended his hand. "Would you share my table for dinner?"
She took the proffered hand with a smile, her worries, at least temporarily, forgotten.
"I would love to."
*****
Éclair sighed as she walked through the streets.
Her job came with many perks. One of the more dubious ones was that everyone gave way wherever she went and knew exactly who she was.
As one of the Empress' three original bodyguards, and now one of the only four officers in the Imperial Guard, she was a face people saw regularly in their news, standing menacingly behind the Empress during official addresses or any other such declarations. That brought its own weight of problems, of course.
One of them was that many people somehow thought she'd have the Empress' ear and could be used as some kind of backrooms communication. Which meant that, wherever she went, anyone she was in contact with was bound to receive some offers she'd rather not deal with.
She ducked into an alleyway, and triggered the talisman around her hip as soon as she was out of sight.
A different woman stepped out of that alleyway. One thing her charge's little shopping trip so long ago had taught her, was that for someone as distinctive as her, only a few changes were necessary to turn her into a whole new person. And besides, who would expect a lieutenant of the Imperial guard to disguise herself inside of the Empire's capital city?
She easily moved through the crowds, despite people not parting around her anymore, years of having to police the unholy hell that was the great bazaar of Darthar making this a cakewalk, and walked up the stairs on the side of one of the mesas. Once, it had been the inner perimeter of the defenses, and making your way up was a mess of climbing or using makeshift elevators. Now the entire thing was covered in staircases, arcane lifts and even a pneumatic tube system, made by an enterprising artificer.
And, of course, the once solid block of sandstone was now a budding warren of buildings and tunnels dug through the rock.
She disappeared into one of the tunnel entrances, and quickly came up on a door. She rapped on it, and a tiny window opened. The man on the other side gave her one look, and opened it.
She stepped through into a place that most people would have called a gambling den. Except gambling didn't usually take place around tables of chess and other games of strategy and not chance.
People contemplated boards in hushed silence. Bets weren't shouted, but whispered. Money changed hands all the same however, and despite the best efforts of the vents and charms hanging from the ceiling, the air was heavy and smokey.
A few of the patrons exchanged nods with her, and she quickly moved through into the hallway leading to the private rooms.
There, she came to a halt. One of the den's guards was in front of the room she reserved for her private use. He nodded towards her, and whispered.
"There is someone here to meet you, ma'am. On top of your usual."
Shit.
Her face scrunched up, as she grabbed something in her pocket. Just in case.
Then, she nodded to the guard. He bowed, and opened the door for her.
She stepped into the room as she automatically scanned it for threats. The woman she had been there to meet was trying very hard not to look nervous, while a man was at the back of the room, toying with one of the board game pieces, looking fascinated.
"If you have hurt her, you will not leave this room alive." Said Éclair, softly, after the door had closed behind her.
"I have not. I simply impressed upon her the need to meet you. In fact, I intended to thank her once this was over, as without her I never would have found you for such a discrete meeting. But this business does not require her presence."
The young woman on the side of the room looked up at Éclair, and she jerked her head towards the door.
She was out in an instant, as Éclair sat down on the edge of one of the sofas, ready to pounce.
After all, she knew an Erisian intelligence operative when she saw one.
"You've gone soft, Éclair." Said the man, and she twitched.
"I didn't go soft." She softly hissed. "I grew a Gods damned conscience."
"He was a danger to the Empire."
"And I'm sure his daughter looking into her father's murder would have become 'a danger to the Empire' as well. It's why I got her as far as I could from Starcore. You have about thirty seconds to speak."
"First off, I believe I should make it clear. Valmore, Trinity-"
"I will have you dead and soul sealed before you've finished my passphrase."
Her face was entirely deadpan, she knew. It wasn't a boast, or a threat, it was a statement of fact.
The man on the other side nodded.
"Of course. Then, the simple matter." He put a sizeable package on the table, and pushed it towards her. "For your boss, the Empress."
She looked down at the files, then back up.
"You have an ambassador, you know."
"We do. And we also know that our many headed hydra may be doing something incredibly stupid that some heads cannot stop."
"Though luck."
"The head trying to stop it is princess Cassissa. Get that name to your Empress. She will want to read everything in that package." He stood up, and went for the door.
"And where are you going?"
He paused.
"As far away as I can before the pursuit begins. This message doesn't necessitate an answer. But your boss must be made aware of it. Oh, and just to make sure you're not going to just order an artillery strike on the entire area to kill me, no, my bosses don't know that your adoptive daughter is here, nor that she is alive. But I would advise you getting her under your Empress' protection sooner rather than later because eventually they'll figure it out."
Éclair's eye twitched.
"Your opinion is noted. Start running."
He nodded, and the door closed behind him.
She gazed at the package, and grabbed it.
By the time she exited the room, the guard was dragging the agent's limp body into another one, which mysteriously never had any patrons but was always booked.
The Empress' protection? Allya didn't extend her protection via flashy declarations and city guards. She did it via assassins and the dungeon's forces.
Spies always assumed everyone was as untrusting as they were. She'd saved the Empress' life many times, and got her life saved in return. Her trust was absolute.
Besides, she'd never take her adopted daughter out to a place like this unless she was certain it wasn't as seedy as it looked. And the Empress was crafty indeed. What better way to generate dark funds than to run an almost-but-not-quite-illegal gambling den?
Seems like Erisian Intelligence still underestimated her boss quite handily. It was easy to do, when you assumed the dungeon core was behind everything.
The den guard came back out of the room, and nodded. He was taken alive. Good.
"I have to get to the palace. Follow his trail. These guys work in pairs. And get my daughter out of here."
The assassin, and now Imperial operative, bowed.
"Yes lieutenant. It shall be done."
*****
Allya set down the documents, and gazed at Alexandra, who was on the other side of her desk.
She didn't need to ask if she'd read them. It was pretty much assumed, what with having turned the package over immediately to check for traps, poisons, the whole nine yards. And Alexandra could 'read' much faster than Allya could. For that matter, she had a ton of AIs to summarize everything.
"Do you think it's real?" Asked Alexandra.
"I know my friend. Even under...these circumstances, she wouldn't lie to me." Had she not known the princess had risen so high in favor lately, she'd have been stunned. As it was, it was just...depressing, for their only communication to be a warning.
"How confident are you in that?"
"Completely confident."
That was one of the few things she could be certain about.
"Alright. But I assume you haven't discounted the possibility that she was lied to?"
The message bore Cassissa's arcane signature, though not her name, and Allya knew her prose like the back of her hand. Forging all of this would have been a staggering feat.
"I haven't, no. But honestly...this makes too much sense. We both knew that our Merchant friend and his information was too good to be true."
"We did. But that brings two questions. First, would the Eris Empire really be incapable of stopping itself from acting on this? And second, who the hell is pulling the string? It certainly doesn't seem to be the Order."
Allya grimaced.
"To answer your first question: Yes, absolutely. We have a remarkably unified realm here. New, vigorous, remarkably centralized. The Eris Empire has existed for thousands of years and expanded so much it's on the verge of imploding. Half of it is de facto ruled by its bureaucracy, the other half by the nobility, with both the Imperial family and the corporations pitting them against each other to come out ahead. There's so many conflicting interests, cozy relationships, bribes and out and out factionalism that two parts of the same freaking government bureaus could be going two different directions on the same problem and end up fighting each other. And that's not counting the fact that the Empire has a myriad of intelligence branches, agencies and other covert units, each with different command structures and messes. From the Black Hand to the Autonomous Threat Removal Bureau, passing by the Office of Imperial Intelligence and the Internal Defense Directorate."
"And let me guess: absolutely all of them are eyeing us up."
The Empress laughed out loud.
"We are the Eris Empire's greatest nightmare! The first power to challenge it in a thousand years. Yeah, they're all eyeing us up, and more importantly, every single one of those agencies is competing for clout and funding. It would only take a single director with his ass firmly in a comfy chair in Starcore being fed the right information for them to launch an operation."
"...Shit. That means we need to move. Quickly. I was worried about the Order, but we know how to delay them." If nothing else, they'd clearly decided to keep their head down a little bit after the Church had started using out and out orbital bombardment. And they'd manipulated their trio of pirate agents in a variety of ways. "We simply cannot afford a war with the Eris Empire. Not yet. We need to talk to Trira, launch the operation. Leak that the Merchant is looking to open up commerce with me, and let the adventurers off the leash."
"Way ahead of you. I already gave the order." Alexandra's eyebrow rose, and Allya shrugged. "It's not like there were many other options."
"Alright. That should get the adventurers started soon. I'll get my people rea-"
The communicator on the desk chimed. Allya immediately pressed it to accept the call.
"Allya." Said Trira. "We've got a problem."
Gods damn it.
"What happened? Did the adventurers not believe your agent?"
Infiltrating someone into that little conspiracy had required a few gymnastics, but they'd done it. The adventurers knew each other pretty well, but with the guild's records in tatters, inserting someone in who knew a guy who knew a guy was surprisingly easy. Especially with Alexandra's old party there to provide connections, and neutral adventurers to back up a bunch of stuff. It turns out, their habit of spreading mana around to get support to rescue their friend -who turned out not to have needed much rescuing- had created quite the network.
"Oh he didn't have to tell them. They told him. Allya, someone just told them about the Merchant, then gave them an exfil plan and a pile of money. They're scrambling to make their move right now!"
The Empress and the dungeon core gaze's met.
"Oh shit." They said in unison.