Waterstrider

Little Celah, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Fourthmonth, 1634 PTS

Deuvar pursed his lips as he inspected the document that was displayed on his glyph slate. He did not find himself liking what he saw. The results of the investigation had returned, and according to some of his most trusted subordinates, there was no evidence that the lack of proper defenses around the warehouse that had been robbed weeks before was because of a mole.

It was obvious to him that it was more than mere coincidence, and it had been that way from the start. Even before he had arrived on the scene he had known this fact. The most effective guards of such a vital facility, all sent away at the right time- it would be foolishness bordering on insanity to suppose it all to be the result of unfortunate coincidence.

What shocked him most was that if the results of the inquisition truly were true, if there really was no traitor hiding within their organization… This would mean that someone had hacked their system, had acquired their private codes and secretly reassigned their personnel poorly. If that was the case, the organization was in for a great deal of trouble.

An infiltrator might even be worse than a traitor. Either way, the information leak this represented would substantially hamper their efforts to retrieve the item.

Suddenly, a glyph appeared at the edge of the slate, coalescing from nothingness to notify him of a message. He glanced at it, and his brow gained another crease as he realized that it came from his sister. Astna rarely contacted him if there wasn’t an issue or she didn’t want anything.

He sighed, eyes glancing around the room as he instinctively delayed investigating whatever matter she had embroiled herself into.

His office was rather small for a man of his rank, and was almost bare. It contained a desk and his chair, closed in by the dark metal walls on either side. When he had been granted his current position, he had just chosen a conveniently located room to get to work in, and the choice had ended up becoming permanent. Luckily for Deuvar, he wasn’t claustrophobic and did not particularly care about the matter. Various screens and terminals were littered haphazardly around the table, each displaying different documents and messages that Deuvar had to deal with.

In truth, as the Vice-Leader he found himself always working very long weeks. These past few weeks had been some of the most stressful and longest hour weeks he had ever worked. Everytime he solved one problem, several more cropped up. Perhaps this was why he was avoiding his sister’s message. To do such a thing wasn’t like him, as he considered such actions to be weakness. However, his tired and weary mind had trouble caring about how he usually felt. With a sigh, Deuvar rubbed his glabella and raised the slate again to see what new problems Astna had encountered.

He tapped the glyph, causing all of the other glyphs on the screen to minimize to a corner as a new set of glyphs filled the screen. Deuvar frowned as he realized that it was a link to a joint transmission rather than just a message.

The lines of glyphs swirled in a complex spiral before glowing lines pushed outwards from its surface to form a miniature bust of Astna. The figure shifted from a frozen position to a jerking motion, as if it were a model that had suddenly been granted life. She locked gazes with Deuvar, and it felt as if she were actually in the room.

“A pleasure to speak with you, dear brother,” she said.

Deuvar noted that her language was unusually flowery. She was speaking to him like she usually spoke with the Leader and with the government officials that she often came into contact with at social events.

“What have you found?” he asked, his words cutting straight to the point.

In this regard, he and his sister were opposites. While he could play the game of formalities and dodging around the point of discussion, Deuvar found that to be an inefficient waste of time.

Astna chuckled, shifting her tone as she explained the reason for her call.

“You’re aware of the… interview that our young magister was having with that traitor of the Epon, right?”

Deuvar nodded. He kept fully apprised of every movement and use of the Heirs’ personnel, so he had been following Triezal’s investigation. But if he had found something, why was he hearing about this from Astna rather than through the official report?

“What happened?” he asked.

Astna chuckled.

“A Seiyal assassin arrived and killed the traitor. She was a poisoner, even.”

Deuvar’s lips tightened indiscernably.

“Miasmic poison? Did Triezal survive?””

His sister laughed, and nodded.

“Thankfully, yes. I can’t imagine how poorly the Epon representative would react if we not only lost that relic but also a magister. He should be undergoing treatment in the hospital now.”

Astna shifted her right arm, as if motioning to something or someone in the room she was in, that Deuvar could not see due to the nature of the hologram.

“I expect her to have been sent by whatever organization is behind the Riverfiend,” Astna continued. “Triezal came to me, asked me to get the government focused on her identity as a poisoner and away from our involvement in the event.”

Something felt off about that idea, but Deuvar wouldn’t press. He knew it would be worthless to try and pry into his sister’s secrets. Still, if this was all she had wanted to tell him, she would not have bothered contacting him, and simply waited for him to read it all in the report.

He sighed. This was how all discussions with her went. One of these days, Astna was likely to give him a brain aneurysm. In contrast, her son had a much more approachable personality. In Deuvar’s opinion, Kalthen took more after his father in that regard.

“I see,” he said, once more trying to cut right to the reason she had contacted him. “But why are you informing me of this personally?”

Astna’s expression shifted, and Deuvar could sense hints of a different expression behind her smile for a moment, but they were gone before he could identify it, her mask once more firmly secured in place. Her internal self again locked away from the world. He internally sighed again. Indeed, she had always been this way.

Her expression became serious.

“In truth, I’m personally informing you of something that I made sure was excised from the report.”

Deuvar paused, raising an eyebrow.

“You’re worried about a leak?”

Astna shook her head.

“Not only that. Just letting this information get out to mid level members would be a problem, even if it did not reach the ears of the infiltrator or mole, or whoever is at fault.”

Deuvar hardened his gaze. Astna wouldn’t lie about something like that.

“What did he say?”

She smiled, as if excited to see his reaction to the information.

“You remember that object, the one we were guarding? The traitor claimed that it houses a Shade.”

“A Shade…”

Deuvar nodded, lost in thought. His chiseled forehead wrinkled as he thought intensely, quickly coming to a conclusion. The presence of a Shade would answer all of his remaining questions about the events of that day, but it also posed a huge threat.

“I see,” he said simply, but his mind remained awhirl.

While it filled in the gaps of his understanding, the presence of a Shade was a major problem, both within and without the Heirs of Ottrien. While Shades bore different levels of capability, those his own people were accustomed to were beings of vast intellect and capability, some even revered as heroic figures.

Ottrien himself, who their organization was named after, had been himself a Shade, one that had gathered a great following among the denizens of the Otthaonian continent before he was ultimately slain by the demoness Khanya. The few Shades originating from Celah that still remained were said to be enigmatic and vastly powerful figures. They were revered, almost worshiped by many members of the organization.

For this reason, the existence of a Shade as an enemy was far too risky, even if it were weak. However, given what it had accomplished so far, Deuvar could not dare assume it was weak. It was no wonder the Epon had put such emphasis on guarding it inside of such a full electromagnetic isolation seal. Even then, that seal had clearly ultimately failed somehow.

The object, the relic that housed this Shade had been brought to them roughly three years before by a passing Epon research ship. They had not been told the details of its nature, but It was to be kept extremely secretly and guarded with intense security until a courier arrived to pass it forward. After informing them of that order, the ship had left the station, presumably returning to whatever alien ruin the object had been found inside of.

Suddenly Astna laughed, as if she had just recalled a funny joke, drawing Deuvar’s attention back to her.

“You know, brother, that is actually all he would tell me, as if he only managed to ask one question before the assassin arrived. It seems we aren’t qualified to know about the rest of it.”

Deuvar didn’t respond, as the idea didn’t surprise him. Though they were high ranking members of a subordinate organization, there were many secrets that the Epon held and refused to disclose to them. He suspected the idea was to make it so that such subordinate groups could be expendable, not privy to any information that was actually important.

Still, he could not help but worry that whatever secrets Triezal was keeping from them might be as dangerous as the existence of the Shade was.

“Is that all?” he asked, sensing that she was keeping something from him.

His sister just smiled in response, an expression he could read all too well given how long he had known her. He could tell that there was something, likely more than one that she was keeping from him as she always was. He also knew that there was nothing he could do to pressure Astna into telling him something when she did not want to. Deuvar sighed.

“Fine, then. Thank you for informing me of this, sister.”

Astna preened, an action he knew was precisely chosen to annoy and distract him. She had always been prone to acting in such a manner, a born manipulator. It had always been impossible to tell when she was being genuine or not. He assumed this meant that she truly had divulged all she knew, or at least all that she intended to.

“You’re quite welcome, dear brother.I’ll speak to you at a later date. I’m sure you have quite a lot of work to do, as always.”

Without another word, her projection winked out, and the swirling glyphs on his slate returned to normal. Deuvar leaned back on his chair, feeling even more exhausted than he had before speaking to her.

His eyes glanced towards the tablets covering his desk. Their screens were each filled with documents bearing orders and information he had looked at before this revelation. A good deal would need to be redone.

Deuvar rubbed his glabella again, reaching into his desk to pull out a vial of headache medicine. It was destined to be another long day.

Epon Celah: [The original civilization that existed on the planet Celah, the Epon Celan civilization was a highly advanced power who had technology on par with forces such as the modern Staiven and Celan civilizations, despite a complete lack of having discovered the existence of miasma yet. Uninterested in exploring the cosmos, the Epon Celans covered their planet in a vast megacity that sprawled across most of the surface of their planet. Their artificial intelligence technology was particularly powerful, and they used Shades to control most of their technology. The Epon Celan civilization eventually collapsed due to a surprise attack by the Khalak'Ora, who used their ablation engines to cover the entire world in lesions in an attempt to 'salt the earth', and destroy any chance of the civilization's survival or recovery. This ultimately failed, as some few survivors remained, as well as a small number of Shades that had managed to escape the limitations of their programming. For their own aims, the various Shades assisted in repairing the planet's ecosphere, and assisting in the survival of the remaining population. Some of these Shades became worshiped as gods by the people who were forced by circumstances and the largely inhospitable, lesion filled terrain to return to a primitive lifestyle. Ultimately, the three surviving Shades from that era can be considered the final remnants of the Epon Celan Civilization.]