measured_words (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
measured_words) wrote2006-10-02 07:28 pm
measured_words) wrote2006-10-02 07:28 pm
Shadows 5.1
Posted late because I have been studying like a madwoman for an exam that may not even be until next week now :V I actually had it finished on Saturday, bah! Also, this section may get reordered in the final version of this chapter - I haven't decided yet.
Shadows 5
Jane looked over the report she’d prepared and frowned with dissatisfaction. Everything they knew and didn’t know about the attack and its aftermath was laid out. Now everything was packed away for the move to the new keep, Fort Cedric, and this was the last piece of business she had to take care of before she left herself. She ordered the sheaf of papers and made her way to the Chancellor’s suite.
She knocked, though the door was open. Chancellor Tavik was supervising while one of the work details packed away some of the heavy office furniture. A lot of the large pieces had been borrowed and now had to be returned, or else the owners compensated. Everything had to be moved regardless. Jane had a file on all of that as well, but only wished she had time to concentrate on such simple matters. The Chancellor waved her in, dismissing the others with a few polite words.
“Please come in, lieutenant Lorella.” Lieutenant was her official rank. She was officially the assistant to Melanie Yara, Captain of the guard. Unofficially, however, she was the senior officer and head of the Exian Royal Counterintelligence Service. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you a seat at the moment, but they took away the chairs about half an hour ago.” He smiled, but she could see through it. He could tell she had nothing positive to present.
“It’s alright Your Excellency. It’s the same everywhere. I expect my desk will be gone by the time I get back to the office.”
“We’ll be settling into the new place soon enough.”
Jane nodded. She was looking forward to a fresh start and a location where they would have fewer security concerns. At least now they knew who to keep an eye on. The prince might be satisfied with vows, but she wanted a little more assurance. “I have my report ready, chancellor.”
“Of course.” He straightened, cupping an elbow with one hand and his beard with the other. “Go ahead.”
Jane took a deep breath.
“We have, as previously reported, found the remains of three of four loyalists taken prisoner by the cult. We have now identified them positively as Lorne Cooper, Yason Graeme, and Tanaka Meiko. That is two guards and one of the servants lent us by Xi Guan. We had some trouble with her identification, but Tatsumo Mikan assisted us in the mater and we were able to interrogate her spirit using a spell.
“Tanaka was killed first and didn’t know of the deaths of the other guards, and she wasn’t able to identify the location where she was held, either. She did confirm that at the time of her death, they had Matteo Atremi in custody. Apparently they found him collapsed in the street prior to her own capture directly before the attack. She believed that they singled him out for special treatment, as he was held in different circumstances and forced to… Well, he was singled out.”
The chancellor’s frown deepened as her report continued. She doubted he wanted the truly gory details, but they were in the written version.
“We still don’t know how Atremi got mixed up with the cult locally, or if it is related to the timing of the attack. Several people reported seeing him the previous evening at the Spirit festival, including Court Wizard Volaris, but he seems to have disappeared sometime later in the evening. We have gathered reports from locals who saw an elf matching his description early the morning of the attack. He stole a horse from the Nezumi to Oumu – a waterfront tavern – and lost it in an accident on the market street. We tried tracking him back from that point but the trail was too cold. Efforts to detect him using magic continue to prove ineffective, but we can’t confirm that he is dead either.
“Because of the move, we don’t have the people for a more intensive search. I have one field agent assigned to keep looking right up until the last moment, but she has little to go on at this point. Even if we find him, we have no idea what his state will be. If he has been turned into a mask, then we will have no way of distinguishing him for the others, and from what I understand out capacity to deal with that scenario is currently limited. Unfortunately, this is the most likely scenario we can come up with. Other options are that they have found some other way of controlling him, perhaps through magic. It is possible, though unlikely, that he has escaped and is choosing to both keep himself hidden and to break protocols by not reporting in, and even possible that he has some other involvement with the cult of which we are currently unaware.”
“Wait.” Tavik held up his hand. “Are you suggesting that he is in league with them?”
She hated to consider it, but that was part of her job. “I’m afraid we can’t rule it out at this time, though I don’t think it is likely. The bottom line is this. We know they took him. No one has ever managed to escape from the cult unassisted, not even Gordon Fenning. All the other captives from the attack have turned up dead. The last captive they took alive, Tatsumo Mikan, was turned into a Crimson Mask. We have one person who is able to exorcise the demons who possess the Mask hosts, and the manifested demon itself is also quite dangerous. We only recovered her under very special circumstances, and we may not be able to reproduce that scenario – if we can even ever find him. We are being forced to leave this city, and our people are not welcome here. I could leave an agent, but with such a cold trail I can’t see how that would be productive. We can continue trying magical detection, but as I said, that isn’t working either. If he is trying to hide from us, I have no idea where to look. There just isn’t much more that we can do to find him.”
Tavik nodded, looking resigned. “Prince Lynel will not easily accept this verdict, I’m afraid.”
“Well, Chancellor.” Jane paused, reigning in choice words about the practicality of Lynel’s unwillingness to let things go at times. “I am not happy about losing an operative of Atremi’s caliber either.”
“Of course not. We owe him for the warning he gave us, of course… But I understand your perspective lieutenant.” He smiled grimly, smoothing his whiskers. “I am sure the prince will as well.”
“Thank you, Chancellor.” She wished it were an easy decision for her to accept. She hated giving up on her people, but with no leads it was a drain on resources they didn’t have. Counterintelligence was already spread too thinly.
“Thank you for your report, Jane. And I’m sorry.”
She nodded and bowed, leaving her written report on the desk to return to her empty office.
Shadows 5
Jane looked over the report she’d prepared and frowned with dissatisfaction. Everything they knew and didn’t know about the attack and its aftermath was laid out. Now everything was packed away for the move to the new keep, Fort Cedric, and this was the last piece of business she had to take care of before she left herself. She ordered the sheaf of papers and made her way to the Chancellor’s suite.
She knocked, though the door was open. Chancellor Tavik was supervising while one of the work details packed away some of the heavy office furniture. A lot of the large pieces had been borrowed and now had to be returned, or else the owners compensated. Everything had to be moved regardless. Jane had a file on all of that as well, but only wished she had time to concentrate on such simple matters. The Chancellor waved her in, dismissing the others with a few polite words.
“Please come in, lieutenant Lorella.” Lieutenant was her official rank. She was officially the assistant to Melanie Yara, Captain of the guard. Unofficially, however, she was the senior officer and head of the Exian Royal Counterintelligence Service. “I’m afraid I can’t offer you a seat at the moment, but they took away the chairs about half an hour ago.” He smiled, but she could see through it. He could tell she had nothing positive to present.
“It’s alright Your Excellency. It’s the same everywhere. I expect my desk will be gone by the time I get back to the office.”
“We’ll be settling into the new place soon enough.”
Jane nodded. She was looking forward to a fresh start and a location where they would have fewer security concerns. At least now they knew who to keep an eye on. The prince might be satisfied with vows, but she wanted a little more assurance. “I have my report ready, chancellor.”
“Of course.” He straightened, cupping an elbow with one hand and his beard with the other. “Go ahead.”
Jane took a deep breath.
“We have, as previously reported, found the remains of three of four loyalists taken prisoner by the cult. We have now identified them positively as Lorne Cooper, Yason Graeme, and Tanaka Meiko. That is two guards and one of the servants lent us by Xi Guan. We had some trouble with her identification, but Tatsumo Mikan assisted us in the mater and we were able to interrogate her spirit using a spell.
“Tanaka was killed first and didn’t know of the deaths of the other guards, and she wasn’t able to identify the location where she was held, either. She did confirm that at the time of her death, they had Matteo Atremi in custody. Apparently they found him collapsed in the street prior to her own capture directly before the attack. She believed that they singled him out for special treatment, as he was held in different circumstances and forced to… Well, he was singled out.”
The chancellor’s frown deepened as her report continued. She doubted he wanted the truly gory details, but they were in the written version.
“We still don’t know how Atremi got mixed up with the cult locally, or if it is related to the timing of the attack. Several people reported seeing him the previous evening at the Spirit festival, including Court Wizard Volaris, but he seems to have disappeared sometime later in the evening. We have gathered reports from locals who saw an elf matching his description early the morning of the attack. He stole a horse from the Nezumi to Oumu – a waterfront tavern – and lost it in an accident on the market street. We tried tracking him back from that point but the trail was too cold. Efforts to detect him using magic continue to prove ineffective, but we can’t confirm that he is dead either.
“Because of the move, we don’t have the people for a more intensive search. I have one field agent assigned to keep looking right up until the last moment, but she has little to go on at this point. Even if we find him, we have no idea what his state will be. If he has been turned into a mask, then we will have no way of distinguishing him for the others, and from what I understand out capacity to deal with that scenario is currently limited. Unfortunately, this is the most likely scenario we can come up with. Other options are that they have found some other way of controlling him, perhaps through magic. It is possible, though unlikely, that he has escaped and is choosing to both keep himself hidden and to break protocols by not reporting in, and even possible that he has some other involvement with the cult of which we are currently unaware.”
“Wait.” Tavik held up his hand. “Are you suggesting that he is in league with them?”
She hated to consider it, but that was part of her job. “I’m afraid we can’t rule it out at this time, though I don’t think it is likely. The bottom line is this. We know they took him. No one has ever managed to escape from the cult unassisted, not even Gordon Fenning. All the other captives from the attack have turned up dead. The last captive they took alive, Tatsumo Mikan, was turned into a Crimson Mask. We have one person who is able to exorcise the demons who possess the Mask hosts, and the manifested demon itself is also quite dangerous. We only recovered her under very special circumstances, and we may not be able to reproduce that scenario – if we can even ever find him. We are being forced to leave this city, and our people are not welcome here. I could leave an agent, but with such a cold trail I can’t see how that would be productive. We can continue trying magical detection, but as I said, that isn’t working either. If he is trying to hide from us, I have no idea where to look. There just isn’t much more that we can do to find him.”
Tavik nodded, looking resigned. “Prince Lynel will not easily accept this verdict, I’m afraid.”
“Well, Chancellor.” Jane paused, reigning in choice words about the practicality of Lynel’s unwillingness to let things go at times. “I am not happy about losing an operative of Atremi’s caliber either.”
“Of course not. We owe him for the warning he gave us, of course… But I understand your perspective lieutenant.” He smiled grimly, smoothing his whiskers. “I am sure the prince will as well.”
“Thank you, Chancellor.” She wished it were an easy decision for her to accept. She hated giving up on her people, but with no leads it was a drain on resources they didn’t have. Counterintelligence was already spread too thinly.
“Thank you for your report, Jane. And I’m sorry.”
She nodded and bowed, leaving her written report on the desk to return to her empty office.