Cymryn watched the half-dragon leave. He still wasn’t certain the man didn’t remember; his reactions were a little too cautious for someone who thought he was among friends. He wasn’t cautious enough for someone among enemies, however, so the likely explanation was that the tzeka had confused him enough to make him question if what he thought had happened was reality. That was good enough.
There were a number of conclusions that could be reached from the questioning. The first and most obvious was that the Vault had to be related to the Grand Library in some way. There was no other reason for the half-dragon to emphasize his friendship with the Head Librarian and “many of the other librarians”. That was a warning not to mess with the Library.
It was also supremely annoying. His forces had checked and cleared the Library as a possible location for the Vault not one but four times over the past year. It was far too obvious a possibility to ignore and they’d explored the entire place while it was empty, before the “Head Librarian” who clearly worked for the same person Serenity did if not Serenity himself reappeared.
It was good to know that the hunch that sent him to the Library repeatedly was good, but it was massively annoying to know that they’d still somehow missed the Vault itself.
If they wanted the Vault, they needed access to the Library. Unimpeded access. Cymryn would probably also need to bring in an expert, which would take time, but it could be done. The priority on this was high enough. The only real question was if he should; Serenity was obviously not a full-blooded dragon but he was backed by one and taught by one or he wouldn’t expect to have draconic Skills, much less the armor he had.
The question was whether or not the dragon would back him. Cymryn hadn’t missed the casual name-drop of the name Althyr; now if only he knew his dragons well enough to know if that was one they could afford to offend or even one that was more or less aligned with the Empire. He’d have to let the Baron make that call.
Nothing else about the meeting seemed relevant to his mission, but it was still good information gathering. Cymryn had thought that he knew all of the planets in Font capable of hosting dragons; the news that there was an unknown was unwelcome. The fact that Serenity described it as “heavily populated but increasing quickly” was worrisome; even if it was low Tier, population had value. Additionally, “low Tier” to a Tier Eight half-dragon might well not be particularly low by Cymryn’s standards.
Yes, that was the next step. Cymryn reached into a pouch at his waist and pulled out his messaging plate. It was an expensive enchanted item but it was invaluable for this. Each message sent or received cost an entire Tier Five monster core; that was cheap compared to the cost of making the plate itself, which was priced in Tier Ten monster cores. Even then, it was good for a strictly limited number of messages before it required repair that was closer to rebuilding it than simply fixing it.
On the other hand, it meant that messages got through quickly and could be retrieved and read in utter secrecy. When he could, he’d still use the city nodes; they were close and common enough that it was usually worth it. Right after letting an abductee go was not the time to head to a messaging node, however; that was far too obvious.
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Baron Restali
Greetings.
Some good news and some bad news. I have located the source of the mana signature that was released when the Vault was opened. It is a young half-dragon who goes by the name Serenity, a Tier Eight who seems to lead a large contingent of several hundred outworlders of lower Tier.
Unfortunately, he has claimed the so-called Great Library of Takinat. I still believe that the Vault is hidden inside, especially as his mana signature is tied to the Vault’s opening. I am unable to confirm this as all searches of the Library have yielded no results, but I have been unable to conduct a proper search since the Vault was breached due to the presence of his people. There is no sign of any artifacts having been removed.
Normally, I would ignore his claim; a Tier Eight, even with his visible lower-Tier support, cannot stop the resources I can bring to bear. He is more capable than he appears, but his capability is still limited by his Tier.
However, I have investigated him and there are some worrying signs. He claims to be “the only heir of his parents.” This is worrying, as one of his parents is a dragon, although he appears to have been raised mostly around humans as he was only able to report on other dragons with reference to a third party.
With that said, he has dragonscale-on-dragonhide armor with no Dragon’s Mark of Enmity. It matches his scale coloration, so it likely comes from a relative. The only name he mentioned in reference to all things draconic is “Althyr,” so I suspect that is the draconic relative who provided the armor. I am not familiar enough with dragons to know whether this Althyr is a connection we can call on or someone to avoid.
I have endeavored to avoid an outright hostile interaction and believe that he is generally willing to talk. He is unwilling to discuss ownership of the Library; he was quite firm about leaving the Librarians in place.
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The last piece of interesting information about Serenity is that he comes from an unknown planet by the name of Earth. He claims it is low Tier with a large and growing population; it apparently supports a limited number of dragons, mostly in the lower-population areas. I have attempted to gain an invitation to visit but the best I could manage was “maybe in about nine years.” I do not know why he chose such an oddly specific number.
As usual for a “friendly” contact, I intend to allow communication from him in the future.
As for the rest of the mission, there have been some unfortunate but now unimportant developments. The Viper appears to have been dug out of his hole by Serenity and his forces, though the various mercenaries of Takinat claim that it was a mass effort. Their tales include an impossible number of portals, one per team on both the way in and way out, spread over only a couple of days each way. Either Serenity has someone with an extreme portal Affinity or the tales are badly overstated. I know which I choose to believe.
In addition, the group stationed at the second most likely location, Stallet Academy, has ceased communication. Unlike the Viper’s base, I have been unable to gather any usable information on what happened. All attempts to communicate, even some of the simpler on-planet options, have completely failed, so I do not believe that it is just a worn-out message crystal. Given the issues they’ve had the entire time with the Academy’s strange ward system, I believe they triggered something they were unable to deal with. I do not expect to hear from them again, but it is clear that the Vault is not there in any case.
Durhan’s Devastators are fine; however, with all of the other obvious groups out of the picture they are no longer useful for splitting the planet’s fighters. In accordance with their contract, I informed them of their release and they have already left.
Should I pursue the Vault into the Library past Serenity or simply accept this as a failed mission?
Lord Cymryn
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Cymryn
If there is any chance you offended Serenity, run. But do not run back to the Empire.
If you believe - as your letter stated - that your relationship with him is “friendly,” you are authorized to attempt to gather more information on him, but ONLY if it will not harm or anger him in any way. Once your information gathering is as complete as you can manage without breaking those - preferably without being noticed - you are authorized and required to leave Asihanya.
The mission to locate the Vault is hereby canceled. Its location is compromised and any contents can be assumed to already be in the hands of Althyr.
The Emperor has already been informed. This time, the messenger was wise and made certain he was on an uninhabited moon when he delivered the information, so there is not a massive lava flow in a major city to deal with.
Althyr is known to the Empire. He is also known as “the Dragon-God”. If he has spread his wings over Serenity, the question is not whether or not you can handle Serenity; it is whether or not Althyr will step in. For a relative who found something as important as this Vault is supposed to be, we believe that he would.
Restali
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Cymryn did conduct a little more investigation before he evacuated the planet. He had agents that were even better than he was at collecting sparse details and turning them into a complete picture.
The complete picture he ended up with was baffling.
Most of Serenity’s people went by the same name. It had to be a species name rather than a personal name, but Cymryn had never heard of the Legion species. They were green-skinned humanoids with green eyes; many also had green hair. Despite the green, however, they were clearly not dryad relatives; many of them seemed quite comfortable in completely artificial surroundings and they were definitely all comfortable in conditions that Cymryn considered overcrowded. Cymryn marked them down as the majority population of Earth; it explained a lot about the population.
Serenity’s inner circle, on the other hand, had no Legion in it. Instead, it had humans. There was also a draykin, but he was clearly the guide for Asihanya. Given that Serenity’s non-draconic half appeared human, Cymryn considered it likely that Earth had a large population of Legion and a small but ruling population of Humans. The exact position of dragons wasn’t clear.
Most of the humans around Serenity made sense. They looked a lot like a delving group, with Kerr for frontline, Serenity for magic, and Blaze for healing. The presence of a wife and child, especially an apparently human wife and child, complicated things. Cymryn suspected that Rissa was dragon-blooded, but he was unable to confirm it.
Ita was a bit more of a problem. Cymryn didn’t know the Sterath people well, but they were a thorn in the Empire’s side, so he’d done a minimal amount of studying. It was clear that Ita looked to Serenity as her leader; that would not have been strange if Serenity were Sterath, but he very blatantly was not. The Empire had never found a way to reroute that particular instinct to any non-Sterath on a large scale, which meant that Serenity had somehow done it for Ita individually. That wasn’t impossible but it was quite unusual.
All of this was explainable. It didn’t quite feel right, but it all added up … except for the presence of a daa’vil. Tirmanak Oathbinder was not personally famous, but he was high enough Tier to be notable. More importantly, he was high enough Tier that he would never be hired as a nanny. He had to be there as a guard, but what could possibly be important enough about a child that young who wasn’t heir to at least a seated Lord?
On top of that, an Oathbinder wasn’t someone anyone would choose as a guard. It wasn’t that they couldn’t do it; instead, the problem was that it was a complete waste of their abilities. It was far better to use them to help with contracts and oaths than to have them waste their time on something that could be done by people whose expertise was in bodyguarding.
Cymryn didn’t have to make sense of it all. He simply had to pass it along to the person collecting all of the information he came up with.
He half-hoped he’d hear from Serenity in nine years’ time and he half-hoped he wouldn’t. Either way, he needed to remember to reach out if Serenity didn’t reach out to him.