"All looks good, Mr. Norman?"

Norman gently put down his backpack in a corner and surveyed his new accommodations. "Yes, it's quite alright, Mrs..." The elderly staff member who accompanied him to his new apartment had introduced herself ten minutes ago, but Norman had already forgotten her name.

"Wilma." She politely offered. "Any particular reason you requested new accommodations?" She looked stern in her appearance, but her voice was soft and comforting.

Norman could understand why she was curious. After all, all the housing around the Illustrious torus followed similar templates. And the same amenities were available, no matter where one lived. This one had the same pristine white walls, and only differed slightly in the layout.

"No, it's just that one of my friends lives in this complex." Norman lied, "Since we collaborate frequently, I felt it would be convenient for us to stay close by."

"I see. Is it Mr. Reginald? He lives down the block." Wilma's curiosity had no end.

"Yes," Norman lied. He had no idea who this Reginald was, but he wanted the conversation to be over quickly.

The real reason Norman wanted to shift was because even after a month since her passing, he kept imagining Celine at various locations in the house. He didn't know if a change in scenery would help, but it was worth trying.

"I see. I have thoroughly enjoyed your Yokidon matches. No wonder you two are close."

*So, someone connected with Yokidon then.* Norman pushed down the pang of disappointment and offered her what he hoped was a reasonably sincere smile. Without the Wyrms' assistance, he would never be able to play the game with as much proficiency, and he simply did not have the time to practice. He had been evading calls from his team using the ongoing engagement with Zenith Fidaeus as an excuse.

"Alright then, the last thing I wanted to remind you was that you will have to shift all your belongings within the next three days and notify the staff. After that, we will reassign your previous apartment to someone else."

"You can do it right away." Norman said offhandedly. "I have all my belongings right here." He pointed towards his large backpack.

"That is all you have?" Wilma looked back at the bulging bag suspiciously.

Norman just nodded. He had disposed off the last of Celine's scratchpads the week before. It was surprising how such a tiny creature could contribute to eighty percent of his belongings.

"Alright then, I'll notify the coordinator," she politely concluded, before heading out, "You have a pleasant day, Mr. Norman."

"You too, Wendy. Thanks for taking care of this so promptly."

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Norman did not notice the subtle shift in her expression, but Wilma didn't press the matter further. After all she had spent her career in the Illustrious torus. In a profession like hers, you learned to deal with the eccentricities of the numerous residents - most of them perpetually lost in their own worlds.

After she had left, Norman slumped down on the sofa and activated the department issued holcast. Over the last few weeks, he had kept a close eye on the news broadcasts. With Flavia at the helm of Ortimus, he had to be cautious. He didn't know what she was planning, but he was sure she wasn't going to leave him in peace. Rothfurd had described her as a viper, and the analogy had stuck with him ever since.

The immersive interactive projection materialized as a three-dimensional reel of circulations aggregated from across the empire, filling out the room. Norman navigated the feed using gestures, scrolling through the kaleidoscope of multimedia content that shimmered in thin air.

He also wasn't sure if the Nightwyrm fragment he had expelled had found another host by now. Norman had been keeping a close eye on news of any suspicious activity around the empire, and especially Haveskon. But so far, there had been nothing out of ordinary that he could attribute to the wyrm.

After quickly flicking through episodes on political developments and a few recent innovations around deep space travel, a feed item on the appointment of a new batch of Grandmasters caught his attention. That had been Norman's dream - the dream that brought him to the Illustrious academy. The Grandmasters were at the topmost tier of the Irvanian academic hierarchy. The specialists who led the direction of all research and development in their respective fields. He had imagined himself being awarded the designation by the God King - the ultimate recognition and validation of his contributions towards the Protectorate. Over the last few months, though, he had increasingly felt that dream slipping away from his fingers.

But now, as he saw the God King's avatar congratulate the newest Grandmasters, almost all of them in their sixties, some even in their eighties and nineties, he also wondered what roles they played in ensuring that the people were only exposed to a view of the universe that favored the Irvanian monarchy.

The insights he had received from his wyrm companion still lingered in his mind. The version of history he had studied growing up and the version of history he had experienced through the glimpses shared by the Wyrm had been quite different. The Yaskh had always been portrayed as a race of barbarian scavengers - violent fiends opposed to the progress of humanity. But the reality had been quite nuanced. And Irathor's army had been the aggressors. But how much could he truly the predator either?

Then there was the revelation about Saan.

The academy had taught that the Saan were a mycelial race spread throughout a sub-dimensional aetherial plane. While that may have been technically correct, Norman's assumption had always been that they were more of a non-sentient biological phenomena. Many branches of technology took advantage of the distributed reconciliation system that the Saan facilitated.

That the Saan were an evolved, intelligent race with their own rules and relationships was akin to discovering that cucumbers had established a parallel monarchy in your backyard.

Norman had drifted into his thoughts, not realizing that the broadcast about announcement of new Grandmasters was over. It was only when the autoplay moved on to a coverage of a prominent singer's turbulent marital life, that Norman was pulled out of his thoughts and he quickly dismissed the footage. After flicking through a few more developments on the political fronts, he moved to the topic of his dissertation.

The end of the academic cycle was coming to a closure, and in another month he would have to get his thesis to a state of completion. During his defense, a team of experts from all adjacent domains would question every aspect of his work and every result and conclusion would be analyzed from all possible angles. And Norman had to make sure it was iron-clad. Not even the smallest of the errors had any chance of passing the scrutiny of the scholarch.