This is an Official EDICT to be enforced on behalf of The People TO DECLARE the glorious APPOINTMENT of The COUNCELLOR as the INTERM COMMANDER of The People’s Army until the PRINCESS, is deemed fit to take up the mantle of EMPRESS.

All lines of the Previously Posted EDICT to this one remain legally binding. Where direction conflicts, this EDICT shall supersede.

The official time of mourning for the death of the Ambassador will commence immediately.

Any AVOIDANCE, INTERRUPTION, DESTRUCTION or DISREGARD of this or any EDICT automatically entitles any citizen to branding/maiming/execution.

All sapient beings acting against The People and their Army are automatically eligible for execution. This includes the group known as the Wayfarers, who were responsible for the Ambassador's ASSASSINATION and the EMPRESS's KIDNAPPING and DISAPPEARANCE. New Citizens of The People’s Army providing aid, substance, or shelter to said beings, please refer to branding/maiming/execution.

Field Marshall Daktor is working in close cooperation with the newly appointed High Priestess, one Waterwalker of the Observatory, to access the Western Tower and its technology to aid the New Citizens of the Western City. Their complete cooperation in this endeavour is greatly appreciated and serves as a beacon of unity for all.

Movement from the Western City is being controlled to aid The People’s Army in search of deviant factions. To obtain a Peoples Departure Pass, traders and travellers are subject to search.

This notice has been written on behalf of the People in the lawful language of the Church. Deviation from this language, its alphabet, the use of any modified trade or gang speak or signs or signalling devices, please refer to branding/maiming/execution.

The high priestess placed the edict down into the scattered scrolls and papers that never ceased in their constant shifting across her stone table. Camomile stood on the far side, in a position of respect as her disguise as a young Accolade would dictate. The ever-constant vibration thrummed through the vaulted stone walls of the dark chamber. The candles of three behind the high priestess gave just enough light to reveal the intricate maze-like carvings etched into the stone block walls. The sloped stone rose far above them to meet at the pyramid apex and the tether for the city of glass.

“So, that’s it then. They have replaced me as High Priestess. I didn’t think it would be so soon.”

“Yes. It was just posted. I came directly here with it. We expected them to take more time to begin deconstructing the tower, to win over the city inhabitants. But with the support of Old Waterwalker, they can start working to pull down the city of glass now.”

“That is the iron fist of Daktor. His small group of maniacal soldiers were able to rescue him. He thinks he is invincible now, even without his armour. The Councilor has disappeared. My agents tell me he is moving east. In the Councilor’s absence I think Daktor intends to name himself the new ambassador to The Peoples' Army. With the added help of Waterwalker, the posession of the Observatory and her command of the clockworks, Daktor can ignore the city and start to work. I was a fool not to anticipate this.”

“And you were also a fool to not let me kill the assassin.”

“You could have? After the Professor spoke to us from the top of the tower. You could have that day? We would tell Professor Adoria that we were killing down here? You joined our cause that day. The Great Reclamation. What would they think if we were down here killing for them?”

Camomile hesitated. Her countenance went from aggressive to compliant. “Yes.” She said. You are right. I could have no longer followed that path. I would have been on the wrong side, and I would have been aware of it. But no one would have suspected Old Waterwalker to switch sides.”

The high priestess tone became concilatory, “I know. I have been doing this… job, for a long time. Possibly too long. The young Kalla. She is very quick. She tells me how they plan to pull down our tower just by glancing at the preparations the army makes. Her whip-like intelligence makes this old woman feel I am not so quick in mind as I once was. But you could be right. I see that assasin’s work in turning Waterwalker.”

“We will take these losses and continue our work. We are a long way from being beaten.“ She gestured to the desktop. “And the crystal ball the Professor speaks to us through. I no longer see it here.”

“Another key piece I had to put into play. The Professor agreed with me. She says she can create another way for us to communicate, but for now…”

“Regardless, I am going to move against them. I plan to replace Waterwalker. I came to tell you where I would be.”

“No. I need her alive and well, functioning in her new position. She is still a lever I can manipulate. I need you for something much more important.”

“Waterwalker is key.”

“I said I have plans for her. You will not replace her, nor will you make her disappear. If she was lost then they would convince the next sister in the Observatory, or if not her, the next, to be High Priestess, and how long would that take? A day? No. A week possibly. We would delay them a week. Then the clockworks would be running again, working against the tether. And as far as you are concerned, if you did take her place, your inability to command the clockworks would immediately reveal you.”

“Excuses could be made. A disguise is always delicate, and there are always problems to deal with. I’ve done it before. I could claim a serious illness.”

“If a High Priestess was unable to perform her duties, Field Marshal Daktor would run her through, and her powers would pass to the next in line at the Observatory. Also, I’m sorry to say, a description of your abilities has graduated recently from old tales around the fire into official military reports.”

“That assassin again.”

“Yes. I believe so.”

“She did not go and lead a life of peace and prosperity as I had suggested.”

“No. I have correspondence that the Councillor has indicated he will not interfere if she attempts to establish herself as Master in Central City.”

“Let her then. We need to stop the destruction of this tower.”

“Yes, the Professor and I, and the remaining Wayfairers here will do that. As for you, I have a task for you. I have known old Waterwalker for longer than you have been alive. I have created compositions to simulate hers. Some of these scrolls here,” The old woman fanned a hand across her desk. “I have worked here all night and have composed in her style. I need you to disguise yourself and plant them into enemy dispatches. They will go far in aiding the agents I have recently dispatched undercover.”

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“As you wish. But Waterwalker has seen you work. For these exact same reasons, she knows you are a threat to them, and she’ll treat you that way. She will move against us in the same manner you move against her. As long as she is around, it won’t be safe for you or any of us.”

“Now you’re right there, but she is the enemy we know. I know I’m in danger. My first defence is that I won’t be leaving this pyramid.”

“She would go missing or have a deadly accident. It will be subtle. These are desperate times. They will bring this tower down. I will not allow that no matter what I have to do. I will stop them.”

“No. I will not allow my people to operate as the other side does. I will manoeuvre her from within here. I have sent Agents out on taskings already. She will only be a slight inconvenience that I can deal with and when I am done with her I can place her in jeopardy with that vicious lot she has taken up with.”

“So you are willing to deal in the grey areas.”

“If it avoids outright killing, of course. Let them take themselves out, and good riddance.”

“One of those scrolls you have there is labelled ‘The Pirate King.’ You may be reaching too far.”

“Of course I am. None of this is easy and everything has risk.”

“I have never warned you before, but I will now. Don’t play me the fool, old woman.”

“Of course not.”

“I know all about the Pirate King. That may not keep working for you.”

“And I don’t really have any other options. If you have other options, other than assassinating Old Waterwalker outright, then give them to me.”

Camomile thought for a moment as the High Priestess studied her. “You’re right. I don’t. But The Pirate King? That is a very weak card. I don’t have other options. You’re the planner.” She ran a hand down the sloping stone wall beside her. “You run through the Sister’s teachings of favourable outcomes due to manipulation and influence that are etched as mazes in these stones like the puppet master that you are.” She turned back to the high priestess. “I am only a tool in this. I may not have options, but what have is help. What I can do is drop hints of the Pirate King. Maybe get our friends in Central City to establish some of his movements.”

“Very good. Just be careful.”

“We will. And you, don’t push too hard on that lever of the Pirate King or it may snap off in your hand.”

“Yes. I agree.” The High Priestess rose. “Before we continue, I need to show you the slight inconvenience you will also be expected to deal with. Follow me.”

The High Priestess took up the candles of three candelabra and began walking across the expanse of ever-shifting sand inside the base of the pyramid.

“The crystal ball, the optical sensor. Who did you give it to?”

“After you plant those dispatches tonight, that ‘who’ will be your responsibility.”

“In what way?”

“You will track them and then watch them at first. Make sure they are able to make passage and observe them closely. I… we are unsure of their disposition. Who’s side will they be on? And what is their level of commitment? You need to find that out.” She glanced back at her, “It could take a long time.”

“And if they turn out to be against us? What then?”

“Once you are absolutely convinced of the path they will take, you will let us know, and either way, it will be dealt with by our friends in Central City.”

“No one can be sure of any path. Even their own. And this is a more important task than staying here to prevent the tower from coming down? This sounds like something one of your lesser agents could accomplish?”

“No. This person is a fulcrum point. Once you find her, you will understand. I can’t send anyone else. She is a seer.”

“A seer? I have never attempted to work against a seer before. It could be dangerous. Is she far, or near sighted?”

“I don’t know, but for once you show the level of concern that I expect. I have faith in your abilities. Once you find this person, you will understand how important they are. You are by far the best for this assignment. Your grandfathers made sure of that. The items I need to show you are down this way. The day grows late and you have much to accomplish. Things are developing far too quickly.”

They crossed an expansive sand floor with the darkness close around them until the candles revealed the far stone wall. Its base was lined with corridor entrances sealed off by stone trapezoids each the size of a tomb wall. Each block was embossed with a different maze rune. The high priestess led them along the wall and stopped in front of one of the trapezoids, and at her touch on the embossed relief, the stone dropped into the floor to reveal a dark, narrow corridor. Both women were tall and they ducked under the lintel. The close walls of the tunnel narrowed towards the top to brush against their shoulders. Thirty paces found them at another sealed portal. The high priestess raised her palm to the etchings and the stone blocks rumbled and shifted, sliding and sinking away to create an opening to a chamber.

On the far wall of the chamber hung a set of gargoyle armour.

“The only complete set is Daktor’s armour,” Cam said.

“Yes. That’s it.” The old woman answered. “The set that wiley lizard man was able to pry off of him.”

Camomile walked with the High Priestess into the chamber. A stone plinth sat in its center. On it she examined more items that were placed there.

“This is not a room, this is a vault.” She commented.

“Yes. One only I have access to.”

Cam plucked at a swath of silvery cloak and beside it a pouch constructed from the same silvery mesh that had markings from the before times on it.

“This is a stealth cloak. And here is a perpetual grenade. These are very powerful tech. Do they work?”

“Yes.”

“Incredible.” Cam ran her fingertips across two matching leather flight helmets. “And these are fitted with tracking and navigational optics. Far beyond what a telescope can do. Why are you showing me these things?”

“To show you that their owners left them here. The army surrounded the city and have been carrying out searches at checkpoints before they posted that edict you brought me. I have deployed my Agents. If any of them were discovered carrying any of these items, their identities would be immediately revealed, and their lives would be forfeit.”

“You have plans for everyone, don’t you? Just like the Camomile Brothers had plans to train and augment me even as a young girl.”

“What they did was important. And what else is there? Are we not all to find our true purpose?”

“It is far better to find your purpose than to be given it, old woman.” Cam picked up the steath cloak. “If you are showing me these things to focus my resolution. I’ve already told you that it couldn’t be more focused. As long as I still breathe, whatever needs to be done to save the last tower will be done.”

“And to stop the breath of that body of yours would be a near impossible thing. You give all of us hope. And you must leave me that glove of yours.”

Cam turned to her. “What?”

“I know you have it. You know that your grandfathers would have told me of it in their letters. The glove of flowers. You will leave it here, in this vault, under my safekeeping. It doesn’t change you. It is you that is impossible to stop. Not that glove. It only marks you.”

“I’m not so impossible. Far from it. I need the glove. I won’t leave it.”

“You will leave it. If you want to continue working for me, that is. I know how well you can disguise yourself, but you cannot disguise that glove. You will leave the glove of flowers here as I command. The other side has learned of these items and they will be the first thing sought out. The assassin knows your glove.”

“There should have been another way with her. It was a mistake letting that assassin go in the aqueduct. She was very good. Why do I sometimes wonder how many options you calculate in that mind of yours, and how many you don’t use, or even worse, keep as a secret and don’t reveal to us?”

“The same day I trapped you in here as a spy we heard Adoria speak to us from atop the tower. It was only luck that. After eight hundred years to hear someone preserved from the before times speak? To us? At the same time? It changed you that day. It made you realize the training that the Camomile Brothers put you through was for a true and worthy cause. Instead of a neutral freelancer, you became an agent for good. Your assignment now, as one of my Agents, has three parts. Tonight you will plant those scrolls. Then you will follow the seer who carries my white orb, whose intentions we need to know, and finally, you will be going far into enemy territory to lead out the last of my Agents. But first, so you are not detected, you will leave the glove of flowers.”

Cam slipped a single fine mesh tech glove from inside the folds of her cloak. She studied the embossing, ran her thumb over the alternating black and yellow petals around a central round seed core, and finally laid it beside the rest of the items.

“You are the architect of all these things. All these movements, these shifts of force and sleight of hand. I hope this does not break you and you can bear the weight of what you do, for the outcomes could be bad. Very bad.”

“You think I am an old fool and did not anticipate the ease at which Daktor would begin to take down this tether above us. But, young woman, I still know what path to follow and what distraction to use, and I know what matters and what does not. How I bear up under the decisions I make, well, that is for me, and me alone.”

“And what will you do, old woman, High Priestess no longer? All these machinations of yours, of the other side, only you know of them all? Will they be enough? Will any of them succeed?”

“I think only one needs to succeed. All the others can fail.”

“Then do you know which one will succeed then?”

“Of course. That is simple. The one that turns out to be the most opposite of evil.”

“Then it is the one with the most love.”