Little Celah, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Sixthmonth, 1634 PTS
Deuvar looked on in horror at the mass of plants in what had once been a jungle-like space. Every single one of the plants that the Leader had meticulously acquired and grown was dead, wilted in their pots, as if they had not been watered in weeks. He had last been here just two weeks before, and at that time, nothing had been amiss.
For the first time in over a month, Deuvar’s long-lasting headache was gone, his mind fully clear as he continued to inspect the space before him. Dust had begun to form, and he could find little evidence to indicate how long it had been since the house’s occupant had left.
Deuvar chuckled, as if the sight before him was humorous, but a fist lashed out smashing a ceramic pot against the wall. Shards of the pot and chunks of dirt exploded across his surroundings, staining the side of Deuvar’s clothes a dark shade of brown, not that he noticed. His attention remained firmly ensconced in what was not present, and the rage in his heart only continued to grow.
Deuvar had never considered himself a wrathful man. It was not that he lacked a temper, but more so that he had the self restraint to control it. He played the role of the intimidating and punishing superior because it was effective at handling his subordinates, not because he lacked restraint. But even his self control had its limits. He felt himself reaching those limits now. The Leader, the man he had looked up to and supported for the majority of his life, now missing, likely dead, and the culprit was nowhere to be found.
Once the current crisis had been resolved, Deuvar swore that he would avenge this.
In the history of the Celan people, there was a period where multiple nations simultaneously held an arsenal of nuclear weapons, enough to render all of the few truly habitable portions of their planet infertile. These weapons had never seen use outside of testing, however. Each side had been far too fearful of the consequences, the reprisal that would occur. Mutually assured destruction, they called it. After entering the Pantheonic Territory, Deuvar had looked into the histories of other races, and had found that many races had similar stories.
In Deuvar’s opinion, war was a fundamentally economic matter, a comparison of costs and benefits, and when the benefits were outweighed by the costs, few would wish to take action. He had taken this into account when ordering reconstruction of the titans, following the conflict ten years before. If the station’s hull was breached, chances were everyone in the city would die, a cost too great for even his enemies to bear.
Only a zealot would do so, and the powers that be resented such individuals. Even Janottka, the supposed culprit of this mess, would not wish for such a thing. It was an empty threat, one which nobody would take seriously. But the titans remained a threat regardless, at least to his foes such as the Hadal Clan. This was because what the titans truly threatened was for the conflict to scale up to a higher level, to where the government would involve itself. The problem was that whichever of the two sides used cards of that level first would receive more suppression by the Staiven in the aftermath.
This was the second titan facility that the Seiyal had unknowingly attacked, and perhaps it was true that activating the war machine was the only way to protect it from the invaders. But given the current situation, Deuvar would rather it be destroyed than put to use. There was more than one titan, more than one hidden card… the thought filled his mind, and Deuvar remembered what he had been doing. Perhaps, he thought, his mind had not been so clear after all.
He scrambled for his slate, his meaty fingers struggling to draw the right glyphs to contact his nephew. After a few short moments, the youthful appearance of Kalthen appeared, surprised by his appearance.
“Uncle? Is something wrong?”
He seemed surprised, and momentarily, Deuvar wondered just how he appeared at the moment. But the distraction faded, and he asked the burning question.
“Have you received any orders from the Leader?”
Kalthen frowned, confused by the question.
“Should I have?”
Hearing this, Deuvar could not help but let out a deep breath.
“No, don’t worry about it. Someone impersonated him and spoke to Overun. Do not trust any messages you receive unless they’re from me, understood?”
Kalthen froze, surprised by his uncle’s words, but quickly nodded.
“Of course, Uncle. I’ll make sure there are no issues here.”
Giving him a sharp nod, Deuvar cut the call, and immediately dialed Khot, the woman in charge of the third and final titan facility. She took longer to respond than Kalthen, but reiterated what he had said. There had been no contact from anyone, much less somebody claiming to be the Leader.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
This was odd, thought Deuvar. Triezal seemed to suspect that Janottka had slain and impersonated the Leader, and wished to use the Staiven as a borrowed sword to kill them. But if that was the case, why did she not communicate with the other two facilities? He considered the idea of Overun faking the message and overreaching, due to fear for his life, and could not discard it out of hand. Overun had not particularly struck Deuvar as a coward, but he would not be the first to reveal a new side of himself when under threat of death.
Wanting to curse, and perhaps to smash another pot, Deuvar stalked out of the Leader’s home, knowing that regardless of the situation’s cause, he could do nothing by simply remaining here. Perhaps it was too late, but there was still a chance that Triezal could restrain matters at that facility. As he left, Deuvar did not glance back, but deep down he suspected that he might never return to this place.
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???, Tseludia Station, Pantheonic Territory, Sixthmonth, 1634 PTS
One of Rachel’s selves frowned, noticing an anomaly in the virtual space. She inspected the issue, and upon closer analysis of the discarded net packets, their identity became discernable. She narrowed her simulated eyes, peering at the unmistakable trace.
For the first time in weeks, she had found clear evidence of Janottka’s network interface.
“Did you overplay your hand, or are you baiting us?” she asked the open air, unsure of her next move. She mulled the options over for her internal equivalent of several seconds realtime, before another of her split selves noticed a second unusual occurrence. Several signals had entered the open airwaves, as if out of nowhere. They were faint, extremely faint, but steadily growing in size. It only took her moments to realize what she was looking at.
A hidden aperture on the side of a stack in Little Celah was opening, and given the size of the room within, there was only one possibility.
“You’ve hidden so well, so why are you taking action now?” she muttered.
It made no sense. The Heirs’ leaders were not so foolish as to escalate to this level. Had the Seiyal done something she was not aware of? Or… her thoughts turned to the traces she had just located on the network, and suddenly Rachel came to an immediate conclusion.
“Shit!” yelled Rachel, her voice echoing through the open air of the meditation room, and startling Cyrus, who had been in the middle of his ‘cultivation,’ as she liked to call it. “There’s a situation, and you need to get to Little Celah right now if we want to affect things.”
He frowned, glancing at her projection witha surprised look on his face.
“What? Why so urgently?” he asked.
“I’m honestly not entirely sure what’s going on, but it’s big. There’s a possibility that an immortal level battle might occur.”
“What?” parroted Cyrus, who had already leapt to his feet.
Rachel gave him a toothy grin.
“Didn’t we plan to fish in muddied waters?” she asked. “This is the perfect opportunity. Almost everyone present there will probably die, but I’m confident in your survivability, and we can try to get rid of several of our enemies while we’re at it.”
He quickly nodded, not needing much persuasion. Cyrus, she knew, was no coward.
“Call an aero, and grab Karie and Irid. Jihan and the others will stay and protect the sect.” Left unsaid was the fact that if an immortal level fight did occur, spirit refinement was likely the minimum prerequisite for simply surviving the conflict. Regardless, she agreed with leaving behind Jihan. He was stronger than Irid, and far more trustworthy than Karie. There was no better choice for someone to protect the sect. And they would not be so foolish as to leave it undefended again.
Rachel nodded, and quickly used split selves to go about the preparations. She informed all of the sect’s leadership, chartered the aero, and continued to analyze what was happening. The aperture slowly continued to open, and she broke into the systems of the nearby companies, discovering that a factory one level above the aperture’s location had just been broken in by a powerful force of Seiyal bearing the Hadal Clan’s uniforms. Interesting, she thought. She was learning more about the situation, but still the details escaped her. Perhaps by the time Cyrus arrived, she would fully comprehend what was going on.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the sudden appearance of a message implanted into a multitude of packets in the network, its carrier leaving behind zero traces, this time.
“See you soon, Rachel,” it said.
Rachel froze, then scowled in annoyance.
Moments later, her figure appeared before Cyrus again, and he raised an eyebrow as she interrupted him midway through dressing himself.
“...Make sure you bring the knife,” she said, ignoring his current state. He hesitated, and then gave her a sharp nod, trusting her advice. Her projection then vanished, not wishing to make it awkward.
Inside her simulated world, Rachel glanced again at the message she had been sent, and sighed.
“She really does know how to make someone uncomfortable,” she muttered.
Nuclear War and the Staiven: [Despite their invention of nuclear technology, the Staiven have had a unified government long enough that there was never a nuclear conflict between them. In fact, the Staiven have not fought a real war in centuries, not since the time when the Pantheon first arrived on Staive, the forces of their Reilanh fighting against the natives for dominance. Ever since the pact 1634 standard years ago, which concluded in Pantheonic rule, the Staiven military has only had minor conflicts with alien forces, and occasional border issues with Osine client races or the underlings of other ascendant factions. Their dominance simply grew to the point where conflicts failed to escalate. However, the Staiven still have an understanding of mutually assured destruction. They are simply the ones who handle the role of the destruction.]