Chapter 121: Hide and Seek - Interlude

  “So, what do you think?” Serval asked, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had taken over.

  It had been a day since his talk with Byrone. And he’d just shared the results of Don’s missions with his co-conspirators.

  At the center of the projection was the last frame of the video that Don had managed to spirit away from the mountain. C’s usual silhouette and Zeten’s old mug were projected on either side of the video.

  “Is this legit?” Zeten asked, his voice barely above a whisper.

  “At this point, I can’t deny it. C’s clues led us to this mountain. With my elevated access and C’s resources, we were able to gain entry. The place was swarming with Faceless Stewards, just like you read in Don’s report just now. We don’t control that group. And they have no purpose to bamboozle us like this,” Serval said.

  He didn’t tell them about his conversation with Byrone’s digital ghost. For that, he’d have to tell them about the Augury. Thick as thieves they might be right now, but Serval had his own way of doing things. If there was one person that he trusted above all else, it was Roland Patcher.

  Roland and Serval had been in cahoots for a very, very long time. If he couldn’t trust him, then he couldn’t trust anyone else. Initially, he had even kept Roland in the dark about the Augury because the thing was just that outlandish. But no more. It was time to bring him in. Zeten and C had their own assumptions on why Serval’s access got elevated, and he was able to see the edicts. The assumptions were partly right. Serval believed so as well. However, it now seems that he was specifically chosen by Byrone for this job. That’s why he had gotten this access.

  It was not just a matter of mana crystals and royal greed anymore. The true danger that the dungeon posed was more than anybody realized. Byrone’s warning was chilling, as the damage that an unbound dungeon would unleash would be unfathomable.

  C was the first to speak after that, and it was apparent that he was addressing Zeten. They had been collaborating before Serval joined their posse, after all. “For a long time, I’ve had some clues about the cabal. I knew that they were suppressing information and doing some shady stuff. We already knew about the lifespan issue due to Lady Maria. We believed that they hid it to keep the system going. So why couldn’t they have hidden this as well? I’m inclined to believe the worst of whoever this shady group is.”

  “And it doesn’t make sense for the Faceless Stewards to be a part of that. They have their own agenda,” Serval added.

  “I kind of agree. They are a complete wild card. To them, Byrone’s word is law. And from what it looks like, those laws have been subverted by the ruling family. It’s obvious that they wanted us to find this information. They’d never mistake someone else for one of their own. No matter how impressive Don’s cover was,” C said.

  “So are we just going to assume that these murals are historically accurate and that the K’Wuls had once known how to destroy the dungeon, but somewhere down the line, all that information was wiped out?” Zeten asked, doubtful.

  “What other reason could there be?” C questioned Zeten. In the hacker’s mind, everything had already clicked, and it looked like he wouldn’t be changing his stance.

  “Don’t mistake me. I completely agree that there are no lows that these fucks would hesitate to sink to. This is something that they definitely do. But I’m just playing the devil’s advocate to think about this from all possible angles,” Zeten growled. The fact that he was willing to think about this and not immediately fly into a rage was a testament to how patient he had been with his revenge so far.

  Serval had to ensure that these two were on the same page, without revealing information about the Augury, “You’re right. It can be a trap. There can be some misinformation indeed. On the other hand, the Faceless Stewards never reveal themselves this way. If they want to mess with us, we’d never see them coming.

  “With my access level, I can see that the mountain base is a site of maximum security. The Faceless Stewards are running the show there. All that’s listed about the projects undertaken there are all about research and development. Minimal interference from the outside, since they’re all supposed to be only developing prototypes and handing them over to the government. There haven’t been any audits in a long time. And the ruling King has never been inside the place.

  “The weapon stockpiling that’s going on over there paints a vivid picture. I feel that they have been biding their time and are now preparing for an intervention of some sort. Moreover, there’s nothing specifically mentioned about the murals in any report. The truth about the dungeon isn’t there anywhere else in the kingdom. I don’t see it in the archives, even with my clearance. C hasn’t found that in the black markets.

  “These murals are the only source of information about this. So you are correct in questioning it. Either the Faceless Stewards were protecting it for a long time for their own agenda, or it’s a complete fake. I personally believe that it’s the former, that it is accurate information which has been wiped out from public knowledge. Even if it wasn’t, it wouldn’t change my course of action,” Serval said, his voice ripe with conviction.

  “I say let’s shelve this for now. Let’s find everything we can, first. One of my clues led us to this information. I still have another lead after all. And Zeten, that one rests on your shoulders,” C proposed.

  After a few moments of silence, Zeten nodded in agreement, “I’m ready whenever you are. But I do hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “I do. All of us are already in too deep. There’s nothing else to do but follow the leads at this point. And once we get more information, we’ll know what to do with it,” C said.

  “Moreover, fake or not, we now have a possible theory on how to destroy the dungeon. So it does further our goals, no matter how convenient it may seem. Especially when these cultists are involved to this extent. They are loyal to Byrone above all else. So maybe they see our actions as loyalty to the ancestor, and not the treason it is,” Serval said.

  “Ignoring the reminder about the sword hanging over heads for now, let’s plan for the next phase,” C joked, as they got to planning the next heist.

  It was a day before the third trial was slated to end. Serval and C were connected over their encrypted call, watching through the Hall of Centurion’s security footage.

  As they had previously uncovered, this place was inordinately busy during the trials. And they saw live footage of it in action. Of course, there were no cameras pointing towards the hidden places, but all of these people had to go somewhere. Because sometimes some people entered and they didn’t come out at all. But a couple of days later, they were entering again. Either these guys were incredibly sloppy or once again, confident about their technology, about their superiority.

  “Are you sure that these systems wouldn’t be logging my entry?” Serval asked.

  “Oh, they definitely are. But we have a superuser-ish level of access. I’m just deleting those logs as they form,” C said.

  “That sounds like a security nightmare,” Serval muttered in response to that.

  “I mean, not really. You know that only the royals have this level of access, right? By design, they have access to everything. This tier of access is exclusively meant for them. And technically, now you. Due to whatever bullshit edict there might have been. Or maybe due to those other personal circumstances of yours.

  “But whatever the case, the moment these guys gave access to you, we have a leg up on almost anyone else in this information warfare. It’s just that you are too much of a layman to understand the things that you can do with such access. I am not. You opened the door enough for me to get in through my own methods. As we are right now, I’m the king of these bitches.”

  By now, Serval knew that the Faceless Stewards were covering up for him. They were pushing their own agenda, so he needed to be wary of that as well. But as he was right now, he didn’t fear the cabal, nor the royal family of one. “What’s the worst they could do? We have crossed the line of treason so far that at this point there’s nothing to lose.”

  “That’s the spirit. Oh, wait! Zeten’s in,” exclaimed C as the screens switched and cycled to the one that was focusing on Zeten. He had just entered the hall. The old D’Raac swiftly moved towards the chamber dedicated to the Honored Choker in a practiced motion.

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  It was Serval’s first time seeing these chambers. He had access, sure, but once again it was a matter of priority. He had just gotten access to basically all available information. But he just had one brain and limited time. He couldn’t see everything in such a short time that he’d had the access for.

  The chamber itself was pretty grand. Impeccable architecture, spacious viewing area, great lighting, the whole works. Lining the walls of the chamber were several exhibits. All of them, statues of the Honored Chokers who became centurions. Next to their statues were holographic screens that cycled through their highlights.

  Dead center in the middle of the room was the statue of the latest centurion of their line. The reigning centurion, Maria M’Ara.

  Zeten walked briskly in front of her statue and stood there for a while staring at it with a look of determination on his face. Nobody walked over to disturb him. Of course, access to each chamber was strictly curated based on a very selective criterion. Only a handful of people could enter, after all. And the people who ran this place, who maintained it all, knew better than to disturb any advisor who would be there. Especially given that Zeten was the current advisor of the seeded artifact.

  Right now, it was all a farce. Zeten was supposed to put on a show. That’s why he was there. Nothing was happening just yet, but this was all groundwork for the actual job.

  They both waited for a while before Zeten made a move. He walked closer to his aunt’s statue, focusing on the projection floating beside it. The highlight reel of her tourney.

  He then abruptly turned and walked out of the chamber. As he went back to the common area, he nodded at the maintenance staff nonchalantly and continued without stopping. On his way towards the exit, he paused. He glanced at the restroom and walked towards it instead.

  “Okay, here we go,” C muttered.

  Of course, there were no cameras that monitored the restrooms, but they knew what Zeten was about to do. They had planned for it. This was not the first time Zeten had visited the hall. Over the past few weeks, he’d been there once. It was suspicious, maybe. But given the timing, it was the perfect cover. Given that the Centurial Challenge was ongoing, and the people who had access to this place tended to visit often. Because if they had access, then it meant that they’d obviously have an emotional connection.

  They timed it so that he visited after sending his voyager into the dungeon. And now he was visiting it right before Xylo would return.

  When he visited the last time, he had one of C’s tools whose main purpose was just to slip under the radar of surveillance and tag those surveillance methods in return.

  Three minutes later, C exclaimed in happiness. “Yup, I’m in,” he said.

  “That easy?” Serval asked. As C had said, they had multiple points of attack, and C was already inside their external systems. But this was absurd.

  “Yeah, this emergency system is wired to everything. They have made an effort to separate the hall and their basement, but for emergency evacuations, these things need to have access to every door, right? And given that I’m already inside their systems, this attack vector worked well.”

  It was a two-pronged approach. Since Serval had already opened the door for him, C could do a lot. And Zeten’s purpose was to slip a very small bug into the fire alarm, which would force a restart due to a malfunction. Nothing serious, just a forced restart. But that moment of restarting was enough for C to hop onto the train as the alarm reconnected to the system. Serval didn’t know what exactly that entailed in terms of technical know-how, but as a layman, that’s what he understood.

  C didn’t respond much for the next twenty minutes, apart from just making appreciative hums as he trawled through the secret layer. At one point, C gasped audibly. But he didn’t elaborate when prompted. By then, Zeten had exited the hall and was making his way to his office on his aircar.

  “How much longer, C? I could be doing something else. We could have temporarily disconnected and reconnected later,” Serval said, tired of just sitting and listening to the hacker work.

  “Oh, I’m done. To be precise, I found something crazy, which is exactly what we are looking for. I’m waiting for Zeten to rejoin. Easier to explain it just the once. Otherwise, I’m just trying to take a look at everything and see if I find anything else.”

  “Fine,” Serval grumbled.

  A few minutes later, Zeten joined the call as well.

  “Welcome back, Zeten. Amazing work,” C said.

  “So you got in?” the old man asked.

  “Yep. These guys are guilty as sin. Take a look, C said.”

  The projector shifted and showed live footage of some sort of security room.

  There was an elaborate circle drawn on the floor, right at the center of the room. There were countless runes etched into the circle, and each of these indents was filled with crushed mana crystals. Glowing lines of power traveled across the floor, spreading out from the circle and connecting to countless other crystals, which all projected a holographic screen.

  The projection system seemed entirely magic-based and had not an ounce of visible technology on it. It all looked extremely dated.

  C selected something, and the contents of one such screen were projected directly onto their call. Both Serval and Zeten gasped in astonishment.

  The screen was showing the footage of the dungeon. It showed what was presumably the third layer of the dungeon. All the volcanic ash, lava, and soot confirmed so.

  It was sort of a bird’s-eye view. But what was more astonishing was that the display switched to the next screen. And this one showed the contents of the trial of water. Another flicker, and it switched to the first trial. A final switch. And they were now peering into the fourth level of the dungeon.

  “These bastards,” Zeten growled, unable to control his rage. His entire body seemed tense, as if ready to lunge at the projection. His teeth were grinding together in anger, and the vein on his temple was pronounced.

  Serval couldn’t help but agree with the sentiment. They thought that entitlements were handed out based on something or other. Maybe they were in the past. But now it was clear what was happening in the present. These people had visuals inside the dungeon. They were picking and choosing based on their own agenda. This wasn’t impartial anymore. And it was most definitely not fair. Who knew which asshole had what sort of an influence over this group? It could lead to all sorts of favoritism. Even if it wasn’t, this was just not right.

  If they obviously had information about the happenings of the dungeon, they could have easily shared that with everyone and made life easier for so many voyagers. But these people sat and watched as the voyagers died in droves inside the dungeon. All to hoard mana crystals. Sure, mana crystals ran everything in the world. It was their power source, it was their technology, it was everything. But apparently, it looked like mana crystals were more important than lives for the ones at the top.

  “It’s not just audio, you know,” C said, tapping something, and they could clearly hear the noise of the wind coming from the projection. “And nothing new,” C said, as the screens switched and showed a different video. One of Maria M’Ara crushing the head of a smilodon with her bare hands, inside the dungeon.

  If they could do this all this time, why were they pushing for the recorders this time around? Just what was their game?

  But one thing was clear... This pretty much cemented what Byrone had said. To these people, the dungeon was a resource to be exploited, not the actual threat it was. To them, all voyagers were expendable. Not the venerated poor guests that they had been portrayed as. They were actively and maliciously plotting against all voyagers while pulling the wool over everyone’s eyes.

  Their whole society was a sham.

  “Uh-huh. Don’t get too excited just yet. It doesn’t end there,” C said, and switched the display back to the footage of the war room. “This specific nugget is not live, mind you. But it is recent. Happened just yesterday.”

  They watched as the door to the chamber opened, and everyone inside it stood up abruptly and saluted. Serval almost bit his tongue in frustration, losing his composure, not caring about his poker face one bit.

  In walked Dracolan K’Wul, the reigning King of Tava.

  “We suspected that the royals were involved, but now apparently it seems like it wasn’t really a cabal; it was just a state secret. What a terrible thing to behold,” Zeten said, his voice hollow with disappointment.

  “I thought he’d be different. He was just a kid. Barely an adult. But it seems like filth bred filth,” said an incensed Serval.

  “We can’t really say if he’s doing it of his own volition or just doing it because it’s tradition and Byrone’s edict says so. Not all the royals are rotten. He’s just a struggling king of such a large scale that he is mostly definitely confused about what to do,” C ventured.

  Serval couldn’t help but scoff in derision. If only these two knew the truth. All the royals were rotten. And they were not doing this at Byrone’s behest. They were doing it despite his intentions. They had perverted the whole artifact system. They were the true traitors.

  “Doesn’t matter anymore, does it? We had a goal in mind. We were already going against the crown’s interest. But what we didn’t realize was how deeply the crown was involved in all this,” Serval said.

  “So what do you think we should do now?” C asked.

  “The question here really is, we’re already risking our necks, but are we ready to go against the entire military might of this planet? We most definitely won’t have the support of so many nobles. They’d all side with the crown. Those who are aggrieved like us are far fewer in number. We can’t go about this guns blazing. But just like we have done so far, if we are clandestine, we might be able to achieve something, despite the risk to our lives,” Zeten said after a moment.

  There was some silence for a while before Serval continued. “Zeten, you’re the one who has a family. You’re the one who has something to lose. I personally don’t. And C has already said that he also doesn’t care. He’s in it for the love of the game. Of course, I have associates whom I might be putting at risk. So I have to assess that. I propose we all take some time to think about it. Then we can reconvene after our voyagers are back. They need to know. We owe them that much. It’s their lives that are directly at risk because of this.”

  “Yeah. My mind is pretty much blank right now. Need some time to process all this. Let’s talk later,” Zeten agreed. C also agreed, and they all disconnected.

  Serval’s mind, though, was running a mile a minute. Byrone mentioned that he had rigged the entitlements to ensure that the Delusional Sleuth was available at that exact moment. Which meant he had spies inside this surveillance room. Or maybe even at a higher level. It seemed the Faceless Stewards were a couple of steps ahead of everyone else.

  He could let it play out as it was meant to. Play the politician and cement his base of power. Blackmail, deceive, and misuse this power, this authority that had fallen into his lap. Or, he could rebel and finish what he started all those years ago. Not just for revenge, but for the safety of all.

  This was a crossroads indeed.

  But as he had always maintained, his choice was already made. His course of action was set. He knew that C would be in it just for the thrill, and Zeten was too aggrieved, too personally involved to let this go. Roland will back him up no matter what. He had his allies. He’d need to find more. The more people he convinced and brought to his side, the better his chances would be.

  He had strong voyagers, and he had an option now to view the inside of the dungeon. This meant that it was doable. The more he thought about it, the more confident he became. He could destroy the dungeon without sacrificing his voyagers.

  It could be done.

  This was what Byrone meant. And Serval had no second thoughts about it. He could do it, and he will do it.