Sorry about Saturday's post, or the lack thereof... Saturday was busy, to say the least... In the meanwhile, to make up for my forgetfulness, I'll be posting on Thursday this week to catch up on the missed post, so hopefully that's all good.
Part LXXV: Laying the Lines
Date: Kornun 22nd, 114 A.U.
Oldin, head of the FRI, looked up from his desk to see ex-Governor Astrid come in. She didn’t have an appointment, but she didn’t need it—even if she wasn’t Governor of Araelia anymore. She wearily sat down at one of the swivel chairs and turned to face him. After quickly signing a paper, Oldin turned toward her.
“Just got back from a long foreign policy talk with Iraina and his crew,” she said. As the caller and initiator of the Xavier Team, she had managed to get some policies and positions at work before she left to basically become the official head of the Xavier Team. Meaning that she was the one who had all the contact info of the Xavier Team and that everyone—including the new Governor of Araelia, Iraina—would have to go through her first.
“How’d that go?” Oldin asked.
"It was alright,” Astrid said, sighing. “We got into a long debate about what the Xavier Team should be trying to do. We got our first message from them in a while. Apparently they decided to split up in their search for the Sla’ad’s rezquiert weapon. Some of them were going to follow a lead to find a slave in the elves’ slaves camps while the others were going to go find the Sla’ad tribe that Reynyagn was a part of and try to glean info there. Anyways, Iraina wants to insert more control over the Xavier Team since he thinks they could work really well together if coordinated with our other spies among the elves. And I, of course, think that things should just be left to them, especially since it’s so hard to send messages to us without the elves intercepting them that the communication lag would make it near impossible to work. He says that it’s high time that we stop worrying about the elves intercepting us and just take the risk since, according to him, the reward outweighs the risk.”
“I see,” Oldin said briefly, not wanting to get into the power conflicts between Iraina and Astrid. “Any news from Jroldin?”
“He says he really wanted to be among the group that was infiltrating the elf work camps, but couldn’t,” Astrid said. “The others agreed he was probably the most qualified to being a spy—thanks to you—but in the end they found it would be better for him to be with the other group.”
“Well, I guess that’s how it works…” Oldin said, tapping his finger before looking back up at Astrid. “Would you mind if I asked for your advice?”
“Go for it.”
“Well, you remember the operation we did that had captured the other Astrid as well as Jroldin?” Oldin asked.
“Course,” Astrid replied. “Go on.”
“Well, apparently the group was more deeply rooted than the one hideout we broke into,” Oldin said. “Because it keeps coming up. And we’ve been trying to narrow it down. Unfortunately, since then we’ve had five people who have been important to the case killed by some freak heart attack. So somehow this group can kill people via stimulated heart attacks or something like that. And according to new info we’ve collected, they appear to be connected with the elves.”
"What?!”
“They’ve been sending out low-level signals out of the mountain, heavily encoded of course,” Oldin said. “And some source is sending them back. We discovered this a couple months ago. The question then became who they were communicating with. Our potential leads have been frustrating—most of our communicants have been killed by this gang—but we’ve found lots of small money transactions from a more open elvish-sympathy gang that runs throughout several other dwarven cities. And given that there aren’t many people they could be communicating with outside.”
“Got it,” Astrid said. “So what do they want, and what are you doing about it?”
“That’s the problem,” Oldin said, frustrated. “We don’t know what they want. All we know is that the low-level operation we were tracking that captured Jroldin and Astrid was merely a façade to try to hide the other parts of this operation. So for now, we’re just trying to gain information. We’ve talked a good bit with Iraina of course, and he’s helped us some, but we’re not getting much anywhere. So I wanted to know if you had any advice.”
“Well, I don’t have all the information and people that I used to have,” Astrid said. “So I’m not completely sure… But if you’re correct that their whole drug-running operation was merely a coverup—well, it seems a strange coverup to pick. And if they are conspiring with the elves…”
"It means they’re a step ahead of us,” Oldin said. “That they know about where we are and are probably planning to attack us. Iraina has begun to put together a better defense system, as well as trying to intercept and stop these transmissions without either of them knowing. And we have our best experts trying to decode their signals, though we haven’t had much success yet… I feel like we’ve been caught by surprise… And we’re going to have to really step it up to get past the base that they already have here in order to stop them from spreading their tyranny into the mountains.”
Question of the Week: What are the elves trying to do in Araelia?
Part LXXV: Laying the Lines
Date: Kornun 22nd, 114 A.U.
Oldin, head of the FRI, looked up from his desk to see ex-Governor Astrid come in. She didn’t have an appointment, but she didn’t need it—even if she wasn’t Governor of Araelia anymore. She wearily sat down at one of the swivel chairs and turned to face him. After quickly signing a paper, Oldin turned toward her.
“Just got back from a long foreign policy talk with Iraina and his crew,” she said. As the caller and initiator of the Xavier Team, she had managed to get some policies and positions at work before she left to basically become the official head of the Xavier Team. Meaning that she was the one who had all the contact info of the Xavier Team and that everyone—including the new Governor of Araelia, Iraina—would have to go through her first.
“How’d that go?” Oldin asked.
"It was alright,” Astrid said, sighing. “We got into a long debate about what the Xavier Team should be trying to do. We got our first message from them in a while. Apparently they decided to split up in their search for the Sla’ad’s rezquiert weapon. Some of them were going to follow a lead to find a slave in the elves’ slaves camps while the others were going to go find the Sla’ad tribe that Reynyagn was a part of and try to glean info there. Anyways, Iraina wants to insert more control over the Xavier Team since he thinks they could work really well together if coordinated with our other spies among the elves. And I, of course, think that things should just be left to them, especially since it’s so hard to send messages to us without the elves intercepting them that the communication lag would make it near impossible to work. He says that it’s high time that we stop worrying about the elves intercepting us and just take the risk since, according to him, the reward outweighs the risk.”
“I see,” Oldin said briefly, not wanting to get into the power conflicts between Iraina and Astrid. “Any news from Jroldin?”
“He says he really wanted to be among the group that was infiltrating the elf work camps, but couldn’t,” Astrid said. “The others agreed he was probably the most qualified to being a spy—thanks to you—but in the end they found it would be better for him to be with the other group.”
“Well, I guess that’s how it works…” Oldin said, tapping his finger before looking back up at Astrid. “Would you mind if I asked for your advice?”
“Go for it.”
“Well, you remember the operation we did that had captured the other Astrid as well as Jroldin?” Oldin asked.
“Course,” Astrid replied. “Go on.”
“Well, apparently the group was more deeply rooted than the one hideout we broke into,” Oldin said. “Because it keeps coming up. And we’ve been trying to narrow it down. Unfortunately, since then we’ve had five people who have been important to the case killed by some freak heart attack. So somehow this group can kill people via stimulated heart attacks or something like that. And according to new info we’ve collected, they appear to be connected with the elves.”
"What?!”
“They’ve been sending out low-level signals out of the mountain, heavily encoded of course,” Oldin said. “And some source is sending them back. We discovered this a couple months ago. The question then became who they were communicating with. Our potential leads have been frustrating—most of our communicants have been killed by this gang—but we’ve found lots of small money transactions from a more open elvish-sympathy gang that runs throughout several other dwarven cities. And given that there aren’t many people they could be communicating with outside.”
“Got it,” Astrid said. “So what do they want, and what are you doing about it?”
“That’s the problem,” Oldin said, frustrated. “We don’t know what they want. All we know is that the low-level operation we were tracking that captured Jroldin and Astrid was merely a façade to try to hide the other parts of this operation. So for now, we’re just trying to gain information. We’ve talked a good bit with Iraina of course, and he’s helped us some, but we’re not getting much anywhere. So I wanted to know if you had any advice.”
“Well, I don’t have all the information and people that I used to have,” Astrid said. “So I’m not completely sure… But if you’re correct that their whole drug-running operation was merely a coverup—well, it seems a strange coverup to pick. And if they are conspiring with the elves…”
"It means they’re a step ahead of us,” Oldin said. “That they know about where we are and are probably planning to attack us. Iraina has begun to put together a better defense system, as well as trying to intercept and stop these transmissions without either of them knowing. And we have our best experts trying to decode their signals, though we haven’t had much success yet… I feel like we’ve been caught by surprise… And we’re going to have to really step it up to get past the base that they already have here in order to stop them from spreading their tyranny into the mountains.”
Question of the Week: What are the elves trying to do in Araelia?
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