mental link, day 22

[sizeofyourbaggage]

( Got some information for you guys - Annie was good enough to get some of her makeshift spycams going, and we set ‘em up with the leaders of the envoys. Activated them last night. )

[ There’s a curl of gratitude for those who went along with his plan, for those who spun stories or distractions or contributed to convincing the leaders of the envoys that the trinkets of Annie goo were part of a mourning ritual. Is he gonna talk about the fact that he basically disappeared after that until they boarded the airship? Nah. Instead, he jumps right into it. ]

( Didn’t get a lot from the Carpathans or the Meradans, unless you wanna know what the inside of Saridian Black’s room looks like or what other gifts people’ve been giving him, or see more of the Meradans trash talking each other while playing games.

Got the same Second that Annie saw last time, who’s friends with the Seconds I know, and this time he was with Ysiddia Cabrielle. He’s her son, and they were talking with a Second from one of the other Houses about the murders and the Circle having its work cut out for it when we get to the Red Coast.

And the Descendents - pretty sure we got a couple of them talking about the murders. They were wondering if “they” were discovered, who discovered them and what their intentions were - might have something to do with the last time we spied on people through Annie, and she saw the Carpathans that got killed talking about new friends. That, and blood debts and someone named Casiria, and that no one in Black’s retinue could know about it. Didn’t know this until a little bit ago, but guess what information got passed onto Black’s retinue? )

[ His mental “tone” is deliberately neutral there, but the difference from the usual warmth to his mental link is probably pretty telling. ]

( One other thing, about the circle that was found burned in the ground a while back when we were still running around on the ground and the tracks next to it - Rhan said the circle doesn’t look local, but the tracks appear Rabadocean. Hard to pin down more than that so far, except they don’t really match the Hypyrians. )

[ Is he fixating on that a little too much, to be thinking about it still? Maybe, but he's not gonna let it go. ]

Comments

[raw]

( Makeshift spycams? )

[ There's so much more pertinent information here and he's interested in a lot of it, particularly the stuff about Black's retinue, so maybe there's a listening kind of gratitude from this new kid, but mostly he's wondering how they managed cameras. ]

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ There's a sense of focus as Sam pulls his attention in from the Nest in general to the feel of an unfamiliar mind. His side of the connection is flavored by the faint sigh of wind and brush of feathers, though he keeps most of his mental presence behind the cloud layer he uses as shielding. ]

( It's the ability her symbiote gave her. She makes some kind of slime, and she can see and hear through it. Comes with some side effects, though, they all do. )

[raw]

[ Elliot still isn't great at shielding, despite a couple of attempts to show him how to walk himself off, create distance, but he's found it easier to just try and think in encryption. It means he still gives off nonsense white-noise and vague impressions but maybe it's easier to ignore? Who knows. ]

( Thought for a moment we had an actual cam system, or something. )

[ Flavored with a little disappointment. ]

( Thanks for the news broadcast, man. But... doesn't it mean our presence is responsible for the murders? )

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ He can feel the disappointment, a little, and Sam can't help but echo it back. They're doing the best they can here, but few of them are equipped for this. ]

( It's the least I can do. I'm no spy, but I can do my best to make sure whatever we find, we're all on the same page. ) [ His second comment is... more difficult, and there's a sense of resigned frustrated there. ]

( I got the feeling our presence is gonna be responsible for a lot of things here, but yeah. Yeah, it kind of does. )

[raw]

[ He's too new to feel directly responsible, but he sure as hell disapproves. ]

( Do we even know who the Enemy is working with yet? Because fighting amidst the peace delegations sounds like exactly what they would want. )

[ It's a mess. It's all a mess. He does deeply appreciate Sam trying to keep everyone up to date, but they need someone leading, making decisions based on what they know so far to try and avoid stuff like murder happening. )

[sizeofyourbaggage]

[ It's a hell of a mess; Sam definitely agrees with that. The Nest itself is one big mess, full of people who want to take charge and people who don't like their decisions but don't want to do anything themselves, people who just want to be contrary and people who only want to do it their way.

It's exhausting, honestly, and this mission seems to have the worst of it. ]

( Not yet. And yeah, you're right - but it's also probably what some of the envoys themselves want. They're all angling for something here, that makes this even more complicated. )

[raw]

( And they all think we're in competition with them instead of trying to help them. )

[ It reminds him of office work, each floor and subdivision scrambling for the attention of the CEO and a piece of the budget, even while they all ostensibly worked together on reaching the companies goals. But the secret to social engineering a business wasn't the groups, it was individuals. Getting to know them. Playing off the fact that nobody knows everybody. Convincing them doing something would be in their best interests — like, say, resetting the password to an account you're claiming to have locked yourself out of, even though you don't have the right ID. ]

( Do we know many people personally yet? )

[sizeofyourbaggage]

( Maybe not serious competition, but yeah. The three biggest envoys know one of them is gonna win, and they know the rest of us are trying to make alliances. The shady shit they’re up to may be related to the Enemy, or it may just be them trying to one up each other. )

[ Politics, man. Sam’ll be real damn glad when this mission is over. ]

( That’s been my focus. We’ve got some contacts in the Seconds, and a few in the other envoys, but we’re still working on getting in good with them. )

[sistershoggoth]

( Did I forget to explain that to you... )

[ Probably. She was drunk. ]

( This is spying with goo volume two. We've got like eight goo-things distributed amongst the ranks, I can activate one at a time, and get some sensory feedback on whatever's around it. Do it for too long and I hork! It sucks. )

[raw]

( It makes you sick. )

[ That... doesn't sound great tbh. ]

( That seems kinda cool. Apart from horking. Where does the goo, uh... come from? )

[sistershoggoth]

( The scar in my chest. It used to be a portal, Catha-bitch tells me the symbiote responds to dimensional shit like that. )

[raw]

( So your superpower is leaking wound fluids that you can spy through. Disgusting but pretty cool. )

[sistershoggoth]

( It's totally metal. )