ISR - AoD: War
Saturday Session 10.2022-03.2023 Written by Courtney Lambert
Gwenyth decides to return to Kairon and his fleet in order to report her findings. She had figured that she can not gather any more information in her current situation and needs to reassess what she needs to do. She hopes that Kairon can give her some direction in how to proceed and sends her reports on what she has done ahead of her arrival.
When she arrives on the bridge to report, she reports to Kairon what she has learned and mentions the coin that fell into her possession. Kairon is aware that this coin belongs to Vyden, a dangerous seeker of knowledge, and takes the coin from Gwenyth. He explains to her how dangerous Vyden is to knowledge for once he acquires knowledge in his deals that knowledge is collectively lost to the universe forever, as if what once existed never did in the fist place. He puts the coin in a vault with the other coin he collected.
Gwenyth is a little annoyed by Kairon's explanation of what she had already read in debriefing reports, and her annoyance is noted by him. In response, he projects to her mind psionically the memories of his encounters with Vyden.
At the memory, Vyden draws them both into his presence. Kairon did not expect this and is concerned about what might happen.
“What is your name?” Vyden asks Gwenyth, focusing his attention on her.
“Roseann,” lied Gwenyth.
Vyden asks her something more, but she is pulled out of the vision by a nearby curator. She forgot the name Roseann and what she told Vyden.
She is told that she can proceed with her mission. After much research on the net and archives, Gwenyth cannot seem to figure out where Layla could possibly be meeting the Swift in person. She decides to go to the one place where she knows that a lot of high-profile people will be gathered: the auction that being held at Farside Station, a station that is infamous for being blown up twice.
Gwenyth attends the auction undisguised, clad in a glistening gold gown and feathery shawl. She sees several people whom she recognizes: Cutter, some Protians, and Azazel.
Azazel is in a bizarre costume that she looks quizzically at as he passes her. She greets him and asks him about the auction and who he has seen. His responses are rather good-humored and open which showed her that he was being unusually nice to people. To those who knew him, this knowledge could be a little unsettling. He agrees to let her know of anything interesting that he sees or hears during the secret auction that Layla seems to have secluded herself to. Azazel departs from her and proceeds to make strange comments on others clothing choices and the auction items on display.
After a brief conversation with Cutter and the feeling that she will probably not see anything more of Layla, she leaves the auction and goes to a bar nearby. There she orders some food from a Magrunn cook who seems to be rather upset once he sees her, as if he recognizes her from somewhere that she does not remember. She tries to make small talk with him, but the attempts do not last long. The Magrunn was one of the crew on her ship before Kairon forced her to join him, but she does not remember it.
She proceeds to her room on the station and continues to search the net for any leads that could help her mission.
After a while, she accompanies Kairon to the Contact, a successful black market dealer whom he funds. She is there in the hope that he might have some intel that could help her in the manhunt for the Swift. Ironically, there are several other individuals gathered around the Contact. Azazel, whom she needs to get back to regarding anything that he learned at the auction, is present. Tskalin, the notorious Zakon (enormous lizard-like species) who used to rule Terra with an iron fist, is interested in changing his form and identity. Azazel seems to be very intrigued with the possibilities that Tskalin brings up and the dangers that such a volatile personality being moved into another body and being an engram or AI could produce. Bogdan, an Omegan whom she does not know, seems to either not care or recognize that he is in the presence of Azazel, Kairon, and Tskalin. He casually greets them all and asks the Contact for something before proceeding on his own business.
Gwenyth asks Azazel about what happened at the auction and if Layla met with any strange people, whom she spent the most time with, and anything that stuck out to him about her interactions with them. He mentions several people whom she lists down in order to research more fully their backgrounds. Among the people she interacted the most were Revelon, Quiet, Demir, Dreva Lau, Vandecar, and Ria. Azazel does not believe that she could have met the Swift at the auction itself unless the Swift was someone prominent there acting under a pseudonym or even Layla herself. He did not know anything about her dealings and whereabouts outside of the auction.
Feeling like she is chasing threads that lead to dead ends, grasping at illusions that disappear into thin air, Gwenyth proceeds to do more research. She decides that in order to confirm that Layla did or did not meet the Swift outside of the auction that she would need the security video feeds from the station itself. However, she would not be able to infiltrate Farside, the most secure station in that region of space (for good reasons), without being noticed because of her enormous size and obvious affiliation to the Forgeborn. Due to not wanting any more attention drawn to the Forgeborn or for them to not appear as if they were interfering in their politics, she determines that she is not the one to do this mission. In order for her mission to succeed, she would have to find someone outside of the Milky Way to pull the mission off. Anyone inside the Milky Way could be compromised by Layla, and information leaking to her about the Forgeborn's interest in her and the Swift would only make Layla more careful and difficult to track.
Written by Courtney Lambert
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