Centoriel

[Sareth]

"I found it with the map and the pistol," Lillith replied, holding it out. "It was in a bag. Do you think it's important some how?"

[Graybeard]

"Could be," Sister Rose said, taking the ball. "I'm surprised they were carrying it out here. As far as I know, there's no crystal-net service anywhere in Veracia except in Saus." This was close enough to true; the military had its own specialized comm network, but it wasn't exactly crystal-net. "We're far enough from Saus that it certainly shouldn't work here."

"Farrel, maybe?" Brother Miguel asked. "I've heard that some of the mercenary guilds there are starting to play around with crystal-net, and these people look Farrelian. Looked, past tense, excuse me." After all, right now they didn't look anything but messily dead.

"Let's hold onto this; it might be informative," Rose said. "At the very least, it's another thing we should probably tell the base about. We'd better get back and launch a parrot. I --"

She paused in her sentence, feeling a familiar pulsing sensation from the ball, which was filled now with a milky white light.

"Incoming."

[Drannin]

Argus frowned. "Quick: try to impersonate Grumiel, talk to the person directly and try to get information, or drop the ball on the ground and listen to what comes out? We have about 5 seconds to choose. I vote number two."

"Three," said Harker.

4 seconds.

[Sareth]

"We could always have Sister Rose tear off her bodice and tell the caller that Grumiel is busy, and can she take a message..." Lillith snarked. Sister Rose gave her a very dirty look that promised the two would be having words later.

"I change my vote," Harker replied.

3 seconds.

[Graybeard]

Brother Miguel didn't wait for a group decision. While Lillith was still speaking (and everyone but the red-faced Sister Rose was chuckling), he snatched up the ball and put it back in the opaque bag it had been in, then motioned for silence. "I have a bad feeling about this," he mouthed silently.

A few seconds later, a voice came from the bag.

It was no voice that any of them had heard before. It was deep and resonant, and it spoke Veracian with an accent that they didn't recognize -- maybe the closest thing to it was from the Northern Confederacy. And it didn't sound happy.

"Arganial! Report, dammit, you're six hours overdue!"

[Drannin]

Argus blinked. Huh. Simple, but effective. Kudos to Miguel. Though Argus had to admit that he somewhat appreciated Lillith's suggestion... Let's just forget that, yes?

"Dammit. Arganiel, did you drop the damn orb in the outhouse again?!"

Everyone blinked at this. What?!

"Just wipe it off, will you? This is important! Damnation, you're pissing me off! Report! NOW!!" There was a long silence. Then, rather bizarrely, a rather gruff "Please?"

Argus looked at Harker. Harker looked at Lillith, who looked at Miguel, and so on. A few furious hand motions were exchanged, generally indicating that no one had any damn clue what to do next.

Fortunately, it appeared the speaker didn't either.

"PAY ATTENTION TO ME, DAMN YOU!!!"

[Graybeard]

"I don't think he's answering, sir," said the second voice, the one that had said "Please?" earlier -- a higher voice trying to be gruff, not entirely successfully.

"Do you take me for an idiot, Samos?" the deep, accented voice said icily. Brother Miguel could have sworn he could hear the sound of some manner of pants being filled, as the second man stammered, "N-n-no, sir."

Fascinated, Brother Miguel and the group listened as the two men(?) swore. Apparently they didn't realize they could be heard at the other end. For that matter, how could they be heard? Both the Tsuirakuan crystal-net technology and their own, much more primitive telecommunications required that the receiving crystal ball "answer" an incoming call via active user operation. This one didn't. So was it designed somewhere other than in Tsuiraku or Veracia? Miguel didn't want to think about that -- yet.

"You're right," the deep, accented voice said. "The bloody fool must have dropped the damn thing. Can you tell where it is?"

"Hang on a minute, let me check," the second voice answered. The ball emitted a curious beeping sound for a few seconds. "In the Centoriel Restricted Zone, sir."

Deep Voice grunted. "That figures. That's the kind of place Kankaniel might have holed up. It helps us, too. There's an elven travel platform somewhere around there, right?"

"Yes, sir," the second voice said, "in a ruin a short distance to the west."

"Then get someone out there to kill Arganial and those two damn kids. I knew they were a mistake."

"Aye, aye, sir," the second voice said. Just like that, Miguel marveled, glad that he hadn't tried to use the ball.

Deep Voice was on again. "You can make that damn ball detonate, right?" Uh, oh.

The second voice said, "Y-yes. I just have to send it a code."

"Good. Do it."

Miguel didn't wait to hear more. The second voice could be heard saying "Aye, aye, s--" as Miguel heaved the ball as deep into the ruins as he could, pulling a muscle in his arm. I hope Rose has enough mana to heal that, he thought ...

... Just as a flash of light came from the ruins, followed instantly by a BOOOMMM that reverberated from the low ridge behind them.

[Sareth]

Lillith picked herself up from the ground. The moment Miguel had begun moving to hurl the now very dangerous crystal ball away from them, she'd stepped behind Angus. Rationally, she realized even a half way decent explosion would still get her, Angus or no. But her gut had insisted that it really would make a difference, and she'd hardly been inclined to argue with her gut. When the ball actually detonated, she'd fallen to the dirt, cringing.

Dusting herself off and looking a little sheepish, she looked at the group. "Who were those people? Do you think we should try to get out of here before they send their team to eliminate the..." She started to look over towards one of the bodies, then stopped herself. She faced forward again. "Or do you want to stay and see who they... Oh! Your hurt!" She immediately stepped over to where Brother Miguel was holding his shoulder in a clear "Owch!" fashion.

[Graybeard]

"Muscle pull. No big deal, I'll get over it with some help," Brother Miguel said as Sister Rose started to work on his arm.

"We learned some important things from that," he continued. "Whoever the other people looking for Brother Egbert are, they're well organized, well equipped, they know enough about him to guess at his movements ... and they're willing to throw away their own people over what we'd consider trifling errors."

"Some other things, too," Rose chimed in. Miguel's shoulder was going to be a bit stiff for a while, but basically, it was as good as new. "They don't know exactly where Egbert is, and that's good. They also don't know that the faux-Grumiel -- Arganial, was it? -- and his companions are dead. That, plus the willingness to kill their own, means that they themselves aren't Malletarians. They don't work like that, they're very protective of --"

"Wait a minute," Miguel interrupted. "We know that Arganial and the boy are dead, but we don't know about the girl. I'm not saying we should go after her, particularly if she's in the clutches of the Malletarians, but it's something we really should know. I think she's out there somewhere, probably even still alive, but I have no idea where."

---------

A continent away, Elizabeth was wondering the same thing. But wherever I am, I sure as hell wish I was somewhere else, she thought, as the sounds of fireballs and gunshots up in the mountains reached the small cell where she was chained.

[Drannin]

Argus frowned. "Realistically, she couldn't have gone THAT far..." He considered his words carefully. "Scratch that. Pure, blinding terror can be one HELL of a motivator. I think this situation counts." Argus looked around. "But it all comes full-circle, doesn't it? The most likely people to know something of what happened are the Malletarians... and I just don't think they'll be very diplomatic."

"Beat it outta them?" suggested Harker.

"Judging from the charred corpses, that's a very bad idea," Argus said grimly.