World of Warcraft®

((Updates every Thursday. Fifteen posts are planned, five are done by the time of this posting. Critiques are welcome, but bear in mind, this IS an accountant's attempt at creativity....))

A red-tailed sparrow fluttered aimlessly around the tiny little grove Verronia Fay - an aging, cyan-haired Night Elf - had been observing. It was a charming little park with a fountain, three trees, and a number of unoccupied benches. She watched it fly to and fro, sing cheerfully, and then get sucked into a passing verticarrier turbine as the offending vehicle proceeded toward the building's roof.

She sighed. "Terrible place for a garden."

She sat back in her desk chair, keeping her eyes away from the wrinkles creeping down her hands – content to look out over the shimmering lights of the upper city. She occupied a so-called "bubble office", reserved for the firm's partners, and so named for its circular pattern and the panoramic views it offered of the glittering skyline, interspersed amongst Teldrassil's drooping canopy and deteriorating infrastructure - that favorite subject of the chattering classes.

There was an article about it just a few days ago. The third and fourth main supports for the lower fifth causeway gave out - plunging seventeen people to their deaths – not a comforting thought and she quickly put it out of her mind, turning her eyes on the semitransparent light-display emanating three or four feet up from a black strip at the back of her desk. Presently, it displayed several workpapers relating to subsequent payments' testing for a client in the primary care industry. On the surface, it was average work - two way referencing between the various numbers, intuitive design, clear conclusions, and descriptive tickmarks. Nevertheless, she queued up a comment interface with a brief tap to a surface bound plate of glass, raised at a slight angle at the end of her desk, from which the image she was looking at was clearly projected.

"Don’t rely on bank statements and client software printouts.” She dictated, watching the speech bubble catch up before she continued. “We assessed their control risk as high, remember? Look at more invoices." After closing the interface, she got about two seconds to lean back in her chair before another one popped open – this one featuring a colorful little cartoon bird – a red-tailed sparrow, actually – swaying back and forth as though singing. Out of its beak came a speech bubble with a number: “426843529”

Her heart sank – everyone knew what THAT number meant. She straightened her posture and tapped the little tweeting bird. It returned an animation of being bonked on the head, spread its wing out and revealed an image of a much younger Night Elf in a rather official looking collared purple uniform with padded grey shoulders. Adorned on the right of these shoulderpads – at least to Verronia’s perspective – was a raised golden crescent, and clearly real gold: the mark of a fully realized warden.

“Good Evening Ms. Fay” The warden replied politely, wearing a practiced, fake smile that might belong to a clinic receptionist. “My name is Warden Nyoda Skysong. How are you this evening?”

“Well, it’s reporting season. So – I’m fairly busy.”

Skysong chuckled disingenuously. “Sorry to hear! I’m just working on a case and your name came up. Do you have a moment?”

"I was reviewing work that needs to be in the client's hands in a week's time."

"It won't take much from your schedule. It's pretty straightforward."

“I'm sure it is, Warden, and I do appreciate the call. Were we not so close to the deadlines that you would otherwise be asking us about, I would be thrilled to perform whatever investigation-support you called me for. I know that my name probably came up in your system because I’ve worked with the watchers for some time. I’m very proud of that work, but Fadeleaf-Silentmoon has a good number of very qualified tax partners who would be better equipped to assist you. I can put you in contact with a few if you'd like.”

The warden quickly lost the clinical smile and listened dutifully Verronia spoke, but the moment she had finished, the answer was immediate. “No” She crisply replied. “I called you – not them, and I’m perfectly aware of your deadlines, which I am sure one of your very qualified tax partners can assist you in meeting. In the meantime, I will expect you in the division K lobby three hours prior to midnight, tomorrow. You will be looking into eight interrelated entities, so I expect that you will be prepared to do so. Also – no staff. You are to come alone.”

“Hold on, I never said that I’d do it.”

“… and I never made a request”

The bird closed its wing, winking once before minimizing itself into a smaller icon at the lower edge of the viewer.

Will Abominusss be around 400 yearsss from nowe, yesss?

*ponders over Elf Hair Tea*

The inner hollow of Teldrassil had long ago been carved and shaped to accommodate the city’s growing population. Avenues and highways cut through the branches and the trunk in a way that made the entire tree look as though it was being held together with loose stitching. Carefully manicured spires, interspersed with generous windows and the occasional extra branch lined the inside of a hollow from its base to its canopy – so aligned by careful precision to permit the maximum level of sunlight for the tree’s survival, with concessions of course for glittering penthouses, various commercial headquarters’ buildings, and the offices of the capitol.

From one particular overhang balcony, scarcely large enough to accommodate a person alongside the cheap folding chair that sat next to an unwieldy sliding glass door that loved to jump off of the bottom track as it was getting stuck at the top, jutting out from one of the primary outer shell trunk-supports that hosted everything from apartment residences to sewage treatment facilities lower in the city, one could still see the moon at least, penetrating through the urban mesh of causeways and tram-lines – but not tonight. The woman the residence belonged to saw only clouds. Clutching the early-evening drink she made for herself with disappointment, she retreated back into the tiny apartment.

The national news trumpeted on inside from the speakers on a thirty-year old watchbox, and a beaming male reporter sporting a fashionable light jacket, left open to show a chiseled torso from the chest to the beltline, smiled into the tidy living space – occupied otherwise by a small couch, a coffee table, a makeshift desk and a computer outside of the kitchenette near the front door – from behind a screen occasionally beset with static.

“Another shakeup from High Priestess Alyssa Blueleaf this week, who has announced in response to an aggressive letter writing campaign that she would be open to considering suggestions coming out of the lower boroughs to replace longtime Councilwoman Faris Irontree – a longtime ally – with General Orisil Frostleaf – the lauded hero of Warsong Ridge. This coming after that campaign saw a massive increase in support, owing to the tragic collapse of the lower fifth causeway last week.”

Greeting the news almost with a snarl, the woman clicked the volume up on the watchbox, holding the liquor in one hand and her aching back with the other – making for an open pill bottle sitting on her desk as the watchbox transitioned to a side-by-side view of the reporter, and two women in crisp business suits who had been brought in for analysis. “It’s unbelievable” stammered the first, identified by the caption as “Sister Veronica Starlight, Priestess of the Moon”, “The ink was barely dry on her face when the sisterhood elevated her to the rank, and it shows. She has shed and deferred the duties of high priestess, and that makes us look weak. You can bet that Silvermoon is watching this gleefully, to say nothing of how this might impact the ongoing peace negotiations with the Orcish clans.”

“Too right” Muttered the woman, deftly avoiding a stray thumbtack that had fallen off of the desk and onto the floor. She picked it up and put it next to a pill bottle, spying one little pill left at the bottom of it, which she set into her hand with all possible haste.

The woman in the next panel kept up a perpetual smile, looking at the camera, presumably at the image of her counterpart, as though in pity for a hopelessly lost student. Her caption read “Irene Threshtalon, CEO: Cascade Financial Group.”

The same Cascade Financial Group whose logo had been stamped on all of the “Past Due” rent notices sitting on the desk with the pill bottle.

“I think it’s funny that when Priestess Starlight agrees with something the High Priestess does, it’s supposedly ordained by the goddess unambiguously, and when she doesn’t, there’s a question over whether the sisterhood read Elune’s directives clearly!” Threshtalon started as the pill went down. “I think the High Priestess was right when she arranged the council, right when she legalized free speech and expression, which allows Ms. Starlight to launch into these diatribes every other night, and I think she’s right now. Councilwoman Irontree has a long record of ignoring the plight of the poor and failing to fund the Cenarion Engineering corps – who would have been able to reinvigorate those supports on the lower fifth before they could splinter and kill seventeen people if they just had the resources, by the way. I also think it’s a bit laughable to think that appointing the woman who broke the clans’ collective back at Warsong Ridge would somehow project weakness at the negotiating table.”

(Continued)

(Continued from above)

The inevitable reply was white noise in comparison to the shooting pains running up the elf’s spine. That last pill would take a half an hour to make them go away, but that wouldn’t do any good for the two weeks between now and the next prescription. Without thinking, she hobbled past rows of old pictures lining the walls towards the kitchenette. Most prominently among them, centered in the large gap of an ancient crescent – was an early-model super-snapper print of a figure in heavy armor originating from the same period as the crescent. She wore a helmet resembling the head of an owl and the bladed pauldrons that she had pawned off last year to pay for alcohol and the pills she now relied on. Any other day she would have at least glanced wistfully at it – but today she ignored it, focused instead on finding Dr. Silverwing’s number.

The Watchers, as usual, preferred the embrace of the earth. The underground caves of yesteryear evolved into sprawling prison, dormitory, and investigative complexes interspersed in and around the roots – though they had to share it now with the Sentinels, at least to the extent of dealing with the navy’s submarine base. They had also replaced druidic presences with sentinel ones immediately above them, owing the protection of their investigative core to the bottom twenty-five percent of the tree, which had been converted into a city of its own of outer fortifications, naval shipyards, training grounds and barracks for the sentinel army, and concealed airbases, insulated from the overhead attacks that they themselves would guarantee.

This was the one snag to the otherwise silver lining to having to wake up early – checkpoints and inspections. But having an hour to cruise the serpentine byways leading down to the barrow complex was more than bearable from behind the wheel of Nightsaber Model D-4, a sleek, black luxury cab that looked like the part for the carriage belonging to the partner of a professional firm – black in hue with tinted windows, faux leather seating, precise air controls, and overtuned shock absorbers for that smooth-as-silk feel on the roads. The darkened interior, broken only by the outside light and the dim blue glow of the controls was caressing in a way, and unlike the usual commute, there were never any vehicles on the roads in the lower parts of the city – as the trams were both free and efficient for the lower and the middle classes.

They hardly had room for it, but even in finding a place to park the vehicle, Verronia still arrived ten minutes ahead of schedule. When she stepped into the lobby, however, Warden Skysong was there waiting, looking as though she was terribly late, and showed her back with only minimal conversation.

The task was very much like every other supposedly “easy” task that, like every other client, the watchers had no clue about, at least with regard to the work involved. It was a related group of eight entities, each transferring money between each other at a feverish pace. Thankfully, the information was all there, owing to a program known as Moonbeam, Version 26.32, of course. The Warden explained its function meticulously, going over how it catalogued literally every electronic transaction, and some that even required arcane methods to trace – transactions made in hard currency that only the old-style scrying could hunt down – and this was followed by a lengthy reminder of its secret nature, how no one else knew about it, and of the consequences – the public outcry and governmental panic – that would ensue if it got out. Verronia just smiled and nodded. “I know, it was MY idea.”

For the watchers, nothing was out of reach. No conversation was outside the range of secretly placed video and audio monitors, covering almost every piece of the civilized parts of the country. It picked up every purchase and bank transfer, every supposedly secret document, held in trust for the purposes of finding criminals before they could act, and worked beautifully. Every operation was secretly a sting, and it was estimated that 98% of baseline crime that could have occurred never did because of the watchful eye – the moonlight that shined on the guilty and the innocent alike, and no one was ever the wiser – not even the rest of the government. They didn’t even change their behavior, and that was exactly what the wardens wanted.

That was also what made this case so disturbing. Like any other enterprise of a similar nature, transactions flowed between the related entities, and some unrelated entities for a cut of the transfer, in the style of a standard money laundering scheme. With the excessive number of layers, subjected to the official method of requesting information, investigators would have no way of following the complex web of activity drawn. Moonbeam cut through that, and showed a pattern typical of crime syndicate – those exact words were the first to be considered for the report. But this one seemed surprisingly lackadaisical, failing to make even basic memorandum entries, and making unexpected distributions of vira – the paper currency that replaced gold that was slated to be completely digitized in the next three years. The notes were still honored, but rare to see used, particularly with anti-scrying controls in place.

Nevertheless, Verronia managed to crank out the report in a few hours, winding her way to the conclusion at the end after a few quick swipes on an antiquated ten-key that she had brought with her – because no sleek electronic interface or helpful computer could ever replace the addictive tactile sensation of the keys, accompanied by the hammering sound of numbers being put to tape. It was simple and curt, even if the intermediary steps weren’t.

((Continued))

((Continued from above))

“In aggregate, the entities under audit illegally transferred four-hundred and twenty thousand vira, through various other identities not initially identified, to several members of Councilwoman Irontree’s governmental staff, including its chief. Further investigation reveals that these funds are being directed against public awareness efforts being waged for the benefit of General Orisil Frostleaf. Swift actions are advised against the members of the governmental staff above named, excluding Councilwoman Irontree for reasons mentioned previously.”

((Apologies for this one being late))

News of the illegal transfers was swift and damning. The first semblance of a public campaign already was taking the shape of the most cynical of Ironforge Senatorial elections, or of the internecine mess that Stormwind’s grand experiment in representative democracy had become. The growing outrage was everywhere, in print, in guerrilla media, and even in the public governmental announcements. It was inescapable to everyone, everyone apparently, except for Kyalin Raintree.

Instead she sat in her finer clothing in the office of Dr. Silverwing, clutching an empty pill bottle and avoiding looks from the other patients of the chiropractitioner’s waiting room. The other patients were all women as well of the same age, sentinels in a former life who, like her, had in injury that had followed them through the years, injuries that Dr. Silverwing specialized in. Quiet old women now, they took to old fashions, simple dresses far removed from the professional pantsuits and mobile casualwear of the modern age, shifting in and out of simple pairs of sandals as they found comfortable.

The former warden still doggedly refused to own a pair, throwing nasty glances at the others in the waiting room who stared or even glanced at her.

Dr. Silverwing had become used to it by now, making an exception to her usual policy for the retired warden. It was the back, after all, that she was concerned with. She felt it carefully, minding where each disc in the spine had been placed, taking a few notes afterward.

“Well?” Kyalin demanded, looking up over her shoulder as the doctor took her notes.

“It’s as straight as an arrow.”

“Ha-ha” She said forcefully and sarcastically. “Come on, Doc. Stop pulling my leg – it doesn’t become you.”

“Nendis was a long time ago.” The doctor explained. “I think everything is back where it should be. There will be some lingering pain, but I’m going to recommend a lower dosage…. and you’ll only need to take it twice a week.”

She scribbled nonchalantly, and Kyalin looked as though she was about to spring up if the Doctor hadn’t blocked the movement as though by reflex. “What are you kidding me!? This thing feels like it’s trying to jump out of my back and do a little dance in my living room! You’re just going to cut me off!?”

“Your body is growing more accustomed to the medication. Most of that isn’t real pain.”

“What kind of garbage is that!? What, is it ‘fake’ pain?”

Silverwing set down the pad. “Ms. Raintree. If I can be blunt… you’ve been running through the prescriptions faster than I can fill them. Your back isn’t the problem anymore, and I know how much you’ve been drinking. Kyalin, I put in an order this morning for you to see an addiction counselor.”
Kyalin greeted this with a look of betrayal, at a loss for words for just a moment. A doctor’s order in Darnassia was a sentence, it was enforceable by law. Her silence didn’t last, giving way to a rage that caused her to bolt out of her seat. “You lousy quack! I don’t need to sit in a padded room with a bunch of junkies and a lily-tongue! I need my !@#$ing medicine! I need it! Write the damned ‘script!”

The doctor rose in turn, her composure never breaking. She produced a thin paper slip and offered it. “Dr. Snyder is the best addiction counselor I know. Your service benefits will also pay for the appointments with him – I checked. Now – let’s not make fuss of this. You can either take this card and see him next week, or I can call up the warden to put you in rehabilitative custody.”

“You !@#$%… after everything I gave to this country…”

“Just take the card.” The doctor commanded.

Kyalin snatched it, turning away without another word. She stormed out into the lobby, stopped for a moment by the clinic’s receptionist who evidently had something to say about the bill. As she argued with him, another figure glanced occasionally at her from the door – another apathetic looking adolescent tapping into a hearthslab, most of her face obscured either by the hood of her hoodie or the stray bangs of dyed-brown hair coming out from under it.

Kyalin gave her a derisive glance as she proceeded for the door, which elicited a sort of Cheshire-cat smile from the slab-tapping elf “Hey gram”.

“I’m not your ‘gram’, you tapping little…”

“They know about Moonbeam.”

“What?”

“Wilson too.”

Kyalin froze, her hand on the door. She looked sideways at this individual, who still just tapped idly into the slab.

“Doesn’t come for nothing, Warden.” She muttered.

Each worker stood dutifully from behind their cubicle walls, eyes forward to the row of uniformed watchers, as well as the warden, Nyoda Skysong, accompanying them. They stood with crescents drawn along the windowed wall. The Warden clasped her gloved hands together, apprising through the mask attached to her peak cap the gathered workers and management - who stared back from other wall near the stairwell to the upper floors. She took a step forward, letting the full weight of her jackboots collide with the floor, leveraging the image, the sound, the fear of the watcher caste: a demand for total obedience and submission.

“Sisters and brothers.” She declared, taking attention away from the aging auditor they brought with them. “Your firm is under investigation. By now you are aware of the facts, you knew we would be here. We will be inspecting your computers, your physical files, your belongings and any relevant data as we define it. You are not to leave until our investigation is complete. You are not to stray from the room assigned to you until we say. If you are asked a question – answer truthfully and completely – for you will be rewarded for your honesty, and punished for deceit. This holds especially true for those who abetted the scheme – your sentences may even be fully pardoned IF you cooperate.”

“Remember” she concluded, “that it is all seen in the end. Moonlight shines upon the guilty and the innocent alike.”

The watchers then shuffled the various employees of the Chrysanthemum Group into the breakroom, leaving the rows of computer workstations unattended. The company’s officers were locked away in their suites, under careful watch, and it would have been there she would have headed first, but for a brief detour to the other occupied part of the company’s offices – the server room. The servers, logically, were located in a frigid, windowless basement-like cavern buried where the branch split off from the main tree. There a lanky looking programmer sat, glued to his chair as a watcher kept an eye on him.

Verronia levelled a gaze at him, flanked by the warden. She glanced at a single interface, tied in to the servers arrayed down the long, hall-like room. “Turn it on.”

The programmer looked at her in fear and confusion, gesturing to Skysong. “But she said – “

“Turn it on.” Skysong repeated for her, underwriting the command with a steel firmness in her voice.

The man straightened his bifocals, hunching over the interface and sliding his finger over a button. The machine hummed to life, activating the servers in a cascading fashion.

“The processing was cut off from the airwaves, wasn’t it?” Verronia asked as she watched the various lights flicker on.

“We made sure of it”

“Very good.” Verronia replied, gesturing the for the Warden’s computer investigation team to the closest of the towering data machines for them to set up their equipment before turning her attention back to the thinly-framed programmer. “I want to see a listing of your code sequences, anything internally developed.”

“It’s all internally developed.” The programmer flatly replied.

“All by yourself?”

The man just nodded.

“…. And, you were down here, administering it?” Verronia asked, disbelievingly. To this again, the man nodded.

“What, something wrong with that?” Skysong demanded.

The accountant looked at her as though it were obvious. “Good control practices dictate that programmers don’t administer or use code they themselves produced. Since they know the code, they also know how to manipulate it. It’s an open door for errors and fraud.”

“But you’d know about it, wouldn’t you?” The programmer murmured.

The warden leaned in. “What did you say?”

The man looked at her knowingly. “Let me just…. show you.” He tapped a key which produced a sophisticated readout of lines of code – code of sophistication that was rare to find outside of military channels. “I don’t want to go to prison, Warden. I have exactly what you’re looking for. It’s all right here.” It was a complicated subroutine, buried deep in the innards of the firm’s enterprise resource management system. Neither of them understood exactly what it all meant or what it did, but they did notice the name that had been given to it: “beamcatcher”.

The location provided to Kyalin was a great aviary in the upper part of the city – a gigantic dome that served as a natural preserve for wildlife populations that had the tree to themselves before the population booms engineered by the government during the restoration had displaced them.

A gaggle of hippogryphs clustered near one of the viewing areas, staring back at the families gazing upon the beasts with wonder from behind the pored transparent barrier that separated the once-proud beasts from freedom. Some of the children were encouraged to toss little parcels of packaged meat through the holes, laughing lightheartedly as they watched three or four of them battle each other for whatever scrap they could tear off – and then again when the next morsel of food came flying through. Kyalin occupied a bench some twenty feet away, looking on disgust, wiping away a tear that she was unable to keep to herself.

“Magnificent beasts, aren’t they?” Said a voice from behind her.

She knew that voice.

“Or, perhaps they will be once they’re let out next year. With the clans no longer hunting them, they should be able to return to the wild.” It continued.

“None of them grew up before the war.” The old warden solemnly replied as her visitor assumed a seat next to her. “Just look at them, they’ll never survive the wild.”

The woman next to her pondered this for a moment, peering from behind her thin, rectangular glasses with their silver-accented frame, returning the hearthslab she had taken out to check for a moment into the pocket of a meticulously tailored poly-silk jacket as she helped herself to a seat next to Kyalin. “A fair point, certainly. Perhaps they should simply be preserved here.”

“Whatever you were trying to preserve is already dead, Mrs.. Threshtalon.” Kyalin spat angrily. “They’d be better off if you just put them down.”

It elicited the same calm, commanding grin she gave in the television interview. “Glad to see you’ve made it, Warden Raintree.” She said tauntingly.

“Why the hell are you here? You know that…”

“That I’m being watched?” Irene calmly interrupted. “Ms. Raintree, please. I’ve read all there is to read about ‘Risk-based policing’. I know that a posh observation deck isn’t going to get the same level of scrutiny as a back alley or a data store. They care about what is most likely to get results, and that makes them actually quite predictable.”

“I’ve heard that before.” Kyalin coldly muttered.

Threshtalon’s expression remained as stable as ever. “Right now, they’re raiding a server room on the forty-eighth ring, pursuing that string of illegal transfers that someone laid for them. There’s a segment of code they won’t even know how to look for that will begin a two-day countdown once they introduce their audit programs. At the end of that, a little production will be forwarded to every news organization in the world, explaining how that nifty bit of chicanery works, and who gave them the idea.”

“…. and you think I’m not just going to go tell them everything you’ve told me, queue up this little exchange and act before you can.”

“I know you aren’t.” Irene said confidently, very clearly anticipating the question. “Because you know what I know about one of the early victims of this project. You know that I know what happened, how it happened, and how it was covered up. By now you’ve probably also worked out that there’s another subroutine out there that has this data. You know what's going to happen unless you work with me.”

Kyalin shook her head, her voice subdued and her words oddly calm. “I’ll give you some credit, if you’re really this confident you might extract something, maybe, but you’ve got to know it’s only a matter of time. Why are you risking all of this? You have a good life, you’re one of the highest-paid CEOs in the country, if not the world. Why would you commit to spending the next new centuries in the barrows?”

Threshtalon clasped her hands together, looking forward at the hippogryphs as they squabbled with each other for a fresh round of fried spider meat that had been tossed into their enclosure. “Because people should be free. They deserve not to have their most private moments subject to an ever-watchful eye, even if they don’t know it.”

The both of them were silent for a moment, watching the scene play out: of laughing children taunting the once-proud birds as they clustered hungrily, waiting for the next morsel.

((Continued))

((Continued from above))

“Here.” Threshtalon reached into another pocket, producing a small slip of paper. “This is for you. I’m not asking for anything big from you, I have managed to arrange a hearing with the council. You are going to be my guest. I want you to tell them everything. I want you to tell them what it is, how you and Fay set it up, and I want you to tell them about how it evolved. Then I want you to tell them what we both know: that our people deserve better than this. That we can handle not having every second of our lives be the subject of a watcher’s inquiry.”

The former warden looked the slip over – it was a payable draft made in a sum that was no less than ten-years’ worth of her military pension. It could solve all of her problems overnight, but something in her said ‘no’. “I can’t take this, you know I can’t.”

Threshtalon pressed it back into her hand. “You’ll get the other half when you’ve done what I’ve asked of you. But if it helps, don’t think about the money. You and Mrs. Fay rooted out foreign corruption during the restoration – I read those files too – and you should be lauded for bringing us into the future. But that future is here now. We now need a different approach, and that's why I’m asking you to lead us into the future again.”

When it wasn’t cutting her opponents to pieces on television, that voice could be surprisingly warm. The high-powered executive flashed an almost motherly smile before she got up, spurred on by a buzz from her hearthslab. “I’m afraid I’m a bit late for a few appointments, but I know that you’ll make the right decision. Just think about it.”

The lines of code seemed endless, packed into enormous blocks, rather than the clean, annotated lines that investigators were used to turning up. Absolutely no note, no hint, and no sign of what each piece was to do was clearly evident. One function would mesh seamlessly with the next, denoted by a separator cleanly embedded in the block. The only way the investigator, skimming through the innumerable blocks could glean the information was from the Chrysanthemum Group’s rail-thin programmer as he looked over her shoulder. Verronia stood back, observing the process, glancing up to look over the row of servers, each of them apparently still processing data – even though the facility remained airlocked and the production was at a standstill.

For Skysong and the three hackers she was observing, dutifully searching for every crease and crevice they could find, that problem should have been solved hours ago. She had taken her cap off, staring frustratingly at her own viewer. Finally, though, the clouds seemed to part when the programmer pointed to something Verronia had asked about. “That’s a video file, there.”

“Get it on my screen, Ana.” Skysong commanded.

“I wouldn’t do that.” The programmer just as suddenly replied.

“I’m sorry?”

“Warden” Verronia interjected. “We don’t know what any of this is going to do. I would recommend just getting a clean copy and putting it on a test server.”

Skysong just shook her head, tapping something on the screen. “It’s too big for that – and I don’t want this on our network. It’s airlocked, we’re safe.”

Images began to queue up on all of the computers attached the servers, causing some initial shock, but one of the hackers piped up. “That’s normal. The subroutine was designed to affect anything connected to it – like the warden said, it’s airlocked - if it's going to do any damage, it's only going to do it to their network."

The video began with a tattered Darnassian flag flying under a fake static filter. A deep, foreboding voice started: “Your government has been lying to you. Your government has been spying on you. Your every action is known to them."

As the image transitioned to an early picture of three elves, Verronia began to notice that the narration was coming out of her handbag as well. “Warden…” She said, her face going white. “It’s on my hearthslab.”

“You have these three to thank: ‘Retired Warden, Kyalin Raintree, Verronia Fay: Managing Partner of Fadeleaf-Silentmoon, and General Orisil Frostleaf, who is currently being considered for a seat on the council of the sisterhood – they are masterminds of project moonbeam, a sinister tool of big-sister that has remained secret to everyone, even at the highest levels of the temple, for four-hundred years.” Continued the voice as the Warden darted around to see if the images were indeed dancing on that unconnected little card of silicon and plastic that Verronia was pulling out of her purse – they were.

Images of a row of scrying bowls splashed onto every available screen, thirty-two in all as the source of the image panned backward. The ominous voice boomed from every audio speaker from every available source. “Moonbeam, which was the brainchild of Ms. Fay, operated using the placement of runic patterns into accounting ledgers which were then used to direct information for magically altered quills and tomes to record and compile.” The production explained, transitioning to a slick-looking visual diagram.

“Shut it down! Shut it down right now!” Skysong commanded in a rage to the computer investigation team, who replied to this fruitlessly, tapping away frantically at their interfaces.

“Warden Raintree encouraged Ms. Fay to abuse her position at the bank to gather that information from ordinary citizens and to manage the scheme. She directed clandestine operations to plant runes at home and abroad, operations that now-General Frostleaf never questioned.”

The computer investigation team, now realizing that the system had locked them out, started to pull power cords, only to discover that the servers remained online and continued to draw power from somewhere.

“Ms. Fay arranged complex structures to launder funds for the purposes of financial manipulation” the narrator continued, “putting companies and individuals designated as ‘threats’ out of business from afar, and bending even entire markets from secret through the use of dispersed funds, hidden with a byzantine gold laundering structure resembling that of goblin criminal networks of the day.”

((Continued below))

((Continued from above))

Skysong gripped her crescent, tapping a button to activate the motor, one that caused the serrated, diamond-tipped edges of the weapon to suddenly rotate like a saw-blade - passing harmlessly under the hilt in a shielded section where the magnetic-arc device funneled the blade along, but capable otherwise of defeating all but metal plating that was simply too thick for the blade to pierce through. Its target was the nearest server – which loosed an explosion of arcane magic upon its destruction, slamming the Warden into the adjacent wall.

The video encountered a minor hiccup and doggedly continued. “Moonbeam today sees everything – an electronic and magical spy that knows everything. The Watchers have used it to turn markets to their favor, and to make themselves the richest and most powerful enforcement agency in Azeroth.”

Verronia stuffed the slab into her purse, ungloving a hand and enveloping her fingers in arcane fire. She aimed a concentrated stare at the nearest machine, commanding to the others in the room with one barked-out word. “MOVE!”

“But they are not more powerful than the people – our leaders must know about this, and you must stand up!”

The moment the last of the investigative team scurried out of the way, Verronia threw her hand forward, letting loose a narrow jet of white-hot flame. It bore a hole through the machines, producing a similar arcane explosion out of each one in a cascading fashion as the flames passed through each one and finally – finally – the images stopped. The room’s hearthslabs returned to their off positions. Skysong’s expression was frozen in disbelief.

Verronia ceased the jet and shook the wisps of smoke off of it before she replaced her glove, meeting Skysong’s gaze with a glare. “If you’re wanting to arrest me, you can do that after you’ve sorted this mess out!”

The post-action investigation would later reveal that the airlocking was considered to be perfect. Every protocol was followed to the letter, and yet that damning video invaded every screen and audio device in the country. Kyalin had a hood pulled over her face well before it was over, dodging glances on the train and keeping to side alleys that she wouldn’t ordinarily traverse. As she fumbled with the keys to outer side door to her apartment building, her ears picked up one of the last things she particularly wanted to hear today.

“Hey Gram”

As before, the brown-haired elf stood off to the side, her eyes glued to the screen of her hearthslab. Glaring at her, Kyalin walked over and snatched it away.

“Hey! What gives!”

“These things rot minds.” Kyalin spat, turning it over in her hand as she deftly turned as needed to stymie the kid’s attempt’s to reclaim it. “Look at you! You look like you’ll just shrivel away without this piece of plastic!” Once satisfied, she tossed it flippantly on the ground for her, turning her nose up and watching the kid scoop up the device desperately.

“Excuse me for trying to help!” The kid protested, trying to wipe away a few minor scratches. “Lucky the screen didn’t break….”

“Really? Guess your friend couldn’t resist releasing that video then before I even had a chance to think about it?”

The child gave her a puzzled look. “What?”

Kyalin looked at her almost incredulously, but then let her expression soften. “Right… you’re just relaying information… Who are you? What’s your name?”

“Relana Summerwind” The kid offered reluctantly.

“Fine, let’s go call your parents, let them know where you are.”

“You don’t want to go up there. There are priestesses up there waiting for you.”

Kyaln raised a discernible eyebrow at this. “Not watchers? Well fine, let me see your slab then.”

“After what you did!? No way!” Relana protested, almost hiding it from her. “Besides, it’s not like there’s anyone to call.”

“Oh, some kind of brooding orphan, are you?”

Relana replied with an eyeroll. “Everyone back in your day wasn’t?”

“Well why don’t you go to an orphanage then?” Kyalin spat back, quickly trying to change the subject. “We certainly pour enough tax money into them! You’ve got all the food you want, free lodging, schooling, counselors, everything!”

“I’m not going back to that asylum. I have everything I need right here.” Relana replied, taking her hearthslab again and resuming her tapping. “Now if I could just get your friends to stop spying on me through it.”

“In my day, the trees knew what you were up to.”

“Whatever! I was told to tell you to meet someone at the upper observation balcony to the Feathermoon Commons, fifth level on the north side. That’s it. I’m going!”

“You don’t even know who I’m supposed to meet.” Kyalin called after her. “Why are you doing this?”

“It’s a job, duh!” Relana called back, storming off.

“You get them through that?”

When she didn’t reply, Kyalin called after her again, trying to match her pace and failing. “Wait!”

“What!?” Relana demanded, turning around. The old woman had a fistful of bills in her hand by that time, catching her breath as she caught up. “Can you find any art dealers on that?”

“Art dealers? Why?”

“Nevermind the why!” Kyalin stammered. “Can you look one up on that?”

“Yeah, sure… who?”

“I don’t know who yet, but I know what they’ll be advertising. Come on, before those priestesses realize I’m not there.”

As they started off, Kyalin caught a glint of metal coming from a garbage reclaimer. “Wait a minute.”
“I thought we had to go.” Relana protested.

“In a moment” Said Kyalin, freeing a pipe about the length of her forearm from the other assorted refuse, pausing for a moment to weigh it. She held it to her side as she turned around, as though it was now a part of her. “You never know.”

On a cold winter morning in Alterac during second war between Gnomeregan and the Forsaken Empire of Lordaeron - two-hundred years before - the forsaken high command beheld the unusual sight of fog from the low vantage they could ply from their own trenchline. Across the crater-scarred expanse, it hung over the lines of their adversaries. This was new of course because time and again since Darnassia had been reluctantly dragged into that miserable war, their druids had attempted to manipulate fog – during infantry charges across the tortured earth – to deny easy targets for forsaken machine gun emplacements and artillery. Forsaken high command replied to the idea with the pre-emptive use of improved blight, designed to bypass gas masks entirely by melting flesh instead. It was the reflexive signal upon the sight of fog and so the cannons placed a neat line of it at the edge of their range, retreating back behind the steel sheathes they were housed in, in anticipation of the pinprick bombings that gnomish air superiority typically delivered in combination with these suicidal ground attacks.

Instead, the earth chose to rumble, like a frenzied orcish drummer was using its very surface as a drum.

An adventurous sergeant who poked up from a rear trench was the first to see what it actually was: hundreds of ancient protectors had been sent over the lines, bounding – bounding – through clouds of the fearsome new plague that had not been designed for their bark and the steel that had been interwoven through it. Sickly leaves of rainbow color burst from every possible crack in their bladed armor, clustering around intersecting glass tubes filled with a dirty blackish substance. It dripped from the corners of their mouths, accenting a crazed, eager, bloodthirsty stare. Trenches bristling with the most abundant, efficient weaponry that mass production could offer scrambled to array their teeth, but were surprised utterly by the speed, the muscle, and the utter barbarity that the once pensive ancients had never before displayed. Had they known of the nature of the attack, Silvermoon’s mages probably could have mounted a better defense, but when General Shallowgrave watched one of these monsters tear a battlemage triumphantly in two over its head, hearing the droning of gnomish engines between the panicked screaming of a trenchline being ripped open, he sounded the retreat.

For the first time in seven years, a line had broke. The Alliance secured a ceasefire no less than a week later, ending the gnomes’ territorial ambitions from a relative position of strength.

“Fallowbranch’s sacrilege” as it came to be known, ended friendly relations with Gnomeregan in the years thereafter, and was the product of the much maligned Cenarion botanist, Garlo Fallowbranch, who discovered that after having extracted certain materials known to be beneficial to plant life from certain industrial pollutants, his laboratory garden teemed with explosive growth and vigor that the cold minds of war offered to the ancients. It destroyed their wisdom forever, turning them into sadistic beasts, craven for blood and the next hit of that dirty cocktail of chemicals.

Verronia spotted six of them arrayed in a line as she drove her car cautiously down the last road through Feathermoon Commons that the military had managed to keep open, preventing the swelling mass protest of angry, young Teldrassilians who had answered the calls to fight for their privacy, and had gathered at the Sentinel army’s front door. The ancients looked upon them hungrily, hanging back behind a phalanx of sentinels armed to fight a ground war.

Verronia stopped her car in front of the gate to the military base, eying the mechanical saw-glaives that the sentinels held up threateningly to keep the protestors from moving in on the entrance. Some of them were pushing and challenging these soldiers – goading them, spitting on them, and cursing at them. Verronia rolled down her window to meet the attention of the sentinel who had walked up on the driver’s side of the vehicle. “If you don’t recognize the car, I’m Verronia Fay, here to see Warden Nyoda Skysong about testimony we’re to give to the high council session.”

“Why don’t you just sing it!?” The sentinel spat back. “Open the gate!”

Some of the protestors heard it too, and word spread into the mass of people like wildfire. Those adventurous few who had challenged the protest line were now beginning to seriously press it. Then it happened – a sentinel clicked her glaive on, the blades spun, and tore a gash into the flesh of the young woman that had been trying to advance upon her.

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As her corpse hit the ground, the protestors swelled forward in rage, closing around the gate. Rocks thrown from the crowd cracked the glass of Verronia’s car windows. Sentinels sped to fill the breach as fast as their hydraulic leg-boosters would allow them, and a calm woman’s voice came over the gatekeeper’s radio. “We’ve lost control, proceed as discussed.”

“Go! Go!” Implored the gatekeeper, pointing at the open gate, but Verronia could not take her eyes away. The sentinels’ saw-glaives tore through the unarmed protestors, now turning to flee as arrows –loosed from the titanium composite longbows and placed so accurately and deliberately by the range-finding, wind-measuring targeting goggles worn by each respective archer – exploded over their heads along their downward arc, splitting into fifty different shards designed, for wartime, to rain devastation over a wide area. Then of course, the crazed ancients leapt over the advancing sentinel line, unrestrained, crushing and ripping and eating activists who began to stampede away from the wall of death coming towards them, trampling many of their comrades to death in a desperate bid to save their own lives.

News cameras rolled, images from amateur video devices were taken from levels overlooking the bloody commons, capturing the final moments of terrified civilians from every possible angle. Breaking news reports splashed across screens from Gadgetzan to Silvermoon. Generals gave the order for the sentinels to fall back and hold their positions, convinced that the threat had been quelled. A woman on the fifth level of the north side overlooking the carnage sipped a cocktail, tapping a message into her hearthslab.

Cameras from outlets around the world trained their sights straight on to a podium stamped with a distinctive golden-gear logo, standing out amongst a platform raised before a set of inoffensive pale purple curtains from behind which sat a large screen that was never used. Two semitransparent panels were arrayed of course, to either side.

Otherwise, the head of an Azerothian superpower, the leader of the free world, would melt into a stuttering mess.

Late, as usual, President Gearstrip finally made his way out onto the stage about thirteen minutes after his aides told the press that he would be speaking, giving a folksy wave and a smile to the camera crews before he took the podium, waiting for the lines to appear on the prompters.

“As we face a new century… ” He began, calmly and efficiently. “… my administration has always insisted that we can solve our problems through cooperation with our partners around the world. Earlier this year, for example, Premier Deathhowl and I signed a landmark nuclear arms treaty, under which we and the Forsaken Empire have committed to cut the number of nuclear weapons in our respective arsenals by thirty percent over the next decade. In working with our partners in Stormwind, we quelled a neo-Defias insurgency that threatened to ravage the country and plunge its people into the hands of a hateful ideology. In the Blasted Lands, an international coalition of which we were apart drove the legion’s presence out of this world once and for all. We have even worked with our friends in Darnassia, preventing a genocide in Durotar, to find a way instead get Orgrimmar back on track to joining our community of nations.”

All wonderful campaign slogans, but Gearspring of course was slated to talk on other topics. He went on. “These events tell us that we can live together, and solve our differences through means other than bloodshed. We can come together to face extremism, to trade peacefully, and to confront the challenge of global ley-line-change, and yet we know that there is more work to be done. We saw it this week as images of death invaded our living rooms and offices – our schools and our places of worship. The people of Darnassia rose up in protest of a secret dragnet spying program, implemented behind their backs and against their will. In response, and in direct violation of the Sisterhood of Elune’s mandate to protect free speech and expression, the Sentinel army has engaged in a brutal crackdown, and as of this moment, twenty-six hundred Night Elves lay dead in their own streets, and the death toll rises steadily each day.”

His face had grown solemn, his voice had gone firm. “To date, in the face of this swelling national tragedy and scandal, the Wardens have arrested no one. They have apprehended no one, and they have failed to even acknowledge repeated requests from the High Council to testify. The sentinel army has shielded and harbored them, and is now their vanguard in this bloody war on the streets of Teldrassil. Now, I know that given the politics of this town, many will claim that it isn’t our business, but let me be clear on this: if Darnassia descends into civil war, everyone will be affected, and we will not be immune. That is why, at the invitation of High Priestess Blueleaf, Gnomeregan stands ready to intervene to restore order, IF that becomes necessary – IF the Wardens continue to refuse the commands of their own government, and IF the sentinels continue to impose martial law against the will of their people.”

A screen in a penthouse in upper Teldrassil recorded every detail of the gnomish leader’s face as he paused for a second, it was enough for its occupant to hear a clunking sound, before the speech went on. “The global community cries out in shock and indignation as well to the revelation that came out earlier this week that numerous business and political figures in our own countries have been targets of overseas manipulations and even assassinations coming out of the same program.”

The woman on the couch didn’t simply ignore it, perking her ears somewhat and turning her attention in the direction of the kitchen. She was hesitant to move of course, for fear of rendering any sort of damage to the revealing, antique highborne regalia she had decided to try on. “Tyiana? Is that you out there?”

Quiet footsteps replied back as the gnome kept talking.

She stood up, ignoring the gnome’s continuing comments, and ended up facing an angry old woman with furious eyes, blocking the door and wielding a pipe. She moved suddenly to the right and the assailant moved to block her, holding the pipe threateningly. “Not so fast now. You’re selling something that once belonged to me.”

“What!? You’re here to buy something? Where’s Tyiana?”

“Sleeping” Kyalin ominously replied. “Sit down - and let's talk."

The Holy City of Darnassus had by this point in time, been converted almost entirely into a holy city. Situated on a concave disk held between several residual branches, it was often referred to as “The Wandering City”, as it constantly had to move to accommodate the whims of Teldrassil’s growth. The marbled streets and ancient housing were now the sole domain of the sisterhood, and no one, not even the council, could step foot into the city except by the personal invitation of the High Priestess.

Those invitations must have been furious, because the hearing chamber of the High Council – a darkened, circular hearing room that had been converted out of the old Temple of the Moon during its expansion and reconstruction – was filled. No news cameras were permitted, nor were electronic devices – and so a veritable army of reporters sat there with notepads, scribbling what they could even before the speaking had begun. It was difficult for them to see in the low light that the priestesses preferred – a true state of midnight that harkened back to the world before everything had changed, refreshing even for those who had been born after the first outlanders appeared in Kalimdor.

The hearing room was constructed to feature a long, rectangular table, facing a panel shaped as a crescent from behind which the five councilors sat. Behind that, shielded from view by gossamer curtains, sat another figure who mostly kept silent and to herself.

Four placards sat on the first table, three of them had people to go with them – Verronia Fay being one. “In summary” she continued “When this endeavor began, Moonbeam was able to pick up ten percent of the local market’s activity and one to three percent from targeted foreign markets. In the first year we realized triple-digit percentage increases in thwarted fraud and smuggling schemes. Today, we’ve pressed pick-up percentages to about eighty, and financial statement fraud is almost unheard of here, as is the level of crime that societies in the east are known for. We simply see it before it happens.” She concluded, setting her prepared remarks down on the table.

“Then why didn’t we know of this four-hundred years ago when you were first conceiving it?” The question belonged to a barechested druid with stringy, greased, and battered blue hair. His placard identified him as Garlo Fallowbranch – an often-criticized addition to the council that the High Priestess simply refused to comment on.

“It would have altered the behavior of the public if they knew.” Verronia replied.

“So you just went off and did it?”

“It’s well within our purview” Interjected Warden Nyoda Skysong, who sat next to Ms. Fay in her crisp looking Warden’s uniform.

“No it isn’t!” Insisted another councilor, this one a priestess. “You answer to us, and when you keep things secret from us, it’s a problem.” She stated. “It’s a real problem.”

“With respect, priestess, I disagree. We cannot have someone second guessing us at every turn. We must be allowed our independence – it’s the cornerstone of our system of law and the way we’ve – “

“And it hasn’t worked” Interrupted another councilor, this one identified as Falis Irontree – the longstanding, domineering, and controversial anchor of the council. “The blood of our daughters and sons are testament to that…and where were you, General Frostleaf? When this first started you were there, we know that.”

“Councilor” Frostleaf shot back, annoyed and indignant, “You know full well that I had no knowledge when I was under Warden Raintree’s command. I was a low level soldier back then, I’ve said so fifteen times in multiple broadcast interviews, and frankly, this is looking more and more like a cynical political ploy to tar me than a real investigation.

“Four-thousand people are dead, General” Irontree replied coldly. “I’d hardly call that cynical politics.”

“Every death is a tragedy!” Frostleaf quickly replied, trying to salvage the situation as the reporters scribbled away. “But we have a responsibility to protect our military bases and innocent bystanders from these violent, rioting and looting protestors.”

“Is that what you’ll tell the grieving fathers and mothers all over our nation? That their kids deserved it?”

“I didn’t say that” Frostleaf stammered.

“Could you say that to their faces!?” Irontree demanded.

The answer was interrupted by a pair of sentinels at the door, who had been requested to open it by guards outside. After some very disruptive whispering, they had escorted in an imposing figure, accompanied by an a hoodied adolescent. The figure itself was clad in flexible plate armor in a style not seen in hundreds of years. She wore a birdlike plate helm, a bearskin cloak that surrounded her completely, platemail armor beneath it, and two talon-like footguards which otherwise left the bottom of the foot exposed.

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The councilors were apoplectic – no one had infiltrated the holy city in a hundred years. Indiscernible protests rose from the crescent-panel until finally a sweet sounding bell had been rung from the seat behind it. It compelled silence, and so silence reigned for a moment or two.

“I extend the child my invitation.” Said the figure gingerly from behind the curtains. “The Warden has hers already.”

Only the sounds of the armor pieces colliding against one another filled the silence now, subtle as they were. Dozens of eyes fell upon this strange oddity from ages past as she casually strolled up to the seat assigned to her, the kid never far behind, and assumed it, steepling her fingers and drifting her attention from confused looking councilor to confused looking councilor.

“Thought your back was a mess?” Verronia whispered to her.

“My chiropractor was right… as usual.” Kyalin replied back.

“Is this some kind of a joke?” One of the councilors finally protested. “You look like you just broke out of a museum.”

“Military personnel are to appear in uniform.” Kyalin cited, referencing longstanding protocol for such hearings. “This is my uniform.”

She didn’t even bother to remove her helmet.

((Sorry for the lateness of this. I had finally run out of advance material by this point and a host of personal issues, plus deadlines at work made me miss my Thursday deadline. The last post may also be late, and I do apologize for that, but I hope to get it out sometime this week))

“I’ve prepared an opening statement.” Kyalin started.

“You don’t get one.” Said councilwoman Irontree. “You arrived late so – “

“Fine.” Kyalin doggedly replied. “You should know that Ms. Irene Threshtalon was responsible for the videos. Recordings taken of the fifth wildlife observation dome as of exactly one week ago will confirm this, and that she spoke to me in hopes that I would testify against the program.”

Some murmuring rose up from the reporters but was silenced quickly. Irontree stared at the Warden. “But you haven’t.”

“Of course not. Moonbeam is vital to what…”

“So you won’t apologize for it.”

Kyalin glared at her. “Never. I did what I had to do to keep our people safe. We were falling behind, outlanders were taking advantage of our lack of sophistication in these things.”

“Outlanders!?” Another council member exclaimed with wide eyes.

“Yes!” Kyalin pressed. “Outlanders, foreigners! Powers other than our own who eyed our country with hungry eyes in the past. People you didn’t ever have to deal with!”

“I see” Fallowbranch said with an unimpressed expression, sarcastically.

“Frankly that’s the problem!” Kyalin ranted on. “None of you were born before the outlanders arrived. None of you understood the threat we were dealing with.”

“That was then, Warden.” Irontree replied.

“Didn’t you just cowtow to the gnomes?” Kyalin shot back.

Irontree narrowed her eyes. “They wouldn’t have needed to be involved if not for this.”

“They didn’t need to be involved at all. You had a bunch of rioters trying to threaten the sentinel army. What did you expect was going to happen?”

Irontree burst up out of her seat, slamming her fist down on the table and screaming: “Why do you think they were there!?”

“Because they don’t understand the why!” Kyalin protested. “They’re more worried about their lives than of our collective health as a nation! They don’t care if crime rises or foreign powers take advantage of us so long as it doesn’t impact them! They don’t care! So they went out in the streets and got violent! They rioted, they pillaged, they…”

“The protests were entirely peaceful before the Sentinel army overreacted!” Irontree thundered back.

At this point Verronia interjected, quietly, but firmly. “That isn’t true, councilor. The crowd attacked the line of sentinels when they saw my car.”

Fallowbranch scoffed. “Your actions, Ms. Fay, are what enraged them in the first place. You did not expect a reaction?”

Kyalin’s interruption was comparatively immediate and strident. “Lunatics who cannot contain themselves from attacking someone over a disagreement are threats, they stop being objectors. When that happens on a national level, we go to war.”

“War!?” Fallowbranch howled, joining the ranks of his increasingly enraged colleagues. “War? That’s what I’m hearing from you, Warden Raintree? Someone who as I recall, lectured the predecessors to this council night and day about love for one’s people?”

“The individual MUST be secondary to the state.” Answered Kyalin, matching Fallowbranch’s volume and tone. “If a cancer isn’t cut out, then the body dies. It’s that simple – and you know what, the sisterhood once understood that. High Priestess Whisperwind taught the watchers a master class in it, after all!”

A momentary silence reigned. Verronia looked at the former warden in shock. The resentment was always undercurrent, but never expressed. Fear of the sisterhood’s reprisal, Elune’s reprisal in Kyalin’s mind as she had expressed in confidence so many times, had always impeded her. Now she dared it, and the council appeared to be contemplating it. The current high priestess just leaned forward, a shadowed figure behind the curtains who appeared to be watching now with some interest.

Kyalin herself decided to break that silence again. “I’ve seen signs on the news, ‘cut out the electric eye’, they say. These people should be grateful for the ‘electric eye’. It’s kept them safe, and it’s saved many more lives than a thousand of these incidents could have taken, I am sure of that. The fact that these protestors see plotting and scheming, when just a few short centuries ago they would recognize a protective curtain, is tragic, and an example of how far we’ve departed from who we are as a people.”

“It isn’t hard to see plotting and scheming when this entire project was conceived of, developed, and administered entirely in secret.” Said Irontree.

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The words, spoken quietly and un-accusingly nevertheless impacted like a hard strike on a piano’s deepest key, but Kyalin continued without missing a step. “This only became an issue recently. Back before the outlanders came the trees knew what you were doing, community members kept tabs on everyone. Remember the fable of the satyr? That actually happened. No one protested then, no one demanded inquiries then. Moonbeam was nothing but a natural elaboration of that, undertaken under my authority as a warden.”

“Should one person ever have that authority?” Replied a thin-framed bookish looking councilman with half-moon glasses. “We still operate on the ancient maxim that a warden should be able to do what she pleases. No other developed nation in the world would sign on to such insanity.”

“Their cultures are fundamentally different.” Kyalin shot back. “… and they’re not better. The East is ridden with corrupt police, judicial bribery, and the mistakes that come from such hand-tying. A Warden IS justice. She pursues it at any cost, and she doesn’t trouble herself with bureaucracy. Why do you think crime is practically unheard of here? We do not allow it to exist.”

“That may have been suitable in the days of scrolls and manual copying, when we were so spread out that absolute authority and obedience was needed, but we have instantaneous communication. We have precision recording devices and investigative techniques. Why do we still lack a definite legal code?” The councilman said, looking back to the high priestess. “Why are we still on a system embodied by this hateful museum piece?”

“In the days of scrolls and manual copying…. as you put it…. there was a longstanding argument about whether we should develop at all. The more conservative among us questioned about whether we would lose our identity. I believed that our people could grow and keep sight of who we were. I still believe that, but we’re losing that. Our ways are different from how the rest of the so-called ‘international community’ would want. So what? We are not wrong! Our way of doing things kept the peace for ten-thousand years – think about that. Our way of doing things preserved and built this society.”

The councilman leaned forward, speaking quietly and politely, but nevertheless sternly. “Warden, you can strut around wearing someone’s rug on your back and proclaiming that Darnassia is the greatest country in the world all you want, but you still have to answer my question. You’ve asked for trust, you’ve said you had in the past, but no Warden at any time answered – and this is important – why she should have that trust.”

Kyalin stood up at this point, stretching her arms out to her sides, trying to ignore the strain the metal was exacting on her aging bones. “Have I not offered myself before you today? Have I not done so knowing that you will apprehend me before I have a chance to leave this room? A Warden gives her life to her people – forsaking a normal life for years in the company of prisoners, fighting to her last breath so that her people may live peacefully. We are stern, and we are cold, yes, and this separates us from those we love, but every warden made the sacrifice for them, and would do so again.”

“You are fond of citing history.” The councilman replied, his professorial visage holding firm throughout this demonstration. “Perhaps I should remind you of Maiev Shadowsong? She once led the watchers, and on multiple occasions, attempted to overthrow the High Priestess and threatened the people she swore her life to protect. You call it love, but history disagrees. She was consumed by her hatred, and twisted justice into vengeance. Is that not a concern to you? Should it not concern us what Maiev Shadowsong would do if she were in a Warden’s position today?”

“Warden Shadowsong was wrong about the Highborne.” Kyalin conceded. “But the people who criticize her for her zeal simply don’t understand. A warden IS justice. She endeavors to BE justice, and as uncomfortable as this is to admit – for all of us – vengeance is the purest form of justice.”

At this point, shadows began to swirl, coalescing behind her as she spoke, her eyes levelled at the councilor, oblivious to disconcerted gasps erupting from about the room. “We become vengeance for our people – because if we cannot prevent harm from our society as a whole, we will certainly get revenge for the transgression. This is not an academic point for us, this is not negotiable. It is who we are and who we always will be.”

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