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MAZE - Chapter 967 - A plan to end the war
🕑 Added 2024-11-14 08:48:58 +0000 UTCOnce they arrived at the Agency, they had a chance to rest properly before heading to a meeting. Since they were a day ahead of schedule, there was no rush, but the Harmony Guardians decided not to wait too long. After a meal and a shower, they went to headquarters. In just a few minutes, they were greeted by Ka'mal, who guided them to a private reception.
"Before anything, I need to ask a question. Are you all in or out?" the Elven spy asked.
"What?" Skyler frowned.
"Just like that? No more information?" Roan asked.
"Just like that. This mission is that important and dangerous. Just knowing about it could put you in jeopardy. If you say no, there are no hard feelings. We still have other things for you to do. And for this particular situation, we would allow your team to split up," Ka'mal turned to Hera. "But I’ll also say that you were one of the big reasons why we called for your group. But still, no pressure. If you don’t want to participate, you don’t have to. That’s fine. No pressure."
Hera scoffed while rolling her eyes. "Yeah, sure. You called us mostly for me, but no pressure."
Ka'mal rubbed his neck. "I mean, when you put it like that... Still, I’ll give you a few minutes to discuss."
"There’s no need," Flint spoke up. "I think I speak for everyone when I say that we want to help. The sooner this war is over, the better." The dwarf turned to the rest of the group, all nodding in response.
"I guess I really underestimated you all. And you’re not even the first ones that surprised me like this," Ka'mal shook his head. "Either way, starting right now, you’re all going dark. You’re not to speak with anyone about this operation, and your tablets should be kept here at the Agency. You’ll receive replacement ones with all the information you might need for this mission and the ability to send short-range messages to each other. Until we leave, you will be sleeping here in the dormitory, and we’ll take care of your meals and anything you need."
"Starting now? Are we supposed to leave today?" Vash asked.
"In two days, actually," the elf replied.
"Then we can’t even watch something during those two days?" Vash frowned.
"There are TVs in the dormitory, and a couple of video games. You’re free to use them as you wish; you just can’t play anything multiplayer. Well, online multiplayer, that is. If you want a specific book or anything, just let us know, and we can get a digital version for you," Ka'mal gestured to the door at the back of the reception. "Now, follow me. We’re not having the briefing here. It’s not secure enough."
"We’re in the headquarters. How much more secure can it get?" Neria asked.
Ka'mal smiled at her. "You’ll see."
He guided the group through a few corridors, reaching a cargo elevator. Inside, he pressed three specific floors, including the one they were currently on, and held down the open and close door buttons simultaneously. This revealed a small side panel where the elf input a code, followed by a fingerprint scan. Another panel then appeared, requiring a specific key. Ka'mal used one of the two keys on his keychain and spun it three and a half times. All of this happened after the doors were closed, but before the elevator started moving. The moment the key was turned, they began their descent.
"This feels very excessive. Why do you need to do all that? We’re already in a spy agency," Vash crossed his wings.
"I think that’s exactly why we do all this. Being spies makes us very untrusting. We learn to expect betrayal at every turn. I honestly suspect there’s no one in the entire Agency who knows everything that goes on here. Besides, there’s also another reason for all this," Ka'mal explained.
"What?" Roan asked.
"Complicated locks like that are really cool," Ka'mal said with a smile that made everyone roll their eyes.
The elevator descended for a couple of minutes, not only because they were going very deep underground, but also because the lift wasn’t moving that fast. Hera was pretty sure they were just a couple of levels below where Vulcan had his therapy sessions. They walked through a corridor and passed a set of 12 different doors, but these didn’t have intricate locks like the elevator. Instead, they had to wait in small rooms between each door as the previous one closed. It was a system similar to an airlock.
Finally, the group emerged in a wide area that looked very much like a regular house, even if it was very open concept. Almost no walls separated the environments from the kitchen to the living room. Only the bedrooms and bathrooms were not on full display.
Sitting on a large blue couch was an elf with shoulder-length, messy brown hair and blue eyes. Someone the Harmony Guardians had met before.
"Ziltan," Hera almost spat the words. That was the elf who had suggested torturing Vulcan to get information. The one who seemed all too happy with the idea.
"Hey. How’s your Spirit? I’m glad things worked out without me having to step in," Ziltan waved to the group. The Empress once more noticed the density of Mana inside the man. Despite leveling up several times since the last time they saw each other, he was still much stronger than her. However, the gap had narrowed; she just couldn’t tell by how much.
"What is he doing here?" Neria turned to Ka'mal.
"He’s also going to participate in this operation. I was supposed to tell him the specifics alone today, but that’s only because no one else would have arrived in time. Except, you made better time than we were expecting, so I asked him to wait so I wouldn’t have to repeat myself too much," Ka'mal explained.
"Wouldn’t it be easier to wait for everyone before having this conversation then?" Roan asked.
"Yes, but that’s bad for morale. It’s still going to take a couple of days until everyone’s here. Leaving you all waiting would likely cause problems. There’s actually one more person here for the explanation," the elf turned to Ziltan. "Do you know where she is?"
"The Mistress is taking a bath, and I’m supposed to stay on the couch until she’s done. I have to say, I really don’t care for how I’m being treated. There’s only one person here who has a genuine reason to be angry at me," Ziltan glanced at Hera. "Everyone else is just judging me for enjoying my work. It’s not my fault it’s so fun to hear people scream."
Ka'mal rubbed his eyes. "You say shit like that, and then you complain because people find you weird. That’s on you, my guy."
"So am I supposed to lie about who I am? Pretend that I’m a goody two-shoes who wouldn’t hurt a fly?" Ziltan leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. "And how am I worse than anyone here? Every single one of us has taken a life. We’re all killers. It’s really hypocritical for you to act like everyone else is better than me."
"Oh, for fuck's sake. I don’t care about how you feel. As long as you can work together, I don’t give a shit about how you treat each other. This is not fucking high school, and this is not even a blue-collar job. We’re at war here. If you have problems, figure it out. And just to throw this out there: we are a fucking spy agency. Lying is something we do on a daily basis—that’s the whole point of what we do here. Also, your job is to torture people. If lying is where you draw the line, go to therapy, seriously. You know what? Just go to therapy either way. I'm tired of hearing you nag!"
Ziltan stared at Ka'mal for a moment before his entire demeanor shifted, now back to his jovial and free-spirited self. He laughed and turned towards a door on the side of the large room. "Told you I could get him to snap."
"Damn it," a voice grumbled from the other side of the door. Coming out was a human woman with short blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. She was wearing a simple pair of black leggings and an oversized gray hoodie. "Seriously, Ka'mal? That’s all it took? I thought you were supposed to be the mediator." She walked over to the couch and handed a single gold coin to Ziltan.
Ka'mal stared at the two but focused on Ziltan. "You’ve been driving me nuts with that self-loathing act for two months because of a bet? And you, Blade. I expected more from you."
Blade stared at him for a moment before turning to Ziltan. "We only made that bet this morning. Why were you doing that to him for months?"
The elf with shoulder-length hair smiled. "It’s fun."
"Holy shit. You really are a sociopath," Blade sighed.
"It’s a good thing you don’t have to like me to trust me. Ain’t that right, boss?" Ziltan turned to Ka'mal.
"Fuck. You. And I’m not the boss, I’m just a messenger. Now everybody shut up and sit down. I’m going to start explaining shit," Ka'mal grumbled.
"Mind if I grab a drink?" Roan gestured to the fully stocked bar in the corner.
"Make me one too," Ka'mal nodded, just before everyone started ordering different drinks. In the end, they only had two options: scotch and soda, or on the rocks. That was the extent of Roan’s mixology knowledge.
Once everyone had their drinks and was sitting down, Ka'mal stood up, introducing the Harmony Guardians to Blade. He then turned to Hera’s group. "You already know Ziltan, but this is Blade, also known as the Blade of Dawn."
"No relation with the New Dawn. My name came first, or at least before their rebranding," Blade added.
"Wasn’t that like ten years ago?" Hera asked.
"Yeah. So?" Blade turned to the Ophidianite.
"If you already had that name back then, how old are you? You look to be in your mid-twenties."
Blade smiled. "And that’s what I’m going to tell everyone from now on."
"Either way, Blade was part of a mission that recovered a lot of information about the labs where the Soldiers of Strength are being created. It just took us a while to decode it. Romeo Ballester was also part of the mission that recovered this intel, and he gave his life for it. But now, we have credible data about the main laboratory being used by the humans. This mission involves infiltrating the place and using a live stream to show everyone what the humans are doing. All the heinous acts they’re committing against the Spirits and the people they’ve kidnapped. If possible, we’ll destroy the entire facility after saving as many as we can. But unfortunately, rescue is a secondary objective. The live stream will be our primary goal."
"You’ve got to be kidding me," Skyler gasped. "Why are we even bothering with a live stream? Are you saying that publicity is more important than saving people?"
Ka'mal shook his head. "No. Our intention is to use the mind control the humans are employing against them. It’s not something that directly influences their decisions, but it heightens their emotions. If we hijack one of their broadcasts and show what they’re doing to our people, and apparently even to some humans, we should be able to turn the public against the Guild and the New Dawn."
"But how do we know that’s going to work?" Neria asked.
"Because of the three humans you brought: Ashley, Kimmy, and Greg. We were able to break the mind control on Kimmy with Ashley’s help. For Greg, we had to do something different. We used a similar broadcast to what the humans are using to show him the situation inside one of the labs. Old videos from places we had already liberated. It upset him, but not enough to completely break the mind control. However, when we showed him a human who was captured. Not even those being experimented on, just in prison. That finally shook him enough to break free from the mind control," Ka'mal explained, letting his words sink in before continuing.
"According to the data we recovered, emotions aren’t the only things being heightened by the broadcasts the humans are watching. There’s also a subliminal message of 'human first'. Something that implies humans are superior and should be treated as such. We assume this is to prevent defections to our side and to push those who are on the fence over the edge. Showing humans in those conditions, even if they were supposed traitors, creates a feedback loop with the effects. It’s subtle, and it would require constant exposure to truly break the mind control. But if we add a couple of specific similar effects, we can amplify the feedback loop to the point where it overwhelms the control entirely. It would also make the person painfully aware of what was happening to them. And yes, I do mean literally," Ka'mal continued.
"Are you saying you’re going to kill a bunch of people just to break mind control?" Neria frowned.
"No. I’m saying you’re going to give pretty much every human a mild headache. We tested thoroughly to ensure no one would be seriously affected. We also added an age lock to this effect, meaning only those old enough to have leveled up will be affected. If the humans are mind-controlling their children, we’ll deal with that later," Ka'mal finished.
"So the plan is to find the lab and live stream from inside it?" Hera asked.
"That’s a gross oversimplification, but yeah," the elf nodded.
"Then why do you need me specifically?" Hera frowned. That sounded like something pretty much anyone could do, and she wasn’t exactly the most stealthy individual.
Ka'mal turned to the Empress. "Honestly, I’m hoping that those snakes you control can hold a camera."
Comments
Perizou
This is Blade of Dawn, the same one that was with Romeo during their attack in one of the labs. She used to have long hair, and she calls herself Blade because she doesn't want to be associated with the New Dawn
DrDankness
Sorry dang it. I mean blade of dawn.
Imp
Welp. You know what'd really be a great way to really hide your identity, Blade? Go snake or go home!
Imp
New Dawn is the name of the evil corporation that controls the Guild and is now trying to take over the Maze.
DrDankness
Wait is this New Dawn or not? It def looks/sounds like her considering she was with Roman during that solider of strength mission (Correct me if I am wrong)
Pletter
Role quest: Reporter?
