It isn't that I don't have faith in my own abilities; how could I not? But by their very nature (heh) they will be inaccessible to me beneath the ground. And my most powerful assets will also be useless; the BCs need time to grow, to flourish, to proliferate, none of which is possible on such short notice.
All of this is to say V's purpose seems likely to be this: use the pretext of a standard mission to conveniently dispose of untidy loose ends, within the Guild and also his own personal business. Though it pains me deeply to think it, as one of only a handful of V's remaining agents—one who has over the years become privy to his most coveted secrets and deep-rooted desires—I suppose I myself must represent the untidiest of those loose ends, and thus has my end arrived.
But! The situation is what it is. I may be wrong—I hope I am wrong. Perhaps there really is a malign Core, and V is sending me as ever to do the Lord of Light's work in destroying it. Perhaps it will even turn out to be the fabled purple Core I know V has secretly been seeking for so long. And the Subgardia system... V has mentioned in the past that he has an ally in that region. Perhaps we will be able to seek aid from them should we encounter difficulties. Or perhaps V has instructed that they should be the agent of our doom.
Only time will tell.
In this mire of muddy waters, one thing has become clear to me.
V has ulterior motives and I can no longer trust him.
I embark on this journey with open eyes, and will do my utmost to fulfill my directives as a high ranger and protect those under my leadership, unconventional though they may be.
But I can trust nobody.
Eleven
Bacon Butties
Tiri
The next page was empty, as was the rest of the journal.
Tiri rubbed her eyes and tried to process what she'd just read. Lila's last written words seemed to sear themselves on the inside of her eyelids, and she felt a dread certainty that the ranger had been right.
Trust nobody.
The words sounded paranoid. Crazed, even. But the handwriting said otherwise; it was neat, measured, just as it was in the earlier entries. And Lila hadn't struck her as paranoid; only cautious. If she suspected something was afoot, Tiri believed her. What was more, her suspicions meshed with Tiri's own concerns—and left her with a host of new ones.
Assuming 'V' was Guildmaster Varnell, what secrets had Lila known about him? And what did she mean when she said she was his 'agent'? Why was she worried about being partied up with Benin in particular? What were the 'powerful assets'—the mysterious 'BCs'—she'd referred to?
Above all, what could be so special about the 'purple Core,' and why was the Guildmaster looking for it in secret?
I'd hazard a guess it’s not to invite it over for a cup of tea.
Tiri glanced at the pile of papers beside her, torn between delving into them and flipping back through the journal for more insights into Lila's last days. That was when she noticed the first pink fingers of dawn had already begun to creep through the half-drawn curtains.
She'd been lost amid old memories and new suspicions, but now her physical surroundings came back to her in a rush. She was in a room she'd illegally broken into, rifling through a dead woman's private belongings in an institution from which she was technically outlawed. And passing footsteps in the hallway indicated the Guild was starting to wake up.
Shoving the pile of loose pages back inside the journal, Tiri stuffed it all into her satchel. Then she grabbed her chemsphere, though she didn't really need it any more. Her legs were stiff and clumsy—it felt like she'd been kneeling there for hours—and she tripped on the blanket Lila had used to wrap the journal before hiding it away in the secret drawer.
A flash of silver, and then something small and hard fell from a fold in the blanket. A necklace? Tiri picked it up gingerly.
Barely an inch high, the pendant’s narrow form was made of some kind of gray-black glass. It was twisted into a shape that looked pretty at first glance, but the more Tiri stared at it, the more it began to resemble a contorted humanoid, like a drowning fairy trapped in amber.
She shuddered. Tucking the pendant and its silver chain back into the blanket, she shoved that in her satchel too, cursing the lack of sleep that was now apparently sending her imagination running wild.
As more footsteps passed in the corridor, a pair of voices drifted in through the door, which Tiri had left slightly ajar for the sake of a hasty exit.
"... can't believe it took six darts to down him."
"He'll have a hell of a headache when he wakes up. Big oaf."
The words prompted a sinking feeling in Tiri's gut. They could be talking about anyone. Besides, Coll and Benin are keeping a low profile at the safe house, like you told them to. It won’t be him—
"Oaf, maybe, but I'm glad he dropped before any of us got on the receiving end of that hammer. Had a mean swing, he did."
"Yeah. Wish we'd caught the other one though. Captain’ll be furious."
"Not at us. We were just the backup. It's Koff and Vann who'll get it."
"If they even bother reporting it."
His companion snorted. "Oh, they'll report it, but not yet. It's Thursday."
"So?"
"I keep forgetting you're new here. So, Thursday means bacon butties. Those two will already be in the cafeteria, chomping on as many slices of pig as they can stomach. Bacon butties always run out if you don't get to breakfast early. That's why they sent us to throw the perp in the cells instead of seeing to it themselves."
"Bastards."
"Welcome to the Guild,
