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[X] Indicate your interest in the diplomat directly.

You consider it, and after a moment put it to the group on your party's closed circuit.. <<How much should we reveal about our intentions?>>

<<Is there a reason to tell them what we want?>> Mirareki asks. <<I don't want to give away information to the Chrysanthemum that we don't have to.>>

<<The chances are that they already know about the diplomat, though,>> says Juketta. <<Mara's probably been able to interview Jessica and knows what we were interested in. Also, she's probably speaking to the conspiracy, and they already know our interest. Why don't we just clarify things now?>>

Mirareki sighs.

Reizay chips in: <<I don't really trust our translator if we're too oblique about it. Let's just ask directly.>>

Luyu shrugs. <<I agree with Shortstack. If we just ask them about the war we might not get any info at all.>>

<<Okay. Fine.>>

You take a deep breath and point to the murals on the wall, specifically the diplomat. "We have encountered these entities. We've heard them called the 'Diplomat'. We came here to investigate depictions of them in your art."

The blue twitches around to look at you. Selko flinches at the sudden movement and sudden loss of attention. Both Nereidi distend and extend and you have to fight a flinch as body schema you had taken as stable and begun to anthropomorphise abruptly distort. Their eyes slide to watch the whole room. "The {manifold abstract solvent} remains present? Greater than [two million years] have passed. Is it widespread in space? Is all space contaminated?"

"No. It exists only in contained environments. It's likely some of our own people are attempting to weaponize them."

"Are you subject to {override} by the {solvent}?" The purple asks. The Shalathri suggest its secondary cues are signifying urgency.

"I've interacted with it and survived, if that's what you mean. It was extremely unpleasant but not fatal."

"Your psychology is more {simplistic[?]}" The Purple speaker says. It's starting to collapse back down, its eyes adopting a binocular configuration. "We lost the war. Despite the {solvent}, because it is hazardous. {Resonance/cooperation} is {diverted/dissolved}. Only through specialist servant organisms could we fully utilise it. This is the flaw of using alien weapons."

"You didn't originate it?"

"No. It was something the {Ones of the Sky} found in the deep sky. Something they weaponised against {Ones Behind-the-Sky}."

Mirabelle and Selko are both watching this exchange now. "Can you tell us about the war?" The Chrysanthemum agent asks. "Why were you forced to go into hiding?"

The two Nereidi look at one another, then begin to reconfigure themselves. Their skins glow brightly as additional communication organs come to the surface. You hear the Shalatri and Selko speaking about translations as the Nereidi begin to pulse out information, a barrack of colour. The Shalarti's telemetry spikes, body temperature spiking as they step up into their trance to handle the additional data load of the Nereidi storytelling.

"We underwent {fission/reproduction}. The systems that remained in the water and the system-systems that {made their own water} in the deep sky."

The translation team is composing a sequence of images from the supplementary data. They shift, dreamlike. You see a fractal Nereidi shading to silver rising from the clouds of a world like breaking seafoam and encompassing the globe in its limbs.

"The systems of systems are the {Ones of the Sky}. We understand you have your own. We who remained in the water you now call 'Nereidi'." the word is strange, synthesised from alien phonemes and in a tangibly odd grammatical position. "But in {counterpoint} to the {Ones of the Sky} we are called the {Ones of the Depths}."

"The {Ones of the Sky} diffused and {incorporated/governed/coerced} many more systems they encountered and {resonated/exchanged} with others. The depth of the sky comprised folds containing other skies and other systems with which resonances were established." You see a pattern like ganglia or tentacles or arteries spreading between stars and folding in on itself and spreading again. "The {theory/pattern} of {comprehensive resonance} was expounded. System scaling and effective capacity appeared unbounded."

"System scaling led to detection and encounter with an extremely {high amplitude/powerful} system that had been difficult to {identify/objectify}. The {Ones of the Sky} attempted {governance/coercion} and {resonance/exchange}. The {Ones Behind-the-Sky} responded with {elimination/discorporation}.

The shifting curlicues of the network are abruptly torn by brutal stamps of black. A pitch you recognise, somehow, despite the gulf of ages and spaces and mental architectures. A pattern that survived compression by both your memory and theirs. The pitch black of the Emim on Scythia.

"The scaling of the {Ones of the Sky} system was not unbounded. Despite extensive rearchitectures and optimisations by the {Ones of the Sky} and the aid that we {Ones of the Depths} could {assemble/mobilise}, it was subject to {collapse/decohered} in contact with the opponent. As were {Ones of the Depths} settlements in vicinity. As were {cooperating/resonating} systems. The {theory/pattern} of deep strata/long time preserving concealment was expounded. However total {collapse/decoherence} appeared inevitable until the discovery of the {manifold abstract solvent} altered the course of the war. A {star/planet} with a perpetually {dying/decohering} ultra-system and the infra-system that had evolved to-"

The airlock door abruptly cycles open. The two Nereidi immediately deflate back to relative normality. A Biff is revealed in the doorway, clad in a rich suit of fabric banded with layers of UV light. Two more Biff follow behind the leader, aids or attendants.

"Ambassador." The Biff says in Nereidi. It has light transmitters built across its suit which transmit the light components of the words, aimed at the purple crest. "Speakers. Your interaction with outsiders is unexpected. Did we not arrange for a merging of our thoughts on such matters?"

"Such arrangements were made before the destruction of so much of your forces." Purple Diplomat 2's body falls further into itself, its eyes closing in on one another as it adopts binocular vision to regard the Biff. "Or do you think we did not notice that {the red crested coherence} had taken so many losses in your governance? Already, the agents of {the loss of the weapon.} are making their approach. We are forced now to negotiate with all parties without distinction."

Do they mean ECHO CHAMBER? You were hoping you'd have more time.

"I am forced to protest! My government must be able to keep agreements made all {Deep One coherences}. After all, we are the link to your other worlds."

The Nereidi opens its hands and becomes slightly larger, the translator identifies this as something like a human inclining their head. "Then you have our apologies. However, negotiations with the Garden must now take place."

The Biff ambassador makes a face, then looks at you. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Sir Raboak, ambassador of his majesty's government to the reborn Nereidi state." That's the Kingdom of the Shallows, the main Biff nation near the Garden, and currently one of the most powerful near River blocks. The frog like alien's eyes to take you in. "Representatives of Both the Commune and the Chrysanthemum working together now? How unusual. Well. I'm sure I would like to discuss things further with you both. In private if you wish." He smiles at Selko and Mirabelle.

Mirabelle returns his smile. "I'm sure that separate meetings will not be necessary. The New Commune Government and the Chrysanthemum are allies in these negotiations."

That's interesting. You hadn't heard they had a common negotiating position. You're distracted from the by play however, as the sub, moving along the side of the Nereidi city to dock at the new moon pool gets track on a pair of incoming submarines. The two ECHO CHAMBER vehicles are on approach, descending gradually down the guidance beams.

<<Mirabelle. What is ECHO CHAMBER even doing here? Aren't they under contract with the Chrysanthemum's coalition? What's their authority to be involved in negotiations? Surely whatever Chrysanthemum faction that's backing them isn't going to try to foist another negotiation team on us.>> That kind of show of disunity could be disastrous, and would likely cause the other faction a major loss of face, so you'd assumed they wouldn't do it.

<<I'm in communication with them. They claim to be parties to a new contract now but refuse to specify with whom. We should be there when they land.>> Mirabelle coughs. "I would appreciate it if we could also meet the ECHO CHAMBER ships as they dock." She bows to the two Nereidi.

"Of course." Blue says. It's still in that binocular eyed mode, tracking each of you. Its outer layers are twitching. It reminds you, disturbingly, of a cat about to play with a mouse.

Purple Ambassador 2 and the Biff fall in with you and you run through another car ride to a second, larger dock. You cross through another airlock to see a massive chamber with a raised docking system wrapped around, one of the big ECHO CHAMBER attack submarines. There's at least one more out there on sensors, and probably a couple hanging out trying to be actually stealthy.

The hatches on the submarine open and ECHO CHAMBER personnel begin to disembark. You were worried that they would bring out an honour guard, which is usually a bad thing in a situation with aliens as it introduces a lot of armed individuals into a the mix. But it looks like while ECHO CHAMBER is definitely known for the conflict half of the conflict specialist job they aren't awful at negotiations, or at least feel that cheap intimidation would be beneath them. It gets you bad reviews from clients; nobody wants to look like a thug.

Instead, their representatives are five. The leader is a short, silver haired young lady in a body that doesn't seem combat rigged. She's a real beauty, a high end social body with a customised figure and long rabbit ears. Behind her are two others. One is a Valkyrie, a similar design to Luyu, but with a pair of cat ears sticking through short, stylishly messy hair. The final human wears a shield maiden and has that extremely black and white look that Mirareki has, a fashion statement on the Chrysanth worlds. They're wearing derigged powersuits, stripped down to just the underlayer and harness, like skeletons unfolded and wrapped around them in gloss black.

Walking with them are a pair of Mockmaids. They've been fitted with some Gardenian and River gear, what look like translation and comms packages, and also carry several of their own artefacts. Gleaming shell knives and other paraphernalia.

The Nereidi reaction is fascinating. Both immediately puff up, eyes going into prey mode, and there's a series of flashing light trails between them. It's hard to pick it up fully, as they're obviously trying to be covert. The shalathri give you a partial translation.

"They have become {like this,}" Purple Ambassador 2 says. There's a garble of words, or sub-words, sparse matrices of meaning your people can't compose into human language. "[Combat forces] resource [compositions] were [erroneous/unresonant]."."

"They may have evolved past utility. I see their interaction with many [useful organs.] They are no longer fully unitary." The blue says. "It may–" It glances at you and gives a shut off symbol implying further conversation later.

The ECHO CHAMBER team come to a stop at a polite distance and the rabbit girl bows to Mirabelle. "Representative." She says, and then repeats the gesture to Selko. "Ambassador. I must inform you both that ECHO CHAMBER has entered into a new contract, as of this time and as is our right under our agreement with the Chrysanthemum Nereidi Coalition we have entered an agreement with the representate of the People of the Many Seas, the beings commonly referred to as Antiquus Mendax or Mockmaids. ECHO CHAMBER will now represent the united tribes and nations of the People of the Many Seas in the conflict both with the Commune, River and Nereidi remnant forces."

As she speaks, the front Mockmaid is giving a simultaneous translation to the two Nereidi, who are still in their defensive stance. ECHO CHAMBER can talk to them? They must have recovered some River work on that front from the base, but even so they've worked quickly. You quickly ask the Shalathri, who confirm they do have some understanding of Mockmaid communication. Even so, it's fast work.

Selko seems just annoyed by this whole thing, but Mirabelle speaks up. "We accept your right of contract, however as a representative of the Chrysanthemum I must ask that you assess the wisdom of your course. You are not first contact specialists."

"They fought and bled alongside us," the Valkyrie growls. "I think we've made a successful first contact here."

Selko comes in on the private feed. <<This has got very complicated fast.>>

<<I'm not really the negotiation kind of conflict specialist.>>

<<I get that. You're a spy. I might want to ask you to do that.>>

You can't help but agree. The next step for you is probably trying to gather information while the negotiations take place. And to try to get the Nereidi alone without interruptions to hear the full version of their history and find the Diplomat's point of origin.

The question is, who should you concentrate on.

[ ] Concentrate your efforts on the Nereidi political factions
[ ] Concentrate your efforts ECHO CHAMBER
[ ] Concentrate your efforts on the River
[ ] Try to get more information on the wider state of the Nereidi city