Everything's Coming Up Thalya
Entombed like a spider in her lair, Thalya allowed herself a flicker of emotion, of satisfaction as the latest news came in. Prytath and Estrana had been quiet in the latest meetings, unusually subdued for the otherwise so braggart enclave leaders. Harvest season was rapidly approaching in their enclaves, a time in which farmers would pay any price to repair their machinery, and yet the usual demands for acolytes and material of the two enclaves were absent.
As matter of fact, a disgruntled acolyte had told her Prytath was sending out it's own acolytes to other enclaves, for lack of anything for them to do, offering wealths in labor for a pittance of material. It seemed her rivals had caught the same strand of incompetence that had floored the
Aevon enclave, and that dullard Silvenis.
Of course, that wouldn't be a trouble much longer. With Aevon out of the running, and Prytath and Estrana faltering, the only enclave showing proper improvement was that of Nyvaros, and they were barely an outpost. Acolyte Velis showed promise yes, in a centuries time, and his insights were welcomed on the council, but he could not speak with the rank of Master.
Which meant, very simply, that there was no one else besides her to take leadership.
The Denva enclave was the largest and most prosperous one around; seemingly the only place capable of controlling the locals technical development. When this crisis broke; and it would break; of that she was certain; there would be only one figure to turn to for leadership.
She wouldn't even need to seek nomination. Magos Orynn, that ever reliable, if completely unimaginative workhorse of a man, had been led to that conclusion years ago. All the pieces were in place. All she needed was to watch them fall.
So for now, she had time to gloat, to smile, and to prepare and deal with the little things.
For example, Magos Vita was due for another visit soon, and she wanted to make sure it was one in person. She had this grand idea for another tracer, a little incident in the hanger, some radionuclides released. The expenditure of menials was unfortunate, but the traces would last for years, and the probes should be able to follow the trail back from whenever she landed. She was wondering how Vita would slip out of the net? Ditch the shuttle? Pay one of the other enclaves to clean it? Insist it get cleaned in Denva? That would be fun. A distraction, for sure, but Denva handled itself well, and Vita was such a fun enigma to solve.
Her noospheric engram for example. With most tech priests, it was a heterogenous almagation, the impact of the mind moderated by a hundred machine spirits in various levels of alignment. It provided a potent defense, a veritable morass of attack surfaces that would entrap and ensnare any attacker, keeping them confused, off balance, fighting banal machine spirits while the Magos herself lurked within her net. But Vita had done none of that. Her noospheric presence was singular, every machine spirit in and around her calmed into absolute, and total obedience. It was an impressive display of skill. It was an impressive display of foolishness. She remembered when she had first done that, how her master had chided her. He had cast her leg all to her knee, leaving her to hobble with the unmoving joint until she'd finally proven herself worth of the augment to replace the withered limb. But that was the lesson. Demanding total obedience requires total perfect rigidity of the mind. Not a single thought out of place, no doubt, no change.
With a rigid mind like that, you locked yourself down as much as you improved your defenses. No stranger could talk to your augments, but no other augment would talk to it as well. Every part replaced was a part forever set in stone, a puzzle piece that had to be made to exacting specification. With Vita as rigid as she was, it was no suprise for her to look exactly the same 10 years on as she had the years before, or even the centuries before. The Magos was almost certainly unable to accept any new modifications. Not unless she broke down her own defense; and she was far too rigid for that. But perhaps a bit of rigidity in the mind of an Explorator wasn't a bad thing. Better a solid mind than one lost to Heretek.
In any case, that rigidity, that pure will, that was her key to putting Vita firmly behind her. The Magos was an able planner, and not prone to flights of fancy, as other tech priests went. She'd been preparing her recruitment campaign for decades, snatched Anexa right out of Orynn's grasp, but in doing so she had revealed her own weaknesses. The Magos, it seemed, could not help to see her plans disrupted. When Orynn interrupted the clandestine training she was putting Anexa through, she all but stormed into the enclave, pulling her away well before she had the time. Thalya had secured a pretty price for it at the time, but she'd long since concluded she'd underpaid.
Once the Magos had a recruit, it seemed, she'd stop at very little. And wouldn't you know, one of her Skiitarii officers was having errant thoughts recently. Combat dreams were throwing up eronous results, dreams of assassinations and executions showing a measurable delay if the target was one Magos Vita, despite the two having never met. A curious anomaly, and while Thalya couldn't quite phantom what made this skiitarii special, it also meant the trap was baited. Next meeting, she would insist on greater security for the dig site. She would, personally propose the officer in question. A gift without demand for compensation, because the woman was headed to the scrapheap anyway. Dropping accuracy, delayed reaction speed, so many results to be manufactured with a little manipulation.
And, if Thalya had the Magos figured out, then Vita would once again come to the rescue. Faced with seeing her recruiting prospect lost or gained, she would not be able to let go, and would step right into the trap.
And if she didn't, well, that was important knowledge gained, well worth the price of admission.
