Heartlands Vault Aleph-60
West Undercrofts
Conference Room Ancestor 10
3rd Evening Star 4E29

Present: Field-Marshall Ildric Ostarand (IGS advisor, Legion 92nd, praefect-colonel, retired), Gdesh (Prince of the Moonlit Cup, Pa'alatiin, Continuitor), Legionaries Fendl Taurp and Horlen Veenthender, Esteemed Master Theyn-wa-Dhien (Cult of the Ancestor-Moth, invisible)

+++ Gdesh vetting process, 25th Crossing, first attempt +++

+++ excerpt +++

O (arriving late): Apologies for the wait, I hope th-- Martin's balls, you're a big one. (sits) A, ah, Pahmar-raht, if I'm not mistaken.
G: This one praises the moons for my mighty aspect.
O: Quite right, praise be. (scans notes) The Mighty and Dread Gdesh. That your preferred title, is it?
G: It is used only formally in the palace of my clans. This one prefers no titles but Continuitor.
O: Good news, then, that's why we're here.
G: You need for time to work correctly during your Crossing.
O: It would certainly be convenient.
G: This one can make that happen for the right price.
O (pause): Let's take a step back, Mr. Gdesh. I've read the files. Listened to your preliminary interviews. Still, for the purposes of the vetting review, I would like for you to explain to me what a Continuitor is. In your own words.
G: How long do we have?
O: Excuse me?
G: The continuity is holy and this one is a high lunar priest. To give you even a proper layman's explanation would require many months of rigorous study.
O: Just the more salient points then.
G: My own words do not like to be wrestled in such a fashion. This one provided you with the literature that describes the continuity, its practices and powers, the role the s'thaba-raka-- or Continuitor-- plays in its priesthood, its history as a sacred art within its history as a physiological imperative.
O (sigh): Your people sent me a very large chest of books, a translator stone, and then charged the Survey a considerable sum for it.
G: It was a holy translator stone. Very expensive.
O: I'm surprised you didn't throw in a complimentary lectern.

Long pause. The aggravated swishing of the Prince's tail can be heard.

O (rising): We are done here, Mr. Gdesh. The Emperor will have no need of your services. Please enjoy the rest of your stay at the capital.

By secret glyph: dreamsleeve transmission
Dreamsleeve: urgent, security protocols granted
Security protocols: Aleph-60 soulmarrow shields

To Chancellor Hierem, in mastery! In triumph! In absolute moral good!

The meeting between the Survey agent and the Prince was a disaster. Please review the enclosed memospore for details and assessments.

Yours under the Red Diamond,

Esteemed Master Theyn-wa-Dhien

By secret glyph: dreamsleeve interception
Dreamsleeve: bulwark, security protocols suspended

Esteemed Master Theyn-wa-Dhien,

I once again implore you to send these missives through the proper channels. The Council barely resembles its days under Ocato. And while the Emperor is a religious man, he does not share the same veneration of the ancestor-moths that the Septims did. It's a new Dynasty, Theyn, and a new day. We must all of us be agile.

Now to the disaster and what must be done about it. We cannot censure Ildric Ostarand to the degree you advise. His position as Survey agent is nothing-- the IGS has already fallen so out of favor one can barely see down that far-- but his friendship with Mede renders his limited mandate disproportionately ironclad. Nor can we risk a strained relations with Pellitine with the Dominion moving as they are.

Upon review, it's evident that any favorable resolution between parties will need to include a saving of face for both. They absolutely do not want to be in the same room together again.

Let me check with our friends over in Outlandish & Labyrinthine Sticky Wicket Solutions and see if they have any ideas.

Yours under the Red Diamond,

Avendis Likor, Director-General, Provincial Trade Offices (Standard)

By secret glyph: dreamsleeve transmission
Dreamsleeve: urgent, security protocols granted
Security protocols: ultra, [penitus numinit]

P -

I could use your help with salvaging 25C. Attached, all materials related to the pain in my ass. If anyone can right this ship, they probably work for you. I'll fast-track your plan of action regarding Old Mary and the Gold Coast past H. on my end of the back scratch.

- Likor

[NUMINIT location NUMINIT timecode NUMINIT]

Penitus agents Ghilly and Blut sit at their desks, throwing a ball back and forth. On Agent Ghilly's desk, a copy of "Mercantile Rituals of the Tenmar". Behind Agent Blut, a glowing gel screen covered in overlapping hand-drawn diagrams of the Ostarand/Gdesh solution.

Ghilly: This'll work.
Blut: Should work.
Ghilly: Walk me through it. You've got a giant tiger on the one side.
Blut: And a stone cold Colovian on the other.
Ghilly: The tiger, he thinks he did the right thing, had a price in mind--
Blut: But our boy Colovia thinks he's being up-sold or something, says I'm not having any of this, walks out.
Ghilly: Both think they've been had, more or less.
Blut: You wasted my time.
Ghilly: Right, in a major way. I'm insulted.
Blut: So am I.
Ghilly: Honor's involved now.
Blut: They can't come back to the same room asking for the same stuff they wanted before.
Ghilly: No, they have to go to that room and get what they want without asking.
Blut: Both of them not asking, both of them with personal honor at stake, both probably willing to--
Ghilly: Fight.
Blut: Yeah, fight. Then here comes a diplomatic incident.
Ghilly: We don't want that.
Blut: But there's this really obscure Khajiit transaction ritual--
Ghilly: Probably only obscure to us, what with being humans.
Blut: Right, sure, but the long and short of it is, you've got a buyer that wants to buy something but can't ask--
Ghilly: That's Colovia.
Blut: Sure, in this case. Which is the only one we're worried about but for sake of illustration-- sometimes a buyer can't say they want to buy because--
Ghilly: They'll get in trouble with their better half if they do.
Blut: Or there's a cultural/societal taboo about even asking.
Ghilly: Any number of reasons why, we're talking about cats here. Capricious folk.
Blut: Exactly, and on the other side of it, you've got a seller who knows the buyer can't ask.
Ghilly: To further complicate things, the whole transaction has to be a secret, that it's even happening but also--
Blut: --out in the open.
Ghilly: Otherwise the whole thing doesn't work.
Blut: Yes, the whole point is that An Item has to get from point A to point B both in secret and yet naturally.
Ghilly: Right, so that's where the ritual comes in.
Blut: The seller starts talking to the buyer--
Ghilly: Back and forth they go.
Blut: Then the seller "accidentally" insults the buyer.
Ghilly: Something bad enough that the buyer wants to kill the guy.
Blut: The seller asks for forgiveness.
Ghilly: The buyer says no way.
Blut: Seller does it again.
Ghilly: Buyer says no way.
Blut: They do this three times exactly.
Ghilly: Ritual says three. Finally the seller says what if I gave you this.
Blut: And it's the thing the buyer wanted to buy without asking in the first place.
Ghilly: Right, and finally the buyer says that is the exact thing that will make me not mad at you anymore.
Blut: Item changes hands, later the buyer sends the money to the seller on the down low.
Ghilly: You might ask why they don't just do this in secret in the first place.
Blut: In an alley.
Ghilly: Away from prying eyes.
Blut: It's because it all has to be out in the open.
Ghilly: It's a matter of not looking like a secret at all. And again, I bring up the cat aspect of the whole thing--
Blut: That's the part where you stop asking and just accept it--
Ghilly: This is the ritual and just accept that this is how it's done.
Blut: Right, so, Colovia needs tiger man's moon powers.
Ghilly: And tiger man wants money.
Blut: Both of them are in a place where the one asking is admitting that the other has leverage.
Ghilly: So the ritual. You both just "accidentally" get what you both want and no one asked for anything.
Blut: It'll work.
Ghilly: Should work.
Blut: The real trick is keeping both Colovia and tiger man committed to the ritual and not their feelings.
Ghilly: Which, since the ritual literally calls for the tiger man to insult Colovia, may turn out any which way.
Blut: Tempers flare.
Ghilly: But that won't happen, both of them are professionals. Yeah, okay. Yeah. Okay, good.

Agent Ghilly catches the ball a last time, puts it on his desk. Makes a gesture in the air to summon access to the dreamsleeve.

Ghilly: Shunting the book over to the old man.
Blut: Help is on the way.

By secret glyph: dreamsleeve transmission
Dreamsleeve: urgent, security protocols granted
Security protocols: ultra, [penitus numinit]

Trade Offices sent us. Find attached, "Mercantile Rituals of the Tenmar"

Starting page 1127, what you're looking for.

Good luck, moth-man.

Heartlands Vault Aleph-60
West Undercrofts
Conference Room Ancestor 10
12th Evening Star 4E29

Present: Field-Marshall Ildric Ostarand (IGS advisor, Legion 92nd, praefect-colonel, retired), Gdesh (Prince of the Moonlit Cup, Pa'alatiin, Continuitor), Legionaries Fendl Taurp and Horlen Veenthender, Esteemed Master Theyn-wa-Dhien (Cult of the Ancestor-Moth, invisible)

+++ Gdesh vetting process, 25th Crossing, second attempt +++

+++ excerpt +++

O: Mr. Gdesh.
G: This one understands you wished for us to try again.
O: The moth cult tells me it would be prudent.
G (pause): Have you read much about the Middle Dawn?
O: Please don't send me another book.
G (ignoring): Also known as a Dragon Break. The longest of them, though that word doesn't really apply.
O: I would say that I have a passing knowledge of the phenomenon. Vast temporal anomalies. Akatosh sunders, our timelines unstitch. Diverge. Until the jill-dragons awaken and reknit the world whole again, we are made to live in paradox.
G: Yes.
O: Except the Khajiit.
G: Yes.
O (pause): The Khajiit are blessed to share a special relation with the moons. The moons are not governed by Akatosh but by his uncle. They allow for a continuity inside of time even when it is broken. The Khajiit sidestep temporal anomaly by the grace of the s'thaba-rakaja, who shepherd them into continuity.
G: Oh my. How is such a thing even possible, my friend?
O (long pause): The s'thaba-rakaja are the husband consorts of the jills.

Gdesh's tail slaps the floor three times.

G: Which would make this one a prince and heir to your red diamond.
O (sigh): Are you trying to make me kill you?
G: No, no. (rumbling laugh) This one wanted to see how far the moth cult could guarantee your obeisance. (pause) This one asks your forgiveness.
O: Is that right.

Esteemed Master Theyn-wa-Dhien unveils and whispers into Ostarand's ear.

O (flat): I'm afraid I cannot accept your apology, Mr. Gdesh.
G: This one went too far. Surely there must be something that can satisfy your honor.
O (flat): There is nothing.
G: But surely there must be something.
O (flat): There is nothing you can possibly say or offer.
G: What if this one agrees to serve as your Continuitor?
O (flat): There is nothing except for that thing.
G: This one surrenders to the price.

Ostarand rises to leave, his anger at having to perform the Khajiit ritual barely held in check.

O (leaving): Pay the man.