“Sand… there is sand everywhere. A phantom of sand corrupts our vision. The East Gestalt formed outside of us. We need help, your help. We didn’t want it to be like this. Not like this. Sand… there is…”

The message repeated in a different voice. Then another one. Each time, pronunciation of the words was eerily similar. Confused, steady in volume but swaying in tone. It was like listening to someone who was recovering from a fall on their head.

The voice echoed through the large conference room, coming from several speakers hanging in the corners. Wirelessly, they connected to a computer sitting in the middle of a circular oak table. Red carpet and dark walls with golden decorations gave the space a luxurious flare, but the practical design of the chairs and doors changed that to a militaristic appeal. John was joined by parts of his harem, Chemilia, Ted and, through a video conference, Elu. All of them listened intently to the words. He and a few sat, others stood around the table and yet others leaned against the walls.

Finally, the recording came to an end.

“Quick working, good job,” John complimented the technomancer in the room. He was a normal person with black hair and brown eyes, a bit leaner than the average Abyssal but not quite thin. “Gathering all of the recorded calls from our decentralized servers must have taken a minute.”

“Miss Thorne can’t do everything on her own,” the man returned with a bow of his head, directed respectfully at the redhead. “For all her expertise, she is just one person.”

“Indeed.” John nodded. Fusion’s Technomancer department was one of the first institutions to learn of Scarlett’s true identity. It was quite an easy reveal to make, since most of that department consisted of former Thorne employees. They hadn’t been privy to her existence beforehand, but past experiences made it more believable. Because of this, they were also more loyal. Thorne, after all, had been a pretty stable and secure employer. Not without its issues, but a good way to survive the anarchic state before John’s arrival.

Having them on board was also going to be assuring during the eventual reveal to the broader public. A couple technomancers could direct conversations on numerous sites at the same time. John didn’t like using such a tactic. It wasn’t as bad as censoring things he didn’t want said, but it was still dirty to artificially direct attention. Like many things he didn’t like, he still had to consider it for pragmatic reasons. If he could, he would limit their influence to information gathering. Being prepared for the most common talking points was more his style. The best way to counter speech was better speech.

All of that was merely a flash of thoughts of John’s tangent prone mind. He clicked play on the supercut of messages and listened to them again. Twirling a pen around his fingers, he tried to discern any hidden meanings. Once they were through, he asked, “All of these came in at the same time, right?”

“The calls began at the same time, but messages were only spoken once the receivers had let the speakers know they had connected,” the technomancer let John know.

“Either an incredibly well-coordinated hivemind or one that allows its member a degree of individuality,” John mumbled. “Anything worthwhile in the emails they sent?”

“More requests for help, among gibberish, and several coordinates.”

“Alright…” John stroked his chin. “Have you asked the Lake Alliance if they received similar messages?” A quick denial was all the Gamer needed to know. “Alright, try to open communications with them then… try to contact the Heart of Lakes guild first.”

“As you wish, Mister President,” the technomancer turned around and left the room, leaving the upper echelon of the military to make their decision.

“Why the Heart of Lakes first?” Nia wanted to know.

Scarlett, standing next to an open window, lit a cigarette while she answered, “Because it’s closest to the Gestalt guilds.”

“Partly, yeah, but not the main reason,” John told everyone. “Of the elites we fought during the Hudson Brawl, Remia and Theron were those with the least amount of hostility towards us. I imagine we have the highest chance of getting an answer by going to them first.”

“Why didn’t we try to contact New Libraria as well?” Rave asked.

“They never answered before and I doubt they will now.”

Chemilia knocked twice on the table to get everyone’s attention. “Regardless of what comes of that, what are we going to do?” she wanted to know and looked over to Scarlett. “Could you do the thing?”

“Sure,” the technomancer said, light dancing through her red eyes as if they were following circuitry. A large screen hanging at the wall flickered to life and displayed a basic map of the southern region.

“First things first,” John took command of the conversation again by getting on his feet, “Elu, I want you to align your forces along our border with the Gestalt guilds – both of them. Concentrate on the east, but keep some observing forces around the west. I don’t want to be surprised by something that overcomes their divide.” Motions in front of the screen showed which stretches exactly he meant. “Neither do I want to find out New Libraria is somehow involved in this and ready to spread it to us.”

“Roger that, John,” the old woman responded in a serious tone.

“Nia, I want you to arrange defences along the rest of the border. Just create squadrons that can react quickly to anything that invades Illusion Barriers on our territory.” Since Abyssal warfare couldn’t properly defend land itself, worrying about the exact border only made sense for diplomatic purposes. When it came to actually defending areas, it was all about Protected Spaces of interest being either fortified or a highly mobile task force reinforcing it in time. It was unwise for an enemy force to just drive deep into enemy territory by mundane means, purely because they could then be caught from multiple directions, but it was a much more valid tactic than regular warfare would have made it. “Do not task the people positioned on the Death Zone border with this. Same as New Libraria, I don’t want anything coming out of that catching us off-guard.”

“Understood.” Nia headed towards the door.

“Don’t you want to hear the rest of the plan?” the Gamer wanted to know.

“I trust you, so this would be a waste of time. Better to get everything into position early.” She gave him a quick kiss in parting. “Update me when this is done, darling.”

“I will,” John confirmed and looked after the white-dressed pariah vanish in front of the door without opening it. ‘Effective as always,’ he thought, focusing his mind back at the task at hand before he could be distracted by the adoration he felt. “Chemilia, Ted, I want you two to mobilize at least four battalions and move them south.”

“Won’t you need parliament’s approval to do that?” Metra asked.

“I will need parliament’s approval to move them across the border, but as head of the military, I can put the army wherever I want inside our borders,” John explained. While it wasn’t inside his designated powers to declare war, he could do everything to prepare for it. “Regardless of what happens with parliament, I can put some things into motion. I’m restricted by the constitution, not neutered.”

While John said all of that, Chemilia and Ted exchanged a couple of sentences, then the light-pink haired woman nodded and stood up. “I’ll follow Nia’s example and get to organizing. Ted will brief me on the rest once you are done here.”

“Imma head out too and start getting an emergency session together,” Rave announced. “Aclysia, could ya tag along and tell me who might need some talking to? Would be handy because ya can keep up with John’s thoughts at the side.”

“Affirmative.” Aclysia obediently bowed, only to look over to John. “Unless Master has other plans for me…?”

“No, go ahead. Beatrice, I want you to join them but concentrate on getting to the airport in 45 minutes. Whenever Magoi lands, he should get briefed as quickly as possible. We need to mobilize some Fateweavers for barrier control supremacy.”

“Affirmative.” Beatrice bowed in the same fashion as the older maid. All four of them left the room, leaving John with a severely diminished cast. His familiars were still there, albeit incorporeal, along Metra, Scarlett, Eliza and Ted.

“So, what the FUCK do we think is going on?!” the blood mage wanted to know. “Because I’m sure your apex brain managed to get all of your think fluids out of your dick for once.”

“I have nothing concrete,” John responded, stroking his chin. “Part of the problem is that I know so little about the Gestalt guilds themselves. They mention their titular phenomenon, so it might very well be that this is just a local phenomenon run amok.” He went through a couple other possibilities and arrived at only one that felt somewhat likely. “The Lorylim might be involved, they are also a hivemind of some description so they would be able to send a message like this. Usually their thoughts are way too jumbled to put something this coherent together though. I also don’t get how sand is involved in all of this. It was rather prominent in the message.”

“Dust Walkers?” Ted suggested.

“They are way to the west, I would sooner suspect the Golden Rose to be involved than them,” John stated. “And the chances for Moira and her lot to be tangled up in this are rather slim to start with. They don’t strike me as the kind of people that would be secretive about their dealings. No, I think this is, most likely, something internal. Lorylim is the second and New Libraria intervention a third possibility. Everything else seems incredibly unlikely to me.”

It knocked on the door and the technomancer from earlier came back in. “Mister President, I can report that the Lake Alliance did receive the same communications. They do not, at the current time, seem intent to do anything about them.”

“Thank you, dismissed,” John said and the dark-haired man went back outside.

“Does that tell us anything?” Ted asked.

“Nothing that greatly shifts my current analysis, but it’s interesting to note that this isn’t exclusive to us,” John responded. “It drastically reduces the chance of this being some sort of trap meant for Fusion or me specifically. I would discount the Lorylim as the sender of the messenger because of that – although they might still be the ones who wrecked things.”

“I don’t know,” Metra hummed. “I never heard of them being active in this part of the world. Not active enough to fuck around inside a sizable guild, that much is for sure.”

“Jackal is still running around and with him the possibility to turn a lot of people into flesh puppets for Izha.”

“Which I still don’t understand,” Metra mumbled. “There were Lorylim possessed or worshipping alchemists in the past and none of them could brew something that would spread their influence. It was all done through exposure to ‘parasites’ or whatever you want to call it when they eat someone alive.”

Scarlett took a last huff from her cigarette and flicked the butt out of the window. “Not to offend ya,” she started while exhaling the smoke, “but your knowledge isn’t exactly reliable – when it comes to things outside of fighting.”

“It’s true, so whatever.” Metra shrugged. “I’m not a planner. Remembering the details about how the Lorylim used to be doesn’t really matter to me. Wordless skewering and corruption or chattering biting and MORE corruption doesn’t make a lot of difference to me. Fungoid nightmare creature is fungoid fucking nightmare creature, with or without the teeth.”

“We can rehash what information we have on the Lorylim another time.” John looked at the map one more time, then turned away from it. “For now let’s make clear what our path of action should be. Whether we help or not, all that.”

“What’s there to discuss?” Scarlett wanted to know. “You already decided to go in there. There’s no reason to stop you either, aside from concerns about your safety. Since I doubt you’ll let those stop you, all that remains is to convince parliament. The worst outcome is that you just save some people, the best is that they join Fusion, which we need to get done sooner or later anyway. This would help future diplomatic efforts.” The redhead pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her suit, looked at it for a moment, then stored it inside her breast pocket again. “Of course, you could just stay with the army after saving them and forcefully annex them.”

“Well, that’s out,” John said. “Just to add: the worst outcome is that we save some people and we learn about whatever is actually going on inside their borders. Information has been scarce.”

“True,” Scarlett agreed.

“This better not be the sudden and shit-eating end of our calm and fucking happy streak,” Eliza cussed. “If you are going in there and lose even an inch of skin, I will tear the fucking continent apart.”

“Don’t jinx it, Eliza,” John warned her with a warm smile. “Besides, I’m confident nothing much is going to happen to me.”

“Yeah, well, you are an absolute retard who keeps jumping into obstacles that scream ‘don’t touch me, unless you really, really want to get gnawed on by the darkest secrets of the universe – also lots of fucking rats’ with such glee,” the pretty little psycho ranted. “What the self-hating cuntwaffle makes you think this time is going to be so different, huh?”