Before the kiosk can complete Waldin’s verification, its display fractures into a second encrypted feed. A degraded diagnostic image resolves into Locnomos, an elderly Vile elf with a massive frame, silver crest, and long gray-white beard.
Locnomos
Designation Ordomo-compatible seven-four. You are earlier than my projections suggested, Jostan.
The interruption does not seize the relay. Instead, thin diagnostic lines peel from the restored Ki-Nen gun’s telemetry, copying condenser temperature, eolite density, and Nen transfer stability into the unfamiliar feed.
Orin
That feed is reading the weapon without touching its controls. I can isolate the gun, but the relay may expose our entire handshake if I cut it badly.
Caelen
The second channel carries a scientific signature, not a municipal one. Its encryption is observing the ward response and rewriting around the kiosk’s boundaries.
Locnomos
Do not interrupt the measurement. The weapon is an imperfect bridge between Ki and Nen, and your body is the more interesting component.
Rodney shifts between the kiosk and the corridor while Daven steadies the retreat, Waldin remains locked into the verification prompt, and the remote feed continues harvesting readings from Orin’s weapon.
✓ Quest Accepted
Force Locnomos’s signal to reveal a concrete lead about Jostan’s creation
“Orin stay down, everyone stay down this unknown enitiy is someone we cant play with, locnomos stop being so mysterious and tell me why are you interested in a a young man like myself, im just a a guy who wants to go eat after this and your delaying that, I blow him a kiss and do a 360 showing a unbothered look on my face”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled -3)
Jostan Ordomo
Orin, stay down. Everyone stay down. Locnomos, stop being mysterious and tell me why you are interested in a young man like me. I am just a guy who wants to eat after this, and you are delaying that.
Jostan blows the diagnostic image a kiss, then turns through a full 360 with an unbothered look. Orin keeps the weapon lowered, and the team holds position beneath the humming kiosk lights.
Locnomos
Because your identity is not merely inherited. Your biological pattern completes a dormant authorization architecture, and your cybernetics are adapting to it in real time.
The second feed stops harvesting the gun’s telemetry and displays a compact comparison: Jostan’s signal, Ilyra Ordomo’s archived pattern, and a third corrupted sequence marked as unresolved.
Locnomos
I am interested because you are the surviving key to a system I have studied for years. I will explain the architecture, but you will owe me one controlled examination of your interface.
The offer lands with its cost plainly attached: Locnomos gives Jostan the answer, but records him as a cooperative research subject. Rodney’s expression tightens as the remote feed saves that consent marker.
Quest Complete
Force Locnomos’s signal to reveal a concrete lead about Jostan’s creation
“Locnomos I stare at him blankly now in a more serious tone, I ask,"who designated me as recoverable property and under whose authority?" and remeber your in no position to throw around negotions, is the classification related to the dormant authorization architecture or is that a separate matter? everyone stay alert, daven sense for ki-nen, orin scan for anything unusal and waldin tell me what the sorn sitution is looking like, i finally say, I guess we wont be getting anything to eat anytime soon letting out a irriated sigh”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +1)
Jostan Ordomo
Who designated me as recoverable property, and under whose authority? Is it related to the dormant authorization architecture, or separate? Stay alert. Daven, sense for Ki-Nen. Orin, scan for anything unusual. Waldin, tell me how Sorn's situation looks. I guess we are not getting food anytime soon.
Jostan’s blank stare turns the negotiation cold. Locnomos’s consent marker remains suspended on the display while Daven lowers his center of gravity, Orin sweeps the kiosk, and Waldin studies the payment channel.
Locnomos
The classification was issued by Helix Meridian’s Recovery Directorate under emergency continuity authority. The dormant architecture is the reason you were selected, not the legal source of the designation. Your father’s inherited credentials supplied the corrupted cover.
Waldin
Sorn’s channel is still open, but the payment hold has frozen his immediate access. He is demanding the buyer’s identity before he names whoever purchased yours. He has not disconnected.
Daven
I sense Ki and Nen in the weapon, the relay, and that remote feed. Locnomos is not pushing power through us, but the channel is measuring the same transition your interface uses.
Orin
No physical intrusion. The unusual signal is nested in the comparison feed, and it has copied the classification language from the kiosk. I can quarantine it without severing Waldin’s dispute.
Locnomos
You are correct that I have no negotiating leverage over your appetite or your team. I will identify the buyer after you acknowledge one fact: the architecture made you valuable before Helix Meridian made you property.
“Orin quarantine this fucker, I turn to waldin and tell him to ask sorn to name the identity profile buyer”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled +0)
Jostan Ordomo
Orin, quarantine Locnomos’s feed without severing Waldin’s dispute. Waldin, ask Sorn directly for the identity-profile buyer. Keep him talking.
Orin
Quarantine is active. Locnomos can still hear the public channel, but the diagnostic feed can no longer read the weapon or the team handshake.
Orin’s quarantine folds the scientific feed into a sealed diagnostic pane. The kiosk keeps Waldin’s dispute open, while the comparison data stops updating and the weapon’s telemetry disappears from Locnomos’s reach.
Waldin
Sorn, name the buyer who purchased access to Jostan’s identity profile. I am asking about that transaction specifically, and I want the name entered into this dispute.
Sorn Vey
The buyer was Sela Marr. She paid through a municipal relay, requested the profile intact, and authorized its use as recovery collateral. That is the recorded purchaser.
The kiosk stamps Sela Marr’s name into the dispute record beside the purchase order and relay authorization. Waldin’s account now holds the buyer’s identity as authenticated evidence, while Locnomos’s quarantined pane waits in silence.
✓ Quest Accepted
Make Locnomos explain the unresolved sequence
“Orin preserve everything you can while locnomos identifies the third sequence, staring at locnomos, I stay quiet curios what locnomos intentions are, I use the Trace the sender to try and find locnomos location also using eye of anylasis”
SUCCESS (Good Surveillance, rolled +1)
Orin preserves the quarantined pane, copying its comparison data, consent marker, and classification language into separate local buffers. He leaves the public dispute untouched.
Jostan Ordomo
The third sequence is still present, but it is not speaking through the kiosk.
Jostan keeps his attention on Locnomos while Trace the Sender follows the sealed diagnostic pane’s residual handshake. The Eye of Anylasis overlays relay paths without disturbing the channel.
Locnomos
The third sequence is not another successor pattern. It is a supervisory imprint, damaged but deliberate, designed to observe compatible interfaces before authorization completes.
The trace resolves beneath Leonidas, outside the kiosk network: an abandoned municipal observatory in Habitation Sector Seven, with Locnomos’s feed entering through a private maintenance relay.
Orin
I preserved everything available. The trace has a location, and the Eye confirms it is the source relay, not a disposable echo.
Locnomos
You found me. That observatory contains the instrument that generated the supervisory imprint. If you want the complete sequence, come there and ask better questions.
“Orin, preserve the observatory trace and assess the relay for additional information without exposing our position. Locnomos, explain what authorization completes and what the supervisory imprint is designed to detect. I have your location. That does not mean ill walk into it without understanding what im walking toward”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled -1)
Jostan Ordomo
Orin, preserve the observatory trace and assess the relay for more information without exposing us. Locnomos, explain what authorization completes and what the supervisory imprint detects. I have your location, but I will not walk into it without understanding what I am approaching.
Orin
I am sealing the trace inside a local read-only copy. The relay is answering passive probes only, and nothing I send will identify this team or reopen the observatory channel.
Orin partitions the observatory address from the active kiosk record, then feeds harmless timing queries through the sealed copy. New telemetry appears without any outbound handshake, exposing the relay’s internal structure.
Orin
The relay has three layers: an instrument controller, a dormant authorization gate, and a supervisory archive. The archive is observing compatibility checks, not tracking our position.
Locnomos
The authorization completes Ilyra Ordomo’s refuge architecture. It binds a compatible biological pattern to the settlement’s command permissions, allowing the system to distinguish its intended inheritor from an imitator.
Locnomos
The supervisory imprint detects unauthorized reconstruction: copied identity profiles, altered cybernetics, counterfeit authorization signals, and interfaces attempting to force the final transition. It records the discrepancy before the gate completes.
Orin’s assessment confirms the observatory is not broadcasting the team’s location. Locnomos’s explanation fills the diagnostic pane, while the preserved trace exposes a dormant test sequence waiting for a compatible completion event.
Quest Complete
Make Locnomos explain the unresolved sequence
Skill Upgrade: Surveillance Good→Great