Chapter 16 

The Sect of the Sightless Eye is an information network made up of spies. The members of this sect can take up any number of roles needed to keep an eye and ear out for critical information of any sort. Each national branch of the Order has regular feedback on political schemes, royal drama, corporate plots, gang actions, and even events, both major and minor, in the adventuring field of work.

Day 75, Temporikday

As it turned out, Rose was a year ahead of me, a Tier-one trainee in the Crimson Blade. She had come outside for some sun just as Nel came running, desperate for help. Since then, Rose had spent Quenchendays with Nel and me to ‘keep us out of trouble’. She was an authentic badass at the age of sixteen. Her father had been a member of the Order but died in the line of duty three years before, stopping a rampaging ogre. Until his death, he had trained Rose whenever he was home because he knew she wanted to be an adventurer. When he died, Rose knew she was going to join the Order to make her father proud. Three years later, she was at the top of her class and working to earn a sponsorship to become a Mastlok, a member of two sects. She wanted to specialize in martial combat and assassination. The desire to learn deeper violence was definitely concerning, but it was fairly obvious that she had a hero complex. Rose wanted to save people and do the right thing, but most of all, she wanted glory and to be revered. From what I had learned of the Order, they would commonly kill if it would mean saving more lives than were lost. As they drilled into our heads, the greater good was our goal, to measure the needs of each person and decide the best action needed. The phrase ‘for the greater good’ was almost a mantra for the Order.

But clearly, ‘for the greater good’ meant me sitting through a class on spycraft that I was clearly failing. Master Mystagogue Kellar stood at the head of the class, lecturing on adopting and maintaining a persona.

The bland man was so plain in appearance that you could have overlooked him in a crowd of six people. He was a Human with mildly tanned skin, his eyes were a pine brown, and his hair was a medium-length light brown. He was so generic that it extended into his speech, and it was almost painful to listen to him speak.

“When you are infiltrating any location, during public hours and often even in the site’s off hours, you are to take up a role.” He droned in a monotone as he had for every class. “We refer to this role as a persona. The persona is to be someone inconspicuous most of the time. A maid or janitor, an office worker or grunt, a maintenance technician or construction worker. The key is to select a role that gives you a reason to be where you are required. It should also be noted that there are some set circumstances where you may need to play a high-profile role, such as a noble or celebrity, but that is a lecture of higher classes. But regardless of whether you are a Count or maid, the identity that you take up needs to be complete. History, contacts, likes and dislikes, childhood memories, goals, and even needs.” As the Master went on, I felt my eyelids growing in weight.

“You must become your persona. You are the maid, the technician, the office worker.” The sudden, strong emphasis on this phrase caught me off guard, jarring me from my doze. “You must both become this character and, at the same time, become a shadow,” he spoke with an enthusiasm that faded back into a soulless monotone. “Your goal is to hide in plain sight. You are to be overlooked, even when they are looking for you.”

As he monologued about blending in with the environment, I noticed something odd. My senses snapped back to alert. I kept a sharp eye on the bland man. The holo board behind him displayed traits not to display while acting as a background figure. But he gestured to it with a laser pointer in his left hand. The class before, he had been pointing topics out with his right hand. After noting this, I also noticed that he frequently touched his nose with his free hand. This caught my interest. I hadn’t noticed this pattern before. Almost on reflex, I pulled up a new notebook document on my therra-node and made a note of these odd behaviors. After I made the note, I second-guessed myself, thinking I had noticed something that was always there. That was until the professor made direct eye contact with me as I saved the notebook. The moment of contact only lasted a fraction of a second, but somehow I knew. From the gaze he laid upon me, I knew that I had picked up on something. What I picked up on, I had no clue, but I knew I was onto something.

As the class continued, I carefully examined the Master for anything out of the ordinary in his actions. But I found myself uncertain of anything I thought might have been out of the ordinary. After the lecture, we were moved as a class out of the lecture hall and to a set of large elevators near the center of the building. We were ushered down to the third sublevel in groups of five. I was part of the last group to descend with the Mystagogue beside us. 

We stepped from the mirror-walled elevator into a black-surfaced viewing room. The walls reflected the light like dyed glass. The seams between each wall, the floor, and the ceiling weren’t right angles; rather, they were curved slopes. This gave the room a sense of being a single massive bubble of hot glass that had been expanded inside a cube and left to cool into this glistening black. Holo screens lined one embankment, displaying an empty white paneled room. Set into the wall to our right was a door, just as black as the surrounding surface. 

Mystagogue Kellar stepped in front of the class with his hands behind his back. “This is the viewing room. Through the door on that wall,” he pointed to the door I had only just noticed, ”you will each enter one by one into the adaptive test chamber. Needless to say that the chamber will alter its shape, design, and pattern to a foreign environment. I will give you a scenario. You are to pick a role and act it out as I play an opposing role. To help you take on your needed persona, you will find a selection of props and outfits in the room linking this viewing room with the testing chamber.”

One by one, classmates were called out at random, given a scenario, and sent to enter the prep room, while the Mystagogue would cast a blink teleportation spell to vanish into the testing room. The test environments ranged from an office to a manor to a government facility to a woodland road. With every failure, which was inevitable, Mystagogue Kellar would point out each and every failing that came through the acts. 

Soon, my turn came. “Iver Maverick.” the Mystagogue called out. I stepped forward, my feet shuffling, wringing my hands. It didn’t take much to tell that I was excessively nervous about this act. I stepped up to the Master, unable to make eye contact. It was as if my gaze was pressed down beneath leaden weights. 

“Your environment will be a government facility. Your goal is to get past the guard at the checkpoint. Step into the preparation room. You have five minutes to prepare yourself.”

I mechanically nodded and numbly stepped into the prep room. I passed into a gray room that continued to my left. The entire space was devoid of features aside from a row of tables laden with props and a number of racks holding uniforms and outfits. Both the props and the clothes varied extremely in theme and style. Just from a glance, I saw business suits, military uniforms, punk and goth regalia, and a slew of information brochures for a variety of company types. The range of props was so mind-bogglingly varied and random-seeming that I couldn’t comprehend the spread without thorough scrutiny. 

I made my way deeper into the long room, my mind racing. Government facility. What should I wear? Military uniform? Maybe a high-ranking military? No, that would draw attention. Janitor maybe? But what if I need to get into highly classified areas? If I was caught rifling through eyes-only documents, I’d get sniffed out in an instant. File clerk? I didn’t know. But I’m on the clock, so I needed to act fast. I threw on a pair of tan khakis and a navy blue dress shirt and slipped into a pair of black wingtip shoes.

In a panic, I turned towards the tables of props for designated roles. The sheer variety of times could be seen as a menagerie of tools and items. Such as a series of sidearms, a series of files on a range of subjects, hair ties, nail polish, wigs, books of varying subjects, glasses, towel trays, and even a maintenance tool belt, and a range of palm-sized martial weapons. 

With the clock counting down, I scooped up a handful of files at random. As an afterthought, I picked up a pen even as I made my way to the training entry door.

I stepped through the entrance into the blank, white room. The Mystagogue was in the center of the large space. Once he noticed my attire, he made a series of gestures in the air, no doubt interacting with his therra-node. The room altered in response to his actions, shifting into a hallway. The surfaces of the newly formed passage rippled in a single continuous wave from the end opposite me, rolling forward. Where the wave passed, the environment shifted and adapted, saturating with colors, growing texture, and objects, displacing me into a new world. 

One moment, I was standing in a blank slate of a room. The next, I stood in a hall of steel and glass. The wall to my right comprised large panes of glass looking out across a city skyline. A blanket of clouds veiled the cityscape below, the massive scrapers that seemed to form a city in the heavens. To my left, the wall was lined with paintings and ornate corner tables displaying fine art.

Halfway down the hall was a multiphase scanner arch. Just ahead of the scanner stood the Mystagogue. He stood in his general attire, looking distinctly out of place. After a quick observation of the room, the instructor slipped on a ring as he had done a dozen times before for the previous trainees. His bland appearance shimmered and shifted to settle into a set of new clothes. His features remained the same, but his clothes were the clean-cut, gray-blue uniform of a security guard. He stepped in my way, arms crossed over his chest, feet set wide. His stance showed authority, his gaze scrutinizing my very person for any hint of duplicity.

“Halt. You are approaching a restricted zone. Please provide your name, department, and reason for entering.” Kellar sounded like a bored guard who had said the same line a thousand times but still knew that he needed to do his job.

I came to a hard stop, my mind racing. Who was I? What’s my name? What’s my job?

“Umm, m-my name is Gavin S-Sislock. I work in production. I need to drop these files off with the product testing manager.”

He looked me up and down before giving a single nod and stepping aside. I let out a sigh and hurried past. Three steps beyond the Master, the pen slipped from my grip to clatter to the floor. I stopped and stooped to pick it up. 

“Stop!” the Master snapped with resounding authority. I froze mid-crouch. “Turn around and face me.”

I did as I was ordered, forgetting the pen. I turned and stood, my posture reflecting my mood of shame. I could not meet the Master’s eye. This time, it was his gaze that carried a pressing weight. “First, the good. You chose a reasonable outfit for the role, I would recommend adding glasses and a wig to further hide your true self. Choosing the props of files and a pen were safe choices.”

I let out a heavy sigh. Knowing that I wasn’t a total failure gave me something to cling to. I straightened by just the smallest amount and raised my gaze from the floor to the instructor’s chest. I stared hard at a single point on his sternum, doing my best to bore holes there with my eyes. “And what did I do wrong?”

“There were many flaws to your approach. Starting with your props, when using files, you should choose them with care. Your files should be pertinent to your cover. I can see that you have files on finances, network schematics, and even fashion designs. If you were inspected by a guard in a real scenario, they would certainly catch you. Even if you have files on multiple topics, make sure that they are all related or that you have a reasonable excuse for having a range of topics. Additionally, you could use a briefcase as extra security to insulate your forged documents from excessive scrutiny. Even just the act of the files not being in sight will have an effect. If at all possible, I would recommend using a locking briefcase with biometric locks. I would recommend taking notes now if you want to improve.”

With that comment, I immediately opened up a fresh document on my therra-node and started typing out everything pointed out or recommended in bullet points.

“Continuing with flaws, you need to have your persona prepared before you even enter the site. Avoid using the phrase ‘umm’ or stuttering while speaking unless they are a key point of the persona. These both draw unwanted attention if thought out of place. The last factor you can change is the slip-up of dropping the pen. When you perform this action near security, it draws attention to how nervous you are. But you can still intentionally drop a pen in a key position to postpone moving or to hide your face for a moment.”

I took careful note of each of these points, typing them out as fast as I could manage. After half a moment of silence, I realized his word choice. “I’m sorry, Master, but what do you mean by ‘last factor I can change’?” with this question, I did meet his eyes. 

He raised a single brow at me. “What is a permanent factor about you that would impact your cover?” He threw a question back at me in answer to my own query.

I chewed on my lower lip, throwing my gaze to the floor as I put my brain to the task of puzzling out what he meant. It only took a few moments for me to realize what he meant. “You mean the fact that I’m a Darkling?”

“That is part of it. Another factor that you overlooked is your skin pattern. I have never seen anyone of any species have your skin pattern. This means that by mundane means, your blending will be very limited.”

I nodded slowly, even as I looked down at my own hands. I turned my hands from back to front slowly.

‘Mundane means, I thought to myself.

“I understand, Master Mystagogue. I’m assuming that I failed this test?” I asked, my voice seemed distant, the question only of moderate importance as I started thinking about workarounds. 

“Yes, you failed the exam. Your score in class is not looking hopeful if you want to join the Sect of the Sightless Eye.”

“I understand.” I said as I turned back to the entryway and left, my eyes downcast as I pinched my chin in thought. I was vaguely aware that I was leaving without being excused. But the misconduct was at the furthest reaches of my awareness. I offhandedly set aside the files I had used as props and absentmindedly stripped from the outfit and redressed in my class uniform. I passed back into the viewing room, almost completely unaware of the snickering from many of the other students.

I really should have thought about how much I stuck out. Between the horns, eyes, and skin pattern, I was terribly conspicuous. The test made me realize something. I needed to become a Mastlok. To find my father’s killer, I’d need to hide who I was. The bastard would hear rumors of me from a city away. I was going to need to blend in to get close once I found the bastard’s identity. If I couldn’t hide by mundane means, then I’d just have to use Myst then. Master Kellar used a ring to change his clothes, so why couldn’t I use magic to change my skin and hide my horns? 

Even as other students took their exams, I was lost in thought. I pulled up documents and diagrams of illusion-based items and body-altering enchantments. The complexity of the spell will determine the host object. The lesser the enchantment, the smaller the host item. But I was going to need something on the more advanced side of spells, meaning I was going to need a larger item.

What type of spell should I use? Illusion spells were based on the elements of Light, Water, and Air. Meanwhile, alteration magic was going to be based on the Elements of Body, Life, and Arcane. Illusion was technically easier, but if someone touched me, it could break the spell unless I linked it with Mind Myst and maintained focus.

The standard enchantment would be a moderate constant drain, and the mind link would be a lesser drain on my Mystwell unless I kept batteries of the needed elements. Compare illusion to alteration, which would physically alter my body to what I desired but was not only extremely unpleasant but also a constant high drain on myst, be it from Mystwell or batteries.

At this point, either one I used was going to be a serious drain on energy, so the end factor was going to be what I could craft with the least amount of runes and use the least amount of crystal batteries. In theory, I could have plenty of myst crystals if I expressed distress to Master Mystagogue Mallock. He seemed to have taken a liking to me, even if he kept calling me ‘Ticker’. 

As the day passed, I barely paid any attention to my classes. I was so engrossed in reading runic formulas and a wide range of design diagrams that hours of research became days of research. Research gave way to testing, which resulted in failure. And failure led me to more research. Days of research became weeks, and so the cycle continued.