The dust from the clay tablet felt like grit in my soul. The peace I had so carefully cultivated was a lie, a thin veneer of prosperity over a festering wound of intrigue. Lord Vaelin, the King's Master of Whispers, had reached across the desert and planted a seed of treason in the very heart of our strength.
I did not call the Grand Council. This was not a matter for public debate or the proud declarations of chieftains. This was a cancer that needed to be cut out with a surgeon's precision, not a warrior's axe. That night, I convened a secret meeting in the most secure room in Oakhaven: the deep, stone-lined cellar beneath the Hall of Records. My only attendees were the three people whose loyalty and discretion were absolute: Borin, my Minister of War; Elara, my mother and the soul of our city; and Ren, the young pathfinder whose senses for the desert's dangers I now needed to turn towards the dangers in the hearts of men.
I read them the report from our agent in Ironpeak. The reaction was immediate and predictable.
"I will take my Dragoons," Borin snarled, his one eye blazing with fury. "We will ride to the mountain, drag this traitor Ulf and his pet snake from the capital into the square, and hang them from the forge gantry. We will make an example of them that will burn in the memory of anyone who even thinks of betraying this Confederacy."
"And in doing so, you will show Grak that our solution to a problem within his own house is to send an occupying army," Elara countered, her voice a sharp, cool needle puncturing his hot rage. "You will shatter the trust we have built. You will prove Vaelin's lies correct—that we are masters, not allies. Grak's pride will not stomach such an intrusion. You may solve the problem of Ulf, but you will create the much larger problem of an alienated, or even hostile, Ironpeak."
She was right. A military solution would be a political catastrophe. This was not a fortress to be stormed, but a web to be untangled.
"This Vaelin," Ren said, his voice quiet and thoughtful, "he fights with whispers and gold. We cannot fight whispers with swords. We must get closer. We must understand the whole shape of the snake before we try to cut off its head."
He had the instincts of a spy. It was time to give him the knowledge. I had twenty-three System Points remaining, a treasure I had been saving for the next great crisis. That crisis was here.
I focused my will, opening the system's interface to a branch of the technology tree I had never explored.
[COVERT OPERATIONS & INTELLIGENCE - KNOWLEDGE PACKET][Cost: 18 System Points.][Prerequisites: Established Foreign Contact, Formalized Government.][Description: Provides advanced knowledge of espionage, counter-intelligence, network creation, agent recruitment, ciphers, dead drops, disinformation campaigns, and psychological profiling. Unlocks 'Spymaster' and 'Agent' unit designations.]
The price was astronomical, the most I had ever spent on a non-military, non-engineering packet. It would leave me with a mere five points. But its value was incalculable. It was the key to fighting the shadow war Vaelin had declared. Purchase.
The knowledge was a cold, silent poison seeping into my mind. It was a world of paranoia and deception, of secrets and lies. I saw a thousand ways to turn a man against his brother, a dozen techniques for extracting a secret without ever asking a question. It was a dark, ugly science, and I embraced it completely.
"Borin, your Dragoons will remain here, on high alert," I commanded, my voice now imbued with a new, chilling authority. "You are my shield. But for this task, I need a scalpel, not a sword."
My gaze fell on Ren. "Ren, you have been my pathfinder. Now, you will become my Spymaster."
I designated him with the new system unit. A flicker of understanding, of new and dangerous knowledge, passed through his eyes. He stood up straighter, his entire demeanor shifting from that of a scout to something sharper, more predatory.
"Your mission," I continued, "is to return to Ironpeak. Not as an envoy of Oakhaven, but as no one. A disgruntled laborer, a prospector down on his luck. You will melt into the populace. You will identify the royal agent. You will assess the depth of Ulf's conspiracy. How many men are with him? What are their plans? You will not act. You will not engage. You will simply watch, listen, and learn. You are my eyes and ears."
I taught him the first, basic principles of his new trade: how to create a simple cipher for messages, how to use a 'dead drop' location outside the settlement to leave reports for a runner, how to create a cover identity.
"This is a dangerous game, Ren," my mother warned, her eyes full of concern for the young man.
"The alternative is to let the poison spread until it kills us," Ren replied, his voice steady. A fire had been lit in him. He had been given the ultimate trust, the most critical mission in our nation's short history.
He departed before dawn, a ghost slipping out of the city, his old scouting gear replaced with the anonymous rags of a drifter. He carried no sword, only a simple knife and the weight of our entire future. He was the first agent of the Oakhaven Intelligence Service—an organization that did not officially exist, but would now become the unseen shield of the Confederacy.