The Third Level Society Dungeonmaster position is up for election by the Caucus, the body of all Society Members, on September 24. Edoma Layne, the current Dungeonmaster, is seeking re-election, while her opponent, Phalia Curston, is looking to challenge her. Layne is seen as the more progressive person while Curston is more of a "Traditionalist," or so they call her.
However, both of them share one common agreement: that a Member named Aldin Blake is a bit of a troublemaker. He is apparently mindful of Third Level Society principles but seeks to violate them in a way that technically does not violate the written rule.
And the most recent example of Blake's troublesome conduct is with his "Secure Mahathia" quest, something Raven is trying to stop.
So Mahathia is located in a system separate from the Arturian grid, and currently serves as a place of containment for those "self-running avatars" that apparently caused a lot of trouble across the Arturian Interglobal System a number of years back. All entrances into the system are restricted only to those avatars cast by the Arturian Prefects who do routine patrols and ensure that none of those "self-running avatars" escape. And the world inside is apparently a dystopian hellscape, as said avatars have been fighting each other. In recent years, a large group of them appeared to have come together and constructed a ship to try and break out of containment.
As avatars, despite being cast to seem as though they are conscious beings capable of feeling, they are, at the end of the day, simply algorithms in a dymensional plane algorithm book. That is, however, a concept very hard for humans like us to understand, a fact that Aldin Blake is exploiting to his advantage.
Aldin Blake is currently casting this incredibly strong and skilled avatar named Venn, who is well-versed in both spellcrafting and ship piloting. Aldin has made it public both through his avatar and the Bulletin Section of the Third Level Society OCEA platform, Ticketer, that the decision to seal all of the dangerous avatars in Planet Mahathia was a "wrong" decision. He says that though no avatar is a conscious being capable of their own thoughts and emotions, that giving them the dymensional plane equivalent of rights, particularly freedom of movement, would educate Society Members on the principles of humanity. Blake has also been voicing the claim that Mahathia is a place where the Dungeonmaster and the Prefects overreach their authority without consequence, and that if they can do it here, they can do it anywhere.
So Blake's resolve has been to release the captives of Mahathia.
I've spoken with Phalia Curston about this. She knew Blake previously from one of the Peter Quora chapters where he had a notorious reputation for bringing in chaos and then taking credit for being the one to resolve the consequences. It seems as though he plans to do the same for the Arturian Realm and the Third Level Society, despite being only a second-year student.
According to Hogan and Climon, Blake, as his avatar Venn, has just made a plan to create a cloaked wormhole through which he would send three of his cloaked ships into the Mahathia System. One of those ships would be armed with a special device known as the Sword of Eldryth, made on the Original Planet Arturia. Said ship would drop said Sword onto the enclosure barrier surrounding Planet Mahathia, piercing it and inflicting upon it a spellfire script known as "Bond Undoing." This "Bond Undoing" would tear open and destroy the barrier, thus releasing the destructive "self-running" avatars.
According to Susan Parans, the Member behind the avatar, Raven, the Prefects are aware of this agenda but do not wish either to intervene directly nor make this public, over fears that doing so would damage the reputation of Dungeonmaster Layne. After all, there is also growing resentment among male Society Members over the last few Dungeonmasters being female. Regardless, Parans agreed to help by carrying out a counter-agenda that is sure to derail that of Blake. After hearing it over, I was hopeful, for if Blake were to cry foul and take this in front of the Bookkeeper, he would have to reveal things that would make himself look bad; and his supporters, most of them male, would look like a bunch of misogynists.
Under Raven's leadership, a squad of ships, mostly driven by daemons cast by Raven, would conceal themselves and go through cloaked wormholes in similar fashion. They would then intercept Venn's ships and hit them with "vessel-destroyers," thus destroying them. This would deal a major blow to Blake as the Sword of Eldryth is a device very difficult to make and very expensive in terms of Arturian Credits.
I was a bit hesitant on this at first, for it seemed all too easy. But Parans and Climon assured me that any surprises would be easily dealt with. Of course, I said nothing further, being quite new at this avatar engagement thing.
My speculation changed from earlier today though. I came to realize that how unlikely it was that Dungeonmaster Layne was the Master Pagewriter. Aldin, though, has been questionable in that regard. He seems charismatic and stubborn, hallmarks of a Master Pagewriter. On the other hand, Susan Parans is the one building the army of avatars and daemons; although it's mostly a temporary force made of daemons.
Regardless, Susan and Aldin became my two figures of interest, with myself leaning toward Aldin.
***
It turned out that Aldin had attempted to deploy five Swords of Eldryth rather than one. Regardless though, Raven's forces, with my help, intercepted and destroyed Venn's ships with ease. Raven paid my avatar, Mys, 10000 Arturian Credits, and suggested that Mys explore the Arturian Realm for trade and side quests.
This, admittedly, was something I looked forward to. I created Mys as an avatar of no gender and form-fitted them in such a way as I feel quite satisfied.
Perhaps I will write more but in the meantime I am quite tired.