There turned out to be no assassin against Carneman after all.

Worse yet, the culprit supported by the Marlen-Prestian establishment turned out to be a well-trusted High General under Carneman, who turned out to be an insider hoping to usurp the rule of Carneman. This usurper did so by carrying out a measure of mock-oathcrafting to turn slightly less than half of the daemons supporting the regime against Carneman. Now under the usurper's lead, they launched a conjoined assault upon Novatrivis and drove out Carneman.

According to Sari Frame and her connections, Carneman escaped but was assassinated just outside the city walls, forcing him to respawn from his point of origin outside of Vera in Galacia. That, as I knew all along and Frame came to find out, was not true. For the Member behind Carneman had anticipated this uprising and, in his escape move, cast a daemon which looked like Carneman, himself; thus, the enemy would fall for the trick. Meanwhile, the real Carneman escaped to the condemned city of Antemaersa.

For the longest time, I did not know the Member casting Carneman, not because they hid their association, but because I did not bother to reach out. I knew the person was a new Member of the Society who happened to have a special talent for working avatars in the dymensional plane to high positions of power rather quickly. So last April, I went to the Cafe in the University Library and met with the Member in question: Traya Meris.

In conversing with her, I learned that Meris had been criticized by Sari Frame, through private Ticketer messenging, alleging that her decision to have her avatar, King Carneman, cast a daemon solely of himself was unethical.

If I had not shown myself to be her friend, now was the moment that I did. I assured her that there was no rule against that sort of thing, and even voiced a rhetorical question: "Why would Frame even consider that unethical in the first place?"

I just wish I had Cray Fenton's support. Ever since our falling-out in the real world, I have, other than passing him by between classes, not interacted with him much. Also, in the dymensional plane, I have not seen or heard from his counter-assassin avatar, Fencrae, since the quest failure back in February.

According to Alex Cromme, Fenton had his avatar take another assassin assignment that paid well. I guess that just fulfills Fenton's reputation for being a practical figure.

All of this, of course, is overshadowed by the quest I had this week.

Traya and I have still been focused on the toppling of the Royal Crown of Prestia since. Yes, the government structure of each of the Five Nations has remained unchanged since the founding of the Third Level Society, and even since the original TableQuest session ten years ago. However, there are no rules in the Policy Book or the Statute of Principle against the coup and change in such government structures. The reason these dynamics have remained unchanged is that carrying out such a change is near impossible due to many factors at play.

Nevertheless, there is a lot of wealth to be gained from a feat like this.

Recently, Carneman's approach has been to station himself at Antemaersa, where he assembles an army of ghosts, of which there are many. Such a force would then join with the Conjoined Order and launch a secret mass-assault, during which the division of assassins would secretly kill Prestian soldiers and guards unit-by-unit, securing a firm grip over each garrison before the original avatars can respawn and fight back. Thus, eventually, every garrison surrounding the Crown would actually be of the hidden enemy. We would then launch an all-out assault against the Crown, driving them from power.

That agenda has been expected to take over a month. But this week, the supporting quest was for my avatar, Captain Bornan, to fly Galacian and Parradinian ambassadors to Antemaersa to have a council with Carneman in order to start the mass-recruitment of member forces of the Conjoined Order. This flight involved three concealed airships: The Parraq from Galacia, The March from Parradin, and of course, my airship, The Slayvon, which had been repaired, rebuilt, and enhanced with a new row of cannons.

So last night, The Slayvon set out from its base in North Island, where we met with the Parraq and The March over the water next to Mount Eastward. The next waypoint would then be Antemaersa, itself. We were concealed, but we determined the risk of confrontation was low.

We were wrong, however. Right at Mount Eastward, the "three suns" appeared, once again, followed by a flurry of cannonfire. The Slayvon took no shots directly from the enemy. However, every shot we took at the enemy was deflected and directed back at us. As a result, the Slayvon, once again, was taken down...by our own reflected shots.

Once again, Captain Bornan took his escape plane, which was pursued by the enemy in the same fashion as in February and was shot down. This time, however, the escape plane was fitted with a spellfire-powered self-assembling raft. So once Bornan hit the water, he was saved by an efficient wooden raft. As Bornan tried to sail back to Mount Eastward, however, the enemy chased him down and boarded the raft. A cloaked figure confronted Bornan in hand-to-hand combat, during which the enemy deflected every hit made by Bornan, and gave a few critical hits in turn.

I was truly baffled by this. Setting this up in the form of conditional algorithm scripts to predict an opponent's every move in such a fashion must have been immensely difficult, if not impossible.

I was, admittedly, frustrated by this. So I posted in the Public Discussion section of the Ticketer, describing my experience in this quest and asking Sari Frame an important question: If she is so concerned about someone using a daemon-cast of themselves serving as an unethical act, why is she not concerned that there is another Member using some sort of enhancement in their console that they are exceptional in defeating opponent avatars with an unseen advantage?

I was outraged when Sari Frame responded, "How do you know that what you experienced constitutes cheating in this fashion rather than demonstrates to you your own incompetency?"

I realize now that I am speculating false consiracy in the very same fashion as Cray Fenton had done earlier this year. In this case, I have developed the very personality I initially sought to prevent.

This is the second time it happened, though. And this time, it's very obvious. I will reason, however, not to blame any connection with Sari Frame. Though she is stubborn in her stance, nothing about these two experiences gave indication of her involvement.

Sadly, I am in no position to join forces with Fenton. In fact, when Sari questioned my competency, Fenton replied to her over the Ticketer in agreement with Frame, alleging that I am inconsistent. He even went as far as admitting that he had once thought the same way, that I had schooled him on this, and that now my own stance is changing. He said that he agreed with the principle I taught him but can no longer trust me as a teacher.

To add insult to injury, almost half of the Members who supported me on my Dungeonmaster election campaign have been gravitating toward Fenton.