After spending a night in one of the University jail cells, I am finally free. Regardless, I need to explain what happened.

It all started with my agenda to obtain information on whether or not Headmaster Lach was aware that Mary Kormann was Ceri Mains in disguise to begin with. No better way to do that than to have him awash with a little white wine, which I hear he is quite fond of. The only crux there was how to get in conversation with him in the first place.

In the meantime came an emerging priority: how to divide the Freedom Rangers so as to bring an end to the existence of the White Baroness, who, despite being a rare 4th generation daemon, has managed to expand her influence in a dangerous way. I tried to strike up a conversation with Derek Comb, but he really has no interest in "the wider dynamics." He only cares about his immediate surroundings.

So I gave up on Derek and thought of a plan myself: to have my avatar, Captain Bornan, disguise himself as a defector from the Galacian Chapters of the Freedom Rangers, of which there are many, and go to the Crescan Chapter leaders to convince them that the Galacian Chapters are conspiring to utilize the influence of the White Baroness to tip the balance of dynamics and bring not only the rest of the Freedom Rangers but the remainder of the Arturian Universe under their mighty grip.

Dishonest? Yes. Unethical? Yes. But then again, so is the influence of the White Baroness to begin with.

I will admit, I did feel a bit guilty. But when I brought the idea up to Sarah Marks, not only did she agree with my approach, she also volunteered to assist me. Her avatar now commands a significant company of hellspirits in Antemaersa on the Original World of Arturia and therefore has significant tools of disguise and form-fitting for my avatar. So we set to work.

While we were doing this, I realized something that could be done with Headmaster Lach: to get assistance from Daniel Carter. So I had to pull out of this White Baroness quest yet again. But Sarah was understanding; and we agreed to collectively cast a daemon version of Captain Bornan disguised as a Galacia runaway, implanting behavioral algorithms in this daemon and let our agenda run its course in my absence. Yes, that is dangerous. But Sarah agreed to keep an eye on things.

In the meantime, I met with Carter in the secrecy of my Guestroom, where I succeeded in leaving an impression on him that I was, though in my mind not genuinely, undecided on the matter of darkfire.

"I understand, Meona," Carter said. "It's a messy business, darkfire as a whole. I am confident, though, that this catch will make my official retirement. With that being said, Ivella has been stressing the importance of sanctuary treatment versus traditional treatment purge treatment for the ones with the Syndrome."

"Dyla has been referring to that as 'institutionalized exorcism,'" I said. And it was true. Dyla mentioned that in her shouting match with Kara Martins last month.

In fact, on the inside, I realize Dyla is right about that. Basically, it's been common practice here that when anyone at any age, be it adult or child, involuntarily conjures darkfire, they are taken to a psychiatrist and diagnosed with the Syndrome, and are then sent to an institution where they are exposed to harsh conditions so as to make the body sick and weary enough to suppress the darkfire conjurations. Many patients in these wards have died, warranting numerous debates over ethics.

The mainstream media seems to support Reonard Chaney in this, though I know that a growing number of people are sympathizing with Ceri Mains. Furthermore, Ivella's healthier option of creating a "safe space" for those with the Syndrome to come in and periodically conjure to get it out of their system is something I hope will catch on.

I mentioned aloud the approach that Ivella Ogden was making. And to my surprise, Carter voiced agreement. "Indeed I have come to find the traditional treatment inhumane, given that most of those with the Syndrome really are innocent and mean no harm," Carter said. "It's very interesting what Ivella is doing. And I see how her methods could work better. In fact, I may consider joining her in my retirement to see how her treatments pan out.

"However," Carter continued. "That leaves no excuse for what the cartels have done, including Finzi's allies both inside and outside of the Perimeter. Although I still believe that Ceri Mains is the only one who has managed to escape, there is no doubt in my mind that cartel leaders have passed communication between each other over the Perimeter wall. I've tracked numerous darkfire figures, big and small, over my tenure. And lately, I sense, though this is merely speculation, a growing network of collaboration for something big to come; Ceri Mains was but the beginning.

"Not to say, Meona, that Ceri Mains is a dangerous cartel leader that should be shown no mercy. I do believe, and very firmly, that justice is due to those who partook in this dark trade in a violent fashion. But I know now that our fear of Ceri Mains, the intensity of it anyway, was quite unfounded. She did simply want an education, no more than that.

"However, she did bypass legal boundaries, which makes me consider her to be, not dangerous or malicious, but rather reckless. Therefore, I hope that the Arbitrator and the Courts pass a decision to not punish her, but to contain her and observe her more closely than others. She has good intent, but we must protect the public." "Definitely a good compromise," I said, though what I did not tell Carter was that I believed that Ceri should walk free albeit seeking sanctuary treatment from Ivella.

"I'm sure this whole ordeal was quite the stressful situation for Headmaster Lach though. Perhaps we should call a private dinner, you, me, and him, for celebration to lift his spirits a little."

"Well," Carter said. "First of all, I had a rather large dinner already. Second of all, I doubt that the Headmaster would accept. He afterall is not only busy, but has avoided the subject of Ceri Mains every time I brought it up to him."

"It doesn't have to be a dinner then," I said. "Maybe a small drink and just talk about stuff not having to do with the University at all."

To that Carter agreed. So I typed up a ticker message to send to his Office. Both Carter and I signed the message. And to our surprise, Lach responded by inviting us over.

There was a small parlor-store in the lobby of the Guesthouse where I was able to buy a bottle of some of the richest white wine in the Western part of Circlaria, grown by grapes in the Chemko-Zyrtin valley region. I just knew that the Headmaster would gravitate toward that.

And when we finally met with them, we opened a bottle and shared a drink, starting with light matters completely unrelated to Ceri Mains and the University. During that time, I made sure to drink slowly, and no more than two drinks. I think Carter had two or three drinks. And the Headmaster had absolutely no cap on his amount of drinks.

Very soon, he got a bit loose-lipped and segued to what I was hoping to gain from all this. "Carter," the Headmaster said. "I know you some. But Meona, I know nothing about you yet. Why don't you tell me a little bit about your background..."

I started by telling about my personal past, my time as a Cabotton student, my time in Canticula, even my marriage to Sari Frame. Then my monologue flowed into my perspective concerning the turn of events surrounding Ceri Mains. Lach's apparent conversational boundaries on that were quite relaxed, and, to my delight, Carter filled in with telling his parts to the Ceri Mains ordeal.

At the end of it all, I could see Headmaster Lach's face quite red, and his speech quite slurred. So I ventured the most important question of all: "When were you first aware that Mary Kormann was Ceri Mains in disguise?"

"Oh that," Headmaster Lach said. "Ceri herself wrote me after the Internal Department denied her leave request. She asked me advice...and I told her...'just read some encyclopedias'...I was a little drunk when I said that...so...you know...I didn't want that coming up when I heard she was on campus."

"So you knew she was on Campus way before Campus Watch was aware?"

"Don't tell anyone...I was hoping this would blow over...and it did, for me anyways...as far as the public is concerned...it was a small detail I was unawares of...and that's what I hope it will stay as..."

So I did not exactly belt that out to the public, per say, with due respect to the University Headmaster. I did not go to the Flagstaff with something to gossip about. But I did manage to go through the hoops of the Perimeter boundaries and have a private telephone conversation with Ceri Mains. I asked her if it was true what the Headmaster said. And she said "yes," but advised me not to be too public about because of the dangers with the notorious Peter Crane and Kara Martins.

Needless to say, I kept this private. But I did have private ticker conversations with Dyla and Julian, to whom I told everything that happened that day.

Julian during that time filled me in on the outcome of the quest I planted to undo the Freedom Rangers and the White Baroness. Apparently, the Crescan and Galacian Chapters did end up fighting each other. However, things did get out of control, despite Sarah's efforts. And she had to get the Prefects involved. Furthermore, this upset Derek Comb toward me, so I resolved to make amends with him over a cup of coffee at the University Library on the next day.

Regardless, though, the White Baroness is no more.

What I did not know, however, was that with the treachery afoot, the private conversations I had with everyone were not as private as I had previously thought.

On the next day, in other words yesterday November 5, I received a ticker message from Dyla stating that Peter Crane had invited her into his dormitory in Norris House for what appeared to be a move of consolation but turned out to be a trick to force her into his personal bedroom for some unknown but dark deed. Honestly, at this point, I should have called the Campus Watch, but instead, I came into Peter's dormitory, whose door happened to be ajar, and confronted him with my talisman drawn.

"Release her!" I shouted.

But instead, Peter drew out his talisman and sent a spellfire discharge toward me. I dodged that and fired back. But just then, Peter threw another spell that sent me flying back out into the hallway. I ran to the nearest phone, at that time, and called Campus Watch. I went downstairs to the entrance to meet with them...and they arrested me, instead.

Apparently, between the time of the confrontation and the time I met them, Peter, himself, called the Campus Watch and said that I attacked unprovoked.

I will say that for an academic institution so committed toward progress and the rights of students, the jail cells in the basement of the Administration Building are quite brutal. One tiny open-aired window in a thick concrete wall was all I had to look outside. However, the doors and the walls between cells were open-aired toward each other and the aisle between the rows of cells, so that there was absolutely no privacy whatsoever. I was expected to spend up to a week here after which I would be handed over to Gentry County.

However, Daniel Carter paid me a visit, where I told him everything about the ticker message I received from Dyla. He and Dyla pulled some ropes with University Affairs, who then wiped clean any charges I had from this and released me just before noon.

Apparently, Carter had gone to University Affairs to pull ticker transcripts surrounding the message I had gotten from Dyla. Dyla was there, and said that she was not the one who sent the message, for she was in the town of Vale at that time. She showed a ticker message she had gotten from a supposed friend there who asked to meet with her. When she showed up to the residence in Vale, however, the house in question was empty.

University Affairs looked more closely at that ticker message and found that it came from one of the communication rooms in Norris House, where resided Peter Crane. Shortly after my release, University Affairs summoned Peter Crane to explain everything.

When Peter Crane showed up, he presented paperwork showing that he had an emotional breakdown from all the stress this year and that he had seen a mental health professional. He admitted that late on November 4, he had received a message from Kara Martins that she was told by Headmaster Lach, who I realize was still very intoxicated at the time, of the conversation having occurred between himself, Carter, and I. Peter then had one of his cronies, some person he would not identify but claimed who apparently had a hobby of collecting a variety of gadgets, to deploy a wiretapping machine he had in his possession and actually manage to spy on all the messages between myself, Dyla, and Julian later that night.

The said spy relayed everything back to Peter. Thus, Peter knew everything from Ceri Mains to even my plan with the Freedom Rangers. Thus, he and Kara came up with a theory that I was facilitating the continuance of Ceri Mains' agenda to infiltrate the Third Level Society through the dividing-up of the Freedom Rangers by using the Galacian Chapters as a tool to hijack the entire Arturian Realm with darkfire scripts. The second part of this speculation was that I would use all of this to cast Headmaster Lach in a bad light so as not only to sow division in the Society Caucus but also to weaken base morale in the entire University student body as well as their faith in the Campus Watch.

Both Kara and Peter knew that the theory was a long stretch from being proven legitimate; so they devised a set-up by sending an anonymous message to Dyla pretending to be that friend in Vale so that she would be absent to help give weight to the impression Peter successively gave me that Dyla had been kidnapped.

And thus the rest of the events played out.

I was expecting that even with the evidence Peter had saying that this had all been the manifest of a mental health break down, that the University Affairs Office would see through it and have Peter promptly expelled and even possibly prosecuted. But alas, to my surprise, they did not. Instead, they asked to meet again tomorrow and hear from the mental health counselor, herself.

In the meantime, numerous Members of the Society Caucus, though thankfully not the majority, actually believe the ridiculous story of conspiracy involving myself, despite Peter's admittance that he had this fabricated. Their reasoning is that Peter is being systematically silenced.

Therefore, I feel that it may be near my time to leave Cabotton and return to my normal life with Ceri. The only thing I am waiting on is the outcome of the meeting between Ceri Mains' representatives and the Arbitrator, which is scheduled to begin at 2:00 PM tomorrow.