"Nice!" said Dr. Harlow Jaynes as he looked over my granular plane climate plan for the Chemkan Bees before signing it at the bottom. "And what next?"

"The soil and seed layout plan," I replied. I was surprised by how quickly he approved my plan. I had been drafting and drafting all last fall, but he kept pointing out something wrong each time. This time, though, he did not even appear to read it; he just gave an approval. Whether he was tired of me or if he was just less-than-happy over having to come in for me on a Saturday, I did not know. Normally, I would have questioned him, but, after all the frustrating do-overs, I was just glad to get past this stage. We exchanged nods, and I proceeded out the door.

It was bright and sunny today, though still wintry and cold. In fact, there had been a cold snap these recent days. As a result, the sunlight would melt the ice and snow, only for it all to re-freeze in nearly an instant. This process gave the whole Campus a dazzling sparkle, though. And the scenery provided the perfect backdrop for Meghan Wen, whom I saw standing in her white-and-grey fur coat in front of the Music Building. When we met, we kissed.

"Looking forward to getting away from one of her many speeches?" she asked.

"Need I answer?" We both knew who I was referring to.

Like the many times before, we proceeded into Meghan Wen's room and passed through the Immersion Consoles. It was another menial task on Planet Arturia proper; easy money. Basically, like last time, we had to steer a ship from South to North Cresca with electronics in tow. The Swanmer Guild, our employer, didn't really have enemies. I mean, they did, but we defeated them easily on our first go-round last month. In fact, I was about to ask Meghan if we could perhaps switch to something a little more exciting. Though, I decided to save that conversation for later.

My thoughts, in the meantime, turned to the grim reality of Monika Rhodes having been Dungeonmaster since January 2. She started her tenure with an avowed pledge and a robust follow-through to scrub any and all Ticketer and dymensional plane exchanges that mentioned Arnold Stamp. She, unsurprisingly, employed her best friend, Sara March, as a "Bulletin Monitor" to oversee and enforce this. Monika would only mention Stamp in person. And every time she did, it was only to offer reassurance, albeit a false one, in my opinion, that Stamp is not a threat. And of course, Karyanna Dwemmer has always been voicing approval.

Meanwhile, Arnold Stamp has been growing more and more dangerous. According to some rumors over the OCEA platforms, Stamp had been crafting a detailed plan to accuse and discipline Members of the Third Level Society for "having counter-productive influences on the University Scholarly Body." Part of that plan was also to sow division within the Society to purge key Members before eventually having the Society either terminate or leave the University altogether.

The most outrageous part, though, was what we discovered about the Flagstaff. We thought their failure to publish stories about the dangers of Stamp was a simple oversight. That's why Maggie wrote a story last year to have published. She submitted her article, which was rejected by the Flagstaff for "being too wordy" the first time around. Grudgingly, Maggie edited her article further and re-submitted it a second time. It was rejected again, this time due to the article "covering a topic that does not seem like it is worthy of discussion."

Since then, we've come to realize that the Flagstaff is not the democratically-managed media platform that the University and elsewhere outside the University believed it to be. It was NOT a simple oversight. It's been the Flagstaff controlling the narrative...

"Over there!" said Meghan's avatar suddenly, pointing out to sea, where suddenly there appeared what looked like sails sticking up out of the water.

"Sunken ship?" I asked.

"No. Something else," said Meghan's avatar. "And it's headed right for us. Brace yourself!"

Sure enough, what I thought were sails turned out to be the outline of...some sort of spine to an underwater creature. This was snaking its way toward us with increasing speed. I armed my talisman, both with a shield and a discharge spell. The thing climbed out of the water and onto the deck, morphing suddenly into a human-shaped avatar of spellmatter. It drew out a blade and began swinging at me.

I tried to discharge spells, but it kept ramming my shield, which quickly began running out of juice. Apparently, whatever spellmatter blade it was using was very strong.

"Blades! Melee, Maxima!" said Meghan's avatar. "Spells are no use!"

I let down my spellwork and drew out my blade. My avatar began taking hits rather quickly, though I adapted to its deft movements and parried successive blows. Meghan's avatar joined in and hit the enemy from behind a few times. While it was distracted with her, I went in and gave the killer blow.

The enemy froze, turned a glowing yellow, and burst into millions of pieces of shattered spellmatter. It left behind a slew of tools and commodities for us to pick up. "Here," said Meghan's avatar, handing me a sealed envelope from the pile. "It's addressed to you."

I was astonished, not only at the letter being addressed to me, by my actual name, but at the fact that this encounter turned out not to be random. "Meet Aledon and me tonight at 7:00 PM. Urgent. Best regards, Layda," the letter read. I looked up at Meghan's avatar and asked, "What time is it, real-time?"

"C'mon. Let's de-immerse," Meghan's avatar replied. Within moments, we were back at Meghan's room. "6:37. Why?" she said.

"Layda apparently wrote that note, calling for an urgent meeting with Aledon and me at 7."

"Oh.... Best show up then. I'll go back and make sure that ship arrives where it needs to."

At 6:55, I returned. Aledon, Bernard, Madison, and Elisabeth were there. To my surprise and astonishment, Aledon approached me with a similar note from Layda. "What's the issue?" he asked me, appearing equally surprised.

"Uhh...wait," I said. Then I explained my experience with the note during the sea quest. Aledon was taken aback, but there was no time to think further as there came a knock at the door. It was Layda.

"I apologize about the two notes," Layda explained. "It was whatever I could do to bring you two together. I know it was dishonest, but Monika's been..."

"Hold on," I said with a little bit of a snappy tone of voice. It was time to be straightforward with this individual. "I thought you turned and were with Monika last year. Now you're suddenly hopping over to us again. Could you explain yourself?"

"Please. Maybe we could discuss that at a later time... Long story short, Monika's been pulling slights against me. She's kicked me out of all her private chats, out of her Library coffee hours..."

"The reason being?," I asked with a raised eyebrow.

"That's enough, Maxima," said Aledon gently, putting his hand on my shoulder. He turned toward Layda. "I have an assignment for you, effective immediately. Whatever you can observe on Monika-"

"She's basically kicked me out," said Layda.

"Fine. Understood," said Aledon. "Even if you're just watching from the sidelines, hiding from her...report back to us what you see and hear from her, Sara March, any of those friends. And be sure not to let anyone know about your communication to us. Think you can do that?"

"Y-...yes," said Layda.

"Run along now," said Aledon, lightly gesturing her out the door.

"I wouldn't trust her, Aledon," I said, after I closed the door.

"This is where you guys come in," he said, gesturing at all of us. "Go out there and do the same when you can. If anything conflicts, we'll know where Layda truly stands."

"Not to play the devil's advocate here," began Bernard. "But how should we know that any such conflicts are Layda being dishonest with us, or Monika being inconsistent, herself?"

Aledon paused, putting his hips and gazing down at the floor. He let out a big sigh and looked back up to Bernard. "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

***

It's been a rough night tonight, with me struggling to put my mind off these thoughts and allowing myself to sleep. And who can blame me? These are all high-stakes circumstances, especially with Layda, whose intentions are all but impossible to make out.

We have been reaching out to Third Level Society Members and trying to determine the trustworthiness of each. Yes, we are still quite early in the process, and it's been slow-going, another issue keeping me awake recently.

Meanwhile, some of us have decided to get a head start on planning the, hopefully, unlikely event of Stamp becoming Headmaster and ordering us to either terminate or relocate. Ultimately, given that choice, we would relocate (even if Stamp ultimately tries to get us to terminate). It's just a nightmare, though, a mountain of logistics that we would have to figure out if that time came.

"We have time and chances on our side, though," Aledon has been telling me.