My job is writing.

However, in the course of this investigation, I have been drawn more to questing, as surprising as that may seem to my former self from one year ago.

Over the past three days, I have been very much actively involved in the Arturian Realm, more than I ever was when I was actually a Cabotton student. The first of those three days I dedicated mostly to the form-fitting of my avatar, Lowen. Not only is Lowen now better-skilled at concealment than ever before; Lowen is now well-versed in the art of disguise.

More specifically, I have form-fitted Lowen into the disguise of an "aspiring recruit" of the Golden Empire, one aspiring to become one of their notorious Prefects. I was not sure if that would work, based on me not knowing what type of avatars or daemons I was dealing with. But it did. Lowen found their way into numerous leadership positions of the Imperial ladder, and got sent to various locations throughout the interstellar Arturian Realm, enabling me to note the various hubs in which the Golden Empire was based.

So in the course of this, I set out to discover who the leading figures of the Golden Empire were and where they were located, for the said Emperor could not be found on the Roster. The Emperor is a fake image, cast to come off as ruling on whatever Planet an avatar was on at the time. It was a ploy cast to enhance the subjugation of the masses.

Nonetheless, I made headway. Through my antics, Lowen was led to Marlen Minor VIII, the first place where I speculated the actual rulers were located; and based on the sophistication of this Imperial machine, I suspected up to this point that this was an actual plan of malice enacted by, perhaps, a disgruntled Member of the Society.

How wrong I was proven in the end, I cannot fathom even now.

I was led to the world of Marlen Minor VIII, where there was located a significant hub of the Golden Imperial Starwing fleet. There was the image of an Imperial Ruler present there, which was convincing. But that was all it was, an image. So I continued looking around, and got led to Marlen Minor XLIV, where I discovered the same thing: an image of a ruler. This continued as I was led to Marlen Minor LXXVIII and Marlen Minor V.

Then I was led back to Mahathia, where I was sure the actual ruler or rulers were. That was yesterday, in fact. And I had felt sure they had moved here from wherever they were before, because...

So most Planets in the Arturian Interstellar plane are climate-themed. There are desert-themed planets, marine-themed planets, rainforest-themed planets, arctic-themed planets, temperate-forest-themed planets, and many others. However, there are very few Planets in the Arturian Realm that have varied climates, very much like our own in the real world. Arturia was one. Mahathia was another. And there are a few others.

But my attention was drawn to Mahathia in particular. After all, they just took it over...and so brutally too.

Rose Anne designed Mahathia to have a varied climate like Arturia proper to help facilitate trade domestically as well as in the interplanetary fashion. The intent here was to make her world ever more appealing to the traders from both sides. This of course was appealing to the Gold Empire as well, as I learned that it seems that they intend to make themselves permanent.

So why would this not be the place from which the Imperial Rulers ruled? I'm not sure where their original seat was before, but it makes total sense that the purpose of the conquering of this world was to re-establish their Imperial seat there.

I decided to take a new approach to Mahathia, one in which Lowen engaged in absolute concealment to carry out solely acts of espionage. Before I did anything, though, I did some meticulous planning. Mahathia was originally a global republic governed by elected figures in a central Senate Building. That building has since been destroyed by the Golden Empire, which constructed a fortified Command Post in its place. This new building featured a seemingly endless network of corridors lined with portraits of honorable-looking Imperial figures.

But the most important part was the Central Chamber, which would come into play as I carried out my mission.

So I flew to Mahathia and landed my ship on a remote isle in the middle of the vast ocean on the other side of the globe from the Capital. There, I concealed myself, my spaceship, and my houseboat, which I customized and designed to navigate the entire globe of Mahathia, however small that boat was. Success was thus far untainted, for Lowen's concealment, as much as I try not to brag, has improved since I first started.

At the end of the day, it is impossible to make anybody or anything completely invisible, even in the Arturian Realm. Concealment is about light-bending. Some people are better-skilled at it than others. Lowen was fairly decent at concealment back in the day, when I was a Cabotton student. This week, I started out a bit rusty with Lowen's concealment skills. But by this point, I felt better about it than I ever did in the past.

So Lowen slipped through completely undetected into the Center Chamber. There was a very large room inside, arguably larger than what appeared outside, so I suspect some spellwork was involved. In any case, this large Central Chamber was circular in size and was topped with a large dome ceiling. Below that stood a great dais the surface of which was concealed by a purple and golden curtain. This, of course, presented a challenge for Lowen, because with the clergy surrounding the dais on all sides, there was no way for Lowen to slip through the curtain unnoticed.

Lowen, however, had another concealment method: the "holy smoke." With this cast, the attention of the clergy figures was diverted; in fact, they were not even aware that they were disoriented. Lowen slipped through the Chamber and through the curtain unnoticed. But to my great frustration, I saw that behind the curtain was yet another projector designed to display a realistic image of a ruler.

And that was when I saw the green book.

It was off to the side on its own little podium. As I suspected, it was a simple spellbook. But on page 17 of that book, I saw scripts to cast an image. Out of sheer curiosity, I had Lowen cast that image script, and saw that it revealed a map of the parts of the Arturian Realm conquered by the Gold Empire...with the actual Imperial Seat marked as concealed on Antemaersa on Planet Arturia proper.

Just like on Mahathia, I had Lowen land concealed on Arturia Proper and travel to the Head House, where the Imperial Seat was apparently located. Strangely enough, there was no sign whatsoever of any Gold Imperial presence. In fact, no daemon or avatar in Antemaersa was even aware of such a thing. The same dark arts and underworld environment that existed here seemed completely unaltered. I went to the Head House. Even that looked completely normal from the outside.

It was the interior of the Head House that caught my attention. The Master Bedroom of the Upper Floor was draped in intense Imperial garb. There was a comfy Imperial chair in the center of it...and in that chair sat Gary.

When I first came here this week to revive Lowen, I was assisted by Josh Marquin's avatar, Jom. But he was not the only one. Jom was accompanied by an assistant, an avatar named Gary. Gary was the one who refitted my spaceship. He seemed the most innocent. So I never thought twice about the individual behind Gary.

Yet there he was, in the hidden in the Imperial Chamber. It was him and another taller avatar, the latter of which, through my eavesdropping, I learned was named Brom.

I immediately disengaged and ran back to Josh Marquin, telling him everything. I asked him if he knew the person behind the avatar named Gary, but Josh had no idea. And he was not even aware of anyone named Brom. We considered the idea of pouncing on them in their location, judging by how vulnerable the Imperial Seat seemed to be. But then we thought better of it. If they were powerful enough to run an entire Interstellar Realm from a secret location, who knows what they are capable of even if they do seem exposed?

Nonetheless, I went to the Society Library and down to the Roster to see if I could find more information. I found Brom, who was created by a man named Steven Chambers on March 6, 1298. I showed this to Josh and asked him if he knew anyone by that name. He said that the name sounded somewhat familiar but could not put his finger on it. So we decided to go to Dungeonmaster Meredyth on this.

It was here that I found my revelation on the Golden Empire.

Steven Chambers was one of the assistant secretaries, or something like that, to the current Prime Minister, John "Red" Waltmann, who visited the University early last year. And now that I think of it, I do remember hearing something about a visitation like that around that time. But apparently, he had some advisors or secretaries with him who decided to pay a visit to the Third Level Society, and even engage a little in the Arturian Realm.

So it was Steven Chambers, having created the avatar Brom, and his colleague, Miley Korp, having created the avatar Gary, who were the co-rulers of the notorious Gold Empire. And these two avatars, Brom and Gary, were what are called "autonomous avatars," which even most Society Members have never heard of in the past. But they do exist. Autonomous avatars and daemons share a lot of similarities; they both make their own decisions, and both have the ability to create their own daemons, primarily.

However, there is one key difference: daemons are created by avatars, and autonomous avatars are created directly by Society Members. This is important because, with daemons, if they are making decisions that the avatar does not like, the avatar has to destroy and remake the daemon. With autonomous avatars, if the same issue arises, the Member having created can simply change the behavioral algorithm of the avatar, if they know how to do that.

The issue with the latter is that manipulating the algorithm like that can be potentially dangerous. The process, itself, is actually complicated, requiring a skill known as "deep access." The issue with deep access is that it can be blocked. And simply destroying an autonomous avatar is like killing off a normal avatar; they can simply respawn.

Those two colleagues of Prime Minister Waltmann created each an autonomous avatar for themselves with the intent of having each avatar build up each other's skill levels, so that they were advanced by the time the two Waltman assistants came back. The intent seemed harmless, though I debate whether or not it was ethical. This issue here was that, in the course of the two men in their auto-development agenda, they had given sole ability for deep access for each avatar to the other, meaning that no one could access Gary's algorithms except for Brom, and vice versa. In creating their avatars, the two men most likely gave their avatars extra Confidence and Innovation, and Empathy for Others, but did not put enough weight in the skill of Self-Moderation. So each avatar kept building the other up in terms of strength and skill through deep access. They were left on a remote world for some time, meaning they were allowed to continue unchecked for the past year and a half. And during that time, they also had it in them to cast large numbers of loyal daemons and attain a lot of resources.

Thus gave rise to the Gold Empire.

The only issue now is what to do about this. The stakes are high. The balance of dynamics are thrown off. People are leaving the Society over this.

And the fix is not easy.