The rivalry and chaos seems to have died down to a certain degree, now that Kara Martins is no longer here. Basically, she had been bragging about the outcome of the duel much to the embarrassment and humiliation of Dyla. And she and the future Dungeonmaster, Peter Crane, banded together and glorified both the Dungeonmaster election and duel to show that they were right and Dyla wrong.

That of course touched an underlying sentiment, an unwritten rule, on behalf of Members dating back to the day of foundation of the Society that outside politics must never mix with the Society or the Arturian Realm. That has been broken in the past. Nevertheless, though, this caused quite enough of a stir among Members and their friends outside the Society. Numerous Cabotton students became aware of the ridiculousness of the pair and hated them for it.

Yesterday, Peter Crane apologized for that recent smear, and vowed to do a good job as a Dungeonmaster. But Kara Martins ridiculed him for being a "conformist." So it was Kara who got the brunt of the mob. At the end of the day, she was not expelled from the University, but I heard that she took an airship out of Gentry County Airfield back to her home in Gymia, with further word that she was not going to finish the semester. Nonetheless, Peter Crane is here to stay.

Surprisingly, Peter and Kara are still together romantically. Though I can imagine that there might me a strain on that relationship.

Regardless, I feel happy to write that I was finally able to pinpoint the very source and mechanism behind the White Baroness. And it's absolutely nothing to do with either Ceri Mains or her adversaries here on campus.

It started off with me thinking to engage in the Interplanetary part of Arturia on a quest separate from the White Baroness; I figured that there were other things to explore and discover rather than to obsess over one thing. So I joined a pirate gang known as the Bloodhounds and partook on a collective quest in the Lux Galacia VII system to attack and disrupt the travel node network between Galacia Minor CCXXIV and Galacia Minor CCXXV. According to a Bloodhound spy, there apparently was an organization named the Flo Mining Guild extracting diamonds from an asteroid field near that area and bringing it back to a major business hub on Galacia Minor CCXXIV to trade for huge profit. Our agenda was to disrupt the travel node and engage in a battle with the cargo vessels carrying the diamonds in order to destroy the vessels and take the diamonds for our own. There were nine of their ships while we had five; however, ours had more cargo space. We would then transport the diamonds back and trade them at our commercial hub on Cresca Minor CCXLV.

Everything went to plan up until we were engaging the Guild Ships. Four of the nine were destroyed, while we were scooping up the cargo. But then suddenly we, ourselves were attacked.

Our rivals, the Goodfarers, had heard about our quest over our insecure channel; and I warned our quest leader multiple times to buy the transmitters to our ships for secure channels but he deemed that too expensive. So foolhardiness proved itself so deservedly that all Bloodhound ships were destroyed with diamonds taken...except for one: Captain Bornan's. Captain Bornan surrendered himself and the diamonds to the Goodfarers, who did not lose any ships.

I was going to disengage and have a long talk over coffee at the Slack with the Member behind the quest leader about the importance of making investments where investments were due, when I decided to put it off.

Captain Merlin, leader of the group of Goodfarers that forced the avatars of my fellow Questors to respawn back on their home planets, had given me, my avatar, Captain Bornan, an important quest: to serve as a spy by pretending to convert as a monk into the Church of the Three Stars, a new organization having formed in order to worship the White Baroness. It was widespread knowledge that male avatars having fallen in trance with the White Baroness had formed this organization but there was no evidence of the Baroness having direct influence, or so it would seem. My job was to go and see if perhaps the Baroness did, in fact, play a role, and with whom. Such information would be kept secret by the Goodfarers, to be sold as confidential information for good profit. I agreed to the task.

The quest took me quite a ways from where I was at but quite close to where I went in my initial confrontation of her. I ended up landing on Prestia Minor CCLV, which orbits around Prestia Major XLIII. This was very close to Prestia Major XLII, where the White Baroness lives on Prestia Minor CCL.

So here I was on Prestia Minor CCLV. Disguising myself as a prospective monk of that Church was quite easy enough given my skill level. And very soon, I discovered that the Three Stars being referred to were, in fact, three very powerful avatars, who I began to speculate have created the White Baroness collectively.

They were Kordon, the Great Servant; Galla, the Great Protector; and Pheredon, the Great Preserver.

To reach them in person was not possible even for the highest-ranking monk, and I wanted to reach them very badly to figure out who they were because I could not find the Members behind each of them in the Roster.

So I took a long journey back to the Original World of Arturia, relinquishing my monk role, and skilled myself with a special priest on Antemaersa to become a semi-divine spirit-like being through form-fitting. It cost a lot of Arturian credits, but it was worth it, as I figured, when I returned to Prestia Minor CCL. I was, after all, able to conceal myself, and to go through the Books written by the Three Stars without actually opening them. Through this, I confirmed that, indeed, since last November, the Three Stars created and maintained the White Baroness.

So the White Baroness was never backed directly by a Member to begin with.

But then I discovered more. Kordon, Galla, and Pheredon were, in fact, not directly backed by Members either. I realized this when I found a red book entitled "Kordon," a green book entitled "Galla," and a blue book entitled "Pheredon." Reading through these in the same fashion, I found that each book contained nothing but scripts deemed nonsensical in the Circlarian School of Spellfire Crafting but appeared in a local structure and grammar with a glossary in the back of each.

In other words, Galla, Pheredon, and Kordon were, themselves, actually daemons created by avatars.

In fact, I found at the very front of each book stamped "Freedom Rangers of Cresca." I disengaged from the Arturian Realm at this point and went to the Society Library. There, I found the location of a so-called organization "Freedom Rangers" to be based on Planet Cresca Minor V.

So I re-engaged, this time, flying to Cresca Minor V.

Before going to Cresca Minor V, however, I went back the the Original Planet Arturia again, where I form-fitted myself into appearing to be an up-and-coming rookie wishing to join the Freedom Rangers, expecting them to be a formidable organization armed with brutal ships and guns.

I was surprised, yet again, upon my arrival to Cresca Minor V. This world contained not even the caliber of gyrotech that I've been seeing on Original Arturia, but a mostly medieval and Rope-Age landscape. Cresca Minor is basically a free land of numerous patchworks of little castle-and-field fiefdoms on the small areas of land encompassing four small continents, with the rest of the globe being a vast ocean.

These fiefdoms are referred to as "counties," which is where most of the "Freedom Fighter" chapters are located, most of the members of whom are Rope-Age spellcrafters, archers, and swords-persons.

Aside from that, there is a rather large city on Cresca Minor V standing out from this landscape, which is quite different in terms of technological age, this city was called Frein, and was of the Gyro Age. The Head Chapter of the Freedom Rangers was located here, and thus drew my attention the most. When I arrived here, I signed up, which was easy enough, and found my place as a pilot to the neighboring desert planet: Cresca Minor VI.

It was a simple mission, a mission of espionage on what the order believed to be a Chapter Leader on the only chapter of Cresca Minor VI, suspected of accepting bribes from the Freedom Fighters' many haters. However, en route, I was in close conversation with this quest leader, a veteran of one of the first chapters. He explained that the Freedom Fighters has always been a loose organization. Apparently, it has chapters all over the Arturian Universe, but most exist on Cresca Minor V. This organization was started by the avatar-backed by now-former-Member: Theodore Young, who sprang the Freedom Rangers into action with 100 second-generation daemons, or daemons cast directly by avatars back by Members. He then graduated from Cabotton and left the Society, leaving the Freedom Rangers to be populated by increasing numbers of second-generation daemons generated by Theodore Young's friends.

Successive numbers of these daemons were turned loose to continue acting on their own, and, earlier this year, apparently decided to come together and vote on an organizational slogan: "To serve, to preserve, and to protect."

I'll never forget the moment then and there when the quest leader sighed and said: "A completely pointless slogan, if you ask me, based on the circumstances."

"Do you think this may have something to do with the Church of the Three Stars or the White Baroness?" I asked.

"Honestly," the quest leader said. "I really don't give a damn about politics outside this system. I'm just here to quest and level up my character."

I let him go on that but made note of the three words: Serve, Preserve, Protect.

It's late now. But I know what my assignment is tomorrow. It will be quite heavy.