The Dark Edge Chronicles - Clan War

Magnar's Legacy

Lash frowned as he leaned back from the screen at his workstation in the Lord Commander's apartment. It had been three hours or so since Vulcrum revealed the decrypted contents of the data vault Mordecai had filled with Major Hahlgrim's connection back to the White Flames' Soul Well, the revelations it held sending ripples of concern through his command group. But, after getting them back on task to continue preparing for their assault on the Nocturnum, he felt he had managed the situation well enough, they weren't distracted by the additional intel.

He had then retired to his apartments to get some well-earned tomb time without alerting any of the adjuncts or Embraced to his intent so his sleep wouldn't be unintentionally disturbed by any company he would've gained. Feeling somewhat refreshed upon waking, a liter bag of 'O' negative, and a protein bar later, he was staring at a copy of the Soul Well's data on Janner.

His eyes narrowed thoughtfully as they scanned over the dense text yet again. There was something missing here, a key that would fit all of this together. While he was committed to the assault on the seat of vampiredom's government in order to quell the purge and return order to their world, he still wanted to be as prepared as possible when it came time ...

"Day Witch burn me to ash!" he breathed, his eyes flying wide with realization.

Magnar's hidden data vault! In all the tumult of the last fortnite, he had completely forgotten about it! Fitting in his earpiece, he gave it a tap.

"Narcist, Lash. You online?"

"Always, boss man. What do you need?" came the veteran technician's voice in reply.

"You remember that data vault we pulled out of Magnar's ashes after the nanites destroyed him?"

"The Magnar data vault? What is ... Ash me, the Magnar data vault!" she exclaimed. "I had completely forgotten about it! Give me a sec. I think I have it ... yes! Right here!"

"Okay, want to meet me back in the war room? Unless my honorable spymaster has you fangs deep in his data mining."

Narcist laughed lightly.

"Considering you're his boss, I don't think he's got the pull to say no," she said. "Meet you there in five."

Lash slowly nodded as the encrypted information scrolled across the holographic screen floating above the war table. While he hadn't recognized any of the symbols that had popped up when they were looking at the data vault with Hahlgrim's trace on it, he was seeing distinctive patterns here that he had seen on other pieces of vampire encrypted data. Like the database they pulled out of Galway.

Narcist, too, was recognizing much of what she was looking at.

"Looks alot like what we saw in that database in Galway," she noted, saying out loud what he had realized in silence as her fingers danced over an interface. "I don't think Magnar wanted to hide the information he had managed to gather. Only keep it safe from the casual observer." A wry smile touched her lips. "Considering he had buried it in his thigh, I think it was pretty safe."

"Right up until he was ashed out by a nanite bomb," Lash grimly pointed out.

"Ah. Fair point." Narcist busied herself for a moment. "Keep it from the White Flames or the Hand so they wouldn't discover he was on to them, maybe? Anyways, I think I can use the same algorithm I used on the Galway database ..."

The screen shifted then the symbols because words in vampiric. Leaning in, Narcist did a quick scan. And almost immediately she sighed in frustration.

"Looks like he learned that the Vorinov sitter on the council is the traitor. Ash me, if we had just decrypted this one the same time we did the Galway database ..."