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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2181480" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 198: ContactThe Mrrakesh was seated in a small, blank room. In each corner, an Alraxian guard stood with a sword at their side. A metal sword. Not that it would have the same effect on a Mrrakesh as it would on an Alraxian, but they were still sharp, and they could still hurt. He was sat down in a simple, boring chair, arms, legs, and neck all strapped down. He didn’t struggle. He couldn’t. The straps were more for show, as he could have easily broken them if he could move. But there was another force holding him down, a simple energy field on the chair itself that simply couldn’t be fought again.    In front of him, stood Shadow and Kyren. Akan had remained outside, which kept the tension down at least slightly more for the both of them...though for completely different reasons. Kyren was there to assist, though even he knew his presence was just like the straps that held the Mrrakesh. Superficial. Just for appearances. Marix could do it all by herself, and likely would, but as a Knight, it was his duty to be there.     The room was silent to their ears. To all of their minds, however, there was a flurry of activity. Even the guards, with only a touch of sensitivity to the Force, could feel it. While Marix attempted to probe the Mrrakesh’s mind, Kyren attempted to distract him. It was almost like a game, but there were two sides. With their minds prying into the Mrrakesh’s, they were both left open, and the Mrrakesh was not lost to that. And so he probed them at the same time, taunting and prying...trying to weaken their resolve.    And it continued to almost work.    ‘Who is your contact on Alraxia?’ Shadow pried deep for that answer. Deeper and deeper, finding only blocks and mental walls, funneling her probing to the exact wrong place each time. And at the end of it, she always heard the same thing.    ‘You are the Fire.’    She had growled the first time, but seeing the grin that got on the Mrrakesh’s face, she resisted each other time. He didn’t deserve the pleasure. Kyren wasn’t doing so well, and Shadow could see it on his face. He reacted too much, and so the Mrrakesh was still grinning.    An hour of this passed. A long, rigorous hour that, in the end, confirmed nothing. Nearly on the brink of ordering the guards to beat the answer out of the Mrrakesh, Shadow grabbed Kyren’s arm and calmly dragged him out of the room. Outside, she let out a angered growl and started to punch at the wall, only stopping when she felt the Palace perform the equivalent of wincing.    “I assume its not going too well,” asked Akan in an off hand manner as he stood off to the side, curiously eyeing the two of them.    Shadow just sighed, and Kyren only shook his head. Still, they both remained silent. Akan tried questioning Shadow through the link, but got only annoyance at his attempt at what she’d been fighting with for the past hour. Sighing, himself, Akan leaned back and looked up to the ceiling in the hallway they stood in, “Going to try again?”    Again, Kyren shook his head, this time grumbling under his breath, “It wouldn’t do any good.”    To Akan’s surprise, Shadow nodded, “It will require more time...too much more. And he’s enjoying it far too much.”    “So, may I suggest something?” Akan said, finally stepping forward slightly.    Both of the other two looked to him with raised eyebrows, but it was Kyren who asked, “What do you mean?”    “Well,” he replied, a grin slowly growing on his face, “We could try figuring this out the old fashioned way.”    “What do you mean?” Kyren asked again, almost sounding like he was taking out his annoyance on Akan at the moment in trying to get answers to something.    Akan’s grin only grew and his eyes fell on Shadow, who was figuring it out through the link, “Well, you can’t rely on the Force for everything. Sometimes, you have to stop and think. So...help me out here. We know, with absolute certainty, that the Mrrakesh has to have a contact here on Alraxia to even be here in the first place, correct?”    “Correct,” Shadow answered, already knowing where this was going from the link, but talking it out anyway. Doing this out loud just seemed to help, and Kyren might catch something one of them didn’t.    “Alright,” Akan nodded and raised two fingers, “Second, the Mrrakesh’s contact would have to be someone with enough influence and power to hide the landing of the Mrrakesh. Now, I don’t know the planetary defense here, but I highly doubt a metal ship would get anywhere near here without something being tampered with.”    Kyren slowly nodded, “Yes, but we already figured that.”    Akan’s hand opened up to tell Kyren to wait, “Just work with me on this one. So, knowing only those two things should limit the amount of possible suspects in this.”    “Of course,” Kyren answered quickly, “But like I said, we figured that much out already. It still doesn’t narrow it down enough to do us any good.”    Again, Akan just nodded, looking between both Shadow and Kyren while saying slowly, “I understand that. Again, I don’t know every detail, and I sure as hell don’t know every possible person with enough power to pull off what needs to be pulled off, but I still have an idea.”    Silence. A short silence in which Shadow was waiting to see if Kyren would say anything else. He didn’t. So far, he was keeping up. After the few seconds she waited for, Shadow turned to look at Akan and nodded, “Keep going.”    “There is one Alraxian that I know of who likely has that kind of power, is on this planet as we speak, and who I’ve just had a bad feeling about since I first saw him,” after finished, Akan looked straight to Kyren.    Kyren blinked. It only took him a few seconds before realizing what Akan was actually suggesting, and his eyes went wide with surprise, “No! No, that’s not possible!”    When he looked to Shadow for an agreement, she simply nodded. Seeing that, Kyren stopped and calmed down slightly. There was another short silence and he looked back to Akan, disbelief still on his face, “You can’t mean who I think you mean.”    “I’m willing to bet my life on it,” Akan stated simply, “It fits perfectly.”    “But...but no...” Kyren mumbled, shaking his head again, “Not Faban Sunrunner.”</blockquote>

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