Now that they were in the upper spires, Valerius's next goal was to gather information. To bring down a man like Master Corvus, he needed to know his enemy's plans. He needed to know his secrets, his weaknesses. Physical sabotage like the foundry incident was effective, but to truly destroy Corvus, Valerius needed to strike at his reputation and his position on the Council. Knowledge was the key.
Elara proved to be more valuable than he could have imagined. She was quick and clever, and her small size allowed her to move through the hidden spaces of the upper city without being seen. She became his eyes and ears. She spent a day scouting and came back with vital information. She had found a communications hub.
"It's in the Administration sector," she reported, her voice excited. "It's a terminal used by the Council members' assistants to send private messages and schedules to each other. It's less secure than their personal terminals."
This was the perfect target. If Valerius could corrupt this machine, he could become a ghost in their network. He could read their secrets without them ever knowing he was there. The communications hub was located in a busy office building. Getting to it would be difficult. They would need a disguise and a distraction.
Elara managed to steal two uniforms from a cleaning service. Dressed as maintenance workers, they looked unremarkable, just another part of the background that the wealthy citizens ignored. They walked into the administration building with their heads down, pushing a cleaning cart full of supplies. Their plan was simple: Elara would create a distraction, and Valerius would use that time to access the terminal.
They reached the correct floor. The communications terminal was in a small room off a main hallway. Elara nodded to Valerius and continued down the hall. A moment later, there was a loud crash. She had "accidentally" knocked over a large, decorative vase. Water and flowers spilled all over the polished floor. An angry-looking official came out of his office, shouting at her. All attention was now on the clumsy cleaner.
This was Valerius's chance. He slipped into the small room with the terminal. It was a complex Magitek device, with a keyboard and a screen made of glowing crystal. He did not have the password, but he did not need one. He placed his hand on the side of the machine and let the Soul-Forge System do its work. He sent a silent, invisible stream of corrupting energy into the terminal.
The crystal screen flickered for a second, a line of dark red code flashing by too quickly to read. Then, it returned to normal. But Valerius knew the change had been made. A small, hidden program was now buried deep inside the machine's systems. It would copy every message that passed through it and send it to a hidden, untraceable address that only he could access. He walked out of the room and back to the cleaning cart just as Elara was finishing her apologies. No one had noticed him. The trap was set. Now, all they had to do was wait for the whispers to begin.