Plans Within Plans

The Silvergrey Sea

Part Three: Conspiracies and Secret Orders

Plans Within Plans

* * *

As glad as Brian Hermit was to be off the Evanescents where he had had to watch people die horribly, he was not happy to be here on Hyborea.

Covert operations were nothing new for the Order. They would often spend years, even generations checking out new worlds opened to them by the many Portals of the Mother Lodge, learning all they could about a culture, recruiting from among its ranks, and finally pillaging all its knowledge. They often managed all of this without ever revealing their existence to the population at large.

Spying on his own was another matter and a task to which he had difficulty adjusting. He understood the necessity; he just didn’t like it. He had been asked to spy on Nija, Superior of Kasaskini and fellow Meraculus Mercurius member. Rayne, his superior in the M.M. didn’t trust Nija.

When the detective Harry Tranker left the chapterhouse after spending over a day as her guest, he knew he had to act quickly to prevent exposure of the M.M. Though he didn’t yet know what Nija was up to, getting Tranker out of the way would help keep the Pure Mercury’s re-emergence a secret.

First a message to their operative in Kusini City, the capital of the South. Then a message claiming to be from Nija, telling Tranker of a captain that would guide him by riverboat all the way south. That captain was an agent of the M.M. and would see to it that Tranker was taken by them in the south, ending whatever threat he might otherwise have presented.

He hoped their agent on Noir had had success in her efforts to quiet the traitor, Drago.

Once Brian saw Harry board the ship, he relaxed. Now to report his success.

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, September 2026

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Gideon is a freethinker, free expression absolutist, intersectionalist, and a proud child of the Enlightenment. He lives and works on the Pacific Coast.

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