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7/27/2025, 1:50:30 AM
>>96186289
>The plot having been set in motion, Cassius made his way back to his office, expecting to find Salafié awaiting his return. Yet his mistress was nowhere to be found: Where she had lain when he departed, now a puddle of freshly-spilled blood pooled upon the polished marble floor. Red, he noted, not the black that flowed through Salafié's veins, accompanied by the scattered bits of a disassembled desktop cogitator and cables pulled from behind dislodged wall panels. In years past, Cassius had oft stumbled upon scenes such as this, surmising that some poor crewman had walked in on the Priestess dressing and been made a servitor for his trouble. But where could she be?
>The Trader followed a faint trail of blood out of his office, but lost the track after a few hundred meters in the crowded promenade that crossed the station's upper deck. It seemed ridiculous chasing after the Priestess like some sort of lost pet, but it could not be helped. For the common crewmen hated and feared Salafié as men fear death itself, and if it became general knowledge that the mad heretek had returned (after they had so celebrated the rumors of her demise), the blow to morale would be almost too terrible to imagine.
>Yet, though the Trader hunted for Salafié in all her old haunts, she was nowhere to be found. Not pilfering treasures from the shipping docks, nor drinking in the officers' lounge. There, Cassius gave up the chase and sat nursing a glass of fine Amasec, trying not to think of whatever murderous deeds the Priestess was no doubt committing in some unknown corner of the station.
>The plot having been set in motion, Cassius made his way back to his office, expecting to find Salafié awaiting his return. Yet his mistress was nowhere to be found: Where she had lain when he departed, now a puddle of freshly-spilled blood pooled upon the polished marble floor. Red, he noted, not the black that flowed through Salafié's veins, accompanied by the scattered bits of a disassembled desktop cogitator and cables pulled from behind dislodged wall panels. In years past, Cassius had oft stumbled upon scenes such as this, surmising that some poor crewman had walked in on the Priestess dressing and been made a servitor for his trouble. But where could she be?
>The Trader followed a faint trail of blood out of his office, but lost the track after a few hundred meters in the crowded promenade that crossed the station's upper deck. It seemed ridiculous chasing after the Priestess like some sort of lost pet, but it could not be helped. For the common crewmen hated and feared Salafié as men fear death itself, and if it became general knowledge that the mad heretek had returned (after they had so celebrated the rumors of her demise), the blow to morale would be almost too terrible to imagine.
>Yet, though the Trader hunted for Salafié in all her old haunts, she was nowhere to be found. Not pilfering treasures from the shipping docks, nor drinking in the officers' lounge. There, Cassius gave up the chase and sat nursing a glass of fine Amasec, trying not to think of whatever murderous deeds the Priestess was no doubt committing in some unknown corner of the station.
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