Mission 10: A Proper Sendoff

Prelude

Seven years have passed since the events of Mission 9. By and large, the ultimate agenda of the White Veil Society remains unclear. After interrogating the senator captured by the Circle With No Name and following up on information yielded, the Grass Spiders have learned that whatever the White Veil Society's ultimate goals may be, the Society is actively seeking out the Eye of Autochthon. It was noted by Nazareth that Atlas also took an interest in the Eye of Autochthon in his later days, and the Grass Spiders currently believe that the attempted collaboration between the Grass-Spiders and White Veil Society arranged by Atlas may have revolved around finding it.

For the next five years, the Grass-Spiders kept up business as usual, maintaining a low-profile amidst the changes sweeping Creation, all the while maintaining a background effort to further investigate Atlas's last dealings. The Grass-Spiders hope to uncover Atlas's reasons and steps taken in seeking the Eye, believing it will reveal more about the White-Veil Society's agenda. They have been met with considerable opposition, whereupon agents and guards would turn up at the most inopportune moments and even normally-talkative informants were tight-lipped. The efforts remained secondary to daily operations until, two years ago, Leviticus chanced upon three veteran White Veil Society agents while exploring Denandsor, attempting to find a location found sketched in Atlas's journal. Although Leviticus, under strict orders not to escalate the conflict, attempted to make a case for cooperative investigation of the site with the agents, something went wrong.

It isn't truly known who struck first, or why. It might have been personal aggressions or an offhand remark, or it may have been related to Denandsor's bizarre environmental hazards. What is known is that the White Veil agents were apparently outclassed - Leviticus killed all three. Leviticus maintains that he acted in self-defense, although he has privately expressed doubts to Rizuka, admitting his memory of the situation is fuzzy, chalking the haze up to Denandsor's atmosphere.

Retaliation came quickly. Most of the major Grass-Spider informants and associates in Nexus, Marukan, and the Hundred Kingdoms were assassinated, effectively crippling operations in those areas. This sparked the beginning of what members of the criminal underground refer to as the Veil War. For two years the Grass-Spiders and White Veil Society have been engaged in a bloody shadow war, fought in political chambers, dojos, back alleys, and smoky stock rooms.

Setting the Stage

The rules of engagement in the Veil War are not clear. Agents from both organizations encounter each other with some regularity, often without knowing it. Even when they do, the encounter rarely results in violence outright, with a few notable exceptions. Most of the time, tense words are exchanged in the guise of enigmatic banter, and the agents part ways. In the Veil War, most of the blood spilled belongs to associates of both organizations - the lower ranking members who form the foundations of their labyrinthine secret societies. This has been detrimental to both sides; more and more people are now reluctant to provide aid to either organization, knowing the fate that awaits them.

Just as most of the war's victims are low-ranking associates, so too are its soldiers. The elite of each organization are too busy to be bothered taking potshots at mortal thugs to fight in the Veil War's day-to-day struggles. Occasionally, Exalted members of each side get entangled in the conflict, but for the most part, they spend most of their time doing exactly what they always have - advancing their organization's long-term goals (in the case of the Grass-Spiders, this is carrying out contracts and maintaining their reputation as the most effective and creative criminal organization in Creation).

Presently the action of the Veil War is centered in the Scavenger Lands. At preset, the Grass-Spiders' most significant "ally" (if either side can be said to have allies in the conventional sense) is Lookshy - the Order maintains a strong network of contacts here, and the long history of friendly competition between the Grass-Spiders and the Rangers has fostered a degree of transparency between the two organizations which has strengthened their bond. With that in mind, the Grass-Spiders don't want to lose it.

((It's rather late. I didn't count on the PS3 move being quite as awesome as it is. I'll finish this up tomorrow morning. Basically, we're heading to Lookshy to assassinate a member of General Staff who believe the White Veil Society is planning to use to gain influence in Lookshy. It's critical that Lookshy doesn't know the Grass-Spiders assassinated him, as they are our most precious ally in the Veil War, but we also would like for the White-Veil Society to know for sure that we killed him, in order to send a message.))