Elena obediently followed the servants as she was lead by the leash through the corridors. Her body pulsed with lust and it was visible. Finally, they arrived at their destination. Elena shuddered as she noticed that the room looked like a torture chamber. There were shackles and chains hanging from the ceiling and walls, whips, pincers and various torture tools on the table, there was a judas cradle, water tank, water wheel and various other devices. There were already various servants waiting in the room, wearing sadistic smirks. "Master allowed us to use this masochistic slut." The head butler said then turned to her. "You must know, we always take pleasure in taking out our frustration on a high standing sluts like you. You are the most important person to ever be here and we will enjoy making you scream." Elena shuddered at the promise in the voice. She got on her knees, opened the head butler's pants, scooped out his dick and started giving blowjob to the stoic man. "Good start. It will not make it any way easier to you, though." Elena moaned hotly, not stopping her blowjob.
"I will ensure it's handled successfully, sir. Where should I begin?" The alien replies, giving the emperor a small bow in return.
Spoiler: Espionage Roll 74 "I have an idea." She nods. "He'll want to stay in control of his men, and to do that, he'll need communications gear. I can mark a location out for you." She's silent for several moments, before nodding. "She once told me that death is the price we pay for our power. You mean to enslave her, not kill her, but the concept is the same. She'd rather the Zhou dynasty live on, even through her disloyal heirs, than the entire dynasty be extinguished for all time."
He stops moving, looking her directly in the eye. "For that to ever happen, I need to be able to trust you. I need your complete obedience. To me, above everyone else."
"Look at those." The head maid strikes Elena's breasts with a riding crop. "Those are what got you your position," she spits venomously, "not actual talent, I'd bet."
"Recently, a trusted official of mine, Anselm Van Dorn, was appointed to lead the Imperial Bank. There's been numerous allegations of mismanagement there, bad loans, money disappearing, etc, and my official was meant to expose it. Instead, he was found in his room, hanging from the ceiling. I'd start by investigating the murder. Otherwise, you could look through the bank's records for irregularities and see if anything comes up."
Yannika cradled his face with both hands and looked at him with complete open honesty. "You have it my love. I am yours mind, body and soul. Before everything, after everything. I. Am. Yours. Everything that I have, all that I am is yours. Before the council, before the empire, before the church, I am yours."
"I see. How interesting. To do everything within your power to keep your bloodline alive. Hah." Vizelle giggles, "But don't worry. I don't plan on killing those that prove themselves useful." She cooed, stroking Lian's cheek, "And if you do a good job. I'll give you a stage to let you realize your desire, to let you reach your full potential, and pit your skills in diplomacy with the galaxy." Vizelle whispered, "And all you have to do, is produce good results." She then kisses Lian's cheek. "Ah, but first. We'll have to deal with your brother. So, do give me the location." Vizelle smiles.
"I'll start with the bank records. Crime scene investigation isn't a speciality of mine." He salutes the emperor, waiting to be dismissed. Once allowed out of the emperor's presence, he'll head back to his rooms and see how much information his new position will allow him to pull up on the bank, before (hopefully) starting to go through their financial records. It shouldn't be too much different from working out who was misappropriating supplies back on the starbase...
The young man looks at her quietly for a few moments, before he kisses her once more, romantically this time, rather than dominantly. "Then I'm yours as well." With a final thrust, he hilts himself inside her, letting forth a flood of his seed, deep in her womb, and nestling his head against her breasts. They lie like that for a long while, not speaking. Finally, as the morning begins to wane, Carius raises himself up on an elbow. "Mmmh, are you hungry? Shall I get us something?" He smiles at her. "Before any marriage could happen, there'll need to be work done in the background, erasing records, evidence of the bond we share." He caresses her cheek. "In the meantime, I want to get to know you. There's obviously a connection between us, a strong one, but it's not enough. I want to spend time with you, learn all about you. Who you are, what you've been through, what you like..." He smiles again.
She nods, producing a dataslate with a map of the star system. "Here." She points out a platform in orbit above the planet. "This is a comms buoy, one of the largest for this system. It sends and receives thousands of messages every minute, allowing for communications between this system and others. I think he's there, since any messages he sends or receives would be impossible to track amongst all that data. Plus, when we were younger, he'd take his ship up there, planting bugs on people's communications. He was so proud of himself for being able to get in undetected..." She sighs wistfully, remembering.
"For such a private person, he doesn't seem to grasp privacy at all." Vizelle cooed, "No matter. I will deal with him personally. I don't suppose any of you have a ship to get there?" The sorceress asked, looking at Xi Fei and Lian.
Yannika wailed in joyous rapture at his declaration and at the feeling of his seed filling her womb. Her hand reached down to gently massage his ballsack. "All of it..." she muttered, "... give me all of it." When the two finally rose she had a contented expression. "I'm a little famished." then she added with a coy smile "You might not be aware, but I had a rather exhausting night." When he spoke next she was stunned before the biggest smile in her life crossed her face. "Wait!? Does this mean?..." she started crying joyously again and leapt at him, kissing his face and shaking in happiness. "Oh my love of course! I want you to know everything about me, and I want to know everything about you! We've missed so much of each other's lives. You're right of course there's so much to do first but... Oh Carius." she hugged him then and buried her face in his chest. "I love you so much my son you have no idea."
The emperor nods in dismissal, heading back to his sparring session. On his way back, Arkhis is informed by the maid that a large suite of rooms in the council wing has been prepared for him, for him and any retinue he might gain. After maybe forty minutes of waiting, Arkhis hears a knock at the door, and sees a woman waiting for him. "Councilor?" She looks at him in surprise. "Xandra Covax, Terran Investigative Services." She shakes off her surprise at his appearance, regarding him professionally. "I'm in charge of the murder investigation on Anselm Van Dorn. I was ordered to give you data on the Imperial Bank's finances, since it could be related." She hands him a dataslate. If he doesn't ask anything of her, she leaves him alone with the data. Spoiler: Logistics Roll D100: 45+15 (Logistics Skill)=60 (Pass) It takes hours of examination, but soon enough Arkhis begins to spot various inconsistencies in the bank's dealings. Various loans were given out to shell companies, owned by other shell companies, owned by other...etc, money put into discretionary funds that don't exist, money taken from the treasury for parades, building projects or military campaigns that never materialised. The sums of money vary wildly, from a few thousand on the low end, to millions on the high end.
Xi Fei nods. "Yeah, I have a few. You want something stealthy, or powerful?" Lian looks at Vizelle. "If possible, could you try not to kill my brother? At least try to reason with him? He's sullen and dour, but he could be a great resource for you."
"Stealthy, please. And don't worry. I plan on talking to him first. What happens next will be entirely up to him." Vizelle grins. "You two can come along if you like." She said as she heads to where the ship was.
Carius chuckles and nods, ordering some food via intercom. As she grabs him, he laughs and hugs her tight against him. "I can't promise I'll marry you. It's a matter of state, after all, and I have to do my duty to the empire. But I can tell you that I want you by my side. We've spent nineteen years apart, and I plan to make up for every second of it."
He doesn't have any requests of her; instead he merely introduces himself and confirms that yes he's a councilor and yes he's looking into this and yes he wants the bank data. By the time the irregularities finally start to become clear, Arkhis is starting to get impatient, so as he notes down the names of the people most involved in these transactions, he calls Xandra up again. "Could you give me an outline of what the crime scene looks like, or rather, what the inportant points of evidence are?"
Arkhis notes that among the people involved that aren't obviously shell fronts for money laundering is the Cold Moon, a powerful galactic syndicate, or at least various companies that the syndicate owns. Also having money put into their accounts is is Anselm Von Dorn, the dead man himself. Spoiler: Logistics Roll D100: 77+15 (Logistics Skill)=92 (Crit) Looking at the transactions implicating the emperor's dead official, however, it's clear that they're fake, that someone doctored the record to make it look like Anselm was corrupt, when he wasn't. Curiously, it seems like whoever doctored the records would have had to be able to use Anselm's own terminal multiple times, implying that it was someone who had access. Xandra responds quickly. "So far, it looks quite a bit like a suicide, with him hanging from a fan. However, we found sedatives in his system, and I discovered some dna from an unidentified person at the scene. It's not enough to outright prove that it was a murder, but given the circumstances, it seems too fishy for me to just close the case."
Arkhis starts to put together a preliminary report, outlining the various ties the corruption has to Cold Moon companies and figures, as well as the way Anslem was "recieving" payments. "Interesting... Quick question: who is there that would have been able to use Anslem's terminal without him knowing or considering it suspicious?"
