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Location: Jakaraad offices, Jakabar Empire. Three days later. Kalina was seated at her desk listening in on a conversation between two women arguing over a radio at her desk. Into her dark smoke-filled office stepped a visitor who had been announced to her only a minute before. It was someone who she had contracted to do work for her previously, and she arched an eyebrow as she glared up at her while still listening to her bumbling commissars. Kalina interrupted them by yelling at them in the Felsha language, then she turned off the radio after they heard her demands. Now her visitor was seated before her and had a very smug smile on her face. "Why bother trying to teach the Jakaki people how to be civilized when they can't even get along with their neighbors?" Asked the visitor. "Nothing schematic of a modern society. I find nothing amusing about their quarrels." Said Kalina who grabbed a burlap sack from the corner of her desk and dropped it on the front of it, the sound of pure silver Jakaki coins inside of it caused the visitor to grab it. "That's a down-payment. And for your last work, you'll be happy to know that your reward has been deposited into your account as of this morning. You have in that sack exactly 5,000 pounds worth, all 50 pound denotations. Take it before the half-baked bastards in monetary policy shut down the exchange, they are planning a coup against me." "So long as the silver is still worth it when I take it to the bank." Said the visitor. "It's pure silver." Replied Kalina. "Remember that I'm offering one million pounds for each agent who is killed." "I was toying with one of them until I received my down payment. The Princess of Kirta is one of them, and she has this far proved to be a far more able opponent than I could have foreseen. She's clever, and her people are loyal to her." Said the visitor. "That is a problem." Kalina responded, standing up from her seat, starting to pace her floor. "We need to remove them from the picture. Just like we removed our own enemies in the revolution. We used stern measures against them." Kalina's point was punctuated by her slapping her fist down onto her palm, but the visitor was not impressed. While Kalina paced the floor, she had her eyes off of the visitor who questioned her diction. "We?" "Yes, we. This is not an individual effort. May I remind you that you were hired to eliminate certain nuisances." Responded Kalina. "As I have found there to be many in my own new government who wish to undermine me, I shall not be underestimated. Is that understood, Eskidor?" "Oh yes, that is quite clear to me." Her visitor, Eskidor, replied. Then Kalina stopped to look at Eskidor once again, now seeing that she held a gun in her hand and was pointing it at her. This came a shock to Kalina whose guards were to have searched Eskidor before she entered the seat of government. Somehow the assassin got passed them, and Kalina knew she purposefully sneaked her gun in to kill Kalina with it. Not so much as a word had passed through her lips, Eskidor pulled the trigger and shot Kalina in her forehead with such ease she didn't use her sights at all. Eskidor calmly remained in her seat assured that the report from her gun would alarm staff if the collapse of Kalina's body onto the floor didn't. By the time the armed guards came to the office door to investigate, Eskidor had already hidden her gun, which now looked like an electronic device that she held in her hand, not dissimilar to a tablet. "Where is Her Majesty Kalina?" Asked one of the guards, a huge Jakaki male who had his hand on a club he kept strapped to his belt. Eskidor had looked upon the guard as though she hardly acknowledged him. "I'm right here." They heard being said behind the guards in the hallway. In stepped Kalina who thanked Eskidor for her services. "I'm sure my treasury will be happy that I only paid 5,000 pounds to have my double killed off instead of your usual fee. That poor fool had no idea that she was handing over her payment to the angel of death." Said the real Empress. Kalina had engineered the tail end of the Jakaki revolution which led to Nila's rise as Empress. She had also slyly undermined her at every step of the way, and once she had Nila deposed, Kalina swiftly sought to take power for herself, while wearing a paranoid mask and trusting so few people. She had in fact paid Eskidor to assassinate her rivals and threats, and her double was painstakingly selected and trained to act just like Kalina over the course of two years. The plan was that whenever Kalina left the capital city, her double would stand in for her. Unknown to the double, she was used as assassin's bait so that if anyone wanted to make an attempt on the new Empress's life, they would like take out the false Kalina. Also in the plan was for her double to cause angst and worry, so that cracks in Kalina's government could be found and the weak and disloyal could be rooted out like weeds. The double had served her purpose, and now Kalina had her guards drag the body out of the office and leave the real Empress to deal with Eskidor. "I'm a genius." She bragged to herself. Kalina sat at her desk and briefly saw the blood from her double stained onto the hardwood floor and the rugs. "Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. Such a waste of beautiful walnut stain and carpet dye." "Now that my services for today have been fulfilled, I will return to Kirta at once and finish the job with the Princess." Eskidor said. "Before you go, I shall inform you that thanks to Genny's efforts in Evaland, we know that the Darrkeffa only number in the low hundreds now. Most of them were set free by those meddling Micronauts and their puny fly Nila! The underground is unaccounted for but can't number any more than one hundred in strength. Did you know that Nila was turned into a fly?" Asked Kalina. "How is that possible?" Asked Eskidor. "Likely she was given wings by that elusive Mother! Who does she think that she is trying to interfere with me!" Kalina cursed her old rival. "Hmph!" Grunted Eskidor when she stood up to leave. Empress Kalina stopped her in her tracks before she could make an exit from the office. "If you shall see that little bitch, rip off her wings and bring her to me! I'll pay you triple your rate to do that so long as she is alive!" Eskidor was tempted by the cash reward. "I am an assassin, not your stooge. I am paid to kill, not to kidnap and torture." She reminded Kalina. "And in offering you three times the amount you would ask for, all for a simple favor." Kalina argued. "Take it or leave it." Eskidor gave the idea consideration over a few seconds. "If I shall see her." She replied.