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Engrav Setlar

It was a dump.

Not a literal dump, as Engrav had feared, but certainly the abandoned hivestem had seen better days. The door creaked as the inventor skulked inside, and his lip curled as he looked around the abandoned respiteblock. Not just dust and detritus, here. There was something old and putrid curled in a corner, something black leaking from the far wall of the hive. A good place to conduct surreptitious business, although certainly not somewhere Engrav would feel confortable about lingering.

He'd ditched his normal business attire for anonymity, black on grey on black, an old comfortable hoodie and pants to nondescript as to appear nearly invisible. There wasn't much the inventor could do about his face in public, but the hood helped some. At least a little. "H-hello?" the yellowblood called out into the dusk of the abandoned hive, a small sneeze nagging at him as dust swirled in the air. Engrav wiped at his sniffnode with an electronic hand and looked around.

Caiden better be right about this. His moirail had said "If you really, really wanna meet the guy that's working on secrets and stuff I can set that up, but he's reeeeally sneaky! And he's not gonna like you!" And then Engrav had stared at the brownblood for what felt like a minute as he tried to figure out what in the world that could possibly mean.

Any other time, the yellowblood would have painstakingly done reconnaissance on the abandoned hivestem, taken his time and vetted the location personally. Dug through records to see if it had any outstanding stories connected with it. Not this time, though. It just didn't make sense for the operative to set a trap for Engrav. There was nothing to be gained by it. So just this time, he'd decided to play it cool, even if the idea of walking into an unsecure location set the inventor's teeth on edge. After all, it was FAR more dangerous for the operative he was meeting to show their face, and they'd been gracious enough to agree to the meeting.

If they showed up.

Maybe they were already here somewhere?

"Is anyone here?" the yellowblood spoke out again, glancing around the decrepit domicile. He could feel the nerves starting to prickle the edges of his scalp as he waited impatiently.

Engrav Setlar

Engrav flinched as the operative stepped into the room. He hadn't even heard him. There had just been empty space, and then the next moment, the yellowblood was there. That was... uncanny. Engrav cleared his chagrin tunnel, suddenly unsettled. Gog, the inventor was out of his depth. He saw the older troll giving him a trained eye, and slowly rolled up his sleeves and held his fronds wide disarmingly. Despite the friendly tone of this operative, Engrav was absolutely certain he would cull him at the slightest sign of danger. The inventor forced a smile onto his face, but he could feel his nerves starting to fray the edges of the friendly gesture. Maybe that was good. Being too settled would seem suspicious. If not insane.

"Ah, haha, uh," Engrav stuttered, rubbing a hand against the crooked scar on his head. He glanced into the operative's eyes. Nothing there but cold, hard calculation. "I just wanted to thank you for, uh, taking time out of your night to meet with me." Caiden had said that he would be meeting someone called "Aprife", but Engrav wasn't sure exactly how callsigns worked within the rebel organization, and he didn't want to get his moirail in trouble by revealing information he shouldn't technically have, so instead he just extended a mechanical hand in greeting.

"Engrav Setlar. Engineer and inventor. And, uh, new recruit."