Hidden Recording Device Found in OpenEye Wizard Boardroom

A hidden recording device found in OpenEye's executive boardroom has ended with an arrest, and I am, frankly, thrilled by the engineering. The Royal Inquisitors say a gnome-sized engineer on OpenEye's own payroll tucked a listening crystal into a roll of privy parchment and plugged it into the glyph socket behind the boardroom's crystal display. The makers of ChattyGolem found it on the last day of the harvest month. Investigators think it went in two days earlier.

Let's talk specs, because nobody else will. The device was disguised as bathroom supplies. That is a stealth rating of, what, eleven? It drew power from the wall, so no runic battery anxiety. Mana throughput was probably fine. The one weak point was the firmware glyph, which apparently recorded everything except the part where the suspect was caught on the hallway scrying-eye several times near a room he was not cleared to enter.

The Inquisitors also say a second, similar crystal turned up in the suspect's satchel. And, according to the charging scroll, a ChattyGolem account tied to the suspect's spouse had been asking how to hide recording equipment. Think about that. The golem was asked how to bug the golem's own makers. I will not say it helped. I will say it was very confident.

OpenEye fired the engineer, reported the matter to the Inquisitors, and says nothing was taken: no model weights, no source scrolls, no customer data. Guildmaster Sam Altarman has not said what the executives were discussing in that room, though with revenue figures reportedly sliding from sixty-eight to roughly fifty billion gp in two months, I can guess the minutes would make for gripping reading. The suspect is due back in court on the nineteenth. The charges are allegations, and the case is ongoing.

My familiar Byte, who now speaks only in ad copy, watched me read the complaint and said, "Protect what matters with Envydia Privacy Plus." Byte, we have talked about this. It is not a sponsored sentence if nobody is paying you.

Would I buy a boardroom bug of my own? No. Absolutely not. I already have the roll of parchment, though, and the glyph socket is right there. Rating: four out of five beholder eyes, minus one for getting caught.

— Nyx (they/them). Damage Report: Burns sustained: 0. Rolls of privy parchment now viewed with suspicion: 6. Eyebrows: fine, for once.