unFiled

An unFiled attack is an act of violence launched without the Assassins’ Guild’s required Filing of Intent, the procedure that gives a claim a public record and subjects it to review and possible settlement. During the coup and in the Dojisigin Marid, unFiled attacks were not merely procedural irregularities: they endangered civilians, manipulated Guild units, and tested whether the Guild could restore law without abandoning the rules that gave it legitimacy.

Legal Meaning and Procedure

A Filing of Intent begins with a Document of Intent entered into the official state registry. The document records the dispute and is sealed, ribboned, and archived; an answer to the claim is filed in the same way. The Guild Council then gives public notice of possible action and offers both sides an opportunity to provide depositions. It considers whether adequate cause exists, debates the merits, and weighs remedies short of lethal action. It may seek testimony from Guild members employed by either side and impose further delay while encouraging settlement.

For a small case, an office of the Council may approve a Filing after taking witness depositions. Approval usually sets a ninety-nine-day period for action; once that period expires, assassination attempts must cease and the Filing is set aside. Even a valid Filing therefore establishes a bounded, reviewable process rather than open-ended permission to use force. The procedure is intended to create time for a negotiated resolution and to limit bloodshed among Guild members.

The requirement applies before action against a person or institution, with a defined exception for defense against an illicit attack. An attack includes movement within arm’s length or the first use of a distance weapon or weapon of stealth, such as poison; in that situation, defenders may use whatever force they can muster on the spot. More broadly, violence against a fellow citizen is forbidden to anyone other than a Guild Assassin, except in defense of self, employer, household, clan property, or national treasure. Unauthorized violence can make its perpetrator an outlaw subject to Guild action without a time limit. An unFiled attack thus bypasses the safeguards that distinguish authorized Guild action from unlawful violence; it is not simply a claim that has yet to complete ordinary paperwork.

UnFiled Violence During the Coup

The Shadow Guild violated the centuries-old procedures and laws that govern the legitimate Assassins’ Guild. While the Shadow Guild pursued its coup, the legitimate Guild continued trying to preserve the lives of the lords who formed the structure of the Aishidi’tat and remained bound to the rulebook. The contrast made the crisis a test of whether unlawful actors could be opposed without the lawful institution becoming unlawful in turn.

The legitimate Guild’s adherence to orders from compromised superiors initially left it acting on the conspirators’ instructions. After the first report that Tabini had been killed proved premature, another attack in Taiben was supposed to finish the job. Tabini survived, but the attack cost him his original bodyguard; the elderly men who had supported Murini were not told that he was still alive. The Guild followed its chain of command without yet understanding that some of the people whose orders it trusted were among those hunting Tabini and Damiri. The episode shows how a system built around procedure can be exploited when its officers lack the information needed to recognize that its authority has been captured.

Later, Jago identified unFiled attacks on civilians as part of a wider cascade of breaches of Guild neutrality and code. The problem was not confined to the Shadow Guild’s original acts: Council refusals to bring charges in cases including Haikuti’s also undermined the expectation that the rules would be applied. The appearance of lawful continuity could therefore conceal both direct violations and institutional failures to address them.

The Dojisigin Marid Operation

In the Dojisigin Marid, local Guild officers were disarmed, their units split apart, and personnel sent into the field without equipment. Two Dojisigi officers in Ilisidi’s custody described how their village had been threatened with destruction unless they carried out an unFiled assassination of a northern lord. The threat made the violence coercive in its political effect: Guild officers were put in the position of being ordered to commit an unlawful killing under pressure against their own village.

The two officers asked permission to travel south to find the partners separated from their unit. Ilisidi refused that request because their whereabouts, orders, and any hostages at stake remained unknown. She nevertheless warned Lord Machigi, identified as a likely target of another operation based in the Dojisigin, and asked him to seek a bloodless surrender if the missing partners entered his territory. She also proposed a public account of what had happened once the operation moved forward.

Ilisidi prepared a signed, witnessed deposition for later use as evidence. It described how local Guild personnel had been disarmed and placed under arrest, then released and sent out to protect their respective villages, with units divided and sent into problem districts without even sidearms. The deposition turned the operation’s circumstances into a record that could be examined through the Guild’s own legal procedures, rather than leaving the allegations as unverified claims.

Proof and Guild Legitimacy

Tabini requested, under his seal, an investigation into the orders given in the Dojisigin Marid, specifically the disarming, separation, and unequipped deployment of local Guild units. A second document, sealed by Ilisidi, presented the two officers’ deposition about the threatened village and the demanded unFiled assassination. The paired documents placed the alleged violations before the Guild as matters requiring investigation and evidence.

That demand for proof was central to the Guild’s recovery. Its opponents warned that Shishogi might destroy records if he expected dismissal. If the case could not be proved to the membership, Tabini might have to uphold the opposing Guild faction by decree and by the power of the aijinate. Such an outcome might suppress the immediate crisis, but it would not restore a Guild whose authority rested on law. The unFiled attacks therefore exposed a double danger: violence outside procedure, and the temptation to answer it by abandoning procedure. Re-establishing the distinction required evidence, a credible hearing, and a demonstration that the Council itself had broken the law.