Nelsa arrived at the government center just before noon, clutching a ledger close to her chest, hopefully hiding her sweating palms. She glanced back, scanning the crowd until she landed upon a man leaning casually against a shop’s facade.
He was withdrawing a sausage from a bag, but the instant her eyes landed on him, he looked straight at her, his own eyes flashing from their natural brown to a bright red as he held her gaze with a sinister smile. But just like that, he returned to his business, eating his lunch as if nothing had happened, his eyes a mute brown, and his interest obviously elsewhere, anywhere but with her.
Nelsa gulped, turning her gaze forward and approaching the monumental steps leading to the white stone building, which stood in sharp contrast to the squat gray stone-and-wood buildings surrounding it.
Her unease had started early this morning, when she first awoke to find a note written on the finest silk she had ever felt resting on her pillow—right next to her face.
A meeting will be held in the government center today at noon.
We would like you to be there.
If you are not, we will not be offended,
But your voice will not be heard.
Should you care for the future of Gloamview,
We strongly suggest attendance.
The note was ominous enough without even considering the fact that it had been placed next to her head while she slept, but on top of this morning’s unease, she found people staring at her as she moved through the city. This was not the casual gazes that she was accustomed to, of people sitting on benches and people-watching, or the occasional awkward eye contact with someone heading the opposite direction as she.
No, these were gazes that locked onto hers the moment she was within visual range, as if they were waiting for her. They all watched her with those bright red eyes, those unsettling smiles, yet they never actually did anything, merely observed.
Nelsa jumped as the wide double doors opened on their own, a feature the government building had not possessed just yesterday. With a deep breath, she entered, noting that the building was suspiciously vacant today. It had been a madhouse over the last several days with all the chaos the changing leadership had caused, yet now it stood as silent as a tomb.
She turned this way and that, unsure where specifically she should be going, only for a door on the right of the entrance to open of its own accord. She sighed, trying not to consider the reality: that she was being herded like a sheep.
The halls were familiar to Nelsa, so she immediately knew, and was relieved to find out, that she was being led to one of the larger meeting rooms on the second floor. She had been an administrator for this city for years, and that fact was largely why she was still present.
When the rebels took over, they needed to restore order, or some semblance of it, as quickly as possible, so it did not make sense to chase out the folks who were previously running the city, though some still had been run off. Nelsa was not particularly bothered by this, as corruption had plagued her work every single year.
Trying to balance a budget when this merchant or that noble was skimming off half the funds available to the city was a maddening task.
The door to the meeting room closed behind her, and she sighed with relief. Both Carmen and Elijah were present. They were the two rebels who had assumed command of the city once their exalted leader left for Promise City. She had worked with them to regain control of the city’s faculties, so they were familiar.
Though she had no particularly strong feelings about either of them, seeing people she knew was calming.
“Nelsa, you received a letter, too?” Carmen asked, standing from her position on the other side of the large stone table.
Nelsa nodded, opening her mouth to respond, but a tear in space near the door interrupted her. It spread into a tall, wide arch that cast a purple glow into the room. Emerging from it was a broad-shouldered man with slicked-back gray hair. He was dressed in what Nelsa immediately identified as noble regalia, and he had a no-nonsense air about him.
At his side was a wiry man who, based on his position and dress, must be an aide of some sort to the taller man. More than that, she did not notice, for a monster came through next.
Slitted blue eyes encased in black plate armor passed through the purple fog, horns bursting through the helmet atop its head. It seemed to chill the air in the room with merely its presence, and Nelsa found her back covered with sweat despite the cold.
Two people followed the monster, the first floating a few inches off the ground. Her purple skin was cracked, as if made of clay, and the night sky was visible beneath. She wore a halo of stars which glittered and swirled lazily about her head. Her eyes shone like the sun, and she seemed positively bored.
Next to her was…the Gloamview guild master, for some reason.
The gate closed behind them, and Nelsa exhaled a breath she had not realized she was holding.
“Greetings, and thank you for agreeing to meet with me. My name is Bernard Buchanan, and I was hoping to discuss the future of Gloamview with you all,” the broad man said amicably.
“Baron!” Elijah shouted, standing and reaching for the dagger on his belt.
“Please, there is no need for hostility. I am merely here to talk. And please, it’s Bernard. For reasons that will hopefully become clear soon, I would prefer you not address me by my old title,” Bernard explained, his hands raised placatingly.
“Mister-um, Bernard? Who are these folks?” Nelsa asked tentatively, indicating behind him.
“I am Nephthys, the guild master of Nemesis. This is Hannibal, he is Nemesis’ military leader. We, Nemesis, are here to mediate this discussion. I am sure you recognize Grantwell, who is here on behalf of the adventurer guild as a witness,” the floating woman introduced.
“Why don’t we all sit down first?” Bernard suggested, approaching the table.
They arranged themselves around a rectangular table, somehow ending up with Bernard at the head, and Nelsa directly across from him. She resisted the urge to sink down in her seat as she contemplated how she had ended up at the other head. Now it seemed like they were equals! She had never met the baron, but nobles were extremely picky about those kinds of things!
“Right, well, as I said before, thank you for joining us today,” Bernard started, clasping his hands together on the table before him. “My intention is to be up-front and honest, so I am just going to get right down to business: I intend to claim and unify Radaar. First, Gloamview, then, Promise City.”
“Ha,” Elijah scoffed, “And you, what, expect us to just…roll over and hand Gloamview over?”
“Pretty brave to show up here in person to declare war. Confident you can make it out alive?” Carmen asked, her arms crossed before her.
Nelsa squirmed in her seat, the tension in the air thick. She was just an administrator! She was not used to these sorts of high-stakes situations! Both Carmen and Elijah seemed poised to attack at a moment’s notice! What would she do if a fight broke out?!
“My intention is not to go to war with you. I am told that your reasons for rebellion, your grievances, were legitimate and understandable. However, the fact remains that this land is now divided, leaderless, and vulnerable. We must unite it, lest all of it fall,” Bernard declared ominously.
A silence stretched around the table, all digesting his words. However, it took only a moment for Elijah’s frown to return.
“So, what? You want us to just crawl back under your banner? Under Sardvend’s banner? Not a chance. We’re not rolling over. When Jace gets back—” he growled.
“Jace is dead,” Nephthys, sitting cross-legged in the air, hovering over her seat, announced.
Both Elijah and Carmen stared at her, aghast. Neither spoke for a few moments before shouting in unison.
“You’re a lying—”
“How could you possibly—”
Space was rent apart, a gate much less aesthetically pleasing appearing in the center of the table, and a horrid stench immediately assaulted the room. A figure emerged from the gate, floating through and hovering over the table.
It was a corpse.
Nelsa retched and covered her mouth and nose, bending over to stare at the ground. Things in Gloamview had settled, but prices for common goods had not. Food was still not cheap, and she did not want to lose her breakfast.
“Jace? How…” Elijah muttered, recognizing the corpse, somehow unfazed by the odor.
“I do not know who killed him, but he died days ago in Promise City. Your movement is leaderless.
“The rebellion in Promise City was much less successful than here, and it is potentially only weeks, maybe days, away from being claimed by one of the remaining nobles, or perhaps an ambitious merchant.
“You are the body of the snake, writhing in the dirt, unaware that its head has been severed,” Nephthys declared, floating the corpse back through the gate, which promptly closed.
Nelsa uncovered her face, glad that Nephthys seemed to have cleared the air somehow, which now seemed crisp, from the cleanest spring day she had ever smelled.
A weighty blanket of silence covered the table, each person likely lost in their own thoughts, or coming to terms with their comrade’s death, perhaps. Bernard allowed the silence to linger for several minutes before he spoke once again.
“I am sorry you had to find out this way. I hope you take as much time to mourn as required. However, allow me to assuage some of your fears: earlier, I asked that you not address me as a baron of Sardvend, yes? This is because what I aim to do is not unify Radaar under Sardvend’s banner, but one of our own making,” he said firmly, his arms crossed.
“How does that improve our situation?” Carmen asked, her voice dampened, as if her energy had been drained away. “We can’t trade one tyrant for another. It can’t all have been for nothing.”
Elijah did not speak. He stared at the table before him, eyes distant, arms crossed.
“It shan’t be. This will be a nation not ruled by nobles and castes. It will be one for the people who make it. We will have representation for citizens, and proper elections for those representatives. The citizens of Radaar will, themselves, decide who governs them and how,” Bernard explained.
“That…is quite a radical step, Bernard,” Nelsa said, drumming her fingers on the table unconsciously, her mind already working the colossal administrative task he was proposing. “You are speaking of overhauling the entire nation from the ground up.”
“I am,” he affirmed with a nod. “However, wouldn’t you say that radical steps have already been taken? The former leadership is gone. If we’ve already waded deep into this river, we might as well keep going to the other side.”
Nelsa glanced at Grantwell, who had simply sat and observed thus far.
“The guild is just a witness. We do not involve ourselves in local governance,” he said with a shrug.
“You’re talking about rebelling against Sardvend,” Elijah muttered.
“You already did that. I am merely suggesting we formalize it and ally,” Bernard responded.
The two stared at each other, each seemingly trying to discern something of the other.
“Can you back those words up? Can you resist a full invasion from Sardvend? Because that’s what you’ll get. Sardvend will not relinquish territory lightly,” Elijah finally asked.
“Yes,” Hannibal confirmed, his voice like a landslide. “We can.”
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