Silence arose around the table as Meld's revelation sunk in and everyone began to process it. The idea that the Elves had the potential to glass an entire kingdom with just a mere tap of a button would truly have been a frightening prospect to most everyone on the table.

But Li did not feel fear.

The table's attention noticeably shifted as they felt an intensity dawn upon the room.

A heavy, invisible weight, an aura that spread dread across the body, drawing out goosebumps and sending pricks all over the skin. It did not matter if they were a high vampire or lich, they felt the same aura just as strongly as the flesh and blood mortals.

"Papa, are you okay?" asked Tia from Li's lap. She tugged at his arm which rested at the table, spiked, black vines beginning to grow from the wood around it.

Li heard Tia's words and nodded, giving her a reassuring smile. The darkened vines receded, leaving the table occupied only by wreaths of healthy, welcoming green. The weight in the atmosphere faded, and it was as if everyone could begin to breathe again.

"Sorry, Tia, I was just remembering things. Unpleasant things," said Li. He gave a knowing look to everyone around the table. "Forgive me. I let my emotions bleed out, and now is not the time to let emotions rule over us."

"A surprise, to be sure," said Meld with a slow, wary nod. Her composure had cracked just a little, having been unprepared to deal with such a powerfully malevolent aura. "I had never yet seen you to be so…expressive."

"Ah, there is not much that can irk me. At the least, that is true when I am on my best days." Li tapped the wood of the table with a finger in absent-minded gesture, some of his mind still wandering.

Wandering to a world choked in thick, dark smog. Smog that had been born out of the belching guts of countless engines and factories that ran without mercy. Smog that had been cursed with deadliness from the usage of nuclear weaponry. Cities covered in biodomes. Uninhabitable wastelands.

And more than even that was an image.

A deeply unpleasant image. One he liked to keep buried. An image on his screen. //BEAST// - Online 730 days ago. The sounds of an argument.

He took in a breath. Exhaled. Memories flowed out. The current situation around him flowed in. Emotions that had flared up, telling him to react and destroy, dimmed as rationality honed by divinity focused his mind.

"I have made a decision," said Li. "The Republic must fall, and if it will take my full might to erase it, then so be it. I had once thought myself a non-intervening party, someone that only laid low to do what he loved, but I have already made exceptions.

One more will not make a difference."

Cicero's eyes widened, and his sharp ears twitched. His hands trembled as he drew them together, the quill dropping from his wrinkle weathered digits. "Will…will that mean the people will fall too?"

"Do not be ridiculous," said Li. "I will admit it. Sometimes, I can be cruel. I can take lives. Toy with those weaker than me. I have no illusions about what I have done, nor do I have regrets, even in the times when my actions were out of my control.

But what I will say is I am no mass-murderer. I do not inscribe the sins of a few upon an entire people and raze them for it. I do not persecute on grounds out of the control of others.

I judge, and, I would like to think, I judge fairly. So no, the loss of life, I will try to minimize. I have come to see a greater purpose now in you, Cicero. You seek to topple the Republic, do you not? We will do that together, for I know you lack the power to accomplish it on your own terms."

Li turned to Meld. "And you, hero, what do you think about this? You do not trust me fully, do you? Will you report this back to your superiors?"

"Well," said Meld as she gazed in Li's direction, her blank eyes staring at him somehow with a surprising intensity. "Considering you thought to lay out your intentions bare in front of me, I should say you trust me. Somewhat."

Her composure remained calm even as her next words flowed from her lips. "And I should assume my life would be forfeit now were I to show the slightest suspicion in releasing this information."

"Like I said, I judge, and I judge fairly," said Li. "You are here behind the duchess's back. You are not in your heroic uniform. Nor are you carrying your badge. And you have concealed your presence. It is difficult even for me to get a sense of where you are. Were you to slip away out of sight, there would be no other sense capable of tracking you.

You did not want to be seen by anyone, especially not the many troops affiliated with the duchess littering the streets."

"A fair appraisal, and quite right," said Meld. "I will state my intentions bluntly. I do not trust the duchess."

"And yet, you serve her," remarked Sindra coldly. "Served her while she let my people be enslaved and killed for decades."

"I believed her the best way to protect the land at large," said Meld. "One cannot deny all the good she has done. Even among the beastkin that remain here, their lives are largely fruitful and untouched. Need I remind you that the enslaved beastkin here hailed from the north, sold by elves?

Yet, I know there is far more to her. Something far colder, and I have always known this. The elimination of all dissenting faiths and doctrines, the enforcement of hero worship such that the common masses blindly adore us, and the manipulation of memories are all sins tacked under the shadow of her rule.

But that she is now willing to play with the lives of her people is what turns me against her."

Ven'thur chuckled. "Oh, such naivete. Of course, a woman heralding herself as all powerful, donning a crown forged from her father's crown before her - a crown steeped in the blood of five conquered states, no less - stoops to such levels.

Good and honest people do not rise to the top, for to reach it, one must always step over the bodies of those that have tried and failed before them. What now? Will you believe the popular vote she is planning to institute is also more than a sham? That she will truly allow another to rule in her place?"

"I have no illusions about the state of her rule," said Meld calmly. "But I will tell you now that I have no regrets, either. The people have never had their stomachs fuller and their lives more well secured than now. They will never have to suffer as I and many of the mutants of old had to."

"I am sure you will feel just the same way when all the 'wrong' books have been reduced to ashes and your people can no longer tell the difference between history and illusion. From knowledge and farce," said Ven'thur, and although he smiled, Li could tell this, the loss of knowledge, he took personally.

"I suggest you engage with a more civil tone," said Alexei to Ven'thur, and the lich quietened in respect of the higher vampire. "Snide jabs at allegiances held in good faith do not make for productive discourse. Good hero, I can understand your heart.

I like to think I share a heart of the same nature." He extended an inviting hand towards her. "So, please, tell us what your intentions are."

Meld nodded. "My investigation has led me to knowledge I have not shared with the duchess. Such as the fact that the conflict at the border is a fabrication, meant to keep the people of both the Republic and Soleil in a state of constant tension and distraction.

But distraction from what? I do not know. I cannot even hypothesize yet, for there is yet too little evidence. That, however, is a matter for another time, for the nature of the Elven weaponry makes them the highest priority."

She directed her words specifically to Li. "Cicero and I will track the location of the weaponry down and bring it to you. I cannot know for certain, but am I confident in assuming you have the means to dispose of the ballistas?"

"I do," said Li. "And yet, the demonic threat is not a joke either. I cannot sit here and wait for you two to find the location for the lives lost west will be far too high a price to pay. Hm."

Li grew silent beginning to think of a course of action.

"The Purgatorio. We could attempt to steal it," said Meld. "The demons will be of no issue with it."

Cicero shook his head. "A foolish idea. It is likely held with even more secrecy than the missiles, and attempting to uncover information about it would draw the Imperator's Suppressors upon us in a heartbeat."

"Both threads lead back to the Chronicler, however. Finding him, her, whatever it is, will solve both issues at once," said Meld. She continued on, explaining to everyone in the room. "The Chronicler is an advisor closest to the Imperator. A being shrouded in immense secrecy such that even I could not glimpse them, yet, I know that it has been instrumental in making the items of the Source more than inscrutable trinkets."

"I did wonder how it was that the Elves could manage to truly understand what it was they had drawn from the Source," said Alexei, no doubt recalling his own fumbling with the Source and how he struggled to make ends of what he was transporting to his world. "An entity, perhaps one from another realm, aiding them could surely alleviate such difficulties."

"That is my hypothesis, yet, not entirely founded for now," said Meld. "There is simply too little evidence to ground any line of thought upon." She sounded mildly frustrated, unused to working with so little.

"How long will it take for you to uncover the location of the missiles? Or, at the least, are you confident that you can know when and where they will be fired?" said Li.

"When the missiles will be fired is something we are certain to know," said Cicero. "All Senators will be informed if the Novus Silos become armed."

"However, their location will remain uncertain," said Meld. "I have only been able to infiltrate the shadows of a few senators, and none of whom the Imperator invests much trust in. Yet, this is all useless information, for when the ballistas are armed, it will be too late."

"Not too late," said Li. "I think I have an idea of what to do now."