"But... you must have something you think we can do," Nalt tried to seek reassurance from Grenna.

"Nalt," she sighed, "angels are different than some Gadisian customs inspector."

"That's putting it charitably," Mastohlt chimed in. "Since we're relying on using the Auras to trigger the explosion, there is a risk Aberos might know or sense what we are doing."

Nalt plopped down at the foot of his bed and mournfully considered that he had expended so much effort for a scheme that was coming to nothing.

"So is it all off, then?" Nalt asked.

Grenna slowly rose to her feet and paced around the room, the heavy heels of her boots clonking on the wooden floor. Mastohlt and Nalt remained silent while she considered her next steps.

"No. I think we do it anyway and try to figure out how to keep Aberos away," she declared. Both Mastohlt and Nalt recoiled in shock at her bold determination. "Oh, don't look so shocked. This is simple. Angels can't help but be drawn to big happenings. I think it's simple. We cause something to happen elsewhere in the city or maybe even outside it. A big fire seems like as good a play as any. Caused by a mage would be best. I hear that any use of the Auras causes angels to sniff it out. That'll draw his attention, but probably not interrupt the gathering of members of parliament. Probably."

Mastohlt furrowed his brow and scratched his head. Nalt was stunned at how quickly Grenna had pivoted to a new plan, even if it seemed to rely on some simplistic assumptions about what would be possible.

"If I may be so bold, I don't know if there would be another reliable mage who could create such a distraction for you. I..." Mastohlt started preening, ready to brag about his skills, but Grenna moved her hand like a knife through the air.

"There are plenty who want to make a name for themselves. Plenty," she growled. "Everyone and their brother has tried fucking around with the Auras since Nethron did whatever it was he did and I'm sure we can find someone for this distraction. We have enough money. It doesn't need to be much. Just enough of a scene. Some empty building or even a stretch of some of those dried out trees up the river that we saw the other day."

"I say, Nalt," Mastohlt said through a nauseating smirk, "you don't happen to know how to wield the Auras, do you? This really sounds like a job for you. Simple, out of the way, and so on."

Nalt shook his head and rolled his eyes.

"Enough of that," Grenna hissed. "This is our plan until I come up with something better."

"Are you open to suggestions?" Mastohlt inquired, his voice turning squeaky and grating, so much so that it must have been by design.

"No!" Grenna shot back. "I've told you everything you need to know. Same goes for you, Nalt, but at least you have the good sense not to ask about it. Thank you, Nalt, for remembering your place."

It was a strange compliment, but one he decided to bask in given that Grenna had so clearly irked Mastohlt.

"Alright, tomorrow I'll make the arrangements for this diversion. I know some people I can talk to," Grenna resumed, her voice dropping to a mumble. "Wella and Bafan are separately notifying authorities about the poisoned fish in the storehouse and that will be that for our competitor at that point. Once that's done I think we're going to hear a lot of rumors all around the city about this damn event and whether it's even safe to hold it."

"My understanding is that Chancellor Kivren absolutely needs to put on a good show to win over shaky votes in parliament to continue the war. Then again, my understanding of this isn't perfect," Mastohlt said with a self-absorbed lilt. "It'll be an interesting two days between now and when it starts."

"And I need everyone to not fuck it up," Grenna said in a hiss bordering on a laugh. "Everything that I've done here has been very very hard to pull off on such short notice. Without doubt the worst job we've had in a decade and that's saying something. Just everyone do what I tell you to do and it'll be fine. We'll get paid and return safe to Kalion and wait for our next mission, alright?"

Nalt and Mastohlt nodded in agreement. Grenna made for the door and bowed mockingly at both of them, sweeping her right arm through the air as if she were greeting nobility.

"And with that, gentlemen, I bid you a good night," she declared in an affected stodgy voice before closing the door behind her.

Mastohlt flopped on his own bed and kicked off his lacquered boots.

"For doing something as important as we're doing, doesn't this all feel a bit slapdash to you, Nalt?" the mage queried, twirling a finger in the air as he did.

Nalt grunted and blew out the two candles nearest the window and plunged under his bed's covers. He couldn't even be bothered to change into night clothes.

"Just do what she says and it'll turn out right. It always does."

The next day, that faith was rewarded by the early morning commotion in the city as Wella and Bafan's efforts to plant information about the poisoned fish in the warehouse triggered a prompt raid. Indeed, by noon, almost all of Gadisia was abuzz about the incident. Nalt stuck around the Sea Gust Inn's tavern for lunch to listen in on the gossip. He smirked as he thought of his role in creating the day's biggest news. He waited anxiously to hear if Chancellor Kivren would postpone or otherwise alter the planned gathering, but instead the Chancellor actually gave a short and defiant speech near the warehouse later in the day.

Kivren was a massive man, tall, broad-shouldered, and with a great big gut that he swayed toward one direction and then another as he spoke. His wild silvery hair moved with a mind of its own in the heavy wind coming off the sea. Nalt stood as far back as he could while still being able to hear the Chancellor, bracketed by guards, address the tightly-packed throngs.

"Now ya see here, there're those who mean to drive us off from supportin' Emperor Rohmhelt and the High Angel," he stated with a charming cadence. "Well, we're not gonna let that happen. I ain't scared of these people. Ya know, people've tried to kill me before and I'm still here!"

The crowd greeted his pronouncement with hoots and claps that caused Nalt to play along to avoid seeming out of place.

"Now," Kivren started again, slapping his gut, "what I eat is gonna kill me one day, but it won't be from any damn poison." Laughs and claps followed his joke. Nalt laughed a bit, too. He hadn't previously seen a Gadisian politician work a crowd, but he could see that there was a skill to it. Kivren smirked during a pause and waited for the crowd to quiet down. "Alright, ya filthy bastards. Get back to work. No sense standin' around for me to talk more. Have a good day and may the High Angel bless ya."

Nalt departed with the others rather than lingering around the site any longer. He kept thinking about how much he enjoyed Chancellor Kivren's affable persona. The Chancellor was a far different man than he had pictured in his head. The fact that what Nalt was now party to would kill that man, if successful, caused Nalt's stomach to clench. He quickly suppressed those doubts and instead returned to thinking about the stated plan. Grenna's commands were all he needed.

Those commands soon led him to help move the crates while Ovigon and his men placed a mix of powders in under the false bottoms in those containers. According to Ovigon and Wella, those powders were condensed to the point where even a single spark hitting the powder would level a large house. The reception chamber of the Gadisian Parliament was a fair amount larger and they would be placing the supposedly empty crates in a chamber underneath it. Nalt had his doubts as to whether such a small array of explosives could do the job, but his friend Wella assured him it would be enough.

"You've never seen it before, but I promise it'll do the job," Wella said with a smirk and a wink.

The night before the grand event, Grenna summoned Nalt to the roof of the inn she had rented on neighboring Imvren Island, named for one of the most famous chancellors in Gadisian history. Nalt couldn't place that chancellor in his limited knowledge of history, but that much he knew as a fact. It was something he’d heard before at least.

Grenna paced back and forth, mumbling to herself while apparently practicing some matters of protocol such as the Gadisian bows for different levels of dignitaries. She scarcely acknowledged him when he stepped nearer to her.

"You know something, Nalt? I'll admit something to you I won't to the others," she said as she continued to pace. "I'm a bit scared."

The fact that she was about confide in him something important caused him to pause and nervously look around at the building surrounding them on that dimly-lit night. The Gadisian capital was strangely quiet for the eve of such an important political event, but Nalt guessed that was only a mere fluke. Despite the high tensions, no general controls on free transit in and out of the city hard been forwarded by the Gadisian government.

"What's something you could possibly be afraid of?" he said with a slavishly devoted smile.

"This job," she replied immediately. "It's so far above anything we've done before. We've been so busy putting all of the pieces into place that I haven't had time to think about what this really all means. If we do this right, it could actually change the world."

"That's exciting, isn't it?" Nalt laughed.

"Fucking scary is what it is," she shook her head. She then pointed northward across countless buildings with their candlelit windows in the general direction of the Gadisian parliament building. "Actually overthrowing a government, one that's key to the biggest war that's ever been fought in the world... I never actually wanted to do anything that mattered. It's why I chose this life. Hopefully we'll have a chance to step away from all of this once we're done. I worry that we won't."

That confused him as he had speculated with the others, especially Wella and Bafan, that the new riches from this contract would flow into bigger and bigger jobs and ever more money. That Grenna herself was saying the opposite surprised him. She sometimes made noises that way, but he always assumed she wasn't serious.

"You mean, hang it up? Go away?"

She glanced at him with a sigh.

"No one becomes a mercenary to do it forever, Nalt. You either get rich and make it out safely or you die," she muttered, tossing a small rock toward the roof of the neighboring building. It clanged against the orange tile and then rolled down onto the street. "This thing is too big to give us that chance, though. At least I fear it is. And this war will go on a very long time. I don't care what those who think it's ending quickly think. No one fucking knows. I can feel it, though. This is going to go on and on."

"If you want to call it off, how would we..." he started asking in a confused and squeaky voice.

"Nah. We're in too deep," she laughed and shook her head before biting her lip. "Don't worry your head too much about what I said here. I just needed to air some things out. Get some sleep. I'll need you to be sharp tomorrow."

He nodded awkwardly and then retired back to his inn where he found Mastohlt already fast asleep, his hand clutching a book entitled "Fish of the Mid-Keldras River." He's even more boring than he lets on, Nalt mused to himself. If I was any good at reading, I might do the same thing.

As it was, he just put his head down on his pillow and watched out the window as a light drizzle, shimmering with the pale moonlight, blew in from the ocean. Its gentle pitter pattering on the glass soothed him as he drifted off. When he awoke, it would be the big day.