Author's Note:

Major updates as of 17/5/16. Hope people enjoy the additional content!

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Percival led them with confidence to the city gate. He had requested while they were walking away from camp, that if the guard asked them their business to let him do the talking. He deliberately left out that they would be targeted by the customs guards because Kegar was a dwarf, he had already told Kegar that everyone in Capita hated any non-human, there was no use beating a dead hortle. When they got to the city walls, the point however was moot. There were no guards at the gate. Peasants with their whole lives bundled onto carts and mules filed into the city. Few made eye contact. They were simply struggling to get into the packed city. Perhaps, if there had been guards to direct the mass it might have gone more smoothly.

As it was, it was nearing midday by the time they were finally through the gate. Percival pointed out the "quest board" to Katrina. "Two harvests ago, that board was nearly empty. Not because quests weren't going up either. Things just were getting done."

"Why aren't they getting done now? Have the people lost their will to work?" She looked around at the mob, they didn't look lazy, they looked terrified.

Percival shook his head, "No. Those that would be doing the work are dead or otherwise occupied."

Katrina nodded. The streets were choked with people. Wide, frightened eyes dominated the hordes. The press of people was stifling.

"Come!" Percival shouted, grabbing Lizzy's arm, "This way."

As they forced their way through the streets people turned stopped when they saw Kegar walking with them. While people outside the gates had been too fearful to bother Kegar, those inside felt just safe enough to vent their anger. Dwarves were still hated all around the Northern Kingdom for their role in the Dwarf Wars. The humans from the south-east particularly hated the dwarves, since it was their towns that had been sacked by the Lizards all those years ago. What Kegar and the group were unaware of was that all the people who were fleeing to Capita were from these southern towns, once again fleeing because their lands were under attack.

People began jeering, spitting, and flinging filth. Since they were throwing things at a dwarf who stood barely four feet

tall, most of it missed. Unfortunately, that only served to anger those that had missed their throws and antagonize those that had been hit.

Percival breathed a sigh of relief when he ran straight into a man whose blue and red surcoat marked him as a member of the city guard. "Sir, I've been ordered-"

"What's this?" The guard said, looking past Percival at Kegar, "A dwarf in Capita?" The guard pushed past Percival to Kegar. His fist came down on Kegar, giving him a solid blow across the face, before Kegar had even realized there was a guard in front of them. "It's because of your kind that we're in this mess!" The guard snapped his fingers, "You and you, hold him."

Percival tried again to stop the guard only to be swatted away. "Sir!"

Kegar swore, pulling away from the guards. "I'm on my way to the king!"

"Not ours you're not!" The crowd hissed and roiled.

Lizzy clutched her lute to her chest. She had never seen a mob like this. None of them had. The fear rose up in her like a tempest, wild and untamable. She felt a jolt, looking down, Katrina's hand was on her arm. A faint blue glow around it. She was saying something but Lizzy couldn't quite make it out.

"Play?" Lizzy said, dazed.

"Play!" Katrina shouted a fifth time.

In Pode there had been a few times at the inn when people had gotten out of control, trying to start a bar fight or the like. Usually right after eating Stroz's food for the first time. When such times occurred, Lizzy would play a special song that cut through the din and clamor and calmed the people involved. This was the song she played.

The song did cut through the screams around them, but only just around them. As it filtered through to the crowd the sounds were absorbed. There was too much noise and too many people for the music to be heard clearly and it needed to be heard clearly because the crowd's anger was too strong, their frustration too great, it soured the music.

Katrina thumped her hand on Lizzy's shoulder. It was hard to move it up there with the press of people pushing against them. Even though those closest to them weren't raging, they also weren't resisting the pushes of those behind them. Which meant that Katrina, Lizzy, Kegar and Percival were being crushed. A brighter blue glow surrounded Katrina's hand on Lizzy's shoulder. Lizzy's music rose again, and this time, thunder rolled under the cords, crashing as percussion and elevating the music.

A calming drizzle began to fall on the crowd. One by one, their anger was soothed. They realized that they needed to find a inn with room, or to convince someone to let them stay. They had obligations, the most pressing, to get out of the rain. It took the better part of an hour, but most of the crowd moved on to other places in the city.

The guard and his two friends seemed stuck fast. Their anger, for whatever reason, was the hardest to disperse. Finally, the rage fell from the guards'. The one holding Kegar finally let go, but they did not offer an apology for their actions.

Percival had to shout over a clap of thunder, "Can you please take us to the king? We're the levee from Pode. He requested our presence."

The guard turned away from Kegar, disgust still spread across his face, and looked squarely at Percival, "Why didn't you say so? This way." He started walking toward the center of the city.

The guard didn't bother to see if they were following. In fact, he gave the distinct impression that he would be happier if he reached his destination and found that they had gotten lost on the way. He walked quickly and while he didn't try to lose them, exactly, he cut around corners without giving any indication that he had been thinking about turning.

It was maddeningly frustrating. Especially for Kegar who had much shorter legs than the rest of them. Kegar huffed as he trotted behind his long legged, human compatriots. He could, and did, pretend that the storm had been natural. His vision had been so choked by humans that he hadn't seen Katrina put her glowing hand on Lizzy's shoulder. So he denied to himself that he needed her help to get an audience with the king. But he couldn't deny the necessity of Percival and Lizzy now. It infuriated him. I shouldn't need their help! That guard should have taken me seriously from the start!

Of course, in a perfect world, the guard shouldn't have been a bigot. If the world was perfect then Kegar wouldn't have been conscripted, the city wouldn't be choked with refugees, the dwarves wouldn't have betrayed their allies, there never would have been a Dwarf War, and that guard's friends wouldn't all be dead from fighting a losing battle against the orcs and the swamp lizards. The world wasn't perfect and so the humans of the Northern Kingdom hated all the races, but dwarves in particular.

Kegar wasn't interested in the political climate of the Northern Kingdom. He wasn't interested in humanity at all, with the exception of Lizzy, of course. Unfortunately, because of the callous way he considered people, or didn't consider them, Kegar hadn't listened to Percival's comments about Capita at all. He had paid just enough attention to grunt at what he thought were the right times. So he honestly couldn't begin to fathom why the people disliked him so much.

He was so out of touch, he wouldn't know to tell them that his family wasn't part of the dwarves that had betrayed the Northern Kingdom. He didn't know to tell the guard that his family were forest dwarves who lived near Pode. Not that the guard would have believed him, as filled with hate and anger as he was. Or, if he had, he would have spat on him for being from Pode, which was well known to be a blight on the kingdom.

The castle sat on a hill in the center of Capita. The nearest buildings, all grand mansions, were at least three spear lengths away from the moat. The moat was too wide for even a horse to jump, but the draw bridge was down and after the guard had a brief discussion with the guards stationed there, they were able to cross.

As they walked under the wall, Percival looked up and saw the murder holes. If Capita was ever invaded, the defenders could pour molten lead on the heads of the invaders. Percival shivered. It would be a nasty way to go.

The way to the king was choked with supplicants, mostly ratty looking people. They looked like displaced refugees. Many of them clutched small sacks, stuffed with their worldly treasures. A bored, fat official sat behind a desk at the end of the hall. A small stack of papers went untouched on his desk. Without looking up from the gold pendant he was fondling, he spoke to the peasant standing in front of him with a nasally voice that trailed after them as the guard led them past. "You can't see the king. He is a busy man. He'll see you when he gets around to the peasantry."

The guard didn't pause as he passed the petitioners. They were farther beneath his notice than they were beneath the officials. He led them down stone hallways with great tapestries lining the walls. Kegar and Katrina were too much the country bumpkin to notice how threadbare the tapestries were or to notice where things were missing.

Percival and Lady Elizabeth could tell the difference though. They spotted the quality, how the drapery that remained had moth holes or had been patched. They passed multiple places where it was evident that statues or sculptures had been recently removed. The king is trying to raise money by selling ancestral artifacts. After all, if he is selling these… other things must be being sold as well.

A few twists and turns through the castle and he finally passed them off to a guard in the red and gold of the palace. This guard, who didn't bother to give his name, led them straight to King Tiranious. The audience chamber was easily large enough to hold everyone from Pode many times over, but as impressive as its size was, it lacked a sense of grandness; the glint and glamour that they had expected from the king of their country. The chamber was too large to be so empty of decoration.

The king was old and distracted. His face sagged as stress and dread pulled down his features. Fear oozed from his pores, filling the large chamber with the stink of unwashed bodies. The perfumes that both he and his chancellor had been doused with couldn't cover the sour panic that infiltrated the conscripts' noses. His chancellor sat at a desk by the throne. It was clearly new to the room. The desk was so filled with papers, they could only see the top of the chancellor's very tall hat.

The king's nervous eyes flicked over the group, his eyes resting on Lizzy, "You're the ones from Pode?"

They nodded.

He sighed, "Excellent. I need you to slay a dargon."