Panic. Disbelief. Dread. Rage. Hate.

All these emotions swirled in his gut, bubbling up into his head as though bile, eating away at his sense of reason.

At first, it was the loss of contact - a missed daily check-in over the aether wave. Then, a second one, and a third one. What had happened? Surely the dungeon couldn’t have stamped them out, and it certainly hadn’t sunk - if it had, His Divinity would now walk the conquered streets of this demon’s den.

If something had indeed happened, even if only the Queen had died, what would happen? With the soul-binding contract broken, the Red Judge would come after him. He’d get gutted alive at best, or more likely, stuck with a control parasite and turned into a walking incubator.

How fucking dare they fail now? After all he’d suffered for?! Decades forced to live among these monstrosities, to abide by their degenerate customs, to be constantly reminded of their willingness to bite the hand which should rightfully rule them.

That accursed Grek dog, Estoras… If he wouldn’t die gracefully, then he would have to be disposed of. And his fool of a partner, how could one even consider using a mundane poison on someone like Estoras?! He would have that idiot commit ritualistic suicide when all this was over. The exhaustion tactic clearly hadn’t worked either, and there simply wasn’t enough time to root out whoever was providing Estoras with the means to reverse his degradation… Not to mention the fact that such an individual would doubtlessly be extremely well hidden and guarded, probably some hermit in the mountains or some such - the thought had occurred to him that perhaps the probable war-criminal that had rented one of the old apothecaries could be the target, but that was impossible. Commoners simply didn’t possess the faculties to learn anything beyond the most basic of basic alchemy, let alone Ike commoners.

If a riot were to break out, one of the snow-devils would be easily pinned. He might not even need to fake it, perhaps he could fool that Ikesio-chauvinist that always voted against anything that didn’t purely benefit this cursed city-state. What was his name again? Something idiotic like Movin Tendro. Even if that didn’t work, he’d managed to persuade a few of the pale walkers to give some worth to their lives by giving them for a greater cause. Perhaps he could use one of the snow-demon children that he had had groomed specifically to be infiltrators.

He… He would burn them. He would do as he was meant to, with the support of the hive or without it. There were plenty of loyal agents hidden in the snow-demons’ midst, and the town hall’s escape tunnels had gone unused and uninspected since its reconstruction. It would take minimal planning to gather a force a hundred strong and strike before any defense could be mustered. After that, it would be a matter of escaping in the chaos - painting himself as the victim wouldn’t work, and he knew well that this place was full of hidden dangers. Any unrest would inevitably become dominated by the snow-demons and then wind down as they realized there wasn’t a good reason to be rioting. By then, he would be gone - at least he intended to be.

For more than half his life had he loyally served the Empire, slipping into barbarian societies and undermining them from within. A gracious foreigner from a more enlightened land, here to dispel silly old ideals like ethnic homogeneity or cultural identity. By now he couldn’t remember whether this was his sixth, seventh, or eighth face, he couldn’t even remember how many families he had been planted into and left behind when the mission was complete and the occupation force took hold of the target territory.

Luo Mu would send this city into a downward spiral, as he had done countless times before to countless other cities. He would spin success from failure and win the Emperor’s grace whether His Divinity was there to witness it or not.

In Zel’s absence, Zefaris thought to perhaps go out shopping. Zel had left behind a good bit of cash just in case, and they simply didn’t have much left in the pantry, or in the cold-box.

As her mind dwelt on what she might want to buy if she did choose to go out for a bit, it wandered to clothes. With this newfound bigger budget, what could she buy? What would she like to wear? Perhaps just as importantly, what would Zel like to see her wear? Zel certainly seemed to like the sundress, especially when the sun shone at such an angle as to project her silhouette through it. It had been an impulse purchase, as was the wide straw hat, but Zef regretted neither, even if the owner of that store seemed to disdain any clothing not sewn by his hand.

Wait… Hadn’t Zel put in an order with that man before they had departed for the dungeon? The old man had said to give him a few days, so it should be finished by now…

That was enough justification for Zefaris, and off she went, strapping on her holster under the dress and grabbing the small, albeit bulging pouch of coins that zel had left her.

And so, enjoying the late-afternoon warm breeze and the cloud-tempered rays of the summer sun, she went for a walk. Not just to go pick up Zel’s order from the tailor, or to buy some groceries, but to try and walk off the jelly-like feeling that even now, hours later, persisted in her legs.

Making her way down the promenade, looking around, taking in her surroundings, something seemed a little off. There were a few faces that felt like they didn’t quite belong, people dressed in garb that kind-of fit in and kind-of didn’t. Had there always been a Kargarian food cart here? It didn’t matter, Zef bought a few skewers of what they were selling - it was chewy, cold, sweet, flavored with different spices, and it tasted of rice. Doubtlessly some traditional, painstaking to produce sweet, considering the price of one gelt for a skewer of four plum-sized balls.

No, the presence of Kargarians wasn’t what ticked her off...