He looked at her with a flash of blue fire in his eyes, this time continuing to spin the dial back and forth with pure muscle memory. Click. Click. Click. Click.

“Executing them for treason would be both political and actual suicide, I’d be throwing open the gates to Pateirian invasion in earnest, and they would be far worse than locust-men. Mu and Zemin have to die, but they have to die at the hands of the people."

The third dial clicked into position, and he just kept talking, clearly having waited to unravel his plan to her.

“If the Old Law is invoked, Pateiria will have no legal ground to stand on, as both their representatives had to have accepted our constitution when they were sworn in, including the possibility of being lynched in the street if the people so wished."

He began on the fourth, and soon finished it, too. Finally the key completed a full rotation and the vault door swung open silently, revealing a reinforced chamber containing a great number of crates, boxes, and shrouded objects.

“If Pateiria still tries to act, the Grekurian Statehood will jump at the opportunity to fuck them six ways to sunday for it, and the Pateirians know that,” continued the governor, briskly striding over to a second, smaller vault in the corner at the very back, rearranging his key, inserting it into a keyhole, and inputting another four-number combination on a dial before he turned the key to open the vault. Within were bulging sacks of money of various sizes alongside stacks of papers. He hefted one out - a huge one, easily one and a half times the size of his head - and brought it to a table near the vault door. It rang like a great number of infinitesimally tiny anvils when he set it down.

Breathing heavily, he pulled open the string and gestured to the pile of greyish coins, their simplistic designs contrasted by extremely elaborate proof marks that glittered iridescently under the lightgem illumination.

She looked at him, and he just nodded, wordlessly prompting her to take out her Tablet, set it to Put Into Storage, set it down on the table, and heft up the sack to pour its contents into the vortex.

Crovacus finally caught his breath when she was halfway through pouring all two-hundred sovereigns, continuing on his earlier tangent, “Pateiria making a move against Willowdale in response to consequences they were made well aware of and agreed to would just strengthen the Grekurian position inside the wall, which I would then be able to leverage to bring full legal occupation over the city, while in reality just bringing in more agents loyal to me. In short, if I can get Luo and Zheng to act out in an obvious manner and then thwart it in a similarly obvious manner, it’s checkmate.”

Moments later, Zelsys had emptied the entire sack into the vortex save for a single sovereign, which she took to flipping between the fingers of her left hand in an effort to make absolutely certain she hadn’t lost basic manual dexterity. Estoras led her back to his office, meticulously re-sealing the vault door and the hidden wall-door behind them.

“You want to involve me in your plan to corner Luo and Zheng then, that’s why you told me all that, correct?” Zel questioned. He nodded.

“I am certain that they will act in the coming days, most likely right before or right after the arrival of a certain trade caravan. I’ve had the town hall put on a skeleton crew until such a time comes - easy to do when most of the employees already asked for time off in preparation for the caravan’s arrival. Just have to wait and stay on-guard now,” he expounded, going over to his desk and browsing some papers.

“There’s one more… Ah, there it is. The Blue Moon Event, as Strolvath called it in his report. We’ve dispatched a recon agent to surveil the battlefield for the foreseeable future and report back with any notable occurrences.”

“I’d love to meet whoever can just sit in the middle of the Living Storm without getting fried,” she smugged.

Sinking into his chair and stubbing out his cigar, the governor replied, “Who do you think built the shelters and the ward circles that you used? Those kinds of people aren’t precisely common these days, but where there’s a demand, there’s a-”

“Something’s wrong. I smell locust,” she interrupted.

Crovacus shifted in his seat, bulging musculature flexing under his suit. She remembered that he was extraordinarily well-built for a man of his position, but not this well-built. Perhaps the use of Fivefold Philter had pushed him a little closer to his physical peak than he had been when they first met.

An uneasy gut feeling began to build, the ambient sounds of the building just ever so slightly off. It was the subtle vibrations of the floor, as well as new noises that were so quiet that she had to use Fog-breathing just to hear them, much to Crovacus’s visible confusion and concern. The barely-audible distant sound of scraping stone, a rusty hinge screaming as it opened.

Two-dozen stomping feet echoed through the town hall, soon followed by gunfire and yelling - both in Ikesian and Pateirian. Zel couldn’t help but get excited when the Mercenary burst into the office, slamming the door behind himself.

The three of them exchanged looks, and without a word spoken an agreement was formed. Estoras reached into one of his drawers and pulled out two things - the first was a cigar, whose tip he bit off and spat into the bin, revealing within a pattern of silver, red, and green. He flicked his thumb against the inside of his fist, causing a small blue flame to flicker above the digit, with which he lit the cigar before he put it in his mouth and extinguished the flame by closing his fist. The second was a beautiful snub-nose revolver.