The coastal village of Brightmouth was calm and unsoiled by war. Lucius' grand design hadn't affected many of the outer ridges and towns of his realm. Leaving them largely as they were before the war even began.

Most countries were similar. No matter how large the war was, small towns that weren't directly in the path of battles tended to avoid the worst effects of war.

Lome didn't have that kind of luxury. Their King drafted young and old from every inch of his domain, throwing them like eggs at a rock.

Argon, no matter how aggressive, had never had a draft since its founding. For all of his faults, Lucius had never been a tyrant to his own people.

Brightmouth, like many of the small villages and towns outside of the battlefield, was calm. It was known for its calm and warm waters and even calmer people.

Lazy fishermen had taken to the waters by the pier as they lazed the day away. The serene waters were always full of fish, and anyone could catch enough for their families if they were patient enough.

A fisherman began to haul in his fishing line, cutting his hand as he pulled too hard on the line. "Damn it! I shoudn'ta drank'n so much wit da boysa last night!" His had caught on something. Something big.

"Oi! Itsa big'n!" He called for help from some of the nearby sailors waving at them.

They ran to his side and grabbed the line pulling with as much strength as they could muster. "Woah! Itsa big'n fo sures!" They pulled until their thick arms swelled with swollen blood vessels and their faces tightened from pain. "C'mon! One mo pusha! Damna Roy, you'sa caughts da biggest fisk I ever did see!"

With a guttural roar, the sailors pulled until something surfaced from the water. A fish-like face came out of the water, followed by a grayish-blue human body.

Before the men could process what they were seeing: a spear flashed out of the water like a flash of lightning. Blood splattered on the fisherman's face as he looked to his right.

One of the sailors who had run over to help him had a hole where his neck used to be. "What'n da?" Another spear shot out of the water a second later, and the fisherman took his place in the afterlife, falling to the side of the sailors.

"Attack! Da Fish'n peoples are heres!" A sailor screamed before he to was stabbed. Mermen and mermaids leaped out of the water with their fish tails separating in two in midair. Hundreds of powerful warriors from the bottom of the sea began to slaughter everyone they saw. It would take less than an hour for Brightmouth to disappear forever.

A similar scene was taking place all over the coasts of Argon.

The Blue Tower Master made her move.

*********

All was quiet in Lome's capital, Kelia.

There were no boisterous merchants on the streets selling goods.

Nor were there people filling taverns and theatres socializing and relaxing.

Kelia was dead.

A sharp wind traveled through the city with a hiss as doors and windows shuddered with sound.

King Nero Oligar sat on his thrown unperturbed. He had barely reacted when the Blue Tower Master left, and now as Lome sat on the precipice of destruction, he seemed just as unaware.

An advisor walked into Oligar's throne room at a snail's pace.

The advisor was gaunt and pale as though he hadn't properly slept in weeks.

It was quite the jaunting juxtaposition.

A starving exhausted servant and his fat and plump king sitting on his throne while stuffing his face with pastries.

"My King. I come bearing important news." Even the advisor's voice was tired as he spoke.

Nero looked annoyed by having his snack time interrupted. He raised an eyebrow while lowering his pastry and said, "What news?"

The advisor went straight to the point, "Argon is advancing past the battle line as we speak. They'll probably reach the capital by the end of the week."

There was finally a reaction from the piggish king.

He popped upright, spitting out cream and pastry dough as he looked at his advisor, "What? How? When did this happen!"

Stifling a sigh, the advisor continued, "Today. The battle line was breached this morning, and we got word from a fleeing messenger. Argon is coming, king Nero." At this point, he no longer feared the king or what he could do to him. He felt like he was suffocating, but the king only cared about his own safety.

"Send another draft, immediately! We need to shore up the line and prevent them from approaching!"

A blank stare filled the advisor's face.

"What the hell are you doing? Are you deaf? Hurry! We must have another draft before it's too late!" Nero's bulging belly rested past his knees as he tried to stand up but failed.

"My King."

"What is it? Do you have something to add?"

"We have no one else to draft. We've drafted the men, the women, the elderly, and most recently; you've drafted the children. Lome is gone, king Nero. There is no one left to defend it. We've told you this would happen many times."

"No, no! We have to have some more people we can throw at it!"

"We do, my King. There is one group left that we have yet to send to their deaths."

"Really! Why didn't you say so earlier? Hurry! Draft them we must stop Argon from reaching the capital at any cost!"

"The Royal Army and the Royal Guard have not been deployed yet. They are the last force outside of the nobles to move. The Nobles are already defending their own lands and have outright refused to do anymore, but we can use the Royal Army." The advisor didn't have the energy to smirk. He could only look at the king with a look of exasperation.

Nero froze in place.

He had never imagined using his own defenses and forces outside of defending himself.

Not every King was like King Aviary of Elion, who regularly sent their trusted guards to the battlefield or Emperor Lucius of Argon who went to the battlefield himself.

King Nero thought of himself as an important symbol and leader for Lome. If he died, how could Lome possibly survive? The irony in those thoughts would never cross his mind. Even if there wasn't a single citizen left for him to rule he'd never see the irony.

"Se-send."

"Yes, my King?" The advisor might have gloated at his idiotic king's failure, but the sickness he felt at the loss of life he had contributed to had quelled that thought. The only thing preventing the advisor from taking his own life was his family that still lived in the capital.

"Draft the men, women, children, and elderly under the nobles! Make it a Royal decree! They are all still citizens of my kingdom! This is an emergency, so I should have the right to demand them to the action!"

"My king you aren't wrong. Normally we would have the authority to do just that, but it won't work."

"What? Any citizens of Lome must listen to a royal decree."

"With the current death tolls no noble would dare send their citizens to war. If they send their people to war they won't have farmers for their fields, soldiers to protect their lands, and workers for maintenance. Without workers, the nobles will starve to death, and they know this. You can still give your command my king, but it will most definitely cause a revolt. All of the nobles will revolt at the same time."

"Impossible! If anyone dares revolt, I will crush them under my heel!"

The advisor didn't ridicule the king, who sat comfortably on his throne. He just looked at him as though he were looking at a fool.

"Our army is destroyed, my king. Only your royal army and your guard remain. If you wish to go to war with your leaders, I will not stop you. I will follow as your wisdom demands." He bowed his head to the king. He half expected the king to start a civil war with his next sentence.

"Demand compliance from the nobles. Advisor, I trust you to do so without causing a civil war! But if you fail..." Now the king was starting a civil war while blaming him. It was worse than he imagined, and the king didn't even know his name. "Yes, my king. I will do so immediately."

The advisor left the palace and headed home. Lome was lost. The king would either get killed within weeks or he'd starve to death when it was time for the next harvest. The Royal Palace didn't have an infinite supply of food and wine, and Nero would have to face that cold hard truth soon. Everyone would.

It was time for him to leave Lome with his family.

Anything was better than having his family executed after he was blamed for starting a civil war.

He looked toward the palace from a distance. He looked at his hands, and for a second, it looked as though they were covered in blood.

He had done things that could never be forgiven, but... the advisor still thought of his family as stood in the empty dark street.

The cold gray castle looked dull and dead now in his eyes, "Goodbye."

***********

The Royal Ball would last a few more days, and Darien had already done what he came for. He hadn't mastered the flight spell yet so he used a Wings of Flame spell to travel quickly. The landscape of Elion blurred as he sped by the countryside in his small wagon.

He really needed to think of another name for it.

It only took him a few hours to reach the Red Tower as he started to slow down. He fell to an abrupt stop in front of the two guards in front of the Red Tower, startling them into defensive positions. His flaming wings flapped hard as he lowered his chair to the ground.

"Relax. I'm going up."

"Lord?" Both guards looked at Darien, shocked. His hair was completely white, and his muscle mass had shrunk considerably since they last saw him, but his intense eyes and the pressure that emanated from him were unmistakable.

"Lord!" They immediately dropped to their knees.

Wind gathered underneath his chair as he floated above the ground. "I'm going up to speak to Joseph."

"Yes!" Both guards bowed as he passed. It only took a few minutes to gingerly float through the tower's winding stairs until he reached a nostalgic door.

"Joseph, I'm coming in." Darien could hear a chair move and some papers ruffling as he got close to the door.

The door opened revealing an awestruck Joseph, "Da-Darien? My friend! What brings you... Never mind. Please, come in. Come in."

Darien rolled his way forward slowly until he stopped in front of Joseph's desk.

"Please tell me what you wish to talk about. I'd love to catch up. If I weren't so busy, I'd have visited you more often, but please understand how critically busy I've been." The look emanating from Joseph's face was of thrilled expectation. He most definitely was expecting Darien to come back and take some of his ridiculous workload off his back.

That unspoken plea coming from his expression was clear.

"Don't worry about it, Jo. Elaine told me you visited multiple times when I was in a coma. Tears and waterworks threatening to unleash at any second."

"Haha! Darien, I was terrified you'd never wake again and leave me stranded with all of your work forever!"

Darien knew his friend well.

Joseph was ambitious. He had wanted the position of Tower Master for decades, but he took friendship and loyalty very seriously. He was strange in a sense.

An honest schemer. It was time for Darien to hatch his own scheme for once.

"Well, something like that."

"Oh? Ho-How is your magic?" Joseph looked Darien up and down in a similar manner as James a day prior.

"Hah! James asked the same thing when he saw me yesterday! I'll get to that in a minute." He smirked a little before staring Joseph right in the eyes.

"I quit."

Silence emanated in the room for a few seconds. The only sound was Joseph's wildly beating heart.

"Excuse me?"

"You heard me. I quit."

"Are you ill? Is your mana heart cr-crippled." He winced slightly as he said the words. Hoping he didn't hurt his friend in the process.

"It's not." Darien wrote on a piece of paper for a few seconds before handing it to Joseph. He read it in a few seconds before his eyes shot open, and he sucked in his breath.

"D-did you! You didn't!"

"Shhhh!" Darien slammed the desk before looking around.

"I have a plan, Jo. A juicy plan that even you might approve of! This is too important to half-ass. So we should write the plan out without speaking."

Darien wrote out a summary of his plan before passing it over to Joseph to read.

"I expect you to smooth the plan over and to implement it. This is your specialty after all."

"Shhh! Give me a minute to think!" Joseph's eyes furrowed in thought as he slowly read the paper over and over again while deep in thought. He took out a pen and began making notes on the sides of the margins.

"Darien, I have to say." He paused before saying, "This is brilliant."

"See, I told you! What do you think of the plan, old fox?"

"What I think is you hit your head when you went into a coma. I've heard stories of old soldiers waking from comas and suddenly becoming master sculptors and artists. Otherwise, I can't believe you came up with this. Mr. Smash's first plan later."

"Oh, bah! I'm not stupid, Joseph! Give a dog enough bones, and he'll want a steak. Don't overthink it."

"I don't think that's the right use for that analogy, North. Haha! That's more like it." Joseph took out a handkerchief and wiped away fake sweat before saying, "Phew, I almost thought you were an imposter."

"If you don't stop with that nonsense, I might show you a little smash first and scheme later right now."

Joseph looked at Darien as though trying to peak through his soul. "That's more like it! Amazing, North! I won't say anything out loud, my friend, but seriously... Amazing. This could change everything."

Darien smirked, "Not could, Jo. Will."

*********

Word spread rapidly throughout Elion.

"No. There's no way! What's going to happen now?"

"Lord Northwood has seceded from his position as Red Tower Master! Lord Keller has taken over the Tower and is now the de facto Tower Master!" A city messenger shouted the news while walking through Avia. The news would soon spread to the Merchant's Republic and then the entire continent in a very short period. Like a spark in a crowded forest, the news would spread fast.

"Will Argon attack?"

"I'm not sure, but without the Tower Master I'm not sure what we're going to do!"

Average lay folk, soldiers, mages, and even the nobles panicked at the news. An order came from King James a few hours after the news began to spread, "Avia is under lockdown! I repeat, Avia is under lockdown! King James passed an edict, stating that everyone must be indoors by sunset! This is not a joke! We are under lockdown until further notice!"

The lockdown only added icing to the cake. People took the news seriously, and most cities in Elion underwent a panic of some sort. Citizens began stocking food and supplies, not knowing what the future had in store for them.

Less than a day after the lockdown, Red, and Blue met outside near the outskirts of the Renee forest.

"Derick, what do you think?"

"I'm not sure. This seems a bit fishy to me." Both of them had their arms crossed as they looked at each other.

"It certainly seems too good to be true, but we've seen him. There's no doubt his legs are paralyzed, but if his magic were crippled, there is no way they'd say so. Not in such a public manner, at least. It's already caused panic and opened them up for attack. That is, of course, if the news was true."

"You're right, Row. This stinks. If the Tower Master is crippled then they are revealing this information for a reason. Either they are setting a trap... Or they are preparing to reveal another 5th Circle mage to take his place. That's the only reason they could have to reveal this information."

"Or they really are stupid. I've seen that level of stupidity before on many missions."

"Rowan... This isn't Lome. Keller is a sneaky fox, and anything coming from him is part of some scheme. Seriously, Rowan, we have to treat this cautiously!"

"I know that, Blue! You still can't take a joke."

"Either way, we can send this information back. Our Imperial Majesty should know exactly; what to do in this situation. Even if it is a trap, we might be able to request even more troops for our mission."

"Let's play this safe. It's best if we let things play out before making any suspicious moves. If this is a trap, I bet they have Tower members and Royal spies everywhere they can manage, looking for suspicious activity right now."

"I can agree with that."

********

In the safety of her garden, Green sat while tapping her pen on her table. She naturally had a similar conclusion to the news of the secession.

"What should I do."

She thought of all the potential situations that could go wrong if she played into the trap and every possible means of using it to her advantage.

Still, she was stuck.

'Something is coming from the Longwoods. Something bad. The Tower Master is most certainly crippled in mobility. He cannot move his legs; there are too many reports for it to be fake. If he was playing a cripple, he's definitely put too much work into it. Hmm, this is a ploy but from what angle.'

She wrote a list of the pros and cons Elion had for making this play.

'I can't imagine trying to set a trap is a good idea regardless. If the Red Tower Master can still cast 5th Circle magic, it won't matter much if he's stuck in a chair. Lucius will destroy a sitting target after all.'

She bit her lips before writing again, 'A monster wave is going to cripple Elion's responsiveness once it occurs. It's coming soon. Nobles are acting feisty all over Elion, looking for weakness in the crown like a pack of ravenous hyenas. Imperial Majesty and Argon are incapable of taking advantage right now due to the Beast People and the Dil Republic making our life difficult. This trap smells of desperation.'

She frowned before writing her letter, 'Elion is desperate to spring a trap. A monster wave is coming, and they won't be able to defend themselves from outside interference when it happens. They are trying to deal us a massive blow before the wave occurs. Let's take advantage.'

She smiled.

It made sense.

Elion was making a smart play, but it was a smart play born from desperation.

Desperation meant weakness, and Argon always capitalized on weakness.