“Sylar! So happy you could join us! You're late for my invitation but I suppose late is better than never!” A voice rang out across the square.

Whipping my head around I spotted the man from the platform earlier. The Royal Advisor was walking towards me with several Kingsworn surrounding him. He was a middle aged man dressed in fine silks and appeared completely at ease. I watched him out of the corner of my eye while keeping my focus on the sword wielding Kingsworn that was already back on his feet.

“Settle down my friends. Sylar here is going to join us after all, we don’t want him all broken up.” The Royal Adviser said in a mocking voice.

I refused to be distracted by the ridiculous man and kept watch on the soldier. To my utter surprise the man with the mace stopped a few feet from me and the archer didn’t fire even though they had a clear shot. I took the opportunity to scout the area immediately around me and realized I had been forced closer to the platform.

There standing on the platform, still bound and gagged, was my mother. Her hair was being held up over her head, forcing her up and a Kingsworn had a knife to her neck. My body reactively moved towards her but the sword wielding soldier shifted his body to block any advance from my angle.

“Now now now. None of that or I’ll just have my faithful servant slide that knife ever so gently across her throat.” He chuckled to himself. “You know, it’s really a poor son that joins a rebellion against the rightful King and leaves his mom trapped in the city of said King. You really owe her a nice present after all of this.”

The cruel man had my blood boiling. I desperately reached out to Marci to track her progress. Marci was close enough to see me and Van was grunting in rage at the Royal Advisor. I re-directed Marci to attack the man holding my mother if she saw an opening, hoping she would understand.

“Call off your little pets, Sylar. She will be dead long before your mangy falcon can get to her.” The Royal Advisor said in his mocking voice.

“Why are you doing this? Why is the King slaughtering so many citizens?” I peppered out questions to try and buy time. If the man wanted to talk I would keep him talking. My mind was racing to come up with a new plan.

“Wrong question my young friend. The King sympathizes with you, I assure you. Poor Bearn would be fighting right beside you if he had a chance.” The man began to cackle. “Show him Bearn, show him the King of Etes.”

I watched in horrified shock as the man holding my mother by her hair took off his helmet. The King of Etes was standing there with his knife to my mothers neck. His face was distressed and tears streamed down his eyes.

The Royal Advisor began cackling even louder, bending over for dramatic effect. “The King of Etes ladies and gentlemen!” He waved his hands around as if he was the ringleader of a circus. “Poor old King Bearn here and his bleeding heart. Look at those tears!”

My confusion was clear on my face as the Royal Advisor continued to cackle. Marci dove down to sit on my shoulder and nuzzled my head aggressively. Van came to stand beside me and began stomping his foot in irritation.

“Sylar!” I heard a familiar voice shout and turned to see Nadia running up to me. “We came as soon as we could, what...” her voice trailed off as she realized what was happening.

“Finally! The guests are almost all here! Rale! Are you out here too you slippery little fish? Come out come out come out!” The Royal Advisor was clearly mad. He began to mime searching around for the General.

A Kingsworn that had been standing off to the side slowly removed his helmet and my sense of shock was too overburdened to even react to General Rale. He walked over to us and I tensed as Nadia and Van prepared to fight. He held up his hands in peace and unbuttoned the sword from his side. He opened his mouth and we were shocked to see his tongue had been removed.

“Hah! Couldn’t heal it huh? General Rale here hid from us after refusing to bow and accept the Kingsworn class. Not before we got his nasty little tongue cut out though. Smart of you to hide as one of the already converted. Right under our noses!” He began cackling again.

“What is going on!” Nadia yelled out in exasperation while the Royal Advisor continued to cackle.

I looked around and realized the fighting in the square was mostly over. Crowds of citizens were gathered around the bizarre scene playing out. Most of the first army had been defeated or surrendered to Nadia’s army. The Kingsworn were standing silently after being disarmed. The only remaining armed Kingsworn were standing in a ring around the platform and Advisor, there were maybe forty of them left.

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“Alright. You're right, that's plenty of fun. You can’t blame me, I’ve been living a lie for half a year and I finally get to bring it all to light! The show is about to start! Gather around!” He waved his arms again. This ridiculous situation was just getting worse, I had a bad feeling about what was going to happen next, a chill working its way up my spine.

“You see, everyone, sweet King Bearn here saw the framework as an opportunity for peace! Prosperity for all! Citizens using incredible classes for the betterment of all! What a load of useless drivel. We all know what power does, it corrupts, instead of one King we would have twenty. Instead of one government we would have ten.” His voice was now being amplified, the entire square was listening to every word.

“So I decided to be the first to be corrupted by the sweet power of the framework. Survival it urges with every message, struggle it creates with quests and beasts. You see I spent my entire career manipulating the King's political opponents, and I got pretty good at it. My class is called Royal Advisor officially and my first skill? Advise. The power to sway my enemies, it was glorious.”

“I quickly realized the real power of this skill. For each point of wisdom I had higher than whomever I was trying to control, the skill got stronger. I dumped every point I had into wisdom while guiding the King to place his stats balanced among the physical traits and intelligence. He took my advice to the heart and created a well balanced, powerful King who was fiercely intelligent.” The Royal Advisor cackled again.

“I created the military training doctrine that had our soldiers ignore wisdom through sly manipulations of ranking officers. It was all so simple I couldn’t wait for it to fail, and yet it never did. I slowly but surely shaped the events happening without anyone the wiser. Planted a rumor here, converted a soldier there, the cattle more the merry to continue their stupid, ignorant lives.”

The chill running up the back of my neck intensified and I realized what he was saying. He could influence everyone that had a lower wisdom than him. The lower the wisdom, the stronger the commands would be. Most of these people and soldiers would have lower wisdom than someone who focused on it. It hadn’t been me stalling for time and waiting for the armies to gather, it had been the Royal Advisor.

The horror of the situation began to ripple through the ranks as the smarter among us realized what he was saying. Rale had a look of panic and began signing to Nadia who began to shout frantically telling everyone to leave and get as far away as possible. Those closest to us began sprinting away before the Royal Advisor shouted out a single command.

“Stop.” The shout rang out through the square and everyone affected froze in place.

I was still able to move and hadn’t felt the effects of the command. I checked on Marci and Van who both seemed fine. I pretended not to move in case he thought I was forced to follow his commands as well. Communicating that to Marci and Van received acceptance through the bond, albeit a confused one.

“Now now now. No one leaves my coming out party early. I wasn’t even done telling the story yet!” The Royal Advisor continued in his mocking tone. “Poor King Bearn here caught on to my plan after I made one little mistake. Instead of striking me down the idiot tried to confront me himself. His wisdom at the time was close enough to mine that it took a few minutes that stretched to hours to beat him down. But now he’s mine in every sense of the word. Watch this, Bearn dear, would you be so kind as to place that knife against your own neck?”

We all watched the King of Etes pull the knife away from my mother and place it against his own neck. The Royal Advisor cackled again as the King silently wept, his arm trembling. The growing sense of dread was palpable. I looked and caught my mother staring at me. She noticed me looking and smiled a serene smile, somehow at peace with the situation.

“My lucky streak wasn’t over yet. That very night an undead assassin snuck into the palace and nearly killed me. I had woken up early and was sitting in my favorite chair and watched the shadowed figure stab through a bundle of sheets. It turns out the undead don’t possess much thinking, mostly just following commands. It also turns out that my commands don’t care if you're alive or dead!” He bent over and cackled again.

“After three more undead assassins failed to kill myself and the King, Allain got tired of our continued survival and came himself! I really thought it was over then, you see. Allain is a fearsome necromancer, he must have high wisdom right? Turns out no! Intelligence is the main requirement to raising and controlling the dead. His wisdom is basically neglected!”

“Allain dearie, make your appearance.” The Royal Advisor turned and swept out his arms towards a cluster of soldiers.

This couldn’t possibly be happening. If the Royal Advisor could control the Emperor of Norx, that meant...I looked around at all the dead bodies littering the grass of the square. The many thousands that had disappeared during the past few months, presumably killed. If he raised them all, we would be overwhelmed.

The soldier in question reached the Royal Advisor and removed his helmet. It was Allain just as I had seen him on that day in my dream. His face was a snarl of rage compared to the desperation of King Bearn. The Royal Advisor began laughing again while pointing at Allains face.

“Look how angry he still is! Hah! Two months now and he still fights against it. At Least Bearn learned to be a good little dog.” Allain was staring daggers at the man while Bearn just wept. The clearing was as silent as the dead, shock preventing panic. “Now for the next part of the show. Sylar, you’ve been a naughty boy. It’s time you accepted the consequences of rejecting my invitation. Bearn I’ve had a change of heart, you get to live another day. Kill the bitch!” He shouted the last part.

I lunged out towards him as time slowed down, stretching each second as an eternity. I saw the Royal Advisors lips move but paid the words no mind, the command not strong enough to stop me. My spear stabbed through the Royal Advisors gut as I watched the King of Etes slice my mothers throat open behind him on the platform. My mother died looking at me with a smile on her face.