Liam felt his heartbeats speed up a bit. It was an exhaustingly uneventful couple of days, but he could now see a bizarrely tall and well-maintained– for the region, anyway– wall peeking over the horizon.

He was sure it had to Tabre, with a perimeter as stand-out as that. It almost looked as fortified as the capital, though he’d only been there once or twice in his life, and they certainly weren’t trips he had any right to squander with sightseeing.

After all the barren grassland and small villages he’d grown accustomed since fleeing his post, it was a rather otherworldly experience. He passed by an almost excessive amount of farmland and external houses, likely owned by the farmers who operated the surrounding farmland. All of them were completely deserted.

He didn’t feel it was within his right, nor did he presume he had the time to investigate the houses by entering to figure out why they had left, so he could only make assumptions. It was fairly reasonable, though, to presume they had fled behind the walls after the Palisade fell.

As strange as it was to believe all of the citizens believed in the town’s historically cultish obsession with the Palisade, he was at this point left with hardly any choice but to accept it.

As Liam grew closer, he could see that the already heavily fortified wall was fully staffed to boot. There were armed guards stationed all across the parapet, and though he had to squint a bit, he also caught a glimpse of several even more heavily armed and armored guards posted outside the eastern gate which he was approaching. Even his city would have rarely been seen on this high alert.

Over the past several years he’d been stationed there, he could only think of a couple times the gate had been that tightly guarded.

One of them was during a period where a notorious bandit and mercenary group had been terrorizing nearby villages, purportedly at the request of Sangrean officials. Though such an assertion could easily have just been nothing but rumor, it still had a profound effect on the public opinion towards the prior compliant relationship that the two countries had been maintaining.

This event certainly played no small part in the willingness of the public to participate in and support the war. In retrospect, however, it is certainly odd that such rumors spread so quickly, but Liam didn’t feel like occupying his mind with this line of thought for much longer.

Blinking a couple times to regain his focus, Liam found that he had just about arrived at the Gates.

Upon closer examination, he could tell it truly was a magnificent wall. The gate was heavily fortified, apparently over half of it composed of and reinforced by what appeared to be solid steel. The fact that such a public project could be financed was by itself impressive, let alone by the local government of such a remote city.

As he was caught up in his bewilderment, the stationed guards drew their weapons and shouted in his direction.

“State your business!”

One guard had stepped to the front and opened the conversation without a hint of hospitality.

While it was certainly a bit disappointing, it was a predictable response to a slowly approaching, fully-armed man in a situation as unprecedented as this one. And when he thought about it, he realized that his helmet was also hiding his ears, which could easily have been a red flag to the guards.

“Please, be at ease, friends! I bear no ill will.”

Liam took off his helmet in an attempt to disarm the guards by proving that he was human.

“I am a refugee from a city a fair way to the east of here. I heard once that there is a fortified city here, and thought that I may be safe here!”

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He tried his absolute hardest to speak in a charming tone, though such pleasantries most certainly could not be said to be his forte. He stopped moving so they would not be under the impression he was stalling while he approached. The guards were clearly still rather suspicious.

“And if you are only a refugee, why do you approach us armed to the teeth?” The skeptical guard shouted back.

“As you can see, I come bearing weapons and armor only so that I may protect myself, and I would be pleased to aid your guards in protecting this city. May I come any closer?”

Liam desperately hoped he’d made his innocent intentions clear enough by now.

“Toss your sword and helmet into the grass to your right. Toss it underhanded, slowly, so we can watch. Then, you may approach.”

Liam sighed resignedly before complying.

He drew his sword, careful not to turn it toward the guards, and tossed it into the grass beside him. He then proceeded to follow suit with his helmet, which he had already been holding in his opposite hand after taking it off a minute prior. “Is this enough?”

“Yes. You can move forward now. We will retrieve your things for you shortly. Step forward slowly.”

Liam let out another sigh, this time in relief, and approached with an unrefined gait.

The interaction was brief but exhausting. Somehow, he was worried that the guards simply wouldn’t trust him and he’d be turned away outright. As inhumane and completely unlikely as that would have been, his paranoia over lacking a back-up plan in case Tabre turned out to be a bust had been overwhelming for the past day or so.

“Sorry about the formality sir. We just need to be extra careful. We don’t know what could be waiting for us on the other side.”

The guard slightly bowed his head.

Liam let out a dry chuckle.

“Well, I sure as hell do. My city was attacked by those damn sharp-ears. Call themselves ‘Elves’. We were completely overrun in a matter of a couple hours.Oh, I’m Liam, by the way. Liam Brodrick.”

The guard flinched and narrowed his eyes a bit, though Liam didn’t notice.

“Oh! Do you have some sort of information about the creatures on the outside?”

The guard sounded excited, but there was something off about his face.

“Yeah, I-” Liam tried to answer, only to be quickly interrupted.

“Here, can you step into this room? We usually use it for investigation when someone is carrying suspicious cargo, but we can use it as a temporary ‘interrogation room’, for lack of a better phrase to use. Oh, we’ll go pick up your helmet and sword for you in a second, don’t worry.”

The guard seemed strangely eager.

“Uhh… sure, I guess…? Just be careful with them. They’re pretty important to me.”

Liam glanced at the sword and helmet, two things that represented to him his role as a defender of humanity. He was a bit hesitant to let somebody he didn’t really know or trust handle them, but these were public officials, so he didn’t necessarily have any reason not to trust them.

They were just like him, desperate to protect their people. Nobody should be able to fault them for that, especially not him.

“Hey, can you go fetch his stuff?”

“Sure thing, cap.”

Liam watched as one of the guards left to gather his things from the grass, then followed the other who led him into a side room.

He couldn’t place his finger on it, but he was certain that something felt… off. He had a very bad feeling coming from somewhere, and he was even more worried that whatever it was would hit him before he could figure out what it was.

Time screeched to a halt as the guard in front of him reached to open the door.

The guard in front of Liam had a slight smirk on his face. There was a pleasant breeze blowing to the west, passing through the gate. The guard behind Liam had just mumbled something under his breath. Anyone standing in that area could feel something akin to a little bit of static electricity scattering about.

Were he able to feel anything at all, Liam would have felt something like a click in his head.

He collapsed onto the cold, stone floor, completely unconscious.

“Good work, Al. The rest of you, strip his armor, check for weapons, and carry him to cell six. Put the armor and sword in the regular jail confiscation locker. Good work, and thanks for contacting me so early.”