"Before we begin. Let me make everyone something to eat. Is everyone ok with veggie wraps?" Rutigan asked the group sitting around a square table. Unlike the council room in the palace, where they would all be far from each other, this was a much smaller space, forcing them to be almost shoulder to shoulder. There were no decorations around aside from the candles lighting up the place. Since this was a secret meeting room, they made sure to use as little magic as possible to avoid detection.

"You are cooking?" Hera tilted her head.

"I am. It's only fair since I'm the one who asked you all to come here," the King replied, "In all honesty. I wanted to make some fried chicken, but Ogryn made a good point against it."

Rutigan didn't say what it was on purpose, not wanting to be the one blamed for forcing everyone to eat salads. When the group turned to the dwarven mage, he just sighed, "As I explained, your majesty, we couldn't have you making that food outside since that would be something considered odd. We are also avoiding anything magic here so as not to attract attention, and cooking with actual fire here would create a lot of smoke. Doing that in a place with no ventilation would be unwise."

"Oh… yeah, that's a good point," Hera nodded but stopped when she realized one thing, "How are we breathing, by the way? If there is no ventilation here, then we wouldn't have any air either."

"Thanks to these," Ogryn pulled a stone place with a green rune on top, "We are a civilization that is used to living under a mountain. Cave-ins and situations where the air we get is not enough were not uncommon during our early days. These slabs create the air that we breathe. Usually, the amount of oxygen inside this chamber is enough for four of us to have an 8-hour-long meeting, but since the numbers are bigger today, I thought it might be best to bring this along. Just as a precaution."

"It was a good call," Telanz nodded.

"Yes, we already have enough problems without having to worry about hallucinating due to the lack of oxygen," Risli let out a long sigh.

"Are things really that bad?" Hera turned to them.

The group turned to Rutigan, who was currently making everyone's meals, "Catch her up. I will chime in when necessary. For what we need next, I ask you to wait for me."

"Very well," Ogryn nodded and turned to Hera, "Sometime after you left, we realized the guild was trying to isolate us from the rest of the MAZE. I don't mean it in a physical way but in a political one."

"Isolate? How? It sounds too aggressive to go on without anyone noticing."

"They were not doing this overtly but using trade deals to stop us. Each time we were trying to sell something, be it materials, armor, weapons, or anything, really. When we were setting the deal up, the guild would swoop in and offer a better deal. Most of the time, it would be something about the delivery of goods, and that's why we never had any suspicions about it. They are closer than the other races, so it would be cheaper to get or send items to one of their warehouses and let them deal with the next step of the process. But after a while, we understood what was happening," Ogryn turned to Telanz and Risli, who were sitting side by side.

"We had a healer come by. Two of them, actually, but they were from the same place. A city that is shared by the Elves and the Triton. They wanted to talk about setting up some farms here to grow specific herbs that required cold weather or a large underground space. Since we don't have monsters here, aside from the Sky Rulers…" Telanz got a few stares from the other dwarves that made him stop talking, "What?"

"We've talked about this. They are griffons, nothing else. Their reign of terror is over, and we must stop calling them by a title that brings fear to our minds," Fethy spoke softly at first but ended her phrase in the commanding voice of someone speaking words that would echo through history.

"Right. Sorry. The griffons that reappeared after the rampage are not that strong and don't travel down to the bottom of the mountain that often. That's why those healers agreed that a simple guard and maybe some automated defenses would be enough to stop the monsters, allowing us to make that field without any problems," Telanz continued.

"That's where I come in. They needed help making that field, and since no one in this place knows how to grow a plant to save their damn life I had to step up," Risli grumbled, "Anyway. I saw the mess of a field they were building and stepped up to fix all that."

"We were doing things just fine before you came along," Telanz said.

"If you had set things up that way, you would grow herbs that look like the ones you grow. Small leaves and thin roots that are barely enough for a potion. You need girth, boy!"

"I'll have you know that my roots are perfectly girthy!" Telanz gasped.

"Pha! You can't even sink your teeth in your roots. Flimsy things that are not even hard yet," Risli huffed, causing Telanz to stammer, trying to come up with a reply.

Hera leaned over to Kahala, who was right by her side, "Do we need to leave? This feels like something else, doesn't it?"

"Girl, I've been wondering that for almost a century already. As far as I know, nothing ever happened, and she was his teacher, but hearing this… think whatever you like," the master armor smith shrugged.

"Ok, ok. Here, Telanz, you get the first one, eat and let Risli continue the story," Rutigan gave the man a misshapen veggie wrap, clearly made in a hurry just to shut him up.

"Thank you, your majesty," Risli bowed slightly without getting up from her chair, "Now, I was making the field to the specifications of the left and that prick of a triton."

"Prick? He was always nice to me," Fethy tilted her head, confused.

"Oh, sure, really nice. The little bugger wouldn't let me work. Kept offering me a seat or to do things for me. I'm old, but I'm not senile. I can take care of my own damn self," Risli waved Fethy off, who couldn't give a response, not believing what she was hearing, "Anyway. We were halfway there, and the elf finally understood why I was in charge. He never got in the way but always had that look of having a stick up your ass. As if he knew better. When I planted the first herb, he started opening up to me and made a comment that revealed all that. According to him, they, and I mean not just the elves but the other races too, thought we were very sneaky and only cared about ourselves. That was our reputation. People who would pretend to make a deal with one side, only to get a better one on the other. Tell me, who would want to trade with people like that?"

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Rutigan placed the first proper veggie wrap beside Risli and nodded, "This was my fault. I failed to realize what taking those deals caused. Instead of just getting the best bang for my buck, as they say, I was dragging our reputation through the mud. Not to mention, I didn't have the foresight to see that others might not trust us enough to give a good deal right away. I know this is not an excuse, but we never had to worry about things like that," Rutigan walked back to the small table on the corner where he was making the meals while still talking, facing away from the council, "I'm not saying we never had to make deals or trade things for the best offer. But, we are a trusting people. Our population is tiny in comparison to other places, and if someone tried to swindle someone else, they had nowhere to run when they were found. When we make a deal, we haggle and negotiate, but once that is done, we never expect to get a better deal in the future."

"To be fair, my King. All deals that fell through were nowhere near the closing stages. They were very early on and only being discussed. Even the numbers were only tossed around, not finalized," Ogryn tried to cheer Rutigan up.

"That doesn't matter. It's one thing to window shop for the best price. Another to walk inside, say you want a cake, but leave with someone else who hears you and offers a cake for cheap," Kahala added.

"So this is what the guild was doing. They were helping us destroy our reputation to isolate us. To make it seem like we didn't want to join the larger MAZE," the King finished, now bringing more of the wraps to everyone, giving the first to Kahala, then Ogryn while leaving Hera's for last since she was the youngest.

"Ok… that sounds bad, and I do believe you. But so far, what you are telling me could be just an aggressive business decision," Hera said, looking around the table, "But your faces make it seem like this is not just a PR problem."

"I believe this is where I come in," Naka spoke up, "Kahala, I would ask for your assistance if I misremember anything."

"Of course," Kahala covered her mouth since she had just taken a bite out of her wrap.

"After the Centaur Genocide, which I'm assuming you are already aware of," Naka turned to Hera, who nodded in response, "The guild and the humans, in general, changed their behavior around us. They became more weary and, at times, aggressive. I believe the term is 'Racist.'"

"I think the actual term for that would be speciesism. Since racism is more about humans acting like that towards other humans or dwarves towards other dwarves. But in the end, it is the same thing. But if you let me play the devil's advocate here, I don't know if I would call that speciesism. I mean, if you found out that people with black hair had the potential to go nuts because of some weird cult, you would be weary about them," Hera bit her own veggie wrap. From what they were saying, it felt a lot like what Adriel told her about the guild. However, she couldn't take this kind of thing at face value. If they were trying to take some drastic measures, there had to be a concrete reason for it.

Kahala took a large gulp of her glass of water, grumbling about the lack of booze before speaking, "I had a client. A human, she came here and asked for some armor. Paid very well, half upfront, and the King had asked me to make a few things. So, I did that. When it was time to deliver, after the genocide, we were to send some people to her. We did, they were attacked by some bandits, and the armor got stolen. I was pissed, but fuck it, I would make a new one. But the human said no, and asked for the money back. When we tried to talk to the guild to help fix the situation, they told us it was our fault. We shouldn't have sent people to a room we didn't belong to. Later this became a whole deal, and the guild apologized for that comment, but their actions didn't change."

"After that incident. Whenever we tried to leave through the Kobold Road, our people would get into trouble. Either direct attacks or an extensive amount of red tape surrounding everything they did. We had no peace. And, apparently, we were not the only ones."

"That has been going on with all the other species in the MAZE. Dwarves, Elves, Tritons, Beastman, and the Children of the Sky. The guild is treating us all as criminals. It doesn't matter our background," Telanz spoke.

"Wait… if that is happening with everyone. What about Silah? She went to a workshop somewhere," Hera gasped.

"Yes, it was something made by another group of dwarves. They wanted to show the unity of the other species. You don't have to worry about her, we also sent a couple of guards along, and no humans are in that group. Sure, the guild might be a bit of an issue, but they are all going to a dwarven city to study, passing by places mostly controlled by someone other than humans. We called her here and discussed all the dangers, but she still wanted to go. Said she didn't want to live in a MAZE divided like that, and this seemed like a good way to show strength. Maybe that wouldn't help, but she didn't think it could hurt anyone either," Rutigan did his best to calm Hera, but that didn't seem to work completely.

"They can also say that this is a meeting of the Last Line of Defense."

"That's why this is not happening behind closed doors. The dwarves, the other dwarves, I mean, made a spectacle of it. The Summit for Peace and Unity, they are calling," Kahala rolled her eyes.

Hera paused, "Doesn't that sound like Union City? You don't think the Last Line of Defense would attack that place, do you?"

The entire council looked at her, pondering for a moment, but Ogryn was the one who broke the tension, "I don't think so. Union City was an attack against humans. This is something that is being done to exclude humans. If they attacked using the excuse of the dwarves being human sympathizers or anything like that, it would just cause problems for them."

"That's fair," Hera nodded.

"We are also getting increasingly demanding requests from the guild. From supplies to the construction of outposts or defenses in the guild itself. Those requests are quickly turning into threats, and we don't have any friends that we can call for aid here. We are too close to the exit of the MAZE and too close to the bulk of the guild," Rutigan looked around the table, "This is part of the reason why I called this meeting. Unfortunately, I believe we will need to speed up the plan of moving."

"Rutigan!" Fethy called, "So soon? We don't even have a place to go."

"I know. That's why Hera is here," the King turned to the Empress, "I do understand you need some rest, but if you can push the Royal Explorers to focus on finding a place, I would appreciate it. Maybe even tell them the real objective," the King stopped eating, "I'm sorry to lean this heavily on you, but we need all the help we can get. And I'm not asking you to go there yourself right now. I understand you must be tired, miss your family, and want to rest. Either way, with you around, you could take over Trillian in the support team. He wasn't able to go too far because there was no one else to fill in. That way, we can also have these meetings more often. You might be able to realize something we are missing."

"That is true. That boy has been a pain in my ass for a while now. He comes by every day asking to learn about wild herbs. Do I look like someone who understands wild herbs?" Risli got nods from everyone around the table, "Well, I'm not! All the herbs I have, I grow them myself."

"Either way, we could use an explorer trying to find something there. I mean, ideally, we would find the old city of the Naga, and it would still be in decent shape. That way, we wouldn't have to rebuild everything," Rutigan sighed.

"Yeah, that would… WAIT!" Hera gasped and jumped to her feet.

"What? Why are you jumping like that child!" Kahala grumbled, almost having dropped her meal.

"Gartinet Hollow… I knew that name sounded familiar!"

"What's that?" Telanz asked.

"The last room the Royal Explorers found," Ogryn replied without looking away, "What about it?"

"I need to confirm this with Shane, but I'm 90% sure it is supposed to be next to one of the Naga cities. If we can find the right doorway, we might be able to have a clear path to a new home for all of us."