Once Gi and their party were outside the walls of Harlond, both Cedrick and Luke stayed inside, leaving them to make the short walk back to their campsite on their own. The King was the first to speak.

"Do you think he was corrupted?"

Elder Altman was quick to jump on that. "It would explain his mad behavior."

Gi, however, knew better. "He isn't."

The King raised an eyebrow. "How are you so sure?"

"I spent a long time on corrupted worlds while I was dead. If he hadn't used Aether to attack me, he might could have hidden corruption from me, but I got a good look at his aura. It was one hundred percent normal reality."

"Normal reality?" Elder Altman asked. Gi wasn't sure if he was supposed to be spilling the secrets of the universe or not, but no one had told him not to.

"It's complicated, but there are two forces in the universe that are opposites. Sort of. Truth, or what we might call divinity, and Chaos. Truth is the realm of concepts and gods while Chaos is the realm of mortals and circumstance. When the two are balanced, it forms life as we know it.

"When they are out of balance on the Chaos side, that is what the corruption looks like. The gods we know are gods of Truth while the Old Gods are gods of Chaos. The presence of the Old Gods in this area of reality is slowly corrupting everything. This world is nearly the furthest from their influence so we are only seeing isolated pockets barring outside influence."

Gi gestured at the King with that last part, but the group quieted, considering Gi's words. Maybe the why didn't impact the how as much as he thought, but that wouldn't change the perspective shift that came from thinking about gods as only a part of the nature of reality rather than its genesis.

If Elder Altman had any qualms in particular, he didn't raise them. In fact, it was Chum that broke the silence of their walk away from the castle.

"The Emperor is sick, but at the same time, he's not." The rest of them looked to him and he realized that he hadn't explained what he meant very well. "My Domain registers damage and restores it to 'self.' It's... confused by the Emperor, registering him as being both damaged and self. I've never seen that before."

"Do you think you could heal him?" Gi asked.

Chum shook his head. "I can't heal anything that's self. Even though he is also damaged. I don't know what to make of it."

Gi thought he understood. As Richard, he was obviously aware of dementia and its effects as people aged. It was perhaps something like that. Their body simply struggled with their basic processes as they aged. Even though, it was damaged. It was still them. It was Truth.

Maybe that was the Chaos involved in life. The entropy as everything returned to its base essence - the Soul- which even that would be recycled in time as Souls moved from life to life.

It was all a little philosophical for him, but perhaps, it was something to ask Danna once he returned.

"He's a threat," Elder Altman said, interrupting Gi's thoughts. "Do you have a plan to deal with him?"

"I do not, but I'm hopeful that after Midnight Grove is resolved, we can come up with an answer together."

Elder Altman grunted in response, clearly not happy with that answer. They'd reached the camp, however, and rather than express his concerns their party broke up to go deal with their various duties.

Gi made it back to a tent that had been erected for him, rubbing his cheeks soothingly. Trying to weave a happy ending for all of those involved was difficult especially with a war on their shoulders.

Still, Gi felt good about their progress up until his Skill [Divine Spouse] started to blare like a siren within his Soul.

***

Elder Altman didn't waste any time. His followers greeted him as he made his way through the camp, but other than sending out two orders, it was the tents that had been erected for Gi's monsters where the Elder found himself.

It might have been difficult to find the one he sought considering these otters all looked the same to him, but his quarry's aura was hard to miss.

He stepped into a tent where two otters were sitting on the ground. One looked haggard as though they were a sponge that had been twisted until its form turned shrunken and dry. The other had a dark cast over her eyes and an aura that spoke to swimming in the blood of humans.

She barked out a question, but Altman simply held out a hand and waited. Anger was present on her features while confusion was on the other one. It was only a minute before a monster that wore the skin of a drowned looking human entered.

"You need my translation...," Elizabeth, as she called herself, looked between the Elder and the two otters. "Oh, this is interesting."

"I don't need your commentary. Only your services and your discretion."

Elizabeth shrugged. "Human gold spends the same."

"Then translate."

As a child, Elder Altman had grown up in the church of Hyshtel. The reign of the first King Rellington had been a fractious period with much infighting between those only nominally under his rule. War was brutal, but sometimes, that is what their Lord required.

Bandits, of course, thrived in war time - sometimes as state approved mercenaries; others as simple thieves and murderers.

As a follower of Hyshtel, it was his job to hunt them down, but he'd never forgetten the lesson that he learned from the Patriarch at the time.

"Hyshtel's blade takes many forms," he'd said as they allied with the very bandits they were sent to hunt to put an end to one of the nobles attempts on the throne.

As a young boy, he didn't understand it, but he did now.

"What do you want?" Elizabeth said, but the Elder barely needed her to translate the growling bark.

Now, how to phrase it...

Elder Altman stepped further into the tent and knelt near Kumo. "Do you know what kills people in a war?"

"A mace." A stupid answer, but not an incorrect one.

"Dissonance. When one leader turns against their allies, it is a chink in their armor that an enemy could exploit and the people suffer for it. Do you agree?"

He wasn't sure exactly what Kumo thought, but the dark cast in her eyes only grew darker. "Yes. Do you have a point?"

She seemed more receptive than he'd expected. Elder Altman had heard that there was some dissatisfaction in Gi's camp. It didn't seem to have impacted their loyalty whether unwilling or not though. Perhaps, that was why.

Elder Altman smiled, spreading his hands disarmingly. "Did you.. hear about the attack on Gi?"

Kumo hopped to her feet, looking ready to run. He'd played that one a little too hard. He motioned her gently to sit again. "He's fine. His Skills were quite impressive and the Emperor didn't manage to injure him."

"The Emperor?!" That had the response he wanted. She was alarmed, angry, but not about to run directly to Gi. This might just work.

"Oh yes, even I didn't expect him to actively attack us. Only their General stopped him from making it an incident."

"What is Gi's plan?" Even though it was Elizabeth that spoke, she was translating from the other haggard otter. He didn't know that one's name.

"Oh, you know him, he wants to use diplomacy." Elder Altman so casually made it sound as though he was intimately familiar with Gi. Kumo, at least, didn't question it. "My concern is... Emperor Veritas's mind seems to be compromised. He couldn't hold a thought from one moment to the next."

The tent pushed open again. One of the Elder's followers looked nervously at his company before presenting Elder Altman with a box and leaving. He ignored the interaction and just continued his conversation.

"How can Gi have diplomatic relations with someone that will never see him as anything other than his form? What effect will that have on our war effort?"

The two otters shared a look. "He has been... more merciful since his return."

"But he's always had the strength to do what was needed."

Elder Altman was thankful that Elizabeth continued to translate their little aside. Maybe Hyshtel would get a new blade after all of this was over. Someone that could cross the bounds between monsters and humans.

"I understand your concern for Gi. I'm sure he will be able to handle it, but... he should really be focusing on defeating the demons. Wouldn't it be easier for him if... the Emperor just disappeared?"

He might have been too heavy handed with that part, but Kumo had clearly gathered his meaning. The Elder gave an exaggerated sigh, moving the box he'd received from his follower and setting it on the floor of the tent before he got up.

"Well, expressing my concerns has felt like a burden has been lifted from me. I'll take my leave for now so that I might focus on helping Gi with the war efforts."

With that Elder Altman left the monsters' part of camp and returned to his own.

He immediately had some of his spies ready themselves to enter the city. His play with Kumo to kill the Emperor was a loose assassination attempt at best. If she did well, it would be easy to deflect attention towards the Emperor's failing health. A few rumors in the right ears should be plenty.

If she did poorly, well, she was expendable.

From Hyshtel's revelations, the church would be ready to take full advantage of the turbulence of these times and step in to provide a stabilizing presence in Veridia.

***

General Rowan finished debriefing both Cedrick and Luke, but he pushed off any further strategizing with his commanders so that he could instead focus on the barrel of whiskey that he'd liberated from the kitchens.

After quickly downing a quarter of it, he finally felt the lightest buzz, but it didn't do quite enough to shake off the edge that he'd had since the meeting with Veritas.

Maybe their days had been too similar for him to notice as they went through all the same routines, but the man was clearly worse off than he'd thought.

He poured more whiskey from his barrel into a pint glass and stepped over to the window that looked over the city. The walls stood as a backdrop against the city casting its shadow over the homes and businesses near it.

He was lucky that Gi had agreed to resolve the problem on their flank as that gave him some more time on how to deal with the Emperor. As he was now, Rowan wasn't even sure if he'd be useful in a fight.

Aether flared.

An invisible beam seemed to split the sky. Rowan's pint glass shattered on the stone as he dropped it and his hand reflexively grabbed at his hilt. He had the barest thought of sounding the alarm, but the Aether spiked to a keening shrill.

And then the entire eastern wall was just... gone.

Tons of stone crumbled away like an avalanche falling backward onto the buildings within the shadow. A cacophony of noise and dust rose up into the air, but it wasn't enough to block the sight of the demon's army with one figure at its head.

A red skinned demon, shirtless, and wearing a crown stop it's horns. His four arms were raised, almost reverently as he took in the destruction of Harlond.

War cries bellowed from thousands of lungs and a red wave began to wash towards the now exposed capital.

The siege... was over.