As I stepped through the large, wooden gate, I felt a real sense of tension in the air. There were many people standing together in small groups, chatting nervously to one another, as students shuffled back and forth along the main thoroughfare, muttering quietly in the cold, evening air.

I was pretty curious about what was going on, and nervous, too. So, after taking a moment to look around, I went over towards a young man in thick leather armor, who was standing by himself on one of the corners. He was quite friendly, fortunately, and he was glad to tell me about what had made everyone in the town so afraid.

I believe that I had mentioned before that I had met a man in red armor on my way back from the dungeons. Apparently, that man was high-ranking emissary from the City of the Red Tower. It seemed that the man had come all the way here to talk with the captain of the guards about an important matter… and while that matter probably should have been kept between themselves, they had ended up shouting at each other so loudly that many people had heard what they were talking about, and had discovered what was going on.

The short version of what had taken place was this.

About a week ago, a group of people had tried to break out nearly a hundred slaves from the farmland that surrounded the City of the Red Tower. That escape attempt had been intercepted by a few of the surrounding regiments, but quite a few slaves had escaped regardless, and the costs to the Red Tower had ended up being substantial.

It didn’t take me long to realize that must have been the very same group of slaves that Aaron, Korver and Lily had all been a part of.

At any rate.

The man in the red armor had come to the town of Westfall in order to accuse the captain of the guards of having been involved in rescuing the slaves.

By the sound of it, he believed that the captain of the guards had provided the rebels with soldiers and weapons to fight with.

The captain had of course denied all of those accusations quite emphatically. But it seemed as if there was good reason to believe that the accusations were true, in spite of any protests to the contrary.

That was what the argument was about.

Here is why it was such a troubling event for the students of the town of Westfall.

Ever since it had first been established, this town had been considered to be neutral in all of the affairs of the world. On the day of its founding, the governing body had signed an official Proclamation of Neutrality, in which they swore not to engage in any aggressive action towards any other city or nation. In return, the City of the Blue Tower had pledged to protect Westfall from anyone who dared to attack it – whether that attack came from a group of bandits, or from one of the armies of the Great Nations.

Since then, swearing to uphold the Proclamation of Neutrality had been one of the basic requirements for becoming a citizen of this town.

It was precisely that requirement that had allowed for the town to exist in such safety, and to prosper over the course of these many years.

However, if the man in the red armor could prove that the captain of the guards had been involved in helping to rescue the slaves, then Westfall would lose its status as a neutral community. At that point, the protection of the City of the Blue Tower would be revoked, and the town would become vulnerable to attack. From there, it would only be a matter of time until it was overrun by the City of the Red Tower, and turned into a kind of hub town for slavers.

That thought made me shudder a bit, and it seemed to frighten the young man that I was talking with as well. But fortunately, it seemed that things hadn’t gotten that bad just yet, and that there wasn’t reason to worry for now. The emissary from the City of the Red Tower was still in town apparently, and there was a general sense that he and the guards were going to try to work something out, and that filing an official complaint with the Blue Tower was really a last resort for each of the parties.

Besides, even if the City of the Blue Tower did withdraw its protection from the town of Westfall, there would at least be some warning in advance. After all, the Blue Tower would want to give time for any non-combatants to flee to safety, and to escape from the war that would be likely to follow.

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So, in either case, nothing was going to happen in the next week or two, and anything that did happen would come with a warning at least a few days prior.

That was enough for me not to be too scared right then. But it did mean that I would need to come into the town quite a bit in the days to come, so that I could keep informed of any news of what might be likely to occur.

However, that seemed like all of the information that I would really be able to gather for now. So after thanking the young man for his time, I continued to make my way further on ahead, as I thought a little about what I had heard.

If this town really was going to be overrun by the City of the Red Tower in the days to come, then I was going to need to get out of here. For now, there probably wasn’t a need to act just yet. But I didn’t want to be anywhere near the area when the armies came marching into town.

I had already known that I would probably have to leave Westfall sooner or later. But even still, I hadn’t really given much thought yet to where I would go next. I knew that the situation in the world was getting increasingly tense… but I had hoped that a place like Westfall would end up being safe from that. Still, it seemed like the tensions and the hostilities were spreading quickly, and I imagined that it would be very difficult to find a truly “neutral” town in the years to come.

Besides… if a Great War were to begin – which it seemed like most of the students here were starting to expect – then I wasn’t sure that there would be any neutral cities left in this world, apart from the Blue Tower. Even if a town like Westfall did manage to stay neutral, almost all of the students here were citizens of one of the Great Nations, or of a town that was under those Nations’ control. That meant that, in the event of a Great War, something like 98-99% of the entire student body would be called back out to fight – leaving the town “neutral,” true, but also pretty much completely uninhabited, and unlikely to be able to offer any real protection against the dangers of the outside world.

Not only that, but I remembered reading in a book of history that during the last Great War, the Blue Tower had ceased to provide any grants of protection to the neutral communities, because it had started to become impossible to determine which towns were truly “neutral,” and which were merely using their neutrality as a kind of cover for the launching of secret operations and attacks. That meant that the only really safe place in the next Great War would probably be the City of the Blue Tower itself… but since citizenship in that place was only granted to people who had proven themselves to be extraordinary, I doubted that I would be able to get in, or to use that city as any sort of shelter from the coming storm.

All of those thoughts were deeply unsettling to me, and they reminded me of what Torver had told me back in the Rolling Plains: that if a Great War didn’t come, then Westfall should be quite safe… but that if it did, then there might not be a single place to hide – and no possible way to be secure.

But even though all of these problems frightened me quite a bit, I certainly didn’t plan to close my eyes, or to be destroyed by the events to come. So I decided that, after I went to see the debate for today, I would head back home, and then start to think hard about what to do next. I would begin by looking through the records of the last Great War once again, in order to see if I could figure out any strategies for survival that had worked back then, and that might be able to work now. But if that failed… well. Then, I would either try to make my way out towards one of the Great Nations, or else I would head out towards the Wild Lands, and try to survive beyond the reaches of civilization.

Neither of those sounded like great bets. But right now, that was about all that I could come up with, and I didn’t think that I’d be able to figure out anything better for the present.

So after reaching that point in my thoughts, I began to make my way further through the town, and out towards the hall where the debate was going to be held.

On the way there, I had been a little worried that I might have taken too long, and that I was going to arrive at the debate a bit too late. But apparently, I had gotten there with a fair amount of time to spare, because none of the speakers seemed to be present yet. Instead, a few of the attendants were helping to prepare the room, as an ever-growing crowd streamed in through two large wooden doors, and found a place to sit, or a comfortable place to stand and listen.

The room itself was a long, rectangular hall, with an elevated wooden platform and three wooden stands at the opposite end from the entrance, and two wooden doors that led inside.

A larger poster at the entrance announced the theme of the occasion: “IS THE PRACTICE OF SLAVERY CORRECT? A DEBATE BETWEEN THREE LEADING SCHOLARS, AND THE PEOPLE OF THE TOWN OF WESTFALL!”

All of the chairs were taken by the time that I arrived, so I ended up making my way towards the back-right corner, where there was a little alcove that I could use for support. It wasn’t the most comfortable thing in the world, but I was quite used to standing for long periods of time from, so I didn’t mind it that much at all.

A few moments later, the hall grew silent, as one of the chief attendants stepped up to the stage, and introduced the three speakers for the occasion – a man from the Guild of the Laboratory, a man from the Guild of the Pen, and a man from the Guild of the Mind.

There was a surprising amount of tension as they stepped up onto the platform. A few people still decided to clap politely. But for every person who clapped, there were at least two who did not, and there was a pronounced sense of animosity and of hatred in the assembled crowd.

Then, the room fell silent, as the first man stepped forwards, and flipped through a few notes that he had prepared for the occasion.

It seemed that the debate for the evening was nearly about to begin.