In the center of Nun, an elevator made a ding as a door slid open. A Netzian man stepped out. He was middle-aged with greying hair and a slightly round belly. His eyes were large and dazzlingly green, and his skin had enough of a blue touch that a denizen from earth might think him sickly without Resh as a context.

His clothes were more formal than the party dress of the city. A black suit jacket was draped over his shoulders, and a yellow tie was pulled up to his neck. In the pocket of his suit, he had a bright yellow handkerchief with a picture of the Beauideal Dia’s face neatly showing.

The elevator emptied into a hallway with only a set of double doors at the end. The man quickly crossed the space and made his way through the threshold.

He was greeted to the sight of a secretary’s desk where a blue and white Zenotote sat. She was hastily writing something down while trying to flip through several tablet screens at once. When the Zenotote saw the man, she shot up to a standing position.

“Mayor Abelard! You wouldn’t believe—” she began to say.

“I’ve heard Rom, I’ve heard,” the man in the suit said.

He was the mayor of Nun and had been for many years. As such, he always was showered with news from all over the city as soon as it became available. He had hardly been able to wake up when information of a group fighting a Japhinth outside South Nun had come rushing to him from all sources. To make matters worse, he soon found out the group was the special forces dispatched from Quenth after the abrupt and violent end to the conference.

He sighed as he made his way to his desk. It was a simple rectangular desk with hardly any ornamentation or details. As Abelard sat down, he began to rub his temples.

“First Dia goes off on her own; then this troublesome group arrives,” he muttered.

“Sir,” Rom said as she handed him the stack of papers she had just written on. He was reluctant to take them but didn’t show it to his faithful aid.

“Just what I need!” exclaimed the mayor as he quickly read over the papers. He slammed them onto his desk loud enough to make his Zenotote assistant jump. “I apologize,” Abelard added after noticing Rom’s reaction.

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Rom had received two reports at the same time. The first detailed a request from the Aqueenian capitol. They had been pinging the mayor’s office every day since the death of King Whitlock at the hands of Dia. He had decided in the beginning to ignore their calls until he could speak to the beauideal in person. Unfortunately, the winged Aqueenian had eluded him since the regicide occurred.

Not even his top forces could keep tabs on her outside of her deliberate public appearances. She would appear for concert-matches and then quickly disappear out of sight. Abelard suspected a Needaimus was involved, but he had no more information than that.

The winged Beauideal had become all but impossible to trace, at least, until that very day. The second report Rom had received detailed where Dia had been located for over a week since King Whitlock’s demise. She had been pictured with some other figures that his office was well aware of— they were wanted criminals.

“I told that girl repeatedly not to hang out with a crowd like that!” The mayor groaned as he rubbed between his green eyes.

“I’ve been getting reports of all sorts of suspicious characters moving around the city since our guests arrived today,” Rom explained as she handed him more papers.

“They couldn’t have entered the city in secret; they just had to fight a monster right at the doorstep,” Abelard grumbled as he read the reports. I’m not letting them create a mess in my city!” The mayor set his papers down and looked at Rom. “Rally the elite forces.”

“It’s already done, sir. I had them begin preparing as soon as the news of the Japhinth was coming in.

The mayor let out a hearty laugh. Rom was the best assistant he had ever come across.

“If you keep doing so well, you’ll hardly need me to be a mayor! Maybe it’s about time I retired.”

“Sir, you still have a couple of good years left in you. It would be best not to waste them playing your silly game,” the blue/white Zenotote said in a neutral tone. She spoke of a sport on Resh that was identical to golf in about everything but the name. Apparently, a Netzian had brought it to the world in the past, but neither the mayor nor Rom was aware of the details.

“Kids these days are all wrapped up in beauideal shows. You need to learn to appreciate the finer things!”

“If you say so,” Rom calmly answered as she walked back to her desk. “You have a mountain of paperwork to complete,” she added before returning to drop a mountain of paper onto the mayor’s desk.

“That’s it! I’m getting rid of all laws, no more paperwork for me!” the mayor declared in a joking tone after briefly looking at the first sheet.

“The amount of paperwork to remove the laws would be more than what is currently on your desk,” Rom shot back.

“Darn,” the mayor replied.

They had had the same exchange before; Rom had not found it amusing the first time or any other time after. The blue /white Zenotote rolled her slitted eyes and returned to her work as the mayor began to read through the documents he was given.

Elsewhere in the city, an elite force was dispatched to interfere with any who wished to do Nun harm.