Getting on top of the crate had been more of a chore than Holsley realised, but it had been necessary in order to find his footing.

The young bard looked out at the infamous courtyard of the Old Stone Keep and over the tightly packed crowds moving within it. It was quite a scene. One that hadn’t changed much from when he was a boy and, as far as he was aware, hadn’t changed much in the past hundred years either.

The courtyard could be accurately described as a sea of cracked flagstones, reaching out to several large and great buildings that sat beneath the even larger and greater Old Stone Keep — a high-rising blocky mess of stone towers, walkways lined with battlements, and so many windows that Holsley doubted mathematics had got that far with the numbering.

At any time of day, the keep was a looming structure rising as high as the morning sun. In its prime, he may have called it majestic, but these days, it was a crumbling mess wrapped in scaffolding, just like every other building in Tressa.

Holsley directed his eyes down, back to the courtyard. What he was looking for was in one of the less-impressive buildings within the keep’s shade.

The tower across the courtyard to his left belonged to the tubheads. Most called it Tub Tower, but its official name was the High Warden’s Watch. Holsley preferred Tub Tower. The young bard could tell what it was from what was in front of it. He gulped. It was the gallows, Tressa’s preferred instrument of death.

He quickly looked away.

That’s not what he was searching for. On the other side of the courtyard, directly opposite Tub Tower, was a long stretch of building that dominated that side. With its shaped gable roofs and fancy arched windows, it looked like a manor, but it wasn’t. It was an administration building. When a person had a problem that had nothing to do with breaking the law, like a streetlamp not turning on, that’s usually where they went to get it sorted.

Holsley hopped off the crate and winced when the ground caught his foot awkwardly.

Other notable buildings included an old, decrepit church that not even scaffolding could improve, several other manor-esque attachments, and a few smaller buildings dotted about to make the place feel more homely.

‘Get out of the way!’

He jumped back as a sudden cart raced across his path through the open gates. Heart racing, he looked to the figure driving but caught her middle finger first in his eyeline. The tiefling narrowed her eyes and shouted something that was lost in the crowd’s din but was no doubt offensive and rude. He stared daggers at her but needn’t have bothered as she was gone a second later.

‘Good to be back,’ he mumbled to himself.

People moved around the courtyard in a circular pattern, with others constantly getting on and off as if they were all members of the same organism. Holsley jumped into the fray, intent on manoeuvring to the Named Offices, but quickly faced a few navigational problems.

He’d be lying if he didn’t admit that he was perhaps a little shorter than the average height for a boy his age. However, even if he was of average height, he still doubted he could see above this crowd. Holsley quickly found himself being pushed and pulled in all directions while seething Tressans sneered at him and shouted obscenities for getting in their way.

When he’d had enough, the young bard forced himself to the centre of the thousand-person march. Holsley had been intent on getting his bearings but quickly realised that he had ended up in the courtyard’s centre. When he had been perched on the crate, he hadn’t seen it, and he was surprised at himself for forgetting it was here.

Tressa didn’t have a lot of artwork. Or, to say, artwork that was in a good condition. It did have this, however. Standing upon a marble plinth, Holsley admired the work of six unique statues, each depicting a different person in the heat of a great battle. As a boy who had grown up in this city, he recognised their faces instantly from the legends. These were the fabled Heroes of Tressa.

Over three hundred years ago, these six strangers valiantly fought off a great evil and subsequently founded the city of Tressa. From there, they became the monarchs who formed the first Council of Six to rule over the people. These days, it is the Council of Four, as two of the founding families have died out.

Curious and feeling a little nostalgic, Holsley approached the plinth and leaned in towards the plaque below it at waist height. Quietly, he read the words aloud as he followed them with his finger.

‘Droth Rosevale, human. Saarthen Davanx, elven. Ivela Everonn, human. Alion Attilan, human. Abberella Haven, elven. Love Ravenpeak, tiefling,’ he mumbled. ‘In the year 813, these six heroes founded the great city of Tressa for the purposes of rebuilding the three towns destroyed in the Unbridled Storm of 812. This statue commemorates their greatest achievement in being the absolute defeat of Violl, the mother of spiders, whose banishment created said storm.’

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Holsley straightened back up.

‘The only change permitted is the change we create ourselves,’ he said the last part louder and found himself as he had when he was ten, reading it for the first time — confused at what it meant.

He looked up at Love Ravenpeak’s youthful face and cringed. She was perhaps the same age as Holsley was now, with magnificent curling horns and a face so stern and determined that Holsley almost felt rallied into action. Unlike the others, she didn’t carry a weapon but pointed like she was commanding them into action.

Each finger on her hand wore an impressive, if not bulbous, ring. There were five of them altogether, with four on the one that was pointing and the last on one of the fingers behind her back. Most looked about the same, except for the one behind her back, which seemed to have been cut in the shape of a brain.

This was the current High Warden of Tressa. He knew that because she’d been High Warden of Tressa since before he was born. This was the woman who had deemed Roland evil enough to execute and had gone as far as to do the paperwork. She didn’t look like much. In fact, she didn’t look like this. Holsley had seen paintings of her, and in them, she was an ancient and far more demonic-appearing creature.

Love was the only founder left, which was a fact everyone knew. What everyone didn’t know was how she’d managed to live for over three hundred years, which was well past the lifespan of a regular tiefling. Some said, while others believed, that she stayed alive out of sheer stubbornness, but others thought magic might be the culprit.

Holsley wasn’t so sure, however.

***

It was approaching midday by the time Holsley stepped inside the Named Offices.

An entire hour had passed since he had come to the courtyard of the Stone Keep, and he had spent much of it in an aggravating queue with some rather disinterested individuals. When he finally did step inside the offices, he did so with wide eyes and a sigh of relief.

A hundred clerks sat behind a counter that ran the length of the opposite wall, not unlike a bank. They even sat behind arrow-proof screens. Occasionally, a tiny bell would ring, letting the next person in line know they were up. Beyond that, though, there wasn’t much to say about the Named Offices. They were sparsely decorated and seemed actively uninteresting.

Ring.

Holsley hopped to attention and rushed to the counter. Behind it, a weedy human with a struggling moustache waited for him. ‘Good morning. What do you need from the Named Offices today?’

‘Uh.’ Holsley had momentarily forgotten. The indifference of the inside and the hour of waiting on the outside had derailed his thoughts. ‘Uh, I’m here to—’

‘Yes, yes, complain about your gutters?’ The gentleman clicked his tongue as Holsley reeled back from that unexpected statement. ‘There’s a very simple parchment you need to fill out.’

‘I’m not here for that?’ Holsley replied, a little confused. ‘I’m here to appeal for Roland Darrow. He’s, uh, going to be executed on the sixteenth.’

‘Oh,’ The weedy man said it with the same exaggerated tone as a giant yawn. ‘All appeals must be brought to the attention of the City Guards.’

‘You mean the tubheads?’

The man nodded. ‘You can submit an appeal in the High Warden’s Watch across the way.’

‘My gnome friend told me I had to come here first to find the right way to go?’

‘I’m telling you the right way to go,’ replied the weedy teller, even going as far as to point this time. ‘Across the way.’

‘So, I just stood in a queue for an hour for nothing then?’

‘Yes.’

With a harumph, Holsley stormed off in the opposite direction. The moment his body moved away from the counter, the little bell rang again to signal that the next person could now approach the tellers. He could already hear them complaining about their gutters moments before he found his way to the door.

Must be a pretty common problem, he thought.

He sighed and hoped this little setback would be the only one of its kind today, utterly unaware that today would be one of the busiest days of his life.

***

Holsley couldn’t keep his eyes off the gallows as he marched towards Tub Tower.

They looked so old, so wooden, practically rotted away. In less than a week, unless Holsley could stop it, his friend would be standing on that platform waiting for death while a crowd eagerly anticipated his end. Wagers would be passed between them, betting on whether his neck would snap or whether he’d be forced to choke on his own weight.

He held his breath and continued to hold his breath as he passed the two tubheads on either side of the iron bolted door. They had no reason to stop him, but there was an inkling in the back of his mind that they might just recognise him. They didn’t. Instead, he stepped through the door and into the beating heart of the city’s policing.

A desk awaited him, and sitting upon that desk was an older gnomish woman. Beyond her was a set of stone steps that led up to the parts of the tower he needed to go. As he entered, the doorway shutting behind him, one of the three multi-coloured bells above her head jingled, and a half-elf stood up from a nearby bench and casually hopped up the staircase.

Holsley approached the desk and read the little nameplate that told him the gnome’s name was Shray Olindle.

‘Uh, hi, Shray.’ He gave her a small wave, and she gave him a glance over the rim of her half-moon spectacles. ‘I’m here to make an appeal for Roland Darrow?’

‘That’s fine,’ she replied with the bare minimum requirements for a smile. ‘We’ve had a few people filtering in and out for Roland Darrow. You can produce your evidence to the Lower Warden.’

‘Oh, where would I find them?’ Holsley drummed his fingers excitedly along the desk.

The gnome merely pointed to three bells hanging above her head. ‘You must wait for him to become available,’ she said in a drawling voice. The red bell will ring when he is open to visitors, and then wait for your turn. At that point, I’ll wave you up to his office.’

Holsley looked back to the rounded bench in the foyer, the one filled close to breaking with people from all walks of life. An older woman eyed him up and gave him a short wave, which he returned awkwardly before turning back. ‘Uh, is this likely to take long?’

‘Yes,’ Shray replied curtly without looking up. ‘Please take a seat.’

With no other choice, Holsley found a nice gap between the bench minders and settled himself in for a long wait.