The scribe's hand had not stopped shaking for the last three pages.
She sat at the far end of the table with her ledger open and her pen still moving, because the pen always moved, that was the job, but the letters had been getting smaller and tighter with every demand the young man across the table lobbed at the Chairman of the Awakened Association.
The latest one informed the Chairman that the legal framework governing every dungeon entity in this country could not stand any longer. He'd said it as if he expected the man to agree with him on the spot.
Her ledger contained all they discussed, the prize packages, legal backing, federal arbitration channels, sovereign dungeon ownership, and entity reclassification, every sentence a grenade lobbed in the softest wrapping she had ever witnessed.
The Chairman let the silence sit for three beats, then set both hands flat on the table.
