The podium was dressed with understated dignity. Velvet banners of Ostara's colours, crimson, ivory and deep gold, draped the wall behind it, though their edges had been trimmed with black silk in quiet mourning.
The floor gleamed with polished marble, so pristine it mirrored the glow of the overhead lamps. Cameras stood like mechanical sentinels in the aisles, red lights blinking to life as they fed his image out across every screen tuned in across the nation.
And there Alfred Stein stood, cloaked in robes darker than midnight. The cut was simple, severe, reminiscent of old generals and long-dead advisors. The cloth fell heavy around his shoulders, casting shadows over the furrows of his weathered face. He looked less like a Politician and more like a figure of judgement risen from a bygone age.
His gaze swept the small audience before him, journalists, broadcasters, and stenographers. Every one of them handpicked. He had ensured that. Men and women whose ties led back to a tragic incident that he planned on using to cast doubt and win the crowd's appeal.
Their faces, pale in the light, twitched with nervous anticipation, pens already poised. Alfred noted their eagerness with quiet disdain.
He did not clear his throat. He let silence carry, allowed the weight of expectation thicken until the cameras leaned closer toward him as though to catch the first word. Only then did he bow his head, his voice uncoiling like smoke.
"Citizens of Ostara," he began, every syllable slow, heavy with a fake sorrow. "I bring you terrible news."
The room went still. The clicking of fingers on keyboards had stopped to try and get the news first.
"Dario Kosta," he said, his tone reverent, "our nation's Warlord… is dead."
The words struck the air like an axe. Gasps broke through the chamber, sharp and disbelieving. A collective hush followed, thick and unnatural, broken only by whispers that skittered between rows like frightened mice. "Impossible."
"He can't be." "The Strongest Star?"
Alfred let the storm ripple unchecked. He wanted them to drown in their disbelief.
He spoke again, pressing the words into them like a blade. "Yesterday, one of the First Children appeared. The Reaper's Cart. It was in that battle… that Dario Kosta fell."
The whispers rose again, some sharp with denial, others carrying the low, sick edge of fear. Alfred drank them in, noting every widening eye, every pale face, and filed the reactions away for later use.
"But," he said, raising a single hand, quieting the ripples, "there is more you as citizens of this nation must know."
He shifted his stance, letting the robes settle around him like the folds of a funeral shroud. His voice deepened, cold and precise. "As of this morning, President Edric Maélstrom Vireaux… and the pillar of memory, Alaric Weiss, have been imprisoned. They are under investigation for treason, for collusion with Outlaws and smugglers, for conspiracy against the people of Ostara."
The journalists stirred again, eyes narrowing, pens scratching in stuttering disbelief. Some mouths opened soundlessly. Others clenched shut, teeth grinding against outrage. Alfred did not falter.
"They were working in secret," he pressed on, his voice sharpening like a knife. "And they drew Dario into their web. The details are still unravelling. But evidence places his hand in incidents long whispered about, disasters we once thought… unexplainable."
He let the bait sink before naming them, each word crisp, unforgiving.
"The Sunken Quarter," he informed, "Where storms tore half of the city into the sea. Leaving much destroyed lands and thankfully few lost lives due to the Pillar of Arms stationing the right Paladin at the time."
"The Ashfield Massacre."
He watched their faces twist, disbelief, horror and denial. That look was what he wanted.
Many had believed the incident was done by a group of Outlaws that had been emerging at that time. It was, but there were few that actually knew that, and soon the pillar of memory would be out of his position for good and he can do away with that tidbit of information.
"And the Gresham incident."
The name lingered like smoke. Alfred could see the effect ripple through the crowd. Some faces collapsed inward, shadowed by personal grief. Others stiffened with quiet rage. He had chosen well. Most of the people here either once lived in the beautiful district or had family or friends from there.
"Why?" A voice asked, with quiet and quivering desperation. "Why would Dario, of all people, be part of such horrors."
Alfred tilted his head, let a pause breathe long enough to sound pained. "We do not yet know. That is why the investigation will be thorough… and unyielding."
He struck again before the silence could harden against him. "But there is more. Dario Kosta… took in two children. They too have blood on their hands. They were part of the Gresham incident."
Faces blanched. Pens faltered. Whispers tangled like a web across the room. Alfred continued mercilessly. "I will not name them. Not yet. They have one month. I will give them one month to step forward of their own accord. Their safety depends upon it. Their names will remain hidden… if they surrender."
A hand shot up, trembling. "And what happens if they don't?"
Alfred coughed into his sleeves, the sound wet and phlegmatic, dragging the silence longer before he answered. His gaze settled on the woman like frost. "Then they will be revealed. The Paladin will hunt down the Outlaws. That is all there is to it."
Another voice broke in. "If the President is imprisoned, who leads us now?"
Alfred's lips thinned into the smallest of smiles. "I will," he said simply. "Until the rot of this betrayal is torn from its roots, I will bear the burden of leadership."
Murmurs shifted, skepticism and approval clashing like steel. A second question followed. "And the Pillar of Memory? Who replaces him?"
"That has not yet been decided," Alfred answered smoothly. "There is much to cleanse. Many changes to come. Under my watch we will see them through."
Nods spread slowly, reluctantly, through the room. Fear bent skepticism into something resembling assent. Alfred could see it in their shoulders, the way their pens steadied, their jaws eased. They were breaking already.
And then, from the back, a thin voice rose. "What of the Reaper?"
Ah. He had been moving through this so quickly he almost forgot major information. The smile that nearly reached his lips was smothered beneath solemnity. "Dario was not called the Strongest Star for nothing. He destroyed it."
Relief bloomed, naive and foolish. Faces softened, smiles cracked the silence. Alfred hated them for it. The way they clung to the ghost of the man, even now.
"But," Alfred said, each word a weight, "as it fell, the Reaper threw its gourd into a separate space of its own. And then hours later there were sightings of it near the city of Kastovia."
Confusion rippled, then unease. Alfred let his voice drop into a hush that forced them forward in their seats. "The gourd was a prison for the souls of its victims, waiting to be used. Without the Reaper, those souls escaped. They rise as skeletons, mindless and savage. Already one hundred and twenty three thousand have been numbered and are loose across the north. Paladin are fighting to contain them and put them down."
The crowd shifted into panic. Wide eyes, hands clutched to mouths, some scribbling frantically, others frozen in stunned silence. Alfred savoured it, the taste of fear ripping through the air now that their saviour has 'died' and can no longer blast away the problem.
At last, he softened, his voice lowering into something close to benediction. "There will be a funeral for Dario Kosta. A day of silence, a day of mourning. Whatever his crimes… he was our Warlord. For his service, he will be laid to rest. And we will pray the Great Sage grants him peace."
He bowed his head, a mask of reverence concealing the simmering contempt beneath.
The cameras blinked. The pens scribbled. The whispers began again, fragile, uncertain. Alfred let them have it. He had planted the seeds. Soon doubt would do the rest.
And as he stood beneath the banners, cloaked in shadow, Alfred Stein thought of only one thing, Dario's fall had carved the path open. At last, the nation was his to shape.
"And two days after his funeral we will announce the next Warlord."