Nero

Ooooookay. Your money does not dictate the rules or how they are enforced, so I've no idea why you mentioned this. Your hyperbole does you no credit when all it signifies is that you didn't take the time to actually read and comprehend the content of the discussions. You accuse all of the participants of this thread of blowing something out of proportion, only to be the sole person who is melting down due to a combination of misconceptions, generalizations, and outright falsehood. If said signature involved blatant commercialization and/or some form of the incentive of payment to encourage clicking, as highlighted in the rules, since you asked. While I agree that people who go on the Internet have a responsibility to be their own content filter, what you're arguing is like me saying that governments only exist for corruption and thus should never be respected or acknowledged. What you personally believe about 'triggers' does absolutely nothing to discount the fact that they exist and are capable of affecting people, despite the Internet being responsible for discrediting the term. Ironically enough, your blatant disparagement of the term marks you as someone who would like to be penned and sheltered away from acknowledging the fact that triggers are capable of being real and negatively affecting the people who suffer them. No. Which, if you comprehended the rules as they are posted, you would know. Disregarding it would be a favour, since by even taking the time to respond to your absurdities I'm only escalating the situation. The only rustled tailfeathers anyone can see is yours. Most of the responses, while occasionally being openly or passively aggressive in some manner, were more or less measured and restrained to the idea of civilized discourse. And then you entered full of ad hominem and a lack of perspective or comprehension and proceeded to flip the table and then have the gall to blame those participating in the discussion. Hey, remember when you wrote this? Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. I imagine they would start by giving you a warning, if you were paying attention. For future reference, your condescending self-deprecation only harms whatever argument you were trying to make if you do nothing but give your opponent the grounds to agree with it.

Several days later, a small parcel arrives. The parcel is unmarked save for the insignia of the Immortal Flames and Osric Melkire's name written directly on the surface. Inside contains a small, thick sheet of Garlean steel, and several envelopes. Inside one envelope is a map of Ul'dah, criss-crossed with circles, lines, and notes. The blue linkpearl had also been placed inside it. A second envelope is considerably thicker, containing several sheafs of paper. The words are written in a carefully constructed cursive script. I had originally planned on simply bailing on our deal, but considering all that's happened--and your surprising utility as an assassin--that would simply be unprofessional. I suppose, then, that I owe at least one person a full explanation. Most people would assume that that person should be Roen, but I've decided it to be you. Do not be flattered by the notion. You are simply less emotional than that woman, and may perhaps appreciate my intentions over my actions. I will admit, though, I was rather surprised to have mail waiting for me--or rather, waiting for Redgrave--when I had dropped out of business a few moons ago. The basic formula was thus: economic pressure and violent anarchy would give way to political upheaval, with a failsafe of sorts. I believe you already know of the several months in which I had hired corsairs to choke out Ul'dahn trade ships leaving via the Rhotano Sea and the Strait of Merlthor. I will leave out the details; you are, after all, interested in the violent anarchy and my original planned failsafe. Refer to the map of Ul'dah that is attached to this parcel. A row of buildings is circled in red ink in Pearl Lane. Several arrows point from within Pearl Lane to other parts of Ul'dah, namely the Sapphire Avenue exchange, the Gold Court, and Onyx Lane. The primary instigator of said violence is an Ala Mhigan Highlander by the name of Ernis Randolph, though you may know him better as Scythe. The referred-to location in Pearl Lane is where he and his gang are holed up. For several moons now, they have been covertly battling the other gangs for territory and influence, using Lominsan firearms that I supplied to them as a threat. That incident with the Hammerbeaks was the first instance of them actually using said firearms. As far as I could tell, the threat was enough to cow most of the bandits in the Lane to submission. Note that the firearms were not intended to be used against the Ul'dah--the purpose of the firearms was expressly to allow Scythe to unite the various factions of Pearl Lane with force, which brings me to the next part of the plan. Scythe was to wreak havoc primarily in the Sapphire Avenue exchange, specifically targeting those merchants not directly associated with the Monetarist faction. The bandits will make a show of violently extorting non-Monetarist merchants. I had also taken pains to arrange things such that the majority of Brass Blades in the Sapphire Avenue at that juncture would turn the other way or merely be absent. It was my intention to instigate the idea that only Monetarist merchants would be safe, which would spur widespread and open resentment to their practises. In addition, it is common knowledge that the bandits in the city are permitted to stay so long as they can bribe those who would remove them--that is, the Syndicate, and the Brass Blades. If it appears that the Monetarists have lost control of those bandits, then the Syndicate's control of the city will be questioned, especially if innocents are killed in the conflict. Following the first attack, Scythe and his group will retreat to Pearl Lane, where there will inevitably be a swift response by the Brass Blades to re-establish order, and hide themselves among the refugee populace. With enough chaos, the Blades will not distinguish between proper bandits and simple refugees, and a slaughter at their hands will take place. This will further add to Ul'dah's instability, and such a blatant display by the Monetarist's private army will force the hands of Raubahn and the common folk. Simply put, with their open support, we would gain the momentum that is needed to overthrow the Syndicate, or at least expel them from Ul'dah. At this point in the plan, I expected that the Flames, the Sworn, and perhaps even free companies may be roused to finally clean out bandit influence in Ul'dah. Scythe and his gang will be killed, as I had intended, for they had served their purpose. I have also had evidence planted in Pearl Lane that suggested that Scythe's gang was hired by the Monetarists to drain non-Monetarist merchants of gil, in order to supplant the losses they would be suffering from my corsair attacks at sea. This would, theoretically, be the straw to break the chocobo's back, and civil war would take place within Ul'dah. The message, though complex in execution, is simple in its intent: if Ul'dah is to have any measure of lasting peace, then the Syndicate cannot rule there. I would have of course supported Raubahn and the Sultana, though in my own way. I had gathered a small group of Lominsan entrepreneurs to collaborate with to supply the Raubahn's side of the conflict. When the smoke clears, if everything has gone according to plan, then the only remaining members of the Syndicate will be Raubahn and Manderville. The latter cares not for political whimsies, but the former will throw everything he has in support to Nanamo ul Namo. Thus, the Sultana will be in full control of Ul'dah, and from there, true measures of reform can take place. A despicable way to spur change, perhaps, but it is only after destruction that new creation can take place. As for the failsafe, see the enclosed blueprint. A third envelope contains a large piece of parchment, folded several times to fit it into the envelope. When unfolded, the blueprint details the outline for a large, Garlean-style dreadnought. Design notes on the back of the parchment and written in the margins note that the vessel would not fly in the manner of an airship, but would hover such that it would not be hindered by most terrain. The dreadnought is armed with all manner of armaments, and would be a massive project in scope and scale, utilising revolutionary ideas as to the flow of aether and experimental ceruleum reactor designs. The sheet of steel is a sample from this project, though you should know that this project has been cancelled for obvious reasons. The dreadnought was to be my safety net: if Garlemald took advantage of Ul'dah's unrest to invade again, then the dreadnought would be a strategic asset with which to repel invasion. After all, the Immortal Flames makes up the most sizeable portion of the Alliance's military strength. Until conflict with the Garlemald ceased, the dreadnought would take their place in combat. In addition, if things in Ul'dah came at a stalemate, then this dreadnought would be my ace in the hole. The Monetarists would surrender or be destroyed. A cliche ultimatum, and to be honest I've no idea if such an ultimatum would have worked, but that was the intention behind it. Note that I do recognise the political implications: if it appeared that Raubahn was taking over Ul'dah with backing from the Garleans, then all of my plans would have backfired and the Monetarists would be painted as the heroes. To be honest, I hadn't planned that far if such a thing had happened. In any case, Flame Sergeant Osric Melkire, you have now heard the full extent of my plans and what I had originally intended to do. I suspect that this explanation will not satisfy you, as you wish to know what it is I intend to do now. The dreadnought project has been scrapped, but the spare materials have been repurposed by my arcanist associate into something similar of a smaller scale. I've given this device to Scythe, whose mission is largely the same, with one alteration: the dreadnought, in a much smaller form, will attack Hustings Strip and attempt to capture or kill the Sultana. A different, blue arrow on the map of Ul'dah highlights the most direct route from Pearl Lane to Hustings Strip. It paints a pretty picture, doesn't it? The Monetarists finally attempt a violent coup, using their bandits and Garlean technology to try to seize complete control of Ul'dah. And the Eorzean Alliance is too dependent on the Flames and Ul'dah's economic benefits to question who rules the city. This, too, will force Raubahn into action. Scythe himself doesn't care who he attacks. He is a man with much built-up rage--not unlike yours truly--and he will inflict it on anyone he perceives as wealthy or privileged. Ernis Randolph is a man who believes that successful people only gained their success by trampling on the less fortunate, and he has much anger to inflict. And because I am such a nice person, refer to the second map. Another identical map of Ul'dah is folded behind the first. This map has several areas circled. These areas notably overlap with the areas marked as targets by the first map. I've already taken the liberty of assessing which districts of Ul'dah would be in the most danger, and thus you can evacuate that civilian populace. Or try to, anyway. I am not sure who will believe your ridiculous claims of "A Limsan pirate is planning a coup with a Garlean device and bandits, you need to leave the city". But it's worth a try, right? In any case, I have fulfilled my end of the deal. There are no more tricks, no more lies or deceptions. This is my plan in its entirety. I know not when you will receive this package, nor do I care. For all I know, it's already too late and Ul'dah is a pile of ashes, or is entering a golden age of reformation. And do feel free to share this message with whomever you'd like. The things I've put in motion have come too far to be stopped. Oh, and you can have your linkpearl back, too. This will be my last correspondence. Regardless of whether or not my plan succeeds or fails, I am leaving Eorzea for Othard very soon. So now that things are coming to an end, we've reached the part where you make a choice. You can choose to pursue me. You can hunt me down before I leave Eorzean borders, and thus condemn the civilians you claim to care about to a violent, merciless uprising. People will die, yes, but the villain in all of this--that is, me--will finally be subjugated and forced to face justice for all of the crimes I have committed Or, you can stop Scythe. Save the people, the women and children. Bring Ul'dah back to some measure of order, if not peace. But in the mean time, I will escape with no difficulty, and face no punishment for the wrongs I've committed. I am curious as to what matters more to you: justice or mercy? I am vaguely aware of the bloody knives and cloaked bodies that lay in your past, Melkire. Not the details, of course, but enough to know that what you are in the dark is something very different from what you present in the light, and that the choices you make when no one is looking paint you as a man not too dissimilar to I. Do your best, Flame Sergeant. N.L. P.S. If at all possible, do present the dilemma I have offered to Lady Crofte. Though I will never learn of it, I imagine her reaction will be priceless.

I watch way too much anime. I also love mecha. I've never seen Evangelion. Commence gasping.

I feel the need to preface this with a statement: it is absolutely within the rights of all involved to write their character however they want. This thread is not meant to contain any sort of e-peen wagging or "I'm a better writer nya nya". This is intended as a tool for those who are interested in adding additional facets to their character, and nothing more. This is a deceptively simply writing challenge that is useful for highlighting the prominent features of a character's personality while also accentuating any excessive reliance on superficial details and exposing any wild inconsistencies that may have gone unnoticed. After all, the core of a character is their character--that is to say, their traits, their personality, their beliefs and morality, how they react, and so on. Having a strong core is essential to making the other elements of your character compelling. In other words, this exercise is about adding--or expanding upon--your character's level of depth and dimension. Like the title says, describe your character as extensively as you can without referring to what they look like, what they do or did (both in combat and a profession), or where they came from. For a further challenge, do not refer to their reputation, their family or friends, or their historical background. Keep the focus solely on your character in the present day. Essentially, pretend you have a friend, and that friend don't know anything about nothing about Final Fantasy, basic fantasy elements, or anything at all of the sort, and is also critically allergic to explanations to the subject. Now tell them about your character. Here are a few basic guideline questions in case you are confused on how to start. How does your character react to someone new? (Shy vs. Grandiose, Cold vs. Friendly, Polite vs. Uncouth, etc.) How does your character react to having their beliefs challenged? (Stubborn convictions vs. open mindedness, skepticism vs. faith, etc.) What does your character value, and why? (Money because it represents power, family because they hate feeling lonely, excitement because they are inspired by adventure, etc.) What is the general life's goal of your character? Why? (Seeking a purpose in life because they've never fit in, protecting loved ones because family means everything to them, exploring the world to see new sights, making money, just living day by day because they don't think too much about their motivations or the long term, becoming famous, any combination of the above, etc. Do not refer to their goals or motivations with professions, locations, or explicit historical background.) How does your character deal with things they do not like? (Avoidance vs. Belligerence, passive aggression vs. direct confrontation, sarcasm vs. silence, etc.)

What is the criteria for "well-recognised"? Number of posts? Reputation? Date registered? The RPC itself contains a number of smaller, mostly self-contained groups. Is someone well-recognised even if they're only considered such within their own friend group? What if someone is heavily involved with the community in-game but almost never posts on the actual forum? What if someone posts very frequently on the forum but rarely appears in-game? Perhaps a workable alternative might be to simply have people volunteer as "experienced" or "inexperienced" in regards to interacting with the RPC, especially if the primary purpose is to be an opportunity for newer people to integrate smoothly into the community.

Initial thoughts: it's been mentioned plenty, but the horns being tied to faces makes me really sad, especially since it seems males get the short end of the stick in the face department....again. I love the rear-facing horns, but having it attached to Baron Von Frownyface of Constipation makes it far less appealing to me. I hereby proclaim that this ManRa face forever be referred to from this day forth as "Sad Dragon Pants". Other gripes: No variation in shading on scales. I know the colours of the scales are vital in identifying the subspecies, but there's no reason we couldn't at least have had some slight variation in shading. Raen scales have this really pasty, goat-like feeling which I suppose is the intention, but it could have been fixed with changes to the color saturation or having a darker shade so that they don't look like plastic. I haven't found an Au Ra male voice that suits what I'm looking for, either. The absurd anime hair styles were mentioned a while ago, although I admit to being a fan of the Kamui Gakupo hairstyle. The resemblance is so uncanny that I hesitate to say it's not a Vocaloid reference. As a positive, I like the limbal rings feature. Eyes are a pretty small detail but having an extra distinction that adds contrast is always good. Armor proportions seem pretty decent, although interesting to note that in this build, the Dragoon AF2 gear erases the Au Ra's tail. I haven't played with the female customization extensively, but I score their customization options 2/10 because they only have one ponytail hairstyle. They earn an extra point for being aggressively adorable with the dreadlocks hairstyle, though. Do we have a possible mate for Sad Dragon Pants? Mayhaps he will be upgraded to Occasionally Melancholy Dragon Pants?

I would have been interested in seeing the original concept art toned down in terms of proportions--seriously, those FemRa must be suffering ungodly amounts of back pain--and used as the model for the Xaela, at least. The only other race that has such a distinct difference in silhouettes in terms of proportion are the Hyur with Highlanders and Midlanders. Having the Xaela retain more of their bestial features--heavily scaled arms, claws, longer horns, etc--would have served as a much more interesting differentiation from the sedentary Raen as opposed to splashing a different colour palette on them and calling it a day. And, like you said, it would tie more into their warlike nature. I suppose such duality in physical aspects doesn't make sense if they're supposed to be the same species, but still. That's some lost potential, there.

It's also interesting to note the bestial aesthetic of the original concept art, particularly regarding the FemRa: The concept art has the FemRa looking voluptuous with much more prominent, savage features. The one on the left also has some kind of scaled growth obscuring the top of their face as if to highlight the unnatural nature of their less humanoid aspects. This design is interesting for me, mostly because it seems like a concept artist drew this up, showed this to the producers, who then went "Hey, this looks good. Let's take this as far in the opposite direction as possible." Concept art for the ManRa runs a similar route. I can only dream of what kind of nightmarish clipping issues would have arosen from the in-game model borne of this design. I may have gripes with the blandness of the design, but ultimately Square would rather create something bland and commonly played than something unique that has only niche appeal. I don't agree with their aesthetic choices, but I do understand them.

Assuming that I know that the person is reasonable OOCly then losing or being wounded is perfectly valid, although of course this depends on context. If the other player's character is, for example, a well-known and successful street brawler, my character wouldn't begin antagonizing him without an established upper hand to start with. That being said, in Nero's case specifically, I have him written to be combat-able enough to win in fights against NPCs, but not trained or experienced enough to win against battle tested player characters. Part of this is because combat RP is an extremely slippery slope, especially with someone you don't know, and bruising somebody's ego because they feel that their character should easily win is a pain that I'm not very inclined to deal with, so I try to avoid combat RP whenever possible because I find it to be horrendously self-indulgent at its worst.

We've discussed this before. Genital size is NOT proportional to body size. Remember the gorilla 2-inch penis... I'm not even talking about genital size. D: Just the body mass, man. That gorilla thing makes me chuckle every time... How do you think two humans of large weight discrepancies get it on IRL? Carefully, I imagine.

No spoilers.

I'm very much a narrative-based roleplayer. Slice-of-life has its place in deepening character relationships and lending itself to character depth and development, but unless there's a plot to challenge those relationships and provide contextual meaning to that depth, I typically lose interest very quickly. That said, conflict and plot isn't completely necessary to make a session dramatic or intriguing. Plot is a tool, like any other literary device. It's important to remember that at its heart, roleplaying is improvisational writing. EDIT: To expand on my point (seeing as how I apparently hit the nail on the head for a few people), I do not find slice-of-life inherently boring. Rather, slice-of-life is very useful to develop parts of your character. How do they react around racism, how do they deal with being startled, how strongly do they feel about their beliefs, etc. However, simply establishing these traits is not enough, and your typical slice-of-life scenarios usually do not force a utilization of them in the same way a plot does. To put it into a simplistic analogy, slice-of-life roleplay is gathering all of the ingredients to a cake. Writing the premise to a plot is putting the ingredients together and baking the cake, and plot roleplay is eating that cake. In regards to how I make my characters interact with other player characters, I feel that it is wasteful for me to gather the ingredients and not use any of them in a cake. And like any sweet treat, eating too much cake is unhealthy, and using the same ingredients makes the act of eating cake boring. Contrast is an important element in both writing and food.

The males have some serious anime hair syndrome going on. That's not unexpected in the slightest of course, but it still makes me laugh. Dude must spend five hours a day just soaking his head in roofing sealant or polymer cement, I swear. Somewhat unrelated, but I don't see enough female characters wearing the dreadlocks hairstyle. I almost like it as much as the ponytail.

I found it tedious due to reliance on RNG, but I didn't find it too bad. It's significantly less stressful than the 4-star books, or even generic 3-star recipes, at least in my opinion. The way I did it was thus: HQ Bouillabaisse for the food, and I used the following "rotation" for my Lucis tokens: Comfort Zone Inner Quiet Steady Hand II Hasty Touch x3 Master's Mend Repeat ad nauseum and pray fervently to RNG. Hit as many Tricks of the Trade procs as you can. Good TotT procs can give you 3 full cycles of SHII + HTx3. You'll want to go into your Byregot's rotation when you hit around 215 CP (iirc). Master's Mend back to 40 Durability, Steady Hand + Great Strides + Innovation + Ingenuity II + Byregot's Blessing. Good or Excellent after Great Strides means hit Byregot's immediately. I'm sure there's a more efficient way of doing it somewhere, but this was simple enough for me to HQ the Lucis tokens with a measure of reliability.

Everyone above me has already gone over most of the basic stuff like being impartial about IC interactions and whatnot, so my suggestions will be about the two interwoven aspects of initiative and adaptability. Initiative: the ability to introduce conflict or interesting circumstances without prompt. This is, in my opinion, the hallmark of an excellent roleplayer. Of course, this is a double-edged sword that requires very careful balancing: too little initiative results in a DM-PC sort of relationship which, while not inherently negative on its own, carries the risk of not meshing with everyone involved, while too much initiative can result in the arbitrary or, at its worse, oppressively hostile introduction of new plot threads. Implementation is also key when introducing conflict or similar elements. To clarify, the "without prompt" part of the above phrase refers to a prompt from the narrative, but it also refers to OOC interactions. If you want to join a storyline, encounter, or narrative, but you are unsure or lack the confidence, then don't wait simply to be invited, but ask to join, and offer ideas as to what your character adds. Of course, in casual encounters this facet can be unnecessary, but for narrative-driven roleplay, having initiative can lead to new characters, new elements, and a diverse array of situations and interactions. Basic examples: 1). Bob and Alice are roleplaying a casual encounter in a tavern. Bob and Alice's characters have never met before. Bob has his character continually introduces new topics and rumours. Bob and Alice's characters start to argue. Drama ensues. (Also good for developing actual social skills!) 2). Bob and Alice are roleplaying a casual encounter in a tavern. Both of their characters are good friends and equal in temperament. Alice OOCly invites her friend John to ICly interrupt Bob and Alice's characters. Introductions and/or drama ensues. 3). Bob and Alice are roleplaying a casual encounter in a tavern. A new player, John, enters the tavern, and quietly sits next to them emoting to himself. Bob makes his character accidentally spill a drink on John's character. A new circumstance ensues. 4). Bob and Alice are roleplaying a casual encounter in a tavern. A new player, John, enters and, while OOC, politely asks to join. In this case, John is showing initiative. 5). Bob and Alice are roleplaying a narrative about chasing a jewel thief. Bob is also roleplaying as the NPC thief. Their characters both catch the thief, and Alice's character notes that the thief had also stolen one of Alice's character's long lost family heirlooms. A new branching narrative ensues. 6). Bob, Alice, and John are roleplaying a narrative about John's character. Bob asks John OOCly if he (Bob) can introduce a new plot element about how Bob and John are connected, and provides a brief description. John approves. A branching narrative ensues. 7). Bob and Alice are roleplaying a plot-driven narrative. John OOCly asks if he can join, and shares ideas that he has about what could happen and how his character could become involved. Assuming eventual approval, a new character begins to participate. Adaptability: the ability to have a character participate or engage in new encounters in a manner that is consistent with how they are written. This is heavily tied into initiative, as described above. Roleplay is improvisational at its heart, and thus a certain measure of flexibility is called for. This, too, is a double-edged sword: too much adaptability can make a character seem amorphous or inconsistent, while too little will result in stunted encounters or awkward introductions that go nowhere. However, the ability to adapt to new (and possibly even unwelcome) situations goes a very, very long way in creating memorable roleplay. Basic Examples: 1). Bob and Alice are roleplaying a casual encounter in a tavern. A new player, John, rudely interjects his character into their conversation without asking. Bob and Alice both react while IC, and John's interruption becomes a new topic of conversation. 2). Bob and Alice are roleplaying together. Their characters had never met prior. Bob's character is amoral and selfish. Alice's character is suddenly targeted in a kidnapping attempt. Despite Bob's character being self-interested, Bob's character intervenes for reasons that are consistent with his character (e.g. Bob's character plans on extorting Alice's character, Alice's character offers to pay Bob's character, etc.) 3). Bob and Alice are roleplaying a narrative about chasing a jewel thief. Bob is roleplaying as the NPC thief. When Alice's character catches the thief, she notes that the thief is her brother. Despite Bob having never written anything about the thief being the brother to Alice's character, Bob rolls with it and has his character react accordingly. A new plot thread is introduced that is potentially vastly different from what Bob had originally intended. 4). Bob, Alice, and John are roleplaying a casual encounter walking down the street together. John suddenly has his character notice a bounty poster with Alice's character's name on it. Despite having never written a criminal past about her character, Alice creates a new plot thread wherein her character was framed for a heist. -- Obviously, everything is dependent on context, but the general gist of the idea should be fairly clear.

"A wonderful device, is it not? I think we can call this 'evening the odds'." Nero lightly kicked the sheet of carefully manufactured metal plates he was standing next to. Bright lanterns blazed to illuminate the inside of the ramshackle building. The windows and doors had all been carefully and thoroughly boarded in order to prevent any light from escaping. "Of course, it's not going to be as big as the final product was originally intended, but it should be a fun little thing to use anyway." The Highlander made no response, sticking a tongue out of the side of his mouth as he pored through a thin leather-bound volume. As the pair spoke, members of Scythe's gang carried parts and pieces from a tunnel that had been dug beneath the building. The tunnel didn't extend very far--it reached to just outside the walls and was flimsily hidden by shrubbery--but it was enough to avoid the gates and it more or less avoided most road traffic. Of course, even that small, cramped tunnel had taken several months of nonstop work, and more than once its construction had risked detection, but so far it seems that the gang's efforts had been worth building such a route. Nero frowned as he leaned against the wall, folding his arms. "I even labelled the parts for you. Getting the pieces into Thanalan wasn't easy, you know." The Hyur snorted. Of course, given that he no longer had the Forte, leaving Thanalan undetected would be far more difficult than entering. Suffice to say, he was more or less committed to this course of action now. Scythe made no attempt to respond as he carefully traced a meaty index finger through the ink of the paper, his gaze having taken on a quality of sharpness that most would consider uncharacteristic of a brute of his size and girth. It was only after a few minutes of uncomfortable silence that he spoke. "And this will work?" he growled. Nero shrugged. "I'd certainly be disappointed in a certain genius Elezen if it didn't. He had all of that raw material and wanted his precious reactor to have some practical application. Though, if nothing else, you can use the plates as shields. Maybe whack some people over the head with them." The pirate received an unamused glare for his efforts. Another shrug. "Just be glad I'm not charging you for this. I'm giving you all of this out of the goodness of my heart, you know." The familiar smirk flashed itself across his face, a twinkle in his eye. "Call it a sentimental gift for old times' sake." "The sooner I am rid of you, pirate, the better," the Highlander pressed his lips together disdainfully. "After everything we've been through?" The Midlander put on a wounded expression that came across as grotesquely demure and wholly inappropriate for a man of his age. "Enough," Scythe snarled, folding the leather-bound pamphlet into his robed sleeve. "As long as this device works, then I've no more need for you or your coin." Nero merely grinned for several minutes before unfolding and refolding his arms, his countenance taking on a considerably more serious expression. "The device will work, I guarantee you. I wouldn't have bothered getting the parts into the city if there was a chance it wouldn't. And have no worry, after this little escapade I've no more coin to spend anyway, not that I'd give much more to you if I had." True, this endeavour had cost him practically everything. Though his savings would lend him a modest living--at least for a decade or so, if he maintained some measure of frugality--all of his funding was truly required in order for this to work. Nero was certain that someone had noticed him liquidating all of his assets, though by the time they connected the dots, it'd likely be too late. It was absolutely an all-or-nothing gamble. Nero lightly tapped the sheets of metal with his foot. "Just be aware that once you've started the reactors, you won't be able to turn it off. A little bit of a design flaw. It'll keep chugging until it explodes or runs out of fuel. The run time will be about seven or eight bells of continuous operation. "What about magic?" Scythe grunted. Nero shrugged. "Gilding it would have taken money I don't have, but it should be reasonably durable. It's not as flimsy as your average reaper. Then again, you boys have guns for a reason." Another shrug. "Anyone starts trying to cast aether at it, just kill them." The pirate brushed a hand through his hair. "In any case, try not to waste this, hmm? I'll be very disappointed if I can't see the fireworks from Vylbrand." Scythe grunted and gestured to a group of idle men nearby. "My associate assures me that assembly should be relatively easy so long as you're careful. Oh, but you won't be able to fit it out the door, so when your little revolution is ready, you'll probably have to simply bust down the wall." Nero received no response from the Highlander who was now thoroughly absorbed with the thin leather volume. With a smirk, he pulled his hood over his face and ducked into the tunnel to leave. He'd thought his involvement in this was done, but it seemed he was wrong about himself. A rare occurrence, perhaps, Roen was right about one thing: he couldn't have left it as it was. It required some resolution, some ending. If Scythe was successful, then Nero would be vindicated in his beliefs, and if Scythe failed, then Nero would also be vindicated in his beliefs. So long as he himself didn't get captured or killed, this would be worth it. Women and children, women and children. The phrase was enough to give him a rousing headache. Nero pinched his temple between his thumb and index finger as he sidled along the narrow tunnel. No, at this point he didn't particularly care about women and children. It wasn't as if his conscience had fully left him--probably--but this had ceased being about lives long ago, though Nero's past self failed to recognise it. This was a war of ideals, and it was a message, too. It was a message about inaction, a message about crossing lines, a message about morals, a message about change. It was a message, that everything had a breaking point. Nero pulled out a chronometer from within the folds of his tattered robe. Soon, all of the principle actors would be where they needed to be. It was just about time for the curtain to rise on the finale.

When the pearl blinked, his first reaction was to stare at it. For some reason--he dare not call it sentimentality, lest he end up inadvertently committing suicide with his own disbelieving laughter--he had kept it, and granted it the rather indignant label of "Annoying" in his case of linkpearls, though it was more of an afterthought than a deliberate insult. How many days or weeks it'd been, Nero couldn't say, but it'd been time enough--time for him to clear his head, to think properly and logically, and most importantly, time for him to regain his composure. Even so, it was evidently not a complete recovery as the expression on his face froze as if struck by rigor mortis when he placed the pearl in his ear and heard a voice that he was not expecting. "Mister Lazarov. I have a message for you..." He dared not blink. He dared not breath. Not necessarily because he was afraid of the voice on the other end of the pearl, but because he was afraid of what he'd say in response. A pause. "Mister Lazarov, this is Ser Crofte. I doubt you remember me." As a matter of fact, he did, not that he'd admit it. Nero's lungs held any air captive within his lungs. His right hand tightly clasped the edge of his rickety seat until his knuckles paled. "We have Roen, Mister Lazarov. Or more specifically, she is the honored guest of Master Taeros. She is not proving amenable to polite conversation lately. Perhaps you could do with some yourself?" A question. And one that didn't sound rhetorical. Crofte said "conversation" which implied that she wanted a dialogue. That gave him time to formulate a proper response. Nero pulled the pearl out of his ear to alleviate some of his anxiety. Should he simply not respond? That'd be one way to prevent a dialogue from happening, and his lack of response would be the only reply they needed. But on the other hand, this was an opportunity to manipulate things in his favour. It wasn't necessarily that he cared about Roen. Those valuable days of clear thinking had lead him to realise that the basis of their relationship was flimsy at best. It was two people seeking companionship in a time of mutual loneliness and desiring affirmation of their respective ideals. For a time, it had proven beneficial, perhaps even symbiotic, but Nero was far too cynical to acknowledge it as anything more than that. The back of his mind registered the amused observation that in all of the time the two had spent being somewhat emotionally dependent on one another, only once had they shared a bed, and it was not even really a bed to begin with. A more surefire sign of the smuggler losing his touch could not exist. In any case, they had clearly mentioned Roen to entertain the farce of an idea of him coming down to Ul'dah to rescue her. It was highly unlikely that they expected any results from this, but the fact that Crofte resorted to this--essentially holding her own friend hostage--meant that the Monetarists had hit a wall in drawing Nero out of hiding. He breathed in deeply, a sentence prepared. That sentence became two sentences. Then a paragraph. Then two paragraphs. Describing the smuggler's face as stony would be a gross understatement as he placed the pearl back in his air and inhaled again. His response would be terse and to the point. There would be very little pausing between statements; Crofte desired a dialogue. And so he will deny her. Nero's mouth broke into a smirk. It was a shadow of his former trademark, but still distinctive enough to almost be called genuine. "In an indeterminate amount of time, a riot will break out in Pearl Lane. Though my involvement has ceased, the circumstances have forced my former collaborators to the point of zero compromise. They will make demands for improved conditions and the complete reformation of law enforcement. When their demands are inevitably refused, they will engage in armed conflict. Their bloodlust can only be sated by Monetarist nobles giving in to their demands." It was half bluff and half truth. It should be enough to shake up the game board. "As for myself, I am willing to turn myself in to Ul'dahn authorities in exchange for the head of Jameson Taeros." Truth be told, Nero bore no grudge against the man. His conflict with Taeros was strictly professional: they each stood in the way of the goal of the other, and thus one or the other must be eliminated. However, Nero was aware that Taeros and Crofte were intimately involved--assuming that that laughable act at the Starlight Ball wasn't actually an act--and if even the thought of such a compromise made the knight squirm, that'd be enough for him. Obviously, his offer would not even be considered. It was an unambiguous, if indirect refusal of whatever offer they had prepared involving Roen. "If that is not satisfactory, then a complete absolvement of all of my crimes, real or perceived, will buy you information on the inevitable riot. I will help you stop further bloodshed, but you must let me go." That, too, was an obvious farce. Ul'dah didn't even know the meaning of the word "justice", much less "absolvement". Still, it was the principle of the idea, not that said idea would even cross the minds of whoever was in charge. "What will you do when there is an evil you cannot defeat by just means? Will you commit evil to destroy evil? Or will you remain steadfast and righteous, even if that means surrendering to evil?" Just like him to feed his ego by having the last word. With that, Nero plucked the pearl from his ear and flicked it with his thumb like a marble, sending the small sphere still glowing from the magical link spinning off the cliff and into the dark waters below. He adjusted himself on the rickety seat and rapped his knuckles against the steel of the large wagon-sized next to him, grinning rather widely at it. The sea lapped against the rocks of the hidden cove, the wind whistling across the entrance as Nero glanced out to sea. It was only a matter of time for things to get much more interesting.

The tapping of his finger matched the rhythm of the chronometer on his desk. Nero was doing aught but staring at the small, rectangular case of linkpearls. The esoteric labels were still affixed to the inner surface of the lid, a testament to the thoroughness with which he had ingratiated himself in a relatively broad information network. None of the agents he paid were under his employ, per se. Regardless of location, whether it be Limsa Lominsa or Ul'dah, information flowed like water in that it went to wherever it could reach; pay someone for some scandalous tidbits one day, and if you weren't careful you could find your own tidbits being scattered about like dandelions. The aforementioned agents were something akin to valves or distribution channels, who could be paid to alter the flow of information or attempt to stifle it completely. Nero was very selective when it came to using his networks, often only using them as message proxies or to pick out the occasional leaf in the stream, so to speak. Previously when he'd made his deal with Scythe, the smuggler had decided against sharing a direct linkpearl out of practicality. Neither of them trusted the other and that linkpearl would be more than enough hard evidence of a connection in the case one or both of them buggered things up beyond all belief. However, the lack of direct communication with the bandit meant that Nero had to be deliberately vague about his messages made by proxy, as there was no way of being certain that the agent he was contacting wasn't immediately selling such info. The Hyur sighed, rubbing his forehead. His lethargy had effectively paralyzed most of his habits, and he'd barely deigned to even get dressed after awakening. The question, of course, was whether or not he could dissuade Scythe, or even if he wanted to. Ernis Randolph was a man that held grudges, with a particularly dark one held against Ul'dah's aristocracy. Even if Nero hadn't supplied the man with guns, eventually Scythe would have sought out firepower from somewhere and eventually gotten it. From what Nero discovered, the man had been continuously battling the other gangs for funds, and rumour had it that he'd even lead a few raiding parties or two near Thanalan's borders. Of course, he paid his dues to the Brass Blades whenever they came around like a good little Ul'dahn gangster, and it wasn't up until now that Scythe's position in Pearl Lane was threatened, although the word "threatened" was a rather laughable hyperbole to Nero, given that the most resistance the gangster would encounter is a couple of Sultansworn at best. The Syndicate wouldn't care unless their income was affected, and as long as Scythe remained below the gil line, the Highlander wouldn't need to be worried about much. His finger tapping continued. Let things continue as they are? Worst comes to worse, Scythe and all of his cronies get jailed or killed--and really, in Ul'dah what's the difference--and nothing happens. Perhaps a tear should be shed for whoever was stupid enough to be caught in the crossfire, but it was doubtful. If Scythe's personality hadn't changed since a few decades ago, then the worst as far as civilian casualties would go would be the nobles' servants, whichever was idiotic enough to resist the angry mob of gangsters wielding swords and guns. Another sigh, and he closed the linkpearl case with a decisive click. Let things play out. After all, it didn't involve him anymore.

"Even if I didn't want to cancel construction, I can't provide you with any more materiel." The response that came through the pearl was a calm and verbose yet indignant series of jabbers. It was the closest to annoyed that Arturieaux had ever sounded. "Then repurpose them. You've got a creative mind, haven't you? I'm sure you can reuse them for something else." A sigh. "We can talk about this later. I'll update you if I manage to continue the supply." Nero pulled the pearl out of his ear and absentmindedly dropped it into an empty wine glass that was resting nearby. The water rippled and splashed against the sides of the bathtub as he sunk deeper into its warm embrace. It'd been a few days since his...mental collapse, but the most important questions had thus far failed to find answers. Had he actually given up? It was true that he'd ceased the shipping of steel and ceruleum, but that was mostly because he'd lost his main source of income since the mutiny on the Forte. He did have relatively livable sums of gil streaming from his investments, but not nearly enough to fund a project of that scale any more. He barely had enough to pay Shael for her last shipment, and then she'd inevitably hear about his inability--or unwillingness--to pay for any further materiel. What did it matter, anyway? What did Ul'dah mean to him? "Did you really believe in what I believed in, or do you simply seek Ul'dah's betterment because you felt that such a righteous and noble vision justified your existence?" He'd questioned Roen's involvement, but it seemed that his own involvement in his own plan was no better. Maybe that was all he wanted. Something to justify his existence. Nero reached for the wine bottle that rest on the floor outside the tub. He noted that he'd been drinking far more often as of late, not out of anguish, but simply because he'd never really noticed the fine taste and quality of such beverages before. The smuggler had been far too caught up in his day-to-day business to indulge in such hedonism that often. The most fatal mistake a businessman could make was to buy into the sunk cost fallacy. Cutting losses now and saving something was better than investing everything and gaining nothing. Ul'dah, Ul'dah, innocents, women and children...Nero's mind involuntarily spiked with pain at even recalling that last phrase. Suddenly, he violently threw the wine bottle across the room with as much force as he could muster, the unfortunate vessel splitting apart in a magnificent shower of glass and velvet-coloured liquid. "What do I care about their innocents anyway?" he said out loud to nobody in particular, sinking into the tub until the water reached the bottom of his chin. "That's all they want. Defending their innocents. They don't give a rat's ass about anyone else but their precious innocents." As long as they felt like they were doing their job, they couldn't care less about whether or not they were actually doing it. Bandits, corruption, violence...there was no point to trying to stop these things, in the same way that there was no point in trying to stop it from raining. All one could do was build a roof over their heads, and Nero had managed to build quite a sturdy one in Vylbrand. As for who "they" were, the term brought up a myriad of faces. Roen's, the Sultansworns, the nobles, all of them who were obnoxiously self-righteous. If they're content with it, then fine. Let that city fester and rot until it's nothing but bare bones. Maybe he'd just go ahead and give Scythe some of the spare magitek. That'd certainly make things more entertaining. A raid on the nobles, perhaps? The Brass Blades were equipped to deal with Amal'jaa and bullying unarmed merchants, nothing more. Explosives, maybe? The rifles were already quite substantial in terms of firepower. Nero had told Scythe that the latter should focus on recruiting as many bodies from Pearl Lane as possible. After all, those innocents don't matter, and they can't be poor if they're killed by Brass Blades or Sultansworn or whoever else decided that the status quo was satisfactory. It really doesn't matter anymore, does it. Nineteen years of his life down the drain, only to be stopped by the people he thought would help him. At least he quit before the climax. As long as they get to protect the innocents. He picked up another wine bottle and pulled the cork out with his teeth. Either way, my involvement is done.

((A brief note: because the narrative and internal monologues in the below post tend to get rambly and just a tad insane, be aware that an omniscient narrator only exists in very few, select passages. Otherwise, unless explicitly stated, all events and internal thoughts are seen and described from a single character's perspective and decidedly unstable state of mind. No, I don't know why I feel that that'd be an issue, but you're weird, RPC, so it's safer for me to clarify this now, lest I be OOCly accused of grossly misinterpreting people's characters. Don't ask. It's happened before. Also, this is a monster of a post. If you're planning on reading through the whole thing in one sitting, bring a sandwich or something.)) A week had passed since then, and the now-former pirate had nothing to respond with but to throw himself into his work. He had stumbled off of the Second Forte in a daze, having somehow made it back to his estate intact. Upon closing the doors, they had promptly been locked. Even as he regained control of his senses, he lost his sense of time, and focused only on writing page after page. His thoughts were naught but a murky swirl of conflict and doubt, his hand mechanically piloting the quill across page after page, barely registering what he was writing. The corners of his mind knew that what he was devising now was nothing more than a pipe dream. A hypothetical exercise. It had no possible chance of coming true, now more than ever, and yet he devoted himself fully to its conception out of subconscious desperation. There is no difference between an evil man, and a good man who allows evil to happen. That couldn't possibly be true. There was such thing as goodness, compassion, mercy. That was why Roen objected to his killing innocents. She so steadfastly believed in such a thing. Something like that could not have any veracity whatsoever, because if it did, if it held the slightest bit of water, then it would mean that that city was utterly irredeemable. And Nero did not want to believe that. It was why he had fought and bled, sacrificed and forfeited, murdered and stole. Surely there were others. Others who saw what he saw. And if they saw what he saw, and if they too were good people, then they would not simply stand by and allow it to happen. They would try to change it, like he and Roen. Beneath the veneer of prosperity and wealth was a festering cesspit of deception, corruption, violence, and despair. He was not so egotistical as to think that he was the only one who saw it. Bribes, lies, assassination, extortion, blackmail. Nothing was beneath him. Deposing the Monetarists from power required the support of the people, but he had quickly learned that any "legal" attempt at doing so was swiftly stifled. People are unwilling to act, so long as their daily lives are unaffected. And so, he put his plan into motion. A long, extended plan. Affect their daily lives by cutting off their supplies. Affect their daily lives by having the bandits inside the walls grow more violent, more greedy. Affect their daily lives by having the poor, the scorned, the destitute strike back. Show them that apathy was a choice, and that it was the wrong one. There is no such thing as innocence, only varying degrees of guilt. It was this veritable conflagration of jumbled, confusing thoughts that burned in Nero's psyche. Constantly did those contradict one another, his mind raising new ideas in the blink of an eye and tearing them down just as quickly. It was as if someone had written down every thought he'd ever on a sheet of paper before tearing it apart and picking at the bits at random. Gone was the decisive thought, the cohesive plan. Even as his turmoil threatened to rip his sanity apart, however, the Hyur found that he'd regained some composure over the past seven suns. It became much easier to slip into his usual mask, to pretend like nothing had happened. By the time Roen had arrived at his estate, his mind had not settled much, but that mask had remained intact, and if nothing else was stronger than before, even as internally he ridiculed himself as he read through the sheaf of papers before him. Nero was seated in his study, a small crackling fireplace presenting itself as he continually flipped through the packet searching for typos and other minor technical errors. Something like this was impossible. It was not even worth attempting. He'd composed it purely as an intellectual exercise. Still, being the kind of blind and exasperating woman she was, Roen would likely find it intriguing. Nero put aside the sheaf as she stepped into his study, a neutral and relaxed expression on his face. "Glad you could make it." The paladin came to stand by next to a nearby chair, leaning against it with the crook of her arm. "It is rare to see you have some time to spare," Roen noted casually. The smuggler smirked lightly. "Trust me, it only looks like I'm not working. There's no rest for the wicked, after all." It was so easy, to lie, to appear composed, to seem normal. It was almost disconcerting how easy it was. "In any case, I did call you here for a reasosn. I wanted your opinion on this." He tapped the sheaf of papers with his index finger. "I understand you may feel unqualified--and I don't mean to be condescending, mind--but it was important to me to have your thoughts on it anyway." Nero had called Roen here for many more reasons other than that banal statement. Her presence calmed him somewhat--arrogant in her self-righteousness as she was, she held a certain measure of decisiveness at times that he lacked. Though he would never consciously admit it, knowing that the paladin was backing him was his only stabilising element of recent times. He pulled several pages from the back of the packet and put them together to form another sheaf of papers that was considerably thinner than the one that lay next to him, and passed it to her. A small sigh, Roen's voice softened. "Well, still. You seem a little more relaxed than usual." She arched a brow at the papers and settled to a seat next to him. "What is this?" Nero made a sweeping gesture towards the fireplace. "The plan outline for the reconstruction of Ul'dah." At that, she arched both brows. "Reconstruction?" His smirk returned. "Well, go ahead and read it." Roen nodded slowly and picked up the packet to read over the documents. The plan itself was detailed in several short, succinct bullet points accompanying a rough timeline of events. It was a to-the-point, but still extensive summary of what would happen to Ul'dah after the Monetarist power base had collapsed. Though he'd composed it as little more than a distraction, Nero still felt some small measure of pride in its thoroughness. It detailed how to integrate the poor and destitute into society with a livable wage, how to handle the aristocracy, how to reorganise the Brass Blades and the Sultansworn, and a veritable litany of legislative suggestions ranging from new government bureaus to financial regulatory laws. Also mentioned was the participation of various Limsa Lominsan companies in the reconstruction and on the last page was a theoretical bill of citizenship rights. Roen set the sheaf of papers back upon her lap, a considerably softer and more relaxed expression on her face. "You drafted...all of this?" she asked with a mild hint of incredulity. "Contrary to popular belief, I'm not really trying to destroy Ul'dah," Nero responded with a wry smile as he gestured for her to continue reading. The smile the paladin gave him was a small but genuine one. "Aye. Contrary to popular belief," she echoed. Her voice dipped at the end. Upon completing her inspection of the last sheet, she lifted it closer to her eyes, staring at the words before letting out a long exhale. Nero patted the much thicker stack of papers next to him as he noticed her eyes reach the bottom of the page. "You're reading the short version of this." "That is....quite the plan," Roen finally said after a long pause. She was trying to take it all in, passing a glance between the taller stack next to him and the man himself. The smuggler flashed a confident, crooked grin. "Why not give me a quick test, then? Try to think of one thing I haven't thought of in this plan." Not that there was any point. An intellectual exercise, he continually reminded himself. Still, this diversion was proving effective from distracting him from everything else that had happened. Roen shook her head slightly although her expression was brighter than it had been when she had first sat down. "The logistics of it all...I am still trying to believe that it canwork, but the ideas here..." she tapped the sheaf of papers as she laid it back down upon her life. "Well," the paladin canted her head in thought. "You are allocating the poor to the repair and reconstruction efforts. What of those whose homes and businesses are affected by the shift in power? Can they take part? They too will be left without a home, or a source of income." Nero frowned. "Ah. I know what you mean, but the proposed employment is not exclusive to the poor or the refugees. Of course, the government should properly compensate those negatively affected and be permitted to participate should they choose." He sighed, rubbing his head in contemplation. "I realise that for some, the collateral damage will be irreparable, whether it be buildings, goods, or people. Still, this is the decision that will benefit Ul'dah as a whole and secure her future." Did he really believe that any more? "You ordered their deaths. All of their deaths. With a pen, you murdered more people in a day than your father did in two entire decades of piracy with a galleon." All of that...was for the greater result in the end, that would benefit the most people. But did he believe that? "Those who had nothing, given a chance at comfort and security, they will take it up gladly. Those who had homes and businesses will want recompense." Roen exhaled, a small crease to her brows. "And aye, some losses cannot be replaced." She glanced back down at the papers again. "I fear there may not be enough wealth to make all of this possible." She paused as she glanced back at Nero. "Do you think there will be enough? Not just to repair, but build, employ, pay. You are also offering to give new entrepreneurs supplies to sell at a discounted rate." "True," the smuggler said sighing again. "It'll be problematic for us if the Monetarists end up being much less affluent than I had initially projected. In that case, it would likely require selling assets such as mineral rights or trade routes, since the wealth of the Syndicate is in goods as well as coin. But even so," he leaned back in his chair, smirking. "Can you honestly look at all of those nobles and think that there's not enough money in the city?" Roen glanced at the papers on her lap again. "People of Ul'dah will have to accept this new regime. After the Syndicate falls, they will have to find faith in the new government." She paused in thought for a moment. "We are making Ul'dah very vulnerable. As all things are when it is made to change. We need to see that the new influence that is allowed is still somewhat controlled. I would not replace Monetarists with Limsan nobles." Nero snorted. "Limsan nobles? Have you been to Limsa Lominsa? That is not exactly the kind of environment that lends itself well to people like Taeros, you know." "Just so, you are also putting a lot of faith in the Sultana to accept this plan." The smuggler leaned his head against his fist. "It is rare of you to be more cynical than I am". And rather refreshing. "Though, I will not discount your point. The Sultana may very well be completely and utterly incompetent as a leader. In any case, Roen, bear in mind that this plan has never been about politics. I know it seems that way--considering a central element consists of deposing the current government for a new one--but that is only because removing the current government from power is the only way to ensure the birth of a new system that will provide for all of its people." Roen nodded, her expression softening again. "Aye. But for this plan to work, we must have some ideas about the rulership that will be left in place. It is they who will maintain that new system. I do think that the Sultana and Raubahn are capable leaders, but they must accept this plan first." She exhaled and gave a small frown. "Do you blame me for being hesitant about allowing Limsan influence to leak into Ul'dah?" "Limsa Lominsa may be full of rogues and scoundrels, and yes, Merlwyb is an iron-fisted tyrant, but they are not the wolves you think they are," Nero said confidently. "Limsa Lominsa will not threaten Ul'dah's sovereignty, so long as that sovereignty--or the lack thereof--doesn't threaten Limsa's own." "I believe Ul'dah will be too busy licking its own wounds." "Which is exactly why Limsa won't be a threat." The frown evaporated from the paladin's face. "As you say. I will leave the details of the Limsan merchants in your hands." Nero sighed again. "In any case, there is not much point to counting the chickens before they hatch. Before we can even seriously consider this, we need to change the power structure." Roen nodded as she absentmindedly flipped through the pages. "About that. I suspect their hunt for you will intensify soon." Nero sighed, standing up to stare at the fire as he scratched the back of his neck. "Yoyorano, is it? I heard that word of what happened at their estate leaked its way to the nobility. Of ocurse, very few know why they died, but a few more know only that they did." Roen's tone lowered as her mood did, her thoughts returning to the conversation with Coatleque, and she nodded again. "Aye." The smuggler remained silent for a very long time, what felt like hours, his mind gaining a sudden and inexplicable measure of clarity. He exhaled slowly, his arms folded and his gaze fixed solely on the fireplace. "I have a question for you, Roen," he spoke suddenly. Without waiting for a response, he continued. "What is the worth of a life? Can one life be worth more than another?" The paladin looked to the fire that crackled in front of them. She had no immediate answer. "There is a reason I ask. Would you like to know it?" "Aye." Nero exhaled. "Ever since the nobility heard about it, I've only heard one phrase. 'Why the women and children?' That is all I have ever heard." He shifted from one leg to the other, noting the tiniest of sparks that would flicker as the embers danced on the firewood. "'Who would kill the women and children?' 'What monster does not spare the women and children?' The women and children, the women and children..." Memories flashed to the forefront of his mind. Incoherent fragments, like sparks leaping from an open flame before vanishing beneath the invisible pressure of air. Like a firework, a brief second of colour and light was all that was needed to have an effect. Roen gave him a strange look as he grew silent. He sat back down on the chair, leaning forward, his hands clasped together, the knuckles growing a pallid white as he grip intensified, his fingers straining against one another. There is no difference between an evil man and a good man who allows evil to happen. A cloud of emotions darkened the expression on his face as he spoke. "I never knew my mother." Roen blinked. "I never knew who gave birth to me. I never knew, and will never know what named she had intended to grant me." Nero inhaled and exhaled softly, in a controlled manner. "But even as a child, I did have...a sort of mother-figure. The men called her Ember, and she'd been reduced to prostituting herself to survive, but her real name was Fiora. She was from Ala Mhigo." He inhaled and exhaled again, almost mechanically so. "I must have been...maybe eight years old." Nero's voice wavered. "And even though she made no money, though most of her day was spent bedding men who had coin, she still managed to show me some kindness, some affection, a hint of what I may have missed from not knowing my real mother." "This is one line we cannot cross with you, Nero." "And that city...repaid her by having some bandit try to drag her into an alley, and her neck being broken against a wall." "We kill...but not innocent women, and not innocent children." His chest was trembling, trying to keep his breathing controlled, the memory of the incident bringing forth something furious, something that seethed and boiled. The blood had drained from his hands, and his wrists were trembling as they sought to contain one another. "Ye be killin' women and children. We ain't bein' part o' that." "What..." he inhaled and exhaled again. "What right to they have..to judge me?" "To kill families? Children? Simply because they share a bloodline to one noble? That was your plan?" "What right do they have to judge me, when their precious women and children starve at their doorstep?" His fingernails dug into his hands, not enough to draw blood, but leaving visible, red indents. "'The women and children'. 'Whoever did it killed women and children.'" His hands writhed in each other's grip, as if trying to prevent each other from tearing the other one straight off of his wrist. "Is it because they had money? Is that it? Is that why they're worth lamenting? Because they had status? What separates them from us? What makes some pampered brat dying in his estate worth more than the packs of urchins being ignored as they're left to rot?" Roen was silent, her voice just above a whisper. "I cannot imagine the anger that must have burned in your heart." Nero either didn't hear her or didn't acknowledge her statement. "Women and children, women and children..." He was repeating the phrase now like a mantra that would preserve his sanity. "Why won't anyone think of the women and children..." There is no difference between an evil man and a good man who allows evil to happen. "It is not that they hold the women and children of Yoyorano with any more import," Roen began quietly, carefully. "Harm coming to such innocents and often weak, it stirs rage. It screams of injustice. The same rage you felt against the man who killed Fiora. They...did not want to see you in the same light." A pause. "I...do not want to see you in the same light." "Injustice...they fight against injustice, then..?" His tone was flat, neutral, questioning without being condescending. "My brother. My friends. They cannot abide by the thought that you would prey upon the weak. The innocent." A pause fell between them as Roen looked at him questioningly. "You do feel remose? For those lives that you have taken?" "Remorse..." Nero repeated. His mind was a chamber of echoes, filled with hateful shouts and quiet whispers both. No such thing as innocence. No difference. Good man who allows evil to happen. Injustice. Remorse. Women. Children. "What shall you do when faced with an evil you cannot defeat through just means? Will you commit an injustice to correct one? Or will you remain steadfast and righteous, even if that means surrendering to injustice?" Daegsatz died alone, in a gaol. His crew abandoned him, abhorring the thought of the harm that had fallen on women and children. There were no allies. None who saw. None who tried. "The lives I have taken..." Nero said slowly, his thoughts ceasing to become comprehensible even to himself. "I mourn them. I shed tears for them. But I do not regret taking them. I wish that I did not have to kill. I am stifled by the grief that is felt for them." His hands tightened again. "But no, I do not regret taking them. Because this is a war, and war is cruelty. And the crueler a war is, the sooner it's over." Those were Vail's words, words of a veteran of Garlemald's first invasion of Eorzea. Roen turned her gaze away from him, forcing her gaze back into the fire as she was trying to hide a frown. "They fear you would do it again. Kill more children. And women. The helpless. The weak. The innocents. Would you?" Inhale. Exhale. Controlling one's breathing was essential to controlling one's emotions. The more rapidly one took in breath, the more heated and emotional one would be. Instead of focusing on feelings, one should focus precisely on controlling their lungs. "For every child I kill, there are fifty souls buried in the depths of Ul'dah, unable to comprehend why they cannot obtain food." Inhale. Exhale. "For every woman I killed, there are a hundred forced into whoring themselves to survive. Forced to become playthings for men who are richer, men who are more important, but not men who are better." Inhale. Exhale. "For every helpless man I killed, there are five hundred with no option but to go into banditry and murder, driven by absolute poverty and destitution to preserve themselves." Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. "And for all of those souls suffering within it, the city does nothing....but watch." Inhale. Exhale. "There is no such thing as innocence. Not there. Not in Ul'dah." inhale exhale no difference Inhale. between an evil man Exhale. and a good man inhale who allows exhale evil to happen "There is no difference between those who are evil, and those who are good but do nothing." He turned his head, practically able to hear the creaking of gears as he did so, forcing his steely gaze to bore into her face. "So yes. If it means ending the suffering of the many, I will kill the few. If it means preserving the hopes of those who are ignored, I will destroy the dreams of those who aren't. Kill one to save ten. Ten to save one hundred. One hundred to save one thousand. I believe all lives are equal, and all lives have value. Therefore, for the scorned many, I will kill, even torture, the affluent few. If I have to." Roen's head snapped back at him. "To those that died, they care not whether they were killed by an evil man or a man with good intentions. Only that their lives were ended." She stiffened. "Tell me, Nero. Tell me that there are no more plans to kill innocents." His gaze became a glare, though Nero was visibly attempting to suppress it. His expression was one of frustration as he turned away, staring balefully at the flames that reflected the incoherent inferno swirling beneath his eyes. Roen's own gaze lowered back to the sheaf of papers on her lap, as she carefully set it on the table. "We do this often, do we not?" she said quietly. He said nothing in response for a long time, slumping back on to his seat, his head in his hands. To be born wealthy. That was all he had wanted for a long, long time. It would mean never being hungry, never fearing the chill of night, never wanting. But fate has never been kind to one who has erred so much. "I believe in this dream. And I believe in you. I believe in the hope that I know you still hold deep within." Silence. A thought rang like a bell. No, you do not. And now the woman who claimed to support him was now opposing him at every turn. Was she? Was he? "You are merely using her." Was he? "And I've yet to decide which is more despicable: the idea that you are using her without being aware of it, or the idea that you are fully aware and simply do not want to admit it." Nero leaned his head in his hand, one clasped to the left side of his face. For the first time since Daegsatz, a sliver of a stream escaped from beneath his hand. Was he truly so deplorable? So worth abhorring? All I wanted was for things to be better. But was that not the excuse that every tyrant and despot used? All I wanted was for things to change. What separated a well-intentioned revolution and a vengeful rebellion? All I wanted was for others like me to hope. What purpose was there in climbing to the heights of hope, if it meant naught but tumbling off of the cliffs of despair? "Why don't..." he breathed, his voice wavering, shaking. "Why don't they just drown us as infants? Why give us those illusions of hope if not to torture us?" His chest heaved as again he focused on controlling his breathing, though he was gradually growing aware of that control slipping through his fingers. "If all that matters is the 'how'...then that means I can change nothing? What possible chance could I have had of saving Ul'dah?" "Bright, pure, innocent hope," Roen said softly. "I was told that is what was hidden behind all the rage. The anger." She reached over to brush the moisture from his cheek. "I believe in that hope." The smuggler barked a bitter, scornful laugh, even as he held his head in his hands. "You believe in it. Hah....ahaha...what does that even mean, you believe? You cannot grant that belief to others. You cannot force them to see your delusions. You...you..." Inhale. Pause. Exhale. Focus on control. Breathing. "Try as you might, there is no peace to be had, no hope to be gained. No answers to these questions." He slowly managed to raise his head from his hands. "If there were answers, none of us would be struggling so much. And we do. Every day." "And that justifies it?" Nero snapped. "I...do not know," the paladin responded quietly, looking back at the flames. "But the 'how' matters just as much as the end. Because I believe that how it is carved determines the shape the end will take. Hope is only an illusion until it is made real. Until then, it is an intangible thing." It was something small, so infinitesimally small that clicked. All of this talk of "hope" and "believing". It pulled a trigger of explosions. In that instant, he wanted to scream at her. You have no idea what you are even saying any more, do you!? Every time she opened her mouth, it was nothing but utter nonsense, metaphysical and meaningless, idealistic garbage. "Believe" in "hope". You're satisfied with that, just believing in it? From the corner of his eye he stared at her face. Always so pure, always so self-righteous, always so arrogant. It made him nauseous....and angry. So, so very angry. He stood up again, staggering towards the fireplace, holding out one arm to lean against the mantle as he stared directly into the flames licking the last of the firewood. "So...that's it then." The more he thought about it, the more he made sense. Believing in hope. What a farce. What a worthless idea. "That's it. That is all I need to do." Inhale. "All I need to do...is stare those tormented souls in the eye." Exhale. "And tell them...'your suffering is noble as long as you believe in hope.'" a good man "I will proclaim in all of my righteousness, 'your pain will sustain my ideals if you believe in hope." an evil man "I will look at them and say, 'I know how to save you.'" Kill one to save ten. "And they will reach for me as their savior..." Kill ten to save one hundred. "And I will slap their hands away." is life equal? "I will tell them, 'but saving you like this is not the right way.'" What makes one life worth more than another? "So I will command them. To suffer, and starve, and despair until their graves, for my ideals." Strangely enough, a memory of one of their many, many arguments floated to his mind. It was after their raid on Nanawa Mines. "Why do you fight, Roen? What do you consider worth killing for? At what point will you commit evil to destroy it? Or will you spend your whole life in the twilight, surrendering to injustice after injustice, paralyzed by your ideals and your conscience, despite the power you wield to change things?" That was what he had asked. "I do not believe that. I do not believe I have to compromise justice to fight injustice." That was what she had answered. I see your truth now, Roen Deneith. In that moment, Nero understood. If there was truly no difference between one who was evil, and one who was good but did nothing...then what soul could be more selfish, more wicked than that of the paladin who claimed to support him? He could see it now, what she was trying to say. Allow those souls to suffer for ideals. Ignore their torment, deny them succor, so long as the 'how' was correct. In all of this time, Nero Lazarov was determined to believe that he would never understand such self-righteous people, and they would never understand him, but in that fleeting, brilliant moment...he saw what he could only describe as their truth. What was the difference? Between one who was evil. And one who was good but did nothing. Roen frowned, looking at him again, her expression darkening. "Am I not here? For all that I believe in, for all the people I wish to protect, am I still not here? Do you think I wish the suffering to continue? For people to continue to starve? Waste away?" He remained quiet. I see you now. Nero turned away. "Yes," he affirmed softly. "I do believe that." The paladin's lips twisted downward, her grip on the chair tightening. "You know me not at all then, Nero Lazarov. After everything, after all that I hid from...everyone that trusted me, turning my back on friends and family to protect you, after you have killed women and children." Women and children. "Ye be killin' women and children." "To kill families? Children?" Why do they not see? Inhale. It is either because they cannot... Exhale. Or they will not. "I do not expect you to understand," Nero cut her off, his voice steely. "Given how self-centered you are." She froze. "Self-centered. Now you are calling me--" I can see your truth. "You are a slave to your ideals. To your conscience." I can understand now. "It doesn't matter how many are dying, or starving, or suffering." Kill one to save ten. "As long as your ideals are pure and your conscience clean..." Kill ten to save one hundred. "...you are perfectly content to allow that pain to continue." Nero leaned both of his hands against the mantlepiece. Though she couldn't see it, his expression was one of smug depravity. "If I am not wrong, then tell me how your righteousness and your nobility will save Ul'dah." He did not allow her time to object. "You can't, can you? Because doing so would mean breaking your ideals, staining your conscience. And you can't have that. You will leave them alone in their torment and despair, forever, so long as it means your precious ideals are intact." He sneered at the stonework. "You won't even try." Roen buried her face in her hands as if to hide the expression that twisted her expression. She shook her head and she punched her cushion of her seat. "I have asked people, good people, to risk their lives to spy and spread lies, to weaken your enemies. Did you know that Mister North delivered poisoned wine to his friend who worked for a noble that Taeros was targeting? And Taeros ordered him to deliver the poison. He did it, because I asked him to go work for him, so he can start insinuating himself into that society. Why? Because I was trying to destabilize their alliances. For him to spy on a noble that was out for your blood. So he delivered poison, knowing very well that his friend would be made to taste it. Then the noble drank it. They both died." So that's what you've resorted to. Laughable anecdotes to defend your selfishness, because you have no defense. You know I'm right. She was no longer even attempting to argue his point. She herself had never had to break her ideals. Even now, she was having other people break theirs for her sake. And so, like she always did, she would lecture, condemn, damn them, because they--he--was able to do what she could not. He was able to succeed where she could not. That was it. That must have been it. Roen was jealous. She was jealous of his lack of fetters. He was not so devoted to something as hollow and worthless as ideals. He could obtain the results he wanted, and improve the lives of those around him, and she didn't want that. Because that would mean that she was no longer the savior, the people's beloved knight. And she couldn't have that. She wanted his dream to come true, but in her way. That was all that mattered to her. She was using him to get what she wanted without having to get her own hands dirty, her own conscience stained. The only condition for victory is to be able to do what your opponent isn't. "And now? Sergeant Melkire tells me there will be even more Monetarist blood. I told him to trust you. That you had Ul'dah's best interest at heart. The man who swore he would not cut, is sharpening his knife. Why? Because I believed in your dream. Despite my ideals. Despite what is right. Despite the fact that you killed women and children, I came back to you. Do you think my conscience still remains unstained?" "Women and children..." That was always what it came down to. "Women and children, women and children!" Nero was suddenly shouting now. He raised his right fist and brought it smashing down onto the stonework of the mantlepiece, a sickening crack heard as his knuckle split open and rivulets of blood flowed from his hand. He did not even register the pain. "Yes! Women and children!" Roen shouted back, rising herself. "Because even with everything, there is still a line!" Her breaths were coming in short gasps as she glared at him. Nero whipped around. He was so close, so close to wrapping his broken fingers around her neck, so close to crushing that pretty, self-righteous little neck of hers. The smuggler resisted, but only barely. "Don't you dare," he gasped in fury, drawing himself up to his full height, his hands closing into fists even as blood seeped from the hint of exposed knuckle. "Don't you dare! Don't you dare lecture me, you arrogant, ungrateful bitch! You, who've never had to experience that kind of guilt, that kind of hardship! You've never had to sacrifice! You've always had other people, people like me, people like your brother, people like North, who have always shielded you from the truths you refuse to learn! People who have always broken themselves, their ideals, their conscience, for your sake!" He would make her understand. He would make her understand, and if understanding broke her, then so be it. "You, who are content to let hundreds of your precious women and children suffer, just to save your own conscience! Just because...." his breathing grew heavy, his hand numb. "Just because you're afraid. Because you're so afraid of guilt. That's why. You're afraid, so terrified of responsibility! You're unwilling to become the evils that are necessary, even if that means saving them and their future generations! And when push comes to shove, you just sit back and condemn those who are willing to do what is necessary!" "Content!? You think I am...I am not content!" Roen's voice and her emotion were rising to meet his. "I have those nightmares! Of those killed and those still dying!" Her voice broke. "You say my ideals mean more than those lives? If I was saving my own conscience, I would have stayed far away from you. Why...why do think I keep...I keep coming back here? To you? Despite this twisting pain that grows inside? This dread, this pit in my stomach… It is because I want to stop the suffering that I am still here!" The difference between one who was evil, and one who was good and did nothing. There was a difference, and the difference was that the one who was evil never felt the need to lie to himself about what he was doing. He never felt the need to console himself, because time spent wallowing in self-pity was time that could be spent obtaining results. She had ceased listening to him. Of course she did. She wasn't even going to try to argue his point. All she was doing was trying to start some emotional pity party with herself as the center. What an incredible hypocrite. To claim that all she wanted was to stop suffering, while allowing it to continue all the same. "I've considered everything. Tried everything." He staggered back, his voice growing hoarse from shouting. "I don't want to kill! But this is the only way that is left, the only option remaining!" He paused to catch his breath, taking in air in gulps, a sharp contrast to the overly controlled breathing he had exercised before. "I wanted to believe...for so long, I wanted to believe that there was a way to save everyone without killing anyone! But your righteousness cannot save anyone, much less everyone!" “You said that you hoped for so long that there was a way to save everyone. Why is it so hard for you to believe that I still believe it so?! You said you thought of every possibility, you exhausted every option to come to believe that you had to kill. Well I have not come to that! I do not want to believe it! I have only your word that all the options have been considered! That only killing is left! That it is the only way to save them!” "You may not have come to that, but I have!" Nero roared. "I know it is the only way because I have tried everything else, with every onze of my being and every drop of my blood! And because you have never been forced into that corner, never been reduced to that level, you will never understand. You never did! You could never see that some death is necessary. Your precious conscience prevents you from seeing even that! It's not possible to save everyone, Roen, and if we try, then all that will mean is that the ones we could save will continue to be forced to endure that much more hardship!" His fists tightened. "If I can save them from their despair by killing..then I will kill! I'll kill as many as I have to!" "Stop saying that." Roen's determination seemed to waver somewhat before his eyes, even as it rose to match his. "Stop throwing your conscience, your ideals away! Don't you see that the easier that act becomes, the more your dream turns to ash? Do you truly fail to see how much more suffering your bloodshed will create!?" "Then why don't you tell me what to do!? You have always insisted on your own righteousness! How will your exclusive justice save Ul'dah!?" "I cannot tell you because I do not know! If I knew, I would have done it by now! I would have shouted it from the top of my lungs! All I know is, I am trying the best I can to help you without more killings! There has to be a way.” Nero weakened, feeling the pain from his right hand begin to register in his mind. He staggered backwards, leaning heavily against the stonework of the fireplace. "That's what you always say," he muttered, exasperated, exhausted, still a hint of fury in his tired voice. "That's what you always say. That there has to be a way. By who's word does there have to be the perfect way?" He laughed bitterly. "The Twelve's? If they're here, they've abandoned us long ago. Crawling around in that cesspool of a city. Gods and hope were always sold out whenever I went looking. But no, you and your damning, idiotic faith! There has to be a way!" He leaned backwards heavily. "And you, and others like you, you'll scramble around looking for the right way, refusing to see the dirty but surefire option standing before you. You'll leave the problem alone for months, years, decades, all for some hollow notion of there being a right way!" The desperate man raised his pained and bloodied hand, pointing at her. "Have you ever considered that just because you demand that there be a way, doesn't mean there is? This is a cruel world! You know what they call people like you, people always insisting that there has to be a way? Deluded fools! Naive children! Because you refuse to grow up from your image of a perfect world that always works the way you want it to!" He slumped down against the fireplace, clutching his right hand with his left. The paladin only looked at him with her usual infuriating combination of sorrow and pity as she spoke. "I have told your line, that sacrifices must be made to bring about change, believing that those losses would come from those involved in this political war. I have told those lines to many, and they have all looked upon me with horror. Dread. And only few still stand by me, even if in silence protest. The rest, they believe I have discarded my ideals and beliefs. For you." Nero laughed bitterly again, an expression of true, mirthful despair. "And the punchline to that joke is that you haven't. Not by a long shot." A pained expression twisted Roen's face. "To them, I am like you. To you, I am just like them." She shook her head. "I am trying to help you, but trying to find a way to protect those I have sworn to protect." The man only continued laughing. "Must be great, being in their shoes. Walking down a merry street, being able to just...turn a blind eye to everything. Won't you tell me, Roen?" His tone had shifted to one of anger to one of unstable, child-like wonder. "What's the difference between those who are evil, and those who are good and fail to act? They'll continue along, like that damnable knight Coatleque, who exists only for the law. She'd probably kill herself if the law said so, that stupid bint." Nero laughed again. "And that Flame Sergeant, Melkire...'think of the people', that moron would say. 'Don't kill the people, the people, the women and children!' Meanwhile, he gets to live on his life without even a passing godsdamned thought to those people in Pearl Lane." A laugh, and he sunk down, sitting next to the last embers of the fireplace, seated on the bloodstains that the wound on his hand left on the rich carpet beneath him. "I have to be in the wrong, don't I? There's just...no way such fine, upstanding people like them would just ignore all of that, right? They have their own solution, right? One that I haven't seen. They'll fix the system, because they're good people, right?" He laughed again, a wide, cheshire-esque grin on his face. "That has to be it, because if it's not, then really, this is pretty pointless, isn't it? Extreme poverty never really did anything to hurt anyone, after all!" "The point..." Roen lowered herself in front of him, trying to draw out his gaze with her own. "Is that we have both crossed that line already. I have too," she whispered, a look of despair flitting across her face. "I see the suffering that you do. I see their pain. But I see your dreams too. And your hopes." She looked to his bleeding hand. "And now, I see your despair." "Hee..hee hee!" A disturbing, infant-like giggle escaped from his lips, the Hyur's formerly sharp, ice-blue eyes now dull and glazed-over. "I...I had it wrong the whole time! That's why they abandoned me. They were...Garalt was just..waiting for me to come to my senses! But I can tell him that I understand now!" Her eyes narrowed instantly, and she slapped him across the face. "Stop. You think no one understands you therefore you are alone in your anger. No one else sees the suffering. Just you." The slap seemed to reinvigorate some of his senses, even as he nearly collapsed sideways on to the floor, his left hand barely arriving in time to prop his torso up. "If...heh..hee...if I'm not the only one who sees it....then why am I the only one trying to change it?" Still his voice held that dissonantly reverent tone, like a young boy asking why the sky was blue. "If I'm...if I am not the only one trying to change it, then why has nothing changed? Heh...heh...and if nothing has changed...if the efforts of all of those good, honest, law-abiding people adds up to nothing..then really, why bother?" That slap seemed to deflate Roen's own flash of anger and she sat back onto her legs. "Because if no one tries, then truly nothing will ever change." Nero, in his daze, either did not hear her or did not care. "But...oh, I think I get it! I just have to wait, right?" The paladin shook her head. "You have to be strong." "That's...that's the solution," the man continued idly. "If I just wait...then all of the good people will change things the right way. Maybe it'll take a year. Maybe ten! Maybe even a hundred! But sooner or later things will..change for the better!" He shifted so that his body leaned right instead of left. "I can't...take the shortcut. That's the bad way. But because they are good people, they are always trying to change things in the good way!" He let out another pained laugh, propping himself up with his back resting firmly on the stone of the fireplace. The blood on his right hand seemed to clot enough to stem the bleeding, and he did not seem to acknowledge the still-hot air that emerged from the last of the fireplace's embers. Her nostrils flared again as his mocking words returned. She maintained control over her own tone. "You are not all bad. And they are not all right. I am just...desperately...trying to find a middle ground." Her head falls forward, she sounded more weary than ever before. "Why not just...go get your friends back, huh?" Nero asked lazily. "Just go tell them that you've seen the error of my ways. Maybe even get me arrested or something for all of that atonement malarkey you lot are all so fond of." That brought her to glare at him almost immediately. "Stop this. STOP THIS. That you would just assume I could wash my hands of everything now. After all that has happened. After all the--" "Ooh," his face lit up, cutting her off. "You can just put me on the same cell that Daegsatz was put in, right? Then that obnoxious...what was her...ah, Natalie Mcbeef. She'll come along and do that execution thing. That'd work just dandy for me, actually. Roegadyn have this belief about dying in the same spot as your family members. Or maybe not. I don't know." They weren't statements or sentences any more so much as it was just Nero verbally vomiting whatever came to mind. His thoughts were incomprehensible, even to himself, such that there was no rhyme or reason to his statements. He lacked control over a filter, even his tone. If he was mocking Roen, he did not seem to know it. "Ooooh," the broken man said, imitating a ghost. "Don't touch the innocents, the women and children, the women and children! Oh, unless it's those women and children. You know, poor types that don't matter. Just leave those ones alone. If I'm not the only one who sees the failed system, then why am I the only one trying to change it? If I'm not the only one trying to change it, then why has nothing changed?" Roen could do naught but stare at him, finally some glistening in her eyes. "You do not even see..." she whispered. "You are right," she said, bitterness lacing her words. "You are the only one. You are the only one who sees the suffering. No one else cares. Nothing has changed." She stared at her hands, now laying limp on her lap. "This has all been an enormous exercise in futility." Nero glanced at her with the first hint of clarity he held in the past bell. "Ah, now that's what I wanted to hear." "This is what you wanted to hear. Do you feel better now?!" She spat out those words. "That means it's okay, right? It's...okay for women and children to die, just as long as I don't kill them. I hear starvation's on the menu...heh...get it? Menu...maybe more bandits. Brass Blades?" "Stop. Saying that," she growled through gritted teeth. "I'll...have to give Scythe a call...make sure he doesn't do anything rash...can't have him killing women and children, after all, right..? That Hammerbeaks business was terrible, wasn't it? I mean, he wasted an awful lot of ammunition, and Clauremont got himself killed with that silly bravado." Nero let his arms go slack as he stared intently at the top of his boot. His thoughts were in an indescribable state, like a ball of yarn that had been unraveled and raveled again too many times. "Guns, in the hands of the bandits. In Ul'dah. All to deliver a message. To turn the blame to the Monetarists." Roen glared at him darkly. "It will not just be the blood of bandits and rivals gangs that will be spilled. You said it would be best if the bandits were driven out. Did you even mean that?" "That was the intention, you know?" The man said lazily, still staring at his boot. "Ul'dah has the skilled manpower and the training to drive out all of the bandits within its walls with minimal bloodshed. Could even get some of those adventurers to help out. But they let them stay. Because the Monetarists don't care. They even profit as long as the bandits pay their fees, or they just join the Brass Blades to be cannon fodder for the Amal'jaa. So bandits are fine, the Syndicate says! Prey on many people as you like! As long as you don't ruin the upholstery." He lolled his head to one side. "The problem was never the gangs having guns. It was that gangs were permitted in the first place." "The gangs rise out of poverty! And you just gave them ways to escalate their discontent! Their proclivity to commit violence to get what they want." The paladin sighed and hung her head. "I cannot deny that they are a problem. But to give them deadly weapons..." "Who do you think enforces that poverty?" Nero's voice still held that dreamlike tone but had taken on a familiar sharpness. "Who do you think ensures that the poor never rise above their station? Who do you think forces crime as their only option?" "I know. I know. You speak as if I do not understand this problem!" "Ah, but simply cleaning them out is the wrong way to go about it. Be sure to tell your Sultansworn friends where Scythe is...so they can stop that bloodshed. And then..." He raised a hand and closed it into a fist before spreading it, in a gesture of a puff of smoke vanishing into the sky. "Someone else will come along, someone who really knows how to save that city without spilling the blood of the women and children, the women and children..." "So I am to sit back and watch the blood flow, and keep flowing until Raubahn decides there has been enough bloodshed? And blame the Monetarists?" "No, no, you have it all wroooong," Nero drolled. "You're supposed to stop the bloodshed, then kind of just...sit back and let the city fester in itself. Like what the Sultansworn do now. Hey, I just realised, you never really stopped being a Sultansworn! Heh! Imagine that." He waved the hand to and fro. "I'm sure the Syndicate will be deposed of another way. Maybe Garlemald will come save us all." "Why not simply level Ul'dah to the ground. Build your machine and level it. You eliminate everything that is wrong there. Then everything can be rebuilt." Her voice was tinged with bitterness. "No, no, that won't be necessary. No dreadnought, no burning, no nothing. That would result in innocent people dying, and I really don't want that." Nero's voice relaxed somewhat from the tense, light tone he had been using. "I really, earnestly do not want people to die." A pause. "You think I'm joking, don't you? I'm serious. I'll tell you how to stop Scythe so he won't kill innocents. I'll tell your friends about what I'm building. Truly, on my word as Vail Lazarov's son, with no sarcasm or mockery, I'll stop." As little as one week ago, he would have thought speaking such words as absolute insanity. Roen stared at him for a long time. "Why are you saying this?" He exhaled, looking down at his bloodied, broken hand. "Because I think I give up," he exhaled. "Surrender. Forfeit. Let all my chocobos loose. Cash in my earnings. Cut my losses. Can't touch the women and children, the women and children..." He rubbed his head with his good hand. "I really did try. Thought about it. Consulted with a lot of very serious people with very serious jobs. And every route led me to the same conclusion: a few people dying so that the majority could live a better life. But every single person who could possibly care about Ul'dah..." another glance down to his hand. "Disagrees. So, I must be in the wrong." He chuckled helplessly. "All of this time...everything...all for naught. Still, someone will find a way to save Ul'dah. Find that precious middle ground. Maybe that someone will be you! And no, I'm not mocking you." "Is that it? Because the rest have judged your actions to be wrong, you are now just...going to give up." "The rest?" Nero cocked an eyebrow at the paladin. "You're part of that group, you know. Not that I blame you." "I am the only one here who--" "Believes in my dream? Pfffft." Nero dragged himself over to a vertical locker that stood to the right of the fireplace. With his good hand, even in his dazed state, he managed to spin the dial until a loud click was heard and the locker swung open. He dug around and pulled out the first bottle he could find, pulling out the cork with his teeth. "No you don't. Not my stupid dream. You believed in your dream, certainly. There has to be a way. But no, what you dreamed and what I dreamed were completely different. Yours is a fantasy world, see. A perfect paradise where everyone understands each other. Mine is a little bit more realistic." He spat the cork off to the side and took a long pull of the liquor, ignoring the incredible burning sensation as the liquid traveled down his throat. Nero exhaled as he pulled the bottle away from his lips. "So which is it, Roen? Kill a few innocents to save Ul'dah, or give up and let Ul'dah save itself? Ah, don't bother answering, I know what you'll say. Results gained by contemptible means are worthless, after all, hah...hahah." "Why is it always one or the other with you?" The man took another short gulp from the bottle before glancing at her. "You know, you never did answer my question." A pause. "Is one life worth more than another?" A long silence fell around them. "I swore to protect the lives of the innocent. The helpless," was the paladin's answer, it sounded recited. Roen exhaled. "But... all life is precious." "So, no. A life is not worth more than another. All lives are equal. Good. I'm glad. I agree. But that's also bad. What a terrible dilemma we've fallen into..." "So that is it?" Roen gestured to the pile of papers on the table. "What of that? What could be? Are you just giving up on hope?" "Hah!" Nero scoffed, waving nonchalantly at the papers as if shooing away an annoying bird. "That was nothing. Just an exercise. The minute I put pen to paper to compose that farce of a pipe dream is the minute I surrendered. So yes, more or less, I'm giving up. Really, it makes my life much, much easier. Well, what little of it remains." He spun the bottle around in his hands. "I'm sure someone or other is coming along to collect my head. Good on them. Hope they spend that bounty well. Am I worth a lot in Ul'dah? I hope so. It'd be a little insulting if I weren't by now. After all," another pull from the bottle. "If I try to change Ul'dah, I lose. If I don't, I lose. It's a strange game. The only winning move is not to play. Oh, won't someone thinking of the women and children, the women and children..." "You care about them too," she shot back. "You're right. But all life is equal, so I also care about the women and children, the women and children...those who are out on the streets, you know? I can end the suffering of the women and children, the women and children, by killing a few of the other women and children, the women and children....really is a dilemma." Roen eyed him oddly now. "You are a smart man. You can find a way without killing women and children." "Hah!" Nero let out a baleful bark of a laugh. "I used to think that too. Spent nine years on those plans. Thinking. Testing. More than that, actually. Since I left Ul'dah. Ooh, must have been...maybe sixteen years now. Guess I'm not as smart as you think I am. You know, Vail once said that bullets and swords change governments more surely than words ever did. Guess the old fart was wrong. He clearly wasn't thinking of the women and children, the women and children..." "Then tell me. Tell me why you need to, and maybe we can find a way around it. Maybe we could have find a way for you to get--" Roen paused again, her jaw set. "You keep saying that." "Being a politician means getting assassinated." he continued idly. "Organising a protest means getting put down, or worse, the protesters stop being interested. Every single revolution has a giant, fatal flaw, a flaw that's one word long. And that flaw is people." Another gulp from the bottle. "All it takes..to win a victory, is to be willing to do what your opponent won't. But we won't stoop to their level. So does that mean we lose? Probably. Maybe? No. Yes? Nah. Or not." He grinned easily, one of genuine, if mentally unstable, relaxation. Roen stared at that grin. "I have no answers for you, Nero." Her shoulder sagged. "But to give up on this, after all that has happened..." She shook her head. "I cannot accept that either." "Always the middle ground with you, eh? You'll get run down by a wagon, walking down the street like that. Must be awful crowded up on that fence you keep sitting on...." "And it is always extremes with you." The smuggler offered the bottle towards her. "What a pair, eh? Sword and shield. I think I said that once." The look the paladin gave him was full of sadness. Even though he was telling her he would kill no more. The only thing she felt was emptiness when she should have felt some measure of joy. "A pair of fools." "To us!" Nero proclaimed loudly before bringing the bottle to his lips. She watched him awhile longer, her jaw set. There was a steely edge when she spoke again. "Tell me where to find Scythe." "What're you gonna do when you find him?" Nero asked lazily, slowly spinning the bottle in his hands. "Whether you give up or not, there are still bandits with guns in Ul'dah." "Pfffft. Let the Sworns take care of it. I'll tell'em later. Besides, Scythe wants you dead. You are directly responsible for killing his lieutenant, you know." Roen let out a sharp exhale. "Is this it then? After everything? You are just...going to give up?" "Have to make sure..." The broken man mumbled to himself, taking another brief drink from the bottle. "The women and children, the women and children..." He closed the locker shut and slumped against it, taking a deep sigh. "Fine." The paladin said as she rose. "I am going to..." She could not continue. What would she do? But this could not be it. "....find a way. Somehow." "Maybe ask that Osric fellow, huh? Good head on his shoulders. He'll know." "I thought...Ul'dah was your one and only love. For you to give up on it so easily..." She shook her head. "I knew you not at all, Nero Lazarov." "Looks like...I didn't know myself at all either. Not at all. Hmph. Guess this is what could be considered a happy ending though, huh? Considering things might have gone the other way." "Happy ending for whom..?" Nero proffered a wide grin. "Why, the women and children, of course, the women and children. I gotta tell you, after everything that had happened, my choices were to give up, or join up with Scythe in some of the killing. Help him with the revolution. Make the people look at the Monetarists like they're supposed to." A short pause, and he snorted. "You're right. I'm nothing but extremes." She tensed where she stood, her hand closing into a fist. "Join him. In the killing," she repeated his words grimly, as if she was trying to confirm what she heard. Roen looked at him again, as if seeing him for the first time. "That was what I was thinking...the people had to see. Most are content with turning and looking away. Most people don't care, as long as it doesn't affect their daily lives. But then, make the problem, the Monetarists, make it affect their daily lives...cripple them with shortages. Attack them with the Monetarist's bandits. Heap more and more pressure, until their anger removes...that which was in power." Roen shook her head. "I have been the fool," she snorted bitterly. "All this time I thought...I thought I was having some effect..." She rubbed her eyes and her deeply creased brows. "And you would kill, women and children," she said those words again, and she was starting to hate the sound of them. "I don't want to..I never wanted to kill..." "But you would." He stared at the bottle in his hands. "If it meant things improving in the long run, for the future...then yes. The people had to be made to see...that the system they lived under would never provide happiness. Never provide choice. Never provide opportunity or fairness or justice or equality. I never intended to join Scythe. Not initially. But then things...changed." The broken man sighed. "As they always do." The paladin hid eyes behind her hand as it lingered there, but her lips were twisted into a pained expression. She turned to face away, and sniffed once. She only turned back when some veil of composure was in place. Her eyes glistened but it had been hastily dried. She nodded with her lips pressed tightly upon each other. "I..I never wanted to kill. I never wanted this. I just..." Nero said weakly. "You are a foolish...desperate man," she rasped. He snorted. "Yeah...yes, I am. I'm...exactly what Ul'dah made me into. Nothing but the sum of my parts. Not that I'm blaming anyone else." Again Nero brought the bottle to his lips. "Fault's all mine. Thought I could be done what was needed for my goal...suppose I was just too weak for the task. Fed myself one too many lies. Blew away from me." His vision was beginning to darken, his body growing chilled. If this was the cold embrace of death...it wasn't that bad. "Why. Why does that city own you so. That it destroyed your heart, blackened your soul, made you so desperate.” "Oh, Roen. If I told you all of my reasons, you'd end up just like me." Nero wiggled the bottle in her direction. "And I don't want that." She fell to her knees in front of him, her eyes full of sorrow. "I thought I was here to help you share in that. This loneliness. This pain you hide behind. I thought I could take some of that away from you. That I can help you in this." She gestured to the papers on the table. "And help you find your way. But you never let me in." "Always have to be the savior, huh?" Nero snorted derisively even as his eyes blinked unevenly. "You always have to be the good one, the one who redeems the villain. You're...obsessed with it. Your messiah complex." He blinked. "To be honest, I'm not sure I ever knew where the door was in the first place." "And now...is this you finally crippled by your regrets?" "No...no..." he tried to force his trademark smirk to come to the surface. What arrived was an awkward, almost frightening amalgamation of a grin, a frown, and a scowl. He felt his eyelids grow heavy, his heart weakening, the beat slowing down. Down, and down, and down. "This is just me...without any masks." he whispered. Roen's eyes flitted between his, as if to search for something. Then it lowered to his bloodied hand, one she took in her own. She grazed it tenderly with her fingers, her head bowed. She seemed to be studying it for a long time, her thumb lightly over the darkened dried blood. She then brought it up closer to her and placed a light kiss upon his wrist. "I am sorry," she whispered. "No, I am," he murmured, more to himself than to her. She shook her head, not looking back up at him. She just whispered against his hand. "For all that I could not do. And for all that you have suffered." He said nothing, blearily bringing the bottle back up to him and tipping it downward, not carrying about the liquid that spilled onto his shirt and chest. His arms grew limp. Nero had never been on the brink of death before. Maybe it was the liquor. It certainly felt strong, too strong to be the kind to be gulping down by the mouthful. His eyelids sunk, the strength swimming away from every part of his body. "Guess I win this bet...Satz.." his lips managed to allow those words to escape. And then there was darkness.

The confident captain's face was pale. Gone was his smirk, his mirth, his mask of composure. "A...mutiny?" he whispered, more to himself than to the assembled men before him. His back was to the railing behind the helm of the ship, the crew standing in front of the wheel in a neat formation. It was all Nero could do to keep himself from collapsing to his knees. I'm...losing the Forte? He stumbled backwards, his arms clasping the railing, his mind spinning. Even as he struggled to react, a part of his mind was racing. This was Taeros. The Monetarists. They've turned them against me. Garalt...R'tyaka...Baenmann...all of them refused to look at their former captain. R'tyaka's tail was slack, her shoulder slump, her ears drooping beneath the fancifully decorated tricorne she spent so much time working on. Baenmann's broad shoulders were tightened as he clasped his hands together, his sea-green skin pale and his nose piercing silent, even as the tiny bell attached to it waved. Garalt's expression was chiseled from a deep pain and an incredible sorrow, but so too was it built from stony resolve. The shirtless Highlander's arms were crossed, and the rest of the men kept their heads bowed down in equal amounts of shame and solid, forlorn determination. The men were solemn, even as the gulls called to one another and the evening sun turned the horizon into a brilliant orange hue, providing a sharp and jarring backdrop to the scene taking place on the deck of the Second Forte. A thousand possibilities spun. How did they reach him? His crew? How did the Monetarists find his ship, and manage to turn his entire crew against him? It was impossible. Utterly impossible. There was just no way that they could have managed this. Not at all. Nero had been perfectly discrete. He'd kept all of his assets hidden, his trail dusted. No paper could be linked to him. No crime could be properly linked to him. There was...just...no way this could.. "W...why? How did they do it?" Nero asked, dazed from the revelation. His crew. His family. They wouldn't turn against him. Not like this. "What did they say? They were lying. They're not..paying..you?" His questions were less of questions and more of near-gibbering fragments. "They lied to you. Whatever they said.."There was no way this could happen. It was impossible. His crew was loyal. Garalt was loyal, his brother, his guardian. He and Daegsatz were equal, the closest thing to a father Nero had when Vail had gone. "I don't know what they did, but they're lying." "Are they lying about this, lad?" Garalt withdrew from behind him an opened letter. Nero froze at the sight of it. Kendrick must have...no, the boy was too weak-willed for that. Someone must have gotten their hands on it, and then exposed it to his crew. "An entire house of people. Men. Women. Children. The extended family. The elders." The Highlander's expression added deep disappointment to his sorrow. "You ordered their deaths. All of their deaths. With a pen, you murdered more people in a day than your father did in two entire decades of piracy with a galleon." How...how did they..but.. No. No, no, this wasn't right. This shouldn't be. It shouldn't matter. The Forte and he were one. They'd done some unsavory things in the past, but this was.. "I...that was for..Daegsatz!" Nero choked out. "They killed him. I didn't want them to die, but I--" "Ye always said that in good or evil, a man must be takin' responsibility," Baenmann rumbled quietly. Nero looked at him incredulously. Baenmann was a shy Roegadyn, if ever was one. He kept to himself, rarely spoke, nearly died daily of anxiety of attacks. "We be seein' now...that yer just a boy." The Sea Wolf sniffed. "An'....no longer fit...ta cap'n this vessel." "But that doesn't mean--" This shouldn't be happening. He'd lost control, of himself and his crew. Where was his composure? His smirk? His confidence? It was melting away under the withering gaze of pity emitted by his crew, his friends. This shouldn't be happening so easily. Not like this. Not like this. He'd talked his way out of everything before. Everything. When someone was trying to murder him, when someone was stealing from him, when he was stealing from someone. "There always bein' a line no man be crossin'," R'tyaka said, tugging on the corner of her elaborate tricorne hat, her gaze focused squarely on the plank to the right of her foot. "We may be pirates, an' scoundr'ls, an' thieves an' beggars, and aye, som' o' us bein' bloody murderers s'well...but that don't mean we be lackin' lines we refuse ta cross. Ye be killin' women and children, cap--mate. We ain't bein' part o' that." "And this is one line we cannot cross with you...Nero," Garalt said quietly. "This is something that we cannot, in good conscience, be complicit in." Even as he reeled, a tiny voice of clarity spoke in the smuggler's mind. All I've done, all I have ever done is try to save people from their despair. Their poverty. And this.. No. No. He would not stoop that low. He would not blame his crew. Nero knew, the instant he began attacking Ul'dahn ships, the instant he sold the guns, the instant he offered his knife for Roen to kill him, he knew. This was one story that would have no happy ending. Garalt seemed to notice his reaction, and he let out a deep, pained sigh. "Lad, there is no difference between an evil man, and a good man who stands by and lets evil deeds happen. All of us here..." he briefly unfolded an arm to gesture at the assembled crew. "We refuse to be that evil man. We kill...but not innocent women, and not innocent children." The Hyur blearily gazed at the crew, aware that some manner of liquid had begun to slightly blur his vision. "But...where's Luther? And Norman? Lohtta?" They were pirates. "They couldn't care less about your deeds...but with the rest of us refusing to serve, they went to seek greener pastures." Garalt's words didn't even reach Nero. The Hyur had sunk beneath memories, his own voice and the past voices of others rising to the surface. "Of course, this isn't just any other pirate ship. More like a party ship, really. With occasional loot and plundering." He leaned back behind the desk, boots propped on the surface. "I'm not convinced you'd be a good fit for our crew." "Ye diggin' at me height, laddie?" The Lalafell violently swung a hand axe onto the desk. Nero quickly moved his feet from being sliced. "No, no...but you better have some decent moral character, is all I'm saying." The pirate captain smirked. "Since when'n pirates be needin' that mural whatsit?" The Lalafell bellowed, waving the hand axe again. The Hyur behind the desk stood up and leaned forward, staring the would-be pirate straight in the eye, his expression one of absolute smugness...and more than a little bit of arrogance. "Since they started wanting to join my crew." Several similar scenes arrived, flashing themselves in instants in his mind's eye. He slumped down, no longer holding in to the railing. The sorrow that filled Garalt's expression could only be described as infallible. The Highlander stepped forward and leaned down in a half-embrace of his former captain. The Midlander was near catatonic, unable to react. The women and children. I killed women and children. I killed Liam. And Martin. Daegsatz. I killed.. Why didn't they just understand? Everything he was doing he was trying to do for Ul'dah. Rebuild the system. A new future. A better tomorrow. No more pain, no more poverty, no more hunger, no more beatings. A better place. Another side of him was laughing maniacally, incredulously. Since when did pirates ever balk at murder? They've murdered hundreds of people and sent them right down to Llymlaen's embrace. What made the Yoyorano houses so special? The crew of the Forte didn't just murder, but they stole, too. All of those raids, those screams as the ship broke apart from the cannons and the fire, the crew taking up swords only to be killed by the boarding party. Pirates objecting to this? Pirates? Since when? What kind of pirates didn't revel in that? The raids, the bloodshed. Women and children? How many women and children were on those ships? Why did Vail take him in? What reason did that raider have? A shivering, skinny child who had pickpocketed his way out of starvation in Limsa Lominsa. He had nothing of value. Nothing to contribute. Why had he learned thaumaturgy? Why was he with Roen? Where did I err?, he asked himself, bringing his gaze skyward, his eyes dull and glazed over. His inner voice did not respond, but the answer he saw was his own face, sunken just beneath the surface of a roiling sea of regret.

There is no possible way this thread will end up full of people flaming each other and arguments over the definition of RP. None at all. This is the part where Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" starts playing.

He shall be known as the dragon slayer Tumahab, the Dark Knight demigod son of a primal. Original ideas are not my forte.

"We've agreed to nothing until you show me some results," Nero quipped, his trademark smirk masking his expression. "After all, there's no point in making plans to build a house if the trees have yet to be cut, no?" The smuggler leaned back in the chair, balancing himself carefully on two of the chair's legs as he propped his feet up on the table, glancing at the back of the Sergeant's head. The corner of his eye quietly observed the myriad of stab marks in the wooden table, his earrings jingling slightly with the motion. "Show me what you can do...and then we'll see where it goes from there," he murmured quietly, folding his arms. Yes, this was a safe plan. Nero was risking absolutely nothing in this. If the Sergeant was caught, he couldn't reveal anything worthwhile. If Melkire died, then it would simply be a lost opportunity, and Nero could hardly be blamed for something like that. And if Melkire succeeded, then Taeros would be out of the picture, and that was one less enemy he needed to concern himself with. The corner of his mind was still apprehensive, however. Things were going a little too smoothly. There was the possibility that despite his posturing, the Sergeant would maneuver against him while operating under the pretense of working for him. Precautions would have to be taken. "Show me what you can do," Nero echoed, more to himself than to the sergeant.

"Clauremont is dead," the Brass Blade had said. Of course, it wasn't an actual Brass Blade but that damnable smuggler who had delivered the news. This wasn't much of a surprise, and everyone knew: the possibility that Clauremont could actually be broken out of the gaol was very close to none. Even if he managed to get outside of the cell, it was unlikely that the Blades had fed him much, if at all. Catching him again would have been like fighting a coeurl with no limbs or teeth. And yet, that knowledge did little to alleviate Scythe's sour mood. The large Highlander idly sharpened his falchion, and the subbasement bustled with the eerie paradox of noisy silence. Men of various races and statures worked tirelessly, gathering the rifles, powder, and shot together into crates. Swords and spears clattered as they were shoved into crates or onto racks. No man spoke as he hauled his cargo, each focus intently on their task. The news had been a surprisingly hard hit. Clauremont was Scythe's lieutenant and now he had died in the gaol. The Hammerbeaks had successfully been destroyed, but now the attention of the Brass Blades was on them for making a ruckus. Morale was low for now, but there was no doubt that the flames of anger would be sparked any second now. The smuggler's last visit involved another irritating set of specific, restricting instructions. Scythe's grip on the whetstone tightened somewhat, the memory of it incensing him somewhat. Even so, the smuggler at least understood what he and his men wanted. So long as he and the other gang leaders paid off the Brass Blades, they cared not for what happened in Pearl Lane. They were content to ignore everyone who'd been thrown into that squalor. The nobles, fat on their ill-gotten gains would, upon hearing the news, laugh and laugh. But that would change soon. The tunnels were almost prepared. The weapons had been sent and paid for. And though the men were spindly and undernourished, within them burned an inferno. A storm was coming, one of blood and steel and fire and smoke, and Ul'dah would be right in the middle of it.