Alric was the first to act. Something about the huge grin smeared across his face was almost unnerving as he sidled up beside a group of people working together to carry a long stack of lashed-together chairs. Unprompted, he took a sharp turn directly in front of the group and passed briefly out of Hirrus’s line of sight.

Chaos erupted on a scale that Hirrus didn’t fully understand.

The lashings holding the chairs together snapped at the same moment as someone at the front of the group tripped. As the remaining chair-carriers struggled to contain the stack, someone coming the other way with a crate staggered sideways into the loosening chairs.

Nidra and Hirrus were forced to stop dead and step aside or else be crushed by the sudden explosion of chairs that clogged the entire path.

Hirrus just stared at the chaos. Some people were trying to pick their way around the chairs to continue on their way, others were trying to help gather them up, and people with too much stuff in their arms to see where they were putting their feet kept tripping over things and adding to the mess.

“Shit disrupted,” Alric said, suddenly stepping up next to Hirrus from no discernible direction. “Who’s next?”

“What just happened?” Hirrus asked.

“Chaos!” Alric said with a grin. “Come on, you know how much I can fuck shit up when I’m not trying. You’re not allowed to be surprised at what happens when I apply myself.”

“We need to get away from here,” Nidra said, grabbing both of them by the shoulders. “Quickly.”

Alric looked like he was about to protest, but a jerk of her head indicated where a couple of the people from the front of the chair stack were looking around, no doubt scanning the crowd for Alric. The robes meant they blended in fairly well, but if whoever Alric had tripped got a good look at his face, it wouldn’t keep him hidden forever.

Nidra led them off the path and through the narrower spaces between tents. They weren’t the only ones looking for an alternate route, so they didn’t stand out as they got away from the mess Alric had created. After a few moments, they emerged onto another cleared pathway, where the traffic continued unhindered.

“So who’s making chaos next?” Alric asked. “I’m down to keep going, but I thought we could take turns and make a game out of it. You know. Who was the sneakiest? Who was the most impressive? That stuff.”

Nidra patted Hirrus on the shoulder. “His turn now.”

“What?” Alric asked.

Nidra jerked a thumb over her shoulder, and both Hirrus and Alric turned to look. A finger of black smoke was starting to rise from one of the tents they’d passed on the way through. It would take a few more minutes for it to cause a sign of alarm, but when it did, the response would need to be swift, or the whole camp would be ablaze soon.

“Smooth,” Alric said with an appreciative nod. “I didn’t even see you do it.”

Hirrus felt a sense of uncharacteristic self-consciousness. He barely understood how his friends had done their part so calmly and quietly. Now they wanted him to match it? He didn’t know where to begin, let alone what to do.

“Care,” Nidra said, pulling them all off the path.

She wasn’t the only one. The people on the path were parting as well, regardless of what they carried. It was all to make way for one man. He was imposingly tall, wearing a long and flowing robe. It was the same purple of the cloaks everyone else had, but decorated with elaborate embroidery. From the reaction of the others, he seemed to demand a degree of respect and reverence simply by his appearance.

“Who the fuck is that?” Alric asked.

“His name was Rendil but they call him The Augur now,” Nidra said. “I am unsure why. Supposedly he was the first person Rumi awakened successfully. He used to oversee the chapel in Shemil, and his interpretation of what we see during the awakening process is what Rumi has used to earn the loyalty of most of these followers.”

“So he’s important?” Hirrus asked, watching the tall figure walk past. As soon as he was gone, the crowd around them returned to their business.

“Very,” Nidra said with a nod. “I imagine Rumi has enough people now that he’s no longer a needed pair of hands, but The Augur is the reason Rumi amassed these followers in the first place.”

“Hm,” Hirrus grunted. He stepped forward and fell in behind The Augur, following in the wake left behind by the people parting for him.

“What are you doing?” Nidra hissed, following close behind.

“What does it look like?” Hirrus whispered back. “Looking for trouble.”

She started to grab his shoulder, but Alric intervened, touching her arm and making her stop.

“Think carefully about who you’re talking to before you say it’s impossible,” Alric said.

Nidra pressed her lips together in a tight line, but offered no further dissent as Hirrus trailed The Augur.

The tall man walked a fair distance through the camp. Hirrus didn’t know where he was coming from or where he was going. If Rumi was doing some display of power, this man was likely central to it, but it was unclear why he was moving away from wherever all the chairs were going. Perhaps he had an errand to run or a more ornate outfit to change into.

As they went, Nidra and Alric weren’t idle. Alric would periodically step away from the trio, and then a group near at hand would suddenly start cursing as something crashed to the ground or fell apart in their hands. Twice he stepped away shortly before a row of tents collapsed on top of their occupants, and once more he started a tense argument between one of the masked adventurers and a group of awakened people, though they moved on well before seeing if it escalated to another fistfight.

Nidra’s chaos was more subtle, but immeasurably more destructive. Hirrus never saw her do anything, but things just… Happened. Someone cut their leg open with their own weapon. The bottom of a crate would fall out, dumping food directly into the dirt. More fires, this time in a crowded enough area that cries of alarm went up immediately, causing mild panics.

They worked their way through the camp for a while, eventually moving towards less crowded areas. Hirrus realized quickly that they were moving towards the middle of the camp, where the tents became ordered rows instead of random scatters. The Augur entered one of these tents, and Hirrus quietly walked around the side of it. He heard voices, meaning that The Augur wasn’t alone. His plan came together quickly, though. It helped that it wasn’t terribly complex.

Hirrus stepped into the tent without announcement or ceremony.

There were three people in the tent. The Augur, a woman in similar robes, and a man in armor who was no doubt some manner of bodyguard. They were gathered beside a table strewn with books, and the Augur and the woman were poring over a particularly thick leather-bound tome. Along one wall were shelves, many of them half-empty, as the books that had been upon them were now scattered on the table. Against the other wall there was a trio of well-padded cots.

“Excuse me?” The Augur said, tipping his head back to look down his nose at Hirrus. He had to tip fairly far back, as Hirrus was nearly the same height as him. “What is the cause for this interruption?”

“I can’t apologize enough,” Hirrus said, stepping forward towards The Augur. Instinctively, the guard and the woman stepped protectively between Hirrus and the tall man. “But I was told to inform you as soon as we knew. He’s here. The attack we’ve feared has come.”

The Augur nodded, as if he already knew, though the shock and fear was clear in his eyes. “Of course. I should have known it would be today. I felt it in my bones.”

“Where?” the guard demanded. “What is the plan for our defense?”

“I wasn’t given details,” Hirrus said, raising his hands to show he held no weapons. “I was only sent to get word to you as soon as we heard.”

“Useless,” the guard growled, grabbing Hirrus’s shoulder and shoving him out of the way. “Stay here, sir. I’ll see what’s happening.”

The guard left Hirrus alone with the two robed figures. The woman started to pace, but the Augur collapsed into the chair next to the desk. He sighed heavily and stared down at the thick leather tome before him.

“We were close, I think,” he said at last.

“We have time,” the woman said. It was clear from her tone that she was not pacing in anger, but anxiety. “We can find something before he gets this deep, right?”

“What are you talking about?” Hirrus asked.

“The secret of the decision tree,” The Augur said, resting a hand on the pages of the leather tome. “There’s so much we don’t know. Questions we were never allowed to ask. I think we could find the truth about the fabric of our universe.” He slammed the large book closed with a sudden flash of fury. “And now that… That monster is going to tear it all down.”

There was a quiet dinging sound, and Hirrus saw that his quest to disrupt the camp had incremented by one. Apparently sending a highly ranked bodyguard into the camp with news of an attack was a disruption. The sound came again, incrementing the count once more. He realized that the panicked guard was creating more than one disruption. What was the man doing? Sending others off in a panic as well?

“You think he’s that strong?” Hirrus asked. Casually, he moved closer to The Augur. “You’re in the heart of the camp, surrounded by fighters.”

“Rumi’s not here,” the woman said. “You can speak plainly.”

“She’s right,” The Augur agreed. “We don’t have to placate his ego. When The Merciless comes, no force can stop him. He will wipe us out. To a man, we will die.” He shook his head and pushed the book away on the desk. “I have seen it.”

Hirrus wasn’t sure if he should be flattered or worried. Was there another Merciless? He was relatively convinced that a direct assault against these numbers would be doomed, but this man seemed positive that Hirrus was a force of nature. And judging by how he kept hearing that light ding sound, incrementing as panic of a reported attack spread, perhaps he wasn’t the only one.

“So what do we do?” Hirrus asked carefully, stepping up next to The Augur, finally within arm’s reach.

“We wait,” The Augur said, shoulders slumping. “And then… We die.”

The woman stopped pacing and let out a soft sob of despair.

Hirrus took a deep breath. He wasn’t going to get an opening better than that.

“If it makes you feel better,” Hirrus said, drawing Fidelis’s blade from his inventory, “I won’t make you wait much longer.”