“You killed a councilman!” Ess shouted, scrambling back in fear. Ryu sighed. Behind him were the three bodies of the councilman and his guards. Roth, the soldier in command of the small squad Ryu had joined for the day, smacked Ess behind the head.

“Shut up, boy. That man right there probably saved your life. Be a bit grateful, eh?” Roth said with a grunt. Ess nodded, but he didn’t make eye contact with Ryu after.

Kill the enemy, and nobody bats an eye. Kill a person in a high position, and it’s the worst thing in the world. It was a nonsensical dichotomy. What makes one life more valuable than another? Nothing. Not to Ryu, anyways. The councilman was corrupt, willing to use violence against his people to force his own agenda. Ess, the victim of that violence, could not seem to accept that.

“Roth, stay here with Ess. I’m going to go tell Syl to continue working and check in on Oash,” Ryu said, frowning. The expression slipped into place like a piece in a puzzle, as if even his face had confirmed to his pessimism. He walked away from the wounded Urodela. They had a schedule to keep.

---

Ryu placed the ring down on Shin’s desk. The salamander looked up, blinking wearily. “What’s this?” the Speaker asked.

“The ring of councilman Oni.”

“And how did you come to have it?”

“I killed him.”

Shin stood. “What?” he exclaimed.

Ryu waved him down. “Calm yourself, Shin. He was trying to force his way into the tunnel my squad was working in. I only moved once he had used force. Roth and Ess can both testify to this. The important part was that his curiosity was not innocent. Maybe he was throwing his weight around of his own accord, but the more likely explanation is that he had been paid off to look into my actions. By the Drakonai.”

“I see,” said Shin after a moment. “This is likely to be the case. The council is the highest power in our government, excluding my own and a few key offices. It’s worrying that corruption runs that high. Then again, we have lived under Drakonai rule before. Why would they care if we did so again?”

Ryu’s mind went back to Haven, a town so full of corruption it was overflowing. “Everyone is corrupted to a point. Although we don’t realize it, none of us are truly impartial. I think it’d be smart to suspect everyone of potentially being a mole.”

“Do you suspect me?” Shin asked with a sigh.

Ryu met the salamander’s eyes. “I suspect everybody,” he said, and it was true. In a foreign situation like this, he couldn’t trust a single soul. Not completely.

“I suppose that’s fair. The Urodela haven’t exactly given you a reason to believe otherwise.”

“Maybe not, but this is war. We just have to win, not be the best of pals,” Ryu said.

Shin nodded. “I agree,” he said. “Now, how many more days do you think you’ll need to finish the deadman tunnels?”

“Three. Maybe four. Do you really think this plan will work?” Ryu asked, looking at the map spread across the table. All signs of the plan had been wiped away, but in his mind, he could still see the pieces placed across the map.

“I have to. It’s a gambit, but this is our best chance.”

“Then I’ll try my best. See you tomorrow, Shin.” Ryu walked towards the office’s door.

“Ryu,” Shin called, stopping Ryu as he was about to leave. “If the corruption runs that high... In the coming days, I may be removed from office. If this happens, you have to keep with the plan in secret. Like you said, it’s too big of a risk. The person who takes my place may be a puppet of the Drakonai.”

Ryu turned to look at the salamander. Shin was looking at the map, his gaze distant. “I understand,” Ryu responded. He left the room.

The next few days were spent in the tunnels. Word of councilman Oni’s death was kept quiet, and Ryu and his team continued to make their deadman tunnels. The call for Shin’s removal had grown to a fever pitch among the people of the Urodela, so a compromise was made by the council. Shin would be allowed to keep his position as Speaker for the time being, but a new representative would be chosen to spearhead the war effort alongside Ryu. It was not long after this decision was made that Ryu found a small invitation waiting for him in his small apartment in the Urodela city. It was from Lucius. Against his better judgement, he accepted.

“How’s it going pal?” Lucius asked in a chipper tone. He and Ryu stood behind the battlements of a Drakonai outpost, alone.

“What did you need?” Ryu asked.

Lucius tapped his chin. “Blunt as ever, I see. Well, I’ll get straight to it then. You have probably realized that this game with the Drakonai and Urodela marks an end to our competition. With the rewards of the quest, finishing this dungeon alone becomes much less of a risk. So I guess what I’m trying to say is goodbye.”

Ryu’s face was expressionless. “I see. That confident, then?”

“You could call it that,” Lucius said with a smile. “But since it is goodbye, I’ll give you a parting gift. Provided that you return the favor, of course.”

“And what would that be?”

“I will answer any question you ask with complete honesty.”

Ryu tapped the side of his hatchet idly. “Are we school girls now? A secret for a secret? I’m not sure if I’ll believe any answer from you.”

“You know, I figured it would be like that, so I decided to… spice things up a bit,” he said, pulling a small black box from within his coat. The blonde man turned the box on its side, and two insects crawled out. “These scorpions are known as Mistress Catchers. Like the name says, they are famous for being able to catch a spouse in an affair. They work simply. If you let one wrap around your wrist, it will sting you when you lie. Satisfied?”

“I know of them. Are you sure you want to do this? Their venom is supposed to be incredibly potent,” Ryu said. In truth, he was pretty sure a sting wouldn’t kill either of them, but he didn’t want to test it to find out.

Lucius delicately placed one of the scorpions on his wrist, and it wrapped around him like a bracelet, tail held right above his pale skin. “I’m a fan of games, you see. Even the ones with high stakes,” he said, baring his teeth in a wild smile.

“Fine, then I accept.” Ryu held his arm out, allowing the scorpion to curl around his wrist.

“Would you like to go first?” Lucius asked.

“Not particularly.” It probably wasn’t the wisest choice to allow Lucius to start, but Ryu was still adjusting to the odd situation.

“Okay then. Hmm,” Lucius said, tapping his chin once more. “What’s your true level?”

Ryu almost let out a sigh of relief. His level wasn’t common knowledge, but neither was it something he hid. Other parts of his strength however… Well that was a different story. “Seventy-three.”

“Impressive.”

Now it was Ryu’s turn. He’d considered asking about Lucius’s plans or even his strength, but there was something about the man’s presence that just nagged at him. “Why did you pay those men in the camp to kill their friend?” he asked.

Lucius smiled. “Excellent question. Do you know much about the fate of the earlier expeditions in the Fifth Ring? The ones supported by the lower Rings?”

“Not much, if I’m honest.”

“Hmmm… Then let me explain it another way,” the blonde man said with a smile. “My boss can see the future. Or rather, she sees the ways that the future could be. With intervention. My comrades and I are that intervention. Some nudges are necessary to position people in the right place. The previous expeditions failed because their success would have had negative consequences for the future. My choices regarding those men were just another of these nudges.”

He opened his mouth to ask about the expedition’s fate, but Lucius wagged his finger in front of his face. “Now, now Ryu, the game was only for one question,” he said, plucking the scorpion from Ryu’s wrist. “I’ll see you in the coming days, no doubt.”

Lucius walked away, disappearing into the shadows of the empty outpost. Ryu sighed. In searching for answers, he was only left with more questions. Such was the way of the curious. He left the outpost. He still had to meet the new military leader of the Urodela.

---

Talen Dei was clearly a warrior. He wore his armor proudly, and his voice boomed in the meeting room they stood in. Ryu thought of him as a boulder rolling down a hill. The salamander was large and without subtlety, yet he was all the more dangerous for it.

“Listen! If we meet them in these wider chambers, we’ll be able to grab the high ground,” the salamander shouted, his smooth black skin wrinkling in annoyance.

“If we meet them in the wider chambers, we are playing the game they want. We can’t win in open combat,” Ryu said. He did not believe Talen was a spy, but he was undoubtedly put into this position by Lucius’s will.

“I have fought these Drakonai bastards hundreds of times. I know what I am saying, boy,” Talen said. He slammed his gauntleted hand on the table, causing the paperweights that held the map down to bounce off.

Ryu calmly replaced the disturbed paperweights with sure movements. “So you’ve said. Many times. If you haven’t noticed by now, I don’t care. Out of the hundreds of times you’ve fought the Drakonai, how much progress have you actually made? Would none be a correct estimate?”

“We’ve won our fair share of-”

“I was not finished,” Ryu said in a calm voice, levelling his flat stare at the stuttering warrior. “You have won nothing. Your tribe is still in the same place it was when the last monarch died. Instead of bumbling about as you would have us do, we will continue the use of ambushes and traps in the tight confines of the tunnels as Speaker Shin and I laid out originally.”

“I have been elected to make a change-”

Ryu cut him off once more. “You have been elected only because our enemy wants you to get in my way. Your position is the product of the political machinations of spies and corrupted officials. Tell me, Mr. Talen, have you heard word of the fate of Councilman Oni?”

“Someone murdered him,” Talen said.

“Incorrect. I killed him. If you continue to place yourself in my way, you will share a similar fate.”

“Are you threatening me?” Talen blubbered.

“Obviously.” It was a surprise the warrior even picked up on that. He wasn’t exactly the sharpest tool. “But do not mistake it for an idle one,” Ryu said.

“We’ll see about that, then,” Talen growled. He shot Ryu a dark look and left the office. Talen was a blunt weapon. According to Shin, he wouldn’t take this sort of disrespect. With his new position, he would disobey Ryu’s orders, and because he was an idiot, he would do it in the open. The plan was still in motion.

In the coming days, Talen played his part better than any actor could. Although the dungeon enforced Ryu’s will, the Urodela were not mindless slaves. It was still possible for them to disobey and find loopholes in his orders. With Shin’s assistance, Ryu gave Talen a series of orders that could easily be thwarted. From the outside, it would look like Ryu was having trouble communicating his orders, or so he hoped. Talen was the unknowing victim of this manipulation, leading small groups of Urodela soldiers into open combat with the Drakonai. While that was going on, Shin and Ryu were watching for the ones who supported the war leader in his insubordination and making their own plans accordingly. On the surface, Talen’s presence was an obstacle, but in truth, the obstacle was the way to success.

On one particular day, Talen’s forces funneled back into camp in a joyous scramble. They had just won a skirmish against the Drakonai, and all were happy with the victory, one of the larger ones in recent memory. On the roof of one of the bunkhouses, Ryu sat like a cloaked specter, his presence a single spot of shadow in a sea of merrymaking.

Below, Talen told a story to a raucous group, a female Urodela nuzzling at his neck. Now, Ryu wasn’t one to feign emotions or act, but thankfully, his normal flat expression was all he would need for this performance. He dropped from the roof with unnatural silence, landing in the middle of the group of Urodela. Talen, drunken and surprised, stumbled over his words as the cloaked apparition appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Ryu pulled back the hood of his cloak, revealing the sharp, hatchet-like features of his face and his eyes of gray steel.

“Judgement has come, Talen,” he said, his voice silencing the crowd. Too dramatic? No, Talen was loud and boisterous. He would latch onto the dramatic moment like a drowning man does the float. In his drunken state, he probably wouldn’t even consider that if Ryu had really meant to kill him, an arrow from several rooftops away would’ve ended his life before he ever knew.

“Like,” he said, burping. “Like fuck it has. Look around, human. We have won tonight! Under your direction, the Drakonai have only advanced further and further into Urodela territory. I say no more. We are not a people to play in the shadows. We’ll fight, we’ll defend our land, and we’ll win. Your help is not needed.” At this, the crowd cheered.

Ryu’s expression did not change. “Do you not remember what I told you? This is only playing into their plan. This is-”

“Enough,” Talen roared, gaining confidence from the crowd’s support. “The Urodela are beholden to no man. You and Shin have betrayed us with your cowardly ways.” The female on Talen’s lap whispered to the warrior after giving Ryu a measuring look. One of Lucius’s spies, no doubt. He made a mental note to have her killed at a later time.

Ryu breathed in. The air around him had reached that dangerous point of tension, the kind that implies the threat of incoming violence. Ryu hated it. The waiting. The tension. The turmoil. A fight was a fight, and sadly, there would be no violence here. Talen needed to live for a bit longer.

Ryu stared at the seated Urodela. “I will be back. Make your plans, play your games. We’ll see how it plays out.”

“We will, indeed,” Talen snorted. Ryu retreated, disappearing in the crowd. In Talen’s mind, he had given up under the pressure of the crowd, and the Urodela’s supporters wouldn’t question that narrative.

Back at that government building, Ryu sighed and sunk into a chair across from Shin, the Speaker of the Urodela.

“Is it done?” asked the wily Urodela leader. He sat behind his desk, leaning forward in participation. Beside him, a mug of some strange brew of fermented mushroom steamed.

“As best as it can be,” Ryu said with a shrug.

“If this fails-”

“I know.” Ryu was not one for ifs. A thing either was, or it wasn’t.

“I suppose you do. My apologies. I’ve gotten word that the Drakonai used our friend Talen’s rally to move into the tunnels here and here,” Shin explained, gesturing over the map. “With your performance today, we can expect Talen to contest their hold with his emboldened force.”

“Any updates on the informants?”

“Yes. I have loyal men moving into position over the next few days.”

Ryu nodded. “Add one more name to the list.”