When Mat woke up, he realized he was not on the planet anymore. He was confined to a warm yellow-lighted room with the milky walls resembling those in a starship. He was guessing it was either some orbital space base someplace or a large cruiser.

Immediately, they brought him cereal to eat and a bottle of water. Although he had no appetite for food, he knew he needed it for what was to come.

It seemed they were in a hurry because as soon as he finished his meal, he was led to face the Commission.

Of the five people sitting around a huge half-moon table, he knew two of them, Maximan the Seventh, the administrator who contracted him to do the job and who was sitting in the middle, and Eisen, the Lord of the Elves, sitting on the far right.

There were two other humans Mat had never seen on the left and someone who wore a hood that covered most of his face. Mat doubted it was a human, but decided not to dwell too much on what species his fifth judge belonged to. Maybe She Elf Lord? With only men around, it would make sense for one of them to be a woman.

Opposite them were three transparent cells, the first one having Helen sitting down and looking at him with disapproval. Her eyes trailed him with every step he took.

The middle one was occupied by Oliver Roxion, the self-proclaimed Highest Priest of Erminux. No matter how hard Mat looked at him he did not even blink or show that Mat was there at all. His head was held high, the face absent of any emotion other than pride.

Mat was led to the far right one, and as soon as he entered, a force field shield engulfed him.

“Now that a third surviving member has finally joined us,” Maximan the Seventh announced, “We can proceed. A lot of things have gone wrong. We need to know what has happened.”

He stopped to cough and clear his throat. “Due to your seniority, Oliver Raxion, you are allowed to speak first.”

It seemed Oliver Roxion expected nothing less. He spoke looking straight ahead, not really paying any attention to any of them as if he was in his own little world.

He spoke for most of the morning, so much so that on a few occasions Mat found himself drifting to a nap.

He talked about how he helped create No-Kings land, giving people freedom and safe sanctuary, how he kept all the monsters in check, brought never-before-experienced peace among seven Kingdoms and prosperity to the whole realm.

Then he started to go over the recent events, and that got Mat’s attention really fast.

“I as well as our agents found myself isolated. At first, I thought it was you from the Core administration that was isolating us. But then, I reasoned it had to be something locally. I questioned Elvish Lord Udoln of Spring Elves who have proclaimed himself not less than a king. He knew of course I was the agent of the core, but showed a great deal of aggression against me. I had a fear that he must possess the technology to do that kind of signal interruption, and when he moved to kill people working for me, my fears only grew.

"But I could not ask anyone for help. I was isolated, had to face him on my own.”

Mat heard him speak but knew that until it was his time to do so, his voice would be muffled completely by the force field. So it really did not matter to try and add anything to what the ex High Priest had to say.

Oliver Roxion went on and on, explaining how Lord Udoln seemed to want to control the whole planet, get rid of all the other races, had gone in cahoots with Paleskins, and decided to wage a war on everyone.

He explained how his priests sacrificed their lives to fight them, but when all was lost, how the surviving ones gathered in the City of Lan, waiting for the attack of the Paleskins when the Core’s battleship arrived.

How he had no idea Mat wanted to destroy the whole ship, how he previously showed to be a devoted agent of the Core. How he feared that Mat was corrupted by the Elvish Lord Udoln, and that was his biggest disappointment to see an agent of the Core go rough.

“Sorry if we were boring you,” said the human commissioner sitting on the far left, looking at Mat. “Maybe you would like to add something to this before we pass a judgment on you?”

Mat looked at the man and said, “No, you’re not. Don’t lie.”

“What?”

“You said you were sorry. I say that is a lie. You don’t need to lie. At least, don’t lie like Oliver is lying. It’s stupid.”

“What do you mean?! The accusations!!” the man raised his voice, his face reddening. “You are charged on fifty different counts, the destruction of the Core’s starship but one of them. How do you plea?”

“But I had to destroy it. My code of an agent dictated that I do.”

“Explain,” said Maximan the Seventh, raising his arm to stop the other Commissioner to protest.

“If I did not destroy the ship, the droid would have destroyed the whole city, killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people. And that would only be the start of it all.”

“We did not instruct the droid to do that.”

“No, you did not. But Oliver did.”

“What? That is some serious accusation.”

“He found the way to control it, probably by corrupting its AI system. He wanted to destroy them all. Oh, yeah, there was another reason that I needed to destroy it. The virus that affected the ship would have been transmitted through the Core. That’s what the priest wanted in the first place.”

“Too bad you have shut your PIA down and your accusations cannot be verified. Too bad we do not have an insight into anything that has happened other than mere words.”

“I had to shut my Pia down. It was infected. I realized it was compromised when it tried to influence me to behave irrationally, kill people, side with the cannibalistic creatures that we referred to as Paleskins. Oh, yeah, whatever the virus Oliver installed, did even more than that. It blocked my memory, and by only…"

Mat stopped and remembered the old man, the image of him mixing the herbs flashing in front of his eyes. "Miracle I got it back. I remembered how he manipulated me, lied to me, made me think that he was the victim, while the whole time he tried to further his own selfish goals.”

“Your accusations against the superior class of an agent are very troublesome. You realize that Oliver has the ranking of a Champion?”

"Of course I do. Now that I stop to think about it, it might have been that Oliver resented you all for not making him a lord. Maybe that’s why he went bananas. But then I doubt it was only one thing.

“What he wanted to do, planned to do, is control the whole planet. Run it as he sees fit. To have a rule over it all. Elvish Lord Udoln stood in his way and he eliminated him."

"Say again?"

"Oliver had created quite a sect there in his Monetary. Used a lot of advanced technologies. I think he found out how to block the Core's technology there. It 's what he wanted so he could hide things from you, so he could be left undisturbed. Lord Udoln suspected he was the reason for the blackout, and went to confront him. But, Oliver used magnified blue-magma explosives on him. Killed him and hundreds of Elves with him. Leveled everything in more than a five-mile radius. That way he destroyed his labs and all the evidence of his wrongdoings. You can check that out. Send a team to his destroyed Monastery. With advanced scanners, I bet you'll be able to find a lot of interesting things of what was going on in there.”

“And how do you know this?”

“I could not remember at first. But the explosion damaged my Pia as well, the very tool that Oliver used to try and control me. Do you know what it’s like to be manipulated from the inside of your brain? To have to question your own mind? Pia became my enemy, the worst one I ever had.”

Mat stopped there for a while, remembering his mental fog. Then he sighed, let it all out, and continued in a calm, almost playful tone. “But then, I shut the thing down. And it nearly killed me. Eventually, like I already said I remembered. Remembered how he offered me a job, to be his second in command. He even sent me to go and recruit Paleskins, have them raze hell over No-Kings Land and Seven kingdoms. I think the reason was very crazy, to bring them in front of the Kings so he could show how powerful he was.”

“That’s hard to believe,” one of the Commissioners had said.

“There are a lot of questions I do not have answers for, but I know that High Priest has killed thousands of people for his own self-indulgence, his own search for power. And he will not stop. It will continue to go on and on. Unchecked, he would have created an army to be able to face any threat that he may think the core might throw at him. He was not only untested in the plant. It was only to be his starting point. He wanted to rule over all of you as well.”

“I cannot believe that. Nobody is that illogical. And Champion Oliver has only demonstrated to be very logical,” one of the Commissioners said.

“Well, either that or… It certainly shows there were a number of missteps in the past in tracking him. A lot of missteps. You guys need to look into that.”

"The system has not failed! He has been chosen a Champion for a reason!"

"I do not know what reasons those may be. Like I said, you will need to look into that."

“Maybe we can let agent Helen discuss her findings. She might be short on experience but her findings should still be considered valuable,” the Commissioner in the middle said.

“Funny, I would think you would want to hear what Lord Eisen has to say,” Mat said surprised.

“Lord Eisen,” the Commissioner on the far left quickly added. “Had been on the planet for less than seven days. His findings, no matter how valuable, might be limited. I, too, agree we need to hear what agent Helen has to say. Unfortunately, her Personal Intelligence Assistant has been damaged as well. Useless, no data could have been recovered.”

“Of course it became useless. She was in close contact with Oliver. He must have compromised her Pia just as he did to mine,” Mat added.

“Let Helen speak!”

They took the force field down, so her voice could have been heard, but Helen’s mouth stayed closed.

“Agent Helen, you can speak now. Did you find any of what agent Mat had to say to be true?” the Commissioner in the middle asked.

Helen looked at him, but her mouth stayed close.

“YOU have to answer my question,” the Commissioner demanded.

He demanded and demanded, in a pleading voice, in a high voice, but it mattered none. Helen just kept on staring at him, her mouth closed as if it could not be opened at all.

“Fine,” the Commissioner said in the end. “We need to note that the Observer Agent Helen decided not to cooperate with this enquiry.”

“So, who are we to believe then?" the Commissioner on the left said. "With no words of our low ranking observer, we are left with the words of an agent who practically admitted to breaking the code, or… our trusted Champion who has progressed so much that he deserves to be made a lord.”

“He deserves to be made a Lord?” Lord Eisen asked, then cleared his throat. “What do you have to say to that, agent Mat? Please release his force-field.”

“Well, Oliver believes it. He said if he was an Elf, he would have been a lord already a long time ago.”

“Maybe there is some truth to that,” said the Commissioner on the far left. “I do not know.”

“Well, of course, you do. Another lie. You want to make him a lord. But you can’t. Because you are not a Lord yourself, nor Creator, are you?”

“Your words are insulting!”

“Well, so then, don’t take my words,” Mat said. “You have my sword, don’t you?” he asked pointing at the table that showcased what remained of his old sword as well as other weapons including Elves blades. “Before the mission started I was warned of the dangers I may face. So, I doubled down on security. The inside of the handle of my sword has a little present for you all. I can open it for you. It will only take my DNA as well as my neural signature.”

“And what will we find inside?” Lord Eisen suddenly asked.

“It has a backup recording device inside. Not the video, but all the sound. It was made to withstand any known type of interference. So, I think it should be operational So play it. And, then you will know what gives.”

“Yes, we need to hear it,” Lord Eisen said.

The Commissioner on the left cleared his throat. “But before we do that, there are other charges you need to answer for. Destroying our ship is but one of them.”

“I’ve been sent to the planet to find out what has happened. And I did. You listen to my sword talk and then, charge me anew.”

“In lieu of this evidence, I second the notion,” the Commissioner in the middle said.

Mat looked at Oliver who was beside himself, his mouth opening as if he was screaming, his face reddened, but no sound could be heard.

“I think Oliver has something to say,” the Commissioner on the left said.

“It’s not his turn,” Lord Eisen stopped the notion. “He will get to speak when we examine everything that agent Mat had talked about. Bring food for the accused. I think this may take a while.”

Mat looked at Oliver still screaming and chuckled. “The biggest talent you treasured was telling lies. And now that you can't do that, you'll get what you deserve, you fucken' asshole. You fucken’ lying little Hitler!”