Heikin sat in his throne room.

  No.

  It was an office.

  The usual displays of wealth absent.

  Just obsidian and cold marble lined the space.

  Along with a few gold trinkets in the right places to remind others what this room used to be.

  He shuffled through letters from neighboring borders with practiced hands.

  He's always been an exception when it came to processing documents; those who wanted leverage were too neglectful to read.

  After all, That used to be his job.

  Words of praise first came from The Sylvarion Conclave.

  Letters of "good fortune" to the The Concord of Veliskaar for gaining a divine bast blessing.

  "The land of arcane magic was first to gain this knowledge?" Heikin thought.

  Fingers tapping the letter with calculation.

  "They may be a paper tiger. But their good at keeping up smoke and mirrors."

  "How....notable." He assessed. Marking something on parchment with a quill and ink.

  He sat it aside. Turning to a different letter.

  This one more of a request than more empty platitudes.

  The letters surface shifted like water.

  Signed:

  The Aquatic Coastal Wardens

  "Your majesty, King Leon. We have received word of your crowing. We have also heard word of this sacred beast of old."

  The letter continues on with other logistics.

  Trade offers.

  Negotiations.

  "Trade routes....emissaries.....all political performance." Heikin thought with narrowed eyes.

  Memories of a past life flooded through his skull like a film.

  Dinners with coworkers who asked him how to move up the ladder.

  Receiving a "gift" with hidden intent on it paying off later.

  The letter finished with words that seemed less like a request. And more like a demand.

  "For the time being, we request that this beast aid be sent to help us fend against the onslaught at The Phantom Trench near our shores."

  Heikin filed away the letter. Eyes scanning the remaining stack.

  "Men who speak of future relations while expecting your resources now are unreliable variables."

  He recalls the sea wardens' methods of combat from the castle's library.

  Pacts made with Leviathans.

  Speaking to deep-sea horrors.

  All while Inland citizens feel like second-class subjects.

  "They speak to monsters. I make monsters speak for me."

  Heikin was finally able to get out of the castle.

  Leon insisted he ride in the stage coach.

  The slime could have just as easily flown. But appearances mattered in this age just as in any other.

  Due to the Maw's production in their military power.

  One of the lords wanted to speak with him.

  "High Castellan Jorrek Vale." Leon explained.

  "People call him "Shield of the Concord." Grok said with an unamused scoff.

  Heikin eyed the kingdom's map.

  six provinces were divided between the Concord of Veliskaar.

  Each one less efficient than the last.

  Not technologically.

  But systematically.

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  Provinces hoard leverage.

  Crises become profit engines.

  Cooperation is performative, not functional.

  "Last year," Valen said.

  "Count Theral used his Province of the Tidebound March to up charge per bucket of water during the drought."

  'It lead the markets grain supply to spike your grace." Leon said with concerned eyes. 'I think both lords were colluding together."

  "Each province is an organ." The Maw said calmly.

  His eyes found the castle that got smaller as they traveled further.

  "The Capital....its nervous system."

  He looks at himself in the carriage's glass.

  "I, its silent brain."

  "Each province acts as a body part for the whole." Leon stated. Hands clasped tight on his sword hilt.

  "If we lose one of them. Everyone else suffers the loss."

  "What is your solution for this....dilemma my lord." Valen asked.

  The slimes eyes shimmered with something unreadable.

  "The nobles won't be crushed."

  He rubbed the carriage's smooth leather.

  "They’re going to be made obsolete."

  If provinces remain interdependent, nobles exploit scarcity.

  If provinces become self-sufficient, nobles lose leverage.

  If Heikin centralizes logistics, nobles lose relevance.

  Each noble rules a “body part.”

  Each one benefits from controlled inefficiency.

  As they neared the Province of Ashenwatch.

  The kingdoms border.

  The road dipped here—always has.

  They say the ground never fully rose again after something knelt.

  As they come up from the dip in the road.

  If it could be called a road anymore.

  It smelled of ash and brimstone.

  Burnt tress that refused to fall.

  Air thick with smoke and dried blood.

  Heikin stepped out onto the charred soil.

  His eyes first saw the number of knights.

  Not heroically fighting nor training for future war.

  But fatigued.

  Some laid out on the dirt, with legs half bandaged from a mana blast.

  Blood kept stubbornly leaking out between stiches.

  Others were coughing up black specks of blood.

  "Must be a spread of godrot among them from their recent campaign against Varkhelt." Leon assessed.

  Eyes scanning the men's frost bitten lips.

  "Cardinal Elias says the gods have completely abandoned that frozen empire ages ago."

  The maw notices some healers hands that emanate warm green flame onto the knights bruised ribs.

  The vagabonds of Eiros

  A wandering humanitarian order.

  "They help with relief as much as they can my lord." Valen explained.

  "Although they are...underfunded."

  Heikin noticed the lack of sanitization among the well meaning healers.

  No gloves.

  Only half worn lather full of holes.

  Most didn't even carry a bag of medical herbs.

  "A well meaning variable.....but one that lacks resources." The Maw thought.

  He approached one of them.

  "You." Grok commanded.

  "Me?" A boy no older than 20 asked hesitantly.

  His freckles and orange hair made him look far too innocent to be in this kind of work.

  The boy stiffened when Grok’s voice called him over.

  Up close, Heikin could see the tremor in his hands—exhaustion more than fear.

  Old blood beneath the nails. Burn salve smeared into threadbare sleeves.

  Heikin did not loom.

  He crouched.

  That alone drew the healer’s eyes up in confusion.

  “You’re not from Ashenwatch,” Heikin said calmly. Not a question.

  The boy swallowed. “No, my lord. The Vagabonds move where the hurt is worst.”

  “Then you are inefficient,” Heikin replied without malice.

  The boy flinched—then straightened, jaw tightening.

  “We do what we can.”

  “I know,” Heikin said.

  He gestured, and the wounded knight nearby stopped coughing. Not healed—stabilized.

  The blood slowed. The pain dulled.

  The healer stared.

  “You work without gloves,” Heikin continued.

  “No standardized treatment order. No supply ledger. No isolation protocol.”

  A pause.

  “You are compassionate. And you are wasting lives.”

  The words should have crushed him.

  Instead, the boy whispered, “We don’t have funding.”

  “Incorrect,” Heikin said softly. “You lack a system.”

  He rose, shadows folding around him like a cloak of quiet logic.

  “I will fund your order. Fully.”

  Medicines. Equipment. Training. Transport.

  Sanitation standards enforced by law, not prayer.”

  The boy’s breath hitched. “My lord—we—we don’t take sides.”

  “You already do,” Heikin replied. “You side with survival.”

  He reached into the folds of his robe and produced a thin obsidian card, etched with the Concord’s sigil—the Maw encircling a flame.

  “Every person you treat,” Heikin continued, “will receive one of these.”

  A pause, deliberate.

  “Not a conscription. An invitation.”

  He let the boy take it.

  “Those who accept will be fed, housed, trained. Human or monster.

  They will serve in relief, logistics… or in time, defense.”

  Leon’s eyes narrowed slightly. Valen understood immediately.

  “A hybrid legion,” the boy murmured.

  “A unifying force,” Heikin corrected.

  “For those abandoned by their systems.”

  He leaned closer, voice dropping to something almost kind.

  “They will not be called beasts. They will not be called expendable.

  They will be called useful.”

  The boy looked at the card like it might burn him.

  “…What do we call them?”

  Heikin straightened.

  “The Maw’s Vanguard.”

  The wind shifted.

  Somewhere behind them, a wounded knight laughed weakly—then cried in relief as pain finally left his body.

  The boy bowed. Deep. Earnest.

  “We’ll take your funding, my lord,” he said. “And your cards.”

  Heikin nodded once.

  “Good,” he said.

  “Then this border stops bleeding.”

  Heikin doesn’t recruit from strength.

  He recruits from abandonment.

  And the Backwaters of Thalgrin is full of it.

  Far from the ash-choked border, High Castellan Jorrek Vale reclined beneath a lattice of flowering vines.

  His estate was immaculate.

  White stone. Flowing water. Imported fruits laid out in geometric perfection.

  The illusion of peace cultivated with the same care one prunes a hedge.

  A garden of Eden far away from the dark skies of his province.

  A servant burst in—dirty boots on polished marble.

  He fell to his knees.

  “My lord,” he gasped. “The beast has arrived.”

  Jorrek’s fingers paused mid-grape.

  “…The Maw?”

  “Yes, my lord. In Ashenwatch. He’s with the king. And the monsters.”

  Jorrek exhaled slowly.

  Interesting.

  “Did he burn anything?” Jorrek asked.

  “Threaten the levies? Demand tribute?”

  “No, my lord.” The servant hesitated.

  “He’s… funding relief. Stabilizing the wounded. Issuing cards to civilians.”

  Cards.

  Jorrek smiled thinly.

  “So,” he murmured, “he wants to play administrator.”

  He rose, pacing toward the window overlooking his manicured paradise.

  “Prepare trade proposals,” Jorrek said calmly.

  “Grain. Water rights. Border toll exemptions.”

  He turned back, eyes sharp.

  “And make it clear—politely—that instability has its uses.

  If he looks the other way, Ashenwatch stays… complicated.”

  The servant nodded eagerly.

  “And if he refuses, my lord?”

  Jorrek Vale’s smile deepened.

  “Then we remind him how expensive borders can be. Rebellion always has it's purpose too after all.”

  Outside, the garden bloomed perfectly.

  Far away, something ancient and patient finished laying the foundations of an army.

  And for the first time, High Castellan Jorrek Vale miscalculated a variable he did not yet understand.

  Believing a system thinker can be paid off to ignore an ineffective system.