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General Marble put on a smile and turned to a green robed man standing next to him. "Lance!" Marble bellowed, momentarily drawing the gazes of everyone in the room. "It is good to see you." The two exchanged an awkward hug with Marble wrapping a hairy arm around the entire mage while the mage feebly tried to do the same, caught off guard by both the actions and the smell of alcohol on the man\'s breath. "Well, good to see you for the second time today. How is the student you and your other mage friend abducted from us?"

"Asleep," Lance replied, trying not to dry heave. "Like everyone else, he couldn\'t take the strain of the spell and passed out. We\'re waiting for him to wake up in my office but in the meantime…" he gestured to everyone, who quickly averted their gaze away from the mage. "The mages were summoned here. Classes for Doevm begin in the morning, so I can only tell how he\'ll do then."

"Ah," Marble rubbed his scraggly beard. "It\'s funny that so much information is being withheld from even the Generals, and how mages are able to magically bend the rules and still get away with it. You must teach me that trick when you have the time."

Lance sighed: "For what it\'s worth, I did not agree with Trenton\'s method, nor his reasoning: listening to a noble witness. I do not know much about it aside from the fact that he owed General Von Trike a favor."

"You don\'t say," Marble looked to the guilty General, who had already gone ahead into the chamber. Several emotions flickered behind his eyes but let none of them show in his expression. His fake smile softened and he put a hand on Lance\'s shoulder: "I know you\'re not that kind of man. My uncle and aunt wouldn\'t raise you to be someone like that."

"Yeah, they\'ve always been strict, but it\'s only natural since we\'re the branch family, always striving to be as good as your illustrious Marble name." He matched Marble\'s earlier smile, if only for a fraction of a second. "But I don\'t blame you, nor did my sister."

The earlier mirth evaporated as fast as a magic circle as Marble dropped his voice to a whisper. "So, how are you since…you know?"

"More or less the same." Lance shrugged. He glanced back at the crowd, who were all engaging in shallow conversation to pass the time as well. "The Magic Academy finally got off my back. I\'ve proven myself to the point that my name is in the clear. How are things from your end?"

Marble led Lance a little away from the crowd, as to not let so many of their former enemies overhear: "I adopted a similar strategy to clear my name, and now I\'m here, having worked my way up from being an apprentice under my father to a General. I advise you to continue sticking to the rules, even if it\'s against what this Trenton guy says. You might have cleared yourself but you\'ll be surprised how much people remember. One slip up and they\'ll point fingers and dig up the past like its harvest time."

Lance shook his head: "I doubt it. I\'ve been careful."

"Well then," Marble said, patting him on the back. He leaned in closer and the smell of alcohol once again invaded Lance\'s nostrils: "But you know, sometimes it doesn\'t matter if you\'re careful. Sometimes a big fucking alligator will come after you and gouge your eye out. There won\'t be a reason for it. It\'ll happen. I guarantee it. Watch out for yourself and stay away from my men, my students."

"They\'re ready," Alexander called over. Marble pulled back and smiled at Lance, displaying his yellow teeth. The crowd was escorted by demihuman servants and another team of Enforcers through the entryway, past the throne room, and finally to the inner chambers of the castle, the only rooms with real things.

The room was extremely similar to the court, an intentional design because if it wasn\'t for the need for a display of coordination, the castle would have long since been razed to the ground. Dozens of wooden desks were against the circular walls. A pedestal sat at the center. General Von Trike had already gone ahead of them and engaged in "conversation" with Botomon, son of the hero, Arthur Botomon. From their annoyed expressions, even Marble could tell that the two leaders of the two most popular rivaling noble factions were tired of talking with each other.

The Generals and the mages sat on the opposite sides of the room while the self-important nobles sat everywhere else. The ceiling was made of a thin layer of light crystal, the rays of which reflected off the nobles\' expensive jewelry, each necklace, ring, and cloth more expensive than a house in the middle-class district. The royalty: the king, his son, and daughters, stood against the wall as observers. They were no more important than the fake furniture at the entryway, pieces of fake decoration, lightly dusted off for this one day.

"Alexander," Botomon said, his double chin jiggling. He pointed with a sausage he was eating to the center pedestal. "Please present the weapon." General Alexander made his way to the center, pulled out a gun from his spatial ring, and placed it on the pedestal. "Report your findings."

Alexander took a deep breath and took out a paper: "I have sent for every human…" Alexander stressed the word: \'Human\'. As he spoke, disks flew from the desks and crowded around the gun, allowing each and every noble to get a closer look at the weapon. "And out of every human blacksmith, none can replicate this weapon\'s design. They have, however, figured out how it works."

He put a finger to the trigger. "It\'s similar to a crossbow, except different in its method of propulsion and what it carries as ammunition. The trigger is connected to a flint hammer that strikes against metal and ignites the powder stored inside of the gun. It then sends the ammo barreling out of the hollow rod, which somewhat accurately determines its direction."

"Although there are some minor problems to work out, the main issue the blacksmiths ran into was the powder. The powder, I sent to the mages for their alchemists to remake. That concludes my report." He returned to his seat, or he tried to before a noble piped up.

"How effective were these weapons?" The servant directly to the noble\'s side was ready with a quill and paper. The other nobles sat forward and their servants tensed up.