Episode 2

Ivor sees an Alijanian armed with two scimitars charging up the hill. He seems to be coming towards the group that Ivor is with, that is heading down the hill.

In the ghetto...

Thorn gains little from the investigation, but eventually, after the initial silence of the shock, everyone begins to speak again.

The Seetans speak with Ron Oram first. The Hechesi speak among themselves. The younger two Seetans speak among themselves.

Gibon eventually recovers his composure. At first he bursts into speaking in Heshbaan, and animated with his hands. Then he takes some deep breathes, paces around on the deck for a bit, and then gets back into the flow of speaking Yuoric.

"I feel I would die," he says to Thorn, as he shakes his head back and forth, trying to get the trembling out of his body.

The other Seetan in the bright red robes comes over to speak with Kray and Thorn. As they have noticed before, he has a very kind and pleasant demeanor. He speaks excellent Yuoric, with an accent similar to Palla Ba's. He introduces himself as Lok. He is the son of Palla Ba.

We need another translator? Going to have to fire Gibon and pick up someone with some serious multilingual skills ha.

Gibon does get back into the translation game.

Lok informs, in Yuoric, that Trece does not speak Yuoric and is only recently trying to learn Heshbaan. "His language is Old Empire," Lok explains.

Kray and Thorn understand that as a reference to the Zutaran language. Kray has heard it called "Desert Speech" also, in Jeresian or other Yuoric circles. He knows the general history that Zutar was the old empire that once stretched across a vast and rugged area of central Faolan. After a costly and lengthy war against Ancient Otessa (many centuries back, though Kray cannot remember exactly when), Zutar broke apart into its many vassal states, eventually ceasing to exist as any central government.

The language remained though and is still spoken by many including Jbailians, Sarcerans, Bishtus, Sekeris, and even Korsians on the western coast.

The crowd separates Sizhen a distance as he tries to gain ground. He had lost the Stabber briefly in the mix of people, but now he sees him again, launching further north towards the opposite downhill slope of the hill, with the small fence and wheat fields beyond.

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Yashub yells out and a couple of the men ahead in the crowd tense for action, looking around. Yashub cannot quite see the detail for a moment, but then it becomes clear as he rises to the top of the hill. Magistrate Eannatum is down, knife still in his chest.

Dug-nuna is sprinting towards the north fence and fields.

The Alijanian rival is running up the hill as well, two scimitars unsheathed and in hand as he runs.



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Ivor sees the Alijanian running uphill with the drawn swords. Another Heshbaan running forward, to a more leftward angle from Ivor's vantage point, yells out some sort of warning and raises his hand.

Some of the women scream.

Ivor quickly sets into battle readiness, as does Cedrio nearby.

Scanning his surroundings, and looking back uphill, Ivor sees Magistrate Ennautum fall to the ground and a man running past the tent.

Ivor sees Sergius leaping into action, making a quick assessment of the fallen magistrate, and then turning towards the running man, stepping out in pursuit with his spear in hand.

The Chase?