Martin hung from a crude wooden stake driven through the center of the ranger station's entrance. His body sagged forward; his arms were limp at his sides.

Blood had dried in dark streaks down the wood and pooled on the ground beneath him. His eyes stared at nothing; they just filmed over with the glaze of death.

Someone had stripped him of his armor. The wounds were some deep cuts across his chest and arms, the kind that came from a struggle.

But the wooden stake driven clean through his torso had delivered the final, fatal blow.

It jutted upward from the packed earth like some grim monument, a splintered and blood-soaked warning to anyone foolish enough to return to this place.

The brutality of it sent a clear message: this wasn't some desperate fight, but a cold-blooded execution meant to be witnessed. Reidar knew who the sender was and who the receiver was supposed to be. Him.

Lena made a sound, a choked-off gasp that was half-grief, half-rage. Her knees buckled. She caught herself against Reidar's wolf, breathing hard. Her fingers dug into the creature's fur as she stared at Martin's corpse.

"No." The word came out broken. "No, he can't—"

For a moment, she just stood there, her body rigid, staring at the man who had been her leader, her mentor, and the closest thing to a father she had left in this broken world.

Reidar's hand found her shoulder, steadying her. He had no words. Martin had been many things. A manipulator, a desperate leader, a man drowning in impossible choices, but he'd also been Lena's father figure. The only family she had left after the apocalypse took everything else.

Reidar's shock hit him like ice water, but it didn't last. His mind snapped into focus, scanning the area for danger.

He sent his summons spreading out. The silence wasn't just eerie anymore. It felt like a threat.

Movement caught Reidar's eye. Beyond Martin's body, standing in the ranger's shadow station's entrance, was Morv'axil Xenth, the thalassari vendor sent by the allied worlds.

He was seated cross-legged on a flat stone, as calm as if he were arranging his wares.

The Thalassari vendor looked unharmed. His lustrous robes shifted colors while his dark eyes studied them with that same unsettling calm they'd always held. The carved bone charms hanging from his tentacles clicked together as he moved forward.

"Reidar Miller, Lena," Morv'axil said. "I expected you would return eventually."

Reidar stared at him. The vendor stood amid total devastation, surrounded by an abandoned settlement and a murdered leader, and looked as composed as if he were discussing the weather.

"You're alive," Reidar said, his voice tighter than he intended. "How?" He paused.

"How are you alive? The entire settlement is a ghost town. If the Church did this… they hate the System. You are its representative. They should have tried to kill you first."

Morv'axil nodded.

"They tried, Reidar Miller. Or rather, their fervor compelled them to make the attempt once their new god gave them the courage." He gestured with one webbed hand, a languid motion that encompassed the empty square. "Their zeal broke against my shopfront like water on stone."

"Your shopfront," Reidar said. "You have a barrier. Like the one a Settlement Token creates."

"A rudimentary comparison, but not incorrect," Morv'axil's layered voice echoed. "The protection around a licensed vendor's place of business is a foundational covenant of the Allied Worlds. It is non-negotiable. The field generated repels hostile intent from any creature below level 450, which is my current level. The rabble here, even empowered by their fervor, could no more breach my door than they could push over this dam."

Level 450. The number was immense and incomprehensible. Reidar stared at the unassuming Thalassari, this merchant he had haggled with for pots and skill books. This being had been, all along, a fortress of unimaginable power. A god sitting cross-legged in a dead man's yard.

"You could have stopped this then," Lena said, turning on him, her grief turning into accusation. Her blades were in her hands, though she didn't raise them. "You could have saved him!" Lena's voice cracked. "Martin was right there!"

Morv'axil's dark eyes met hers without sympathy.

"My job is trade, Lena, not stepping in. The rules are simple: I'm here to sell things, not fight battles. I protect my shop and myself. Your people's fights are your own. If Martin Vance had made it to my door, he'd still be alive. He didn't. Besides, there was no point in saving a building in a place that was going to have no people remaining. The settlement emptied; only Martin remained. One man does not make up a customer base worth protecting. It goes against the rules anyway. My purpose here ended the moment the population left. This place was going to be destroyed anyway, because I'm bound to leave today. I just waited for you guys to come." Morv'axil's tone carried no emotion.

The all looked justifications the thalassari was giving them to explain his lack of action.

Morv'axil paused. "I've been sent here to help you all, not to take sides."

"You could have still saved his life! They didn't want him as leader anymore, and that's ok, but at least they could have left him alive!" Lena was shedding tears of blood.

Morv'axil looked at her with compassion.

"Just tell us what happened, Morv'axil!"

The Thalassari vendor nodded. "It wasn't monsters who killed him; it was his own people."

He paused.

"The church came to the faithful. The Progenitor himself appeared. Seeing his level, the people instantly converted. "

Reidar felt his jaw clench. "So you just watched."

"I observed. As I observe most things." Morvaxil's gaze drifted to Martin's body. "Martin had no chance against the one you call Jorik."

"Jorik was here?" Lena asked.

Morv'axil gave her a grim nod.

"He is the one who killed him."

Lena pushed away from the wolf. She took unsteady steps toward Martin's corpse, then dropped to her knees in the dirt beneath the stake. Her shoulders shook, but she made no sound.

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