The festivals didn't really happen in Valburn, at least it didn't really happen this year. If people didn't know that there was something wrong in the palace, then they figured it out quickly when the festival day went and passed without anything out of the ordinary going on in the city. In Valburn, the responsibility of the festival fell to the royals, and even with all of the trouble that came with symbol of everything wrong with Fraedia being present, the royal family always did it. They always made an appearance so they could pretend that the country hadn't already fallen apart.

The royal family wasn't there anymore.

By day five of the festivities that were happening everywhere else in Fraedia, those who wanted to celebrate were mostly gone. This made the city emptier than usual, but Brontes couldn't let himself or his allies relax. Slave traders were quite active when everybody was distracted, especially when alcohol was involved, and Valburn was the best place to sell slaves. They didn't only have their eyes on those who kidnapped people to sell in slavery either. There were a lot of people who worked for nobles, acting as the intermediate between those who were interested in slaves and the slave traders themselves.

Because of course, the nobles weren't going to show their faces in the public to buy their slaves. Even the intermediates were wise enough to hide their faces behind various masks, which seemed to have a viable market of its own.

Brontes was laying down on the slanted rooftop of his headquarters, a simple two story building, keeping half a mind to be careful not to fall. Being on the rooftop didn't give him any sight advantage over the city, since the headquarters was surrounded by too many buildings of similar height to be of any use that way. However, he liked to lay up there to think, and the thoughts of what to do with Zahan occupied his mind too much as of late. He didn't get to think for long, as Kalen crawled up to the roof to join him.

"You have something for me, Kalen?" he asked, without getting up to acknowledge him. Kalen was the only one who would crawl out to meet him, since he was used to be on rooftops of kinds. Everybody else would just call for him from the safety of the window

"Those middlemen in the slave trading business are getting excited," Kalen said. "It might be fun to crash their party, don't you think? We aren't hosting anybody, right?"

"Is there an auction going on right now?"

"They're right in the middle of it! They're up to 25,000 gold already, just on one person! Probably higher now. I haven't seen slaves go that high in a long time."

Brontes grinned. He liked crashing slave auctions, especially the ones that the noble intermediates were excited about. He gathered some of his allies – Marin the mage, Tora the ursurine, and Iza, then practically ran to the city block where the auctions were often held.

Brontes never saw the block so full of people shouting, attempting to be overheard over their competition, and even trying to make themselves taller to do so. The person being sold was contained using metal cuffs that were attached to a metal pole, which was attached to a simple but tall stage that put him above the crowd. Everybody had to look up to see him. Not only were the slave traders there, standing on the stage, but there were also guards around the crowd to keep anybody who didn't plan on bidding out. The unfortunate boy was fighting against his restraints, weakly trying to yank on them, but to no avail. Brontes wondered if he even had the strength to put up a fight.

Iza stepped up to the guards, and looked at one of them for just a moment before stabbing the pointed end of her poleaxe, which sat on top of the axe head, into the guard's neck. Chaos broke out immediately.

"Protect the slave!" the slaver traders screamed.

"Forget him! Protect us!" the intermediates shouted.

The guards attacked them immediately, while the slave traders tried their best to keep Tora from hopping up onto the stage. Iza dodged the lances coming her way while Brontes blocked their attacks with his shield. From behind, Marin attacked with a powerful wind spell knocking the guards down, which gave him and Iza an opening to strike them down while they fell. Well, the ones who weren't immediately killed by Marin's spell, that was.

"I've got him, boss!" Tora shouted, hoisting the kid over one shoulder, with the chains still around his wrists. Only the chain was ripped off of the pole, but sometimes, Tora took the pole too. A slave trader came up behind him, only for Tora to drive his foot into her stomach with enough force to knock her off. "Cover me!" With that, he jumped off the edge, positioning the kid so that he was close to his chest as he began running. While he could run faster transformed, he could still outrun any normal person while in his human form.

"Sure thing!" Iza shouted, climbing up to the stage to face off with the slave traders that began chasing after Tora. She nearly decapitated the first one to raise a weapon to her, then kicked another off of the stage just as Tora did before. Marin began running after Tora, whipping up a storm of dust and dirt to cover their trek back.

Between Iza and Brontes, the slave traders were soon dead and so were all of the guards who protected the auction. Most of the bidders managed to run as well, but the ones who remained were red in the face, at least whatever part of their face wasn't covered by their masks. With clenched fists waving the air, they hurled one insult after another, but with all them shouting at once, Brontes couldn't pick out any one insult. He could only tell by their tone that they were meant to be insults. One of them even stomped up to him, putting his face so close to Brontes' face that he could feel the ceramic that the mask was made from.

"It's always you, isn't it? You and your stupid minions always ruin our business deals! Why are you always pulling shit like this?"

"Isn't it obvious? We don't like what you do. We don't like how you can take off your mask, sit at home with your family like a normal person, all while you make gold from destroying somebody's life," Brontes mumbled, moving his sword arm upwards to stab his sword through the man's throat. He pulled it out immediately. The man stared at Brontes for just a moment before sliding to the ground, the last bit of life he had left pouring out of his neck. Brontes wiped his sword off before sliding it back into its sheath. "If I see any of you guys buying a slave again, I'll cut you down too. This the only warning you're getting."

The others ran off at that point. When they were all gone, Brontes bent down and snatched the man's coin purses, each of them with a different house crest stitched into their designs. It was definitely curious, but in the end, he couldn't bring himself to even care if this guy was somehow pulling a fast one on some nobles. In any case, he was dead now, so it didn't even matter. He also grabbed the mask, pulling it off the man's face. Of course, the face underneath wasn't one he knew, but maybe he could do something with mask. He wasn't one for trophy hunting, but he still felt compelled to take it.

"I got the gold from the slave traders," Iza announced. "It's some good loot today! Think of all the weapons we could supply!"

"Maybe we could save up a bit more and start buying some properties that are close to the headquarters so we can expand and have a bigger home force. Or maybe we could have a headquarters on the other side of the city. We could host more people until we find a safe place for them too," Brontes mumbled, trying to remember if the surrounding buildings were homes or not, or if there was a building he could take over on the other side of Valburn. He would have to remember to ask Kalen.

Iza sighed. "How about we go back home? You can think there."

Brontes could see why he was going for so much, once he was back in his headquarters and he had a moment to actually look at the person they saved. With his long, red hair that turned orange at the ends, his darker complexion, and golden eyes, he was unlike anybody Brontes had ever seen. He seen such traits before, but never together in one person. There was also something about him that drew Brontes to him, but he couldn't place his finger on what that was. The only sort of flaw that Brontes noticed was the darkness under his eyes, but something small and reversible like that obviously didn't detract from his perceived value.

He and Ana were the only people inside the mess hall. He supposed that Ana had chased everybody else out. She was already inspecting him, looking closely at his skin but refrained from actually touching him. She kept reaching towards him out of habit, since that was the way she treated the rest of them as the staff was only for emergecies, but he shrunk away from her, forcing her to go back to only using her eyes to look him over.

"Is he giving you a hard time, Ana?" Iza asked as she sauntered into the room, opting to sitting on one of the tables instead of just sitting on the attached bench.

"I think he's just nervous. He has some burns on his ankles and wrists from the chains. Otherwise, I think he'll be fine once he gets some food and rest," she declared, taking a step back from him. However, the scrutinizing gaze continued, studying the stranger's face. She stared long enough for the man to look away, staring at his feet instead. "What is your name?"

"Igneous," he answered, keeping his eyes on the floor.

"Igneous, my name is Brontes," he said, sitting down on the bench beside him. "You're safe here. We grabbed you so that you wouldn't be stuck in slavery and let's face it, we can probably guess what kind of slave you would end up being. Do you have any friends? Parents? I know somebody who is good at finding information."

Igneous' shoulders sagged.

"Maybe some rest, first? We've got a couple of extra cots, though I should warn you that it's kind of crowded upstairs," Brontes continued.

"Can you hold your hand out for me?" Igneous asked suddenly, straightening his back and turning in his spot to face Brontes. It threw him off for a moment, with how intense Igneous looked all of a sudden when he wasn't willing to meet anybody in the eye just a moment ago. He didn't see anything wrong with the request though. Maybe he was a fortune teller, he kind of had the same fashion sense as the rest of them did. They didn't get the best reputation in Fraedia, but Brontes never had any reason to judge any of them, so he held his hand out with his palm facing up.

"Are you a palm reader?" Ana asked. Igneous surprised them both by grabbing his hand with his own bare hand instead, without taking a glance at his palm. He slumped forward a bit, his head hanging down slightly, his brows scrunched together. It was alarming enough for Brontes to grab his shoulder just in case he would fall, but just a moment later, his posture returned and he sat up on his own. Brontes let him go immediately, noting how uncomfortable he seemed with Ana reaching for him.

"I can trust you," Igneous said as he slipped his hand out of Brontes'. Brontes blinked. It was such a simple response to something that was so strange. What did Igneous get out of holding his hand for a brief moment? "And... I would like some rest. I'll tell you everything later. It's the least I can do."

"How about you let me wrap up your rope burns, first?" Ana asked. Igneous nodded, finally turning his wrists towards Ana and sticking his feet out so she had better access to his ankles. It didn't take her long to wrap them up after rubbing some salve on his skin. She was careful to avoid direct contact with his hands, he noticed, though that was helped by Igneous clenching his hands into fists. When he was taken care of, Iza jumped off of her spot on the table, leading him way upstairs. However, she seemed tense, clearly unsure of what to make of him. He could understand. He wasn't sure what to make of him either.

Ana didn't seem to be fazed though. In fact, she had a small smile on her face as Igneous left the room. When Iza returned, with the missing members of their militia, she resumed her spot on the table.

"He fell asleep as soon as he put his head on the pillow," Tora mumbled.

"I doubt he got a lot of sleep. I wouldn't sleep if I was in the hands of slave traders," Brontes mumbled as he jumped to his feet. "Anyway, since we're all here, we should go over what happened during the auction. I threatened all of the intermediates with death should they continue their actions."

"But you already knew that they would just keeping doing what they were doing anyway," Yurien mumbled, no hint of emotion in his voice. Brontes merely nodded. He still didn't quite know why he said it in the first place. He was more caught up in the moment then he cared to admit, and he wasn't sure why he was angrier than usual. Of course, threatening the intermediates instead of just pissing them off was something he should have done a long time ago so he didn't regret his actions. He didn't know what changed, though.

Iza shrugged. "I for one, think it's a good idea to kill them all. I would have killed them right there if you didn't give them another chance."

"Why haven't we killed them all before?" Tora asked.

"Brontes needs to be careful, that's why," Hadrien said. "It's one thing to build up an army and being just a general nuisance, but the moment he touches the intermediates, then he's declaring war with the nobles. We need more people, more weapons, more time to train people... more everything."

Laurel huffed. "Yeah, but at what point do we have enough? Careful planning only goes so far."

Brontes swallowed hard. He didn't know the answer to that. The nobles had a lot of people fighting for them. Anything gold could buy was on their side, while Brontes fed his crew a lot of rice because fresh meat and vegetables were too expensive to have in large portions. He didn't know what Zahan planned on doing either. Would they just leave the Fraedians to fight among themselves? Maybe he did think too much and didn't take enough risks, but the only thing they had in their favour was their passion and skill. That alone didn't win battles against waves of enemies.

And it certainly wasn't going to win any of the political battles, which was what occupied his mind the most. He couldn't just rip out the monarchy, he needed to replace it with something and that was up to him to figure out.

"You do realize that killing people isn't the only thing that will change this country, right? Brontes is trying to use a completely new system that Haelin has never seen before. Killing people is the easy part, it is the only part people like you three can understand, that's why you want to rush into things without thinking about why it's like that," Marin mumbled, looking at his feet. "Excuse him for making sure he has a proper foundation first."

Tora looked away eagerly. "I... guess. Sorry, Brontes."

Brontes doubted he was going to get an apology out of Iza or Laurel, but that wasn't what concerned him. "At any rate, even if we do have to kill a lot of people, don't let it go to your heads. We're not prepared to fight all of the armies that the nobility has. I know everybody wants things to change already but making slow, steady progress is the way we're going to go about it."

There were murmurs, but Brontes decided to just take the bags of loot to his office without another word. He was completely exhausted, and not just because he got a good exercise with his sword earlier.

When Brontes woke up in the morning, he decided not to gear up completely, deciding to just wear a shirt and pants because he didn't plan on going out at all, unless he was actually needed. He still tied his hair back, at least what could be tied back. He trusted that everybody could act without him though – he trusted their abilities, their talents, and after further talks that night, their ability to reign themselves in. He was going to focus on Igneous today because there was something about him that still rubbed him the wrong way.

Not that he thought Igneous was "bad" or anything like that. He was just mysterious, and there was a lot more to then he let on. He was strangely defensive, but he did promise Brontes he would explain more. He didn't know how long Igneous' story was, but there were enough things he had to do inside his headquarters that he could dedicate a day to both Igneous and those tasks. He jut wanted to make sure Igneous was comfortable, since Brontes wasn't sure when he would find a place for him to go, or better yet, get him back to somebody who cares about him.

When he made it downstairs to the mess hall, Igneous was nowhere to be found. Everybody else was awake and eating already, but Igneous was must have been sleeping still. Brontes was a little disappointed, but he took some breakfast – rice, which was their staple, some cut up fruit, and some cooked eggs – and sat down beside Tora. Laurel laughed.

"What's with the casual look, Brontes?"

"I'm staying inside today, so the rest of you guys have to be on guard. Don't just wait for Kalen to pop in whenever he feels like it," Brontes mumbled as he began to dig into his breakfast. "But remember, don't go too crazy. Just stick to bandits or slave traders."

"Sounds good," Yuren said with a nod.

He finished breakfast in relative silence, keeping an eye out for Igneous or trying to sort out everything he needed to do in his mind. When Igneous didn't show up by the time he scrubbed his plate clean in the washing basin, he went up to the barracks himself to investigate. Nearly everybody else seemed to avoid him, and he heard the front door shut, so he knew most of them had left. Only Hadrien and Ana hovered close to the door of the barracks.

Igneous wasn't sleeping. He was sitting up in the top bunk, being just short enough that he could sit up just fine in it. He was busying himself with combing his hair with his fingers, gritting his teeth and mumbling to himself as he did so. He didn't stop when Brontes walked into the room, so he cleared his throat loudly, making Igneous jump, nearly knocking his head against the ceiling. He flattened himself, laying on his stomach, but peered over the railing of the bunk bed.

"What do you want?" Igneous asked.

"We were just wondering if you needed breakfast. The rest of us ate."

"No, I don't want anything."

Brontes frowned. That wasn't a good sign. "When did you last eat, then? You didn't eat the entire time you were here, so you must be hungry. You need to eat."

"I'm not hungry," he stated simply. Brontes shook his head.

"If you don't come for dinner, I will have our usurine drag out you of bed, and he will hold you down as I shove food down your throat," Ana said as she walked into the room. "I don't care if you don't feel like eating, you will anyway. I won't have other people thinking that I can't care for a brat like you."

"You weren't this mean yesterday," Igneous mumbled with a frown.

"Anyway, you must have friends looking for you, right? If you give me names, I'm sure we can find them and let them know you're here. I know somebody who is good at digging up information."

Igneous hesitated, leaving Brontes confused. He couldn't help but to wonder what was so hard about giving him the necessary information. Maybe he was making the wrong assumption about having people looking for him. Ideally, there were people looking for him, people that loved him and cared about him, but there were a lot of people in Fraedia who were alone. Maybe Igneous was in that group and Brontes was upsetting him by reminding him of that.

"You said you could trust me, right?" Brontes asked, giving him a small smile. "I have no intentions in betraying that trust."

"Your friend can probably find Amaryllis," he finally said, slowly shifting himself up into a sitting position.

"I'll run that name by him, then," Brontes said with a nod. "I also have to ask... how did you know that I could be trusted? What did you get from touching my hand?"

Igneous frowned and looked away. "I'm not sure if you'll believe me," he mumbled.

"Do you want to say that you're the oracle?" Ana asked suddenly. Brontes turned on his heels quickly to face Ana, who was just as stoned faced as ever.

"... How did you know?" Igneous asked with a frown.

"Because you look like Vulcan," she answered. "On the surface anyway... the hair colour, the eye colour, the skin colour, you share it all with Vulcan. You don't have his face, though. My younger sister worked as his guardian and I used to occasionally visit her at the temple in Adoss. Vulcan even read my future once and he did the exact same thing you did with the hands. My sister is still alive, you know, and... I'm sure she would like to see you."

Brontes was as shocked as Igneous looked to be. "Is he really the oracle? And you didn't say anything yesterday?"

Ana shrugged. "I knew he looked familiar, but I didn't believe that he was the oracle at first either until he took your hand. I just didn't think he would be in Fraedia," she answered. "But he saw what could be in your future when he took your hand. He must have liked what he saw if he could put his trust in you."

"If he is the oracle, then we shouldn't let him outside of the headquarters until he is returned to his guardians," Hadrien said suddenly, walking into the room. Brontes forgot he was even there for a moment. "He has too many enemies in Fraedia, too many people who would try to take advantage of his appearance, let alone his actual abilities. I'm even hesitant to even give him back to his guardians, as they clearly didn't do their job if he ended up in a slave auction, but there has to be a reason why he's outside of Adoss. We are too busy here to help him out with that purpose."

Igneous looked away again, laying down on his stomach again and disappearing behind the rails of the bunk. He wondered if Igneous didn't like the fact that people were talking about him, though he was moody long before Ana and Hadrien stepped into the room to say their piece. Brontes frowned again, then decided to step up to the ladder of the bunk bed to look at Igneous.

"Do you mind filling me in, then? Why are you in Fraedia of all places, and where do you plan on going?" he asked, then shook his head. "Do you want some privacy?"

Igneous nodded, so Brontes took him to his office to speak, which was also upstairs. They sat on his bed, then Igneous began his story.

Igneous was back in what he could only describe as the dark place, with the black skies and the dead grass. The chain he saw last time laid on the ground, still broken. It was all he could see, though he was sure there had been more than just the chain the last time he saw the place.

"I'm glad you answered my call. I was getting bored without anybody to talk to," a voice said. It was the same, masculine and booming voice he heard from last time, though it didn't sound nearly as threatening. He frowned, still feeling the sense of dread that accompanied him last time. "What is your name?"

"Why do you want my name?"

"For conversation. I will also admit, I'm just curious. Again, I haven't had anybody to talk to for centuries, and here you are, available for conversation."

Igneous blinked. Why was he so threatening the last time then, if he just wanted conversation? Maybe he was extra bored as of late? "It's Igneous." He supposed he had no reason to lie. What was the point?

"Is that the name your parents gave you?"

"I have no idea, I haven't met them." Igneous didn't like to think about it anyway, that his parents probably gave him a different name, and that part of him was lost when the village took him in and decided to give him their own name to call him. It made him feel like there was something missing, that there was just an empty spot in his identity that had everything to do with his life before the village. His parents. His true name. All of it was gone.

"That is truly a shame. Are you orphaned, then?"

"I might as well be... and I kind of hoped that happened. I don't want to think that my parents just abandoned me in a forest," Igneous mumbled. Surely, if he was abandoned but still loved, then his parents would have handed him off to somebody who they trusted to care for him. In a forest, there's no guarantee that he would have survived long enough for somebody to find him and decide to take him. He was lucky he did survive, even if staying in a village that thought of him to be a burden and deficient made up the worst part of his childhood.

"I was orphaned too, though I had the grace to know my family. Of course, that's also the curse... it hurts all that more when you lose them, especially all at the same time. It's part of the reason why I got sealed away in the first place... why people now call me The Barren. I've decided to keep the name, you know." He sounded like he was genuine. It surprised Igneous.

"Sealed away... For what?"

"I was sealed away before I had a chance to complete what I set out to do. I won't tell you why now... we've only just met, after all. It's only natural for me to keep things to myself at this point in our friendship, no?"

"I wouldn't call us friends quite yet. Asfar as I know, you're the reason why Zahan is after me." Igneous decided to leave out the part where that the last he had a dream like this, he was down with a terrible fever. Maybe the Barren would exploit that.

"That assumption is correct," the Barren answered. "I can speak with Asteria whenever she sets foot within what you all call The Barren. As long as somebody is within the confines of the seal, I can speak to them through their minds, but so far, only Asteria struck me as worth speaking to. I could tell after a single day of her being on the land that we would work well together. However, knowing that I could only contact her when she's close... why do you think I can talk to you?"

Igneous shook his head. He wasn't sure he wanted to know.

"I can reach you by reaching deep within the power I have acquired. If I focus enough, I can feel you. I can feel how far or how close you are to me. It's all because we share the same source of power. I fused myself with the bigger portion of that power but the smaller portion of the power disappeared before I could get to it. I never thought I would see it again... but then I felt it in the first oracle. When the second died, I decided to take some action. I think you understand why I'm interested in Zahan bringing you to me alive, don't you?"

He bolted up in bed and instantly regretted it. His head ached and though he could see Brontes as he settled himself back into the blankets, he could barely hear him even though he could see his mouth moving. His head just felt too fuzzy and busy. He didn't stay awake for long.

The next time he became aware again, he felt a lot better. He was sitting up, and the only thing he felt that was not normal was a slight shakiness to his movements. Brontes was bent over at his desk, eyes completely focused on his desk. He didn't seem to be aware that Igneous was awake.

"Brontes?" To Brontes' credit, he only jumped a little bit before he turned his head. There were bags under his eyes, making Igneous frown. He could remember the room being what Brontes called his office, but it was probably closer to his personal bedroom on the account of the bed being there, and Igneous took it for a night at the minimum. However, Brontes offered a smile. He got up, stepped out, and came back with some water for him to drink. Igneous downed it within seconds, and he found that one glass wasn't enough.

"How are you feeling? You suddenly came down with a fever when you took a nap on my bed. Ana said it was rather unusual for a fever to develop so quickly," he mumbled, turning in his chair so that he was facing him.

"... I've gotten that before," Igneous answered. In fact, he was beginning to notice a pattern. "I'm still a little shaky and I'm starving, but I feel mostly normal."

"That's good! Lunch should be here soon, unless you need some more sleep first, but that's hard to imagine. You've been here for three days and you've been awake for less than half a day," he said with a smirk.

Suddenly, there was a knock on the door. Brontes frowned for a brief moment, then got up to open it. Whoever was on the other side was almost completely covered from head to toe, their face being the only visible part of them. Brontes let them in, then closed the door as he walked back to his desk.

"Igneous, this is Kalen. He's the one who gets the information we need. I've told him to find Amaryllis."

"Yeah, and I know her, but that's not why I'm here," Kalen mumbled. "There's another slave auction. I know we don't have any room to host anybody right now but I think if we just freed them, we could hire some mercenaries escort them home. They have to just be people were just taken during the festivals."

"I wonder if there's anybody familiar in the audience," Brontes mumbled. He got up and shifted around the office until he produced a white mask. It was one designed to cover the half the face, with purple claw marks going down the right side of the face. "I did warn them."

"Did you get that when you saved Igneous?" Kalen asked, eyes wide.

"Yeah. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but it might be fun to wear one of their masks. How big is the crowd?" Brontes asked as he pulled the mask on over his face and began to pile on his armour.

"I counted ten people being sold, so it's a big crowd."

"We'll bring everybody then. Tell everybody here to get ready, then let some of the ones who live nearby to be on standby in case the intermediates try to escape." Kalen nodded and dashed off. Brontes turned to him, just as he was clipping his clip to his armour. "Igneous, are you fine staying here on your own? I'm not worried about this battle in particular but it might turn into something more, so you really should stay inside until we can reunite you with your allies."

Igneous merely nodded.

"We'll be back soon," Brontes said as he left. Igneous waited until everything seemed quiet, then got up and slid into the hallway. If he was going to stay for a while, he might as well give Brontes his bed back. Ideally, he could change his clothes too, since his nightshirt was drenched in sweat. Ana spotted him in the hallway and shuffled over.

"Welcome to the world of the living," she said with a hint of a smirk before it fell into a frown. "I was worried, you know. I knew Vulcan and Mayon died of fevers."

"I get fevers like that regularly. Twice since I've been in Fraedia, actually," Igneous mumbled back. "Is there an extra change of clothes somewhere here?"

She was frowning, but then she nodded. "Sure there is, but you don't get to be picky." Ana disappeared into one of the rooms, though Igneous was unsure if it was a closet or if it was the barracks. She came back with a black shirt and grey coloured pants. The pants fit him well enough but the shirt was baggy, especially in the arms and around the neck. He never felt so plain before, in clothes that don't fit and missing most of his jewellery. He only had the pin and the earrings left, everything was stolen or back with the others.

"I said you don't get to complain," Ana said when she caught his frown. "Now, come along, they'll be expecting lunch when they come back."

Igneous followed her into the mess hall silently.

If there's one chapter where I would really appreciate some reviews, it's this one. The conversation between The Barren and Igneous is the first bit of the real plot here, so I kind of want to see some opinions on it.