Halls of Ivory
Chapter 3- True Colors
The discipline of the mesmer was an art that dated back over a thousand years, all the way back to before the exodus of the gods. Since bestowed upon humanity by the twin goddess Lyssa, the acting schools and theatres throughout Elona and Central Tyria have kept its first teachings alive, passing from generation to generation the tools to conjure optical and auditive illusions or manipulate the minds of their audience to hallucinate objects, people, even states of being. Over the centuries, mesmers expanded the scope of what their form of spellcasting could achieve, tapping into the workings of the arcane, the very element of magic they drew power from, allowing them to accelerate or halt movements, summon autonomous clones of themselves, teleport themselves and others from place to place and in some cases, to even manipulate time itself.
Due to its synergy with common dueling weapons and the elegance it made possible, not to mention its cosmetic purposes, the art of the mesmer had long become the favorite of Krytan kings and nobles. Not least of which Queen Jennah, whose prowess in the art attained its fame, when for the first time she conjured an illusory shatterer. A difficult feat that few could accomplish and even for her, it took her complete, undivided attention. It was no coincidence that baiting her into repeating it was exactly what it took to bring her down.
The exits of the tunnel system were indeed very well hidden. When the Commander and Logan left, they arrived in a cave and when they caused the same mechanism that opened the exit to reverse itself, they stayed and watched it play out. By the time it was closed, the camouflage held up perfectly. If they didn't know there was an entrance into a tunnel system, they couldn't have guessed it if they tried.
The destruction they beheld upon exiting the cave was as bad as they had feared. The searing had burned down nearly the entire western half of Gendarran Fields. The region was reduced to grey, barren ground with stray fires still burning. Heaps of rubble and the occasional charred pillar pointed to where the barns and farmsteads had been.
The queen's entourage, the priests and the Seraph had already moved west with the rest of the villagers. So the Commander and Logan tried to make their way to one of the remaining villages west to search for survivors. But one dire lesson at a time, they learned that having a bunker like the one beneath the settlement was an invaluable asset to have.
They found plenty of supplies and stray wagons or pieces thereof, but that was only because almost everyone had died in the fire. Here and there they found one person hiding in some hole or cave or the ruins of a barn, but to see the devastation caused by a Searing was a sobering experience on its own. Everyone and everything died, finding even one survivor in a town or village they came across was an exception, not the rule.
Even at the eve of the coldest season in the year, everything this side of the lake had been burned to ash. After a long day of improvised carpentry with tools salvaged from the ruins of a burned workshop, Logan wiped the sweat off his forehead, picked up his barely intact chair and joined the Commander on a porch overlooking what once was a range of acres reaching almost all the way to the lake.
For a long time, they simply stared at the charred fields picturing what it may once have looked like. Like many times before when beholding the devastation, the Captain mumbled half to himself: "Whoever is responsible for this will answer for their crimes."
The villages and farms to the east were untouched as of yet. Besides the estates owned by some of the more wealthy nobles, there were several vineyards and berry plantations. After the Vigil had repelled the Risen and the pirates early in the year, their protection allowed humans to expand the farmland and add some new housing.
Now they were about to lose all of this right again. The farmers were fine but they were on edge and confused over the whole situation. They had all armed themselves and were looking pretty out of it when Logan and the Commander arrived. "There are survivors! What happened in the west?"
More and more came out of the small huts and wooden houses, surrounding the visitors. The Commander figured that Logan would have trouble breaking the news, so he went ahead until he was more or less in the middle of them and started. "The queen has been assassinated." He paused for the sounds of dismay at this sudden turn of events to not drown out his own words. "But before she died, she signed away all these lands to the Charr. They will make their way here. You have to leave for Queensdale and get to safety until we figure out a way to resolve this."
Of course they weren't happy with this. None of them were. "We're supposed to leave all this behind?"
"This is our home!"
"This is not right! We built all this, on our own."
"We have all our belongings here! We can't just cart it all half-way across the region so quickly."
The Commander tried to calm them down. "It won't be forever. We will fix this somehow. For now, just take your valuables and prepare to make your way west. When we start moving, we will have to move quickly."
They had to go through these steps several times to notify all the locals. The Commander and Logan sent someone to the Vigil Keep to ask the Vigil for help escorting the civilians. They also took this opportunity to ask them to notify Pact Marshall Trahearne and request aid in case the Charr attacked.
That second request wasn't so well received though and the humans were told upfront that no-one present knew if the Vigil was going to help them with that. Like both other orders that made up the Pact, the Vigil was multi-racial in its makeup. In fact its leader, Almorra Soulkeeper, was a Charr. If the Vigil was to side with humans in a conflict between humans and Charr, the Charr within their order would consider that a betrayal, and the same applied to both other orders. So unless there were orders from Trahearne to defer to, their hands were tied in that regard.
Their journey west went without interruptions. The trip back and forth had taken more than a month. Scared and confused families reluctantly followed as they crossed bridges and gathered more civilians on the way. By the time they arrived in one of their earlier stops in the west, the locals they left behind had already abandoned it. They couldn't know how far the fire would spread.
As he had on their way here, the Commander checked every waypoint they came across and by the time they had already arrived at the border to Queensdale, he found one waypoint that had enough power for one trip for one person. The press of a button on the floating stone cube caused a holographic display with a map to appear. A dial in the upper right corner showed how much power it had left.
When Logan fully understood what this meant, he took a break from their travels to make a plan.
"This is perfect. Commander, I'll head to the city and rally whoever I can. I need you to convince as many people as possible to follow you west, to Shaemoor. It's our safest bet. There's plenty of people there. Old, stable buildings, the garrison, lots of guards and most importantly, Jennah said part of the treaty was not to touch Divinity's reach. If the Charr are serious about leveraging the treaty to take Kryta, the last thing they'd want to do is launch a full scale assault on Shaemoor. They'd risk Divinity's Reach getting caught in the crossfire and if that happens, the treaty is broken."
"Good idea. But I'm not sure how far I can get before they arrive."
"You'll just have to try. There's no way the people don't know yet, so they'll be confused. Scared, but open to suggestions. If someone comes in and brings them a solution, they'll be receptive to it. And keep an eye out for anything suspicious. I want to find whoever killed Jennah and make them pay."
"Of course."
Before he pressed the confirmation button on the arcane display, he turned to the Commander one more time. "And Commander, thanks. For not leaving my side when I needed it."
With this, he finished dialing for his transport to Divinity's Reach and dropped the number of coins it listed into a compartment which then retracted itself back into the floating cube. Blue rings of pure magical energy, inscribed with runes, extended themselves from the center of the cube, realigned to fit around Logan and lowered themselves around him. With a flash of light, he was gone.
The nearest township from where the Commander was, was Beetletun. All the farms he crossed on his way there were empty. The mechanical sprinklers were still operating, but the workers were gone. A huge crowd was flooding Beetletun. Some of them were the same civilians that the Vigil had escorted here. And the Commander failed to see any guards of a royal capacity. He saw Caudecus' ministry guards standing in the light of torches just outside the crowd looking out for Charr, but Seraph, Shining Blade, none of them were to be seen.
As he and the villagers got closer, he realized that while there was a commotion, it wasn't nearly as loud as he had expected going off the size of the crowd. He asked the villagers to stay put and then forced his way into Beetletun. Past various merchants and farmers and here and there, a noble. It was so full that he struggled to get anywhere near the center of the shire. The reason why it wasn't as noisy as he expected, was because most of the people weren't talking. And the reason they weren't talking was that they were gathered around and listening to one noble, who stood on a table surrounded by bright lights.
He was wearing extravagant clothes. A black and purple tailcoat, hand-tailored with silken patches woven around a vest inside. What of his collar wasn't covered by the coat or the vest was covered by a white scarf wrapped around his neck and stuffed under the vest as well as presumably a shirt underneath. It was a set of clothes the Commander had seen at a very pricey tailor and he couldn't afford it himself. Color-coded for mesmers, the nation's most esteemed school of spellcasting centered around illusions and movement. His hair and beard were well-kempt, short enough not to obscure his striking chin.
And the focused gaze in his blue eyes made his presence only all the more imposing. Hanging off a hilt attached to his belt was an epee of sorts. It had the shape of an epee but apart from that, it looked like something straight from an Asuran lab. The nobleman was making wide gestures and intonated his sentences with a downright theatrical exaggeration. "…and after concession after concession - at your expense and with nothing for you to gain in return, she has chipped away at your rights and your livelihoods for years. Who could be at all surprised when following betrayal after betrayal, your self-indulgent 'queen' stabs you in the back once more with newfound bravado?"
What the Commander was hearing was old to him and yet new. The rhetoric was brand new, the unprecedented brashness was refreshing but the themes invoked were all too familiar.
They sounded like the talk of Separatists, a rebel faction opposed to the queen, decried throughout the kingdom for their dislike and resentment for other races. He pondered on how to draw the noble's attention and raised his voice to cut off this stranger and shake his audience into directing its attention on the Commander. "What opportune timing to spread hostility to the queen in the streets of Beetletun."
The stranger froze, smiled, and then with parting hands gestured for the crowd to clear out some space around the Commander. "Why, if it isn't the Commander of the Pact in person. What circumstances do I have to thank for this honor?"
The Commander expected apprehension, maybe fear. Discontent with the queen was technically not illegal, but one was not free of reproach for espousing it either. One could criticise a policy proposed by her, but not the queen herself. But instead, the nobleman didn't show an ounce of shame. He had been caught, but didn't appear willing to act the part at all.
"I believe you know full well. Why else would you happen to be in position playing market crier for traitors?"
The stranger feigned shock, leaning back and gasping with his mouth agape in an overdramatized way like many of his gestures. "Traitors? I would rather say we were the ones that were betrayed. Our former queen hasn't earned our loyalty and in my case, doesn't have it."
"Then why does your attire bear the splendor befitting a minister?"
"Because that is what I am. Allow me to introduce myself." The nobleman swung one arm to the side and bowed to the Commander. "I am Lord and Minister Therol Aldryn."
"Does joining the ministry of the queen not imply loyalty of some kind?"
"To kingdom, yes. To queen…not necessarily. Deep down, I always thought of stabbing her in the back in some way - just like she did with her own people!" Some people booed when he said things like that. Others applauded it. "And seeing as someone else beat me to it, it appears I wasn't the only one."
As if the unabashedness didn't work up the Commander enough, this was what did: "You just admitted to high treason!"
"I admitted to nothing in particular but thoughts. Besides, even if you wanted to hold a trial against me, I don't plan to attend the ministry for too much longer anyway. The late queen's gross negligence in securing an heir will leave a power vacuum, an unbearable circumstance to govern under."
It was normal among nobility to talk in wordy and pompous ways when addressing each other in public, but this man laid it on so thick that along with his overconfidence, it drove the Commander up a wall. He became more and more tense, increasingly eager to shout him down. But doing so would only have made him look like a cornered buffoon.
Aldryn stepped back and addressed the people around them again. "I have a much better place to return to than the city. Ask yourselves, people of Kryta, do you see any Seraph around you? Any Shining Blade? No, only the good minister Caudecus' personal guards. That is because all the soldiers of Kryta belong to the city. They are safe. They are not under threat from the Charr like you. They have abandoned you and every place you think of running to will sooner or later be claimed by those same Charr."
That was enough. The lies were where the Commander drew the line. He pointed at the minister and almost screamed: "They didn't abandon them. On what grounds do you profess to know this?"
"Then go ahead and try to persuade them otherwise. You will fail. You may have made up your mind already, but of the people of Kryta, I am not so sure. Your first choice is to cling to a stagnant kingdom and an empty throne. You can put your trust in the Seraph, spread throughout the towns and villages loyal to the throne and behold as the soldiers you trust watch the Charr tear you all apart."
This was the Commander's chance to reel in the commoners. "Don't listen to him! Come with me. We gather up as many as we can and head to Shaemoor, where we're safe."
Aldryn slipped into a deliberate stagger and swung his hand. Within bursts of sparks, four clones of the minister appeared around the table, all of which pointed at the Commander and laughed before vanishing again. "You couldn't have made a worse choice if you tried. Shaemoor is the first place they will hit."
"Why would they risk attacking it?"
"The Charr will be looking to break Kryta's spirit first. And the best way to show the people that they are not protected is to break through the only major garrison in the region. You might think Shaemoor is safe because it's close to the city, but it is still OUTSIDE the city. The city dwellers won't care."
"I don't have time for your propaganda. People, don't listen to him! He is trying to mislead you into joining a backwards, narrow-minded group of bandits! Follow me instead. We will gather as many as we can and head to Shaemoor."
"Or follow me instead. No queen, no loyalty to a throne that abandoned you, only the people of Kryta AND Ascalon banding together to drive back the Charr. And UNLIKE the Commander and those he trusts, when the Charr come to claim your lives and belongings, we WILL fight and kill to protect you if we must. So go ahead, Commander. Lead the way."
"Oh no!", burst out of the Commander. "You are not following along and leading Krytans astray. We go our separate ways. If that is a problem, I insist that you challenge me to a duel to the death."
The noble feigned a chuckle. "And add to the long list of all those who did and died? I don't think so. I'll be taking a different path then. Empty throne or the people of Kryta, let fate decide which of the two was better prepared for things to come." With a swing of his hand, the minister summoned a teleporting platform and upon stepping on it, vanished and reappeared several dozen feet away, on the road between the fields.
A concerningly large number of people followed him along. Leaving the Commander with maybe a third of the remainder. "All right. Let's not waste any more time." With regular reminders for them to hurry, the Commander led them on a wide zig-zag path, making sure to stop by many of the townships and villages as he could without falling too far behind.
He even asked some of the civilians if there were any settlements he had forgotten. He had concerns about the time he spent visiting each settlement and trying to convince them to follow, but he couldn't reconcile in his mind not providing as many people as possible with at least a chance to do the right thing and seek out the safety of the garrison.
Even if Minister Aldryn hadn't come through most of the less known villages, every single one had a Separatist recruiter in them, reading flowery speeches from sheets of paper. The wording of which sounded exactly like something coming directly from the minister's mouth. And in the same vein, they also refused to pick a fight with the Commander. This entire concept was novel to him and he didn't know how to respond to that. He was so used to people attacking him whenever he wasn't getting his way.
If they didn't physically attack him, he had no justification to kill them in front of the people. If he were to just attack and kill them without it at least looking like self-defense, all the people would see would have been a servant of a tyrannical ruler, cutting down dissenters for speaking the truth.
When an enemy from within was playing at the people's discontent with the ruling class, the worst thing he could do was to vindicate them.
There were more villages and small townships spread throughout even this part of Kryta than the average traveler was aware of. With each further settlement he visited, the crowd he herded grew larger and he himself grew more and more weary.
Time was running out. And the seasons turning were a grim reminder. The massive crowd was hurting for pelts and coats to brave the cold as they marched through the snow. As the weeks passed, the Commander's nerves wore thin. He already saw Charr troops marching by from the east from time to time. They weren't approaching any settlements, but they were setting up small, improvised camps. When he was about to herd the crowd west to one last village before turning north to reach Shaemoor, he spotted a large unit of Charr marching their way. They kept a safe distance for a short while, until he realized that they weren't headed for him at all.
They took a road northwest, ignoring the other path that would have led straight to them. But he had come through this road many times before. He knew exactly where it led. Up the plateau and right into Shaemoor Garrison. They were actually doing the one thing he and Logan thought they would avoid. Why were they heading for the garrison? He wasn't prepared for this and he could see in the crowd's eyes that they were losing confidence in him.
He had to do something about this. He couldn't just sit by idly as they laid siege to the garrison. He led the crowd further west, down the trade route and spread them across the nearest villages and several hidden caves he had come to know of during his past travels.
The Charr might search the woods and the villages between them, but these places were well-hidden and not on any map the Commander knew of. Once all the villagers and townsfolk had some shelter to keep them warm, he went outside and marched back up the path. After the Charr. Besieging the garrison would take long. If Logan didn't rally the Seraphs to hold it, then they would have taken position to do so by themselves. Or so he thought.
The sneaking feeling that something was off came to the Commander when he went up the path which would eventually wrap around the plateau and lead him onto it. He expected the sound of cannon fire, of various siege weapons of the Charr being used to tear down the walls of the garrison, but it was quiet.
To his dismay, when the fortified walls came into sight, he realized that the reason he didn't hear anything was that there was nothing to hear. The walls were untouched. The gates were wide open. He could see the lengthy tracks of Charr paws, their footwar and stray hairs in the dirty snow in front of it, between the trebuchets and ballistae put up for training that no-one had bothered to remove.
When he got closer to the garrison, he did hear something. Screaming, shouting. The sounds of metal clashing with metal. Realizing this, he began running as fast as he could. For whatever reason, the Seraph had just let them through. He ran through the empty courtyard, down the road past the fields until he beheld something much worse than what he feared. Bodies littered the sides of the roads just outside the doors of all the houses, the streets were covered in blood. The villagers had been dragged out of their homes and killed on the spot.
Women and children were screaming and running for their lives as the Charr surrounded their homes. Men fought for their lives, but for every two Charr they engaged head on, three more would stab or shoot them from behind. Many legionnaires stood off to the west side of the village and didn't even consider the Commander's approach worth reacting to.
But perhaps the worst of what he immediately noticed were the Seraph. Up and down the road, Seraph guards stood, unharmed and with their armors completely untouched. But also their weapons not drawn. They were watching. They were watching the Charr slaughter all those villagers and they did nothing about it. Those people were innocents. Many of them hadn't been trained for combat and never intended to harm a soul in their lives.
And perhaps the reason why the legionnaires didn't engage the Commander when they saw him, was that he was being expected. "Commander, how nice of you to stop by!" Several Charr holding what were possibly the last villagers left alive stopped what they were doing and turned to the new visitor. One of them was Grell Nightblade. Now with spatters of blood darkening the leather he wore and with a wide grin on his face. "We've been wondering if you'd make it in time. It's good news, now we got someone to witness this spectacle."
The Commander was frantic seeing what they had done. Moreso, he was in disbelief. The Charr that had fought side by side with him for almost a year, had slaughtered all these people for no reason and they were laughing while they did it. He screamed: "Why? Why would you do this! These people aren't soldiers, they were never a threat to you!"
"Threat? This has nothing to do with 'threats', we're just having some fun with our new little patch of land." Grell was holding a woman in place, keeping her restrained and as she struggled and tried to break free, he grabbed her more tightly and bent her arm enough to make her scream in pain. "And these mice are squatting on it. Nothing wrong with a little pest control."
"This isn't you! The Charr aren't like this!"
"Aren't we? Since when?"
There were so many examples the Commander could think of. "Think of the orders! The Pact! The Lionguard!"
"All kept in check by fear. All working together out of necessity and kept from killing each other by a mutual threat of violence. The farce was getting annoying. This was a relieving change."
"No! This can't be true! The Charr aren't violent, you're above this!"
"Really? 'Not violent'? We talking about the same Charr here? Commander, we form warbands and kill each other over petty things all the time. And that's all among ourselves. What makes you think we want to be all nice and friendly with humans when we don't have to?"
As he went on, the woman struggled and screamed. "You monsters! We didn't do anything to you! Let me go!"
He didn't appear to plan on indulging her. "You saw what we did to all the others, what makes you think you're better than them? Or better than those?" On the other side of the main road were more surviving villagers. All in dirty, bloodied clothes, tied together and on their knees. Above each stood a Blood Legion soldier, clad in their usual bright red armor, covered in spikes and wearing a rounded helmet that obscured their faces. They clearly wanted to scream, but they were too terrified. "The Commander is witness enough. It's time we called it a day with those mice. Go ahead, Blood Legion."
The Charr in red armor raised their serrated greatswords, spurring the woman in front of Grell into another outburst and another pointless attempt at breaking free from his grip. With neither hesitation nor remorse, the Blood Legion soldiers cut down the other villagers while she was forced to watch. Only to shortly afterwards meet her end through a dagger, lodged and twisted in her chest from behind.
Up to this point, the Commander still tried to rationalize how this wasn't real. How there was no way that Charr would raze a village like this. That maybe he was misunderstanding things. But no, it was unmistakable now. As much as he wanted everyone to just get along, the Charr wouldn't let him. "You're just killing humans for sport!"
The realization conjured a wide, toothy grin onto Grell's face. "You're finally starting to get it."
"I want to resolve this peacefully! But you're not leaving me a choice. I have to put my people's safety first. The longer you're running loose here, the more people will die." The Commander cast his first spell, causing the ground beneath Grell's feet to freeze. Thin, but swiftly moving tendrils of ice to extend upwards and restrain him.
When he had already pulled out his dagger and enchanted it to drain his enemies' life force, he heard human voices, free from the snarls and grunts of a Charr call from nearby. "Stop right there! Krytan Citizen, you are under arrest!" There were multiple voices saying the same thing and when he paused to look where they came from, he realized that they were the Seraph right around them. The very same soldiers that had stood by and done nothing when the slaughter happened were now moving towards the Commander with their weapons drawn.
He was willing to fight any of the Charr soldiers if it meant saving Krytan lives, but those were Krytans. If he killed those Seraph too, he would have made himself an outlaw. No better than common bandits or Separatists.
Grell and the other Charr made no efforts to engage the Commander, but the Seraph appeared to be serious. They surrounded him and when he complied with their order, put him in very rough cuffs. He was confused, he didn't know what was happening. In fact, the Commander outright asked them. "Why are you doing this! The Charr killed all those people, why are you arresting me?"
The Seraphs were unfazed by his protest and continued turning him around and leading him to the city gates. "We don't question the orders, we just follow them. This land belongs to the Charr now and you assaulted them on their own soil."
"Assaulted?" he blared. "The whole village is dead and you did nothing!"
"They were squatting on the Iron Legion's property without their permission. It's up to them to deal with intruders as they see fit."
"You can't be serious! All of this is backwards! You swore an oath to protect Kryta!"
"We swore an oath to protect 'Queen and Kingdom'. Kryta is no longer part of it." And from here, he was stuck in a stupor. Beholding his walk of shame from the front gates of Divinity's Reach, past the many gawking passer-bys, all the way through the narrow staircases and dirty stone chambers connecting the inner ring with the upper city. The peace of Kryta, the cooperation and friendship between the races, the whole world as he knew it had dissolved within the span of an hour.
And these travesties were only met with complete apathy from any humans who could have helped stop it. So many innocents were dead, so many lost and made homeless. And no-one cared. The streets of Divinity's Reach weren't bustling as much as they used to. The shadow of what had been done cast itself upon all the city's inhabitants. An unforgivable crime had been committed against the human race. And while the citizens seemed to be aware of that, none of them made efforts to do anything about it.
The Seraph's headquarters had been renovated. The prison had been expanded in size and by several floors. And unlike before, there were prisoners. Lots of them. Most of them looked like simple peasants. Once stripped of his robe and his belongings, the Commander looked no different from them. They banged against their cages, they screamed for their families and they cursed the Seraph for siding with the Charr.
The Commander couldn't blame them. They were people with entire livelihoods, with wives and children that they either lost or feared losing. Just the fallback from being imprisoned was devastating in its own right. Everything they had worked for throughout their lives was lost. The human race had been betrayed by its very own highest authorities and thrown out to the wolves.
And as he would find out not long later, there was no outside help coming for them. After they were done confiscating everything he had on him, he was stuck in a cell. Sitting on a bench. Listening to the cries of dismay from the other prisoners. And when he sat there, contemplating the many pointless and unnecessary losses of the day, a guard walked up to him with a letter. "A courier brought this for you."
It bore the seal of the Pact, and it was a letter by none other than Pact Marshal Trahearne. Addressed to the Commander and written on the same Lion's Arch make paper as Faren's letters that started it all. It gave him momentary hope. There were the orders and the Pact and then there was Lion's Arch. So many forces of Tyria were multi-racial in their makeup. There was no way they would just let one race come in and completely crush another like this. Surely the Pact was going to step in and help.
But it wasn't.
He sat down on the cold bench of his dank, empty cell and carefully opened the letter. It read: "Dear Commander. It is with great sorrow that I hear of what happened to your Queen and what is going to follow as of my time writing this letter. I have been notified of the legions' intent to march into Kryta and take it. The moment I was, I knew you would want the Pact to step in and a Crusader from the Vigil soon confirmed that."
"And I wanted to grant you the protection of the Pact. But unfortunately, the new politics of Lion's Arch put a wrench in that plan. When I was rallying the orders to march out and head for Queensdale to aid you in resolving this situation in a manner that would see your people safe, I also approached the new leader of the Captain's Council, Ceara to request the aid of the Lionguard. But the moment I informed her of my intentions, she was appalled by the very notion. She not only rejected it out of hand, but leveraged her new position to stay my hand as well."
"Ceara - or Scarlet Briar as she likes to call herself now, has declared that no organization with the support of Lion's Arch is to involve itself in any conflicts between two races who draw their ranks from within them. She has threatened to withdraw all of Lion's Arch's protection and support for the Pact if we don't comply with this. We would no longer be allowed access to their infrastructure, the soon-to-be-rebuilt Claw Island, reinforcements from them, their supplies which we depend on more than anything. We would lose assets crucial to the functionality of the Pact. Losing Lion's Arch would cripple the Pact to a point where I could no longer hold it together."
"I am deeply sorry Commander. I want to help, I feel that I must, but I can't. The Pact stands and falls on the support of Lion's Arch - or more cynically, on its whim."
Besides his farewells, that was it. In all the struggles they had been through in Orr, humans like himself fought side by side with Norn, Charr, Asura and Sylvari. To protect not just themselves, but all of them. In doing so, many humans had risked and sacrificed their lives for the safety of those of other races. Expecting those others to do the same for them. He believed that their cooperation meant that humans could trust the other races to be there when they were needed.
He had been proven wrong.