Chapter 560: The New Chaos of Krysal

When they teleported into Krysal, for a moment Kai felt a strange sense of disorientation. The city in front of him was familiar, yet he couldn't put a name or even any experiences to it. Presumably it was one that he must have fought in during the revolution, one of many he had gone through in a haze of exhausted bloodlust.

The problem was strange but immediately obvious: the city's guard towers were under siege... from the inside. Kai and the others had teleported in the air, hovering on a metallic disc controlled by Sheiri, which gave them a clear enough view. Kai could see a large mass of people within the city gates, occasionally throwing rocks at their own tower, but mostly milling restlessly. He figured out the reason next: there were crystal walls defending the weak points of the tower.

So for whatever reason, someone had holed up in the tower and the people of the city had put them under siege. Based on the restlessness, it had gone on long enough for the initial rush of fighting to end, but not so long that hunger, boredom, or anger took over.

But all of that aside: why?

"Well, shit," Omilaena said. "Is that what I think it is?"

"Just this morning, a debate in the city of Torleen turned into a riot," Sheiri explained in a tense voice. "I wasn't present and I don't know the details, and they're giving contradictory information about those. What I can tell you is that during the revolution, a group of crystalliers defected to preserve their city. It had been peaceful until now, when apparently a mob attacked the crystalliers and drove them to that fortified position."

"Have you been able to talk to both sides?" Kai asked.

"Oh, they're declaring for anyone who will listen. The former slaves claim that the crystalliers are trying to take over and return to the previous order. The former crystalliers claim that the current rule is a disaster and that they just want someone competent in charge."

"Is either side lying?"

"Impossible to say. I can tell you that the former crystalliers' official statement now doesn't demand any control for themselves. The other side is more scattered: some are out for blood and some just want to put the crystalliers in their place. I think, by now, many people of Torleen just want things to go back to normal."

"Which is what I want from all of you," Gunjin put in. He'd stepped to the very edge of the platform to stare down at the situation, but now turned back to them. "The incursion is coming up and we can't deal with this nonsense. It needs to end."

"Actually, I think we can handle this one." Despite the ugliness of the situation, when Kai glanced at his wives, he ended up smiling. "I'm not saying we can actually solve the underlying problem, but I'm pretty sure we can end the siege."

"Do you need any other resources from us?"

"No, probably not."

"Good. You did well in Irun, but you need to whip Krysal into shape or we'll have a problem." Gunjin stepped off the edge of the platform and fell, directly into a portal, and then he was gone.

That gave them a rather clear assignment, and part of Kai wanted to leap down there himself. He waited first, since Sheiri was still holding them up. She didn't look nearly as cavalier as Gunjin about the situation - whatever her original history, she was tied to Krysal now.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I'm pretty sure he's planning to throw his weight around," Omilaena said with a smirk. "He's a hero of the revolution, after all."

"All of us are," Zae Zin Nim put in quietly. "We have some reputation here."

Put that way, it seemed a little too blunt, but that had indeed been the basics of Kai's plan. Unlike so many other places where he was a stranger, he had a real history in Krysal. If something as important as the incursion couldn't make the people unify, then there might be no hope for them. Despite the chaos going on beneath them, Kai was more hopeful than that.

"We were finished in Irun anyway," he told Sheiri. "We'll focus on Krysal now and see what we can do to stabilize it."

"Be careful. You technically only have a month before your effect here is evaluated." She looked over the three of them and shook her head. "What you did in Irun definitely earned you more respect, and based on what I saw of your work, that respect will increase as the new abilities of Irun become clear. But Krysal has always been the weakest point, both on the continent and for your reputation. Keep it stable."

"We'll do our best."

Sheiri nodded to them one more time, then they parted ways. She flashed off on her own platform, while theirs lowered to a safer location before dissolving. That meant they all dropped from a great height, though for them it was nothing dangerous.

They hit the streets in a shockwave of dust and power.

That got immediate attention, and the mob around the tower didn't attempt to attack. First in shock, then in recognition: he heard the shouts of "Kai Clanless" first, but Zae Zin Nim received calls of her old pseudonym, and even Omilaena was referenced. They had been at the front of the revolution, after all, so they had touched far more lives than they knew.

"Enough!" Kai raised a hand and actually got silence from the crowd. "We heard there was a problem, but not the details. What's going on?"

Many people began to babble at once before they sent forward a representative, a heavily scarred former crystal miner. "The crystalliers tried to take over!" she insisted. "They've been trying to claw back what they had for years, but this time, they actually tried to take over. But we aren't as easy as we were before, hah! We've got them penned up in there."

"Kill them!" someone in the crowd shouted.

"Breathe fire!" came another shout.

"Easy." Kai raised his hand again and got silence, but the audience wasn't a receptive this time. "The incursion is coming in just two months, and it's going to be rough. We can't afford to fight each other now."

Shouts came from all directions and some even surged closer. Only to argue their case, but the tension ratcheted up and Kai saw Zae Zin Nim shift her stance. Omilaena had gone absolutely still, which was even more dangerous. They weren't remotely threatened by a crowd like this, which maxed out at maybe 100 Power, but the crowd might be ignorant enough to attack anyway.

"Let me go take care of this," Kai declared. "The crystalliers are supposed to serve the city, right? Once I'm done, they'll serve again."

This got a slightly more positive response, and a few people seemed to cheer just out of general principle. Since he'd regained control, Kai took a leap directly toward the tower, breaking through the crystal barrier with brute force.

On the other side, he saw a group of perhaps a dozen crystalliers. They all had crystal weapons prepared but they didn't attack... whether out of caution or sheer terror, it was hard to tell. Kai resisted the urge to indulge old instincts and instead straightened up and spoke calmly.

"The crowd out there claims you tried to take control by force," Kai said. "Is that true?"

"No!" someone shouted.

"Please don't kill us!"

"They attacked us!"

"Calm down." Kai was getting tired of raising his hand for silence, but it seemed to be the best way to use his reputation, which was his best weapon in a conflict where he didn't want to kill the enemy. "I don't see a way to get the exact truth of how it all started, so I'll ignore that part. What do you want now?"

Again, some shuffling and confusion, before a middle-aged crystallier cleared his throat. "We weren't trying to take over, honest. But the current regime... you have no idea how chaotic it is. Nothing is getting done, there's trash in the streets."

"We put up with that," an older woman said, "because they were right about the slave mines. But the incursion is coming, and we're not ready."

"That's right. We weren't demanding power for ourselves, we just wanted the city to invest in more crystalliers. They could be miners or acid workers, that would be fine."

"And did you make that clear?" Kai raised an eyebrow and saw some shamed looks. "I doubt you were attacked completely without provocation, but I'm not on the side of the mob here, either. Here's what we do: you stand down as a token of good faith, and I'll keep the mob at bay. Then we get to the bottom of this and find a solution. A real one."

The crystalliers agreed one by one, some eagerly and some when they realized there was no choice. Kai let them retreat and then destroyed the rest of the crystal barriers, to great cheers from the crowd. He made one more appearance to calm them down a bit, then Kai and his wives spread out, allegedly to learn the crimes of the crystalliers and more to let everyone vent.

Over the course of an hour, they heard a lot of different stories from both sides, as well as workers who were blindsided by the whole thing. In the end, when they returned to the tower where the crystalliers were "imprisoned" Kai was feeling much grimmer about the whole thing. Zae Zin Nim and Omilaena hadn't heard anything to contradict his picture of what had happened, it just didn't weigh on them as heavily.

"I don't like this," Kai said. "As far as I can tell, the crystalliers had a point and the miners were the aggressors."

"We should just deploy force," Zae Zin Nim said. When he stared at her, she huffed and continued. "I'm not saying to murder everyone. But you need these people to obey or they'll all get themselves killed. I don't know the best way to make them, but you need to find it."

"As much as I hate that idea, we've already been doing that to some degree. Ideas, Omi?"

"Not really." She gave an exaggerated shrug. "This is one problem that you can't really poison your way out of, so I'm helpless."

After thinking about it a while longer, Kai went to meet with the crystalliers. They looked much reduced, less fearful but also more dejected. This time there was no chorus of voices, the middle-aged man stepped forward to speak for the group.

"I want to help you," Kai said first. "But we need to find a compromise that will be palatable to a lot of angry people. Are there concessions you'd be willing to accept?"

"Put Krainuun in charge," the spokesman said immediately. "That's our suggestion. The revolutionaries like him, but he actually knows what he's doing."

"Would you be willing to officially surrender to him and do some extra work defending the city? Nothing excessive, but visible work, something to make people believe that you're on their side."

It didn't take long for the crystalliers to agree. A few were fearful, but the majority seemed relieved. When Kai contacted Krainuun via a crystal channel, the administrator listened quietly before eventually agreeing that it sounded like a viable solution.

"This isn't the first time that crystalliers have rebranded as public servants," he said. "It's good that you came to that solution. But you realize the position this puts me in."

Kai nodded. "I know you have enough to d-"

"No, I don't mean that. The more I'm associated with crystalliers, the more my position weakens with the former revolutionaries. A few believe that I 'keep the crystalliers under control' but others are starting to doubt me. It's even possible that factions are trying to arrange this situation in order to undermine me."

"I see." Kai felt a little chagrined, not having considered that angle. "Do you think that happened here?"

"Can't say. Torleen has always been unstable, so it's less likely, but I'll let you know when I arrive." Krainuun paused, his pace small and pinched through the crystal. "Kai... I'm glad you're back. Things have gotten even worse since you were last here."

"Yeah." Kai looked away from the crystal to the streets, where he could hear the people chanting. "So I've seen."