April 19, 2026
23 Khordrak
Dastrux Garth
The Pink Unicorn crew rose to find Calloway’s soldiers improving the camp. Aida mingled with the soldiers to discover the intent of the march. She found the soldiers preparing their souls for a dangerous mission, but not a suicide one. Marcus left the camp early and blended with the traffic into the city.
Oskraks proceeded to the interview with Calloway, with Annais and Aida following behind. The interview proceeded thus:
Q. What does Calloway most want?
A. She wants the people to know that someone is fighting for them.Q. What does she want from Oskraks?
A. She wants him to give her a fair hearing and then do what he judges to be right.Q. What is her life story?
A. Her grandfather came to the Dastrux Empire as an immigrant, and her father saved up enough money to put her through officer school. She served a couple of years in a city militia, and then began working her way up through the legions. She was promoted to legate shortly before the Khavandri-Shethya war, and her mentor recommended she replace him on the Supreme Legionary Command. This lightning-fast promotion ruffled several feathers, but she was entrusted with theater command over Khavandri-Shethya. Her subsequent demotions were public in the parade and headlines; she is now nominally the legate of the 15th Legion, but more than half of it has disbanded and its ranks have swelled with protestors from other legions.
Aida became verklempt, seeing herself in Calloway’s story.
Q. What legion did she work up through?
A. The 13th. She opposed the Hellstalkers’ removal to the dwarf war.
Here Aida’s entusiasm overcame her and she began asking the questions.
Q. What happened in the war that changed Calloway?
A. Has she changed? Yes, she has made compromises she swore she never would, and become hardened and bitter, and she doesn’t know why anyone still follows her. But largely she has instead seen the Dastrux Empire change around her. What happened in Khavandri-Shethya was the lashing out of an empire clinging to a collapsing strategic vision, which she tactfully avoids assigning to any one man.
Calloway also responds to Aida by name, to her awe.
Q. What is the nature of tomorrow’s march?
A. She will march her men, peaceful and unarmed, through the streets of the city, to show the people the condition to which the heroes of ’25 have been reduced.Q. Isn’t she afraid of starting a civil war? Aida described how the lower lords in her home country tore the kingdom apart after the death of the king.
A. No, Calloway is not marching to create or become a martyr. It is possible, likely even, that some of her men will be killed by Guard brutality, but she has drilled them not to strike back. This is a display to soften the hearts of the people, not harden the hearts of the soldiery. And, as an aside, the tearing apart of the Empire by its middle vassals has already begun.
At this point, Aida decided that Baudrain is the kind of petty tyrant she has hated all her life, and resolved to absolve herself of the blood oath.
Q. How will Calloway proceed after the march?
A. That will depend on the outcome of the march. She has wargamed several possibilities, but will not reveal them.Q. Why is she doing this?
A. She grew up believing the Empire’s propadanda about how it protects and connects its subject peoples. She believes that the right leader can make the Empire live up to its own ideals as it did in the time of Wenceslaus III.
Annais asked,
Q. Who is the right leader?
A. Calloway hopes that Anselm’s successor will be, and will oppose any candidate she thinks unfit. She herself will serve the people in as high an office as they call her to.
Wordlessly, the Pink Unicorn crew agreed to offer Calloway their help. She told them she can offer them little reward. Annais said she disagrees, and Aida said she will follow Calloway for no reward at all.
At this point, the trumpets of an approaching legion rang out. Everyone hurried to the edge of the camp and watched as a ragged legion bearing the banner of the 8th marched up the road. Calloway stepped forward and greeted the legate of the 8th, Bruno. He placed his legion under her command and, now that she leads a legion beside her own, hailed her as Imperatrix.
Later in the day, the Pink Unicorn crew received their mission from one of Calloway’s aides. They should prepare the city for her march by spreading the word that Calloway is putting on a parade. This will set the expectation of a peaceful demonstration and help to draw an audience.
They returned to the Pink Unicorn. Finding that Adrian was out, Aida broke into his room and began to search for the document of the blood oath. She broke the lock on the window to make it appear that it had been forced from the outside.
In his desk, guarded by a poison needle trap, she instead found piles of incriminating documents paired with drafted blackmail letters. So much for the mystery of Adrian’s income. Among the documents she also found a ransom note that he had intercepted and evidently intended to perform man-in-the-middle fraud by jacking up the price and keeping the difference. The ransom note was for Amélie Eberlin’s brother Felix, who is apparently being held at the Abbey des Heiligen Steins, a few days outside the city.
Adrian arrived back at the inn, and Annais buttonholed him with conversation about their joint venture.
Aida quickly scanned the rest of the room. There was a shelf of porcelain dolls, each representing a character from a famous play; a trunk full of costumes; and a locked chest under the bed. Aida opened the chest and found it full of silver and jewelry.
Adrian broke away from Annais and climbed the stairs. At the top, Oskraks greeted him loudly.
At this warning, Aida rushed to the window, tossed the chest into a passing haycart, and jumped after it, telling the driver that her paramour’s wife had caught them together. Paying him for his silence, she deposited the wealth at the Golden Talon.
Adrian’s strangled scream could be heard across the whole Pink Unicorn. When he appeared in the common room that evening, he was pale and seemed to take his acting career seriously for the first time.
