Night settled over Meridian, but the city's pulse continued unabated. In the Guild Information Hub, workers operated around the clock, processing and distributing the carefully crafted narratives that would shape public understanding.
"Cultural stabilization bulletin," announced a tired-looking editor, passing a crystal to the broadcast department. "Priority distribution."
The crystal contained three different accounts of what had occurred at the tournament, each tailored to specific audience demographics. One emphasized the disruption to commerce, another the potential psychological impacts on witnesses, a third the historical context of "similar philosophical insurgencies."
None mentioned the simple fact: that a man had stood still, and in doing so, revealed the emptiness of force.
