‘That’s a very moving sermon, grandfather,’ Scribe Ren said, breaking the choking stillness with a sharp, poisonous chuckle that rattled through the floating paper halls. He dipped his silver-nipped quill into his ink phial with deliberate, exaggerated flair, his ink-stained fingers moving with casual defiance. ‘A real masterpiece of self-pitying theology. But in the Under-City of Low-Khorat, we have a saying. When a debtor tells you a long, tragic story about his grandmother’s funeral, it means he’s about to default on the principal.’
Scribe Ren slammed his boot down upon the silver glass. His Mastered Craft, Orthographic Retconning, flared into aggressive, offensive overdrive. He wasn’t creating false halls now. He was rewriting the physical constitution of the room beneath the headsman’s boots. Across forty arm-lengths of floor, the semi-clear silver glass began to darken, the smooth surface turning rough, stringy, and porous like untreated calfskin thick parchment. Scribe Ren’s quill moved across the air with furious, slashing strokes, carving heavy, black royal lettering directly into the grain of the floor:
Municipal Debt Re-Classification. Issued by: Scribe Ren (The KING’S Forger). Target: The Man Who Returned (Entity Non-Grata). Statute: Section Nine, Chancellery Decree Of 412. Effect: Floor Surface Declared Active Foreclosed Quicksand.
