There was silence in the room as several cloaked figures sat there, maintaining their distance from one another while they waited.

When the door finally opened, two men walked in and sat down, their bodies covered like everyone else while some sort of crystal was placed on the table in the center of the room. One of the two men began to speak, his voice seeming monotone and unrecognizable.

"We can all speak freely now. With this, none of us will know who is who."

"You’re late. I was beginning to think you wouldn’t come."

"There are a lot of eyes watching this place and too many of them side with the Empress. Each of us understands this. So yes, we had to wait, to be patient and to plan."

"And what do you suggest we do? An all out war with those beasts? We’ve already got nothing left. Our homes are gone. Most of our wealth is gone. And even if we had it, what good would it do for us?"

"He’s right. The only reason we are sitting here right now is the fact that each of us holds something on one another. If it wasn’t for information, we’d all be no better than commoner scum, just like that piece of shit merchant who thought way to highly of himself."

"It was unfortunate that one of our number tried to betray us, but his ending came just as it was suppose to. We didn’t even have to do anything ourselves, just deliver the information to his wife and everything else was taken care of. But that also proves that right now, this alliance is the best thing we have going for us so all of you should shut up and recognize that fact. As long as we remained united, we will have a chance to gain back everything we lost."

"Not if we are all dead. You heard that little shit. He wants to escape? How the hell does he think he will manage that? Once the three days are up those beasts won’t leave us along until we are all dead."

"The emperor will keep his word."

"Stop being a fool. We all know that isn’t the emperor. Only our foolish subordinates believe that."

"Of course."

"And besides, I was able to get outside the fortress at the south gate and meet with a leader of the beasts."

"Truly?"

"So your guess was correct?"

"Of course it was. They just need someone a bit more levelheaded to communicate with that the Empress. And from the information I received, it’s like we surmised. While the beasts will rule the continent, it’s not like they will have a single governing body. What’s more, they recognize their own inabilities and understand that for some things like housing, infrastructure and trade, humans will be needed to take care of all of that while they are building their own kingdoms. As such, they never had any intention of wiping us all out and plan to give good insentives to those who surrender willingly."

"Oh! Like I thought."

"Beasts with self awareness is something new, but not something I am opposed to. After all, at least they know they are beasts."

"If only the Empress didn’t have to make it this hard on us."

"If she weren’t so stupid and stubborn, this never would have gotten this far."

"Do we have guarantees from the beasts in this aspect?"

The second man opened his mouth to speak for the first time this night, although his voice sounded the same as each of the others thanks to the magic of the crystal which still sat glowing on the table.

"What trust can the beasts give you that you will believe. Instead, there are certain artifacts from the Empire’s vault that we were able to smuggle away in the chaos that followed the collapse of the nation." The man then began to pass out expensive looking necklaces to each of the men gathered."

"These are... slave collars...?"

"Exactly. Royal slave collars for royal slaves. Ones that used to be placed on either uncontrollable royal daughters or servants who the Emperor wanted for his own. Well... that was the idea anyway until the Emperor started using them on the wives and daughters of important ministers just to get his way, then in the fight with the Empress later, all of the high ranking officials of the Empire sided with the Empress and banned the use of those collars."

"Not like the other officials didn’t use them either. They just got pissed off when they were used on their own family members.."

"Shut up if you don’t want to die, right here and now..."

"I thought these things were suppose to be destroyed..."

"Do you really think the Emperor would destroy something he made that he was so proud of?"

"So what happened to the rest of the treasury?"

"Yes. Considering the seals and security of the vaults, I can’t believe they were just left alone or abandoned?"

"The Empress eventually got to them and stored all of it away. We were only able to make it out with a few things that would prove useful. After all, wealth is nothing now, but power and control are everything!"

"A man who looks ahead. Exceptional."

"Truly good insight on your part."

"Enough. You each have one. Now you just need to convince the leader of whatever beast faction you join up with to wear it and you will have complete control over that beast faction. Just don’t go overboard and expose yourself or you might doom us all. Since those beasts are not that smart, it wouldn’t be hard to make it some sort of offering of a grand gift to ’represent your partnership’ but you have to make sure the one wearing it is the one in charge. But since all of you were smart enough to be here, that shouldn’t be an issue for any of you."

The ensuing laughter that was made monotone by the crystal was creepy, but no one thought bad about it.

"Now what do we do about her majesty?"

"We just need to get the things the ’emperor’ requested. I doubt the Empress carries these things with her at all times so it should be simply enough to get one of her servants to get those things for us."

"But the seal is the problem. None of us have ever seen it nor knows what it looks like," one of the men pointed out as they knew the Emperor held it, but they had no idea what it would be or could be. It wasn’t as though the emperor needed a seal to show he was in charge. There was no one in the world who could have stood against him anyway and it wasn’t like he was at risk of dying soon so it wasn’t about to be handed down to a successor.

"It should be some type of key if intel serves me correctly," one of the figures voiced after a bit of arguing from the crowd.

"A key?"

"Why would you call a key a seal?"

"What does it go to? Obviously not the vault... or is that how she got into the vault in the first place?"

"That would make sense. She somehow stole the key from his majesty, stripped the vaults and took off... but if that’s the case, why wouldn’t his majesty want what she took and not the key to the vault?"

’Perhaps she missed something?"

"Some sort of hidden vault only the emperor knew about?"

"Enough. We can sit here and come up with possible reasons for days but that will get us nowhere. It’s a key, fine. But since it’s important and she knows it’s important, we can’t assume she’s going to be leaving it laying around somewhere. We will need to get into her room, grab it from her and get out before she knows what happened." 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"With the death of the Emperor.. or whatever the hell happened to him, the Empress is the strongest figure still alive besides that demon bitch. How the hell do you think we can deal with her?"

This question lead to more arguments until one of the cloaked figures spoke up, the same one who was first to recognize the slave collars.

"I have something that should work. It’s a powder that once spread into the air, will cause a person to pass out for a minute or two once they breath it in or even get it on their skin, even someone as strong as the Emperor or Empress won’t be immune..." That person said, before the entire room went quiet.

"How do you have something like this?" Someone finally asked, breaking the silence.

"For protection..."

"From who.... oh... ah...." It suddenly clicked that this person had some dealings with the emperor and his slave collars.

"How do you know it will work?"

"It did in the past..."

"No more questions. We have to take this gamble. And there is no way the empress is as strong as the emperor was so this is just what we needed. Now that we have a way, the rest of you need to come up with the rest of the resources needed before tomorrow night. Does anyone have any problems with that?"

No one spoke up, knowing it was all their lives on the line.

"Then we met again tomorrow night. Bring the powder, bring your plans and when we leave here tomorrow night, everything needs to be put into action then. So don’t fuck this up," the man said before retrieving the crystal and with the other person who came in with him, got up and left, leaving the room silent once again.