Last time on D&D, plans were made for your visit to the Emir, involving splitting the available operatives into different groups. Those that were at the docks will meet with the Emir, as requested, while the others take up position nearbye, ready to aid the first team if and when needed.

The silvery light of Argent casts the surrounding in shades of gray, black, and luminescent white, colored only by the faint blue-green radiance of the iron wards on most of the buildings you pass. As always during Argent, a sharp and bitter taste lingers on the air, like burnt herbs or old silver, but despite the pale radiance of this cycle you see no amok fey as you pass through the streets. Three times during the walk, you hear the song of narrow blades and fletched arrows clashing, either against each other, or against some poor bastard with insufficient protection, but those skirmishes never quite manage to be visible to you, and your portable ward continues to shine only faintly, rather than the emerald fire that would occur if they attempted to attack. Thankfully the Goldfire district is close enough to the Ruby palace that it's not a terribly long walk, and whatever luck has allowed you to remain unscathed doesn't run out before you arrive at the palace gatehouse. The red stone of the walls looks slate gray in this light, but up atop those ramparts shine hundreds, maybe thousands of glowing sparks, casting a gentle radiance over the street and outer walls, illuminating the expected palace guards and defensive machinery. At the gate itself, a double handful of guards stand watch inside a softly glowing ring of iron. They see you approaching, and come to attention, weapons not drawn but at the ready.

The guard he shared a glance with just prior nods. Apparently that's Gol, who walks around to the other side of the group as a couple of others open the gates; all spidery threads of gold in a startlingly complex woven pattern that is almost certainly enchanted to be far stronger than steel bars. The first guard seems to consider the statement. "A dragon, is it? Are you sure it's not a drake, or something like that? Because I don't know that I could get away with allowing an actual dragon into the palace." He gives Vul a glance that seems to have some weight behind it.

A few of the other guards are looking at each other now, uncertainty on their faces as they listen to their fellow speak to you in an oddly casual tone.

A few minutes later, Gol comes jogging back, and exchanges a few whispered sentences with his apparent superior. He turns toward you, a deeply affected smile now on his face. "Well, it seems that you're in luck. It seems like its acceptable, so long as you make certain not to damage anything. I guess he wants to meet you badly enough that this isn't a consequential change."

both of those guards take up their positions again, the first in front of you, and the other behind. The first guard gestures for you to follow.

You've only walked perhaps forty or fifty feet inside the gate, when Gol pipes up from behind you. "I didn't really go and talk to the castellan, you know. I just waited inside for a few minutes, then came back out."

His voice is soft, barely penetrating the the silver silence.

You pass below a glazed archway leading into the palace, the doors to which stand wide open, with only a pair of statues to flank it. The lead guard turns back to you. "Almost there. We'll have to be careful when talking from here, if we can do it at all. I don't know about this code of honor she's supposed to have, but just be careful. It seems like you might actually be the good guys here, and you being punished for it is the last thing I want to see. Most of joined because we love this city. We joined because we thought we would be protecting it." His mouth firms into a line. "And some of us still feel that way. If it's really the Iron Empire here, then the only way to protect our home is to try to stop them, so if the only people who seem to know what's going on get killed it would be a real problem for us."