The rumors had already reached them.
The officials of Quruize Citadel, steeped in the web of their own politics, were not ignorant of the whispers that had swept through their streets like wildfire.
They had heard of our Landship, our people, our nature, woven into myth before we had even set foot before them. The tale had twisted itself into something more than mere fact, sculpted by awe and fear into an almost divine narrative—one that spoke of a wandering bastion, a people touched by divinity, and a relic of Theotech nature lost to time.
That last part was, of course, a fabrication. A convenient lie, one that only I and those within the Landship knew the truth of.
We were not of Theotech. We were not some long-lost construct of divine will. But perception was power, and as long as they believed, it hardly mattered what was real.
And so, when the official came forth to meet me, he did so with an air of reverence.
