A bit of a longer post today, but I couldn't decide where would be an appropriate place to break it up. Sorry if it's a slog, but hopefully you enjoy. Constructive criticism is welcome, as always.

 

The cellar was dry, dark, and cold in the way only stone could be. It had once been used for storage—wine, perhaps, or sealed grain back when the trade station was younger. Now it was quiet, its walls lit by low-burning lamps and the soft hum of activity above. The building that sat atop it looked unremarkable, just another administrative structure tucked away behind the merchant rows. But down here, beneath the weight of dust and secrecy, it belonged to the Resistance..

 

Jagiełło stood beside a battered metal table, one hand resting on its edge, the other tucked behind his back. His eyes were fixed on the far wall, where shadow danced across old shelving. Mona stood across from him, cloak drawn loosely around her shoulders, her posture relaxed but attentive.

 

"They’re ready," he said finally, voice quiet but clear. "Or close enough to it. The squads have seen action. They’ve held positions. They’ve kept silent. It’s time they heard the same words from the same mouths."

 

Mona tilted her head slightly, considering. "You wish to gather them?"

 

He nodded once. "Leaders only. No more than one or two per cell. Quiet invitations. A council, of sorts. If we are to grow, we must speak with one voice."

 

She smiled, faint and enigmatic. "And who will give that voice shape?"

 

"We will," he said, meeting her gaze. "You and I. The Father speaks through us."

 

Her smile widened, just slightly. "A sermon and a sword."

 

Jagiełło looked away again, back toward the shelves, his thoughts already moving ahead. "There have been murmurs. Quiet ones. Old loyalties that haven’t quite burned out. Some feel our reach grows too fast. Others fear exposure."

 

Mona’s voice dropped into something silkier, softer. "And you want me to find them."

 

"I want you to listen," he said. "Draw them in. Reassure them. But if they persist in doubt..."

 

She stepped closer, her movements unhurried. "Then they are already lost."

 

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

 

"You’ll include him," Mona said after a moment. "The new sergeant."

 

Jagiełło's brow twitched, just slightly. "Yes. He doesn’t see it yet, but the others look to him. It’s time he understands the scale of what we are."

 

She nodded once. "A test."

 

"A glimpse," he corrected. "If he proves true, the tests will come later."

 

Above them, a floorboard creaked. Neither flinched. Jagiełło’s voice dropped into a low, deliberate rhythm.

 

"See to the invitations. Speak to those who carry weight. We do this quietly. No banners, no slogans. Just presence."

 

Mona inclined her head, then turned toward the stairs, her cloak trailing behind her like smoke.

 

He remained by the table, his hand resting on the cold metal, eyes half-closed. The time for silence was ending. But it was not yet time for noise.

 

-----

 

 

They came in ones and twos, staggered and silent. No fanfare, no marked insignia, no outward sign of who they truly were. Just tired men and women in faded coats and dust-stained boots, making their way through a side alley or past a nondescript door tucked between a tannery and a closed chemist’s. Most gave a brief nod to the pair of armed guards flanking the entrance—no questions asked, no names exchanged.

 

The building was quiet from the outside. On the inside, the cellar whispered with slow gathering purpose. Lamps had been lit low, casting a golden hue on the worn brick walls. A long wooden table stretched the length of the room, with crates and salvaged chairs pulled in close. Some leaned against the walls, arms folded, their eyes scanning each new arrival with practiced caution. They came from across the desert—outposts, trade hubs, water stations, mining sites. Veterans of too many small skirmishes to count. People who remembered the price of defiance but bore it anyway. They spoke in low tones, just enough to identify, never enough to expose.

 

I came in last. Or near enough it made no difference.

 

The guards at the door looked me over and let me pass without a word, but I felt their eyes on my back the whole way down the stairs. The steps creaked, the kind of creak that makes you feel like the whole room hears it. And maybe they did.

 

I stepped into the cellar and stopped just inside the doorway. I’d never seen so many faces like this gathered in one place—not all at once. Hardened. Scarred. People with experience etched into every movement, every glance. Not one of them wore the Resistance's mark. They didn’t need to.

 

I adjusted the strap on my lasrifle out of habit, not nerves. Or maybe both. I told myself to keep my eyes up, to look calm, like I belonged here. But I didn’t. Not really. Not yet. I could feel it in the way the conversations dipped as I walked past, in the way a few of them sized me up. Not with hostility—just the kind of scrutiny that says, "Who’s this one, then?"

 

I found a spot near the edge of the gathering and stayed there. Silent. Watchful. Trying to breathe like my chest wasn’t tight.

I didn’t know what Jagiełło had planned. Or Mona. But I knew this: I’d been called. I’d been seen.

 

And now there was no stepping back.

 

-----

 

 

The cellar buzzed softly with restrained conversation. Clustered around the long wooden table, the squad leaders murmured to one another in low tones, the sort of talk that never carried across a room. There was no laughter, only quiet familiarity, like the shifting of stone beneath sand.

 

They wore no insignia, no rank markings, but the lines on their faces and the weight in their eyes told you who had seen battle, who had bled for the cause. The air was dry, tinged faintly with oil, old stone, and the distant trace of spice from a pipe someone had lit discreetly.

 

At the far side of the room, half-shadowed by the flickering lamplight, Mona leaned against the wall, arms folded loosely. Her expression was unreadable, but her eyes moved constantly—reading the faces, the silences, the hesitations. She wasn’t looking for agreement. She was watching for weakness. For doubt. For fire.

 

Then Jagiełło entered.

 

He moved without ceremony, no flourish or call for silence. He didn’t need to. One by one, the voices faltered. Chairs creaked as postures straightened. By the time he reached the head of the table, the only sound was the soft settling of dust. He looked over them, his gaze neither harsh nor welcoming. Just present. Grounded. From beneath his cloak, he drew a small metal flask and placed it plainly on the table. His voice, when it came, was quiet but carried all the same. "I don’t drink," he said. "But I was told a toast would be... appropriate."

 

A few exchanged glances, unsure. Mona’s mouth twitched into the suggestion of a smile.

 

Jagiełło uncapped the flask and raised it slightly. "To our first gathering. And to the storm yet to come." He took a measured sip and passed the flask to his left. It moved from hand to hand, each drinking in turn. When it came to me, I hesitated only a second before tipping it back. The liquid burned, but I swallowed and passed it on without a word. Jagiełło waited until it returned to the centre of the table, then swept it aside with the back of his hand.

 

"Now. To the business we came for."

 

He stood straight, hands resting on the table’s edge. "You’ve all seen what we recovered. The Malcador was the first. It won’t be the last. The sands hide more than relics. They hide power. Power we will need."

 

There were nods around the table. Real ones.

 

"We are not ready to rise," he continued, "but we will be. When the time comes, we must not be scrambling for rifles or hiding behind dune walls. We will strike with what was once theirs. And we will break them."

 

Someone murmured an affirmation, barely audible.

 

"Many of you have families. Sons and daughters. You know what the cost is. You live it every day. What we build here is for them. For what comes after." His voice remained low, even. "We are not a rabble. We are not isolated cells. We are a Resistance. And we must begin acting like one." He took a moment, scanning the room. "Every outpost under our shadow must be secured. Informants placed. Supply lines disguised. Weapons salvaged, repaired, hidden. We will not win by numbers. We will win by knowing more, moving faster, and never being where they expect us to be."

There was stillness at the table now, the kind that comes when a room begins to believe in something. Even if only quietly. "That is why we are here. Not to celebrate, but to unify. To prepare." He paused.

 

From within his cloak, Jagiełło produced a small dataslate—sealed, scuffed from handling, but unmistakably the same one that had passed hands at the toll booth. He placed it on the table with deliberate care, the metal clacking softly on the wood. His eyes turned toward me. I could feel the weight behind them.

 

"Since you brought this to us," he said, voice quiet but firm, "it is only right you have the honour of answering its mysteries."

 

There were murmurings then, soft but unmistakable. Not loud, not disruptive, but enough to betray doubt. I caught the words in the undercurrent—"miner," "Rakoczy," "green."

 

Jagiełło’s gaze swept across the table. No words. Just the cold steel of his stare. The murmuring died like flame under sand.

 

I rose slowly, heart drumming a little too hard in my chest. I didn't look around. Just stepped forward and reached for the slate.

 

Mona’s eyes didn’t follow me. Not at first. She was watching someone else—one of the sergeants seated at the table, who had barely spoken, who shifted slightly when the slate was revealed. Her head tilted slightly. A breath passed. Then she gave a single, subtle nod.

 

Jagiełło caught it without looking. The figure remained unaware. Nothing would happen yet. But they would be watched.

 

The slate was cold in my hands. For a moment, I didn’t move. Around me, the room was silent, but I could feel the weight of every gaze pressing against my shoulders. I wasn’t like them. I hadn’t led raids in the sands or bled for outpost victories. I’d swung a pickaxe in the dark, counted rations by the week, buried comrades beneath collapsed tunnels. And now I stood here, a miner with a rifle, asked to speak in the presence of veterans. I told myself it didn’t matter. Rakoczy had trusted me. Mona had stood beside me. Jagiełło had called me forward.

 

I drew in a breath, steadying myself, and tapped the slate awake. The flicker of code sprang to life across the display. Now, it was mine to answer. The code resolved into something surprisingly simple: a set of coordinates, followed by a fragmented schematic, flickering slightly as the slate worked to stabilise its old data. There were annotations in a hand I didn’t recognise, half-corrupted but just readable enough. A bunker. Remote. Long forgotten.

 

I squinted at the identifier buried in the metadata, speaking aloud without thinking. "Iron Duke?" It came out uncertain, questioning.

 

Around the table, a few of the veterans scoffed. Quietly. One shook his head, another rolled their eyes. Doubt, disbelief, even a touch of mockery—none of it loud, but I felt it all the same.

 

Mona’s gaze didn’t shift from the sergeant she’d been watching. But something changed in her expression. Subtle. The figure’s mouth had twitched—just slightly. A flicker of concern. Not enough for anyone else to notice.

 

But Mona noticed. And though she remained poised, relaxed, her attention narrowed like a blade being drawn.