The Grand Guild Hall was packed again. But the air was different tonight. It was charged. Electric.
Gareth stood at the podium, bathed in cold blue light. His Guild Operating System shimmered behind him.
"Friends," he began. "Our moment is here. Three smaller guilds stand ready to merge with us."
A wave of excited murmurs swept the room.
"With this consolidation," he continued, "we become the dominant labor force in the city. But to manage this scale, we must standardize. All contracts will follow the G.O.S. template. All resource allocation will be system-optimized."
He made it sound so reasonable. So inevitable.
He's not just proposing a vote. He's proposing a new world.
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The debate was fierce. Artificers shouted about lost autonomy. Older members worried about the soul of the guild.
Then Anya stood. Her heart hammered against her ribs.
She spoke of the Willowbrook potters. She described the golden triangle of connection between them, the weavers, and the bindery.
She talked about interdependence. About strength found in bonds, not just in numbers.
Her words felt small in the vast hall. They sounded like whispers against a gale.
She saw the faces. The younger members looked bored. The older ones looked skeptical.
They don't understand. They can't see the threads.
Gareth's vision was a sleek, powerful machine. Hers was a fragile, hand-woven net.
It wasn't a fair fight.
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"All in favor of the Consolidation Proposal?" the head clerk called out.
Hands went up. So many hands.
A mechanical vote-counter began clicking. The sound was cold. Impersonal.
Click. Click. Click.
Each click felt like a door slamming shut.
"All opposed?"
Anya raised her hand. She saw a few others. Kai, from the artificers. Chloe, her face pale. A handful of traditionalists.
But it was a tiny forest in a desert of approval.
The final tally glowed on Gareth's interface.
67 - 33
It wasn't even close.
A weight settled in Anya's chest. Dense. Heavy as stone.
We lost. We actually lost.
Across the hall, she saw Bren. He had voted with Gareth. He wouldn't meet her eyes.
The cold from Gareth's projections seemed to spread through the room. The celebration on his side of the hall felt distant. Chilling.
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The crowd began to disperse. The victors clapped Gareth on the back. The defeated shuffled out quietly.
Anya remained in her seat. Numb.
Then a shadow fell over her. She looked up.
Gareth stood there. He wasn't smiling. He wasn't gloating. His expression was almost gentle.
"That was a good speech," he said quietly. "Heartfelt."
"It was the truth," Anya replied. Her voice sounded hollow.
"I know you believe that," he said. "But I'm not the enemy, Anya. Irrelevance is. I'm trying to save us."
She stared at him, this man who had been her mentor's student. This man who carried the same scars.
"By becoming what we fought?" she whispered.
The question hung between them. For a moment, she saw something flicker in his eyes. A ghost of the young man from the photograph.
"By surviving long enough to fight another day," he said, his voice firm. Final.
He turned and walked away, joining his supporters at the door.
Anya was left alone in the emptying hall. The warm amber lamps seemed dimmer. The ancient stone felt colder.
Her golden network felt like a child's dream in the face of his cold, hard victory.
But as she sat there in the silence, a new thought emerged.
He wanted to build a fortress. She was growing a forest.
And everyone knew which one was harder to burn down.