Before Ryan could even adjust the heavy strap of his canvas messenger bag, a stern, heavily armored magistrate stepped from the shadows and beckoned him with an imperious flick of a lacquered wooden baton. The official gestured toward the open timber doorway of the lantern-lit garrison, treating the late-night summons with the crushing, inescapable gravity of an executive compliance review called at nine o'clock at night. Inside, the rustic chamber smelled of damp cedar, melted tallow, and the unmistakable, stale anxiety of a boardroom facing an unresolvable audit deficit.
Ryan let out a quiet, bone-weary sigh—the exact, hollow exhale he usually reserved for a regional logistics manager demanding an unbudgeted warehouse override. Stepping across the threshold, he unzipped his messenger bag and reached past his worn notebook, prepared to patiently parse through disputed cargo ledgers and archaic shipping tariffs just to close out the ticket. With the placid diplomacy of a salaryman simply trying to survive an uncompensated overtime shift, he offered the waiting magistrate a mild nod, wondering idly if he would still have time to catch the final train back to Rhodes once the paperwork was signed.