The magistrate’s heavy lacquer-hatted brow furrowed deeper as he stared down at the strange, smooth-edged metal tokens resting in Ryan's open palm, treating the modern pocket change with the deep, unblinking suspicion of an auditor inspecting a completely unsubstantiated tax deduction. Before the guard could bring down his iron-banded polearm or demand a formal supervisor sign-off, the damp maritime fog parted violently. A frantic runner, panting with the breathless, wide-eyed panic of an IT helpdesk technician realizing the core database has just wiped itself, shoved his way through the tense queue of merchants and soldiers.
Without a second's hesitation, the breathless courier lunged forward and pressed a crisp, unsealed imperial decree directly into Ryan's chest. The document fluttered slightly in the chilly harbor wind, bearing the heavy, sweeping ink-strokes of an executive directive demanding an immediate, unbudgeted reconciliation of the district's entire shipping ledger before the evening curfew bells began to toll across the ward.
Ryan let out a long, flat exhale—the exact, bone-weary sigh he usually reserves for a department head dropping an impossible compliance ticket onto his desk five minutes before quitting time on a Friday afternoon. Shifting his heavy canvas messenger bag higher on his shoulder, he accepted the unsealed decree with the placid, unimpressed resignation of a mid-level coordinator who knew full well that refusing the paperwork wouldn't make it go away, deciding instead to treat the feudal crisis like just another administrative hurdle to clear before he could finally catch his train.