Chapter 74
The amphitheater had gone from oddly serene to full-blown chaos very quickly. One of the locals, a stout man with an expression that looked like he'd just bitten into something sour, suddenly barked at us: "You're trespassing on public property!"
I blinked. "How the hell do you trespass on public property?" I muttered to myself.
Instead, another villager stepped up, solemn as a priest and twice as theatrical, dragging behind him a scroll. The parchment was so long it curled on the floor like some kind of bureaucratic snake. He cleared his throat and started speaking like this was the highlight of his month.
"By order of the Elders of Eternal Bureaucracy, you stand accused of the following crimes: unlawful escape from temporary detention without submitting Form Seventeen-B, impersonation of enforcement personnel, assaulting a security official by means of a coconut, unsanctioned application of ceremonial warpaint…"
