Following Abby’s suggestion, Vin ran back to his apartment, grabbing a quick bite to eat and getting changed before returning to the town hall for the council meeting. While home, he checked in on his friends, curious if any of them had anything to say about the newspaper.

  Shia had thought it was an interesting idea, saying the elves didn’t really have anything similar in the Sacred Forest. Apparently, if news of something needed to be spread around, the Dryads handled it far faster than any printing press could. She hadn’t had any issues with Jim either, saying all she had to do was give him a few words and a wide grin, and he decided to leave her alone.

  Scule had found Jim a tad more annoying, and explained how the Investigator refused to stop bothering him during an alchemical experiment he was working on with Bill until he gave him something to work with. The citadel had their own version of a newspaper, but it was a bit more magical. Apparently, spoken words would be recorded onto small gemstones, which people could rent at certain locations to listen to. Those same gemstones were then recorded over the next week with updated news, and the cycle would repeat itself.

  Alka had found the man hilarious, and when he refused to stop bothering her while she was trying to work with her trainees, she had calmly picked him up, ordered her trainees to dig a hole, and tossed him inside once it was done. If anything, she’d seemed surprised he’d managed to get out of the hole so quickly, but she didn’t have much to say on the newspaper front. Her own town had used Criers, people with abilities that gave them perfect memories and loud voices, who dared the green sea to go from one town to the next, spreading the news.

  Thankfully, Lumel hadn’t even known about the existence of the newspapers. She’d spent the entirety of the last few days working on her magic within the apartment. And while she was surprised to hear people were writing about her, she wasn’t all that upset about it.

  Apparently, growing up as the bastard child of the king and the court mage made one develop a rather thick skin to things such as gossip. According to her, so long as people didn’t speak ill of her directly to her face, she really couldn’t care less as to what others talked about out of earshot.

  With all that squared away, Vin took his seat in the council room, nodding to the others and thanking them as they mentioned how happy they were he was officially out of the hospital. He could tell they wanted to delve more into exactly what it was that had put him in there in the first place, but they had bigger things to worry about.

  “Jim Hayes. Former ‘investigative journalist’ back on Earth. Though we’re about ninety-eight percent sure he was a tabloid writer and active member of the paparazzi,” Spur explained, frowning as he read off what Myers had handed him. As this was a meeting specifically about a single person, she had decided to sit in on this one, in case her personal experience screening the man came up. “As you all know, he picked up the Investigator class upon reaching Edregon, bringing our grand total of Investigators up to two. He’s not quite as weird as Sherly, but he’s a lot worse in my professional opinion.”

  “The Gods seriously ended up grabbing a member of the paparazzi of all people?” Witherson asked, shaking her head. “Ridiculous.”

  “They told us it was random,” Alice shrugged. “The guy didn’t seem that bad when he asked me if I knew about Vin being in the hospital. He did try to grill me about how Vin and I were connected, and even went so far as to ask if we’d ever been romantically involved, but all I had to do was pull out a knife and he took off running. Bit of a coward.”

  “He’s a member of the fourth wave, and definitely doesn’t quite understand how this isn’t Earth anymore,” Spur explained. “Myers pegged him as a potential asset once she’d learned he was an Investigator, but due to his personality, she decided not to try and train him up like we are with Sherly.”

  “He puts himself first above all others, and will use whatever excuses he can think of to justify his actions,” Myers said. “Fairly textbook narcissist.”

  “His work isn’t bad,” Phil said, drawing everyone’s eyes on him as they all blinked at him. “…What?”

  “Phil… was that a joke I just heard come from your mouth?” Spur asked, his brow raised. “They said it couldn’t be done… I have to tell Frank to cancel the operation, you’ve been cured!”

  “You’re hilarious,” Phil said, rolling his eyes. “What, I can’t make a joke every now and again? I thought putting me of all people at the top of his stupid bachelor list was funny.”

  “You don’t make them often,” Alice pointed out. “Personally, I was a big fan of the article about Theodore’s true identity. Hypothesizing that the Spy isn’t actually an Earther at all and is infiltrating us is a pretty fun thought experiment.”

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  “You do understand that this is the problem, right?” Witherson asked, frowning. “His articles seem entertaining at first glance, but it’s not all fun and games. Yes, it’s silly and fun to read about how Golrim and Spur might be plotting to turn Terra into some sort of monarchy, but it plants that seed of doubt deep into the back of your minds. That wouldn’t be that big a deal if there were other news sources or our society were more stable, but we’re still brand new, and we don’t have an actual, official newspaper. We can’t let a tabloid be the official news. Not a chance.”

  “By mixing reports of true events, like Vin being in the hospital, with falsehoods, he’s causing a problem,” Myers said. “I think the simplest solution would be to create separate newspapers. People enjoy having silly things to read, but we should make it clear that they are just that. Silly falsehoods. Perhaps we have one paper with official, council-approved news, and a second paper all about silly, entertaining articles. Maybe dye the second paper a bright color, like yellow, so there’s no way to mix the two up.”

  “That still leaves the problem of him putting people in the limelight that might not want to be,” Vin pointed out. “Even if it’s in the silly paper everyone knows is false, I’m sure there are plenty of people who might not want to be on the ‘top ten ugliest earthers’ list, once Jim gets around to writing it.”

  “Why, you nervous or something?” Alice asked, grinning as she punched him in the arm. “But yeah, I agree with Vin. The paparazzi were hated back on Earth for a reason. I have no idea how we’d go about making some sort of privacy law, but I think it would be a good idea.”

  “Not just for the sake of those who want to stay out of the public eye, but for Jim’s sake as well, and all who follow in his footsteps,” Myers said. “He’s a bit of an idiot in that he still hasn’t figured out Edregon doesn’t work like Earth does. If we don’t stop him, he’s likely to run an article that would end up getting himself killed. What if he’d run a nasty piece of Kyle, for example? Most likely, Kyle would have killed him the moment he saw his name in the paper.”

  “Part of me thinks we should let him mess around and find out,” Spur said, leaning back in his chair as he scrunched up his face in thought. “…but you’re probably right. Alright, let’s split this in two and vote on the first part before we get into the weeds here. All in favor of using Christina’s printing press to establish an official newspaper for Terra filled with points we as a council approve beforehand?”

  Five hands went up, and Spur smiled as Myers made a note for the record. “You love to see it. We’ll probably have to make another subgroup for this within one of the guilds, similar to Alice’s entertainment group.”

  “I think we have a Writer or two who might be interested,” Alice nodded, looking thoughtful. “They haven’t been doing much these past few weeks besides transcribing books. I bet they’ll jump at the opportunity to write an actual newspaper, assuming Jim decides to just take over the tabloid one full time.”

  “I have a feeling that will be the case, which means we need to establish rules today before things get out of hand,” Spur sighed, letting his chair fall back onto all fours as he leaned forward. “His paper was out for all of two days, and it already managed to start a fight in the streets. If that’s not a sign we need to intervene, I don’t know what is.”

  “What if he needs to get a person’s approval of an article before he publishes it?” Witherson asked. “Should solve the majority of the issues that might arise.”

  “Simple, but effective,” Myers nodded. “Though just to be clear, he will absolutely ignore that rule unless you make it quite clear what the punishments are going to be. And even then, he’ll probably try and bend it anyway. At least until we hammer home that Terra and Earth are not the same.”

  “Vin punched through a solid wall to yank him out of his secret workshop, and Alka threw him in a literal pit when she found him annoying,” Alice snorted. “I don’t think there’s much more we can do to try and convince him at this point. Maybe I should have moved faster and actually stabbed him instead of just threatening him.”

  “That’s not our problem,” Spur shrugged. “We treat him the same as everyone else. He breaks the rules, he gets tossed in jail. Breaks them too many times, and he gets exiled. Keeps causing problems for us anyway, and we put him down for good. That’s the way of the world these days. I’m sure one of the writers you mentioned would be more than happy to put together a fun, entertaining paper that doesn’t break any rules we put into place.”

  “Then we make it official,” Witherson said. “I move to vote that we begin production of a clearly marked, secondary newspaper filled with nothing but silly, entertaining things to read. If any specific individuals are written about, the creator of the paper has to get their explicit agreement that they can run the paper with that exact article. Any changes require getting consent all over again. Any arguments or discrepancies can be settled via truth-gem.”

  It was a long motion, but the stipulations were definitely needed. Vin had been right in the thick of things that morning and seen just how heated people could get when topics they cared about were slandered. Thankfully, once again five hands went up into the air, and everyone let out a sigh of relief that the matter was over and done with for the moment.

  “We’ll have to see if Jim learns his lesson before he gets himself exiled,” Spur muttered, drumming his fingers on the table as he thought. “Though like I said, that’s not our problem. We can’t save those who refuse to listen to reason.”

  “Again, I’m happy to wait for him to bother me again and stab him if we think that would help,” Alice offered, holding up a rather sharp-looking knife. “Frank can have him patched up in no time.”

  “I think needlessly annoying Frank by sending people to the hospital is the last thing we should be doing right about now,” Spur drawled. “Anyway, let’s go ahead and break early today. Myers and I need to go talk to Christina about what she needs in order to improve upon her printing press, and after that, I have a meeting with Golrim. Creating our own monarchy is no easy feat you know!”

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