Gideon walked to the head of the meeting table, resting his spread hands on the wooden surface.
His gaze, now an ordinary brown instead of the bright gold he'd once carried before losing his race, swept over each of the officers present with a cold intensity that made the cleric look away.
"I heard your discussion from the hallway," Gideon began, his voice coming out rougher and less melodious than when he'd been an elf. "Your lack of vision disappoints me deeply. We're in the middle of a race for Thalendor's sovereignty, and you're all acting like frightened accountants."
"Leader Gideon," the blue mage tried to justify, straightening the floating report pages in front of him. "We're just worried about the sustainability of our financial model. The maintenance cost of this building, a thousand gold coins a month, is eating up a huge chunk of our reserves..."
