"Almost no one visibly twitches when they sit next to me and notice the staff," he says, with a smile. "It's novel, though your problem sounds even more tiresome. It's... cosmopolitan, this tourney, in the way the Inquisition has hoped to be."

Even if the organization doesn't always succeed, it's one of the few that's trying for an improvement to the status quo. Julius may believe the status quo isn't worth throwing out altogether, but he's not blind to the fact it needs changing.

"You know, I don't know that I've ever asked. You must have traveled fairly widely, before all this. Anywhere you were especially fond of before?"