Cebu Colony – City of Salvadora
Early February, Year 6 of the Kareya Doctrine
The clocktower of Salvadora rang six times, each chime echoing across the quiet streets of the southern colonial city. Once a trade outpost nestled between ridgelines and sea, Salvadora had grown rapidly under Aragon's rule—its docks now bustling with goods from Firewell, its schools lined with Kareyan chalkboards and foreign instructors. But beneath the veneer of civic progress, something older stirred. Something bitter.
Inside a crumbling church-turned-meeting hall in the barrio of Punta Oeste, dim candlelight flickered against stained walls. The pews had been moved aside to make space for folding tables covered in maps, radio parts, and hastily copied leaflets. On the raised altar, where a crucifix once stood, now hung a red banner sewn with a simple emblem: a broken yoke atop a burning scroll.
A voice pierced the candlelit quiet.
