The manhunt to find Zumee’s killer has entered its third day.

The first goal is to find Zumee’s diamond; a small pink gem that was ripped from his forehead. It should then be easy to trace the line of ownership back to murderer.

To this end, 50,000 peldaks have been mobilized from the 18th Legion, and the entirety of Great Tendor’s Khagasi province, located in the central regions, has been shut down. The population is roughly 3,000,000, with four major cities and about 500 smaller settlements with populations under 100,000. The legion is focused on merchants and shops, thinking that the killer pawned the diamond off soon after killing Zumee. Hundreds of checkpoints have been set up across the province, thoroughly checking every cart and traveler, with some of the lines on busier trade routes reaching a peak of six miles long.

The Emperor of Great Tendor has protested this sharp obstruction to movement and the heavy-handed tactics of the legion, decrying it as military overreach and not legal within the framework of the Protectorate Charter. Within the Imperial Court is a rising fear that this so-called ‘bullying’ by the legions will embolden secessionist groups and disaffected nobles. Prior to the current regime, no empire in history had unified the entire subcontinent of Tendor, and Great Tendor’s loss in the Founding War was already seen as a profound strike to the dynasty’s legitimacy.

The Hetman of the 18th Legion, Sir Kornel Kiskonski, reminded the Emperor that the Protectorate Charter requires the peldak legions to put down any revolt that might threaten the unity of Great Tendor. But he firmly responded that they will not stop until Zumee’s murderer is brought to justice.