Hotomi the Working

The scent of sweet cake and river silt follows Hotomi through the gilded streets of The Teikodian Empire. To the palace guards, they are just 'the Working'—a harmless eccentric spending endless hours fishing in the decorative canals, always ready to share a slice of their confection. They offer it with gleeful eyes and a disarming smile. But that smile never quite reaches their mouth, a perfect poker face that conceals their true purpose. Every shared treat is a purchased moment of proximity; every cast of the line is a reason to linger near a sensitive conversation. Hotomi isn't fishing for carp. They are fishing for secrets, charting the moral decay that seeps from the dungeons and laboratories hidden just beneath the city's sun-bleached marble.