The auditorium swallowed sound like a bomb crater—three hundred bodies pressed into burgundy seats that had witnessed decades of polite academic theater. Sharon Ironwright stepped onto the stage with the measured stride of someone crossing a minefield, her combat boots striking the hardwood in a rhythm that made the front row straighten their spines.

Behind her, ten feet of projection screen blazed with crimson letters: "Orcs in the Empire's Mirror" floating above a photograph of Arlington's endless white stones. Sharon planted her feet at parade rest, let two heartbeats of electric silence stretch until every neck craned forward, pulled by the vacuum of unspoken words.

"History," she said, her voice carrying the authority of someone who'd buried friends in foreign soil, "is written by the survivors. But we're going to talk about who gets to decide which survivors hold the pen."

The challenge hit the crowd like a phosphorus round. Students fumbled for notebooks. The usual protesters in the back clutched their signs tighter. Cell phones began to glow.

Sharon's yellow eyes swept the auditorium, cataloging terrain and potential hostiles. "Front row," she announced, pointing with a finger that had once steadied rifle sights, "is for anyone who thinks I'm lying about what I'm going to tell you tonight."

The gauntlet struck marble and rang.

Then came the whisper of silk and the crystalline clink of bone china.

Elvira Moonwhisper descended the center aisle like mist given form, three centuries of breeding evident in every fluid motion. Her silver hair caught the stage lights as she balanced a porcelain teacup without the slightest tremor, steam curling from whatever exotic blend she'd brought to this particular performance.

She settled into the front row's center seat, crossing legs worth more than most orcs made in a year. The teacup rose in a mock salute. "Professor Ironwright," she said, her voice carrying the crystalline precision of Boston privilege, "how absolutely delightful. Please, do continue."

Phones erupted like muzzle flashes across the darkness. The moment they'd all come for—collision between Harvard's newest faculty star and its most notorious truth-teller.

Dean Finch chose this powder-keg instant to clear his throat. "Before tonight's presentation," he announced, tapping the lectern microphone, "I'm pleased to unveil our groundbreaking Learning Laboratory Initiative."

Hydraulics hissed. A section of stage floor slid away, revealing a chrome server rack rising like a techno-monolith. LED strips pulsed along its edges while a countdown timer blazed "00:00:00" in numbers visible from the cheap seats.

"The Living Syllabus," Finch proclaimed with the enthusiasm of a man who'd never questioned where his funding came from. "Real-time democratic education. Students vote, professors respond, knowledge evolves organically."

The timer flickered: "00:00:01... 00:00:02... 00:00:03..."

Sharon watched the digital ascension with the expression of someone calculating blast radius. This wasn't education—this was performance art with a body count.

A prompt materialized on screen: "Choose the opening image of the Lincoln County War."

Two photographs appeared side by side like competing testimonies at a court martial.

Left: President Roosevelt in his Rough Rider glory, gripping hands with Captain Marcus Bloodhammer of the 3rd Territorial Orc Militia. Both men beaming beneath flags and bunting, the image that graced every textbook. "Unity in Victory, 1902."

Right: Grainy battlefield photography showing bodies scattered among sagebrush like discarded equipment. "Lincoln County casualties, exact date unknown."

Votes flooded in like incoming artillery. The Roosevelt handshake pulled ahead immediately—the sanitized version, the comfortable lie that let people sleep at night.

Six seconds. The timer froze at "00:00:06" while results blazed across the screen: Roosevelt handshake, 73%. Battlefield reality, 27%.

Sharon's smile could have cut glass. The sheep had chosen their preferred wool.

"Fascinating choice," she said, advancing the presentation with a click that echoed like a rifle bolt sliding home. "Now let me show you what happened to Captain Bloodhammer three weeks after that photograph."

The image that filled the screen hit the crowd like a fragmentation grenade.

The same orc captain floated face-down in muddy water, uniform stripped away, rope burns carved deep around bloated wrists. His face had turned the pale green of meat left too long in summer heat. The Rio Grande flowed dark around him—blood or river mud, the century-old photograph couldn't distinguish between them.

The gasp that rose from three hundred throats sounded like air being sucked from a punctured hull. Chairs scraped. Someone in the third row made a sound like they'd been gut-shot. A girl near the wall pressed her hand to her mouth, phone trembling in her grip.

The Living Syllabus screen flickered madly as votes shifted in real-time: 49% - 51% - 48% - 52% - the numbers dancing like a fever dream, perfectly split between comfortable fiction and uncomfortable truth.

Sharon turned to face Elvira directly. The elf had gone statue-still, teacup frozen halfway to lips that had lost their aristocratic certainty.

"Interesting how democracy works," Sharon said, her grin spreading like fire through dry grass, "when people finally see what they're voting on."

A Debate — Chapter 5

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