35 - Chapter 33
“You are still playing games with us,” said the Ancestor. “You know we are doing this to protect our clan. Everything else can be sacrificed in pursuit of survival.”
“So what is it that you are offering?” asked Tasha.
“First let me fill in some of those details,” said the Ancestor. “Why don’t you take a seat, we will be here for a while. Would you care for some refreshments?”
“Thank you for the offer,” replied Tasha, taking a seat in a comfortable high backed sofa. “I am good for now, I will be sure to let you know if I need something more.” She wasn’t about the ingest anything they served until she was a lot more sure of their motivations.
The Ancestor and Malim also took seats. “The magical races were here on Earth a long time ago,” started the Ancestor. “We roamed the world millions of years ago. The magical races from your myths and legends lived and fought for dominion across the world. In those times most of the land was one massive continent surrounded by the unfathomable oceans. The merpeople ruled the waters and built massive civilisations. The vampires were a minor race in those times. We were not powerful enough to challenge those of true magic. The most powerful of the races were the magical creatures, the dragons, phoenixes, leviathans and unicorns, closely followed by the fae. All the other races paid homage to one of those groups. All kingdoms were vassals to one of those races. The minor races included all the half mortal races like us, the were creatures, witches, the half mortal beast races and oh so many more.”
“What happened, and how far back are we talking?” asked Tasha, actually interested in the details now.
“We are not sure exactly,” said the Ancestor. “We think somewhere between 300 million and 400 million years ago there was some sort of cataclysm. All records of what happened have been lost. What we do know is that magic started to fail, the levels of magic started to drop, at first slowly, then faster and faster, until there were only dregs left. As the magic left, so did the true magical races. The unicorns just vanished, no one knows where they went. The Phoenixes left for the stars. The leviathans went deeper and deeper towards the core and were not heard from again. The fae used the last of the magic they could gather to create a gateway to another dimension. They evacuated their kingdoms, including the subject races and anyone else willing to swear allegiance to their new home, yet the space was limited.”
“What happened to the dragons and the rest,” asked Tasha.
“The dragons remained,” continued the Ancestor. “They made a deal with the merpeople. The dragons were different, in that their bodies could generate magic. Not enough to make up for the whole world, but enough that cities could function. The deal was that the dragons would help keep the cities alive while searching for the cause of the loss of magic. All the remaining magical beings retreated to Atlantis, and left the world to return to wilderness.”
“Time passed, and even the dragons began to fade,” he said. “Though the dragons were very long lived, without magic even their populations began to decline. Some left taking some of the races with them, others just faded away. This happened very slowly over hundreds of thousands of years. The surviving histories agree on the main points, but not on the timelines. The age of the dinosaurs came and passed. The asteroid that ended life forced us to leave Atlantis in search of resources.”
“You are talking about a very long period of time here,” said Tasha. “You aren’t telling me that you are that old, right?”
“No, nothing like that,” chortled the Ancestor. “We are not immortal, it is just our lives are measured in millenia and not decades. The loss of magic and lack of resources forced us to reduce our own populations. We barely survived. By this point all the dragons had disappeared, whether they left, went into hiding, or died, we do not know. Only the semi-mortal races were left, and we began fighting over resources.”
“And what resources do you need to survive in this magically desolate world,” asked Tasha.
“Life generates energy,” said the Ancestor. “It can be a replacement for magic to keep us alive, though it does limit our power substantially. The more sapient the life, the more energy it generates. The coming of humanity, and its predecessor races was a boon to us. We finally had a source of energy that could allow us to grow again. Yet, the surviving races started to fight amongst ourselves for this new resource. Entire sub species were hunted to extinction.”
“I can see how that would happen,” replied Tasha. So this was what had happened to the first human and neanderthal groups to leave africa.
“In the end the syndicate was formed,” continued the Ancestor. “We agreed to control our populations, and let the humans develop. We needed a sustainable food source. We even helped some of the groups to spread across the untamed vastness of the spread out continents. We stepped back and watched and waited, taking only the bare minimum to survive. The human population started to rise.”
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“I am guessing the industrial revolution, the rise of technology and massive increase in population came as a shock that you were not expecting?” asked Tasha.
“Yes, you went from a few million to hundreds of millions, to billions in a few short centuries,” said the Ancestor. “Worse, you started to create massive cities, weapons that could hurt even us, and started to track any major disappearances. Those of us who could hide in plain sight merged with the populations, taking what we needed in cover of darkness. The syndicate’s rules stayed, not because we were limited, but because it might reveal our existence and become a threat to our survival.”
“So the syndicate became the hand in the dark, pulling strings,” said Tasha. “Ensuring we fought wars and ravaged each other to ensure you always had a region to take what you needed from in large enough numbers. Except we turned out to be even more bloodthirsty than you thought, and you had to start keeping our bellicose natures in check, lest we destroy ourselves. The bay of pigs crisis must have caused a massive shock to those in charge.”
“You have no idea,” said the Ancestor. “Had you wiped yourselves out, you would likely have caused population collapse in all the remaining species. So now we stay hidden, nudging you between peace and destruction. Yet as your technology improves, it is getting harder and harder to keep hidden.”
“And that brings us to where we are,” said Tasha. “That gives me a good overview of your history. I also need a more tactical update on your capabilities.”
“That is far more sensitive,” replied the Ancestor. “That would make us an enemy of all the surviving races.”
“So, so far, for the promised blood price, you have offered nothing more than a history lesson,” said Tasha, her voice now hard. “Are you saying that is how you value my family?”
“No, not at all,” replied the Ancestor, now on the back foot. “I am just making you aware of the cost of what you ask.”
“I am only asking you to take a minor risk,” replied Tasha calmly. “If you ensure that you don’t reveal the contents of our meeting, and make everyone else think that it is part of the blood price, then you should have no problem minimising the risks to your clan.”
The Ancestor had been playing this game for years, but had not faced such a skilled and shameless opponent. He could deal with either of the traits in isolation, yet the two together were putting all his skills to the test. This woman was essentially calling them incompetent if they could not manage the risk, and was asking them to put the fate of their clan in her hands. Yet, his only reason, that his clan would be in danger, would not work, as in effect her clan had been wiped out. The two situations could not be compared, at least not without causing grave offence. The usual route he would have taken in these situations was also not available to him. Though she did not know who truly backed her, the Ancestor could not take the risk of attacking her, just in case. He was trapped in a prison of his own design. Any missteps could see his clan eradicated, yet the only way out seemed to lead them into further danger.
The worst part was that he could not even figure out what her ultimate goal was. It looked like she just wanted to learn everything about the group that had caused her to lose her family. Yet this woman was not so simple. She had to have an ulterior motive, but there was absolutely no indication of what it could be. The ancestor could not decide how to progress this meeting. What would satisfy this woman? If he was in her place he would want to tear down everyone who was involved in the death of his clan. She had to know that he would never sanction that. Maybe she was looking for some middle ground? How far could he push, before she pushed back.
Tasha was keeping her visage serene, not wanting to give anything away. She was also aware that these two old monsters were likely able to read her physiological responses better than any lie detector ever invented. That left her with no choice but to become the person she wanted them to see. This was a method taught to them in the intelligence services. Doesn’t matter what method was used to read physiological responses, they were all based on the same premise. They looked for dissonance. If what you were saying and feeling were not aligned, then the signs would be there to be read, no matter how well one was at hiding the outer effects. As these things went the technique was ludicrously simple to understand. Yet simple did not mean easy. In fact, in Tasha's experience the simpler a thing was, the more effort it required to achieve.
All Tasha needed to do to ensure that she would not be discovered, would be to become the person she was trying to portray. A technique she had only been good at before, had now become laughably easy. The increase in her mental stats due to the system had gone unremarked, her focus being on testing the physical stats. Yet their impact was undeniable. Her memory had improved to the point where calling it eidetic would be too simple. She felt that benefit came from the intellect stat. Her ability to project confidence and control had seen massive improvements too. She guessed that it came from her charisma stat. Yet those were childish improvements in comparison to the ability to control her body and mind with insane precision. She had a feeling that this ultimate control came from improvements in her will stat.
She had originally been annoyed by being forced to equally raise all her stats. She had seen the way games were designed, and the concept of min maxing was known to her. Had she been given the freedom, she would have boosted her physical stats, not really thinking about the intangible benefits. Yet only in this kind of situation, where a wrong word, move or gesture could mean her end at the hands of these old monsters, did the full impact of that requirement show itself. She would become who she needed to be to survive this meeting, and push these vampires for every benefit she could get. Then she would find a way to erase them from existence.