“I suppose that just means we have more enemies than we thought,” Charlemagne finally replied, once I was finished reporting what I’d learned. “I’m guessing you will head off to find more allies?”
I shrugged and made a so-so gesture with my hand.
“First, I’m going to find the blueprints for some modern defensive technologies, so we can incorporate them into the Untersberg’s defenses when you upgrade the fortress. But I’ll also be taking that travel as an opportunity to meet with potential allies.”
“Wise decision,” Charlemagne nodded. “Will you be contacting our ally in the East regarding this issue?”
“Tomorrow, once I have full use of my portals again,” I said.
He nodded, again, and dismissed me to continue his conversation with Frau Kittel, the castellan, which I’d inadvertently interrupted with my presence, so I made my way towards the library. It was a long shot, but I was hoping I’d locate something on the Fomorians in there that wasn’t easily found on the internet.
Sure, the Carolingian Renaissance had focussed on rescuing and replicating classical Greek and Roman texts, not ancient Irish myths that were apparently not quite as mythological as it had first appeared, but it was big. I needed proper information, and neither Fionn nor Arthur had known much beyond “they’re big evil giants.”
Making deductions based on wrong or incomplete information was a fool’s gambit. Granted, sometimes, it was rather funny what conclusions people drew, like back when I’d been five and thought that TV shows were made by the power companies to trick the consumers into using up more electricity.
I knew that was stupid, now, but I’d been five, and known jack squat about stuff like paid commercials, product placement, and, may it burn in hell, the Rundfunkbeitrag.
So, information. Let’s find some.
***
As it turned out, the ancient magical library did not, in fact, magically contain the exact information I needed.
Also, surprise surprise, falling asleep with my face on an ancient book was good for neither the book nor my back. At least [Restoration of the Old] meant I did not have to confess to Charlemagne that I’d drooled on a literally irreplaceable manuscript in my sleep and pretty much ruined it.
Of course, the book now looked like it had been made yesterday, which made it abundantly clear something had happened to it, but at least it wouldn’t be something I’d get in trouble over. I hoped.
Also, I’d slept straight through breakfast, so I wound up portalling straight to Ulaanbaatar, which was several hours ahead of Germany. Which meant that getting breakfast here was unlikely to happen, but I didn’t really mind eating food normally meant for lunch or dinner earlier.
Though I first dropped by the Government Palace, announced that I had information, asked to be put on the meeting schedule, and got a few phone numbers so I could contact Genghis Khan’s aide, or some of his secretaries, without having to use a portal charge.
The line likely wouldn’t be secure, my regular phone certainly lacked the encryptions regular government communications devices had, but [Traceless Communion] let me make any communication not just private, but unnoticeable. We’d actually played around with it to test it, and it worked both in person and over the phone.
In person, it was basically a short telepathic message that no one could notice or overhear, which made it perfect for making plans during negotiations without the other party realizing.
Letters, meanwhile, teleported, and could not be opened or even seen by anyone save the intended recipient.
And finally, phone calls, emails, and the like were impossible to notice, track, or generally know the contents of.
But the big restriction for that [Skill] was that I needed to be able to actually contact the person I was trying to talk to for it to work, which meant that I had to get a few phone numbers. I’d do so anytime I made diplomatic connections going forward, I really should have been doing so the entire time but hadn’t really thought of it thus far.
After breakfast, I headed back to the Government Palace since I’d been told I might be able to get in at that point, but was sadly met with the dreaded “he’s not available yet.” And the next theoretical slot was a couple of hours from now, so … time to find something else to do.
Such as visiting the American embassy. I’d been, hopefully understandably, fixated on the returning legends. Magic, monsters, ancients. It had been a little overwhelming.
But now that this was a long-term issue, one that looked to involve organized warfare, who could I possibly talk to, except the nation with the world’s strongest military, sitting on Earth’s biggest stockpile of nukes?
So I hailed a cab, had it drive me to the embassy, cleaned and repaired my suit one final time, and marched inside.
Well, “marched” was a bit of an over-exaggeration. I walked in with purpose, back straight and hopefully not giving off the impression of being lost, or helpless. I usually managed to pull off the confident look, so far at least, but I still felt nervous every time I did something like this.
A guard stationed near the entrance gave me an appraising look, then returned his gaze to the door, apparently having deemed me harmless, for the most part.
It was an interesting feeling, normally, I was used to American institutions being secured to the nines, complete with bag checks and metal detectors. Either protocols were more relaxed here, or Skills had replaced the need for technological detectors. Either way, I was glad for it as I walked straight to the reception desk.
“Ambassador Tristan Vogt, I’m hoping to meet Ambassador Smith, sometime today,” I introduced myself.
“I’ve met the German ambassador,” the receptionist replied flatly. Well, he was right about the fact that I wasn’t the German ambassador, but wasn’t he being a little bit … blunt about this? Not to mention that I’d never claimed to represent Germany, was my accent really bad enough to not only mark me as “German,” but do so with zero margin for error?
I sighed.
“A man whom I’ve never claimed to be.”
“So, who are you, then?”
“Like I said, my name is Tristan Vogt, I represent several of the ancients in Europe,” I informed the man.
“Then why aren’t you visiting an embassy there?”
“I was in the area, I have a meeting with the Genghis Khan later today,” I said.
“Oh, do you know?”
Okay, now I was starting to get annoyed. Either state what you need me to do to prove my identity, just google my name, or outright accuse me of something. This little “skeptic” routine was getting on my nerves, even if I wasn’t showing it.
“I can have Charlemagne on a magical video conference right here and now, would that be enough to prove who I say I am?” I asked. Granted, I could have done that from the start, but I figured marching in here and immediately whipping out some magic might have been taken the wrong way.
Politely introducing myself and providing whatever form of identification was subsequently asked for had worked out just fine so far … but it seemed that streak of what apparently just been good luck seemed to have come to an end.
At least based on the man’s exaggerated eye-roll, loud sigh, and generally hostile attitude.
Because I had a sinking feeling that the man before had already made up his mind. Not the first time I’d seen that in people who doubtlessly dealt with entitled jackasses all day.
Like that one time, ten years ago, at the airport when our plane had been delayed, so we’d sprinted for the connecting flight, a domestic one, and reached passport control very early. Before the announcement had gone out that people with our flight would be let ahead in consideration of the delay and that we needed to reach follow-up planes.
But when we’d backtracked, the lady controlling the line had literally screamed “Step back, Sir” at Dad, then repeated the line at the same earsplitting volume when he’d tried to explain, and again when he tried to show our boarding passes.
I understood that people in such a position dealt with individuals who insisted on receiving things they were absolutely not entitled to could be frustrated, and might have a bit of a short fuse after the dozenth, let alone hundredth, such exchange … but they still had a job to do. And customers who were yet to earn themselves a tongue-lashing.
Understandable, but not excuseable.
I even scanned the man with [Piercing Gaze], on the off chance that he was some corrupt official meant to keep out certain people his “superiors” did not want the US to deal with. But no, as far as I could tell, he was simply in “fight mode” the very instant he saw an excuse. Oh, the temptation to summon a fireball, not even throw it, just hold it and show the man who he was messing with …
Yet blowing up would get me precisely nowhere either, it would just prove this guy “right” and make him stonewall me even harder.
“I believe your ID would suffice for now,” a voice from behind me stated, and I turned to see a woman in a formal, expensive-looking, pantsuit standing there. Her nametag said “Jones.”
“And a statement that you aren’t pretending to be anyone else, of course,” she added.
“I can do that,” I replied, reaching into the empty air and withdrawing my wallet, then retrieving my Personalausweis. Then, as I handed it over, I made several statements.
“My name is Tristan Vogt. That is my ID, officially created and given to me by the Federal Republic of Germany. I do not claim any office of authority not granted to me by those in a moral and legal position to do so. I’m not shapeshifting or in disguise. And I am here in an official capacity.”
I hesitated for a couple of seconds before adding “Do you need anything else?”
If me simply saying “I’m me” was enough for her, Jones had to have some degree of truth-telling ability. Granted, I had no idea how it worked, but I guessed that blunt statements, clearly separated, would likely give the least opportunity for double-speak or general misunderstandings.
I was also rather surprised at the fact that such a fantastical ability was so readily used, but then again, it was likely only used to counter the equally fantastical risk of shapeshifting or the like.
Jones stifled a chuckle as she handed back my ID. Apparently, I’d overdone it.
“Follow me, please,” she said. “Ambassador Smith will see you in around fifteen minutes, I’m afraid your visit caught us by surprise.”
“Well, that is my fault, I didn’t call ahead. I didn’t even know I’d be visiting the embassy in Ulaanbaatar up until half an hour ago.”
“Why are you here?” Jones wondered. “This particular embassy, I mean. We were hoping you’d contact us in Berlin, maybe Prague or Vienna, they are the ones set to conduct talks with the Ancients …”
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“Time and new information,” I shrugged. “That’s why I’m in Mongolia, and the limitations on my travel Skill make it so that it’s easier to visit the embassy here.”
“Here we are,” Jones said, gesturing to a large door at the end of a long corridor, with a single chair on the side, opposite a window, for visitors to sit on. “The Ambassador will be with you in fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you,” I said, sat down, and pulled a book from the empty air.
Honestly, if this meeting was important enough that the embassies that I was expected to have shown up in had gotten briefings, I doubted the ambassador was busy, it was far more likely that he was getting a last-minute emergency briefing. Or making me wait was a power play, but that was less likely.
As for why this was the first I was hearing of this, considering chances were overtures had been made, well, that was only partially my fault. Charlemagne handled all logistics, which included the mail, and whatever had reached him clearly hadn’t been deemed necessary enough to pass along.
If it was the latter, joke’s on them. Because the book I’d pulled out wasn’t just a spellbook, but a part of a little magic trick in and of itself, as I cast [Lesser Visual Illusion] to create a veil of blurriness and Futhark runes that made the whole affair look far more impressive than a simple set of bound pages that Fionn had thrown ink on.
You wanna show me that you can keep me waiting for a quarter of an hour? Well, I have magic.
And if there was a legitimate reason? Well, I still have magic, and demonstrating that power should strengthen my negotiating position. Eh … not strengthen, but rather demonstrate and drive home the position I already had as the representative of Dietrich, Charlemagne, and the Fianna.
Besides, learning magic was as good a way as any to pass the time. Specifically, I was attempting to master [Gust], to gain control of the wind so I’d eventually be able to better control [Century Storm], when I could finally cast it.
***
I did wind up having to wait around fifteen for my meeting, which put another check in the “actually busy” column, which was nice. Because petty power games would not have been a good start to what would hopefully be a fruitful, or at the very least amicable, relationship.
So when Jones returned, I rose, carefully timing that, the removal of the illusion and the storage of the book to coincide neatly, making it look smooth and natural so the illusion wasn’t revealed.
“Ambassador Vogt, Ambassador Smith is available now,” she said and gestured at the now-open door. So I entered to a sight that was honestly quite familiar to me by now, the office of a high-ranking official.
They never looked the same in terms of actual, well, appearance, but they were always variations on a theme. An “I love me” wall of diplomas and certifications, pictures of spouses, children, or families in general, some kind of “national” paraphernalia as a reminder of where they came from/were, and so on.
As for the man himself, well, Smith was a white guy, average height, dark brown hair, as fit as someone with a demanding desk job could be. Not exactly what I’d imagine based on “career bureaucrat,” but nothing particularly out of the ordinary either.
“Welcome, Ambassador,” he said, stepping out from behind his desk.
“You know, you caught us all by surprise by showing up here,” he added as we shook hands.
“I tried making a proper schedule a few times. Haven’t had one survive past lunch,” I responded with a wry grin.
“I guess you have to be pretty busy,” Jones commented as he sat back down in a chair next to a low tea table, while gesturing at me to take the other one. And only a few seconds later, a side door opened to let in a man carrying a tray with what looked to be coffee, tea, and a few biscuits. Or were those “cookies?” I knew there was a difference between American and British English there, I just had no earthly idea what.
“Coffee, tea?” the man offered.
I just wound up taking a black coffee, which would likely wind up staying on the table until it got cold beyond my first sip, while Jones got a very specific mixture of tea, sugar, and milk that spoke of long-practiced ritual,something he drank often, perhaps even every day.
“So, may I ask what prompted this meeting?” Jones finally asked.
“We, and by that I mean, Arthur Pendragon, figured out the likely meaning behind ‘opening this world to the enlightened universe’ part of the System’s first message. At least one other intelligent species is out there, and its first reaction to seeing a human was aggression. Obviously, that doesn’t have to be representative of the species as a whole, but …”
Jones sighed. “The Council of Ancients is afraid that this might not end after a year.”
“The Council?” I asked. I’d literally heard the capital letters there.
Jones blanched ever so slightly.
“That’s not what you call yourselves, is it?”
I shook my head, having succeeded in keeping the smirk off my face.
“Regardless, I represent Charlemagne, the Fianna, and Dietrich von Bern, though Arthur Pendragon and Joseph, the Golem of Prague will usually assist in major disasters alongside them. And I’m here to lay the basis for defending ourselves against potential otherworldly invasions. Because at the end of the day, that’s an issue that transcends nationality.”
“Of course,” Jones nodded. “So, what exactly are you offering, and asking for.”
“Nation Bosses have ways to counter modern weapons, potentially including nuclear attacks,” I said. “Should one appear in the United States, I am offering help dealing with that, unless there is not a second one rampaging through Europe or Mongolia.”
“And would you like in return, in general terms?” Jones asked.
“Generally? Three things, mainly. Overall support, export licenses for certain military goods that neither I nor Emperor Charlemagne is authorized to purchase at the moment, and, if possible, some kind of legal statement that I can use my teleportation to enter the United States, rather than having to go through customs every time.”
I mean, I could just ignore customs the way I did in Mongolia but I figured since I had the chance to do it right, I’d do that. Asking for permission was a small concession in the grand scheme of things, and might put us in a more amiable relationship.
After a long moment, I added “Actually, I do have a current travel authorization, I just doubt that randomly teleporting into an airport’s immigration area would be taken particularly well.”
Jones sniggered. “Yes … that would likely cause quite the mess. It should be easy enough to arrange for some kind of waiver to be created for you, and, perhaps, any ancients you might wish to take along?”
I nodded. “That would be appreciated.”
“And what kinds of military hardware would you like to buy?” Jones asked.
“Information, actually,” I replied. “Blueprints, to be specific. There is a Skill in play that could make great use of them, and we’re preparing to face the fourth challenge.”
Jones winced. “Once again, that should be possible, though I doubt you’ll have much luck convincing anyone to part with proprietary information.”
“That’s my problem,” I shrugged. “What I can’t do is make those purchases legally, yet.”
That’s when things got down to the nitty gritty, the meat of the matter. It was a rather novel experience, normally, I dealt in handshake deals. This was my first complete and complex modern treaty, though between [Legal Grounding] telling me about all relevant laws and [Walking Encyclopedia] ensuring I had the general background surrounding all this, including a surprisingly in-depth look at the American military-industrial complex, and what they offered.
I knew I wouldn’t retain that wealth of information once this conversation ended, but hopefully, mental notes on which companies I should talk to would stick with me.
Also, I could tell that Jones was a little thrown by the fact that I was as comfortable with the legal side of things as I was, and to be honest, the same went for me. But I had a Skill enforcing my poker face.
Of course, relying on magical crutches likely wouldn’t build me up too well in the long term, someone like Jones, who had most of that information properly memorized and internally would be better, but right now, I had the magic, he didn’t.
I had every treaty, every precedent, every law memorized, he didn’t.
And I had [Shifting Point of View] to let me easily know what he was going for, and what he was thinking, while he just had experience to judge me with.
Which was useful too, of course, but I still had my magic.
So things went decently well, overall, until we reached the topic of spellbooks.
“And what would it take to receive access to your magical teachings?” Jones finally asked.
Yeah, I didn’t even need [Will of the Sovereign] to know that Fionn wouldn’t be cool with that. He’d want to meet each and every person who’d be receiving that information. Though it was all besides the point, as he’d told me to check in with him before handing out magic anyway.
“I’m afraid that is not within my authority to grant,” I said. “You would have to take that up with Fionn Mac Cumail.”
“I …” Jones paused for a moment, clearly unsure, before he finally finished. “How would we address him? There are multiple conflicting reports.”
“‘Fionn’ is a title, so it’s acceptable to use as a form of address, though the full ‘Fionn Mac Cumail’ should be used for the initial introduction,” I replied, then kept going through a list of all other ancients and their official forms of address. Like Charlemagne, whose most commonly used “name” was very much a bastardization of what he was actually called, Karl der Große, Emperor of the Untersberg, at least for now.
Eventually, we were done, a treaty was signed, and I headed out to get some food before my next shot at a meeting with Mongolia’s leader.
***
I wound up back outside the Governmental Palace just in time to get a call on my phone informing me that Genghis Khan, being a head of state, was still busy. But my patience was appreciated …
By now, I was seriously regretting having told Sarangeral that this wasn’t urgent, that I just needed to see Genghis Khan today, but had time to spare. I’d been trying to be polite, to avoid throwing everyone else’s plans and schedules out of whack, but this was taking so much longer than I’d expected. And at some point, the time spent waiting here was starting to eat into the time I’d been planning to spend in America.
Well, actually, Washington DC was thirteen hours behind Ulaanbaatar, so I could leave here at midnight and still arrive at a reasonable hour for meetings, however, at that point, the limiting factor wasn’t the local time, but me and my ability to stay awake.
After all, my back still hurt from falling asleep in the library, and my sleep schedule in general was completely out of whack. Adding actual sleep deprivation on top of that sure as shit wouldn’t be an improvement.
I was also seriously debating just teleporting back to the Untersberg and only returning to Mongolia when I had a confirmed meeting, but decided against it. Because it would have used up all four of my teleport charges for the day, including the one I’d need to turn in for the night, and that would simply be too much of a waste, all things considered.
In the end, though, I just asked for a chair to plant my ass in, and pulled my spellbook back out. Though this time, I relied on [Sensitive Discussions] to obfuscate the writings within, rather than resorting to pageantry. After all, I had promised Fionn not to share it without his permission.
Though eventually, the doors opened and Genghis Khan himself walked out, looking at me with a raised eyebrow.
“Have you been out here the entire day?” he wondered.
I shook my head. “I dropped in a couple of times, but I spent the day productively.”
“Come in,” he announced, then marched back into his office without even waiting to see if I followed, which I, of course, did.
Inside, I gave him a far more thorough explanation of what Arthur had found, the history of Fomorians as Fionn had passed it along, and so on.
In the end, he just shrugged.
“Thank you for bringing that to my attention, but it does not change anything. We have an alliance, and when the ‘Fomorians’ prove themselves troublesome, we will handle them, simple as that. Now, unless you have anything more you wish to discuss …”
“No, thank you, have a nice evening,” I said, inclining my head briefly, then I turned and left.
[Myth(ical) Mediator Lv. 34 -> Myth(ical) Mediator Lv. 35]
[Capstone Skill gained: Binding Agreement]
Wait, that had earned me a Level? I didn’t even do anything … actually, in hindsight, the Jones negotiation had likely gotten me most of the way there.
Anyway, new Skill, was it as good as it sounded?
Capstone Skill: Binding Agreement
You gain the ability to forge binding agreements, all agreements must benefit all involved parties and must be fully understood in order to take effect. The spirit of the agreement will be what counts, if it is understood by both.
This Skill gains one of the following every 10 Levels:
- Ability to trade an “intangible”
- Ability to define a single specific idea so that it will be understood what you mean by it by all parties in all future negotiations (ex: shared understanding of “politeness,” full definition of the meaning and limits of “mutual aid,” etc.)
Of course, it failed to say how it would be binding, but it should be provable via experimentation.
As for the additions, I actually had a few ideas. First, there was the idea of being able to trade “magic.” It would remain to be seen how that would actually work in practice, but I hoped it might allow for the transference of magical potential between people.
For example, if we could transfer the potential from someone who didn’t want to or couldn’t stand on the frontlines to someone who would, that could revolutionize things for us. And if we could divide someone’s potential, and give a bunch of people a small “spark” of magic they could grow by leveling up the right Class … oh, game-changer.
My next two choices were much more basic, I chose to fully define Peaceful Coexistence and Good Faith. Being able to encapsulate those ideas in words without having to write multiple-page definitions would make things much easier.
It was a bit lazy, perhaps, but it was the choice I made.
And once that was done, my first impulse was to turn around, march into Genghis Khan’s office and ask him to make our deal “official,” but I squashed that idea almost as soon as I had it. Because he might actually kill me if I did that, seeing as “magically prove you’ll keep your word” was just another way of saying “I don’t trust you to keep your word normally.”
Sure, if I’d had that Skill during the first negotiations, he’d likely have been alright with me using it, but walking back in there after the fact … not a good idea.
I also had the impulse to go back to Jones, but honestly, I had a full, legal, treaty with the US. If someone decided to mess with me, I could eviscerate them in the legal arena unless this happened at some point in the far future, where everyone else had had a chance to catch up in levels.
Besides, I’d gotten most of what I needed already, that being a free pass to teleport in and walk back out with purchases no regular civilian, certainly not a foreign civilian, should be able to make.
So, teleport to the Untersberg, check in with Charlemagne to get a final list of what I needed to buy in America, schedule some actual meetings, and then teleport to Washington DC for said meetings once they rolled around.
And between all of that, properly make alliances with anyone I could.
Russia and China might not work, considering with how I’d already aligned us with America, but we’d been aligned with Mongolia before that, which would likely not have been compatible with allying with China, and if China wasn’t available, then the US was definitely a better choice than Russia.
Anyway, I had plenty to do, and plenty more things that could easily crop up and pile even more onto my plate.
But I’d deal, just as I had so far.