Edna looked up at a magical projection, a chart filled with text and pictures. The faces and names of all the most influential members of Lloyd’s high society.
With profiles connected by arrows and lines and annotations, to show the relationships between the groups.
It populated itself, and updated as Billy’s scrying spell, picked up or more and more, useful little tidbits. Adding scrollable pages of information, that would appear if she focused on any of the names on her chart.
She stood in the office of the Bone Tree Company’s Lloyd offices mulling over her next move.
She’d just had the meeting that would be followed by yet another meeting that would ultimately decide the fate of Lloyd, and answer the question of what the Bone Tree Company’s position in Lloyd would be from here on out.
One possibility entailed the immediate end of the contract between Lloyd and the Bone Tree Company.
The other possibility would result in the Lloyd’s complete adoption of the Bone Tree Company as a full governmental entity, sitting somewhere between a national guild, special branch of their house of lords, and a semi-independent wing of their military.
Meetings like today’s always took a lot out of her, it was just talking things over, yet somehow she always left the room feeling exhausted.
Maybe it was because while she was fairly well suited to things like public relations and the work of a company rep, she herself, was actually not that much a people person.
Smiling till it hurt, making tedious small talk, trading compliments and secrets and invitations to social events that she’d go to for the sake of making nice.
A lot of her job was based in building connections where none existed and then grounding them like they weren’t just things made of empty air, it was actually quite hard for her.
She’d have pushed it onto the other two if she could, but Billy was well...Billy and Elena was too unpredictable and prone to violence to be trusted with the task.
Edna was already considering asking Jermaine if he’d recommend one of ‘his’ people for her to groom as a junior member of the executive staff. But there was also the possibility of pulling one Billy’s students into the role.
She’d briefly considered the dark haired one, Tamra, but somehow the girl seemed like a middle ground between Billy and Elena, which on paper was quite frankly terrifying.
The other girl, Alessa looked like she’d be a better option. She seemed like she had the kind of quick wit, attention to detail and demeanor required to represent the factory.
She was a bit tall yes, and very shy, but if Edna could learn to move past her own extreme anthrophobic tendencies, both before and after the death of her family, she was sure the girl could do the same.
Now when she was finally alone again, She felt like she’d been banging her head against a wall. She was pretty sure the company would come out on top, but she wanted to be certain.
She used a mental command and made the chart change, altering the colors for the profiles of all the individuals who were either already in the Bone Tree Company’s camp, or thoroughly under their thumb.
Edna gazed up at the modified projection. More than half of the chart was colored Blue now, but there were still countless names that had remained Yellow. She sighed, unsure whether to be happy or concerned.
The door to her office creaked open, she turned around and saw Cindi, whom she had on loan from Jermaine. As always the woman’s curly red hair was tied back into a bun that was every inch as neat and orderly as the woman’s mind seemed to be.
“Mhm...Yes? Is something the matter?” said Edna.
“A Master Maynard is here to see you, ma’am.” said Cindi.
Edna frowned, as it took her a second to pull today’s schedule from the poorly organized tangle of dates and appointments in her head.
“Oh, right. Please tell him I’ll be with him in a minute.” said Edna.
The secretary bobbed her head and let herself out. Edna perused the chart for one last time, still wondering if her plan of action was the right one to take, or not.
*****
Enzo Maynard waited in an office that had been set up to look more like a tea room. Complete with comfortable leather furniture, and a tea service that had something that smelled positively divine brewing inside of it.
“Ah…Thank you for coming all the way here.” said a voice, that was light and chipper and cold all at the same time.
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Enzo opened his eyes, realizing that he’d been dozing. Becoming slightly startled because he’d normally would never have let his guard down like that. Having Darlene around him all day, every day, was enough to make ‘anyone’ learn to constantly be on watch.
He should have felt ill at ease because of what just happened, but somehow the entire room and the couch he was seated in were just too comfortable for such troublesome lines of thought.
So he simply just nodded, smiling sleepily, whilst quietly reminding himself to extra vigilant. These people were friends, or the very least they’d been proven to be good allies, but there was no need to be careless.
“Glad to be here. I just happened to be in the area, so it was no trouble at all.” said Enzo.
“Oh, that’s good. So long as it wasn’t an inconvenience.” said Edna.
Enzo blandly admired her smile, noting how very bright and detached it was, like a star in the sky. Pretty but distant. He tutted. The information his people had on the Bone Tree Company said that the woman in front of him was currently attached to the company’s head of product development and design.
A pity, because Enzo had always had a feeling that two of them, him and her, would have made a good pair. The girl reminded him of Darlene, if Darlene weren’t quite so overtly threatening and so infinitely close to being something of a mother to him.
“T’was no inconvenience at all, Ms. Maddoc.”
Enzo smiled and Edna of course returned it and they shared a moment of amiable silence. Edna got up and fixed the two of them, two cups of tea. Enzo took a sip of his and was literally shaken. His eyes widening.
“Damn good tea, that!.”
“Why thank you, Mister Maynard.” said Edna.
“Now as for why I asked you here. I’m sure you’re aware of our operations in Lloyd and Albrecht-...”said Edna.
Enzo interrupted her.
“Actually, while I have the rough idea, I wouldn’t mind having you clear a few things up on that.”
Edna simply nodded, with the indulgence and patience of a nun at Sunday school.
“Of course, Mister Maynard. What did you want to know?”
“Well ultimately I was wondering what the end goal for this little venture is. Is this just another job? Or are you seriously trying to entrench yourself in both Great Kingdoms?” said Enzo.
The question wasn’t from him. It was from the EITC’s higher officers and various heads of the Maynard family.
There was a fair amount of interest from those who wanted to know just how ‘hungry’ the Bone Tree Company still was, now that it was the main producer of Magic items and the ultimate head for Most Magical Consortiums, Companies, Schools, Sects and Enclaves for most of Monde.
Having taken over that role after their defeat of the Seven Sons Council.
“ Admittedly the a continuation of the current arrangements for our Lloyd and Albrecht divisions would be ideal. But it’s nothing impossible, we’ve just run into a logger heads with some portions of the royalist factions and nobility of the two territories and want to peacefully resolve the issue.” said Edna.
Enzo’s brow rose.
“You mean like how the folk in your Garland resolved the issue with their royals?” said Enzo.
Edna chuckled.
“Oh heavens, no. My, Mister Maynard, just who do you think we are, here? No, we’d just like to come to a simple understanding, and an agreement that would be to both our company’s and the two great kingdoms’ mutual benefit.” said Edna.
Enzo eyed the girl and shivered, glad that he and his had taken advantage of the chance to grab on to the group’s coattails while they slightly less monstrous.
“Hm...And I assume there’s some way my family and I could help with that.” said Enzo.
Edna laughed, and took a sip of her tea.
“You assume correctly, Mister Maynard.”