--- Davak Goront, Coros representative ---

Davak Goront had it made. The orc was only in his forties, and was already regional manager of Coros operations for all of East Oruk. He sat at his imported mahogany desk, reading through his subordinate's report. It was early in the morning, and he was about to deal with a difficult but very promising client.

Not many people really understood how the Coros worked. It was too abstract. The way he liked to think of it, his organization sold trust. Trust was what allowed society to function. Trust that others would stay true to their words. Trust that the laws would be upheld. Trust that the laws were good for society.

Trust was not always warranted. Laws were very rarely decided based on the well-being of the population. Police were sometimes lax and sometimes overzealous, based on their own personal leanings. Lawyers lied in court. Traders cut corners, or even failed to provide services entirely when there was no way to prove it. People were hired not based on merit and skill, but out of nepotism. And whenever a person had to ask themselves, "Can I really trust this person?" there was a good chance that they would take their business somewhere else, and both sides would be worse off for it.

When trust broke down, society suffered.

If only there was an easy way to know who was trustworthy, to know who was lying. It had been a pipe dream for many millennia. There had always been an arms race between truth-telling spells on one side, and spells to counteract those spells on the other. Magic had simply never been reliable enough to be useful in practice. And then there was the deeper problem: What if the people who applied the lie-detection spells knew what they were doing, but their client couldn't trust them about it?

Because of these problems, most politicians chose to rely on their instincts, and lie detection spells had actually been illegal in many countries for most of history. They led people wrong more often than they helped.

All of that changed when the Coros were founded. The Coros organization combined recent advances in magic with excellent social skills and game theory. More recently they even started using the help of supernatural creatures with affinities for these matters, such as Lawkeepers. The Coros were not infallible, but their methods were far better than any that had come before. Good enough at any rate that many people were willing to pay immense amounts of money for their services.

When a trader wanted to enter a new market, and make a deal on the scale of entire countries, nothing was more important than reputation. The Coros could provide that reputation, for a price. An official affirmation from the Coros that a trader was trustworthy, and was not planning anything nefarious, could open many doors.

Besides these rare but very lucrative deals, the Coros also offered certificates for individuals, such as guards or mercenaries who wanted to assure a prospective employer that they would not betray them. Having such a certificate allowed a mercenary to charge far more money for their services than normal. Anticipating betrayal was not quite the same as lying, but the Coros knew how to ask the right questions to solve that problem, too.

Davak had started at the bottom, and worked his way up through a mix of talent and dedication. He had long left behind the lower ranks that spent all day casting spells and asking questions, and instead had to manage larger and sometimes more experimental projects.

Experimental projects such as the one whose report he had in front of him right now: The project to hire fey as mercenaries had proven a success.

It had come about by sheer luck. A powerful hag named Silent Martha had approached an outlying village to ask for work. She claimed she wanted to be an adventurer, of all things. Naturally, people had panicked. Silent Martha had a reputation, and they thought it was a trap. Northpass was alerted and help was requested. When he caught wind of it, he took the opportunity and contacted the hag.

The fey were dangerous and chaotic, that much was true. But not many people knew what he as a trader understood very well: The values of the fey were not opposed to the values of humanoids, but orthogonal to them. This meant that it was extremely likely that there would be some set of actions that would be mutually beneficial for both fey and humanoids. This was the basis of all great trade deals. The extreme differences between outsiders and humanoids made any trade more lucrative.

The CEO had explained this concept a few years ago, and Davak had immediately been convinced of its brilliance. The more different a supernatural creature was, the greater were the potential gains from a successful cooperation with them.

The prime example for this was the CEO's own initial deal with a lord of the plane of air. It turned out that many common building materials were very rare on the plane of air, so it was possible to literally pay them in dirt. In exchange, the planar lord provided a resource that was equally worthless to him: Vast quantities of electricity. The end result was a tiny planar gate that was used as a cheap source of energy. It was basically a powerplant that used dirt as fuel.

Electricity was not as useful as mana, of course, and many people decried it as a fad because of this. Why build a light bulb, when mage lights were cheaper to create? But Davak trusted the scientists on these matters, and they claimed that electricity had numerous advantages over mana and could be very useful once the technology was more mature.

The profit margin on these sorts of projects was absurd, and Davak was not going to let such amazing opportunities slip through his fingers. That was why he had tasked his most competent subordinates with handling Silent Martha, and he had even taken an active role in the project himself. She was not the first supernatural creature he had bargained with, nor even the first fey. But the promise of employing her as a mercenary was much more direct and permanent than cooperation with supernatural creatures normally was. Often, all he got out of a bargain was a single promise of aid to be performed once, with many restrictions on when and how he could call the favor in.

Talking to Silent Martha had been an interesting experience.

Hags came into existence through negative emotions and experiences of mortals, and had a strong drive to perpetuate the feelings that created them. Silent Martha was 290 years old, and had formed shortly after the Cataclysm. She was born by the collapse of civilization. As a result, her primary motivation was to weaken and destroy civilization further. She embodied the spirit of "everybody for themselves" that had risen after the Cataclysm, when social services and structures broke down, and people had to learn to survive on their own.

Davak had expected that this would make it somewhat complicated for him to find common ground with her. After all, her very being was essentially the antithesis of the values the Coros were founded on.

He had been very pleasantly surprised to find out that Silent Martha had apparently channeled her sociopathic nature in very unexpected directions.

She claimed she was interested in "The Power of Friendship".

According to her, the "True Meaning of Friendship" was to care more for the well being of a chosen few than for the well being of everyone else.

She went on to describe friendship as a cancer eating away at society, and as an insidious poison that kills its host even while being lauded as a cure. She said that she would not have been able to come up with as horrible an affliction for civilization as friendship if she had tried.

It had been kind of difficult to follow Silent Martha's rant. As best as he and his subordinates could figure it out, what she meant was basically that friendship encouraged tribalism. It made a twisted sort of sense. Every time a person acts to help a friend, they are prioritizing their personal relations over their wider social obligations. A person who lies to the police on behalf of a friend undermines social norms by doing so, and yet most people would approve of such an act. There even was an insult for people who would help authority to the detriment of a personal acquaintance: A snitch.

Many cities and villages had become much more isolated since the Cataclysm, and it was well-known that villagers tended to have much closer bonds of friendship with each other than the inhabitants of large cities did. This made society work less efficiently. Employers in cities tended to hire people based on skill, while employers in villages often hired close friends, or friends of existing employees, regardless of qualifications.

Nepotism was a good point of comparison. It was a perfect example of people who prioritized personal relations over social norms. People generally agreed that nepotism was bad, and it seemed that Silent Martha viewed friendship in the same way.

In a very abstract way, Davak supposed he understood how one could see friendship as something that weakened society, although in his opinion the hag had been overly dramatic in her description, even for a fey. Many of his subordinates had been quite disturbed by this discussion, but he had found it interesting and enjoyable. Being able to understand different viewpoints was a very important skill for a trader, and hearing a fey discuss her thoughts was very illuminating. Xeno-psychology was such a fascinating topic.

One of the practical consequences of Silent Martha's interest in friendship was that she had acquired a coven.

This was as unusual as it was concerning. Covens were much more powerful than individual hags, and discovering that someone as dangerous as Silent Martha was now the leader of a coven had been no small cause for alarm in the Interim Council. The military had tried to kill Silent Martha pretty much since her creation, but hags were notoriously difficult to find, and they often had ways to come back from the dead. Sometimes they left behind powerful curses on death that discouraged adventurers from hunting them down. As a result, killing them permanently was exceedingly difficult. Now that she was part of a coven, the danger she posed had increased drastically.

It had taken all of his considerable skill for negotiation to get the government to agree to a truce. The bounty on all three members of the coven would be temporarily put on hold, so long as the hags refrained from breaking the law. Several trusted soldiers, all of them with Coros certification, were dispatched to keep an eye on the hags and ensure they behaved themselves. Surprisingly, the hags had no problem with this.

Hag covens were usually composed of hags with similar nature and background. A mixed group like the coven Silent Martha had founded was quite unusual. And it was clear that the Despoiler had founded it. There was no bickering in this group, and no fight for dominance. Both of the other two members understood very well that Silent Martha was the most powerful of them by far, and that she only wanted a coven because of her belief in the Power of Friendship.

One of his subordinates had reported that the brutish hag Esther had once openly threatened Agatha, the third and last member of the coven. In response, Silent Martha had stated quite matter of factly that this was not a thing that friends did to each other, and if Esther proved to be such a poor friend, then Martha herself saw no reason to treat her as a friend either. Esther had immediately apologized to Agatha and promised to do better.

Esther was by far the easiest of the three for his people to read. She was barely four decades old, and was born of brutish violence. It was believed that she came into existence because of a rather infamous bandit group that was active at the time. They had been far more brutal than most bandits. The government had taken a while to figure out who held jurisdiction, but when it finally did, they called on the Black Legion to make examples of the bandits. The resulting violence gave birth to Esther, who had no subtlety in her at all and preferred to kill by brute force.

Agatha, by contrast, was over seven hundred years old and was quite typical for a hag. Her origins could not be traced back to any single particular event. Sometimes the feywild just gave birth to creatures like her once enough negativity had accumulated over time. At least that was what his experts told him. While she was more than twice as old as Silent Martha, she was far less powerful, and both of them knew it.

Silent Martha also had other quirks and eccentricities besides her interest in friendship. She claimed to have switched to a vegetarian diet, and had convinced the other members of her coven to do the same. Davak was normally a rather emotionless man, but he had almost started laughing when he first saw Esther visibly force herself to eat a piece of tofu. It was obvious even to a child that she was pretending to enjoy it, because she did not want to insult Silent Martha.

Unfortunately, Silent Martha had refused to explain why she had changed her diet, evading the question until it was clear to the fey experts that probing further could only lead to problems. Her vegetarianism was obviously a good thing, of course. The Interim Council would never have agreed to a truce if the hags still ate people, as they usually did. And yet, figuring out what had prompted this change would be incredibly valuable. With luck, it could enable them to induce the same behavior in other fey.

But the most interesting of Silent Martha's quirks was something else: Her strange obsession with books.

She was frequently seen reading the comic book "Magical Girls Sugar Explosion Squad" and its sequel "Magical Girls Sugar Explosion Squad II: Ultimate Diabetes". They had no idea why, but it was clear from the hag's behavior that she cared deeply about these books. They asked her why she read them, but she just claimed it was "beyond your understanding".

He was about ninety percent sure she was just messing with them. But that still meant a ten percent chance that this comic book held the secret to Silent Martha's strange behavior.

One of his agents bought a few copies of the series for research, and excitedly reported that the book had the concept of friendship as its primary theme. Additionally, one of the side characters was a vegetarian. This changed everything. If they understood the reasons for Silent Martha's interest in these books, it might shed light on why she believed in the power of friendship and why she chose to be vegetarian. This strange book might be the key to explain the hag's odd behavior.

When he realized this, he immediately bought the studio that produced the series. It was no small expense, but the budget the Coros CEO had allotted to their warlock projects was larger than the military budget of most small countries. For good reason, too: Some supernatural creatures were more powerful than a small country.

The Coros had the distinction of being the only organization on the planet that could literally pay the host of heaven to summon an angel to Hyd. The angels asked for acts of kindness as payment, which was a currency that most governments and corporations did not really know how to provide. But the Coros CEO had optimized around that, and designed a cost efficient way to fund welfare projects and charities to the greatest effect. Since they were charities, they were even tax deductible!

Davak had been in board meetings where phrases such as "gold to miracle exchange ratio" and "cost of angelic presence per minute and square meter" were used. Unfortunately, angels were bound by exceedingly complicated rules of non-interference and were even forbidden from revealing their own preferences in detail, for unclear reasons. This made it quite difficult to trade with them. Even priests frequently failed to gain the attention of angels, as their own views and biases on what moral behavior should be like prevented them from figuring out what the angels actually wanted. But what was practically impossible for normal people to understand was merely difficult for the Coros, whose xeno-psychologists had made great progress in understanding the way angels thought.

Compared to expenses like these, buying the studio behind the "Magical Girls Sugar Explosion Squad" series was a trifle. Unfortunately, it turned out that the series was a long-running classic that had stopped being produced when its original author died of old age fifteen years ago. The studio did not actually have an expert on the topic anymore. Still, having creative control over the series' plotlines might help them influence the hag's behavior in the future.

That was when Davak got lucky, and he randomly overheard one of his organization's interns talk about the book at the water cooler. It turned out she was a huge fan of the series, had read every issue of it, and even wrote fanfiction for it. It was an enormous stroke of luck. Here was a subject matter expert, already working for them. As an intern, she already knew how the Coros functioned and had undergone all the routine lie detection spells, and signed magically binding non-disclosure agreements.

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So Davak interviewed her. She was very enthusiastic and happy to talk about her hobby at first, but after an hour of questioning it finally sank in that this was not fun and games. Powerful hags did not start reading comic books for no reason. Understanding the source of Silent Martha's interest could be worth a lot of money, and might even save many lives.

He reassigned the intern to a new task: To understand what could motivate Silent Martha to show such an interest in this comic book. She was to study and report on the Power of Friendship, especially as it related to sociopathic fey that were born by the collapse of civilization.

Understanding the nature of the fey was a task that was far beyond the paygrade of an intern, but sometimes you just got lucky and people happened to have exactly the knowledge they needed to get a job done. If she actually found anything, it would do wonders for her career. To drive home the importance of her new task, he even raised her pay to be commensurate with other domain experts.

He reviewed all of these things in his mind as he read his subordinate's report on the hags' first mission as adventurers.

They had been sent to find and eliminate a nest of vampires, and according to witness statements the mission had been a complete success.

It had been difficult to find a suitable mission for the hags. Silent Martha would only accept tasks that were selfish in nature, and related to the downfall of society. Fortunately, killing vampires qualified for this.

Vampires were one of the many horrifying creations of the Living City. The place mind controlled people into worshiping it. It turned people into mindless drones that worked only to enrich the Living City, and went to war against other countries in order to spread its influence. Vampires were created with a deep connection to the city, and therefore shared both a natural affinity for mind control, and for hierarchical organization. Even a vampire who claimed to be good, and even genuinely believed it, was most likely just a sleeper agent of the Living City.

The Coros had procedures for working with fey, with devils, and even with demons. But talking to vampires or any other creations of the Living City would be a step too far. These beings were nobody's allies, and could not be reasoned with. The Living City had proved time and time again that its ability to subtly manipulate and control people was far too great to risk exposing anyone to it, even indirectly. Fortunately, historical evidence showed that supernatural creatures such as fey were far more difficult for the Living City to corrupt.

Silent Martha shared their hatred of the Living City, even if her reasoning was quite different. In her mind, the Living City was the epitome of civilization. A single organism that controlled an entire population with perfect efficiency. As the embodiment of the fall of civilization, she therefore considered the Living City her greatest enemy. Meanwhile, Esther and Agatha were motivated by more base emotions, and they enjoyed the suffering of vampires and vampire spawn just as much as the suffering of mortals.

Eliminating a nest of vampires was a very difficult task. They were very dangerous in a fight, but that was not their greatest strength. The Living City was intelligent and magically powerful to the point that it bordered on precognition. It would maneuver its subjects with such skill that they could easily evade most attempts to track them down.

But as powerful as the Living City was, it could only spare a fraction of its mind for each of its servants, and hags were quite adept at subterfuge themselves.

The coven had managed to track down the vampires much more quickly than mortal adventurers could have been expected to, and they had struck during the day, when the vampires were weak. The three hags had made short work of the abominations.

All in all, his subordinate's report suggested that the operation had been a complete success.

What a great way to start the day.

The only thing left for the Coros to do was to pay the hags for services rendered, and to debrief them. However, Silent Martha had demanded to speak with him in person, and the project was important enough that he saw no alternative but to agree to it and make room in his busy schedule to meet with her. He was a little nervous about what the meeting might be about. Everything had gone splendidly so far, so it was about time for the other shoe to drop, and for the fey to reveal some horrible surprise. It was not paranoia when they really were out to get you.

As if on cue, his subordinate knocked on his office door and announced the coven's arrival.

Two old women and one giant monstrosity in the vague shape of a woman entered his office.

"I applaud you on your successful mission." He began. "Please, have a seat, and something to drink."

He offered them wine. It was not very old, nor did it taste special, but this particular vintage had been harvested under quite dramatic circumstances, and his experts believed that this would resonate well with the hags, who could somehow perceive this.

Their reaction to the offer was gracious. He was careful to note that one of their responses was part of a custom of the fey, and he responded to it to the best of his ability. This seemed to please the hags. Such things were always risky, as these customs had far too many exceptions and special cases that mortals did not understand.

He was alone in his office with three powerful fey, but he was not concerned. He knew how strong they were, and that bodyguards would not really make a difference. A lack of bodyguards on the other hand sent a message that he expected beings as shrewd as these to understand: Davak's power did not lie in his physical strength. He did not need protection, because any act of aggression against him would be repaid a hundredfold. The important part was that he was warded against mind control through the items he wore.

At least that was the idea. It occurred to him that he might have made a miscalculation there, when Esther's enormous hand suddenly reached over the table and engulfed his entire head. If she squeezed, his head would pop like a fruit.

"I have decided to alter our deal, Mr. Goront." Silent Martha said in an amicable tone of voice, as if her companion wasn't obviously threatening his life.

"The original agreement specified a tax to be paid to the state of Oruk. Taxation is a part of civilization, and I will have no part in it."

"It appears that hatred of taxes is truly a universal experience then." He responded without hesitation. "It unites both humanoids and fey. What fascinating knowledge."

If they believed they could intimidate him this easily they had another thing coming. He had made deals with devils and came out ahead. Having your head enveloped by an enormous clawed hand might scare a lesser man than him, but he had dealt with worse.

"Let me rephrase the situation then, for your peace of mind." He continued. "Taxation is ultimately a form of oppression of the weak by the powerful. It is a form of tribute paid in exchange for the mere promise of protection. Taxation is not civilization. It is a pure expression of 'might makes right'."

Silent Martha's expression turned thoughtful at that.

He did not actually believe it himself, but that didn't matter so long as it sounded appealing to the hag. Davak actually thought that taxation was a good way to give back to society. He even made a point not to optimize his own personal taxes. He earned much more money than he needed anyway. Of course, he still made sure that the Coros' taxes were highly optimized, and they paid not a copper more than necessary. There was a difference between his personal beliefs and his obligation to his employer.

The pressure on his temple increased as Esther tightened her grip.

"Might makes right, you say." She repeated his words. "How interesting. Then it sounds like you agree."

Despite the pain, he gave her a nonplussed look and said "Let me ask you something. When a band of mortal adventurers arrives at your home uninvited and threatens you with their weapons, are you afraid? Of course not. You know full well that you will come back if they kill you, but your death curse will destroy them. Only a fool would believe that physical superiority means that you are the most dangerous thing in the room."

"Are you calling me a fool?" Esther asked incredulously, and tightened her grip even more. The pain was beginning to get to him, but he ignored it. It was important not to show weakness to beings like these.

"Yes." He replied bluntly. "You are a fool. What do you believe will happen if you kill me?"

That gave the hag pause, and her grip loosened slightly. It was a great relief, but he did not let it show on his face.

"I will tell you what will happen. The Coros live and die by our reputation. We can not back down just because you threaten us, and we certainly can not ignore if you kill one of us. If you murder me, then my superiors will make an example of you."

"We are not like other mortals. We know that you do not fear death. It won't be adventurers coming after you."

He waited a few moments for this to sink in, then asked: "Did you know that the Baron of Frozen Lakes owes us a favor?"

That got a reaction out of all three of them. Esther looked downright terrified. The Baron of Frozen Lakes had a very peculiar interest in ice sculptures that looked extremely life-like. Many of the sculptures were of fey, not mortals. Knowing the fey, it did not take a genius to understand how these sculptures were made.

"Of course, favors like these are valuable." He continued. "We wouldn't want to waste them without need. But if you refuse to follow the terms of our agreement? If you kill me? That will be cause enough."

"And in any case, what do you think will happen to me after you kill me? We have friends in high places. I will not stay dead for long. In the end, the only ones who suffer will be you."

He was mostly sure of this, but not entirely. If his subordinates did not manage to revive him immediately, then it might take a while until reagents for more powerful resurrection spells could be found. It was difficult to predict for how long it was possible to revive a soul before it moved on into the afterlife and resurrection became impossible.

He knew who held the real power in the coven, and so he decided to ignore Esther, and looked at Silent Martha instead.

After several long moments, the hag said "Very well. You have made your point. We concede. Esther, let him go."

Esther did as she was commanded. As the pain disappeared, he again did not allow the relief to show on his face.

He could have stopped there, and be glad that he got away with his life. But he knew that if he left it at this, then there would be a repeat of it later. When dealing with beings like these, used to bullying and pushing others around, it was important to establish dominance.

"I am glad you saw reason." He continued without breaking eye contact with Silent Martha.

"Then there is only one more thing. You just assaulted me. This constitutes a breach of paragraph thirteen, section three of our contract. In recompense, and in accordance with subsection five, I am reducing your pay by half. This is not taxation. It is the tyranny of the strong over the weak. Do you contest this decision?"

Externally, he was calm as he said this. Internally, he was screaming in terror. What if he misread the situation and they did not back down?

The hag said nothing at first, her face unreadable. His eyes were beginning to water from the impromptu staring contest.

At last she said "No. We do not contest it. It is your right to demand this."

"I told you this was a bad idea." Agatha spoke up for the first time, admonishing Esther.

"Now, now." Interrupted Silent Martha. "Esther did suggest it, but we all agreed to it. Friends should stick together, and not blame each other. This is an important lesson on friendship that you would do well to remember."

Agatha gave her an unreadable look, but after a few seconds she nodded and said "It is as you say."

"I apologize." She added, turning to Esther. The words sounded alien, coming from her mouth.

What a fascinating take on friendship, he thought. He really could not wait for more information about this strange comic book that seemed to inspire it all.

After all of this unpleasantness, they continued talking for a while. The mission had been a success, and that meant that future missions could be discussed. Even the Interim Council would be pleased to hear that the hags had resolved a great threat to the land without inflicting any harm on the population.

Davak was pleased to note that they were much nicer during these talks than these hags usually were. It seemed like he had made an impression on them.

As the discussion neared its end, Silent Martha suddenly grew concerned and interrupted their talks.

"I sense someone approaching." She said.

"That must be the nine o'clock meeting. They are a bit early." He responded.

"I recognize one among them." She turned to look at her coven "We are not yet ready to meet her."

Oh, now that sounded intriguing.

But before he could ask for clarification, she turned back to him and said. "We thank you for your hospitality, but we will take our leave now."

And with that, the three hags suddenly disappeared. It was as if they had never been there.

This was part of what had earned Silent Martha her moniker, Davak knew.

Well, at least that gave him a few more minutes to prepare for the meeting. Team Nundru was here for a routine lie detection test, on behalf of the council. His subordinates should have handled this matter already. The only reason he had invited them for a personal talk was because they counted a foreign princess among their number.

The Cursed Lands were full of horrifying monsters. As a result, they were the world's largest exporter of rare alchemical ingredients, harvested from those same monsters. A trade deal with them could be very lucrative. He wanted to take the opportunity to talk to princess Dov Shan. It was a long shot, since she was young and not actually in charge of anything in her kingdom, but if they struck up an accord now then maybe that would be useful later.

But what Silent Martha had just said before she left sounded much more important. Whom had she meant?

As the party entered, he caught the tail end of a conversation as their shaman Rania talked to their leader: "...I'm just disappointed, that's all. I met her at the last convention and she was really fun to talk to. But she told me that she doesn't want to go next time, because Magical Girls now remind her of work. She looked really stressed."

If that was about what he thought it was about, then he would have to talk to the intern later. Of course she should go to a convention on "Magical Girls Sugar Explosion Squad". Talking to other fans might help her with her research. Naturally, the Coros would pay for the trip as a business expense.

This conversation also suggested that Rania was a fan of the book. Could she be connected to Silent Martha in some way?

He moved these thoughts aside for now, and focused on the people in front of him. His subordinate was with them, and he reported that the team had passed all their tests. This sort of thing was a boring routine for him by now, so he mostly just went through the motions and made pleasant small talk.

Unfortunately, his attempts to talk to the princess did not lead anywhere. She flatly stated that she was not responsible for trade, and that he would surely already know whom to contact about it. A little rude, but understandable and unsurprising.

Shortly afterwards, their leader Atrog Rarzug mentioned that they would also like to review Rania's knowledge, claiming that she had important insights beyond those of ordinary shamans. After Silent Martha's comment, and after overhearing that snippet of conversation when they entered the room, Davak was inclined to agree.

He was well aware that most people would not put much trust in anything a shaman said, due to their reputation. As such, he was at a great advantage and could easily impose high fees to verify the veracity of her information. But that was not how the Coros worked. Their entire philosophy was based on trust and on building an impeccable reputation.

And so Davak freely admitted that he had reason to believe that Rania knew more than usual, and that he was happy to help. He refused to explain how he knew, of course. Client confidentiality was extremely important, and the hags were clients of his, even if they had just threatened to kill him less than an hour ago.

The Coros had designed standard protocols for cases like these, where it was unclear how much either side stood to gain from a cooperation.

He told them that he would like his people to interview Rania without the presence of her team, and have her sign a non-disclosure agreement.

In the event that Rania provided useful information, he would stake his company's reputation on it that she would be well rewarded for her help.

The team agreed, and Rania went with his subordinates for an interrogation.

After an hour, he received an urgent message from his most trusted expert asking him to join the conversation.

He ended up canceling all of his remaining meetings for the day.

--- Councilor Vol Ulein ---

It was late at night, and councilor Vol Ulein was about to go to bed, when she received an urgent visit from her spymaster.

"I apologize for the late intrusion, but you asked to be informed at once if any of our Class One Persons of Interest act unusually." The man began.

"I'm listening. Just tired. Please explain." She responded.

"The Coros are having a party, and Davak Goront organized it." The man said.

The orc was famously stoic and unemotional. Having a party was completely out of character for him. But was that really worth the interruption?

"They rented half of Rumor's Mill for the entire night and ordered the Mystery Special.” The spymaster continued. “Their entire office is having a party."

Well, that certainly sounded more interesting. Rumor's Mill was the most expensive bar in the city. It was a tavern frequented by adventurers, and most older adventurers were both rich and spendthrift. Even an organization as absurdly rich as the Coros would not do such a thing on a whim.

"They are getting drunk, but they hired people to watch out and prevent them from accidentally spilling any secrets. I'm impressed, honestly. I wish some of my own people were that dedicated to information security. They even have an experienced biomancer on standby to cure them of hangovers. I had one of my agents probe them, but she was rebuffed. As per your orders, we did not attempt to spy on them any further. We asked Rumor for info, but the man wouldn't say anything."

Rumor was the proprietor of Rumor's Mill. The old halfling seemed to know everything and everyone, and delighted in spreading rumors about how he knew those things. Most of these rumors contradicted each other. Her own spymaster had noted that by tracking who spread which of his rumors, a savvy enough analyst could tell much about the shifting political landscape, and he did not believe that was a coincidence. It was not public knowledge, but many of the rumors the old halfling spread were really advertisements for his second job: An information broker. The Coros almost certainly knew this, so his refusal to talk meant that they must have paid him off to keep quiet.

"Frankly, I do not understand why you insist that we treat these people with kids' gloves." Her spymaster continued. "It should not be too hard to find the weakest link in their organization and bribe or threaten them."

"Absolutely not." Vol responded aggressively. "The Coros are very well connected, and they are zealous enough about their reputation that they will not hesitate to strike at us, even if it harms them more than us. I will not be the one who has to explain to all the other Ulein Houses why the Coros suddenly put sanctions on them. And as much as I appreciate your skill, I honestly doubt that our people could infiltrate them that easily. You are the one who informed me that they used hags to take out a vampire nest. Do you not realize how insane that is? My orders stand. We will continue to treat them in good faith, unless they betray us first."

Her spymaster inclined his head. He was one of the best in his field, she knew. But having no real competition could make a man arrogant, and it looked like he was in dire need of a reality check. You did not try to infiltrate a group of people that could sneak up on vampires.

"I do believe I have a lead, however." Her spymaster said. "I went through the list of visitors the Coros received today, and one of them stands out. Princess Dov Shan of the Shan Kingdom visited them as part of team Nundru."

"That might explain it." She responded. "They may have come to a trade agreement of some kind."

After a few seconds of thought she added "I am going to inform our economists about this. I'm quite certain this will impact the stock market. You have done well to bring this information to me even so late at night. This may be worth a lot of money."

She knew of Mr. Goront's disposition. The man did not get excited easily. That trade deal must be tremendously important.