A meeting between the government and the Paranormal Council wasn’t exactly unheard of, however, never before had it happened in the same circumstances. A newly arrived group of demi-humans, or maybe entirely magical beings, had shown up in the middle of Nord-Rhein Westfalen and was by all accounts powerful enough to threaten the country.
So it came to no surprise that the governmental body went ballistic.
Tika and her brother Gerald had been trying to smooth things over, after the matter had first been brought up by the government liaison in a meeting of the Council. However, their patience was increasingly running low on just how stubbornly the magisters were trying to avoid bending to the newcomers.
Today, once more, such a meeting had been scheduled. Present were the five magisters, the de facto rulers of Germany, as well as two representatives of the Church, and Tika and her brother Gerald.
Tika and Gerald were the last to arrive, as planned, and sat down at the table, their obviously demi-human appearance on full display and unhidden by the usual masks, magical devices to make them look human.
„Finally. Took you long enough”, the older Church representative said with a sneer. His disdain was obvious to the two arachnid vampire siblings. They had long since learned their racial gifts to read other people’s emotions.
Unlike Vuthe and her friends, however, they had no idea of the specifics of this ability, working purely on instinct.
„Bishop”, Tika said with a greeting nod, before turning to the five magisters sitting in front of her.
All of them looked human, but she knew they weren’t. Two were elves, two beastkin, and one drakan. Their masks were orders of magnitude better than normal ones, and outside of Tika and her brother, she was sure, nobody knew what they truly were. A fact the two siblings had kept to themselves.
She gave them a greeting nod as well, before turning on the one who had called this meeting, the drakan. „Mister Schürfer. You were the one to ask for this meeting, so please, would you be so kind as to tell us what it is about?”
Paul Schürfer nodded, before speaking in a deep baritone that was oddly misfitting for the human appearance he held. „Four days ago one of my contacts spoke with the Mad Queen, to discuss the details of cooperation, and to make our position clear. While I still retain my stance on not giving the subject up, she did allude to some things that might warrant a revisit of the topic. I have hence had my people look into her closer once more and am now bringing you the rewards from the fruitful conversation my contact and the mad queen had.”
He plugged a storage device into the magical projector worked into the table they all sat around. Together they watched the recording of the meeting from the perspective of John Smith. Well, all the way until Vuthe mentioned gods.
The Bishop’s eyes widened, then darkened, smashing his fist on the table. Paul paused the recording and looked at him.
„This is nonsense! There is only one true god! This blasphemer has no idea what she is talking about!”, he said with seething rage, fists still clenched.
Tika snorted, but didn’t speak. The current Bishop was not a man she liked at all, and these reactions were exactly the reason why. He was an extremist and would ignore any and all reasoning to push his own beliefs onto others.
„Bishop, please. Let us finish watching this before we start discussing things”, Paul said, before continuing the recording.
Tika listened attentively, and she knew her brother would too. The few nuggets of knowledge Vuthe dropped in this short conversation was much more important than most people at this table would be likely to recognize. Especially the bit about auras, despite it being the main topic at hand. While she preferred that to remain an ace up their sleeves, with their experience on the topic the two siblings would likely outperform anyone, even if it became public knowledge. Or as public as it was possible to get in a secret magic society.
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Of course the first person to speak was the Bishop. Both Tika and Gerald ignored him and spoke in hushed voices, speaking in an ancient rune tongue from before the settling of the Americas. Both siblings were far older than most guessed and had personally experienced that era.
„Well, what do you think?”, Tika asked her brother in a hushed tone, her own face showing none of the jubilance he could feel in her.
„She does seem to know a lot. And if that claim of dragons being honest is true most likely at least partially true. You noticed this aura thing resembling our experiences?”, he answered with a faint grin.
She nodded, „Yeah. She seems worth the trouble. Do you suppose it is time to push the magisters finally? I don’t much care for that outworlder if she has knowledge like that. Especially if we can get her to agree to train us.“
He looked thoughtful for a few moments, „I suppose we should. It will isolate the Church quite badly, but the pros outweigh the cons, and I for one would very much like to hear more about what she has to share.“
They nodded at each other before returning their attention back to the others, the Bishop halfway out of his seat and threatening divine retribution on the magisters should they even think about accepting the offer from the ‚blasphemer‘.
„Enough“, Tika said, using a bit of her presence to let the word carry and interrupt the discussion. While she couldn’t be entirely certain, it would seem that this aura thing Vuthe mentioned was something both she and her brother have been training for a long while, and she was curious to see what else could be done with it, now that they knew it wasn’t just something they had.
The Bishop gave her a seething glare and she glared back, cold and daring. Finally he sat back down, arms crossed.
Nodding to herself Tika looked around the assembly. „Well. This is most certainly some very interesting information you have gotten us. What are your thoughts? Other than the Bishop I mean, he made his point certainly clear.“
Karl Denem, one of the two disguised elves, spoke up. „I personally do not put much trust in her words. She might have pulled all of that out her arse for all we know.“
One of the two beastkin nodded, Zalin by name, „I agree with Karl“, she said with a disapproving look, „Throwing big words around to get us to think she knows a lot is a cheap way to try and deceive people.“
„And her claims that all dragons are honest is most likely just bullshit to get us to listen to her“, Zalins companion Zeke said.
It was clear that their general stance on the topic hadn’t changed. Tika and her brother looked at each other one last time, before she cleared her throat.
“Ladies and Gentlemen. Looking around the table, I can only see a group of people who would lose out on significant benefits out of pure spite or unwillingness to cooperate with anyone. What we have been offered will greatly help not only ourselves, but the people. I won’t start some fancy speech because I know nobody cares enough to listen, so here are my thoughts, plain and simple. We accept this deal, or we lose out on any future advantages. You lot normally don’t care enough about anything other than your personal gains, but you care about ego even more than you do that and that is why you don’t want to agree to this proposal.”
Of course the others wanted to say something, but a subtle spike of her presence shut them up. Tika wondered idly what she could do should she learn more from the Dragon Queen.
“I wasn’t finished. Don’t pretend what I say is false, we all know it to be true. So far both my brother and I have accepted this without too much complaint as you still enabled us to do our job properly. Which is to say, keep magic a secret and the people both with and without magic happy. But what you are doing right now is not only throwing away your personal gains because of your stubborn need for ego, you throw away our best way to do our job.”
She looked around the table with a grave expression, “So here is whats going to happen. You will accept this proposal or we will cut any support you might want or need from us or our organisation.”
Paul huffed, “You can’t do that. That’s against the law.”
To his surprise Tika just smiled at him, “Oh, we can do that. We were there when the laws were written and we know the little caveats and tricks build into that lawbook. As long as we perceive a threat to the well being of the magic society under our protection we have the right to enact any plans we think can alleviate that threat. And you going against one of our biggest potential assets is definitely a real threat. I advise you read the fine print of the agreement you agreed to, after page two hundred fourteen. The details were laid out for you. And this situation is covered there as well.”, she gave the table a triumphant smile, “So, who is with me?”
It wasn’t really a question of debate anymore. While the magisters were in charge of the country, the Paranormal Council was in charge of all things magical. Should they remove all their support from the Government, the entire infrastructure would crumble, and the Government would lose all right to police the civilians who were part of the magic society.
While not impossible to survive, it would crush the Government's power so thoroughly, Tika was sure none of the magisters would let it come to it.
And she was right. Despite deep grumbling and hateful glares, all but the bishop and Paul agreed to the terms.
She smiled, what a lovely day.