The day after the liaison arrived at the camp Vuthe and Tizanta spoke once more with Chell Bertner, who had talked to her superiors regarding the current situation. As expected they had bulked at the idea of handing over their best source of magical knowledge, as lacking as it was with the Outworlders gaps in his knowledge.
Vuthe was adamant, however, that unless that person ended up in her camp there was no chance of discussion. Of course, they could offer the same and much more as the Outworlder could, considering that his strength lay in Politics, lying, oppressing people, and being an overall shady person. At least in Vuthe’s eyes.
After much discussion over the day the three women ended up in the same tent once more, this time joined by a rather handsome man in an immaculate suit over magical phone.
Much to Vuthe and Tizanta’s dismay, however, things didn’t move anywhere because of him.
„As I have told you before, Your Majesty, we will not be giving him up to your care. You yourself have admitted to murder, giving him into your care is the same as plunging a knife through his heart. We cannot in good conscience allow that”, the man said. He was introduced as John Smith. Yes, really.
Vuthe sighed inwardly but didn’t show it. She could feel Tizanta sending supportive feelings over her aura, which she appreciated. This was exactly the kind of situation she tried to avoid, but alas they were caught up in it.
„Mister Smith”, Tizanta said with a stern voice, „Let us be honest with one another. You do not care about ethics.”
Just as he was about to say something, her tail snapped hard to his magical projection. “I wasn’t finished, Mister Smith. You do not care about ethics. You only care about what you can squeeze out of him. We have told you that we can offer the same and more multiple times. We have also told you that unless he is in this camp there will be no deal. So let me be very clear. You have two choices. Either you give him to us and reap the benefit of striking a deal with us, or we will go there and get him ourselves, by which point you have nothing that we want or need and we are out of your control. And just to make sure you are not labouring under false assumptions: There is nothing you can do to stop us. There is nothing you can do to prevent it. If things go this way we will have him, without you even knowing how we did it.”
Mister Smith looked at her with a cold look, „Are you threatening us, Miss Thesekar?”
„Yes. I am threatening you. There is very little on our agenda that is as important as the nobles of Satien. You told us something about ethics, so you should understand ethical discussion. The reason we want this noble is very simple: The nobles of Satien are immoral, unethical, evil people. They believe themselves better by birthright, they enslave and abuse people, either to work to death or for their sexual fantasies. I have no idea what noble you have exactly, but by virtue of him telling you about the Mad Queen we know exactly on which side he is. So here is your final choice. Hand us the noble in a beneficial trade, or suffer the consequences of going against Thelvadore”, she said in a cold tone.
There was a moment of pause before John Smith spoke. „Do you seriously believe you can hold out against us for long? You might be strong, certainly, but should you attack us we have valuable allies to take you down, even if it takes some time.”
Vuthe sighed, and let it show this time. She was done with their hostile approach. She liked Chell Bertner, she was a woman of standards. But this man, this John Smith was the exact opposite. It was almost as if he was taught by the person that was first sent here as liaison.
„Mister Smith”, she said, finally done with this. „While I am sure we can decimate you in open combat, we neither want nor need to go that way. All we need is a press conference and one of my people healing children from cancer on TV. We can stand the press going mental, we can even withstand riots breaking out, this place is more than capable of defending against a siege from the military. But, what we want is the opposite. Here is my last proposal. I will tell you a few things as an appetiser right now, then you will go talk to your boss, and then, should you decide to hand him over, we can have a nice trade of resources and knowledge, plus I will even agree to train a few of your people in handling combat situations. Personally. That is my final offer. Should you decide to dismiss it, we will act.”
Again, there was a long moment of silence as John Smith’s face went through various, faint expressions. Most people would have missed them, but neither Vuthe, Tizanta, nor Chell did.
„Very well. I will hear your appetiser before I talk to my boss. I do hope it is a good one, Your Majesty”, John said after thinking about it. While the magical connection was very good, the inability to read his aura and thoughts annoyed Vuthe.
She nodded, „Good. Listen closely then. There is something called aura, that all magical beings can learn to manifest and manipulate to various purposes, such as reading emotions, surface thoughts, or even to get a vague understanding on how strong someone else is compared to them, magically speaking. To understand these auras we need to talk about souls. Yes, they are real and much more important to existence than you are aware of. In short, there are only two rules that are set in stone in this corner of the cosmos that I know of. Both these rules are directly connected to the soul as a concept and cannot be bent or broken, by gods or otherwise. Trust me, people have tried and you don’t want to see the outcome.”
„Wait, gods are real?”, John Smith asked, bewildered and surprised.
„They are indeed, Mister Smith, and there are many of them. I will not delve deeper into such topics, however, if you wish to know more I advise you to push your superiors to accept this proposal. Back on topic. The two rules are very simple. The first: Souls are inviolable. No matter who, nobody, not even gods, can get into one's soul without your express consent. You can, however, harm souls, under very specific circumstances that I advice you to avoid. Period. Depending on which race the person belongs to that might result in physical scars, such as with my scars. Draconic beings are mostly made from magic with the soul as a template. To be precise Draconics are a physical manifestation of magical power, with our Soul merely directing to which magical forces we are best suited, so marks on our soul are directly translated to normal scars. That is not always the rule however, as Gashi are entirely magical and cannot have scars at all.
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„The second rule is just as important. There cannot, under any circumstance and for any reason, be two identical souls. Souls are the building blocks of our reality as far as anyone knows, and them being unique is one of the core reasons magic functions the way it does. There have been attempts made, of course, to clone someone, but it never ended well. Either you ruined a soul and turn it into a husk, the worst thing you can do to a soul, or you end up with one living person and a dead one.”
Vuthe gave both Chell Bertner and John Smith a long look. „There is, however, one important third rule. That rule isn’t important to the Soul as a concept, but to you as a sentient race. Soul magic, and any field of magic directly adjacent to it, with the exception of Resurrection magic and Necromancy, are forbidden. And I do not mean by me or my people. They are forbidden by the gods. If you are tempering with any such field I suggest you drop research right now, because gods will come for you and it will not be pretty.”
Chell Bertner spoke up, „Your Majesty, if you don’t mind me asking, why would Necromancy be exempt from that ban? Isn’t that one of the worst types of magic out there?”
Thinking for a moment, Vuthe nodded. „Answering that question is acceptable. The reason is simple. Necromancy only deals in faux souls. It uses similar principles, but fakes a soul instead of trying to use one. Necromancy attempted with real souls is Death Magic, and falls directly under the ban. Necromancy is evil, in that it deals with evil magic. But it doesn’t deal with the very fundamental building blocks of the cosmos. Hence the exception. The general consensus is to rather have some wanna be villain trying to resurrect his loved ones for power running around than people attempting to dismantle reality.”
What she did not tell John was that she was capable of harming souls with her aura. She only ever used that Soul attack once, and it was the most harrowing experience of her life. She had told nobody about it, outside of Tizanta. Not even the other council members knew, and they had shared everything else between them. They knew that she had experienced something bad, but respected her wish not to talk about it.
A soul attack with one’s aura, should one learn a way to accomplish it, was the most extreme thing one could do to harm another person’s souls. She had sworn to herself to never use it again, on pain of death. There was nothing that came close to this experience beyond words.
As she expected, that knowledge did get an expression of thoughtfulness out of John, even if a faint one. While he most likely didn’t know what to do with the knowledge personally, there are very few things more important than the basic rules of reality. She was hoping that, by giving him something of such obvious value, he would be more amicable in trying to convince his superiors.
Of course she could have told him a lot of other things. But she specifically chose these as she had come to realise that those were more important than most would guess. And for all of John's faults, being an idiot wasn’t one of them. He seemed to realise that what she said was important, even if it was only the information on auras existing in the first place.
The second reason she had chosen that specific topic was twofold. First was the mention of gods, and she would definitely see that getting a reaction out of people. Even nonbelievers would listen up if they were told gods are real, so there was a good chance that it would be a very important topic of discussion in the upper echelons.
The other reason was that she could neatly integrate a warning about Soul magic. She had no illusions about them listening, should they already dabble in it, which truth be told wasn’t too likely. But, now that it was out in the open and they had been explicitly warned, she knew that at least one person with enough pull to do something about it was listening.
Vuthe wasn’t sure just how actively she was being monitored by her friend from the other world, but she knew that she was being monitored to at least some degree. And while she would never admit it to anyone, she was grateful for that. She also knew that, despite her friend being completely mad and crazy, she would take stuff like Soul Magic very seriously. It was, after all, if the stories were to be believed, a failed invention of hers, and she took responsibilities seriously enough to deal with them.
She knew that he had been told of draconic beings’ honesty, and so far she had seen no signs of him dismissing that fact. It might be an act, certainly, but she was betting on it being sincere.
„How long do I have to get back to you?”, he asked, finally.
„You have a week. After that we will work under the assumption that you do not wish to cooperate and enact our own plans.”, Vuthe said, with finality in her voice.
John nodded and the connection blinked out, leaving the three women alone in the tent.
Vuthe rubbed her face, exhausted. She had never been a fan of politics, and she missed the straightforward ways of dealing with things that were normal in the draconic lands of Satien.
„I swear, if I see that guy one more time I’ll kill him”, she said with a flat tone, in Satien Elvish.
Tizanta groaned agreement, before once more taking on a more dignified appearance and turning to Chell Bertner.
„Thank you for setting up this meeting. I understand that the outcome isn’t exactly as desired, but maybe it helps”, she said in a tired, but friendly tone.
Chell nodded, „Not a problem, Miss Thesekar. Hopefully the people at the very top will understand the situation and act accordingly.”
Vuthe gave the woman a long and thorough look, paying careful attention to her aura. Only after she was satisfied with the sincerity in the other woman’s feelings did she speak.
„With the risk of sounding rude, but you seem much more interested in finding a compromise with us than any of your colleagues. Might I ask why that is?”, she asked finally.
There was a moment of silence in which Chell sorted out her thoughts before she answered. „Your Majesty, the reasons I have are twofold. The first is rather simple, and rather selfish to boot. While I am not personally well versed in magic I have enough understanding to realise just how powerful you are, both personally, and as a group. I would much rather not antagonise you and threaten the well being of both myself and the people of Germany, or the world in general. I would also prefer to gain something out of this for myself. What exactly I am as of yet unsure of but hopefully something for the future.
„The second reason is in the same vein but more general. It is clear that you have resources and knowledge that can benefit us greatly, if we treat you well. And I believe that it would not only be a huge waste to antagonise you, but also irresponsible to the citizens as a whole.”
Tizanta and Vuthe looked at her for a moment, then both nodded.
„It is rare to see someone with this kind of mindset in human politics. Part of the reason I hate it so much”, Vuthe sighed, then leaned back in her throne, the shadowstuff smoothly warping to accommodate her, „Miss Bertner, I appreciate you working in our favour like this. I will not forget it in the future. Let’s just hope that the people in power will see it the same way. This entire situation is tiring, and I much prefer not being the person to reveal magic to the world, but I will do what I must to keep my people safe. If that means throwing the world into chaos to prevent anyone from making some concerted effort to get to us, then so it shall be.”
For the two draconics it was easy to sense the fear in Chell’s aura, even if her face wasn’t saying anything. She might have her own reasons but it was very evident that she desperately hoped to stop such things.