Inside of a secretive underground location in California, each having their own security detail and their group of retinues, six individuals with very distinguishable styles of fashion met up inside of a special room with reinforced alloy doors and specialized concrete walls. Each of the six sat by one side of the hexagonal table in the middle of the room, while their security detail waited outside the room and their retinues stood beside them.
Sitting among them was none other than Carol Summers, Known to the outside world as a real estate developer, investor and ruthless businesswoman. Sitting on the opposite side of Carol Summers, was Tamil Brooke with condescension, self importance and in his invisible tall hat practically twirling his curly mustache, a member of The Council of Ancient Wizards and Conjurers, and leader of its North America Chapter. Sitting on her right side, was Soren Lupei, a man with a glorious full beard and wise green eyes. He was probably the only one with whom Carol could have a non-bad conversation. On her left, was Lucias Vyn, the wise, smiley but mean Godmother of the Vyn family, and the one that leads the biggest group of gifted mercenaries. And who, according to whispers on the street, always over charges.
Sitting on Tamil Brooke’s left side, was Paulo Chang, a bald old man wearing all blue and even dyed his eyebrows and hair blue. He was drinking out of a gourd and not paying attention to anyone or himself. He was the ambassador of the elementals, element spirits and fog dwellers. Despite his age, he was probably the most volatile and short-fused of all six individuals around the table. On Tamil Brooke’s right side was Xyankor, the least talkative one in the six, who represented the Depth Dwellers, a group of mythical humanoid creatures not many in the world had heard of.
“Shall we convene the meeting?” Tamil said: “I can’t stand the Californian air, all your wildfires just filled the air with ashes, smoke and the smell of hobo excrement.”
“We should start.” Lucias Vyn said with her signature smile: “I have an important family meeting to attend to, and you are not as lovely nor caring as my family. So the sooner we can finish the better.”
“Ms. Summers? You called the meeting, why don’t you start us off?” Soren turned to Carol Summers and said.
“Okay, Bill?” Carol Summers snapped her finger, and one of her assistants put a small tablet on the table and gave it a light tap.
A hologram was projected from an overhead projector - it was a 3-D mapping of a part of an underground tunnel system. In the center, it was a giant station, connected to multiple branches and rails.
“This is the AeixiiMhundu Tunnel, you should have heard of it by now. An infrastructure project headed by billionaire Thaicus Theon. ” Carol Summers stood up and introduced what was on the hologram: “Theon put a hefty bounty through all of us. But so far, no one in any of our leagues was able to claim it, or produce any evidence that they actually cleaned the tunnels.”
“Yeah, I remember, the bounty that got one of my grandsons killed. ” Lucias Vyn said, while the signature smile disappeared from her face: “But it was gone, by the time my next team got there.”
“So it is true. What my team reported. ” Soren said: “They reported that they encountered a team sent by Thaicus Theon himself at the entrance. Those people told my team that they should not enter, because someone with immeasurable power was in the tunnel handling the bounty. My team went in, and they were pushed out by some invisible force.”
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“Huh, so did this... team of yours find anything?” Tamil Brooke asked, “Sounds like something my peers would do. To seal the battlefield and remain unbothered by the naive and clueless, thus sparing them of the tragic fate of unintended injuries or death. Very benign and generous, my fellows are.”
“No. They could not find anything as all entrances to the central area of the tunnel were sealed off by this same force.” Soren just ignored the hint of conceit in Tamil Brooke’s words : “Whoever it was, it was definitely really powerful. And that person was trying to keep their identity a secret. My team asked Mr. Theo’s team what that person looked like, and three of them gave three different descriptions. That person was either a man or a woman, either tall and thin, and either really strong and muscular or slim and surrounded by smoke.”
“Interesting. A projective cloaking spell? That’s quite sophisticated a technique. One only few accomplished wizards have mastered. It serves one’s desire to fully hide their identity and traces by creating a cloak of mental projection that reflects a mixture of an image of the gazers’ fears, anxieties and expectations. ” Tamil Brooke said with his mustache twitching: “I am almost certain this is the doing of one of my league members - we have fellows that are known for their whimsicality and fondness of playing pranks on the more… simple and untrained minds.”
“This kind of spell is not unheard of from members of the Trinity Convent.” Carol Summers shook her head and said: “But I am not here to take credit of the bounty - we all know that the bounty needs to be claimed and verified ...”
“You are both wrong!” Paulo Chang suddenly put down his gourd and yelled with a red face: “This is clearly thanks to the elementals, which are members of my league. None of your leagues’ parlor tricks and magic rabbits are a match for this kind of dangerous situation. Our records and power is the proof of that!”
“Paulo, we are not here about the credit...”
“Shut up you wretched witch!” this time Paulo Chang’s yell echoed in the room, his body floated in the air, glowing in blue and electric sparks bursting around him, and his eyes lit up in blue: “Are you challenging the power of us elementals? I am happy to give you a lesson, with death!”
“Stand down, Chang. ” Soren Lupei stood up: “This is a meeting among high brokers, all should remain civil. Or do you want to endure the cost of breaking your word when you got your seat at the table?”
“Humph” Paulo Chang was still not drunk or arrogant enough to face both Soren Lupei and Carol Summers, so he floated back down to his seat.
“Thank you Soren, and you, Chang.” Carol Summers nodded to both Soren Lupei and Paulo Chang: “As I just said, I didn’t call this meeting to talk about who should take credit for what happened. If anyone comes forward to claim it we should verify. But what I brought here is something I noticed … here, take a look.” Then, she passed out several sheets of paper with some printed words on them, but most of the words were already almost completely faded for some unknown reason.
“These are some of the documents of the bounty and of the intel I gathered about the thing that resided in the central station of the tunnels.” Carol Summers continued: “They were printed no more than one and a half months before, the latest were printed as early as two weeks ago.”
“Do you… have a really bad printer? Or do you use cheap ink?” Lucias Vyn slowly laid her fingers on one sheet of paper, “I thought a business mogul like you would choose your operational tools more wisely.”
“I do, and I did, Vyn.” Carol Summers lightly squinted her eyes: “The records were almost mysteriously wiped. That includes some digital records we have as well. My security team ran several checks - no one illegally accessed those records.”
“Could it be the case that your security measures are as disorganized as your convent and misguided as your crude attempts at enchantations?” Tamil Brook asked.
“They are as impeccable as any high level corporate security measure should be. It’s the 21st century and no one is using age old scrolls and wax seals for storing important information.” Carol Summers looked at everyone at the table: “If you are even half as intel savvy as I am, I’d imagine the same thing would have happened to your records as well.”
“My league doesn’t keep written or digital records. But we did notice that some of the team members’ memories of what happened that night were curiously missing important details.” after a long pause, Soren said: “We thought it was because of some kind of spell they encountered in the tunnels. But looks like it might be something else - something is removing the records and history of whatever resided in the tunnels.”
“But that is impossible, no one has power with this kind of scale.” Lucias Vyn shook her head: “You might be making connections that aren’t there.”
“I agree with mama reaper there.” Paulo Chang took a big chug from his gourd: “That is something from fairytales. ”
“Not exactly. My league, through our long history, have stories and records passing down from generations before us.” Xyankor, the one who did not say even one word since he entered the room, now spoke up with a deep and hoarse voice: “It can be done with the right spell, and a Stone of Negation.”