Dinner was a difficult place for statecraft.
Politicians did their best and worst work when they were certain nothing they said could be heard by anyone outside the room. Really, most things said in public were just to elicit certain reactions from the crowd. Whether that was to garner public support or by having a third party wonder whether a talk in public was equal to talks in the backrooms.
In that sense, what Lu Zhi did could have been brilliant or incredibly moronic. John tended to go with the forr. When he had first heard of the Heavenly Jade Empress of the Mandate of Heaven, she had held no power in her own country due to her youth and inexperience. That had been what Magoi had told him all the way back when he had been hired by Lydia to assist his grinding. Nearly two years had passed since then, and it appeared that Lu Zhi had gotten quite a handle on her administrators since.
When he followed the motions of the empress in the distance, she was like the eye and the storm simultaneously. Everything circled around her, from the jade dragon on her dress to the many assistants, administrators, and nobles that she had brought with her. Yet, she herself was never still. She laughed loudly and visibly, played with riddle toys brought to her by attendants, ate and drank without a care in the world, and even, at one point, played ball with a pair of children. John was doubly surprised by the sight. Less by the fact that there were children playing ball around, young people always had a knack for playing gas in the most inappropriate of places, and more by her reciprocating it.
The ball ca flying her way from the Norse corner of the room, and she stopped it quite elegantly with her chest. It dropped to the top of her feet, where she balanced it for a little bit. Glancing once at the younglings, she did a few tricks that were impressive – at least for the children, whose superhuman powers would take years more to properly manifest. In the end, she passed it back perfectly.
John could not help but wonder if the children were allowed or even softly coerced to shoot in the direction of certain groups to gauge their reaction. A lot of things could be read from how people reacted to the gas children played. Fusion, perhaps, would have been similarly tested, if one of the crimson cowls hadn’t incinerated the ball with an arcane laser the mont it flew in the general direction of the Purest Front.
The children were wise enough not to test the entity with the gleaming hand.
For once, John had to admit that his erudite mind failed him. There were differences in the builds of the various robed attendants of the Nazi guild, but his mory never seed to be able to quite hold on to what they were. He rembered this type of enchantnt - Herman had used it to keep his build a secret, back when his identity had not been revealed. Of course, they would have it too. The effect was greatly lessened, but it was still enough to make John question whether that had been the sa cowled person that had stopped Eliana yesterday or a different one.
‘Just who or what are these?’ John wondered. Even a single person that was capable of stopping Eliana’s charge, be it before she activated Bloodburn, was worriso. Seven of them, that had the potential to shift the global balance of power trendously. ‘I’ll find out tomorrow,’ the Gar thought.
His eyes drifted back to Lu Zhi, catching her in an entirely different mont. The jade fan was once again in her hand, hiding her smile from the person she was talking to – soone from the Dangun Clan, judging by the similar but still different ornantations on their East Asian clothes. Korean culture had clearly been influenced by its ‘big brother’ over the millennia, but one could never say they did not have their own.
It just so happened that John caught her profile as her smile turned draconic. Lips pulled back to a near impossible degree, revealing teeth and fangs that sharpened by the second, thin jade lines spreading over the surface, turning perfect white into trimd and ornate weapons of mass attraction. As if that dangerous grin hadn’t been enough to make John’s heart beat faster, the empress suddenly turned her glowing jade eyes to him. A single wink, and his agitated blood went still and hot for a second.
When he next felt the drum of his pulse, it was because his ear was getting tugged. “Dude,” the mildly disappointed, dry tone of Momo pulled him back to reality. “Stop salivating, you’re going to flood the entire room.”
For once, the Gar had absolutely no witty retort. He even rubbed his chin to make sure he hadn’t actually been salivating. “How long have I been zoned out?” he asked.
“About two minutes,” Momo responded.
“And you just let gaze?” the Gar asked.
“We kinda reckoned it wouldn’t do anything to your reputation, so,” Rave chid in with a shrug. At so point she had gotten herself a plate full of seafood. Skewering a shrimp on the fork, she offered it to John, who took a bite swiftly. It was absolutely delicious, having no taste besides the native juiciness of well-raised small crustaceans. “Seriously, nobody’s gonna be surprised John Newman is staring at the butt of a gal who put her ass, and her ass specifically, in latex-spandex.”
Unlikely that the material was actually called that, but it was an apt description. John twitched, the urge to check how apt it was barely suppressed. His eyes instead darted to the nearby backside of Salamander in her tight leather pants. A more than suitable outlet for his pent-up need to keep gazing.
When he had finally wrestled that down, he swallowed the shrimp and turned his mind to serious topics. ‘This is not the right place for proper diplomacy,’ he thought and let his eyes wander the room, this ti with purely analytical intent. “Emrik,” he whispered.
It took ten seconds for the Speaker of Commons to step up to him. Even among these superhumans, the hearing of the man was absurdly acute, for the reason of his Innate Ability being to read the subtlest changes in the air – including sound. “What?” he asked, plainly. Not a hint of aggression was in his voice, he was simply to the point.
“Would you do the favour of talking to the Mandate of Heaven for a little while?” the Gar requested. “I already got the eting arranged that I wanted, but it would be rude to ignore them for the rest of the evening because of that.”
Casually, John stretched out an arm and was handed an ornate chalice. He raised his eyebrow at the gem-encrusted thing, then glanced at Claire, who grinned. Mildly, he shook his head, and took a sip from the container that might as well have been the actual holy grail. The water within it was just plain water, though. There was too much of import to do to drink.
Emrik, all the while, thought about the request. The Mandate of Heaven and Fusion had a very minor territorial dispute, in the form of tributaries on the western shore paying the world power for their protection. A protection that, John felt, the empire was happy to rescind if they could do so while maintaining face. Once that was done and Fusion held the west coast, that was bound to start a trading lane across the Pacific.
As politicians so often did, it was best Emrik positioned himself and his allies to profit from the changes he himself was going to institute. It was a dirty manoeuvre. It was also, simply, what happened in all systems, ever. It didn’t have to be a bad thing either, it all depended on the scale of what they could get away with. Politicians buying up all the producers of a certain product before forbidding its import was vastly different from politicians allowing their local area to get ahead of the curve by being the ones to negotiate contracts before anyone else knew about them. Both were based on insider knowledge, but one enriched a few individuals at the cost of society, the other gave an area a leg-up in the competition.
As long as there still was competition, John wasn’t too worried.
Emrik, knowing all of this, ultimately nodded. “I’ll keep them entangled for two hours. Anyone you want to take along?”
“Ask Ahanu if he would like to talk to them.” The Hidden Tradition had absolutely nothing they could possibly get from the Mandate of Heaven, being far too geographically and culturally removed to engage in any long term relationship with them. That made Ahanu doubly valuable there, the charismatic man that he was. A friendly face with nothing to gain.
Emrik nodded and stepped away, to find the chieftain. Sipping on his water, John further sched where to send whom and where to go himself. There were so very easy choices, like sending Momo to Protheus. Although he did not know if he should do that imdiately.
For the ti being, he decided to just let his harettes disperse as they wanted to. Naturally, this ant that Aclysia and Claire were sticking to him. tra also hung around his general orbit. Everyone else was finding a conversation partner either among Fusion or, more often than not, outside.
It was fascinating to gradually watch the lines blur and how different that process was between the Divided Gates. The Sons of Ro and the Mandate of Heaven were effectively besieged on all sides by mbers of all other guilds, even including the Purest Front. Even that particular guild had people that were either dissenting enough to be palatable to the general audience or aware enough to withhold their most disgusting views in polite company. Even the Purest Front needed diplomacy in so aspects.
Speaking of them, they were the only ones that went almost entirely unapproached. There were so that went to their tables. John could co up with a couple of reasons: investigating whether they truly were that morally bankrupt, cynical business relations, interest in the robed fellows, or actual sympathies. Just because there was one definitive Nazi power in the room did not an all the other guilds were magically free of the ideology among their ranks. There were always so, just like there likely were so freedom loving capitalists sowhere in the hierarchy of the Purest Front – the difference was those were removed with impunity.
A second outstanding guild, when it ca to their isolation, was the Dangun Clan. There was mingling between them and the Mandate of Heaven, and the noble faction of the Korean guild was happy to move among everyone else, but the military faction, focused around the Lady of Joseon, seed intent on minimizing contact with everyone outside, effectively turning everyone away that would approach their tables. Dangun visibly sighed at this, at one point sending John sothing like a pleading gaze. It turned imdiately into a shook head, making the Gar feel that the plea had not been directed at him specifically, but was just a general wish for him to be pulled out of his situation.
In that, John saw an opportunity.
The Gar opened up the Harem Comms and sent Jane a swift ssage, requesting that she go to the Illuminati. Simultaneously, he ntally inford Momo he wanted her to go to Protheus. He would have sent Nightingale to speak to the Sons of Ro, had she not already been there, socially aware as the lady always was. Lastly, he sent Beatrice to the Germans. Stereotypes were a finicky thing, but it was true, in his experience, that her emotionless sass was least likely to et offense among Rex Germaniae.
With that, he had sent off his most important harettes, in terms of governntal functions, to the four guilds he deed as aligned with his. It would keep sensitive elents from having grounds to complain that he didn’t personally seek them out at his earliest convenience. A conversation with the Sons of Odin was, likely, futile. John would attempt it anyway, but the fact that the Council of Four had been sent almost certainly ca with pre-ordained orders. Whatever their vote was, the northern pantheon had already decided on it.
Likely.
The Great Sultanate, John did not feel confident sending one of his harettes to engage in talks with because he simply had no idea how they would react. He would do that personally – after he had talked to King Dangun.
It appeared that there was a divide here he could try to exploit, and since it was Dangun who ultimately cast the vote for his guild…
The Gar crossed the room, Aclysia, Claire, and tra in tow. He would have put an arm around any two of them, or even any one, but the sheer size of the room demanded that he stride fast if he wanted to get to the Dangun Clan in any reasonable ti. Eyeballs soon began to follow him, growing more nurous as he held towards the table of the leader of the semi-isolated guild.
The soldiers, all dressed in the sa mourning black as Eui, ford a loose wall of cold shoulders towards the Gar. The signal was clear, but he ignored it. “Excuse ,” he said in fluid Korean, making his way through the barrier of ill intent. In the end, actually blocking him was beyond the pale.
Dangun looked up from his al with a tortured expression on his face. Next to him, the Lady of Joseon radiated such an intense distaste, John got a feeling of what his emotional auras felt like. Physical confirmation of how little she wanted him there crept over the surface of his soul like a carpet of ants. They skittered, a sensation unpleasant enough, even without the bites of rage.
Unperturbed, the Gar walked the rest of the way. By the ti he arrived, a set of chairs opposite of Dangun had been vacated, following a small gesture. Diminished and contested power was still power, after all. “May I sit?” he asked, then laughed about his accent. “I apologize, I don’t get to speak your tongue often.”
“It is perfectly adequate,” Dangun responded, his voice warm and fatherly, but the tone slow and calculating. “I… hesitate to call it… good, however,” he added, as if only to have there be an insult towards him at all.
Aclysia’s mind produced a little annoyed blip. ‘Let it flow freely,’ John instructed her and the annoyance flowed out into the air with enough force to make Dangun break out into a cold sweat. The soldiers barely reacted. Standing between the two, John made a terrible, interesting discovery.
Eui’s presence was stronger than Aclysia’s.
“That’s enough,” John said out loud, as if he was chiding the dragon maid for sothing she did on her own. Having the presence to look guilty, Aclysia cast down her gaze, even as her mind sung with the little triumph of being useful to his ploys. “I apologize for her behaviour, I sh-“
“ABSALM?!” The sudden scream redirected the attention at the table to tra.
“H-hi,” a voice answered from the shadows.
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