Business is Booming

The Lesnoian Lumber Company had sent representatives to a small rentable office space near the center of town. It was a stark corporate park of concrete and steel and John found it all very depressing.

“Man, you spend a lot of time out in the wilderness and all this feels kind of suffocating,” he remarked as he got out of Vivian’s car.

“I completely agree,” Vivian nodded, “and I am not exactly the outdoorsy type.”

“I think that ship has sailed,” John chucked.

“I hate it here,” Verida grumbled as she joined them. “Kiera’s not a fan either.”

“Let’s hope we can get a deal done quickly and get back home,” Vivian said, her eyes scanning over the area. “Over this way.”

Vivian took point, directing them to the building with a proud ‘127’ in gold above its entrance.

“They said to slip in down the right side,” she informed them as she led them down the indicated path. As they did, John began to notice the slight signs of magic in the area. Faint trails of mana flitting about the area like power lines running between the buildings and a vague sense that several barriers were set up around the whole area.

“I’m going to guess that there’s a lot of business on our side of things set up around here,” he remarked.

“Yeah,” Vivian answered. “Some permanent, others just temporary setups for quick in and outs.”

She stopped, checked something on the wall and nodded.

“Here we are,” she said. “The call said we enter here and will be right in the reception area. And that it might be a bumpy ride.”

“Let’s not keep them waiting,” Verida grumbled.

With a small pulse of mana, Vivian opened the barrier and they were pulled in. The shift wasn’t smooth and John found himself stumbling as concrete sidewalk turned into carpeted office space, occluded sunlight replaced by fluorescent bulbs.

“Look who’s here,” a sweet voice called out and John turned to see Nadiya sitting on a vacant receptionist’s desk. She kept the pink and black color scheme of her casual clothing, only toning down the cute factor into something more in line with office attire: a simple pink blouse, black pencil skirt and white pantyhose. Her braided pigtails remained unchanged.

“I didn’t think you’d be the receptionist,” Vivian said as she straightened her clothes, smoothing out some wrinkles in her skirt.

“Oh, I’m just here as the recruiter.” Nadiya grinned at them, her eyes settling on Verida as the goddess let her horns and tail manifest. “Going to guess you’re the one who owns the barrier this forest is in?”

“I am,” Verida answered. “You can call me Verida.”

“Nadiya Lutak, but I’m sure your associates told you that.” Nadiya smiled. She hopped off the desk and walked backwards towards the sole door in the room. “Now, may I introduce you to Irene Weitkap, chief operations manager for Lesnoian Lumber, and Elena Kholsila, chief overseer of field operations.”

She opened the door and John did not expect to see what he did. He expected an older woman sitting behind a desk, with someone maybe a bit younger but grizzled by years of hard labor out in varying wildernesses, but was instead greeted by a green haired woman maybe a few years older than him, flanked by a giant woman with grey-purple skin and black hair pulled back in twin buns in a red plaid shirt and blue jeans.

“I wasn’t aware you were going to be playing our receptionist today, Ms. Lutak,” the presumed Ms. Weitkap said, her voice sharp as she rose to her feet.

“Well, you didn’t bring one, so I figured I could help there,” Nadiya cheekily said as she shut the door, remaining on the other side, and John caught a twitch of Irene’s eye.

‘I wonder if she has to hold her tongue since Nadyia’s family are big investors in this company,’ Senka remarked, mirroring John's thoughts at that moment.

Irene sighed then trained her attention on them. John found her purple eyes hard and she looked like she was trying to calculate everything about them at the glance. As she examined them, John tried to get a read on her. Using Observe was out as there was too high a chance she would detect it and would call the whole thing off, so he was left with good old deductive reasoning.

She was wearing a sleeveless wine red blouse and black skirt, which struck John as a bit casual given her apparent high standing in the business, but given her apparent age, he wondered if she chose the outfit to appear more approachable. Or if the sleeveless look was to display her toned arms.

They had much the same definition as Aeolia’s and made John think she was at least familiar with fighting in some way.

‘Probably a good rule of thumb to assume everyone in the Abyss can fight in some way,’ Senka thought.

That got John to focus on the other woman by the desk. Elena Kholsila was at least seven feet tall and built like a truck. Her muscular arms strained the fabric of her shirt and John was sure they weren’t just for show.

John’s gaze shifted back to Irene right as she adopted a more friendly expression. “Now, I’m sure we don’t want to be here all day, so let’s get to business. As Ms. Lutak said, I am the CFO of Lesnoian Lumber and we’re interested in seeing what you have to offer. I presume you are Ms. Renoux?”

“I am, though the forests we are speaking of fall under the jurisdiction of my companion, Verida,” Vivian answered, gesturing to the goddess.

“I understand,” Irene said tersely. “Now, let’s get the ground rules down before we try to cut any deal. Please, have a seat.”

They sat, except for Elena who remained completely impassive.

“Please pay no mind to Elena,” Irene said, likely reading their perplexed expression.

“I don’t like to sit,” Elena tersely remarked, her voice thick with a Russian accent. “Plus, many chairs are too small.”

She remained stone faced, making John unable to tell if she was making a joke or not.

“So, ground rules?” Vivian asked.

“Yes. We need to see if what you want done is something we can provide,” Irene explained, steepling her fingers in front of her face. “I’m sure you understand that things need to be beneficial to both of us. If your terms are too strict, for example, limiting the amount of lumber we’re allowed to fell, then it doesn’t make sense for us to come in.”

“And what would be an acceptable amount?” Verida asked.

“Nothing on the level of wholesale clearcutting,” Irene answered coolly. “Unlike in the mundane world, there are a lot more immediate consequences to over logging.”

“There are many things that take issue with the removal of their forest,” Elena added. “Beasts of great strength, roused elementals, even the innate flow of mana can be unleashed in wild ways if things are too quickly changed.”

“Well, I think we fall in the middle of those extremes,” Vivian said, producing a manilla envelope from her personal pocket space. “This is a rough estimate of the area we’re looking at.”

Irene took the offered paperwork and looked over it, tilting it over to Elena for her to see the figure and map inside.

‘We are so lucky Vivian’s been on top of everything,’ John thought. ‘I have no idea how we’d manage without her.’

‘Badly,’ Senka answered. ‘We’re good at fighting and figuring out puzzles. Business is a whole nother beast we’d blunder through. We might have been able to secure small, independent outfits, but a large company like this would be beyond us.’

“Is this all the land you’re opening up, or simply a rough estimate?” Irene asked.

“We’re open to a ten percent increase to the total acreage at the moment,” Vivian replied. “We’re not totally adverse to scaling things up, but we want to ensure the work won’t be too disruptive to the land as a whole.”

Irene hummed as she regarded the paper once more. John could imagine the calculus going through her head: effort expended, reward reaped, how much it would take to expand operations should business go well and probably many other things John wasn’t aware of.

“I think this could work,” Irene said after collecting her thoughts. “Contingent on Elena and some of her team inspecting the area.”

“Of course. We never intended you to buy sight unseen,” Vivian remarked.

“Then there will be no issue with such an open house happening today?” Irene asked.

The pressing question caused Vivian to pause for a moment and she shared a look with Verida. When the goddess nodded, the redhead said, “That will work.”

“Then I will follow you to the location,” Elena said bluntly before looking at Irene. “I can have Leo meet me on the way.”

Irene nodded. “If there’s nothing else to discuss before the survey, I suggest we get to that. Can’t move forward without that.”

“Understandable,” Vivian said. “We’ll have our people ready to show you the sight. I will warn you it’s a bit of a walk from the entry point.”

John felt it was fortunate that they had selected a spot not far from the world tree. They had elected that option to limit the total scope of the Kingdom. It was impossible to do so with the dwarves, and they were now too deeply intertwined for that to matter, but Vivian had insisted that they keep as much of Pruzonia’s scope hidden as possible for now.

“A little walk is far from a problem,” Elena remarked.

“Then let’s not waste time. The sooner you look it over, the sooner a deal can be made,” Vivian continued.

“You’re confident in the quality of your trees,” Irene said in a slightly snide tone.

“Absolutlely,” Verida answered in a firm tone.

“Then I look forward to seeing them,” Elena said with a nod.

As the door closed, Irene let out a sigh. Play-acting was far from her favorite part of the job, but if it was needed, she could pull it off. Especially with an ongoing situation with too many factors in play. It made her itch to just cut out the middleman and get to fighting. To say nothing of the other factors at play.

“You look like you’re being told to eat a lemon.” Nadiya’s teasing voice did not help her mood.

“I would much prefer to stab things. You included.” Irene glowered at the vampire.

“Aw, you want me impaled,” Nadiya cooed, earning a glare from Irene. The faux businesswoman hated working with her, but duty outweighed frustrations. For now. She was well aware that things were in motion and the balance of power could shift in the Seekers of All’s favor. She had to make sure to keep on her toes and report back every detail she could glean.

“I can hear your gears turning,” Nadiya remarked in a cheerful tone that did little to hide the dark intent behind her eyes. She irreverently dropped herself in one of the seats in front of the desk. “Thinking about how to best make this work for the Seekers?”

“Do you not do the same for your court?” Irene shot back. “You’re the ones employing your own men for this operation. Deck’s already stacked in your favor.”

“You know that our connection to them is minimal,” Nadiya remarked with a grin, showing off her fangs. “They’re there to do the job and not ask questions, like why you’re the one in charge. Even though we know the reason.”

Said reason was the Seeker’s providing a more than generous stimulus package for the company, along with funding their travel over to the states. It didn’t quite bring parity between them, but it closed the gap enough to make this partnership work in the first place.

And if they were able to make a bit of profit from their marks as they gathered intel, she wasn’t going to jeopardize things by rocking the boat too much. They all had things to gain.

“So, once Elena gives the green light, what’s the plan?” Nadiya asked, her murderous aura fading as quickly as it had appeared. Her current partner’s mercurial nature had long since worn out its welcome and shock factor.

“We play the semi-present company heads wanting to ensure return on investment,” Irene said. “Elena and her men will do their jobs and build up good rapport while we watch for a bit, using that as pretence to scope things out. I’m sure they’ve left things out. Like the true size of the barrier. It has to be much larger than they’re letting on.”

Nadiya regarded Irene for a long moment, her piercing blue eyes trying to pick out every detail. She was eerily still and Irene used every ounce of willpower she had to not show how that unnerved her.

“You know, you seem a bit tense about all of this,” the vampire said, leaning forward in her seat to nearly the point of falling out of it.

“I’m a combat operative," Irene remarked in a flat tone, purposefully keeping her tone in check. “Play-acting is a waste of most of my talents. And screwing things up means we lose out on this lead and would have to resort to more dramatic methods we can’t afford to enact, given the Order. So I’m a little on edge regarding getting this job done right.”

Nadiya let out a contemplative hum as she settled back in the chair, her fingers tracing circles on the armrests.

“I think you could do with a little relaxing,” she said, bouncing to her feet suddenly. “Take a long bath, go for a walk in the park, find some monsters and kill them. Whatever you think will help you unwind. Need to keep ourselves sharp for the next meeting after all.”

Nadiya partially skipped out of the office, not bothering to close the door behind her. Irene watched her leave with interest. She wasn’t fooled by the vampire’s bubbly and care-free persona. She was up to something and Irene wasn’t going to just let Nadiya get a leg up on her. It was time to call in a favor.

Meanwhile, down the hall, already out of the line of sight from the office, Nadiya stopped her skipping and looked down at her hands. Threads of flickering light coiled around her fingers, each a kaleidoscope of color. The gathered remnants of Vivian’s presence drifted on unseen wind, slowly unraveling into the ambient mana.

“Now, that’s interesting,” she murmured. “Why does Ms. Renoux’s mana feel a bit like yours, Irene?”