Chapter 198: Our ‘First’ Meeting

Chapter 198: Our ‘First’ Meeting

“You must be Tyrannus,” Perry said, offering his hand to the wall of gemlike red scales.

The twenty-foot tall death-lizard daintily extended a single arm-length, razor-sharp claw and Perry shook it.

“And you must be Paradox Zauberer. Please, call me William.” the dragon said before waggling his front paw. “Tyrannus is my...stage name.”

“Perry,” Perry said.

“You’re so shiny!” Natalie blurted.The initial posting of this chapter occurred via Ñøv€l-B!n.

Tyrannus gave a booming chuckle that Perry felt rattling his bones.

“I just got them buffed for this meeting, actually. It’s good to meet you as well, Natalie Smith, and Heather Skinner.” The dragon ‘shook hands’ with each of them.

He was crimson red, with scales polished to a mirror-shine, and his sailboat-sized wings were neatly folded up against his side. He was wearing a heavy gold harness around his chest with a head-sized amethyst in the center, swirling with light.

Too obvious a weak-point? Perry thought, eyeballing it. It looked impressive, but it felt about as magical to his dimensional senses as an LED lavalamp.

Could be a red herring.

“So, Perry,” The massive creature slumped down to his belly, bringing his height closer to that of Karth, who watched the dragon with barely restrained anger. “In about an hour and a half, we’ll ‘officially’ meet for the first time in the audience room, with spectators and everything. Right now we’ve got time to...make a rough draft of our conversation.”

“And that’s why wrestling is fake.” Heather said, nudging Natalie.

“I remember those eyes,” Karth muttered, eyes narrowed.

“Karth the plains troll. Good to see the collared symbol of Gna’kis is still working well for you, although you’re further west than I’d hoped you’d be by now.”

“It’s Karth the Troll King now,” Karth said. “I’m claiming the territory of North Dakota as a sovereign state.”

William raised a brow and glanced from Karth to Perry. “Who thought giving an exceptionally brilliant plains troll an education was a good idea?”

“Touche,” Perry said, wishing he had some fancy wine to swirl ominously. “It seemed like an ‘enemy of my enemy’ situation.”

The dragon idly tapped his claw on the marble floor, cutting massive gouges out of the floor that seemed to heal themselves shortly after the claw was gone.

“’Enemy’ seems reductive. We have conflicting goals, it’s true, but they are not so diametrically opposed that common ground is unachievable. I seek to expand the Empire and secure her future, you seek to protect those you serve, as well as your family. The two goals can be married.”

“By all means, tell me how that can be done,” Perry said.

“How would you like everything east of the Mississipi?”

“That’s...insultingly close to Chicago,” Perry said. “You’d leave us with less than a third of the continent.”

“Ah, but the majority of the southwest is arid desert, while the east coast is fairly lush. Good farmland. We’ll need that much land simply to produce our own food.”

“And the mineral deposits in the Rockies couldn’t hurt your next phase of expansion?” Perry guessed.

“As I said before, I seek to secure a future. I’m currently...speedrunning the nineteenth century, and will turn my gaze toward the industrial revolution once we have sufficient expansion.

“And what will you use for fuel?” Perry asked. “Not a whole lot of coal and oil left.” Not enough for a second industrial revolution anyway. From what Perry was following from the conversation, Tyrannus wanted to avoid armed conflict he wasn’t sure he could win, and win the long game by creating a vastly more prosperous nation...in fifty years or so, whose purchasing power would allow it to annex Chicago, Washington and Franklin without bloodshed.

For most tyrants, a plan fifty years out in the future was the furthest scope of their foresight, something they might accomplish on their deathbed.

The way this dragon spoke, made it feel like ‘step one’.

“Fuel? The Eternal Empire has what you call Tinkers, who are in the process of creating a power-source, scalable enough that it can serve our purpose of industrialization.”

“Oh really? What is it?” Perry asked.

William gave him a toothy grin, but declined to answer.

“In Acolyte Karen’s debrief, it was mentioned that you requested the blood of three thousand people as reparation, and Karth demanded four million pounds of meat. It’s being arranged as we speak. The land though...That’s something a bit trickier. Naturally, I won’t give you land you have no stake in, literally and figuratively.”

“Disappointing. How about something smaller but no less valuable?” Perry said, pointing at the Non-Euclidean Essence Physics Phd.

“I’m sure you can find another,” Perry said.

“True. It’ll just be a bit more time-consuming,” William said with a sigh that released a massive plume of heat that billowed toward the ceiling, making the air between them shimmer with heat. “Fortunately, my heritage has blessed me with plenty of that. The offer stands until I make time to fetch one from Manita.”

With another motion, Perry’s old amor was wheeled away.

“Very well. I’m sure that while there are dozens of lines of inquiry that we can pursue, and you of all humans could probably keep me engaged in stimulating conversation indefinitely...Time runs short. let us begin scripting our ‘first meeting’, Diplomat Paradox Zauberer, representative of the great cities of the east, on the combined authority of Solaris and...Stacy Watt-Powers, the twelve year old girl who recently seized control over Washington City in an obvious coup?”

“She doesn’t have a super title.” Perry lied his ass off. “You can just call her Stacy.”

“I imagine there’s an interesting story there. We’ll make it work.”

So they sat down and hashed out a script, which went off without a hitch. In less than an hour, Perry was introducing himself in front of a massive crowd of courtiers and bureaucrats who handled the majority of the nation’s paperwork.

Most of them were slack jawed idiots taking notes for propaganda posters, or just letting the pomp and circumstance to wash over them so they could get back to bean-counting.

There were, however, a few faces in the crowd that were a bit more offputting. Militaristic types with grim expressions and firm stances. Leaders of Tyrannus’s military branch of religious zealots, perhaps?

Who knew? The dragon had reeled Perry into the capital before he’d had a chance to get the lay of the land, and visit The Temple, and that was likely by design.

Their ‘first meeting’ went smoothly, and Perry demonstrated the exact amount of deference expected of him as a diplomat of another nation, laid out the grievances between their nation, and Tyrannus gave an arrogant non-apology that left room for negotiation that implied he’d get into contact with Solaris personally.

His message delivered, Perry retired to the room they’d been given for the night and collapsed into bed, utterly exhausted by his meeting with the dragon.

***Tyrannus***

“Ms. Figgis...Karen. did your Flagbearer allow their flag, bearing my image, to touch the ground?” Tyrannus asked as he inscribed the ritual circle around the acolyte. He already knew the answer, but it was good conversation.

“...No, sire.”

“Good leadership instincts.” Tyrannus murmured. “I like leaders with spine. Those who take the risk of punishment for those beneath them. ‘Officially’, that flag never touched the ground.”

“Thank you, sire,” Karen said, glancing down at the intricate ritual spreading out beneath her in every direction, the grooves around her neatly carved into the marble floor with claws that made stone seem soft.

“Sire, may I ask what the purpose of this is?” She asked.

“You may.” Tyrannus responded with a hint of amusement.

“...Sire, what is the purpose of this?”

“I cannot see into the depths of this Paradox boy,” Tyrannus said. “His every move and manner was calculated to make him impossible to read.”

“Where do I come in?” Karen asked.

“Under normal circumstances, I would debrief you and that would be that, but I need more firsthand information about his behavior and powers. I need to see what you saw.”

Tyrannus motioned to the script beneath her feet and the assortment of magical paraphernalia. “Therefore I’m performing a ritual that will allow me to peek into your memories and live them as if I were there myself. Some Blessings are nearly indistinguishable from others, so in order to decipher the boy’s Blessings and how they interact with each other, I’ll need firsthand experience, not a verbal debrief.”

“I see,” Karen said, nodding.

“Once the ritual is over, you’ll report back to Temple. There they’ll give you a commendation for your delicate handling of the situation, then send you back out into the field with your team.”

“Delicate? We fought...”

“Officially, you did not, my Acolyte. Mr. Zauberer was very specific about that. And I personally appreciate your delicate touch handling his broodmare. Mr. Manchin made it quite clear that she’s quite the volatile leverage, and we shouldn’t employ it at all without the proper finesse.”

“Mr. Manchin?” Karen asked.

“No one you would know, my dear,” Tyrannus said. “Now this part will make you a bit dizzy, you may wish to close your eyes.”

Karen obediently closed her eyes, and Tyrannus raised a paw and crushed the frail human into a paste, filling the grooves of the marble with blood and viscera, completing the ritual.

A pale blue mist of memory began to rise from the circle, whose light was beginning to bloom.

Tyrannus leaned down over the circle, and inhaled everything that made Karen ‘Karen’, sorting through her everything with a practiced hand and analyzing her every moment of contact with Paradox with an inhuman eye for detail.