Chapter 79 – Status Meeting

Geola. A woman possessing orange fur sparkled with black dots entered a large meeting room inside the city hall. After quickly scanning inside, she noticed that all the meeting participants were seated and took her place at the end of the large table. She glanced at a sofa in a corner of the room, on which another woman with similar features as hers was lying lazily on her side while reading a book, before ignoring her, just like everyone else did.

"Thank you for coming, all of you. Let's start immediately. Is there any urgent report first?"

Two men nodded and she urged the first one to talk.

"There are movements in Makji. Our intelligence believes that a rank 7 appeared in Thuk. We think that another skirmish will start soon. Maybe even a war."

She nodded and turned toward the second man.

"We have similar information from Taifau. They're also getting ready to fight."

"Thank you for the good work. Eilin, can you confirm any of this?"

A woman on the other side of the table answered.

"Yes. We're almost certain a new rank 7 has emerged in Thuk. A fire mage. They tried to keep it secret but it was impossible. The mood was tense and festive at the same time in the king's entourage."

"All right. Let's trust this information and start to stock up on war supplies. Stop selling for the moment to increase the prices. Any other urgent report?"

When no one responded, she continued.

"Good. Let's move on to weekly reports. Alrec?"

"Security has been relatively good inside Geola this week. Nothing happened in the surrounding villages either. We're planning a minor raid on a bunnies' village in Taifau to free a few of them next week. Our recruits…"

The minister of law and security's report continued for a while, followed by reports from other ministers. Nothing exceptional was said; the week was a standard one. Eventually, it was the minister of commerce's turn to speak.

"We have found something abnormal being traded this week."

All the participants who were trying hard not to fall asleep from the boring reports rejoiced internally. There was finally something interesting enough happening, that might allow them to stay afloat. The only one who scowled was Crali, who was leading the meeting.

"What is it?"

"Some items of unknown technology are being spread in the marketplace. There are a few different kinds of them."

"Relics?"

"We… don't think they are relics. I think it'll be faster if I show you directly. I have one of them with me."

The man took out an object that looked like a fan. He clicked on a button and the blade started to rotate, sending refreshing wind in the otherwise warm room. No one was especially impressed by the display so far.

"It doesn't look like much, right? However, it is indeed incredible technology. That’s because this isn’t an enchanted item."

This time, there were a few surprised looks.

"Not enchanted? And not a relic?"

"Yes. As you know, relics work using a few different kinds of energy. However, their main particularity is that they never use sel. This device is different because it does use sel. We tried to dismantle another one and we found out that sel is being stored in a small piece called the "battery". This battery propagates sel using extremely tiny threads, similar to pathways, to the parts that need it. With just two small batteries, this fan can operate for two days. On top of that, it's possible for anyone to quickly fill the batteries with sel again and increase the fans' life span indefinitely."

Murmurs were now propagating inside the room, the participants chatting with their neighbors about this incredible item.

"Silence. This seems like quite an impressive item."

"It's not just impressive. It's something we have never seen before."

"Are we able to reproduce it?"

"We tried to ask the best enchanters and blacksmiths in the city and they all agreed it was far beyond our level of technology. Some pieces are too small and we don't have any means of producing them currently."

"Hmm. Where did those things come from? Did you investigate it?"

"Of course. As you can expect, there has been a lot of reselling going around. But we managed to track the two initial sources."

"Two?"

"Yes. Officially, the provider is a weasel merchant of medium reputation in selling enchanted goods in the day market. He calls the goods "selnic" items. That's where most people believe the items are initially coming from. However, when we looked into it, we found out that this weasel merchant was also buying from someone else. That source is a beginner merchant who started selling in the night market very recently."

"Did you find where he was getting them from?"

The man hesitated for a second.

"Unfortunately, we weren't able to."

"Explain."

"Yes. The merchant is called Tila Urtek. We tried to investigate him but there’s almost no useful information to be found."

"It's fine. Report everything you know. I trust everyone understands how important this is?"

All the meeting members nodded with concerned expressions, and the man continued with his report."

"This is all the information we have about him. He first appeared about two weeks ago in Geola. He declared himself a trader from a faraway place but we haven't been able to confirm that. He claims himself to be a monkey mutant. He made friends with another merchant in the day market and is also trading with a family in the bunnies' village. Otherwise, he has very little contact with other people, except visiting Geola's Delight occasionally."

The mention of the brothel didn't disturb anyone in the room and the report wasn't interrupted in any way.

"His movements are hard to trace and our informants often say they lost track of him. We believe he acquires the goods during one of these moments but we haven't been able to find out where and when exactly."

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