On insistence of all parties, the meeting took place close to where the borders met. There was nothing great there, meaning that one of the most important gatherings of John’s political career so far happened nowhere else than a dirty table in a badly visited gas station that had last been modernized twenty years ago.

John’s shoes separated from the floor similar to tape being pulled from bathroom tiles. ‘Have they not heard of soap?’ he wondered as he tugged away his feet behind the front brace of the high stool he had to sit on. ‘Why do they even put backrests on these things?’ It was way too low to be leaned against and the plastic surface, smoothed over by a thousand truck driver asses, made the main seat a slippery experience. Putting both elbows on the table, John took a posture that looked more headstrong than he wanted, but everything was better than to just slip off and fall. In the worst case, that would make him lose his glasses, so that would be a really bad situation to be in.

Left of him sat Elu, miraculously able to keep her balance without any support. The old lady was so small that her feet didn’t even reach down to the braces. With her eyes closed and a relaxed body language, she was sipping tea out of a thermos cup.

Lastly, across from John, sat the representative of the Lake Alliance. He looked pretty young, just a few years older than the Gamer, twenty-two at most. Also, he was pretty good looking. As his interest in guys was quite low, that was to say he basically only cared if they were competition, he didn’t analyse the guy too deeply. Strong eyebrows; broad, masculine nose; slightly cleft chin; attractively stubby beard; determined, dark green eyes; the counterpart to some dreamy hero in a female oriented story about whether to choose the good guy or the bad guy who was still good despite hanging out with bikers and wearing almost exclusively leather.

As this guy did. Which put him immediately in the category of people John didn’t like. Bikers, particularly the heavy metal loving, jacket wearing types, had brought basically nothing but distress to his life so far. Which was a shame, since John himself liked to listen to AC/DC or Sabaton every now and again. A counterweight to the constant techno-bombardment his girlfriend put him through.

That aside, the important thing was that it was just the three of them in here and numerous bodyguards out there. John had technically brought the most, his elementals hanging around in their incorporeal state, aside from Siena. Visible were only Aclysia and Beatrice though, which stood against the nine people the Lake Alliance had brought and the ten from the Hidden Tradition. John felt rather favoured in the match-up, should it come down to an ambush with these forces. It helped that he had control of the barrier, just by virtue of his skillset.

John took a further look around in the tense silence, filled only by the uncaring slurps of Elu drinking her tea. If he hadn’t been internally debating something, he would have started the conversation himself already. ‘Always interesting what gets pulled into a barrier and what doesn’t,’ he thought to himself while the decision was made at the back of his mind, the elementals each giving their input. ‘Usually it’s just the landscape, including buildings. Unless someone touched some piece of furniture when they were pulled inside, or cars for that matter, those were stuck outside. Most of the time, it depended on the skill level of the barrier creator.

Salamander’s voice pulled his voice to the actual debate happening, which was coming to an end. ‘They put an ultimatum for John’s death out, so I don’t think they have any right to be offended if we do it.’

‘I mean…’ Gnome held the opposite stance but sighed and conceded the point. ‘Yes, you’re correct, we don’t really need or stand anything to gain by skipping out on their ire.’

Since even the soil elemental was with them on this one, John took the aggressive action. His untraceable gaze focused back on his opposite and he used Observe. It didn’t reveal anything. Then John tried again, pouring his entire mana pool into the spell.

The fact that they sent someone forward that was wishing to fight first said just about everything about the Lake Alliance’s intentions. With just that information, John could already eliminate the option of peace. Not that he did that possibility any favour by forcing his way through whatever wards were in place.

The stool of the Art Eater flew backwards as he violently got on his feet. Grabbing the edge of the round table, he leaned towards John, flashing his teeth. They were either made or covered in polished steel or, more likely, a magical metal of the same appearance. His breath smelled like freshly welded metal or burning electronics, unpleasant and invoking memories of the first computer John had lost to overuse. “Think you’re a clever fucker, do you?!” his voice rang out.

“You are about twenty centimetres away from me, so you can quiet down a bit,” John reprimanded, not interested in backing down for the sake of easing the tensions. “How about you show just a modicum of respect.”

“Respect,” Jeremiah spat out, leaning back and staring mockingly. He ran a hand through his short hair, the gel keeping it backwards oriented. Despite being much older than he looked, the Art Eater had a temperament below even his apparent age. “What sort of respect would I have for an oath breaker?”

“What oath did I break?” John wanted to know.

“The one where you promised not to take over the Little Maryland through military action?”

“No, I promised to not attack or send troops uninvited,” John stated. “I broke neither of these promises. My ally being murdered was the cause of the war, Abraham kicked it off, not me, and even then, I came on the wishes of the other generals.”

“Generals that had betrayed their country for you.”

“Abraham took military and vocal action against another candidate,” John calmly laid out. “By the law of his own guild, he was no longer the rightful leader of the Little Maryland.”

“And you are now?”

“In the interim between elections, by decree of the remaining leading figures, civil and military, yes. There is no one more legitimate than I as per the rules designed long before I arrived on the scene.”

All of that was the truth, although John wouldn’t claim that this entire thing was squeaky clean. There was definitely a lot of dirty politics involved. On paper, however, he came out innocent. The entire room once more sank into silence. Elu opening her eyes and looking over the rim of her cup was what ultimately turned the Lake Alliance’s representative to drop it.

“He really thinks he is a clever fuck,” Jeremiah grumbled to himself as he turned to pick up his stool and sit back down. “You speak of respect, while sitting here with your shades on. Didn’t your teacher smack you for that kind of behaviour?”

John hesitated, going over advantages and drawbacks. ‘I will reveal it publicly soon anyway,’ he thought and put down the glasses, only to show the truth just like he had done with Scarlett a few hours earlier. That actually got Jeremiah to stare in shock. If he knew just the least bit about Gamer’s Body and how sturdy it made John, then the Art Eater must have realized how significant such a permanent mark was. “You lost your ally in my apparent enemy Abraham,” John stated as he put the contact lens back in. “The very same person who minimized the damage to me to just my sight. It's not a good time to be strong as long as Sigmund runs wild.”

“…Did he really breeze through the entire army?” Jeremiah asked insistently. Their differences were forgotten for the moment, a common enemy was on the field.

Wondering if he could string that into some sort of alliance or at least truce with the Lake Guilds, John answered carefully. “Breeze? Maybe, but I don’t think so. We hurt him, I even took an arm from him. As much as I hate his worldview, I do have to admire his fortitude. There was no telling if he was an inch away from death or not. Between his regenerating armour and the blood elemental sealing his wounds, knowing exactly how close he was to death is impossible to say. That he won is the ultimate fact of the matter. Which means he is now even stronger than before.” He let that sink in for a moment before adding. “Which means he will look for stronger people, stronger armies, whatever gives him a challenge. He could appear anywhere again, before you, before me, and just fuck up our lives because he wants something to beat. It would be best if…” Elu was anticipating his next words.

“Do you calculate your alliances around earthquakes, John?” Jeremiah cut him off.

Immediately, the Gamer knew where this was going. “Don’t liken Sigmund to a calamity you’ll just weather when he comes your way,” John warned. “If you could kill the source of all hurricanes, you should.”

“At the cost of leaving our most evident enemy time to grow?” Jeremiah mockingly blew air out of his nose. “Please. The Lake Alliance is willing to face the Contender should it come to it. No, YOU are the most definitive problem here. Sigmund MIGHT come to fight us. You are an aggressive expander, gathering power out to conquer us guaranteed. In your metaphor, why kill the source of a whimsical hurricane, if we can kill the source of a local earthquake? We won’t negotiate with you any further than demanding your execution.”

“…Foolish boy,” Elu shook her head, finally becoming part of the conversation. “What is your guild’s power worth in the face of an enemy threatening to end us all?”

“Everything we have to pay to maintain it,” Jeremiah returned in a determined tone. “Only our blood will be the price for our sovereignty. The Lake Guilds will only ever govern themselves. Fuck all of those rules and demands you bring and fuck your authority.”

‘Negotiations were impossible after all,’ John thought, ‘the decisions were already made.’ “Then we are at war now, Jeremiah Arter? You choose the lesser but obvious threat to your independence over the small but overwhelming threat to your life?” As a min-maxer, he could understand the idea, but the scales were rather heavily weighted towards taking care of the blatant problem first, in his biased opinion.

“That is what the council decided.” As the Gamer had no idea how the internal decision making of the Lake Alliance worked, he could only make the educated guess that that was their highest decision-making body.

“Then why have this talk at all?” John wanted to know. “You, by you I mean the bigger you, could have made this clear just as easily in a message than you could have here, without wasting either of our times.”

“Oh, I insisted,” the Art Eater looked out the window, where Aclysia was standing and glaring right back. “I heard you had some delicious Artificial Spirits that you bring anywhere, but those outdo my expectations. They look soft in all the right places.” Slowly, his tongue crawled over his teeth.

John’s mood went from sour straight to cold, potent rage. “You will do nothing to them.”

“Or what?” Jeremiah giggled, clearly not fazed. Instead, he nonchalantly leaned on the table and gave it a very slow, very obvious eye roll. “What will the blind man do to threaten me, hmmmm?”

“I will break that pitiful thing you call a dick,” John returned and immediately knew that he had hit a successful weak spot. Sometimes, the pretty unnecessary sexual information came in useful. “I mean, you got to use it once and now all you have is your hand, congratulations.”

“…You are so dead when we meet again,” Jeremiah decided and raised his hand to leave the barrier.

“Having trouble getting it up?” John threw some extra salt in the wound by blocking his exit.

“Want me to break your funny little spine right here?!” the Art Eater grabbed the table and tossed it aside. John adjusted his glasses and got on his feet before he could slide off the stool. They measured each other up. Jeremiah was slightly taller, but raw Stats wise, he only triumphed over John in Endurance and Spellpower, if that Stat translated roughly to how most spells scaled with Intellect and Wisdom.

“Oh no, you can leave,” the Gamer grinned with open superiority. “I’ll allow you to. I know you always go first.” Didn’t quite have the same ring as ‘come first’, but at least it was contextually correct.

At this point, Jeremiah’s face was running red and a vein pulsated visibly on his forehead. With a side glance at Elu and an annoyed click of his tongue, he was out of the barrier.

“Sorry, I know I shouldn’t have done that,” John immediately turned to the Old Grace with a much friendlier tone.

“Oh no, he asked for it,” the sympathetic grandma assured him. “My first husband, weak as he was, also always got right uppity when somebody said something inappropriate about me. I approve of guys that stand up for their women… but politically speaking that was probably dumb. Then again, we’re already enemies, so who cares?”

‘Wonder why this didn’t pop up for the Little Maryland. Probably because it was a civil war where I wasn’t acting as Fusion’s representative? Technicalities are so annoying…’ John sighed. This whole thing had been a massive waste of his time. Well, not necessarily. “Do you have the promised details for the ritual on you by chance?”

“Oh, yeah, thought we might as well go over it when you are already leaving your house,” Elu answered and laughed warm heartedly, the bodyguards of Jeremiah leaving in the background. “I know how hard it is for you gamers to get away from your screens for any amount of time.”

“That sounds like a… completely true stereotype,” John had to concede.