“What do you want? Emilia?” when forcefully pulled out of the panic room, whose steel had been cut open by the man in a dark red coat, Arthur Corin was shaken but still tried to maintain his composure. Then he was forced at the opposite side of the table Emilia Corin with her gun also placed on the table: “You know, is this how you think you’re gonna get your way? By attacking a center of operation and threatening an elder like me?”

“What I want has always been the same. Had you and the others stuck to your duty and our precious process and maintained a fair game instead of turning a blind eye to Walt’s bullshit. It wouldn’t have come to this.” Emilia Corin remained a faint sense of formality and respect for Author Corin when she spoke: “So, I am just here to let you know, that I am still in the running for my seat at the table. That seat will be mine when the run closes, and you are going to help me.”

Rufus Corin put a piece of paper with the official Corin family letterhead and some pre-printed texts down on the table and a luxury pen on the side and slid it to Arthur Corin. Emilia Corin then leaned in and said: “This is your letter of reaffirmation informing the other elders and those who sit at the table that I, Emilia Corin, is still in the run for that vacant seat, with Rufus here as my candidate for lieutenant. And even if no elder is backing me from the shadows, I am still going to beat that imbecile Walt and that shame and embarrassment of a Corin George.”

“And you want me to acknowledge you as an official candidate for the seat and submit your name officially.” Arthur Corin looked at the letter and looked up from it with a concerned look: “Which means I will be your official backer. That’s not possible, even - ”

“Even Walt doesn’t have an official acknowledgement. I know, even with the guards willing to execute me on sight, I still have sources of information.” Emilia Corin smiled: “But I suppose you already know, that this acknowledgement is nothing but a ceremonial process, a meaningless rubber stamp, and a fucking sham. Because if that were true, Walt wouldn’t have the backings of TWO ELDERS! AND HE WOULDN’T HAVE ACCESS TO ROLAND’S FILES!”

At Emilia Corin’s last sentence, she slammed her hand on the table so hard that she cracked the wooden table and left a dent on it. Arthur Corin flinched, and muttered: “Is… is that what this is all about? It’s about that girl… Kathy?”

“Uncle Arthur, I wonder - I just wonder, if you would ask Walt the same question, if it was my men that shot up HIS supposed safe house and leaving - what’s her name? Amber? In a fucking pool of blood.” Emilia Corin’s eyes narrowed and slightly adjusted her gun, “ Just sign the letter and stamp your seal.”

“Okay. But you know this won’t be enough.” Arthur Corin sighed and shook his head, then he picked up the pen and signed his name on the letter: “You know - this letter won’t mean anything if you can’t have the majority of the elders on your side. You’d also need to have the majority members of the table to acknowledge you for you to gain that seat. And to do that, you will need to have Roland on your side.”

“That would be my concern.” Emilia Corin took the letter from Arthur Corin, then she nodded at a smelly and dirty old man wearing a dirty brown cloak.

The old man let out a creepy laugh,  then he pointed his fingers at Arthur Corin, a stream of dark smoke shot from the tip of his finger and struck Arthur Corin’s left arm. Arthur Corin pulled back his arm in pain, and when he checked the area that got hit, he saw the figure of a snake embedded on his arm, like a really lively tattoo using dark ink.

“What’s this? What have you done to me?”

“Insurance policy.” Emilia Corin stood up, turned around and left: “So that you wouldn’t cross me. Don’t even think about doing it, or it’s gonna be nothing but pain and torture for you.”

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“Professor Harmon is ready to see you. Please come in.” after waiting outside of the department head’s office for nearly forty minutes, the secretary finally came out and informed Dolores: “Thank you very much for your patience.”

“Thank you.” Dolores stood up and went into the office following the secretary.

“Dolores, it’s been too long!” Professor Harmon stood up from his chair to greet Dolores: “How are you? And how’s Professor Atkinson?”

“I’m doing good. And so is the Professor.” Dolores shook hands with Professor Harmon: “How are you doing? How’s Mrs. Harmon?”

“We’re doing okay, considering the complete lockdown of the academy and all. Thank goodness for the civilian techs, we could still meet and talk using video chats. When I am not running around to track down the forbidden material and confiscating illegal fireworks from students, that is.” Professor Harmon smiled and joked: “So let’s get down to business, why don’t you tell me what brought you here?”

“Professor Atskinson and I, with the help of Mr. Wang, our visiting scholar, have made some really interesting discoveries from visiting that excavation site.” Dolores took out a crystal ball and handed it to Professor Harmon: “This is a sample recording - we’ve stabilized a piece of the hail we collected from the site, and we are able to extract some really interesting, and even eye-opening energy signatures from it. The site is - just as we suspected before, a place of residence from an ancient god. And we believe that the potential discoveries of this site would not only be of great benefit for the research of Godfalls, but also for the research and development of modern magic and power theories.”

“Yes. Interesting indeed.” Professor Harmon picked up the crystal ball and examined it using his magical powers, the crystal ball started shining in different kinds of light and even started making an arcane humming sound: “You and Professor Atkinson are definitely on to something here - so, what can I help you with?”

“So, in order to fuel the energy signature analyzer and the suppressive rays that we used to break down the protective energy shields from the objects recovered from the excavation site, we ordered a lot of energy stones from European vendors and Australian vendors. But due to the academy lockdown, they won’t be able to make it in time.”

“Yes, that I am aware. I personally guarantee you, that your stones would be tall on the top of our vetting list. But I hope you’ll understand that vetting material, especially material like energy stones, takes a lot of time. It’s not exactly a stamp and go process.”

“Totally. Which is why I am here. I would like to formally request for some allocation from the department’s energy stone reserves, because a situation like this constitutes an unpredicted shortage of our research material.” Dolores looked at Professor Harmon earnestly: “Without these energy stones, our research would not last three days.”

Professor Harmon went silent for a while, then sighed and said: “I am so sorry Dolores, but I can’t help you with that. The department’s energy stone reserves - it’s pretty dry right now. We don’t have much for … pretty much anybody.”

“What?!”

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A big thank you to my patrons: ab, mant06, Jonathan.