"Sure. But I'm cooking. How many people would you like to bring?" I'm glad I picked up extra Keyhomes. A 20x50 "meeting room" will do for this.
John Fredrickson, director of foreign affairs, raises an eyebrow, "You cook? I'm looking forward to it. As for how many?" He considers, "I'd like to keep this first dinner small… makes discussions easier. Just me and my secretary for now, I think. It's not like a bodyguard would help."
"I was taking pains not to hurt the soldiers, yes. How soon would you like to dine? I don't need any meaningful prep time."
"It'll take a minute or two for my secretary to get here. I'll call now."
He pulls out his phone as I get a meeting room Keyhome out and open it up. It's really just a big empty room with a carpet and some decorations on the walls, but Heroes' Feast comes with its own tables, chairs, service, food, and drink; all I need is the space. The invisible Veil of Attentiveness I'm wearing lets me listen in… and Sense Motive lets me know his coded message has his "secretary" picking up some bugs and trackers. Yeah… not going to help. Not any more than simply wiretapping my cell, anyway… I need to do something about that. Maybe figure out interplanar calls while I'm at it. The old don's ring lets me know custom items are on the table….
John finishes his call, and pretends not to be impressed as he steps through the doorway in the air into the room. Sense Motive lets me know he's faking. A minute later, his intelligence agent shows up, tech toys in her purse.
The "secretary" was clearly chosen in part for her appearance; she has smooth skin, slightly above average curves - perfectly shaped, though - and luscious lips. It would be a simple matter for her to get a modeling job. Her makeup is the bare minimum of what's expected, and her black hair is smooth and straight shoulder length, which contrasts sharply with her pale skin. Her brown eyes are scanning the room, clearly not missing much. She's wearing a dark gray silk woman's business suit, the skirt of which falls to her knees, where her legs are clad in nylons before her feet are covered with black two inch heels.
X-Ray Vision lets me know she's packing a pistol in her purse, a knife and another pistol strapped to her thighs under her skirt, and something that looks like a folded pistol made of hard plastic in place of a tampon. Disarming this lady requires a very invasive search. Definitely assassin material.
Not that a bullet is going to do anything to me.
With the expected guests present, I cast Heroes' Feast, scaling it back for the number of guests. With a Swift action, we get a nice dinner with "ambrosial" food. The menu is apparently a good Cesar salad, filet Mignon, garlic mashed potatoes, and steamed carrots. Desert is a pecan pie, with champagne to drink. I go ahead and leave the door open.
"You weren't kidding about preparation time, I see. How much does a space like this cost?"
"No reason to. And…" I shrug, "They have a list price of a billion. I can do them faster now, though, so I might want to cut down on that. Do you want to buy one?"
"I don't have that kind of budget, but let me know if the price comes down.”
Director Fredrickson tries to think during dinner. Really he does. But the magical feast is simply too tempting, and he can't bring himself to do anything but stuff his face. His "secretary" plants the bugs under the table before she eats, but otherwise has the same problem. I'll have to think about what to do with those. A bug I know about is useful for misinformation, but I've no reason to lie to folks for now. Still. I’m probably going to need to leave this particular Keyhome behind when traveling to most places… or better: Give it to a minion to go places, have it impersonate me, keep up to date via Telepathy… yes… thank you, lady spy…
After dinner, John strikes up a conversation, “So what can we do for you, Mr. Carlson?”
Yeah, I know very well he’s wanting concessions, tit for tat kind of thing. Eh. Lots of my abilities I can apply to others come with strings when I so choose. I mean, I don’t really want to take over the world, but they are practically inviting me to.
“Oh, most things I can get for myself readily enough. Money buys a lot, and if you’ve checked my books, I have income enough from various sources; flight is especially popular, but there’s also those military and intelligence deals. And my expenses are pretty light; you saw my portable apartment earlier.”
“Yes, you’re a multi-millionaire, of course, you live in a world with billionaires…”
“And people mostly use the money for labor…” I cast Summon Monster VI for a Lillend Azata, Polymorph to make her human, and Fabricate some clothing directly on her, “... stuff…” I cast Fabricate to make a nice laptop, “... or a place to call home.” I gesture at the area we’re in. “I can make most of these things faster than I can buy them. Honestly, giving people flight is charity work for me, and if I decide I need money quickly…” I use Fabricate to produce a full sized solid gold statue of John, “... then I’ll just sell something. Those aren’t the things I need.”
Yeah, he’s still affected by wealth, “... is that real?”
“As real as you are. Solid gold too; if there was any THERE under the floor, it’d fall though. That stuff is heavy. With all the dents to make it look like you it’s only about three or four cubic feet, but that’s still about two tons of weight on a pretty small footprint.”
The director can’t seem to take his eyes off the statue, “... so what do you want, then?”
“Right now? Official recognition of Arcana as a country, with me as the ruler. A place to set up an embassy. I’ll eventually want some help bypassing bureaucracy to set up a portal network to replace most air travel - putting the portals at airports makes the most sense, as all the infrastructure for handling large numbers of people and international travelers are already in place.” I pause, “And… you seem to like that. Here…” I cast Shrink Item on the statue to make it portable, and pick it up; I also make a card with Fabricate with the command word for that specific instance of Shrink Item. I set both on the table between us. He still can’t take his eyes off it. I think he has some idea of how much two tons of gold is worth on the open market.
“I think that can be arranged, yes. Tit for tat, though, there’s some things we’ll want in return.”
Ah, here we go, “What do you think you want?”
“Those soldier boosts you’ve been selling to our boys… we’d like to know how to do them ourselves. Can’t have our supply lines cut off, after all.”
I shake my head, “It doesn’t work like that. I have an anomaly that lets me apply it to your soldiers, and it’s simply not something I can give you. If you can supply soldiers you trust, though, I can certainly boost them quickly….”
The value of what I’m selling is quite arbitrary, but then, so is the value of what I’m asking. I do end up giving him a slightly improved list of things to buy, and he gets a sample of each to cover the official recognition. A Charlatan’s Cape (Teleport 920 feet away three times a day, and go to the Ethereal plane for a short time once a day as well), a Keyhome, Boots of Teleportation (the Teleport spell, three times a day - each use is good for up to 900 miles of travel with three other people… although it carries some very real risks, which I tell him about), a 5x10 Carpet of Flying (a flying magic carpet that can carry 400 pounds). I actually have them all in stock. I’ve been keeping my crafters busy, because I like playing Santa to my friends sometimes. Oh yes, and he gets to keep the (currently) little gold statue of himself, which he can make life-sized whenever he likes. It’ll stay that way forever after, though, so the second time he’ll need to move it the hard way.
I figure he’s probably going to have his tech boys try to figure out how they work. Good luck with that, currently magic is primarily only accessible to folks who worship me, so… well, I might have a worshiper in there. I have a lot now
We say our goodbyes, and he promises to call me when he’s got everything officially done.
As I pack up my Keyhome and Plane Shift to my crafting plane, I notice I have a level up pending.
