Chương 15: Meeting of a life time
Snow and Dairen were waiting in the common area of J.R.S Building to be called up to the meeting between Mr. Rogers and the higher-ups of Dragon Express. The large 100th story building was gigantic; even the common area made her feel a bit dwarfed compared to the many others that she had gone to in the past.
The cleanliness was on point with very limited furniture. There was a reception desk at the end of the entrance that greeted them upon entrance, but after that, they were directed towards a large open space with sofa's neatly placed in a square-like fashion. Here she saw a handful of others who were waiting for their turn to be directed to their respective location.
She felt stifled. Her fingers drummed against her crossed arm as her eyes darted towards the clock on the side. Dairen, who was wearing a suit, was leisurely sitting on the chair, minding his own business. How he was able to be so calm in this situation made her jealous, mostly because she knew he didn't understand how big this was to him. He did get the gist of it, but the thought of possible war was a high probability.
Her hand raised to her lips, peeling away dead skin as she chewed it a few more times. With a quick dart of her eyes, she looked at the time again.
11:45 a.m.
One minute has passed.
Snow wondered why she was needed. Standing in front of the three most powerful organizations made her nervous. She wished she could crawl up in a little hole, hide for the day.
Dairen silently watched Snow as she paced back and forth. He straightened up, wondering what was wrong.
"You alright?" Dairen asked, startling Snow, who was deep in thought.
"Yea."
You sure?" Dairen didn't believe in what Snow had said.
Snow went silent, unable to answer. Her head tilted, she gazed back at the clock once more.
11:47 a.m.
With a heavy sigh, she shook her head. Enough was enough; she couldn't let such thoughts chaotically grip her very thoughts and existence every step she walked. It was driving her crazy as she knew her mind could go out of control with ifs, buts, and ands.
"Not really." She plopped next to him, leaning back on the coach defeated.
"What's wrong? He leaned forward, crossing his hand before him.
"Just worried."
"For the meeting?" Dairen was a bit baffled by her sudden worry. He had seen her act confidently in front of people and even Mr. Roger himself. "Why? You did fantastic last night."
"That was alcohol speaking." She brushed his statement aside. It was true. She tended to say things more brashly when alcohol was involved, which she honestly wanted to be able to say anytime she wanted without being ridiculously nervous like this.
"I think you will be fine." Dairen clapped his hand on her back, trying to calm her down.
"You're right. I'm just overthinking things." She sighed. From the short time she had known him, she felt like he wasn't bad. Honestly, she found him a bit strange with his odd thoughts and rituals, but so far, it didn't bother her. She was just having someone to momentarily talk to about her thoughts, released all the pent up stress that had been accumulating over time.
"Mr. Dairen and Ms. Snow." A beautiful blond lady with a black and white dress suit, walked over gracefully as she smiled. "Please follow me; the council is waiting for you." She motioned them with her hand as she whirled around to show them the way.
Both Dairen and Snow got up, trailing not too far behind her. They twist and turn until they finally arrive at a large door that dwarfs in comparison to any other door that she had seen. Upon pushing open the door, they entered a stadium-like area. Instantly, Snow saw over fifty different people seated around the rows of chairs with a few magical camera's floating in the air as it floated around them in different angles. In the front were three main figures, Snow recognized: Mr. Rogers, Emily Clairson, and Jonet Jackson. Next to them were two empty chairs.
Oh god. Snow silently cursed in her head. She had a feeling that they were heading straight to the two empty seats in front of the stadium. Her stomach started to twist into a horrible knot that made her do a quick potty dance-like steps, which she had to correct. Sweat trickled down her back, armpit, and even her hand, making her feel pale and hot. Already, she could feel her mouth becoming dry and scratchy.
Her mind went into war. One side screamed at her to stop being a wuss and be brave; the other side subliminally whispered into her ears, telling her that she was just an insignificant being that had no such equal power to be standing in front of such powerful people. She felt small, almost invisible.
Twisting the end of her skin, she flinched. All the crazy thoughts abruptly ended with her standing in front of the three most powerful magical beings in the magical community. She gulped.
"Well," Mr. Rogers crossed his hands in front of him and smiled gently.
The other two watched like a hawk at both Snow and Dairen, which brought another slew of tension.
"Have a seat."
Snow was unable to move forward. Dairen stopped to look back; he tugged at her shirt, which unfroze her. She then took her first step up the small stairs without too much trouble. Suddenly, as if her feet decided to defy her this one time, she stumbled and fell with a loud thud.
Oh. My. Lord.
Her mind went silent.
Kill me now! Her mind screamed in her mind. She dearly wished she would be squirreled away hidden underneath her blanket. She could feel the scrutinizing gaze that seemed to bore into her very skull. Already, she felt like she had an inkling of what others were thinking about her right this moment.
Her face was stoic; she pushed herself up from the ground and stood up.
Then she made her way to her seat without too much trouble. Gracefully she sat, bringing with her the usual classy receptionist attitude to hide behind as she gave them a smile.
"Hello." She replied, her mask hiding away her discomfort and nervousness. The embarrassment of the fall left behind a slight reddish glow on her cheeks.
"Ms. Snow, I'm glad that you had made it here. This is Emily Clairson, head of the Dragon Express, which I believe you already know. Then on the right is Jonet Jackson, head of the Magnus Academy."
Every single one of them is a force to be reckoned with. Emily Clairson, the first female elf to unite all the independent hunter associations to create a unified organization Snow didn't know how old she was. Still, she knew that she was probably past a thousand years old. It wasn't even a third of her life when the hunter guilds all came under one rule. Even now, her dazzling beauty was still present as a special charm around her seemed to twinkle to life. Though what caught her was her first and last name, which was not any elf like at all, she wondered what the story behind it all was.
While Jonet Jackson was a monster herself, she was one of the three oldest living grand mages and a retired Holy Maiden from the famous Church of Luminas to be alive in this century alone. Numerous awards and contributions were given to her from her successful magical experiments and new spells that she had created. Her looks paled in comparison to Emily Clairson from her old age, but she didn't look anything past forties. The most striking feature about her was her golden eyes gave her a life of her own. She was wearing traditional magus clothes, which were layered clothes that looked between a mixture of Mideastern and Asian traditional clothes mixed into one. In a tight bun, her hair was pulled back pinned to her head with two colorful chopsticks.
"Is she the one you spoke of?" Jonet asked she pushed her glasses up, taking a good look at Snow. "She seems a bit skinny. Is she eating, alright? I feel like we need to feed her a bit more."
"It's the fashion that humans go through these years." Emily Clairson waved her hand, "she's fine. Let's get on to the main subject with these so-called invasions."
"I wouldn't consider this an invasion." Jonet wasn't too thrilled by her snobby remark. "I had a vision from my Goddess Lumnias that this was preordained.
"That is your god, not mine. I have no such vision, nor did they send any warning signs for such an event, but there was something else that I had been warned."
Snow interest piqued to hear that the Goddess Lumnias herself had come in contact with. She was the Goddess that Snow herself has personally had a relationship with numerous times.
"That something evil is encroaching upon our land."
"Ah, the usual." Mr. Rogers spoke with a chuckle as he wasn't too affected by the thought of danger, bothering him at all. "The typical doom and gloom that the priestess is always known for. The staple of all oracles."
The other two stared at him with a frown, not happy with what Mr. Rogers had said.
"Typical vampires." Jonet shakes her head in disbelief. "I should have expected such an answer from you."
A sly smile appeared on his lips, folding his hand in front of him as he coyly stared at the two back and forth.
"Still, a prophecy is not something to scoff at."
"No. No. Please, tell us what you know." Mr. Rogers didn't say anything else as he waited patiently for what Jonet would say.
Jonet frowned, but she didn't let Mr. Roger's words bother her too much. She closed her eyes, reminiscing about the words of the prophecy. The air around her seemed to crackle with power; Snow could feel the heavy pressure she gave off, which made the end of the hair stick up.
"The star shall fall, the world shall merge. Invaders of the Dark King shall step foot, bringing terror upon the land. Ground shall stutter with heavy footsteps, for it shall be soaked with blood and death. Beware of the facade of the Heroes who lie behind the false impression of the light for they shall bring the end."
Her voice whispered into a raspy voice as she coughed. Eventually, her eyes opened, bringing back her usual persona.
"Doom and gloom as always." Mr. Rogers chuckled. "I believe a good three fourth of the prophecy all have some death and gloom. The Gods usual sense of poetic sarcasm is usually highly contagious and useless as one could see, but that does not mean they aren't useful. It did assist us in what we needed to counter the last apocalyptic doom."
"Regardless of the prophecy, there are a few factors that we need to pay attention too. From my understanding, it seems that worlds are merging. Already, we have strange new areas that appeared throughout the land and sea that had never been there before. Even the Sleepers are noticing these strange events. Our forces can not stop every single one of them."
"That isn't the only thing we need to worry about; the Players are appearing a lot faster these days. I have already rounded up one hundred of them walking in Atlantis itself, causing trouble." Mr. Rogers spoke. "We must control this as quickly as possible. Having them applied to the Dragon Express in the hunter association would be beneficial in keeping tabs on them. You guys already have the tools for this, do you not?"
Emily thought over what Mr. Rogers had said, she quickly agreed. "Yes, we can." She took a look at Dairen, "I had a few already registered into the database of our company to become licensed rookie hunters. They will get a small privilege of identity if the Sleepers ask for their identification. Having many unidentified people would cause trouble in the long run that we don't want."
"There was no trouble with the identification, correct?"
"Nothing so far, though the Players do have a knack for calling us NPC."
"NPC?"
"Yes, a game term used to coin nonplayers characters."
Mr. Rogers went silent, and he broke out into laughter. "Do these Players see this as some kind of game? What do you think, Mr. Dairen? How do you see this as a player yourself?"
Dairen uncomfortably shifted from Mr. Rogers gaze.
"Well, to explain why we would think like that is our window screen that appears in our vision. It gives us our own personal status and even brings up the NPC windows. We are able to see a little bit of information about the person or buildings. From there we can even get quest from the people and in return we gain experience like games. I don't know much about the status window, but one could say it's similar to a game. Right now, I can't help but think this world is a realistic game world, but….I guess it's not?" He tilted his head, not quite sure of what's really going on. Already being here for him felt like he was watching a major cinematic scene.
"With that into consideration," Mr. Rogers spoke carefully, "We should respond in a similar situation, give them different types of quest to guide them to do things for us. Dragon Express already has a system for monster hunting quests posted in their database; other small little tasks could be done similarly, no?"
"That's not such a bad idea. This should be able to have better control over these Players." Emily spoke, enlightened by the idea and the direction that Mr. Rogers was going on. "We would filter out the ones that would be inappropriate to have, such as assassinations and murder."
"Perfect." Mr. Rogers spoke with a typical calmness that the vampires had. His dominant personality was already controlling the flow of the conversation of the topic. "Does anyone else have any questions regarding the players?"
Suddenly, the room burst out with voices as questions were thrown out from one to another as they demanded answers.
Jonet frowned at the uncontrollable outburst that seemed to grow louder and louder as if they were trying to out voice another. It didn't take long for her blood pressure to rise up as energy fluctuated around her. She summoned up a staff and slammed it into the ground, causing a loud echo.
Everyone went silent as they stared at her.
"One at a time," Jonet spoke. "You," she pointed with her staff at a bald man in a black and white suit. "Speak."
The bald man fixed his tie, standing up, he spoke. "Do Player's die?"
"What do you mean, die?" Jonet asked, confused, "all living things die."
"No, I mean, do they follow the same rules of a game?"
Everyone was curious as well, they wanted to know because this would make them immortal.
"No." Dairen spoke, "we do not have a reincarnation system if that is what you are asking."
"Oh," The bald man sighed with relief. Everyone quickly understood that an immortal army could bring.
"With that being said, giving them similar rights in the world should help the players feel more at home. Who knows when they will come and go just like a whirlwind."
The question went on for an hour back and forth to gleam as much understanding of the players themselves, but not much information was known because Dairen didn't know much but what was given to him. Eventually, the long hours of back and forth questions of different topics were blown through, allowing the meeting to end past 3 P.M
Snow stumbled behind Dairen in hunger as her head felt like they were going to explode from the amount of information that she had learned.
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