Entropy had been listening to Der Ring des Nibelungen for the last three hours, browsing online repositories of Norse Mythology to give her a baseline on what they were getting themselves into. What she'd read wasn't particularly encouraging, but neither had it been a deal breaker. They would make an honest attempt of it, and let the dice fall where they lay. Being back in the City, even for just a few hours that evening, would certainly be a good call. The miasma that followed them would touch millions of minds, even if they ended up leaving on a midnight flight. Besides, they didn't know how long this would take. Querying the multiverse just to see when they should book a flight was a bit counterproductive, especially when their flight club status ensured that they could move it as needed. Order would book a flight that night on the off chance that they'd be done here, but neither of them really counted on it.

Entropy texted Phil the address of one of their favorite cafes in Brooklyn, along with a note that they'd be there in one hour, and would appreciate the ride. Order could have just driven them, but SUVs were hardly a wise idea in the City, and it positioned themselves as Phil's responsibility to manage. Doing so gave them at least the illusion of guest right.

Fafner might not care, but it was still best practice.

The café was as they remembered and even with the morning crowd they warranted a table moments after stepping through the doors. Service rendered with due alacrity it was terribly easy to recognize their ride. Phil has sent a Rolls Royce from the late 1940s, a Silver Wraith in black and bronze.

Even New York Traffic gave the thing a polite berth, possibly terrified of anything that expensive casually stopping at a Brooklyn café. Phil stepped out after parking and spotted the Twins through the window, offering a polite nod.

"Oh, he's got class."

Order teased her sister quietly, allowing the far more charismatic of the two to handle the actual greeting. She'd agonized for almost an hour on her appearance that morning, opting for an athletic woman with Eastern European features who couldn't have been more than 5'3". She had the thighs and shoulders of a professional athlete, despite likely not weighing more than 140lbs. The cauliflower left ear and poorly set nose complimented the look, suggesting a history of boxing or something in MMA. She ditched the Italian suit for a sky blue blazer and slacks over an open popped collar, though she'd kept the shades from two nights previously. It was a rather ridiculous look, the sort someone new to money might adopt. Entropy, for her part, gave Phil a friendly wave. She'd needed to use the bathroom in the café to change, though blessedly she'd had no need to freshen up. Well, not blessedly, but a similar enough sentiment. She'd adopted a cream colored button up that had been tailored for her at her usual tailor, a hidden gem on the Eastside of Brooklyn that you needed a referral to call, tucked under a simple black pencil skirt. The two complimented each other perfectly, as long as she was going for professional and austere. It reeked of old money, making the two of them an odd pair.

"Hello there Phil. Your choice of wheels or your liege's?"

She asked once they were in speaking distance. Order moved to open the door, her demeanor and appearance suggesting that she was Entropy's body guard for the morning.
This message was last edited by the player at 03:00, Thu 04 Nov 2021.

"Mine, sadly she's not all original. Had to manufacture some replacement parts for the engine but the frame and fixtures are original," Phil said proudly as he ran a hand along the hood, "And added seatbelts just to avoid casual law enforcement harassment. Took me every weekend for two months, got an Aston Martin lined up next."

He shook his head.

"I'm playing chauffer today and we should be going. Help yourself to anything in the minibar but try not to spill it, yeah?"

Flirting was technically a good strategy in these sorts of situations.

Order had been the one who'd found Karremans et al. (2009), and had laughed nearly to tears as she had laid out the numerous followup studies on men's cognitive decline when there was a conventionally attractive woman in the room. The icing on the cake had been the study that had found that said woman didn't even need to be in the room for the decline to be noticeable. The researchers just had to say she was next-door, looking in behind a one way mirror, and it could be observed. A little touch on the shoulder, a little smile at the right moment, would have been more than enough to shave off a few IQ points. But, effective as it might have been, it just wasn't either of their style. It wasn't about ethics, or any sense of fair play. They were just effective enough at garnering advantages that they didn't need to manage the possible repercussions of that particular strategy. It was a cost benefits analysis, and they'd concluded early on that the costs were always more annoying than the results.

Not bigger, just more of a pain in the ass.

So she let the opportunity pass, and kept things professional as they got in. Entropy in the passenger seat, Order in the back.

"Indulgences like this are what makes it all worth it, in the end."

She mused, brushing an errant strand of black hair back behind her ear.

"When this business is done, email us a list of the manufactured parts. No promises, but we'll see what we can do."

They settled in, ready to go.

"Appreciated but it's good to have some sweat equity in a project," Phil told her. He drove like a very boring person which in this city should have put them at risk. They ended up at a very famous building sporting the name of a very infamous politician. He had a reserved spot in the underground garage.

"Top floor," Phil tells them, holding up a blank white card, "You want to add me to the mix or is this a more intimate affair?"

Order actually took this one, which was rare for her.

"If you don't come along, and they really get into contract negotiation, I'm going to have no one to talk to."

She said from behind her glasses, which hadn't come off the whole trip. Entropy teased her for them constantly, and yet every face she chose seemed to come with the accessory.

"A quick primer suggests that isn't the Sin your liege is generally guilty of, you should join us."

She turned and reached out a hand to them both, linking arms with Order and Phil, if he allowed it. Either way, she was walking towards the elevator with purpose.
This message was last edited by the player at 23:57, Thu 11 Nov 2021.

"Sin is perhaps the wrong word. We all have our cornucopia of vices," Phil answered as Entropy took his arm. The elevator is nice but bland, with three levels of parking and 58 floors. With the card inserted into the slot beneath the numbers it began to rise smoothly. It seemed they warranted an express override. At floor 58 it slowed down, then changed to 00 before opening.

The foyer had three doors, one directly across from the elevator bank and one to either side, the doors were stained glass in wrought iron frames while the floor was a cream colored marble.

"Just to be clear, don't touch anything inside without being invited to do so. I've never seen someone successfully take anything but he's like a single child when it comes to his toys."

Order had already folded her hands behind her back, smiling at Phil as they rode the way up. As the doors opened, Entropy led the way, her heels clicking sharply on the marble floor. However, when she got to the wrought iron door she paused, waiting for Phil to open it. Apparently, she took the whole "don't touch anything" instructions seriously.

"Nothing you can swipe, smartass," Phil told her with rolled eyes before he pushed the door open.

Nearly a third of the floor was composed of this room. In the center there was a desk the size of a small car that had been polished less to a shine than a gleam. It was a working space, to the left as they entered was a series of opened crates, the desk in the center had a variety of brushes, lenses, and small tools, while the right was all but buried in display cases.

The entirety of gold mined in human history would roughly fill an Olympic Pool. This room had enough for a comfortable hot tub. Add in the artwork, jewels, and weapons. You could buy a developing nation outright, or make a hell of a down payment on a developed one.

Their host was sitting at the desk, gaunt, black skinned, hair pulled back into a ponytail, and a Savoy Row suit. He had a golden cross on he desk, inspecting it with a jewelers loup.

He looked up as they entered, eyes a shade of bronze.

Entropy drew close, but was careful not to touch the desk or take a seat without being offered. Order lurked a half dozen places behind, her eyes scanning the room behind her glasses.

"Greetings, Fáfnir, son of Hreidmar."

She'd done her research, and figured that naming the Dragon's former brothers was probably a bad call. Even naming his father might set him off, considering the archetype he was personifying, but she figured it was worth the risk. The old forms of respect, the old ways, best to stick to tradition.

"I would share bread and salt with you in your domain."

Order held up the bag containing the half dozen bagels and schemer she'd picked up from the café that morning. Technically, if they were claiming guest rite it should be Fáfnir offering the meal, but they'd agreed that it was wise not to ask him to share anything he owned. Bread and salt was steeped in ritual, but sea-salted bagels would do in a pinch.

"Your man thinks Telos LLC might be of service to you, and from what the splendor I'm seeing here, I'm inclined to agree."

"So he tells me. You may leave cousin, I offer them my aegis until tomorrow's dawn. Actually I believe Jacqueline happens to be pining in her office," Fafner told the Hispanic man, his eyes briefly taking a vertical pupil before he leaned back, "And I prefer Nicholas. The other tends to exacerbate bits of my personality best left sleeping."

Phil looked to Entropy before he gave a nod and stepped out, closing the door behind him.

"Please, have a seat. You might be interested in this little bauble."

Entropy nodded at the offer of aegis, and didn't even bother to bind the words. Instead she just took a seat, folding her legs and giving the Dragon her undivided attention.

"A bauble?"

She arched an eyebrow inquiringly, not reaching for the proffered item if it was presented.

Nicholas pressed the jeweler's glass towards them and held out the crucifix in mute offer.

"Warned you about the obsession I take it. You can touch," he smiled before his eyes did their shutter-shift for a moment, "Just do not think to take without consideration."

Entropy nodded, accepting first the crucifix and then the jeweler's glass. She opened herself up as she did so, plunging her mind into the multiverse and cycling through the endless possibilities. Her Intention was easy to shape, a simple crafting in the grand scheme of things, and yet never so.

What can I do to impress this man, this Dwarf, this Dragon?

There was a strange joy in simplicity, even as she plunged through the infinite layers of reality to find the one that best served her purpose. It did not mean that the answer would be simple, in her best interest, or even possible for her to achieve. The joy was not in the doing, but the knowing. The unwinding of the pattern into the concrete, the deciphering of the indecipherable and processing an unimaginable amount of information with nothing but a blink of her eyes.

Fafnir is attempting to recreate a specific item from his horde. Andvaranaut, the treasure that draws other treasures. His nature and talents tend to draw some riches to him but his holdings are paltry by his own standards. He's not even the richest creature on the damned city for Siegfried's sake!

The cross is gold gilded wood, an actual antique probably worth a few hundred thousand. It looks like two gems are missing from their setting.

"I purchased a pair of gems and the delivery seems to have been interrupted," Nicholas tells them, "My agents further west are very much a work in progress."

Entropy handed it to Order, who waggled her eyebrows suggestively at her sister behind her shades, but then bent to inspect the crucifix. She did not mention prices, there was no point in doing so. As with the sister's three, she was vastly more interested in favored owed than stock options.  They were old school like that.

"Does that mean you've yet to eliminate the possibility that it was an inside job?"

Entropy asked, not bothering to pull her punches.

"Or just that they've got no leads?"

"It was not an inside job. They were merely prepared for the wrong opposition and my influence is still very localized," Nicholas replied with a frown, "So I have engaged professionals to purchase the items from the new owner. Brute force might work but is unacceptably expensive for now."

He laughed.

"I can always find treasure, just as you always know where to find leverage. By the numbers I could kill and take them easily but our natures are ill suited for such a conflict."

There were a number of angles he could be looking to play on this, and she didn't believe in playing games of chance. He hadn't done anything to suggest she needed to be discreet with her words, merely with her actions. He wasn't looking for a war, and in truth, neither were the Twins.

"There are a variety of services we could provide you, depending on your preferences and needs. Are you looking to reacquire said missing assets discreetly, acquire for yourself more militant assets that might change the status of any potential conflict, or are you looking for a mediator to negotiate with this third party and perhaps bring the price down to an acceptable level?"
This message was last edited by the player at 03:05, Sun 12 Dec 2021.

"The gems are not, strictly, essential. Substantial effort and time would be needed to find a substitute. My trouble is the opportunity cost of such delays," Nicholas told her, fingers steepled, "Every extra month compounds the losses permanently."

He snorted at the list.

"I explicitly do not want to start a war over this. I send lawyers and solicitors, not thieves and soldiers. Price matters rather little, a few million is trivial."

That was good, brokering a war with a rival Mythos was probably not the best way to make their introduction into the larger scene. It certainly looked good on a CV, but it was simply too messy of an affair. Calculating every little possible contingency sounded exhausting, and she hadn't actually needed to sleep since the spark of her own Infernal Divinity had awoken within herself and her sister.

"A mediator then."

She said with finality.

"We'll ask your man to provide us a list of exactly how much you are and aren't willing to pay, and reach out to them the moment we return to our office. Are they in the City? We were planning on leaving tonight, but plans can be adjusted as needed."

"Of course. The eyes are proving quite contested," Nicholas agreed, "For purposes of simplicity I would prefer to issue a corporate card than have you report expenses. Per diem tends to vary too much for my taste."

Entropy once again found themselves grateful that her transformation had resulted in an arrest of pretty much all of the vast array of messy biological functions that typically plagued human beings. In this case, she found herself grateful of not needing to breath, because it meant there was no need to suppress the sigh that might have otherwise been forming within her chest. All the irritating little pheromonal, hormonal, and other biochemical reactions she might otherwise be burdened with had been silenced, leaving her with a level of clarity she had never believed possible. It wasn't an absence of emotion. Anyone who thought themselves logically superior by virtue of being cut off from their emotions was a fool. Emotions governed thought just as much as the reverse, often more, and pretending that one was isolated from them was the surest way to guarantee that they were the true power behind the throne. No, this was something else. An awareness an understanding of her emotional state without needing to be immersed in it. Experiencing them simultaneously from within, but also with the outside advantage of perspective.

She had suspected the moment the Dwarf had handed her a crucifix with two missing gemstones that ,Telos LLC'sservices were running the risk of being double booked. The fact that he had referred to the gems as "eyes" had sealed the deal. It was no matter of luck that had led her to voicing the pledges she had made, both to the agent of the Three Sisters before and to this Dwarven Lord now, in the manner that she had. Ever ready for unexpected contingencies, she had been careful to not commit them to any path that could be considered a conflict of interest. At least, not a direct one.

"To ensure that there is no conflict of interest present, a fair amount of disclosure will be required from all sides of this. This was, to put it frankly, a matter that was already on the top of Telos LLC's radar. Thus far, none of the parties involved have escalated the issue to anything beyond placing bounties for successful delivery, hence my question to you about intent. As things stand, current models suggest that any reasonable progress on our end would quickly escalate things into a bidding war between the interested parties. Should you still wish to retain our services to act as mediator, our roll would be to facilitate that bidding war to its resolution. Is that still an acceptable position?"

And a whole universe hinged on his answer to that question.

"Are you a professional?" Nicholas asked as he leaned back and crossed his ankles, "Because if there is a conflict of interest between clients most professionals need approval from each side to proceed. While pragmatically a bidding war favors me, co-opting an agent is the definition of poaching."

He nodded towards the windows, to the sprawling city below.

"I do not wish to ignite the coming war a moment earlier than required. The are always more expensive and profit only rent-seekers."

Entropy did not allow the slight to so much as register on her features, let alone permit any bite play out in her words. She could have launched into a speech about how one of the many advantages to retaining the services of Telos LLC is that they operated on an entirely metaphysical plane, contractually speaking. While she was not at liberty to discuss the name or nature of their other clients, nor the specifics of the contracts binding them to said interests, he would certainly need no lecture to know that it was antithetical to their very existence on a fundamental level to engage in bad faith. Without knowing the wording she had used, he would not know that they would oathbound to deliver the Eyes to the Three Sisters, should they acquire said assets. However, the definition of "acquire" in "acquire the assets" was both broad and narrow, allowing for a considerable amount of creative interpretation.

She didn't say any of that, however, she didn't need to considering her audience.

"We swore an oath."

Nor did she need to say that the heat death of the universe would not be enough to make them break it.
This message was last edited by the player at 02:47, Thu 06 Jan 2022.