Author's Note: Still don't own D&D.


For the first time since I had met him, Albrecht was completely speechless. He stood, slack jawed, staring at what used to be the conical shape of Mt Herabu and was now more reminiscent of a broken beer bottle. Behind, the Landguard and Albrecht's bodyguard did the exact same thing, enmity and professional paranoia forgotten in their mutual shock.

I turned to face Albrecht, moving slowly and smoothly so as not to jolt him out of his stupor. I looked at him with a small smile on my face, and I waited.

And waited.

A breeze went by, ruffling everyone's hair. The world was silent around us, all the animal life huddled in stillness and silence at the roar of the scary new predator that I had unleashed on the world.

Finally Albrecht shook himself like a dog shedding water and turned to face me.

"How...what...?" he stumbled.

I gave him my best shark-like grin. "Impressive, wasn't it? Of course, the truly impressive thing is that that was a small blast. Had I put a little more power into it, we would have been vaporized where we stand, along with a good portion of the Senis Hills."

Albrecht glanced over his shoulder, eyeballing the miles between us and the vanished top of Mt Herabu. He turned back to me with a measuring glance.

"I see." He ran out of words and just stood, staring at me.

I could see that the shock was starting to wear off so I moved to get ahead of it. I needed him calm enough to interact but rattled enough to be compliant.

"But, that little demonstration isn't the important thing. The important thing is that there is a lovely meal waiting for us. Let's go eat; we can talk over food." With a gentle hand on his shoulder I turned him around and urged him forward with me as I started walking smoothly towards the tent. He came along, still slightly dazed. Dazed or not, his steps were firming up by the moment. A few paces from the tent he stepped away from me slightly, sliding out from under my guiding hand. I let him go and gestured for him to precede me into the tent.

As I moved to follow him Thomas, now having shaken off his own gobsmackedness, grabbed my arm with a no-nonsense grip. "You are not going in there. He's a mage and you just scared the daylights out of him. The logical thing for him to do would be to kill you and launch an immediate, simultaneous attack on every Flobovian city we still control. He's got to be smart enough to realize we wouldn't do...that," a vague gesture toward the missing mountaintop, "to our own people."

Ah, excellent. Thomas had chosen action #2 off my anticipated list. I'd give about a 9% probability to action #1—physically grabbing me and running for the hills while ignoring all orders to stop. My potential responses to that option varied between 'undesirable' and 'risky' so I was pleased that he'd chosen the next option.

I yanked my arm out of his hand; he held on for a moment to demonstrate that I wasn't going anywhere without his approval but then let me go. I let him have his sense of dominance; it would make him that much easier to manipulate if he thought he was in control. I needed him thinking about the present moment, reacting to my opposition, instead of thinking about the medium- to long-term.

I put on a frown and injected irritation into my tone. "Thomas, relax. He swore to maintain peace bond. He kept his promise about not moving his army during the week he gave us, there's no reason to believe he'll break it now. Especially since he doesn't know if I'm necessary to blow things up, or if there are others who could do it in the event that I died."

Thomas hesitated for a moment, then shook his head stubbornly. "No. I am not taking that chance. We're leaving. We can send an ambassador—a professional—to conduct negotiations. You're too valuable to risk."

I sighed. "Look. Right now he's off balance and he'll be easier to haggle with, especially since he won't want to piss me off. By the time we could get an ambassador prepped and over here, the shock will have worn off and he'll be harder to manage. We need to strike while the iron is hot."

Thomas frowned for a moment, lips moving as he puzzled through the meaning of 'strike while the iron is hot'. ~Note to self: translation magic still having problems with idioms. Speak more simply so as not to distract Paranoid Bodyguard #1 with irrelevancies.~

He got it before I could clarify and shook his head, but with less certainty this time. "He's a powerful mage. If he decided to attack, you would be in serious danger. Especially with his bodyguard in the mix and the Archmagi getting into the fight, I'm not confident we could keep you safe."

I sighed. "Look, do your sword-tappy thing—then you can be sure there won't be any magic going on. But you and the others need to stay here at the door. I need him focused on me for this discussion, I can't have him being distracted by bodyguards. I'm pretty sure I can end this war right here, right now, as long as you give me some room to work."

Saying that Thomas didn't like this idea would be about like saying that the Pacific Ocean was an adequate tool for putting out a campfire: true, but it undershot the mark by about as much as it was possible to undershoot without actually shooting yourself in the leg. He practically quivered with his hatred of the idea...but he couldn't actually refute it. That whole 'but, the Land!' thing made it just too easy.

"Fine," he growled. "But we are one step outside the door, and the Archmagi are on the other side of the tent. If he so much as twitches in a way I don't like, every single one of us is through that door, we grab you like a sack of potatoes, cut our way out the back wall and teleport out of here before they know what hit them. And if he isn't fast enough getting out of my way, I'll cut him down before he can blink and to the Pit with the consequences. Clear?"

I nodded, forcing my face to look solemn. "Absolutely," I told him gravely. Inside I was giggling. He was just precious, thinking that he had any control over this situation. Every step of the way, he had done exactly what I wanted him to do—admitting to the lie detector, agreeing to come to this parley because I could get Albrecht to 'turn on his own people', and now staying outside the tent with his anti-magic field engaged. Dance, puppet, dance!

I turned and paced into the tent to join Albrecht. Behind me I heard the bong! that signaled magic being turned off around us. I smiled inwardly; Thomas might have taken my suggestion as a compromise and a sop to his paranoia, but he probably wasn't thinking about the fact that it also shut down his lie detector and any hearing-enhancing magic he might have. His overprotectiveness had just given me a chance to talk privately with Albrecht. I mean, honestly—why else did he think I proposed it?

As I walked to my chair I heard a loud-voiced discussion break out behind me, Albrecht's bodyguard wanting to know what the noise and the energy wave were. I suspect the two sets of bodyguards were about ready to rumble but I didn't really care. I wasn't in the middle of it so I was in no immediate danger. Also, I was actually ok with a few Landguard getting killed—it would save me the trouble later. I was fairly confident that Albrecht wouldn't break his word, so I'd be leaving here alive and intact.

I took my seat with a smile, hitching the chair in and giving Albrecht a quick once over to see how to approach him. Good; he was calm enough to be thinking but still a little wary, unsure of what I had done outside. Perfect.

I glanced quickly over my shoulder to make sure that the Landguard had in fact stayed outside. The coast was clear so I took a roll and busied myself buttering it, my eyes focused carefully on the task.

"So far," I said calmly, not looking up, "I've shown you three of my tricks; the first took down a fifth of your army in a few seconds, the second turned the tide of the battle at the Plaza even though you outnumbered us and took us by surprise. The third...well, I chose not to use it on you this time, but you're smart enough to understand the potential, right?" I flicked my gaze to him, looking up at him from without raising my head, a small smile on my face. ~That's right, High Marshal. I'm so in control that I don't even feel the need to watch you for threats.~

Albrecht smiled and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms on his chest and studying me frankly. I know exactly what you're doing, and I'm not impressed, his body language told me.

"A very interesting trick, yes. Of course, we have a few of our own that you haven't seen yet."

I met his gaze directly, just a trace of amusement at the edges of my mouth. "Oh?" I inquired as I took a deliberate bite of my roll.

Albrecht snorted laughter. "Come on, Jake. We've been fighting for survival the last hundred and fifty years. Our opponents aren't brainless zombies; they're mostly intelligent monsters like vampires, wraiths...and we know for a fact that there are at least forty powerful lichs, maybe a lot more, acting as generals. In practically every battle we fight there are literally millions of undead across the field from us. Yes, we developed a few tricks. And I haven't had to use any of them yet, because we outnumber you five to one and my Expeditionary Force has more magi than your entire country, and more than twenty times as many Archmagi. Unless you give me what I want, right here, right now, then the minute we leave here I'll put every soldier I have into a major Flobovian city. Your bombing tactics are powerful, but they cause a lot of...collateral damage, shall we say? How many citizens are you willing to sacrifice to get rid of us? How many will the Landguard let you sacrifice?" He paused, taking a bite of the fruit compote in front of him.

Just as I opened my mouth to respond, he raised a finger and took control of the conversation again.

"And, oh yes, let's not forget—any of my troops who get killed, we resurrect them and they're back on the field in a few hours, a few days at most. Whereas, thanks to the...care...that your Archpriest takes for his people, any of your troops who are killed stay dead. You can't win this one, Jake."

He sniffed in amusement and made a throwing-away gesture with one hand. "But, I'm willing to let you surrender on terms instead of just conquering you and shipping you all off to the front lines. I've got better things to do than plod around in this backwater, so anything that gets this done faster is great. Personally, I can't wait to get back to Anundjå; I miss decent food and the theatre. Your arts are so primitive here."

I laughed at that, but cut it off quickly; it wouldn't do to be outright rude. "See, here's the thing, my friend. You're a High Marshal, a high ranking military officer. You don't get to that rank by catting around at the theatre and the fleshpots, you get there by fighting and winning battles. Lots of battles. So I'm pretty sure that you have no problem with field conditions. Also, you survived the orbital strike, which means you were in a dimensionally expanded tent. Now, it's possible that you happened to be in the tent of the magi when the bombs hit, but more likely you were in your own. And a dimensionally expanded tent can hold plenty of creature comforts, so I doubt you're all that uncomfortable."

A thought occurred and I grinned. "Plus, that mega Teleport trick of yours means that you can go home and spend every night with the wife and kids, then be back in time for reveille."

He smiled and nodded, a fencing master acknowledging a touch. The riposte came back immediately. "True. And it also means that I can bring in more troops at need. How would it work for you if tomorrow you were facing not a hundred thousand troops, but a million?"

I shook my head dismissively and took a helping of deviled eggs from one of the hot trays beside us. "I wouldn't like it at all. But you aren't going to do it. If you had the ability to swamp us with troops you would have done it after the orbital strikes. Instead, you came in and parleyed, deliberately enraged the Archpriest—who, by the way, is a complete prick, but I need him so I may have to play you up as the bad guy to him. Anyway, you hit the 'injured party filled with righteous indignation' thing pretty hard. And then you gave us a week's in-place peace to 'think it over.' That stand-down wasn't for us, it was for you. You've found what you're looking for and you wanted to be left alone to deal with it."

Albrecht's eyebrows went up at that. "You've had intelligence enhancement, haven't you?" he demanded.

Now it was my turn to let my eyebrows hit my hairline. "What makes you think that?"

He looked at me as though I were a promising student who had just failed an easy quiz. "Please. Give me some credit; I watched you during our earlier parley. You weren't stupid by any means, but you weren't making these kinds of deductions either."

I shrugged acknowledment and gave him the same 'touché' nod that he had given me. "The point still stands. What you've got here is all that you've got."

He sighed in disappointment and shook his head. "Clearly you had the enhancement very recently...earlier today is my guess, or maybe late last night. You're doing well, but you're making all the usual mistakes—you're so caught up in how easy everything is to figure out that you're overconfident. You aren't allowing for unknown unknowns, and you're confusing intuitions with deductions."

He paused to pour himself some tea, politely offering to pour for me as well. When I declined with a shake of my head he took a long sip, letting his eyes fall shut in sensual enjoyment. After savoring the tea for a long moment he sighed and set the cup down, centering it very carefully on its saucer before he resumed.

"I could easily bring in a million troops, Jake. You're right, I couldn't do it by tomorrow, but I could do it within a few days. I'd have to go back to the Assembly and make the request, and it would cost me some embarrassment and some political capital. It would probably set me back on the promotion list by a few years, but I could do it."

I considered that for a moment, rattled. Was he telling the truth? If so, I had taken a severely wrong approach to this conversation. The thought froze my stomach, but I forced it aside. No good would come of getting flustered or retreating; all I could do was bull on through and hope. It was time to stop playing around; I had wanted to show off the superiority of our position and put him on the defensive before making my real proposal, but the longer we talked the more ground I was losing.

"Well, it sounds like we have what my world calls a 'Mexican standoff.' We've both got a weapon aimed at the other's head, and the question is 'how do we get out of this with all of us still alive?' Fortunately, I have a proposal."

He leaned forward, resting uniformed forearms on the table, eyebrows raised in interest. "Do tell," he invited.

I copied his body language, leaning in with folded arms on the table. "How would you like to have Flobovia as part of the Union?"

He frowned in puzzlement. "You're surrendering? Why all the dancing around then?"

I shook my head in refutation. "No, not surrendering. See, my goals have changed a bit in the last few hours. Turns out that my own Archmagi, in collusion with the Landguard, messed around inside my head and remodeled my values like an old kitchen, and I'm not real happy about that. So here's what I propose..."