The following morning, we said our goodbyes to Ileana and Vesna's teams before awkwardly all heading into the city together. It made me chuckle at how that was apparently a universal point of embarrassment.

Inga had pushed Selim Koval to mostly not bother us, at least for a few days, before we returned to Velez. I was a little hesitant to believe her but I figured with Tiesa at my side, it would probably be okay.

My team, including Steve, went off with our other bodyguard, Sasa Sati, while I headed to another nondescript government building.

We met the head of Struva's Council, Zita Bartko, in the lobby. She indicated a side room where we were going to discuss a bit before heading in to speak with Inga about whether she should shut down or take over The Church of Unullification.

I walked into the room, expecting to find Nina Asani. Instead of the head of Velez's Council, Katarina Illeva sat with her hands in her lap.

"Well, this is a surprise," I said, more than a little frustration in my voice.

Katarina, to my confusion, nodded in strong agreement. "Yes, yes, I told Nina to inform you but it was the Council's decision. She is still under self-imposed house arrest. I am less than pleased with my instructions to not let you know I would be coming ahead of time to say the least. Someone wishes to drive the wedge between us further."

I figured it was probably Uros Barno, the slimy Councilor, playing games but got over the annoyance quickly.

Starting off, I said, "I didn't want to send too much over a message because it could be intercepted. Inga herself came out to discuss this topic in person for that very reason. She's rooted out the leaders of The Church of Unullification. And she has a proposition for us."

Katarina chuckled at the wording.

"What exactly was this Church up to?" Zita asked, ignoring the Velez Councilor.

After a lengthy discussion of The Church's activities, both Zita and Katarina looked a bit sick.

Katarina spoke first. "And I am guessing you brought us here to advise you on how to actually get more severe punishments to stick on the nobles? That you are frustrated with how it played out?"

"To the second question, yes, I am not at all happy with their minor fines. Even the person who put a hit out on me only had to pay a small amount." I held up my hand. "Yes, I know what they did was legal, but it was still a monstrous thing to do. Not just to me but for the entire former green essence zone. But no to the first question. I accepted that the system sucks. We can work on changing that later." Tiesa coughed and I realized my major misstep.

Isekonsultant Tip to Thriving #77: Always keep in mind the other person's goals. If you can subtly align them to your aims, everyone is happy. But showing too much of your cards early means they have leverage over you.

Telling the people in charge you plan to change the rules is probably not going to win you allies.

I chastised myself for the slip up but was glad it was in this meeting instead of the one with Inga.

"No, the reason you are here is to help me advance some plans," I said. "Inga is giving me, and now us, the choice to shut down The Church or let it continue with her as the unseen head. I have my thoughts but I'd like to hear yours."

Katarina looked hungry at the idea and Zita appeared shocked.

"But why bring us here?" Zita asked. "I would need a bit to process but it seems like a yes or no option."

Katarina's look was like a kid at the carnival, seeing the line of amazing foods on offer. "Concessions," she said and I laughed at the coincidence, "Terry has something on her she wants him to say yes to. So… what can we get from her?"

Tiesa shook her head. I said, "You're not wrong but I don't want to pull every last bronze I can from her. I am far more concerned about the ethics here."

There was a loud noise as Katarina scooted her chair back. Given her Tier and dexterity, I knew it was on purpose. She walked over to squat by my chair, looking me in the eye while laying a hand on my forearm lightly. "Terry, that's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard anyone say."

It broke the tension and we all laughed.

I picked up where I left off. "This is a great opportunity and first, I want to make sure I'm not missing something big. That's always a possibility given my gaps in local knowledge, especially politics. But I also want to leverage this in a very unique way. To be clear, my goal first and foremost is to not cause more damage than The Church already has, especially to vulnerable people."

We spent the next bell discussing as a larger plan started to take shape.

***

Inga stood to greet us, Norbert a few paces behind. She gestured to the rather ornate conference table for the unadorned building, she and Norbert taking one side while Zita and I took the other. Katarina and Tiesa, as the two least important to the discussion, took the ends.

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"I was surprised you decided to bring others in on this," Inga said with a slight frown. "A clandestine organization needs to be, you know, not widely known."

I waved away her comment. "Inga, you know my gaps in knowledge and I think you are smart enough to exploit them." She grinned slightly at that while Norbert looked offended on her behalf. "I needed counsel and I also had a few ideas."

Inga said, "Well, let's hear your ridiculous set of demands."

I pretended to be offended, holding my hand to my chest. "Me? Never! But yes, let's just skip some of the political bullshit and talk plainly." Inga steepled her fingers. "I want you to understand my key motivation. If this gets violated, at least in a major way or consistently in minor ways, we're going to have a problem."

The Mayor of Pitola took out a book from her storage. "I can show you the accounts but all the names—"

"Wow, I get it but swing and a miss." I couldn't help gloating just a bit at how she thought making sure I got my cut was my top priority. She looked genuinely taken aback while Katarina chuckled at making the same mistake. "No, my biggest concern is harm. Specifically that this type of organization was using people, especially the most vulnerable people. Sometimes, that's simply because they're dumb. See the poisoning attempt. But often it's not, it's just people who are desperate. I want to limit that harm."

"Terry, I can't promise no one will come to harm, that's just unreasonable," Inga said.

"Correct," I replied.

"So does that mean we're at an impasse? I really think this organization could be quite good for us," she said, only pointing to herself and me.

"And that's my problem. I think we've got an idea to make The Church actually good for the overall former green essence zone. Not just for our pocketbooks. If we can spin their doctrine into something that brings hope… think about the entire area banding together."

Inga looked thoughtfully at me, then to Norbert, clearly sending him a message.

I knew she wanted to spend some time to discuss with her assistant to plan but I pressed immediately, trying to keep her on the back foot. I didn't think she'd fully agree to everything but it was still better to have her start from something far closer to my desires and work towards her benefit than me start from something purely good for her.

It was negotiating 101.

"I understand we can't promise no one gets hurt but I think The Church, with a few tweaks, can help out a lot of people and make us a lot of money. I do have some requirements though beyond limiting harm."

She looked annoyed but waved her hand for me to continue.

"First, I need you to secure a meeting for me with Cornelius. I know there are ways to get to him and I want in. He has knowledge I need. That is non-negotiable."

Meeting with one of the two men who had made my life so hard before I even arrived on Putijama was something I wanted for a number of reasons. Partially just to get answers and partially to try to understand the why of his and Barry's actions. There were some other ideas brewing in my head but it felt like something that could greatly advance my goals.

Before she could respond, I plowed forward. "The second is an alliance between Velez, Pitola, and Struva. We can hammer out the exact details later but a key one is a mutual defense pact if anyone initiates a city conflict contract against one of the others. Also, closer economic ties and all that. Yes, that will mean a discount on future delves by any of our null essence affinity teams. That also includes first testing on any solutions to the null essence issues that Velez develops. I want this to be mutually beneficial, so it's not only good for us."

Zita added, "Terry mentioned something about needing some of your help near us too to catch people doing some pretty nefarious rift experiments. That's another example of something we want to ally on."

Inga, stalling a bit to think about things, asked again about what I meant by harm. "You mentioned limiting harm but that's a vague term. How do we craft an agreement around something so vague?"

"There's a famous quote from my world where a judge was asked to define pornography. He said he couldn't strictly define it but he knew it when he saw it. That's the same here. I don't think we can say we will stop every single person from being hurt but I also don't want it to just be the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor." Katarina and Zita chuckled and I shot them each a dirty look.

"So you want to make sure The Church becomes a force of net good but not only a force for good? As in, on the whole, we're good but it's not a charitable organization?" Inga asked. "That feels far more doable. I think we can figure that out and still make ourselves some coin. Because I will be honest, I would rather let the organization die than invest a lot of time and money to not make a profit."

"Hear, hear!" Zita said with gusto. She was a merchant after all.

Katarina spoke up. "Everyone is taking advantage of someone else in some way. I think our young Terry here is merely saying it doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. Right?"

I nodded despite the minor annoyance at being called young.

We spent the next two bells hammering out details over lunch and agreed to meet the following morning to come to a final agreement.

***

"I'm not wearing that," I said with disgust, shoving the skimpy loincloth back into her hands.

"Oh, but we had an agreement, an accord, a contract," Gema said, the creepily pale skill seller with large black and red eyes smiling at my discomfort. "You received your skill, now it is time to pay the price."

"This was not in the agreement," I said.

"It was also not not in the agreement, no?"

I rolled my eyes, frustrated. I grabbed the fuzzy piece of clothing from her hands and stepped behind a changing screen. As I expected, the small garment was not near enough to cover me.

"Gema, unless you want me flashing everyone constantly, this is a no-go."

"Why did you think I chose it?" she asked, no mirth in her tone.

I angrily threw the loincloth back over the screen in her direction, moving to put on my normal pants. Instead, a hand snaked around with what were essentially a pair of booty bike shorts, tight stretchy black material that cut off rather high on my thigh, not leaving much to the imagination.

In the future, always make sure to add the missing fine print.

Her hand reached around again with a sequined vest that came nowhere near closing. I put it on over my shirt and walked back out in my regular pants.

"No, no, no. This won't do. Hmm, yes, yes, yes." She took out a tablet from the cabinet in the corner after slicing into her hand to unlock it.

Then we spent the next twenty minutes going back and forth as to what I would wear for my 'big show'.

By the end, I started to find it funny rather than humiliating, especially as I still had some difficulty every once in a while thinking of it as 'my body' instead of a body I was inhabiting.

Something to unpack later…

I was able to secure four additional concessions from Gema in exchange for what I estimated was 30% of my dignity, which I considered a better-than-fair trade.

After putting on the bike shorts, a tight shirt with the vest over top, some purple boots that hit mid-calf, and adding a bit of oil to my arms and legs to give myself a glossy sheen, I headed out to face the second half of my payment for my [Hasty Retreat] skill.

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