Chapter 18 - The Diplomatic Meeting

Everyone was seated, the Draugr and dwarfs were tensed up and they were fumbling around with their hands. The silence continued for a while, all the guests looked around, waiting for something to happen.

Just then the male, the jeweled Galeb Duhr stood up and moved to the front of the table. Simultaneously to Lipil, the male Galeb Duhr, his female partner the gemed Duhr called Gemma.

Once they both stood at the head of the table, though they were not blocking the sight to my thron, they started the small speech they prepared.

They both simultaneously greeted the guests and explained why they were assembled here today.

Both Galeb Duhr: "The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the recent fight that had broken out between the dwarfs and Draugr within our master's dungeon" "Furthermore, we will explain and discuss the diplomatic power of our master and any possible business opportunities"

Both Galeb Duhr: "At first we will discuss the recent conflicts"

At this both of the different guest parties tensed up a bit, they went slightly red but threw each other hateful glances.

Both Galeb Duhr: "Our master understands your instinctual conflicts but wills both parties to stop the fights in face of a better future for all involved parties"

At this one of the assembled Draugr murmured in an annoyed tone "Phh, he "wills" us"

The Galeb Duhr simply ignored the interruption, trained enough in diplomatics to not react to the provocation.

Galeb Duhr: "This is a point our master is not willing to budge, if any larger fights break out under any circumstances our master will first warn the parties." "Though if ignored our master will retaliate in increasing force the longer the fight goes on."

The assembled parties went quiet at this. They surely wanted to respond to the passive threat and blatant order but realized their powerlessness. The situation got tenser the longer the Galeb Duhr explained what actions were restricted within the dungeon.

At the end of this point, they concluded the different restrictions.

Galeb Duhr: "To summarize, all parties delving the dungeon are not allowed to:

Fight, on large scale,

Enter restricted areas,

Deny entry to any delver,

Threaten the dungeon,

Harm, destroy or hinder the dungeon, any allies or affiliate parties, and any highlighted areas, zones, races, or resources.

At the end of the conclusion, all the guests were tensed up, looked at the diplomats with baffled mouths and wide eyes. The dwarfs sat there in sheer disbelief of what the "master" dares to restrict and the Draugr were totally fuming, not handling the situation of someone else thinking that they could order them around.

Luckily just before the meeting was about to go south and result in a big brawl, and massacre, the Galeb Duhr continued.

Galeb Duhr: "Our merciful, forgiving and generous master though is so friendly as to provide you too with some advantages, especially if you decide to not only apply by the rules but also ally yourself to our master"

Galeb Duhr: "Our master will, if you apply by the rules, try to make the dungeon as fair as possible, provide specific and needed resources for both parties, increase the quality and amount of ore or resources for the parties and affiliated parties, and lastly generally allow the delving of the dungeon which comes with its numerous advantages."

Galeb Duhr: "Furthermore, if a party decides to ally themselves to our master, they will receive refuge in emergencies as well as peaceful support in times of distress or war. In return, the party agrees to support the dungeon on all bases, militaristic, diplomatic, and scientific. This too will allow the parties to be under the protection of the powerful name of our master."

My diplomats concluded the meeting and opened it up for discussion. At first, both parties wanted to discuss the fight between them, though the Galeb Duhr quickly brought an end to it by ignoring all questions and provocations about this topic.

Seeing the futility in discussing this the dwarfs instead began to inquire about the rules for delving into the dungeon. They tried to haggle a bit to get better terms, I ordered my diplomats to ease some of the rules to lure in the Draugrs into the discussion.

They quickly bit on the fishing line and got themselves involved in the discussion. In the end, the general rules for delving were not really changed, only some restrictions were loosened and made more general.

Though the rules for allies saw some larger changes. Now if both parties were allied they would both receive diplomatic and scientific support, though its intensity is dependent on the allies' original advancement in both areas.

The area of military wasn't a point I would budge with and both parties quickly ran into a wall. After all the topics were discussed and the meeting was coming to an end both parties told my diplomats that they would come back with an answer within a week's time.

To my overall surprise, the meeting went significantly better than I thought it would. I expected a fight to break out between the parties or at least to have to nullify some of the delving restrictions. But no, my new diplomats, the Galeb Duhr taught themselves quite well and were able to lead the discussion.

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One week later both of the parties returned to the dungeon with their answers. I of course already knew the outcome because of my spies but didn't want to reveal my information network to the parties.

The dwarven diplomat sent to deliver the message told my representatives that the dwarfs agreed to go into an allied relationship between me and them. They agree to the terms discussed during the meeting but request to change any topics later on if anything drastically changed. I agreed to their request and waited for the Draugrs' answer.

Their diplomat announced that the Draugr would go into a normal delving agreement and agreed to all my set terms. Though through the diplomat's body language it was clearly visible that not all Draugrs agreed with this decision.

The month of I received the different diplomatic agreements the dungeon life bustled. Various races daily delved my dungeon and I had to even increase the size of every single floor to accommodate more visitors.

I replicated the first floor 25 times. So now a total number of 25 different parties could delve the floor simultaneously. It consisted of 25 clusters of each 5 caverns with tunnels, inhabitants, and the all so important guardians.

The second zone was replicated 15 times which transformed the mess of tunnels into a three-dimensional maze of corridors and rooms. The third floor was replicated 7 times though every replicate was in its own little area, and none of them were interconnected by publically available passages.

The fourth floor's size was increased by 3 times, it was already quite large and would otherwise take away too much space.

The first problem I was confronted with was the 5th zone. My control wouldn't allow me to create multiple zones so I opted for another solution, a raid zone.

I created a small restroom before the entrance into the 5th which allowed the delvers to form larger parties and defeat the boss together. The more people were involved in the raid the stronger the boss would become, but the challenge was always the same difficulty.

The size of the 6th floor was increased by 1 and a half times, length and width-wise. But I increased the boss number to 5 guardian-pairs. With the last floor, I didn't change anything, no one had yet reached this zone and it already was fitted for multiple parties to delve at the same time.

Though no only I had a lot of changes I went through.

The dwarfs' village evolved into a flourishing town with traders from afar arriving daily to learn from the master metalworkers themselves or just buy their goods. My dungeon too was an incentive for tens to come every day to see the first dungeon and increase their cultivation.

During this month the dwarfs also discovered a new evolution. Besides their normal evolution from wild dwarf, rough dwarf, dwarf, Ysgardian dwarf, shield dwarf they had a new direction.

Splitting off from the normal dwarf and any further evolutions they could evolve into Azer. These were dwarfs more in line with the attribute of fire, which they got from smithing and delving my fire attuned zones.

The evolution line went from tier 3 peak Azer, tier 4 peak flaming Azer to tier 5 peak blazing Azer. All of them were slightly stronger than their predecessors and had an inflammable beard which increased in size and heat further along their evolution.

On the other size, the Draugr didn't change all that much diplomatically. They still rejected every trader or visitor, except other dark attributed races or their own. Though they only slightly improved in this sector their village from before, has gone under a drastic change.

The small fort and war camp that replaced the village looked quite impressive and was the result of an interesting find, dark dwarfs. They were a dark-mana attributed variant of the normal dwarfs, and thusly reluctantly allowed inside the Draugr settlement.

The Draugrs, together with their newfound masonry, in which the dark dwarfs specialized, were able to build quite impressive structures. Their control over darkness and shadow allowed them to structurally support the dark dwarfs which allowed them to build more extravagant and ingenious structures.

The fort stood just outside my dungeon and would protect me against any intruders. At least this is what the Draugr diplomat used to convince me to let the restriction of all delvers allowed fall. I knew that this was not as they said, well not completely, so I secretly embedded some dark-earth elementals into the fort.

They would strengthen the fort further, but also allow me to destroy it any second I wanted.

Though the fort was not the only thing the resulted from the new dark attributed races. The Draugr were not racist, except dwarfs of course. This allowed their society to get into relationships with other dark attributed races, which resulted in a new race.

The Derro were a tier 4 evolution resulting, predominantly, from the genes of a Draugr and any other dark attuned humanoid. They were a more intelligent and clever subrace that was trained in either stealth and spying or darkness and shadow control.

They supported the rest of the Draugr perfectly. While the more robust and stockier dwarfs would build the footsoldiers and workers the Derros would create the spies, assassins, trap-layers, enchanters, builders, commanders, and mana-controllers.

Just when I had finished looking at the Draugr and took a final glance at my surroundings I eavesdropped on a conversation resulting between a merchant and a dwarfen official.

They were discussing the arrival of an important envoy of a powerful group called "The First". The parties proclaimed that they were the first race that successfully survived the planets' beginnings. They were told to be the furthest evolved and oldest people on the planet.

I was quite intrigued by the merchant's story and my interest was peaked. I didn't know if this group came specifically for me to this area but wanted to make sure they would at least meet with me.

To do that I send both of my diplomats out into the dwarfen town to discuss the matter with the elder council. They too had just heard about the proclaimed arrival of the group and couldn't wait. They promised, in the face of the successful diplomatic relationship, to make sure "The First" would know of me in a good light and would make sure that they visited me.

While waiting for their arrival I was perfecting the layout of my dungeon, just in case, the group was more hostile in nature than everyone assumed.

And one week after I first heard about them their caravan was entering the town and everyone could feel it!!!