The City Meeting

Gilfred and Enos entered the huge hall where the monthly meeting is held. The secretary had led the two to a large double door and opened it for them.

With a wave of his hand, he now invited them in.

In the center of the room was a large table with thirteen chairs covered with silk cushions.

Eleven of these chairs were already occupied, only one in the middle was still free, and one right next to the mayor's seat. The mayor, of course, sat at the head of the table, and as head of the city guard, Enos had the privilege of taking third place in the rank order. Before him came only the mayor and his deputy. Gilfred was only the head of the Academy responsible for training the soldiers of the City Guard, so he was only in the middle of the rank order.

"There you are at last. What took you so long? We've been waiting for you."

Enos sat down and looked at the mayor. His name was William Krell. He was an old man, with a long white beard, and a shiny bald head. The mayor was a noble, a rank 5 mage, and was one step above him in the general order. Enos liked him and respected his strength and intelligence. Often Enos had witnessed with amazement or heard stories of it, how Krell found the best and fastest solutions with ease even in the most desperate situation.

Like when the city was infested with one of the deadliest viruses to ever hit this planet.

Millions of people died and the rest were full of fear and panic.

That was probably the only time when the war of the races was secondary. Mages of all countries and races gathered and, despite all the conflicts of the three species, researched together for a common solution and finally found a cure. All of this was largely due to the young Krell, who, without hesitation, forgot all disputes and crossed the border into the realm of the Reils.

This was an incredible risk. After that, his fame increased as well as his influence. Even in the other two races, people respected him because of his selfless deeds millions of lives were saved. For this reason, respect for him was also deeply engraved in humans.

"I apologize, Lord Krell. It's my fault, I overslept," said Gilfred submissively.

Enos rolled his eyes,

"Gilfred, stop lying. I'm the reason we're late because I spent my entire last night dealing with a gigantic pile of paperwork that was sweetly dumped on me," Enos said sullenly, looking at the deputy mayor.

The Deputy Mayor, or Falir, was a man in his fortieth year. He was a miserable lickspittle who had only gotten to his position by sucking up and getting lucky. Of course, he was also an Ancient, but even so, Enos always felt like he could hear cells dying from his brain whenever he had to listen to Falir's nonsense.

Falir was lazy, really lazy. Every time he gets a task, he tries all humanly possible to give it to someone else, and for that, everyone hated him, even the mayor. Unfortunately, Falir had a very powerful background and so Krell could not throw him out lightly.

Krell sighed and immediately understood what Enos was alluding to and looked displeased at his deputy,

"It doesn't matter. The only thing matters is, that you're finally here now and we can get started."

Krell looked down at a prepared sheet,

"Point of order number one: missing tax payments. Enos," Krell looked at Enos, "As you should already know by now, any taxes from a small village called Tissling have been missing for several months. In fact, any contact from the village is even missing."

Enos frowned, "Yes, I know. But I have already sent messengers. They should be back by now, but all three, have disappeared without a trace. In a few days, of course, I will set out on my own. Although it is only a small village and the tax payments are low, they have always been reliable so far and if something bad should have happened, we must offer them help. Such an abrupt stop of all contact is strange. Besides that, we cannot allow other neighboring cities or villages of our territory to take this as an example to stop tax payments as well, otherwise, this could lead to a serious conflict, which would not only cause many casualties but could also be exploited by enemies. After all, this is one of the capitals of the human realm and hosts one of the top universities."

Krell nodded with satisfaction after listening to Eno's report,

"Very well, I see the problem is in good hands. Okay then we come to point of order two: the city of Jayl requests financial assistance in the construction of a new place of worship. Lord Iril as Lord of the City treasury this falls under your purview."

Lord Iril, an old and scrawny man, nodded,

"This request is already known throughout the empire. The mayor of Jayl wants to build it as a thanksgiving for our Messiah and the city has already asked many others for assistance. They have been planning this project for several months now and I already expected that sooner or later they would ask us for financial assistance. As one of the richest and most important cities in the empire, we cannot afford to refuse this offer, as it is in direct gratitude to our king. If we do not make a very generous donation, we would lose the entire honor and face of our city. In the letter they ask for one hundred thousand night talers, I would suggest we donate ten times that amount."

"A million night thalers? Can we even afford that?" asked one of the chiefs, a small man.

Iril nodded,

"Of course, I've already been putting payments aside for the last few months and we can afford this without having to save just anywhere else. It's just a small percentage of our actual wealth."

"Well, let's do it this way. We will donate one million night talers to the city of Jayl to assist them in the construction of the new church. Lord Kustril, you shall carry out this procedure in cooperation with Iril."

Kustril nodded. He was responsible for foreign policy cooperation and relations with other cities.

"Alright, let's move on to the next topic. Lord Gilfred and Master Fari how are the new students doing?"

Gilfred remained silent and let Master Fari do the talking. He was the leading professor of the local university and sat only one seat below Enos. He was also the only other mage of the fifth level. He was an incredibly highly respected person and would actually be above Enos. However, Enos' duties as head of the city guard and administrator of the cities of the government area were somewhat higher than Fari's duties.

"There are many promising students this year, but unfortunately none stand out. Talents like Enos appear very rarely, let alone talents like Our Majesty. I think it's a pity that I didn't have the chance to train him." Deep regret could be heard in the old master's voice.

"Besides that, Enos, when you come back home, you should definitely come back to the university and continue cultivating. You're on the verge of a breakthrough."

The mayor frowned,

"Breaking through to rank five? To a noble?"

The master nodded slightly,

"Yes, Enos is an incredible talent and will surely go far. To be on the verge of noble rank at such a young age is very rare."

All eyes were only on Enos, who sighed in annoyance and answered,

"Yes, master, I will start as soon as I get back with my breakthrough."

The deputy mayor frowned,

"As far as I know, this process takes at least five months. How can you just disappear for this long and neglect your responsibilities?"

Enos narrowed his eyes and squeezed out a smile, "Why don't you take those? And for everything else, of course, I'll choose a deputy. Is that all right, Mayor?"

Krell smiled, "But of course, every noble is an asset to our strength and this is not a problem. Choose a competent deputy, but before that, I want to ask you to finish your monthly work so that there is no confusion. With that, this topic is also concluded and we will move on to the next order of business..."

The meeting went on for about an hour and a half and they gradually went over slight problems and activities of the city. It was exhausting but more boring than that.

The next few days Enos prepared everything for his ride to Tissling. He chose six companions as well. Gilfred also accompanied him, as they have been good friends since childhood and he wanted to take a break from the academy.

Since the ride lasted almost 5 days, Enos fetched his two magnificent gauls. It hurt his heart to have to ride these animals out for such a trivial occasion and put them in danger, but he wanted to get this trip over with as quickly as possible since there was still a lot of work waiting for him.

Only the thoughts of it tired him.

Just three days after the meeting, Enos and his companions were done preparing.

Tissling was a village on the edge of civilization and it was very isolated. It was located in the middle of one of the largest forests in the country and was far from the nearest town. Under normal circumstances, Enos would never ride there personally, but he had already sent three convoys there, and all three disappeared without a trace. Enos could not send more soldiers, or he would lose his face and people would think he was lazy.

So finally, they rode off.