The next morning, chaos reigned in the halls of the Reavers Parliament building. None of the sneaky bribes, influence peddling or subtle threats had gotten through to the Council, thanks to the intervention of the new assistants, and the bureaucrats were in a panic.
Selling their access to the ministers was how they kept their pockets full, but every matter that they tried to bump up without a full oversight hearing, or a sufficiently urgent issue was rejected and referred back to them with a politely worded guidance letter that would allow them to easily solve the issue on their own.
That was not how things were supposed to work here. They didn't have the authority to make the decisions that the other parties wanted, and if the messages weren't even going to get through to the Council, then nothing would get done outside the rules at all.