Chapter 964 964 And Signed
For the next two hours, the Representatives got caught up on the current events of each other’s regions, the highlights of the trials, as there were too many for anyone to watch all of them, and the urgent issues that their territories were still facing.
A lot of magical relief had been sent to the predominantly human regions, and their crops were coming along well, which was enough to prevent a major catastrophe. But the conversion to renewable fuels was slow-going, as everyone was focused on food this year, and none of the farmers were willing to switch to oil crops when there was still a chance of mass starvation.
So, they were caught in a catch 22 situation. They needed the food, but the equipment needed fuel.
The reserves were running dry, and there were fuel shortages everywhere, but even if they wanted to grow oil crops now, they didn’t have the fuel to harvest and process it.
So, they had to rely on what was being shipped in from Morgana Territory, where a few of the villages had the foresight to know that refining fuel and lubrication oils would be big money for them.
Now that they were all on the same currency, it was even easier to make the trades, and as Wolfe learned from the village guardians, they were considering a railroad to the coast, as the underground road only had two lanes going each way, and that would quickly become crowded with the number of trucks they needed to fill an oil tanker and distribute all their oil.
They had a Rank Five pixie in charge of the town now, and he was going all out on the garden charms to keep the factory working at maximum capacity. They had even brought in three hundred workers from Gormana to work the factory, in what used to be a town of two hundred witches.
It had been a busy couple of weeks since Wolfe had last checked on them, but harvest season was coming soon, and all the crops in the eastern half of the nation were still harvested with conventional equipment.
So, the buyers in Gormana were taking pre-orders from the farmers that they worked with, to guarantee that they would provide both the seed to plant the crop, and the fuel to harvest it. It was making them a load of profits, and the farmers had a guarantee that even when the shortages got bad, they were covered.
According to the Pixie, there was still work to be done to build confidence that the product actually existed and that it would make it to their contracted customers on time, but with harvest underway in the east, and nearly finished in the south, there was a mounting pile of evidence that they could fill all the orders they took, and the next year should bring them even more loyal customers.
That led to a long discussion about plant hybridization through selective breeding, which carried the conversation through the possible magical plant developments with the technique, and killed time until King Petros took down his barrier to signal that they were finished their discussions.
“Alright, just inform me if there is an issue with any changes they want to make to the deal, and I think we can get both of them signed right away.
Only the peace treaty will need all our signatures, the other won’t be a magical contract, as those last too long to be feasible for a trade agreement.” Wolfe reminded them.
There was a general consensus, as nobody objected out loud. There were no shy personalities among the Continental Representatives, if they wanted to say something they would have. But they were happy to let Wolfe take the lead, as he was already used to dealing with the foreigners.
It had become his thing, they decided. The Noxus Patriarch was their unofficial ambassador when it was necessary to negotiate deals or solve interpersonal issues. Not only was he rarely directly involved, but he had all the good magic to keep things from getting out of hand.
Negotiating in the [Kind Intentions] effect took practice, as you couldn’t easily lie to and swindle the opposing party, but you could still get away with things that greatly benefitted yourself, without maliciously harming the other.
That made it both easier and more difficult to find a bad deal. Just because it didn’t openly harm you didn’t mean it was a good deal.
They were all eager to see how the humans were going to try to work around that restriction as Wolfe took down the barrier, and they all returned to their seats.
“King Petros, which should we start with?” Wolfe asked.
“The trade agreement can be signed as it is. We have no objections to the proposed terms.” Petros agreed.
That startled some of the Continental Representatives, but with both Wolfe and Petros’ signatures on the document, it was quickly an official trade agreement.
Then, the peace treaty came out, after being negotiated and worded by the assistants to both sides, based on the generic template.
Wolfe took out the original document that Petros had made a copy of, and compared it to the new agreement, which was conveniently the same number of pages.
He smiled as he saw that they had reorganized the paragraphs and clauses, so you couldn’t just line by line compare the two documents, but the Wolfe had a trick for that.
“Mary, can you use the discrepancy spell that the teachers cast on tests?” Wolfe asked the tiny witch, who was wearing a fuzzy coat that matched Pup so closely that most people had thought it was just a dog sleeping in the corner.
She smiled and waved her hand, and a bunch of random words lit up on the page. Most of them were the names of the two parties, as it was now the Continental Representatives and their allies in this world, instead of the Magi Clans, who were the target of the deal.
That was all well and good, and Wolfe scanned through the document, looking for anything that should have been changed the first time.
It was incredibly well written, and Wolfe had to congratulate the Undying Saint and his team for their hard work. Then, he came to one paragraph that was wholly different. It would require an exchange of personnel, both to train mages, and to keep a steady supply of “Healthcare and Advanced Arcanist Professionals” flowing to the Fallen Empire.
Advanced Arcanist most likely meant Magi, as they could cast spells that no other could, and Healthcare Professionals were obviously the witches.
“I believe this paragraph could become an issue for a peace treaty of this duration.” Wolfe informed Petros dryly, while the King had a sly but chagrined look on his face.
“Well, I suppose there could be some negotiation.” Petros agreed.
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