Even before Salla Elmer had frozen at the door, Tatiana had sensed Randidly’s approach. She turned to Wolfram and tapped her fingernail against the desk twice to get his attention. “Set the trade agreement and mining rights distribution to the side for now. The zoning will also have to wait for later. We have a new project coming in that will likely set us back quite a bit of time. And I also expect the deadline to be quite short… we will need some more bodies. How is the training for your warlocks coming along?”

Wolfram's central head frowned while his side heads took care of neatly putting away the current papers and bringing out a fresh sheet. “A new project? The timing is too poor. But as for the warlocks… their scribe training is basically finished. They will serve you with great pride, Madam Tatiana.”

Only because you bullied them into doing so, Tatiana thought, but it was not without a little fondness for the ogre. Despite the fact that Wolfram had only been around for a few days, he had endeared himself to her quite a bit by virtue of his meticulous mind and respectful nature. Having elegant handwriting didn’t hurt.

It also helped that the former Ogre Lord had graciously volunteered to convert his war mage corps into scribes to assist with the growing pile of projects that Tatiana was expected to oversee. While it was quite easy to make decisions, it was much more difficult to record them and distribute the right information to the right people. Until they got a specialist to come to Kharon and create some computer terminals and a printer, scribes would have to do.

And now here came another paperwork creating project about to walk through the entrance to the tent.

Wolfram glanced down at the schedule and frowned. “This… the project will come from the man who wants access to ogre cultural documents so he could create a soap for us?”

“No, it will come from the only individual powerful enough to come here without an appointment,” Tatiana chuckled. She saw the confusion flash across Wolfram’s face which was quickly chased by a realization.

“The Ghosthound comes,” All three of Wolfram’s head looked up with pensive expressions. “Did I miss his signal? Will there be war?”

“No. No, there was no signal. It’s just…” Tatiana hesitated. Even now, she felt a little embarrassed to admit the true reason that she sensed Randidly’s approach. Sure, her Perception had reached three hundred, but that wasn’t the reason that she knew Randidly would be coming with a project. No, the real reason was a Skill that she had obtained from a Path when Randidly had returned from his Judgment only a short amount of time ago: Fidelity to the Ghosthound.

It was a Skill that directly boosted her capabilities when she was working on projects for Randidly. And in addition, it granted Tatiana a small amount of predictive ability when it came to the matters of Randidly Ghosthound. At this point it was only Level 49, but that was after a few days of use.

With this ogre relocation project and whatever mess Randidly had come to throw on her desk, Tatiana suspected that work involved would quickly force the Skill upward. Probably within six months, it would be her highest Level Skill.

Luckily, she was saved from admitting the strangely intimate Skill by Randidly walking forward into the tent. He smiled at Tatiana in a slightly guilty way that confirmed that he had indeed come to make more work for her. But then Randidly paused as he looked over at Wolfram sitting at an extremely small desk.

“You…” Randidly seemed taken aback. He scratched his chin. “What are you wearing?”

Tatiana covered her mouth with her hand. Wolfram only took a second to understand what Randidly was saying. Affronted, Wolfram used his right hand to adjust his recently purchased eyeglasses for his right head, central head, and then left head. “Eyeglasses. They help me concentrate on the work.”

“...right.” Randidly glanced at Tatiana, who shrugged as she adjusted her own reading glasses. Not that she needed them any longer to improve her eyesight, but she had always thought that she looked more professional while wearing glasses. And as the woman left to run Kharon while Randidly Ghosthound was gone, she had desperately wanted to appear professional. By now, it was simply habit to put her glasses on every day.

Although she didn’t know for sure, she suspected that Wolfram had adopted the habit of wearing glasses after seeing her, perhaps under the mistaken impression that it was a feature of people who did this sort of work. Either way, he had then insisted that his unfortunate batch of ‘scribes’ he was training also wear glasses.

The glassmakers in Kharon were delighted. Tatiana found the whole thing rather amusing.

But since they really were already stretched keeping up with the work they had, Tatiana quickly moved the conversation forward. “So? What do you need?”

“I want to host a party. Probably here on Kharon. On April 28th. My birthday party.” Randidly said each sentence as a clipped, almost independent thing. Seeing Tatiana’s neutral expression, he expounded a bit. “I plan on inviting all the important political figures on Earth. Plus the Nemesai and any System officials that I can get to agree to come. I’ll handle the invitations and contact for the last group. But I think… maybe after the situation at the stadium, the Earth is ready to understand the broader situation at the Nexus. It’s time to provide some context to why we are fighting.”

“And you are finally ready to step into the spotlight as the Randidly Ghosthound?” Tatiana asked. She understood Randidly pretty well, she believed. So she had always been somewhat aware of the many factors that had driven Randidly to create Kharon.

It had never just been about stepping away from the world, although Randidly had since explained that it was important that his image not be the ultimate image of Earth by the Second Calamity. It had also not precisely been about helping the many people struggling in the Wildlands away from the established powers of New Earth’s main Zones, although that had been a project to which Tatiana was very happy to devote energy.

No, at the core of Kharon was the truth that Randidly wasn’t someone who truly embraced the influence he had over Earth. Tatiana had always been able to tell that Randidly felt somewhat awkward about leading; it could be seen in the rather brusque way he dealt with teaching the metalworkers of Kharon how to improve. He cared deeply about improving the situation on Earth but was rather helpless before some of the requirements of convincing others to follow his lead in a more faithful fashion.

To which Randidly responded by creating an increasingly large space between himself and the second strongest person on Earth. An effective strategy for inducing mimicry, but only for broad strokes. For the details, Earth had been left to its own devices.

And Earth’s leaders had failed to handle those details.

“No, but I will do it in order to make sure the Earth continues to improve,” Randidly said with a tired smile. He looked gratefully at Tatiana, then glanced one more time at Wolfram. After shaking his head, he continued to speak. “As much as I would like to avoid it, it’s hard to believe that some of the guests would accept anything less than a formal occasion. I trust your expertise in that area, but I plan on providing some… specialty items that will hopefully keep people entertained. I need to talk with Sam about fixtures, but I’ll get that information to you as soon as possible. Other than that… food I guess. And a band?”

“How many people do you expect to attend?” Tatiana asked lightly. She shot Wolfram a glance, and bless his heart he was already nodding and pulling open a small drawer at the side of his desk. Like a crane sipping water, he dipped his pen into a pot of ink. Despite Wolfram's confusion regarding Randidly’s demands, he had truly acknowledged as this human as his superior. As such, he didn’t let his pride get in the way of trying to fulfill his liege’s requests.

If only more men were so willing to set their emotions when action is needed.

Randidly scratched his cheek, clearly beyond his death. “Well… I mean I wanted to invite most of my friends from Donnyton… and then also the leaders of all the Zones. Beyond that… representatives from the Orders and some people from the Nexus. I’ll try and establish contact with the worlds inside the other cleared Danger Zones as well…”

Considering the multiple invitations we will probably need to give EACH of those individuals, it isn’t likely that the guest list will be below one hundred. Since Wolfram was busy taking notes, Tatiana could simply sit primly and do some mental calculations. And considering who is invited, there will be at least one hundred more people who want to come to the event. And beyond that, there will be quite a few individuals who will want to come to network…

And the political situations in the Zones are so complicated… at least in Zone 1, where should we draw the line for invitations to the senators…?

“It’s going to need to be a rather big event, then,” Tatiana said diplomatically. Her Fidelity to the Ghosthound was humming in her chest. It gave her a small peak into Randidly’s emotions, but all she saw was what she probably could have predicted anyway. Randidly understood that the size of the event was rapidly growing, but he so wanted to have this conversation with the world that he was willing to endure it.

Tatiana admired that. It meant that Randidly Ghosthound was finally growing into the role he had created for himself. Which was for the best, considering that it appeared that the Earth would become quite chaotic once the Calamities finally arrived.

“We will need to make invitations. Something official, befitting your many stations.” Wolfram said. The other reason that Tatiana trusted Wolfram more than time would generally allow was how avidly he had spent his free time researching Randidly Ghosthound.

Randidly grimaced. “Really? Well, if you think it’s for the best. But no matter the size fo the event… I’d like the group not to be so large that they can’t fit into one room. I have some things they need to hear.”

And whether that will be able to happen depends on the size of the room, The corner of Tatiana’s lips twitched. She dearly wished she would have thought to bring one of the bottles from her private whiskey collection to the short term office. The fiery liquid would exactly hit the spot right now.

After discussing a few more details, Randidly opened up a portal with his strange key and departed. Wolfram quickly finished writing out his notes and then turned to Tatiana. “Does this… happen often?”

“Yes,” Tatiana chuckled. They discussed the party for ten minutes, arranged for a meeting to be fit into their agenda, then brought the next person they had to meet with into the tent. Work waited for no one.