They arrived in something like a hotel suite, one that was on the top floor of the building and would cost more a night than any of them ever made in a month. The cherry on top was the ceiling, it was glass. Not some flat glass panels, but like a steam punk greenhouse with lots of domes and sharp angles. The floor was a vibrant dark wood that seemed like it was still alive and the trim was all different sizes of bronze tubes with deep green and blue embellishments. There were fire lit lighting sconces on the walls but the morning sun was shining in so the room’s lighting was more like being on the beach than a well lit glass house.

  They appeared to have the whole top floor of the building, but when they walked out onto the balcony they were in the middle of the ocean. There was nothing but water as far as they could see in every direction, it was about thirty feet below the balcony suggesting that there were more floors below. After a few minutes searching the suite which had a long dining table in a central meeting area with four bedrooms. What gave them all pause was the scale, the central meeting room was larger than Eli’s house and each bedroom was enormous with a ten foot by ten foot bed. Everything was lavish and fancy, like this suite was built for a magical space emperor.

  The suite was in the shape of a triangle with two long equal length sides and a much shorter side that didn’t have any rooms or a balcony, it was just a wall with a large circle in the middle with runes on the outside. They walked up to it and Eli could tell it was similar to his stone pillar of his town and would teleport them. They touched it, but nothing happened.

  “I know we are all new to this, but shouldn’t this teleport us somewhere?” Bethany said sarcastically.

  “Maybe it needs a destination.” Alora said.

  This gave Eli the idea to check his map, “Check your maps, the building is in there. We probably need to say the room name.” He paused for a minute while skimming the map. “Voting room.” They said in unison and vanished from the suite.

  They reappeared in a large room that appeared to be the same size as their suite but with no glass to the outside. There were three long tables in the room matching the proportions of the walls with two long the same size and one shorter. The long tables had 45 chairs on the outside each and the short had 21 chairs. The center chairs were larger, more like small thrones than chairs. As they walked around they noticed names on the back of the chairs and started looking for their seats but their names were not on the chairs. On the two long walls where large doors every 12 feet or so and when Bethany opened she gasped and the others came running, worried that she had found a trap or something.

  The large doors led to glass cubes that stuck out of the side of the building just beneath the surface of the water. There was a small table in the middle with two couches big enough for two people or maybe three small people. What made Bethany gasp was the incredible view from inside the room, with the morning sun shining into the water they could see marine life unlike anything they had seen or heard about before. Beautifully colored fish in massive schools moving in the water with such grace that it almost made Bethany tear up, but she quickly cleared her throat to stop it from happening.

  “Ehem, so these smaller rooms are for more intimate meetings. Probably so people can discuss alliances and voting options. Or maybe it's just for finding a place for sex. You two stay out there, I'm going to close the door and scream and see if you can hear me.” Bethany commanded, Alora looked at Eli and he had his face in his hands as the door closed.

  Eli mumbled to himself, “I’m going to have to have sex in there now.”

  Alora took note that she approved of his reticence at public sex while also approving that she knew he was going to do it for her. “I’m sure she will be discreet.” Then she tapped her chin in through. “Or she will do the opposite as some kind of political move or power play.”

  “That's one of the things I love about her, she unashamedly lives her life at full volume, relishing in moments of passion and joy as if she may never experience them again. I’m envious of it, she isn’t weighed down like I am.” Explained Eli.

  “Being you can’t be all that bad. Power, women, and after this everyone will either want to bow to you or kill you. If you weren’t such a good man, I would be worried that it would all go to your head.” Alora said, trying to hide the bit of real worry creeping into her voice by laughing it off as a joke.

  “I worry about that too.” Eli said with his head slightly down. Alora had never witnessed actual fear on his face before but for just the smallest of moments she was sure that she had witnessed it when he said those words.

  Bethany came bursting out, “Could you hear me?”

  “Completely silent,” said Alora. Bethany clapped her hands close to her chest in little quick claps as her excitement grew.

  “I think we have bigger issues, like where do we sit? The two long tables are for the order and chaos continents since they have had magic this whole time they would have more lords. I assumed I would be at this smaller table from our continent but the big chair goes to someone named Winston.” said Eli as he and the two women searched the room again for his chair.

  Finally, they found it or rather, it found them. As soon as Eli stepped into the center of the tables, a circular platform rose up about a foot and a large obsidian and marble throne rose up as if the floor on the platform was an illusion. Eli had witnessed similar magic in the wave dungeon when monsters came out of the seemingly solid tree trunks. There was a small stool on either side of the throne presumably for Bethany and Alora. The design of how it was all set up made it clear that those sitting on the stools were subservient to the person on the throne.

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  When Eli sat on the throne a series of new system windows appeared giving him access to various aspects of the room and information on the people attending. He could control the lights, lock the small meeting room doors, turn off the teleporters that give access to the rest of the building, as well as other similar things. Eli stood up and the windows vanished, so it appeared he was only given that control while sitting on the throne. He sat back down and rotated the chair to face Bethany, got up and asked her to sit. She walked up to it but when she got close to sitting down she got a twisted look on her face and took a few steps back.

  “It doesn’t want me to sit.” She said in a shaky voice. She shook herself and after a few moments was able to regain her composure.

  Eli sat back down, “now onto the real problem that we have about thirty minutes to solve. What do we do about my dramatic introduction to the world’s powerful?”

  Alora literally face palmed, but Bethany understood and started pacing while thinking out loud. “We have to assume that everyone will arrive in their room like we did then take the teleporter here.” She paused and turned on her heels, “I think I have an idea!”

  Eli and Alora replied in unison, “No nudity!”

  “Plan B then.” Bethany said with a fake pout.

  Time ran out and people were going to be coming into the room via the teleporter walls at any moment. Eli was sitting in the throne, facing the shorter of the three walls of the room. The wall had three teleporter rings on it unlike the same wall in his suite that only had one. Just as the first people started to appear, Eli tensed up. Bethany was sitting on one arm of the throne and Alora was sitting on the other, Eli was in his mask and ape underwear and the women were dressed in fancy revealing clothes to show off their level 3 bodies. As people entered the first thing they would see was a seven-foot tall monster of a man with two stunning women at his side.

  Eli was realizing that this setup was just as much for Bethany as it was for him. He was still figuring her out but it was clear that she wanted any attractive and powerful women coming to this thing to immediately know that he was not looking for their attention. It was also possible that this was her way of preventing any attempted honey-traps or other attempts to use feminine wiles to coerce or control him. Either way he felt like he should be in a silk robe with a pipe. He trusted her and would ride it out no matter how ridiculous he felt about it.

  As soon as people started entering they came in like a flood, three-hundred people entered the room in a matter of minutes. The shocking thing to Eli was that it was very easy to tell the three groups apart. The people from his continent looked like he expected them to look, the people from the chaos continent were a bit short, muscular, and tribal looking with face markings and lots of tattoos with rough looking clothing. The order continent people were slender and tall, some getting close to Eli's seven foot height but with narrow shoulders and hips and not a lot of muscle. Just as Bethany had planned, every single person coming in stared at the three of them, but they all had different expressions on their faces.

  Giving it some thought since he was just sitting there and under strict instructions from Bethany to not speak at all unless it was to express rage or a moment when his power presented itself, he imagined himself entering the room. He was a normal person, a lord but just one of many, unsure of his place in the top 100, to walk into this meeting and be greeted by the spectacle that the three of them were at the moment. He was laughing in his head until his magic sense caught something that he was not expecting, the very familiar feel of Aria.

  Eli kept still, but moved his eyes and they locked with hers, she did a little nod with her head so as not to give too much away and slightly motioned with her head at the diminutive woman standing next to her. The woman was tiny but obviously in her thirties and had an aura about her of pure confidence and leadership. It reminded Eli of some minor royalty he had met during one of his military missions, but her magic was almost completely concealed so all she could sense was its strength and not its flavor. That was a trick even he had not managed to work out and he was immediately impressed with her and a little attracted to her.

  He heard a snap in his mind, it was from Bethany breaking him out of a strong kind of mind effecting magic. Eli looked right at the woman who was getting looks of admiration from everyone and she was staring right at him. With some mental nudging from Bethany, he stared right back at her and made a small shake of his head at her as a ‘no’. However, before he could attack her back with some focused will her influence left him and he could feel it leaving everyone else as well. She had been testing him and now that he had passed she proceeded to pretend it never happened. He focused his eyes on the others looking for anyone trying to do something similar but it seemed like everyone else was just taking it all in.

  While maintaining his stoic and silent appearance and while focusing his magic sense to search for threats or anyone acting nefarious. He didn’t find anything other than most of the people were anxious with some being so arrogant that they had no fear at all while others were just enjoying themselves. Some found their chairs and sat down in silence while others were checking out the glass rooms and introducing themselves to others from different continents. It was obvious that everyone was human, but the differences in the people from the different continents was also obvious. The good news was that everyone was being calm and chatting respectfully until about thirty minutes had passed and now everyone was in their seats whispering to those close to them or staring at Eli.

  Bethany stood and made a flourish with her hand drawing out her meanest looking spear and slammed the but of it into the ground with a loud thud. “You all know the rules, the topic of the first vote will be revealed soon. My divineness, Ash the Demi-God of Ruin welcomes you to this conference. My divineness asks that during the seven hours before we cast our vote, we keep to small group discussion for the first three then open up the floor for those who wish to speak to the group as a whole for the remaining time. A reminder for everyone, if you are not in this room when the voting starts, your vote will be forfeit to my divineness to cast as he sees fit.”

  She took a pause then continued talking, “Will the three leaders of the continents please approach for a word before we start?”