John let the evening roll by him with the company of his girls, his friends, his people and a glass of gin tonic. There were many interesting moments to be shared. All of the fruitless ways in which Eliza tried to cope with her instructions. Acting as if everything was alright was mostly successful (mostly because next to nobody dared to even approach her, outside of their circle of friends). That she was now publishing pictures had done fairly little for her reputation as an overpowered gremlin with anger issues and the goddess of genocide inside her. All of that being said, she certainly had to keep her moans down and sometimes vanished to the bathroom.

He sent Jack after her at one occasion, just to verify what he already knew. Despite knowing better, the pretty little psycho was masturbating right up until the point of no return, where she then stopped. As much as her body begged for release, she couldn’t get it without her doms go-ahead. Therefore, she always came back more bothered. As the evening progressed, she stuck to John in more and more desperate ways. The Gamer made things worse by touching her in teasing ways.

Although none of the interactions with the rest of his girls were that sexually charged, there definitely were temptations. Every time Lydia, or another woman with a short skirt, decided that his lap was the place to be, he was reminded how easy it would be to just pull up that tiny dress a bit further and slide right into them. They knew he was tortured by those actions, which was exactly why those lovably cheeky haremettes did it. Physical teasing was backed up by verbal banter and he forgot to breathe because of them numerous times. Whether that was because they were beautiful, aggravating, brilliant or funny didn’t really matter.

His friends and confidants were less beautiful, but the other three terms described them well. John spent a good chunk of time with Magoi and Magnus. The three of them were drinking red wine and eating bits of sushi. More accurately, John and Magnus were sipping on their drink and occasionally eating a bit of fish, while Magoi gorged himself on both and got increasingly chattier. He told stories from his youth, rolled up and showed some of the scars on his old and thin body. Some made John roar with amusement, others had him close to tears, especially when he realized how few of the people Magoi talked about were still alive.

The last one particularly struck him, despite how short it was. “It must have been twenty years ago,” Magoi had said, looking at his plate. His dark eyes were both dull and exceedingly sharp, as if he was looking at the surface at the pond, fascinated by its reflection. “Gehnigm was missing from his office. It was far from an unusual occurrence that the Supreme Fateweaver did what he wanted, but I had a scheduled thing with him that day about testing a new variance of time dilation that ultimately didn’t go anywhere. I asked around where he could be and finally was pointed at the mundane world. The Fateweaver base is on Mount Everest, I think you remember that much, John, so it struck me as very odd that he would leave our base to take a casual stroll through the mundane snow. I followed him and found him, ultimately, carrying a passed-out climber down the ice. As it turned out, Gehnigm had been helping random, daring mundanes down to safety for over a decade. Doubtlessly that brought its share of bad luck with it. Even if near-death makes people hazy, Gaia would have some Ire for his actions. Still, he did it. At least once a month, he searched Mount Everest for climbers at death’s door… a shame not all of him was as great as that selfless act…” Magoi had suddenly raised his head. “Ah, enough of my rambling, I’ll get some new food.”

That was the point at which John left the table. It had been odd to hear such a detail about a man that had been his enemy. Gehnigm had been the Supreme Fateweaver, the one who let the Blood of the Proletariat invade Abyssal Rome with a nuclear weapon and the same Metra killed when she first awakened as his servant. That was about all John had known about him. Although he was wise enough to know that there was more to most people than their malevolent actions, hearing tales of the good they did was still an unusual experience. It was a fallacy of the human mind to think of the opposition as nothing but evil, even if things were almost never that simple.

Things continued on a more light-hearted note as John was pulled aside by Maximillian to participate in a number of games. That soon sparked the interests of others, and before long they had an impromptu chess tournament. John won twelve games and lost three, which he still felt wasn’t good enough. Before his loss to Sylph, of all people, could cause him to flip a table and accuse her of pulling tricks he knew she was too chaotic to even consider, he headed outside.

He mingled with the people. With a bit of alcohol in his system at this point, he asked questions that PR managers would have advised against. Primarily, he wanted to know of those that talked to him what they thought he did wrong, and he wanted them to be thorough. The answers sobered him somewhat on his approval rating. As he had guessed, people thought he was doing a generally good job, but had a lot of grievances on other issues. Whenever one of those topics became the focal point of the national conversation, the Gamer could expect his approval to drop rapidly.

Still, it was good to hear these things. He heard a few things talked about with such passion that he gave them more urgency than he had done previously. Others he hadn’t heard of at all. Had neither of those experiences occurred, the value of having his pride curtailed by the revelations that not all was perfect in the state of Fusion was high enough on its own.

Then he went back inside and spent about an hour sobering up to acceptable levels. At the same time, he got involved in a bunch of conversations and games with all kinds of guests. Notably, he was tangled up with his minister of domestic affairs for a bit. John didn’t spend a lot of time with his ministers. Tactless as it may have sounded, he thought of them as expendable. Few of them were in their positions because he liked or even knew them. He just hired them based on merit and political opportunity. Aclysia and Beatrice were basically the only exceptions.

John kept that evaluation of them to himself and talked to them in a friendly fashion. At large, he was happy with the work or, rather, he was happy with the work he didn’t have to do because of them. Listening to their briefings was more pleasant than the mountain of paperwork he would have to go through himself if it weren’t for their offices. Even if he didn’t like all of them personally, he was at least thankful for that.

It had to be said, however, that John fully expected all of them to be replaced whenever his first choice for chancellor came back to him. While Aclysia reigned as First Servant of State, he picked all of the ministers himself because he feared the weaponized maid would surround him with a bunch of yes-men. Momo wouldn’t be nearly as kind. Which, incidentally, was exactly why John needed the most independently minded of his Artificial Spirits to be his closest official.

When the clock struck ten PM and the evening seemed to be at the relaxed point between excited and exhausted, John jumped on one of the tall pillars that had been left by the concert. A microphone attached to his collar distributed his voice through the room. It was the best solution they had available at the moment, as making a violin that was in tune with the sound-carrying enchantments had been of a higher priority. Technical or magical came out to the same result, being that him softly tapping the glass of champagne he was holding carried a crystal-clear note through the room. All went silent and soon their gazes rested on him, directed by the adjusting spotlight.

“It doesn’t seem necessary for me to wish any of you a good evening,” John started his speech. “I’ve said that to most of you in person already and I can read a room well enough to know when people are having a pleasant night. Let us dispense with the formalities and the long-winded talks. We can keep those for a special occasion on another day. Instead, let us commence what we have come here to do: officialise the addition of the small guilds on our western border as a new and consolidated guild of the Fusion Federation.”

He reached into his inventory and withdrew three pieces of paper. All of them were identical in their design, fine, beige-tinted parchment with gold decoration on the rim and letters written in perfect calligraphy using pitch-black ink. A watermark of Fusion’s detailed emblem sat behind the words, the washed-out colours just strong enough to make them out and add to the artistic value. The papers were equal parts historic document and art.

“One contract for the state, one for the Federation and one for the archives,” John explained. “Drafted by and with the blessing of the Houses of Commons and Exceptionals.” He stepped off the platform and gave Gnome a mental signal. All of the raised bits of stone were pulled back to surface level. Then, a new podium arose, the kind one could speak or write on. The Gamer withdrew a fountain pen from his inventory and placed it and the three contracts on the podium. “All it requires now is the signature of the guild leaders, the Speaker of Commons, and myself. If you would please step forwards.”

He made room at the podium. The previous uncertainty of the thirteen guild leaders had since been somewhat eased. Exposure and booze made them more confident in stepping forwards. The clicking of cameras could be heard from above, as each and every person came forwards and signed the document.

It was wonderfully messy. John had only planned for a maximum of six signatures on the document. With so many more present, the two options he had was for it to get cramped or to only give four people the honours. As someone who had looked at his fair share of historical contracts and treaties, John knew that a lot of them were messy. Struck through paragraphs, people putting their names in the wrong place, notes at the side, additions made by different hands, and a whole bunch of other mishaps could be found on historical documents of all kinds. To that extent, them struggling to put their signatures into the limited space and adding their own lines or brackets to better fit it had its special charm.

‘People don’t like sterile politics,’ the schemer in John thought. ‘Things have to go off without a hitch but not without a speedbump. If things look too clean, people get bored or suspicious. Bored and suspicious people look where those in charge don’t want them too.’ Being the one in charge, he couldn’t help but look at the merits of this. He didn’t even have anything to hide in this instance, but paranoia and his position just got him thinking about such things.

After the guild leaders, the Speaker of the House of Commons stepped forwards. It was still the same aquatic woman, Jumthek, who had been originally elected. She had held herself longer than John had expected. Perhaps she would make it even to the first re-election in three years. Then again, there would be a new Speaker’s election once the elected officials from the new member guilds were in. The whole parliament was looking at a rebalancing in the near future. John would need to have a finger on that pulse.

Last, John stepped forwards. “Well, let’s see where I can squeeze my name in,” he joked and everyone close enough to see the mess of brilliant and scraggly signatures laughed. It was hardest on the first document. Through three iterations of signing their names, people had become more orderly with each step. ‘What a wonderful showcase of human adaptability,’ John hummed and made a tiny compromise to make his name fit on the page.

Usually he signed with John Newman, but today J. Newman had to do. He made a note to self to leave a publicly available statement somewhere that this was deliberate. The last thing he wanted was to deal with a secessionist in 200 years that decided the contract was illegitimate because of an unusual signature.

The ink dried quickly on the enchanted parchment and John carefully rolled each contract together, secured each with a silver cord, and then slid them into three tubes made from marble and sealed on both ends with Baelementium. They were ceremonial objects through and through and John held each of them up before handing them over. “The first contract to the new federation guild, to Pacificia,” he declared and gave it to Janna. The name had been chosen from a list of suggestions the guild leaders had been asked. It was derived from the Latin word for peaceful. A simple reference to the way they had joined Fusion. A bit boring perhaps, but better than naming a state after a virgin queen in John’s opinion. “The second contract to Fusion,” he continued, putting the tube in his inventory. “The third to the archive.” That one he handed to Aclysia, stored it in her own inventory. “And a toast, to the Federation,” John declared, raising his glass of champagne.