Reforge

I suppose not. Testing for limitations in range sounds valuable, but if Donna isn't going, she will be entirely unprotected from the artifact user.

Donnella: No. That’s very fair.
Donnella: It’d be wonderful to gain a clearer picture of this jar’s capabilities, but…! This situation is simply too high-stakes.
Secretary of War: Then we assume that its forces will discover our intrusion immediately. Pursuing this rescue will initiate open hostilities.
Donnella: So, we'll simply prepare for that and execute the mission flawlessly.
With you at the helm? It’ll be nothing. You execute flawlessly all the time.
Easy.
Simple.
Piece of gold-leaf-dusted cake.


Your remaining advisors take their seats once more, with, unfortunately, no degree of reduction in the sheer quantity of side-eye being cast your way. Your Vizier tries to start some kind of meaningful eyebrow waggling in your direction but you are having no more of their nonsense. Oh, yes. You’re going to have a talk.
But first, The Sword-bearer hands over a sheaf of paper covered in neat, blocky handwriting: a list of offers and prices directly from Four Corners’ founder.

The aid she offers consists largely of cashing in favors owed to Four Corners on your behalf, along with access to some of the guild’s more exclusive services:
1. Complete communication of any new discoveries in the ongoing research on the Beast, which is frankly obvious but bears stating formally.
2. Using of Four Corners’ ties to Derexes to persuade its leadership not to attack you in your time of crisis. Derexes is your immediate western neighbor, as well as the nation in which Four Corners is headquartered, and you've had a history of conflict ever since they overthrew their perfectly decent aristocracy. It would be nice, you guess, to worry less about them preying on fresh Ogorathean weakness.
3. Securing communication with and rapid response from the distant Order of the Crystal Sea, the world’s premier knighthood of elite spirit-fighters. You'd need to wait for messages to cross the ocean to get it, but the founder somehow has a direct line, because of course she does.
4. The services of all adventuring heroes tied to Four Corners, including, and this is what really catches your attention, a dedicated infiltration group of high level roguish types (and yes, obviously, it’s unbelievably suspect that they have one on call).
5. Access to Four Corners’ powerful transportation and communication network. They’ve been angling for a node in Edison for ages, and you’ve always refused, but it is supposedly the best in the world.
6. Access to cutting-edge and experimental magic and technology like their advanced inventories, protective gear, etc. at drastically reduced cost.
7. Finally, they have debts to cash in with some major spirits: the God of Walls, Behemoth; the God of Lost Things, Graavbaar; and the God of the Dead, Nihmin. Of course, you'll still need to bargain with them yourself, but Four Corners can give you an in that you can't afford to pass up.

The costs she demands are... well. They're something.
1. Allowing the expansion of their transportation and communication blah blah you already covered that one; they need a land permit. It's just... an indignity, to let them build on your soil.
2. They want some of Aeon Co’s trade secrets, especially those concerning your optics systems. Which, please, who isn’t after that? It’s what your company most excels at… but do you have a choice when everything else is on the line?
3. Giving visiting adventurers sponsored by their organization honorary rank despite their lack of Ogorathean noble blood. An utterly inappropriate level of temporary authority for them, really, nearly on the same level as your personal council... which is guaranteed to rile said council right up.
4. Total access to all bloodline archives; every Ogorathean province obviously keeps extensive records of every familial line, and Edison is no different. What she’d need this for you can’t imagine, but it's utterly unprecedented. To allow foreign intrusion into the archives? Before you even formally assume governance? Not a good look. One of the worst looks you could think of, actually.
5. This is the intriguingly vague part: the founder can, at any time, mark individuals under your sovereignty as ‘people of interest’; you are to arrange for Morgan to interview and ‘assess’ them, under watch, of course, so you know they aren’t trying any mental manipulations. To what end? You haven't the slightest, but it can't be good.
6. Then there’s the dull vague part: you’ll owe Four Corners three favors. Well, the Edison line will, that is. Favors to be disclosed and/or decided later, because why not be as sinister as possible about everything.
7. The founder wants to meet ‘The Firstborn Edison and their Guardian’- yes, she specifically mentions Aeron, which is just peculiar- privately, at a location of your choosing. Funny how right after you’re warned against ever spending time alone with people, one of the shadiest ones you’re in contact with wants just that! You’d have the opportunity to place all sorts of safeguards, but still. Suspicious.

What Four Corners is offering? Potentially game changing. But these prices... the founder is clearly intent on sinking her claws as far into Edison as she can. The costs aren't so much material as much as they are a loosening of control and a hit to reputation. Of course, turning down some of their offered boons would reduce those costs in turn...

Are there any parts you need to renegotiate?

ANShow

Are these too many bullet points? Probably
Could I decide on any to cut up front? No
Does this way this scene played out take the story in a more strategy direction than I was expecting or am probably remotely prepared for? MAYBE SO