Rennac's smile was replaced with a scowl as the Master of War spoke once more, the Litharian's words biting into his patience.

"I do ask for the Council's forgiveness, but I was brought here under the understanding this was a mission of diplomacy. If this is nothing more than a bounty posting, then I am afraid you have contacted us through the improper forum. Normally I would be required to instruct you to contact the guild through the proper channels to post your bounty and to go through the standard process of hunters gaining the notification and coming here. Though, of course, they would have to willingly accept upon receiving the notice and come here of their own volition and I cannot guarantee they would approach this hunt with the same... discretion as you would likely prefer. However, you technically have not done the proper paperwork to post the bounty, and this Klith could be a potential threat to my own people should he set his sights on Ferran. According to guild charter, the penalty for seeking jobs outside of the guild is to be permanently banned from the guild and denied all resources from the guild. That leaves three options. The first is that I direct you to filing out the proper forms and have the guild send out the bulletin to all available hunters, though that will be far more messy. I can accept the job but refuse payment, though the Wolkar diplomatic corps will likely turn down future requests and just redirect your inquiries to the guild  since, as the Master of war pointed out, your only interest in the Wolkar is as mercenaries. The third option on the table is that we revisit my previous proposal and the payment for recovering the traitor Klith before he reveals anymore of your government's secrets will be promises of future talks between our people. There is no guarantee needed of any alliance or even a trade agreement for that matter. We could do something as small as setting up an exchange rate between our nation's currencies."

The Wolkar paused and let that sink in, allowing the council to mull over his words as well as the point he made of the lessened relations between their people. In all but one of those scenarios, they suffer consequences whether they be long or short term. The Wolkar was not being deceitful but merely following legal and diplomatic protocol, though that would hardly stop the Master of War from running his mouth. If anything, his experience with this group thus far was enough to possibly close diplomatic channels in his mind, his impression of them being very closed minded and intolerant of others which was a direct contrast to how the Wolkar approached those of other races.