"This is the immigration office, yes? They'll keep it for two or three months and then try to mail it to you, or throw it out if they don't have an address."

"Yeah I don't exactly have an address yet. When do you expect us to be done here and when do they close for the evening?"

"It's the Windvale main office, they'll be open until eight I believe. We should be done by lunch. Two at the very latest."

"Terrific, then."

So they solicit a few more ingredients from Sadde, to set aside for when they have permission to get started on more testing, and head upstairs.

She presumably follows?

Yep. She's escorted upstairs very politely, here's another waiting room that's a lot less pretty but not grunge or anything. Clara Alta has a surprisingly... Not hostile, but competitive conversation with her boss. They probably think Sadde can't hear.

And then that boss comes out and gives a handsome, charming smile that presumably has no effect. "Welcome. Graz Lakin, vice president of rare ingredients import division. Thanks for coming in to see us today, Sadde. Do you have a title or anything you'd prefer I address you with?"

"Just Sadde's fine. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Likewise, I'm sure. Clara assures me you're a golden opportunity. We can't put everything else off, but given some positive preliminary results I want to take things in a slightly different direction than Clara did. I propose that we pay you a nice big flat rate for some cases of a variety of uncommon but not rare ingredients, and push a rush lab project to make sure they produce magic that functions reliably and familiarly. Moving too quickly on this could expose us to a lot of liability if there's some hidden drawback. It's a risk factor. We'll have to bring Legal in on this, actually, and the division chief."

"That's fair. If the materials are not themselves magical, though, I'm fairly certain there won't be any problems—and even if they are there might not be, my biology is very obviously magical and I can mess with it and produce more of it. Now how big is this big flat rate?"

"Let's say, five million."

"Five million per...?"

"Total, for about eight tons. This isn't gold, yet. We're not going to drop half a billion on you without scale-up testing."

"Do you mind if I go research market prices of these things?"

"I expect you to and frankly admit that we want to pay a lot less than market. Ask around at other corps and see. New suppliers are frequently expected to send discounted or free samples, at least for sensitive, high grade substances, sometimes even paying us for analyzing and testing them."

"Not for eight tons, I'd expect," she remarks, one corner of her mouth perking up.

"A smaller amount for a smaller payment if you like, then. You're not ICTFA-accreddited. Nobody's ever heard of you before as far as Clara can tell. Even if initial results are promising, you are a massive risk and this company was not built on gambling."

"I did indeed only arrive to this world a handful of days ago, so no one could've heard of me before, but I wasn't born then. I'm not necessarily saying I'm going to refuse this offer, I'm just saying I won't immediately accept it."

"Fair enough. Let's grab a conference room and discuss."

"Do let's."

Clara, a go-fer, and a lawyer join them. They present a well-reasoned argument with documents Sadde is free to run to the library or possibly their competitors to verify.

They're flexible on most of the fine details, even price when push comes to shove, but they are absolutely insistent that she signs an NDA (with an exception for her mate provided he keeps the secret) against telling anyone she's being hired to provide ingredients to Empire Imports Group or any of its subsidiaries for a period of one (1) year.

That sounds pretty reasonable, actually. Sadde might want to hire her own lawyer, though, to go through those, and she will in fact run to the library and their competitors to verify.

It's about time for a lunch break anyway.

The two biggest competitors for Empire Imports, in terms of magic at least, are Circular Incorporated and Roder & Sanders, Ltd.

The library is open, as usual. Various legal companies are available for consultation without an appointment, average fee is 150 Kava for a single consultation.

...she'll get her ID first.

She scored 100% on the test.

The ID process goes with surprising quickness in some immigration official's office. Sign, sign, initial, sign, done. Present this stack of paper with your sponsor whenever you're ready.