Ling Wen receives her. "Please, have a seat. Tea?"

She has a seat. "You honor me by so offering, but I'm afraid I never learned to like tea."

"Water? Juice?"

Relu will accept water and not actually drink it. "So, about what I wrote. The end of witches would just be a side effect of being able to improve gem clarity without grief seeds."

"Wow! Have you tested this? Who with?"

"With singing elves from the planet Arda but if there's anyone around here with a gem that's at all darkened I can confirm it works on humans from Earth right now."

"With... singing elves. From the planet Arda."

Relu smiles blandly.

"I don't really appreciate having my time wasted."

"I would not presume to tell you what might be worth your time to test. It’s a real place I’ve really been. I approached you immediately rather than begin selling my services to the highest bidder but I can do that if you prefer."

"I'm going to turn you over to one of my colleagues for the time being, thanks!" And she whisks herself out of the room to be replaced with a nonmagical clerk with a clipboard.

She has done less research on how to politely greet this person but she tries.

The person would like to be told in chronological order what happened such that they are now having this meeting please.

"I visited other planets. I learned about something that can be used to maintain gem clarity indefinitely without grief seeds. I came here and said so."

"In more detail, please."

Relu can quote most of their conversation.

"...in much, much more detail."

"I have seen people use a type of alien technology to increase gem clarity by forcibly lifting their mood. I understand the principles behind the alien technology and have seen different examples of it in use for different purposes. Normally, when you run out of gem clarity or otherwise succumb to despair, you become a witch. You might know witches as the source of grief seeds, which are the only way I think people on Earth know of to increase gem clarity. That's not quite right, though; you could say it's the other way around. Grief seeds spawn witches. They're just what happens to your soul gem when it goes dark enough. So if you were to run out of witches, without this technology, you'd just spawn more - not that you would run out of witches, because the full grief seeds the Kyubeys collect can be sown for a harvest of the same witches again, and they do save some to plant for just that purpose, like grief seeds are just so much grain to them. But not all of them. So everyone who makes a wish, eventually, dooms themself or someone else to become a witch. I can prevent that, with the alien technology I have. For a price. Or I can walk away, because I'm not about to be a witch so I don't really care."

"Okay, uh, that's an interesting" conspiracy "theory, but... do you have any proof."

"More for some parts than others, but yes. Would you rather I suggest things or would you rather suggest things yourself?"

"Oh, go right ahead."

"I could increase someone's gem clarity. I could call on my organization's resources to demonstrate our ability to gather accurate information by presenting you with copies of documents you think are secret. I could introduce you to an alien. I could arrange for you to visit Mars. Though I'm not actually sure if your organization even has the ability to provide what I want and I suppose if you want to tell me the Empress doesn't have the ability to hand over the ability to grant wishes even if she wanted to I can skip proving myself."

"...uh, the Kyubeys grant the wishes..."

"Do they have an agreement with the Empress about when and for whom? I noticed that there was a form online for applying to your organization for the opportunity to make a wish and I'm wondering why that is."

"They work for her, of course."