(Un?)Welcome Guests

By the time they got back to John’s house, Kiera had fallen asleep, her head resting on Senka’s shoulder.

“I think we may have pushed her too hard today,” the spirit softly said as she ran her fingers gently through the bluenette’s hair. “Remind me to give that gnome a piece of my mind.”

The entire ride home, they had been trying to deal with the situation back in Pruzonia. Between phone calls and Verida’s consciousness going back to her body and relaying things through Kiera, they had managed to get a decent picture of what was happening.

“I can’t believe they think they can just pop in and set up shop without giving us a head’s up,” Vivian seethed.

“From what we’ve got from everyone over there, it seems more like Martius was the one to spearhead this idea and left Harker and Lynn out of things,” John said. “Ten bucks he’ll say he meant to call us and get all this squared away but got ‘distracted’ by everything he had to do and it slipped his mind.”

“I’d be a bad business woman if I took that wager.” Vivian smirked before she sighed. “It never rains but pours, huh?”

“Yeah, but maybe we can use this to our advantage,” John said. “It seems that they’re here to better coordinate with the Order, right? So maybe we can use their in to twist the Order into working with the Baz Clan.”

“Maybe we could get Martius to claim we need their cooperation, or at least resources, to better make their detection machine,” Vivian mused. “Or even just getting our own stuff out of the ground to use.”

“If the Order wants to soothe their pride over having the wool pulled over their eyes, they might be willing to jump at the opportunity, especially with an excuse to make them not look ****,” Senka added.

“It’s as good a plan as any we have so far,” John said. “But let’s tackle one problem at a time. Deal with Martius, then see how we can go from that to dealing with the Order.”

“Argeed,” Vivian nodded as she pulled into the driveway, “let’s go and deal with the gnome.”

After putting Kiera to bed, and carefully escaping the koala-like grip she had on him, John, Vivian and Senka entered Pruzonia. Immediately they saw what Verida and Beth had described to them. A number of plain, store mannequin-like golems milled about with a number of boxes strewn around them as they waited motionless.

Their return did not go unnoticed and Martius was soon marching their way. His expression was initially one of exasperation but quickly took on a more apologetic appearance.

“Hello,” he said in a pleasant tone. “It seems we’ve had a bit of a mix up.”

“I’ll say,” Verida spoke as she followed after the gnome, her expression stern. “I am not one to deny the requests of our friends and allies, but that would require such requests to be made before they are to be implemented.”

“Yes, I’m very sorry about that,” Martius fretted, and John wondered if he was putting on an act to garner sympathy. “I must have forgotten to run things past you in all the excitement of getting everything prepared.”

“Just don’t go running any wild experiments without the heads up,” Verida warned him after giving John and Vivian a look that said ‘let me handle this’.

“Of course, of course,” Martius agreed, accompanied by a vigorous nod.

“I’ll make sure he keeps that promise,” Harker spoke up as he approached the scene. The blood mage bore a serious expression, his eyes never leaving the gnome.

“Come now, Harker, you don’t need to…” Martius’ attempt to dissuade the taller man faltered as Harker glared down at the gnome.

“‘Don’t need to babysit you?’” Harker asked. “You assured us everything was properly taken care of. That when we arrived things would go smoothly and we could start getting everything up and running without delay. Now we’re several hours behind because you ‘forgot’ to dot every i and cross every t. I think I’m well within my rights to protect my investment, both monetary and emotional.”

Martius sputtered indignantly but offered no rebuttal. Instead, he uttered something in what John presumed was his gnomish tongue which brought the golems to life. They moved with silent swiftness and picked up their supplies and began to work.

As they and Martius moved away to the spot Verida had given them to use, Harker turned to them and sighed.

“I’m sorry for dropping all this on you,” Harker said apologetically. “Lynn was going to call her sister at first, but Martius insisted he would handle everything.”

“And since Beth and Lynn are not exactly the talkative type of siblings, they didn’t make contact in the time between the plan being made and now,” Vivian summed up.

“I put too much trust in Martius to not attempt to wiggle his way into an advantageous position,” Harker said. “I should have seen something like this coming. Brilliant as he is, he’s prone to thinking his plans will work. Decent success rate with his science, not so much when dealing with people.”

“Now I’m nervous he’s going to try to pull something with the Order,” Vivian sighed.

“I’ll keep him from doing anything of the sort,” Harker assured her. “I don’t expect he’d be able to get away with it, and I feel he knows that. Beyond his duplicity regarding asking for permission to set up shop here, he’s been extremely attentive to the plans regarding the detection device. Every possible angle scrutinized to be as palatable to the Order as possible.”

“Well, at least there’s that,” Vivian said. “Messing up things with the Order is the last thing we need right now.”

“I’ve gathered as much,” Harker remarked. “Seems you’ve got a bit more with them than our previous arrangement put into place.”

“More like a whole new set of problems,” John said before giving Vivian a glance. When she gave him a small nod, he gave Harker the cliff notes version of the past few days, regarding their foray into the business world and dealings with the dwarves.

“You certainly don’t do things in half measures,” Harker commented once John finished.

“I spent almost all of my life not doing anything of note. I figure the last few weeks have been all the excitement all at once, with interest added,” John said wistfully.

“Which you have been handling with distinction,” Verida remarked.

John rubbed the back of his neck. “We’ll see if I can keep the streak going.”

“If we can keep it going,” Vivian corrected with a gleam in her eyes. “Negotiations are in my wheelhouse. Even if you’re the one who’ll be going to the line of fire again.”

“You do the talking, I do the various fights that break out to show our earnest intention and skill,” John said. “Is it weird that this sort of thing keeps happening? First the goblins, then the Order, now the dwarves.”

“Might makes right is sadly the way most things are,” Harker solemnly remarked. “It also doesn’t help that your powers make you well suited to displays of power, given how varied they are.”

“Fair,” John sighed. A loud grinding sound drew their attention to where Martius and his golems were at work setting up their workshop. Several of the boxes had been opened and a concrete-like substance was flowing out of them, slowly mixing and forming into a building’s shape.

“Did that stuff have to sound like a construction site?” Verida sourly asked.

“Maybe if Lynn had stuck around, she could have eased things along, but I can’t exactly blame her for walking away when it became clear Martius was trying to pull a fast one,” Harker mused before frowning. “She has been rather distant the past few days.”

“She could be still dealing with her feelings regarding Beth,” Vivian wondered. “Given how protective she was of her, I can imagine that fighting off those old instincts along with worrying about how she’s doing is tiring.”

“I suppose,” Harker muttered. “Don’t really have experience with sibling drama so I’m of little help in that department.”

“I think that’s something they have to deal with on their own,” Verida said sagely. “And we should deal with how we’re going to inform the Order of our needs.”

“Prehaps we can kill two birds with one stone,” Harker mused. “If we imply our efforts to get the detection machine fully operational require some more resources, that could be available here…”

“We had the same idea,” Vivian said. “The Order wants the tech and that gives us leverage. Plus, we can lean into the idea of creating a stronger inter-guild alliance to stand up to Phantom Reach. Hit them on two fronts.”

“That seems like it would be the way to apply the pressure points we have,” Harker remarked. “Since we’ve already got the Order to work with us instead of making us work for them, I think we can get them to agree to this trial.”

“Hopefully,” John said, his eyes drifting to Verida. He hated that her freedom depended on them being able to draw people into the Kingdom to develop it.

“Anyway, we should probably all put our heads together to make a proper plan,” Vivian said. “And that includes Martius. If he can come up with a real reason we need more of the raw materials under us, that gives us an airtight argument to use with little chance of the Order poking holes through it.”

“If need be, we can reveal that increasing the production of the Kingdom will allow me full egress,” Verida spoke up. “I don’t want to keep relying on Kiera to step outside and the incentive of having a goddess on the battlefield might sway them.”

“Yes, but it could also make them wary of giving you freedom,” Harker countered. “I think revealing that should be the last resort we keep in our back pocket unless we need it.”

“As much as that sucks, it is a fair point,” Vivian admitted. “Sorry, Verida.”

“I will continue to bear the burden Gaia has placed upon me with grace,” the goddess said. “You have made a good point, Harker. To give them that information could take us down a path where they try to assert their dominance by limiting our ability to grow Pruzonia. Even if it harms their ability to take advantage of the goods we could provide.”

“We have to hope they keep being pragmatic,” Vivian remarked before looking up at the sky. “I suppose there’s no point in delaying having a strategy meeting. Get our ducks in a row then contact the Order.”

“We have been given a timeframe to call them,” Harker said. “Later this afternoon. We’ll see if we can dovetail that into a talk with you involved.”

“Let’s hope they don’t mind getting more than they bargained for,” John somewhat joked.

Wanting to know what was wrong with her sister ate at Beth’s insides. She should have seen the sighs before she just popped up right as she was running up the world tree and seemed more shocked that they hadn’t been expecting them over her being a few dozen feet off the ground. That she hadn’t texted or called to double and triple check was massively out of character for Lynn too.

“Damn it,” Beth cursed under her breath as she marched in the direction Lynn had excused herself shortly before. “You sure this is where she went?”

Beside Beth, Anita nodded vigorously. “Yep, I can feel her mana pretty good. It’s kind of like yours, which I guess makes sense. Don’t have a lot to compare it to. Brenda and John don’t count since she’s using other people’s mana right now.”

“Probably won’t be a good comparison later anyway,” Beth said. “When John’s involved, things go sideways. A lot of good sideways, but still all wonky.”

“Does that include whatever’s going on with your sister?” Anita asked innocently.

“Hell if I know,” Beth muttered as she kicked a stone further down the path. “Probably not. Hell, maybe it’s just her being too deep into her work to think about texting or calling. Happened before. Hell, happened when she started working with these guys.”

“But you’re still worried,” Anita pointed out.

“Because, something’s wrong. I can’t say why I know it. I just do,” Beth asserted.

“Must be a sister thing,” Anita posited then pulled Beth into a hug. “Do you want me to go away when we find her?”

Beth relaxed a bit into Antia’s soft embrace, the gnoshroom’s comforting hug drawing away her likely unfounded worry. She didn’t know why Lynn’s distractedness got under her skin, but it had and now she was going to get to the bottom of it.

“I don’t mind if you want to stick around,” Beth said quietly. “But if Lynn doesn’t want an audience…”

“I can find something to do for a bit,” Anita assured her.

Despite how nice the hug was, Beth had a mission to complete and reluctantly pulled away from Anita.

“Any clue how far ahead she is?” Beth asked.

Anita frowned in concentration and extended one of her hands. Thin fungal strands flowed from her fingertips, quicking stretching out along the path.

“Feels like not too far ahead,” the gnoshroom reported. “There’s a stream up that way and I think she’s right there.”

Beth couldn’t help but let out a brief snorting laugh. “Should have guessed she’d find some water. Always was her second favorite place.”

“What’s her first?” Anita asked as they marched on.

“Her lab,” Beth answered, a ghost of a fond smile on her lips. “Whenever she’d get the time, she would be mixing something or brainstorming up new shit. And I would pester her to make something that could make me a dragon, or grow an extra set of arms.”

Old memories of childhood, from before life dealt them a shit hand, flooded Beth’s mind as they continued down the forest path and Beth was able to put into words why Lynn’s withdrawnness bothered her so much.

‘It was so much easier to be mad at her when she was being a controlling bitch,’ she bitterly thought. ‘Now that we’re on the upswing, I can’t help but feel things.’

Beth steeled her thoughts. ‘Guess later is better than never. Time to be a good sister.’