Chapter 299 - A Midsummer Night’s Dream II
The summer solstice was a more solemn affair than its frigid opposite. Often known as the Day of Atonement, the festivities would only begin the night after the gods had passed their judgment. Not all mortals believed in penance or redemption, however, nor did they necessarily trust that the divine pantheon would deliver the punishments desired. With their hearts heavy and their weapons drawn, they took matters into their own hands—the number of revenge killings trended straight up as the temperature reached its annual peak, and so too had risen the amount of work requested. Hence the stack of papers atop the front desk.
Claire had spent the better half of the afternoon sorting through eighty-four potential assassinations. Some were summarily discarded—three had come from people too stupid to put two and two together. They had put in requests to eliminate the queen, in spite of the fact that Claire was known to be one of her closest associates.
Of the remaining eighty-one, forty-seven were immediately torn in half. Some were ripped up because they were needlessly complex. Clients that requested specific methods of execution and clients that conveyed their messages in cryptic, nonsensical text were all summarily ignored. Likewise, any forms that lacked a reasonable point of contact were instantly thrown out. She understood why her clients were often afraid to leave any tracks, but there were countless ways around the problem, and she had no reason to help someone without half a brain to help themselves.
Had she been present when they first walked in, Claire would have written the documents herself and pressured the answers out of the idiots in question, but the maids could not be expected to do the same. It wasn’t their job, and the documents were intended to be kept strictly confidential. One could very well argue that Claire’s dismissive attitude was unacceptable, as far as customer service went, but any clients that cared enough would eventually return to check the status of their applications.
Even with the initial filtering out of the way, the lyrkress found herself with over thirty scenarios to investigate, almost ten times the number previously set on her plate. Naturally, the sudden influx of work came with the urge to procrastinate. She breathed a sigh, propped her face up with a hand, and turned her attention out the door.
Her consciousness began to drift as the bright white light filled her vision, spreading into a sea of brilliant clouds. The goddess that lay beyond beckoned at her to approach, but Claire remained nonchalant, staying where she was and refusing to meet her gaze.
It was a futile resistance that lasted until Flux closed the distance between them. She took the lyrkress’ face in her hands and gently rotated her head so that their eyes were forced to meet.
The swirling nebula that lay within the goddess’ stare was warm and gentle, but also annoyed and reproachful.
No words were exchanged, but her message was loud and clear.
And then, as quickly as she came, she vanished, leaving the mortal to return to her shop with an even heavier sigh upon her lips. She had effectively abandoned the goddess’ directive. Flux had entrusted her with a quest to earn the gods’ blessings and favour, and she had neglected it ever since she settled down in Vel’khan. Griselda was the last god to have offered her a real boon, and it had already been exhausted.
There was a good reason for her hesitation and delay. Her act of vengeance—the destruction of Tornatus—had not left the city’s temples unscathed. Some of the gods were likely to be more understanding, but even they could have been set off if any of their favourites were present at the scene. That was why they had avoided Primrose’s Boundless Grove during their journey south. She was known as a nurturing caretaker, but even so, to enter her domain after obliterating one of her temples was no different from leaping headfirst into a pit of thorns.
Even if the goddess of the flow demanded it, Claire had little intention of diving straight into the arms of an unbeatable threat. She would need a safer approach, and it just so happened that there was a hint in one of the request forms filed. The client was a priest from Aen’s temple. Aen was the god that governed the concepts of travel and hospitality. He was worshipped most frequently by innkeepers and travelling merchants, and he was often depicted as a close friend to the god of commerce. Though he was typically considered a fairly generous man, his already sparse protection did not extend as far as those with belligerent intentions. He shied away from soldiers, mercenaries, and monster hunters, citing their professions and paymasters as problems in the way of his entertainment. Even if a traveller met all his requirements, it was rare for the god to intervene. There was always some risk inherent to stepping away from the safety of one’s home, and in his eyes, the adventure was half the fun.
That was also why he was commonly considered a pest that spirited children away. For those not looking to vacation, his presence was only a sign of trouble. And in this too he relished. That was why his faithful servants, the fairies and pixies scattered throughout the realm, would channel their elemental powers to play all sorts of tricks and pranks on its residents.
Even as his servants, they were often attacked as recompense, and as such, it was safe to say that he would be one of the less irate. The problem was the request’s legitimacy. The rules dictated that, after investigating a problem, she would kill all parties that deserved to die, regardless of who it was that called for her involvement. Technically, there was nothing that physically or magically prevented her from changing her mind, and she did judge on occasion that violence was not the answer, but to go back on her word on the god’s account was to break the oath she had sworn on Natalya’s heart. And with so little time past since the catgirl’s swansong, she had no intention of doing any of that.
True to her word, Claire had tried her best to take others into account. Pollux’s downfall aside, she made herself out to be more amicable, despite always thinking that it was a pain as she went through the necessary motions. She was more vocal and she had even listened to a lecturing granny for a whole minute and a half before falling asleep. Small steps in the intended direction.
Considering the priest’s request was a risk. If he told the truth, and his target was really worth killing, then she could quite possibly earn the vacation god’s favour. But if the priest was simply using her as a means to enact his malicious intent, then she would surely find the god more annoyed with her than he was already.
“Maybe I’ll pay him a visit and see what he thinks,” she muttered. She never saw Aen present in World Chat, which meant the most convenient option was unfortunately off the board. She would have to visit one of his temples in person.
The remaining requests were not quite as difficult to consider. They consisted of all the usual affairs—punishing authority figures for abuse of power, eliminating unjust business rivals that blatantly skirted the rules, targeting specific criminals for injustices conducted long ago, and so on and so forth. A second pass through the files saw many of these disregarded as well. After touching Natalya’s diary, which she had hanging off her waist, Claire decided that most of the claims were not quite worth the loss of life.
The commerce-related hits were largely discarded. They had been written in a way to suggest the loss of fortune, but the offered payment was high enough to prove that her clients weren’t as bankrupt as they claimed. And at least in her eyes, their rivals' actions weren’t quite as atrocious as the usual fare that drove her to action. She had no pity for the brokenhearted chap cuckolded by a corporate spy, for example. That particular problem was entirely his own. The only business-related request—or rather requests, given that there were seven people begging for the same man’s death—she considered involved a shady merchant that was supposedly poisoning children when their parents failed to obey.
“Sam Baker,” she muttered. “Doesn’t sound like he’s from around here.” The same could be said for her, of course, but the man’s name was decidedly lacking in Vel’khanese or even Ryllian influence. If she had to guess, he was most likely one of the Cyreland folk, perhaps an ent or some sort of walking fungus.
She was about to start writing up her notes when Josephine walked up to her desk and gestured at the stack of papers. Evidently, it was time for her to switch.
Nodding, Claire retrieved a single letter from within her desk and handed it over. There wasn’t much to report, besides that they had slain the target that the erdbrecher matriarch had requested.
“Chloe will be replacing me,” said Josephine. Her carriage hadn’t quite arrived just yet, but there was nothing left for her to do. The whole shop was about as spotless as spotless could be.
Claire nodded again, but internally, she was aghast. The perverted human was the last maid she wanted to deal with. Alas, there was nothing to be done. A Marcelle-drawn carriage with the problematic cleaning lady inside rolled up in front of the store before she could voice an objection. She expected the maid to burst through the doors and immediately get to teasing her, but her movements were conducted with far more elegance and grace than they were on any other occasion. She held her skirt as she stepped down from the carriage, took careful steps towards the counter, and greeted the lyrkress with a regal curtsy.
“Good afternoon, Lady Augustus.”
“What’s this about?” asked Claire, with her eyes narrowed. It seemed that Arciel was in the carriage as well, but as several previous instances had already proven, that was hardly reason enough for Chloe to be on her best behaviour.
“There is an important matter that requires your attention.”
The lyrkress stared for a few seconds before rolling her eyes, reaching over the counter, and flicking the maid right between the eyes. “Nice try.”
“Ow!” Wincing, Chloe backed away from the counter and breathed a sigh. “I thought I’d pulled it off pretty well this time. What gave it away?”
“Aside from the fact that we play this game all the time?” Claire breathed a sigh. “Your mouth was drier than usual.”
“So you wouldn’t have been able to pick it out if you didn’t know me then…” muttered the maid.
Thanks to their continued correspondence, she was getting eerily good at lying to people’s faces. She had always been decent at it to begin with—the maid was one of the only people that had ever fooled Claire—but the improvements she made, each time she was given feedback, were so drastic that they were off-putting. She stopped blinking after the lyrkress told her of the habit, fixed her heartbeat when she learned that it hastened, and somehow even held back her sweat after being made aware of its creation. Maidhood was clearly a waste of her talents. She was much better off as an assassin or spy, but her degeneracy had ultimately led her down the path of a humble servant. Apparently, all so she could personally handwash the royal squid’s garments.
Sighing at the thought of the pervert’s discarded potential, Claire reluctantly looked up and met her gaze. “So? What were you supposed to say?”
“Ciel is waiting in the carriage. She has a rare break and was hoping to sit down for tea.”
“Fine.”
Picking up her pet fox, Claire silently followed the maids to the carriage and locked the shop’s door with a magical flick. There was no point in charging the doctor with the storefront’s management. She would no doubt be too busy brewing some potion or other.
“Mmmnnn? Why are we moving?” asked Sylvia, with a yawn. She had decided to nap while her owner went through the paperwork. It seemed somewhat unfair at a glance, but most of the investigations not already covered by Estelle’s intelligence network fell into her domain.
“Tea party,” said Claire, as she stepped into the coach.
“Oh…” The half-elf yawned. “Hey, Ciel. Hey, Chloe.”
“Good afternoon, Sylvia.” The imperial bloodkraken smiled. She didn’t look nearly as overworked as she had just a few weeks prior. Many of her reforms had already been pushed out into the wild, and there was much less on her plate given the relatively peaceful acceptance. Most of them started as local changes in Vel’khagan—the nobility had much to say about using the capital city as a sandbox for her experiments, but the queen pushed forward in spite of their concerns and implemented them on a citywide scale. Only once they had proven fruitful were they allowed to leak into the rest of the nation. And even then, it was a process of gradual adoption.
Not all domains were so slow on the uptake. Some of the more trusting followed the queen’s example without being prompted, and there were others that even went on to iterate upon them with even stricter rules and regulations. It was only natural that they would try to suck up to the queen with her murderous mantis on the loose, but in Claire’s eyes, they were a bit too eager to please. The whole point of experimenting on the capital was to prove that the policies worked. Emulating them without first evaluating their impact completely defeated the point.
“Did you enjoy your journey south?” asked the squid.
“Mmmmnnnn, I guess it was kinda fun?” said Sylvia. “But we were in way too much of a hurry to get back. I wish we stayed longer, we barely had the chance to do anyth—oh! That reminds me!” Sylvia reached into her tail and rummaged around, producing a wrapped box after a moment’s delay. “We got you a souvenir.”
“Why, how lovely. Thank you,” said Arciel. She gracefully undid the ribbon and found a set of cookies.
“They’re made out of sand, but they’re super tasty,” said Sylvia.
“Sand?” said the squid, with a blink. “I do suppose that it does not go uningested for those that live in the sea, but I do not see how it would find use as an ingredient.”
“Erdbrechers like sucking on rocks,” said Claire. “This is just an extension of their usual behaviour.”
“How bizarre. I was not made aware of such a custom,” said the queen. “No matter, I suppose there is no harm in having them with our tea.”
Handing the gift off to one of the maids, Arciel looked out the window just in time for the carriage to grind to a halt. It was a twenty-minute trip, but with her old friends by her side, it had passed in the blink of an eye.
Chapter 299 - A Midsummer Night’s Dream II
The summer solstice was a more solemn affair than its frigid opposite. Often known as the Day of Atonement, the festivities would only begin the night after the gods had passed their judgment. Not all mortals believed in penance or redemption, however, nor did they necessarily trust that the divine pantheon would deliver the punishments desired. With their hearts heavy and their weapons drawn, they took matters into their own hands—the number of revenge killings trended straight up as the temperature reached its annual peak, and so too had risen the amount of work requested. Hence the stack of papers atop the front desk.
Claire had spent the better half of the afternoon sorting through eighty-four potential assassinations. Some were summarily discarded—three had come from people too stupid to put two and two together. They had put in requests to eliminate the queen, in spite of the fact that Claire was known to be one of her closest associates.
Of the remaining eighty-one, forty-seven were immediately torn in half. Some were ripped up because they were needlessly complex. Clients that requested specific methods of execution and clients that conveyed their messages in cryptic, nonsensical text were all summarily ignored. Likewise, any forms that lacked a reasonable point of contact were instantly thrown out. She understood why her clients were often afraid to leave any tracks, but there were countless ways around the problem, and she had no reason to help someone without half a brain to help themselves.
Had she been present when they first walked in, Claire would have written the documents herself and pressured the answers out of the idiots in question, but the maids could not be expected to do the same. It wasn’t their job, and the documents were intended to be kept strictly confidential. One could very well argue that Claire’s dismissive attitude was unacceptable, as far as customer service went, but any clients that cared enough would eventually return to check the status of their applications.
Even with the initial filtering out of the way, the lyrkress found herself with over thirty scenarios to investigate, almost ten times the number previously set on her plate. Naturally, the sudden influx of work came with the urge to procrastinate. She breathed a sigh, propped her face up with a hand, and turned her attention out the door.
Her consciousness began to drift as the bright white light filled her vision, spreading into a sea of brilliant clouds. The goddess that lay beyond beckoned at her to approach, but Claire remained nonchalant, staying where she was and refusing to meet her gaze.
It was a futile resistance that lasted until Flux closed the distance between them. She took the lyrkress’ face in her hands and gently rotated her head so that their eyes were forced to meet.
The swirling nebula that lay within the goddess’ stare was warm and gentle, but also annoyed and reproachful.
No words were exchanged, but her message was loud and clear.
And then, as quickly as she came, she vanished, leaving the mortal to return to her shop with an even heavier sigh upon her lips. She had effectively abandoned the goddess’ directive. Flux had entrusted her with a quest to earn the gods’ blessings and favour, and she had neglected it ever since she settled down in Vel’khan. Griselda was the last god to have offered her a real boon, and it had already been exhausted.
There was a good reason for her hesitation and delay. Her act of vengeance—the destruction of Tornatus—had not left the city’s temples unscathed. Some of the gods were likely to be more understanding, but even they could have been set off if any of their favourites were present at the scene. That was why they had avoided Primrose’s Boundless Grove during their journey south. She was known as a nurturing caretaker, but even so, to enter her domain after obliterating one of her temples was no different from leaping headfirst into a pit of thorns.
Even if the goddess of the flow demanded it, Claire had little intention of diving straight into the arms of an unbeatable threat. She would need a safer approach, and it just so happened that there was a hint in one of the request forms filed. The client was a priest from Aen’s temple. Aen was the god that governed the concepts of travel and hospitality. He was worshipped most frequently by innkeepers and travelling merchants, and he was often depicted as a close friend to the god of commerce. Though he was typically considered a fairly generous man, his already sparse protection did not extend as far as those with belligerent intentions. He shied away from soldiers, mercenaries, and monster hunters, citing their professions and paymasters as problems in the way of his entertainment. Even if a traveller met all his requirements, it was rare for the god to intervene. There was always some risk inherent to stepping away from the safety of one’s home, and in his eyes, the adventure was half the fun.
That was also why he was commonly considered a pest that spirited children away. For those not looking to vacation, his presence was only a sign of trouble. And in this too he relished. That was why his faithful servants, the fairies and pixies scattered throughout the realm, would channel their elemental powers to play all sorts of tricks and pranks on its residents.
Even as his servants, they were often attacked as recompense, and as such, it was safe to say that he would be one of the less irate. The problem was the request’s legitimacy. The rules dictated that, after investigating a problem, she would kill all parties that deserved to die, regardless of who it was that called for her involvement. Technically, there was nothing that physically or magically prevented her from changing her mind, and she did judge on occasion that violence was not the answer, but to go back on her word on the god’s account was to break the oath she had sworn on Natalya’s heart. And with so little time past since the catgirl’s swansong, she had no intention of doing any of that.
True to her word, Claire had tried her best to take others into account. Pollux’s downfall aside, she made herself out to be more amicable, despite always thinking that it was a pain as she went through the necessary motions. She was more vocal and she had even listened to a lecturing granny for a whole minute and a half before falling asleep. Small steps in the intended direction.
Considering the priest’s request was a risk. If he told the truth, and his target was really worth killing, then she could quite possibly earn the vacation god’s favour. But if the priest was simply using her as a means to enact his malicious intent, then she would surely find the god more annoyed with her than he was already.
“Maybe I’ll pay him a visit and see what he thinks,” she muttered. She never saw Aen present in World Chat, which meant the most convenient option was unfortunately off the board. She would have to visit one of his temples in person.
The remaining requests were not quite as difficult to consider. They consisted of all the usual affairs—punishing authority figures for abuse of power, eliminating unjust business rivals that blatantly skirted the rules, targeting specific criminals for injustices conducted long ago, and so on and so forth. A second pass through the files saw many of these disregarded as well. After touching Natalya’s diary, which she had hanging off her waist, Claire decided that most of the claims were not quite worth the loss of life.
The commerce-related hits were largely discarded. They had been written in a way to suggest the loss of fortune, but the offered payment was high enough to prove that her clients weren’t as bankrupt as they claimed. And at least in her eyes, their rivals' actions weren’t quite as atrocious as the usual fare that drove her to action. She had no pity for the brokenhearted chap cuckolded by a corporate spy, for example. That particular problem was entirely his own. The only business-related request—or rather requests, given that there were seven people begging for the same man’s death—she considered involved a shady merchant that was supposedly poisoning children when their parents failed to obey.
“Sam Baker,” she muttered. “Doesn’t sound like he’s from around here.” The same could be said for her, of course, but the man’s name was decidedly lacking in Vel’khanese or even Ryllian influence. If she had to guess, he was most likely one of the Cyreland folk, perhaps an ent or some sort of walking fungus.
She was about to start writing up her notes when Josephine walked up to her desk and gestured at the stack of papers. Evidently, it was time for her to switch.
Nodding, Claire retrieved a single letter from within her desk and handed it over. There wasn’t much to report, besides that they had slain the target that the erdbrecher matriarch had requested.
“Chloe will be replacing me,” said Josephine. Her carriage hadn’t quite arrived just yet, but there was nothing left for her to do. The whole shop was about as spotless as spotless could be.
Claire nodded again, but internally, she was aghast. The perverted human was the last maid she wanted to deal with. Alas, there was nothing to be done. A Marcelle-drawn carriage with the problematic cleaning lady inside rolled up in front of the store before she could voice an objection. She expected the maid to burst through the doors and immediately get to teasing her, but her movements were conducted with far more elegance and grace than they were on any other occasion. She held her skirt as she stepped down from the carriage, took careful steps towards the counter, and greeted the lyrkress with a regal curtsy.
“Good afternoon, Lady Augustus.”
“What’s this about?” asked Claire, with her eyes narrowed. It seemed that Arciel was in the carriage as well, but as several previous instances had already proven, that was hardly reason enough for Chloe to be on her best behaviour.
“There is an important matter that requires your attention.”
The lyrkress stared for a few seconds before rolling her eyes, reaching over the counter, and flicking the maid right between the eyes. “Nice try.”
“Ow!” Wincing, Chloe backed away from the counter and breathed a sigh. “I thought I’d pulled it off pretty well this time. What gave it away?”
“Aside from the fact that we play this game all the time?” Claire breathed a sigh. “Your mouth was drier than usual.”
“So you wouldn’t have been able to pick it out if you didn’t know me then…” muttered the maid.
Thanks to their continued correspondence, she was getting eerily good at lying to people’s faces. She had always been decent at it to begin with—the maid was one of the only people that had ever fooled Claire—but the improvements she made, each time she was given feedback, were so drastic that they were off-putting. She stopped blinking after the lyrkress told her of the habit, fixed her heartbeat when she learned that it hastened, and somehow even held back her sweat after being made aware of its creation. Maidhood was clearly a waste of her talents. She was much better off as an assassin or spy, but her degeneracy had ultimately led her down the path of a humble servant. Apparently, all so she could personally handwash the royal squid’s garments.
Sighing at the thought of the pervert’s discarded potential, Claire reluctantly looked up and met her gaze. “So? What were you supposed to say?”
“Ciel is waiting in the carriage. She has a rare break and was hoping to sit down for tea.”
“Fine.”
Picking up her pet fox, Claire silently followed the maids to the carriage and locked the shop’s door with a magical flick. There was no point in charging the doctor with the storefront’s management. She would no doubt be too busy brewing some potion or other.
“Mmmnnn? Why are we moving?” asked Sylvia, with a yawn. She had decided to nap while her owner went through the paperwork. It seemed somewhat unfair at a glance, but most of the investigations not already covered by Estelle’s intelligence network fell into her domain.
“Tea party,” said Claire, as she stepped into the coach.
“Oh…” The half-elf yawned. “Hey, Ciel. Hey, Chloe.”
“Good afternoon, Sylvia.” The imperial bloodkraken smiled. She didn’t look nearly as overworked as she had just a few weeks prior. Many of her reforms had already been pushed out into the wild, and there was much less on her plate given the relatively peaceful acceptance. Most of them started as local changes in Vel’khagan—the nobility had much to say about using the capital city as a sandbox for her experiments, but the queen pushed forward in spite of their concerns and implemented them on a citywide scale. Only once they had proven fruitful were they allowed to leak into the rest of the nation. And even then, it was a process of gradual adoption.
Not all domains were so slow on the uptake. Some of the more trusting followed the queen’s example without being prompted, and there were others that even went on to iterate upon them with even stricter rules and regulations. It was only natural that they would try to suck up to the queen with her murderous mantis on the loose, but in Claire’s eyes, they were a bit too eager to please. The whole point of experimenting on the capital was to prove that the policies worked. Emulating them without first evaluating their impact completely defeated the point.
“Did you enjoy your journey south?” asked the squid.
“Mmmmnnnn, I guess it was kinda fun?” said Sylvia. “But we were in way too much of a hurry to get back. I wish we stayed longer, we barely had the chance to do anyth—oh! That reminds me!” Sylvia reached into her tail and rummaged around, producing a wrapped box after a moment’s delay. “We got you a souvenir.”
“Why, how lovely. Thank you,” said Arciel. She gracefully undid the ribbon and found a set of cookies.
“They’re made out of sand, but they’re super tasty,” said Sylvia.
“Sand?” said the squid, with a blink. “I do suppose that it does not go uningested for those that live in the sea, but I do not see how it would find use as an ingredient.”
“Erdbrechers like sucking on rocks,” said Claire. “This is just an extension of their usual behaviour.”
“How bizarre. I was not made aware of such a custom,” said the queen. “No matter, I suppose there is no harm in having them with our tea.”
Handing the gift off to one of the maids, Arciel looked out the window just in time for the carriage to grind to a halt. It was a twenty-minute trip, but with her old friends by her side, it had passed in the blink of an eye.
