Chapter 136: Pinches and Curses

Note: Two chapters today!

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“Arthur! Come look.” Milo shouted out from the back of the shop. “I’ve made a little model of the train. It should help you visualize what I’ve been talking about.”

With Slapstone, iron, and entirely too much free time, Milo had put together a roughly to-scale model of the valley they all lived in, complete with cliffs, raised areas indicating roads, and even a little simulated ocean carved out of the rock and filled with normal water. On it, he had crafted a miniature railroad with steel wires and two tiny model rail carts.

“See where it needs to go underground. I’ve already done the calculations, and a few rails in just these tunnels should be able to deal with all the cargo the town ever produces. Even if we fill this entire valley up with people. And then we can have another line from the Slapstone mine that cuts straight to here, where we want to build the depot.”

“Is that for sure worth it?” Arthur asked. “The Slapstone will give out, eventually.”

“Oh, sure. But by then we will probably have found other things to mine, and at the least the hunters and warriors can use it to send monster corpses up there for the dismantlers and butchers. If we ever get any, that is.”

They would. Even while Arthur was asleep, the town’s population hadn’t slowed its growth at all. Every day they had another new arrival, another class that the town previously didn’t have. The warriors alone were an important addition, pushing out monster parts that various crafters needed to push their arts farther and farther. It was a good dungeon with a lot of variety, according to everyone he had talked to. They were lucky.

But at the moment, Arthur had more important things to care about.

“So that’s a big event. You’re finally going to start automating the town more, like you wanted,” Arthur said stiffly.

“Yup.” Milo smiled. “Everything’s coming up roses lately. Besides you almost dying, but that’s just a normal weekday at this point. I’m pretty happy at how everything is turning out.”

“That’s two everythings. What else is there? Normally, you only think about your work,” Arthur said.

“Well, the food is getting better and better. And I made some weapons yesterday that were the best I’ve ever done. I’m level 22 now. And climbing. All my growth is even, and… that’s not what you are talking about, is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”

Milo’s sense of trouble was enough for him to try to back away from Arthur, but it was too late. Arthur tackled him to the ground, wrestling with him on the floor until he somehow miraculously leveraged into just the right angle to rain down flick after flick on Milo.

“Hey! No! Stop!” Milo yelled, trying his best to stop the storm. “What in the name of the gods is going on here, Arthur?”

“You. Are. Getting. Married,” Arthur growled. “And I had to find out about it from a status screen update. It’s like breaking up with someone over text, Milo! You should have told me!”

“Dammit! I don’t even know what texting means!” Milo ate a few more flicks before finding his base and levering Arthur off of him with pure strength. “Back, you crazy Earthling. I’m not above making handcuffs for you.”

“You are getting married,” Arthur said, huffing from the exertion.

Milo looked a little embarrassed for a second before laughing. “Yes, Arthur, I am. And for the record, we haven’t told anybody yet. We wanted to wait until mom and dad got here and make it into a whole thing. Rhodia’s parents are coming too. They know because she had to tell them to get them out here. Who all knows?”

“Itela realized it first, and Lily and Mizu were there. But both of them can keep secrets, so it shouldn’t spread much more than that.”

“Well, okay. I guess it will be less of a surprise than I thought.” Milo wiped some of the soot from his floor off his face, or tried to. His hand was dirty enough that it ended up being closer to a wash, as far as grime was concerned. “Rhodia will be pissed, by the way. She was looking forward to all the shock and awe.”

“Aren’t you too young?” Arthur asked. “I mean, I know it’s different here. It just seems, I don’t know. Weird.”

“When did people get married on your world?”

“Mid-twenties, mostly?” Arthur struggled to remember exact statistics, and found he either had never known them or that they were lost to system-enforced memory fogging. “Sometimes much earlier, but I think that’s what most people aimed for. Twenty-five to thirty-five. Somewhere in there.”

“Wow. That’s a long time. Well, I mean, it’s obviously not like that here. But what would make you feel better? What do you want to hear?”

“I don’t feel bad, exactly. It’s just, how do you know this is going to last?”

Milo pulled his legs up to his chest and leaned back on one of his workbenches. “I mean, I don’t, at least not absolutely. But Rhodia has always been great, Arthur. We’ve been working on stuff together since the first day we met, and even then, it was pretty obvious it wasn’t all about the crafts. I’ve known a lot of women, but —”

“You’ve known a lot of women?” Arthur laughed. “Are you an international playboy?”

“Don’t know what that is, and no, probably not. But what I’m trying to say is, I’ve met a bunch of people, and I’ve never had the same feeling with any of them. I can’t imagine a single demon I’ve known who fits into the same place here.” Milo put his hand to his heart. “So if not her, then who? And we are both doing just fine with our classes and all that. One day, we just looked at each other and realized there were no more pieces to fall into place. At that point, we were waiting for no reason.”

“Oof.” Arthur huffed, frustrated. “This is going to be weird for me, for a while. Fair warning.”

“Warning accepted. And it’s fine. But are you at least happy for me?” Milo asked.

Arthur checked and found that he was. He was freaked out, sure, but he was glad for Milo. And the sparrow-demon wasn’t wrong that Rhodia was a good fit, either. Arthur couldn’t imagine someone better for Milo. He nodded in affirmation.

“Yeah. I’m happy for you,” Arthur said. “Although it’s going to be weird to see little winged mice running around.”

“That’s not how anything works, Arthur,” Milo said.

“I know.”

—

Arthur and Milo sat around chatting for a while before they finally got up from the filthy ground and walked over to dunk themselves in the river and wash away the soot. While they were rinsing off their clothes and all, Rhodia found them.

“What in the hell are you doing? That river is freezing,” Rhodia asked.

“Yes,” Milo yelled. “But it’s fast, and we were really dirty, so it seemed like the best option.”

“You didn’t even bring towels!” Rhodia yelled. “And how did you get dirty, anyway?”

“Oh, Arthur and I were fighting. He’s getting better at it. It took me almost an entire minute to recover from his surprise attack,” Milo said.

“And you were fighting why?”

Both Arthur and Milo tried to avoid answering that one, talking to each other about how much they wished they had soap and some way to dry off as Rhodia stood confused on the banks of the river. Suddenly, it turned out to be all for naught as her eyes lit up in anger and realization.

“He knows.” Rhodia charged out in to the river and started mercilessly pinching Milo. “We agreed not to tell him! It was an entire pact, Milo! We sealed it with a kiss!”

“Ow! Stop! I didn’t tell him.” Milo sprang back, falling backwards into the stream as he did. “He figured it out. He’s a sneaky little offworlder type. You know how they are.”

“I am not comfortable with you making up new stereotypes about my people.” Arthur said, before Rhodia started pinching him as well. “Ow! Why?”

“If you don’t want stereotypes, don’t make them true, you dirty offy!” Rhodia yelled.

“You can’t make up slurs!”

“I can!” Rhodia stuck to Arthur like glue, pinching and flicking like an inescapable storm of minor pain. “This was supposed to be a surprise, Arthur! A fun surprise!”

“It was an accident! The mayor system told me. Kind of.” Arthur looked guilty. “We may have spent the entire afternoon trying to figure out who exactly it was.”

“WE?!”

It took a minute or two for the mouse demon to finally calm down, at which point they led her to Mizu and Lily so she could take out whatever remaining aggression she had on them. That led to another five minutes of scolding, before everything finally resolved in a big, crazy hug involving the entire group.

“Keep it a secret from here, okay?” Rhodia said. “I want to at least surprise someone. Although, I think the real fun is going to be Ella. She’s going to freak out.”

“Freak out good, or freak out panic?” Arthur said. “I could see it going either way.”

“Mom will be fine. She’s always liked Rhodia. I probably could have married her two years ago, and she would have been fine with it.” Milo grinned. “Besides, even if she wasn’t, think about what would happen if I mentioned grandchildren. She has absolutely no defenses against the idea of a bunch of tiny mouths to feed cookies to, Arthur. None.”

“A bunch?” Arthur reeled. “Are you guys planning on doing that soon? Kids and all?”

Rhodia flicked him. “Not that soon, weirdo. We need to pacify the wilderness a little bit before that’s a good idea.”

“One thing I don’t get,” Lily said, nursing a bruised forehead. “Why didn’t Itela get flicked? She’s the one that figured it out.”

“Because she’s a super-high-level cleric, Lily. I don’t want her calling down heavenly curses on me.”

“Wait.” Arthur looked at Itela carefully. “Is that a thing you can do?”

“No. Not unless you count Karbo, and he doesn’t hurt other people. It’s a useful rumor, though.” Itela eyes turned playful. “It’s one I try to promote. So, no, I definitely can’t call down high-level curses on people who mess with me, Arthur. I would never do that, with powers I definitely don’t have as a mid-thirties level cleric. The gods don’t love me at all.”

Arthur mentally allowed for the possibility that Itela might actually be able to curse him, however unlikely it seemed. It didn’t matter a lot, since as far as he knew, nobody actually messed with the cleric anyway. She had plenty of conventional, non-curse weapons to shape the universe as she saw fit, without any help from the gods at all.