Chapter 24: Not So Heavenly Matters

To Sammy’s exclamation, Dax had a small, gremlin-like smile and said, “Well, his morning kitty breath could kill an ox in two seconds fla-”

“Shut the hell up, you crude imbecile!” Merril snarled. “Give me that-'' There was a brief shaking and disorienting blur of images as Merril wrestled with a screeching Dax to wrest the thankfully wooden-inset mirror shard away, with such riveting persuasions as ‘Let go!’ and ‘Hrrnagh!’ with similar counter-arguments from his sister.

Sammy just rolled her eyes heavenward and waited it out, hoping the mirror wasn’t shattered on a rock or something in the process.

Finally, Merril was looking into the mirror at Sammy, his countenance the very (attempted) picture of dignity ruined by a dirty smudge on his cheek and his hair in comical disarray. Dax could be heard saying, “You’re ridiculous, Merril!” in the background, but she was pointedly being ignored.

“Yes, as I was saying,” Merril began, though he had not been, “this supporter-to-supporter situation could be beneficial for both of us, so I am on board.”

“He just wants the buffs!” Dax called loudly. “He was grilling me about the details on the road.”

Merril’s mouth and ears twitched, but he seemed intent on ignoring her. “Only a fool passes up power. Some now, more later, in exchange for risk. Opportunity should be seized.”

Sammy crossed her arms, giving those feline eyes a level look. “And you’re already stuck with the risk because your business partner is all in with me.”

“Yes,” he said without hesitation. “And there’s little downside for you, considering the same issue. It’s all a logical arrangement at this point.”

“Mm-hmm,” Sammy said without opening her mouth. “The problem is that you aren’t always logical, are you, Merril? You have a temper. You fly off the handle. Are easily insulted and get into trouble. Would you really deny it?”

He bared his teeth and fangs in a brief, apparently subconscious reflex. “It’s not as frequent as it may seem to you. Where I have a rep, people show me respect because I am good at what I do and I also will not tolerate disrespect. Aside from my idiot sister, but that’s just how it is with idiot family associates you have no choice but to deal with.”

Dax could be heard scoffing. “I’ve saved your ass a hundred times by now, from shit you got yourself in!”

“Don’t exagger-” He stopped himself short, remembering that he was ignoring her, ears twitching furiously.

“And your candor,” Sammy said. “Bluntness. It may be useful to me, but can you keep your mouth shut about things? Keep a secret? Lie, if necessary? Does Dax agree?”

“Yes I bloody well can keep a secret,” he said in annoyance. “I won’t rat on you, even to save my skin. And I don’t blather irrelevantly.”

“It’s true enough,” Dax offered. “He has a stronger will than most if it came to it.”

Merril grinned in a challenging, predatory way as if saying ‘Just try me’ without actually saying it. It seemed to fit. He had the look of someone tough as nails because it had been hammered and beaten into him. A scrapper that had taken his licks and then some.

“Did you grow up in a big city, Merril?”

He rose an eyebrow but nodded. “Yes. Very. And I had to take care of myself.”

“I was away a lot,” Dax said, sounding as if she considered it a failure.

Sammy gazed at Merril, wondering if his slower maturity of aging was consistent earlier in his life. That would mean he was childlike while his sister was already an adult.

“Which city was this?”

Merril stared at her a moment, then said, “I’ll let Dax talk about that. I don’t want to. Now, are we doing this or not, Goddess of Mirrors? And don’t expect me to call you Majesty this and that.”

“And what about mutual respect?”

He cocked his head sideways at her. “Call me what I wish, I’ll call you what you wish, but there are limits. I’m not bowing and scraping for anyone.”

Sammy smirked at him. He’d already been talking to her more respectfully than before. “So you’ll call me Goddess, then?”

“It’s what you are.” He shrugged. “I can’t deny it. So yes. Or Samantha.”

1 FE gained due to user belief/acknowledgment. Note: not yet a Follower.

“It will have to do.” She put her hand up to the portal and reached out with her psyche. She edited his religious experience to be ‘Greater fatigue energy for travel.’ She figured that would be the best thing for long-distance travel.

Beggars can’t be choosers, can they? And he is quite the underdog to root for. Er. Undercat.

Merril touched his hand and said the words of dedication rather placidly.

Follower conversion successful. 1 FE gained. 1 Daily FE gained (total: 8).

6 Followers, with 2 of them Devout for the daily gains. One more for the next quest to complete. Do I hunt them, or let it happen like the others?

Merril’s eyes widened a bit as the buff hit home, then he grinned. “Yes! That’s what we need — now do Dax!”

Sammy made a wan face. “Your wish is my command. But first, give the mirror back to her.”

“Yes, here,” Merril said, soon handing it back to a Dax that had readied herself a bit more for the day, hair tied back into a ponytail and her wide-brimmed, feathered hat on her head.

“Before I forget,” Sammy said, “There’s a servant girl who I’d like you to help. She has some sort of arranged marriage situation to get out of, wants a new life. She works for Lord Carlisle. I’m not sure if she needs literal physical help, but perhaps an escort to the city. And, well, arrangements there.”

Dax squinted in thought but shrugged. “I guess I can adjust the route easily enough. A maid? Who can cook and such? I’m sure I can find respectable work of some kind there.”

“I’m not sure that’s what she wants. She seems to have the bug of adventure.”

“Your Majesty, with all due respect, ‘adventure’ is a load of horseshit. There’s high-risk, high-reward stuff out there for crazy people, but it's a death trap for something like a servant girl with silly dreams in her head. What, she wants to slay monsters on the frontier with a broom?”

Sammy found her chin raising up a bit. “She is also my Follower, so I think her capabilities rise a bit above your characterization. She may well be a priestess, someday. And in regards to her physical acumen, perhaps she just needs training from a certain capable warrior?”

Dax frowned, then shrugged. “It sounds like something that has to be worked out by ear.”

“Agreed. If she works, make sure it is nothing contractual. Temporary. Unless she says otherwise.”

New Quest unlocked: “Engaged No Longer” — Help Estara start a new life elsewhere.
● Rewards: +20 FE, 2 exp in subclass [Bard].

Well, that’s wide open…

“Bard?” Sammy asked out loud. “It’s telling me I’ll gain exp in Bard. Because of social engineering?”

“Pretty much,” Dax replied. “And if you get levels eventually, note that any magical capacity from it is only from higher levels. I think 3 at the minimum, maybe more. I’m almost level 1 in it, but I have Rogue anyway.”

“I wish you would level,” Merril commented. “That awful singing voice would improve.”

“Quiet, furball!”

“I don’t even have fur, damn you!”

“Dax,” Sammy began, “where are you from, originally? How are you a leveled knight?”

“Oh, this is going to be good,” Merril said.

Dax sighed grandly and appeared to find a log to sit down on. “I dunno if I want to go long-form on this, but you need to know a few things at least. I got accepted at a young age into the Order of Heavenly Justice. I was a Heaven Knight of the Dominion. Their physical enforcers, escorts, bodyguards, elite fighters, so on. I was one of those bastards, in other words.”

Sammy was shocked. “What?! Why didn’t you tell me?”

“We were busy! It hasn’t come up!”

“Like hell it hasn’t, Dax! You-”

“Look, I’m not proud of it, alright? I had a good influence, a good mentor, that dispelled the worst of their corruption and brainwashing. He was a field agent, a traveling magistrate out in the hinterlands. Old and legitimately wise, who could’ve risen as high as any of them. But he wasn’t cut in their cloth, he disagreed with their rigid extremes. He was a philosopher. So he was stuck doing the same shit for decades.”

Dax adjusted her hat, blew out air in another sigh. “I was his bodyguard. He bent the law to do good for those that deserved it. Sometimes even broke it, if we could get away with it and the cause was just. He was a good man. I refused reassignment opportunities multiple times in my service because I knew how others were. But he pulled something and got caught. They forced his ‘retirement.’

“Well, when I got reassigned, it didn’t go well. I refused to do something and got charged with multiple serious offenses. Strings got pulled to keep me from the worst. I was offered, quote ‘light re-education and rehabilitation’ or dishonor and discharge forever, with my knighthood stripped and permanent banishment from the capital. I chose the latter.”

Dax cut off at that, her eyes cast back to those dark memories.

“So you became a mercenary knight,” Sammy said, “in the hinterlands you already knew.”

“More or less. It was quite a rough adjustment in the beginning, not having a patron footing the bill for everything. The coin ran out quick. But I somehow managed it and survived by the skin of my teeth.”

“We,” Merril corrected. “We managed it.”

“You helped? Ha! You were just an anchor dragging my foot back then.”

“Lies! You’re a goddamn liar, Dax!”

“So Merril grew up in the capital,” Sammy declared overly loud, to forestall their bickering. “Often without… anyone around?”

Dax had a sour look, nodding. “We… had a sister. Have, I guess. But after she entered the University, she changed quickly. She moved out of the apartments we were assigned and just utterly abandoned Merril. Tried to forget he ever existed. Me too. She sold out to them in every way I tried to keep her from. But I just wasn’t there enough.”

Merril made a loud, dismissive noise as if he didn’t care. “What does it matter? She owes us nothing. She got lucky. If I had her opportunities, I’d have done the same thing.”

The sour look on Dax’s face just deepened at that, but she said nothing.

Sammy felt terrible for her, and she understood fully why Dax felt so hopelessly responsible for Merril. Guilt. “So… the sister is still with them then?”

Dax nodded. “She’s probably some big boss by now. I don’t know, though. No contact, and there never will be, either.”

Merril cleared his throat loudly. “I’ll interrupt this now useless, depressing memory session to point out we need to get going. This buff begs to be used, damn it.”

“Right,” Sammy said, editing Dax’s REX interface — Religious EXperience, that shit needs shortening! — to the fatigue buff she gave Merril. “And hey! Both of you need to get to your damn prayers! Hmm… Sys, can they walk and pray at the same time?”

Light activity is allowed while praying or worshipping, if meditative focus can be maintained, only for the first point of FE gain in a day (i.e. Devout or Fanatic must fully dedicate time to provide more than 1 FE a day). Double the time must be provided, so 1 hour.

“Perfect,” Sammy continued. “So pray and lavish upon me about illusionary powers, my mystique, and so on, as you travel, until you trigger the gains.”

“Don’t get too romantic about it now, oh Goddess,” Dax said sarcastically.

“I figure the ship has already sailed on anything but pragmatism with you two. And Merril probably prefers it that way.”

“Entirely accurate,” Merril replied.

“But!” Sammy held her finger up. “Don’t teach others that way, please.”

Dax put on a sweet smile and said, “Sure, we’ll blow enormous clouds of smoke up anyone else’s asses about you, if it comes to it.”

Sammy smiled sweetly in return. “I’m all smoke and mirrors, what can I say? Now, take this buff! Boom!”

Eyes widening, back getting straighter, Dax nodded appreciatively. “That’ll do nicely… It's a good call. I think a movement buff wouldn’t last as long.”

Curious, Sammy couldn’t help but check their status:

____________________________________________________________

Enduring Aura

The Follower feels refreshed, awake, and energized. They are functionally at the peak of fitness for the endurance of long, physical tasks. They ignore the [Fatigued] status while the buff persists, allowing up to a jog (for example) without detriment. This lasts one hour.

____________________________________________________________

Sammy tapped a finger on her lip in thought. “An hour… my buffs have a cooldown of an hour, so I can just keep refreshing it, I think. The status will hit you after, right?”

“That’s right,” Dax answered, “but it wouldn’t last long if we just slowed down for a bit, I think. It shouldn’t exactly come and slam us with everything built up.”

“Well, holler if I forget to refresh in time.”

“Oh, I will,” Merril promised. “Now can we pack up and get going? Really, Dax, you could’ve picked up while I was talking with her, you lazy…” He trailed off in disgust.

“I’m lazy?! You’re a feline! And some people actually comb their hair a little too, you know!”

“A useless measure for that quagmire anyway! And don’t stereotype me, you know that’s bullshit!”

“Okay, then… I’ll… see you guys… later…” Sammy said, blinking at an ‘empty screen’ of nature as her mirror was left on a log, amidst further arguing in the background.

These two really need a larger friend group to mitigate this. Hopefully I can find someone that can calm that hellcat down a bit.

There were many threads to tie and make something out of among her new group. How it would all come together wasn’t clear, but she could only take it step by step. At least she had some measure of an insider into the ways of the enemy she aimed to hide from...

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