Law of Consequences- Chapter 1 (Patreon)

Sorry only 1 chapter today. I had to do a bunch of family stuff, but I should have more chapters tomorrow.

Chapter 1 – Escaping the Boring Stuff

I paced the halls of my home or office, or whatever it was. I suppose it was properly a lord’s manor now. The building kept expanding to meet our needs and had added extra stories as well as taking up the surrounding blocks. It was now home to more than a hundred clerks, many of who fortunately had families of their own, and a like number of deputies.

Despite having a missing goddess, an army of the undead to the east, enemies who were sending arsonists into my city to our west, the thing that was most daunting to me was the meeting I needed to have with the human sheriff from Felina. He was the first other human I had ever met in Olimero.

By reason, I knew that Sativa had brought other humans here. I just hadn’t met any of them. And he was pretty much just like a human from Earth from what I could tell, so I didn’t know what to make of him. For now, I had two of my wives interviewing him and all the city leaders he had brought with him. Rava, my mistress of the purse, and Nimeera, the mistress of secrets, were well suited to this sort of work.

I knew Josie was there watching me pace, but somehow it still startled me when she spoke. “You’re going to wear a path in the floor if you keep that up.”

“I’m not any good at this. There’s a reason that I was a cop and not a lawyer. I just don’t like talking through issues that everyone claims are so complicated. To me life is much simpler than that, not easy, but simple.”

She walked from where she had been leaning against the wall and brushed up against me before putting her hand on my cheek. “That’s what I love about you, Rob. You see an issue and you just handle it head on. You know you’ll have to put in an appearance, but you can let your wives handle most of this. Well, not me. I’d sooner stab a bureaucrat than talk to them.”

I loved her smile in that moment. She made me feel special, and I wanted to do the same for her. Back home that might have meant buying her flowers or spending a quiet evening with her. That wasn’t the way to Josie’s heart, though. “Hey, wanna do something crazy, with me?”

She stiffened up a bit at that suggestion. She was fun and liked to be reckless herself, but took her duties as Mistress of the Wall very seriously. She felt it was her place to protect me.

I turned the tables on her and reached out to take her hand in mine. “Don’t worry, I said with you. If you’re there, how much trouble could I get into?”

“So, what is it you want to do?” Josie had a suspicious look on her face.

“We could go check out the army of undead.”

She cut me off. “You mean the unliving?”

“Not gonna get me to call them that, but we can argue about that later. I’m not going to be distracted. They are clearly the biggest threat facing us and maybe all of Olimero. But, I’m not worried about that now. We have scouts out there, and Betsy will let us know if anything needs to be done.”

I winked at her. “I was thinking more about us taking a visit to the settlement in the Untamed Lands.”

“Oh, is that all? And by the way, we really need to talk about Betsy. You’re treating her like you did, Daria.”

I started to protest, but then slammed my mouth shut. “Fine, I promise to listen to what you have to say on the subject of Betsy, but not now. Now, I need to do something. And even if Sativa seems to have disappeared, I did promise her that I’d claim those lands and settle matters with those heretical rebels. You are her handmaiden aren’t you?”

Josie cocked her head sideways. “That isn’t fair, Rob. You know I am.”

“Well then, what do you say? Will you help me crush some rebels and show them the light of Sativa?”

A storm of emotions rushed across her beautiful face, but in the end, just as I had predicted she settled into one of determination with a sly grin. “Fine, I admit, it sounds like fun. So when do we leave?”

“Right now. Well, just as soon as you tell the rest of your sister-wives.”

She growled under her breath. “Oh, the things you get me to do for you.”

Then she spun on her heels and stalked off to tell the others. I expected she’d get some resistance, but not as much as I would. I hated to be arrogant, but I really doubted that I needed any help to resolve a single town. Sure some of those outlanders were tough. They lived in monster infested territory after all, but it would take a massive army of C ranks just to come close to competing with me.

Since I’d reached A rank, there wasn’t much that could threaten me. The fairy queen, that elder dragon, I met, and of course the gods. Beyond that, it was all cake. Still, having back up could never be a bad thing. It didn’t hurt that it kept my wives happy.

I met her on the roof, sprouted my wings, wrapped an arm around Josie and leapt into the sky. She squealed. “Not using potions?”

“Waste not, want not. Who knows when one of you will need them, and I’ve got wings now? There’s no reason to use a potion. Besides, this way I can hold you tight.”

“It’s not like I don’t know you got those wings, it’s just that I don’t think about it very often. You caught me off guard.”

I leaned my head to the side and kissed her cheek. “That’s half the fun.”

As we flew through the air, we chatted about life and what was on her mind. I did my best to just listen. She talked a lot about our daughter, Amelia, but that was to be expected. I had yet to meet a mother on Earth or Olimero who wasn’t focused on their kids.

The miles passed quickly, and soon I could see the town we had visited before. I couldn’t even remember what it was called. In fact, I might not have ever asked. It sorta seemed like the place that didn’t have a name. It was less of a permanent place for anyone to live and more a way station for monster hunters.

That made it perfect though as many of those with power in the Untamed Lands would frequent this place but even if I was forced to level it, there wouldn’t very many if any innocents. The key was getting to the bottom of why they were sending arsonists to burn down buildings in Yonderton.

The information that Nimeera had been able to gather so far suggested that they thought we were a threat to the freedom they lived with and that since Yonderton was being attacked from the east that this was the perfect opportunity to strike us when we were weak.

I was going to show them we were anything but weak. There had to be a price for attacking my family or even just my city. The thing was, as I thought about it, I realized they might be right in one regard at least.

As that thought went through my head, I felt Josie’s finger poke into my side.

I looked at her like the little boy embarrassed because he hadn’t cleaned his room. “Oops, I’m sorry. Did I zone out there?”

She chuckled. “You could say that. About five minutes ago you stopped responding to what I was saying. I get that I’ve been talking a lot…”

“Let me cut you off right there. This doesn’t have anything to do with you talking too much. I like listening to you, or rather I liked listening to you. I just got distracted when I saw the town or I guess it’s more of an outpost… well whatever. I just got distracted thinking about the situation.”

She patted the side of my face. “I recognize the look on your face. It’s one of the usuals. It just means that you started worrying about something that isn’t yours to worry about.”

“I don’t know if I agree, but am I really that transparent?”

This time she led with a light kiss on my cheek. “Only because I love you so much. So tell me. I’ve been talking the entire time, why don’t you fly around instead of heading straight there and tell me what’s bothering you.”

I shifted our flight path to take us south of the outpost as I nodded. “I don’t know that it’s really anything. I just started wondering if maybe the outlanders are right to fear us?”

“Outlanders?”

“Yeah, I can’t really say Untamed Landers. That’s way too much of a mouthful for a guy who can’t even say Josephine and has to stick with Josie or Jo Jo.”

She smiled at that. She always lit up when I called her Jo Jo. It was one of the reasons that I didn’t do it too much. I wanted it to remain special.

“Hmm, like because they think we may conquer them or force them to change their way of life, maybe annex a good chunk of the Untamed Lands into the Case District?”

“Exactly.”

“Then they should fear us. They pay no respect to the goddess who made them. I could even handle it if they served one of the other gods, but Sativa may be quiet now, yet that doesn’t change the fact that she is responsible for the lives we have here on Olimero. I’m not expecting everyone to go to chapel services or anything. My own husband definitely doesn’t do that. But, respect is still due.”

“Even if they aren’t bothering us?”

“They sent people to sabotage or burn down our buildings. They could have, maybe even did kill some of our people.” Josie had that look on her face that said she thought I was being silly.

“Would they have done that if we weren’t expanding so quickly? I mean our population is more than twenty times what it was when I arrived here. And they may have heard rumors about what happened in Centrum. Who knows what they’re thinking?”

“That’s just it. You aren’t responsible for what they're thinking, only for what you do. And it’s a fool's errand to worry about others, fearing you for your strength. We should grow as fast as we can and they should either match us or fall in line. That is the way of the world. The Law of Strength is the first for a reason.”

I grinned. She made it sound so simple. Maybe it was that simple. Maybe I’d just had a momentary relapse of Earth thinking, which didn’t really apply to Olimero. Then again, maybe Earth could have used a healthy dose of Olimeran thinking and perhaps a little less whining on all sides.

“Okay, you’re right. We aren’t going to slow down. So why don’t we see how well they respond to a show of strength? I don’t want to hurt them if it isn’t necessary, but I can’t allow a threat this close to Yonderton.”

She nodded. “Right. Join us or die.”

I cringed a bit inwardly. I really was still attached to too many Earth principles. “Here goes. Hang on and maybe add a healthy amount of flame to our entrance. You know for effect and all.”

Then I turned back towards the outpost. It was still built up atop a set of rocky plateaus which allowed monster waves to pass beneath them. So, I just flew higher up. When I reached the pinnacle over top of the outpost, I could sense many of them staring up at us.

I fed a bit of ki into enhancing my senses and triggered Soul Projection. Between the two, I was able to map out every living thing in the outpost. There were only 412 of them across a wide range of races. No children, so that was good.

“Light us up.”

Then I dove toward the outpost as Josie started pouring out the flames. We must have looked like a rocket about to crash into them. That is, if any of them had known what a rocket was.