Four's A Party 7: What Comes Around Goes Around (Patreon)

Chapter 7: What Comes Around Goes Around

Darvin McAlister wasn’t the type of person who got wealthy by taking unnecessary risks. Oh, necessary ones certainly, but he never bet anything he wasn’t willing to lose.

Worse merchants—better people, his dead mother would say—just had different ideas of what was acceptable to lose. Darvin knew that the only truly irreplaceable thing in this life was himself, everything else was just a chip at the table.

Like his dearly departed mother. But that was a different story.

The important thing was that, unlike many merchants who viewed the current era of peace in the kingdom as a sign of good things to come, Darvin still made sure to look out for number one.

And that was why he was waking up at the Church of the Mana Tree after his caravan was attacked, while most of his soft-hearted competitors would be in the dirt.

“Ah, Mr. McAlister!” A priest bent over him, immensely tall hat blocking the light that filtered down from the Mana Tree. “It’s good to see that you’re doing well.”

Darvin sat up, almost headbutting the other man. “Those bitches!” He shoved himself out of the coffin, paying no mind to the priest staggering backwards in surprise. “They robbed me!”

“Robbed you?” The priest tottered over. “Bandits! How troubling. Still.” He sidled up to Darvin’s left. “This just shows that having resurrection insurance is a good—”

“Oh, just shut up.” Darvin shook himself like a dog. “We all know you’re only after my money.” The priests face soured, but the merchant just grinned sharply. “Suits us both just fine doesn’t it? I’ll make sure you get your payment for the next round of insurance later today.”

The priest coughed and looked all affronted, but Darvin noticed he didn’t reject the offer.

The church of the Mana Tree had two policies, one was pay on demand, where a person’s accounts were pulled from in order to pay for a resurrection. Now this was all well and good, but it required the charge to access your status page, and Darvin had… a particular set of skills that were suited to things you didn’t talk about in polite company.

For slaves. He had skills for breaking, buying, selling, and trading slaves. Oh, other things too, but mostly slaves. And legal or not, holy men tended to frown on that kind of thing.

So Darvin payed for ‘resurrection insurance’ instead, a lump donation to the church that covered X numbers of resurrection. Like one. Of course, said holy men knew why people like Darvin wanted insurance and charged more accordingly. But that was a small price to pay for peace of mind.

And peace of mind meant getting even with those three bitches that knocked over his caravan.

“For now, I have something to take care of.”

“Before you go, good man…” the Priest paused, glancing at him from the side of his eye.

“Eh?” What is it?”

“It’s simply that there were several other caskets that came in with yours. You know that the Mana Tree draws all those able to be resurrected back to its branches.” Darvin waved his hand at the priest’s words, all just a bunch of mystic mumbo jumbo, honestly. “Well, it’s simply that, after the standard inspection, I noticed that many were bearing the mark of your shipping company. Most of them didn’t have enough to pay for resurrection on their own so I was wondering if, in your own mercy…”

“No.” Darvin crossed his arms. “I don’t pay out for rezzes. It’s in the damn contract they all signed.”

Maybe if they were worth the money he’d payed them in the first place they wouldn’t need those resurrections. Hmm, ever think about that?

“Ah, I thought you might say that.” The Priest nodded his head. “Which is why the Archbishop has told me to let you know that for each additional resurrection, you’ll get half off your own resurrection insurance payments.

Darvin paused. Now, on one hand, he was ideologically opposed to paying out any more money than he had to, but a good deal was a good deal.

“Are we talking cumulatively, multiplicatively, or one for one.”

“Of course, one for one would be our preferred stance, banking of six total resurrections at half the price will ensure that—”

“Pull the other one.” Darvin shook his head. “It has fucking bells.”

The priest harrumphed. “One resurrection added to your account, for each three people you pay for. If you must be stingy about it.”

Now, on the surface, it seemed like a worse deal. No doubt that’s why the priest phrased it like that. But what kind of man needed six resurrection before he’d be able to pay for more? Not to mention that he’d have to pay for those 3 additional rezzes right now anyway.

On the other hand, when you factored in the additional cost of insurance as opposed to the normal method…

“You have a deal.” Darvin grabbed the priest’s hand, giving it a sharp pump. “Now let me transfer you the funds so I can get the fuck out of here.”

“Of course.” The priest simpered. Darvin rolled his eyes. Funny how the priests and bishops were always so much easier to talk to after you’d paid them. “I’ll get the caskets out here for your perusal then.”

Darvin nodded, crossing his arms and waiting while the priest performed the necessary rituals to resurrect his six henchmen. Really, the more Darvin thought about it, the better this idea seemed. He’d have six people who were just as invested in revenge as him, and they’d be under the false impression that if they ate it on the job, he’d be willing to bring them back a second time.

Heh, please. They should take better care of their own lives, like Darvin did.

As the last of his men pushed themselves out of their coffins, Darvin waved the lot of them out of the church. Now, his boys were no elites, but they were the meanest sons of bitches he could get his hands on, more than willing to rip a crying baby from her mother’s arms if it meant turning a profit.

“Now.” Darvin met their eyes. “You all got taken to the cleaners.”

“No shit, Boss.” Slinky said, rubbing his spindly little arms. “That mage gotta be level sixty at least! No way we could take her after she got us with the element of surprise.”

Darvin nodded. “I agree.” He didn’t, but a businessman knew how to turn the other cheek. “Which is why I paid for your rezzes.” He grinned. “This time we’ll have the element of surprise against those bitches three!”

***

I stopped.

Ahead of me, Angelica and Amy went on for about three more steps before they’d realized that I was no longer walking.

Amy turned, leaning a hand against a tree branch. “Taylor?”

“I am…” I tilted my head upwards towards the canopy. “Really mad right now.”

“Okay…?” Amy took a step back. “Did I do something?”

I blinked. “I don’t know, Amelia. Did you do something?”

“… No?”

That didn’t sound very confident.

“That doesn’t sound very confident,” I said.

Amy took another step back. To the side, Angelica continued to look back and forth between the two of us, one ear flopping down over the side of her head. “Miss Taylor?”

“Yes Angelica?”

“What’s wrong?”

I hummed, tapping the side of my arm. “I’m not sure. But when I do figure out what’s wrong, I’ll be very, very upset.”

“It really wasn’t me this time.” Amy raised her hands in front of her. “I haven’t done anything but work on fine tuning the crops for the village and all of the other garbage you had me do.”

I turned my eyes towards her.

“Okay, okay, important and necessary tasks you had me do!” She leaned back. “Stop looking at me like you’re gonna shank me or something, Jesus!”

I thought about it for a second, eyes gazing off into the middle distance.

The feeling of anger was starting to abate, though now it was replaced with a lingering irritation that I didn’t know what I was so mad at.

“Miss Taylor.”

“Yes Angelica?”

“What’s a jesus?”

I blinked again, coming back to the moment. “That’s… a very good question.” I shrugged. “He’s someone who died a long time ago, but some people from my home still think he’s important, so they say his name.”

“Oh…” Angelica paused, tapping her chin. It was a gesture she’d copied from us. “Like how people sometimes thank Miss Taylor even though she isn’t there to hear it?”

“Well not really, because—”

I stopped.

I got devotion yesterday, before the four of us—Malori included—had left for the capital. To the best of my knowledge, I hadn’t done anything worthy of gaining devotion.

Excepting, of course, freeing a caravan of slaves and setting up a home from there where they’d be safe from the grasping hands of the human kingdom. Then running the place, handling their problems, and treating them with dignity and respect, to the point where even people of much higher level than deferred to my say?

Oh no.

“Taylor? You’re kinda freaking me out here.”

I glanced back towards Amy; she was peering at me.

I blew out a deep breath. “It’s different.” I said.

“Why?”

“Because Jesus didn’t have any powers, people just thought he did.”

“Oh…” Angelica tilted her head cutely, like dogs do. “So, Miss Taylor is better?”

I shared a glance with Amy. Um. There were a host of problems with that statement, but we were kind of already running late for our rendezvous…

“Sure,” I said. “Let’s go with that.”

Angelica nodded happily, bounding over to my side with her tail wagging happily in the air. She grabbed my hand as we started moving through the woods again.

Yes, we could have taken the main road, but that was also a risk.

There was a chance, however small, that someone had escaped our attack, or else had enough money to be resurrected—even if Malori said that usually slave traders didn’t want to pay the extra fee to get a resurrection. It was apparently very expensive for people who weren’t part of the adventurer academy.

There was no adventurer’s discount, of course. That would be too easy.

“How much longer?” I asked.

Amy placed her hand against a tree. She was getting better at using her power unobtrusively. Though we still hadn’t bothered explaining all of the bioshaping she was doing for the village. We just chalked it up to Paladin skills. There hadn’t been paladins running around for a pretty long time, apparently, so most people just believed it.

“Maybe another five minutes,” she said. “I’m feeling the trees thin out some ahead.”

“Mmm…” Angelica sniffed the air. “I can smell lots of people, that way.” She pointed slightly off our current heading.

I looked to Amy for confirmation, after a moment she just shrugged. “There’s not that much wind, so she’s probably right.

We adjusted our course, even though Angelica pulled closer and closer against me as we neared the human city. I wound up patting her head with my other hand. She wasn’t wrong to be scared, not really. God knows I was scared enough of going back to Winslow back then.  Why I’d dragged myself back to that hellhole day after day…

Well, let’s just say it said things about me, and not flattering ones.

“Here we are.” I came to a stop just inside the edge of the forest. We were still some distance from the capital. There was a large swath of prosperous farmland separating us from the city proper, but we could see the walls, and even the palace, towering above the city itself.

“Where’s Malori?”

I shrugged. “She’ll be here.”

“She was supposed to be here before us, you know.”

“I mean, out of everyone in the village, she’s the only one who would get caught or something like that and actually escape.”

Amy grunted looking away. “True.”

We’d gotten pretty lucky against the two caravans we’d hit, considering Amy and my levels back then. Fearing the entire group, then throwing massive branches and roots after them followed by all of the destructive magic in the world was an effective solution. But anyone who wasn’t caught up in the initial assault would be a problem for Amy and I to deal with while Mal recovered her mana.

We’d be forced to break out the big guns. And I didn’t want to put that all on Amy.

Even if having better food production would have been nice.

“There she is!” Angelica pointed down the slope.

In the distance, there was a figure wearing a brown cloak making their way up the hill. I couldn’t quite see from this distance, but I thought I saw a hint of red peeking out from underneath the hood.

More tellingly, there was a man with short black hair and a blue jacket beside her.

I pulled up my menu, shooting off a quick message.

“We have eyes on you, is that Cerik?”

Below, the figures coming up the hill paused. A second later I got back the message, “It’s us. Bad news.”

I frowned.

“What is it?” Amy asked.

“Something that made Malori disguise herself on the way back.” I sighed. “Either way it’s probably nothing good for our plans to get to Motrem using the teleportation network.”

“That was a stupid idea anyway. How were we gonna get everyone back?”

“I thought we’d just make another village for the humans, the demons could always go to the Demon Peninsula” which of course, was named such because it was both a peninsula and also had demons.

“Oh, because the first village worked out sooooo well.”

I was about to say something in defense of our little project, before I remembered that they were apparently praising me in that place, the madmen. “Fair point…”

I didn’t deserve worship from anybody. Maybe the endbringer cults, so I could tell them to kill themselves or something. But in this world, there had to be gods that could do something actually helpful.

Then I frowned. Thinking about it, where were the gods? There were priests, but from what I’d heard they all worshiped the giant mana tree. And no one had heard of a paladin in ages, nevermind any other sort of divine class, like oracles or prophets or clerics. You’d think there were just no gods at all.

Or at least, you would if not for my real class’s description.

But I didn’t have any more time to think about that. Cerik and Malori were cresting the hill, so I waved them over to us, moving slightly deeper into the woods. We’d sent Malori ahead because she not only had teleportation magic, but she could scout out the Capital to see if our actions had any wider reaching consequence.

Going from the expressions on their faces, that would be a ‘yes.’

I crossed my arms. “So?”

Malori reached into her cloak, pulling out 3 pieces of paper. They looked new, like they’d just been printed off today or something.

“So.” She held them up, each one bearing a rough likeness of one of our faces. Malori, Amy, and Me. “One of the slavers was resurrected, and they gave our descriptions to the city guard.

I raised an eyebrow. “They just issue wanted posters based on the say-so of one guy?”

“Not one guy.” Cerik had a deep look of frustration on his face. “Darvin McAlister. He’s not a massive name by himself or anything, but he’s big enough that Aldebrant Arms knows who he is.” At the looks he got, Cerik waved his hands in front of his face. “Not that we buy anything from him! Even my old man has more of a soul than that!”

I sighed. “But he’s still big enough to bend the ear of the guard, and therefore we got a bounty placed on our heads.”

Malori looked down at the poster, a complicated expression on her face. “It’s not very big…”

Amy scoffed. “I’m sorry, are you upset that you don’t have more of a price on your head?”

She shuffled her shoulders awkwardly. “It’s just, it would be nice if they matched.” Amy and I shared a confused glance.

Cerik on the other hand, apparently knew what she was talking about all too well. “Dammit Mal!” He lunged, hand going into the folds of her cloak. “Where is it? I know you didn’t put anything in your inventory!”

“Gah! Cerik! Stop! I’m pure! You can’t—”

He came back holding another wanted poster, this one was in much worse shape than the three of ours. It had the likeness of a demon. A woman with imperious features to go along with her horns and long white hair.

“Queen Velverosa. Bounty fifty million gold.” I raised an eyebrow. “Who’s Velverosa?”

“The demon queen.” Cerik pushed Malori’s grasping hands away from the wanted poster. “This idiot’s had a crush on her for years now.” He gave her a disappointed look. “I thought we were past this.”

“I… I just wanted one for old time’s sake.”

“A poster?” I asked.

“She used to collect them.”

Amy and I both had thoughts about that, if the looks we gave Malori were any evidence. The girl pouted, looking away unhappily. “Oh, I get it. It’s okay for you to go meet the woman of your dreams in the demon tower, but me? Nooooooo.”

Suddenly, both of us were very interested in Cerik instead.

Angelica too. But I thought she was just looking where Amy and I were looking.

“Y-you promised you wouldn’t tell anyone about that!”

“Hmm? What was that?” Malori leaned over, cupping her ear. “Do you mean how I promised how I wouldn’t tell anyone you had a lamia in stockings fetish, and I set you up with an introduction to the Queen of Lamais herself?”

“Malori!”

“Huh? That’s not a thank you! I’m not hearing a thank you, Cerik!”

“Lamia… in stockings.” Amy shook her head. “And here I thought I was a filthy degenerate.”

“I mean, to be fair, she wasn’t even related to you.” I patted Amy on the shoulder. “We call could have done without the whole… you know, bit though.”

She shivered, before her glare at Cerik redoubled in strength. “Yeah. But at least I knew I was wrong, I tried to change you know.” She crossed her arms. “This guy’s over here wallowing in his fetish. God, going so far as pushing your friend who’s going into exile to set you up with a date?”

I hummed. “It’s definitely not a good look.”

“I didn’t know she was going into exile!” Cerik crossed his arms over his face. “Stop looking at me like that! I didn’t do anything wrong.”

“I’m pretty sure that’s not what the church would say.” I shook my head. “Have you clothed this wonderful woman with your… fetish wear? Or, gods forbid, did you hold hands?”

He paled. “N-n-noooo! Of course not!”

Malori tilted her head. “Holding hands? Huh?”

“I’d never do something that Dirty to Melanthia!”

Amy growled. “So it’s Melanthia now is it? How much longer until you’re calling her Mel or darling.”

Cerik’s face was already atomic red, and he wavered under the combined assault.

I hummed. “Is that your fetish, Cerik, hand holding, and pet names? While getting wrapped up by a Lamia’s big long tail?”

“G-guah!” Cerik clutched his chest.

Direct hit. He fell to his knees, a single hand reaching out for salvation.

Angelica stepped forward, looking down at him with shadowed eyes. “I don’t like you. Please stay away from Miss Taylor.”

Cerik fell over, his ghost escaping from his mouth as the spirit shed its mortal coil.

Angelica looked at him for a moment longer, before nodding to herself, and scurrying back to my side.

What a good girl.

“Uh, guys, I think we bullied him enough.” Mal shook her head. “He’s clearly down for the count.”

Amy huffed. “I just had to make sure he knew exactly what it feels like when someone else kink shames you.”

Mal blinked. “You mean, you were doing that to defend me?”

Amy and I shared a glance. Well, it was a better reason than the one I’d had. “Of course.” I smiled at the red head. “I mean, it doesn’t seem like you have a very good chance to get together with this Velverosa person, given the circumstances, but if you want a poster of her, who am I to judge.”

It wasn’t like she was one of those people back on Earth who had body pillows or anything.

Malori’s face lit up, and we barely had a moment to blink before she launched into a tackle hug, sending the four of us (Angelica included) falling to the ground.

Level 80 anything was not to be taken lightly, even if she was supposed to be a squishy mage. “Thanks you guys!” Malori sniffled as she sat up, rubbing at her eyes. “You don’t know how much that means to me, even if I don’t have a chance at all.”

“Um, actually.”

We all looked over at Cerik. He’d calmed down a bit, though now he was looking a bit embarrassed for some reason. “When I dropped off your letters, Melanthia said that Queen Velverosa has been pretty… upset that you haven’t shown up recently.

“She has!?” Malori practically teleported to her feet. “Really? She wanted me to visit?!”

“Yeah, though, mainly it seemed like she wanted to ask you a question or something. I’m not sure, General Melanthia would only tell me the very basics.” He rubbed the back of his head. “I’m not as trusted as you were. Even though I’m practically doing supply runs for the generals these days.”

“Aww, you took over Diannos‘s scale polish delivery for me?” Malori smiled. “That’s so sweet Cerik, you didn’t have to.”

“It seemed like the right thing to do.” He shrugged.

Also, it gave him a reason to go visit that Lamia again, but I wasn’t here to judge.

You know, much.

“Well, that settles it!” Malori pointed to the sky. “Next stop Motrem! That’s where most of the slave caravans originate from anyway! And then I can see Queen Vel.”

“Yeah, one problem with that genius.” Amy picked up the wanted posters. “We’re kind of known criminals now. How are we gonna get to a teleportation gate?”

Gates were useful for individuals, especially adventurers, but since they were so important that they were also strictly monitored.

“Well, goods and other things like that are usually moved by ship?” Mal tapped her chin. “Maybe we could take a boat.”

“Oh yes, because no one will ask questions about three disguised women trying to book passage on a ship to the ass end of the world.”

We all winced at Amy’s description of Motrem, but to be fair, she wasn’t wrong.

“We could borrow a ship?”

I crossed my arms. “From whom?”

“…Cerik?”

The man crossed his arms in an X “Nu-uh. You leave me out of this mess. I’m already gonna be in enough trouble as it is for associating with you.”

“But Cerik, your dad’s company is huge.” Malori leaned forward. “Please?”

“Yeah, it’s not big enough that I can just lose a ship.”

I folded my arms. “You know, we have quite a few people now, and a pretty decent spot on the coast.” Malori and Amy turned to look at me in askance. “If we did some work in that cove that’s half a day’s walk away, and,” I turned my gaze to Cerik, “got the right supplies, we could probably build a ship.”

“But who would sail it?” Amy asked.

“One problem at a time.”

“Well?” Malori turned back to her friend. “Will you do it Cerik?” He glanced away. “C’mon, didn’t I get you your in with Miss Melanthia? It’s not like we’d even need that much, just some metal and tools. We can even pay for most of it!”

That took me by surprise for a second, before I realized that the Slavers had dropped a bunch of other goods, loot really, that they’d taken from demons in Motrem.

“Ugh, fine.” Cerik rested a hand against his forehead. “Oh man, if people catch wind of this after tomorrow, I’m gonna be in so much shit.”

Malori blinked. “What’s happening tomorrow?”

Cerik laughed. It was not a happy sound. “Ohm, nothing much, just you know, the top five adventurers from the academy being summoned for an audience with the king.”

We all froze.

Cerik turned and pointed to the red headed mage. “That would include you, Miss Number 1.”