Four's a Party 8: When You Pave Paradise, Put Up a Parking Lot (Patreon)

Chapter 8: When You Pave Paradise, Put Up a Parking Lot

King Albert Siegwald walked into the throne room amidst a flurry of guards, accompanied by the queen—who Cerik made extra sure to remind himself not to call Queen Velverosa—and a young girl in a white flowing…

Cerik fought down a blush averting his eyes from the princess’s rather revealing ensemble in sheer white gauze. He didn’t even know the King and Queen had a second child after their firstborn son.

That particular thought left him feeling awkward a few moments later when the girl announced that she, Princess Lenora, was prince Leo in the past, before realizing she wanted to be a princess instead of a prince. The Royal family just hadn’t seen fit to make a wide-reaching announcement to that effect.

He had to admit, Lenora pulled it off well. If his heart didn’t belong to Melanthia, he would have felt himself drawn to her without a doubt. What kind of guy didn’t want to marry a princess, especially when she was as beautiful as Lenora?

But that aside, there were actually important things being discussed as well.

“We ordered the five strongest adventurers from the academy to present themselves!” King Albert’s voice rang out across the throne room like a gong as he stood, vibrant white cape and blond hair flapping in a non-existent breeze. “Why have only four of you answered our call?”

Was this the ‘royal we’ Cerik had heard so much about? It sounded kinda pretentious. Cerik knew Queen Vel didn’t bother with it. Mainly, he conceded, because the idea of a demon letting someone else speak for them was murderously laughable.

As in they’d kill you for suggesting it, while laughing their heads off at your stupidity.

At the King’s words, the headmistress of the Academy walked forward. She was a small woman, with blue-black hair going grey beneath her pointed witch’s hat, and half-moon spectacles that reminded Cerik of a book he’d read once.

“Your Majesty, these are the second through fifth ranked adventurers my academy has this year.” She bowed.

“And where is the first?” The King sat back on his throne heavily, all but glaring at the old woman.

Sheesh, this guy needs to take a chill pill. Cerik fought the urge to rub the back of his head.

“She did not receive your announcement, your Majesty, as before you sent out the call, she’d already left Folstina for parts unknown in the effort to increase her own skills.” The woman gave a little smile as she glanced off towards the window. “Even took two apprentices with her from what I’d heard. My, the young grow up so fast. It was just a few short decades ago that you were in my classes as well, weren’t you, dear Albert? I still remember…

The king coughed into his fist. “Yes, well… it’s good that the next generation of adventurers are so studious.” His countenance softened slightly. “And I remember your classes fondly. As much as I would like to remind you that this is not the… time to recount them.”

“Oh yes, yes.” The headmistress nodded, head bobbing on stooped shoulders. “Well, I’ll be off then, I’m sure you all have a lot to talk about!”

The King frowned, but he made no move to stop the old woman as she walked slowly out the room, the massive doors closing behind her with an ear ringing boom.

“Well?” He banged the arm of his throne. “I understand the highest ranked student not being here for my announcement, but why have none of you contacted her since I summoned you all to the palace?”

Where’d the royal we go? Cerik thought to himself. Then someone, the monk, nudged Cerik in the side.

He glanced over. “What?”

“You’re the only one who had Malori on their friends list,” she said.

Cerik paused.

Ah, yes, that would be the case. Malori was a bit of an outsider, and he was the only one she’d accept messages from.

Well, the only human anyway. Knowing Mal, she probably had half the demon tower on speed dial.

He stepped forward, trying not to sweat under the king’s imperious gaze. “Your Majesty.” He sketched a brief bow, for the first time ever thankful that his father had forced him to go through all of those etiquette lessons. “I would have contacted her, but Malori and I had a… falling out during our last attempt to climb the tower.”

Or at least, that was the lie the girls had come up with yesterday.

“Elaborate.”

Cerik swallowed. “During out last attempt at climbing the tower, she team killed her entire party, me included, to try and defeat the Demon Queen.”

“You made it to the Demon Queen?”

Cerik sweat dropped. “… Yes?”

The king slammed his fist down on the arm of his throne. Cerik glanced up, expecting to see a disgusted expression, only to freeze as he realized the King was grinning instead. “That’s it!” He stood. “That is exactly the type of drive I’m looking for!”

What?

“The drive—no, the will—to succeed whatever it takes, whatever it costs!”

Cerik glanced to the side, seeing that his fellow academy students were just as nonplussed as he was.

“Dear,” the queen leaned over, patting her husband on the side. “You’re letting your charisma stat run away from you again.”

“Ah yes.” The man cleared his throat, sitting back down. “Pardon me. I command it.”

“… of course, your Majesty.”

The king nodded. “Now, originally, I summoned you here to bestow the quest of defeating the Demon Queen once and for all. You would be rewarded richly for completing this, as even our highest-level adventurers have failed. But I see that the first among you isn’t even here.” He crossed his arms. “Without the unique vision of this... this Malori was it? It is clear that you will fail.”

We’ll fail anyway!

It was clear that the other three had the same thoughts as Cerik. What kind of crazy order was this? They were students! How were they supposed to succeed when the kingdom’s best and strongest had failed?!

Also, Cerik thought, Malori’s unique vision would have everyone in the room coming to her wedding with the dragon lady!

“Therefore!” The King either didn’t notice or completely ignored the expressions of shock from his audience. “I will give you another quest instead. You there, boy!”

Cerik pointed to himself. “Me, your Majesty.”

“Yes! You can no longer contact Malori?”

He did his best not to visibly shiver. If they asked to check his status page, he didn’t think he’d be able to delete her name from his friends list fast enough, but he was already in too deep to pull back now. “That’s correct.”

“Then the four of you will seek her out to form the party that is needed to defeat the Demon Queen!” The King spread his arms, cape fanning out behind him. “Go forth, and find this Malori and her disciples, and cleanse this world from its demonic taint once and for all!”

Cerik and the others bowed. What else could they do?

“Guards, see them to the receiving room. They shall be given refreshments before the start of their journey. Cerik, you will share what you know, be it little or much, about Malori’s whereabouts.”

“Of course… your Majesty.”

The king nodded, satisfied. “So mote it be.”

And like that, the audience was over.

Well, almost over, the Princess managed to corner Cerik before he exited the room. “Say, you look pretty generic! Almost like a summoned hero is supposed to look.”

Cerik felt sweat beading on the back of his neck. He laughed. “Oh yeah, I get that all the time. But I’m just the son of a merchant. Not even number one at the academy.”

The princess smiled. He had to admit she had a very nice smile. “Really? You know that the palace performed a hero summoning ritual years ago? But no one appeared for it.”

“I hadn’t heard of that, no.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Sounds weird…?

“I know right!” The princess pouted. “I always wanted to marry the next hero too.” She smiled up at him again. Leaning forward so her golden hair glimmering fetchingly about her face. “Say, would you be my hero then?”

Oh fuck me.

Cerik forced out a smile. “I’m not worthy of the honor.”

The princess squealed, clapping her hands together once. “Oh, that’s exactly what a summoned hero would say!”

Cerik was not having a good day.

***

Queen Velverosa was not having an awful, horrible day.

There was no sharp punctuation to that displeasure she currently felt, but only because her irritation had become constant companion over the last couple weeks, ever since that stupid human stopped coming back to the tower like she was supposed to.

And she even had the nerve to die before she could finish asking Malori her questions!

Of course, all of that was only compounded when Faust came to her with even more troubling news. “Run that by me again.”

Faust bowed once, outwardly perfectly composed, but she could smell the fear rising off of him in waves. “Of course, Your Majesty.”

“And skip the titles! Just give me what I need to know about the tower’s mana output.”

“Right.” Faust gestured to the graph to the right, showing a sudden and precipitous decline of the towers harvested mana stores. “As you can see, there is a steep drop that coincides directly with your last fight with Malori.

“After that defeat, she… stopped coming back to the tower, while the normal adventurer throughput remains the same.” He cleared his throat. “This, combined with all of the other measurements I’ve taken in the past, clearly show that Malori is responsible for nearly half of the mana we harvest. And without her showing up regularly like before, I’m afraid we won’t be able to power the canon for decades at the earliest.”

Vel blinked. “Half? Really? That much for one girl?” She’d have to have a bigger mana capacity than Velverosa herself, and she knew that wasn’t the case.

“While it seems impossible, please remember that Malori comes to the tower, or rather came to the tower, nearly every day. That, coupled with a very respectable mana pool, equals an immense contribution to the tower.” Faust shrugged. “There’s no one else quite like her.”

Vel bit her lip. Damn that girl, making trouble even when she wasn’t here. The cannon was their only weapon against the humans.

“Can’t we charge it without her?” Vel asked. “We were making good progress before.”

“Yes, but we had less expenses as well. Now, due to the prosperity of the tower—directly because of Malori, no less—we managed to expand the tower, and support more demons in the area as well. If we were to cut back on our mana expenditure in those...”

“No.” Queen Vel slashed a hand through the air. “Those are my people, as… irritating as they are. Even if it delays us, I will not roll back a single improvement I’ve made in the lives of my people.”

Faust nodded. “Then we must find a way to increase the amount of mana we’re generating. As things stand, we are barely breaking even.”

Vel leaned forward, cupping her chin as she looked at the graph. She reached out, tapping a little spike with one red nail. “What’s this blip?”

The smell of fear coming from Faust doubled.

Her eyes snapped to the scientist demon. “Faust.”

“Well, remember when I said that your fight with Malori was the last time she visited the tower?”

She glowered. “Faust...”

“Well… technically she came to ask me for advice the next day? She said she didn’t want to go to Melanthia as it was her advice that led to your little… falling out.”

“We did not have a falling out!” Vel slammed her hand on a table, cracking the wood. “I already have the snake scrubbing every toilet in the tower as punishment.”

Not that she was punishing Melanthia for exploding her non-existent relationship with Malori! The woman had simply overstepped her bounds.

“More like having her pet scrub them…” Faust muttered

“What was that?!”

“Nothing!”

Vel snorted, looking back to the graph. Melanthia wouldn’t stoop so low as to have Fenn do her chores.

Not that Vel truly blamed her for her soft heartedness in that regard. Wolfkin, Kobolds, and Anubids exhibited ridiculous levels of loyalty. Once their trust was earned, those beastkin would die for their ‘masters’ in a heartbeat, though most of them didn’t use the word master or anything so droll.

Well, other than the kobolds, but they were the redheaded stepchildren of the demon realm.

While it was hard to gain the loyalty of a Kobold, it was said to be impossible to lose. Vel doubted that, personally. Everyone had a breaking point, Kobolds and Wolfkin just had a skewed sense of what really mattered. The idea of putting so much energy and devotion into a single person, Vel couldn’t understand it.

It was ridiculous! She wasn’t jealous or anything, just because her human had left and Fenn was still here, doing anything Melanthia asked anyway!

“Um, Queen Vel.”

“What did she ask about!?”

Faust shrunk back for a moment. He tugged at his collar. “When she showed up? Well, Malori wanted to know how she could prove that she wasn’t as selfish as you’d claimed. It appears your words hurt her quite deeply, actually.”

“And what did you tell her?”

“I told her that she should perhaps do something selfless… like…”

“Like what, Faust”

“Like taking on an apprentice or two.”

“This is YOUR fault?!” Vel turned, her form physically increasing in size as she came within a hair’s breadth of releasing her dragon form. “You told her not to come back?!”

“Of course not!” Faust took a step back, raising his arms defensively. “Queen Vel, please, you’re damaging the equipment!”

“You made her leave!”

“If it breaks it’ll come out of the towers mana operating budget!”

Vel paused, before pulling her back from her dragon form with an angry huff.

The demon tower harvested Mana from humans who came and fought there, as demons needed the excess mana to survive in the harsh conditions of the Demon Peninsula. Straining the mana budget anymore could lead to potential shortfalls if something else unexpected cropped up.

“It’s still your fault.”

“My Queen.” Faust straightened his cloak. “If I remember correctly, it was you who screamed at her not to come back.”

Queen Vel stiffened as the words stabbed into her.

“And that you hated people like her more than anything else.”

Vel hunched.

“In fact, Malori was so distraught that she didn’t even drop off her farewell letters in person!”

Vel seized Faust by the shoulders. “What letters?”

He paused, eyes blinking behind that damnable mask of his. “She sent letters to all of the generals, before she headed out on her sabbatical.”

Vel’s tail popped up, pointed tip flicking almost eagerly in the air. “Then where’s my letter? She must have sent one to me, right?”

Faust glanced to the side. “Actually… she didn’t.” He coughed once. “Something about how you burned every letter she sent you without reading them.”

Vel dropped the scientist, eyes going distant. “She said that?”

“She said she didn’t want to be a bother.”

And then Vel was back to hunching over, hands pressed against her stomach.

“And that she’d do anything, even disappear forever, if it meant that you wouldn’t hate her anymore.

“GrrrrRAAAAAAA!” Vel leaned back arms spread wide. “Summon my generals! I demand that Malori is found and brought before me, so she can—” She froze, words caught on the tip of her tongue.

“So she can what, Queen Vel?”

Vel let out a huff, looking away. “So she can apologize for being so rude as to not write a letter to me! You’d think I’d want to know if that annoyance wasn’t going to bother me anymore directly, instead of constantly wondering if she was going to show up and… ruin my day.

“Of course, Queen Vel.” Faust nodded. “I’ll have the message sent out at once.”

***

It wasn’t that Melanthia really wanted to abuse her relationship with Cerik like this.

“You missed a spot over there.”

“Oh, sorry!”

It’s just, he was so damn eager to please.

“There, all done!”

She smiled, taking a little bit of joy from how the boy seemed to blush beneath his cleaning bandana. Honestly, where’d he get the idea to wear something like that? “Good work, Cerik.”

If he had a tail like Fenn, it’d be wagging.

“Grrrrrrrr.”

Speaking of Fenn.

“Now, now.” Mel reached out unerringly, patting the Wolfkin between the ears just how she liked it. “None of that. Cerik has been nothing but a perfect gentleman. He’s even helped me take care of my punish—I mean, of essential tasks around the tower.”

“I’m happy to help.”

“See?” Mel turned to look at Fenn, who was pouting. “Don’t worry, you’re still my favorite girl, no matter who else I have help me out, okay?”

“Promise?”

“Promise. Now, don’t you have some territory allocations to see to?”

Fenn hesitated, glancing towards Cerik for a moment, but Melanthia shooed her off. “Don’t worry, I’ll be fine. I can always crush him like a grape if he tries anything.”

Mollified with that mental image, Fenn nodded, before bounding off down the tower to see to her various packs and responsibilities.

Being the highest ranked Wolfkin in the Demon Peninsula wasn’t an easy job.

Mel turned to Cerik, who was wiping the sweat from his forehead fetchingly. Hmmm, now there was an idea. She could have a sexy cleanup chapter or something like that.

Oh, but most demons didn’t have houses, or they lived with family, and cleaning was seen as a sort of thing families did together, instead of something one outsourced.

Well, what if the main character was a queen, who lived all alone in a vast palace, with so few visitors. And then a brave young human came along.

It was a bit of a stretch from her normal premises, but she was sure her editor would—

“Hmm, what was that, Cerik?”

The man scratched the back of his neck. Note to self, make the love interest easily embarrassed. “I was just wondering if there was anything else you needed me to do.”

Mel shook her head. “No, that’s it for the day.”

Cerik slumped slightly. Really, he was almost half as cute as Malori.

The other half was because Mal got along well with Fenn, and there wasn’t anything Cerik could do about that. Sometimes Wolfkin just didn’t like people. Usually they were right, but Cerik was clearly only an irritant to Fenn because he was interested in Melanthia.

Wolfkin didn’t take interlopers kindly. All of the canid demons seemed to have a sixth sense for that sort of thing

Kobolds on the other hand could be quite…

Mel shook her head, pushing that thought aside to focus on the matter at hand. “But that doesn’t mean you have to leave just yet.”

Cerik’s head snapped up, eyes glimmering hopefully. “Really?”

Mel nodded. Really.” She beckoned, slithering away from this section of the tower. It was such a relief to have her punishment finished, and with her barely having to lift a finger herself. “I wanted to ask you about a few things. See, I’m interested in why a young human man would be so interested in Lamias.”

Cerik blushed. “Well, it started when I was on a trip with my father, and the ship we were on was attacked by them.”

Melanthia nodded. “I see, so you were attracted to our power?” It made sense, a very demon perspective if there ever was one.

“Ah, no.”

She stopped. “No?”

Cerik shook his head. “They were actually really scary at first, but then one of them came up and grabbed me, wrapping me up in her tail. But she didn’t squeeze or anything, because I think I was meant to be a hostage and…”

Melanthia leaned forward, moving up on her snake half almost without noticing. “And…?”

“And I never felt so safe and… comfortable, as when I was wrapped up in her tail.” He looked down at the floor, the very picture of a man bearing his soul. “It was beyond anything else I’ve ever experienced.

“I… see.”

She didn’t see. But maybe she could copy that motivation verbatim or something like that? No, that was hack writing. A true artist had to be able to understand the motivation of their characters completely! Anything else was a waste.

“What happened to the Lamias anyway?”

“Eventually a few adventurers showed up and they were forced to retreat.” Cerik let out a breath. “I was so relieved when they weren’t killed, though a few people were wounded on each side.

Mel just waved her hand dismissively. Her people were born and bred for battle. A few flesh wounds weren’t anything to worry about.

Far more important was figuring out just why Cerik had felt so safe when he was wrapped up by a Lamia. Many of her kind would do that to prey before constricting them to death after all. It was hardly something comfortable.

Just like Faust always said, this needed further testing.

“Come with me.”

She grasped Cerik’s hand, nearly yanking the boy off his feet as she slithered back to her room.

“Miss Melanthia?” Cerik found his footing, jogging after her. “Where are we g-g-g-oing?”

He stiffened as he rounded the corner, coming to a stop just inside Melanthia’s chambers.

Paying it no mind, Melanthia picked the boy up and tossed him onto her massive cushioned bed. Who knew how long this test would take. She wanted to be comfortable and have easy access to her writing desk.

“M-miss Melanthia?”

“Isn’t it obvious Cerik?” She went low, swaying back and forth as she let her predatory instincts come to the forefront. Her tongue flicked out, tasting the heat of Cerik’s body in the air. “I’m about to test your little theory for myself.”

“You’re going to…”

She slithered forward, winding a large arc around the trembling human.

“Now… Cerik.” She made one full rotation, the tip of her tail snagging the boy’s ankle. “I want you to know that this will end whenever you want it to.” A second rotation. She could feel his body heat against her scales as she draped over his legs. Cerik sat up, but not to struggle.

No, he sat up to make it easier for her to bind him up.

“I want to know what this is like for you. How it feels.” She drew closer to him by design, as more and more of her coils wrapped around Cerik’s lower body, reaching all the way up to his hips. “So, once I’m done, I’m going to need exactly one thing from you… understand?”

He nodded convulsively as she strapped his hands against his waist with a single rotation.

His breath was coming in short pants now, but even still the boy didn’t struggle in the slightest. Melanthia grinned. How interesting. Only once more now and she’d be pressed against him to the very, last, inch—

“Attention! Attention!”

She froze as the tower intercom blared to life.

“All demon generals, report to conference room four. I repeat, all demon generals to conference room four.”

The speakers sputtered out, leaving only silence.

Mel sighed. “What horrible timing.” She slithered off the bed, dumping Cerik back to the stone floor as she went. “You’d best be off. I probably won’t have any more free time this evening.”

From the ground, Cerik let out a wheeze.

Melanthia laughed. “Come back next time, and we’ll see about… picking up where we left off.”

He held up a shaky thumbs up as she slithered out of the room. She’d deal with him some other time, if he came back. She might actually start to give credence to his claims in that case. But for now, Melanthia moved quickly up to the administrative floors of the tower, her thoughts a million miles away.

And Cerik was left, panting and wide eyed, on the cool tile floor.

“I…” He gasped, hand coming up to clutch at his chest. “I think I just came.”