Four's a Party: Chapter 12 (Patreon)

Chapter 12: We Return to Your Regularly Scheduled Nonsense

“Home sweet home.” I smiled as our hidden cove came into view.

Amy leaned over the front of the ship next to me. “Yeah, I always wanted to live in a hole in the ground.”

“Hmm, that explains so much about you.” I nodded. “After all, why else would you ditch the people who saved your life to go chill in the Birdcage.”

She shot me a glare; eyes narrow. “You idiots also ruined my life to begin with, in case you forgot.”

“That sounds like victim blaming to me.”

“Wha—I was the victim!”

“Amy.” I shook my head. “What happened between you and Vicky was a tragedy, but if you don’t start taking responsibility for your own actions, who knows where you could end up.” I placed a hand on the ship’s bow as we sailed into the cave, sails furled. “Right now you say you’re a victim, next thing you know you’re running around calling yourself the ‘Red Queen’ and turning people into clones of your sister.”

Amy stared at me for a long moment. “Taylor, what the fuck are you even talking about?”

“No time, gotta get all the new people settled!” And with that, I hopped off the side of the ship, landing lightly on a newly-constructed pier. We had a small dock going, enough to handle the few fishing boats and other ships we had running.

And behind me, yet another prize ship sailed in to the port, ready to be turned from slavery to piracy. Truly, I was a benevolent overlord.

“Chief!” A massive white orc came up to me, waving. “Good to see you back, and with a fresh catch!”

I chuckled. “Granston.” I clasped arms with the massive orc tattooist. “What can I say? We harpooned a big one this time.”

“I can see the damage from that.” Granston’s face split into a wide grin as he saw the splintered boards of the slaver’s ship. It reminded me that he’d been a slave, too, carted off and sold in strange lands to human masters. “It’ll take the boys some time to repair that one.”

“Probably just break it down for scrap.” I shrugged. “Transport ships like this are cows on the water.” I leaned in. “At least, that’s what the sailors tell me.” Granston laughed. It was no secret that I didn’t exactly… know how to sail a ship.

Or how to tie anything more complicated than my shoelaces.

“Anyway. On the topic of damage…” He tapped his back with a finger.

“Nope.” I spun, showing off the full back scarab tattoo. “Didn’t get cut this time.” I’d cover it more, but people told me it was inspiring or something. I wonder what mom would say if she could see me now, wearing backless tops and running a literal pirate outfit.

Hmmm. ‘Good job’?

“I need to get going.” I pointed my finger to the other pier, where a few demons were tying down the slaver’s ship and getting the gangplank set up. “Things usually go easier if I’m there.”

“God knows why.” Amy meandered down the gangplank of our own ship after the last of our fighters. She had her hammer slung casually over her shoulders, specks of red still flecking the head, and her sleeves, and her armor.

On a completely unrelated note, Amy was always much more mellow after a good commerce raid. And people had the nerve to call me crazy. I mean, really.

“You’re right.” I smirked. “God does know.”

She rolled her eyes. But Iknew the truth.

I took a deep breath, hanging my cloak over my side like a shoulder cape. It kept my tattoo visible, while also giving me a place to hide my flute. New people tended to be a bit nervous around the flute.

No idea why.

I came to a stop at the bottom of the ship as the first of the newly-freed slaves began stepping off the boat. I raised an eyebrow as the first one down was actually a boy that looked like he was ten or something, a pair of pointed ears on the top of his head flicking back and forth. A wolfkin. Hopefully he wouldn’t cause any trouble with Angelica.

“Chief, you’re back!”

Speaking of Angelica.

I turned just in time to catch a speeding missile of fluffy golden hair and floppy ears as she crashed into my midsection. “I told you I’d be back today, didn’t I?”

She grinned up at me, tail wagging rapidly behind her. Then her face morphed into an angry frown. “No! You said you’d be last night. I was worried!”

I stiffened. “Ah, well, you know.” I waved a hand. “The seas were stormy on the return voyage.”

“That’s everyone, Chief!” An incubi landed on the docks next to me, furling his batlike wings. “Clearest weather we’ve had on the way back, too!”

Angelica’s glare doubled, her arms tightening threateningly around my midsection. “You promised.”

“She did, didn’t she.” I could hearthe smirk in Amy’s voice from behind me. “I even reminded her we were gonna be late, you know.”

Angelica’s eyes went from angry to sad in a heartbeat, ears and tail drooping. “Did you…not want to come back?”

“What? No!” I shook my head. “Ange, of course not.” I went into fight or flight mode at the sight of the crying child in front of me. Fortunately, I didn’t happen to have a gun on hand this time.

Instead I just reached down, pulling up her up into a hug as my lips ran off without permission. “It was just… the shipping routes have moved, so we needed to go farther, and it wasactually a bit rough on the way out, so we were blown a little off course, and then we spotted a ship and didn’t want to just turn around, and—”

“Uh.”

I froze again, this time for an entirely different reason. Angelica and I turned as one to look at the wolfkin boy who stepped forward, one hand tentatively raised.

“Are… you in charge here?”

“Well…”

A low growl rumbled out of Angelica’s throat. The boy stepped back, ears flattening, even as he sank into a crouch, fingers flexing into claws.

“Wait.” Angelica pointed to herself. “I’m alpha.” She pointed at him. “You wait.” A fireball bloomed over her finger.

He waited.

“Taylooooooor!” My eyes snapped back to Ange as she whined piteously like nothing had happened. “You promised!”

“…Shit,” I muttered.

At my side, Amy continued to chuckle unrepentantly. Ungrateful twerp. Weren’t Paladins supposed to defend the weak?

Angelica continued to look up at me, sniffling, big blue eyes glistening with unshead tears. God damn it, why did I have to pick the one girl who was a literal golden retriever in human form. I wasn’t even the dog person on the Undersiders!

Of course, Bitch would come back from the grave and put me in it if I actually let her cry.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” I reached up, patting Angelica’s head, fingers scratching right behind her ears how she liked it. “I’ll do better—” Her grip tightened. “—and take you with me next time.”

She let go.

“Promise?”

I nodded. “Promise.”

Her eyes narrowed. “For real this time?”

I huffed, looking off to the side. “I told you, there was actually a storm.” I glared towards the incubi sailor, who was looking at us with a goofy grin on his face. “No matter what somepeople implied.”

The sailor flinched back under my gaze, but Angelica was unmoved.

After a moment I sighed, putting her down. “Fine. Promise for real this time.”

She held out a hand, pinky first. “Pinky promise.”

I stared at her hand for a moment. “Is this some kind of sitcom?” Angelica just tilted her head, pushing her hand towards me more aggressively. I sighed. “Okay, pinky promise.” I wrapped my pinky around hers, and we shook. Angelica nodded happily, stepping back to slot into place at my side like that whole affair had never happened.

And thus, with my credibility completely and utterly destroyed, I turned to face the new arrivals.

“Okay.” I placed my hands on my hips. “In order, I’m the one in charge of this place. This is Angelica, my second, she runs the canid pack here. If you don’t want to stay, we’ll ship you home. And if any of you try to hug me, I will bodily throwyou into the ocean. Any questions?”

A lamia with bright blue hair raised her hand. “Do you have the Strength stat to pick us up?”

I looked at her for a long moment.

“Do you want to find out?”

There was apparently something in my voice, because she just flushed with embarrassment and shrank back.

“Any realquestions.”

“Are you fighting the slavers?”

I blinked, turning towards the wolfkin boy from earlier. His sharp golden eyes were fixed on my face. I noticed now there was a catkin girl with mint green hair pressed against his side, Her claws were hooked into his ragged shirt as she peered out from around his arm.

I held back a sigh as I took note of how young this raid was. There were almost no adults, and actually no men. It looked like the slavers were starting to favor those who couldn’t fight back.

To the question, I nodded. “We are. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of me, but some have started calling me the Scarab.” I turned, cocking my fist over my shoulder. “And me and mine have attacked every slave ship or caravan we could find in the past three months.” I grinned, turning back. “And we’ve been good at it.”

We had, as evidenced by the cave we were in now. I called it a cave, but already we’d started to carve it out and expand it (with adequate structural support; I’d watched my fair share of movies, thank you) and dig houses and staircases into its foundation. We even had a place to grow crops. What started as a small inlet with a few wet rocks for tents had burgeoned into something that was starting to resemble a village.

It would have been more convenient to stay at the old one, but it was too close to the capital; thankfully we’d managed to salvage everything but the buildings themselves.

The boy looked at me for a long few moments, as if trying to see if I was telling the truth. “I never heard of a Scarab.”

I smirked. “Oh don’t worry, eventually everyone will.” I took a step forward. “When every slave is freed, and every slaver in chains, I image a lot of people will know my name.”

I was Freedom, after all. It was only natural.

Amy coughed into the collar of her armor. “God you’re such a clown.”

I looked back at her. “I’ll toss you in the ocean as well, you know.” She just rolled her eyes.

“I’m staying.”

I looked back at the boy. “Oh?”

He chewed his lip for a moment, before giving a sharp nod. “I’m staying. I… I don’t have anywhere to go back to, but, but if you’re helping us… I will help too.”

I smiled. “That’s the spirit,” I said. “We could always use more hands. On the ships or in the grotto.” My smile grew. “Like I said, we’re planning to turn this into a pretty big operation.” I looked at the rest of the group. “Any other takers?”

There were a few shared glances, and a few more at the wolfkin boy, but in the end, everyone came forward.

“They burned our village to the ground,” the blue-haired Lamia said. “There is nothing for us now.”

I raised an eyebrow. “There’s the Demon Tower.”

“The tower didn’t save us.” She pointed. “You did.”

> System Notification
> You have gained +1 Devotion!

Well, how else could I respond to that but a grin. I stepped forward, clasping the lamia’s hand and ruffling the wolf boy’s grey ears. “Then welcome aboard!”