Mo'Ladies, Mo'Problems

Chapter 29

Looking at my contracts interface I still felt surprised when I checked the active tab. I’d expected Mira to agree to a partnership of some kind but not Hetcha. I’d at best hoped she’d soften her stance a little and agree to keep my secrets. Now she was the enthusiastic one while Mira was helplessly trying to be the cynic. It hadn’t worked particularly well and now they were both my employees.

It was nothing to complain about, I’d gotten a lot from the arrangement. Mira’s knowledge had finally filled in some blanks about how magic worked for adventurers and the like and Hetcha had provided a surprising amount of map data. Those hadn’t been the only contributions, but they were the stand outs.

The problem was that Hetcha was looking at the temple I’d built as a potential cultural center where her people’s traditions could be revived. I’d found it out after happily agreeing to let her try and locate and move refugees to the valley. My little passion project had suddenly bloomed into something much more important. Something it wasn’t designed, nor could it support.

At least not as it currently was.

I had to table that issue though as there was a slightly more immediate one to deal with. Mina and Andria had taken more time but ultimately made deals of their own. Mina agreed to a more limited version of employment with me. She was fine with buying things for me and sharing map data as she went along, but not in working on my projects.

Her interest was fixed solely on finding a way home to her own world and her mother. It had been her goal in joining the hero’s party before the lily pendant had been used to control her. Now she was determined to make up for lost time. If our interests aligned while she was searching, she’d consider accepting a commission. Since I’d been hoping she’d agree not to attack me or share details about me and the dungeons layout I was satisfied by the arrangement.

Then there was Andrea.

I’d expected the least from her, yet she was the one giving me the biggest headache at present. At first, she’d been utterly repulsed by her situation and me for obvious reasons. Then she’d started to soften a little, becoming agreeable to a basic non-aggression pact. I felt like I’d gotten ahead of myself by assuming things would go well just because of that and trying to be friendly.

I wanted to treat Mina and Andrea better and felt confident since I had contracts with Mira and Hetcha already. I offered them the option to move to the farmhouse in exchange for keeping quite about what had gone on in the dungeon aside from some specific things. Hetcha and Mira were obliged to keep my secrets as well but didn’t know that I was linked to the dungeon.

After some discussion I arranged for Mina and Andria to emerge from the dungeon and meet up with Mira and Hetcha. Anticipating an issue, I prepared (had Elim buy) sweets and wine to go with dinner and timed the reunion so they’d share the meal.

No one was surprised, they’d all known what was going to happen, but that didn’t make the reunion less awkward. Things had started tensely as they had no idea what to say to each other. All of them assumed they would be blamed for something and remained quiet at first, waiting to be reprimanded.

Then Mina had broken under the stress of the silence and started crying and apologizing to Hetcha. She even asked Hetcha to kick her as compensation. I’d monitored the matter closely, hoping they wouldn’t end up killing each other. Instead I got to watch them cry and beg each other for forgiveness.

My secondary reason for arranging the meeting didn’t happen until after the first round of crying ended. Mira explained in depth about the lily pendants and the mind control magic used on them. Mina who’d apparently figured a little bit of it out wasn’t particularly shocked. Andrea however was deeply wounded. Reiner hadn’t given her the pendant, her father had.

They started eating and drinking in-between rounds of crying and telling stories of times they’d shared. It had been touching but for all the good it had done on one hand; a new problem had been created. Andria had been minor nobility, her family had to consent for her to join the hero’s party. Or at least that’s what she insisted as she stewed for several days about what she learned while the others made plans to leave the valley.

“I want to be stronger, strong enough to avenge myself,” Andria said, calling me in the middle of the night. I was in the middle of setting up a smithy when the call came in.

“Ominous,” I muttered to myself.

“Give me a minute, I’m in the middle of something but I’ll be right back” I said louder.

“Its fine Mistress,” Brun Shale Femur assured me, giving me a pat on the back that sent me sprawling on the ground. I was easy to bounce around and she felt amused but was polite enough not to laugh. Minus one to dungeon master’s dignity, confirmed. I thought unkindly to myself.

“Thank you for understanding, I’ll reschedule our appointment. Feel free to ask for any kind of design changes or equipment you want,” I said, feeling bad but needing to deal with whatever was up with Andria.

“Alright, I’m back,” I said and heard a sleepy little grunt of surprise on the other end followed by a muffled voice.

“I was with Mina, so I had to move,” Andria said, sheepish but still fairly angry.

“Okay. You said you wanted power enough to get your revenge,” I said, wanting to restate the main and less than encouraging points of her call so far.

“Yes. I’ll sell you my soul for it,” Andria replied flatly. It seemed like she was leaning toward assuming I was a demon based on that comment. She straight up didn’t seem to give a damn about what I wanted from her. Something that ought to have been helpful but was dangerous if you put more than ten seconds of thought into it.

The hitch laid in the fact that she was emotionally unstable despite the veneer of calm. People in a rational state of mind didn’t sell bits of themselves. Telling her that wasn’t going to help anything however, so I didn’t bother.

“I’ve got no use for a soul, but I’m willing to discuss employment,” I countered. Giving up on her own life to destroy another’s, a classic cutting off your nose to spite your face move. I couldn’t trust her to be patient and prioritize my orders over whatever impulse seized her. Even so, I didn’t want to give up and turn her loose on the world to see what happened.

“Fine, send me a contract,” Andria said much to quickly. I didn’t think Andria was in a state of mind to look out for her own best interest and it left me considering an option that I wouldn’t have normally. The terms of a contract were a magical bond, if she agreed to restrictions on her behavior, she’d have to abide by them.

It was a kind of slavery, distinct from what happened before only because it wouldn’t change her thoughts directly. That wouldn’t stop it from re-modeling her behavior over time though. I looked at the draft I’d written and hated it on principle but couldn’t think of anything better.

“Read it fully please, particularly the conduct section,” I said, hoping that showing it to her would cause her to cool off a bit. It was a cheap move but if something was going to scare her straight, it was trading one flavor of slavery for another.

“It includes an obedience clause,” I added so she’d understand the severity. I needed time to come up with a better plan but couldn’t afford not to respond to her now. If I put it off, she’d just leave in search of an alternative. Andria seemed mature for her age now that the mind control wasn’t trying to make her into a flirty ill-tempered priss, but she was still a kid.

“What’s this training period about?” Andria asked me after a few minutes of reading. Even skimming she couldn’t have read even half the contract. She’d probably only been searching for and obvious agreement to her revenge scheme.

“The kind of power I can offer you is considerable and I’m not going to give it up cheaply. You get what you wanted, but in exchange for a three-year contract. One year of training, mostly here, two of actual service, then your free to seek your revenge,” I explained. None of the others had been treated to such strict terms but I was mostly looking to buy time with her. She needed to cool down and get her head together or she was going to get herself killed. Or worse. Normally death was my ‘or worse’ but dealing with Stomholt made me unfortunately certain that it wasn’t.

“Fine,” Came the clipped response from Andria. I waited, expecting a rejection. A few minutes later the contract was approved. My orbs flickered as I looked at the confirmation.

“Shiiiiiit!” I hissed at nothing as I ran my hands through my hair. I’d meant to scare her out of selling trying to sell herself to someone else, not actually gain control. It was several minutes before I was calm enough to think rationally again. If I wanted to, I could cancel the contract since I’d given myself the option to quite at any time.

I didn’t even open the contract interface. I could cancel it but doing so wouldn’t have the desired result. Andria would probably just run off looking for a new ‘benefactor’ to sell bits of herself to. That she was insane enough in her rage to sell herself to me was a lucky break for her and an inconvenience for me. She was my responsibility now and I would have to look after her on top of everything else going on.

“Fuck,” I said flatly, giving up on worrying about it for the moment. The refresh was coming up and I’d promised in the contract to reset her levels and a couple other things. Just as she was bound by the terms of the contract, so was I, and there was no sense in dawdling.

Looking her over I found she had a higher overall level than the rest of her party. She had five levels of warrior, one of fighter, and one of chevalier. Adjusting the npc classes to be roughly equivalent to a hero class she was level four or five depending on if you rounded up or down. It was impressive that she’d reached the point of being able to choose her first class change and then specialized. It had also likely been brutally difficult to keep up with her npc levels in the hero’s party.

I knew what I could do increase her power quickly but hesitated. Instead of using the communication stone I called her using the interface like I would a dungeon denizen or Elim.

“Okay, I can start by resetting your levels. Once I do, I should be able to reassign you with only heroic class levels. The catch is I don’t know if this will have any side effects so-”

“Just do it,” Andria said flatly. With that disturbingly level of disinterest in her wellbeing established I decided to proceed anyway. I’d been holding off on doing a level reset for Elim but didn’t have the same level of affection for her. I opened a window so I could see her as well as her tab so I could keep an eye on her condition then did the reset half an hour before the reset.

“Okay, do you want to be a chevalier again?” I asked, uncertain of when she’d made the decision or how she felt about it now. Even so I was still texting Henry for advice about how to get her ready for it properly.

“Yes, I don’t regret that even though I wasn’t in my right mind at the time,” she said, and I flinched a little. She’d been under the influence of the pendant for a long time.

“Okay,” I said tightly. I wanted to add that she could be reset again but didn’t. People were happier when they stuck to a first choice than if they were allowed to change their minds. I’d bring it up again if she struggled or was unhappy, but I wasn’t going to undermine her choice now.

“Do you want me to assign your stats or-” I stopped as Andria’s expression hardened.

“Make me as strong as you can, I don’t care how,” She said. I felt disheartened but accepted her choice. Henry texted me back asking if I wanted him to come over to help out and after a slight hesitation I agreed. It would be better to have him on hand than texting and I could use the company at the moment.

“Get some sleep then, if you don’t want me to consult you,” I said and felt cheap for the little jab at the end. She wasn’t in her right mind, but I couldn’t help feeling unhappy. Unused to calling she nodded before ending the call, not realizing that I could only see her answer for unrelated reasons. When Henry arrived, I got him up to speed on what had happened right away because I was still upset.

“I-I c-can under-understand h-her feelings a l-l-little, but but t-that is is d-distressing t-to h-hear,” Henry said gently, a hand on my shoulder. I looked at him, not sure what to say for a few moments. He could understand?

“Do you… can you remember your life before?” I asked finally. Henry looked at me for a moment then a moment later looked away. I received a text from him shortly after.

“Remember wouldn’t be the right word. It’s like a story I know, but not a terribly interesting one. What I do remember are things like places or certain sensations. Rain on my skin, a particular lake in summer,” Henry wrote. As I read it, I could hear his voice, his tone soothing and calm.

“I don’t mind the way you talk, but if you want to text that’s fine…Hold on,” I said and fished a pen and blank book from my inventory. Having him stare into the middle distance while composing felt weird, but with this, I’d know when he was writing. It also felt a little nostalgic though I had no idea if I’d exchanged a notebook with anyone before.

“O-Okay!” Henry said, sounding amused by the idea. I raised a pair of stone blocks, one as a desk and one as a seat for him. For my own part, I simply rested my arms on the desk, not needing a seat of my own.

“So, you can empathize with her, because of that story?” I asked, my words coming out clumsily. I didn’t mean to sound harsh, I wasn’t upset, just confused.

“Yes. It feels distant now, but I was once seized by a madness that destroyed my life as much as what I hated. I feel like you’ve never felt that, am I wrong?” Henry wrote. Feeling like he had an unfair advantage I used my interface pen to answer.

“Not like you’ve described. I feel like there are things I’d destroy if I had the power and opportunity, but I’m not really obsessed,” I wrote. There were a couple murderous to do’s on my list but it wasn’t like they got more time on my mind than was necessary. What Henry was describing was more intimate and destructive.

“T-thought s-so,” Henry said and laughed.

“You seem desperate on the girl’s behalf but confused. I think she’s lucky you care for her so much, and I hope you can help her see reason,” He added in text.

“I’ll try, but that parts up to her… We should start working on her stats,” I said, and he nodded. He drew a line with a flourish in the center under our earlier exchanges. My handwriting looked childish next to his and I wondered if calligraphy had been a hobby of his in life or a new acquisition in death.

As an actual Chevalier Henry made most of the decisions about how to optimize Andria’s build. He only needed a little time and a few re-watches of how she’d fought in the dungeon to make his choices. Where we both started to dawdle was in assigning stat points. Agility was key but intelligence and charisma could not be neglected any more than constitution.

Andrea’s unmodified stats left something to be desired so that complicated the decisions we needed to make. Looking through her profile more thoroughly I negative traits in the form of a weak constitution and low spirit affinity. Unlike a curse, these were not bestowed by the gods as some form of punishment.

Instead, they looked like hereditary issues but fortunately, I could still buy them out with mana. On the bright side despite the suffering, they had undoubtedly caused her they were also comparatively cheap to get rid of. Doing so brought up her constitution score to a normal level immediately which made things easier. When the stats were assigned the skills went quickly.

That left taking a look at her potential blessings. Opening the list up I found she had a lot of options. Thirty in all from minor to major and they all had the same price which struck, only it wasn’t a hundred mana. This time it was fifty and I felt my orbs flicker. It might have been because of the interface upgrades but I doubted that.

It was more likely tied to my change in alignment. The fact that I could organize them by power, alphabetically, and newest to oldest was likely the upgrade at work.

“T-This one!” Henry said suddenly, pointing a finger at one of the options.

Dark Spirits Blessing

Having gained the blessing of those who dwell in shadows the recipient is welcomed by darkness.

Affinity with Shadow Magic

All shadows offer them protection. So long as they fit within one, they are totally concealed.

Three times per day they may create a 10x20x20 foot zone of darkness

At will, they may teleport between one shadow large enough to conceal them and any other of sufficient size within their field of view.

At will, they may extinguish any natural source of light aside from sunlight and dim magical ones

It was an excellent blessing, for an assassin. I looked at Henry questioningly but then started to look through Andrea’s list of blessings. Most of them were combat-related to some extent but none had quite as much utility as the Dark Spirits Blessing. If I was going to keep my word and the conditions of the compact, then it was the best choice. I bought it just before the refresh.

“I feel like I’m going to regret this,” I wrote in the book rather than speak. I didn’t trust my tone just then but didn’t want Henry to think I was upset with him.

“Children are like cats with thumbs,” Henry started to write back, and I gave him a bewildered look.

“You see her as a child, so accept that she’ll bring you troubles just the same,” He finished and laughed at my surprise. We’d been shoulder to shoulder for a little while at the desk I’d made so I gave him a nudge with mine. More accurately I tried and bounced off of him before I had to laugh at myself.

“Thank you for coming to help Henry, I appreciate it,” I said honestly.

“It-it w-was my my pl-pleasure,” Henry said before getting up to give me a simple bow. Laughing I curtsied to him in return and left.

“A cat with thumbs?” I muttered to myself before laughing.