Ch: 289 Should I Stay Or Should I Go

The ducal council stared down in mute, appalled silence as dukes Belen, Mubarak, Rummel, Holloman, duchess Sheng and a small army of counts and barons addressed them from duke Rummel’s very well appointed portrait chamber. 

 

“We recommend that the council vacate Liam Kinnis’ debt of care obligation and restore him to his titles and lands immediately, as he has attained his majority under the law. Such attainment by Contract or other means invalidates the debt. So says the law.” Phillip announced officiously, while rolling his scroll up and stowing it away.

The quiet rumble of noble dissatisfaction died an early death when Belen casually asked if duke Erasmus’ heir had yet been located. As though the empty portrait were not enough reminder.

 

“Yes, the motion is carried. We should adjourn now… before anyone else draws my ire.” Duke Lepold growled, his stony gaze locked on count Oberlan of Whistwell Banks. 

“I will have a formal apology before the feast of Healer, or you will have my challenge at your door before the feast of Order. Most likely carried to your very doorstep by my own ‘Commoner’s hands’.” He barked at the very pale young lord. “I will have satisfaction in ink… or blood, Richard”

 

The deathly silence ended, when duke Wen’s portrait went out with a fizzle. “On that note, we should adjourn. The Ward case remains an open matter… a matter on which I will be heard in full.” Julius said calmly. 

#

 

Cherry slipped out of her tree and into her new body with a sweet, joyous dance… which set Shai off, which got Becky and Amy going… Cherry danced like a petal on the breeze, with or without music, she and Shai were already thick as thieves. 

Fats and the boys from shadow town carried the music, while Gary tried to keep up without his tireless energy and rapid recovery. 

 

“Slowjams… Baby… Please…” He gasped, as he was spun from hand to hand by the ladies. Plumeria, Willow and Solange were there with Cherry for the very special morning event. Hands of glamor and wood, or flesh and blood twirled him into a dizzy, grinning stupor; with Kree whooping for joy and clinging to his hair.

 

When he collapsed onto the lawn under the cherry tree beside Shai, for a sweaty gasping snuggle with his red haired, tireless muse, the kids and Becky landed all around. When four dryads flopped into the pile and wriggled in to make themselves comfy, naptime hit hard.

 

When he woke up, Otho the dog and Nara the catgirl were sprawled across him, snoring in harmony. Wilf was sitting with Dannyl sketching Willow’s nude form, without her human glamour. They were taking careful and exacting notes of his spellcraft and methods. Wilf saw him move and waved happily. “Drawing’s fun!”

 

“Ahh, your young apprentice is a diligent student of the art.” Willow cooed happily as she donned her glamor. No clothes, just her long flowing hair over that tanned, lissome skin. “Walk with me by the waterside, Gary.”

 

“Your mate and your spider friend are concerned that you grow distant and hard edged, as you remain sealed away from your other selves.” She whispered quietly, when they were alone. 

 

“Not separated… just a lot of interference and a feeling like there’s an open wound in my ass and I’m leaking out through it.” He mumbled tiredly. 

 

“Take some time for your family and yourself… hug your darling little ones, screw that delicious ironmonger of yours til she walks funny and let us work on the problem for a while. Ward is worried too, we don’t want stress to affect his performance.” She giggled and kissed him full on the lips, before she dashed away.

 

“…Sexy…” He mumbled softly and incoherently as he wandered back and joined the kids for a pre lunch snack on the patio.  

#

 

He caught a few War and Order clerics sniffing around, over the next couple quiet days at home… nobody he knew and they scampered when he appeared in the showroom… that wasn’t suspicious at all. They tingled his wards when they pushed through, despite feeling unwelcome. 

Real shoppers wouldn’t feel a thing, certainly no one who was invited would. The first two strangers were an oddity, the fourth and fifth made it a pattern, someone was scheming again. He shook his shaggy head and sighed deeply. 

“Shai, kids I gotta work on something really delicate for a while… down in the workshop.” He grumbled. “Ring the bell before you come downstairs.” Gary pointed to a brand new bellpull, beside the workshop door. “Really volatile and complex magic, please don’t interrupt unless it’s an emergency...”

 

“Awww.” Wilf mumbled, when he was excluded as well.

 

“Sorry kiddo, I’m making something crazy.” He murmured with a strange smile on his face. “If Ward comes by, tell him I’m working.”

#

 

In the dimmest reaches of his workshop, where Copper rank had opened up new and interesting corners, he had a number of ritual circles down. Overlapping and interlaced in silk, chalk, salt, pollen, sugar, honey, flower petals, braided metal wire and arrangements of bleached, human bones, he was encircled on so many levels, it was a little tough to draw any Mana from the world around him.

 

Instead, he fed on the excess of his construct on the workbench. One of that nameless crypt lord’s many enchanted corpse bottles now held a swirling cloud of bright green satin fabric, a remnant of a spring night’s passion and drenched in the occult energies of life, death, the fae, lust, love, passion, grief and healing. 

That poor, silky teddy floated in a potent brew of magical liquor, stirred and added to by so many divine and eldritch forces that night and since that it was barely holding together, even under every binding and spell he could manage to stuff into it… A rich, warm, golden glow that was definitely not actual visible light, spread from the bronze sealed, heavy glass jar on his workbench.

 

Floating with the tattered, billowing and stained fabric, a scattering of plum blossoms and a number of tiny nude figurines carved and decorated of haunted plum burlwood drifted aimlessly. 

The dozen or so tiny dollies drifted weightlessly in the clear, swirling liquor they were immersed in. If one didn’t watch closely, they would come together in pairs and small groups in their aimless drifting and become entangled… in deeply suggestive and creative ways. 

The sexy snowglobe remained still and lifeless when observed, but they started freaking each other wildly, if his attention drifted. 

 

He delicately chiseled a few final runes in the melty, wax dribbles of hardened and gleaming enchanted metal. Each blow of his tiny silver hammer against his diamond tipped monster fang stylus sang with a sweet metallic chime, carrying his soft and sweet song in the stillness.

 

In starlit nights, I saw you,

So cruelly, you kissed me…

 

Your lips, a magic world,

Your sky, all hung with jewels…

 

The killing moon,

Will come too soon…

 

A few hooded shades swayed through Echo and The Bunnymen’s ‘Killing Moon’ and drifted into shadow, as he clipped a bronze bracelet around his left wrist and locked it in place, with a gentle twist of the magically malleable device. 

A slow, sweet flood of magic spread through his body from the bracelet’s slender band of inscribed metal.

 

*Warning*  Unstable Construct. *Warning*

Sexbomb, Etheric/null/spiritual/null.

Details unavailable. 

When triggered: 

Null/Null *unknown*

Null/Null *unknown*

*I'm gonna like the way you fight*

 

“Ahhh…” He sighed deeply as a tiny piece of the wrenching sense of loss inside himself felt just a little better. 

“A little magical radiation is fine I guess.” He murmured happily, while tucking the not exactly glowing object away carefully in his magical bottom.

“Hey, what’s for lunch?” He sang out, once he bounded upstairs with a grin of real happiness on his mug; a melody spilling from his fingertips and the strings of his trusty mandolin.

#

 

Otho cornered him the next day and pulled the young musician into a booth for a serious chat.

“Khan is away at a meeting of the masters of the Adventure guild… there has been some trouble in the guild’s upper leadership… one of many guilds and organizations so troubled lately.” The old priest whispered.

“He wrote, asking me to have you examine your Adventure badge, to see why none of you have advanced beyond apprentice yet. The expert that was supposed to come from the capital never arrived.”

 

“I did that weeks ago… in defiance of your rules. I didn’t hesitate, after I found the cursed noble undies.” He grumbled. “The badges are just trackers. They detect magical energies from the wearer and pinpoint anyone like me or the kids for those brown robed assbags. Total bullshit, like so much else in this world.”

 

“You never mentioned...” Otho mumbled softly.

 

“We’ve been busy and who can we really trust?” He shrugged unhappily. “I scrapped the guild’s badges, they’re just metal counterfeits now.”

 

“On a related note, no sign of the Tax Assessor's guild leadership has been found, not anywhere that the cult of Joy has eyes, or the Tailors, ears.” He muttered unhappily.

 

“We’ll be seeing a lot of weirdness unspool over the next week, Otho. The immortals have been fumbling around in our box of pretty, shiny toys for a long time…” He said in a voice of quiet fury and icy cold determination. “Now something venomous has spun its web in the toybox and a few have been bitten.” He smiled in a deeply unpleasant way. 

“Fatally, I’m afraid… I hope no one else gets hurt.”

#

 

In a distant meadow on the far side of the small moon curling nearly unobserved, high above the troubled world below, A number of divine avatars were discussing a bevy of proposed solutions to ‘the mortal Gary problem’...

 

“I’ve informed War, Order and Craft that none of their clerics or cultists may slay him… on pain of censure by the council of divines.” Healer said sourly. “I’m offended that you even thought such an ultimatum to be necessary, Marduk.”

 

“Yes, well someone did try to banish me into the void…” He grumbled right back at his sister. “Best we remember that detail. Gary Ward is not the first being to attempt to murder an immortal… he’s just really good at it, is all.”

 

“That fails to ease our minds, brother Marduk…” Dagon murmured in his cold, watery voice. “I don’t have your confidence in him, he’s not my pet mortal.”

 

“You didn’t have a problem lurking in his depths while reaching out to your children beneath the waves…” Set complained. “Just because your cult has heard your voice and called you home… you no longer need him. Some of us have been unable to make contact.”

 

“I fear there are no serpent folk left here, brother Set. your children have gone extinct in this place, I’m sorry.” Beast whispered from a bush filled with songbirds.

 

“Oh…” He sighed long and slow. “I still say we should consider carefully, before we let this mortal be snuffed out early.” The god of serpent folk whispered. “His light will extinguish soon enough, three centuries, maybe four at the most? Nothing at all. What is their hurry? Why does Morigan demand special access to this soul?” He hissed in frustration.

 

“And yet, he behaved so blasphemously in the court of the divines… I feared he might…” Airmid, mistress of herb lore blanched at the memory. “Such a creature cannot be allowed to act, unchecked.”

 

“Yes, Restraining him worked out so much better than leaving him be…” Marduk quipped wryly. “Now we have the makings of a fine holy war brewing.” 

He turned to face the gathered immortals. “You complain he is unpredictable, yet I have accurately predicted his response to our interference…” He grumbled and scowled at them, tossing his golden curls angrily. 

“Now you worry who is next… I say worry what you will do next. He will not lash out at random.” The tiny god smiled and shook his head sadly at the gathering.

“If you find yourselves standing against him… again; then you need worry no more, because it will be too late to flee.”

 

“What are you saying?” Dana demanded archly. “That he could or would attack the pantheon as a whole? Madness!”

 

“Yes. It is madness.” Marduk replied calmly. “I am certain we already discussed that aspect of the ‘Gary Ward problem’...” He smiled very coldly at them all. “He is my friend… Were he not, I would be deeply concerned.”

#

 

Liam and Tawny were at the temple of Healer when a message came, carried by Mike, one of the orphan messengers who’d taken employment with the duke. He adjusted his uniform proudly as he handed the scroll over the orphanage’s former head boy. “Ducal council seal, Liam… looks important!” He chirped, before dashing away and stepping onto his ‘board’, the instant he was outside. 

 

Liam cracked the seal and slowly read the message. “I’m… free?” He whispered softly. “My case is finalized, I’m to be invested as Count Liam Kinnis, on my twentieth birth day…” He whispered. “Lord of county Kinnis… ancestral home of my people….” He sighed lost in the wonder of it.

 

“And what of Gary?” Tawny’s brow was deeply furrowed with worry. “I fear how he will react to such news; if his case is not successful… Would he allow you to purchase his contract, will he vanish into the wilds… or worse?”

 

“I think he will force the issue long before that becomes a problem.” Liam murmured unhappily. “If I did as you suggest, he would serve his time… But our friendship would not survive my opening bid at auction.”

 

Tawny hung her head, in worry. “I think he would flee, if anyone else claimed his contract… or much much worse.” She sobbed a little as she spoke. “At least we have a year and a quarter before we must face that nightmare.”

 

“You think his case will fail?” The young warrior asked gently.

 

“I’m certain of it. It must fail, if humanity is to survive… War must have his due.” A shudder of revulsion shook the small woman’s body from head to toe. “Even at the cost of…” Her voice fell silent, unable to say what she was thinking.

 

“Perhaps…” Liam whispered gently, pulling her into a hug. “Perhaps he must, at that.”

#

 

“I will have what I am due!” War raged and yelled at the court of divines. “Even now some dreadful force is breaking my mortal Contracts! My servants are slipping away, one by one!”

 

“Contracts are solely between the participants and signatories… This council has no power to interfere, if they are properly sealed… or broken.” Joy murmured from her high seat, as first among the divines. “Perhaps if you were more agreeable you would be more welcome.”

 

“My personal affairs are no topic for this council either!” He sniffed irritably.

 

“I did not bring the matter into council chambers…” Joy replied with a certain lightness in her voice. “Perhaps if you considered what issues to bring us, just a bit more carefully…”

 

“I must have my due… the orphans of man are mine by law and tradition!” He fumed at the gathering. “Order, say something!”

 

“He cannot… War. Now this is a matter of Justice… of which I am now the primary deity.” Ipet murmured quietly, yet the words rang clear and distinct throughout the vast, open topped chamber. She smiled her hippo grin and nodded to Marduk and Ward. 

“I say that the one you really want right now is Mine.” She purred. “And I say that matters of mortal justice are mine to administer, while the law is yours to hold…” She clicked her tusks at him. “You get to cuddle up with the books and dusty scrolls, while my divine messenger and I get results.”

Her unsubtle wink at Ward caused a scandalized whisper to circle the chamber.

 

He rose and took a theatrical bow, flourishing his wings at the divines, just to rub their noses in it. “We have been documenting certain inconsistencies in the world’s magical environment… Our findings are rather alarming.” He smiled with delight. “There has been a severe infestation of malign outside entities growing in the mortal realm for a few dozen millenia. Even deeply malignant beings have been wreaking havoc on the mortals at will, checked only by mortal arms and arts.”

 

He nodded with satisfaction as the deities did the math on that one. “An exodus has begun, as frenzied immortals flee whatever force is snuffing immortal lights from the luminous realms.” Ward flared his wings a little in agitation.  

“My mortal brother and his friends have been doing what we should have done… and paid a price each time. Despise his methods or not, but he does what he can, with what he has.”

#