Dressed to Kill 10 (Patreon)

A\N Some typo edits -- Thanks again Apoca!

I rushed down to the workshop. Mom was already packing the crates full of the finished articles. She only took a second to look at me. Joining her, I folded the assembled mining outfits together and shoved them into the crates.

We were done in only a moment, shuffling out of the workshop. I slammed the crate into the door to open it, sending it creaking on its hinges.

There was no one outside.

I turned around.

“Town hall.” She said, gesturing with her head towards the town center.

I led the way. The walk was only a few streets away, but felt so long. My eyes didn’t leave the dungeon when we entered the town square. The structure hadn’t changed at all, but I still couldn’t look at it the same.

“Gwen.” Mom said. She had already walked past me, standing outside the door to the meeting hall.

I nodded in acknowledgment, stepping up. I could already hear the not-shouting match on the other side.

The door creaked open with a rush of hot air. The sound of crackling wood under-toned the serious and angry discussion at the table.

“—again, because we should be moving now, not waiting for the town to collapse.” Sandy’s dad, Henri, gestured wildly across the table as he spoke.

Gerald’s mom and dad sat near the noble on the other side. Gerald stood behind them, wringing his hands. He looked panicked when he made eye contact with me. I smiled at him.

In total, there were six people at the table before we sat.

“Valjean.” Mom said, nodding at the noble.

He nodded back. He was leaning back in the chair, arms folded, face bored. He wore a blue suit filigreed with silver. Another noble stood behind him, wearing light armor.

“You ask this every time. Wasting all of our time.” Our town’s baker replied. “Time better spent determining our next shipment. I want to push for a higher allocation of flour. I’ll pay for more.”

“Aye, and I’d put in an order for more barrels.” The town’s wine maker said.

“These problems,” Valjean said, unfolding his arms, “Would be fixed by moving to Foundry.”

I slammed the crate down on the table. Valjean’s eyes pivoted to me slowly. I smiled.

“We can wait.” Mom said. Valjean nodded.

“I’d like to move now, rather than sit around here.” Henri said.

“You’re the only chef class in the town. It can’t survive without you. And I can’t force anyone to move.” Valjean said, eying Henri. “Not unless the town collapses.”

I took a seat at the table, rubbing at the splotches of paint on my arms.

“We need the dungeon maintained.” The baker interjected again.

“I have to clear the dungeon in Foundry and Ironside.” Valjean said, his head snapping to attention. “Even this dalliance of a day here is going to cost them progress. Not to mention guarding the trade wagons that run between the villages. You wont be able to get more maintenance without hiring mercenaries.”

“The full council is here.” Henri said, nodding at mom. “I motion to move the town to Foundry.”

“Seconded.”

“Approved.” Valjean replied.

There were groans in the room. Valjean remained impassive.

Gerald’s mom and dad’s hands went up alongside Henri’s. There were three votes for the motion in an instant. I felt like the floor dropped out from under me as I looked around the room. The baker and winemaker, elected officials of the town, kept their hands down.

I looked at mom. She was already staring back at me. I felt the blood rush out of my face, the chill of panic running up my spine. Everything I had been doing for the past week — the late nights working, the monsters I had killed, the days spent covering my arms with blood instead of paint — everything could be gone in an instant.

“Motion defeated.” Valjean said.

“It’s not defeated. It’s three and three.” Henri said. “Esmeralda, vote. Your daughter’s not Chosen. She’s not going to be.”

“Shut your mouth.” Mom said, her voice poisonous.

“Break the tie!” Henri spat, looking angrily at Valjean. “Before we all die in this nothing town.”

“Point of order.” Valjean said.

Henri leaned back in his chair, the movement slow and controlled, basically gnashing his teeth as he folded his arms.

“You call that motion every month, Henri. Just give it up.”

“Legally, no one here can move without someone replacing their critical duties. Anyone leaves and the town won’t function.” Valjean said. “Eventually, the town will collapse due to the dungeon’s decay. We do not have the resources to keep all three of my towns maintained.”

Gerald gripped the table. I looked over to him. There was something like shame in his eyes. But there was nothing to be ashamed of; we were already doing all we could.

“Next order, the distribution of the space available in the trade wagon. Three crates are already reserved for my order.” Valjean gestured at mom.

“Five crates for food.” Henri spat.

Most of the table looked at him appraisingly. Gerald paled. Valjean stared.

“Alright. Anyone else?” He said, turning and looking at the rest of the table.

“Two barrels.” The winemaker said.

Eventually, the entire space of the wagon was filled, using crates and barrels as standard sizes. Near the end, there was a back and forth of who would get to ship their product first.

With the dangers the Wild presented, the only time goods could be shipped in or out of the town was with Noble guards, and the only Noble guards that worked around here were Valjean and his men. Near the end of the meeting, Valjean motioned forward.

His bodyguard checked the contents of the crates, then fished out a bag of coins and counted a few out, pressing them into mom’s hand. Her chair scraped as she stood to leave. I followed. The main point of the meeting ended, so the full council was no longer needed.

Instead, Henri pestered Valjean with questions about finding a person who could replace his position in the village.

“Well, how did you feel about your first big job?” Mom asked, bumping into me.

“It was… good.” I said. “I wish there were more opportunities to be, I don’t know, creative.”

“You could pursue improvisation skills. Eventually maybe even make your own patterns.” Mom said. “But those ones aren’t the ones that pay the bill. It’s a balancing act. We will get some new potential orders to choose from next month at the council meeting. You should work on your own pattern more. You can improvise all you want on it.”

I nodded. We walked for a while in comfortable silence.

“Why does Henri want to move so bad?” I asked.

“Well.” Mom coughed, startled at the question. “He hasn’t had the best time here. He was from a city, originally — tier two or three — and moved here with his wife, years ago. Before we changed mayor’s and the town really started to decline.”

I chewed on that. His wife wasn’t around anymore. Why did Sandy want to keep the town alive so bad? It wasn’t like she hung out with the other young adults of the town or could take over her father’s job.

“What happened to her?” I asked. Now that she mentioned it, I had the memory of her funeral. It was probably half a decade ago. No one mentioned how she died.

“Henri said she went out to the Wild and never came back.”

“Is that true?” I asked. “Why would she…”

“I don’t know. She was a butcher. Maybe she was… hunting?” Mom said.

Many things clicked into place at once.

“When did the town start shrinking so fast?” I asked without thinking.

Mom stopped walking, turning to me.

“My light…” She said.

“I’m happy being a Seamstress.” I said, lying through my teeth. I swallowed hard.

“Alright.” My mom sighed, walking forward. “It’s probably what you’re thinking. About five years ago.”

Mom stepped into the workshop, the door whining in complaint.

“I’m going to go see Sandy.” I said.

She stopped and stared at me.

“Just don’t pick at any old wounds.”

I let the door swing closed.

When I found Sandy, she was hard at work, a dozen stinking corpses hanging from her bedroom-workshop. The trade wagon must have brought them in. They weren’t all shapes I was familiar with.

They hung from the hooks on the ceiling while Sandy worked at her workstation, grunting with visible effort as she tried to pry apart a chitin carapace. The monster corpses hanging from the ceiling didn’t have chitin; or if they did, it had already been peeled away. It piled in a corner.

“Dad still at the meeting?” Sandy asked with another grunt, pulling off a plate of chitin. She sent it clattering against the wall, joining a pile of cut and broken plates.

“Last I saw.” I replied, stepping through the bodies and looking down at the pile of chitin, thinking about how to approach the question I wanted to ask Sandy.

“Dick.” She said, working a tool under the chitin covering a monster. “Sends me all of this and tells me to work on it.”

What strained the relationship between them so badly that she cursed her own dad?

“This would make good armor.” I said, picking up a piece of the chitin and knocking on it with a fist. It wasn’t what I wanted to say.

Sandy grunted noncommittally.

“So.” I said. “Why do you want to clear the dungeon?”

Sandy looked up at me, eyes sharp as knives, staring down in a moment of tense silence that hung between us.

“To keep the town alive.” Sandy said, resting her hands on the cold, red chitin of the monster she was cutting apart.

“You were clearing the dungeon a year ago?” I asked, searching her eyes. “I heard the town started shrinking faster five years ago.”

Sandy sighed and looked away from me, leaning forward over her table.

“It didn’t take you this long to figure it out, did you?” Sandy asked. “I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?”

Sandy looked back at me, eyes a little softer this time. Then she grabbed the monster she was tearing apart, lifted it, and slammed it onto a hook hanging from the ceiling. She peeled off her apron — one of the first times I had seen her without it — and threw it onto the table. It made a wet noise. Sandy leaned against the wall, eyes hardening as she looked down at me.

“Don’t do that. Don’t probe for it like it hurts me for you to say it. Say it.”

“She was clearing the dungeon.”

“My mom died in the dungeon.” Sandy said.

“But then — why?” I asked, stepping forward. Unexpectedly, Sandy flinched. I retreated a little. “Why would you follow her down to clear the dungeon yourself?”

“Because. She’s still down there.”