Chapter Three-Hundred Ninety-Three (Patreon)

Zorro’s doing good work.  So are Gerlfi and the others inside the Calm Seas, but they’re not my scions, so I don’t feel as responsible for them.  I’m still glad they’re doing well, we’d be in trouble if they weren’t, but there’s a difference, you know?  And I’m feeling rather proud of Zorro’s network of disguised foxes and how they’re able to get small reports out of the Calm Seas without seeming to gain any attention.

It looks like Gerlfi and the smart orc have met up and are working together.  Zorro even got his name again: Noynur.  Hopefully I won’t forget it again.  Anyway, they’ve taken the same quest as the goblin and his party, so we have a full half-dozen working on getting some evidence.

And they seem to have hit a snag.  Rezlar isn’t the only one with a bodyguard pretending to be a servant.  While they don’t expect the Earl’s Head Maid to be in the same league as Miller, it’ll still be very difficult to snoop around the Earl’s room with her there, and she’s very rarely not there.  So I need to try to do something to draw her out.  Which isn’t going to be simple.  It’s not like I can just make a mess in the street and expect her to come out and clean it up.

The obvious thing to try would be the fake assassination of Rezlar, but I don’t know if that’ll draw her out.  It’ll definitely get the Earl, but I’m not so sure about his maid.  If the Earl comes to complain and threaten me, he’ll probably bring along the guild to do it.  A bodyguard is for more subtle things like parties and other social situations, where you have to be more subtle about your protection.

Hmm… I know a good one we could use, but it’ll involve Rezlar having to play dead a bit longer than I had been hoping.  The Earl will definitely need to show up to Rezlar’s funeral, and it wouldn’t look right if he had the guild bristling with weapons at what should be a sombre affair.  So if he brings his maid, and I’d say there’s a very good chance he will, that’ll give the others a chance to slip in and get some evidence.

But that’ll be risky.  Once he thinks Rezlar is out of the way, the thieves become a liability that he’ll need to bury quickly.  So would he try to deal with them before or after the funeral?  If he was actually a good father, it’d be hard to say.  He might mourn by obsessing over finding who did it, or he’d wallow and need the closure of a funeral to give him the resolve to find who did it.

I mean, he’d certainly be investigating anyway, but there’s a difference between ordering people to find out, and putting in the work yourself.  Thankfully for me, he’s a scumbag, so I should probably try to look at it as what would be the best way to spin the publicity for it?

And in that kind of scenario… hmm, it still could go either way.  Depends on how long he puts off the funeral.  I think I can at least put a bit of pressure on him to do it quickly.  The poor stupid Thedeim he knows wouldn’t really understand and try to apply pressure, but the entire rest of Fourdock could want to see him put to rest quickly, so they can pay their respects.  After the fight with Hullbreak, he’s been a lot more of a public figure, and people genuinely like him.  Not to mention how much my dwellers like him.

In fact… I bet we could force the date of the funeral.  With all my dwellers and much of Fourdock showing up for it, he’d run the risk of looking apathetic to his own son’s death if he doesn’t show up.  And if he doesn’t show up with bells on, he’d be disrespecting him, too, so he’d basically have to bring his maid.

And speaking of disrespect… I should probably try to get in contact with Order.  I’m pretty sure the priest that did the contract for the Harbinger has already gone back to the dwarven Holds, but he can’t be Order’s only priest around.  And if I can show him that the Earl is making a mockery of his contracts, that’ll be just another nail in the Earl’s coffin.  Not to mention that, if I’m going to accuse him of all sorts of nasty business, it couldn’t hurt to have a priest of Order around to hear it.

In fact, it’d probably be good to talk to him before waving around whatever evidence I have.  He’s not technically a lawyer, but if anyone speaks legalese, I’d bet Order does.  I poke Teemo to let him know I’ll be sideways for hopefully just a few minutes, then take a few minutes to actually get there.

It’s getting easier to follow the threads of faith to what I guess is some kind of divine realm?  I don’t know what else to call it.  The kind of nebulous constellation that I guess is my little part of it is easy to recognize, and I try not to think too hard about just how many stars are twinkling around here, and what they mean.  I do take a moment to head to my little slice of afterlife, and it warms my heart to see everyone doing so well.

The main workshop is in the process of expanding out into a proper complex, with the different crafting areas expanding to give my believers plenty of space to work, while still being close enough that everyone can mingle, chat, and generally enjoy some good company.  A lot of faces are gone now, either reincarnated or headed into the beyond, and a lot of new faces are around, too.

I’m glad time is so weird here, because it gives me a chance to appreciate everyone’s hard work.  It’s also good to see that people aren’t falling on their faces or anything like that.  I’m getting better at accepting the whole situation, but that doesn't mean I want anyone slamming their foreheads on the ground because of me.  Even a nod of respect feels a bit much, but that’s just a me problem again, and I’m still a few months away from that scheduled existential crisis to go thinking about that too much right now.

I eventually make my exit, as well as making a mental note to come back and appreciate everyone' s work some more later, and work on figuring out how to get to Order.  He and the Shield were able to find me easily enough, so it can’t be that hard, right?

Even if there’s no addresses… or streets for that matter, I do have an idea for how to track them down.  Each deity has their concept, like me and Change.  With how ephemeral everything here seems to be, something concrete like that should be basically a beacon, right?  So I just need to follow the feel of Order.

If I wasn’t familiar with his contracts, I might have a bit more trouble, but if I focus on the feeling of the weight they all seem to exude, I can feel myself zipping through this place at a speed that feels impossible.  Not because it feels so fast, but because it feels like a lot of things at once.  I feel like I’m accelerating, strapped to the nose of a rocket, but I also feel like I haven’t moved a single inch.

It’s probably a good thing I can’t lose my lunch anymore.  After something between an aeon and a blink of an eye, I feel myself enter Order’s domain.  I can’t picture this place belonging to anyone else.  It’s like a huge clock made out of 4th dimensional gears and springs.  Or maybe an analogue computer made from the same?  I wonder if this is part of his addition to the system.

I could ask him, he’s floating right there, letting me take in the view of what he’s done.

“This is your work, right?” I ask, gesturing around us, and his tesseract form nods at me.

“It is.  Most of the others look overwhelmed when they see it, but you look almost like you’re home.”

I chuckle at that and nod.  “I like to build things.  It’s weird seeing shapes in higher dimensions, but I’ve always been pretty good at parsing this sort of thing.  Designing’s a lot harder, but understanding what's there already just comes naturally.”

He chuckles in his way and drifts deeper into his domain, and I follow him as he speaks.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?  Have you reconsidered a pantheon already?” he asks with a smirk, and I quickly shake my head.

“Not even close.  But I do have something you’d probably want to know.  The whole situation’s a bit complicated, but the part relevant to you is that someone seems to have a way to get around your contracts.”

Order’s jovial demeanor evaporates immediately.  “How?” he practically demands, though his anger isn’t with me.

“I don’t know specifically yet, but I’m working on confirming.  I found a contract between an Earl and a thieves guild, but it had none of the feel of weight behind it.  I might have written it off as them having not involved you at all, but they had other contracts that did have weight. If they made ransom demands all official, I can’t see them only having ink and paper backing a deal to work together.

“It looks like the Earl swore by the ring he was using, which I imagine would ordinarily be pretty significant.  A noble’s signet ring is super important, like second only to their official coat of arms, right?  So swearing by it should be the same as swearing by their nobility itself.  And if he was somehow lying, the contract would just be a dud, no weight at all, which the thieves would have to notice if their contract didn’t actually do anything.

“But I think the Earl used a forged signet ring, and some time after sealing the deal, he destroyed it,” I explain, with Order hanging on my every word.  He takes a few minutes to process that, eventually slumping before he finally speaks.

“It would take precise language, but it would be possible to sign and seal a contract with a forged ring,” he admits.

“It was definitely wordier than the one we had together, yeah.”

Order sighs before straightening himself, and I can feel weight settle around him.  “However, wording or no, Order does not turn on letter alone.  Who is this Earl?”

“Earl uh… something something if’Gofnar?  He has a long name,” I sheepishly admit, though Order doesn’t seem dissuaded by my lack of memory.

“Gofnar,” he repeats, the word reverberating around his space, and I can catch brief glimpses of popups all around him, flashing into existence for moments before he dismisses them, too fast for me to read.  “I see,” he speaks, tone grave.  “Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Thedeim.”

“No problem.  I mostly wanted to ask about you having my back once I get some more evidence to prove some of his other shady dealings, but this did seem like something you’d want to know, too.”

“It is.  And I will certainly help you as I can.”

“Great!  It’s hard to get a more unimpeachable witness than the literal god of Order, right?”

Order’s grave look cracks slightly at that as he chuckles.  “I’d say so, yes.”

“The only other thing I’d ask is that whatever you do to the Earl for messing with your contracts, would you be able to delay it until after I get things settled on my end?”  I smirk before continuing.  “I’m hardly asking for lenience, it just feels like my things are a bit more time sensitive, a bit more on the mortal scale, I guess.”

Order considers for a few moments before nodding.  “I can do that.  It will give me time to do a full audit of his contracts, as well as inform my High Priest.  It sounds like his other dealings don’t involve my contracts, but I am still interested in this Earl.  If he is undermining Order, I will see him pay.”

I grin at that and nod.  “His type is used to getting away with that kind of thing, jumping through loopholes and weaseling through technicalities.  But I think that’s about to Change.”