Malcolm Tent
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Wish upon the Stars chapter 612
🕑 Added 2024-04-25 23:16:39 +0000 UTCThe short Horned Lord (whose name we learned was Matthew) was eager to tell us what we wanted to know. And more. He actually ended up spending about fifteen minutes babbling about nonsense I didn’t care about, and if I hadn’t been sure he was absolutely convinced Bethy was going to feed him to her cats, I’d have suspected him of stalling.
“And then I stole my friend Ben’s muffin tops.” He yammered. “I shouldn’ta done it, his mom made them special, and it was his birthday. But I was so sad after my dog died and I just really needed a win that day. He never figured out it was me. I told him Sal did it and he blamed him for the rest of Sal’s life, which wasn’t very long because Ben jumped him in an alley two years later and caved his skull in with his boots. I know it was wrong but-”
I threw my hands up in frustration. “ENOUGH!” I was almost shaking with frustration. “I don’t CARE.” I said plainly. “I’m not your priest or your therapist. I asked for information on your GANG.”
He shook his head. “No, see, I know but I needed to give you the context there so you’d understand-”
“He’s stalling.” I said to Bethy. “Feed him to the cats.”
His head jerked back in shock. “NO! I promise I’m trying, it’s just complicated.” I glared at him and he slumped. “I’ll uncomplicate it. Word came down from the Red Brethren, they were upping the taxes for all their subordinate gangs because of the visitors. They said we need to make quota or we’ll BE quota, so they sent us out to raise a little hell, poke some high and mighty types who might be new to town.”
“And none of you questioned this?” I said in exasperation. “Like say…you didn’t wonder WHY so many new people were showing up and what kind of backing they had? Like you have no idea why they instituted this policy so suddenly? Because I feel like if you were actually that oblivious you wouldn’t have lasted this long as a gang leader.”
He shrugged. “The Red Brethren work for one of the Devil Princes. Nobody says it out loud, but it’s common knowledge. Who the hell are we to piss off an S-ranker. Come on man, you don’t need to do this. We learned of lesson. You already killed Julio. Bruno is going to have trouble walking, Marco is probably going to lose an eye. And don’t get me stared on what you did to poor Ted.”
I blinked, processing the discrepancy in names. No time to think about it too much. “Look, I don’t have a problem letting you go. You’ll need to settle up with the owner yourself, but our people are fine and you lost somebody.” I sighed dramatically. “But see, Bethy here, she loves her cats.” I gestured to the vampire, who nodded enthusiastically. “And now you got them all excited and if they don’t get to play with you more they’ll be sad.”
“They totally would!” She said with a pout, calling Donuts (or Poptarts, again, not sure how to tell) from her shadow and shoving hes head right in front of the trembling gang member. “How can you say no to this face?” The cat peeled back its lips, exposing razor sharp fangs as it hissed menacingly at the man from inches away. Which Bethy proceeded to ignore as she cooed at her pet. “He’s an ANGEL!”
He wailed, trying to scramble backwards, but the cat put a paw on the silk holding his arms and pinned him in place, keeping him from escaping. I swear the damned thing was SMILING. Fucking cats, man.
“PLEASE DON’T LET IT EAT ME!” He screamed. “I don’t know why they sent us out to raise trouble, I swear. But it wasn’t just them. The Weeping Blade did it too. And Ancestral Night. They’re all vaguely related to S-rankers, but not the same ones. Please that’s all I know, I’m not important enough to know any more!”
I glanced at Bethy. “What do you think? You’ve got some mental tricks, can you tell if he’s telling the truth?”
“Nope.” She said with a shrug. “I can normally get an idea from heartrate, but he’s so terrified I don’t think it can get any higher. I believe him though. He’s genuinely afraid to die.”
I sighed, turning to look around. Eventually I saw a tall, pale man with a ring of hair around his otherwise bald head and a white beard that flowed down to his knees. He seemed to be the strongest person here, and was standing in front of some people who I was pretty sure worked here. “You in charge of this place?” I asked him casually.
He gave a long, slow nod. “I am.” He admitted. “I suspect I realize what you wish to say, and I have to be honest. I wish you had just let them rob us. We can’t handle dealing with a gang on the level of the Red Brethren.”
“Don’t worry about that!” Bethy said cheerfully. “I’ll make sure my daddy puts a good scare in them. They won’t come bother your neat restaurant!”
He raised an eyebrow skeptically, but I just chuckled. “Her dad is Morgan Lark.” I explained with amusement. “If he decides you’re going to be ok, you will be. I’m not sure where the princes rank in terms of S-rankers, but I know for a fact who is at the top of that list.”
Blanching in fear, he swallowed hard, turning to give Bethy an odd salute. “Apologies, young mistress. Had we known your identity we would have served you better.”
“Your food is super good!” Said Bethy happily. “Don’t be sorry, I like this place. I’m totally gonna bring the rest of my friends here before we go. Anyway, we’ll leave this guy to you, you can get your money back from him, right?” She turned and gave Matthew a wide smile that showed plenty of fang.
He jerked to his feet, stumbling over the silk as the cat backed off. “Of course!” He said enthusiastically. “We’re happy to help. We can clean up and put things back together and…” He turned his head. “Bruno!” He shouted. “Wake up and come help with the cleanup.”
Gabe chuckled from his spot sitting against the wall. “I wouldn’t bother, he’ll be out for-” He was cut off by a groan and the sound of shifting rock as the huge masked man slowly started extricating himself from the wall. “Wow.” He said with naked admiration. “That’s actually really impressive. Even Abel would have had trouble shrugging that off.”
Bruno groaned. “I’m up!” He said blearily. “What’s goin’ on?” I just chuckled, before heading back over to our table, meeting everyone else there.
“Well, that was bracing.” Said Abel happily as we all retook our seats. “Nothing like dinner and a show.” He glanced across the room at the perforated spider guy. “Not exactly the most appetizing decor, I’ll admit. Those spikes going to go away?”
I shook my head. “Dust Construction is a crafting Skill. I made them out of the dust on the floor, they’re not going anywhere. Before we leave I’ll have to manually turn them back to dust and resettle the floor. Pretty crazy though, I have to admit.” I glanced at my fiancee, who had taken her seat next to me again. “How was your pre-dinner workout honey? Also did anyone see what happened to the one I kind of gutted. I tried to heal him in passing but…”
“I got him.” Said Jessie helpfully. “He might have lived anyway, but I saw you wanted to spare him so I figured I’d help out. That wound was nasty though. It needed more life energy than I expected to close. What made it?”
Callie cut in. “Some freaky ghost knife. Shane stashed it, we can have Zeke identify it later.” She arched an eyebrow at me. “And my fight was fine. I only got one, because SOMEBODY had to be greedy and fight four on his own. And then get eviscerated. If you tell me you let yourself get stabbed to test that staff, you can forget the couch, you’ll be sleeping in the trash can outside.”
I put up both hands defensively. “Whoa, I’m reckless not stupid. I dropped Mornax because I got knocked off my feet, but I thought my gear would stop the attack. A D-rank knife that ignores armor was the last thing I expected.”
She nodded, shoulder slumping. “Sorry. I just…that was scary. I could feel your life draining away. I don’t suppose the wound transfer got rid of the blood loss?”
“Don’t think it works that way.” I said with a laugh. “I’ll make sure to eat plenty. So…I guess I should bring up the bone wyvern in the room. Are we going to leave this alone? Because it seems like something is brewing and we can still probably stay out of it. We can just head back to the Church district and avoid the territory of any of the involved gangs.”
Benny snorted. “As if we’ve ever been able to avoid getting involved in anything. Not to mention based on what he said this could be some bottom up plan to disrupt the conclave, which would obviously be bad. I say we look into it.”
“Seconded.” Said Abel as he popped a slice of red beef in his mouth. “We don’t have anything to do until the conclave starts anyway. Might as well dig into this mess and see what’s going on.”
I nodded. “I’ll tell mom about it too. Worst case she can’t do anything without more to go on, but keeping her in the loop can’t hurt.” I glanced at Annalise, giving her a wry smile. “Sorry your dinner got lost in the mad shuffle of random street violence. Do you want to look into this with us?”
She stared at me critically for a moment before sighing. “I might as well. The Fairieland has quite a few holdings on Tricorn, and one could say it’s my duty to assist.” Valsa and Dralka gave similar responses, and I was glad to know we’d have some friends on hand to help. Those three in particular had hit E-rank since the Glade too, which was impressive as hell.
Speaking of rank, I reminded myself to check with the others about theirs. I hadn’t asked Callie about her stats in a while, and Benny and Jessie for even longer. I was betting they’d made some pretty serious progress too, especially Callie, who had been much higher than me to start.
I’d look into it as soon as we got back to the inn. For now, I just wanted to enjoy the rest of the night. Despite the fight and bloodshed, everyone seemed to be in a good mood, we’d had no losses and had cleaned up quickly so everyone counted it as a win. We were all in excellent moods, laughing and chatting, and I realized that despite not seeing them for a long time, I did consider these people friends after what we’d been through. It was good to see them again.
Eventually the night wound down, and we said our goodbyes, agreeing to meet up again before the conclave if possible. I used Pit of Despair and Dust Construction to fix all the damage the Horned Lords hadn’t been able to repair, and the owner told me my next meal was on the house, which would have been a lot more flattering if he hadn’t been side-eyeing Bethy in terror when he said it.
I had Bethy send Poptarts out to follow Matthew without him noticing so we could find out where their territory was so we could start investigating. Then we all headed back to the inn to get some rest. We had a plan for tomorrow now, and it couldn’t come soon enough.
Comments
JJB4345_80_815
Thank you for the chappy! I loved this line and kinda wondered if you had met one of my cats: [Quote] How can you say no to this face?” The cat peeled back its lips, exposing razor sharp fangs as it hissed menacingly at the man from inches away. Which Bethy proceeded to ignore as she cooed at her pet. “He’s an ANGEL!” [/Quote] Another great line: [Quote] If you tell me you let yourself get stabbed to test that staff, you can forget the couch, you’ll be sleeping in the trash can outside.” [/Quote] Friendly possible edit: Come on man, you don’t need to do this. We learned of lesson. of ==> our
Cindercon
Great chapter. Quick question. Shane says his mom out loud in a restaurant after a few chapters earlier being scared to mention his connection. Might be better to say his friends mom or their current host or something
