Chapter 106: Book 2: Chapter 9 (Part 2 of 2)

Two and half hours later and I was beginning to get a bit concerned. The light was already fading, and we were only a few minutes away from full dark. The darkness would complicate matters and leave Susan vulnerable to monster incursions into the town.

Relief from my concerns was quick to come, though, as an argumentative voice suddenly popped into my head.

[It’s not too late, Susan. You don’t have to do this. We have ample resources. Food, sentinels, weaponry, and armour. We can recruit some good men and have them thrash this pirate filth and take your daughters back. Then you will have them and this well-defended bastion to keep them safe.]

Susan and Quinntexxis must have just come within twenty-five metres of my position and into my imp range. When I focused my aural sense, I could hear Susan’s soft footsteps as she approached from a little way off to my right. She hadn’t answered the fairy which was a good sign and as I hadn’t let on that I could hear Quinn when I shouldn’t, I doubted the fairy was faking the conversation in an attempt to fool me.

The fairy’s desperation was genuine and very predictable. I knew she’d try and screw me over once I got her off the hook.

Susan appeared in the gloom of dusk turning the corner onto the bridge. She was walking briskly with a no-nonsense expression.

[You don’t understand, Susan. I know his kind. Deceitful, petty, bloodthirsty, and lecherous. He can’t be trusted to keep his word. None of them can.]

“You wound me, Quinn,” I said, and covered my chest with my hand.

[What? Can he hear me? He shouldn’t be able to do that. What has that fucking imp done?]

Susan stutter-stepped at the unexpected exchange. I wagged my finger in the air in gentle admonition. “Now, that’s not the language I expect to hear from a respectable fairy.”

[Quixbix, you cad. What have you done? Have you overstepped again? Just because I’m not flavour of the month with the Framework liaison; don’t you be thinking you can take advantage of me] Quinntexxis shrieked.

<Quinn, what are you jabbering on about? And I never overstepped. Don’t start trying to rewrite history> Quixbix responded, his own umbrage rising.

[You know exactly what you’ve done, you lying rat. I made a mistake. One mistake, more than five millennia ago and gave you access through my firewalls and now you’re giving your porter the access key. I will never forgive you for this] Quinntexxis bellowed in distressed rage.

Her words must have had a profound effect as Quixbix’s response was conciliatory, all his previous heat gone. <Quinn, I would never do that. He was just guessing that you’d be pushing your porter to break the deal and saying some unkind things about him. That’s all. He’s quite a clever one really, but don’t tell him I said that. We don’t need him getting a big head and slacking off.>

“Enough, the pair of you. Yes, I can hear you, Quinn. I have been able to since we met. Quixbix had nothing to do with it.” I said and beckoned for Susan to keep coming toward me.

<Wait, you can hear me talking right now?>

“Of course, I can always hear you Quixbix.”

Susan had reached and knelt before me.

<That’s not right. This is a private channel for imps and fairies. You should not be able to hear this.>

“Well, I can, Now, quiet the pair of you. We can figure this out later. Unless, of course, you want to go into detail about what the two of you were getting up to five thousand years ago trading firewall access?”

<No!>

[No!]

“Wait, does Quixie have a girlfriend,” Anastasia called out in a sing-song mocking voice.

<No!>

[No!]

“I’ll take that as a yes,” she smirked.

Ignoring their sniping, I lifted Susan’s chin so I could look her in the eye.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

“If you’re lying to me about my daughters, I will kill you,” she answered bravely.

“I’d expect nothing less, but rest assured, I’m not.”

She nodded. “I, Susan Trilby, leader of the Muir Town faction, request confederation into the Shattered Storm. If you will have us, Captain Carter.”

With the words spoken the Framework prompted me.

 

*** The faction Muir Town has requested confederation into your faction the Shattered Storm.

As a lawless faction, this confederation will eliminate Muir Town as a faction, and they will be absorbed into the Shattered Storm.

If you accept, those who currently owe allegiance to this faction will have their allegiance switched to the Shattered Storm. (Standard unwilling allegiant revocation terms will apply) All territory and settlements currently owned by this faction will be ceded to your control.

If this faction has any outstanding contracts with factions other than yours, you will have the choice to adopt them or reject them.

If you choose to adopt a contract the other signee will be given the choice of accepting this alteration or rejecting the contract without consequence.

If you choose to reject the contract, depending on its nature you may be required to pay appropriate compensation.

You have one week to make all contractual decisions. The terms of the contracts will be suspended until a decision is made.

Do you wish to confederate Muir Town? Yes/No. ***

 

A quick mental yes and it was done.

 

õõõ

 

The town was officially mine and part of my faction. Susan Trilby was currently part of the faction, so I gave her, and by extension Quinntexxis, orders to officially transfer the assets from the Ionia correctional facilities to me. Should Susan decide to contest and succeed in eschewing her fresh allegiance to the Shattered Storm she wouldn’t be taking any of those assets with her.

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They were all mine.

Her job done, I kept my word and reunited Susan with her daughters. There was much hugging and joyful tears. It was all very soppy, and I left them to it in the reception cabin. We did, however, reseal the cabin once we left. The crew were occupied elsewhere, and I didn’t want to have to stand a guard over them.

With dark falling, I decided against doing anything about transferring my sentinels, armaments, and generators until the morning. Besides the prisons still had some inmates present. If I transferred everything to Stormblade Harbour tonight they might abscond during the night.

Meanwhile, we would replicate what LT’s people would be doing in Pewamo overnight. Namely, creating a honey trap for the local beasties and then slaughtering them for XP and coins.

An evil smirk crossed my face as I considered those orders.

Originally, the idea had been to give the surviving Jenson warriors a taste of their own medicine and tie them up overnight to draw in the monsters. With them all dead here in Muir we had to improvise a little.

The plan stayed mostly the same with one small alteration. Tina and her flock of harridans would assume the place of honour. Their inevitable outraged screeching ought to ensure every monster in the area would be drawn in.

We wouldn’t let them be killed, but the experience should put them in a more biddable frame of mind by morning and for them to be eager to see the back of us when we dumped them in Boston. Anything that facilitated that outcome was a worthwhile endeavour in my book.

The word from my team stationed in the northwest of the town was positive. Only one group of the Jenson patrols had tried to come back into town. They were wounded and at half strength and were easily despatched by my guys. This confirmed that Shana and Jackson had been successful in their mission to Ionia.

The Jenson’s were cowards at heart and wouldn’t have risked spending the night exposed. If no others had tried to return to their home base, then there were no more of them to come back.

<Well, this is a tad unexpected> Quixbix said at last, after everything had been sorted out.

He’d been quiet since the bridge. I imagined his nose was a little out of joint when he learned he couldn’t keep any of his private conversations secret from me. If I told you I was sympathetic to his plight that would be the porkiest of all porky pies. Now he would know how it felt for me.

He rekindled the conversation as I was relaxing in my quarters.

Anastasia was sitting on the stool in front of the dressing table sighing theatrically. She was bored and wanted to be out with the rest of the crew killing gribblies, but I wanted her here.

“What is unexpected?”

<Your third quest chain was unlocked when you incorporated the Muir Town faction. Here are the details.>

 

*** Pillar of the Community 1 (K)

A faction’s strength is in its numbers. Establish a second settlement dedicated to the Shattered Goddess on one of the other islands in the Beaver archipelago.

Success: Second settlement established.

Rewards: 3,400 XP, +10 faction influence, and future Pillar of the Community quests.

Failure: If this quest goes incomplete the rest of this quest chain will remain locked and unavailable. ***

 

<This type of quest isn’t all that uncommon, but it is unusual to see it issued to a lawless faction leader or that you are being asked to place another settlement so close to your capital> Quixbix commented.

“Why do you think it popped up when I took Muir? I would have thought, given where I’m supposed to place the settlement, that it wouldn’t have revealed itself until I set foot on one of the other islands.”

<I have a pretty good idea as to why. It’s because you have the town and because Susan is a baroness and still affiliated with you.>

“Really? How come?”

<Founding official Framework recognised settlements is a pain in the ass at this stage of a planet’s integration. There is a load of requirements that make it difficult without having the proper colonisation infrastructure in place. It is much easier to move an existing podium from an abandoned settlement. You can’t do that, as you don’t have the class ability. Susan, as a baroness, does.

<At level three she can only collapse hamlets in this manner and move them within their state of origin. Luckily for us, your islands still count as being in Michigan even if the Shattered Storm is separate from the Michigan State faction.>

“What you’re saying is that I need to keep Susan around to easily complete this quest, despite promising that she could choose to go if she wished.”

<Yeah, boss. But I’m your man on the inside. Give me a few hours to work on convincing Quinntexxis that sticking with us is a better idea than striking out on their own. In the short term, at least.>

“Fucking hell!” Anastasia swore suddenly. “I’ll have to keep them cooped up in there for weeks if we’re relying on the useless sodding imp to sweet talk his ex. I’ve already had to create a couple of bathrooms for them from my energy reserves. How much more do you expect?”

The outburst came out of leftfield, but I could feel her frustration, it pulsed palpably through our bond. Strongly enough that I couldn’t help but discover the real reason for her recent, seemingly erratic, hostility to all and sundry.

I’d not experienced the bond’s connection being quite so visceral and informative before. This could be a side effect of my growing Preternatural Insight skill, or it could be Dean playing lecherous matchmaker. The source didn’t matter, what I did with the knowledge did.

Because the underlying frustration making Anastasia so cranky was sexual in nature.

Anastasia was horny, beyond horny really. I’m not sure if there was even a word to describe her level of horniness.

She was also supremely stubborn and had been determined to wait me out. Have me buckle and use my position to compel her into having sex with me. That stance had been working for her when Shana had been with us.

It seemed that Anastasia was a little shy about sharing her first time in my bed with the leggy elf.

But it had been just the two of us all day, and with the fighting done, her unabated and unsated sex drive had sharply focused on the eminent possibilities.

That’s why she was hanging out in my bedchamber. This was a last-ditch attempt at luring me into breaking first and commanding her presence in my bed.

Well, we’d soon see which of us broke first. With a freshly discovered cheat sheet in hand, I was confident it would be Ana.

“Quix, buddy. Go work your magic on the fairy. I have faith in your silvered tongue. Oh, and give Ana and me some privacy will you.”

<Will do.>

I rolled over and sat on the edge of the bed and crooked my finger at the blonde spitfire, wordlessly calling her over to me. She skipped across the bedroom quickly, her breasts bouncing as she did so. Her beaming smile lit up the room and her eyes flashed with triumph.

Her victory parade was a bit premature, but one thing was for certain. Win or lose we were both going to get what we wanted tonight.

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