Chapter 40: Scene 34 – Flames of Avarice

"It's about time we got to the meat of things." Amanda crossed her legs, sitting on a makeshift throne of books she had assembled. Mars was still squirming from cringe damage, but she couldn't pay the Nebulossom mind; the sooner she escorted these warriors out of her dungeon, the sooner she could clear her den of its depravity. A needling thought in the back of her head reminded her that Holly's iniquity would not be so easy to snuff out; she'd fed her bee-cum to every magical warrior in a three-mile radius, even Amanda herself. Amanda had to dismiss that thought for now and push forward.

"Aye was thinkin' the same," Mercury grumbled, leaning forwards in her beanbag. "Let's start this negotiation straight. Got yer dice?" Mercury picked the oily black dice off the table, coughing up a couple more.

"I've not needed to use them." Amanda folded her palms together neatly, the fingers of her gauntlets intertwining. "I assumed we would use those 'flames of the arbiter' that Gaia brought forth this evening."

Mercury snorted. "Figures that lass does the ritual wrong; she's a whelp, nothing more. Ye'd be sitting on the other side of this table and begging for scraps if'n I'd been the negotiator." Mercury rolled all four dice, and three blue flames sprouted from candles seated amidst the library. "The first thing we do is roll fer Avarice. That's the first step of the ritual the Accords outlined."

Amanda instinctively felt around for her Avarice; a pitiful four. That translated to a single die for herself; Amanda could feel the odds of success were low, given Mercury had dropped four dice. So she rolled her single die across the table, praying for a six...

"This isn't fair. I'm going to walk away from the table." Amanda curled her lips into a frown, stroking the side of her absolutely one-hundred-percent-human face. "You have too many dice, and this negotiation is unfair. I want to go back to threatening the three of you."

"Hold on, lass. These numbers is good for ye." Mercury shook her head, working her silver tongue. "I have twelve Avarice. I'm four times more comp'tent, but I've only got a single flame lead. Ye won't get a better result." Mercury hoped she could convince Amanda to walk into this lopsided negotiation; a single flame advantage could be leveraged several times over with an inexperienced Neverlander.

"You make a good point." Amanda stroked her chin, processing the possibilities. But, of course, if Mercury had rolled the maximum result on her dice, she would have twenty-four, a considerably higher number. (Twenty-four. I wonder how many successes that would be?)

"Thank you, N'as." Amanda nodded, glad to have a calculator in her head.

"So, ye'll continue th'negotiatins?" Mercury folded her arms. The Malice had bought her story, hook-line-and-sinker. Now that she had the creature concerned with the concept of quantity, she would focus on the quality of the negotiating terms.

"I have no idea what you're saying, but yes." Amanda nodded eagerly. "We will negotiate. Teach me how to use these flames."

"Well, the first thing is like, you have to ask for stuff." Luna eased her way into the negotiations, trying to show off her limited intelligence. "And when you make a request, your flames will turn all sorts of pretty colors! Like there's black when you try to blacklist another term of negotiation, or white when you establish a new rule going forwards, and pink if you like the color pink!"

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"Pink if you make a request for your own amusement, you vast idjit." Mercury clonked Luna on her head. "Aye, wouldn't worry much 'bout the colors. They ain't hold meaning to anyone but the System herself." Mercury swiftly smoothed over Luna's explanation with a lie. "All you need to know is you get two terms of the negotiation, and I get three."

Amanda folded her arms, leaning against her throne and unsettling a few books near the top. "Alright. If this is anything like Neverlands Poker, I can ask for anything. I want Venus."

Mercury snorted, internal gizmos humming with joy. Just Venus? She was easy to replace. Her hivemind had a backup template ready back on their planet. "You kin 'ave her. That layabout ain't good for nothing but fillin' her holes. We want Gaia."

Two blue flames snuffed out, one replaced by a bonfire of deep blue and the other replaced by a deep green flame. Mercury calculated the weight of the terms; the deep blue flame usually signifies an act of planetary significance, such as acquiring a nebulossom. That lines up neatly with her expectations; she did ask for Gaia. The green flame represents a change in personnel or the negotiation of hostages; that also follows with the terms she outlined.

"You can't give up Maya." Mars frowned. She felt uneasy about the negotiation herself. "She's our friend and a member of our team."

"Idjit. She's already lost." Mercury huffed. "Do you see her anywhere? Open up yer dull ears and listen for her breath. I know you ain't wearin' your headphones."

Mars closed her mouth, frowning. She couldn't hear Venus; a goddess of sound should be able to pick up even the slightest twitch in a mile radius. "She's nowhere to be found, but... there's an unsettling pulsing above us."

The three Nebulossoms looked up at the ceiling, at last noticing Holly's artistry. Amanda noticed that the bee-mascot stirred with pride as the magical warriors beheld her gift to them. A pulsing cocoon of sparkling pink silk hung limply from the ceiling in place of a chandelier, and dungeon candles were tucked into the side of the fabric. Dark black wax dripped and dribbled from the mass of whimzy, falling onto the floor in wet clumps. Whatever was inside that cocoon, it could not be considered human.

The three Nebulossoms shared a somber moment of reflection. "That's a pandabug nest, al'righ," Mercury muttered. "She can't be saved. Whatever this dungeon did, our friend isn't behind that cocoon. So let's... jus' get back to the negotiations."

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