Chapter 82: Chapter 82: The double-layered vision of pretty flowers and poison

Hineni stands in the forge, leaning back and watching Rhine work. Fire crackles noisily in the room, the air letting out a quiet, constant roar as heat presses out of the furnace next to them.

 

Rhine rubs his face free of sweat, exhaling for a moment before returning to his work.

 

Now with spring having come, the temperatures have risen considerably in contrast with the freezing winter. This makes working in the forge, which was previously almost pleasant, a real chore. Hineni assumes it’s going to take a little while, but they’ll eventually adjust to the shift in temperatures.

 

— At least until the summer comes and it all starts over again.

 

Rhine is currently making a new mold, in order for them to be able to start mass-producing some rather odd weapons today.

 

“I didn’t think a ballista would be very useful in a big forest,” says Rhine. “I wonder what they even want with these?”

 

Hineni shrugs, looking at the schematic for the munitions for the device. A ballista is essentially a massive crossbow, the size of a dinner table, on wheels. It’s only their job to make the arrows, thankfully. Making the actual, wooden device itself is someone else’s problem.

 

“I suppose they’ll build a tower and set it on top of it?” guesses Hineni. “Maybe for fortifying areas.”

 

Rhine shakes his head. “Ballistae aren’t the best defensive weapons for the forest. They’re really great at long range accuracy, which isn’t that available in the thick woods down there.” He rubs the back of his lip. “You need two to three people to man it the whole time and they’d probably be better off if you just gave them all normal crossbows.”

 

“I guess there are bigger things down there than just elves,” replies Hineni. “It makes sense. A good team will probably shoot two arrows a minute,” he explains, looking at the schematic. “If you got something down there like big drakes or some golems, that’ll be a lot more useful than some small crossbows.”

 

“Hmm… I guess…” says Rhine, looking up towards the ceiling for a moment, before then returning to his work.

 

---

 

Sockel’s foot taps against the floorboards as she works.

 

The restaurant is lively today and full to the brim, with people pressing themselves into the booths in groups of six or even up to eight, for those collections of socialite ascetics, who would gladly sacrifice comfort for community.

 

They’ve hired some musicians, some bards to come in and set up shop in the back of the restaurant.

 

It turns out that musicians are both cheap to hire and also desperate for work. For whatever reason, barring the rare, lucky gem among their lot, they just aren’t really that valued in society. Perhaps because their creations are simply more fleeting and less tangible than the works of a sculptor or a painter. Hineni certainly doesn’t envy the road of life that they’ve chosen for themselves, but they seem content enough and were thrilled to get a job at above market rate. So, why not.

 

“They’re not bad,” says Sockel, not looking up from her work as he walks up to the front desk from the side.

 

“Yeah. Could be worse,” says Hineni. Now with the other guild shut down, many people of a non-froggy disposition have begun to come here instead to relax and to drink. Given the tension of their overtaking of the other structure, Hineni thought it would be wise to offer a friendlier atmosphere here for a time. This will help dispel any malevolent illusions of their intentions.

 

Plus, it might also just be a little celebration over their victory against the frogs.

 

“Haven’t we kind of abandoned our imagery?” asks Sockel. “We’re hardly mysterious and dangerous at this point.”

 

Hineni shakes his head.

 

“No. We’ve doubled down on it,” he says, looking around the cheerful room. Despite the avid festivities, he sees that as soon as he turns his head, several people look back to their groups and towards the band, as if they had never looked away at all. “We’re selling a double-layered vision.”

 

“Hmm…” mutters Sockel, scribbling down into her ledger. She lifts her head, thinking for a moment. “Oh. We’re going the ‘restaurant with the secret underground murder basement that actually everyone knows about’ route.”

 

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Hineni nods.

 

They’re presenting a public facade of a friendly, welcoming adventurers’ guild on the surface. Food. Drinks. Music. Beds.

 

But beneath all of that veneer are the secrets, the rumors, the whispers of people who are said to have disappeared, of rivals who have been silenced. All of these secrets are public enough that everyone knows about them, but still low down enough that everyone thinks they’re the only one who knows about them.

 

“If you wanted to become a criminal clan, you could have just said so from the start,” says Sockel. “I would have done the paperwork way differently.”

 

“No,” says Hineni. “This is good,” he says. “This is just what we want.”

 

“If you say so,” replies the elf.

 

“I do,” says Hineni, turning his head towards the side. The quest board is brim full of different notes and requests. “Looks like things are heating up.” His eyes wander over the requests. People are asking for all sorts of odd monsters to be killed out and around the city. Goblins near the farmlands, slimes by the rivers and waterways. He lifts an eyebrow, looking at one note in particular. “Harpies?”

 

“- That’s what you get for sleeping with twitchy bird women,” says Sockel dryly, not looking up from her work.

 

“Sockel. Have some class.”

 

Her pen scratches over the paper. “I know what I said. I stand by it.”

 

Hineni sighs.

 

---

 

“A tree, yes?” asks Obscura.

 

“No,” replies Hineni, shaking his head. She clicks with her mouth in annoyance, spinning her head in a forward circle. “We aren’t going to put a tree in the bedroom.”

 

The owl-god points at the empty corner of their bedroom. “Obscura thinks it would bring life to the nest,” she says.

 

Hineni blinks. “Oh,” he says, realizing. “You want it as a decoration.” He shakes his head. “I thought you wanted to sleep in it,” he says.

 

“She does,” says Obscura. “But gracious Obscura will forfeit the opportunity, in order to stay down here with her Hineni-man.” She thinks, tapping the side of her waist with a talon as she stares at him. “Unless… maybe the two of them will get a very big tree, yes?” she offers. “Then there will be three and they can fit on the tree together as two, which will lead to one.”

 

Hineni lifts his head, looking at the ceiling of the roof. “We don’t really have the head space,” he says, pointing up towards the ceilings that are, while high, certainly not high enough for a ‘very big tree’.

 

“Who~” hoots the owl-god. “Very well. Then she will simply accept the fate that she has been given,” says Obscura. “But there must be more plants, yes?” she asks. “The house is very brown. It is like a sad tree in winter,” she notes, walking towards him. “But now the spring is here,” explains Obscura. “So the house too must become green, like the forests.”

 

Hineni tilts his head, holding onto her hand, which is against his chest. “Sure. I mean, I guess we can afford more house-plants?” he says, shrugging and looking around the room. Maybe it is all a little bare and ‘pragmatic’, as far as a home goes. A few extra, fresh touches wouldn’t go amiss and maybe it will play into exactly what he was talking about with Sockel before. Besides, his mother always kept this place as green as a meadow. Maybe now’s the time to get that tradition restored.

 

He nods. “Okay. Let’s go find a gardener or a herbalist or whoever,” he says, walking out of the room and pulling her along. “Honestly, I don’t even know.”

 

“Who~!” hoots Obscura excitedly. “Then they shall hunt the flower-master together,” she says, closing the door to their bedroom behind them as they leave.

 

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