Beam POV: Day 78

Current Wealth: 229 gold 37 silver 6 copper

Solitaire had been right about one thing, the new steel was exceptionally good. Once Ardin had finally figured out the process of working it, that was. He took his sweet time in doing it, apparently far less economical with the samples he was being handed once he found out we could keep making more with Corvan. What we heard from Xangô, about the new attentions of one Lord Arcroft and his gang of bastards, was seemingly too insignificant to meaningfully hurry the smith. It would’ve been admirable, if it weren’t my neck he was gambling with alongside his own.

A few new factors came into play now that we knew we were dealing with potential adversity, and making things that any idiot could possibly mimic here. The first was the need for a more secure workstation. Solitaire, unsurprisingly, was the one who gathered all of us up to discuss that.

“We need a defensible location.” He explained. “Somewhere safe, easily warded, does your new girlfriend have any ideas?” He directed the question at Xangô, who did not seem particularly bothered to have Phelia’s relation to him misstated. Perhaps he was just used to Solitaire’s Solitairisms.

“She doesn’t own any property.” He replied, coolly. “Except for her family estate, which I’m not sure she’d be okay with us using.”

“It’s not up to her though, right?” Solitaire pointed out. “You’re in charge of the family now.”

Xangô blinked, thoughtful.

“I’d rather not just boss a woman around, all domineering like that.” He noted. “I mean, you know, I was born in the 21st century, however things are here I still have certain…Values.”

Solitaire placed his hand down on Xangô’s shoulder, nodding in empathetic consideration, then met his eye.

“Stop being a bitch and tell the cunt we’re moving in.” He said, simply. Xangô glared at him.

“Don’t call her a cunt.” He replied, calmly. Solitaire stared at him.

“Pardon?”

I took a step back, sensing what was coming. Xangô took a step forward.

“She’s my wife now, my family, please don’t call her a cunt.”

Solitaire eyed Xangô in a way I’d not quite seen him do in a long time. I was speaking up before he could.

“I think we’re all getting distracted here.” I noted. “We’re talking about moving our stuff, how do we do that exactly? Carriage?”

Both of them glanced at me, distractedly, and nodded.

“Yes.” They said in unison, and Xangô sighed before continuing.

“I’ll tell Phelia we’re using one of the spare rooms, you all get ready to move.”

He was off soon after, so quickly that it only dawned on me after he’d already left that we’d all been left with the job of hauling the heavy equipment onto a carriage.

“Typical.” Solitaire sighed, preparing to do just that. I bent down to offer him a hand, as the two of us hauled our new furnace up while Argar and Helena headed outside for the carriage. It was easier than it would have been a few months ago, which was to say, it was possible. The furnace must’ve weighed close to half a tonne, at least, but we hauled it up to knee level and carried it over next to the door to wait for their arrival.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

We weren’t waiting long, but it was still enough time to get plenty of other lugging done. The distilling gear from Solitaire’s gunpowder manufactury, our remaining supplies of coal, even a few work desks and tables- why not, after all. They might even have helped to disguise the actually unique equipment.

Through it all, we eyed Corvan as he waited in one corner of the room.

“Oh don’t rush to help.” Solitaire snapped, after one particularly heavy desk refused to budge under his own strength. “I’m sure your fucking magic powers wouldn’t be of much help anyway, really, just stay as you are and relax.”

Corvan eyed him through his bushy brows and beard, a pipe pinched between his teeth, wisping smoke out into the room.

“Magic is good for many things.” The magus replied. “The greatest force in Redacle, perhaps the universe, but it is not to be used for trivialities such as lifting desks and hauling luggage.”

Solitaire shot back instantly, as I might have expected. The sentiment was a common one shared by magi in our book, and almost always with the intent of giving some veiled, esoteric reason for why it would be vaguely untenable for them to help with more mundane matters like manual labour.

Obviously, it wasn’t the sort of excuse that would work with a person who’d helped to fucking invent their culture in the first place.

“That’s a pile of wank, and we both know it, you’re just lazy.”

Corvan opened his mouth to argue, then Solitaire cut in.

“Your people are taught early in training to use that excuse because it’s part of a carefully-woven layer of cultural mystique that keeps you seeming unreachable and superior, one of the many things that have kinds taking your advice and commoners trembling in fear of you.”

The magus eyed him, weary now, and Solitaire continued.

“Sadly, your moron fear mongering has the same weakness that every other example of its use was prone to throughout history. Knowledge. You’ll have to find more ignorant targets to try it on than us, I’m afraid.”

“Where are you from?” Corvan asked, thoughtful, now, rather than bitter or smug. “You know things you shouldn’t know, far too many things. I’ve heard you discuss “Earth”, your homeland, where is it?”

Solitaire shrugged, dismissing the barbed question as if it were no more than some idle observation.

“I don’t see why I need to tell you that, ask Xangô if you’re so curious. Then again, you tried to burn him to death too.”

Corvan held Solitaire’s stare.

“You know why I joined up with you, I assume?”

“Because you know we’re going to be powerful one day, and you want to get all the good will you can while we’re still weak enough for it to come easily.”

The magus nodded, unfazed.

“One day.” He echoed. “And if it looks like that day won’t come, because you pissed off the wrong person or picked the wrong fight, I’m gone.”

Solitaire met his gaze, nodding. He didn’t look the least bit surprised. Solitaire never did, when people spoke to him of betrayal.

“Then I guess we’ll be careful not to fuck up.” He answered, then grunted as I added my muscles to his, and we worked to haul the last of our stuff over to the door. It was just in time, too, because outside a carriage waited. Not the shoddy, small kind we’d sent Argar and Helena for though. This one was tall, pulled by proud horses, made of polished wood and so evidently expensive I half expected it to glow.

A woman was standing beside it, with hair as gold as the trim of her possessions and eyes as green as grass. She smiled the way an angel might, though her lip curled slightly as she moved across the grimy road to speak with us.

“Solitaire and Beam, yes?” She asked. “Belahonts. Xangô sent me, my husband. It’s a pleasure to meet you, brothers-in-law.”

I extended a hand, then quickly lowered it as I remembered this region’s customs on women shaking the hands of men. Simply smiling instead.

“It’s lovely to meet you, too.” I beamed. “You’re here to help us transfer our, uh, equipment?”

“I am.” She replied, eyes twinkling in a way that told me she wasn’t at all as reluctant as Xangô had predicted. “Shall we get a move on? I’m rather eager to see what you can all do with it.”