Chapter Thirty-Five - Matronly Maid

Alex had been given a solemn mission by his boniest of fathers. Go with Mem, and make sure she and her many siblings were settled.

Alex didn't expect this to be anything but hard. Mem herself was kindly and nice, but also sometimes a little slow to understand and a bit... well, it wasn't kind to say, so Alex decided to refrain from even thinking it. Suffice to say that Mem was a nice young woman.

Rem was a troublesome person to work with, but Alex felt like they knew each other well enough now that they could be coworkers. Perhaps not the greatest of coworkers, but there was always an understandable amount of rivalry between a maid and a butler. It was to be expected, and it wasn't necessarily harmful as long as chores got done.

Now, these two served as the baseline for the level of difficulty Alex knew that the other mantises would pose. Alex was unsurprised to learn that Mem and Rem were actually some of the more even-tempered and easy to work with members of their family.

The sect had plenty of rooms to house all of the mantises. Alex numbered the rooms for convenience, and immediately found trouble when Mem's sibling One didn't want to have room seven, and then Six refused room four. Two got the second room, but Two hated the number two with a burning passion and was quite cross about it.

Alex had just finished sorting that out when she discovered a mantis, dead, in the pantry. It was, apparently, a mantis called Ded. This wasn't the first to have that name, confusingly. It was apparently a fairly common one in their family, passed on frequently.

This was, at least, what the three mantises who promised to help her solve the case said. Det, Tec and Tiv turned out to be more trouble than help. They kept making grand statements and accusations, linking random factoids about people they saw with the crime scene.

Det was certain that the murderer had to be a cook, because the death happened in a pantry. She bet her favourite pipe on it.

Tec insisted that Ded's death was natural. Mantises called Ded never made it long and this one was overdue to die.

Tiv wondered aloud whether they had done the murder themselves and just forgot about it. She offered up her deerstalker to anyone who could prove that she hadn't done it.

Alex discovered that Ded had found and eaten an entire package of rat poison they'd found in the pantry. Their face was still covered in powder and the crushed package was in their scythes.

Alex dragged the body in the cellar and left a note to Seventeen about it. The necromancer would be able to do something with that. It wasn't a maid's job to raise the dead, just to ensure that their remains are well tended to.

Once all the mantises were sorted, Alex ensured that they'd be fed and watered, as a good host ought to. Unfortunately, as the only maid in a household with dozens of guests, Alex had to entrust some of the work unto others. That meant hiring catering and cleaning services from the community, and conscripting some of the undead to distribute food to the mantises directly.

Alex was worried that the locals might end up as lunch while delivering lunch, which would be wholly unacceptable. The mantises weren't civilised just yet, though, and so certain concessions had to be made.

Unfortunately, Alex didn't have the time to train them all. It had taken Rem weeks to get where she was now, and Alex suspected it would take years more for Rem to be able to sit down at a table and have a polite meal with someone.

Alex had to go, however. The maid did what could be done, then said goodbye to the Limpet who didn't seem to want to let go when it was time for goodbye hugs. "Do you have to leave?" she asked as she pressed her face into the crook of Alex's neck.

"I'm afraid so, yes," Alex said. "Daddy needs me by his side, and I intend to be there, as a dutiful maid ought. But don't worry, I know that Daddy has been preparing things to make your life easier?"

"By sending me forty-odd mantises with no manners?" the Limpet asked.

"One died!"

The Limpet didn't seem very reassured about it.

"He's also secured the help of some mountain dwarves. If not military aid, then at least they'll likely be open to trade with. I don't know too much about the dwarven economy, but I think they appreciate alcohol."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"Hmm, we do have some of that here, I think. I'll see if I can't buy up a lot of it before the local merchants hear about the trade. We might be able to tax it at the gate if Master Harold is planning on leaving this portal up as a means to trade with them. It can act as a toll. Oh, and we can let it slip to other merchants from towns nearby, and the Lave Fist sect might be keen to get some dwarven-made things. They're good with metallurgy, aren't they?"

"I think so," Alex agreed while hiding a private little smile from the Limpet. She'd do alright if her first instinct on hearing this kind of news was to try and see how to best profit from it.

After another hug, Alex wished the Limpet a good day and stepped back into the portal.

In a blink, Alex was back in the mantis' den. Or former den, as the case might be. It felt a lot more still and quiet without all the mantises present.

The only person here now was Alex's bone daddy. He was sitting on that large throne, right on the very edge of it with an elbow on his knees and a strange object in his other hand which he was carefully inspecting.

Alex approached and stood a respectful distance away, hands folded just-so and skirts settling properly. The Bone Master's eyes glowed slightly brighter for a fraction of a second, acknowledging Alex's presence, but he didn't seem ready to speak just yet.

That was fine. A maid's job was to be available, and so Alex would remain so until the master required otherwise.

It took some five minutes or so before the Osteodaddy changed his sitting position and raised the object up. "What does this look like to you?" he asked.

Alex eyed the thing. It looked like a small wooden case, about a handspan long and wide and half as tall. There was an intricate clasp on the front made of filigreed silver. Tiny skulls were etched into the sides of the case all around the edge of it, and the metal parts were carefully worked to resemble a skull with a closed mouth. The clasp was at the jaws, and Alex supposed that the skull's mouth would open as the lock was undone. "It looks like a small case, maybe for jewellery," Alex said.

"Hmm hmm, that's an accurate enough guess," he said.

Alex leaned forwards slightly. "It's decorated. Skulls and silver over a darker wood. Very much the style Bone Father would employ, I think. Subtle but rich, without being ostentatious."

He nodded. "It's one of mine, yes." Turning the box around, he pulled the skull's mouth open and then inserted the tip of a finger into the keyhole. A twist of his wrist and the clasp clicked satisfyingly.

The box opened.

Within was a velvety cushion, deep red with three groves. One of these, the middlemost, was occupied by an oval device. Brass worked around a central gem with a row of tiny vacuum tubes sticking out of it.

It felt like Alex's dad. "Is that one of your souls?" Alex asked.

"It is indeed," he replied. "And as you can no doubt tell, there's room for more. These are models seven, eight and nine." He tapped the phylactery in the centre, which had an eight engraved onto it.

"Did you sense the seventh and ninth?" Alex asked.

"Not around here, no," he replied before clacking the box shut. "Which of course begs the question; where exactly are they if not here? I sensed that one, at least, was with the Mantis Queen, and her level of strength did indicate years of syphoning off the top. She was supplementing that, of course. A steady diet of cultivators, dwarves, likely her own children."

Alex wasn't sure who the Mantis Queen was, they wished they knew so that they could better keep up with the conversation.

"The clasp isn't broken, and the spellwork on this case is still intact. I found it by the throne amongst other baubles. The phylactery itself was being used to empower another one of these... celestial bongs. Which means that someone broke into this case without breaking into it. It seems like there's someone rather clever out there, Alex, and I'm not sure how I feel about that."

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