Chapter 17

“Alright! Alright! Alright!”

Why does she keep saying that?

Liane Wagner, arms crossed, followed at a safe distance as two Soul Eaters drew a freight wagon down the subterranean ramp of the Demihuman Quarter.

Four Death Knights stood at each corner of the vehicle, ready to stabilize it should it tip over the more rugged stretches of terrain. A dozen metres in front of them was a Vampire Bride, who was directing the wagon forward with two glowing batons. It wore a strange yellow helmet made of some unknown material that Liane itched to find out more about.

“Why do you suppose she says that?” Florine mused from beside her.

“Beats me,” Liane replied. “All these Undead servitors are supposed to be able to communicate without speaking.”

“Maybe it’s for everyone else’s benefit?” Florine offered, “It’d be dangerous to be in the way.”

“Maybe,” Liane eyed the glowing batons as they waved back and forth. “Think they’ll tell us what that equipment’s made out of?”

“You shouldn’t be too greedy,” Florine told her. “There’s already so much for you to do. It’s not as if you can do anything about it right away.”

Probably not, but it didn’t hurt to ask. The wagon slowed as it approached a section of smoothed stone along the promenade’s inner ring. Several Dwarves awaited them.

“So this here’s yer beasty, eh?”

“Yep,” Liane grinned proudly.

The Dwarf grunted.

“Less ugly than I thought it’d be. The Gobs’re still doing some last-minute checks in the tunnels. Something happened to their boss, so they ran a bit late.”

“Is he alright?” Florine’s voice was laced with concern, “What happened to him?”

The Dwarves exchanged wordless glances with one another.

“Should probably ask ‘em yerself,” one of them replied. “We probably heard it wrong – something lost in translation, maybe.”

As they waited, a small crowd of the Quarter’s denizens started to gather around them. It wasn’t the best sort of crowd – most Demihumans probably wouldn't get much use out of her newest product – but the location in the capital would serve well as a convenient place to demonstrate its capabilities to future clients.

“Have we missed it?”

A familiar voice called out from behind Liane.

“Heyo,” Liane raised a hand into the air without turning around. “And no – they’re just making some last-minute checks before they hook everything up.”

Clara appeared at her side. Liane did a double-take when she realized Ludmila was there too.

Countess Corelyn had her arm wrapped around her friend’s elbow. Despite not seeing them together for so long, they still looked as close as always. Baroness Zahradnik lowered her head respectfully.

“Forgive me for the belated congratulations on your promotion, Countess Wagner,” Ludmila said. “And my apologies for so abruptly sending Dame Verilyn to you when you’re so busy.”

“S’ok, s’ok,” Liane waved her apology away. “Things happen. More things are lookin’ up than down, so what do I have to complain about?”

“That’s good to hear,” Lady Zahradnik said. “I still have a mountain of work to catch up to, after all that’s happened. How is the title treating you?”

“Pretty good, pretty good,” Liane couldn’t keep a fresh smile from creeping onto her face. “I ran out of money, though.”

Ludmila furrowed a brow in disbelief.

“House Wagner can run out of money?”

“Heck ya!” She said, “Happens all the time. That doesn’t mean I’m poor. House Wagner always puts its assets to work, so we regularly run out of liquidity. Things’ll be tight for a while, though: I’m trying to charter two new towns on the highway. I ain’t like a certain other Countess that has more money than she knows what to do with.”

“With only the Empire and the Dwarf Kingdom fully open for trade, it’s difficult,” Clara said. “Re-Estize seems like a hopeless case since the summer harvest, but at least traffic from the south is starting to pick up again.”

The damn woman didn’t even bat an eyelash, and she made everything seem so modest. As she had mentioned, merchant traffic from the Theocracy and beyond was slowly starting to trickle in again. What wasn’t mentioned was that merchant traffic from the south didn’t stop in E-Rantel. Everyone was still wary of the Undead nature of their new sovereign, but they still needed to travel through the Sorcerous Kingdom to get to the lands beyond.

Clara conveniently provided the answer for them in the form of her newly chartered towns. The merchants were more than happy to trade in Corelyn Harbour, whose population exclusively worshipped The Six and culture closely reflected their own. After that, the merchants went straight on to Re-Estize or the Empire. In effect, Countess Corelyn had shrewdly monopolized the southern trade that once flowed through the city. She even caught the trade coming from Re-Estize and the Empire headed south.

As more and more merchants returned to business as usual, her decisive move would pay off exponentially. The central administration, for their part, did not care. Goods that they would have never otherwise imported flowed steadily into the city in a sort of secondary trade route, proper accounts were being kept, taxes were being paid and the neighbours got to see what a nice place their new kingdom was. His Majesty's mandates were being fulfilled far beyond the intent of their letter.

Behind the beautiful visage of the Radiant Jewel of the Riverlands was a terrifying woman indeed. She could manipulate culture, mass perception, politics and regional economics with seemingly nothing more than a whim. The sort of vassal that lesser rulers feared, but the Sorcerous Kingdom demanded more of.

“M-my Ladies.”

A timid voice sounded from behind them. Liane looked over her shoulder, then down.

“Oh, if it isn’t Zu Chiru,” she said. “Went and found yourself a wife, eh?”

The light-furred Quagoa beside him fluffed up in affront.

“It’s me, Lady Wagner,” she said.

“Sorry, but I ain’t falling for that scam. There are no Quagoa princesses.”

“Wha…”

Liane looked back over at Zu Chiru, then at the Demihumans all around them. Then she looked at Ludmila.

“Is it safe for you to be here?” She asked her.

“What do you mean?” Ludmila frowned.

“You’re a Ranger, right?” Liane said, “One of ‘em Demihuman annihilators. I’m surprised you haven’t caused a mass panic just by standing there.”

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Ludmila scanned the area around her, but no one seemed to pay her any mind. Zu Chiru should have probably had a heart attack just from being that close to her.

“Now that you mention it,” Baroness Zahradnik replied, “Demihumans don’t appear to react that way to me anymore. I feel like I’ve lost my touch when it comes to dealing with them.”

“Huh,” Liane said. “That’s weird. You’re still a Ranger, yeah?”

“I am.”

“I wonder what you’re specialized in dealing with now.”

“Humans.”

Liane and Florine looked over at Ludmila with twin frowns. Clara remained attached to Ludmila’s elbow. Liane stepped over to the other side of Florine. Could Ludmila not so casually say such horrifying things?

“That’s…that’s a joke, right?”

“Probably not,” Ludmila replied with a straight face. “I’ll find out for sure one of these days.”

How?

No – she didn’t want to know the answer. Some things just weren’t worth knowing. Liane tapped her foot as she awkwardly looked around for something to distract her. Her gaze fell upon Zu Chiru again.

“Oh yeah,” she reached into her Infinite Haversack. “That thing I said I was going to get you finally came in.”

Zu Chiru looked up at her curiously.

“What thing?”

“Y’know, the thing,” she motioned vaguely with her free hand as she dangled out a pendant. “At first, I thought about having some protective goggles crafted for you, but then I remembered that they sell these in Karnassus.”

The Quagoa merchant sniffed at it curiously.

“There are some dayblind races out there,” Liane explained, “so they make these necklaces for ‘em. You don’t have to worry about being caught out in the sun or artificial lighting anymore.”

“Oh…” Zu Chiru raised the pendant in awe, “With this, one of the great banes of our kind is vanquished! Dear wife, help me put this on, please.”

“I’m not your wife!” Dame Verilyn replied testily.

Despite declaring this, she snatched the necklace and tied it around Zu Chiru’s neck.

Well, that’s amusing…

“Hey, Ludmila.”

“Yes?”

“You were trying to make sure Dame Verilyn would be ready for her job in a few months, right?”

“Yes, was there a problem?”

“More like a solution,” Liane replied. “Zu Chiru wants to go to the Empire, too. We can send ‘em as a couple – they’ll be afforded all the leeway they need when it comes to out of place behaviour.”

“D-do you hear that, dear wife?” Zu Chiru chittered excitedly, “We are an official couple now!”

“I’m not your wife!” Dame Verilyn snapped, “Lady Zahradnik, please…”

“Do you think it will work?”

“My lady!”

“It should,” Liane nodded. “The Empire has plenty of Demihuman Merchants that come to trade from the east. They even have Adventurers that are Demihumans. They’ve always been a part of imperial trade, so the Empire’s citizens won’t have any of the traces of bigotry like the people around here still do.”

Though Liane only had a cursory awareness of their body language, the Quagoa that was Dame Verilyn looked hilariously distraught. Ludmila turned to face her vassal.

“I don’t see why you have to put on that expression,” she said. “I know how insecure you become when you visit places unknown to you. It’ll be good to travel with a familiar face. You’ll take care of Dame Verilyn, won’t you, Zu Chiru?”

The Quagoa Merchant went as stiff as a steel rod at her question.

“Y-yes mother!” He squeaked, “This Zu Chiru will protect your precious daughter with his life!”

“Does that make me the father?” Clara mused.

“Argh!”

Laughter filled the promenade. Nearby, a stone plate was pushed up from the ground. The head of a Goblin popped up. After looking around momentarily, she pulled herself out, followed by a half dozen of her fellows.

“All done?” Liane asked.

“All done,” one of them gave her a thumbs-up. “We late – bad.”

“We’re still on schedule,” Liane said. “What happened to your boss, by the way?”

Like the Dwarves, the Goblins exchanged sidelong glances.

“Dumb thing,” one of the Goblins waved a hand dismissively. “Boss gone crazy in head.”

“Not crazy!” The Goblin boss fumed, “Is true thing!”

“So what happened?” Liane asked.

The Goblins sighed. Except for their boss. He shuffled in closer, eyes wide.

“Late last night,” his voice was barely a whisper. “Was going to bed. Then…breasts fell out of the sky.”

Liane glanced at Florine. Florine punched her in the arm. Did her new title not count for anything? Rubbing what would surely be a bruise in a few hours, she leaned forward.

“…breasts? Just to be sure, you mean uh, tits, right? Funbags? Mommy milkers?”

The Goblin boss nodded his head energetically, and the other Goblins groaned.

“The…the…Mommy Milkers fell from the sky,” he moved his arms in wide, grasping motions. "Before I could flee…it was so soft, so nice. Try to escape, but cannot. Cannot move, cannot breathe. Everything goes black. When wake up, sun already in the sky. Late.”

A long silence extended after his account. Clara and Ludmila cast blank expressions at the Goblin.

“So some sort of pervert attacked you in your bed,” Ludmila said. “Suffocating you with their breasts.”

The Frontier Noble’s voice was mixed. It was a feat that was clearly beyond her capabilities. Would she seek justice? Justice for the plains faction?

“Did you report it to one of the local militia posts?” Florine asked, “This is assault, isn’t it?”

“Yeah right,” Liane scoffed. “I can imagine that right now. You’ll be brought in as prime suspect–ow! Do you know how stupid this sounds for everyone involved? Once the judiciary issues an advisory, half of the men in the city will start sleeping on hammocks outside, praying to become the next victim.”

“That’s horrible!”

“It’s true!” Liane returned, “Let’s just preserve the dignity of the Sorcerous Kingdom and move on. We need to get everything set up – can’t be standing here forever.”

The Vampire Bride resumed her direction of the wagon, now with the assistance of the Dwarf contractors. After the device was set on its mountings, the Goblins went to attach several pipes to it. The Death Knights screwed long steel rods into the central shaft, then took their positions behind each one.

“Let’s give it a dry run first,” Liane told them. “Lemme know if you feel anything off.”

As one, the Death Knights stepped forward, marching in an endless circle as they drove the shaft. Liane couldn’t hear anything amiss, and there didn’t appear to be any difficulties after several minutes.

“First switch,” she called out, licking her lips.

One of the Death Knights reached up to pull a lever overhead as it passed by. The gear slipped into place with a clink. Five minutes later, a hollow gurgling sound filled the air. Muddy runoff filled the trench that the Goblins had crawled out of.

“Works?” The Goblin boss said.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” one of the Dwarves exclaimed. “It worked!”

“Of course it worked!” Liane huffed, “Just who do you think designed this? Throw the second switch!”

They went through the second, third and fourth switches. Liane crossed her arms with a supremely satisfied look.

“I suppose I’ll have to buy a few dozen,” Clara said. “Is there anyone ahead of me?”

“I still don’t know what this thing is,” Lady Zahradnik muttered.

“This thing is a pump!” Liane told her, “Or more accurately, a pumping station. It draws water from the lake on the lowest level here, then uses it to wash all the sewage from the quarter into the mushroom grottos below. The second switch opens a channel that will flush excess out into the city sewers. Third pumps it out to the lake on the surface. Fourth is the emergency overflow. It can handle four channels at once, with fifty times the throughput of those old screws that everyone’s been using until now.”

“If you use Death Warriors instead, will it be able to do even more?”

The prototype at home could handle Soul Eaters, so Liane couldn’t see why not.

“That’s up to the operator,” Liane said. “I just sell the pump – the Sorcerous Kingdom provides the power.”

“You’ll be booked up for years,” one of the Dwarf contractors said. “A piece of machinery like this must’ve taken months to build.”

Liane grinned. Including the prototype, it had taken her main workshop a week. Soon, every place that used pumps – mines, irrigated fields, water locks, aqueducts and sewer systems – would be clamouring for her new product. Assuming they had the power to run it, of course. Precisely machined out of steel, using the rock-bottom costs of Runecraft. It was a piece of equipment that would last a thousand years.

She would be retooling her demesne workshops over the next few weeks, but she was already wondering what she would roll out next.