Monster Party Book 4: I slither like a viper and get you by the neck.

Chapter Two: So glad I got the f**k out of our hometown

"So what can you tell us about Nova Vassa Mirri?" Alexander Diamondclaw inquired as the group departed from the antique store and stepped out into the streets of Kantora.

"What exactly do you want to hear? I got out of this place a long time ago..." Mirri replied being careful not to say exactly how long, less someone overhear her and decide to start paying particularly close attention to the group.

"I'm still not sad about shaking its dust from my feet either. I stopped being into ponies a long time ago, and that's all this place really has going for it, horses, horses, and more horses.

All the best horses in the world come from Nova Vassa and we make sure to only sell geldings to foreigners to stay in unquestioned control of the supply. If anyone ever found a way to smuggle even a single Nova Vassan stallion into Barovia they'd go down in the history books as being the Strahd Von Zarovich of crime." She reflected.

After about five seconds she spun around, her red eyes wide and pleading.

"You know Sir, a thought occurs..." She began.

"No Mirri." Alexander instantly declared.

"We wouldn't even have to start breaking laws till we got to the border you know. I can put on the right sort of airs since I doubt looking down your nose at the Vistani who often actually raise the horses will go out of fashion before the Lawgiver hands out his Final Judgment! We tell them I'm a representative of some noble family or other..." She continued.

"No Mirri." Alexander repeated.

"To pay for it we're going to need to acquire a lot of local coinage, no wait maybe we don't! We make it seem like we're buying the horse to use as a ringer in some big important sporting event which is why we want to do it legally but without a lot of fanfare or direct traces to what noble family I'm a member of." She suggested.

"No Mirri." Alexander reiterated.

"Once we have the horse, that's when the fun really starts... I think we should probably repaint its coat a different color just to be on the safe side, Cal can help with that. Still, to actively get it out of Nova Vassa we'll need something like a minor goblin incursion out of Tepest to scare off the boarder guards..." The black haired woman continued to plot.

"Mirri, we're not doing it and that's final. There are more important things in this world than grand theft equine.

Besides, even if you could carry off this particular scheme, how do you plan to prove you did it once the horse is accord the boarder? Have some artist paint a picture of you riding it and attach a note saying 'this is a real pure blood Nova Vassan stallion that I have stolen' and hope that they're willing to take an admitted criminal at their word?" Alexander pointed out.

Mirri pouted heavily went back to walking down the street.

"Ugh, you're no fun any more.

Why do you have to be so reasonable and logical about everything? The worst part is you're probably right, I bet somebody already has pulled it off but it's kept hush hush so that nobody has to admit to being at fault.

Anyway, aside from the horses, the only thing that Nova Vassa has plenty of is jerks. Jerks, jerks, jerks, jerks jerks, and that's putting it mildly.

The rich people are all pompous assholes who are intent on squeezing the peasants for every single copper they can.

Meanwhile, the poor people are all thieves and brigands of one sort or another who are intent on swindling as many of their fellows as possible in the vain hope that some day they can become a pompous rich asshole!

All of it dressed up in nice words about duty, honor and devotion, with the priests chanting about how it's only natural for the rich to be wealthy because they were born with the favor of the Lawgiver.

There are all sorts of fancy mounted games, but if you ask me. the national sport should be spraying perfume on horseshit.

There's nothing good about this place, nobody is going to deal anything close to fairly with us, and if we're smart the sooner we make plans to leave the better. I don't know why the Mists thought to bring us here, but if anything important has changed I certainly can't see it!" Mirri spat bitterly.

"Well there was that undead cat and the coffin that supposedly came from the Kantora Bluffs..." Devi pointed out evenly.

Mirri waved such concerns away dispassionately.

"One undead cat so mangy not even flees would touch it barely counts in the grand scheme of things Elf Lass." The black haired woman insisted.

"Oh lets go see the market!" Suggested James Firecat eagerly pointing in the direction a great deal of noise and scents were coming from.

Mirri hung her head and huffed in irritation.

"Sure, why don't we go spend our time having various people try to hawk us overpriced low quality crud that's they probably stole from someone else so recently the original owner is still looking for it! Shopping in Nova Vassa, it's not just our prices that are a steal!" She noted sarcastically.

Florence placed a calming hand on Mirri's shoulder to keep her from continuing her tirade even further.

"We went to bed in an inn, and we woke up in coffins. The Mists want us to be in Nova Vassa... do you really believe that you can outrun the Mists? It'd be as foolish as trying to outrun Gaia upon whose soil we eternally stand." She pointed out.

Mirri contemplated her words for a moment and then her shoulder's slumped.

"I don't always stand on the ground... however I will admit that if the Mists feel like taking us here all the way from Kartakass, they could probably do the same from Barovia or Tepest.

Fine, lets go see what cat needs to be rescued from what tree, and what villain needs to be taught a stern lesson about how evil never prospers before we're allowed to leave. James lead on, you have a never ceasing talent for finding people who are down on their luck and in need of help." Mirri suggested in a deadpan monotone.

XXX XXX XXX

Despite the fact that Kantora was the capital of Nova Vassa the particular market that James had suggested they walk through seemed to cater mostly to the lower class. Thus while there was a great deal for sale, none of it didn't have a much better quality version being sold elsewhere at reasonably higher prices.

Alexander only needed to take one good look at most of the "meat" products being sold to figure out that he wasn't quite that hungry, not yet at least.

Still, after half an hour or so of mostly aimless wandering one stall in particular ended up drawing the group's interest, even if it wasn't because of what they were selling.

"Look, I'll get what I owe you, I promise. I just need a few days..." A gaunt woman whimpered.

She was talking to two men, both of them had black hair and blue eyes, one of them was dressed in ring mail armor and holding a club while the other was dressed in unremarkable robes and held a cloth bag in both hands.

"Mirri... is this that bit you mentioned before, the poor victimizing each other?" James asked, suspecting that what was taking place surely had to be some manner of illegal.

Mirri however just sniffed in disapproval and shook her head.

"I guess one thing has changed, now there seem to be all these middle class assholes, who if I don't miss my guess probably enjoy lording over their lessers even more than the rich assholes do since it's the only way they can forget how much the upper class lord over them directly." Mirri theorized.

James just blinked a few times in confusion having trouble following her.

"The fat one is a tax collector, and the other one a soldier in the service of the Bolshnik family, I can tell by the symbol of a snake curling around an axe on his hat. The woman probably made the mistake of thinking that food was more important than keeping certain palm's greased." She explained.

A moment later the tax man motioned towards his companion, who leaned heavily on one shelf of the woman's stall.

There was a harsh cracking noise and some of her goods were sent rolling haphazardly into the street.

"Oops." The militiaman declared in a voice so devoid of regret that even James could tell his actions had been intentional.

"That bully! Taxes are supposed to be about building new roads and making sure that Falkovnia doesn't invade, not making people suffer!" James huffed in irritation.

There was a pathetic mewling sound as a cat with visible ribs emerged from somewhere. It rubbed itself against the woman's legs for a few moments before turning to try and do the same to the two men.

The militiaman pulled back his right leg clearly intending to punt the poor animal as far as he possibly could, but before his kick got a chance to connect the beleaguered stall owner picked up the cat and began to stroke it nervously.

"Are you done?" She begged them, clearly worried that the two would inflict still more damage to her meager belongings before they left.

"That must be the reason you can't pay, you're wasting your money feeding that cat. Why it's fatter than you are! But we'll soon fixed that..." The tax collector promised before motioning towards his more martial companion again.

The militiaman reached for the cat's neck, and in response it hissed and struck out with its claws before jumping from the woman's arms and vanishing into the crowd among a sea of human legs.

"He, he scratched me!" The man complained holding out his hand.

Sure enough, his leather glove had been torn clean through and there were four gashes in his hand, gashes that looked like they had been delivered by something much more vicious (and much larger) than an everyday alley cat.

"It serves you right." James stated with complete and utter certainty.

"That cat never tried to hurt you, and you were going to strangle it for fun! More to the point, how do you expect this poor woman to ever pay her the taxes she owes you if you keep breaking her property?" He added warming to the topic.

"Oh great fuzz face is going to get us into..." Cal began but he got no further before Mirri elbowed him in the stomach.

"Shut up, shut up, shut up! Lower class people NEVER openly mouth off to their betters in Nova Vassa... this is gonna be great!" Mirri predicted with an almost unseemly degree of delight in her voice.

"Who in the name of the Sacred Spear are you?" The militiaman demanded.

"Yes, I want to make sure that YOUR taxes are payed up!" The bureaucrat added with obvious predatory relish.

"My name is James Fir-ey-cah and I don't see how I could possibly owe you people any taxes since I'm not from around here and I only just arrived in Nova Vassa less than an hour ago." Announced James Firecat proudly, allowing his Lower Mordentish accent to play heavily upon the pronunciation of his last name, giving it a full three syllables instead of the two that it would have in Balok or Vassi.

"How did you only just arrive in Nova Vassa an hour ago and already reach Kantora?" The bean counter prompted, suspecting that something must be amiss somewhere.

"Well it's pretty simple really, I went to bed in Kartakass, and I woke up in an antique shop in Kantora." James told them point blank.

This explanation won him a pair of very disbelieving looks.

"The shop's owner, Nicolai Androv can vouch for the truth of that particular matter, he saw all six of us get out of coffins in his store." Alexander added not wanting to let James dig himself in too deep if possible.

"Hmm... I will be inquiring with him soon enough just to be on the safe side. As for the matter at hand though, if you are a foreigner you should not bother Nova Vassan officials attempting to carry out their sanctioned duties." The taxman declared while the militiaman gave James a soft prod with his club to drive the point home.

"How much doe she owe exactly?" I can probably cover it." James suggested.

Someone who knew Mirri well might expect her to be rather deflated by James taking this simple, open, honest, and reasonable approach to resolving the problem at hand.

Someone who knew Mirri VERY well and was also equally knowledgeable about the Iron Faith's dogma would understand why she was suddenly crossing her fingers, smiling cheekily and looking like she was just about to start jumping up and down with glee.

The militia member promptly rapped James with his club again, quite a bit harder this time.

"It is her foolishness which has squandered the money that she should have saved to pay the Prince's taxes with. The Lawgiver believes that people should be made to suffer for their failures." He growled angrily.

James paused for a moment, then reached down and picked up one of the meat stuffed cabbage rolls that the militiaman had knocked to the ground. He gingerly exhaled on it, blowing away a few specks of dirt and and rubbed it on his sleeve.

"I'm feeling hungry and given that a certain relic I was thinking about buying seemed to have some sort of horrific curse on it, I've got some cash burning a hole in my pocket. Here, keep the change." James declared before flipping the stall owner a platinum coin and taking a large bite out of his purchase.

No one in the history of the Core had probably paid more for less of a meal while looking as pleased with themselves about it as James Firecat did at that instant.

The woman gazed in shock at the platinum coin, it was of foreign make, but even the most ludicrous of exchange rates would still result in it being more money than she had likely ever held in her entire life.

The tax collector was likewise left in complete and utter stunned silence by the sight of the sparkling coin.

The militiaman however decidedly wasn't at a loss for words.

"Upstart!" He shouted while punching James in the face.

James Firecat winced as the blow struck home and spat out some of the half chewed food he'd been eating.

"Please don't hit me." He suggested evenly enough, not particularly worried about the fact that one of his eyes was starting to swell shut.

His piece said he took another bite, keeping his uninjured eye on the militiaman the entire time.

That meant he got a good long look as the fist came forward and struck him again.

James' head twisted slightly from the blow and this time when he spat things both blood red and bone white left his mouth.

From a few steps back it was just possible to hear Mirri's breathing suddenly become a great deal more energetic than normal.

"Oh Black Mother, I your humble supplicant thank you for the destruction I am about to witness..." She half prayed half panted.

James Firecat for his part took a single deep breath, his body still contorted at a rather awkward angle from the punch he had just taken.

Then he twisted around to face the militiaman again, moving with a celerity that shocked all but his companions. He turned every single ounce of that speed into additional momentum behind the blow he delivered.

James Firecat's lighting fast punch struck the unexpecting militiaman with such force that the armored man twisted about a full hundred and eighty degrees before collapsing to the ground.

James casually exhaled upon the his gloved left hand which had struck the blow and shrugged.

"I tried asking him politely." He stated with neither anger nor satisfaction.

Despite the fact that he'd been caught flat footed (and then some) by James' counter attack, the militiaman was far from unconscious.

He pushed himself up off the ground his entire face alight with an enraged snarl.

"I'm going to kill at least one alley cat before today is over!" He vowed.

As he spoke the militiaman's armor began to jangle ominously, his mustache growing larger and longer as hair becoming thicker everywhere his skin was visible.

"He's a lycanthrope also? I think the I'm gonna like second act of this production even better than the first!" Mirri gasped, savoring this unexpected turn of events.

James stared up into the face of a man who was now about only three quarters human, while the remainder of his morphology happened to be of a decidedly lupine nature, and did not flinch.

"You know... if you keep this up, you're going to wind up with something a lot worse than some minor cat scratches." James warned the werewolf.

By this point unsurprisingly lots of people were screaming.

One of them was the tax collector, who was trying to calm down the militiaman, desperately trying to keep the situation from getting still more out of hand.

"Not here you fool! Not in front of so many people! Besides, remember the reward!" He pleaded.

The werewolf didn't reverse his transformation, but he temporarily halted it.

"Reward?" He grumbled as if the bureaucrat was babbling nonsense.

"The Prince's Reward. He's been looking for some poisonous needles, and I think we may have just found them..." The tax collector insisted, torn between trying to make his advice private, and yet also loud enough to break through the haze of bloodlust which was no doubt starting to cloud his lycanthropic partner's mind.

The latter won out as both the werewolf and James (along with his companions) heard him.

The changes now did reverse themselves, luckily they hadn't gotten far enough along to seriously damage his clothing.

"Speak." The militiaman suggested, in exactly the same tone of voice one uses to command a dog.

The bureaucrat ignored the obvious insult and took a few steps forward.

"Look, I am not a man of violence by any stretch of the imagination. Likewise, I only need one look at you to know you truly are foreigners, and if it is true that you only just woke up in the middle of Nova Vassa's capital I can understand how you might have blundered into things you had no understanding of.

If you would come with me to see Prince Othmar, we'll forget this all ever happened, I'll even personally show this woman some leniency on the matter of her taxes." He suggested in a tone of obvious appeasement.

"Even better, you could make sure you personally never see her again for a few months." Suggested Alexander Diamondclaw.

"As for going to see the Prince... should we consider ourselves under arrest?" He inquired while starting to finger his longsword.

"Not in the least! You will have a rare opportunities to be honored guests of Prince Othmar. You can feel free to keep your weapons, though we will need to peace bond them before you encounter the Prince personally." The tax collector explained.

"Hmm... would being personal guests of the Prince Othmar happen to involve breakfast?" Alexander contemplated.

"Breakfast?" The tax collector repeated in a slightly bewildered tone of voice.

"We woke up in an antique shop less than an hour ago." Alexander reminded him.

"Ah yes of course, breakfast! I'm certain that if you are interested visiting the Prince, he'll have the royal cooks furnish you with some of the finest food in all of Nova Vassa." The tax collector promised.

"Well then, I'll be only to happy to pay him a visit." Alexander decided.

The militiaman seeing that there would be no further fighting let loose with a low lupine growl in James' direction.

In response the redhead shot back a hiss that was clearly meant to mimic the sound of an angry cat and even made a clawing motion with his left hand.

"I don't know why you're so down on this place Mirri, anywhere that you can punch an officer of the law in the face and get rewarded with a private audience to the ruler of the land and a free meal must have something going for it!" Cal noted.

"Don't get your hopes up too much Alchemist. He said they were looking for poison needles." Mirri warned Cal.

"So? It wouldn't be the first time I've brewed up a poison.." The blond haired man replied.

"There's a type of cactus found only in Nova Vassa that is known for the paralytic venom its needles are coated with. We call it a catspaw." Mirri answered.

End Chapter.

AN: James Firecat's understanding of the civic purpose of taxation leaves a lot to be desired. For one I honestly think that taxes probably DON'T get collected to help keep Falkovnia from invading in Richemulot (not that they aren't collected for other things), because last time I checked they don't have a standing army, just a bunch of citizens who have all promised to practice with a weapon and be ready defend their land in case of invasion.

It most assuredly does not help that anyone who has been reading along knows that James was living out in the portions of Richemulot that some snobs might not even consider "the real Richemulot" (IE the countryside rather than one of the three big cities).

Also, you would be surprised how little of this I'm having to make up, to an astounding degree this "book" writes itself, all be it not quite as quickly as the last one.

Sadly don't expect to get to see our heroes meet with the Prince for a while, I'm going on a semi-week long vacation starting on Tuesday (which means I will not be back until Sunday night) and I don't plan to try and power through the next chapter in two days.