Monster Party Nosos: But what happens when the gears, get sick of the machine?
Chapter Seven: There's something in your way, and now someone is gonna pay, and if you cant get what you want, well, its all because of me!
"Let me see the chart." Alexander insisted.
"I was wondering when you'd show up..." Reflected Alrek Deep-Minded to his employer as he handed over the chart.
Alexander's eye slowly worked its way down the list, check-mark, check-mark, check-mark, check mark...
"You know I've seen mother hens who fuss less over their chicks than you do over those charts." The dwarf pointed out.
Alexander momentarily tore his eye away from the paper.
"Have you really? Nosos doesn't seem much like farming country." He pointed out.
"I was trying out my skill with natural metaphors, since you seen so bloody fond of them." The dwarf admitted.
Alexander renewed his inspection, and was relieved to see that today every single name had a check-mark next to it, not a single employee was unaccounted for.
"It's a start." The silver haired man reflected before handing the chart back to the dwarf and striding off.
XXX XXX XXX
"Okay, short of going down there and swinging a pickaxe myself there nothing I can do to help the mine at the moment. So it is finally time to focus on the bigger picture, Mirri what have you managed to find out while I've been busy?" Alexander inquired after having returned to Chateau Argent.
"Glad you finally had time to ask, this is some of the best work that I've ever done that doesn't involve killing people." The vampiress boasted proudly as she walked over to a seemingly barren wooden board in the mansion's library.
With a dramatic shove she flipped it around revealing that on the other side a great many drawings of people had been affixed to it (no doubt with the aid of Cal's adhesives) and bits of different colored string hung between them.
It was complicated in the extreme, looking rather like a spiderweb woven by a collection of different arachnids, none of whom could agree on what color the web should be, and only vaguely aware of what sort of overall pattern to aim for. None the less, if you stared at it long enough it would begin to make a sort of sense, or you would go insane and fool yourself into thinking it was.
"Just about everything in Nosos relates back to Malus Sceleris one way or another." She declared, tapping on a picture of the brown haired business magnate.
"BOO!" Added James Firecat for emphasis.
"Comments from the audience aren't especially necessary. While Mirri might have gathered the raw information, I was the one who manage to make sense of it." Devi added taking up position on the other side of the board before continuing on.
"It is more or less an open secret that for the last few decades the Mayor of Nosos isn't so much in the pocket as actively sown into the garments of the city's richest businessmen. No laws that might inconvenience them have a chance of passing and a great many that aided them are already on the books.
The current man to hold the position Mayor Hendee is no exception, he attends every party Malus holds and has openly voiced the opinion that Malus is a beacon of shining hope to the city of Nosos. What is interesting is that it isn't just traditional civic functions that have been brought, or should I say bought, into Malus' fold." The elf explained.
Mirri lazily traced a piece of black string from the picture of Malus to one of a man dressed in resplendent white vestments.
"Say hello to Robert Ferr, or as he calls himself these days, Bishop Eldon the Third.
Native of Nosos, graduated from the theological institute of Saint Leonard the Pious, and quickly threw himself into working for the local temple of Ezra, where he managed their accounts. He also served as an accountant for various members of the city's upper class, allowing him to build up some considerable temporal holdings for a man of the cloth.
When his predecessor Bishop Francis the Fourth died of illness it turned out that among Francis' last wishes were that Robert would run the church in Nosos.
Now, as much as I hate to put any real effort into theological studies, after all I've already experienced the afterlife, you can't really understand what's going on here without at least a few reference points.
The first Schism that ever took place in the Church of Ezra happened shortly after the death of Yakov Dilisnyas, most likely caused by his sister Camille, who was the ruler of Borca before her daughter Ivana took over. Ezra worship is a big part of Borcan culture, and people were not happy about the fact that their secular leader may have been responsible for the death of the man who founded their church.
So to make amends, Camille responded in pretty much the most Borcan way imaginable, paying a lot of money to the church directly, and spending still more of it to build a great big fancy statue of Ezra for their cathedral.
The majority of Ezra's worshipers were placated by that, but a minority lead by Felix Watcher of Sturben felt that the church had become too materialistic, too tied to the mortal world, so he took his followers out of Borca and into Mordent.
Now suffice to say... the version of Ezra worship practiced here in Nosos makes the one in Borca look like its Mordentish cousin and then some. Most religions, like the one back home for example, they at least give lip service to the idea that even if you're poor and downtrodden in this life, great things can await you in the world to come. At least if you don't raise too much of a fuss and follow the rules. Likewise, those who have everything in this life and misbehave will loose it all in their afterlives.
Here however, they preach something called the Accomplishment Dogma, which says that material wealth and possessions in this life are a direct sign of Ezra's favor. According to his teachings Malus Sceleris is practically the living avatar of Ezra!
Plenty of places have figured out a way to make it illegal to be poor, but only in Nosos have they discovered a way to make it a sin. I really want to shake the hand of whatever bastard came up with that one... right before I fill his body enough with enough negative energy to give him a chance to find out what Ezra really does think of the idea." Mirri admitted.
"As you might guess, here in Nosos there's nothing at all unseemly about churchmen being rich, and the 'good' Bishop has used his wealth to buy a great deal of land in the city's suburbs, in particular he owns most of the land that actually produces any kind of food.
That's problematic for us, but once I started to look at the food situation in Nosos, things got even worse, but it was also when everything started to come together. Mirri would you care to introduce the others to our next major player?" Devi offered.
Mirri's ran her white gloved hands along a red wire connecting "Bishop Eldon the Third" to another man (who was also connected to Malus Sceleris by a black thread) slowly and carefully.
"This is Roger Tulle. We've already done some business with him, since he controls most of the textile factories in Nosos. A few people say that he knew Malus Sceleris from further back than anyone else. Even fewer people after becoming truly well acquainted with my charming personality suggested that they might have done some rather unsavory things together as young men.
He got his big break when a number of textile factories became linked to a string of deadly fevers. They were forced to close down and Roger bought them up before all the fever's victims had even finished shuffling off the mortal coil.
Ever since then, in addition to being an incredibly wealthy textile magnate who also buys all the food sold to Nosos by Mordentish speaking countries, he's the one responsible for putting a good face on whatever new law is about to be passed in Nosos.
To pick an example at something less than random, he's the one who got people sold on the idea that the law which makes it illegal for workers to interact together without permission from the employer was designed to prevent people from sabotaging their products, and thus prevent events like the outbreak which made him such a wealthy man." She noted smugly.
Devi took over, her blue gloves following along a line of red string to a man dressed in a white coat. Like the other two he also had a black string connecting him to Malus Sceleris.
"Which brings us Alaster Nor. The Nors were once a powerful noble family in Nosos, but like every other blue-blooded family their actual wealth has been declining rapidly over the last few decades. Alaster put the education his family's money and status provided him with to good use and decided to become a doctor instead of just sitting atop a shrinking pile of coins while complaining about all these young whippersnappers.
Now, the fact that he's a noble himself meant that he had an instant 'in' with every other ancient well do to family in Nosos that wouldn't dream of hiring some plebeian physician if they could instead pay someone of their own class to do the job.
With that advantage, he managed to acquire a fair bit of wealth which he quickly invested into starting up his own small school to exclusively teach other doctors. The money collected from the green tax goes to fund his research, and supposedly Malus lends him some portions of Sceleris Manor as a place to do research." Devi noted dryly.
Mirri now traced another red wire towards a drawing of a man holding a musket proudly, and to everyone's complete lack of surprise by this point he had a black wire linking him to Malus Sceleris.
"Jeremy McUnres. Talented marksman who is said to field test every single gun his company produces.
People from every nation across the Core except for one, and you can probably guess which one, buy his firearms. He's probably still trying hammer how useful they are into Vlad Drakov's head, which is why he's in charge of all food that is purchased from Falkovnian speaking lands, which much to Vlad's displeasure is still just Falkovnia and nowhere else.
It's rumored that while most bodyguards around these parts get by with clubs and the like, Malus Sceleris keeps Mr. McUnres in the black by making sure every single one of his own protectors has at least one gun. He's supposedly got quite a temper, but if he's actually used his most famous product on any of his employees no one is willing to talk about it, even to me." Mirri warned.
Devi once again took over, drawing attention to the only woman who bound to Malus Sceleris by a black string.
"This is Alana Creen, originally from Kartakass. Much like Malus she got her start in the lumber business. I don't think anyone would ever be able to cut down all the trees there, but she evidently made a damn good go at it..."
"BOOO!" Catcalled Florence Bastien, and noticeably no one decided to comment upon the fact.
"She supposedly has a wolf fur rug that was actually made from the remains wolfweres who objected to her business practices.
Still, there were only so many adventures you could hire in Kartakass who were willing to stand up against the local apex predator. Lucky for her, she made the move to Nosos before running out of people willing to risk their lives protecting her lumberjacks.
She's still in charge of operating what sawmills remain in Nosos, though they're fed exclusively by lumber bought from other realms. She's also in charge of all the food that is purchased from domains that don't speak any of the languages we've previously mentioned, which means she covers not just her own native Kartakass but also Nova Vassa, Hazlan, Sithicus, and Lamordia among others. Mirri care to bring us home?" Devi offered.
The five they had already discussed left just one more black string to explore, and the final one lead to a drawing of a man in glasses.
"This fine gentleman is Armand Hobert. He's a probably the most well known lawyer in Nosos. He successfully defended a number of people accused of some very serious crimes, who just so happened to have given him large 'gifts' afterwards, which I'm sure they acquired through completely legitimate means.
He then used said money to start buying a number of small mines and pieces of mining equipment, which he ended up selling to Malus Sceleris. He is still however in charge of dealing with all food that Nosos purchases from Darkon. He also does everything he can in order to make Nosos attractive to dwarfs since unsurprisingly they do better working in mines than humans do.
He's the least active of the group, mostly enjoying sitting on the wealth that he's made and his contract with Malus still entitles him to get a portion of the wealth those mines produce" Mirri concluded.
"By the way, there's something else worth bringing up. I did a more or less complete circuit of all the city's seamstresses, they were unsurprisingly more than willing to talk to me for a while so long as they got offered a little coin in exchange.
Not a single one of them actually knows anyone who is currently sick with Dum-Dum Fever, they all claim that some rival house of needlework across the city is rife with it, but no one ever went so far as to name names. In short, if we needed more proof for Florence's theory that the Fever isn't a natural disease, well here it is.
Somebody must be spreading rumors that it comes from seamstresses, and I'd be willing to bet blood drops to bullion that its the same person who is actually spreading the disease in the first place." Mirri predicted.
"The two of us have come up with a theory about who that might be..." Devi pointed out while pointedly tapping a finger on the picture of Malus.
"So, these six people are Malus' key agents in Nosos regardless of if he realizes it or not. Food is just about the most basic resource imaginable short of water, and water is a lot harder to corner the market on.
First, because it is so much easier to come by, secondly, because any magic user worthy of the name can summon the stuff up with ease. If Amalgamated Diamonds is going to grow, we're going to have to deal with these six more and more for every employee we hire.
I know Florence's magic can help deal with the issue, but only so much. After all, normally she only has to worry about the six of us, two of whom have some very peculiar diets. To feed all of Amalgamated Diamonds, that would mean magicking up food for over a hundred people. On the other hand, if we can remove these six, then we can really start to put the screws to Malus..." Devi advised.
"Now, as luck would have it, I have already come up with a detailed plan for how to do that..." The vampiress declared proudly.
"Mirri..." Devi growled clearly aware that the others would not like what came next.
"I call it Plan Wildlands. First, I transform into mist, then I waft into each of their mansion at night. Finally, I transform back to normal, then bash their heads in with a rock." She announced proudly.
There was a long silence.
"It'll be a big rock..." Mirri insisted though she didn't win any converts to her latest idea.
"Look, I don't know what you people want from me on this one. We've fought broken ones, lycanthropes, doppelgangers, ancient dead, fey, and who knows wha else. These guys on the other hand, they're just really wealthy bastards, not even priests or wizards with one exception. They seem to be protected mostly by societal conventions and mundane guards. I could kill all six of them in one night." She insisted.
Alexander sighed heavily and leaned even further back against the couch he was sitting in.
"Cal do you want to explain why this won't work or should I?" He offered.
Cal took his chance.
"It won't work for the same reason that you don't defeat a darklord just by stabbing them in the chest with an especially large sword.
The power isn't just in that particular person, there's a power in the land that is aiding them, metaphorically speaking in this case. You see, there are these things called wills, you just may be familiar with the concept?
If we kill one of these guys, they're going to have a will, and that will is going to leave all their money and what not to some other person who is probably just as big a jerk as they are. So, unless we're willing to murder each and every single jerks in Nosos, killing them accomplishes nothing at all." The alchemist insisted.
"So if we can't kill them, what are we going to do about them? I've only got so many tools to work with, and horrible horrible murder has always been my favorite." Mirri declared in a most flustered and irritated manner.
"The answer is simple enough. As Cal pointed out, these people aren't dangerous to us or Nosos because of who they are, no they are dangerous because they have money. We take away their money and then they become more harmless than a termite infested stake." Alexander declared decisively.
"So we steal the money from them? Stealing is good, it isn't as good as murder but I can totally do stealing." Mirri suggested eagerly.
"Devi?" Alexander half groaned making a faint hand motion for the elf to explain.
"Don't think of these people like fairy tail dragons Mirri. They don't keep all their money in one great big pile where it would be at least theoretically possible for someone to walk off with it, assuming they don't get burnt to a crisp and could carry several hundred pounds of precious metals and gems.
No, their wealth is in a constant state of fluctuation, they spend some of it on this today, get more of it back from that business tomorrow. The money is in the business." She informed her companion.
"So if the money is in the business, how do we steal the business? Are we supposed to sneak into the place late at night and start carting it off one brick at a time?" Mirri demanded to know.
"Luckily, that won't be necessary. You see, the people of Nosos have refined the process of 'stealing' a business down to an art form. They even have an delightfully martial turn of phrase for it... a hostile takeover.
What we need to do is to launch hostile takeovers against Malus' various business partners. We 'steal' their businesses, and thus grow Amalgamated Diamonds.
We'll start with the simple things first though. We need to get our hands on as large a stockpile of food as possible, using whatever legal methods possible.
Florence, do whatever is necessary to at least get some berry bushes growing, whatever we loose to the green tax will be more than covered by the harvest. James, if you're not dealing with something else, I want you cleaning out Nosos' sewers. Rat meat doesn't have many virtues but it's edible enough when the alternative is starvation.
Devi see if anyone in this town is selling horses and how much they're going for, run the numbers and see if butchering them for the meat is a worthwhile prospect, though I wouldn't be surprised if someone else has already thought of it. You'll also be in charge of arranging for us to acquire a place to store the food where it won't spoil or get stolen.
Mirri, go talk with whoever our contacts with these six are, and see how much more food we can buy from them before they start to notice things aren't adding up. Cal I want you to get ready to carry on the family tradition. You see, when it comes to our first target for a hostile takeover..." Alexander held out a hand to James gesturing that he needed something.
The werecat handed him one of the many daggers that he kept concealed underneath his jacket.
Alexander tossed the weapon which buried itself up to the hilt in the picture of Armand Hobert.
"Excellent selection, Mirri and I already took the time to set up another board for just this occasion..." Devi replied, as if Alexander Diamondclaw tossing around blades to prove a point was an everyday occurrence (which in all fairness it pretty much was) for them.
Mirri nodded in agreement, walked out of the room and soon pushed in another board that happened to have tiny little wheels attached to the bottom of it. It was designed along similar lines to the one already present, the only difference was that this one had been built around Armand Hobert instead of Malus Sceleris.
"Thanks to Mirri's information gathering I've formulated this chart of all the criminal activity in Nosos that we've been able to link in any way to Mr. Hobert. If we're going to get his attention or get him back in a courtroom, putting the pressure on these people here is how we do it." Devi explained.
"You're going to love how the 'justice' system works in Nosos Boss. Trials are decided solely by judges, and the best part is that whoever looses has to pay all the fees that the winner incurred in the process conducting the trials. Works exactly the same way for both the prosecutor or the defendant, and certain people have ways to incur some pretty high costs. You'd be surprised at how many people that convinces to settle matters out of court." The alchemist informed his commander.
"So, word on the street right now is that Armand Hobert is the greatest lawyer in all of Nosos? Cal do I even need to...?" Alexander began, but didn't bother to actually finish.
"People avoiding being made to pay for crimes they've actually committed? People doing that who aren't us, super powerful mages, or monsters? My Von Karma blood boils at the prospect! Devi give me the bag of holding, I'm going to need my prosecuting cravat!" The Alchemist insisted.
"What's a cravat?" James Firecat asked in confusion.
"It what you wear when a tie isn't fancy enough." Cal explained as he accepted the group's bag of holding and began to reach a hand into it.
Whatever he was looking for had lain unused for a long time because the limb in question plunged in up to his elbow without success.
"There's something fancier than a tie? Why does no one tell me these things?" Alexander groaned.
End Chapter
AN: Ta-freaking-dah. This entire chapter, well what can I say, EXPOSITION, LETS BEGIN, THE EXPOSITION (sung to the tune of "Inquisition" from Mel Brook's History of the World Part 1) sometimes you just need to lay out what is going on and tell your audience what to expect before you can properly move the plot ahead.
The six followers of Malus who Devi and Mirri talk about this chapter are fan creations all also belonging to the same guy who made Roi de Rats from the last chapter.
Finally, if you don't remember/aren't aware "Von Karma" is the family name on the maternal side of Cal's family tree.