The express carriage rattled less than the caravan, despite moving a lot faster. Given the price I saw for the privilege, that was the least it could do.

Cecily sat across from me, seeming to be reciting the Axis mantras softly as she prayed for guidance from her lady. A little distracting, but at least it let me think about how I was going to get out of this mess. I had my dark suspicions about who she was actually talking to after all that had happened, but come on. If that archpriestess kept her mouth shut maybe, maybe I could see her as divine. That just never, ever happened for more than a minute or so. But having met her church…maybe I could see it? If she was goddess of anything, that pack of maniacs and fanatics was probably it…

No, no not even then, and not even them. What kind of goddess does party tricks in the square? Not even the Axis would worship someone like that, right? Cecily would have better luck getting in good with Aqua by giving her a plate of toad legs and a beer than prayers. She just cosplays as the goddess who sent me here, that had to be it.

Still, Lady Eris hadn't struck me down for apostasy yet, but I didn't see any reason to push my nonexistent luck. There HAD to be a way to get away from this church of nutjobs before my favorite goddess decided to smite me. Axel wasn't all that big though, and adventurers all knew each other…

While I was pondering, she opened her big blue eyes again and tilted her head questioningly. "What troubles you, your holiness?"

Right. That…that needed to be where I started. "I…was just thinking about Axel. I'm known as an average adventurer there, and I would stand out way too much if you went around calling me by my…title."

She nodded seriously. "Of course. Our order is unjustly feared and persecuted at every turn, even though all we want is for everyone to be happy and fulfilled!" eyes shining, she clenched a fist in determination. If I hadn't known what she meant by 'fulfilled' I might've even respected her a little. "If you must work in the shadows to realize our Lady's will in the world then I'll gladly do as you say!"

"And no going 'fishing' for me if you don't know where I am," I added. "I have a room in a boarding house, just leave me a note under the door like everyone else."

"Archbishop Zesta always preferred a chase, he said it kept his blood moving and helped him feel years younger," Cecily frowned. "And why not stay at the church?"

"I'm already a lot of years younger than him, and my blood pressure is high enough as it is," I grumbled. "And I didn't think there was an active church in Axel."

The priestess sniffled, and I suddenly felt awful. "W…we do too! I've been working o-on fixing it up for weeks! I was only in Arcanretia to beg for…I mean request more funds! The roof doesn't e-even leak anymore, and the windows will be fixed before too long!" Then I noticed her glancing up at my reaction and wondered if pushing the liar out of the carriage counted as assault. Seeing I wasn't buying her act, she cut her losses. "Once we have more money, I can even have the floorboards replaced! You'll see, it'll be a great church!" she snapped, glaring at me and daring me to contradict her.

All it would need was people willing to go near it, I didn't say. "I'm sure it will be. But it would also draw attention. I can't do my good work if people avoid me after all," I said uncomfortably. And ignoring the little voice in my head pointing out that it would be free, and I could surely use my rent money in a dozen other places…

Cecily pouted but didn't argue further, lucky for me. With the price of the teleport ticket deducted from my finder's fee, I might not be able to resist social suicide in exchange for a warm bed for long if the main quest reward got delayed.

When we got off the carriage, the first thing I saw was a new crater.

With Megumin in the area, I didn't give that a second thought, and went on through the gate with Sister Cecily in tow. With any luck, news of my blowup with Yunyun and Kyouya hadn't gotten back here yet, so I could get a drink without worrying if one of their friends had poisoned it, or the quest log I signed was a disguised Axis recruitment form, or…Eris only knew what.

My minder made a beeline to the local Axis church, true to her word earlier. Meanwhile I dropped my pack at home in my new room and went to the bath, then made my way to the guild. I did notice signs of an awful lot of celebrating in the streets. But I hadn't been here that long, there could've been a festival I didn't know about I figured.

"Hey! Welcome back!" Taylor greeted me with a raised mug from the bar as I walked in.

"It felt like forever, let me tell you," I returned the wave and walked over. Sounded like I was still in the clear if he was this friendly. "What happened? Was there a holiday I didn't know about?"

He shook his head with a laugh. "You picked a great time to leave town. A Demon General moved in nearby, so all the quests dried up. But then…"

"No more General!" Keith broke in next to him. "Man did you miss out! Beldia is dead! That sexy archpriestess on the construction gang smoked him when he showed up outside the gate and killed one of the workers. Just 'POOF', a crater and a grease stain!"

"He was a dullahan, those don't have enough grease left in them for a stain," Taylor chuckled. "But yeah, wish I'd seen it. She'll probably be in later if you want to buy her a round tonight. We've been taking turns, figuring it was the least we could do. With her friend gone and all."

Keith gave him a quizzical look. "You sure he died? I could've sworn I saw him in town the other day…"

"No, Rudeus said he had it from a guy on that crew…"

The two continued arguing, but I couldn't bring myself to pay too much attention. Biggest party of the year by the look of things, and I'd missed it by being out in the middle of the Wastelands. Busily ruining friendships. Typical, and bad luck came in threes. All I needed now was for them to hear Yunyun had cut me loose and they wouldn't be far behind.

I started to order a drink for myself, and maybe another to keep it company after the last few days, when the gentle voice of my favorite Thief interrupted me. "Hey, welcome back. You missed out on quite the show."

"Yeah, sounds like it," I mumbled, pasting on a smile for her. Then she asked the question I'd been dreading, and I felt it try to slide back off.

"You don't look so good. Where's the others?"

"Ah…they're still in the Village I think," I said hastily, for the first time in my life wanting to get away from her. "And the ride here wasn't great. I was just going to get a drink, did you want one?"

"No, I'm good. If you see Darkness send her my way though. I've been looking for her all day," she replied breezily before jauntily striding off.

Sighing, I watched her go. Then I frowned at the coins I'd taken out of my pouch before putting most of them back. I needed a heavier wallet more than I needed a few shots for now, so I headed over to the quest counter. Luna handled the honors this time, and all her congratulations on a successful mission was like salt rubbed in a raw wound. I managed to take my payment without wincing too much and then went to get just the one beer, though I still got a pretzel to keep it from getting lonely.

More adventurers trickled in, finally including the archpriestess everyone was talking about in the center of some admirers. And as she swept into the guild, and all my carefully built denials fell apart like a house of cards in a typhoon.

"Dammit, can this day get any worse!?" I groaned the moment I saw her, and laid my head on the table.

I can tell most of you have guessed it judging by the grins on your faces, and you should be ashamed of yourselves. But you're right, and I was more right than I knew the day she walked in with the weedy looking Japanese guy.

It was the goddess Aqua herself, live and in the flesh.

Some days it just doesn't pay to get out of bed.

The next morning, they found Darkness. And Dust.

Before breakfast they got caught leaving the same cheap inn together, and it was just a joke to tease the pair with. Adventuring is a carpe diem kind of life, and mostly the guys were just jealous he'd made it with a bombshell like Darkness. Even if you had to wonder what kinks he'd been hiding to make him take the plunge.

By lunchtime it was all over town, and the details pried out of them only made things juicier. Knowing Dust and her I'd assumed it was a one night stand, but they'd been sneaking off together for weeks by that point. The less I say about what they got up to the less your parents will complain to me about later. Either way, they kept each other busy. One of the girls at the cafe he used to go to religiously actually offered coupons as a reward to whoever found him for several days until he turned up. She was sure he must have been lying in an alley somewhere.

After dinner, it was starting to die down as news about the latest quest results and future openings pushed the story out of everyone's mind. I'd done my share of 'congratulating' too, happy to be able to spread a little embarrassment around to make myself feel better. But Rin had actually been the loudest at it, with Keith not far behind.

Darkness was actually with us, and had been grimly working her way towards being three sheets to the wind all night when the doors banged open to admit an older man absolutely dressed to the nines in the local style.

He got quite a few odd looks and even questions about if he was lost, but he shrugged them off like an old jacket to stand in the middle of the dining hall. Drawing himself to his full height, he declared in a voice that cut through the din like a foghorn:

"I seek Lady Lalatina Ford Dustiness! I am told she frequents this establishment and is likely to be present. By the authority of my liege Duke Ignis Ford Dustiness, I request and require that she answer my lord's summons or be brought forth to do so!"

We laughed, at first. A noble, here? A real one, I mean? Come on, what are the odds?

Then Darkness stood up, and the mood dropped like a homesick stone.

"I hear and obey the Duke's summons. I pray to ask permission to gather my belongings before we depart," she said softly, but far too clearly for someone who had put several liters away over the past hour, into the deafening silence. I looked up at her in shock, just like all of us. She stood tall as well, not swaying a bit, and her expression was cool, composed. But she was pale as a ghost, and her eyes didn't meet anyone's, just roamed the room as if committing it to memory.

"I beg your forgiveness, milady. But my liege requires you to depart as you stand when found, by his own words," the messenger replied sternly with a shake of his head setting his plumed hat bobbing.

She nodded in resignation, and stepped around the bench and out the door with a heavy tread, leaving the messenger to catch up. And then they were gone.

All hell broke loose.

In the middle of all the shouting, I'm ashamed to say my first instinct was how fast I could get out of town if Daddy Duke took offense to me having seen his daughter practically naked and covered in toad juices.

Then I had my next horrible thought.

"Say, has anyone seen Dust this evening?" Rin asked, echoing what I'd been about to say.

No one had, and we knew he'd been around town earlier. We all shared a look, and I noticed but didn't say I hadn't seen Chris all night either.

"Think we should check the jail?" Keith asked uncertainly.

"Yeah, I think we'd better," Taylor decided after a minute. "First thing tomorrow at visiting hours. If he's not there…" he grimaced into his beer, and didn't finish the thought.

The next time we saw him could be on the executioner's block.

At dawn they did just that. I might've tagged along, but Luna flagged me down out front and asked for additional information on the Dragonfly quest. Kyouya apparently had sent a request to have the thing hauled out of the Crimson Demon Village, but the Guild HQ needed more information on just what they were dealing with.

So I was still filling out the questionnaire when the group came back in. They were subdued, but not depressed so I guessed he was there. "You found him?" I called over from my table.

"Yeah, praise Eris," Taylor agreed. "Not even hungover, which is a first."

"For now," Keith reminded them. "If there's anybody the Guild is less likely to stick their necks out for, I don't know who it would be. If…"

"If," Rin cut him off with a glare. "Only if. We don't know which way this is going to go. Don't go buying trouble, or tempting fate."

"Too right," their crusader agreed with her. "Still, that offer stands if you want it. We need to keep taking requests one way or the other. If your blood isn't too rich from your last adventure you're welcome to sub in again," he said to me this time.

"Sure I'll go, I won't get the full payout until it's assessed by a guild rep. I only got the finder's fee yesterday," I corrected. "I'm not about to say no to some cash in the meantime." I finished off the last bit on the page and handed it in before setting out.

We took a goblin quest nearby since the morning was half over by that point, just to cover dinner and a roof without dipping into savings.

That night was a quiet one in the guild. Dust's arrest and Darkness…Lalatina's summons were both common knowledge even for those who hadn't been there at the time. Even if neither was what you'd call…popular because of their issues they were both still one of us. An outside force snatching both of them away sat badly with everyone.

The next day we took a kobold nest extermination, also close to town. Still barely pocket money, but nobody questioned Taylor's choice. They wanted to be close by if news came about Dust, not days away if it came time to say goodbye.

The day after that the nearby options were getting fairly thin, it was looking like a choice between herb gathering, the absolute bottom of the barrel, and toads which were barely a step up for the effort.

It was looking like toads were going to win out when Chris graced us with her presence.

"Hey, glad I caught you here in time. Leave the toads alone for today, I've got an offer for you." The party traded glances, but she shook her head. "Don't worry, I've got it on good authority he isn't going anywhere today."

With that, we relocated to a table. Empty as the guild was this time of the morning, it wasn't hard to get some privacy.

"First, you didn't hear this from me. It sounds like the Dustiness family isn't going to push for punishing Dust, since Lalatina was playing around as Darkness at the time," she said softly after buying a basket of rolls and a round of beers and sending the waitress off.

Everyone immediately relaxed, me included. I'd never claim to like the guy, but he deserved better than actually doing what half the men in town had fantasized about, and getting chopped for it.

"It will probably take a day or two for the legal stuff to unwind itself, but he should be out before long. Second, how much have any of you heard about Lalatina lately?" she asked.

"Next to nothing," I put in, looking around at the others. "Plenty of rumors but you know how that goes."

"Do I ever, my favorite was the one about her having to wrestle a male orc for her freedom and scaring it off before it even touched her," Keith chuckled.

Chris glared at him. "Not smart to repeat that about a ducal heir. But that's about how much accuracy I expected. Let me tell you what's been going on then." She took a drink to wet her throat, and began, still keeping her voice down.

"The first thing to remember about noble relationships is that it's all about position. First, last, always. How much your family is worth on the kingdom's social ladder, and what you personally are worth to your family in turn decides everything about who you even talk with, nevermind marry. So if Lalatina was a baron or even a count's daughter she could probably kiss anything but marrying way down goodbye. But, she's the duchy heir, and only surviving child. She's always going to be a prime catch unless she gets outright disinherited. So Lalatina is not getting shipped off to a convent or something because she didn't keep her skirts buttoned. She's too valuable and too high ranking for that, and even if she wasn't, the kingdom needs high level fighters too much."

She paused and we nodded to show we were with her so far. Chris raised three fingers.

"It wouldn't be the first time something like this has happened, even in House Dustiness. So these things get settled in one of three ways. First, the two houses agree to pretend some prior arrangement had been made, engage the two, and sweep the whole problem out of sight. ."

She lowered one finger.

"Second, If the houses don't reach an agreement, then both of them get pulled off the marriage market to make sure there's no pregnancy. If not they go their separate ways with some stigma for not having sense enough to be careful if they couldn't be good. If there is one, that's when it all winds up in the Royal court and the lawyers and factors make fortunes figuring out damages. Meanwhile the kid gets declared a bastard so they can't mess up the inheritance." She frowned mightily as she said all this, which looked good on her but made it clear where she stood.

She lowered another finger. We were all listening closely, the affairs of the upper crust weren't something us crumbs heard much about. Though Rin seemed to have a pretty good idea already since she'd been nodding along.

"Finally, if there's a commoner involved, that's usually the simplest for everybody. The commoner is blamed for seducing the noble, and the noble family at best either owns them outright for damages or hounds them out of town so they can't be a reminder of the local family's disgrace." Chris' face was granite hard at this point as she lowered the last finger into a fist and I couldn't agree more. Taylor and Keith had nodded agreement as Chris spoke, looking more resigned than angry, but I guess they grew up expecting it. Rin just bit her lip and looked at the table.

"Where does Darkness fall in that then? Just how high ranking is her family I mean?" I asked cautiously.

Everyone stared at me like I was a complete moron, but then Rin shook her head, clearing whatever she'd been thinking. "Oh, right. You're not from here. Let me put it this way, the Dustiness family is called the 'Kingdom's Confidants' and the 'Shield of the Realm'. They've been tight with royalty since basically forever. Darkness…Lady Lalatina probably grew up with the prince and princess."

Chris nodded, "She did. She's either fifth or seventh in line for the throne depending on how you count House Sinfonia, the other ducal house. Her father is even the current Prime Minister, though what this mess is going to do to his position even I have no idea."

Taylor had been watching Chris consideringly through all this, and finally spoke up. "I get it so far, but I've got one question. How do you know anything about all this? You're a way higher level than any of us, and Thieves are all about having contacts, but still."

Chris smirked. "I'm glad someone asked, suspicion is a good way to survive when you're dealing with nobles. Think about it. Would you let a future duchess wander around unsupervised, incognito or not? Or would you assign somebody to make sure nothing happened to her and she didn't do anything stupid?"

Keith raised a finger and opened his mouth to point out the giant toad in the room, but Chris waved him off irritably. "Fine, try to do those things. And the only reason I'm not fleeing to Elroad with my life savings ahead of a squad of Dustiness thief catchers is I was sent off on another job first. My former assistant, on the other hand…"

A chill went down my spine at how many teeth showed in Chris' grin, but she relented after a moment.

"Duke Ignis is a pretty decent guy for a high noble, so Dust is probably safe. But right now the idiot is a broke as a joke commoner so marriage is not on the table. Plus, Lalatina is almost twenty. Waiting most of a year to make sure there's no surprises will leave her where nobility starts to wonder what's wrong with a girl if she's not married."

I didn't think there'd be any 'start to' or 'wondering' and judging by everyone's expressions I wasn't alone, but I kept listening anyway.

"And now that the background is out of the way, that's where you all come in. Because absolutely NONE of that is what's actually happening. There were negotiations going on about the local count's heir marrying into the Dustiness family through her, but now that changed to her marrying the current count, Alderp, instead as compensation for breaking the deal."

Chris paused to take a frustrated drink, banging the mug a bit harder than was good for stealth.

"And not only is the Duke looking like he might approve, the vassal families that would ordinarily be raising hell about having the duchy basically usurped by a fellow county just shrugged and went along with it. Even worse, Count Alderp is pushing for marriage immediately. And let me tell you, the one thing that matters more to a noble than anything is lineage. He should be dragging things out as long as humanly possible until it's certain she's not carrying Dust's child. This whole situation stinks of something being very wrong in a lot of places."

Chris pushed her empty mug to one side, leaning forward to regard us intensely.

"I may have been hired by the Dustinesses to watch over their daughter, but she's still a good friend, and we've been together for years. That's my stake in this. For your part, Duke Ignis might let Dust live, but I wouldn't bet on someone like Alderp being as charitable. Plus, I have contacts all over Belzerg. If you want the inside track to a quest before it goes up on the board, anywhere, say no more. That, and the eternal gratitude of the second or third most powerful family in the country for helping save them from disaster. I won't ask you to make the choice now. But do it soon, because my friend is running out of time."