"Are you certain this is where we will find him? I thought he would belong to a more... prestigious familia." Fin asked with doubting look when he saw the ruined church. Loki couldn't help but snicker, this run-down church was totally befitting of the shrimpy boob monster.
"Yeah this is the right place Fin, I checked with Eina earlier." She responded. Loki couldn't help but giggle thinking about it. When she got to the guild this morning she saw Eina entering the guild holding a beige folder with a weird sigil on it. Wanting to tease the guild worker just a little Loki had grabbed the folder away from her. What she didn't expect was for the folder to then combust destroying it completely and leaving a small burn on Loki's hand. When questioning the guild worker about it she found that it wasn't new standard procedure for the guild, but rather something done on the behest of a specific unnamed client. Loki knew immediately just who this 'unnamed client' was. "This is tha place withoutta doubt. I don't think there'll be trouble, but I want ya to keep an eye on this child ya hear?"
"Of course Loki, Nothing will happen to you as long as I'm here." Fin said with his patented gentlemanly simile. Loki didn't actually think this child would cause any trouble, he didn't seem the type, but she wanted to be sure after what Dionysus told her.
"Hey hey!" She said with a grin, barging into the church only to see that it was completely abandoned. Well it wasn't abandoned, it was far to clean for that. Loki had to question for just a moment if she was drunk when she met Eina. She knows Eina wasn't lying, but could she have just been wrong about Hestia's home? Bringing her out of her inner musings Loki watched as a blond pallum suddenly rose from the ground. "Oh? Who's this?"
"Oh hello, I'm Medior Malcute of the Hestia familia. With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with?" Medior asked with a practiced smile.
"Greetings Ms. Malcute, I'm Finn Deimne of the Loki familia and this is Lady Loki." Finn introduced with a smile of his own. "Is Matthew Mathers present by any chance?"
"Oh the Loki familia? Of course please come in." Medior said lifting up a hatch surprising Finn and Loki. Loki knew Hestia was a poor bum, but this made her feel just a tiny bit sad for the goddess. Not that she would ever admit it in her life. Her pity washed away as soon as she entered the basement though as she was greeted by an interesting sight.
Matthew was writing something while tossing a magic stone up and down, only the magic stone was glowing a sickly green color. Behind the man was a silverback and five pale goblins, all with incisions in the center of their chests. The monsters naturally caused concern for Finn after all that's been happening. Seeing her captain tense up she simply waved him off and greeted Matthew with her godly charm.
"Hey, hey Matthew, long time no see." She said reaching for the bowl of green magic stones, "What are thes- Ow!"
He had smacked her hand. Her! Loki, the goddess of trickery. He had better have a good reason. "Why'd you smack me? You know I'm a Goddess right?"
"I'll get you two some tea." Medior said walking towards the kitchen no doubt to avoid her ire.
"Sorry Loki, but it would have hurt worse if I let you touch that stone." Matthew said with an apologetic smile. Her confusion must not have been well masked as Matthew went on to explain, "These magic stones are chock full of necrotic energy. They'll hurt you if you touch them."
Not wanting to let some mortal child tell her what to do she grabbed one of the magic stones anyways... only to immediately drop it and regret not listening to the man. It hurt almost like a burn, but not quite. It felt like the life was being stolen from her physical form. A feeling she never wanted to feel again.
"I'm sorry about her, she does what she wants despite warnings and the better judgement of her familia." Finn apologized sending her an annoyed frown. Honestly Finn wouldn't let her do anything fun. It's not like she could have known those magic stones would actually hurt her. Ignore the fact that she could tell Matthew wasn't lying when he said they would.
"So I know Loki, but I don't think I've had the pleasure of meeting you before. I'm Matthew Mathers, vice captain of the Hestia familia." Matthew introduced with a smile. Pride flew in and quickly began smoothing out his feathers before he started cawing at her.
'Hey pretty little thing, back to see me?'
"And this is Pride, don't mind him."
Loki couldn't help but lament. The first man to show attraction to her in over a decade was a bird. It still felt nice to be called pretty by a man, but it didn't help that Pride wasn't even humanoid. It didn't matter. Girls were better anyway.
"I'm Finn Deimne and it's a pleasure to meet you, Vice Captain Mathers. I hope you don't mind, but I have some questions about monsterphillia." Finn began. Just like him to get straight to business.
"So you said it was possible to make monsters like that. Is that what yer doin here?" She said with a grin causing Finn to furrow his brows in anger and Matthew to raise his own questioningly. Loki knew that's something Finn wanted to know, but it wasn't something she was worried about, so she wanted it out of the way as quickly as possible.
"Ah, no these are undead while the monsters at the monsterphillia incident weren't. If they were, then their magic stones would be full of necrotic energy like the ones you hurt yourself touching." He explained.
"But you removed the magic stones?" Finn asked looking at the cuts on the monsters chests.
"That's more for practicality than for combat. If I wanted more deadly undead, it would probably be better to leave the stones in there, but since I plan to rent these things out as supporters, that's a no-go."
Loki was seriously starting to regret promising not to take Hestia's child at Ganesha's party. Why'd this child have to go to Hestia? With all his cool magic he could have totally joined her. She was gonna be so mad if it turned out the gate guards turned him away.
"And what makes you think anyone would want to hire monsters as supporters?" Finn asked.
"They don't eat, they don't sleep, they're completely invisible to the monsters born in the dungeon and they can't disobey orders from whoever I designate as their masters." He explained casually.
"Do you think I could buy some for our familia's upcoming expedition?" Finn asked, surprising Loki. Finn was normally the type to stick with the tried and true method. Something brand new like this wasn't something Loki expected he would go for.
"Well I had only planed on renting them out, and what you see here is all we have at the moment."
"So I would need to purchase them once every expedition?" Finn asked and received a nod from Matthew. "And what if our familia collected stronger monsters for you to use in your business?"
Medior returned with a teapot and four cups, pouring one for everyone. The girl sat down before looking to Finn with a serious glare, "So you're here for business huh? How many supporters do you want and how soon do you need them?"
"Our familia is going on an expedition next week, how many do you think you can manage?" Finn smiled. Loki was interested to know as well. How many could he make in a short amount of time, even if he wasn't a threat it would be good to know what his upper limit was in the event he was a threat after all.
"I'm heading into the dungeon tomorrow, but if you're able to return the day after, I could make up to forty-four, fifty-four for an extra charge since at that point I would be really pushing myself." He responded with a smile. Loki could tell he wasn't lying with those numbers, slightly worrying given the quantity of them, but unless another familia started supplying them the quality wouldn't be an issue. She would have to have one of her kids watching the church for suspicious activity.
"I think twenty will do for a test run. A few of our familia will be heading to the middle floors later today, I think we can return after tomorrow or the next day. How much would that cost us."
"One-"
"Thirty-million vals." Medior said cutting off the older man.
"Thirty-million?" Finn asked questioningly.
"Yes, this is the discounted price of course. Since you will be bringing us the monsters needed and I will not be able to fashion the proper supporter bags for each monster, we can remove twenty million vals from the total." She said with a smile looking Finn dead in the eyes as she said it. It was impressive honestly. Loki has never known a person other than Ottar that could look Finn in the eyes like that. Matthew meanwhile looked like he had been kicked in the nuts, no doubt worried about Medior demanding that high of a price. Not that he should have been worried in the first place. That sort of money was chump change for her familia Ms. Malcute most likely charging that price exactly because of it.
"I will speak with the other executives about this. We will let you know our final decision two to three days from now."
"I assume you weren't just here for business though." Matthew said breathing a sigh of relief finally giving her an excuse to interject herself.
"Actually we wanted to ask you about these." Loki smirked pulling out the magic stones she found in the sewers with Bete yesterday along with a magic stone Tione found during their last expedition. Matthew took the magic stones setting all but one of them on the table before he muttered 'identify' to himself activating some sort of spell. Loki couldn't believe Hestia found such a child. At least seven spells from what she's been able to gather.
"These are the same as the ones from the Monsterphillia attack. Why bring these to me? Did you not find the ones responsible?" He asked.
"Well one of those is not like the others. One of those came from the dungeon. Found during my familias last expedition. On top of that yesterday I found more of those plants in the sewers." Loki explained as Matthew's face went pale.
"In the dungeon as well? Did you find who had brought them above ground?" He asked worriedly.
"There's no reason to fear Matthew, our familia has a handle on this investigation, we just wanted to see if you had any insight on the matter." Finn said calming the man.
After taking a few breaths Matthew looked Loki in the eyes with determination. "I still want to help with the investigation. If you have any suspects I can have Pride keep a bird's eye on them and if he finds anything suspicious I could probably recover evidence without being noticed."
"Right now we only have two suspects. Do you think you could make a second creature like Pride?" She asked hopefully. A second creature like him would be extremely useful, more so if she could find out how many of these perfect spies he could make and how many she would need to keep an eye out for. Unfortunately Matthew shook his head.
'Hey babe, you don't need anything more than me' The bird cawed puffing its chest out and fluttering his wings.
"One familiar per caster I'm afraid, it's just how the spell works." He responded with a frown. Not a lie. Disappointing.
"What do you mean by one per caster though? Is your spell not unique?" Finn asked leaning forwards. Matthew met Finn's question with clear confusion.
"No spells are unique Finn. Anyone who's strong enough and knows the mechanics behind it can use any spell." He explained causing Loki to spit out the tea Medior had so graciously poured, causing the pallum to frown at the mess Loki had made. Finn, despite being shocked, held his composure much better than Loki had.
"So you're saying that if I knew how the spell worked I could have my own familiar?" Finn asked intrigued. Matthew looked down to his tea for several moments with a contemplative look.
"I'd be willing to teach one or two of you how to summon a familiar for the sake of the investigation. But don't get any ideas! Only this spell and only because I want to catch whoever was behind the attack. You can't tell anyone else about it." Matthew said with conviction holding his teacup with an iron grasp. If Loki didn't know any better she thought he would shatter it with how hard his hands were clenched. She understood why, It wasn't an offer she could have expected at all. It did completely clear him of suspicion as far as she was concerned though. It also meant that she couldn't hold that bottle of soma over Hestia's head for a favor anymore. This would be worth it though.
"Thatsa very generous offer Matthew-kun." Loki said walking behind him for a hug, feeling up the mans muscled arms as she did so. "I didn't know you liked me that much."
"It's not like that, I only want to help find the terrorist responsible for that attack!" He responded quickly with a face scarlet red. It seemed that Matthew was not only weak to teasing, but a tsundere.
"Oh It's okay Matthew-kun, I'll keep yer feelins fer me a secret." Loki teased once more before sitting back down and adopting a more serious look. "But as fer the investigation, you should keep an eye on Dionysus, I don't think he's responsible, but we found him in a suspicious setting. It'd be foolish to leave em unsupervised."
"Thank you Loki, I'll have Pride keep an eye on him and I'll inform you if we see anything suspicious. And as for the spell... the familia that you bring have to be able to keep it a secret, no one can know they have the spell." He said seriously.
"Huh? Not even the guild." Loki teased. As if she would tell the guild about this untapped gold mine.
"Especially not the guild!" He said with a bite. Loki put her hands up in surrender chuckling at the man.
"That's fine by me. Secrets between friends are tha best kind ain't they?" She smirked. Her words seemed to calm the mage as he smiled.
"Between friends? Yeah I guess that works." He chuckled, "To be honest I hadn't even really considered friendship even after almost dying for some of your familia. Sorta silly of me huh?"
So yer that sort are yah huh Matthew? Loki had known plenty of adventurers like that. Selfless people like that would only ever end up dead wasting their potential. Perhaps it was fer the best Loli big boobs stole this one. Loki could get what she wanted from him and she wouldn't have to watch him get himself killed like Aiz had almost done so many times. She didn't like to show it outwardly, but it broke her heart every time one of her kids died and she would spend weeks trying to drink the pain away.
"Unless you wanted anything else I think we better head out. Thank you for your help in this matter Matthew." Finn said politely before heading for the cellar hatch. To Loki's surprise the hatch wouldn't budge at all when Finn tried to open it, only when Matthew came to open it for them with an awkward apology did it open. Yet another spell?
"So what do ya think of em?" She asked once they were far enough away from the church.
"I don't like him." Finn stated simply.
"Eh, what's that Finn-kun? You don't like tha newbie? Whatever for? You think he's trouble?" Loki asked with a grin poking Finn in the face. Finn however just rubbed his thumb.
"I don't think he's trouble, but he also shouldn't exist."
That had surprised Loki. Finn wouldn't say something that mean without a reason. "Eh? Don't cha think that's a lil harsh?"
"No, it's just that magic like that is something you would expect of a level three, or perhaps an exceptional level two. This person showed up to Orario less than a month ago and made no attempt to join any other familias from what I was able to gather. It's almost like he-"
"Popped up outta nowhere?" Loki finished. "You think Hestia's been lyin bout how long she's had him."
"According to the Eina at the guild he had amnesia and didn't even know what a familia was."
"She's lyin about his real level?" Loki asked.
"It's likely the case, but I haven't been able to find a plausible alias for him." Finn explained. Slightly concerning, but it changed nothing. Loki was still going to keep an eye on the kid and try to squeeze anything useful out of him. She wanted more, but with all the mystery surrounding Hestia's children alongside the strange new monsters it wouldn't be the time. "It won't be long before another familia declares a war game on them you know."
"Ya think?" Loki asked already knowing the answer. Even if it was logically a bad idea to try and take him with his unpredictable magic and now his business that no familia in Orario would want to be exclusive, there was one fact about the gods above all. Gods are creatures of the heart, bound by their wants. That's what put Loki above the rest. Even if she still strived for her desires, but she didn't just rush into the thick of it.
"With this business he's starting, one or several dozen gods are going to try and monopolize that, regardless of if they realize that will make a lot of familias angry or not." He said calmly. Truth is she could snag him now before any other god knew, but she didn't want to destroy Hestia like that. She may have hated the big boobed bitch, but she didn't want to ruin her life.
"You plotting something Loki?"
"What? Me? Noooo." She giggled. If Matthew carries through teaching her children how to use that spell, she'll be able to keep eyes everywhere in the city. She'd buy him a drink if Hestia didn't already give him her last bottle of pure Soma. "Let's get home Finn, we gotta lot of work to do."