“I have to admit: your sudden appearance and business plan scared me a bit.” Jeff Foreman said. “I don’t know where you’re getting all those corpses, or how you manage to stay in business with such low prices. I don’t even know how you bought the damn tannery, my boys have been looking for that damned paper of ownership for years without so much as a hint.”

“But I don’t have to know.” The dwarf said, leaning over the table towards me as far as his potbelly allowed him, trying to look intimidating. “I just have to crush you like I crushed my other competitors.”

Alexa yawned and I just gave him a blank stare.

“So, if you don’t want that to happen to you, here’s what will happen:” He said, sliding a small stack of papers over to me. “You will operate using those rates, and not go lower than that. You will sell no more than the amount of pelts listed here, to make sure you don’t flood the market. Any of the rarer pelts and qualities specified you’ll sell through me, using our Foreman brand name.”

“And in exchange?” I asked.

Foreman smiled wryly. “I’ll allow you to stay in business, boy.”

“Counter-offer.” Alexa said. “You take those papers and shove them up your ass, and we’ll go do whatever the hell we want.”

“Barry.” Jeff coyly said.

Barry reacted immediately, taking but a moment to aim the heavy crossbow before taking the shot. The bolt plinked against my head, and I took one of Miho’s herbal health potions to undo the damage as fast as I had taken it.

“I don’t have eyebrows, so you’ll have to pretend that I’m slowly raising one of them.” I said, continuing to stare at Jeff Foreman unblinking.

“Huh. Well… Your tannery isn’t as tough as you, boy. A single spark might set the whole place ablaze.” Foreman recovered quickly.

The bolt stopped rolling and Barry picked it up. He studied the tip for a moment before shrugging and putting it back in his quiver.

“I feel like your tannery suffers the same problem. As do you.” Alexa said.

“Alexa.” I said in a warning and slightly chiding tone.

“Fine.” Alexa sighed. “We’re open for negotiations and a merger. Just don’t expect extortion to work on us. What we need is more raw materials, resources and maybe our tanner working in your cleaner workshop for a bit. We don’t mind haggling about the goods or letting you sell our products for a set price.”

“And I need a diamond pony that shits golden bricks.” Foreman said. “You guys just started today, your workshop is a piece of shit, and you showed up at a time that the markets are already plummeting because there’s not a single godsdamned store in town with gold left to buy my stock. You picked a very bad time to compete with me, because right now I want to sit on my furs until they’re worth a damn again. And I don’t appreciate someone keeping the prices low.”

Alexa looked at me, and I sighed but nodded.

Alexa: Operation Spring Cleaning is a go!

Ben: Acknowledged!

Darryl: Remember, don’t steal the unprocessed bodies. Once you loot them, Elise can’t skin them for better pelts and thus won’t grind any skills. Just take everything else.

I got up, making sure to make the chair slowly scrape over the floor as I did it, and looked at Jeff. “Right. We need to talk this over, we’ll be back later with a new offer.”

Jeff spat to the side. “Better talk quick, and don’t sell any more furs in the meantime. Otherwise I’ll make sure you’ll be more amenable to my first offer next time.”

I ignored the posturing dwarf and walked out of his office.

Elise: And?

Darryl: He’s pigheaded. He thinks you’re an employee, so maybe you can ‘switch sides’ because he pays more than us. But I don’t think his mindset right now allows for a decent deal with our ‘firm’.

Foreman’s workshop was a lot nicer than ours, I had to give him that. He had screens between the steaming barrels of foul-smelling brews and the rest of the workshop, better ventilation, and his tools weren’t encrusted with rust.

The whole idea of these ownership papers was that we couldn’t just kick him out and use his stuff, not without the guards stomping in at some point. There were a few that made rounds to discover your violation in due time, and Livia suspected there was some kind of cheating or stealth skill going on. We couldn’t see them approach on the minimap and vacate the place for a few minutes before resuming our work.

The same went for stolen goods. We couldn’t just steal the tools around here to replace Elise’s with, not without killing everyone inside first. Guards spotted ‘stolen’, ‘contraband’ and ‘no permit’ items from any distance and immediately attacked. A few people of our mega-party exploited this by giving a powerful NPC a single stolen item as a gift, and the guards would then kill that NPC. Borant fixed the exploit about two days back, NPCs now recognised such illegal goods upon receiving them.

Operation Spring Cleaning didn’t try to resolve either problem. The plan was 60% to make Foreman more amenable to our deal, 25% to reduce his capital and thus his access to thugs for hire, and 15% spite. Maybe, just maybe, he’d be willing to leave us alone or make a deal if he had a lot of corpses and no means to process them other than through our tannery.

We’d return tomorrow and see if it worked. Right now the sun was setting, so we should regroup and see if we wanted to grind night mobs or just go to sleep.

“I’m beat.” Alexa said as she sat down on my shoulder with her eyes closed. “Today was a long and exhausting day.”

“They’re all going to be like that in here.” I said.

“Not like this. Not a whole hour of non-stop singing.” Alexa said. “My voice is hoarse, it’s an actual debuff. One that isn’t going to go away until I sleep.”

“I take it you’re against night grinding, then?” I asked.

“Too tired. I’ll sleep for 16 hours straight and stay up tomorrow night.” Alexa decided.

“So if I’d go adventuring, you’ll abstain and sleep through it all?” I teased.

“Don’t go on any adventures without me. Just sleep when I sleep.” Alexa declared, and then sighed. “I don’t want to go on any adventures right now. None at all! I’ve been debuffed with Exhausted and Hoarse, and I’m pretty sure I’m just minutes away from being Very Exhausted. So no. No more adventures today.”

“Well, good to hear it. Let’s d-” I said, only to be interrupted by a feminine voice behind me.

“Adventurers, wait!”

Alexa groaned in a very Elise way, already tired of whatever the dungeon decided to throw our way. Perhaps exactly because we dared talk about being tired and not up for more adventures.

I turned around to find Carrie run at us as fast as she could. Her high heels didn’t exactly make her an athlete. While she was still prim and proper without a bead of sweat on her forehead nor a single strand of hair out of model, she was out of breath and her eyes too wild for her to appear casual.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.

“Y… Yes. There... There is.” Carrie said between ragged breaths. “Please. You’re the… only ones I know who… might be able to help.”

Alexa sighed, but then smiled deviously. “Do you have an appointment? I think we’ll have an opening in seventeen workdays if you don’t.”

“Oh. Oh dear. I don’t think I made one.” Carrie said, completely serious. “Are you sure there isn’t a spot open at an earlier time? Or maybe you can recommend me people that are available today?”

“Can it wait until tomorrow?” I asked.

“Maybe? I don’t know. I think not?” Carrie said, pouting her lip and squirming oddly. I briefly wondered if this body had a libido, and if her behaviour would’ve worked on me back when I was still human.

“What’s the problem?” Alexa asked, clearly tired but deciding to hear her out anyway.

“So, I was just doing my job and checking the calendar, when I heard a weird sound. I didn’t react to it, the Mayor told me to not mind those noises, but it kept happening and it was louder than usual.” Carrie said. “That was around two. Then there was a lot of nothing, and then around three I heard-”

“The short version, please.” I interrupted her.

“Oh. Well… Uhm? Short? Then…” Carrie said. “I think the Mayor is dead. I haven’t seen him or received any papers from him for two days now, and he hasn’t shown up to receive any of his appointments since then. Everyone got angry and I had to reschedule as soon as possible. It was really stressful; I fear I might develop wrinkles this way!”

“That’s your emergency?” Alexa said. “Wrinkles?”

“Yes! I mean no!” Carrie said. “The Mayor is dead, killed by someone or something! I think it’s still inside the manor! It’s probably very dangerous!”

As we kept walking, one of the guards passed us by. They walked slowly, but Carrie was slower still. It was getting really late, in just a minute or two the guards would be inside their barracks and night-time would begin.

We should be fine. Ben and Tatiana were right behind us, we had good levels and the spectres had torn through most of the night mobs before disappearing. Like a few hundred crawlers had barged through this area before us and left it scarce of mobs to grind. As such, I wasn’t too worried about Alexa’s safety or us having to fight through hordes to get to the nearest inn.

“So you’re not sure if the Mayor is dead, and if he is then things have been stable for the last two days?” I concluded. “In that case, I think this can wait until tomorrow.”

“Well, I mean… I don’t know if he’s been dead for two days. That’s just when he stopped showing up.” Carrie nervously argued. “And if they’re dangerous, then maybe…”

“Do you live in the mansion?” Alexa asked.

“No.” Carrie said.

“Then you’ll be fine until tomorrow.” Alexa said. “Go home, and if you’re scared then don’t enter the mansion until we get there.”

“Are you sure? It’s right over there.” Carrie said, pointing at the Mayor’s office.

We were walking over the town square that it loomed over, as it was on the way to the nearest inn. Not the one we stayed in the first time, and slightly cleaner.

I could tell from Carrie’s persistence that this was probably a night-time quest, or at least one with surprises the AI preferred to pull on us during the night, but I wasn’t even sure if we were going to bother with it. Right now we were just grinding crafting skills, trying to give Alexa and Miho some more levels, and waiting for the time that we could descend to the next floor. Most of us were done with this floor pretty quickly.

The guard that passed us by had joined the line of guards. There were about two dozen of them walking perfectly synchronised into a side-entrance of the mansion, and there were probably as many of them already inside. Ben stole quite a few of them, if no one noticed the theft then it wouldn’t trigger all the other guards like it did in the small village we started at, but there were still a lot of guards left. He set his eyes on this soul crystal that he could take once he stole them all, but I didn’t know if it was going to be worth it.

“And it will still be there in the morning.” I dismissed Carrie’s persistence. “It’s been a long day, we’re tired and not at our best. We need to sleep, and we’ll see about this tomorrow.”

“But… But…” Carrie sputtered. “The town might be in danger! Don’t you think you should…”

Carrie tried to walk faster and get in front of me to block my path, and I effortlessly picked up my pace to match hers. She pouted and returned to her slow gait.

“Fine. If you guys won’t do it today, we’ll just have to do this tomorrow. Could you at least escort me back home?” Carrie asked, gesturing in the direction we came from.

“That’s on you, girl.” Alexa said. “You’re the one who approached us this late, and followed us for so long. We’re headed to the inn, we’ll escort you if you want to stay there for the night.”

Carrie shuddered at the thought and turned around.

“Fine. I’ll just go by myself. A lone woman walking the streets by herself in the dead of night.” She sighed dramatically. “But I’ll be fine. There shouldn’t be that many monsters around yet.”

I ignored the obvious attempt to guilt me into following her, and the slightly less obvious than before attempt to reel us into this quest. “Goodnight!”

I kept walking and Alexa sighed in relief as we left. “Thank god you didn’t let her talk us into that. I’m waaaaay too tired for a late-night quest. But damn, NPCs can be persistent.”

I shrugged and Alexa let out a squeal in protest as she was rocked up and down by the movement.

Behind us, the last guards entered the barracks, the doors closed and night began.

Almost immediately there was a loud howl from the mansion, a monstrously loud and distorted feminine wail.

There was the shattering of glass. Carrie shrieked and tried to run away, and tripped almost immediately. A bloated blue-skinned humanoid fell onto the cobblestones and stalked towards her.

Ashley Dange - Frost-preserved Human Personal Secretary, lvl12

This creature is Haunted!

Many people are contributing members of society, and just as many at least make a living doing… something. And then you’ve got women like Ashley, a glorified calendar and answering machine! Chosen for her looks and lack of wits, the personal secretary is the brief autumn of adequacy that follows the golden days of prettiest girl of the class winding all the boys around her finger. While Ashley dreams of landing a rich husband, she like all personal secretaries eventually lost the last of her youth and was ‘promoted’ to a real desk job so that a younger model could take her place.

Mayor Herald of West Creek Town thought this was a huge waste. After going through half a dozen employees with benefits, the novelty of a new plaything every few years wore off. Having to teach each new secretary how to do their job, the months of them having to get learn the clients’ names and importance, the challenge of finding a proper secretary that didn’t turn out to be too smart or ambitious, that annoyance never went away however! So he set out to preserve his current secretaries to forever keep their perkiness by infusing them with frost!

This project has only yielded disappointing results thus far, Ashley included. Too little frost, and the secretary starts accumulating water in their body to bloat up into an ugly manatee. Too much frost, and she cannot move at all. Obviously necromancy is out of the question, not even Mayor Herald is stupid enough to think that a craving for flesh is an acceptable side-effect. So all that’s left is to continue experimenting until he finds that sweet spot between too hot and too cold.

Ashley isn’t someone to think for herself. Or think much at all, for that matter. But she understands being ugly, and spite. She cannot bear to think that someone will see her in this ugly, bloated form. After the Mayor locked this failed experiment in the guest room, she stayed there so that none would see her sorry state. She’ll stay here and be quiet unless someone barges in. But if she were to spot a certain non-frosted secretary, she may take offense to their existence. I sure hope you didn’t let Carrie talk you into bringing her along! No way that these mobs come out otherwise!

This creature is haunted! Their behaviour, stats and abilities have been buffed and altered based upon the soul that now shares their body! This increases their level and randomises their behaviour! Also, they almost certainly want you dead now, if that wasn’t already the case!

“Nope.” I said, and I kept walking away from the square.

Ashley let out a brief yelp before dying as an arrow struck her head. Carrie kept screaming. I kept walking as Ben and Tatiana turned to deal with the other four frost-touched secretaries that appeared from the broken window.