Earl Ragni’s war room was perhaps the grandest chamber Aexilica had ever set foot in. The Temple Of The Irethani back at Tepetlmoseua may have rivalled it in her memory, but she suspected it was only her own cultural tie to the place which caused the fact. In terms of size, construction, decoration and more or less everything else, Ragni’s war room won out.
Which was, of course, to be expected. Ragni was also the most powerful man she had ever met. Far more so than Cinta the petty town Priest, however domineering and politically omnipotent that little tyrant had always seemed.
At its centre was a large table. So large that it had doubtless been made for the purpose of accommodating a great many men, yet now only five crowded around it. Or rather, two men, two women and a severed head. The head in question, Larry of course, was also not around the furniture, but rather planted down atop it. Details seemed suddenly of less consequence however.
Everything Aexilica might have used to consider them was currently occupied by the rather disturbing way in which Emma giggled and grinned while she listened to Earl Ragni speaking.
“We must strike against Hagor.” The great beast of a man announced, slamming a fist down onto the table. It really was a heavy thing, made of some dark wood Aexilica didn’t recognise. It was probably very durable all the same, and yet it surrendered promptly to the man’s wrathful strike as a great rent ran down several feet of the material where his knuckles embedded themselves.
Aexilica remained silent as she watched the Earl, and waited for more. Some substantiation, perhaps a bit of explanation on exactly how they would strike at him. In the end it was not him, but Emma who provided it.
“I’ve been thinking.” She smirked, with that same expression she always got when something insane and terrifying was about to happen. “He has the numbers, right? So we do something to level them out. Now Larry, you’ll know what’s coming right?”
Larry paused at that, the first time in a while Aexilica had seen him do anything of the kind.
“I…Might do.” He said, evenly. “Yeah, I…Okay yeah I do.” He sounded somehow guilty, and Emma grinned again.
“Alchemy.” She declared. “Love Alchemy, it’s great. Cause you don’t need to make nice potions, do you?”
A pause, a moment for that to sink in, then five moments more from just how heavy and disturbing it was. Aexilica gasped.
“Wait…You’re poisoning them?”
All her life, that idea had been no idea at all. Poison was the weapon of cowards, weaklings. Women used poison. Granted, Aexilica was a woman, but she’d worked hard enough to make everyone forget that when paying her for her work and voting on her accommodation that the notion of doing anything to reinforce it struck her as…Simply dumb.
But here Emma was, not caring one bit. Was she just ignorant about the cultural aversion to it?
No, Aexilica had actually mentioned it to her once while they were talking before sleep. She just didn’t seem to care.
Well that was no surprise, when had Emma ever cared about violating the done thing and offending sensibilities? Aexilica found herself actually admiring the girl for it.
That was when she knew there may well be no hope left for her.
“What exactly is the plan here?” Guldin asked, apparently not nearly as patient, or as interested at simply watching Emma’s madness begin, as Aexilica.
Emma, for her part, responded quite appropriately to his prodding.
“Fuck you.” She snapped. “I cast bowling ball to nads.”
Before Aexilica could so much as wonder what that meant, one of Emma’s weird material constructs suddenly appeared in the air and shot across the room. It struck Guldin hard between his legs, folding him over to violently puke out onto the floor as he lay there twitching and wheezing. Emma grinned at that, and Aexilica couldn’t help but share a smile of her own.
Privately, of course. If she let the girl know how amusing she’d found that, it would only serve as encouragement. Larry, apparently, had no such qualms.
“Ha! Not so smug now, are we you little shit? Hey how’s the floor taste asshole?”
Guldin didn’t respond, he was too busy twitching and moaning his torment out to the world. While he focused on recovering, and puking some more, Emma turned to address the rest of them more clearly.
“Basically, yeah.” She continued. “I’m poisoning them all.”
“How?” Aexilica asked. “There’s a lot of them and…Oh.”
Gifts had been given at the feast, handed off by Ragni and handed off by Hagor. Gifts of mead, of wine, or milk and honey and butter. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“Emma, seriously?”
Emma just grinned.
“Come on, they won’t see it coming right?”
“Because it’s underhanded as shit, how will anyone trust you…ever after this?”
Emma hesitated at that, then shrugged.
“Well, basically, the plan was everybody who learns not to today is already dead, so the story doesn’t get around.”
Aexilica just stared at her, trying to figure out how much what she was saying was serious and not really making any progress.
“The weapon of women.” Earl Ragni growled, looking all the angrier now. “Is that what my name has come to, poisoning?”
“Would you rather it come to losing?” Emma shot back, in a remarkable display of Emma-ness she managed to intensify his anger within those seven words alone. Aexilica actually thought she’d have to step in and stop the man from throttling her.
Fortunately, he kept himself restrained before she needed to.
“I will…Accept this, this once.” He muttered at last. “But only this once.”
Emma beamed like she’d just been handed a present, rather than permission to kill people.
Shortly after that, they cleared out of the room. Ragni and Guldin did, at least, Emma and Aexilica still had things to discuss. She waited for a bit of privacy before breaching the topic.
“I don’t like this.” Aexilica told her. Emma frowned.
“What the poison? You said—”
—”Not that.” She clarified. “This, all of it. Working with the Sculds, for Ragni, in Vichin. I don’t like it.”
Emma frowned at that.
“Why?”
Aexilica actually blinked, actually took a step back, actually had to spend a few moments gathering her bearings and coming up with how exactly she could explain something so…obvious.
“Because they’re savage, warmongering rapists who spent centuries starting wars with my people.” She replied, slowly enough to make sure Emma understood her reasoning.
Emma just arched a brow.
“You don’t need to talk to me like I’m an idiot. I’m asking why you even care about any of that, the Aethiqi made you sleep in a shed on the outskirts of town and gave half your house up to me the moment I did something as useful as what you did every week. Why are you loyal to those dicks?”
Aexilica didn’t know why her temper frayed at that, but it did.
“That’s none of your concern.” She spat. “And not the issue at hand, I don’t want to work with Sculds because they’re evil savages.”
Emma took a moment.
“...Didn’t Aethiq do basically all the same stuff Scurlga did, just back at them?”
“No!” Aexilica gasped. “What? No, of course we didn’t!”
“Human sacrifice, raiding, etc.” Emma noted down the concepts, counting them off on raised fingers. “What else?”
Aexilica wasn’t liking this twist to the conversation, and caught herself before she could throw her words farther down it.
“Are you sure about this?” She asked, moving back to the topic at hand. “Poisoners are never popular.”
“Neither are powerful women, right?” Emma shot back. Aexilica blinked. She…had a point there. A very good point.
“But powerful women who poison are least popular of all.” Aexilica noted. Emma just shrugged.
“Yeah, well, right now beating that smug prick Hagor is more important than long-term reputation.”
Aexilica sighed, feeling suddenly tired. Impossibly tired.
“Everything was simpler before you showed up.” She said, without thinking. Looked up sharply to find Emma…Looking thoughtful. Not exactly hurt, not exactly not hurt, just…Considering.
“I don’t think this is all my fault, right?” She asked, seeming more to be thinking aloud than anything else. “But I also kind of don’t care, not really, not compared to how fucked everything is here anyway. Way I see it I’m gonna just do whatever I have to to make myself comfortable, and if that hurts the fuckers trying to get in my way then they should just avoid screwing with me.”
Aexilica didn’t know what to make of that. It was just…wrong.
“You don’t live for anything except yourself?” She asked her, mouth suddenly dry. Emma just shrugged again.
“Not here, at least. Everyone else has been a dick so far. Except you.” She glanced at Aexilica’s eyes, then rather pointedly away. “I, uh, I’ll have your back.”
“I’ll have your back too.” Aexilica blurted out, taking a step forwards without really meaning to. “You’re the only person I’ve ever met who hasn’t treated me like shit for no reason, so…I reckon I owe you that. I mean, that’s not—I’m not just helping you because I think I have a debt, you know, it’s…There’s other reasons too, and…stuff.”
She expected mockery or amusement from Emma, and instead saw the woman’s pale face turn almost crimson as her eyes started darting and hands dancing.
“Agreed. Thanks, I mean, you know, I’ll watch your back too.” She seemed to find something terribly embarrassing about that, too, and the babbling which followed was too fast and incoherent for Aexilica to even follow.
Oh, good, so she’s even worse at this than me.
It brought a smile to Aexilica’s face, and Emma’s soon reflected it. They stood there, smiling. But not forever. Duty called soon enough—or rather the cold, hard pragmatism of what needed doing and the limited time they had to do it in.
“Good talk.” Emma nodded, clearing her throat, then nodded again. “Very good talk, we should…Uh, I mean we don’t need to discuss any of this again right?”
“Right.” Aexilica agreed, resisting the urge to actually gasp in relief. “Already been discussed and all, what more would there be to add?”
“Precisely.” Emma smiled. “It’d be redundant.”
“A waste of time.”
“Pointless effort.”
They stood there, nodding at each other, smiling stiffly, trying to think of something more to add. In the end, perhaps fortunately, neither of them could.
“Dawwww.” Larry chirped. “My heart’s melting! Or it would be, you know, if someone hadn’t—” Emma knocked the head over, much to his chagrin, and Aexilica and her quickly stepped back from one another while he rolled around swearing and spitting on the table.
“Back to work then.” Emma said at once, and Aexilica nodded instantly.
“Back to work.” She agreed, looking around, suddenly, as if she might find some work conveniently placed nearby to save her from needing to continue the conversation.
She didn’t, of course, save for turning Larry back upright and earning a grin from him.
“I hope you’re remembering all the shit I’ve been helping you with.” The head noted. “I ain’t doing this stuff for free you know.”
Emma stiffened at that. “...What do you want?” She asked him, testily, warily, cautiously. Aexilica felt herself tense as well. If Emma of all people was taking something seriously…
“I haven’t decided yet.” Larry replied. “But when I do, I expect some serious favour-powers from all this assistance. That poison was some of your finest work yet, right? And it’s all thanks to this guy—this guy…” He looked for a moment as if he were trying to do something, and Aexilica realised his mind was directing limbs no longer attached to his body. Larry swore as Emma started giggling.
“Alright, sure.” She grinned. “You’ll get yours.”
—”No.” Larry snapped. “None of that cryptic crap, I’ll get help from you later when I ask.”
Emma paused, then sighed, then nodded.