Loosely Lawful | 2

The mayor of Mont Lac’s eyes bulged when Kyle dropped his bag of siren scales on the mayor’s desk.

“Twenty three sirens, all dead,” Kyle said. “Pay up, Coach.”

Sera stuck her head out from behind Kyle’s massive shoulders. “And you should have warned us your lake infestation was sirens, sir. We could’ve taken precautions.”

The mayor weighed the scales in his hands and shot Sera a dirty look. “No law saying I have to tell you anything,” he grumbled, which was wrong. There was a law about precisely that. “Not like you can prove we knew beforehand anyways.”

“I should think a siren infestation would be quite obvious,” Sera pointed out. “They sing, for Librata’s sake. And how did they even get there in the first place? That lake doesn’t feed into any larger systems.”

The mayor took the scales and slapped a bag of coin on the desk. It was a nice desk, made of sturdy, dark wood with a tight, swirly grain, and it took up half the room. If Kyle picked it up and swung it around, he could cause a great deal of damage.

“Doesn’t matter,” the mayor said. “They’re dead now. Thanks for the spoils too. Siren scales will make for interesting crafts from the souvenir shops here.” He pulled out a scale and bit it, as if testing the hardness mattered for siren scales. “Now take your coin and go.”

“Uh,” Sera started.

But, of course, Kyle beat her to it. “Halfsies rule,” he said, leaning over the desk.

The mayor shot them both an unimpressed look as he returned the scale to the bag. “Oh please. You two have your own stash of scales hidden away in your rooms. Don’t try to cheat me out of my half. I know what you adventurers are like.”

Kyle paused before lifting one impeccably sharp eyebrow. “Ohh. Looks like we got a little narp on our hands. You wanna say that again?”

“I could cast a truth spell right now,” Sera added, crossing her arms. She always asked Librata for truth spells before a negotiation. “Maybe we’d get the truth behind the presence of those sirens from you if I did.”

Sera had been hoping that her little threat, combined with Kyle’s general demeanor and size, would convince the mayor to hand over half of the scales. After all, they’d been truthful and up front. All the siren scales they had collected were in that bag, and if the mayor wanted more, he could send divers to the bottom of the mountain lake. But apparently, the mayor was a little bitch who didn’t know how to pick his battles. Instead of giving in, he turned his nose up and clutched the bag tighter.

“You’re going to threaten me now? When I’ve been so kind as to give you a job? One wrong move and I could blacklist you both.”

“One wrong move and you could be facing a lawsuit,” Sera hissed. She clapped her hands, reached for Librata’s spirit inside of her, and pulled.

Light spilled from a tiny circle beneath her feet, growing and growing until the whole room was lit from below. Her magic cast strange shadows, like the dark square of the mayor’s desk on the ceiling, and the strange silhouettes of herself and Kyle writhing on the walls. As her magic grew, Sera kept an eye on everyone’s faces. She noted the moment that Kyle’s eyes glazed over with the light sheen of truth magic. She noted how the mayor winced before his eyes did the same. And when she was sure that the two of them were under her spell, Sera let the magic wriggle its way into her brain as well.

“Now then,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning casually against Kyle’s bulk, “let’s try this again. Kyle, can you please confirm that the mayor is holding all of the scales we collected?”

“Yep.”

“And will you also confirm that we left a great deal behind in the lake, which could potentially be scavenged later?”

“Also fact.”

The mayor’s grip on the bag of scales loosened, and he moved to put it back on the table, but he didn’t let go quite yet.

“So, Mayor, would you agree to return half the scales in that bag to us, per our contract?”

The mayor let go of the bag and huffed. “Yes.”

“Can you confirm for us also that there are one hundred gold coins in the purse there?” Sera asked.

The mayor huffed again, and his face settled into a deep, ugly scowl, but he brought out a handful of extra coins, and slipped them into the purse. “Yes,” he bit out.

Sera could have gotten him on the money without asking under a truth spell. Weighing objects was a parlor trick for all of Librata’s servants, and she knew how much one hundred legitimate gold coins weighed. “Are they all, to your knowledge, legitimate?” she asked.

“Yes.” The mayor did not look happy to admit it. The high-contrast light from the floor carved long, deep lines over his face and turned his features unrecognizable. He could have come from a sleepover ghost-story-telling circle, as the ghost, of course.

“Well then,” Sera said, smiling as brightly as she could, “that will be all. Our sides of the contract are each fulfilled.” She picked up the scale bag and tipped it carefully to the side to pour the siren scales out on the mayor’s desk. When the weight in her hands had halved, she tied off the top and slung the bag over her shoulder while Kyle picked up the coins.

The two of them began their exit, Kyle in front. His heavy footsteps rumbled through the floor, and as he slowed to fit his bulky shoulders through the door frame, Sera turned around to give the mayor an appraising look.

“By the way,” she said, trying to act casual, “where did those sirens come from?”

The mayor’s face turned beet red. He clenched his fists, and the siren scale he’d been holding in one of them shattered. “None of your business!” he shouted. “It doesn’t matter! I definitely didn’t… Didn’t… Fuck! You damn holy woman! You better not show your face here again!”

Kyle made it through the door, and Sera followed after him as quickly as possible, nearly rear-ending him once or twice. “Good grief,” she mumbled, as the mayor’s shouting echoed down the hall. “I don’t intend to.”

The trip from the office to the front steps of city hall was a short one, and soon enough Kyle and Sera were picking their way down the wide, stone steps at the front of the building. Its pretentious, ancient-style columns rose behind them like a temple to the likely-still-raging mayor, and the setting sun cast a long shadow from Kyle’s feet to the front door.

“Man,” he groused, turning for one last look at the city hall, “that guy was a fuckin’ scrub.”

“He really was.” Sera took the lead now, and directed the pair towards the train station at the center of town. “Do you think we’ll ever figure out where the sirens came from?”

Kyle scratched his cheek and frowned. “Dunno. You want to?”

“Perhaps,” Sera replied. “But I think we need to find your glaive first.”