2a: Mary Meeting

Mary was fascinated by Boomport as her coach made its way up the Great Spiral Road to the elite commerce section. The sights, sounds, smells, and overall feel of the city were beguiling, tantalizing, and energizing. There were things here that she had only heard of in distant legends, if at all. She knew of the ancient fallen empires and the relics they had left behind, but this was like one of those great civilizations brought to life again. She could feel the newness and the energy of it all, and wondered how this had happened and what it might mean for the future.

Centuries before Mary was born, the elves of the Holy Corellon Federation set in motion a secret plan to grow peace and civilization in the Gray Ridge Mountains by converting the various savage races to the worship of civilized gods. At the time Mary visited Boomport, it was known only to a few that the elves had been responsible for the recent conversion of the goblins to the worship of Ioun, goddess of knowledge.

When an entire civilization religiously devotes itself to knowledge, skill, and reason, the results can be impressive and somewhat alarming, especially if old books and devices from fallen technological civilizations are available to study. Less than a decade after their conversion, the goblins laid claim to a mountain tall enough to escape gravity, named it Boomport, and started exploring wildspace, first with incredibly dangerous rocket-powered ships, and later with magitech spelljamming engines.

Boomport soon became the political, cultural, and economic center of a rapidly-developing goblin civilization. Ships came into the mountaintop spaceport with wonders to be studied. Shipyards were built just below the port. Workshops, laboratories, makerspaces, and schools sprang up on the sides of the mountain. Banks, high-value storage vaults, military facilities, and government offices were established in fortified tunnels within the mountain. Raw materials flowed into warehouses on the bottom of the mountain, and smaller nearby mountains were terraced to form farmland.

When a tribe of kobolds in a strategically important location was converted to the worship of the good dragon-god Bahamut, the elven plan of Gray Ridge civilization was nearly complete. They recruited the wizard Martin Cooper, a cultural anthropologist who had done fieldwork in the region, to be their ambassador to the kobolds, and tasked him and his party of adventurers with protecting and nourishing this young civilization. Martin succeeded admirably in the job, completing a series of great tasks and adventures while working to advance peaceful cooperation and protect local traditions. Soon, Martin made contact with the local network of clerics, and through them various local leaders. He was a key player in the formation of the Gray Ridge League of Armed Neutrality, of which the Boomport goblins were a founding member, and soon became a local legend and the de facto leader of the League.

With the creation of the League, Boomport grew even more, becoming one of the main commercial hubs of an entire region of peoples just starting to enjoy the possibilities and benefits of peaceful trade and coexistence. Adventurers from all over the League came to sell books and devices they had pulled from Dragonborn and Tiefling ruins, and to buy magical and alchemical devices from goblin workshops. Merchants came to buy and sell raw materials and more mundane goods. Inns and taverns sprang up on the lower levels of the city to cater to this crowd. Higher-end meeting-houses, hotels, shops, and depots were built at the mountaintop, near the spaceport, to cater to the spacefarers, richer adventurers, high-end businesspeople, and other elites. Various government and diplomatic offices for the League, such as its Space Command, were set up close to the goblin government offices deep in the mountain.

As the carriage slowly moved past all of this, offering tantalizing hints of a larger picture that Mary desperately wished to know and understand more fully, she longed to burst out of the shell of the carriage and disappear into the winding alleys and chaotic markets of the city to explore and adventure. There were so many amazing things to experience.

But the rational part of her knew that this was dangerous, so she stayed in the carriage with Captain Daniels and Belén. Hopefully Susan would take her out into the city after they met and went over her intel.

Thanks to the advance notice from their sages and spies, the Hanover family had been preparing Mary for adventure for two intense weeks before her official invitation came from the League Space command. The letter confirmed the tales of Martin's harebrained eccentricity. Mary and five other women were instructed to join together into an adventuring party and gather plants for Martin in space. It was obviously a test, and as soon as the letter came, the Hanover family and all of its advisers began gathering information and plotting.

Much of this operation had been directed by Mary's cousin Susan, the family's agent in Boomport. Given her location near the place where the adventurers would meet, it made sense for all information to flow directly to her. Susan lived in a small house over a narrow storefront in the wealthy commercial region of town near the spaceport. The storefront had two signs. To the left of the door there was an ornate steel sign encrusted with magically enchanted glowing and glittering mica flakes that read "Mecklenberg Mica: Bespoke Magical Armor and other Fine Creations." To the right of the door there was a subdued and official-looking carved-granite sign that said, "Embassy of the Kingdom of Mecklenberg."

The shop was incredibly profitable, and as far as anybody in League intelligence knew, the sole foreign policy goal of the Kingdom of Mecklenberg, aside from continued independence, was maximizing their income from this one store. This was a mostly accurate assessment of the situation.

When the coach rattled to a stop in a parking space front of the storefront, Daniels looked around the street, and also up at the rooftops, scanning for threats, and then opened the door and hopped out. He went for the footstool, preparing to help Mary down, but Mary, eager to leave the coach and prove her independence, jumped out, just like she would jump when running through a forest. However, as she landed, her foot slipped on a smooth, oil-coated cobblestone, her leg shot out in front of her, and she sprawled painfully onto the ground.

As Daniels helped her up, he said, "Yew need to treat these streets like rocks in a river. Take it slow. Ya never know what kinda crap these filthy goblins have tossed inta the street."

As soon as Mary put weight on her left foot, she yelped in pain and nearly collapsed again, but Daniels caught her. "Looks like ya twisted yer ankle up pretty bad. Let's gitcha inside."

And so, Mary's first steps in the big city were a few hop-limps, clinging to Daniels's arm, from her family's gilded coach to its high-end boutique. She said nothing, focusing on not crying from pain and embarrassment.

When Daniels opened the door, Mary was confronted with a store full of giant insects: tall lanky golden-brown mantis-like things, standing on their back two legs while waving the other four around. They wore varying amounts of clothing, from a ragged loincloth to clean ornate white robes, but all had belts and bandoliers full of tools and weapons, including vicious-looking three-pointed throwing stars. Several of them were clustered around Susan. Mary's first instinct, when seeing her cousin surrounded by armed giant insects, was to panic, but she quickly realized that they were just talking, so she kept quiet and watched.

Susan was wearing a bizarre-looking helmet. The visor was golden, with a purple lens over one eye, and the rest was made of a strange gray material patterned to look like a giant brain. She was gesturing and pointing, but not moving her mouth or saying anything. Then an insect would wave its arms and antennae and make clicking sounds, and then Susan would respond with a quiet look and gestures.

Susan saw Mary and Daniels come in, but did not acknowledge them immediately. Instead, she kept 'talking' to the insects until one of them took a Mica shield from her to examine and another consented to be measured by the gnome clerk. Then, she took the helmet off and came to greet her cousin.

"Did you feed the meter?"

Mary, confused and a little shocked, said nothing. Daniels also looked perplexed.

Susan fished for a coin from her purse. "You have to put a shilling into the slot in that box on the pole with the flags poking out.... Oh, never mind, I'll do it. Take this key, go behind the counter, and let yourself into the apartment through the left-hand door."

Daniels gingerly helped Mary through the crowded store, carefully and slowly moving around the insects, who stared at them unsettlingly. Mary got the feeling that at least one of them was looking at her limp and thinking of her as an injured prey animal, but they did nothing. She was happy to get behind the counter and through the door, even though it meant that Daniels would have to carry her up the narrow staircase. When they got to the parlor, he deposited her into the couch, took up a guard stance with his back to the wall covering the doors and window, and they waited for Susan to return.

It took quite some time for Susan to return, and when she did she seemed tired and frazzled. "Oh Mary, I am so happy to see you. It is such a relief to have family around. I am sorry if I was short earlier, I was in the middle of a big sales pitch and I didn't want us to get ticketed or booted and have to deal with the traffic bureau."

She plopped down into the armchair opposite the couch and started taking her shoes off. "Ugh, those roaches are always a pain in the ass to deal with. They don't understand the concept of 'certified banknotes only' and always insist on bartering and then I have to arrange for an appraiser and escrow broker to make sure I am not getting ripped off. If they weren't loaded with the treasures of a hundred moons I'd kick their skinny asses right out the door as soon as they tried to walk in. Anyway, let's have dinner. I'll have the runner fetch us some whale tacos from the Olmos joint down the road."

Daniels spoke up. "Also, please arrange for a healer for Mary. She twisted her ankle on the journey here."

Susan rushed over to Mary and looked at her foot. "Oh, my poor dear! Of course we'll get you fixed right up. I know someone discreet; it won't do to have rumors going about. And while we're at it, I need to have your name added to the arrival board at The Open Shell."

After a strange but delicious dinner and a visit from a taciturn cleric, Mary felt much better. After the servants had finished moving in all the luggage and setting up the guest room for Daniels and the driver, and a cot for Mary in Susan's room, Susan dismissed them, locked the doors and shutters, and started the intelligence briefing.

"Okay, so here's the scoop. The crew is you and a bunch of demihumans: An orc, two goblins, and two elves. You are the only human, so it is pretty clear that this is a test for you. Martin is good at managing the demis; he got them to stop butchering each other and act like real people. So he is probably testing you to make sure that you can do the same thing. Basically your job is to keep them from killing each other or sabotaging the mission, and once you have done that, you will have passed the test. From what I hear, you're pretty good with the demis, so it should be easy for you to get along with everyone. Just be good to them and talk them out of anything stupid, and when you get back, you will be Mrs. Cooper!"

Susan pulled out a folder of notes. "Now, on to specific advice and plans. Our cover story is that you have been adventuring for a few years in and around Mecklenberg, protecting its people from various bad things. Basically, you just claim credit for the stuff that Captain Daniels and his men have been doing. I am sure you remember most of the stories, but you should memorize all of his reports as well, and work with Daniels to add some realistic details to your 'memories' so you can convince people you were there. Oh, and change the story so you were leading a group that included gnomes and elves. That should be precedent for you to have a respected leader and peacekeeper role.”

Susan checked off another item on the page. “Demis all hate each other for one reason or other. They obviously will not trust the other races, the wood elf and high elf will be at odds because of that screwy caste thing they have, and one goblin is nobility and another is a commoner so they will also not get along. That will leave you as the only person they can trust."

Susan flipped to a new page of notes. "Okay, now on to racial psychology, so you know what to expect and how to approach them. Orcs are full of bluster. They come out bragging, with a big list of demands, and they expect you to haggle them down. Try to arrange for the elves and goblins to do that for you. This one will probably demand to be named captain and combat leader to soothe her fragile ego, so you should let her have that. It actually makes sense, because she is an experienced adventuring captain, so hopefully she can keep the others in line in an emergency. But don't let her have any more power than that.

Susan flipped the page again. “Now, goblin women are vicious cunning little bitches"

"Butch bitches" Daniels interjected laconically.

Susan burst into a whistling high-pitched screech of a laugh before continuing. "Right. They'll try all sorts of crap, like to make your head spin. But the nice thing is they are pretty easy to bribe. As far as we can tell, neither one actually loves Martin, so if it becomes necessary you can just pay them off to keep them in line. The commoner might think she loves him, but really she just wants to hang out with a high-level wizard. She'd probably be fine with the kobolds of Team Wormslayer, and we think we can arrange that, so that is your trump card for her. And the noble is just doing this to buy time in a political game. We are still working on the details, but whatever problem they have can probably be solved by some kind of special treaty between her clan and Mecklenberg, so again you have a trump card to buy her loyalty if you can't just sweet-talk her.”

Susan flipped to another page. Mary was starting to hate that sound. Susan continued. “Elves are pretty easy to manage. They are obsessed with aesthetics and sensation, so as long as you let them take charge of things like cooking and decoration, you can get away with controlling the real power. You and the orc and goblins will end up as the actual owners of the adventuring company, which means control of all the mission details. Now, about that corporate ownership..."

And so began a tedious evening of money and plotting. Susan went over negotiating strategy, with the goals and estimated assets of the others. She also went over more 'racial psychology' manipulation tricks, to which Daniels added lessons from his experience dealing with the family's nonhuman servants.

During a particularly vile and demeaning digression, Mary interrupted him to try to regain conversational control, and her sanity. "Wait, sorry, it is hard for me to focus on this. Something has been bothering me."

Daniels looked at her. "Yes?"

"What will happen to me if Martin ends up choosing one of them as a wife?"

Susan and Daniels looked at each other, as if they had never even considered this, before Daniels responded, "Well then, that'd mean he's just crazy. He may know how to keep them in line, but surely he's not that much of a demi-lover."

Susan added, "If it turns out that he is, then nobody will blame you for not marrying him. We'd be happy not to have that in the family, so you can just come home and pretend this never happened and we'll find another place for you."

Mary nodded politely. "Can we stop for now? I could really use a good sleep so I can be at my best."

"Oh, of course, dear. We can stop now. But you probably won't meet tomorrow. You meet for breakfast the day after everyone posts that they have arrived, and last I checked only two others are in town. I'd expect it will take several more days before everyone arrives."

Susan was correct, and the days of waiting were mostly enjoyable. Susan took a few hours a day, when no customers were expected, to show Mary around the city. Susan knew the city, its rules and patterns and tricks and treasures. She was smart and sassy and fun to be with, as long as Mary could keep the topic of conversation away from the supposed inferiority of anyone who was not a Hanover. Daniels insisted on following them the first couple times, but then he saw that the city was actually pretty safe if you knew the rules, and Susan managed to persuade him that she knew how to keep anything bad from happening.

Sometimes Mary went out wearing her armor, sometimes she went in nicer noblewoman's clothes, and a couple times Susan had her wear her old woods-tromping clothes. These were very different experiences, even when walking the exact same streets, and Mary learned a lot about cities, and about people, in those few days.

She learned how people judged her by her clothes and walk, knowing nothing of her rank and station. She learned that different races had very different ideas about what was appropriate to be sold and advertised in an open market. She learned what it was like to have to pull a knife on a stoned goblin in a seedy bar in order to get him to stop trying to grope her.

When Susan was busy, Daniels would continue Mary's combat training. When Susan had to be watching the shop but nothing was happening, they went over the intel again. More information about the mission and other women would trickle in, usually just confirming or adding a little detail to what Susan had already gathered.

After days of this, Mary felt that she already knew these women, even though the information about them was fragmented and filtered through Susan's contempt: Ra fal, the orc river captain, a bold, flamboyant, experienced adventuress. Gladys, a goblin commoner born with nothing, who used alchemy to change her body and her fate and give herself a place in the world. Mabellyne, a quiet goblin noble from a minor family caught up in intrigues. Sofonisba, a high-elf whose job was to collect books for a library but who loved nothing more than living alone in the woods. Tsinta, a mysterious wood-elf beauty who came and went at the behest of inscrutable Powers.

On the morning of the meeting, Mary got up early, full of excitement to meet everyone, and quickly strapped on her armor. She checked herself in the mirror. The cleaned and polished armor was gorgeous, glimmering with flakes of mica embedded in each of the chrome-steel scales riveted to a brown leather backing. The main armor vest covered her neck, torso, and waist. She wore nine more segments: two for each arm and leg and a separate thigh-length skirt. Her thick steel-clad hiking boots almost counted as two more pieces of armor. The helmet, shield, and sword would be left at home; it was rude to wear them for social meetings. Under the armor she wore a purple silk shirt and tan silk leggings. Her long black hair was pulled into a tight braid.

But instead of getting an early start, she ended up sitting and seething after Daniels and Susan insisted that she show up late to establish her dominance, and Belén fussed with her makeup to try to give just the right appearance of nobility and power.

And so, when she finally arrived at the restaurant and was ushered into the private meeting room, everyone was there, silently watching her come in.

Ra fal, the orc, was resplendent in shiny chrome-steel chainmail armor, a single contiguous full-sleeved garment that went from the neck to below the knees. Over this she wore a cloth-of-gold cloak, and she had a ponytail of glittering blonde hair that pulled attention away from her fat green face, red eyes, and short white fangs. The tiny interlocking armor rings covered her torso, were squeezed around her waist by a thick leather belt, and then formed a knee-length skirt. Under the armor were a white silk shirt and black denim pants. She was about seven feet tall, stockier and probably stronger than any man Mary had seen. She had a figure that wanted to look like a chunky man's, but corsetry had squeezed it into something more feminine-looking, and Mary wondered, with sympathetic discomfort, why she would do this when meeting a group of women. But then Mary looked into the orc's red eyes and saw, beyond the obvious ambition and cunning, the familiar resignation of one who has found it necessary to always follow certain rules of appearance.

Gladys was wearing a large multilayered frilly hot-pink tutu. She was a little under four feet tall, but so burly she almost looked like a dwarf instead of a goblin, which made the tutu look even more out of place. The rest of her outfit, however, was starkly utilitarian: a stained tan undershirt, two crossed bandoliers full of pouches, a worn and scuffed leather jacket, loose baggy distressed blue denim cargo pants, and massive hobnailed steel-toed leather boots. Her head was completely bald, with no hair or eyebrows, which made her yellowish skin, pointy ears, large green eyes, and sharp feral face more prominent. A pair of orange-tinted laboratory safety goggles was strapped to her forehead. The overall appearance was ridiculous, even for a goblin, and Mary's first thought was that the tutu was a foolish lipstick-on-a-pig attempt to dress up, but then her family's paranoid warnings made her look more closely, and she noticed the telltale shadow and bulge of a large handaxe concealed under the tutu.

Mabellyne was a slightly taller but much thinner goblin wearing a simple conservative three-button woolen navy-blue pantsuit with a starched collared white shirt. The outfit was ornamented by two sleek tasteful utility belts made of black leather with gold-plated fittings. One, with smaller pouches, was cinched around her waist, accentuating her figure, and a larger one with larger pouches was slung around her hips. Her well-tailored pants managed to look flattering even with a half-dozen pockets and a hammer loop. Although her skin tone and facial structure were very similar to Gladys's, she had long fiery red hair fashioned into an elaborate princess braid, and had used makeup to soften her appearance, with the result that she looked almost like an elf or gnome.

Sofonisba was a regal elf wearing a full-sleeved turtleneck bodycon dress made from an ultrafine silvery metal weave that clung to and flattered her willowy six-foot-tall form. Fabulous sophisticated filigrees of gold and purple were woven into the dress, their color a perfect complement to her pale skin and light purple hair, which was pulled into a loose flowing ponytail that passed under a shawl. Underneath the dress there were leggings of the same material. She wore gloves of fine white leather, and her shoes were also like white leather gloves, skintight with a separate sheath for each toe. Although the outfit looked like a fragile party dress, Mary could tell that it was a rugged and magical suit of mithral armor just as strong as her own, but allowing more freedom of movement. She looked again at the shawl, and saw that it was actually a hood that could be quickly pulled up and over the face to give head-to-foot protection.

Tsinta was breathtaking. Her face and body were the artists' ideal of the perfect female form, and her coppery skin and light blue hair gave an unearthly feel to the beauty. Mary almost wanted to touch her to see if she was real. Although Tsinta was a half-foot shorter than Sofonisba, she was more regal and imposing. Mary was not sure if that was due to her stronger and fuller-figured build, her demeanor, or something more mystical. She wore a vest made from the bluish scaly skin of some kind of large aquatic creature, and a flowing blue knee-length skirt made from some kind of material that looked more like water weeds than cloth, catching the light in a watery glimmer. On her feet she wore simple moccasins just like most other elves. Her deep blue eyes held portents of distant wisdom and mystic dreams.

In the back of her mind, Mary had been thinking through the possibility of throwing away all of her family's plotting and trying a different approach. She had rehearsed being honest with these women about her disinterest in Martin, revealing her actual youth and inexperience, acting a bit childlike to seem like a harmless and lovable little sister, and throwing herself on their mercy. Looking into their faces, and seeing their power and strength and competence, removed all doubt that this was the only way to go.

Mary curtsied. “Good morning everyone!”

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