Autumn of the Seventeenth Year
Connection Creep
The larger the problem, the bigger the circle of connected characters. More people involved can often make the issue somewhat more convoluted. When the PCs’ own personal desires and ambitions are involved, the interests of newcomers and oldheads alike come to the fore, resulting in quite the rat’s nest. It is the job of the GM to manage this, but sometimes they may find that their reach exceeds their grasp.
In all my years across both my lives, this was the first time attending a meeting fresh out of the bath.
And so, even though the four of us were still slightly flushed from the warmth of the water, we were good and presentable. We might have spent a little too long in the tub, but who could blame us? There isn’t a thinking being alive who’d turn down the delights of a free soak in one of the Golden Mane’s luxurious clawfoot bathtubs.
My partner and I must have spent a solid hour splashing about and humming a little song in the water, but I want to be clear: this was one hundred percent necessary to the day’s workflow. I swear I wasn’t abusing my power just to finagle us a chance to kick back, okay?
“Now that was the real deal,” I said to myself. “No wonder so many of our peers keep spending a night here on their bucket lists.”
We had an incredibly important meeting ahead of us, and so I had decided it would be better to scrub up and dress the part. Here I was dressed to the nines in one of the fits I’d come into during my agonizing tours of duty in Berylin with the pervert wraith, Lady Leizniz: a black shirt, a double-button vest with silver stitching, and color-matched skinny pants. I never thought I’d have to put this damn thing on again.
My heart twinged with pain at the fact that it all still fit me. I had still been young when they were tailored, so the sleeves and legs had been tapered slightly, but all it had taken was a little adjustment to make it all sit perfectly well.
A part of me had thought I wouldn’t really need them once I became an adventurer, but life had taught me that you should always have one or two sets of smart clothes so you’re not caught with your proverbial trousers down in the presence of classy company, seeing as that kind always seemed to find you when you least expected it. I thanked my lucky stars that past me had shown sufficient foresight to leave this set and another in less somber colors in my Konigstuhl cache for easy warp retrieval. If I’d asked a local tailor to design something new of equal measure, who knew just how many drachmae it would set me back?
“What’s up, Sieg? Feeling lightheaded? Weird, you weren’t in the bath for all that long,” I said.
Seeing as Siegfried would also be attending the meeting, I decided to let him borrow my second outfit. I don’t think he’d ever been dressed this smart in his life; he looked like one of those miserable cats you see on social media who’ve been dressed up in little suits and haven’t acclimated to being touched all over. He was the spitting image of health—Kaya’s makeup potion had only been temporary—and Kaya had altered the outfit to make it fit him well. He should have looked the part, but the poor guy was visibly in hell.
“Ngh... Can’t...breathe...”
“Collar’s too tight? Huh, but Kaya should have made sure it fit, no?”
I could practically see the manga sound effects behind my comrade as he clawed at his neck. Kaya, on the other hand, was giving him a smile. It was the first time in a while that I had seen her so relaxed. The whole time he’d been out on his mission she’d been worried sick about him—I continued to proclaim to her that I deserved as much blame for the whole mess as he did—and had channeled all her anxieties into more potion development. It felt like it had been an age since I had seen her without her brow furrowed.
“Dee’s never worn something with a collar before,” Kaya told me.
“C-Call...me...Siegfried...”
It was the first time in a while that I had seen this little routine, and despite Siegfried choking through his line, it brought a smile to my face too.
Kaya had a point. I could hardly blame the guy for feeling suffocated in such an unprecedentedly close-fitted getup—never mind the necktie.
When I’d gone with Elisa and Mika to see the Berylinian Parade, I’d decided against a necktie in the name of keeping things business casual, but this world’s gold standard for a fully put together ensemble demanded a necktie akin to nineteenth-century Earth’s.
It was the product of the constantly changing fashion in the Empire’s social circles, intended to hide the buttons of a shirt for those people whose status didn’t permit them to wear ruffed collars or other such gaudy accessories. In simple terms, buttons were unseemly, yes, but it wasn’t permitted for someone of servant status to decorate themselves with gems instead.
I didn’t quite get the social mores of the necktie in this world, but I had worn my tie day in and day out back on Earth, so I didn’t really mind. But for a seventeen-year-old farm boy? Well, I’d be clasping at my own neck too.
When Siegfried had first put on the outfit he had left the collar wide open. It was a bad look—this meeting was a situation where, at least in the eyes of the other party, clothes maketh the man—so I had prepared the tie and put it on him. Maybe I’d judged the size of the knot wrong?
“All right, I’ll swap with you,” I said. “This one might be a bit better.”
I freed my comrade from his prison and gave him my bolo tie, which was decorated with a little crystal.
The bolo tie had only come into fashion in the twentieth century back on Earth, but the Empire’s love of showing off gems and metalwork had resulted in its “early” birth here. To be honest, this made a little bit more sense to me than the necktie thing. In general, Rhinians preferred their conspicuous consumption small and subtle.
“Damn... I feel like I’m being hanged...” Siegfried muttered.
“This is far better than the kind real nobles wear, you know?” I replied. “And hey, it’s lighter than a helmet, no?”
“Yeah, but I feel trapped, man. A rope around a guy’s neck... I haven’t broken any laws, man.”
The man wasn’t completely wrong. Back in my old world, when you were a slave to the wage, it sometimes felt like the necktie was a physical indication of your status as livestock.
I smiled at Siegfried as he stuck his fingers into his collar to try and open some space, despite the looser bolo tie, while I retied the necktie I had taken from him. I had decided to go for a full Windsor with its slightly asymmetrical touch. One of Berylin’s most prominent scumbags had purported the strange ideal that “a dash of asymmetry amid a perfectly symmetrical outfit is perfection!” and I found myself even now reproducing the adage without much thought.
I hadn’t really thought about her recently, but just how long was that wraith’s influence going to stick with me? I’d found my way out of the web of power and influence that thing had woven to indulge her perverse appetites legally, so why didn’t I feel any more free of her?
“Margit, is it straight?”
“It’s a little off,” my partner replied. “Kneel and I’ll fix it for you.”
Siegfried and I weren’t putting on the ritz all on our own—our scout was serving in her own style with us today. She was wearing a black leather tube top that bared a fair bit of midriff and a short leather skirt which almost showed the join between her human half and her carapace.
I knew that the amount of flesh on display was a consequence of her species-specific distaste for clothes that rustled, but I couldn’t help wondering if this wasn’t just a little bit too revealing for the occasion. In particular, I felt that her brand-new navel piercing was just a little bit too lewd.
Yep, Margit had finally made good on her promise from before. In her own words, it was “a token to celebrate reaching adulthood.” I was the very one who opened the hole, so I knew it best of all. And yes, I realized how bad that sounded the second I said it, so let me be clear: I’m not being euphemistic. I meant it quite literally—just like with her ear, I had opened the skin for the piercing this time too.
Siegfried had said, “C’mon, do that kinda shit in private,” and gave us a look like he’d just found a steaming dump on the floor, but it wasn’t my fault! This was a touchstone of arachne culture. Not that I could tell him that—it was a sensitive topic, not really intended for outsiders.
Whatever the case, here I was on one knee as my bewitching partner—most mensch would probably agree—gently fixed my tie.
“D-Dee!” Kaya squeaked. “H-Hey, Dee! It’s your turn now! I’ll help you too!”
“Whoa! H-Hold it Kaya!” Siegfried said. “Stop shaking me! I ain’t a donkey!”
I could practically hear Kaya’s romantic heart pounding from here at the sight of Margit fixing my tie. Anyone could see that she was over the moon to give it a go herself.
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