The Outlands

Tess put down her cards, shaking her head in amazement. “You know, Death, sometimes I feel like we couldn’t beat you even if we were in Descent.”

“I tried it, once.” Fortune volunteered. “I gave Death time to theorycraft and then used my regular deck. She beat me by a lot.”

“Only because I knew what was in that deck and custom-built a deck to counter it. Had I just used one of my other decks, I would have lost.” Death said, then struck a dramatic pose. “But you, mortal as you are, have no chance of defeating me!”

“Didn’t you once try to argue that Ellie was a god?” Tess asked.

“She did.” Fortune confirmed. “And I believe her logic went something along the lines of ‘Appointed are supposed to be equal to the gods therefore they may as well be gods’. And, if you take that statement to be true, and add in the fact that Tess is my daughter, I believe that makes her double-godly.”

“Oh no!” Death cried out theatrically. “My own reasoning is being used against me! My self-esteem is crumbling as we speak!”

“What’s this about self-esteem?” Ellie asked, walking up to the three of them.

“Nothing, we’re just goofing around while waiting for the last guests to show up.” Death replied. “You know, the usual.”

“Who hasn’t made it here yet?” Ellie asked. “I haven’t really been keeping track.”

“Pastor Faust, Jacob, that Hunter, Marie, and Maven’s mom.” Fortune supplied. “Jacob ended up having to work late, and Maven’s mom is wrapping up some sort of meeting. I dunno about Abarrane, but Jacob and the Hunter should be here soon, they were coming together but Jacob got called in to work a little late.”

“Ah, gotcha. Anyway, I was just coming over to see if you wanted me to grab you some food while you waited.”

“We’ll…probably be fine.” Tess said. “It’ll only be a few minutes more, if Jacob and Marie get here and Maven’s mom hasn’t come yet, we’ll come and join the rest of the party, and we can just greet her whenever she shows up.”

“Alright. Maven and I are eating with The Rumors at one of the tables, come see us when you’re done here, alright?”

“We might do a circuit and chat with everyone else first, but we’ll definitely stop by.” Tess said. “If you finish and we haven’t come yet, just let us know, okay?”

“Will do.” Ellie replied, giving Tess a quick kiss on the cheek before heading back towards the dining tables.

“Think we have time for another round?” Fortune asked.

“Probably not.” Death replied. “Not unless you’re okay with being interrupted halfway through.”

“We can just chat.” Tess said. “It’s only a couple of minutes.”

“You know what, let me just check on where they are.” Death said. “Give me like, a minute.”

Death vanished, and Tess turned back to her mother. “I’ve been meaning to ask, how exactly do you guys check on things in the mortal world again?”

“Depends. Some of us, like Fate, use their own methods of scrying, but people like me and Death who aren’t great at it just use one of a few terminals Amy has set up. I’ll have to show you how to use them later, they’re pretty handy.”

“Those don’t need Worship to run?”

“Well, they kind of do?” Fortune said. “It’s more like they just need to be topped up every few months, and you need next to nothing to charge it up. Heck, if you were a Higher Being, you’d probably already be getting enough Worship to offset a couple uses a day and you would earn basically no Worship whatsoever. But, yeah, it’s totally cool for Appointed to use those even for unimportant things like this, so don’t worry about it.”

A few moments later, Death reappeared. “Pastor Faust, Jacob, and Marie are one street down.” She informed them. “I give it like, a minute until they’re here. And Abarrane… seems to be getting ready? Don’t know how long she’ll take, though.”

“Right. Well…why don’t we all go down and greet them?” Fortune asked, a mischievous smile on her face.

“I like the way you think.” Death replied, a similar smile creeping across her face.

Tess rolled her eyes. “You know you’re going to give them a heart attack, right?”

“That’s the point!” Fortune said. “And we can trust them. We weren’t subtle about things, and Marie’s already almost completely sure that you and Ellie are Appointed anyway, so we had her swear an Oath, she can’t leak info. And Pastor Faust…we’ll need her to swear an Oath eventually, but she’s more than proven herself trustworthy at this point.”

“Is it normal for Appointed to have this many people in the know?” Tess asked.

“More or less? Most of their families know, and close friends often do as well. Not making Appointed lie to their loved ones is half the reason we came up with Oaths in the first place.” Fortune explained. “It just feels…cruel, when we can do something about it. Anyway, wanna head to the door?”

---

Marie looked up at the opulent house in front of her, double checking the invitation card she had received to make sure she had the address right. She wasn’t sure what to expect when she was invited to this housewarming party, and wasn’t sure she should even really be there, but Jacob had told her that Tess and Ellie likely viewed her as a coworker of sorts. And, between that and her being Jacob’s mentor, they probably decided they wanted to invite her.

She really hadn’t expected them to be in such a rich area; she had been given to understand that they had earned the money themselves. But…if Ellie really was Fortune’s Appointed, then it would make sense that they had more money than normal. Assuming Fortune’s Blessings impacted the Luck stat in some regard, there were any number of ways with which they could easily earn a massive amount of money in a short period of time.

“Is this really the place?” Jacob asked.

“It’s got the right address.” Marie confirmed. “I believe this invitation should just work to open the gate like it did for the gate to the neighborhood.”

“Shall we try, then?” Pastor Faust asked.

The invitation they had been given doubled as a temporary access key; they just had to press it against the lock to the neighborhood’s gate, and it opened. This house was surrounded by a similar gate, and pressing the invitation against its lock caused it to swing open, confirming that this was indeed the right place.

They walked up the path to the door, and Marie rang the doorbell. After only a couple of moments, the door swung open, revealing three women; Tess, an unfamiliar blonde, and a woman who was the spitting image of Death.

“Ah, glad you three could make it!” Tess said brightly. “This is my mother, Fortune, and this is Death, they wanted to come say hi.”

“Hi!” Death said cheerfully, giving them a wave. “Thanks for coming!”

“You got adopted and didn’t say anything?!” Jacob blurted out. “Wait…Fortune and Death? As in…the gods?”

“That’s us!” Fortune said, her voice worming its way down into Marie’s soul and leaving her with no doubt that it was, in fact, Fortune speaking. Then she continued, and her voice lost that quality, becoming like any other person’s voice. “And you’ll have to forgive her for not telling you earlier, not many people are allowed to know that I adopted her and it’s not something she can bring up over unsecured communication.”

Marie frowned internally. That seemed odd, given what she knew of the situation. Why hadn’t Fortune adopted Ellie?

“You have it backwards, by the way.” Death said, looking at Marie. “Tess is Fortune’s Appointed, and Life and I share Ellie. We just work together a ton, so I pitched in to help bail her out of that situation at the graduation. Not that she needed it, you and I both know she could have dealt with the situation handily, but it prevented further violence.”

“I-I am honored to be in your presence, Your Worship.” Marie said, falling to one knee.

“No, none of that.” Death said. “Not today. Today we’re here to have a party, not stand on ceremony. The same goes for you two, no matter who you meet, ignore standing, that’s the rule in this house.”

Marie got up. “I will try my best, but I don’t think I can make promises.” She said.

“Don’t worry too much if you slip up.” Fortune said. “We’re not trying to stress people out, we just want things to remain casual here.”

“You okay, Pastor Faust?” Tess asked. “Sorry, I tried to tell them it would be a bit much, but they insisted.”

“I-I’m f-fine.” Pastor Faust stammered, looking not at all fine. “J-just s-surprised.”

“Why don’t you come in and sit down?” Tess suggested. “Eat some food, give yourself a little time to recover, and we can talk more then.”

“That sounds good right about now.” Jacob said. “I thought you were done with the shocking reveals.”

“She’s probably got a few left in her.” Fortune said, chuckling. “Don’t get comfy.”

Jacob opened his mouth, then seemingly thought better of it and shut it again.

“Out with it.” Death prompted. “Informal, remember?”

“It was just sarcasm about how comforting that is.” Jacob said. “Nothing important. It doesn’t really work now that the moment’s passed, anyway.”

“Well, you might as well come on in, we’ll give you the tour later, for now we’re just eating while everyone arrives.” Tess said, stepping back and motioning for the group to come in. “If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask.”

Jacob hesitantly stepped inside, and Fortune laid a hand on his shoulder. “Thanks for sticking with Tess and Ellie, by the way.” She said. “It means a lot to them.”

“Mom, you’re embarrassing me!” Tess protested, blushing. “But…yeah, it does.”

Fortune ushered Jacob through the door, and after a moment Marie and Pastor Faust followed. They walked in silence for a few moments before Pastor Faust put on a brave face and spoke. “Um, forgive my rudeness, but I have to know…how did you afford this place?” She asked. “My talks with Evan gave me the impression that your party had only somewhat above average earnings for someone of your level. I’m glad to see you doing well, obviously, I’m just…confused.”

“I struck a deal with one of my mentors for a discount, and just dumped a whole bunch of cores I had on her as payment.” Tess said. “Apparently, they were worth a lot more than I thought, I wasn’t expecting something like this either. But…it’s helping Maven adjust, and I have to admit that it’s pretty nice to have a place like this to come back to after work.”

“My Blessing gives her effectively infinite Luck.” Fortune explained. “So whenever anyone in her party kills a monster in a dungeon, she gets the most money she can from it as well as the most valuable drop. Incidentally, it’s also why your tranquilizer didn’t work on her, Marie.”

Marie frowned. “What does Luck have to do with that?” She asked.

“With the system’s functions almost completely halted on Mael, usually nothing. But, as you can imagine, divine Blessings work just fine. You technically tried to inflict her with a status effect, and so long as she has even the slightest chance to resist one, she will. Likewise, if she has the slightest chance to inflict you with a status effect, she will.”

“I see.” Marie replied. “And…doesn’t Luck affect Rewards Crystals as well? Would that mean…”

“Yes.” Fortune said smugly. “Her build is incredibly optimized, and I fully intend to make her the strongest person alive by the time we’re through with her.”

“Mom!” Tess hissed. “Please!”

“It’s a mother’s right to brag about her daughter.” Fortune said matter-of-factly. “And I won’t have many chances to do that, so I’m doing it now.”

“To be fair, half of that bragging is bragging about stuff you gave her.” Death said.

“Irrelevant. Even if I somehow stopped existing right now, she’d still have all of that, therefore it’s hers.” Fortune said. “And she’s the one putting in the effort to get stronger, not me.”

“We’re here!” Tess said loudly, interrupting the two gods. “Why don’t you all go grab a bite to eat? Take however much you want, as long as you’re not like, taking the entire plate of food each time you grab something. We have plenty to go around. Oh, and sit wherever you’d like, we’re not assigning seats or anything.”

Tess practically pulled Death and Fortune away, leaving Marie, Pastor Faust, and Jacob standing in the doorway of a large room with ten or twenty people milling about inside.

“I suppose that’s our cue to go eat?” Jacob ventured, stepping inside the room.

“I believe so.” Pastor Faust replied.

The three of them walked over to the long tables filled with food, and began to dish up. Most of the food was at least superficially familiar to Marie, though she couldn’t be sure the ingredients were what she was used to, so she was able to put together a plate of food that she could be pretty confident she’d like.

The relative peace only lasted until a couple minutes after Marie had sat down to eat, though, as she was approached by a dryad that she could only assume was the dark-skinned woman she had seen with Tess at the graduation.

“Marie the Hunter, right?” She said coldly, looking Marie over.

“That’s me, yes.” Marie said guardedly. “You look quite familiar, would I be correct in assuming you were one of the people at Tess’s graduation?”

“Yes. I’m Alice Reshi, owner of the Reshi Conglomerate, which includes the Reshi Suites, Reshi Industries, and a few other companies. More importantly, I’m a member of a rank-nine party, The Rumors, and one of Tess’s mentors. I’d been meaning to have a chat with you for a while, so I’m glad you were invited here today.”

Alice was clearly trying to intimidate Marie, and Marie had to admit it was working. Marie had faced insurmountable odds before, but this was something entirely different; yes, Marie was significantly stronger now, but Alice had her beat in every respect; money, level, likely even combat experience. This was a woman who could kill Marie with barely a thought, or financially ruin her, or any number of other things.

“If I may, I would like to apologize for my behavior at the graduation.” Marie said, standing up and giving Alice a quick bow. “My haste and failure to do a basic investigation caused an incident, and for that I am sorry. While you were not my target, I still ruined your outing with my carelessness.”

Alice paused, visibly deflating. “Oh.” She said. “Look, I’m going to level with you, you made me seriously angry. I view Tess as something of a little sister, and the only reason I didn’t step in and deal with you personally is because Ellie and my party members held me back. Look, I’ve been told by Tess that you’re in the know now, so I expect you can understand how monumentally stupid it would be to try something like that again, right?”

Marie shuddered a little, thinking about how difficult her life would have become if she had by some miracle actually managed to harm Tess during their first meeting. “Yes. I have no intention of doing anything that would endanger Miss…does she still use the last name Los after being adopted?”

Alice nodded, and Marie continued. “As I was saying, I have no intention of trying to take advantage of or endanger Miss Los in any way, and knowing what I do, I consider her and Ellie to be my superiors, second only to the gods themselves. I won’t cause any more trouble.”

“Good.” Alice said. “I’m going to be keeping my eye on you for a while, though, and if I find that you’ve stepped out of line, there will be consequences, understand?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Alice!” Tess said, walking over with an exasperated look on her face. “Leave the poor woman alone, she’s more than made up for things by now!”

Alice turned to Tess, a slightly chagrined expression on her face. “I had to see for myself.” She said. “I told you a while back that I’d be talking to her.”

“Yes, but not now, now’s a time to relax!” Tess countered. “You can sort things out with her sometime later, okay?”

“We had already more or less finished, but fine.” Alice said. “Remember what I said, okay?”

“I will.” Marie said, nodding. “You won’t find me lacking.”

With that, Tess pulled Alice away, and Marie resumed her meal, intent on finishing quickly so she could interact with the other guests more.