Novel Full Chapter 1906 Mayoral Meeting
Chapter 1906: Chapter 1906 Mayoral Meeting
— Kat —
After hanging around at the front of the manor for a while, a maid came and lead them inside. They were led through a few doors, and a large dining table before eventually ending up in at a much smaller one. It was a circular table with space for around ten chairs. Currently, the mayor was on the opposite and flanked by two other people. The one on his left was a young, fit looking beastkin with fluffy ears that had black markings at the top, denoting them as a fox beastkin instead of a wolf.
On the other side, was an old looking woman that seemed to be more wrinkles then skin. You couldn’t even see her eyes properly. She was bundled up in a number of layers of clothing even if it was all light seeming. She had a shawl, over a jacket, over a long sleaved shirt, over another shirt that Kat couldn’t determine the length of. Her pants weren’t much better with at least two layers to them as well. On top of all of that, she had a scarf, a beany, and a set of three beaded necklaces. Just carrying around all that clothing would be an effort for a normal person at that point.
“Greetings,” said the mayor. “I see you’ve brought guests… as you said you would so fair enough. For those joining us, my name is Pol, and the people to my left and right are Skrool, the person nominally in charge of the town’s security and ’Grandma’ who has a claim on the title of longest village resident. They seemed like the best people to have on hand for this… and no I don’t actually know Grandma’s name. I get hit by wooden spoons whenever I ask…”
Skrool looked to be about to say something but Kat just had to jump in first with “Spoons plural?”
“Yes,” nodded Pol. “They just sort of… appear and fly at me when I try. Happens to some other people as well… but not everyone. Not sure if Grandma is doing it herself, someone else is doing it on her behalf or of it’s an old enchantment that’s still keeping the joke alive.”
Not the weirdest thing I’ve heard of I suppose… With Kat not following up Skrool took this as his chance to add to his introduction. “He really does mean nominally. We don’t have much of a proper guard and usually the hunters are just paid to keep the area around the town clear of monsters. We’ve got some old tricks to keep the monsters away from the town and they work quite well. If I was actually a guard, I’d at least get paid,”
“You were offered pay,” countered Pol. “You’re the one that turned it down.”
“Look, it also came with a bunch of extra work I wanted nothing to do with,” retorted Skrool.
“Boys,” said Grandma in an exceptionally soft voice. Despite there being no hint of threat in her words the other two immediately shut up. Grandma then slowly turned her eyes to the girls at the other end of the room. “Please ignore them and take a seat. We’ve got some things to go over… and I believe you’ve got someone else to add to the conversation?”
Kat shrugged and placed the node on the table and Lily triggered it with her mana. As they sat down the spool of web unwound slightly to make a tiny figure of Weaver… from the waist down anyway. It was shockingly detailed despite just being made out of thread thought it lacked the wounds she possessed in reality and of course it was all the same white as the silk instead of properly coloured. Still impressive though.
“Ah Weaver you old hag,” said Grandma with a nod.
“Wait a minute… I know that voice,” The figure of Weaver turned to face Grandma.
“-I go by Grandma these days,” cut in the old woman.
“And you call ME an old hag,” grumbled Weaver.
“Hey, just because some of us age more gracefully than others doesn’t make it less true. You were an old maid the day I was born. That makes you a hag,” countered Grandma.
“Ok Wrinkles,” said Weaver with a shrug. “If that’s what you want to call me,”
“Ooh, sure haven’t heard that one before you orb weaver,” countered Grandma. “Why the fuck are you opening things back up?”
“What? Do you not know what was done?” hissed Weaver.
“I know quite well thank you very much. Lost two of my boys trying to protect you. I don’t count that as YOUR fault but for you to say I wouldn’t know? That’s a real slap in the face,” insisted Grandma.
“Ah,” intoned Weaver with a wince. “I didn’t realise,”
“Yup. That’s the Weaver I know. Inventor of one of the greatest methods of travel… and utterly useless when it comes to remember people,” sighed Grandma.
“Look… I admit I’m not the best at that but do you even know how many people I see every day? If I kept proper track of them all I’d feel like a massive creep,” countered Weaver.
*Are we even needed for this conversation?*
[Judging by the confused look on the mayor and the resigned one on Skrool I’m going to say… probably not. Seems like these two are just going to hash it out.]
*I mean… fair enough? What was the point of waiting around for this meeting then?*
[I have no idea. Just to slow us down maybe? That was our original thought… and it might be spot on.]
“So, you avoided the question Weaver. Why are you opening things back up like this?” asked Grandma.
Weaver sighed. “What else could I do?”
“So what? You’re just repeating the past because you can?” asked Grandma.
“I repeat. What else could I do?” hissed Weaver with more bite in her words. “I… I can’t just NOT can I? It was his dream and I made it my entire life for decades! Returning things to how they were has been my dream since it all came crashing down… and I’m scared alright. I don’t know if I should or not… but… what else could I do? How could I just let it all go?”
Grandma rolled her eyes… probably. The slight movement of her wrinkles seemed to indicate that was what she was doing. “You can’t just do things like this without thinking them through. It’s what got us in this situation in the first place.”
“You take that back,” hissed Weaver. “Just because I didn’t think it through entirely doesn’t mean nobody did.”
“Perhaps it doesn’t… but it was more of a dream then a concrete plan. What are you even going to do with them? Why should we allow for a new path? Where would it even go? Were they not all destroyed?” asked Grandma.
“Well… I was planning to have the girls deliver the rest around to the other settlements… maybe. Also technically not everything was destroyed. A few are still… mostly working and I have a bunch of nodes I can use like this one to set things up again. Just… I don’t want it to be like before,” admitted Weaver.
“I’m still not sure we should allow anything in that case. You haven’t really thought about this and have no real plans to set up the tunnels for everyone else just yet. If you added one here… that’s just adding a backdoor. Besides, what sort of traffic are you expecting? I might remember you, but plenty of others only hear stories and not all of them are good ones,” explained Grandma.
“Somone has to be first,” whined Weaver. “And I want to keep things… quieter. I’m not sure if I really want to charge a toll but I’m thinking of something like that to limit traffic anyway…”
“Sure… but what sort of control will we have?” asked Grandma. “Will we even know who’s paid or not?”
“Look, I just wanted to set up a few connections ok?” admitted Weaver. “I was sort of hoping it would work itself out as it went. I don’t really know what’s going on here, and I barely know what’s going on in this slice of the island. Maybe once I have a working connection to the other parts I’ll have more of an idea but for now I’m mostly cutoff. I just… I’m finally BACK and it feels wrong not to get onto things immediately,”
“All I’m hearing are whines about how you don’t want to think about this properly,” accused Grandma.
“You weren’t this much of a little shit when you were younger,” complained Weaver.
“Yeah? Well I’ve popped out a few kids and watched most of them die. Hardly my fault I’m a bit jaded now,” said Grandma.
“Aren’t you meant to be a sweet old lady?” asked Weaver.
“Nope. Piss and vinegar all of the way,” claimed Grandma.
“That’s such a gross mental image. Why would you say that?” asked Weaver.
Grandma just shrugged. “Hey I didn’t come up with the saying. It’s just accurate. Would you rather I come up with a new one?”
“I have a feeling it’s just going to be worse…” sighed Weaver. “Best not. Just… what do I need to do to convince you this is a good idea?” Grandma smiled a full smile. Showing off the fact she still had a full set of teeth. A full set of pure white, razor sharp teeth. *Wasn’t she human?*