Chương 93: The Other Shoe

Claire pulled out her phone. Damn. Just the look on her face told me whatever she was about to show me was going to ruin the rest of my day.

"We need to talk about your PR problem," she said.

"I don't have PR," I said.

"That's the problem." She held up her phone. On the screen was a website with a black background, a raccoon silhouette with glowing eyes, and white text that read "The Church of the Sacred Raccoon - Find treasure in what others discard." I stared at it.

"That's not the Order's website."

"No, it isn't. This was built by Marcus Smith, one of the three adventurers who learned shapeshifting from Loki. He registered the domain from his car on the drive home." Claire scrolled down.

"There's an embedded video of him turning into a raccoon. There's also a write-up of the whole experience as well as a statement of beliefs that reads like he took notes from the Moon-Eyed teenagers' Discord posts and turned them into a manifesto."

"How did he know about the Discord posts?"

"Because those teenagers have been talking to anyone who messages them. The pipeline goes from you to Bambi's church to the Moon-Eyed People to their teenagers to the internet to Marcus Smith." Claire scrolled further.

"He also claims that the Gaia System itself called the five-crystal price a steal. I can't verify that since system notifications are private, but it doesn't matter whether people believe him or not."

"How many people have seen this?" I asked, already knowing I wouldn't like the answer.

"The video had forty thousand views when I checked last night, and it's probably higher now." I sat with that for a moment. Forty thousand people had watched a man turn into a raccoon in my clearing for the price of five planar crystals.

"I already talked to Loki about the pricing," I said.

"Twenty-five crystals minimum going forward."

"Good, because every adventurer who sees that video is going to show up expecting the five-crystal rate. You need to have the new prices posted before they arrive." Claire put her phone away.

"The bigger issue is Marcus himself. He's building a human branch of your religion without your knowledge or permission. Right now it's small and amateurish, but the video is spreading. If the mainstream media picks it up, you're going to have a situation that's a lot harder to manage than a few adventurers in a clearing."

"What do you suggest?" Although I was tempted to just ignore it, I knew that would just come back and bite me in the ass.

"I don't know yet, but ignoring it won't make it go away." She paused.

"I also wanted to follow up on the pricing from a different angle. You said you checked the store and saw what things actually cost."

"I spent all night going through it," I admitted.

"Then you know about the skill slot limits and the doubling costs?" I nodded.

"Those three adventurers didn't just get a cheap skill. They got one of their limited slots filled with the best possible value, and they'll never find a deal like that again."

"Neither will anyone else, assuming Loki sticks to the new prices." Claire's expression shifted from concerned to something that was almost sympathetic.

"For what it's worth, the advertising angle is real. That video is going to bring you more students than you can handle. The first three were a loss, but the next thirty will more than make up for it."

"That's what Tala and Loki said." Actually, it still felt like a loss since we were still vastly undercharging. However, I also knew we wouldn't be able to get more. There just weren't enough planar crystals on the market yet.

"They're right. Just make sure the new prices are locked in before the stampede starts." She turned to Loki, who was still standing in the doorway.

"Twenty-five crystals minimum. And check the store before you set prices next time."

"Noted," Loki said with the careful tone of someone who was not going to make the same mistake twice. I have to give him props, I thought. If it'd been me she'd said that too, I'd be a little miffed.

"One more thing," Claire said as she gathered her things.

"I'm going to start monitoring Marcus's website and any other online activity related to you. If this grows into something the Bureau needs to know about, I'd rather control the narrative than react to it."

"Do what you need to do," I said. That was definitely safe to say since she would do whatever needed to be done, even if I ordered her not to. Claire nodded and headed down the path. I watched her go and tried to figure out how I felt about a stranger building a church in my name. I decided I felt tired, which was becoming my default emotional state. Once she was gone, I looked at Pierre.

He was still leaning against the porch railing where he'd been standing since before the Fielding meeting, and he had a look on his face that told me the day wasn't done with me yet. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"You've got something too, don't you?" I asked.

"Good news and bad news," he said.

"Start with the good. I've had enough bad for one morning."

"Derek says the cabin renovations are finished," Pierre said with a smile.

"Good, I can use the peace and silence," I muttered. Still, I had to admit, even if only to myself, that I was going to miss the guys.

"Now for the bad news." Pierre shifted his weight against the railing.

"Derek sent his invoice. He charged at cost for materials and labor. He said he wasn't going to make money off a friend but he wasn't going to lose money either." That was fair, and I respected it. Derek was a professional who valued his work enough not to give it away but valued our friendship enough not to profit from it. That was the kind of honest dealing I understood.

"I'll pay him this week," I said.

"How's his business doing otherwise?"

"He's booked solid through next month. Every property owner in the region wants mana-reinforced construction now, and Derek's the only contractor around here who knows how to do it. He's actually turning down work."

"Good for him," I said, wondering just how much money I owed him and just how much money he had lost helping me out.

"He also said that if you need anything else built, you'll have to get in line like everyone else," Pierre said with a grin. He looked like he was enjoying the fact that someone was putting me in my place. I grunted at that. I wanted to be annoyed, but I had sort of been hogging all of his time lately. After a moment, I asked, "What about the plague rat preparations?"

"Almost done. The cold iron barrier is in place along the approach, and the funnel path into the old Wild People tunnels is clear. Gray's crew is running patrol on the perimeter to make sure nothing wanders in from the wrong direction." Pierre ticked through the details with the ease of someone who had been managing tactical operations for a while.

"The containment plan is ready when you are. We're just waiting on you to open the tunnel into the Liminal Lands."

"Good. So the cabin's done, Derek's moving on, and the trap is almost ready." I looked at Pierre.

"Anything else?" I was pretty sure he was holding something back. Pierre rubbed the back of his neck, which was his tell. He only did that when he was about to deliver something stressful.

"Two things," he said.

"First, Mort has stopped stealing from the cabin."

"How is that bad news?"

"It's bad news because of why he stopped. Mort hasn't stolen anything from the cabin in four days, and he hasn't stolen from Derek's crew either. He hasn't stolen from anyone around here." I waited.

"Mort has been going to the county dump," Pierre said.

"Every day, multiple trips. He takes the shadow portal into the Liminal Lands, drops off what he's collected, and goes back for more." I realized telling Mort about the dump might not have been the best idea.

"How much is he taking?" Having to collect the materials furtively had been about the only thing keeping Mort in check. The fact that he could take as much as he wanted whenever he wanted made me shiver.

"Derek drove past the dump yesterday on a supply run. He said there used to be a section along the east fence that was piled fifteen feet high with scrap metal, old appliances, and broken furniture." Pierre paused.

"It's gone. All of it. Mort cleaned it out." I processed this slowly. Mort, my kleptomaniac opossum with divine access to a pocket dimension, had discovered an unlimited source of free garbage and was systematically strip-mining it. That doesn't sound good, I thought.

"How long has this been going on?"

"Almost from the minute he was told about it. He started small with a few trips and a couple of armloads of junk, but once he figured out that nobody was watching the back fence and that the shadow portal could handle continuous transit, he scaled up."

"Define scaled up."

"The dump is almost empty. Needless to say, the owners are curious." It looked like Pierre wanted to say something different, but decided to be polite.

"However, that's not the part I'm worried about," Pierre said. I sighed as I closed my eyes before asking, "And what would that be?"

"Lifna." Pierre said it like I should know what he was talking about. Lifna was the baby planet growing inside the Liminal Lands. She had started small and she had been growing steadily as Mort fed her material..

"What about Lifna?" I asked, even though I was fairly sure I didn't want the answer.

"She's growing faster than we expected, and I mean a lot faster. When Mort was stealing normal amounts of junk like pens and silverware, Lifna grew at a manageable rate. But Mort has been feeding her washing machines and scrap metal by the ton for a week straight."

"How big is she now?" I wasn't even sure why I was asking him. Pierre didn't have access to the Liminal Lands yet. To have learned everything he'd already learned, it would have to have been from Mort or Tala. My money was on Mort. Otherwise, Tala would have been teasing me about it already.

"And the Liminal Lands aren't growing with her. At least that is what Mort is saying," Pierre said, which confirmed my thoughts. Then Pierre continued, "He makes it sound like Lifna is taking up almost all of the available space." The implications hit me immediately. The Liminal Lands were my divine domain, a pocket dimension with finite boundaries. Lifna was growing inside those boundaries, and if she kept growing at this rate, she would outgrow the space entirely. I needed that space.

The entire plague rat containment plan depended on the Liminal Lands having enough room to trap ninety mana-infected rodents. If Lifna had used up all the available room, the plan might not work.

"I need to talk to Mort," I said. What I also needed to do was pay more attention. Theoretically, the Liminal Lands and I were one and the same. I was the land and the land was me. However, it was sort of like when I was human. It usually wasn't until long after I needed to cut my hair or clip my fingernails that I would realize it was overdue.

"Good luck with that," Pierre said.

"I'm not going to tell him to stop. I'm going to tell him to slow down." Even as I said it, I knew that wasn't going to happen. Technically, I was the head of our pantheon, but arguing with Mort was like arguing with a bull-headed two year old, or a teenager.

"He's not going to like it," Pierre said, clearly stating the obvious.

"Yeah," I said before taking a deep breath. Pierre stood there in silence for a second. After a few more moments, he headed inside while I sat on the porch and thought about everything that had happened. The government deal was signed. The cabin was fixed. The plague rat trap was almost ready. Marcus Smith was building a religion in my name on the internet, and my opossum was potentially filling my pocket dimension by overfeeding a baby planet with stolen garbage.

It was a lot, but I could only handle one thing at a time. I needed to deal with Mort and check on the Liminal Lands before the plague rats arrived. If the domain was too full to hold ninety rats, then I needed to know now and not when they were already pouring through the funnel. I headed for the shadow portal, hoping that my opossum hadn't completely ruined the containment plan with his enthusiasm for garbage collection.