12 Miles Below

“Lady Winterscar,” The servants all bowed deeply before Kidra. Then turned slightly to me, giving equal greetings. Same respectful greetings were offered the lords ‘Deathless’ Father and Wrath, with equally deep bows to signify maximum amount of respect warranted for demi-gods.

Always caught me a little by surprise just how big the staff had grown. In the past, when we’d first arrived into the new colony home, it was a skeletal group of hired hands that had been brought in. Last second picks by Father when he’d realized in the first month he couldn’t run the logistics of an empty House with just a teenage daughter and a gremlin out to cause havoc.

In my defense, most of that havoc was outside the house grounds so he couldn’t complain I was breaking all the old heirlooms and history around the empty estate. There was only mild looting and breaking happening around the grounds caused by me. Mild.

We had a rotating staff in those days. New servants joined in under contract, then they realized Father had no intentions of making them full-fledged Winterscars over the long run, and decided to cut their losses and leave. This wasn’t a great drawing point for most houseless looking to find a rank among the Retainers. Those who had stayed, did so out of loyalty to Kidra who’d grown on them, or they were already old and simply wanted some stability in their twilight years. House servants weren’t expected to go outside, only keep the estate tidy and clear. Hard work, but certainly not as dangerous as the surface expedition sites.

Stability eventually arrived over the first year and we had a more permanent handful of staff that were happy enough with the arrangement. Up until Kidra kicked it all back up into gear and gave full membership to each of them. Now the courtyard was filled with soldiers, servants, a few Logi sworn accountants and other odd personnel like house diplomats discussing inter-house trade agreements or trying to butter us up since we’re now the estate ground where two Deathless had picked to sleep at, in addition to being unbelievably wealthy.

Our motley returning crew of Winterscars included our knights, Kidra, Father, Wrath and myself. Back to the estate grounds to decompress and digest all we’d learned talking to Tsuya. And later go hunt down a rather elusive old machine friend of hers.

I did keep the secret he asked for, it was Tsuya who ratted his existence out to the group so I wash my hands of all guilt on this. They all know about him now, and they're mulling over what to do next when he inevitably showed up again. We had traveled a long way from the underground city to reach the clan, and that was by airspeeder. He had a floating boat and great reasons to go slow and unnoticed. Might take some time before I heard his robotic voice trying to sell me something.

Kidra and Father were intercepted by her Logi accountant along with a few other high ranked staff members, and quickly began to talk animatedly about something.

I’d have been there to overhear, but another servant caught my attention. “Master Keith,” He said, stepping forward in the resuming hubbub. “You and the Lady Hecate Wrath have a guest waiting for your arrival.”