The Conspiracy Comes for Us All

I bowed low. Hands at my sides. Just like I was taught.

~Client Pacification Move: Respectful Incline!~

“I completely understand your position, miss. Cultivating and maintaining the quality and freshness of your product is highly commendable—especially in a place like East Gate.”

She blinked at me, caught off guard.

“E-eh?!”

Laura’s face must have been incredulous. “Cotter, we can come back tomorrow… it’s fine.”

I promptly ignored her.

“The logistics alone—transporting stock from farm to stall, washing every last carrot, keeping things from wilting… it must be infuriating.”

Her brow twitched before she gave a defeated sigh. “Finally. Someone acknowledges the headache… wait a minute,” She shook her head. “I know what you are doing! Your wiles won’t work on me, elf. No matter… how cut… e-hem, how cunning you are—”

Now. In negotiation, you must seize any advantage. Even shameful ones.

I knew she didn’t like my kind. But I wasn’t banking on being liked.

I was banking on this: the universal weakness for a polite, well-spoken child.

My eyes must… beam!!

I dialled it up to full power: eyes wide, lips trembling; this sickly, sweetly innocence to imply I didn’t even know what I was doing.

And then, as expected: impact!

As if struck by a divine force, the shopkeeper stumbled backwards, hand flying to her face. I swore I saw a faint trickle of red as she wiped under her nose.

“F-fine! Fine. I will hear you out. Just don’t do that again!”

When I looked back to Laura, she simply stared.

\\

Both of my hands were now occupied with an insanely heavy load; bags full of roots, leaves, and what I hoped were edible canned meat, which was the main priority here.

Laura didn’t even know the shopkeeper sold canned meat.

“Come, child, come!” Laura called out in front of me.

I was carrying like a million kilos, lady! My legs were already jelly.

She was in a significantly happier mood due to what I pulled off. I proposed a subscription based model that the shopkeeper and Laura thought was a stroke of genius—where both sides won. The shopkeeper got guaranteed income, and we get guaranteed supplies, so long as we can keep the payments up.

Then, all of a sudden, she stopped.

I looked up, grateful for the break. Sweat trickled down my neck, and I tried not to drop the bags as I adjusted my stance.

That’s when I noticed the shadow stretching long over the cobblestones.

A statue.

It was tall, quadruple my height at least. A crystal elf in ceremonial robes stood with arms raised, palms to the sky.

And for some reason, I felt a sense of connection I could not explain. Magically, I sensed some sort of leverage…

I shook my head.

I wasn’t about to try something so rash today.

“This is your people’s legacy,” she said quietly, the bags at her side now forgotten. “We had a vote to tear it down, but we voted against it.”

She turned to me.

“We didn’t want to turn our backs on our history.”

A pause.

“In this square, executions were once commonplace.”

I stared at the stone figure again.

“That was because your people possessed both the symbolic and literal power to crush the rest of us. Humans, beastkin. It didn’t matter. That is your God’s gift to our lands—Umulmar, the Undying. He engineered the perfect specimen that could withstand the Sea of Dead Ghosts and come to conquer less hostile lands. You. It was only recently in modern times the Crystal Elves enacted on that promise a second time.”

I stared at the stone figure again.

“You can clearly do a great many—and terrible—things,” she said. “But just know: your past does not have to follow you forever.”

I stayed quiet. I wasn’t sure if she meant my past life or the one this body used to have.

The nun exhaled, folding her arms in the cold breeze.

“Forgive your fellow orphans. Forgive us, for not intervening sooner this morning. You have every reason to be mad. You could’ve died in that courtyard. With a mob, anything can happen.”

She glanced at me again.

“I simply ask that you find some measure of compassion. If not today, then one day. Because one day, you will grow to be more powerful than most of us combined.”

My arms ached. My heart did, too.

It took everything in me not to say it; that this body, and therefore its reasons for hate, were gone forever.

Even if a rational decision, it wasn’t mine to make. It was the previous Cotter’s.

“…Okay,” I said.

\\

These past two days were the most chaotic stretch in years—including my last life.

Could it get any crazier?

Apparently, yes.

Because with all the shouting and screaming erupting outside the orphanage gates, the universe was about to hand me a firm yes.

Two beastkin kids were down—flat on their asses. One was clutching their side, the other… their entire arm was pale and crusted with white. Frostbite. Really bad case, it looked like.

"Isn't that the orphanage co-op?"

"The shopkeepers who gave them merchandise to peddle are going to be pissed..."

Pedestrians were crowding around us, and I resisted the urge to push them all back to give them some space.

The nun and I dropped the bags of vegetables against the wall and rushed forward.

“What happened?!” the nun barked.

The two beastkin groaning on the ground weren’t just anyone. They were the eldest—responsible for running the Moonbox stall in the square.

Their basket was overturned nearby, empty. No coin. No product.

“Neighborhood thugs took everything,” one of them spat. “Our Moonboxes. Our coin. Everything! Must have thought since there seemed a big accident in the morning we were easy pickings. You can't depend on the guards for shit in this town!”

“Some people are shameless,” the nun whispered. "There's no lengths they won't go to. Stealing from bloody children..."

I clenched my fists, wondering just where were the good guards?! It was comical to think every guard had it out for us, right? And who'd pick on children?!  

East Gate had levels apparently, and it was clear we were bottom rung.

That was today’s quota gone—and more importantly, the trust of two of the orphanage’s most reliable older kids shattered. And they got hurt because of me.

I hated this. I hated how powerless I still was.

But more than that…

As the gears started turning in my head, I was starting to see exactly what kind of world I’d been thrown into. 

“I don’t think it was because of the money,” I said.

"What?" The beastkin snorted. “They only stole like 90% of our coin.”

“Think about it. How much did we sell today?”

“I—I mean, quite a few, actually.” He shifted, eyes on the ground. “Some people knew Mother Martha personally, so they wanted to support her recovery and came by in droves.”

“But there wasn’t much to steal, right? How much coin could justify the risk? They are using us as scapegoats—too needy to fend for ourselves, but too dangerous since we housed beastkin.”

The kid finally understood what I was implying. It was about shaking down the place with the largest concentration of beastkin in East Gate. From all my surveying when I was out with Mistress Laura, East Gate was a human-dominant town. I only connected the dots now.

“But we have to sell our product," the beastkin said. "Otherwise the orphanage won't be able to buy—”

“Then we go in force,” I cut in. “Take an extra team next week. If they target us again, we will be ready. If the guards say we attacked innocent civilians, then the conspiracy is all but confirmed. The circumstantial evidence would be too much for the crown to ignore." 

"And we know for sure it couldn't be the Crown who's orchestrating this, as they would have raided the place and kicked us out by now..." the nun mused. 

"We’ll work out the details later," I said. "Best lay low a few days."

I exhaled. For some reason I felt the weight of why I was here. Whether fate or accident, I’d been dropped into their mess for a reason.

I needed to help Mother Martha. Ease her burden. Keep these kids safe.

So much to do, and not nearly enough time.

But every big fix started small.

The salamander shifted, his tail flicking in thought, before finally nodding. “All right, Crystal Diamond. We'll go with your plan.”

“…What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Too shiny and perfect, yet just as dense—and way too full of itself.”

...

"That is a good one," I admitted.

ACT I FINISH