Primate Gardeners

Tom Lackey did not go cleanly. He left a huge bloody mess behind, which none of the Overlords wanted to deal with.

Since I was standing next to him when he was decapitated, I got all the gore on me as well. I had to stand there, drenched in Tom's blood and gore as I directed the primate kitchen staff to stage the crime scene a bit.

Since I had no levitation abilities, I had the apes carry Juju's body from the Back Kitchen to the Front Kitchen and placed near the area where Tom Lackey's body was. His head was, of course, on the other side of the room.

I wanted to make Tanner Olson do the levitation work, but he was useless by this time. He had crouched down into a fetal position against the wall at the time of Tom Lackey's decapitation and never moved again from that spot.

I was not all that sympathetic towards him because he was the first one to swing that Mage Staff at me after I told him the truth about Tom Lackey's attempted rape against Maggie. Had I not blocked his staff, I would have probably been beaten senseless. Still, I knew I needed to get him some help.

I called the proxy Head of the school, Professor Jonesbarry and told him EXACTLY what had happened. I left nothing out.

I knew that no matter how good my crime scene staging was, it would easily be cracked by an ace mage detective. My only hope was for Professor Jonesbarry to come in with his men and do the actual clean up and to keep my story up so that the apes who defended me would not be executed.

After all, Tom Lackey did not kill a person. Juju was merely property. His crime would be a stiff payment penalty for destruction of valuable property. The apes on the other hand, would be killed even though the person they were trying to save was me.

Professor Jonesbarry asked me a few questions. Then he told me to clear out so he could handle the situation. I was more than relieved to leave the crime scene in his hands and hit the kitchen area showers.

Maggie followed me into the shower area and handed me a clean Overlord bodysuit to change into after my shower. I had no idea where she got the Overlord bodysuit, but I was grateful nonetheless.

I hugged her and then left the kitchen area. I had to move onto my next job—checking up on the Primate Gardeners.

Today was Tuesday so the primate gardeners would just about be finishing up at the Commons Garden.

I exited the dinning hall and quickly jogged up Garamond Circle to get to the area where the gardening apes worked.

The Commons Garden was the central garden at the top of the hill where Garamond Circle turned into Garamond Loop. The top of the hill was broad and mostly flat which made it one of the best places to have a panoramic view of the entirety of Topaz.

There was only one structure built up here at the Commons, a tiny temple to the One True Soul situated at the center of the garden. It was erected from the local white speckled diorite that made up the bedrock of Topaz Mountain.

I always found it interesting that there were numerous large carvings of owls placed at the four corners of the rooftop. They were most likely placed there to scare off the pigeons.

Unfortunately, it did diddly squat as the pigeons would often be found perched directly on top of the owls' heads. In fact, pigeon guano was most concentrated immediately under the owl statues.

Cleanup was always a chore, especially because of the white roses that surrounded the temple. This variety of rose had so many huge wicked thorns that it could draw blood from random people who were simply trying to squeeze past them to gain entry into the sanctum.

Since the primate gardeners were covered in thick fur, the thorny roses did not bother them in the least, and in fact, a large group of Primate Gardeners had descended on the place.

They were weeding, watering, pruning the roses, and doing general maintenance on the scattered water fountains of the Commons Garden.

Nearby, I could see the two Overlords watching with bored disinterested eyes. They were young and looked to have little experience being Overlords. They looked up when they saw me hiking up Garamond.

"Hey Nana!" One of the Overlords broke into a bright smile and waved at me. I waved back. There were so many Overlords who joined the year I left the organization that I could not even remember this guy's name.

"Professor Morton asked me to come check up on you Gardening Overlords. Is everything going well?"

The Overlords looked at each other, then they looked at me.

"We're kinda in a little bit of a pickle. Our supervisor left with one of the Mage Elites who came by early this morning. He hasn't been back, and we don't know what to do next."

I frowned. "What do you mean he left? You have a huge group of primate workers on the job here. He can't just take off and leave the two of you by yourselves. There are over a hundred primates here!"

"Yeah, that's why when I saw you, I was so relieved!" The guy grinned. "Professor Morton probably knew that our supervisor had to leave with one of the Mage Elites so he sent you to take over."

"Who's your supervisor?"

"Philip Mars."

I scratched my chin. Philip was no slouch. He was one of the few Overlords who actually knew how to direct the great apes. The rest of these…ornamental Overlords only looked intimidating wielding their Mage Staffs, but they knew nothing about commanding a large group of intelligent workers.

"So he left early this morning and the primate gardeners have been here the entire time?"

"Yes."

I looked at the guy who had been talking. "What's your name?"

"B—Byron Kingsley."

"Okay Byron…do you have the schedule? What are the primate gardeners supposed to be working on next?"

Byron struggled for a few moments and then pulled out a small notebook. He flipped it and squinted at the scribbles written on it.

"I think this looks like thermal something—or is it triangle something…"

"Is this Philip's notebook? Give it here." I took the notebook from Byron's hands.

Philips' handwriting truly was atrocious. It could have been triangle—or trailer, or train, or tiramisu. It was so badly scribbled, I could not decipher it any more than Byron could.

"It's in your hands Nana." He smiled hesitantly.

I sighed. "Are the apes done here?"

Byron nodded.

"Then let's get them out. It's lunch time anyway. We can take them to get some food and some rest. Can you call them?"

"Please—" he shoved helpless hands at me, "please call them for us."

I pressed my lips together. They truly were Ornamental Overlords.

I turned and looked at the primate gardeners still spread out in groups of twos and threes.

They were acting as if they were totally disinterested in my conversation with the two young Overlords, but I could hear the excited static that was coming through loud and clear from their primate brains. Their ears were fixated on what I was saying to the Overlords.

Dajiadohguolai!

I sent out the 'Come' Command into the primate gardeners' minds, ordering the apes to regroup.

Immediately, the apes shuffled back towards me with grins and cackles of laughter. I had worked with most of these apes throughout my time as Overlord and they knew me well. Quite a few of the apes even raised their hands and waved at me.

"Oh wow. They listened to you and you didn't even do anything—-just looked at them." One of the Overlords breathed with admiration.

I laughed and shook my head. They acted like they had never seen an Overlord do the actual work of Overlording. Who had they been shadowing to do their internship?

"Let's go folks. It's lunch time." I called out. My normal Overlord routine was taking over.

In double file formation, the brown-clad primate gardeners trooped along as I led them through Garamond Loop down to Garamond Circle.

Since the primate gardeners had been hard at work all morning, news about the events that transpired at the dinning hall had most likely not reached them yet.

While we traipsed down to the dinning area, I silently broadcast the events of the night before to the primate gardeners.

I started with Maggie's near brush with rape, and Juju's murder. Then I showed them images of Tom Lackey's head bouncing merrily to rest at Maggie's feet.

It was at this point that the primate gardeners began to make noises. They wanted me to lead them to the primate kitchen staff.

I sent calming waves and asked them to wait a few minutes. Then I turned to the two Overlords.

"It's past noon. Why don't you guys go grab lunch. Give Philip a couple of hours to show up. If he doesn't show, then you're done for the day. Go home and rest up."

The two Overlords nodded gratefully and took off for the the dinning hall. They were young and had not been trained properly to do this sort of work. There was no need to involve them any further.

I sent out calming waves of affirmation back to the primate gardeners and led them towards the back area of the dinning hall where I knew the rest of the primate cooks were gathered.

It didn't take long for the brown-clad primate gardeners to mix in with the white-clad primate cooks. They began chatting amongst themselves about the events of the previous day.

Within a very short amount of time, all the gardeners knew of my early morning exploits. They began hooting and howling and it was all I could do just to calm them down.

I sent a blanket message out to the group's collective mind.

You gardeners have one hour for lunch. Someone will be back to take you to the next work area. I have to go. Enjoy your lunch everyone!

As I left the back kitchen, I could hear the sounds of "WARRIOR QUEEN, WARRIOR QUEEN, WARRIOR QUEEN!" starting up again.

How embarrassing…