Spookimon Boo-n!
Spookimon Boo-n! “Broccoli,” Amaryllis said. She’d become quite used to Broccoli over the last few months. The strange human-turned-bun girl was... well, strange. Amaryllis had never thought of herself as someone who needed help and support, and least of all something as seemingly useless as friendship. But then Broccoli came and decided that they were friends and honestly, Amaryllis was a little bit afraid that she couldn’t live without it.“Yes?” Broccoli replied. She was smiling, which wasn’t unusual. In fact, her not smiling would be a bigger concern.“What are you wearing?” Amaryllis asked. It was, in her opinion, a very fair question. Broccoli was wearing her old metal hat, the one with the tortoiseshell pattern. She was also wearing a large, bulbous shell on her back which was strapped to a beige one-piece.“It’s a turtle outfit!” Broccoli said.“You’re an idiot,” Amaryllis replied. This kind of thing was very... very Broccoli. She could almost feel the slight headache coming on. “Pray tell, why are you dressed like a turtle?”“Well, it’s fall, right?”“Yes,” Amaryllis said. She wasn’t seeing the link, but Broccoli’s explanations could take a while and be a little roundabout. When Amaryllis was feeling generous she attributed that to Broccoli being a Riftwalker, with all of the missing cultural information that came with it. When she wasn’t feeling so generous she attributed Broccoli’s explanations to Broccoli being Broccoli.“So, fall on Earth is when we have Halloween.”“I have no idea what that is,” Amaryllis said. Also, she always found it weird that Broccoli’s world was called Earth of all things. Dirt was a far more appropriate and respectable name.Broccoli clapped her hands together, looking sillier than usual in her costume. “It’s a big event we do once a year where we do spooky things and dress up in cute costumes.”“No,” Amaryllis said.Broccoli’s expression fell. “No? But I haven’t even asked anything.”“I know what you’re going to ask,” Amaryllis said.Her best friend’s eyes filled with unshed tears and Broccoli’s cheeks puffed out. Amaryllis could feel her heart constricting. The Adorable skill should, by all respects, be made illegal. “But I already made you a costume! I even made sure it wasn’t insulting to anyone.”Amaryllis pinched the bridge of her nose. “What is the costume?”“It’s a bat costume!” Broccoli cheered. She reached around her back (into the shell) and pulled out a pile of dark cloth which she placed onto Amaryllis’ desk.“You want me to dress as a bat?” Amaryllis asked.“A cute bat,” Broccoli said, as if that would help.“And then what? Leave the Beaver, wander around Goldenalden and be mocked by everyone we see?”“No! Why would anyone mock you for being cute?” Broccoli asked. She frowned. “Well, I suppose that could happen. Being cute isn’t any good.”Amaryllis bit back a retort that involved pointing out a lot of hypocrisy right there.“Anyway, I talked to Caprica, and she talked to some others, and we’ll be able to go trick-or-treating, and then we can visit a haunted house in the Purple district!”“And we is just us?” Amaryllis asked.Awen chose that moment to poke her head into the door, and Amaryllis found herself restraining a twitch at the sight of the blonde. She had menswear on, with a pillow stuffed under her shirt and a bristly fake moustache. “Hi,” she said.“Are... are you dressed as you uncle?” Amaryllis asked.“You can tell?” Awen asked.Broccoli laughed, then patted the bat costume. “I won’t force you to dress up and come have fun with us if you don’t want to,” she said.“But you spent all night making that costume for her,” Awen said.“No, no, a good friend doesn’t pressure a friend into doing stuff,” Broccoli said.Amaryllis glared, then she swiped the stupid bat costume off the desk. “Fine,” she said.Then she had to endure Broccoli hugging her for a while. It was nice.
* * *
“This is humiliating,” Amaryllis said.Awen agreed, but she didn’t say anything. Sure, walking around dressed as her uncle was a little strange, but then so was most of the things she did since she escaped from home, and while this was strange, it was also kind of fun.The first place they visited was the road on which the royal palace was. That meant that as Broccoli-who had no difficulty walking up to someone’s door and knocking, which was something Awen didn’t think she had the bravery to do yet-tapped on the noble’s doors, they opened up to reveal amused sylph nobles who handed out candies and sweet pastries.“I can’t believe so many people are participating in this,” Amaryllis said.“Why? It’s a great idea,” Broccoli said.All along the street, busy little sylph children with tiny buzzy wings (who couldn’t quite fly yet, but who made up for it by being very energetic) were flitting around on excited sugar highs. Only a few of them had costumes on, but nearly all had fists-full of candy.It was nice to see so many people out, and a lot of the parents Awen saw weren’t from the richest of families. So the entire event was an opportunity to have people of all sorts mix. She even saw a few humans and buns and catfolk out and about. They seemed amused at the sylph children running around with poorly made ears strapped to their heads.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.Most of the costumes though, were of soldiers and royal guardsmen and the like. It was easy to see what kind of thing the little sylph wanted to be when they grew up. Not many adventurers and mechanics, she noted disappointingly.“Oh! We should go to Caprica’s place next!” Broccoli said.“You’ve eaten nothing but sweets all evening, do you really need more?” Amaryllis asked.“Trick or treating is only half the fun,” Broccoli said. “There’s telling horror stories and visiting haunted houses too!”“Your people must be a lot braver than most if that’s what they do for fun,” Awen said. It would certainly explain Broccoli’s lack of fear.Broccoli laughed at that, but there was no sting to it, especially since she grabbed Awen for a quick hug. “I don’t think that’s how it works,” she said.They arrived at the palace to find a number of guards standing outside. The big gate was open though, and a few brave children were running in and to the palace’s front where the king and queen themselves were sitting out front, a table covered in candies next to them. The king was grinning ear-to-ear as he handed out candies to wide-eyed children and said hello to parents who didn’t seem to know how to act while the king himself gave their kids candy.Awen held back a giggle at the faces she saw. The sylph, she’d learned, were very big on appropriateness, and she imagined that the king handing out candy wasn’t that.On the other hand, if the king was doing it, then clearly it was okay. The conflict was fun to see.“Hi!” Broccoli said as their turn in line finally brought them to the front. She extended a bag (ie: an empty pillowcase with a pumpkin drawn on the side for some reason).The king laughed and dropped a fistful of candy in. “Hello, Captain. I didn’t expect to see you dressed up. I thought that was more for the children.”“I’m a child at heart and so is my tummy,” Broccoli said.Amaryllis huffed, and while Awen couldn’t understand Huffese like Broccoli could, she imagined that it was one of those huffs.“Oh, I’ll tell Caprica that you’re here. Apparently it’s tradition for the older children to visit a haunted house?” the king asked.“It is!” Broccoli agreed.“I don’t know if Caprica would consider herself one of the ‘older children’” the queen said. The older woman seemed amused, but she was still keeping an eye out to everyone around.The king gestured to one of the nearby guards, and they nodded, then darted off into the palace. After they said their goodbyes and went to stand on the side, they were joined by Caprica. Caprica who was dressed in ill-fitting Paladin gear.“Nice costume!” Broccoli said.“Thanks,” Caprica replied. “It’s my mom’s old uniform, without the tags and insignia, of course. It’s a bit... big for me, isn’t it?”“That’s okay,” Broccoli said. “Costumes don’t need to be perfect. I never had the nicest of costumes when I grew up, and I still loved dressing up every year. Fun is what you make of it, not what you can afford. Unless you can afford fun, in which case you should definitely buy some and share it with your friends.”Awen giggled at another bit of Broccoli’s wisdom.“So, the haunted house?” Caprica asked.“Yes!” Broccoli cheered.
* * *
Caprica didn’t expect this idea of Broccoli’s to take off the way it did. It had started with her relating the idea to her father who then... well, pulled some strings. She didn’t expect it to become something of a competition amongst the nobles, but here they were.The poor bakes and candymakers of Goldenalden were either having their best or worst couple of days ever. Not that they were ever truly in any dire straits. The sylph loved their sweets more than anyone else.So, that part of the event was fine. The costumes were... a little more strange, but costume parties had been held before, and this was similar, but aimed more for children. All in all, it was turning out quite well, and she could imagine it being even more popular next year.She wasn’t sure about this last part.The haunted house that they’d walked over once belonged to the Darknight family, but that noble house had fallen long ago. Mostly it fell to disease and disaster, but most who knew of the family’s history blamed their own carelessness for their demise.They left behind a small mansionette in a darker corner of the Purple District, with a tall gate around it. The building itself had gone decrepit with age and lack of maintenance.Who could be blamed for not caring for the place? It was, after all, haunted.“Wait,” Broccoli said as she stood on the walkway to the ancient mansion. “You mean this place had actual ghosts?”“Yes?” Caprica said.“What did you think people meant by 'haunted?’” Amaryllis asked. “It’s why I want to go back to the Beaver and get some proper equipment. Only an idiot would face a phantom dressed like this.” She raised her arms and wiggled her cloth bat-wings about.“It’s not my fault!” Broccoli said. “I forgot that ghosts were real!”
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Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty-Six — Employee Retention
Chapter Three Hundred and Fifty-Six — Employee Retention We left the captives in the care of the squad who’d returned from securing the airships. I promoted Theodore, the harpy who spoke up, as very-temporary leader of the harpies.Mostly, the group needed their own spokesperson while we weren’t around, and I think the sylph soldiers liked it when things operated with clear and distinct ranks. Promoting one of the ex-hostages wasn’t very nice to the hostage in question, but Theodore seemed capable, and it would make it easier for everyone involved.Once that was set up and done, my friends and I started climbing up the tower.The first half-dozen floors we climbed weren’t so bad. Every floor had a pair of sylph guarding the entrance, and the third floor up from the ground was where Bastion was collecting all the pirates they captured. We’d have to tell him about the cells on the first floor, it would make it easier to keep everyone in the same spot.We eventually found Bastion and a very lightened squad near the twentieth-floor. “Princess,” he said.“It’s just Caprica, Bastion,” Caprica said. “How are things going up here?”“Well enough, but the need to garrison men every few levels means I've got fewer and fewer fighters in my assault group. I was right to be worried that we wouldn’t have as many troopers as needed to completely occupy this tower.”“We have a number of floors left, don’t we?” Caprica asked. “Our squad can assist you with those, if you want.”He nodded. “That would be welcome. How did things go on the first floor?”“Well enough,” Caprica repeated Bastion’s own words back at him with a cheeky grin. “We’ve freed a number of prisoners and captured a few pirates. There are cells below, which we stuffed the pirates in. We might consider doing the same with any you’ve captured up here.”“Good idea. Were you able to confirm the retrieval of every captive?”Caprica shook her head. “It seems as if the nobles and higher-ranking officers were kept elsewhere.”I bobbed my head in a nod. “We’re ready to help some more,” I said.Bastion frowned, then looked up the stairs beyond him. “I think we’ll create a cordon on this floor. We can’t afford to explore every room and also leave soldiers behind to guard them all as we’ve been doing. So, a change of tactics is in order.”“What’re ya thinking of?” Calamity asked.“We’ll leave a number of troops on this level, creating a bottleneck, then proceed upwards at a faster pace. We haven’t encountered too much resistance past the second and third floors. I suspect that the pirates didn’t have the numbers to fully utilise a tower of this size.”“Laid out, this tower has more room in it than most villages,” Amaryllis said.“Indeed. A number of the floors we crossed were simply empty. I think the pirates were mostly concentrated on the first half-dozen floors, with a contingent taking up the uppermost levels and perhaps using the levels with balconies as watch stations.”“Um,” Awen said. Everyone turned her way, and she straightened up at the sudden attention. “Maybe we should call the airships now? Ah, while we still can?”“That’s not a bad idea. We haven’t cleared the tower yet, but it will be some time before the airships arrive,” Amaryllis said.Caprica glanced up to Bastion who nodded, then she reached under the neck of her shirt and pulled out a small amulet. “Give me just a moment and I’ll send the communication’s officer there a missive.”While she got to work doing that, I leaned in towards Amaryllis. “Why doesn’t everyone have one of those? It’s like your bank ring, right?”“While that would be nice, each device like that requires an enchantment mage who has two or more classes that work in tandem, or several enchanters working very closely together. The materials that go into each ring are precious, and while a bank can afford to rent bank rings it only does so because no one else can compete to buy the frequency slots that the rings use. What Caprica has there probably has a limited range, costs ten times as much, and it’s probably something only high-ranking officers have access to. It’s also a glaring security risk,” Amaryllis explained.“How’s that?” I asked.“It’s a magical beacon designed to teleport small items. If it’s left open in such a way that anyone can send something along, then you risk having someone send something nefarious. Can you imagine something like that appearing under Caprica’s shirt?”I nodded along. So, not quite like a cell phone where the worst that could happen was some spam calls. “Isn’t that a risk for the military people too?”“It is, which means added security with every device, and you’ll want fewer of them on the market so that fewer mages can discover how they work and how to tamper with them.”We had to cut that conversation off as Bastion and Caprica started to climb the stairs again, with the remaining sylph following. We crept up the stairs to the next floor with a lot more caution than we’d shown so far. These floors weren’t cleared at all, so there was always the possibility that we’d be ambushed.At the next flight, Bastion raised his hand in a fist, then leaned closer to the door. “Three contacts,” he whispered. “One left, two right. I don’t suspect they know we’re coming. We break in on three.” He made a few gestures to some of the nearest sylph, then kicked the door open.Bastion and the sylph rushed into the room, and my friends and I came in next. By the time we’d stepped in, three pirates were on the ground, groaning as the sylph pinned their arms into the small of their backs and pressed their faces into the floor.“Wow,” I said. “That was fast.”“Better fast than caught out,” Bastion said as he scanned the rest of the floor. “You, you, and you. Bring these three down to the second floor. Report to the squad leaders for A and B, tell them that we’ll be rotating people out for here on, then send three replacements up. Ah, and report Squad D’s findings about the prison cells as well.”In short order, the three pirates were being lead out of the room and we poked around to find any more of them, but came up with nothing but some trash and a nice view out of the tower from one of the balconies. I hung over the edge, staring at the ground way, way below. It was impressive how high up we’d come already, but we were only a bit past the halfway mark.Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.So we continued up the stairs. The next two floors were clear, the one after that had a single pirate within it, who seemed so confused by our arrival that he didn’t even fuss when a sylph tied his hands together.We continued on our way up, clearing the floors as we went until, suddenly, Bastion called us to a halt. “Two, coming down,” he said.Everyone tensed. A fight in the stairwell would be tricky, to put it lightly. There wasn’t much room to fight in, and the steps made the footing somewhat precarious.Calamity and Awen raised their weapons to cover the stairs. “I’ll take the one on the right,” Amaryllis muttered.Then two harpy came walking down around the bend of the staircase. They froze and stared.“Greetings,” Bastion said. “Please surrend-”Both of them spun around and started to run.The one on the right squawked as a bolt and an arrow punched him in the right leg and he went crashing down onto the steps with an anguished scream.“Oh, not their right,” Calamity muttered.Bastion took off after the other, wings buzzing and sword whispering out of its sheath. There was a crash above, a distressed caw, and the sounds of scuffling. I bounced after him. No way was I going to let one of my friends get hurt when I could help.Turns out, Bastion didn’t need it. He was pinning the harpy to the ground, an elbow on one shoulder, his hand on the other and his leg in an uncomfortable looking spot between the harpy’s legs. “Please stop squirming,” he said. “Captain Bunch, some assistance.”“Oh, yup,” I said as I jumped to it. Bastion had lengths of rope in his pack, all just long enough to tie someone’s wrists together. I grabbed the harpy’s one arm, then brought it to the small of his back while apologising profusely for any pain I might have been causing. I didn’t know that much about harpy anatomy when it came to shoulder mobility, and I didn’t want to pull a muscle or something.“Identify yourself,” Bastion demanded."I — what?" He sounded dazed.Bastion's voice sharpened. "What is your name?""I just work for the baron!""That sounds interesting," I said. "Did he send you down here?""Uh ... yes! I mean no! No, he didn't!""So, you came down here because you just felt like it?" I questioned."No! Not that either! I-let me go!"The harpy struggled, completely failing to dislodge Bastion despite actually being the larger of the two.Bastion lowered his voice to a tone I hadn't heard before: "Why. Were you. Descending. The. Stairs.""Um, I'm just checking on the food! He ordered it an hour ago, and it hasn't arrived!" The man nodded to himself. "When he finds out, he won't be happy!"Bastion raised an eyebrow, and I shrugged.Seeing as our captive was face down on the floor, he saw none of that. I turned my attention back to him."Really?" I asked. "What will he be unhappy about? The food being late? The fact that you got captured? The sylph army overrunning the tower?"The harpy went still. "All of that?"“Oh. Well, that’s really unfortunate for him. He’s going to have a lot to be upset about,” I said. “Can you tell us more about him, please?”“I, uh, don’t think that would be good for me.”“In what sense?” I asked.“I wanna keep my job,” he said.“You... do know that the baron will probably be arrested today, right? He can’t keep paying you if he’s in jail.”The harpy stared blankly at the wall for a moment. “But I have three weeks of backpay.”I patted him on the shoulder. “That’s rough. Come on, let’s get you on your feet. I bet we can figure out a much nicer job for you. What sort of stuff did you do for the baron?”“Me? Mostly just carried his complaints around. I’m very clean. Don’t have the skill for that, of course, but I can tidy up with the best of them, do laundry, everything you’d expect a manservant to do.”My new pal told me a few choice things about the baron as I led him down the stairs. The baron basically lived on the topmost floor of the tower, with the noble prisoners caged next to his quarters. He had a few guards, mostly harpy, but a couple of humans too, and he really didn’t like working with the pirates, but said he had no choice about it.The baron, from what I was hearing, wasn’t the friendliest guy around.“Thanks for sharing,” I said to the harpy as I handed him off. “Now, try to keep a positive attitude, and maybe make some friends while you’re in your cell. Being forced to spend time with people is a lot more fun when you turn those people into friends!”“Wait, what? I’m going to jail?” he asked as a pair of sylph took him by the arms. It looked like his pal had already been bandaged up and carried off as I walked him down.I felt a little bad for the guy as he was dragged down the stairs.“We need to pick up the pace,” Caprica said as I returned to the group.“Why’s that?” I asked.“The Royal Pride reported in. They had an altercation over the Trenten Flats with the three airships, but after damaging one during a boarding attempt and giving another a bloody nose, the pirates turned tail. One of their ships is limping behind, but the other two were in better shape.” Caprica waved a long strip of paper around, likely the one with the missive she got. “They’ll be back here within the hour.”“And the Beaver and the rest of our fleet?”“On their way,” Caprica said. “But it might take up to half an hour before they show up, and then they’ll have to land and start boarding the rescued hostages.”“Oh... I’m starting to see some issues with our timetable here,” I said. Hopefully, we’d manage to get everyone aboard safe and sound before the pirate lord returned. Something told me I didn’t want to have to fight him.
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