Ravensdagger_Cinnamon_Bun

Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty-Eight — Living History

Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty-Eight — Living History The exploration guild’s entrance was... I don’t think ‘impressive’ really covered it. The guild’s entrance was to one side of a huge, long room that reminded me a little of a subway station, with an arched ceiling covered in little tiles and two lanes of interior train tracks for the trolleys people seemed so fond of in here.There were plenty of shops and workstations and offices pressed into the sides, but the Exploration Guild’s entrance towered above them. The entire wall had huge pillars next to a double door so massive you could march an army through it.My friends and I stepped into the guild proper, a little cowed by how vast everything was within. The floor was all huge squares of beautifully swirling marble and the entrance hall had golden plinths that stopped at waist-height to display all sorts of things. Adventuring tools, strange statues, little objects whose use I couldn’t guess at.The hall echoed with our footsteps, and I wondered why the sounds from the main halls of the tower weren’t carrying in. Magic of some sort? That wouldn’t surprise me, this place felt magical. There were huge maps on the walls, paintings of strange places, ancient-looking artefacts, and...I stared, drifting to a stop. Amaryllis realized I was no longer with her, and turned back, only to stare as well. Then Awen followed our gazes, only to jerk back in shock, and by that point even Calamity and Caprica had turned to see what all the fuss was about.Hanging in pride of place on a wall, enclosed in a frame made of dark wood engraved with intricate little flower patterns, was a painting of six men. I recognized two of them right away even if I hadn’t seen them in a while. To the left was a grenoil gentleman, head tilted back, spectacles perched on the end of his broad nose.Raynold, who I had last seen in the company of...“Uncle Abraham?!” Awen squeaked.I don’t think it was seeing an oil painting of her uncle that shocked her so much as it was the fact that in the painting her uncle, and all the other men with him, were shirtless.The Abraham in the picture was a lot younger than the man I remembered. He had a few grey hairs at the temples, but his hair, including the bristly bush covering his upper chest, was mostly the same blonde as Awen’s.Next to him was a young harpy who looked slender, especially compared to the barrel-chested dwarf flexing next to him. At the far end of the image was a tall elf with his arms raised above his head, biceps bulging, and below that elf a sylph gentleman who looked to be working hard to make his abs stand out.“Wow,” Amaryllis said.“I can feel the testosterone,” I said.“That there’s some fine-looking specimens,” Calamity agreed. “But, ah, what’s got Awen all bothered?”“That’s her uncle,” I said while pointing to Abraham.“Really?” Calamity asked. He looked between Awen and her uncle. “I guess the hair matches but the old man’s got a bit more muscle to him.”“I guess,” I said. I tilted my head to the side to examine the painting from a different angle. It was really striking. Behind them was a big cliffside and a coastline that seemed familiar. Something was being built atop the cliff. “Maybe we should get an oil painting done of our group too,” I said.“Broccoli, if you suggest that we do it shirtless I’m going to have words with you,” Amaryllis said.Awen walked up to the frame, then squinted at a plaque set at its base. “Abraham Bristlecone, Raynold Weatherwick, Wesley Vonowl, Tharval Boltbinder, Willowbud Wintersdawn, Eustace Mountainstorm.”“Vonowl?” I asked, my attention snapping to the harpy in the painting. When I saw the baron he was clothed, but it was still pretty clear that this wasn’t the baron, though... maybe there was some family resemblance, the harpy in the painting had brown-white plumage and rather big , the same as the Vonowl we were chasing. It was possible they were related.“That’s... a strange coincidence,” Caprica said. “Eustace Mountainstorm... the Mountainstorm family are lesser nobles in Sylphfree. I think they were big supporters of the Exploration Guild in the past, but I’ve never heard of this Eustace. How long ago was this made?”“Is that the Storm Tower in the background?” Amaryllis asked.I looked at the background again, then nodded. “Yeah, yeah, the coast looks right. Except, well, there’s no tower, just the foundation.”“So, this was made before the tower was finished, which doesn’t help in dating it as much as you might think, a project this big could take decades,” Caprica said.“Awa, Uncle Abraham has white hair, and his moustache is... more. Um, he went off to have big adventures a long time ago, so this could be forty years old, or more,” Awen said.That was a while ago. “No airships,” I said as I looked at the sky in the painting.“Airships are older than forty years,” Amaryllis said. “But the business isn’t that old. Trust me, I’d know that much.”My friends quieted down and stood straighter as an elf wandered over. He was in a button-up shirt and vest and looked properly respectable. “Hello, can I assist you?” he asked. His eyes lingered on the lapels on my and Amaryllis' chests. “Oh, you’re members of the guild? The Deepmarsh branch?”“We are,” I said with a grin. “We’re here looking for information, but then we got distracted by, ah, that.” I gestured to the painting.“The founding fathers?” the elf asked.“They started the guild?” I asked. “Whoa! That’s cool.”“They did, indeed,” the elf said. “There are a few books and biographies that cover the history of the Exploration Guild, if you wish.”I nodded, that would be kind of cool. I didn’t expect the guild I joined more or less on a whim to have much of a history, but I should have. Pretty much everything has a history.Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.Awen raised a hand. “Is there a biography of Uncle Abraham?” she asked.The elf blinked. “Uncle Abraham?”“Awa!” Awen said. “That’s my uncle,” she said while pointing to the painting. “I... didn’t expect to see anything like this here.”“Hey, are any of the other founding fathers here?” I asked. It would be nice to meet them, I figured. Maybe they’d have stories about Abraham that Awen could listen to? Her uncle was a great storyteller, but his stories were always very... spectacular.“Certainly, in the lounge on the fourth floor,” the elf said. “Are all of you members?”“Only Amaryllis and I,” I said. “Can the others come as guests?”“Certainly. You’ll merely have to sign in to our guestbook. And of course, I’ll need to see your information as well.”We moved through the entrance hall and to the front where there was a counter and, to the side, an elevator with a wrought-iron cage and a complicated lever-based mechanism next to it. The elf accompanying us pulled out a guest book, and stepped aside for the others to sign it.He watched as Awen signed her name, then nodded, then Caprica did the same and finally Calamity.That’s when things went a little weird. The book rattled once Calamity was done signing, and his name turned red, the ink hissing and spitting. “Uh,” Calamity said.“Please sign your true name, Mister... Calamity Danger,” the elf suggested.Calamity glared. “But that’s my name, isn’t it?”The elf smiled. “You can use whichever name you wish, but we would prefer it if you wrote your birth name here.”Calamity grumbled, grabbed the pen, then wrote another name down. Curiosity got the best of me and I stretched up to read the name he’d placed. Claire Dogfriend.“Um,” I said.“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he muttered.I shrugged. “Okay, Calamity.”He nodded once, and then stalked towards the elevator and the rest of us followed. The elevator rose up slower than I could crawl, but I supposed it was still pretty novel. My friends seemed amused by it, Awen most of all. “I wonder if it works with a counterweight, or if it’s all engine power. Oh, and look at those tabs on the side. It looks like they’re designed to brake the elevator’s fall if it fails.”We crossed the second floor, which looked like an office floor, with a bunch of desks laid out and staffed by dwarves and elves, then the third floor, which looked like something between an armoury and a blacksmith’s shop.Finally, we arrived on the fourth floor, which had another small lobby with a long corridor. A floorplan on one wall suggested that many of the rooms were conference rooms and planning spaces, but the biggest space was taken up by a lounge and bar.“You mentioned knowing someone here,” Amaryllis said to Awen.“Only from uncle’s stories,” she said. “He talked about a dwarf called Bolty and an elf called Buddy.”“That must be Tharval Boltbinder and Willowbud Wintersdawn from that painting,” Caprica said.“That’s what I was thinking too,” Awen said. “Uncle likes his nicknames. It annoys a certain kind of person, and makes easier friends with another sort. At least, that’s what he told me.”“That’s a cute trick,” I said. “But I wouldn’t want to anger anyone... although, you’re all my friends already... so.”“Don’t start giving us nicknames, Broccoli,” Amaryllis said.“We call Broccoli, Broc, sometimes,” Awen said.“Yes, but she might start getting creative with our nicknames,” Amaryllis said. “And that’s the last thing anyone wants.”I giggled. “Didn’t your sister call you Amy?”“Amy is fine,” Amaryllis said with a serious nod. “But nothing past that.”“Prickly,” Caprica muttered.“Do you want her calling you Capy?”Caprica flinched. “I don’t think I’d ever allow someone to call me that, no.”“Not even Bastion?” I asked.Caprica’s face shifted, her expression dropping to something entirely neutral that wouldn’t give away her feelings while also turning tomato-red.“Ah, I’m sorry,” I said as I pulled her into a side-hug. “I didn’t mean to tease you too hard.”Amaryllis patted Caprica on the back.We arrived at the lounge while Caprica was still steaming in embarrassment. The place was closed off by a large pair of double-doors that we pushed open to reveal a great big room with glossy wooden floors, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase to one side with a few dozen chairs all around. The far wall had a big fireplace with a roaring fire within, and there was a bar against another wall. The exterior wall was all windows, with a spectacular view of the northern coast and part of the bigger tower to the east.A few heads rose at our arrival. Mostly older men and women, but a few people closer to our age were sitting at the bar.I felt a little awkward as my friends and I lingered by the entrance and kind of just stood there, uncertain of where to go for the moment. Still, I was the nominal leader, so social stuff was my job, wasn’t it? “Ah, hello everyone!” I said. “We’re looking for some people called Bolty and Buddy?”There was a long pause, then a roar of laughter from one side where a big stout dwarf was lounging in the depths of a recliner. He shuffled out of the seat until he was right on the edge and smacked a hand on his knee. “Who gave you that name, missy?” he asked.“Ah,” I began.“Um, my uncle did,” Awen said. “Abraham, Abraham Bristlecone.”The dwarf bounced off his seat. “Bud! Did you hear that?”“I heard,” a familiar elf said. He looked just like the elf in the oil painting. “I’m not deaf, you old dwarf.”“I’m not old, you decrepit treehugger,” the dwarf snapped back. Then he grinned wide. “Come over here, I need to take a good look at the lot of ya! And you need to tell me how Abe’s doing!”

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Cinnamon Bun Volume Four is Out!

It's available in audio, ebook, and paperback! You can find it... here:https://www.royalroad.com/amazon/B0BK26CB6B

Cinnamon Bun — Bonus Story: In Which Broccoli Scares Some Children

Cinnamon Bun — Bonus Story: In Which Broccoli Scares Some Children “I wanna play pirates,” Lana whined.Ray scoffed, hands on his hips and nose turned up, just the way his dad did. “You always want to play pirates,” he said.“Well, we have to play something,” she grumbled.He shook his head at her and looked around for a moment before turning back to her and saying, "We could play explorers and bandits.""No," Lana blurted out immediately. The last time they played explorers and bandits, Ray got so mad when someone didn't do as expected that he punched her in the stomach. His mom had grounded him for two weeks because of it. She was still sulking over it.Themoid grunted and tugged at his beard. It wasn't a very long one, only reaching to his sternum, but he was really proud of it."What about wizards?" He asked after another minute of them all sitting around thinking.“How do you play wizards?” Lana asked. Her long ears twitched though, which meant she was at least a little interested.Ray grinned. “It’s easy! We need staffs, and cloaks, and then we go around and find bad guys and cast spells at them.”“I don’t know any spells,” Lana grumped.“I’ll teach you!”A few minutes later, the trio were rushing through the Storm Tower with blankets tied around their necks and long sticks in hand. Themoid had opted to use a metal pole because ‘If’n I’m gonna be a wizard then I’m gonna be a proper dwarfish one.’The only spells Ray knew were really simple things that his mom had shown him, and most took a lot of concentration to cast. Stuff like light balls and a spell to light candles (that his mom made him promise he wouldn’t use to light the house on fire) and a few others. When it came time to teach Lana though, he showed her his most useless spell of all.“Hrrng wah!” Lana said as she cast her spell. Her face went red to the tip of her ears and she looked like she was on the verge of pooping herself. Still, the spell came out as a fizzly ball that wobbled ahead and splattered against some scuffs on one of the walls. “I did it!” Lana cheered as the stain lessened a little.“Wow,” Ray said. He made sure to inject enough sarcasm that even Lana would catch on. “What a powerful wizard you are.”“Hey!” Lana shot back. She pointed her wand (A rolling pin without the roller) right at him. “You take that back!”“Okay. I won’t say you’re powerful then,” he said before grinning. “You’re super weak.”Lana cast ‘rolling pin’ on his head next, and Ray ran away laughing while rubbing at the spot she’d hit him on.Their fun and games came to an abrupt end though, when they rounded a corner and came upon another group of kids.Thimmy, Thocks, and their leader and Ray’s rival, Becky.“Oh no,” Themoid said from just behind Ray. Lana caught up too, and in a show of solidarity, came to stand behind him too... after poking him in the small of the ribs with the end of her rolling-pin-wand.“Well, well,” Becky said. She crossed her arms and turned her nose up at them. “Look what crawled out of the sewer pipes.”Becky was a year older than Ray and wouldn’t let him forget how much more mature and cool that made her. She also lived a block above the housing area where Ray, Lana and Themoid lived. They shouldn’t have gone up the stairs to this floor of the tower, he realized too late. But this was the floor with the most open spaces (where the adults wouldn’t yell at them to get out of the way).He glared at her, then unleashed his best, highest level (Rank C already!) skill at her... Identify.Rebekah FirerootSchoolyard toughBeetle crusherHe gulped. His identify gave people titles that told him about them, and Becky had gotten a new one since the last time he’d looked.Thimmy RockcoreSmart as RocksThock RockcoreThe BraidedHomegrown Tinkerer“At least the sewer pipes are warm,” Ray said. He opened his mouth, then hesitated. He wasn’t sure how to end that insult.“So you did come from the sewers?” Becky said. She grinned. “That explains the smell, right boys?”Her two companions nodded, and they both made a show of covering their mouths with their beards, even Thocks, whose beard was all braided up on account of her being a girl and all.“That’s not true!” Lana shouted back. “If there was a stink I’d clean it up because I’m the great cleaning wizard... Lana... uh... Lanarious the Great!”“That’s a lame name,” Thock said.“You’re a lame name,” Lana fired back.That was one point for their side, and it wasn’t even Ray who’d gotten it. He resisted the urge to grumble. It didn’t WORD an elf to grumble. “What were you even doing, Becky?” he asked.“I should ask you that,” Becky said. “We were going to play pirates.”He scoffed. “That’s boring. We have a much better game than that.”“Oh yeah?” she asked. “Does it involve stealing people’s dirty towels?”He glared. “These are wizard’s cloaks! We’re wizards. And you guys are bandits!” He raised his staff (a stick he’d gotten from outside the tower last fall) and cast his best spell across the gap between their groups. It was a Water Gathering spell he’d learned that pulled water out of the air. He’d figured out how to twist that mana just right to turn it into a big spray....Well, in reality, he hadn’t figured out how to cast the spell without it being a spray, but he was still working on it.Becky gasped as she was sprinkled with lukewarm water. “Oh, it’s on! Come on, we’re gonna beat them till their beards fall off!”“Yeah!” Thimmy and Thocks cheered.“Oh, look Amaryllis! There’s little elf and dwarf kids, and they’re playing together!”Both sides paused mid-charge (Ray was pretty much out of mana, so he was going to resort to the wizardly tactic of bashing things with his stick) and turned to stare at a group of newcomers.He gulped.These weren’t locals, he knew that right away. The group had five members, and he didn’t recognize a single one.At the back was a strange man with beige fur instead of skin. He looked a little like a cat, and had a bow in a sheath over his shoulder and a strange hat on with holes on the top for his long, cat-like ears.Calamity DangerCrackshotBig game hunterDragon-like monster stalkerBlahajistNine LivesFriend of the Great PlainsHe blinked. He hadn’t seen so many titles except on the few times he used his skill on some guards or explorers. That guy had to be some sort of hunter!He glanced at the next one at the back, a shorter woman (he was almost as tall!) in a red uniform. She had wings! Big semi-translucent things that made her look like a fairy. They fluttered a little as she looked over Ray and his friends (and also Becky) with a look that didn’t seem very impressed.The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.Caprica SylphStowaway PrincessMilitary MindBastion HeartedExpert ManipulatorAspiring Sugar MommyKnightly ManneredHighborn Bastion of the PeopleSecret SoftyA princess? No, no, sometimes his skill was a little bit wrong about some stuff. It could exaggerate a little.He turned his attention to what might have been an elf... but no, she was too short, and she moved a hand up to hook her blonde hair behind an ear that was notably not pointed.Awen BristleconeBunnygirl AdmirerWillingly Kidnapped PrincessMad TinkererAirship RepairerStammering MessDragonmakerLesbiamLes bienLessbienUselessWhat was up with her titles. And what was a... he squinted. Whatever that was. He’d ask his mom later, he decided. He also wondered why anyone would keep someone around if they were useless, that was strange.He turned to one of the other members, probably the strangest looking in the whole bunch.“Ray, look, it’s a bird!” Lana said while pointing her wand at the strange person.She was a bird. With white wings and a bunch of feathers for hair, and she didn’t look impressed at all.Amaryllis AlbatrossTsundere PrincessAirship MagnateSkybornReluctant AdvisorMagical ProdigyA-Rank MageHufferDungeon ExplorerThunderously OpinionatedHe blinked. Explorer? Then he noticed the pin clasp to the front of her leather jacket. She was a member of the Explorations Guild! That made a lot more sense now. No wonder the whole group looked so strong.“Hello!” the one at the front said. She was smiling big and wide, and Ray felt his attention gravitating towards her, then he felt his cheeks warming up. She had a smile that made his heart constrict, and when she gave them all a little wave he felt his tummy doing strange things. It was like looking at a bucketfull of kittens but as a person.He shook it off and really looked at her. She was taller, with big ears, one of which looked a big droopy, and a blue armoured dress with a cuirass over it. Maybe Themoid would know more about her armour, he was into that kind of thing.Broccoli BunchSlime GenociderBattle BunDangerously AdorableThe CleanserAirship CaptainSkypriveteerDignity DestroyerStrange TravelerS-ranked MageExplorer of the UnknownBefriender of the EldritchDragon FriendRoot RipperRay felt his heart skip a beat, but for an entirely different reason. Nevermind that this girl was kind of cute (he’d think on that later, dangit!) she was one of the most dangerous people he’d ever seen. What kind of horrible things would someone have to do to get so many titles?“Hi miss!” Lana said. “I like your ears!”Broccoli grinned. “Thank you! I like your ears too!” She pulled her hair back to reveal... human ears? Then she wiggled them with her fingers. “Only half of mine are pointy though.”“Ohh, cool!”“See Amaryllis, I’m cool!”“Hmm, yes, you can impress children, congratulations, that’s a high bar for you.” the harpy lady said.Broccoli squatted down in front of them. “Hey little guys and girls. Were you playing?”“Yeah!” Lana said, and Thimmy and Thock nodded along. “We’re playing wizards.”“Oh, that’s cool!” Broccoli said. “Show me your magic, I want to see!”Lana nodded, then focused hard and cast a spell at the ground between them. The weak magic sputtered out and barely succeeded in erasing a scuff from the floor.Ray and Becky both chuckled.“Was that cleaning magic?” Becky asked. “Wow, lame.”“Hey now,” Broccoli said.For some reason the group of explorers, bun-aside, though that was hilarious.“Cleaning magic isn’t so bad! It’s actually pretty great,” Broccoli said.“Yes, do try to convince literal children that your magic is great, we’ll wait,” Amaryllis said.“Awa, it’s okay, Broccoli, I think your magic is... useful,” Awen said.Broccoli pouted, and Ray found his tummy doing flips again. “Fine. Hey, little girl, want to see what you can really do with Cleaning magic?”“Okay?” Lana said.Broccoli grinned, then her eyes narrowed and she concentrated really hard. Ray wasn’t sure what was going through her head for a moment as her ears drooped and she focused on something they couldn’t see.Then, with a rush of magic that he felt pushing through and past him, the bun unleashed a powerful spell.He felt his skin tingling, and when he blinked, he saw that the entire room sparkled. Literally. The lights were brighter-probably because the glass around the flames looked brand new-and the tiles on the ground looked almost new. Even the air tasted different. More sharp, fresh, and without the faint lingering odour of that came from so many people living in one huge building.“Whoa!” Lana said.“See, I’m cool!”Calamity, the catguy, grinned. “Are we going to spend the rest of the day entertaining kids?” he asked. “Because I have this neat trick where I shoot a coin out of the air at twenty paces.”“No, we will not be doing that,” Amaryllis said. “If you’re done wasting mana and saving the Storm Tower’s cleaning budget, maybe we should move on.”“Ah, right, just one thing,” Broccoli said. She turned back to Ray and his friends. “Hey, guys, would you mind catsitting for me? One of my best friends, Orange, is just sitting on our airship doing nothing, and I imagine she’d love to have some company. What do you say?”Ray thought that sounded pretty fun. He liked cats as much as anyone, and the others seemed to think that was a good idea.So Broccoli channeled some magic, and out of thin air, a cat appeared. It stayed in the air, floating there like cats shouldn’t. “This is Orange! Please take good care of her for me, please!”Orange didn’t seem to be a very happy cat. She turned and stared at the lot of them and looked very unimpressed.Orange BunchThe WatcherGrand Admiral of SylphfreeMousebaneThe RatkillerBroccoli’s MasterOwner of the Beaver CleaverHeart of a TigerThe NaptakerClive’s FriendThe MilkdrinkerExtremely PettableRay gulped and watched as Lana took hold of the floating cat and snuggled it close. The others started petting it, which the cat endured with stoic, unwavering pride.He just stood aside and watched as the explorers said their goodbyes and wandered off.What kind of madpeople had they just run into?

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