Chapter Forty-One — Booksie
I was pretty sure all the equipment I had already would be perfect for my first exploration mission. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to be even more ready. If I was going to be trekking around in a swamp then there were some things I would want. Boots that were made for hiking and one of those anti-bug rune things that Milread had used were both at the top of my list.My first step was to walk back down to Central. The street was lined with shops that sold all sorts of things. Now that I was looking there were lots of small logos on walls and next to shop signs that matched the pins worn by the employees within.I supposed that the guilds served as a sort of union. I hoped that they had something to say about quality as I entered a store with a large shoe-shaped sign at the front. It was filled with boots and shoes of all sorts and, probably because of the before-noon hours, completely empty of clients.The only person in the shop was a nice grenoil girl who helped me find a pair of hiking boots. She kept looking at my shoes with something akin to wonder though; I guess sneakers weren’t all that common. My new boots didn’t fit perfectly and they didn’t have the grippy rubber soles that I expected from boots, but they did look nice, with carefully tooled leather that had been polished to a shine.I left with a box tucked under one arm and two silver less in my pocket.Next was a stop in a general store half a dozen times bigger than the one in Rockstack and with hundreds of strange items within. It took a lot of focus to just pick out some foodstuffs and a magic bug-repelling amulet, which were apparently quite common.Then, arms full of stuff that I would need to repack later, I headed back to the Rock Inn and Roll Inn.“Ah, Broccoli,” Julien said as I walked in. “How did your adventure go? See any pretty ships?”“I’m a temporary member of the Exploration Guild now!” I said as I moved over to the bar. “And no, I didn’t get to see the ships yet. I’m going to go drop this stuff off, alright?”“Go ahead, go ahead.”I returned to the dinning room to find Julien sitting at one of the tables with two hot meals before him. One at the seat he was perched on and the other before an empty chair. He gestured to the chair as soon as he saw me.“So, tell zis old gossip how it went,” he demanded.I grinned as I sniffed at the meal. “It went well, I think. I met a Mister Rainnewt and I joined as a temporary member for now. I’ll see about joining in full in a little bit.”“Good on you, girl,” Julien said. “Now you’ll begin your training I suppose?”“Nope. I’m heading out tomorrow on my first expedition.”“Truly? Zings have changed zen.”“I think it’s an exception being made. I did come in with a recommendation.” I blew across a spoonful of some sort of potato-ish soup before munching down on it. Just like all the food I'd had in Julien and Juliette's Inns, it was heavenly. “I bought a few things for the trip tomorrow. We’re travelling by airship!”“Oh? Do you know where to?” he asked.“Somewhere swampy,” I said.“Zat narrows it down to anywhere in Deepmarsh!” he said with a laugh. “You’ll want to pack a few good books for ze trip. Else you’ll be bored.”“On an airship?” I asked.He nodded. “Oh yes. It’s quite exciting for the first few hours, zen you get used to it. It’s like anyzing else, really.”“Well, I guess,” I said. I didn’t believe him, but I wasn’t going to tell him to his face. Then again, I did have a bit of silver to spend still, and a couple of books wouldn’t hurt. I had read most of my herbology book cover to cover, even if some parts I’d just skimmed. “Do you know any bookstores in the area?”“Zere’s one along Central zat has a good reputation, but it is quite expensive. And zere’s one two streets down zat is owned by a bun. She is quite nice. Less books, but better price.”A bun? Like a Cinnamon Bun? “Can you give me directions?” I asked before noticing that my bowl was empty. I pouted at it while Julien laughed. He picked up the dishes as he got up and rattled off a few simple instructions. Most of them were about turning left at a red building and past a barber shop instead of just street names, but I didn’t mind.Tummy full, and a way to waste the rest of the day away at hand, I walked back out onto the main streets of Port Royal.I couldn’t get enough of just walking around the port city. There were so many strange people out and about. From grenoil aristocrats to people that looked like adventurers. I crossed before a group of five armoured people that I suspected were human, but couldn’t tell because of the thick black plate armour they were wearing, and at one point I almost bumped into a floating crystal that apologised to me in a chiming voice for blocking my path.The farther I got from Central the quieter the streets became. There were still horses and toads moving about and people walking to and fro, but the number of shops decreased. Instead the area was filled with big homes.And then I found the bookstore, a narrow-but-tall building tucked between a butcher’s shop and a normal home. There was a sign hanging off the front of an opened book with a big pair of bunny ears sticking out of it.A bell jingled when I pressed into the shop, and the same anti-stink enchantments must have been active because instead of smelling like sulphur and horse-poop, the interior smelled like books and fresh paper. There might have been something to dampen the sound too, because the constant hiss of steam through pipes was lessened into only a faint murmur in the distance.“Just one moment, I’ll be right with you,” someone called from deeper in the store.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.“Take your time,” I called back. Books, I knew, were a lot more expensive here than they were back on Earth. Probably because producing paper and bindings was complicated and fewer people were literate. A richer clientele and more complexity in making a product meant it was more expensive.The store had a few rows of shelves, some filled with scrolls, others with leather-bound books. There were display cases with glass fronts filling most of the front of the store, a few books on plush cushions with little placards with their titles next to them.I walked around, inspecting the names of the books one by one with a growing smile. A Rose Among Marshy Thorns looked like a harlequin romance while Silverto’s Compendium of the Arcane looked like a fascinating book about magic. The titles said a lot about the books, which helped since other than some occasional gilding on the edges, the books didn’t have covers with pictures on them.“Hello there. Ah, a human.”I turned and took in the woman that I assumed owned the store. She was young-ish, maybe still in her twenties, with a nice dress and, most attention grabbing of all, a big pair of floppy black bunny ears atop her head. She didn’t even have normal ears that I could see.“Whoa,” I said before I remembered that I had to be polite to everybody if I expected the same in return. “Ah, hi, sorry, I never met someone with such pretty ears before. I’m Broccoli!”The girl grinned. “Hello Broccoli. I’m Booksie. Or, well, that’s what my friends call me.”Were we friends already? I was really starting to like this shop. “My friends call me Broc sometimes,” I said. “But Broccoli is okay too. After all, broccoli is good for you.”Booksie giggled at that. “Well then, Broccoli, how can I help you today? Are you looking for something in particular?” She looked down at my chest. “Or are you here for something to help you with an exploration mission?”“Oh,” I said as I touched my pin. “No, just something to pass the time. I have an airship trip tomorrow; I need reading material. Do you have anything on magic? For people who are really bad at it?”“I might have a thing or two,” Booksie said.“Oh, and apparently my mana is cleaning-type. So any neat spells that would be easy to cast would be really neat too.”“Hmm,” Booksie said as she tapped her chin. “Wait right here!”I continued looking at all the books for the two or three minutes it took for Booksie to bounce around. She returned with two books and a pile of scrolls that she placed on a table that was free of any books.“Alright! I forgot to ask you about your budget.” She tapped a knuckle to the side of her head and stuck her tongue out. “Sorry! But I picked some books that aren’t too expensive. This is A Guide to Manipulating the Essence, it’s a primer from the Deepmarsh magic academy. Simple, used to teach younger students. Thirty silver. It won’t have anything too advanced in it, but it should come with explanations. The diagrams are simple to follow and there are sections with practice exercises to help you refine your control.”“Oh, neat,” I said as I picked up the book and leafed through it. There were lots of illustrations and the language used seemed almost... condescending, but maybe that was for the best.“This is Larson’s translation of a Pyrowalkian combat instruction manual. It’s quite popular. One lesser gold.”I took the next book more carefully and opened it up. The text was split down the middle with the same words written above and below but in different handwritings. “Why does it just say the same thing twice?” I asked.Booksie blinked at me. “Because it’s a translation. The top is in the language spoken in Pyrowalk, the bottom is in Deepmarsh. They share a linguistic root, so some words are similar. Can you... read either?”“I can read both,” I said. How could I read both? Was it some sort of cool translation power given by my class? Or maybe because I was from another world? That would be super neat! The only problem was that I couldn’t see the translation at work. Which begged the question, which language was I speaking now?“Oh!” Booksie said. “Well then, maybe wait for an original copy of the manual then. I hear that it has wonderful illustrations.”“It is a bit much for a translation,” I said. I couldn’t afford to spend too much on books, not when I would probably be coming back in a few days with even more money. “What about the scrolls?” I asked as I gave her back the one book and moved the other closer to my end of the table. I was certainly going to read it.“I brought a bunch. Unfortunately, there are many, many cleaning spells, but they’re rarely written in scrolls. Too... common, I’m afraid. But cleaning mana is close to holy, light and water, so I have a few staples of those aspects. This is Holy Light, which irritates the undead and can dissipate a ghost. Good for lighting up dark rooms too. Lightball, which creates a ball of light that moves with the caster. And this is Draw Water. It’s made to draw water from the ground, but it’s a staple spell of water mages everywhere. Learning it should help you learn more water-aspect spells later.”“How much for all of them?” I asked.Booksie looked a little flustered for a moment. “Ah, well, um, two sil each?”“I’ll take all three and A Guide to Manipulating the Essence,” I said.“Oh, wow, okay. Yes, let me just get you a bag!”As Booksie ran around and looked for a bag and then counted out the silvers I gave her, I looked at all the books around me and promised myself that I would be back. I had a lot of catching up to do, after all!
Chapter Forty-Two — Sorry for Harpy Rocking
I arrived early, because I wanted to make a good first impression, and because Julien said that if I paced across his bar one more time he was going to make me sweep the floors while I was at it, and when I offered to do just that he kicked me out and told me to have a safe trip.I shifted from side to side before the doors of the Exploration Guild building, hands running over my armour to make sure everything was in its place and that I was as neat and tidy as I could be. I needed a haircut, and maybe a nice bath. But I was clean. Very clean.It was just nerves that had my tummy twisting up inside me with tension.There had been a few opportunities to make friends already since I had arrived in this world, opportunities that I felt like I had missed or messed up. Heck, I could have just stopped people on the streets and asked them to be friends, but that would have felt forced. This-being given a partner-felt like it was my big chance. I would be spending some time with them, which meant plenty of opportunities to buddy up! We were even supposed to be of roughly the same age!I took a deep breath and opened the door.The lobby was nearly empty except for Mister Rainnewt, the secretary behind her desk, and an unfamiliar grenoil man. The two men were talking, the grenoil while leaning against the counter and Mister Rainnewt with his hands folded at the small of his back.I didn’t want to interrupt them, especially after they both looked my way then dismissed me to continue talking, so I took a circuitous route around all the displays, making sure not to bump any with my bulging backpack or the haft of my spear. The vases were quite... vase-y, and the big display with the dungeon inside of it certainly looked neat, and the monsters in the tiny rooms looked fearsome, but in the end I found myself itching to get it over with.“Hello!” I said as I walked across the carpeted room towards Mister Rainnewt and his friend. There was a faint but persistent smell of alcohol in the air that had me recoiling a little.One look at the grenoil man had me pinning all my suspicions on him.He looked like an adventurer, with a bandoleer across one shoulder and a coil of rope over the other. He wore simple but tough looking clothes with plenty of pockets, and a cloak over his shoulders, the hood rolled up around his neck to let him see better. The cloak did a good job of hiding the knife and the two flasks around his waist. “Who’s zis munchkin?” the grenoil asked.“This,” Mister Rainnewt said. “Is Broccoli Bunch. She will be Amaryllis' partner for the expedition. I expect you to take care of her as well, though she does have some experience under her belt.”I swelled up with pride at that. I also took note of the name. Amaryllis. Was that my partner?“Experience wiz what? Walking in a straight line? She doesn’t look like she knows how to handle zat spear,” the grenoil said“I don’t,” I said. “Know how to handle the spear, I mean. I got it from a dryad in the Darkwoods and just... kind of kept it. It’s a good walking stick.”The grenoil blinked, then guffawed and pulled one of his flasks from his belt until Rainnewt cleared his throat and he stuffed it back. “Well, at least zere’s zat. I’m not saddled wiz ze usual batch of no-good nobley sorts. If you can’t use ze spear zen what do you use?”He was eying the knife in my bandoleer and the one by my hip. “I have a makeshift weapons skill,” I said.“Huh. Dangerous one, zat. Hard to predict. I’m Gabriel.”“Broccoli, Broccoli Bunch,” I said before extending a hand to shake. Gabriel shook with a grin.“So, you ready for a week of babysitting, hardships, long nights, and more babysitting Broccoli?” he asked.“Babysitting?” I repeated.He gave me a froggy grin. “Oh yeah, just you wait.” He turned towards Rainnewt. “What kind of brats do we have zis time?”“They are hardly brats. They are respectable new members of our esteemed guild. The Brack twins are actually quite capable,” Rainnewt said.“From ze Bracklands?” Gabriel asked.I felt like a third wheel in the conversation, but stepping back would have been awkwards, so I just stood and listened as they spoke over my head.“Exactly. Cousins of the duke,” Rainnewt said.“Snobby little shits, you mean,” Gabriel grumbled.I didn’t call him out on using bad words because this wasn’t the place for it, and we weren’t friends (yet), but I made a note to be sure not to copy his vocabulary. Also, he was judging people before even meeting them, which was never a nice thing to do.“You didn’t read any of the files we gave you, did you?” Rainnewt asked. He rolled his eyes back as if looking to the heavens for help.I gave mister Gabriel a very disapproving look of my own. He should have done his homework, especially if his job, as I understood it, was to take care of us.He noticed my pout and huffed. “Don’t give me zat look. You’ve no idea what zeir files look like. Right nightmare to read. Besides, I’ve got Inspect, it’ll tell me everything I have to know. Like you’re a... level six Cinnamon Bun? What in ze world is zat?”“It’s my class,” I said as I crossed my arms. “It’s a support class.” Which was far better than admitting that it was a class that had skills like Cute.“Right,” he said.Since he had used something on me, I didn’t feel that bad using Insight on him. It was only fair, after all.A mostly-sober Grenoil Pathfinder of the Midnight Marshes, level ???He wasn’t even sober! This man was a bad influence!My thoughts were interrupted by the doors near the entrance opening and two people stepping in with the sort of confidence I wish I had. They were both grenoils, and even though they were a boy and a girl, there was something about them that made them look similar. Probably the patchy pattern across their skin.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.The boy had robes on, with expensive looking boots and a fine cloak. The girl had form-fitting armour that looked like leather over padded cloth, a pretty sword hung by her hip that bounced with every step. They both had backpacks on, sleeping bags rolled up atop them and a staff sticking out of the boy’s.“Ah, France and Florence,” Mister Rainnewt said. “You’re right on time. Let me introduce you to the man that will be leading your expedition. This is Gabriel, a senior member of the guild. Don’t let his demeanor fool you, he’s quite talented. And this is Miss Bunch, one of the others going through her first expedition.”“Hrm,” Gabriel said as he nodded to the twins.“Hello!” I said.The boy, Florence, grinned at me. “I didn’t know we would be in ze presence of such cute company,” he said.His sister was kind enough to elbow him in the side for his comment.I was not cute; I was attractive.The door opened again and a final person entered the room.“And here we have our last participant,” Mister Rainnewt said. “Hello, miss Albatross.”“Hello,” the girl said as she moved deeper into the room. I stared at her with a strange feeling in my chest. It was the same harpy girl that I had run into the day before, the one that had insulted my outfit and who had been rude to me.That exchange had been fast, with barely a few seconds to see what she looked like. Now I had a moment to really take her in. She was tall, especially with her messy white hair-feathers and her head turned up so that she was looking at everyone else along the length of her sharp nose. She was pretty though, in the more classical sense. Sharp cheeks and a thin figure under well-fit clothes.All she had on her was a blouse covered by a sleeveless leather jacket that had a feathery ruff and a pair of shorts that left her long taloned feet exposed so that her every step dug into the carpet. No weapons that I could see, and no gear.“Are we ready to get this over with?” she asked.“Do you want me to make introductions?” Mister Rainnewt asked.“We can do that on the way. Which one is my partner?” she eyed France and Florian appraisingly.“Miss Bunch here,” Rainnewt said as he placed a hand on my shoulder.“Hello!” I said, snapping to attention. “My name is Broccoli Bunch! I hope we become the best of friends!”Amaryllis stared at me for a long moment, one eyebrow rising. “Is this the best the Exploration Guild has?” she asked.“Hey!” I said before Mister Rainnewt could say anything. “I’m more than capable of handling myself, I’ll have you know.”Gabriel snort-croaked. “C’mon, featherbrain, we’re wasting time. You join up with Broccoli here or you stay here. Your choice.”Amaryllis huffed and crossed her arms. “Very well. Let’s get going then?”“Fine by me,” Gabriel said as he pushed off the counter and started towards the door. “Stick close kiddies, we’re heading to ze docks. Doubt anyone is fool enough to mess with us, but you never know.”The twins followed, and soon I was walking next to my partner as we made our way onto the streets. It was just about noon, which meant that the streets were pretty quiet. The sun was beaming down from above and cutting through the slight steamy fog around the city. It warmed up otherwise-chilly roads.It was good weather for setting off on an adventure.“So, you’re Amaryllis, right? That’s a very pretty name,” I said.Amaryllis ignored me.“What made you join the guild?” I asked, and when I didn’t receive any answer other than a dry look, I went on. “I joined because I like exploring. I met a party from the guild next to a ruined town and thought it would be neat to try and join myself. Now here I am!”“Do you have to talk so much?” Amaryllis asked. “I don’t know who sent you, but I doubt they paid you to become my friend.”“Paid me? Nobody needs to pay me to be their friend, that’s a free service!”The harpy next to me crossed her arms. “This is going to be a long week. Isn’t it?”“It’s only going to be long if you’re not enjoying yourself,” I said. “Maybe... maybe you’re not ready to be friends yet, that’s okay. But if we’re going to work together then maybe we should make an effort to get to know each other? And if we do become friends, then that’s just for the best.”“Ze human’s not wrong,” Gabriel said. “If you’re gonna share a tent wiz someone, best to be on good terms. Ze ozer options aren’t always pretty.”I saw the twins glancing at each other, then back to me and Amaryllis.“Fine. I’m Amaryllis Albatross, of the Albatross family. I’m the third daughter, which means I have two older sisters. I’m a Thunder Mage. My specialty is mid ranged area of effect magic. Is there anything else you need to know?”“All sorts of things,” I said. “Like what your favourite colours are, and your favourite food, and your favourite books, but those things can wait,” I said. “I’m Broccoli Bunch, of the Bunch family on Earth. I’m an only daughter, and I’m a Cinnamon Bun. My class is about support, though I don’t have that many useful skills yet. I’m really bad at combat, and I’m pretty good at talking. This is Orange Bunch.” I pulled the flap on a pouch of my bandoleer open and accidentally woke up Orange who stuck her head out and glared. “She’s a spirit kitten companion. She’s not that good at combat yet, but she gives great snuggles.”I looked at Amaryllis and found her staring at me as if I was a snake she found in her boot.“I hope we become good friends!”
