Chapter Four Hundred and Eighty-Five — Money Talks
Chapter Four Hundred and Eighty-Five — Money Talks I was laid out flat on the ground, taking in breaths as deep gulps while I allowed sweat to pool on my forehead and slowly soak into the back of my shirt. I was probably a little stinky, actually, but I'd clean myself off later, once the sweat had done its job of cooling me off.A familiar vulpine face appeared above me. "Are you well?" Desiree asked.A birdy face appeared next to her, blocking out the rest of the sunlight pouring down onto me. Amaryllis frowned a little. "It's mana exhaustion. Combined with the more traditional sort of exhaustion, I think.""Uh-huh," I agreed, because that was just two noises I could make while exhaling."How's your stomach?" Amaryllis asked."Ugh.""I see," she replied with a knowing nod. "Mana exhaustion is... well, there are unkind and improper words to describe it, but I won't descend to that level here and now. Suffice to say that it's unenjoyable."Desiree nodded. "I, too, have exhausted myself in this very manner, expending such a quantity of mana that even twitching a single tail was beyond my reach. Nevertheless, I find myself impressed with you, Captain Bunch! You acquitted yourself admirably. I particularly enjoyed seeing you scamper about like a mouse to avoid Miss Amaryllis' electrical discharges.""I have burns on my butt," I said."Hmm, those are likely from the aforementioned electrical discharges," Desiree said knowingly."If you can talk, then you're unlikely to lose your lunch," Amaryllis said. "How are you feeling?""I'm better," I admitted. "But I'm not sure if I want to do that again. Not right now.""Oh no, at most we can do this once a day, perhaps twice," Amaryllis said. "Any more than that and we'll risk burning you out. Besides, this is kind of time-consuming, no? By the time you're back on your feet we'll be arriving at Port Royal.""Wait, already?" I asked. I forced myself to sit up and... yup, the Harpy Mountains were right there, coming up to the north. I could pick out a few other ships in the air, now that I was looking, so we really were getting closer. "Oh, I'm gonna need to fetch my captain's hat," I said with a groan."We have a few minutes, don't worry," Amaryllis said. "You did well enough, but no new skill?"I shook my head. "No new skill," I said."It'll take some effort," Amaryllis said. "Speaking of which... you spent a lot of time dodging," she said leadingly."Indeed," Desiree said. "Have you considered training Graceful Under Pressure at the same time?""I can do that?" I asked."You're already training for Mana Regeneration and Thick Skin simultaneously," Amaryllis said. "What's one more besides an order of magnitude more effort on your part?"Desiree nodded. "I can assist you, of course. I don't enjoy feeling as though I'm extraneous, so I would be honoured to aid your generous personage.""Aww, you're not extraneous," I said as I finally pushed myself into standing. "We should definitely practise together!" Desiree smiled and gave me a hand to help me to my feet. I wobbled a bit, my legs all jelly, but then I stabilised well enough.A look ahead, now that I was standing tall enough to see over the railing, revealed Port Royal approaching us. We were maybe an hour away, as the crow flies.I turned towards Desiree. "Let's talk more once we're docked, okay?" I asked.She nodded, then headed off with a swish of her twin tails. I didn't get to follow though, because Amaryllis touched my upper arm with the back of a talon. "One moment," she said."What's up?" I asked. I finally allowed some Cleaning magic to seep through to wick away the sweat and regretted it right away as a wave of nausea washed over me. Oh, right, I'd just used up all of my mana, and now I was pulling at the dregs for sweat-removal.Amaryllis eyed me for a moment, making sure I could stay on my feet. "We need to talk financials.""Are we broke?" I asked, a little nervous all of a sudden.She sniffed. "No, but we might be one day with the rate at which we're spending and not earning. I mapped out that Sue-Chef dungeon, it'll earn us a very small sum from the guild since they have a pretty accurate report already. I was hoping you could come with me to hand it in? That, and the other reports I've penned about the dungeons we've explored."This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source."Right, I can do that!" I said. "Is there anything else?""I want us to try to obtain a steady income. There will be missions available from the guild, and with four registered members in our crew now, we can start splitting off to take care of more missions across a wider range," Amaryllis said. "The real prize would be getting the Beaver Cleaver marked as a sanctioned Exploration Guild ship.""What would that mean?" I asked."In practical terms? It wouldn't change too much onboard the ship. We might have to keep a minimum standard of cleanliness and maintenance, but we do that already. And we'd have a flag to fly as well, with the guild's crest."I nodded along, that sounded easy enough. "And in... uh, impractical terms?""That's not how that works," Amaryllis said. "But I understand what you mean. Being guild-sanctioned would mean that the ship would be considered as part of the guild. It means that every so often, we'd be compelled to take certain missions, fly the flag, and generally represent the guild. I'll look into it some more, but I think we might count as a mobile headquarters in remote locations as well, if we encounter members out in some distant corner of the world.""Oh, that's neat.""It also means money," Amaryllis said. "Or... a way to defray expenses, at least. Every time we're back in Port Royal or another major city with a strong guild, we'll be able to hand in an expense report. The guild will cover some of our operation costs."I perked up. "So we'll dock for free, and get free food, and fuel?""I don't know about the food, but the fuel is a certainty. And I think the guild will cover something like twenty percent of docking fees.""Uh, that's not a lot, is it?""It's more than the none they cover now and that we're paying out of pocket," Amaryllis said.That was fair."Will we have to fill out forms or something for that?" I asked. "It does sound like a good idea.""Of course, but I'll take care of the paperwork then have a solicitor check over it just in case. I suspect that our recent work with Mathilde will help in that regard. We're in the good books of the guildmaster, and that's worth more than you could imagine.""Are you sure? I have a very active imagination," I said.Amaryllis huffed and gave my tummy a poke. "Don't be too foolhardy," she said."It won't kill you to say 'silly,' you know," I said."No," Amaryllis shot the idea down. "Get to the helm, Captain Bunch." She smiled a little, giving the title a mocking tone that I figured she didn't actually mean. But she wasn't wrong.I got back to the wheel, where Clive was currently stationed. I didn't push him away; he knew what he was doing better than I probably ever would, so I left him to it, but tried to help by rousing the crew and then calling people out so that they were in their positions.There were always a few tricky manoeuvres to do when coming into the dock. But Clive handled it like a champ, and soon the Beaver Cleaver was tied down and resting at Port Royal.We were back!Rhawrexdee swooped by above, and then flew upwards where he was met by another, slightly smaller and definitely slimmer dragon. Cholondee and her brother circled far overhead. I turned towards Booksie, curious, and she noticed my look. "He's saying hi," she said. "They always meet when one of them comes back from a trip. The two of them argue incessantly and both profess to hating each other, but I've rarely met siblings that are as closely knit," she said."That's cute!" I said. "I wish I had a big brother who was a dragon to share my stories with! Or a smaller dragon sibling. I'd accept both." I nodded.Booksie giggled.I took a moment to gather everyone up, then we split up our tasks. The crew deserved some shore leave, and I didn't want to let Booksie return home without an escort! That left a few that wanted to stay on the ship behind. All of us who were Exploration Guild members would be heading out though, we had a mission to find!
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Chapter Four Hundred and Eighty-Six — Where Do Babies Come From?
Chapter Four Hundred and Eighty-Six — Where Do Babies Come From? Since we had to go to the Guild anyway, it only made sense that the official members would form one of the shore parties and be the same ones to escort Booksie home. The exception was Desiree, she insisted on coming with us, and I didn't have it in me to say no.Of course, Booksie could have returned with Rhawrexdee, but she admitted that the last time they'd had a date in the city, the city council had been somewhat annoyed at all of the destruction of public property. The roads of Port Royal were nice and wide, but they weren't 'dragon' wide.Booksie sheepishly pointed to a row of street lights where only the bottom third of the poles remained. They were getting around to replacing those.So, she told Rhawrexdee-when he returned from saying hi to his sister-that she would be seeing him at the shop. Then she smooched him on the cheek, and I had to cover Awen's eyes and my own because that was a lot.I noticed that we were getting a few looks as we made our way across the city. Whether that was because people recognized Booksie, or if we just stood out for being such a mixed group, I didn't know. We had two buns, a harpy, a human, a catperson and a foxgirl, which I supposed did mean that we were halfway to a menagerie.Booksie paused at the front of her shop and turned to us. "Did you want to come in?" she asked."I mean, I am carrying all your stuff," Calamity noted. "You want it back, right?" He had Booksie's things with him. She'd packed light, but had accumulated a few little souvenirs along the way, as one did. Calamity had been gentleman... gentlecatly enough to carry her things for her.Booksie laughed. "Right, I can take that from you. You're all heading to the Exploration Guild next, right?""Yup!" I said."In that case, try to grab work that's around the city! I'd appreciate having you all visit while you're still around Port Royal. Plus the wedding... oh my World, I haven't made invitations yet." Booksie squeezed the bridge of her nose with forefinger and thumb. "Gosh, this little vacation was nice, but now that I'm back I'm kind of realising that I left a lot of work undone.""We'll be around," I promised before raising my arms. "Bye-bye hugs?"Bye-bye hugs were had by all. It was the best way to say goodbye to a friend, and the bit of pain that came from saying goodbye was mitigated by knowing that we'd be back soon enough and that Booksie was probably safe.Just in the time we'd been around, I noticed two guard patrols on the street and several ruffians sitting and chatting in the corners. The shadow of a dragon even passed over us. I was sure there were more eyes around that I couldn't see. Booksie would be as safe as a bun could be."Alright!" I said as we started back towards the centre of the city. "Straight to the guild?""I can't imagine anyone needs to stop for food or the like," Amaryllis said. "We had supper just an hour ago.""I mean," Calamity began. Amaryllis gave him a look, and he turned his gaze elsewhere. "Nevermind.""Hmhp, that's right," Amaryllis said. "Now, best behaviour at the guild. We can pick which mission to take, but there's also some leeway on the part of the guild itself. They can refuse us for a multitude of reasons.""Such as?" Desiree asked."For one, they might say that a certain mission requires a certain kind of expert on our team that we lack. Their requirements can even be entirely reasonable. I wouldn't dream of taking up a mission to study geology with our current team and crew, for example," Amaryllis said."Ah, and if we take on maintenance or repair missions, I'm the only mechanic," Awen added. "Um, for hunting missions we just have Calamity.""Exactly," Amaryllis said. "We do cover a fairly wide range of skills and experiences here, so that'll count for much, but we don't have the depth that a team of experts might have. In any case, let's be aware of our limits."We crossed Port Royal with ease. The city seemed to be in something of a festive mood. I noticed a lot of musicians out on the street and plenty of people laughing and chatting while out and about. "Do you know if there's something special going on?" I asked.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation."Not as far as I know," Amaryllis said."A festival, maybe?" Awen asked."Or a seasonal thing," Calamity said with his ears twitching. "I think I overheard someone say something about hatching. Could be that the little baby grenoils are being born right now?""Huh, you know, I never really asked about how baby grenoil are made," I said. "And now that I think about it, I've never seen a grenoil child. Like, there's younger ones, and those you can tell apart because they're a little smaller and don't look as wrinkly, but I've never seen a kid grenoil.""You know, I haven't either," Amaryllis said. "It's rare that I'll be blindsided by something so obviously culturally relevant.""Ah, I know this one." Awen said. We turned her way, and she shrugged. "It was part of a lesson I had. Uh, since Mattergrove and Deepmarsh are neighbours.""Deepmarsh neighbours the Harpy Mountains as well, and I've heard nothing," Amaryllis said. "But do go on."Awen nodded. "I think Deepmarsh keeps it kind of private, but grenoils are born as tadpoles. They have these birthing... places. They're very secretive about the locations, and they're well-protected.""I guess that explains why we don't see any kids? Do they stay in that place until they're old?" I asked.Awen shrugged. "I think so? Or at least old enough to walk around on their own. Baby grenoil don't have legs."I blinked. I supposed that made some sense. They looked like frogs, or maybe toads, so it made sense that they'd have a sort of tadpole stage."From what I understand, a family will have their own pool that they buy or rent in one of their birthing places. The lady and the gentleman that want a child will go there and, ah, um." Awen flushed a little. "A-and then, a few months later, the eggs hatch. The strongest are picked to be the next generation of the family, and the rest are pushed towards other things. It's a little weird, I think.""Huh," I said. I wasn't sure if I liked that."Anyway, the tadpoles will show up once they can walk around, and then they're reunited with their family and start their education. I think they're only children for a couple of years. Not like humans that are babies for a long time, then take a while to grow old enough to take care of themselves."Desiree hummed. "They don't have a kit stage, where they are more tail than child?""Wait, more tail than child?" I asked.Desiree nodded. "Of course! As a babe, my tail was nearly as long as it is now. Though of course I only had the one, and my tails have lengthened a little."I had a brain flash image of a tiny Desiree as a kid with a tail that was longer than she was tall and all fluff. It was a very cute mental image. "That's so strange," I said."There's nothing strange about it," Desiree said. "It's perfectly natural.""Oh, uh, yeah, I guess it is," I said. "Sorry. It's just different than what I'm used to.""All of you mammals are weird," Amaryllis said. "Being born from an egg is how it ought to be. Can you imagine giving birth? That's disgusting and uncouth. Not to mention unsanitary."We all gave her a look and she huffed, dismissing our curiosity with an upwards tilt of her nose."What about cat people?" I asked Calamity.He shrugged. "Same as humans and buns and such, I suppose," he said.I sighed. At least that was normal."At least after the baby loses its second head," he continued and I almost missed a step. Calamity's sharp eyes caught me and he guffawed in laughter. "Ah-haha! You believed me!""Wait, so you didn't have a baby head that you lost?" I asked."What? Of course not, I was pulling your tail," he said with a dismissive wave and a chuckle. "You know, for some this is a delicate thing to talk about, you might want to pick up a book about it. Nyeah?"Amaryllis sighed. "I know you're flexible enough to fit your foot in your mouth, but unless you want to get used to the taste of toe, then maybe take a minute to read up on it first?"I nodded along. I was definitely going to see if Booksie had something on the subject. I didn't want to embarrass myself any further if I could avoid it.
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