Chapter Four Hundred and Eighty-Seven — This Sounds Like a Job for Broccoli's Bunch
Chapter Four Hundred and Eighty-Seven — This Sounds Like a Job for Broccoli's Bunch We arrived at the Exploration Guild to find it way less busy than it had been the last time we poked our noses in. The guild's front doors were propped open by a small wooden doorstopper, letting some fresh mid-day air in and letting Explorers and curious busy-bodies slip in and out with ease.We ambled in as a group, but soon split into two smaller groups. Awen, Calamity and Desiree stuck by the front where there was a small historical display. Desiree pointed to various maps and old artefacts and asked the others questions about them. Awen read the plaques and tried to answer as honestly as she could.Calamity gave his own commentary-ridiculous tall tales that I was pretty sure he was inventing on the spot.Unfortunately, Desiree was nodding to everything he said, and I was a little worried that Desiree would start to have some strange opinions about local history. But Amaryllis tugged me forwards before I could do anything about it, and soon we were at the counter at the far end of the room and Amaryllis was flipping the mission book open."Let's see," she muttered. "There's... less of a selection than I expected."The secretary behind the counter who'd been happy to let us look at the book, glanced up at that. "Oh, there's an increase in the number of Explorers at the guild. I'm sure you noticed? A lot of them were pulled back from long-term missions nearby and now they're taking on any local mission we have."Amaryllis hummed. She didn't look happy about it. "And now we're out of work too, I presume?""The Guildleader has increased mission payout while... discouraging Explorers from taking on work too far from the city. We did have a lot more potential missions than usual come in, however!"Amaryllis grumbled some, but leafed through the book all the same. I looked at it from over her shoulder. She passed a mission to hunt for some ancient artefact, then another to protect a caravan going to the capital, then a third that seemed to be asking for someone to camp next to a lake for a week and take frequent notes about its disposition. "These aren't great for us," she said."The camping one's too long, otherwise it might be a nice vacation," I said."Not at the rate they're offering, it's not," she said."Ah, just the women I was thinking of," a familiar voice said.I looked up to find the Guildleader standing by the corridor leading to one of her offices. "Hi!" I said with a happy wave.Mathilde nodded to the both of us. "So, you're back. How did it go? And before you speak, Miss Bunch, is the answer to my question something that should be delivered in privacy?"I blinked and thought about it, but Amaryllis beat me to the punch. "It went well, Lady Mariejoy," she said with a slight bow. "Lady Booksie is back home, safe and sound as of less than an hour ago. She's grown a little as well.""Good," Mathilde said with a stern nod. "Now, what kind of trouble are you bringing to my guild this time?"Amaryllis sniffed. "Please, while we happened to deliver some bad news a few times, the delivery of said news was a boon to you and the guild."Mathilde smiled a froggy smile. "I suppose so. Are you looking for a mission, then?""We are," Amaryllis said. "Ah, and I wish to deliver this, as well. It's a report on the condition of the dungeon we visited with our VIP.""VIB," I corrected. The B was for Bun or Booksie, either way worked. Oh! Maybe VIF? For Friend!Amaryllis ignored me, which she was frustratingly good at and pulled a small set of folded papers from her coat and held them towards the guild leader.Mathilde regarded the papers for an awkward moment, before raising her eyebrow. "I'm not the secretary, Miss Albatross," she said.Amaryllis cleared her throat and turned to hand the report to the secretary rather stiffly. "Yes, right. It's not so important, I suppose. While I have your attention, however, I was hoping we could discuss having the guild... sanction our ship.""The Beaver Cleaver, correct?" Mathilde asked."Yes," Amaryllis said. "What other ship did you think I meant? Our skiff?""There's Abraham's Shady Lady," Mathilde replied. "Which is a ship I will never sponsor or sanction. The World itself could beg on its hands and knees and I'd refuse."Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.I decided not to question that. There was some history there that all of my social skills told me I didn't want any part of. "But you'd think about it for the Beaver?" I asked, hopeful.She considered us both, then our friends further in. "Hmm. Perhaps. You'll still be around Port Royal for some time, correct?""Until sometime after the marriage, at least," Amaryllis said."Good. Here, I was about to add this to the mission book." Mathilde turned a page around and handed it to Amaryllis and I. I scanned the paper, then tried to keep up as Amaryllis leafed through it. Did she have a Speed Reading skill? I couldn't recall."This is for two missions," she said. "But the area overlaps?""As might the subject matter," Mathilde said. "Give it to the secretary, she needs to file it in any case, but it'll be yours to take if you think yourselves capable. It's... not a delicate matter, but it's one I'd like handled with some courtesy."Mathilde spun on a heel... did she have heels? I looked at her feet, and they were stuffed into surprisingly large shoes, mostly because her feet were wider than I was used to seeing. Did grenoil need their own special shoemakers? I supposed that made sense. I recalled seeing a lot of them barefoot as well, which also made sense if their feet were particularly suited to swimming and travelling on muddy terrain."Broccoli?" Amaryllis asked, snapping my back to the moment. "Are you alright?""Sorry, thinking about feet.""I refuse to even think about the implications," Amaryllis said."What do you mean?""Nevermind that," Amaryllis said. "Did you see what the mission was for?"I shook my head. "I saw a bit, but you skimmed through it too quickly. It's two missions, right?""Yes, two missions," Amaryllis said as she handed the file to the secretary who took it with a kindly smile. "Both to the west of Port Royal and down within the Dark woods. A dangerous place to go gallivanting, but one I think you've explored.""Only a little," I said."In any case, the first is a cavern that needs inspecting, and the second it an Exploration Guild member who needs to be found. They were supposed to report back in some time ago and failed to do so, Mathilde is worried."I smiled. "A rescue mission, then!" I said. I did recall seeing a sketch in the file of an older grenoil man."Something like that," Amaryllis said. "Once I have a copy of the file, and the attention of the others, I'll go over it in more details. We won't be needing the Beaver for this one. It's not that far.""We could use the Redemption. It's been a while since we took it out."She considered it, then shrugged. "We'll see."The secretary took a minute or two to copy the file over. She worked with both hands at the same time, copying two pages at once, drawings and all, with what had to be a skill. That, or she was very, very talented. Soon enough, the mission book was updated, a copy was stored in a file folder behind her, the original was set aside in an OUT box, and a fresh copy was placed on the counter for us. "Here you go, dearies. Be safe now! Find something spectacular!"I giggled. "We will! And we'll try!" I said."Which answer was for which prompt?" Amaryllis asked."Hmm, both to both, maybe?" I said with a laugh as I skipped back to the others. "We have a job!" I cheered."Ah, we do?" Awen asked. "What's the mission?""Inspecting some cave and finding a lost explorer," I said."And mapping the cave out within reason," Amaryllis said as she read the page. She frowned. "We might want to pick up a book on geology. A field-guide, at least. We're not prospectors, but we might as well take a reference.""Are you hoping to find silver and gold?" Desiree asked."Not in this mountain chain, I don't think," Amaryllis said. "I just want to have a detailed report at the end."I nodded. "She wants a good grade in Explorer 101.""There's no such thing," Amaryllis said."Anyway, it'll be fun! A bit of camping, some trekking through the Darkwoods, and then back to Port Royal!""The Darkwoods... the very dangerous ones that are known for being dark and dangerous?" Calamity asked. "Because I'm in. That sounds like a blast!"Next to him, both Awen and Desiree shared a look. Neither seemed quite as enthused.
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Chapter Four Hundred and Eighty-Eight — Get Your Stuff Together
Chapter Four Hundred and Eighty-Eight — Get Your Stuff Together The mission's brief didn't have a due date on it, exactly, but as I read over the details it was pretty clear that the Exploration Guild kind of expected us to get to this sooner rather than later. "It's..." I looked up to the sky as we walked out. "Still before evening. Do you think we should leave for this mission today?"Amaryllis hummed. "I would think so, yes. It'll require seeing who's interested in coming, of course, then preparing rations, tents, and supplies in general for the mission. We'll want to over rather than under pack."I nodded. "Okay. Should we take care of that as a group, or, uh...?"Amaryllis tapped her chin, then eyed all of us. "Calamity, come with me. I could use a pair of arms and I suspect your hunting skills and knowledge might help me.""Alright," Calamity said."And what shall the rest of us do?" Desiree asked. "If I may enquire.""Do you want to do the mission with us?" I asked. She considered it for only a moment before nodding. I grinned back. "In that case, Awen and I can get the other supplies we need? We'll need to grab our tent, maybe get another and some food, right?""Maybe keep an eye out for cheap cave-exploration gear," Amaryllis said."Ah, I think we can do that," Awen agreed. "What about the others on the Beaver?""That's where we can meet up!" I said. "We'll buy extra food and such, it's not like it will go to waste. And then we can take off before it's too late in the day to head out."That seemed like a reasonable-enough plan. The area we'd have to explore was about a day's walk from Port Royal. If we were quick tonight we might manage to arrive early tomorrow, and then it would just be a quick trip back."I'll arrange a way to stay in contact with the Beaver," Amaryllis said. "If things somehow, inevitably, manage to go south, we'll have some allies to call upon."That sounded good too. With that said and done, Amaryllis reluctantly pulled out her purse from within her leather jacket where it was tied to her coat by a small piece of braided leather cord. She deposited a dozen small coins into my waiting palm, mostly silver coins, but there were a pair of golden coins there too. "Awen, I'm trusting you to make sure that Broccoli doesn't overspend.""I'm not that bad with money, am I?" I asked.Amaryllis eyed me, then nodded. "I suppose you're not so bad."I know how to shop for a deal, and I always picked from the discount rack when I could. I'd become very good at not spending money thanks to not having much money to spend. Plus I had Awen to help me figure out the conversion rates between gold and silver. I inspected the coins and noted that not all of them were from the same country, and even those that were had different shapes even within the same kind of metal.As far as I could tell, locals just knew what was worth how much at a glance. I was pretty sure it wasn't a skill, but rather just something people picked up by osmosis."Alright! So one big tent, and enough food for... call it three days, just in case?" I asked."One tent?" Amaryllis asked."It's warmer that way," I said.She shook her head. "It'd be wiser to have several smaller ones. Not to mention the ease of carrying them. But I'll leave that up to you. Do be aware that if you make a poor choice, I will be mocking and complaining about it at length."I pouted. She'd definitely do that.With our plans hashed out, we took off. Coincidentally we were heading in the same direction at first, which made our goodbyes kind of funny, but soon enough we split. Amaryllis wanted to grab a book first, then the rest of the stuff she was going for."Okay!" I said once we split off properly. "Food first, or gear first?" I asked Awen and Desiree."Ah, I think it would make sense to get the gear first," Awen said. "It's the bigger of the two expenses. Food can be cheaped out on, but it shouldn't be. Um, food also can go bad, so the later we grab it the better.""Won't it be going bad as we speak?" I asked.Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!She stared at me for a moment. "Any shop that sells food will have someone with skills to keep it from spoiling.""Oh," I said. I hadn't thought of that. Or really noticed. There were probably some pretty big economic implications to an entire food system where things didn't spoil as quickly and therefore food waste was much lower, but I was here to have fun with my friend, not ponder stuff. "Okay then, gear first!"We travelled to one of the middle sections of the city. There were probably a few nicer shops in the ritzier districts, but they'd also charge a lot more, and we were on a budget. Besides, middling quality stuff would be good enough for a couple of days.Desiree pointed out a shop that specialised in delver gear, and we slipped into it.The store was laid out with a counter at one end and three rows of racks in the centre. More gear was fixed to the walls. They sold a bit of everything. There were some weapons behind the counter, and armour on some stands, but it was less... knight-y armour and more tough leathers and gambesons that still had some good articulation to them. The kind of armour someone in a dungeon might want to have rather than someone looking for a fight."Hello hello," a woman said from behind the counter. "Can I help you, dears?"I nodded and described what we were looking for. Tents with enough space to hold at least six, with maybe a bit more room than that. The woman's eyebrows rose as I asked for more stuff. Some portable cooking gear, ropes, a first aid kit, some blankets and towels-because having either was a must!-and then I noticed a small set of mixed potions that I pointed to. "What's that?""Ah, that's an emergency potion kit," she said. "General healing potion, anti-venom, anti-poison, a potion that slows bleeding, and another that grants night vision. You're buying a lot of gear, are you new delvers?"I blinked and shook my head, then pointed to the pin on my bandoleer. "We're from the Exploration Guild," I said."Oh! Our eternal rivals," the woman said with a titter. "Don't be worried now, it's an old, old rivalry.""Between those who delve dungeons and those who explore them?" Desiree asked. "Would the two careers not share more similarities than not?"The lady nodded. "They're similar to the lay-person. But delvers dive for resources, to gain wealth and to empower and improve their community. Explorers delve to map out a dungeon and see what's within. They'll rarely face the same dungeon twice, and they have little need to learn how to properly exploit a dungeon."I nodded along. That sounded about right. "I don't see why we'd need to be rivals," I said."Ah, but some Explorers think themselves better, and more often than not, Explorers are from a... richer class of citizen," she said. "Delvers, meanwhile... well, we think of ourselves as humble salt-of-the-world sorts. It's all hogwash, of course. We do have a standing discount for Exploration Guild members!"I smiled. She was rather nice. I asked if she had any other suggestions, and she pointed to some water purification filters and some magical light sources, which were apparently common gear to bring along, but we didn't quite need any of that. We did end up grabbing a grappling hook, mostly because Awen wanted it.Then, with the shopkeeper's suggestion, we crossed a few streets and made our way over to a small store run by an old grenoil who made trail rations for delvers. He had his own canning machine and made big vats of soup that he canned himself. We bought enough trail bars to keep a small army going, and a few cans of soup as well, because it smelled really tasty and it would be nice to have something warm like that while out and about.Our last stop was to buy some hard-tack and crackers to snack on. They'd be tooth-breakingly hard if we didn't eat them in the next couple of days, but we always had some soup to dip them in!And with that, we had just about everything we'd need to get going!Now we just had to figure out who'd be coming along. That, and I wanted to see if I could figure out a way to train my skills while on the road!
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