Chapter Fifty-Eight — Opportunity Comes Kicking
Chapter Fifty-Eight — Opportunity Comes Kicking My second ride on an airship was nothing like the first. The Silver Boot had been a naval-looking ship with a magical means of lift and propulsion. It wasn’t meant to fly, but it did so anyway and with a lot of panache and flair.The airship that hovered just over Green Hold and which we boarded via some dropped rope ladders was nothing like that. Its name, the Marshy Gas-Bag, was proudly emblazoned on its cloth sides and on the small nacelle at the bottom of it. The entire vessel was a huge greenish grey balloon, oblong and pointed at both ends with a few engines in boxy protrusions at its sides.It was more of a Zeppelin than a flying boat. If it wasn’t for the bluish smoke pouring out of its four motors I could have imagined it back on Earth way back when people still flew in style instead of all cramped in the passenger seats of a jet.I sort of wished that the experiences I had aboard the Silver Boot would repeat, with a cool captain showing me around, but we were greeted by a harried looking grenoil First Mate who showed us to our rooms then ran off to get the ship ready to depart.So I found myself waiting in a tiny lounge, too small for the five tense occupants within, and with chairs that weren’t all that comfortable. The only saving grace were the windows looking out of the sides of the ship, seeing the world roll by beneath was always a treat, especially from inside a warm room with no wind in my face.I sat with my knees crossed and Orange on my lap and, after some poking and prodding, got the twins to spill out the details of their adventure. Not that it was all that adventurous an adventure. Unlike Amaryllis and I, their mission had gone on without a hitch. They had been surprised by the slimes at night, but Florine was a Marsh Wizard in a marsh so he took care of them.When I had exhausted that bit of discussion I tried prying some things out of Amaryllis, but she was busy glaring at Gabriel who, in turn, was busy nursing what I suspect was a hangover.In the end I ended up resting my head against the cool glass of the window, fingers rubbing at Orange until the lack of sleep and yesterday’s adventure caught up with me and the world slowly, gently went dark. I was serenaded to sleep by the rocking of the airship and the distant rumble of its engines.Something touched my shoulder and I snapped awake, the momentary confusion as to where I was fading away when I saw Amaryllis standing above me. She had Orange tucked into the crook of a wing and my backpack was slung over the opposite shoulder. “Hey, you. Good, you’re awake,” she said.“Eh?” I asked. I twisted around to look at the landscape beyond the window only to find that it had been replaced wholesale by the bustling docks of Port Royal. Our ship was floating next to a sort of vertical pier,part of what was essentially a parking garage, but for airships. Ropes were latched to the side and grenoil in harnesses moved over to check the surface of the balloon or do other maintenanc-y things.“Oh,” I said. “How long did I sleep for?”“Three or so hours? Maybe a bit more. The height makes it hard to tell how the sun’s moving,” Amaryllis said.“Right.” I got up and stretched, rubbing my neck to work out the pang that had grown in it. We were alone in the lounge area, which might have explained why Amaryllis looked so eager to get a move on. “Lead the way?”“We can talk while we walk,” Amaryllis said.I agreed with a nod, then followed her as she led me through the ship and onto a ramp that reached over to the port proper. There was a customs agent of sorts waiting at the bottom of the ramp, but one look at the pin on my bandoleer and the one Amaryllis wore on her belt and we were let through.“I’m... sorry about last night,” Amaryllis said. “I lost my temper and that was inappropriate.”“Okay,” I said. I didn't like it when she acted that angry, but I could understand where she came from. The apology was nice, though it did feel as if she was trying to put some distance between us with it.“That kidnapping attempt was suspicious. Obviously. It wasn’t done by my family. They wouldn’t have sent cervids after me. Which means it came from elsewhere. I don’t think anyone but the guild and the bank would be able to tell where I was at the time, and only the guild knew where I would be ahead of time, which has some very disturbing implications.”“You didn’t tell your family where you would be?” I asked. I wasn’t going to fling rocks from my glass house, I hadn’t exactly told my family that I was heading off on a grand adventure either, but I was curious about her homelife.“That is unimportant,” Amaryllis said.She walked through the docks as if she owned the place, her fierce scowl clearing the path before us until we were out of the docks and onto the streets proper. The Port Royal smell hit me then and I had to hold back a gag.“Lovely,” Amaryllis drawled like someone that had just stepped in dog poop. “It’s traditional that the director of the guild be there to greet a team returning from their first mission. I intend to get to the bottom of this.”“You mean Mister Rainnewt?” I asked.“Who?”“The man that worked at the guild,” I said. “Tall, human. Kind of nice?”“No, that man’s just some sort of clerk or administrator, he’s a paper pusher,” Amaryllis said.“He’s the one that assigned me as your partner,” I said. I didn’t want to think ill of someone, but I couldn’t help but begin to think that Mister Rainnewt was just a little suspicious now. Hopefully it was all just some horrible accident and my imagination was running wild, but it wouldn’t hurt to verify.This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.Trust a whole lot, but verify anyway, my dad used to say.It was usually about the price of groceries but I think it counted here too.I got to see a part of Port Royal that I hadn’t visited yet as Amaryllis took us up one set of stairs, then another. We crossed arches made of rattling pipes and then into an area where the homes were far larger and seemed to have been carved out of the mountain itself and then had flowers and gardens planted around them to add embellishments. There were more guards here, and yet fewer people on the streets.I wanted to gawk around a bit like the tourist I was, but Amaryllis was setting the pace and she was relentless.We marched onto Guild Row, coming onto the street from the opposite end than I was used to and walked down to the front of the Exploration Guild.“Let me handle this,” Amaryllis said as we reached the doors.I had a bad feeling all of a sudden as she raised one taloned foot and kicked the door.Her foot bonked against the solid wood and barely rattled it.Amaryllis’ face went an interesting shade of painful-white as she lowered her foot, but she didn’t say anything as she reached up and opened the door properly before limping in.I expected a crowd in the lobby, but it was completely empty save for the grenoil secretary behind the counter at the far end of the room.“Where are Gabriel and the twins?” I asked.“That’s what I want to know,” Amaryllis said. She stomped her way across the lobby and to the desk. “Hello. Do you know where the team that just returned is?”The secretary looked up from a stack of papers and blinked a few times. “In the lounge, I believe, with the director.”“Good,” Amaryllis said before turning to the left and stalking off.“Thank you, and have a nice day!” I called out to the befuddled secretary as I followed my friend.Amaryllis seemed to know where she was going because she didn’t so much as pause until she arrived at another door. She poked this one a few times, glared at the door frame set into a stone wall, then nodded to herself.“Oh no,” I said as she took a step back.This time when she kicked the door open it crashed into the wall, splinters flying where the frame busted and the pretty ivory capped handle went ballistic.Amaryllis stepped into a room that was arranged to look a little like a cross between a lounge and an inn’s main room. There were tables and chairs all over, a huge hearth on one side with the skull of what might have been a dragon over the mantle, a stuffed six-legged bear looked tall in one corner and there was a bar at the far wall.There was a persistent smell in the air, like strong alcohol, but more refined, mixed with a thick herbal scent that I suspected came from the men sitting off in one corner enjoying cigars while staring at the spectacle that Amaryllis was starting.Gabriel and the twins were closer to the middle of the room, talking to a Grenoil woman that was surprisingly short for a female grenoil, at least, as far as I could tell. She had a long scar running across her face from just above an eye to below her mouth, it made her lips curl up strangely to the side.She raised the ridges above one eye as she looked to Amaryllis. “You’re paying for that door,” she said without a hint of a grenoil accent.“Come on, Mathy, let the lass have some fun. It’s just a pinch of destruction of private property,” A big human sitting off to the side said while waving a cigar around.“Shut it, Abraham,” the woman, presumably called Mathy barked across the room. She turned back to the pair of us and I could feel her eyeing me up and down for a moment. “So, you’ve made your entrance, Miss Albatross. What I hear from Gabriel is concerning enough, but I’d like your version of things.”Amaryllis stood a little taller and I noticed that her feathers were starting to puff. “Our mission parameters were simple. I imagine you know what those were; we were to scout around Fort Frogger to the North-East of Deepmarsh. Our initial journey went without issue. The Fort was and is occupied by a single man who has been inhabiting the region for some time, I presume. After completing our objective we started trekking back towards Green Hold to report.”“Haha! I can hear the stories she’s not telling you, Mathy,” the big Abraham guy said.I didn’t speak up. I appreciated that Amaryllis wasn’t saying anything about Gunther and Throat Ripper already. I didn’t need to ruin it by opening my mouth.“What happened before doesn’t matter,” Amaryllis said. “It’s what happened when we were crossing a bridge that’s concerning. We were waylaid by kidnappers on the road.”The Mathy lady made a dismissive sound. “Bandits? I’ll report it to the guard and-”“No bandits,” Amaryllis said. “Kidnappers. Six of them, with military equipment. All six were cervid using false names, unless the cervid have taken to calling their children numbers while I wasn’t paying attention.”The room had resettled to a sort of calm after Amaryllis’ entrance, the men returning to their cigars and the few women around speaking in low murmurs. Of the dozen or so people in the room, only a couple actually seemed to care at first, but Amaryllis' declaration had all of them paying attention.Mathy croaked. “I see. In that case, let’s talk in my office. Just you, Gabriel, and I, Miss Albatross. Abe, make sure the... other one stays here. She might be complicit in this whole thing too.”I noticed all the suspicious looks turning my way and gulped.
* * *
Chapter Fifty-Nine — LORD ABRAHAM BRISTLECONE!
Chapter Fifty-Nine — LORD ABRAHAM BRISTLECONE! I was super curious about what was happening with the Mathy lady and Amaryllis and Gabriel, but it seemed as if I wasn’t wanted, and snooping was so far from polite that I didn’t give the idea more than a passing thought. Instead I just stood in the middle of the lounge room and shifted my weight from foot to foot, uncertain as to what to do next.Then Abraham saved me.“Oi, girlie, come on and sit with us old timers. You’ll pretty up our corner of the room just by being here and you won’t wear a hole in the floor, haha!”I smiled, my reservations melting as Abraham’s gregarious voice boomed across the room. He gestured to an unoccupied seat made of dark wood with big fluffy cushions. It was quite similar to his own throne-like seat, though with fewer stuffed animals surrounding it.“Now, what brings a young lass like you to this backwards port?”“Um,” I said. “Adventure, mostly.”“Haha!” Abraham roared. “A girl after my own heart. Oh, I do love a spot of adventure in the morning, then a bit of exploration in the afternoon and maybe a bit of a tussle with some big beastie in the evening. That’s the true man’s life! Isn’t that right boys?”The other men sitting around the hearth weren’t all so... Abraham-like, but they looked wiry and dangerous in their own ways. All of them were older, and all of them had a scar or two on their hands or faces. The nearest, a grenoil with a wrinkly nose, shook his head in exasperation.Abraham himself looked like... well he looked like Santa Clause if Santa hit the gym six days a week and spent the last day prowling around in the savannah looking for a lion to wrestle. He even had a pith helmet!“I overheard a little about your adventure with those deer lads from out East. Oh, that reminds me of that time the princess of Manamere got her grubby hands on an ancient Crys statuette and I was tasked to fetch it. I spent a whole week crawling on my hands and knees across the Trenten Flats themselves, then I snuck in through the royal privy pipes until I was in the castle proper. Found the princess too. Poor lass got quite the fright when I stuck my head out in her private toiletry room. Haha!”I held back a giggle and sat on the edge of the seat. “Then what happened?” I asked.There was a chorus of ‘oh no’ from the old men around us, but they were wearing secretive little smiles of their own, especially when Abraham lit up as if I had just announced that it was his birthday.“And then, lass, I climbed out of the bowl, quite the stench on me, let me tell you. Cervid sewers make the ol’ Port Royal perfume smell like fresh roses. The princess beat me on the head a few times. Sollid whaps of her little princess-y make up kit. Haha! It didn’t help the smell any!”“Oh no!”“Oh yes indeed little miss. But no fear! It takes more than some perfume flung into his face to take out the great Abraham Bristlecone!” He tugged his big manly mustache, the sort I would no doubt have if I were a cool old man instead of the exact opposite. “I ran out of the little princess’s room, without harming one hair on her furry little hide of course, I’m a gentleman, not some lowlife ruffian! Then I was accosted by the royal guard and we had ourselves a bit of a scrap! Tough fight too, all I could carry with me in the sewers were my knickers and a spoon!”I slapped my hands over my mouth. “Were you caught?” I gasped.“Haha! No one catches Abraham, not unless he wants it!” he declared before giving me a wink. “I ran off the guard, defeated Folsom the Spear Champion himself and left the boy covered in spoon wounds. Then I raced off into the princess’ quarters and found the Crys statuette. Then it was up to the roof where Raynald here was pissing his britches.”The old grenoil snorted. “No sane man would execute a plan that involved skimming over an enemy’s castle roof with a ship as clunky as your Shady Lady,” he said.“It was a perfect plan!” Abraham said.“You exited right next to all of their anti-dragon siege equipment!” Raynold shot right back.I had the impression the fight was rehashed a few times already. “How did you guys make it out if there was a bunch of anti-dragon stuff around?” I asked.Raynold stopped and, when Abraham went to talk, flung a wooden cigar box at the man’s head to shush him up. It bounced off without so much as making Abraham flinch. “Ah, let me explain this one, Abe, the little miss might actually learn something, unlike with most of your sordid tales.”“Hah!” Abraham said. “You’re merely envious that my life was a little exciting, you damned paper-pusher!”Raynold shook his head. “You see Miss...”“Broccoli, Broccoli Bunch,” I said.“Miss Bunch. Most cities that install the kind of weapons needed to fight off threats in the air expect them to come from the air. But I, being both brighter and less keen on suicide than Abe here, calculated their firing arcs and discovered that the primitive canons the cervids use couldn’t depress low enough... that is, they couldn’t fire downwards. I merely needed to guide our air skimmer through the widest roads in the city and over some of the walls.”“You tore off half the rudder,” Abraham complained.“That chimney moved!”The two started to bicker back and forth over which one of them was the greater fool. I didn’t like seeing friends argue, even if it didn’t seem like it was in bad faith. “Did you accomplish your mission?” I asked.“Oh-hoh!” Abraham said as he cut himself off halfway through the act of flinging the cigar box back at Raynold “Did we ever! Have you seen the Screaming Mountains, little Bunch?”“No, what are they?” I asked.“They’re these mountains, far off to the Southeast and just off the continent. The people there are made of crystal and when the sun rises they begin to hum. By the time midday hits a man can hardly hear himself think!”This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.I wanted to ask Abraham for some more tales, because his stories so far had been wonderful, but Amaryllis and the others chose that moment to walk back into the lounge area. Amaryllis was wearing a smug grin, Gabriel looked like he needed a stiffer drink than usual, and the Mathy lady looked like she was a step away from tearing someone’s head off.Then she locked eyes on me. “You’re still here?” she asked.“Yes ma’am,” I said as I got back onto my feet.“Hmm, good. Gabriel, get the girl a coin-purse. Standard mission pay, then show her out.”It took a moment for the words, and their meaning, to register. Was I being kicked out of the guild? “Is this because I haven’t paid yet? Mister Rainnewt implied it was okay to pay when I returned.”“No, it’s because you’re a liability. You should never have been allowed to join anyway,” the woman said.“What are you talking about?” Amaryllis said. “She’s perfect for this guild. She even saved my life.”“Be that as it may,” she continued, “Her level is far too low, her class doesn’t seem suitable to the work, and with the amount of suspicion going around it’s wiser to show her out than to keep a possible snake amongst the tadpoles.”Amaryllis squawked. “Fine! If Broccoli can’t join your guild, then I’m heading out too!”The grenoil woman stood a little taller at that. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that. Your parents-”“Will hear all about your incompetence,” Amaryllis interrupted. “The only one here that managed to actually help me was her,” she said while pointing right at me. “I’m not going to let you just... get rid of her.”The woman’s eyes narrowed. “You’re making a spectacle of this.”“And yet the only clown here is you,” Amaryllis shot back.Mathy looked ready to tear Amaryllis’ head off when Abraham cleared his throat. “Care to share with the rest of us, Mathy?”“My name is Mathide, Abraham,” the woman said. Abraham’s mustache twitched and I suspected he was trying not to smile. “And I suspect we have... had a spy in our midst. Has anyone seen Rainnewt?”There was a long moment of silence that seemed to say ‘no.’“World damn us all,” she muttered.“So, because of that skinny little snake you’re going to punish poor Broccoli here?” Abraham asked.I took a small step back as Mathide looked my way. The woman was downright terrifying. “It’s okay?” I said. I couldn’t just let everyone else speak over me. “I really wanted to join your guild, but if you won’t have me, I can just... go?”“No, you can’t,” Amaryllis said. She was glaring at the back of Mathilde’s head as if she could set it on fire with her eyes alone.“How about a compromise then?” Abraham asked. He pulled the cigar box-now resting on his lap— open and took out a cigar. A snap of his fingers had a small flame dancing on his index which he used to slowly light the cigar. “If the girls need to be safe... well, I happen to be heading out west, to Greenshade. I can take them with me and drop them off at the guild there. It’s about as far from Trenten as you can get without running through the desert or swimming the sea.”Mathilde frowned at that before she turned to Amaryllis. “Would that be acceptable? The Exploration Guild branch there is smaller, but there’s plenty of work to be had. I’ll even let you bring your human friend here if you trust her so much.”“I do, and it is,” Amaryllis said.“Hoh-ho! Abraham Bristlecone, saving the day once more! And I didn’t even need to stand up for it. Raynold, fetch me a glass of that scotch you’ve been hiding away!”“Jump off a cliff,” Raynold said.I raised a hand, just like I had been taught to do in class and waited for Mathilde and Amaryllis to both look my way. “Um, I’m sorry, but what exactly is going on?”Amaryllis was the first to answer. “Rainnewt has gone missing. He accepted you as a member without going through the proper channels and is the one who arranged all the missions. Mathilde here thinks he’s some sort of troublemaker. I think he ought to be hanged for trying to have me kidnapped. This so-called leader here thinks the solution is to kick you out of the Guild even though you’ve done more work to stop their own mistakes than anyone else. I, as a person that isn’t an idiot, am keen on pointing out how utterly devoid of sense that is.”Mathide croaked and it didn’t sound all that happy. “We’ll get to the bottom of it, Miss Albatross. If the Exploration Guild is good at one thing it’s discovering things.” she looked my way. “Miss Bunch... I wish we had met under better circumstances.”I smiled right back. “It’s never too late to become friends, and I think I understand why you, um, tried to kick me out. It’s okay.”“Too damned nice,” Amaryllis muttered.“Right-oh!” Abraham said as he jumped to his feet with surprising spryness. “The Shady Lady will be ready to depart first thing in the morning. You ladies just need to ask around to find it. It’s like a small adventure!”Things were moving a little fast, but I nodded anyway and tried on an even bigger smile for size.From what I could tell the business with Mister Rainnewt was suspect. He had seemed nice, but nice people didn’t kidnap girls, to say the least. It kind of soured my impressions of the guild a little bit, but going on an adventure of sorts with Mister Bristlecone sounded like a jolly good time. That, and Amaryllis had stepped up to defend me, which.. Well, I had happy little butterflies fluttering in my tummy at the thought.“That doesn’t leave us much time,” Amaryllis said. “Come on Broccoli, let’s go. We have things that need doing before we set off.”“Oh, um, right. See you tomorrow then, Mister Bristlecone?” I asked.“Sure thing, young Miss!”
* * *
