Chapter Three Hundred and Seventy-Four - Late to Bed and Late to Rise

We ended up waking up late.

I don’t know why, but after coming back to the Beaver after a whole day spent shopping, all of us loaded down with bags and bags of stuff, the tiredness walking about had just... evaporated, and it had been replaced by a sort of manic energy that had the bunch of us throwing an impromptu party.

Not a very loud one. Though there was music! Clive had a harmonica and the Scallywags had fashioned some drums out of bits and bobs laying around. As it turned out, that was about all we had needed to get a sing-off of sorts going.

Awen even ended up coming out of her shell a little to, as she put it, ‘put a few years of singing practice to use.’

Caprica also had a rather pretty voice, but all the songs she knew were about how grand and mighty the sylph were, which was kinda funny, but not as funny as the songs Abraham had taught Awen about adventurers and getting into trouble.

There wasn’t just singing, of course. We discovered some late-night stalls in the megadock that sold bitter dwarven food, and Calamity and the harpy boys returned with a little keg of strong dwarven ale that got shared around.

By the time we all flopped onto bed it was well into the next day, so I wasn’t too surprised when I woke up just shy of noon feeling a bit creaky and dehydrated.

I stumbled out of bed, got undressed from the night before, then redressed in my new comfy clothes before making my way to the dining room.

“You look like your egg was left out in the sun too long,” Amaryllis said from the dining room table. She was twisting a spoon in a bowl of grey goop. “I made oatmeal. Enough for... well, everyone, I suppose.” She gestured to a big pot nearby that was filled near to the rim with oatmeal.

“Huh,” I said. “Did you forget the oatmeal rises when it cooks?” I asked.

She didn’t deign to answer me, instead choosing to take another mouthful.

“Thanks for the breakfast,” I said as I served myself a bowl. It was a little bland, especially compared to all the savoury and bitter things I’d eaten the night before, but maybe that was for the best. It would help settle my tummy.

Could have been improved with some maple syrup, but I chose not to complain.

“So, what’re we doing today?” I asked.

“Not shopping again, that’s for sure,” Amaryllis said. “We might have... a surprisingly full coffer of gold from all that work we did for Sylphfree, but we still made a dent in our reserves spending the way we did.”

“Will we be okay?” I asked.

She waved the concern away. “I’ll let you know when we need to tighten the belt. Truth is, we made nearly enough working for Sylphfree to buy an entire airship, crew and all. It should keep us going for a year or more if we’re careful.”

“Oh, that’s good to hear!”

“Only if we’re careful. If we spend gold like we did last night, that year’s going to be shortened to a month.”

I laughed. “We’ll be a little more discreet, then! Besides, if we want more, it feels like adventuring and exploring’s been pretty good money so far.”

“Only because we picked up some... strange missions. Don’t go thinking most explorers get into the kind of trouble we do,” Amaryllis said.

I shrugged. “Tharval and Willowbud seem like the kind of people that would do fun things too.”

“They’re exceptions to the rule,” she said with a mighty huff. “But, speaking of those two, we should probably visit them and see if Willowbud was able to find any info about Vonowl.”

I nodded along and scooped up another spoonful of oatmeal just as Awen zombied her way into the room and collapsed in her usual seat. She didn’t move, and I suspected that she fell asleep so I left her to it. “Do you think all of us should go?” I asked.

“We hardly need five people to pick up a bit of intelligence,” Amaryllis conceded. “Maybe just the two of us? It’ll give the others a chance to recover.” She nodded her head towards Awen who started to snore very faintly. It was more of a whistle-y breath than a snore, really.

I licked my bowl clean while Amaryllis gave me a disgusted look, then Cleaned the rest of it off along with my spoon before placing both in front of Awen for when she finally woke up again.

“Alright! Let’s head out. I bet we can make it back before the others wake up completely,” I said.

Amaryllis snorted, and soon we were climbing up onto the main deck. Surprisingly, that’s where we ran into Calamity. “Howdy,” he said with a tip of his new hat. “Didn’t reckon anyone would be up yet.”

“Good morning,” I said. “I didn’t expect to see you up either. You don’t look hungover at all.”

He grinned. “I’ve spent a good part of my life in hunting groups. They might be unwashed and uneducated sorts, but nya never partied harder than with hunters after a big hunt.”

“I guess that makes sense. Amaryllis and I were heading over to see Willowbud and Tharval.”

“Ah, the old guys? Did nya need me along?”

I thought about it, then shook my head. “How about you stand guard on the Beaver while we're ashore?”

He tipped his hat. “Can do. You two stay safe out there.”

I gave him a quick goodbye hug, then hooked one arm with Amaryllis’ wing as we moved off the Beaver and across one of the movable catwalks of the docks. The space wasn’t quite as busy as when we arrived the night before, but it was still noisy. The way the massive dock was built meant that every sound echoed through the entire space. So a single hammer’s clang would reverberate over and over again across the chasm in the centre.

Stolen story; please report.

It was even worse now that the ceiling was closed up for the night. I imagined they did that to keep the rain and weather out.

Arm-in-wing, Amaryllis and I left the docks and promptly got lost as we took a turn too early and ended up in part of the Storm Tower we didn’t know (admittedly, that part of the Storm Tower would be "most of it"). Fortunately some helpful elves were kind enough to point us towards the trams where we hopped aboard and zipped across the complex towards the Exploration Guild headquarters.

We were greeted by the same nice receptionist elf, who gestured us to the elevator when we asked about Willowbud and Tharval. “Your little group certainly has livened those two up,” he said offhand.

“Really?” I asked.

“Oh yes. It’s nice to see them reliving their best days a little. Although it’s also somewhat worrying. I don’t recall seeing Willowbud don his armour in nearly half a decade,” he said.

“Maybe he was just seeing if it still fit,” I suggested.

He didn’t seem to believe that any more than I did. Still, we got in the elevator and rode up to the floor with the lounge. On entering, we discovered Tharval and Willowbud in the middle of an argument. But it seemed like one of those friendly sorts of arguments, the kind that friends rehashed every so often.

Willowbud was, indeed, in armour. It was all steel plates made to look like interlocking leaves with finely etched patterns across the entire surface. The edges were covered in a greenish metal that I suspected was tarnished copper, but it looked purposefully done. Every gesture moved pieces of the armour in and out of each other with a mesmerising degree of articulation.

“Hi!” I said as I came closer. Tharval was also in heavy plate that made him look like a really old cast-iron fireplace more than anything. “Nice armour, Mister Wintersdawn.”

“Thank you,” Willowbud said. His tone suggested that he’d just won a point in whatever argument he was having with Tharval. “See? Miss Bunch thinks that my armour is ‘nice.’”

“Nice enough for your funeral, more like. Besides, what does she know about armour, huh?” he asked that last one directly to me.

“Um,” I said. I wasn’t even wearing my armour at the moment. “Not very much, I guess. Are you guys arguing about armour?”

“Tharval here insists that this piece isn’t good enough,” Willowbud said with a hand pressed to his breastplate. “Even though it has served me quite well over the years and was made by a very close friend.”

“Oh. Well, if it has sentimental value, then maybe,” I began.

“I’m that close friend!” Tharval said. “And I say it’s not good enough! You’re insulting me and everything I ever built by ambling about in that rusty half-baked mess.”

“Um,” I said. Now I wasn’t sure what to think.

Willowbud sighed and tried to explain. “He’s embarrassed, you see.”

“I am not! Though you ought to be, wearing that thing.”

“Because,” Willowbud continued as if Tharval hadn’t spoken. “This suit of armour was one of his earlier creations, and he has improved greatly as a smith and artist since. But I still think it’s a fine piece and I hardly need to commission a new one.”

“I’ll give you a good price, I already said!”

I held back a giggle. “Ah, so it’s a bit like... you’re walking around showing people the equivalent of Tharval’s first ever poems and he’s embarrassed about them?”

Willowbud ruminated on the analogy for a moment before smiling. “Yes, exactly.”

“Oi! It’s nothing like that!”

“I think the armour you made is very pretty,” I told Tharval.

He pointed a fat finger at me. “Don’t you start, little miss.”

I worked hard to hold back my smile, but it wasn’t an easy thing to do. “Alright, I won’t say anything,” I said.

“Your pointless argument aside,” Amaryllis stepped in, “did you discover anything about Vonowl?”

“A few things,” Willowbud said with a nod. “As it turns out he is, in fact, related to our old companion. Wesley was his grand-uncle. After Wesley founded the first Harpy-Mountain branch of the Exploration guild, he went on to marry and essentially retired from the more demanding side of the exploration work. He spent most of his time after that doing administrative tasks.”

“That’s the harder side of things,” Tharval muttered. “Give me an unexplored ancient dungeon any day over a stack of unsigned papers.”

“Anyway, his family used their ties to the guild to grow somewhat more prominent, from what I gathered. Which is only fair I suppose. The barony came soon after, and the new Vonowl is its head.”

“Interesting,” Amaryllis said. “Yes, I can see someone using a good rank within the Exploration guild as a way to propel themselves into lesser nobility. That would make this Baron Vonowl’s grasp on his position somewhat tenuous.”

“That may be so,” Willowbud said. “In any case, I did discover he’s staying at the Grand Mami Hotel."

He waited expectantly, but Amaryllis and me only gave him a blank stare.

"... It's one of the smaller towers sticking out of the main Storm Tower complex. Though its tower is mostly for show and for when diplomats arrive aboard private shuttles. Most of the hotel is within the complex.”

“Bah, they don’t care about that. They care about catching this moron,” Tharval said. He punched his hands together, knuckles striking with a clang. “We’re gonna catch him and string him up by his toes.”

“I don’t even know if harpies have toes,” Willowbud said.

“But you do! Maybe I ought to string yours up instead, huh?”

I had the impression that working with these two was going to be an experience.

***