Chapter Three Hundred and Seventy-Six - Doorbuster

“So, how are we going to do this?” I asked.

“Do what?” Amaryllis asked right back. The bunch of us, plus our new friends Tharval and Willowbud, were ambling along through one of the upper-level corridors of the Storm Tower. The elf and dwarf both seemed to know where they were going, so the rest of us just followed along, even if that meant going up stairs, then down stairs, then across catwalks, then through maintenance passages and even ducking through the backrooms of a shop at some point much to the consternation of an employee who wasn’t aware that one of the walls could pop out to reveal a secret passage.

It was neat how well the two knew their way around, but I supposed they were around while the tower was built, so they had the home field advantage.

“I mean, how're we gonna capture Vonowl. Do we barge into the hotel and demand that he surrender? Do we go in all sneaky-like and try to catch him unaware? Maybe we can ask the nice hotel people to help us get him... or the police. Does the Storm Tower have police?”

“Not really,” Tharval said. “We have guards. They’re hired by the tower directly. They might help, but I doubt it. We never get along well with them.”

“We might have if you ceased antagonising them,” Willowbud said.

“Bah! They’re a bunch of rockheaded fools who sold out for a bit of gold.”

“Is that so wrong?” Amaryllis asked.

Tharval nodded. “Of course it is! Sure, you need a bit of gold to keep the belly full and your toes warm at night, but there’s more honest ways of doing it. Are they pursuing a dream? Fighting for what they think is right? Nah, just walking around with little sticks and looking tough. Ain’t right. Now, a proper explorer? They have principles. They’re going out there to see what hasn’t been seen yet, to discover things. Same for a proper tinkerer. They’re making new things, pushing what they know. It’s art, and it’s a whole lot more valuable than looking tough for a fraction of an ounce of gold every hour.”

“Is it so important to have an ideology?” I asked.

“Don’t you have one?” he asked.

I ran my hand through the length of my prosthetic beard as I thought. “I don’t know. I just want to make friends, explore the world, and be happy. I don’t know if that’s complicated enough to be a whole ideology.”

“Well, it’s the start of one, at least,” Tharval mused.

“Don’t encourage her,” Amaryllis said. “She’ll start a religion.”

I nodded. “Huggism,” I said.

“I think I need to point out that while Sylphfree gives its citizens the freedom to express themselves and have whichever religious beliefs they want, we also firmly believe in the separation of religion, state, and military, and therefore I cannot join you in this particular endeavour,” Caprica said.

“But we have hugs!” I said.

“That is a rather tempting offer,” she admitted with a serious nod. Then her lips quirked up and I giggled along with her.

“I’d join huggism,” Awen said. “It sounds nice.”

“We’d do snuggle hour every day, and eat cookies,” I said.

“I’m not sure if you understood what I was trying to say,” Tharval said. “But I appreciate your enthusiasm, kid.”

I set aside my dreams of becoming a High Priestess of Hugs as we arrived at the hotel. I was expecting it to be a grand place, with big stairs and chandeliers and one of those super long counters, maybe with some elves and dwarves in fancy red uniforms behind it, but instead I found something entirely different. The hotel lobby was relatively small, with rounded walls all around and several plant-filled boxes along the sides.

A small podium sat in the center where a staff member waited, and behind them was a spiral staircase leading up.

“Hello,” the reception dwarf said when our group ambled in. “And welcome. How might I help you?”

“Hmph, where’s that Vonowl guy?” Tharval grumped.

“What my companion here means to say,” Willowbud cut in smoothly. “Is that we’re looking for Baron Vonowl. We have a meeting with him.”

The reception dwarf didn’t seem convinced. He glanced over to my friends and I, and I gave him my most disarming smile, which I hoped would distract him from the fact that we were all armed. “Right, well, the good baron is staying in the penthouse suite, but he’s not currently in his rooms.”

“He isn’t?” Willowbud asked.

“No, he left the premises a few hours ago, along with some of his guards,” the reception dwarf said.

“Do you know where he went?” I asked. Did we miss him because we stayed up late partying and then slept in? I didn’t expect there to be actual consequences to placing fun before work!

“Yes,” the dwarf said. He pointed out the door, and we all followed where he was pointing. “He left through there, and took a right.”

That was all the directions he had, which... well, it wasn’t quite as helpful as I might have hoped, but it was something. “Thanks, “ I said. Then I looked to the others, hoping for some sort of idea of what to do next.

“I say we ransack his room, figure out where he went and maybe confiscate anything nice he has,” Calamity said low enough that his words didn’t carry.

“We can’t do that,” I said. “It’s mean, and a crime, and just... not very nice.”

“Well, we do need to know where he went, and there might be some hints in his room. I for one don’t want to spend the afternoon running around this entire tower just for the chance of running into Vonowl,” Amaryllis said.

I pursed my lips, but she might have been right. Willowbud convinced the receptionist that we were just going to go upstairs to check on Vonowl’s room--maybe one of his guards or servants had stayed behind and could take a message for us--then we climbed up the spiral stairs to the floors above. As it turned out, each floor above the lobby was split into several small rooms, and the further up we went, the fewer rooms per floor.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

The entire hotel was basically a small tower rising out of the larger Storm Tower complex, and the topmost floors stuck out if it and probably had really nice views.

Baron Vonowl himself was staying in the topmost floor, the penthouse where the entire floor was a single suite. I imagined it was a huge pain in the butt for the staff that had to carry food and stuff all the way up there. My legs were rather warm from climbing up so many steps and all I was carrying was myself, not a trayful of whatever.

“So,” I said as I came to stand before the doors into the penthouse. “Should we knock?”

“Going to try to pass yourself off as a travelling preacher?” Calamity asked.

“I might,” I said. “But I think Baron Vonowl might be, uh, what’s the word for someone that’s not compatible with a religion?”

“A heretic?” Amaryllis asked.

I frowned. “No, in Huggism, we prefer the term snugglepunk.”

“Please stop inventing lore for your dumb idea,” Amaryllis begged.

I had to stifle a laugh as I tapped my knuckles against the door. My friends spread out a little, with Willowbud and Tharval staying pretty close by. The dwarf stifled a yawn.

Someone opened the door a crack and a chain pulled taut, keeping it shut while a harpy man looked out. “Is this room service?” he asked. Then he looked over our group and the door started to shut.

I was about to say something when I felt a gust of wind blasted past me. When I blinked next, the door was rebounding off the wall, the security chain had exploded into fragments that were skipping along the wood flooring, and the insensate harpy on the other side was gently being lowered by Willowbud while Tharval, now in the penthouse, finished his yawn. “Well, are you kids going to stay outside all day?”

I had kind of forgotten, what with how nice they were, that Tharval and Willowbud were experienced explorers. They hadn't retired from adventuring due to age or injury - they'd quit while they were ahead, at the top of their game. They were bursting with levels, skills, and capital-E Experience.

So, I shouldn't have been surprised that they could simply step outside the realm of physical limits. But I was. My brain couldn't keep up with the information my senses were feeding it. It took an act of will to get my head back in the game.

For better or worse, my friends were equally stunned. Caprica seemed to be handling it best, probably because she had grown up surrounded by Paladins who were about as cool.

Calamity jerked forward, seemingly trying to recover his equilibrium. "... This guy really likes his luxury stuff," he noted, running a hand along a porcelain vase. The whole place was spacious and richly appointed, with grand windows overlooking the top of the Storm Tower and the world beyond. In a place like the tower, where I imagined most homes were on the smaller side, having lots of open space was probably a great luxury.

Calamity poked at the keys of a piano, producing a few random notes while I checked on the guard that Willowbud had knocked out.

“Mah, nice place,” Tharval said as he looked around. “No sign of that fish of a baron though.”

The penthouse had a great big entryway, with an open kitchen space to one side, a living room on the other, and what I imagined were bedrooms down a corridor past the living room. Caprica helped me drag the guard to the living room (he still had a pulse, but it looked as if Willowbud had cast a spell of some sort to make him loopy) where we put him on a couch so he could rest for a bit.

“Alright,” Amaryllis said. “Calamity, check the kitchens, Caprica, come with me to the bedrooms, Awen, Tharval, do you think you two would be able to spot hidden compartments?”

“Ah, maybe?” Awen said.

“Obviously,” Tharval replied.

Amaryllis nodded. “Good. Broccoli, keep an eye out on the door. Mister Willowbud, I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do.”

“Hey now, but you’d presume for me?” Tharval groused.

“Yes,” Amaryllis said without explanation, then she headed off towards the bedrooms, Caprica following after her while hiding a smile.

I grinned at Tharval’s harrumph and Willowbud’s smug smirk. “Don’t forget to look in the bathroom!” I called out, just in case.

I swished Weedbane around a few times while standing next to the closed door in an attempt to unlimber my muscles in case someone barged in. If I was going to be on guard duty, then I wanted to take it seriously. Mister Willowbud looked at me, amused, but didn’t comment on anything.

“Awa, we found something!” Awen said as she returned from the bedrooms.

“There was a hidden compartment?” I asked as I turned.

“Um, no, these papers were just on a desk in the office,” Awen said as she waved a stack of papers about.

Amaryllis poked her head out of one of the bedrooms. “Well, what is it?”

Awen looked at the pages, scanning them quickly. “It looks like a contract? For, ah, weapons. Lots of them.”

Willowbud hummed and walked to Awen and looked at the pages from over her shoulder. “I recognize that company. They’re dwarven smiths. Tharval would know more.”

“He’s cracking a safe,” Awen said.

There was a loud ‘thunk’ from the far end of the penthouse where she’d come from, then a lot of really rude words.

“He might be having a hard time with it,” Awen admitted. “But I found this in the meantime and I thought it might be a hint?”

“Good job, Awen!” I cheered.

“Yeah, nice work!” Calamity said from the kitchen, where he was holding a butter knife covered in jam in one hand and a large slab of bread in the other. I gave him a look, and he shrugged. “I was looking for hints too. And I discovered a hint that I was hungry.”

Well, at least we hadn’t wrecked the place.

There was another big thump from the office and the guard on the couch groaned.

I winced. Maybe if we left discreetly, the hotel wouldn’t be too angry with us?

***