Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Five - Out Over the Town

“Before you run off and find trouble,” Amaryllis said. “We should decide who to focus on first.”

“You mean which group to go meet with first?” I asked. “Do we even know where we should go to meet with them?”

“We don’t, but I suspect it won’t be all that difficult to find out. There’s a readily available source of information for us in this city.”

I listened. “What’s that?”

“The Exploration Guild.”

I blinked. “Oh gosh, I almost forgot all about them. Is there a branch here?” I reached up to the bandoleer running across my chest. I still had the guild’s pin attached to the front of it, just over my chest.

“There’s a branch in nearly every country. Even in the Trenten Flats, though the organization is quite unpopular there. It’s not all that influential in Sylphfree either,” Amaryllis said.

“I’m not a member,” Awen said. “Will that matter?”

“It shouldn’t,” Amaryllis said. “The guild often employs people outside of itself to assist with certain things. I know some parties only have one or two members that are part of the guild, especially those made up of poorer members.”

“To avoid the guild fees?” I asked.

“Exactly. The guild’s missions pay relatively well for someone willing to risk talon and wing, but they’re only available to members. It’s a business after all, though not one that’s centred around profits first.”

That sounded a little strange for a business, but I couldn’t complain. “Right, so we visit the local branch for information first, then we... ah, scout out the city?”

“That’s an interesting way of saying sightsee,” Amaryllis said.

I grinned. “Isn’t it?”

She bounced to her talons and started for the door. “We’re wasting time girls! We have a world to save, because it certainly won’t save itself.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I replied before giggling and hopping after her. “Do you know where the local Exploration Guild building is?”

“I don’t,” Amaryllis said. She opened the door into the corridor and held it open for Awen and I to step out. “We can ask the innkeeper.”

I took the lead heading up to the topmost floor. The Dewdrop Inn was getting a bit busier. I guessed that being close to noon meant that many more people were coming out to grab lunch.

Mister Jared was at the counter, smiling at a customer while he set a plate before them, then filled a pitcher from a tap behind him. His eyes lit up when I bounced closer and leaned onto the countertop.

“Hello Miss Bunch.”

“Hello Mister Jared,” I replied with a big old grin. “You know the city well, right?”

“Like the back of my hand,” he chuckled. “What are you looking for?”

“The Exploration Guild,” I said. “I heard they had a branch in Goldenalden and I thought I’d stop by to see. Plus, don’t tell Amaryllis, but it’s an excuse to walk around.”

“That sounds like a great excuse to see the sights,” Jared said. “Here, give me a moment.” He reached under his counter and brought up a frame with a map within it. “This is a little old, but it’s still good enough. We’re in the Gold District now. The Yellow District here is where you’ll find all the best shops in the capital. Just head north and west from here. The Green District bisects it, so don’t worry if you end up there. If you find yourself at the big wall, then you’ve gone too far. Now, you’re looking for the Exploration Guild. They're on the far side of this park here.”

“Oh, I see,” I said. “Which way is north from here?”

Jared laughed and pointed off towards one corner of the inn. “That way, my dear.”

I pointed north with one ear, then pointed northwest with the other. I had it pretty much figured out, I thought. “Thanks!”

“No problem; if you get lost, don’t be afraid to ask a passing guardsman.”

“I will! Do you think we can travel from above or will we need to go to the ground level?”

“As long as you don’t purposefully jump into people’s way, you should be just fine,” Jared said with a nod.

Laughing, I stepped back and ran over to my friends. “I know where to go!” I said. “We’re going to need to jump a bunch though.”

“I can fly,” Amaryllis said. It’s a bit of a white lie. She can hover a little and I think if she was aiming for something below she could glide quite well, but she doesn’t quite have the whole ‘upwards lift’ thing handled well enough to call what she does flight.

“Awa, that might be hard for me. I can’t jump like you do, and I don’t have wings,” Awen said. There’s a gleam in her eyes a moment later, a dangerous one. “Though, I think I could make do. I took a good look at those rockets the cry used. With a small tank, and some thrusters... I’d need a magic element to create the initial flame, and some sort of control surface too. Oh, and directional thrust and some wings for lift.”

“I think we can settle on Broccoli carrying you across any gaps for now,” Amaryllis said. “I don’t know what you’re thinking, but the mere mutterings about it are giving me shivers.”

“I could mount a repeating crossbow to it,” Awen whispered.

“Come on!” I said. “Daylight’s burning and we have a whole heap of city to explore.”

I led my friends out of the Dewdrop Inn. The top exit opened onto a wide platform that served as the building’s roof. There were flowers next to the roof acces and no railings on the edges, but there were nets just a step off the side to catch clumsy people.

I glanced up as a sylph in a blue couriers’ outfit buzzed by. There was plenty more traffic in the air too. Sylphs zipped about, most in loose, flowing clothes that didn’t hamper their wings.

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Instead of backpacks or purses, a lot of the sylph I saw had fanny packs dangling in front of them.

That made sense. They didn’t want anything catching on their wings, and most flew... not quite upright, but not horizontally either.

I looked towards what I hoped was the north-west (my ears had never stopped pointing that way, like a fluffy compass atop my head) and I judged the distance to the next building over. The space was a bit shorter than the width of a road, if only because both the Dewdrop Inn and the building across from it had balconies around their tops.

I could make that jump easily, and so could Amaryllis.

“Alright, Awen, hop on my back,” I said as I hunched down a bit.

Awen stared at me, then at my back. “Are you sure?”

“Oh yeah, it’s just a small hop. You don’t need to worry!”

She hesitated a little more, then jumped onto my back and I grabbed her knees while she wrapped her arms around my collar. It was like a back hug!

I bounced up and down a couple of times, to make sure Awen had a good grip on me, then I stepped back and away from the edge. I probably didn’t need a running start, but it might help.

Feet thumping on the balcony, I sprinted ahead until I was on the very edge, then shot some Stamina into my legs and launched myself over the gap.

Awen screamed, a mixture of fear and delight that had all four of my ears ringing. The wind flapped around us, Awen’s hair a streaming banner and my own a tangled mess, before I landed at a jog on the other rooftop.

“Awa! That was great!” Awen cheered.

I laughed and turned around, Awen still gripping onto me. “Come on, Amaryllis, you can do it!”

I couldn’t hear her huff, not with the distance and the wind, but I knew that facial expression anywhere. She backed up, pinched her tongue between her lips, then lowered her goggles over her eyes before she took a running leap over the chasm. Her arms flapped twice, catching the wind and giving her just enough lift to land right on the edge of the balcony.

“Easy,” Amaryllis said as she walked to a stop.

“Uh-huh,” I agreed. Still, I made a note to find shorter paths to jump next time. I didn’t want any accidents, and a cross-wind could come up at any time and cause some trouble.

The Exploration Guild headquarters were supposed to be to the west of a big park. It wasn’t too hard to spot that part. A section of the mountainside that had been built out with dirt and big old trees were growing in clumps.

We jumped over to another building, and I couldn’t help but notice all the strange looks we were getting from the sylph passing us by. There weren’t any other humans or buns or harpies up on top of these buildings; at least, none that I could see.

We crossed over to the Yellow District, then into the Green, then back into the Yellow. For all that the sylph seemed to care a lot about being neat and orderly, they still had to work with a mountainside as the location for their city, which meant that they had to build around the bumps and inclines of the landscape.

I imagined that not all the buildings around us were at the same height. There were clearly ramps below where carts had to be helped up to higher or lower levels. The entire city was built atop a whole heap of artificial plateaus.

Once we reached the edge of the park, Amaryllis found a building with a few shops in it. A bakery on the top floor, a butchers in the middle, and a grocers at the bottom, all connected via stairwell. So I let Awen down and we climbed down to street level, with only a quick pause to buy some pastries.

The sylph, it seemed, preferred these small, super-sweet pastries. They were little balls of sweet-bread, fried and dipped in a glaze, and stuffed full of either jam, or something the baker behind the counter called mountain bee honey. They were so sweet my entire face puckered up and I couldn’t help but shiver after every bite.

I didn’t dare eat more than six or seven of them, else they’d do terrible things to my tummy.

We went down and down until we reached the ground floor, then we headed outside and walked along the edge of the park. There were lots of younger sylphs within, with sylph moms looking after the teeny tiny sylphs who were darting around and play fighting and learning how to fly.

There were a few neat play forts tucked away in the woods, and I saw more than one squealing group of sylphs running around with blunted wooden swords. Others were jumping off jungle gyms, playing something that was like extreme hopscotch by flying from suspended plate to suspended plate.

Amaryllis gave me a look which I interpreted as ‘no, you can’t go play with the kids, you’re a big girl.’ She was probably right, a lot of them were pointing at us already, I bet I was the first bun they’d ever seen!

We found the Exploration Guild right where Jared said it would be. A shorter building, but no less stately for its size. There was a big brass compass-rose above the entrance, with the familiar bandoleer across it and the name of the guild beneath it.

The building was nice, but also a little bit on the shabbier side. The plants next to its entrance looked like they could use some watering and maybe a bit of weeding, and the stones were water-stained in a few spots.

“I have the impression that I’m not going to get all the answers I want from here,” Amaryllis said.

“Well, there’s only one way to find out for sure,” I said.

***