Empirical Gnollage: Installment 96 [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment096.png]
No food remained by the end of the meeting with the magistrate. The magistrate herself had a surprisingly prodigious appetite, and of course gnolls are experts at gluttony.
"Survey crew's being assembled now, first trip should be day-after-tomorrow, we'll let you know when we have the details worked out," Winifred told them. "Keep in mind, it isn't up to me what happens to your ghost in the end. Once the survey's done and we get enough work done, we'll be consecrating it, then it'll belong to Balnea Infernala. The old girl will decide what happens to the spirit."
Stephen cringed visibly as if expecting the room to collapse on everyone at the sacrilege.
"Cut it out, I've been magistrate here for a long, long time, she knows what I'm about," Winifred chastised, "If she didn't like it, she'd've done something about it by now,"
----------------------------------------
The business discussion concluded, and they spent a while in more idle conversation. Winifred said she'd been magistrate for thirty-seven years. She was in charge of the secular side of Hell's Bathtub, making sure the mundane mortal affairs aligned with the divine will of Balnea Infernala. The goddess normally conveyed her intent through the high priestess, a halfling of the Garish clan.
"Every now and then, I feel the old girl checking in on me, though," Winifred said. "And what about you, we don't get a lot of adventurer types around these parts. What's your story?"
Al gave a brief account of his comfortable but unsatisfying background and let Wikwocket do the storytelling as of when she, Al, and Bote had met at the Vandalized Grimoire in Al's hometown of Bright Peaks. Wikwocket saw Al's meaningful looks as the story reached the junior warrior at Notamimic Manor. She skillfully adjusted the description of events to make Gruntle's original nature ambiguous, hinting that perhaps Gruntle also had orcish ancestry like Grakthor. She left out the details of his origin but couldn't resist the drama of Gruntle being orphaned when his entire nomadic family from a far-off land was killed. Winifred had looked bemused by the stories the group gave of themselves up to that point, but at Gruntle's origin-story she nodded as if everything made sense.
"There we go. Figured at least one of you had to have some kind of drama going on. Isn't natural for a whole adventuring party to be right in the head."
Gruntle was napping contentedly with his head resting on his plate. Winifred gave him a sympathetic look.
"Explains the borrowed shape. Got a few regulars with a similar way of coping with things. Well, you can tell me the rest of the story another time, I'd better let you get back before the magic runs out. Lot of folks don't like people watching when they change."
She dipped her pen in the inkwell and signed her name on the bottom of the napkin and handed it over to Al. "Here you go, Stephen can take you down to the treasury when you want the coin."
She stood, stretched, and scratched her butt.
"I've got other business to deal with, I'm looking forward to hearing the rest!" she said, then turned with a casual wave and shuffled back out the way she'd come in. Al woke Gruntle and Stephen led them all back to their room.
"I do hope you'll excuse the magistrate's very informal personality," Stephen said as they walked back. "To the extent that I'm qualified to judge, she seems to be very good for Hell's Bathtub.
"I am probably the most formal person in this party," Bote answered, "and I am comfortable in discourse with most personalities. I doubt any of us have a poor opinion of the magistrate and I suspect at least one of us has formed a very favorable impression."
"She's great!" Wikwocket agreed, "she's got a strong personality and good wits!"
"She's an honest dealer at least," Al allowed, waving the promissory napkin before tucking it into an inside pocket. "Even if she's a little uncomfortably casual."
Al's desire to do some research before their evening meeting with Cyrus drew some good-natured mockery from Wikwocket. "We're practically rich now in a luxury resort with plenty of hedonistic fun available and you want to read some boring old book?"
"It's not old, I just bought this!" Al countered.
Wikwocket opted to escort Gruntle for another casual, innocent stroll around Hell's Bathtub. Bote took the opportunity to go make visits to the local temples and shrines to see if there was anything they needed.
Bereft of distractions, Al opened All Cattle, No Hat and began to wade through the folklorish presentation of the FitzWayne family's history.
According to the book, the FitzWaynes were originally semi-nomadic cattle-herders in the region. Benton FitzWayne founded the lakeside village of Summer's Rest as a place with abundant vegetation for the cattle and good fish and cat-tail tubers to eat. Having a location to settle down in gave the extended family time to better develop their ancestral animal-husbandry culture. The legendary - according to the book - stamina of FitzWayne horses came to the attention of royalty during a time of territorial disputes with the neighboring Republic of Sabbatalia nearly a century ago and earned the family a baronial title. The Barony of Thundering Plains now boasted several large towns and numerous villages, but still kept much of its rural nature to the present day, including the annual cattle-drive to the market at Southwall.
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
The closing chapters described the ongoing modernization of the barony as though they were adopting and fixing broken cultural habits from the more urban parts of the nation and the writing was dripping with cultural smugness, but underneath it showed how the family was doing market research in the wealthier urban markets and adapting successfully. Edward FitzWayne's "magehound"-breeding project was at the end, presented as something that could only be accomplished by the old-fashioned common-sense wisdom of the barony of Thundering Plains. Darla FitzWayne showed up in that chapter, as a cousin of Edward FitzWayne and credited with being "vital" to getting the project started, though no details were given.
No mention of Turnipseed appeared anywhere, but the combination of a rural culture and the "Wayne" in the family name made Al wonder if there was some connection. On the positive side, the book suggested the culture took pride in practicality over spectacle, or at least they wanted people to believe they did.
Bote returned, proclaiming they had been useful without elaborating, and sat down on their bed for some meditative prayer.
Some shouts of concern in the hall outside their door roused Al from his thoughts. The door opened. Gruntle slouched into the room, carrying a limp Wikwocket in his teeth by the back of her shirt. Al did not like the reminder this represented.
"What happened?" he asked urgently as he sprang up to see what was wrong.
"I got tired," Wikwocket said, looking up and grinning. "I swear he's getting faster, it's getting harder to dodge him unless I can find small spaces to go through or a lot of obstacles!"
Gruntle opened his mouth and dropped Wikwocket to the floor. She landed on her feet, a little unsteadily from fatigue. She reached behind her neck to the collar of her shirt.
"Hey, Al, could you magic my shirt back together? It feels like the collar got torn somehow!"
Al's reply was only a silent glare of disapproval.
"Please, Sir Wizard?" she tried, batting her eyelashes with comic exaggeration.
With the long-suffering sigh of someone forcibly made to be the adult in the room, Al stood and went to perform the little trick that made the shirt-collar forget that it had been punctured by gnoll teeth and ripped.
----------------------------------------
Wikwocket and Gruntle demonstrated the familiarity they'd developed with the alleyways and obscure shortcuts of Hell's Bathtub as they led the way back to the Secret Spring Tavern for their meeting with Cyrus. The bartender remembered them, and led them upstairs to the same room the previous meeting had taken place. This time when the bartender knocked, Cyrus opened the door himself. The bartender left them to their private meeting, and Cyrus smiled as he motioned the party inside, where the table was already loaded with a meat-heavy meal. Cyrus gestured for Wikwocket to remain in the hallway as the others went through the door.
"You're welcome to begin eating before us, we'll join you in a moment," Cyrus announced to Al, Bote, and Gruntle, an amused smirk growing on his face as the CRUNCH! of Gruntle's jaws on a bone-in piece of meat erupted before he'd even finished his statement. Cyrus closed the door on them. Al couldn't tell what they were saying, but what he could make out of the tone of the discussion sounded mutually friendly, at least. After a few minutes, Wikwocket raised her voice in a declaration loud enough for him to understand.
"I would trust everyone in that room with everything that I am," Wikwocket stated with uncharacteristic solemnity, as if taking an oath. Al felt touched, and not a little self-conscious to hear this. A few more words of conversation mumbled by in the hallway and Cyrus opened the door again, then came in and closed it again behind himself after Wikwocket took her seat at the table. He made sure everyone's wineglasses - and Gruntle's wine-mug - were properly filled before seating himself and putting some food on his own plate.
"We have several matters to discuss now, though I think you'll find them mostly pleasant," Cyrus stated, reaching into a pocket of his fine silk jacket and pulling out a fist-sized smoothly-polished sphere of plain grey stone and setting it on the table. He spoke a word that Al couldn't quite understand. There was no visible effect, but Cyrus seemed satisfied.
"That should prevent anyone outside from listening in," he explained. "Before we begin, at our last meeting I promised our latest participant a statement of our purpose in exchange for answering a question of mine. We wouldn't be much of a secret society if news of our existence and activities got out to people who are not participants, but Wikwocket speaks well of your trustworthiness, and if for some reason I've misjudged and any of you are not suitable participants in the cause, I think it would be best to find that out now. Are you prepared to hear it?"
"Wait," Al objected, "is this a situation where knowing something is going to endanger us?"
"Ah, yes, the examination did suggest a healthy amount of caution, I'm told," Cyrus said, cryptically, "but also a willingness to confront dangerous situations rationally when necessary. Me telling you what our purpose is won't put you in any direct danger, no, but all knowledge has some danger associated with it. You have to compare it with how much danger not knowing might represent."
"That's...very philosophical," Al said. "I'm just not sure if..."
Wikwocket glared at him and wordlessly made an animalistic grumbling, growling noise. Don't mess this up!, he interpreted. Gruntle grunting as if in agreement made him feel outvoted, particularly since Bote didn't seem bothered by the situation they were in.
"Apparently, not knowing would be very dangerous for me," Al conceded, returning Wikwocket's glare.