Empirical Gnollage: Installment 107 [https://squirrel.dogphilosophy.net/Installment107.png]

Al commanded the candle on the nightstand to light itself, then got out of bed and inspected his pack. No harm seemed to have come to it, and the contents inside were unblemished, at least to the extent that they had been before. No trace remained of Cleodora's bones.

"Normally I'd complain about interrupting my sleep," Wikwocket yawned, "but it sounds like we did something heroic! The restless spirit came from beyond death to thank us for our glorious deeds before passing on, contented and grateful!"

Al shook his head and closed his pack back up. "I wouldn't have minded missing the drama. I guess she's gone now, though."

A gnollish head poked out from under the bed to look around. Satisfied that it was safe, Gruntle grunted and curled back up in the shadows to go back to sleep.

"A transition to her destined existence, at least. I don't know that I would describe this as gone, necessarily," Bote corrected sleepily.

"Either way, at least that's one less thing that someone's going to come back and ask us to deal with again later."

"And one more accomplishment for the story of the Gnoll Party!" Wikwocket added, to Al's mild disgust.

"Speaking of gnolls, I think Gruntle has the right idea here. I'm going back to sleep," Al said, returning to bed and blowing out the candle.

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Al awoke feeling warm, comfortable, and refreshed. Even the vague, fading memories of his dreams felt simple and comfortable for once and not weird at all. He waited a short while, lying still to enjoy the lately-infrequent sense of peace before forcing himself to sit up and consider the tasks and challenges in the immediate future. Get paid, find out what Cyrus might have arranged, get Wikwocket's jug of goblin-filth - Al refused to have any share in ownership of that. He thought they should probably arrange a way to get messages to Darla Fitzwayne as well.

Then they just needed to get on the way without attracting more attention so the trip to Southwall would hopefully not have unnecessary excitement. Al already anticipated more than enough difficulty trying to get a gnoll into the city when they arrived.

This is going to be a problem anywhere we go, isn't it. Maybe there's some sort of royal certificate of this-gnoll-isn't-bad-don't-kill-him or something that we could get? Or, you know, we just live hiding in the woods between jobs. Otherwise, nobody's going to know Gruntle's not there to kill everyone.

Al grimaced to himself at the logical conclusion of that thought.

I really don't like the idea that becoming famous might solve that, because there's no way that doesn't replace the problem with other problems.

The terrible roar of Wikwocket's snoring pulled Al out of his pondering and into awareness of hunger. He got up out of bed as quietly as he could and pulled his robes on.

I suppose it's only fair that I go get the food sometimes.

Al tiptoed to the door, pleased with how little sound he managed to make. He reached for the latch but hesitated. The only sound in the room was Wikwocket, but...

"Let me guess, you're hungry too?" Al asked as he turned back to see Gruntle looming right behind him.

Grunt.

Al lifted the latch and headed out, shadowed by a hungry beast.

Another familiar, more conventional beast met them with happy barking as they reached the street. Darling the mastiff pulled Charlene back heedless of Charlene's repeated insistence on "Politely!"

Al complained wordlessly as he tried to deter having his face licked by the overly-friendly dog.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Sorry, she really likes you," Charlene apologized, pulling back on the leash. Her effort combined with Al's pushing away got Darling off of him, only to have her turn her friendliness on Gruntle.

"Better friendly than unfriendly, I suppose," Al said, wiping dog-slobber from his face with his sleeve. "I suppose it's good that we ran into you anyway. We're going to be back on the road soon and I wanted to find out where we can contact Lady Fitzwayne afterwards. Is she always here?"

"She stays here as often as she can for her health and comfort, but she does split her time between here and the Fitzwayne estate in Meadowgold. Darling, please, that's quite enough of the sniffing!"

"We'll be headed for Southwall, if we need to send a message should we just have it delivered to 12 Milkstone Lane here for now?"

"That, or you can drop it off at the offices of the Southwall cattle market, the Fitzwayne family runs that as well, and they'll know how to find her."

"All right, thank you. I still don't know how long it might take us to find something that might help her with her problem, but we'll be working on it. I'll try to get some sort of message to her once we have some idea where we're going to be staying and for how long. Gruntle! Don't stick your nose there!"

"She did first," Gruntle argued, standing back upright.

Charlene tugged firmly on the leash, coaxing Darling back to her side.

"Lady Fitzwayne will be happy to hear from you, I know she feels very hopeful since you agreed to help her. I'll make sure she knows to expect your messages, thank you. And now, Darling, we're going to be badly off-schedule if we don't get moving again," she said. Darling whined a complaint, but kept pace with Charlene as they walked away. Darling spared them one last look over her shoulder and a single bark before the was led around a corner, back in the direction of Milkstone Lane.

"Either she goes for a walk every morning, or they're stalking us," Al joked.

"Nah," Gruntle disagreed, "too noisy for stalking."

The cheerful meat-on-a-stick vendor sported a fine new red coat, no doubt paid for with the profits from his increase in carnivorous customer patronage. He laughed and smiled as he sold Al and Gruntle a load of skewered breakfast. Gruntle didn't wait to start eating, so Al didn't either. He did make sure they saved enough for the others once they returned, though.

They found Wikwocket sitting in bed yawning and Bote reading from a sheet of paper.

"You return just in time to hear the good news. It seems our path aligns with the Ineffable Plans. Cyrus reports that the penal arena has as much interest in Gruntle's services as he had hoped," Bote explained, holding out the paper for Al to take. "He has provided us with a letter of introduction to provide for the guards when we arrive in Southwall."

Bote pointed to the nightstand next to their bed, where a roll of wax-sealed parchment waited next to a pair of long, worn grey stockings that appeared to have an uneven stripe pattern on them.

Al traded a handful of the remaining skewered meat-sticks for the paper. "Do I want to know why you've got someone else's old stockings?" He asked. Bote laughed.

"Yes, you do. They are from the magistrate. It seems she had no paper on hand when she called for Stephen to bring us our messages. Stephen suggested she probably wanted an excuse to get new stockings."

Al picked one of them up and looked more closely. The stripes turned out to be writing. The ink was blurred somewhat from soaking into the cloth, but the letters were large enough to be legible.

"Congratulation to...," Al read aloud, pausing here to sigh and glance accusingly at the ceiling before continuing, "...The Gnoll Party for their part in the dramatic story of Saint Cleodora, and also on your earnings."

"Saint Cleodora? Did we do that?" Wikwocket marveled.

Bote's head shook. "Strictly speaking, no. Certainly our presence will have been the paving stones of the path that led to this, however."

"Oh, nice metaphor!" Wikwocket praised.

"Yeah, really great." Al picked up the other sock. "Oh! Well, this is good news. It's a promissory...stocking. It's our bonus. Looks like she added another two-hundred and fifty gold coins for marketing promotion, too, whatever that means."

"Marketing is dumb merchant jargon that means we're famous. We have fame and fortune now! This place is obviously good luck," Wikwocket cheered. "and we should come here more often!"

"Good food," Gruntle agreed.

"This does seem to be a popular place for private meetings, if we can develop a good enough reputation we might end up with people wanting to meet us here. I don't think we can just keep hanging around here right now, though."

"Oh, I know, we need to keep growing our stories for more fame and fortune! Can't do that just staying in one place, everybody knows legendary heroes are wanderers!"

"I was thinking we could sneak out of town in the middle of the night tonight, so nobody tries to follow us and cause trouble. Does that sound reasonable?"

Wikwocket considered this.

"And then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the mysterious heroes vanished in the night. Legend says they will reappear in times of need... Yeah, we can work with that!"

"Bote? Gruntle?"

"We're going where I can hit people until they stop moving?" Gruntle asked.

"Uh...yes, according to Cyrus," Al answered, then hastened to add, "not everyone there, but they'll tell us which ones."

"Good."

"Yes, I think we are needed elsewhere soon," Bote agreed.

"All right then, one last day here. If anybody wants another bath or something, get it today. I'll see about collecting our pay and getting our stuff together, then I just have a couple of other things to do and I'll be ready to go if you all are."