Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Seven - Lost and Found in Translation

“Rainnewt?” Reginald asked.

“How did you figure that?” Amaryllis asked.

I gestured vaguely through the air. “The name. It’s obvious, isn’t it?”

“No. No, it really isn’t,” Amaryllis said.

I huffed. “Come on. Drizz L. Lizard? It obviously means drizzle lizard, and that’s just a terrible pun for rain newt.”

Amaryllis blinked. “None of that made sense,” she said.

I stared at my birdy friend for a bit. The clues and all were super obvious, and she was a smart girl. Then it clicked and I felt silly. “It’s a multilingual pun,” I said with mounting horror. Puns were already a bit evil, puns that required translation... that was a whole new level of terrible. Rainnewt really was a villain.

“How does it work?” Amaryllis asked. “I don’t see the link between the names.”

“It might be because of my autotranslation,” I said. “But the name means rain lizard. A newt is a kind of lizard. That, and Reginald mentioned something that might have been shapeshifting.”

“And there’s a solid link with the Exploration Guild,” Amaryllis added. “But then, for him to be able to make that kind of...dare I say joke--with his name, he would need to either have a gift for multiple languages, or be a riftwalker.”

“That would make sense, wouldn’t it?” I asked. “Him being a riftwalker. He’s been destroying dungeons. Reginald! Did the dungeons he destroyed have any evil roots in them?”

Reginald leaned back in his big office seat. “Evil roots? Ah, I don’t know? Actually, there was-- give me a moment.” He slid his chair to the side and opened a drawer. “I only have these on hand because the inquisition demanded copies of everything related to Drizz. They couldn’t find him initially, so they started to investigate with more depth. That meant going over everything with a fine-tooth comb.” He pulled out a stack of papers and set them on his desk, then he started flipping through them.

I watched as he paused on a page, frowned, then turned it around and slid it our way.

Awen, Amaryllis and I all leaned over to inspect the paper. Reginald tapped a paragraph near the middle.

The Hidebank Dungeon was explored by a local delve team who reported strange growths on the Boss floor of the dungeon. The dungeon has not acquired any new floors since its last survey, but there have been some noted changes in its behaviour.

“What’s this report?” Amaryllis asked.

“It’s the demand from Riverhide to send someone to explore one of the small dungeons in the region. It’s not a very popular dungeon, so there wasn’t a lot of local interest in uncovering the changes within it. It was one of the first missions that Drizz took. That dungeon was destroyed.”

Amaryllis turned my way, a talon resting against her chin. “It’s not much to go on. Circumstantial at best.”

“But it’s something,” I said. “Did any of the other dungeons mention plant stuff? Big roots, the dungeon acting weird?”

“Not that I’m aware of. Drizz had a knack for tackling dungeons across the nation, but he only destroyed three as far as I’m aware.” Reginald sighed. “Only three. As if that’s not an enormous number of lost dungeons.”

I looked at Amaryllis, and she nodded, though it was a little reluctant. “Alright, I’ll admit that you might be onto something.”

“You know Drizz then?” Reginald asked.

“Yeah, but not under that name,” I said. “I’m not sure, not without seeing them, but it sounds like Drizz might be Rainnewt. He was a man that worked at the Port Royal Exploration Guild. He tried to get Amaryllis kidnapped at some point, and he might be responsible for a bunch of diplomatic problems in the area too.”

“Not to mention what he did in the Nesting Kingdom. He set off an explosive that killed and injured members of a sylph diplomatic party,” Amaryllis continued. “He got away with it too, as far as I can tell.”

Reginald paled. “He did what?”

“Yeah, it was really bad,” I said. “I don’t know if he destroyed more dungeons along the way, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he did.”

Amaryllis’ eyes narrowed. “Why did you suspect he was linked to the Evil Roots, Broccoli?”

I shrugged. “The world told me to fix those. So if there’s another riftwalker, maybe they’re here for the same reason. Trying to start a war doesn’t make sense though. If all he wanted was to destroy dungeons he could be a lot sneakier about it.”

“Awa, maybe he doesn’t want to do it himself?” Awen asked. “If he could convince the nations to fight, then one of the first things they’ll do is destroy each other’s dungeons, right? I know that my dad had some procedures in place, if there was ever a war or something, to protect the dungeons closest to Greenshade.”

That made some sense, but it was such an awful way to go about doing things. Why not just warn people? Or find another way to get rid of the Evil Roots. I’d proven that Cleaning magic could do it, so I bet there were other ways to get rid of the roots too.

“This is distressing,” Reginald said. “But, at this point, I’m not sure what the guild can do about it. It’s obvious that this is a problem that’s much bigger than the guild.”

“Hmph, that’s no reason not to try to do your part,” Amaryllis said. “We’ve moved very much off-track. I came here to ask the guild for help finding certain groups in the city. It would help us a lot if we could track them down.”

“We’re trying to stop Rainnewt,” I said. “Or at least the war he might be trying to start.”

“I can try to help,” Reginald said. “But I’m not sure if there’s much I can do at all.”

I shook my head to clear it. There were too many thoughts all bouncing around in there at once, and I only had so much room for thinking things. “Maybe we can help you while you help us!” I said.

Reginald sat up a little straighter in his seat. “You think you can help the guild? At this point, we’d accept any help we can get.”

“We might be able to help, a little, on the condition that the guild helps us in turn,” Amaryllis said. “Notably, we’re looking for the location of the diplomatic parties sent over for the summit. We have a little over a week to try and convince all the players here not to go to war with each other over the actions of one madman.”

“Or madperson,” I said. “Rainnewt can shapeshift. We have no way of knowing who they are.”

Amaryllis nodded. “That’s a fair point. I suspect that most nations will have ways of intercepting and preventing that kind of security breach, if only to counter skilled spies and assassins. Warning them of a potential issue wouldn’t be amiss.”

“The weakest point of any defence is the people behind it,” Awen said. It sounded like a quote. “Even if everyone has things in place to catch spies, they might not be paying them all that much attention. Though I guess that wouldn’t make sense now, not with everyone being in high alert.”

“No, it’s a fair point,” Amaryllis said.

I nodded along. Spying and such wasn’t my forte, but I imagined that my friends were probably right. “So that’s what we need. To know who and where the nice diplomats from everywhere will be.”

“I think I can manage that,” Reginald said. “I don’t have many contacts left, but I still have some. The guild isn’t lost, not yet. If I can help you with that, what can you do to help the guild?”

“We don’t have much money,” I said.

Amaryllis shook her head. “Certainly not enough to keep an entire guild afloat.”

“Surprisingly,” Reginald cut in. “We’re still staying afloat financially. We had to cut off a lot of services and such, but we had some gold saved up. It’s our reputation that we need to salvage the most.”

“Well, I don’t know about that,” I said. “But maybe if we cleaned the place up a little that would help? Give me half a day and some gardening tools and I can have the whole place looking like new.”

Reginald smiled. “I think that would help, at least a little. I suppose we’re not presenting the greatest image while looking so slovenly.” He nodded, then eyed me, and then my friends up and down. There was a calculating gleam in his eyes, and I couldn’t help but feel that maybe Reginald was the guild leader for a reason. “You’ve been on some interesting adventures, haven’t you?”

“Oh yeah, plenty,” I said.

“Any of those recent?” he asked.

I considered the trip from the Nesting Kingdom to here. “Yeah, I think a few of them are,” I said.

Reginald’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned his elbows onto the table. “Would one of you mind telling the story of your voyage? Truthfully, that is. No need to exaggerate or anything of the sort, just a straight recounting of what occurred.”

I glanced at my friends, then shrugged. “I can do that,” I said.

“Awa, maybe I can do it?” Awen asked. “I have a good memory for that kind of thing, and Broccoli might be busy cleaning and doing gardening work.”

“And in the meanwhile, I have a few small questions I’d like to ask,” Amaryllis said. “Notably, what exactly are you thinking of doing with our story?”

Reginald nodded. “That’s only fair. The guild needs a victory right now. Several, in fact. And spreading the story of a successful venture by some intrepid young members might just count as that sort of victory. It’s not much, but I’m sure we can find some mutual benefit from announcing to the nobility of the nation that you’re a force to be respected and admired.”

“Ah, I see,” Amaryllis said.

It sounded to me like Reginald just wanted to use us to create a good image for the guild. I wasn’t exactly against the idea. We hadn’t done anything too amazing, I figured, but maybe stories about going around and making friends would attract more people who needed friends too.

After all, Amaryllis joined the guild because she secretly wanted to make friends, deep, deep, down inside.

I bet there were plenty of Amaryllises out in Goldenalden that needed a good friend too!

“I like it,” I said. “But no lying or embellishing.”

“He wouldn’t be able to in any case,” Amaryllis said. “We had Bastion with us for the entire trip. He would be able to fact-check any part of it, and to most sylph the word of a paladin is assumed to be truthful by default, and usually for good reason.”

“Bastion?” Reginald asked.

“A paladin who accompanied us on our voyage,” Amaryllis said.

Reginald’s brows shot up, and he seemed genuinely impressed.

I clapped my hands. “So! Should we do all of this stuff today?”

“Ah, well, as much as I would enjoy that, I’m afraid that I can’t uphold my side of the bargain today. The information Miss Amaryllis wants isn’t something I know off-hand. Would it be possible for the three of you to return tomorrow?”

“Sure thing,” I said. “Can you set out some gardening supplies? I’m hardly an expert, but I can fix up the front no problem. And I am an expert at all things cleaning.”

“I look forward to seeing the results. In any case. Yes, I think we have tools and cleaning supplies laying about.”

Reginald stood, and so did we.

“You’ve given me a lot of think on. But I think this might be the start of the Exploration Guild’s return to a proper level of decorum. Or at least I very much hope so. Thank you, girls.”

“No problem,” I said.

***