Chapter Three Hundred and Seventy-One - Stop, Drop, and Shop

“I can’t believe it,” Willowbud said. Then he frowned. “Actually, I take it back, I can believe it quite easily.”

Tharval huffed mightily. “Now, don’t get uppity with me, elf,” he said.

“Pointing out your mistakes doesn’t make me uppity,” Willowbud said. “Now, if you want me to be uppity, I can show you what that’s like, and trust me, neither of us will forget that experience.”

I raised my hand. “Let’s not fight, please,” I said. “Um, I don’t know why you’re being angry with Mister Tharval, Mister Willowbud.”

Willowbud straightened. “I’m not angry, Miss Bunch, merely... exasperated. Tharval seems to have brought us down here under false pretences. He didn’t bring you here because you would find help here, but rather to show off whatever he’s been tinkering on lately.”

"Now don't go slandering my name," Tharval groused, "I didn't ... well, I didn't only bring them down here to see this stuff! I really thought we could get some help from these tinkerers!"

"Hey, don't go blaming us for your inability to think things through," chided one of the aforementioned tinkerers.

Tharval huffed, hands on his hips. "It was just a slip-up, I ain't gone senile yet."

"True," Willowbud nodded his head. "You've been slipping up as long as I've known you, it has nothing to do with age."

The dwarf rolled his eyes.

Willowbud nodded to himself. "Well, I suppose we can afford to lose some time inspecting whatever greasy thing you’ve put together now.”

Tharval chuckled. “There’s always time for that!”

And so we were given a tour of the shop. Tharval pointed to all sorts of neat gizmos and inventions, many of which turned out to not work as intended or to be wildly impractical, but he seemed no less proud of those.

“Invention is about discovering things that work, and part of that is discovering what doesn’t,” Tharval proclaimed.

Soon, he and Awen became enmeshed in an increasingly complex and technical discussion that I tried to follow but soon lost track of. It was clear that while Awen was holding her own, the old dwarf’s own knowledge dwarfed hers.

I had to hold back an inappropriate spout of giggles as I realized the pun I’d just thought up.

The tinkerers, of course, returned to their tinkering, and I suspected that they were working with some extra pep since their sorta-boss was right there in the room with them.

Eventually the tour ended though, and we were all left near the elevators while Tharval looked a little contrite. “So, Bud, how are we gonna find that Baron for these brats, hmm?”

Willowbud looked unamused. “You are the brat here,” he said. “Now... ah, no, this isn’t so simple a thing that I can just snap my fingers and fix it. The guild might be able to assist though. We have a number of people with... certain talents when it comes to the gathering of information.”

I gasped. “Spies?” I asked.

“I think they’d usually rather avoid that label,” he replied.

“But it’s so cool!” I said.

“Regardless,” he said after a moment. “How about you all come back to the guild tomorrow... actually, how long have you been searching through the Storm Tower for the baron?”

“We only arrived a few hours ago,” Amaryllis said. “We parked our ship at the dock, then after registering it came to the guild.”

Willowbud nodded. “Then take some time for yourselves. You’ll need to eat soon, I imagine. And the Storm Tower has some of the best shopping around. Part of being a good explorer is developing a love for exploration, and that’s something you can cultivate even in a civilised place like this tower.”

“Don’t know that I’d call it civilised,” Tharval said. “But the elf’s right. Give us a day, we’ll figure this out, we will. And in the meantime, the tower’s got a number of fine smiths and shops. Plenty of adventurous folk around here to keep them busy too.”

“I don’t recall seeing all that many elven or dwarven adventurers,” Amaryllis said. “I think I might have noticed some in Port Royal, but otherwise...”

“Oh, we’d see some in Greenshade sometimes,” Awen said. “Um, usually coming from or heading west?”

Tharval nodded. “West’s where the adventuring’s at. Not in Pyrowalk, but past that. And to the south a ways too. There’s the north as well, if you’re keen on freezing off your extremities for months on end only to discover a new kind of dwarf-eating lizard that they’ll name in your honour after you’re eaten by one.”

“I wouldn’t mind shopping,” I said. I glanced to my friends, and while there wasn’t unanimous cheering and excitement, no one seemed to think it was a bad idea either. “I think we could use some time to refresh some of our equipment, and besides, I think most of us need a bit of new clothes.”

My own was... not that bad, actually. I’d kept it clean, of course, but at the same time Cleaning magic wasn’t Maintenance magic, and I’d noticed a few things getting a little threadbare in spots. The leather straps holding my armour together were looking a bit stretched too, and I suspected that I’d hit a teensy growth spurt lately because my skirt had climbed almost to my knees!

“Awa, that does sound nice,” Awen said. “I’ve always wanted to explore the Storm Tower. So many interesting devices come from here.”

“It wouldn’t be a waste of time,” Amaryllis said. “And we do have a fair amount of gold we can afford to spend, even after taking into account docking fees and the like.”

“I’ve barely got a copper to my name,” Calamity said with a grin.

I bumped my shoulder against his. “Don’t worry about that! You’re due some payment for helping us, and besides, you’re our friend, no?”

“Thanks!” he said. “In that case, I need me some new clothes. These are starting to look ratty, especially with the company I’ve been keeping.” He tugged on the front of his shirt which was a little worse for wear. It was clean, of course. Even if he didn’t seem to put much effort into cleaning it, he was still in my proximity often enough that my Cleaning aura probably scrubbed away any sweat stains, but that aura didn’t do anything for the holes in the fabric or the bits that were stretched.

I looked to Caprica, who shrugged. “I’ll come along,” she said. “Though I don’t think I need much, and I don’t know if they’ll have anything for sylph.”

“You’re also poor,” Amaryllis said. Her lips were a thin line, but I knew she was holding back a smile from the way the corner of her eyes turned up.

“Poor?” Caprica asked. Then she blinked. “Oh.”

Had she brought any gold with her when she snuck onboard the Beaver? I couldn’t recall. That might be a shock to the system, going from being a princess of a really rich place to a poor girl who had to sneak onboard ships.

I gave her a hug, of course.

“Why are you hugging me?” she asked, though she didn’t make any move to remove me.

“Poor person hug of solidarity,” I said.

“Broccoli, you’re not poor. You’re the captain of an airship with more gold onboard it than some entire villages have,” Amaryllis said.

“Oh,” I said. “Well, ah, we should go?” I said as I tried not to feel so awkward. Caprica was giving Amaryllis a look and I chose not to get between them. I figured they actually liked each other, but in that sort of friendly-rival way that included lots of little digs and veiled half-insults.

Not my favourite flavour of friendship, but I’d take it!

Tharval and Willowbud bid us a nice day, and Willowbud told us to show up at the guild again the next morning. Then we shuffled into the elevator and rode back up to the guild’s lobby.

The nice reception elf pointed us towards the shopping centre, which happened to not be all that far from the guild. It was just on the other side of the interior train station, which did require that we leave the guild, go down a floor, then back up one on the other side.

The interior of the Storm Tower was essentially a maze of warrens, alleys, little side-passages, stairwells, and then the occasional cavernous room. It wasn’t organised in any way that I could decipher, and no one had bothered putting up helpful maps for lost tourists.

Basically, it was a great place for exploring and adventuring because it was so easy to get lost in!

Of course, since we were looking for something specific and not for a fun adventure, I ended up asking some nice locals for directions... several times.

We found the shopping area eventually. A long row of stores and shops, all squeezed in next to each other on one side of a long corridor. On the other there were benches and thick windows looking out towards the industrial area and cliffs below the tower.

“Oh, where do we start?” I asked as I spun around. “Should we do every place in order? Or run around back and forth, or just ask around and go exactly where we need to? Do you think they have ice cream?”

“Let’s do things in order,” Amaryllis said. “That seems like the simplest way to go about things. And the best way to keep us from getting separated and lost.”

I clapped my hands. “Right! If anyone gets separated then, uh... let’s all meet up at that place right there.” I pointed.

“Broccoli, that’s a food stand,” Amaryllis said.

“Yeah, that way you won’t go hungry while waiting,” I said. It looked like they were selling sausages and beer, which felt a little strange for a foodstand to sell, but it was run by a dwarf.

The first shop right on the corner was a discount and used armour store. It was called the Half-Elf’s Half-Off Emporium, and it was filled from front to back with mannequins along the walls, each wearing full or partial sets of armour.

The place had so much stuff and so little room that my friends and I basically filled the shop to capacity.

It was fun though, we poked at various armours (most were for elves, unsurprisingly) and got into a giggle fit when we discovered some sets had very pronounced codpieces.

Nothing looked like it would fit any of us, elves having very long legs and tall chests, in general, though a few pieces looked more human-sized. The proprietor was a younger gentleman, a bit shorter than I was and quite stocky, but with the long ears I’d expect from elves and very fine features, including a nice pointy chin.

I got to talking to him and he said that there was a growing population of half-elf half-dwarves in the Storm Tower. For all that the two races had some pretty big cultural differences, it didn’t mean that love couldn’t flourish between them.

The next shop was a general store that sold mostly tools and crafting supplies. I would have skipped it, but Awen’s eyes lit up when she saw it. Gnome Depot didn’t have much that we needed, but Awen still walked out of there with a few bags full of supplies for the Beaver and for her own projects.

After Gnome Depot, we ran to a little shop called Arrow Smiths, where the owner, a grumpy dwarf, fussed over Awen and Calamity’s bows. He ended up giving Awen’s the thumb’s-up of approval, but Calamity didn’t get off so easily.

“I’ve had this thing for years,” he said.

“Oh, and it’s a fantastic piece,” the dwarf said. “Clearly hand-made, but well done even if it wasn’t made by a true professional. Well-maintained too.”

“Well, I made it myself,” Calamity said a little sheepishly.

“Oh-hoh. Well, you did alright. I imagine you’re not a professional though. We have bows here that’ll improve your aim tenfold and will have each arrow hitting like a lightning bolt!” He started to show off his wares and it didn’t take long for Calamity to be won over by the idea of something shiny and new.

We ended up spending a few gold on a much nicer bow, one with a wheel and cam system that was made of metal and wood and seemed a whole lot more complicated to use and maintain, but Awen said that she didn’t mind helping Calamity.

Grinning, we left the shop and continued on our rather expensive outing!

***