Chapter Four Hundred and Thirty-Nine - Planning Ahead

“Thank you again,” I said to Mathilde as we exited her little office.

The grenoil lady nodded her head. “It’s my job.”

I was nodding when I noticed Amaryllis turning with a frown. “No it’s not,” she said. “The Exploration Guild’s purpose is surveying, cartography, dungeon-delving, exploration assistance, and -- on rare occasions -- diplomacy. I don’t see how interfering in international politics is the purview of the Explorations Guild.”

Mathilde raised one brow. “Really? There might have been a time, once, when the guild tried to keep itself fully separate from politics, and some guild masters still believe that it is in the guild’s best interest to avoid that kind of machination, but I was never one of those.”

“It puts the guild at risk,” Amaryllis said.

“Everything we do is political. Even trying to avoid politics is a political action. If we’re going to be involved no matter what, then I want it to be on our own terms. That’s why I make our agenda as clear as possible. We don’t interfere with relations between countries where we can avoid it, but we openly share what we discover, encourage our members to grow stronger, and help in maintaining the peace and stability of the regions we operate in.”

“And what about the guild members who don’t agree?” Amaryllis questioned, a hint of challenge in her eyes.

Mathilde gave Amaryllis an incredulous look. “Do you think I get to choose what someone like Abraham Bristlecone agrees with? He might be the most egregious example in the guild, but he’s not the only powerful member. When you have this many people who are this strong, you don’t get to decide what they agree or don’t agree with. You just act as well as you can and hope for the best.”

Amaryllis weighed her words for a while before responding. “Well, I suppose that makes sense. In any case, I shouldn’t protest the help too much. It would be nice to catch Rainnewt and his accomplices before they can get this next scheme off.”

“We’ll do what we can,” Mathilde said. “And as long as we give it our all, we’ll be able to live with the consequences.” She paused by the entrance back into the... actually, I didn’t know what to call the room where Abraham and the other older members of the guild hung out? A lounge? A bar? It had a bit of everything going on. “I appreciate you bringing this to my attention, and that you’d trust me with this. What will you be doing next?”

Amaryllis glanced my way .“I think we’ll collect our companions from Abraham’s clutches, then... I’ll sic Broccoli here on Cholondee. The dragon ostensibly controls the city’s underworld. They’d be some of the first people I’d reach out to if I was going something as foolish as what Rainnewt is doing. If her people have the time and energy to spy on Booksie, then I imagine they’ll have the same to search for troublemakers.”

Mathilde nodded. “That seems reasonable. I’ll leave you to it, then.”

“Thank you,” Amaryllis said.

“We’ll see you around?” I asked Mathilde. “I think we’ll be in Port Royal for a little while!”

“Of course,” Mathilde said with a nod.

We slipped back into the maybe-lounge and found Abraham back with Awen and Calamity. They were both holding onto some papers. “Hi!” I said as I bounced over to their side. “Did it go well?”

“Ah, yes?” Awen said, though she didn’t sound all that certain. She raised the paper she was holding, and I got a glance at it. It looked very official, with the Exploration Guild’s compass rose stamped onto it and everything.

“Looks like the guild is taking their new member registration more seriously,” Amaryllis said from my side.

Awen nodded along. “They took a lot of information. I’m not a member though. I need to participate in a mission certified by the guild. Um, a training mission? Then I’ll get my pin.”

“Same here,” Calamity said. “Guess it doesn’t matter what kind of skills you’ve got, they still want to make sure you fit in, or something like that.”

That much made sense. “Do you know when that training exercise will take place?” I asked.

“There’s one starting tomorrow,” Awen said. “I didn’t say yes, though. I don’t know if it would be smart to leave the Beaver for a whole day.”

I rubbed my chin, then shrugged. “Depends on the mission, I guess. Where is it?”

“Just in the forest down below,” Calamity said. “They wanna leave at some unworldly hour of the morning to make it there before noon, then get back overnight.”

“That sounds fine,” I said. “We should order all the parts and stuff you need now, so that they’ll all arrive tomorrow or during the week. We don’t have anything planned tomorrow, do we?”

“Not that I’m aware of, no,” Amaryllis said.

I nodded. “In that case, if you really wanna get the mission out of the way, then you should,” I said. I’d be worried, of course. The mission that Amaryllis and I ran, way way back when we first met each other, was pretty darned scary and much more dangerous than it should have been, but I had confidence in Awen.

Besides, she was stronger now than I had been on my training mission, and Calamity would be going too!

“I think I’d like that,” Awen said. “Uncle would like it too. Actually... my parents would really dislike it.”

“All the more reason to do it,” Calamity said before giving Awen’s back a pat.

“Awa, I suppose so. They’ll find out. Exploration Guild membership is public record. It’ll make them, ah, look a little bit bad, maybe?”

“Only because Mattergrove is backwards,” Amaryllis said. “In most places having a family member in the guild is a great honour. Besides, your family’s great wealth is mostly due to your uncle, and he’s very obviously part of the guild as well. Your parents will only be embarrassed because they’ve embarrassed themselves. It’s through no fault of your own.”

Awen smiled. “I know,” she said. She was standing tall, and as I looked her up and down, I noticed that she looked like she fit right in. She was geared up just as well as some of the adventurers here, and I bet she could give a bunch of them a run for their money.

It was nice seeing Awen so self-assured. “Alright! So, we need to visit Cholondee. If Awen and Calamity will be off tomorrow, would it make sense to try and visit her now?”

“I suppose so,” Amaryllis said. “We don’t know if she’s even in the city, so it might not hurt to try and discover what her schedule is like.”

That made sense. We’d met Cholondee on the way over, and it had looked like she was on patrol, clearing the skies of pirates. Maybe that was a regular thing for her? If she was often out and about that way, then there was a good chance that we’d miss her. “We can go check. I imagine she spends some time at the... uh, mob headquarters place. And if not, maybe she’s home? We could say hi to Rhawrexdee and his mom too!”

With a goal in sight and the clock ticking on, we decided to say goodbye to Abraham and the others in the guild. One of these days, I’d just have a sit and chat with all of them. Abraham’s stories were always a blast, and I imagined that I was missing out on a ton of other cool stories from the... less-Abraham-y characters there.

“Good luck on your quest!” Abraham said before he rubbed Awen’s head, mussing her hair up into a tangled mess. “Show those no-good paperpushers what a Bristlecone can do!”

“I will,” Awen replied with a determined smile.

Calamity gave a lighthearted salute. “We’ll be back before you know it, ready to officially join the ranks.”

We exited the building, finding ourselves once again enveloped by the hum and hustle of Port Royal. Cholondee and her mobsters weren’t in the same part of the city as Guild Row. They were much further down and south, so we had a good ways to go before we made it there.

We took off, heading towards the lower tiers of the city, through a couple of gates in the city walls, and through less and less opulent areas. Port Royal’s nicer areas smelled a little... interesting. Like old gym socks and horse poop. The areas further south smelled a whole lot worse.

Because the city was built into the mountainside, it was stuck onto solid stone, which, I imagined, made it tricky to do sewage. So there were big coppery pipes hanging above the streets, angled so that they were always carrying stuff downwards with gravity.

In the nicer parts of the city, they were disguised, or hidden in alleys, but in the parts we were now, they were a lot more obvious and not nearly as well-maintained, which meant leakage, and a persistent stinkiness to the roads.

“What’s this part of the city called again?” I asked. The homes here were all wooden, instead of the worked stone further up in the city.

“The Slumways,” Amaryllis said. “They’re called the Slumways, and likely for good reason.”

“Not the prettiest name I’ve heard,” Calamity said. “It does fit with the general... smell of the place.”

“You’d think a place as well-off as Port Royal would be able to take care of all of the people living there,” I said. Though, it did look better than how I remembered it. There were fewer people sitting on the roadside, and the roads themselves looked cleaner.

We passed by a group of younger grenoil, dressed in little suits with little caps on, sweeping the streets clean with long-handled brooms. They looked like the grenoil mafia people I remembered.

The headquarters of the group Cholondee had taken over stood as a sharp contrast. It was nestled in between the grungy lanes of the Slumways. A small mansion made of stone, old and elegant and authoritative, with a decently-sized plot of land next to it.

There had been a fountain in the centre once, I recalled, but now it was gone and a lot of the space was paved over with gravel.

A fence ran around the exterior, but it was opened up at one end, the entrance flanked by a pair of large stone dragons guarded by a pair of toughs.

“Hello,” I said with a wave to the guards. “Is this still the headquarters of the gang Cholondee took over?”

The guards glanced at each other, then one of them spoke. “You any of zese?” he asked as he turned to point to a plaque fixed to the fence.

“Yeah, if you’re on zat list, you’re not getting in,” the second guard said.

ABSOLUTELY NO:
Adventurers
Assassins
Conmen
Conwomen
Conpeople
Dragon Slayers
Ministry of Trade Representatives
Rival Gangsters
Solicitors

“Um, nope, we aren’t any of those,” I responded with a chuckle, scanning the extensive list. It seemed like Cholondee had her share of unwanted visitors. “We’re actually friends of Cholondee. We just wanted to see if Cholondee was here and talk with her.”

The two guards looked at each other and seemed to communicate silently for a moment. “Alright,” the first one said, “but you'll be leaving your weapons here. If she's in, you can meet with her. If not, you're leaving immediately.”

Amaryllis nodded in agreement. “Understood.”

The guards had us deposit our weapons into a sturdy-looking chest by the gate. Once we were disarmed, they allowed us to proceed through the gates.

The interior of the compound was neat and orderly. A few grenoil, who I assumed were members of the gang, lounged about, though they straightened up and watched us as we walked through. They didn't seem hostile, just curious.

I could see why they weren’t nervous. There was a massive pile of pillows off to one side, an absolute mountain of them. lounging on top, resting on her side with her tummy bulging out a little, was Cholondee.

***