Chapter One Hundred and Nineteen - Morepoles

I brushed off the front of my skirt to make sure it was neat, then I spritzed myself with a bit of cleaning magic to make sure I was nice and presentable. “I’m going to go say hi to the nice guard people,” I said.

“Ohh, I’m coming too,” Cholondee said.

“Uh. Are you sure?” I asked.

“I’m bored,” she said right back. “And also a dragon.”

“Well, alright.” I kinda wanted to handle things peacefully, but I couldn’t deny that having a big stick might help a little. It wasn’t very nice--in fact, it was downright rude--but so was telling Cholondee to stay behind.

The walk over to the guards was short, but I tried to enjoy it. Port Royal was a neat place. Sure, the smell was a bit much, and the rattle and clang of steam pipes all over was somewhat annoying, but at the same time they lent the city some ambiance, like off beat percussion music.

The guards shuffled as we got closer, so I smiled at them the best I could and waved. “Hello,” I said. “I’m Broccoli Bunch! This is my friend Cholondee.”

“Hello!” Cholondee said.

“We’re here for breakfast and to find some people,” I said. “But we noticed all of you gathering here and we thought we’d say hi. And we did. So, um... hi!”

The guards had their weapons out, clubs with metal bands around the ends, and some had their little round shields raised as if that could protect them. Still none of them acted for a bit until one of the group stepped up.

He was a short grenoil, with a bunch of scars across his big jowls and narrow eyes that, unlike those of his partners, seemed more suspicious than afraid. He also had a few extra tassels running from the pauldrons of his armour. “You’re here for... breakfast?” he asked.

“Yup. And we’re looking for some people after that. If we need help looking though, you’ll be the first people I ask,” I said. “But that’s for after breakfast.”

“And does breakfast involve eating any of ze citizens of Port Royal?” he asked.

“Oh, eww,” I said. “I’d never eat a person.”

“No doubt your friend there wouldn’t say ze same,” the guard said.

Cholondee showed off her teeth with a huge smile. “Don’t put words in my mouth, or you’ll join them.”

“Hey, hey,” I said as I stepped up between everyone. “We can’t be friends if we’re eating or fighting each other. So, let’s all just... not do any of that, please? We really aren’t here to cause trouble.”

The guard eyed me for a good long while. “Alright,” he said. With a gesture he had the other guards lowering their stances, though they looked a little confused about it. “If you can promise me zat you’ll not cause any trouble, zen all we’ll do is station some men around ze area to cordon it off until you leave. Is zat fine?”

“Uh. I-I guess. What if we don’t leave today though?”

Cholondee shifted forwards. “I’m not sleeping in this place, not unless I can sleep on all of their gold.”

“No no, but maybe my friends and I will stay here. They have inns, and we’ll be closer to Booksie’s problems.”

The dragoness gave me a weird look. “You don’t want to have another sleep-over?”

“Of course I do!” I said truthfully. “But sleepovers lose their magic if you have one every night. And your lair isn’t exactly equipped for the kinds of things we do as a group. Unless... Did you want to join our party? We go out and have adventures! There's a lot of camping, which is like a sleepover but not quite.”

“Do you make lots of gold?”

“No, not really,” I said.

She shook her head. “Nah. That doesn’t sound like my kind of thing, then. Let’s go eat.”

The dragon started the tricky process of turning around without knocking any buildings over, so I turned towards the guards again. “Right, I promise we won’t cause any trouble,” I said. I then worked hard to pretend not to hear the crunching sound of Cholondee rubbing against someone’s home.

“We’ll be watching,” the guard said.

I smiled and waved as I bounded off and returned to my friends. I got back just as Booksie and Awen returned, the latter pushing a wheelbarrow forwards while Booksie hugged a big package of wax paper in her arms.

They set a veritable banquet of meats onto the ground. Big flanks, and ribs and gooey bits of uncooked meat, all set onto the road in two big piles. “I hope you don’t mind,” Booksie said. “I don’t know what kind of meat you like, so after explaining things to the butcher, we just bought the most we could with the money we had.”

“Did you need more money?” I asked.

“Awa, no, no it’s okay, I have a bit.”

Amaryllis grinned. “Why don’t you tell Broccoli how you made all that money?”

“Awww, that’s not necessary,” Awen squeaked.

“Oh?” I asked. “Now I’m curious,” I said as I pulled out my seat.

My curiosity had to be put on hold as the elderly grenoil lady that ran the restaurant stepped out, clutching a notepad to her chest and eying the dragons with apprehension. Still, she was very brave, and as soon as we started asking about her menu she slid into an easy routine. When she left a moment or two later I turned back to Awen and grinned.

“So... spill!”

“Awa,” Awen said dejectedly. “I had a few sil, and there was someone taking bets at the arena.”

“In Rosenbell?” I asked.

She nodded. “No one thought that you would win your first fight, so I won a lot. And then I bet all of that on the next two as well and, awa, I made a lot.” She buried her face in her hands.

“Well, there’s nothing wrong with believing in your friends,” I said.

“She only bet half on the last match,” Amaryllis piped up.

“Awa, it, it was a sound, um, investment. The odds on your last fight weren’t nearly as good. It’s not that I didn’t think that you could win or anything, it’s just that,” Awen paused to take in a deep breath, so I grabbed her in a side hug, lifted her up, and placed her on my lap. It was easy to forget that Awen was just a bit smaller than I was.

“It’s okay Awen!” I said as I squeezed her from behind. “You’re one of my best friends, you don’t need to justify yourself to me.”

“Awa.”

Food arrived in short order and Awen was--somewhat reluctantly--moved back to her seat so that we could chow down. It was while the dragons were arguing over who should get the (slightly) bigger half of the meat that Booksie cleared her throat. “Um. Now that we are here, in Port Royal, I mean, I think that maybe I should tell you all the full story.”

“You left out some things?” I asked.

She made a wishy-washy gesture with her fork. “More like I wasn’t expecting actual help, not like this, so I didn’t go too deep into things.”

Amaryllis huffed. “Well, no time like the present.”

Booksie nodded while focusing on her meal. “There’s a group, they call themselves an organization, but really they’re more of a gang. They occupy the Scumways, mostly, a district near the docks that are hardly fit for living in, a part of the city that a lot of people would like to pretend doesn’t exist.”

“Do they have a name?” I asked.

“The Morepoles. There used to be a few gangs like that, but they all folded into one. That was before I ever came to live here though. They’re somewhat important. The docks need a lot of workers for simple things, and they provide that, they do neighborhood watches and have a soup kitchen. On the surface they’re not so bad.”

“And under that no doubt sparkling exterior?” Amaryllis asked with the tone of someone who already knew the answer.

“Underneath they’re pretty bad,” Booksie said. “They demand a tax from businesses, like mine, and they run the black market. I heard that some of the nobles use them to smuggle goods in and out of the city, so maybe that’s why no one ever cracked down on them.”

“That sounds awful,” I said. “And they’re the ones that made you lose your shop?”

She nodded. “Not directly. They just kept asking for more, and I knew what would happen if I didn’t pay. They told me I could work for them a few days a week to pay things off. Buns are wanted for some... things. But I refused. I don’t think they liked that because the month after they said I owed them even more.”

I smacked a hand on the table. “Well, we just need to tell the authorities then.”

“Broccoli, your faith in the law is quite adorable, but entirely misplaced,” Amaryllis said. “These types of organizations need the law--or part of it--on their side to work. Or at least, they need to be ignored.”

I slumped. “Then what do we do?” I asked.

“We could spit poison in their den,” Cholondee said between chomping bites. “That usually works.”

“What can we do that isn’t that,” I said.

“Hey!” the dragon protested.

Rhawrexdee snorted. He couldn’t understand the conversation, but he could tell that his sister had been insulted and that was enough for him.

“I think what we need to do is go find the boss of this gang and talk him out of all of this nasty business,” I said. “That should be possible, right?”

“Your optimism is at once terrifying and idiotic,” Amaryllis said. She was done eating already and was rubbing at her magic ring with the tip of a talon. “But we are dealing with thugs here. I doubt most of them have done more than get into a tavern brawl or two. We should be able to handle ourselves.”

“Neat,” I said. “I’ve always wanted to meet the mafia.”

“Why?” Amaryllis asked.

I shrugged. “They have cool hats,” I said.

“That’s... World itself, I forget how dumb you are sometimes.”

“Hey!” I said. “Hats are important. They tell you a lot about a person.”

“Awa, I don’t have a hat,” Awen said.

“We can fix that,” I reassured her. “There has to be a hat shop somewhere in Port Royal.”

Amaryllis was frowning and staring off into the distance. “The nobility in the Nesting Kingdom do all wear elaborate headpieces. I... can’t believe you might be onto something.”

I pointed to Rhawrexdee. “One in three dragons we know wear cool hats. So that’s another point of data in favour of my hypothesis that hats are, in fact, neat.”

“What are you talking about?” Rhawrexdee asked.

“Hats,” Booksie said. “We’ve noticed that important people wear them.”

The dragon puffed up and gave his sister a look of incredible smugness. “Is that right?” he asked.

Cholondee snapped her head around to look my way. “We must go hat shopping,” she declared.

Bing Bong! Congratulations, your Wonderlander class has reached level 1!

Mana +5

Flexibility +5

You have gained: One Class Point

“Huh?” I said. Then the wash of tingly giddiness that came with a level up coursed through me and I had to hold back a shiver.

“What is it?” Amaryllis asked. She had probably seen my reaction. I grinned back at her, appreciating the concern that immediately appeared in her voice.

“I levelled up.” My eyes narrowed. “Is it because I was talking about hats?” No... that was too silly. Then again, I didn’t know what kind of things that Wonderlander class was truly good for. Other than making tea. Anything was possible!

My harpy friend sighed. “I’m getting seconds. I might be able to drown out the stupid with food.”

***