Chapter Three Hundred and Eight - Away

Caprica showed us to a guest suite in the palace where we each got our own room to sleep in. The day had been pretty long, so it didn’t take long for all of us to head to bed. The next morning started with a light breakfast in the suite’s shared dining room.

A few hours after breakfast, when we were still wondering what to do, Caprica returned and gathered us up. “Is there any equipment you need?” Caprica asked.

“We have some equipment at the inn,” I said. “Armour and such. We can’t go tackle a dungeon in borrowed dresses, I don’t think.”

“Oh, you certainly could,” Caprica said. “With the number of people helping in this dive, you should be relatively safe if you choose not to help at all. But yes, I wouldn’t want to go into a dungeon without good equipment.”

“I could use a crossbow,” Awen said. “Maybe a warhammer? Mine is back on the Beaver.”

“If you have a dagger I could borrow, one suitable to be held by talons..?” Amaryllis said. She didn’t quite end her sentence, letting it float there as an almost-question.

Caprica nodded. “Certainly. I’ll poke around in the armoury, we should have everything you need. Broccoli, do you have a weapon of choice?”

“I use a spade most of the time,” I say.

“A spade,” Caprica repeated. “Does that have any relation to why you used a broom in the arena?”

“I have a makeshift weapon skill,” I said.

“Ah, that makes sense. There was speculation that you used a broom and dustpan as a sort of message for Francisco. Not taking the fight as seriously as you could. Your explanation makes a lot more sense, knowing your personality.” Caprica escorted us out of the palace to a waiting carriage. “This is where I’ll be letting you go. We’ll see each other soon enough though, I’m sure. Do be safe while in the dungeon.”

“You’re not coming with us?” I asked.

She shook her head. “No, I don’t need to face a dungeon for a while, and besides, it’s... no place for a princess.” She frowned, then carried on. “It’ll only make the army folk going in more nervous. They’d no doubt insist on tripling the number of guards and it would take twice as long to accomplish half as much. Best to stay back and maybe try to help from here.”

“That sucks,” I said. “I’d love to go on a proper adventure with you someday. Bye-bye hugs?” I asked. It wasn’t actually a question because I was already reaching over for a hug.

Caprica chuckled and patted me on the back as I gave her a quick squeeze.

Getting back to the inn only took a few minutes of clattering along the busy morning streets of Goldenalden, then we had a quick dash upstairs to get ready for a quick dive into a dungeon. “You know, I expected a lot of things from our visit here, but I didn’t consider that we might go dungeon diving again,” Amaryllis said.

Awen shrugged her long coat on. “It’s not that unusual, is it? We’ve been going through a lot of dungeons to fight those Evil Roots. I guess it’s not too strange that we’re taking on another one.”

“I guess,” Amaryllis said. She closed up the front of her own coat, then patted it down to make sure it was fit properly. “I think we’ve tackled more dungeons than most people will see in their entire lives, and that only in the space of a few months.”

“That’s because we’re proper adventurers,” I said with a firm nod. “We’ll see a whole heap more before we’re done.”

“And when will we be done?” Amaryllis asked.

“Well, if Awen’s uncle is any indication, then we’ll be done when we’re old and fat and want to spend more time talking about all of our adventures instead of having new ones.”

“My father always said that uncle would never stop. That the only way for him not to go on another big adventure is for one of them to finally be more than he can chew,” Awen said. “It always worried me that one day, he wouldn’t come back to brag about all the interesting things he saw.”

I gave her a side-hug. “Don’t worry! I’m sure the way things are going, we’ll bump into him in the field one of these days. Maybe we can hit a dungeon together? Bet he’d be really proud to see some of the things you’ve invented.”

Awen blushed, but she nodded all the same.

We left the inn in another rush, Amaryllis being worried that we might be a bit late. We weren’t even sure where we were going, so I didn’t worry too much about being late.

The carriage driver seemed to know where to head out, so once we jumped back in, we took off across the city once more.

It took a bit, but eventually the carriage rolled

to a stop and the driver opened the door.

We were at one of the city’s docks, the more militaristic one, where every ship docked next to a pier hanging off the edge of the mountain was one of those boxy military ships, with big ballistae and metal sides.

“Ladies, Captain,” a young sylph soldier said as he moved up to the side of our carriage, he gave us a hand to help us down. “Knight-Captain Covenseeker is waiting for you by pier A8. He asked that I escort you over.”

I glanced around as I stepped out. There were several levels of piers here, with some reaching way out so that much larger ships could dock. It wasn’t nearly as busy as any of the commercial docks we’d been to. There were people moving things around, but it seemed pretty calm overall, very clean and orderly.

I regretted not getting a coat or something as a chill wind whipped past us. There weren’t any buildings between us and the open sky to protect us from the weather.

Pier A8 wasn’t too far off, a smaller pier with an all-black ship docked next to it. It wasn’t a huge vessel, barely half-again the length of the Beaver with the same boxy build that the sylph military ships seemed to favour. The crew were already moving about, preparing the ship to take off.

A group were gathered next to the pier, sylph in nice uniforms, some of them tugging on pipes or big cigars so that a long stream of pale smoke trailed out of their group.

The Knight-Captain was easy to make out, he was the one in full plate armour. He grinned and detached himself from the rest of the group to head over and meet us halfway. “You must be Captain Bunch,” he said as he shook my hand. “And Ladies Albatross and Bristlecone,” he continued, this time bowing to my friends.

“You’re the Knight Captain?” I asked.

“Indeed,” he said. His smile had his big bushy moustache twitching up. “And you three are my saviours today. Come, come, you should meet some of the others.”

“Are they the ones we’ll be going into the dungeons with?” I asked.

“Oh no, most of us are too far past our prime to be crawling in some old dungeon. We’ll be sending younger, sharper folk down with you. They’ll be better able to keep you safe, no worries. I made sure you’d be accompanied by the very best the Knights of the Long Rest have to offer.”

We reached the other older gentlesylph and were reintroduced, then there was a long list of names and titles and ranks, so many that I lost track after the first three. They seemed like important people though, a general, one admiral, and a few directors and members of some groups that were interested in fixing the dungeons in and around Goldenalden. We were going to be working with their subordinates.

A bell tolled and the introductions were put off as everyone started to board the airship.

“Captain, ladies!” a young sylph called out to us. We turned to find a soldier running over with a stack of boxes in his arms. He was sweaty and red-faced, as if he’d just been sprinting over. “Package for you, from Princess Caprica.”

Amaryllis frowned and opened the topmost package to reveal a long crossbow in a box carefully crafted to hold it in place without rattling about. Dozens of bolts were strapped in there too, ready to be used. “Caprica’s weaponry,” Amaryllis said. “Thank you, we’ll take these off your hands.”

Amaryllis handed Awen two of the boxes, then took the smallest one for herself. The last was mine, at least that’s what the little tag looped around its handle said.

“The Princess also gave me this letter,” the sylph said. He bowed as he presented a letter to us.

Amaryllis took it, then unfolded it unceremoniously. “Oh, she says we can keep the weapons. As long as they’re boxed up, we shouldn’t have any trouble with law-enforcement, and if we do, we can always just complain to Caprica about it.”

“Ladies!” Knight-Captain Covenseeker called out to us. “Do you need assistance?”

“We’re good!” I called out. We rushed over to the airship and up the gangplank to climb aboard.

A sailor led us down a level to a smoking room where the sylph officers were pouring over a map amidst clouds of smelly smoke.

“Did you want to see the dungeon layout?” Knight Captain Covenseeker asked.

“Uh, can we have a copy of that map?” I asked. I didn’t mind spending time with the officers, they’d been polite so far, but all that smoke was a bit much. Besides, I kind of wanted to see what was in the box Caprica had sent over. The crossbow Awen received had looked really cool, though I didn’t get much time to look at it.

“I’m afraid we only have the one map. The Order of the Long Rest doesn’t make a habit of spreading maps of our dungeon around.”

“Oh,” I said. “In that case, maybe we’ll look at it later? Uh, is there a room we could use maybe?”

The Knight-Captain seemed very understanding as he led us to a small resting room. It had a small porthole looking out of the ship, and a couple of long sofas that someone small could lounge on. He told us to rest up and not to worry before heading back out.

“He’s nice,” I said.

“He has nothing to lose from being nice,” Amaryllis said.

“What’s that mean?” I asked.

“Oh, nevermind,” Amaryllis said. She sat on the very edge of one of the seats and opened her box. “Let’s see what the Princess found.”

Caprica, it seemed, found a really pretty dagger.

It was nice and long, a bit longer than the knife Amaryllis usually carried, with a blade shaped like a spread wing, it even had a few little carvings in it that hinted at a feathery shape.

“This is gorgeous,” Amaryllis said. She spun the knife around, and I noted that the handle was strangely curved. “I think this is spoils of war. No way the sylph made such a beautiful harpy spellsword.”

I used Insight on the dagger.

Featherlight, quick cast dagger, old

“It suits you, I think,” I said.

Amaryllis nodded, then found a sheath in the box. “No hidden sheath, but I can hardly complain,” she said as she stood up and strapped the knife to her hip.

“Awa, do I go next?” Awen asked. She was practically bouncing on the edge of her seat.

“How about you do one, then I do mine, then you do your other one?” I asked.

Awen laughed. “Sure,” she said before she popped open the box with the crossbow. She laid it down and very carefully reached down to touch it. “It’s... it’s a Snowlander crossbow,” she said.

Standard Sharpshooter’s Bow, New

The box didn’t have much by means of decoration, it was still pretty though, nearly all metal, with a few pulleys and a folding crank on the side. It even had a small sight that could unfold from its side. “A Snowlander weapon? From the north?”

“My uncle had something like this once,” Awen said. She seemed almost reluctant to take it.

“Then you’ll be just like him, right?” I asked.

She paused, nodded, then picked the weapon out of its box. “I’ll use it well,” she said.

I grinned. My turn!

***