Chapter Three Hundred and Twenty-Four - Broccoli & Friends Mercenary Company

“You’re all familiar with the harpy delegation that was meant to be at the summit?” Caprica asked.

My friends and I all nodded. “What’s going on with that, by the way?” I asked.

“The summit? For the moment it has been postponed. We haven’t set any sort of date for the second attempt. It would be a faux-pas to organise something too hastily. I imagine that it will be a few weeks until we start preparing for another summit, this time with proportionately tighter security.”

Amaryllis sighed. “And to think I wasted all that time preparing.”

Caprica chuckled. “I wouldn’t consider it entirely a waste. Your group left a much better impression on the nobility of Sylphfree than any speech could have.”

With a proud sort of huff, Amaryllis gestured for Caprica to continue. “You were talking about the delegation? The airship has been found?”

“Not quite,” Caprica said. “We have an idea of where it disappeared, but not an exact location. The army scoured the areas it was supposed to pass through, but nothing was found. Then they expanded their search to other routes the ship might've diverted to - but still, nothing.”

“Which either means that the army is incompetent beyond measure, or the ship never made it into Sylphfree in the first place,” Amaryllis said.

“Does that mean that it got lost in the Trenten Flats then?” I asked as I tried to remember what Dirt looked like on a map. “Maybe it flew too far east?”

“That would be very unlikely,” Caprica said. “The flying east part, I mean. We did receive confirmation of a sighting to the north of the Golden Peak. The path the ship should have taken would have brought it further north, then around through a well-marked passage between the north-western mountains of Sylphfree. But the ship never arrived at the passage, so we now believe it likely disappeared in the territory of the Trenton Flats.”

“So you want us to grab the Beaver Cleaver, head out there, and find the ship and all its passengers?” I asked.

Caprica hesitated, then nodded. “Essentially, yes. Though there are several details that we’d need to work out beforehand, and I’m not certain if your vessel would be suitable for the quest at hand.”

I crossed my arms. “The Beaver’s an excellent ship,” I defended.

“I’m certain that it’s a fine vessel. However this quest would require a certain amount of... discretion, which wouldn’t be easy to obtain if you were to just fly in with an airship and start searching for a potential crash-site.”

“Ah,” Awen started. “Um, why aren’t the sylph looking? Why send us?”

Caprica hummed. “Mostly the issue comes down to politics. The Trenten Flats and the Kingdom of Sylphfree aren’t allies. We’re not enemies either, but things are tense right now.”

“Couldn’t you explain things?” I asked. “A whole ship went missing, full of innocent people.”

“And politicians,” Awen added.

I nodded before continuing. “That should warrant a search by the cervid, right?”

“You’d think so, but the Trenten Flats have fewer ships than we do, and they’re older besides-- they were outdated when they were first launched. Having Sylphfreean ships roaming above their territory would violate their territorial skies. Asking them to do the work would raise tensions. Besides, we can't rule out the possibility that the Trenton Flats are the reason the vessel is missing in the first place.”

Amaryllis sat up straighter. “You think they ... what, shot down the Harpy delegation?”

“The delegation was escorted,” Caprica said. “It’s not the case of one ship going down, but several. One vessel having an unfortunate accident is plausible. A small fleet is less so. Had the fleet turned around to return to the Harpy Mountains, we would have heard about it by now.”

“So, you need someone real discreet and sneaky to look around the Trenten Flats and find the entire delegation fleet. So, naturally, you thought of me and my friends,” I said carefully. I was pretty sure Caprica knew that... well, I didn’t do sneaky very well.

Amaryllis snorted. “We’re the most conspicuous people that have ever set foot on Dirt.”

Caprica chuckled. “To be entirely fair, I wasn’t expecting you to go unnoticed. What I’m expecting is that the Trenten Flats won’t know what to do with you. Legally, there is no reason you can’t go sniffing around on your own initiative. Politically, it would be hard to blame any nation for your actions. Amaryllis has a reason to be looking for the delegation, even if she’s not employed by the Nesting Mountains. Awen, Broccoli, you’re both strangers to these parts.”

Amaryllis nodded along. She plopped another pastry in her mouth, then chewed and swallowed. “I see what you’re thinking. I can merely claim that the delegation is needed to do its job. Broccoli and Awen can be acting as assistants and companions in my... let’s call it a personal quest to discover what happened to the delegates I had to replace.”

“That’s exactly what I was hoping for, yes,” Caprica said.

“I’m in,” I said.

“We’ve barely heard all the details,” Amaryllis said. “Besides, we need to discuss compensation.”

There was a knock at the door to the lounge, and one of the guards reached over and opened it. Somehow, both of them went even more stiff than they had been.

The reason why stepped into the room, followed by a pair of paladins who scanned the space as if any one of us might be a threat. “Hi Reggie,” I said to the king.

The king grinned and made his way to the seat Caprica was on. She slid to the side, making room for him on the couch as he sat down across from us. “This is a less formal gathering than I’m used to,” he noted.

I wasn’t too sure about that. There were nearly as many guards in the room as there were non-guards.

“Formality isn’t our strong suit,” Amaryllis admitted.

“That’s fine,” the king replied. “I imagine that if Caprica is here, she has highlighted part of the request I had?”

“You want us to sneak over to the Trenten Flats and find the delegation,” I said.

He nodded. “I would have embellished the mission a little more, but essentially, yes. The location of the delegation needs to be sussed out. The sooner the better. The Nesting Kingdom could level accusations against us any day now about their missing diplomats. I’m certain that news of their disappearance has already reached some ears on the Harpy Mountains.”

“No doubt,” Amaryllis said. “Are you doing anything to cover it up?”

“No,” he said. “Innocence in matters like these can be difficult to prove, but I’ve found that covering up details and masking the truth to make it more convenient only tends to make the actual truth stand out all the more. There are people with skills and classes who are exceptionally talented at discovering and connecting disparate facts together to draw an accurate conclusion.”

That sounded really neat. Magic-empowered detectives!

“Wait!” I said. “Why haven’t you used those to find the delegates?” I asked.

The king grinned. “Clever. But we thought of that already. Our own analysts haven’t discovered the delegation’s trail. We have a few ideas, some theories - it is partially thanks to such analysts that we are confident the delegation vanished outside our territory - but nothing solid. We’ve also tried to scry for their location. The army, as you can imagine, has ample reasons to keep a number of capable scryers around. So far though, we’ve found nothing conclusive.”

Awen raised a hand like a schoolgirl asking a question. The king nodded to her, and she asked. “Um. What are the limitations of the scrying?”

“I would have a number of generals quite angry with me if I divulged that. Suffice to say, though, that there are issues of range. We cannot, for example, scry from here to the Harpy Mountains. The distance is too great. Nor can we pinpoint a person’s location with great precision. There are spells that will point you towards a person, but they usually have two to three degrees of inaccuracy. Even triangulating from a few stations will point to a large possible range of locations a person could be in.”

I nodded along. That explained why they hadn’t found the delegation.

“Um,” Awen said. “Wouldn’t that mean that, based on the range, you’d know where the delegation... isn’t?”

The king tilted his head to the side. “Yes, we used that to mark out areas where the delegation ships aren’t located. That will narrow down the area you’d need to search.”

“Before we agree to all of this,” Amaryllis started. “Is this something you want us to organise on our own?”

“I was going to suggest that you team up with a few choice sylph. I believe there are some paladins ready to escort you to the Trenten Flats. I’m afraid the search, once there, will be up to you.”

I rubbed at my chin. “We’re going to need to get the Beaver Cleaver closer,” I said. “Not to do the actual search, but if we discover that the delegation left to go somewhere else and we need to chase it down, we need a fast, reliable ship that can do that.” the Beaver wasn’t the fastest ship, but it was very reliable!

“That can be arranged. I’ll have someone bring the ship to the capital. If you could write a letter addressing your crew, that would be helpful,” the king said.

I nodded along. That made perfect sense.

“And now onto the more interesting topic,” Amaryllis said. “Remuneration.”

The king chuckled. “How very mercenary. Yes, I wouldn’t imagine giving anyone a quest like this without paying them back. Speaking of which...” he gestured to one of the paladins. The sylph reached under his armoured cuirass and pulled out a lacquered wooden box which he handed to the king. How did that box fit under his armour? Unless the paladin was very, very thin under there. The box seemed heavy, especially as the king placed it on the coffee table with a clunk.

The king undid a latch on the front of the box, opened it, then turned it around for us to see.

“Three hundred sylph ducats, as promised,” he said.

The box had three rows of coins, all neatly placed in groves obviously meant to hold them in place. I reached out and plucked one. It was heavy, which I expected of gold, and about the size of the circle I could make by touching my index finger to the tip of my thumb.

I held the coin up before me, face side lined up next to the king’s face. “Were these stamped a while ago?” I asked.

One of his eyebrows rose. “Some years ago, yes. Have I aged poorly?”

I giggled and shook my head. “No no. But you had more hair once.”

“Broccoli!” Caprica gasped.

The king laughed. “Yes! I did! My wife reminds me frequently. Mostly I blame my overabundance of daughters.”

“Father!”

“Broccoli, stop insulting the guy who can chop our heads off on a whim,” Amaryllis said.

“Oh, oops. Sorry!” I said before placing the coin back into its box.

The king waved the apology away. “It’s nothing. I do own a mirror or two and can see the truth for myself. Now, this is the promised reward for the last task you completed for us. A handsome reward, I’m certain.”

I glanced to Amaryllis. I had no idea if this much gold was a lot or not. I figured it was, but my frame of reference wasn’t ideal.

Amaryllis caught on to what I was asking with just a glance. “Yes, Broccoli, it’s a lot. The Sylph ducat is perhaps the most valuable coin on Dirt, or at least the parts I’m aware of. It’s pure gold, not mixed with anything else. Three hundred gold is enough to purchase a small house in most cities.”

“Oh, that’s nice then,” I said. “We can use it on the Beaver! Make the ship even cooler, right Awen?”

“Ah? Yes, I can think of a few modifications that would cost about that much,” Awen said. “A new engine wouldn’t be cheap. But we don’t really need much, the Beaver Cleaver is still very new.”

The king cleared his throat. “I’ll let you ladies discuss things further. You’re invited to stay the night, if you wish. Any mission you go on would likely start in the morning. Let Caprica know what you think.”

And with that, the king was off, leaving us to make our choice.

***