Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty-Seven - Hustle, Bustle, Toil, & Trouble

Initially, I thought finding the baron would be somewhat easy. I don’t know why I thought that, it just felt like the kind of thing that wouldn’t be too hard.

Whatever city he hid in, he’d probably insist on being in the nicest part of it. That seemed to match his personality.

The problem was that I couldn’t have expected Storm Tower to be... the way it was, really.

While the outer wall of the tower wasn’t all that thick, it was still filled with curving corridors, staircases that climbed up and down, and plenty of storage spaces, offices, and little break rooms.

What caught my attention the most though wasn’t the strange verticality of the space, but the people within it.

Dwarves were all over. Short men and women (maybe? The beards made it hard to tell. I’d have to find a way to politely ask about dwarven genders at some point) stomped about like busy bees. Next to them, and usually moving with both more speed and grace, were elves.

They were tall and lithe, with chiselled, noble features and very nice chins on average. The elves weren’t in a class of their own though, or if they were, I didn’t notice it right away. Dwarf and elf worked together, and there didn’t seem to be that big of a difference in their jobs. Sure, I saw more dwarven mechanics, but there were some elves in overalls covered in grease stains as well, and while the elves looked more comfortable in their office attire, plenty of dwarves had button-up shirts open at the front so that they could stuff the tips of their beards away.

“Awa, there’s so much to look at,” Awen said. Which really summed up my problem, even if she was talking more about all the ships parked away around us.

“I know,” I said. “This place is enormous. And it’s not the entire city or anything, I bet the rest of the complex is even more packed with stuff and people and things.”

“As far as I’m aware, the tower complex is where most of the governance is,” Caprica said. “The satellite cities are for housing and industry, respectively. Though what I read about the Storm Tower and what I’m seeing now... well, my history books didn’t do the scale of this place justice. This is a wonder of engineering.”

“It’s pretty big, yeah,” I agreed. I bet someone could fit a whole Eiffel Tower in the middle of this place and still have room to park a few ships. “Where do we even start?”

Amaryllis hummed. “I think we start with the obvious. We’ll go pay our docking fees, then ask about the baron’s ship. If it’s here somewhere, then all the best.”

Spending time in an administration building while visiting a whole new place didn’t sound super fun, but Amaryllis was probably right about its effectiveness. So the five of us (Amaryllis, Awen, Calamity, Caprica and me) all headed out of the docks and with a few helpful directions from some locals and some time spent trying to understand the local signage, we bustled our way into a big administrative centre just off the main tower but still within the same building.

There were windows overlooking a pretty view of the sea and the industrial sector just to the south of Storm Tower, but mostly we weren’t there for the view but to talk to the admin.

Amaryllis took the lead, bringing out a few papers and permits which a young elf man looked over quickly. She managed to convince him that the Beaver didn’t need an inspection and that we weren’t carrying any cargo to sell, so we obviously didn’t need a cargo manifest. We were here on business, not to sell stuff.

Finally, the question I was paying attention to came up. “We’re also looking for someone while we’re here,” Amaryllis said. “A harpy noble by the name of Baron Vonowl. He might have arrived here on a skiff, perhaps a day or two ago.”

“Do you have any more details than that?” the admin asked. “We have skiffs aplenty here.”

“It was a Snowlander ship,” Awen added. Then she rattled out a few specifications. Its balloon-size, approximate tonnage, the propeller and engine model. I didn’t know she’d gathered that much information about his ship just at a glance.

Unfortunately, that didn’t really help much, at least, not until we got lucky. The admin turned as a dwarf in a suit trundled by. “Hey, have you heard of a harpy crew coming in on a Snowlander skiff lately?” he asked.

The dwarf paused. “Yeah, sure, yesterday morning?”

We all perked up. “Did you see them, mister dwarf?” I asked.

“Mhm,” the dwarf said. “They parked in the morning and only bothered to send someone to pay the docking fees in the afternoon. Not wrong, but certainly annoying.”

“What did the person who came in here look like?” I asked.

“Harpy,” The dwarf said. He rubbed at his beard. “Hmm, lots of feathers. Some wings. Looked a mighty lot like that harpy sir right there.” he said while pointing to Amaryllis.

“Sir? I’ll have you know I’m a woman,” Amaryllis huffed.

“Ah, my pardons. Hard to tell, what with, you know.” He gestured vaguely towards his lower face, and I took it to mean that Amaryllis didn’t have a very womanly beard.

“You can tell by the hips and the breasts,” the other admin said.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” the dwarf replied. “In any case, just a normal harpy. Looked mighty nervous and sweaty about it though.”

That didn’t sound like baron Vonowl. I suspected that if he had come here to take care of his own paperwork, he would have made sure to have everyone here knew who he was. He was... maybe not memorable, but certainly loud. “Do you know where the ship’s crew is now?” I asked. “Did they leave an address or something? They can’t be staying in their ship like we are, it’s just a skiff.”

The admin and the dwarf talked for a bit, then the admin wandered off. We had to wait a couple of minutes, but he returned with a file that he was leafing through. “Your friend is staying at the Grand Mami Hotel," he reported, before very nicely giving us some directions.

“Thank you,” I said once everything was done. “Um, one more thing, did you happen to hear anything about someone called Rainnewt?”

“Rainnewt?” the admin asked. He squinted, then his eyes widened and he smiled. “Yes, he’s on that poster over there.”

We all turned to see a wall off to one side that was covered in posts, local ads, and official reports for everyone to see. One of those had a rather well-drawn image of Rainnewt on it.

It was right under a large label that said WANTED.

I walked over to the wall and read the whole poster. Under the wanted part was the image of a serious-faced Rainnewt, and below that, the list of crimes he was wanted for. Conspiracy, theft, impersonating an officer of the law, kidnapping.

There was a nice reward for his capture too.

I wondered if I could cash that in. We did capture him, after all. Sure, it was across the continent from here, and he got away after, but technically...

“What did he do?” I asked.

The administrator shrugged. “That poster has been up there for months. I don’t know.”

It seemed as if we had another little mystery on our hands. Something else to discover about Rainnewt, and probably more stuff to add to his long list of misdeeds.

“We can ask more about that later, after we’ve confronted the baron,” Amaryllis said.

“Maybe before,” Caprica said. We turned to her, and she crossed her arms. “We don’t have any authority here. If we walk up to the baron to confront him, there’s quite literally nothing we can do. At least legally. This isn’t like our last... legally dubious situation either. This is the capital and heart of the Snowlands. They won’t take kindly to any hostile actions.”

“That makes sense,” I said. “But then, what do we do?”

“Kidnap the baron?” Calamity suggested. “I’m quick with a rope. I can have him hog tied in a second or less. Then nya just have to carry him back to wherever.”

“That... isn’t how it works,” Caprica said.

Calamity shrugged, as if to say ‘well, I tried.’

“Any options then? Other than something so evidently criminal?” Amaryllis asked.

“Ask nicely?” I tried.

“Yes Broccoli, but who do we ask nicely?” Amaryllis asked. “We don’t really have any connections here, do we?”

“Um,” Awen said.

We all turned towards Awen whose cheeks took on a cute shade of pink at the sudden attention.

“I think I know someone here. Well, someone who knows someone I know. Awa, what I mean is...” she took a deep breath to recentre herself while we listened. “My uncle came here a few times, starting a long time ago, when the tower wasn’t finished being built yet. His airship is very, very old, like... one of the first, probably, and it was partially built here, though it’s had so many parts replaced that... well, nevermind. My point is, he had a bunch of friends in the Snowlands. He told me stories.”

“And those friends might be willing to assist?” Caprica asked.

“Maybe?” Awen tried. “There is an exploration guild here. And they probably have a club for old people.”

“That isn’t a bad idea,” Amaryllis said. “It’s a place to start, at least. And the kind of old person that hangs around at the Exploration Guild is exactly the kind of person that likes getting into a bit of trouble.”

“That doesn’t sound like what I envisioned at all,” Caprica said.

Amaryllis sniffed. “You were expecting us to go through all the right and proper channels? Caprica, this isn’t Sylphfree, and we’re not diplomats. We don't know what the proper channels would be, or if they even exist.”

“We’re troublemakers,” Calamity said with a devilish grin.

I shook my head. “We’re nothing like that. Just friends trying to fix a few little problems and see some amazing stuff while we’re at it. I think Awen’s idea is the best one so far. We’ll get to meet some people who can help and then figure out where we want to go from there.”

Finding the exploration guild proved surprisingly easy. I flagged down an unhurried looking dwarf in the halls outside the dock administration place, then asked them where we could find the guild.

It turned out to be at the top of what locals called the ‘little tower’ which was a smaller tower built closer to the coast. That was still a very long walk away though, not that anyone minded. We got to tour the Storm Tower and play tourist as we crossed the entire massive complex.

I just wished the place was a little more tourist-friendly. They really needed more signs explaining things. Like the main complex had an interior train system where people who needed to get around could hop aboard one of the moving platforms (they had benches and rails to grab onto) so that they could move around without having to walk, but we didn’t know which platform to ride on so we had to just hoof it.

I didn’t mind, it meant I got to see all the strangely dressed people moving around, many of whom paused to look at us as we passed by. Also, we discovered that the locals had a thing for street food.

It didn’t taste very good. Everything from the sausages they had to their drinks was super bitter and smokey. I imagined the dwarf palate wasn’t anything like a human one because I saw plenty of them enjoying their snacks.

Finally, after a good bit of wandering around, we made it to the Exploration guild.

***