Chapter Three Hundred and Sixty-Eight - Living History

The exploration guild’s entrance was... I don’t think ‘impressive’ really covered it. The guild’s entrance was to one side of a huge, long room that reminded me a little of a subway station, with an arched ceiling covered in little tiles and two lanes of interior train tracks for the trolleys people seemed so fond of in here.

There were plenty of shops and workstations and offices pressed into the sides, but the Exploration Guild’s entrance towered above them. The entire wall had huge pillars next to a double door so massive you could march an army through it.

My friends and I stepped into the guild proper, a little cowed by how vast everything was within. The floor was all huge squares of beautifully swirling marble and the entrance hall had golden plinths that stopped at waist-height to display all sorts of things. Adventuring tools, strange statues, little objects whose use I couldn’t guess at.

The hall echoed with our footsteps, and I wondered why the sounds from the main halls of the tower weren’t carrying in. Magic of some sort? That wouldn’t surprise me, this place felt magical. There were huge maps on the walls, paintings of strange places, ancient-looking artefacts, and...

I stared, drifting to a stop. Amaryllis realized I was no longer with her, and turned back, only to stare as well. Then Awen followed our gazes, only to jerk back in shock, and by that point even Calamity and Caprica had turned to see what all the fuss was about.

Hanging in pride of place on a wall, enclosed in a frame made of dark wood engraved with intricate little flower patterns, was a painting of six men. I recognized two of them right away even if I hadn’t seen them in a while. To the left was a grenoil gentleman, head tilted back, spectacles perched on the end of his broad nose.

Raynold, who I had last seen in the company of...

“Uncle Abraham?!” Awen squeaked.

I don’t think it was seeing an oil painting of her uncle that shocked her so much as it was the fact that in the painting her uncle, and all the other men with him, were shirtless.

The Abraham in the picture was a lot younger than the man I remembered. He had a few grey hairs at the temples, but his hair, including the bristly bush covering his upper chest, was mostly the same blonde as Awen’s.

Next to him was a young harpy who looked slender, especially compared to the barrel-chested dwarf flexing next to him. At the far end of the image was a tall elf with his arms raised above his head, biceps bulging, and below that elf a sylph gentleman who looked to be working hard to make his abs stand out.

“Wow,” Amaryllis said.

“I can feel the testosterone,” I said.

“That there’s some fine-looking specimens,” Calamity agreed. “But, ah, what’s got Awen all bothered?”

“That’s her uncle,” I said while pointing to Abraham.

“Really?” Calamity asked. He looked between Awen and her uncle. “I guess the hair matches but the old man’s got a bit more muscle to him.”

“I guess,” I said. I tilted my head to the side to examine the painting from a different angle. It was really striking. Behind them was a big cliffside and a coastline that seemed familiar. Something was being built atop the cliff. “Maybe we should get an oil painting done of our group too,” I said.

“Broccoli, if you suggest that we do it shirtless I’m going to have words with you,” Amaryllis said.

Awen walked up to the frame, then squinted at a plaque set at its base. “Abraham Bristlecone, Raynold Weatherwick, Wesley Vonowl, Tharval Boltbinder, Willowbud Wintersdawn, Eustace Mountainstorm.”

“Vonowl?” I asked, my attention snapping to the harpy in the painting. When I saw the baron he was clothed, but it was still pretty clear that this wasn’t the baron, though... maybe there was some family resemblance, the harpy in the painting had brown-white plumage and rather big , the same as the Vonowl we were chasing. It was possible they were related.

“That’s... a strange coincidence,” Caprica said. “Eustace Mountainstorm... the Mountainstorm family are lesser nobles in Sylphfree. I think they were big supporters of the Exploration Guild in the past, but I’ve never heard of this Eustace. How long ago was this made?”

“Is that the Storm Tower in the background?” Amaryllis asked.

I looked at the background again, then nodded. “Yeah, yeah, the coast looks right. Except, well, there’s no tower, just the foundation.”

“So, this was made before the tower was finished, which doesn’t help in dating it as much as you might think, a project this big could take decades,” Caprica said.

“Awa, Uncle Abraham has white hair, and his moustache is... more. Um, he went off to have big adventures a long time ago, so this could be forty years old, or more,” Awen said.

That was a while ago. “No airships,” I said as I looked at the sky in the painting.

“Airships are older than forty years,” Amaryllis said. “But the business isn’t that old. Trust me, I’d know that much.”

My friends quieted down and stood straighter as an elf wandered over. He was in a button-up shirt and vest and looked properly respectable. “Hello, can I assist you?” he asked. His eyes lingered on the lapels on my and Amaryllis' chests. “Oh, you’re members of the guild? The Deepmarsh branch?”

“We are,” I said with a grin. “We’re here looking for information, but then we got distracted by, ah, that.” I gestured to the painting.

“The founding fathers?” the elf asked.

“They started the guild?” I asked. “Whoa! That’s cool.”

“They did, indeed,” the elf said. “There are a few books and biographies that cover the history of the Exploration Guild, if you wish.”

I nodded, that would be kind of cool. I didn’t expect the guild I joined more or less on a whim to have much of a history, but I should have. Pretty much everything has a history.

Awen raised a hand. “Is there a biography of Uncle Abraham?” she asked.

The elf blinked. “Uncle Abraham?”

“Awa!” Awen said. “That’s my uncle,” she said while pointing to the painting. “I... didn’t expect to see anything like this here.”

“Hey, are any of the other founding fathers here?” I asked. It would be nice to meet them, I figured. Maybe they’d have stories about Abraham that Awen could listen to? Her uncle was a great storyteller, but his stories were always very... spectacular.

“Certainly, in the lounge on the fourth floor,” the elf said. “Are all of you members?”

“Only Amaryllis and I,” I said. “Can the others come as guests?”

“Certainly. You’ll merely have to sign in to our guestbook. And of course, I’ll need to see your information as well.”

We moved through the entrance hall and to the front where there was a counter and, to the side, an elevator with a wrought-iron cage and a complicated lever-based mechanism next to it. The elf accompanying us pulled out a guest book, and stepped aside for the others to sign it.

He watched as Awen signed her name, then nodded, then Caprica did the same and finally Calamity.

That’s when things went a little weird. The book rattled once Calamity was done signing, and his name turned red, the ink hissing and spitting. “Uh,” Calamity said.

“Please sign your true name, Mister... Calamity Danger,” the elf suggested.

Calamity glared. “But that’s my name, isn’t it?”

The elf smiled. “You can use whichever name you wish, but we would prefer it if you wrote your birth name here.”

Calamity grumbled, grabbed the pen, then wrote another name down. Curiosity got the best of me and I stretched up to read the name he’d placed. Claire Dogfriend.

“Um,” I said.

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” he muttered.

I shrugged. “Okay, Calamity.”

He nodded once, and then stalked towards the elevator and the rest of us followed. The elevator rose up slower than I could crawl, but I supposed it was still pretty novel. My friends seemed amused by it, Awen most of all. “I wonder if it works with a counterweight, or if it’s all engine power. Oh, and look at those tabs on the side. It looks like they’re designed to brake the elevator’s fall if it fails.”

We crossed the second floor, which looked like an office floor, with a bunch of desks laid out and staffed by dwarves and elves, then the third floor, which looked like something between an armoury and a blacksmith’s shop.

Finally, we arrived on the fourth floor, which had another small lobby with a long corridor. A floorplan on one wall suggested that many of the rooms were conference rooms and planning spaces, but the biggest space was taken up by a lounge and bar.

“You mentioned knowing someone here,” Amaryllis said to Awen.

“Only from uncle’s stories,” she said. “He talked about a dwarf called Bolty and an elf called Buddy.”

“That must be Tharval Boltbinder and Willowbud Wintersdawn from that painting,” Caprica said.

“That’s what I was thinking too,” Awen said. “Uncle likes his nicknames. It annoys a certain kind of person, and makes easier friends with another sort. At least, that’s what he told me.”

“That’s a cute trick,” I said. “But I wouldn’t want to anger anyone... although, you’re all my friends already... so.”

“Don’t start giving us nicknames, Broccoli,” Amaryllis said.

“We call Broccoli, Broc, sometimes,” Awen said.

“Yes, but she might start getting creative with our nicknames,” Amaryllis said. “And that’s the last thing anyone wants.”

I giggled. “Didn’t your sister call you Amy?”

“Amy is fine,” Amaryllis said with a serious nod. “But nothing past that.”

“Prickly,” Caprica muttered.

“Do you want her calling you Capy?”

Caprica flinched. “I don’t think I’d ever allow someone to call me that, no.”

“Not even Bastion?” I asked.

Caprica’s face shifted, her expression dropping to something entirely neutral that wouldn’t give away her feelings while also turning tomato-red.

“Ah, I’m sorry,” I said as I pulled her into a side-hug. “I didn’t mean to tease you too hard.”

Amaryllis patted Caprica on the back.

We arrived at the lounge while Caprica was still steaming in embarrassment. The place was closed off by a large pair of double-doors that we pushed open to reveal a great big room with glossy wooden floors, a floor-to-ceiling bookcase to one side with a few dozen chairs all around. The far wall had a big fireplace with a roaring fire within, and there was a bar against another wall. The exterior wall was all windows, with a spectacular view of the northern coast and part of the bigger tower to the east.

A few heads rose at our arrival. Mostly older men and women, but a few people closer to our age were sitting at the bar.

I felt a little awkward as my friends and I lingered by the entrance and kind of just stood there, uncertain of where to go for the moment. Still, I was the nominal leader, so social stuff was my job, wasn’t it? “Ah, hello everyone!” I said. “We’re looking for some people called Bolty and Buddy?”

There was a long pause, then a roar of laughter from one side where a big stout dwarf was lounging in the depths of a recliner. He shuffled out of the seat until he was right on the edge and smacked a hand on his knee. “Who gave you that name, missy?” he asked.

“Ah,” I began.

“Um, my uncle did,” Awen said. “Abraham, Abraham Bristlecone.”

The dwarf bounced off his seat. “Bud! Did you hear that?”

“I heard,” a familiar elf said. He looked just like the elf in the oil painting. “I’m not deaf, you old dwarf.”

“I’m not old, you decrepit treehugger,” the dwarf snapped back. Then he grinned wide. “Come over here, I need to take a good look at the lot of ya! And you need to tell me how Abe’s doing!”

***