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  [colpse]Chapter One Hundred and een - Morepoles

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

  “Ohh, I’m ing too,” Cholondee said.

  “Uh. Are you sure?” I asked.

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

  “Well, alright.” I kinda wao hahings peacefully, but I couldn’t deny that having a big stick might help a little. It wasn’t very nice--in fact, it was dht rude--but so was telling Choloo stay behind.

  The walk over to the guards was short, but I tried to enjoy it. Port Royal was a pce. Sure, the smell was a bit much, and the rattle and g 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 ahought we’d say hi. And we did. So, um... hi!”

  The guards had their ons 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 shrenoil, with a bunch of scars across his big jowls and narrow eyes that, uhose 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 ’t be friends if we’re eating hting 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 food long while. “Alright,” he said. With a gesture he had the uards l their stahough they looked a little fused about it. “If you 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 pot unless I 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 ir isly equipped for the kinds of things we do as a group. Unless... Did you want to join our party? We go out and have advehere'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, the’s go eat.”

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

  “We’ll be watg,” the guard said.

  I smiled and waved as I bounded off auro my friends. I got back just as Booksie and Aweurhe tter pushing a wheelbarrow forwards while Booksie hugged a big package of aper in her arms.

  They set a veritable ba of meats onto the ground. Big fnks, 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 expining 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?”

  “A, 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 dy that ran the restaurant stepped out, clutg 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 ter I turned back to Awen and grinned.

  “So... spill!”

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

  “In Rosenbell?” I asked.

  She nodded. “No ohought that you would win your first fight, so I won a lot. And then I bet all of that on the wo as well and, awa, I made a lot.” She buried her fa her hands.

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

  “She only bet half o match,” Amaryllis piped up.

  “Awa, it, it was a sound, um, iment. The odds on your st 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 pced her on my p. It was easy tet 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 o justify yourself to me.”

  “Awa.”

  Food arrived in short order and Awen was--somewhat relutly--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 expeg 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 fog on her meal. “There’s a group, they call themselves an anization, but really they’re more of a gang. They occupy the Scumways, mostly, a distriear the docks that are hardly fit for living in, a part of the city that a lot of people would like to pretend does.”

  “Do they have a name?” I asked.

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

  “And uhat no doubt sparklierior?” Amaryllis asked with the tone of someone who already khe answer.

  “Underh they’re pretty bad,” Booksie said. “They demand a tax from businesses, like mine, and they run the bck 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 ohat 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 oable. “Well, we just o tell the authorities then.”

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

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

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

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

  “Hey!” the dragon protested.

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

  “I think what we o 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 oerrifying and idiotic,” Amaryllis said. She was doing already and was rubbing at her magig with the tip of a talon. “But we are dealing with thugs here. I doubt most of them have done more tha into a tavern brawl or two. We should be able to handle ourselves.”

  “,” I said. “I’ve always wao meet the mafia.”

  “Why?” Amaryllis asked.

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

  “That’s... World itself, I fet 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 fix that,” I reassured her. “There has to be a hat shop somewhere in Port Royal.”

  Amaryllis was frowning and staring off into the distahe nobility in the ing Kingdom do all wear eborate headpieces. I... ’t believe you might be onto something.”

  I poio 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 faeat.”

  “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 decred.

  Bing Bong! gratutions, your Wondernder css has reached level 1!Mana +5Flexibility +5You have gained: One Css Point

  “Huh?” I said. Then the wash of tingly giddihat 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 rea. I grinned back at her, appreciating the 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 Wondernder css was truly good for. Other than making tea. Anything ossible!

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